Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Do I need to know DnD to play & enjoy?

Seen a lot about this game recently and thought about giving it a go. I used to play WOW and I currently play FFXIV and enjoy almost all other FF games and some other RPGs.

Do I need to know about DnD rules, lore and gameplay to be able to play and enjoy this game?

No, you don't. D&D is very "standard fantasy" so if you enjoy Warcraft, things will be fairly familiar.

Thanks, I used to love WOW and it's lore, I stopped playing few years ago when the truth of Bliz came out.

I do enjoy fantasy games so I'll try this out

+1
You might even enjoy it more than the savants as you have no preconceptions

I think that's a surprisingly tough question to answer. A LOT of the gameplay is D&D 5e but the game also deviates from D&D 5e is meaningful ways. Stuff like you can respec your character, multiclassing works differently, some of the subclasses and their pacts work differently, etc. And especially most of the loot and items are very different from D&D...not sure how many of the items you can find in BG3 you can find in D&D, but a lot you can't...the game seems to be more willing to hand out more powerful items, at least that's my impression so far. So knowing D&D 5e helps but there's a lot to this game that deviates from 5e too. But at least having an idea how the player classes works and how characters progress in D&D will probably spare you a lot of pain. The game has achievements for certain character progression styles that are just bad ideas and will either not work or be very hard to make work...stuff like get to level 12 while taking 1 level in each of the 12 classes or evenly distribute stat points among the six stats...spoiler alert, don't do either of those things...just don't. They are VERY bad for your character and his survival prospects.

I knew a bit about earlier versions of D&D from computer games, but was completely new to the newer version that BG3 is based on. I definitely found it a steep learning curve, but if you don't overcomplicate it I think it falls into that "easy to learn, hard to master" category and you should pretty quickly find yourself having a blast, but then want to start doing more research to better understand things like how to secure a better chance to hit, what the difference between attack rolls and saving throws is, and so on.

I think understanding the ruleset is something that will reward additional effort put in, and as Darth_Trethon says learning a few basics before starting can't hurt, but in general I'd recommend getting stuck in and learning as you go! There are plenty of good online D&D 5e resources, and though as folk have said, there are plenty of points of divergence from BG3, it's still mainly relevant so you can dip into them as and when you want to find out more about a specific topic.

I never played D&D, and I love this game! It reminds me of Dragon Age but with turn-based combat.😊

Thanks all, I've bitten the bullet and trying the EA via steam. If I don't like it within 2 hours I'll refund, but from the videos I've seen and the information I've read, and your help, I think I will like it.

5e best feature is the accessibility. Its easy to learn and even to master.


Knowing 5e in depth in this game might actually cause more frustration than bear any advantages due to how it was changed - non of these changes though make it harder to learn, just different.

With all the changes they made to the rules, knowing how to play D&D may actually make the game MORE confusing in some respects.

Couldn't agree more. So much frustration so many have about departures from RAW. I'm willing to withhold judgement until I've actually played 1.0.

OP, I can only assume you're playing as we speak, and getting the entirely satisfactory answer to your question 😀

Quite honesly and little snarky ...
You may actually enjoy it a lot more the less you know about DnD.

No, but you should still play D&D 😁

I'm a shy introvert who doesn't enjoy meeting new people, especially trying to join in something where they already have formed friendships etc, so bit hard for me to play

Word. Computer games ftw. And the trend for everything to be multiplayer is so disappointing

Couldn't agree more. Whilst I play MMOs, I don't have to interact with people and with both WOW and FF14 I can do dungeon/raids without the need to interact with people.

Forcing to have to do PvP or PvE with other people you have to interact with is a pain

Agreed. While I can understand that people enjoy P&P, it's nice that the intellectual property can be used for computer games too. It's for the benefit of everyone.

Enjoy!😊

no, YOU don't need it to enjoy the game, but it is a useful tool to have, for example DEX in general adds to your AC, the more DEX you have the More AC you'll have as a result, which will help you survive longer in D&D.

Eh kind of...mostly light and spell based armor benefits from DEX. Medium armor can get up to a max of +2 from DEX so limited usefulness there and heavy armor gets no dex bonus at all. At any rate I wouldn't try to force DEX if it that's not what your class is about.