Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Can we please get a race rebalance patch?

Title. A lot of races still feel kinda bad and I'd honestly rather have fixed racial ASIs with the features we had before than some of the racial features we have now.

Human: If you wanted people to play human less, why wouldn't you just remove them from the game? I understand the potential frustration, but I feel as if people would pick human no matter what, because they're the race that's good for a first playthrough in a lot of people's minds. So, can we at least change their civil militia racial feature to some sort of choice feature?

Half-Elf: They have the same problem as humans with civil militia. This should just be replaced with a bonus proficiency, imo.

Shield Dwarf: Keeping the armor proficiency makes no sense when they only have a +2/+1. This trait should just be replaced with something else, if you're adamant about keeping the Tasha's ASI rule in place.

Duergar: Honestly, I'm just curious why you chose to remove their spellcasting.

Githyanki: If you're going to insist on using the Tasha's rule for races, you might as well use the new version of the Githyanki that has Psychic Resilience instead of Martial Prodigy.

Overall: Personally, I'd like the option to choose between original versions of races and the versions you guys chose. Also, it'd be nice if there was a way for racial features that gave weapon or armor proficiencies to be optional somehow, just so they don't overlap with classes and end up being useless.

You're complaining about races but don't even address the main offenders. Elf and half-orc. Elves of any variety get: advantage against charm rolls, can't be put to sleep magically, darkvision, a bunch of weapon proficiencies for free, either extra movement and stealth or an extra cantrip, and PERCEPTION bonus, the most powerful proficiency in the game. Half-orcs get a broken cheat death racial that you can only obtain in the game via magic amulet or a legendary mace, and a whole whopping extra damage dice on crits.

But you're complaining about civil militia? Civil militia makes humans and half elves the best casters in the game, with access to medium armor and shield for free, your casters are going to sit on 22-25 AC and have access to shield bash as a reaction. Many shields also provide either crit immunity, extra initiative, projectile reflect, or warding bond.


Meanwhile tiefling is a garbage race that only gets a fire resistance that is easily replicated with a fire resist elixir or warding bond or several weapons that grant fire resist, and their racial spells are garbage. My Mephistopheles tefling gets the useless mage hand that can't even interact with buttons, doors, items, can't pickpocket and is timed duration, and then the garbage 2d6 burning hands and conjure flame blade, both only use charisma attack roll instead of the class's main attack roll, so useless spells on non-charisma classes, and conjure flame blade is a dead spell because it unequips your current weapon and removes any bonus the weapon was giving you.

Gnomes aren't much better, a racial spell of speak to animals is a joke when speak to animal is so easily available via companions and advantage on stealth, whoop de do.

Sounds Terrible.

It seems like you want to play classic dnd 5e, even though most people like Tasha's implementation.

The issue isn't the system, but rather racial features that are all over the place. Dragonborns suck, humans are only good for casters due to their armour and shield proficiencies, while gnomes get advantage on mental saves.

I don’t understand why Larian never implemented Variant Human, but their current iteration is meh at best.

Basically I would keep Tasha but rework certain weak racials.

I don't want to play a caster with a shield. It's a complete flavor fail. But when the proficiency is there, it feels like I'm intentionally gimping myself if I don't use one for a better AC.

I really dislike the militia thing for humans and half-elves. It feels slapped on for mechanical reasons rather than flavor and verisimilitude.

Thematically it sucks, but at least when weapons are unsheathed for casters, if you have a staff equipped, you do not see the shield outside your character sheet.

The problem is that light armor and caster armor in general and staffs as weapons really have no incentive over melee weapons like shields and heavier armor. Staffs should have a passive granting more spell slots and spell attack roll proficiency for not wielding a shield and only wielding one staff in two hands. Light armor should increase saving throws and grant elemental resistances, while heavy armor users should not be able to gain effects like invisibility or blurr.

As it stands, there is really no reason to wear light armor when you have access to heavy armor.

Thematically it sucks, but at least when weapons are unsheathed for casters, if you have a staff equipped, you do not see the shield outside your character sheet.

The problem is that light armor and caster armor in general and staffs as weapons really have no incentive over melee weapons like shields and heavier armor. Staffs should have a passive granting more spell slots and spell attack roll proficiency for not wielding a shield and only wielding one staff in two hands. Light armor should increase saving throws and grant elemental resistances, while heavy armor users should not be able to gain effects like invisibility or blurr.

As it stands, there is really no reason to wear light armor when you have access to heavy armor.

Humans desperately need their level 1 feat back. I was all set to play human when I stared at what humans get, vs. what half elves get. Then I compared half elves to full elves...and my Ancients Paladin is now a full wood elf. in 5E he's always human for the extra feat (which is almost always heavy armor master)

The system in BG 3 isn't even the system found in Tasha's... which, even though I hate the system in Tasha's, would have been far better than what we've got.

We had the normal ASI system in EA for 3 years and it was far superior than the current one. Fortunately there are mods on PC that return the true racial ASI, don't know about the console version though.

You do you, I do me, but we won't do each other, probably.

I prefer Tasha's implementation over this, but to say that previous system was better is a hard disagree from me. With locked stats you were pretty much forced into specific class. Tieflings and drows? Only charisma casters.

Orc? Only martials.

Sure, you could choose non-fitting class, but then you were just gimping yourself. If anything Tasha enhanced RP capabilities.

I quite like my Gale in Padded Armour and with Shield ... 16AC once he hits DEX 14. Same (or better?) could be achieved with Mage Armour + Bracers. But saves me a spell slot and the bother of reembering to cast it. Especialy as MA is no longer depicted - or shown so dfferently from EA that I can't see it.

I think the issue some people have with Tasha's (myself included) is that a lot of racial features really do reflect lore surrounding various races. Elves don't just have +2 Dex for the sake of pushing certain builds, but because they as a literal non-human species have bodies that are more graceful than those of the other races. It also allows more min-maxing, which ends up taking away from some of the enjoyment in the end.

I think the main point here, however, is that some races in BG3 are weaker than others, which doesn't feel good.

EDIT: Also, the racial ASIs never locked you into a class. Sure, it might not feel optimal to start off at a +2 instead of a +3, but it really isn't all that bad.

I never thought I'd see the day when somebody complained about one of the best racial abilities and recommended replacing it with a skill proficiency. Truly a clown thread lmao

A skill proficiency is always useful. Being proficient with light armor and shield is useless to ~60% of the classes or something.

I think the guy you replied to was trolling or something, with their absolute clown take.

Civil Militia gives armor+shield proficiency which is invaluable for caster types. Right out of the gate, as an example, Gale can get 13AC from leather armor and a shield, which is the same as Mage Armor, and can then add DEX. Which means he's saving a spell slot and getting comparable AC buffs for no trouble.

Your best idea was to drop this proficiency for a skill proficiency, of all things, because...?

Most skill proficiencies outside persuasion and perception are pretty trivial/niche anyways. The last time a Nature check mattered was with the plants in the Underdark, then there was never any other meaningful Nature check again. History and Arcana checks are similarly scant, as is Medicine. All a survival check nets you is a chest with mid tier potions and scrolls most of the time that don't make much of a difference, and you just dig at the spot where a survival check fails and get the chest anyways. You get so much skill boost from gloves of thievery and smuggler's ring that DEX based checks don't matter, and for those that do you have Knock. I'd much rather have light armor and shield proficiency. Any non martial class will benefit from that significantly. And if you're optimizing for martials, you'll play Half Orc anyways because nothing else comes even close so long as paralysis continues to give guaranteed crits.

So... Skill proficiencies may SEEM less valuable than combat proficiencies, but skill proficiencies can lead to an easier time doing a quest or allow you to avoid a boss fight. Also, the only classes that benefit from Civil Militia are Sorcerer and Wizard. That's just... Kinda bad.

The simplest fix is allow players the options to use the 5E Racial bonus features as we saw in EA.

Skill profs ARE less valuable than combat profs if for no other reason than opportunity cost. The amount of mileage you get out of something as simple as shield proficiency (+2AC) is infinitely more valuable than what you'd get out of ANY skill prof, the only exception maybe being persuasion and only because of the sheer amount of checks you can make. You can make all skill checks and saves without proficiency but you cannot use, or use with penalties, any item that you do not have proficiency in. Even the dumbest barbarian can make INT saves and checks, but the smartest wizard cannot use armor or shields without first knowing how.

If that's not good enough, the raw cost alone for combat profs is 4-8 levels and 1-2 feats, depending on what you take. You'd be paying through the nose for what two races give FOR FREE at creation.

If you really want to nitpick classes, Bard, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard can all benefit from Civil Militia, and since 5e has deigned that quarterstaves are versatile, you are actively debuffing yourself by not using shields on casters. On a flat d20, 2AC will account for about ~10% chance to hit, meaning with no hit modifiers, a no-armor caster with a shield gets a 40% chance to be hit vs 50% flat. Once hit modifiers start getting added, that 2AC will start flexing a lot more. Throw DEX and progressively improving armor into the mix, and you'll start seeing just how far something like Civil Militia will take you vs. that Nature proficiency you want to take in its place when the last time you even rolled Nature was 50 hours ago and failed anyway.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of AC and what skill profs actually do for you. Rolling persuasion to avoid a boss fight is a unique option offered at that specific time by Larian and cannot be used in any boss fight. However, +2AC can be used wherever you want. Its applicability is nearly boundless and outperforms every skill check you can make.

Agreed, I have even problems watching YT vids about BG where casters with shields are walking around. It's so, so bad (to me). But I'm old, it's probably not a problem for most people nowadays.