Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback S&F. Exploration

In this thread I’m going to collect some nitpicking about world exploration, fluidity of it and it’s connection to the narrative side.

1. General.
1.1. We got a lot of books which cover the history of the places we visit. Some of them are written in past tense, some in present tense. And not all of them mention any dates. So it's a bit hard to get the whole picture of events and their place in the timeline. I suggest to fix this by adopting common practice of our world:
A) Add a small text on the first left page with publishing details: author, publisher, manuscript creation period, printing date.
B) Add the starting date of our adventures somewhere in our journal or in the opening cinematic.
1.2. The map's existence makes no sense in our circumstances. But I'm not talking about the UI, I'm talking about the map which is mentioned in dialogs. Lae'zel asks Zorru to mark the place on the map, Ethel marks her home on our map... While we just fell out of the Nautoloid, we didn't know at first where we were and certainly weren't prepared to visit this area. In addition if our character has the map of the area, why are we forced to open the UI version of it by exploring the area? I would like this immersion-breaking detail to be fixed one way or another:
A) Remove all mentions of the map from dialogs.
or
B) Replace all mentions of “our” map in dialogues with something more suitable. Lae'zel could demand Zorru to give her the map. Ethel could draw a crude map for us on some peace of paper meant for a label for a potion.
or
C) Provide us the literal map during some hard-to-miss moment. Zevlor could give us the map of the area as a small reward for the help at the gates. In this case it would be better if we also get some less detailed version of the map opened in the UI in advance.
1.3. Please, improve our interactions with traps. Every click on a trap starts the disarm attempt and we can't decline that, while the click can be totally accidental and some traps have their turn off “buttons”. Plus if we are capable of disarming a trap we should be capable of recognising it as a stand-alone trap or a part of a system. And it would be cool to be able to place traps of our own. So here are my suggestions:
A) When we click on a trap open a dialog window with options: Explore (Perception), Disarm (Sleight of hands), Leave. Both Explore and Disarm should lead to the check with the same difficulty, but successful Explore on traps which are a part of a system should reveal the whole system to us. Also successful Explore could reveal alternative ways of disarming in a form of a voice-bark, for example “I can just put something heavy on it!” for gas-vents traps.
B) Allow us to pick up those traps which are not built-in the walls, floor, landscape after disarming. Or allow us to craft and buy them from vendors.
C) We should be able to set a trap we possess in the same style as using an AOE attack of the same form. It should consume the action point at least, but preferably it shouldn't be possible at all during a fight.
D) NPCs should pass perception checks as we do to recognise our trap as a hazardous part of the environment. The DC may be a fixed number or it may be determined by our Sleight of hands.
1.4. Fall damage and being prone after jumping down during exploration is nothing but annoying. The fact that Prone status works not like in D&D 5e and contains Unconscious status is the biggest part of the issue. If we are being stupid enought to jump from a really big height, full HP loss and being Downed is pretty equal to Unconscious and should be that way. But being Unconscious just because the dice decided so after jumping down from not that big height leads to nothing but annoying delay. So, please:
A) Detach Unconscious status from Prone status. We should be able to stand up immediately.
B) Allow us to avoid fall damage and being prone after jumping down through some equipment and teamwork. It could be ropes used as improvised hanging ladders, strong characters and thieves helping others to get down in a more safe way.

2. Nautoloid.
2.1. It seems strange that illithids put their Eldritch rune in some human chest. Maybe it wasn't them but the human, but in such a case I suppose that Shadowheart should be aware of the situation. Suggestions:
A) Make Shadowheart tell us that someone already tried to free her but broke the console and hid a piece of it in the chest and ran away.
or
B) Move the rune from the chest somewhere else.
or
C) Leave the rune where it is and leave Shadowheart anaware, but somehow tipp off why would the human put the rune in the chest. Maybe it’s someone from her group? Then give the corpse with the key the same armor or an amulet with the Shar symbol and give us some dialogues with Shadowheart on the matter later.
2.2. We practically have no motivation to click on the tank with Shadowheart aside from it being clickable.
Please, add some cries for help coming from the tank with Shadowheart.

3. Roadside cliffs.
3.1. We practically have no reason to go in Astarion's direction aside from the metagaming decision to check every corner of the map just in case. His direction looks mostly as a dull dead end from nearly all perspectives. I think it’s better if something would lure us closer to his position or he would be positioned closer to the most likely route.
3.2. Harper's cache and Harper's lookout seem to be somewhat mixed up. The lookout is really easy to find and there is supposedly Harper's corpse in it. And then we can go in totally not obvious place that looks like just a dead end and we can find there the literal cache with much more expensive loot and the Harper's notebook, which he supposed to keep with himself to be able to make notes, and with the map which marks the lookout as the 'CACHE'.
A) Put Harper's notebook on Harper's corpse. Its text may also mention the existence of the cache.
B) Put the Harper's map in the purse inside of the spider's nest in the lookout. (You see what I'm doing here? It shouldn't be a cheap loot)
C) Change the Harper's map mark position to the real cache on the beach.
D) Make the cache revealed without the Nature check if we got the Harper's map.

3.1. Speak with dead spell on one of the bodies in the ship = you can ask the dead if they saw others and they mention an elf and the direction he went.

I know that. But to get that dialog you need to get the spell. At the moment for the most (all?) of our characters it's avaible only after going into the ruins. And then it looks like Astarion is waiting for us with his ambush there for nearly a day.
So I think we need something more universal.

Fair point…tho my first playthru I found shadowheart, picked temple lock, got necklace, and then started searching ship for dead people to use it on. Asterion was 2nd person I recruited because of it and it seemed natural to me.

I think it's not the cache of someone named Harper, but from the organisation "The Harpers", or "Those Who Harp".

It is an organization mostly operating along the Sword Coast, with rather altruistic motives.

Like the Zhentarim, but (Neutral-)Good - aligned.

But I might be easily mistaken here, it has been a couple months since I last played the game.

It is the cache of someone from the organisation "The Harpers" or "Those Who Harp" with no doubt. Are you impling that I supposed to write "corpse of someone from the Harpers organisation" instead of "Harper's corpse"? They are normally called just Harpers for plural and Harper for singular. And either way this whole fact is irrelevant to what I'm talking about. Because I'm writing here about players route from opened piece of the landscape to some secret place. Seems you didn't read the rest of 3.2.

Well, if you had written "a Harpers' corps" it would have been more clear, yes.

Small differences in expression or grammar used can mean very big differences in understanding. Like, and I quote: 'B) Change all mentions of “our” map in dialogues with something more suitable.'

But anyway, I like very much what you have observed and what you propose to improve.

As if that one corpsE belongs to many Harpers? And it's still irrellevant if it's someone from the organisation or a man named Harper or a person who played harp. The post is not about it.
And what this sentence supposed to mean?

I think it makes a difference, if you are writing about a corpse (thanks for pointing out that mistake) from a person of an organization that is around the Sword Coast for a long time and has a lot of lore, or about a person that has the same name.

It was just a misunderstanding from on my side. I read "Harper's corpse" and was irritated because I never came across the corpse of someone named Harper. That's why I wrote my initial reply to your post.

Trust me we don't need this level of precision here. To make sure that Larian can find what I'm talking about I'm taking names of objects right from the game, aside from the corpse of course, because he's just "corpse" in the game, so I wrote "supposedly Harper's corpse".

Proceeding.

4. Overgrown ruins.
4.1. The reason to go to the Overgrown Ruins is a bit disconnected from the reality of the situation. Shadowheart implies that we may find some supplies there, but we have at least 1 portion of supplies already.
A) Don’t give supplies to PC and companions at the start of the game.
B) Put some supplies among the marauders' belongings in the ruins.
4.2. Why are there fragments of scaffolding and a hanging foundation block at the upper entrance? The place doesn't look as if it was in the process of building when it got abandoned and destroyed. I suppose the whole purpose of their existence is introducing players to destructible objects, so let’s replace it with something more suitable like an arch that survived whatever ruined this place and has some kind of a lamp hanging on it.
4.3. The Ornate Door with “no handle, no lock” should be indestructible, otherwise It’s strange that Barton's team didn’t try to just break it. Maybe in addition it should be opened by a puzzle instead of a secret trigger, so the marauders won’t seem blind and the player won’t need to rely on a successful roll to open the door.
4.4. The Entombed Scribes' positions are noticeably different from their positions in the cinematic. So, please, place them in the right places.

5. Druid grove.
5.1. The Grove entrance doesn't seem even partially hidden with those huge gates not fully covered in growth, their lifting mechanism sticking out of the cliff above and the well-trodden path from the Village. Also it seems odd for druids to have so many mechanisms (lifting gates, lift, something to open all those heavy stone doors) in their grove. I suppose they may have some mechanisms since they had an alliance with Harpers and Selunites, but they shouldn't have those in such places where the mechanism's existence defeats their whole purpose of hiding and protecting the grove. And finally the tieflings controlling the gates of the place which do not belong to them are looking like some usurpers. I think many changes are needed in that area.
A) Put some grass in front of the gates, so the path won't look that well-trodden.
B) Replace the gates with rocks similar to normal rocks nearby. It should look more like a result of a rockfall that happened long ago. Cover those rocks with a few small bushes, ivy vines and very thick vines. The thick vines should move the rocks away from the passage and put them back, they are the lifting mechanism in a druidic-magic style.
C) Replace the whole lifting mechanism above the gates with some kind of a stone with a rune, which is supposed to be the activating artifact for the vines. Place the Druid Sentinel (Sentry) near the rock so the druid would be the one opening the gates. (Yes, it implies some changes to the cutscenes related to the gates, check 5.1. in this thread for details)
D) Put a bush near the War Horn, so it would be disguised better.
E) Put a big stone behind the Wooden Trunk and Crates so they won't be seen from the road.
F) Elegis, Kaldani and Rikka should be resting around the campfire, only sometimes coming closer to the edge to check the road.
5.2. There are four spots with some interesting content, which are suffering from the same problem as Astarion's original position: we have no sensible reason to go there and are even led away.
A) Kanon’s death spot. Let Kanon fall off the cliff to the road when he dies. And if we don’t talk to Arka and Memnos right away, let them run to Sazza in the background when we will talk to Zevlor.
B) Nadira’s viewpoint. Let someone suggest that we use the Telescope to check the surroundings. It can be done at any moment when someone would talk to us about going somewhere outside the Grove or tell us that the area became dangerous.
C) Alfira’s little camp. Let someone ask us to call her, because she’s needed for packing while she is sitting there being useless. It can be one of the tieflings that were trying to enter the inner circle with Arabella’s parents (Xeph, Amek, Rechel). They can do it right after seeing that we are allowed to enter.
D) The beach with harpies and Mirkon. At the moment we need to come pretty close to hear the harpies singing and we are not provided any reason to even start moving in that direction. Make us hear the singing from a bigger distance. Even better if we would talk to Alfira first, she would leave her spot to help others with packing and we would understand that now we can hear some singing that isn’t hers and it sounds strangely luring.
E) Lakrissa's viewpoint. She herself may notice us on our way to Zevlor and shout from her spot inviting us to have a small talk with her after we are done with Zevlor.
5.3. There are two objects which seem out of their place in the Druid Grove.
A) The Bugbear Assassin. His whole existence is like a symbol that the Grove could be successfully besieged by the goblins without us. Let’s replace him with someone more probable: a harpy, a rabid animal, a fellow tiefling or adventurer that actually serves the original soul coin owner.
B) The Skeleton behind the Danis and Bex shack. Did druids or tieflings kill someone and hide the corpse the worst way possible? Did they keep him for the aesthetics? Either way it's a strange finding. It could be just removed or replaced with any other container.
5.4. The Underground Passage under the Grove keeps being a headache. It’s filled with shooting statues with no way to turn them off. At the same time those statues just ignore stealthed characters, and that makes them such a “great” security measure that no one should bother to have it in the first place.
A) Swap the open Stone Door that leads from the Enclave Library to the Underground Passage with the closed Stone Slab on the opposite. So we will be able to enter the little room inside the Library with no hindrance, but would need the circlet to access the tunnel from the library or vice-versa.
B) Replace the Ruptured Stones inside the little room in the Enclave with a small puzzle. Solving the puzzle should turn off the statues in the tunnel.
C) Make the statues ignore or not being able to harm whoever wears the circlet and all creatures in some radius from that person.
5.5. There are few NPCs missing in the Grove under certain circumstances.
A) Damays and Nymessa never return to the Grove. It's such a missed opportunity to have a fun conversation with them and Lae'zel.
B) Arka and Memnos disappear after the conversation near Sazza's cage.
C) Druids and tieflings from the druids-vs-tieflings cutscene pop up out of nowhere for that cutscene. I think the first druid should stand on the gates (5.1.C) and the rest should be placed all over the Grove.

Small update for this part: I found Arka's corpse eventually, but there is still no sign of Memnos.

I like those ideas ... but there is 5 small problems with them ... and its those goblins.
How did they make it in middle of secret passage, if they didnt wear the crown and puzzle still needed to be solved? O_o

You forgot about the druid, whom they were chasing.

That would mean bigger radius then i expected ...
But it could probably work.

Wow, great work to have collected all of these remarks and organized them .

It seems I have missed some points in my exploration

1.2.C / 1.3 B,C,D / 3.2 / 4.1 A / 4.4 / 5.2A / 5.5 A => +1

Regarding 5.3 A,

Contract or not, that's a full-size bugbear who somehow got inside a no-go zone for bugbears. That's like a huge sign that the Grove security measures are not even partially effective.

Or the bugbear is a talented assassin

No less than Agent 47.