Okay got through early access and I wanted to provide feedback for Larian. There’s a lot of good in EA and there are quite a few problems. This feedback is going to be mostly concerned with what I thought were issues.
First up is the biggest issue for me thus far.
User Interface
The UI needs some serious work. First and most importantly there needs to be a new spell UI. When you hover over your available slots for a given spell level it should open a display that allows you to pick from all your options at that spell level. For example, having to have Healing Word I and II take up separate slots on the action bar gets old quick and its going to get worse as we get access to more spell levels. Not to mention when I played with a Warlock every time I long rest my reapply Hex went away and if I picked up anything it would take that slot on the action bar meaning I was always going to the menu to fix my bars again. It was extremely annoying.
Next there’s no place that lists things like weapon and armor proficiencies, invocations, etc. This information needs to be available.
Jump All, Sneak All
This would be such a quality of life thing if I jump one character or put them into sneak mode the rest follow when not in combat. If I want to scout solo I’d break that character off from the main group then carry out those actions.
Surfaces, surfaces…….everywhere (insert Buzz and Woody pic)
So I understand that you guys at Larian are very proud of your environmental effects and that you love barrelmancy. Personally, I’m mixed about this. At first I was pretty against but as I played more I noticed that HP bloat of enemies compared to standard 5e and yeah I guess this helps keep casters with more limited slots relevant so I realize its pointless to try and change this.
What I would say though is that it gets pretty annoying for the party casters when any enemy caster can throw down a firebolt and now the player’s characters have to make two concentration checks for the damage of the initial hit then again for getting out of the fire surface. Since combat tends to make the material plane look like the elemental planes by the end of it, any class that using concentration spells is going to suffer badly. This should be addressed. I think the easiest way would be for environmental effects to not prompt a concentration check.
Custom Character vs Origin Characters
As I understand one of the goals of the game is to get it to the point where custom characters felt as good to play as origin characters. Honestly at this point I think its fallen short of that goal. Aside from a few Baldurian checks, there wasn’t much and it was definitely less than DOS2 options playing an origin character.
Bonus Actions
So a couple of things on bonus actions.
First Astarion duel wielding as a thief getting an extra bonus action is a flat-out murder machine. Thief’s bonus action should probably be more restricted or by the time multiclassing gets in and I can MC him into Ranger getting more bonuses on top of that including Weapon Style, Hunter’s Mark, Extra Attack, Jump spell etc he’s going to solo encounters for me.
Next Shove as a bonus action. Its not 5e RAW and I’m fine with it since its clear you want more for characters to do on their turn than standard 5e. I think that’s actually a good choice for a video game. What I would say is this. Make Shove an action (or bonus action for Shield Master RAW) BUT give each origin character a special bonus action based on their origin. Astarion having bite is a great example. Maybe tone down the damage a little and let him do that as a bonus action every turn. Shadowheart maybe could manipulate shadows around a character so anyone targeting that character takes a small penalty to attack rolls against that character. That sort of thing.
Custom Characters could get abilities based on their class and help improve the custom character vs origin character disparity. These should be small little bonuses that feel worth using but Shove as a bonus action allows for a lot of cheese and favors characters with specific attributes. Finding ways for anyone to use their bonus action when not spending a resource would be good. Again, it shouldn’t be strong but should be flavorful.
Add the Dodge action
Maybe Gale will die less.
