You're dead right about barrelmancy. Carrying barrels in inventory has to go, really. It's crazy, even if I did enjoy it on a test playthrough. It's clearly abusive. It detracts from all the core skills of every character, which should be the focus of the game, surely. The best attacks for the wizard shouldn't be stealth/barrel/ignite/shove.
100% agree, and it highlights one of the biggest problems with surfaces in BG3: they dominate almost every fight.
Chess is a game with beautifully balanced rules tested over thousands of years. Variations on the standard rules have been tried over the years, but ultimately they all suffer the same problem, which is that the new or modified rules become the focus of the game. It's inescapable, really, given that the standard rules are so intricately tied to each other.
I wouldn't dare suggest that the 5E rules are as balanced as chess, but the same issue applies. Surfaces can be a thing in tabletop D&D, but not in the excessive and overabundant way that Larian has implemented them, to the extent that most battles become an exercise in surface management.
It's not a problem unique to games, either. Imagine if Galadriel's gift to the Fellowship had been a set of assault rifles and a tonne of ammunition - the story would suddenly revolve around that. Introducing a new and substantial presence to something established and tightly constructed will inevitably change the focus to the new thing. These things are pathogens.
