Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So... what is Sven's big upcoming surprise ?

3rd edition handled AC best IMO. Having separate flat-footed and touch ACs went a long way towards making combat's more strategic and tactically diverse, IMO.

The distinction between touch and deflection IS a nuance that 5e is lacking, and the surprise mechanic as it was conceived for release, along with advantage and disadvantage didn't really manage to recapture that fully. I'd like it if future systems had a clean and simple way of distinguishing avoidance or deflection, for effects that only need to touch the target to take effect.

The trouble with it in 3rd was that the distinction left us with multiple AC values, derived off different combinations of attributes (Your full AC is X (Armour value + dex, to a max determined by the armour), You Flat-Foot AC is Y (Armour value, no Dex), and your Touch AC is Z (Dex, but no armour value), and whether other elements applied to various versions of your Ac could sometimes become confusing - we had a dozen different 'types' of armour class bonus, and some stacked and others didn't, some applied to all Ac calculations, others applied only to full and flat-foot, others applied only to full and touch... and so on. This was, overall... too complex for 5e philosophy. I'd like it if a way could be found to preserve that nuance, but keep the understanding and calculation of it simple.

I cant speak about older editions but was interested with the idea of some armors being better or being less effective against certain weapons.
Something to differientate armor and weapons more. I feels advanced martial combat rules is missing from 5e. They spent how many pages on spells....sorry of topic...

Oh, I didn’t mean THAC0 was illogical, just my fondness for it given I actually value simplicity and accessibility to new players in game rules. Plus I’m not sure emotional attachment to game rules can ever be rational . As to 3e, I don’t know much about it but am currently playing Pathfinder WotR which I think is based on it and have recently found myself struggling to hit certain enemies but also to understand why and what is impacting their armour class. I’m totally willing to accept that this is to do with my ignorance and inappropriate tactics and/or weapons, and that I’ll become as attached to its approach as to THAC0 once I work it out, but definitely find 5e easier to understand. And given that there’s so much to learn about the D&D ruleset for a newcomer, I do think there’s a significant accessibility benefit in making individual elements simpler. I think I prefer just having a single* AC, plus potentially vulnerabilities or resistances to specific damage types as per 5e.

* A single AC at any one time, that is, given I’m aware that 5e still has different ways of calculating AC that can apply in different situations, such as when using Barkskin.

True that e.g. mail should be better against slashing than against piercing or blunt, but I'm afraid that few people care (enough).

I used to play an unlicensed supplement to the original 1st edition D&D made by a bunch of CalTech nerds in the late 70s called Warlock (hence my screen name) that did this on a D100 system. To be honest, it doesn’t really add that much to the game. You carry an extra weapon or two, big deal.

My personal opinion is that the current system is not ideal either. The fact that you can continue to increase the factor by which you avoid being hit, to unreasonable levels just sits wrong with me. I don't care how magical your armor is, or how good you are at fighting/dodging, at the end of the day even a zero level scrub should be able to hit you. Now, taking damage? that should be a different story.

But then I have a problem with the stat increases as well, so maybe I should just go back to playing BG1/BG2 and leave it alone. I don't say that my opinion is the most popular, nor in line with the general consensus, merely that I don't think it is the cripplingly difficult thing that people claim it is, nor that it is that much worse than the current system. But that's just my opinion.

A 20 still always hits, regardless of everything else.

But I think if you are at the point in the game where you might have a 20+ AC and you are regularly (or ever) fighting extremely weak enemies, the DM is doing something wrong, because that isn’t fun in any system: 5E or AD&D 2nd Ed. Because of how long combat takes on table top, I always think it’s important that I am not wasting my players time.

If it’s a matter of just hypothetically it should be possible, I don’t think concerns beyond the practical implementations of the rules are valid, but we are both entitled to our opinions.

I’ve also really come around on 5E’s attribute system. I don’t even have my players roll stats stats anymore. Point buy makes for a balanced and engaging experience where players are making interesting choices at character creation and as they develop and level up. And while I don’t mind playing characters with dog shit stats (I just played one recently and it was great), most players don’t want this, so I’m happy to not need to deal with their disappointment.

Will we be seeing Gundren soon finally?

It sounds like you got burned by the inflation problem that 3rd edition had (and which pathfinder inherited from it) - where numbers just kept growing and growing ridiculously, and you'd end up with wizards with AC 50, and characters making skill checks against DCs of 90, and anyone who wasn't super-specialised to do a particular thing couldn't even try because there was no possibility of success unless you were specialised...

Fortunately, more recent versions of the system alleviated that problem.

In 5e, we have bounded accuracy as a principle that generally restricts the number bloat and means that specialists will have an easier and even a near-certain chance of doing the thing they're good at, but that most characters will generally still have a chance to succeed. AC generally doesn't go above ~23, at any point of play, or lower than ~9. Attack bonuses start at ~+2 and rarely go above ~+12. Ability scores for players start around ~10, but rarely, if ever, go above 20 (they can't without specific magic or abilities). Monster's Ability Scores can go as high as 30, but no higher.

No matter how good you are, a basic scrub still has a chance to land a lucky blow, and deal damage; you always have a chance of scoring a wound on that dragon - but the hero with experience, and magical gear has a much better chance and will almost certainly hit more regularly.

Isn't this where it always falls apart? The rules of D&D become less and less useful the higher level you go. Bounded Accuracy was an attempt to attenuate that by flattening the curve, even if to me it seems arbitrary how they arrive at the numbers they wanted.
With the new playtest, it looks like they're going more into that, hopefully for the better.

Yes, higher level is where things tend to fall apart both in 5e and 3.X. 5E has its own problems at high level. High level 3.x turns into rocket tag with any competent and well-equipped party, but I find low-mid level is a good balance in that edition between power, player agency, challenge, and complexity that really shows the strengths of 3e.

I'd say that 3e is definitely better suited to crpgs than 5e though. Computers can easily juggle all that 'bookkeeping' that scares people away, but on the other end we see Larian here is resorting to heaps of homebrew rules and additions to try and keep BG III's combat fresh (YMMV how successful they have been)

Fair enough. I think we are both straying far off topic. And wait, you still use(d) the random die rolling of stats? Wow, that throws me back. LOL.

Literally every player I play with at literally every table I play at, uses and prefers strongly to use the primary and main recommended way of generating ability scores in 5e - Rolling. Not a single player or DM at any of those tables uses point buy unless they are forced to by the rules of an external event game.

For the most part this is because it creates interesting and unique-feeling stat spreads, and more importantly because point buy is freaking boring.



I'd actually disagree with this - Yes, the computer can handle all that extra involved complexity... but it still requires players to engage with and understand it, or else it asks them to play semi-blind and just 'trust' the system to be telling them what the best thing to do is, without really understanding it. When I was much younger, I played a 3.5 CRPG; I had very little idea of what was happening and why, in terms of gear and spells and combat systems, and mostly had to just fall back on casting things that sounded like they were probably good buffs, by their flavour text, and things that sounded like they did good damage. Large swathes of the system were opaque to me... and just because the computer could handle all the math didn't make that element of the gaming experience a more positive one. I'd much have preferred clarity of system.

Point buy is fine

There was Icewind Dale 2 and the Neverwinter Nights games, all of which I think are well regarded, D&D rule-wise at least. Did they ever make any other 3e games?

I only ever put serious time in Neverwinter Nights; there were some times it didn't accurately adapt the pen and paper stuff, otherwise I had fun character crafting. The interface was pretty annoying though, Larian doesn't have anything on NWN. As far as adequately explaining the rules to you, that seems to be a serious shortcoming of any crpg, just talking about the Baldur's Gate games, I don't know half the things going on in a magic combat to this day, and the only reason I know about the other half is from knowing about D&D outside the game.

Execution matters a lot. I don't think I have ever heard anyone complain about KoTOR being particularly obtuse back in the day, and that was built under modified 3rd edition-Neverwinter of course shares a lot of its DNA with those games -IIRC they even got away with shoving a modified Umber Hulk from Neverwinter into the game as an enemy, which shows how much they shared 'under the hood'

Certainly I have heard a lot of people here on the forums complain about stuff relating to interface, information being readily available to the player in-game, obtuse and/or confusing mechanics etc. A lot of that can be laid at Larian's particular vision for executing 5e in BG III, not necessarily 5e itself. (though some 5e mechanics aren't particularly great either IMO)
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There's Temple of Elemental Evil, but that was Troika's last game IIRC, and it shows as it was released basically unfinished. When it works bug free (rarely) it does really show the good qualities of 3.5-as it tries more than any other D&D game I can think of to faithfully recreate the ruleset.

As for NWN, I really liked their attempt to nail crafting. Having a wide variety of weapon/armor types as well as materials for crafting that subtlety changed the properties of crafted items, then the enchantments. Something like that which also included the Masterwork properties from Dragon Magazine(IIRC) would have been amazing to see. But 5e doesn't have that. 3.5 armor and weapons are just miles above more engaging to interact with as a player.

Really? I just don’t understand other people’s tastes. Not that there is anything wrong with other people’s opinions or anything. We are all entitled to them. But NWN? Really?

I can distinctly recall how utterly disappointed I was with that game. I loved the BG series so much, so I understandably had high expectations for NWN. The module creator was cool, but I still to this day am dumbfounded by how bad everything else was. Story, characters, map design, the abundance of dry fetch quests, the lack of a party… all so bad.

Unless you mean the expansions. I heard that those were better, but I never played them, so I don’t know. The base game left such a terrible impression that I had no interest in checking them out.

But I actually hate everything BioWare has done not called Baldur’s Gate, while everybody else loves KotoR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, so what do I know? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I thought Sozz meant that Larian didn’t have anything compared to NWN when it comes to poor interface design, though perhaps I’m reading that wrong. I’ll admit I don’t recall it well. I’ve recently bought the iPad port but haven’t got round to playing it yet.

From recollection, I’m with you in the assessment of the single player game, though. I didn’t like the main campaign or the SotU first expansion, though I remember loving the Hordes of the Underdark follow-up. And yes, its modding support was great, though for me personally that is always going to trail a long way behind having a good core game in importance.

I don’t think that the flaws were ruleset related, though, but that’s a level of detail I definitely don’t recall. On the topic of ruleset comparisons, when it comes to 3.x more recently I’m going to have to go off Pathfinder WotR which I’m playing now. It’s hard to compare with 5e as I only know the lower levels of that (having lost interest in my Solasta playthrough before the end), but I am finding elements of Pathfinder frustrating. Concentration isn’t perfect but I can absolutely support the idea of some mechanism to avoid piling spells, and particularly buffs, on. And increasingly I’m finding some fights in WotR silly, boring and long as neither I nor the enemy can land the vast majority of hits (my party is now level 13). Of course, that might be because I’m doing stuff wrong and/or be related to Pathfinder’s adaptation of 3e. And I’m sure I’ll find more frustrations with 5e once we get more of it in BG3, but so far my problems with the game mechanics tend to be in areas where Larian haven’t implemented the 5e ruleset rather than where they have!

Hmmm, that reading of the prior quote does make sense, in which case my anti-NWN screed was completely superfluous, as opposed to just mostly superfluous. 🫠