Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Racial Inbalance cause by rules change

So first off I want to point out something based on changes to Humans, Half Elves and Shield Dwarves specifically.

Paladins Rangers Barbarians and Fighters
All 3 races lose out on something here for proficencys the classes already have.

Multi Classing
Half Elves and Humans get weaker again in this aspect when picking a large number of combinations.

Monks
Cant benefit from the weapon profiencys and lose out on stats.

Druids, Warlocks, Clerics
Weapons proficencys may benefit you. But armor does nothing other than for shield dwarves

Sorcerers, Wizards, Rogues
You are not going to use pole arms and melee often.

Bards
Stat loss just is not worth the gains. Even as a melee bard and you already have light armor again Your skills do nothing to help with pole arms.

All other Races
Gain Flexability to classes they would not play prior while losing nothing with the previous selections.


The idea I am pointing at here is the reason to play those races over another races was removed but they were given nothing in return that carries value in classes that they could say here is a reason I might be a good choice. The choice of use there original ability score benefits or the new one would have been better than giving them weapon proficiencies or light armor. So there was still a reason to say pick me.

I know the varient human was off the table but that would have been a much better way to balance the humans +2 stat points and feat of there choice. 1 less stat point but you can balance that with a half feat or take a feat that gets you something utility wise. Bringing you on par with the other races.

The Half Elf and Shield Dwarf I feel it would have been better to say here you can chose old stat spread or new one.

Some Arguements

Dwarf I lose movement get same stats and gain nothing against wood elf who gains movement as a Melee Class

Dwarf I am a better caster cause I give armor. Gith I give same armor but also I give extra actions you dont.

Human/Half Elves I give light armor to a caster and a bunch of weapon skills you wont use - Every other Race I give you some abilities you will use and better buffs.

You could argue what about Dragonborn and Tieflings then, Dragonborn get flexability with a resistance and a breath weapon while not always the best option it provides a ranged attack option though maybe bolstering it by 1 dice might be good. And tieflings get some spells + dark vision + a resistance while not necessarily as good in some ways as say medium armor it is flexability. In addition they gained a large amount of general class versitility they did not have before. While not losing out on the classes they excelled at previously. You may argue well this is better but they did not lose anything and I can still see reasons to play those races in those classes while there might be a slight edge its not enough to say its not worth playing them.

This is not to knock larions changes in anyway but I feel this would have been a much better way of implimenting the options to keep those 3 races on the leader board rather than just making them strictly weaker than other options with no real bonus to make up for it. Larion did an amazing job but this in particular feels like 3 races lost out and gained nothing. These are not even races I typically prefer but sometimes I would play them for that extra small perk I would get in a specific class because of that small feature that just made it worth it. +1 stat point can make a big difference to a race that doesn't have much to make it on par with a race that is just a little stronger otherwise.

Slight edges that are not just strictly better can be understandable but when you can compare 2 races and say both have the same benefit but the other one also has this means that race or class is strictly not as good.
Tiefling vs Dragonborn
Breath weapon and versitility in resistance vs fire resistance some spell like abilities and darkvision - Balanced

Human vs Wood Elf - Fighter Comparison - We have weapon skills neither of us can use I have 1 extra skill I can probably chose you have a skill movement bonus darkvision fey and fey ancestry but i cant chose the extra skill.
Shield Dwarves can be compared in a similar fashion.
and Half Evles as well with Paladin Class. They are the same but lose there benefit.

Previously I might have played the shield dwarf for flavor and a stat boost I felt balanced out but no longer feel it does. Instead I would play that wood elf every time even when I wanted to play that dwarf for flavor cause I am just not as good in every way.

I agree.

Their changes are utterly weird and nonsensical and add nothing as far as I am concerned. Can I use the old ASI? Sure, in some cases I can. But 3 of my favorite D&D races (humans, half-elves & shield dwarves) have effectively eliminated and tiefling subraces could as well be just removed, as their differences aren't really there apart from 3 spells.

So I'm not happy about the changes. At all.

I'm really hoping Larian doesn't double down on these changes for Half Elves, Shield Dwarves and Humans. At least let them have +2/+1/+1, +2/+2 and +1 all stats to preserve some of the race flavour.
This whole generic +2/+1 shtick feels so tone deaf and out of character for Larian as a studio.
Waiting a couple days after release for mods to fix the game was my launch plan for Starfield, didn't expect I'd need to do the same with BG3...

Just a few points.


They removed multiclass stats requirements.


Every weapon in which the character is proficient counts as a monk weapon now, if I got it right. People are still trying to understand if this exclude heavy weapons. Anyways, those additional profieciencies can help the monk.


My idea here is that you shouldn't have a reason to play a race. I want to play an half-orc druid (my go to example) not because it's strong, but because it sounds cool. In the past I was punished for this idea with a subpar stat, that controls every check my character is ever going to do, and now I can just do it and have fun. I can see how a dwarf is strictly worse than a gith or wood elf on paper, but it is a dwarf. If I pick a dwarf is because I want to go around goating "Oh, I'm a dwarf, look at my beard! Let's drink some beer!".

That said, I agree that what they chose for these three races is arguably not cool and that they could have picked some more interesting features.

+1 to OP.
I wouldnt mind the cgange, as long as the numbers remained the same for those 3 races. If they had kept those numbers, one could have mirrored the PHB / Early access sytem if one wanted to. Which a lot of people like me do.

The PHB rules let you already do this. I could see an issue if they still had stat penalties like in 3.x or the old AD&D rules, but they got rid of that (unfortunately).
You weren't punished with subpar stat... you were challenged to overcome it. You know, like being a great druid despite your orcblood? Now it's all about min/maxing and anyone who doesn't want optimal stats for their characters gets laughed at.

Yes, that certainly has improved freedom of choice...

So is it okay for races to be strictly better and strictly worse for some classes or is it not okay?

Case in point, a human fighter gets literally nothing of use over a high elf fighter, who gets every bit the same martial ability but also sleep immunity and a cantrip. Drow fighters get super nice enhanced darkvision. Is it fair to say the human fighter is strictly inferior?

On the other hand, shield dwarfs, with medium armor proficiency out of the gate, are now the obvious meta pick for wizards and sorcerers. Why wouldn't you take that? Getting +1 health per level is even more significant when your health die is d6. It kind of blows a boring human wizard out of the water, doesn't it?

No one here is more...let down that my Shield Dwarves have been nerfed. With that said, ever since the announcement that the Duergar will be making an appearance, (which only get +2 Con +1 str)

I have wanted to roll them for RP flavor, Hell Im making a battle cleric, which I should be using a Gold dwarf to get the extra Wisdom.

My point after reading many pages and internally running these changes around in my head. Ive come to the conclusion, im still going to get to the end and be the Epic hero or villian, lol will see how the story pans out,

If if were up to me, I would leave all the racial attributes and rules per PHB, but its not in my power and I WILL not let this kill my joy.

I bet I could roll a gnome barbarian with 10 str and 10 con and still end up the hero in the end.

Meh might be painful lol

Honestly there are... so, so many threads discussing this exact topic, spread across here and the General forum. Feels like the forum has become nothing but complaints about stats the last week or so, wonder if it's possible to get a masterthread for all of these or just combine them?

The floating ASIs did not create the racial imbalance, it just shuffled around who was on where on the tier list.

That said humans need more than what we know they're getting so far and I'll fully admit to that. Once they get something nice it can be sent in part to the Half-Elf. I put out some decent proposals for human racials in another thread.

Shield Dwarf just needs one small thing aside from armor proficiency to differentiate it from Gold Dwarf in a meaningful way. To be honest, this is probably why One DnD wanted to get rid of sub-races. Dwarven Resilience really should be a trait all dwarves get. I don't see why it should be specific to dwarves who left the underground.


There is no challenge in having a 15 in your main stat over a 16. You just arbitrarily fail more often and there's nothing that can be done around it but wait until you can assign more ASIs there, which means you miss out on cool feats that could improve your character's individuality and foster a unique playstyle.

Also, what if I don't want my story to be about being a great druid DESPITE my orcblood? What if my character's story arc is about realizing they aren't the sum their parts, and that despite preconceptions they are just as capable of calm, rational thought as anyone else? What if I want my character to come to see their orcish ancestry not as a foul curse but as a source of strength that can make them a better druid?

Hard ASI restrictions by race cut down on the number of viable stories you can tell, they don't increase them.

Because it's a controversial decision and the solution they came up with doesn't appease anyone.

My main takeaway is that Larian have killed the quintessential Wizard in robes.

Human and Half-Elf Wizards from now on will all wear Studded Leather and carry Shields. Because they all have military training.

I was just wishing there was a single thread where we could bring up an issue and provide a practical solution. I thought about creating one, but that would just add to the pile of threads upset about mostly the same issues. I'm upset too. I don't want to take away features that people are excited about getting, but I do want them to be balanced.

At this point, it seems like they've made an amazing game with a few glaring balance issues that I hope get ironed out before launch.

What human and half-elf wizards? Why would anyone pick those instead of shield dwarfs with medium armor?

I admit that I'm old enough that I put wizards in robes because any such abilities would just let your magic-user wear armor but didn't let you cast spells in armor because arcane spellcasting didn't work with armor--period. Also, dwarves couldn't cast arcane spells anyway, so they weren't in the conversation. But that was forty years and roughly half-a-dozen editions ago.

As for the change in racial stats, I really think it may not have been Larian's choice. WoTC has been pushing these changes to character creation ever since they came out in Tasha's, largely for philosophical reasons. Now, while I'm sure Larian has had a lot of freedom in game design, I'm thinking that character creation is the one area where WoTC would be most likely to lay down the law because they want to keep it aligned with their overall philosophical goals for diversity and equality.

Because of two reasons I guess:
A. They want to play a human or half elf.
B. The game will greatly revolve around magic items. Your wizard can wear all the medium armors in the world, but probably those will have melee focused enchantments and to be a better wizard (if he cares about it, which is not necessary) he could use better the enchantments of a robe.

Yeah, but why would they want to play a human and a half-elf if they get the neglected child treatment by the developer?

I honestly think that it's something you and me can notice, but not the 95% of the playerbase. There will be a lot of people that never played 5e (coming from dos and BG), there will be a lot of people who weren't interested in the early access and will see these stats as the first version for them, and there will be a lot of people that don't care about it anyways.

I agree that what these three races received is poor at least, but the biggest drive to play a race is the desire to play that race.

Human and half elf are explicitly better for casters and monks than they were previously.

Any sort of attempt at a full caster gish, like blade lock, will probably want to use humans now. Dino for clerics who don't get martial proficiency

Getting light armor is great for wizards and sorcs as they don't have to worry about mage armor, and get access to more magical gear

If your point is that Shield Dwarves are mechanically the most powerful Wizards now (with Githyanki) because of getting Medium Armor and +2 Int, you are correct.

And that is exactly what the racial ability score change was trying to change. So that any race could be anything without being sub-par. So.. they objectively failed with the races again.