Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The New Human Racial Bonuses

Yes, finesse weapons exist. They use STR or DEX. And polearms aren’t finesse weapons. Crossbows also aren’t finesse weapons.

Weapon or armor proficiencies from a race? Not a good idea.

Making a Human Fighter with every racial weapon and armor proficiency being redundant would definitely not feel good. Or getting Halberd proficiency as a Wizard or Rogue? Ridiculous and useless. So.. why?

Getting more skills or a feat would be flavorful and useful though. 5e is very stingy with both, feats especially, and I'd like to see more feats handed out without competing directly with ASI's.

They use DEX modifiers...literally the same thing. They are DEX based weapons for DEX based classes that you will literally never catch STR focused classes using.
You can say whatever you like these are all DEX weapons for DEX classes.

They should just make +2 / +1 into a toggle and let people choose the preferred option. That would be suitable in most cases, so that for example Human players that want light armor and polearm proficiency with less stats can take them and for example some casters that have no use for neither light armor proficiency (because of Mage Armor) nor polearms proficiency (use staves and attack with cantrips / spells anyway) can take the regular + 1 to all atributes bonus and so on for other races.

I would like to know why should theese classes "like" that they got useless proficiency in trade for 3 Ability scores

Humans get both the +2 and +1 and the polarm feat.

Having a proper 10 d weapon especially with reach shores up the melee range power these classes have. There are quite a few classes and architypes that have strong short range spell but dont have good weapons to fall back on.

Oi vey. They are not LITERALLY the same thing. You can argue they are practically the same thing, but that isn’t what literally means.

And the weapons in question, polearms, are not finesse, don’t use DEX, so it’s a moot point. But this is just going in circles and I’m not interested in arguing with people who wish to do so merely for the sake of it.

Humans dont get any feat. :-/
What they get is Proficiency with: Spears, Pikes, Halberds and Glaives.

What Proficiency do is it adds +2 (at level 1, more later) to your hit with the weapon.
And unlocks special attacks that weapon provides.

Problem is that all theese four weapons are Str-based ... meaning your hit chance is calculated as:
Str modifier + Proficiency bonus + your d20 roll

Classes you listed were:
I agree with Clerics ...
Particulary Light Cleric, especialy Str based Light cleric ... could profit from this proficiency.
Especialy with Spear, since that one is Vertsatile and can be used with Shield.

Druids ... no.
Druids rarely have high Str, unless you have some very specific build in mind.
Just as with Clerics, Druids often use shields, since bonus AC is great and if they have Quarterstaff, or Club ... and Shillelagh ... their hit chance is counted from Wisdom and damage dice is turned to 1d8 + Wis modifier ... and since Druid DO want to have high Wis modifier, this is easily better choice.
This spell tho dont work with Spear, and none of those other weapons is as far as i know Versatile.

Rogue ... no. O_o
I dont claim i know all Rogue builds in the world ... but since Rogue dont get multiattack, bcs they deliver their damage trough Sneak Attack ... and in order to deliver Sneak Attack damage, they have to attack with Finesse weapon ...
I find any use of Two Handed, Strength based weapon as big misstake for Rogue. O_o

Wizards in general, no matter what specialization, have rarely better Str than Int ...
And each and every Wizard should imho have prepared either some spell for close range, or at least Shocking Grasp cantrip (or i believe there are some others, this one is just my favourite) ...
Wich for one, calculate hit from Int ... wich automaticly gives you better chance ... and also its damage is growing as you level up, wich weapons dont do, bcs Wizard dont get extra attack.
On level 5 ... presuming our Wizard have 18 Int and 8 Str ...
Shocking Grasp chance to hit is +4 ... and damage is 2d8
Halbeard hit chance is +1 (-2 from Str, +3 Proficiency) ... and damage is 1d10
So not impossible to use ... but not even close to effective in any manner.

Same apply on Sorcers, except is Charisma not Intellect ...

Same apply on Warlocks, except is also Charisma not Intellect ...
There is one exception tho!
And that is Pact of Blade ... bcs as far as i know, Pact of Blade can make any weapon they hold to be their Pact Weapon ... and Larian is boosting the shit out of this Pact, so this combination, while still odd in PnP (but teoreticaly usable) may be even quite interesting in BG-3!

And finaly Bards ...
Same story as Sorcerer.

Some elaboration on why people are puzzled by someone else not liking polearms for martial classes might be reasonable. I will attempt one such summary, but my 5E is imperfect, so please jump in with corrections.

Standard glaive or halberd does 1d10, but also have reach and thus 10 foot range, and also heavy.

Polearm master gives you a bonus attack that does d4 damage, and it adds an opportunity attack when enemies enter weapon reach.

Sentinel adds that if you hit something with an opportunity attack then its movement speed is set to 0, and creatures that use disengage action still provoke opportunity attacks.

Great weapon master gives 1 bonus attack on kill or crit per turn and it allows you to take a -5 to hit for a +10 to damage on melee attacks with heavy weapons. Note that halberds and glaives are both heavy and that the ability isn't a once-per-turn but can be applied to all melee attacks.

And of course there's also item bonus and strength bonus to all these attacks.

So what the total package ends up providing is a 10 foot reach in which everything is threatened and anyone trying to leave can get smacked and lose their movement and anyone trying to enter can get smacked and lose their movement, and a smack means 1d10 + 10 for GWM + strength + item bonus + whatever else you've got floating for the regular attacks and 1d4 + 10 for GWM + strength + item bonus + whatever else you've got floating for the PAM bonus attack. Unless you kill or crit, in which case you get full weapon dice for the bonus attack.

Now imagine this on a level 11 fighter with two additional attacks and action surge. I honestly cannot be bothered doing the math but it looks like a whole lot of damage dice. I'm not sure, however, if champion crits are better than battle master maneuvers. Someone with more experience (or more will to number crunch) will have to step in on that. But a cheeky 10 foot range pushing attack near ledges could be fun, and even just pushing straight backwards means the critter has to go back in again and take another AOO poke in the process.

I reckon the salient point is, once you have the full feat package up and running with poles, there's quite some potential for both damage output and tactical utility.

Okay, I think some 5e rules clarification is needed.

1) Polearms are not Finesse Weapons. STR is normally required.

2) Monks have the ability to use DEX instead of STR when they attack with "monk weapons".

3) Monk weapons include spears and staves. They do not include Pikes, Halbards and Glaives.

Conclusion: monks, and anyone with a level of monk who is not wearing armour or using a shield can use DEX instead of STR when attacking with a spear or staff, but not a Pike, Halberd or Glaive.


It should be noted that this does not enable those weapons to be used with Rogue Sneak Attack, which specifically requires the weapon to have the Finesse special property.

On the original topic. From the various videos we have seen humans clearly get something else as well as "human proficiencies". It is, however, impossible to tell what it is.

I agree with this assessment completely except to add that clerics and druids get spear proficiency anyway through simple weapons. The true strike spear is pretty useful on Shadowheart early on. So that's a waste and any caster that can use a shield and has powerful spells that require concentration, should really be using one as it decreases the chance of a concentration check.

All the others you mentioned are spot on.

And the other class that you rightfully mentioned might make use of it, actually gets the proficiency as part of the pact, so once again it's redundant