Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Customised Origin Ability Scores

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything kinda opened the door, but to me it was something I've always wanted: The ability to change the racial bonuses to ability scores.

My biggest criticism of Point Buy and Standard Array is that the highest you can go with a skill is 15, meaning unless you have Race/Class synergy, you are capped at +2 modifier for your main Ability Score Modifier. With being able to customise the racial ability score bonuses, there would be a lot more Race/Class combos that would be good.

Changing these will make your racial abilities less optimal, ex. lower Ability Score tied to racial abilities, but the roleplay use of a not gimped Tiefling Rogue, for example, would outweigh that. Besides, you could keep the original scores if you wanted anyway.

Let. Us. Roll.

I've always liked rolling, it offers the possibility for both the highest and the lowest spreads, or a spread with both an 18 and a 6, which is always an interesting time in my opinion. I'm aware that some people don't like the idea of just being able to roll away until you get the ideal spread, but if someone wants to sit there rolling for stats for an hour in their single player game, then let them.

Absolutely agree. Rolling lets you got much more dynamic ability spreads. I'd imagine it would be a little harder than implementing custom ASIs, as I don't think there are any roll with drop lowest in the game yet. And if you're playing with friends, you can talk about how much you can roll, or set it to one roll only/reroll only with total below x. Hell, custom Score Array could also be a fun method.

As I said in another thread please no. The ability modifiers are part of the race (biology) and should not be changeable. You do not need to play an optimized character and having a non optimized combination makes each race/class a unique experience instead of race being just a skin you put on while always playing the same way.

What Ixal said.

+1

This has frequently been requested and I'm sure this would be a popular addition. I think Larian stated they intended to implement it at some point too.

Four positives:
1. Rolling is kind of the D&D thing, and some people find the luck of a roll entertaining.
2. More freedom/choices in character creation is a good thing.
3. A common criticism of BG3 is that the game draws too little from the original series, this would be a homage.
4. The origin system makes the companions shine, but at the cost of making a custom player character feel generic and boring in comparison. This was a prevalent issue with DOS2 and Larian promised they would counteract it in BG3, but I see little/none of these implementations. Rolling would potentially enable the player character to actually stand out a bit.

This type of thing (Tasha's) got discussed heavily in another thread. In short it was basically a like and dislike argument and both sides obviously were valid in their opinions.

I am of the opinion that they should add rolling and the rules from Tasha's.

ROLLING!!!!

There are many more ways to make a character unique than nerfing an ability score. I see a lot of lazy players think a character flaw is just a bad ability score, but that is not true. A good character's flaw is based on their behaviour, their decisions and ideals. Having a lower wisdom on a cleric will not make them any different, just worse at what they do. Having a cleric be, for example, easily fooled into trusting people claiming to follow the same god, or having them be pulled down by prejudices instilled in them by their clergy makes a far more compelling character.

The biology argument is also flimsy. Things like a Tiefling's fire resistance or Stout Halfling's poison resistance are biological traits, but ability scores are things that are very variable from person to person of the same heritage. To quote TCoE:

Exists to reinforce an archetype.

That's the point.

That said, there is a Tasha's mod for people that want less diversity between races.

Ain't none nerfing here.

Hmm, yes, reinforcing archetypes is the best way to ensure diverse roleplaying options. How did I not think of that. Limiting possibilities by default makes every race so much more unique.

You are not limited in creating any Race/Class combo.

You are not forced to change the ASIs.

Just use a mod and cheat, removing racial ability scores pretty much sounds like that.

Totally agree!

How does it sound like that? You're literally not gaining any additional advantages, you're just making it possible to keep up with the classic combos

All good. There's a mod, just use it.

I am with you 10,000% (if not more)...

LET. US. ROLL!!!

Being weaker than a minmaxed combination that you want to always have also affects decision and behaviour. Role playing doesn't stop when initative is rolled. A half-orc wizard for example will likely use more touch spells than a gnome wizard. While an elf wizard is better with rays.

And that explanation above is simply bad and an attempt to retrospectively explain why a half-orc could be weaker than a halfling by default.