Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3, DOS and the D&D rule-set

You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I do not understand you guys when you use buzz words like creativity and connect it to the insane spam of ground effects. I engange a group of goblins, and literally everyone of them, spam me with fire and acid and darkness (from archers of all things). Archers, melee and spellcasters all feel the same, they all spam area effect. And spellcasters are nothing special, archers duplicate their effects.

And my abilities are no better. It is not like I am choosing between an area denial that might hamper them or a damage effect. Many of my abilities do both. And if often feels like most of my actions feel like they end up in explosions. If I intend to or not. This sure is a game for Michael Bay fans.

Lets say the cantrips either did damage, or made a ground effect if you targeted the ground, then I could agree that there would be a small, tiny bit of creativity involved. But currently, you are kidding yourself if you think of creativity when you shoot a frostray at someone and they happen to fall over (Yeah I know I am oversimplifying).

And if you give your players as many explosive barrels as there are in this game, I hope your TTRPG campaigns are set in some explosive storage facility. Or else your players would instantly call you out: "Why are there explosive barrels everywhere?".

And calling this kind of stuff intricate is trite at best. A simple flanking maneuver by two martials is more intricate than setting grease on fire for the umpteenth time.

What I don't understand about this game is why they went the route of attempting to rip off the 5e ruleset by picking and choosing costs or lack of costs for certain actions/motions such as disengage not being an action but a bonus action which allows you to do things with little thought or strategy, the lack of dodge action as an example of the picking and choosing that I talked about. I understand dodge action isn't the most fun thing to do but neither is lying dead on the ground because you didn't have that option. Area of effect is not a super common thing in DnD (not rare either) but just thinking I think I'll throw a grenade is not DnD that is X-Com and DOS.


DnD is designed to be a slow paced game so I don't understand anyone who complains about combat being slow, that's the point and there are far more fast paced games than there is slow/turn based ones.

Great points you're making and I agree. I was wondering why my firebolt damage was lowered and left surface damage. Now, I'm okay of igniting some grease on the floor with firebolt which is possible in 5e. Or freezing blood on the ground to make it ice. Larian feels like they just did a lot of house rules for 5e.

I did play DoS1 and 2, they were fun but in the end, not my cup of tea. I did play lots of BG1, BG2 and it's spiritual successors. Playing BG3 feels like more like DoS with a 5e (loaded with house rules) thin coat of paint. That's not what I was hopping for.

I think Larian have been far too ham-fisted with all their changes and additions. They seem to have forgotten that for all it's fantastical elements D&D has it's own logic and natural laws the same as our world does. Their lack of finesse might have worked in a whimsical world like DOS but it wont fly in D&D. They haven't stopped to think:

A) Does this make thematic sense?
B) Does this make logical sense?
C) Does this make gameplay sense?

For example lets take throwables:

A) Does grease explode like a grenade when it comes into contact with fire? Does Acid instantly burn through metal/treated leather armor and boots?
B) How big would a bottle have to be to create a 2-3-4m square of [insert liquid] and could you realistically store/throw it effectively?
C) If said vial of a suitable size to carry/throw shatters on impact with someone would it also create a giant puddle around them?
D) How are we going to implement these items so they are not annoying and overutilized to the point were Wizards are irrelevant and Fighters are guaranteed suicide?
E) Why would every goblin be running around with dozens of complicated to manufacture arrows/containers full of equally complicated to manufacture alchemical liquids and who would trust basic grunts with such items?
F) Why when looting said goblin is there no arrow/container on their corpse even after I savescum and kill it before it can use said item?

I just hope they can rework the backstab system.

I agree to a point - making some fun encounters & occasional use of barrels etc is actually great.

I do think the surface part of the game needs some work - largely due to the fact that cantrips are supposed to be relatively weak spells. I guess the balance comes with how quickly mages will run out of spells ...

Someone commented on how it differs a lot from how d&d combat plays out and I concur with that.

This game is going to be epic - a bit of fine tuning & a couple of rule changes/closer adaption to D& D and Larian will have a fantastic game - constructive criticism & feedback is what we need

I think the game benefits in every way if they stick closer to 5e. Lets make it like 5e THEN see what needs to change. Instead of making a hybrid and telling us the full 5e wouldnt have worked. I honestly believe most things would be for the better if they did it the way 5e has been doing it. IT was already a simplified system that would have translated easily to this medium. We kind of all hoped that is what was happening. But this is very far removed from DND I belive Divinity and Baldur Gate should use the same engine BUT BE COMPLETELY different experiences.

Divinity should be about high fantasy multi attack battles using the elements to bend the battlefield. Baldurs Gate should be a structured game that utilizes Combat battles, Social encounters, and exploration activities to show a breathing world driven by the characters and the multiple players controlling them.

Make both series great by standing them further apart. Stop trying to make DIvinity dnd now that you have dnd. Start making Baldurs Gate better by cutting off your other child. There are already plenty of 5e players ready to play BG3 5e. We are just waiting for you to do it. Then you implement a playtested Game Master mode and let our dreams come true.

Totally agree. I mean there is already a DoS I and DoS II. BG should be a different game.

I disagree, they should all be the same game

I see it similarly.

... Better sales is THE killer argument.
Allusions to a continuation of BG1+2 will draw in lots of fans, that would have ignored this game otherwise. More attention means more money.
This is the reason why every boardroom meeting will decide to use the Baldurs Gate name.

The people that control wizards of the coast could have totally bombed the current story or simply demanded that Larian uses a different name. Now, imagine 'The Illithid Saga' set in your favorite sword coast city. ... Less attention, less sales, less money for everyone involved. Yes, Wizards would have earned less money.
No one wants to earn less money. So, they let them do whatever, as long as money rolls in and lawsuits stay out.

P.S.
I would have bought a game named 'The Illithid Saga', despite disliking most things Illithid in D&D, simply because it would have tried to implement 5e and because I trust Larian to make a cool game. (Just not a cool 'Baldurs Gate' -game)

What's funny, to me, is that I understand reusing these kinds of assets in an engine. They have thousands of hours into creating them, and who knows how much money they can save for other stuff by reusing them. So to me, this starts looking more and more like a "buzz word" than an actual argument. I understand that "buzz word" is the key to arguments these days, but I'm really not into that.

I really don't get the criticism about the graphics. The environment maybe looking a little similar, but the character models are completely different. DOS2 characters were cartoony and kinda ugly, but BG3 characters are absolutely beautiful.

Right now, BG3 feels like Larian is trying to make D&D 5th Edition rules work in an Original Sin game, and it does not feel like a game that was conceived and designed from the start as a CRPG using the 5e ruleset.
The UI, the party controls, the reliance on consumables and environmental effects are all Original Sin and aren't meshing with the 5e ruleset the way this game needs them to.

UI: Character screens need to put all the information that would be on a tabletop character sheet at players' fingertips. They also need breakdowns and tooltips explaining all the character's race and class features, where they come from, how the numbers are being generated and what they do. The combat log needs to be more prominent and provide more options for sorting the information displayed. Spells need their full descriptions and spellcasting needs its own hot bars that auto-sort available spells by level. The single, giant catchall hot bar is entirely inadequate for a class based game where some classes can end up with dozens of spells/abilities that change availability regularly.

Party Controls: Being able to select only one character at a time in a game that requires the player to control a party of four is ridiculous. CRPGs figured this **** out twenty years ago and almost every other CRPG since then has had an RTS style control scheme that is FAR less clunky and cumbersome to deal with than BG3's. We don't need companions to automatically follow the selected character and we don't need a portrait chain to pull characters on and off of. We need to be able to select multiple characters at once, drag select as many as needed, shift click select as many as needed, click directly on their character models to select them, and issue group orders to multiple characters at once. Basically, this game needs to control like a Baldur's Gate game and not make the basic act of moving the party around the world a pain in the ***.

Reliance on consumables and environmental effects: I get it, 5e combat is boring at low levels because the classes don't have much going on. And I actually like that BG3 does offer more potions, scrolls, and environmental interactions, like explosive barrels, than you're likely to find in a 5e tabletop module ... but the game can't lean on that stuff to the extent it eclipses the classes and their abilities. This is a D&D game, and supposed to be a bridge between gamers and the tabletop RPG, so it needs to focus enough on what the classes can do that those abilities are the player's primary set of tools. Right now we've got Divinity, where the most effective way to defeat our enemies is generally to find a way to blow up an explosive barrel near them. Or coat the ground in water/blood/acid. Or cast a zillion spells from scrolls. All those things are great in moderation and when they can combo with a class's abilities, but I'm finding it more effective to lean on barrels, ground effects, and scrolls to a much greater degree than most of my class specific abilities and spell slots.

The result of all this is that BG3 in its current form feels like I'm playing DoS with a 5e conversion mod on it, and not a game that was designed from the ground up as a 5e CRPG.

Well, it's far too late for anything to happen "from the ground up". The "ground" is far, far behind us now.

I do not agree that BG3 feels like playing DOS2, I think it feels very different, and quite enough like D&D to satisfy me.

However, I do agree with all three of your actual points. UI needs work, controls REALLY need work, and there are definitely too many consumables right now.

From the ground up was a bit misleading. I think those changes are still in scope for the project.

But the original post was spot on. There's too much of the divinity DNA in BG3 to my liking, and not enough D&D.

I really like the 3D environment to be a part of the gameplay but it's overdone. Surfaces are really cool but they're so hideously overabundant. I also want battles in close flat spaces without constantly climbing up for that massive advantage swing. Battles that are resolved through class abilities and teamwork rather than shoving people off ledges, spamming scrolls and exploding arrows and eating pigs heads every turn. Or plopping down huge explosive barrels from magic pockets. :-/ There's too much cheese that feels really gamey that has never been a problem in previous D&D crpgs.

And I want Faerun to feel more realistic and immersive like it does in BG 1&2, IWD, NWN 1&2...

Yeah, I don't mean to say Larian needs to burn it all down and start over, just that they need to rethink their design approach here. Everything about BG3 looks like they're designing a DoS game but using 5e's ruleset, and those two things aren't wholly compatible. The game can really only be D&D or DoS; not both. They can certainly work elements of DoS into a D&D game (barrelmancy and ground effects, in moderation, is a fine idea) they just can't overwhelm the mechanics that are core to the D&D ruleset.

And yes, the 3D environments with their verticality and hidden paths are super cool. 100%. I want this level of exploration in all my CRPGs now, it's great. But in BG3 it's also really exacerbating the terrible party control issue. Being able to jump gaps to explore new paths and spread the party out to take advantage of elevation is awesome but super annoying to actually do when you can only select one character at a time and have to deal with the dumb auto-follow and portrait chain systems.

I don't think BG3 is a lost cause, I really do want to like it, but Larian hasn't really made a D&D game here. They've just put some of 5e in DoS and it doesn't really fit or feel good to play.

How far in actually are you? They go out of their way to make the goblin camp fertile with barrels and the like as its the first non missable dungeon of the game, but i don't think if seen a barrel since then, no one in the underdark.

I guess I'd need to hear an example of what a D&D game is, because a 5e ruleset on the backdrop of The Forgotten Realms feels like a D&D game to me.
I'm playing through DOS2 for the 7th time and alternate back and forth between the games, and the core feel and tone are very, very different.

Great post @Mogan.

I might make a post dedicated to this but for me this issue boils down to this -- whether it feels like D&D depends on whether you are focusing on combat or on exploring and social interaction.

For me exploring and social interaction feel like D&D.

Exploring and social interaction

Lighting a torch, rooting through empty boxes *, pushing boulders, attacking weak beams, all of these feel like D&D. And in this regard BG3 has been ever better than BG2 -- in BG 1 / 2 infravision was a wasted spell and there were few ways to use out of the box solutions to problems. Social interactions also feel like D&D, the dice rolls, the persuasion and intimidation checks all feel true to form. And I like the writing.

Combat

But you are right about environmental effects. Combat feels like Larian. Meaning it's fun but it's not D&D. Environment is just Larian's thing. Did you freeze that pool of water, blow up that brine solution, find your way to high ground?

This mirrors DOS which was all about surfaces -- how do you get yourself on the surface you want to be on and your enemy of the surface they don't want to be on. If you are on a surface you don't want to be on is it better to nullify it or make the most of it? I just feels like the people who designed the combat didn't fully understand or appreciate D&D combat. Well, and we know this for a fact because Larian told us they didn't like D&D combat. And that's what upsetting people -- to succeed you need to think like a DOS fan and not, say, an IWD fan.

In IWD you get "advantage" by casting buffing spells, using magic items and/or through you class features. Good party builds / good use of spells won the day. In BG3 I use firebolt and magic missile more often than not. Let's blow up that barrel that seems to have made its way to just the right spot. And I'm not going to waste a spell slot on bless -- the AC is already lowered and combat is going to over soon anyway. Why lose a turn using Faerie Fire when you can just jump up a ledge to get advantage?


* (sorry, know it's not a popular opinion but I think empty containers give the feeling of a thorough search)

But why spend the resources to build a game from the ground up when you have a workable engine and could throw those resources into content?