Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3, DOS and the D&D rule-set

There seem to be some similarities, yes. Though I can think of quite a few RPGs that start with a shipreck - KOTOR2, PoE2, Risen, Arcanum, I am probably missing something. It's a bit of a trope by now I suppose? And a fairly irrelevant in itself. Baldur's Gate embraced tropes - how it's done is more important, then what exactly it is. And as it seems we will be escaping from capture, rather then getting attacked does somewhat change the flow of D:OS2.

The source collar and the larva also serve similar purposes.

It should start like any other D&D adventure; So a rogue, a barbarian and a cleric walk into a bar......

... and receive a task to clear some rats in the cellar



The source collar forbids casting of source spells in Dos2; the larva gives you "force persuade" powers in bg3, I assume it allows vampires to walk in daylight and prohibit nothing that we know of. Also the source collar does not turn you into an abomination in a week.

I personally believe it’s more that source=larva=Bhaal’s heritage

It ties our protagonist together, grants special powers, and possibly will be a driving our heroes and companions forward, through the story.

Keep in mind this is not a traditional tadpole that turns host into Mind flayer After couple days. From what I gather from interviews it’s more of Captain America tadpole which will put you under Mind flashers influence if you accept its powers.

I mean on the very surface they're similar but once you start digging at all the differences become pronounced.

D:OS2- Your ship gets wrecked and you wash up on the prison island you were going to anyway. You're trapped with many others in the same situation that aren't related to your party directly. Your powers are inhibited and you must figure out a way to break out of prison and free yourselves of the collars. Narratively speaking nothing is stopping the characters from just existing in captivity that way, Their status quo is the thing they're trying to escape from effectively.

BG3- You're captives who escape when your captors ship crashes, which immediately derails their plans. You're effectively free from that point and you're on the run. Only your party is in the same position as you are, I presume at least. You have an active pressure to act because there's a direct consequence for inaction.

And as for the collar and larva serving similar purposes, they serve similar structural purposes of tying the characters together like Wormerine says, but within their individual stories their purposes are very different.

The thing that ties the characters in DoS2 game is that




The source collar is accessory, you can get rid of it after half-hour in the first chapter.

The Bhaal Heritage never specifically held you back or required you to do something about it in order to unlock your ability to play the game.

Nor does the source, and possibly larva.

Source was occasionally required but overall I used it as much as I did Bhaal's powers (so not much).

And it seems that larva, like Slayer form in BG2, grants power at a cost of... something.

They are contrivances to force mechanics in to the plot.

I'm not exactly sure what your argument is here to be honest. Let me preface by saying I've never played any of the original Baldurs Gate games so I can't judge what they did. But as for the source and the larva being contrivances to force mechanics into the plot of their respective games...yeah, and? Games do that all the time. Dark Souls is full of contrivances needed to get mechanics into the game; dying and being reborn, the way you use souls, humanity and the way reversing hollowing gives you extra powers. In Mario, all those power-ups are contrivances to get mechanics into the plot. In fact it's more accurate to say that they're contrivances to explain mechancis in a plot, since the mechanics would in most cases be there in some form no matter what, since the devs want those mechanics in the game.

As for your earlier point about the Bhall heritage never specifically holding you back or requiring you to deal with it to unlock your ability to play the game, I want to address the implication that the source collar and larva do do those things. I feel the need to point out that doing something about the source collar isn't *unlocking* your ability to play the game, it's part of the story of the game that you're playing, as is the larva. That would be like saying becoming a Gray Warden in Dragon age is something you need to do something about in order to unlock your ability to play that game.

I'm really excited for a successor to Baldur's Gate. Having seen ingame footage, it looks exactly like DOS2. I'm not sure if that's because during development they're just using DOS2 assets, or if that's how it's going to look. But since EA starts in a month, I'm almost convinced that is how the game will look. Now I'm personally no big fan of DOS2. So having BG3 look exactly like it, dampens my enthusiasm for the game. But the problem I see is, that in general the game is not able to visually distance itself from DOS2 enough. Making it look more like an expansion act for DOS2 that brings slightly different game play and rules. I don't think that the Lead Art Designer is doing a very good job, more like a one-trick pony.

They said "We were afraid that people would say that it was just Divinity: Original Sin 2 with a skin on top of it. We want no one to think that when they see it,*" and they failed that promise.

Already a more original start than DOS2...

*eating popcorn and waiting for those that are going to say it looks not so much like DoS2*

There are a lot of valid complaints about BG3, but even as an infinity engine baby, I can't really find the validity in this, as of the recent gameplay video.

You can see how much effort they went through to change the UI and make it its own thing, and while there are still holdovers here and there, given the progress they'd made by the Panel from Hell, I think it's pretty safe to assume this was a criticism they took pretty seriously, or at the very least something they had intended to work on since day one.

I don't want to illegitimize your complaint, though, I just don't understand what it would take for people to consider it to not look like a DOS2 reskin. Does it have to be 2D? Does it have to be RTWP in order to not 'look' like DOS2?

My biggest issue is that the game sounds like DOS2 a lot of the time, not so much that it looks like it.

There are a lot of mechanical and aesthetic similarities between BG3 and DOS2. I would say just as much as there is between Skyrim and Fallout 3 or Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid 5. That’s what happens when a developer has a particular stylistic sensibility about them.

This game does not look exactly the same, however. For example, DOS2 has much more stylized proportions for characters and armor, while BG3 is more representational in its visual approach. If that isn’t enough of a differentiation for you, fair enough.

Say for a second that BG3 came out first.. then DOS2. Would people be screaming, OMG it's BG3 with a skin! Probably. Except its a different world/location, different mechanics, and different coded rules in place with advanced graphics. Look, this isn't Bioware's BG3, it's Larian's. DOS2 was a good game, I just wished it used DnD rules. Now I get to have that and more.

Just look at this.

https://youtu.be/B9hU6UJX_pc?t=2170

The firebolt casting animation is the same as DOS2. The area of effect animation is the same. It also creates an area of steam. Even the sound effects are the same as in DOS. Same thing with the jumping down the cliff that follows a few seconds later. If you remove the HUD, there would not be a difference.



The difference being, if you place the hero if DOS2 into BG3, you wouldn't even notice something out of place. Try that with Fallout. And Fallout also has a vastly different gameplay AND storytelling than Skyrim.

If the similiarities were not enough, they even implemented speaking to the dead and animals to extinguish any doubts. They are basically doing a DOS with D&D ruleset. Looks like they only know how to make one game.

I really hope they change the UI, because it looks very MMO.

I already conceded that they are very similar and said that if the differences that are there are not enough for you, that is fine. You don't have anything to prove to me.



You know that talking to the dead and animals were in Dungeons & Dragons long before DOS2 was a thing, don't you?