Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Any Lore Reason Why The Githyanki Are The Only Race With A Base Skill To Choose From?

Not a complaint/suggestion/feedback question, I'm just genuinely curious if there is a particular lore/DnD reason as to why the Githyanki are the only race that not only get an extra skill to choose from, but can also choose any without restriction.

So far my thinking is because of what Lae'zel mentions about the Githyanki scholars. How they roam the astral plane and collect infinities upon infinities of knowledge, which is then amassed in their great libraries. She also mentions that Githyanki start their training from the moment they're hatched, which implies both combat training and studying, since she says; "I was as devoted to my studies as I was to my training". So this brings me to believe the reason they are the only race that can freely choose any base skill, is because of the fact they have a vast source of knowledge they study from. To sort of illustrate that the Githyanki are an advanced race that lives on another plane of existence.

But I'm curious if I'm wrong and if any loremaster/dungeonmaster can tell me if there actually exists a real lore reason as to why.

You're right. There is no passing of time on the Astral Plane, so Githyanki have the leisure to learn lots of stuff.

In Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, Githyanki are described as having a Trait called Astral Knowledge. In the book, this lets them connect to the Astral Plane when Long Resting, access "reservoirs of experience", and choose one Skill to be proficient with until the next Long Rest. In BG3, they get one Skill Proficiency for good.

There is no lore reason why this is the case. There are multiple races that get extra skill proficiencies. Half-Elf's default racial features include skill versatility, which gives extra skill proficiencies. BG3 is using a variant rule from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide that allow you to replace skill versatility with an appropriate racial trait from your Elf parent, which is good, but for some reason they haven't put the default feature of skill versatility in.

Selecting extra skills in general seems to be giving the game engine trouble or is being difficult in some way, I've noticed that features giving extra skills seem to misbehave, or not assign skills correctly.

There is a lore reason - it's called "Decadent Mastery" for gith pcs in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.
"Decadent Mastery - You learn one language of your choice, and you are proficient with one skill or tool of your choice. In the timeless city of Tu’narath, Githyanki have bountiful time to master odd bits of knowledge."

The lore reason is described under "Indolent Dilettantes" which basically describes that when Githyanki are not in war time, Vlaakith has to keep her subjects occupied because they are constantly craving novelty and stimulation. She encourages them to partake in arts and crafts more or less to distract them from pretty much getting antsy and rising against her.

I do think for Lae'zel, she in particular is quite the nerd, and seems to have really taken to reading in the libraries of K'liir. This is most likely the reason she knows about the zaith'isk but gith Tavs do not. Her chosen Decadent Mastery trait is probably Arcana.

Hmm, just was made aware of Monsters of the Multiverse that changed this up.

Basically, bg3 seems at present to be working from Tome of Foes, but I would not be surprised if they altered things to be in line with Monsters of the Multiverse.

Yes, Monsters of the Multiverse changed a lot of the player races that got published in Volo's Guide and Tome of Foes. If you haven't managed to look at that book yet, you can look here and use the list to compare, because it has entries for the races from different sources.

The biggest change to Githyanki was that you can now change your extra proficiencies on long rest if you want to. Larian are still using the MTof version at the moment, and i don't think that will change because of the odd engine behavior around choosing extra skill proficiencies that they seem to have.