Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General I think I'm giving up on Larian

Some previews and new information are doing the rounds and what I'm learning is incredibly discouraging.

It took Larian three years to revert most of of their (almost universally bad) homebrew rules.
We had to fight for months and write down goddamn entire books to make our point about why these chances were not for the better, but here we were, close to the release and with MOST of the bad decisions finally reverted.
Sure we still have a bunch of lingering issues, but we were getting somewhere...

Then today new details started circulating.

- Apparently the player will be able to respec at will. But not just that, he will be able in any given moment to change everything about his character, including the stats and starting class.
- Apparently, the same will apply to companions too. They'll be tagged as "that companion" by the game, but you'll be able to change appearance, starting abilities and skills distribution AND STARTING CLASS, too.

Now, I know that there's always people who will argue that mods often give these options, but I think there's a fundamental difference and whole different level of abstraction between modders and use of external software and a game offering these options natively, with no barrier or filter of any kind.
It's like the game is going out of its way to remind you "Don't worry, everything about it is fake and there's no need to long term commitment about anything, because none of this matter".
Which is technically true, but heart-breakingly immersion-shattering as a message to the player.

it's not the end, thoug.

- In an interview with a popular Italian portal, the lead combat designer Nick Pechenin bragged about how they removed stat/abilities requirement for multiclassing...

...and if this wasn't already bad enough, what I read in the following statement made my eyes pop out.

- They are planning to help these "poor multiclassing underdogs" to unlock more spell slots and more quickly so that they'll be able to keep pace with the unlock of spells with their single-class counterparts. The example they made was that "It was disappointing for a multiclass player to have to delay so much the access to the fireball spell, while single-class could get it so much sooner".


This is depressing. I'm genuinely starting to think the people in charge of making key gameplay decisions at Larian may very well be some of the WORST rule designers I've ever witnessed.

The only one that really bothers me is changing Companion's starting class, especially given what we know about the Companions:

Does Wyll really make sense if he's not a Warlock? Shouldn't changing his starting class require that he relinquish his pact first?
Does Gale really make sense if he's not a Wizard? Does it make sense that we can respec him into a Barbarian?
Does Shadowheart make sense if she's not a Cleric?

Came here to complain about probably one of the most asked features

Every single one of the changes I listed ranges from BAD to ABSOLUTELY AWFUL, but yeah, I can easily agree that this one, more than anything, is completely nonsensical.
Beside, isn't this the role that "hirelings" were supposed to cover?

Fortunately, none of what you've mentioned will affect my gameplay. It is all options. If I don't like it, then I won't use it.

That being said, I am curious about some of these aspects like multiclassing once game is released. I don't think in my first run I will multiclass, though.

"Some people asked for it" is not enough to make a stupid idea not stupid, incidentally.

It just makes a fool of who asked for it.

Nobody forces you to use any of those features. They can add a lot to the gameplay. One thing I hate is irreversible choices and re-doing things just because you picked a wrong feat some levels ago. Larian delivers!

Most of that stuff you can just ignore. I know I will. The handholding for multiclass seems terrible imo but I also always hated multiclassing even in D&D 5e so I was already planning on never multiclassing.

I know when RQ wakes up she is going to be mad at me but I have to say it.

I see this trend in the United States,

For instance, I am a retired commercial Roofer/Architectural sheet metal worker.

Currently working as a security guard, I have that no BS look about me lol.

Anyway, on our store door, there is two signs "No open carry" "No Pets unless there service dogs"

All day we have animals in the store, I was told to not even bother,

Why? I ask.

Because we don't want to be sued.

Everyone is scared shitless there going to be on the end of a phone camera.

And this attitude is trending into every aspect of our lives.

I like to say "The kids are in Charge" well thats not exactly what I say, I just don't want to get booted from the forums just yet lol I am glad to hear that these rules are optional.

Absolutely none of those affect me except for the spell unlocks.

I'm not being forced to do any of those things so they don't concern me.
I'll have to see how the spell unlocks go, if they're unbalancing I just won't multi-class two spell casting classes (which I rarely do because multiple spell classes in 5e don't work very well unless you're just dipping)

... honestly I can see myself changing Astarion's haircut, cause I hate it. And maybe Shadowheart's domain, Shar also has Death iirc.

Please don't hate me.

RIGHT how DARE this 'evil company' put in completely _OPTIONAL_ features that serve to make the game accessible to a wider audience. SHAME ON THEM!........ (Seeing the threads here, i kind of understand why Larian Opt to not participate themselves it also reminds me why there's like 1 or 2 people at most from the group i used to Pen / Paper with as a teenager that i still have any sort of contact with today as an adult.)

The only thing that might bother me from these changes is the multiclassing spell slots tweaks, the rest seem like things I can just easily ignore. And these tweaks will surely be appreciated by a more casual audience that might be scared of messing up their characters when leveling/multiclassing, or that simply want to try different things.

I don't know man, this seems like a weird hill to die on.

I think a big issue within the community of this game is distinguishing DnD tabletop players from those who have never played DnD but are interested in this game. I believe that Larian knows this and are also catering to that group which is why they are giving players easier options.

Easy solution would be to put these features in some additional difficulty settings...
Turn off respec options
Restrict class changes
Reduce mutliclass progression
Etc, etc

I hadn't heard many of these.
This is...fine. You should be able to respec your character if you make poor decisions due to a lack of understanding of 5e/how thinks exactly work. The PF games have these and I like being able to do so. That said, the character building in PF is vastly more complex than in 5e, and so basically requires having the respec ability to not soft lock players. Whereas it's ~hard to build bad a (single-classed) 5e character unless you fuck up your original stats.
Ugh. Like, why make "Origin Characters" if everything about them can be changed? Why not just make their backstories be DAO-like backstories for a custom character (e.g. The Dark Urge).
...what.

Okay, there is a possible saving grace here. Although Fireball is mentioned by name, Nick always uses the term "spell slots." And technically, what is explained above is already how multiclassing full spellcasters works. A Wizard/Cleric caster gets the full progression of spell slots, but they only get access to spells according to their class levels. E.g., A Wizard 3/Cleric 2 has 3rd level spell slots, but only knows 2nd level Wizard spells and 1st level Cleric spells. So...maybe Nick is just being a dummy and is incorrectly understanding multiclassing...?

However, if Larian changes it so that a Wizard 3/Cleric 2 gains access to *both* 3rd level Wizard and 3rd level Cleric spells...sigh. The whole point of multiclassing is that you pay the cost of slower spell (and other class feature) progression in order to gain flexibility and/or synergy from a new class. At this point, just give us the option to at any point in the game use abilities from any class. Give every character all armor & weapon proficiencies, allow Barbarians to cast spells when raging, give every character bonus action Hide (ohwait). Sure, why not? It's all optional.

5e rules about multiclassing:

Honestly, I think Larian is doing the above in order to make coding simpler. It's much easier to have one pool of spell slots/known/prepared than it is to have separate pools for each spellcasting class.

This is a mostly reasonable take...mostly. And most of those are just options that can be ignored and I have no problem with that stuff. If I can ignore it then great. But there is a massive problem there with the multiclass handholding and that is terrible. Now as I mentioned above, I never liked multiclassing, even in D&D 5e and I had no intention to multiclass in BG3 so this doesn't really affect me. But I am also aware that there are people who like multiclassing and they meticulously plan their character progression with multiclassing in mind...those changes will completely ruin the game for those people. I think that just not allowing multiclassing in BG3 would have been better than this system...at least that way people know how to plan their playthroughs...it will be terrible for those who multiclass when the game launches only to find out after the fact that it ruined their character.

I agree. I'm actually happy about most of those changes, but if people care that much or can't keep themselves from not using them in their game (for whatever reason that is) I guess they could make use of those options.

Sorry to hear that you're giving up on Larian. You will be missed around here, I'm sure.

I have to support Tuco and how he feels, even though I know those changes are optional. The thing that bothers me is that all those big changes to the classic formula dropped out of nowhere RIGHT AFTER the dirty bear sex marketing trick that lured a lot of passing casual onlookers on a quest to do some bear banging shenanigans. It is like they did the actual DnD community dirty by being silent for several years and letting us play a COMPLETELY different game then luring some 'connoisseur of fun gaming' and dropping the biggest bomb of changes to appeal to THEM, not the fans of the source material. Changes like this should have been transparent to the community all this long-long time, period.

Edit: While I was typing...


THIS. Exactly this, but with the balance swung dramatically to appeal the general audience and make everything for them as easy and with as few restrictions as possible so that they could feel themselves at home.