Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Give dragonborn darkvision

Half orc -- has dark vision
Half elf -- has dark vision

Dragonborn -- no dark vision.

Now that Dragonborn do not get their +2 strenght and +1 charisma advantage anymore, the balance is gone. The fact that they do not even have dark vision is ridiculous. It's neither logically justified nor a needed nerf.

That'll be a -1 from me. Too many races get Darkvision in 5e - so many that it becomes more common than not, and turns not having darkvision into a punishment rather than darkvision being a nice boon. Give dragonborn something else unique instead of darkvision, unless you're going to give every single race darkvision.

Out of the 9 PHB races, 6 races (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Tieflings) get Darkvision, while only 3 races (Dragonborn, Halflings, and Humans) do not. And then 3/4 of the additional BG3 races get it: drow, githyanki, duergar, deep gnomes.

Imo this problem stems from removing low-light vision from D&D, and then (somewhat arbitrarily) deciding which previously low-light races would get darkvision vs normal vision. Why do elves, half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes have darkvision?!? Their races haven't, as a whole, lived underground for hundreds+ of years.

Unfortunately, there is not much that can be given to Dragonborn and humans to offset it. Or, rather, Larian chose to give nothing to humans. Dragonborn just sit in the vast void of having little going on for them.

Because Larian won't nerf half the races, in my opinion, the only option left is boosting the Dragonborn.

I agree with giving Dragonborn Darkvision. They're the only Draconic beings that don't have it, which makes it feel like a weird omission. Their race is also generally underpowered in the PHB and could use a small boost.

To solve the Darkvision problem I'd just remove Darkvision from elves and half-elves. Maybe half-orcs too. The low-light vision was just seeing decently well in environments with... Well, low light. I dunno who decided it should translate to total night vision. Only underground races and certain monster races should be able to see in complete darkness.

Why not something cooler than darkvision?

- bonus to Cha checks because of their powerful presence and/or mesmerizing glowing dragon eyes
- take X less damage from attacks because of their hard scales (alternatively, +1 to AC)
- bonus to Con STs because of their hardy dragon blood
- a bite and/or claw attack

Cha checks and Con STs are not that good. The way racial AC boosts are, it only helps if you don't wear armour (otherwise, the armour will override your natural protection). They already have a breath attack that's bad because it doesn't scale well. A bite/claw attack will just be version 2.0 of that... aside from competing with said breath attack on how often you can use it, probably.

(I don't know about others, but dragon eyes don't portray much emotion or personality. I can only see it working with deception checks since they are inexpressive people).

What's bad about Cha checks and Con STs??? Con STs are one of the Big 3 saving throws and Persuasion/Intimidation checks are huge in a D&D game, especially as one as full of dialogue and characters as BG3 looks to be. They're also features present in other races, in some form. E.g.,
- A full Dwarven feature is devoted to Con ST-related things (poison)
- The EGtW Dragonblood gets Forceful Presence - Adv on one Persuasion & Intimidation check per day.

Not the way I was suggesting a boost to AC. I was suggesting a +1 bonus on top of any armor. But also, these are just sample suggestions I thought of in a minute and serve more as ideas of areas that could be turned into Dragonborn Racial Features. My main idea there was [some form of damage prevention due to their scales].

Larian could make the breath weapon and/or claw attacks scale better then. There's no reason for them to not scale?

What they really need is a buff to their useless breath weapon.

Either increase the damage, or make it an attack action instead of a full action, so that characters with extra attack can use it instead of one weapon attack, not for their full action

You may suggest that, but that's just not how armour works. Con ST don't matter for 10% of the time Dragonborn are impacted in combat through not having dark vision. Act 2 will bring A LOT more low light areas, anyone without dark vision is a liability. You can only artificially give dark vision to one person. So yes, that's not enough to save the Dragonborn. I'd be against a boost to all cha checks since, I'm sorry, but it just makes no sense to me. It reminds me of the argument that strenght should count for intimidation checks.

If they buffed it with enough range and enough uses, it could be de facto free spell slots, which is fair.

Brightvision-- advantage on attack rolls in the light.

Instead of randomly buffing them, why don't we add the disadvantages that some other races have in DnD?
If you follow the rules, e.g. drow have disadvantage on all attack rolls when fighting in sunlight, gnomes have disadvantage when using big weapons like heavy crossbows, longbows, greatswords, pikes, ...

That would be fair, also. However, the people playing a gnome out to beat every orc in a wrestling contest would be disappointed... and they may be the only demographic Larian cares about. I don't expect to see species having realistic, world building based downsides.

Everyone has cookie cutter +3 something, dark vision, and some small species based trait. They rule over the species that don't have dark vision. That's it. That's the formula. Much diversity, such wow. I'm asking Larian to rebalance the game within that formula... if nothing else.

Like, what's going on here? You're taking my ideas in the worst light to just flat out shoot them down. None of my ideas so far have been especially eggregious, especially when, again, they're just initial suggestions. Work with me, yeah?

It can be how armor works. Shield of Faith gives +2 to AC. Defensive Fighting Style gives +1 to AC. Shield gives +2 to AC. Actually, the Warforged (a direct race comparison) even get +1 to AC due to their armored construct nature.

Con STs are always relevant, as you never know when an enemy will cast an extremely harmful spell at you that requires an important Con ST.

For dark areas, you can always bring a light, cast the Light cantrip, cast the darkvision spell, or drink a potion of darkvision. By your logic, since humans and halflings will be a liability due to their lack of darkvision, should we give them darkvision too?

I didn't mean to imply that "all" Cha checks get a bonus. In the comparison example I gave, I referred to specifically Intimidation or Persuasion checks. We can also look at half-orc, who automatically gains proficiency in the Intimidation skill because of their race/strength/typical orc attitude. Why is this different than for dragonborn?

(Also, yes strength should be an option for intimidation. Bouncers often make use of this. People who can more easily do extreme violence to you are/can be more threatening.)

+1 to your sentiments

Gnomes also are small and don't get a + to str cough cough
But you guys did not want that...

I'm not asking for humans nor halflings, because there's no saving them in this aspect. Halflings at least have lucky. That's fair. Humans? Rest in Pieces. Dragonborn might make the transition.

Yes, you can make up for everything in this game, but it costs you resources. That's all you will be doing -- making up for an inherent weakness. AC is not "armour" in the sense I'm speaking. Armour is the defense to your body. If you wear something with a higher armour than your natural defenses, that means it will be overridden. Warforged are an anomaly, because:

"Your body has built-in defensive layers, which can be enhanced with armor. You gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class. You can don only armor with which you have proficiency. To don armor, you must incorporate it into your body over the course of 1 hour, during which you must remain in contact with the armor."

Your AC proposition is most closely related to sorcerers of draconic bloodline.

"Draconic Resilience
As magic flows through your body, it causes physical traits of your dragon ancestors to emerge. At 1st level, your hit point maximum increases by 1 and increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level in this class.

Additionally, parts of your skin are covered by a thin sheen of dragon-like scales. When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC equals 13 + your Dexterity modifier."

Because of this, I would be lead to believe Dragonborn would work like sorcerers and not Warforged.

I'm not sure how species have no strenght advantage and yet an imposing presence via increased strenght can coexist. Even if I were to 100% agree with your argument, the conclusion must be "No, Dragonborn do not gain intimidation through their strength -- they have no superior strenght over a gnome". You would therefore be bluffing, which is charisma. Now, an orc or a Tiefling look very mean, which would likely help. Maybe. Hopefully. Who would think this could create borderline plot holes /s

Dragonborn are neither *especially* imposing, nor, more importantly, expressive. This is why I disagree that they should be the class to get the highest charisma benefits, as they also have natural disadvantages. They might end up with a boost to deception or lesser intimidation... but that's again not enough and also just mimicking other species. If Larian were to be thorough, they should pick something that properly makes them special.

They can potentially do 20+ dmg with their breath attack in an aoe... as long as the enemies are wet.

Problem: 4d6 at level 11, = max 48, eats up your entire action. Refreshes on short rest

If Dragonborn gets Darkvision, then Githyanki should aswell ...
I mean, they have cat eyes after all ...
And from lore perspective they were breeded by Illithids as perfect slave race ... since illithids live in darkness, it makes no sense to keep their slaves blind ...

I thought i hearwd somewhere that Dragonborn breath weapon get dmg boost in BG-3 ...
But maybe i heared wrong.

I like this one!