Baldur's Gate 3 - Beginner's Guide to Understanding Character Creation

character creation in Baldur's Gate 3 is one of if not the most important part of your Baldur's Gate 3 Adventure so in today's video I'm going to explain it all to you so you can make the character of your dreams and in some ways I mean that quite literally and you know why here soon so the first tab in character creation is perhaps the most important choice that you'll make here and that is do you want to play as a custom character or An Origin character so a custom character has no predetermined backstory you can RP this character any way that you would like and the world will not react to you according to your past actions unless those past actions are actually in the game itself now origin characters it's kind of like playing as geralt of Rivia in The Witcher three you're playing a character that has a story in a predetermined history it's established lore in the Realms and the world is going to react to you accordingly for example a few of these characters are from the city of Baldur's Gate so when they go to the city in the game if you play as an origin character some people in the city are going to react to you if they know you you don't really have any control over that but what you do have control over is how you handle the story with these origin characters so you still have a ton of agency in terms of how you want to play them and play out their morality but their history is always going to be their history but there is kind of like a happy medium Choice here and that is the dark urge which kind of mixes being a custom character and also being an origin character so the custom characters you can fully customize their race class and appearance with most of the origin characters you can actually respect them when you meet a respect character later on in the game but you can't change their appearance and of course you can't change their backstory with a dark urge you can actually play any race class sub-race that you want but you also still have a backstory but that backstory is actually shrouded in mystery unimaginable cruelty Whispers to you from within Can You Escape it would you even want to so you have these urges to kill but you also don't remember your history or your past as the dark urge so you kind of get to play this origin character who does have a past but the origin character doesn't know their past nor do you the player and you can customize this character as much as you would like so it's kind of like a mix between both so go ahead and read through the description of all the origin characters and each of them also has a play introduction button right here which will give you a nice little cut scene so you can hear their voice kind of get a sense of their personality and a little bit of their backstory as well such as a Starion right here Hello darling don't be shy so custom characters you can customize everything origin characters you cannot change their appearance nor can you change their class in character creation but you can respect them when you meet the respect guy in act one but this may mess with their story a little bit as some of these origin characters are deeply tied to their Base Class so keep that in mind but larion is giving you the choice to do that if you so wish now you do get to progress the origin characters in any way that you want when certain features come up at different levels for their class in Juno on the right side of the Character Creator is a character sheet that shows you a summary of all of your choices and character creation and this will update and change as you progress through the Character Creator okay moving on to the second tab which is the race tab there are 11 different races in Baldur's Gate 3. some of them offer some sub-race choices as well such as the dwarf offering the choice between gold dwarf Shield dwarf and wergar now there's a couple reasons why you would choose a race one of them is of course appearance you just think maybe half elves look really cool or half Orcs are badass and you really want to play one or of course dragonborns one of the coolest looking races in this game so you may play a race for their appearance and that's perfectly fine but also keep in mind that there is established lore for each of these races in the game so from an RP perspective when you go through the world as certain races the world is going to react to you accordingly now there are more common races on the surface world of faerun such as elves humans dwarves half elves half leans and also a few of the Gnomes to where when you walk up to the city of Baldur's Gate for example nobody's really going to bat an eye but if you walk up to the city of Baldur's Gate as a gith Yankee for example which is kind of like this alien race from a different plane of existence people are going to react accordingly and it's going to feel like you are an alien so your Race Choice is actually quite important to the reactivity of the world around you a few of the races are from the underdark the brutal mysterious dangerous underdark of faerun and when they come to the surface World such as a drow the world is going to react to that then you also have the sub race of dwarves called the dwargar which are also from the underdark and of course the Deep gnomes are also from the underdark and then we have half forks and people tend to view the orc race with a bit of disdain and if you're a half orc you might feel a little bit of that and also the Dragonborn are very new to the planet of toril though a mighty race like this can be quite intimidating and people are going to react so read the description of all the races and expect the world to react to you accordingly don't stress out too much about your race choice because I think all of them are going to offer their own uniqueness another important reason why you may choose a race are for the racial features which will actually affect your gameplay now some of these racial features are unique to that specific race other ones are shared and some of them overlap with your class Choice as well so keep that in mind now the drow has Superior dark vision the half Fork has regular dark vision but the dwarf also has regular dark vision so make sure to look at all of these racial features some of the races offer certain weapon proficiencies so when you end up choosing your class and do note that you can hop from your class back to your Race Choice at any time when you choose your class if it doesn't offer a certain weapon proficiency that you're looking for for example many times Rogues want to use a long bow but the Rogue class does not offer Longbow proficiency and you can see your proficiencies over here on the right side so if I am playing as a rogue and I really want that long bow proficiency I could go to the elf race and you'll notice here Elven weapon training you have proficiency with a long sword short sword short bow and Longbow and now as a rogue and an elf you can see Longbow proficiency is showing over here here on the right now do note that some of the classes such as the fighter and the Ranger and the Paladin have simple weapon and martial weapon proficiency which means you can use all of the weapons in the game all weapons fall into one of those two categories so some classes you don't have to worry at all about what weapon proficiencies you're getting from your racial choice now let's take a look at a few other racial features some of these are really really good for example the half orc gets Relentless endurance if you reach zero hit points you regain one hit point instead of becoming down so this may be really good with classes that are Frontline tanks for example really good synergies going on here and they get Savage attacks when you land a critical hit with a melee weapon attack your damage dice are tripled instead of doubled so if you're really trying to go for that damage Focus build you may consider the half work for Savage attacks now there's so many great racial features it would take forever to go over them all but I probably will do that in a future video now do note that not every race has a sub Race Choice so if I'm on the halfway work for example the next tab in character creation is going to be choosing my class but if I was on the dwargar or the dwarf for example the next tab would be choosing my sub race and each sub-race also offers their own little sub-ray specific features or Specialties for example my main character I'm playing as a Wood Elf because I want that extra movement speed boost from Fleet of foot your movement speed is increased by five feet before we move on to the class tab do note that at any time in the Character Creator you can click on edit appearance down here at the bottom even on the origin custom Tab and when you click on edit appearance you then get to of course edit the appearance of your character for the High Elves or the wood elves you have General body art eyes makeup and hair then the Dragonborn for example has its own set of unique customization that you can do such as being able to customize their chin and also their Crest and of course they have their own unique faces and voices Etc I don't think I need to go over all of this but do note that you can edit their appearance at any time in the Character Creator so as soon as you choose a race feel free to try to customize them so you can kind of see how they're developing and then when you choose a class you'll be able to see them with that classes starting weapons and armor which is pretty cool Clarion Studios is giving us the choice between 12 different classes and there are 46 different subclasses in this game but do note that some classes get to choose their subclass right away at level 1 in character creation such as the cleric you can see over here on the left side we have the subclass tab where we can choose between several different subclasses but if we were to play as a ranger for example you don't see any subclass choice here because the ranger does not get presented with their subclass choice until you reach level three so keep that in mind every single class has at least three subclass choices to choose from some of them have way more such as the wizard right here which has eight different subclasses that you can choose from but you don't actually get to see those until you reach level two now like with your racial Choice when you click on a class down below the description are all of the class specific features but do note next to the description is also this little detail box which will show you the proficiencies that that class comes from so over here on the right is a summary of proficiencies combining your racial choice and your class choice you click on this little detail box right here it is class specific so for example with the Rogue you can see that there's no Longbow proficiency showing right here but if I were to change to the elf race the Longbow proficiency is still not showing here but it now will be showing over on the right on the character summary so keep that in mind now like with the races there's a million class features to go over here and I will do this in class guide videos but we don't have the time in this particular video don't stress out too much about any of these choices because you can respect but let's quickly take a look at the Barbarian so the Barbarian gets a class action called rage right away at level one and then they also get a special class feature called unarmored defense which is a passive feature while not wearing armor you add your Constitution modifier to your armor class every class is very unique from one another and when you click on a class also look on the left side over here underneath where it says class and if the next tab is background that means you don't really have any choices to make with that class at level one but if we were to click on the wizard for example keep an eye over here on the left side you notice now we have to choose our canned trips and our spells and if we're to choose the cleric we have to choose can trips and our subclass and also our deity choice now there is actually a pretty big difference between spellcasters that use prepared spells and spellcasters that use known spells so spellcasters that use prepared spells what that basically means is depending on what level you're at you have access to all of the spells on that classes spell list so the cleric down here has access to all of these spells and as you play that list is going to expand and you can swap those in and out you might only be able to have a certain amount available to you in any given combat encounter but between combat encounters you can switch these in and out so there's no pressure in choosing spells as you level up other classes use known spells such as the Warlock and you'll notice that you actually have to choose spells the ones that you choose are the ones that you have for that level and the ones that you don't choose you don't have at that level but you can pick them up later on in the game but known casters are much more limited in the spells that they have available and an easy way to know what type of Caster you're playing is by looking at the left side of the screen so for the cleric and the Druid you notice there is no spell choice over here on the left but when I click on the Warlock class you can see now we have spells to choose and also the sorcerer you can see we have two spells that we have to choose but it's not like that with a cleric or the Druid so keep an eye out on what type of Caster that you're playing now the wizard class is unique here as they not only get to learn way more spells in other classes for example you can see on the left side of the screen we get to choose six spells as a wizard but if I switch over to the sorcerer we only get to choose two but the wizard also can copy spells into their spell book as they find Scrolls in the world a lot of the spells in the game you can copy not all of them the Divine spells are meant for divine casters but as a wizard as you progress through the world you're going to be expanding your spell book and you can swap these spells in and out so you do have to make the choice of spells but your list is going to be much larger and you're going to be able to expand your overall Spellbook as you play so it's kind of like a mix between a prepared and also a known pastor and of course there are some classes that are hybrids between Magic and Marshall classes such as the Ranger and the Paladin and some of these classes may use prepared spells others may use known spells but now that you understand that you should be able to recognize it now before we move on to the final two tabs of the Character Creator I do want to quickly explain what cantrips are for example when I click on the sorcerer class we can choose four can trips and we also get to learn two spells cantrips are basically level zero spells but for the sake of making it easier to understand and just consider them as can trips and don't consider them as spells and cantrips are unique in that they don't use up your spell slots when you use them they can be cast at will there are some good can trips so make sure to look through them all before you take them there's a lot of good utility use ones and some of the classes actually can make good use out of the damaged ones as well okay moving on to the final two tabs starting with your background choice now your background choice is going to do two things for your character the first one is give you Proficiency in two skills so the soldier for example gets Athletics and intimidation proficiency charlatan gets deception and sleight of hand now Proficiency in this game means that you get a plus two bonus to your rolls so if I do a sleight of hand check meaning I lock pick a chest or something like that I get that extra plus two added to that role but your proficiency bonus does increase to a plus three at character level five and a plus four at character level nine now the reason why it's showing a plus three right now at character level one is because that number that's showing right there is also including your ability score modifier related to that particular skill so underneath sleight of hand you can see that it says dexterity so when you do a sleight of hand check in the game whether you're pickpocketing or picking a lock it's going to give you the plus two from your proficiency bonus but also take into account your dexterity modifier and my ability scores right now must have it to where I have a plus one in dexterity so it's showing a plus three now your background choice is also going to affect what is called the Inspiration Point system in this game so if you choose criminal for example make sure to read the description and then when you're playing Baldur's Gate 3 if you do something that is quite criminal so to say or let's say you choose Outlander and you do something that really makes sense for that type of background or as a folk hero let's say in the game you end up saving two innocent villagers from a monster that came out of the woods or something like that you may be given an Inspiration Point and you can hold four inspiration points at one time when you're playing and these inspiration points can be used to re-roll skill checks in dialogue so you're not only getting two skill proficiencies you might look for ones that you want on your character but you also want to choose one that fits your style of play so you have a better chance of actually acting like your background then the game May reward you with those inspiration points it's actually a pretty clever cool system okay and this brings us to the final Tab and that is ability scores and ability points so what do you want your character's strengths and weaknesses to be and this ties into combat of course but also your skills which we just talked about when we were talking about our character's background choice so high intelligence score will help you with skills that deal with intelligence but a high intelligence score will also help Wizards become much more powerful with their spell casting now you can float your cursor over each of these abilities to see what they are tied to strength deals with Effectiveness with melee weapons it also deals with jump distance and carry in capacity that dexterity deals with the effectiveness of ranged weapons but also finesse weapons and finesse weapons are melee weapons that can use your strength or your dexterity depending on what is higher for you an example would be a Rapier higher dexterity also helps you with your initiative role meaning you have a better chance of going earlier in the order of turns in combat and dexterity also ties into the armor-class number of characters who are wearing light or medium armor or no armor at all the dexterity has a lot of uses and it does tend to be the least dumped stat as most classes can benefit from it pretty greatly even though they might not necessarily be using dexterity weapons Constitution directly affects your hit points a higher Constitution modifier means more hit points will be added on top of your classes based hit points and it also helps you hold concentration on concentration spells intelligence when speaking on combat alone Powers a Wizards spells making their spells more likely to land and deal more damage and it allows them to learn more total spells as well then wisdom deals with the wisdom spellcasters so clerics Druids and Rangers and Charisma helps out the Charisma casters which are bards Paladin Sorcerers and warlocks now depending on what class you have selected larian will put a star next to the ability that that particular class tends to use but the key word here is tens because I may want to play as a strength based Ranger and use heavy weapons and wear heavy armor but larian is telling me that dexterity is the Rangers primary ability score it might be traditionally but you may have a build that falls outside of what larian recommends now there is a use recommended Button as well and depending on your selected class this button will disperse your ability points in a way that generally makes sense for that class although it might not be perfect now as a barbarian if I click on the recommended button lyrium will disperse the points to give me a really high strength and also Constitution which makes sense because those are tanky qualities and barbarians typically use really heavy melee weapons but low intelligence in Charisma is also what larian gave me here so I have to consider that when it comes to saving throws and also skills in the game that may deal with those particular abilities now strength and Constitution do tend to be very important for barbarians well in combat intelligence and Charisma don't directly make your Barbarian more powerful although like I said it may help you resist certain spells now generally speaking you probably want to get your classes primary ability score to at least a 16 and then the other abilities it's a little bit more up to you but if you want to optimize for combat or you want to optimize for skills or maybe a mix between both but keep in mind most classes also have fairly important secondary abilities as well such as the wizard needing dexterity for their Armor class and also Constitution for their health and also to help them maintain concentration on spells so now let's talk about what a modifier is every even number that your ability score is at your modifier will go up by one and this is important because the game uses your modifier not your total score and an ability so generally speaking you want even numbers as an odd number does not boost that modifier you can see right here when I have 10 strength it's showing zero when I switch it to 11 it's still at zero but at 12 that modifier then goes up to a plus one now class levels four eight and twelve you do get the opportunity to boost one ability score by two or two ability scores by one so you could leave yourself two odd numbers as long as you plan ahead to boost those numbers later on or you could even leave one odd number with a plan to take a special feat at level four but now we're getting a little bit too advanced for this video now the max that you can have in one ability is 15 points but everyone regardless of race or class Choice gets to add a plus two and a plus one to any ability score to increase that ability scores possible maximum so as a barbarian if I click the plus two next to strength right here I can now get my strength to 17 as long as I have the available points and then if I put my plus 1 into Constitution I can now boost my Constitution higher than 15 to 16 getting that nice modifier boost figure out what your class's primary ability is for example if you're playing as a wizard Wizards use intelligence and then you probably want to show the most love to intelligence after that for a wizard dexterity will help your Wizard's Armor class and Constitution will help their hit points and help them hold concentration spells every class is different and every build can also be different with that said after you figure out your primary ability score most classes do benefit from dexterity and Constitution being their second and third ability scores to focus on so keep that in mind also don't forget that there are some hybrid classes that combine martial combat with spell casting such as the Paladin and the Paladin would probably need strength also possibly dexterity for their weapon attacks but also Charisma to power their spell casting so with the hybrid classes dispersing points is going to be probably a little bit more thin than a class that just straight up uses strength for all of their attacks now you are limited in the amount of points that you can spend and the higher that you make an ability score it's going to start taking more points from your pool just for simply increasing it by one for example when I boost my strength from 16 to 17 it takes two points away from that total pool not one but when I boost from eight to nine it only uses one point so anything that's past 14 will require two points from that pool of points that you have to get a one ability score boost now if all this just sounds super confusing to you don't stress out too much you will learn this as time goes on and also you can just click the use recommended and then lyrium will kind of lay out to you at least you can figure out like what the important ability scores are for that classes combat capabilities so I just click use recommended on the Barbarian and I can see that larion is showing Constitution and strength some extra love here which tells me those are probably important for most barbarians and then what you do with the skills that are the abilities that don't necessarily matter as much to combat that's kind of up to you with what skills that you take so if you have a lot of skill proficiencies with wisdom skills such as perception you may care a little bit more about wisdom over intelligence maybe end up dumping intelligence to eight and boosting your wisdom to 12 to help out that skill another thing to consider is that each ability score with its modifier is tied to specific saving throws for spells that are cast in the game so if somebody casts Fireball on you the game is going to have you do a dexterity saving throw meaning you're going to roll the dice behind the scenes you're not going to the game's going to do it and it's going to add in your dexterity modifier to that save and if you have a higher dexterity modifier you're more likely to resist or mitigate the effects of that spell now there's a ton of dexterity saves in this game and also a ton of wisdom saves but this also saves for all the others as well but dexterity and wisdom and also Constitution kind of stand out here let's say you have leftover points and you have to choose intelligence wisdom or Charisma and you're not sure what to do with your leftover points here I would probably lean towards wisdom Charisma is really good for dialogue so it's probably better to not dump Charisma if you really care about dialogue and intelligence can also be important too especially if you have intelligent skills and you really care about history checks and investigation checks not a huge deal what you do with these leftover points but just consider those saving throws and also your skills that are tied to those abilities and the last thing that we can't skip out on are skill proficiencies once again depending on what class you choose will determine the range of skill proficiencies that you get to choose from so as a barbarian we open this up you can see two out of two are selected so if I just deselect those I get to choose two skill proficiencies from the ones that are currently showing and if you already have a skill proficiency from your race choice or your background it will already show as you having it so as a barbarian I'd probably pick up Athletics because it's tied to strength that's really up to me if I want nature animal handling survival or intimidation really how you want to role play it and what skills are important to you and then after this we get to create our Dream character you don't have to worry about the stats on this character this is strictly appearance and this will tie into the story but I'll leave it at that and then you get to jump into the game itself so thank you all so much for watching I really really hope that this video helped you because I can see how jumping into bg3 for the first time can be a little bit overwhelming but I promise over time it will get better and don't stress out too much about making mistakes because you can respect and change things later on

Channel: WolfheartFPS

Views: 254,093

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, baldurs, gate, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 classes, gameplay, classes, races, baldurs gate 3 beginners guide, balders gate 3, baulders gate 3, boulders gate 3, rpg, rpg 2023, upcoming rpg baldurs gate, crpg, wolfheartfps, wolfheart fps, larian studios, baldurs gate 3 character creation, create a character baldurs gate 3, ability scores baldurs gate 3, beginners guide classes, beginners guide character creation, how to create a character

Id: Nxr-KiVzRww

Length: 25min 29sec (1529 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023