Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Speculation on what Races and Classes might be announced at Panel From Hell

I gotta stop reading your posts, you know everything about this game before it's even out.

In answer to the general question of what races and classes I think might be announced ... presumably at the PfH, though I think even that's a guess because as far as I'm aware Larian only said news on races and classes was "coming soon" and that there will be a PfH on 7 July, and haven't specifically said that the races and classes will be announced there. Feasibly they could be published in a separate update, but I do agree PfH seems most likely ...

... anyway. I wouldn't take the old Steam FAQ confirmation of all PHB races and classes as definitive by itself, but I am expecting Dragonborn, half-orc and monk as I feel that Larian might have been managing expectations downwards earlier if we weren't getting them, so the negative stuff could be got out of the way and we could ride the last couple of months to release hopefully on a high!

Racewise, I think duergar and variant human are decent bets. I wouldn't be totally surprised by aasimar given they're a mirror for tieflings, though so far it looks as though tieflings might be more story-relevant, and because the model isn't too radically different from what we have already (plus we know the game can do wings). I'd be utterly stunned if we got playable races like Tabaxi or Tortles that look less like other models. The more human-standard looking races (like Goliaths and Genasi) I'm expecting less than Aasimar not because of the technical difficulty in implementing them but more because of the work involved in giving them good content - and frankly I'd prefer Larian spend their time on creating good content for PHB races than implement more races in a shallow fashion. But I reckon it's reasonably likely we may come across at least a few of the other Faerun-appropriate races, even perhaps including some of the more out there ones, as NPCs.

Classwise in addition to monks, I am expecting most if not all of the other PHB subclasses. Not being a 5e aficionado, I don't know enough to speculate much further, but I agree with folk who think the artificer is looking more likely given the recent trailers (though it still may not be playable even if Gortash is one), and I'd guess we might get one or two non-PHB cleric domains (perhaps Death and Twilight given those are looking relevant to the story, though we're still short War, Knowledge, Tempest and Nature from the PHB too). I also have a pet theory that Wyll might have been conceived of as a multiclass warlock/swashbuckler so we might get that rogue subclass as well as the probable PHB assassin. And I think I've seen more folk clamour for Hexblade than any other class so Larian may have listened and we'll get that in addition (hopefully again) to the PHB Archfey. Aberrant Mind sorceror seems a really good thematic fit, but perhaps too much to implement. On the other side, I'd be surprised by any more paladin oaths than (hopefully) vengeance given the work that would need to go into the oathkeeping mechanic to make it satisfying.

We allready seen few Half-Orcs in several promotion materials ...
And they seemed quite good at first sight.

As for Dragonborns, i have no doubt they will be included ... important question is tho: How will they look?
//Edit:
Since this isnt exactly reasuring. :-/
Edit.//

I mean ... since basicaly start of EA, people were complaining about Elves, Dwarf Beards, and Niara provided EXTREMELY well written and detailed feedback about Halflings ...
And yet, nothing happened. :-/

I thought Aasimar dont have wings. O_o

Yes, I've spotted the half-orcs in the Ketheric and more recent trailers, too, and seen the speculation about the possible dead dragonborn. It would still be possible they were in game but weren't playable races, though I don't expect that.

Regarding appearance, I'll admit I don't have strong opinions on Dragonborn appearance as they'll be a pretty new race to me if they appear, though I have been trying to look at dwarves and halflings in the trailers to see if some of the model issues that have been pointed out in the past might have been addressed. It doesn't look all that promising though it's hard to see for sure on the body proportion issues and I did think Ketheric's beard might have looked a bit better in the Gortash trailer ... though that may just be wishful thinking or better resolution than my PC can manage. I've also been trying to see if there are any new faces as well as hairstyles, but again haven't spotted anything definitive beyond the hair of the priestess{?} mentioned earlier. Though unlike some my main gripe with elves is the female half elves, especially since we got a new female elf face I quite like in one of the patches and was okay with enough of the male elf and half-elf faces anyway. If anyone has spotted anything, or is aware of a trailer deep dive that has looked out for this stuff then that would be great to hear about! (I've only watched the WolfheartFPS vid and he doesn't talk about character models other what we've already mentioned here.)


Really? I've probably just leapt to the conclusion they could like tieflings can have tails or horns from images of aasimar with wings. Plus the fact I know aasimar can grow wings as a feat in Pathfinder. But as I said I'm pretty ignorant of 5e so more than happy to be corrected on that point!

I dont really know, this would be more question for Niara, or some other tabletop expert.

But from what i gathered, Tieflings should have option to look almost like Human ... wich they quite clearly lack in Baldur's Gate 3 ...

While Aasimar should look almost like human in default, with some subtle features like feathers in hair, eyes, hair or/and skin that seems to be slightly glowing etc. and they can indeed spread wings aswell, but they are not physical wings like angels, just some translucent incorporeal wings ... dunno how far i am with this, but i imagine it kinda like wings Angels in Diablo have.

Aha, just done some investigation and looks like while aasimar tend to have at most feathers where wings would sprout, third level aasimar get a "transformation" ability they can use for a minute per long rest such as "Radiant Soul. Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing your eyes to glimmer and two luminous, incorporeal wings to sprout from your back." or "Necrotic Shroud. Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing your eyes to turn into pools of darkness and two skeletal, ghostly, flightless wings to sprout from your back.". The third option doesn't seem to include wings: "Radiant Consumption. Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing a searing light to radiate from you, pour out of your eyes and mouth, and threaten to char you." The pics I've spotted are presumably of aasimar who have activated their transformation ability and I've just assumed they're always there! Still, looks like the ability to show wings of some sort would be a prerequisite for having aasimar in game, but I was right about that for the wrong reasons so don't really deserve credit for it .

I feel like I'm going insane, I remember 5 times, not 3 or 4, but those are still big enough time multiplers that my point still stands, the rest I chalk up to the mandela effect 😂🤣.

Did not know about the second tweet from Chubblot, but the Aasimar line is still in there, so its really doesn't change anything.

I mean getting down to brass tacts, we know from early racial tags they wanted to do Aasimar, Warforged, Tritons, Yuan Ti Pureblood, Kenku, Tortle, Aacrokra, Tabaxi, Genasi, Lizardfolk, Firbolg at one point had both the Racial Tag and Really Racial Tags when means Larian wanted to put them in with only time standing in their way. Did they get the extra time? In spades.

I'll also add we know the racial tags they use for groups of races as well to have reactive over a larhe group of races effiecently.

And while Goliath didn't have one, that could be become Larian was told by WotC about their plans for a PHB Goliath with subraces, so that was delayed perhaps till that race was ironed out.

Larian studios has taken some artistic liberties with other races appear Tieflings I think, to give them a distinct feel, I could see them doing so with Aasimar as well, especially when in 3.5 with the right feat, you could have an Aasimar with wings.

Either way the tag and voice line tells the tale.

Just to save Ragnarok having to say it again, and I think we'll just need to leave it if we still haven't got on the same page after this, saying they've spent 3 or 4 times as much effort on Baldur's Gate is NOT the same as saying that it's 3 or 4 times as big, so unless you have a different source then your point doesn't unfortunately stand, much as I might wish it were true. My guess is that you're right that there is substantially more content of various kinds in the city than was initially planned, but where exactly the balance lies between more versus better versus more difficult to execute than anticipated is anyone's guess at this stage I think.

And in addition, nothing datamined can be taken as confirmation of anything and doesn't by itself mean Larian had any concrete intention or even desire to include any particular races or classes. For all we know, they may simply have had no idea of what they were going to include at the stage that was written or coded so just bunged in some stuff just in case, or thought it might be worth futureproofing in the event of future scope creep or DLC. And the fact that early access has gone on for years doesn't guarantee they've had more time to do optional stuff, either, as it may simply have taken longer than they initially thought to do the core stuff to the level of quality they wanted - or came to want - to achieve. We just can't be sure.

I'm kind of feeling the need to fact check the claims in this thread (and appreciate that Ragnarok has done a lot of the work for me) as I'd prefer these forums not to be misleading, but I guess it probably does fall outwith my remit as moderator so I'll not do so any further.

But while as a fan I love to see enthusiasm and optimism about the game here, as a moderator I would encourage all forum members to be aware of when they're making a leap from things they want to be true, or even things that they think there might be at least some reason to be hopeful for, to things that are likely or confirmed to be the case. It's not really fair to get hopes up for people who aren't aware of more of the context by speculating without making clear that's what we're doing or saying things are more likely than we actually have genuine reason to believe they are.

Honestly, because Larian drew specific attention to explaining races and classes in their PFH announcement, I do actually think they'll show something surprising, since at this point why not spring that as a surprise at the PFH if it's only thing we were all basically expecting? I'm with Red Queen though in that I think we'll only see one extra race and one extra class. What that race and class might be? Aasimar feels like an easy choice for a race since they're basically shiny humans. Genasi are another option if they wanted to get more ambitious, but I don't think there's any chance of warforged and I'm kind of surprised people think Gortash's presence indicates otherwise. Speaking of which, I do think if they're gonna include another class, artificer is the one I'd expect. Either that or psychic because it's thematic.

Another option I do think is realistic though is that rather than including a non-phb class, is them just give every class an extra subclass.

It took them time to make Baldur's Gate bigger, we already knew they wanted to add these races to the game, so do you really think that during that time the Player options team just sat on their hands, instead of implimenting races they wanted into the game?

Look could I be wrong? Yes, do I think I'm wrong? No.

I guess we will see July 7th.

“want” and "can" are different matters. they might plan to include extra races thus those tags existed in early datamine but they can't spare resources and time for them so they took those tags out. unllike dragonborn and half orc, they existed more than just a tag in the files and also received updates amount EA patches.

Indeed. Or even possibly before, given as far as I know Larian only said the race and class info was "coming soon" not that it was coming at the PfH, though I do think PfH is most likely.

But the point is then we will know, and anything we're told then will indeed be confirmed. Before then, we can still think things are possible or even likely, and can even debate how possible or likely we think they are, but I just want us to be careful about getting carried away to the extent we make claims that could mislead other forum members that things are certain or nearly so when it's perfectly possible given the info we have that they're not true.

Hopefully that was already clear, but thought it bore repeating once more without all the other stuff from my previous post just to be sure.

Its not my intent to misinform, merely debate what I believe is the most likely scenerio with the imcomplete information I have, its all just fun debate and speculation.

I changed my mind about that one picture being a Triton, there are key features missing, she really fits being a Water Genasi instead.

What makes you say that?

After all Warforged are badically just humans with different body texture ... just as Genasi.

You think think so? To me warforged are machines. Not just textured humans, but you have to have joints, mechanical bits, lots of segments and just a whole bunch of detail that even genasi don't strictly have (plus even then genasi can have things like fiery hair or cryst hair that's gotta be addressed too) so they're very complicated looking. They don't necessarily have human musculature and places like their calves and forearms tend to be more like rods than human shaped limbs, and then giving them facial options is complicated too since they don't really have detailed human faces and have more like... Iron giant style faces without much detail.

Plus in terms of the game itself, they don't have brains. The tadpole needs to literally, physically eat those brains in order to transform them. And the physicality of the creature in question does matter, otherwise halfling mindflayers wouldn't turn out so absurdly adorable. Also, where would they even come from? If they really are from Gortasb then they'd look like steel watchers, which are not gonna be able to wear armor or anything.

For sure, Larian could just swap textures and be done with it. Want a warforged? Pain a human grey. Want an aasimar? Paint it yellow. Want a tabaxi? Pain it with fur. This is what many mods do already, I find it quite lazy. If anything, I want less classes if that means those are visually distinct. Divinity understood that very well and even elves who usually are just humans with pointy ears in the general culture were unmistakable for anything else.

I completely agree with this. Nothing puts me off more than half-baked class/race mods.