If you’ve never playedBaldur’s Gate 3, don’t talk to me. But if youhave, then you know it’s an RPG that offers so much freedom, room for experimentation, and so many different ways for you to play and experience Larian’s masterful RPG, from characters to builds to multiclassing an abominable array of stats.
So tell me, why can’t I play as anything other than my generic human Bard, Cassian Cassidy, despite how many times I try? It should be a blast for me to get stuck in as a Halfling Barbarian, or an Elven Druid, or an Orcish Wizard, but I just end up falling back into my usual old pattern. Well, there are actually a couple of reasons why.
The Bard Is The Best Class In Baldur’s Gate 3, Fight Me
I’d never played as a Bard in D&D, or really any game, before Baldur’s Gate 3 came along. It was a class I took a chance on (more on that later), and ended up falling in love. Specifically, I chose a Bard in the College of Swords, allowing me to be capable in a fight, should I happen to fail in talking my way out of it.
It’s not all music and swords, though - as a Bard, you can unlock a huge array of spells and abilities that will make you feel like you’re also close to a Wizard or Warlock in power. It’s endlessly fun to mix these into how you play, whether passive or offensive, and the ways in which you can cause distraction or utter chaos, setting the stage for the rest of your party.
The music is pretty great, though. I’d bust out that lute in the middle of a fight all the time. Not for Bardic Inspiration, but foratmosphere.
To me, it just ended up feeling like the ultimate class. I could handle most things myself, as a jack of all trades and a master of some. Combat? Yeah, I could hold my own. Spells? I’ve got spells, don’t you worry. Crossbow? I know what that is. Persuasion? You’d better count on me rolling an average of 30 with modifiers. Just don’t ask me to shove anyone; Karlach does that for me.
Gale Stole My Actual Character, So I Fell In Love With A New Protagonist
Beyond just the class, however, lies the character at the heart of it. Previously, my go-to character would be Rilvus the Average: a basic white boy with no real memorable features, a love for all things magic and mystic, and a bigger love for cracking jokes. Then I met Gale. That was basically Gale. Shi-
Okay, so I needed a new character, clearly. After much (and I meanmuch) pondering and experimenting with the character creator, I landed on Cassian Cassidy: a basic white boy with no real memorable features, a love for all things… okay, so he wasn’t that different, but he was a Bard. I opted to give this class a try, and ended up loving both the playstyle and this new character more than I expected. An evolution of Rilvus, if you will.
But now, I’m stuck. I love Baldur’s Gate 3 to pieces, yet every time I load it up again to start another playthrough, I land on the same character. I’ve tried to branch out, but it never feels right. It just feels like all the failed attempts I was spiralling through before I’d created Cassian in the first place. To me, heisthe protagonist of Baldur’s Gate 3, so when I try to place an entirely different character on the Nautiloid ship, they just feel like an imposter.
Yet, despite my love for Cassian, this leads to the feeling that I’ve played this all before. It’s a wide game with replayable options, yes, but I’ve playedthisgame before. I know the character, and they stop becoming that character when they behave differently. I’ve even tried a version of Cassian with the Dark Urge, but it still feels too similar, and different at the same time.
Maybe I just need more time away from the game before another attempt, but when I think about Baldur’s Gate 3, I see Cassian Cassidy, the underwhelming Bard, at the forefront of it all. The unlikely hero that somehow made it through the journey alive, saving the world in the face of odds stacked waaay against him. He is both the character I want to see leading the adventure, and the way I want to play the adventure. But I’ve done it all before. And I don’t think I can do it again; with him, or without him.
