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

That's the thing, though. We cannot play with traditional attributes. That option seemingly does not exist anymore.

If Larian were to give us a toggle between the different ways of assigning stats to our custom character then all would be well. People could choose classic point buy or revised Tasha point buy, no big deal. But that toggle is not available. We can move the +2/+1 bonuses around for all races, even those that should not have +2/+1. We can do exactly the same stat spread with every single race, and there's no way to toggle that off.

Also, there really aren't any outliers at the level we're talking. There is variance within the human race, in that some of us are Usain Bolt, a select few are roughly in his league, and the other 8 billion of us are nowhere close. He could do a 100 meter dash in 9 seconds and change, and I'd be happy to do it in 30 seconds. There is variance within our species and evolution does happen. But no human has existed that can run at cheetah top speed, which is 2-3 times faster than what Usain Bolt has ever achieved. In other words, even the most exceptionally fast human is no competition at all for even a generic and utterly average cheetah.

And I'm also not saying all fantasy creatures should have the same stats. You have the entire point buy range to customize within a race. What I am asking for is that the difference between species is respected, even in a fictional magical world. Just like an exceptionally strong ogre is significantly stronger than an exceptionally strong human, so too should an exceptionally strong half-orc be stronger than an exceptionally strong halfling. Anything else just is not internally coherent.

He/She/They won't own up to anything, including that they're destroying world building elements with their request. I'm suspecting their self image is so far removed from the reality of their actions, they'll never see it.

You may not be able to toggle it off but you can assign them to the race's traditional attributes. I do think that the game should select each race's traditional stats by default but I don't see a problem with giving us the option to move it as we see fit in our own game. We can all determine on our own if changing it invalidates the lore and decide accordingly

You still keep ignoring the fact that it is a magical fantasy world so we don't have to limit ourselves to real world stats plus we can decide to be the Ursain Bolt. Plus there are other roleplay elements like awakened heritage, cursed family lines, magical or alchemical experimentation, etc. We also not talking about the strengh difference between a human and an ogre which is much more extreme than a human and an orc.

Whether or not you can assign the +2/+1 floats to their traditional attributes for races that had +2/+1 hard set in EA is missing the point. This change is terrible for Humans and Half-Elves. It literally makes both pointless outside of RP reasons. The races were balanced around all their perks, including hard set attribute boosts. Now, they aren't. It's honestly hard to fathom how stupid this blanket change is.

I hate this change. Please at least give us a toggle for normal D&D race attributes.

Yeah I just saw that it looks like instead they are giving Humans two unique proficiencies. One gives them a bunch of weapon bonus' and the other is unknown. Something like that is probably happening with the half-elves. It would be nice to be able to select the og stats instead though I doubt that will happen sadly

I want to play a red dragon rogue and sneak my giant ass around and stab people in the back! logical!

An adult red dragon actually does have proficiency in Stealth in 5e, giving it a +6 to stealth checks. So yah, a red dragon actually can be pretty sneaky.

You can then give the red dragon a couple levels in Rogue. Put your Expertise in Stealth for an impressive +12 to sneak, plus you get Sneak Attack.

Now, I know we went past this, but I wanted to make some clarification. 5e doesn't work like this. It's something I tried to explain a few days ago, without success, but statblocks and PC follows completely different rules. A monster doesn't have levels, doesn't have level adjustments, nor racial bonuses, nor anything else. Statblocks lives in a vacuum.

I'm going to link to 5e.tools, which I'm not sure if it's legal or not, to explain myself better. Sorry.
A black bear is a black bear, there is not a lv1 or lv10 black bear. A black bear is arguably weaker than a lv1 pc, except that for his hit points. Hit points that are defined by his size, not his "level" nor his CR (1/2) in this case, exactly in the same way an Abjurer Wizard have a d8 hit die instead of a d6 as the pc wizards have, and a Thayan Warrior have again a d8 hit die instead of a d10. Because statblocks don't follow the same rules as PCs.

I'm going further saying that since a black bear is weaker than a lv1 PC, I'd say that a black bear cub (the closest thing to lv1 bear I can think) would be ragdolled around by a Commoner, who have the same stats of a Drow Commoner, who again are the same of an Orc Commoner (Full orc, not even half). Much of racial bonuses.

I understand that you want a mechanically defined world, I really do, but 5e doesn't even remotely works in the way you want. 5e is a different game. A game that sure puts in front "fun", it puts in front "ease of play", but most importantly it puts in front the narration. What does it mean? It means that at the end of the day anything that makes sense in the story, not in the world but the story, is fair play.

What I don't understand is why you want to change a system that, I'm sorry about this but, I believe you don't know even remotely, just to make it like other systems that already exists. Everything you want is already in 3.x, a system that I despise and that I can talk shit about for days, but it's there. Why do you want to turn this amazing narrative system that is 5e into that thing that was 3.x?
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About the immersion that someone brought in, just two days ago I completed dming Beyond the witchlight to my group of three players, and I can assure you they were moved, estatic and sad about the end of a campaign that gave them so many emotions. They felt everything about that mysterious world that is the feywild, they understood how feys behave in a completely different manner than human, and all of this using tasha's stats and without all that bloat of "logical worldbuilding".

If new rules based on "Tasha cauldron of everything" then its bad practice. The variability is not reduced to +2/+1 . In fact, any race can distribute all its bonuses freely. For example , dwarves thus get +2/+2 , which can be distributed at their discretion. For humans, in this case, nothing changes at all because they already have +1 to all parameters, and they also did not recieve variant option. There are also rules about replacing skills and proficiencies that are not implemented in the current version. It is a bad practice to take a set of rules only partially and even modify them without taking into account the consequences. In this case, the obvious advantages are gained by races already having +2 /+1. Everyone else gets only disadvantages. At the same time, the optimization of races by classes will remain. Only it will be related to other features of the races.

Now you got it!

Thats why this is even worse that Tasha ...
In Tasha you can relocate your standard bonuses ... so it is possible to create standard character.
With this bullshit you cant bcs you simply dont have enough points!

Its nice that Humans got some extra proficiencies ...
Except they all are completely useless (except for Str Cleric).
Next to that ... Shield Dwarves and Half Elves only lost some points and got nothing in return ... wich i hardly need to say kinda sucks.

Assigning the bonus to the race's traditional attributes won't really fix anything, though. Because in my game, I'm still walking around in an internally absurd and contradictory world where there's largely no difference between a hafling and a half-orc, and my game will dilligently tell me that every single time I create a character.

Yes, it is a magical fantasy world but even magical fantasy worlds have to stay internally consistent to make sense. Sure, you can point to all kinds of roleplay elements that would make your halfling stronger, but shouldn't half-orcs be able to do the same? Yet at the end of the day, your exceptional half-orc cannot ever be stronger than your exceptional halfling. How does that even begin to make sense?

And yes, I am obviously exaggerating a little bit for effect when comparing D&D races with the differences between humans and bears, as I am trying to make a point regarding variance within a species versus variance between different species. With my point being, even if we decide to be the Usain Bolt, and even if we come up with RP stuff that could boost that even further, we're still nothing at all to a cheetah. Now imagine that you're playing a cheetah instead, and your DM insists that actually you're not really faster than humans. Would that work for you? Because it sure would not work for me.

Orcs and half-orcs have Powerful Build, doubling their lifting and carrying capacities. A Halfling, meanwhile, cannot properly wield weapons with the Heavy property. So even if a Halfling has higher STR than an orc they won't be as strong unless the gap is huge.

Also, even WITH Racial ASIs a max-level Halfling and a max-level Orc are equal in STR. Both hit 20 regardless.

5e is a bad system for trying to represent extreme strength disparities based on its attributes alone. The attributes are too abstract.

I'm not sure I jive with this explanation because well, other characters aren't built the way PCs are built. They have a whole different system to construct npcs that have nothing to do with us and where we put our points, racial ASI or not.

I know that bears are bears and not NPC's in D&D. That's not at all the argument I'm making. When I do the human vs bear comparison, I mean in real life. There's nothing any real world human can do that will ever come close to let them match a grizzly in a game of fisticuffs. You can take the most exceptional human and train them to the equivalent of level 20 and it won't matter. It doesn't even have to be an exceptional grizzly. Also, just FYI, grizzlies are brown bears, not black bears. I mean, it's not going to make that much of a difference, humans aren't beating black bears hand to hand either, but they are two different kinds of bear.

The reason I'm resorting to something that drastic is to illustrate how different species are in fact different. How variance within a species does not translate to wiping out the difference between species. Similarly, a githyanki is not the same species as a hafling. An orc is a different species from a dwarf or a gnome. And being different species, they should be allowed to have differences. They should not all be forced into the same box.

Rather than allow races to be meaningfully different and celebrating those differences, this change forces all races into a single box. With this change, Elves are no longer dextrous and Orcs are no longer big and strong and Haflings are no longer nimble. Gnomes are no longer smart. All the races have been mushed into the same general identity, which means none of the races really have any unique identity anymore. That's the price you're forcing everybody else to pay for your "fun".

And the narrative value here is zero, unless you're adamantly clinging to the notion that you can only RP while also powergaming. The only downside to playing off the racial meta for classes is that you're a little bit behind the "optimal" stat curve. Why is that a problem? It's a problem because some people keep pushing the notion that you cannot play a class with anything less than an optimal stat block. The only reason why you couldn't do a half-orc mage before or a hafling paladin is because your stats would not be "optimal". You've fixed that now by letting all races have optimal stats for all classes, instead of fixing the root of the problem, which is the expectation of optimal stats.

I'm not sure we really do know that. We can't really trust anything we've seen in EA, after all. But even if it is only the PC, the logic is well and truly established. Your custom hafling is just as strong as your custom dragonborn. Your custom half-orc is just as dextrous as the most exceptional of elves. And there's no explanation, no rhyme or reason. It's just forced in there, as if it makes total sense.

It won't tank the game for me, but I do find it irksome.

If no matter about race bonuses, its logical then count all abilities, proficiences, skills, cantrips, speed, etc in points. And every player take same amount of that points in begining. And construct its character in this points limit like lego. So, after completing buying, take race and gender like ordinary skin, take choosen class and game begins! All in equal position. No one is offended.

I don't think you're engaging with the opposing viewpoint honestly here.

Why not? This is the principle of equal access to all possible classes for all. With equal efficiency. Principle brought to perfection. After all, the purpose of announced innovations in this. No?

I think that a system like this was present in pathfinder1e. Every feature having a cost and you could build your race with it. At that point I'd rather play GURPS, I mean, I'd rather always play GURPS rather than 3.x, but the system is there if you like it.