D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[Scott Christian]

I mean, you probably could tell that from 10 hours of solid combat. A +1 to hit and damage is going to show up in that. Especially if you know what weapons/armour people have.

Maybe, just maybe, you could at level one. But at fourth? Eighth? Twelfth? Not a chance. And it would make it even harder for classes like the rogue or wizard or cleric, as their class abilities become all over the place.
So you are correct. A d8+2 and d8+3 might be noticeable. But even then, you might not. This becomes especially true if you are not looking for it. If you are just watching people play D&D, there is a high likelihood no one would notice.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe, just maybe, you could at level one. But at fourth? Eighth? Twelfth? Not a chance. And it would make it even harder for classes like the rogue or wizard or cleric, as their class abilities become all over the place.
So you are correct. A d8+2 and d8+3 might be noticeable. But even then, you might not. This becomes especially true if you are not looking for it. If you are just watching people play D&D, there is a high likelihood no one would notice.

At level 8 or 12 it's extremely unlikely you don't have 20 in your primary attribute unless intentionally trying to be difficult lol. If you've still got 15 I absolute assure you I will be able to tell from the numbers because everyone else will have 20 lol.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

At level 8 or 12 it's extremely unlikely you don't have 20 in your primary attribute unless intentionally trying to be difficult lol. If you've still got 15 I absolute assure you I will be able to tell from the numbers because everyone else will have 20 lol.

I often have 16 in my primary stat until level 16 or so, as I prefer feats (even if they're less 'meta'). If you're a martial feats are one of the few ways you can really customise your character mechanically.

 

[Horwath]

Sure, CharOp forums will CharOp. They don’t represent what people actually play.

And I’ve never seen a PC without a feat within the first 10 levels, or a party with no MCing, or a party without either a gnome or halfling (or both). I think I’ve seen 2 elves. [emoji2369]

Our anecdotes have no bearing on the statistical reality.

Wait, people play without feats?

 

[Scott Christian]

At level 8 or 12 it's extremely unlikely you don't have 20 in your primary attribute unless intentionally trying to be difficult lol. If you've still got 15 I absolute assure you I will be able to tell from the numbers because everyone else will have 20 lol.

I apologize. I meant that at level 8 or 12 you wouldn't notice the difference between a PC with an 18 and 20. That +1 means so little in the overall aspect of the game. And the fact that really intelligent people still debate it is mind boggling.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I apologize. I meant that at level 8 or 12 you wouldn't notice the difference between a PC with an 18 and 20. That +1 means so little in the overall aspect of the game. And the fact that really intelligent people still debate it is mind boggling.

People debate it because it's not really true and you foolishly said "10 hours of combat" not "an hour of combat". If you'd said the latter, sure no-one would be arguing.

It does depend on how many rolls are made, how many PCs are involved, and how much information we have. But I think you haven't thought this through as carefully as you think you have.

But if we had 100% information EXCEPT that the stat values were hidden and we only get to see the totals rolled, not the math, which seems to be the scenario you're presenting, I'm pretty confident we could determine, particularly by looking at outliers of rolls, what people's stats are, simply because:

A) We'd know if any +X weapons were involved.

B) 5E D&D doesn't use many plus or minus modifers - almost none - it uses Advantage and Disadvantage.

Advantage and Disadvantage don't modify the outliers, in fact, they create more outliers, making the number MORE clear than they would be otherwise.

You're acting like this is 3E, 4E, or Pathfinder. In any of those, your position would be unassailable. There are so many little bonuses and penalties that constantly come into things (even PF2 has them) that would indeed be very difficult to determine the actual stat values.

But this is 5E. We have bounded accuracy. The to-hit roll is very simple in almost all cases. It's simply PB (known) + Stat mod (unknown in this case) + weapon bonus if any (known). Thus you look at the outliers, Scott. The lowest and highest numbers rolled. Let's assume 4 players, and they complete a round of combat in 10 minutes (which is actually kind of slow, in my experience, but not super-slow - maybe the DM has complicated monsters). Let's assume the class in question has 2 attacks from the Attack action, and makes some other Bonus Action or Reaction attacks, to average 2.5 attacks a round. That means in 10 hours they're likely making 150 attacks. Again this is a pretty conservative estimate. 10% on average of those will be 1s or 20s, the outliers - so 15 of them.

From those 15 attacks, you can work out the missing number. Even if we got very unlucky and were say, only 6 outliers, you could still do it. What are the lowest and highest numbers? The only way* it would break is if, in 150 rolls you roll NO 1s and NO 20s at all. Not even a single one. Because that's all we need to work this out - one outlier. One. That's assuming no Advantage and Disadvantage too - every time either one comes up, that makes our job easier, because we get more rolls, and therefore more outliers.

Do you understand this? Our confidence couldn't be perfect, because technically rolling no 1s or 20s is possible, but it could extremely high, well over 95%. So long as in 150 rolls at least one 20 or 1 is rolled.

Now there is a way you could really mess with us though. It's a little spell called Bless (I'm assuming you'd hide the results of the Bless spell roll). But if we know bless is going on, we can still trying. We might get lucky and get an get outliers where we could could work out they were either +1 on a 1 or +4 on a 20. Also we'd know which rounds Bless applied to, and we'd probably get enough outliers from rounds when it wasn't on that we could work it out regardless. Bardic Inspiration could get in there too, but we'd know it was being used so could factor in the variance on the very few rolls it applied to. Again not a real problem unless every single outlier occurred at the same time as Bardic Inspiration (very unlikely). Indeed, if the Bardic Inspiration was maxed on a 20 roll, or minimized on 1, we could still work it out from one outlier.

If you disagree, I'm going to need to you to explain the logical and mathematical principles on which you disagree. Otherwise it's not actual disagreement, it's just being a sore loser!

And to be fair, again, if this was 3E or 4E, you would be right, period. I could not argue with you. I could not reliably work it out. There are too many bonuses in play. But this is 5E, and they killed the bonuses.

* = Or if every single outlier had an unknown Cover modifier on it, but it has to be every single one. And if we know that the cover modifier applies to the roll it's easy to remove.

Thanks for giving me a really nerdy problem to think about though lol.

 

[MGibster]

When I play D&D I almost always create a human character. But very vew DM's I've gamed with over the years bothers keeping track of lighting, so it doesn't really matter whether or not we have Darkvision. For Baldur's Gate 3, I created a half-drow largely because the game keeps track of light and I didn't want to mess with torches or spells for light.

 

[Scott Christian]

People debate it because it's not really true and you foolishly said "10 hours of combat" not "an hour of combat". If you'd said the latter, sure no-one would be arguing.

It does depend on how many rolls are made, how many PCs are involved, and how much information we have. But I think you haven't thought this through as carefully as you think you have.

But if we had 100% information EXCEPT that the stat values were hidden and we only get to see the totals rolled, not the math, which seems to be the scenario you're presenting, I'm pretty confident we could determine, particularly by looking at outliers of rolls, what people's stats are, simply because:

A) We'd know if any +X weapons were involved.

B) 5E D&D doesn't use many plus or minus modifers - almost none - it uses Advantage and Disadvantage.

Advantage and Disadvantage don't modify the outliers, in fact, they create more outliers, making the number MORE clear than they would be otherwise.

You're acting like this is 3E, 4E, or Pathfinder. In any of those, your position would be unassailable. There are so many little bonuses and penalties that constantly come into things (even PF2 has them) that would indeed be very difficult to determine the actual stat values.

But this is 5E. We have bounded accuracy. The to-hit roll is very simple in almost all cases. It's simply PB (known) + Stat mod (unknown in this case) + weapon bonus if any (known). Thus you look at the outliers, Scott. The lowest and highest numbers rolled. Let's assume 4 players, and they complete a round of combat in 10 minutes (which is actually kind of slow, in my experience, but not super-slow - maybe the DM has complicated monsters). Let's assume the class in question has 2 attacks from the Attack action, and makes some other Bonus Action or Reaction attacks, to average 2.5 attacks a round. That means in 10 hours they're likely making 150 attacks. Again this is a pretty conservative estimate. 10% on average of those will be 1s or 20s, the outliers - so 15 of them.

From those 15 attacks, you can work out the missing number. Even if we got very unlucky and were say, only 6 outliers, you could still do it. What are the lowest and highest numbers? The only way* it would break is if, in 150 rolls you roll NO 1s and NO 20s at all. Not even a single one. Because that's all we need to work this out - one outlier. One. That's assuming no Advantage and Disadvantage too - every time either one comes up, that makes our job easier, because we get more rolls, and therefore more outliers.

Do you understand this? Our confidence couldn't be perfect, because technically rolling no 1s or 20s is possible, but it could extremely high, well over 95%. So long as in 150 rolls at least one 20 or 1 is rolled.

Now there is a way you could really mess with us though. It's a little spell called Bless (I'm assuming you'd hide the results of the Bless spell roll). But if we know bless is going on, we can still trying. We might get lucky and get an get outliers where we could could work out they were either +1 on a 1 or +4 on a 20. Also we'd know which rounds Bless applied to, and we'd probably get enough outliers from rounds when it wasn't on that we could work it out regardless. Bardic Inspiration could get in there too, but we'd know it was being used so could factor in the variance on the very few rolls it applied to. Again not a real problem unless every single outlier occurred at the same time as Bardic Inspiration (very unlikely). Indeed, if the Bardic Inspiration was maxed on a 20 roll, or minimized on 1, we could still work it out from one outlier.

If you disagree, I'm going to need to you to explain the logical and mathematical principles on which you disagree. Otherwise it's not actual disagreement, it's just being a sore loser!

And to be fair, again, if this was 3E or 4E, you would be right, period. I could not argue with you. I could not reliably work it out. There are too many bonuses in play. But this is 5E, and they killed the bonuses.

* = Or if every single outlier had an unknown Cover modifier on it, but it has to be every single one. And if we know that the cover modifier applies to the roll it's easy to remove.

Thanks for giving me a really nerdy problem to think about though lol.

You are 100% correct. My hyperbolic 10 hours of combat would lead you to know which PC had the +3 vs. +2, or which PC had the +5 vs +4. I stand corrected.
And thank you for working out the nerdy problem. It was fun reading it.

 

[Kalmi]

The PHB?

It's incredibly unbalanced. You've got Mountain Dwarves with +2/+2 to great stats and really strong abilities and darkvision, you've got High Elves and Wood Elves with excellent abilities, free Perception, and darkvision, you've got Half-Elves with +2/+1/+1, two skills of choice (!!!), crazy nonsense like the Wood Elf speed boost, and of course darkvision.

The at the other end, you have humans, with +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1 which sounds nice but is nearly entirely worthless in practice (certainly for most characters it is worth less than just +2/+1 - there are some corner-case point-buy situations, though even those work better with V-Humans +1/+1/+1 and Feat), and a single extra language, and Dragonborn, with their absolutely mediocre full-action breath attack, and single, specific damage resistance (most of which rarely come up, and even Fire ain't that great).

That a vast gamut. And that's just the PHB. There are races later on that go even further.

The class balance is much, much better. The worst class is about 70% as good as the best class, which is really pretty surprisingly good balance. Whereas the worst races are an absolute joke next to the best ones.

What you've described by the way, isn't balance. It's not even arguable as "balance". That's just pigeonholing. It's fine to like pigeonholing, but you can't lie and call it balance. That's me picking up a pork sausage and saying "A mushroom!". They're just entirely different things.

The claim that people picking the "wrong" race ruins games?

No, that's not valid. If you were willing to say "I absolutely WRECKED both those games by playing that Yuan-ti!", you would at least have an anecdote that supported your claim. But you don't even have that. You have an entirely imaginary situation. You imagine, that in another group, some other person, picking that Yuan-ti, might possibly, theoretically, in some unexplained way, have wrecked that group.

Let me put this to you - either you're a person who enjoys ruining groups (unlikely!) or more likely, you knew playing Yuan-ti would be just fine in both those groups.

And the the same true for virtually all race choices. That the vast majority of D&D players just simply don't pick ones that'll cause a problem for that specific group. Indeed most players run them by the DM first if they're anything outside the PHB, in my experience.

I feel like with D&D races, as they've been developed for so long, there is barely even a concept of how you might balance racial abilities. Like with classes, it's fairly easy to compare because everything is broken up into discrete chunks, you have 1st level stuff, features you get at later levels, subclasses, etc. It's very easy to compare classes and see where things might break, obviously they don't balance things perfectly for a variety of reasons, but there is at least a framework for comparison. Racial benefits are just like "here's a bunch of things, maybe some will be good for your character, but maybe not!" And then you have racial abilities like "see in the literal g*-d**** dark like a vampire" vs. "You can tell how old this rock is maybe."

There's just so much that is obviously there because of tradition and only minimal effort made to balance abilities. So I do think that players choosing from a list of inherited traits might be a better system (definitely better than "you are purely this race despite mixed heritage") but it would only work well with a complete rewrite of the system for "species" abilities which is obviously not going to happen in this revision.

 

[Yaarel]

We arent losing a Half Elf. We are gaining a Half Dwarf.