Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback U/I issues disappointing, Paladins unplayable

So I picked up the game last week and there are some issues around the user interface, and possibly content, that have me doubting my purchase. In order of least to worst:

1) When selecting an action button (jump, push, attack, ranged attack, spells, etc.) I often then receive information that makes me want to do something different. The instinct from other games is to toggle the button with a left click, then try right click, then check the key binds for a command (but you can't press ESC in this mode). Frustratingly, I am stuck with the selection and can't easily deselect. ESC + right mouse to cancel action doesn't work. The best I've been able to find is to toggle into and out of turn-based mode. Is there an easy way to do this? It really should be to just press the button again, either with a left click or a right click.

2) The words I most dread to hear are "that's interesting" or "hmmn". It means my character or one of my companions have seen something that I personally don't. I can't ask them what they've seen. I can't ask myself what I've seen. Thus I begin a bizarre search for something to mouse over that I personally cannot see because of the limitations of the display. It really breaks the fourth wall when my character is supposed to know something, but the devs won't tell me as the player!

3) So I think I just recruited a pet dog near a goblin village. I'm a paladin who's on a mission to protect some tieflings and druids from a group of goblins looking to murder them. Seems pretty much in line with my oath to defend the light. So I climb up some vines and kill a sleeping hobgoblin. No problem. Then I sneak into a building from behind and see a goblin in ambush mode facing down at the main entrance. I put a crossbow bolt in his back and he dies, and again no problem. I've noticed a guy on another roof, so we climb back down the vines and sneak around looking for a way up onto his roof from behind. I end up spotting two guards on another gate facing away, so popping back to camp for Astarion I have him execute a ranged sneak attack on one goblin. This starts combat with the other, but not before briefly starting to show a cut scene, which is then cut off. My team hit him with arrows and cantrips and I move in to finish him off face to face. That's when I get to see the cut-scene for breaking my oath. Unlike in real D&D, there's no way to tell the computer it's a bad DM and pull out a copy of Aristotle's "The Ethics" to back me up. Why do cut-scenes not account for combat that's already started? It's ethical to kill someone, so long as they didn't deserve a cut-scene? Seriously, getting through an entire game with a paladin character without a cut-scene interruption seems so unlikely as to prevent me from ever playing one on release. This aspect of the U/I is totally broken.

If these are the goblins i think you're talking about, then it will pull you into a cutscene when the main gate goblins spot you to have the "entering the goblin camp" conversation that will set whether the camp will be hostile to you or not. But, if you already are in combat with that group and then the main gate goblins spot you, it pulls you into a cutscene and then immediately cancels it (as though you had hit the "attack" conversation option) and you are treated as the aggressor, which means that when you kill them it counts as breaking your oath.

It's the one-two combo of clumsy coding and sweaty rules nitpicking that will break your oath every time. We've tried to tell larian about it, but for all their talk about removing of harsh rules to make things easier and more fun, this seems to be the thing they won't budge on.

I mean you are an oath of Devotion paladin right? Sneak attacking people, even goblins, in their sleep isnt really supposed to be your thing. If any class is just going to charge the gate head on it's a devotion pally

"In the name of Lawful Stupid, I challenge you all to single combat upon the the field of honour!"



"Wut? No bows, no bows!!"

Thanks Piff. Glad to know that Larian has at least been told. I'm not surprised by the Post-Modern ethics fail, just horribly annoyed that they don't seem to care. I guess no Paladins for this Paladin lover.


LOL! Debating the proper behaviour for a Paladin is as old as First Edition. One of the reasons I chose the neutral good oath rather than the lawful one was to avoid that stereotype. For the record, according to lore, Goblins are one of many monster races cursed to be without full free will and who can only be evil. It's always a greater crime against life to leave them alive, because of the murder and torture that they are committed to bringing to other life. What's going to be next, parley with demons because some of them might be lovable and cuddly?

Oath of Vengence is shipping with the full game. You might be forgiven of premptive assault with that oath.

Good to know, thanks. But if they can't determine the situational ethics, then I doubt I'll bother. Preemptive assault on humans planning an act of war isn't unethical or illegal in international law IRL. Killing monsters in a fantasy game when you've been told by a captive (who's life you saved) that they are coming to murder a bunch of innocents? Well, that's just what Paladins train to use a sword for in the first place. And that applies to ALL the Oaths...

Larian Studios should know there's nothing there to be forgiven in the first place. I'd understand this if I were playing a "Star Trek" game, where everyone is just as good as everyone else. But this sort of moral relativism has no place in Dungeons and Dragons. It doesn't bode well for the overall story line.

So you were ancients not Devotion?

So you preemptively murdered the warg then. Did you kill the owlbear too?

I can’t imagine that they will be able to do it. Even the most vague moral decisions in RPGs tend to be questionable, as the game is unable to judge intentions. I suspect the mechanic, as it is in EA, is system driven and as such doesn’t take into the account the context. Hopefully, Larian spent some time expanding and polishing this system up.

The biggest problem with Paladin in D&D is that the devs will assume your motivation and reasoning. And you cannot argue with them.
So an act that seem prefectly moral and just to you, just gets a great big NO from the game.

This is why Paladins require EXTRA attention when writing their dialogue and choices. You need to account for different reasonings for the same act.

In my views it is perfectly reasonable to assume you break your oath when sneak attacking someone, even goblins and hobgoblins.

That being said I did try to play a paladin also and I was told once I broke my oath without being told the reason, and I couldn't figure out what I did wrong. So I won't be playing paladin in full release even though I like the class, sadly. If they want the paladin class to be playable (other than oathbreaker) I think there should be a warning on actions and conversation options that leads to breaking the oath.

Correct, ancients oath. Yes I killed a Warg, no I didn't kill the Owlbear. Owlbears are classified as just another beast now, so I'd only kill it if it was attacking someone. Warg's are "monsters" and that makes a difference, and the term murder doesn't apply. Ancient's oath doesn't ban you from killing. It's actually fairly complex, if you understand that light is a spiritual metaphor. You aren't breaking it by killing germs when you cast laying on of hands to remove a disease. There's an implied prioritization. You preserve life when you kill a "monster" hell bent on destruction. Free willed people are more important than "monsters". It reminds me of that line from Stargate Atlantis when the doctor says "No, Commander Shepard's role is to preserve life too... He just uses a different set of tools.".

As for sneak attacking, ya that would break the classic devotion oath... which is why I didn't take it. Oaths can be met in more than one way. I was encouraged when I saw that you could watch the goblin prisoner get killed without penalty, but the higher fulfillment of the oath where you stand in front of the crossbow was rewarded with approval from Gale. And think of Shadowheart. I'm sworn to the light, she to darkness. Killing a priestess of darkness both kills a person and defends the light, so it's a contradiction that must be resolved by looking at other aspects of the oath. The highest would be to stay with her, prevent the ultimate completion of her mission, and lead her down a redemption arc (here's hoping she has one). But lesser choices should NOT necessarily make you an oath breaker.

I like your idea about warnings Solarion, but it would still keep me from playing when I encountered some dev trying to force me to live according to a clumsier standard.



I couldn't agree more.

Owlbears are basically in the same spot as worgs, owlbears were just changed first. Preemptively attacking one is probably what did it

I tried to include this in the previous post but for some reason it didn't come out, probably a keystroke error during cut and paste. Any ways I just wanted to say this is a good point. The first requirement is to staff someone with a degree in ethics. Then you have to code it all. I'm not saying it's financially feasible, especially at this point, just that I wish they had done better. When I look at all the money that's been spent on developing the evil character experience (one I will never want to experience) I wish they had spent more on Paladins. The Dark Urge stuff is just a waste of money for someone like me. I'd rather the game be cheaper, or better for people who want to play old school heroes.

LOL, oh dear, REALLY? I hadn't heard about that one. So when goblins with the warg rider attacks at the gate I can't kill the warg! What about when it attacks me? LOL.