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

I provided a fairly specific example of how the overall experience feels better when you're not just stuck chowing down scarce consumables and relying on healing spells from a specific class to progress.

Giving the player an option to remove pointless downtime that was once considered to be "roleplaying" but was really just how we justified the limitations of the technology at the time is a "new and modern" take that's an improvement.

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.

BG3 is set in the world of D&D and is based on the 5e ruleset. Expecting a faithful 1:1 interpretation 20 years after any of those games were relevant is a bit silly. There are a lot of quality of life changes that I'm thankful for. Not feeling constantly deprived or starved of resources streamlines the flow of the game. Later down the line, it won't be as viable to eat an apple as opposed to using Second Wind. Shooting an explosive barrel likely won't be viable in every situation at mid to endgame. This is still early access and although the retail release likely won't be dramatically different, I think it's silly to shove two decades of advances and sensibility in RPGs under the rug just because you're not struggling as hard as you think you should be to preserve an odd sense of integrity.

And if you want the experience of feeling like a Cleric is your only option for healing and the whim of your dice rolls is your only option for damage, you could certainly just play the game in that fashion. It's a weird thing to complain about optional accessibility and then choose to reap the benefits of it. The beauty of this game is, you can choose to play how you'd like, and asking for things to be removed because they don't suit you to preserve your nostalgia and claim that "this isn't Baldur's Gate" when you could simply just not do those things is ridiculous.

I like the Divinity engine. But I agree the starting point should be core 5e D&D rules before moving forward. Currently everyone is arguing the merits of the homebrew stuff vs the 5e rule set that hasn't even been implemented. How can you argue something is better/worse if it hasn't been tried? Make barrels heavy so you cannot pick them up. If the 5e rules suck in game then change it but at least try.

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.

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.

No, you didn't. You just stated that's the case as if was a matter of fact, which is questionable at best.
I don't particularly agree. In fact, I probably don't agree at all.


This line of thinking that anything that can be summarized as "immediate convenience" should always be perceived as an overall improvement of the experience is something I'm strongly against.

Let's immediately skip the arguments that this is D&D so it has to play like D&D because then we'll never get anywhere. Each of us has a different definition of what D&D is.

Let's assume for a moment that they remove all combat rule changes. Will the game really get better then?
Will the game be balanced?
As for the latter, I can immediately say that it is not.
The very changes in how rest works have crushed the whole balance, enormously strengthening rest classes.
Even if you cut back somehow (unless you set a hard limit, but we all know Larian won't) you will still be able to rest several times more than you normally should.
The system itself is broken from scratch and you can't fix it without making the game annoying.

It's not broken from scratch. I get what you're saying here, and you have a valid point. But the two things you're saying aren't connected after me.

In D&D resource management is a thing in BG3 not necessarily. You either need a hard limit to limit rest or deal with the consequences of a fully rested party. The game doesn't need to become " annoying" from a rest limitation ( if implemented in a smart way - we had a discussion about it in one of the "sleep threads" few days ago).

Let's admit you ignore it and just leave rest as it is ( it would be a shame, but it could work). You just have a game that needs to be ready for all spells you might have at given point in the game(encounters need to be balanced around it when it comes to type and number of enemies).

Now admitting you have it (it's arguably the case in BG3 EA for some encounters) your D&D mechanics ( like AC ) will balance the fight in the intended way.

While rest makes certain classes shine brighter than they should on long -term, on short - term they can still be on a similar power level.

A few days ago I wrote a post for ways to reduce rest.
I have come to the conclusion that creating a system that is actually limited in a meaningful way (and fairly easy to understand) is terribly difficult in a computer game with the fast travel option.
We'll probably end up with the option to use most resources in combat, which is not that bad option.
That this will affect the balance of some classes, which causes the need for additional changes.

"I have come to the conclusion that creating a system that is actually limited in a meaningful way (and fairly easy to understand) is terribly difficult in a computer game with the fast travel option."

Yes....now we're talking resources you spend on combat anyways. So you only need a reliable way to calculate how much resources a player would need per encounter...But is it really a problem? Like as you said, more spells per combat - more possibilities. I think with how the game looks currently it's straight up easier to just go for endless rest.

Jeremy Crawford: Changing a skill and changing your subclass are great examples of the fun nuggets we like to include in a book like this that weren't necessarily in Unearthed Arcana, because we always like there to be a few surprises. People saw a version changing skills back in Unearthed Arcana in our Class Feature Variant article where we explored this as an option, customized for each class, but we decided when finishing the book, it was better to just provide a general rule for everybody.
Changing your subclass, though, is truly something people haven't seen. We give you concrete guidance on when is a good time to change your subclass, how you might go about it, some comments for the DM on whether some in-world training should be involved in this transformation of your character. This is the kind of thing many DMs let their players already do with their characters, but what we often find is that some DMs are hesitant to allow this sort of liberty unless we, basically, give "official permission" to do it.

So this is really us telling DMs, "It's okay to let people do this." You know? If they find their subclass just isn't playing the way they'd hoped, or if there's been a major story transformation for their character, changing your subclass is a great way to address those different things... These all go under what I often refer to as the "follow your bliss" umbrella of giving people the permission – and the encouragement – to make tweaks that will enhance their enjoyment of their character and of D&D more broadly.

They fall within the realm of normal, intended DM prerogative.