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

How far in actually are you? They go out of their way to make the goblin camp fertile with barrels and the like as its the first non missable dungeon of the game, but i don't think if seen a barrel since then, no one in the underdark.

I think the consensus at the moment among gamers is the Larian mechanics are too over the top compared to D&D core rules and should be toned down. And if we keep commenting on the matter, they might eventually tweak some stuff.

Personally my concern is barrelmancy and hoardermancy being so powerful, it will overshadow spells like fireball or cone of cold. And it would be quite sad.

Combat

But you are right about environmental effects. Combat feels like Larian. Meaning it's fun but it's not D&D. Environment is just Larian's thing. Did you freeze that pool of water, blow up that brine solution, find your way to high ground?

This mirrors DOS which was all about surfaces -- how do you get yourself on the surface you want to be on and your enemy of the surface they don't want to be on. If you are on a surface you don't want to be on is it better to nullify it or make the most of it? I just feels like the people who designed the combat didn't fully understand or appreciate D&D combat. Well, and we know this for a fact because Larian told us they didn't like D&D combat. And that's what upsetting people -- to succeed you need to think like a DOS fan and not, say, an IWD fan.

In IWD you get "advantage" by casting buffing spells, using magic items and/or through you class features. Good party builds / good use of spells won the day. In BG3 I use firebolt and magic missile more often than not. Let's blow up that barrel that seems to have made its way to just the right spot. And I'm not going to waste a spell slot on bless -- the AC is already lowered and combat is going to over soon anyway. Why lose a turn using Faerie Fire when you can just jump up a ledge to get advantage?

The game doesn’t need to fit your idea of 5th edition. Dos with 5th edition flavour. What is exactly wrong with that? Nothing. DoS series sold very well And is an award winning formula, combined with 5th edition flavour, is a winning strategy.

From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons.

(snip) based on the D&D 5e ruleset.

I guess I'd need to hear an example of what a D&D game is, because a 5e ruleset on the backdrop of The Forgotten Realms feels like a D&D game to me.
I'm playing through DOS2 for the 7th time and alternate back and forth between the games, and the core feel and tone are very, very different.

If you play BG1 and 2, or the Icewind Dale series, or Kingmaker (since Pathfinder is just off brand D&D), just about every element of the gameplay in those games is tied to the ruleset they're adapting. Class features are the go to (and almost only) tool players have to deal with combat which makes the D&D classes the stars of the show. In BG3, my class features haven't played as big a role in my progressing through the early access build as the elements brought over from DoS. My fighter eats food to heal more often than he uses his second wind, because it's just more effective and plentiful. Astarion is casting spells from scrolls about as often as he's setting up a sneak attack because I've got a zillion scrolls and they don't need stealth or an ally nearby. And if I can carry an explosive barrel or two around with me I am, because setting one of those up and then firebolting it does way more damage than anything Gale can do by himself at level 4. The end result is that the classes don't actually feel very important and none of the class features seem especially useful, so the parts of the game that are unique to 5e D&D really take a back seat the parts that remind me of DoS2.

I don't want every spell scroll, barrel, or bit of food removed from the game, I just want the game designed so that the classes and which ones are in the party feel more important to the gameplay.

UI and Party controls hardly has anything to do with DnD 5e though, you are muddling together two topics I feel.

I totally agree that Larian needs to read the Players Handbook again, and all the spell rules, and make the game like that first, then see where they can add the "Larian flair". While I think the game feels like DnD and not DOS2, the game feels like it was adapted from DOS2, and they haven't adapted all the functionality yet.

[quote=Mogan]

BG3 is set in the world of D&D and is based on the 5e ruleset. Expecting a faithful 1:1 interpretation 20 years after any of those games were relevant is a bit silly.

BG3 is set in the world of D&D and is based on the 5e ruleset. Expecting a faithful 1:1 interpretation 20 years after any of those games were relevant is a bit silly. There are a lot of quality of life changes that I'm thankful for. Not feeling constantly deprived or starved of resources streamlines the flow of the game. Later down the line, it won't be as viable to eat an apple as opposed to using Second Wind. Shooting an explosive barrel likely won't be viable in every situation at mid to endgame. This is still early access and although the retail release likely won't be dramatically different, I think it's silly to shove two decades of advances and sensibility in RPGs under the rug just because you're not struggling as hard as you think you should be to preserve an odd sense of integrity.

And if you want the experience of feeling like a Cleric is your only option for healing and the whim of your dice rolls is your only option for damage, you could certainly just play the game in that fashion. It's a weird thing to complain about optional accessibility and then choose to reap the benefits of it. The beauty of this game is, you can choose to play how you'd like, and asking for things to be removed because they don't suit you to preserve your nostalgia and claim that "this isn't Baldur's Gate" when you could simply just not do those things is ridiculous.

Almost half of the times I'm crossing you, you keep using this argument about "20 years old design" but I'm not sure if I've ever seen a sensible argument about why this "new and modern" take would be an improvement in any discernable way.
This, even ignoring that Pathfinder is actually a 2018 release. One that technical issues aside got almost universal praise despise its limited budget, I may add.

The result of all this is that BG3 in its current form feels like I'm playing DoS with a 5e conversion mod on it, and not a game that was designed from the ground up as a 5e CRPG.

Well, it's far too late for anything to happen "from the ground up". The "ground" is far, far behind us now.

But the original post was spot on. There's too much of the divinity DNA in BG3 to my liking, and not enough D&D.