Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Make all rules alterations OPTIONAL!!!

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.

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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.