Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dealing with this Game Balance Obsession

Just as you say: you're not that familiar with 5e. I don't wish to be harsh, but it shows. I'm not saying you should just believe everything I say, but please do consider giving more credence to someone who is intimately familiar with the system and its design philosophy and style. 5e has a substantially different design philosophy driving it than some earlier editions, one major feature of which is their bounding of values and bonus into a narrower bracket, and the design of all other related aspects of the game flows on from this.

To answer your question: no, no wizard who intended to play through to high levels (and be effective there) would seriously consider tanking their Int and covering it with a low grade, attunement-requiring, score-setting item, tying up an equipment position as well as an attunement slot(!) permanently and losing out on save dc and attack bonus, just for the ability to put their stat spread somewhere else... not unless their goal was to deliberately play a gimped character (which they may well wish to, sure - weak or unfitting characters are fun!).

For your benefit, spells like bears endurance and cat's grace are not gone - they are a single spell, called "Enhance Ability" with Cat's grace, Eagle's Splendor, Bear's Endurance, Owl's Wisdom, Bull's Strength and Fox's Cunning being your choice of which one you want to cast now, so you only need to prepare that single spell, and can cast whichever of the buffs you want or need to.

No, Ioun stones cannot increase your Intelligence above 20. No, their base ability score bonus does not stack onto an item that sets your score. One way exists in terms of core DMG (and other official books) magic items to increase your Intelligence above 20 - it's a mid-to-late game item and can only realistically be used once.

The circlet is not a +10 item; calling it that is misguided and makes you sound either silly or intellectually dishonest in your speech.


As I already said, it's an uncommon magic item in the core DMG, is slightly stronger there than it is in this game, and it shows up on the lowest grade of treasure pulls, designed to be found by level 1-4 parties. It's a low grade magic item; it's not especially valuable. I'd thank you not to back-handedly call me a liar over something you could very easily fact-check yourself in a matter of seconds.

To Maximus,

You certainly can build your character around that if you want - you'd just need to accept that overall you're going to find yourself losing out to and being less effective than a character that didn't, by the time you're level 8. If you feel that giving your character a permanent crutch that doesn't even make them as good as contemporary characters by level 8 is overpowered, that's up to you... that's what you'd be doing though, and I promise you, it doesn't work out well, except in the extremely short term (such as the 1-4 limitation of this EA).

A character that has a nifty magic item having an edge over a character that does not have a nifty magic item is perfectly normal and acceptable as well... but that EK is not EVER going to be as efficient as a wizard, circlet or not. They have lower levels of spells, fewer spell slots by a mile, and know fewer spells. By the time your EK can cast magic missile twice a day, your wizard has second level spells and more of them per long rest. That circlet doesn't even begin to balance the scale, let alone make the EK more efficient or more effective. It gives them a nice buff at early levels; that's all it does, and that's why it is a low grade magic item designed for early levels in the DMG.