Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Calling all Roleplayers!

mmm perhaps i should be a little less evil next time?

say hello Virgil
this true pat bunnies pally has just offered safe rest to a pretty young bard tonight

This is Mae'zel. It's actually just Lae'zel respecced as monk, and I chose Mae'zel as her monastic name. She has sworn an oath that she will not cut her hair until Vlaakith is overthrown.






(using Tav's hairpack (nexus), AppearnceEditEnhanced (nexus), Darker Black Hair (mod.io) , Native camera tweaks (nexus), Beautiful Curvy Body (nexus) )

This is my tiefling sorceress/private investigator Olenna. Since I tie my characters somehow with their backstories to the story of the game, her story is, that she fell in love with a striking dwarven woman, who turned out to be Korrilla. WHen they got to know each otehr better, Korrilla came clean about her involvment with Raphael and her sister and they tried to free said sister. It went wrong and they had to flee. Raphael trecked them down and took Olenna prisoner, trying to enforce Korrillas loyality by making her promise to serve him again, if he kept Olenna alive.
He did make Olenna forget about everything that happened and put her in the way of the Absolute cult in the hopes to get her on the inside and get the crown for him. Things didn't went as planned of course and now she has no memory of the last months of her life and a devil on her heels, that looks kind of familiar but she doesn't know why. She also saw a glimpse of a woman, she thinks, she likes, but again, she can't place it.
I played her in an online BG3 rpg, where things were a bit different, but since other player characters were involved, I changed the story a bit. I have to hammer out something, why Raphael didn't just loop her into a contract to get him the crown before setting her loose, so my thought was, that she might have escaped through one of the portals in his portal room and landed in one of the cities, that were raided by the Nautiloid in the beginning and instantly snatched up - all before Raph could come up with a perfect contract for her to sign, so now he has to pursuit her the normal way in the game (and of course she will end up killing him and freing Hope anyway - poetic justice and all that). Korrilla is still bound to not make herself known to Olenna, so that can play out similar.

In our game, Olenna was also tied to the thieves guild, because she lost her mother to the Bhaal cult and was only saved by a man from the guild, who raised her and later told her about what happened when he found her, so she will have reason to hate the Bhaalists too (I mean, who in their right mind would not hate a murderhobo edgelord cult tbh).

Confused meeting in the House of Hope.





A bit more relaxed in camp

starting again

Erian was born an albino in a small Drow settlement in the Underdark. Taken as a young woman in a raid by duergar, she was sold to buyers that turned out to be from a secret enclave of Eilistraee. Her rescuers smuggled her to the surface where, in the course of time, she began training to become a paladin. It was there she met a visiting elf nobleman with bright eyes and sparkling smile. He pursued her relentlessly and, in time, she returned his affections. When her beloved insisted that they elope, she agreed. But when Erian arrived at the appointed place, he was not there. She learned he had ridden out the night before, accompanied by his two retainers, boasting about adding "underelf" to his conquests. Rage overtook Erian and, stealing a horse, she pursued. She caught up with them before dawn while they were asleep. She doesn't remember much of what happened next, only that when her fury left her she was standing over their bloodstained corpses. Devastated by her actions, Erian wandered the wilds alone, despairing of life. Until one moonless night, she heard a soothing voice from the shadows, promising her new purpose.

[This is the backstory for my Lolth-sworn, dual wielding, Oathbreaker Paladin. Updated from my first try in its own thread :)]

he clearly had it coming so 'Oathbreaker' may be a bit much... unless of course she also killed his horse?

At the time she was pledged to Eilistraee, who likely would think killing three people in their sleep was a bit much!

Here's my new character, Bernik Frozengrip. For many years he's been a successful merchant in Baldur's Gate, and lately he's been trying to climb the social ladder to get into the Upper City, which he believes is his right given his success and, frankly, his draconic bloodline. As he keeps being denied, the things he's willing to do to gain power and influence just keep extending. But one day he finds himself waking up on a mindflayer ship, and something's changed. Dark urges he didn't notice before have been creeping into his mind. At first he's experimenting with this newfound aspect of himself, and the latent sorcery abilities he previously had little use for, wondering how it might help his quest for power.

ok i admit i'm disappointed

I mean ... what did you expect? Act1, Dammon probably dead, given, that Minthara is there, so no second upgrade either.

I have too many characters to share, at least at once, so I'll share one of my favorite OCs at the moment c:

Meet Bragos, a seldarine drow druid of the land circle. He always dreamed of leaving the underdark but his parents wouldn't allow it. It wasn't until a group of adventurers arrived that he was able to sneak out with them and, once he got a look at mother nature, he was hooked. He learned how to be a druid from Halsin, whom he met one night in the forest. He vowed to protect nature and animals no matter the cost and he refuses to return to his old life.

While he is soft-spoken and considered a more silent type, he isn't afraid of speaking up when it calls for it, especially when he sees nature, animals, or his friends being hurt/taken advantage of. For the most part, he has accepted the cruelty he receives being a drow but, sometimes, he wishes he had been born anything else. Except maybe a duergar.

Here is the reason, I'm team Gur. She is a pnp character, I made, a half elf/half Gur lady, who grew up among the Gur. She is a rogue/divination wizard and came to Waterdeep, after a friend from her clan has gone missing there. She was trying to find out, what happened to her clansmate, when she got snatched by the Nautiloid.

She has nothing to do with Gandrels Gur clan, but feels of course connected to him and his clan.

Sometimes I'm just making a new char and something clicks. And so I'll launch a campaign and see if something grows from it.

Here I was making a Drow monk, but all of a sudden she looked very nerdy. I liked that look, but how would a Lolth-sworn Drow survive as a nerd and even brecome a monk ? Does Lolth even tolerate monks ? She's most likely too chaotic for monastic orders to exist in her name. Let's see if something can be stitched together.



This Drow, named Eklavdra, came from a lesser house of Lolth-sworn Drow. Her INT is below average (8) and she's not overly strong or charismatic either. (STR:12, CHA:10) Moreover she seemed to be more interested in acquiring useless knowledge, (which she couldn't put to use for lack of INT) than advancing in rank or influence among her siblings. The family decided she was weak and worthless and disposed of her by throwing the young child down the chasm of the Clawrift.

The family was out of favor with Lolth however. The Queen of the Demon pits saved the child from certain death and ported her to a friendly cloister of Loviathar. The monks were to train her in lethal combat and send her back to Menzoberanzan where she was to kill her family bare-handed. Lolth was very amused by the idea to have this Drow clan massacred by one of their own whom they considered a weakling.

But only a few years later already, Lolth had lost interest in her plan. She forgot about the child. The Loviathar monks continued Eklavdra's basic training, and when she had completed and entered the first level of the order, they sent her back to the Clawrift to fend for herself.

After a short time in this place, she was spotted by a patrol of Illithid, "harvesting" combative Drow to join the ranks of the Absolute. She was quickly overpowered and transported to a Nautiloid to receive the tadpole. ("Our" Nautiloid)

She is still sworn to Lolth, but her faith is weak and ready to break. She has acquired some affinity for Loviathar also, but never felt in her right place among the other monks, and she's susceptible to drop her faith if something comes along that inspires her.

She will look out for herself principally. Getting rid of the tadpole and getting some sort of painful revenge on those who did this to her is high on the priority list. Not letting herself be used by others anymore, ever, comes just below.

As the game progresses she is very likely to use tadpole powers ,although she'll always mistrust the dream wisitor, and the Emperor even more, and will very likely aspire to become Absolute herself.

Shadowheart, Lae'zel or Astarion are possible romance candidates. Karlach, Gale or Wyll absoolutely not.

I want to respec a companion to monk.
I love the open hand monks, but my Tav is a bard right now.
I already did a run where I turned Lae'zel to monk and Karlach to fighter. It wasn't bad, Githyanki do have monks, but still it didn't feel right. Lae'zel should be a fighter.
Karlach could be an MMA fighter which is consistent with the barehand fights of the open hand monk. But, the [monk] dialogues invoking serenity, stilness and harmony are not quite compatible.
If I could find an example of a loud, undisciplined monk in fiction or history, that might help. Does anyone have a lead ?

I don't have a really good example from a fairly small selection of fiction I know about this type of monks, but I did think of either the chaos that Lu Tze (Discworld) causes while remaining mentally totally serene; or the frustration he seems to cause in all the other monks who have to deal with him. And in my current Pathfinder game, we have a player who plays a goblin who learnt to copy the actions of monks by watching them train, but doesn't know anything about the religion or mental side of it: he knows how to punch people, but he doesn't understand the theological basis of punching people.

Really, this is just playing against type. I played a bard who was shy and socially awkward. Mechanically it works fine, but I didn't use many of the [BARD] speech options that were really suave or involved gratuitously coming on to people, but I did use [BARD] speech options about writing songs and learning about the world.

Maybe just work on your own character idea as you play. I did it by seeing what seemed to fit the character over the first few levels as the personality came together. There were some things I did while establishing Myrna's character that, if I'd planned the character in one go, probably wouldn't have happened. But by justifying it afterwards, I had a more interesting character. For example, after generally being diplomatic, I thought it would be funny to threaten to rip Mol's tail off for stealing the party's stuff. Now I had established that she had a tendency to snap at people who pissed her off, which I kept through the rest of the game

Thanks for the feedback. For now I got a monk hireling. (I'm using the custom hireling mod, and no party limit mod. ) But this made my party too big. I think 4 is too small for a DND game (with so many classes and races ). 5 or 6 is ideal, but now I have 7. Tav(bard), Wyll, Shart, Lae'zel, Astarion, the monk hireling, and Karlach whom I picked up lately and want to keep. 7 is too much because I just blasted Ethel in her teahouse before she could get away to her hideout. (Although, this gave me the best Mayrina ending yet. When I freed her, she wans't angry at me, like in my other PT's)
Anyway, I have to ditch someone while keeping a monk. Wyll is the one I have least connection with. But then I won't have any magic user anymore with some decent AOE spells and counterspell. Ha, even with a bigger party, choices remain difficult. Maybe that's why I can't say goodbye to the game after 2000+ hrs of gametime.

I know some people prefer larger parties in BG3, I have to disagree about 4 being too small for a D&D game I've played at a table of 7 and there's a lot of waiting in combat and not much roleplay! I've heard older editions used to be designed for bigger groups, but 4 is considered standard in 5e. I think this is why BG2 had a party limit of 6, and BG3 has a limit of 4.

Although you don't have the same attack AOE spells with that party assuming you haven't changed origin classes (although Spirit Guardians <3), maybe a better approach would be to use battlefield control spells, which bards are good at, to let all your martial characters beat people up more easily. If your bard is a lore bard you could always take Counterspell as a magical secret at level 6. Level 10 for other bards is a bit late.

My gnome artificer Lavi. She is a ttrpg character of mine, I played in different variations (last in Guild Wars 2 as an Asura engineer). I posted an earlier version of her here, but had to restart the playthrough because of a bug, so I triedto make her look more as I envisioned her before.
Her story for BG3 is, that she came from a small village to BG to learn artificing with her aunt. But before she made the journey, a letter reached her from someone named Toobin, that her aunt died in an accident, but that he would be happy to teach her , since her aunt praised her highly. So she went on her way, heartbroken and not at all sure, that she does the right thing. On the road, she met a certain Loviatan, who sensed, that something was off with her and decided to stay and help. They became friends despite Lavi not having any interest in Loviatar, despite Abdiraks best efforts. When they cleard up their religious differneces, they decided to travel together to Baldurs Gate, where Abdirak said, he had business and Lavi has to meet her new teacher. Toobin turned out to be a really decent person and from what he said, he seemed not to be convinced, the death of Lavis aunt was entirely an accident, but didn't know more.
After a while, Toobin and other more experienced artificers fron the House of Wonder were empoyed by one Enver Gortash to help him with some automatons, he called steelwatchers. It seems that he first looked for help and then asked them to work for him. Lavi sometimes visited the factory in teh beginning, but was never allowed to do more than simple tasks, sicne she hadn't clearance for mor. Then she noticed, that fellow artificers had gone missing, then their families and then Toobin. She managed to sneak into the factory and saw her fellow colleagues in collars and forced to work by some mean looking people in strange armor. She couldn't save them, because there were too many of those strange people around and some of teh automatons, but she managed to sneak into an office and steal some plans. On her way out, she was nearly caught and someone spoke to her through an automaton and asked her to give up. SHe managed to slip away, but became a fugitive. Her friend Abdirak helped her stay hidden, but they had no way to get the plans to anyone, who could help them. Her otehr friend Barcus was gone too and she didn't know, where he went, only that 'a friend needs my help and thus I must go immediatly', so apart from a Loviatan, who is normally mistrusted, she had no allies. ANd one evening, they found her while Abdirak was out doing his thing or getting food or both and the next time she woke up, was on the Nautiloid. Her memory has been tapered with, so she is a bit fuzzy about what exactly happend.
But she knows, she has to go back.
She will of course free Barcus and meet up with Abdirak again. For the headcanon of this run, he was trying to infiltrate the cult in search of his friend. )again trying to find a backstory that fits in with the setting, I can even recruit npcs with a mod)

I believe the party size in BG3 is capped at four characters mostly because that's just how Larian makes RPG:s. BG3 is at its core a Divinity game set in Forgotten Realms using heavily homebrewed 5E DnD. Also, having tried unlocking the character limit with mods I know for a fact that the turn-based combat can become frustratingly slow with six characters. On the other hand with six characters you can worry less about minmaxing to build perfect killing machines and just go with your fun and quirky RP characters, there's more room for failing a few rolls without everyone dying horribly in a few moments. So I'd say the classic 6-character party size lends itself better to roleplaying. (Also helps if you, like me, feel physical pain leaving some of the companions in camp...)