Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Customised Origin Ability Scores

Did you know: Touch spells use the same spell casting modifier as ranged spells?

Also, the story does not begin with your adventure. There is this thing I like having, it's called a backstory. It's really fun to come up with and gives you a handy way to explain how this halfling became strong through heavy training even before joining the army to prove to the tall folk that he can be just as good.

Expanding on this, let me give you an example:

I play a Tiefling Wizard. I have 16 in Int, 14 Con, 12 Dex, 12 Wis, 10 Str, 11 Cha. Say that was a dwarf instead. Hill Dwarf. The stats would now be 15 Int, 16 Con, 12 Dex, 13 Wis, 10 Str, 9 Cha. I'd drop con to 14 to get Charisma to 10, put another point into Wis to get it up to 14, one point left. With a +2 modifier, Int is still the highest I can use effectively, I would still use it. It just has a higher chance of missing/not working. I could, also, get Dex to 14 if I put Wis down, but that would change the Mind focus of the character, and would leave me with a shitty dagger as the only weapon, and even then, it would be on par with my spells stat wise. In the end, I would play my character the same, just less effective.

I believe Larian did say they were going to try to include rolling stats. I think it will be included.

It should be a feature so that people could try to emulate their tabletop characters. The base game should be balanced around standard or 27 point buy array though.

I personally would like freely assigning stats as well, like Solasta. Rolling stats can be fun but it gets tedious.

He's still 3 feet tall, and 40 pounds.

Please, Please, PLEASE give me that tedium! In games of old that have allowed rolling for stats I have been known to spend countless hours rolling and rerolling just to get exactly the stats that I wanted... and I loved every second of it. Granted, all of those games allowed me to save the character when I was done, so I only had to undergo the process once for multiple playthroughs, but... the point is that I WANT this feature, and if it breaks the game's "balance" then so be it. I'll just make a mental adjustment (or download a difficulty increasing mod) and go forth with glee.

I’d like both options. Roll or just assign.

Well, if anyone cares, the previous topic, which CJMPinger mentioned and which discussed this was there. Arguably it ended up being a lot about definitions of what people mean be roleplay, power-gaming, and whether the Custom Origin is more of a boost to roleplaying or power-gaming. I nearly thought of bumping it, but I like the title of this thread better.

So I'd like to ask : what do people generally against TCoE's Custom Origin rule (as well as those in favour) think of the following character creation custom rule :

• Ability Scores are limited to 17 or 18, at level 1, after character creation (GM's choice).
• Ability Scores have to be at least M (say M=8, like in the PHB, could be lower, GM's choice).
• Start with N Purchase Points (say N = 75, for the sake of giving a number).
• Buying one Ability Point (AP) costs 1 Purchase Point (PP) until and including 14, then 2 PP until 17, then 3 PP for the 18th AP (if made available).
• Apply standard Ability Score Improvements after purchase.

Would that be acceptable ?


ps : obviously, Roll should be included in the game. I kind of take it for granted, but I hope it makes it.

If Larian just allows people to assign stats or even roll then Tasha’s is a moot point since you can get 18 on any score.

Made recentely a BG1 character and every time i skipped a 90+ i died more inside.

In short, No.
People have their opinions, and I have mine. I consider 10 to be the minimum for a stat and will only take a 9 in a stat if I'm intentionally rolling up what I would consider to be a "feeble" character. Buying ability points always results in a generic average across the board character for me. Some of the previous playthroughs I've had in BG3 I named the character "Twelve Point Man"... because 12's across the board was the best that I could do (when I would generally consider 12 to be an "average" ability score). So basically, I just ventured forth with an average dude. Nothing special about him by any means. In most any other game of this nature, I won't leave character creation until I have at least one 18, two 16s (or a 16 and two 15s), and no other stats below 12. It frustrates me mightily that I cannot yet accomplish this in this game.

Not really.

I have my own system documented elsewhere, but ultimately Standard Array and Race ASI should be the baseline.

An optional roll system would be fine too, but considering we don't have racial limits anymore, it's pure minmax.

Which is fine. My son rolled a 98 on a half Orc once in BG, he smashed stuff that campaign.

A 98 is impressive and difficult to obtain. I've hit a few times in BG1, but it took a great many tries to get there.

Herein lies your problem. Thinking that "9" is feeble, when in EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF D&D THAT HAS EVER EXISTED they explain that 8-10 is AVERAGE.

You are unwilling to play with penalties and just want god mode. That's not D&D. That's Diablo.

a) I don't understand your explanation. Do you think my method does not gives enough Ability Points ? Or too many ? It seems to me that you can create your 12-everywhere person with it.

b) I'm just realising I wrote N=75 thinking of the total, not the top up on 8-everywhere. I will edit my post. Anyway, a generous GM could give you N=95 if you prefer.

He probably sat there for 30 minutes lol.

8 was never average in D&D. It always came with a penalty. Average used to be 9-12 but it’s been changed to 10-12.

I also like to create characters with a minimum of 10 because I don’t like penalties unless it’s specifically roleplay driven.

Yes, and as I said in the previous thread, it is a good system. But, first, note that my system includes the usual and classical racial ASI. And, second, why should Standard Array be the baseline/default rule (whatever you mean by baseline) ?

You seem to accept Roll. Am I right ?

I'm confused - is this not just a slightly modified version of point buy, where the ceiling is higher and you have way more points to spend (for RAW point buy, N=27)? I generally like point buy for tabletop games, so all characters are at comparable power levels - it's usually not that fun to be the guy who rolled rolled 60 when other folks at your table rolled 80s. I'm fine with it here, too, though there's probably less of a need to balance power between different players in a video game.

I would want the ability to go below 8, but that's not critical. Being bad at things and failing can be very fun in a tabletop game - it's just another way to advance the story. As it is currently implemented failing in BG3 just feels bad; I'm not sure how much of that is Larian's fault or if it's just something that's prohibitively difficult to deal with in video games, but I imagine there's some low-hanging fruit for at least small improvements.

I don't have strong feelings about the Custom Origin stuff. I can see both sides of it, but don't really care that much. Getting +1 in one or two ability modifiers just seems so inconsequential compared to the choices you make in the game (it impacts ~5% of rolls using those stats). If people care enough to really want to change it, that's fine. I'm also fine with just letting people set the numbers manually to whatever they want.

On the other hand: For newer players (especially, but not exclusively), having more restrictions can be helpful. Character creation is a time when you're asked to make a lot of decisions without having a solid understanding of how those will impact the game going forward. I tend to be in favor of (at least by default) imposing some restrictions (e.g. your race selection dictates your ability score bonuses) to streamline this process.

then you don't like playing D&D. you like playing Diablo.

This is so silly. Please point to a D&D rule that requires you to have penalties in your character.

Wanting no penalties is far different than wanting 18 on all your stats. I can even argue those who accept 8 in some of their stats to bump their main stats to 16 are the ones who are Diablo players since they min-max more than I do.