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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by Imora DalSyn
Yeah, I typically play CHA classes(I prefer spontaneous spellcasters for example) and feel locked in to half elves and Drow. And I can't make av Drow look how i want because there's not enough skin colors in the true black/Grey range. It's all weird shades of lichen blue/Grey or purple.

You NEED 16 in primary stat. I hate uneven stats, too. Not enough for the next modifier feels bad.
Uh oh. Be careful saying such things lest you attract the "you're min-maxing/power-gaming if you match racial ASIs with important class ability scores. Just play a mechanically worse character" folks.

But yeah, rolling for stats (again which Swen said is planned) will help in creating such characters. As would:
Originally Posted by Niara
If Point Buy let you buy up as high as 18, and down as low as 4 (you'd never get more than 1 point back (or possibly even none) from going below 8, but the cost of going up would continue to increase by the same step beyond 15, so it couldn't be 'abused'), I would be less critical of it, personally.
+1 to this because why not? I've highlighted a part I think is incredibly important. Otherwise you too strongly incentivize heavy stat dumping.

Couldn't care less about min/max haters. I feel locked into those races because of the "uneven stats bug me" thing, and even in Pathfinder I play half elves a LOT because of it. I just can't stand humans in games (they're boring to me) and pure elves don't fit CHA casters much, so it's usually some variation of aasimar or half elf.

Besides. Starting with 20 CHA is just lol.

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Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

THIS.


Hoot hoot, stranger! Fairly new to CRPGs, but I tried my best to provide some feedback regardless! <3 Read it here: My Open Letter to Larian
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Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

Although, rolling comes with risks. Roll the dices six times and say you get following results: 16, 5, 8, 18, 10, 11. Then choosing which ability get which value means that two of your stats is gonna be sub-par. But, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I got the impression that's exactly what you don't want. Or, do you mean that you want the rolling to work like it did in BG2 where you could roll endlessly until you got stats you were happy with?

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In my opinion the primary reason the stats from Point buy is so low is because the stat cap is 20. You cannot naturally raise these stats beyond 20 without powerful magic items or being a high level.
This is very much a 5e thing and not something Larian added for BG3. Yes they will be adding the dice option for those wishing to go that route.
Maybe there will be a mod to freely edit your statistics to whatever you want or even edit the Racial statistics like a particular official book suggests. Until then, starting with 16 in your primary stat is pretty much ideal at level 1.

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Originally Posted by Brimcon
In my opinion the primary reason the stats from Point buy is so low is because the stat cap is 20. You cannot naturally raise these stats beyond 20 without powerful magic items or being a high level.
This is very much a 5e thing and not something Larian added for BG3. Yes they will be adding the dice option for those wishing to go that route.
Maybe there will be a mod to freely edit your statistics to whatever you want or even edit the Racial statistics like a particular official book suggests. Until then, starting with 16 in your primary stat is pretty much ideal at level 1.


Sounds really reasonable to me and i could accept it. On the other hand, encountering player race NPCs on the same level that have stats that go way beyond that feels still off as i said before. As mentioned, i will check that 'cause i never counted points till now just had this "wtf" when examining.

Or has anyone already verified truth or error of that?

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Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

Although, rolling comes with risks. Roll the dices six times and say you get following results: 16, 5, 8, 18, 10, 11. Then choosing which ability get which value means that two of your stats is gonna be sub-par. But, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I got the impression that's exactly what you don't want. Or, do you mean that you want the rolling to work like it did in BG2 where you could roll endlessly until you got stats you were happy with?

I'd prefer to roll until I got a character I thought I would enjoy playing, but if necessary I'll just start the character creation process over. Larian isn't going to stop folks from creating a new character until they've played through a bad roll, "bad" being a roll they don't want to play, for whatever reason.

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Originally Posted by Imryll
Originally Posted by PrivateRaccoon
Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

Although, rolling comes with risks. Roll the dices six times and say you get following results: 16, 5, 8, 18, 10, 11. Then choosing which ability get which value means that two of your stats is gonna be sub-par. But, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I got the impression that's exactly what you don't want. Or, do you mean that you want the rolling to work like it did in BG2 where you could roll endlessly until you got stats you were happy with?

I'd prefer to roll until I got a character I thought I would enjoy playing, but if necessary I'll just start the character creation process over. Larian isn't going to stop folks from creating a new character until they've played through a bad roll, "bad" being a roll they don't want to play, for whatever reason.

No no, ofc not. It was just when you said you don't like having low secondary stats that I got confused, thinking point buy would be better then than rolling since rolls always comes with a risk.

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Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
Sounds really reasonable to me and i could accept it. On the other hand, encountering player race NPCs on the same level that have stats that go way beyond that feels still off as i said before. As mentioned, i will check that 'cause i never counted points till now just had this "wtf" when examining.

Or has anyone already verified truth or error of that?

Everything seems to be in order. I did see one NPC with 16 Int and 16 CHA, which isn't out of the ordinary at level 3 for an Asmodeus Tiefling, but NPCs don't play by the same rules as PCs do. What may be level 3 might actually be something completely different in the Handbook or Monster Manual which works on a completely different scaling for the Tabletop version.

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I looked up a few and i think you can see the Ability Scores in BG3 Wiki. At least of some of them.

This gave me pause. The ability scores of some NPCs are way over the top. Look up kahga or better, examine Gekh. Even if those are NPCs they should at least be somewhere near the possiblities the Races give. Having a lvl 5 Duergar with 18,18,16,14,14,12 or something like that would make him some kind of uber Dwarf.

Kagha is nearly the same.

While i do not think the battles too hard it still feels like an unfair advantage. I downloaded some mods to go that way and the battles got ridicoulously easy. I always hated having a games difficulty based sorely on enemy strenght. Nothing tactical about that.

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Originally Posted by Dez
Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

THIS.
I also don't like every character having the same obvious weaknesses for their class. All point buy spellcasters and Dex based characters have 8 Strength. <Yawn>. More variety gives more character for PC's. I still remember Kieren Jalucian, the Guildmaster of the Guild of Wizards in Greyhawk who had 18 Strength.

5e could also do a much better job at having both high Str AND high Dex be useful somehow so it wouldn't always be either Str or Dex, but never both. E.g. the strong elven melee warrior archetype doesn't benefit from 16 Dex because of how armor caps Dex at +2 or +0.

I feel like I'm being railroaded into having a 16 in main stat, and then always high Con, and either Str or Dex if it's a martial class.

Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
I looked up a few and i think you can see the Ability Scores in BG3 Wiki. At least of some of them.

This gave me pause. The ability scores of some NPCs are way over the top. Look up kahga or better, examine Gekh. Even if those are NPCs they should at least be somewhere near the possiblities the Races give. Having a lvl 5 Duergar with 18,18,16,14,14,12 or something like that would make him some kind of uber Dwarf.

Kagha is nearly the same.

While i do not think the battles too hard it still feels like an unfair advantage. I downloaded some mods to go that way and the battles got ridicoulously easy. I always hated having a games difficulty based sorely on enemy strenght. Nothing tactical about that.

I really despise this design of giving NPC's ridiculously high stats. The Githyanki Gish also has like 16, 17, 14, 18, 16, 14.

If they want to make encounters tougher they can a) add more enemies, b) raise enemy levels or c) give them some other situational advantage. What they don't have to do is make PC stats feel like a commoner compared to some random nameless cannon fodder NPC.

Also, it makes all their Saving Throws super high and invalidates spells that target saves. All that does is further encourage the OP homebrew cheese of pushing everyone down a cliff or cheesing them with broken stealth instead.

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Originally Posted by 1varangian
5e could also do a much better job at having both high Str AND high Dex be useful somehow so it wouldn't always be either Str or Dex, but never both. E.g. the strong elven melee warrior archetype doesn't benefit from 16 Dex because of how armor caps Dex at +2 or +0.
Slightly off topic but imo D&D should go back to how it was in 3.5e/Pathfinder: melee weapons always add Str to damage, and ranged projectile weapons don't add any bonus to damage (like cantrips). Characters could get a feat - Weapon Finesse - that allows them to add Dex instead of Str to melee weapon damage, and bring back composite bows! This would go a long way to making Str less of a dump stat for Dex characters.

Also Str+Con should be a single save (Fortitude), as should Dex+Wis (Reflex) and Int+Cha (Will). This would make both Str and Int less dump stats.

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Originally Posted by 1varangian
Originally Posted by Dez
Originally Posted by Imryll
The main reason I want to roll stats is not to increase my primary stats, but to avoid lowering secondary stats in a way that feels non-rp to me. I can accept that my hero has average intelligence--below average, not so much. I also seem to be unable to enjoy playing a character with below 10 strength--not because I want them to hit things harder, but because of carry weight and jumping distance. Feeling that I have more racial choice would also be great.

THIS.
I also don't like every character having the same obvious weaknesses for their class. All point buy spellcasters and Dex based characters have 8 Strength. <Yawn>. More variety gives more character for PC's. I still remember Kieren Jalucian, the Guildmaster of the Guild of Wizards in Greyhawk who had 18 Strength.

5e could also do a much better job at having both high Str AND high Dex be useful somehow so it wouldn't always be either Str or Dex, but never both. E.g. the strong elven melee warrior archetype doesn't benefit from 16 Dex because of how armor caps Dex at +2 or +0.

I feel like I'm being railroaded into having a 16 in main stat, and then always high Con, and either Str or Dex if it's a martial class.

Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
I looked up a few and i think you can see the Ability Scores in BG3 Wiki. At least of some of them.

This gave me pause. The ability scores of some NPCs are way over the top. Look up kahga or better, examine Gekh. Even if those are NPCs they should at least be somewhere near the possiblities the Races give. Having a lvl 5 Duergar with 18,18,16,14,14,12 or something like that would make him some kind of uber Dwarf.

Kagha is nearly the same.

While i do not think the battles too hard it still feels like an unfair advantage. I downloaded some mods to go that way and the battles got ridicoulously easy. I always hated having a games difficulty based sorely on enemy strenght. Nothing tactical about that.

I really despise this design of giving NPC's ridiculously high stats. The Githyanki Gish also has like 16, 17, 14, 18, 16, 14.

If they want to make encounters tougher they can a) add more enemies, b) raise enemy levels or c) give them some other situational advantage. What they don't have to do is make PC stats feel like a commoner compared to some random nameless cannon fodder NPC.

Also, it makes all their Saving Throws super high and invalidates spells that target saves. All that does is further encourage the OP homebrew cheese of pushing everyone down a cliff or cheesing them with broken stealth instead.

Well said.

Especially since we have turn based tactical combat. Just adding HP or stats is cheesing us players. And you mentioned the main problem with skill checks and saving throws. Spells, shoves etc. work way less than they should and feel considerably less useful.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by 1varangian
5e could also do a much better job at having both high Str AND high Dex be useful somehow so it wouldn't always be either Str or Dex, but never both. E.g. the strong elven melee warrior archetype doesn't benefit from 16 Dex because of how armor caps Dex at +2 or +0.
Slightly off topic but imo D&D should go back to how it was in 3.5e/Pathfinder: melee weapons always add Str to damage, and ranged projectile weapons don't add any bonus to damage (like cantrips). Characters could get a feat - Weapon Finesse - that allows them to add Dex instead of Str to melee weapon damage, and bring back composite bows! This would go a long way to making Str less of a dump stat for Dex characters.

Also Str+Con should be a single save (Fortitude), as should Dex+Wis (Reflex) and Int+Cha (Will). This would make both Str and Int less dump stats.

D&D rulesets always had one or the other issue. Thac0 for example laugh.

Personally i liked 3rd and 3.5 editions most from a PnP standpoint. But those were horrible for Video game implementation. 5e works pretty well. take solasta for example. A lot of issues we have comes from changes larian made. Starting EA it felt more like playing divinity than D&D.

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The 5e ruleset works with levelcap of 20 per ability score. Going above that would break the balance of the system so I am strongly in support of the level cap.


Comparisons with pathfinder are not really that suitable as pathfinder has different set of rules and balancing around the saves and the ability scores.

Personally, I like both systems but they do not mix well.

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Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
I looked up a few and i think you can see the Ability Scores in BG3 Wiki. At least of some of them.

This gave me pause. The ability scores of some NPCs are way over the top. Look up kahga or better, examine Gekh. Even if those are NPCs they should at least be somewhere near the possiblities the Races give. Having a lvl 5 Duergar with 18,18,16,14,14,12 or something like that would make him some kind of uber Dwarf.

Kagha is nearly the same.

While i do not think the battles too hard it still feels like an unfair advantage. I downloaded some mods to go that way and the battles got ridicoulously easy. I always hated having a games difficulty based sorely on enemy strenght. Nothing tactical about that.

A stat spread like that is basically nearing Pathfinder-level bullshit.

One of the things that struck me while playing Solasta (and tabletop) is that most enemies usually had at least one or two stats that were either at 10 or below for negative modifiers. The point of this was to give players an alternate way to deal with them if smashing their faces in wasn't working out (or you needed a way to enable doing it faster).

For example, there was one fight in Solasta that involved a hit and run crossbow rogue or something, and they'd always attack you from the maximum possible range. Your melee would be occupied with the main force attacking a friendly NPC that you have to save, while this fool was pelting your back line from the opposite side of the map. If you sent your melee after him, it'd usually take like 2 turns of dashing to get to them. But it turns out they had a -1 modifier to wisdom saves, so Hold Person would typically shut them down immediately.

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Originally Posted by Scales & Fangs
The 5e ruleset works with levelcap of 20 per ability score. Going above that would break the balance of the system so I am strongly in support of the level cap.


Comparisons with pathfinder are not really that suitable as pathfinder has different set of rules and balancing around the saves and the ability scores.

Personally, I like both systems but they do not mix well.

why do you say that? There are a lot of items in the game that raise your abilities over 20.

I agree for a natural maximum of 20 + race modifier though. But i see no reason for the capped 15 at the beginning. higher stats cost more points, so for 1 really high score you would have to sacrifice points for others. Agreeable for me.

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Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
Originally Posted by Scales & Fangs
The 5e ruleset works with levelcap of 20 per ability score. Going above that would break the balance of the system so I am strongly in support of the level cap.


Comparisons with pathfinder are not really that suitable as pathfinder has different set of rules and balancing around the saves and the ability scores.

Personally, I like both systems but they do not mix well.

why do you say that? There are a lot of items in the game that raise your abilities over 20.

I agree for a natural maximum of 20 + race modifier though. But i see no reason for the capped 15 at the beginning. higher stats cost more points, so for 1 really high score you would have to sacrifice points for others. Agreeable for me.

20 score plus race modifier at start? That is way overpowered and not really necessary. For a start 17 is fine as it is with the 5e system. One of the ideas of 5e was to remove/mitigate the need of minmaxing and alow for more balanced stat distribution. Furthermore, allowing such thing will require an overhaul of the enemies, companions and etc. IMHO there is often beauty in simplicity and that seems to be the case here.

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Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
why do you say that? There are a lot of items in the game that raise your abilities over 20.

In 5e? There actually are not. There are a few - a very few, and none of those very few items stack with each other; this is by design. To my knowledge, there are the tomes; very rare magic items that you generally can't just decide you want, and each with their 100 year cooldown, and there are the strength belts. I don't think there's anything else.

The natural 20 cap includes - and should include - racial modifiers. They do not, and should not, stand outside it. This is important to the system as well, but more than that, it's to underscore the intention that anyone, regardless of their race or background, can attain the same pinnacle of excellence as anyone else; that's kind of the point.

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Originally Posted by Niara
Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
why do you say that? There are a lot of items in the game that raise your abilities over 20.

In 5e? There actually are not. There are a few - a very few, and none of those very few items stack with each other; this is by design. To my knowledge, there are the tomes; very rare magic items that you generally can't just decide you want, and each with their 100 year cooldown, and there are the strength belts. I don't think there's anything else.

The natural 20 cap includes - and should include - racial modifiers. They do not, and should not, stand outside it. This is important to the system as well, but more than that, it's to underscore the intention that anyone, regardless of their race or background, can attain the same pinnacle of excellence as anyone else; that's kind of the point.

I am not talking about permanent raise. I was talking about stuff like potions of giant strengh or somesuch. scales wrote the system is balanced for that and i just wanted to state that the system works fine even with higher stats. That was about all i wanted to say. Balance or reason aside.

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Originally Posted by Scales & Fangs
Originally Posted by UnknownEvil
Originally Posted by Scales & Fangs
The 5e ruleset works with levelcap of 20 per ability score. Going above that would break the balance of the system so I am strongly in support of the level cap.


Comparisons with pathfinder are not really that suitable as pathfinder has different set of rules and balancing around the saves and the ability scores.

Personally, I like both systems but they do not mix well.

why do you say that? There are a lot of items in the game that raise your abilities over 20.

I agree for a natural maximum of 20 + race modifier though. But i see no reason for the capped 15 at the beginning. higher stats cost more points, so for 1 really high score you would have to sacrifice points for others. Agreeable for me.

20 score plus race modifier at start? That is way overpowered and not really necessary. For a start 17 is fine as it is with the 5e system. One of the ideas of 5e was to remove/mitigate the need of minmaxing and alow for more balanced stat distribution. Furthermore, allowing such thing will require an overhaul of the enemies, companions and etc. IMHO there is often beauty in simplicity and that seems to be the case here.

No, 18+ race modifier at start. Othrwise it would stop beeing comparable to 3d6 system. So 20 beeing the maximum you can get at creation and 22 the absolute max (given a +2 mod).

Well, things like ability scores are more or less given at birth. You can train, learn and get expirience etc but normally never so much that you can double it up during your lifetime. So going for a high starting score seems reasonable enough. With some way to go higher.

Given the cost in a points system 15 to 17 2 points each, 17 to 18 3 points or something like that ( i don't know how 5 e handles it) you will end up with considerable deficit in your other stats if you go that way.

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