Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please consider removing racial Ability Score Increases!

True, it is arbitrary and inaccurate to use a d20, but that's what we've got.

In another thread on this topic (there have been a few) Someone suggested making attributes out of a 100, and really the higher you go the better. You could also do away with any score modification and only have maxium ability scores, with magic being the only way to exceed them.

Chimpanzee's are lanky too and yet their Strength score is going to be much higher than a human, using the Githyanki can be as much a point in favor as against.

That's actually a rather good solution.

Tying attributes to a use-system is great in rpgs when ot shows up.

It’d be like a half-step towards a skills only system which is my favorite

So have players spend exp on attribute gains with certian races with a natural proclivity towards certain stats having an easier logarithm

Yeah! And if attributes are made out of 100, it makes sense that rolling 1d100 and getting *lower* than your stat is a success. The higher your stat -> the greater your chance. And if you roll really well, it can be a crit. Maybe under 1/2 and 1/5 of your stat score for thresholds of increasing success :P

Being serious: isn't making stats of out 100 with mundane caps basically the same as how D&D currently works? E.g., Orcs effectively have starting Point Buy Str cap of 17 (20 if you roll), while other races have a cap of 16 or 15 (+3 if you roll for stats).

Edit: or are you suggesting that stats are out of 100, then we add 1d20, with the goal of decreasing the effect of variance that 1d20+[small value] has?

Uhh, about those chimpanzees... not exactly my definition of lanky just look at this monster below and then at Lae'zel's thin little arms

You're right, a d100 system is essentially d20 times 5, same stuff just with more granularity. Unless it's not what Sozz meant?

Technically our stats are out of 10 right? A lot of the OSR simplify this aspect of D&D by reducing stats to their modifier. So to be clear I’m talking about the limitations of our chosen arbitrary number system

That chimp looks pretty old to me, Im guessing a level 20 barb

I’d still describe most chimpanzees gibbons and orangutans as lanky. And physically all are naturally more densely muscled

I think it has something to do with the fact that despite being practically the same height, both a human and an orc can only reach a certain muscle density.
It is simply physically impossible for a normal humanoid race to naturally have a strength higher than 20 without relying on magic, alchemy, or gods to do so.

But even if you put an orc with strength 20 and a halfling with strength 20 next to each other, the orc will be stronger.
Why? Because his weight will be significantly greater and will give his punches and grabs extra power.

The same thing is true of dexterity.
Even with identical stats, a halfling will always be faster than an orc, because due to his weight, the gravitational force will work on him with less intensity, allowing him to move faster.

It's just the normal laws of physics.

Its surprising to me how many people are avidly against this - even more so considering the reasoning. This is been a houserule at so man tables for so long that they put it in a book and theres no reason it shouldnt be an option for this game as well.

"is bad for roleplay" - Anything restricting is bad for roleplay. Removal of this restriction still allows any race purist to play their way without punishing others from breaking from a perceive idea of how they SHOULD be accord to YALL. Lumping an entire group of people together with an assumed idea of how/who they are is not only literally incorrect objectively but, and this may sound dramatic, is LITTERALLY that foundation behind racism, an absolutely archaic idea. There have, are and always will be those who dont fit with most in any given grouping.

"Races should feel distinct" "Race wont be anything other than a skin" - If the combined lore of an entire race and the way you portray it and the world reacts to you due to your lineage isnt more a more distinct experience than where you have your +1 or 2 is, I weep for the rigidity of your roleplay. . Unless RP isnt how you enjoy your game, but many of you keep planting a roleplay flag on this hill. Our world has entire books full of history written based solely upon our reactions to people and how we treated them due to nothing other than physical differences much less cultural. Further if I had to choose between a race feeling more distinct or a players PC being more distinct. Always side with the player feeling unique. I know of no players (though im sure they exist) that want to feel as though they are just like so many others.

Its the often the difference and breaking from sterotypes and the resulting conflict, internal and external that lead to so many compelling stories. Some people want to be like Orlando Blooms Will Turner that may have grown up as a lowly blacksmith but spends hours a day perfecting his craft wielding a blade in secret whenever hes not perfecting his trade making them. He may not have been naturally skilled, but he was obsessed with moving past his station, most importantly to be worthy in the eyes of the world of his love. Without this core motivation/obsession his character does nothing but take a nap, deliver a blade and is forgotten after minutes of screen time - or he dies fighting jack sparrow lol


TLDR;
Its optional, if youre a race stat purist play your way. Stop denying other people more ways to play that have no bearing on your game
If a more diverse world encouraged by lack of racial stat punishment doesnt add more spice to roleplay than rigidly being a slave to it, I vehemently disagree. The one Orc who forsook his culture/family and desperately searched for a wizard willing to teach him to become a proper mage is far more interesting than the 100th Orc Barbian weve seen bonking things in between ugga boogas.

You have 27 attribute points to express your exceptionalism and lineage. Completely removing the racial bonuses hurts roleplay, because an orc with +2 intelligence does not symbolize someone who studied their whole life as a wizard apprentice, it just means that for some magical reason this orc has a bigger brain. If you are playing an orc for everyone to recognize you as an extraordinary orc, but for some reason you don't consider an orc with 15 intelligence clever, well. You try to compare different species as if they were one. You are allowed by the game to grind to the maximum intelligence through levels as any race, this is what makes roleplay and your orc special, not starting with the same mental capacity as a gnome, which should be impossible because those were made as different species.

Why would we keep different races in the first place? May be I want to be so so special and have a tiefling tail, a dragonborn's scales, a githyanki's black dots on my ass, be short as a gnome and strong as a bugbear with the appropriate fur on my belly? Oh wait, I am not playing Spore, I am playing DnD 5e, what a relief..

Once again, I am completely fine with this as an optional rule. What I don't like is when people try to play reverse logic to make the world fit their needs, setting rules based on exceptions. Like, saying 'this is how I like to play and enjoy the game better' is something I am completely okay with while saying 'man you are WRONG, it doesn't make sense for your species to dictate anything in terms of natural intelligence, strength, agility and charisma of your protagonist' is not.

@Grimjoww08
I think it has to do with three things:

1) No matter how accurate the pen and paper rules conversion to a computer game may be, it will never be perfect.
It will lack two essential things: The human factor and the ability to improvise.
A computer game simply needs fixed rules to follow.

2) Every player has (sometimes not so hidden) need to be a special snowflake.
(Due to my promise to a certain unnamed queen, I will skip the long lecture about the word starting with "W".)
Just like in the normal world, the laws of logic and physics exist in the fantasy world.

Your race simply carries certain baggage, both negative and positive. You can stand against your nature, but you will never overcome it.
It's not that there aren't exceptions, but specifically your character will always start out as a normal member of their race.
In BG2, we were half-god, yet we started out as completely normal members of our race.
You have to work your way up to being unique, you can't start with it.
Even Drizzt was an ordinary Drow at first.

3) Many players prefer when they can rely on the unchanging rules they know.
This is especially true for people who have a lot of experience with world of D&D and maybe even read some novels.
If you know how the world works, it's incredibly irritating when someone tries to change established rules that make complete sense.

@Neprostoman
"You have 27 attribute points to express your exceptionalism and lineage" - So stats have more bearing on WHO a character is than their choices, motivations and convictions and cumulative lore regarding their races history.

"Completely removing the racial bonuses hurts roleplay, because an orc with +2 intelligence does not symbolize someone who studied their whole life as a wizard apprentice, it just means that for some magical reason this orc has a bigger brain. If you are playing an orc for everyone to recognize you as an extraordinary orc, but for some reason you don't consider an orc with 15 intelligence clever, well. You try to compare different species as if they were one." - In one breath your previous quote says stats are how you express yourself then in the next attempt to minimalize their significance by saying I should be fine with a 15 and a +2 doesnt indicate cleverness. Which is it? They don't reconcile.

"You are allowed by the game to grind to the maximum intelligence through levels as any race, this is what makes roleplay and your orc special" - so my grind must be done in game and cant possibly be part of a backstory? Grind is what makes my character unique and must be gated behind an in game time sink instead of enjoying a narrative? I dont even know where to begin with this, so I wont.

"not starting with the same mental capacity as a gnome, which should be impossible because those were made as different species." Even if were to agree with this, unless im playing a newborn Im a character with experiences and convictions and have lived a life that has molded and shaped who I am far from what/who I was at birth.

"Why would we keep different races in the first place? May be I want to be so so special and have a tiefling tail, a dragonborn's scales, a githyanki's black dots on my ass, be short as a gnome and strong as a bugbear with the appropriate fur on my belly? " This is hyperbolic and off base. Im not advocating for creating my PC with a gene splicing CRISPR. Just that nature vs nurture is a thing. Some orcs can be surprisingly smart - some gnomes can be stupid and life experiences and time play a very relevant factor in that and to say it doesnt is to deny the relevance of the capacity of these experience to shape our motivations and drive us to become different and unique.

Respectfully, your reply is full of assumptions and what i gather to be contradiction. You're assuming that I have assumed takes - like 15 not being clever enough. In hindsight I should have seen this coming because many detracting takes on this topic are grounded in rigid assumptions yall wont let go of. My whole point is not assuming anything, I just want YALL to stop gating others based on what your assumptions are. An orc has the capacity to become learned especially if nurtured in a environment that can facilitate this especially if it were for decades. Just as a gnome that goes through horrible life experience at a young age could become a lush burnout that wasted the resources around him to become learned. Even if you rigidly want to assume they start in different places, where they end up can far more be a consequence of their choices and experiences. Good or bad. These sterotype breaking charcaters dont have to be common, just allow them to exist and stop vehemently saying they dont because thats sillyness.

@Edvin Black
I was writing my other reply as I saw yours and you mention something i think is important Ive been trying to get out. Nurture vs Nature. There are so many narratively relevant ways to leave the "baggage" intact and preserve the natural starting point without hamstringing or punishing player choice statistically. An orc might take 2 decades to become as learned as a gnome become may in only a couple years. They are limited by their nature and it presents an obstacle but conviction and time can allow you to make longer strides than most of similar nature, if not overcome these limitations entirely.

Being special doesnt have to mean power. Being a god is relitive to all existence and races - I dont think its a stretch to say its realistic for an orc that spent decades trying to learn magic is a mediocre wizard. Not powerful in general, just surprising for an orc. These deviations dont have to be grounded in power either. A gnomish child with loathsome parents in academia has resulted in his spite of all things associated with his parents and bucks all things they hold in esteem never participating in their passion and intentionally taking to a life in the streets/crime intentionally overtly to bring them shame by their association as his parents.

To your third point i definitely agree and for some games im there with them. I just dont understand gating OTHERS in their game when this would not impact their game especially given that its an actual rule now as of Tashas. Inversely many players find it boring to have so many knowns and that much less to genuinely explore as both player and as a character. Ive no problem with people wanting to play the way of racially lock points, and happily play with many who do. I just hate the idea of people forcing that upon others, especially if they are using roleplay as a flag on that hill.

If I met a orc wizard NPC in this game I would immediately have so many questions. Do they know a powerful wizard that, have they made some pact with a higher power is it the result of some immensely powerful artifact they have in their possession (we see this play out with a particular character in this game and BEHOLD)? Depending on the answer what impact will this have on the story? Should i make this person an ally to gain access if its a wizard? Should i be afraid because they owe a potentially evil entity they serve whose interests are not aligned with my own and regardless of this orcs feelings about me his actions are subject to the whims of another I have no sway on.

TLDR:
No problem with people playing with racially locked stats, just dont try to stop other people from enjoying things that dont impact the experience for you, especially when all they are asking is to allow an existing rule to be used.
Ill concede deviation for the sake of deviation is boring to me (but let people if thats what they want) but theres nothing stopping narratively explaining how nurture over time can lead to these deviations that are consistent with even a hardlined view of nature at the outset. Its not even a stretch.

Although It makes no sense to me, I'm fine with this as an option for those who want it - but it is not 5E, and that is the game system that I signed up (an paid money) for, and the one that was advertised. So much has been removed by Larian already, this would just chipping away even further. Alternatively, just wait for a modder to add it in - I'm sure they will.

They reconcile just fine, let me explain once again. Different species have morphological differences, I hope you won't deny that. A comparative analysis of those differences results into a relative attribute spread i.e. racial stats. Is it some foreign concept that you can't wrap your head around (no offence, genuine interest)? So, imagine those differences as the first layer of the pie which is called 'character creation'.On top of this layer, comes another one, lets call it 'your backstory in numbers'. Those two pies need to exist but can't overlap, because you can't remove 'being an orc' part from an orc. You can build up on the fact of 'being an orc' with your written backstory.

Your grind can totally be a part of the backstory, but it needs to be separated from the layer of inter-species differences. Please refer to my previous statement on this one.


First of all, I'd like to hear an argument behind your disagreement. And, once again, you can refer to the pie analogy, it should explain my message. Your take on my words is different from the meaning I've put in them.


Of course this is a hyperbole, but it is no different from wanting an orc not being an orc. Don't get me wrong, again, a second time now - I am not denying anyone anything, this was a huge assumption on your part this time. I am advocating for rules that produce exceptions, not the other way around. You and some others are advocating for our character's exceptionalism being more important than the world logic. I am all in for a tool that can override the general inter-species differences, but I don't want species becoming an impersonal mass just because someone wants to be exceptional when compared to others.

Orcs can become powerful mages.
In some ways, orcs can even surpass the most powerful of the elven mages.

For example, an orc naturally has a higher tolerance for pain and more stamina. This allows him to better perform long and draining rituals and reduces the possibility of their failure. He also has a natural talent for things like blood magic, as a frail elf would never be able to achieve such good results when using magic that requires a physical sacrifice. Then there is also the fact of creating new spells. Although he may be less intelligent, an orc's simple mind allows his thought processes to run in a different direction than those of humans of much higher intelligence. Sometimes people are just too smart to think of a simple enough solution.

But I find it stupid and arrogant when some player starts yelling:
"My particular orc will start as much better mage than he should be because my special orc has history that set him apart from other orcs."

If I were a DM, I would say to such a player:
"Good for you, but you chose an orc. Personal history has no effect on the physical and mental limits of your race."

If you want to be somehow exceptional, you should make some effort for it.
It's not enough to just say it. You get the opportunity after the game starts, but not before the game starts.


And yet it's exactly what you want.
You want better stats for the class you want to combine with your chosen race, as this race is not ideal pick for this class.


"Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" is very unpopular among veteran players.
It oversimplified some mechanics which, in the opinion of many, contradicts the lore and ruins the game.

And you simply can't get any bonuses for roleplaying history of your character that precedes the beginning of the computer game.
The thought itself defies common sense.

------------------------------------------------------------

Let me give you an example:

"" I request to be able to play as a dwarf who suffers from a rare (one in a hundred million) form of gigantism and is two meters tall. ""
"" Given my height and bulk, I want a MASSIVE bonus to my strength and constitution. I'm willing to accept a certain penalty to dexterity and charisma. ""

It's technically a real thing. Such a dwarf could exist.
But should we be allowed to play as such a dwarf?
Definitely not!

If we are talking PnP DnD here, then I don't fully agree. If this idea gets a greenlight from both DM and every other player, then why not? But I doubt that other players will be fine with playing standard DnD characters while one particular person goes for an unhinged homebrew like this. They'll most likely either humble this person to play something standard or request the DM to lift limitations for them as well and become the party of gifted, altered and diseased. Which can off-set the whole balance of the campaign and will not likely be permitted.

Something like this would definitely happen if someone ever allowed something like this
Whenever a restriction appears somewhere, someone starts shouting that they are the exception to the rule that this restriction does not apply to.

Sometimes it's not a debate about whether it's technically possible, but rather a debate about whether it's extremely unnatural and doesn't spoil the immersion.
It reminds me of a video.

Not really - modifiers to attributes makes is feel that race are distinct because having +2 to an important attribute feel impactful.

I will not argue that the system has issues, especially im computer setting where player has Freedom to modify attributes as they wish. If I understand it correctly it is usually not so free in Table-top - so being able to add +2 to your roll is likely to feel more impactful that it is in game - where either point buy system or infinite roll allows players to create optimal characters no matter what bonuses or maluses they pick. I think a lot of D&D systems just don’t quite work in cRPG.

The Ability score system doesn't reflect those differences. The actual ability numbers themselves are completely arbitrary. A numerical stat bonus may convey some illusion of representing racial differences, but it just falls apart under scrutiny. The first and strongest point of that scrutiny is that whatever morphological differences there are, we don't know them, and I fail to see why some ability bonuses that have been around as tropes since early DnD editions should be treated as the only source of truth. Are high elves naturally smarter than their wood cousins or do they simply tend to live different livestyles? In the end it's just an abstract game mechanic. It isn't realistic, it was never meant to be realistic and I see no reason to defend it on such grounds.

I'm really glad to see a response that looks at racial ASI as a mechanic in a tactical crpg, which is ultimately what we're all here for. I want to add that removing racial ASI does NOT make it easier to optimize one's character. On the contrary, when playing with racial ASI you don't need to concern yourself with racial features at all because picking the optimal race for your class has been trivialized down to a single number. If we ignore the narrative and lore aspect of racial ASI, what we're left with is a mechanic that invalidates a massive amount of interesting combinations. I'd like to think that in a tactical rpg that matters.

If I'm reading between the lines correctly and what you want to say is that seeing a musuclar elf would be a lore-unfriendly and immersion-breaking absurdity, I wholeheartedly agree. Larian please remove Halsin from the game at once.

this is a joke please don't hurt me