I agree with what a lot of Tuco is saying. I do think there is a certain level of being willingly ignorant of exploits in a game. For example I didn't use 'barrellmancy' or 'removing a party member' from combat in DOS2 because they just seemed like unintended exploits to me that weren't fun, nor were they really intended to be used in that way.
But I think the best example Tuco gave is with the Headband of Intellect. The obviously optimal thing to do whenever you get it would be to go to respec, set int to 8, buff up your other ability scores and go on your way. Then if you find The Belt of Dexterity or whatever the obvious thing to do is to go respec again and set int and dex to 8, then buff everything else up.
This strikes me as bad game design on two fronts:
1. It goes away from what makes classes and ability scores those things to begin with. A wizard should have (or desire) high intelligence, they shouldn't just have high intelligence because they found a cap. Or they shouldn't suddenly become a low intellect individual just because they found a cap (which will then magically make them a high intellect individual again) and want to wear it to get stronger in other areas. They shouldn't then randomly become naturally intelligent again when they find a different cap they want to wear besides the one that gives you high intelligence just by wearing it.
2. How can they possibly balance around something as obvious as what is listed above? In Exploration/Story Mode I don't think it matters. People playing that difficulty obviously do not care much anyways and do not want combat, skill checks, etc. to be a challenge anyways. In core or normal mode perhaps there will be enough casual players where they do not connect the dots to do this kind of stuff - but it seems like you could turn the normal difficulty into Exploration/Story mode rather easily by doing these types of things.
But then on the highest difficulty you know people are going to min/max... and Larian in the PFH said if that difficulty is punishing you, then it is your fault... not their fault. So are they going to factor in repeatedly respec'ing into the highest difficulty level to balance it? Are they factoring in these new multiclassing changes and will multiclassing be required/essential because it by default makes you significantly better because they removed any drawbacks from it? If so - that doesn't seem like this stuff is optional at all and that doesn't seem fun at all. If not - then isn't the hardest difficulty mode just going to be made rather easy for min/max players because they are obviously going to min/max if they are playing this difficulty level?
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This is to say... there are good ways to implement respec and bad ones. Just flippantly being able to do it without any penalty or cost seems bad, at least at a certain level or on certain difficulty levels.
Exploration Mode - You want to respec whenever? Fine, who cares. Normal Mode - You want to respec whenever? No. You can respec for free until you hit level five, after that you have to purchase "TEH ORB OF PERSONAL RECONSTRUCTION!!11!!1" for $50,000 gold (or whatever steep price there is) in some Baldur's Gate shop and there are only a limited amount of them available. Tactician Mode - You lose the ability to respec all together.
Even in DOS2 there seemed to be some level of cost associated with respec. It wasn't directly tied to the act itself, but you would have to go and buy all new skill books... and potentially buy all new gear if you completely changed the make up and build of your character.
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DOS2 and the origins/companions were also different than BG3.
Wyll makes almost no sense as anything but a Warlock. Gale makes almost no sense as anything but a Wizard. Shadowheart's description on the main website is literally "Cleric" and her opening line is "devoted Cleric of Shar".
I do think Astarian, Lae'Zel and Karlach could be somewhat class agnostic. Though Karlach's heart machine thing seems to tie directly into a special berserk and stuff like that. Which is to say... I did not associate any class with any of the DOS2 characters when I met them. With these characters I do and I did when I first met them in the game without knowing a ton about them ahead of time.
I also have no problem with being able to change origin character appearance in character creation if you are going to play as them - that seems like a good feature to me. But being able to completely change who they are when they are a companion seems... not good. Giving them some new clothes, a new haircut or getting them some piercings? That seems cool. Completely altering them into an entirely different looking and functioning person just seems... meh.
