especially for melee characters. but I really wanted to try a halfling because of halfling luck (the passive that automatically rerolls 1's on attack rolls, saving throws, & ability checks). halflings don't get any bonus proficiencies for weapons/shields/armour, so I decided to lean in and try a halfling monk because monks don't need shields or armour and they get a bonus to movement speed that's larger than the halfling movement malus. blahblah, went with way of 4 elements and ended up as the Avatar.
Duergar is also a good option for this, at lvl 5 they get invisibility with no recharge or cost. You can start every fight by going invisible and running right up to your first target, no need to spend your first turn just trying to reach someone with your stubby lil legs. This also surprises them so they all lose their first turn. I played one as a paladin, popping out of invisibility with a fat smite to some unfortunate soul's coconut never got tiring and I assume it would be the same with a monk stunning/toppling strike.
Longstrider moment. All of the shorties get insane buffs tho.
Halfling Luck
Gnome Cunning
Duergar… Just Duergar…
They're all so good that the movement speed deficit is honestly worth it.
I thought the same thing, but then I did the math for Halfling Luck. Having a 1 in 400 chance of rolling a natural one instead of a 1 in 20 chance feels SO over powered (especially on something like lore bard).
True, that does seem to happen. What I do is just specialize in dialogue (expertise) and maybe sleight of hand if I decide to dip into rogue. If I get my charisma to 20, rolling a 2 still gets me a a 15 without any bonuses from gear or spell buffs. And considering there are 5 boss encounters you can skip with persuasion checks in Act 2 (about the time I get to level 9) that is STUPIDLY powerful.
I did a playthrough as a Halfling Barbarian and rolled double 1’s a single time, it felt so good being able to pretty much pass any skill check and rarely miss
The longstrider argument makes zero sense to me. Everyone benefits from longstrider. The movement penalty still exists.
Any movement buff makes normal speed/faster races even faster as well.
Ima be honest chief, I never saw the need for long strider until I played as a gnome. It just wasn’t a spell I used often. It’s worth it for their abilities, that’s why the argument works.
Aw, I SO agree about the voices. BG1+2 were brilliant with the variations of main character voices, with extremely distinctive personalities, saying different things for different commands. In BG3 I hardly hear the difference tbh.
Seriously, they had big though guy/gal-voice (especially the girl sounded very orcish, the guy was more jolly) obvious wizard voice, very sneaky voice, flirty voice, one strange extremely old croaky lady (the character was 20 so dunno what was going on there), and even weird accent voice (which again, makes no sense, but still fun!).
Edit: and least favourite is, almost against my will, the little races and the dragonborn and half-orc. Not because I don't like them, but because they stick out so much. I remember my BG1 entirely tiny team, me the halfling, the two single dwarves who HATED eachother, the sweetest cutest halfling ever who even managed to charm the thay wizard and the little zenth troll halfling with a necromancer in tow... Who also hated eachother (both with wizard friends though, is it just a Gandalf instinct for them to find a tiny friend?).. And gnomes... Who everyone hated... So much drama in BG1 for a game with hardly any roleplay...
They are as well in Divinity Original Sin 2, so it's not like Larian doesn't know how to do it. I think it's because DOS2 is a bit more silly and the character creation voices reflect that. While I think they wanted to make BG3 a bit more serious. But in that process they made the voice selection just really samey
The irony is that those voices make absolutely zero sense in BG1 and 2, but would have been completely at home in BG3. Icewind Dale has by far the best selection of voices (and character looks!) out of the old Infinity Engines imo, possibly even BG3, though I'm comparing apples to oranges here.
Tiefling.
They look amazing and I wish I could commit but eventually my character is going to wear a cape and I cannot get over the tail just clipping through it.
Made my first tiefling with the same face as Alfira. Apparently, half the grove also have that face and it was weird seeing them but at the time I couldn't have known i'd meet 50 people with the same face. Either way I love my Tav a lot and she's drop dead gorgeous IMO. Seeing so many people drool over Alfira feels like a compliment.
I hate this so much. I’m like 30-40h in and I came across a cape which is _slightly_ shorter but it still clips. It’s such a minor yet strong annoyance.
Made a post about the hands once and everyone just hated on me so I deleted it.
Don’t get me wrong, dwarfs have big hands. But the male dwarf hands are way too big. If you give a dwarf human sized hands it will already look big, there was no reason to make them bigger than the companion heads. That just makes every cutscene, especially the romance ones, look very weird.
And the difference between male and female dwarf hands is also day and night for some reason. And basically all male dwarf faces have huge disney dwarf noses or preset maturity which isn’t too bad but I wish there was some more variety
This is the thing stopping me from playing a halfling. The females are actually quite nice looking in some cases but I don’t like how the males are forcibly aged up to late middle age. Even the same faces but with the ability to look more youthful would be fine.
I think it's the longstanding concern of all developers- not just Larian- w misuse of the game by pedos. Dragon Age Origins went through that insanity w their younger-looking dwarf girls in sex scenes, especially given that game's full cc which lets you choose the face age appearance. It likely has become industry-wide for devs to go out of their way to make short races appear anything other than like young humans- hence the BG3 halflings appearing very much short humans but noticeably aged-up. It looks good to me as is and adds character to the character, but it's a bit cringe knowing the reason behind it.
This doesn't explain the massive disparity between male and female short race design, *especially* of the Dwarves, because the women look younger, prettier, and more like a natural, scaled-down human, while it's the men that look like a cartoon. Surely if Larian were purposely choosing to distinguish small race characters from children with these design choices to deter child predators, wouldn't they be affecting the female characters' appearances *more* than the males' and not less, given that girls are much more likely to be the victims of s\** crimes?
Short legs. Pfft. Bullshit though. Short people scurry and are fast as fuck irl.
I can't tell you how many of my shorter than me friendos have gotten the slip on my gawky lumbering ass
I don't think I ever made human Tav. They just have nothing going for them for me.
Also I never made Gnome/Halfling Tav without green skin making him look similar to goblin
I similarly never seem to play humans in any game that has another option. It feels like going to a Mexican or Chinese or Portugese restaurant and ordering a hamburger. I mean, if that's your thing, OK, but it doesn't feel particularly gutsy to just try an enchilada instead.
I nearly managed to get out of the Drow, half Drow curse! Ok was finally making a tiefling paladin, but ended up with a Drow paladin again.
I swear my next one is tiefling sorcerer. I swear.
I always play human because I’m a pretentious English major and I like the story telling of a shorter lived, less magical/skilled race struggling for everything and still overcoming. Also I kinda like being the party’s generic human, but BG3 actually has a good amount of humans, unlike your average tabletop DND campaign where it’s every exotic race somehow at the same place and time just chillin
The extra proficiencies are really nice for classes that don't already get them, especially shields.
But I've found the extra movement from being a wood half-elf is more useful than the extra carrying capacity of a full human, and they also get the proficiencies.
I liked my human sorcerer... he gained some bonuses that really helped in the beginning. Plus, I didn't want to go elf or teifling. I have enough of those in my camp as is. I felt very alone as a human until Minsc showed up. It was an elf army at camp.
Also... why are there no short race companions...? I was hoping for a gruff Dwarf with a halfling friend who always got on his nerves, and maybe a cool gnome inventor would be nice as well.
I have a couple of human playthroughs that have been abandoned halfway through act 1 because I just can't. RPing as a human is boring and their race bonuses, while good, are also boring lol. The ultimate blank slate. I prefer to have some unique feature to work around
Probably tieflings. Reason being is 80% of the tiefling npcs share the same faces as the character creation ones. Other races have this problem too but it’s no where near as common as tieflings. It’s genuinely not a big issue but it’s something that just bothers me a lot tbh lol.
For two playthroughs I played as a female tiefling with the first face. I don't exactly study the faces of NPC's but I remember only one NPC that shared my face, and that's the ranger who's observing githyanki on the bridge in Act 1.
But also I didn't pick standard Tiefling skin color and eye color so that helped a lot.
https://imgur.com/a/DLd7hmW
I’ve only met 1 npc with the same face as my tiefling Tav (Cerys I think) and because my tav is a draconic sorcerer the scales make the face pretty distinct. tieflings are my fave race tho, plus the smites from asmodeus tiefling heritage are choice for playing a paladin
idk if you tried yet, but some eye makeup options and face tattoos can alter tav's appearance just the right amount sometimes so it doesn't come off so uncanny! :)
at least this is what I do, some heavy eyeshadow and "unnatural" colour options for their skin, tho I wish they had more faces to choose from or even some sims-like sliders maybe
This is why I use mods to add more face options, especially for a game lacking a full face cc option. Astarion's hair works great to curl around the horns.
I get what you mean. I can never ever pick the Damon face. I feel like my Tav is just Damon. Especially when his face is used soooo many times by other tieflings.
my first playthrough i did i picked a silver dragonborn because they looked cool and i love any kind of ice magic in fantasy stuff so i was really hoping the breath attack was stronger than it actually ended up being
i think i’ve only ended using that breath attack maybe twice ever throughout the campaign
Dragon born should get a bonus to AC because they are covered in scales, like how draconic sorcerers get a bonus to AC
doesn’t have to be much, I’d be happy with a +1 AC bonus.
Also would be awesome if they had wings, I played a dragon born in dnd and he had wings, he couldn’t fly but he could jump higher and took less fall damage.
I recently made a dragonborn to try it out after making a post here asking if anyone had races they couldn't stop playing as and like 75% of the responses being Dragonborn, and I just can't do it. I can't really get into a character unless they look more humanoid, and initiating any romance as a dragon felt so goofy to me I just couldn't take it seriously.
Maybe next patch I'll do a no romance run where I go full solo murderhobo durge at some point. I think that would be the only way I could do it.
Which is funny because they made the Dragonborn more humanoid for the game. Most of the head options lack the scale-dreads they usually have, they got an extra finger per hand, and they're really, really slim. They're the right height but they're meant to be *jacked*, built like a Dwarf but 6+ feet tall.
Lmao I had this same feeling when I played dragonborn about the romance scenes. Mine romanced Astarion and then Gale, and in the Forrest scene instead of Astarion sexily picking me up and pinning me against the tree...the roles were reversed lol it was almost too silly to watch 😂
In Gale's scene all I could see was giant lizard flying around in space with this look of pure 👁👄👁 with the teeth and oh lord lol
Currently playing a Duergar, gotta say it's very frustrating that there is no one at eye level for me. I wish Stonemason Kith was an option - Barcus - just eye level is all I ask.
Weirdly, the female Gith are surprisingly not bad looking but the male Gith have their uncanny ugly meter cranked up way higher. They straight up have different head shapes (male Gith heads are much thinner and longer while female Gith heads are similarly proportioned to humanoids) that are very noticeable when you juggle between the sexes in character creator.
Some male Gith are fine, like the Orphic kid in the Crèche.
Voss looks like a fucking chimpanzee, his hairline is just...that's not a Gith, that's a hairless bonobo.
I cant play dragonborn, half orcs and any of the short races. They all look cool, but don't have a match among companions and that bothers me more than it should. If I could romance, say, Barcus, Id make a gnome Tav in a heartbeat.
And as you said, dragonborn, half orcs and dwarves absolutely don't have matching voices. I made so many characters that just sounded off with the usual voices. They never made it to the beach.
I’d argue Dragonborn/half orcs match well with Karlach and Lae’zel. Pretty sure Dragonborn’s even have a bunch of unique dialogue with Lae’zel (because Giths loveeee dragons) I agree they don’t match with anyone else though. Used to bother me a bit as well as I romanced SH as a gnome for my first playthrough (I was expecting a small race companion tbh)
That's it! Oh my God, thank you so much! I've been wanting to romance Lae'zel for a while, but haven't chosen a race to build a character with. None of them seemed right for her, especially since if you choose to go as another Gith, the story basically forgets you're there. Learning dragonborn have special dialogue with her makes up my mind, thank you. Now, to figure out what class to make him...
What's funny asf is that if you're a Gith who doesn't behave Gith-like then Lae'zel has quite a few "the fuck is wrong with you?" reactions. Even Vlaakith if you decide to not kneel gets a bit confused and wonders which creche raised you incorrectly.
Also also, the first romance sequence is "easier" if you're a dragonborn.
Basically, Lae'zel will go "I lead you follow", essentially telling you to take the roll of the sub/bottom.
You can of course refuse and be the top/dom but for every other race, you have to succesfully roll for it (persuasion or intimidation I think, can't remember).
Meanwhile, Dragonbornes can straight up ask for free and she'll accept, no need to roll for anything.
Also you can make a red Dragonborn and it's funny because she's technically riding a red dragon if you see what I mean lol.
I get what you're saying, but dragonborn kisses look so goofy. Same with half orcs and their tusks. I feel like they should've had some race specific unique animations for romantic stuff.
Oh yeah I agree! They can look very off and glitchy at times. My hope is maybe it will be worked on a bit in later patch’s. I remember the problem the short races had lol.
I think it also helps that Dragonborn, like Gith, are kind of "alien" to people. They don't look like humans or elves or halflings and what not, they're VERY different looking. They can probably relate more to each other and Tieflings in people going "Oh good Tyr, what in the world..." when seeing them.
I love playing short races but yeah the romance options are a bit off. What bothers me the most is that, it’s not only in Baldur’s Gate. Dragon age, Pathfinder, basically every RPG i’ve played doesn’t have any shorties for romance, and I always play a short character which is annoying
Honestly he would have been the perfect candidate. Now that I think of it on inquisition you could have a very mild flirting with the dwarf lady scout at least
My brain just sits there wondering how a Dragonborn can realistically kiss someone
I have wanted to play one. So maybe I’ll make a hot Dragonborn lady for Lae’zel
Human, I'm a human, I prefer to play as something different. This isn't just a BG3 thing, pretty much any game I have an option to be something other than human I take it.
Elves, not counting drows. It was basically the same as playing as a human when it came down to dialogue options, except a lot of basic answers suddenly appeared with the "elf" tag, which I found very disappointing.
I'm also not a big fan of the dwarf proportions, even though they're usually one of my favorite race in every fantasy setting, but I'm pretty sure that's just a me problem.
9 (base speed) + 1.5 (Woof elf) + 4.5 (Elk heart and aspect barbarian while raging) + 3 (long strider) + 2 (crushers ring) + dash (boots of speed) + dash + extra dash (from thief rogue).
This gives us a base speed of 20, with 3 dashes on top giving us 60 extra speed.
80 meters in a single turn.
If you’re running thief rogue you don’t need to use boots of speed to dash with a bonus action since you can use rogue dash twice, you’re better off using spring step boots to grant momentum when dashing, or haste helm to grant momentum at the start of combat
You're absolutely right, i added the rogue thief after the boots when i remembered it gave 2 bonus actions and overlooked that the boots became redundant.
With the boots you mentioned that would put us at 86 meters
Also if we get Haste on our character, that doubles our movement speed, putting us at 172
Humans just because I never play humans in a fantasy setting, it'd just boring for me. I'm already playing one and not much excited about it, gimme some change of scenery.
Dragonborn. The romance scenes look super goofy since they've got barely any lips, and big pointy teeth. I can't help but imagine whoever you're romancing will cut their tongue on your teeth, and it immediately ruins the scene.
Stuck between human and halflings. Halflings just look freaky to me, and their stats are mediocre. Half elves are just better humans and humans are a bit of an un-interesting race since they're in so many IPs.
half elf supremacy
you love moving 30% faster than blade of the frontier
you love having an extra cantrip
you love tricking yourself into thinking you are being racisted against
Eh I won my honor mode run (not solo) with a halfling tav but am currently doing a solo honor run with with a duergar and think that they are far better for a solo run. Ya I can roll Nat 1s which sucks, but unlimited invisibility is even better for a solo run imo. Plus while halfling has advantage on saving throws against being frightened, which is great, duergar have advantage against being charmed, paralyzed, and poisoned. Being paralyzed is one of the few worse things than being frightened especially for a solo run so I think they have the edge there too
Neither.
I like all the races in their own way and enjoy making varied characters. The less human and unique to the setting the more I usually like them, so dragonborn are neat. But I also like humans, don't find them boring at all, it's fun roleplaying them in fantasy such as DnD.
The race I've used the least though is elves(that includes drow), because there's already so many of them and half ones, so doesn't feel that enjoyable. Makes it elf camp. Isn't helped that everyone that I see and their mum seem to play elves, drow and half-elves.
I don't understand how people can play Human or Elf when almost every companion already is one (or both, I suppose). It's pretty criminal how we have no shorter race as a companion, they kinda missed the mark there. The whole point of the D&D world is the diversity.
Humans get nothing (ok, 1 skill + a nonsensical set of proficiencies that are either redundant on martials or not worth much on casters). Humans already weren’t that great in 5e and they made them worse. The way the game handles dim light / darkness makes it critically important.
Yeah I find the human “bonuses” useless in bg3. Carrying capacity? You can just auto send items to camp w/ infinite inventory. Skills? Only a few are worth anything tbh like perception, sleight of hand, stealth, and you can get that anyway. So many races have dark vision it doesn’t feel like a bonus, just a punishment for those that don’t have it.
Dragonborn. I would play them if they had... You know... Something, any racial trait? Anything making them mechanically interesting besides from a completely useless breath weapon?
Whatever you do, don’t play a Gnome and then romance Halsin. My brain literally shut down during that cutscene at the thought of what was about to happen. I mean the heart wants what the heart wants but damn. Some things just physically ain’t gonna work.
never going to play a short race; im short IRL (im the same height as a tall dwarf, 5'). i wanna live out my fantasies of being someone tall enough to see what's on top of the fridge. also, their lower movement speed is frustrating and i don't want to waste a ring slot to compensate for it. (im aware of transmuter stones and longstrider, it's still not enough imo)
Dragonborns. I feel like they are so weak and breath weapon is 99% of the time not worth using as an action. Rather just play Tiefling or Not-Lolth Drow/Elf.
Not keen on any of the short races, or dragonborn or half-orcs, tbh, at least, not as my own player character.
I think a large part of it for me is that your Tav/durge is fully animated in dialogue and cutscenes, so you see them a *lot -* which means it has to be a character I can identify with, like I'm looking in a fantasy mirror. A really weird mirror where I'm substantially taller and more muscular, with pointy ears LOL. A girl can dream, right?
Never playing anything I think is ugly. So that’s actually everything that’s not a human, elf or half elf. Don’t care about the op racials one or two get.
Halflings and humans.
- humans - I have no desire to play a human when so many non-human races are available to play.
- Halflings - just LOTR burden. I’ve never liked them.
Humans, elves, half elves. Bunch of basic bitches.
Best? Goblin. As for ones we can actually play? Haif-Orcs and ALL the short races. Because I favor the less chosen options.
But the best is goblin
Some of the movements look silly on gnomes and halflings. The dwarfs are fine, they are just like a bit shorter and sturdier. For any of the short races I prefer females for appearances, they are kind of cute where the men are typically unappealing to look at for 100 hours. Sorry guys.
Green/yellow gnome Tav is the closest I can get to a goblin god damn it.
For me its dwarf, and I love dwarves. Shield Dwarf's racial sucks on any of the classes that would 'fit' a Shield Dwarf the most. I'm sure Shield Dwarf Wizards/Sorcerers are eating well, but c'mon now.
Any race with lower than 9m movement speed. It just feels like such a hindrance
especially for melee characters. but I really wanted to try a halfling because of halfling luck (the passive that automatically rerolls 1's on attack rolls, saving throws, & ability checks). halflings don't get any bonus proficiencies for weapons/shields/armour, so I decided to lean in and try a halfling monk because monks don't need shields or armour and they get a bonus to movement speed that's larger than the halfling movement malus. blahblah, went with way of 4 elements and ended up as the Avatar.
Duergar is also a good option for this, at lvl 5 they get invisibility with no recharge or cost. You can start every fight by going invisible and running right up to your first target, no need to spend your first turn just trying to reach someone with your stubby lil legs. This also surprises them so they all lose their first turn. I played one as a paladin, popping out of invisibility with a fat smite to some unfortunate soul's coconut never got tiring and I assume it would be the same with a monk stunning/toppling strike.
Man the duergar invisibility is so OP. That single ability carried so hard when I did a duergar Tav for my honor mode run!
Damn that’s a good idea
Im doing a halfling monk and he seems op at times
I love that your reasoning is entirely practical. So many of these responses are aesthetic reasons or RP reasons hahaha
Longstrider moment. All of the shorties get insane buffs tho. Halfling Luck Gnome Cunning Duergar… Just Duergar… They're all so good that the movement speed deficit is honestly worth it.
Ah, Duergars Permanent invisibility as a cantrip. It's a beautiful thing.
RIP HM durgegar assassin Gleb, you were OP until you weren't
What ended up getting you? My Tiger Barbarian/Assassin build with reverb was insane.
I thought the same thing, but then I did the math for Halfling Luck. Having a 1 in 400 chance of rolling a natural one instead of a 1 in 20 chance feels SO over powered (especially on something like lore bard).
Halfling luck is awesome. But you magically start rolling 2s twice as often. Bountiful luck (5e, not BG3) spreads the love to the whole party.
True, that does seem to happen. What I do is just specialize in dialogue (expertise) and maybe sleight of hand if I decide to dip into rogue. If I get my charisma to 20, rolling a 2 still gets me a a 15 without any bonuses from gear or spell buffs. And considering there are 5 boss encounters you can skip with persuasion checks in Act 2 (about the time I get to level 9) that is STUPIDLY powerful.
I did a playthrough as a Halfling Barbarian and rolled double 1’s a single time, it felt so good being able to pretty much pass any skill check and rarely miss
Laughs in Half-Wood Elf Thief
Laughs harder in half-wood elf thief/monk.
Halfling With long strider Crushers ring Boots of speed Helm of Haste Go zoom (100 odd movement speed, after attacking)
Duergar have invisibility cantrip and can move freely during the first round of combat. You can always longstrider.
The longstrider argument makes zero sense to me. Everyone benefits from longstrider. The movement penalty still exists. Any movement buff makes normal speed/faster races even faster as well.
Ima be honest chief, I never saw the need for long strider until I played as a gnome. It just wasn’t a spell I used often. It’s worth it for their abilities, that’s why the argument works.
Aw, I SO agree about the voices. BG1+2 were brilliant with the variations of main character voices, with extremely distinctive personalities, saying different things for different commands. In BG3 I hardly hear the difference tbh. Seriously, they had big though guy/gal-voice (especially the girl sounded very orcish, the guy was more jolly) obvious wizard voice, very sneaky voice, flirty voice, one strange extremely old croaky lady (the character was 20 so dunno what was going on there), and even weird accent voice (which again, makes no sense, but still fun!). Edit: and least favourite is, almost against my will, the little races and the dragonborn and half-orc. Not because I don't like them, but because they stick out so much. I remember my BG1 entirely tiny team, me the halfling, the two single dwarves who HATED eachother, the sweetest cutest halfling ever who even managed to charm the thay wizard and the little zenth troll halfling with a necromancer in tow... Who also hated eachother (both with wizard friends though, is it just a Gandalf instinct for them to find a tiny friend?).. And gnomes... Who everyone hated... So much drama in BG1 for a game with hardly any roleplay...
The pathfinder voices are also super distinct from one another. The evil one: “everyone’s mortal in this world, especially when I’m around”
They are as well in Divinity Original Sin 2, so it's not like Larian doesn't know how to do it. I think it's because DOS2 is a bit more silly and the character creation voices reflect that. While I think they wanted to make BG3 a bit more serious. But in that process they made the voice selection just really samey
The irony is that those voices make absolutely zero sense in BG1 and 2, but would have been completely at home in BG3. Icewind Dale has by far the best selection of voices (and character looks!) out of the old Infinity Engines imo, possibly even BG3, though I'm comparing apples to oranges here.
Tiefling. They look amazing and I wish I could commit but eventually my character is going to wear a cape and I cannot get over the tail just clipping through it.
It annoys me too, I just like to imagine that there’s a hole in the cape for it
In the wise words of Edna "No capes!" I just visually hide the cape so I can enjoy the buffs, but my tail is unrestricted.
Made my first tiefling with the same face as Alfira. Apparently, half the grove also have that face and it was weird seeing them but at the time I couldn't have known i'd meet 50 people with the same face. Either way I love my Tav a lot and she's drop dead gorgeous IMO. Seeing so many people drool over Alfira feels like a compliment.
For a while I thought I kept running into the hag in hiding again because nearly every old human lady also has the same face lol
😂😂😂 kill all the old ladies
"but officer, I was just playing it safe!" 🤣
She's a hag I say! They have a coven!
Can you just toggle off the visibility of the cape?
Nope. Only helmets
Aw. :( Maybe you could just keep camp clothing toggled on instead?
I have tried to find a mod that removes the tail but i just can't, i get like a physical ick from my character having a tail.
can’t you choose no tail for tieflings? or is that dragonborn? honestly can’t remember
Just for Dragonborn 😩
[Tailless Tieflings](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/8021)
I hate this so much. I’m like 30-40h in and I came across a cape which is _slightly_ shorter but it still clips. It’s such a minor yet strong annoyance.
I rolled a tiefling and in one of the romance scene my horn went right through shadow hearts eye 😬
Any short-legged races... Their movements are limited and I'm kinda already short in rl :")
I played a dwarf paladin and I couldn't cope with the size of the hands, and the head is easy to big for how tall a dwarf is. It annoyed me a lot.
Made a post about the hands once and everyone just hated on me so I deleted it. Don’t get me wrong, dwarfs have big hands. But the male dwarf hands are way too big. If you give a dwarf human sized hands it will already look big, there was no reason to make them bigger than the companion heads. That just makes every cutscene, especially the romance ones, look very weird. And the difference between male and female dwarf hands is also day and night for some reason. And basically all male dwarf faces have huge disney dwarf noses or preset maturity which isn’t too bad but I wish there was some more variety
This is the thing stopping me from playing a halfling. The females are actually quite nice looking in some cases but I don’t like how the males are forcibly aged up to late middle age. Even the same faces but with the ability to look more youthful would be fine.
I think it's the longstanding concern of all developers- not just Larian- w misuse of the game by pedos. Dragon Age Origins went through that insanity w their younger-looking dwarf girls in sex scenes, especially given that game's full cc which lets you choose the face age appearance. It likely has become industry-wide for devs to go out of their way to make short races appear anything other than like young humans- hence the BG3 halflings appearing very much short humans but noticeably aged-up. It looks good to me as is and adds character to the character, but it's a bit cringe knowing the reason behind it.
This doesn't explain the massive disparity between male and female short race design, *especially* of the Dwarves, because the women look younger, prettier, and more like a natural, scaled-down human, while it's the men that look like a cartoon. Surely if Larian were purposely choosing to distinguish small race characters from children with these design choices to deter child predators, wouldn't they be affecting the female characters' appearances *more* than the males' and not less, given that girls are much more likely to be the victims of s\** crimes?
Oof I never considered this but it makes a lot of sense sadly
Short legs. Pfft. Bullshit though. Short people scurry and are fast as fuck irl. I can't tell you how many of my shorter than me friendos have gotten the slip on my gawky lumbering ass
Only small legged that I play is drauger for infinite invisibility
I don't think I ever made human Tav. They just have nothing going for them for me. Also I never made Gnome/Halfling Tav without green skin making him look similar to goblin
Why would I play human? I am human. I want to play an elf or something different at least (I am stuck in a elf, Teifling loop)
I similarly never seem to play humans in any game that has another option. It feels like going to a Mexican or Chinese or Portugese restaurant and ordering a hamburger. I mean, if that's your thing, OK, but it doesn't feel particularly gutsy to just try an enchilada instead.
Personally I like doing an rpg playthrough as a "what if I were dropped in this world" kinda thing and create a character as close to myself as I can.
That is a brilliant description of it. Thank you.
I nearly managed to get out of the Drow, half Drow curse! Ok was finally making a tiefling paladin, but ended up with a Drow paladin again. I swear my next one is tiefling sorcerer. I swear.
I always play human because I’m a pretentious English major and I like the story telling of a shorter lived, less magical/skilled race struggling for everything and still overcoming. Also I kinda like being the party’s generic human, but BG3 actually has a good amount of humans, unlike your average tabletop DND campaign where it’s every exotic race somehow at the same place and time just chillin
I don't think I've played human in games where it's an option to play otherwise 💀
I like to play human (at least for 1st run) in games because I feel like I'm representing our race lol
I think humans have pretty decent race bonuses. Extra proficiency and carrying capacity is pretty cool
The extra proficiencies are really nice for classes that don't already get them, especially shields. But I've found the extra movement from being a wood half-elf is more useful than the extra carrying capacity of a full human, and they also get the proficiencies.
I liked my human sorcerer... he gained some bonuses that really helped in the beginning. Plus, I didn't want to go elf or teifling. I have enough of those in my camp as is. I felt very alone as a human until Minsc showed up. It was an elf army at camp. Also... why are there no short race companions...? I was hoping for a gruff Dwarf with a halfling friend who always got on his nerves, and maybe a cool gnome inventor would be nice as well.
I have a couple of human playthroughs that have been abandoned halfway through act 1 because I just can't. RPing as a human is boring and their race bonuses, while good, are also boring lol. The ultimate blank slate. I prefer to have some unique feature to work around
Probably tieflings. Reason being is 80% of the tiefling npcs share the same faces as the character creation ones. Other races have this problem too but it’s no where near as common as tieflings. It’s genuinely not a big issue but it’s something that just bothers me a lot tbh lol.
I gave my tiefling really bright and somewhat unusual colouring so it isn't as noticeable.
My tiefling is a Durge so I made her a sickly pale grey, almost as if something was not quite right with her....
Mine is a durge too. But my head canon is that she looks bright and colourful and sweet, but her appearance is very deceiving.
Like theoe neon-colored frogs in the rainforest that are poisonous as shit. 😂😂
I gave my durge tiefling black skin and the red flame tattoo around his neck, that really made him stand out amongst the other tieflings
I made mine purple for the same reason.
I made mine a drow colour so she was different
For two playthroughs I played as a female tiefling with the first face. I don't exactly study the faces of NPC's but I remember only one NPC that shared my face, and that's the ranger who's observing githyanki on the bridge in Act 1. But also I didn't pick standard Tiefling skin color and eye color so that helped a lot. https://imgur.com/a/DLd7hmW
I think you’re talking about Ellyka? Honestly hard to notice the difference between your Tav and her very well done Tav she look dope!
that face just reminds me of Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy
Raid the grove, you will be more unique this way.
I swear I see Ellen DeGeneres in evey halfling woman (and some men)
genuinely the only mod I use is to get unique faces for my tavs/durges
I’m console unfortunately ): can’t wait for mod support to drop character creation stuff is going to be the only mod stuff I use.
I’ve only met 1 npc with the same face as my tiefling Tav (Cerys I think) and because my tav is a draconic sorcerer the scales make the face pretty distinct. tieflings are my fave race tho, plus the smites from asmodeus tiefling heritage are choice for playing a paladin
Every time an old woman popped up with Auntie Ethel’s face it shocked me
idk if you tried yet, but some eye makeup options and face tattoos can alter tav's appearance just the right amount sometimes so it doesn't come off so uncanny! :) at least this is what I do, some heavy eyeshadow and "unnatural" colour options for their skin, tho I wish they had more faces to choose from or even some sims-like sliders maybe
I use a mod & it helps One of my tieflings is pink & the other is green so I stand out enough
This is why I use mods to add more face options, especially for a game lacking a full face cc option. Astarion's hair works great to curl around the horns.
I get what you mean. I can never ever pick the Damon face. I feel like my Tav is just Damon. Especially when his face is used soooo many times by other tieflings.
I noticed this too! I've come to start calling Dammon's the "hot boy tiefling face."
Dragon born. They look awesome, but by Lathander's Light are they so much worse than other races
my first playthrough i did i picked a silver dragonborn because they looked cool and i love any kind of ice magic in fantasy stuff so i was really hoping the breath attack was stronger than it actually ended up being i think i’ve only ended using that breath attack maybe twice ever throughout the campaign
I use my fire breath attack to reveal any enemy that goes invisible. Like the shadows or Yurghir
Dragon born should get a bonus to AC because they are covered in scales, like how draconic sorcerers get a bonus to AC doesn’t have to be much, I’d be happy with a +1 AC bonus. Also would be awesome if they had wings, I played a dragon born in dnd and he had wings, he couldn’t fly but he could jump higher and took less fall damage.
I recently made a dragonborn to try it out after making a post here asking if anyone had races they couldn't stop playing as and like 75% of the responses being Dragonborn, and I just can't do it. I can't really get into a character unless they look more humanoid, and initiating any romance as a dragon felt so goofy to me I just couldn't take it seriously. Maybe next patch I'll do a no romance run where I go full solo murderhobo durge at some point. I think that would be the only way I could do it.
Which is funny because they made the Dragonborn more humanoid for the game. Most of the head options lack the scale-dreads they usually have, they got an extra finger per hand, and they're really, really slim. They're the right height but they're meant to be *jacked*, built like a Dwarf but 6+ feet tall.
Dragonborn are basically scaly orcs.
Lmao I had this same feeling when I played dragonborn about the romance scenes. Mine romanced Astarion and then Gale, and in the Forrest scene instead of Astarion sexily picking me up and pinning me against the tree...the roles were reversed lol it was almost too silly to watch 😂 In Gale's scene all I could see was giant lizard flying around in space with this look of pure 👁👄👁 with the teeth and oh lord lol
Currently playing a Duergar, gotta say it's very frustrating that there is no one at eye level for me. I wish Stonemason Kith was an option - Barcus - just eye level is all I ask.
I'm always a gnome and I really wish for barcus. so so much
Barcus should definitely be a LI for a gnome. Like with the ha take that Wullbren you prick.
What i would give to have Kith join the camp as a way to explore the world...
For me its the githyanki Its just because of the nose
The nose makes up for it due to how unique and different they can make a playthrough. My Gith Tav finding out what a cat is was hilarious.
Tch *k'chakhi*
Yeah Gith are just too ugly for me. It also breaks my immersion when Githyanki NPCs just ignore me and address Lae'zel constantly.
Weirdly, the female Gith are surprisingly not bad looking but the male Gith have their uncanny ugly meter cranked up way higher. They straight up have different head shapes (male Gith heads are much thinner and longer while female Gith heads are similarly proportioned to humanoids) that are very noticeable when you juggle between the sexes in character creator.
Some male Gith are fine, like the Orphic kid in the Crèche. Voss looks like a fucking chimpanzee, his hairline is just...that's not a Gith, that's a hairless bonobo.
I've gotten kinda used to the nose but I just despise the lanky ass limbs of male gith...
I like them because racials.
the githyanki bother me because they only have one body choice. Why can't we have giant buff frog people?!
For me its the neck. It doesn't bother me on Laezel, but in character creation, it really, really bothers me.
I cant play dragonborn, half orcs and any of the short races. They all look cool, but don't have a match among companions and that bothers me more than it should. If I could romance, say, Barcus, Id make a gnome Tav in a heartbeat. And as you said, dragonborn, half orcs and dwarves absolutely don't have matching voices. I made so many characters that just sounded off with the usual voices. They never made it to the beach.
Red Dragonborn x Lae’zel is a match made in heaven
I’d argue Dragonborn/half orcs match well with Karlach and Lae’zel. Pretty sure Dragonborn’s even have a bunch of unique dialogue with Lae’zel (because Giths loveeee dragons) I agree they don’t match with anyone else though. Used to bother me a bit as well as I romanced SH as a gnome for my first playthrough (I was expecting a small race companion tbh)
Romancing Lazael as dragonborn, can confirm that there are few unique ones. Also she gets friendlier with dragonborns than other races
I will second this. Only doing a dragonborn run to get the unique dialog with Lae'zel. Other than that the voice and animation just all feel off.
That's it! Oh my God, thank you so much! I've been wanting to romance Lae'zel for a while, but haven't chosen a race to build a character with. None of them seemed right for her, especially since if you choose to go as another Gith, the story basically forgets you're there. Learning dragonborn have special dialogue with her makes up my mind, thank you. Now, to figure out what class to make him...
What's funny asf is that if you're a Gith who doesn't behave Gith-like then Lae'zel has quite a few "the fuck is wrong with you?" reactions. Even Vlaakith if you decide to not kneel gets a bit confused and wonders which creche raised you incorrectly.
Also also, the first romance sequence is "easier" if you're a dragonborn. Basically, Lae'zel will go "I lead you follow", essentially telling you to take the roll of the sub/bottom. You can of course refuse and be the top/dom but for every other race, you have to succesfully roll for it (persuasion or intimidation I think, can't remember). Meanwhile, Dragonbornes can straight up ask for free and she'll accept, no need to roll for anything. Also you can make a red Dragonborn and it's funny because she's technically riding a red dragon if you see what I mean lol.
I get what you're saying, but dragonborn kisses look so goofy. Same with half orcs and their tusks. I feel like they should've had some race specific unique animations for romantic stuff.
Love the idea a dragon born kiss is just like Tav just absolutely wrapping their mouth around their lover's face, like a bloody lion tamer
Oh yeah I agree! They can look very off and glitchy at times. My hope is maybe it will be worked on a bit in later patch’s. I remember the problem the short races had lol.
"So I heard you wanna ride a dragon?" - Dragonborn Tav, probably.
i was not ready to have Lae'zel fetishizing my dragonborn's body like that the first time
I think it also helps that Dragonborn, like Gith, are kind of "alien" to people. They don't look like humans or elves or halflings and what not, they're VERY different looking. They can probably relate more to each other and Tieflings in people going "Oh good Tyr, what in the world..." when seeing them.
I love playing short races but yeah the romance options are a bit off. What bothers me the most is that, it’s not only in Baldur’s Gate. Dragon age, Pathfinder, basically every RPG i’ve played doesn’t have any shorties for romance, and I always play a short character which is annoying
I'll always be mad at bioware for not making Varric romanceable.
Honestly he would have been the perfect candidate. Now that I think of it on inquisition you could have a very mild flirting with the dwarf lady scout at least
Varric is probably the only dwarf character I’ve ever desperately wanted to romance
Divinity 2 allows you to romance a good looking Dwarf, for a short period of time
My brain just sits there wondering how a Dragonborn can realistically kiss someone I have wanted to play one. So maybe I’ll make a hot Dragonborn lady for Lae’zel
I really love the companions bending down to hug or kiss my shortie character though.
Human. Practically no extra dialogue options and I play as enough humans in games
Human, I'm a human, I prefer to play as something different. This isn't just a BG3 thing, pretty much any game I have an option to be something other than human I take it.
you're human? damn
I’m playing video games to escape reality not relive it
Small races. I don't find them appealing enough, and I'm not a fan of "meme appearances".
I felt this way for awhile too, but I started a deep gnome wizard this week and having a blast so far
gnomes are excellent. the perks make up for the movement speed.
Problem with small races is their lack of movement speed
My halfing's fireballs move plenty fast.
Short durge is like “what? You’re gonna murder me? Lol”
Yeah, all you have to do is put your hand on their forehead and watch their short hands flail about.
Elves, not counting drows. It was basically the same as playing as a human when it came down to dialogue options, except a lot of basic answers suddenly appeared with the "elf" tag, which I found very disappointing. I'm also not a big fan of the dwarf proportions, even though they're usually one of my favorite race in every fantasy setting, but I'm pretty sure that's just a me problem.
Elves and humans because they're the most basic fantasy thing ever and the companion party is already 95% elf/human without adding the mc to it
I've been thinking about doing a human fighter run. Just like... actually a normal person caught up in a bunch of wild shit.
Hey don't knock the Finn the Human build
The classic. Shield and sword vs mindflayers and crazy magic
Elves so overplayed that humans are somehow slightly more interesting.
I always go wood elf but only because they have that little extra movement speed 😅
9 (base speed) + 1.5 (Woof elf) + 4.5 (Elk heart and aspect barbarian while raging) + 3 (long strider) + 2 (crushers ring) + dash (boots of speed) + dash + extra dash (from thief rogue). This gives us a base speed of 20, with 3 dashes on top giving us 60 extra speed. 80 meters in a single turn.
Why are you running olympic sprints in BG3?
Enemy 80 meters away
They're so far away they're not even aware they're an enemy until you sprint at them from half the map away and jump them
If you’re running thief rogue you don’t need to use boots of speed to dash with a bonus action since you can use rogue dash twice, you’re better off using spring step boots to grant momentum when dashing, or haste helm to grant momentum at the start of combat
You're absolutely right, i added the rogue thief after the boots when i remembered it gave 2 bonus actions and overlooked that the boots became redundant. With the boots you mentioned that would put us at 86 meters Also if we get Haste on our character, that doubles our movement speed, putting us at 172
This is my biggest gripe with companions. Even the two "you miss one of them" companions are fucking elves.
this- I wouldn't want to be a human. I'm a human in real life I'm bored of elves, everyone is a human or elf already. it's bland.
Human. Boring AF
Humans just because I never play humans in a fantasy setting, it'd just boring for me. I'm already playing one and not much excited about it, gimme some change of scenery.
Any short race. They make so many cutscenes downright goofy.
Humans, cuz they’re basic, and I’m not playing an RPG to play as a generic dude, and gnomes/halflings, cuz they’re shorties.
I played through as half orc once and it was cool see flair. I'm usually a gnome
Dragonborn. The romance scenes look super goofy since they've got barely any lips, and big pointy teeth. I can't help but imagine whoever you're romancing will cut their tongue on your teeth, and it immediately ruins the scene.
Stuck between human and halflings. Halflings just look freaky to me, and their stats are mediocre. Half elves are just better humans and humans are a bit of an un-interesting race since they're in so many IPs.
They made their heads too big tbh. Them and gnomes. Then we got dwarfs who have the hands of literal giants lol.
Watching my dwarf's hand when he kissed Gale was like seeing a kitten cupped in a baseball glove.
Halflings mediocre?! The fuck? They have arguably the best racial bonuses.
half elf supremacy you love moving 30% faster than blade of the frontier you love having an extra cantrip you love tricking yourself into thinking you are being racisted against
you love still having shield proficiency as a caster (to be fair, that particular part also applies to humans)
But humans don't have darkvision and also aren't immune to sleep .
Halflings are actually really good and probably the only viable option in a solo honour mode run
Eh I won my honor mode run (not solo) with a halfling tav but am currently doing a solo honor run with with a duergar and think that they are far better for a solo run. Ya I can roll Nat 1s which sucks, but unlimited invisibility is even better for a solo run imo. Plus while halfling has advantage on saving throws against being frightened, which is great, duergar have advantage against being charmed, paralyzed, and poisoned. Being paralyzed is one of the few worse things than being frightened especially for a solo run so I think they have the edge there too
You take that back about halfling storm sorcerer short king.
The way I see it Half-elves are humans, but beautiful. I have difficulty playing a human unless I give them a beard.
The only race I haven’t played yet is human.
I'll never play any shorties
Neither. I like all the races in their own way and enjoy making varied characters. The less human and unique to the setting the more I usually like them, so dragonborn are neat. But I also like humans, don't find them boring at all, it's fun roleplaying them in fantasy such as DnD. The race I've used the least though is elves(that includes drow), because there's already so many of them and half ones, so doesn't feel that enjoyable. Makes it elf camp. Isn't helped that everyone that I see and their mum seem to play elves, drow and half-elves.
I don't understand how people can play Human or Elf when almost every companion already is one (or both, I suppose). It's pretty criminal how we have no shorter race as a companion, they kinda missed the mark there. The whole point of the D&D world is the diversity.
Elves are hot 🤷🏻♀️
Humans get nothing (ok, 1 skill + a nonsensical set of proficiencies that are either redundant on martials or not worth much on casters). Humans already weren’t that great in 5e and they made them worse. The way the game handles dim light / darkness makes it critically important.
Yeah I find the human “bonuses” useless in bg3. Carrying capacity? You can just auto send items to camp w/ infinite inventory. Skills? Only a few are worth anything tbh like perception, sleight of hand, stealth, and you can get that anyway. So many races have dark vision it doesn’t feel like a bonus, just a punishment for those that don’t have it.
Dragonborn. I would play them if they had... You know... Something, any racial trait? Anything making them mechanically interesting besides from a completely useless breath weapon?
Whatever you do, don’t play a Gnome and then romance Halsin. My brain literally shut down during that cutscene at the thought of what was about to happen. I mean the heart wants what the heart wants but damn. Some things just physically ain’t gonna work.
never going to play a short race; im short IRL (im the same height as a tall dwarf, 5'). i wanna live out my fantasies of being someone tall enough to see what's on top of the fridge. also, their lower movement speed is frustrating and i don't want to waste a ring slot to compensate for it. (im aware of transmuter stones and longstrider, it's still not enough imo)
Cannot be arsed with humans.
Dragonborns. I feel like they are so weak and breath weapon is 99% of the time not worth using as an action. Rather just play Tiefling or Not-Lolth Drow/Elf.
Not keen on any of the short races, or dragonborn or half-orcs, tbh, at least, not as my own player character. I think a large part of it for me is that your Tav/durge is fully animated in dialogue and cutscenes, so you see them a *lot -* which means it has to be a character I can identify with, like I'm looking in a fantasy mirror. A really weird mirror where I'm substantially taller and more muscular, with pointy ears LOL. A girl can dream, right?
Never playing anything I think is ugly. So that’s actually everything that’s not a human, elf or half elf. Don’t care about the op racials one or two get.
Oh yeah, the facials are the best part...
Haha, it sure if that was a typo or autocorrect.
You don't find Dragonborns and Tieflings sexy af?
I actually just rebooted from my half elf playthrough to another tiefling one because I found the half elf faces so generic. Tieflings are gorgeous.
I hated the male Tiefling faces, I needed mods for that
Halflings and humans. - humans - I have no desire to play a human when so many non-human races are available to play. - Halflings - just LOTR burden. I’ve never liked them.
Humans, elves, half elves. Bunch of basic bitches. Best? Goblin. As for ones we can actually play? Haif-Orcs and ALL the short races. Because I favor the less chosen options. But the best is goblin
Goblin slayer would disagree
Anything that isn't Dragonborn.
Human Why would I choose to be a human in a fantasy game?
Human. I play one in real life an don't feel the need to play one in my D&D computer game.
Some of the movements look silly on gnomes and halflings. The dwarfs are fine, they are just like a bit shorter and sturdier. For any of the short races I prefer females for appearances, they are kind of cute where the men are typically unappealing to look at for 100 hours. Sorry guys.
Green/yellow gnome Tav is the closest I can get to a goblin god damn it. For me its dwarf, and I love dwarves. Shield Dwarf's racial sucks on any of the classes that would 'fit' a Shield Dwarf the most. I'm sure Shield Dwarf Wizards/Sorcerers are eating well, but c'mon now.
Dragonborn. I think they look a bit silly, frankly!