Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Customization and D&D5e

To be perfectly blunt D&D 5e has very little customization compared to its contemporaries or even several of the previous editions of D&D.

Most of this Edition’s customization is found in the first four levels. At level 1 you pick your race/sub race, some classes get their subclass, but most will pick their subclasses at level 2 or 3. Then finally at level 4 you get to pick between getting a feat or an Ability Score Improvement, after that you either wait for one of the four levels you could maybe pick another Feat (fighters and rogues get more opportunities but they are not indicative of the whole), or you can chose to multiclass. Oh and by the way in 5e feats and Multiclassing are optional rules so depending on the DM you might even have less customization than I’ve explained here.

In the table top environment this isn’t a bad thing, hell its even a good thing. It makes the game much easier to learn when you don’t have juggle a bunch of passives or memorize 30 different abilities you may have access to on any given turn (if it’s not clear, that’s hyperbole). As a result 5e achieves its goal of being a very new player friendly edition.

But that’s Table Top, this is a Video Game. Video Games can keep track of a lot of things in behalf of the player and as a result it allows players to engage with systems that otherwise would be too overwhelming in analogue mediums.

So here is my proposal for Larian:

1: Mine 5e’s Public Playtest material for unused feats and inspiration for new feats.

There have been a lot of abilities released for 5e’s public play tests that never made to official publishing because they were over powered for what they were. A prime example of this being the Tunnel Fighter Fighting Style, which allows you to use a bonus action enter a special stance that gives you infinite attacks of opportunity but roots you in place. That’s just too powerful as a fighting style, but as a feat I could see it working.


2: Make Feats themselves smaller and more abundant.

Now before you D&D 3.5e veterans start having war flashbacks to feat trees, trap feats, having to pre plan your entire build, please hear me out. I’m not advocating for the return of any of that.

Break feats down into their individual Bullet points, allow all classes to pick a feat every even number of levels. No feat should have a prerequisite of another feat, at the most a feat’s prerequisite should be a certain number in an ability score, proficiency with a skill, weapon, or armor. Or a common level 1 class feature (like Spell casting). Rework any features that seem underwhelming.

Here’s an example.

The feat Great Weapon Master reads as follows



My suggested change would turn this one feat into two.

Power Attack: Before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage.

Reaper: On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you may make an additional melee weapon attack against another creature with in range.

Nice and simple, by level 4 you would still have gotten the equivalent of great weapon master if you chose both of these feats. But now you have the option to mix and match more abilities and learn new ones more often. I even reworked the reaper portion of GWM so it can stand better on its own. Since the original feat didn’t have prerequisites outside of using a heavy weapon or using a melee weapon I didn’t add any more.

Tell me what you think? How far off the mark am I?



Side note: Sure if you’re a spell caster regardless of what optional rules are active you’re gonna have the most choice in how you build your character because of the number and variety of spells you can chose from. But not everyone is a spell caster, and I Hope Larian let’s the martials have some toys too.

I don't like being a party pooper, but I don't agree with this at all. The amount of power you get off a feat can be immense and most feats are not bullet points. Imagine having a level 4 wizard that has Spell Sniper and Elemental Adapt without having to sacrifice the +2 to int you would normally grab on a point buy character.

In 5E can you customize weapons or armor? We keep finding gems everywhere. And can feats be earned any way other than leveling?

Yes, you can - but that doesn't make the weapon or armor anything other than what it is.
Take a Shortsword for instance, it's a 1d6 melee weapon with Finesse and Light attributes.
You can flavor customize it and say it's a really well crafted fileting knife if you want or a gladius.
The stats stay the same.


Gems are common in D&D, but they also have a use in the core rules other than for selling - BG3 seems to have removed Components for spells all together, making gems just another source of gold instead of something you would hoard in case you need to cast a spell.


With the exception of the Human Variant Race, no. That said, after level 20 you can get something similar to feats depending on the mood of your DM.

Thanks for answering my questions!

Remember about I said about breaking up feats into their individual bullet points and making those each their own feat? And further more most feats are indeed bullet points.

The Spell Sniper feat would become 3 individual feats as follows (forgive the terrible names I’m not good at that part):

Magic Sniper: When you cast a spell that requires you to make an attack roll, the spell's range is doubled.

Curving Magic: Your ranged spell attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.

War Mage’s Apprentice: You learn one cantrip that requires an attack roll. Choose the cantrip from the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list. Your spellcasting ability for this cantrip depends on the spell list you chose from: Charisma for bard, sorcerer, or warlock; Wisdom for cleric or druid; or Intelligence for wizard.


As for elemental adept it really only has the 1 bullet point so it can’t be easily broken up, but the balance can be maintained by simply putting a level requirement as one of its prerequisites. “You must be 4th level to take this feat the first time, 8th fir the second, 12h for the third, etc.” and since this is a video game no one would bat an eye.

Yes there is a bit of a balancing over sight by decoupling feats from ASIs, but honestly it’s minor when you reduce most of the feats in power the way I have here.