Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Constructive Feedback - This doesn't feel like DnD

Virtually no one claims that ground effects have "no business in D&D", most of us are quite aware that D&D has a lot of ground based spells like Spike Growth, Grease, Web, etc. as well as items such as Alchemist's Fire or oil/acid flasks. What D&D DOESN'T have are cantrips that deal damage AND create a surface effect in addition or even on a miss. Of course throwing an oil flask with your rogue and having your mage set it ablaze with Burning Hands or even a Firebolt should remain, no one is arguing that.
But a Firebolt that creates a fire ground effect by itself is a bit much, not to mention the general overuse of such effects.

Virtually no one claims that ground effects have "no business in D&D", most of us are quite aware that D&D has a lot of ground based spells like Spike Growth, Grease, Web, etc. as well as items such as Alchemist's Fire or oil/acid flasks. What D&D DOESN'T have are cantrips that deal damage AND create a surface effect in addition or even on a miss. Of course throwing an oil flask with your rogue and having your mage set it ablaze with Burning Hands or even a Firebolt should remain, no one is arguing that.
But a Firebolt that creates a fire ground effect by itself is a bit much, not to mention the general overuse of such effects.

Don't forget talking about dipping^^

Virtually no one claims that ground effects have "no business in D&D", most of us are quite aware that D&D has a lot of ground based spells like Spike Growth, Grease, Web, etc. as well as items such as Alchemist's Fire or oil/acid flasks. What D&D DOESN'T have are cantrips that deal damage AND create a surface effect in addition or even on a miss. Of course throwing an oil flask with your rogue and having your mage set it ablaze with Burning Hands or even a Firebolt should remain, no one is arguing that.
But a Firebolt that creates a fire ground effect by itself is a bit much, not to mention the general overuse of such effects.

Oh, you mean except for the OP, that literally said that? Oh my, what about all the people that wholeheartedly agree? They've been duped!

This is a thing I wish more people understood. We're not here to whine on the internet. The whole point of an Alpha release is to air out these things so that Larian can get ahead of problems. If we didn't see a great game just under the surface of this one, then we'd have just stayed quiet, gotten a return from steam, and left.

A large portion of the flaws and broken mechanics in BG3 stem directly from the deviations away from the rules of 5e. When you have a system that is designed to act in a certain way, every change has knock on effects.

There is no option to use the perception or investigation skill actively, instead your "passive" perception is a roll. This causes several problems and exploits. First, because it's a roll, it tells you that there is something to notice, but without a way to investigate, you can't move carefully through a trap filled dungeon the way you would in normal D&D. But also, your familiars get a "passive" perception check, and since each summoned familiar is a new creature, and is treated like a disposable pet, it can be summoned infinitely for free. So any time your group fails a perception check, you can summon new familiars until one succeeds on the check. If passive perception instead worked the way it was supposed to, then this exploit wouldn't exist. Instead, any character that had a high enough passive would automatically notice the thing on the ground.

Without active perception, there is nothing that the AI can do once your party successfully gets into stealth. Because Passive perception doesn't exist, everyone automatically succeeds on stealth checks once they get out of line of sight. Stealth is supposed to be something you can attempt with cover or concealment, but there is no cover or concealment mechanically, only line of sight. This means that rogues get shafted again, since they need total concealment to make a stealth check. The changes to cover and concealment and the seeming replacement with advantage and disadvantage from elevation also play havoc with balance. Cover is supposed to give a bonus to AC, and it's supposed to let you hide. It's not supposed to give you a bonus to hit.

The AI will drop everything to get a height advantage so that it can more easily hit you. And there is no benefit to being partially behind something. These two things trivialize a lot of the tactics of a normal 5e fight. But surface effects just annihilate them. Having rare environmental advantages and disadvantages exist in a game adds some fun flavor to fights. Having nearly every fight devolve into a fight to see who can explode the other the most with random explosive barrels does not. But it's worse than that. That's an easy fix, have less barrels, give the goblins fewer flasks of acid. Cantrips however are another can of worms.

....

This is a thing I wish more people understood. We're not here to whine on the internet. The whole point of an Alpha release is to air out these things so that Larian can get ahead of problems. If we didn't see a great game just under the surface of this one, then we'd have just stayed quiet, gotten a return from steam, and left.

A large portion of the flaws and broken mechanics in BG3 stem directly from the deviations away from the rules of 5e. When you have a system that is designed to act in a certain way, every change has knock on effects.

There is no option to use the perception or investigation skill actively, instead your "passive" perception is a roll. This causes several problems and exploits. First, because it's a roll, it tells you that there is something to notice, but without a way to investigate, you can't move carefully through a trap filled dungeon the way you would in normal D&D. But also, your familiars get a "passive" perception check, and since each summoned familiar is a new creature, and is treated like a disposable pet, it can be summoned infinitely for free. So any time your group fails a perception check, you can summon new familiars until one succeeds on the check. If passive perception instead worked the way it was supposed to, then this exploit wouldn't exist. Instead, any character that had a high enough passive would automatically notice the thing on the ground.

Without active perception, there is nothing that the AI can do once your party successfully gets into stealth. Because Passive perception doesn't exist, everyone automatically succeeds on stealth checks once they get out of line of sight. Stealth is supposed to be something you can attempt with cover or concealment, but there is no cover or concealment mechanically, only line of sight. This means that rogues get shafted again, since they need total concealment to make a stealth check. The changes to cover and concealment and the seeming replacement with advantage and disadvantage from elevation also play havoc with balance. Cover is supposed to give a bonus to AC, and it's supposed to let you hide. It's not supposed to give you a bonus to hit.

The AI will drop everything to get a height advantage so that it can more easily hit you. And there is no benefit to being partially behind something. These two things trivialize a lot of the tactics of a normal 5e fight. But surface effects just annihilate them. Having rare environmental advantages and disadvantages exist in a game adds some fun flavor to fights. Having nearly every fight devolve into a fight to see who can explode the other the most with random explosive barrels does not. But it's worse than that. That's an easy fix, have less barrels, give the goblins fewer flasks of acid. Cantrips however are another can of worms.

....

This is because I wanted to play DnD. I am playing Table RPGs for 15 years now and for last 3 years I DM and play DnD 5e. I was really excited to play BG3 and really happy that it's Larian that will make it. But I was hoped to play almost 100% 5e system. Maybe 95% as some things can't be that easy put into cRPG.

But currently game is too much like DOS2. And I really don't like it. I feel "cheated" (strong world but hear me out first) that I was supposed to play DnD, not DOS2 1.5. I know it's EA, and I understand game can still be changed/adjusted so I take my chance here to post feedback and hope that Devs will hear me out.

well said!
two minor disagreements:
even though i like alignment more than my friends, it's not really part of 5e anymore.
5e is not perfectly balanced. if you give out no magic items magic users will overshadow martials at higher levels.
also i would not mind them buffing shitty spells like find traps, witch bolt or barskin.

Its already problematic enough that goblins are throwing thousands of gold worth of alchemical bombs and magic arrows at a level 2 party.

Yup. It's riddiculous. Goblins are the lowest tier enemies you face in DnD, tied with Kobolds probably. Yet they somehow have funds and access to magic arrows, achlemical bombs etc. This is just stupid. So what Orcs will have? Magical Axes, magical plate armors, ring of protection +1, Orc Shaman will have Staff of Magi?

There is no DnD balance here. Take a look at NWN1 beginning or BG1 beginning. You are lucky to find something else than throwing axe from enemies and a wolf can kill you. Tha is what level 1 in DnD is. And goblins have 2 coppers on them, short bows and some normal arrows, sometimes club or dagger/short sword.

This is fantasy setting, but it's not DnD.

Speaking of balance, I aggroed the entire goblin camp by trying to get that goblin to kiss my feet. What ensued was an epic fight where I only had two characters using high ground to murder most of the camp(and only my ranger was alive at the end). BUT during the fight, a level one NPC used color spray 5 times (4 of which were in a row). Now, that's either a crapload of money he wasted on scrolls or the NPC's don't use spell slots like the heroes do. Just like the level 4 archers firing twice, or the level 5 gnoll archers firing three times. I love Larian, but I'm questioning a lot of their design choices for this game(which I wouldn't do as much if it wasn't marketed as a D&D game).

Stop using story as an excuse for shitty balancing. "oh its the absolute", well doesn't change that every Goblin has bombs and got archers with fancy arrows. That's not how balance works.

I read this as "Stop using the stuff the game tells us to explain the stuff we find in the game". What's that that Castle used to tell Becket? Oh yeah, "Stop ruining my stories with your logic".

You see, the problem with your ultimatum here is that I was responding to how they may have come up with this equipment, and how they may have learned better tactics. I get that we have to be on board with this "but my DnD" narrative, but the entirety of the plotline was approved by WotC. If it hadn't been approved, you can bet it wouldn't be in the game. No matter how much of a purist one wants to be, when the owner of the IP says "This is ok", it's ok. Now, you can rally together a social media mob to attack them if you're unhappy about their decision, but until they reverse course on it, they've approved it, and that means that it is, in fact, DnD.

A lot of people want to crack the whip on Larian for poor writing, but here's the story you're trying to tell, in a nutshell:

So a new power in the Realms is trying to take over and remove all the Gods from their pantheons. What is their army, you ask, and rightly so, for such an ambitious undertaking? Why, it's Goblins of course, armed with pointy sticks.

Do you see the flaw with your narrative here? The Absolute, whomever they may be, is very definitely well connected. How do I know that? Because our tadpole has been altered. I'm afraid that the clout, and ability to do something like that is going to require something more than goblins with pointy sticks. So while people huff and puff about "not DnD" about something that was approved by the people with the final say on what is or isn't, I have to look at the story, and plot, what of it we have at this point, and make a judgement call based on what's been provided to us. That you, or anyone else, want(s) to ignore that because "but my DnD" doesn't mean a whole lot in the current context of how content gets introduced into the game. It's not some homebrewed version of DnD, it's approved by the owners of the source material, and if they say yes, you can slip into denial, and try to ignore the information provided in game all you like, but it doesn't make you right, and, it doesn't give you some sort of "high ground" to say "stop using things in the game to explain things in the game".