Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback If full custom party support was added would you use it?

Just like the title says. I'm trying to get a sense from the player base that frequents these forums whether or not they'd make use of the ability to create custom-from-the-ground-up characters, if that support was implemented in a future patch. To be clear, I'm talking about being able to create companion/hireling characters with the full Tav character creation menu, or, at the very least, allowing us to respec/recreate a hireling with new race, background, class, aesthetics, voice and name.

I know I would.

Would you play with fully custom hireling/companion characters if support were available. single choice
	Yes
	No
	Other (please add a post to this thread with your comments if you choose this option)
Votes accepted starting: 06/10/23 06:53 PM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Would add the option to romance them too, Female Half-Orc companion would be cool for Half-Orc players, I would just form an Orc raiding group.

During EA I enjoyed playing custom party to the point where I told myself that I would do one "proper" companion run and the do a couple playthroughs with custom party.
But I feel like companion quest rewards are quite good and there are so many possible permutations that full custom party doesn't feel as necessary anymore. I was planning to try one extra custom character only, but now that Hirelings are customizable I don't need it anymore.

I kinda understand Larian wants their npc companions to be used (LOADS of work into it, money, voice actors, motion capture etc.) so if anybody could just run a full custom from the start, that work wouldnt be rewarded really. But it could be like an unlockable, maybe after youve finished all companions story quests or after you completed act 3 at least 2 times or some such. It would make for replay-abillity + the work they did would be seen by new players regardless.

I would love a full custom party though, wouldnt even mind when they are not voiced or romancable etc. that would be another hefty Load of work for larian and they wouldnt get paied for it unless they lock it behind some DLC, which i think is not a good idea. But most of us i think can make up their own adventurer group anyway, so just 4 tavs without tricking the system would be enough alredy imo.

Oh and i did vote for "yes" too. Just for clarification XD

I agree with the notion that a 100% custom companion playthrough will have you miss out on a lot of story and content. But I do not at all see this as a consequence of adding an option for creating custom companions. I always like to play with a mix of custom and original characters, and I constantly switch around my party to fit the area I am exploring (bringing Shadowheart to the Gauntlet of Shar, but perhaps not to areas that have no "Shadowheart content", using Halsin in act II, but perhaps less in act III etc.). I like the best of both worlds, so that I complete all of the original characters personal quests, but also get to create all of my personal awesome characters and fool around with all the different classes, skills, races etc. This, to me, is a much more "complete" playthrough, than just picking 3 original characters. But each to his/her/their own. And that is my wish for the future of this game; that everyone can play the game exactly like they want and even, if they so chose, opt out of the original characters all together and still be able to have an awesome and fulfilling playthrough. This is not offered by the game right now, and that to me is a huge drawback.

And thank you for making this poll Temohjyn.

Edit: Just a funny observation that keeps bugging me. Remember the last Panel from Hell, where the Dragonborn race was introduced? Larian was so proud of this race. And with good reason. It looked AMAZING. Everyone wanted to create a cool dragonborn, and one of the hirelings was supposed to be a dragonborn. But then the game launched and actually most players would rather have their main character be a half-elf or drow and also there was no longer a dragonborn hireling. Wtf? What happend to all the hype? There is no way you can get a dragonborn in your party right now, if you don't "sacrifice" your main character to this race. For me personally, one of the first custom companions I would create would be a dragonborn for sure, but I don't want a dragonborn main character, for RPG reasons. I'm sure a lot of other players feel the same way. It seems so crazy that all the work that went in to the character creation for the dragonborn seems wasted for most players the way the game is set right now. With a custom companion option, that would no longer be the case. In this way, it just seems to me that Larian is not letting us enjoy the game they created for us to it's full extent. And I just don't understand why.

Yep - I think that this is something that gives a lot more choice to the game to increase replayability.


Not all my games would use it, but it would be really nice to have the option to do so.

In a heartbeat.

I know that having a full custom party would mean I miss out on content, I played through DOS2 multiplayer with no origins, but I also am annoyed that the origins take up so much narrative room, both in DOS2 and BG3. It makes me feel like the picking the option to have my own character is the worst option, like I'm not actually supposed to do that.

I wanted to do a custom party my first play-through since the beginning of EA testing things out. I was so disappointed they did not integrate this into the final release. My other big disappointment was not having roll for stats like they originally promised.

Those two are definitely in my top five of biggest desires for this game, topped only by a desire for a fully rendered D&D RAW toggle mode for those of us that want to play the game according to the rules we're already familiar with (of course such a feature would allow rolled stats, so that kills both birds with the same proverbial stone). I also completely agree with CrazyElf that having the ability to create a fully customized party would greatly increase my desire to replay the game. Of course, replay-ability is probably not on the top tier of Larian's worklist at the moment. As the game just came out, I'm sure they are still frantically working on just plain old playability. Perhaps at some point in the future when just about all of the bugs have been squashed on all platforms, adding a custom party option and 5e RAW toggle button will be added to the list of things to do. I'd love to get a lot more responses to the poll here. These forums regularly have hundreds of regular viewers, so I'd like to at least target fifty responses to get a good cross section of users.

Okay, but doesn't that mean, if you had the availability to do that without the multiplayer workaround, you would? I feel like that's actually a yes... Too late to switch your vote now, though.

Yes absolutely.

I guess it could be nice, but the respec funtion for all party members does mean that we have control over their build, apart from their race/background. You want to run all Fighters? No problem, just respec your party. They can all be whatever class you want them to be, even when it goes against their lore. Gale says he isn’t trained as a Druid, but if I decide he is, then a Druid he'll be.

So I just don’t think it is a priority right now. I'd rather see a fair amount of balance changes before going here.

I like the idea of being able to respec the party member when you first encounter them.

This can already be done without mods. A Mod to expand party size does improve the experience just launch the game without the steam launcher from the execute file multiple times. Running the game without the companions takes away from various different story line pieces. You lose out on gear quests ect story arch ect without having 2 companions for most of the content even doing multiple play throughs a lot of encounters up to 3 characters might chime in.

Yes. Dear god yes.
I don't like any of the companions, for various reasons, and the way that hirelings are implemented is just weird to me.
The option to have fully custom hirelings, rather than needing to use a janky workaround that I feel might just get patched out, would be enough to motivate me to actually finish the game.

I totally support hirelings being fully customisable for those who want it and don’t really understand why they aren’t. I could see perhaps if they had rudimentary personalities, but from what I hear they’re just blank slates. But it’s not functionality I personally am ever likely to use rather than just adapting the existing companions, all of whom I enjoy and find that having along helps add stakes and interest to various elements of the story, so the answer to the question is a “No” from me.

If Larian added fully customizable hirelings (not the zombies they currently have), I would use that, but then I would no longer feel any need to customize the origin characters. Depending upon how I read the question presented for the poll, I am either an "other" or "yes," but I am absolutely looking forward to the day the hirelings as they are currently implemented are gone, we can add custom characters to the party, and I feel no need to customize the origin characters.

You don't loose out on anything if you switch around your party for the various quests. For anyone playing their first playthrough I would not recommend using a full party of customized companions, though. But for secound, third etc. playthrough, you will know who to bring for what, and will not miss a single thing. You will just have far more fun, because you can add much more of your own RP to the game, which personally to me, is what playing a cRPG is all about.