Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Hirelings : confusing and limited. We need full customisation. Also, full Custom PC parties in SP.

I'm putting all this here in a Feedback & Suggestion thread, mostly to organise some questions and feedback related to Hirelings (Mercenaries). I don't have too much hope that the feedback will get used by Larian to bring any changes to the game (at least not before release), but who knows. At least there are still the questions. If there's one more Community Update before release, maybe we'll get some clarifications on all this. And if not, maybe Larian will answer some of these questions when the time comes for an official Q&A (which, naturally, would be more useful before release than after release).


What we know.

• There are 12 Hirelings available for us to recruit, one for each class.
• Each comes with their own name, appearance, and Race.
• Just like Player Characters and Companions, they can can be Class-respecced at any time.
• We hire them with Withers. (??)
• We cannot create several PC in Single-Player Mode. Only in Multi-Player Mode, including via the fake-MP workaround. (??)

Why are there precisely 12 pre-designed Hirelings ?

There is one Hireling of each Class. But we can Class-respec Hirelings. Those two statements sound rather contradictory.

Since we can Class-respec our Hirelings, why are there not 42 pre-designed ones ? Or why not 10, one of each Race ? Or, you know, why not just 3, one for each party slot ?

If this is not a case of poorly thought out design, then it's a case of really confusing communication about how the Hirelings system works and what it is for.


Hirelings do not offer enough flexibility in designing our own party.

It sounds as if one of the design goals of the Hirelings is to let players create a party with the Class composition that we want. Indeed, we are told

This attention to players' freedom of choice is especially welcome given that the game provides only 10 Companions, who cover only 9 Classes (assuming Minthara is a Paladin, Halsin a Druid, Minsc a Ranger, and Jaheira a Druid/Fighter mix). So if I want to play a Paladin PC and have a team made of a Paladin, a Monk, a Sorcerer and a Bard, I can't. At least, not with Companions. Actually, wait ... since I can respec the Classes of Companions, I can. So, what are Hirelings for ? This is confusing.


But what if I want to create a party is that made up entirely of medium-size draconic humanoids ? Is this heard loud and clear ?

And what if I want to play a group of 4 Githyankis ? Or a full-Drow party ? Or an all-Dwarf company, with the exception of a lone Halfling ?

If we cannot respec the Race of the Hirelings, this type of party composition is not possible.


Now, what if I want to create a party is that made of a 4 Player Characters (Custom, or not) and play Single-Player ? For example, playing with Karlach, Wyll and 2 Custom Player Characters (all tadpoled).

Again, this is not possible. Well, it is not natively supported. There is the work-around of launching 4 instances of the game and creating a Multi-Player game with 4 Player Characters, but that's not simple and not equally easy with all computers.


In summary, the Hirelings system seems fairly limited, in terms of the freedom and flexibiliy of party composition that it opens up. It doesn't allow me to create a custom party with the Races I want. It doesn't allow me to create a party with 4 (tadpoled) custom PCs. At first, it looks as this new system doesn't achieve anything that isn't already achieved by allowing players to respec PCs and Companions.

I think that one thing that the Hirelings system definitely achieves it letting me create a full party without using any of Larian's companions, if I don't like their personalities.
Would anyone Larian care to explain what Hirelings are for ? This new feature is just ... bizarre. At any rate, here are some suggestions/requests.


Suggestions/request.

• Allow players to modify a Hireling's "identity" : name, sex, Race, appearance (the full suite of cosmetic customisation).
• Allow players to create a party of 4 Custom Player Character, even in Single-Player mode.

What happens when Hirelings die ?

And by die I mean really really die. No revivify, no resurrection. Gone.

Can we keep hiring Hirelings pretty much forever ?

If not, i.e. there are only 12 Hirelings in total, does that mean that a player with a high rate of Companion deaths and Hirelings deaths could be forced into finishing the game as a solo adventurer ?

If yes, i.e. if we can keep spawning Hirelings, what's the point of having the pre-designed ones ? Can't we just make a trip to the character creator every time we need to make/hire a new Hireling ? I mean, I can see that having templates, ready to go, can be a QoL feature. If that's the case, it would be great to be able to select a Hireling multiple times. For instance, if I want to hire 3 Githyankis, I could "hire/open" Sina'zith, get most of the identity/appearance I want already in place, make some adjustments and then select/edit the Class.

+1

+1

This is my biggest hang-up at the moment, and I feel like the last update created more confusion in some ways than settling things down.

Thank you for typing this up and putting it in this forum as well, Drath Malorn.

Im kinda confused you didnt mention that Hirelings are officialy stated as "temporary party members" ... wich is just as (if not even more) confusing as the whole rest of that clusterfuck around them ...

Anyway +1 to everything.

Can we not race spec hirelings?

That would be really annoying, because it would mean some race + class combinations are just flat out not in the game, unless you choose them as your Tav.
I really hope they change this!

I guess we don't have all details yet about hirelings (and we won't before release), but how the system is design look particularly strange.

What if I want to add 3 humans ?
Will I have to pick the same 3 times then customise them ? Will I be able to change their name and portrait ? Will their background description have any influence ?

I can't wait to try the system but for now I have the feeling that it is more of a mix between premade and custom characters, which is usually not what we expect from hirelings.

Well thought out and written up.

I agree that the "temporary party members" statement is confusing.

Excellent points, excellent examples, excellent formatting.

+1

+1

Also: If Larian are afraid that we will miss out on all the companion-specific content they created for each individual companion (eg. bear sex, individual quests, individual goals and desires, and hours and hours of voice acted replies and conversations etc.) if they give us the tools for creating our own custom party, actually they are much more in danger of that by NOT giving us the option to customize. Because as OP mentions; players are just going to do the bothersome multiplayer workaround and have 4 customizable tadpole characters, that CAN'T be switched with any of the premade companions once we meet them in game; meaning we will see far less of their stories than we potentially would if we had customizable (and not temporary) hirelings that could be switched in and out of our group, in the same way that regular companions can in EA, as we progress in our adventures in Faerûn.

it seems to me that Larian could be making the hireling system without customization (of race, apperance and name) to force us in to going with the companions that they spent so much time, money and energy on making. But..... playing a CRPG should be fun...... It shouldn't feel like a chore or like going to school and having to learn specific things and be told to do things in a specific way. It should be the very opposite. If you feel forced into doing something else than you actually want to do; how is that fun?

+1

Well written. All this plus the "temporary" wording pointed out by Ragnarok.
Some clarification would be much appreciated.

+1

Why do we need to get something mundane like Hirelings from a mysterious undead Lich?

Is it for the same reason why we need an actual magical teleportation network for fast travel, even if it doesn't make sense in the game world and wouldn't really be needed for the feature?

How about just having them appear without throwing in a pointless extravagant explanation where they came from?

Also, would like to use character creator to make them myself rather than having to pick from pre-made characters.

I also agree with the OP. It seems such a pity to make complex and responsive character creation system and then design the game so it can only be used once for the Player Character. Enabling a full crew of non-Original Characters seems such an easy and deliverable win via a responsive Hireling system for Larian. I hope they will make it so.

+1111111

Thanks for the clear organized forum...

Having to open 4 instances during character creation is really kind of annoying, since there is (high) chance for it to crash before finishing all four characters... Not to mention I will have to skip (or not able to skip) the cutscenes 3 times in single play after that. Full custom hirelings that can swith in/out anytime (or during long rest) would be a lot more convenient...

Yeah, I don’t get why you just can’t hire a mercenary of your own design at the Druid grove or somewhere similar. It would be simple enough and fit the narrative of D&D perfectly.

I just read this post, of someone who tried the hirelings systems (I haven't played the game, so I'm relying on what I read).

It looks as if, sadly, the Hirelings system is as disappointing as I feared it would be.


If can't change the Race, Background, name and appearance of Hirelings, then we can't really use Hirelings to make a fully custom party (e.g. four Githyankis).

Also, we apparently cannot create a party of four Player Characters without using the fake Multi-Player trick.


All in all, we can't use Hirelings to achieve anything that we couldn't achieve by simply respecialising the Companions. Unless the goal is to have a party without Companions if we can't stand any of them.

I genuinely thought that starting with full custom party characters was going to be in at launch. I can't understand why it isn't, and I actually haven't played after figuring out it was gonna require their old multiplayer workaround to pull off.

I just don't really like any of their premade characters, nor do I want to suffer through having to use them to respec them and try and forget the last several hours of playtime. I don't think having to run 4 copies of the game and then repeated cinematics, is really acceptable with a game like this.

You can''t say, we want you to make your stories... unless your stories involve more than one person. Having 6 faces and calling it a character creator is bad enough. Is this supposed massive city not big enough for four custom characters?

[raise the hand] I saw, I tested, it is useless.

Sorry to have missed your post but +1 to everything you said.

I haven't tested the fake multiplayer trick yet but will do probably this week-end.

Mods are also not really helpful, because they mostly target the existing companions (party size). In general I have the feeling that Larian wants to force us to play the premade characters (by respecing them). This is not what we want. Please give us the opportunity to create an entire custom party from scratch.