Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Some Suggestions after 300 hours

I've gotten almost 300 hours in this game, testing out all sorts of character options like race/class combinations and even messing around with alignments and just how chaotic you can be, like how I recently did a "kill everything you see" playthrough with 4 custom characters. After that, I have some input and I'd like to start at the character creation interface.

Sliders are great for character customization since they offer a wide variety of customization options and can help a player really create the character they are imagining. bg3 uses sliders, but not correctly. A slider should only be used when it shows a gradual change in what the slider is effecting, so then why do we have a slider for our characters face when they really only cycle through presets? This is less than ideal compared to a selection interface where you can skip right to other faces. Ideally this is done with a selection of thumbnails, like how Final Fantasy 14 handles character face selection. This gives the player a chance to see the face before actually clicking on it but also in a selection of 6 faces would allow the player to go back and forth between face 1 and 4 without needing to cycle. In short, if the slider does not show a gradual change, it should not be a slider. I know, the face, horn, hair, and facial hair selectors are not technically sliders already, but they function like one without actually having its functionality. The exception to this rule is the background selector, since it is very text heavy, it makes sense to not overload the player with too much text at once.

Class progression should be visible. When choosing a class you should be able to click a button and see a simple class progression chart, such as spell slots and basic features to at least level 3, ideally level 5. Leave subclass features out of it except when actually choosing subclasses to prevent giving the player too much information. This would mean Clerics, Warlocks, and Sorcerers would be the only ones who can see their subclass roadmap at character creation, the rest have to wait until they can select a subclass. Subclass information could also be passable as a summary of what the choice is meant to mean. Not everyone who plays this game will have intimate knowledge of 5e classes and subclasses, but also some classes got changed because they do not translate well into a CRPG, such as the ranger. It would be very good to know what kind of character we are committing to before we locked in our choices.

Players should be notified of when they are doubling up on features. Sometimes this is not a bad thing, like getting weapon proficiencies from race and then picking Fighter, but the player should be aware of these things happening. I remember I was going to make a ranger but hadn't settled on a race, so I locked in ranger, chose the fire resistance option, and then went back and made him a Tiefling without thinking to check on my ranger choices and accidentally doubled up on fire resistance. I wouldn't suggest making this too intrusive since doubling up on some features happens naturally, my suggestion is listing any features you have twice or that are redundant on the left with your character information with a small notification symbol that the player can easily notice, but unintrusive enough to not be an eyesore. A peaceful warning, I suppose.

Now we get to the in game bits

The Journal, Map, Short rest, and Long Rest buttons are awkwardly spaced. They are small buttons with simple graphics that would seem to imply they are comfortable being close together, but then spaced significantly far apart from one another. Why is this? Functionally it doesn't hinder anything being far apart, but it does look worse aesthetically and being close together also functionally doesn't hinder anything. While we're on the topic, why is there a button to finish the day, but not a button to go to camp without resting? We can go to camp by pressing M and fast traveling there, but isn't that a little awkward and immersion breaking instead of having a singular button to return to camp? I have supplies there and maybe some armor I want to change out because I want to lose disadvantage on my stealth checks but want to save my inventory weight for other items instead of carrying around extra armor, or Gale ran out of spell slots but the rest of my party is doing well so I want to switch him out with Astarion or vice versa because Gale has a spell perfect for my situation? It's a strange choice to me. My suggestion is to move those buttons closer together and remove the long rest button in favor of a Return to Camp button and have a long rest possible by interacting with either a bedroll or the campfire.

Passives are awkward to navigate. In our action hotbar there should be a secondary section that doesn't move with our selection of actions, possibly a smaller bar above that displays only icons that toggle when clicked. I'm assuming this is not the final system for reactions, but having reactions on passives makes it even worse. Toggling on and off Great Weapon Master is incredibly annoying and while turning it off is rarely actually worth it as a Barbarian for their constant advantage, Fighters and Paladins will want it to be simple, and maybe even some Ranger and Valor Bard builds might, so instead of creating their own tab, a small toggle switch above the characters actions where the passive is dimmed or greyscaled when off, but lit up when on, would be far better, especially if reactions are staying on the passives system. I might not want to use Hellish Rebuke right now. It's very strange to me it's not listed in our defult actions.

Pressing Home forces your camera to face North. Why? I'm going South not North. Solution is simple, either keep the Camera direction and center it on your character, or have the camera face the direction your character is facing. I can discern directions based on the minimap, I don't need the hinderance.

The chain link system for character selection is fine, I don't hate it, but after 300 hours, I still don't like it as much as other systems. Pillars of Eternity has a great system of holding shift and clicking on character portraits as well as a click-and-drag selection from the floor. Am I saying do this? No, I'm just saying we can do better than the chains for party selection. For the most part I just press G and move each 1 manually anyway since the pathing can be a little... let's say imperfect.

Why does a character in stealth not follow the group? They can stay in stealth and move slower, but if I enter Initiative with Astarion 1 mile behind me one more time I'm going to punch my monitor.

Time to talk about balancing.

I fully understand that some things are going to be stronger than others, some builds are going to be insane when min maxed, and some are going to be weaker for just wanting a fun combination, but the disparity between some things in this game is asinine. Some of what I'm talking about his how a Fiend warlock gets Dark Ones Blessing, which having Hex and Scorching Ray for is pretty much a guarantee you will get those temporary hit points, which means why even bother taking Fiendish Vigor as an evocation when you're always going to have temporary hit points on take down anyway, but GOOlock gets nothing so they might actually need to take Fiendish Vigor just to keep up with tankier classes? It's one thing to give a different choice a weaker ability, it's completely different to give one choice something really good and then give the other choice literally nothing.

It's not just the warlock, though, some races are just better. High Half Elves get incredible stat increases and a free cantrip that casts off intelligence, but you don't need to pick something that even uses your modifier, like the decidedly overpowered Friends cantrip. Drow Half Elf gets Dancing Lights, a cantrip that I have not used even once. They get nothing else. At least Wood Half Elf gets movement speed. These kinds of differences are numerous, and while they exist in 5e and it is technically faithful, this is not a TTRPG where the whole table agreed to pick fun characters over functionality, this is a CRPG where the player does not have a say in other characters and enemies being either roleplay choices or min max choices, and so while some imbalance is fine, the larger differences should be made up for.

Something about weapons really bothers me. If I'm playing a ranger I can equip a shield and dagger for my melee options and not use a single melee attack or ability. Then, I'll fire with a longbow and select my melee weapon again, gaining the +2 AC. Effectively every character that as shield proficiency but will mostly be using bows as a free +2 AC permanently because it is free to switch what you are wielding in your hands. This includes Rangers, Valor Bards when they come out, Clerics with crossbows, Archery based fighters, and even Druids. In the future at level 5 will a fighter or ranger be able to attack with a melee weapon and then use a second attack with a ranged weapon? Why can I switch to a dual wield option and then use my bonus action to attack with that offhand? I can shoot with a bow and switch to dual daggers and stab someone as a bonus action, and when you bring in things like Hunters Mark and magic weapons this adds a lot of damage, and you can do the same thing with dual hand crossbows, so you can potentially wield a rapier with a shield, make an attack, switch to your ranged option and make another attack, then go back to your shield and sword top get your AC back. Abusing the way you can swap weapons is very overpowered. My suggested solution is that once you take the attack action you are committed to that weapon option, also fixing the multiple attack abuse we may see later. Essentially everyone has bonus action attacks and +2 ac as long as they are proficient in shields. You do not need proficiency to use the bonus action attacks, this is rarely relevant but still worth mentioning.

Shove should be an action, it's too good. In 5e it's a modified attack action, but is bound to 5 feet. In bg3 it's a bonus action and can potentially shove someone super far since it's based on strength. It is better than it is in 5e, but also cheaper to use in terms of actions. I can see Lae'Zel at level 5 going Battle Master, doing 2 pushing attacks, then shoving to force a enemy very far away so even if they aren't near a cliff, they are now.

EDIT: Adding this now, but Searing Smite (and presumably other smites) should be just bonus actions that act as a buff to your next attack instead of being limited to being used as both in the same turn. If my Tiefling Fighter wants to dash up to someone and I don't have or want Action Surge, I should be able to start concentrating on the spell that turn and attack on the next turn so I have my bonus action on that second turn. This will be important to Paladins on their release, since you may want to go nova in a hard fight and pre-emtpively channel a smite so that your next round can be Smite spell + Attack + divine smite into a second attack of Smite Spell + Attack + Divine Smite. Planning ahead should be rewarded as opposed to forcing the player to attack when they prepare a smite, and since it requires concentration to keep the smite up, I don't see it being a balance issue either.

I'm not going to say anything for smaller balancing issues since this is still at minimum 7 months from full release, I assume balancing will be tweaked, but those are things that really bother me.

Now for a few pieces of feedback that are even more opinionated than anything above. Something I always say to games is that if the players are going to mod it in anyway, you may as well put it in the game as a feature. It's already known they will have mod support, so here's things I think they should just put in as a feature, possibly as an opt in rather than a base feature.

Racial Ability scores should be optional, otherwise let the player choose their scores like Tasha's Guide allows us to.

Add variant human.

Roll for stats, I know they already want to look into this, but I'm listing this to show my support for the idea.

Certain non-PHB subclasses such as the popular Hexblade

Let the player choose their party size (the infrastructure to do this is already in the game, you can use a tool to edit your save file and increase it up to 8) This would be great paired with difficulty settings. Highest difficulty with 3 party members or lowest difficulty with 6 party members for maximum stop. I did this myself and I will say if you turn up the difficulty 6 is the magic number for large encounters like the goblin camp. The more characters you can control the more engaged you are instead of sitting around and waiting for 15 goblins to make their move, but in its current state using 6 is just too easy.

That's all I have to say for now, thank you for reading.

I agree with the suggestion to show Class progression, but I think - at least in the final release - it should show all the way up to the maximum achievable level, not just to level 5. The same for when subclasses are unlocked (which is level 3 in most cases, but level 2 for wizards and level 1 for clerics)


Solasta handles that by allowing one inventory interaction on your turn, so you could shoot a bow, then switch to a shield, but on your next turn, if you want to switch back to your bow, you cannot swap back to the shield because your inventory interaction has been spent.

***

I also agree with allowing floating racial ability score increases of +2/+1, and adding Variant Human.

I also would like to see rolling for stats. In a multiplayer game, all players roll 4d6 drop lowest 6 times, and any player can choose from ANY of the arrays rolled, not just the one they rolled. That prevents the case of imbalance from one person rolling nothing over 14 and a different player in the same game rolling 3 18's.

Very good suggestions and feedback ...
Just two notes:

Disagree ... if we should get some character progression, it should provide as much information as possible ...
There is no reason to limit it only to level 5 and provide only some subclass informations ...

In my honest opinion the best case scenario would be that if we open Class Progression we will see this:
(Up to max level in game.)


And every single feature will be expandable providing detailed tooltips ...
While if there is more than one option (like figting styles, sublcasses, etc.) it would instead reveal just list that would also have every single option expandable opening another tooltip with detailed tooltips and stuff.


Im sorry to break it to you, but this is even worse ... (i just checked)

Actualy every character that have shield proficiency and have Shield equipped simply HAVE +2AC permanently ... since the game is counting your shield even if you are wielding Bow ... so, basicaly, you dont even need to switch back to meele weapons (but you loose AOO if you will hold your Bow).

In some way it makes sense tho, AC is just number showing how much armor your character have ... and if you put your shield on your back, instead holding it in front of you ... the "amount of armor" surrounding your body remain unchanged.
You just switched better protection for your back over better protection for your front ... wich is something DnD dont concider at all.

I agree with most of your points, except:

I dislike floating ability scores for all races. I enjoy that per PHB races have their identities. Your example of Drow being weaker than High Elf doesn't really work. Drows get bigger range on their Darkvision and additionally Faerie Fire/lr at lvl 3. There are classes/builds that will benefit from those a lot more than a single cantrip.

Additionally both Variant Human and Hexblade are over-adjustments on weaknesses of base Human and Pact of the Blade respectively. I would rather see Larian improving Pact of the Blade a bit and give humans something that is not as game-changing as an early feat.

It's not shield in front VS shield in back... it's shield in hands VS shield in back. Try Mount and Blade if you don't understand why it really matter.
At best they could say +1 AC always and an additionnal +2 if you hold it in your hands... but I'm not sure it would add anything to the game.

On top of that AC is not a number showing how efficient your armor is. Dexterity also increase your AC.

I believe i do ...
I simply dislike this game trend that shield on back dont protect anything at all. :-/

You know what i mean right?
You wear a robe ... so your back is protected with one layer of common cloth ...
You wear a shield on your back ... so your back is protected exactly the same.

Its odd.

True that ...

Yeah that's how it works in Mount and Blade. If your shield is on your back, damages coming behind may be reduced or deleted.
It make sense!

Hard to create this is DnD, except imo as I said if you have +1 with a shield and another +2 if you hold it in your hand (+1 and another +1 would be strange because the shield in the hands really makes a big difference).

The +2 AC from the shield is an abstraction, but it is not abstracting "has a shield", it is abstracting "wields a shield in their hand and is actively using the shield to defend with".



By definition, you would not have to use floating ability scores. They would start out as the default, and you could choose to swap them, or leave the ASI's where they were. It would not affect you, but it would allow for say, a Halfling Wizard to exist without being mechanically penalized. That would allow more players to play how they want while not affecting players who wanted to keep the default.

(Note: I forget if the Mountain Dwarf with its +2 STR/+2 CON exists in BG 3 (I think it doesn't), but obviously for balance reasons, attempting to floating those would not get you a second +2.)

***

Improving Pact of the Blade would not be a bad idea, but that does not preclude also including Hexblade, or a slightly adjusted Hexblade.

***

If the Feat granted by Variant Human is too powerful, a possible adjustment for Variant Human which does not grant a feat could be something like "Humans gain proficiency in two addition skills of their choice, and one of them can be with Expertise (double proficiency bonus)." That would not give them a special ability like Darkvision which real humans don't have, but it would grant them an unique and worthwhile bonus.

I strongly dislike the idea of floating ability score bonuses. In my opinion, that ruins the natural differences between the races. They all become these homogeneous things, simply for mechanical benefit.

Eventually, we're going to get to the point where players are going to start saying, "You can't hit me. I have a force field."


This is basically saying, "You can choose to have suboptimal choices."

What part about "you do NOT have to use floating ability score bonuses yourself" is unclear?

If someone does not want to use them, they can leave those bonuses exactly where they start out by default and it does not affect their gameplay or experience in any way at all. Your complaint is literally "someone else over there is having fun in a way I don't like so that should not be allowed."



Not allowing floating score ASI's is saying "either make a cookie-cutter race-class-optimized choice which is exactly like every other character of that race-class combo or else you're forced into a suboptimal choice"

Why not just allow optional free edit then?

Is a halfling wizard actually penalized though?

Lucky trait is amazing. It's worse than +1 to attack rolls, but not by much. Not to mention ability, saving throw checks, concentration. And you should have either +1 to dex or +1 to con compared to high elves or humans.

You lose 1 DC on your spells that's for sure, but your constitution score should be higher so concentration benefits.

And most importantly in 5e you can build your halfling wizard around the notion that you have lower intelligence to an extent that was not possible in previous editions. The amount of excellent spells that don't care about your int is astounding. And if you do focus on those spells a dwarf (due to proficiencies) or halfing are better choices than +int races.

Racial ability scores breed creativity while floating stat bonuses discourage it.

Strawman.

There's a difference between being able to put a +2/+1 where you want and being able to type in a +4 to everything. You also didn't complain about the suggestion to allow rolling for ability scores, even through that could lead to say, two or three 18's being rolled.

If you want to change my mind, you have to coherently explain how someone else playing with a floating +2/+1 score where they want prevents you from choosing to leave them where the default is. How does someone else, over there out of sight, using floating ASI's, personally ruin YOUR fun.

Why would free edit mean putting +4 to everything? You can tailor your abilities however you want.

I didn't complain about rolling for stats, because I have no complaint there. If you want to roll to get 18s in everything you can do that.

I would rather have Larian introduce free edit (that is allowed to use however you please) and rolling, than allow floating stat bonuses.

By definition, it is, because your to hit and save DC are both going to start out lower. Lucky isn't going to help the DC the enemy needs to save against.



Why is a Halfling Wizard who starts out with 15 Int somehow inherently "more creative" than one who starts out with 16 or 17 Int? How in the WORLD is being able to pick any class for a race LESS creative than being mechanically encouraged to stick with a very limited set of race-class combinations, the same combinations used by the majority of the players? That argument just does not make sense.

And, once again, that still does not change that even if a floating ASI is enabled, if you still want to keep that Halfling Wizard putting their floating ASI's into +2 DEX/+1 CON to play "more creatively", nothing is stopping you. You can still do that!

Feel free to corect me ...
But since Larian confrimmed at the start of EA that Stat Rolling will be included in full relese ... arent racial bonuses much less rellevant? O_o

I mean, if i can start with 18 Int Dwarf Wizard ... why should i care i get +2 to Str?

As I noted there are other important things for wizards that don't rely on intelligence score. If majority of your spell casts are not DC based halfling wizard is better than high-elf or human.

Additionally the handicap of -1 DC to spells is overstated. It has 5% chance of being relevant per spell target and while it sure does add up to something it shouldn't happen enough to discourage you from playing a race you want.


Overcoming constraints (in this case slightly lower main score) for sake of doing what you want (playing a halfling wizard) requires finding creative solutions (such as spell choice adjustment, gear consideration, party composition) to make a constraint less impactful or in some cases beneficial.


That leads me back to my question, why do you want ASI if rolling for stats will be possible? And if they would add free edit (which I'm not against) you could make your stats, as if ASI was in place.

I said Half Drow...

This is purely conjecture and it does not discourage creativity, it penalizes it. If I want to play a Tiefling Druid for the extra cantrip and spells, I'm penalized with my stat spread. Essentially I shot myself in the arm but was given a cool glove; what good is the glove if my arm has a bullet in it? It's a character that has spells for more options in gameplay, but will literally always be worse than another race/class combination. Same applies to Dragonborn when we see them, I got a cool breath weapon and resistance, but my spell rolls and save DC sucks compared to other options. If you're only option to point out the flaw of the above statement is to criticize the one specific example given, you don't have an argument, you have conjecture. We're talking about the concept in principle, not the character example provided.

Clearly we would also benefit from another option here for people that don't want floating scores. All I was saying is it will 200% be modded in within a month of full release. In fact, there's a patch 7 mod for it right now. So how about instead of everyone gets free score placements, when you press New Game you are given a set of options with rules you can pick. You know, like a real D&D game, where other people aren't told they're wrong for liking their game in certain ways.

Game Difficulty
Maximum Party Size
Floating Ability Scores on/off
And maybe other options I haven't thought of.
I didn't realize it was actually that bad even after all these characters...Shields are clearly broken at a fundamental level. There is also no discussion for weather or not a shield on your back should give a +2 to AC because shields, as a concept, are meant to be between you and an enemy and be actively used to ward off incoming attacks. Providing protection because it sits on your back is not even an argument because that essentially implies that someone attacking from behind you just aimed as if you didn't have a shield. Enemies don't aim for your shield, it is the wielders actively moving the shield that provides the protection, otherwise proficiency in shields would not be required.

Maybe level 5 is too low of a level point, but there is a such thing as loading too much information onto a player at once. My only concern with going above a certain level in character creation is just that, giving new players and people unfamiliar with 5e classes too much information at once. Think about it, that's 12 classes on full release, and people are speculating the level cap will be 14, so you would have 168 levels worth of information, and that is excluding subclass unique features from the classes that get their subclasses at level 1, all in character creation. This is why I personally prefer a class summary, then features up to level 5. Level 5 lets you know if you are getting level 3 spells, an extra attack, or a utility feature like the Bard/Rogue, which gives you a pretty good idea of how the class will be played throughout the game. At least, that's my opinion. I've tried to get some people into D&D just for them to turn away because it was a lot of imformation to take on at once and the best way to get into 5e is to either spend hours reading, watching videos, or have a DM friend who will help you roll a starter character after asking you what you want to do in the game.

EDIT: I'd like to add, Racial progression for the races that get spells and other features later should also be listed. I'd like to know at a glance what spells my Tiefling will get, etc.

Factually, it is still a handicap compared to being someone with +1.



Nope, that's pure nonsense. We're not talking about a finely crafted story written by an author who puts in careful limitations to powers so that characters are forced to overcome them creatively. Outcomes are based on the random roll of a die. There is no "creatively" getting your way around sheer random chance.



You have much less control over stat allocation when rolling compared to point buy. In addition, especially when playing in a party which is all otherwise built with point-buy, like the Origin characters - rolling for stats can lead and encourage players towards rolling a character which is more overpowered than a point-buy character. It can also cause problems in multiplayer character creation from people taking a while to re-roll or waiting for those who are.

Are you EVER going to answer MY question? You have put forth no sensible reason why someone else choosing to put in a +2/+1 where they want - when nothing stops you from leaving them at the default - personally damages your fun. You haven't answered that because you have no argument, and are just going in circles. I see little reason to continue.

For some people, if the option to be overpowered exists, they cannot allow themselves to take anything less. I, for example, actually really like high charisma or intelligence Barbarians, which is sub-optimal because Wisdom then falls off and I have a weak saving throw, so I am sort of hurting myself there, and when I tell people at my tables that's what I want to play and end up with a 14 in Charisma they give me a weird side eye like having the overpowered option of picking Variant Human and having 17 str 16 con 14 dex and 14 wis was possible and picking either GWM or Resilliant: Wisdom was possible, so why am I a Tiefling who can't cast spells while raging, dropping wisdom, and picking up a stat that's never used in combat? Well, because it's fun, but some people can't bring themselves to do that. I just want to play as Gorge, the Half Orc negotiator who is definitely capable of handling it if the negotiations go south, instead of Gorge, the half orc in the back that stays there until things to bad. He fight good and that all he do, that's boring.

I guess what I'm saying is it can remove the fun for some people because they will only ever create a character that has the best stats for their role and blame the possibility of min-maxing on their actual min-maxing, which isn't how it works at all, if you think min-maxing removes creativity, just... don't do it? But not everyone thinks like that. If they can, they will feel compelled to. That's why maybe when you click New Game you can just opt in, since mods will add it anyway this functionally makes it an Opt In anyway, even though it being on by default is also opt in since when you change race the game can just automatically select the default ASI... The character Elebhra is describing still exists, which is ironic because they are also saying they wouldn't do it if they could do something better, but a dexterous wizard can still be a fun thematic choice especially if they impliment GFB or other such cantrips so their weapon damage with daggers does scale up, you'd just be opting into it as opposed to being forced into it, and like I said, some people cannot bring themselves to opt into weaker choices for the sake of thematics, roleplay, or fun.

Of note, floating ability scores also opens more roleplay options like a nerdy Barbarian or such builds without being human, since you may just want a +1 to 3 stats. I would be choosing to remove optimization in favor of roleplaying options.