BG3 Race Tier List

Jenny rank your favorite races in order um what it's just a thought experiment Jenny no one will get mad at you okay um well I guess the uh I'm white so white and then I love Indian food so maybe that would be two we were talking about World of Warcraft oh my God hey folks this is aces I am so excited for this video in this video I will be going through all of the racial options in the game of Baldur's Gate 3 and ranking them on a tier list with the focus on tactics and optimization if you aren't familiar with me I make videos about tactics and optimization and crpgs but in particular polar Skate 3 I covered Early Access extensively since full release I've been working very hard to master this game so I can get back to making the tierless content that I am known for this will be my first of many tier lists for the full release of Baldur's Gate 3. now before we actually start ranking the races there's a few things I need to say first first thing is that all of the rankings in this video and in my other videos are going to assume certain self-imposed rules that you will be following to make the game more difficult of course you don't have to follow them I do and those are the rules that I make my content for the rules are aimed at making the game more difficult but also to preserve tactical depth there's a lot of options in this game which you can abuse that actually eliminate the tactics and would make any discussion like the one in this video very boring so just a quick gloss over the rules for example I assume tactician difficulty no karmic dice no reloading limited respects and limited long rests if you want more details on these rules I have linked the reference sheet to them in the description of this video the other thing I want to say before we dive in is what the tiers in this tier list actually mean I think in order for this to have meaning you actually have to Define what a tier is so we can go through those really quickly I've borrowed a five-tier system from the brilliant original Baldur's Gate series YouTuber and streamer to veyorn at the top is s tier and S tier race in my opinion is one that is highly impactful to your build so these are races that offer highly impactful features that are often hard to get or even impossible to get from the other parts of your build Parts like itemization or your class features so that is estier a tier are races that offer a handful of impactful features maybe even highly impactful features but probably they are ones that you can more easily get from other parts of your build then there's B tier these are races that offer just a few impactful features so as a result they're not very impactful to your build but they're never a detriment to your build C tier are choices which I consider just weak compared to other options the things that they offer you can easily get from other places and so they're pretty much a net neutral and then finally the last tier is our P tier which stands for role play tier these are options which are completely out competed by other options that you can select and as a result the only reason to select them is for role play reasons now I consider role play reasons to be good reasons to select a race I do not call this tier RP tier in order to denigrate role play quite the opposite I want to recognize that there are good reasons to pick an option that are outside the scope of this video which is tactical optimization alright so those are the tiers let's get into the races now starting with dwarves I'm doing these in no particular order it's roughly alphabetical I think starting with dwarf so the first thing to notice here isn't actually what dwarves get but it's what they don't get which is any attribute bonuses if you are familiar with my work in Early Access you know that a big thing that I ranked races on back then was what attribute bonuses they got so for example a race they got A plus two to strength tended to be a really good race regardless of what their other racial features were but all of that is changed now in full release layering has made it so that your attribute bonuses are completely separate to your race all characters in the game they'll get a plus two to an attribute of their stat of their choice and a plus one to an attribute of their choice you you select that here so I can add to dexterity to strength you get the idea that means what we're actually ranking the races on now is their racial features this stuff right here and for sub-races so I just wanted to make a note of that this applies to all of the races I'm going to be reviewing it's just a big change from Early Access so so the dwarf base offers several features they have a racial speed of 7.5 meters per turn I believe this is 25 feet if you use the feet system the conversion is 1.5 meters to 5 feet so I probably won't mention I'll just go in meters because that's what I use I won't mention defeat from now on 7.5 meters is one less than standard so this actually isn't a feature it's a negative they have one less movement now that can be a pain but there are very easy ways to get around a low movement spells like long Strider crusher's ring uh haste basically give you all the movement that you need so taking a small negative to movement is never really a problem for me besides that they get Dwarven combat training this gives them proficiency with battle axes hand axes light Hammers and warhammers weapon proficiencies aren't usually as useful as armor proficiencies but hey it's nice we'll take it this would be an example of a feature which I consider low impact they get dark vision up to 12 meters dark vision is great there's so many dark places in this game and if you cannot see in the dark you have disadvantage on your attacks which really really sucks that said a standard 12 meter dark vision is pretty easy to get from other parts of your build I also just I consider 12 meter dark vision to be dark vision for melee attackers if you are a ranged attacker you probably want longer than 12 meters for your dark vision because you want to be really pushing the limits of your of your range in order to benefit from it maximally and the limits of your range is going to be much far beyond 12 meters 12 meters is the kind of movement where some enemies in the game can can easily close a distance on you so dark vision standard dark vision is mostly for melee builds in my opinion and then the dwarves get Dwarven resilience which gives them advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage this is a highly impactful feature it is pretty easy to get resistances in this game especially through spells like warding Bond but you cannot get warding Bond on every character in your party so resistances are still good and poison is a very common damage type especially in what I consider the Hardest Act of the game which is in act one you face two bosses in that game which will deal a lot of poison damage and having resistance to that poison damage halves it very very valuable but beside that this is also giving you advantage on a saving throw against a fairly common condition which is the poison condition poison condition gives you disadvantage on attack rolls similar to if you don't have dark vision and that sucks so advantage on saving throws against it awesome but that's just the base race now let's talk about these sub-races if you aren't familiar with 5e all dwarves get the base door features but they'll also get a few bonuses from their sub race so gold dwarf for example gets Dwarven toughness on top of everything that we covered over here so Dwarven toughness this increases your hit point maximum by one and one for every level so it's a little bit like having a plus two Constitution but only insofar as it affects your hit points not for your Constitution's saving throws or anything like that hit points are very valuable but this isn't really offering that much by late game this is 12 extra hit points that's not a highly impactful feature but it is impactful this is a good example of a low impact feature I rank the gold dwarf a b tier they're a good tanky race the standout feature is the resistance to poison but there are a lot of other races that offer that and there's a lot of other features in the game that offer that so be tier for gold dwarf Next Step Shield dwarf besides everything else the dwarves get they will get dwarfin Armor training this gives them proficiency and light and medium armor this is really good on Caster class builds which don't otherwise get armor proficiencies getting to medium armor proficiency really opens up a lot of options in your build not only are you getting more AC increasing your durability but there's also just some items like gloves helmets and Boots which count as medium armor and you cannot wear them and cast spells at the same time for example so getting medium armor is a highly impactful feature but it is a feature that you can pretty easily get in other parts of your build I frankly I prefer Shield proficiencies over medium armor proficiencies but if you are making a build that really revolves around certain pieces of equipment that are medium armor it is crucial to get this so um altogether Shield dwarf can be the perfect race for some builds but in general I count it as B tier and then finally we get to duragar are the underdark version of dwarves they get two features one is superior dark vision this is a 24 meter version of dark vision which will replace the standard dark vision and just like the 12 meter one was good for melee attackers Superior dark vision is good for ranged attackers because now you can actually start pushing the limits of your ranged weapons and still benefit from Dark Vision also Superior dark vision is a is something that's actually very difficult to get from other parts of your build so this is very important on Range builds very impactful feature then they also get Dwarven resilience which gives them advantage on saving throws against Illusions and against being Charmed or paralyzed and the paralyzed here's the big one I consider paralyzation to be the most debilitating condition that you commonly face in the game you will face it in the early game you'll face in the late game and all through the game it can completely end an encounter if you fail saving for against paralyzed so getting advantage on saving throws all saving throws against this particular condition it is so hard to express how important this is it's so so good extremely strong both of these highly impactful features and this isn't actually all of it dweger also get racial spells as they level up and so those aren't displayed in character creation which only displays level one so I can just tell you here at third level durgar will get the enlarged spell which they can cast only on themselves as an action once per long rest enlarge spell is the kind of spell which is very very good in a few limited situations and basically those situations are anywhere where being shoved or displaced can just instant kill you so if you're fighting next to Lava if you're fighting next to a giant pit if you're fighting next to a cliff getting pushed can just completely eliminate your character from the encounter enlarging yourself is a great way to defend against being pushed in the first case because you are now a large creature and a lot of medium-sized creatures are just creatures with low strength physically cannot push large creatures they don't even let you make the roll so it just gives you immunity to shoves against many of the enemies that you're going to be facing and then it also gives you advantage on strength saving throws and a lot of displacements in this game are strength saving throughout so it's not a complete immunity to being displaced but it is immunity to a lot of the common displacements that you need to worry about so getting this once per long rest is actually really good it's the kind of spell that you want to be able to cast once per long rest then starting at level five durgar gets the ability to cast invisibility on themselves as an action once per battle outside of battle this is an infinite cast spell like a cantrip so invisibility as a cantrip this is so so useful in so many situations outside of combat and even inside of combat being able to go invisible to break engagement amazing I really love this on any assassin build because starting off combat from invisibility which you can do every single time if your durgar except for one or two boss battles which start from dialogue usually gives you a surprise round and then that's where assassins really start to shine is with surprise rounds but even if you aren't an assassin beginning combat with a surprise condition on your enemies is so valuable and this makes doogard the first s-tier race that we've covered I mean they're just so amazing they might be the best race in the game I'm partial to some of the other ones we're going to be talking about but it's really hard to pass on this on any kind of ranged attack build or any kind of stealth build dwargar amazing and that is it for the dwarves okay next up is Dragonborn Dragonborn as their base racial feature they get a movement speed of 9 meters per turn 9 meters is the standard movement speed that most races get which means this isn't actually a feature it's just blank so really what Dragonborn get all come from their sub races and they have the most sub races of any racial option I believe there are 10 in total which correspond to your particular draconic ancestry now in Dungeon and Dragons there are colored dragon types like green red black blue typically these are evil aligned dragons and then there are metallic dragon types like brass bronze copper silver you get the idea these are typically good aligned dragon types but you can play them however you want let's look at what they actually get every Dragonborn sub race will get a breath weapon and a resistance and the resistance will be the same damage type as their Elemental breath weapon so there is a few options there's acid lightning fire poison I believe green is the only poison and cold so you're picking a breath weapon of that type and a resistance of that type now the breath weapon does 2x6 damage to everyone in a small cone or beam it varies depending on which one you pick but the AOE is small and it does two by six damage to everyone in that AOE if they fail a saving throw which also varies so for example white has a con saving throw but gold has a deck saving throw now if they succeed on their savings row they'll take half that damage so 1.6 at early levels this refreshes on a short rest now instead of a long rest that actually wasn't in the most recent patch notes but I have been told that it is a short rest refreshing feature and it also now scales with your level I believe at level 6 and 11 it's going to gain an extra die six so it'll max out a level 11 at 4 die 6. this is a very lackluster damage ability it's only really useful if you are picking a cold type or a lightning type because those can get doubled against targets that are vulnerable to them with the create water spell there are ways to force vulnerability on fire as well so that might be an option I haven't played around with this at all really I just find the damage so unimpressive that unless it's being done to several vulnerable targets it's probably not going to be worth your action to cast so the big thing that you get from this is a Elemental resistance that you can choose and that's a little bit better in my mind than a set Elemental resistance like dwarf sketch or tieflings get which we'll cover in a bit being able to choose one theoretically allows you to really plan out your run and you pick the specific damage type which you are expecting to need a resistance to but resistances are pretty easy to get in this game either through elixirs through the warding bond spell through itemization so it's not that impactful of a feature altogether I give every sub race of the Dragonborn a c tier next up on our list is drow drow are a kind of Elf um but because they get Superior dark vision rather than normal dark vision as their core racial feature they've actually ungrouped them from the elf so I guess we'll just cover it drought on its own drow features they get a base racial speed of 9 meters that's standard they get drought weapon training this gives them proficiencies and Rapier short swords and hand crossbows now hand crossbow is actually an important weapon proficiency because they're a very unique weapon they are a one-handed light ranged weapon which means you can dual wield hand crossbows and use your bonus actions to make ranged attacks and there's all kinds of bugs around this bugs which haven't been fixed for so long they're basically just core to the game now for example if you're making bonus action attacks with a hand crossbow it will apply your dexterity modifier to the damage as if you had two weapon fighting style yeah even if you don't now maybe that's been patched out I haven't actually tested it since the last patch but I don't believe it is just from reading through you can test that for yourself or if you're in the future you could test it regardless just being able to make a range attack with your offhand is already very very good you can only do that if you're proficient in hand crossbows so picking drow is actually a way to get that proficiency very nice next up is superior dark vision we talked about this earlier when we covered the durgar superior dark vision is a highly impactful ability that's very hard to get from other parts of a build I consider it dark vision for ranged attackers and drow already getting Proficiency in one of the best ranged weapons in the game so you can see they're kind of set up to be ranged attackers then they get fate ancestry this is a very common ability all of the elves get fake ancestry so we'll be talking about it on a lot of the options so what this does is it gives you advantage on saving throws against being Charmed not a big deal but the big thing is that magic cannot put you to sleep and that is a big deal especially early game the Sleep swell is a very reliable way for enemies to break your concentration or just the CCU in general so being immune to being magically put to sleep awesome also even by mid to late game one of the best control spells in the game is the sleet version of the glyph of warding which is an AOE that can hit allies in the AOE but because it does no damage it just puts targets to sleep if all of the Allies in the AOE are immune to sleep because they have fake ancestry then you can start really placing that AOE more freely which is awesome I consider fate ancestry to be a highly impactful feature so already we can see the drow has a handful of pretty good features sub race they get two sub-races which are entirely thematic they don't add any other racial features oh I forgot to cover their particular spell portfolio so at level one as you can see drow gained the dancing lights can trip this is a cantrip which sheds light which drow don't usually need because they have Superior dark vision so mostly for buffing allies but it takes a concentration slot and uh it's usually not worth your concentration so I will just say that so I don't usually end up using dancing lights and most of my runs these days at level three though drow will get fairy fire which they can cast once per long rest fairy fire is a great spell also requires concentration but it's actually good so it's worth the concentration slot and then at level five they will get the darkness spell Darkness spell is good it is good but nuanced skinny ones per long rest is nice but not highly impactful in my opinion okay so that's all the draw features I give the drow an a tier they're very good race especially good for any ranged attacker the combination of superior dark vision and Fey ancestry is awesome all right that's drought next up is the elves there are two variations of elves and what else of course we're going to start with their base racial features it's going to be very similar to the drow as we discussed base racial speed of 9 meters that's standard you're going to get Elven weapon training which gives them Proficiency in long swords and short swords and also short bows and longbows I find I use the Longbow proficiency quite a bit when I play an elf and for the others not really anything this is a low impact feature as far as I'm concerned then they get dark vision and other low impact feature it's good for melee builds but it's pretty easy to get from other parts of your build which is what makes it low impact and then finally you will get Fae ancestry which we just talked about with the drow if you want more details go there but this is a phenomenal ability because it gives you immunity to sleep now not listed here and actually drows get this as well I just forgot to mention it is Keen senses all elves getting Keen senses which gives you Proficiency in the perception skill again it doesn't display it but if you go to your skills you'll see your proficient imperception without actually having to put a skill into it that is a nice feature perception is very useful in this game both in combat and out of combat all elves get that and drow get that so let's go over the sub races starting with high elf High Elves will get a can trip of your choice so you get to pick from The Wizard cantrip list this will use intelligence as its spell casting modifier which is really a shame to be honest the thing is is intelligence is only really useful on Wizards as a base class and wizards don't need the cantrip because they can scribe Scrolls to get all the cantrips they need now for subclasses the Arcane trickster and the Eldritch Knight use intelligence and this can be good at them but that is very niche of just two subclasses that this is useful on so overall I don't consider the high health cancer to be that impactful of an ability it can be good if you are going Arcane trickster or Eldritch Knight but other races that get spells usually get more than just a can trip so overall the big selling points of the high overall the base L features and there are other better races that give you those same features so I give the high elf a b tier next up is what elf on top of everything else that elves get they get Fleet of foot which increases their Movement by one unit or 1.5 meters if I feed a fuse feet and then not displayed here is they also get proficiency and stealth the same way eligible get proficiency and perception stealth is probably the best skill in the game in my opinion so they're getting free proficiency and two of the best skills in the game that's awesome they're getting an extra movement that Stacks with everything else in your build that's also good then what else is in this interesting place where they're getting a lot of useful features but not really build defining features but still to me it's enough for me to give them an a tier I consider what else to be pretty good it's hard to go wrong selecting a Wood Elf next up get Yankee we're actually gonna go to lays out for this Yankee are getting a few things they have a base ratio speed of 9 meters per turn that's standard they get the Marshall Prodigy ability this gives them Proficiency in light and medium armor excellent as well as proficiency with short swords long swords and greatswords this one's interesting the Proficiency in the gray sword is cool because there's a lot of good great swords in the game that said classes that would benefit from wielding a great sword are usually classes that already get Proficiency in it so the big thing you're getting here is the armor proficiency great for casters that otherwise wouldn't get it I still prefer Shields over medium armor but medium armor is good especially if you have items in your build like boots gauntlets or helmets that are medium armor that really tie your Build Together you want that proficiency for them so that's a impactful feature for sure they're also going to get a spell portfolio at level one as you can see they get magehand but it's a modified version of magehand which is invisible to me this function is pretty much the same as any magehand and magehand is useful for solving a lot of puzzles outside of combat inside of combat not that impactful but besides that at third level they will get the jump spell which they can cast once per long rest jump is amazing it gives you so much Mobility especially if you are a strength based character and then at fifth level they will get Misty step once per long rest another amazing Mobility spell so the spell portfolio that get Yankee offer is just basically Mobility spells so best suited for melee Strikers that's what I like to run my githyanki as and they're phenomenal spells for that they definitely impact your build and then finally there is astral knowledge astral knowledge gives you Proficiency in all skills of a chosen ability so for example if we go to our skills here acrobatics sleight of hand and stealth are all skills that use your dexterity so if you use astral knowledge dexterity you will get Proficiency in all three of these skills what this is offering you is so many skill proficiencies and then this actually you can cast once per long rest and it lasts until your next long rest so you get to choose different skills at different days one day you can have dexterity for sleight of hand the next you could maybe have intelligence for a bunch of History religion checks on the way some of the skills in this game are highly impactful you can bypass entire boss fights with a good skill roll so being able to select the skills that you choose tailor them in your run for the skill roles that you are about to face so so good I I think this is a highly impactful ability astral knowledge so all together Geth Yankee are offering you a lot great spells a ton of skills light and medium armor proficiency for Caster classes and even some weapon proficiencies altogether I give the githyanki an a tier and an S tier for fun I love playing with Yankee Lazelle gets a huge boost in my team compositions because of her racial bonuses it's it's a big deal so a tier for gith Yankee next up on our list is gnomes there are three sub-races of gnomes but first for their base racial features all gnomes will get a racial speed of 7.5 meters that is one less than standard so it's not really a feature it is a negative again it's very easy to get enough movement in this game even with the minus one from your race doesn't really impact builds that much then they also get gnome cunning this gives them advantage on intelligence wisdom and Charisma saving throws wow uh the big one here is wisdom so many debilitating effects Target wisdom getting advantage on every single wisdom saving throw incredible and then intelligence and Charisma aren't even that uncommon either this is just so good this gives you so much durability one of the best features in the game hands down and all gnomes get that but now let's go over what the sub races get starting with rock gnome Rock gnomes will get dark vision 12 meters we've talked about that a lot I don't consider this a very impactful feature and they will get artificer's lore which adds twice your proficiency bonus to history checks which is pretty neat um this isn't just proficiency it's expertise but it's expertise in history which is mostly just a flavor skill there aren't really useful ways to use history to get anything in combat that I know of in my several playthroughs of the game so far so I like rock gnome a lot because I mean you're getting gnome cunning and that's already enough to make you one of the best races in the game and the expertise in history is just kind of cool flavor anyways I give Rock gnome a b tier actually which might be unfair the thing is is that deep gnome gives everything that you want in a gnome plus extras so uh the reason Rock gnome is beat here is really is that it just gets so badly out competed by by Deep gnome but playing as a rock gnome doesn't feel like playing as a lot of other BT or races it's actually pretty good just for Gnome cunning so next up is Forest gnome it also gets a 12 meter dark vision and it gets the ability to speak with animals so you cast this on yourself once per long rest and it lasts until your next long rest so it's basically a passive feature to speak to all animals in the game which is very cool except that there are potions that already do this and there's enough potions that you can get one every long rest easily so this is basically a nothing feature I should probably give the force gnome an RP tier because there's just always a better option actually yeah that is what I give the forest gnome RP tier but it's just because it gets so badly out competed any racer gets gnome conning is already going to be pretty good so and then finally get to the cream of the crop here deep gnome I mean wow this race is so good let's go over it so on top of gnome cunning they're gonna get Superior dark vision incredible we've already talked about it with a lot of the other races like durgar or drow you can go back to Those portions to hear me discuss it and then they're gonna get stone camouflage which gives them advantage on stealth checks uh stealth I've already said it is the most important ability in this game and getting Proficiency in stealth is nice but you can usually get that in other ways advantage on every stealth check that is a feature which you cannot easily get from other parts of your build right so two highly impactful features to combine with gnome cunning already one of the best durability features in the game this puts deep gnome at an easy s tier such an incredible race to play mostly tanky they have a range build option and a stealth option deep gnome Rogues amazing yeah just so good so the uh the only thing that the only problem with deep gnome which might knock them down a tear in your estimation is that there's still probably worse than duraguard right because durgar aren't getting that proficiency that advantage on stealth checks but they are just getting a limitless cantrib version of invisibility so that kind of is better and then they're also getting Superior dark vision and they're getting their own version of gnome cunning which gives them advantage on checks against a paralyzed condition not as good as gnome cunning but it's like 60 of the way there because the real reason you want advantage and wisdom saving throws is to resist paralyzed right anyways I think gnome cunning is good enough on top of these other things to earn deep gnome and S tier anyways that's enough about gnomes next up on our list is half elves half elf base features they have a racial speed of 9 meters that's standard they're going to get civil militia this is something larion has added to the game half elves and humans get it with civil militia you have weapon proficiencies in Spears Pikes halberds and glaves so basically all of the pole arms in the game the only pole arm that isn't on this list is Quarter Staff but most classes get Proficiency in Quarter Staff anyways civil militia also gives you armor proficiency with light armor and shield proficiency so yes in Boulder Skate 3 you can get Shield proficiency through your race if you pick either a half elf or a human and it's really really good especially because there's some phenomenal shields in this game that are basically tailor-made for casters and the cleric and the Druid are the only Caster classes that usually get Shield proficiencies I guess Valor Bard but you don't really want to go Valor bard we'll talk about that when I get to my class tier list but basically if you're playing many of the the Caster classes like warlock Wizards Sorcerer And you want to use these shields that are great for spell casters you kind of have to pick civil militia so um yeah really good basically I I really like civil militia I prefer it over the medium armor proficiencies that other races give you I consider this a highly impactful race feature they also get dark vision 12 meters we've talked about that a lot you can go back in the video to hear discussion of that and then they get fake ancestry again we've talked about this a lot you can go back to drow I believe is where I talk about it in depth now let's go to the sub-races starting with high half Health they will get the high elf can trip the same as the high elf that we talked about earlier this isn't very good so the high half elf is in the same situation that the high elf was in where the good features that you get from the race you can easily get by picking another kind of Elf or half elf so there isn't really a good reason to pick High half Health nevertheless I can't give them RP tier because there's a few Niche cases where you might want the choosable cantrip so all together I give High half elf a b tier would half Health gets a fleet of foot same feature that what elves get and then I believe if we go um yes they're also getting the stealth proficiency that what else gets so stealth proficiency plus 1.5 meters we talked about this when we covered what elf these are both good things to have they're not really build defining but it's neat to have so on top of everything else that wood half elves get just from being a half elf I give the wood half elf an a tier I think this is probably the best half elf and then there's the draw half Health they're going to get the portfolio spells that drow get which is dancing lights at level one fairy fire level three Darkness at level five it's useful but not highly impactful yeah I give the draft half a b tier mostly I just think in ninety percent of the cases where you want what half elves give you you'll probably want to go wood half elf it's just the best choice next up we've got half work there are no sub-races of half work so we can just cover all of their race features here they get a base movement speed of 9 meters that is standard dark vision of 12 meters we've talked about this a lot it's nice but not highly impactful then they get Relentless endurance this is a unique racial feature if you've reach zero hit points you regain one hit point instead of becoming down and I believe this refreshes on a long rest really good it's basically like the spell death Ward once prolonged rest always cast on you that's really really good in combat what this is going to do is waste one extra enemy attack to keep you downed or if you're really really lucky it'll actually keep you alive for one more round to make an attack so so good and this is good on everybody there isn't a class or build in the game that doesn't benefit from this amazing and then on top of that they get Savage attacks when you land a critical hit with a melee weapon you deal an extra dice of weapon damage so this is a little bit confusing but in Baldur's gay three just like in 5V whenever you score a critical hit you're going to take all of your damage Dice and roll double of them and add that up and then you add your flat bonuses as normal so it's only the damaged dice that are quote unquote doubled rather than the flat bonuses that you get from say strength or the Enchantment of your weapon and stuff like that with Savage attacks it's gonna triple specifically your weapon damage dice so for example if I am using in this case a Quarter Staff which I'm holding in two hands that is a one die eight damage dice for that weapon normally when you score critical hit you'd roll two die eight for it but if you are a half orc you will roll three die eight so you're going to get the most out of this on any build that is expecting to critical hit a lot or any build which wants to use the weapons with really good damage Dice and that's basically the heavy two-handed weapons so altogether what the orc has is one amazing feature which works on every class in the game and another amazing feature which works specifically with melee weapon Strikers optimally but any kind of weapon Striker and it really it it makes a half work just so good in so many circumstances I mean it's one of the best Striker races in the game because this is the only racial feature that really adds damage other than the dragonborn's breath weapon which sucks as we've already talked about so awesome Savage attacks awesome and then Relentless endurance also amazing this is an S tier Race easily hands down half Orcs are good on every single build that you can think of so s tier for half works next up halfling this one's really gonna shake some people up because the the spoilers here is that halfling any variation of halfling is the master race these guys are Head and Shoulders better than every other racial option that you can pick in the game in pretty much every single build they're just so incredible it's really hard to not play as a halfling except for for some reason they have like the reverse Dragonborn effect where they look really stupid in game just like the way they run the posture I mean look at this guy anyways um let's go over the base racial features halflings have a movement speed is 7.5 it's one less than average but again that minus one to your movement isn't really going to matter you can very easily get enough movement in this game to do what you need to do then they're going to get the lucky feature this is the thing that makes halflings so good whenever you roll a 1 on an attack roll ability check or saving throw so by the way guys that's pretty much every single die 20 roll in the game if you roll a 1 you can re-roll the die but you must use the new roll now ones are critical misses or critical failures they always fail if you're making attack it's going to miss it doesn't matter if you have enough bonuses to hit with the roll of a one it always misses if you're making a skill check it always fails if you're making a saving throw it always fails so that means every other race in the game has a five percent chance of failing at any task and there's so many Die 20 tasks in this game you will critical fail often but not if you are a halfling if you are a halfling that one in 20 chance of failure becomes a one in 400 chance of failure that is only if you roll a one and then roll another one immediately after now that will happen sometimes because statistically you're going to do more than 400 die 20 rolls with your halfling in the game but it's so so seldom and that just gives the halfling so much reliability and then it's also just a bonus that you get on every die 20 roll in the game even a small bonus on every single die 20 roll in the game will add up to so much impact over the long run that it just dwarfs anything else that any other race offers you lucky is so overpowered it's so incredible and this is why it's really hard to play as anything that isn't a halfling and then on top of that they will get Brave which gives them advantage on saving throws against being frightened this is impactful but not highly impactful and that is the base race of halfling now let's go over what their sub races give starting with light foot halfling Lightfoot halflings will get naturally stealthy which gives them advantage on stealth checks holy crap this is so good we already talked about a comparable feature that deep gnomes get stealth is really really good getting advantage on it amazing so you're getting advantage on top of lucky if you stack up enough stealth you will pass every stealth check that aren't absurdly High DC reliably this is amazing in combination with the improved invisibility spell and just all together an incredible ability highly impactful on top of the already stacked kit that halflings get it is S Plus tier for Lightfoot halflings they might be the best race in the game the only real competition they have is strong hard halflings who gets strong heart resilience this is the equivalent of Dwarven resilience it does the same thing it just has a different name its advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and resistant to poison damage this is particularly good early where some of the boss fights in the game Deal a lot of poison damage and then again its advantage on a saving throw against a fairly common but not that debilitating debuff still these two races just offer so much I mean they're already really good if they didn't have lucky and then they get lucky which is the best race feature in the game uh halflings and bg3 are just a power Gamer's Dream from an optimization standpoint they pretty much muscle out everything else in the game as far as impact goes so you should pretty much always pick them if you were optimizing but other classes do offer good things like the dwygar the Deep gnome the half orc all of those are also s tier and worth picking but yeah halflings are in A League of Their Own s plus plus amazing and I've gushed enough about them let's move on now we're down to the last two now next up is human for their base racial features humans gain nine meters movement speed per turn they get the Civil militia ability the same as the half elves this is Proficiency in pole arms as well as light armor and Shields and it's the shields that really makes this a standout feature and then they get human versatility select an additional skill to be proficient in and your carrying capacity is increased by a quarter and this is it there's no sub race of human just like in real life all humans are the same sadly what they offer isn't that good the big thing here in civil militia but if you want civil militia you're pretty much best off going half elf because you can combine it with Fae ancestry and that's going to be better than human versatility in pretty much every circumstance unless you really want that skill to be proficient this is a selectable skill you can see here any skill in the game you just get to pick it now which ones realistically are you gonna pick uh St elf is probably the best choice maybe perception or some of the Charisma skills but if you remember what half Health already gets Proficiency in stealth probably the most valuable one you are likely to pick so yeah honestly human really just I can't imagine a world where it out competes going wood half health and for that reason I give human an RP tier that said I play humans all the time because I just like playing a human thematically to me picking a human is like picking a vanilla theme so that you can focus on the themes of your class rather than the themes of your race all of these other races have their own kind of themes which might draw away from or clash with the theme concepts of your class so I pick humans all the time even though they are our P tier that leaves us with the last race in the game tieflings tieflings tieflings come in three varieties but of course first we're going to talk about their base racial features they have a movement speed of 9 meters that's standard they get dark vision 12 meters that's practically standard and then they get hellish resistance which gives them resistance to fire damage now fire damage is a very common type but you can also get resistance to it fairly commonly I mean if you can predict when the fire damage is incoming it's as easy as casting the first level crate water spell on your party that will last for three rounds and it'll give you resistance to fire damage I don't value fire resistance as much as I value some of the other resistances but still it is an impactful feature and then we can go to their sub races what all of these sub-races of tiefling give you is a unique spell portfolio so we'll go over them one at a time starting with osmodius tiefling there's Spells at level one they get produce flame this is an attack cantrip which can also shed light in a small radius but that's not important for us we already have dark vision as an attack hand trip it's one by eight fire damage with a very low range I don't value it that highly this will use Charisma as your attack stat by the way so if you do want to use this it is best for any Charisma Caster there are many in this game at level 3 they will get hellish rebuke which they can cast once per long rest helles rebuke is a good spell but it's a spell you kind of want to spam not once per long rest it's really not that impactful that way and then at level five they will get Darkness the same as drow uh what's to say about it I don't know darkness is okay uh the spell portfolio isn't really that good I give osmotis tiefling a C tier next up Mephistopheles tiefling they will get Mage hands as a cantrip magehand is actually a very useful cantrip for solving out of combat puzzles in combat it's not really doing that much at third level they will get burning hands which they can cast one per long rest but this version of burning hands is cast as if it's a second level spell so it is upcast by one level still though not very useful just because it takes your action and not that efficient of a of a spell for your action it gets outscaled very quickly and then finally at fifth level they will get flame blade now flame blade is actually interesting and if you are familiar with my work in Early Access I've experimented with flame blade a lot the new version of the spell on full release no longer requires concentration it only lasts 10 rounds and it is automatically summoned into your offhand if you are dual Wheeling when you cast the spell and I guess all together that makes it a better spell than the what it was in Early Access that said I find it much less interesting now because you're only getting it for a one combat span whereas before it lasted for as long as you maintain concentration which means you could really build around it still though it's useful especially if you sum it into your offhand there a lot of casters which don't have efficient actions to do with their bonus action and summoning a flame blade into your offhand which uses your charisma to attack with very good especially on Sorcerers I consider mevistopheles tieflings to be good on Sorcerers but on everything else kind of meh I give them a c tier last up is zaryal tiefling this is probably the best version of the tiefling for their Spells at level one they get the thou mature as you can trip this is very useful for intimidation and performance checks which are mostly out of combat at third level that gets during Smite an upcaster version of Sirius might as if it is a second level spell still though searing Smite really isn't that good and once prolonged rest it's just adding a little bit of damage nothing to write home about and then at fifth level they get branding Spike now this one is actually good branix might add some radiant damage and radiant damage is the damage type you can really build around which is fun but the most important thing is is it prevents creatures from going invisible and there's lots of combats in this game where targets will go invisible and it will really ruin your day branding smiting them before they can go invisible awesome and so that's the kind of racial spell that I actually like it's the the thing that is really impactful every now and again so that once per long rest limitation isn't gaining it so zarya tiefling I do consider the best of the tieflings but still a c tier for zarya T flame so it's C tier for all of the t-flings and that is it for the races so that is my video on the race tier list now last thing I want to take a note of is how I'm going to be updating this going forward because I'm sure I will be learning many things about the game which may change these rankings and I don't want to make a new video every single time so here's what I'm going to do this video will stand alone as the core of my thoughts on ranking the races in Boulder Skate 3 but I will also have a reference sheet where I discuss all of this in writing on my website and I will be updating that reference sheet which will be linked in the disc description for any changes in the future so if you're watching this video a year from now or five years from now I'm sure many of the opinions that I have remain relevant but if you want to know any updates please refer to the reference sheet on my website the link is in the description if you're watching this video the same week that it's released I'm actually working on that reference sheet right now so it's probably going to be on my website within the week within the next seven days or so so not there yet but once it's there the link will be in the description this is a full release of the game I've been so busy that I've neglected a really important job which is recognizing and thanking my supporters on patreon patreon is such a big Financial but also moral support for me and I cannot thank them enough for what they've done frankly I can't thank them all by name anymore because in the last few months the list of supporters has grown so long it would take too long to read off the names on my videos so from now on I'll be only reading the names of my S tier supporters on patreon but I want my A and B tier supporters to know I really appreciate what you've done even if it's just one dollar for one month every little bit counts thank you now to my S tier patrons all Karis Jeff marchatar Route One Todd aurelian thank you so much you guys and of course a special thank you to the guy who started it all CA Castaway gentlemen I won't let you down

Channel: Aestus_RPG

Views: 176,670

Keywords: BG3, Baldur's Gate 3, Tier List, Race Tier List, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Larian

Id: nqgcy5yV6V4

Length: 55min 55sec (3355 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2023