Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldur's gate full release balancing

I have played Early access, and watched development cycle in detail since game was release in Early access. I love what I have seen so far, and I know I will enjoy the full release regardless of how balanced the game is on launch.

However, as we are still in Early Access I wanted to point out at major balance issues that seem to have arisen in the most recent version of the game. I also want to point out that I know that some focus more or Role playing aspect and that to them just having different options if good enough, but I think that we can have both balance and keep the role playing aspect. Also, I know that full balance is very hard to achieve, but it looks like the game will be less balanced in final release than what we got on day one of Early Access and no one from Larian has commented on this. What I mean:

DnD 5e races in Player's handbook are not perfectly balanced, but there is something called opportunity cost that somewhat balances it out. If I pick High Elves, who have great racial bonuses, well than I have to get specific Ability Score improvements that are not universally great, +2 Dexterity and +1 Intelligence.

On the other hand Humans get no racial bonuses but get +1 to all attributes which makes them the most versatile race, yet even then they felt underpowered so Variant Human was introduced to buff them.

Half elves got +2Chr, and are the only ones (besides Variant human) who had flexibility to distribute 2 ASI wherever they wanted, but they lost some traits Elves had. This made them amazing Charisma based casters, but if your class did not use Charisma as casing attribute, there were better options.

Now comes BG3 latest Panel from Hell update. I know it is not the final version of the game, and even now they might have made multiple changes, but this is discussion based on latest info. All races now get flexible Ability Score improvement and fixed +2/+1 which might sound good on paper but the more you look into it the more it makes the game less balanced and encourages min maxing even more. For example - compare Elves and Half Elves now. Half elves are strictly weaker version of Elves.

High elves get:

High Elf Cantrip
Darkvision: Can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light
Keen Senses: Proficiency in the Perception skill.
Fey Ancestry: Elves have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put them to sleep.
Longsword Proficiency: Add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls (your chance to hit a target) with longswords.
Shortsword Proficiency: Add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls (your chance to hit a target) with shortswords.
Longbow Proficiency: Add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls (your chance to hit a target) with longbows.
Shortbow Proficiency: Add your proficiency bonus to attack rolls (your chance to hit a target) with shortbows.


High Half-Elves get:

High Elf Cantrip
Darkvision: Can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light
Fey Ancestry: Elves have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put them to sleep.


So they lost two unique features, ASI flexibility and having one additional ASI to spend. I double checked most recent stream and verified that every race had exact same Ability Scores when they went over each race, and they were:

STR 17
DEX 13
CON 15
INT 8
WIS 12
CHR 10

This means Humans, Half elves, Shield Dwarves are all have fewer ASI to spend on character creation.

But they are not the only ones getting short end of the stick. Dragonborn are probably the weakest race alongside Humans now. Half elves might be lesser versions of their Elven counterpart, and Shield Dwarves and just weaker Golden dwarves, the Dragonborn are straight up weak.

They had unique stat distribution of +2 STR/+1 CHR which made them good paladins as they were the only ones able to get this stat distribution on level 1. They also get:


Draconic resistance - Damage resistance based on ancestry, which is situational and even then, I would rather have Darkvision.

Breath Weapon - Once a day cast weaker version of Burning hands. It does 2d6 elemental damage while Burning hands does 3d6,and it is already meh spell at best. At level 6 it gets buff to be as good as Fire hands (once again it is meh level 1 spell) and at level 11! it does 4d6 elemental damage. In all cases if enemy succeeds in saving throw it does half damage.

And that is it. Compare it to Drow for example, who not only get amazing racial bonuses, but now have ASI flexibility and do not have Sunlight Sensitivity.


Larian showed that they are willing to make changes if they thought it was warranted, case in point - Monk class getting buffs.


And if you are starting to type "You get Role playing aspect, you get access to some weapons others don't" - STOP! All races will get unique dialogue options, and all races will get weapons that are stronger if wielded by specific race. And having dialogue options is not excuse for having poor balance. If you don't care about game balancing - move away, I don't understand how some people can argue against at least attempting to balance all races.


As Larian is no longer sticking to Player's handbook, give races additional features. For example Dragonborn in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount get:

Forceful Presence - When you make a Intimidation or Persuasion check, you can do so with advantage once per long rest.
Vengeful Assault. When you take damage from a creature in range of a weapon you are wielding, you can use your reaction to make an attack against that creature. You can do this once per short or long rest.

Or buff Breath attack to scale better, or make it useable once per combat, not once per long rest.

I could make a 20 page essay on this topic, but I think I made my case clear. Also, English is not my native language, so I might have made some grammatical errors, sorry about that.

Cheers!

I believe that the ASIs will be the same for all races, you will have a +2 and a +1 that you can assign to any two stats of your choosing...this is a rule change adopted from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. It opens up the option to make every race at least somewhat compatible with every class but it can also be argued that it makes races a bit less special. But I like it, I think it's a good change imo.

Some races like Dragonborn and Humans definitely need a bit of help but I'm sure Larian will revisit and rebalance some things after launch.

It just makes some races universally better. Before you could rate races based on classes and vice versa, now they are just universal.

S tier - Elves, Half orcs
A tier - Dwarves, Tieflings, Half Elves, Gnomes
B tier - Githyanki, Halflings
C tier - Dragonborn (not F only cause they look cooler)
F tier - Humans


Tasha also did not remove stat points from Half Elves and Shield Dwarves and you could run Variant Human instead of whatever Larian made. And even using Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the Dragonborn were considered weakm which is why others attempted to buff them in various ways, such as giving them Darkvision (which made Lore sense, given that Dragons have it), buffing Breath attack and giving them more features.

I think that tier list is still very subjective and it largely depends on what class you want to play as well. I generally agree that Dragonborn and Humans are the weakest across the board but I wouldn't worry too much about it, I am sure that Larian is well aware and if they don't change it by launch then a post launch patch will most likely address this.

Ok, give me example in which case is High Half elf better than High Elf using this system.

I was referring the the overall ranking not strictly Half Elves vs High Elves. Different race bonuses suit different classes better.

You did not answer their question.

But even being in situation in which one race is literally weaker version of other race is bad design. I know they might change it, sooner or later, but I just wanted to point out that if things remains as they are now some races will be strictly better and that Larian has not commented on it at all.

Also, we were in Early Access for 3 years yet they decided not to do a public test of the changes. It's not like this is some new feature that they wanted to introduce in full version, such as new classes, subclasses, races, but simply a balance aspect of the game, which is what EA is for.

Do I need to? It wasn't my point at all. It was a very cherry-picked comparison with a self evident answer. Some races need some help, but the game isn't out and I have no doubt they will do some more rebalancing both before and post launch to address things that need addressing.

The only game, that I can remember playing that actually would have benefited to dark vision isn't even a Dnd game but Darksouls and Elden ring,

Love those pitch black areas where torches or belt lanterns are needed.

I honestly cant remember anything in BG2 needing a torch as everything was lit same with both neverwinter games and expansions.

With that said in bg3 ive only played Dwarves and a drow, hmm I know not very diverse for play hundreds of hrs... shrugs


NOTE: One of these days ill actually proof read my post before hitting send...

This is actually a very good point. I wonder if and how much we will need dark vision in BG3. In D&D it is often useful but in the game it might end up being rarely used if at all...for all we know it could end up being a useless bonus.

All content creators pointed out how Darkvision will be almost essential in ACT 2, even more so than in ACT 1, as the whole area is covered in shadows. As for cherry picking half elves and elves, the point is that there used to be classes in which either were better option, and now there isn't.

Once again, I know the game is not out, and that things might change, but as we are still in Early Access I am just giving feedback on most recent version we have seen. And I don't need to play optimally, I will play Golden Dragonborn as Oath of Vengeance Paladin on day one even if they don't buff it, but the game has excelled at so many things so far I just want it to be as balanced as possible.

What bugs me the most at the end of the day are Half Elves. As bad as Dragonborn are, they have something unique. Half elves are just Elves but weaker.

That's awful point. Darkvision is not about how good or bad the player can see through game visual effects, it has mechanics related to attack and sneaking.

I haven't noticed that. Do you have a link or two?

I'm well aware of the implications, you either can't attack or you have disadvantage on attack, etc. But that wasn't my point though. My point was we don't know how often we will run into areas that require dark vision. If only two optional dungeons require it then not very valuable but it there are a dozen dungeons and some very important areas require it then it has much more value.

The entire early access has dark areas where Darkvision is used, I would even say at least 40% of EA takes place on dim/obscured areas.
I'm not going to provide links (because I don't have any xD) but feel free to try it out on almost any interior like the owlbear cave for example.

You don't know that only if you didn't play EA and didn't pay any attention to information about Act 2, that was revealed lately. There are plenty of dark places in this game.

I haven't played early access and I haven't watched much of it, I deliberately avoided all that so I can experience the game fresh. I have watch the live stream by Larian and some areas looked darker but we don't know if it's like that by design or if those areas actually require dark vision.

If they don't replace the stat bonus for half-elves they are very literally and strictly lesser versions of their full blood cousins.

Shield Dwarves get screwed, but at least they get medium armor, which can help shore up half the classes in the game.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1870771122

I do not have timestamp though, and it is quite a long video, with some ACT 1 spoilers