Baldur’s Gate 3: All Races, what they can do and which one suits you

In Baldur’s Gate 3 you have the choice of 11 different races when creating your own character. MeinMMO helps you decide – or if you’re simply curious.

What races are there and what can they do? Overall, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers you 11 races, most of which are already represented in the core rulebook of Dungeons & Dragons. Others come from supplementary works.

In D&D, each race usually has a specific bonus or even penalty on attributes like strength or intelligence. In Baldur’s Gate 3 you can freely distribute these values, but there are still some special abilities for each race:

• Elves: Proficiency with longswords and shortswords as well as longbows and shortbows, darkvision (12 meters), advantage on saving throws against being charmed, cannot be magically put to sleep
  • High Elves additionally learn a cantrip
  • Wood Elves have a movement rate increased by 1.5 meters
• Drow (or Dark Elves): Proficiency with rapiers, hand crossbows, and shortswords, darkvision (24 meters), advantage on saving throws against being charmed, cannot be magically put to sleep
  • Lolth-aligned and Seldarine Drow have no additional abilities
• Halflings: May reroll ones on attack, saving, and ability rolls, have advantage on saving throws against being frightened
  • Lightfoots have advantage on stealth rolls
  • Stout Halflings have advantage on saving throws against poison and take only half damage from poisons
• Humans: Proficiency with spears, pikes, glaives, and armor and shields, proficiency in another skill and higher carrying capacity
• Dwarves: Proficiency in battle axes, hand axes, light hammers, and warhammers, darkvision (12 m), advantage on saving throws against poison and take only half damage from poisons
• Dragonborn: Depending on their color, Dragonborn have a special breath attack and elemental resistances:
  • Black, Green, and Copper: Poison
  • Blue and Bronze: Lightning
  • Red, Gold, and Brass: Fire
  • White and Silver: Frost
• Gnomes: Advantage on saving throws for intelligence, wisdom, and charisma
  • Rock Gnomes: Darkvision (12 m), double proficiency bonus for history rolls
  • Forest Gnomes get the spell Speak with Animals and darkvision (12 m)
  • Deep Gnomes: Darkvision (24 m), advantage on stealth rolls
• Half-Elves: Proficiency with spears, pikes, glaives, and armor and shields, darkvision (12 m), advantage on saving throws against being charmed, cannot be magically put to sleep
  • Half-High Elves learn a cantrip
  • Half-Wood Elves have a movement rate increased by 1.5 meters
  • Half-Drow learn the cantrip Dancing Lights
• Half-Orcs: Darkvision (12 m), critical hits triple damage rolls instead of doubling them, and Half-Orcs are set to 1 HP once per day instead of dying.
• Tieflings: Darkvision (12 m), take only half damage from fire damage
  • Asmodeus Tieflings learn the cantrip Produce Flame
  • Mephistopheles Tieflings learn the cantrip Mage Hand
  • Zariel Tieflings learn the cantrip Thaumaturgy
• Githyanki: Proficiency with light and medium armor as well as shortswords, longswords, and greatswords. In addition, Githyanki have access to:
  • Astral Knowledge, which gives them proficiency on rolls for an attribute
  • Githyanki Psionics, which allows them to learn certain spells

Each race has a base movement rate of 9 meters, except for Halflings (7.5 m), Dwarves (7.5 m), Gnomes (7.5 m), Half-Wood Elves (10.5 m), and Wood Elves (10.5 m)

Personality Quiz: Which race for your character?

Is my choice of race important? Not fundamentally. The choice is primarily about aesthetics and the background of the race.

This also means that you can easily play completely unconventional combinations like half-orc rogues, halfling barbarians, or elf warlocks without any problems. You will hardly have any disadvantages from it.

However, you may only choose a race if you are not playing any of the “Origins,” that is, the pre-made characters with their own stories. The exception is the “dark urge,” a mad murderer that you can customize.

Otherwise, the race is especially important if you want to pursue a very specific fantasy. “Classic” combinations like elf druids and dwarf paladins are still popular today. Paladins are even the most popular class among GameStar readers.

We, together with our colleagues from GameStar, have prepared a few questions to help you choose your race. With a click, you can select an answer, and at the end, we will tell you what suits you best. If you want to repeat the quiz, just refresh the page. Have fun!

By the way, after choosing the race, you have a ton of customization options for appearance. This ranges from typical features like hair color and body type to more specialized options like freckles and vitiligo up to the selection of your primary sex organs. Yes, it’s possible, and it can even be important in the game:

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Otherwise, it may happen that certain characters react differently to you if you belong to a certain race. Such things happen frequently in role-playing games, but we cannot yet say whether this will also be the case in Baldur’s Gate 3.

If you want to read more about the game, here’s an overview of all twelve classes:

Baldur’s Gate 3: All 12 classes at a glance – Which one suits you?