Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Game Modes

Has Larian announced anything about "Game Modes"?

Many of the complaints seem to come from different fans expecting certain rules and limitations, while Larian has decided to break traditional DnD rules in favor of some kind of hybrid.

DOS2 has a few different game modes that offer a tailored experience, More combat, less combat, More RP, etc.

I think a simple "Core Rules" game mode would go a long way to make DnD fans happy.

I wouldn't expect there to be more than one game mode and one rule set. Larian never expressed any intent of creating multiple rule sets to my knowledge so barring any kind of official statement from Larian to suggest intent I would also not expect multiple rule sets to be added post launch.

But as always, in DND the Dungeon Master has total control of the game and the rules and is free to change the game as he sees fit.

It's not that simple, since it's not just about tweaking numbers, but also changes in actual game logic / mechanics. Designing (and maintaining) different modes for that would multiply the effort required.
Better handled by dedicated modders who care about this a lot.
Personally, I used to be very invested in BG3 being as close to 5E as possible, but I've become a lot more relaxed a while ago, so I nope out of many of these discussions at this point.
To me, BG3 is "based on DnD 5E" in many ways, but ultimately doing it's own thing, and for me that's fine. I'll enjoy the game regardless, because I'm looking for storytelling + meaningful choices which for me don't primarily happen in combat or on character sheets.

I, as well as a number of others, have been asking for this very thing for just about three years. Larian will not do it, but I'm hopeful that some genius modder out there will create a mod that does exactly this. If I could have tmy cake of Larian's compellingly rich narrative filled with intensely consequential choices, and eat it too with combat as faithful to the 5e mechanics as possible, I'd be a totally satisfied adventurer.

I have been trying to get this for over 3 years with no reply from Larian. Mainly because I'm a GM and would love to tell people that are looking into playing d&d 5e that they can try out baldurs gate 3 and learn the rules that way. But I have also accepted that is not happening until modders fixes it. Now I probably have to tell people that solasta is the best to learn the system, but I'm sure Bg3 will be a wastly better game

Honestly at this point you'd have to mod so much I'm not even sure a 5e faithful replication is possible, tbh. Either way, I don't see other game modes coming, no. I also have no idea what you mean about DOS2 having other game modes, tbh, because it just sounds like you're talking about the difficulty settings and that's... not the same thing. I just finished DOS2 a month or two ago and don't recall anything else, off-hand.

Larian has already confirmed there will be three modes: Balanced, Explorer, and Tactician. There is no reason to expect any of these modes to be closer to DND core rules than any of the others. There is no reason to expect that Larian will add more modes after launch.

Those are difficulty settings not game modes or rule sets. Big difference. The rules of the game are identical across all difficulty settings...with the differences being more enemies or enemies have special weapons or extra resources of some kind to make encounters more difficult on tactician or if you go the easy route you get +2 to proficiency on top of the usual proficiency bonus.

You forgot the most important things which is that AI is way more intelligent on tactician mode and that is why I will only play on tactician.

Ehh...AI has different priorities on tactician. But if you know what the AI prioritizes you can use that against it. Have your lowest AC character have the shield spell which can propel it to the highest AC, etc. AI is still AI, on tactician the main thing to worry about is the extra power it has like the cheesy explosive shots those goblins had...when tactician goes wrong it will probably be because of the extra brute force like that.

Be nice if they could add a DnD 'Standards' mode. Maybe in a patch. Afterall... less than 2 weeks to go... little late for them to add or change too many stuff now for the actual release.

Mods will be able to bring the game much closer to 5e.
At this point (less than 2 weeks out) i dont expect a "RAW Version" or any such toggle.

Yeah, I like the sound of this and am leaning towards it too.

However, I am somewhat confused about the exact differences in Tactician mode. I know the enemies might be more numerous, more deviously positioned, be better equipped and have better AI, but was there any word on just how much more damage and HP the get?

The reason I ask is because whilst I welcome difficulty changes in the first things mentioned, I greatly dislike increases in basic damage and, worst of all, HP. A goblin should still be a goblin. They shouldn't hit you like they're wearing a girdle of Hill Giant strength and I shouldn't need to have Lae'zel whack them over the head 10 times with a two-hander just to take one down.

Sliders would be nice. As in, I could have a difficulty setting where I choose which elements I'd like. I'd probably have tactician for everything but leave damage and HP untouched. Unfortunately games only include this sporadically. Two recent ones were the System Shock Remake and Aliens: Dark Descent.

Not a ton of reason to do it. Just look at core difficulty in pathfinder games. There's few rules purists out there and even fewer 5e rules purists, you probably just end up upsetting casuals who wouldent know what "standard" means

Also since theres a lot of environmental hombrew in larian games trying to full phb with it probably won't work at all

I am undecided. I think I'll leave it at balanced for my first playthrough. Just so I can 'let myself be ambushed' and so forth. Then again, I am rather adamant at playing no-reload in CRPGS. So Game Over, is back to the Main Menu. It makes it *so* much more exciting, especially when playing blind.

If this ends up being like a 200 hour game and it probably will since the average for early access was 70 hours to complete and that wasn't even the entirety of the full game Act 1 which is less than a quarter of the game, I definitely wouldn't self impose restarts because replaying the first 100+ hours over again instead of seeing the end of the game and starting a new playthrough after is far better. There are going to be a ton of endings and a ton of ways to go about the story and from what Swen said a lot of the consequences to our actions won't become apparent until Act 3 near the end of the game so you could die 100+ hours in and not even seen the consequences of your actions so you don't even have the benefit of exploring other branches because you don't know what would have happened as a consequence of the stuff you did the first time.

As for tactician mode, I don't particularly like it because the way they described it, it doesn't really sound like the AI is smarter as much as it has different priorities...but you can still play around those priorities and manipulate them to the point the AI will still walk into a meat-grinder all the same as on normal. The problem I have with it is that at least in the example they displayed the goblins were mainly a threat because they were given explosives...which comes across more as a cheap way to increase difficulty. And that's in the early game alone...if the rest of tactician is like that I don't really care for it. It is a super tough challenge if you want basically an unfair mode though I have no doubt players will find ways to destroy it and make the AI look dumber than a brick in the process.

I beg to differ. For one, this game offers incredible replay value as even minor choices make the game play out very differently. Go into the Hag's Swamp as a Fighter or a Ranger and the whole environment changes. Speak with the captive Spiders as a Drow and you have a whole new avenue of attack. I have no qualms about replaying sections. Especially if I can try new things, routes or re-attempt things that I previously failed at.

There are things like the Mind Flayer that will kill you with one failed check in dialogue. But that's jsut the thing. If I can reload and try again - that Mind Flayer isn't a threat to me, and I won;t perceive it as such. To me, this is more a single-player D&D campaign. At our table - a TPK is the end of the campaign.

Also, something most players don;t always get... You don;t have to engage in every fight as you encounter it. You can run away every now and then, recuperate, maybe switch out your team and try again. My game will take a *lot* longer than most, this way - but beating it will be an actual achievement, too. Sometimes, when you don;t like the odds - you can try an talk your way out of it. When you this out of necessity rather than seeing the option - it's all way more satisfying to me.

Seriously, I like it that way. Just the other day I lost Charname to the Ravager in Throne of Bhaal [SCS/Ascension] and that was the end of my run of over thirty hours. Still a satisfying run.



I agree o n Tactician mode. I play the originals with mods that add similar features and I couldn't even play without them anymore... But at the same time, I generally know how to beat it, what spells will counter that which is thrown at me; and I just make it longer - and oftentimes not harder.

Yeah but if this game has something like a dozen or more endings(which I believe it does) how long until you see half of them? That's my main priority. Even without self imposed penalties we won't likely see even half the endings in 500 hours of play.

You say that like it's a bad thing

I don't think it's a bad thing that we could play for 1000 hours and not see all endings. What I think is a bad thing is if self imposed restrictions could cause one to only see one ending in 1000 hours of gameplay.