Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General A Few Questions From Someone Who Hasn't Played since EA Launched

Hey, I played EA years ago when it launched and managed to largely hold off till release (so far)! I absolutely loved the vibe of the game and many aspects but I wanted to ask if a few issues I had back then have been resolved. I still don't want to load up and play until official release

1) Is there now a more sophisticated reaction system in place? For example, can I choose what to counterspell? (These spells weren't out when I played, but you get the picture)

2) Did they fix the issue where wizards could scribe cleric spells?

3) Is rest at least a bit more limited? DnD is at the end of the day a resource management game, and I don't see how they can balance the game without limiting when you are allowed to rest. I remember back then you could essentially eat infinite food items to heal out of combat which was quite silly.

4) How do people feel about the recently announced L12 cap? Even without giving datamined spoilers - it seems likely that the party could be facing anything from Netherese archmages to Elder Brain Liches. It seems hard to imagine a L12 party lasting even a round against such opponents. Does this suggest a Throne of Bhaal style high level expansion where you face the real big bad? It just seems hard to reconcile the kinds of creatures the party is likely to face with this level cap.

Thanks

1. Yes, but it is still incomplete. Opportunity attack, uncanny dodge and warding flare are not implemented yet.

2. Yes, there are still cleric scrolls in the game, but the count was severely reduced and wizards can't learn from them.

3. No, rest is still spamable and almost free.

4. Not sure, but I think they might be pulling this tadpole card once again, justifying us being able to stand ground against tougher opponents due to aberrant powers.

Thanks so much for the replies

On (3), I guess it was like this in BG2 as well. It just feels like they make encounter design a nightmare for themselves if they don't take some stance on this. You need to decide whether you expect the party to rest a certain number of times per map. Is the food issue at least fixed for free out of combat healing?

Food now doesn’t heal, it’s simply a requirement for full recovery at rest. In early access food is so abundant that it didn’t function as a limit to resting, but it remains to be seen whether that is the case for full release. I agree that Larian should have a particular resting frequency in mind and shape encounter design and the story around it. In fact, I suspect they did as generally you (or I!) can just about complete something like, eg, the attack on the goblin camp without resting but it’s a challenge. But while I’d like them to give us some indication of when they were planning us to rest, I’m totally fine with not putting on hard limits so people can rest more frequently if they wish. As you say, that was the case in BG1 and 2 as well. Oh, and one thing that definitely needs sorting is the way certain conversations are tied to rest in a way that incentivises rest spamming! That was mentioned lots in EA but we don’t know what’s been done yet.

Regarding level cap, I’m happy. It seemed a natural stopping point, just before all the new level 13 spells and abilities. I didn’t want an epic 20-level story in one game for BG3 so I’m glad we’re taking our time, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for DLC, expansions or a sequel that will let us eventually see our character up to level 20. But I’m sure levels 1-12 will keep me busy for a fair time yet!

Except for Gruel ... that heals for 1d8 and cost nothing to eat ... not an Action, nor even Bonus Action.

Be carefull who you sell this thing to, it can get quite anoying when Ethel heals half HP within single turn.

Ok that sounds good RE the changes to food. Yes indeed we'll just have to see how it feels at release.

I still just don't understand why Larian (and a lot of devs) are so reluctant to impose strict rest restrictions in DnD games. It's totally inherent and intrinsic to the system. DnD essentially makes no sense as a game-system if you aren't rest limited. I'd actually go even further and say some of the most tense and fulfilling moments I've experienced in tabletop have literally come from overcoming an adversary when you didn't have access to all your resources. It would probably have made sense to have predetermined rest locations per map tbh (which progress associated cutscenes). It almost feels silly to have all these announced difficulty settings defined with no reference to rest mechanics - because how can you possibly balance a combat encounter without knowing whether the player will have no resources, 50% or 100%

I guess another challenge is you can't easily implement something like you see in WOTR - where there is a party fatigue mechanic associated with travelling on an overland map to force rests, because BG3 is taking an approach based on large super-maps rather than a collection of smaller instances like the originals. I actually prefer this - but I really think they need to rethink free resting to actually ensure the game is balanced and fulfilling.

I'd be interested to hear from someone who wants free resting - how do you square that with DnD's core mechanics, and how do you balance encounters? I'm all for having a setting that allows people to turn ON free resting, but surely the default game needs to be balanced around limited rests?

There is really no way to implement a meaningful limited rest system without running the risk of ruining playthroughs. That’s why.

If you are a new player and still figuring out the game and you soft lock yourself out of being able to progress and need to roll back to a prior save losing hours of progress or maybe even completely start the game over from scratch you might not bother and just stop playing.

Meaningful limited rests is not a realistic request. It’s one of those mechanics that just don’t translate well from playing with DM who can evaluate the party’s circumstances and make real time adjustments to the difficulty of the upcoming encounters.

Y’all need to let it go.

Why let go when there could be both systems for the choosing?
Edit: AND divided by difficulty as default settings.

I think just saying 'it isn't possible' is a little bit of a cop-out. Solasta has a system that encourages resting in the map at specific points - as does WOTR. I'm not advocating for a checkpoint system where you can't save or anything extreme like that (although I think that could make for an interesting Hardcore mode). Hell, there are RPGs from the early 90s like Realms of Arkania that had functional imposed rest systems! This isn't a new concept.

More practically - what should I do as a player to have a balanced experience. I think Larian should probably actually say how they balanced things. Should I aim to rest after every N fights, where N~3, what about short rests? These are things that are inherently tied to the game's difficulty and I'd appreciate some more clarity tbh

Shall we try again?

1) Let people set amount of their Camp Resources (including or excluding food) in difficiulty settings, including 0.
2) Set specific locations wich are the only places that count as "safe enough" for our party to rest ... again, let people enable/disable this in Difficiulty setting.
3) Let people set amount of encounters per Long Rest ... you wish to fight once, twice, thrice, four...ice? Whatever ... you set it, and thats when Long Rest will be enabled for you, not a moment sooner ... and it probably dont surprise you, but yes, this should also belong to difficiulty settings.

Whoah ...
What would you say, it took me like ... how much a minute?
Maybe two ... and i found out three ways that "dont exist".

Sure ...

OR!

Just open your difficiulty settings, and change them?
Seems easy enough to me, i would almost call it intuitive.

Have you ever concidered to follow your own advice?
Im just curious.

I’m with Warlocke on this one (except on asking/expecting folk who really want to see resting restrictions to let it go ).

I do like the use of food as a minor cost to resting and would prefer less of it, though actually I think there already is much less once we head down to the Underdark. And I’d like to get rid of supply packs entirely. It would still be a mainly notional restriction on resting, though, that folk could get round.

But as I mentioned above, I think the game already is balanced around a reasonably sensible resting frequency (conversation triggers aside). And I agree that’s a good thing, I just don’t see it as requiring that frequency to be imposed by the game. As I said, I would like it to be better indicated when we are “meant” to rest and, though it’s generally not that difficult to work out when it does and doesn’t make sense to do so, I’d definitely find some additional guidance useful particularly for my first playthrough.

Beyond that I’m perfectly happy to decide for myself when it makes sense to rest and set my own challenges. And if I fail, then frankly I’d rather just rest (and perhaps headcanon it as “my party retreats to camp to rest and returns the following day”!) and then try to do better next playthrough than have to reload or manually trek back to a safe resting spot and return.

As a matter of fact, though, there probably could be a number of restrictions put on resting frequency without it significantly affecting how often and where I rest. But … it wouldn’t affect my resting and it would prevent others who would prefer to rest more frequently having their fun and as Warlocke says would be a barrier for new players so as I don’t need it I’ll happily do without, while I also wouldn’t object to introduction of some reasonably soft restrictions.

I do recognise that there’s a bit of a mindset thing at play here, and there are folks who prefer games that set harder and clearer constraints they can push against. I like such games myself, but I think the more permissive, sandbox approach suits both D&D and BG3 better. Given I can’t negotiate with the DM, I’d rather have a too permissive one and be forced to impose discipline on myself than one that is too restrictive and one-size-fits all and so end up feeling I need to jump through boring hoops or can’t do things I judge make sense because of the limitations of a computer DM rather than a human!

Because after three years of requesting it doesn’t seem to be happening. If they do develop a limited rest system, great, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.


Well, to be pedantic, I didn’t say the feature wasn’t possible, I said it wasn’t a realistic request. I don’t think it would be a widely used feature so I don’t think Larian would be willing to spend much time and resources on it, but if I’m wrong, great.

@RagnarokCzD, just letting you know so you don’t waste time typing out long messages to me in the future, I’m blocking you.

I think I'll say that I'm with Red Queen as far as approach to resting is concerned. My main issue with resting is how it clashes with the narrative and how it's tie to companion content doesn't really work smoothly. But in principle, I think Larian could do better so signpost early what rate they think you should be resting, but that's all I think they need to do, signpost. Communicate to the player what rate of resting they think makes for the most balanced experience and then leave it to the player. That doesn't work when you have inconsistent companion scenes breeding paranoia about missing story content, but if that were fixed then I'd be totally fine and wouldn't be resting after pretty much every thing that happens.

In BG1 and 2 while you could rest almost anywhere, there were consequences, sometimes dire. There were random encounters, some bad ones, depending in the area. I rested a few times after major combats in bad areas, and died with resulting nasty random encounters. So I would trek back to a safer area to rest...inconvenient, but more satisfying to me at least. I also went as long as I could between rests precisely because I was fearful of dying when I did rest. That creates a nice tension, and means you have to manage your resources carefully. That all seems to be absent.

I think they should at least add random encounters and mark certain areas as not restable - although instant teleport via the map (anywhere) really makes this somewhat pointless. Unless they have changed that since I last played?

Also,
1) can anyone still use scrolls - so not locked to class? That steals a lot of spell casting class uniqueness.
2) does haste work as its meant to (not stacking in odd ways or allowing actions it shouldn't)?

I think the quicker the game makes players realize they are safe from immediate ceremorphosis the better. This needs to be addressed ASAP, far earlier than meeting Halsin and other 'gurus'. I am talking about something like the first dream sequence here, during the first long rest.

There are some glaring problems with your solutions.

1) requires metaknowledge - what number should I use to have a good experience? Assuming most people won't even do one full playthrough it is a very nieche option
2) Some other RPGs did it, and it wouldnt' change a thing - really, there is already one "safe zone" that we can rest in: camp. We can just teleport it from anywhere at any time. Even if we were to limit places in which we can initiate camp teleport - currently we still can teleport anywhere we want at any time. Even if that was removed, the game has no respawning enemies, so backtracking is almost always an easy and safe option. As such no limitation on resting would be implemented, at a cost of potentially making resting a bit more tedius.
3) Again, metaknowledge - how do I know how often I should set the rest, without playing. Also not a good way of limiting rest. Not each encounter is equal. Also what is an encounter? If I ambush and kill a singular sleeping goblin does that count? If I want to rest before big encounter does it mean I need to backtrack and farm encounters to do so? Sounds like an annoying mechanic, that wouldn't actually fix much.

I am with Warlocke on this one - I haven't seen a really good implementation of resting system in a cRPG - at best, I have seen games encourage good rest pacing, without enforcing it. Any harsher attempts at limiting rests (kingmaker) came with new laundry list of issues. I think that if one were to implement meaningful rest system, one would need to rething structure of a cRPG to accomodate it.

Disagree ...
This urge to find healer as possible works well for the story ... if you would inform a player trough dream sequence, that would ruin it. :-/

I would dare to say it is well established, when you are running around Nautiloid ...
When you push the button (or pull the lever, or mind the console to proceed, or however this illithid nonsence is working) ... Lae'zel coments that turning by this means should be impossible ... that alone establish that normal rules dont apply to you, but its subtle enough for people to overhear.

BUT!
It wouldnt be bad, if she would also mention that you need to hurry, bcs by today evening, your mind and personality will allready be consumed and replaced.
(If i remember corectly, victim of ceremorphosis personality is erased in +/- 3 hours ... so, our very first long rest > would be long too late for us.)

You know, leave some crumbs there, but allow people to ignore them.

Given that discussions of resting are starting to take over this thread, can I refer folk to the megathread on this topic at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=752528#Post752528?

That might be a better place to continue for those who wish to, so that past discussions can also be referred to for context. Not that I’d insist anyone read all 30+ pages of it before chipping in ,

There are many ways of adding rest limitations without soft locking games. It's just that many come with issues (mainly conflicts with BG3's existing game systems or certain playerbases would hate them). Boiled down to costs:

• Tedium - e.g., manually backtracking to an earlier resting site (incompatible with BG3's fast travel) and/or random encounters.
• In-game wealth - e.g., resting requires purchasable supplies, but then you have less $ for other gear. This is hard to balance for exponentially-increasing party wealth.
• Ineffectiveness - e.g., a Full Rest requires the use of limited supplies, but you can always Partial Rest and be brought to ~half effectiveness.
• Time - e.g., the story advances and/or companions get angry if you take too long. Ideally you'd get changed content, not lost.
• Modifiable - e.g., you can always go into settings and remove said restrictions, or restrictions are associated with certain Difficulty Modes.
• Probably more I can't think of...

That said, at this point in development Larian likely won't significantly modify their long rest system. The only remaining question is whether they actually limit the availability of food & supplies to be meaningful (maybe only in hard difficulty). Notably, as the Partial Rest system is already in BG3(?), completely running out of food shouldn't soft lock anyone's game.

Well, its not that hard imho to get there some note saying "recomended amount for Normal gameplay difficiulty: 40, for Hard: 80" ...
Would it?

No metaknowledge required.

Also, as stated abowe, i think theese things should be adjustable any time you want ...
So if you feel like you have too much food left, and wish to use more ... you adjust it.
If you feel like you underestimated this limitation, and wish to use less ... you adjust it.

This way anyone can get exactly what they want.

For example:
Icelyn stated several times that all Long Rest limitations bother her (or something among those words) ... and that she would rather have none, as it was in first patches.
So she set it to 0 ... and voila! She can rest any time she want.

Maximuuus stated several times that he dont want to hoard food, in order to rest ... so he set it on double (and potentialy even more if he would feel like its not what he wanted) ... and disable food, so the only resource he would have for rest will be camp supplies bags.
And voila! He can rest as little as he want!

I state that im super über badass skiller, and set it on 999 (or w/e will be maximum) ... i quite fast find out that im actually not ... so i just open difficiulty settings, reset it to original value to remind it was 40, and incerase it a little more, jut not so drasticaly, to 100 prehaps.
And if i get to same situation, i shall repeat the process untill i will be satisfyed.
And voila! I can rest as little as i want!

Or i can just leave it alone on default value, and decide for myself if i wish to rest allready or push a little futher ... just as i allways did, bcs i dont really need the game to regulate this for me.

Thats not a problem, each and every setting option have some default value ...

If you are not sure, just leave it alone.
Or reset it later.

Im aware, but this isnt even supposed to change things.
Its supposed to give players, who wish to use *THIS* kind of limitation for their Long Rest, option to have it.

Sure people can teleport anywhere they want ...
Sure people can just return to previous save spot ...
But then they can aswell just not activate this.
Especialy since they also *can* turn it off any time they want.

I mean ... theese all 3 are just options for people who desire such things.
Presuming someone who activate option that dont allow him to rest anywhere they want ... dont wish to rest anywhere they want ... is just common sense, isnt it? O_o

Same reaction as in point 1.

Not my place to decide, im no developer.
Whatever Larian would see fit tho. :P

It can be anything from entering combat, to amount of killed enemies by your party.

I wouldnt call it enforcing ...
Not in case where you can turn it off, or change rules any time you want.

This is more like ... automatic way the game would keep track for you on limitations you set on yourself.

//Edit:
Ok ... can moderator move this post please?