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

More options does not make a better tactical game. The player will simply use the most effective option every time. Constraining options means that the player has to find the most effective way to utilize a limited tool.

Think of it like a restaurant and you're at the restaurant with 3 others. The restaurant hands you a menu, and there are two pages of entrees to choose from. There's maybe a dozen total things to choose from, including sides.

Now imagine a restaurant with 5 pages of menu items. So many more entrees to choose from. Now there's maybe 24 to thirty total things to choose from.

Have you ever been out to eat with others at a restaurant with a ton of choices? There is always someone who cant figure out what they want. Narrow the choices, speed up the selection process. Too broad a menu, and you're likely going to have the waiter/waitress come back multiple times asking if you're ready to order yet.

The same is true for an RPG like D&D. If you start the game with a ton of options, and then you add more and more as you level up, multiplying the number of options considerably, before you know it, you're inundated with so many options, making decisions much harder.

When you reach higher levels, wizards alone will have TONS of spells to choose from. Add to that MORE options with scrolls and weapon special abilities and potions you can both drink and throw and shoving options and so on and so forth, and you're going to have players who are just sitting there very round wondering what they want to do, skimming their items and flipping their hotbar menus looking for what abilities they might want to use.

I'm thinking multiplayer in particular here, but single player as well. If I"m controlling 4 characters with a dozen or more options each every round, that's a TON of options to choose from, and the next thing you know, you're constantly skimming options as opposed to making quick decisions.

But aside from all this, having clearly defined and distinct classes, again, makes for a cohesive TEAM based game. Without distinct classes, with everyone having the ability to do everything, then nothing is special and unique. Likewise, if you have a ton of abilities right from the start, as you grow and increase in level, your new "special" abilities are no longer really "special" because everyone has so many "special" abilities immediately. So, what growth did your character really experience? Did they really gain anything truly special per level? Not really, because everyone can do everything.

Take clerics for example. In D&D 5e, only a cleric (paladin, etc.) can use a Revivify scroll. However, it's a Level 3 spell. That means that even a low level cleric might still fail to use a Revivify scroll. They have to make a roll to succeed in using it because it's above their pay grade. This alone makes a cleric a highly valued member of the party. It makes a cleric very special, and when the cleric finally reaches the level to be able to use a Revivify scroll without making a roll, you REALLY feel that they have become a powerful cleric. They've truly grown, and you feel that they've truly grown, because they now can use the scroll without a potential fail. That makes the journey so much more rewarding.

Right now, with BG3, everyone can use a Revivify scroll at level 1. So that completely strips the clerics (and like classes) from this very unique and special ability. No one feels that they've grown at all because they can use the scroll immediately without fail or issue. Everyone can use it. No one really grows or is special at all.

Basically, in BG3 right now, items trump classes altogether. As long as you find the right items, you don't need classes. You don't need spells and you don't need clerics and you don't need anything BUT items. Items give you special abilities and spells and area of effect and everything.

Items reign supreme in BG3. Classes and characters do not. And THAT is my whole point. There is no one who is special and there is no real character growth or development. Any that exist are minor and not very impactful at all. And again, combat is slowed down because you have so many options.

Here's another way to look at it. Current AI is quick, but it is still not super quick. The more options an enemy has per round, the longer the AI takes. We are at level 4 max. By the end of the game, each enemy has more options because they have better weapons and items. A single goblin might have the ability to Dash as a bonus, Disengage, fire a bow, swing a melee, throw a healing potion, throw a bomb, shoot a special arrow versus a normal one, shove, throw an alchemist's fire, some can cast a variety of spells, there are ranger goblins that can cast Hunter's Mark, lacerate, pommel, topple, etc.

So a single AI goblin can have a dozen options to choose from, and the AI has to decide for each goblin which move to make. In D&D 5e, a single goblin would likely have only two options, maybe three. Even if you homebrew a few, you might give them a few spells or maybe an extra move or two tops. You wouldn't give each goblin a dozen moves.

So why does it slow down combat? Not only do you, the player, have a bunch more options to choose from, you also have NPC's with a ton more options to choose from, slowing down the AI.

And it's only going to get worse as you increase in levels and gain more and more and more items.

Here's the other issue I have with all this. I have a software program for DMing: Fantasy Grounds Unity. In that, I can use RAW 5e rules and stats and so on and so forth.

However, I can modify it and create homebrew rules and monsters and so forth as well. It is essentially a computer game. I can drop monsters onto a map and player characters as well. I have an initiative tracker, and I can move the monsters while the players can move their characters, etc.

The ONLY thing it can't do is BE the DM.

So, there is absolutely no reason why Larian can't do a full blown 5e video game and have it work really well. They have the non-combat DMing AI etc. down. That's the best part of the game. So, there is no reason why they can't make the full blown 5e rules work in the game. They could literally build it like the Fantasy Grounds elements, with graphics boosts etc. and give enemies AI. Even as in Fantasy Grounds, I can add my own homebrew as well, so they could allow players to implement their own homebrew that they might like.

Do you like potions as BA? Start with potions as Actions but allow players the option to select potions as BA.

Like advantage high ground? Allow players the option to make the a setting in their game.

Like +2 for high ground? Allow players the option to make that their homebrew for their game.

If Fantasy Grounds can do it, and they're SO much less awesome than Larian, why can't Larian provide us with something similar? Give us RAW 5e, and let us have options to tweak it to our own personal homebrew preferences, just like the lesser Solasta and Fantasy Grounds Unity allows.

Oh, do I have a pet peeve with this analogy. I mean, I understand it's an example for what you're trying to explain but since we love immersion and realism, lets give a realistic version of the scenario mentioned above: (Only read if you're interested in a completely off-topic rant)

So based on your analogy, what exactly are you saying? Whether Larian creates a larger number of options or limits them more appropriately, you're still always going to have people demanding more options than what's available and thus they will slow the combat down regardless?

Or are you just venting about people at restaurants?

Suppose you make a game with 100 bosses and 100 player abilities. The player can choose one of 10 classes and each class gets access to 10 different abilities. Each boss is designed to be beaten easily by 1 of the 100 abilities. Because you want the player to have the most fun possible, you decide to implement item versions of all the abilities which any class can use. These items are readily available in the game world. You think to yourself, 'aha! What a brilliant game I've made. The players have so many options, they will never be bored!".

Do these 100 options make the gameplay more interesting or challenging? I would argue that they simplify the game and homogenize the tactical experience on multiple playthroughs. Instead of finding a way to utilize their 10 class abilities to overcome the boss encounters, players simply find the items that each boss is vulnerable. These 100 options you have to the player quickly turn into 1 option on each boss.

More options does not make a more interesting tactical experience.

Just venting about people at restaurants. The waiter in my scenario is me

Your analogy just struck a soft spot. Sorry.

I'm of a mind that scribing scrolls should be limited to casting classes that can actually cast them. I'm also of a mind that, if I can get a background, or a skill, that allows casting it, it's fine. NWN and DDO both had UMD, Use Magic Device, that enabled one to use a lot of items that they would normally not be able to use, for example. I'm not overly fussed about Hide, in particular, because my rogues, or rouge-like characters will be better at it than someone that's just using the skill. In so far as I'm aware, characters could always attempt to be stealthy, that didn't mean they'd succeed, but they could always try.

But if the "homogenizing" of the classes is coming from actual 5e rules, instead of some "homebrew" thing, then it would seem that it's more "I want more 5e, but only the stuff I like" than "it's not 5e enough". With the caveat that I do, in fact, realize that scribing scrolls is currently broken.

There's a difference between scrolls and magic items such as magic rings and wands. Scrolls are only meant to be used by specific classes. Rings and wands and other such magic items could be used by anybody but only have a a limited number of uses. Wands like magic Missile would have maybe 10 uses and then be completely used up. Traditionally, anybody could use them. That's what made them so awesome. But once they were gone, they were gone. Some magic items had limited uses per day, usually one to five. These were like having extra spell slots for just that particular spell. These items also created versatility but were extremely rare or expensive.

What we have in game right now completely destroys classes because anybody can use the scrolls and potions and you find so many of them that their value is diminished. You can even find cantrip spells scrolls. What's the point of that? You can cast cantrips all day long. You don't need extras scrolls. Oh wait! It's so that those who don't even have the ability to cast such spells can cast such spells.

So again, they are making it clear that the purpose of these scrolls and potions is so that everybody can win a trophy. Everybody can cast every spell if they have the right item. Thus nobody is special and you actually don't need anybody in particular in your party.

It's this whole mentality that they are trying to please everybody by making it so that if you don't like a particular character, that's okay. You don't need them. Just kick him out of the party. You're fine without them because there's nothing really all that special about them. And then they wonder why so many people think that the origin characters are shallow and bland. You've made them so that they're not special, and so that we can just dump them at any time. So why should I even care about any of them if there's nothing special about any of them?

Although, I actually do like the characters. But my point is that they're not really special because everybody can do everything. That really cheapens all the characters in the story. If I knew that I was going to have a really hard time continuing the game without Gale, I would definitely make sure that I tried to treat Gale well so that I keep him in my party. But as it stands, he's not really special so if I don't like him no big deal.

You can't please everybody. If you try to please everybody, you please nobody in the end. What I'm afraid is going to happen is that they are going to try to please everybody so much that in the end the game is going to suck. If you're going to make this game like dos, then make it like dos. Tell everyone that's the direction you're going in and if they don't like it tough. If you're going with D&D, then make it D&D, and if people don't like it tough. Otherwise, what we're going to have is a bunch of fans who are just frustrated and upset about the game on both sides because they're trying to blend the two games.

Yeah I freaking HATE the fact that they're making noone special by making everyone "special". Stupid as heck.

Yes, there is, and historically, scrolls had the lowest UMD requirements, depending on the spell level. Outside of this, or whatever is passing for it in 5e, scribing by wizards, and some random that doesn't have an in lore reason to use them does need to be addressed.

Which would be a good thing for that wizard that chose different cantrips/doesn't have that one prepared. I'm at a disadvantage here, because I don't like to play casters, in DnD or otherwise, so I haven't spent a lot of time on them here, as of yet. However, in one of the "pet" games, Solasta, wizards can't prepare all of the Cantrip spells, so a scroll for one they don't have prepared would, in fact, be useful, by someone that can actually use it.

Yeah, here we go again, with the faux outrage.

You know, I've sat at tables where rogues weren't allowed. I've played in MP sessions of DnD based games, like NWN/DDO, where some classes weren't allowed. It would take a lot of foresight to say "Well, nobody is going to like Astarion, so we need to make everyone rogues". It would have also been wrong, there's some interesting things floating around YouTube about Astarion... Anyway, it's more likely that they're aware of this dislike for specific classes, and built accordingly. These mechanics weren't just tacked on, they had to be built in from the start. You can evermore believe that I've seen the opposite complaint too. If I don't have a rogue in the party, I can't open chests, or locked doors, for example. I remember reading this, a lot, in Dragon Age Origins.

It's obvious, to me, that some things are broken, such as wizards being able to scribe divine scrolls, that need to be fixed. But as I said earlier, a character attempting to Hide? That doesn't bother me at all. It seems like there's a thread or 2 about how stealth is broken here, and maybe it's down to trying to use it on a class that isn't built around it? That would make perfect sense to me. It's not like I haven't seen a fighter in full plate trying to be sneaky. Some of what gets harped on here, however, is, as pointed out earlier, based on what's in 5e, such as lockpicking.

So, when I see things like this thread, I'm not like "yeah that needs to be addressed". The reason is that I see "I don't mind some homebrew, but Phase Spiders can teleport around". I was confused, because I remember that they in fact can, or appear to, so I looked it up for 5e, and it turns out that they in fact can, or do what appears to be teleporting. It gets a bit confusing, for someone on the outside, trying to parse exactly what you're really looking for, because on one hand you're looking for less 5e, phase spiders, sneak, etc. On the other you want more, like larger parties? I'm not sure how that equates to "more like 5e", because in other editions I've played at a table of 3 players, including the DM. Did they make a rule that requires 7 total players to make up your imagined party of 6?

Some quick information points for folks:

- UMD is now exclusively a unique feature of rogues, in 5e.

- In 5e, Wizards do not scribe cantrips into their spell books. Spell books do not contain cantrips. You do not prepare cantrips. You cannot learn more cantrips by scribing them.
- A wizard could, in theory, write a scroll of a cantrip they know, and another wizard, or another character for whom that cantrip was on their spell list, could use the scroll, but formally speaking, a wizard cannot scribe that scroll into their book or learn the cantrip from the scroll. A DM might allow a wizard to study a cantrip scroll of a cantrip that they didn't know, and eventually learn it (provided they didn't actually cast the cantrip from the scroll and destroy it, and kept it for the express purpose of studying it), but it still would not be recorded in their spell book.

I think you might be misunderstanding some of the things that others have said, Robert. When people say stealth is broken, what they mean is that you can be playing a five hundred pound gorilla in a full one-man band outfit and jumping up and down, screaming at the top of your lungs and banging pots together... and still successfully stealth around you enemies and take the easy advantage of attacking them as an unseen attacker, in this game. There's not even a check involved in doing this - it just works, as long as you step out of their sight cones, which you can check at any time. There is no being 'good' at stealth, because literally everyone is universally godly at it with 100% guaranteed success.

The complaint about phase spiders is that they are, in their 5e stat block, melee teleport junkies who hit and run very effectively, and don't leave themselves vulnerable to attack unless baited into it, or unless characters wait for the right moment. In the game currently, they might warp occasionally, but they stay vulnerable the whole time, and they spit and bleed poison as well for some daft reason.

In both cases, the request is that the game ought to be more like 5e and less what it currently is now. Somehow you've gotten the wrong end of the stick there, so hopefully this clears that up a touch ^.^

Magically shifting from the Ethereal Plane to the Material and vice versa is not teleporting. They are parallel dimensions. If a phase spider shifts into the Ethereal Plane, they still have to move up to you physically.

So, as a bonus, they disappear and move up to you. They could sit in the Ethereal for rounds. Then, as a bonus, BAM! They suddenly appear and attack.

THAT is a phase spider. Ninja assassins close range attackers.

How dare you, good sir? My outrage is of the highest caliber : finely woven from the purest strands of indignation and thrice dipped in scorn.

I'm not sure where scribing cantrips came into the equation? Unless it's possible here, as I said, I don't do casters. I listed Solasta, as I had to build all of the characters as they leveled, and noted the inability to prepare all of them per day. So, either Solasta is not as 5e as this forum would lead us to believe, or, the potential for scrolls being used as I laid out, casting a cantrip from a scroll, by an arcane caster, would be useful for one that doesn't know/have prepared that particular cantrip.

The limitation to rogue makes no sense, since it should be a bard thing. Older rule sets, as I said, I haven't played TT since they launched 4e. As an aside w/regard to phase spiders, I'm not sure how much clearer "appears to teleport around" could be? It's a really simple concept, much simpler than interpreting rules from any edition of DnD. I provided both the definition as defined by the site that listed the specs, as well as a link to the actual site in the topic where it came up. I even acknowledged, in that thread, the homebrew spitting. The point then, and now, however, was "but the rules", even when the rules are being respected, to one degree or another. So, I guess I'm left with my initial conclusion, it's all about the drama/melodrama.

Edit: So, I was curious about the "cast cantrips all day" thing, and went and looked, and, as I suspected, you are limited to 4, at character creation. So, for a wizard, cantrip scrolls make a lot of sense, especially if you've got scrolls for cantrips you haven't prepared. It's like people think you can't just log in and check things or something, what's up with that?

On the topic of false indignation...


Like I said, you don't prepare cantrips. No-one prepares cantrips, no-one of any class, ever. You know a set number, which you can cast endlessly and all day if you wish. To say "especially if" implies that they serve a value or use outside of that... so what value or use are you imagining that they serve outside of being scrolls of a one-use cantrip that the caster hasn't learned?

Scribing by wizards came up when you said this:



Your grammar is not great, so I may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say, but this reads as though you're suggesting that one good use for cantrip scrolls would be to let wizards scribe cantrips they didn't pick.

No, they are not good for scribing; that small misconception, if indeed you held it, was what I was attempting to explain, that's all ^.^

Beyond that, I've seen exactly one person insisting that lockpicking should be limited to rogue, and most folks were happy to disagree with them and point out that that was in no way a limitation of 5e - wherein it can be attempted by anyone with thieves' tools, and proficiency with said tools can be acquired in a broad-ish range of ways that do not require the rogue class.

You're doing yourself a disservice if you're trying to say that phase spiders are behaving like phase spiders in game right now; they don't and you make yourself look a bit silly trying to argue that they do. In game, right now, they warp to perches and platforms that would otherwise be outside of their movement limit, and they spit poison at players - that's their main behaviour. They are always vulnerable to attack on other creature's turns, and they never skip into the ethereal plane. GM4Him is the one that champions this cause the most though, so I'll leave it at that statement, which honestly should be enough on its own to make the point.

Right. So the point here is that limiting things more provides value to classes and the special abilities that are tied to each individual class. If you don't limit things then there really is no value or very limited value placed on classes and their special abilities.

Rogue, for example, should have expertise with thieves tools or a couple of skills, etc. So although anybody can use thieves tools to pick locks, the Rogue should have a better ability to do this, double the proficiency. This makes the Rogue unique so that they are the experts in things like picking locks. Just like in real life, anybody can attempt to pick a lock, so everyone in D&D can attempt to pick a lock, but the Rogue is the expert at it.

Likewise, the fighter is supposed to have all sorts of different combat maneuvers. That's what makes a fighter a fighter. They have all sorts of special unique combat abilities that nobody else has. But now, in bg3, everybody has special combat maneuvers based on whatever weapons they're carrying. So now the fighters special maneuvers are not so special because everybody has special maneuvers. Sure they have some special maneuvers that nobody else has, but the point is that those special maneuvers that fighters have is no longer all that special because everybody has some special maneuvers based on their items.

Everybody can use scrolls of any kind, so clerics and mages are no longer special. Over and over again, they are devaluing the classes and boosting items, making items you find in the game so much more important and special then your characters are.

So that is the main point I was trying to make. I want them to institute more D&D rules and stats and so forth because by doing so they would increase the value of each individual character, making each character more important, and they would lower the value of items so that they are supplements to your characters as opposed to being more important than your characters.

And yes, in terms of phase spiders, when you first encounter them in the original games, you are walking through a dark cave system and they suddenly appear around your characters attacking them at point blank range. They hide in the ethereal plane and then pop into the material plane to attack you. While in the material plane, you have maybe an attack or two before they will attack you again and then go back to the Ethereal plane. Then they'll suddenly maneuver behind you and pop back into the material plane and attack you again. Then you get like one round to hit them again before they go back to the Ethereal plane. That is how they are supposed to be. They are hit and fade assassins. They don't Misty Step across the board some 120 ft away from you and then spit poison at you.

There are a total of 12 Cantrips that a level 1 Wizard has access to, and they can only have four selected. As I said, I logged in, and rolled a wizard to see. Those four that are selected are "prepared", those are the ones you can cast for that LR. If you have this so wrong, what else are you missing?

Robert, you are not understanding the difference between prepared and learned.

You do not prepare your cantrips; You choose which ones you learn at 1st level. You cannot CHANGE them; you just know them. At higher levels you will be able to learn more cantrips, up to 6 (in normal rules).

You prepare spells of 1st level or higher, and you can change them each LR (or in the game, at any time out of combat). You cannot, however, change your cantrips in this manner because they are not prepared.

In the game right now, you can scribe cantrips to learn new ones - this shouldn't be happening, but either way, if you do scribe a new one, again, it's just something you now know, without limitation. You don't have to choose between which cantrips you do or don't have access to on a particular day, because you always have access to every cantrip you know, every day, without preparing them.

I would encourage you to roll a wizard, as you say, and then get to a point where you can rest. Try to change your cantrips to four different ones that you had the option of picking on the character creation screen - you'll see that you cannot.

In more detail, to speak about BG3 specifically:

In character creation, you'll note that there are separate headings for cantrip, then spells, then, below that, prepared spells.

The first section lists the game's wizard cantrips for you - as you noted, there's 12 of them. You can pick 3 at character creation.

The second section presents all 1st level wizard spells - these are different from cantrips, which are functionally 'level 0' spells. You can pick 6 of these to learn at 1st level.

The third section asks you which of your spells you want to prepare. Cantrips are not presented here; you don't prepare them, you just know the ones you picked. This list presents you the 6 1st level spells you just selected above, asking you to choose which 4 of those you want prepared when you start the game.

Once you begin the game, you have the freedom to change your spells at any time when you're not in combat. You can open your spell book by pressing 'k' by default.

Here, you'll see your known spells, arrayed by level. Your 3 cantrips will be at the top, on a line of their own. You might have an additional one if you picked a race that gets a bonus cantrip. Notice how they are lit up, but do not have a selection line around them. This means they're available to use, but aren't counting against your prepared spells limit.

Below that, you'll have your first level spells. There will be 6 of them, and four of them, the four you selected in character creation, will be lit up, and will have white border around them; this means that they are available to cast and are counting against your prepared spells.

At the bottom of the spell book ,you'll see a blue bar that represents you prepared spells - it's showing you that you can prepare up to 4 spells, and that you currently have 4 prepared. If you click one of the spells with the white border, it will unpreapre that spell, letting you select a different one.