Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Few quick thoughts

Hey all,

Super pumped for this early access and the return to Baldur’s Gate!

Here are a few thoughts I had from my bit of time playing:

- Will we get the phb half-elf?
While the variant SCAG variant is neat to have I am missing my skill versatility. Makes it hard to flavor my character with extra skills with our having to seek a specific origin.

- Personally not a fan of having to hit a skill to activate the rogue’s sneak attack. Didn’t realize it at first until I was like I should be doing additional damage.

- Is it possible we can get an expanded section for skills separate from stats? If not can we at least get passive perception etc. separate?

- Quick add in, a way to toggle active searching.
Couldn’t find one so there wasn’t a way to make a roll when you see your passive perception failed.

Haven’t played a super ton in yet but I am having a blast. Thanks for the hard work!

Going to add on to this so I am not spamming threads. Several more hours of game play and here are some other things I have noticed:

-Not a big fan of cantrips suddenly doing AoE damage. Made since is Dos2 but makes no sense in context of the D&D rule set. Suddenly the cantrips are really powerful even on a miss, and punish way to much. Also a super fast way to kill a character who just got healed when they are trying to leave the aoe from acid splash, firebolt, etc.

- I have run into multiple instance where is seems like when I move in to attack the enemy just randomly triggers the opportunity attack and kills my action action economy to be able to strike. As far as I know there isn't a ready action, and even then they already used their action to attack. Seen mostly on Entombed Scribes and intellect devourers.

-The NPC AI is dumb and will constantly stand in a harmful effect outside of combat. I think this will likely be fixed as they do updates to the AI.

-Had a few run ins where my character completely saved on death saving throws but never came back with 1 health. Had to force a short rest for them to pop back up.

-Prepping skills on the cleric I feel are not explained well, took several moments fiddling with it to figure out how to swap and prep new spells.

-More question then anything, what is the point of a trap disarmament tool if I have thieves tools?

-I feel like we need a better notation for surprise rounds. Sometimes they happen and you are confused why you are in initiative order but getting skipped.

- Threatened needs an updated UI display, also we need to seriously consider the range. It makes no sense as a primary range unit to have some one standing between me and the enemy and still be in threaten ranged when they still would have to move to attack me. In the tabletop threatened means you have to be base to base, or they are using a reach weapon. That is usually not the case here and is a hindrance to range folks that are not right next to an enemy.

-Is flanking eventually going to be part of the rules? Backstab seems like it should be flanking but isn't also easy to confuse with rogue ability.

-Ability to pass through allies like in the ttrpg would be cool.

-The joint initiative is neat but also a pain I feel. Introduce the the optional rule for delay instead.

-Noticed on Astarion mostly that he has a bow equipped but instead is throwing a rock.

-The ability to choose known languages like in 5e would be nice, maybe that is coming down the pipe. Feel like that would help with some of the environment things it says you can't read.

-Why is short rest limited to once per long rest? That seems like it is going to hinder a lot of class features.

-Personally would like for the spell description to also tell you how many rounds they last.

-Feel the spell ranges need to be fixed or at least looked at. Several times had cantrips that should do 60ft in hex terms hit one enemy but the next instance the enemy is closer they suddenly are too far away.

-The skill checks need to show the final total with your skill modifier. Seeing the dice just show I got a 3 when I have an additional +4 to skill makes no sense. I failed yeah but I want to see the math.

Overall I can see flashes of glory, but being EA I understand there are things that are being worked on. hopefully these are more helpful then annoying!

For Sneak Attacks, although it is quite true it would be more intuitive to just trigger it automatically, the rules allow one single Sneak Attack per turn, so the icon allows the Rogue player to choose when to apply it on many attacks.

The rest of your points are good and relevant and many are mentioned also by others.

Skill Rolls : - the DC includes you proficiency and ability bonuses ; - you can hover the DC to see the math.

nb : Astarion throwing a rock is odd though. WTF :P

Makes sense for the allowing when to apply sneak attack, just a bit odd. May take getting use to.

Good to know on the skill rolls as well.

Yeah I equipped and re-equipped the weapon and he was still chunking rocks. It was indeed weird.

On the topic of languages: I agree it would be really cool, but I believe they've already discussed this: they wanted to include it, but was a bit too much with all the things already in the game (iirc). I think it was the Dropped Frames interview? Perhaps some low-impact simple things for flavour (as with your example of reading some environment writing) would be ok, but I can see players being confused about/displeased with languages being seeminly useless and not mattering.

Will have to go look up the drop frames interview and check it out. I mostly suggested because in one of the trees with Astarion you have an option to mention that you are Baldurian, so from there I thought some kind of these are what I know would be nice. Totally understand that adds a whole lot of extra planning on top of everything though.

Not 100% sure it was Dropped Frames, just to be clear. But it is a very interesting/informative interview, so I'd recommend it regardless. I'll need to rewatch it.

I think they could add languages as a low-key thing and just put a description in character creation that says something like "Common is by far the most prevalent language in Faerun, but at rare occasions one might find it useful to know other languages." Or something similar along these lines that would let the player know that it's not terribly important in the game and more of a fluff thing. And then when a player's tiefling comes across writing in Infernal in some cult hideout, the player will feel rewarded: "a-ha! I can read this odd writing in an obscure language - so cool!".

Alright I will dig around for the interview.

I 100% agree as a fluff thing it would awesome to point at and go I did a thing!

These final four: YES! I've looked more than once to see how long a spell was going to last. And spell ranges should be touched up too. Eldritch Blast's range is one of its strongest points. Right now it can only reach as far as the other ones.

God yes please on the skill check math. I always try to get myself Guidance before talking to a NPC, but I have no idea if it's ever used or not. I certainly don't know how to activate it myself.

I'd like to tack on a couple QoL changes as well:

-If you're going to make me roll for a perception/dex check, lock the camera temporarily on the character making the check. If it's multiple, lock on the "primary" character. Sometimes I'm looking ahead with the camera.
-- Even better would be a "pause while making skill check" option in the game options

-If I'm using a character to jump or misty step over a rather long divide that other characters can't directly make, unchain/untether the jumper from the party. Twice now, I've tried to jump an obstacle only to have my party try and meet them on the other side, only to run into traps or enemies I was trying to circumnavigate.

-If I discover something, please highlight it in the UI. I've found the "Alt" method of checking whats in a room is unreliable at best.

-Add a bag/quickbar autosort. If this already exists put it somewhere that makes sense, cause I haven't found the damn thing.

-Also, instead of subtracting your associated skill bonus from skillcheck DCs, just add it to the roll. Much more clear that way.

-Please add as much information as possible to the combat log. Shadowheart is always getting bane every time she attacks for some reason. I *think* it's related to her storyline, but something in the combat log telling me "Shadowheart got bane for a mysterious reason!" would be very helpful.

I agree with all of these as well! Some good suggestions.

I have also discovered it appears that the rogue sneak attack is not applied to attack of opportunities when you meet the conditions for sneak attack. I know your reaction doesn’t count as your turn in the tabletop.

Check your gear on Shadowheart, she probably has the Gloves of Power, equipped. Unless you bear the mark of The Absolute, it will cause you to get bane as well.

that's almost certainly what it is, thanks!

Still -something in the combat log like "Shadowheart got Bane malus [Gloves of Power]" would be super helpful!