Larian wanted Paladin as BG3's default class, but Lae'zel happened

Larian Studios considered making Paladin the default Baldur’s Gate 3 class, but ran into a few snags – the biggest of which was Lae’zel. Or, more accurately, the Tieflings who put her in a cage.

Swen Vincke, head of Larian, and lead writer Adam Smith explained how they moved away from the idea of a base class early in the project during a recent interview with IGN.

“We started thinking about it and said, actually that’s bringing us in a lot of narrative problems, so we’ll let them make that choice themselves,” Vincke said. “But we’re not going to plug it in like that because it actually does have issues in role-playing.”

One of those issues pops up shortly after the Nautiloid crashes in the prologue. You find – or not, if you go the other way – a few Tieflings have captured Lae’zel, put her in a cage, and suspended it off the ground. I always just chased the Tieflings off and saved Lae’zel without violence, but apparently, people had a habit of murdering them to rescue the Githyanki warrior.

“One of my favorite things I saw recently was someone described the Teflings that have Lae’zel in the cage [as] Paladin kryptonite because if you kill them you break your oath even though they’re threatening somebody in a cage,” Smith said. “So Paladins often get into that and go, ‘Oh, I’m going to rescue this companion, recruit.’ It’s like, ‘Oathbreaker.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh no.’” 

“It’s also very hard to keep your oath if you’re the Dark Urge.”

The Dark Urge faces checks at certain points that involve murdering innocent people, which is about as un-Paladin as you can get if you fail. It’s also partly what makes the Dark Urge a unique character – and one of Larian’s favorites – regardless of class, with a story that can be devastating or deeply emotional depending on the choices you make.

So, there you have it. You can thank Lae’zel, the mighty Gith fighter, getting captured by a bunch of unarmed refugees, for having the option to pick your own class at the start of BG3.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF