Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Some Suggestions after 300 hours

Thanks Rag (and others) ^.^

I don't' want to come across as argumentative her,e so this is all said in the spirit of positive conversation, and I apologise if any part of it doesn't read that way...


Players can already allocate their ability scores – that's a thing that we do. Allocating your ability scores is an expression of your character's background life, and personal history and trends – it is the nurture side of your physical, mental and biological self. Your lifestyle already does affect your ability scores – that's precisely what the player allocating them is doing when they do so. Putting the seventeen you rolled in one score because that is what your character has focused on, and your 4 is a different score because that's something they personally have always been really bad with and continued to neglect... that's allocating your ability scores, that's your lifestyle and background affecting your scores, and we all do it.

Racial ability score bonuses are not about that; they are the nature side of your origin, alongside the nurture side. They are the part you, as a character, didn't choose. These exist in spite of and alongside how you've been raised and how you've grown up, because different peoples are different.

Most of what you've described here is focused on the nurture side of a character's history; acting like there is no nature element to your personal ability attributes is making a move towards denying that and erasing it, and I very strongly do not agree with the move.

I'm absolutely in agreement with you that it's more defined by interesting and unique racial traits, and that that is where the meat of fun stuff is and should be – I don't disagree with that that... but I still do feel strongly that these generalities for basic attribute propensities being different between different races of people is something that should not be erased... and WotC is seeking to erase it, and I do not support that.

Proficiencies as you mention, should absolutely be part of the nurture side of our character builds – I actually feel that proficiences should not be an intrinsic part of our race choice at all, or should be free-floating if they are (as in, a particular race getting one free proficiency that the player can choose, because this race is generally quicker to master things than others); there is nothing on the innate, nature side of your origin that automatically makes you a better speaker, or knowledgeable about plants – that's all nurture, and shouldn't be hard-defined as part of your race choice.

I do feel as though you've really just done the two things I called against though, in your responses – adding ability scores based on mechanical min-maxing, and adding them by hearkening to elements that you already referenced in your initial ability score allocation, effectively doubling up... but I won't fight that.

Instead, I'll point out that saying you take the +1 to Int because of your human blood doesn't work if you're abolishing racial propensities – humans aren't any smarter on average than half orcs, any more, under Tasha; you've just done the very thing that Tasha's rules are stopping you from doing with all of the races published after them. If they reprinted all the Phb races too be 'in line' with MotM, then the concept of saying “That extra int comes from my human blood” doesn't work any more.

Tieflings get that +2 Charisma because they have presence – it's racially inborn because they are tieflings; they look, obviously, like tieflings and that causes an impact, one way or another.

The nurture element, upbringing and way of life and so on, doesn't change the fact that their obvious tiefling nature naturally adds to their overall presence unavoidably... that's why it's a racial bonus, not tied to their background or life-style choices... and that's why I feel it should stay. The tiefling that was raised by wolves might have no social skills... but he still draws eyes when he enters a room... and as long as he doesn't open his mouth, or trip over a chair, that will still have more of an effect on what he does than if he were a regular human doing the same thing. It's innate, he didn't choose it, and it's not tied in any way to his upbringing or lifestyle, or even his personal history... it's a racial thing, born to, and it's legitimate and should not be erased.

((Now as an aside: I mentioned that the ability to change your base racial bonuses has always been a thing that you can discuss with your DM, and the DMG encourages Dms to be flexible and help players customise heir characters in ways that make sense for them and are fun. It's been a thing for a long time... If a player came to their DM and said “I'm playing a tiefling, but I don't actually have any visible tells that I am one, when I'm fully dressed at least... no horns, I hide my tail, my markings are all under my clothes, and my skin tone is pretty inside human possibilities... I think the +2 Cha doesn't make sense for me, can I have a different racial bonus?” That's absolutely normal and fine, in most cases... Remember, this to Rag and others as well - Charisma is about presence and force of personality. Many things contribute to that, or can, but it's not just about 'ability to talk goodly' any more than it's 'look pretty'; tieflings get a CHA bonus because they have an innate, unavoidable physical presence that impacts everything they do, purely by virtue of being and looking like a tiefling. In a world space where Tieflings are the most common race, or exceptionally normal and widespread, that would be an excellent case to give them alternate racial bonuses.))

Most of what you describe is playing for or against type, and that's something that has to do with lifestyle, upbringing and choices; that's the realm of your actual ability score allocation (where you choose to put the numbers you roll), not your racial ability score bonuses (which you don't choose, just as any member of a given race did not choose to be born as), and which Are supposed to be direct physical/biological propensities that make the different races different from each other.

Elves are inclined to better reflexes and better balance than humans – an individual might be pretty darn clumsy for an elf and clumsier than many humans, and if you choose to allocate your ability scores that way, they can and will be – but to deny that they have, as an elf, a real physical propensity in a certain way that is shared by all members of their race, by virtue of being born that way, is to erase a difference that should not be erased.

No, it's not what defines them, and as I said above, I'm well on board with the need for more supporting traits and other interesting ways to help make our different races distinct and flavoursome, absolutely! I'm not fighting that at all! However, racial ability score bonuses exist to convey something that is tangible and real... and it should not be removed or erased.

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For the rest,

Sure, fairy is probably the most egregious example, I'll pay that... but I'm distinctly nonplussed by the style of most of the final results for post-Tasha races, if I'm honest. To me, they all come across as much less flavoursome in design than the ones that were made when Wizards was more comfortable creating striking racial differences and highlighting them... but I'll allow that most of this goes beyond the ability score situation, which is only one small element of the issue. I'm saying only that it is one element of the issue, and it's one part of a larger problem; in resisting that problem I resist most of the individual small parts of it, even if one of them on its own seems relatively minor.

...If we're nit-picking though...

I promise this is said tongue-in-cheek and in good humour, and with a smile, I swear! None of this is intended as attacking or argumentative...

- You assumed I was using standard array? Why? I specifically said the seventeen that I rolled... read carefully before you assume ^.^

- Fairy was not released as is; it was in fact nerfed further between the UA and the release... Original fairy didn't have the flight restrictions, and their flying was magical... so UA fairies weren't forcefully obliged to have wings (Perkins even spoke about brownies as one possibility), and they could fly in chain shirts, like their official artwork depicts... released fairies must have wings, their flight isn't magical, and they can't fly in medium armour any more... it was a pretty big nerf to an already underwhelming block.

- You're mistaken about the age issue, I'm afraid... or, rather, you've fallen into the trap of saying “They erased most of the differences between different creature's ages, so now it's correct when we say they all live mostly the same length.”, as though that were a defence of the action...

Here's a list:

To be clear: Of the races presented, without making exceptions for extra subraces,
- 10 have human-equivalent lifespans and live about a century at best.
- 24 have lifespans that are not human-equivalent; 13 live longer, and 11 live shorter lives.
- Human lifespans are most decidedly not the majority case, by any reading.
- The generic “everyone lives a century” blurb says that races that live longer will say so in their block. Of those 13 that live longer, only 6 actually do so, and five of those only because they have not been re-released with MotM – the rest have had that information simply erased. All races who live shorter lives than humans have had that information erased. They have been reconnected into homogenisation and 'mild' racial erasure. It's not 'inclusive' – it's just erasure.

(I think I covered everything that wasn't a subrace of an existing race. I might have missed one or two here or there...)

Aarakocra to human friend: “Look... my people don't live as long as yours do, so maybe if you listen I can give you some of that perspective that you're always complaining that your elf friend lacks.” - Oops, not any more. Information Gone. Racial flavour: erased.

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Noooo.... it's not saying that. It's saying: “Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world.” Because that's literally what it now says. And it's ridiculous. You can make extrapolations and you can make excuses for the writing, but that's all you – what I've quoted is what it literally says now.

There's a table that lists the averages for height and weight and the average bracket zones using die rolls, for each race. They could update this table, but they choose not to; instead they choose to say that everyone is the same, regardless of race.

Fairy is the go-to example here again; what's a fairy's average height and weight? No, for real... what is it?

The description implies that they're very small, just not quite as small as pixies... so it would be patently incorrect to use, say, the halfling line on the table; they're just not going to be that heavy, realistically. We don't have a smaller line to use though.

So as written right now, the formally as-written rules tell us that Fairies are about the same average height and weight as a human, but, they are still small, and if you'd like to roll on a different line that you think suites the build you're imagining your fairy having, that's fine. I take issue with that. I want them to give us a guideline that actually lists an average height and weight bracket for this race of creature, OR else create a more flavoursome description with more soul, and allow your size to be small or medium, as they've done with some races now (which I very much approve of). I also want Tiny to be allowed, in the same way you want Large ^.^

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