Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Barrels everywhere

I've just finished my first playthrough as a ranger, and i gotta say, so far so good. I really like the game so far, rules are quite clear and in accordance with DnD 5e, apart from some minor tweaks that make combat faster. I love the Shove/push action, animations of the attacks are sometimes clunky, but its understandable.

What i do not like, however, are everpresent BARRELLS. Like, i know that it's a game made by people responsible for both DoS games, which are awesome, but i really grew to hecking hate oil barrels in that games, and not because they are often in the way, or can help the enemy, no, that's not the case. Enviromental hazards in DnD are awesome, difficult terrain, ice and so on, this is ok. But barrels, are NOT and "enviromental" hazard, and they are goddamn everywhere. Ruined village? Oil Barrels. Beach? Oil Barrels. A lone shack? Oil Barrels. UNDERDARK? OIL BARRELS. Like, Larian, i know, you like it when the things go boom, i get it. But there is not a rulebook or an adventure in DnD 5e that reads "..oh, yeah, and that underdark cavern, the lair of Driders, is filled to the brim with ol barrels for some reason." I sear, when i saw that little storage room with the Zhentharim trader, with like, 12 barrels in 6x6 meters room, i wanted to just turn the game off. There is so much one could do in DnD 5e to use the enviroment - flip the table to get some cover, for exaple. Hide behind a crate to avoid detection, there's so much, but for now the only thing i can interact with are darn barrels, and it pissesme of. Please, i would understand 6 barrels of flammable vodka in an Inn, behid the counter. I'd understand oil barrels inside a candle/lantern makers workshop. But oil barrels inside a ruined, goblin infested household makes no sense, and it pisses me off immensly.

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"But oil barrels inside a ruined, goblin infested household makes no sense"

maybe they ue oil for the food, grilled meat with oil., or using oirl for their flammables arrows.

I was about to create a thread to say the same thing Especially : things like Fire Bolt wouldn't need to be nerfed compared to 5e if there wasn't explosive stuff everywhere. The real issue was not that Fire Bolt was overpowered, it's that the use of explosive environment has been abused.

I totally get it, by the way. In games I DM, should there be a good reason for a barrel full of explosive material to be in the scene and one of my players want to make it explode, I would allow it. Because it's cool, and everything that makes the game cooler should go in. But I would have made it a one time thing, it stops being cool if it's all the time.

Now, this is a big part of the engine so doing it only one time would be a waste, but at the very least, it could be rare enough that it's not used as a reason for altering core balance of 5e mechanics. It's a finely oiled machine with decades of tuning to make it perfectly balanced, I would regard any change to the ruleset as highly hazardous and to be avoided when possible, rather than thinking "our engine can do this cool stuff, so let's change dnd rules to fit it".

Besides: Lamp oil barrels don't explode! No DM in their right mind would let their players turn oil barrels into friggin bombs! There are substances that could be used for that: Force oil, smoke powder, etc. but you would never find stacks and stacks of this stuff lying around everywhere, it's far to rare an valuable. That's one of the biggest problems I have with the game systems right now, actually.

So, please, Larian, get over yourself and (severely) cut back on the "environmental" gimmicks in this alleged non-Divinity game.

Thanks!

+1 to the OP and everyone else who dislikes that barrels are everywhere.

Larian, if you have some people who are not workingon BG3, maybe you make a new game "BARRELMAN"
You take all the barrels from DOS and BG and put them in a new game.
Several chars fighting each other with barrels.
Each char has 3 abilities: create barels (there are pools of oil, poison or water were you can do this), trow barrels and attack barrels.
Its like Bomberman, just with barrels, so they do not explode after some seconds but only when you start a reaction, like attacking a barrel or throwing it into fire.

Let's hope at least there will be a steam achievement: There is always another barrel (Congratulations, you have opened 100k barrels in the game!)

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Get these barrels and environmental effects out of here.
There a nice addition ONCE in a while, not everywhere

Also whats with all the empty chest? Am I right?

I cast a Fire Bolt at one of the tomb looters and somehow there was a huge explosion. I didn't even see what it was. And I certainly wasn't aiming at oil or barrels or anything flammable.

Seriously, this stuff needs to be toned down a LOT more. It's interesting like ONCE when it makes sense in a proper context. But it still exists in many places just because.

The barrels go beyond unbalanced. Collecting every oil, smokepowder, and firewine barrel I came across in this slice of the game (about 30) after learning about the big fight coming, I was able to completely decimate the enemy with barrels and a fire bolt, even their leader with 10 to spare. Nevermind this kind of fight happens about level 3, this crushed the game’s difficulty.

Nerf the barrel placement, increase the weight, and decrease the explosion damage. One of these barrels dealt 35 damage to the boss, giving her no chance of acting before the fire field finished them off.

Yeah, like, barrels are fricking BIG, they're most common in size that reaches to the average human's belly or so. If this is filled with thick oil, it's going to weight 400 punds, not 50. carrying such a barrel should be a 2 man job, and there should be no way of just tossing it across the battlefield. Rolling it for a bit so it can reach the enemy? Allright. Straight up throwing this shit on his had like it's a pebble? Nah. So i don't see who would just drag 400 pound barrels to random places and then leave them there.

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They should change most of these empty containers to non-clickable. We have to spend far too much time opening empty containers and collecting worthless loot like mugs and cups everywhere.

Yes, not a fan of barrels. Less of a fan of being able to put them in your inventory.
If you need to keep them in, please put them where they would make sense.

I think its the worst part of a very promising game. Its just gets so cheesy when it everywhere. Environmental effect once in awhile fine, but not as a tactic you or the enemies use all the time. It turns every fight into the same thing.

+1. The ammount of barrles with explosive stuff is ridiculous. Even if any reasonable Person had so many barrels, they would not be standing around in every damn room
right now Level1 to 4 alchemist fire and oil bottles/barrels are the stronges weapon in game. who cares about a magical greatsword if you can have 10 flasks of oil that deal more dmg and AOE and can be used to slow enemies.

I'm not sure why I am having such a different experience... environmental effects aren't even that common in my experience, and you don't have to play with them at all.
Taking away environmental effects would make for an incredibly boring combat in my opinion. What's fun in always casting magic missiles or always casting Edritch Blast?

Environmental effects vary the very limited combat with action + bonus action, compared to the much more versatile AP-style combat in DOS.