Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Is the new racial attribute system optional?

You said you couldent play a half drow sorcerer because you felt it was weaker now, that combo is actually stronger now.

If you really want to hold your character back till you can mod race stats thats up to you I guess.

That's your opinion. In my opinion, I would take an extra attribute point over polearms and armor that I don't want to use.

If you are planning a whacky multiclass then medium armor is even better. Medium armor is the best for any character that isn't going over 16 dex and doesn't use heavy armor. Being able to have solid armor with a bit of dex bonus(max +2 from dex) is the best armor option for a character planning to go jack of all trades multiclass.

That might be your personal choice, and like I said that's fine, but mathematically your combo is stronger now so you shouldn't feel held back, play what you want. .

Putting arcane casters in medium armour is min-maxer BS, though. We're talking half-plate. Basically the idea seems to be that your arcane super-nerd decided to suddenly go out into the yard and play in the mud with the squires to learn how to move and jump and roll and parry and dodge while wearing fairly heavy armour.

Why not insist that your character is actually from planet Krypton while you're at it?

Where does the medium armor proficiency for half-elves come from again?

Humans get Light Armor proficiency, yeah? Do half-elves get medium armor??

Half plate doesn't weigh that much and draconic sorcerers already exhist as more rough and tumble casters.

That's not to mention plenty of the wizard schools are used mostly for gishing

I thought humans got medium too? Maybe I missremembered.

Nobody is paying modders. I'm paying 100$ for Larian's game. Wish this was an option. It weakens the differences between races. It means the strongest halfling will be as strong as the strongest half orc. That seems weird. Lol or the healthiest half elf will be as healthy as the healthiest dwarf. Please make this maje sense. Dwarves, elves, and half orcs should not be treated as different style of humans. It is what it us. Lack of options is kewl.

That's not as weird as gnomes being inharently better wizards than humans when humans have multiple wizards that could exterminate the gnomish race single handedly.

And barbarians don't operate on normal biology anyway.

TBH I find ASI's to be the most boring and flavourless race feature so I don't really care whether they're floating, set, or attached to something other then race. I just don't notice the different between playing a character with 15 in their attack stat instead of 16/17, its only a +1, it doesn't stand out in actual play. When playing instead of building it's features like orcs powerful build letting you carry weight and grapple enemies like your large size, and halfling nimbleness letting you dart through enemy squares, and being able to see in the dark as a dwarf, that actually make me feel like I'm playing something other then a human in a mask. When i play a dragonborn it's because i want to play a awesome dragon person who breaths fire not because i want +1 to my weapon attack, when i play a half orc it's because i want to play a tough orc person whose so tough they keep standing when others would fall unconscious not cause i want +1 to weapon attack. The removal of heavy armour str requirements and tool proficiencies does more to hurt dwarf than the loss of +1 does mountain dwarf - I hope that they've been given new cool flavourful creatures to make up for it. I know other people care about ASI's, and fair enough, but floating asi's don't make races feel the same to me.

(I also hope 5e revised/5.1 replaces things like elves keen senses with something more interesting than a perception proficiency that anyone can get from their BG or class, and that they rename subraces to cultures and seperate out learned things like skills and weapons into cultures and keep race/lineage as only the physical things like darkvision and powerful build. But that's beyond the scope of this topic so nevermind me )

Can't you just relocate these points where you normally would for the chosen race? That should do the trick for you.

I am actually okay with that change, though I might stick with the original racial distribution. My sorcerer build has been long done.

No, because some races literally have less attribute points now. Half-elves, shield dwarfs and humans off the top of my head.

Afaik humans (and thus half-elves?) only get light armor & polearms proficiency. Humans also get extra carry weight, while half-elves get...nothing else? Idk though, I might be wrong. It's unclear because many of the videos out there are using a class that already gives some armor (& weapon) proficiencies... :\

If half-elves only get Light Armor (or even No Armor) proficiency, then none of the above discussion about how "half elf casters are now better because they can wear medium armor instead of having that extra +1 ASI" is still applicable. Also, even if half-elves gained a medium armor proficiency, they still wouldn't be strictly stronger than the old +2/+1/+1 half-elves. They'll be at least 1 point weaker in some stat(s), meaning they'll be stronger in some regards (AC) and likely worse in others (skill checks, STs, HP, etc).

+1

But... that's the way it has been for the lifespan of 5e? That's a terrible argument. 18 STR for a Halfling is the same as 18 STR for a Half-Orc. The strongest halfling IS as strong as the strongest half-orc. That's the way it works. If you want to lean on that might as well go back to the ridiculous years of women having different stats from men. Honestly, I like this change and am glad it's the one going live. I don't see a need or a point in Larian letting people swap between systems; this is the EA version, not release. The only things that should be 100% set in stone are what we get on launch date, and even then things are liable to change or be buffed/nerfed. I'd rather they keep poking at things they actually need to advance, not go backwards. Frankly, the dialogue issues for co-op are a significantly bigger issue than Half-Elves and Humans suddenly not being the normal meta pick for once.

Why? This has been the system we've had for 3 years and many people prefer it. It's already implemented, making it an option would not be difficult at all. I'm glad you enjoy the new system, but why do you actively want the rest of us to have to suffer it when we could both easily get what we want here?

Its funny because people will unironically say half orcs should be stronger than humans when one of the sample backgrounds for the barbarian is literally a human Jojo walking up to a frost giant.

For me, these racial adjustments reflect some average difference between races in the fantasy world.

Dwarves, on AVERAGE, are stronger than other races.

but in the case of a HERO of this game, the protagonist, you could be the strongest deep gnome ever, the Warrior champion of the Deep Gnomes,
and start with the +2 to STR.

Maybe your top STR will not be as high as that of the strongest Dwarf, so maybe your limit should be around 20, at least 2 less than the limit for dwarves.

but I don´t think D&D 5E deals with that...right !? Does a Half-Orc have higher upper limit for Strength than a Human or Elf ?!

I doubt.

Larian´s approach is precisely the opposite! Let people focus on character build, on choosing the race they want to enjoy more..not worrying about another +1 to specific abilities.

I like Larian´s decision... you can play the most charismatic Dwarf, the wisest Tiefling, the strongest Human.

You are the protagonist! not the average individual in Forgotten Realms.

Embrace it

Again, I'm glad you enjoy it, but I do not. I will not embrace it. The moment mods become available to revert this change, I will download them. In the meantime, I don't understand why you or anyone else would be opposed to making an option to just use the old system. You have your system, why not let me have mine?