Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Focused Feedback: On Drow

So, I'm going to start by saying this, and I'm probably going to say it many more times later on as well... but let's tee this one up first:

Drow. Are. Elves.

Drow are elves, Larian. That's a thing that they are. They're elves. They are not, in fact, their own independent species of being; they're actually elves. It's kind of an important thing to them, in fact.

Drow is not a separate race from elf, any more than deep gnome is a separate race from rock gnome. What they are is a subrace of elf.

It's right there in the hand book, and further confirmed by all recent material as well: Drow are one of the subraces of the elven people. They are not some complete and entire “other” that needs to be treated like an alien genus – They're elves.

Larian have enough work ahead of them supplying all of the core handbook races to us without dissembling in this way without any true justification or cause.

It goes deeper: Being a drow elf is tough, especially if you are going to the surface to live apart from your own traditional society. It's difficult because of the way in which your people are perceived by others, especially surface-dwellers.

There are no sub-races of 'nice drow' and 'nasty drow' – they're all just drow. A difference of political opinion, religion or lifestyle choice does not make you a separate type of entity, and that's kind of the whole POINT of adventuring drow. It's the whole point of what makes someone like Drizzt admirable and heroic. It's hard to break the shackles of your society's roles to begin with, as a drow, and it's hard twice over when you get to the surface, and all anyone can tell of you when they look at you, is that you are a drow – who traditionally, by their rigid social structure, have only ever been bad news for surfacers. That's the point. And you missed it. You missed it so hard that the barn doesn't even know it was shot at.

Rejecting Lolth and her teachings is a choice – a difficult choice – that a drow must make for themselves. It's not a thing they're born to, and it's not a trait of their subrace; it's a choice.

In making separate subraces of drow, and in making drow themselves a separate race from other elves, you've discarded an important part of what it means to be a surface drow in a world that is predisposed to be wary and mistrustful of your intentions and your very presence. Worse than that, however – rather than provide an alternative, you've effectively doubled down on and *justified* the fantasy racism normally levied against drow, because you've said that, in fact, there IS a physical, tangible difference between the “bad, evil drow” and the “good drow who aren't like those other bad evil drow”... and that that difference exists at a racial level.

Drow are elves. A subrace of elves, in fact, very much like deep gnomes are a subrace of gnomes, and the different bloodlines of tiefling are all still tiefling. Beyond that, what sort of a drow you are – whether you follow Lolth, or seek to reject her, that's a choice to make, not a thing of race. Let us make that choice for ourselves, as characters and as players both. Let us define ourselves as we make that choice, and uphold it day to day – or don't, as the case may well be.

Mechanically, there's no reason for drow to be a separate race from elves, and no reason for there to exist any further subdivisions of drow; doing so actually removes agency, rather than supporting it.

Make drow a subrace of elf, like the forgotten realms lore says. They can get the 'drow' tag as well as the 'elf' tag easily enough, just like halflings can get 'halfling' and 'lightfoot halfling' tags. If it feels really important, you could even have the drow subrace have a selection box, not unlike cleric selecting a deity, or a high elf selecting their cantrip choice, to say whether they follow Lolth or don't.

What was the reason for deviating from the lore in this way? What justification?

In the game currently, there's not a mechanical difference between your subraces of drow; neverwinter online tried this as well, as nothing more than a cash grab, and it was hated almost universally there; do not doubt that it will fail to find good favour here.

Let's do a quick comparison:



We can note several things here, such as the fact that high elves lose out on a bonus which no longer applies, but don't get anything back in return for it, unlike wood elves, who do. Drow, meanwhile, are missing their keen senses trait (I saw someone comment that they get perception proficiency anyway; this is not true.)

Most importantly, however, is that there's no mechanical reason why drow should not be a normal subrace of Elf, like they're meant to be. It all fits perfectly well, and aside from the expression of physically externalised fantasy racism, drow 1 and drow 2 are mechanically identical.

In fact, when you line it all up, the design choice that Larian has made here makes it seem like they've made more work for themselves than just sticking with the handbook ordering of things, for ultimately no difference or benefit...

So I have to ask, why? Why would you choose to implement things in a way that takes more work than less, when the only functional difference for doing so is to amplify and reinforce the sense of racial segregation and fantasy racism to a greater extent than it will already occur?

Please redo this to be more in line with the existing books; Drow as one of the subraces of elves, possibly with a selection box to say whether you follow Lolth or not.

It's just because Drows have tons of unique interactions.
For the game, this change makes sense. There is no reason to change it.
As for the drow "subraces", both choices have quite a few unique options.

I'm sure when they bring more races from underdark they will also be separated from the surface races.

I think it more has to do with the tag option then lore? It MIGHT cause issues and more bugs to fix if drow are underneath elf due to how many dialogue changes there are.

Also bc of how different they are, a lot of ppl might skip bc they didn't bother cycling through different elf options to see drow. Its also for clarity bc again, a much difference experience as a drow then an elf.

Drow also gets special options related to the Underdark.
Throughout EA, I found maybe one option that could be common to the elves.

There is probably a good story reason for this that has not been revealed yet. Also dialogue options, there are many unique ones for Lolth Sworn.

Also not all Drow are going to even want to be on the surface or wish to break stereotypes. By lumping them into only one type, it becomes assumed that they all want to be surface adventurers and "redeem" themselves. This unfortunately seems to be something many people try to force into DnD campaigns because they feel playing anything other than a Drizzt knockoff would be too "disruptive" or "negative" or whatever.

Would it be better for you if they added both types as two Elf subraces instead of a separate category? There could then still be the dialogue differences and possible story deviations.

I'm fine with dividing drow, but I really don't like the way they went about it. Like I wrote elsewhere - something like "surface drow" and "Underdark drow" would be better. Now we only have two very specific options conflated with worship of certain gods. Plenty of drow characters wouldn't fit well with either.

And generally I don't mind separating drow from other elves - they are more distinct than most other subraces. I'd do the same for duergar (maybe not subraces), but not for svirfneblin, who are more like their surface cousins. There's also the matter of dialogue options, like Zarna said; a surface drow ("Seldarine") and a "drow society" drow ("Lolth-sworn") will have different knowledge etc.

100%

I was confused why Drow wasn't under Elf. Your proposed solutions make sense too. Give them keen and make it so that the selection for Lloth-sword and seldarine are where select cantrip would be on highelf.

The opening post already listed most of my issues with BG3's Drows.

Still, I feel it's worth insisting on the fact that Larian's new categorisation of Drows, and creation of new Drow groups, is just extremely confusing in my opinion. And with no apparent good reason.

For people who know the lore, it's jarring to not see Drows as a type of Elves. Personally, I fail to understand what the newly created lore is supposed to mean. The Seldarine Drows are most unclear to me : are they surfacers, followers of Vhaeraun, followers of Eilistraae ? I don't get the Lolth-sworn Drows either : are they all from Menzoberranzan ? But I'm can't help being curious about them. If a standard Lolth-sworn Drows turns away from Lolth, do they instantly become of another sub-race ?

For people who don't know any DnD lore, it's probably equally confusing. Mechanically, Drows have all the features of a sub-race of Elves. Worse, the two Drow sub-races are mechanically similar in every aspect, or at least in every clearly communicated aspect. So if I choose to create a "Drow 1" over a "Drow 2" ... what am I signing up for exactly ? I have no idea.

I fear this is just needlessly creating confusion for everyone.


If Larian is somehow trying to get some sort of alignment tag for Drows, I feel that encoding this through the race is a poor choice. I was under the impression that WotC is precisely trying to move away from "your race and your alignment are tied", so this feels like going in the opposite direction.

I'd rather just be given good dialogue options, so that I can roleplay a Drow through my words and actions, rather than be treated as a walking stereotype. And if they really need an alignment tag, Larian could do this through a special option, like for the deities, as was suggested. (Or just allow anyone to have a deity, but that's another topic.)

DOS2 and the DOS4 Engine BG3 runs off of, uses a TAG system... the race stuff is specifically set up for the TAG system.
Selecting the race selects the tags.

It's not intended to be an advertisement that tells us they aren't Elves. They just need to make it easier to access the TAGS so they can streamline niche replies or quirks attached to each subtype.

Apparently Niara is always right. (and I kinda wish Niara would make list of all her feedback like Drath has done).

At the same time I get why they did this. WotC is (once again) moving away from alignment and Seldarine / Lolth-Sworn is plaster and paper for the hole left by the lack of alignment. If they correct this and put drow under elf they also need to include drop down menus for alignment and deity on the same page. (with notes that elves who worship human gods exile themselves from the elven reincarnation cycle)

A bit of tanget here but I'm so annoyed that WotC is doing this.

Racism -- scientific racism -- is the belief that the human species is divided into different species, sub-species or breeds. In the real world race is fiction, in Faerun race is real. Elves and dwarves are different species that can't interbreed. Fantasy /= reality.

So if you replace the idea that there are species that have been enslaved by evil gods and made evil -- that the drow are like Tolkein's orcs -- what do you replace it with? The idea that culture that practices slavery and human sacrifice is culturally evil? Congrats, you've jumped out the frying pan of racism into the fire of colonialism. So now it's not okay to kill monsters because their soul is corrupt, it's okay to kill them because they come from an evil culture. This is the essence of colonial thinking -- the savages will convert or die.

This 'solution' to perceptions of racism actually makes things worse -- colonial thinking is no worse an evil in the modern world than is scientific racism. Before one could say "well biological race is fantasy, fire breathing dragons are a fantasy, it's a fantasy setting" but now WotC has blurred the line between fantasy and reality. This is a bad development. Full stop.

This! Pure engine thing, to simplify the already herculean work they had to do by adding DnD rules to the DOS mechanic.

I am personally more curious why my Half-Drow (that is listed as a sub-race for Half-Elves) is recognized everywhere as a pure drow without an option to correct anyone once "HALF-drow!". Shadowheart does get to say "HALF-elf".

It doesn't bother me too much. Its a shame that they don't get all of the elf stuff like they're suppose to. I hope they fix that. Plus, if it really is about tags, then that excludes drow from taking elf specific dialogue options, or so I imagine. Am i wrong here?

I have a theory. Some times you get background specific dialogue options. For a lot of races, it assumes your baldurian. Drow get there own, depending on which subrace they choose. Maybe this is a placeholder until they flesh out backgrounds? That as assuming they add more backgrounds other than baldurian/bad drow/good drow/ githyanki.

It's not true, Minthara tells you that you're a half-breed or something like that.

One time, may be, but the rest labels you "drow" and you can not say anything in response.

I should probably pull up all of my focus threads at some point, and cross-link them. I was a lot more aggressive in these earlier ones... I've tried to keep my tone more even-handed in more recent threads.

But I will say that while this might have been done for the tag system, it's placing counter-intuitive design and confusion on the player side of the picture, to make it simpler for the tagging system that was lazily transposed wholesale from a previous game; that's not good practice. The player side should be simple, consistent and intuitive, and the tag system should be robust enough in its back end to actually do the job that it's intended to do, which is primarily to handle branching dialogue options, and the results thereof. There is no reason for a system that has that as its main purpose to trip and stumble over the 'level' of the tag regarding race or subrace. If the tag system cannot currently handle giving the correct dialogue line options or reactions from NPCs if Drow are a subrace of elves in the game, that's a problem for the tag system to overcome, not something that should be left to create inconsistent dissonance on the player side of the screen.

Personally I feel the tag system and the current way the races are presented are correct. With exception to Half-Drow, which should be placed under Drow with yet another specification.

You may feel that Drow and Elf are the exact same thing, but the NPC's in the game world do not. Drow and the other underdark races are generally feared by the overworlders and have entirely separate ways of dealing with things. With that in mind, placing the odd/unique/quirky races in their own category is a direct indicator that you're in for a different experience than if you chose a more normal option.

For example, playing a Dwarf/Human/High+Wood Elf gave very few lines; very little shock and awe and very rarely touched on their race. Naturally there's exceptions.

Playing a Half-Elf gave a few lines towards Shadowheart and some sass from 1 or 2 other NPC's.

But playing a Drow or Duergar (mods) opens up entirely new lines, reactions from the offset. I was honestly thrown back when I first created a Drow and found entire ways of getting around were opened; and some of the lines given were bluntly put, rude. Until you do something "normal" and you get minor shocked praise for it.


The current splitting up makes sense. Playing basic and playing quirky are different games. They need to be outlined as such.

-- Edit : The chart in the OP, Drow have Superior Darkvision which is double basic.

I believe this is because drow and gits were added primarily for evil roleplaying, because they are usually positioned as "evil" races. So they have more options in different situations. I've never played as 'good' drow, and I don't know how many lines they have. But drow Lolth has lines like "drow" and "drow lolth", which I personally like.

Also drow lose most of the interaction in goblin camp. I literally didn't have some cut scenes and didn't know they existed until I tried talking to goblins as a companion. If you are a drow, goblins will let you pass and not cross you, and if you are playing with another race, then you can have an interesting dialogue. So I think it's fair.

Larian took out features for other races also and didn't replace them, leaving some races feeling weaker than others (halfling). The only gripe I have about Drow would be height, they're suppose to be shorter.

Height/Weight Thread

Elves are not Elven (Semi Related Topic)

I believe that is just the way Larian show us that Half-Drow dont have any people of their own ...
Just as when Garona (warcraft) explained to Khadgar that she is halfbreed ... Khadgar sees her as too harsh for human, too big, bulky and strong ... Orcs on the other hand seen her as small, thin and weak.
She, simmilar to your half-drow simply dont quite fit anywhere.

I presume it could be nice to have option to tell people that you are "HALF-Drow" ... if you want to be dramaqueen as Shadow ...
But the question there is what does it exactly mean to be half-drow.
/edit:
I mean, if you look at that part, where Shadow points out her halfness ... nobody was reacting on it.
That is luxury that player dont have, and unless you want to have "uh-huh" in every second conversation when you corect your race ... it simply dont add anything.

I believe its the same reason you dont get many [Human] options in game. Yes i know there is some, but much less compared to other races.
The reason is simple, they are so variant and spreaded across the world, there is so many options for Humans, that there is simply not enough simmilarities between them to tell "yes, this is exactly pure human option" ...

I like elves more as taller. It makes Drow more menacing. 4-5ft. tall elves always seemed too close to gnomes and halflings to me.

Just two points on these tags (and one on exclusivity of Drow 1 and Drow 2 tags).

Firstly, I'm not really convinced that the technical aspect of how to get tags is part of the explanation. (I mean, it could be, but that would mean bad programming and bad reasons.)

In Patch 2, when creating a Cleric and selecting Tyr as deity, the PC would get the tags "Cleric", "Cleric of Tyr" and "Good Cleric". Leaving aside that this is ridiculously redundant, this has two implications. The tag "Cleric of Tyr" shows that the game is perfectly capable of creating a tag that is not just a function of the Race or Class variables. The tag "Good Cleric" shows that the code is perfectly capable of running a function on the character sheet and combine various character attributes as well as preset information (the god-to-alignment matchings) to compute and assign tags.

So from a code point of view, there really would be no need to make Drows a separate race, just so that 2 Drow sub-races can be created (there isn't a sub-sub-race level), and this just so that a certain tag can be attributed to the PC.


Secondly, a good User Interface provides a comfortable and intuitive experience to the ... users. Its goal is not to allow devs to code using the fastest solutions.

Also, if the game really needed to communicate "ah ha, the alignment that you choose for a Drow will be pretty consequential in terms of dialogue options", this could be done very simply by writing in the Drow description what to expect. This space is pretty much made for this kind of information. Trying to convey this "ah ha, you're in for a different experience" through making different races and sub-races, that have no established lore and show no mechanical difference, would be a really bad UI idea ("would", because I'm far from convinced this is what Larian is trying to do).


Lastly, regardless of the purely UI aspects, if Larian is trying to go for "these are Very Evil Drows" and "these Drows are not like the other ones", it would be a lot more interesting to give both types of dialogue options to both Drows. So that we have agency in how we roleplay our Drow, instead of just following the script.

I mean, imagine I play a Very Evil Drow, who worships Lolth and all. I walk in the Grove, I'm desperate for a healer. I'd certainly tell people "I saved your skin" and "I'm not your typical Drow, I'm not a danger to you", if those options are available to me. Of course, after finding out that there's no cure in the Grove, if my Drow joins with Minthara, well, I will have lied. I'm Very Evil after all. My Very Evil Drow might find it quite advantageous to have access to both dialogues options.

The way they are implemented is certainly a bit odd. I appreciate the flavor the extra dialogue options bring I'm not expecting Duergar to be split into 'good duergar' and 'evil duergar' options, and Githyanki certainly weren't implemented with the same design philosophy. There are some weird situations in game because of how good/evil, religion, and race are handled. Like having a High Elf Cleric of Lolth invoke Corellon's name, or Githyanki cleric of Yondalla praising Vlaakith.

I guess it 'works' but it's clunky, and I don't particularly care for the lore-breaking part about drow eye color being a signifier for followers of Lolth to justify the subrace distinction-the in-game drow you meet like minthara don't even follow that rule, so why is it even a thing?

+1 to the OP

Race and tags are different things.
It should be possible to make drow a sub race of elf, add a text in character creation "Drow are from the underdark and people will react very different to them than to other elves." and use whatever tags you like.
Also, there should not be two drow races.

One addition from my side.
You write that it is a choice of a char to turn away from the typical drow society. This is true. But drow is a race, not a religion.
There can be drow who were never part of the usual drow society to begin with. There could be drow who were born on the surface. Or some people of another race attacked some drow and those drow had a baby. The attackers did not want to kill the baby and took it with them.
Most drow live in underdark cities and most non drow do not like them. But not every drow started his/her life as lolth worshipper.
There is still no need for different drow races. Other people see that you are a drow, they cannot see your background.

If they were to open all tags in this way I would like if the game acknowledged the change in motivation. Like in Planescape: Torment. You could choose the same dialogue option but a truth or lie tag. If you went around lying most of the time your alignment shifted towards Chaotic if you always told the truth towards Law.

So

[truth] I'm here to help the grove
[lie] I'm here to help the grove

Perhaps come up with better tags than [lie] like subterfuge or some such.

To @Leurotta's point I do think the Seldarine / Lolth is division in the lore but, so far, the Duegar pantheon doesn't include a good god like Drow pantheon does. So this is case where Larian got the lore (mostly) correct. There are Elistraee worshiping drow living in the high forest and silver marches. But for some reason the game doesn't treat Seldarine drow as surface dwellers, instead they are assumed to have come from the underdark.

Well, there is one "problem" with:
[truth] I'm here to help the grove
[lie] I'm here to help the grove

What happens if you choose the first option and betray them later or you choose the second option and help them.
BG3 has no alignment and NPC should react the same way to both answers, so the only result may be strange approval ratings from you companions, but you can get this already.
So adding both options would not really change anything.

Not sure if PST ever forced you to do what you said earlier.

It is until you think of the GUI from a coders/presentation perspective.

If you do it 'properly' then for elves (and *only* elves) you would have:
-Race
-Subrace
-Sub-Subrace

Alternatively, you have:
-Race
-Drow 1, Drow 2.

ALTERNATIVELY STILL you would have:
-Race
-Subrace
and then somewhere else "Not evil drow" because you need the code flags to be seen for dialogue options. It can't be the relegion flag, because that doesn't exist for anyone but clerics Unless you remove the different flags, and allow you to be an evil drow pretending to be a good drow or vice versa, but that in turn can potentially put strain on writing, especially if you keep doing 'opposite choices' repeatedly.

All of this is more 'unique' coding, more chance for bugs, which means more testing and more potential code-goblins.

----
*Or* you make drow a 'seperate' race (feeding into one of the creation myths of Drow, and how they've become very different to other elves thematically) and make the different 'types' subraces, allowing a quick, clear display that also follows the structure of other race choices, avoiding potential confusion.

edit: as an aside, I honestly think this is why female characters can have beards when their male counterparts can. It's one less bit of code to put in and bug, and who cares if you want a bearded lady anyway?

This

Not only that, but the lolth sworn dialogue I've gotten seems to reference her background, leading me to believe this is a place holder until they impliment backgrounds. If I'm wrong, and it stays this way in the final release, oh well

Swen announced long ago that the background would not matter in the dialogues. At some point you have to say stop.
Include backgrounds in the dialogue would be just too much and as you know neither the budget nor the timetable is not made of rubber.

When Swen said that, was he talking about the backgrounds that provide proficiencies? Because that's not what I'm talking about. Maybe background is the wrong word. Place of origin? Because that already does affect the dialogue. For most races it assumes you're baldurian. Seems like an odd thing to force on players.

I'm yet to see any place it locks you into picking a Baldarian dialogue option, and it does make sense; you were 'recruited' in the streets of Baldur's Gate after all, so you're either a traveller in the wrong place at the wrong time... or you live there.

It's sprinkled here and there. If you're looking for an early example, there's a Baldurian option when you first encounter Astarion. If I remember correctly, the dialogue implies that you have some lingering history in Baldurs Gate.

Drath said much of what I had started saying before, but didn't post because I felt I was writing too abrasively at the time...

Onward from that,



There are drow that have abandoned Lolth and chosen to follow Eilistraee instead, definitely... but that's a personal, moral, social and/or religious choice... is should not, under any circumstance ever imply that it is something irreversibly determined by your race - which is what the game currently does.

It's a choice, not a thing of race or subrace, and part of the entire difficulty that surface drow face is *Precisely* that surface-dwellers have no real way of distinguishing them from the kinds of drow that would enslave and torture them... because they're All Just Drow. They don't HAVE a neat little get out of gaol free card that lets people identify on sight the fact that they're the "nice good safe drow, and not those nasty bad evil drow", because there is no such identifier; they are just people making a personal choice.

This is a large part of the whole point of what it is to be a surface drow trying to be good, and BG3's racial distinction here is completely obliterating it like a tactless, ignorant wrecking ball, as well as reinforcing and making tangible the concept of racially distinct "good drow" and "evil drow", which is, frankly, absolutely disgusting. Remember: where video games and source books contradict, the source books are considered to be the correct and factual canon. The source books are clear enough on this matter: all drow express eyes of varying pale shades, with red being the most common (the red hues are also more visible in the dark), but with a range that includes blues, purples, lavenders, lilacs and silvers.

This applies to all drow, though drow with mixed blood from other races more commonly trend towards the blue end of the spectrum, and BG3 is pulling this line about Lolth "marking her followers with red eyes" entirely out of its own orifices. At least it gives you the option of unlocking the full colour chart. The whole "Evil Drow Have Red Eyes" thing is absolutely and entirely non-canon. It's false writing, and is attempting to create a narrative of physical racial distinction between "good" drow and "evil" drow which doesn't exist and is really very gross. Othering by eye colour is one of the most common racial slurs that exist at cultural levels, and generally the derogatory comes from an existing trend, however in cases like this, that racist epithet is just that - it's not real or accurate, and while that kind of language, judgement and behaviour may (and does) exist in the world space between characters, it should absolutely not be enforced as a legitimate racial difference when creating characters.

Yes; As a surface drow, unless you're dealing with people who already know you, it would be common for people to be extremely cautious of you, and to perhaps assume before they learn otherwise that you have come from the underdark... that is what you must expect as a surface drow; it's part of your struggle.


I really don't care about what's "easier for coders", overly much. To address some other posters here; that's entirely irrelevant. What matters is the presentation to the players; the job of the designers and coders is to make it work.

You would not, ever, need any mysterious "sub-sub-race" distinction, because Drow are Drow, full stop. There is no racial distinction. That is the point, which BG3 has missed entirely with this implementation.

The game's tag system is already set up to support the only implementation that you would need for this: It can already read and deliver a tag for being the follower of a specific deity. That is all that is needed. Everyone should be able to elect a deity (or choose none specific or some other neutral option if they want, etc., that's a different discussion). A drow that picks Lolth would have both the [Drow] and [Lolth] tags, and that is ALL the game needs to support everything that it currently offers and does for drow. Drow that choose a different deity would not HAVE that [Lolth] tag, so the Lolth-drow options would not appear. Lolth followers who weren't drow (if you're still allowed to pick such a thing...), wouldn't have the [Drow] tag, and so the lolth-sworn options would not appear for them either. And yes, there are places in the game already that present options responding to a double tag read - that's already a thing that we've seen the game can handle. A Non-lolth-following drow would be a default setting, and it would provide Lolth-following drow the option to 'pretend' to be 'good drow' if they want to. Certain dialogue situations could present Non-lolth-following drow the opportunity to pretend to be lolth-sworn drow as a deception check, such as in the shattered sanctum or in any future dealings with absolutists.

There is no strange or unique or weird coding needed to do this properly, and in fact, doing it the way that BG3 does it currently is actually more code complex, more 'exception to standard' in places and overall more work for Larian than it needs to be if they didn't make multiple distinct drow sub races, or drow as a distinct race from elves.

No worries on abrasiveness here -- unless you are finalist for a job at Larian in which case good luck, they need you

I don't have a problem with saying 99 percent of race (species) X is evil. Orcs are evil. Goblins are evil. And every so often a Drizzit or Liriel Baenre breaks the mold. I want there to be a mold in place and for players to have the ability to break it.


Yes, mostly. But I still like the the 1st through 3rd edition way of dealing with this. Good gods made servants, evil gods made slaves. Drow are born with evil entwined in their very souls. If you are lucky to grow up in the high forest the slave's collar is broken -- if you are born in the underdark you are taught to forge the links of the chain that binds you to Lolth.


Well said. People can't see your soul. Perhaps they can see a holy symbol you are wearing -- in which case it would be nice to have holy / unholy symbols in the game and to have NPCs react to them.


Larian needs to put alignment in the game. WotC is letting them get away with everything else, they can get away with this as well. I don't have have a problem with fantasy races being inherently evil. What I do dislike is when fantasy races are used as stand-ins for real world peoples. (looking at you Tracy Hickman) And I don't think the drow -- sophisticated, effete, intelligent, charcoal skinned, treacherous and cruel -- fit the stereotype for any single real-world culture and so the "inherently good" / "inherently evil" is not something that bothers me.


Race doesn't mean the same thing in the Forgotten Realms that it does in our world. Or rather what is fantasy in our world is real in this fantasy world. Dwarves and gnomes are different races. Americans, Swedes and Koreans are all the same 'race', all members of the same species.


Well said.


Agreed. At the same time I think Larian struggling to figure out what do now that WotC has made the bonehead-stupid move of confusing fantasy race with real world racism. Were I at WotC I would have dealt with the crisis by putting someone with an understanding of real world racism in charge of approving art. In the past, there has been art of drow that almost certainly used black models as templates -- that was a stupid move. There is one book cover that looks like it was taken from a Tarzan novel and the leapard print swimsuits replaced with spider web themed swimwear. Dumb move. Worst move since inventing Matizca (which will be a dissertation one day)

Larian needs to remove the Seldarine / Lolth-sworn distinction and replace with deity and alignment.

Now the art in Mordenkainen and Tasha's is great. It's perfect. Stick to that and

I think the Duergar equivalent would be if Larian split Duergar into ''Laduguer-Sworn Duergar' and 'Morndinsamman Duergar'. Nevermind that there isn't a good deity in the Duergar Pantheon, because 'Seldarine Drow' doesn't restrict clerics to Eilistraee in game.

Ideally stuff like the [underdark] tag would be a toggle where appropriate. I guess it's sorta a freebie atm because otherwise you probably wouldn't get a tag, kinda like how gale doesn't get the [Baldurian] tag, but also doesn't get a [Waterdhavian] tag in exchange. Now I'm thinking about it, it is pretty weird that when you roll a non-drow cleric of Lolth, you still get the [Baldurian] tag (or presumably access to the [planar] tag if you choose the profoundly odd choice of a githyanki cleric of lolth) There's actually a book you can find in the underdark Wizard's tower that seems to justify the non-drow clerics of Lolth as indoctrinated slaves. You'd think they'd have the [Underdark] tag if anything, but the Baldurian one seems out of place either way.



Clerics could definitely use some more love. For such a roleplay-heavy class in tabletop terms (big part of the appeal, IMO) they don't get a lot of god-specific responses and reactions, even when talking to other clerics/druids, etc. Dialogue options for displaying your holy symbol & appropriate npc reactions would be pretty great. I'd love to get some dialogue's going about my character's religion in much the same way you can get characters like Shadowheart or Abdirak proselytizing at you, because those were great-but that seems like a long shot.


I agree 100%. But WotC has had a profoundly bad track record in this regard both historically and within recent memory. The 3rd edition thing where Eilistraee died to 'redeem' her drow followers by lightening their skin color springs to mind. Speaking of which...
I read a thread on another board earlier today analyzing an art shift in how Drow were portrayed in Tashas. Specifically, they are *significantly* lighter-skinned than even prior 5e material. Across the board-In some cases basically Asterion-levels of pale, and he's a vampire-spawn moon elf! It seems like part of WoTC's strategy towards combating allegations of bigotry over the evil elves being black-skinned....is to remove the black skin of said elves. Yikes.

I don't know what it is with this obsession with changing drow's physical appearance, because it inevitably ends up making things incredibly uncomfortable because nobody seemingly thought about it for more than 5 minutes. Drow redemption being signified by changes in physical appearance is something I hope doesn't make the final cut. Like if we reach Baldur's Gate and run into some Eilistraeens and they're all violet-eyed I'll be cross.

To be fair to Wizards, I'm fairly confident that that whole thing wasn't actually within the source book lore of any edition at all - quite the opposite, in that Eilistraee is all about drow acceptance and empowering drow as they are, and encouraging them to forge a true identity that brings together and promotes unity, *As Drow*; that there is nothing wrong with looking the way they do, and would generally find the idea of forcefully changing them into something else, under the idea that somehow what they are is 'bad' to be an abhorrent concept.

The whole deal with drow 'redemption', and with drow being 'purified' of their dark skin by Eilistraee's salvation, was solely the province of the War of the Spider Queen books, which is a series that Wizards likes to try and pretend was never published - especially since it specifically disregards and flies in the face of so much of the other surrounding and related lore both past, present and future of it, and instead shoe-horned entities (such as Eilistraee) into complete nonsense that ran against their established descriptions and character, just to fit their rather gross and disgusting narrative in regards to race. No 2e, 3e 4e or 5e source book makes any mention of this kind of 'redemption' or 'purification', nor of 'evil-red-eyed-drow' Vs. 'good-blue-eyed-drow', at all, and the book series in question has, for all lore purposes, been entirely overridden and disowned by Wizards.



Unfortunately, the way that Larian handles race, racism and differences between peoples, in their other games, leaves me with the distinct icky impression that they follow the same kinds of gross mentalities that the authors of WotSQ did, and worse in some cases... so there is a strong possibility that that is exactly what we can all expect to find, and there is very likely to be nothing we can do about it. If the race-related tone and language continues to be handled this way, as it already IS in BG3 so far, it may even lead me to give up on the game as a whole, just for being too unpleasant to sit through (Mechanically, I Wanted, very much, to play through D:OS2 a second time, to do other things... but I simply couldn't bear the background radiation of extreme racism that pervaded every story element, and, more importantly, being forced as a character to go along with it, accept it and treat it as normal and okay, without objection; I couldn't stomach a second play through, for that reason).

There are some weird stuff about tags already as well concerning drow.

When you play a half drow, sometimes it works, like in the grove where Zorru mentions usually your race is not a welcomed one on the surface. But then later, in the village, the line from the goblin on the roof when he lets you pass because he assumes you are with Minthara doesn't show up.

Does it mean goblins are more accurate in discerning you are not exactly a drow than druids or tieflings? Or is it some unintended inconsistency?

I don't really know about this, Drow are subterranean race that live in the underdark. There was some kind of war that Drow fought Feywild lost and followed Lolith their, supposedly it was a big shocker cause Lolith doesn't have ties to whatever creature that made the underdark.

From what I understood you don't just leave underdark or abandon Lolith, you live underground dominated by a evil deity that rules that place with a iron fist. It's a cut throat society, where no other deity or anyone is going to save you. You don't get to just walk out and say F this.

Now if there is a group of surface drow that follows Eilstraee, there is probably a story behind it, hence why its separate, because of story. This is Forgotten Realms and it has lore from a lot of different media. Just like how you don't get to pick your origin which is only Baldur's gate.

*edit
After some digging and oh buddy there is a lot of lore to dig through with Lolith, Eilstraee, Darkelves, and Drow. So basically Drow are decendants of Dark Elves, supposedly look diffrent and there was a spell that was cast on Eilstraee followers. With this, yes the drow "dark elves" are going to look way different than the current drow we know (possibly having brown hair).

This seems like a very minor thing. Can you play a drow? Yes. So why is it a big deal that they are listed as their own race?

As for the two types of Drow they went with, they did this for story element purposes. Certain dialogues are triggered based on whether you are Llothsworn or Seldarine. It's a video game. Like the druid wild shape choices, they can only allow for so much freedom. The idea is, are you basically a good Drow or evil Drow?

As for religion, only if you are a cleric do you truly pick what god you serve, so whether you are Seldarine or Llothsworn, it makes little difference. Even when given a choice as a Llothsworn to mention Lloth, it is just an option. You can ignore it and choose to even forget Lloth and serve the Absolute or not. It's still all up to you who you serve.

I'd rather have Larian focus on more important things than taking the Drow race and throw it in as a subrace and rework that whole thing when the end result is still going to be roughly the same as what we have now.

Tasha's was great for its illustrations of wood elves, but not so much for its illustrations of drow, i'm not sure how WoTC managed to drop the ball so badly for one, but not the other.

But on that note, drow themselves have had their skin change colour from edition to edition, they have been black, grey, charcoal, eggplant purple (the less said about that the better imo), and were even depicted as brown at one point around the 2e years, but everyone likes to forget that happened because it was widely considered to have been an error of judgement on the part of the illustrators. Look up the original cover for the crystal shard novel and see Drizzt in all his bad-idea-brown glory.

I'm also not a fan of separating drow into racial factions like this, I wasn't a fan when they did it in neverwinter online, and that was an obvious and unashamed cash grab, and I'm not a fan of it now.

Honnestly this is nearly my only problem related to this thread. Should our races and subraces choice influence our "alignement" and how the world react ? According to me : no. A drow is a drow and good actions should lead to good reactions.

I don't really care but I don't understand this choice about drow as a race with subraces. This is even not really subraces...

Sorry, Fallen, but this incredibly vague and nebulous set of details is largely incorrect or misinformed; some elements of it are vaguely true-ish, about as vaguely as saying "some kind of war", but in general, if your research doesn't get you to the point of consistently spelling the central deities' names correctly (Lolth, and Eilistraee), it's hard to give what you're saying much weight.

The Drow did not fight the Feywild; that's a place.
No-one 'made' the underdark, save those responsible for the creation of the entire material realmspace.

You do just leave the underdark, if you are a drow that develops a conscience or decide you cannot live within drow society any more, and you decide getting out is what you want to do, yes. You won't be able to come BACK, most likely, but getting out in order to flee to the surface is less of a difficulty for an individual drow to decide to do, depending on their rank and position (particularly important or valuable drow may have assassins sent after them, naturally).

There are a number of deities that you can turn to even within Drow society, besides Lolth. In Lolth-dominated communities, it's generally not a good idea to worship anyone else, of course, except in secret, but even Lolth only shares about an equal footing of worship with Vhaeraun, an equally evil and malicious deity who actually does promote gender equality and the importance of personal actions defining worth, rather than your particular squishy bits (don't misunderstand, he's every bit as dark and nasty as Lolth). Beyond those two, there are several others that drow may worship as well; Selvetarm has his share of direct followers, as does Zinzerena, and in secret there are yet many who do offer prayer to Eilistraee even while serving Lolth and the Lolth-driven society on outward appearance.

There is also a long history of various uprisings and resistance movements within the underdark drow society, such as those committed to ending Lolth's tyrannical rule entirely, or those seeking to break the religious stranglehold that her priesthood holds over much of their society, or even those who seek an abolition of slavery and slave-taking.

As mentioned, the whole "Eilistraee 'purified' the drow and magically changed their physical appearance to make them lighter skinned as a 'reward' for being good and as a form of 'salvation' because dark skin is inherently bad" is a construction of one particular series of novels which goes directly against virtually every other piece of relevant lore in existence on the matter and which Wizards have retconned thoroughly and disowned as applicable canon... and with good reason.

There are many drow the dwell on the surface, and many of them do indeed worship Eilistraee. They are not a race, or a subrace of people. They're just Drow. Who are Elves. Just Drow who made particular choices about their own lives, or who are the children or descendants of such drow.


As mentioned already in this thread, this is to do with the tag system, which, also as already mentioned, is more than capable enough, and indeed would have an easier time of handling this distinction and division if Drow were a simple, single subrace of elves, and payers could elect a deity regardless of class, as we should be ale to do.


And the very idea of baking that choice into a FACT of your RACE, that you are locked into from character creation, and have baked into you as part of your literal biology is absolutely freaking disgusting and no-one at all should be acting as apologist for Larian for doing this. It's positively VILE.

In THIS part of character creation, you are picking your biological race and subrace. Who you worship, and whether you are a good or evil aligned individual should NEVER be baked into this particular choice.

The world should definitely react to what race you choose, especially if it's drow. Unlike our world in which every kind of racial stuff has to be erased for SJW sake, in forgotten realms, most surface races will assume you are evil if you are a drow or a druegar. And one of the main difficulties you have when you play one is to amend yourself and present evidence of your goodness in order to be accepted.

If it wasn't there, the principle of race itself wouldn't mean anything and everyone should be playing humans with different attributes.

Yea I agree that's not what I meant but I didn't write it well. To summarize if you're a drow you're a drow and everyone should see you as a drow. There's not a good drow subrace and an evil one.

Your actions makes you good or evil. Not your subclass.

Interesting. To my mind, the original 1st edition description of the drow -- white hair, jet black skin -- has an obvious real world analogue in a photo negative. Take a chodachrome photo of someone who seems fairy like, view the photo's photo negative and you have a drow. Ground / underground was a way of capturing the doppelgänger archetype -- these are skeksis -- this a race where the dark self and self have been split into two communities and not really an analogue for real world peoples.

(but it was intended to be comment on real world gender relations -- but I digress)

I hadn't realized that War of the Spider Queen involved Eilistraee lightening the skin of the drow. That's a problem and possibly the UR source of this problem. Might have to read that. (and if so WotC might do well to apologize for that)

When I look at Tasha's I see artists using colors that make it clear that the skin tones are not like human ones. Drow go from charcoal to coal and, were I a WotC artist, I would avoid coal as color because that could easily be confused for a human skin tone. I'd go for charcoal and I would emphasize the blues in the black colors. Which why I selected it as unproblematic. My favorite 5e drawing so far is the Matron Mother in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes -- ethereal, unworldy, timeless.

Somewhat off topic but doesn't Vhaerun want to institute a patriarchy no less oppressive than the matriarchy of Lolth?

That is a bit odd. Half drow tend to be looked down on by Drow for their human blood, and by everyone else for their drow heritage. So it would make sense for someone like Minthara to take note of the ditstinction, but for most other people, they see a half-drow, and they'd mentally think 'drow' first. Even for folks who would readily make the distinction, Half-drow tend not to have a particularly good rep as a group-the Crinti are pretty infamous in Southwestern Faerun.


Niara and I touched on this, but the Darkelves/Drow thing is a touchy subject. The thing with Eilistraee and the spell and the drow turning back into brown-skinned dark elves originated in a series that's been effectively marginalized into obscurity by WotC...and IMO for good reason.

It's definitely a mixed bag, IMO. WoTC has definitely gotten a better leash on the artists this edition for more consistent art direction....but the art direction itself has been very mixed, IMO. I really like that the Sylvan elves and Gold Dwarves are now depicted more in-line with their discriptions....it was a bit awkward that you'd read descriptors like 'earthen', 'copper' etc as descriptions of skin color and the illustration more often than not showing a Caucasian-skinned elf or dwarf. On the other you have weird-as-hell decisions like making Moon elves blueberry skinned, and the skin-crawling choice to make drow pasty-grey/white. I'm not particular on the specific hue of Drow skin color-Greyscale/purple/obsidian-some variation seems fine to me. Brown was a poor choice though, for obvious reasons.

Sign me up as fan of eggplant purple




Edit:


I think that's the emerging consensus on this thread. But I still want to retain the -- enslaved to an evil god and somehow freed themselves aspect of the drow story.

I think they should have used the term Underdark rather than Lolth Sworn. It makes sense for this to be a separate tag because the cultures of Underdark and the surface are completely different and would definitely have some influence on how you would react to things, changing the name would remove the implied alignments and deity.

People should definitely treat you with caution no matter which Drow subrace you are. Only the player and perhaps perceptive Drow would be able to determine where you came from. The subraces should be just for player dialogue options.

When you choose to play a human, the game doesn't ask you to choose between being a human that grew up in an orphanage or a human that follows Lathander, nor does it ask if you are a good human or an evil human - you're just a human. I don't understand why it should be any different for drow. They are conflating race/species with cultural background and personal alignment. That's not to say that cultural background and alignment aren't important aspects of a character and potentially useful mechanics in the game, but they should really be separate questions. The way that they have combined these things is confusing, inconsistent, and somewhat offensive for reasons already well explained upthread.

For an example of this sort of thing done well, Pillars of Eternity split it into separate questions:
-What is your race/subrace?
-Where are you from?
-What sort of life did you lead before all of this started?
They are clear about what they are asking, providing a decent amount of contextual information as well as the mechanical impact of each of the options so you can make an informed choice. This feels like a pretty good bar to shoot for, and questions about deity and alignment could be added easily.

It's different for Gith, Duegar and Drow because the respective gods of the races made claims to those souls at birth. Humans, surface elves, halflings etc are born free to choose. In one case choice is assumed, in the another choice is a heroic act.


Switching from (fantasy) race to culture doesn't get one of this conundrum. (note that I am giving voice to opinions I do not hold) "Why did Spain have the right to colonize south america? Because those cultures were -- culturally -- evil. They practiced human sacrifice, they took slaves, they practiced ritualistic torture . . . If they convert, all will be well."

So we have the same problem of othering expressed in cultural, not racial terminology. Race was not as important to the Spanish as it was to the English (come Americans) because in England you had the rise of a new class that was in need of a new ideology to justify their action while in Spain republican movements would be stymied until latest days of the age of empire. You can actually find accounts of advocates of indigenous genocide in the U.S. being made by people who believed that the 'other' was biologically superior in some way.

Witness Matizca -- the South Americans Matizcans are all evil despite the fact they are all humans. The colonial power, Spain Amn, is not evil but Lawful Neutral. The clash between civilization is just inevitable and tragic.

(again, who the hell approved this setting?)

So 'culturally evil' takes us from the frying pan of 'racism' to the fire of colonialism. I truly believe that moving from (fantasy) race to culture causes more problems than it solves. Better to say that:

1. Fantasy races are not analogues for real world peoples (and have policies in place to make sure this is the case)

2. Race does not exist in the real world. You hairy footed friend is not really part halfling despite what you might suspect.

3. Unlike in our world evil is real force in the world and evil gods exist.

So evil gods make some 'races' evil and a handful of individuals are able to break the chains that the evil gods have bound around their souls.

And to be clear, @grysqrl and all -- I do think that you should be able to choose alignment and deity in character creation for all races.

I just really, really think WotC is making a mistake by moving away from alignment and we are seeing it here -- people like alignment so Larian is trying to sneak it in. But the new way of sneaking it in is more problematic than the old one. We should be able elect alignment, just like in Pathfinder, just like in Solasta, just like in BG2.

thats fine

To be clear, I meant no ofence or attack, even if I spoke a little harshly; the leading apology was intended genuinely.

Don't worry about it Niara, just not having a good day. I'll do a actual reply another time.

It's actually the Lady Penitent series where that occurs, which is a sequel trilogy to the WoTSQ series. Though you might want to read WoTSQ first for context since WoTSQ sorta 'sets the stage' for the LP. From there, Empyrean Odyssey is sequel trilogy to *that* where the infamous Spellplague gets kicked off. Basically a congo line of escalating-ly questionable metaplot decisions. Shame, because there were parts of WoTSQ that I genuinely enjoyed, with an interesting premise whose potential was just never met for a variety of reasons.

Staying away from hues that could be taken as human is for the best. IMO. WoTC seemingly deciding to whiten the drow to avoid the controversies to my cynical mind-very typical WoTC always taking the easy way out. If they wanted to counteract the racial controversies, addressing the Curse of Ham stuff D&D fans have had problems with for ages might have bee a good place to start, but hey...what do I know.

more to subject, IMO the seldarine/lolthsworn is a clunky and weird distinction mechanically, but I wouldn't mind it nearly as much if they weren't treated as in-universe distinction-iirc you can find the terms being used in game somewhere which is jarring, because they really weren't forgotten realms terms before this game. 'Spider-kisser' was a term, but 'loltsworn'? no. Certainly not 'seldarine drow'. The eye thing though is much worse than some new invented terms.


That's a question that does not have a simple answer. He actually promises cooperation and equality of the sexes, and some of his clergy make good on this dogma and form societies where Drow men and Women are more or less equal. The thing about Vhaeraun though is that he's also a bit of a sociopath who will tell people whatever they want to hear if it gets them on his side. Priestesses of Lolth will be told he'll grant them wealth, power, that they'll be installed as the new matrons after the revolution is over, or that they'll be his chosen or even his consort. He tends not to make good on those promises though-they (and everyone else) are all just tools to him. The statistics laid out in the demihuman deities give has 1% of his clergy represented by these undercover clerics, now keeping in mind that these would be mostly female....less than 1% of his entire clergy is female. Clearly traitor priestesses making the transition and new female clergy being joining the ranks is basically not happening in practice. By contrast, Lolth's clergy is 4% male. So yeah, the Drow god who espouses gender equality has worse gender equality in his clergy than Lolth. It gets worse. One of the big dictates Vhaeraun has is growing and spreading. Vhaeraun's worshippers are really active in the slave trade. I'd really rather not spell it out how those are connected. Suffice to say he's a really evil and insidious deity.

I dont think choice of your race is influencing your "alignement" at all ... O_o

I mean, in EA you can certainly play lolthsworn Drow who help druids and tieflings, and overall is so good, he almost have halo ...
Also you can certainly play Cleric of Tyr that is so huge a*****e that even Baal would be ashamed of him. O_o

So ...
Feel free to call me foolish, but i believe that subrace of your Drow sugest that in some futher parts of game we will visit Menzoberranzan (or more likely some smaller Drow-focused area) where our red/white eyes will give us some unspecified options in dialogues, since NPC will expect us to be one of them.

Okay. My point is, you can play a Drow. Why do we care whether it is listed as a race or subrace? And, so far, the only dofference in gameplay between playing a Llothsworn amd Seldarine Drow that Ive found has been in a dialogue option or 2.

So most of the game you still can choose to be a good or evil Drow whether you are Llothsworn or Seldarine.

This said, I agree with a few who say that it is actually immersion-breaking to create a Llothsworn and have them still act like they are loving, kind, sweet people. I will admit that choosing a Good or Evil Drow thus makes certain moments of the game feel off because if you are Evil you'd have more evil dialogue choices throughout.

So I don't mind Drow as a subrace or race, as long as I can play one. I will say that they should probably do away with the Llothsworn vs. Seldarine subrace or at least call them Surface vs Underdark. Then if you want dialogue choices, have Good, Neutral, or Evil be character creation choices for all races.

As a side note: Why don't Drow have sun aversion? THAT was more of what I expected as a difference between the 2 Subraces. I thought Seldarine would have no sun aversion and Llothsworn would.

It is not up to us users to overcome our confusion and think about what was easier and faster from the coders' perspective. It is up to the coders to think about what is better interface and presentation from the users' perspective.

On the topic of presumed difficulty of coding a more sensible interface,

• As I said in my previous post (p2, top), the devs are very capable of using more than just Race and Class to get tags. Notably they can use Deity (currently a parameter of the Cleric Class only).
• As far as Races are concerned, and parameters associated with them, High Elves can choose a starting cantrip and Half-Elves can choose where to put their flexible +2. Obviously Half-High Elves can do both. So I have a hard time imagining that a Drow Elf sub-race of Elves that could choose a Deity/Alignment parameter could possibly be anywhere near a difficult thing.

On the topic of presentation,

• Presenting two mechanically identical sub-races and asking players to understand that, in that very specific case, they not really selecting a sub-race like they would for any other race, they are really selecting a Deity/Alignment, is plainly poor and confusing presentation.
• When choosing the Race of Half-Elf, you have 3 sub-races : Half-High Elf, Half-Wood Elf, and Half-Drow. This Race is for individuals that are part-Humans part-Elves, and the 3 sub-races correspond to the 3 sub-races of Elves ... oh wait ! Why are Drows then not listed as a sub-race of Elves ? Why can I not choose a Half-Lolth-sworn Drow or a Half-Seldarine Drow ?

In a sense, yes, this is not the most important and urgent thing. It is probably less important than things like Group/Ungroup All, hotkeys for Standard Actions, etc. But it doesn't mean it's fine either. And the "can we do the thing ?" test is most of the time not a good indicator of whether something is acceptable or needs to be worked on, in my opinion.

In the UI/presentation/ergonomy category :

• Can I then have Gale memorise/un-memorise spells of level 2 ? Yes. But that's no reason to have the level 2 section of the "spells menu" polluted by the upcast version of the level 1 spells.
• Can I choose Colossus Slayer when choosing a Hunter, and can I choose Riposte when choosing a Battlemaster ? Yes, but it's clearly bad presentation to put these choices above the choice of the subclass.
  (In the past I've said this from an intuitive-theoretical point of view. You don't need your own empirical data or a qualification in User Interface Design to think that the order of choices should follow the reading order : top to bottom. Last week I played a bit with a friend, who isn't very familiar with BG3, and who did get confused when reaching Ranger level 3. So now I have a bit of empirical confirmation.)
• Can I transfer all my equipment to sell on the inventory of the character with higher Charisma before talking to the trader, just so as to have the best price ? Yes. And it not tedious in the slightest.
• Can I choose Elf Blue 2 and Elf Blue 3 for eye colour ? Yes. Ah ... these ones got moved next to Elf Blue 1, where they belong.

In the controls category :

• Can I put the whole party in Hide mode ? Yes. But that doesn't mean the way to do it is any good.
• Can I have the whole party jump over a broken bridge ? Yes. Ah ... well, this one got improved a bit in Patch 3.

Anyway, I'm not too concerned about whether Larian should solve Problem X or Problem Y first, which one is easier to solve, which one impacts quality of life the most, etc. Some things should be higher on their list of priorities than they currently appear to be. But so long as they solve everything by the time of the full release, it's ok.

Drow are a 'villain' race, that exist to be something players can fight/kill without any pretense of morality. They';re known for worshipping an evil goddess that has them do evil things, spiders, matriarchy and being really evil; Lloth specifically blesses her followers with red eyes to mark them as 'hers'. If you play a good drow in BG3 you can specifically reference this when the character talks to some tiefling children, warning them to run if they see drow with red eyes. Is that racist? It's a snap judgement based on the colour of a drow's eyes, but this is also a race that has a very justified reputation. Even if you try to be good amongst Lloth's drow (and are caught) it... will not end well for you. Best case scenario, you're quickly killed.

This entire thing is because (I suspect, I'm not up to date on details) people and WoTC got fed up with drizzt (himself a massive outlier) clones, and made an entire group of not-evil drow for people to stop contradicting the canon.

No, she doesn't. That's the problem.

Drow, as a people and culture have the reputation you describe. Drow. Not the "magically easily identifiable evil drow", just Drow. There are not "Magically easily identifiable good drow with the special magical pass that lets people know they're good" either.

Drow that have abandoned their society and culture and sought a better way do exist. More of them now than ever, in fact. Enough that there exists a minor populace of them on the surface, and there are even drow that have been born and grown up as surface drow, never connected with Lolth or drow society at all. Unfortunately, they're still drow; they still look like drow, and they are still likely to meet people who will want nothing to do with them - or even to kill them - based on that fact alone. They are not a different race or even sub-race. Race has nothing to do with it; they are Drow, and they don't have an in-baked fact of racial physical distinction to prove that they are 'good', or that the other ones are 'bad'.

The whole "This group is a separate race and two separate sub-races, and they have visible physical differences to tell you who is evil and who isn't, based on their race" thing - that's not Wizards. That's Larian. And it's gross.

"Good" Drow (the actual alignments vary, but they are non-evil) make up about 15% of the total population of Drow, and most of them live either on the surface, or in the upperdark away from the big Drow population centres.

Also Drow have been migrating away from Lolth since 2e, this is not a new thing.

Bingo.

Here we have Vhaidra and Nathyrra-two drow assassins. One of them follows Lolth, the other Eilistraee. Not the sort of distinction you'd want to mix up, and not one you can tell by the color of their eyes.

For a more extreme example, mistaking this violet-eyed drow woman for a 'seldarine drow' would be just about the worst mistake you could possibly make. That's Eclavdra, Lolth's highest-ranked mortal follower in D&D. With the same eye color that 'Seldarine' drow get by default in BGIII, same eye color as the famous drow rebel Drizzt.

But besides that, ignoring all the non-red-eyed followers of Lolth, we should think about what the ramifications would be if every drow who turned from Lolth had his or her eye color change. They'd be killed on sight if it happened in a drow city. Because in a society like Lolth has built where religious dissent is punishable by death or driderhood, an obvious physical distinguishing characteristic like that would effectively be a death sentence. Similar to one of the criticisms of the LP series in which a bunch of drow worldwide spontaneously had their skin color change to mark them as no longer 'tainted' by Lolth. An express ticket to your own funeral.

To quote the character creator in Baldur's Gate III: "Loth marks her followers with bright red eyes so the Underdark will learn to fear drow on sight."

That's what character creations says. It's not in 5e lore, though. Larian made it up.

The red/purple eyes in BG III is an invention on the part of Larian that contradicts established lore spanning 5 editions of D&D and multiple decades. Pointing out that Larian wrote that into BG III doesn't prove anything, because wee are very much aware of that blurb-it's the precise target of the criticism here.

There's also a post directly above yours with multiple examples of Lolth-worshipping drow who weren't marked with red eyes. with pictures, if that would help.

I wonder what this isn't new "brilliant" WotC idea.

Ok. I will admit, the lore is totally off. You are right there. Then again, I don't think any video game has truly done Drow right. Can you think of a single video game where a Drow was:

4'7" to 5'5"
87 to 157 lbs
Long hair with pins or webbing made of metal
White, black or purple teeth
Possibly pale yellow hair, or even silver or copper

But yeah, whether Lloth followers or not, it is common for Drow to have red eyes, but they can also have blue, white, pink, purple, silver...and it doesn't matter who they serve.

Thats how lore is made pal, someone made it up ... and WoC approves it as canon.

I believe you are messing two things up here ...
And its race and worshiping.

Feel free to corect me if im wrong, but Llolth-sworn Drow seem to be to be simply Drow who was born inside society of followers of Llolth ... was raised in her image, and know all thing that such Drow should know ... we can expect that s/he would have Llolth-sworn mentality bcs of those things, but its not a rule, since individuality is still possible.
And s/he have red eyes, since Llolth claimed his soul when s/he was born, as mentioned previously.
No matter if s/he personaly do, or do not trully worship Llolth when adult, and responsible for his own believes.

Then there are Seladine Drow ... wich can be translated as "the others" ... meaning any Drow that was not born into Llolth-sworn society ...
And they do have all other eye collors.

Of course all surface dwellers will simply tell you exactly what you said: "it is common for Drow to have red eyes, but they can also have blue, white, pink, purple, silver..."
But surface dweller hardly knows all social groups between Drows.

Lol. You know, those are some good points. Larian made it up and WotC did not say they couldn't. Like it or not, it's canon now baby. Lol.

Same with race, people. I guess Drow have now evolved to being their own race.

I really don't care. I can play a Drow, they're my favorite characters that I've made, they look cool, they have different dialogue options even from each other because one is Llothsworn and one is not, Im good.

Actually, the standing precedent is that video games are considered to be acceptable canon if and only if, when and only when, they do not conflict with or make declarations on material covered by the source books and other official PnP publication material. In places where video games make, do or claim something that is also spoken about in the existing source books, the video games are considered secondary, and are not accurate canon unless they agree with the primary sources.

Drow, Drow society, Lolth and her worship, as of current lore, are defined substantively enough that this game's declarations about marked eyes and such is strictly off-canon, as are their definitions declaring Drow to be racially distinct from elves, (they're not; they're elves), and declaring there to be racially distinct sub-sets of drow. Please, bear in mind: we have literal decades of lore about Drow and Drow society, and the struggles, dangers, prejudices and difficulties that face Drow who do choose to break free from it. Nowhere, in ANY of that, does any element of it EVER point to their eye colour, or make any comment of it being a marker... They aren't writing new lore, they are being disrespectful to existing lore that has a greater precedence, greater wealth of sources, a stronger backing, a longer history and overall far more legitimacy than their game.


What you're presenting here, if you leave out the utter garbage about Lolth making their eyes red and cliaming their souls, would actually be a quite reasonable depiction of the situation... however, you do have to leave out said utter garbage for it to be reasonable, and even then, the issue is that this is you putting that supposition onto the space, because the game does not do that. They could do that, but they don't. They leave it at "There's two racially distinct species of Drow and one is EVIL and the other is GOOD, and you can TELL beause of their EYES!!" Which, as mentioned, is utterly appalling. If they actually presented it in a way that suggested that what kind of Drow you are or choose to be is not an immutable fact of your physical birth, that would actually help, a lot.

This is honestly not what i see when i open the Game ...

Its close, but kinda oversimplyfied and a little off, not much but a little.
It seem to me like you are either forgoting or ignoring individuality that Larian allows us to express ... races are nothing more than image of our own society, not our character ...
So ... i would say, to just tune your words a bit:
"There's two racially distinct species of Drow and one SOCIETY is EVIL and the other SOCIETY is GOOD, and you can TELL beause of their EYES!!"

That seem a little closer.
It dont say anything about your *character* it says all you need to know about *standard people between wich your character was born, and raised* ...
It also affect if your character will have "racial" dialogue options more tuned toward good, or evil ... since that is society s/he is from.
You are still perfectly able to play "odd Llolthsworn Drow that will be totally good" but you would never be typical Drow that is good ... unless you choose society of Drows that are typically good.

I don't have an inscription about eyes in game in my language. I am not familiar with DnD, and for first time I defined it as "There are Drow who worship a Goddess", later I learned that Lolth is an evil goddess. And there are Drow who have given up on this and taken other side.

That's how I understood it, not that "red-eyed drow are evil." Later, I began to delve into the specifics of the race outside the game to better understand it. But I believe there is no indication in Drow description that they are evil because of the color of their eyes... I don't think that the limited choice of eye color is a problem. Also you can easily "turn on all colors" if it annoys you so much.

I tried to warn you folks. D&D fans be like StarWars fans. Details tick them off if messed up.

But it is true that WotC is behind this game. If they are saying Lloth gives Drow red eyes now, then Lloth gives red eyes now. Right? Disney made it so Leia could fly through space with the Force like a super hero, so that is now a Canon Force power, and now Lloth gives red eyes to her Drow followers cause WotC didn't stop Larian and tell them it's wrong.

Unless they take it back now because they realize they screwed up and Lloth doesn't really do this. 😄

That's fair, I'll pay that. It's still a problematic issue as long as the visual racial distinction and eye-marking-god-claiming stuff is left in, however... because it still runs utterly against the established lore and undermines a massive portion of it substantially...

I'm not ignoring Larian's permissiveness in terms of dialogue agency... I'm just not impressed by it. Far too many inappropriate things are gated behind race, in terms of dialogue. Certain lines that literally anyone should have access to and should be allowed to offer if it suites their character, are locked away behind specific race tags, and that's just deeply unpleasant, and a poor way to handle it. It's creating and perpetuating gross racial stereotypes and baking them into a statement of 'actually that's real', at a player level, when it shouldn't, and it's disgusting.

By all means there should be race-locked dialogue options, but they should be comments related to history, culture and knowledge... right now they aren't; right now, they're things like "You can only threaten to eviscerate this cretin if you happen to be one of those "Racially Evil Drow!"", "You can only plead for people to clam down and not get into a fight if you're one of those "Racially Pacifistic Halflings"" and "You can only be incredulous about space travel if you're a "Racially Bumpkin-like Halfling""... no-one else is allowed to suggest those things, when ANYONE should be able to, regardless of their race!

Funnily enough, if they actually re-worked the character creation screen so that it was all individual sub-race picks, without the stepped category or race and sub-race, a lot of this issue would be less of a problem... If your choices were simply one level of race choice, listing "Lightfoot Halfling", "Stoutheart Halfling", "Wood-elf", "Sun-Elf", "Drow", "Rock Gnome", "Forest Gnome", etc... then there would be no game-level declaration of Drow as separate racially from elves, and the choice of whether you socially follow lolth and her culture, or don't, could just be a drow choice within that pick, and not a classification of race or subrace... If it were set up like that (and they dropped the lolth-marked eyes rubbish), I may not have even made this thread... It wouldn't be an ideal fix, but it would be very close to an acceptable one...


Out of curiosity, what language do you play in? I ask because in the english client, there is very definitely a textual indication that lolth marks the eyes of one particular 'sub-race' of drow, at a racial level.

I do agree with a lot of points you make. I found it odd in reverse when my Llothsworn Drow had no option other than something good. I can't remember the scene offhand, but the point is that if you aren't going to have players select an alignment then you need to give them all alignment options in dialogue regardless of race and such so that if Im playing an evil Drow I can be evil all the time but if Im a good Drow I can be good all the time. I mean, like you said, some exceptions apply, of course. Lae'zel, for example, should be friendlier to other Gith and have different dialogue options. That kind of thing.

I actually think itd be better for Larian if they'd just did make alignment part of creation so it limited your particular character's dialogue choices. Wouldn't that be easier than trying to make sure all dialogue options were available for all characters?

Either way, I also think deity should be a choice at creation for all characters. Not a race choice but deity choice. Heck, choosing deity could be used to determine alignment. I choose to be a follower of Tyr. That makes me Lawful Good. I follow Eilestree, that makes me Chaotic Good. I follow Loviatar, etc. If you pick None, for deity, you are Neutral. Make that the tag that directs most dialogues with race only directing a few.

This would be nice and make a lot of sense. The only part I would add would be some dialogue options for where you grew up, like Underdark (they already have Baldurian) since the possibilities are so great.
This would have allowed for them to make many more dialogue options. I am wondering how they are going to treat Duergar, if they will be a subrace of dwarves or separate like Drow. Agree about that eyes part, they could simply remove that sentence. All the eye colours are available for any race so I don't think leaving the starter choices as they are would be an issue.

This would be horrible. I don't know of anyone who plays alignment that rigidly, not to mention there are too many variables with it. If alignment is added to character creation it should never force us to play only that way throughout the game.
If they add all the rest of the deities (or at least a much wider selection) then I would agree for this to be in character creation. I don't think this should determine alignment though, maybe if the one step rule was brought back it would be tolerable. It is still rather restricting, some people may want to play as followers of one deity or be a certain alignment and as the story progresses they will want to change as their character develops.

Even if they wanted to introduce alignment, they cannot, at least as long as WotC doesn't change their mind.

This is Larian's campaign, and if the DM says X, then X.
I remember 2nd edition tieflings. Vs 5th edition... things can and do change quite significantly. If WoTC are okay with Larian making drow from Lloth red eyed, then that's how it is.

Limitations of dialogues in RPG is known issue for last few decades ...
But you are still completely able to threaten "cretin" ... not just with the same words, and those words you mentioned are used only by Evil Drow, since tat Evil Drow is using natural fear of his race on someone ...
NO Halfling will ever be scarry, when he will talking about how they do think in Menzoberranzan.
But he still can threaten others, just will have to find some own mojo ...

If you find some options to be missing, its not fault of racial tag ...
Its just missing options.

I must say tho, it would be certainly interesting to allow Seladine Drow to pretend they are Llolth-sworn ... for surface dwellers it should be quite easy, and it could provide some bonuses to threatening ... but in Underdark, or when talking to specific NPC that can tell the difference, it should provide us disadvantage.
I would love such thing.

Kinda too many words, since the only change you made is merge Seladine and Llolth-sworn Drow into single race.

Im sory, but i DO want Drow to be separate racially from elves ...
Since they are. :-/ Actualy in litteraly every matter, social, kultural, appearance, racial traits, stat bonuses, the way world see them ... all of it. :-/
If you want Drow to be just another elves, since they are elves with "only different skin collor" ... then i want Gnomes to be just another elves, since they are elves with "only different size". :-/

Im affraid not ...
Its much easier ot create 9 dialogue options and allow us to decide wich one is fitting us the best, than create 9 dialogue options, then redistribue them between 9 alignments ... then create some more, so it dont feel so empty ... and then constantly hearing people sobing about provided options dont fit them enough, knowing that there is actualy allready implemented option that would fit them perfectly, its just hidden under another alignment.

It certainly should, but at same time, i would like to allow both Seladine Drow, and Llolth-Sworn Drow to pick any other deity ... i mean, i would have no problem with renaming those two races, if that is what bothers people ... but i still want both Evil and at least Not-so-Evil society of Drows.
Its culture vs. individual ... and personaly i believe it would be shame to loose this.

And how about some kind of "sugestions" in dialogues?
Like i dunno ... change collor of that dialogue option, or add a little star to certain dialogue option ... just something (optionaly turnable on/off, ofcourse) that tell people something like:
"You created worshipper of Tyr ... this dialogue options is fitting Tyr's expectations the best ... but the choice is obviously yours."

And why is that? Why Can't my halfling ever say "I don't like being insulted, do that again and I'll gut you in an instant"? Why? Why can't my human, or my tiefling say that? It's a perfectly normal sentence that literally ANY character of such a threatening inclination might say. why is it that ONLY the "Racially Evil Drow (tm)" are allowed to say that? Why, Rag? Why are you defending that?


That's a very narrow view of character; A halfling who grew up working with the underground anti-slavery and abolitionist movements beneath Calimshan, and who had moved through various connections into more broad reaching work, and now helps support and supply the subversive abolitionist movements that hide themselves within drow society further into the underdark, who knows exactly how they treat run-aways in Menzoberranzan and has the notches on his belt to prove it, may well want to tell delicate know-it-all princesses like Shadow to step off before they talk like that to him again... Can't though. Can't, purely because I'm a halfling. Purely because of my RACE. Thanks Larian, and for shame.


You're the first person to mention skin colour in this thread. Facetiousness does not, and will never, win you any credibility. All it does is make you look like a fool with nothing to add to the discussion but pointless ridicule; you're not, so please don't act like one.

Drow. Are. Elves. It's SUPER IMPORTANT to their cultural identity.

They are racially distinct from wood elves, from sun elves, from moon elves, etc., However, they are ALL elves. They ALL have different cultures, lifestyles and societal structures from one another. They are all still elves. The fact that Drow are of the elven people is incredibly important to who they are.

This isn't even a discussion; it's just a basic fact of the world space.


How about rather than pushing for a reinforcing of groups of people being branded as evil and not evil based on a locked in, in the blood, distinction of race choice (which is what it currently is, no matter how much apology you make for it)... you instead petition Larian to change this so that your background - that is, the society you were born and raised in - is something that you choose as part of your... I don't know... Background? Not your Race? You're talking about social history; you're talking about upbringing; you're talking about where you've come from, and what you begin the adventure believing... all of that, which is what you're talking about here... that's all Background. It's not race. It shouldn't be decided by your choice of race.

I agree that I would like Good or Evil as a choice somewhere in the creation, or make it based on Deity choice so you gain like a tag based on Deity. I chose Tyr, so people might treat me better if they know this. I might choose Selune, so Shadowheart might hate me. Shouldn't be just a Cleric choice and shouldn't be a Drow choice either. Everyone should have to pick their Deity or at least select None.

As for whether Drow should be a separate race, I don't care as long as I can play one. That said, it wouldn't hurt to put them as an Elf subrace.

One point I will make, though, is that in many video games, Dark Elves are separated out. I think people who don't know D&D well get confused if they don't. Do game designers make Drow their own race so players know it's an option.

Am i?
I specificly told:

"If you find some options to be missing, its not fault of racial tag ...
Its just missing options. :D"

That dont seem like defending to me. O_o
At least i could say with clear mind that it was not defending.
On the contrary ... yes, this specific sentence could be and should be usable by anyone ... if you need to hear that from me ... but i still dont think its fault of racial tag, i still believe the fault here is that sentence should have ben usual intimidation roll ... possibly with racial tag giving that roll a bonus. :P
Since no matter if you like it or not, some races are simply more scary than the others.

That is certainly a nice story ...
But unless he had it tatooed on his face, how exactly should anyone who is talking to him know that?

No matter how badass your halfling is, when he meets someone new, its simply just a halfling ...
He may of course try to intimidate anyone, just as anyone else should have that option ... but you cant possibly expect your enemies to know your history, unless you take that time and tell them.

I dont believe its because of your RACE ...
Its bcs there simply is not intimidation option with every dialogue ...
And that is just to make sure that when we will intimidate anyone, it will have some impact on story ... its kinda dull, when you have seduction / intimidation / persuation / deception ... in litteraly every single conversation.
For two reasons ... 1) it gets boring, since they all usualy leads to same result ... 2) It takes away part of complexitiny in char. creation, since once you have proficiency with single of those options, you can dump all others.

I think we missunderstand each other here ...
I didnt want to claim that Drow are not elves (that would be truly foolish ), i just dont see any reason to create mess with including them to elves as sub-race, since they are sooooooooooooo different from every single other elves. o_O

I just feel like i said the same ...
I mean when you compare High Elf and Drow ... there i major differences ...
When you compare Wood Elf and High Elf ... the differencies are more like nuances than anything so major ...

It sounds to me like quibble ...
Society is made up of members of your race, their behavior is the behavior that your surroundings will expect from you ... and not on the basis of what you have experienced (ie background) but on the basis of what they see at first sight (ie race)

Maybe you aren't intending to defend this game design choice, but it very much comes across as though you are with the way you've worded things previously. A discussion of how we speak and how things come across isn'' really a major part of this dialogue so I'll spoiler it out below, but do take a look through, please; I'll say in advance, it's intended in a friendly and good-natured way, because I feel as thought there's a legitimate issue of communication and speaking past one another here, and I don't want to fall into an argument based on a misunderstanding.

This is a conversation about what our characters can or cannot say To NPCs.

You said that I could still threaten the person in question, just not with the 'drow' lines; the drow lines that have nothing whatsoever to do in any way with being a drow, and are just generally threatening, and which we're in agreement everyone should be able to say if anyone can... the point being that in game right now, that is not true. That halfling Cannot tell shadow to step off with her back-handed insults. ONLY a "Racially Evil Drow(tm)" is ALLOWED to make that threat. That's the problem; no-one else is allowed to tell her to step off at that point, at all.

It IS because of your race in this case, and Purely because of your race that you can't; another character can, and this character can't, and the defining reason for the difference, the mechanical explanation for the difference, is RACE. It seems that we genuinely do agree that it shouldn't be - but it also comes off in your talk as though you're still trying to claim that it's not a distinction based on race and race alone, when the pure and simple fact of the game right now is that, undeniably in the mechanics, that is exactly what it is - a racial block to a completely mundane normal dialogue choice.

I am heartened that we do at least seem to be on the same page for agreeing that such lines shouldn't be. Despite the back and forth, it sounds like we're actually agreeing on that score at least.


Moving on,


Putting one branch of the elven people off on its own, as a separate race, as though they were not part of the elven people, and then giving them sub-races of their own, that are not racially distinct groups but only socially and culturally distinct, yet still calling it a racial distinction... THAT is a mess. THAT is awkward and counter-intuitive. Putting a branch of the elven people in next to the other branches of the elven people, under the race of elves, is explicitly not a mess, nor confusing. It is exactly what one would expect, and the way it should be.

I've enjoyed the game so far but, as a fan of drow, there is something I am a bit puzzled by. When I try to make a drow a cleric they only have freedom to choose a deity other than Lolth is when they are seldarine. I think lolth-sworn drow should be able to have deities other than Lolth, she isn't the only one in the dark seldarine (adding the rest other than Eilistraee would be interesting too), but the only one drow can be out about worshipping to stay alive and not be sacraficed or turned into a spider monster. And what if people wanted to roleplay a drow from the underdark that slowly moves away from Lolth over time in game? That isn't really allowing them that freedom, assuming we will be able to pick a deity like our companions have later on due to their level up screen. And to my understanding the drow who are seldarine are ones that did not go to the underdark and lolth-sworn are ones who did go to the underdark? If not does a drow's eyes change when they renounce their allegiance to Lolth? That certainly doesn't seem like the case for Minthara. Maybe that should be addressed somewhere once the game is fully released. Although if I remember correctly Drizzt had purple eyes from birth? And the two types of drow function the exact same in stats so it almost makes separating them kind of.... redundant except for the different descriptions that could be put together as a race description. I understand why they are not one of the other elves in character creation though.

I for one LOVE the Drow content so far, but I can see how people can become confused when they're not grouped with Elves. The UI for the race selection is straightforward and all options have at least the same sized icons.

As I read another post asking for this, I just wanted to come back to this older thread, summarise why the current situation of Drows as a Race is poor choice, and add in some new information that Larian released recently (post Panel From Hell 8).


I'm going to leave aside the fact that Larian's choice isn't quite so compatible with D&D lore (where Drows are Elves).

I'm going to leave aside the fact that Larian is implying that there is a connection between Subrace (what an individual is from birth and cannot ever cease to be) and who they worship (which is but one of many cultural aspects and can change through an individual's life). I find that implication very poor taste, but hey, Larian's view on this, and world-building, and lore, is Larian's view.

I'm also going to leave aside any discussion about the appropriateness of naming one Subrace Seldarine Drows (it doesn't mean anything to me, despite the fact that I feel I am decently knowledgeable about FR lore ; quite possibly it was never defined before).



Drows as a separate Race is a poor UI choice.

Firstly, consider the other groups from the Underdark.

The Gnomes from the Underdark (the Deep Gnomes) are categorised as a Subrace of Gnomes. The Dwarves from the Underdark (the Duergar) are categorised as a Subrace of Dwarves. And so it would only make sense that Elves from the Underdark (the Drows) would be categorised as a Subrace of Elves.


Secondly, consider Half Elves.

This Race is divided in 3 Subraces that are named Half High Elves, Half Wood Elves, and Half Drows. The first two (High Elves and Wood Elves) are Subraces of the Elves Race while the third (Drows) is a Race of its own.

This is an inconsistent rule for categorising and naming the various kinds of Half Elves.



Thirdly, consider the two Drow Subraces.

They have no mechanical difference.

For every Race other than Drows, if the Race has Subraces, these Subraces come with mechanical differences. Drows break that pattern.

What's a new player to make of this ? If there is no visible difference, what's the difference ? Good question, but don't expect to find text in the character creator explaining to you that this choice of Subrace is actually not truly a choice of Subrace but rather a choice of a tag that will be used for in-game reactivity.



Larian's rationale for the choice of making Drows a separate Race with 2 Subraces.

The arguments above were made long ago. Larian, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they weren't good enough reasons to re-organise the presentation of the Drow-related player options.

In a recent video published on GameSpot (4:03), however, Larian explained their reasoning for taking Drows out of the list of Elven Subraces and making it a Race of its own. It goes like this.

They decided to split off the Drows into a separate Race, in order to highlight how much reactivity/gameplay/specificity there is behind playing as a Drow.

I have no doubt that this intention is going to be crystal clear to the new players who will jump in BG3 without having listened to that GameSpot video, without having player Early Access and without knowing about tags and reactivity.


In summary, Larian's choice to make Drows a Race, with a Seldarine Subrace and a Lolth-sworn Subrace, makes the character creation UI inconsistent and illogical. But it also doesn't properly communicate to players that signing up for a Drow (and a specific Drow Subrace) comes with extra reactivity.



Suggestions for a better character creation UI.

• Make Drows a Subrace of Elves.
• Have Drows choose a Deity an Allegiance/a Group : Lolth-sworn or "Seldarine".
• Include text, preferably not in a tooltip, to explain the meaning of this Allegiance (this is not standard D&D Lore), and to explain that this choice will greatly affect reactivity (mostly dialogue options), much like a choice of Deity.
• Have Half-Drows also choose an Allegiance.

Benefits :

• More logical and consistent UI.
  
  Elves have 3 Subraces. Accordingly, Half Elves have 3 Subraces, one for each Subrace of Elves.
  
  Subraces have mechanical differences. Accordingly, the choice of being Lolth-sword or Seldarine, which comes with no mechanical difference, is not a choice of Subrace.
  
  Half Wood Elves get Fleet Of Foot, just like Wood Elves. Half High Elves choose a Cantrip, just like High Elves. Accordingly, Half Drows choose an Allegiance, just like Drows.
  
  
• Better communication of the reactivity of Drows and their Allegiances.
  
  Broadly speaking, it's probably not great design to implement 10 Races but have some be superior choices. So it wouldn't necessarily be a good idea to explicitly say "Drows are our favourite. You'll get more reactivity if you choose this Race".
  Just like it would probably not be good to explicitly say "short Races are a bad idea. We don't like them so don't expect great reactivity or Halflings that look good".
  But at least, there would be text clearly informing players that choosing this or that Allegiance will affect reactivity. Perhaps, if Drows (and Half-Drows) are the only Subrace to come with a choice which is non-mechanical and only-for-reactivity, players will get the hint better than if Drows are made a separate Race.
  
  
• More player agency.
  
  Why is it that if I play a Drow, I get to choose which Allegiance/Group/society my character come from, but if my character happen to be a Half-Drow, I can't ?
  
  It doesn't sound like a stretch of the imagination to envision a character with an Eilistraee-following Drow parent who married (or just shared some good time with) a Human, and passed their Eilistraee-influenced values to their child. Like it's not a strech of the imagination to envision a Half Drow whose mother was a Human slave used for pleasure by a male Drow, and who decided to show the full-blooded Drows that he or she could be meaner, badder, more treacherous and Lolth-fanatic than them.
  
  
• Minimal work required.
  
  There's already a UI to let a Subrace choose options (e.g. High Elves can choose a cantrip). There's also already a UI for the choice of Deity, which applies a tag to the character, and that tag can trigger special reactivity. All there is to do is to replace the list of Deities by a different list : {Lolth-sworn, Seldarine}.

Extra suggestion (in case the goal is to do things well rather than half-arsed) :

• Actually, don't have Drows (and Half-Drows) choose an Allegiance from the list {Lolth-sworn, Seldarine}. Make them choose from the list {Lolth, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun} (or more). In fact, don't call this parameter an Allegiance. Just call it a Deity and make it be the same as the choice of Deity that every character should have. Then, when generating tags for a character, if the character's Race is Drow and the Deity is not Lolth, then apply the same tag that Seldarine Drows currently receive, and voilà.
• Stop using the term Seldarine for Drows that don't follow Lolth. Eilistraee isn't part of the Seldarine (the Elven Pantheon). Vhaeraun certainly isn't either. And I don't think I heard that the Seldarine are ok with Drow followers.

Well said @Drath Malorn

We call this "a solution in search of a problem."

Like bitcoin!

Who needs Bernie Madoff anyway?

That's a lot of effort to fix something not broke.

I dont really think this is matter of worshipping ...

More like who claims your soul after you die ...
I mean if i remember ingame description corectly, it says that their Red eyes are mark from Lolth that she will claim them.

Wich seems significant enough to me. :-/

---

Also ...
While i perfectly understand compulsive obsession with sorting things your own way ... it was main (and often only) reason for all my hotbar feedback.
I dont really think that having them separated makes Drow any less elvish. O_o

Dear Niara!
I heartfully agree with your comment, in the matter of fact I already made a thread about this (with not too much comments¯\_(ツ)_/¯, BTW I'm happy about that I'm not just the only one who wish a game that not just correct to that (stupid) E5 but correct to the world FAERUN!), but what they do/done with the elves (not just the drows) is wrong! Not to mention how deeply doesn't fitt in this way with the other races as well! Doesn't matter what the E5 stupidity (sorry but for now must say it clearly because it is what it is) said about this, just because in the E5 some persons wanted to make make simplify (or wanted to higher the "wow and cool factor" to make similar to Skyrim) the elves, that doesn't make the Sun elves or the Moon elves magically "high-elves" and just as you said doesn't make the drows other than DARK ELVES which is a subrace of the elves!
Somehow in "Dragonborn" or other cases (for example dragon blooded sorcerrer) they can make the whole thing with just some X in the right square instead of separating the race to "other subraces" or "other races" but somehow they can't do that with the elves (just because that way have in that stupid E5) how interesting!
So if they want(!) they can do the sameway just as the dragon bloodlines choosing: put the drows under the elf tab and inside the drows are two squares one for the Lolth sworn and one for the Seldarine! BUT NO they don't do that just because again that's the way in the E5!
Just as I wrote in my thread they have the freedom to correctify what's wrong in the E5, and the point that is the "game is in FAERUN" (which already have hundreds of novels) is much more higher category than that damn E5 but they won't listen...
BTW here is my original thread:

"Please Larian, for last time and for the God Sake, PLEASE CORRECTIFY THE CHARACTER CREATOR! (or C.C. for short in the future)

I know you wish to implement the tabletop rules, and I get you use the E5, BUT even in the E5 PHB that’s Incorrect, Wrong, Illogical ...etc.! (don't wish to continue the listing but can)
There is a category which is far more HIGHER than the E5, namely: the game is in FAERUN! And in the tabletop it's easier to call just "High-Elf" the elven subraces which have the same statistical traits (and I bet that was the idea (doesn’t matter how st#*.. was that idea) behind in the E5's naming) but absolutely incorrect when you could have visualization of the characters!
Did anybody ever read a Novel in Faerun (or any other fantasy world) where the characters description looked like this or played any tabletop where the DM was soo poorly described the character as: "In the road coming an elven subrace who have +1 racial bonus for intelligence (or +2 for Dexterity and +1 to Charisma)..." NO!
So the elven subraces naming not just come from their skill traits, BUT FROM THEIR COMMON VISUAL TRAITS AS WELL! So even for this viewpoint to call a "Moon Elf" or a "Sun Elf" simply a "High-Elf" is WRONG especially when we can see it clearly! (Shadowheart and Astarion is "Moon Elf"s (and half) as it is, and the Counsellor in Waukeen's Rest is a "Sun Elf" as hell!)

BUT OK, I putting away this OBVIOUS REASONS for a minute, because not every player read the novels. Let's see just strictly from the view of the world (Faerun)! So "Faerun Common Knowledge 0.1" The word "High-Elf" is a "COLLECTIVE NOUN/NAME" for EVERY SELDARINE ELVEN RACES! So the Moon Elfs, Sun Elfs, Wood Elfs(!), Wild Elfs, Seldarine Darkelfs (or Seldarine Drows(!)), Sea Elfs, Avariel winged Elfs, Lytharis (wolf shapeshifting Elfs)...etc. THEY ARE ALL "HIGH-ELF"s! So the "High-Elf" word only can't use for the Lolth Sworn Dark Elfs! I don't emphasise how stu#*.. is this even in the E5 PHB! (but luckily in tabletop game every D.M. have the freedom and choise to not use this stu#*..)
So as races and subraces we have High-Elfs and other High-Elfs "who's not so High-Elfs" or we have "Higher High-Elfs"? => Wrong, Illogical, Incorrect etc. etc. etc. even from this (and BTW all) viewpoints!

Oh and another point, somehow can implement the other races "correctly" but somehow that doesn't work with the elves (just because from that E5 stu#*...)....
All right so throw away the LOGIC, throw away COMMON KNOWLEDGE, do it this way, BUT(!) in that case please make a separate race for the Gold Dwarfs (Eartheart (fromerly Great Rift) Gold Dwarfs, and Wandering Gold Dwarfs) the Duergars (Underdark living Duergars, and Castaway Duergars) the Shield Dwarfs (Citadel living Shield Dwarfs and Wandering Shield Dwarfs) the Githyankis (Gith Sworn Githyankis and Renegade Githyankis) the Half-Orcs (Civilized Half-Orks and Wild Half-Orks) and almost forgot to make every Human archetype as a different race or subrace as well (Rashemen, Amn, Tethyr, Calimshan, Halruua, Chult, Cormyr, Turmish, Chesenta, Mulhorand, Thay, Impiltur, Sembia, Damara, ....etc. etc. etc. Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Zakhara) Because with that E5 "logic" done with the elves, this would be the logical decision with the other races as well (just for fitting and equal)! Wouldn't be so much more logical and easier to just finally correctify the (that E5) mistakes in the Elf races and subraces and make them not just correct but more fit to the other races as well?!

So dear Larian Studios please finally understand that there are players in the world who's not read the novel because they played the game or the tabletop, THEY PLAY THE GAME ONLY BECAUSE THEY READ THE NOVELS AND LOVE FAERUN! So please create not a strictly E5 correct game but a "FAERUN CORRECT" game, because that's the Higher Category! And have the "Creator’s creative freedom" to correctify what’s wrong even in the E5!
So even if it become or came out just as a Day1 Patch, just as I started: Please for the last time and for God Sake, PLEASE CORRECTIFY THE C.C.! Because in this way is Wrong, Irritating and Annoying as hell!"