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

You are playing an individual member of a race.
In general Half-Orcs may be strong and dumb but an individual Half-Orc can be anything. They could be smart or stealthy or wise. That is just variation in a species.

You are playing a rare individual. In 5e a 10 is considered an average score, which means Joe/Jane Average of any species is a 12 point buy. Our character is a staggering 27 point buy so the tendencies of their respective races are irrelevant to our heroic individuals.

Yes, we are exceptional individuals with 27 points to add to our stats. These 27 points are what represents our training, inherent superiority rarity, variation from our species, and/or gods-given blessings. I completely agree.

Given the above, why are a mere 3 points from our race so problematic? Having these points shouldn't negate, but instead should augment, the inherent traits of our characters. If you want your half-orc to be incredibly wise, then put up to 9 points into Wisdom. If you want your half-orc to be intelligent, put up to 9 points into Int. Both of those would be absolutely incredibly rare members of their species.

As I've said, I'd be fine with allowing all characters to get up to 16 in a stat via Point Buy (at the appropriate additional cost). But being an Orc with 16 Int should be more difficult than being a Gnome with 16 Int, and vice versa for Str. It's okay, even good, for fantastical races--even races of PCs--to be different. It adds to the world.

Then you are playing the wrong version of D&D.
2nd AD&D is where you should focus.
Thankfully 5e didn't bring any of that idiocy forward.


Tendencies of a race in no way shape or form dictate the capabilities of an individual.
Our characters are exceptional individuals who can choose to spend their 27 point buy in what ever they want.
The +2/+1 we get at character creation allows our characters to train further in whatever class we choose.

Welcome to 5e. (Post Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)

Actually, 5e did bring that stuff. Evil nazi racist Tasha book tried to ruin it with its hateful racism. Dwarves, elves, orcs, Dragonkin et AL are not human, but for some reason everyone want these races to be humans with different skins. It is ridiculously racist. When I choose dwarf I want to be a dwarf in a fantasy dwarf not just a short human (which is absolutely fine as a character choice). But a dwarf is not a human -something that racist Tasha writers and their fanboys dint get.

All dwarves are naturally healthier than a human. Period. Even if a dwarf grew up in a human town in a libaey surrounded by books, she'd still be healthier than you typical human in the same setting. She's a dwarf not a human. That's why dwarves get the bonus con. Capiche? CAPICHE.

Something that really kind of bugs me about half orcs is that they bear such little resemblance to humans or half elves. They're all part human so why don't bald orcs reflect that? They should be like half elves and get one set bonus and free bonuses to put into any attribute. As they are now, it just seems like WotC just gave us what they wanted to do with orcs because for whatever reason they felt like they couldn't just include orcs off the bat. And frankly a "typical" half orc in general feels more out of line than most things. What if your half-orc takes more after their human half than their orc half? Why shouldn't that be possible?

As of now ive seen two pics of the new half orc, the first was very human/elfish looking The second one was in the character creation and it was strong orc looking for sure. I think will be amazed at what will be able to do in creation.

Can you please explain where is this 'we are exceptional individuals and are not bound by our race' argument coming from? Because it is so undeniably weak. No matter how much of an exceptional individual you are - you are still a representative member of your race and if there are:

1. Abilities which represent physical and mental capacities of a character in the game world.
2. Different species with distinct builds, heft, height, metabolism, cover, organs, bone structure etc.

If 1 correlates with X and 2 correlates with X then 1 correlates with 2. It is such an easy parallel to make, I wonder if people are acting oblivious to pursue their agenda of 'exceptional bs'.

Why though? Look, hear me out here.

I still remember to this day when I read a FR novel where the iconic dwarf warrior Bruenor, already injured and battle-worn, climbed up a chimney shaft and was attacked by a giant spider. He managed to fight it off just barely, crawled out of the chimney and collapsed from his injuries. Fortunately he was found by allies in time and the person treating him remarked the spider poison would've killed just about anyone, but only a dwarf could've survived such an ordeal thanks to their uncanny resilience.

It's exactly these kinds of moments that make races distinct and unique. So why would I argue in favour of making them homogenous? I'm not. Nobody is. Not one person. I am 100% in favour of dwarves feeling like the hardy and resilient people they are and I guarantee you everyone else in this thread who's in favour of the Tasha ruling is too. What I'm really arguing is that simply giving dwarves a +2 Constitution bonus is the most boring and unimaginative way of achieving it possible. That, and it limits character building space, which is bad both for creativity and as a mechanic in a tactical crpg.

Im sory ... what have visage of Half Orcs to do with ability scores?
Didnt you missed a topic?

What Gray Ghost meant (I think) is half-orcs stats can be potentially decided by his human ancestor. However, there is a thing thats called dominant genes which carry over the dominant traits to the offspring. At least in our world.

I don't just mean in terms of looks. In fact their looks weren't what I was referencing at all, at least not directly. I was referencing the fact they had such firm, distinct stats as opposed to the flexibility of humans and half elves.

I don't want to get rid of differences between races. Multiple times I stressed how racial features were better than stats in every possible way. The weakest orc should be able to lift more than the weakest human? I can get behind that, I even agree with that. The issue is that "+2 STR" is the wrong way to do it, and I'd rather have a good game that ignores some situations, than a bad game that covers limits scenario like the one exposed by you. An orc should have "they counts as a size larger for lifting weights", "they have advantage on athletics checks", "they have proficiency in athrletics", "they have advantage in strenght checks". There are various way you can achieve that goal, but +2 STR is more limiting than meaningful. Bounded accuracy is a really delicate and strong system at the same time. the difference between 15 and 16 is just a +1, it seems small, but if you think that the most powerful weapons in the universe gives you just a +3 (which I love) it helps you to put in scale the real meaning of these numbers. The difference between the strongest human (20) and a terrasque (30) is just a +5. A +1 to hit, and to DC, is massive and changes completely your gaming experience, you can't gatekeep it behind a race or another.


I admit that I haven't understood a thing about what you are saying here.


I completely agree. Weapons proficiency are little to meaningless not only to most class, but to description of a race or another. A good feature is something that makes you better at something (advantages, resistences, free skill proficiencies), or gives you new options (darkvision, flying, breath weapons). Humans should have extra proficiencies or, more easily, a free feat.

Yeah, you got my meaning. I see your point about dominant genes. I guess Im just someone who's easily annoyed by the break in what should have been a pattern. If half orcs aren't going to be like humans and half elves then why aren't they just regular orcs? Especially since they have such strong racial features. In the mechanical sense, not the physical sense.

True, there are multiple ways to make an engaging system that underlines racial differences, however some of them can work in a tabletop (I like your suggestion of adding some extra skills benefit) but won't work in a game. BG3, even with its lots of permutations, is still a big branched script of predesigned options, which means that character freedom lies only in using those options. Thats why you can't use skills imaginatively, you are bound to benefit from them only in rare and same cutscenes or world scenarios. Which makes skill proficiencies a bad substitute for racial differences, unless they implement some sort of universal mechanic behind every skill in the game. For example, athletics is a great skill with stellar design right now, because it not only increases your jump distance, but helps you shove, resist being shoved AND on top of that solve those rare and same cutscenes at times. This is a very high level of interactivity embedded in one skill. Then there is Survival, which is only used in dialogue, same with Nature, History, Religion, etc. If you had to make a religion check while channeling divine magic and so on, then yes, it'd be great to transition racial differences into skills. Again, everything needs to be properly though out, and for now it seems like they removed racial ASIs but we don't know if they brought something worthy in turn.


Let me explain. You said that I should self-restrict myself to play as a sub-optimal character. Wanting to play that character implies that it is my idea of having fun. But DnD and BG3 (often) are played by several people at once. If there is a racial restriction of ASIs, than the attribute cap is same for everyone and racial balance is more rigid but fair. If those restrictions are removed, then the gap denoting the difference in the level of satisfaction from the game between players will grow. When we are playing tabletop, we can sort out the rules beforehand, so that everyone is happy. With a computer game this is not the case and we have to rely on inbuilt rule presets. The lease I think Larian should do is introduce customizable rules in that case.

I'm a bit confused by this. Don't you still have to arrange things beforehand with BG3? I didn't think folks could just drop in. I have no interest in multiplayer so I have no idea how it works, but you need to discuss time, scheduling and whatnot anyway so as far as I understand this isn't fundamentally different to scheduling a game of pen and paper d&d over say, zoom or video chat. If I'm wrong I'm happy to be corrected.

I worded it wrong. I was talking about the differences between sorting out restrictions and permissions in the PnP and a game like BG3. In PnP there is a DM who balances out ideas so that everyone can be happy. For example, a DM can compromise between a player who wants to play within the racial stat restrictions and the one who want to go all in on their character's exceptionalism. Everyone will feel alright. But in BG3, if racial stats are removed, not properly substituted and this is going to be the only option, then there is a higher possibility of one player who want to go for something sub-optimal and fun feel completely useless to a hyper-optimized one. Thats why I am not a fan of 'just removing' ASIs. They need a proper system in their place to both underline the racial differences and ensure there is no huge gap between optimized and sub-optimized builds.

My concern (not sure I mentioned this) is that 'policing myself' i.e. deliberately disadvantaging my PC to try and stick to the usual racial modifiers can lead to noticeable power imbalance *if* all the NPC enemies I encounter are not similarly constrained (i.e. no racial modifiers bets of both worlds etc). That is why I would want it as an option that affects not just myself (and my party) but all NPC opponents in the game. I simply don't see that happening if they have chosen to drop them already (with no indication of this choice until the last PFH). They're likely hardwired at this point. So, this means I'll simply have to accept the inevitable and play in a way that limits my enjoyment - this is an important elements for many D&D players, or at least long-time players. Maybe I'll be surpised and there will be a switch or toggle....but if so, it would likely just apply to my party (which is not acceptable, for reason I note above).

It seems that this suggestion has come in the game... and in my opinion it is a terrible choice.

Races choice no longer is a part of character building but only a role play / cosmetic choice.
It will reduce the uniqueness of races/sub-races and even make some of them totally useless...

My guess is we will get the option: standard say +2 str +2 con for your mountain Dwarven race OR you can take +2/+1 and place anywhere.

For humans: Not sure what the symbol on the right is, maybe feat? If humans get +2/+1 with polearm and light armor proficiency and a feat. That would be very good.

Does that include the other race specific features like the Lucky fest for halflings or fire resistance for tieflings for example?