Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Yuan-ti Pure blood

I think a big part of the equation is that D&D is more like Star Wars now. "Monster" races no longer exist in the minds of many players. They're just races that are now spreading everywhere in the world of Faerun, so everyone knows every race now. Again, I'm not saying that this is true from a FR lore perspective. I'm saying that it's true from a what players seem to think perspective.

That's how it went with Star Wars too. Wookies, for example, were supposed to be a rather uncommon race originally. Chewy became so popular that suddenly Wookies became one of the most common races in the galaxy.

The true lore of Faerun is humans are everywhere. Elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings are also everywhere. Common monster races are everywhere, like goblins, orcs, ogres, trolls. Most other races? Uncommon at best. Tieflings, dragonborn, Yuan-ti, Gith, Drow, etc. They are all more uncommon to the general populaces.

But not anymore. Like Wookies, they are now EVERYWHERE.

Question is: Would any race on nautiloid seem anyhow more odd that our curent bunch of Compaions?

I mean ...
Dude with really strange magic inside, a Gith, a Vampire Spawn, a Werewolf(datamining), Warlock and his Cambion patron ... if nothing else, it seems to me that the Absolute was trying to gather as much rare specimens as possible ...
Maybe they are researching possibilities of ceremorphosis, maybe they are looking to infiltrate every and any society possible ... and maybe we would never know why they kidnapped our super-special-rare custom Tav.

What im trying to say is that no matter how exotic race we pick, from whole DnD lore ... i highly doubt that our character would feel anyhow more special compared to our companions.

And therefore ...
Any race would be explained simply by stating: They kidnaped me aswell.

Agreed.

But how the world reacts to them is different than a monster race.

Gale is just a human inside out. So is Wyll.
Shadowheart? Your normal half-elf from next door.
Astarion is just a pale elf, people don't expect a vampire in broad daylight.

I imagine a gith would get some rised eyebrows but they don't interact as much with this plane to people to react in any special way.

A yuan-ti? People sure do know them or at least heard stories about them, no way they would be permitted to enter any civilized places other than at the tip of a guards spear.

That's what would be expected and I don't expect Larian to possess the right means to do it properly - thus they shouldn't do it at all.

Mmmm... I don't know. Yuan-ti Purebloods look mostly human, and their kind would be more rarely spoken about. The most common Yuan-ti would be the full snake person variety. The whole point of Purebloods is that they CAN infiltrate human society because they look mostly human. Hide the scales a bit and people see yet another weird human variant. More raised eyebrows but not necessarily a shut the door in your face kind of reaction.

You are forgeting Zoru ...
As stated abowe, Druid Grove is basicaly the only settlement we visited so far ... and in this particular settlement, Githyanki are well known, bcs Zoru told everyone about them and how they killed his friend, unprovoked and in cold blood.
As confrimmed by Damays and Nymessa.

And yet reactions on our Githyanki character, or Lae'zel are quite welcoming.

Are certainly not as commonly known as Duergar, or Drow ...
And we allready can play as a Drow ... we even can quite openly admit that our character still worship Lolth, aka basicaly admits that all those horrible stories and even more they know about Drow apply on you specificaly ... and reaction?

Again, basicaly none.

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And thats what im talking about ...
Quite honestly i dont think that this have anything to do with "means Larian possess" ... after all, they admit that they lead themselves into some permutation madness by sticking to certain designs that dont actualy work so well ...
In my humble opinion, and i admit that it can be completely wrong ... this is just pressure of curent society ... certain people dont want to see "you look different and therefore we dont like you" ... even if that makes perfect sense for bzillion reasons.
And Larian (aswell as basialy any creator lately) simply dont want to upset those people.

Personaly i would also like if my Githyanki / Drow / Duergar / Yuan-ti / Half-Orc ... would be told "okey, you may enter our settlement, but you will get armed escor, surender your weapons, and you are only granted acess to main area" ...
It would be glorious!
Exactly as Niara said ... there is no joy in playing a Halfling, if the game conciders you to be a Human ...
Same goes for others ... there is no joy (for me at least) in playing a Drow, if everyone likes me, begs me for help, offers me gifts and are willing to trade with me. :-/

So there is no "do properly" ... or at least i dont believe it.

I honestly believe that Larian *could* have done reactions on *insert-evil-race* exactly as they would deserve ... they sinply choose not to.

What you describe would be pretty cool, but it's also complex and kind of a pain to implement. Larian is willing to go into permutation madness as we've seen with the box, but I think the key with the box was that they didn't really see it coming initially. They made a decision about the importance of the box and got themselves written into a bit of a corner. With this, they can see that level of compexity coming. What you describe would necessitate pretty dramatic divergences that I don't think most studios would be willing to commit to unless it was a specific central part of the game. I don't think it's a societal thing at all, if it were then I doubt Larian would be approaching the romance and sex stuff the way they are, for one thing.

I don't know. Is it REALLY that complex? You show up at the grove. They let you through because, you know, you helped kill the goblins. You meet Zevlor who says (like he does if you're a drow), "Oh. You're a different race (assuming Yuan-ti Pureblood is MC race) I've never seen before. Well, no matter. I'll make sure everyone knows that you helped us kill those goblins." Everyone, for the most part, is then thinking you are an ally.

Then, for flavor, add a character or two who is prejudiced against your race/other races. Aradin, for example, seems like a jerk who would totally be racist. Zorru's scared out of his mind and might freak out if he saw a Half-Orc or Yuan-ti or Dragonborn. In his mind, they might be working with the Gith. Though he's seen Gith, he doesn't REALLY know who they are, so he sees anything similar as a potential ally to the Gith. Maybe a druid somewhere sees you as a "monster" race or recognizes your race and treats you with contempt. Have Volo intrigued. "What do we have here? A Yuan-ti Pureblood! Fascinating."

It wouldn't take an entire reworking of anything. A few lines here and there, and maybe a few "I don't deal with your kind" situations. I don't think that would be too complex.

But then, I also understand that it all adds up. A Half-Orc dialogue here, a Yuan-ti dialogue there, a halfling dialogue there, a gith dialogue there...

Would it tho?
Wich part?

Surendering weapons?
There are spells for that ... unequipping things from certain slot should be easy ... i see no problem in having weapons in bag, it would cost player an action to equip them.

Armed escort?
There are several NPCs following us all the time ... all they need to do is not allow us to control them, wich shouldnt be hard in my opinion.

Restricted areas?
Well we allready have that aswell. Several of them actualy.

See? Nothing dramatic actualy.
And when our character would save Arabella, or Mircon, or only in case we would save both of them ... we would get apology and they would leave us be ... bcs we PROOVED we are helpfull.

So what would it take ...
1-3 new lines per NPC ... all of them tuned into "i dont want to have anything with you" style.
1 tag that would mark our characters as "misstrusted race" ...

Have i missed anything?

Additional potential benefit would be that siding with Goblins, would be more natural for additional races and not just Drow.

I dont think that either ...

All im saying is that i dont think anything solid is preventing them ... i simply believe that they dont want to.

Dunno ... sex sells, from time to time you want to do something little shocking to gain some extra atention. :P
And this move certainly bringed extra atention.

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And we are back to one-liner.

To be fair, the Yuan-Ti pureblood is the most human-looking type of Yuan-Ti and can arguably pass themselves as human as long as they are appropriately covered (so some of their features don't show, kind of like how undeads worked in DOS2). So narratively, it can be less disruptive than some other races - say a minotaur.

With that said, the Pureblood probably isn't the first additional race I'd throw in there though. There really isn't a connection for them in the story line so far, and mechanically they are notoriously an overtuned race compared to PHB races (outside of the Variant Human). Especially so in BG3 where way more enemies cast spells.

An other thing to note is that players are boring and this kind of marginal race wouldn't be worth investing the time to do new models, animations, events, npcs...

Look at how closely the distribution follow the PHB race selection :

19%+ players choosing non-PHB classes are not to be ignored in my opinion.

EDIT : Also, some people might not pick non-PHB options because they don't have access to it for one reason or another (ie : DM restrictions) when in other settings they would have pick one of those "exotic races".

I wonder where from they take those numbers ...
Since DnDBeyond specificaly dont allow you to use certain things (including races), unless you pay them ... so if that is their own statistic, i have serious doubts about its value. :-/

//Edit:
Also i dont see there Variant Humans ...
So unless im searching wrong ... their numbers are possibly even more wrong, since many munchkins(?) pick those for simple acess to extra power, rather than actual popularity. :-/

Like some of you guys have said, adding races isn't the problem, it's having the world react to it appropriately. Considering I'm not really getting enough from the more common races I'd say that I would be leery of adding more of the uncommon ones. I too like playing a Halfling and the only reactivity I can recall is a [Halfling] dialogue to break up Zevlor and Aradin fight, and that time Crusher rails against the tall races, but also Halflings too.

I do like how much you get as a Gith, and even as a Drow, and I do know Larian is making an effort for the game to recognize these things, (just think about the hug with the tower automaton), but without it contributing to the story thematically, which Drow and Githyanki characters clearly will, I'm not sure we should expect the game to be helped by adding so many of the uncommon races without it being relevant to the story.

I voted yes, but that's my caveat

Understandable.
I do support adding more races and that would be awesome if they were properly recognized by the game like you said. It would be the best output in my opinion.

However, if this "caveat" weren't to be respected…oh well. It would be fine too. Just a bit disappointing (like Backgrounds having no RP/gameplay repercussion).

My entire thing is with playing a Good Aligned Goblin Paladin who is all dour and snarky due to all the racism thrown his way, but still choosing to help people and do good in spite of it. I WANT the negative reactions to My Goblin, that's part of the point.

Maybe a misunderstanding here. When I say, "A few lines here and there," I mean that it's more than a one-liner. Sure. Zevlor talks to people and says, "Hey. This whatever-he-is just saved the grove. Treat them well." So people will, in general, not reject you at the grove. That's what I'm saying wouldn't take a complete overhaul. You can still talk to people in the grove, buy and sell, etc.

But then, Larian could target additional characters that DO have issues with you. This still wouldn't take a complete overhaul. For specific races, like Drow, Half-Orc maybe, Yuan-ti Pureblood, Goblin, Orc, whatever, there are select individuals who ARE hostile towards them.

So, let's say you're a duergar. You just helped save the grove. Yay! Everyone loves you... except Aron the halfling merchant. As soon as you approach, you get a different dialogue from him. "Well, what have we here? Our GREAT and MIGHTY saviors! Hah! I don't buy it. I know your kind, DARK DWARF! Just keep moving. I'll have nothing to do with you."

Ah, but the tiefling merchant will still sell to you, so you still have a merchant to buy and sell from.

Then, further into the grove, you encounter a dwarf druid. Immediately, he approaches you because you're duergar. "Stop! I don't know what you think you're doing in here, but we don't want your kind here. Get out." You have the choice of leaving or arguing with him. Eventually he might agree to let you stay, but he'll be watching you and maybe even following you.

Come on. They had children and every single freaking person in the grove at one point following animals around. They can have one or two characters who don't trust you following you around because you're of a race they don't approve of. I don't think that'd be a particularly challenging or time consuming thing to implement. A few characters with a few mean dialogues based on your race tag, and some characters maybe trailing you to "make sure you're not doing anything bad" wouldn't break the game - or at least I'd think it wouldn't.

Honestly I think any group of armed strangers might warrant an 'honor guard' in the Tiefling camp

Lol. I totally agree. They're just like, "Oh. You killed goblins. You must be totally trustworthy. Let them roam wherever they want."

But then, I can just be Zevlor's ability to judge your character.

I am always in favor of more monster races. It's pretty much all I play unless I don't have access to them at all.

As far as NPC reactions the Yuan-Ti Pureblood would actually be very easy to do, I think. As has already been noted the ENTIRE POINT of the Pureblood caste is that they can pass for human with minimal effort and are frequently used as infiltrators and spies. If normal NPCs could tell your Pureblood a part from say, a Dragonblood Sorcerer or just a human with weird eyes then the entire role purebloods serve within their society wouldn't be viable.

That means NPCs could and should just react to your Yuan-Ti like they would looking at a human. You could then get some dialogue where you reveal your true nature where it is advantageous to do so, say to boost an intimidation check or when trying to join the Absolute or something. That way only select NPCs need a hard reaction to the revelation rather than literally every NPC with eyes.

Heck, maybe make it something about your PC that the companions actually react to with surprise. Why should they be the only ones that have a shocking secret?

In a similar vein, it'd be funny if as a Lizardfolk you had the option to lie to people about being a Dragonborn. After all, how many commoners are going to know the difference between one large, reptilian humanoid and another at a glance?

Those are very good ideas.