Hey, so firstly, thanks, the game IS fun! Which is great. I've played through the tutorial a few times but not done too much beyond that yet (picked up Gale and levelled up is about as far as I've gotten so far), mostly because I'm not playing it as a game, but running through things multiple times to get a feel for stuff.

Anyway, positives:
  • Visuals are nice, huge improvement over Original Sin IMO, and I don't agree with some of the feedback that it's too bright or colourful. It really does look great.
  • Voice acting is also pretty nice so far
  • Combat animations are good
  • Art direction for stuff like weapons is excellent, looking far more real than most other games I've played, longsword looks like a longsword, kudos.
  • Nice nods to earlier Baldur's Gate games with stuff like spell icons
  • Music is great too


Some suggestions/issues/observations I've seen:
  • Animations in cut scenes are often quite bad, which is a shame because the in game ones generally seem good, particular note for me was the mind flayer fighting with tentacles that were all over the place, and the dragons which felt very awkward.
  • Nowhere near enough explanation, I'm a D&D player and I've played D:OS and D:OS2, and there are probably many things I've still missed, because essentially nothing seems to be explained, anywhere... which isn't great
  • The action economy feels slightly off right now, many actions seem to be incorrectly set. disengage/jump should be split up, disengage should be an action. hide should be an action, dip should be an action, in fact most of the bonus actions you added so far, should be actions. Including Jumping is nice, but it shouldn't use an action of any kind, and just use movement. It's distances should be brought inline with pnp (distances based on STR and height, possibly with an athletics test to allow jumping further) and then stuff like the jump spell would have significance. If you badly want to showcase jumping early on, include some potions of jump right at the start. Shove should require an athletics test to work and be an action, not a bonus action.
  • Add the other missing actions please, help to give an ally advantage on a test, dodge to give enemy disadvantage to attack you, overrun and tumble to avoid AoO as a bonus action via an athletics or acrobatics test respectively. Disarm as an action, Grapple as an action to restrain an enemy.
  • Rogues getting two bonus actions is wonky and wrong
  • Attack with off hand weapon as a bonus action should only be available if you use attack as your action
  • Sneak attack should be automatic and not an ability you have to select (probably with a tooltip to say it will be a sneak attack).
  • Jump distance vs movement use feels WAY out of line right now
  • Lots of spells missing, which is fine, its early access
  • Reactions! I look forward to their inclusion, not having Shield as a wizard is so so sad.
  • Wuzards should only be able to learn spells on the wizard spell list
  • Scrolls should only be usable by characters of the appropriate class, The class system feels diluted if you allow everyone to use everything like that. There should also be caster level checks to cast scrolls for spells higher than the character can currently cast.
  • Feels like there is too much "good" loot straight away, i guess a holdover from D:OS
  • Quite a few class abilities seem to be missing, I kinda like the changes to ranger though
  • Familiars should be permenant, but not fight in combat, they probably all should have distraction abilities and the ability to help, providing advantage.
  • Going for half HP on level ups feels terrible, it should be a dice roll or half (probably player choice).
  • Surfaces are nice, but surface effects should always require a saving through to happen, so fire on the ground requires a saving through before you actually take damage etc. Some of the surface effects feel wrong, Acid should just do acid damage, not randomly impact AC (which doesn't make sense in most cases). Those would be Dex and Con saves respectively in theory.
  • Bring spells more inline with pnp, I get the desire to interact with the inclusion of Original Sin style surfaces, but cantrips should work like in pnp HOWEVER it would be nice to include some of the cantrips from elemental evil/xanathars guide to everything that create surfaces as their actual effects. Stuff like firebolt should do 1d10 fire damage, and be able to set stuff like bushes, grass etc on fire, but shouldn't make a fire surface on stone for example. And it should only create a fire surface if the surface (and not a creature) is targetted.
  • More diversity, it would be great to see more character appearances, as well as weapon and armour appearances added.
  • Customisation: we really need ot be able to select gear at creation, based on the concept it makes a big difference, similarly, picking colours for the gear would be ideal please.
  • Clarity of proficiencies: right now its not clear who gets what proficiencies outside of skills and weapons. one of the ranger options clearly notes thieves tools too. Oh and being able to see all the proficiencies you have would be good too
  • Weapon cantrips: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide includes weapon cantrips, these feel ideal for a CRPG, and are also quite important for Eldritch knights, Bladesingers, Valor Bards and many kinds of Warlocks, it would be really good to include them, booming blade and green flame blade in particular would be good for adding some tactical depth for characters that can use them (or characters with magic initiate feat!)
  • Please add subclasses from Sword Coast Adventurers Guide (particularly Bladesinger please!), its a game set on the sword coast, and they make so much sense being forgotten realms specific subclasses! I know the priority will be on PHB content first, which is sensible, but these would be great.
  • Please add attribute rolling, I know points buy is often popular in pnp, but a CRPG tends to have a lot more combat, so higher stats feel necessary at least as an option.
  • Non combat approaches to situations need to properly reward players with XP, if a PC talks out of a situation and avoids a fight, they should be rewarded with XP just as well as they would have been had though fought.
  • Long and Short rest mechanics could do with some work, short rests should be allowed more than once (probably two or three times a long rest), Long rest should be once per 24 hours, with the option to wait to allow another long rest. Quests should have timers in some cases which mean that long or short resting a bunch actually causes them to fail (like the tadpole for example).
  • More tooltips and information in character sheeet would be good in general (beyond the big issue that proficiencies aren't listed anywhere)
  • Deity selection should be a thing for all PCs, and a tag added linked to deity as a follower of Corellon Larethian for example might interject in some instances in the same way a cleric might.
  • Seeing more interaction between companions would be ideal, BG2 was a HUGE success because companions interacted, something Bioware got even better at in Dragon Age and Mass Effect. You've put effort into the companions so it would be good to see them interact more. Even if it means they aren't origin characters anymore (honestly, i don't think it would be a loss if they were purely companions).
  • Perhaps the one line dialogue doesn't need a cinemative, if someone says a single line, just have the text float above their head?
  • More familiar options might be nice - There are a few more available in PNP, Tressym would be a lovely addition! We should be able to deliver touch spells through them too
  • Warlock Familiars via pact of the chain obviously should be able to fight.


I think it has a lot of promise and things are off to a great start, but it does feel like perhaps it was a little early for early access (unless its called "really early access"), that being said, I appreciate the opportunity to see how its progressing, and hope that a lot of feedback being received will be taken on board. I like what I've seen before and definitely want to see more. Im enjoying what I've seen, and look forward to seeing it grow and evolve!

Thanks Larian!