Larian Studios Forums Active Threads Since Yesterday

A: "Water is wet"

B: "No it isn't. Here's a bunch of evidence that it isn't"

A: "I'm going to make an unrelated comment trying to show that you didn't say anything"

B: "I'm going to more accurately portray your lack of argument using the same format"

Like bro... You're the one who has 0 argument. I at the very least brought examples of how leveling is not necessary.

Your entire argument hinges on progression through things that are not directly tied to levels themselves. That you're, for some reason, conflating as intrisicly part of a levels as a mechanic.

99.99% of everything provided by "Levels" can be provided by other means without levels. The only thing intrinsically associated with levels is an increasing level number, which is meaningless on its own.

Levels are really only so popular due to the reliance on the outdated and often detrimental experience system. Whereby acruing incremental "Experience Points" from doing a variety of tasks is the main way of providing progression, meaning you do these various tasks enough until you hit a threshold to then gain an increase in power (Ignoring level scaling) which is most easily understood by "Gaining a level".

Such a mechanic is not necessary. As there are plenty of other ways to gate progression. Many games like to outright reward skill points or upgrades from completing activites directly, rather than relying on them giving generic "Experience Points" to build towards a level up. This can be certain side quests, optional activities or even "Challenges"

Collecting items it also a common way to provide progression. As mentioned prior Elden Ring's DLC has the player gather Scadutree Fragments that provide players with damage and defenses. Games like the Zelda series has players gather Pieces of Heart which every 4th one provides an additional heart container for more health. Doom: The Dark Ages has the player collect resources to spend on upgrades for their equipment.

In Table Top games, it's a popular rule to use the "Gain levels at story moments" thing in lieu of experience. Whereby all players gain the benefits of an increased level at certain points during the story (Before you say anything, "Level" here only really matters because the game rules are based around gating features behind a level progression system. It would be trivially easy to simply provide the benefits without it being a "Level". Adjusting the "Feat" system so you simply get a "Feat" each time you "Level up" which provides the features you'd otherwise gain)

There's even non-incremental progression systems. Like is seen in Metroidvania games (As well as things like Zelda and Darksiders) where your progression is based on acquiring new abilities, usually after beating a boss or progressing through a dungeon. Whereby the progression is simply you gaining that new ability which allows you to interact with more of the game.

Other ways of gating progression can also provide better gameplay experiences, by freeing up players to play how they want, rather than trying to chase after the incremental experience gained from doing various tasks (Such as how someone may want to not bother getting a key for a lock because picking it provides experience. Or stealthing past an encounter is undesirable because you gain experience for killing everything).

In addition, alternate means of progression can feel better to a player and make more sense in context. Gaining an increase of power because you did something that rewarded you with a tangible power increase is sensible. While gaining an increase in power because you happened to cross an arbitrary experience threshold by doing something inane like opening a box or walking close to a "Point of interest" is kind of silly.

As well as making things more simple to balance, as you don't have to try and micromanage experience gains to ensure that players (With varying playstyles) encounter a smooth progression without enemies becoming too easy/difficult based on how much potential experience they have accrued at any point in time.

Why have real legs that can run if you can just move around in a wheelchair, hu ?

I would think that Arabic is an important enough language that Larian will make a real translation, not AI slop, for it.

Might be needed if the player really cannot speak ANY of the popular languages, but I would think those are really rare.

I know this thread is a few months old, but I'm having the same problem. W10 but I'm still playing on the 7 beta patch (due to mods I must-have that aren't compatible). So it's just a random thing?

It's more that it's trying to be independent of prior titles.

The idea is they want it to be accessible to those new to the IP, without needing to play prior titles to understand it.

So expect it to rehash any relevant lore points in a really obtuse way (Especially since it is seemingly taking place following the events of Original Sin 2)

If you have finished the game read this post.


If I do not take the source from spirits of Isbela or Lord Linder Kammen will such characters return in the final battle? I don't remember if this happened when I first played. But I am terrified by the promise the God-King makes to his followers.

It's a throwback to classic RPG's (Especially JRPG's) where this was the case. Poison (Bio if you're familiar with Final Fantasy) would heal undead and healing effects would harm them.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense on the face of it (Also, in various cases "Poison" is being considered "Acid" too, with it being effective against armour and causing degredation... Old RPG's were really bad about this sort of thing).

I believe the general logic leap is that "Poison" is just a term used in lieu of something like "Nercrosis", "Ichor" or "Miasma", some sort of "Unlife" energy that saps away the life force of the living rather than actual poison (Also, by definition, it would be a Toxin not a Poison since you don't make things ingest it...)

Hence it works on skellingtons, ghosts and other things that lack the systems that are necessary for "Poison" to cause harm.

Basically, a long standing poor wording choice.

I'm a programmer and an old fight in computer science was VMS vs Unix.

Unix is a wordplay with Eunuchs, because it started as a "crippled", simplified version of a much larger operating system project (called Multics or something like that) that never actually saw the light of day.

VMS on the other hand was an operating system that was horrifically complex and absolutely cryptic to use (I once did use it a bit, many decades ago).

So the question was which OS would be better.

Unix won this, big time. This was because it was build on simple concepts that could be freely combined. Unix became so successful that its now the dominant operating system - both Windows and MacOS are now under the cover more or less Unix, too.

The core idea here was already expressed by Albert Einstein: As simple as possible, but not any more simple.

So unsurprisingly I prefer a system build on simple concepts that allow amazing complexity and flexibility in other areas, too.

So thats why my favorite D&D to date is D&D5, which gets the closest on this idea. Its still far from perfect though. But it also has amazing flexibility compared to previous versions of D&D.

My main complaint about D&D5 is that they went too far in some places, and simplified the system too much. The whole concept of Advantage and DIsadvantage for example is overused and just poor. I also dont know why they removed the Delay action from D&D3 from D&D5. This was an absolutely essential function in The Temple of Elemental Evil to make the group cooperate with each other.

AD&D is full of strange absurd nonsense tables. The progression of saving throws in AD&D for example are strangely well hidden and was really hard to find out when I tried to fully understand Baldurs Gate 1+2. Its also a bunch of absolute nonsense. I cannot see any reasoning behind these values at all. The short version is that Thief and Bard for some reason get the worst saving throws in the end, while Warriors get the best ones.

The core problem with all D&D versions on the computer is of course that they are designed for tabletop and the dominant design principle

Still, D&D5 supports many more different setups than previous versions of D&D. One of my favorite part is that Bards, which was my initial choice in Baldurs Gate 1, are now actually a playable class. In AD&D they just sucked big time in every way, and in D&D3 they have still been a useless class.

The only remaining complaint I have about D&D5 Bards is that they can only inspire others. So you have a class that is one of the three skill classes, the other two being Rogue and Ranger, and they have a really good ability to push skill useage, but you're not allowed to use it for their own skills.

I usually end up not using this feature at all because guess what, my Bard is the protagonist and since she cannot inspire herself, nobody else needs these inspirations either. You can also sort of use them in combat but thats a PITA to do. Which is why I keep making Wyll into a Bard in all of my runs, just so I can have Inspirations on my protagonist as well, for the really hard checks.

Update: Part 3, Chapter 25 is now published.

BG3.5 - Hellraisers (Fanfiction)
Baldur's Gate 3.5: Hellraisers - an original fanfic story that is a sequel to Baldur's Gate 3 Fanfic: The Afflicted. It picks up immediately after the events of Baldur's Gate 3 as characters from the previous fanfic - Fiovay, Kai, Aelun, Vlyn, and the other members of their party - travel to Avernus. Their quest is to save Karlach but also to hopefully find and rescue Darson, Aelun's father, from the clutches of Demogorgon.

Here is the link to the blog site: https://baldursgate3hellraisers.blogspot.com/2025/10/baldurs-gate-35-hellraisers.html