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I personally think I'd enjoy whatever BG3 becomes in the end. The question is exactly how much I would.

My REAL worry is that, assuming the current status quo doesn't really change... BG3 takes off enough that most future DnD games attribute its success to how the combat mechanics and encounters are designed, and take many of the same design lessons from it, if not outright borrow the same engine (when everyone praises the cinematics and writing/reactivity, but the combat design straight up splits the community at this point).

Such an outcome would be completely horrifying, as future DnD games should not be based on a template that's outright missing proper reactions for one. The gaming industry is historically awful at really understanding why certain things are popular, and fail in trying to emulate success.

I doubt that the worst case scenario will come to pass. If nothing else, I expect Solasta to get a higher budget sequel.

Advantage with high ground does not bother me so much. Tactical advantages require thinking about positioning, and I think it is fine, personally.

However, being able to sneak once combat starts, ridiculous barrels everywhere, shove as a bonus action, and jump vs disengage are very annoying mechanics to me because they really reduce the challenge. One can use those for ALL classes to win battles, so party management and thoughtful character builds are basically irrelevant. And thinking about builds is one of the funnest parts of DnD based games imho.

Also food + short rest make healing spells and healing builds totally irrelevant.

But even all that would be ok with me…as long as they tone down the damned surfaces in the final game. I despise them in DOS2 (which I am currently playing now for the first time). Everything around me is either on fire, slippery, or oily/wet/poisonous, resulting in a slog. Movement is severely impacted in DOS2…and concentration is totally screwed in BG3 by them. I hate surfaces so much that I rarely use any spells that create them because they are obnoxious to deal with post battle.

DOS2 for me surfaces kinda work cause the game is balanced around it and it feels like part of the game. When i debilitate an enemy or get hit by themit feels like a fun challenge,
BG3, partly cause of me coming from DND and BG1+2, it doesn't feel natural to the game and instead of feeling like a part of the experience I can enjoy, it feels frustrating and antithetical to other aspects of the game. If a non Eldritch Knight fighter can cast spells more often than a wizard, and a rogue can heal more than the cleric, it doesn't feel like dnd or even a game based on dnd.

I guess that's a little bit of a minor concern. It is unlikely.
You are forgetting one important thing and the subsequent D&D games don't even have to be RPGs.
You don't even have to look far. Dark Alliance is the best example of this, the game doesn't even pretend to follow the rules, and this is a game published by WotC (they probably own the studio too, though in this case I'm not 100% sure).

Yeah, what I should have said is 'future DnD cRPGs'. I am not nearly as harshly critical towards the RTwP games or anything in another genre entirely like Dark Alliance, because those games make it fundamentally clear that they're either aiming for a completely different audience, or the combat isn't really the main point of the game over the writing and plot.

But it's hard to know where BG3 lies on that spectrum as a pure turn-based game, made by a studio celebrated for turn-based combat prior and isn't historically known for writing, and if Larian's ambition with this project is big enough to have it affect future projects in the form of an engine that WOTC might lease out to other prospective developers later.


I wasn't all too bothered by surfaces once I figured certain things out. The further you get into the game, the more mobility skills you can pick up that basically minimizes the impact of surfaces. The most important thing to know is that you pretty much never want to move within them at all. Generally, standing there and waiting out the timer (while re-fortifying your defenses or using the AP that you'd spend moving towards attacking the enemy instead) or using a mobility skill is your best option.

This is why I highly recommend everyone pick up Teleport, Nether Swap (both require 2 points in Aeroteurge), and 1-2 of Tactical Retreat (Huntsman 2), Cloak and Dagger (Scoundrel 2), or Phoenix Dive (Warfare 2). Teleport and Nether Swap are especially good at manipulating enemy movement and setting up massive AoE plays - in the case of the latter, it only costs 1 AP and I generally use it to have my casters and archers on low ground swap places with enemy casters or archers on high ground. You can also swap enemies and allies with intact bodies.

Strength characters should additionally invest a minimum of 1 point into Polymorph to pick up Chameleon Cloak (invisibility skill, mostly to take any aggro off of that character for a turn if the enemy doesn't use any AoE skills in the general area) and Tentacle Lash (mid-range physical attack that can disarm enemies). And Blitz Attack (Warfare 2) is also great for warping yourself out of a bad situation while attacking at the same time.

I like height, backstab, etc. and even surfaces as tactical elements of the game, BUT if you are going to use them they shouldn't negate other elements or be so overpowered. Fine, the surface has poison. Unless I'm prone, it shouldn't effect me through my boots. Fore shouldn't set me on fire automatically and deal damage 3 times a round or whatever its doing. Backstab shouldn't provide advantage nor should height. Where is cover bonus to AC?

But yeah. The things that hurt the game most are the ones that make other things obsolete. If everyone can use Disengage as a Bonus, the Rogues getting Cunning Action means nothing. If potions are Bonus, Fast Hands means nothing. If food heals HP, potions mean nothing. If I can do more damage by throwing a 30 pound barrel than a spell, spells are stupid. If I can gain advantage with height or backstab, Bless, Faerie Fire and all those spells are useless.

So, again, the issue isn't that they are being creative with rules to provide more tactics or whatever, the whole reason many want a more strict 5e ruleset is that the homebrews are negating a lot of the most fun and enjoyable elements of d&d and making it so that no classes are truly special. What makes a Rogue awesome is they break a lot of the rules with their special class abilities. Give those same abilities to everyone and the Rogue is no longer valuable. Think about it. If my Fighter can do everything Astarion can, Sneak, Pick Locks, Use Disengage as a Bonus as well as Use Potion, then why do I need Astarion?

"and a rogue can heal more than the cleric"

The versions of D&D each contributed changes which have diluted the individuality of certain classes. By the time we reach 8E, there probably won't be any recognizable "cleric" class anymore. The class's original healing functions have already been overtaken by other game elements, to include the extreme limits of credulity in BG III where eating an onion extends one's life in combat. Even the most iconic divine spells are now available to bards & paladins. To make up for the loss of uniqueness, the cleric gets "domains" which contain ... mage spells. Bards, clerics, and warlocks now cover 100% of the mage portfolio in 5E, so that is another base class in peril. The original Illusionist class is long gone.

This situation results when the game designers are focused more on re-arranging the mechanics of things that were already contained in prior editions. An alternative approach would be a completely skill-based and classless system like Morrowind, but I don't think that appeals as much. Why? Because it's good to have limitations and flaws as well as special abilities, for as much as we complain about them, those aspects help the roleplay connect with our experiences in life and give each class a unique set of challenges to overcome. What can Larian do? Well, there is inspiration for unique content out there if you know where to look ... the FootPrints publication, the archives of Dragon Magazine, etc. I've always thought the Paramander class was a great idea, for example, with its list of unique spells.

I've been playing the Pathfinder cRPGs lately, and the amount of subclasses that exist in there is insane. The sheer amount of them is probably overkill, but I would pray to have something like the Magus Eldritch Archer archetype translated into 5E. I assume DnD 3.5E had something similar, as Pathfinder is basically a spinoff of DnD 3.5 from what I hear.

It's probably why I favor Solasta's homebrew Greenmage archetype for Wizards so much, the current 5E rules and official archetypes that I am aware of do not support viable spellcasting archers of any sort.

Hey Saito, I think there's an arcane archer subtype available out of fighter in current 5e, have you looked at that?

Also, if you're interested in Pathfinder-to-5e conversions and reimaginings, I have a link to a really top notch alchemist class*, derived from pathfinder but designed and balanced for 5e (full class, six subclasses, all supporting documentation), that I think is a much more satisfying alternative to 5e's new artificer ^.^

*Niara has a certain amount of personal bias here.

Anything with 2 attacks and the sharpshooter feet can be a decent archer. EK, valor bard, pact of blade warlock (especially hexblade) can all do that and cast spells. Warlock can do a ranged smite with investment in appropriate feats and invocations.

I'm not sure if any of those will win the best minmaxed damage at the table award, but they all can do the job acceptably well, and they all cast spells.

5e has tried to simplify the previous versions, is all. Instead of a million Prestige classes and feats to choose from and people doing all sorts of cross-classing to try to make a wizard-archer, or Warlord Mage who can wield a two handed sword, they built the archtypes for various mainstream classes.

So, if you want a magic archer, you could choose Fighter with Arcane Archer Archtype or create a Fighter who has high Dex and Eldritch Knight Archtype depending on what type of magic archer you're looking for.

I like 5e a lot. Although it isn't as intricate and complex as 3 or 4, it doesn't give me a headache when I create a character or level one up. The older versions had SO many feats I couldn't remember them all and who had what and so forth. It was a DM's nightmare trying to remember which NPC had what feats and special abilities and skills and weapons and so forth.

5e is so much easier to manage multiple characters and it is so much quicker to create them and level them up. And the Archtypes make cross-classing almost completely unnecessary, which I like, because cross-classing was always kinda messy too. It created even MORE options to choose from, and it was often overwhelming for players. Do I level up as a wizard or fighter or eldritch knight? What bonuses do I get for one over the other? What feats? What spells? What attack bonus or skills or...

It was too much. I like hoe 5e directs you more on different paths and limits your choices more. You can still have an Arcane Archer, but you get there by taking Fighter path then Arcane Archer. Done. Wanna be a cleric mage? Choose cleric and the arcana domain. Boom. Done. Simple. Efficient. Less pouring through manuals trying to figure out what choices you have to make to get you there.

Anyway, I really do hope they meant what they said and implement the game with all the classes and such. I still have high hopes for this game. It doesn't have to be total 5e, but if it was closer it would be so much better with characters having unique abilities that make each important and special.

I looked into the actual Arcane Archer archetype for Fighters but I got the impression that they aren't capable of actual spellcasting, but they did get magical arrows (that people seem to think is far too restricted in terms of uses per day). Actually I think Arcane Archer has a decent shot of making it into BG3 from what I hear. Maybe they could do something really neat with all of the magical arrows in BG3, or be rendered obsolete by them.

Right now I want to run College of Valor Bard with Sharpshooter feat, though it depends on the Sharpshooter feat actually making it into BG3 in the first place. It's pretty much the exact same build my tabletop character runs, and I am already running it in BG3 with the Bard mod (though without Sharpshooter). It is surprisingly frighteningly effective at tanking too, especially since the game currently has shield bonus to AC apply even with the bow pulled out. I have not looked into everything else being suggested though, that's something I'll have to do...

Eldritch Knight option seems neat, actually. I think I'll need the warlock pact of the blade option explained though.

The short explanation for warlock blade pact is that if you take the improved pact weapon invocation you can use ranged weapons as your pact weapons (and hex weapons if you are a hexblade), which then means you can also use your charisma modifier to attack with it, and you can eldritch smite through it as well. Alongside this, as you play the character you would naturally aesthetic your spell delivery as being done through your pact weapon as well, so even though you aren't technically shooting spells, you can aesthetic that scorching ray as being bow shots, perfectly legitimately, etc.

Going higher to have the best bonus in a game in a game that has high positions at every corner = thinking ?

I'd like so much to have to think a bit more than that... even if I agree that being higher should give us various bonus (i.e better range for ranged weapons)

Barrelmancy is one of those things that I keep waiting for them to address in some way because its so obviously a broken thing that doesn't fit into any system.

And the solution to me is so simple it's quite silly. An empty barrel, by the way, doesn't weigh 30 pounds - it weighs 100 pounds.

A barrel full of oil - weighs 300 POUNDS!! The mechanics are already in the game to fix this, it could be done easily. You need a minimum 10 Strength to move a 300 Pound object, and if these items are that heavy you are not going to be able to carry them around in a backpack.

I don't want to stop people from being able to move objects around the room, but there needs to be a hard limit on stuff you can just throw in your pack.

5e may be simpler but something it makes sure to do is give each class an subclass its own feel and playstyle. A Hexblade Warlock, a Bard, and an Arcane Archer can all be magic bowmen but they functionally act very differently, have very different in built flavor, and often can fit different roles in a party.

And I want to make an addendum to my statement, there are non healer classes that have gained healing through subclasses, for example the Celestial Warlock, but often times they still fundamentally play like their parent class and do not invalidate other choices. The issue with BG3 rn is a rogue with a pig's head can heal themselves far far better than a cleric at the current levels ever could, a battlemaster fighter with scrolls can cast way better than a wizard ever could, and barrels can do way more that spells or attacking ever could. The added and ignoring of mechanics are right now sadly invalidating other choices when something I love about 5e is that (other than True Strike) there are no bad Choices. Even a badly rated subbclass has its niche and can perform really well, and a creative player can find a use for a "useless" spell, cause the original system is very balanced. Often times when new stuff is released I hear gripes about how they are very strong, but when I compare it to earlier content, everything to me feels fairly in line with eachother while also maintaining distinct flavor and identity for each class. 4e succeeded at making everyone balanced to eachother, but did degrade a bit of the flavor and feel of classes, so in my eyes 5e successfully struck the balance. BG3 has put things on the scale and lost that balance.

There would be a tradeoff then because of the weight, and even a bag of holding would only be able to hold one full barrel. Weight would be a great weight to balance barrels in addition to reducing their frequency. In that case it wouldn't invalidate other options cause the player is going through a lot of effort and is trading valuable inventory space just to lug around one barrel. And if they become far rarer, there would be a heavy resource cost as they would become a much more limited resource.

Basically, I want them to follow DND weight cause the idea behind the barrels isn't bad, just their effectiveness and frequency.
Its is a first person RPG but I will still use it as an example, Fallout 3 had Mininukes which could melt the healthbar of anything BUT Fat Man launchers and mininukes were rare enough that it didn't go into the overpowered range and that even at a high level, unless you religiously knew where every mininuke was hidden and was determined to use that weapon, you would only have a couple handfuls of shots, making it that you could not solve every hard fight with a mininuke. And even the better version of said weapon had a tradeoff where it used way more of said mininukes and had a greater chance to kill you or even miss. I don't think Fallout 3 is the greatest reference for balance, but it understood to make Big Explosions a very limited thing, which in turn actually made them more rewarding and satisfying.

Mm. And something I love about Tasha's is it codified retheming into the rules. While it would be a tad bit MAD to do, a Celestial Warlock could take pact of the blade and improved pact weapon to take a bow or gun as their pact weapon, and then retheme their healing as if they were shooting their allies with arrows of healing light or something, which I have always had as a funny thought to do. They will never outdo the Paladin or Cleric, but it would be fun to play cause it still would feel effective.
Essentially, with a little creativity nearly any concept can be achieved, including ridiculous ones, and often they are still balanced.

Shoving is definitely something a character should be able to do. So is throwing a barrel. They are just badly implemented because the devs want you to use these mechanics so much.

It never occurred to me but now that I think back, the fact that encumbrance in DOS and DOS2 was never a thing even though carrying capacity does exist, is because the devs wanted you to be able to carry barrels of oil and water, kettles, chairs, tables, in your backpack and throw 'em around. Makes sense.