Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please Larian, it's a D&D game not a DoS game.

Perhaps some of those changes were for reasons not entirely obvious to people on this forum?

Does having an excuse (i.e. "our engine struggles to implement the correct version") make them any good?
Or does it make a problem that developers need to solve on their own?

This was not the point of my comment at all. I said that changes weren’t necessarily a good thing and I’m not going to go into which ones I agree or disagree with here.

All I’m saying is that to me trying to capture the spirit of how people play tabletop D&D campaigns is more important to making a D&D game than following the rules exactly. That’s just my opinion, and I expect others to strongly disagree with it.

But there is one key problem here, though, and that is that a good DM will make those rules changes in consensus with their players. But that's not what's happening here, where Larian is that authoritarian DM who unilaterally imposes their rules on the game. Yes, it can be argued that since DM Larian is dealing with potentially millions of players in their game, consensus is not possible. Sure, but I see that as Larian's problem to solve, not mine.

That's what mods are for.

For example, right out of the gate, I'm going to be modding my game to allow 6-man parties. I'm not going to complete it with 4 to start with because "that's the way it's meant to be played". I'm going to play it the way I want to play it.
And if the non-origin hirelings aren't to my taste, I'll find a way of modding them so they are.

I'm sure that over time there will be many, MANY mods for this game, allowing you to tailor it to suit however you want to play.

They can also unilaterally decide that isn’t a problem they should try to solve.

"Mods will fix it" is a cop out. I'm not paying modders $100. I'm paying Larian $100. I am going to play, and judge Larian's work - the good, the bad, the cute, and the ugly. Modders- even if I end up using some - are irrelevant.

FYI, imo, Very few of the changes actually make the game better. How does the change I saw for Mirror Image (unless it's been fixed or the details were wrong) improve the game? How does heavy armour having no strength requirement, no affect on movement, and basically removing a dwarven benefit improve the game? Why is not giving the option to do standard rolling for stat and hit points an improvement? Point buy and average hp are variants.. why not optional? BG gave option to roll fir hp or get max. TOEE gave an option gir point buy or rolling.

Everyone brags about options but that seems limit.

Respec and bg3 style multi classing seems to remove the consequence of choices.

I know I'm sounding negative, but I should stress it's only because I have high expectation. I expect to enjoy the game.

It is what it is. Game releases in less than 3 weeks. Then it'll be go time.

The original advertising of the game was that it was "based on 5e ruleset" which has always been 100% accurate.

I'd call it very loosely based on 5E. But you and I will never agree on anything, so let's just agree to disagree.

It is obvious that a lot of D&D players were expecting something different, based on how BG3 was advertised. I am not a hardcore D&D player, but even I was disappointed with the seemingly unjustified deviations from D&D that did not improve my experience, at all.

Larian deserves the backlash that has received for marketing this as a D&D 5E game and then never fully implementing the easily translatable aspects of D&D 5E. The game is now somewhat more in-line with 5E since the start of EA, but it is still has a lot of unnecessary deviations.

25% DOS2.5, 50% D&D5th, 25% weird homebrew.
That is how I would categorize Baldur's gate 3.
Not too shabby. But man do I wish the companions were 100% D&D style. Worst part of the game for me. I cannot stand any of them. Maybe just new Wyl is the standout.

Modding is not a criterion by which one can or should judge a game. First, people may or may not create the specific mods that someone may want. Second, even if a mod that one wants exists, they may not have access to it (for example, I am open to using a mod I can easily add through Steam Workshop, but am not inclined to use mods that require a third-party client app). And third, the game itself may prove hostile to at least certain mods, whereby adding those mods will cause a host of problems in running the game.

Absolutely. And people have the right and legitimate justification to criticize and excoriate them for making that decision.

How do you know whether a deviation was necessary? I mean, it may seem that way but we don't really know the thinking that went into these things and we don't know anywhere near as much about what was and what wasn't necessary for things to work as Larian does.

I'm not trying to justify everything they've done, but anyone with developer experience has probably tried receiving those "helpful" comments from third parties, suggesting the "obvious" solution of "just do this and that", which you probably would have done, if it was actually feasible to do.

Some examples are quite obvious, especially ones that were later changed.

When EA released: shove, hide, and jump/disengage bonus actions. Disengage was made a separate action from jump. Hide was a bonus action up through patch 9 and looks to have been changed to an action for full-release. It appears that shove will remain a bonus action. There is no way you can convince me that making shove a bonus action was somehow “necessary” or too difficult to change to be consistent with D&D rules.

I was trying to come up with builds for the release and realized there's no point unless they tell us how the rules have been changed. I compared a Four Elements Monk with an Eldritch Knight / Wizard multiclass for a melee spellcaster type and it just raises too many questions.

How did they change the 4 Elements Monk? I think here's something Larian could actually improve, and it was mentioned they have done something. 5e is really stingy with the magic powers for these Monks so they might as well have called it Two Elements. 3 spells by level 11 is a bit of a joke. It's more like a teaser of all the cool elemental powers you could have and then they let you just spam one or two. So 1-2 more powers to their repertoire so you could actually get a power from all 4 elements for proper flavor if you want?

Will there be any point in playing an EK in the first place? It's a poorly designed subclass in 5e imo, and Battlemaster is much more functional because Combat Maneuvers actually work WITH Extra Attacks instead of against them (like EK's War Magic does). Another potential place for improvement if they are house ruling. Will the melee Cantrips that are kind of required to make EK work in tabletop be in BG3? Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade. I actually hope they won't and that EK's would get an ability to simply replace an attack with a Cantrip (or Spell) without having to use their BA to attack. The "EK Cantrips" are too gimmicky and class defining. Their abilities should be more about casting any spell while fighting without compromising their main feature, Extra Attacks. Will scrolls remain free for any class to use so that won't be an EK ability? And most importantly, how was multiclass spell progression changed? The lead systems dev mentioned something about getting Fireball sooner.

You'd have a point if the game didn't repeatedly warn you "this is not the final version of the game", "do not buy the EA if you are not comfortable with it changing significantly before release" etc etc prior to purchase. I understand people feeling frustration at the deviation from the 5e ruleset, but I don't think it's reasonable to blame Larian when they were pretty up-front about what you were buying into. Is BG3 set in the Forgotten Realms? Yes. Does it use the D&D 5e ruleset? Yes.

Regarding the ASI changes specifically; it is entirely possible that change came from WotC in the last 6 months to bring in line with their plans for D&D going forward and is nothing to do with Larian. The insinuations that this was somehow kept secret and slipped in under the radar at the last moment to avoid controversy doesn't pass the smell test for me. It was never not going to be controversial to a portion of the community, whether they announced it last February with Patch 9 or the day of release...

I don’t think he has a point - Larian has been showcasing BG3 in enough detail before and during Early Access for people to be able to see what they are buying. “Being based” and “being faithful” or “good adaptation” are different things.

Your argument is even more daft, though. “Game isn’t finished” has nothing to do with how the ruleset has been implemented. If anything changes made throughout EA brought it closer to 5e. People are arguing for even MORE changes, not less.

I don't think you actually read what I said. I'm not arguing that the game isn't finished. I'm arguing that when you bought EA they warned you that what you saw was probably not going to be what you ended up with. It pretty much is as a matter of fact, but that did not have to be the case at all.

Will be interesting to see what this means, concerning multiclassing spellcasting classes:


Does this mean they also axed class level requirements for spell levels? Your highest level spells available are determined by spell slots?

A Wizard 1 / Cleric 4 (with spell slots 4/3/2) gets access to Fireball, Revivify and Spirit Guardians? Better yet, a Wizard 1 / Druid 1 / Cleric 3 also gets Moonbeam and Call Lightning?

What else could it mean? I really doubt they made the rules more complicated than 5e already is. Some extremely broken and OP multiclasses incoming? It actually feels like this is exactly what Larian would do, just unlocking everything for everyone with reckless abandon like they already did with spell scrolls, spell memorization, multiclass stat requirements, BA Shove, BA Hide...