Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How Many Dungeons in BG3?

Taking a Guess On How Many Dungeons in BGS Im Going to Guess 12-13 That are Probably 2-3 Levels Deep, Maybe 2 or 3 Big Dungeons 5 levels or more. Whats your Guess??

~15. And how many Dragons?

I don’t feel Larian’s level design works that way. I guess we could see the Grymforge area in Early Access as a kind of dungeon, for example, but it’s one big map. It does have different elevations and I guess I could try to translate it into an n-level old style dungeon if I tried, but that’s not really how it strikes me.

We could perhaps try to guess how many dungeon equivalents there will be, but we’d probably have to start by calibrating what that actually means in BG3 by establishing what areas of EA could be considered “dungeons” and how we count their levels …

Actually, Larian defines some "dungeons" on their map :



There seems to be 8in early access, not counting the underdark and grymforge.

Are you just going off those icons? I took those to map to teleport circles rather than “dungeons” and assumed that when we got to the world map it would be to those teleports clicking those icons would take us. I think we have the crashed nautiloid (beach teleport), Ethel’s hut, ancient ruins (cliff side teleport), Silvanus’ grove, Moonhaven, goblin camp, toll house and Waukeen’s Rest. I guess as they’re each in distinct areas of the map usually with a bunch of stuff to do and possibly enemies to kill they could be considered “dungeons” in the broadest sense, though not necessarily the sense in which I’d find it natural to use the term!

I think of ruins, Elthel’s hideout and grim forge as dungeons. But I agree that they are not as easily defined.

I wonder if we will get something akin to Durlag’s Tower.

The map shows locations, not dungeons. For example, The City of Baldur's Gate is not a dungeon, but it may well have a number of dungeons/interiors/underground locations within it.

How do you define dungeon? If I were running this on tabletop, I’d consider the entire underdark a mega-dungeon.

Many many encounters, puzzles, and hidden secrets.

It's HUGE!.

The way you put that (which I completely agree with) makes me think of the whole "dungeon", dungeon crawl dynamic as something that doesn't necessarily apply to a modern cRPG. Tabletop? Maps need to be manageable by humans. The cRPGs we played in the 80s and 90s? Maps had to be manageable by computers in which memory was measured in the ones and tens of megabytes, if not less for the games that came on six 5.25" floppies.

A discreet map, a handful of maps of levels in a dungeon. Boom. Dungeon. But that constraint really hasn't applied in a long time, has it? Sure, some games very intentionally make multi-level subterranean architectural structures populated with baddies, but there's nothing requiring that, is there?

The Underdark is a great example as you mention. It's a sprawling area that in tabletop would be many, many pages of hex maps. It meets many of the standard dungeon criteria in terms of being subterranean and populated with treasure and baddies, but to its inhabitants, it's essentially just outdoors, and it's large enough to have architectural structures contained within it; it's not a piece of architecture itself, and it's not a single discreet cave system.

I think "Dungeon" might be a word that's meant very, very figuratively when we're not constrained by what humans or old computers are/were capable of handling the playable logistics of.

If underdark is a dungeon, and the entire upper world is a dungeon as well. Really the only thing that probably couldn't be considered a dungeon is Goblin Grove.

I think in BG3 more in terms of "zones" - I suspect the game is designed more in terms of areas, than different connected game spaces (hub/dungeon/wilderness)

And dark crypt ...
And spider cave ...
And owlbear cave ...
Maybe Hag lair ... ?

I don't know. The Hag lair has everything a dungeon should have. A story lead-up, exposition, a riddle, traps and finally, a boss fight and resolution. Normally that would be an hours long tabletop session, but as conversions to another platform go it's pretty good I think.

If you held a gun to my head, then I guess I'd call the following dungeon-equivalents in BG3 EA: Grymforge, Ethel's Lair, Ancient Ruins/Crypt, Goblin Camp/Shattered Sanctum, Zhentarim Hideout (maybe?), Arcane Tower, Spider Cave.

I can see the arguments for encompassing more or less in the definition, but that's my stake in the ground.

One of the many things I love about Larian is that they have basically done away with the hackneyed trope of the typical dungeon - with long perfect corridors that go endlessly in various directions - all built with the precision of a battalion of master Masons - for no reason whatsoever.

I mean, they were great for what they were when the graphic requirements wouldn't really let you build out a proper Dungeon (See Ultima I through V). It works if you don't ask why it was built. Like Raiders of the Lost Ark - I mean who built that temple he broke into at the start?

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It's one of the first things I noticed and loved about Vanilla WoW - they built out these fortresses and strongholds and lairs that were bespoke and finely crafted parts of the world, that happened to be essentially dungeons.

Larian does the same stuff, and I really love it.


Yeah, that sounds about right.

I don’t know, if done well I find those very charming, I don’t find it unthinkable that someone if D&D world would made an effort to create an elaborate dungeon to protect or imprison something.

Not that I don’t appreciate if there is a good story layer on top of the dungeon - which to me a all there is to a dungeon that doesn’t look like an old school dungeon. But if gameplay is top, a basic dungeon can do just fine.

BG3 isn't like Skyrim, which was built on an amazing engine that allowed them to build a living sprawling world.

Larian has pushed their little DOS engine to the breaking point to make quite the grand adventure, but lets face it, it's simply not capable of creating the scope of game that even BG1 & 2 was or even fully implement the D&D rule-set.

Hopefully in the future there will be a developer that can make an engine as gorgeous as this one that has the proper tools to really create a grand Faerun setting complete with fortresses and strongholds.

Till then, this scratches an itch.