Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Elex]

5e is going on the direction of DM freedom, the DM is encouraged to accept any custom race he want with no limit.

DM always can do that, DM have no limit.
But 3.5 was more rigid more rules for stopping abuse etc etc…

5e is the reverse, rules have holes that the DM must fill, and the holes are getting bigger and bigger.
No more standard forgotten realms drow etc

new books start to have more and more guide on how to create custom stuff and less ready to use things.

 

[hell bovine]

Aaaand you fell into the trap. All humans are a single subspecies. We are all inclined to the same stuff, ie shy away from most direct confrontation against stronger animals, and utilise our strengths in enorme intelligence and hands optimised for tool use. Humans are genetically predisposed towards all professions BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL HUMAN PROFESSIONS.

Genetic predisposition means a specific genotype is more likely to result in a specific phenotype, which can also depend on the environmental factors. E. g. genetic predisposition for cancer doesn't mean someone will develop cancer, but that they are more likely to, because they happen to carry a specific mutation. Human professions, activities, tasks, whatever you want to call them are not a specific phenotype.

This is all moot, though, because D&D and genetics don't mix at all. The classic definition of species is "can produce fertile offspring". Halfelves are the tip of the iceberg here.

 

[Salvo]

I think you shouldn't kling on to this argument

 

[Sharpedge]

Yeah, I think we are talking two different languages here. I guess people do love their (very skewed and poorly understood) biological determinism even in D&D and think that means different highly intelligent races will develop biological drives for professions and act more like animals than humans. Even though humans exist and don't do that.

This is like saying humans have a biological drive to slave for their capitalist overlords because we do this out of necessity.

Lets say there is a hypothetical intelligent species that develops on another planet which has (just as an example), liquid methane as the fluid within its body. Its entire biological makeup would be different and it would be completely absurd to expect it to behave similarly to us, because behaving like we do would probably lead to extinction given how different it would be to us. An intelligent species will take note of its own limitations and adjust to its environment to deal with them.

Its also easy to see given such an extreme example how such a species would have different characteristics to us. Assigning them a completely different "stat block" to describe them would be pretty much the only available way to go, because describing the 2 species as similar would not be accurate at all.

 

[Cryomancer]

This is like saying humans have a biological drive to slave for their capitalist overlords because we do this out of necessity.

Actually, we are slaves to the government. The government can force people to work against their will and risk his life to defend the interests of politicians and at the same time, deny the right of self defense to the population. Take most of money made by the workers. The government doesn't technically own the means of production, but he can determine who can produce goods, in which therms, and who I can hire, in which conditions... But this is far more a corruption in the natural order of things due the equality cultism than the human nature. Most of the human history was living under tribes or under aristocracy. The modern ultra centralized continental states dictating everything that we can and cannot do is not how humans generally life.

With fantasy races, things are completely different. Mainly in a fantasy world, where law/chaos, evil/good aren't mere concepts but cosmic forces. Demons are very strongly aligned towards chaotic evil. Arueshalae had a really hard time becoming chaotic neutral. And is not pure biology. Remember, law/chaos/evil/good are forces on D&D. With magic, items and planes strongly influenced by this forces. If you transport a human culture to a realm of dread, that culture will be heavily impacted by the negative energy of this realms. After Karsus fall, a city on the Netheril empire fled to the shadowfell(Thultanthar). A Athasian city also "fell" into the shadowfell and it heavily impacted the city culture and the humanity living there become Shades.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Thultanthar

This is all moot, though, because D&D and genetics don't mix at all. The classic definition of species is "can produce fertile offspring". Halfelves are the tip of the iceberg here.

Yep. Humans and Elves at least are humanoids. Now, look to Half Dragons...

 

[hell bovine]

Give me a concrete example you think would be appropriate in this context then.

Do you really want to press the point that a race of squat, powerfully built, hardy human adjacent species- whose physical characteristics, which are undeniably caused by their genetics, which renders them uniquely suited for mining, on account of being squat, hardy and powerfully built- are not predisposed by their genetics towards extraction of minerals from subterranean environments?

That's like saying humans are predisposed to being office drones, because five fingers are made for writing on a keyboard. The dwarves are adapted (though not really, if you consider how cave dwelling animal species actually look like irl, but let's pretend) to living in the underground environment. That's it. At some point they have developed and optimised mining, but so did humans irl, even if we are not adapted to living completely underground. Trying to explain everything about human behaviour with genetics is a useless exercise, because it is an explanation so broad that, while true (as all life on earth is determined by genetics), it doesn't provide any useful information.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

because five fingers are made for writing on a keyboard.

Other way around, innit.

 

[Desiderius]

Like I said, when you are dealing with intelligence levels which are human-adjacent, that overrides anything else and you can't compare them to how an animal would act.

Some animals are human adjacent themselves. Chimps naturally. Dogs because we made them that way. Dolphins/whales may be superior.

Orcs are fallen Elves, Elves themselves emblematic of Men of ages long past.

NJClaw is right, Lacrymas and Thac0 doing the usual parochial/ghey murkan lib/con thing. Get a room phaggots.

 

[hell bovine]

because five fingers are made for writing on a keyboard.

Other way around, innit.

Yep, you make the tools suitable to the task. This doesn't mean your genetics make you predisposed to doing this task, whether keyboard typing or mining. I'd hazard a guess, considering the observations on animals using tools (such as corvids), that the purpose of tools is to make up for physical shortcomings. And that is the evolutionary advantage of high intelligence (which is obviously not advantageous in every environment, which is why we don't live in underground caves).

Edit: to put this into context of fantasy worldbuilding. To design a species that is adapted to mining, I'd start with something like a mole and then consider how its physical features would have to change to make the mining of minerals possible. Tbh, I don't think physical crushing rocks would be feasible, so probably something like enzymatic digestion. Maybe they would eat rocks to get at a specific mineral, while other elements (not much of a chemist, though) would simply pass their digestive system. At some point this fantasy species meets humans and it turns this crazy upground folk is willing to trade them for their shit.

Alas, being an office drone pays better than writing fantasy books.

 

[Yosharian]

Lmao Lacrymas has a degree in this stuff and still doesn't know shit

 

[Harthwain]

Lmao Lacrymas has a degree in this stuff and still doesn't know shit

Pretty sure it's a joke.

 

[Desiderius]

Lmao Lacrymas has a degree in this stuff and still doesn't know shit

He knows what he was carefully taught.

 

[Desiderius]

doesn't mean your genetics make you predisposed to doing this task

But dwarves are because made by Aulë not Eru. Linnaeus is not in Appendix N autists.

 

[Reinhardt]

half their gods have something to do with stone, gems, mines, and earth.

And other half with axes, ale and gold.

 

[Reinhardt]

See my big cock =/= desire to do porn pos

That's because the purpose of a giant cock is not porn dumdum.

Exactly.

The purpose of a giant cock is to argue online about D&D.

No, the purpose of a giant cock is to be paladin in Lacrymas setting.

 

[Thonius]

See my big cock =/= desire to do porn pos

That's because the purpose of a giant cock is not porn dumdum.

Exactly.

The purpose of a giant cock is to argue online about D&D.

No, the purpose of a giant cock is to be paladin in Lacrymas setting.

I thought they are eunuchs in his setting.. so they use it as what? Counter ballast? Tie keys to it to not lose them?

 

[Reinhardt]

so they use it as what?

They don't. Use it and lose it. That's how Lacrymas world is. They were not miserable enough with normal size.

 

[Thonius]

I imagine suicide rates are higher than at Chinese sweatshops.

 

[Larianshill]

You know, come to think about it, actual eunuch paladins would make much more sense. Lacrymas, what's up with that? Is cruelly letting paladins keep all their hormones a test of character?

 

[Reinhardt]

You know, come to think about it, actual eunuch paladins would make much more sense.

No fun.

Is cruelly letting paladins keep all their hormones a test of character?

FUN!

 

[Lacrymas]

You know, come to think about it, actual eunuch paladins would make much more sense. Lacrymas, what's up with that? Is cruelly letting paladins keep all their hormones a test of character?

You could ask the same thing of vows of celibacy irl. Paladins have the right to choose, as granted by the dogma of the moon. They could request to be made eunuchs without having broken the vow and that's seen and celebrated as a great display of devotion, but nobody expects this from them.

 

[Larianshill]

You could ask the same thing of vows of celibacy irl.

Nobody kept vows of celibacy in the real world, because breaking those vows wasn't punished with a castration.

 

[Cryomancer]

Can't divine casters just use great heal or a similar spell to restore the lost "organ"?

 

[Larianshill]

No, because we return to the question that spawned the discussion in the first place - only paladins can heal in that setting. No clerics, definitely no wizards. And paladins don't have access to anything that regenerates. And even if they did, the church probably does regularly scheduled penis inspections to make sure eunuchs are still castrated.

 

[Larianshill]

Oh shit, actually, I think it's worse than that. Even the spells that spellcasters/halfcasters do have, are spread out differently, with you only getting 3rd level spells closer to the endgame. I think that's how it worked.