Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why Larian did not understand D&D tabletop

I played a lot of divinity 2 with friends and altough it was fun for sure I also don't think it was a better system. Int characters were far superior to anything especially because of their versatility. Beside early game Fort Joy a total caster group is a viable option. Combined with feats like torturer, far out spellcasting and spellcasting crit dmg even high magic armor didn't stand a chance. Torturer espacially was quite an op feat as you could ignore armor against your cc spells and completly stop your enemie from doing anything before loosing a lot of their health. If you still wanted to deal physical dmg, don't worry just use points in necromancy, which also sclaes with Int, does phisical dmg and debuffs your enemies. For the most useful polymorph spells you just needed to invest one point, same rule applied to huntsman 2 points and you had more or less a teleport ability. But hey aren't casters all glass canon and their physical armor easaly to overcome? No, casters preferable used a shield and wand making them tanky enough and had viable spells to make them tankier than any armor could.

BG3 should of either been more like DOS2 OR completely D&D like.

Right now its a frankenstein happymeal monster using both...So people who love the game wish stuff were even more approachable while people who dislikes many aspects wish it were closer to D&D.

Frankly I think a tweaked DOS2 combat system could of been amazing. Its just so much fun.
But with a D&D license comes certain expectations...I think this really held the studio back. And since the game is basically 80% D&D 20% homebrew...I just don't get why they didn't just go 100% all in for D&D. 100% sure Icelyn would of still loved the game

Really looking forward to DOS3.

DoS combat with a D&D coat of paint would've been so much better.

The D&D ruleset sucks for videogames. It's made for tabletop, there's no reason to think it would work well in videogames, and it doesn't. The resource management just feels unnecessarily restrictive, dicerolls in dialogue ruin immersion and defeat the whole concept of role-playing.

I like this game, but it's much worse for being stuck with an antiquated ruleset who's only contribution is tedium.

I generally find that most of the time I can easily get half a dozen encounters or more without resting. Most encounters only need a spell or two if that. It's just the boss fights where you want to make sure you have counterspell where you go through a bunch.

I think a closer hewing to D&D would absolutely have been better. I was replaying solasta before BG3 came out and I enjoyed the encounters there so much more, genuinely. I was actually looking forward to fights just a little bit in that game, unlike BG3 where everything just feels cluttered and jumbled. Granted, everything else around the combats are better in BG3, but I genuinely think Solasta combat with its loyalty to 5e is my preference. And I'm not even a fan of 5e.

On a related note, I prefer items in Solasta better too. BG3 has so many items that do so many different things, it's a chore trying to parse what I should be using for which characters, made worse by the abysmal item management.

True. D&D 5e works well in Solasta. But BG3 got 97 % on metacritic so it is the best game of all time and Larian will not change anything here.

The D&D system actually works great for video games. The problem is that Larian didn't use it. They cherry picked pieces of it. BG3 isn't a D&D game. It's a game inspired by D&D, and there's a difference. Solasta is a D&D game that uses the 5e ruleset and uses it well.

4th Edition tried to make it more like Video Games and mostly floundered. 5e tries to balance between tabletop and video games.
I think the main problem is that Larian made the fights by hand with a specific party level in mind. The open world paradign doesn't work that way. Players can wind up over or under leveled and any D&D game can have issues with bad party management and RNG.

I think Larian did a decent job transferring the rules over and any changes had to be approved by Wizards. The old BG and BG2 had some damn unforgiving combat encounters as well. Thays just the nature of video games.

I have to agree that the combat is NOT D&D, it's Divinity.
Now, that's not a bad thing. Still fun overall. Enjoying the game a lot.

But it's just NOT D&D. It doesn't FEEL like D&D. It feels like Divinity with a D&D skin.

Character balance is way off. Enemy stats are ridiculous (core stats aren't bad, but they all have massive HP bloat, which just doesn't work well with D&D still damage from abilities).

Honestly, probably the best D&D combat I've played was in Tower of Elemental Evil.
It did combat beautifully (even if the story was meh). You had everything from the 5 foot step to attacks of opportunity to a massive list of spells and abilities (all properly using official stats).

I wish that BG3 stuck more to the actual core mechanics.

Devs are afraid a proper Long Rest and resource management system would alienate casual players. That's why we get a half-assed D&D system with unlimited resting, neutered control spells and stat bloated enemies to compensate.

Maybe they did try to create a proper Long Rest / resource management system but couldn't figure out how to make it easier for casuals. In EA there were remains of a fatigue system, too.

Would be great if they could restore all that and offer a D&D Core Rules mode in a definitive edition. Like balanced difficulty but with resource management.. random encounters etc.

The dnd system is awesome for crpgs. Some of the best crpg combat in crpgs are dnd ones. Very few non dnd crpgs are even close to dnd combat. Dos 2 is fun, and playable but nowhere near as good as dnd combat. And, the dumb armour system brings it down.

'Casual' players would adjust. And isn't this the reason casual mode exists? New players are smarter than given credit for. They'll adjust eventually if you give them a chance. Espicially if they like the game they'll actually want to learn.and, again casual.mode exist. The same reason masochistic modes exist. Lol There should have been a literal dnd core mode.

I have 875,000 reasons why that is incorrect.

They would adjust. Quoting a number doesn't prive anything. Many games 'dumb down' content and still fail. Bg3 isn't successful because of 'dumbing down. A combo of dnd fans, dos fans, larian fans, great hype machine, abd overall good work on the game is why bg3 is a hot. Casualization sold maybe 5473.24 copies. No evidence to the otherwise.

Again, have a dnd core rule setting would have cost them ZERO sales. TRUE STORY FACTZ.

but saying "they would adjust" does prove something? Okay.

Never played TT; never finished DOS2 - thought it was shite; replayed Solasta - thought it was great.

Way back when BG3 was first announced the question of whether the game would be DOS3 or a DnD game popped up. Well here we are today with a game which my granny would describe as "neither my arse nor watercress".

As has already been mentioned many people made cogent and detailed posts about this or that rule implementation and how they could be improved and were ignored for the most part.

Larian talk a good game with their zillion lines of dialogue; the 17,000 endings; the zillion hours of cutscenes and the rest of it. The reality is 3 hotfixes in a week with almost 500 bugfixes and more to come. But oh look, we can have an owlbear cub for a pet.

It proves that new players/casual will adjust and learn a system if time and effort is taken to explain and teach them how things are done. This is true in table top when you introduce new players. Or any hobbie or event everywhere. We're all new at one point. My friends and I taught ourselves when we're kids. I'm.sure adults can learn.

And, again, fir those who aren't Gung go of learning every rule, there is the casual setting which is spread a part of the game. Having a dnd core setting would not change this. At all.

I'm supposed to be the negative one yet I find myself defending 'filthy' casuals on this forum a lot. Lmao

True. I think Larian attracted many players by their dialogues, genitals you can maintain, sex scenes (zoophilia) and cute pets. But many player will not finish the game. When i finished the game steam said only 0.1 % finished it (of course the numbers will increase). This is because the fights are sometimes unfair and unbalanced. It could be better if for example the concentration spells would perform better (like they do for the tabletop D&D). People praise very often that the fights in BG3 are very tactical in my opinion thats not true. To have a four fighter party is the way to go and because you can get many spells via items and potions you do not even need a wizard! Remember BG2 where you could not kill a protected enemy wizard without having a wizard with you. So i play fantasy games because of magic and magic sucks in BG3. Only damage spells are working fine (scorching ray, fire ball ...). In PF:WotR enchantment spell for example are extremly powerful and that is what i like. So the encounters in BG 3 are poor for me. Have more fun with Solasta, PF and the old BG games. But as i mentioned above Larian will change nothing because they are sanctified now.

There really should've been a difficulty option that is "D&D Hardcore" with

- Much less magic (melee) loot causing an overshadowing of spell damage
- Large swaths of the map covered in no rest zones, so that extended adventuring days was more necessary.
- Strict adherence to the D&D ruleset (started a list but it became too long to spell out here)

You can bet your steam account that we would not have all these same high ratings if it weren't for the cinematic dialogues, romances/sex/bears. It's overshadowing anything D&D or gameplay related...for now. Because without these people start being more critical on the actual gameplay system and world immersion.

The game could of been 100% DOS game system, it would of had the same ratings. Maybe even better.
That Larian understood that from the get go makes it an incredible bitter sweet success story (for D&D and Baldur's Gate fans).

What is extremely sad to me right now is we actually have MORE mods that makes the game like DOS2 (stuff like regain magic after combat, unlimited this and that, more spell slots, more feats, more attribute points, increased carry weight, more items ...) rather than like D&D.

Dos 2 sold way less than than bg3. People are underestimating the popularity and reach of the bg and dnd name. Throw in Larian's own fame plus all the hype is why it was successful. If this game was named fis 3 and not bg3, it would have sold less. Now that said, when dos 3 is released, I can see it selling a lot because of all the people bg3 brought Larian to their attention.