Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Character generation - stats

I'm not sure if it was brought up in the AMA or other interviews ( and its probably too early) but has there been any information on how custom character stats will be generated. If I remember in NWN / NWN2, it was a pool and in some of the others it was a random generator for all 6 skills or it made the pool of numbers that you picked and placed to what ever skill you wanted. I like either way and would really like to see the dice roll animations that they have shown off in the game reveal be a part of it.

Right now, it's just a point buy, but I believe Larian hopes to put in an option to do dice rolls. Going by the recommended rules that would be producing 6 rolls of 4d6, dropping the lowest die with each roll to produce an array of 6 numbers, which you can then allocate to whichever stat you wish until all the numbers are used.

Sweet! I like that option and will definitely use the dice roll option. I can now yell no whammy!

Never been a fan of building characters basing their stats on roll.
I'd surely rely on a point pool, given the option.

My friends and I love dice roll allocation.

We rationalize it as 'You don't get to decide how strong/weak you are' (the dice rolls) 'but you have until you turn 18 to decide how to work your strengths/weaknesses' (deciding where to place each roll)

Well, I don't because in a computer game that actually translates in people camping the roll screen on character creation for up to 30 minutes until they are absolutely enthusiast about the result.
A point pool makes things fair for everyone: "here's your total amount of points to create your custom hero. They are the same amount of points everyone else has. Use them wisely".

Can't argue about the camping point; definitely can take a while to make a character that way (unless you just don't care or are into some hardcore rpg where you just take what is given). But, once you do land a set of stats that look good, I found it more satisfying than when using a point pool method. I think there ends up being less variety among characters with the point pool. I do have my pros and cons for each way, but if I had to choose, I think I would go with the dice roll option. It might be nothing more than a bias because of its association with PnP D&D as it was played when I as a kid.

I vote for point buy.

When rolling dice, many people just re roll until they are happy. If Larian prevents this, so you have to go back to the main menu and start a new game again if you want a different dice roll, many players will get angry.
My record was 2h of re rolling when creating a full custom party for BG1+2.

The ideal is to have the option to choose. In my opinion, point buy leads to very weak characters even though it might be alright for Pnp for the sake of balance. In my current Pnp game the GM allowed for either roll or point buy with more points, and he would adjust difficulty according to our stats.
Since BG3 will have only coop multiplayer and no competitive PVP I don't see why characters of two games should be equal statwise. If a player wants to roll until his MC has max stats, just let him.
There are players who play simply for RP and will accept whatever roll they get or point buy, so other players getting stronger characters won't change anything in their game.

I am open to the options contained with the PHB. The choice is mine.

The problem occurs with people having no self-control with rolling. I do hope that the only allow one role on hardman mode (or whatever they are going to call it.).

Well for one it wouldn't make rerolling impossible, you would just restart the game making it more tedious. For second people find enjoyment in a lot of playstyles - power gaming is one of them. That's why I think just having fixed number of stats you can adjust is the least tedious and most fair solution. You won't be god of stats just because you downloaded a mod and you won't be gimped either in case you rolled low. You will still need to adjust your stats and have strengths and weaknesses and make meaningful choices. I think random rolls are fine in tabletop game, where you are creating the story together with GM, but in a video game, it's a bad idea. In video game you have same difficulty curve every time, your GM won't adjust adventure to make it possible for you.

The most fair solution is to have no option?

I meant every time you get same number of stats points (for example 75) and you put them wherever you like.

That is the same as having no option.

Considering that this is really easy to code, I'm pretty sure we'll get all standard options:
- Point buy (default)
- dice roll (4d6 drop lowest)
- standard array

So you think 10/18/15/7/7/18 char will have same experience as 18/18/18/7/7/7?

I think that fixed point allocation cannot be considered an "option" unless you can choose to roll stats instead.

Well by that convoluted defintion yes, I would prefer to have no "option" then.

I play games SP only, and don't care one whit what others do in their games. What does fair even mean when an experience is entirely your own ?

But my general position would be to always allow players choice where it is practical and reasonable. Not doing so often reduces the appeal of a game and the reputation of the developer.

How is this definition/example convoluted?