On the character creator, that is core. You can't invest in an attribute beyond 15 and need to rely on racials to get to 16 or 17. Most games I've seen ignore this rule, but that is how it is supposed to be played.
That said I do think the game needs to be more transparent with your ability scores. It should show you which ones are getting your racial bonus and how many points you've invested into each attribute. I know I got a little confused at first because I didn't realize that the attribute total included your racial bonus already.
Aside from that I agree with a lot of your points, but disagree on the idea of surfaces and explosions not being very DnD. I've definitely played pen and paper games where players asked the DM if they could use their frost spell to freeze a puddle of water to make enemies slip or throw a fire blast to ignite some alcohol to make some enemies explode. Pulling off wacky tactics with creative applications of your abilities is an instrumental part of the pen and paper experience and a huge part of why D:OS2 is so beloved. The game was able to capture the sort of spur of the moment "not technically RAW" plays that pen and paper allows that video games usually can't.
Plus so far BG3 isn't nearly as bad about it as D:OS2 was. Larian reigned themselves in. Not every fight involves copious amounts of fire everywhere, which is a good thing.
I also feel like if someone wants to spend an hour dragging barrels around to make a massive explosion and kill something they probably shouldn't have they should be allowed to do that. This is a very pen and paper thing to do. The only thing I'd change is maybe let NPCs notice you're stacking barrels around them and react to that in some way. Or have someone get mad at you for running off with a barrel full of booze. I know I'd be pretty miffed if I saw someone do that!
Last edited by SaurianDruid; 27/10/20 11:38 PM.
