Larian Studios

The problem isn't 5e, which while it has some strong effects is much more balanced than BG3 is. I don't even know that you can say the case is that Larian "wants things to be unbalanced and OP", by the way. If they do, they have a funny way of going about it since they actually *nerfed, rather heavily*, CC spells and made some CC effects much easier to get out of.

I also dispute that 5e is a "dumbed down and boring mess", having played 2nd, 3rd and 5th edition I think 5e is by far the superior one. The problem is that Larian's supposed "Do crazy shit and laugh about it" is what seems dumbed down and boring to me. In normal 5e, as a caster, I try to choose carefully what spell is best for a given situation, keeping in mind that I have to conserve my resources. In BG3, due to absurd itemization, it feels stupid to cast anything other than MM much of the time and conserving resources doesn't matter because you can just rest whenever you want. THAT seems dumbed down and boring to me. Having absurdly powerful legendaries handed out like candy seems dumb and boring to me. (And honestly, I don't even mind that you can cheese a legendary out of an encounter in the first act! It's about how powerful ALL THE OTHER ITEMS start getting, too.) Being able to stack a bunch of extra damage rolls on top of melee attacks, completely unbalancing them, seems dumb and boring to me. *Combat without challenge, and no consequences for burning through all your resources, seems dumb and boring to me.* And that is not 5e, that is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT down to the choices and changes Larian made in this game.

And again I don't even think Larian is actually aiming for "do crazy shit and laugh about it!" If they were, why did they nerf CC? Why are they pushing casters towards simple "unga bunga do the big numbers" casting, rather than letting them play around with the myriad effects they have available to them?

I agree the game is wildly imbalanced, and generally speaking I don't mind it. I do think there should more often be a consequence to popping a long rest, and I do think the presence of boosts to 23+ for some stats like Str and Con but not others like Int is balance warping, and a few decisions like multiclass Wizards (though that's arguably supported by 5e RAW), or the implementation of Tavern Brawler are poor choices which negatively impact the game. But in general, I think that the game is made better by the presence of wild, unbalanced combos and obscenely overpowered builds. It's just plain fun to design builds which can one shot bosses and optimize against given characteristics, and smite enemies into ruination. If different classes and subclasses have different power levels and playstyles, that's more build space to explore. I get that you want a toned down max power level so you can have toned down bosses so less optimized stuff has an easier time - I don't. I want stuff that absolutely demolishes bosses, and stuff that struggle busses through, and I want to be able to figure out which is which and how to make the stuff that struggle busses better, without just making it a minor flavor variation of the stuff that demolishes. I'm happier with the game as is, so I guess I'm their target audience XD Sorry if you're not a fan.

"Toned down max power level so we can have toned down bosses so less optimized stuff has an easier time" is the exact opposite of what I want. I want toned down max power levels and *keep the bosses the same* because this game, as it currently is, is an absolute breeze to go through. I don't even MIND people who play trying to optimize things as much as possible, in fact I am ONE of those people, but I don't do it with this game because the space is so easy it's not even *fun* to explore.

Let me put it this way: It is far more fun to optimize a build to 1-round kill a boss that *actually gives you trouble in normal play* than it is to optimize a build to 1-round kill a boss that is *extremely easy* in normal play. If I can already waltz through max difficulty without even trying to optimize in the slightest, it's not fun to go back and then try to build something that can...waltz through it again, but even more so this time. It just feels trivial and boring.

And the problem is that when the player's power is already WILDLY overtuned without even trying to optimize, it's going to become *nigh-impossible* to actually make additional, higher difficulties without resorting to
1. Massively overinflating the monster's stats (the laziest possible way)
2. Making gimmicky battles. (And in fact a lot of the battles are already quite gimmicky.)

That's why I can't justify a higher difficulty. Just because people can't *not* munchkin.

It'll be either HP sponges that require an OP build, or gimmicky to hell.

You don't have to munchkin. I didn't munchkin in my tactician playthrough. In fact I actively *stopped myself* from using things I considered too OP, like consumables. I chose race without any regards to what was good. I didn't bother with shields on my caster even though I could have had them, just because I didn't think it looked cool. I didn't wear an enchanted helmet on my mc for huge chunks of the game, when I could have, just because I liked the look of his mundane pointy hat more. And tactician was STILL way too easy.

You don't have to be a munchkin to make this game easy. Larian included a ton of ill-considered powercreep that absolutely trivializes combat. It is not the player's fault. It is not dungeons and dragons fault. It is explicitly the fault of Larian and what the decided to include.

Why yes, let's blame the developers for an opinion.

I can't even get out of the nautiloid on tactician. Does that mean it's too hard? No? Then why do you think they're going to add new difficulties for you?

First, I have a very hard time believing that you are telling me the truth here. The intro, regardless of difficulty, is extremely forgiving and straightforward.

Second, this is *not a statement* that everyone should be playing at tactician or something. If you find balanced or story mode challenging, that's fine. If you find them *too challenging* that's fine. Everyone is at a different level of familiarity with the genre and its conventions. I wouldn't complain if you were asking for an even easier mode than story mode.

But look around. This is not merely an individual's "opinion" or something. A *lot of people* are put off by the lack of difficulty. In fact, I think that this proportion of people will only grow upon more and more playthroughs. Your first playthrough with this game, you might be unfamiliar enough that you want story mode. Second playthrough, maybe you'd enjoy balanced. Third playthrough, maybe you'll have fun minmaxing in balanced, now that you understand the system well enough. But eventually people will get to the point that they want to choose tactician and they will realize that hey, wow, it's really not very difficult at all, especially once you get past the first few levels. And that is explicitly because of the powercreep Larian themselves inserted into the game. And yes, they are to 'blame' for poor design decisions like the absurd itemization this game has and the effects that has on the gameplay.

I honestly don't know what the point of what you're saying is. If you are unfamiliar enough with the systems that the game's difficulty is still challenging enough for you, that's fine. But nothing about that requires you to come into threads of people who are currently dissatisfied with the difficulty and white knight on behalf of the developers. I mean, could you have some empathy for people who are not in the same position as you? A lot of people paid good money for this game and are currently really hampered in their enjoyment of it by the fact that its current highest difficulty is not actually that difficult. And yes, I can tell you, from familiarity with the genre - BG3 *really stands out* in how easy its highest difficulty setting is.

This forum is not the majority.

A lot of people can still be a minority.

Personally, I'd rather they not, and spend that time with fixing bugs.

And I'm not kidding. I don't play with very good strats at anything, I had to turn down the difficulty and resort to cheese to get the one moonrise fight. I don't run with a "tank" type so I was getting one shot. I also do not respec my companions. I dislike min max, and as a result my games aren't optimized. I play balanced.

And I'm stating an opinion, not white knighting. Threads with nothing but agreements become echo chambers. I *detest* echo chambers.

Balance doesn't exist in BG1 / BG2 / NWN1 / NWN2 / DDO / and just about every other DnD based game either.

Given that its a single player game, it doesn't have to either.

A system that doesnt try to archieve balance in any shape or form is The Elder Scrolls.

Pre-Skyrim, the inbalance inherent to this system was just completely legendary. Like you could exclusively level on just social skills and develop zero combat ability. You could never get higher stat bonus but one. Etc.

BG3 may not be perfectly balanced, no game ever is, not the least because balance isnt really an objective criterion in the first place. But overall yes the system tries to archieve balance.

Give me an example of a balanced single player game.

Disco Elysium.

There's nothing but dialog in that game. Couldn't pay me enough to play it.

I play video games to smash faces and collect loot.

It is true that perfect balance is impossible in any game, single or multiplayer, but there is a difference between trying and not trying. The balance delta should not be such that people feel penalized for their choices because one class makes the others seems like separate game difficulties. There's a reason even DnD comes out with new editions, as does the Warhammer rulebooks and other tabletop games, as well as modder balancing out single player games.

The whole point of gameplay diversity means having really competitive choices to experience the game different through gameplay. Developers should strive to get classes as close to power level as they can. They have loads of player feedback on top of player metrics and data to sift through their published games, there's nothing wrong with updating their games to even out the player experience across classes.

... Are you serious? The game that has you add more alcohol to alcohol, get a bottle of it, drink it and gain +2 to ALL Physique skills permanently?

The game where there's 70% less interactions for Motorics skills than anything else?

Man, that game is absolutely fantastic, but claiming it's perfectly balanced... lolwhat

Disco is anything but balanced. The protagonist wakes up after losing his memory for drinking too much, there's no balance in that.

In topic though, at some point you are going to be too powerful most of the time depending on what you fight. I'd recommend reading on Tiers of Play to understand character progression.

https://tabletopjoab.com/tiers-of-play-5e/


Agree 100%.

I am not familiar with the pen&paper version, but as far as BG3 balance on tactician goes:

- Haste in all its forms is waay too strong
- Multi-hit attacks/spells triggering EVERY damage bonus on EVERY hit is ridiculoussssss.
- Feat balance is very uneven, Tavern Brawler deserves a special mention as broken.
- Maximizing damage output on every party member feels like by far the best approach.
- Seems arbitrary which spells are penalized with "Concentration" and which are not.
- Inactive camp members able to buff up the active party is hilariously bad design & further incentivizes using only damage dealers in active party.
- "attack roll" type of attack/spell feels far superior than "DC" attack/spell due to the numerous cheap/free bonuses available to improve "attack roll" chances.
- for the first 5 or so levels most full-caster classes feel like they need to Long Rest too often for spell slots.
- Some Subclasses are total traps, hideously under-performing compared to other subclass choices (wizard, cleric etc...)
- combination of ritual spells Feather Fall, Enhanced Leap and Longstrider completely trivializes all concepts of distance & terrain obstacles, especially when casted by an inactive camp member.

I am not familiar with the pen&paper version, but as far as BG3 balance on tactician goes:

- Haste in all its forms is waay too strong
- Multi-hit attacks/spells triggering EVERY damage bonus on EVERY hit is ridiculoussssss.
- Feat balance is very uneven, Tavern Brawler deserves a special mention as broken.
- Maximizing damage output on every party member feels like by far the best approach.
- Seems arbitrary which spells are penalized with "Concentration" and which are not.
- Inactive camp members able to buff up the active party is hilariously bad design & further incentivizes using only damage dealers in active party.
- "attack roll" type of attack/spell feels far superior than "DC" attack/spell due to the numerous cheap/free bonuses available to improve "attack roll" chances.
- for the first 5 or so levels most full-caster classes feel like they need to Long Rest too often for spell slots.
- Some Subclasses are total traps, hideously under-performing compared to other subclass choices (wizard, cleric etc...)
- combination of ritual spells Feather Fall, Enhanced Leap and Longstrider completely trivializes all concepts of distance & terrain obstacles, especially when casted by an inactive camp member.

Just FYI:

Haste - Mostly BG3. In 5e Haste gives an extra action, the double speed, +2 AC, and is very strong. But the things you can do with the extra action are limited, including no spells if you've already cast one and only one attack even if you have multi attack from a feature. To be fair programming that special set of haste actions and limitations would be a nightmare, but BG3 takes an already strong spell and makes it much stronger.
Multi Hit Damage bonuses - Mostly 5E. In BG3 you get ability score damage bonus while in 5E you typically need a feat, fighting style or feature to get it, but *all other* damage bonuses apply, making that one carve out weird in the first place. Larian basically giving that bonus universally instead of it being a weird one off is actually an improvement, the problem exists either way and is inherent to 5E.
Feat Balance - Mostly 5E. Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master and the rest are pretty much straight lifts vs 5E, and ones that aren't in the game can be even worse, like Elven Accuracy which grants effectively super advantage (extra D20 that stacks with advantage) but *only* if you're an elf. Tavern Brawler is strictly on Larian though, it's garbage in 5e and they made it the best feat in the game by a significant margin.
Maximizing Damage being too good - That's just like, your opinion, man. BG3 has an incredible variety of ways you can approach things, and I strongly disagree with your premise that it's objectively superior to maximize damage.
Concentration being arbitrary - Entirely 5E, as far as I can tell it's a straight lift. If it feels arbitrary, that's because it is, and that's solely on WotC not Larian.
Inactive Cast Member Buffs - Mostly BG3; they could drop concentration when removed from the party, but being able to pay for spell casting services and get pre-buffed in general is absolutely a thing in 5E
"Attack Rolls" being better than "DC" - Again I disagree entirely; many DC based effects are incomparable in how good they are vs effects reliant on attack rolls. Even if I agreed (which again, I don't), DCs vs Attack Rolls are pretty much straight lifts from 5E.
- Long Rest Required too often - 5E entirely, nothing is different there; ostensibly casters should be using cantrips the majority of encounters but there's zero reason in PnP to not just long rest after every encounter in almost all situations.
- Poor subclass balance - 5E, BG3 is actually far, far better about this than base 5E.
- Terrain is trivialized - Kinda a hilarious complaint to me; given that they're not really "obstacles" per se but moreso things to play with. Combat in BG3 often features terrain which is varied and interesting, compared to the majority of D&D 5E encounters at most tables I've seen having little to no terrain variance (and in fact in most games), because terrain is complex and hard. BG3's terrain is imho one of its best features. The ritual spells you refer to are all in 5E, but unlike in 5E, BG3 has them *actually be useful* because you have terrain to interact with in the first place.

I honestly don't think it would be *that* difficult. I don't want to make excuses for Larian completely throwing off the balance of the game.


Yeah, but Larian added in a ton of equipment that adds more damage bonuses per hit or makes the ones you get even stronger. I don't think 5e deserves the blame for something that Larian made like 3x as strong as it is in 5e.


I wish that were true. I love being a controller caster. But on top of Larian heavily nerfing a bunch of crowd control spells (reducing 10-turn durations to 2, for example) a bunch of the crowd control effects are actually extremely bugged. (A spell like confusion basically has to overcome two save rolls to actually do *anything at all.*) Larian *absolutely* pushes people, through gear, nerfs and bugs, to dealing damage.


Concentration is 5e's attempt to balance casters (who, in tabletop, are still wayyyy more powerful than martials as level progression goes on, despite the very heavy nerfs they've received from previous editions.) It's also a rebalance for the fact that spells actually just WORK more now (in previous editions spellcaster's power was balanced out by monsters being way more resistant to all magic than they generally are in 5e; in 5e, you can more or less guarantee a spell will work on something if you choose the right one to use.) I actually like 5e spellcasting way more than previous editions as it makes every individual spell you cast feel more meaningful (rather than like you're just dumping out your entire spellbook), but sometimes what gets dubbed a "concentration" spell seems weird.

See above comment about CC spells (as in, most often the "save" spells) being very bugged

No, there can be every reason not to just spam long rests in pnp; that's up to the DM (time limits on a quest, area unsafe to rest in, etc.) It's computer games in general that don't do good with rest systems; I have actually never seen a single computer game that actually does a rest mechanic well.

In the case of wizards, absolutely not; but to be fair this is not a BG3 thing but a computer thing (several wizard subclasses are defined by abilities that just don't translate well from pnp, including the ever-suffering illusionist.) Then again, Larian weirdly decided to tune the abilities of other wizard subclasses that frankly didn't need it, so I don't know why illusionist feels so neglected.



Yeah, the one thing BG3 does excellently compared to tabletop is terrain (although I think they got a little too tickled by the whole 'shoving people into chasms' thing and put those chasms everywhere. It's fun every once in a while but I don't want shove to be a save-or-die move in like half my battles.)