Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Baldur’s Gate 3 – Homebrew Rules breaking Spell Slots & Action Economy

You honestly believe this crap given how powerful surfaces are and how plentiful they will be with level 3+ spells? KEKW.

You might be begging Larian to nerf magic back after release when you will have whole battlegrounds swimming in fire, ice and static clouds. You already have a very tiny preview with Firebolt and Ray of Frost... just wait until you will have this with Ice Storm and Fireball then a well placed lightning spell to create a huge static loud of fu to everything.

But hey, I bet you don't give a ...much... about this anyway because it's 50th thread on same bloody topic and you sure heard this response and ignored it anyway for 100th time.

I did read your post and I disagree with your conclusions that the "homebrewed" rules introduced by Larian upset game ballance making martials better than casters. Sure Astarion backstabbing is powerful but so is using command or hex on an opponent (btw I completely shut down auntie Ethel with this combo, while magic missiles helped me deal with her clones, as a fact, dealing with her with 4 martials would have been a lot more difficult) and this on top of the current system allowing you to "recharge" after every encounter by taking a long rest which makes your caster going nova much easier than it should be. Let me add I think Larian should not allow wizards to be able to cast cleric spells (I tenbd to think it's a bug more than a choice on their part though).

Well, I welcome any kind of positioning regarding this topic. If you read the thread, I do say in the first lines that I’m not trying to convince anyone. Yet, even though you disagree with my view of the impacts generated by those rules you failed to give me a solid argument. I didn’t mention casters as obsolete. I’ve done a pure analysis based in facts and numbers to prove the casters lost their spells slots values. Nevertheless, thank you for disagreeing with respect.

Well argued. The problem might as well be fixed by some further balancing to spells, but minimising RNG risks breaking core DND systems. I am shocked that surfaces in BG3 don’t require a save roll - providing a reliable damage via surfaces threatens to completely nullify all other systems.

I want to add one more homebrew that is gamebreaking. Max range of a ranged attack being 60 feet. If Eldritch Blast/Longbow/whatever caps out at 60 feet that means any creature in the game can dash from the frontline to your squishy casters.

Particularly rogues/any NPC that can dash as a bonus action can go from maxrange to stabbing your wizard in the same turn and that's a huge issue.This nerfs ranged characters big time and makes them never be safe.

I'm not going to address every single item on your list, but I will address the point of "HP Bloat" because I really am not seeing it. Yeah, the goblins have slightly more HP than in the Monster Manual. There are also many enemies within the game that do not have more stats than in the monster manual. Do the goblins feel bloated when you fight them? Well, lets do a little bit of analysis. Shatter does 3d8 damage. The average damage of a cast of shatter is 13.5 (not 12) and the result of casting shatter is most of the goblins within it usually die. How about single target attacks? Ok, sure if you arbitrarily select the damage range of a longsword without any modifiers, you aren't going to be killing a goblin in a single blow, but you do not use unmodified damage ranges when making an attack anyhow. If you are approaching this fight at level 4 (which is when you are likely intended to fight it) you will probably have 18 strength, so for arguments sake you have +4 from strength. Lets say you are using a +1 greatsword (these are really easy to acquire at this point in the EA), so thats 2d6+5 damage. The average damage of an attack in this scenario is 12. Not instantly dying, but pretty close. If you count the dip mechanic (which I consider to be a stupid mechanic, there is nothing believable about it at all) then the average damage is pushed up to 14.5 and they are dead. Pretty much any other class has additional mechanics to close the gap. Warlock has hex, Hunter has Hunter's Mark and Rogue has sneak attack. These Goblins will almost certainly die in 1 hit.

Now, here is the thing. The Goblin camp is intended to be an encounter for level 4 adventurers. It is not intended to be an encounter for level 1 adventurers. Following that logic, it makes sense to either throw a lot more of them at you, or to tweak the HP of some of them. The interesting thing is, there are some Goblins which have 8 hp. What makes those Goblins different from the others? They are only Goblins. All the other Goblins are given 1 or more levels in a player class and the HP bonuses they receive mirror the bonus they would get for having that respective number of levels within that class. The Sharpshooters are I think the most common and are the ones sitting at 12. But lets assume this was not the case, lets assume that all the Goblins did not have player class levels. The HP of a generic Goblin in the MM is 2d6. The maximum roll of which is 12. So you could justify a "by the book" goblin with 12 HP and 15 AC, which is statistically more defensive than both of the examples you gave.

The more important question is: Does the combat "feel" bloated. My answer to this is very clearly no, it does not. Encounters end very quickly, even the set piece battles. If both the HP and the AC of the Goblins was increased further, I personally would not care much, because I don't even notice it as it currently stands in terms of the feel of gameplay. Let me be clear, I do not like HP bloat. There are fights in RPGs that I outright refuse to do because they are bloated, for example, the giant ooze in pillars of eternity 2. That fight is probably the single worst example of HP bloat in RPGs to date. The fights in BG 3 do not feel HP bloated at all. It feels more like, the developers took some liberties to scale an encounter with low level enemies to a slightly higher level party and that is perfectly acceptable.

You want to make some noise about HP Bloat? Sure, do it when you have an actual example of HP bloat instead of making a big nothing about a situation which doesn't look bloated at all. I will be there, right behind you, complaining about that bloat as well, but this is not that situation.

The reasons you are not addressing all the items in this thread are the reasons you cannot see the problem.

I brought 3 mechanics and how they intertwine into a new metagame. Addressing solely one wouldn’t make it, although the bloat itself is bad enough. The only way to increase damage output of that spells is to upcast it and that’s why the effectiveness of the spells decreased comparing to dnd5e.

I advice to read the whole thread before spotting the word “blot” and start to rage against it.

The whole thread was all about spell value & effectiveness and you’ve failed to point why they’re still effective compared to dnd5e.

If you can point that and if they’re still reasonable other than just distilling rage, I’d might review my thoughts about it.

There’s plenty of spells mentioned through the post, so get one of them and tell me how the game highlight their potential.

I would point out the 2d6 for hp for goblins...I know 4 DMs as well as myself (sorry we dont all know each other 4 is what I have) and through the streams I watch and DMs on youtube and all that...I have never seen anyone roll for creatures. It would be such a pain in the ass. You might have 6 goblins with 2 hp. The variability of the encounter then makes you say "well thats too weak, lets just keep adding them until its challenging" because youre a DM and you know how numbers work and you know what your PCs are so you have a prettty dialed in understanding of what it will take. It would also make you decide if you want pack tactics or individual initiative depending on the HP and number of gobbos and you run the risk of a band of 12 goblins TPKing on a good initiative because of damage output instead of just 5 being a reasonable fight that has a more controlled swing.

If it says 2d6 its 7. Hobgoblin is 2d8+2 thats 11. You do the average, then round the hit dice (down), then halve that number and add it to the average. Young Red dragon? 17D10+85. Which is 17*5+85 = 170. 17 rounded is 16/2 8 = 178. If a DM adjusts bosses and stuff like that, fine. Your rank and file is gonna be straight out of the book though, so I wouldn't use hit die rolling as a factor, it just doesn't happen unless the DM has said ALL goblins in this encounter have 10 instead of 7. No one manages that crap by hand, its prohibitively time consuming to run and track the minis to their sheets.

As to Hit Dice, they're mainly there due to a number of spells affecting a set number of Hit Dice.

In the Monster Manual it typically lists things like:

Hit Dice: 5d8 (22).

So they're 5 Hit Dice monsters, and have 22 HP.

I mean normally every level except first you're supposed to roll your characters HP. They decided to go with "max HP at first, average HP after 1st" which has been a common house rule for a long time. They might have even made it a "standard" option for 5e.

Just adding a little feedback from someone who has never played d&d tabletop
Firstly this is the first post that actually made me understand why some people are complaining about HP bloat and AC changes so thumb's up to OP

But as someone who loves the forgotten realms and has read 200ish novels, and played every d&d game ever i really do care about the world and that the game is fun

recently i played solasta which is supposed to have implemented the rules perfectly and i must say that at times combat in the game was frustratingly slow and annoying, one fight near the end of EA all 4 of my companions missed all attacks
5 turns in a row, that's 20 misses in a row - i must say for the average player this is not fun and if Larians homebrew rules fix this and it makes for a better video game they should keep the changes

I do hope they have difficulty levels and one of them is CORE that mimics 5E faithfully and a normal mode(what they have now) for players like me

Disagreement is fine of course. I just feel your analysis does not take all changes/factors in account.

1.Most spells are not just raw damage. Stuff like command can actually shut down extremely powerful opponents (I mentioned how I used it to make the auntie Ethel encounter trivial and she can be a nightmare if you try to face her without spells). This will obviously become more and more relevant as long as levels keep increasing.

2. The current amount of damage spells can do is still superior to what most martial characters can do with a single attack with spells like Magic Missile automatically hitting target and causing force damage (which means no resistance in 99% of situations). If you don't believe me search the topic on YouTube. You'll find people rolling wizards that deal 40+ damage per round, something a martial is currently hard pressed to do unless we are talking about a rogue sneak attacking with good weapons and venom (which means investing consumable resources).

3. Even this early in the game some spells have the potential to hit multiple opponnets on a consistent basis increasing the total amount of damage accordingly. Martials cannot do this unless in very specific circumstances (basically a once per short rest power that triggers if you are using the correct weapon type).

4. Spells drammatically increase in power when you unlock new spell slots, attacks do not (unless you are a paladin and use divine smite, obviously, but then you are actually using spell slots).

5. You ignore the fact that under the current system you can recharge your spells after each encounter by taking a long rest whenever you want. That's actually a huge bonus for casters who can always go nova because of this instead of having to manage their resources. This fact alone makes casters way more powerful than they would be in a normal D&D campaign.

Bottom line: you seem upset that Larian introduced some rules that benefit everyone (casters included when you occasionally need to attack with weapons instead of using spells) as long as you know how to position yourself, exploit high ground, attack from the shadows and so on and that they tweaked monsters hps so they don't die after one spell hit (not all of them btw, you can easily get rid of 12hp goblins with single target spells). You seem to feel like making martials an edge when fighting makes casters less viable and I think that's simply not the case at all.

Hi Tulkash,

I wonder if my language problems turned your life harder while diving deep into this text. Because by reading your comments seems that you couldn’t understand the analysis I’ve done.

1. Yes. I know. Half of this thread is about utility spells and how they lost value compared to dnd5e.

2. Yes, that’s why they are limited by spell slots? Damage dealers are fighters/Barbarians/Paladins. Of course all classes can deal damage but the martialists are superior because of the reliability

3. ?????????

4: do you actually have played DnD? No upcast can be compared to fighters multiple attacks per turn. Again, their “thing” is consistency and reliability.


5: now you are using a broken system to justify another. Resting system sucks in BG3. And that’s my main “that’s why people cant see how Casters sucks compared to dnd5e”

Reviewing your bottom line:

No. Actually I do feel boredom. Combat feels cheap because again, it’s unbalanced. Try to read this post again because so far you couldn’t capture the essence of it.

1. I don't see it. On the contrary, if properly used the utility of some spells in BG3 makes encountes much easier to deal with (example provided above btw).

2. That's actually how D&D 5th edition is supposed to be ballanced. A single spell does more damage than a single attack or even 2 attacks later on but spells are consumable resources so you need to use them when they really matter. In BG3 spells do more damage than attacks and they are trivially easy to renew which means on a single encounter casters can just go nova, outdamage martials, rest and then do the same when next encounter pops up. You seem to complain about the fact Larian introduced rules that make martials more likely to hit as long as you can position yourself correctly on the battlefield exploiting those advantages. Therefore removing such "homebrews" would just exacerbate the problem of caster dominance over martials but you seem oblivious to this.

3. I meant spells can reliably be used to hit multiple targets from early on while martials are limited to single/double attacks. With correct positioning you can use a simple spell like buring hands to finish off 3/4 weakened opponents in one go or damaging them enough to make it trivially easy to kill them off afterwards. Martials can't really do this in a reliable way, in BG3 they can focus their attacks on an opponent and take it out in a couple of rounds or more depending on rolls (I had Lae/zel fail 3 attacks in a row with 94% chance of hitting XD...).

4. I both play and DM D&D, I did so in the last 25 years, thank you. As said above in D&D 5th edition damage spells are designed to do more than attacks while attacks are obviously more consistent because they are not limited by spell slots. You either use damage spells to get rid of a single opponent ("save or suck" spells work better in this rergard though) or to weaken/kill monds of weaker enemies. Generally speaking martials don't work that way and can't do those things (paladins can effectively go nova thoiugh... if they spend spell slots!).

5. Yes, BG3 resting system doesn't work (imo) as it is now it just makes casters better than they are in D&D because they don't need to manage resources and can always go nova this fact currently makes your claims about spellcasters getting less from spellcasting null & void imo.

I completed BG3 EA twice and combat felt just fine if a bit easy. You claim you feel boredom at how combat works... but the current system encourages you to position yourself and to move tactically (which requires a bit ot thought on the player's part) while you ask for the nerfing of opponents so that your spells can do more than they already do (read: a lot) and the removal of those modifiers that make martials better at attacking the enemy while positioning themselves in order to gain those advantages (advantages that btw, work for casters as well as martials, try to cast a cantrip from higher ground than your target, your chances to hit will be better than what you'd have doing the same while on the same level as your opponent). Basically you are saying you are bored because your spells can't kill stuff on the spot (and they actually can, btw) without you needing to position yourself tactically in order to gain advantage/defend yourself from reprisal.

To you a game where you point your finger at opponents and they die would be less boring than a game where you actually need to plan your moves it seems... To each is own I guess but allow me to disagree with this notion completely.

Dear Tulkash,

Yeah, I guess you couldn’t capture the essence of the text at all,

Let me summarize: I’m comparing DnD5e vs BG3 spell effectiveness. That’s all. I’m not saying that spells don’t work. I’m not saying that they aren’t good.
I’m not saying that we should one shot foes. I’m also not saying that spells don’t do damage.

I’m a lore bard player. I play it 80% of the time. I hate blaster spells and love control spells. I feel tactical by manipulating the odds of the battle by using spells. And personally I foresee that those homebrews aren’t contributing to that kind of play style. That’s my personal feelings related to how this new meta will undermine some classes.

Vicious mockery will be less effective
Bardic inspiration will be less effective
Buffs and debuffs will be less effective

That’s it

That’s an analysis. Not my opinion.
My opinion is: this meta sucks.

The more advantage is on the board, the less buffs worth.

I’m very happy that you and some other folks are happy with the mechanics.
I can understand that and if the game follow that path till the very end I’m not going to drop it because it doesn’t fit to my play style. I have already the perfect metagame to destroy battles with the game AS IS

I expected to see people that don’t have the same opinion sharing actual numbers to show me that I’m wrong. I hope I am. So far? Not convinced

Fun fact, just yesterday I completed my second playthrough of BG3 EA and I thought how much more powerful my party could be when including a bard making it easier for everyone to hit stuff...

All I need is a "jump scroll" to be introduced. That is the only reason I even have a Ranger...otherwise I'd run 4 half wood elf rouges. Which I have and mopped every battle thrown at me. I'm not sure if this what OP's overall point is? But If I interrupted it correctly, yes spellcasters are completely useless in my playthroughs. But maybe I'm offbase. *Shrugs*

And that is very nice and all and sure, for a table it makes sense because it would take forever to roll the HP of every single goblin and there is no real reason to, but the rules don't say, "Goblins have 7 hp" it says, "Goblins have 2d6" hp. A Goblin can have anywhere within that HP range of 2 to 12 and it will be per the official rules. You know the great thing about computers though, they could roll the HP for every single monster in the game in under a second and it would not slow down gameplay at all. I am personally fine with Goblins that have 15 AC and 12 HP, as per the rules if Larian decides they only want to use maximum HP rolls for monsters. Sounds good?


No, the problem is you are not reading my post. Your post started off with the assertion that monsters have bloated HP and then went on to use that assertion, combined with some other rule changes, to make some claims about spell efficiency. Those claims about spell efficiency by the way, are probably true regardless of whether or not HP is bloated, I am not here to argue about that. I am just tired of the outright, blatant lie that monster HP is bloated in this game. Here is a screenshot for you of a fight where you engage every single goblin in the goblin camp.

Goblins have, as per the rules, 2d6 HP. There are a sum total of 2 goblins in this picture with have more than 12 hitpoints. You know which ones those are? They are the 2 Goblins which have player levels and they are intentionally modified to have more statistics to represent the fact that they are more like "boss" encounters.

You made the assertion, in your post, that monster HP is bloated in this game. The burden of proof is on you to show that this is the case. I wish you luck with that, because I can quote those very rules which you are complaining Larian is not following, which shows that the HP values these Goblins have is perfectly valid, as per the rules as written. You should probably complain their AC is too low though, if anything, there is not enough bloat and they should have 12 HP and 15 AC, because that would be a Goblin of this type implemented by the rules. Saying, "monsters have bloated HP" does not make it automatically so. You need to prove it. If there was actual HP bloat btw, I would be right behind you complaining, but there isn't and encounters feel relatively fine in terms of monster HP.

And here is the thing. Larian is the DM here, maybe, perhaps, they do not want this encounter to be won using the list of utility spells which you would prefer to have used. They are the one designing this setting, not you. Either way, whilst your complaints about rule changes for backstabs/height are perfectly valid, I am still waiting for someone to show me an example of a legitimately bloated creature, which does not have a very valid reason for having higher stats (for example, being a boss encounter).

I can understand where people are not totally happy with the way things are working right now. I do know that Larian has said one purpose for this EA is for them to learn to tweak the game to make sure it is the level of challenge they want but not too harsh. Thus they have maps showing where people die, what they die from, etc. Using that data (with some feedback), they will slowly tweak the game to be where they want.

Now personally, I would prefer things to be closer to the handbooks than not. I would prefer to see a RANGE of hit points and armor classes among goblins. Some with lower AC, some higher. Some with 7 HP and some with Higher. I can even see why an area would have higher HP due to their ties to the Absolute. Perhaps the 'branding' is making them stronger. It does not do this for you because you are infected by a parasite already.

The way advantage is handed out may need some tweaking. High ground should not always get advantage (IMO), but if they want to rule that is their call as it is NOT addressed in the core books (IE the PHB or the DMG neither one says High Ground does/does not grant advantage, instead they leave granting advantage/disadvantage up to the DM). In playing this game we are not the DM but the player.

Sharp, I see that in the end we don't think in oposite directions.

I’ll throw those homebrews over the table:



https://imgur.com/kpULBht
https://imgur.com/c6s2HrT

Two examples of higher HP than the monster manual could possibly allow? Well, the example was given.

I'm adult enough to accept some cases where the HP is higher than the MM HP. My whole point was a thesis to debate spell efficiency.

One of the rules that I brought was this bloat + Decrease AC - TOGETHER. How it does favour spell efficiency? A martial fighter would have an easier like with his reliable damage output per turn against a caster who struggle to dish damage because we rules remained unchanged. See the point?

Please, pay attention where I do say that those 3 homebrews INTERTWINE. Even if you dont aknowlege the bloat (which is fine), you do aknowlege the rest of them. They exist. They are real and they are affecting spell eficiency. Is it good? Well, that depends on your play style.



Well, I agree 100% with you. ALL of this is Larian's Campaign. We're the customers. I'm not happy with the balance but WHO AM I? I'll manage to survive.

Hold down your anger, Sharp. Just breathe.

I'm here to debate and by your arguments on the first reply I somehow got more in accordance to their scrambled hp? Not so bad as I thought at first, maybe? Do we agree that maybe the HP matters less than the decreased AC in that encounters regarding spell efficency?
Do we agree that Bless spell is less effective in the current meta compared to DnD5e?
Do we agree that the action economy is playing a minor role compared to DnD5e?
Do we agree that some ppl bought the game because they were looking for DnD5e?

We can find accordance among discordance.


Can we for once look at ourselves as clients instead of beta testers hired by Larian? I'm not receiving any money to review the game and I hope you too...

Have you ever though about how would you like it to be? When you play a game do you feel that you are a customer instead of thinking that the company is making you a favor by releasing a game?

I'm just being a disapointed client. But again, who am I?

I think youre missing the point. As a DM/game designer you are sitting there saying I have 4 level 3 PCs with 24 hp and 15 AC avg.

So there is 100hp on the field in 25 hp chunks. At 1d20+4 to attack from goblins that puts goblins at a 50/50 to hit the PC.

Shortbow 1d6+2 = 5 damage on average. So, with focus focus on a single PC, which the AI does, 10 creatures with a 50/50 means 1 pc dead a round.

Now, why would you do 10 goblins? thats a lot for 4 people, they have no way of killing 10 goblins with even 7hp because they have ac15 and youre 50/50 as well and fine you have 8 damage per round or 10 even per PC. At 50/50 you still are only talking 2 goblins a round. Well, next round, you heal up someone to 5. Well you get that same person down again with 2 goblins 50/50 on them. You got 6 left, and someone else is 3/4 down with the 50/50. Another 2 goblins go down. Down to 6 and they take the 2 that went down again down. PCs are out of spells nows, 2 are down or low single digits and you got a few left. Thats if no natural 20s happened, the goblins werent rolling well & or the PCs werent rolling poorly. Realistically, you have a very strong possibility of a TPK with a goblin group that size. Add a hobgoblin with martial advantage and you need half the amount of goblins to get a TPK.

Ok, so thats 10 goblins with 7hp. You run that scenario and you look at the averages and that what happens if they roll well. So you drop the number down because in ONE ROUND regardless of HP, the damage output is enough to easily drop a PC. So you say they can also roll poorly. Ok so not 10, not 5, give a buffer with 7 or throw 5 in with a hobgoblin. Lets keep 3 back in range and 2 goblins to walk in with the hobgoblin.

Ok, now I am a computer running numbers. What algorithm are you going to run to balance HP rolled versus the damage output? The fact is that first round is the important part and HP isn't calculated into it because the PCs have limited attacks and even with 1hp, 1ac, 10 goblins is enough to down a PC, easily.

So when do you roll hp? After you decide the damage output per goblin? Random the HP based on the fact that 7 or 5 and a hobgoblin is a good fight and then the variable is how much it is to take the damage output down? Well that changes it. You add another round to a 7hp goblin with 14hp and you just doubled the number of goblins on the field. So do you delete 3 goblins from your 7 goblin encounter because you tripled the hp on the field and they'll be getting as many turns as 7 goblins would?

The argument doesn't really hold up for that method. The things you are considering stay the same and youre controlling the power swing per round and determining the number of rounds you can survive. A rule of thumb in D&D is creatures die within 3 rounds. If you want it to be tough on players, we start talking unique enemies - orc bosses or something - you might push to 4 or 5, but thats still rare. Usually, the 3 round rule just becomes a lot scarier because the power swing can be so great from the enemy youre fighting. A natural 20 on the bossman can 1 shot a PC, the whole fight just changed.

So, yeah, after running 1000+ D&D sessions, Im not saying just because its tedious, its a fundamentally flawed concept that the HP of the enemy changes the damage output and survivability of the PCs. It just doesnt work like that.