So, we've seen a lot of potential Race bonusses pass along with the Kickstarter upgrades, and one can easily see there's easily up to 10 or so plans for class-specific bonusses alone. Alongside the balance-aspect of that, what would be the best way to actually gain said race bonusses. As far as I know Larian hasn't specifically stated the way they are granted to you. Which of the following 3 would you prefer, can you imagine another way (unlocked through plotevents for example)?
1) All granted on creation. The most risky to balance one, this would just mean all those listed powers, passives and actives are yours to command from lvl 1 onwards. They would risk being overpowered, or turning out just to be a push in the back and not really useful upon being higher-level. Of course it does allow people to quickly test if a certain race fits their playstyle pretty soon in the game.
2) Granted progessively. As you level up, more race bonusses are automatically unlocked, tailered to the level. While the early ones may still be replaced eventually, the risk of a total loss of race-specific bonus and the general stuff taking over on higher levels may be lessened, as more potent powers are also unlocked on higher levels. Of course this means people pretty much need to play a race through the entire game to learn about all their pro's and con's.
3) Race powers are also a skill-tree. Instead of gaining everything like in 2. you have to pick between various upgrades, maybe choosing between the strong dwarf that lifts hammers with ease or the dwarf that can easily drink you under the table 10 times over due to their high constitution. A positive is that it has the spread of powers like 2, but also variety so that even 2 dwarves with the same general set of powers, skills and abilities can wildly vary. The obvious downside of this would be the increased difficulty of balancing and the general need of needing more race-specific bonusses than any of the other paths need.
So which other paths do you see, would you want. Me? I'm personally the biggest fan of 3, which of course has to do with making choices, having a variety of options and if you like X race bonus you might just not choose them than needing to do the full package. Of course I can understand it's less likely to happen to the game due to the additional workload required.
