Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Class flavor and identity lacks in BG3

Disclaimer : this post is an attempt to help fixing what doesn't work in BG3 as a D&D5 adaptation, not a hating post or anything ill attended. I wish this game comes as close to the tabletop game I love as possible so it is with this mindset I'm writing this.

As the title says, I've been playing the Early Access since it's available and I find it very different from what my D&D5 tabletop experience is, and what a D&D5 based game should be.
I'm both an avid player and DM on tabletop D&D with 20+ years of experience running the game and I have a weekly campaign running (currently Tomb of Annihilation).

Where D&D has been always shining, especially when compared to other tabletop RPGS, is class flavor and class exclusive skillsets. Playing a D&D game makes you realize very quickly you can't overcome the challenges on your own. You pick a class and are very skilled in what you should be able to do as an expert, but you lack skills in other areas. That's where the magic kicks in : you need others - your companions, fellow players - to face the threats and eventually win the big encounters (both social and combat ones). That's the most gratifying thing D&D brings to you as a player or as a DM : having your group acting together to defeat what you've been throwing at them.

I thought BG3 lacked this feeling so much in its Early Access state. I can get why some of the rulesets are tweaked or changed a bit (like the Natural Explorer ability of the Ranger, which wouldn't be very useful in a video game setting), but some of those changes are so deep that they take away the class favor and make them feel bland.

Here is a list of what disappointed me :
- Giving all the classes the option to disengage / hide / dash as a bonus action instead of letting it be a rogue core feature (cunning action - lvl2). I get somehow that you did this to speed up combat turns, but it makes being a rogue very lackluster for example. And it really breaks the immersion to watch my rogue or mage jumping as far away as my warrior (which should be tied to an Athletics check in the first place by the way). Giving mobility options in Divinity might work because that's at the very core of the game, but it doesn't match at all the strategic feeling of D&D. In D&D, it's all about action economy and choices between moving, facing an attack of opportunity, to get to a more secure location or stay where you are and deal damage before the enemy turn. The combat shouldn't be as opened and easy-to-move-around as in DO:S (except for, well, rogues who get this extra movement as a core feature).

- Giving all the classes the option to use spell scrolls. You end up with your warrior casting the same spells as your mage. And I'm betting this problem will only get bigger and bigger once you hit level 3 spells mark with the ability to use real powerful spells instead of cantrips out of spell scrolls (Warrior with full plate and AC 18+ using fireball scroll / action surge / using another fireball scroll / disengage as a bonus action while jumping away or jumping in to close range). Now if merchants are anything close to DOS:2, you'll end up with tons of money to buy spell scrolls from them as much as you want, and get your frontline warriors with 18+ AC to blast spells as much as your weak mage with 14 AC who will be using only darts when his spell list is depleted.
About spell scrolls, be careful about what you're giving players access to. Healing Word (lvl1 spell - bonus action - healing for 1d4+WIS HP any creature in sight) for example should not become accessible easily for all classes, as it would totally take the tension away of inconcious players having to make their death checks.

- Giving away revivify spell scrolls. Death is a definitive part of D&D5, not a state you are supposed to end up in frequently. Down state on the other hand is here for that. Instead of giving players powerful rez spells, give them options to pop out a potion and give it to fellow fallen companions, instead of letting them die then having to cast a rez spell on them. Which potion will they choose ? The only superior one they got, or a smaller one, facing the risk their companion might get inconcious again ? Will they use their action to drop that potion in their fallen companion mouth, even if it means moving away from the enemy and facing an attack of opportunity ? (now you understand why disengage should remain an action and not a bonus action : you're creating dilemnas the player will have to deal with when it costs a whole action).

- Instead of using all the class abilities from the SRD out of simplification (which I can understand somehow - not everything from tabletop can work in a videogame), giving players new out-of-the-hat options tied to weapons is somehow both unexpected and contradictory ! How does my bow now have an option to reduce enemy speed ? Does it come from me being a warrior ? From the bow itself ? From my mastery of the bow ? From my background as a soldier ?
This doesn't belong to D&D5 at all.
Instead of creating such abilities, it would be far better to focus IMHO on implementing actual real abilities from the D&D classes (and with all the subclasses available, there is already plenty of work to do). Again, tying abilities to weapons makes all the classes feeling somewhat the same, which takes away from the D&D experience.


As a side note : backgrounds could use a proper tab in the character creation. They're very important in D&D5 in that, when you pick a class at level 1, you're already somewhat of an accomplished adventurer. Your background is what you did as a job before you started adventuring. By level 1, you're already seen as a very capable fighter and feared by most of the regular folks populating villages. Backgrounds should be more than just 3 lines of short description when you create your character. You need to understand why you are able to use thief tools when your companion can't, why you're able to use herborist kits, etc. Plus, it brings in so much character flavor, again lacking in BG3 as it is now.

Agree with points 2 and 4, disagree with point 3 - those resurrection magic scrolls are fundamental in a game where you cannot create a new character on the fly

What Ansem said. Yes death is a thing, but depending on DM they can do things to either bring back the character OR (which is more likely), let you make another character. That's not an option here. Once your main character is dead, it's dead and now you have to go around looking for a scroll or some healer? I've only played the first 3-4 hours yet there has not been a single trader NPC of any sort, or any way to get more "custom mercs", so once I lose a companion and don't have a scroll, i'm shit out of luck.

Edit: Fixed years to hours lol.

I totally agree with all 4 points...
These are very dissapointing things to me...

Yeah not so fussed about some free resurrection scrolls at the start of a CRPG. Particularly for players new to a game system.

Otherwise, agree with the other points - all three decisions dilute the class distinctions dramatically.

I really understand this and I think there should definitely be options to bring your character back, just as you've stated.

Yet, there is a balance I think between providing options for character revival and giving all of your characters powerful scrolls. To me, it doesn't belong to the Forgotten Realms or any D&D setting as a matter of fact. I would be perfectly okay if only divine magic users like Cleric or Druids could use such spells for example (it would provide a real feeling of usefulness to those classes) but making this a lame spell scroll which is as easily used as a regular potion ? I thought they could handle it better. Especially given that D&D5 provides with options to bring tension within combat (death saving throws) without killing off your character straight away.

I just feel like there is space for something clever than just a scroll here. Like being able to bring back a character by performing an out of combat ritual with different skill checks tied to the character who died. Or being able to use your class specific toolset to help in the ritual. Something that would make your whole party collaborate instead of just being there.

Death shouldn't be trivial in D&D, even in a video game setting.

I agree with these as well. Point # 1 is huge and game breaking, that you can disengage and hide with literally anybody. lol what?


What I have to says about the resurrect scrolls is maybe a hardcore gamemode option? In which there is perma-death. I usually end up save-scumming if someone dies anyways so its not a huge deal to me. lol

I'm all for skill checks, but until they decide to either fix or change how convos work, it'll be a failure. D&D is a team game yet only 1 character makes ALL the checks despite having your whole team right there. You can't make another character make a check (including another player when playing co-op), or even get an advantage if another character has Prof. on it. I can't imagine having 1 character making like 3-4 skill checks, when they might not be Prof. in all of em, giving you a much higher chance of failure.

Speaking of class specific toolset, what happened to the sorcerer? and why does the wizard behave like the sorcerer?

I’ve just started but I noticed the scrolls seemed available - I agree with you no scrolls for non spellcasters either that or the penalties for trying to cast in armour etc be so huge it ain’t worth it.
Hiding, disengaging are they so freely available because at low level party wipes be to often without it perhaps?
Some things I do put down to your own style - I just wouldn’t have a warrior be able to use a scroll even if the game allows it - don’t get me wrong I still agree with you overall.

You're right on this, and it highlights another shortcoming of what I've been given to play in the Early Access. Which seems strange because in DOS:2 you were able to select which character you wanted to take the lead, speak and eventually make checks. I think that might be something overlooked and I hope they'll implement options, whether in conversation mode or in direct gameplay, to make checks with other characters.
At the very least, to take into account other characters proficiencies when your main character rolls (by giving you advantages for example, which would be the simpliest option I can think of).

Yeah it might be that combat is so hard they want you to have other mobility options, or it might just be that they want to open up the map and spice things up a bit from a pure "one action / one bonus action / one movement" state... either way, as I've said... I understand why they came up with this idea, but I think the negative of it far outweight the positive. D&D5 is already a well oiled machine thanks to countless hours of playtesting sessions (remember when the game was labelled DnD next and played at conventions over and over ?). Changing such important things will surely have an impact on the whole experience.

I'm sure they'll be able to work around this, at least I hope so, because right now, I would rather be playing DOS:3 than a D&D game.

As for the scrolls, I'm with you on this. I'll try not to use them with non spellcasters as it breaks my immersion hugely, just as jumping with my rogue in a very warrioresque fashion breaks it too...



Given wizard and sorcerers get different treatment when sorcerery points kick in (level 2), maybe we will get to see more differences when they release the sorcerer as a playable character with metamagic options to toy with ?

I thought the sorcerer was already a goner - and there are not all specialist kits for wizards anyway. However, the lack of reaction abjuration spells has nerfed abjurers a TON, since it has deprived them of a useful defence mechanism.

I wasn't aware of all this... Sorcerers not planned to be implemented ?
And no reaction spells at all either ? Like Absorb Elements, gone ? I had dreams about playing a horizon walker ranger from XGtE in this game, given the setting with plane jumping... And I thought they'd try to bring in fun wizard subclasses such as Chronurgy from EGtW...

Now that's a bummer...

Hopefully that is going to change. Not sure why Wizards get "attacks of opportunity" as a reaction rather than reaction spells, which fit a lot better. They streamlined classes way too much.

Let's hope it's acting as a placeholder before they implement reaction spells all at once... IMO it's one of the best features of the game (except when a player makes you fall into the counterspell limbo...)

For better or worse counterspell isn't a thing in the game

I agree with all the points as well. Please get Baldurs Gate 3 away from your Divinity OS 2 system. I was kinda confused as well to see that everyone was able to cast everything, and do everything as well.

so... in pnp, all classes can dodge, dash, disengage, it isn't a rogue thing, rogues just do it as a bonus action from level 2. This is exactly as it's implemented in the game, so not sure where the issue is there.

everyone can make attacks of opportunity in pnp too, so it's not incorrect ot have it the way it is either.

Reaction spells are a big thing that is missing right now though - shield for example is a wizards bread and butter, especially at higher levels. Same goes for counterspell. So ideally we see those eventually, but the only way they'll work will be for more intrusive behaviours to be added where events pause the game to allow you to use a reaction. Or you need to have something similar to attack of opportunity on the side and maybe you can reorder them, like if shield is placed higher than attack of opportunity, it'll use shield the first time you're attacked etc.

scrolls, yeah i agree, they should only be usable by characters who have the spell on their spell list. And require the appropriate caster check to use if the character isn't high enough level yet.

That's the point : the issue is those actions are implemented as bonus actions regardless of your class in BG3 instead of actions in the tabletop D&D.

Most of the time in the tabletop version, you have to either choose between moving and disengaging to protect yourself (which costs you your action) or attack/cast a spell instead. Which creates tension because of how the action economy works. If you make those things available on a bonus action, it trivializes the whole combat and make rogues fall behind pretty hard (as they're being very squishy overall and they need mobility and such to survive through tough encounters, plus it's part of the class flavor to be able to move quickly from one side of the battlefield to the other to harrass enemies).

There are quite a lot of reports of players complaining that you end up disengaging/jumping (bonus action in BG3, not in D&D) all the time to get in and out of combat, reports of players having found broken ways to exploit this (look at the familiar exploit post where it's perfectly explained how broken making disengage a bonus action for everyone can snowball hard). And as far as I remember, having just played D&D last week end, combats didn't look or feel this way, with all my players jumping around like this.

I wish the devs would just remember that they're not building this whole thing from scratch. D&D5 has been playtested for years before release and there is a reason why bonus actions are limited depending on your class. Just as there is a reason the number of spells you can use on your turn is limited to one spell + one cantrip. Toying with those very basic rules can end up producing huge imbalance issues.