Baldur's Gate III - Spoiler Edition (please read updated OP)

I think, I'm not starting a new playthrough over that patch. If it's true, that the full game might not be released before 2023, I try to not get burnt out before full release, so I guess, I'll take a break for now (maybe finish my bard, since I really like her).
But there are some nice new features. ANd I like, that you can free

Patch 5 delayed to Thursday.

My steam download was about 28g's, and with my snail pace internet it only took.......7hrs 2mins.

New music

This new update was nice. I'm finally glad I can loot commander Zhalk greatsword which is a nice weapon. I do hate however they removed the hermit background. It was the only background that had medicine proficiency. Now that backgrounds are tied to inspiration points. I wish they could separate those backgrounds and the proficiency skills associated with them, so we can just pick the proficiencies we want. I love the outlander background but it has athletics as one of the proficiencies. I wish I could chose that background and just chose medicine and survival as the 2 bonus proficiency.

Maybe the class they want to play doesn't have medicine but they invision their character having learned that practical skill over the course of their life.

If they were playing tabletop dnd5e they absolutely could play an outlander with medicine skill instead of athletics. Customising your background is also a 5e thing. The part on how to do it is at the beginning of the background section of the book.
www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/personality-and-background#CustomizingaBackground
Because sometimes the mechanics granted by the default backgrounds don't match up with the backstory and personality you've actually written for your character. And the rules acknowledge that and provide for it. That might require switching one Proficiency to something more appropriate, or full on build-a-bear-ing something new.

Backgrounds of course work differently in bg3. I haven't played yet but reading the wiki - they don't give tool and language proficiencies or have a special feature. But they will have quests, and inspiration.

Due to the quests and inspiration triggering actions I'm sure they'll want all characters tied to one of the default backgrounds but that's not a problem. They could still have a 'customise a background' option where you select one of the backgrounds and then select 2 skills to be proficient in. Thus allowing people to pick the background/skill combination that most suits the backstory they have in mind for their character.

The only problem with that I could see would be if instead of say, a folk heroes inspiration being tied to when they do something heroic like save a peasant it is instead tied to when they use the survival and animal handling skills... Which would suck.

But assuming inspiration points are tied to choices/actions relating to your background rather then skill rolls it could work.

Prequel comics incoming!

This five-issue series features Minsc and Boo, Krydle, Shandie, Delina, and Nerys. Written by Jim Zub, it’s designed to lead into the events of the Baldur’s Gate III video game. The party must fight to save each other—and their sanity—from a mind flayer-led cult secretly destroying trust between the factions in Baldur’s Gate. This storyline follows on from the Infernal Tides comic and acts as a prequel to Baldur’s Gate III.

I just saw one of the new scenes in Patch 5 that involve the Absolute having a mind-chat with Tav and the gang.

I was expecting the Narrator to be voicing the Absolute, but looks like it's someone else...doing a great impersonation of Meridia in Skyrim, but it doesn't sound at 100% like Jean Gilpin.

Also, about the 3 shadowy figures in that scene that represent the Absolute's Chosen...
This video is awesome and full of spoilers and speculation including datamining ones:

So I'm finally going to attempt a playthrough(ish) of Baldur's Gate 3 EA...but I've no idea what class to pick

after some dubbing I decided to go with a Mephistopheles tiefling, 'cause 1) they're purple/blue and 2) playing humans or elves all the time bores me.

so yeah...could use a class recommendation