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

Well, I'm glad you think it was a mistake. I'm sure your opinion, unbacked by any attempt at an actual argument is definitely one I need to consider.

Unfortunately however, if you re-read my post you'll see I neither attempted to justify nor make sense of the fact that halflings can be as strong as orcs. I merely pointed out a fact, which the poster clearly didn't know. I don't in fact think it makes sense.

It is quite the temptation to make some snarky comment here, but to be honest it's really not worth it. It's clear you feel strongly about this, it's also clear that you think making a bold statement of opinion is somehow the same as a reasoned train of argument. Too many people do the former, not enough do the latter. I would suggest that you would be a lot more persuasive if you actually tried it

Most video gamers are min maxers my dude. Especially rpg gamers where collecting cool loot and making cool builds is a bug draw.

No one wants to be a 5% weaker rogue because they thought dragonborn was cool

Agreed. In my head cannon high elves got the +1 intelligence because intelligence is the arcane magic ability score and magic is emphasized in elven culture and they had about 80 more years of schooling than did humans. If you become an adult at age 100 you've been thinking about magic longer than 99% of human wizards.

On Wolfheart - I mostly agreed with him but I found his efforts to avoid offending anyone rather painful. We should have the option of either system. But if you are going to bring in the (unpopular) Tasha's system you should do it correctly.

The species ability bonuses listed in the PHB scores should be the default and if people want to switch to the boring, lore-destroying Tasha's alternative they can do so. Because remember it's not ASI's that make the races interesting it's things like being blind in the dark and moving slower than other species!

The question to me is if the new floating modifiers will be reflected in the world's NPCs or if it's just something given to the player for their character.

sure...

anyway...

the way things are going, regardless of ability points, in Baldur´s Gate 5 the party will probably consist of:

a Werebear Druid/Ranger
a Hill Giant Barbarian
a Lich Cleric/Necromancer
a Beholder Sorcerer.
a Black Dragon Thief (with 95% Stealth and sneak breath attack doing 120d6)

Save for half, of course.


Ok, seriously, I have read some posts here, and I also agree with your point. You should have the option to play with the same early access rules.

I just believe this debate about ability modifiers is not as relevant to me as the sheer amount of extra abilities characters have nowadays.

RPG games went in the direction of other action games with so many extra powers.

For instance... I don´t understand the need for Warlock class or Tiefling/Dragonborn race...unless in a Planescape: Torment type game...a very unique setting.

Maybe I should have the right to play BG3 only with traditional races...see my point ?!

No, I don't. Requesting that the PHB ruleset that has been in use for the past 3 years be kept in as an option because it is already implemented and many people prefer it is not the same as requesting that the entire game be rewritten and redesigned, if you mean literally getting rid of all NPCs that aren't a "traditional" race. If you mean just playing as a "traditional" race then you can do that by picking one, nothing is hindering your ability to play how you want, unlike in our situation where what we want is literally unavailable. Your analogy isn't very applicable.

Thats the wrong way to look at it..

The average Half orc is stronger than the average Halfling. Thats the point. There are a lot more 18-20 str Half orcs than there are halflings with the same. THAT is what the racial ability scores are supposed to reflect. Not this "anything you can do I can aslo do mentality".

Racial Ability score bonuses are supposed to reflect the difference in the average population of Hafling, Half Orcs, Dwarfs, Elves etc etc. And it is reflected in every single humanoid statblock in the Monster Manual etc. Its a D%D worldbuilding aspect, the races are different and have different average strengths, reflected partially in their Ability score bonuses.

Yes there are exceptions, and when playing a character in d&d you can be whatever you want, and boost your stats to whatever as you lvl up eventually to lvl 20. But at lvl 1, these racial ability bonuses reflect the slight differences between the races.

See that argument falls apart completely if we look at the Orc monster stat block


https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16972-orc

If we go by this the average Orc only has 16 strength, which basically any race can get to. Even under old rules you could have a halfling as strong as an orc at level 1.

The thing is, a player's character is not the average exemplar in a race, not even remotely. A PC is pretty much David Bowie amongs the men, is Drizzt in a world where every drow were mandatory evil by rulebook. Even at level 1.

And even in the statblocks you can find that in some cases a commoner drow (https://5e.tools/bestiary.html#drow%20commoner_oota) from the official module "Out of the abyss", have the same stats of an commoner orc (https://5e.tools/bestiary.html#orc%20commoner_tftyp) from the official module "tales from the yawning portal", which are the same of a commoner human.

The thug statblock even uses these stats for all races.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17035-thug

You can have a halfling adventurer being as strong, yes. But the average halfling, gnome, elf or human wouldn't be and that's the point. God, I really miss the racial maximum values for stats that we had in AD&D...
We get that you like the change, but you won't change my opinion or anyone's opinion who is against that crap change.


You mean the generic stat block that is meant for the DM to be modified with the racial stats? Even though that isn't necessary, since thugs are cannonfodder anyway.

So what precisely is the benefit of playing a Half-Elf or Human? We have two Humans in the party already as Origins with Wyll and Gale and two Half-Elves in Shadowheart and Jaheria. I hope we get a feat to choose from instead of being stuck with Polearm Master/Light Armor mastery. Is this Larian's subconscious to push to play the more exotic races? If so they have worked, as my plans have changed with this newest change to Character Creation. I understand why they did it it just strikes me as odd. I don't recall Humans having a great history with spears, unless you are referring to our earliest Cave Man days when the only thing that stood between us and death was often a wooden spear.

It just occurred to me how odd the thread title now sounds. Because....there isn't a racial attribute system any more.

Isn't size and mass taken into consideration as well?

Halfling and Ogre may have equal strength of 20, but unarmed dmg of halfling is 1d4 and ogre is 3d4 (?) for this same reason.

Halfling may have the "same" strength as a hill giant, but a giant can take the halfling and fling him over the horizon and / or squash him with his foot, which halfling can not do, while being as strong

So I doubt that a 20 STR halfling, who is 3ft tall and weight 40 pounds, is "as strong" as a 20 STR 7ft tall 300 pound Orc.

Of course there is... especially if it's Larian's plan to go full Tasha's in regard to stats. As much as I hate that book and everything about it but it still has racial stats, except that you could essentially play a non-typical member of race with a different stat distribution if your DM allows it. Had Larian implemented that, there would have been far less uproar.

The "custom lineage" rules are optional.

The last time that was the case was I think 3E when penalties still existed. Si a Halfling was +2 Dex -2 Str and a gnome +2 Con -2 Str
But whiners happened and penalties were removed.

There isn't one unless you're using a build that wants those new innate proficiencies while also not getting them from your class. If you're not doing that, there is essentially no reason to pick a human or half-elf over a regular elf, outside of RP reasons of course.

I have not seen it confirmed anywhere exactly what the "compensation" for humans/demi-elves/mountain dwarves actually is, but from the speculation I have seen, I don't think the racial attribute system changes make much sense.

Similarly, I seen no evidence that you can roll for character attributes (per PHB), which to me is an essential option for developing interesting D&D characters, particularly when rolling attributes in order, and designing the best RP you can from that. I particularly dislike the point-buy system in 5e/BG3 where you cannot reach extremities for the attributes; give me 3-18 any day.

As for the question "why make this change?", the answer is likely to be trying to appeal to the largest audience possible by being as "unrestrictive" as possible. Judging by comments on forum platforms like Steam or Reddit, many modern gamers ( i.e. the people that pay the bills for WotC and Larian, among others ) have the attention span of a gnat, or the entitlement of a lord. It's hard to cater for everyone, but if your cost base is high ( or you simply have an appetite for profit ), you need to reach as many people as possible.

If I were to speculate, I would say this is in keeping with the WotC direction of travel, not a Larian invention. WotC are always looking to modernize and streamline their IP. No more good and evil, no more law and chaos, no more racial stereotyping. I get it, the echoes from the real world are tangible, but I doubt that making a fantasy gaming system ultra-inclusive and politically correct will shame the world's leaders into better behaviour.

I agree that there is no real reason for not including both racial bonus systems ( given it only affect YOU as a character being generated ), as well as including all the PHB basic attribute generation systems. By all means have a default system that is simple and quick to use for the majority that don't care, but there is no reason why alternatives can't be enabled in the settings. Character generation is one-and-done; how you generate your stats affects nothing in the subsequent game, and therefore comes at a minimal development cost. Certainly that cost is trivial compared to the enormous efforts to produce the overall BG3 game, and even trivial compared to the effort required to allow the mind-boggling complete cosmetic choices during character generation.

Is it of realms-shaking import? Probably not, but it will definitely lower my opinion and rating of modern D&D (and so BG3) to continue removing the elements that made it interesting in the first place.

None of it is 100% confirmed, but based on what we've seen in the character creator, it looks like humans and half-elves get proficiency with all polearms, light armor proficiency and shield proficiency. In gaining this, humans lost 3 attribute points and half-elves lost 1 attribute point. There is no word on shield dwarfs getting anything to compensate at all. This basically invalidates humans and half-elves on any martial class, as they already have those proficiencies built into the class. Humans will get the same attributes as everyone else but will have essentially no racial bonuses whatsoever, and half-elves would be straight up outclassed by regular elves. You can use these new proficiencies to make certain builds more interesting, like having shields on a caster, but it changes these races from having bonuses that helped EVERY build (more attribute points) to only helping a few builds while quite literally invalidating them for many more builds. Again, none of this is completely confirmed, but this is the view we're operating under until Larian clarifies what they're actually getting. I really, REALLY hope they just give us the option to trade these proficiencies in for the extra attribute points that were taken away.