The joy of DnD was race diversity , why did Larian destroy that

[123]

For the record every race having the same racial abilities is a disgusting insult to how Dnd was supposed to be played. I have a mind to refund but haven’t quite pulled the trigger yet.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Ronin Gamer:

Originally posted by Piderman:

Just wanted to throw a question in: so if Races now have no unique stats or abilities, does that also mean that everyone moves with the same speed, no matter the size?

I think it's stats only, not abilities. Those that have dark vision in BG3 still have it, so movement speed is probably still there, but I haven't had the chance to play with this change so I don't have the full knowledge on everything that was changed. It's possible.
Personally I hope not.

A ton of people keep talking about this change giving everyone more choice, but honestly it just makes the races/species choice more boring. If that goes to the abilities too, 90% of people are going to pick dark vision which isn't diversity of choice, that's power gaming.

By removing the racial stat bonuses as well it also means that races went from being objectively better at some classes, objectively worse at other classes or a case can be made that they could do just as well at this other class they don't have the starting stats for but make up for with other traits such as armor proficiency, weapon proficiency or dark vision to just some races being objectively better than other races at literally everything and other races being objectively worse than every other race at literally everything.

[Farsha]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Especially when those "power gaming" aspects that they were complaining about only amounted to a 5% difference in accuracy at lower levels, and only at lower levels.

Let's take BG3 for example, if the floating +2+1 were never applied. I could make a gnome druid. No benefits to wisdom at all. I would, at most, have 14 or 15 wisdom (functionally the same thing) at level 1 using point buy.

By level 12, I could easily have 20 wisdom using the ASI every 4 levels so really my gnome druid would not be that far behind the human, dwarf or half-elf who use the +1 wisdom to start out at 16, which is really only a +1 modifier, and on a d20 that's only a 5% increase.

Thanks to bounded accuracy in 5E it wasn't really that big of a drop. Big enough for players to tell, small enough that it shouldn't have mattered.

Yet people just couldn't get over the fact that they couldn't see a 16 or 17 in character creator for some races for some classes and accept the tradeoff as playing as that race with all of its other benefits in exchange for a slightly weaker start.

BG3 ends on lvl12, most of the game you will be a low lvl.
5% does matter in a video game more than at the table.
Wating your character to have at least main stat optimal for your RolePlay is not powergaming.
It's a good change and an option you don't have to really use.
And Humans and elves will get extra features to compensate, we saw that in their showcases.

[Ronin Gamer]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Originally posted by Ronin Gamer:

Those baked in bonuses don't take away from your score count on the assigning points page, just assign the points how you want to. Even if you don't assign them to the bonus that's baked in you could still build them how you want and then have a minor bonus in their stat bonus.
Unique builds could be made with the baked in stat bonuses just as easily, but for some reason a ton of people got pissy about power gaming antics when those bonuses really don't take anything away from building a character.

Especially when those "power gaming" aspects that they were complaining about only amounted to a 5% difference in accuracy at lower levels, and only at lower levels.

Let's take BG3 for example, if the floating +2+1 were never applied. I could make a gnome druid. No benefits to wisdom at all. I would, at most, have 14 or 15 wisdom (functionally the same thing) at level 1 using point buy.

By level 12, I could easily have 20 wisdom using the ASI every 4 levels so really my gnome druid would not be that far behind the human, dwarf or half-elf who use the +1 wisdom to start out at 16, which is really only a +1 modifier, and on a d20 that's only a 5% increase.

Thanks to bounded accuracy in 5E it wasn't really that big of a drop. Big enough for players to tell, small enough that it shouldn't have mattered.

Yet people just couldn't get over the fact that they couldn't see a 16 or 17 in character creator for some races for some classes and accept the tradeoff as playing as that race with all of its other benefits in exchange for a slightly weaker start.

This pretty much.
While I don't doubt there are those that genuinely agree with this due to diversity and they actually think that's what happens with this, in reality a lot of the whining about stuff like this was because of rpg players who are NOTORIOUS for power gaming nonsense.
A baked in stat bonus doesn't HAVE to be forced to be taken advantage of, it's bonus stats. I could make a dwarven wizard with +2 str and +2 con and have higher armor prof and weapon prof and could make an interesting build that isn't the standard wizard stereotype.
Diversity and choices were certainly there, people just got obsessed over that one or two points that are just bonuses that you could play into your build or just ignore them if you wanted.

[Farsha]

Originally posted by HozzMidnight:

I don't like the change at all. Humans and Half Elves are pointless.

They are getting extra features to compensate.
And they are not useless. You will pick em now if you want to play a human, not if you want to min/max. Which is better no?

[Ronin Gamer]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Originally posted by Ronin Gamer:

I think it's stats only, not abilities. Those that have dark vision in BG3 still have it, so movement speed is probably still there, but I haven't had the chance to play with this change so I don't have the full knowledge on everything that was changed. It's possible.
Personally I hope not.

A ton of people keep talking about this change giving everyone more choice, but honestly it just makes the races/species choice more boring. If that goes to the abilities too, 90% of people are going to pick dark vision which isn't diversity of choice, that's power gaming.

By removing the racial stat bonuses as well it also means that races went from being objectively better at some classes, objectively worse at other classes or a case can be made that they could do just as well at this other class they don't have the starting stats for but make up for with other traits such as armor proficiency, weapon proficiency or dark vision to just some races being objectively better than other races at literally everything and other races being objectively worse than every other race at literally everything.

But they weren't objectively worse. That's what I've been saying. A stat bonus is just that, a BONUS.
It doesn't take anything away from the points you assigned on the last page, it's ADDED to your total. You could still build any of these characters ANYWAY you wanted to assign the points.

[CDI Mario]

while i do agree, having races be better at certian things makes sense, They still have the dragon age origins level of YOUR RACE MATTERS and people reacting to your race, and thats the real fun of each race being different. not really the stats.

[Naked Snake]

Originally posted by Farsha:

Originally posted by HozzMidnight:

I don't like the change at all. Humans and Half Elves are pointless.

They are getting extra features to compensate.
And they are not useless. You will pick em now if you want to play a human, not if you want to min/max. Which is better no?

interesting take. i dont have more to say . still not sure how i feel about whats going on with larain and wotc. but then again i pro play warhammer 40k

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Farsha:

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Especially when those "power gaming" aspects that they were complaining about only amounted to a 5% difference in accuracy at lower levels, and only at lower levels.

Let's take BG3 for example, if the floating +2+1 were never applied. I could make a gnome druid. No benefits to wisdom at all. I would, at most, have 14 or 15 wisdom (functionally the same thing) at level 1 using point buy.

By level 12, I could easily have 20 wisdom using the ASI every 4 levels so really my gnome druid would not be that far behind the human, dwarf or half-elf who use the +1 wisdom to start out at 16, which is really only a +1 modifier, and on a d20 that's only a 5% increase.

Thanks to bounded accuracy in 5E it wasn't really that big of a drop. Big enough for players to tell, small enough that it shouldn't have mattered.

Yet people just couldn't get over the fact that they couldn't see a 16 or 17 in character creator for some races for some classes and accept the tradeoff as playing as that race with all of its other benefits in exchange for a slightly weaker start.

BG3 ends on lvl12, most of the game you will be a low lvl.
5% does matter in a video game more than at the table.
Wating your character to have at least main stat optimal for your RolePlay is not powergaming.
It's a good change and an option you don't have to really use.
And Humans and elves will get extra features to compensate, we saw that in their showcases.

5% doesn't mean much at all, and the racial traits that you get in addition more than made up for it for those who wanted to roleplay the underdog.

Also, based on the rumors of what humans get in recompense for losing 3 attribute points actually suck. The three things are:

1. Light Armor proficiency
2. Polearm proficiency
3. +20 carrying capacity.

Light armor proficiency only applies to two classes, wizard and sorcerer, and mage armor is generally better than most light armor anyway for those two classes. It's on par with non-magic medium armor in terms of AC, without the dexterity restriction or the occasional disadvantage to stealth. Draconic resilience means you don't even need mage armor as a spell if you are a draconic sorcerer.

Polearms are a strength based weapon while light armor is an armor that requires having high dexterity to make the most use of so they conflict, as any class that would have martial proficiencies and use strength would already have proficiency with polearms. Monks are the only class humans can use it with to any effectiveness, and they CANNOT wear light armor while doing so because it would remove the unarmored defense that monks get by adding wisdom to AC.

+20 carrying capacity is just useless. Any non-human can just right click, send items to camp and call it good. It also doesn't make sense that humans could carry more than the larger and stronger dragonborn or half-orcs.

Simple fact is this: by giving +2 +1 to every race in the game it means that some races are now objectively better at every class in the game by virtue of their racial traits and other races, like the humans, are objectively worse at every class compared to every other race in the game.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Ronin Gamer:

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

By removing the racial stat bonuses as well it also means that races went from being objectively better at some classes, objectively worse at other classes or a case can be made that they could do just as well at this other class they don't have the starting stats for but make up for with other traits such as armor proficiency, weapon proficiency or dark vision to just some races being objectively better than other races at literally everything and other races being objectively worse than every other race at literally everything.

But they weren't objectively worse. That's what I've been saying. A stat bonus is just that, a BONUS.
It doesn't take anything away from the points you assigned on the last page, it's ADDED to your total. You could still build any of these characters ANYWAY you wanted to assign the points.

You and I are in agreement.

My argument is is that the change that was made has made some races objectively better and other races objectively worse because statswise they are all the same, so it all comes down to racial traits and which ones are more useful or more likely to be used.

There no longer is a tradeoff to get unique and interesting builds, now you just can build whatever and it's easier to powergame because there aren't any tradeoffs now.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by CDI Mario:

while i do agree, having races be better at certian things makes sense, They still have the dragon age origins level of YOUR RACE MATTERS and people reacting to your race, and thats the real fun of each race being different. not really the stats.

Perhaps in the roleplaying aspect, certainly.

We can't judge that until the game actually comes out. I am certain that Larian won't reject any of the races, but I am expecting more unique dialogue options from duregar, drow, deep gnomes, githyanki and dragonborn than any other race because the other races are more common in Baldur's Gate.

We'll have to see what happens in the roleplaying aspect, but mechanically speaking, from a gameplay and combat perspective, some races are now objectively better than others because there is no tradeoff of racial traits without the bonuses to the primary stat compared to another race.

[Lamiosa]

I am slightly confused. Sometimes people say diversity is important and then sometimes they say everything should be the same. So is diversity now important or not?

[Ronin Gamer]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

Originally posted by Ronin Gamer:

But they weren't objectively worse. That's what I've been saying. A stat bonus is just that, a BONUS.
It doesn't take anything away from the points you assigned on the last page, it's ADDED to your total. You could still build any of these characters ANYWAY you wanted to assign the points.

You and I are in agreement.

My argument is is that the change that was made has made some races objectively better and other races objectively worse because statswise they are all the same, so it all comes down to racial traits and which ones are more useful or more likely to be used.

There no longer is a tradeoff to get unique and interesting builds, now you just can build whatever and it's easier to powergame because there aren't any tradeoffs now.

Kinda yeah. Now it's more based on their passive abilities so it prioritizes things like dark vision and other aspects, and if people aren't like me and willing to accept some negatives for some positives they might get, majority of people are going to power game spreadsheet the crap out of it for sure.

[Farsha]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

5% doesn't mean much at all, and the racial traits that you get in addition more than made up for it for those who wanted to roleplay the underdog.

Also, based on the rumors of what humans get in recompense for losing 3 attribute points actually suck. The three things are:

1. Light Armor proficiency
2. Polearm proficiency
3. +20 carrying capacity.

Light armor proficiency only applies to two classes, wizard and sorcerer, and mage armor is generally better than most light armor anyway for those two classes. It's on par with non-magic medium armor in terms of AC, without the dexterity restriction or the occasional disadvantage to stealth. Draconic resilience means you don't even need mage armor as a spell if you are a draconic sorcerer.

Polearms are a strength based weapon while light armor is an armor that requires having high dexterity to make the most use of so they conflict, as any class that would have martial proficiencies and use strength would already have proficiency with polearms. Monks are the only class humans can use it with to any effectiveness, and they CANNOT wear light armor while doing so because it would remove the unarmored defense that monks get by adding wisdom to AC.

+20 carrying capacity is just useless. Any non-human can just right click, send items to camp and call it good. It also doesn't make sense that humans could carry more than the larger and stronger dragonborn or half-orcs.

Simple fact is this: by giving +2 +1 to every race in the game it means that some races are now objectively better at every class in the game by virtue of their racial traits and other races, like the humans, are objectively worse at every class compared to every other race in the game.

It's a game with dice, I played BB and X-com and BG and DnD 5e.
5% is a lot and it matters specially if we end at lvl 12 only.
And I want Charismatic Half-Orcs and Dexterous Dwarves, who were born like that.
So I like the change.
It opens up the race choise diversity, it does not reduce it. like you say.
Also it is actually in DnD officially, so why would they use old rules nobody likes.

You said I'm powergaming, but now you are butt-hurt that humans go a nerf? Just Roleplay em 5% is nothing no?

[Ronin Gamer]

Originally posted by Lamiosa:

I am slightly confused. Sometimes people say diversity is important and then sometimes they say everything should be the same. So is diversity now important or not?

People, like in most arguments, are arguing from different soap boxes.
People talking in favor of diversity are typically talking from a story/role play standpoint. Some might still be talking about mechanics of game play as well I suppose.
For me this change exclusively targets stats which is a mechanic in a game play perspective. The stats do play a role in role playing and story, but it's mostly for the combat and skill checks, as such making all the races/species the exact same by letting them choose where their 2 and 1 goes and not letting them having hard backed in stats is more boring since it makes them less unique.

[Edstyles]

Oh this thread again