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

[NecroLord]

A result of humanizing what are supposed to be monsters. The people responsible for this are also the ones struggling with specific species being 'evil'.

Some races (orcs, drow) are evil as a result of their heritage and ruthless, survival of the fittest culture.
Demons, for example, are complete embodiments of their specific alignment, in their case, chaotic evil. They are formed from the raw stuff of the Abyss, they cannot change their nature. Souls who end up in the Abyss also get a crash course in evil. This course involves unimaginable torture and torment, the soul is literally remade into a demon. A very dark fate.

 

[Reinhardt]

#NotAllDemons!

 

[Aarwolf]

Alignment exists since 1e before the popularization of internet. And in D&D, law and chaos, good and evil, aren't merely concepts. Are cosmic FORCES. As real as gravity is IRL.

That is the way I explain them to the newcomers to D&D - alignment is a force you can literally feel in some places. In generic places it's not that evident, but for example in temples or other strong aligned places you can actually feel it, like electricity when you are near the power station. So that is why evil aligned creatures stay away from the good aligned temples or circles and vice versa and that's why wardstones are effective.

Of course it strongly depends what kind of game we are playing and what setting we chose, but as a DM I frequently remind my players that alignments are a real thing.

 

[Orud]

Preface: I'm not a Tolkien aficionado.

In another setting, Middle Earth, Orcs almost couldn't function without the guidance of Sauron. They were essentially in a symbiotic relation with Sauron's will and, after he was destroyed, Orcs in the 4th age lived (and died out) in a stunted, confused, state.

They didn't have any will of their own, they were Sauron's extension and therefor couldn't be 'good' by themselves.

 

[NecroLord]

That is the way I explain them to the newcomers to D&D - alignment is a force you can literally feel in some places.

Good, Evil, Law, Chaos are Cosmic Forces in D&D.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Preface: I'm not a Tolkien aficionado.

Scum of the earth.

 

[luj1]

Alignments, for good or ill, are a part of D&D.
Just because dumb players cannot play and create characters of specific alignments doesn't mean the alignment system should be completely ditched.
Reworked a bit, maybe, but not ditched.

We are in the terminal phase of civilisation where people love to deconstruct things.

Whether it's gender politics or DnD, the essence is the same.

 

[luj1]

alignment needs to go the way of the dodo. Since its creation it produced nothing but interenet slapfights, and normal people don't need a note in the statblock to know that orc raiders are evil.

Disagreed. Alignment exists since 1e before the popularization of internet. And in D&D, law and chaos, good and evil, aren't merely concepts. Are cosmic FORCES. As real as gravity is IRL. Efreets tends to be lawful evil cuz the plane of fire is close to "LE" in a cosmic scale, Marids tends to be chaotic neutral and all about freedom cuz the plane of water is close to Limbo. Cosmic forces affects even "elemental" planes in D&D. Mechanus denizens should be 99,99999(...)% lawful and limbo denizens should be 99,9999(...)% chaotic.

If you remove alignment, you kill much of D&D cosmology.

GJ lecturing this bum

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

 

[Rhobar121]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Uh what?

 

[whydoibother]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Uh what?

Wizards is moving away from "races", elves and dwarves are now species. And there aren't half-species, these will be phased out. Allegedly?
Obviously this will be in new editions, and not in the framework BG3 is built on.

 

[Cryomancer]

Uh what?

This : https://boundingintocomics.com/2023...-entire-the-entire-idea-is-inherently-racist/

In the past, was religious zealotry which forced TSR to remove lots of interesting stuff. Now is the SJW zealotry...

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

D&D is for PURE races only, DEATH to the halfbreeds!

 

[Harthwain]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

More like they'll turn her into an elf.

 

[Tenebris]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

 

[Cryomancer]

RPG's before :

• Arcanum which depicts Jews as Gnomes and puts all anti Semite conspiracy theories
• Bretons with 50 INT in Morrowind and Redguards with 30
• Dunmer having a dark skin due a curse
• Skyrim belongs to Nords.
• Every single lowly criminal being brown in vtbm
• (...)

RPG's now :

• We removed half elfs cuz muh racism
• Pronouns in character creation

 

[Skorpion]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

Wait is this in BG3 now or do you just mean the pnp so far?

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

Wait is this in BG3 now or do you just mean the pnp so far?

BG3 is still vanilla 5e.

 

[Skorpion]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

Wait is this in BG3 now or do you just mean the pnp so far?

BG3 is still vanilla 5e.

Oh good, Im still holding out hope this will be a fun interesting game when it releases but have been worried because WotC has gone so mental as a company.

 

[Tenebris]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

Wait is this in BG3 now or do you just mean the pnp so far?

Pnp. Larian would be next level stupid to do that.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

Don't forget removing it for character creation too. You can't make your half-elf cleric anymore.

Wait is this in BG3 now or do you just mean the pnp so far?

Pnp. Larian would be next level stupid to do that.

Hopefully Larian didn't pull an Obsidian and give up the right to make that decision for themselves in their contract.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

They can't remove Jaheira. When Jaheira and Minsc were announced, the community made a collective sigh and went "yes, this is Baldur's Gate", even if it makes no sense at all to have them alive in the time frame of the third game.

 

[Gargaune]

even if it makes no sense at all to have them alive in the time frame of the third game.

Blame 5E. Given a choice between carrying on with 4E canon or doing the right thing and retconning it out of existence, WotC picked the worst of both worlds and gave it the soft reboot treatment, wherein a second magical bullshit calamity means that most of your favourite 3E characters may or may not have been resurrected in the continued timeline, depending on whatever the authors need at any given moment.

P.S. And to press the point further, it's not just 3E characters. Bhaal and Myrkul are also back as some sort of "quasi-deity dark powers", despite having been dead since 2E. And Bane's apparently been knocked back to the same "quasi-deity" standing, despite having been canonically resurrected as a Greater Deity in 3E. How? Why? Stop asking questions, just consume Edition and get excited for next Edition!

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

even if it makes no sense at all to have them alive in the time frame of the third game.

Blame 5E. Given a choice between carrying on with 4E canon or doing the right thing and retconning it out of existence, WotC picked the worst of both worlds and gave it the soft reboot treatment, wherein a second magical bullshit calamity means that most of your favourite 3E characters may or may not have been resurrected in the continued timeline, depending on whatever the authors need at any given moment.

This reboot also removed the BG novelizations from canon, so you win some, you lose some.

 

[The_Mask]

I wonder if Larian will remove Jaheira now that wotc declared half-elves to be double plus ungood.

The D&D movie makes the Harpers look like law enforcement, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Jaheira finally killed.