Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback D&D Mode

I would suggest that Larian develop a "D&D mode", which actually attempts to implement 5E rules as closely as possible. It doesn't have to be the default setting for the game, but I think Larian is going to alienate a large portion of their potential customer base if they do not do this.

BG3 is being marketed as a D&D game, but early access contains a lot of significant and unnecessary deviations from the the 5E ruleset that are going to alienate people who are expecting a D&D experience. If Larian wants to spend the time and money to "improve" on D&D rules (which is what currently appears to be the case) and implement in a separate mode, this would allow them to do that without alienating the customers that are expecting a faithful implementation of D&D. If possible, I would suggest creating two separate modes / difficulty settings in early access, so Larian can get more constructive feedback, before full release. I don't know the details of the agreement between Larian and Wizards of the Coast, but I have to think that the current implementation of D&D in early access is probably very different from what Wizards of the Coast was originally expecting.

I don't consider myself a hardcore D&D fan, but I do think that a game that is marketed as a D&D video game should at least have an option that tries harder to fully implement D&D rules and mechanics.

I believe there will be some DnD RAW mod alterning rules and stats made by some entusiastic fan ...
But personaly i would not count on it from Larian themselves ... it seems like too much work to please too little people. :-/

How few are they again according to your data?

Here's a little quote from a website that actually has numbers:

https://dungeonvault.com/how-many-dnd-players-are-there-worldwide/

Core D&D rules difficulty setting is a requirement at this point, with so many liberties being taken that actually make the game worse, not better.

WOuld looooove core rules =)

Here we go again. Hmmm. Must be a lot of us for this to keep coming up again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

Eh? Maybe we ain't so few in number, huh?

I would really like that with couple worries:

1) unless Larian does some encounter design just for this mode, the game might be a complete mess/unplayable when reverted to core rules
2) would need development of new functionality (like reactions)

Few enough.
Litteraly. :P

Yes ... that indeed is a number.
Its unrelated and completely irellevant to this topic ... but it is "a number", big one even.

Your point?

That's great. How many of them are here?

If they are able fully implement all of the core rules new mechanics, there shouldn’t be much rebalancing required. I agree that this might be a problem because they started to rebalance the game before attempting to fully implement 5e to the extent possible, which suggests that they have already implemented as much of core 5e rules and mechanics as they plan to implement, which is worrying.

I think they can still do a much better job of implementing 5e, even if reactions are “cost prohibitive”. There is still a lot of easy to implement things that have not been implemented.

Less than 100 ... more like around 12,

I think 5e should have tried harder to implement the rules of 3.5.

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I get that some people care how close the game mimics 5e rules, but I just don't care. I really don't. To me, an action is an action and a bonus is a bonus, and whatever, let's have fun. Drink a potion of speed? Great, that's two actions, make 'em spells if ya want. Or don't, they're your actions, not mine.

*

Personally, I wish the game would start every character off with one feat that they get to pick. Something other than a stat boost, one of the other feats, like mobility or dual wielder or whatever. It would make the characters a lot more interesting at conception, and I care way more about that than I do staying true to core rules as written.

Can we please stop with all the "your group is not very large"/"yes it is, larger than you think"? It doesn't lead to anything. It hasn't over the countless threads this has been brought up. And it never will since neither side actually knows the demographical data. Some believe that people searching for a close adaption to RAW is a very small minority, not worth caring about. Others believe it to be a demographic group large enough to matter very much. And we keep nagging at each other over and over again.

So all of us, yes that includes me who has been guilty to this too...Stop making assumptions on how many having the same idea, interest, preposition, agreement as yourself.

Edit: This whole comment is btw written in terribly poor English. But I won't change it.

Can we not make claims about the # of people who would like X? After using outside numbers (e.g., # of D&D players worldwide; this is where we are now), the argument will move on to using actual counts of forum members who have posted about X. But then the response to such a forum poster count will be "but the forum isn't representative of all BG3 players" and absolutely nothing is solved.

Speak for yourself and we can just skip over this issue. Rag, you personally don't think that Larian implementing 5e RAW won't be worth the effort. That's fine. The OP thinks otherwise. That's also fine. If you have an argument about why you do/don't think a mechanic is worth it, that's fine to post. But don't use "others agree with me" as your argument.

Edit: Ah, I was beaten to it by @PrivateRaccoon

Yes. But you phrased it perfectly. Thank you

I find that I agree. I did respond to "I have a site with numbers" though, that didn't supply any numbers to this actual game, just DnD in general. Ironically, this would include me, but I don't care about how close this game gets to 5e. So, providing that link didn't really add anything to the conversation.

This back and forth about 5e fidelity has been going on for some time; I haven't said a word during any of these conversations and I think that's outrageous.

I bought into BG3's early access specifically because it's based on DnD 5e. Dungeons and Dragons are taking up an increasingly large part of pop culture, with a never ending supply of DnD podcasts, YouTube shows, comedy sketches, livestreams, etc... I've been consuming a metric ton of DnD content, wishing that I may join the fun but never finding a playgroup near me. So when BG3 was announced I figured it was my ticket to 5e and I gladly plonked the cash to play.

The game is definitely fun, but Gale is the best Cleric and sleeping potions create sleeping surfaces and shove and hide distort the action economy and reactions aren't tactical. I feel like I'm missing out on some of the 5e experience, which is a shame because it looks amazing on the Internet.

So I'm with the OP on this: +1 for a full DnD option.

OH we certainly can ...
Can we also aim our complainment to person who started with it ... instead of complaining about someone who react on reaction for that post?

I mean i know what you want to say ... probably ...
But just as you dont apprecitate this kind of post, i dont appreciate that only my name (the last one on the chain) was litteraly mentioned there and everyone else was coveniently ignored. O_o

I didnt ... as you can see in that quote you posted, i was only expressing my estimated guess about their numbers, nothing else.

Yup ... that is why i did it.
And yes i do have argument, but i allready posted it here multiple times i didnt seen much point in repeating it ... but since you asked. :P

The problem here is that game would need to be litteraly redone from scratch ...
And im only talking about stats and scores ... if we also include lore, then we are completely screwed.

Take Halsin for example
(problem with lore is that he would need to be around level 20 ... wich kinda means able to wipe out litteraly everyone of whole Act 1 at once in single turn. )

But just stats and scores ...
First you need to adjust all his scores acording to player statistic, since he have curently 16, 16, 16, 12, 18, 16 ... that would probably not work well for "raw" ...
Then you would need to implement HP calculation for him, bcs no matter how much you would wish that ... you would NEVER EVER get him to 94 HP on his curent level ... so his (and probably other NPC aswell) HP was probably simply "set" instead of calculated

And even tho it dont seem like much with single character, note that every single character you have in game would probably need to be done manualy. :-/
Even tho now when i said it ... i can imagine some easy script that would be able to emulate aproximately acceptable stats for certain NPC types ... question is if that is the way NPC are done. :-/

Creatures are worse tho.
There you would need to set them one by one ... i mean sure, you set stats for single Phase Spider and all of them is done, obviously ... but still ...

Next question that would be needed to answer is what about enemies that are not part of 5e rules ...
Like Spider Matriarch ... as far as i know, there is no creature like that (feel free to corect me) ...
So ... in order to have actual "raw 5e experience" she, and her whole encounter would have to be recreated. :-/

And final (even tho probably smallest) problem would be changing enemies to those that will be fitting ...
I mean if you would create Imps exactly as they are in PHB ... you would probably need to replace them with something easier to kill, after all you can easily be just single lvl 1 ... and Avernus(?) is suppose to be tutorial, not deathtrap. :-/

In shorten version ...
It would push development back by at least another year, maybe even more. :-/

I bought this game because it is advertised as a Baldur's Gate game by its name.

I don't care if it doesn't follow DnD5 perfectly and I don't think it's possible to have two appealing game modes that would be so different.

That said, BG3 should definitely follow the rules for some points and stop creating homebrew that have bad consequences on the gameplay.

Shove and hide shouldn't be a bonus action. Spells should never basically create surfaces. Resting should be limited by something (if not by time). Range of ranged weapons should be different. Reactions should work as intended. Ritual spells should be in. Dodge and ready should be in the game. Classes should have a proper spell list. Weapons actions should be balanced arround DnD actions. And so on.

Not because the game has to follow DnD5 at all... but because it would be a better tactical turn based and party based story driven RPG with some DnD rules rather than homebrew.

Yup, sadly they ARE making people miss out

@Rag, I simply quoted the last 2 people who brought up numbers, which happened to be you AND someone else. And as you were the most frequent poster in that discussion, you were thus statistically the most likely to be quoted.
I actually disagree with the opinions that NPCs and monsters need to have PC-like stats in order to match RAW. That's the ~least important part of D&D, there are so many different monsters in 5e (in addition to creating your own); just think of a BG3 "intellect devourer" as a "minor intellect nibbler." Obviously some monsters should remain similar (dragons and mind flayers should be pretty powerful), and homebrew monsters can be done poorly (decreasing goblin AC and increasing HP results in nerfs to ST spells), but there's nothing inherently wrong with creating your own or modifying monsters if done well.

Much more important is the matching of 5e mechanics - shove, concentration, surface/grenades, healing, items, spells, etc. Again, homebrew mechanics changes can be done correctly while preserving balance...but again it's important to consider what effects such changes will have on other aspects of the game. And changing a single mechanic will have a vastly greater effect on gameplay than changing a single monster.

tl;dr: I don't think Larian needs to match enemy stats to the 5e Monster Manual when creating a '5e RAW' mode, which will greatly decrease the amount of work required. Gameplay mechanics are more important than NPC stats.