Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General A long time D&D Player and DM My thoughts

Ok first of all I been DM'ng for about 18 years now been playing D&D for geez maybe 20+years anyway the game has potential to be absolutely amazing and in general just mind blowing trend setting if done right here are my suggestions.

1. Allow a party of 6 not 4 in 98% of D&D campaigns especially 5e its almost standard to host a party of 6 unfortunately party of 4 is rare and almost non existent now.
2. Add more NPC characters or allied characters.
3. The lag is ridicule's I know it is early release but it almost makes the game unplayable.
4. Relationships need to be much more in depth and realistic and more graphic in my opinion realism is key.
5. Add all the classes and races that are played in D&D.
6. Many of the quest need to be more balanced some you get no map mark or hints that are relevant so extremely difficult to complete.
7. 80% of the traps my rogue can not disarm or even notices.
8. Romance options are very very limited trend set this and change that make it much more unlimited.
9. Use alignment much more efficiently like it actually means something.
10. Also there needs to be a system in place where if your talking and you have a option to use a skill like persuasion or intimidation exc that other party members that are more effective in that skill set step up and say maybe I should handle this or something like that because come on your a party it should not just rely on you this is with any type of skill check or skill use in game.
11. Also trend set you are all traveling and battling alongside one another relationship building should play a huge role in the game, maybe you are not liked by a party member does not mean the other party members might like one another more basically make character development a huge factor not just with you but everyone in your group or at camp together.
12. D&D is all about choices that make a huge impact on the world the DM created around them this goes for shop keepers as well if you continue to go to the same shop keeper over and over at some point a relationship builds between you and them could be good or bad all depends on interaction.
13. I enjoy dungeon crawling but a open world is much much much more efficient and fun in my opinion it also is a huge factor in D&D 5e open world is the way to go now days.
14. Also there's a lot of issues with loading saves I had it crash on me multiple times trying to load a save or fast travel, allies I added to the party not going with me when I traveled or left camp others not following when going somewhere others stuck in a previous area.
15. Also we should be able to build up our camp with cool stuff like trophies or statues nice beds and tapestries and so on you should allow us to create our own keep or guild or base and so on.
16. I have waited for a game changing game created for customizable options and relationships building your own army or guild and so on a true D&D video game would be absolutely ground breaking and amazing phenomenal.
17. Much much much more Lore and quest and storylines would be astounding.
18. last thing I can think of is the modifiers on dice in 5e you add your bonus to whatever you roll not take it away from the roll this should definitely be fixed.

Lastly I am no game designer but a huge D&D person yes so I don't even know if any of this is possible to put in a game but I am giving you guys my honest opinion and my own thoughts keep up the amazing work and thank you for all your hard work.
Sincerely
Shane Garvin

Hey dude! This was a very comprehensive criticism, but I'd like to add a little bit onto that, if it's alright with you!

1. The actual reccomended party size in DnD 5e is 3-5 players, with 4 players falling smack-dab in the middle of that. As a 5e DM who has been playing for, what, 5 years now, most of my parties have been in that range.

2. There will be more NPC companions coming as time goes on, at least 3 that we know of, possibly more.

3. Yeah hopefully some of the performance issues you've been experiencing will be optimized as Early Access goes along.

4. Can't say I understand *exactly* what you're saying here, but there are already very fleshed-out companion relationships, and hopefully they will become more fleshed out as time goes on and more are added.

5. That's on the "To-Be-Added-As-EA-Goes-Along checklist."

6. A lot of it relies on exploration to some extent, which I really like! If there's anything that is particularly hard to find, there should be a marker.

7. Yeah perception and trapfinding is pretty bogus right now. Hopefully to be fixed as time goes on.

8.I mean, this game already has a bunch of romance options. All of your companions and an NPC are available if you want to.

9. Larian has said they want to stay a bit further away from alignment, which is fine IMO.

10. I heard around that they're working on something like this.

11. I agree that I would like some more interaction between the companions. We have some of that with the banters, but I would very much so appreciate some small scenes or ambient dialogues at camp.

12. There actually is a system for this! If you give them some stuff for free, you can get a discount, and if you get caught doing crimes around them, they increase their prices.

13. While not fully open, I'd say that the world is yours to explore. I personally prefer the more focused design things have. Also severely doubt they're gonna rework the whole of the first act. Certain things might be reworked, but I doubt it'll be changed *that* much

14. Again, probably just EA jank.

15. That'd be nice, would like that. Possibly this will come into place when we reach somewhere civilized instead of squatting in the woods like we currently are.

16. This story seems a bit more small-scale on that front, but if you want a game like that, I would check out Pathfinder: Kingmaker and the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous by Owlcat games. Perhaps more of this will come as time goes on, but I don't think it's super plausible right now.

17. I'm cool with the amount of side quests right now, but a few more would be quite nice, I agree.

18. Common suggestion, I hope so too.

That's misinformation.

The recommended party size is 4-6 with 5 being in the middle.

Curse of Strahd: "...for a party of four to six characters..."

Storm King's Thunder: " . . . adventure for four to six player characters"

Descent into Avernus. See the Avernus discussions on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DescentintoAvernus/comments/ejqf6t/ideal_party_size/

Also check out any critical role episode.

It's not, actually. In the 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, page 83, talks about it being balanced for 3-5 party members. I believe you on this, and there is an inconsistency, but inconsistency does not misinformation make, if both are from the same source (WotC).

Perhaps WotC will clear this up for one day

If we take a look at the inconsistency -- page 83:


and the recommendations of the modules I think publication date matters. 5th edition was waaay more popular than anyone guessed it would be and I think 3 - 5 number was based on the assumption that it would be hard to get 7 people together on the weekend.

Again with Hordes of the Underdark there is no party size mentioned but the module gives you some pretty powerful NPCs / Followers including a myconid and a hook horror. So as the game has progressed the party sizes have been increasing. So I don't think we can say 3-5 is the recommendation. Neither can we say that 6 is the recommendation. 6 is the right number for other reasons -- a. six more fun b. this is BG and not just DnD

Anyway, I didn't understand every point the OP was making but agreement on 1-5, 9 and 17.

Edit: I think the DM guide is really just saying "we're assuming this number but if you want a different number here are some suggestions". Which makes it something other than a recommendation -- the recommendations come in the modules.

If your game is laggy, run it in dx11.