Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How accurate is ruleset implementation?

Paladins are not lawful good anymore. Paladins are devoted to particular oaths. No class is required to be any alignment anymore.

As the article you posted said:

“In point of fact, there is only one place left in which there is any sort of a specific mention of the consequence of having an alignment.”

So as I said, WotC has severely diminished the mechanical role of alignment is D&D.

Paladins aren't alignment restricted anymore, they take Oaths with tenets they need to follow. If they break their Oaths, they become Oathbreakers.

The PHB Oaths are:
Oath of the Ancient (preservation of nature sentinel)
Oath of Vengeance (they pick a sworn enemies, that sworn enemy is more important than everything else)
Oath of Devotion (the classic paladin)

As a reminder the game is still in EA and not everything is in yet, or working as it will be in the final.

For example, there is no Dodge Action in yet, but there will be at some point.



I don't think feats are implemented at this point because they don't have all, or even enough of them ready.




Celestials and Fiends and such still exist. Clerics and Paladins losing their powers if they displease their deity still exists.




This is a strawman, and not even a very good one.

Humans can be of any alignment in D&D, and yet, amazingly, the game still allows for the possibility of human antagonists to the player characters. Removing the label of "Usually Evil" from a creature type does not mean that they cannot be an antagonist or enemy to the player characters.

So once again wizards got the sharp end of the stick as all reaction spells, basically Abjuration magic, are not cast as reactions anymore, which is frankly disgusting.

Lots of things aren't finished yet which will be in later. This could be one of them.

Are there Feats in the game? I've only played for about 2 hours and just hit level 2, but the character customization and leveling seems extremly slimmed down. I'm a 3.5 veteran though so I guess I was just having too high expectations.

In 5E you don’t chose your first feat until lvl 4.

All right, let's go with that

Not at this time. They might get added in later in EA, it depends on if they can get enough of them working satisfactorily.

We don't care about those..

Subject, object, please?

The 5e ruleset is poorly implemented.

At its core, gameplay feels like someone took DoS 2 and tried to make a D&D mod for it. So many reused resources and mechanics.

The easiest to understand example of this is the Firebolt cantrip. In 5e, it does 1d10 fire damage. It can light stuff on fire so long as it isn't being worn or carried by something.

In the game currently, it is basically a mini-Fireball with an AoE that automatically sets the target AND surface areas on fire. It does 1d6 fire damage instead of 1d10, I'm guessing to 'balance' the fact that it is the functional equivalent of a spammable level 2 spell.

These sorts of changes aren't there to make the 5e ruleset capable of functioning on a computer. It is made because Larian wants to make DoS 3, not BG 3. That want to reuse assets like surface areas absolutely everywhere, regardless of what 5e says about that. They literally named 'flanking' into 'backstab' because that's what it was in DoS, rather than the term used in 5e. They are trying to use Directional Facing even though the rules of 5e specifically reject it.

Do changes to spells and abilities need to be made? Absolutely. Even the original BG 1 and BG 2 series changes spells to work on a computer. But they changed them only when it was necessary for the spell or ability to function, *not* just because they were unhappy with the results and wanted to make the game different than the ruleset.

I feel like the rules are mostly there. The bones are there, but they made some choices that I think are huge missteps. Disengage/Jump being tied together as a bonus action weakens so much of the other movement options and cheapens positioning. Ground effects are especially obnoxious. Everything changes the ground all the time and it's exhausting. It feels incredibly out of place (do y'all want to make DOS or 5e? pick a lane). Dip your bow in fire to set it on fire and shoot fire arrows. Bleh.

Nothing that can't be changed during early access. Or, worst case scenario, people can just mod it to be more like 5e since the core rules seem to be faithful enough.

I would argue that ground effects encourage movement/ positioning, something that can be lacking on the TTRPG side of things. If you look at most published adventure modules (at least from what I have read in the 5e and 3.5 systems) a majority of them don't try to make the "arenas" you fight in super interesting. I think this is where BG3 does a good job, I think it forces you to think on your feet. That being said this game still has a long way to go and I wouldn't doubt it if we saw some comprehensive changes to how some spells behave. Personally I would like disguise self to be expanded :P.

The best part about Larian though is they have the ability to adapt and really create a product that makes players happy.

My biggest worry with firebolt is its scaling. 1D10 versus 1d6 + damage from burning isn’t so bad, but at higher levels 3D10 v 3D6 + burning is a significant downgrade in damage. I suppose they could adjust the progression so when the spell should be doing 3D10 it instead does 4D6 + burning.

movement and positioning in the TTG are encouraged by cover and melee mechanics that are absent from this game.

Why not have both?

Homebrew a "lesser fireball" that works by d6 aoe damage and maintain the normal firebolt.

In every game that I've played, firebolt is single target damage... Diablo 1, all D&D products, Might & Magic VI~VIII...

I am missing several key features that should be there in order to even get close to 5e.

Now granted I have no idea if these are coming or if they were intentionally left out, if its the latter then I might as well refund because thats not what I wanted to buy. I wanted to buy a DnD 5e adaption not a game that is set in the DnD universe.

• The dodge action seems to be missing completely. In the same vain it seems advantage and disadvantage apparently are not implemented either.
• Holding your action to act as a reaction also is missing.
• Expertise is missing.
• Uncanny Dodge is missing.
• Cunning Action seems to be missing.
• Several spells have their effects changed for no reason. Firebolt for instance already would have affected flammable surfaces, there is no reason to convert it to a d6 + AoE + DoT. Grease is not meant to be put on fire, 5e specifically removed that, etc. Shocking grasp not having advantage on enemies wearing metal armor is also a weird change.
• Several key spells are missing; Shield, alarm to name a few.
• Ritual casting does not exist.
• No idea what "dip" is supposed to be, its not a feature of 5e and I see no reason to have this over lets say the dodge action, the latter being a very important cornerstone of DnD combat. Dip on the other hand, is not.
• Spears not being versatile, shortbows doing 1d4 damage, light crossbows doing 1d4 damage.
• No cover mechanic.
• No difficult terrain.
• Flanking seems to be replaced by "backstab" whatever that is supposed to be. Flanking in 5e conveys advantage, backstab seems to add damage?
• Class features have been heavily altered, Abjuration Wizards Ward for instance.
• Swordcoast spells and feats seem to be missing completely.
• Swordcoast subclasses seem to be missing.
• I might have overlooked it but it seems that fighting styles are also missing?

As it stands this doesnt feel at all like DnD.

My biggest concern about 5e ruleset implementation are the new action economy and surface gameplay.
Action economy has some serious problems: AoO free jump & Shove away (not prone, at least) as innate bonus actions screws action economy and feats implementation. In tabletop you have an opportunity cost for disengaging: you can get out of harm's way without expending resources like spells or per rest features but you sacrifice your ability to actively contribute to the battle (not casting spells, not attacking); alternatively you can expend resources (like bonus action Misty Step spell) to safely reposition without sacrificing damage contribution . Some feats and class features (like Mobile, Cunning Action or Shield Master) give you a resourceless and/or economy efficient option, but they are build options you either take instead of other options (feats) or are given to you to balance a class (Cunning Action).
Instead we have even 2 resourceless AND economy efficient actions that screws some interesting feats whose power lies by giving you exactly that: resourceless, economy efficient mobility on top of other goodies. Now everyone can hit some avarage melee enemy, push him away (other way around if you are ranged), retreat 30ft, watch him waste all his movement and do nothing.
Pls, just no. Tactical positioning and movement is the balancing factor between squishy, nimble rogues and tanky, ground rooted fighters. Also not to mantion jump+movement gives you more distance than just movement but i hope this is something to be fixed anyway

Surface gamemplay is simply too much. Surfaces are indeed a thing in d&d, most frequently to support the above tactical positioning: a good combination of cover, chockepoints and difficult terrain can give you a good edge against difficulty odds; again because mobility aint that much on the avarage PG. Damaging surfaces are also a thing: chockepoints + caltrops are the easiest surface gamplay tabletop has to offer, and quite fun; i play pnp and we made very good use of those two to overcome very bad odds. But, again, this comes with resource and opportunity costs: wanna make people fall on theyr ass all the way? Why not, but you have to expend a spell slot to cast Grease... Do you prefer to keep your slots for some big bad guy later in the dungeon? No problem, ball bearings are here, but they cost you a whole action so im sorry but your damage this round is sacrificed for resourceless crowd control.
And then we have these cantrips. Same as above you dont sacrifice anything to both deal damage and create a surface, even more so that some surfaces are way too powerful for the exptected power output of that resource cost (no resource, standard action, ranged):
- cantrip that deals aoe damage and aoe reduce ca by 2, no save and quite big area is just too much.
- Cantrip that do 3 instances of d6 damage, 2 of which without save, and leave a 1 square damaging area that burns flammable entities is again too much.
- Cantrip that reduce movement speed and create a slippery 1 square surface with immediate save or prone is... not as broken as the above, but still too much
This doubles also as 'why are cantrips powerful like 1st level spells, sometimes even more powerful'. Again, because of resource economy. To be fair Im all in to shoot ray of frost to a puddle of water to freeze it or shoot a barrel of oil for some good explosions, but in a balanced and optional way.
Ah right, by having so much sources of so much powerful sufaces (tabletop normal fire surface or caltrops is 1 damage) , so much ways of auto-interaction (firebolt leaving a fire patch without aiming specifically for the ground) surface gameplay is not some other toy to play around: is a core gameplay feature to be aware of and use to your advantage, because enemy definitely will

Just get back to the original ruleset, let it be simply a d&d experience we gamers have been waiting for since NWN 2.
Or maybe, make a gameplay option out of it: classic rules vs larian rules. And then all sort of even more whachy, ridicolous, outrageous homebrew for a fun, DOS like experience

I would love to see cover properly implemented!

I'm not sure what your mean by "melee mechanics" though, you'd have to be more specific.