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

And THAT is really what Lady A, I think, is referring to when she says a crossing of video game and tabletop. The truth is, BG3 is a blending of DOS2 and tabletop D&D because they took DOS2 and tried to make it D&D=ish probably for budget purposes and to see how well it was received. Then, realizing it wasn't received very well by many, they started to sort of implement more and more D&D 5e rules and such because so many fans on Steam, Reddit, this forum, and many others were screaming, "Why is this game a DOS sequel and not a BG sequel! It feels too much like DOS3 and not BG3."

So, they have been getting better in some ways, but we are still missing so many more elements, and that is my point. It feels MORE like a BG sequel, but it is still missing so many many things.

The biggest, for me, is the monsters. I'm telling you, one of the things that makes D&D what it is, it is the variety of monsters and their special abilities. A red dragon that can't breathe fire is not a D&D red dragon. It's some sort of Ice Drake from Lord of the Rings. (I'm just throwing out an example that's not in the game to make my point. If they threw a red dragon into the game and it didn't breathe fire ever, people would be like, "What the heck!")

See, part of the issue is that we have a lot of DOS fans and other video game fans who don't know much about the monsters of D&D. Therefore, they can't fully appreciate what is missing. I put the example of the Intellect Devourers in this thread because that is how they are supposed to be. In fact, I would even say that the example I put in here is so NOT even how they would act. The truth is, and the full lore of it is, they are stealth assassins. They wouldn't face you in direct combat unless they had to.

Here's what I'd REALLY like to see as a true and faithful adaptation of intellect devourers.

You meet Shadowheart. You come up the beach towards the nautiloid. Oh! There is a fisherman standing there. "Hi! Oh, am I so glad to see you. There are so many dead around here," he says. "Thank goodness you showed up when you did. Those monsters have been everywhere. Thankfully, I think we've killed most of them." A scream comes from inside the nautiloid. It's a woman's. "Oh no! Moira! She's in trouble. Quick! Please! Help me! My wife, Moira, is in trouble. One of those things must have her cornered or something." He darts into the nautiloid. You follow.

There's Moira and one other fisherman standing there. There is a mind flayer corpse at their feet. "Sorry," says Moira as you approach. "I was startled. It's nothing. It's just a dead one of those squiddies." Perception roll is made. You succeed and suddenly notice the third fisherman is sliding up behind you... with a CLUB! He sees that you spotted him and attacks.

All three attack you. You kill one. BAM! "What in the bloody Hells!" Shadowheart cries. "An Intellect Devourer! It sprang out of their head!" You kill another. Same result. You kill the third, same result.

Now, I'm not sure how you'd survive such an encounter against 3 of them at level 1 or 2 with only 1 MC and Shadowheart, because that would be more like a battle for 5 or 6 characters against 3 devourers, but THAT is how they should act and how the scene SHOULD go if done the way intellect devourers are supposed to act. The whole point of them is that they take over people's bodies. You have all these fishermen on the beach that they supposedly killed. Why would they NOT take over ANY of their bodies and try to use them to lure you and others into a trap like they're supposed to?

No. They act like brute thugs, like brain-washed Kuo-Toas. Or they could even just be human and elven and dwarven and halfling and gnomish thralls, like you find on the nautiloid. That would make more sense as a starter fight.

But, don't get me wrong, facing 3 intellect devourers is an awesome concept and I like the encounter. I just think that the execution is done poorly and doesn't fit at all with their MO. They should have taken over fishermen, they should try to lure you into a trap, and then they should try to kill you, first using the bodies of the fishermen, and then in their true forms. Sure, they could be weakened because there was a huge fight and crash, but then they should only have maybe 2 or 3 HP each, because at level 1 or 2, your characters will still have a hard time killing an intellect devourer with only 2 or 3 HP, because most of your attacks are going to be with Resistance, taking only half damage. And if they can take each character down in a single round, you're pretty much screwed if you roll poorly and they roll well, especially if they ambush you at close range, like they should.

This, again, is why a party of 6 max makes the most sense for the encounters that are presented in the game. Even if three devourers attack your party at close range, you still have a few that might escape to a distance and peg wounded devourers off until they die. A single mage might be able to kill all three with magic, making the mage more special because some enemies are more easily killed by mages as opposed to fighters and rogues. That is, again, WHY distinct classes are so vital to the game. Mages, right now, have very little meaning or purpose because there are no enemies that only mages are truly effective against.

The intellect devourer fight should be grunt fighter and rogue trying to distract the devourers while the mage pounds them even with his/her cantrip Firebolt spell. 1d10 damage each time the mage hits is much more effective because no resistance exists against the mage, while the fighter and rogue are trying their hardest to barely chip away at the beasts with piercing and slashing weapons. The mage suddenly becomes the star of that battle because the devourer isn't resistant to the mage.

Later, the cleric is special because his/her radiant damage and turn undead is super effective against the undead scribes and the undead in the Necromancer's lair. Ah! The purpose of the cleric is not just to heal, but to help destroy undead easier. The undead might overwhelm the party without a cleric, but because they had the cleric, the battle was actually not that hard at all.

Later, during the fight against a horde of goblins at the camp, the fighter and rogue are suddenly the stars. The fighter and rogue, working together in tandem, wipe the floor with the hordes because the fighter has higher attack and defense in melee and the enemy keeps trying to take the fighter down, but they can't hit or do much damage. The rogue is popping in and out of the shadows using sneak attack and pulverizing their numbers while they are focusing on trying to kill the fighter. The mage is using all his/her defense spells just to keep the enemies at bay during this fight, and is attempting to support where they can. The cleric is healing everyone as much as possible and supporting with buffs. But ultimately, it is the fighter who shines during this horde battle because each time the fighter hits, he/she is hacking a goblin's head off because they are mob fighters, and the fighter at level 4 is a brutal force to be reckoned with.

The rogue shines as well when sneaking and breaking and entering and stealing vital things from enemies and SETTING TRAPS!!! Where is the rogue setting traps thing? We can't even really find traps in the game that we can have the rogue use. The rogue should be able to sneak around the entire dang goblin lair and set traps and then the party lures Minthara and Ragzlin and such into said traps and BOOM! or SNAP! Ugh! 10-15 HP lost for Minthara or Ragzlin because the rogue set a trap that he/she walked right into.

THESE are the D&D elements that are truly missing. THESE are the things that make D&D what D&D is supposed to be. Unique classes. Unique monsters with unique special abilities and combat strategies that you, the player, must learn and must figure out how to overcome. THAT is the true fun of the game. You, the player, don't always know every monster and how they are supposed to behave and act, but you learn real quick when they utilize their special abilities and such against you in combat. It is, then, the DM's job to teach you these things through combat experience without killing you.

And here, again, we return to the max party size of 6. This is so vitally important because it is much easier for a DM to accidentally wipe out an entire party of 4 than an entire party of 6. Even in the intellect devourer ambush scenario, a party of 5 or 6 would have at least a few members who were able to escape the ambush and fall back using disengage to put some distance between them and the intellect devourers. Then they could peg the devourers from a distance and keep their distance so that the devourers can't get up close enough to kill them. If you only have 4 party members at the most, or if it was really just 1 MC and Shadowheart, the ambush scene is in no way possible. 3 Devourers would easily wipe out 1 MC and Shadowheart. Thus, the game's ability to present you, the player, with really cool encounters like this one is completely limited because it doesn't take much for 3 devourers to wipe 1 MC and Shadowheart, not if you keep them true to their characters.

So, again, I say the game needs a party of 4 to start, whether in single player or multiplayer, the base starting number of characters should be 4. Then you can add up to 2 more, or switch some of the 4 in and out with some of the other origin characters as you proceed through the game for a total max party size of 6. Why? Because then Larian could truly present players with more awesome combat scenarios like 3 intellect devourers ambushing them in the form of fishermen up close and personal, and the player would still not be totally wiped out at the very start of the game.