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.
Wrong premise. It's not really about which is better. I really enjoyed DOS2 and even praised it as a spiritual successor of BG (not mechanically). This game was promoted as a D&D game, where as it's really a D&D skin on DOS. Larian has been deliberately deceptive about their intentions for the game, taking on the mantle of a legendary title and claiming they would do a FAITHFUL PORT while also abusing the Dungeon Master's role as the ultimate referee as to what goes, as an excuse for their radical change.
QUOTE:"We started by taking the ruleset that's in the Player's Handbook. We ported it as faithfully as we could, then there were some number of things that we saw that doesn't work that well, and so we started looking for solutions to do that. The hardest part—and this is the most interesting part also about it, because there's a lot of stuff from the rules that actually ports quite well, so—but the most interesting part is the role of the Dungeon Master...
Whatever is not in the book he'll say "Well, I'll do this," and the Dungeon Master says "Sure!" And then he'll think about what type of check he's going to make you do, and then that's going to be what you're going to roll with, and the entire party will work with that. In a video game, you don't have that, so in a video game you have to make systems that allow you to do this. And so, coming up with those systems has been a lot of fun, and making them link to the ruleset as it is has been the interesting bit about that."
The changes Larian has done will require a host of changes to correct imbalances caused to the point this is D&D in name only. This is a faithful port of DOS with a D&D-skin. Meme-combat is the name of the game. Sweeping changes that generate ever more need for changes by ruining balance is so many ways.
Let's just ramble a little to illustrate what is going on behind the scenes: Super easy advantage on attack rolls and flaming weapons are amazingly strong buffs to the martial classes in particular. Except Barbarians who are broken (Reckless Attack gives them and their opponents advantage). "Barrelmancy" is overpowered and is a relative nerf to Wizards, Warlocks and Sorcerers as now even a fighter has readily available mini-fireballs. To balance this imbalance, Larian has made resting super permissive. A strong buff to casters...as well as being blatantly immersion-breaking. Except Warlocks who are designed to not need long rest as much and are relatively nerfed and will need buffs in comparison with Wizards and Sorcerers in particular. Even worse when compared with Warlocks, Wizards/Sorcerers attack cantrips have been buffed both out of the box, buffed by easy advantage, buffed by magic items (+5 average spell attack), and as environmental effect detonators, which leaves the Warlocks and Clerics high and dry. On top of that Wizards (the love-child of the Larian boss) have been buffed by stronger magic items as well as being able to learn any spell from any class - furthering the class balance gap. This is again a large relative nerf to Bards who get a much more limited version of this as one of their strongest class features (Magical Secrets). This is the butterfly effect except Larian instead started with Gale-level winds (pardon the pun).
