Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Character Creation: Ability Scores Cap

I'm not a fan of the point buy system. Like someone else said, it makes for generic builds, where certain classes dump strength and others dump charisma and so on.

The example of the wizard with the 18 strength is a good one. It stuck with me over the years also.

I like rolling too. Fine for single player. Multiplayer needs something to equal it. endless rerolling would make it unfun. especially if you play "fair" rolling just once with players who max out as best as they can.

I'm not so big on everything being equal among the players at the table, at least philosophically. But I also understand how difficult it is to find a group where that kind of approach works. In practice, the players almost always have to be reasonably equal to keep some of them from getting upset.

Of course, that doesn't apply in a single player game, I agree.

That does seem out of the ordinary but again you have to realize NPCs are not player characters. They do not have the limitations players do, but that particular Duergar is stronger than a CR 6 Duergar in official books. They have the same Strength score but overall that "Level 5" Duergar is way tougher than his "Level" expresses.

Something I recall Larian saying that they had to go with "Levels" of monsters instead of Challenge Rating to simplify it. Maybe I was wrong earlier, Larian really does expect you to cheese strat some of these things.

Well for me I can deal with a point buy system if you got to with being able to get your main stat to at least 17-18. To get that you need to have a point buy of around 33-35 points

I detest lowing any stat to be under 10 points so that would be the minimum. So given the above the lowest that anyone should go in an ability is 10 so you would put a stop to players who create characters who have stats of 3.

But Larian went with what the Player's Handbook has which is a point buy of 27 so even 5E put a hard limit on getting an ability of 18.

Sure rolling would be nice but what we are getting with this game is basically what is the lowest score that you could get in BG1/BG2 (I.E. 75 total ability points).

So going with that my Wood Elf Cleric stats are:

STR: 12
DEX: 13
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 15
CHA: 12

So not really a great hero but at least a bit over average.

So given the Racial Bonuses DEX should go to a 15 and WIS to 16.

Would I love to few more points sure but we have to go with what we are given.

I like starting with a 27 point buy spread.

But I hope the next edition will separate ASI's and feat picks again. Putting points in stats is fun. Picking feats is also fun. Why have to choose one or the other when you can have two fun choices instead. If feat picks would come on top of ASI's at 4/8/12/16/20, characters could have slightly higher stats overall.

Larian adding their own homebrew CR could be a blessing or a curse. Uber stat NPC's with player level benefits will introduce a host of potential issues mainly ridiculous blanket saving throws. Adding progressive level scaling enemies just because, you know progression and stuff makes no sense either. If you want to make a battle or situation more difficult add more enemies but don't beef them ALL to hardcore. Your levels must feel like an achievement otherwise why have them? If all the enemies just scale to your level because it is convenient for game difficulty it lessens the experience. You should meet over-levelled characters too just not all the time.

E.g. One dwarf at level 10 surrounded by 10 x class specific level 10's is ridiculous. One level 10 dwarf in decent gear with 20 x level 3-5 minions with garbage gear is better. Levels aren't just some arbitrary random plop stat they are a reflection of the character/NPC life experience. Fodder enemies with a strong leader and support add strategy. Do you target the minions, the clearic, the mage or the leader? That type of thing. If there are 8 x level 10 fighters with a level 10 mage and a level 10 leader then you are going to look for barrels.

I like the idea of adding levels to mirror CR but it has to be done in a way that makes sense. It makes sense to me to have one or two "leaders" and the rest trash to varying degrees in generic battle encounters.

Well,

I got myself a monster manual and looekd up a few things. NPCs are not PCs, looks like the 5e sees it the same way. I still do not get why those PC-race NPCs would have scores so way out of line with the PCs.

A CR 7 drow mage has Str9,Dex14,Con10,Int17,Wis13,Cha12 and 45 HP. Pretty reasonable. Now look at Nere. I haven't his stats looked up but how the heck did he get 74 HP?

A CR 6 Duergar Warlord has Str18,Dex11,Con17,Int12,Wis12,Cha14. Gekh Coal alone has Str18, Con18 i think and another 16 in the mix yet only 50 odd HP or not? (SC: Mordenkainen's ToF)

For standard PC-race NPCs i found nothing like that. The DM guide gives no Ability Scores, just kind of a recipe. Appendix B for generic NPCs of the MM has a few with low CRs.

Yet none of those i found had Ablity scores that were that far higher than equal level PCs. CR usually means that a party of 4 same lvl PCs can beat the mob, so i would think stats need to be a tad higher.

BG3 has levels for the NPCs instead of a CR. That would usually indicate a 1on1 comparison. Even if not, the higher stats of a lot of NPCs sours a lot. Especially Hit/Save ratio. Too high numbers on the NPCs make a lot of skills far less usefull than they should be since the NPCs get hit less and save more if hit.

You see that especially on spells like guiding bolt where a save completely negates the effect. I hardly use those because most of the time i get either a miss or a save if hit. For me, that takes a lot of fun out of combat. Many tactical choices fall because a magic missle is more effective just because it always works

(apart from the strange LoS they have in BG3, but thats another matter).

Just a small correction: You've actually spent 31 points here already, before racials.

Buying from 13 to 14 and from 14 to 15 costs 2 points each, not 1. Points cost the modifier of the new value, minimum of 1 point, so 8 to 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 all cost one point each, while 13 to 14 and to 15 cost 2. Theoretically, buying 15 to 16 and 16 to 17 would cost 3, if it were allowed, and buying 17 to 18 would cost 4.

So:
STR: 12 (9, 10, 11, 12 = 4 points)
DEX: 13 (9, 10, 11, 12, 13 = 5 points)
CON: 14 (9, 10, 11, 12 , 13, 14(2) = 7 points)
INT: 10 (9, 10 = 2 points)
WIS: 15 (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14(2), 15(2) = 9 points)
CHA: 12 (9, 10, 11, 12 = 4 points)

Total: 4 + 5 + 7 + 2 +9 + 4 = 31 points spent.

Makes it worse actually since it takes us even further from the NPCs.

I have taken a look at the point buy from the PHB and thw way with using 27 points and having a minimum of 8 and maximum of 15 before racials is implemented exactly as stated there under "variant: customizing ability scores".

So larian to the freedom to let us build lvl 1 chars with a build from the D&D 5e rules but made the NPCs ability scores higher than the D&D 5e rules state. This takes us exactly to the problem i have with the combat imbalance stated above. I really hope that gets corrected and they find

a more clever way for the games difficulty.

+1

Gathered some evidence :

Mistress Olodan has pretty impossible stats:
[list]
[*]Str 12
[*]Dex 18
[*]Con 14
[*]Int 10
[*]Wis 18
[*]Cha 18

Thats a damn Halfling Druid on lvl 5... apart from the fact that this would not even be possible rulewise, in simple points that would be 53 points at level 1. If i calculated correctly ( 12 16 14 10 17 16 before racials/ 1 point from wis and cha substracted for 4th lvl)