So... Skill proficiencies may SEEM less valuable than combat proficiencies, but skill proficiencies can lead to an easier time doing a quest or allow you to avoid a boss fight. Also, the only classes that benefit from Civil Militia are Sorcerer and Wizard. That's just... Kinda bad.
Skill profs ARE less valuable than combat profs if for no other reason than opportunity cost. The amount of mileage you get out of something as simple as shield proficiency (+2AC) is infinitely more valuable than what you'd get out of ANY skill prof, the only exception maybe being persuasion and only because of the sheer amount of checks you can make. You can make all skill checks and saves without proficiency but you cannot use, or use with penalties, any item that you do not have proficiency in. Even the dumbest barbarian can make INT saves and checks, but the smartest wizard cannot use armor or shields without first knowing how.
If that's not good enough, the raw cost alone for combat profs is 4-8 levels and 1-2 feats, depending on what you take. You'd be paying through the nose for what two races give FOR FREE at creation.
If you really want to nitpick classes, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard can all benefit from Civil Militia, and since 5e has deigned that quarterstaves are versatile, you are actively debuffing yourself by not using shields on casters. On a flat d20, 2AC will account for about ~10% chance to hit, meaning with no hit modifiers, a no-armor caster with a shield gets a 40% chance to be hit vs 50% flat. Once hit modifiers start getting added, that 2AC will start flexing a lot more. Throw DEX and progressively improving armor into the mix, and you'll start seeing just how far something like Civil Militia will take you vs. that Nature proficiency you want to take in its place when the last time you even rolled Nature was 50 hours ago and failed anyway.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of AC and what skill profs actually do for you. Rolling persuasion to avoid a boss fight is a unique option offered at that specific time by Larian and cannot be used in any boss fight. However, +2AC can be used wherever you want. Its applicability is nearly boundless and outperforms every skill check you can make.
Plus the persuasion check to avoid a boss fight is shooting yourself in the foot:
1) You miss out on actual combat content. Most non-boss fights are pretty boring anyways. Bosses are your chance to have an engaging combat experience.
2) A boss killing himself through dialogue awards like 1/10th xp of what you get for killing said boss. Test it out, people, try killing the Orthon or the Thorms vs. dialogue. You'll see a huge difference in XP. Yes, it is very easy to hit max level even by early Act 3, but killing bosses in Act 2 and Act 1 is the difference of about 2-3 levels. That's a big power spike to have early that makes other encounters until you're capped significantly easier.
Often I see people whining that the Moonrise Tower assault was hard, and I just think they're probably underleveled because it was a rather trivial fight for me at lv9 and shortly hit 10 by the Mindflayer colony. Hell, even in Act 1, doing the Cresche after a full run of the Underdark makes the CC spamming gith Kithrak and Chrzac fight significantly less punishing.
So... Skill proficiencies may SEEM less valuable than combat proficiencies, but skill proficiencies can lead to an easier time doing a quest or allow you to avoid a boss fight. Also, the only classes that benefit from Civil Militia are Sorcerer and Wizard. That's just... Kinda bad.
Skill profs ARE less valuable than combat profs if for no other reason than opportunity cost. The amount of mileage you get out of something as simple as shield proficiency (+2AC) is infinitely more valuable than what you'd get out of ANY skill prof, the only exception maybe being persuasion and only because of the sheer amount of checks you can make. You can make all skill checks and saves without proficiency but you cannot use, or use with penalties, any item that you do not have proficiency in. Even the dumbest barbarian can make INT saves and checks, but the smartest wizard cannot use armor or shields without first knowing how.
If that's not good enough, the raw cost alone for combat profs is 4-8 levels and 1-2 feats, depending on what you take. You'd be paying through the nose for what two races give FOR FREE at creation.
If you really want to nitpick classes, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard can all benefit from Civil Militia, and since 5e has deigned that quarterstaves are versatile, you are actively debuffing yourself by not using shields on casters. On a flat d20, 2AC will account for about ~10% chance to hit, meaning with no hit modifiers, a no-armor caster with a shield gets a 40% chance to be hit vs 50% flat. Once hit modifiers start getting added, that 2AC will start flexing a lot more. Throw DEX and progressively improving armor into the mix, and you'll start seeing just how far something like Civil Militia will take you vs. that Nature proficiency you want to take in its place when the last time you even rolled Nature was 50 hours ago and failed anyway.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of AC and what skill profs actually do for you. Rolling persuasion to avoid a boss fight is a unique option offered at that specific time by Larian and cannot be used in any boss fight. However, +2AC can be used wherever you want. Its applicability is nearly boundless and outperforms every skill check you can make.
That's a whole lot of words for not even trying to understand that it is useless to the majority of classes.
I don't want to think about why my eye is itching.
I support this. I just like playing as myself in whatever RPG I am playing. Why should I be punished for being human? The race is legit just worse at everything.
Suggestions: Extra ability point (1-2?), extra feat, idk,
I support this. I just like playing as myself in whatever RPG I am playing. Why should I be punished for being human? The race is legit just worse at everything.
Suggestions: Extra ability point (1-2?), extra feat, idk,
I don't want to play a caster with a shield. It's a complete flavor fail. But when the proficiency is there, it feels like I'm intentionally gimping myself if I don't use one for a better AC.
I really dislike the militia thing for humans and half-elves. It feels slapped on for mechanical reasons rather than flavor and verisimilitude.
It doesn't really happen very often, but damn if I don't agree with JandK on this one.
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
So... Skill proficiencies may SEEM less valuable than combat proficiencies, but skill proficiencies can lead to an easier time doing a quest or allow you to avoid a boss fight. Also, the only classes that benefit from Civil Militia are Sorcerer and Wizard. That's just... Kinda bad.
Skill profs ARE less valuable than combat profs if for no other reason than opportunity cost. The amount of mileage you get out of something as simple as shield proficiency (+2AC) is infinitely more valuable than what you'd get out of ANY skill prof, the only exception maybe being persuasion and only because of the sheer amount of checks you can make. You can make all skill checks and saves without proficiency but you cannot use, or use with penalties, any item that you do not have proficiency in. Even the dumbest barbarian can make INT saves and checks, but the smartest wizard cannot use armor or shields without first knowing how.
If that's not good enough, the raw cost alone for combat profs is 4-8 levels and 1-2 feats, depending on what you take. You'd be paying through the nose for what two races give FOR FREE at creation.
If you really want to nitpick classes, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard can all benefit from Civil Militia, and since 5e has deigned that quarterstaves are versatile, you are actively debuffing yourself by not using shields on casters. On a flat d20, 2AC will account for about ~10% chance to hit, meaning with no hit modifiers, a no-armor caster with a shield gets a 40% chance to be hit vs 50% flat. Once hit modifiers start getting added, that 2AC will start flexing a lot more. Throw DEX and progressively improving armor into the mix, and you'll start seeing just how far something like Civil Militia will take you vs. that Nature proficiency you want to take in its place when the last time you even rolled Nature was 50 hours ago and failed anyway.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of AC and what skill profs actually do for you. Rolling persuasion to avoid a boss fight is a unique option offered at that specific time by Larian and cannot be used in any boss fight. However, +2AC can be used wherever you want. Its applicability is nearly boundless and outperforms every skill check you can make.
Plus the persuasion check to avoid a boss fight is shooting yourself in the foot:
1) You miss out on actual combat content. Most non-boss fights are pretty boring anyways. Bosses are your chance to have an engaging combat experience.
2) A boss killing himself through dialogue awards like 1/10th xp of what you get for killing said boss. Test it out, people, try killing the Orthon or the Thorms vs. dialogue. You'll see a huge difference in XP. Yes, it is very easy to hit max level even by early Act 3, but killing bosses in Act 2 and Act 1 is the difference of about 2-3 levels. That's a big power spike to have early that makes other encounters until you're capped significantly easier.
Often I see people whining that the Moonrise Tower assault was hard, and I just think they're probably underleveled because it was a rather trivial fight for me at lv9 and shortly hit 10 by the Mindflayer colony. Hell, even in Act 1, doing the Cresche after a full run of the Underdark makes the CC spamming gith Kithrak and Chrzac fight significantly less punishing.
I was level 7 or 8, can't remember now.
I lost last light and all the quests there. I did not do the creche. Was my first run through. The game implies you're to pick a route and take it, not do both. So I did not do both.
That character is currently level 8 and moving into act 3. Was having enough trouble that I decided to not continue playing her.
honestly, if you care about balance, the differences between races should be your least problem.
With classes, items and illithid powers everyone can become godlike powerful. So even if we agree that dragonborn are the worst race, you can totally become a god as dragonborn and murder everything in your path.
DnD was never balanced to begin with and Larian made this worse with their choices of items, special powers and changes to DnD rules.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist
World leading expert of artificial stupidity. Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already
honestly, if you care about balance, the differences between races should be your least problem.
With classes, items and illithid powers everyone can become godlike powerful. So even if we agree that dragonborn are the worst race, you can totally become a god as dragonborn and murder everything in your path.
DnD was never balanced to begin with and Larian made this worse with their choices of items, special powers and changes to DnD rules.
Yes, I know, however, the argument was that the human racials suck. The dragonborn ones arguably more.
I still have a bunch of dragonborn characters because I pick race based on looks, and I think they look badass. I never play humans, they're boring to me.
That's a whole lot of words for not even trying to understand that it is useless to the majority of classes.
Strength is useless to a Wizard, Intelligence is useless to a Barbarian, and Charisma is useless to a Druid. Did you also want to discuss re-balancing or removing these abilities since they're not universally applicable? Wisdom, Dexterity, and Constitution can be used on all classes with great effect, but the other three are rather weak since not all classes can benefit from them, and since they're so weak why not remove those and add skill proficiences in their place?
Just because you like a particular race, but do not like its racial attributes, does not mean in any sort of way that those attributes are bad. If you cannot apply them to whatever build or run that you want to do, that's not a failure of the racials, that's just not optimal - which is fine. Either choose another race that you do like that's more optimal for your choices, suffer the off-pick racials, or build around it and try something new.
honestly, if you care about balance, the differences between races should be your least problem.
With classes, items and illithid powers everyone can become godlike powerful. So even if we agree that dragonborn are the worst race, you can totally become a god as dragonborn and murder everything in your path.
DnD was never balanced to begin with and Larian made this worse with their choices of items, special powers and changes to DnD rules.
Yes, I know, however, the argument was that the human racials suck. The dragonborn ones arguably more.
I still have a bunch of dragonborn characters because I pick race based on looks, and I think they look badass. I never play humans, they're boring to me.
Both the dragonborn and human racials are supremely better than what tieflings get. Forest gnomes are also pretty mediocre compared to dragonborn and humans. Dragonborn's racial got fixed to scale with level and is a CON save spell, so any class of dragonborn can use it and it scales. Tiefling spells and High Elf/Drow racial spells are pretty damn worthless, and in the case of the tiefling and high elves, their spells are locked to CHA and INT respectively. At least high elves have other powerful racials, but tieflings do not.
I think the guy you replied to was trolling or something, with their absolute clown take.
Civil Militia gives armor+shield proficiency which is invaluable for caster types. Right out of the gate, as an example, Gale can get 13AC from leather armor and a shield, which is the same as Mage Armor, and can then add DEX. Which means he's saving a spell slot and getting comparable AC buffs for no trouble.
Your best idea was to drop this proficiency for a skill proficiency, of all things, because...?
Because they want to play, say, a human fighter and not feel like their racial bonus is a waste
honestly, if you care about balance, the differences between races should be your least problem.
With classes, items and illithid powers everyone can become godlike powerful. So even if we agree that dragonborn are the worst race, you can totally become a god as dragonborn and murder everything in your path.
DnD was never balanced to begin with and Larian made this worse with their choices of items, special powers and changes to DnD rules.
Yes, I know, however, the argument was that the human racials suck. The dragonborn ones arguably more.
I still have a bunch of dragonborn characters because I pick race based on looks, and I think they look badass. I never play humans, they're boring to me.
Both the dragonborn and human racials are supremely better than what tieflings get. Forest gnomes are also pretty mediocre compared to dragonborn and humans. Dragonborn's racial got fixed to scale with level and is a CON save spell, so any class of dragonborn can use it and it scales. Tiefling spells and High Elf/Drow racial spells are pretty damn worthless, and in the case of the tiefling and high elves, their spells are locked to CHA and INT respectively. At least high elves have other powerful racials, but tieflings do not.
It scales, but poorly. It's max 12 damage at lvl 6(my highest dragonborn), which isn't worth the action. She punches harder than that.
High elf cantrip I pick depending on what I'll use it for. I usually pick utility on something that'll have low into, like Light. Fire Bolt is taken if and only if I need to fight barrels on fire and I want something that can do it.
High elf cantrip I pick depending on what I'll use it for. I usually pick utility on something that'll have low into, like Light. Fire Bolt is taken if and only if I need to fight barrels on fire and I want something that can do it.
Friends, and it isn't even a contest.
I don't want to think about why my eye is itching.
honestly, if you care about balance, the differences between races should be your least problem.
With classes, items and illithid powers everyone can become godlike powerful. So even if we agree that dragonborn are the worst race, you can totally become a god as dragonborn and murder everything in your path.
DnD was never balanced to begin with and Larian made this worse with their choices of items, special powers and changes to DnD rules.
Yes, I know, however, the argument was that the human racials suck. The dragonborn ones arguably more.
I still have a bunch of dragonborn characters because I pick race based on looks, and I think they look badass. I never play humans, they're boring to me.
Both the dragonborn and human racials are supremely better than what tieflings get. Forest gnomes are also pretty mediocre compared to dragonborn and humans. Dragonborn's racial got fixed to scale with level and is a CON save spell, so any class of dragonborn can use it and it scales. Tiefling spells and High Elf/Drow racial spells are pretty damn worthless, and in the case of the tiefling and high elves, their spells are locked to CHA and INT respectively. At least high elves have other powerful racials, but tieflings do not.
It scales, but poorly. It's max 12 damage at lvl 6(my highest dragonborn), which isn't worth the action. She punches harder than that.
High elf cantrip I pick depending on what I'll use it for. I usually pick utility on something that'll have low into, like Light. Fire Bolt is taken if and only if I need to fight barrels on fire and I want something that can do it.
Not every racial has to be good for every class.
Except it does, because half orc racial is good for every class. Wood elf is good for every class. Githyanki is good for every single class.
So when you have races that have strong, universally applicable racials, and races that don't, guess which are the races that will end up strong?
You say Dragonborn doesn't scale great. It still scales, and is an aoe cantrip skill. Know what doesn't scale? Burning Hands (which uses CHA attack role, so useless for tieflings that are not sorc/warlock/paladin), Conjure Flame Blade (which not only doesn't scale, but is awful because it unequips your current weapons and as such removes gear bonuses), and even Mage Hand is pretty damn awful in its current implementation. The single time I have ever used Mage Hand to decent effect was during the Gortash fight to fling back the mines, that's it. Could probably use it for Orthon Yugir when he drops his suicide mines, but that's two encounters in the whole game.
The point being, the human and half elf civil militia racials are pretty good as far as "weak racials" go. Other races have it much worse, and seeing half elves and humans complain about extra carry capacity, free weapon proficiencies, shield, and light armor proficiency when other races get far less and others are busted OP like the half orc triple crit and cheat death racials is another level of detached from the reality of the game.
Damage starts at 2:20
That's a half orc paladin/sorc multiclass that one turned Raphael's 666 HP SOLO. Look at those crits. His numbers would be a third less without the half orc racial. He killed Raphael in 3 attacks. He gets the benefit of a magic rare amulet that cheats death once, FOR FREE as a race. Racials are not remotely balanced.
Because they want to play, say, a human fighter and not feel like their racial bonus is a waste
Then either pick a different race with a racial more suited to the class, or deal with the overlapping proficiencies. Submitting a suggestion to remove or rework an objectively good racial attribute because it doesn't fit a particular build is inane.
Because they want to play, say, a human fighter and not feel like their racial bonus is a waste
Then either pick a different race with a racial more suited to the class, or deal with the overlapping proficiencies. Submitting a suggestion to remove or rework an objectively good racial attribute because it doesn't fit a particular build is inane.
Nah, fam. Nah.
I don't want to think about why my eye is itching.
High elf cantrip I pick depending on what I'll use it for. I usually pick utility on something that'll have low into, like Light. Fire Bolt is taken if and only if I need to fight barrels on fire and I want something that can do it.
Friends, and it isn't even a contest.
Usually get that in my normal cantrip selection. Only two offensive ones I ever use are fire bolt and bone chill or whatever it's called.
Your half-orc character has certain traits deriving from your orc ancestry. Ability Score Increase Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Age Half-orcs mature a little faster than humans, reaching adulthood around age 14. They age noticeably faster and rarely live longer than 75 years.
Size Half-orcs are somewhat larger and bulkier than humans, and they range from 5 to well over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.
Speed Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision Thanks to your orc blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You 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. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Menacing You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.
Relentless Endurance When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Savage Attacks When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit. ---
It's about right.
Half elves technically should get two proficiencies. Basic humans get stats, or two stats, a rest and proficiency. That, imo, is imbalanced. Extra feat on a feat starved build?
Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist 
