Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

+1 to ~everything said about Solasta's Lost Valley DLC. If anyone didn't finish the main Solasta campaign because of the areas/combat/linearity/other reasons (like me), but wants to like Solasta, I highly recommend giving the DLC a try. It's not perfect, but it's a good fun D&D simulator with writing that's...let's say mediocre. xD

As short comment on this. I have not played Pathfinder 2 guess will buy it the day I can get is super cheap like 10 euro lol. Anyway since some have commented that Pathfinder is hard difficulty well you can make it easier with setting or harder depending what you want.

BG3 does not have possibility to changes difficulty level in Alpha. BG3 will have setting you can increase difficulty or make it easier from normal Alpha at full release depending on what you want. Personally what I want? Probably most close to real pen and paper with exception of not permanent death so can not use load saved game. Well and if that goes well then maybe play again through it with harder difficulty then pen and paper.

I'm a very story-driven video game player. There is a reason The Witcher 3 is probably my favorite game. Really liked God of War 2018 and Ragnarok. I enjoyed D:OS2's story a lot even though it could get cheesy at times... it was a very lovable type of cheesy, haha. Those stories are all far from perfect, but at least they are good.

But I watched a preview of Solasta and I don't think I could get into it. It looked...

Really bad writing wise, haha.

I bought Solasta really ugly graphics even Neverwinter Online the old MMO is better graphics. Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and also this game Pathfinder 2 is better graphics. They have in Solasta really ugly dollike characters. What is even worse it is impossible to edit character tokens for face because it is automatically generated from that 3D dollike face. Well and speaking of linear story there you go ultra linear.

I have heard so many time defense that Solasta is low budget production? Yes Solasa I prefer hotels to cheap hostels. Well and Solasta did not have the budget to buy full DnD 5 license only part of it.

I am not going into a debate which is better Pathfinder rules or DnD5? Personally I think they are both very good systems. The DnD 4rh system was probably the most disliked version of DnD in history. They corrected many problems with DnD 4 with DnD 5 system.

Solasta has some good and not-so-good to it, in terms of writing. I enjoyed party banter, which is something BG3 doesn't have that I wish they'd do and do better at it than Solasta. Basically, during every conversation, all 4 of our characters participate. It's not just 1 character and everyone else is that character's minions who never do or say anything. I liked when my Chaotic Evil Halfling Wizard would say things like, "Why not just leave them to die? What's it to us?" and then my Lawful Good Paladin would say, "Come on! We can't just leave them." You know, cohesion in the party and the party deciding things and discussing things together.

And the overall story was okay. The problem was the lack of eloquance. I'm not sure how to explain it. It just felt forced in a lot of areas and it felt off. And then there were things that were TOTALLY predictable, and things that just didn't fully make sense. But then it had some twists that surprised me, which was nice.

Overall, I'd say Solasta's writing was mediocre, but it was a fun main campaign. I did enjoy it overall, even if it had its moments where I thought, "Ugh. What was THAT?"

I don't ever feel that way about BG3, though, and that's a big One Up for BG3. Every conversation and event draws me in. Pathfinder (both games) is also pretty good. If I had one complaint about Pathfinder (both games), story-wise anyway, it's that some areas ARE too wordy. I'd have preferred some story elements to be broken out a bit more. Lord, the Storyteller kills me. I start glazing over about a paragraph or two into his stories, trying desperately to stay focused because they're just too long and unimportant - or so they seem - to the overall story. And he's not the only one. Some characters just rattle on forever, and I'm like, "Dude. I don't care anymore. Let's move on." This is not true for MOST characters and situations, mind you, but some. I still REALLY like the Pathfinder games, and in many ways they are superior to BG3.

Though, in the end, BG3 still seems to keep my attention. I can't wait for this game to be fully released. It's killing me.

That's a bit of a stretch. The locations vary in quality, which seems to depend a lot on the lighting (the lighting in the opening in is totally flat.) And I agree about the character models whenever zoomed into. But in regular play, there's shots where I couldn't have told you whether this was BG3 (a game developed by hundreds) or Solasta (a game made by 17 people). The lighting effects can be pretty nice too. But then according to Vincke, a lot of the extra budget and manpower of BG3 goes straight into cinematics, that is character models and hours of their animations for every single line of dialogue, meh.

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It's one of the reasons why their next project should specialize more. No cinematic dialogue (cinematics are the most overrated storytelling device in gaming anyway), just a focus on a decent setting, interesting scenarios and class tactical combat (similar perhaps to Blackguards as a template). You're not going to compete with the likes of BG3 like that either way. If you're trying, you're seen by players as you as BG3, but cheaper. But you can do better than BG3 if you truly specialize on one aspect. The comapany IS called Tactical Adventures, after all.

Solasta is a nice game and one I've gladly picked up DLC for also. It's a miracle that they even managed to include Co-Op and a campaign/dungeon editor, NWN style, despite the small team. The combat is more fun than in WOTR (or Kingmaker) too. Mechanically it's easily the best D&Dish adaption since Temple Of Elemental Evil in that regard (a few encounters are also pretty nice, which is where they should focus on more). Plus, they don't rely on tons of enemies in every location, which is such a relief (and despite the combat focus, you can even talk / charisma check yourself out of a few fights -- and/or make a decision that lets you skip a fight both in dialogue decisions and /or stealth).

Well I am not done why I do not like Solasta. It has puzzles way more then to my liking. I dislike to think of puzzles and would not say I am dumb or bad in chess game. The easiest solution has been to use google for solutions. Made to last longer find this key piece to puzzle... pull that level there and so on. Well and if you get annoyed by jumping in BG3 I have got way more annoyed at Solasta terrain that forces you to do lots of jumping to proceed.

Well and then you say Solasta has better combat then BG3 or Pathfinder PC games? I have played Pathfinder 1 and BG3 and I have played Solasta. I have not noticed Solasta is better combat so far. The only issue is that BG3 does right now not have so many subclasses but it will have Paladin and Monk classes and more subclasses at full release.
What is better combat I think it is very subjective taste. I am not saying Solasta has bad combat. I am saying according to my taste BG3, Pathfinder game and Solasta all have ok combat and then it subjective taste what you like most of them.

Multiplayer support is great, but this is so new feature I checked they have released multiplayer support for Solasta roughly around Mars/April 2022. Well and then also that you can make customer adventures /dungeons is indeed great I do admit that.

You're in a majority. Thus actual puzzles barely exist even more in games that once were all about puzzles (see also adventure games). Even games that opt to include them, they then boil down to stuff that basically solves itself (like in Skyrim) or this classic:

I'm through with the main campaign, but I can barely count maybe a handful of actual puzzles (and one basically boiled to to flipping switches). The focus remains the combat, crawling and exploration. After I'm done with the DLC, I'll finally get back to WOTR. Or Wizardry 8.

Then after that, it's Broken Roads, hopefully. And maybe by that time, BG3 is finished too. Unlike just ~ten years ago, it's not a bad time to like RPGs, mind.

The most recent AAA game I can think of that had a decent puzzle in it was Dishonored 2, and it was a shortcut. It also wasn't really incorporated into the gameplay. Maybe if I can give it some thought I'll think of another.

Question of taste. I get it there are some people that like puzzles and I have never liked them. Yet I won a small local chess tournament once (I do not participate anymore in chess competing find it to boring to play many chess games and I am not so good that I could become professional player in chess). GM in real pen and paper roleplaying played a noble that controlled a castle that captured us. This GM playing Noble was like evil feodal rule and we were more like Chaotic Good. Gm said (Noble in session): "I am bored".

Noble: "I am good at playing chess and will play to best of my abilities if anyone of you take up challenge and beat me in chess you get only one try then I will set you up free." Nobody else was willing, but I volunteered. To his credit GM was no noobie and played fairly well chess, but I crushed his armies clearly and when I then suggested rematch if he wants the GM refused rematch.

Same goes I can like strategic games and kind of DnD 5 even in BG3 and Pathfinder games is a bit strategic combat.

Here is one of the best stories of Pen and Paper roleplaying with an annoying puzzle. Gm had asked us we can all wish for what kind of adventure we want. One suggested Mystery and then all others except me said Mystery. I said we have had plenty of Action in form of combat. That said I want really Horror this time not to easy end fight and Horror!

The GM made a horrible puzzle in the adventure and called it Mystery to solve that. We spent like 10 hours two whole sessions and nobody could figure out the puzzle and google would not help since it was only in this GM head the solution. Finally GM got bored and gave a hint that even an idiot would understand to solve the puzzle.

The End boss was a Greater Demon that almost killed all players and couple of player characters died permanently (it was fantasy, but not DnD and resurrection spells were kind of extremely rare and body start to decompose quickly and we had no spells to stop that decomposing), but we defeated the Greater Demon.

After that experience nobody wished for more puzzle or Horror except me that was pro Horror. Oh and in movies my taste is pretty much Action or Horror and most other movies get me bored. Of course it can have a bit mix of other genres even real mystery (no puzzles thank you) and perhaps a bit comedy can be amusing and relationships can be slightly interesting example romance in BG3 among characters.

One of the things that hasn't been brought up by anyone (to my knowledge) which I consider to be a huge point in Owlcat's favor, including on the issue of their games starting out buggy, is the massive complexity of the Pathfinder system. Although I funded the game, I am only now playing it for the first tme (because I like to wait until a game is not being changed too much anymore by patches before I play it). And I am finding the game to be incredibly, unbelievably awesome! The sheer amount of game mechanics options available to the player boggles the mind. Some 32 classes, each with 4-5 subclasses; dozens and dozens of options for abilities, feats, spells, etc.; the range of weapons; fifteen fully fleshed-out party companions; animal companions that can be leveled!; and all of those complex gameplay rules of Pathfinder. Imagine the coding workload of creating a solid game within that environment. Compared with what Owlcat has gone through to create their game within the massive complexity of the Pathfinder system, what Larian has to do to create a good game within the D&D 5e system is practically child's play by comparison.

This is why excuses about Larian not being able to do/include X or Y in BG3 because they have too much other work to do in creating their game does not fly with me. At all. And Larian has something like twenty times the workforce of Owlcat (and probably a hundred times the money). So no excuses. If Larian doesn't give us such basics as a *normal* mechanic for party movement, a common-sense reaction system, a great many options to customize the game's gameplay and difficulty to suite our personal preferences as the player, at least a dozen fully fleshed-out companion options, and so on, it is not because they can't do so or don't have the resources to do so. It is because they have made a conscious choice to not give us those things in the game even though they very easily could.

PF exhaustivity isn't something I would classify as a good thing. It is filled to the brim with noob traps and overpowered dips. The balance is just plain terrible and while BG3 (and DnD in general) isn't perfect in that regard too, pretty much all paths are good. I wouldn't be able to irremediably ruin a character.

No Elden Ring? Incomplete....:P

I am one of the rare people who thought Elden Ring was a total trash can of a game. 😂

But I hate Souls games in general!

That's exactly one of the major issues with Owlcat's adaptation style. They don't adapt. They copypaste tabletop abilities from Pathfinder that are cool features in the penandpaper but do nothing within the confines of their game engine. They make this mistake all the time. Makes many of the so called archetype options downright unplayable.

I am glad Larian is actually doing the hard work of adaptation. Because these are indeed different mediums with different limitations and possibilities.

Which archetype options are downright unplayable?

Many druid options, rogue types, et cetera. Almost all classes have archetypes that have abilities copypasted but not truly implemented in the game.

So they were copypasted by not implemented? I don't know what that means. Are you saying they shouldn't be copypasted, but instead "adapted" using the spirit of the archetype?

I agree with kanisatha. The sheer volume of options is impressive. I can't think of another D&Dish game that offers SUCH a variety of character creation options. It's awesome.

As far as druids go, I love my druid character. She's not the strongest, but she's still quite good and an absolutely necessary member of the team. Her dino companion is one of the strongest members of my party, dealing 7 attacks per turn with sometimes staggering results. Meanwhile, she's shooting her bow at a distance and casting Holy Fire, Storm spells, summoning manticores, elementals... And healing...

I LOVE Pathfinder character options A LOT. I was even able to create a Cleric of Nature that is like a druid but also a cleric. Very diverse teams you can create.

And my kitsune rogue! Dude. She KILLS demons and eats them as light snacks.

BTW. Totally different subclasses and such from Kingmaker where I also had a rogue and druid. Both of them were good too.