Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems Auntie Ethyl's hair is not a "real" CON bonus?

So I made a fighter with 17 CON (after a respec), then got the hair and made it 18.

Leveling up from 5 to 6 I went from 54 to 64, so 6 + CON bonus seems to work, but I noticed on the actual level up screen I went from 49 to 58, which means it wasn't considering the hair on that screen. It also showed my base stats on creation, er, respec, meaning 17 for CON, so that also works out.

It just seems a bit odd to not consider the hair bonus as part of your basic stats. In D&D, actually boosting a stat was a rare thing indeed precisely because it did alter everything, as opposed to a rare piece of equipment, which could just as easily be removed.

In BG3, nothing that boosts your stats is considered part of your base stat.

Most likely some sort of technical reason for how they made stat changes work.

But it leads to all sorts of jank, most notably stuff like the stat modifying items like Gloves of Dexterity or Elixir's of (X) Giant's Strength. Where in skill checks it'll show a -1 modifier from having 8 in their stat then a +4 or +6/+9 bonus from these effects.

But yeah, Ethel's Hair is simply a buff applied to your character not an actual alteration to base stats (You can see it listed in your character sheet). Thus it is not factored in on level up screens which only utilize your base character without any additional effects.

This is also likely what enables the mod that exists to change the stat granted by Ethel's Hair, since the mod only has to change which variant of the Ethel's Hair buff you have rather than manipulating base stats (Lowering the one you had already chosen and raising the one you newly selected)

I've noticed it about the hill giant potion in strength dice rolls. It gives you a -1 because of 8 (I assume), then adds +6 to it to make the math work out. This is kind of janky indeed.

By their own janky logic, if my base STR was 12, that should be +1, not -1, and +6 from the potion should give +7!

It's magically knowledgeable chemistry!

Actually, the bonus from stat alterations will scale to whatever your actual stat modifier is. It's not a flat +6. If you had +1 modifier from 12 Str then the elixir would only provide a +4 bonus to end up with the +5 you'd have from 20 Strength.