Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Buff intelligence

Its not a secret to anyone that intelligence suck in 5e. Every non-wizard character is insentivised to leave it at 8. And to my knowledge there is no items in the game that will make int worth having for non wizards. Headband on intellected does not count - it does not make int useful, it makes in even more useless. With that being said, i propose something like this:

8 int score or lower - loose 1 skill proficiency
9-10 int score - no penalties or bonuses.
11-12 int score - get a skill proficiency
13 int score - get a skill proficiency
14 int - upgrade a skill proficiency to expertise.
16 int - upgrade a skill proficiency to expertise.
18 int - upgrade a skill proficiency to expertise.
20 int - upgrade a skill proficiency to expertise.

Int bonuses from items does not grant any of the above benifits.

Additionally, you can add other bonuses at high int like using your int for initiative instead of dex, adding your int modifier to weapon criticals and so on - but that will complecate things somewhat and people will not like that. These could be made into an in-game items instead.

Isn't that the same as STR being a dump stat for most classes? Or CHR? The suggested change would also buff wizards who are already maxing the stat, even if it would work as intended to make INT more attractive for other classes.

STR has practical uses for combat - shoving and jumping.
CHA is not a dump stat for the main character, regardless of class. Bg3 is a dialogue heavy game.
IMO, wizard is inferior to sorceror currently because charisma is better then intelligence. Buffing wizard a little bit is fine.

What I mean is that if you're not a class which uses STR based weapons, have you ever put points in it to just for shoving and jumping (and carrying capacity)?

Do you think that buffing INT is going to make other classes start value it higher than for example DEX or CON as a second or tertiary stat, or is it just going to be a bonus for wizards (and to some degree arcane trickster rogues and eldritch knight fighters) who were going to up it anyway?

I think you have a point in that BG3 has made CHR less of a dump stat than what it traditionally is in the TTRPG by forcing you to use your main character for dialogues. IMO the best solution to this, and many other problems, would be to change the dialogue system to be more of a group effort, more along the lines of how you play real RPGs. E.g. if there's a medicine check it would make more sense to allow the person who's proficient in it have a go at it, rather than forcing the character who initiated the dialogue to do it.

But since we aren't getting that, perhaps the same method could be used to make INT more interesting? I.e. adding more skill checks for history, arcana, nature, investigation, etc. which have more impact on the game.

Also not a huge thing, but INT helps save against Illithid mind blasts

I thought it targeted wisdom, interesting. Thats explains why my low int high wis character getting recked by them.

I agree that INT is definitely poorly implemented in the game;

- There's only 1 INT based class (And 2 martial subclasses that use INT as a casting stat) so it's less useful for multiclassing.
- INT based skills are rarely useful and even when they are... They can be replaced by CHR or WIS skill checks for classes that use those stats.
- INT as a stat provides little passive benefit (Like how DEX provides AC, WIS saves are quite common from spells, STR is useful for jumping and carry weight etc)

I'd posit one of the better ways to try and help out INT would be to introduce the Artificer class. It would be another INT based class meaning INT would be useful for playing that class and multiclassing with it.

You could try to toss in more INT skill checks (And specifically make them INT skills only and not cheap out and let Sorcs/Bards CHR their way through them...) with more impact, but this might be awkward to implement and difficult to do in a way where people wouldn't just end up pulling Gale out of camp to pass the checks and instead actually invest into INT.

The game is done. They are not going to add more int related checks cause it will require more voice recordings.

I wish Eldritch Knight's Weapon Bond worked like pact weapon and let you use INT over STR/DEX. That'd be soooo sweet.