While at this moment it is both unclear (stuff may change, and there may be leftovers from using the Divinity Engine) and potentially sorta kinda clear (the saves say "Classic" on their difficulty label), it would be really nice if the game were to allow for either choosing from a bigger pool of difficulty settings (like in the NWN games) or fine-tuning it a-la Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Now, while Kingmaker has its many glaring issues, its implementation of adjustible challenge levels is probably the best in the genre. Having something similar for BG3 is going to address many of the issues players have with how the resting, the fast-travel, the revive mechanic and the rolls work, while some would want to, say, have difficult combat but make skill/ability checks harder, or vice versa.
A short (or not really) draft of the list of settings that could potentially be tweaked:
-- Enemy challenge level (+/- to their HP, AC, Attack and Spell DC) - pretty straightforward as far as making enemies harder/easier in D&D adaptations has always gone;
-- Enemy behaviour (Story - Classic - Tactician) - here's one that could be easily taken from D:OS, as different difficulties did make enemies' behaviour in combat more or less complex. You can have tougher opponents with the previous setting but not have them gang up on your spellcasters at the start of the fight or control you to oblivion;
-- Enemy critical hits (on/off) - straight from NWN where on "normal" difficulty enemy crits didn't register. Cheating? Maybe. But having to reload a fight after taking something like 60+ damage in one hit can be rather annoying (looking at you, Kingmaker);
-- Helping a downed character restores them to 1 HP (on/off) - at the moment you can easily spam-help your downed party members and just constantly bring them back on their feet, which for me personally made the Phase Spider Matriarch fight really derpy in how my characters had a helping-hand-train going every turn after getting one-shot by her. Now if it were to either only stabilize (remove the saving throw until the next damage taken but leave them unconscious, needing a proper healing to get back up) or only add one successful revival roll instead of all three, it would become less abuseable and make having actual healing tools more necessary.
-- Stabilization / recovery on death saves - a tie-in to the previous setting. An alternative to how dying works at the moment could be that successful death saves only prevent the "death points" from accumulating rather than add "life points", and in order to actually prevent the character from bleeding out they need to be stabilized (see above) and healed properly/ be out of combat to get back up (?). Seeing how there are no healer's kits in the game at the moment, it's a bit of a stretch as far as balancing goes, but still;
-- HP threshold for death / death saves - either go back to the old ways (dying upon hitting minus your Constitution score, losing one HP per round unless stabilized) or use the current system. A matter of preference;
-- Skill/Ability check challenge level - also rather straightforward. Tired of all the 15+ you have to roll to persuade someone while wanting to see the content but not feeling like safe-scumming, or getting frustrated at all four of your characters failing to spot traps (irrelevant unless the familiar exploit for search checks gets fixed, but it probably will be) - here's a setting for you;
-- Item identification (on/off) - I mean, it's a staple. For the time being characters just know how every magic item works just by looking at them - no need for an identify spell, or a skill check, or having a merchant do it for you. Having it off will remove busywork for those who don't want to have it around, having it on will please those who like having such a mechanic;
-- Exhaustion (on/off/some different ways it works?) - now this is an interesting one. The characters already have voice lines for needing rest, albeit at the moment they say them after barely any time had passed since their last rest, and there's a potion of vitality in the game which cures fatigue, but the effect itself is not present at the moment. Exhaustion and the passage of time/amount of fights/checks causing it could be a way to limit long rests by only allowing them between certain time periods and when all the short rests for the day are used up. Not exactly elegant, but this is a draft - and I think it's basically universally agreed upon that resting needs to be re-implemented at least somehow;
-- Free fast travel (on/off) - mentioned this one in a post a while ago. Being able to just jump to a fast travel spot out of anywhere destroys the premise of any and all "trap" areas and situations. At least you can't just hop outta combat like in D:OS, but, like in D:OS, you can just blink straight out of a tomb that closed in on you like you have a stone of recall or something. Either there should be more areas where fast travel is disabled (all the dungeons and some places like the sanctuary in the druid grove), or it should only work between rune circles, or there should be random encounters (which would clash with the way the world is designed and potentially ruin level balancing if abused);
-- Food heals / is used as camping rations - a bit of a wild guess on how food can work. There's a lot of it lying around, and it easily replaces healing potions/spells outside of combat if you choose not to abuse ubiquitous long rest. Why not convert it into rations that are used upon resting, which would by itself limit rest-spamming depending on how many food items get used/what their individual "food value" is. Add cooking on top of this which provides day-long bonuses and makes food more efficient by converting it into proper meals, and you have a solid system that allows for experimentation (cooking in D:OS was fun and food could be quite powerful even as short-term consumables, while Kingmaker makes the entire camping mechanic revolve around what you cook and which bonus you wish to have). A potential downside is how cluttered and awkward the inventory and camping (if there will be one) UI may become, but having an option to add a bit of complexity is always nice for those who value it - Deadfire's camping and food implementation, for example, made no sense before one of the patches added the optional option for spoiling rations (and, for masochists, only recovering health on rest and only with cooked food).
Yeah, it sure wasn't short. I am curious to see other opinions and suggestions, though.
Last edited by Brainer; 21/01/21 09:50 AM.
