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

Just a shot in the dark... but...

You're an Adventure League player, aren't you Tom? Or at least, you're not that interested in the roleplay aspect of the world's greatest roleplaying game. You like 'number-go-up', and you like 'my-number-bigger-than-your-number', and that's what you're here for when you play. That's fine, by the way... but of all the types of players that Wizards should listen to and take advice from, that sort of player is at the very bottom of the list. At least, in my opinion.

No race has 'worse' stats than any other – they just have different stats. Beatrice, for example, starts with a higher AC than her half-orc friend... so at SOME point, if they wish to really crunch numbers against one another, he is going to have to pick up those two dex points that she already has, while she's picking up the strength he has on her.

Is a Barbarian that is actually a little better at wisdom saves worse than one who is a hair stronger, and are either them worse than one who is a hair quicker on her feet, or projects better presence when they enter a room? No – they just have a different balance to work with. So if you want to do a direct measure up, point for point, score for score, then ultimately, no-one is 'better' than anyone else, when you carry it to the end stages of progression. Some races start out with natural propensities that incline them towards a better out-of-the-gate start at some classes, perhaps, but unless you're a min-maxing munchkin it's not a big deal, and the other choices you make for your character are far more important; playing the class and race you want to play is more important, working with and around the areas you're weaker in is more important. The game is more important than nitpicking the numbers.

So if you want to talk about 'gatekeeping', then answer the question I asked you, and which you tactfully decided to ignore: How do I play against type with an Owlin, or a Fairy? How? Tell me. If insisting that it be done the floating point way, for everyone, always, forever, is your stance, then how are you not gatekeeping me out of the freedom to play the character I want, with the background and social frictions I want them to have to consider? How can I play TO type with a Fairy or an Owlin, for that matter? Answer me that one, while you're at it please. How can I lean into something that doesn't exist?

You can play any race the Tasha way – that's standard as an option now, and isn't going away. I'm not stopping you from doing that; no-one is. It's there, and it's going to BE there, going forward. No-one is forcing you to do anything. But if they stop listing the default propensities for each race, and they don't describe them for new ones, then the only one being gate-kept out of their preferred playstyle in this scenario is me, not you.

Yes, I'd love there to be more flavoursome racial features that were actual reflections of their unique biology – I absolutely would! If they do this well enough, I'd even relent on this point altogether! As of right now, however, they Aren't. Just taking the ones we have and making sure every race has something unique as well isn't good enough; it needs to make up for taking away the native propensity.

For the record: you're describing using Standard Array for ability score generation. Standard Array is an optional rule – the tertiary suggestion after the actual basic rule for ability score generation, which is rolling, and the secondary option, which is point buy. The standard array is not the standard method of ability score generation, ironically... though I'm going to hazard a guess that rolling for scores is anathema to you.

==


Fair call on this bit; I was referring to other elements of the new documentation, not specifically the ability score question, and I should have been clearer about that. Symptoms of a larger problem, as it were. Right now, for example, I can't play the dwarfiest dwarf in OneD because they've taken away the traits that represented an upbringing steeped in traditional dwarven culture, but they've not allowed you any way to take them, or get them back, if you happen to be playing a dwarf who, in fact, did have just such an upbringing... so by proxy we are, currently, losing the ability to play a lot of the social-culturally archetypal representations of our various races.


We don't have a Forgotten Realms source book, or campaign setting book. We don't have one, because it is treated as the default 'most setting agnostic' space of all of the realms, and so the baseline, setting agnostic core rules book is what the forgotten realms takes as its default. It's not that the player's hand book is based on the forgotten realms – it's that the forgotten realms is based on the player's handbook.

All they're doing right now is erasing a large mass of basic lore for creatures, and replacing it with Nothing. This is not a good thing. If Wizards publish a Forgotten Realms campaign setting book sometime in the near future, which restores and updates all of the lore they're currently erasing, great! I'll happily redact this issue if they do... but they've made no signs of doing so as of yet.


Have your dwarves been doing this for long enough that it actually has had an impact on their physical biology – is a dwarf from this setting identifiable different from a realms dwarf, by their innate biology as a species?

If so, then they have a different base ability score propensity now – and that's cool, but they DO have one nonetheless.

If not, then what you're describing is cultural and social, and it should have no impact whatsoever on matters of basic biology... so if your dwarves are still dwarves, then they're still built the same as realms dwarves, and have certain biological tendencies, just the same, and if they're not, then they're a subspeices with different propensities, or they aren't dwarves any more.

Remember that allocating your ability scores is the 'nurture' part of your physical and mental background and your upbringing; allocating your ability scores represents your life choices, and the social and cultural pressures that have shaped the way your character has developed themselves to this point. That's what allocating your ability scores is for. That's the greater part of your character's final ability score spread. One tiny little extra part of it represents the nature side of things; the basic biology of the creature that you were born as, and which was not something that you had any choice in. The cultural and social elements, the personal choice elements – those Already make up the larger part of your character's initial attribute spread... that one little extra bit is the bit that says “Yeah, different people are born different, and that's okay. You don't have to embrace that if you don't want to; you didn't choose it, it is what it is, but whether you lean into it, or define yourself against it, it's not going to ever be a gate on your potential to achieve”. There is no justifiable reason to remove that from the game.

I'll mention again: Tasha's options are an officially supported method of character generation now. It's not home-brew, it's in the rule book and no-one is stopping you from using those rules at your table. No-one is trying to take that away from you, or tell you you shouldn't have it. No-one. But you are telling me I shouldn't have it the other way as well – that the existing propensities shouldn't be in the rule book too. You are the one attempting to gatekeep here, not me.

==

As for the whole race depiction thing...

Realms orcs aren't Tolkien orcs, and haven't been for more than two decades. That whole line of discussion is ridiculous beyond measure and is made by people trying to create an argument to have and who want to vilify for the performance of doing so. Elves are almost never 'white'; they come in a great many shades and skin tones – if all the elves in YOUR game are white, take that up with your DM, don't blame the system. Celestials, likewise, are not traditional caucasian tones; they trend towards entirely unnatural tones, in fact. If all your celestials are white, then again, take that up with your DM and don't blame the game system that didn't do that. You're mapping something onto the system that simply isn't there, and then attempting to blame it for your prejudice in doing so.

==

I'm not going to write any more essays on this; the window for feedback on this particular topic is closed; I've given my feedback to Wizards on the matter and I hope you've done the same. I will try again to push this back on topic:

How do folks feel about Bards being described on one hand as flexible polymaths who can dabble with skill in everything... and then being given access not only to a single class of magic, but to only four spells schools within that single class – not even the full arcane list, just the Illusion, Enchantment, Divination and Transmutation – and only being allowed to have a maximum of two spells not within that narrow list for their entire career, ever? Personally, I'm not a fan.

I'm not happy about them losing access to so many spells that are considered archetypal to the flexible bard utility kit, and getting back traditionally wizard spells in return. I'm also not a fan of the restriction to magical secrets, since it means, more or less, that every high level bard will have the exact same two spells picked out of their 'out of school' list, as every other bard, permanently, and never anything else, ever (it'll be wish and counterspell, most likely).

What are folks feelings about going back to 3rd editions 'memorised-by-level' restriction? Your 20th level bard would like to have Charm Monster, Dimension Door, Freedom of movement and Polymorph ready to hand today? Too bad – you literally cannot; you're not allowed to have more than three 4th level spells prepared, ever. And you MUST have exactly three 3rd level spells prepared, even if Dispel Magic is the only third you want from the bard list right now. I'm not a fan of this either.

- Other changes include a change to Exhaustion – it's now a linear progression, up to ten ranks before death, and the effects are all the same; just a cumulative penalty to your rolls and your save DC. It's mechanically simpler, but there's nothing narratively interesting about the new exhaustion, and certain characters can happily go about at 9 exhaustion without really being bothered by it, if their role in the group is one that doesn't require many rolls (buffers and supporters, for example). It's definitely easier to remember, and that's a positive, but it's much less interesting, too. I'd also comment that it's imbalanced against spell-casters, quite heavily; one point of save DC is worth about two points of attack bonus, but the penalties increase equally. I feel like this needs to change, and there should probably be some decrease in speed as well.

- Magical flight is no longer excluded from the fall-if-restrained clause of flying speeds; previously, you fell if you were restrained only if you were actually needing your body's movement to do the flying in some capacity, which made sense; if you were held aloft by magic, then being restrained, such as by a net thrown over you, didn't suddenly make the magic fail and cause you to drop to the ground. Now it does... unless they are going to go through every other feature and spell that grants a flying speed and given them all the 'hover' trait caveat... which seems like a lot of book work.

- Grappled is again in the awkward situation where, as long as a creature can hit your AC, there isn't a single gosh darned ting you can do about them running off with you. There's no contest now; the grappler just has to hit your AC. They can move you without a fight, and you only get to escape at the end of each of your turns... so even IF you escape successfully, you've ended your turn and can't move back from the cliff they're carrying you towards... so on their next turn they can just hit you again, and move you further... and there's nothing you can do about this. Other methods – forced movement, teleports, etc., do still work of course, and you can try to fight the target with your actions, as well, but it's still poorly written, in my opinion.

- The help action now requires you to specify how (using which skill proficiency... and it must be skill you ARE proficient in; two people who aren't skilled at a task can't work together to complete it, now) you are going to help your ally – you cannot simply be ready to help out with whatever your ally decides to do, or be ready to assist them with however they decide to attempt something. You've got to declare your skill proficiency before hand, and if the DM decides that that's not that kind of skill check, then you're out of luck, and the action is wasted.

- You never need more than 15 to Hide successfully now, no matter who or what you are attempting to hide from. You take the action and you are hidden until the creature makes an active perception check to find you. You can hide from Bahamut and Tiamat at the same time with a DC 15 check now, and they've got to do perception checks to find you; they'll probably do so, sure, but you're actually hidden from them until they do, no questions asked... this is... pretty dumb.

- How do folks feel about going back to having a 'move action'? Your movement is a discrete thing, rather than a per-turn spent resource. It can still be broken up around attacks, but, for example, you must choose which movement speed you're using on a turn, and you can only use ONE. So, this means, for example, if you have a base speed of 30 and a swimming speed of 60 (due to your fancy cape), and you're chasing after someone that is trying to swim away from the docks to their pirate ship... You can run 10 feet to the edge of the dock... and you dive into the water... you can only travel another 10 feet and then you have to stop for your turn, because you started with your land speed, and so you had to use that, and only that, for that turn. Similarly, if you have a flying speed of 60 and a swimming speed of 60, and you're just about to crest the surface of the water to chase after something in the air... you can swim 10 feet to the surface, and then MUST stop at the water's surface, and CANNOT fly into the air on this turn. Well, unless you take the dash action to use your other movement type.

- In the same vein, Jumping is now a discrete Action; if you want to jump, you've got to use your action to do it, rather than just having jumps consume your movement for the distance you travel. Not a fan, personally.

- Everyone is a ritual caster now, no feature required. This is nice, though it kind of removes the difference and flavour form the various spellcasters. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have remembered that ritual casting is different for different casters; some need to have the spell prepared to ritual cast it, others don't. The new definition of ritual casting does not state which way this goes.

- Dual wielding no longer takes up your bonus action – this one is nice. It's now baked into the light weapon property, which I can foresee causing some confusion, but mechanically it's an all-round improvement.

- Resting is strange. They've changed up the wording and still failed, utterly, to clarify the exact same confusions that were always part of rest previously. I'm not sure how they managed it. Now, A long rest is: 1) at least 8 hours long. 2) You sleep for at least 6 hours (elves have a caveat on this), and 3) Spend No More Than 2 hours performing light activity such as reading, talking, eating or taking a watch. So.... So.. if we take along rest for 10 hours, what CAN I do for those other 2 hours? I must... I don't know... site very still and make sure not to exert myself in any notable way? I can't chat to my party members... I already spend half an hour eating, an hour reading and half an hour talking with one of them.... if I spend any more time chatting quietly to my buddies, my rest will be interrupted and fail! This is worded very stupidly, simply put.

That's most of the most salient bits... I didn't go into depth on rogue and ranger because it's after 2am and folks will get upset at me if I stay up any longer. So, what are other people's thoughts on these things?