Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please have more faith in 5e rules

Yeah, this.

I know that the standard Warlock dip is a 2-3 levels for Invocations and/or Pact Boon, but I've played warlocks into level 10/11 range without them feeling weak or underpowered, it's all about maximising the utility of your invocations and spell choices.

Once you get to 12+ and there isn't much else there beyond the Mystic Arcanum, but honestly I've never had a game that started at 1 get much beyond the Tier 3 range anyway (and dipping 2-5 levels into Rogue or Fighter for Cunning Action or Action Surge is almost always worthwhile).

I'll completely agree that mechanically speaking the class is pretty front-loaded and that you get most of what you want from it in the first 10-11 levels or so, but I don't really consider it one of the weaker classes in the game (particularly if Hexblade is being permitted), though I suppose a lot of the class's utility is dependent upon how frequently your group can/do short rest (at the time in question I was playing with a Monk and a Fighter as two of the other three party members, meaning that short rests were fairly regular throughout the gaming day).

+1

Every change from the 5E ruleset neccesitates another change Larian needs to come up with and causes a chain reaction. 5E has been enduring constant balancing for several years. Game design should start with 5E ruleset and then adapts from there. Not make arbitrary changes like giving phase spiders ranged attacks on top of their already high mobility and poison resistance. Quarterstaffs and spears no longer versatile. Not sticking to monster challenge rating by using low level "Wood woads" but keeping their damage and resistances the same etc. Worst is surfaces guaranteed damage as it wrecks concentration checks for casters when enemies can always cause a concentration check by dealing 1d4 fire dmg without a dex save.

I love the game but every single balance issue thus far has been because they deviated from tabletop for unknown reasons.

To me it appears they have tried to balance the game like DoS2 with every fight being a decently hard challenge. That works when you can bedroll after every fight but that isn’t how things should be in 5e. Not every fight has to walk the line between and close victory and a TPK. Imo they should limit long rests to certain locations and greatly reduce the difficulty of non boss fights.

Agree, this game is basically reskinned DOS. I won't recommend this game to anyone in its current state. There are just so many things wrong

I'm also curious, what exact thing did Wizards of the Coast even do at this point? Lore? They definitely didnt ensure that Larian stuck to the 5e ruleset.

Disagree. I think the game is good as is.

That's some hot take there.

Overall this is definitely 5e D&D, sure it has tweaks, but show me a D&D video game that does not, heck show me a tabletop game that does not.

I think they will tweak things plenty, like amount of short rests or long rest being at will as it is now anyway. But some stuff will stay, such as surfaces - you can count on that one, it's Larian's pride and joy and for a good reason, frankly. I also bet they will keep cunning action for all too, I imagine it allows for more difficult encounters in turn, which is where much of the fun is in turn based game.

That's a bit of an overreaction. It IS the 5e D&D, but it is also a video game - there will need to be some compromises. This shouldn't be a surprise.

I don't think anyone is asking for a 1 to 1 adaptation of 5e (which would be nearly impossible to make a video game adaptation that's fun), but the surface system, as currently implemented, is just so backwards from what 5e combat is about that it doesn't even feel like 5e anymore.

Creating hazards/surfaces in 5e was usually special and impactful, but not the name of the game. Now, surfaces are so prevalent and impactful that it doesn't even feel like playing D&D anymore. Especially since the player isn't afforded any kind of saving throw when passing through a hazard (unlike 5e). Nevermind that the action economy was butchered by making disengage a bonus action.

This seems to come up a lot in the most viewed threads on this forum - and I entirely agree.

I loved BG1 and 2, and I love DnD 5e. I have tried to play both Divinity 1 and 2, and no matter how many hours I put in to those, I keep being disappointed with them. So I was worried when Larian were the ones to be developing BG3, but I figured they were developing BG3 based on DnD 5e, not just Divinity 3.
But this feels a lot more similar to Divinity than to either Baldurs Gate in tone/atmosphere. And it feels a lot more Divinity than DnD5e when it comes to game mechanics. I get that they'll want to reuse some of their own stuff, but there are many choices here where they could have chosen to be more true to BG and to DnD5e.
- Color scheme/visual feel - you could make a more modern version of the BG "look", rather than what still feels quite Divinity.
- Party management - the weird chaining thing drives me insane, why can't I just get party management like BG1 and 2? (And Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder Kingmaker, etc.)
- Items/abilities - what's with all the weird extra abilities added to items? There are plenty of cool and diverse magic items in 5e, and that can be made following 5e rules (as demonstrated by many homebrewers). There is no need to make Divinity Items here, you could be true to the DnD5e system instead..
- Class abilities - For most things, I'm pretty sure you could stick to the actual class abilities and progression, rather than add unbalancing complexity by insisting on doing Divinity Stuff before even really giving the DnD5e way a chance..
- Combat mechanics (why can everyone disengage and shove as bonus actions?)
- Rests - why is it only possible to do 1 short rest? And why can you just freely do as many long rests as you like, even while in very dangerous locations, with seemingly no effect on time passing or anything?
This thread by "Sirius Wolf" covers much of what I have also been thinking in my 20 or so hours in EA so far: http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=686488#Post686488

Anyway - I hope Larian will take it seriously that they promised a BG game based on DnD5e, instead of making what is mostly a Divinity Game adapted partially. I sense that they've pulled quite a lot of people in who wanted BG3 in DnD5e, and I think they will lose a lot of us if they end up making a game that feels in tone and mechanics more Divinity.

He's right though. It is a mess. I am finding it more frustrating than fun right now.

And I think part of the problem is the 5e ruleset. Not the ruleset itself per se, but the implementation and information. I have no experience with 5e and lots of experience with 3.5e, so I realise that things are going to be different, but Larian seems to expect us all to be completely familiar with the 5e ruleset. I have no idea what is going on and with no adequate tooltips, I will continue to have no idea. I can't tell if I am seeing bugs or things working as is designed. I am constantly trying to perform an action or cast a spell and finding it does something I didn't expect.

I went away and read up on the basics of 5e, and actually I really appreciate the differences - I think they are all great ideas. But that doesn't make BG3 any more comprehensible. It is quite weird because the game is actually quite easy, but I have to keep reloading in order to learn by trial and error.

I think they started EA too early. They should have polished Act 1 a little, put in tooltips and made things more or less work. A casual first play through reveals tons and tons of bugs that should have been squashed right away. And who in their right mind designs an inventory system without an auto-sort? Surely the algorithm is just a copy-paste from DOS2 (God knows they copy-pasted almost everything else).

They should diverge even farther from the 5E rules. Just about little annoyance I have with this game stems from the 5E ruleset and the things where I've thought, "oh that's a cool thing" have been divergences from it.

Put another way, I'm not looking for a faithful adaptation of a tabletop RPG ruleset. I'm looking for an exciting and dynamic party based CRPG. D:OS1+2 show that Larian can deliver on that. The parts of the early access that feel slow or boring or unimaginative have been things that cleave too closely to the tabletop rules. Make a good game first and worry about the tie-in after.

I fully disagree here, the primary reason I was hyped for this is exclusively because I was looking for a CRPG that used the 5E ruleset. So the more diverged from that the game ends up being the less value I will find in it. That said, so far its a LOOOONG way off of anything but a thin veneer of the 5E ruleset. Well beyond the category of "reasonable compromise for adapting it to a video game". There is so much that isn't even close to right. Weapon and spell ranges are way wrong, classes are only partially implemented in alot of places. At best, EA is a good start, but its way not as close to where I personally think it needs to be mechanically to satisfy anyone even remotely concerned with how it implements the 5E ruleset.

BG3 could be a fun CRPG if you don't care at all about 5E mechanics, but if you do, it is disappointing thus far in that regard. It was also pitched to us as being a 5E game, implementing those mechanics, and I don't see that delivered here. That is on them, because I consider myself mislead if it doesn't significantly improve from where its at now in that regard.

It sounds like you just don't want to play a game based on 5e. This argument is like playing Halo 3 and saying "Can you take out all the stuff that makes it Halo 3 and make it more like Call of Duty Black Ops?"

I feel like the game you want already exists. It's called Divinity Original Sin 2.

I disagree, so far I hear the idea that you can't implement the table top rules to a video game argument at this point as a cop out, or at best if it is true, developers just adopt that posture before actually getting anywhere near the point that it doesn't work. Also the mechanics in BG3 are not a "tad" off of 5E rules, they are way off, applying more of a light dash of 5E rules, than anything close to a faithful adaptation. Its 5E derivative, not depictive.

So ask for DoS 3. That is not a Baldur's Gate game

If I'm honest, yeah, I don't much care for 5e. Faithfully adapting it to a video game would create a dreadfully boring product, and fortunately Larian has explicitly said they're willing to make adjustments in the interest of making a good game. I skimmed the thread and saw all the "+1 more tabletop" replies and wanted to provide a divergent opinion, lest Larian think everyone playing the game cares a lot about fidelity to rules designed for a completely different format.


Hi Larian please shelf all the work you did on BG3 and instead make D:OS3 tia

Absolute +1, especially because those like myself familiar with 5E wanted/hoped it would be faithful enough to the ruleset to let us recreate the characters/builds we've played in the tabletop. So far, that is absolutely not the case, and not just because of the lack of 5E content available in BG3 yet. Warlocks for example, overwhelmingly often use Darkness/Devil's Sight as a combo, which isn't even possible because Darkness in BG3 arbitrarily disallows ranged attacks into or out of it. That is just one of many examples littered all through these forums where the ruleset isn't implemented correctly and borks character concepts and builds that people may have hoped to reproduce in this game, which was advertised heavily as using 5E ruleset. I am holding out hope that Larian can ultimately deliver on that promise, but right now, they haven't, and I am disappointed in what we have presently in that regard.

I've played dozens of games that adapt DnD and even the hack and slash action games are closer adaptations than this. So far this game is just the DnD character stats and skill checks partially overlaid onto the D:OS2 engine. Outside of basic to-hit calculations and in-dialogue skill checks nothing uses a D20 to resolve - including terrain effects, trip chances, and most other instances where a save would take place. DnD almost never lets you do damage without rolling (outside of a tiny handful of limited-use abilities) but the party I used to play through the EA content almost never rolled to do damage because it was so easy to just not.

Please please please this.

Why is there no dodge? Why can everyone bonus action disengage?

Verticality is strong enough as a way to gain cover/LOS enemies. It doesn't need to also make it WAY easier to hit enemies from as well, because it makes there be no point to playing a STR character when you could just run DEX with a heavy crossbow, take highground, and never miss a shot or take damage. Every single encounter overground allows this: The Gith patrol, the Gnolls, inside and outside the goblin camp, Blighted Village incl. the ogres.

Why is there so much access to healing via food, potions, and short/long rests? Why bother with a cleric? (Compounded by the ability for wizards to learn healing spells)

% to hit vs dice roll just feels way worse, especially because sometimes you'll get numbers that are just mathematically impossible to get on a d20 system. 99% to hit? Sure. How?

Why are throwables so common? Why does everyone have alchemists fire/acid/bombs? One to two a fight from a unique enemy type among goblins would be fine, I guess, but its way too common now. Fire Bolt and Acid Splash should NOT be the way they are now. Conversely, I will say I like the throwables you get from the Nautiloid - they're unique and you won't find them past the starting area (for at least a long while). Extremely limited unique effects for players to play with is fun! Having 19 alchemists fire, one for every combat in the game, is not!