Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Concerns after ~10 hours

After spending some time with it, there are a few things I'm not so fond of.


— Non-violent dialogue solutions and such don't grant XP, practically forcing you to be a murderhobo if you want to keep up.
— Wizards can learn non-wizard spells from scrolls, making them grossly overpowered, and at worst making a team full of wizards the optimal set-up, due to a wizard being a valid healer now.
— Wizards can swap out spells on the fly without preparing.
— Any class can use Spell Scrolls; a knucklehead fighter throwing fireballs and casting high-level mage spells not only doesn't make sense, but it erodes class identity.
— Companions do nothing as you get eaten by a mindflayer, and never seem too concerned with what happens to the player in cutscenes.
— Way too much powerful loot. Scrolls, magical items, jewellery; I feel like this is a remnant of their Original Sin design philosophy, and it doesn't feel right here, sometimes less is more.
— Over the shoulder zoomed in camera without WASD movement feels unintuitive and clunky.

Some if not all of these issues have been brought up already, but since there's no confirmation on what issues Larian is aware of/working on, it can't hurt.

Wizards can learn WHAT?! No sir, I hope to god that doesn't stay on the game's official release.

Take scrolls out of this game and there will be nothing left as it has literially no loot diversity or crafting, its like taking DOS1 removing all the features and putting in a slightly above average story while dumbing down the combat.

Honestly, I really enjoy the change to allow wizards to learn healing spells. I hate having to always have a rogue and healer in the party for optimization instead of being able to choose characters for their personalities.

Wizards can learn divine magic from scrolls? iiiinteressstingggggggggggggg

I more so meant that there's too many of those things, not that they shouldn't exist, my bad.

Wizards not being able to heal in D&D, is the stupidest thing about D&D. Would be awesome if WOC would finally give Wizards ability to heal, since there is NO logical reason for them to not being able to heal, rather than to nerf and "balance" the class. Divine Soul Sorcerers can, Celestial Warlocks can, Bards, Druids, Clerics, dude, what the hell.

Pretty sure OP is not suggesting the removal of scrolls, but a re-balance.

In my opinion scrolls should only feature wizard spells (because that's how wizards learn their spells after all), and not divine spells, which come from the practice of religion. Not sure about the DnD rules about that, but thematically that would make sense to me. Also scrolls should be more rare, to make them more valuable.

I agree about only spell casters being able to use scrolls.
We don’t need crafting & loot is at the early stage of the game - various merchants have gear you can trade or barter for if you are so inclined - I’m enjoying bartering good way to clear out the inventory

I agree with the OP

Wizards should only be able to learn spells from the wizard spell list from scrolls.
Characters can only use scrolls of their own class, unless they are good in use magic device. ( Is it still in? I might get confused between different editions now)

For example a unique ability from bards (especially lore) is that they can learn some spells from other classes. That would be useless now.
Whats the point of classes when everyone can use everything.

No. Wizard's should not heal as base because that means their only weakness as a class would be covered. They are already one of the strongest classes in base game DnD 5e and balence wise it makes no sense. On top of this it has been established in the lore that healing is a divine thing, not arcane- so natural arcane casters cannot heal (Divine Soul is obviously Divine, as it Celestial Warlock).

In terms of the scrolls talk: in my tabletop games we personally have it so anyone can cast from scrolls and that they can involve healing spells, however they are rarer than you find in BG3 and it is more an "locking a spell in ink for later".

Wizards shouldn't be able to do many things and it feels like they have been oddly buffed for the game. Cantrips doing DoT is kinda crazy as well as spells appllying surfaces when they shouldn't. The whole burning effect from fire spells needs to go imo. They also should have to only be able to learn spells from scrolls that are still on their list, pay gold for it and only do it during a long rest (i.e the campfire).
Also switching spells whenever once again is buffing the class a l o t.

Ignoring the 5e rules for a moment. If I had the ability to choose how it should work I would say a wizard finding a scroll can either:
- learn the spell, destroying the scroll
- cast the scroll as a one shot (if int reqs met) destroying scroll regardless of spell type.

There absolutely is a logical reason for wizards not being able to heal, same as there is a logical reason for clerics not being able to shoot lightning bolts or levitate people. Arcane magic and divine magic are meant to be different. In a game system with 12 different classes, most of which are at least partly capable of spellcasting, there is a need to give each of them some form of identity. Constraints like these are actually beneficial.

I hope learning and casting spells from scrolls will get proper restrictions in time.

+100 for group interractions. It's 2020 : DAO (2009) and ME (2007) brought a new standard of interactions for an RPG, more than 10 years ago !
+10 for the rest : OP loot and problem with scrolls is to be expected during and early access, I think it will be fixed.

A big one for me : the silent protagonist during dialogues : every NPC as a fully voiced line of dialogue for every options... but not our hero ?? Once again : it's 2020. I'm ok with only 2 male/ 2 female voices, as long as we have full voices during RP... in a RPG !

Honestly, one of the issues I see with D&D is too much class variety leading to balancing nightmares. Maybe just make a class called wizard and they can cast anything, then give them benefits depending on how deeply they focus in a specific area. For example, improve their spell modifiers based on how many of a spell type they have meditated on and put in their spellbook? So if you want to be an effective healer, you need to have primarily healing spells learned (makes sense, that's what you studied on the night before). If you want to be a nuker for the day, you need to study primarily evocation.

The issue I see that arises out of how D&D currently works is that you're forced to bring along a healer, a tank, and a rogue. So immediately your party selection is reduced by 3. In a game (tabletop or cRPG) where you only have a party size of 4 (engine limitations or social limitations), that gives you 1 option for creativity and roleplaying. Then in order to counterbalance this issue, you get ranger pets as semi-tanks, healing potions & scrolls of resurrection that demean and cheapen the seriousness of high level magic, summoned creatures that need to be strong enough to tank NPCs, but not strong enough that they nullify the reason for a player to pick a tank, etc. etc. etc. This all restricts your options for roleplaying and game design IMO. I personally liked Larian's take on leveling in DOS1/2 and how you could easily alter a starting NPC by leveling up different things for them than they originally started with.

agree with all the above

agree

I mean, you're right about it being a balancing nightmare, but every character filling a specific role is what DnD has always been about. Take that away, and you have a completely different game. Also, I don't think it's as bleak as you're making it out to be. You always have multiple classes that can fill the same role, as well as subclass options to make any class fit multiple roles. A light-domain cleric can take care of all your fireball needs, a bard or druid can provide additional healing, and all three classes can be made viable as front-liners. Just an example.

And let's not forget that classes are more than their mechanics - they tell you much about a character, what skills they have, where or how they learned them. If you're a warlock, you must have made a pact with a powerful being. As a paladin, you've joined a paladin order and taken vows. In DOS2, I very much disliked the complete disconnect between in-game lore and mechanics.

I've been playing AD&D on tabletop for maybe 20 years (mainly ADD3.5), and I played BG1 & 2 : variety is a core feature of AD&D.

Balancing companion in your group isn't a real concern for me, it's core gameplay of most RPG. In DOA & ME too, you had to balance your party between tank, support & carry. You have to make choices (only 2 companions in DOA & ME, so you always lack something at some point). I don't know how this choice will change things later on, but I like the idea of making choices than will have an impact on gameplay (like the lack of a tank in combat).

Not really. 5e characters are far more versatile than previous dnd versions, it is quite easy to do well with parties without the specific role classes, and the fact that any class can use any skill just makes it possible to use whatever you want.

Hell even in my own 5e campaign they dont have a tank and the healer has issues, and they RP heavily and have made it through many difficult battles. And i'm not a DM that fudges numbers on dice to baby them into never dying