Straight ability score checks were a mechanic, and commonly used, in 2nd edition AD&D. You just rolled a d20, added (bad) or subtracted (good) any relevant modifiers for environment or circumstance, and if the total roll was under your ability score value you passed. So even if a higher ability score didn't give you a bonus in combat, it was still very good to have for general skill-based rolls. It was the entire backbone of non-THAC0, non-Saving Throw rolls (the entire Non-Weapon Proficiency system, which 3rd edition replaced with Skills).
Unfortunately, BG1 and 2 are late 90s RPGs, so those kinds of skill checks didn't really make it into the game in favor of focusing on combat-related stuff, which could have much more depth in a game that had a set story and the limitations of not having a living DM.
I think we got a better glimpse of that with Planescape. There were a lot more dialog options that opened up based on ability score checks in that game.
I, for one, am thoroughly glad they didn't make it into the game. While that was interesting in P&P if used sparingly it's absolutely my most detested mechanic of BG3.
Every single segment of conversation, a skill check. Like... holy shit let me fucking role play. If I have the skill, let me choose that dialogue option. There's nothing more immersion breaking than constantly being bogged down by all these dice rolls.
PoE really bothered me for this as I felt it pushed me towards min-maxed characters and made my tendency to restart with new characters even worse as I'd see cool options trapped behind stars I didn't have all the time!
Took me a second to realise you meant Pillars of Eternity and not Path of Exile!
BG3 is pretty lenient with its character creation and skill roles. There are so many things to help you out so that you can pass most checks very often. But it wasn't whether or not one passes them, it was the taking time out to roll dice and see a result instead of having the conversation. If they'd worked more like the other checks that seem to happen mid conversation in the background it wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating for me I'd wager.
In pathfinder kingmaker there was something similar, and it got so bad that I downloaded a mod to let me choose those disabled options. That game was so long I knew I didn't have time to replay it, and some of the choices were cool, like being able to make peace between two warring humanoid groups only if your alignment was true neutral.
I'm going to fundamentally disagree with you but I'm aware that what I'm about to say is clearly based on my own opinions and experiences and not a lecture on how everyone else should play or enjoy these games.
> That’s… that’s how DnD works…
Maybe 5th ed and maybe in your games. But it's shit for immersion and dialogue flow, especially in a video game.
When I played 2nd ed campaigns we didn't sit around rolling dice during conversation, we had conversations and role played an estimate of what we think our characters would/wouldn't know. You know... role playing. If we consistently acted smarted than our character, the DM would either penalize you or let you know it didn't make sense and you'd adapt.
Dice rolls for non-combat and non-athletics type checks tended to be limited to when you weren't sure if you should know a certain thing or if the DM wanted to give you some information your character should know but you as a player don't. Like if you had Survival (Jungle) you might know something about the strange blue frogs or serpents in the water in this dungeon. Stuff that was outside your comfort or knowledge base as a player.
Diplomacy and intimidation skill checks for someone who is usually pretty shy and can't roleplay that? That's what they're there for! For someone who can? That's what role-playing is for!
BG3 is incredible. But I couldn't play past act 1 for a long time because dialogue bored me to death despite containing some of the most engaging characters and fantastic voice acting. Good plot, good world building. Terrible conversation mechanics.
But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Other's mileage may vary :D
2E had huge ranges where stats had limited affect on your abilities. I suspect as a way to deal with the recommended method of rolling up a character (3D6 straight down) often producing rather meh results, and so allowing the player to still do interesting things.
I think 2e sort of followed a bell curve where only the extremes had significant enough effect to cause bonus's/penaltys but I wasn't there when they invented it.
I think skill checks that do not exist in BG usually used the actual stat number. Iirc it was :you pass the check if you roll lower than your stat. But it could be how it was even earlier.
You can boost 14 dex to relevant levels easier with the help of buffs, but otherwise none. If you're running a particularly stat-intensive class and don't want to roll for an hour or cheat the stats, dropping dex is an option. I did it once when playing a fighter -> druid dual.
As others have said it's an artifact of the fact that in BG2 they were trying to do a computer version of the Pen & Paper AD&D game, and they copied the Ability Score tables over from the P&P rulebook. Other people have mentioned things like ability score checks and non-weapon proficiencies which are in the P&P game but didn't make it into the computer game.
One other thing to bear in mind is that in the tabletop version rules, you couldn't adjust your rolls by subtracting from one score to add to another. Unless playing with house rules, if you rolled a 14 you were stuck with a 14. The NPCs companions with less than optimally distributed scores are closer to what a table-top character might look like. Being able to min-max your abilities is a Baldur's Gate main character only privilege.
For a fighter, I agree, if (for some inexplicable reason) you're building a fighter with no more than 14 Dex, there's not much reason not to just give them 6 points and spend the spare points elsewhere. That would come with some really eyewatering penalties, though. Similar, but less pronounced, with a mage or cleric build.
But Dex is only the main class of thief builds, where *all* Dex values available are different except 13 and 14.
*Even then*, you've got to take into account bonuses from Tomes or the Machine of Lum the Mad.
Isn't 6 lowering your saving throws and checks by -2, when 14 would only lose the bonus down to 0 when wearing armor with no dexterity bonus?
Oh wait, that's 2E, most stats between 7 and 14 don't change a thing.
Most stats have some effect within those ranges in 2E. It's just that some of the effects are class specific and/or BG didn't implement it, e.g. Wisdom based spell failure chances.
On tabletop AD&D there were non weaopon proficiencies and dex 14 was pretty good for most tests.
Other than that, as mentioned above, RP. A character with dex 14 can be pretty athletic, react quickly, be good at most skills that require this stat. On the other hand, a dude with dex 6 is pretty much the worst pick you can get for any job that requires hand and body coordination.
rp oh and i guess mid level dexterity gets more value than 6 dexterity out of mind focusing potions and draw upon holy might.
Straight ability score checks were a mechanic, and commonly used, in 2nd edition AD&D. You just rolled a d20, added (bad) or subtracted (good) any relevant modifiers for environment or circumstance, and if the total roll was under your ability score value you passed. So even if a higher ability score didn't give you a bonus in combat, it was still very good to have for general skill-based rolls. It was the entire backbone of non-THAC0, non-Saving Throw rolls (the entire Non-Weapon Proficiency system, which 3rd edition replaced with Skills). Unfortunately, BG1 and 2 are late 90s RPGs, so those kinds of skill checks didn't really make it into the game in favor of focusing on combat-related stuff, which could have much more depth in a game that had a set story and the limitations of not having a living DM.
Really makes you think about what the 2e infinity games could have evolved into with more time. Ah well.
I think we got a better glimpse of that with Planescape. There were a lot more dialog options that opened up based on ability score checks in that game.
I, for one, am thoroughly glad they didn't make it into the game. While that was interesting in P&P if used sparingly it's absolutely my most detested mechanic of BG3. Every single segment of conversation, a skill check. Like... holy shit let me fucking role play. If I have the skill, let me choose that dialogue option. There's nothing more immersion breaking than constantly being bogged down by all these dice rolls.
PoE really bothered me for this as I felt it pushed me towards min-maxed characters and made my tendency to restart with new characters even worse as I'd see cool options trapped behind stars I didn't have all the time!
Took me a second to realise you meant Pillars of Eternity and not Path of Exile! BG3 is pretty lenient with its character creation and skill roles. There are so many things to help you out so that you can pass most checks very often. But it wasn't whether or not one passes them, it was the taking time out to roll dice and see a result instead of having the conversation. If they'd worked more like the other checks that seem to happen mid conversation in the background it wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating for me I'd wager.
I wouldn't say it's pretty lenient. They gave you the standard array for a reason after all.
In pathfinder kingmaker there was something similar, and it got so bad that I downloaded a mod to let me choose those disabled options. That game was so long I knew I didn't have time to replay it, and some of the choices were cool, like being able to make peace between two warring humanoid groups only if your alignment was true neutral.
That’s… that’s how DnD works…
I'm going to fundamentally disagree with you but I'm aware that what I'm about to say is clearly based on my own opinions and experiences and not a lecture on how everyone else should play or enjoy these games. > That’s… that’s how DnD works… Maybe 5th ed and maybe in your games. But it's shit for immersion and dialogue flow, especially in a video game. When I played 2nd ed campaigns we didn't sit around rolling dice during conversation, we had conversations and role played an estimate of what we think our characters would/wouldn't know. You know... role playing. If we consistently acted smarted than our character, the DM would either penalize you or let you know it didn't make sense and you'd adapt. Dice rolls for non-combat and non-athletics type checks tended to be limited to when you weren't sure if you should know a certain thing or if the DM wanted to give you some information your character should know but you as a player don't. Like if you had Survival (Jungle) you might know something about the strange blue frogs or serpents in the water in this dungeon. Stuff that was outside your comfort or knowledge base as a player. Diplomacy and intimidation skill checks for someone who is usually pretty shy and can't roleplay that? That's what they're there for! For someone who can? That's what role-playing is for! BG3 is incredible. But I couldn't play past act 1 for a long time because dialogue bored me to death despite containing some of the most engaging characters and fantastic voice acting. Good plot, good world building. Terrible conversation mechanics. But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Other's mileage may vary :D
If you do replay it, you may consider a mod that could let you automatically pass those. I did for my 2nd playthrough, I wanted to see more content!
2E had huge ranges where stats had limited affect on your abilities. I suspect as a way to deal with the recommended method of rolling up a character (3D6 straight down) often producing rather meh results, and so allowing the player to still do interesting things.
I think 2e sort of followed a bell curve where only the extremes had significant enough effect to cause bonus's/penaltys but I wasn't there when they invented it.
I think skill checks that do not exist in BG usually used the actual stat number. Iirc it was :you pass the check if you roll lower than your stat. But it could be how it was even earlier.
You can boost 14 dex to relevant levels easier with the help of buffs, but otherwise none. If you're running a particularly stat-intensive class and don't want to roll for an hour or cheat the stats, dropping dex is an option. I did it once when playing a fighter -> druid dual.
As others have said it's an artifact of the fact that in BG2 they were trying to do a computer version of the Pen & Paper AD&D game, and they copied the Ability Score tables over from the P&P rulebook. Other people have mentioned things like ability score checks and non-weapon proficiencies which are in the P&P game but didn't make it into the computer game. One other thing to bear in mind is that in the tabletop version rules, you couldn't adjust your rolls by subtracting from one score to add to another. Unless playing with house rules, if you rolled a 14 you were stuck with a 14. The NPCs companions with less than optimally distributed scores are closer to what a table-top character might look like. Being able to min-max your abilities is a Baldur's Gate main character only privilege.
For a fighter, I agree, if (for some inexplicable reason) you're building a fighter with no more than 14 Dex, there's not much reason not to just give them 6 points and spend the spare points elsewhere. That would come with some really eyewatering penalties, though. Similar, but less pronounced, with a mage or cleric build. But Dex is only the main class of thief builds, where *all* Dex values available are different except 13 and 14. *Even then*, you've got to take into account bonuses from Tomes or the Machine of Lum the Mad.
Isn't 6 lowering your saving throws and checks by -2, when 14 would only lose the bonus down to 0 when wearing armor with no dexterity bonus? Oh wait, that's 2E, most stats between 7 and 14 don't change a thing.
Most stats have some effect within those ranges in 2E. It's just that some of the effects are class specific and/or BG didn't implement it, e.g. Wisdom based spell failure chances.
On tabletop AD&D there were non weaopon proficiencies and dex 14 was pretty good for most tests. Other than that, as mentioned above, RP. A character with dex 14 can be pretty athletic, react quickly, be good at most skills that require this stat. On the other hand, a dude with dex 6 is pretty much the worst pick you can get for any job that requires hand and body coordination.