Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why the nerfs were made (speculation? or fact)

Somewhat off-topic but still related:

Can you imagine what Elrond Half-Elf would be called in LotR now? Elrond Not-Elf? Elrond Mostly-Elf? Elrond Not-Human?

"Dwarves have sturdier and shorter builds which have more balance to them and it screams better CON."

I believe it may have to do with a intestinal fortitude that is second to none

"Dwarven Resilience. You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage."

Dwarven Toughness. Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level." Hit points come from our Constitution

Deciding that this time you're going to play a halfling from planet Krypton who is as strong as the strongest ever dragonborn is not solid roleplay, though. It's like deciding to write a novel and then figuring that your protagonist is Steven Seagal's perception of self. Who is going to take that character seriously? And why even have stats in the first place when you can just "RP" reasons to violate any rhyme and reason?

And as we've already addressed, the race ASI's make plenty of sense. They might not make sense to you but that's a rather different claim than that they don't make sense at all. Various bits and pieces of quantitative analysis doesn't make sense to me either, but obviously that's not the same as those details not making sense at all. You being able to make that distinction would certainly help improve the general level of this discourse.

So basically what your saying is either that todays new players/young generation are entitled, unwilling to learn, accept tradition and existing systems, and need changes to comfort their selfish sensibilities, or better yet all of the above.

New players havent had any problems playing D&D 5E before, meaning, it doesnt need to change now either. The only reason for these changes are because of a very vocal minority with an agenda, and we all know it.

Show me some lore, any lore, that suggests dragonborn and halflings have the same general level of strength. Or that orcs and gnomes have the same general of mechanical intelligence. Gnomes are famous for tinkering with devices. Where's all the stuff orcs built over the years?

Also, I repeat, racial ASI's are generic baseline modifiers. They show people at the start of the journey, not at the end of it. Arguing that all races must have equal stats because otherwise various race-class combinations aren't viable is really just underlining nicely that the meaning of "viable" is badly skewed. The fix here isn't to mess up all races, it's to make sure classes without a racial bonus are in fact viable.

I wouldn't have phrased this the way you did but you are correct. In this way all RPGs that have "races" are creating the fantasy that racists believe in. Humans - from the North Pole to the tip of Australia - are all one species. In RPGs different species exist. Is that problematic? It is if you confuse fantasy with reality.

If you think it's problematic to fantasize about such things and believe they should be removed from the game entirely I wonder why critics are silent on other problematic issues.

In real life I'm a pacifist - problems should be solved with words not weapons. In DnD I burn people alive with fireballs.

In real life I think chemical weapons should be banned. In DnD I think cloudkill is a great spell.

In real life I'm a vegan. In BG3 I eat pig face with a fork.

In real life I'm an atheist. In DnD I praise Mystra, the very real god of magic.

I real life I want to see weapons far away from playgrounds. In DnD my toon wanders around openly carrying weapons and even takes to teach kids how use a sword.

In real life I oppose monarchy in all its forms. In DnD I play a noble who deserves to rule over other by divine mandate.

In real life I think "evil" comes in the form of soulless bureaucratic forces. In DnD evil comes from hell and devils.

So it's weird that WotC is singling out race as problematic when - if you confuse fantasy for real life - the game is a pandora's box of problematic notions. That's part of the fun - you playing someone with archaic values.

Convert or die heathen!

I just had an interesting idea, if you want to make the game harder, try to play it through by trying to be vegan. You're only allowed to eat plant based foods in the game.

Thank you for that, well said. I can appreciate well written and thoughtful expressions of opinion, as this is not one of my strengths, I shall continue to try. I like it here on these forums (if it werent for the slow loading :)) Who would think you could find so may articulate and educated people on a video game forum!!

It's a game, not a simulation. I personally don't like a lot of the new changes but they are entirely within WoTC's wheelhouse to make. If it better fits their philosophy for the game then they are going to do it.

As for the games and Larian's autonomy, I personally think the contract was pretty fine-grained. Larian could easily have had complete autonomy with regards to the story and many aspects of character but could also have been required by the contract to follow changes to character creation rules. The devil is in the details and we don't get to know those details.

A gnome is not as strong as an orc because the orc has Powerful Build. A gnome would need something like 16-18 STR to match an orc with just 8. That, to me, represents the disparity way better than +2 to STR ever did. The disparity in physical power is much bigger with this setup, and it means even a weak orc is much stronger than a strong gnome.

I personally think Dragonborn should also get Powerful Build since they can get up to 7 feet tall, but I can see why they'd want Dragonborn to focus more on their draconic powers. Their breath weapon is a lot more functional in One DnD, so it catches the feel of being a dragon person a lot better than 5e did. The current version also gives Dragonborn limited flight which is pretty cool.

Also, yah? I'd say Fighters still want as much HP as they can possibly get. Just because casters can also benefit from more HP doesn't mean more HP isn't still a huge boon to melee classes who are in way more danger of getting hit than casters.

The issue with Powerful Build is that it doesn't really change playstyle or the feel of a character. A human vs an orc with Powerful Build (both with +2 Str) would play nearly the exact same way, particularly so in combat. Especially since carry capacity is so easily negated by having a party and/or getting a Bag of Holding.

If Powerful Build affected Shoves or Grapples or Melee attacks or Athletics Checks in general in a meaningful way, that'd be different. But as is, Powerful Build isn't really an appropriate replacement for +2 Str (and this ignores the fact that Orcs already had PB along with +2 Str, and so the dedicated +2 Str ASI wasn't actually replaced with anything). Mechanically, an Orc can't do any of those listed things better than a human or gnome.

When rules are only rules just because they were in the past you start getting into dogmatism. Which does no one favors as the new gen keeps the game alive.

Most tt groups seem to roll for stats, use variant human, homebrew, or all 3.

There's more to Powerful Build than just carrying equipment. It probably varies a lot by table and how often these things come up, but it also lets you do things like pick up heavy objects, NPCs (once you have them in a grapple), push or pull heavy objects, etc. It's a utility feature more than a raw combat feature. You can sack STR and still be able to pick up guys by the throat, and if you don't sack STR you end up being able to do stuff like picking up a wagon and holding it overhead.

Which is fine. Not every racial needs to be combat oriented. There's more to how a character plays than how they perform in combat. And the goal of racial abilities isn't to perfectly replicate the benefits of the attribute bonus. If it did it'd defeat the point of removing ASI from race. The point is to just make sure the races feel different in play.

All that said, I'm pretty sure 5e's rules for grappling and throwing things were written without Powerful Build in mind. One DnD should ideally take a look at some of those old mechanics and factor in weight vs carry capacity rather than raw STR to better integrate the feature into the system.

Edit: OH. I also forgot to mention. Powerful Build gives you advantage on escaping the grapple condition as of the UA that added Goliath to OneDnD's PHB. So the trait is getting buffed.

I'll certainly agree with your "it probably varies a lot by table and how often these things come up" statement. (In my tables, very rarely. Especially since moderate-high Athletics Checks can make up for a lack of raw strength)

I'll also agree with your statement: "the point [of racial abilities] is to make sure the races feel different in play." I just don't think that the current racial abilities (minus the ASIs) are sufficient and/or interesting enough. But that's fine if we disagree.

And true. Powerful Build didn't exist until...Volo's, maybe? I agree that it should be updated in D&DOne...though unfortunately the playtest didn't really indicate WotC was thinking of doing so, iirc.

I am kind'a hoping that once they have the big things ironed out they'll turn their eye on some of those side systems that need touching up. It's reasonable to think that if you can lift a guy over your head casually you can also throw them further than someone who can only drag them.

Every UA adds a couple more mechanics to revise. Seemingly completely random. So we'll see if they ever get to throwing stuff.

I have a quite comprehensive explanation for this phenomenon, which is society-wide, but it may be too OT for this forum and too political for everyone's peace of mind. If you're interested, PM me or suggest an appropriate platform.