Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why I Want More D&D 5e Rules

Well no - jump from written to visual medium is far bigger change, then from a game to a game. I suppose a more apt comparison would be a stage play to a film.

And while it can be amusing to overanalyse as to why an adaptation is bad by comparing it to the original, ignoring the source material existence doesn't magically lift the adaptation.

Not to detract…but there is the other side of this coin (the movie analogy) to consider. My pals will NEVER read Dune. They do not understand my frustration with how the new film butchered the source material. They have no idea what a mentat is, or who Pieter De Vries is. They never will.

The sure as shit liked that movie tho. It had spaceships and sand and monsters and hawt Chani…woohoo!

My point - I wanted a faithful adaptation. They wanted a good time. I think a faithful adaptation would be a much better time. They are oblivious to what they are missing.

I kinda feel like this is Larian’s approach with BG3. No it is not a faithful adaptation to 5E. But their audience liked DOS2 and will probably like this too.

All to say…I feel ur pain GM4him. But alas…you are likely yelling into the void…or into the mouth of a CGI sandworm.

Lol. Probably, but I'm doing it anyway because it's still in development and there's time to give the people what they don't know their missing. 😁

Love the Dune reference, too, btw.

Keep yelling dude. Maybe something will get thru! 😊

Just fought phase spiders again. Ugh. It bugs me a lot. They are probably one of the biggest ones, them and intellect devourers.

It's insane.

Here's how the Whispering Depths should go:

You enter. You roam up to Eliette's old lab. It's dark because, you know, spiders don't need lights, so why is it lit as if someone's been there recently burning torches. You maybe light some torches and such. You read things. You start exploring more.

Bam! Phase spiders pop out of the Ethereal Plan and attack you up close and personal. Surprise Round. They attack you. Next round. If they go before you, they attack again and vanish back into the Ethereal Plane. If you get to go first, you may get a hit on them before they attack again and vanish. Battle ends.

You roam some more, now a bit more cautiously. You run into the Ettercaps. During the fight, the same two phase spiders suddenly pop out of the Ethereal Plane and attack you. Same tactic except now you have two Ettercaps to face as well. During the fight, they bounce in and out of the Ethereal Plane but this time they stay in the battle.

You kill them all. You maybe even rest. You continue. You find the heart of the lair. There's the keygem. You make your way down to it.

Bam!

Matriarch and her two phase spider minions attack. Debuff her because 125 HP is WAY too many HP, and take away her Supreme Misty Step so she doesn't teleport across the board everywhere. The three gang up on your party near the keygem and attack at melee range. Maybe Matriarch has 60-80 HP and like +7 attack bonus and multiattack and her bite does 1d extra damage because she's special.

Tactics: Just like the other Phase Spiders. They attack and phase. Phase then attack. All at melee range. Spider matriarch using arachnomancy to hatch her young is fine. That makes sense. She is an arachnomancer after all. They could even have her use some sort of spellcasting or even the teleporting thing because she's a spellcaster. Just not her minions and babies.

And please put back the skeleton fight in the Necromancer's lair. That was a good fight. Hard, but good. Now, two skeletons? That's super weak. I loved how they used to pop out of one casket, run to another and free a second. Run to another and free a third. Man! There were like maybe 6 of them by the time it was done, and it was hard, but it wasn't too hard. Made a good fight and it made a lot more sense with the journal that says if the zulkirs show up they'll have to face his guardians.

Its not about size of change ...
Its about that as long as there are any changes, or any cuts ... *some* people (usualy called Hardcore fans) will be mad about it.

I can feel your pain ...
This is how i felt, when i watched Warcraft movie ...

Its even worse since it was also made by Blizzard, yet Blizzard didnt manage to keep Blizzard Lore intact.

GM4Him, I completely relate and understand your frustration...
But no point OF THIS FORUM anymore for serious RPG fans. All hardcore D&D5th, RPG, and Baldurs gate fans are LONG gone. LOL.

All that is left are PG13 Larian cow love and fluffy pen pal love worshipers. FACT.

Quite the opposite, yet both simultaneously, I'd say.

The majority of threads and replies are about criticism / requests for changes or improvements, and most replies tend to be critical rather than plain praise. Those that remain, are in large portions the highly critical ones, that probably love the idea of the game it could become / they hope it'll become, that care enough to at least try. The alternative is being haters, so I choose to believe underneath the criticism and bickering are people that care and mean well.

I don't know, how you can say that - look at all the threads that want changes - more 5e rules, less Larianism (me included). People are constantly talking about better implimentation of the rules, change of paryt size, combat etc. And a lot of them (again, me included with more than 20 years experience) are coming from tabletop rpg and grew up with the old BG games.

Matriarch doesn't have too much hp. This monster does not exist in the official 5e rules, but we have a Giant Spider Matriarch which by default has 97hp (12d10 + 36hp), but if you roll hp it can have much more.

We do?
I thought even giant spider matriarch is homebrewed

Phase Spider, Standard = 32 HP. That's a CR rating of 3.

That means, a party of 4 level 3 characters will have a moderate difficulty defeating 1.

Add another, so you have 2 phase spiders. Now add a homebrew version with 4 times the HP?

But you can only be level 4 at max right now and likely WILL only be level 3 or 4 by the time you do this encounter.

Hmmm... She might be too OP UNLESS you nerf her other stats and unless you severely nerf her minions.

When I first played this game, she was not nerfed. Neither were her minions. I was at level 4. Had to reload the game over a dozen times trying to beat her.

So, they nerfed her in other ways as well as her minions. If you unnerf her minions and such, you'll need to reduce her HP. Otherwise, sure. Don't use proper stats and leave her HP where it is.

Let's put it in another way. A young white dragon is CR 6 with 133 HP. Stat-wise, that's the closest monster I can find to the matriarch. You encounter the spider matriarch in Blighted Village which you could face at level 3.

No one should ever face a monster with 125 HP at level 3 or 4. She alone should be CR 5 or 6 meaning if you were to face her by herself with a party of 4, you shouldn't face her until you're at least level 5 or 6... And that's by herself. Throw in a couple of standard phase spiders and you should be level 6 or 7 before facing something with HP 125.

I think the Matriarch is somewhat nerfed because of situational considerations, namely the fact that you can destroy the web beneath her feet, causing her to fall and take substantial damage.

This effectively makes her hit point total *seem* higher than it is for practical purposes.

Now, in fairness, some people might not like the idea of "gimmicky" fights, but I think it's basically baked into the challenge rating of the encounter by design.

This was pretty much the point I was making and in fact Dune was one of the very books I had in mind.

Larian are creative artists in the entertainment business. They are literally putting their careers and personal fortunes on the line every time they take on a new project. Just like the creators of the various Dune projects they are going to take creative license and put their spin on things. That's something they've earned the right to do as a result of their success, and specifically the agreement they have with WoC in regards to BG3.

Its clear they listen to feedback as some changes have been made but in the end they are striving for their version of a fun game based on 5e. It's only natural there is a DOS II feel to the game as #1 that is what they know best, and #2 it was a very successful product. No doubt they will continue to make changes in response to feedback but other things they will leave for the modding community to fine tune, something they supported enthusiastically with DOS II.

Yeah, speaking of that gimmick, I also don't approve. Even IF a spider took fall damage, it shouldn't be substantial. It's what? 30-50 feet? She's a giant spider. Real spiders can fall huge distances relative to their size and still scramble away as if unharmed. I just have a hard time with that gimmick which wouldn't be necessary with more appropriate stats and combat tactics.

I just wanted to point out that the challenge rating isn't as off as it seems because that gimmick lowers the difficulty.

In regards to not liking the gimmick itself, that's a fair argument. I don't disagree, not necessarily. (I'm not sure the same fall damage holds true when you change a creatures size, though. For instance, if you make an ant bigger, it doesn't keep being able to lift 5,000 times its body weight. Things like that change with scale.)

Anyway. I think from Larian's point of view, they figured it would be fun to let the player break the web and drop the spider, making the fight more dynamic by allowing interactivity with the environment.

Yeah, real spiders can fall and survive because they are tiny and weightless. Giant spiders would be squish under their own weight.

well. I understand what you mean. But that actually doesn't go for all spiders. The larger species, like the tarantula, are actually quite fragile, and can have its exoskeleton shatter when dropped only a few feet. And you know the old phrase, the bigger they are, the harder they fall...

Ok. I'll buy that. Still, one fall then makes sense. Making it a main gimmick to killing her does not. She's supposed to be an intelligent Arachnomancer. I could see her get surprised that anyone would think to drop her on her head, but more than once is stupid.

Which again means 125 HP is too much IF you use proper stats and tactics for her minions.

I agree with all the points made by the OP. There is definitely something weird about playing BG3 set in a D&D setting but getting most of the distinctly D&D flavor wrong.


Then this game shouldn't have been called "Baldur's Gate 3" since that is moreso what BG 1 & 2 were with some exceptions.