Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldurs gate but not Baldurs gate

I made another post about the Faithwarden Staff because I agree, the items are not great. You do this quest, save the grove and tieflings, Kagha makes this big deal out of you being a Faithwarden and what do you get?

A staff that allows you to cast a level 1 druid spell once per day and the ability to pass through vines unhindered. the Nature's Snare staff is better and you can get that just by robbing the druids in the chest in the tunnels but that one isn't much better.

What do you get if you aren't a druid? Nothing.

What's better that both these staves? The axe in the shopkeepers inventory that sets people on fire. Real cheap too. 😁.

Oh, and what's the reward for saving Halsin? A cursed weapon. Thanks Rath. 😒

they had a cloak of shooting stars...I think. I might be misremembering that.

What did that do, and how did you get it? I've never seen that one. Maybe wrong choices or something. I've played through with a Gith Ranger and human druid. Who gives you the cloak?

Sorry I was replying to Argyle about an item in BG:II. And a poor substitute for the Ring of Shooting Stars too at that.

In my humble op. the reward is the TITLE we get.
As this game is all about personality, Dialog and relationships, a Title is far more important to open Doors then anything else.
But such is rarely used all the time. Titles are a different kind of currency and we have yet to see which effect Titels have ingame.
Are they only for the Achievement department or do they have relevance in the Game and can chage the Story in a special way for a special end?

But i do respect the wish for difficult quests resolved that the immediate reward should reflect the quests difficulty.
The staff is a nice to have object if we really would go deep into roleplaying and stick with Druids theme.
But its mostly just much more easy to kill stuff in other ways in the game.
If we get items with almost no relevance, why even bother using them....

Itemization is a difficult thing to achieve propperly done.
Many games out there have a lot of problems with balance and items availability.

Larian is surely trying to find a good balance and they learn by our feedback and telemetric feedback what happens in game.

Let us be in good hope for a good compromise in the release version of BG3
Until then... we give as much good usable feedback as possible.

The ax only does extra damage if the target is on fire not so useful

Previous said Axe functionality was having a chance to set enemies on fire by dealing firedamage to the normal damage. They changed it to the current Patch 5 Version.
Seems that most items will be jsut choices in gameplay and not really needed.
A kind of balance, to check if peopel go use those kinds of items which need requirements to make their intrinsic effects usable.
I prefer the direct route. To many requirments slow game down and force us to fight in special way, which is mostly too tedious to execute.

early access people.......magic items likely come secondary to systems/mechanics - personally i'd like as few items as possible until the full release - gotta save some of the magic (no pun intended) for later on...

One thing I hope Larian does not extract from Baldur's Gate is the behavior ("behaviour" for those of you in the UK) of the liches ...

"I am an immortal lich, possessed of mighty magics! How dare you intrude upon my cozy sepulchre located in downtown Athkatla! You shall lament your mistake as I first freeze time, for then shall I summon a Pit Fiend, and then lo, I shall destroy the Fiend while you watch in awe and despair! Ha! Your magics and weapons are useless against my contingencies, and now I shall rain acid and fire upon you ... uh, where have you gone? ... ouch! Agh, I've been poked by a cheap short sword, .... hissss, aagh!"

Does Dispel Magic remove a Protection from Undead effect?

This behavior was brilliant, though. And who can forget our friend Kangaxx and how he reacted to being subjected to a Protection from Magic scroll.

But generally all the spellcasters had some very exploitable responses to combat. They never really conserved their spells or used appropriate attacks, so letting them slowly deal with summons would get the worst damage out of the way. I seem to remember also simply getting my rogue into visual distance and then way out again (with boots of speed) to make them aggro and cast their time stop without actually having any targets to drop their nukes on. This was also, I think, the typical strategy for the Gate section lich that was guarding Daystar.

But in the more general sense, I agree that boosting enemies to be walking nightmares (or floating, in case of beholders) that are next to impossible to handle through conventional means and then throwing in some ridiculous weakness that can totally trivialize those encounters is not something that need be extracted from past games.

Did you even see the magic item in Baldur's Gate 1 ? You are comparing Baldur's Gate 3 early campaign item to Baldur's Gate 2 which is a late campaign.
It's just the same for me. Low level magic item don't need to be that marvelous or have that much crazy effect. Let's see for the later stage, but as expected, if the final game ends at level 10 it would not be as equal than what was shown in BG2

For low levels, I like the idea of consumables to be the most prevalent magic items. Antibiotics for healing, flaming oils, 5 Hour energy for staying up late, etc. Then as your levels increase, the permanent magic items start showing up. +1 weapons should appear right about the time you start to encounter monsters who resist normal weapons, etc.

I think it was Neverwinter Nights that had a ton of useless permanent magic items that gave small bonuses to feats and stuff like that. Yes, you can sell them I know, but I would much rather find sapphires for that kind of reward, and if I am going to get a skill bonus, I want it to be substantial, even if for only a short period of time.

???

I don't understand what you're saying. Most people prefer to fight with weapons, as opposed to things which are NOT weapons. That's what weapons are for. A broom is great at sweeping up dirt. Shoes are great at protecting your feet. Chairs are great for supporting a sitting person. They are less good at being used as weapons.

At best, such improvised weapons last until you find actual weapons. Once you have actual weapons, it does not make sense 99% of the time to fight with non-weapons.

The rules and spells have changed in DND compared to what version of DND BG1 and BG2 are based off. Some spells changed or dissapeared completly and the same story applies to magical items.

+3 weapons is legendary level in 5th ed, while in BG2 you had +4 and +5 weapons IIRC. I seem to renember finding them in every other barrel that I searched for, it was kind of silly. In 5th ed PC's can only have 3 attuned magical items on them as well, which are generally the more powerfull items. Have more then 4 attuned items on 1 person and you wouldnt be able to use it all at the same time.

Also, speaking as a DM I feel Larian is doing a stellar job of gifting loot without it beeing justs straight up +1 magical items or things like flame tongue. Its a problem im currently dealing with, my group has everything they need. They got the top tier mundane armors that they can use. Heck 1 PC had to leave due real life reasons (he was moving to another city) but when the group began I had half of my players who dident use armor because they were sorcerers. Their weapons are already magical or they dont use weapons. (one PC is a Monk for example) They are amassing gold and dont have much to do with it. They took a tome that they really shouldnt have (cursed), missed an area where I had an actual magical item waiting for them. But they missed that due to RP reasons. Magical items are rare so gifting those every other encounter isent an option. Consumables also quikly become boring (specially of your players dont use them, like mine...) so what options are you really left with at that stage? Not alot.

Items that can only be used once per day or have charges or a good alternative to give to players if a 'proper' magical item wouldnt fit or would be to much. A mundane weapon that does +1 damage or has +1 to hit but isent magical could be options or ones that have a very specific trait (like the druidic armor that debuffed Undead in BG3) but is completly plain otherwise can also be a nice option. And Larian has examples of these in the game already.

And my last point: we are only seeing the early game. If we ran into all of those items you mentioned THIS EARLY on in the game the balance would be completly off the charts. If we are decked out in magical items from head to toe before we even reach Baldurs gate it would feel very off imho. Unless it takes a long while to reach the city that is but im expecting chapter 3 to be the city. If we only reach it just prior to the ending of the game then obviously we should be abit more ktited out.

Tldr DND has changed since BG11 and BG2. And you see those changes back in BG3. Theyre actually sticking quite well to the PHB and the DND rule set in my opnion.

Somehow I never noticed this post of yours in this thread. What I was saying was, let's say, in Baldur's Gate, there isn't such a thing as "improvised weapons", but in Larian's games, that option exists. But, precisely as you said, no one prefers using non-weapon weapons. That's why, seeing all the objects that could be used as weapons lying around in the game makes me think "it's such a waste". Chances are many players barely even glance at such objects. At the very least, the devs did assign damage output and damage type to those objects. We need situations that force players to pick up improvised weapons. It is an opportunity for players to have a bit of extra fun, picking up ordinary objects to use as weapons or even armor (like, say, using a bucket for a helmet), until you get to pick up some actual weapons and you'd be like, "finally". At the core, it's just some silly fun, but it also reminds us that, we tend to take magical weapons for granted because we accumulate so many of them. In many situations just a basic longsword can be invaluable and is all you really need.

+1
I got the same feeling too.