Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides The Turn-Based/Real Time with Pause topic

Thank you for saying this.

I actually agree with you on this. I agree that whereas 2e was very simplistic in its combat mechanics and therefore much easier to replicate in RTwP, 5e is much more complex, and as such definitely lends itself better to TB over RTwP. Having said that, though, I think ultimately it comes down to the imagination and competence your game designers and programmers whether you can take 5e mechanics and make a good RTwP game with them.

I don't know if I'm the only one, but I found it rather difficult to let the ai, even custom scripting, handle casters. Either they would burn through spell slots or I have to micromanage and pause every few seconds. In 5e, most classes have spellcasting and those who don't tend to have a similar resource like ki points or a set amount of rages to use. I don't want to play the game worrying about my monk wasting a ki point to use dodge against some goblins. I'll be honest, I'm not gonna pause against goblins lol. I think TB has an inherent advantage in point and slot economy, since you have full control.

Again, I might be an idiot and it's an easy fix

The easy fix is to go with a party heavy on melee and missile weapon users.
It's how I prefer to play these games, which I feel goes a long way to explain my strong preference for RTwP.

Well yeah that does work lol, and probably for most people to be honest. But I love having a Warlock with pact of the blade and a monk for my melee guys, which both unfortunately have slots or points that could get wasted. Yeah I know I'm picky and want to try tons of builds, but I can't help it in a system of so many different options.

I am a 40 year player/DM of D&D and D&D games going back to Heroes of the Lance, Pool of Radiance and Azure Bonds on pc. Then Eye of the Beholder, Dark Sun, Death Keep, Planescape, Neverwinter Nights 1+2, Baldur's Gate 1-2, Dark Alliance, Temple of EE, DDO, Neverwinter, Idle Champion's and a ton of others that I can't remember right now. I am stoked that Larian is FINALLY making a D&D game after 40 years that closley resembles acual Dungeons & Dragons. Like Holy Sh!t, its only taken game companies 40 years to make a D&D game that really brings in the tactics and intricacies you can have in tabletop to the game market. Trying to implement the rules, classes and spells of the PHB as close as they can as written is a moumental task. Some of the D&D games of the past redifened the game markets back then. But those times are over... Let's continue those stories with something that actually plays like D&D for once.

Word!

Exactly. This game is going to make a freaking fortune, even in the middle of a crazy pandemic.

You mean especially in the middle of a crazy pandemic. I am catching up on all my abandoned RPGs. First D:OS2, now Kingmaker.

Right. Because there are that many people looking for a D&D TT experience in their videogame. Dream on.

Hey now, be nice. It is crazy hard to find a group to play TT with on a regular basis. So for me, I'm crazy hyped to be able to actually play TT D&D and remember what happened the last time I played lol.

I'm not putting down anyone for wanting that experience. I am merely reflecting what I see as a simple fact. I think those people who badly want a D&D TT experience in a videogame are heavily concentrated on this forum. But they are absolutely NOT representative of cRPG fans or even D&D videogame fans out there in the world. I think people who play RPG videogames are overwhelmingly people who want a D&D videogame experience and not a D&D TT experience in videogame form. In fact, I would not be at all surprised to see Dark Alliance outselling BG3. Again to repeat, NOT AT ALL trying to make all you TT fans feel bad. I'm just pretty convinced that D&D fans who want a TT experience get that from actually playing TT. And when someone plays a videogame, they want a videogame experience and not a TT experience as videogame. It's just my take. That's all.

Btw, as a side note, have you tried playing through Roll20? It works super well to replicate the TT experience with your friends from any where in the world. The only criticism I have of it is that everyone in the group needs a very good, high-volume Internet connection.

WoTC's own estimate of TT players ( of all editions ) was 15M a couple of years ago, with 10M players of 5e. As cRPGs mostly top out at around 2M sales, not all of whome are TT players, I think you are fairly safe in your assumptions.

Yeah I think you have a point there with people want a video game rather than a TT. But for most people, is TB really that much of a TT thing? I mean for me, TB doesn't give me TT vibes, but I played a lot of civ and XCOM before D&D so that could be why. Does TB scream TT to you that much?

Also I never thought you were making fun of TT players, I just thought I'd add in another point. And yeah I've tried roll20 but unfortunately I never found any luck there, I was surprised.

Yeah I myself am a decades-long TT D&D player. Just recently joined my first ever 5e game on Roll20. But I feel the TT has a lot of limitations on what can be done with a game, and so when I play a videogame it is with the expectation that that videogame experience can somehow transcend the TT experience and allow me to experience things (fantastic imagery for example) that the TT experience doesn't provide. And nowadays this includes NOT having to play with other people because generally people are beginning to really annoy me and I'd much rather play alone with the AI. Videogames, therefore, have become my sanctuary, my refuge, from other people.

Also, yes, I agree, liking TB combat and liking the TT experience are not automatically the same thing. A person can like one and not the other.

I agree with you there. I think video games should have great graphics, and definitely be able to be played single player. I will probably be doing so quite a lot.

Also I was looking at the different classes, and there is one subclass of fighter and 2 subclasses of rogue that don't have some sort slots or points to waste. Out of 41 subclasses (I'm just looking at PHB cause that's what has been confirmed for the game), there are only 3 that don't have something for the AI to accidently waste. So I think until some system can be put in place to make sure the AI doesn't do that, I think RTwP is at a disadvantage because I doubt everybody wants 2 fighters in their party.

From what we have seen of the proposed implementation of the 5e reaction system, you still might find resources being wasted. If I understand it correctly, you can enable and disable reactions, and they will trigger automatically, the FIRST time their conditions are met.

So if you are, for example, a caster with the shield spell reaction enabled, it will trigger and use a spell slot if you are hit, regardless of whether that is by a weak character with a dagger, or a very strong one with a 2-Handed weapon.

I'm not that familiar with 5e, but I think you only get one reaction per turn, so you also might find yourself not performing the reaction type you really wanted if you enable more than one. I'm not really into the combat side of things myself, but I'm surprised none of the tactics-oriented posters seem bothered by this.

Maybe we'll have something like a pop up asking if we want the reaction to trigger or not. But in this case it's a little bit useless to enable it before the end of your turn...

Really hope this TB is going to be more "interactive" for players and AI during other's turns. That could be a perfect mix between the classic TB games and the RTWP/D&D experience.