Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Start Level Items already have "Unique" names :(

One of the things that sparks joy about new gear is the feeling of rarity and uniqueness but the first Trader guy in the Druid Outpost not only sells +1 stuff, which would be fine and the limit I'd leave it at, he straight up offers "unique" items that have special names but are actually quite cheap and not powerful at all.

If I were to make a comparison, remember in Baldur's Gate II, the items with special names sold at Waukeen promenade were very powerful and extremely expensive and that really made the feeling of being able to afford them so much better.

Please leave the traders at the beginning of the game with +1 gear AND don't just throw around items with Unique names that are not powerful at all, it really diminishes the fun from being able to afford/find them .

It's basicly Monty hall right now, game feels arcademinded i doubt many P&P gamers would play a module or enjoy a GM like this.

Whew, good thing that we're playing a video game and not a literal 1:1 interpretation of a tabletop session then.

Right now magic items in BG3 feels like the same pasta everyday. Plentiful, cheap and boring. Same as DOS2.
Many people love pasta everyday. So I doubt the menu will change.

Damn, bad thing Larian advertised the game as a 5e d&d game then.

Also. Whenever we ask the game to follow the traditional rule set a bit more closely, we get counterarguments like "1:1". That is not what we are asking for. But you can't take away Larians own marketing strategy of the game, hyping the game for people that loves the 5e rule set and then expect us to shut up and be happy with what we get. At least not during an EA.
We understand that this is Larians interpretation. We understand that some changes will be made, either because of technical limitations or because it's what Larian envisioned. And we understand that several things that we ask for, won't even get considered. But we don't know which of those it will be. So we ask. we request. we make wishes. Just like people that wants to see less d&d in bg3 do. And coming with the argument it's a videogame. That is, in my opinion, quite weak.

It is sad that they aren't honoring this.

Let us all talk
Setting and Tone, to begin with

There is NO rule that says "a level one character cannot, under any circumstance, be fully equipped with loads of magical items". After all, if you really want to justify it through lore, you could pick the "noble" background in any game/setting and start the game with so much money that you can basically buy anything and everything.

What TONE is larian going for?
In DOS2 we're captured, put on a ship sailing to a prison island. That makes the case for lack of items, and yet as soon as you get to the island you find it all: magic rings, magic vendors, magic armor, magic weapons...
If Larian, similarly to DOS2, want to go the high fantasy route with BG3, magical items will be pretty common as soon as you start opening crates and looting corpses.

An argument can be made in favor of low fantasy/dark fantasy in which magic is often a more distant threat/phenomenon. In such a setting, it takes time for characters to meet any "tamed" form of magic: magic controlled by humans and usable for the protagonists' benefit rather than wild, dangerous, murderous magic.

Consistency...
Given the forces at play in this first region, I would argue in favor of such a setting. Goblins and druids, although for wildly different reasons, do not meddle with powerful magical artefacts. The former because they're dumb as rocks, and the latter because they get their magic from the divine forces of nature, which are usually of the perillous, murderous kind, but druids are able to master through training and faith.
We also enter the lair of a dead former red wizard, where we find a powerful necromancy book which should be extremelly difficult to handle for lower level characters, as it requires advanced magical training, and the mage that accompanies us must have some form of barrier preventing him from accessing such advanced knowledge otherwise... well, he wouldn't need us to begin with.

... Or lack thereof
The case of the tiefflings is a bit weird to me at the moment. They ran away from literal hell, and shouldn't be in possession of all the magical weapons and armor we find when trading with them. After all, when Zevlor gives us our reward for helping them remain in the druid grove, he basically hands us a picnic basket and says "this is ALL we have left".
Dude: the blacksmith over there said he was basically the best there is and can craft magical swords on a makeshift anvil that barelly stands as it is. I think you can do better than two apples and cheese as a reward, you cheap rascal.
EDIT: please make this a dialog option in the release version of the game

Conclusion
Obviously the game is still in early access and lacks a lot of polish. That being said, I have noticed some inconsistencies in tone, and the writing leaves a lot of "plot holes". In themselves, they are no big deal unless there are so many that they end up breaking immersion, making attentive players wonder about stuff that shouldn't bother them, thus distracting them from actual conflicts put forth through gameplay, level design and storytelling.
As a player, it isn't my place to DEMAND the presence or absence of magical items. But we can advocate for consistency in a game that is heavily based on storytelling. In that regard, there is tweaking to be done and decisions to be made as far as magical items are concerned, and I think it has yet to be made, or it isn't visible in the EA.

DISCLAIMER: I love magical items, as I'm sure many players do, because they make me feel powerful and excited to find more. But while they can make fights less frustrating, they can also make players dumber. After all, if you can blow up a wall in three hits with your hammer, why would you try to find explosives around the map to get the same effect? Low resources allow for more creativity.