Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Quelling the uprising, and 5e implementation ideas

First off, I'm really enjoying the game. Kudos to Larian for bringing such a vivid depiction of D&D with lots of stakes and stories.

Okay, so I've browsed some of the threads here and there's lots of people taking the 'it's not 5E OMG OMG' stance and lots of people just saying that it's fine because it's a video game. I'd like to suggest some subtle changes to some of the things that I noticed during my playing (given I'm only like 26 hours in between 2 characters). This is my duty as a keyboard warrior to perform armchair game design, take the feedback as you will, but I intend no offense to the game developers, they did a fine job so far.

Burning/Elemental effects. Have burning apply it to an enemy if they get hit by a fire spell, and the ground if no enemy is targeted (or an AOE spell is used). This shouldn't be too hard to implement. Same goes for things like acid splash and even Ray of Frost (which as far as I can tell doesn't have an AOE at this time). Also increase the hit box sizes a bit, I often find it's hard to target enemies.

Web - It's flammable but it was never a major source of damage- the flammability was a way of getting out of the web spell not a nuke.

Tone down the number of barrels. Sure you can still put containers here and there, but suggesting that oil is a commodity in D&D that requires vast quantities to be stored in the open near lots of bad people is kind of strange. D&D is about logical scenarios being fabricated in a fantastical setting.

Jump - I'd like to see a percentage chance and a dice roll for jump checks. Failing to roll high enough should result in a tumble, maybe some damage, maybe not making the jump. This has been a thing in D&D since 3rd edition as far as I know.

Magic Missile is a guaranteed hit - That's why the damage is so low. I've seen missiles get 'blocked by terrain'. This is not how they're supposed to work.

Action economy stuff.. You've heard it all before. My suggestion is make jump its own standard action (that provokes an attack of opportunity), add disengage as a standard action (and as a cunning action option for rogues), and make shove a standard action as well - and a failed shove could provoke an attack of opportunity (okay I'm embellishing a bit this is a house rule). I can see why you made them bonus actions, some classes just don't get a lot to do in the bonus action, but that's half the fun of building a character in D&D, finding ways to make your character more effective through optimizing your action economy.

Cantrip stuff - Eldritch blast/Firebolt deal more damage because the extra damage IS their secondary effect. Poison Splash secondary is dealing damage to an adjacent target (not an armor debuff). Thunderclap has lower damage because it could hit multiple targets. There seems to have been a lot of adjusting cantrips. Minor image is notoriously used by me in campaigns to create cover (suddenly a 4 foot wall sprouts up from the ground) or waste an enemies action (I create an image of myself attacking just before them - prompting their attack) - but this isn't possible with the current implementation. Prestidigitation is pretty much my favorite thing in D&D but it doesn't translate well to the perfectly clean and beautiful characters on the screen - so maybe make it grant a deception or perform skill bonus instead?

Anyways if you're still reading on I appreciate you. Thank you Larian for bringing this wonderful adaptation of my favorite tabletop RPG to my computer.

Most of this I agree with, if not the exact changes, at least the sentiments.

Love your ideas here. I had the pitchfork in hand regarding the effects from cantrips, but your suggestion of allowing them to set a ground effect if targetted at the ground only is a nice comprimise between Larian DOS2 rules and 5e. Thats about as close to a DM allowing a request of a player as you can get. Just make sure the damage from ground effects can only happen once per round unless triggered by an extra oil splash etc. I don' like being incinerated by ground fire at low levels in a short span of time.

I just want to say that I feel like the turn based nature of the game really nerfed web. It used to be so good but now it's not worth a spell slot

I agree with your sentiments, mostly. Cantrips can most defenitly use some tweaking as they are right now.

Only nitpick to your post is minor illusion. Hate to be the bearer of bad news but what you describe is not how that spell works. You can create sounds or minor inanimate objects. And when I say minor I mean minor. One of the forms given as an example is a small chest. Maybe a small creature could hide behind something the size of a small chest, but medium ones probably cant.... Conjuring a wall could work considering it can be a 4 (or 5, cant recall) foot cube I suppose but the first attack aimed at you would reveal that the wall is an illusion and make the wall transparent. Also if creatures get close to it an succesfull investigation check against your spell DC also reveals it them that it is an illusion. Aside from the fact that you cant make the illusion the shape of a creature, attacking them doesent trigger attacks of opportunity either. Moving outside of engagement range when you were in it does. Its basicly a creature getting off a quick stab before you get out of range because you literally walk out away from combat and let your guard down. Where as disengage is a orderly retreat.

So either you have a very generous DM who wanted to reward out of the box thinking or he doesent know how the spell works either. Both are fine honestly, each dnd party plays the game differently but if Larian want to portray minor illusion accuractly they wont do it the manner that you described. Aside from the wall I suppose, that could be an option but it would only give benefits to the first attack aimed at you.

I havent tried Prestidigitation but its uses are many and very varied. I can understand if Larian cant include all of them.

page 182 out of the players hand book states " Jumping- your str determines how far you can jump. When u make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your str score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately beforr the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesnt matter, such as a jump across a stream or chasm. At your dms option, you must succeed on a dc 10 str athletics check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jumps distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise you hit it. When you land in difficult terrain, you must succeed on a cd 10 dex acrobatics check to land on your feet. Otherwise, you land prone. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + str mod if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on a jump costs a foot of movement. In some circumstances, your dm might allow you to make a str athletics check to jump higher than you normally can. you can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1 1/2 times your height."

now with all those conditions how can u get that into the game... so yes and no ... they are taking alot on tbh.. dont forget still missing dodge, grapple, and ready action... oh and forgot delay
no cover conditions as well

I've been doing jumping wrong for years apparently, I always used you can jump as far as your jump roll. This may be an artifact from 3.5e jump rules.

And yes very good point, there's a lot of combat actions missing. Having shove as a bonus action as it is, i hope grapple doesn't become a bonus action..

Ready action may be tricky to implement, depending on how specific the game is about it. If you have to specify a specific creature doing a specific action then it's really tricky, but making it into an action that ends your turn but goes off when an enemy enters a specific area may be doable.

absolutely NO reason to make jump cost an action. It does not cost an action in D&D. It only cost movement. I could agree with an athletics/acrobatics skill check to make sure you dont stumble or something, that actually IS a thing. I cant tell you how annoying it is to use bonus action dash on my rogue and then not be able to jump over obstacles with the 40ft of movement that I just added to my turn. Jumping is no different than running, skipping, walking hoping or shuffling... it is a movement/mobility/manuever.. .it is not something that requires hand gestures and incantations.

I am personally not even happy about Standing up from prone costing an action but I guess it can be used in my favor against the computer so its not entirely annoying

I've found that standing up from prone only costs your action if you were helped from dying on that same initiative count. In this case, I'm interpreting it as the game thinks your action was spent on your death saving throw, but it might just be a bug. When I've started my turns prone (but not downed!) my character just stands up using half their movement. I still have my action left. If you're finding differently, then it's a bigger issue than I thought...

The biggest problem with prone is, when you fall on your turn, you can't take *any* more actions (completing your move, standing up, standard or bonus action) that turn. Instead you are given the "prone" condition which lasts until your next turn. I assume Larian will fix this...

But yeah, jump should just be a button. You can jump up to your STR score and it costs appropriate movement. I'm fine with always being able to jump your STR score even if you don't move 10ft for simplicity's sake. You can even be allowed to jump multiple times in a turn, whatever! But it *should provoke AoOs.

ah, I think you are right. It does seem to only happen on turns that I brought up a downed character. Hopefully this is just a bug and they fix it to just cost movement

Another common complaint is the advantage/disadvantage system with high ground/low ground/flanking always (I am fine with it, but it is brought up a lot).

Was doing another play through and I noticed the tutorial hints state that the advantage system is supposed to work with high/low ground, and "finesse" weapons while flanking. Right now its applying to strength based and dexterity based weapons.

Much like the offhand modifier bonus with 2 wpn fighting, this apparently is bugged and as it is corrected you will see less jumping leap frog for constant backstabs for all characters.

Also, different missile/ranged attacks have various trajectories, so there is some what a "cover system" where it isn't binary 1 or 0 you see or you don't. Most spells are direct line, bows on the other hand have an arc to them and shot over some obstacles. If you mouse over the target and try to point at different parts, you can get a hit on it (either left or right or higher or lower, depending on the positioning)

I am sure this can be adapted to do a 0/25/50/75/100 percent cover type system to change hit success (if they want to do this).

(maybe this will make people less mad at the system of combat? or not)

As far as MM getting blocked by, etc. It does need a line of sight to succeed. The issue I have is range length. It's range in the game is short of the 120' (40m)