An Overview of Races in Baldur's Gate 3 - Character Creation Guide

hello and welcome everyone my name is Balco and today I want to talk about the races in Baldur's Gate 3. right off the bat I do want to say thank you for all the support I've been getting on the Channel all your comments and thumbs up and Subs have been very much appreciated I'm still a little bit overwhelmed honestly and if you like this video those definitely help so right away let's talk about why you might want to consider a particular race in Baldur's Gate 3 for your class aside from the Aesthetics which are a bit more personal preference so from a mechanic standpoint one of the first things lots of people want to consider is the dark vision tax so what I mean by that is about half the races or more have dark vision so they're only a handful of popular races that don't get it and when you're playing one of those races it is a little bit of attacks you need to have either the the light can trip or a torch or some sort of magical implement or maybe rely on things that don't make attack rolls so if you're a Caster you're relying more on saving throws and you're not going to be making as many attack rolls to mitigate the disadvantage you get in so many of the dark places in combat in Baldur skate 3. next up you want to think about the spell or sorry the unique proficiencies you're going to be getting so many races actually provide unique skill and weapon and armor proficiencies if you're gonna get those proficiencies and you want to think about your class you want to avoid double dipping so if you're getting free weapon proficiencies or free armor proficiencies and you're taking a class that already gives those you are kind of wasting your ratio bonus a little bit obviously that doesn't mean like oh you can't make a shield dwarf fighter because you already get free armor proficiency you absolutely can and it's not the end of the world and some combinations are still going to be totally fine but on the other hand you might be considering things like oh if I want to make a wizard where could I pick up that free medium armor or where can I pick up that Shield proficiency so that I can take advantage of having that higher Armor class that I wouldn't otherwise be able to have so these are things you definitely want to consider and then finally you want to look at what are the unique bonuses there are plenty of races that have unique features that you can't get anywhere else or just breadth features little spells and abilities you can use once per long sometimes that give you access to utility that you wouldn't otherwise have so right off the bat let's talk about elves so elves have the base ratio speed of 9 meters this is typical for all the regular size the medium-sized races they also get Elven weapon training so proficiency with the long sword short sword short short bow and Longwell so some decent weapons there dark vision so one of the braces that doesn't have to pay the tax and then pay ancestry they can't be put to sleep and they can have advantage against being Charmed that's totally fine or their sub-races they can have high Elf or wood elf what else gives them a little bit more movement speed and high elf gives them can trips from The Wizard spell list these are all really useful nice mix of utility or damage great whether you're a wizard and you just want a free bonus can drip or even if you're a fighter or really any role there's going to be something here because there are plenty of cat trips you can take that are going to be good dependent no matter what your your stats are no matter what your role is you have things for Frontline you have lots of triggering uh Elemental effects with the blastery can trips you have things like friends that are going to be fun you have light if you need that somehow in your party for your other other friends and uh you you won't need it for yourself because you're an elf um but yeah lots of cool options there larion defaults onto Firebolt potentially hitting at the hinting at the importance of Barrel mancy in Builders Escape 3 so if you want to be able to light up those powder kegs you can grab this on your fighter and Away you go next up though let's talk about tieflings so chieflings are the first of a few races that actually have sort of a hidden bonus so chieflings all get uh additional bonuses that aren't listed here they have dark vision obviously and they get this hellish resistance so they're resistant to fire damage which is a very common type of damage fantastic and then for their sub races you click on these subraces and they each offer you a cat trip which seems totally fine as well so produce flame it's not terrible magehand it's not amazing but not terrible thought maturity kind of fun in uh conversation definitely has a use these all seem fine right well you also get access to new spells for each of these at level 3 and level five so going from left to right the asmodeus tiefling gets hellish review once per long rest which is a nice little way to use a reaction to do some damage at level 5 you also get the darkness spell so this is going to give you some utility to Blind creatures and you can also just throw it on your own party and then they can't attack into it which is pretty good epistophilus tieflings get burning hands and Flame blade both ones prolonged the rest so a little bit of AOE in the close range and then flame blade is sort of a decent uh for you know people that want to do some attacking on the front line so both of these sort of lend themselves to being up in the thick of it to take advantage but a little bit of fire damage a little bit of extra bonus definitely um worth considering if that's what you want to do and then finally um the Zario tiefling in addition to thamaturgy get their searing Smite and branding Smite leaning towards sort of that Paladin bonus these are both once per lung rest you can't use them a whole bunch but being able to get that free searing Smite at level three is absolutely great it doesn't use up any of your other slots so if you already are in the front line swinging a weapon around uh both of the Spells you get for his aerial tiefling uh synergize really well and then on top of thamaturgy this is giving you advantage on intimidation and performance so all of these are leaning towards really nice energy with a paladin it's going to have high Charisma that's going to be in the front line that's going to be doing all these sorts of things anyways or even like a college of Swords or Valor Bard would make an event take advantage of these so really fantastic subclass I I like the zero teethling quite a bit in terms of just like the Synergy all of its kit provides and kind of like points you in a Direction so I do enjoy that one next up we have drow what's similar to the tiefling have some secret hidden bonuses that aren't listed in the Character Creator so they have uh drow weapon training which is going to give them the Rapier short sword and hand crossbow these are all decks based weapons which are in important to think about so you you want to have a good Dex if you want to take advantage of this weapon training they get Superior dark vision so not just regular dark vision this is twice as far and then they have the Fate ancestry of elves now in terms of the sub races these are more flavorful if you read the description here they're not going to change which abilities you get but drought also get access to fairy fire at level 3 and darkness so it's a nice utility and sort of Port support which is going to be great to round out your parties no matter where you are so even if you're on the front line sometimes like a defensive darkness is great or if you're a supporting character casting that fairy fire or darkness is the kind of things you're doing anyways so just sort of free cast it's always nice to have drow are a very popular race and they have some great bonuses so there's there's not a lot negative to say here next up we have humans hooray uh they they're not great they're kind of nerfed they used to get the plus one to all stats before they we change to the just put the plus one and plus two wherever you want um and that used to mean that for multi-atribute dependent builds or mad builds humans were actually really powerful and then obviously from tabletop variant human is fantastic now humans they have to compensate for losing the free stats they used to get civil militia so they get access to Spears Pikes halberds and glaves as well as proficiency with light armor and shields so not terrible notably The Shield proficiency is doing a lot of the work of civil militia here you could pretty well get rid of all the other ones and the shield proficiency is is really what you're excited about light armor matters if you're a wizard um but other than that it's the shield proficiency so Shield proficiency is essentially plus two AC for any Caster outside of clerics and Druids so your Sorcerers your warlocks your your bards um this this actually opens up a lot of options so Valor Bard would potentially be getting the shield proficiency anyways or it does but now you can take College of swords and still bump up to medium armor and get the shield which is actually what I did in my playthrough on tactician and it's been really fantastic so far although I cheated and I went half elf and we'll talk about that in a second so Shields are great definitely a reason to consider human but you know half up is probably just better human versatility is the one advantage that you get from from being a human and it's just that free skill point anywhere which if you pick your Accolade or sorry you're not your Accolade I'm reading Accolade off to the side if you pick your background carefully you probably will be able to pick up the skills you need but if you really want to make a specialist that has access to as many skills as possible humans are able to do that so that's awesome next up we have gith Yankee so guess Yankee are similar to The chiefling in drought and that they have secret hidden things so in addition to all the bonuses listed here at level three they get their psionic jump and at level five they have Misty stat so incredibly mobile which is great no matter which character you are just being able to move around the battlefield up and down those z-axises uh if you have a strength based get Yankee and you use that jump spell you are pretty well flying you go so far and it's super fun I do recommend it you also get access to astral knowledge which is going to get you Proficiency in all skills of a chosen ability which means you can be a pretty decent skill monkey or specialist so this is a pretty fun uh little little pickup you get your main Chan is also invisible which is kind of cool and you do get that free Mage hand and then otherwise you are a martial Prodigy which is also very good so you get access to short swords long swords and great swords which are totally decent weapons you also get medium armor so and obviously light armor but medium armor is gonna be great for those Wizards or Sorcerers or warlocks those squishy casters that typically have to rely on just hiding way in the back getting up to that Medium armor right away means you get a pretty respectable AC right out of the gate and uh yeah so GIF are absolutely fantastic and they're they're definitely a solid race um and worth considering next up we have dwarves dwarves have a slower movement speed and this is going to be the first race with not nine movement speed so this does actually matter and you'll notice if you do have a dwarf especially if your dwarf is your front liner you're going to be waddling after enemies sometimes trying to chase them down so it is it is not nothing worven combat training gives you some proficiencies mostly strength based weapons so not as valuable because typically a strength-based build is already going to get proficiency with strengths-based weapons it's mostly the dexterity based weapons that are more valuable as a free thing but there's fun builds you could potentially put together with this so it's it's not nothing dark vision obviously is great so you don't have to pay the tax and Dwarven resilience so advantage against poison as well as resistance to poison damage which resistance is always nice as well you also have access to a few sub-races so you have the gold dwarf Shield dwarf and dwargar the gold dorb just gives you a little bit of extra hit points which are fine so having more hit points is great it's not a time just one per level but it is additional hit points which are you know they can matter sometimes chill dwarf is fantastic probably my favorite this is going to give you that armor proficiency specifically gives you that Medium armor proficiency which is a little bit harder to come by so this can mean your Dwarven wizard is going to be walking around in scale Mill right early on in the game which is definitely worth doing and then finally the dwar guard get the superior dark vision so that 24 meters just like the drow as well as resistance uh or sorry advantage against Illusions and being Charmed or paralyzed these are some pretty debilitating effects so having advantage against these is also pretty solid so if you're already getting that armor proficiency uh dwargar might be the choice of dwarf for you path elves these are sort of just like better humans so you're giving up the ability to get a one bonus skill proficiency for dark vision as well as fate ancestry as well as the uh sub races so you can also not only pick up the half elf and what else but you can also get the drow elf bonuses which are going to give you the dancing light and and spells so um yeah these are all the same as the elf bonuses so these are all great and then Additionally you have access to Shields for free and as well as you know some pole arms and light armor but this is really great I'm using this as I mentioned earlier for my college of Sword bards and I get that free can trip as well as a free Shield proficiency so absolutely fantastic next up we have halflings halflings are also amazing halflings have that shorter movement speed so a little bit of attacks there but they are lucky which is fantastic so this lets you re-roll your natural ones for Attack girls ability checks and saving throws and especially if you want to make a specialist or skill monkey that has expertise so your Rogues or your bards there are plenty of skill checks you're going to be making where the only chance you have a failing is rolling a natural one and as a halfling you just get to say just kidding I'm rolling that again and uh so yeah absolutely fantastic ability this is really the shining star of halflings everything else is kind of just okay so they're Brave advantage on saving those against being frightened a little bit thematic there and then for Lightfoot halflings you have advantage on stealth checks which is really good so this lets you be really sneaky um potentially mitigates the penalties of stealthing around in heavy armor you can just get flat rolls instead of disadvantage and then the strong heart halflings get it get the same as the the Dwarven resilience against poison so gives you both resistance as well as advantage against poison which is not terrible but this is more appealing to me but depending on what you want your halfling to do if you don't need them to be sneaking around then this is absolutely a totally reasonable pickup here so strong card halfling is pretty good gnomes are fantastic so gnomes actually have an incredibly powerful ability in Gnome cutting this cannot be understated advantage on intelligence wisdom and Charisma saving throws is huge especially wisdom so this will generally mean like you look at this and you're like oh against being frightened or you look at some of the other abilities with you know dwargar for example it's like oh saving throws against illusion or Charmed well you know what illusion and charm are going to be targeting they're going to be targeting all those wisdom saving throws so this just literally does everything so by being a gnome you just get to be advantage on all the Mind affecting stuff so all those charms and Illusions and incapacitates and hypnotizes anything like that you get advantage on it's super super powerful you also get access to your choice of sub race they all have dark vision so it's kind of hidden but yes you don't have to pay the tax so you get either 12 meter dark vision and then a bonus so here we kind of get expertise on History which is a lot harder to come by than just proficiency so that's kind of nice and then you get a free speak with animals this isn't too hard to come by but hey it's free might as well pick it up if you if you can you also get dark vision up to 12 meters and then you have the Deep Dawn which gives you the 24 meter Dark Vision in addition to Advantage on stealth checks which is fantastic as we talked about with the halfling so lots of cool bonuses gnomes are actually very very good um going from one of the best to one of the worst we have Dragonborn so the best part about Dragonborn is they look super cool and they also have some really thematic sub races you have the chromatic and metallic races represented so four dragons if you're unfamiliar with the general lore uh the the colored or the chromatic so you have black blue green red white are the evil the evil dragons and then the metallic ones so their brass bronze copper gold silver are your metallic and they're your good ones there's also different types of breath weapons Associated so there's going to be multiple versions that are going to give you uh you know cold breath so this is going to give you a cone of ice and then white is also going to give you a cone of ice but some of them are here let me not be a liar um this one so brass is gonna give you a column of fire and then this one is a cone of fire so some of them are a cone and then some of them are [Music] um a little bit different so this is they're mostly cones but I know in uh in tabletop there's also lines but it seems like this is the only one that is a a column that's sort of marked differently honestly I haven't tested all of these breath weapons out because that's really all you get and you get the resistance to whatever breath weapon you get and then you get a breath weapon the breath weapon doesn't scale it's not very good it's gonna be okay at level one it takes an action and then it just gets worse from there um so Dragonborn literally get nothing else they have no other racial features I don't I don't like them aside from they look cool and it hurts me that they're not very good but they're not great they look awesome and that's worth something half works have works are actually fantastic they have dark vision so they don't have to pay the tax they have Relentless endurance which is a unique ability that's fantastic so instead of getting knocked over when they hit zero hit points they get to go to one hit point and this only happens once and then it doesn't happen again until long rest but it is fantastic for saving an encounter I love playing half Orcs as like a cleric or a paladin sort of one of those really resilient characters that can heal and this just means instead of getting knocked out when it comes back to your turn you maybe chug a potion or use a big lay on hands or a big heel and then you're back in the fight again it's fantastic for saving you in those really dire situations getting that one extra turn can mean something at higher levels it maybe loses some Effectiveness because when enemies start having two or three attacks around they're going to knock you out with the second one and the third one is going to you know take you from one way down so it's maybe not always amazing but it is still really good those times where it forces the enemy to use an additional attack against you and that you wouldn't have to use it or just when you get an actual full extra turn out of it it is fantastic and in case half Orcs weren't cool enough already they also get Savage attacks so Savage attacks lets you roll uh it says it it triples your damage dice instead of doubling them this is really really powerful so whenever you crit with a melee attack that is you get to roll three damage dice so just extra dice whenever you crit this means half work combos really well with uh builds that are uh crit fishing so either taking advantage as much as possible so barbarians or even Champions that have a lower crit threshold that are just gonna crit twice as often as typical classes um or like I said before paladins that get to roll so many dice when they crit they get rolled so many dice so half works are fantastic really really powerful and are part of some of the the craziest critting based builds uh weapon focused obviously and uh yeah fantastic race overall and that is my quick overview so I just wanted to talk about what are some of the bonuses how they kind of work things to consider overall a brief sort of rundown and really looking at you know what are those proficiencies worth in class in the races and you know are you going to be able to pick that up from your class for free in a lot of cases probably yes so thinking about you know what are you actually getting from those proficiencies and then really focusing in on what are those unique abilities that you maybe can't get anywhere else or those hidden abilities like the tiefling drought and get Yankee have that aren't necessarily listed that are going to let you uh to go a little bit further and yeah if you have any other comments or if I missed anything there's a ton of sub-races in this um I I hopefully I think I picked them all up and I think I got all the hidden abilities let me know if I missed anything else or let me know what your favorite race is and why I wrong I love hearing those comments too and I love having those conversations so yeah I will catch you in the next one [Music]

Channel: BulkoIV

Views: 1,867

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 classes

Id: lA6L6zbWST4

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023