Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 27 Hours, 1 Completion: My Suggestions

I am currently 27 hours into this game and have started a few different games with Warlock, Cleric, Ranger and Rogue. The game has some great moments and I am loving it so far.



I love how every conversation with characters is like a cutscene and that you can interact with almost any NPC. I love how many options you have ingame, and that you can ignore or help whatever people you like, and this will impact the story that is being told. There is a lot of great things in this game and I want to make that clear before I mention some things I don't like, and even hate,



First of all, I dislike only having one short rest for every long rest. The number feels too small, and I feel like I'm desperately trying to find ways not to short rest after a fight because I don't want to waste it and have to take another long rest after.

I dislike reactions being an automatic feature that you switch on and off. Reactions in D&D 5e are a very important resource in combat and have to be managed well, a lot of the time you may want to ignore an attack of opportunity in order to save your reaction for something else (a counter spell on a high level spell for example). Not having the option to turn on prompts for taking reactions feels like you've ripped a huge feature of D&D away, and made reactions less fun.

I do not like how sneak attack is handled right now, it isn't clear when sneak attack can be used and it has just straight up been implemented incorrectly from how it works in D&D. Currently, if I choose the sneak attack option on an enemy and miss my attack, I can no longer choose to sneak attack with my offhand. Sneak attack is a on hit affect that occurs once per turn after hitting an enemy, if I miss my attack it should still be available for my offhand attack or reaction attack that round. I need to be able to sneak attack whenever I hit someone, if the conditions are met.

I feel that some of these cantrips that are used to gain advantages in conversations with NPCs (friends and thaumaturgy) are currently too difficult to use. From what I have experienced, you have to use these cantrips before a dialogue in order to gain their benefits, I never saw any option in my dialogue to, for example, cast thaumaturgy and then try to intimidate the NPC. If I'm going to intimidate an NPC, I want the added option to cast thaumaturgy in the dialogue in order to gain advantage on my role. I don't want to have to pre-emptively cast these cantrips before every conversation in case I need them.

Ok, now on to the thing I absolutely hate in this game. Cantrips creating surfaces, remove this immediately! This is by far the worst change made to this game, and completely ruins cantrips for me. I do not find this addition to cantrips fun, at all. It breaks the mechanics of a level 0, spammable spell. If I cast firebolt, the enemy now has to stand in fire, if I cast ray of frosh, the enemy now has to stand on ice, etc, etc. Even when using these spells on enemies, I do not enjoy it. It gets even worst when you realise that even if you miss the spell, it still creates a surface beneath them. Missed with firebolt? That's ok because they are still standing in the fire you made. Missed with ray of frost? That's ok because they still failed their saving throw and slipped over that ice. This surface feature makes using cantrips way better than using weapons. If you miss with a weapon, you do nothing that round. If you miss with a cantrip, at least you can set them on fire, knock them prone, reduce their armour, etc. There is a reason these cantrips don't do anything extra in D&D, and it should stay that way in BG3.



Onto my suggestions:
1. Short rests should be increased to 2 per long rest,
2. Players should have the option to turn on prompts for reactions. This will let the player choose to speed up combat with automatic reactions, or play strategically and choose when to use reactions.
3. Sneak attack can now be turned on and off. When turned on, the next time you hit a creature, sneak attack with be applied if the conditions are met. You don't necessarily have to add a prompt to this one either. Sneak attack doesn't usually need to be strategically used as much as reactions. But, you can add prompts if other people feel I am wrong here.
4. Better sneak attack UI. Perhaps you mouse cursor with change to something if you have sneak attack. Perhaps there will be text somewhere telling you that you have sneak attack.
5. Players can now cast spells like friends, thaumaturgy and charm person when in a conversation. It will be an option alongside the dialogue options if they wish to use them.
6. Cantrips no longer create surfaces. Firebolt is reverted back to its D&D version (1d10 damage).

In terms of my suggestion on removing surfaces from cantrips. I think if Larian desperately want them to have surfaces, then they should at least remove them from attack rolls. This will mean that if a player attacks with a cantrips, and shoots a firebolt at an enemy, it will not create a surface. On a hit it does 1d10 damage and on a miss it does nothing. If a player just uses a cantrip on an unoccupied space, then it would create a surface; so firebolt creates a fire, and ray of frost creates ice. This removes the ridiculous surfaces on a hit or miss, but keeps in the surface mechanic. I would still not like cantrips creating surfaces, but at least it makes them a bit more equal to weapon attacks.



Keep up the great work Larian. The game is starting to look amazing. I hope these suggestion have been constructive and helpful.