Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interview with Sven by Gamespot

Bloodlines is never happening. Just make your peace with it now. Sorry buddy, I am just as upset.

There is a Vampire: The Masquerade game coming out soon called Blood Hunt that looks a bit interesting. Apparently the Alpha Keys should be going out soon. Its not a story-based game though. More like PvP arena I think.

Don't troll my pain :| It hurts right in the meow meow :|

Lets use the first case they told us about.

There metadata was showing them that no one was using the spell Bless and they assumed that was because people find buffing spells boring instead of looking deeper as why no one was using Bless.

1. The easy to get advantage on attack rolls, making Bless less attractive.
2. They lowered AC on many mobs because some people complained about missing, making Bless less attractive
3. The numerous surface effects made keeping concentration harder, making Bless less attractive.

The are looking at the data and just using it to support what they want to see, not to accurately see where they are messing up.

It's interesting that you focus on that aspect when height advantage is a rules as written implementation of advantage.


Pg. 173 of the Player's Handbook:


Our DM, Larian, has chosen to grant advantage for positioning, per the rules.

Hmm, if you can change the height tolerance to infinity (or some other suitably large number) then it might effectively turn off the advantage/disadvantage system.

I shall concider that being another +1 to my point.

On one tip of scales we have game we have something where we were, teased ... denied ... and then constantly disapointed for last three years (funny how the time flies, when you are having fun, huh? )

On another tip, we hve game that is being developed, nothing stands in the way to its releasing, except time, and its great in many aspects ... yet, its not "exactly what we hoped for".

Yup, Battle Royale.
I have seen, it seemed interestig enough to buy wen it will be in 70% discount ... but that would be all. :-/

Im more interested in Swansong to be honest.

I'm not sure why you make this comment. If they make it modable then we never have to discuss this again. Or are you hoping that we all have to play it the same way?

Oh absolutely, don't even try the cheat engine if you're unfamilliar with it until they get the definitive edition patch and confirm they're done with patching the game. They will just keep alternating the file you're working on ^^'''

But if you're interested in it definitely check it out on another game you have that is already without official dev's support. It's....easy to learn but hard to master. And it requires patience. A LOT of it ^^

That particular rule can be used to justify almost anything giving advantage or disadvantage - the same could be said if they'd implemented a rule that halflings get advantage all day every Tuesday. So it in no way says anything about whether a particular home brew rule is good or bad, and what a lot of people are arguing is that that particular home brew rule is a bad idea and overpowered.

Hey! Honestly, I was one of the main people preaching we needed more 5e for a long time. This game would REALLY be improved if they did it CLOSER to the 5e ruleset because, as so many have said it a thousand times over now, the game would be WAY more balanced if they just freaking did that. You can't take some of the rules of a game and chuck others and then expect the game to be balanced. Yes, as some have pointed out, homebrew is always necessary, especially with a cRPG because naturally you can't implement everything perfectly.

Take druids for example. Of course they would only have a handful of predetermined animals that you could wild shape into. So, naturally, they can't allow players to pick and choose from a ginormous number of animals. But...WHY THE HECK A POLAR BEAR??? Who in Faerun unless they visited Icewindale would have run into a polar bear?

I'm all for homebrew that makes sense. However, they should have stuck more to the rules. And yeah, as some have pointed out, if they had done the rules and spells and stats right, we'd use some of the spells and strats and so forth built already into the 5e game. Instead, we chuck the good stuff from 5e, like Bless, because it's a waste when height advantage and backstab are way more effective?

So, I'm all for suggesting things. What's starting to wear on me is I've been posting since when...November or something, and nothing I've suggested is even remotely showing up in the game. Also, all I EVER get is about a dozen people slamming my ideas and calling them crap because for whatever reason they all want the game to NOT be anywhere close to true to the 5e ruleset. The WHOLE point of dice rolls is to make the game exciting and replayable. Every time you play the game, the dice rolls provide you with a different experience. Sometimes you're the hero and save Arabella from Kagha and sometimes you fail, like a person with flaws and such. You aren't supposed to be a super hero or a god. You are a person adventuring in a fantasy world. But people out here don't want that. They want boring absolutes where if they pick the "Save Arabella" dialogue option they will automatically succeed.

It's frustrating and at this point I'm afraid the ones who don't want 5e are going to win out because that seems to be what Swen suggests in his interviews. He's trying to cater so much to the DOS people and such that more and more he's chucking the true ruleset. So I'm afraid that what's going to wind up happening is that Larian is going to make the game worse for me and not better. I love the game right now, even with all the non-D&D rules. If they strip more D&D rules from it, I'm afraid I'm going to hate it.

But that's what it seems to me like they're doing. They seem like they're going to give us a D&D 5e-ish game and not a true 5e game. So I'm going to eat my cookies and stop stressing over a dumb video game that I'm afraid is going to wind up sucking before it's over.

Come on, I feel Larian is competent enought to get a "somewhere in the middle "experience. Just a shame it's the best we can count for based on the interview. And yeah, It's just a game, I'm calm 99% of the time when discussing it but every " just don't play it " comment adds one more grain of salt to my body. Just like you. I will eventually become a salt mine sooner or later xD

I don't think its going to suck either way. It will be a "could be better" situation though.

Except it's not a homebrew rule. It's 100% D&D 5e Rules as Written.

Larian, our DM, is choosing to reward tactical positioning.


Although your Halfling on Tuesday suggestion is an interesting implementation of Lucky.

The modding community is pretty clever.
I'm sure someone will figure out a way to make a mod for those wanting to circumvent certain D&D 5e rules.

Technically, that is a rule Allowing homebrew advantage, saying the DM reserves the right to grant it as they see fit, to homebrew it in amongst the already written instances. Regardless, the core issue of that is that allowing any instance of highground or being behind an opponent is proving to be overpowered and unfun for the game, so many players have asked for it to be changed to a more flat bonus with some wanting it removed altogether. Yes, larian is our DM, and Yes that rule says the DM can grant advantage, but that doesn't change that the DM adding something in is considered homebrew. The DMG and PHB are filled with instances of "The DM can change this," and that itself is a repeated confirmation that the DM can homebrew, can make changes, house rules. And this house rule is not working well for the players, so most DMs would change it.

You can call it homebrew as many times as you like. It is 100% Rules as Written.

That you find Rules as Written advantage "overpowered and unfun for the game" doesn't make it so.

You'll find plenty of folks that enjoy using tactical positioning for combat advantage.

with your logic, there is no such thing as homebrew because the DM can run the game however they like.

You can homebrew new classes.
You could homebrew a brand new initiative system.
You could homebrew a new feat system.

Any time you replace an existing game mechanic you are homebrewing.
When you follow rules as written you are not homebrewing.

Anything and everything the DM does is RAW

On a more serious note, there's a difference between explicitly spelled out scenarios in the rules (e.g., how attack rolls work) and things which are explicitly left up to the DM (e.g., giving Advantage for circumstances or setting DCs for traps/to persuade NPCs).

If a DM set all persuasion checks to DC 30, that'd be a bad gameplay decision and frustrating for the players. But it'd still be technically following the rules.
This is equally true for setting all persuasion checks to DC 1.

Homebrew, whether big or small, is when the DM adds something. Throughout the books it says the DM can follow the rule or change it, that is one of those instances. A DM saying you have advantage on hitting a target because you have the highground is a minor instance of homebrew, compared to a major instance like a DM making a custom Monster to attack you with.
However, Homebrew needs to be careful as it can break the balance of the game, as seen with much of the homebrew in BG3. Highground Advantage is just one instance of it going a bit too far and needing toned back. Yes it makes sense for ranged attacks to be easier when one has the highground, but making Advantage granted purely by that invalidates a whole slew of advantage granting abilities such as upcoming Barbarian rage and Find Familiar Help Action. Abilities that 5e was balanced around.