Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why the aggressive 5e Feedback?

All of the complaint and hate is funny to someone who came in knowing nothing about the Baldur's Gate series, nor D&D beyond watching popular streams. I was looking for an experience and can only shake my head at how much people complain about rules and mechanics.

I find it more that there are 2 groups of people that are very vocal and angry if you don't share their opinion (kind of like real life).
1) People who played DOS/DOSII and think that if this game has even 1 similarity it's DOSIII, not BG3.
2) People who think that if it deviates at all from 5e, it's garbage.

IMO, its totally BG3 and close enough to 5e. It was promised as an "adaptation" which is a word many including OP need to lookup. There are still many things that need fixing and improving, but IMO few relate to DOS or 5e.

Very much this. "Adaptation" does not mean "exact copy".

The problem with that position is that there is a better adaptation of the rules out there -- Solasta --

True, but Solasta is a small, niche indie game that can afford to be appealing almost entirely to 5e D&D fans. Baldur's Gate 3 is MUCH bigger, and has to be fun for a much wider audience, many of whom will know nothing about D&D. So for each rule, they have to ask themselves, "Is it worth keeping this strictly on point with the official D&D rules, or would more people enjoy it better if we tweaked it?" I can't say whether the decisions they've made so far are good or not, because I don't know how the game will ultimately be received by "the masses". There are things I would like changed, of course, but even if NOTHING on my list is changed, I will still love this game. Some of the more glaring rules changes, that a lot of people are unhappy about, don't really bother me. If they change Fire Bolt back to it's official 5e version, that would be fine. If they don't, also fine.

I also quite disagree that the original Baldur's Gate games were a "very strict" adaptation of D&D in their day. Bioware took plenty of liberties, too.

I also quite disagree that the original Baldur's Gate games were a "very strict" adaptation of D&D in their day. Bioware took plenty of liberties, too.

LoL I should just let you speak for me from now on...you are much better at it.

I would argue that is exactly what we've been doing and we point out the flaws in them. Also, Larian doesn't only implement new rules, to make them fit, they change and overwrite old ones.
Now, I'm not a member of the design team so I can only take a guess on the mind mapping evolution during design discussion. And I picture it going something like this:


-Alright team. We've been cleared to do this game. How do we move forward?

-well, we know what people have liked in our other games so we should build on that.

-ok, explain.

-well, in this fight with 5 goblins it would be cool to add an explosive barrel so that players feel smart hitting that taking out all five goblins in one strike.

-I understand you, but now the fight becomes too easy don't you think.

-well, we could add more enemies.

-ok. but now the barrel only takes out 5, what about the other 5?

-Well, there could be other tactical options like surfaces the players can interact with. like oil and grease and water that gets affected by spells.

-oh oh, I have an idea. with all the fire and oil around, wouldn't it be cool if that could help the melee players as well?

-ok. we include a dip mechanic but we are still talking low levels and spells that affect environment is higher up.

-well that can be changed by small changes made to the cantrips

-yeah, but another problem is that we seem to miss a lot, how do we change that?

-easy, we lower the AC.

-doesn't that makes the fight too easy again?

-well, lets raise the hp

-ok, that settled, how do we handle defense. This isn't real time so players won't be able to move away from enemies in an instant.

-Well, I read somewhere there is this disengage option. Wouldn't that work? And also, they can just jump/move away from the npc's during their turn.

-good idea, the problem is that disengage makes you lose the attack during that turn unless you're a rogue. so now we have everyone playing cat and mouse.

-can't we combine jump with disengage so that players still will get to attack each turn?

yeah, alright team I think we have something here!

-well, sir, doesn't this affect spell mechanics and class identity?

-Oh shut up Karen, can you for once stop with your negativity. We're making something cool here!


Now, I ofc am making exaggerations but what I'm getting at is that one change, leads to another change, that leads to two new changes, that quickly spirals out throughout a whole system. When all that extra work making changes to an already working combat system, could have been avoided if the first change wasn't made. A change made just to make one of Larian's darlings fit in.

I'm not saying d&d is perfect. that's why there have been several editions of it. and there is room for improvement without affecting the whole system. What Larian did with Rangers is a perfect example of that. You can bake chocolate chip cookies for people with gluten intolerance. But can you bake them changing the chocolate chips to gummi bears?

True. You're not very good at it. Or at reading comprehension for that matter.

Perhaps you could by starting by looking up the definition of adaptation? Or reading what I wrote? Yes, I get your *very* complex point "it's all relative man". It's something of a non sequitur.

But many on these forums seem to think their opinion is more right and/or that they speak some cosmic truth that everyone should agree with when in fact... it's just their individual opinion.

from righteous opinions

The problem with that position is that there is a better adaptation of the rules out there -- Solasta -- and the adaptations have caused problems (some of which you've identified).

So the question is will Larian listen or try to cure this sickness with the hair of dog? Say bolstering the scared flame cantrip? Increasing the damage fireball does? Further bumping up the average number of enemies the spell 'sleep' knocks out? If so then you get even further from the rules and the new problems emerge.

Also, the game is riding on the coattails of a game that had a very strict "adaptation" of the rules and criticisms like this go with the territory. Larian wouldn't have sold X number of copies of DOS3, the extra sales numbers came from the BG name and the D&D ruleset. If you get to direct one of the Star Wars sequels you aren't evaluated on the basis of "is this a good sci-fi film?" but "is this a worthy successor?" "did they get the tone right?" etc.

Very much this. "Adaptation" does not mean "exact copy".

For me it’s DOS3. End of story.

I use to say that I used to rage against people saying that BG3 is DOS3
Now I’m their friend

World full of meaningless items
Color palette
Word full of containers
Battle based in environment and not in class
Height rules
Backstab
Forced multiple actions per turn by breaking the rules
Babysit customer with bedrolls
Save scum
Beach
Unbalanced
Quantity over quality

Well, I could spend some time listing what I’ve disliked about it.

I havent played EA that much yet, but I am confused with arrows. No arrows in the game means that there is no arrow of bitting, +1, +2, detonation, ice/fire, etc...like in baldurs gate 2 ?

Clearly Swen Vincke succeeded in a Deception skill-check when he asserted they had ported D&D as faithfully as they could.

There is a backstab as in: "Ohohohoho, I am sneaky boi and can attack this guy without him having any knowledge of my presence at all!"

And then there is backstab as in: "Oh noes, I have no other ways but to dodge in order to defend myself from this guy who just jumped behind me, clearly he have a much harder chance of hitting me now, when standing behind me, where I can not really block or parry his attack, but only dodge, as opposed to when he is in front of me when I have greater variety of defense mechanisms."

At the end of the day, this is a general flaw in D&Ds turn-based systems, rather than BG3 itself.