Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Baldur's Gate III has been pretty enjoyable.

..After heavily modding it to tone down on the Larian Goofiness™, anyway. On that note:

Is anyone working on a way to remove the special arrows from the game yet? I know we're only a few days into launch, but it is the last obstacle to a somewhat enjoyable experience on my list. I've mostly accepted my fate as far as things like enemy low str spellcasters pushing raging barbarians into the three pixels needed to kill them in a pit and other flavorful pain we've come to love and expect but there's just one thing I can't ever seem to come to terms with.

I have NEVER liked their special arrows. I admit it. Not in Original Sin, not in Original Sin 2, and sure as HELL not in Baldur's Gate III. They haunt me in my sleep. I want them gone. Every time a level 3 goblin archer deals 30+ damage in one ranged attack the Faerûn pantheon weeps(Except Loviatar). The casual audience that plays D:OS2 can keep them and I'll still play that for funny magic archer shenanigans but for D&D it feels like a seven year old making explosion gestures and sounds with a rubber suction arrow and scattering all the miniatures on the table is the DM.

Matt Holland, I am convinced you were bulled by your high school D&D club for taking obnoxious homebrew liberties and this is your vengeance against the greater TTRPG community. You have successfully given me a complex. The twang of a bowstring makes me flinch.

As a side thought to all of this: Why not just implement Arcane Archer Fighter subclass and delegate all the funny arrow effects to it instead? (Bearing in mind we'll probably remove a lot of player levels from generic NPCs.) Please Larian, provide more modding API. This is only a good decision. We're willing to do the work.

Baldur’s Gate 1 had so many magic arrows.

You appear confused. BG1 had fire and acid arrows that added 1d6 damage to the TARGET. They did not apply an AOE effect. Nor did it have arrows of AOE darkness, AOE thunder etc etc.

There is one arrow that does AOE damage (and it is not magical) called Arrow of Detonation and it does 1d6 damage in a radius. Guess what? only 1d6 and it is non magical.

The best magic arrows you could get in BG1 were Arrows +3. They added a "massive" 3 points of damage.

In BG3 you can get arrows that do 5x that (and in a radius) in the first 5 hours of playing the game.

Larian really gets a kick out of silly goofy explody wtf was that combat. They always had. I honestly think they've been agonizing over having to tone it down for BG3, while we DnD purists go "They've toned it down? How is this toned down?". It's just a fundamental design and theme difference between Larian and a more grounded D&D experience. I also hate their arrows in BG3, but it feels quite at home in their D:OS games.

Overall I'm having an absolute blast with the game though, maybe the best RPG since BG2. But I'm only at the very end of act 1. Let's see if act 2 and 3 can keep up

Eh...I never had a level 3 goblin archer doing even close to 30 damage. Are you playing on a modded Tactician+ mode? Having said that, I find the arrows superfluous. Micromanaging my archers to use single arrows will be about the last thing I ever do in this game. The old games had them by the stack, and there were different ammo slots, so it worked for them. Here, not so much. But their mere existence so far hasn't bothered me. They're a source of a little extra money.

As someone else who does not always appreciate Larian Goofiness™ (very fitting, LOL), what exactly did you tone down?

Arrows of Detonation do +1d6 to the target, +6d6 AOE. They are fireballs launched from bows. Confused indeed.

And how many enemies did you face in the Original who were packing arrows of detonation?

None that I can recall, which is only slightly less than the number of enemies that have fired any magical arrows at me almost 30 hours into BG3. I have found plenty of magical arrows, but I’m not dealing with some overwhelming abundance of goblins raining down magical arrows at me. And I literally just last night went back to the goblin camp and completely cleared the front gate.

The point stands that saying “The casual audience that plays D:OS2 can keep them” is ridiculous. BG 1 and 2 were packed with magic arrows. That isn’t just a DOS / BG3 “casual” thing. Magical arrows might have often been individually weaker (though arrows of detonation and dispelling were a thing), but they came in stacks to match the real time nature of combat.

Ah. Apologies, let me clarify something. DIVINITY magic arrows. There's a key difference you are overlooking with these two systems in that Larian wants their cake and to eat it too:

That's the existence of magic resistance and the ability to save against the (entirety of) damage for magic arrows in BGI and II. We wouldn't be having this conversation at all if it were a simple 1d4 (you could, AGAIN, nullify) on top of base damage.

But instead we have an arrow that can deal 1d4 damage on hit, and then a GUARANTEED 2~8 additional damage because of how Larian does surface effects at the start of your turn, bypassing not only a saving throw but your armor class entirely if they do not aim for you specifically.

Or an arrow/throwable that straight up lowers your AC since you're standing in the surface until your turn. (Lowering AC is reserved for very specific spells, lowering DEX scores, and outright destroying armor, ala Shieldbreaker.) Not even to mention that they brought their high ground mechanic in, meaning a cool idea is now a consistent -6 average to your armor class.

Or an arrow that can force you out of position (Arrow of Teleportation) simply if it hits you. As a consumable. I must remind you, O' reader mine, you can't teleport unwilling creatures. Not even Banish or Banishing Arrow (for Arcane Archer) does this, as it simply removes the creature from the fight safely and temporarily.

Void bulbs. Arrow of Roaring Thunder. If I have to explain this I will get a hernia.

Three ranged multiattacks on some archers at what SHOULD be a medium difficulty CR rating on an enemy that has two.
Giving melee fighters chip damage (because of course they would) even if they miss, ensuring that your AC cannot protect you if you recover to 1 HP.
Shoving as a bonus action rather than a full interaction, allowing some fun instances of taking or dealing full melee damage into fall damage or shoving to avoid Attacks of Opportunity.


...Why did Larian get this over Owlcat again? If I wanted to play Divinity I'd just play Divinity. It at least works in its own element, jank and all. You're kind of just expected to carry your meta knowledge of Larian into this game or otherwise learn it to thrive. As a long time player of 3.5 and now 5e Dungeons and Dragons, their idea of taking liberties for fun is unfortunately antithetical to this as a CRPG and demonstrates they only know how to make Divinity.

But I digress. Again, I am modding the hell out of it and having fun afterwards so ultimately it won't affect anyone other than full blooded D&D players dipping their toes into Mr. Holland's Wild Ride.

What mods do you use? I've been looking for mods that remove most of the over the top Larian homebrew stuff and brings the game closer to 5E, but without much luck so far. Or are you making your own mods?

I'd also love to know.

Apologies for taking so long. Had a lot of real life obligations crop up. Here's what I am (currently) using specifically in regards to addressing balance. There's not too many mods out there yet that change encounters closer to RAW but fixing the action economy has gone a long way to helping.

"Fix Bad DM" by Eric (plunkett1) https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/606?tab=description

5e Spells by Celes (DiZ91891) https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/125

These two are the core, big ones. You can read the changelogs and descriptions. I will be keeping my eyes glued to nexusmods though.