Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion What races are planned for Divinity and party size? Expecting more or less?

I'm curious what races will be in Divinity and how they will fit into the new Divinity. Larian have not demonstrated yet info on this so I realize it's just guesses.

I'd love to see some of the common fantasy types not really fleshed out (at least in OS 2) . I'd love to see the introduction of gnome and halfling to their Human, Dwarf, Elf, Lizard) as well as 1/2 varients of all plus orcs.
Though I love the open skills-based abilities and imagine they will keep that going, there could be some benefits to each race as well.

1. Stealth (Gnome and Halfling)
2. Speed (elves)
3. Strength (Orcs/Lizards)
4. Persuasion (humans, elves)
etc.
etc.

They may get some starting benefits, but skills can be trained by any race. This may be unpopular by some who think all races should be mirror images of each other, but I think it adds interesting capabilities that will encourage people to try multiple types in their parties. Otherwise, if there is no difference why have different races at all (other than origin stories which of course is a good reason if only relying on that).

Party Size
Please at least have 5 characters instead of 4. It will allow you to have a custom character + enjoy the banter and origin stories of 4 characters in your party.
Also allows you to have one different character that brings unique but less used skills because if you only have 4 most people will simply train up Tank, Ranged, Magic, Rogue. We might with 5 have some wiggle room to have non standard builds that add flavor.

Well... Going from Divinity lore:

The 7 Gods who made mortal races in their image provide the following:

- Eternals (The race of the Gods)
- Humans (Created by Rhalic)
- Dwarves (Created by Duna)
- Elves (Created by Tir-Cendelius)
- Lizards (Created by Zori-Stissa)
- Orcs (Created by Vrogir)
- Imps (Created by Xantezza)
- Wizards (Worshippers of Amadia)

Though, technically "Wizard" isn't a race, they are a group made up of other races that have magical powers as Amadia didn't want to create her own race.

Outside of these races, there is note of others within existing games:

- Dragons (And Dragon-Elves)
- Goblins
- Trolls
- Halflings
- Ranaar (Weird blue aliens from another planet)

So far, we see most of the main races represented in DOS2 and the current trailer (Which depicts Orcs). With only Imps not being very prominent given the discrimination against them and their ties to Demons.

Dragons, Trolls and Ranaar are unlikely to be playable races for obvious reasons. Dragons are ridiculously OP and also pretty sizable. Trolls are massive too (And ridiculously stupid). Ranaar don't make sense in most Rivellon based stories.

Goblins and Halflings could be a thing. Though Goblins tend to be used as low level enemy fodder more so than a proper race to be accepted by main factions (And while yes, they did let you play as an Eternal in DOS2 it was under the context of you supposed to use the Faceripper or a hood to hide your face so as to not be attacked). Halflings would require a lot of work to write into the lore, they've been mentioned to exist but there has been otherwise no information about them and having them suddenly pop up and no-one batting an eye would be jarring.

Dragon-elves could maybe be a thing too. Though again it would be reliant on writing them into the lore sufficiently to make sense.


Ugh... Please no.

At this point I'm tired of half-races. Especially when it's always "Half-human" and often meaning we get some crappy humanized version of a race instead of the actual unique race with their unique culture and physiology.

It also doesn't make much sense biologically. Literally, these races are created from compltely unique origins. There's absolutely 0 reason why cross-breeding would exist.


Appearances?
Dialogue options?
NPC interactions?

There's a lot more to racial diversity than shoehorning in statistical differences that only really serve to limit creativity by pushing certain builds onto certain races.

So say nothing about having fixed statistical differences makes a mockery of the very nature of individuality. Literally in real life, humans aren't just one single statistical group. You get some people who are smarter, some people who are more charismatic, some people who are stronger etc.

The very nature of diversity means that you will get variations. Which would preclude all races having equal stats, then you as a player decide how to distribute things based on your specific character. Meaning you're not stuck because you wanted to make an Elf who was naturally hardier than most other elves but less agile because some random designer decided that literally no elf can ever be anything but frail and agile...


With that logic, why not a party of 6 so you can have 5 origin stories? Why not 100 so you can have 99 origin stories?

Personally, I'd err towards a lower limit. Like 3-4. As it opens up more balance oportunities for more options. Whereby going solo is more feasible or only taking 1 companion.

The higher the upper limit, the more the game balance revolves around having this large party and the less of an option it is to go with just 1-2 companions you really like - At least, without game warpingly OP perks like DOS2's Lone Wolf.

Also, a lower limit means more replayability. Since instead of just taking all however many Origin companions along with you all the time, you instead are limited so you have to play through multiple runs to see all their stories play out.

I'm generally not a big fan of the whole Pokemon-esk "Gotta Catch 'em All" approach to companions, where you just bring everyone along all the time, so that everyone has their impact watered down because they're only a fraction of the party.

I'd much rather have fewer party members, but each person has more impact on the game and story. More unique interactions with NPC's, more scenes where they take the spotlight, more specific inter-personal relations (Not just a few lines of banter here and there, but actual interactions like scenes where companions interact with each other, changes in how companions interact over time, effects of decisions they make in how other companions see them etc.)


I mean... That depends a whole lot on how the mechanics will play out.

DOS2 had a more freeform approach to roles. Mostly due to the shallowness of individual skill lines... Like even if you went "Tank" or "Ranged" or "Rogue" you'd max out your Warfare/Huntsman/Scoundrel lines pretty quickly and would end up picking up some magic skills for support (As well as access some split skill abilities)

To say nothing about how in BG3 the concept of "Roles" is largely irrelevant. Any party can function just fine. You don't need a "Tank" or a "Ranged" or a "Magic" or a "Rogue" and you'll rarely ever even notice if you lack any of them (Really the only thing I can recall off the top of my head is the Avatar of Myrkul fight, where having a tank to sit on the platform and get attacked by the bosses melee attacks can be preferable to him spamming his ranged AoE skills)

If combat isn't designed around having a specific set-up then there's no pressure on players to build for it outside them WANTING to do that.

There are halflings in Divinity lore? I hope, we can play as one. And wouldn't it be a great opportunity to give us the promised, but scratched from BG3 halfling companion, Larian?

The playable races should depend on the story. Some races may not make sense then. I don't know how an Imp would fit into it for example. If the trailer has a meaning and the uncommon concord of the races shown (Orcs were only enemies in earlier Divinity titles) does play a role in the story, all these races should be playable. Personally I need one playable race, Humans (although in DOS 2 I played as an Elf), but others might have much higher expectations.

It may be an unpopular sight, but I prefer a group of 4. It is more difficult to balance combat with bigger groups and it is for me, as single-player-only player, of course easier to learn and play 4 classes/roles than 5 or 6. In BG 3 I was not able despite several trials to get a satisfying gameplay with more than 4 chars in the party. It always felt too difficult or (mostly) too easy. In the end I played with 4 with the difficulty mods installed to justify 5 party members.

Theoretically, there's always the potential to use Origins as a way to enable some different races.

It would take a lot of work, basically making a new storyline for each race (At least initially, there might be a converging mid-point where all storylines merge).

But you could technically, create Origin characters that are customizable, but locked to a specific race. Thus they can enter the story in a way that makes sense. Having like a unique Prologue and Act 1 that sets them up.

Not too unlike Dragon Age: Origins prologues, which were unique based on race (Dwarves had their own pair of prologues) and class (Mages had their own prologue)

The more work put into such Origins and thus how much they diverge from the Blank Slate start will determine how unique the race will feel in the story.

Of course, the caveat is that you might upset Blank Slate enjoyers that want to play a certain race and headcanon something completely antithetical to the actual story, universe and overall lore...

But honestly, having a unique Origin story for many (If not all) races would be ideal, in order to provide more depth to characters. But I'm apparently strange in my like of characters that have ties to the world given Larian's constant use of the Blankest of Blank Slates for their games (With even their "Origin" characters going through the most generic possible starts because they all need to end up in your party 0.2 femtoseconds after the game begins)

The party size will undoubtedly stick with 4 characters.
Not because it's better. It's not.
Not because it's more interesting or compelling gameplay. It does the exact opposite.

Exclusively for the same reason they did it before, while refusing to admit it: because it's easier to map on a controller and Larian couldn't move out of their comfort zone to save their lives.

P.S. I can promise you it will use the "toilet chain" too.

I really hope at least for multiplayer they give us easy way to have more than 4 characters. I usually play solo, but when i do play with friends it can easily exceed 4 character limit so some of us can't play with others. Making party cap soft cap instead of hard cap would be fantastic, i think if you could toggle it as option with disclaimer that it may mess with balance and cause unexpected issues it would be fine. Even less polished experience with some issues here and there but with everyone being able to participate is more enjoyable than splitting the group or some of us not playing.

I would also prefer a party of four, and not a party of four supplemented by a gaggle of bench warmers back at camp, but four only. I'd rather get to know a smaller group of characters better and not to be fussed because there aren't enough "good" necklaces (or whatever) to go around.

IF they would do that, then no lizards please.
The Red Prince was probably one of the reasons I gave up on DOS2 fairly rapidly.
Nor wpuld I want a Jarjar Binks or anything similar forced into the party.

I didn't mean that there should only be four choices of companion, just that you would need to settle on four at some point. I thought it a bit unnecessary actually to kill off the others as in DOS 2, but I would prefer that at some point your choice would be final. Perhaps the available heroes would need to be divided into two groups to address different problems ... Members of the other group could even show up as non-companion NPCs later in the game. Anyway, I don't see the existence of a lizard companion (whom you might or might not want to include in your party) as depending on how many members a party normally has.

I'd advocate for the complete failure of that game.
I can hardly even conceive a WORSE idea that stucking a 100-hours long story-driven campaign to such a minuscle number of characters.
DOS 2 did it and it was entirely to its detriment.

Every time I play an Owlcat game (which to be fair come with their own separate set of issues, design wise) I'm reminded of all the areas where Larian titles fall short.

Having a group of four and the rest of the companions sitting around in camp felt a bit weird in BG 3. Especially if the companion stories were closely related to main story events. I always felt a bit uncomfortable to not have certain companions with me at certain stages, although I actually did not want to have them in my group. Lae'zel, Karlach or Wyll for example.

I hope for a bit less condensed and hasted story in Divinity, so that companion stories could be a kind of side story, without you feeling that you absolutely waste time to do this and that instead of pushing the main task. The companions not in the group then could be imagined to do their things, and the whole bunch meets in camp to share experiences. Maybe one or two further companions could accompany the party for some of the tasks of the personal story, without being playable. That's also easier to balance.

I am hoping for anywhere between four and six party members active on the field, with additional characters tagging along and setting up camp who can be swapped in and out as needed.

As far as actual characters are concerned, I hope for a healthy balance between the conventional, traditional options and the more unusual. The most popular combination for gamers in almost every fantasy game is a male human with a sword. To some that may be boring, though to others it is a key element to enjoyment.

I don't care for the male human with a sword ( though I liked Wyll), I think, it's time to break some traditions honestly.

I want a dwarf companion, a halfling ( that we were robbed of in BG3 - I will never shut up about Helia) and a lizard - all with interesting backstories and not with romances in mind. I feel the need to repeat myself from the other thread, but I didn't do that when BG3 was in development and let the horny fancrowds have their saying and it resulted in dumbed down character development, a horny druid companion with no quest but a pretty graphic romance scene and a half finished drow companion.
This is no hate for Halsin and Minthara, but they could have done with a bit more character development honestly.

Oh and of course I don't want to loose my none active party. I love switching out and coming back to camp to have some interesting conversations. And I know, we won't get it, but I would love a party limit of six.

Party size will be four total. I think Swen confirmed it (well... maybe just mentioned it) either in his last video interview or AMA reddit thingy.

Regardless, of course... things can change if we ask for it enough?

Personally, I have no dog in this fight though... no preference either way.

Oh no.

I will probably play as human female, and a human male with a sword (and some brain) as companion would be very welcomed, as well as some human and elven females. They could also wield a sword btw. Judging from Larian experience, they will also all be broken enough to be not that boring.


So don't defy tradition. Just add enough of the uglier race options as companions, to grant diversity and especially more race-based lore.

I prefer the party of 4 also out of laziness. It's a turn-based game, so you don't play your char but all chars of the party. You don't even have the chance to turn difficulty down and let the AI do the companions. 4 is interesting and manageable enough, for my taste.

Play, what you want, no one is stopping you and I never said, people can't play, what they want, but yes, it is time to break traditions with companions and BG3 did at least something right with giving us a female gith warrior instead of the traditional male human fighter or paladin. Lae'zel did give us insight into a culture, that isn't as well known and done to death like the more common DnD cultures and races, she also is one of the best written companions with a great character development, personal story and ties to the main story.
In this case, making the warrior in your group something else than the cliche human fighter payed off.
I'm not generally against that trope: Alistair in DAO worked well and because of the depicted society, he had to be male and human for his backstory to make sense. The same is not true in the world of Faerun, which is much less patriarchal and human centered.
I don't know enough about Divinity yet, but I like to shake things up. Alistair worked in his setting, Lae'zel worked in her setting and maybe, Divinity finds it's own spin on an original warrior character.

I don't like the same tropes repeated to death. I feel that a lot of companies are stuck repeating the same tropes over and over again. This is an RPG, so I hope, that they come up with some more unique characters and stories.



I won't address your comment about uglier races, since that is just unnecessarily rude.

Having companions acting as bench warmers at camp is always very awkward (Even more so when they have stupid telepathic capabilities that allow them to know exactly what you've experienced. BG3 using the Tadpoles to justify this doesn't make it any better)

Not just in BG3 but most party based games, be it DA:O, BG, Pathfinder, even Outer Worlds...

It's one of my gripes about how companions are handled and their lack of autonomy. They all have these important personal tasks and are roped in to following you to complete the major story task but are content to just sit on their hands and do nothing while you're out adventuring...

Though, I'm not a fan of extra large party sizes, so having every companion in the same party just doesn't work for me (It's one of the things I didn't like about Wartales, you were highly incentivised to have a party of at least 9 in order to be able to perform each crafting action). For reasons that include:

- Balance issues. Having large max parties pushes the balance to higher party sizes. Meaning that there is more restriction for those who wish to do smaller parties. For example, my first playthough of DOS2 I did with Lone Wolf and just me an Lohse, the only companion I initially liked. An option only facilitated due to the Lone Wolf feat even though the game was balanced around a party of 4, let alone higher.

- Gearing issues. Often it can be hard to properly gear up a party of 4 if even 2 characters share common gear. This is exacerbated the more members you have and thus the more overlap in gear you face (This was a major thing in Wartales, given the lack of diversity between characters).

- Lack of spotlight. Already with parties of 4 we don't see many characters getting a chance to be in the spotlight. Like, there's a few times in DOS2 where Sebille will take the initiative (I.e. Murder someone to death before you can talk to them) or where someone like Beast will pipe up. The more people in a party the less chances there are to implement such things because there would be more competing characters (For example, in DOS2 both Sebille and Ifan ben-Mezd want to talk to Roost).

- General combat design. Turn based combat is baseline a fairly time consuming thing given the nature of how slowly things progress when you make each action from each individual a singular turn. Larian already pushes things further with their love of high numbers of enemies. Adding more party members means further making things take EVEN longer as well as pushing for more enemy combatants to make up for the large party size. To say nothing about the awkwardness that comes with times you face 1 powerful foe and then you have to struggle to get all your melee characters in range to hit them (Even before you account for friendly fire)

Of course, this doesn't mean that the only solution is DOS2's "You only get 4 people and everyone else dies because reasons" stuff.

There could still be the potential to recruit a bunch of companions, allowing you to change up your active party (For example if you were tackling specific enemies where a change in party composition makes sense. I.e. Ditching your Fire Mages when going through the Cavern of Fire Elementals Who Heal When Hit By Fire Damage)

All that would need to happen is that non-active (As well as non-recruited) companions could still be doing stuff in the world. Pushing towards their own personal goals (Either their personal quests or their own quirks - Such as a scholar character exploring libraries and ruins). Meaning you can run across them while your party is adventuring. Also, this could then lead to conversations back at camp as you talk about what each other has been up to (And they could apply more pressure on you to help them with their personal quest instead of just standing around until you decide to do it)

If we get imps as a playable race or an imp companion I will squeal!

Ideally I will be able to build a party with a dwarf, lizard, imp and orc. A perfect happy little family.