It seems like a day doesn’t pass where I read a thread of someone worried about save scumming, long resting too often, confusion over deaths, and general miss-understandings of the original Baldur’s games and DND difficulty in general. I’m sure Larian has done its research of this as well, but I sincerely hope they do not add artificial bonuses to the majority of difficulty options.
I think a large number of people who’ve never played DND in video game or table top form will be in for a rude shock when they realize just how random dice can be. For many of us, min maxing your character, using the correct buffs and debuffs are what make these games fun; the hunt to add whatever marginal benefit to the rolls you can find. Even with perfection, you will occasionally get a series of super low rolls, reload and try again. I fear a vast majority of new players who’ve heard and read about the hype for years may resort to bad reviews and speedy refunds when this happens. Most modern games try there best to help you succeed, they don’t want their players feeling like a failure. Well dice just don’t care. The difficulties and adjustments to each done in BG1&2 were spot on perfect(not the recent story mode) Easy made 90% of fights a face roll regardless of build or rule knowledge but kept just enough difficulty so that the player did have to learn a little about the rules to progress (basically that negatives were better in that version of dnd)
I know without a doubt Larian will not make normal difficulty use core rules, but how much hand holding do you think is required to keep 5e within modern normal expectations? And how much easier/harder from Core do you think they will give us?
