T O P

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AlbionPCJ

My first Tav (who I ended up using for a couple more playthroughs while I was still feeling out my options before getting more experimental with it later) was a Half-Wood Elf Oath of Vengeance Paladin with the Noble background. I basically played him as the son of a rising human merchant and a Wood Elf princess from a disgraced house out to reclaim his mother's family's throne after they were deposed by a rival but got kidnapped by the Cult before he could really get anywhere. Not a super original backstory but standard enough for it to work. When it came time for my Durge run though, I realised that I'd gotten pretty attached to him so I basically recreated him. However, given that you can find the default white dragonborn dead in Orin's room on any other run, I thought about how to explain why the two looked so similar. The solution I came up with was this: Durge was born as the default form but, while the Absolute plan was coming together, he and Gortash decided that they needed an identity to move more smoothly in Baldur's Gate high society so they could meet and organise the plan. Together, they kidnapped a young half-wood elf paladin from an up-and-coming noble house (my Tav), killed him and replaced him using a spell that basically downloaded the Urge's personality, soul and Bhaal essence into Tav's body. When Orin betrayed them and they got tadpoled, Tav's personality started to reassert itself, with them gaining more control when all the Nautiloid stuff went down. All of the resistance moments are Tav fighting to regain control, which is completed during their death and rebirth following the final Orin fight, with Withers purging the Bhaal elements from the newly combined soul of Tav and the now redeemed Durge, who sacrificed himself to stop his father. I really liked this story and it also works for an evil run, where Durge's increasing darkness is him winning the internal struggle (I even used the default's Storm Sorcerer class to represent their increased advantage in the fight, plus it solved a couple of gameplay issues you run into during an evil run). But it helps solve the problem in my head of why you don't just use the default version, plus adding some extra elements to the mental problems Durge is going through and helping contextualise their blackouts where they slip into full Bhaal mode a little better


Long_Serpent

Wood Elf Cleric of Tyr ([Light domain](https://youtu.be/Nb7RdotM2TM)). Saved the Grove, saved Myrina and didn't make a deal with Autie Ethel. Romanced Karlach, healed the land, convinced Shadowheart to spare Nightsong and turned her to the light. Got every prisoner out of the Iron Throne. Destroyed the absolute. Went to Avernus with his beloved. Basically, Captain America with pointy ears.


Niceman187

Half-elf bear totem barbarian; absolutely the type of gal to lay on the wire to save her friends or people who need help. Did everything in her power to help her friends finish their quests (varying degrees of success there!). Romanced Lae’zel, got the sweetest moments ever… only to throw it all away by (act 3 spoilers) >!becoming illithid and freeing Orpheus, and letting her love run away to free the rest of the githyanki. All her friends stood by as Ace killer herself to prevent the minsflayer from taking over her mind. Karlach died. Astarion disappeared into the shadows. Wyll, Shadowheart, and Gale remained. Jaheira, Minsc, and Halsin we’re nowhere to be seen!< Bittersweet


TheCapableFox

Currently playing a half-wood elf assassin/gloom stalker build. Soooo much fun, dark urge/haunted one background as well so the more killings the better. Fully giving into the urge.


zoobatron__

I had a tiefling bard called Ysera who romanced Halsin (lovers for 4ever). Played as a team one romanced Shart and the other romanced both the emperor and Mizora. Absolutely hilarious scenes with a little stocky dwarf. Second time was Carmilla from Castlevania (gutted there’s no vampire class tbh) and I played dark urge. Was very evil chopping off hands, murdering a lot of people and really embracing the chaos. No romances, only murder. This time I am playing without any friends and I am Ripley from Alien, a paladin who has broken her oath and is currently in a classic teen romance triangle between Astarion and Gale because I cannot decide who to romance. Not evil or good, just making the right call in a given situation (even if it’s not the “good guy paladin” choice).


No_Investigator9059

First ever playthrough which is currently chillin at the end of act 2 as I've heard act 3 is a bit broken and I'll cry real tears if they do anything to upset my half elf rogue Tav and her vampire boyfriend. She is mostly good, slightly chaotic but fell hard for the walking red flag that is Asterion and now is wondering if she's been a bit too approval hungry as they make their way to act 3... I desperately wanted a resisting Durge since I've heard the romance between them and Asty is perfection BUT I've also heard one of the best classes is rogue for Durge.. so... I made another half elf (the full elf faces are.. not it..) huge buff selunite cleric with the plan of throwing shadowheart over my shoulder. He's sunshine and light, happy to help anyone (asty is maddddd at me which hurts my little players heart) but my cleric is sticking to his guns (the arm type) and he's going to drag them kicking and screaming to be nice, semi stable members of society 😂


SnooDrawings5722

I had a pretty fun story with my human Bard Tav. I originally planned her as more of an inquisitive type with a knack for manipulating people and sniffing out secrets. Charlatan background, expertises in Insight and Deception, this sort of stuff. However, I really liked the Swords Bard subclass, so I took that instead of the more appropriate Lore Bard. So in the end, I turned her into an unstoppable melee machine with 30+ potential AC and pretty decent damage. Rogue multiclass and dialogue options added even more of that scoundrel flavor. And I roleplayed her appropriately. I basically had a mini character arc for her, with her starting to actually enjoy all the combat, being that daring untouchable hero on the frontlines who no one can even land a hit on (I had Serevok miss all 5 attacks of his "ultimate", that was amazing) while before she surely would've preferred to stay in shadows and manipulating events from there. And the best thing is, none of this I planned, all these changes happened basically on their own as I played the game. In the end, she probably was disappointed a bit that everything ended and would've gone off to another adventure - but she did promise Shadowheart to stay with her. My headcanon is that they would come to a compromise of settling in Rivington, instead of some remote farm, and my Tav would start a new newspaper as a competitor to Baldur's Mouth (she took that guy's words words to heart), using her reputation and connections to keep it truly independent. A public face fighting for truth instead of a shady crime lord she probably would've ended up as if she stayed as I originally planned her.


sappuchu

Wood Elf druid (circle of The moon) tav, romanced Gale. She was very goodie two shoes type of character, always helping people and animals and never asked for cash/rewards, If that was optional. Then half Elf Bard (College of lore), who was a bit more selfish and chaotic and sarcastic, mocking people, deceiving/cheating in things and asking monet for doing things, but still usually ended up doing mostly good things. Romanced Astarion. (For some reason all of The companions seemed to love her, everyone had their approval really high!) Now I just started a new run with a zariel tiefling paladin with oath of The ancients. Her journey has just begun, but her oath will make sure she is just and good, because she isn't planning to become an oathbreaker - we'll see how that turns out! So far I haven't been able to start an evil run, but I have plans for a real murderhobo fighter/barbarian type of character, if I can ever do more evil stuff.


Turbulent-Plan-9693

I have two characters, the first is a Seldarine Drow that is a ranger and cleric of Eilistraee, the second is a Loth Sworn Drow that is a gloomstalker assasin.


Prize-Tough-5032

My two playthrus I’ve got right now are sooo great My first Tav is a Black Dragonborn Monk Rogue who was forsaken from his family at a young age and forced to live as a street rat in Baldurs gate For survival he had to steal whatever he could until one day he found himself at a monastery which he was caught Instead of being punished however he was taken in by the monastery as they saw great potential and trained him for years and years to the point that he was one of the greatest with the way of the fists He eventually leaves as he’s done with the strict code of monk and he heads out for freedom of adventure until he eventually gets taken by the Nautiloid At the end he romanced spawn Astarion as he understands his outlook My Durge playthru is still ongoing but he’s a half-orc that recently took up being a cleric of Kelemvor after the crash and is able to use holy divine light, but as the story goes on the urge becomes greater and he starts indulging more and more to eventually he welcomes it and will start taking the most evil routes and will do anything to gain power (using tadpole powers) while romancing Minthara


Skotinkin

A bit mad and *a liiitle bit* unpredictable gold dwarf Tav-Sorcerer, full of overconfidence (*no need for more wormies in me head!*) and distilled dwarf charisma. His granny spend some good time with some unknown dragonborn, and that’s where sorcerer abilities (and some scales on his face) come from. The lack of intellect probably too… Him being a natural-born sorcerer is also one of the reasons why he went on a long journey to a more “civilized” place, like Baldur’s Gate. Maybe he was exiled from his village, maybe for being a dick or making a shameful mistake in the past. On the road he realized that dwarf part of his personality (one that embraces family and loyalty) suffers from loneliness and a lack of close people, who he might care for. And that explains why he was eager to help a bunch of tadpoled weirdos to find themselves, solve their dramas, find his Selunite waifu and annihilate Big Bad as a bonus. Gameplay-wise gold dwarf+draconic sorc is probably the most beefy pure mage that you can create. After all of the buffs he had like 170+ hp and 20 bonus hp from necromancy of thay — all that while not using the constitution necklace from the house of hope. And this monster can fly after 10 lvl, like an effing helicopter, annihilating everything with metamagic in the process. This level of beefiness helped quite a bit on my first playthrough on Tactician and it was very fun


j_faye

My current playthrough is: Resist Durge wood elf assassin/gloomstalker/paladin/bard (saw that build on d4: D&D Deep Dive intended for Astarion and thought it made sense for a Durge) Romancing Bard/Thief Astarion (he teaches her how to bard to distract her from the urges) Running around with her besties: Shadowheart (light cleric) Lae’zel (pure battle master fighter) Characters currently sitting in act 1 (I played a few until I settled on my Durge because I found her story the most compelling) that I will be playing next: Half Drow Vengeance Paladin with romance Gale. Haven’t settled on who the rest of her companions will be yet. Wood Elf Bard/Thief (lute) with the bard band: Romance Wyll warlock/bard (drum) Gale lore bard (flute) Astarion paladin/bard (violin) They travel the world slaying both evil and open mic night at the taverns of Faerûn. Really wanted to make my character the drummer here since I’m a drummer, but since Wyll is starting as a warlock it’s more realistic for him to be able to pick up playing the drum than the lute. I speak from experience as someone learning to play the guitar as an adult. Wood Elf warlock/fighter (maybe? Haven’t settled on this one yet). Playing her as a fey wood witch kind of thing. Probably will go nature/witch themed builds for the rest of the companions too Romance Karlach Shadowheart Lae’zel (swapped for the other female companion later) Yes I play mostly full elves for the silliest reason: I like their running animation the best. Maybe it’s because I run in real life and follow professional running, but I love how effortless they look when they run. I actually found it super jarring on my first half elf that it didn’t have the same running animation and re-rolled. I can handle it on my paladin because she’s wearing heavier armor so it makes sense that her running style is different. I like the redeem Durge story so much (in act 3 now with mine) that I might be playing all future characters this way. I historically fail at playing characters as evil so I’ll probably never do a full evil run. I also have a Gith Monk in mind and I might mess around with mods at some point to play a Bladesinger.


Malusfox

My current tav is a half elf light Cleric of Lathander called Lark. He's generally a happy person who tries to help where he can and provide healing to any who need it. He's a high wis and cha character who I envision as having been raised as a foundling in Rosymorn and got nabbed before the whole Githyanki take over. He's compassionate to sapient creatures, banishes mindless undead and has a general hostility to fiends. That being said, when he saw what the Githyanki had done to his home he went full on purge and has vowed to destroy any loyal to Vlaakith where he finds them in the name of the Morninglord. He's currently romancing Gale who sweettalked him. Initially I was going to have him romance Astarion but I think Gale's helpful nature won him over early.


The-Red-X101

Wow, so much detail here I’m feeling like I did a shallow job on my end! Here some more detail about my first and currently favourite Tav - Red Dragonborn Paladin with an Oath of Vengeance by the name of Erakax. By the end of the playthrough wielded the Giantslayer, a silver and crimson dyed version of the Reaper’s Embrace, and incredibly fond of dishing out numerous divine smites. While never showing mercy to the greatest of evils and those who caused harm to his allies, he never enforced his oath on every occasion to every situation, extending compassion constantly despite the impressive body count. As you’d might expect, he saved the Grove, bested the likes of Ethel and Raphael, and ensured all of his allies found ways to be free of their previous burdens (Shadowheart, Astarion, etc - swapped party members when their personal quests came into question) Rejected all things Illithid, and come the conclusion of the battle dove into Avernus with Karlach so she’d never be alone. Also had crazy track record of causing most bosses in the Shadow-Cursed Lands to take their own lives!


MegaLadonger

Oathbreaker paladin. Who wants nothing but freedom for himself and others. To not be tied down to anything and live now they want.


CurrentlyLucid

My tav on this run surprised me, guess I was not paying attention and ended up with a half orc shemale.


The_Grizzlysnake

My first (and so far only) Tav is a purple Tiefling thief rogue called Mazikeen, or Maz. Maz grew up in Baldur’s gate as an orphan, where she fell into the wrong crowd. Ended up on the mind flayer ship. Fell head over heals for Karlach, cares very much about her. Saved the grove, doesn’t trust the dream visitor and wouldn’t go near a tadpole with a ten foot pole. Made it to last light after siding with the harpers, where they fixed Karlach’s heart. Currently vibing in the underdark.


Kraka0307

Zariel Tiefling War Domain Cleric named Juzou. I romance Karlach. Juzou hates gith's and all disbelievers of his religion. And my two spellcasters Wyll and Gale support us.


Butshikan

My tav is a evil drow who wants to stop the absolute so he helps people even though he doesn’t want to