Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please have more faith in 5e rules

I am a big fan of the Baldur's Gate games and the Divinity games. I also regularly play tabletop 5e.

It seem to me like Larian doesn't really understand the appeal of tabletop 5e and isn't giving it a chance.

It feels like they are trying to adapt Divinity rules with a 5e paint job rather than starting with 5e rules and working from there. It was mentioned early on that they didn't think people like to miss so they added a bunch of extra rules to improve hit rates or give advantage.

The problem with meddling with 5e rules that it unbalances things. Elevation bonuses benefit ranged characters, but punishes melee. Then more rules need to be added to counter the other rules and more and more. Jumping/Disengage as a bonus action spits on the rogue and monk who lose a class feature.

It isn't necessary. Playing on a tabletop it doesn't feel like you are always missing, there's bounded accuracy and monsters designed to be either low AC/high Hp or higher AC/low hp.

I also think that if instead of showing a percentage attack change and people goiing "HoW cOuLd i MiSs aT 99%?!" just show the roll. It gives more feedback than just hit/miss. Missing three times in a row could be rolls of 1, 2. 3 or 8, 9, 10. It just feels better when you miss by less.

I think that Larian has made everything much harder for themselves trying to balance things and could potentially alienate fans of the 5e ruleset by having things that would never appear in tabletop play.

An example that bugged me was an open wound disease that over a few turns progressed into a disease that gave vulnerability to all damage that required a second level spell to remove at level 3 play. Diseases are relatively rare in 5e, and usually progress over days, not seconds. it shouldn't be a thing that every trap does.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts.

The more faithful they are to the 5th edition rules, the better. The ruleset is excellent, and should be adhered to as much as possible.
I will of course accept some adaption for video game purposes, but it should be where they can't adhere to the rules for technical reasons. Not just "because we think we can make it better than the currently huge success of 5e indicates that it is".

If they wanted to make characters hit more, they failed because I feel like I'm missing more than I'm landing hit.

+1

I am not sure why they shifted so much from the rules. The rogue classes where well balanced in 5e but it seems like Larian felt they needed nerfed because sneak attacks are much harder to get now, every one has access to bonus action potions which was originally a thief only feature (fast hands) and then the dumping of expertise... all big rogue hits and I see nothing added to compensate.

This is early access so may be more is coming?

I’m gonna disagree on one thing in particular:

Warlock and Ranger in TT are trash mechanically without homebrew or the current UA. I’m so-so about showing the dice roll, its in the current patch of Pathfinder Kingmaker, and I actually despise it. It communicates too much to the player. I’d go even further and say Don’t Show Chance to Hit at ALL. Just give us a proper combat log to see what happened after.

I’ll agree that Rogue needs its features back (expertise) and the Advantage sources need to be cleared for Rogue (its still doing 60% of my party damage by itself).

This game isn't DND, and doesn't have to follow the ruleset and it's their choice. Larian have creative freedom, and after playing DOS2 quite a lot i think they know what they are doing and have faith. Trust the method behind the madness, but understand no matter which way they go, not everyone will be happy and if you come to the game expecting a 1:1 DND clone you've already set yourself up for disappointment.

Well if its not going to be 5e I might as well refund right now, because thats what they communicated what this was going to be and thats what I expected.

"didn't think people like to miss so they added a bunch of extra rules to improve hit rates or give advantage."

Certainly doesn't feel like it, if I want my hit chance to seem on par with what it should be in 5e then I need to hit it from the back.

Exactly. Again I don't mind them not sticking to the 5e rules as written but everything they communicated beforehand gave the impression that they wanted to make this as close to the tabletop experience as possible. Maybe they didn't say those exact words specifically but given what they said they gave us more reason to think this was going to be D&D than to think they were going to take what they liked form D&D and apply their own creativity. And if you want to suggest that we're bringing our own baggage to the table by assuming that was going to be the case without their explicit confirmation, then let me reiterate; everything they communicated up to now made it more reasonable to assume this was going to remain faithful to D&D as much as possible, and there was little evidence to make us assume otherwise.

+1

5e has some flaws but on the whole is an enjoyable rpg experience with plenty of room to expand tactical thinking and investment. Reworking this much open a door to a whole new layer of unbalancing hell. Everithing is fun and games until high tiers ara achieved (11+ char level) and then the amount of complexity can unexpectaly explode (like careless homebrews explode in tabletop). Surface gameplay comes to mind, i wonder how a full party of wizards can melt hordes of everything just by stacking flames and keeping enemies there.
Sure Larian realize we dont have DOS2 armor and skill system anymore, aint that easy to counter surfaces and status effects..



they seem to have introduced facing variant, but not flanking variant. Im fine for elevation but not as an advantage, +2 /-2 modifiers to hit within bounded accuracy is well enough (just like archery FS)

+1

they should stick a little more to the basic 5e rules.

Giving this topic a +1. Agreed. 5e is a great system that is fun to play. They should trust it.

That's DnD for you. Pray more to RNGesus

They've obviously never tried to land sacred flame if they're always hitting, jeez. <20% success rate i recon! How much dex do these beasts have?

Totally agree to be honest. We need more 5E stuff, we need to see the dice rolls on the screen. Its a D&D game so lets do this!

+1

Agreed.

You CAN see the combat rolls. Open what looks like a chat window on the lower right side of the screen then hover over the attack that was made

+1 more DnD

I am going to disagree, they are marketing this as Balder Gate 3, If what they wanted is to ignore the D&D 5e rules, they should have made DOS: 3

I can never understand why people license a ruleset then choose to ignore that. It's not like they are getting to use D&D 5e for free.

For people stating you can never use a Pen & Paper rule set for a CRPG, go look at Pathfinder Kingmaker, they seemed able to use the rules as written.

BG3 seems like a game with way too many house rules. That OK if that what you want but since this is the first D&D 5e CRPG, I would rather be be more core rules and not homebrewed everything.

Generally agree, BUT ...

a) In 5e, terrain conditions like elevated ground can give Advantage, but it is a DM's call. So Larian is not really bending the rules here.

b) the percentage to hit is a nice feature / much easier to evaluate. At best, there could be an option to show the rolls over AC.

Addendum for bad readers : I support the percentage presentation. It is only a visual choice : it does not change the rules.