Please just remove them. It will only improve the game. Don't replace them with anything, just take the stupid dumb things out.
It's just freaking stupid that every single character has every possible damage/area effect type available to them for no cost, at no skill.
Especially when you make 0 attempts to balance it in any way (ended DOS1 with I guess a bajillion grenades).
It either trivializes and cheapens the skills system if you use them, or annoying clutter if you don't (which I don't, because it makes D:OS2 much more "easy mode", like it did in DOS1)
Divinity Original Sin was NOT a better game in before grenades:
1- Speaking of balance, the Tactical Mode wasn't any easier than the hard mode in the vanilla game (mostly because mobs were using grenades as well as you). Ok, both versions were remarkably easy once you grasped the basics of combat and char building, but grenades were not the culprits.
2- Grenades, exactly like special arrows, were added as a tool for non-mage characters to get involved in the "combo spell minigame", which is the core of D:OS combat system. So they actually helped to balance character builds, not the other way around.
3 - Aside from some notable exceptions (charm grenades, which are overpowered like any other charming item/skill in the game) grenades were OP only in the fist half of D:OS, not in the mid-end where their damage output was trivial.
Having said that, I agree with some of your points.
1- The effectiveness of grenades and special arrows (range, AoE, damage output, chance to miss, etc.) should be somhow related to your character build.
2- It's definitely too easy to get a shitload of grenades/special arrows during a normal playthrough.
Changing the drop rate of both would definitely help with point 2, but I've always felt that - given the huge amount of consumables you're gonna find no matter what - this game
desperately needs an item quick bar in order to limit the usage of consumables in combat. This would help also with the scrolls spam.
