Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Community Update #21: Forging Your Legacy

A malevolent new Origin character. A disembowelled video game producer. A night of passion with a bear.

What a way to go out!

Thank you so much for joining us last week at Panel From Hell: Release Showcase, our final big show before launch.

As you saw for yourself, Baldur’s Gate 3 is going to be a truly deep, systemic RPG with a story and world that is yours to mould. No two playthroughs will be the same, and that even goes for those of you who have clocked a few hundred hours in Early Access.

Act 1 makes up less than a quarter of the total content that will be available at launch. And compared to the start of Early Access, even Act 1 has roughly 33% more content in it. Much has changed, a lot has been added, and we’re finally at a place where we’re happy with the fidelity and performance of the game.

Today’s update will explore those new features: fresh Character Creation options, Multiclassing, a malevolent new playable Origin character, crowds who gossip and react to your deeds, the introduction of Alchemy, and much more. If you’re here, we’re assuming you’ve played Early Access. If you’re new to the game and you’re looking for a broader overview of what Baldur’s Gate 3 will be at launch, we’re working on a separate video. Stay tuned for that later in the month.

Your Character Creation Toolbox Is Getting Bigger

Our Character Creator has evolved in many ways since we first launched in Early Access, but our philosophy behind it has always remained the same.

To forge a legacy, you need an identity. Character identity is at the centre of Baldur’s Gate 3, and making a character is about more than aesthetic choices. You are defining your identity, making decisions about your protagonist that will impact your experience in the game.

Whether your protagonist be hero, villain, or Ed Sharran, a simple bard travelling the roads of Faerûn with his trusty lute and a barely-concealed inner darkness that gnaws and festers, demanding release – the Character Creator provides a lot of room for expression.



Our Character Creator has been updated over the course of development to include a robust selection of hairstyles, highlights, skin tones, and faces. But at launch, you’ll have the chance to experiment with even more ways to create diverse, personalised characters.

New skin options like freckles and vitiligo will soon be available, alongside new tattoo designs, scars, lip makeup customisation, accessories like piercings, and horn colour customisation for Tieflings. In 1.0, we’re also introducing heterochromia, letting you create David Bowie – uh, characters with different-coloured eyes.



And at long last, we are very happy to announce we are introducing an age slider and – for those wanting to know if they can have a Halsin-sized buff Barbarian – strong body types, allowing for larger body sizes across all genders.

Craft Your Destiny: Forge A Bespoke Class With Multiclassing
Whether you are an experimenter at heart who forges class hybrids through careful consideration or you just can't decide between a warrior and a mage, we’re excited to finally announce that Multiclassing will be coming to Baldur's Gate 3.



Multiclassing really changes the game – literally – because it allows you to fully customise the theme of your character. It has both a roleplay and a practical function, leading to all sorts of chaotic combinations and experimentations.

In order to allow all your wildest dream class combinations, we've removed Ability Score Prerequisites. So there's no more need to get your Charisma up to a pesky 13 if you decide to make a soul pact with a playful archfey or dangerous fiend. You can Multiclass into anything your roleplay and build desires demand. In short, this means warriors will be able to wield arcane spells, rogues can master divine magic, spellcasters may dabble in martial prowess, and you’ll have the freedom to build the exact class that you want.



Each level, you'll have the option to choose a different class to spend points on and begin building a bespoke Multiclass character. Given the possible combinations, we recommend you have previous experience as a D&D player to fully leverage this feature. But should you decide to evenly spread all your points into every class for no strategic reason whatsoever, there’s naturally an achievement for that too.

Respeccing Classes
Controversial? Maybe. But a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. We want to facilitate your experiments! With 12 classes, 46 subclasses, and now Multiclassing, when it comes to your character build, both veterans and novices of D&D are sure to make a few mistakes along the way. We want to encourage you to try new things, find fun combinations, and ultimately discover the playstyle that suits you best as you adventure across the Sword Coast and beyond.

Very early in your adventure, you’ll find that one particular NPC who was already helpful in Early Access has suddenly become even more useful. When you find him in the early stages of Act 1, he’ll have a few extra helpful abilities to help you in this arena – giving you the opportunity to restart your build from Level 1 with new starting proficiencies, attributes, spells, and cantrips.

Mercenaries At Your Service – Recruit Lethal Assistance With Hirelings



“But what if I want to create a party that is made up entirely of giant druidic badgers?”

We hear you loud and clear, community. Should you so choose, you’ll be able to create a custom party without any Origins, opting instead to have Hirelings join you on the road – mercenaries who can be hired to join your team temporarily.

In Baldur’s Gate 3, there are 12 Hirelings available for you to recruit – one for each class. Each has their own name, visuals, and race, and can be respecced at any time.

Experience Baldur’s Gate 3 Through New Eyes As A Playable Pre-Authored Origin Character

So what is an Origin character exactly? They’re playable heroes, each with their own stories, desires, and attitudes towards the world around you. If you choose to create your own customised character instead, these Origin characters become your companions, who you may (or may not) recruit throughout your journey.



You may have already met Shadowheart, Wyll, Gale, Astarion, Lae’zel, and Karlach – heroes each with their own tale to tell and secrets to reveal, driven by your choices as the player. Today, however, we’re looking at an entirely new way to play Baldur’s Gate 3. The Dark Urge.

Become The Dark Urge – Your Final Playable Origin



Over the past three weeks, we’ve been leaving a breadcrumb trail of clues leading to the reveal of the final playable Origin character. The community-driven murder mystery Blood in Baldur’s Gate saw players investigate a series of vicious murders across the Lower City and attempt to track down their perpetrator. While y’all were ultimately brutally murdered at the killer’s hand, in your last waking moments, you saw your executioner: the Dark Urge, an imposing dragonborn with alabaster skin and the piercing gaze of a predator in the wild.

Unlike Baldur’s Gate 3’s other playable protagonists, the Dark Urge is a fully customisable character. Should you prefer that this darkness take the shape of a doe-eyed gnome instead, or think true evil is a half-orc armed with a bongo, the choice is yours: from your class and species, to your gender and overall appearance, and even your name.

Who is the Dark Urge, then? That’s a good question, and it’s one that players will answer for themselves as they journey down this dark path. As the Dark Urge, you begin Baldur’s Gate 3 with your memory lost after an unfortunate encounter between a parasitic tadpole and your brain. Now all that’s left is an insatiable urge – an urge that makes itself known in your subconscious, through your deepest thoughts and in your dialogue options.



Guiding the Dark Urge in their time of need is Sceleritas Fel, voiced by Brian Bowles (narrator in Divinity: Original Sin 2). A vile and loyal servant, Fel lives only to see the Dark Urge return to their rightful, bloodstained path and urges them to commit some of the most lurid acts of violence that you'll encounter in the game. But whether you indulge your most depraved impulses or attempt to resist them in this role is entirely up to you.

Because despite the darkness lurking within this character, how you choose to play the Dark Urge is for you to decide. In Baldur’s Gate 3, there is no clear-cut “Evil path” and no path that is plainly Good. There are simply choices, ramifications, and a personal evolution that will ensure who you play is as complex and multifaceted as you are.

The Dark Urge can even form a romantic relationship just like any other Origin character. Of course, relationships with those who harbour dark secrets are often complicated, and this is one that will require a patient paramour capable of tempering and restraining their partner's most primal and untamed desires – and hopefully one with more than a passing interest in bondage.

Love In The Time Of Tentacles



In Baldur’s Gate 3, we wanted romantic relationships to possess the same complexity and depth as any other part of our narrative.

Every relationship you forge is different, reflecting the personality and personal arc of that character over the course of the game. Some may begin with a steamy Wild Shape transformation, others start cautiously and require more attention to foster a deeper connection. Relationships change over time, and neither you nor your partner will be the same person in Act 1 as you are by the game’s end.

This includes in your relationship to your Guardian – the character you create at the start of the game who represents all that you desire. The Guardian has changed significantly since you first encountered them in your dreams throughout Early Access. We’ve worked to thematically deepen this narrative thread, going beyond the realm of physical desire to encompass the full spectrum of complex emotions that must be navigated in order for you to truly trust another. (We hope you enjoyed the previous maddeningly vague sentence, because you’ll have to play for yourself to find out what any of it means.)

The path to intimacy also varies greatly for each relationship along the course of the game. A companion like Lae’zel who exudes sexual energy at the beginning of a relationship can take time to let her guard down, making the act of holding her hand all the more intimate.

On the other hand, a relationship that begins with a night of post-goblin-slaughtering passion could also blossom into something vulnerable and sweet, given proper care. No two relationships follow the same formula.

It was important to us to portray sex as more than a trophy for complying with a companion's quest line. In Baldur’s Gate 3, you are encouraged to navigate your relationship – to argue with your partner and challenge their way of thinking. After all, if you just go along with whatever they want to do, you may find yourself sacrificed in an evil god's sex rite, turned into a vampire, or – worst of all, warns Senior Origin Narrative Designer Baudelaire Welch – you might even end up getting married.

A new crafting feature comes to Baldur’s Gate. The domain of magic-wielders, conjurers, and anyone with a passing interest in mysterious fumes, Alchemy allows you to turn your collection of herbs, wild mushrooms, crystals, and monster limbs into useful items you can prepare ahead of a fight.

In Baldur’s Gate 3, you can use ingredients found in the wilderness to create a variety of extracts, then combine extracts to create potions, poisons, and oils to imbibe or coat your weapons with.



Meet The Third Major Villain Of Baldur’s Gate 3 – Orin The Red



Completing the trinity of villains in Baldur’s Gate 3 is Orin, a practitioner in the art of inflicting pain and a grandmaster of murder. Orin has killed for many years, but has yet to be caught, thanks in part to her shapeshifting abilities, which enable her to take the form of anyone – perhaps even someone in your camp.

She hides her cravings to commit murder beneath these numerous masks, disguising her intentions and herself to lure unsuspecting victims. It’s during the act of murder that she is her truest self. At that moment she is murder.

Orin is voiced by the incredible Maggie Robertson, known to many as the voice of Lady Dimitrescu (Resident Evil Village) and Skjóthendi the Unerring (God of War Ragnarök).

Split-Screen Co-Op Multiplayer



In addition to having online multiplayer for four players, in Baldur’s Gate 3, two of you can grab controllers and jump straight into two-player split-screen couch co-op.

Baldur's Gate 3 comes to life in multiplayer, empowered by all those extra fingers poised to tip the dominoes and unleash a cascading chain of events upon the Forgotten Realms. Players can join a party before the start of a playthrough, during Character Creation, or during an ongoing game. Each of the playable Origin characters can be chosen only once, or, should you prefer, you can mould a creation of your own.

Players will share most of the information that the game provides them, like Journal notes about ongoing adventures, minimap discoveries, and alchemical recipes. Player inventories are also shared by default in multiplayer, but there is an option to lock your inventory from your thieving pals.

Players also share Inspiration points that they gain when fulfilling goals defined by their chosen Background. These points can be used to reroll checks in dialogue. In multiplayer, you can listen in on conversations started by another player and vote on which dialogue option you want them to take. Some select scenes are private by default in your options, however, including romance scenes. But players can make all secret scenes public to their party should they wish.



A Cinematic Kaleidoscope – Showcasing The Breadth And Depth Of Your Choices

Baldur’s Gate 3’s 174 hours of cinematic content is a reflection of all the possible choices players can make in the game, and the narrative permutations that will come out of each of those decisions.

With more than 2000 characters for you to interact with, different reactivities based on your chosen species and class, and a golden path that takes over 80 hours to complete, you can expect to discover a staggering amount of previously unseen content in your second or even third playthrough.



If you caught Panel From Hell last week, you'll have seen just how those decisions affect your experience once you set foot into Act 2. Trek through the mountain pass as Shadowheart then explore the Sharran territory of the Shadow-Cursed Lands safely as a cleric of Shar. Or you might instead choose to traverse the Underdark, then find safety within a hamlet of Harpers – led by the long-standing series icon herself: Jaheira, #mommy.

Whispers And Headlines - The Echoes Of Your Deeds On The City’s Gossip Mill

Upon reaching Baldur’s Gate, your choices will begin to express themselves throughout the world in other ways. Crowds in the city will systematically gossip and talk about your escapades and failures, and can even be influenced through you directly modifying the paper and printing the most favourable headlines.

Don’t Worry, You Can Stream BG3

As we near release, we thought it prudent to remind anyone looking to stream Baldur's Gate 3 of some useful tools designed to create a better experience for you and your audience.

Some of you have shown concern about mature content that could potentially become flagged by your chosen streaming platform. For those of you who want complete peace of mind, you will find two new user options within the Options menu: “Show Cinematic Nudity” and “Show Genitals”. From here, you can enable or disable this content at your convenience.

We’d also like to remind you that there is a really cool Twitch Integration that, once enabled and connected to, lets your viewers see your Party View, track your quests, and vote on dialogue options.

The Road Ahead



We’ve updated our Steam page to better reflect the content of the game and bring the Early Access section up to date, as well as the specifications. On that page, we’re recommending that players don’t buy the Early Access version of Baldur's Gate 3 with a view to play through that content, partly because it’s out of date but mostly because we’re so close to launch and want to make it very clear that saves in the Early Access version will not transfer into the final game. This is due to technical reasons.

Essentially, the game is so vastly different that it’s not possible to make those save files compatible. Early Access will, of course, remain playable up to launch.

A purchase of Early Access is essentially a pre-order, and will still grant you access to the Digital Deluxe content for Baldur's Gate 3 on PC, granting you access to: an exclusive in-game dice skin, the Divinity Bard Song Pack, Treasures of Rivellon Pack, Adventurer’s Pouch, Digital OST, Digital Artbook, and Digital Character Sheets for D&D IRL.

The PC Digital Deluxe Edition does not include a 72 hour head start, which would have essentially made the game’s release date July 31st. Shifting the release date – and thus communication around the Digital Deluxe Editions across PS5 and PC – came with a few complexities that we didn’t manage to communicate very well, so we thought it best to clarify it here, given that a 72 hour head start on PC wouldn't have been plausible.

But isn’t it wild? Our PC launch is just a few weeks away! Baldur's Gate 3 is set to release to PC on August 3rd, followed by its PlayStation 5 release just a few weeks later on September 6th – or September 3rd if you pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition for PS5.

For those of you who have been with us throughout Early Access, we want to thank you for all your support over the years. One of the reasons we chose to release Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access is because it would give us an opportunity to listen to your feedback and make meaningful changes in return. As a result, your participation has been instrumental in helping us bring the Forgotten Realms to life. Everything you play – be it Act 2 & 3, or a return to Act 1 – will reflect how we’ve gotten better at making the game, thanks in no small part to all of your feedback, comments, and love over the years.

We also want to send out a very special thank you to everyone who’s been sending us hyperrealistic Halsin fan art. It inspires us, it sustains us, it frightens us to our core. The meme game has been real.

We still have some work to do, but we’re thrilled to learn that those who played the game at our recent press event really enjoyed what they experienced, and we can’t wait for you to experience it yourselves.

Thanks. Will there be a community update prior to release regarding major mechanics changes from EA (changes to existing races, changes to stealth / ambush mechanics, etc.)?

Larian removing the headstart might be enough for Steam to issue refunds as they devalued the preorder.

Reposting here, this situation could have just been avoided if Larian announced an august 6th an 3 day early for preorders. Now it is just easy metaphorical ammunition for players to hit them with.

Copy-pasting from the other thread:

I'm extremely disappointed in how hirelings will apparently be handled. Was expecting and hoping for blank slate characters like the PC, not just more Origin characters with no origin.

Dear Steam,

I originally purchased this game because it was promised that I will receive it on August 28th, three days earlier than regular release date which is August 31th. Now this scum of a company called Larian changed the release date to August 3rd and I no longer feel privileged because my special three day VIP access was taken away from me.

I want my money back, now!

Oh for goodness' sakes. You're getting access to the game a month earlier than you were 'promised,' and you're not losing out on anything.

Jeez.

To be honest, my only hope for the 72hours was the ability to download the game before the masses crash the servers lol. We’ll probably not, but I’ve been jaded lately with such events…. Can’t play till weekend anyway. Being an Adult sucks sometimes. lol

Hopefully we'll still be able to launch multiple instances of the game and create our own Multiplayer game to create custom parties.

Once I run through my D&D characters, I like playing groups from favourite books or movies and the current implementation doesn't allow that (unless you can change the races, looks and names of the mercenaries)

Belitting people using a strawman rarely works out in the end.

Regarding our New Character Creation Toolbox
How will skills, weapon, and armor proficiencies work when multi-classing?
How has the change of Ability score allocation affect the Half Elf and Shield Dwarf Races?

I honestly can't understand what they are exactly trying to do with companions.

You can respec everything about your companions including their STARTING CLASS and stats (which makes them pretty damn close to be non-characters but empty shells, mechanically speaking), but then random "hirelings" "(aka DOLL NPC with no set story) are supposed to have a set name and appearance?

Aren't these two things basically at odds with each other as far as design philosophy goes?
Unlimited freedom where there should be restrictions and vice versa.

Seems that's what we'll have to do if we want custom party members, yes. The fact the hirelings seems to have had some effort put into them makes me suspect we can't just re-mold them completely but time will tell I guess.

They probably had no clue what to do, implemented specific NPCs and then later added respecs but didn't want to throw away the NPCs they created. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the game.

I guess if anyone definitely doesn't want to play the game any more for some reason then they could give that a try and see if it works, though given that the free upgrade to Digital Deluxe edition for EA players (which included the 72h early access to Act 1) was announced as part of the announcement of the release date as 31 August and it's now 3 August it might be a hard case to make.

Not that I'll be trying, as there's no way I'm giving up my copy and anyway the extra goodies like the digital art book always seemed the main draw of the edition to me. I don't care about getting to start playing before anyone else, and I'd not want Larian to rush the game to me if it meant that there were more problems and risk to the release.

Do we have a Larian source on respecing Origin companions starting class? I couldn't see it above.

Larian is already rushing the game to you because they moved the release date for business reasons to beat Starfield. So you will already see a degradation of quality as they need to do the work of 2 months in 1.
And a preorder always means that you buy something unseen. And for that risk to be worthwhile the incentive should be quite good. A digital art book, an OST you can likely get from youtube anyway and a few ingame skins and items are imo not enough. Especially also with all the questionable decisions about multiclassing, respecs and hirelings, attributes and race balance (humans), their general focus of "go evil or go bust" ect. come to light which makes buying BG3 unseen a bit questionable in my opinion.

Only Fextralife trying the press build, so far. But I have no reasons to think they gave him a faulty version of the game and they will remove the feature later.

Fortunately we can all make our minds up about what we want to do. Personally I already bought the game unseen years ago, and have neither regretted it nor expect to, despite having some questions and concerns about more recent news.

But if people have their doubts then yes, it makes more sense to wait and read reviews and get feedback from early adopters.

This exactly. I'm glad, we get the game sooner, and I don't care, if I get it before others or not.

Is there any info out there regarding the camp scenes and long rests? Has maybe one content creator from the PFH event talked about it?

Didn't he say that it wasn't confirmed that the feature would be in the full release? There was something like that somewhere that made me think he'd heard that something might be changed. But I'm forgetting what I've heard where about what. Not that this particular thing about changing origin companion classes bothers me, exactly, as I can presumably just ignore it. Though like you I do find it puzzling.

And, as you say, even more so the hirelings. At the event in Ghent, iirc (and I may not!) Swen mentioned using them to create, eg, a party of four barbarians. But if they come with a class already specified, does that mean we then need to immediately respec them from level 0? Or can we not make our four barbarian party with three hirelings?

I'm definitely perplexed and keen to hear more.

Are you talking about some camp conversations being tied to rests? When I played I did observe some changes to that. Let me find a link to where I posted about it.

EDIT: Here's one post where I talked about what I observed of (previously) camp conversations when I played the full game on Friday last week. I'm pretty sure there was another earlier in the thread as well, but I think it just said more or less the same. I saw so little it's not conclusive, but I'm cautiously optimistic given there's at least some good evidence that Larian have listened to feedback.

The thing Fextralife was unsure about was if the origin companions will have parts of their dialogue removed when you change their class.

The current implementation of hirelings and respec looks very unfinished and not well thought out. The only reasons I can think of why it is like this are
1. Respec was never intended, especially not to this degree to fully respec origin characters. Thats why they made 1 hireling for every class first
2. The hirelings were not intended to be completely silent or even be (mini) companions, but that got scrapped but you ended up with 12 high quality models and no time to make a complete hireling character creation

And that is not the only part where things in BG3 do not seem to fit together which is why I am now highly sceptical of preorders and spending money for an unseen product.

So far so good. Think I won't be visiting the forums for a while, too much BG3 in my life lately... I am kinda scared to overload myself with this game and lower my levels of interest in it. See you folks closer to the release. Be friends with each other. Peace. Out.

What about this? In the past days there has been some panic around multiclassing, up to thinking that a fighter 11 / wizard 1 would be able to cast 6th level spells. Now they are talking about distributing points when you multiclass, but we know that there is not much to "distribute" in 5e.

I'm thinking that they are baking up some kind of alternative multiclass that could actually make sense. Maybe when a PC multiclass will level up both classes but have to choose mutually exclusive features from each.

I hate that we still have no details about mechanics and have to live on hearsays.

Extremely disappointing how crappy humans are now... seriously lame to not include variant just because you want to incentivize other races.

Am curious about the lady behind Jaheira… who dat?

Agree. I mean, I understand but not agree with stripping the human from his free feat, but the 20 lbs load is just a mockery.

You are late on informations players are waiting for
Will we really be able to change origin companions class ?
Will we really be able to cast fireball + guardian spirit + ... if we are a level 1 fighter / 1 druid / 1 cleric / 1 wizard / 1 bard ?

Thanks for clarifying the 72 hours things though !Now I know that I will NOT be able to enjoy 1.0 while my wife and childrens are not at home

That shouldnt be a problem, acording to (feel free to corect me if im wrong) what Red Queen have seen on Larian life presentation.
If i remember corectly, Swen just took another controller and created another character on fly.

There is different problem tho ... at least for me.
In EA, PC characters tend to steal our companions spotlight ... i played several times with 3 Custom characters and one Origin Follower ... and i could swear that at least 3/4 dialogues that i was trying to trigger for them never happened.
Instead our pseudo PC characters started some weird dialogue, where each of them state their mind, and the initiator then either stated they agree, or decided that they just dont and there is no point in debating futher.

Such playtrough experience was quite poor ...
Bcs when i took Gale with me for example, then instead of having all his triggers and dialogues ... well, triggered ... bcs i was curious about his Romance ...
I didnt get even to that part where he asks for your trust and first magical artefacts, bcs all his dialogue triggers, where i could gather some reputation was owerwritten by my PC characters wich had no story, and basicaly also nothing to say really. :-/

I remember one dialogue that happened after you meet Sazza:
PC A: Do we want to trust this Goblin Priest?
PC B: Yes. (just paraphrasing, surely there was whole sentence but this was the point she was making)
PC C: No. (just paraphrasing, surely there was whole sentence but this was the point she was making)
PC A: No point in arguing any futher ... we will see what is this about.

And that was it.
It felt even stupider, since i was the one who picked all 3 choices ...
So i just argued with myself, then i dismissed myself, and ignored my own complaints.

I've been trying to figure out the submarine 14 seconds into the new trailer. Where might that be I wonder.

So what’s this about a 20 lbs load? I didn’t see it posted anywhere…?

Ah, okay. Thanks! I'll clearly need to watch again


Yes! I so much want some more details about how multiclassing will differ from 5e. Hopefully we'll get some clarity soon.

Now I have only one question will be there preload, or it will take almost a day more to only download game.

Now that I think of it when we say the screen of jaheria multiclassed it didn't say "druid 6 / sorcerer 1", but just "6 druid /sorcerer". Isn't this akin to human double classing in 2ed? I'm not sure, I know little to nothing about that ed.

Dual classing would set you old class to inactive until you'd level up with your new class past it. It's not leveling them up simultaneously.

Yes, in the presentation I saw, Swen swapped into split screen coop and created a second custom character on the fly (this capability is mentioned in the update) and then when the second player left the game their custom character was still there in the party of the first. But I am not sure that was actually meant to happen, or that it would happen on release. Swen actually reloaded to before he'd created the character. So I'd say this might be a possible workaround for completely custom characters, but we shouldn't be totally confident.

How much of this drip drip drip of info is intentional marketing to keeps us chomping at the bit until release?

Do you think they're going to drop a couple more updates in the next three weeks just to keep this level of interest up?

Every update always means a flurry of articles and tweats, and anybody with a passing interest in computer games and/or tabletop games will have Google news, Twitter, etc. making sure the words "Baldur's Gate 3" interact with their eyeballs a dozen times between now and the 6th.

Even though i can't see a link, the "it's not conclusive" part answers my question, thank you for checking. At the moment this is my biggest concern for such a story heavy game, let's hope for the best.

I think it's entirely possible we're being tortured on purpose for Larian's own nefarious ends

D'oh! Here it is: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=860196#Post860196.

Currently the ones doing the dripping are streamer from PFH. So even when pacing themselves their content should dry up soon. Unless of course Larian is feeding Fextralive (all others are just copying from him) new infos. Which is possible considering he seems to have access to exclusive videos like the tadpole interface.

Fextralife himself stated in comments under his video that he been told that Origins respec may not make it into final release.
https://imgur.com/a/f6pqG33

The issue is that even those streamers played a v0.9 as far as I understood. Some things may change.

Well, isn't this wonderful news?
At least as long as this actually happens.

I know this is a small thing, but does anyone else find it weird that middle aged/older women are getting this "#mommy" thing lately in modern media? I'm not really a fan if I'm honest. Like, Jaheira is this super powerful Druid, but let's call her "mommy" which ends up sounding weirdly sexual..?

I noticed they specifically didn't say anything about it though. I wonder if they've gone back on that after so many people pointed out how badly it would screw up the narrative and would make no sense. I don't see the point at all if you can just use the hirelings for your own custom party. Perhaps they wised up and flip-flopped on it at the last second.

That hireling bit is actually a major concern for me. One of the things I was so excited to use BG3 for was to use the huge backlog of DnD characters I will never get to play as the primary DM in my friend group. So are they making it so that hirelings are just, again, premade characters that we can change some looks of? Basically "Origin" custom characters?

If that is indeed the case, Larian -- stop overdesigning stuff. Stop making characters for me to play. Let me make my own.

I'm going to withhold full judgment for release but as someone that isn't into the whole Origin thing and was really looking forward to full custom parties, this is a major blow to my hype.

Also the workaround of multiple instances is, to be frank, a dumb thing to have to do for a fully released game. Fine for EA, sure, but on release? I'm not about it.

Yea, "custom party" means I can CUSTOMIZE my party. I want my fellowship of the ring hobbit party dangit!

Yes I'm hopeful the Origin Companions cannot only be respecced after that first level in their story-class. Let's be honest, that initial class is part of their narrative, and destroying that narrative by changing level 1 makes them no better than hirlings with romance options.

What's the point?
I think level 1 in their core class/level 11 in a multiclass ( if we so choose) is enough flexibility

JMO

No reason to give complete level 0 resets for companions if there are so many hireling options.

I guess the original post was irony making a dig at those complaining we will get the game on August 3rd instead of August 31st as originally planned. People should be happy a game company actually moved forward a release date instead of postponing as they usually do.

Indeed. I think this has helped demonstrate one reason why making digs isn't a good idea. We're better off saying what we think rather than trying to make fun of others' concerns.

In less than a month I will become a degenerate, antisocial caveman for at least a week. CANT WAIT.

Btw, I'm desperately itching to get my hands on that character creator again!

I could easily have just spent all the time I was lucky enough to get with the full game in Ghent on the PFH day just playing around with that.

Does it require a lot of work for you to be such a relentlessly negative & nasty person, or does it come.naturally to you?

This is the second time they’ve referenced Ed Sheeran. Is he going to make a cameo in the game??

Wish you could have got us the news sooner - booked my leave for the three day access, already moved it once when you moved it a month early, won't be able to move it twice.

But hey ho - still getting it a month earlier.

Way to go, Larian. Take away the one and only thing I've liked so far.

A little disappointed it sounds like they haven’t changed the multiplayer dialogue system. I’m hoping there’s at least an option to auto-join conversations started by other players

I thought I saw somewhere that in multiplayer players can “eavesdrop” on ongoing conversations and vote on how they want them to proceed. Which is probably not what you’re after, but I’d understood to at least be changes. Not that I’ve played multiplayer so apologies if this response is totally irrelevant to you!

That's how it already works I think..? It's not an official "vote" - you can just indicate which option you'd like the Primary Conversationalist to take.

(and it's terrible for multiple reasons - discussed somewhere else in the forums)

I sadly agree.

o they changed the multiplayer all right... just perhaps not the fix you were hoping for

i see they also reneded on 72 hour head start... well at least its confirmed now

Have to say, I'm a bit disappointed in the game not bring available 72 hours early for EA owners, BUT it is how it is
Note I just hope this isn't bad news.

What I mean is: 28 days earlier are fine, but 3 more isn't? Do you have too little time? Please don't make your developers crunch just because you wanted to avoid collision of release dates with Starfield. In that case I'd rather have gotten the original date and 72 hours but no crunch for the dev team. So please let me be wrong here.

No ... its not.

What would be benefit of such limitation?

Narrative consistency and commitment to long term choices.
Thanks for asking.

Sounds like poor excuses to force your prefferences to others. :-/
Was there anything stoping you to have the game as naratively consistent and commited as you want it?

I don't care how it sounds, though.

There can be such a thing as "too much freedom and convenience" at expenses of other factors, when it comes to game design.
Even if some of you don't want to admit it. Or even just accept it, really.

Respecin is great so I can take full advantage of ability raising magical items and it gives nice flexibility to adjusting your companion build to more your liking. I only wish that Larian would give as ASI every fourth level no matter how you multiclass because only two ASI if multiclassing is not fun and Larian is all about us having fun.

I know what are the convenences of having unlimited respeccing.
I just happen to think that not just because something is convenient is also for the better.
I value the appeal of making long lasting decisions and feeling the weight of their permanence.

Dropping a bunch of +10 weapons would be super-convenient as well, but it would absolutely wreak the balance of the game.

That aside, I don't know what you two are even going on about, because that specific quote wasn't just about "respec" but more specifically about being able to change the starting class of companions.
Something I remain adamantly against, no matter how many silly and contrived excuses people will throw at me to argue I should enjoy.

Some interesting news, thank you!

Larian, could you additionally clarify the +2 / +1 attributes rule for all races? Is it optional like in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything or is it mandatory? If second, how would you compensate for races that were reliant on additional attributes to stay competitive, like Humans and Half-Elves? New human proficiencies and weight limit increase are not enough, especially for most martial classes that get them anyway and some caster classes that don't use neither light armor (because of Mage Armor / Draconic Resilience) nor polearms (because staves for them contain better bonuses / additionall spells and they attack with cantrips / spells anyway). As for Half-Elves, without +2 / +1 / +1 they are just worse Elves without Perception proficiency and without bows / swords proficiencies, so just inferior to them.

As a result, if +2 / +1 is indeed mandatory, please consider making it optional or providing proper compensaton for some races.

Extremely disappointing behaviour from Larian. Reneging on sales offer is highly unethical and will make me seriously consider whatever they say in future. If they are willing to go back on a sales offer no reason why they won't go back on anything else.

Almost certain they will give journos and influencers the game before the 72 hour headstart. So for me their excuse is just spin.

I think your best option here is to become famous influencer quickly, that way you could probably get the game couple of days earlier. Maybe try to do that instead of wasting your time on hating.

I really like this! We don't know how it will work out yet, but the promise is alluring. Good job making this a development goal!


This is also a piece of heartening news. Bigger is better!

Sure it's hating when they are still advertising the 72 hour early start on their pre-order page with no mention that it only applies to the ps5 version...

I think you are right, you should be allowed to play by the 28th of august as it was promised since start.

It's clear some folk are feeling strongly about the fact all PC players will now be able to start playing at the same time on 3 August, and they are totally entitled to express that as long as an individual forum member doesn't keep repeating themself.

If we don't agree that the change to early access to the full game is a problem then we can say why we are okay with it. Again, once is enough. But if anyone in this camp wants to see us move on from discussing the 72h thing as quickly as possible, the thing that will accomplish that fastest is to stop talking about it themself. Arguing with other forum members rather than allowing them to vent their frustration is not the way.

First of all: the character creation looks AMAZING! It looks like so much fun to play with, and I can't wait to start creating character(s).... or well.... I guess that is where the issue with this Community Update is.

It seems to me, from what I understand, that we are going to have this AMAZING character creation setup, where you can color the tip of your Tiefling's horns, have your character have different color eyes with the heterochromia feature etc. etc. - SO SO COOL, and then well... bummer... we are not really going to be able to use it, are we....?

If we pick an Origin character as our main character (excluding the Urge), we don't even get to see the character creation menu at all, as all other recruitable characters in the game are premade, and not customizable with relation to their race, name or appearance. Some of us (a lot I think) had hoped that the hirelings would be fully customizable, and would make up for this apparent lack of customizability. But according to this Community Update, they are not.

If we choose to play as a custom main character, the game allows us to create and customize ONE character per play-through, which means we get to play around with all the cool features that they developed for us ONCE in what might be 200 hours... and for some, that don't replay the game, never again - that just seems like SUCH a waste and a shame, if you consider how much time went into creating that part of the game.

One custom character is not enough! I have ideas for so many more! And I know I am not the only one!

Having 12 premade "temporary" hireling characters, that you can't change name, race or appearance of just feels so counterintuitive and wrong when the character creation is so elaborate and so fun to play with, and is just sitting there begging to be utilized! That is one of the things I love most about CRPG's: creating my own characters and having them blend in with the premade characters.

I think it is completely fair to compare BG3 with games like Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 (games that are highly influenced by Baldur's Gate 1 and 2), where you could make up to 8 completely custom characters (not temporary I might add!), and change your group setup throughout the game, mixing them with the premade characters however you wanted, so you didn't miss out on their individual quests. Having BG3 allow for something like that it would be my one and only wish for this game for now. I know that modders are probably going to make it possible later on, but I really don't see why Larian don't just implement it into the game to begin with. Especially seeing as it seems that they are really intent on making the game open for many different kinds of ways to play. So why not this way? If I can kill all the premade characters, why can't I create my own? I would say that the first scenario is far more "gamebreaking" than the latter.

So Larian: why can't we play with our own customized characters - it's really a small thing to ask at this point and would be extremely easy to implement. And those that want to play with the hirelings as they are, they still get to do just that, it wouldn't really be taking anything away from that - just adding another option of how one wishes to play, and making players like me enjoy the game a whole lot more. (I was planning to create some of the characters from BG1 and BG2 that would still be alive at the time of BG3, like Aerie etc.)

Pretty please, Larian, with owlbear on top!

How cumbersome and taxing on the system, just because Larian can't manage to implement a decent custom party character creation.

Hopefully they have implemented character build saves? One have to start four instances and have to tediously build your custom characters. To put it more casually: I want to keep my PC for a while and not set off the smoke detector...

..., but sadly, your nature decide your path, not your will. and this is that your will actually follow your nature.

i will always only play tav, because i have the option, and i choose refuse "the nature of dark urge" in the beginning, not accept it.

"you have the power to resist the nature of dark urge, because you always refuse it in your mind. once you accept it, this is a checkmate."

Are any of these updates LIVE? Is there any reason for me to install the game again after Patch 9?

Not live. Only reason would be if you want try some other classes you haven't yet.

Question about the Dragonborn since the get to use a their breath weapon once per day. Now you've got I believe is 3 different breath weapons Fire; Cold; and Lightening. Say I chose Dragonborn Fire will <s>he be immune to fire damage? Or will they only be resistant to fire damage say 75% or something like that there? I would think that you would be immune but not sure how Larian has set it up.

Larian might have changed things, we don't know yet, but in tabletop, they have resistance, not immunity.

In 5e, there is only resistance, not x% resistance. Being resistant to a damage type always means taking half damage (so 50% resistance)

You can not hit yourself with your own breath weapon, so you don't have to worry about hurting yourself because you are not immune to the damage type

Well I wasn't worried about hurting myself with my own breath weapon as that would be hard to do.<G>

So now if your dragonborn fire and drink a resist fire potion would the 2 of them stack?

5e rules states as follow:
"Multiple instances of resistance or vulnerability that affect the same damage type count as only one instance. For example, if a creature has resistance to fire damage as well as resistance to all nonmagical damage, the damage of a nonmagical fire is reduced by half against the creature, not reduced by three-- quarters."
What I understand taking into account the above that dragonborn fire resistance and drink a resist fire potion does not stack. ofc, that works if BG3 follows the same rule.

Will have to admit Not sure now about my character class. Stuck between Drow, Dragonborn, and High Elf and with the Dragonborn it doesn't look like it's got much going for it but will have to see in 2 weeks