Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Short race appreciation thread

I had a really interesting experience with BG3 recently. Last time I played a halfling in tabletop D&D, it was purely mechanical ("he's small so that he can ride a wolf"). Seeing them in game got me thinking about how it would feel to be so much smaller than the people around you - and BG3's halflings are closer to 4' tall compared to D&D's around 3' halflings.

So I thought I'd try out the set of mods to enable a first-person perspective. Partly to try this for my new playthrough, but I also decided to go back to one of my old saves and see the world through the eyes of a halfling. Of course, I was expecting an intimidating world full of people twice my size. But that's not what I felt. I basically walked from the Steel Watch foundry to the gate to Wyrm's Crossing, and I noticed for the first time just how many other halflings and gnomes there are. And, what's more, my brain registered them as the main people of the city, with the humans sort of fading into the background. I knew they were there, and I could choose to interact with them if I wanted to, but as long as there were other halflings in the area I found my self sort of not noticing the humans unless there was something notable about them. It always felt right interacting with the gnomes eye to eye, but I wasn't expecting that. I'm not sure how well it comes across in screenshots, but let's see.

Spoiler for 3 big images

Then I went into the Elfsong, and everything changed. I'm not sure if it's the confined space, or the fact that there aren't any halflings in there, but I felt totally out of place. First thing, as soon as I walked in the door, the half-orc bouncer came striding straight towards the door at speed as though I wasn't there, and I felt like I'd have barely a second to jump out of her way. Then I saw people sitting at tables, still much taller than me. And as I approached the bar, I'm surrounded by giants against whom I barely come up to their waists. This is where being short started to feel intimidating.

Spoiler for 3 big images

I'm mainly playing my new dwarf durge character (speaking of which, it's harder to get the feeling of being short but bulky and strong, than the idea of being short and having strength as your dump stat), but I'll probably come back to this one when I need a break from all the murdering, and re-play act 3 while dating Wyll, which she failed to do the first time around. It'll be interesting to see how different environments feel from that point of view.