Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by RutgerF
Not the clone, no. Reskin I believe it's usually called.
(…)
With BG3, there's clearly more difference in the most important part of the engine which is visual / cinematic, and the rest is... renamed and re-drawn?
That’s even further from the truth. Even if BG3 was build in the same engine (which it isn’t - clearly a lot has been added), using the same ruleset it would still be a new campaign, with new characters, quests, areas, writing and conquest. While tutorial in both games happens on a ship, those ships have different layouts, content and items.

Ruleset, unlike UFOs, also is fundamentally different. Do I need to list all? % to hit, advantage, per rest abilities, rest system, camp and minicamp and list could go on and on.

The most one can accuse BG3 of, is feeling like a sequel to D:OS2 rather then BG3 but even that has some caveats.
You are either kidding or trolling me. Alright, I'll dissect your points, one by one.

General plot line will be clearly different, because it's set in a different framework (FR vs. whatever Larian calls the world of D:OS). Or at least it will look different, on a high level. But what we'll see if we zoom in?

  • First of all, maps are absolutely out of the question - I think a lot of people, possibly including some at WoTC, would be furious if Larian would re-use some of D:OS' locations. But - the thing about BG3 is that it is set in a universe with almost 50 years of accumulated lore, across all DnD editions. You need almost no creativity when it comes to map design - you just take whatever map(s) for this area have been created before, either official or fanfics, and build on top of that, adding a bit of flavour here and there. It's not a very demanding, intensive process - Larian could have generated them and then applied some manual polish, for all we know.
  • Characters - are they really new? Astarion, just like his predecessor, greets us with a knife at our necks. Why Larian reused this bit? Did they run out of psychedelics, because delivery chain got disrupted due to covid? This is my biggest gripe so far - this, and countless others like it. I feel cheated when I see characters, re-skinned and renamed, behaving exactly like they did in the previous product of the same company. I don't care if their hair's colour and / or dialogue lines are different this time - it's the same character as before, and they behave more or less the same as they did before. Deja-vu.
  • I can't really say much about quests and writing, as I never played any other Larian's game before (for more than 5 minutes, anyway). This can be better analysed by someone who did. Also, not sure what you call "conquest".
  • Ship - maps have already been addressed above. At the same time, a ship is a ship, even if it looks different.
  • Ruleset. I think even Larian perfectly understands that they can't pass a D:OS clone as a DnD game. So yes, they added some new mechanics that create a certain degree of familiarity for those who know what DnD is. The emphasis, however, is on "some". I can only assume that the stuff available from EA's day 1 was simple to add. The rest is problematic, due to the engine (probably being a Gordian knot made of glass at this point).
    An example: how much time it took them to implement Skill Expertise - almost 2 years into EA, innit? I haven't been around for a while, so feel free to correct me, but afaik we are still waiting for proper multi-attack and reactions.
  • The list can go on, but Niara has already described the fundamental issues with similarities, in a much more succinct and lucid way than I will ever be able to.


These shameless "borrowings" will be completely unnoticed, of course, for everyone who didn't play D:OS2 and doesn't know about them. Me? I detest cheaters.