Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Solasta CotM proves 5e Rules Work in a Video Game.

Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, if WotC really cared that much about product control right now, that one Drizzt action game would have most likely been canned.

That said, I really hope the Solasta team makes it big, they got the combat system right on their very first try, and everything else can be improved with a bigger budget for the most part. I don't see them tackling a project as big as BG3, but I can totally see WotC considering the idea of having them become DnD's direct answer to what Owlcat's cRPGs have done for the Pathfinder franchise. The Pathfinder cRPGs are actually video game adaptations of actual modules, with some of the changes and additions made to the plot for the sake of better pacing/filling in plot holes now being recognized as outright canon (and my personal speculation is that Iron Gods may be the next module to be adapted after WotR, as it's a high level campaign with some sci-fi elements in a region literally right between where Kingmaker and WotR take place on the world map, along with possibly addressing plot threads that were briefly mentioned in Kingmaker).

Solasta's combat, writing and party setup is really as unapologetically tabletop as it gets, so they'd be a natural fit for this kind of project.

People say BG3 loosely picks up from where the Descent into Avernus module left off. The Solasta devs could make a game based on that, though I would also much rather have the Solasta devs make a Waterdeep series of games that may end up tying a lot of their modules and smaller adventures together, or even indirectly establishing a clear timeline of events and changes in the city. It's a bit baffling that one of the most popular cities for modules on the Sword Coast doesn't have a modern video game representing it. (No, I don't count that shovelware mobile game.)

Sword Coast Legends was a RTwP isometric game like BG1&2 or NWN. And it was the only D&D game I didn't buy because of how obviously terrible it was.

If Larian is taking risks because of the AAA budget, I'm sure they wouldn't enter a deal where another company could force them to make a tabletop simulator. Still ironically, all the "video game" changes they have made to the rules so far have turned BG3 into a worse video game. The shallow cheese tactics combat is terrible for both DOS fans and D&D fans.

Larian should have more faith in how well a RAW adaptation would play as a video game. Maybe they should go play some Solasta or Pathfinder.

I think combat is one of the factors holding PK back from reaching bigger sales. I've played it initially on release and there were a lot of complaints on how the stat on enemies don't match pnp and that makes the combat too difficult. I've had the impression the game was actually easier if you never played pnp, because then you'd go in with no expectations.

But while the stat numbers didn't bother me, I've found the enemy ai was just too simplistic. Even BG2, a much older game, tried to do better with its spellcasters. As a result many battles which could have been memorable in PK, just weren't. Certainly nothing amazing.

Honestly, Pathfinder also has one of the lowest completion rates than any other isometric rpg.
Add that plus problems on the statute, I wonder how this will affect the sale of the sequel.
I hope that the situation with PoE2 will not happen again, which was a much better game than PoE1.

What does it matter whether it is WOTC or Larian who is to blame for the ruleset and gameplay being as it is. Both have their names on the game. Therefore, if people are unhappy, both are technically going to receive the blame for it. Therefore, both should be working together to ensure that the game is going to reach the audience that they are targeting.

When writing a story or creating a video game or movie or TV show, you are always supposed to determine first who your target audience is. If you are trying to make everyone happy, then no one will be happy. The fact that they brought in WOTC and that it has been labelled a D&D 5e game means that they targeted D&D fans as their primary audience. The fact that they did not, then, implement the D&D 5e rules more strictly just baffles me. It is like you told everyone, "Lord of the Rings Fans are our audience. We're making a Lord of the Rings Game," but then you actually decided to create a Game of Thrones game. You have SOME elements of Lord of the Rings in your game, but ultimately you made a Game of Thrones game.

This wouldn't be as big of a deal to D&D fans if they had legitimate proof that they had to change the D&D rules in order to fit the game. However, the point of this entire Thread is that the D&D rules that they changed CAN and DO work in a video game, and they CAN and COULD work well in BG3. If Larian implemented the D&D 5e rules more strictly, BG3 would work SO much better because the game would be more balanced. The issue with the game is that right now you are either wiping the floor with all enemies because you have found a cheese rule that lets you do that, OR the enemy is wiping the floor with you because some crazy homebrew rule is allowing them to wail on your characters 2-4 times per round. There is no in between, and it can suddenly switch from going super well for you to super bad for you because of just how imbalanced the game is.

So the only reason I keep going back to the point of this thread and fighting for it is because:

1. They told us it was a D&D 5e game. So it should include MOST if not ALL of the D&D 5e rules with maybe a minor tweak here or there to make it work with BG3. (Example, Long Rests and Short Rest might need to be tweaked a bit to make them work in a video game. Allowing players to long rest anywhere at any time breaks the balance of the game. This is being discussed in a different thread.)
2. Solasta proves that MOST of the D&D 5e rules CAN be implemented in a video game very well, and it balances the game nicely and makes the game work well. Solasta's strongest element is that its combat mechanics and 5e rule implementation are spot on.

After playing Solasta, I can't help but play BG3 and wish they had the same battle mechanics and such. I play Solasta BECAUSE of this. BG3's story is better, it is more diverse and epic and emotional and everything else. The ONLY thing that it truly lacks, in my opinion, is that the battle mechanics are inferior in every way to Solasta's. Between the two, BG3 rules in all but the combat. In combat and ruleset, Solasta is King/Queen.

BG3 could easy win even about combats with a few tweaks. No need to be 100% faithfull to the rules.

The cover mechanics is a good exemple of something Larian didn't take from 5e and that is definitely not a problem to me.

This system doesn't add a lot of value to Solasta. A cover system is fine and interresting in games with guns because you have to cover your allies + flank you ennemies but honnestly in a game with lots of melee combats it's not really interresting.

I guess it is in the TT because there's a tree, a rock or something but I'm not sure you have more than 2 solutions in video games :
- wasting your time designing a complex system that's gonna be very situational (like it probably is in the TT)
- designing all "combats arena" with graves and crates and any other items behind which your characters can hide. The balance is pretty ok in Solasta but honnestly I don't think it's a great feature of the game. Wouldn't change that much without it.

The main problem of BG3 is not that it has homebrew... It's that Larian wants our creativity to fit theirs even if they like claiming that it's all about OUR creativity...

Not sure it's their intention or not but no it's not... As a results it's only about our DM's creativity...
In combats ours is always a bad choice.

The reason I couldn’t finish Pathfinder Kingmaker was not the combat; it was the kingdom building. I couldn’t stand micromanaging a kingdom and I know I’m not alone in this. I just wanted to have a group of adventurers and find adventure.

The combat was fine. And this is coming from a guy who thinks 3.5e which Pathfinder is based upon, is way too number crunchy.

It’s the same reason I am hesitant about the sequel. It seems to have mythic play where you lead armies. Again, it’s not something I enjoy in my cRPGs.

Considering the Kickstarter success of the sequel that is very unlikely.
Currently Pathfinder blows BG3 away, no matter how fancy the graphic in the latter is.

Pathfinder has a low completion rate because they wrote an ending halfway through. It's a completely different game after you rule a kingdom. What were they thinking? I just retired my level 9 Wizard as king and never touched the game again. If I want to play sim city I'll be sure not to look for that in an RPG.

Enemy stats were also ridiculous, but the underlying core gameplay was really solid.

I wonder why they put so much pressure on managing something other than the team. I don't remember rpg games where castle / kingdom management or something else was well done or more importantly well received by players.
I have a feeling that some developers love to shoot their feet (Obisidian isn't better).
How good that Larian has announced that they are not going to introduce something like this.

Not in my experience. I've found combat in PK works fairly well the first two chapters, but after that it kind of falls apart. There are spells & abilities which can just destroy enemies with ease; initially it was sneak attack on ray spells, now it is kineticist's deadly earth. And because the difficulty relies just on stat increases, the counter to that is basically just raising your spell dc etc. as much as you can.

OwlCat doesn't understand CR scaling in Pathfinder, they are as bad as Larian in making changes without understanding the system well enough to comprehend the affects of the change.

You know what might help here. Check out my thread in the General category called BG3 as Tabletop. In that thread, I played D&D 5e with a person whose character is Diadell. I am taking her through the BG3 story using D&D 5e story and combat. The enemy stats are all genuine 5e stats and combat is genuine 5e combat.

It is any example of how this game would play out if they'd truly made it more of a 5e gameplay. Note: I may have my own homebrew rules. It's hard to remember the rules exactly as printed so sometimes DMs do make it their own. So if I flub up a rule or two, that's why. 😁

But seriously, id you don't know D&D, just try reading that post and see what it is supposed to be like.

No amount of reasonable dice buggery can overcome advantage/disadvantage buggery.

Solasta isn't a story driven rpg, it's a tactical combat action game. It is good that Solasta nd BG 3 are different, it means u are able to play both and get different experience.
Pathfinder kingmaker was always a game about kingdom ( the name isn't just for fun heh ). I finished it and tbh it's kingdom sim isn't as bad as combat and character progression. At least kingdom sim was actually new and unique there, much more deep and complex than in dragon age or pillars. But the combat and character progress after a few hours became a boring pile of.. stuff, it was the only rpg in my life where i just hacked all my party skills to 99 and autocombat through last few hours of the game, because fights were extra boring and repetitive. If it's something like that in a new pathfinder, than it can't compete with bg3, hell it can't compete with anything tbh.

I don't buy it. Sure, Solasta is putting more emphasis on combat and gameplay, but it is no excuse for a bad story. You could say some people care more about one aspect of the game than others, but that does hurt the game's success for sure

Solasta ? Not a story driven RPG ?

There's nothing else to do than being driven by the story^^

All this talk about Solasta made me buy it to see for myself. So far, it seems fine. It does have quality combat for sure, which is what we're talking about.

Sorry i didn't get your point. It's a game about tactical combat, if u just skip all dialogues you won't miss much. Same as if you read everything, you won't get much))

I read everything in Solasta and I get a story. It's not a complicated story, but it doesn't have to be. It's certainly enough to tie the pieces of the game together and give you some motivation to go around doing things. I wouldn't say it's about tactical combat, it just happens to do that really well and everything else is adequate.