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

DnD maybe cooperative but it is also local how my group plays doesn't affect yours in anyway. Same here with BG3, you can play it however you want and I can play it however I want and it doesn't affect either of our experiences. I do not understand the idea in a game like this that other people should have options denied to them that only affect their game because others do not like those options.

While you are talking about how usually orcs have inherently higher strength it is entirely possible that for some reason an orc is born with significantly less strength and I can play one who is weaker than the norm trying to find their place in the world. Being able to change the ASI greatly helps roleplay that scenario. Or it is possible a human or halfing or what ever has orc in their heritage and their genes just come about to give them a boost.

To me one of the wonders of DnD is the ability to craft worlds and narratives at will. Being able to take the set rules and adjust as needed is one of it's best features

I think that's a great point. In games like these I'm usually all for extensive amounts of customization, so one is able to play even very unusual combinations properly. That said, I believe it should not be the default, as the difference between species should reflect in their general stats. No two persons are the same but if you imagined a distribution of stats according to race, you would expect e.g. Half-Orcs to be stronger in general and reach levels of strenght naturally that Halfling couldn't. And I'd expect the general NPCs to follow these typical characteristics of a race. The world itself should reflect this. If some unique NPCs then try to play a different role than expected and try to adapt to it, that can be interesting.

As some already mentioned, these differences lend themselves to play unique characters that don't entirely fit their mould. I guess it can be difficult in a video game, but at least in normal DnD these characters can shine in roleplay bits. I remember a Dragonborn Sorcerer I played, but as I didn't want to waste the +2 to Strength, I didn't dump the stat. Combine that with a Sorcerer's proficiency in intimidation and it makes sense roleplaywise and plays into the intimidating physique of a Dragonborn.

Yet I think in the character creation it should indeed be an option. I won't use it in my first playthrough, but there will come a time when I just want to play around and there will be people that first and foremost want good stats but also a race they like. It reminds me a bit of the hair colour where you could unlock the more exotic options via a checkbox. If someone wants to play their crazy strong elf with their unique, let them, as long as the rest of the world follows the normal rules I can't see a problem with that. People would make a mod and just adding it as an optional feature would be a logical next step then anyway.

That said, I hope you can still also use the normal rules, I personally enjoy them more for a serious playthrough, but that's subjective.

What are those things?
I only know fun.

I agree the normal ASI should be default. Like for the NPCs or in character creator it should default to standard racial stats then let us adjust if we decide to. Because I agree being able to play against the mold can be a great experience at times even if I don't want to do it every time or sometimes you might want to play a specific race, background, class combo and the default bonus can make things more difficult to especially if we decide on playing on hard difficulty here.

I strongly disagree. In my view, races/species weaknesses and strengths are as much part of them as anything else.

If you want an unusual combination... your minmaxing will suffer. So, what? This change feels like a policy to solely please minmaxers. Which, is also why I do not like the ruling

So some people are bringing up how thechange to ASI will impact enemy design and I'mwondering how true that might be. I know that in 5e enemies aren't statted out the same way PCs are, so changing racial ASI wouldn't have an effect. Is that different in BG3?

Let's focus on the last line and sidestep our likely irreconcilable differences hopefully come to a compromise. D&D is not pure imagination; it has rules and world-logic and importantly restrictions. Restrictions enable roleplay and tabletop gaming, at the very least because they defined the world, keeps things consistent, and provides a certain amount of mechanical balance. And while you can of course homebrew anything, it's good for the officially published setting and rules to be expansive and detailed (otherwise why bother playing in that setting or using those rules?)

Removing restrictions (e.g., removing racial ASIs), strictly removes race characterization without replacing it with anything. Thus, the races---including PCs of those races---become more bland. (This is a commonly argued position regarding WotC: they are making everything--included but not limited to races---in D&D more homogeneous and boring). My main point is that I want to retain significant inherent differences between those races, as those differences are vital to distinguish the races and prevent Faerun from becoming "everyone is a slight variant on a human". These differences could be ASIs, or actually impactful & unique racial features, or something else. Can we agree on that at least?

Beautiful idea ...
Sadly, far from truth tho.

As it seems right now, and i strongly hope it seems wrong and it was just badly advertised test option ...
Larian is not willing to let us all play "however we want" ... we either will have Racial Ability Score Icerases ... or not.
(And not in this context is that abomination they showed in last PFH.)

I would disagree about it being for min/maxers only. Like my earlier example what if I want to make a weak orc? One of the dnd characters I have in the pipe for a future campaign is an orc significantly weaker than most of their kin trying to find their place in the world after being rejected for their weakness. Being as strong as other orcs would harm my ability to roleplay that character since I wouldn't have the disadvantage to strength checks that my character should based off their unique background.

Again it comes down to going your path harms my ability to play as I want while going the other doesn't affect your game at all (so long as NPCs use the standard race bonus)

I mean I think I have been clear in most cases like the NPCs they should go with the usual racial differences but in places like character customization we should have the option to pick based on if we want to roleplay something different or even min/max. So long as that change is confined to Character Creation or any NPC Larian decides to specially change as atypical for narrative reasons then neither of us are harmed by the choice

DnD may have rules but they are malleable with most tables having at least slight alterations and this arguement seems to come down to people feeling that everyone has to play things their way or it hurts their game somehow



I don't really see how you proved me wrong? You picking the racial bonus for the race you picked will let you play the way you want then I can decide if I want to do that or play a character against type who may be an atypical example of thier race. Either way once the game starts we are playing how we want.

Want a weak half orc? Have one with strength 5. Minimum 3 plus 2 fir racial bonus. Boom weak half orc. This could ALWAYS be done..ALWAYS.

You misunderstand ability modifiers. In my opinion, yes, absolutely, even the weakest, able bodied orc should have that modifier! Stronger orcs of their species will typically end up with more strength than the minimum, so it does check out. Your unusually weak orc will just still be stronger than an average gnome to maintain the rules of the setting.

That being said, I do see sense in including very real disabilities. If you can provide a legitimate reason for your orc's physical state, that should be included. It just doesn't mean you now get 3 free points to spend. That makes absolutely no sense.

Basically this. That's why I'll always say that the only people hurt by solid rules are minmaxers in tabletop.

There's more arguments to be made for a game that *can't foresee all*. Even so, just download a mod and leave the game functional for all the new players who are not familiar with D&D. You're providing a worse experience for 99 people for maybe every 1 person it could help. That just doesn't check out for me and I won't support it.

It may not make sense to you but it does to me and the great thing is by giving people a choice you can always pick the traditional choice and I can pick an atypical choice.

What doesn't make sense to me is the attitude that others should have their experienced harmed just because you don't want to play that way cause again we can both get what we want by giving the choice. I enjoy playing atypical characters but it doesn't hurt my experince one way or the oter if you choose to play by the traditional rules with zero deviations. I just don't get your obsession with demanding less choices for others

I think the only people hurt by this are those who value believable world building and world logic and want their characters to operate within this logic i.e. be a part of the world. I count myself among those people. Newcomers and especially casuals who don't care about immersing themselves into the world - for them those racial ability bonuses are just inconvenient numbers that stand in a way of playing whatever they want.

You have the exact same attitude, you aren't even aware of it, which is sad. You've just recently suggested people to effing make their attributes low when there is an opportunity to make them high. Of course they won't feel good doing that. You are just protecting your idea of fun, you don't really care if other people with different ideas have fun as well, otherwise you won't give an advice like that. I think it'd be great if there was no default and the game asked you right away how you'd want to play. Well, THAT would be fair to all.

You'll soon notice I have the same "obsession" against people bringing OP homebrew to the table... or any number of features I believe are unbalanced... not thought through... or just harming the integrity of the system.

No, I will not support you. I will never support you. You can try to draw support from others to outvote me, in which case I won't throw a fit. However, I'll stand my ground in this thread, as it's meant for game feedback. I won't pretend my stance on this is something it isn't to soften the blow of disagreement.

I'd personnaly not say some, but a lot of...
Humans, gold dwarf, shield dwarf, high elf, high half elf, mostly all gnomes, and probably the halfing and dwarf subclass that grants "bonuses against poison".

We could also talk about many others like all drows because one may find so cool to have a fairy fire once per rest, or dragonborn because they can fire breathing... but to be honnest I could personnally add even more.

Sure, it's cool to be able to create "different" builds. But you were already able to do that with a few consequences that could be toned down after a while. Now most choices are just suboptimal character-building-wise for the sake of a few players that want to RP an optimized Githyanki wizard.

Oh thats easy ...
You claim i can play however i want ...

I want my Human to get +1 to Everything ... its good for Monk.
I want my Half-Elf to get +2 to Charisma, +1 to Dexterity and +1 to Constitution ... its good for Bard.
I want my Shield Dwarf to get +2 to Strength, +2 Constitution ... its good for Barbarian.

Can i do any of those? Nope.
Therefore i cant play however i want and that piss me off.

I have to say, hard rules help me immerse myself in games much more quickly. They're replacements for deeper concepts, at least temporarily. I'm not just saying that as a throwaway remark. I value personality, even when that personality is sometimes "doesn't allow me to walk through a wall without consequences".

I have the most fun in more complicated systems, the sort where you need to test what works... and how much you can safely ignore. That +1 lost from an unoptimized build is not something I care about.