I've written a pretty thorough spoiler-free review of my experiences thus far on another enthusiast site. I won't replicate it here, but I will post a few items I think are worthy for Larian's consideration:
The Bonus Action changes made from 5e to BG3 should be rolled back, in part. As it currently stands BG3 allows any character to Disengage or Hide as a Bonus Action. This is overpowered and abusable. It also severely limits the utility of Rogues, who receive Cunning Action at 2nd level. Cunning Action is a class-specific ability that allows Rogues, and only Rogues, to Dash, Disengage or Hide as a Bonus Action. Currently the BG3 version of Cunning Action only grants Dash as a Bonus Action since Disengage and Hide are granted to everyone. By reverting these Bonus Action changes to core 5e rules Larian can make BG3 less prone to abuse AND restore the severe utility nerf Rogues have.
Speaking of Rogues, what's with Sneak Attack?!? Why is it it's own separate button? The game appears to be able to calculate when Sneak Attack applies, so why not just automatically apply Sneak Attack to an eligible attack action? And yes, I know there is a case wherein Sneak Attack applies only once per round so a Rogue with a couple levels of Fighter and access to Action Surge needs to differentiate between the first and second Action being the Sneak Attack but that's an outlier and shouldn't drive the 99% of uses where the Rogue will only take 1 Action and that will be a Sneak Attack if eligible. And why are there TWO Sneak Attacks? Do we really need to differentiate between a melee and ranged Sneak Attack? The game should just apply Sneak Attack to whatever attack type you've selected.
Commerce. It's unintuituve. For example, let's look at selling stuff. There are the normal "vendor" NPCs that you can trigger through the dialogue tree ("Show me your wares."). But did you also know you can trade with other random NPCs you encounter? Probably not, because in order to do so you need to click one of the four or so unlabeled and unexplained buttons in the lower left corner of a dialogue cutscene. And don't push the wrong unlabeled and unexplained button or instead of initiating commerce you'll attack that NPC! Once you do successfully initiate commerce you'll be at an unusual "barter" screen. Oh, it shows your entire inventory and the NPC's entire inventory. And I guess you buy stuff by dragging it from the NPC's inventory to the area in the middle. But the value/cost of things that you tooltip over isn't the value/cost the NPC wants from you. Which makes commerce frustrating as you don't know how much something will cost by looking at it, you have to put it in the center area and if it costs too much you have to remove it. Ok, let's sell something. I'll just take my garbage items and move them over, and... click "barter?" No, he's not offering me anything. Oh, he's got a pile of gold in his inventory, I need to select his gold and move it into the barter area. But it defaults to splitting his stack in half, so I have to manually adjust the gold to exact value of what I'm selling. If it's even 1gp too high or too low the transaction will be declined by his credit card processor. Very unintuitive commerce interface. And you'll notice that I keep calling it "commerce" and not "trade." That's because there is a separate selector that's not highlighted that will change the transaction from "barter" mode to "trade" mode. What's the difference? I don't know, the game never explains it. I do know that some of my items aren't available in "trade" mode. Does that mean the vendor doesn't want them? I don't know. I never could get a "trade" transaction to complete.
Advantage. Why doesn't the game display both rolls for advantage? And I assume for disadvantage (I've not had a disadvantage roll). I had a roll at advantage against a DC5 check (DC10 roll - 3 for ability score - 2 for proficiency + advantage). I failed the check when the game showed me ONE roll of a 4. Is advantage broken and it really only rolled once? Did I get insanely unlucky and roll a 4 AND another 1-4? I don't know! It only displays one roll!
What's with the % to hit tooltips on attacks? I keep getting 95% chance to hit tooltip against imps on the nautiloid and other early combats. The 95% tooltip is odd. On a d20 a 95% chance to hit literally is "Roll a 2 or higher." But in 5e D&D the default Armor Class is 10. My character has a +3 to hit from his ability score and a +2 from weapon proficiency. Using the "Larian method" of calculating rolls this means the DC of the attack against an unarmored foe is 5 (base 10 AC minus 5 from my bonuses). Since an attack hits on a tie (roll = Armor Class) the enemy would have to have a -3 penalty to AC for my roll to be a 95% chance to hit. The math just doesn't add up.
Another item that popped up for me yesterday while playing:
In tabletop D&D a medium sized character controls a 5 foot by 5 foot square in combat. Enemies cannot pass through a controlled square but allies can. Halflings have a racial trait that allows them to pass through enemy-controlled squares if the enemy is of a larger size category.
Larian apparently hasn't adapted these movement rules and I don't know if they intend to.
Scenario: I'm exploring an indoor location. My protagonist opens a door and there are enemies in the room beyond. Combat is triggered as soon as the door opens and initiative is rolled. Enemy #1 goes first, hitting my protagonist in the doorway with an "Ensnaring Shot" so he cannot move. My ally goes next but cannot exit the room because in BG3 you CANNOT move through friendly controlled squares. Because the room I'm in is small and the room that the enemies are in is large I cannot get an angle on them and pass on my ally's action. Enemy #2 goes next and hits my protagonist with fire and knocks him unconscious, so now he's down in the doorway making death saves. Another ally goes next but cannot exit the room because apparently an unconscious ally is still considered to control the square, so my protagonist is still blocking the doorway. I give him aid so he regains consciousness, hoping to move him. My protagonist's turn is next and, because he's on fire, he takes damage and goes down unconscious again before I can move him, blocking the doorway. I'm now stuck in a permanent killbox.
Hopefully Larian adjusts movement so that you can pass through space controlled by friendlies and adds the halfling racial trait, the absence of which reduces the effectiveness of halfling rogues (who have already had a "nerf" due to the bonus action change).
