Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback An old BG junkies perspective

I come from the other side of the player base who has never played the Divinity series but loves Baldurs Gate and other DnD rpgs.

Let me thank Larian right away for keeping some of the important design choices that make the Baldurs Gate series what it is- a sense of exploration at the start, little to no railroading in terms of who you are associated with (you can attack just about anybody at any time, you don't have to take party members you dislike, and that's a freedom I would hate to lose after taking it for granted in the BG series for so many years), and the feeling of impending danger and being in over your head as you can easily be taken down in a single hit at the earliest levels, and more powerful threats hang over your head. These little things really help in making this feel like a true sequel to the saga.

Now if I could just make a few suggestions:

- more party members, but with varying levels of interaction of depth. Not *every* party member needs a deep, dark secret or has a complicated past. Some should simply have rather basic, surface level motivations to travel along with the group, but who represent a wide variety of personalities and alignments. The ability to mix-and-match characters in different runs was always a highlight of BG, even if companions had far less to say than in BG3 (or anything at all, in cases.)

- feature tweaking. I didn't like any of the human males. Most big budget RPGs give you at least a bit of customization here. Hope to see this later on.

- I really like how much your class and race open up unique dialogue options. No suggestions, just keep doing it.

+1

The lack of 'good'-aligned companions has been brought forward quite a few times, and I can understand the sentiment. The only companions who don't outright scoff at and disapprove helping NPCs in need seem to be Gale and Wyl.
There will be more companions of course, I just hope all of them will be available as early in the game as the five we have now. But that seems pretty much as a given, since your 'hook' with all current companions is the tadpole you share.

I haven't taken Wyl (Blade of Frontiers lol, pass) but judging from his demonic buddy he's probably not the most virtuous when it comes down to it either. Can't we have someone normal? BG had plenty of folks who passed for your average adventurer. Kagain, Garrick, Alora...

Regarding Wyl: DnD makes it quite clear that Warlocks don't have to be 'evil'. They can enter these kind of pacts for all sorts of reasons.

Also, well...one person's "normal" is the other person's "boring", I guess. I think every companion should have *some* personal motivation or angle about them that makes them kind of unusual and their story interesting.
If you want blank slate personalities, the game might just as well allow you to create or recruit your own "silent henchmen" (I'd be surprised if they don't let you do that before go live).

That being said, not every meaningful companion needs to have connections to other planes to be interesting, for sure.

I greatly dislike what 5e did to alignments and classes. Paladins serving demons or evil powers? "Good" people who make pacts with the infernal planes? Decades of DnD canon and history down the drain for virtually no good reason. But that's just me, and I am enjoying BG3 in spite of it by minimizing my contact with the awful bits of 5e lore.

WHAAAAAAAAAT????? I have not table topped in decades, (played and GM'd under 2E), Paladins are LG...period. End of discussion. If WoTC has done THAT to DnD, that itself, is no longer DnD. It's a bastardization of it, just like Pathfinder is a set of modifications to DnD rules, to create a different game.

I understand the sentiment of no more being able to easily decide whether someone is 'good' or 'evil', but I have to agree with that decision in 5E. People can do the worst kind of stuff out of altruistic motivations, and selling your soul to be able to defend those you love, well...:) Good stories to be found there.

As for Paladins, I don't feel they've been 'damaged'. The Oaths of Devotion and Redemption still exist for anyone who wants to play that kind of 'classic' Paladin. But those who feel that Paladins are mostly defined by their Zeal and strict adherence to a code, whatever their cause may be (and I subscribe to that notion), the class is now wider open.

The lack of informed players is staggering. Larian has stated publicly, that there are more classes to be added in EA, more companions to be added in EA, races will be added and more features will be added.

https://youtu.be/qboLvZ5YQSg?t=4907

Yes, but these videos are nowhere linked here in the Suggestions Forum. A comprehensive list of known issues, roadmap, or even an issue tracker would go a long way to avoid the re-asking of many questions / submitting the same bugs....
EDIT: seems that Vometia is on the job already.

regarding Paladins, they didn't "destroy the lore" they rather just expanded on things, prior to 5th edition Paladins where a narrowly defined holy warrior restricted via westren chivalric values. Whichw as totally fine back in the day when D&D was first created, but things have evolved a bit since then, and I'm not just talking society out of the game eaither, as settings such as forgotten realms got more and more complex, the need to address "holy warriors" of other gods etc cropped up and various editions of D&D attempted to work with this in differant ways. AD&D had various kits, third edition had the divine champion presige class, no one cares what 4th edition did, 5th edition approuches this with differant types of vows. the tradtional paladin is an oath of devotation. that is the classic pally with the classic pally rules etc.

There are however other oaths you can make, there's the Oath of the ancients which while it doesn't specificly say, sounds very much like a eleven Paladin, the oath of vengence, which might work for a more evil character. And the supplements have added other opions, including the oath of conquest which honestly works well for lawful evil characters. and the DMG includes rules for "oathbreaker paladins" which yeah.. it's the 5th edition equivilant of the blackguard and is in the DMG for a reason.
So TLDR, no paladins aren't running around serving demons. but lawful evil pallies might exist.

Yeah, they actually did that, and I basically feel the same way. I will still enjoy BG3, but I will won't ever buy a 5e sourcebook or any tabletop material. They wreck long-standing traditions for no good reason in either lore or gameplay. Blackguards existed.

Been playing D&D since the early 80s, & I always found the lack or Evil Paladins to be a bit weird, to be honest. In the world of D&D, there are plenty of Evil Deities out there, so why not evil Paladins serving them? Also, though, anti paladins are a concept dating back to 1st Edition rules.

Faerun didn't get "more complex" since 3.5, they dumbed it down. They tried to wipe continents off the map. The destroyed entire planes of existence. The Blood War is over because it makes no sense now that there aren't any alignments and alignments don't affect the Planes in the same fashion. They even gave Asmodeus a new backstory that introduces the Christian god into the setting, rather than one that fits his status as Lawful Evil personified.

Idk how you can call this anything but "destroying the lore". Not paladins per se, but the entire world surrounding paladins that makes their context- and the Planes themselves- not have meaning anymore. As one person said, it is as different to previous versions of DnD in form and story as Pathfinder is.

I'm really not up on how the setting has changed since 3.5. Where should I go to get myself current?

It's worth starting by reading up on the Spellplague, the events that ushered in 4th edition.

After you are done crying about how they massacred our baby, 5th edition changed a few things too.

"Back in the day" they realized the need expand the concept of the paladin, it was why it's mirror, the anti-paladin, was created. So this idea that a Paladin must be only Lawful Good was destroyed in the very edition they introduced the paladin in, AD&D not even 2e AD&D but the 1st edition of AD&D. So i am not sure why people are freaking out.

The antithesis of a Paladin does not "destroy the idea that a paladin must be lawful good", it reinforces it. Everything that opposes the ideals of the paladin is represented by the anti-paladin, who must be chaotic evil in 1st.

And I don't even like *that* idea, though it is far more understandable. If you swear yourself to a code of conduct or a set of ideals or a god, you should be lawful. Rigid belief structures and codes are basically the definition of lawful and those are what the very idea of any paladin of any alignment is made of.

But no, 5e doesn't just break the lawful good requirement, it breaks all requirements. Why the hell should a chaotic neutral person care enough to swear themselves to a code of ideals, even ones that could be defined as chaotic neutral. It still represents a total contradiction of both the paladins nature and the alignment they represent itself. Nothing about it makes sense and it's sad to see folks excuse blatantly terrible writing and concepts.