Summary

• Baldur's Gate 3 has a strong representation of fantasy races from Dungeons & Dragons, but one missing race that could add depth and flavor to the game is orcs.
• The absence of one race in the game presents an opportunity for future DLC to introduce this fantasy race and add more variety to the gameplay experience.
• While goblins are the main antagonists in Baldur's Gate 3, the inclusion of this race could still provide an interesting and unique element to the game, as they have different roles and characteristics.

Baldur's Gate 3 has strong representation of key fantasy races from Dungeons & Dragons overall, but one missing race could add a lot to the game. The roster of races available in character creation is lifted straight from the Player's Handbook for the fifth edition of the tabletop game, with a couple of interesting additions to flesh out the roster in a way that's relevant to the story and flavor of the game. Other interesting races that aren't typically playable appear in NPC form, from the memorably devious kobolds to the mindflayers that play a major role in the narrative.

In some ways, the list of fantasy races that get ignored in Baldur's Gate 3 mimics the ones often left out of DnD sourcebooks and campaigns. When it comes to combat, Baldur's Gate 3 does a great job of ensuring variety from battle to battle, so most nitpicking about the availability of races is ultimately just, well, nitpicking. All the same, there are definitely areas where the game makes obvious cuts for the sake of managing development more efficiently. The strong presence of demons leans heavily toward cambions in Baldur's Gate 3, for example, and this isn't the only race to take on a particular skew in order to maintain a focus.

Baldur's Gate 3 DLC Needs To Add Orcs

It's no surprise that half-orcs are playable Baldur's Gate 3 while orcs are not, as this decision sticks to the DnD Player's Handbook, but the complete lack of orcs in the game altogether is a little harder to explain. Although orcs are obviously necessary in the world for half-orcs to exist at all, they remain entirely out of sight for the duration of the narrative. This is by no means any kind of dealbreaker, but it does set up the perfect opportunity to add this fantasy race in with future DLC for the game.

Baldur's Gate 3 takes on the challenge of delivering interesting characters who play against the stereotype of their races in a number of instances, and a memorable orc NPC could be a great addition to this lineup. Blurg the hobgoblin and Omeluum the mindflayer are two iconic examples of this technique, as this duo proves both helpful and interesting when exploring the Underdark in Act 1 of the game. Hostile orcs could also be a good threat to face, with a physically imposing nature that progresses nicely from the goblin hordes that can be faced early on in the story.

Playable Orcs Would Be A Good BG3 DLC Addition

Half-orcs may be the more classic playable DnD race, but there's already strong fifth edition precedent for taking up the mantle of an orc. Volo's Guide to Monsters introduced options for playable orc characters in a section on "Monstrous Adventurers," including them alongside bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, and yaun-ti. Revisions to playable orcs appeared in Eberron: Rising from the Last War and persisted through further inclusion of the option in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, making the option particularly well-documented at this point.

The version of orcs presented in Volo's Guide to Monsters is generally a weaker choice than half-orcs, so it's best to stick to the later incarnations.

Baldur's Gate 3 already s playing races traditionally deemed evil like drow, duergar, and githyanki, so orcs wouldn't break with any kind of tradition in that regard. Shifting attitudes to what constitutes interesting and valuable world-building has generally pushed the treatment of fantasy races away from universal moral alignments over the years, so playing a good orc would hardly be out of the question, especially considering the roleplay value in going against the orcish tradition to strive for a better future. It could also be a fun choice for an evil playthrough and perhaps the perfect fit for the chaos inherent to some barbarian subclasses.

The main downside to orcs, as presented in Volo's Guide to Monsters, was a reduced Intelligence score, but subsequent books removed this while retaining their boosted Strength and Constitution. The Aggressive feature gives them the ability to use bonus actions to move closer to enemies, which could make for some fun and fast-paced combat in Baldur's Gate 3. Powerful Build would also be a nice feature to increase carrying capacity in a game that heavily relies on it, and Primal Intuition's choice of several skills for superiority ties things together nicely.

Baldur's Gate 3 Focuses On Goblins Instead Of Orcs

The most obvious explanation for the complete lack of orcs in the game lies in the Baldur's Gate 3 focus on goblins, which act as the major antagonists of the Druid Grove segment of Act 1. Goblins and orcs are often used in similar villainous grunt roles, stretching back to Tolkien's own interchanging use of the . Since Act 2 and Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3 move in the direction of different types of threats, it's fair to say that there's no major narrative space for orcs to occupy without muscling in on the claim that the goblins staked out for themselves.

That being said, orcs could absolutely still add some flavor to the Baldur's Gate 3 experience. Placing races out of their element is a tool that the game isn't afraid to employ, and this could have easily been used to drop some orcs into Act 2 or 3 without rendering the situation unbelievable. They could have also been a side threat in Act 1, perhaps in a similar way to the trolls that see a minor degree of involvement. Although the choice to keep things oriented around goblins is perfectly effective, precluding orcs wasn't exactly a necessary consequence.

Half-orcs still do a decent job of offering a little orc flavor in Baldur's Gate 3, but it's hard to argue that bringing in orcs themselves wouldn't add something to the game. In fairness to developer Larian Studios, DnD has a huge well of content to pick from, and there's no way that they could have included even close to everything cool in the tabletop game at launch. DLC, however, would be the perfect way to add in some more requests, and including orcs in the world of Baldur's Gate 3 would be one great choice.