I'm not crazy about the idea of the Origins characters, honestly. Maybe if they were the only option, or if there were fewer of them, but they are competing with custom characters, which means they are competing for content for our player characters should we choose to play a custom-made one. This is already pretty evident if you play a cleric of Shar, a Githyanki, a wizard, a warlock custom character. You just get a lesser experience that's not tailored to your choice compared to the Origins version.
We're also getting a whopping eight of them dropped on our lap right as the game starts and expected to choose who is going to be with us for the rest of the game by the end of Act I. That's seriously overwhelming to get put in that spot, moreso than even DOS2. Companions being forced to all be introduced right at the beginning, all with the tadpole as motivation for being part of the party, eh...I could do without. I'd rather have companions be more spaced out, have different motivations for joining, not all being connected directly with the tadpole plot, not all being restricted narratively by having to be written twice-as a companion and also as a pc.
That being said, Lae'zel seems like the best choice to me. She's got that 'fish out of water' thing going for her and doesn't have an elaborate backstory full of goddesses or chosen or space hamsters or whatever. Good blank-space material for a protagonist IMO.
