Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Intelligence in 5e.

While there are ton of things i love about 5e, there are also some questionable things that i believe can be changed for the game.
Right now i want to tell you about stats and i believe that in a dnd game every stat should be viable. Naturally, when people create a meta character, they optimize their main stat and have a dump stat that they think isnt important for their character. Lets see, what a person thinks deciding their dump stat:
Str: Jump distance, Encumbrance, Carry distance, Push, Str checks. For martial classes jump is very strong due to absence of disengage action and also just a better way of moving in combat(currently), but for a spellcaster not that good of a stat.
Dex: AC, Initiative, Dex checks (Acrobatics, Lockpicking, Sleight of hand, Stealth). Dex is a god stat of 5e and literally nobody would want to dump it.
Con: Hp max, Con checks. Doesent look too impressive until you realise that most con checks are super deadly and everyone wants those extra hp. No dump here either.
Wis: Druid/Cleric/Ranger casting ability, Wis checks(Perception). You dont want to lose perception, and wis saves are all around the place, especially considering having mind flayers and all mind control theme.
Cha: Warlock/Paladin casting ability, Cha checks(persuation, charm resist). Your pc will be talking quite often with your companions, so you cant really just leave all the talking to your warlock.
Int: Wizard casting ability, Int checks(arcana). The ONLY reason to have int is to be a wizard, int saves are incredibly rare, the only decent spell that targets Int are phantasmal force and phantasmal killer which might not even make it to the game, sure mind flayers themselves have some nasty things that target int and pre nerfed int devourers were devastating but we wont be fighting mind flayers like 95% of time. The other int checks like arcana and religion are also very rare.
So my point is, if you are not wizard you most likeley will dump int, there are little to none benefits of having it. In 3.5 things were diffirent however, int gave you skill points, which made sense. I understand that giving you something like 'extra proficiency per 2 points of int' might be too much but id like if it was more impactful than it is.

So far in BG3 Arcana, Religion, History and Investigation has come up I think.

These are very helpful tools, and Larian is using them a lot more than most DMs. I personally don't feel it's a dump stat, and unless I have a Wizard in the party I tend to put the crown on my character just to get 18 Int.
Honestly, I think Int is rolled just as much, if not more than Wisdom checks. But both are used very similarly to gain information.

Hmm. INT also handles investigation, which I think is used in exploration, not only perception. Otherwise it is used a bit more in conversations.. All the knowledge skills governed by INT should also be important for identifying magic loot and give info about enemies. But that's not correctly implemented in the game so far. But you're right that INT lost a lot of its importance in the transition to 5e. It sadly even lost its disadvantage being low affecting your ability to speak. Now everyone can speak, read and write fluently by "virtue of its race".

And Nature. at least its stated as governed in character creation

The fact that it has come up doesent make it worth taking over other things. More often that not you succesfully gain information through other means, which involve talking and spellcasting, and other stats have more to offer, wisdom is used to resist things as hold person and shake off mind affecting spells etc.
The only use in normal dnd games were RP reasons, to play as 'smart' character, here it doesent matter at all, you dont get affected if, say, your int was 2, you would barley notice it (unless youre a wizard).

It is not clear which attributes Larian is using for the various tools at present - and crafting is not enabled yet.
Intelligence might be used for things like disarming traps without us knowing, and may be used for things like Alchemy, Poisoners and Herbalist Tools later.

*Might be* but the game uses 5e where traps clearly falls under dex. Crafting should be int based but again it could be completley useless scince you can just loot every trader which is way more eficcent.

Well that's your opinion. I personally see the need for Int when I can get it. The fact that it comes up is why you want it. Sure you can do it other ways, but so can most other stats too.

But yeah 5e is one of those games where not all abilities are created equally. Wisdom is OP because of perception, and how the game handles it. Charisma is OP because you are the face of the party and how the game handles social encounters.
Strength is OP because of jumping and carry weight, and how the game handles inventory. Dex is OP because of Larians inability to understand how armor works in DnD 5e. Constitution has always been a "do not dump" stat.

If Larian just does things a little differently, then the other stats suddenly becomes just as useful as at the table top, where dumping stats is a thing. (Except for constitution)

That is my point, there is no reason Larian should cling to it if it can be imporved. My problem with Int is that if you have dedicated Wizard, nobody in your group would ever want it, there is no benefit for YOU having it, as i said you can have it at 2, and all arcana\herb\med checks will be done by wizard, wis's perception is useful to have on every char and Cha helps YOU with companion dialogues, if you weight all pros and cons int just has less value to YOU as mc and i'd like it changed in some form.

It would be nice if a low Stat of any kind was at least referenced by your companions.

Low Intelligence? Gale doesn't trust you to manage his protocol or is surprised massively when you do.
Laezel pities your terrible strength stat/stature and so forth.

Maybe certain companions even butt in on situations that they feel more equipped to handle, like Astarion taking over a poor conversation where you have failed the first Charisma check and your charisma is a low stat (anyone can fail but if you are obviouls porr at something it should be handled differently). You can tell him to keep out of it andd said companion dissaproves.

+1

I'm always in favor of balancing "dump stats" to be less so. Getting an extra proficiency per 2 points in int sounds a bit strong, maybe per 3 points? Also you should lose a proficiency for an int score of 8 or 9 >:)

And/or a lot of dialogue checks could use Intelligence Persuasion skill checks instead of Charisma persuasion checks. That'd be cool to see.

This is my typical session

Intelligence is mostly only useful for Wizards, but that's fine, because Wizards are awesome anyway.

A DnD group I am a player in uses the houserule that at Int modifiers +3 and +5, you get one extra skill or tool proficiency. Obviously Wis is underserved in this system again.

I would actually suggest the opposite. Int modifiers at +3 and +5 seem to only further reward Wizards-who already would go for high Int-but provide no incentive to other classes. As a Cleric, I'm not going to significantly sacrifice dex/str/wis by spending 7 stat points to get 16 Int for a single proficiency. Might as well put int at 8...

Rewards at Int +1 and/or +2 would serve a better job at tempting players to lose 1 (e.g., dex) modifier in exchange for +1 int and a proficiency.

Considering that WotC has dumbed down D&D it should not be a surprise that Int doesn't do much.

SICK BURN

I find BG3's attributes to be at least a bit more balanced than 5e as written tends to be.

Strength is actually super useful for any melee fighter, even if you're running Dex. BG3, by its nature as a 3-D environment, has waaaay more verticality than most DnD campaigns just by virtue of not being played on a 2-D surface. That verticality has thus made strength way more valuable as a way to get to the high ground quicker or to jump down on an enemy to attack.

Intelligence has also come up a lot more frequently than in my experience. Largely because you can't... "Soft metagame", I'll say. Where your character just knows things the player does if it is applicable. Your character only knows things it is tagged to know based on race/class or what it succeeds at on Int checks.

Arcana comes up a LOT. To the point that even my Githyanki ranger has gotten a fair bit out or Arcana checks. Right at the start you need Arcana to know what the buttons on the ship do. I've also seen it rolled in the background during conversations a fair bit and can unlock new dialogue options. So if you're playing a Face character you'll want at least decent Intelligence along with Charisma so you can know what your character is talking about.

Oddly enough I've not seen many Investigation checks. Making those more prevalent would make Intelligence even more desirable as a stat. Though I imagine Investigation will be a lot more common once we get to Baldur's Gate and inevitably get a "solve a murder mystery" quest or have to deal with rogues and thieves more often.

You only need arcana for your MC if you encounter it in dialogues, and i dont ever recall any meaningful in any way arcana check i encountered that way. For those 'open world' arcana checks you want a dedicaded wizard which would do them for you, as i said YOU yourself dont get any benefits for having +1 int or any drawbacks of having, say, -7.

I've gotten a couple Arcana and History checks in my most recent playthrough. None of it has been big impact yet but I do still like having it just so my character isn't completely uninformed.

As for open world world checks only needing one Int character? Same could be said for Wisdom and definitely could be said for Charisma. Having more than one character who has a decent Arcana score means you get multiple people rolling dice, which dramatically increases your odds of making the check. Same goes for Perception.

Honestly Charisma is the attribute that you only really need one person with it to get by since no charisma check currently happens outside of one on one dialogue. I'd much rather have three characters with decent INT than three characters with decent CHA.