Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart's ability scores

So, I have a bit of a pet peeve with Shadowheart's ability scores, so here's my breakdown. It's all in the spirit of feedback, because so far I am LOVING BG3.

There is a problem with NPC's ability scores: they are predetermined and, as far as I know, they can't be respecced later. This is especcially aggravating in the case of Shadowheart.

Unlike other NPC partymembers, Shadowheart has her subclass (Trickery Domain) already chosen when she joins her party, as well as her ability scores. It's easy to miss, but she has a Dex score of 9, while her strength is 14. Here's why this is unacceptable:

Trickery domain clerics NEED a decent Dex stat for the following reasons:

-They use medium armor and shields, so they depend on Dex for their armor class. This matters because clerics are generally expected to recieve a few nicks. Shadowheart has a NEGATIVE Dex score, which reduces her AC. This makes you wonder why you would give her a shield and then undermine it with a negative Dex score.

-Trickery Domain clerics are the type to sneak around and get up to tricks and shenanigans; a negative Dex score prevents her from doing that. She will always be bad in sneaking, acrobatics, sleight of hand checks, and so on, which are things which you would expect her to be at least decent at.

-Initiative bonuses are important to casters because their order in combat can be an important determining factor. Again, she has a negative bonus to her initiative rolls.

-Dexterity is the second most important stat. Picking a negative Dex score is generally a bad idea (somewhat like having a negative Con score, but not as bad).

Instead, she gets a 14 in strength, which gives her the following benefits:

-She will hit harder with a mace. This is useless, because (i) why would a trickery cleric focus on hitting melee when they are powerful spellcasters? (ii) Her AC is terrible, so putting her in melee is the last thing you would want to do. And, (iii) she cannot use martial weapons, so her bonus to melee damage goes largely wasted.

-She will be better in athletic checks, which is something you wouldn't need or expect from her nor would she be your pick for it, especially since you can have a fighter in your party.

In summary, her ability scores play directly against her purported strengths, and in favor of her weaknesses in which she will never be good.

Other clerics might make some use of a decent strength, but her subclass as well as her ability scores are preset. I can't see anything that you can do to go around this issue.

I'm all for player choice (if someone wants to spec a party member suboptimally, then whatever floats your boat). But it makes no sense to me for the game to give you an NPC partymember who is built in a way which directly undermines their effectiveness. I suggest this should be fixed in her case in particular.

This also relates to the issue of NPCs having preset ability scores in general. This might prevent you from choosing certain subclasses as they level up, because they might depend on ability scores that that character doesn't have. But, Shadowheart's case is particularly aggravating because you can't choose a different subclass which works (somewhat) for her ability scores. She simply has a terrible build and the worst subclass pick for that bad build.

Ive seen a few threads around her ability scores. Swapping her cha for her dex seems to be a good solution that is in line with she comes across

That's one, but I'd say she could use a decent Charisma score as well. I'd suggest swapping Strength and Dexterity. This would also make her a bad melee combatant, which gives her a weakness to counterbalance her strengths.

Regardless, a more complete solution (shich does not exclude the aforementioned) would be to either allow you to customize the starting ability scores of NPC partymembers, or making available some limited form of reassigning or redistributing ability scores. That's my take.

Here's Shadowheart's current stats:

Str 15, Dex 9, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 14


As a Trickery cleric with half of her skills based off of Dexterity, and with an AC penalty, this is horrible. Something needs to be lowered to get Dex to a minimum of 12, and 14 would be better. At a minimum, drop the Str to 14 - that's an extraneous expense for no reason, and she doesn't seem particularly musclebound in the artwork.

Dropping Strength to 14 and Charisma to 12 gives enough points to raise the Dexterity to 13, which at least means she gets a positive stat boost instead of a negative. The only reason I wouldn't drop her Strength further is that the only finesse melee weapon she has access to is a dagger, and melee is sometimes preferable to Sacred Flame.