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: Now that the glossary is up, it’s time to start character creation. There’s an intro cutscene that plays before you get there, but I’ll do that after we create our character.
: First, we need to pick a difficulty. We’ll be playing on Balanced, but I figure I might as well explain what Tactician and Honor Mode do.
: Tactician gives enemies more HP, +2 to all dice rolls, and makes certain spells generally less effective. It also changes up the boss fights - bosses on Tactician have new abilities that kinda border on fanfiction.
: Honor Mode increases HP further, gives a larger bonus to enemy dice rolls, and gives the bosses yet another new ability. It also disables loading saves, forcing you to play the game with permadeath on.
: The game gives us an option to play as one of the six “origin characters”, who have pre-set backstories. All of the origin characters can be recruited as party members, and playing as them locks you out of some of their plot cutscenes.
: The origin characters also have an introduction cutscene, which I will play when we meet them in the game. The game assumes that you haven’t watched their introductions if you play as a custom character.
: The final option is The Dark Id Urge, which is a custom character designed for an evil playthrough. “Durge”, as it’s called, gets a couple of extra abilities and some extra plot at the cost of automatically doing a lot of evil shit unless you find a workaround.
: First up is picking a race. You can click below to see details on each of the possible race choices.
Elf
Summary
: Our first race is Elf, which are pretty decent in BG3: they have “advantage” (they roll twice and take the higher number) against charm effects, have inherent darkvision, and are immune to sleep. They also have a sub-racial ability that gives them 1.5 meters of extra movement speed and get Perception as a bonus skill.
Tiefling
Summary
: Next up is the Tiefling, which the writers for BG3 took a lot of liberties with. The game treats them as if they’re demons, but that’s not really true: they’re a mix of a demon and some other race.
: The kind of tieflings the game presents (who have unnatural skin colors, horns and tails) are usually considered kind of extreme: most tieflings in 3.5E had like, horns and that was it.
: Tieflings are resistant to fire, and that’s about all they are. This is a downgrade from 3.5E, where they got TWO +2 stat bonuses, could pick any racials they wanted, and were considered “native outsiders” and not “people”, meaning that spells like Charm Person and Hold Person do not work on them.
Drow
Summary
: Drow were an ACE (Always Chaotic Evil) race that were originally meant to be used as enemies only up until 5E. They live underground and worship a giant spider.
: Drow have largely the same racial abilities regular elves do, except that they’re proficient in different weapons (namely the hand crossbow, which are one of the most overpowered weapons in 5E) and have better darkvision than regular elves. They also get some extra spells.
: Playing a drow also gets you fantasy racism for free.
Human
Summary
: Humans have fallen a lot from where they were in 3.5E, where they were one of the best non-tiefling, non-aasimar races because they got +2 to any stat and an extra feat.
: In 5E, their racials are among the worst in the game: they get proficiency in a skill of their choice and 25% extra carrying capacity.
Githyanki
Summary
: Githyanki are psychic space frogs who are effectively fantasy klingons. What’s funny is that even though they’re designed to be martials, they’re actually better as casters and let me explain why.
: See, in 3.5E, arcane casters (wizards, sorcerers) had a percentage chance for their spells to fail if they were wearing armor, which increased the more armor you’re wearing. 5E changed that so that you can’t cast spells at all if you’re wearing armor you’re not proficient in, but have a 0% failure chance if you ARE proficient regardless of what you’re wearing.
: Gith get medium armor proficiency as a racial feature, along with the ability to pick a stat each day and become proficient in EVERY SKILL ASSOCIATED WITH THAT STAT until the day ends.
: This means that you can play a Gith wizard and roll out in medium armor with no penalties, something you normally couldn’t do as a caster without taking a level in Fighter, which is a VERY BAD IDEA because casters get spells based on their caster class level.
Dwarf
Summary
: Dwarves are kind of a bad race, because they get the worst of all worlds. Some of the downsides don’t exist in BG3, which makes them less bad but still bad.
: You see, 5E allows two sizes for your character based on your race: Medium or Small. Most races are medium, which means they move at 9 meters (30 feet) per round.
: Small races, on the other hand, move at 7.5 meters (25 feet) per round. In the tabletop game, small races also do less weapon damage (because they have to use small-size weapons) but get a bonus to armor class.
: Dwarves are medium-size, but they move as if they’re small - meaning they don’t get the armor class bonus. They do get medium armor proficiency, along with varying levels of darkvision (depending on sub-race) and a sub-racial that gives them an extra 1 HP per level. Oh, and they’re resistant to poison.
: Or, you know, you could play a Gith who gets largely the same bonuses (except the poison resistance) without any penalties. Dwarves also get no extra skills from race because they suck.
Half-Elf
Summary
: Half-elves are elves who have the human racial weapon proficiency set. They can get the extra movespeed sub-racial which makes them pretty okay if you need those weapon proficiencies.
Halfling
Summary
: Halflings have a very neat racial that allows them to re-roll the dice every time they roll a 1, which means they can never automatically fail a check because of a dice roll (1s are usually an automatic failure).
: They also have a sub-racial which gives them advantage (roll two dice, take the higher) on stealth checks. Unfortunately, the way stealth works in this game, you rarely actually need to make stealth checks unless you’re stealing from shops.
: The problem is that they’re small and don’t get any extra skills from their race, but there’s an NPC you can hire that has the stealth racial and can be turned into a rogue.
Gnome
Summary
: Gnomes suck. They’re halflings with worse racials. Their racial gives them advantage on certain saving throws (usually the ones associated with resisting spells) and they get darkvision.
Dragonborn
Summary
: Dragonborn are the default race for The Dark Urge, and are one of the worst races in the game. They get NO weapon or armor proficiencies and no bonus skills.
: Instead, they get resistance to one element based on what kind of dragon they are, and get a breath attack they can use once every “short rest”. These come in either a line or a cone and do okay damage, but that means you’re not attacking with your weapon or casting spells.
Half-Orc
Summary
: And finally, we have the Half-Orc. Full orcs aren’t an ACE race anymore, but for some reason we can’t play one without mods. They’re only really good for being a melee fighter.
: They get Intimidate as a free skill, darkvision, and get an extra damage die if they crit with a melee weapon. That last one would be interesting if you’re a rogue, but rogues are better with hand crossbows.
: Next up is picking a class. Let’s take a look at each one.
Barbarian
Summary
: Barbarian is.. not a great class. They’re melee fighters who are only ever proficient with medium armor. Now, here’s the problem with that: remember how I said casters can wear armor (so long as they have some source of proficiency) with no downsides? Barbarians can’t.
: Barbarians are locked in to medium armor even if they get heavy armor proficiency, because their core class feature, Rage, gets weaker in heavy armor no matter what.
: The one thing they do have is Rage, which they can activate for a set number of rounds per day. The problem is they have exactly one sub-class that makes Rage good (allowing them to get 3 attacks a round) but every time they make a third attack they get a -1 penalty to all attack rolls until their Rage ends. You know what else can attack three times a round? A fighter, who also doesn’t take a penalty to hit rolls and can wear heavy armor.
: Patch 8 gave them the “Giant” subclass that lets you throw people for damage, which is funny but probably not that good.
Bard
Summary
: Bards are really more of a “respec into one of these temporarily if you need one” class. They’re what the old whitebeards refer to as skill monkies: they are REALLY good at skill rolls but not at combat.
: In combat, they’re a hybrid martial-caster class, but they aren’t proficient with anything more than light armor. Their main role is to stand in the back and buff the party while casting spells.
: They are, in other words, corner horners from Monster Hunter.
Cleric
Summary
: Clerics are an incredibly versatile class. They can use heavy armor and are divine spellcasters, which means they know every cleric spell and can change out at will.
: They also get bonus spells based on their “domain”, which is based on which god they worship. In Pathfinder, Clerics were the first class to get the ability to send people to Hell.
: The best thing they get is Cure/Inflict, which are both heals and damage spells - Inflict Wounds in particular can do some pretty big damage if you do it right.
: Unfortunately, there’s not much point playing one, as you can recruit one immediately at the start of the game. Patch 8 added a sub-class based around mind control, which is what Salty’s character was going to use.
Druid
Summary
: Druids are Clerics but not as good. Instead of being a hybrid class, they can spec one of two ways: you either be a furry, turn into a bear and fuck shit up or you can be a little old granny who makes tea and summons BDSM vines.
: I actually played at Gencon once with this old lady who played a caster druid and had homemade cookies for everyone at the table. It ruled.
: Anyway, their problem is that in fuck shit up mode they’re not as good as a fighter (because animals can’t wield weapons) and in caster mode they’re not as versatile as a cleric or wizard. They’re not really a bad class, they’re just not an S-Tier.
Fighter
Summary
: Fighters are your bread and butter martial class. They can smash things, they can do archery, if it’s a physical attack they’re probably the best at it.
: In a normal game, the only reason not to play a fighter is that combat is the ONLY thing they’re good at. They’re not going to be investigating or handling social situations. In this game, the reason not to play one is that you recruit one right at the start of the game.
Monk
Summary
: Monks are traditionally one of the worst classes in D&D. They’re not proficient in any armor and revolve around unarmed strikes, which suck because you can’t enchant your hands (though many DMs will houserule this).
: They’re bad because they have to jump through a lot of hoops to do damage: all of their damage comes from unarmed strikes, which scale with Dexterity. 3.5E and onward introduced the concept of “monk weapons” (usually staves) that allow you to wield a weapon that can be enchanted and still allows you to perform unarmed strikes.
: The problem is that most monk weapons aren’t very good. 5E expanded the selection by letting you use any weapon you’re proficient with (such as through race choice) that isn’t “heavy” or two-handed as a monk weapon, which definitely helped a little.
: In BG3, monks are actually one of the best starting classes - they get a ton of gear early on, don’t need to steal equipment from the fighter or cleric, and are generally better than low-level arcane casters to the point where if you’re intending to play a Wizard or Sorcerer you should probably just go monk for the first few levels and then re-spec.
: The Patch 8 subclass for Monk is Drunken Master, which is funny but otherwise sucks.
Paladin
Summary
: Paladins are probably the second-best martial class in the game, after Fighters.. provided you can deal with all their baggage. They have access to spells, get the ability to smite evil, and are generally a Fighter who trades some features for more versatility.
: They were a lot more of a pain in 3.5E where they had to be Lawful Good, and if they ever stopped being Lawful Good they lost EVERYTHING, meaning you were dependent on your DM not being an asshole.
: In 5E, they instead have an “Oath” that they select. These range from Vengeance (being The Punisher) to Devotion (late-stage Inspector Javert) to Ancients (which is just being Charlie Morningstar). No, seriously, let me post the Oath of the Ancients:
: It is surprisingly easy to break your oath in this game, which doesn’t remove EVERYTHING but makes life a pain until you pay gold to get your oath back. This is even worse if you’re The Dark Urge. Fortunately, you can get around a lot of it by just not playing as your Paladin outside of combat.
: Paladin is also a good choice for your player character (no pun intended) because the only recruitable paladin in the game is on the evil route, unless you use a bug (which I will be using).
: Patch 8 added a fifth oath, called Oath of the Crown. It’s.. I mean, it’s kinda there.
Ranger
Summary
: Rangers are another class that got a pretty significant glow-up in 5E. In 3.5E, they were archers who were not as good as Fighter archers, and revolved around “favored enemies” and “favored terrain” which were kinda sucky mechanics. Basically, you pick one class of enemies (Aberrations, Dragons, etc) and got bonuses against them.
: Naturally, this sucked so 5E completely overhauled it. In 5E, favored enemy is really more of a general bonus and most of the options apply to either all enemies or a huge swath of them. Favored Terrain was also overhauled in a similar way.
: In BG3, Rangers are actually a pretty solid martial class. They can melee, they can shoot, they have an animal companion and they also can cast Druid spells. Nothing to really hate here. Their Patch 8 subclass lets them summon bees and become The Pain.
Rogue
Summary
: Rogues used to be a really bad class in 3.5E. Their damage was entirely in Sneak Attack, which triggers ONCE PER TURN (in a game where you could have 3 or 4 attacks per turn at high levels) and was limited to either being in melee or being within 30 feet at range (60 feet if you used a feat slot).
: 5th Edition sorta kinda fixes that. They’re still limited to one Sneak Attack per round (and no longer gain multiple attacks per turn) but get a base range of 60 feet for it.
: In BG3, you definitely want a rogue. The good news is that the best character in the game is a Rogue, and he’s recruitable early on.
Sorcerer
Summary
: Sorcerers got the single biggest glow-up in 5E of any class. In 3.5E, they were objectively shittier wizards - they got access to spells more slowly, can’t learn spells the way a wizard can, and know far fewer spells than a wizard does.
: In 5E, Sorcerers are fucking BULLSHIT. WoTC made a moronic decision to take metamagic (which used to be a series of feats that allowed you to power up spells by using higher-level spell slots) and give it EXCLUSIVELY TO THE SORCERER AS A CLASS FEATURE. Sorcerers now have the same spell progression wizards do.
: Literally the only downside they have, the ONLY ONE, is that you need to know exactly what you’re doing when learning spells or you become useless. I mean, it’s not like the Internet exists and can tell you exactly what spells to take.. oh wait.
: If you’re playing an arcane caster, this is what you’re playing. There’s a reason the most powerful build in the game (or at least, one of them) is the “Sorlock”, a sorcerer with one level of warlock.
Warlock
Summary
: Warlock is a weird gimmick class. You have a unique cantrip (a spell with infinite casts per day) that does pretty good damage.. and also scales off character level, not warlock level.
: Ordinarily, dipping into warlock as a wizard or sorcerer would be bad, but the way BG3’s level cap works, it absolutely makes sense to do so with your final level-up.
: Their other gimmick is that they restore their spell casts on a “short rest” (which you get multiple of per day) as opposed to wizards and sorcerers who need a “long rest”. This means that they get more spell casts per day off, but at the cost of their spell list being bad.
Wizard
Summary
: In 3.5E, wizards were without a doubt the best class in the entire goddamn game. You could do anything: you want to hurl fireballs? Fuck it, hurl fireballs. You want to conjure a pit, and then put tentacles in the pit, and then put grease in the pit, and then put monkeys in the pit, and then make spikes come out of the bottom, and then fill the bottom with an acid pool? You can do that AND IT FUCKING RULES!
: 5E neutered them. One thing I didn’t talk about with the sorcerer or warlock is that 5E prevents you from having more than one spell out at a time: this means you can summon tentacles but can’t then grease the tentacles and spawn a cloudkill over them.
: Wizards also lost access to metamagic, and no longer learn spells faster than a sorcerer does. The ONLY upside they have is that you can learn spells from scrolls and can potentially learn every spell on your list that way.
: BG3 makes this even worse, because the wizard’s special ability is to restore a spell slot up to level 5. Now, what if I told you that there’s an item in the game that lets anyone do that, AND lets you restore up to a level 6 spell slot? There is. It’s bullshit.
: The only other thing they really have going for them is that they use intelligence as a casting stat, and knowledge checks are one of the most common checks in an average game.
: My first run was as a wizard, and while having access to any wizard spell you want is great and wizards are definitely viable, sorcerers are just better.
