Larian Studios

Okay, so this is coming from someone who both played 5e tabletop and has got over 100 hours in BG 3, both EA and full release.

And after playing through the game multiple times, I can say that the current implementation is dreadful for anyone not fully abusing the mechanics and broken combos of items, classes, etc.

Sure, you can win the game without needing any of those, but it doesn’t solve the problems that were introduced by the implementation. Some notable cases:

-Tavern Brawler doubling chance to hit and damage
-Multiple procs of the same damage, like Eldritch Blast getting multiplied from Hex and magic items. A single cantrip dealing 40 damage per beam with multiple available.
-The concept of Conservation of resources doesn't exist in this game. It’s literally better to long rest after every fight and going full nova.
-Some multiclassess being overpowered beyond belief.
-Powerful magic items are everywhere and make most of them nothing more but a vendor trash.

When a paladin can get an auto crit and deal 300+ damage in a single turn, Sorcerer has got a DC of 22, this leads to ever tankier bossess and massive power creep.

To put into comparison with 5e tabletop:

-A level 12 fighter, Samurai archetype with elven accuracy, Sharphshooter and 20 Dex is one of the most optimized builds for archery. Let’s assume they will use +3 longbow.

With haste and action surge, they can attack 7 times, assuming the arrows all hit they deal 7d8 + 56 + 70 damage, about 160 damage. Powerful, but completely dwarfed by builds who can solo Raphael in a turn or two.

There is no easy solution. The amount of interactions with magic items, being able to use bonus action with hand crossbows for extra attacks, supplies and lack of restrictions on camping, etc. It is simply not possible to turn into less of a nova strike, without some major changes.

And before someone yells at me, 'don’t like it, don’t use it', that's not the point. It hurts the game overall, when the devs must implement something like 'Unstoppable' on bossess, so they don't immediately die. I don't expect a single Player game to be perfectly balanced, in fact, they shouldn’t be.

However, I firmly believe that this is too much. Making powerful builds is fine, everyone does that and it's part of the fun. But, tabletop wasn’t balanced around this kind of power or interactions. And translating it directly into a game, without thinking why things worked the way they did in tabletop lead to some questionable design choices.

I am not asking for some crazy overhaul of the game, but tuning down some of the interactions and magic powers would go a long way of fixing at least some of the problems the game has got right now.

But that’s just my opinion, what about you?

I don’t mind if it’s unbalanced, but it is a tad too much.

That said, I’m having a great time with the power trip of my favorite class combo (rogue / monk) being completely broken, so I just don’t mind that much.

If I want more of a challenge, I don’t mind imposing limitations on myself.

My second run is going to be a no multiclassing run.

Tav Spore Druid
Shadowheart Trickster Cleric
Gale Divination Wizard
Astarion Arcane Trickster Rogue

I’ll see how that feels.

I have Astarion multiclassed into Assassin Gloomhunter Battle master with the Dark Urge cape that gives him Invisibility every kill. It's a bit silly how he can just one shot everything with the dual crossbows.

They need to fix all of the entirely broken mechanics like Haste, casting multiple leveled spells per round, broken feats like Tavern Brawler, etc. I doubt they will though, as I assume those broken mechanics were introduced deliberately to appeal to certain target audience (the same as totally overpowered items).

The funny thing is, people using all these broken mechanics & items then complain that the game is too easy.

Isn't it amazing how many of the broken and unbalanced shit in this game comes from Larian trampling all over the design lessons that WotC learned from 15+ years of working on D&D?

I'm pretty sure we had someone on this very forum that pointed this out REPEATEDLY whenever they did their PfH circus shows.

They need to remove the auto crit off paralysis, nerf the half orc racial granting an entire third dice to crits, remove speed potion granting an entire set of attacks+extra attacks, spells like Chain Lightning need to have damage fall off on forking damage or the single target spell should not be doing the same damage as the initial damage of chain lightning, but more.

Metamagic duplicated or bonus action spells need to do a third of the damage as fall off, not the full quantity, sorc is way too ahead of other casters and the only caster to compete with broken martial classes. Too many sources of extra attacks also breaks martials on top of the magic item dominance for martial classes. Too many of the weaknesses martial classes are supposed to have, like mobility and range, are removed by them having access trivially to misty step, fly, and jump being so strong. Too much gear also grants immunity to difficult terrain. Elemental resistances are granted trivially through warding bond, and the elixirs and venoms are bonkers OP for martials. 27 strength, what the hell is that, pair that with balduran sword granting proficiency as a bonus damage on melee swings, crazy.

Surprised abuse through initiating combat with invis pots even on scripted boss encounters is stupid broken.

They should probably remove any elixir giving 27 str let alone 21.

You can get a legendary weapon at lvl 1, I have no idea how they could balance ANYTHING at this point.

Everburn Blade is a strong item but it's not remotely close to what starts breaking the game. It's the sheer amount of extra attacks, way to guarantee crits, and crit modifiers offered by the half orc race on top of haste effects basically duplicating numbers of attacks instead of granting a single extra attack. On top of martial items that each start adding 3-6 damage here and there until you're stacking an extra 15-20 damage from gear per strike on top of paralysis being easily applied with crawler venom or the divine smite crits from tadpole powers.

What other class besides martials gets a flask that raises their main stat to 27? What other weapon besides martials adds a multiplier of proficiency to extra damage done by a weapon like Balduran's greatsword?

What other caster besides sorcerer gets to spit out 3-4 chain lightnings or lv6 magic missiles with each missile getting a 1d8 modifier in a single turn? Martials and sorcerers and half orcs are what break this game. Why bother with warlock, bard, beastmaster ranger or druid when you can bring the best utility in the game, also known as bursting bosses in one turn?

And it's not a Legendary. You can get the Silver Sword from the Gith patrol with the same tactics you use to get the Everburn Blade.

The orc racial is in line with tabletop. Lightning bolt not having falloff damage is in line with tabletop. Falloff damage is a World of Warcraft mechanic I rather dislike.

Haste giving a full second round of attacks Haste doesn't give a full round of attacks in 5e but I'm seeing that it gives AC and advantage on Dex saving throws.

Twinned spell is also working as in 5e. 27 STR pots exist in 5e, they last 1 hour.

Most of the stuff you're complaining about is working as intended.

Paralyze gives advantage, attacks within 5 feet are auto crits and they automatically fail STR and DEX throws.

I still don't get why people whine about this stuff, and then also whine about the game not being 5e RAW but these things are.

At the cost of massive story progression, though. I suppose it matters a lot less on a second or third playthrough.



Because there's this thing called different people instead of the garbage strawman you're trying to foist on me. I don't give a damn what 5e has, 5e does not have this game's magical items or other Larian mechanics, and it's a PC game, not a multiplayer tabletop game. Different mediums, different needs, this is getting tiresome to repeat. 5e is not a bible and videogame design is not a religion. Nobody is going to hell for deviating from some nerd's holy scripture. Monk is worthless in 5e, but Larian changed them to be the opposite. They can do the same for other aspects, just like they made karmic dice among other things like no racial specific ASI's.

.... you know that you can just cast Command on both Commander Zhalk as well as the Gith guy to make them drop their swords right? No need to kill them and influence the story in any way.

For Zhalk I did, though I prefer the xp from the kill, he's easy enough to kill anyways. What I don't know is if taking the sword from Voss means later when he's meant to rewarding that to Lazael and she gushes about it, if that will be affected by stealing the sword earlier.

Game's based off 5e, and people bitch it's not enough like 5e.

In this case, it is. Deal with it.

Honestly, this game barely compares to 5e due to massive changes they made. Some are good, some are bad, but I would argue the overall experience is negative.

Nat 1 and Nat 20 on skill checks I could do without

Allowing multiple attacks with bonus action breaks action economy

Magic items, spells and their interactions lead to massive power creep, which in turn bossess need powerful abilities just to stand a chance

Haste giving full action is broken

Sorcerer and Wizard break base rules, allowing for insane Nova damage, when at most they should be able to do is cast a spell with their action and maybe a reaction.

There are plenty of examples.

I haven't finished a playthrough yet, patch 2 killed the performance to a point for me, where I decided to wait until they actually fix the game. I just arrived at the lower city, so I suppose, I have plenty of broken stuff to discover yet.

But from my current observation playing on tactician, this is not a tactical rpg by any definition. My Padlock smites everything to death in seconds and it is probably poorly optimized. Shadowheart as my tempest sorcerer does so much damage with a basic chromatic orb, it is ridiculous. Add Lae'zel as an action surge fighter mopping up what is left standing and I don't even need a 4th party member.

In terms of tactics I use haste, the high ground and push. Things I never ever use: Any form of crowd control, healing, most of the spells, sneak attacks, the million scrolls I find, most of the potions, optimized setups for every character, environmental effects with the exception of wet, tadpole powers, high level spells. Why should I, take crowd control, it would actually make me kill stuff slower.

So yes, the game has no basic understanding of balancing, or tactics. If you want these, play Pathfinder BG3 is simply a power fantasy and as that very very much fun to play But I really hope for a definitive edition not only fixing stuff (how many bug fixes do we have now? 2000 upwards?) but also adding a true tactical difficulty setting.

Thats because Larian wants the game to be unbalanced. Their design style is letting the players do unbalanced, crazy stuff and laugh about it. Its something they encourage.

And more than once Larian has shown that they dont like D&D 5E and think its boring, so they wanted to spice it up with items, tadpole powers, weapon abilities ect.
(Not that they are totally wrong, 5E has been dumbed down into a boring mess)

This is the way.

Aren't too many games not designed this way because it's what the masses want and are only too happy to shell out a vastly overpriced $60.

As long as people keep paying for crap, crap is what we'll keep getting.

I don't call following 5e rules on certain things crap. I'm sorry your preferred race or class isn't OP.

They are not following the 5e rules though - in may places. Some issues are the fault of poor 5e design (esp around multiclassing) - but they could have followed rules around attunement and other aspects of the action economy which would limit character power - you should not be at max power and have most/all your resources before practically every fight. Getting crits should be hard. Resting should trigger random encounter which may force you to weigh up the wisdom of doing that. Even in regions where you can't fast travel, you have so much crap you are never really in danger and they provide ample things like potions that restore all your resources) - removing any challenge. Drinking potions should be an action, haste should not double actions, free shove attack etc - those implementation choices are not standard 5e and work against balance/action economy. There are others... to claim they are following 5e RAW is simply wrong. They were simply afraid of 'upsetting' certain people who don't like constraints and having to make difficult choices, so they dropped all of them. The simpler solution would have been a properly implmented 'core rules' setting - which many pushed for during EA.