Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback What are you doing guys? Looting is terrible

Item management is one of the most annoying mechanics in the game.

But will they fix it? Who knows?

And, BTW, NOT searching every container DOES cause you to miss things. Not every important container is able to be highlighted by holding down the Alt key, or whatever it is you use to highlight items and crates.

On the other hand, games like Solasta that tell you where all the lootable crates and stuff are, it's TOO easy and therefore a bit boring.

There should be an in between.

I still think secret Perception checks when near valuable containers should be made. If successful, your character knows a random, uninteresting crate has something valuable inside. They already do this for a number of things, so why not all the more valuable items? Then, it's your choice. Do you trust your characters' Perception, or do you check all the things manually more thoroughly just to make sure.

And we absolutely need a Sell All Junk with some way to designate what is Junk besides the wares feature. Maybe a GP value slider or something. Everything less than 10 GP that isn't a key or book or quest item or whatever.

What makes you believe they are? How do you imagine these skills would be implemented? I'm not fluent in the rules, so feel free to correct me, but I don't believe PHB has any spells, feats, or class features equivalent to either Lucky Charm or Telekinesis, excepting the level 5 spell with the same name. And even with Telekinesis spell, it only becomes available at character level 9. The level cap, whether the initial 10 or the current 12/14 (as speculated), makes it safe to assume we'll get access to level 5 spells in the latter half of the game, if not the final act. Either way, there is absolutely no chance we'll be able to hit level 9 in act 1. With that in mind, it makes no sense to design maps around the use of a single spell you have no way of learning at this stage of the game, among other issues.

Another thing. I have no games development experience, so again correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if Larian planned to graft some systems from DOS onto BG3 wholesale, they'd have done so in the beginning. It's the same engine, so most of the functionality is already written and in working order, no? That is what happened with surfaces and surface interactions, at least. I see no reason to believe they could have included that from the beginning, but not Telekinesis and Lucky Charm, if they intended to include both.

I long rest constantly so I'm able to get companion interactions.


Firstly, it's silly to assume that a game which is being advertised as being part of a fairly well-defined genre, and is the sequel to two games that arguably were foundational in defining that genre in the first place, won't conform to the general expectations of that genre unless we're explicitly told that that isn't the case. Obviously we're going in knowing that the game will be different in many ways, but the point of genre's is that they present a set of expecations to players, and if you're going to deviate from those expectations, it only makes sense to do so explicitly, not just silently hope that the audience gets it. The impression I'm getting isn't that Larian is presenting us with new rules for their specific game, it's that they've simply made a poor design choice. And that's fine, it's still early in the process and the game is evolving. Of course they're going to make poor design choices. If it turns out this is the way they want the game to be, then I think it would be a mistake to not be more explicit about that, but fine, it's their game. But if it is meant to be our choice, then what are they thinking the benefit is? Why make looting something tedious that they expect us not to do?


Maybe it will be, but the question of why they've made this problem is still a valid one. There is a LOT of lootable stuff around, andconstantly ritual-casting Detect Magic to make sure you don't miss anything is just a different, lesser kind of tedious.


While that kind of moving and stacking sounds honestly very boring and annoying to me, and the idea of going through all that sounds frustrating, you're right, those are all valid things that would make the game more fun for a lot of people, and thus far they haven't been presented as necessary for progression so that functionality absolutely should stay. But none of what you described requires the boxes to be lootable. There's a lot of non-lootable stuff around the world that you can move and interact with, so we know it can be done. Perhaps they intend to make a bunch of boxes non-lootable and they're only lootable now because it's early access. That'd be a totally fine thing to do.




My answer to why not is that I don't see how it would make the game more fun. This game is clearly being designed to be rewarding for multiple playthroughs. The numerous origin characters are proof of that. If they let playes know that there's a set limit to the amount of loot they can get in all their combined playthroughs, then players will be going through the game having to worry about not only having enough stuff for this playthrough, but future playthroughs as well. They'd need to consciously ration off loot so they don't screw themselves in the future. And if they DON'T say that loot is limited, people will absolutely collect all or most of the loot in their first playthrough and then be screwed in the future. Basically the why not is that doing this would place a hard cap on how many times a player can replay the game.

I really like this message and I share the feeling.

If a feature is useless in a game the feature should not be in the game. Especially if it deserve an important part of it (looting).

Wich only gets us back to previously asked question ...
Why do you even have 100+ junk items in the first place. O_o

So ... until game will be released, we dont even know if items we are talking about even are "junk" ?

Good question ...
Since i never stated they are, i would dare to either say nothing ... or ask you why do you think that.

But lets play for a second.

Its simple matter of deffinition.
Anything that dont have zero probability is possible ...
And all i said was that its possible.

No idea ... i never played any Divinity game, so i dont even know how they work.
Also, not quite my place to figure this out ... Larian have their own people who "would" working on that (if planned ofc), as part of their job.

https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Detect%20Magic#content
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Levitate#content

Dunno, those are first two i think about.
Description of those feats would be helpfull tho.

Well, im not so sure to be honest ...
It would make sence if they would want to make this game to look as much DOS as possible ... wich they clearly didnt (and kinda failed in eyes of some people as it seems) ...

So its also entirely possible that they decided to keep only the most essential things present, and leave everything else for "futher development" to be added once it will be adjusted to not look so much DOS-like.

I gave my own ideas, Detect Item spell/scrolls. Lootables are account-side, account-wide means shared between all your characters. You pick 5 books, next time you start to play it, you've the boosk already.

I'm with SerraSerra on this one. I actually don't have a problem with the way things are and it makes sense to me as is.

1. I'd much rather have open-able boxes than static/non use boxes that are just meant to be basically scenery. A bunch of boxes everywhere that have nothing at all in them or can't be interacted with would annoy the hell outta me.

2. They should be mostly filled with junk. The majority of loot you find, IMO, should be junk. After who knows how much time in some of these cases others would have looted most the valuables long ago and just left the junk. It just makes sense to me that we are literally looking through other people's old junk to see if there is anything interesting/worth wild still remaining.

3. Some of you have mentioned crafting components vs junk. I don't have my old links to everything BG3 related since I had to reinstall my comp, but I do remember that one of the sites I use to use to look up items did indeed have crafting items separated from pure junk. I'm not 100% certain on this(a dataminer may be able to confirm) but I believe some items are already flagged as components inside the game. We just don't have the full crafting system in place yet so currently it is all just junk to us.

4. If #3 above is correct that could be why we don't yet have a sell all "junk" button. Not everything we currently carry/sell as junk IS junk.

5. I have to admit that I LOVE all the different types of "junk" items. There are a number of unique items that I've only found 1 of that I keep just for sprucing up my camp(and the inevitable personal "house" mod I'll eventually install post release).

I'm honestly hoping that the next patch has something more about crafting. All the "junk" you find can actually be used to craft:

1. Weapons
2. Armor
3. Spell Scrolls
4. Potions
5. Meals
6. Traps
7. Magic items

So, found spoons? Use the blacksmith forge to melt down 20 spoons to forge into a sword. Blend it with Wyvern Poison and some sort of magic catalyst and forge a Poisoned Short sword.

Found forks and rope and have an old crate? Use a workbench to construct a trap. Lay trap on path. Bam! Enemy ensnared and takes 1d4 damage per round until successful save.

Found various plants? Concoct potions.

Suddenly, junk isn't junk anymore, and the next thing you know, you're loving searching crates in hopes of finding more "useless junk".

I love item management and random loot, personally. My adventurer loves exploring every nook and cranny to find old tomes and silver goblets.

But it is definitely more fun when there is a crafting/potion/cooking purpose for the loot (ie, uses beyond hording junk just to sell all). I am currently replaying TW3 with a potion-heavy (green) build just so I can get all excited when I make a smart trade with an herbalist to finally upgrade an oil, or craft some unique sword by tearing up some old crap swords. It is not a super deep system (not like preparing oils in tw2), but it IS a system that makes looting meaningful beyond “sell all junk” tedium. And getting all the potions/bombs/oils crafted and upgraded is a mini game in the larger game to me.

In any case, I agree with others who would like to see a crafting system in bg3.

More seriously, on the issue of loot, is it just me or is there a severe lack of potions that affect ability/stat/rolls ? I wanted to pass a high lock pick roll, in general i never use consumables and carry them along until i complete the game except for healing potions, and so i went trough my inventory and I realized that besides from 1 potion of hill giant strength all I had were healing potions and 1 invisibility potion. point being, I wonder if there simply are no +2 dex for x time potions around, if I missed them, or if that's no longer a thing in 5e (because they add to your dice roll rather than temporarily increasing your main stat directly perhaps?) .

I dont mind junk/random stuff/ tons of food BUT i do mind a world overloaded with USELESS MAGICAL ITEMS ala DOS2. These should be RARE, useful with interesting design, VERY EXPENSIVE and FEW in-between.

I think some useables might not get added in the EA because the effect can be already playtested by a spell. E.g. one of the ranger class choices mentions a "disguise kit", which I suspect might work same as disguise spell. For different abiility checks there is the enhance ability spell (druids, clerics and I think sorcerers) which gives advantage. Since the effect is already in the game, it'd be nice if it could be made into a potion.

5e doesn't have many items/spells that give numerical bonuses to stats, and I don't believe there are any potions that increase stats except for the X Giant Strength ones. Most effects (mainly spells I think) give Advantage on a roll.

This is partially because of 5e's bounded accuracy - even if you only have a +5 bonus on a roll, you should be able to pass ~every check since the DC for (very) hard tasks is 20-25. And partially because the design philosophy for 5e is "simplicity" - anything that would in previous editions have given you a bonus is replaced with Advantage in most cases. This speeds up tabletop play a lot, but unfortunately loses some of the variety in items and also is not really relevant for a video game that can automatically add all the relevant modifiers.

That said, who knows what magic items Larian will add.

Yep streamer wanting everything streamlined so he can punch out content fast

Looting is fine go find another game for your views

I'd like to add to this that Magical items in 5e will typically only set your Stats to a particular score, or raise the score and raise your cap at the same time.
You will notice that the Potion of Giant's strength will set your Strength to 19, or the Headband of Intellect will set your Intelligence to 19.
But you are correct, Larian might add their own set of magical items and may even include items that increase or set Dexterity, Wisdom, or Charisma scores. As far as I'm aware, 5e has no such items in official books.

There are 6 very rare magical items, the manuals and tomes, that can raise your stats. But as said, they are very rare. Its more common to come across a stat increase.

The best way to ensure you succeed an ability check in 5e is through Expertise, from either Rogue, Bard, or Feat, though I dont think they have added that into the game yet.

Thx fuji, ash, brimcon & draigo to take your time clarify this to me ! Seems there is a difference indeed with the previous dnd editions the old infinity games are based on. I get where they're going although I think thematically it would make sense that if a magic class is able to cast a spell with a certain outcome that somehow in that world it should also be possible to capture the effect of that spell in a potion or limited use (/day or x charges) item like potions. So if I get it right, this also creates a discrepancy for strenght vs. dex based fighter classes as the strenght based classes can auto-buff using the x giant strength potions while dex based ones can only boost their ability checks but not their dmg directly by increasing dex for x time by drinking a potion of dexterity ... ? Seems like a pity as I always enjoyed the idea of having a few consumable at hand to not have very situational spells prepared or for when your spells are all cast.

Yep. While D&D 3.5e may have gone too far in the magic item/typed bonuses until it was too bloated and complicated, I feel that 5e went too far in the opposite direction of simplicity. I would like there to be some consumables that provide temporary numerical bonuses instead of just giving Advantage on certain skills.

Again, while this often ends up in tedious math for PnP, a video game can handle all calculations automatically.

Yep. That said, this is one of the few things STR has going for it in 5e. STR Saving Throws are almost never used - whereas DEX STs are the ~most common - and buffing STR doesn't give you a bonus to your initiative or AC like DEX does. So I think of this discrepancy as acting to lessen the power differential between STR and DEX classes, rather than making STR classes more powerful.

If there were potions that gave boosts to dexterity, they should be more rare and/or less powerful than potions to buff strength.

Makes sense. It's funny how as a kid playing these games I kinda made my own headcanon to rationalize how a world with all those potions available would work, so I imagined potions of strength as particularly useful for construction workers, while all the desperate wizzards and clerics in training would have a flourishing black market of potions of intelligence/wisdom to help them a little bit while studying to learn their trade. It's also the only way potion shops can be explained, they need customers and since high level magic is rare, there should be a lot of ordinary customers too. To bad they took this out to streamline mechanics.

We had essentially that in 3 / 3.5e. There were 6 spells, each buffing a separate primary stat:

• Bull's Strength
• Cat's Grace
• Bear's Endurance
• Fox's Cunning
• Owl's Wisdom
• Eagle's Splendour

The problem (at least in CRPGs, such as NWN 2 and IWD 2) was that these games were balanced in such a way that you wanted to keep your party perma-buffed, otherwise any encounter, however simple, could end up in a disaster. Around mid- to late game, buffing the party was becoming such a chore (I had to do it after every long rest) that I found myself rushing towards the end, just to cut down on this tedious stuff. Not fun at all.

So yeah, after playing countless hours of 3.5e, my personal opinion is that the game should be balanced around an un-buffed party, and if you find an encounter difficult, you can sacrifice a spell slot or two (or a couple of potions) to tip the scales in your favour. From what I see, 5e has (mostly) fulfilled that.