Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why Drow should be moved to Elven Subrace

Presently in the game, Drow are considered a wholly separate race from Elves with two sub-races, Lolth sworn and Selunites. Similarly, only Lolth sworn should have red eyes (yes, you can check allow all eye colors and make a red-eyed Selunite).

If you go back and look at all the lore of the Drow, there is no Selunite Drow. Similarly, Drow with eye colors other than red is rare (yes, Drizzt is a special snowflake for his lavender eyes).

There's no real in game reason why the Drow should be a separate race and have sub-races. It would be better to just add them under the Elf race as a sub-race there and drop the Selunite sub-race (while still allowing a Drow to choose whatever deity they follow if playing a Cleric, although first two choices for female Drow Clerics should be Lolth and Eliistraee).

Overall, it makes no sense to make Drow a separate race when they're Elves as you did not do this with Half-Elven Drow (they're listed right with the Half-Elven High and Half-Elven Wood as sub choices for Half Elves).

My main problem with this is that this is a terrible division that locks your character into a specific group based on deity worship (lore-wise anyway). What about surface drow who just mind their own business? What about Underdark drow not from drow cities? What about Vhaeraun worshippers? Etc.

If anything, I'd split high elves into sun and moon since those are actually different subraces, just not in 5e mechanics. But they differ in appearance and culture.

I believe the only reason are racial traits ... while elves have +2 to Dexterity, Drows have +2 to Charisma instead ...
So they simply cant be in same group providing different bonuses.

With half/elves there is no problem, since all half elves have simmilar racial trait (that is +1 to two stats if i recal it corectly) and everything other is just matter of sub-races.

Pssst. Seldarine. Not Selunite. Very different things. Though my Seldarine cleric of Ilmater did somehow transform into a Selunite as soon as I started the game - the heretic.

I agree, in 5th edition, they basically are.

If this were 2nd or 3rd? ha.... but it is not...

Also, has anyone found any mechanical difference between the two so called Drow "sub-races", Lolth-sworn and Seldarine ? I didn't see any. I don't think it's a good idea to differentiate between two sub-races if ... there is no difference.

I hope this is not a way for the engine to get some tags out of our character (like "good" or "evil" Drow). There are better ways to do that than creating a whole new "(sub-)race". Race and beliefs are not the same thing.

Because then ... what happens if a Lolth-sworn Drow (proper Lolth worshipper, not follower of Vhaeraun living in a standard Drow city) stops following Lolth and turns to, say, Shar, or Mielikki, or Corellon (I doubt he'd accept but anyway). Do characters change race when they change god ?

There is some... difference... Lolth-sworn drow being locked to worshipping Lolth. If you're creating a cleric you can't change the deity. And if you're creating some another class you'll still get dialog options with the tag reffering to worshipping Lolth and living in Menzoberranzan. Don't forget that worshipping Lolth isn't just a religion, it's pretty much a life-style, so that sub-race says how you lived before.

If you want to add to the confusion:
- in which category do you place elves who worship the seldarine / the dark seldarine / Eilistraee / a non elven deity?
- another important discrimination would be those who can access the reverie trance and those who can't
- this game has high elves and wood elves but there are two sub races within the high elves, sun elves and moon elves (as far as faerûn is concerned)

In my opinion, Larian folks do their best in a pragmatic way. 2 levels of depth to keep it simple, category and subcategory.
And it works well when it comes to implementing bonus, malus and feats.

The real problem is the notion of Seldarine Drow. It doesn't make sense. There are drows whose spirit or soul was allowed back to Arvandor but I think they were turned back into dark elves beforehand.
If that's really something that Larian wants to be present in its game, then it would be better to have dark elves as a sub category of elves imho. (and keep drows seperate).

There are lolth sworn dialogue options when talking to spiders in the gob camp

Thanks Zellin and guy for the info.

It has confirmed me in the opinion that separating Lolth-sworn Drows from others isn't a good idea.

If we could choose a deity for each PC, regardless of class, then the game could pick-up "Drow" and "God : Lolth", and infer the same.

@Zellin : I understand that the cult of Lolth is central to Drow societies, but still, race is not the same as beliefs, cultures, etc. Drizzt was from Lolth-worshipping Menzoberranzan. He didn't change race when he rejected Lolth.

I agree that the 2 drow races makes no sense

So I would say:
- elf as race
- high elf, wood elf and drow as subraces
- every char (not just clerics) can select a deity

Not sure if deities should be restricted by race.
Players who care about role playing can select options that make sense.
I see no reason to prevent players from min maxing or selecting very unusual combinations of race/class/stats/deities

It wouldn't be hard to add in a god for each character as well. Everyone in Faerun pays lip service to a god of some kind, it shouldn't be that hard to add a choice for god to each character and each race could start with a default that the player can change.

Simply, it doesn't make sense to split Drow off from the other Elves. they all originated from the same source, the differences was in the path each sub-race of Elf took in the past.

All Elves, Drow included, start with +2 Dex and the difference between each sub-race is where that +1 stat goes and what starting cantrip they get (for the most part, yes, I'm simplifying some things for brevity).

So simple fix, move the Drow back into a sub-race of Elves. Add a choice of god for all characters with a default god that can be changed by the player. Both bring us more in line with Faerun and 5E without adding too much to the character.