Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why Larian CAN justify calling Baldur's Gate 3... Baldur's Gate 3

Alice is back ... but that's not Arwen's adventure in the video ?! Are you still doing your Arwen-and-Imoen run ? I never commented that thread, because, well, lurking habits I guess. But it was awesome nonetheless. So, in case you didn't delete the save, and would still find some fun in doing it and writing the diary entries, well, I'd be happy to read.

(Also ... I myself never played hardcore/powergaming/exploiting all the rules/whatever this style is called. It's fun to watch.)

100% this - BG2 made a lot of adaptations to the rules to bring 2.5e to real time and video game format. Some key changes from PnP to BG2 that people were talking about all the way back:

• Bioware chose one of the optional initiative/combat systems (weapon speed, etc) and overall followed them pretty closely. However, the merging of real time movement and round based attack mechanics (+ no-disengagement rules) caused tons of abusable wonkiness for melee fights (i.e. running before someone can make all their attacks)

• Some of base combat rules were heavily simplified - e.g. most of the nuance to ranged combat is gutted (firing into melee rules removed, moving and shooting rules removed, etc). Positioning (i.e. -2 Thac0 for rear attacks) were not implemented.

• Changes to classes - most notably homebrewing classes from 3E (i.e. sorcerer, barbarian, etc). But also core class features missing but not replaced - fighters missing their 9th level lordship/followers, etc.

• Spells changed - some obviously didn't make sense to implement, others were rebalanced (i.e. Haste nerfed - 3 Lvl PnP Haste basically had the effect of the 6th level Imp. Haste).

• Non-weapon proficiencies completely removed. Some are obvious due to videogame limitations, but things like Spellcraft, Religion, History - skills we've seen used in later D&D games - were removed too.

• Implemented the Weapon Mastery system from the "Combat and Tactics" book (optional) but with major simplification and omissions - in BG2 every weapon gets the same effects. In PnP, ranged weapon specializations bonuses are different from melee (you gain things like point-blank shot from 3E, Quickfire etc).

• This one should be obvious, but all the Epic level abilities (from Throne of Bhaal) are a Bioware invention.

• Heavily re-balanced monsters - yes, including oMg Le hP bLOaT. Some examples:
• 60 avg. hp Balors had 120 hp in BG2 (155 for the ritual demon in the Underdark)
• 33 avg. hp Trolls had 80+ hp in BG2 (Giant and Spectral in the 100s)
• 39 avg. hp Vampire had 67-110 hp in BG2 (most were 75 hp)
• 102 avg. hp Great Wyrm Red Dragon had 184 in BG2(Firkragg).
• 35 avg. hp Djinni had 59 (45 vs. 83 for the 10k exp Noble variant)

nice points, but i think, and here i'm descending into pedantry, since iirc the 2nd ed player handbook only accounted for "movement in melee" being to get closer to an opponent (just looked it up: "The basic move is to get closer for combat"), and then either withdraw (which should be at 1/3rd speed) or flee as you quoted. None of that really accounts for the option of repeated engaging and disengaging being permissible at all, certainly not at full speed. As a pedantic supplement to my pedantry 2nd ed Player's Options: Combat and Tactics has Attacks of Opportunity for disengaging without withdrawing at reduced speed as per the "withdraw" and "fleeing" rules in the player handbook - so it could be said that at least with supplements 2nd ed has AOO rules; I would always interpret the rules in the player handbook as needing to either withdraw or flee if they are planning on leaving melee, see the text for withdrawing:

Good points. I like pedantry Yes, one can find AOO in the optional supplements.

I only used the withdraw rules when actively engaged with an enemy. So if fighter #1 is fighting orc #1 they needed to withdraw but if orc #2 hasn't made an attack on the ranger the archer can get away from the group. So you can't say I attack the orc and then retreat (unlike the 5th ed thief) but you can say -- I run to the corner and knock an arrow. If orc #2 decides to follow the ranger the ranger would have to use a melee weapon.

To me this was the best interpretation of the rules because I always thought that a full movement consumed a full round and adding free attacks to that loss of round would prevent archers and mages from being viable classes.

The only 2e rules Bioware really changed in BG1 & 2 were to adapt them for the more robust and engaging RTwP system.

BG 1&2 had some problematic encounter design on occassions. The use of forcespell scripts by mages for example doesn't make combat more engaging, it just feels like the enemy is cheating.

I would say that job fell to FO: New Vegas

Most of the time it seems that most people commenting on BG2 (including Larian developers...) has either not played it, only played the poor quality EE versions (full of bugs, badly updated game UI design, weird scaling issues/graphics...), never tried all the amazing mods, or just never finished the game.

There is a complete lack of <we LOVED xxx from BG2..., wouldnt it be great that this xxx element made it back in BG3!!>. I am willing to bet that out of 400(?) people working there, not a dozen even finished BG2...dare I say...even play it half way?
Everyone mentions either Dragon age , D&D5th, Witcher3 or DOS2.

If you like some game with mods only, then it seems to me that this is not very good. o..o

This ignores that mods simply adjust. If the base game wasn't good enough, people wouldn't put in the effort.

That always bothered me. I still don't know if its my impression, but they seem to never mention the BG series.

BG3 follows the theme of the previous two, which is enough for me. I'm personally glad it's apparently very divorced from the first two. Considering how media seemingly has a permenant metaphorical erection at the idea of taking old material and characters from said meterial and belittling/undercutting them, it's nice that BG3 (in early access anyway) has the respect and restraint to do little beyond saying "BG1 and 2 happened". Which concerns me for how Minsc has apparently been datamined, but he's bouncing around in comics and stuff as well, so I'm willing to give Larian the benefit of the doubt with the idea of him turning up.

From what we have at the moment in the EA's story, which theme are you talking about ?

Yep was curious here too.... what theme do they follow? Same world? Baldurs gate in the title? an rpg?

It doesn't follow the theme at all lol.

Unless the theme is 'bad guy has plot for a purpose that impacts an adventurer.'

What you're willing to sacrifice for power/how much are you willing to surrender to a corrupting influence for power. Everytime you use the tadpole you surrender a bit more of yourself for re-rolls or successes, ect, you start getting dreams essentially telling you to continue using the powers, to surrender and become even stronger. Baldur's Gate I and II was about embracing your divine heritage or resisting it, though due to writing, tech, or time, it was more informed (good characters could heal minor wounds, evil ones could vampric touch for example). It was never really said, but the start of ToB (the first challenge room) the npc mentions they embraced and became consumed by the essence

When I first bought BG 3, I literally went in expecting it to be like DOS 2. Now I think people who say this game is like DOS 2 have either not played it, or are talking out their ass, and are salty that the game is turn based.

Yeah, I was about to add my little 5 cents to the topic and say that the tadpole dreams are reminding me of the dreams you as the PC of BG1/2 used to have after you reached certain points in game, and furthermore - depending on what you've done (your reputation paid a factor in that, kinda flawed and rudimentary system but those games were made ages ago so they had to come up with something) you had differently flavored dreams - for good, neutral and evil reputation levels.

I haven't posted in a while on these forums, but I will remain vocal about this: we need some sorts of dreams for those of us who refuse to use tadpole powers. Give us something, we don't need a big ol pat on the back for being a 'good person', but give us something. In previous games, the 'good' aligned dreams used to have this underlying theme in them - if you didn't succumb to the corruption of your heritage, you had nightmares and general feeling of 'disappointing' the power as it tried to drown you, figuratively speaking. Now imagine getting something similar to that with the tadpole, but no, we get nothing and the tadpole is reduced to 'barely an inconvenience' as one of my favorite youtubers likes to say.

I’m not certain of the worth of assuming people are making the comparison without having played BG3 or, to use your charming phrase, that they are ‘talking out their ass’. All opinions are subjective but there are many who find there are some tangible similarities with DOS and BG3.

Well, imo the characters very much resemble DOS2 characters and the gameplay feels very similar. That's two massive parts of the game that feel like DOS2 to me so I'm not sure what to tell you.