With an recent comment saying that "misses (that worked on bg1/2/iwd1/2/nwn1/2 and is present even on action games like D1/D2) doesn't work on a video game", i was wondering if Larien would change the PnP rules

“The very obvious one would be that you tend to miss a lot when you roll the dice, which is fine when you’re playing on the tabletop, but it’s not so cool when you’re playing a video game,” Vincke said. “We had to have solutions for that.” Source https://www.tatech.org/baldurs-gate...es-place-after-dds-descent-into-avernus/

After reading it, i just wonder. Did he played the first two BG games? Did he played even mainstream action games such as Diablo 1/2? Morrowind? Daggerfall? Did he played NWN1/2? Or even old school games like Might & Magic VI-VIII? Missing works on ALL OF this mentioned games Missing is an important part and an small change on misses will lead to bigger and bigger changes. For example, if an longbow will almost always hit, then longbows can't have the same historical accurate range that they have on D&D and the range will be probably nerfed to nerf-like range aka 13m, Even an basic Fireball, not subjected to evasion/improved evasion will be awful. And how spells like Finger of Death will work?

To remove misses and saves, you need to re write completely the game And Sword Coast Legends tried it. I honestly don't like DOS2 combat where no armor deflects your blows, nobody evades/blocks, but you need to impale the enemy 20 times with an spear to kill him and the combat fells much more like puzzle.

I wanna do epic stuff like assume an dragon form and raise an undead/elemental army, like i can do on Pathfinder Kingmaker



Wanna spells like Finger of Death to fell like i an the master of life and death itself and face enemies that use this powerful spells against myself without cooldowns or other similar mechanics. But some people like DOS2 combat, so i suggest. Wanna change the rules? Do it, but make OPTIONAL. Just like most D&D based games, has an difficulty called "core rules"

Or at least allow modding and let the player make the game into more pnp-like. NWN2 for eg, i hated when played as an warlock for the first time. When installed an mod that fixes warlock to be more pnp like, loved the game. Exactly because my tentacles grapples the enemy, i can cast multiple the dead walk and control up to caster level * 2 HD worth of undead, etc.

That particular comment in that article is certainly the source of a lot of doubt building towards BG3 both from fans of the previous BG games, and from D&D fans in general. I think it would be in Larian's best interest to address these concerns as soon as possible in order to stop the spreading of the negativity that's caused by that comment.

I'm not sure he's talking about actual rules change. In NWN1 this was handled via the "dance of death" and NWN2 you just sort of stood there, but both had miss animations

BG1/2 I was so focused on the entire party I never even noticed if any particular attack hit or missed.

anyway, "handle it" doesn't necessarily mean rule change, or it could be such a non-op change (e.g. every attack does at least 1 damage or something like that)

EDIT: Oh, but I support the premise of making things optional, but not just rule alterations, make everything OPTIONAL (i.e. give us a toolset :))

You are right,

but for Larien, even leveling is too slow Dungeons and Dragons’ leveling system is too slow for Baldur’s Gate 3
https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/leveling-system

Sounds like "i love soccer, wanna make an soccer game, but the rules that worked on fifa, pes and etc doesn't work, so i will re write the soccer rules"


I love leveling on D&D. On my solo max difficulty Dragon Disciple run on Icewind Dale EE, i goes from running from Goblins that succeed on their saving trows against charm to stopping time, conjuring an Efreet army and etc. On Might & Magic VIII, goes from an weak necromancer that barely can conjure two toxic clouds to an badass lich that can reanimate dragons, teleport, become invisible, or nuke cities out of existence. That is amazing.

And i wonder.
Have you played DnD 5E? Thats the system were getting, and if we get a game that is only limited to the rules of that system, well be getting a very very boring video game.
As for misses. OS2 had misses. Every RTWP game had misses, every Turn based RPG game has misses.
To me, this is an indication that BG3 will be an action RPG in terms of combat.

5e sounds good but not as 3.5e or pathfinder. Anyway, no cRPG got released on 5e. SCL tried to "adapt to video games" and failed miserably.

No misses means I can go in with a level one character and punch a Red Dragon. I may not do much damage but hey, I didn't miss. (silly) Misses are as much part of D&D as their being Dungeons and Dragons. No misses has to be an optional rule. There should be misses in the default setting of the game.

Having no misses sounds like a cheat.

I agree. It feels like Larian intentionally made a lot of vague statements about the game (combat type, the comment about people being surprised about the camera, the "missing isn't fun" mantra and so on) in order to generate hype and discussion, yet it feels like the discussion on most secondary websites is dying out or already has ceased entirely due to the absence of news.

When Larian officially announced BG3 a few days before the E3 expo last month I thought they'd use the chance to release more info about the game while the hype was fresh, but instead they only repeated what they'd already said in numerous interviews for various gaming sites.

you people act as if that means theres no misses and nothing to make up for it.
obviously it means that well be getting a different system.
Its obviously not going to be DnD 5e but with guaranteed hits.
theyll have AC do something.

I don't want to jump to conclusions too soon, but considering that Original Sin 2's armour system was implemented to eliminate RNG (mostly in the shape of 'bad' dice rolls) from influencing combat it's not as if the disapproval of attacks and spells missing is something brand new for Larian.

well no, the armor system wasnt realy to take away RNG, well it was partly to take away RNG, but i think the reason was mostly to change the focus of the game away from alpha striking with CC which was very easy to do in OS1, mostly winning the fight before it even began.
Also to move the combat away from CC spam and give direct damage more of an edge.
That way, combat in OS2 tends to open with a lot of damage beeing dealt before CC takes effect.

getting rid of RNG is also an effect, one i personally like since it turns CC into something you can plan on rather than somehting you can hope on, making your descisions more logical.
but with DnD, it doesnt realy work that way, at least with 5E, especialy fighters tend to be kind of a slot machine of "roll to do stuff".

Prefer not RNG is one thing.

Say that doesn't work when clearly worked on bg1/2, iwd1/2, nwn1/2, and tons of non D&D games like kotor 1/2, diablo 1/2, is completely different. I like because it makes the combat tense. You can an suffer an sneak attack from an poisoned arrow at very far away on D&D, and it would be deadly, mainly at low levels or for low hit dice classes... Mindflayers if they need to take out an armor to then try to "enslave" your party members will not be an terrifying enemy. Same for Beholders. The fear of being insta disintegrated is what makes then terrifying enemies.



The "randomness" is exactly what makes the CC spam not viable on D&D. Pick an "web" spell for eg, is very lickely to hold some creatures and very unlikely to hold another. This ignoring complete immunity. Finger of Death works on living, but is useless against enemies with high fortitude saves or immune to insta death effects on 3.5e, flesh to stone is more adequated against undead for eg but against an dragon with high fortitude, will likely not work, but here is my point. Only because an game did CC and saves bad, doesn't means that all games did it badly.

I din't played D:OS1 but become bored with D:OS2 in 6 hours. One game that implemented the rules relative faithful was Pathfinder Kingmaker. And honestly, there are few things that P:K could improve. For example, fly and climb.

Modern ""rpg's"" offers way less verticality than even DOS era cRPG's. You can fly and climb on Daggerfall and dungeons has many "floors" linked in a 3D way. Nowadays with physics engine, with 3D photorealistic graphics, game devs instead of making archery more realistic or fun, they limit your archery range to 13m(D:OS2 i an looking to you), adds a lot of mechanics that makes no sense like cooldowns, instead of explore the bigger memory to allow creations of undead armies,they limit to one summon, instead of bouncing in armor animation, they say that missing doesnt work(Despite it worked on tons of games), instead of allowing an 'caster' do cool stuff like animate objects in the scenario, they offer an magic system with way less effects than dos rpg's, instead of destructive involvement with consequences from destroying it, they hand hold the player into boring lever puzzles... The first thing that M&M devs did after they moved from grid based to doom "2.5D" 3D based was add fly and verticality. Something that modern game devs hate. Think on the 90s games with modern technology, an dragon bombargin your party with powerful spells and flying...

Here is two solo sorcerers on BG2:EE using two completely different strategies, one using summons + shapeshift and another lowering enemy MR and saves and using finger of death(ohk on failed save)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzIAV6NS6Vw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UIafQ2DUJ8

CC spam is not viable in DnD?
my dude im pretty much a forever DM and CC is absolute King in any non full damage specialized party.
Sleep, web, or in 4E which i prefer movement hindering effects are amazing.

The thing in DnD is that if you use damage or CC to beat an encounter, there are still even more OP ways of doing them, that usually involve magic.
When we are talking early game, having CC is basically mandatory. Especialy in earlier editions where there is no AoO, im thinking of Icewind Dale 1 here. You keep getting overwhelmed by the enemy simply having higher numbers than you, you cant realy keep all their dudes busy and in early levels your casters will die very quickly, so entangling the lot of em is the easiest way to manage an encounter.

You dont need to entangle ALL your enemies, your fighter and ranger can deal with those enemies not entangled, but its much more manageable than having to deal with all of them while your paper mache wizard is running for his life in a crowded dungeon.

I dont know what to tell you about becoming bored of OS2 in 6 hours.
Ok you only like RTWP games that are faithfull to ... some pnp system. Thats a very particular taste, but you cant argue with taste.

Taste however is also not actually an argument.
And saying DnD does RNGed CC better than Original Sin quite frankly isnt true, it does it basically the same.

And the rest you said, idk you seem to devolve into rambling.
i dont remember any RPG that did destructible enviroments. DAI tried but it was a gimmick and didnt work well.
what you said about "Limiting to cast" sounds like Vancian casting, ive explained in numerous threads why i think vancian magic is a bad system for a video game (and for DnD)
I dont know what lever puzzles you talk about, i only remember one lever puzzle in OS2 and that was in the Path of Blood, considering you got bored 6 hours in, im seriously doubting you got that far since thats at the very end of act 3, youd have to be speedrunning hard to reach that point in 6 hours.

Im also not quite sure what you are trying to prove with those two videos.
Are you implying that in non RNG based systems there is only one way to beat an encounter? Not to mention that OS2 has RNG in it, just less in terms of CC.
it seems like you are just trying to show off the system you want. Which is ok, i just dont think its impressive, i know that system well.

THAT ALL ASIDE:
Im gonna repeat myself here but im gonna do it anyway:

They probably WONT just have a system you are used to (RTWP / OS style Turn based) and just "Remove" the "Missing" part of it.
I think they have a compleltey different combat system that works different to both of those types of games in which misisng doesnt make sense.
Simmilar to how missing was removed in Oblivion from Morrowind (which was very much a dice roll combat game but only from a first person perspective, while Oblivion was an action based combat system)

4e is EXACTLY why we have pathfinder and the worst edition in therms of sales. Exactly because they tried to be pnp-generic-mmos instead of pnp-living breathing worlds. Charm, is an amazing starting spell, but can only be used 4 times per rest on a wizard. Resting system is an problem on BG but P:K fized it by making resting risky, require time and resources in a world where camping supplies are expensive, heavy and the time matters.



Too much modern mechanics that i hate. MMO style limited range, where archers can't hit an elephant at 14m, cooldowns, gear being much more important on how your build your charcter and not working like eqquipment, etc



No, is not. I saw a lot of games using spell slots. Dark Souls for eg and Dark Souls had one of the best combat systems.

Spell slots on the way that DkS 2 presented leads to some "decisions", for example, Forbidden Sun, the strongest pyromancy that literally creates an mini sun and trows at the enemy, Insane deadly and deals AOE damage. What is the problem? Is behind an long quest and takes 3 attenument slots ( https://darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com/Forbidden+Sun ) So the 'charname' needs to make an choice. What is best? Be able to throw 3 forbidden suns with 43 ATN and Hexer hood or be able to throw 20+ fire orbs? And there are no easy solution. In some situations, one spell will excel and on another, another spell will be the best option.

If was on D3 for Ex, pyromancer will need an big and sharp axe to throw the mini sun and the mini sun will scale with 100.000% of base damage and have 2 minute cooldown.

If was on D:OS will be an 13m ranged attack that can be used once per 10 turns and that is it. Nothing special, no decision, no player agency.





I like turn based games too. As longs they don't have ultra slow annimations like Wizardry 8 or D:OS or modern mechanics that makes no sense.



I said that COULD have it with modern technology; unfortunately even games like pahtfinder kingmaker din't implemented it.




And exactly by removing missing, they needed to remove a lot of other things. For eg, how Divine intervention can work if it have no risk of failure????

If you lv 1 charname with an dagger can hit an master knight with plate armor and tower shield, the guy in question ends up becoming an "bullet spongee"

Every time, man, i wonder if someone trains you people to spout the same regurgitated and especialy unfounded opinions on 4e.
So im not even gonna get into it, you are only depriving yourself of an edition that actually made stuff different. Have fun.

Vancian casting only works in Pathfinder because its a game with a worldmap and random encounters, as you pointed out.
It didnt work well in Baldurs gate, it didnt work in neverwinter nights. And honestly, it doesnt work in DnD. All it does is forcing more rests. AS a DM the best thing you can do to make Vancian casting work is to create time pressure, make sure the party has to complete its objectives in a short timeframe.
but that means it works only in that time constraiend setting.
Time constraiend campaigns are hard to do without "railroading", but thats a seperate issue alltogether.

Too many modern mechanics. Ok having ranges? I mean besides Bows, that same thing applies to DnD. And in DnD and most infinity engine games, your ranger will be limited simply because of the layout of the battlefield, such as them beeing dungeons.
Cooldowns is a matter of opinion, as far as im concerned, they work better than vancian casting. Thats the reason modern games use cooldowns, because as a system its more consistent and more aplicable to a variety of playstyles.
As i said in my previous post: Taste is not an argument.


And spell slots are not Vancian casting? That IS vancian casting.
Dark souls is particular poor comparison. Dark Souls is set up in a way where the world resets when you rest. Its therfore the ideal game for Vancian casting to work.
And idk if dark souls actually has the "Best" combat system. Dark Souls combat system feels good, but Dark Souls combat system is mostly pattern recognition, i say that as someone whose played all Dark Souls games and finished 1 with mouse and keyboard for some reason.
DIdnt play bloodbourne cause i dont own a console.
Dark Souls combat system realy shows in PvP: a bunch of rolling and backstabbing. Dark Souls is excellence in level design and presentation, not neccesarily in combat system.

And pardon me, did you play OS2?
Because you have to make the exact same desicsions.
Do you want to waste 2 memory slots on a powerfull spel like closed circuit or do you want to use the two for "weaker" utiltiy spells like teleport or nether swap?

Dou you want to build a mage that covers all his bases by having spells that deal all damage types, thus having to specc into memory, or do you want to throw all your poitns into Intelligence to increase the damage of those spells that you have.
Likewise, theres source abilities, which dont have a cooldown but rely on a Ressource that you can have, at maximum, 3 of. You want to use all 3 of your source to cast overpower at the start of the fight to immediatly CC an enemy?
Or do you want to keep your source to use Skin graft to reset your cooldowns later on.

For one thing you compare apples to oranges (a tactical turn based RPG in which combats are balanced around starting wtih full HP versus a Marathon run Action RPG)
you also seem to have only a rudimentary understanding of one of the things you talk about.

Since when does Wizardry 8 have ultra slow animations, they dont even have melee attack animations, the only thing slow about Wiz 8 is the fact that the enemies come in huge blobs and move one at the time, But theres a mod that fixes that.

On your Knight example:
DnD 5E actually doesnt have the scenario anymore where the knife fighter cant hit the knight.
Bounded accuracy gets rid of that.
Furhtermore, read what i said, its probably gonna be a different game mechanic. Chances are, the knight with the Shield will manually block the attacks rather than the knife fighter "missing" the knight.
On the bullet sponge note: Wheres the difference?
If a Knight has so much damage reduction the knife fighter needs to hit him 200 times to kill him, or if the Knife fighter misses so ofthen that he needs to attak him 200 tiems to kill him..... wheres the difference?

Than answer. Why din't worked? What is the problem of an almost 50 yo system?




Is due technology limitations. IE is not an modern engine. And i loved Dragon's Dogma, because the ranger can actually attack at range

If you look to 3.5e PnP, Eldricht Spear has 250 feet(90m) range. And is an at will no ammo cost ability.

And IRL, bows can hit you very far away, an 300 yard (275m) shot > https://youtu.be/Et23I9zneqk?t=159




No, is because RPG's aren't good and immersive as before.The fantasy of an warlock that damages himself chanelling hellfire is much more interesting than the fantasy of an warlock that can only cast hellfire once each X seconds.



Could be better. If for eg, shields reduce an flat amount, not by percentage(makes more sense) but i disagree about pvp. DkS 2 has an amazing pvp. I saw pure roleplay builds doing well on pvp.



DkS is just one example. ALL rpg's that don't use cooldowns works well. Action focused like Dragon's Dogma/Dark Souls, tactical focused like PoE 2 and Pathfinder Kingmaker, etc.




Armor class has an "evade" part and an deflection part. On aD&D, plate for eg is much better against slashing than against blunt by a reason.

Says the man "getting into it."


And the vast majority of D&D players, not to mention the *actual* marketplace, have deemed its very particular "differences" worthy of being related to the cesspit of failed RPG systems.

You undercut your arguments by holding it up as a system to be revered or imitated. The case against 4e was litigated a long time ago in a million courts of very public opinion.

4e is the Jar Jar Binks of D&D.

Hang your hat on its merits at your own peril.

Vancian casting:
Why doesnt it work in Infinity engine games and NWN: Resting is too easy, its basically not a good restriction on Wizards. It works on Kingmaker, but thats because Kingmaker is a game with a worldmap, resting encounters and time constraints.

On bows: as said, you are gonna spend the majority of your time in DnD games either in a Dungoen or ambushed in close quarters, the full range of bows doesnt come into play ofthen and when it does, its in large scale battles or ambushes that the players lay for the enemies.
Dragons Dogma is a very different kind of game as Baldurs Gate or Divinity is, but as ive said before, if this were to be Baldurs Gate: Dragons Dogma, id be up for it, as i love that game.

On Cooldowns: Pardon me, where is the equivalency here? A Warlock that damages himself is more common in Video games (cast from HP) than it is in DnD.
Spell points are also not immersive, they are not immersive at all. They are an arbitrary restriction, especialy when an immersive restriction (spell components) is already in place.

On Dark Souls PvP: just cant agree, its basically been made obsolete by For Honor, Mordhau, Chivalry and Mount and Blade.
Dark Souls PvP is nice because of how it interacts with the base RPG, but from a pure 1v1 (like the bridge in DS2, i used to farm that to get the dragon covenant) im not impressed.

"All RPGs that use cooldowns dont work well" Ok. Im just gonna disagree with you there.
Do you know what RPG doesnt use cooldowns? Skyrim.
Using or not using cooldowns is not indicative of beeing a good game.

Full Bleed:

You realy think you are getting me with this? You think im interrested in this drivel? its your loss. I can play DnD with my friends anytime i like. And i can play any edition i like. And my friends prefer 4E to 5E, that or OSR stuff. Or TDE for that matter.

You realize that one of the most celebrated "innovations" from 5E, the Battlemaster, is ripped straight out of 4E right?
In fact, im fairly sure you cant even tell me whats supposed to be bad about 4E, you are just regurgitating what youve been told.
But at that point, i dont even want to hear it.
Go gobble up the same caster supremacy, save or suck, ToTM , generic spell list, vancian magic, e-celeb infested splatbook fests that you are used to from 3E, for all eternity.

So you agree that the main problem is much more the lack of consequences for resting than spell slots?



Not true. Depends a lot the setting and dungeon layouts. About close range, spells that has close range on 5e like Finger of Death has 60 feet range. And long range?

" 5th edition rules, a multi-classed Warlock 2 Sorcerer 3 that also uses the Spell Sniper feat, could potentially cast Eldritch Blast (using Eldritch Spear - 300ft, SS feat - doubled, and Distant Spell Metamagic - doubled again) at a range of 1,200 feet." https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5urz4a/5e_viability_of_an_eldritch_sniper_w_12k_ft_range/

If you visit the post, you can see tons of utility for this "sniper build"



I was talking about hellfire warlock.



1 :

Skyrim use on SHOUTS.

And RPG's that don't use? Diablo 1/ Diablo 2(except few HW intensive skills), BG1, BG2, NWN, NWN2, IWD, IWD2, VtMB, Arcanum, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Demon Souls, Dragon's Dogma, KOTOR, KOTOR 2, Might & Magic 1...9(hated 10 and don't remember if use), daggerfall, morrowind, oblivion, wizardry 1...8, pathfinder kingmaker, fallout 1, fallout 2, fallout 3, fallout new vegas(din't played 4 or 76)(i can continue listing)

2 :

Not what i have been told. What happened. When the pnp generic mmo(4e) comes, D&D lost the title of most sold tabletop game to pathfinder.

3 :

1 - There are no caster supremacy, in some situations martial classed to better and in anothers, magic classes
2 - Save or Suck worked pretty well
3 - Stop Time, Portals, Charm(...) spell casters on D&D is good exactly because you can do much more than trow fireballs.

To get this thread back on topic.

Feats are an optional rule.

Feats are an optional rule because 5E is designed to be very easy to pick up for new players.
I dont see many people playing wtihout feats tho.
Having feats beeing optional would make balancing the game very hard.

Victor:
The Problem with Vancian casting is first and foremost that it puts one part of the group on a different ressource system than the rest, and this seldom works out well.
As said, you need a very specific kind of campaign and even there it is awkward.

On Rangs:
i dont see how this adresses my point. Yes, there are long range spells in DnD. wether or not you use em at that range will be up to the DMs encounter design.
If you creep around int he Underdark, you probably wont get to use that advantage a lot.
Its highly situational.
The Original Sin games were essentialy games run by a DM that puts emphasis on close quarter combat. The same was true for Baldurs Gate.
I cant think of a single DnD game that made use of the maximum range of anyhting.

Ok. And how is a Hellfire warlock restricted to Vancian casting? Do you have any idea how many video games use that mechanic? How does empowering your class feature spell-like ability by taking damage have anything to do with the system for Spellcasting that is used? I dont see how these two things are related in any way.

1. and the majority of these games dont have spell slots. And what? fallout? those games dont even have magic in them.
The TES games had Mana, im pretty sure youd get mad if they replaced spell slots with mana.
My point still stands, wether or not you have cooldowns is not indicative of beeing a good game or not. Theres good games with cooldowns, theres bad games without cooldowns. Its a systemt hat can be adapted in a variety of ways

2. and even Paizo is realizing they created a Monstrosity and try to backpeddal with 2.0, and people are already hating it.
4E was too much of a change for grognards to adapt to, its still a great system and the fact that 13th age and strike exist just shows that the reason people didnt like 4E was because they had a lot of preconceived notions as to what DnD is supposed to be (and that was 3.5).

3.1: Is this what you people actually believe dont you. Its just flat out wrong.
3.2 no it didnt
3.3 Yes and completley break the game, making playing Dnd at high levles a complete joke, not to mention that its impossible for clases like ranger, monk , fighter or rogue to compete with that.
Wizards can stop time, throw people in pocket dimensions or just make people do whatever they want, meanwhile fighters can attack another time per turn and run fast.
See point 3.1.
Just some results from google
http://librarians-and-leviathans.blogspot.com/2015/04/power-and-utility-for-wizards-and.html
http://zennyonmymind.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-martial-vs-caster-imbalance-and.html

if it doesnt exist, why is it some of the most hotly debated topics in DnD and Pathfinder

Whether or not they put them in is yet to be seen. I myself like feats because of the variety, but that still doesn't not negate the fact that they are optional.

Plus I thought it a good way to get this thread back to topic. (Not about 4E.)

Sordak, i agree that you can only use this long range spells on D&D/Pathfinder if the encounter allows it. But there are an big difference between it and an immersion break hardcap on "sorry, i can't hit this elephant sized target because he is too far away, at 14m"

1 - spell slots is a system superior to mana. Easier to track, easier to prepare and easier to balance. But i was talking about games without cooldown.

2 - If people loved the "monstroisity", is the monstrosity that bad?

3 - Did you played Neverwinter Nights? Because Monks are often banned on pvp servers, due the insane speed, disarming, knockdown, high spell resistance, etc. And the strongest build that i saw in 400+ hours of NWN1 is an build that combines the monk bonus to AC and the shape of dragon from of a druid.

Talking about high level monks, on nwn1, an lv 20 monk can deal 5 attacks per round, each one dealing 2D10 damage + attribute mod. An sorcerer with 12 CON(+1) at lv 20 even with max hp per roll will have 100 hp, in other words, can be OHKilled in one round by an monk that will have a lot of SR and can knockdown the sorcerer easily. This not mentioning that Monks has the best saves on the game, is amazing at disarming, knocking out, etc and on nwn1, monks are nerfed compared to pnp. They don't get the outsider template, nor the ethereal ability(lv 19) > http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm#perfectSelf

As for fighters, they are much more gear dependent than the monk. But even then can outDPS any caster if they have for eg +5 axe that deals +2D6 fire and +2D6 cold damage. And believe or not, this ludicrous OP weapons exists on NWN2 a lot. And note that on 3.0e, spell reistence works in a different way than 3.5e/pathfinder, spells like incendiary cloud that allow SR on 3e won't allow on 3.5e. It helped to make conjuration more viable, since conjuration deals in general less damage than evokation.

What makes casters special on D&D is exacly that they can do more than trow fireballs and clerics more than heal. If the DM allow your sorc charname to pick the strongest spells, allowed wiz to find the storngest scrolls but din't gave an powerful weapon to the fighter, then is a balance problem caused by the DM, not by the rules

BG has 298 spells > https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Spells_(Baldur%27s_Gate_II)

edit : Fighters get amazing abilities on BG2 too > https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Smite

And here is some nwn spells,

The unique class that i agree that is weak is rogue.

edit 2 : An example of broken build on nwn1. http://world-of-greyhawk.github.io/builds/data/build312774.html



This stats are similar to deities... I an not joking.

i understand the immersion thing.
but it depends ont he kind of game. In dragons dogma, having low arrow range would piss me off.
In OS2 i dont care, its mechanical abstraction and to me, gameplay > realism.

1 - Spell slots are easier to keep track of in a PnP game, in a video game its automated so it doesnt matter. Im personally not a big fan of mana either.
my issue with spell slot is not the time limitaiton, the issue is that a wizard works differently to a warrior and that creates a stupid situation where either the wizard twiddles his thumbs or the warrior constantly has to watch the wizard taking nappies.
the AEDU system fixed this. but everyone hated it.
2 - Yes, honestly 5E is nothing compared to Pathfinder in terms of trap options. Pathfinder has literal Tier lists to warn people about unplayable classes. Im not just talking about feats that are bad, theres just classes that are flat out worse at the thing they are supposed to excel at compared to a class that only does this as a side option
3 - NWN is a video game, so a lot of the stuff you can do in PnP doesnt work. And PvP servers also dont have the pause option, which makes it a lot harder for Wizards to do their wizard thing. also NWN is basedo n 3.5 where monks were significantly better than in 5E, in 5E monks, along with rangers are basically joke options.


And realy, you need to read the links ive provided. this is not about DPR.
Damage is irrelevant. sure a fighter and a monk can maybe outdamage a wizard. But a Wizard can just make the encounter go away without fighting. And the wizard can change his spell layout every rest.
If the fighter doesnt pick up an item that lets him fly, hes basically screwed in later levels.
And that is BY THE RULES.
I know what you are saying. But i disagree. The DM is not supposed to develop the game. WOTC is supposed to do that. The DM is not supposed to houserule spells to make Wizards not have access to them. Especialy since then the DM would have to ban most high level spells.

And that doesnt even begin to get into the situaiton where the wizards dont just use their spells as discribed in the rules, but start getting creative with them.

TL;DR: It was never about Damage, damage is irrelevent when you can just solve an encounter another way.
Martials get no utility options. and if the DM is required to houserule to balance the Wizard, then yes the wizard IS op.

1 - If everyone hated, is because the solution is worst than the """problem"""

2 -Then re write this "useless classes"

3 - Name one thing that doesn't work

3.2 - About pvp servers, you have have 12 spells on F1-F12, 12 on CTRL F1-F12 and 12 on SHIFT F1-F12, totalizing 36 spells to quickly cast.

About range, imagine someone that loves to create "sniper builds"and now needs to deal with an NERF range gun? Imagine someone that loves to create an undead/construct army and now can only have one minion? You literally killed the main appeal for the class on your CRPG. About wizard being OP, i mentioned a lot of situations where other classes excel and of course an class that has D4 hit dice compared to classes with D10 or D12 and proficiency on weapons needs to do interesting stuff. Compare Wizards with Fighters makes no sense since both are completely different. Is like compare apples to oranges. Compare Wizards to Cleric then. An Cleric

- Has D8 hit dice, twice the wizard
- Can cast wearing armor without any penalty
- Has much more healing spells and can even revive dead party members
- Get weapon proficiency
- Even as a necromancer, can on aD&D and on 3.5e cast Animate dead far before arcane casters
- On NWN1, they can cast Implosion, an AOE OHK that is not subjected to death effect immunity
- Use WIS, it make then WILL saving throw better on 3.5e

Looks like you don't wanna play D&D. You wanna play an generic mmo where magicians can only trow fireballs, with cooldowns, armor determining your character attributes, where clerics can only heal, etc.

1. people hated it because OLD THING GOOD NEW THING BAD, this very thread is also a good case study of this phenomenon.
2. in case of martialsyou cannot. There has been huge debate about this on the official forums. The design philosophy of Pathfinder is simply that you arent allowed to do this.
Let me explain: a developer actually came into the thread, and n o i dont have the exact thread, and said that a non magical character in pathfinder is never supposed to do anything that a Human cannot do in real life. The result of that is simply that in order to make a class viable, it has to become magical. And thats just how it works.

In the case of other classes: well yes, you could rewrite them, but they dont. And thats why its a flaw in game development.
If a video game is bad, are you going to defend it by saying "Just mod it"?

Explained briefly without going into a lenghty tangent on what exactly that means

3. You simply cannot get creative with abilities. I dont know if you ever played DnD in real life, but theres so many things you can do with spells if you get creative. Meanwhile video games ofthen dont let you do the simplest stuff, such as flying. Very few games actually let you do that. Or properly teleport long distances, or lock things into pocket dimensions.

3.2 just compare what you discribe with how combat goes in your average RTWP game. Kiting people around is far less likeley to happen in a complete real time setting. Not impossible but usually an MMO thing.

As for sniper builds. Mate, not every game is going to have every possible character playable.
And a "sniper" build is a relativeley niche character. Why cant i have a grappling character? thats exactly as niche and no video game has done it so far. None, at least no DnD video game i know of.
Theres just some things that video games arent designed to do. How many video games have made characters viable where you wield a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other? OS2 with mods actually, but thats besides the point.
You cannot expect a video game to cater to every single playstyle and still hope for it to have depth left at the end of it.


On comparing apples to oranges: do you understand that you are making my point for me here right?
Exactly, you cannot compare a fighter to a wizard. You can only compare a Cleric to a Wizard because a cleric is largley in the same "Power category" as a Fighter.

Its about utility. a Wizard has all of it, a Cleric has a lot of it, a fighter has very little and a ranger has none of it. and now look at the DnD 5E class tier list and OH LOOK, thats exactly the kind of lineup you end up with.
It DOES NOT MATTER how many HP a Wizard has, if a wizard can solve a combat encoutner without actually fighting, meanwhile a Fighter CANNOT solve any encounter that is not fighting or Intimidating related. Thats the crux of the issue that you conveniently choose to ignore.
https://imgur.com/c0kL5hf
Heres a neat little infograph
and here another neat one from /tg/
https://imgur.com/WU8mLqB

And hah, thats rich. i AM playing DnD. I DM for two groups and am a player in a TDE camapign.
You know what i want? A game in which each character contributes to the group, in which each character has a ROLE to play in that group (its not called ROLE palying game for no reason) , rather than one character trivializing anohter.

So you know what i want?
I want to make non Caster classes BETTER and give them MORE options outside of combat. I want Battlemaster maneuvers for every martial class. Why cant a barbarian sweep someones leg? or a rogue? Why can only a battlemaster do that?

And also, i want to break up the wizard into multiple classes.
Explain to me, why are these seperate classes
-Non magic character that shoots a bow, has an animal companion and lives in nature
-Non magic character that Uses heavy armor and fights in close combat
-Non magic character that doesnt use heavy armor and fights in close combat, also rages
-non magic character that steals things and can do backstabs

While
-Can cast fireball, and turn invisible, and shield his allies, summon meteors, summon monsters, charm people, fly, summon a magic house to spend the night in, summon food, summon undead, open locked doors, cast telekinesis, teleport
Is a single class?
There should not be a "Wizard" class.
There should be a "Pyromancer" class, and an "Illusionist" class or a "Summoner" class.
Having a single person do all of these things and change them on a long rest is ridiculous.
A Rogue cannot, on a long rest, decide that he now wants to be able to enter a Berserker rage.

Im not going to convince you, you are stonewalling me by ignoring the actual reason why fighters and wizards are not balanced towards one another.
But maybe i can convince some others.

I do not really agree in everything, but you have a point on some things you´ve said.

The pure caster classes (wizards, clerics, druids, bards...) have much more options than non-casters. I am not talking about combat or buffs.
I do not know if it is the same in 5e, but usually, there is almost nothing a non-caster class can do that you cannot do with a spell.
Yo need scouting? eye of mage, sanctuary, far view, some invisibility spell, and voila, instantly improved scouting.
You need help in diplomacy? You have discern lies, friends spell, charm, illusion...
Traps? Find traps (ok, you cannot disable them unless arcane trickster or something like that)
Problems navigating desfavorable terrain? fly, feather fall, resist heat/cold, oasis.
Travelling too slow? Wind walk, haste, conjure carriage,
You are hungry/thirsty? create food and water, good berries,...
You need brute force? Bull's strength, tenser transformation, polymorph or summon something to do it for you...
You have to build or repair something? Fabricate!
A problem that is not of the above? Wish!

I understand it gives you more rp options for caster types, but I found it too unbalanced IMHO.

1 - No, people don't automatically hate new things. Pathfinder brought a lot of new classes. Examples? Alchemist, Magnus, Witch, etc and IMO Witch is far better than 3.5e or 5e warlock.

People hate when the new system offers less than previous ones. Imagine if an car company decides to remove features from his car and sell for more. Why with gaming, people accept so easily the lost of features?

2 - Of course and it makes perfectly sense. If supernatural abilities exists, those who have then can do much more than those who doesn't have then. They give 3x the hit dice and try limit casters to try to create an incentive to play as this classes, but honestly, what is the solution? Create an MMOish style of combat? Seeing your solution to have an evoker, an illusionist, an conjurer, etc is an better fix. Allow maneuvers too. About Clerics, clerics have domains, something similar could be implemented to Wizards. And even Wiz, has few casts/rest and need preparation to use the class versatility.

The same problem will not happen with an sorcerer that roleplays his bloodline. For example, i on P:K created an silver dragon disciple. Din't picked an single fire based spell, doesn't matter if i would face undeads and Trolls. Because makes no sense someone who draws his power from his silver draconic heritage to use an power that is exactly the opposite. Doesn't matter if the rules allow it. Makes no sense.

3 - I still disagree that the "sniper" builds are niche. According to an poll, the most popular class on Dragon's Dogma was RANGER. Despite the fact that BI isles is very CQB based. Also, long range enemies can be used AGAINST the party.




Again, see what i've said.

Casters to replace the role that an non caster can do, needs to spend an spell slot. And an wizard needs to have knowledge to prepare. And Wish, is a tier 9 spell. Takes an long time to get Wish. Also, Wish is very DM dependent. You can't for eg "i wish that i an a god"(you can, but the DM can make you become an immortal slime demigod being burned eternally on plane of fire, or simple say that the spell failed because <<insert any reason>>). And items can give this "powers" to martial classes. Also, depending your heritage, you can get wings.

Quite a bit of the negative comments about Beyond Divinity at release were about it being different than Divine Divinity. While there were certainly valid criticisms (ie with the skill system some of the skills were unnecessarily divided), much of it was overblown IMNSHO or concerned issues easily avoided or worked around. The stat system in BD allowed many more viable character builds, for example (warriors in DD pretty consistently ended up as 2 parts strength, 2 parts agility and 1 part constitution).

Yeah, for me it seemed a natural progression of DD and had a lot of nice features. My only real complaint (I mean other than I would've preferred it if the death knight kept its opinions to itself) is that it wasn't green enough! The landscape eventually did my head in a bit. But as gripes go, that's really pretty subjective.

I searched a little about divine divinity and the game looks amazing. I purchased but unfortunately din't worked on M$ Win 10. I have dual boot. At the moment, i an installing on Linux using wine + PlayOnLinux with an slow internet. Looks like there are no BS nerf range on spells/weapons and that there are no cooldown, also, gear looks like works more like eqquipment instead of the DNA of your character. There are also cool spells that allow you to take control over the dead and reanimate then. And the combat animations are very fast.

Literally all complains that i have against D:OS 2 doesn't exist on this game and i wanna try. Thanks for mentioning the game.

The review that made me buy the game >



PS : Is Beyond Divinity different. How?

-----------------------------------

If Larian decides to change BG3 rules to be more DD like, i would't hate. Will still prefer BG1/2, but will not be an "never buy" game. If they change to have the same things that i din't liked about D:OS2, i would not play even for free.

Honestly its best if you just look up beyond divinity.
its a strange game, you have two characters, one of which is a paladin who you can fully customize and one who is a demon.
strange game but fun all the same.

On your points

1 - but they do. Pathfinder included "new" things but it also had the exact same system for them.
People dont like change. Even if its change for the better, same as they now hate on PF2.0
2 - I already told you the solution, give each class a specific niche, dont let one class overshadow another, have the classes NEED each other and work as a TEAM, i dont care about the MMO boogeyman. MMOs came from MUDs which came from online PnP sessions, just because MMOs do soemthing doenst mean its automatically bad, or generic for that matter.
Roleplay is one thing, but people will find justifications to powegame.
You have it the wrong way around. The rules should be balanced, the DM should allow unbalance if its in the interrest of roleplay. What you suggest is that the rules should be unbalanced and people should self regulate.
i dont think this will ever happen.
This is ok in a single player PC game, but not as soon as several people are invovled. Its just not fun to be the party face trap disam rogue and just have the wizard do all those things with a spell that you built your character around.

3 - well, its a matter of taste. In a genre mostly known for dungoen exploraiton id say a long range character is pretty niche.
I think the dragons dogma case is a chicken or the egg question.
Is the Ranger a popular class in Dragons Dogma because people want to play a "sniper" or is the Ranger a popular class because in Dragons Dogma its fun to use.
In Everquest Necromancer was one of the most played classes and it bareley exists in PnP RPGs and CRPGs, mostly as some obscure prestige class in NWN2.

A game has to decide what options ot include and what options not to include.
It doesn tmean that a game SHOULDNT include a sniper class, all im saying is that OS2 decided not to. but OS2 did other things that are "niche". Summoners are not very common in RPGs, and neither are wand and shield casters, which is a great option in OS2.

On casters:
Spell slots that the casters can allocate EVERY 8 HOURS OF REST.
meanwhile a non caster needs to build his ENTIRE CHARACTER to do this ONE thing and CANNOT change it even on level up.

1 - No, Alchemists are FAR different than normal casters. Magnus too, extremely more focused on melee. Witch that is the most similar that i've mentioned has an completely different relationship with her PATRON and her familiar. Not mentioning an unique type of spell. Hexes.

2 - Most MMOs do bad things, mainly after WoW. And if the versatility of Wizards bothers you(not caster, all wizards are casters, but not all casters are wizards), you can create an homebrew rule that for eg "wizards needs to have an specialization and needs to use 2 slots to cast an spell from another non prohibited school", that way, an evoker to cast stoneskin(abjuration), needs to pay an greater cost. Or you can rule that an Wizard can only pick spells from two schools.

But for many people, the main advantage of wizards over sorcerers and clerics is the versatility.

3 - If you dungeon has enough space for an colossal Dragon trowing breath attacks at 140 ft and maybe flying, it has space for you to "snipe". And if you nerf the range, you literally kill a lot of spells that are hard to be used on CQB due the "team damage". For eg, on Pathfinder Kingmaker, is almost impossible for me to use Horrid Wilting and this spell could help me a lot against jabberwocks. I will not spoil, but they are not easy enemies. But i could't use the spell. The spell should have 400 ft + 40 / caster level range, like on PnP, but thanks to the ARTIFICIAL limitation, i wasted an tier 8 spell that barely used and believe on me. P:K isn't an game where you can learn how to cast tier 8 spells easily. And there aren't epic levels on pathfinder. From lv 17 to 18, took dozens of hours.

But at least the Wild Hunt Archers are terrifying enemies and one reason to that is their RANGE.

Even outside dungeons. There are modules about fortress building. There are a lot of campaigns on feyworld, plane of air, cold montains, etc.

BTW, how this spell can work with the same area of effect with an nerfed range without dealing massive damage to your party???


(source : https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/h/horrid-wilting/ )

edit : i an not sure if they changed how the spell works on updates.




Correction
Spell slots that the WIZARDS can allocate every 8 hours of rest
Sorcerers can't swap their spells
Clerics are restricted to his domain
Warlocks on 3.5e has little versatility. Are more akin to "eldricht snipers"
(...)
Maybe you can say that Witches on Pathinder has the same versatility as Wizards, but in order to say that, you are saying that INT casters are more versatile than CHA and WIS casters. And in this point i agree. And i love to play as spontaneous caster.

No, casters don´t need to prepare a spell slot necessarily




Items also give powers to caster classes, In fact most non-martial classes cannot use them unless they spend ponts to do it in the build: scrolls, wands and rods.

Same as always, you need to change your build and level-up to do the same as a lvl 1 wizard with a bunch of wands and scrolls.

Except that WANDS aren't for free and can't cast any spell. I don't know much about 5e, but on Pathfinder, they require an use magic device check(, that is a CHA based check( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/use-magic-device/ ) and an wand of stoneskin for eg costs 21k gold. enough to buy 4 +2 belt of giant strength (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/a-b/belt-of-giant-strength)

This not mentioning that wands can only "charge" spells up to tier 4 ( https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wands/ )

So, you can have an wand of fireballs, but no wand of stop time, wand of wish, wand of create greater undead or etc. Say that an lv 1 wiz would have access to this wands/scrolls makes no sense. Is like say that an half orc barbarian with 22 STR raging with an adamantine fire greataxe can outDPS an wizard with 6 CON/6 STR at mid levels inside a Antimagic Field... And on Divine Divinity, i an playing as an mage and i an pretty versatile. Can animate 3 skeletons with skill level = 3, and looks like even the skill that allow you to become invisible isn't on CD. You just spend a lot of mana / second(din't unlocked this skill yet)

The point of magic in fantasy is the same of technology IRL. Allow humans to do things that they could't otherwise. Arcanum was an interesting game, because both are opposite. Technology is the application of nature laws. Magic is the negation. So, if you focus on tech, you can create an steampunk army, make steampunk grenade launchers, just like magicians can trow fireballs and conjure servants.

Wands and scrolls do not require any check (nor even level check) if you are a caster of the appropriate class ( A wizard can use a fireball wand without checks, a priest can use a rod or resurrection without check)

A rogue will need a uber high use magic item (and it is not a cross-class skill for rogues, it is for all non-caster basic classes) to have only a "probability", a chance to use a wish scroll once. A wizard level 1 can use a abi-dalzim or wish lvl 9 scroll at wizard level 1 if he/she wishes to and find or buy one. Scrolls do not have level limits.

A fighter would never be able to use a critical strike scroll or a ranger a hide in plain sight scroll. Because there is no scrolls or rods or wands for class skills. You can cast spells that enhance your skills, but... you have to be able to cast them.

You will have to level-up and spend your points to detect traps with a rogue, a cleric only have to buy or find a 120 gp wand of find traps to do the same. With no checks.We were talking about the things that some classes can or not can do... remember?

Also I wasn´t talking about combat. Of course all classes are decent at combat.




There is almost nothing that a non-caster can do that you can´t do with a spell outside combat. So, mage or cleric, you have to rest? You have to buy something? Well, I have to reach the xp needed to level up and pick feats and skillpoints to do the same... And then, I have a "chance" to make a check and be able to use my skill. Most "utility" spells do not require this.
Ej: True sight does not allow saving. Perception requires checks to find a secret door hidden behind an illusion, or an invisible character.

ED: I forgot: It would be terrific if D&D, Drakensang, Pathfinder... will give us the chance to build our spectacle glasses, mechanic automatons, skeleton keys, flash grenades, hand cannons... like in Arcanum. But all they give you are more spells or magic items ( that are objects that allow you to... tachaaaan... cast spells most of the time). Wtf are the gnomes in Lantan or the alchemists doing? XDD

Again. See the Price of the scroll/wand.

An class "A" can do much more versatility than another. Solution?
A ) Remove all cool stuff from class A
B ) Add cool stuff to class "B"

IMO since the game is based on 5e, should have everything good and bad about 5e and honestly, i prefer 3.5e, but WotC would never license an old edition.

If you wanna kill the wiz/clerics from one of the best series. There are 754765465426547653 generic mmos where an wizard can trow an fireball and wait 20 seconds in cooldown to trow again an spell that can only reach 10m. And clerics can only heal. 4e is the most homogenized aka balanced edition of D&D and is the worst. If you wanna everyone using an fast swinging blade, there are 765764576547654 jRPG's following that "rule". But we don't have an large budget RPG that allows a lot of player freedom from a long time.

About grenades and handcannons, please. Check alchemist and gunslinger on pathfinder. Gunslingers can use tons of different cartridges Alchemist can do a lot of cool stuff with discoveries.To name some

• "Gain mummy-like immunities "
• "Gain wings that let you fly "
• When you create a bomb, you can choose to have it heal damage instead of dealing it.
• Increase physical scores and decrease mental scores
• Cause a potion to become permanent
• Create a temporary body
• Create zombie as if created by animate dead
• Bomb deals piercing damage instead of fire, and creatures that take a direct hit from a boneshard bomb must succeed at a Fortitude save or take 1d4 bleed in addition to normal damage. Creatures killed by a boneshard bomb or the bleed effect immediately reanimate as an undead creature with the skeleton template and count as undead created by animate dead for the purposes of determining how many undead the alchemist can control.
• Gain two claw attacks and a bite attack

source > http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries
An grenadier build on P:K



RPG's are interesting because they can emulate an fictional living breathing world. And "spoiler". Fast swinging blades was never an efficient way to fight. During the ice age? Bows, spears, traps to kill larger creatures. Indigenous on Americas? Trowing Axes, spears, bows, traps and poison. Mongols dominated an insanely large region due his use of mounted cavalry and bows. Nobunaga Oda "unified" the Japan using firearms, And there are other examples, during the battle of Agincourt, you can see an small number of archers killing hordes of French with horses, heavy armor, etc.

And even in the "cool aspect", materialize an wall os skeletons, stop the time, use an anti materiel rifle with explosive rounds, craft deadly bombs, mutagens that make your character superhuman. This is much cool than... Swing an sword.

PS : No, bombs/grenades aren't spells on the mentioned game.

PS 2 : Pathfinder picked an interesting ruleset and added new cool stuff. 4e removed.

D&D was never about balance except for a DM balancing an encounter to meet the parties strength. The classes were never meant to be balanced. The party was meant to cooperate with each other to overcome obstacles.

A mage only has so many spells they can mesmerize at any given time.

Spells require a roll DC of 10 + the level of the spell if it is higher than what you can cast.

All wands are not spell caster dependent. And some of them require atonement. (You can only attune 3 items at a time.)

There are other magic items that a fighter can use. Chimes of opening, Ring of Spell storing. Boots of levitation, Potions, Ring of Wishes, Boots of Haste, ect.....
then again if you have to attune to them you can only attune to 3 at a time.

In D&D you have Alchemist Flask, Acid Vials, Arrows with, poison, flames.

Yet there are many magic items that a Wizard can not use that a fighter can.

Guys, you gave some good insight about game mechanics, but you keep talking again, and again and again about spells and skills only (or mostly) used in combat. That was never an issue for me. I think all of us agree that all classes have combat capabilites in one way or another, in different situations.

Like I said several times, I only have issues with the use in rp outside combat. I would like a little more flexibility for most non-caster builds. I think this discussion reached the "point of pointlessness"

ED: I will try to explain. I usually play druids, witches, clerics, wizards, warlocks,... Whenever I try a ranger, fighter, barbarian,etc I find myself just waiting to the next random encounter or combat situation because most of the time I have little to no chance of intervene with a minimum chance of sucess, besides very obvious situations (Tracking something with a ranger, move or break something heavy or resist a constitution check, intimidate or hit something). Luckyly talk is a free action so it is not that you are doing nothing but...
So in most of those events I found myself thinking "Wow, I could totally do this with that spell/ help with that buff/use my familiar or summon.... instead of being here looking intimidating (Because due to encumberance penalties, you cannot even make most checks with all that armor unless a caster helped you with a spell). And you also cannot respec your class build while sleeping, but you can change your spells so the next day you can face different dangers with the same character, You can never go to sleep with your gruffy ranger and wake up being an expert diplomat, but you wake up with your bard or wizard and cast an ilusion spell, a buffing spell or spell-charm your way. You have the same skills but also you have the spells if the need arises. And normally you use a spell, even if it is only to buffing your character or one of your mates. Some classes excel, but only in a limited number of scenarios. Caster classes almost always gives you options with a little planning. Even if that option is simply support the others.

They say that it is less extreme in 5e, but I do not have the chance to try the new systems. Let´s see what they do with BG3.

_Vic_ But there are an huge difference of Baldur's Gate and D&D. On BG you control an party of 1-6 characters. And again, if for you fighter and barb are boring, why you wanna make all classes boring to play?

And again, you ignored spontaneous casters that can't swap their spells. Makes more sense to you complain about spell swap than about arcane casters in general. Can an sorcerer that roleplayed his lineage change his spells at will? Again to my pathfinder silver dragon sorc. Only with cold and few electricity offensive spells + some buffs and summons, when i needed to fight an lich for eg, can i just swap to fire spells? No. An Paladin will have much more chance to shine. This means that paladins are OP? No. This means that they are in a situation where their class excel. I don't like play as a paladin, but i an not complaining. Because makes sense lore wise.

And an "low magic" setting where scrolls are hardly available don't have this problem with wizards.

Nope, I wanted them to be less "boring" to play (less "situational" ¿?), be more flexible, Because, as you said, in IE videogames you have a party, in tabletop you only have one. Wizards and clerics and druids are ok, why would I want to nerf them? o.O Just refine`em or give them more features.

Combat examples again... -facepalm- Combat is fun with all classes, every class has its strengths and weaknesses. ed: my issues are with the non-combat use of skills, or the lack of use for non-combat skills for non-casters, to be more precise. All you can do can be done (better) with a spell.
I know my english is horrid, but I thought that I´ve made that abundantly clear




Back on track, the advantage/disadvantage and inspiration mechanics, central in 5e, are a game-changer. Also the Larian CEO stated that they will implement in some way in the game. Like in most games in late years, I suppose that BG3 will have an history/easy mode but I would appreciate a core rules mod ( not simply a hard mod same as easy but with enemies with more ac and hp).

I remember this adventure, "la ciénaga del escorpión" ( I do not know the english name, Scorpion´s swamp?) So, here we are, my drunken bar-brawler ranger-monk and Worthington the third, the erudite barbarian archer. Also a druid with a very talkative raven companion. The monk and the barbarian were thrilled because at last, we would be able to use our hard-earned survival skills in this godforsaken bog and all was set for another chapter of our healthy competition between companions of opposite alignment.
So, here we are, going bananas with the "I am so going to track us the hell out of this difficult terrain" " Stand down and let my knowledge (nature) superiority take the lead" "you can only lead us to disaster" "The only thing you can accurately find is the bottom of a bottle of mead"... you know the drill.

It's our moment to shine. And we're gonna ace it
So we made our checks and stuff and then all that happened was that we made it to the other side of the gorge and we found a water source. We were soaked and dirty and full of mosquitoes bites, but we´ve made it.
Total 35 seconds of rp.
Also I found some footprints, so We found earlier that some humanoids were in the defilade.
Totally cool. So our druid did not have to spend one use of "create water" spell and his raven did not have to warn us (because that feathery show-off totally made his spot check) and all was solved with two dice rolls. The Druid also simply feather-step his way of out the swamp and burned the mosquitoes without a sweat.
Even the raven gave us some pitiful stares "Maybe you should go sacred fist from here? (That I know because of they rp that, Senda and Worthington the third hate that smartass talking bird for a reason ).
Our moment to shine... totally worth it (not).

(also just after that we mess it up big time with a double hide and spot check, but fortunately, the evasion of the monk kicked and the barbarian had like tons of hp so we survived. The duid took us out with a vine spell and healed us while his "flying bother" laughed at us)

I know it is just an example and probably I have a bias. Maybe it is because I do not have good experiences in our plays: the adventures or the gm does not allow the use of class features wisely. In theory there are lot of potential in most non-caster classes`utility skills, but in practice, we simply do not find much to do besides combat in our plays when we rp warrior classes. And I am not the only one who thinks that.

Yes, _Vic_, but no RPG game made melee interesting to me. Mainly when i an restricted to an weapon that was mostly used as backup weapon and was ineffective against armor or large creatures(swords), i loved Dragon's Dogma, as an Sorcerer, Magick Archer, Assassin and Ranger, but the "prologue" where you play as an warrior, is so boring for me that i downloaded an save to skip it on my second run.

Every time that an game tried to """balance""", resulted on the same boring experience for all classes.


But the problems that you presented can be solved on BG3 without changing an single rule. For eg, you could make certain spells scrolls like knock outlawed in BG city and only few members of thieves guild able to sell it to you for a big price, after an side quest, for eg. That way an "monkey rogue" would not be easily replaced by an wizard with his inventory fulfilled by knock scrolls. Considering that you need "mage licence" to cast spells on the city on BG2, this will not be against the rules. All other spells that can "replace" other classes can be given an similar treatment.

Ooook, now I see. If you are telling me that to make more interesting the warrior-type classes they have to make a mandatory "Dumb-down" or cripple alchemist, divine and arcane spellcasters, I agree it is a no-no.
I hope they find another way.

In the "Arcanum" game already mentioned you do not have this problem. You also have the "knock" spell but cast it makes a lot of noise, so you cannot actually use it to unlock doors, safes or containers without the guards or the monsters next door coming to you. So you need some rogue skills to do that silently.(Also you have the tech vs arcane penalty)


About melee fighting, well the fighter types look ok in 5e. I do not played it but now fighters can have cool abilites to get more moves or give disadvantage to your opponents so maybe it is not a "point and hit, with pauses to gulp potions" thing.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/fighter

PD: Still not very attractive to me =(

Man this discussion is hillarious.
So without going into the individual points.

The argument presented against caster supremacy is: "I like it that way"
Well i dont. I prefer martial characters because i dont like the Wizard archetype.

And yes, wizards should be """Crippled""" because No, one class should not do everything. And whenever someone brings this up, you just repeat "but muh spellslots", yes, muh spellslots, thats the problem. Beeing able to change your loadout on a long rest.
Wizards shouldnt be less powerfull, they should have less utility, because right now they have ALL the utility.

And have you maybe considered, Victor, that no game made melee fun for you because you only play games that do melee badly?
You keep saying you dont like 4E, but you didnt play 4E, because 4E made melee combat fun.
And no it isnt "all the same", it just uses the same layout and thats why this lie gets parroted.

4E actually let melee characters do things without constantly houseruling. You could actually do things like goading people into attacking you, openng up opportunitites to let your allies attack, actually use your movement and footwork to your advantage, actually punish people for attacking the squisheis, beeing able to choose wether you hit hard or precise WITHOUT SPENDING TWO FEATS ON IT.


And as Vic said. Its about the non combat utility. Of which martial characters have none.
And which especialy wizards have all.
And come on, money cost, money cost is a joke in dnD. What else are you gonna spend money on anyway?
To that ill add, again: It should not be the DMs job to balance the game, the developer should do that. The DM should set the boundries and direct the expirience, he should not have to Houserule and constantly micromanage everything to make the mess of a game the developes made playable.

As for Sorcerors and Favored soul, that sorta stuff: yeah well they suck dont they?
In Tier lists they always come out way later than Wizard.
but they still are much better than martials due to out of combat utility, even if its more limited.

The fighter, especially the Battlemaster, has a lot of different things he can do in battle, combat manuvuers, grappling, multiattacks, second wind, help ally, healer kits, action surge, and so on. And the fighter has the most feats/ability boosts in the game, by design, it gives the fighter extra flexiblity.

Want to mix in none combat spells, take ritual caster, more more combat manuveurs, take the right feat, want to be able to shield bash, take the right feat, want to know more languages, take the right feat, ect...

And no the DIVINE Soul does not suck. Twinned Guidance, Extend Spell Conjure Celestials, twin or distance spell raise dead, twin guided bolt, Distance Contagion, at will flight, only the Life Cleric is a stronger healer, you can buff allies healing spells, once a day you can heal yourself for a ton if hit points, twin Sancuary, Extended Spirit Guardians, Subtle Spell Geas, and so much more.

And Shadow Sorcerer is so powerful she gives nightmare to Wizards. Unleash a Hound of Ill Omen on the Wizard and no matter the invisibility spell, it will find the Wizard and attack it, damage him, knock him down, and gives the Wizard disadvantage to spell saves against the Shadow Sorcerer spells, Shadow Form makes the Shadow Sorcerer hard to kill and allow him to move through people and things, the Shadow Sorcerer can teleport at will 120 feet in shadows and darkness. None of this counts as spells so the Shadow Sorcerer can cast spells too, including magical Darkness he can see through. A Shadow Sorcerer can kill almost any 5e Wizard of the same level.

Sordak, use magic, use necromancy, use alchemy, psionics, use steampunk technology, use frostpunk technology, use sci-fi technology, use real world technology(...) is far more interesting than swing an weapon. If you wanna know an game where i liked to play on melee, there are one. Vampire, the masquarede - bloodlines. Gangrel was an interesting clan, but even on VtMB, i rather play as Tremere or Lasombra(Antitribu mod), they unfortunately din't made thaumaturgy strong as on pnp, you can't use lure of flames or path of conjuration for eg. And before everything, i know that is almost impossible to implement 1% of things that you can do with path of conjuration on pnp into the game(maybe offer an list with items in the game and pause the game), but D&D was never meant to be an balanced game. Is a game about pretending that myths are real.

When you say that wizards needs to be crippled. Be real. What CRPG crippled an class and din't ruined the class? NWN2 warlocks are one example. Is borderline unplayable without an mod that fixes the class. The DC's are bugged, the SR checks bugged, i hated the class. But after this mod ( https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/warlock-reworked-102g ) that fixes the class, loved the class.

Honestly, i rather Larian not implementing any caster class than implementing in a crippled way. And pathfinder that is ultra unbalanced for you, most classes are B or C tier on the tier lists ( at least here > https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/pathfinder-best-class-pathfinder-class-tier-list ) and honestly, IMO Druid and Clerics are better than Wizards.

---------------------------

EDIT : See the Bear Totem Barbarian on 5e if you wanna an powerful melee class;

Two things that made me laugh.

One: Omegaphallic:
Battlemaster: you do realize that battlemaster is a shitter version of the 4E Warlord right?
EVERY martial class in 4E, every.single.one. had not only as many combat options as the battlemaster, but MORE, usually on level 1.
Seriously, Battlemaster is all thats left of 4E in 5E, and thats why its considered the most well designed fighter subclass.

And feats? oh i can spend FEATS to do things. Does the wizard need feats to do cool sutff? no?
So why does the martial have to pay feat tax to gain utility? Why do only martials need to do that? Why dont wizards? Why dont cleircs?

Also: its not about PvP, its about overshadowing each other in a grouop. it doesnt matte whose dad can beat up whose dad, it matters who consistently overshadows everyone else.

Two: Victor
NO, i do not want to play a WIzard. I do not want to play a WIzard by any other name.
I prefer low magic characters.
Your entire argument is "dont like caster imbalance? paly a caster". No. No just balance casters.
4E did it, GURPS did it, WHFPR did it, Shadowrun did it, The Dark Eye did it, Why cannot DnD fix its casters?
this is a problem almost exclusive to DnD and Pathfinder, get rid of it already.

And no, bugs are not an argument.
Its about a mechanical nerf, not about ruining it by riddling it with bugs.
Wizards have too much utility and martials have too little.
Cut Casters into more narrow classes with a narrower role, and boost the utility of Martials and give EVERY martial class maneuvers, not just one.
thats literaly how easy it is to fix this, but the pearl clutching grognards working at WOTC and Paizo who somehow still want to metaphysically punsih the jocks that bullied them in school insist on this nonsense, and insist that its "fine" the way it is.

And on your tier list, you conveniently forget to mention that "B"- tier is the third category rather than the second.
All of S tier is casters, all of it. Cleric is the only melee class, and its a melee caster.
A tier is yet again all casters.
B tier features one (1!!!) martial class: the unchained rogue, which is essentialy optional rules.
No a bloodrager is not a martial class, a bloodrager is a melee sorcerer for all intents and purposes, his powers are magical. No a hunter is not a martial class, he casts druid spells.

C tier. Almost bottom of the barrel, you know what we have here?
Fighter, barbarian AND rogue AND Paladin.
So all the Classic DnD Martial classes are almost in the worst Category.
and D category? There is only ONE caster in there. the Kineticist

Please tell me how this was supposed to be an argument AGAINST caster supremacy when it very obviously shows you that playing a martial is a joke option

Druids can do well on melee, mainly if they shapeshift.

If you prefer low magic chars, is your preference, but some people don't like melee because they have few things to do. Solution? IMO is to bring cool stuff to martial classes to do. But cripple casters will ruin the game... Instead of an boring experience for people who only like melee, we will have an boring experience for everyone. I can't find ways to make pure martial classes more strong without making then "supernatural"...

And ironic you mention other RPG's, because magic tends to be stronger on other games. Did you heard about mage the ascension? Mages in world of darkness can make even ancient vampires fear in despair. And an archmage can be an god in his own dimension. Tremere that are the closest clan to mages are feared and mistrusted due his blood sorcery that is an very limited version of hedge sorcery... And on warhammer, i never played, but looked into the wikipedia and an lv 1 spell can animate D6 skeletons ( https://wfrp1e.fandom.com/wiki/Summon_Skeletons ) and weapons like crossbows have an good range(if on yard > https://wfrp1e.fandom.com/wiki/Crossbow ), looks like the unique difference is that high level spells doesn't exist on warhammer.

And not all martial classes are bad. As you have said. Monks on 3e are not that bad. Bear Totem Barbarian is not bad. Paladins aren't bad.

And balance comes with tradeoffs.

If you cannot find ways to make martials stronger without making them "supernatural" maybe you have a problem with your setting.
Note that DnD wizards easily outshine gandalf, on level 3.
I dont even say casters should be nerfed, im saying they shouldnt be able to do EVERYTHING. Right now they do, this needs to go in order to nerf them.
its something almost every DM does in one way or another.

Either by restricting spell components, by banning certain spells or by enforcing a houserule that you can only pick spells from certain spellschools.
Why? because otherwise the entire Campaign becomes trivialized by the sheer ammount of utility a wizard has.

I can tell you how to make Martials better: Combine 4E style Maneuves and exploits and pre 3rd edition out of combat progression.
Give Fighters a castle, by the rules. dont make it an optional thing "the party may gain .... "
No, make a rule that on a certain level, the fame of a Fighter will cause one of the powers in the setting to recognize him and to bestow upon him knighthood.
Give him political clout, give him soldiers he can bring with him, give the Barbarian his own horde like he used to have.
Make him a leader of men.
Right now hes none of that, right now the fighter is a guy who hits hard and the barbarian is a guy who hits hard but doesnt quite run as fast as usain bolt.
Make martials push the boundries of Human physicque, the inspiraiton for Fighters should not be "a guy who lifts hard in the gym", the inspiration for the wizard are gandalf an merlin, so the inspiraiton for a fighter should be King Arthur and Beowulf.

And no its not "ironic" that i mention other RPGs.
Magic is far weaker than DnD in almost any fantasy RPG. World of Darkness is not a high fantasy setting.
Im talking about Warhamer FRPG, The Dark Eye, GURPS fantasy if you wanna go there, even older DnD editions.

And yes, they are all bad. They are bad because they can only solve a problem that is Combat or their very specific class niche, which is Intimidation for a barbarian, tracking for a ranger, opening locks for rogues or, well nothign realy for a fighter, Meanwhile wizards can solve any problem with a spell and without having to roll for it AND solve combat without even participating in it, and if they do, they are no weaker than anyone else.

More options to martial classes is OK IMO. Bring things that made monks good on 3.5e, bring 4e stuff that made fighters good, but don't cripple wizards.

Anyway, arcanists aren't based sole on Gandalf. They are based on myths and Odin is a might wizard and Galdalf is based on Odin, but compared to what Odin can do in Norse mythology, Galdalf is a weakling.

source> https://norse-mythology.net/odin-the-allfather-of-the-aesir-in-norse-mythology/

This looks much more strong than even what Mistra can do on D&D. Mainly when you consider that he isn't limited by spell slots... More options to martial classes is OK IMO. Bring things that made monks good on 3.5e, bring 4e stuff that made fighters good, but don't cripple wizards. Conan is a low Magic Setting and wizards can be insane deadly. Thoth Amon

"Thoth-Amon is a powerful Stygian sorcerer. He has many spells and rituals at his disposal. He commands beasts, especially snakes, and many types of insects. He has the power to corrupt and infest those who he has infected with venom; before they die, horrible monsters are spawned from their bodies. Thoth-Amon can communicate with others over long distances by possessing swarms of insects(...) He is even capable of summoning bizarre and terrible creatures to do his will."
https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Thoth_Amon


But as i've said, there are tradeoffs

Complexity/Depth VS accessibility
Open world VS Linearity
Variety, Immersion and replay-ability VS Balance

BG2 has certain linear chapters and certain open chapters... But i don't think that balance is that important in SP games

For eg, an VtMB run as Nosferatu will be much harder than with an Tremere for eg, have seduction capped at zero and be monstrous looking in a game very focused on investigation, dialog and social life and being unable to be seen in the city without breaking the masquarede is an hard challenge. While other clans can walk into an club and with high seduction, get free blood dolls, an nosferatu needs to eat rats. While other clans can get discount from prostitutes, prostitutes refuses the nosferatu, run, screams on fear and breaks the masquarede. Even getting firearms and ammo become much harder. And the main appeal of a Nosferatu clan is exactly the idea of being forced to roleplay as an outcast.

Is unbalanced? Yes, but who cares? It increases the immersion, replayability, and variety on the game. Another example is Dark Souls. An Paladin(STR/FHT) would have an much easier time in the game than an swordsman that refuses to use armor. It makes sense in DkS world, it makes sense lore wise and it increases the replayability. Also, isn't broken on pvp. So, what is the problem? Other example? On Pokemon red, an CHILDREN's game. Those who start with Squirtle or Bulbasaur has an much easier time against the first and second gym leader. Is this a problem? Real life is not balanced. You can see how ranged weapons can be "op" on Battle of Agincourt. If fictional stuff exist, they will not be balanced too and as longs it makes sense in the fictional world, i an fine.

So fighters should be based on actual humans and wizards on literal gods?
Do you not understand the funamental problem with this?
And if so, Martials should be basedd off of Thor or Hercules.
They should divide rivers willy nilly and split mountains with a hammer blow, now were talking.

And conan is a terrible argument, look at the abilities you list there, thats low level DnD shit.
not to mention that Conan dabs on every single wizard he encounters.

and again, theres no depth to having all the options.
theres no complexity, theres just a lack of balance.
and thats your argument "its unbalanced but my favorite option is favored so lets keep it that way" well... no.
No i just disagree with you.

I dont want it to be that way. And i dont care if its a single player game. Its gonna have MP just like Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 had.
And im probably gonna play it that way.
Even if it were single player only, then i dont want ONE character in my party to do everything.

Sordak, never said that casters should be godlike, i only mentioned Odin, as an example. Odin casually speaking is equal to the greatest spell that an mortal can cast(Wish) without casting time, xp cost and other things. And din't compared Odin to mortals, compared Odin to D&D deities. About Thor, Thor had some "spell like abilities", mainly with lightning element. I an not against trying to make martial classes more supernatural, making any fighter above lv 5 fells like a superhuman.

As for Conan, Conan is a low magic setting, of course an might sorcerer can't cast spell equivalent to tier 9. There are an adaptation to D&D to Conan's low magic setting and some OPTIONAL rules( https://hyboria.xoth.net/sorcery/low_magic_system.htm ) that tries to make magic more ritualistic and risk, to name an example rule "17. Learning a new spell from another caster or a spellbook requires 2 days of dedicated study per spell level and a Spellcraft check with a DC of 15 + 2 per spell level. Spellcraft checks will be modified by the quality and comprehensiveness of the caster’s notes and/or instruction. The DM will inform players of any modifiers prior to the character’s attempt to cast the spell."

And even with core rules >


https://hyboria.xoth.net/sorcery/spell_list_wizard.htm

But they added interesting stuff like > https://hyboria.xoth.net/sorcery/book_skelos.htm

Thors "spell like ability" is him throwing a hammer.
his hamme ris a magic item that does two things
1. return
2. change the lenght of its haft
Thor is a martial, but a martial god.

Im not gonna let you redefine any example of a martial feat as "magic" so you have a case for saying Martials shouldnt be able to do it.

And yes, as said, Magic in Conan is just much weaker. a low level DnD wizard probably is gonna dab on Toth Amon, mostly because Conan wizards dont have a lot of direct magic as you pointed out yourself.
I dont argue that all Settings should be Conan, im arguing that if your Wizards are almost godlike in power at high levels, so should everyone else.
And everyone should have the same level of utility.

the problem with the Wizard utility is that it doesnt work in a team based game. Theres no point having a team when one character solves all problems.
and DnD is that, a team game. A wizard like he is in 3.5 works much better in a game like Elderscrolls (even tho morrowind is the only TES game where casters get even remoteley simmilar options to DnD) where you play a single character.

No, Thor can control lightning.

As for magic on conan, direct damage magic is almost non existent, but an Wizard can raise an undead army for eg, can conjure demons, and shapeshift.

But yes, D&D 6e should bring more cool stuff to other classes fells superhuman at higher levels. For example, Rangers on Dragon's Dogma can do all type of cool stuff. Tenfold flurry, comet shot, crippling arrow, can use all types of arrows, blast arrow, poison arrow, even maker's finger. So IMO if the LV 20 sorc is stopping the time, the lv 20 Ranger should be with an massive bow trowing arrows at the size of Javelin that can punch walls, be poisoned, can be explosive and do all type of crazy stuff. Should be able to jump very high, and feels more like an demigod archer. Holy water arrows to use against undead sounds interesting too. Fighters, i honestly don't know how to make then powerful without making then "supernatural".

DD has the best implementation of archery IMO.

Dragons Dogma archery is fun, but i prefer the melee, dragons dogma generaly is very japanese and i like it for that, it takes no stupid "but its not realistic" nonsense arguments that bog down the combat and make non magickal characters boring.
Its also the gold standard for Action RPGs as far as im concerned.

Also idk where Thro controlls lightning

Physically, he is the strongest of the Norse Gods, but his rage can produce lightning > https://norse-mythology.net/thor-the-god-of-thunder-in-norse-mythology/

Anyway, i agree. Barbarians for eg, coud get an power of not only enter on range, but when reach high level, enter in a "berserk" state, gaining +8 STR, +6 DEx, +4 CON, DR 20/fire/cold/electricity, increased speed and regen. For social interations, an huge bonus to intimidate after lv 10 sounds interesting too. About Japanese things, i usually don't like much Japanese games. Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma are the exception.

About monks,i read the 5e rules and yes. Monks got unnecessarily nerfed. Furry of blows, movement speeds, bare hands damage, everything got nerfed. Sadly, because monks was never OP.(unless multi classed on 3.5e, but an better solution was just to make monk feats unavailable for non humanoid creatures)

Look man you keep talking about stats, but this stuff only matters in combat and their ONE thing.
Ok a Barbarian can intimidate someone and fight.

The issue is that thats the only two solutions for any given problem the Barbarian has. Which would be ok, if everyone int he party had only one role. But thats not the case.

Sordak, you to say that you was right. Even Paizo recognized that imbalance problem and made the 2e classes more balanced, in combat and outside of combat, since E2 din't released, i can't detail why. As for Vampire, the Masquarede, V5 changed a lot of things too. A lot of "blood sorcery" "powers" that could be used at will on V20, now require an ritual.

I still think that if you are adaptating an book into an movie, you need to be faithful. Same with manga, why Hellsing ultimate is more loved? Fullmetal alchemist brotherwood than normal fullmental? The best HP movies are exactly the last ones, more faithful to harry potter books. ToEE was very true to pnp rules and was amazing.

Well, i give you a flawed example here.
game of thrones.
Game of thrones is a flawed example because the series didnt turn out so well in the end.

But in the middle, the Series did one thing very well, it glanced over those parts of the books that made no sense. GRRM had, multiple times, wrote himself into a corner and had entire chapters wehre ntohing relevant was hapening (Lets look for Sansa in a place of the world wehre nothing plot relevant is going on and also where the reader knows Sansa isnt currently at).

The Series didnt do that, the series had many flaws, but ironing out the mistakes in the original is something that an adaptation can do.
Furthermore, id like to point to Jodrowskis comment about adapting Dune, he said he was going to rape it. Rather strong words, but they ring true. An adaptation will always, per definition, clash with the original authors vision to some degree.
ebcause if it were the original authors vision, you wouldnt need an adaptation to begin with.

The question is not wether or nto an adaptation should be different, the question is wether or not the change is good or bad, or which things are changed.

Well, the last seasons that had no relation with the book are the worst ones.

But Larian had an hard challenge ahead. Imagine an monster that can cast Flesh to Stone spell or spell like ability that insta petrify on failed save. An BG fan will see it as "makes sense, is a medusa", but an D:OS2 would probably think that this is an unbalanced broken mechanic. An solution is have alternative rules and make it optional. Even among the Divinity fans, some liked the new "armor system" and some disliked. Please Greeks and Trojans will be almost impossible. Unless they have two game modes. One with more "modernized"mechanics and other more close to pnp under the limitations of the technology.

And in some cases, balance goest against immersion. For eg, during World War two, German had by far the best tanks and the best planes, but Allies, numbers. Mainly soviets had an massive amount of troops and vehicles. An multi player game where one side has 8 tanks but another has an tank with much more firepower, maneuverability and armor that can deflect much more projectiles would be insanely broken. Or an game that happens in Battle of Agicourt, an small group of archers outnumbered by several times(around 9k vs 36k according to wikipedia) defeated knights and cavalry on heavy armor due positioning and terrain advantages. Few hundreds of Spanish Conquistador managed to defeat civilizations of natives due the fact that natives din't had bows capable of punching their steel armor and they had mounted arquebusiers capable of hitting an Amerindian at 500m. On Falklands war, British had much better equipment. In a MP game, sure, you need to artificially nerf and balance things, but ina SP game where the PC can control a lot of party members, the worst thing that can happens is have an companion/class that people only uses on challenge runs.

An SP game will not fail because he is unbalanced.

I think it's not just that: there's so much exaggeration about particular elements that the picture becomes very distorted, and I think there's a risk that we're replacing The Myth of German Awesomeness regarding their engineering with a new myth of The Soviets Did It All. There's some truth to it, but e.g. where WWII German equipment looks good on paper, it can be less good IRL so looking at their tanks, there's no denying that the guns were excellent and paired with superb optics, the armour was thicker and of better quality and so on. But, they were delivered in a package that was expensive to manufacture, powered by an engine and transmission intended for a vehicle barely half the weight and whose interleaved wheels tended to clog with freezing mud on the Eastern front. Whereas the brutally simple T34 just kept on going and it wasn't simply a numbers thing, though the latter was apparently a pig to drive.

The allied tanks in particular get a bad rap in comparison to The Myth Of German Awesome, with numerous examples. The Sherman being apocryphally nicknamed "the Tommy Cooker" for instance, but does that actually bear scrutiny? The word "Tommy" suggests those in use by the British, which is interesting as those Shermans predominantly had diesel engines fitted rather than much more flammable petrol like the Germans. British designs in general also tended to use electric turret systems rather than the hydraulics of German tanks because hydraulic fluid catches fire; not sure if that was retro-fitted to the Sherman but the 17pdr gun certainly was, and while a slightly smaller calibre than the Kwk.36 it could out-penetrate it thanks to more advanced ammunition designs. Not that I'm claiming most Shermans had 17pdrs, it was an inefficient use of an expensive gun when most of the time their job was to lob high-explosives about, but the technology was definitely there and led to some hilariously unconvincing efforts to disguise the ones that were a serious worry to enemy tanks.

Actually, Dwarves in DoS2 have a racial ability that petrifies enemies and also does damage, so I do not think that is the case.

vometia, yes, you are right. There are exaggerations but remember that Germany din't had much materiel available and had a lot of slave labor to use on Europe but IMO they lost the war much more because their leader stopped listening to his Generals than by other factors, anyway, my point is just that some times, balance goes against other things, like variety, immersion, consistency and in some times, world building. Look to War Thunder. Between nerfing planes like Me 262 and making the Me 262 to have less firepower, climbing and speed and be eqqual to same era planes, put then in a 0,001% change of getting on a lootbox or make the plane fight against cold war era planes, they decided by the last option. But on a SP game, you can make an unbalanced game and will be no problem.... Adolf Gallad said ". I would at this moment rather have one Me 262 in action rather than five Bf 109s." and note that BF 109 was not an bad plane for his era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Galland#Innovations

Deprived class on Dark Souls is an example. If DkS was an MP game, nobody would pick an class that was made to be weak and give an massive disadvantage, mainly on earlier game.



But as i've said, Petrify on DOS2 can be "negated" by magic armor https://divinity.fandom.com/wiki/Physical_and_Magical_Armor_(DoS2)

On DOS1, will be different but i din't played DOS1 so i can't give an honest opinion. And note that petrify works very different on both games. On NWN1, depends the difficulty. On Might & Magic VI, petrify is permanent and the unique spell that can counter(Stone to Flesh) have an time limit to work...

I don't know anything about the games in question, but it is absurd if they're just making stuff up like that; it's not as if the 262 didn't have actual shortcomings they could've capitalised on, such as apparently being vulnerable when taking off and landing. But aircraft aren't my forte and I only know the vaguest of stuff about that. But so much of it is prone to exaggeration though, I mean it seems that the MG42's claimed firing speed increases every time I hear about it, I think the last claim being a cyclic rate of 1,800rpm, which is absurd. Yet nobody ever mentions its problems, such as not being very accurate and its tendency to become "unstable" when firing more than short bursts which could cause "out of battery firing" (i.e. the bolt bouncing back open at the same time it fires, which can damage the gun and will probably leave its crew with nasty injuries). But I guess even more so than most things the subject is imbued with a great deal of fanboyism which is generally not a great medium in which facts can flourish...

OS 2 literaly has an ability called Medusa head where you petrify all enemies around you so IDK what you are talking about.

Youalso dont need to be balanced against an ENEMY.
You need to be balanced against your party members. All party members should be equally capeable. THATS the problem with balance.
Also what you fail to see is that "modernized" mechanics represent the exact same things as the old mechanics did.

You said it right there, saving throws. In the greek myth, you were petrified, no matter what.
In DnD you get a Fortitude save.
Guess what, in divinity, the Fortitude save is represented by your Magic armor. Its the same thing: a mechanical abstraction to make combat less boring. Because lets face it, if you went full greek myth, there is literaly only one way to defeat a medusa and thats using a mirror. Either that or having the blind fighting feat. Which in DnD isnt exactly hard to get, but also not very usefull most of the time.

What you say about "Immersion" is mostly "old thing good new thing bad".

ed: Yes, you also have the "petrify" status in DoS1. It works differently than in the games you told us about. In Dos1 the status debuffs have a chance to fail, but only depends on the caster, you cannot "improve or decrease your character´s chances to be debuffed" (saving throws are that). You can be immune to or cure them. They removed those in Dos2 and put the "armor protects from debuffs" thing.

There is a mod to have "Saving throws" in DoS2. I use it and works well. Also, a mod to make the hit rate more difficult. Those make the game more interesting for me.

You can easily make optional the "Show helmets" or graphic changes, interface, difficulty etc, but make core rules like saving throws or combat mechanics optional could be very challenging and usually the devs do not bother. The modders usually address that kind of things.

Yes you can mod that, but i still am baffled by this argument.

WHy does it have to be THIS SPECIFIC mechanic? When another mechanic solves the same problem, for the same reason, with roughly the same kind of result.
Why is THIS SPECIFIC way of doing it """"Immersive""" and another, in my opinion mechnaically superior, way of doing it not immersive?

Yes, but every plane is ultra vulnerable when landing/taking off or stationary in the ground, Allied was outnumbering Germans by a great amount on late stages and they tried to attack Me 262 in this time, because they could't defeat then in the sky. The unique guy born in Americas that got "knight's Cross of the Iron Cross", defeated 11 aircraft in the ground with his Bf 110 in a single mission(https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Egon_Albrecht-Lemke) There are records of Me 262 destroying formations of bombers in "combat box" formation and their P-51 escort unable to do anything, against his amazing 4 30mm cannons and insanely speed... About MG 42 fire rate, it can be modded to 1800 rpm, but if an plane has 4 MG 42, each one with 300 rounds, in 10 seconds, the plane will ran out of ammo with an single 10 second burst. IF none of the MG 42 "jam"...



But petrification works differently. On NWN1, on easy/normal, there are no friendly fire and petrification is temporary, but on core D&D rules difficulty, PETRIFICATION IS PERMANENT, save or petrify is like save or die, except that stone to flesh can cure someone petrified. On M&M VII, the stone to flesh had an time limit to be able to revert the petrification, is an expert lv spell and you can find enemies that can petrify you on Bracada desert, in an dungeon relative earlier on.




I disagree. Look to Pillars of Eternity 2. After the success of DOS2, they decided to create an turn based mode and re made all rules to fulfill an turn based game. How weapon/armor works, how some spells work, spell duration(...)

But can you offer an link to that mod? And there are an mod that increases the range and remove CDs? Make armor works like armor that deflects blows? Multiple summons? I would love to play DOS2 with this mechanics and hope that BG3 will be easily moddable, so if Larian remove missing and other thing, people will mod the core rules into the game. Just like on NWN2, Obsidian nerfed Warlock to oblivion and made the SR/DCs bugged, but there are mods that fixes the warlock class and after i installed the mod, an class that i could't play due frustration becomes my favorite class.

Ok, Petrification is permanent, im aware of that, its that way in every edition of DnD.
It isnt in OS, probably because in OS you dont get to fight an actual medusa, but just use a spell that simulates that effect and thus it only lasts for its duration.
But realy, thats the difference between a video game and a DnD campaign.

permanent petrification is only interresting if you then have a DM that deals with the consequences of it.
Such as offering an actual solution. Otherwise its just "load your last save".

Some people enjoy "no reload" runs. On most classic RPG',s this stats effects are "permanent", I got 3 party members petrified on M&M VII and din't reloaded, just started to search desperately potions... On P:K, you can choose between removing this conditions on rest on the difficulty menu. Anyway, you should be able to limit resting to city only.

The thing I'd heard about the 262 was supposedly some vulnerability peculiar to that particular aircraft, though I don't recall anything about the details, so it may or may not have been all that special.

I can see that conceptually an MG42 could theoretically be modified to obtain an increased firing rate as were several other recoil-operated aircraft guns were by lightening the barrels, given that they didn't need the same heat-absorbing mass thanks to increased airflow e.g. the Brownings in both .303 and .50 calibre as used by the RAF (ISTR they used a compressed air recocking system which could presumably clear at least some stoppages) though I hadn't heard of the MG42 being used in such a manner and would be somewhat surprised as my understanding is that the Luftwaffe preferred much larger calibres (I heard one related anecdote where an ex Luftwaffe pilot described the amusement they shared at the RAF fitting Spitfires with rifle-calibre weapons... which quickly evaporated once faced with the reality of being on the wrong end of eight modified Brownings all firing at once). I should look it up now that my interest has been piqued, though I am a little sceptical.

Never got to fire any of the things in question during my brief stint in the army, sadly. Closest I got was having to lug a Bren about for someone else to fire (or not, as turned out to be the case) though maybe that's as well as I wasn't a great shot.

Yes Victor, and thats exactly WHY OS doesnt have it.
Because having one of the 3 protagonists permanently dead, means the game cannot be finished.
thus one character becoming turned to stone equals a game over.
hence why the game doesnt have it. (of course this is not neccesarily true you can finish the game on your own, but for most playthroughs this will be true)

Of course. Here your have two of your requests.

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/168

https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin2/mods/185

I hope the new Bg3 will be modder-friendly, too. Enjoy!

Sordak, perma effects like blind can be "cured", but they last until cured. Anyway, in therms of versatility, IMO divine casters are far more versatile than arcane casters. Mainly druids on pathfinder(don't know much about then on 5e). An lv 9 animal companion, buffed with few low level spells, can easily reach an AC of 39. An fu***** ancient silver dragon has 38 AC ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/mo...n/metallic-silver/ancient-silver-dragon/ ) and is a CR 19 monster. I an not saying that he is stronger than an ancient silver dragon, but on AC, he is ludicrous powerful. And only considering his animal companion as an "tanker", Druids can heal(an thing that arcane casters can't) and can cast on armor without penalty.



vometia, about luftwaffe using mostly cannons, in later stages yes, but in earlier stages of WW2, they used both. Bf 110 was they main ground attack aircraft and had 4 machine guns + 2 cannons.

I know they used to use the MG15 quite a lot: I mainly remember it as I used to confuse it with the MG34 from a distance, which it wasn't. I guess the differentiation with "cannons" is also somewhat semantic and for me it's the differentiation between standard rifle ammunition of the time (.303, 7.92mm etc) and "bigger boys came". In the latter regard (and apologies for what is a rather obscure reference for anyone outside the UK: Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke's "Kevin and Perry" characters) largely in the form of the likes of the 20mm Hispano-Suiza which was a bit like a Bren on steroids, and additionally blurred the line in having a really very quick firing rate, about 700rpm IIRC. Okay, a bit pedestrian compared to the Vulcan (I'm imagining another comedy series with the Californian scientists saying how awesome it would be to make a Gatling with an electric motor and huge ammunition) and even some actual aircraft cannon at the time, including some scary 75mm jobbies,but pretty lethal nonetheless. AFAICT, with that caveat that aircraft aren't my forte, the HS guns eventually ousted the .303 Browning M1919s as the RAF's mainstay. Contrary to the "less is more" cliche, sometimes more is more, it just depends what you want more of. Well that was very philosophical of me.

How did this thread turn into a history lesson on German WWII military armaments

I bear responsibility for that one. I've had a fascination with small arms ever since first firing a rifle and thinking "ow, that hurts" but also "I wonder how it works? Maybe I should take it to bits and find out." And tanks, because they're cute. ish.

Two people here have an fascination with firearms. I down own any firearm, but i visit firing ranges often, so an small comment mentioning balance and using some IRL examples of how balance is mostly in conflict with variety, immersion and historically accuracy lead to this. Anyway, introducing firearms into a D&D game can be interesting. For example, would mages try lobby to prohibit it? And assassinate those who are developing this new research to avoid loss their monopoly on mass destruction? And firearms would be that amazing in a world with magic? If an barbarian tribe can use spells, an situation like Pizarro destroying an civilization would be possible? How aristocrats would see this new technology?

Oh, I see. The MG does have optional rules for firearms, so I guess we are still on topic. Please continue as you see fit. (my bad for interrupting the flow of conversation.)

I think the same way as mounted cavalry did (at least apocryphally) in the early days of WW1. Regarding the widespread adoption of machine guns for the first time in a European conflict, they were confident that cavalry charges were still viable because opposing forces would know that their vulgar new contraptions were not to be used against gentlemen.

They were wrong.

In the "D&D Beyond" official 5e page they even have the "gunslinger" archetype for fighters an other one for firearms. I wonder if they plan to do something like that.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/fighter
Combat mounted feats + firearms would be a nice combination of rules. I´ve always wanted to rp a mounted dragón de cuera (The soldier, not the beast).

There are firearms and artillery in the Forgotten Realms, but the gods have conspired to make them unreliable. There's also a campaign called Maztica based on the Spanish conquest of the new world. Amn (IIRC, it's been a while since I looked at it) takes the place of Spain and the church of Helm plays the part of the Catholic church.

Imagine playing with as an mounted arquebusier. Sounds interesting.



There are simple firearms on D&D, but nothing like smokeless powder cartridges or even an lever action .30-03 and i know why. Picking an Me 262 for eg, he could defeat an Terrasque even in one turn. I an not joking. An an ancient silver dragon can fly 250 feet, or 76.2 m speed. An Me 262 that can fly 909 km/h or around 250m/s or 1500m in a 6 seconds(an turn on BG1/2). And his cannons, considering that an ballista deals 4d8 damage, IMO the bare minimum that an 30mm cannon should deal would be 6d8 with "ball" ammo, HE ammo should deal something like 10d10 fire in a small area of effect, with 600 rounds per minute for each cannon(the plane has 4), 40 shots in one second, an single 3 second burst would vaporize an terrasque and Armor Piercing ammo should negate most target DR...

Not mention, post WW1 firearms are insanely powerful compared to D&D spells, but why spend so much time studding and researching it when you already have a lot of deadly spells?? I remember on "anime" Gate, people on medieval kingdom was thinking that the "green man" are an army of high level sorcerers using other worldly sorceries. Only demigods like Rory Mercury could defeat modern soldiers,





Cavalry charges against ranged enemies din't worked well since the battle of Agincourt and they had only longbows...

And pre, for that matter. I was talking to a chap round here who made a very, very powerful sort of "artillery crossbow" (my terminology, not his, as he actually knows what he's doing and makes proper period-correct stuff for major league films etc) which he demonstrated for me. He was actually going to let me have a go myself, which could be considered slightly reckless given I'm "that person" my managed to impale her own foot using a garden fork by aiming it at the ground and missing, but it wasn't quite ready. Anyway, I said "blimey!" at the noise, recoil and devastation to which he replied that actually it was less powerful than a .22. I know that momentum and power aren't the same thing (a fractional amount of my A-level physics has stayed with me) but the point was made.


And in the 83rd century when we have another war caused by the usual "this would be much better if it was a video game", we'll still have cavalry charges even though the nuclear-powered anti-grav robo-sharks with lasers for eyes are incinerating them, because "robo-sharks know they shouldn't be using their eye-lasers against gentlemen. Oh, lawdy, my bottom's on fire, to quote Ms de Arc. Ouch."

Honestly, it would be interesting if Baldurs Gate 3 had the option to fully customize all rules in the game. DND in real life is so popular because it offers so much customisation but in videogames, we are only allowed to follow the rules the devs made up. Of course, the devs should clearly communicate that these rule changes are not the way they want you to play the game and they take no responsibility if you break your game.

Thats called modding.

I think any modern RPG game who wants to be more than a sidenote of a few months have to offer customization and modder´s support.

Nope, some games have options to change the rules built-in in the main game. I don't have the patience to work through long tutorials when I simply want to change some small things.

But are you just talking small things or completely different rule sets which are not small things.

I strongly agree. Look to Neverwinter Nights 1 for eg. On normal difficulty, friendly fireand petrification works completely different than "D&D hardcore" difficulty. The problem with NWN is when they not only din't followed rules(only one summon BS, pale master giving no caster level, etc) but they also hard coded it to make hard to mod the game and make more pnp like.

If the game is mod friendly, i an sure that people will make the game more pnp like. People did it with PRC on nwn1 who isn't exactly that friendly to mods...

As someone who's played D&D since the 80's, and loved the BG series, I must say that my experience of D&D in computer games has led me to realize that it's not suited to computer games, and having now played 13th Age, it's not even that good anyway.
I'm delighted they'll be modding that particular d20 system, and very good luck to them.

Why not suited to computer games???

As someone who saw TONS of adaptations, from Sword Coast Legends to Temple of Elemental Evil, i can say by my experience. All rule deviations that i saw resulted in a worst game.

* Pale Masters is useless on NWN1 due no +CL and artificial only one summon BS
* Arcane archer who can only imbue fire are useless too since fire is the most resisted element
* A lot of spells becoming useless on pathfinder kingmaker due ultra nerfed range
<can continue listing>

My point is that there are already 6576576346547653*10²³ games with boring mechanics, an combat where you never miss, but enemies need 5000 hits to die, with BS mechanics like cooldown, with level and attributes meaning nothing. Why BG3 should be more akin to an generic mmo than to BG?

I can't spend enough words to say how bad Pale Master is in vanilla NWN

Larian, voiced by Swen Vincke repeated in all interviews that the game will use the D&D Tabletop mechanics and combat with some adaptations to translate to a videogame (They usually refuse to compare with previous games but they always relate BG3 to the tabletop D&D)
"With respect to the combat system, this is based on D&D, so we’re using their combat system. We had to make a few tweaks"
Sc: https://www.pcgamesn.com/baldurs-gate-3/larian-developer-interview

I strongly agree. I love nwn, but pale masters are useless. Necromancer specialized wizard or conjurer are a little less useless but still too weak compared to a "generic" wizard. One thing that i miss from 3.5e is the OHK spells. Like Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, etc. 5e removed most OHK spells and on pathfinder, they only dealt an massive damage.



The problem of that interview is that he don't mention what "few twaks" are, because an change on missing will lead to an chain reaction of changes. And that is my biggest concern. Note that i miss a lot on baldur's gate 1/2 and even in turn based games like Temple of Elemental Evil. I had an character with 7 DEX who due difficulties on resting, managed to miss 27 times in the roll.

And in modern games, i miss a lot on pathfinder kingmaker. An summoned army surrounded an enemy who was under the effect of icy prison spell, despite my high level party(16~20), i was missing around 85% of the hits. Note that i was targeting an Witch, not an Demigod Death Knight with +5 plate armor and all types of ungodly buffs to his AC.


Here is more screenshots of the encounter https://imgur.com/a/B4oBrm4

To be fair, is not hard to see complains about "complications"
"♥♥♥♥♥ overly complicated game ... why they didnt just make the gameplay similar to divinity original sins ... I enjoyed the game but compare to divinity original sins 2 this game is a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ..... on the last chapter after i entered the portal I turned everything to the lowest difficulty because I couldn't ♥♥♥♥♥ kill the witch and now even with everything on low I'm stuck because I could not kill the wriggling man .." https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1735467426089656980/

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But IMO D&D 6e is already easy to grasp enough. An game based on 5e will not receive massive negative reviews because "i can't hit an insect swarm with my axe" because there are no swarm rules. Much less save or be screwed spells/traps/abilities.

Here is an interesting video showing the evolution(and devolution of saves in 4e) in all D&D history. And the origins of the mechanic. Armor Class and Saving Throw are core pillars of D&D. I feat that they are part of "adaptations to translate to video games" considering some comments that i have heard.

I think ,for most fans of D&D, it is imperative to have at least a mode where the original 5e rules are applicable.

I don't really care too much about all the other conversations going on here, but it sounds to me like Vincke was talking about hidden mechanics that make the game more accessible to players. Consider this example from Celeste: https://youtu.be/yorTG9at90g?t=633
Coyote Time is one of those things that doesn't make sense, but helps players not get frustrated by the playing the game imperfectly. There are other games with other examples, like shooters where the first couple of bullets aimed at the player are guaranteed misses to help them become aware a combat has started, and so on.

I think what Vincke is trying to say is that there will be mechanics that help a player succeed more frequently than statistically true to help them enjoy a game with randomness. Consider the opposite, XCOM, where players miss 90% "gimme" shots because of true randomness. This has led to people being rampantly frustrated by an otherwise awesome game. The "feel" of missing a 90% shot, while statistically possible, is unfun for many people. It looks like BG3 will have help on randomness to build more fun.

I, for one, love this. It simulates a reasonable GM on a computer. It also encourages people not to save scum.

catcyborg1 , i STRONGLY disagree with you. The DM cheating in favor of the party is not good, fun or engaging. D&D was best on 2e when people had like 4~5 backup characters to WHEN(not if) their characters die on low level and one among many manages to become really strong. That was so good...

Did you played ToEE? BG1/BG2? You miss a lot on all of this games. I have a sorcerer with 7 DEX which missed 26 times in a row. The shooters where the first shots on the player always misses only serves to make the game ARTIFICIALLY easier.

You can see missing as frustration but i see rule butchering like sword coast legends as far more frustrating.

Firsrt of all: I have never played PnP so I can talk only about computer games.

I have read the stuff above and its almost fun to see how you guys fight each other.

My opinion:
- A computer game is something different than PnP so it is OK if they change some rules.
Since I have no connection to PnP I do not care what rules a computer game has ( for example DnD or not, and if DnD what edition) as long as the game is fun to play.
If it is fun to play I will see when I play it.
All we have seen so far is a pre alpha video.
I admit that some rule changes in the video seem strange to me, but I will not complain about stuff until I have played it myself.

- Balance is importent, even in a single player game.
If we have class A and class B and class A can do everything better than class B, why add class B to the game:
Example from pathfinder: Rogue and Vivisectionist
Rogues have sneak attacks and a rogue talent every second level. Vivi has the same HP, BAB, sneak attacks and talents, PLUS spells ( that can be cast in armor and you can use self only spells on others with infusion ) and mutagens (bonus to stats and AC that stack with everything plus extra attacks with feral mutagen)
Also every class with animal companion is better than the same class without animal companion in most cases. A sorcerer cannot hit an elephant right in front of him with a weapon and you can cast only a few spells? No problem, the (buffed) pet of my sylvan sorcerer hits like a truck while I can focus on buffs, CC and even more summons.

In PnP it must be even worse. A wizard can solve almost every problem with a spell, a druid has an animal companion who hits things plus he can transform into an animal that hits things plus many spells. At the same time a melee martial char can be happy to be the meat shield of those guys, so they do not need to use a spell slot to summon a meat shield.

That's fine, but not every player (or DM for that matter) has the same feelings as you do about losing player characters. That's not a problem here because of saved games, and so there isn't much of a need for the AI DM to smooth things out.




Some people enjoy being branded with white-hot pokers, but you should maybe consider the notion that white-hot-poker branding is not something that everyone enjoys experiencing.

On the contrary, it´s far less worse. Most campaigns are not combat focused like videogames, where you are fighting 80% of the time (I do not say it´s wrong a videogame involving lots of fights, I say it´s different in PNP) so the different classes and races offer you multiple options to interact with the world outside combat. because you are roleplaying, crafting, talking, interacting with the world, building the story, creating funny or dramatic scenes on the fly, you can have a house, a business, a profession, etc... there are modules that have one fight per session and you can avoid combat entirely using some impressive amount of possible shenanigans if you want to...
So character builds that are the same in combat are useful in other areas. And character builds discarded in videogames because they have zero combat value could be useful in other settings, so the balance comes in several ways.

There are also campaigns that have their unique classes, races, feats and rules that are only useful in those campaigns(In Skulls and shackes AP you are travelling by ship and there are a lot of water combat, so sailing and water-breathing are more important, in WoTR you can command troops, so leadership skills are useful, etc) In PNP you have to balance more things than that. Of course you have a DM so you can change things on the fly, so...

In the example of the vivisectionist vs rogues, they have different out-of-combat features and ways of interacting with the world, even if those could have similar mechanics in combat. And of course story-wise it´s not the same to be a sylvan sorcerer with a panther than a draconic sorcerer, they have different features that you cannot see in the PF game because they are not used in combat. For example, there are places that you cannot take your Animal companion or eidolon (And you can mount them), a thing i´ve never see in a videogame of sorts.

No, is not. I strongly disagree.

Balance would ruin ANY game.

Imagine if on Fallout New Vegas, they had tried to make someone running with a knife effective as someone with a anti materiel rifle and explosive rounds at a open field, for the sake of balance. Magic on high magical settings are like firearms IRL.

All masterpiece of CRPG's are unbalanced. BG2? Unbalanced. VTMB? Unbalanced. Nosferatu is a hard mode and there are no way to put deformity in a highly social game without it being game breaking harder. Arcanum? High technology and high magical characters are too powerful. Harm is the best spell for the first dozen of horus. Fallout New Vegas? Unbalanced. Melee is far weaker than ranged.

-----------------------------------------

And you are ignoring that the focus on this game is role playing. You can beat pathfinder with any pure RP build. Also, most TT modules tends to be way less combat focused. Kineticist is not considered a "op" class on P&P but is amazing on Kingmaker exactly because the class can dish a lot of damage.

Cool; I get it and can understand where you're coming from. I prefer something a little more cooperative to focus on other elements, but I can see how that could be fun.

I think this gets to another heart of the issue: if Vincke had never said anything, and Larian just did the mechanics as they did, no one would notice. We would all just have our experiences and enjoy them. This is like a doctor telling the patient they're prescribing a placebo--then it doesn't work. Now, we have to argue about whether or not we want a sympathetic or indifferent GM; that doesn't serve anybody.

Regarding balance: it can be fun for there to be weaker and stronger classes for harder and easier gameplay, but different types of classes should have similar options. For example: strong and weak caster classes, strong and weak melee classes, etc. So tiers aren't balanced by type, but multiple tiers exist within each type. Just my 2 cents.

What an absolutely absurd comparison. That is not balance. If you choose a knife in a fight with someone that has an anti material rifle and explosive rounds on an open field...that's stupidity, not a balance issue.

Trying to face someone who can make rain meteors at range with a sword is dumb too.

I mention sword because people often compare casters with fighters with a sword, BUT a fighter with a longbow and poisoned arrows has chances vs a high wizard at range. With throw able javelins, at medium range and so on. Mainly on 2e, the fighter with 4 attacks per round can slay the Wizard before he could cast any spell.

Again, that is not a balance issue, that is a matter of combat encounter location. If you are a wizard and get the drop on a fighter 120+ ft away, you'll be able to cast multiple spells before he can reach you with a melee weapon. If it's a ranged fighter, such as with a bow or javelin, it still isn't going to be balanced since spells normally do more damage than ranged physical attacks and they normally have greater range. This scenario isn't a balance issue, its a strategy issue; line of sight, using your surroundings, etc. If the melee fighter gets the jump on the wizard in close melee range, might be lights out for the wizard. It swings both ways depending on each particular encounter.

That is not exactly true. Even on 5e which nerfed spell ranges a lot compared to 3.5e(without any complex build a lv 20 wizard can hit a fireball at 1200 feet), on 5e is possible to hit enemies at 1320 feet with it.

As for damage, damage is worthless if you can't see the enemy nor can't cast the spell. If a figther attacks 4 times per round, the caster needs to do 4 concentration checks(3.5e) or constituition check(5e), if the fighter has poisoned arrows, it can deal CON damage and kill the sorcerer in one round.

People who put caster VS fighter generally give the best spells to the caster and forget to give good weapons to the fighter.

I an not against giving more warcries to barbarians which acts like spell like abilities, manuvers that allow him to decapitate enemies and etc; but people who focus a lot on balance wanna just make casters less interesting rather than martial more interesting.

It does if they also tell them placebos have been proven in scientific studies to have positive effects.

It is OK that you disagree with me, but this is a really bad example.

My example of rogue vs vivisectionist was that one class can do everything that another class can do plus tons of useful things on top of it.

Follout does not have classes.
About ranged vs melee: It depends on the situation.
- In an open area, especially if there is a position were you can see everything and you are hard to see, the best option is a sniper rifle.
- If you fight an enemy with a ranged weapon and you cannot hide or get close to the enemy fast, you better have a ranged weapon yourself.
- If you can sneak up to an enemy you can kill them silently without causing an alarm.
- In a situation where you need to get close to enemies or where enemies manage to get close to you, its good to have a melee weapon.

Melee vs range is a tactical question. In the best case you chose the battlefield. If you can see enemies from the distance and they do not see you, its usually better to start combat from afar. If you can get close to enemies without being detected it can be better to attack in melee.
If you cannot chose the battlefield its better to have both options. If you are attacked by enemies who shoot you from the other side of a valley you better have something to shoot back. If you fall into a pit with beasts ranged weapons are useless.
In every RPG a character should have both a melee and ranged weapon ready all the time. In the best case you have 4 options to attack ready: ranged AoE (explosives/fireball), single target ranged (gun/bow), melee for max damage (sword/hammer/axe) and a small melee weapon like a dagger that can be hidden and you can use it as tool.

In Fallout NV my favourite weapon was the sniper rifle because the game is set in a desert: wide open areas with rocks or bushes to hide behind.
In the original Fallout my favourite weapon was the pneumatic hammer. Lots of damage and only one AP per attack. Just make sure to start combat when being close to the enemy.


@vic: I agree with you.
The problem is that computer games are about combat.
If your char is too weak to beat the boss you cannot continue.
If your char is a dumb and anti social freak it is rarely something that prevents you from continuing the game.

For example I have just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Most of the time the game rewards you for sneaking around. If you fight enemies you should sneak up to them and beat them in melee or you use a silenced gun to kill them with a single headshot while being hidden.
And then the game has boss encounters who are just a giant bullet sponge. Players who have learned to sneak around are forced to fight an enemy head on with a minigun.
To be fair, there are also boss encounters that can be done in a sneaky way. But the 3 bullet sponges in the game feel somehow wrong in a game that is great otherwise.

Yeah, sure, I gotcha. My previous comments were about how it´s in PNP in my experience, unrelated to the discussion about videogames. We both agree that videogames are more combat-focused so it could never be perfectly extrapolated because of múltiple reasons: you can forfeit 60% of the roleplaying parts of the PNP, for example. Flawed characters are not only usually playable in the TT game, they are actually more fun ( Playing a 6CON wiz that could fall if someone sneezes too hard around him, a 4Cha Half-orc that everybody hates when they meet him or a blind 7WIS warlock is really enjoyable, but in a videogame, those things do not have an impact in the world around you, with several honourable exceptions, like the Arcanum or First Fallout games; so you do not really have a reason not to go for high stats. You have all the penalties in saves and skills, none of the "advantages").
And of course, you usually cannot trick the big-bad-unbeatable-boss to marry you, make him fall into a river, banish him into another plane or your magic bag, etc....unless it´s scripted beforehand.

But some things you can include, even if it´s only to follow the tradition of the PNP game they are based on. To create common ground with old players of the franchise.

I mean, even in the new instalments of Fallout, like f3, f4 or F76 they included the classic S.P.E.C.I.A.L character stats even tho it´s fairly obvious that most of them are superfluous in an FPS game. The same could be said about some skills, race or class features, spells, etc that are all-time-classics of D&D.

I mean, do you imagine a druid wearing metal armour, a bard without singing or a wizard spellbook without magic missile and fireball? That´s not D&D

Ed: I was going to include "a warlock without a patron" but you know... nwn2

You are right.
For example arcanum was a great game and totally unbalenced. Playing as idiot half orc was so much fun.
I never played Fallout as idiot because int gives skill points ( I guess so, its been a long time since I have played).

Maybe I can say it this way.
An unbalanced game can be lots of fun, but in that case the difficulty should be rather low.
Arcanum was not difficult ( exept that one dungeon full of traps and even magma golems where you have to go through. OK, it was more annoying than difficult. Walk around naked ( your equipment does not get damaged) and rest every few steps.)
Bloodlines was not difficult, your HP regenerates automatically. Being not optimized only means you miss some optional quest objectives.

Pathfinder Kingmaker was rather difficult.
Even if some experts soloed it on unfair, the fact that it is one of the most complex systems in gaming history makes it much more difficult for many players.
Having a character who is optimized for combat definitely helps you a lot to get through the game, much more than in the examples above.
The devs should not expect that 90% of the players are PnP nerds who know every detail of the system.

I have never played a DnD 5E game so far, but reading the players handbook was much easier than reading the pathfinder rules.
And Larian Games were not extremely difficult so far, so I guess things look good for BG3.

Madscientist, ALL, i repeat ALL masterpiece RPG's are unbalanced. About PFKM, you can beat the game on normal or even on easy with pure RP builds.

When i finished for the first time, i picked a silver draconic sorcerer and learned ZERO fire based spells which means that i lost Fire Snake and sirroco, both are the best mid tier spells in the game. Except on house at edge of time which is much more annoying rather than difficulty, i had ZERO problems with a pure RP build. I even had awful low DEX meaning that i can't exploit the brokenness of sneak attack + ranged touch attacks in the game and had no problem.



Warlock power can be obtained via bloodline. Some people love to push warlocks as "clerics 2.0" BUT

That is not the case since 2e. They LEARN from their patron and get their soul "infused", they don't get spells like a cleric. In fact 2e had rules to clerics and paladins losing their powers but the worst thing that can happens to a warlock is, quoting the The Complete Wizard's Handbook

"The Witch kit cannot be abandoned. If a Witch manages to sever all ties with the entities responsible for her instruction (usually requiring the power of a wish or its equivalent), she loses two experience levels. (...)



PS : I hate rule butchering but one rule alteration that i liked is that on DDO, they made part of your eldritch blast damage being force and part whatever your patron instructs you. Fey = sonic, GOO = Acid, Fiend = Fire. Each damage type also has a save. Fey has the less resisted damage type(sonic) but the worst save(reflex). And DDO Black Tentacles are great. Aren't good to grapple as P&P(which has CL + 8 AB) and the duration is just 10 seconds, but the damage is ludicrous high compared to P&P. HEre is a link https://ddowiki.com/page/Evard%27s_Black_Tentacles

@Madscientist I think we had a very different experience with the game.

In my experience, you only need to min-max and make power builds if you are playing unfair. I didn´t find normal mode particularly difficult (as in DarkSouls difficult).
I finished the game with a solo kineticist and a party of 5 bards, so I´m sure the game could be beaten with an un-optimized build without much of a fuss. Successful knowledge skill checks allow you to discern the weaknesses of the enemies, and you have lots of scrolls and wands to buy, and enough money to do so. You can also change your party composition to adapt to different types of enemies,...

And of course, you do not really need to be a "nerd" (You do not need to be a nerd to play PNP either) because the videogame does all the number crunching for you (And many features of the PNP are out of the game), you just have to point and kill. Honestly, it´s refreshing to have an RPG videogame with character creation and development that is not based in a straightforward skill tree with lots of pictures.

For me, PK was more difficult than most other RPGs.
It was the first time I have ever heard of pathfinder. One day I saw a new game on gog and people said it is the new Baldurs Gate and it is buggy as hell. I did some reading and found out that pathfinder is something like DnD3.75. I have played NWN2 (DnD 3.5) so I thought I know at least some basics and I started reading some more. When the first big DLC came out and the forums said that most bugs are fixed I started playing.
I started the game and character creation. Tons of classes, skills and feats and no idea what the game will throw at you. At least I did some reading before and I had thought of a char, a halfling with a mix of classes to have good defense and magic buffs. Good news: it had a good defense and was more tanky than my companions. Bad news: Damage was close to zero, well, it was a halfling with low strengh and no sneak attacks.
some things I do remember: (playing on normal)
- spider swarm cave: I knew I need elemental damage, weapons are useless. So every char who does not have damage spells gets alchemist flasks. After many tries I made it, the flasks did more damage to my party than to the spiders.
OK, now I know I need protection from poison and fire, it feels still strange to throw bombs at my own feed, the cave is so small that its hard to evade them.
- First encounter with the tech league on the world map. My lv2 party against several enemies of higher level, no chance to positioning or pre buffing. It took endless tries until finally the god of random numbers was with me. I thought the devs are really obsessed with torturing the player.
- Owlbears, more strengh than an ancient dragon and several attacks per round. I thought the devs must be nuts giving a normal animal much higher stats than the boss of this chapter. Enemy stats looked quite inflated in general.
- Things got easier over time, but at some point I switched from normal to story mode. I have limited time for playing and reloading some battles endless times is frustrating.
- There was the cave with the dragon near the house at the end of time and the quest were you have to defend a dragon from hordes of devils that were quite hard, but I made it because playing on story mode. OK, these things were optional.
- Than came the house at the end of time. I am happy that I read a guide before. So at least I knew that I will face tons of enemies who will perma stunn your party unless you have blind fight or freedom of movement. Those enemies also summon reenforcement all the time. And it very easy to get lost in the house unless you use a guide. There are 2 worlds that look the same and you have no indicator in which one you are.
- Then comes the final chapter. You get cursed and have a huge miss chance on everything. Once you get your strengh back you go to your palace. At one point you get attacked by 3 large waves of wild hunt comming from all directions. I made it, but even on story mode it was frustrating and took forever.
- I have beaten the final boss, but I missed the secret ending because I did not get some info from previous bosses.

It will probably feel easier when I play it again, but I still have huge respect before this game.
No, I have never played any dark souls game. I will not start a game that is famous for being very hard because I lack masochism.
I like RPGs because of story, characters and setting, not because I seek the ultimate challenge. I have no need to play the game on anything higher than normal.
Since BG3 will be my first DnD 5E game ever, I will probably start on normal, but I will change to story mode too if things get too hard.

PS: It feels a bit strange when somebody who runs marathons and even longer races says "I lack masochism."
When running its just me vs myself. I know it will be over in 4h and nobody is trying to stop me. All I have to do is taking one step after the other.
When I play a game and I die a dozen times at the same enemy it is just frustrating.

> Honestly, it´s refreshing to have an RPG videogame with character creation and development that is not based in a straightforward skill tree with lots of pictures.

Considering how many games become gear playing game where your char DNA is 100% tied to his boots, i see even skill trees favorable.... Seriously, just look to Diablo. How a sorcerer(ss) become better at throwing fireballs?

• D1 - Reading Tomes
• D2 - Investing skill points
• D3 - Finding a bigger and sharper axe

This point, one thing that 5e bough that i loved is the attenument rule. 4e was already a gear playing/barbie dressing game and it was so good... One aspect that i loved Gothic 1/2/3 is that you don't open a menu and learn magic, or how to do a open locks. You need to find someone able and willing to teach you. Corristo only agrees to teach magic to you on mid of chapter 2.

On Gothic 3, Saturas teaches the basics of water magic for you, ice lance, but certain spells like ice explosion requires that you find a specific water mage and help his research in a quest. And he will only teach end game spells like Time bubble and hailstorm requires that you side with Adanos ending.



You min maxed your defense with zero regard towards damage and complain that you are dealing no damage?



Bad positioning. And if i remember correctly the CLERIC on the camp sells scrolls of protection from energy



If you prioritize a target he will leave and you can solve the encounter by just talking



Dark Souls is not hard. Is only hard for the people who "you should only play with a sword and no armor", my first build on DS1 was a spearman pyromancer so i had a easy time. If you use magic, long range melee weapons(spears), heavy armor, shields , summons and consumables, DS1 will not gonna be hard.



I an different. I play for pure escapism. To fell myself immersed in another world. Is hard to detail why without entering in off topic territory but in nutshell, i hate my reality. I hate my country and i hate everything that happens to me. I live in a extremely violent and hot country, were despite being 1.84m tall(6' 1") with broad shoulders, was victim of assault attempt two times. One with a obvious fake gun and have hot weather, my skin is the type which only burns but never tans and due it, even going out some days is a torment. I even had cancer and a lot of troubles. Lost a job which i worked hard to get, got failed at college, lost my ex girlfriend and due the stress got hypothyroidism. When i finally was close to get a job in a colder country with better security and culture, i din't got hired due "diversity hiring", so in nutshell, my life is trash. But when i an playing a immersive RPG, i fell myself in another world and forget all problems that i have in my life. When i an playing VtMB as a Tremere i fell like i an a powerful vampire blood sorcerer.

Dark Souls has a good consistency on mechanics and lore and is immersive. Dying in the game is not a problem.

What i hate is when games makes difficulty as just stat inflation. That is a huge problem.

>Pathfinder kingmaker is diffuclt
yes
but the difficulty is highly scaleable.
the spider cave is extremeley infaous, because thats a mechanic that relay doesnt work well.
But its also optional.

Its a game you gotta approach with a different mindset.
Cheese it.
like any other CRPG, just stack buffs on yourself, sneak, summon hordes of stupid creatures to bog them down, fear them, use combat maneuvers if you can.

As for character creation
for one i gotta adress this one
>4e was a barbie dress up game
Oh no! Magic items that do somehting beyond giving you +1 to hit, jesus christ how terrible.

And in earnest, hope that they dont adapt 5e too hard.
ive recently starteda 5e game as a player again. Oh boy, i already regret it.

I hope you like not getting any feats till level 4 unless you pick vuman.
I hope you enjoy not having any options at character creation at all. I hope you enjoy basically not having a proper class till level 3 on a lot of characters.
The character customization in 5e is not just lackluster, in early levels it might aswell not exist

Sure, but those weren’t strong points of those games - arcanum, Bloodlines aren’t good because they are unbalanced, they are good in spite of being unbalanced. Arcanum is absolute, unfinished trash in so many many aspects. Just as Alpha Protocol or Bloodline. Kingmaker has the bad without much good unfortunately - not much roleplaying and mostly just trashy combat.

Those games are great for ambition of role-playing they go for. Lack of balance in an unfortunate side effect of devs biting more then they can chew. Should an RPG put balance over roleplaying? No. Should various playstyles be reasonably balanced? ideally yes. That would make for a better experience for both first and consequent playthrough. Somehow, I am not worried that Larian of all people would overbalance their new game.

Magical gear on 3.5e and pathfinder give more than +1 to hit. In fact, on pathfinder kingmaker, i have a rod which allow me to maximize, other to empower few spells per day, so i can cast maximized cloudkill as a tier 5 spell rather than a 8th. A necromancer staff which gives all created undead a +3 weapon giving +3 to hit and to damage of each one, rings which give me DR and so on.

But the DNA of my char is not on his gear. My char still deadly even naked. On 4e, the itemization remembers me of D3, the worst game exactly because they tried to make everyone equally gear dependent. While on D2 i can beat the game naked




And yes, the character customization on 5e, mainly on low levels is almost non existent. Why? Because 5e tries to be accessible as possible. Depth and accessibility are opposite. Just like balance and variety/immersion.



Wrong. You have a lot of GOOD RP opportunities. Being a evil allow you to solve a lot of quests in completely different ways, like burning a lizardfolk village, recruiting a undead boss as a adivisor and during king management parts, you can take a lot of decisions that affects your kingdom. The combats aren't trash either.

Trash combat is like DA:O where every enemy felt the same. On Kingmaker, fighting undeads cyclops is COMPLETELY different than fighting trolls. Each enemy felt unique. You also discover a lot of powerful "combos" comboing abilities from party members and your MC. For eg, animate dead + cloudkill is a spell cheap way to solve a lot of encounters on a lot of chapters. Late game, a kineticist casting deadly earth with a magician casting sirroco can win a lot of encounters easily.

But look to Fallout New Vegas, there is no way to make the game immersive, varied and a melee play trough equally effective as a firearms run without ruining the firearms aspect. If you are in a open field and have a knife, or a katana and the enemy power armor and a anti materiel rifle with explosive .50 BMG rounds, he can hit you from 200m+ in a open field. Unless you RUIN firearms by putting a artificial low range like HellGate London did, and nerfing the damage output of the firearms so much that they stop feeling like firearms, you can't balance melee and firearms gameplay. Having someone able to blow up a supermutant with one or two shots at ultra long ranges while other guy needs to walk close to deal any small damage is not balanced.

VtMB is a exception, melee is very powerful exactly because there are supernatural disciplines which makes melee powerful BUT end game firearms are more powerful. The 338 LM rifle and the flamethrower are incredible deadly.

>let me tell you about a game i didnt play
ok.
gear is an extra on top of your character in 4e.

Gear dependance in 4e came from the bonus to hit, same as in any other DnD edition.

However in 4e, you had the (official) "Inherent bonuses" option, which lets your characters go up in power without any magic items at all.
This was done to make Dark Sun work.

TL;DR: you, yet again, prove that you dont know what you are talking about.

Misses work in Pathfinder Kingmaker and Pillars of Eternity. It's good as it is.

I would actually really like it if the alterations could be toggled one by one. A huge amount of work, but it would help tremendously. It'll likely just be an overhaul mod, but larian would win me back as a consumer if they did it themselves.

Hi Volourn, I think thread reiterates what you are saying, options options options...

This is a thread from 2020. I don't mind necro-ing old threads (rather than creating a new one) when there's not a more recent one that is discussing the same topic. But that doesn't apply in this case.

Locking this old thread now.