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.
Did they say that? Or was it that they didn't like combat in previous D&D crpgs? I'm pretty sure it was the latter.
This is the result of a number of threads being merged that I wish hadn't been merged. I get the desire to clean up but I tried to post in constructive feedback threads and avoid trolling threads and an unintended consequence of the merger is it harder to tell which comments are which.
To be clear, I'm all for the creative solutions -- pushing boulders, breaking beams, bringing down chandeliers. I like that they've incorporated sneaking and surprise.
What I don't want is repeat of DOS2 surface strategies and for those strategies to dominate and / or replace class features. I specifically want surface effects on cantrips to eliminated and the HP bloat / AC lowering to be changed and for barrels to be less common and weigh more. Throw the bottle of water, hit it with ray of frost cantrip and the enemies are all prone is the sort of thing I'm talking about. It's not a creative solution, it's standard tactic that relies on homebrew rules and is stronger than any class feature at that level.
I intend this as constructive criticism.
The interview with Swen has been posted many times but I can't find it right now. The upshot is that they made a game that followed the 5th ed rules, played it and didn't find it much fun. Then they started changing the rules until they found something fun
The "not fun" came down to "in 5th edition you miss often". So they lowered AC. They added height advantage. But this come from a misunderstanding. You use class features -- bless spells, bardic inspiration, true strike ect to be able to hit. Now with the changed rules a jump to higher level is a better way to get advantage than is properly using your cleric, bard and wizard in the first round.
If I can find the interview(s) I'll post it but I'm guessing others will beat me to it.
