Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My Thoughts So Far, 25 hours Playtime

A lot of valid points have been made in these forums and I know I'm repeating a lot of others sentiments. Personally I prefer the close adherence to the 5E ruleset, I would like to to be even closer. We are being allowed to make too many actions which is breaking the combat system from what is intended under the 5E system.

1. Jump/Disengage need to be separated from each other. Disengage needs to be an action, like in tabletop, with special classes/feats allowing for it to be a bonus action. Jumping should be part of your standard movement and subject to AoO if you don't disengage first. Having every character able to 'jump' away and still make attacks is awful.

2. Shove needs to be made an action as well. This only makes sense. Why, in a 6 second period (one round), should I be able to push an enemy off a cliff, which takes an opposed check, run 30 ft, 'and' make a full action attack or cast a spell.

3. I would like to see the party limit increased to 6. As many have noted the current 4 person limitation means you have little choice in who you bring with you. If you roll a warrior you aren't likely to take Lae'zel, if you're a mage there goes Gale, etc. This may just be a bug but it bothers me when my actions impact their opinion of me while not actively with me. If they're going to have them hate me for killing, or not killing, someone they should at least be present for the conversation.

I understand this creates changes to combat balance as it currently stands. Right now things are being balanced around a 4 character system. Some of the other changes I suggested would help with this balancing, such as the aforementioned jump/disengage/shove changes.

4. I would love to see a more diversified conversation system put in place. This could be simulated through giving the player advantage/disadvantage on checks based upon other stats. For instance, if you have 16+ str you get advantage on physical threat based intimidation checks. Having 16+ intel could provide the same bonus on various manipulative or coercive intimidation checks. As a DM myself I often make allowances such as this depending on the situation. If my barbarian player has the enemy, after they've just finished bashing all their mates, pinned against the wall 2 feet off the ground you bet I'm gonna give him advantage if he interrogates them for information. I don't think this in any way means you should be guaranteed, you could still roll two ones. That's the way the game goes. Allowing you to use your party members in dialog would help too. They shouldn't be idle bystanders, they have their own motivations and you're essentially playing them as well here. The conversation tree should allow you to use them to make checks as well as the main character. I'd much rather have Lae'zel try to perform an intimidate check than my halfling druid.

5. Make dice checks less intrusive. I really hate how the entire screen is taken over by a giant D20 and I have to click on it and wait to get a result. This entire system should be removed and just allow the conversation to flow while the check is performed in the background. I already know I'm performing a check, the conversation told me so.

6. Too. Many. Barrels. Honestly these need to just be removed as a collectable resource. They're asinine and allow for way too much cheese to be had. While I find things like https://youtu.be/jAAGx8gpabw?t=133 hilarious this type of thing should be enabled through creative roleplay or additional quest options and not be allowed in this manner. Think of it from the enemy perspective, they're just going to roll in and set up their attack among a giant field of grease and explosive barrels? It's ridiculous. A much better and more immersive system would be to provide some quest lines for the player to add fortifications and concealed traps to the battlefield. The same could be said for the goblin camp and the smokepowder cache there. You shouldn't be able to just take the barrels and do what you please. Finding them, and securing them away from the guards, should allow you to choose one of several ways in which to deploy them.

7. Explosive arrows/potions held by everyone and their uncle and their baby and the babies pet hamster. It's another point of design stupidity. These should be a rare resource, specially for Goblins, Gnolls, etc. It seems like every battle opens up with my entire team being coated in acid, fire and grease immediately. Just no.

8. I know it's EA right now so I don't expect all the bells and whistles. I would love to, say when you reach Baldur's Gate, be able to hire mercenaries. Essentially make my own party members and take them with me if I choose. I understand they can't really script and tailor the story around randoms like this the way their pre-built characters are. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to choose this if I want to.

9. Let me roll my stats. Please. I get the point buy system, everyone is equal, makes it easier to balance, etc. But I 'want' to roll my stats. Don't take that choice away from me arbitrarily.

Disengage : I suggest to Larian that making Dash (Action) also be Disengage would be user-friendly (easy to understand). It is not exactly like 5e, but close enough that I think D&D 5e fans would accept that compromise for simplicity sake. It is intuitive to see Dash/Disengage for a new player, and Jump would be its own thing.

Shove : it is super fun, I admit, but for combat balance I agree it should be made an Action. It would remain great (still deadly) and fun, but less of a "spammable" thing.
The Feat Charger though allows to be more deadly with Shove.

Agreed that the dice rolls could be a bit less center, practically on the faces. Likewise, the current Critical roll animation (super zoom on a golden D20) is not agreeable.

Agreed there is an excess of thrown bombs (some do 3d6! more than Burning Hands SL1) and too many fire cocktails (not to mention the damage from Goblin fire bottles is a bit off from 5e: right now bottle hit does 1d4 impact +1d6 direct fire +small AOE also, and seems to do even more damage in practice. Suggestion for that secondary point: remove the 1d4 impact to be more in line with 5e).

- But I disagree with rolling stats, as the two systems give wildly different stats ! I don't like that some players would begin with 15 or 16 in a stat or two, while the rollers would have a bunch of 16-18. In BG2, my character had everything 18-19 except Int 10. It affects combat balance within itself, but also in terms of comparing player success/failures. I understand though that "to each his/her own" in terms of single player.
( maybe buffing slightly the stats could be an option though. I believe the upcoming Tasha's Cauldron... might offer some race bonus variations/flexibility that will make point-buy more viable.)