Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Which Origin Character are you looking forward to playing?

Which Origin character are you looking forward to playing?

For me, it’s Astarion. I have a hard time roleplaying that my PC would want to keep a vampire in my party no matter which alignment, race, class, or background I play. But I think that it would be really cool from Astarion’s point of view. I was abducted by these horrible monsters and now I … wait, I can’t feel Cazador’s presence and control anymore … and I can now walk around in sunlight … and I have these new mind control powers … and I’m making friends(!?!) with other people!?! … how much can I trust them? … how much should I reveal? … maybe I can have just one bite…

I don’t really care for Astarion very much as an NPC, but I think that my opinion will completely switch when I can play AS Astarion.

Anyone else have Origin characters that they are looking forward to or think that their opinion of the characters will change when playing from their point of view?

In order, I'm looking forward to playing:

1. Astarion. I agree. I'm looking forward to playing through Astarion's story line. A vampire suddenly freed from his master and allowed to roam in the sunlight. It's compelling.

2. Wyll. After Astarion, then Wyll. The hero with a dark and shameful secret. I want to explore his motivations and compulsions. To see the conflict between his reputation and his reality.

3. Shadowheart. It's getting harder now to choose. Probably Shadowheart, if only because she seems to be the focus of so much of the story. She's a mystery, and I think it would be fun to unravel that mystery from her point of view.

4. Lae'zel. Is her loyalty misplaced? Will she ever wield a silver sword and ride a red dragon? Will she rise in the ranks of the creche?

5. Gale. I'm just not that into him, but if they do something amazing with his condition then I could see being pleasantly surprised.

I think I'll leave Gale for last, because I like having him comment on things. Lae'zel's story seems very straight-forward, not much wiggle room to roleplay into a different version of her with out it being contrived.

It's a toss up after that between the next three. I might play Wyll first because I want to see what it's like dealing with Mizora.

Well, none.

D&D is all about creating your own character and I don't think I'll ever enjoy playing a character that feels like someone else's.

It would be interesting to know how many players used pre-made PC's in DOS 2. I would take Shadowheart and Astarion with actual secrets and a proper reveal over their playable versions with all their secrets already revealed in a heartbeat.

None. IMO it's a terrible, resource hogging mechanic imported from DOS that has no place in a BG game. It leaves custom characters utterly lacking in comparison though I appreciate this could change.

In order of repulsion,

1) Wyll
2) Lae'zel
3) Shadowheart
4) Astarion
5) Gale

Wyll is a braggart non-entity full of pretense and false morals. Chooses to be morally bankrupt then blames his failures/weakness on a cambion that was the only reason he succeeded? Nope! Can't even roleplay him in the party.

Lae'zel proclaims to have access to infinite knowledge via her master race yet has the IQ of and social grace of a pubic louse floating in a glass of water.

Shadowheart is that person that enters a room and turns a great party into a depressing parody of misery loves company.

Astarion is a self-serving sadistic douchbag but his saving grace is his motivations are interesting, real and understandable.

Gale is polite, intelligent and wise with a personallity to boot. Even if his condition (back story) is ridiculous at least you will recieve a helpful intellectual response instead of emotional mardarsing.

i would leave everyone of them except gale as he would probabl;y know somwone powerful enough to undertand the tadpole paradigm. The others I would probably use as test subjects.

EDIT: Also you could use Gale as a bomb to blow up Baldurs gate if you got bored.

My custom character

Shadowheart is the only character I don't want to play cause I'd like to see her story unfold from the outside.

I would either play Wyll, Lazael or Astarion. I do hope for Wyll there is the option not to dump Mizora but have her interact with the party in some ways, maybe at camp like Helsin. And I do hope we get to see her wings like in the artwork. Well, one can dream.

None. Terrible design choice.

Absolutely none.

I'll only play my custom character (and ideally a Fully Custom Character, not a Semi-Custom Character like Gorion's Ward, if that is at all possible).


The option of playing an Origin Character is an idea completely antithetic to the feeling of a DnD campaign that Larian purports to want to convey.

It's also a huge resource investment. I can somewhat understand that Larian may want to cater to as many audiences as possible at once (which is not without risk), and some players may prefer a pre-made character. But I think 2-4 Origin Characters would have been enough. Offering 5, or 8 or 12 Origin Characters is a Very Bad Idea, in my view.

None of them, honestly.

D&D is about playing your own character, and the 'Origins' should have stayed as companions, been fleshed out as companions, and all the extra resources being funnelled into making them playables should have been directed elsewhere ^.^

I'd be interested in playing a custom character if they weren't such a non-entity, they're called generic_hero in the code I've seen, I'll pass on that when there's more interesting stories to play.

Ugh... doesn't that just tell you everything about how Larian views the player character?

That apparently what people want. There have been enough threads on this though

It's just so backwards isn't it? Like I can easily see how the idea of playing from the POV of a companion character would have made for an excellent "Expansion" to the core game later on. You know, during that interregnum period between BG3 and the BG4 sequel. That's when they could roll out this banner art at the top of the page that we've all been staring at for a year. I can picture the taglines and the promos there. It would have been a relatively simple sell under the "Tales of the Sword Coast" formula. Add 1 large continuous Dungeon ala Durlag's Tower, a new hub zone like Ulgarth's Beard, and then allow for a different mode of exploring the base game from the POV of a favorite companion. That would have worked, and if it came as a follow up, then maybe it would feel like it dovetails on what is supposed to be a Dungeons and Dragons game.

Also, I don't understand the rationale behind waiting and trying to build anticipation for this. Like if this is their plan, why not start testing it during EA? I have absolutely zero interest in playing the game as an Origin character, but for people who do have an interest, why draw it out like this? Wouldn't it be better for them to gather the feedback on what's busted on that score too?

The only possible reason to do this from a D&D perspective is as a hook for neophytes. People who are coming at it with no prior experience of D&D and find character creation confusing. I still think a Pre-Gen MC is the worst way to introduce D&D to somebody, but whatever I'm sure they've seen the response to the later Dragon Age entries, ME, The Witcher etc and thought well, this is what people want now. Maybe they don't want to be an active participant in the story, but a passive recipient of it, and it's easier to tell a good story if the author already knows who all the characters are. But that's just not D&D at all, and it really flies in the face of it, diminishes the best part of D&D.

I don't blame Larian so much as I blame the Wizard's for allowing this to happen in the first place. I still don't really see them as a Dungeons and Dragons company to be honest, even though they've held the reins for like 2 decades. In my mind they will always be the MTG trading card company, that bought in on the cheap when the property was distressed and then milked it for all it was worth. They swooped all the best art for their card game too and left D&D in the lurch, and now they keep trying to turn D&D into a card game collect the deck formula.

I see the origin concept as an extension of that. Like "hurry up and get your first Edition Gale, buy in now and you might get gold leaf Mystery character too if you're lucky!" I loath the MTG Baldur's Gate crossover stuff that I see occurring lately.

I miss that TSR logo with the badass Dragon amp too. Why is that literally nowhere in this game?

Where is the Forgotten Realms logo?

The Wizard's logo? Even though that one has always looked like complete trash by comparison hehe. So I can't help but direct the ire there as well. They don't seem to know what to do with the CRPGs and keep running off their ace studios, so they end up making their own IPs instead of building up D&D and the Realms. I know they're pulling the Monty Haul and have all the loot now and I guess it's making money so that must great, but damned if they didn't do us so dirty so many times in the past 20 years. I secretly wish for some techy Billionaire to swoop in and buy them outright, torch their Wizard's tower to the foundation and announce the return of the Red Dragon! Recover all the Orbs! heheh I know it'll never happen, but still, watching the direction things have gone is depressing. They took at thing which is supposed to be about creativity and imaginative play and morphed it into paint by numbers, at least with their management of the CRPGs. The table top materials are fine, but they don't seem to grasp how to use Computers as a hook for that, to support that, instead they'll make a big budget D&D movie or something ridiculous, like they didn't learn the lesson from the first TPK on that one lol.

Sorry to pile on the thread, I'm sure the OP was hoping for more of a comparative list, but the whole Origins concept rings so hollow, that it's no wonder so many people have such a powerful aversion to it on general principle. Alas

Umm.. I am not a fan of pre made Origin characters. They really don't belong in a DnD setting as a main character, as it should be about the players choices in "rolling" and developing there own character not playing someone elses idea of one.

Pregen characters are staples of old DnD.

I still remember some of them from the old Menzoberranzan box set. You could play pregen surface dwellers bringing wild magic into the underdark, or you could play pregen drow from a low ranking noble family.

Tons of modules came with pregen characters.

Anyway, I've played DnD all my life, and I don't have a problem with them. In regards to this game in particular, I think it would be pretty cool to play one of the origin characters with a built in storyline.

Old D&D modules did indeed often come in with pre-generated characters, usually taken from a tournament session or something like that. But usually those were just stats and equipment listings, and rarely were the personalities defined although I think sometimes there were a few high-level traits given, too.

But all that was from a time when the dice rolling for character generation was pretty limited to begin with. Depending on which rules the DM chose, you might have to roll your stats in order, and then choose a class which best suited the rolls. This forced you to play a role you might not have otherwise chosen. But in any case, it was still up to the player to flesh out the personality, make moral decisions, and interact with the other party members.

Playing a pre-made character in a CRPG is very different than a pre-rolled character in D&D. In the CRPG, all your dialogs are written out and your story is already defined. In a sense, playing this way becomes a sort of a living book. That approach can be cool, because the story is very controlled and can be quite deep and interesting. But I think I would still want at least a few story branches to choose. It reminds me of the old Rose Estes books like "Pillars of Pentagarn", where the reader gets a few choices at certain break-points in story, such as, "if you go down the stairs, turn to page 63, but if you go up to the tower, turn to page 132." And eventually you get to one of four different endings.

You'll never have the kind of ability to shape your own character in a crpg than you would have with a flesh and blood DM, there's only ever going to be a fixed amount of choices the game will be able to work around, so from my perspective having a character with so many variables already defined by the game works out to a more satisfying experience.

I don't think you'll have your hands tied by playing a character with an origin, it won't be narrative handicapped by a backstory, the experience is already handicapped, it's just a matter of how much they put into giving agency to your character and an impact to the choices they make, and because every companion can be the POV, how each divergent choice for each of them will impact the main narrative and every other character. If that doesn't sound interesting to you what does?

DOS:II didn't really do that for me, but I neither did I ever get the impression that it was a priority for that game, I do think it's something people are going to come to a Baldur's Gate game for, it remains to be seen how adroitly they deal with it.

None, I play my own character, thank you very much. I find it sad, that ressources are wasted for those Origins.