Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Character creation and stats

A lot of care has been brought to the character's appearance, but I noticed two steps that were missing from the character creation, which IMHO are much more important than looks (it doesn't seem possible to see the character up close once the game has started anyway, apparently) :

• equipment, there is no way to edit the equipment, which is a bit sad since the default doesn't necessarily fit the chosen abilities (for ex if one chooses DEX over STR and ends up with a sword instead of a shortbow).
• alignment. I've seen comments according to which it was not always desired, but I see no reference. Alignments are integral part of the roleplaying, and very useful to guide the choices in dialogs and actions.

During creation, there is a panel on who the character would be attracted to (I suppose that's for romance). The navigation is not clear, the user accesses it with the right arrow, but this panel is separate from the others (which is not logical), and there is no consistent way to get back to the other creation steps (no more left/right arrow). The user has to understand they can go back by closing the panel, but it's not intuitive. I thought that the cross to close the panel would cancel the whole creation process, at first.

A way to edit the character after creation would be welcome. It would also help test the process.

(This last one goes beyond character creation, but is linked to it) The stats related to the character and their impact on attack, saving throws, and so on, is not directly visible on the character panel. I know that any user could theoretically calculate them, but it would be nice to see those stats, and see how they are calculated when hovering on them, for example. There are not many D&D 5th edition CRPGs, and that would really help the user understand the impact of the abilities, gear and character conditions on those values.

I agree with everything except alignment. Alignment is something that 5e has distanced itself from except in rare circumstances. I think the idea is to get away from "I would do this because I'm lawful good" and instead "I would do this because my character believes xyz." It's a subtle difference, but character motivation is more important than the box the alignment system puts you in. Just my opinion of course.

Equipment customization is pretty important at character creation though. Larian should do 1 of 2 things.
1. Allow us to customize starting equipment as in traditional 5e rules.
2. Start with no equipment and find scattered weapons and armor in the first room of the mind flayer ship. BG2 did something similar. You were a prisoner that broke free and found a room with various weapon and armor that you could dawn to your liking.

Agree with all the above, Alignment is one of those things, its nice to have there, they did almost get rid of it with D&D 5e anyway though, and also considered it being an optional rule too.

Tbh, I think Pathfinder Kingmaker does the best job of alignment - your actions can cause it to change over time.

It does have a place though when you have stuff like protection from good and evil.

I disagree on alignment. Let it die.

It's definitely the change for D&D5e I'm least upset to see lol.

I wasn't aware the alignment was an issue, it's still present in the Player's Handbook and plays a role in races and spells, maybe I missed something. In any case, it's not a very important feature to me so I don't want to make a fuss of it (or to revive a debate).

I'm all for solution 2 or any way to integrate that in a story, at the beginning or very early in the campaign. It's the perfect excuse to make that more realistic. Some games even put the character creation in that form (Morrowind, PoE 2 for instance), perhaps it's pushing it a bit too far, especially if the user customizes the looks. But for the initial equipment it would be great.


Yes, they did well for that, and many other features! Sometimes I found myself looking for the desired alignment in the dialog options, though, or reluctant to select an option that I would otherwise have found appropriate, just because it didn't match the character's alignment. Perhaps I'm a bad roleplayer Or more likely, it's natural to go outside those boundaries now and then.

choices for equipment and bringing back alignment (like it is in Pathfinder: Kingmaker) i totally agree with