Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The One D&D project. Thoughts?

No jo, tak jo děcka. Do toho. Jdeme. Jdeme. Jdeme. Musíme todle dodělat. Pojdte už, honem!

Actually since enemies can’t crit anymore, I wonder how adamantine armor will change? Their entire point is to cancel out critical damage.

I love the new character creation system. Moving ASIs to background and getting stuff like languages and tool proficiencies from the background in addition to skills makes your background feel like just as important a part of your character as your race choice is. It being customizable by default is even better as you can expect most people to have had very different life experiences and training growing up. The starting feat is just icing on the cake. Especially with leveled feats so that there aren't any obvious auto-pick feats at level 1 like Greatweapon Master overshadowing feats like Skilled or Crafter.

Though some of the suggested language/background combos were kind of weird. Like a sailor knowing Primordial because they... Spend a lot of time at sea? And the sea have elementals in it?

Love orc being a full core race now. I know orcs already had Powerful Build but giving that trait to a now core race does a much better job of representing the "biological strength disparity" issue than a flat +2 did. With Powerful Build an orc wizard that dumped strength to 8 can lift about 480 pounds, which is equal to an elf with 16 strength. That's huge. It means an orc genuinely is just naturally massively physically strong even if they've spent their years reading books instead of training.

I do feel half-breeds got a little shafted in how this was implemented though. Half-orcs are now mechanically the same as pure orcs or pure humans. At the same time though I am unsure how else to treat this without making it possible to min-max race combos to get overpowered results. I imagine most players don't want to play with an aarakocra/yuan-ti hybrid that exists just for the racial ability mixing.

Ardlings seem interesting. Having a celestial equivalent to tieflings in the core book makes sense, though I am surprised they didn't just use aasimar given the Ardlings seem to use very similar abilities to what aasimar enjoy. I do think Ardlings are more flavorful and distinct as a race than aasimar though. The animal head is as obvious a tell as the tieflings' horns and eyes.

Dragonborn finally have darkvision! Finally. Them being the only dragon-related species in the multiverse without it was really weird. That said they're still a little weak on the racial side in my opinion. I wish they'd taken more from FIzban's. If not Powerful Build wouldn't go amiss on the Dragonborn given they are supposed to be naturally stronger and tougher than other races anyway. Or they can finally get a bite or claw natural weapon or something. I dunno why but Wizards always seems to be very reserved with their dragon race compared to all the stuff they give elves and tieflings.

I always thought that with mixed races, players should have to choose one trait from each to carry over. You know. players get 2 traits free of their choice. 1 from each parent. like Superior Dark Vision from Drow and maybe Luck from Halfling. No increases or decreases for Abilities.

Unless... If you want more traits, you have to pick a disadvantage trait. Want Keen Senses as well? Gotta take something like Sunlight Sensitivity. Want Brave too? Gotta take maybe a -1 on an Ability score. Something like that.

I'm in favor of allowing mixing and matching traits in half breeds. DM can fix problems via the standard technique of smacking munchkins in the head with the DM guide.

Oh, wow. I had initially read that mixed race heritage allowed mixing and matching traits. That's disappointing that you have to choose a single parent's race to determine your mechanical stats

And Dragonborn having darkvision is going in the wrong direction imo, continuing to make darkvision too common. I wish they would bring back low-light vision and give darkvision only to subterranean races.

That would make sense, where the player could choose which aspects of their parentage carried over. I think the main problem with Half-Elves and Half-Orcs in the D&D/FR setting is that they never really did the legwork of establishing those as discrete types, like with independent races/cultures/histories, in the same way they set stuff up for the other core fantasy races. In D&D this stuff was left intentionally vague, with the assumption that it was maybe more like "my father was a human and my mother was an elf" and that's pretty normal here - such that the same thing always results, with the same set abilities and the like passing down.

I get the strong impression that it was set up in 1e mainly to accommodate Tolkien. So in Tolkien you have Half-Elves but they're basically the Dunedain or the Numenoreans, with the common ancestry going back into murky prehistory stuff for those initials parings. You know, the established culture heroes, Beren and Luthian, Ælfwine, Elros, Aragorn etc to give a subset of Humans that are essentially Humans + (mixed with Elves and Maiar) who still basically look human but have Elf traits. I also get the feeling that this is maybe more what they're going for now. So sorta like Luthien/Elros/Arwen choosing to be mortal, whereas Elrond choses to be an Elf, and then the player has to choose which side of their heritage they favor during Char creation. But it'd be nice if there was some mechanical element to it, so it didn't feel like just totally purely aesthetic. The new description provides a lot more genealogical flavor, but again doesn't go into a ton of detail. Probably, as said on previous pages, because the PHB is basically 'setting agnostic.'

Still, FR as the kitchen-sink flagship setting has to make use of and normalize all the material that's in the PHB. That's basically been it's purpose as a setting for the past couple decades. Everything has to have some niche and be worked-in and accounted for within the Realms. So I'd expect some reason why Ardlings are suddenly everywhere in FR in the next ed. I do think they're more appropriate to Planescape than FR, but those settings are both gateways that kinda work in tandem. They'll probably do something similar to what they already did with the Tiefs - like heaven crashes to earth somewhere and we've got heavenly refugees to go along with the devilish ones we've been meeting now in BG3. It works for me I suppose. FR is already a pretty high-magic high-fantasy setting.

I think they could revive Greyhawk as an alternative low magic low fantasy setting, maybe making it exclusively Human and organized more around class/background than fantasy race? But it's tricky cause that setting already includes a lot of established and overlapping material. Same deal with Dark Sun I guess, though it's probably less well known. They could create a new setting I suppose, but then I don't think that went over particularly well last time, with Eberron being kind of forgettable in my view. I think they should get away from steampunkish vibes, and just go more classic sword and sorcery with at least one setting.

A crossover with the Conan IP might be kinda cool for a new setting. I remember a while back that the rights were changing hands, and it's a very natural fit there. The world I mean. I get the vibe, and some might prefer a GoT style setting but without just being a straightup GoT game hehe. It's curious to imagine what D&D might have been able to do with something like GoT or Dune before it hit again so massively, but I guess that's stakes-to-high with too much primary source material baked-in and money to license, whereas D&D is a more generic comfort food dish we can eat on the cheap hehe. I could see room for a Greyhawk revival though. I prefer FR myself, but at least it has a classic angle. I also have a soft spot for Dragonlance, but that's pretty high fantasy too. They have 3 settings that are very similar in style though, no matter how you slice it, cause 1e was all about those Elves and Dwarves and Dragons.

Wizards of the Coast funding both timing is not a coincidence

a fighter uses any weapn they pick up and staff has some nice bonus spells like bless but thats not really the point

Wizards of the Coast should create a new setting for the freak races (a place that "furries" can salivate over) and let The Forgotten Realms return back to normal. There are folks who just can't get it through their heads that having every inn, tavern and hole-in-the-wall resemble the Mos Eisley cantina quickly diminishes the uniqueness of anything beyond the classic "core" races/species.

You didn't elect to actually give me an answer before, when I queried your denigration of that section of the community, or of you using 'freak' repeatedly as a pejorative to describe races that bore reminiscent features. Would you care to do so? I'm still curious to know why you think that's an appropriate way of talking.

Given the origins of both races, is it problematic?

• Orcs - by their very nature - are ugly (relative to humanity) and savage (i.e., Chaotic Evil nowadays); rare is the human that would want to mate with an Orc (perhaps barbarian tribes whose territories abut Orc lands?). The overwhelming majority of Half-Orcs are unions born of rape. Half-Orc societies are correspondingly scarce as hen's teeth.
• Elves are beautiful and noble; there is no shortage of Humans attracted to elves, but Elves don't often reciprocate that attraction. Putting aside the more elitist Elves who would never deign to lay with a Human, your average Elf is a passionate individual who would deeply feel the loss of a short-lived partner once their time is up and so they make the decision from the outset of adulthood to never engage in such a romance. Having said that, Half-Elves would be more common than Half-Orcs because Elves are much kinder than Orcs.

The only major Half-Elven society I can think of is in Aglarond (thirty-percent Half-Elven).

I'd always assumed that the lack of more distinct half-elf and half-orc cultures was due to their relative rarity. I think even in the Half-Elf description they're described as either mostly accepted in human society or slightly more apart in elven society. This also informed for me how other races might procreate, for many it was either impossible, exceedingly rare or only possible one way, like in Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls and maybe the Witcher too, I can't remember.

I wonder what ramifications on the FR setting this might lead to, I still tend to look at the world as being fairly parochial until you get into the extraplanar realms, where the term cosmopolitan takes on a whole new meaning.

I think it's problematic because they're presented as core races for...some reason. They don't have any history as societies, which makes perfect sense for the reasons you gave, yet they're somehow common enough to be deemed as worth putting into the player's handbook. Sure we have tieflings in the handbook too, but they're explicitly born from supernatural circumstances and are entirely unique entities as a result. With half orcs and half-elves, they're really just people. Why aren't there half-dwarves or half-gnomes included? And why aren't there half elf, half-dwarves? Or half dwarf, half-orcs? That's where the issue arises. It's not the biggest issue in my opinion, but I think having mechanics to make any combination of half-breed rather than specific ones is the better way to go, just to put my two cents on the issue.

You are still mixing tabletop and BG-3 ...
But even if WotC would implement bless staff ... it would be a misstake to give it to your fighter. :-/

For one spells from items can use anyone ...
For two Bless is concentration spell, so anyone in front line casting it will loose it much faster than someone from the backline who dont get attacked so often ...
And finaly every other 2h weapon is at least half stronger ...

So my question stands ... why would any fighter use staff?

not looking at the total context,

to be 100% honest, staff is pretty much just one dice away from the best martial versatile weapons.

d6-d8 vs d8-d10.

which is essentially +1 damage on average. So if you find a good staff, with bonuses, or special traits. it wouldn't really be crazy to use it.

a +1 staff does more consistent damage than a naked longsword.

as to losing bless, not really, front liners usually have high constitution, and high AC. attacks often miss, and they beat the con save often. Bless is given to clerics and paladins who are generally front liners. Also since concentration is one per player, you lose little by having some one else do it, if they can.


that all said, it doesn't really matter that much, the game isn't really balanced on max efficiency play/builds very often

Mathematically, a fighter with a magic quarterstaff makes sense, but its not a very stylish option, and all the other fighters will laugh at them.

Exactly ...
Problem is, they are not versatile in this game ... they are two-handed ... meaning 2d6 or 1d12 to compare.

Ehm...might be a bad google translation but how is that bedroom talk relevant to the thread? :P
And look at those dainty daisies quarrel it out :P

Real men wore leggings...and makeup and wigs and a whole bunch of other stuff that would be considered effeminate in contemporary milieus.