Baldur's Gate 3 is Larian's take on Dungeons & Dragons. It's the first Baldur's Gate game in more than 15 years, and both PC RPGs and tabletop ones have changed a lot since Baldur's Gate 2. Larian is using the 5th Edition of D&D, first released in 2014, but you should expect plenty of liberties in the adaptation from pen-and-paper to digital. Some things aren't changing, though—there are real dice rolls, and the character classes are straight out of D&D's rules.
Here's what we know so far about the classes you'll be able to choose in Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access.
Larian's previews of Baldur's Gate 3 have shown that its initial class selection hews closely to those found in the table top game, but each class will also have at least two subclasses to choose from.
Here are the classes Larian has shown so far with their descriptions.
More classes are expected to come during Early Access, but these are the ones that will be playable at the start. "All classes from 5e Player's Handbook will be included at launch," Larian said in an AMA.
Okay, so those are the base classes. But what about subclasses? In Divinity: Original Sin 2, Larian heavily encouraged multiclassing, combining skills from various classes to make a highly specialized character. Here, in Early Access, you'll be able to dive deep into classic-specific specialization with some of D&D 5e's unique subclasses:
In the same AMA linked above, Larian implied all of the 5e subclasses and paths for each class will also be available in the final game. The ones above are the ones we've seen so far.
If you want to read descriptions of each of these subclasses from the D&D Player's Handbook, here's a handy site.
What about multiclassing? That should be in the game too, but not in Early Access at launch. "Multiclassing rules will follow closely the 5e DnD. On level up characters will be able to continue with their current class or choose a new class, provided they meet the requirements," Larian said.
In an early gameplay demo, the Baldur's Gate 3 character creator also showed a "Class features" description for some classes like the Ranger. This is separate from subclass, but it's unclear at this point if every class will have one or multiple "features" and what those will be. Here's the one Larian showed in its February gameplay demo:
In addition to classes, Baldur's Gate 3 lets you choose three more important character attributes that will shape your playthrough. You can choose your Race, Origin and your Background, which will affect your story and how other characters in the game react to you.