Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Racials need to be better balanced.

I tend to always go Wood Elf for rogues, because I can get up to 8 skill proficiencies at level 1. I don't see why humans can't at least get 1 extra skill. An extra feat might be pushing it.

You also have an insanely cheat item very early which is the 18 int circlet and a lot of cheat builds plan around that and since it's insanely easy to cheese everything in this gimmickfest... I still wouldn't pick a shield dwarf even if i wanted to have better AC and Constitution as a min-max mage, i just don't like them for mages lorewise and visualwise. And you can already hp stack like a madman with any race and if you're a wizard.

I mean racial is the least of our problems when you have at least over 9000 homebrew gimmicks that already break the game like crazy and can be abused to infinity and beyond.

There is also dialogue options; if any of the Tiefling stuff in the grove is to go by, being a Tiefling in baldur's gate might have some issues, which a human might not.

Guys, for the 100th time, it's up to the individual to decide whether they want to abuse the game or not. This is same in real life, you want to be a crook and a cheater then so be it, it's your own choice, it's not Larian Studios or Gods fault. In BG1 and 2 you could roll for god like abilities and in BG2 you didn't even have to, you could get perfect god like ability scores right at the start of the game by discarding your strength and charisma and getting two items that max out your strength and charisma right at the beginning of the game.

So because BioWare broke their game 20 years ago with homebrew rule changes and unlimited stat rolling, Larian has carte blanche to do the same now?

Sound logic professor.

That is not true at all.

The game is VERY hard if you don't use any cheats (including backstab, highground bonuses).
Those cheese are EVERYWHERE and the whole game is based arround them. Our job as players is not to try the game 34 times to understand everything and choose what to use or not to custom our playthrough.

Things HAVE to be balanced even if WTF things aren't a problem. Barrelmancy is really a choice for fun. Everything else is not and really matter in the balance of difficulty.

I agree. As someone who looks at stats as a shorthand description of my character, as well as gameplay enablers, I find Sin Tee's build videos useful sources of information, but the prospect of my party leader being of below average intelligence and likeability because her class requires dexterity and wisdom is just not on. Combat bonuses are only one reason to play a particular race. That said, I really look forward to the implementation of stat rolling which may make it easier for folks to make the character they want to play.

As far as i know, Humans was allways weakest Race in all fantasy i know ... maybe except Dragon Age, where city elves seem to be even weaker ...
Human power is not in stats, since individual human is in any matter worse than litteraly any other race, their strength is in numbers.

Humans are actually very powerful when you give them the extra feat at 1st level. But most classes like Wizard, Sorcerer, Barbarian need 3 good ability scores to be stong at high levels and 1 mediorce ability score so you can sacrifice 2 ability scores. So having +6 stats doesnt really do that much for a class overall because 2-3 of those ability score increases do nothing for you at all or not enough to matter at later levels. Varient humam in same aspect getting a +1 to 2 key ability scores and a feat of there choice as well as skill of there choice is tooled to customize to any class and spec making them more useful in overall. I mean at level 1 having duel wielding / great weapon fighting or shadow touched for example and starting the game with a 1st and 2nd level spell would basically make you strong enough to off set any other class option from a flavor perspective and free you up to take more ability score increases later as well. Which is basically +2 +2 to 2 ability scores of your choice basically. which makes varient human stronger than most races.

At least if they are going to pidgeonhole tieflings into caster play, they could have done a +2 CHA/INT/WIS to cover the caster specs, and they would still probably come out worse than a wood elf or any elf for that matter in any of the caster classes because it's hard to beat 1.5 extra movement and better stealth on top of sleep immunity/charm saving throw or superior dark vision for landing spells in the underdark or the extra perception, or the extra proficiencies.

Tieflings needs something more than just fire resistance because CHA +2 is nowhere near enough to not make them a trap race.

And it's always this garbage argument of "you don't need to optimize, this is an RPG", and the answer to that asinine retort is, it's hard to RP freely when you know you're handicapped and notice the handicaps in the gameplay. Besides, if you're so nonchalant about not optimizing, then don't do it yourself; but why do you care if other players want to be able to have many alternative races to be similarly optimized?

It's almost this cultish, religious attachment to "well, these racials are what is in the rule book right now, which means they should remain this way because I want the game to be a 3D rulebook because it's the rulebook". Just because something IS does not mean it OUGHT to be.

Not sure about other settings but Humans dominated D&D through 3.5e. Not sure about 4e. 5e is the edition where humans got the shaft.

Early editions, only humans had unlimited levels in any class. In 3e, they got a free feat and bonuses to skill points and no restrictions to multiclass.

5e humans are pretty weak. It’s like the developers wanted people to move away from humans. Very odd.

Not really, in this game humans seem especially weak because we don't have variant yet. Plenty of people are drawn to the stat flexibility that Human offers, and all the most outrageous character builds I've ever seen actually played have all been Human or Variant Human. Elves got the most 5e love, because the boys at WoTC love Drizzt and want to suck on his toes.

We don't even have Gnomes yet, and I consider them to have stronger racial abilities than Elves.

But Drizzt is a drow, and drow are the worst elf race in terms of racials, so that makes no sense.

Wood elf, half elf, shield dwarf, and githyanki just leave all the other races in the dust.

I'l also say that despite all the talk about charisma's non-combat uses, DEX gives you increased sleight of hand, which is huge for pickpocketing and stealing. This removes a lot of the early difficulty of the game because you can get scale armor +1 and studded leather armor +1 and the Greatsword/Shortbow/Crossbow +1's really early by just pickpocketing the vendors trivially instead of saving up in between quests for the disorbitant prices they ask (I'll also say, as a Tiefling I found it really annoying that the druid halfling gave me a better attitude/discount for being a druid, but the damn Tiefling blacksmith offers me no such racial alignment bonus, and even when I save their sorry asses from the druid, his attitude and price ranges stay the same).

You would think Charisma would also factor into prices offered by vendors, etc, not that it matters because you can just pickpocket and keep all your gold.

Basically, any race without built in proficiencies and DEX, and particularly those saddled with charisma end up worse than the elven counterparts, and for the martial classes wood elf/shield dwarf/githyanki stand head and shoulders over the competition.

Buff Human and Tiefling racials, and maybe also look at Halfling racials as well. Drow also seems ruined by the random Charisma, and you'd think a race who mastered the underdark would be as adept as wood elves in traversing terrain and stealth.

Em .... Hexblade/Paladin also dex is not a huge factor if you were wearing heavy armor. Which can off set the low armor from a lack of dex. If your wearing plate then the bonus to dex means little to nighting you forget not all the classes / subraces are availilable. Drow as hexblades would be a very strong option. Also your talking about pick pocketing they do give you npcs to cover missing skills. Basic human +1 all stats is kinda meh being honest thats true there is a reason varient human was introduced to replace it. Tiefling racials are fine especially once you factor in all the sub-races for class variety. Halfling racials are fine as well the luck racial is really strong.

Races are geared to be preferable to different tool kits. Drow make good rangers, decient dex fighters. Strong Hexblades, above average paladins depending how you want to play a paladin.

Talking basic statistics Wood Elf and Shield dwarf edge alot of the races in early access currently with classes and subclasses available also because they allow weapon swapping for classes and wizards to cast cleric spells which I am sure they do not plan to keep for live release its probably a matter for the spells of just making sure all the stuff is implimented first. same for weapon swapping im sure at some point a bonus action or action will be required to weapon swap as otherwise its unbalanced in favor of shield dwarf mage significantly because it would just be broken they are basically good at everything currently because of those 2 abilities. I disagree with tiefling racials being bad as the game progresses that is less of a factor as well as the fact that fire resistance is alot stronger than most other abilities on net as a default ability however without all the subraces and access to there level 5 spell like abilities they are slightly weaker in early play and for class selection. If your focused on min maxing there is always going to be slight edges based on specific ability score boosts. The non-varient human will be slightly better if your building a jack of all trades style of bard or min maxing on a paladin but will be weaker with classes like fighter and classes that do not need more than 3 decient ability scores to be good. In the same perspective if they add the ability to roll ability scores that + bonus would be less impactful than additional racial benefits as you would only really be looking for 1 - 2 high ability scores 1 decient abilty score and 3 average scores on net for a character.

I will never agree that fire resistance is not a useful ability score as suprised ect your going to benefit from resistance when fire attacks go off taking 5 damage vs taking 10 damage could be the difference in dying and not dying at low levels with all the fire damage currently present even if your using potions constantly the fire resistance still does reduce the incoming damage and there are a limited number of fire resistance potions less than the number of fights where fire damage is present. At the same time most races with key ability score increases are going to be slightly better at lower levels.

For example assuming they fix duel wielding shield dwarf vs half elf as a fighter or human as a fighter ability score wise having 17 str and 17 con at level 4 there is no benefit over having 16 / 16 because the stat bonus is dead even duel wielding. same for great weapon fighting at level 4 the bonus is no difference your still getting +3 / + 3 however if your going to 18 / 18 then the dwarf is slightly better but gives up 1.5 meters movement meaning its going to take longer to reach the target which movement can be an issue playing melee classes. Another reason why weapon swapping should require a action / bonus action to do as other wise ranged weapons do not have a downside which they should vs melee. You should not be able to use a two handed weapon change to 2 1 handed weapons and then change to a weapon and shield before you end your turn all in 1 turn that is a much larger issue than racial benefits allowed those swaps makes racial choice favor races significantly more with different traits same with different classes have more benefits.

A shield dwarf wizard right now in early access is over powered because oh lets take 17 str 14 dex 17 con 8 int 8 wis and whatevers left for cha because you only need the +2 ac you do not need the int because you can just go get the headband of intellect and off set it. You can use better armor and weapons than any other race early out. You can use your 2 hander change to 2 1 handed weapons change to weapon and shield and you take 0 draw backs. so your looking at base ac 19, 21 with shield of faith. You can cast every spell, you can use great weapon fighting, cast 2 spells every turn and just generally out stat any other character. As levels progress that drops off by early levels and with access to all spells and weapon swapping why would you play anything else if you wanted to min max. Extra attack and other features later help off set this but early out its just busted broken overpowered because of level cap and broken mechanics that havent been fixed. Not purely the racials as the power levels of characters increase.

There is no situation in which a Tiefling regardless of subrace doesn't carry a dead 2 charisma stats. The lv3 Racial spell? Does 11-12 damage, about the same as a Shillelagh autoattack with my 1h club, it's pathetic.

I can count on my hand the amount of times fire has been relevant, and it's almost never useful to have the resistance when having more AC and initiative to avoid the attack altogether or get to go first and kill threats quicker produces a far better result.

In fact, that extra 1.5m native to wood elf is pretty damn big for getting into position and eliminating threat, and with how powerful stealth in this game is if you don't abuse invis pots, the proficiency is just the cherry on top.

I'm glad you can pinpoint a few select classes where charisma is relevant, but that's completely ignoring the point that the classes without dedicated charisma/int and more universal stats like DEX/CONST/STR with more widespread out and in combat benefits edge out the rest, and failing that races who can flex around stat allocation follow close.

I mean, unless you literally stood clumped in a barrel, there's not been a single fire threat in early access whatsoever. By comparison, for poison resistance, you have the goblin shamans, the spiders, several mobs in the Underdark including Bulette, the Githyanki raider, the Gnolls. And more relevant than the damage is the attack roll debuff poison applies, which dwarven racials negate.

Drow won't excel in anything besides Hexblade over wood elf, and if you're playing a Hexblade, you'll grab a half elf drow anyways. But that's the smallest gap. The gap between an elf race flexing a CHA class and a Tiefling flexing a non-CHA class is far larger. In the case of a Tiefling druid, you gain nothing of use to your class. In the case of a Wood/High Elf warlock, you still get DEX, immunity to sleep and resistance to charm, Perception, and in the case of wood elf more base movement and stealth, which all classes benefit from.

if the cantrips and acquired spells remotely compensated for Tiefling racials, that might be one thing, but thaumaturgy and mage hand are such a joke of cantrips, and the lv3 spells aren't any better. To add insult to injury, the lv3 spell you get as a Tiefling uses DEXTERITY as the attack/save.

Tiefling's +2 to Charisma is not even Close to Dead as a stat.
Charisma is the casting stat for Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, and helps to make all three of these good face characters.
By a similar logic, Dwarves are horrible because +2 to dex does not work well for a Strength based fighter or heavy armored character.
Or a Gnome's +2 to Intelligence is dead because it doesn't work well for Barbarians.
And in 5e edition, and something I am hoping will be added to BG3, the stats are just recommendations and every race will have a +2 and a +1 they can move anywhere, and even before that there was the Feral Tiefling variant which explicitly increased Dexterity and Int.
(This is more an argument assuming all PHB races and classes get added to BG3)

HOWEVER, I do agree some things are a little broken. First of all, the casting is not supposed to use Dex at all, it is supposed to be a dex save against you charisma spell save DC so if it does actually scale off of the caster's dex, that needs fixing. Furthermore, enemy casters have rarely used firebolt against me or other fire abilities, varying what casters can and will use will help to make every race shine in what resistances they get.

Also I have every update played a Tiefling Warlock cause that is just my thing.

I'm in the camp that thinks D&D should ditch the term Race and replace it with the term Species, in part to get away from Tolkien-esque turns of phrase like "the race of men" or language which sort of worked at that time and in that fantasy universe, but which feel less well suited to 5e D&D. In the Silmarillion it was heavily implied all the Tolkien races eventually converged into humans as time went on, and that the big 3 shared the same essential source in Eru, so it worked. But in Faerun we got all these monstrous races now like Gith and Tiefs and Half-Orcs and such, where it feels like it would make a lot more sense to think of them as different species. I think one consequence of the 3rd ed experiments was to frame the races in such a way where any race could push basically any sort of stat/class build combo they wanted. Even the way ability bonuses are allotted now. All the races feel way more like a riff on 2e Human/Half-Elves. Its cool for flexibility of imagination but does have a way of making Humans kind of boring by comparison lately. Esp as mentioned above without the variants to spice it up. I don't really know what they could do, but I was thinking the other night that there are very few magical equipment type items that have class restrictions in BG3, and I don't think any that have racial restrictions.

That is one way to liven up bonuses in the game that don't necessarily have to be totally baked in to the class/race/ability choices at char creation. BG1/2 used special items/abilities more as a feature of the NPC companion characters rather than for the main PC, companions with their personal amulates or armors or moonblades or whatever. But something similar could be done in BG3 just geared more towards the main PC. I think you can get a lot of mileage out of magical equipment like that which is acquired early on for characters with specific builds. I don't mean like circlets that raise anyone's intelligence to 18, but things that are geared more specifically towards char creation choices tied to being Humans, or Drow, or Dwarves or whatever. Probably not what the OP was driving at, but its another way to try for an entertaining balance achieved more on the go than at the outset.

The benefit is not only the armor class which may be overshadowed if you play heavy armor, but it gives you initiative to be earlier in turns, which is huge in the harder fights and can make the difference between starting a round with Bulette with 2-3 downed or half dead people and getting to CC chain him before he even becomes a threat.

Charisma is a dead stat for anyone but bard/warlock/sorc/paladin, just as intellect is for non-Wizards at the moment, but Dexterity offers you a benefit both inside and outside combat regardless of class you play.

What's more, dexterity's boost to sleight of hand makes your life immensely easy in the early game in BG3 because of the ease of pickpocketing items you would barely be able to afford only after clearing the whole goblin camp. I'm talking about pickpocketing +1 weapons early, pickpocketing the scale +1 armor, the best armor in the game unless you work with the evil Zentharim to get a single Studded leather armor +1. Let's you stock up on lockpicks, disarm traps, the broken as hell potions all rather early and trivially.

But more importantly, it adds to your stealth ability, which is useful to every class and completely busted in BG3 at the moment, there is no price on landing surprise attacks or trivially gaining high ground without needing to waste a spell slot in misty step.

Dexterity also gives you acrobatics, the ability to resist surfaces.

Then you have Strength giving you pushing capacity for the most broken aspect of the game, pushing enemies off cliffs to their deaths, giving you greater jumping distance for mobility.

You see DEX and STR give you not only dialogue perks, but are the only stats to give you universal combat perks.

Charisma and Intelligence do not. At least Wisdom gives you Perception to detect traps and ambushes.

Moreover, tying the Tiefling racial spell to Charisma instead of choosing the highest of your main stats further pigeonholes Tieflings into 4 classes or watch their racials be useless as a result.

What do I gain from Charisma? A mild to moderate boost in persuasion. Too bad the outcome of persuasion is to often let the villain off easy or to find a way to cower out of combat. They could really work to at least balance out the benefits of Charisma/Intelligence/Wisdom by giving secondary combat bonuses like Dexterity any class can make use of in combat. Charisma could make targets less likely to attack you in combat, unless wearing a shield where it would make you more the center of attention. Intellect and Wisdom could have their own perks, like decreasing the potency of certain status effects or improving them by a %. Just something to make those stats not feel like dead stats if you don't pigeonhole yourself to a few classes shoehorned into the race.

As I gave in the example earlier, a Tiefling Druid feels way worse than a Wood Elf warlock, and it's because some races have powerful racials flexible to all the classes while some have mediocre racials or racials that only work with restricted class combinations.

I think part of the issue is how things around Ability Scores have been implemented. Dex is reigning kind because of how easy it is to break certain jmechanics right now, and only one Charisma class is in play. Add on Frends Cantrip (don't get me wrong, I LOVE the change to friends, it makes it no longer so hard to use) AND Shadowheart giving Guidance, and Social Checks have been mostly trivialized when the RNG isn't deciding to constantly screw someone. It isn't so much that the Tiefling racials are weak, but that Larian has deviated from 5e rules that keep things toned back.

Some racials are better and worse than others but often it feels like comparing Apples and Oranges. Racial traits in particular (taking about traits, not ASI right now) can be better suited to one class than another. Post Tasha's ASI has been detached from race, but a race's inclination still remains in my eyes. A Half-Orc or Orc is still better at Fighter and Barbarian, but I don't feel too penalized making a Half-Orc or Orc wizard, even with Savage Attacks being a dead Trait on any Wizard that is not a Bladesinger.
However, going to the earlier thing of Charisma, I don't think it is close to being a dead trait, even on other classes without Tasha's being in play. Many many people use it as a dump stat, but that translates in the character being statistically worse at interactions and the rare charisma saving throw. Charisma for most classes is not a combat stat so people overlook it, but in a Roleplaying FGame, it is still very important.
And with Tiefling's spells scaling off of Charisma, they still are not quite useless when it is a dumped stat. For example, even if Burning Hands Misses because the Tiefling Fighter dumped Charisma, it still ends up doing fire damage OR in table top, can be used more creatively, like making sure to set a tree or house on fire because something is hiding out in it. BG3 unfortunately can not cover every level of creativity, but I think they should do their best to try and reward using combat spells in out of combat manners, making it that even if it is not good in combat because you dumped charisma, it still can be used. And with the larianisms currently in play, a tiefling casting burning hands should have an easy access to surface ignition, and therefor good combat utility right now, which means even if it missess, it can be combo-ed with a spell like web (which is intended to be ignited).
However if I am honest, I don't think leaning on the Larian Surface stuff is a good thing, as it should be toned back and barrels should be far less common.

If you absolutely feel the need to quote a long post, could we ask that you either <snip> it or enclose it in spoiler tags. At the moment, the thread is being buried under a few long posts that are being quoted in full.