- For starters, Larian themselves have advertised this game as being based on the D&D 5e ruleset. They did not say "Based on the Divinity: Original Sin rules."
Fair. However, they are based on the 5e rules. They may not be a 1:1 implementation of them, but you can very clearly see the rules have been implemented, even if they have taken some liberties with them. It doesn't matter which rules they changed in a video game adaptation, there was always going to be someone who complained about that specific rule.
- Divinity: Original Sin 2 is balanced on the idea of being fully charged with all abilities available for each and every combat. Tactics are King.
- Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is balanced on being fully charged after a long rest, and then having resources and options slowly whittled down over the course of a day. Resource Management is King.
The question then arises, are you required to rest after every fight in the EA? The answer to this btw, is very clearly no. In my current solo play through with a Warlock, the first time I rested was after clearing out the temple to Jergal+ all of the bandits in there. This is in a 1 player play through, where I have much fewer resources available to me. In the very first play through I did, when I was effectively going in blind, I only rested 3 times during the entire EA. There is nothing in the current EA that forces you to rest and putting elemental surfaces into the game does not magically change this.
Often reading the complaints leveled by 5e purists here I get the feeling that they are just not very good at playing video games and they want a game that reflects that, which, if you implemented the rules 1:1, is a situation you would have. There is nothing wrong with this and no shame in this situation, but it ignores the fact that there are other people, who want challenging gameplay. I personally am all for a game mode with perma death, enemies with both high ac and high hp, preferably with very good AI that heavily take advantage of surfaces. Oh, I would also put a time limit on the main quest with a hard coded failure state, to force players to be resource efficient so they cannot just spam rests.
Obviously this is not acceptable for most people who are playing the game, but having optional difficulty settings for this doesn't impact their gameplay, considering that you are then only opting into it if its what you want. Btw, challenge modes do not need to be "balanced" either, so long as the player's implicit understanding is that the challenge mode is going to be unfair to begin with. The Ultimate Challenge in Deadfire for example is in no way, shape or form balanced, but those of us who do try to beat it, enjoy doing so even though we know the game is very clearly stacked against us. Kingmaker's Unfair difficulty even has the name "unfair" in the title, that hasn't stopped me or others from enjoying playing the game on it.
- BG 3 is using Hit points, Armor Class, and Spell Slots for players from D&D 5e. They are using the Concentration mechanic from D&D 5e.
- Monster HP in BG 3 is usually higher, Monster AC is usually lower, and Ability scores remain the same.
- D&D's HP, AC and Concentration is not balanced around the idea of status-inflicting surfaces, status-inflicting attacks, and AoE attacks to be as prevalent as they are in BG 3.
- Just about every single surface effect in D&D has some kind of saving throw to resist for half or no damage. There is no such thing as a guaranteed hit from a surface in 5e, but there is in BG3.
Yeah, D&D's HP values are not balanced around the idea of surfaces, which means that if you want to include surfaces in the game, you also need to increase the values of monster hitpoints. This would ofc penalize non caster classes, which would also result in you likely having to reduce monster AC values, in order to act as a correcting factor. This seems to more or less match up with the system we have now. Other correcting factors can and should probably be implemented, like the saves which you have pointed out.
- Concentration spells are balanced around a roll under 10 or half the damage losing concentration. The more checks you have to make, the greater the chance you will fail. You are far more likely to fail checks because you're doing a lot more of them.
As for concentration spells, from my perspective the current situation is fine. If they break because you are standing in a surface, the chances are, its as a result of poor play on your part, because it is mostly avoidable. When I did the goblin camp in my current playthrough for example, I did not have concentration break once on hex during the entire fight. By breaking line of sight and taking proper advantage of terrain, maintaining concentration is not a problem. Basically, concentration in the current status quo rewards good gameplay. It adds an extra element of risk/reward to using concentration spells and forces a player to make more careful decisions than they would otherwise, which is imo a good thing.
- Enemy HP is way up, enemy AC is way down. This makes spells balanced around on hitting AC more reliable. This makes spells which affect a certain amount of enemy HP far worse, such as Sleep and Color Spray, because they can affect fewer enemies.
- Enemy saving throws remain the same. This makes spells balanced around enemies failing a saving throw will seem to suck more because they're doing less damage. Example: Sacred Flame - it does 1d8 - an average of 4.5. Fire Bolt does an average damage of 13.5 from what's supposed to be a 1d10 spell.
When it comes to spell balance, everyone who is upset about the changes to monster HP seems to forget one thing - You can very easily adjust the HP thresholds of those spells. Double the monster HP? You can double the threshold for sleep as well. Similarly, you can make adjustments to sacred flame.
- Armor Class is based around advantage being relatively rare. Statistically speaking, Advantage is an effective +4 (Disadvantage an effective -4). Constant advantage from high ground is and disadvantage from low ground means those on the high ground are dealing more damage, those on the low ground are missing more and dragging battles out longer than would be normal.
I agree advantage/disadvantage should not be provided for terrain differences, purely because it makes them too easy to acquire. There should either be a much smaller bonus for high ground (+1 or +2) to reward good positioning, or no bonus at all, because there is a more subtle advantage in terms of being able to position better against enemies from above.
- And I'm even leaving out bonus action shoves, disengages, and hides.
No complaints here, these should be adjusted.
- Larian has changed many things from 5e, but have left other things as standard. That does not work. The systems have different design goals in mind.
The rules of 5e are intended for a different design space, they are intended to make a game which is played on a tabletop. This has some constraints, for example, you cannot run 1000's of calculations for lots of small details, but it also does allow for spells like wish to exist, because you can come up with inventive and new results for the spell on the fly. If you are adapting the rules for a different design space, in this case, a computer game, it makes sense to take some liberties with the rules to better take advantage of the tools the new medium has available to it.
I defend surfaces, because they add a tactical layer to combat. They definitely need to be adjusted and aren't fine in their current form, but they make combat more interesting and better that they are adjusted than removed entirely.
