Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What kind of companions would you like to see?

I want at least one other companion who is genuinely exotic. Right now we have one and a half elves, two and a half humans, and a Githyanki. The Githyanki is exotic to Faerun but she's in the stark minority and very hard to keep happy if you're not doing an evil run.

Something like a Lizardfolk, Kenku, dragonborn, or Tabaxi. I'd even settle for a Goliath. Just something that is immediately visibly distinct from the norm that comes with some interesting cultural differences and behaviors without being callously evil.

I really don't want to be rolling with an all elf/human party if I can help it. In fact if I could make a party of all monstrous looking races that'd be fantastic.

Also a bit of a pipe dream of mine: Put in a side quest where druids can feasibly awaken a powerful beast and turn it into a party member. Either the PC druid or a companion druid it does not matter.

It could function like the war dog you could get in Dragonage: Origins but you can actually speak with it with Speak with Animal.

It'd be a ton of fun to have an intelligent dire wolf or a giant ape in your party due to using a powerful but niche class spell.

Ideal party: A Lizardfolk PC, a Thri'Kreen, a Tabaxi, and a bugbear. Any time you talk to NPCs you need to wait for them to be done screaming before you can access normal dialogue.

It'd be glorious.

Krogans are awesome. can we have a krogan?

She was interesting to get to know. Once.

This was my reaction to GM as well, and also Durance. Were interesting once, but after that they both got benched. I've never been a fan of Avellone's writing. It's just way over the top, and all his characters are just melodramatic drama queens. They very quickly become tiresome to me.

Take notes, Larian! An all-monstrous party would be amazing. I love "weird" characters. (About to play Torment, can't wait.) I like elves, so I have no problem with those, but I'd rather have something less of a "bog-standard fantasy race".

I can barely remember the companions from Kingmaker. I think there was a gnome I liked.

If bog-standard doesn't interest you then it's possible the Forgotten Realms isn't for you....it's the bog-standard built-in world of D&D, things are only supposed to get interesting when you change it for your campaign :p

It's not that I dislike the bog-standard races per se, just that I'd like something else in there as well. And FR isn't that bad in this regard, you have a truckload of "weirder" races, as I listed earlier. Most of these were FR-friendly. Among the "common" ones are dragonborn, drow(?) and tieflings, then we have firbolgs, genasi, gith, tabaxi... just to name a few "exotic" (not "monstrous") ones.

I have more of a problem (though "problem" is a bit of an overstatement) with games/settings where all there is are humans, elves, dwarves and maybe halflings. Especially for PCs. Those are all just humans with different proportions.

Current political mores have certainly tried to make all the races into humans but I think that the Tolkien races can be made to be as common or exotic as you like.

Ever since 3e I've found that the number of races ginned and made playable to be more problematic than anything, Tieflings are a good example, it used to be a template you'd add to an existing race, but I think for external reasons their popularity took over and now they're their own race. Now repeat that process a dozen of times for every interesting looking monster-race and exceptional extraplanar idea and I feel like it begins to unsettle the narrative, a lot like how comics books progressed from stories about fighting crime to stories about collapsing multi-verses into themselves to stop existence from ending....

Current political mores have certainly tried to make all the races into humans but I think that the Tolkien races can be made to be as common or exotic as you like.

Ever since 3e I've found that the number of races ginned and made playable to be more problematic than anything, Tieflings are a good example, it used to be a template you'd add to an existing race, but I think for external reasons their popularity took over and now they're their own race. Now repeat that process a dozen of times for every interesting looking monster-race and exceptional extraplanar idea and I feel like it begins to unsettle the narrative, a lot like how comics books progressed from stories about fighting crime to stories about collapsing multi-verses into themselves to stop existence from ending....

It isn't a "political more" that people want to play something exotic or unique. Monster races being playable is a time honored tradition in DnD going all the way back to 2nd edition (1st if you count half-orcs who fill the same niche) because, surprisingly, different people have different tastes and preferences. Not everyone wants to be a human, pointy eared human, short human, shorter human, or even shorter human. Lots of people also love the look and lore of a beefy orcish warrior or a cunning and vicious lizardfolk.

The Forgotten Realms is, above all else, a setting designed to accommodate as many character ideas and stories as it can possibly contain. Always has been. But as times evolve and more people come to the table and ask "Hey, can I play this?" the setting itself also evolves so that it can reply "Yes" because that is the nature of DnD and Forgotten Realms. To be accommodating to the wants and needs of as wide a range of players as possible so that everyone at the table is having fun.

And, of course, to get people to buy the books and make Wizards money.

I was talking about the point you yourself made about how with every edition the near human races seem to become less and less distinct, both narratively and machanically.

I don't begrudge people wanting to play more diffuse races, my criticism there was more about how the world can lose something when the remote is made commonplace, and how it can be detrimental to the scope of your stories.