Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Completed one playthrough: Impressions

I do admit that after playing the game with TT going through the Prologue, it is still incredibly hard using 5e rules. If you read my post about BG3 as Tabletop, you'll see that the player, Diadell, almost loses every battle. Did she survive? Yes. She made it through the encounters, but fighting Imps at Level 1 even with Lae'zel and We are Here, is not easy. It is hard. I think that the number of enemies should be based entirely on the number of party members even in the Prologue. If you are going to throw imps at players so quickly, you need to not have 3 fighting you at one time unless you set the game to Hard. Each time they hit, they could take out a party member, and because of Damage Resistance, they are tough to kill. So if you get unlucky, you lose right away during the prologue.

This seems to be true for most of the big fights in the game. They throw bigger monsters at players than characters are ready for. Then the characters have to use cheese to win and the game has to be nerfed as well.

The Prologue would certainly be easier with 4 Custom Characters and Lae'zel and We are Here. Then it could be done more easily. That's why I think that they should base the number of enemies in each area on how many party members there are. If there is only 1 Custom Character and Lae'zel and We are Here, maybe they should fight only 2 Imps in each area of the Prologue and have more healing potion drops. Also, keep the 5e rules more strict. If they did this, the game would be more balanced. Then, if there were 2 Custom Characters plus Lae'zel and We are Here, maybe 3 Imps. If We are Here is not in the party, maybe stick with 2 Imps. 3 Customs and Lae'zel, stick with 3 Imps each area. 4 Customs and Lae'zel and We are Here, then maybe 4 imps. You know, something like that.

There is indication in Datamining that we should eventually be able to free SH and have her join us for the ship battles, and in general I think the game if moved toward 5e would be more genuinely balanced with a 6 person squad as that would remove that out numbering issue and so encounters would be more fair (and their difficulty will be more tailored to the player)

I checked, it's two actions, one for rank one, one for one rank two spell, neither can be cast again until rest, neither can be cast in combat rendering them largely useless because you could just go to camp and sleep outside of combat.




It gets ridiculous later on. Once you take out the Goblin bosses, two of which have half a dozen support characters in them, one of which has two but also a patroller minor boss who turns up at the worst time, but outside in the Goblin camp there are thirteen - 13! - Gobilns and something bears (sorry, can't remember their name), two of which are spellcasters with one-shot-prone spells, one Worg (minus the summons), and a Troll you have to fight.

If you consider that bad enough then try it with a spell caster who can only access a single rank 2 spell, falls asleep whenever sleep spells hit him, and can only use his ranked spells once in battle, along with melee characters that miss more than they hit. To make matters worse, it's impossible to sneak back in through the main entrance because a Goblin has line of sight covering the path you need to cross to get to the door, and despite searching all over, I couldn't find an alternative.

The encounter is not survivable with the available armour, the only way to do it is an extroinarily long, attractional battle on the bridge, or call in Troll support but given they cost 500 gold a battle, you won't be able to afford them for the three battles you ideally need them for. If your character had better gear, and the game had a viable spell casting system, and you hit more than you missed, you'd still struggle against those odds, and the game has none of that currently.


I'm not sure a six member party will work all that well in the game, the screen would start to be cluttered and it would increase the minimum specs for running the game, therefore reducing Larian's potential customer base and their profits along with it. What they need to do is balance encounters by making it easier to bypass them or give the player terrain advantages they can use such as choke points, reduce the miss hit rate for attacks, and rework their entire magic system which currently is not fit for purpose. Here's an example of how unbalanced it is. You know the encounter you have at the beginning of the game? The one with the Halfling and his Elf sidekick in the temple ruins? There's also a mage there if you chose to fight. She can put any of your characters to sleep but is immune to sleep herself. That is egregiously unbalanced and should never had made it into the game.

I don't think it would affect the minimum specs all that much, the screen is already cluttered, and if you engage with any larianisms eventually you will find the entire battlefield with 20+ creatures all on fire while the battlefiled itself is on fire while something else is happening. Another two combatants under your control actually helps tilts things back into a more balanced state where players have more turns and thus a miss on one character is not as critical.

Also not really unbalanced with the sleep thing, in fact that is actually working as intended. Sleep is a common low level spell, it is a saving throw that your party can pass, and Elves and certain other character types have advantage on certain saving throws and immunity to sleep. In a casting system where slots are limited, something like sleep is reasonable. Especially since it is likely to be resisted, the elf can be punished to remove concentration, and if anything happens to your party will awaken them, not to mention the fact that it affects a certain health amount so at a higher level of level 3, you will definitely have party members who are not affected because she can not upcast it.

5e magic is strong but balanced, with how larian changed magic it is kinda a mess right now, but the elf being immune to sleep is not the problem. If we were given 5e magic as it were I think it would be much better received, especially with how on its own the magic system encourages party members to work together and combo things for extra effectiveness.

I don't think we're understanding each other.

Casters have unlimited uses of cantrips: e.g., Acid Splash, Eldritch Blast, Firebolt, and Ray of Frost (spells you used as examples a few posts earlier). These are a casters' weakest spells, but in exchange they don't cost anything. These are the spellcaster-equivalent of swinging an axe: they deal slightly less damage but have magical damage types. Both take an action and don't cost other resources.

Leveled spells are different, as spellcasters can only cast a certain number of each level spell per long rest. These spells are more powerful than cantrips as a tradeoff for being limited usage. These are more equivalent to a fighter's Maneuvers, which are also limited.

I even more don't know what you mean here. If we are talking about Gale, at level 3 he can cast four level-1 spells and two level-2 spells times before needing to long rest. Even level 2 characters can still cast three level-1 spells per long rest. As long as you have the slots, you can cast the same spell multiple times and in combat.

Warlocks operate slightly differently. They get less spell slots (2 at levels 2-10) but recharge spell slots upon a short rest. In exchange, their base cantrip can be more powerful; in combat warlocks mainly spam Eldritch Blast and save their limited spell slots for long-lasting (e.g., Hex) or emergency (e.g., Misty Step to safety) spells.

I think I've reached the limit of what I can explain. If you still are having trouble, please read this for a description of how spells work in D&D 5e https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting. It probably presents the information in a more straightforward way than BG3 or forum posts do.

I don't remember exactly how it's been changed in BG3, but RAW Sleep doesn't allow a save and isn't concentration. Creatures with summed HP up to 5d8 just fall asleep (unless they're immune). Sleep is a very powerful spell against low-HP enemies.

But as you said, yes any damage or being shaken awake automatically wakes them, and it only affects 25ish HP so will become ~irrelevant past level 3 or 4. In BG3, I've heard that enemies wake up after a few turns, indicating that they're probably (incorrectly) getting STs each turn to wake up.

Oh yeahhh, you are right, I misremembered sorry. I am not the best at remembering spells. Funnily enough, I surprised a DM of mine one time by using Sleep cause no one in our group ever used it cause we always fought higher level enemies. He set up a boss of a very weak guy in essentially power armor. the power armor had its own health and stuff, and the guy had his own. I targeted him with sleep and instantly ended the fight, that was so long ago though. Sleep isn't really my go to spell cause I love conjuration so I uh don't really use it often enough to remember it well. Even in BG3, despite Sleep being a strong tactical choice, I use other spells cause I have more fun with them.

All the 5e spells plus BG3 changes is a lot to remember. I would be incredibly impressed if you could remember them all; I certainly can't.

lol nice; a very good use of sleep! I bet your DM sat there with a stunned expression for at least a few moments. I know I've been surprised when my encounters (10 flying 2-hp-but-poisonous enemies are swarming the party!) are instantly ended through a good use of Sleep.

He paused and then after a few moments yelled "SLEEP? WHO TAKES SLEEP?!" I definitely felt very proud, was the highlight of that campaign for me. It wasn't like I ruined the session though cause other combats happened, this was more of an optional boss that I might have stumbled my guy into and took care of very swiftly.

Also yeah, I can't remember half the changes. The only ones I try to remember are the changes to conjuration spells cause they are my thing and I lament the changes to Mage Hand and Find Familiar, as well as the lack of ritual casting.

I have played through the game multiple times, so I do know what happens later in combat. I did a couple mock battles as well with the spider lair. 4 party, custom characters, strict 5e rules and stats for ettercaps and phase spiders. Well, matriarch and babies were of course fudged a bit since they have no genuine stats, but I gave them more reasonable 5e stats. Used Level 5 characters.

Again, tough battle. PCs almost died. Came down to Diadell finishing off the last phase babies. At LEVEL 5. So once again, the battle was kind of above normal challenge rating. Granted, it is supposed to be a boss battle, so that is more understandable.

It did work, though. It was balanced and challenging without cheese needed. It was also fun and exciting. I felt like it was nail biting. I was afraid the PCs were really going to get their butts kicked hard. That's how a boss battle should be.

I do think 6 PCs would make using the 5e ruleset more doable and balanced and fun for most battles. Fighting the spider lair would probably still be quite tough with 6 party members. Yes, it might be too easy with 6, but not necessarily. Bad dice rolls in that fight could quickly turn it in the DM save us direction just like in my Prologue example I wrote up. I almost had to have the Mind Flayer heal the PCs just so they could beat the imps and get to the helm.

But I think more players would prefer an easier gameplay for first time playthroughs, so allowing 6 PCs and strict 5e ruleset from pretty much start to finish would balance the game out better without cheese and allow players to have a bit more of a killing spree combat feel as opposed to dying and reloading a lot. I think most players would prefer that at least in their first pass at the game. Then, want a more challenging game? Play again with only 4 PCs. There's you difficulty settings right there. No need to do anything else. 6 PCs for Normal. 4 PCs for Hard. 2 PCs for Insane.

I guess what Im trying to say is I'd rather have it be too easy with 6 PCs but strict 5e rules than 4 PCs and lots of cheese rules needed to help keep them alive. I said it before. The 5e rules provide balance. The more you get away from them, the harder you have to work to compensate.

So it is better to rebalance by either increasing party size or decreasing enemy numbers and/or health. They do the health decrease to a certain degree with the imps in the Prologue, so that is something that I did not do for TT. Then again, I was trying to just prove that the 5e rules and stats CAN work just fine in BG3 as a cRPG. You don't need to cheese it. The game is doable and challenging and there are very few actual rules that would be difficult to implement in BG3.

I'm aware of that. You have to realise I'm not playing a level 4 character, I've started a new playthrough so I have to reload the save on the lvl 4 to check things. I might mix up some things now and then but the point stands. It's not fun. Spells are disinteresting, boring, they feel like I'm chucking a wet lettuce rather than a fireball and that's a moot point since the majority of the time I miss anyway, or I'm put to sleep, or I'm instantly killed by a single spell or ability, and on the odd occasion it does hit it does less damage than a bow does on average, although Witchbolt has a higher critical score than a light crossbow. At level 4 I have the following selection:

• Arcane Recovery (Action, cannot be cast in combat)
• Mage Hand (Cantrip, by and large useless)
• Ray of Frost (Cantrip: 1d8 plus slowed status)
• Fire Bolt (Cantrip 1d10)
• Acid Spalsh (Cantrip 1d6)
• Witch Bolt (Ranked skill 2d12 at rank 2)
• Fog Cloud (Ranked skill causes blind to everyone including your party making it extremely situational)
• Sleep (Ranked skill, supposed to put a group to sleep, you're lucky to get one to fall asleep.)
• Grease (ranked skill, causes those who enter to pass a check or fall over. Bosses never fall over.)
• Ray of sickness (ranked skill, 2d8)
• Feather Fall (stops you taking damage when pushed off a high area)
• Blurr (Makes you hard to hit. Doesn't work)
• Thunderwave (pushes multiple targets off high ground, including you're own party rendering the spell useless unless your wizard is alone)
• Mage Armour (increases armour rating for one turn. Not close to being long enough, by the time you get to use it you've taken large damaage). DOS2's netherswap, uncanny evasion, or erratic wisp were far more useful)
• Misty Step (one of the more useful spells, allows you to teleport to any area you can see)
• Scorching Ray (2d6 to three characters)
• Dark Vision (increases range)
• Reflective shell (reflects arrows back at the attacker, very useful but only lasts two turns)

You have three powerful spells, and a bunch of crowd control ones and you can't keep them all memorised. Of your powerful spells you get to cast one and only one rank two spell, and, if I remember right, one (definitely no more than two) rank 1 spells before you rely on Cantrips. Let's take Featherfall for example. Great spell, very useful since Mages are best being placed high and risk being pushed off the high ground, and lasts 10 turns. The problem is it takes away your ability to then cast an offensive spell because at level 4 you only get 4 rank 1 spell slots and 3 rank 2 slots. Each spell takes a spell slot away so I can cast Featherfall, Mage Armour, and one and only one hard hitting spell before I'm spent. Two if I limit it to rank 1 spells. That doesn't give you a fun character to play, especially when coupled with the problem of missing more than you hit.

Compare this to DOS2:

• Electric Discharge (deals air damage and sets status Shocked for two turns meaning they skip two turns.
• Shocking touch (as above)
• Teleport (teleports another character. Can be used defensively to move a melee character away from you or offensively to drop them off a cliff)
• Uncanny evasion (provides 90% dodge chance and increases movement speed by 20%)
• Contamination (Poison damage)
• Fortify (Provides Armour/prevents teleportation)
• Impalement (Does physical damage, sets status 'crippled' and leaves an oil puddle which sets a further status of slow. If cast on an area on fire, will cause an explosion dealing additional damage, and set the character on fire dealing even more damage over time.)
• Worm Tremor (Does physical damage, poison damage and sets status 'entangled' for two turns preventing the character from moving.)
• Ice Fan (Fires three Ice spikes at up to three characters)
• Winter Blast (Does damage to character and set status 'Chilled' for 2 turns which reduces movement speed, dodging, and elemental resistance to water and air)
• Global Cooling (Does damage and, depending upon the surface, or when used in conjunction with other spells, can remove damaging surfaces and/or freeze a character so they miss one turn, and sets chilled status)
• Haste (Increases movement speed and adds an Action Point. Also clears slowed.)
• Ignition (Elemental Damage (fire) to all enemy targets in range)
• Searing Daggers (Same as Ice Fan but Fire damage)
• Spontaneous Combustion (Does fire damage after one turn)
• Fireball (Does a large amount of elemental damage as well as potentially setting the surface on fire, and sets the character on fire for two turns.)
• Fire Whip (Does a large amount of elemental damage, sets burning for one turn, sets blind for one turn)
• Laser Ray (Does a large amount of elemental damage to any character along the path and has the best range of any spell in the game. Sets burning for two turns which deals further damage.)

* N.B. The final two skills are low ranked but only available on the second map).

These spells are more interesting, do more damage, crowd control, and keeps your Mage alive. Best of all there is no limit to how many times they can be cast, only a limit to how often they can be cast, a far better way of handling things. Every one of those spells are available at up to level 4 in their appropriate category, easily attainable before you leave Fort Joy. Let's look at a non-Larian RPG, Dragon Age Origins:

• Grease (works the same as BG3's Grease.)
• Flame Blast (deals elemental (fire) damage to all enemies within the cone effect.)
• Arcane Bolt (deals spirit damage.)
• Arcane shield (reduces damage from melee attacks. Drains Mana.)
• Rock Armour (principally the same as DOS2's Fortify.)
• Winter's Grasp (deals elemental (cold) damage.)
• Lightning (deals elemental (lightning) damage.)
• Shock (deals elemental (lightning) damage to all enemies within the cone effect.)
• Gylph of Paralysis (essentially sets a trap where any characters walking into it will be paralysed for ten seconds.)
• Spell shield (prevents melee damage. Drains Mana.)
• Walking bomb (essentially works the same as DOS2's Spontaneous Combustion.)
• Drain Life (transfer HP from target to caster.)
• Paralyze (does what it says on the tin.)

N.B. In neither of the examples in the two games above have I have included any spells that would correspond better to a Warlock or a Cleric.

I picked these two games because they use two very different, but very effective systems to handle magic use and keep it balanced. DAO uses a Mana system, a pool of magic that drains with each spell and can be drained constantly by certain sustainable spells. Most RPGs operate a similar system. It can be replenished through the use of a potion. Both of these games use differing techniques to handle magic, both are substantially superior to what we have in BG3, both contain far more interesting and powerful spells. In DAO I can be chucking fireballs by the time I finish the prologue. This is what I meant when I said I don't feel powerful. The spell selection in BG3 is subpar in comparison to its peers. For obvious reasons I've not included high level skills and yet a Spellcaster in these games is a force to be reckoned with. The difference is the amount available to me at a low level, the chances they'll actually hit, and how much they hit for. In all three cases BG3 has the lowest compared to its peers. People will not be happy with that.

For example, rank 2 sleep is supposed to be able to put all characters to sleep within the circle, yet you'll be lucky if one goes to sleep and in my experience, boss creatures are immune. As I said in another reply last night, the first mage you fight in the game is immune and she's just a rank and file character. Even if I specialise my character in Damage dealing, I have a total of four spells, one of which can only be cast twice, and not at the same level of damage (assuming they hit which is more likely not than to). The ability for me to survive only lasts one turn, in DOS2 it lasts 3, in DAO (and its sequels) it's a sustained skill. Even BG2 has more available skills at levels 1-4 than BG3 does so it's not a D&D thing, it's a game design decision and one that needs to be rethought.



Arcane recovery is limited to restoring two rank one spells and one rank two spell. For example, let's say you specialise Gale or your custom Wizard as a damage dealer. The ability allows you to recast Witch Bolt, for example, three more times but only once you've exited combat. But once you're out of combat you can just go rest at camp and then return to the same point immediately afterward so why would I bother using that when a full rest will regenerate all my spells? I'm essentially saying that you need the ability to regenerate the spells in combat, not just out of combat. Spellcasting - and I don't just means Wizards - in this game is not fit for purpose. Does that make it more clear? This game will be Dead on arrival if Larian release it with the current combat system. RPG players who love Wizards won't play because they have a small pool of spells that rarely hit, and don't do much damage when they do, and melee players will get frustrated at missing more often than they hit.


This is why Mages are susceptible to it. They tend to have the lowest HP. If I don't include a Mage in the party then Rogues will be next.


The AI does, it simply limits it to the appropriate situation. Stand next to a hole, expect to be pushed in. Stand on a beam, expect to be pushed off. The AI does not push for the sake of pushing, e.g. on a flat surface.


Rogue characters will backstab, and more than a few of the Goblins are rogue class. What I haven't seen is the AI jumping or attempting to position themselves behind the player though.

All of this is a separate discussion, a matter of AI tuning, not combat system overhaul.

You should probably compare the whole DnD spell list to compare with DoS. You know that Larian hasn't implemented all the spells yet right ?


For the end no : it's not a matter of AI tuning, it's a matter of balance.

The ennemy won't shove you often EVEN if you're close to a cliff and they won't backstab you intentionaly except in very rare occasion.
You can use the occasion to say I'm wrong but after more than 300H playing I never saw the AI using backstab whatever it's a rogue or not and pushing my characters efficiently (like players).

And you know what ? the game would be even more frustrating if the ennemy was using this.
No one should be able to use such OP mechanics because this unbalance everything. This is definitely a matter of combat overhaul and balance.

I linked you BG2's spell list. Go read. Yes the enemy will shove you, I've had it happen on several occasions. Pushed off the high ground at the Goblin checkpoint, pushed off the beam in the Bugbear boss room, got pushed off the ledge in the Drow boss room, and seen the AI push a troll off into the Spider cave.

3 times on the whole act is what I call "rare" occasion, especially if the whole map is build arround verticality.
But I guess it's because it's an action for the ennemy... not a bonus action. Remember your starting point ?

Hey Chief Jericho, As an aside to this conversation, I might like to suggest that if you're going to talk spells and their problems as implemented in this game, it might be well worth your while to take a look over the spell feedback thread that's pinned to the top of this forum (it's Here) - it'll help you get some of your details straight going forward. ^.^

Hey, you won't get arguments from me about having smarter AI. Better that than cheating AI. I'm just telling you it happens relative to the appropriate situation. I forgot that one of the Dwarfs in the abandoned village also pushed me off the top platform, so that's four places where there is high ground. It doesn't do it on low ground because there isn't much benefit in doing so which I think is the correct approach. You don't want it overused. The only high ground it didn't happen was in the Spider caverns, were the Matriarch is towards the end of the act. Spiders don't push when they probably should.

Thanks, I'll have a read through and try contribute.

Mages are weak early levels because they have powers later on. If mages are powerful early game and chucks magic all day easily then later on you will have HUGE balancing problems. Mages have AOE spells, these do not miss. Enemy has to make a saving throw, such as dexterity saving throw to take half damage. If they are able to chuck spells early, they will chuck spells even more later, why would you even play a martial class then ?

Martial classes are for consistent damage throughout the game and combat, mages for explosive power later on. I dont play 5e but this is what I know from researching. For me this is interesting because it has a trade off, I also play pathfinder kingmaker which also has limited spells slot. These slots start to not matter as much because you will have so many available spells and so many spells slots that your mage becomes super good. You just can't see it now because level 4 mage is not that powerful especially if you cast mage armor and stuff. Just learn to move your mage out of line of sight, it is super easy since you can move then attack or attack then move or move attack move. This applies to your ranged characters as well, you dont Have to play it like pen and paper. Learn to use terrain, or make the mage be behind your team so a high initiative enemy wont Instant sleep or kill gale. This is not much different from DOS 2 at all. Your squishies will die in tactician if you just straight up walk in because enemy has insane initiatives.

Regarding people not liking "RNG rolls", I absolutely disagree. A lot of turn based games have chance to hit, such as Pillars of Eternity, pathfinder kingmaker, Xcom series, wasteland 3, if I remember correctly battle tech but I hate the game, and probably more. It makes the game interesting. DOS2 is also a great game too but making this game more like DOS 2 will be crap because combat does not make sense with DnD mechanics. Devs either has to make a BG3 or DOS 3 it cant be in between.

I personally want to see a game with DnD rules and amazing graphics. Solasta has good gameplay but I hate how it looks and moves.

And to me it seems that you either want an easier game which is fair or DOS 3. But I would suggest looking into DnD games on youtube, it is an interesting game I think. And maybe learning more about will change your mind.

As an addendum to the complaint of what is BS combat system, here's a situation that to my mind proves the numbers of bunk. Fighting a bugbear, I have an 80% chance to hit. That's an 8/10 chance to hit. I missed four times. That's a 4/10 or 60% chance to hit, not 80%. I don't want this thread descending into solely a Spell casting thread, it's about all combat being unfit for purpose.