Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General I think I'm giving up on Larian

Then why do you want to force these completely useless and unnoticeable bonuses for races?

Do you know that the strongest orc will always be as strong as the strongest halfling? And that the strongest barbarian halfling will be stronger than any warrior orc ever existed?

If the math changed due to Larian implementation, cool, I'm interested to see how it plays it out. I didn't know because I haven't played the early access. But the point you are making for racial stats still holds no value because not BG3, not Larian, but 5e as a whole already left that concept behind.

What I think those people (us, I guess?) are fixated on is having actual distinction between different species of creatures. And floating ASI is one less difference between them. It used to be that lizardmen and orcs had higher strength potential than smaller creatures, like haflings and gnomes. Then 5E changed it so they simply had a faster path to max strength and thus a feat advantage. And now, with floating ASI, your dragonborn has no higher strength potential than a halfling. How much do you have to suspend disbelief to make that work?

Wedding stats to races is in fact the only thing that actually does make sense, though of course it isn't political these days, nor is it newbie friendly. But if you step out of D&D for a moment and consider, say, Star Trek, then please don't tell me that you think Klingons and Humans should have the same base stats. Please don't tell me Klingons and Ferengi should have the same base stats.

Lastly, doesn't it strike you as the least bit funny that you start out talking about RP options, and then immediately switch to talking about meta considerations, like whether you're wasting a feat, whether you have the main stat at the right value, and so on? What in the flying fart of Zeus does that have to do with role playing? What I take from that is that you really want the "weird characters" but only if it doesn't have a cost to power gaming potential.

From my perspective, such an argument ignores that part of the weird character's charm is that you leave the meta behind in order to get more character flavor. Yes, you will fall behind a little bit. But you're in a party, are you not? Can they really not pick up that tiny bit of slack?

Or are we really going to accept the conclusion that characters that don't start with 16 main stat and beeline to max are hot garbage and totally unplayable? And if so, why exactly do you think the solution is to change racial bonuses to floating bonuses rather than creating more utility value for 15 main stat characters? By the way, if a 15 wisdom cleric is completely unplayable then why is it even legal in the first place?

I focus on them because the stat bonuses are part of the identity for races. (Half)Orcs are stronger than others, elves more dexterous and dwarves are known for being though.
But that identity is now getting removed because of whiners that refuse to play something without maxed stat for their class, completely missing the point of a role playing game.

I'm sorry to say that, but the original post claim is really an overkill exageration. Whatever if you like or not the possibility to respec, you don't have to use this option if you don't like the system!

But not everyone is a mega expert of absolutely all the rules in D&D 5th edition + know all the differences from BG3 to D&D + we are currently testing 6th edition and we could mix / forget / confuse rules

I'm very happy that it's easy to respec, it's easy to make mistakes when we create a character, even when we are familiar with the rules and read some guides (not all of them say the same thing!)
obviously it's really wasting my game when I do mistakes on my main character, with whom I will play for 40...60... 80 hours. Who like to be forced to continue with a subpar character?
That would waste my experience.

Also, it can be interesting to test different builds. Obviously no one will change 40 or 100 times the build of their character during the game. That was a smart move from Larian obviously. Not everyone is top high level Dungeon Master who knows everything all the time, amongst the players.

Just a rapid research and I can find that in the last ttrpg about star trek species have stat bonuses too, but these can be easily compensated by "environment", "upbringing", "academy" and "career events", making them just a drop in the ocean between all the stats you can distribute on your character.

If 5e implemented such an elaborated system to make every class work thanks due to bonuses coming from class, background, ideals and whatnot, something that has been implemented by Pathfinder2ed, sure racial stats would be cool, but at the moment they are just a nuisance and an arbitrary limitation.

Kind of telling when the argument for unlimited, unrestricted respec is "if I'm not playing the most insanely optimized mega-monster character, my time is totally wasted".

I'm not against respec, but having some sort of limitation wouldn't hurt.

I do worry that people will play these monster builds, then complain that encounters are too easy, and then Larian will balance off of that.

RIGHT that's why they've tried for this license for well over 15 years. Because they don't like nor have any interest in DnD what so ever. That's why they burned a budget in the hundreds of millions and spent _SIX YEARS_ of their lives on an IP that they don't like and have no real interest in... Do you know what the number one idea behind a game is? That's it's _FUN_ to play that's day 1 of gamemaking school. This was never going to be 1:1 TT to C-RPG and the main reason for it is because it is simply not viable.

I saw someone a page or so back suggesting they should have made an ORIGIN character for every base class, that would have blown the budget through the roof and it would have put even longer development time on a game that is already close to 2 years late out the door due to C19. I would not be the least bit surprised at all to find out that LARIAN went considerably over est budget due to that.

It's fascinating honestly, (and depressing) because it's rare that you see a 'community' that feels this entitled to things, BGIII is a UNICORN it should not exist in this day and age, the sheer scope and presentation of it rivals that of ANY big budget SP games from other genres out there. I'm sorry but they did not make this game for _YOU_ they made it for _EVERYONE_



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PS: Spare me from any further FS babble btw, trying to draw paralells to how they get away with not being necesserily 'user friendly' and having a 'very steep curve' They make 3rd person games with the basic premise of 'BONK mob in head with big stick', the 'curve' is based on pattern learning. Tell you what if FS had decided to CRAM a PoE level amount of systems into their games (without any kind of guidance) their sales would TANK over night.


Bottom line, if you want C-RPG with budgets in the hundreds of million and presentation that rivals ANY industry standard in other genres, well then you'll also get the sort of ACCESSABILITY options that are expected of any modern game put in there.

The concerns about the NEED to appease the casuals are generally bogus, anyway.
No one will stick through a 150+ hours RPG REMAINING a "casual", to begin with. People will either get bored and bounce off or they will get invested and then start noticing the eventual flaws and cracks on the system by the sheer amount of times they'll interact with it.
No system needs to be "dumbed down" to have an appeal, that's a myth. Where the difference is made is in the on-boarding, on the other hand.
We are all constantly "newbies" for most of the things we approach in this hobby. Without going to far, I never played a single game of Pathfinder before approaching the two Owlcat games and I'm now playing (very sparsely) the Rogue Trader beta, based on a system I didn't even know existed until few months ago.


There's nothing "roleplay-enhancing" about removing intrinsic differences and possible barriers to appease immediate convenience. There's a reason if the "play pretend" at the foundation of roleplay across decades moved away from toddlers screaming at each other "Then I'll be X and do Y better than you!" without rhyme or reason to wargame-like setups, where people build characters according to fixed, well-defined parameters and manage combat scenarios (and more) through a set of shared "rules of engagement".

"But I wanted to have my cake an eat it too" may be something people can be very emotional about, but it's hardly the strong argument in favor of improving immersion.
For instance one could argue that rather than having half-orcs and gnomes be basically identical in terms of physical and medical potential (which to make sense basically requires for these archetype to stop meaning anything), your rules could be designed around a way to make a physically less powerful gnome viable as a barbarian leveraging his own innate characteristics.

I will never be convinced by any argument that boils down to "I strongly feel I shouldn't be limited in any way".
Anyway, this is a bit of a digression at this point, since what's done is done. And not even part of what the topic was about, anyway.

I suppose, at least you're honest about hating world building affecting combat for the sole reason of minmaxing. You'd dislike Warhammer so much.

I should get something about the warhammer world, but I've seen that there are many different systems that I honestly don't know which one I should pick. I honestly don't think that "worldbuilding" means solely what you are saying. There are various ways to build a world, and the world building in 3.5 (hard dungeon crawler) is different from the world building in 5e (narrative oriented), which is different from the world building in world of darkness (hard narrative), or any PbtA (hard narrative) for the matter.

EDIT: just narrative for WoD, because PbtA is far more narrative.

I haven't checked any Star Trek rpg system. And I'm not sure why that would be relevant to what I asked. I watched the movies and the tv series, because that's what defines Star Trek lore. Now tell me, are you suggesting that a Ferengi has the same potential for raw strength as a Klingon? That a human has the same potential for constitution as a Klingon?

Those are both yes/no questions. And they're not hard yes/no questions either. There's no trap in them.

Except of course for the absolutely unavoidable fact that Star Trek species are allowed the freedom to be physically different in meaningful ways. I don't see why D&D races should be denied that freedom.

^ The amount of sheer hubris that just radiates from this is honestly staggering. Tunnel vision does not even begin to cover it, You are using yourself as an example brosif...try looking around you represent the _MINORITY_ not the _MAJORITY_

I literally never saw even just an episode about star trek, just the "lower decks" cartoon series. So I can't honestly answer your questions. The only thing I'm saying is: here, you are talking about star trek, here it is the system. Species have a tiny +1 to a few attributes, and the rest of their lives make for the remaining ten or so points. Do what you want with that.

Guess I'll have to live with that.
The irony of you saying this to me while ANGRILY defending the narrative that "casuals need to be catered to" is not lost to me, anyway.

Not to mention that NONE of this was about "minorities" and "majorities" anyway, and is so-not current-year-friendly that you are basically implying minorities should be ignored and trampled on, if necessary.

The old race stat bonus don't make any sense in the first place though.

Humanity has had the highest concentrations of apocalyptic level wizards and sorcerers in lore. The idea gnomes or half elves are inharently better than them in these classes is laughable.

Heck one of the descriptions of the barb in dnd beyond is one soloing a frost giant.

The idea that these immutable stat difference exist is laughable.

I'd be surprised if Larian didn't balance normal difficulty round single class, reasonably default PHB-type characters. Especially given that they said that they expected mainly experienced players to multiclass and weren't trying to draw a lot of attention to it in level up (which I can attest to as it's just a relatively small "Add Class" button at the top right of the level up screen that could easily be missed if you weren't looking for it. What wouldn't surprise me is if, at some time down the line, once they have had chance to see just how exactly players are able to exploit their systems to wipe the floor with the game, they add a further nightmare difficulty mode designed to make the game challenging even for those players (and probably failing, given that an engine with as much complexity and flexibility as BG3's is probably unavoidably going to have loopholes).

And while I'm dropping into this thread, a reminder that we're all entitled to our views about the game and to express them here, and while it's of course absolutely fine to disagree and to say why, let's avoid implied insults or challenging others' right to feel as they do about the game, and try to keep it friendly and constructive despite the strong emotions some of these topics seem to be evoking.

Lol no.
The diffetence are numbers. There are a lot more "apocalyptic" human wizards because there are a lot more² humans than gnomes.
And what the barbarian has to do with this topic only you know.

If you don't like it, don't use it, eh? It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. We are talking about core game rules here, not optional features.

E.g. Larian have stated they have put more items like Headband of Intellect in the game that replace an ability score, to make multiclassing easier and to enable item-centric builds. That alone makes respec an integral part of gameplay if you want to play well. Find a belt that gives you a Dex of 18 > respec your Dex from 14 to 8, wear belt, enjoy your new buffed Dex AND Constitution and Wisdom scores. Such items already devalue character ability scores, but with respec it just becomes really stupid.

Knowing you can always respec takes away all weight from decisions when building your characters. You are mentally lulled into lazy gameplay mode where learning the rules and planning have no meaning. It's subconscious, but I argue that it makes the overall gameplay experience feel less rewarding. You have this feeling in the back of your head constantly that decisions are irrelevant in the end, you can always change into something else.

Respec ruins replayability. Why would I replay the game for a whole different experience using another class or build, when I can just respec into said class, or any class, nilly-willy during my first playthrough? Gameplay and storytelling are supposed to support each other, not be completely disconnected. What kind of a story has it's characters changing all time time? He was a Wizard.. no he was a Ranger.. wait no, what if he was a Gnome Cleric / Barbarian multiclass? Distracting. Larian are guilty of disconnecting gameplay mechanics and storytelling also when they demote Minsc and Jaheira, or Halsin, into low level companions. So clearly they don't get this.

For someone who really enjoys character building, planning and tactical combat, Larian are making a terrible gameplay experience. It seems like the devs want to make a dating sim with puzzle combat and the D&D ruleset is just getting in their way. When they should embrace it and understand it's a tried and true ruleset that is the game's greatest strengths.

Bruh maybe try debating the argument, not the person? Hubris? Tunnel vision? What exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree that the person who plays the game for considerable amount of hours seizes to be a casual and starts exploring the deeper layers of the game systems? Do you disagree that switching your perception of the game from casual to post-casual makes you more aware of the flaws in design? What is your point apart from brainfarting on Tuco's account?

You are jumping from a thing to another without sticking a single landing, though.

- Unsubstantiated claim
- Lore fact that ignores constant rewritings across few decades and selective point of view
- Random fact about a barbarian of dubious relevance (you can have any class potentially "soloing a giant", if it's about skill and overall combat prowess rather than sheer physical capabilities).
- No one argued about anything being "immutable" and degrees of variation already existed anyway.