Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Likelihood of Playable Goblins?

Made it to the goblin camp and saw how varied and fleshed out goblins are in this game. I think after the PHB races are added goblins are the next natural choice, in combat you can see them using one of their racial abilities in combat (Nimble escape) now that might not mean anything but they feel one of the most likely candidates for non-PHB races next to Deep Gnomes.

Very unlikely I'd say. Goblins just don't have what it takes to fit the main protagonist story or most classes your PC can choose.

Pathfinder embraced goblins as a player race but I was never very happy with that choice. Goblins in PF and D&D are the archetypical chaotic enemy horde threat, pathetic in isolation but dangerous in numbers. Having a single goblin adventurer as part of a non-goblinoid party seems very wrong. Even a full goblin party would be odd, as they would need to be a lot better organised and disciplined than their racial stereotype suggests.

While I am a fan of playable goblins in a 5e homebrew setting, in this game I'd think once you enter literally any city/village without a disguise you'd be attacked instantly.
Would it be cool to be able to make a goblin character? Sure. Would it fit in with the lore? Highly unlikely.

Goblins are looking pretty cool, but I agree with the people thus far.

I think it is more likely that somewhere along the line we'll get special, smaller campaigns, maybe even custom campaigns created by players, in which a party of goblins would make sense for an adventure. Either way, it's way too early to tell.

The likelihood is 0%, as confirmed by Swen at 25:50:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/763351879

100% it will be a mod within the first week though, so you'll get to play them if you want, just not with base game.

Pathfinder did more damage to the hobby than any other game. There's nothing wrong with a monster campaign, but monsters are monsters. Having a Githyanki in the party is bad enough. Tieflings being so common nobody bats an eye is bad enough. Drow being completely ignored is bad enough. Half-elves and half-orcs being completely uncontroversial is bad enough. Players have gotten so used to these types of creatures as characters that there's an assumption that the narrative setting of the game world shouldn't care either, and it's one of the biggest problems that exists in D&D to me. I don't have a problem with any of these creatures as a player race, as long as they can't stroll into a town without being lynched. They're fucking monsters.

This.

There was a time when people would have said all these things about a Drow PC. And now they're ubiquitous. I mean, what if the goblin character is the Drizzt of goblins?

Hard disagree, man. Gith are here for story reasons, and Drow have been put into games as player characters before. Not every member of x race is going to be a monster. And when you come from the groups they base the "monsters" on shit like this is more damaging than, I dunno man, maybe taking a more nuanced look into what makes a "monster"

Can't be. The Driz'zt of goblins died in a short story way back when. Really very sad; it was pointing out that drow or other 'exotic and or powerful' evil races could get away with having renegade good characters a lot more easily because people's first response would be more fear and caution, giving them a chance that weaker or common races don't have to prove their good intent.

I'm fairly old for gamer standards and I certainly don't remember one such time. A drow can function as an individual, can be adept at all classes offered without stretching the boundaries of racial aptidudes unlike goblins. I would be perfectly alright if a drow was required to hide his/her identity in towns - something that is already part of the DoS2 engine when you're undead.

I guess you never played Spelljammer, or Planescape, or Eberron, all of which predated Pathfinder and all of which (okay, maybe not Spelljammer) did a lot more towards helping players question just what made a monster a monster and how monstrous races should be treated. Pathfinder refined a few things, but I can guarantee you there were a lot of 'monster' characters running around 2nd and 3rd edition who didn't have to be worried about being lynched by 'civilized' races whenever they ventured into town. Even the basic Realms settings had places like Skullport buried beneath Waterdeep where monstrous races could mingle with the more standard surface races.

Dark Sun, too. How bout them Thri-Kreen?

Goblins are for purging! Pathfinder allow Goblins to be heroes because there is the context of then being able to absorb civility and culture from the major cities, even if they behave a little weird, they still will be able to follow laws (if they are not Chaotic X), don't do harm and such.
I admit that my Faerun knowledge is very outdated since 3.5 lore, did they add any new piece of lore content where the goblins where able to culturally merge with the major races to establish trade, treaties and so on?

Dark Sun went the opposite route. Instead of making it possible to accept other races as civilized, every race was made more barbaric. Thri-Kreen didn't stand out too much because when the halflings have a bigger reputation for eating sentients than the bugs...

I still want Dark Sun halflings as part of BG3. I don't care how they got there, I like them.

Bruh, Dark Sun halflings are awesome.

Well there was this campaign...