Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Race: RP Potential or Class Cheese? EA

I know this might annoy some, but it honestly feels kind of silly that you cannot reassign any of the stats like Half Elves do at character creation. I mean are all Elves/Halflings going to be nimble? Are all Dwarves strong and burly? Are all Half Elves/Drow/Tieflings naturally charismatic? There might be a majority that represent a particular race/culture, but certainly not every single one of them.

EX: Let's say I pick the Wood Elf race, I now get +2 dex and 1 wis, but I want a lower dex on the character I’ve created, maybe this particular elf is clumsy and in turn has more con as a result of his regular mishaps. I can imagine that, but in regards to the character sheet 10 is simply the average, nor can I lower it.

The reason this annoys me? Half elves in a sense can grow into what they choose to, allowing further roleplay. Much of the time, I find that I’d rather play as another race, which makes my choice not only suboptimal, but this makes it feel less like roleplaying and more like a pre-generated mold that I have to accept to play a race I find interesting at the time. Humans are even more boring as they just happen to be slightly better at everything by default with no unique traits, allowing them to reign in as the true lords of vanilla.

Why not just allow each race to reassign points based on how they are given? In the Wood Elves case, you could do +2 and +1 in the stats of your choosing, even only the +1 would be great.

Better yet, why not set up a point buy system similar to the way stats are chosen? Rather than selecting a boring generic background, why not create a page for it?

This page could automatically generate some flavor text based on your choices/class, or simply allow you to write your own. You could simply select the features your character engaged in during their formative years. Selecting stats, skills, proficiencies, or even a cantrip ( like the high elves and their half elf varieties get from years of study ).

Worried about balance issues? Increase the price for choices that don’t fit a certain profession ( int based cantrip and fighter for example, unless you have a certain int value ( 13? ) or happen to be a high elf fitting into the original and common mold for your race, the cost increases, which would also apply a similar system for dex/str proficiencies) Plus there is at least a guideline on what is fair, based on the already created molds for the current races.

Though I could understand certain features like fire resistance, psychic powers, wings, third eyes, and what not being race locked, that's fine imo, some features would obviously be race restricted if the other is lacking it. You could even have a race that normally had one of those features, for whatever reason find it missing. Maybe a wing was lost in combat? Birth defect? Another reason? I mean, this just screams rp potential to me, but none of it is there. Currently, you just pick a race and a small background, and that is the end of it.

I figured this change would be an overall great thing as racial selection would become less focused on which races work for your class, and instead become what background fits your playstyle and rp interests, causing race to become a pure flavor choice.

To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if swapping race ability scores gets added in some shape or form since the new 5e book is supposed to add this feature.

My take on that is that the ability bonuses represent the "base" race and the current system already allows for RP and customization, while at the same time acknowledging racial differences. Elves are by nature and on average more nimble than humans. To me it makes sense that a clumsy elf is still more agile than a clumsy human. Similarly, a super buff hafling won't be as strong as a super buff orc.

Obviously not, but that's not how it is in the current system. A +1 or a +2 just means that as a group, they are slightly more so on average. In point buy, they may still have a 9 or a 10 in that score.

Ah that's good to know, I should have used 'swapping' w/ my earlier google searches, Tasha's Cauldron of everything sounds promising.

I can understand that to an extent, but there are always those that break the mold. I figured the key features like fey ancestry, hellish resistance, dark vision, and so forth would be what remained unique. Character trade offs can be fun, I just prefer to control where the quirks are. Also, nice name :3

Eh, probably a bit nitpicky on my part, and while it's oftentimes not wise to go into the negative values between saving throws and ac in this case, I’d like the ability to.