Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Best thing about BG3: Pathfinder & Solasta

A quick aside, in a recent session of “table top” (Google hangouts) our DM has us fight in a room that was quickly catching on fire.

I was so happy that after 15 levels I finally had an opportunity to use my Control Flames cantrip. It was a fun mechanic to add pressure to the battle.

I tried pathfinder.
The writing was pretty stereotypical and the gameplay/graphics left much to be desired.
I pretty much quit when I was out "exploring" after saving that inn from raiders.

Solasta just seems a little a bit the same thing.
Maybe I am a sucker for pretty games and streamlined gameplay.

But I would sooner play BG3 or DOS2 than those two games.

Wow, I disagree with most (if not all) of what you said, macdami.
1. Do characters with different strength scores have different limitations? Sure, but Larian already isn't using strict D&D jumping rules anyways (I think it is handwaved as being, you have a constant jump spell on you due to mindflayer parasite). I believe you said something along the lines of "can't have your cake and eat it too".
2. Well for a game that toutes that it is not DOS3, but instead a D&D 5e game, it probably should stick to the rules wherever possible. This one obviously, isn't that difficult to implement if a team with 17 people managed to make it happen.
3. Larian Studios has said alot of things, I take whatever they say will happen with a grain of salt.
4. I am fairly certain that BG2 had random encounters depending upon where you rested.
5. How is installing auto rollers any different from modding your save file or downloading a hack?
6. This is possibly the only thing that I might agree with you on; I don't want to see any unique feats or subclasses until we have all the subclasses and feats from all published D&D 5e sourcebooks (mainly Xanthar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and Sword Coast Adventure GUide).
7. The ground effects are too much of a deviation from D&D 5e rules. The way I see it, there are already published spells that create "ground effects" such as the create bonfire Cantrip. There is no need to modify existing spells such as firebolt to create "ground effects". If there doesn't exist a pre-published spell that does a "ground effect" they want, they should create a new cantrip that creates it, not modify existing spells.

If you're this down about the game why post? This is incredibly passive aggressive and childish.

Same.
I haven't tried Solasta (but plan to get it at some point), but I backed Pathfinder and played it since release, but never managed to get into the game. I tried coming back to it about 4-5 times (about 20 hours total), with last one being after they released their Enhanced Edition. I loved the classes and mechanics, but absolutely hated the writing, the companions, and the art style, which are all major deal breakers for me. So yeah, I disagree with OP.
Give me a game like Baldur's Gate 3 any day.

Just want to point out that Swen @ Larian even tweeted about Solasta when it came out. That's quite standup and admirable to promote a competitor, even if a minor one.

https://twitter.com/LarAtLarian/status/1318641976556855297?s=20

I don't know how can they be viewed as competitors; it's not something one has to pick over the other. Buy both games if you like them, just don't be upset after, there are many sources to find out about the dirty secrets of a game these days.

PF is the true successor to the BG series though.

Ah, that's good to hear. I thought they just considered PoE(2) to not be as successful as they had expected and moved to another niche - like Danielbda said, Avowed is set in the same universe as PoE. Honestly, I'm curious about Avowed - now the "Bethesda-style open world RPG" is just that - Bethesda. Lots of space for competition. I just hope they didn't put RTwP cRPGs on "forever hiatus". It'd like it if they alternated between PoE and Avowed entries. It would give us a nice variety and pacing of the releases and Obsidian some time to regenerate from a series, step back and think what worked in the previous entry. Ideally. :P

Yeah same here. I love old-school cRPGs but I also like playing RPGs like Avowed. Hopefully Avowed will be more like Witcher 3 than Skyrim (including with a third-person option), with all the great storytelling and character development that Obsidian is known for.

Aw, I like most of the Pathfinder characters. Well, except the bard. I had to park her ass. You can't really get rid of her though since she is the 'narrator' of the story even if she isn't in your party.

I wasn't expecting big overhauls just some word on if they will be removing the Divinity stuff or not.. If not i can uninstall now and move on... I have no interest in another Divinity game, i disliked the first two, i'm here for a D&D 5th edition game.


I disliked Pathfinder because of the same issues BG3 is having the rules were too homebrew and the odd story aspects between gameplay really broke my immersion during the campaign...

Fair enough, different strokes for different folks. I generally do not hate on any companions in any video game, very few manage to get to me enough, but this bunch made me rage quit and uninstall the game heh.
Edit: I'm still getting the next Pathfinder but only after release in hopes that I might like it. Maybe its masochism



Aren't PK rules basically D&D 3.5, which are as homebrew as BG1 and BG2 "brewed" the 2e?

Sure, like an Ancient red dragon is basically a big lizard that happens to breath fire.

It´s technically a homebrew because it uses the SRD rules of 3.5 , but Manual has over 300 pages and PF has over 10 rulebooks, with a whole new world, lore, +20races, +30classes, +50feats, +7combat maneouvers, abilities, +100 monsters and many campaigns so it´s a hell of a "homebrew".

You could also say Kotor games are basically D&D3.5 with starships because they use 3.5 SRD too. You can do pretty different games with the same d20 base.

Eww... Witcher 3.
Personally I hope for something more akin to Skyrim, but still with better storytelling and developement and world exploration.
Can't beat making a custom character.

I liked all of the characters, and especially Linzi! The dwarf and goblin were the ones I initially did not care for, but even they eventually won me over.

Okay yes, I agree about making your own character. That is very important to me too, and I am sure that will be the case with Avowed. But overall Witcher 3 was way better than Skyrim for me. Skyrim is the only RPG I have ever played that I did not finish and have not had any motivation to return to.

If Avowed is going to be what New Vegas was to Fallout 3, then everything could be plenty fine. I'm sure Avowed will have lots more banching dialogue than Witcher 3 too, as that is one of Obsidian's forte. Back at Black Isle, they gave you options to actually role-play your characters/party even in linear dungeon crawlers such as Icewind Dale. Also, I'm expecting much less linear quests as that's Obsidian's thing too -- some of the quest flowcharts of New Vegas are pretty special. https://i.imgur.com/sywQ3cz.jpg

The characters in Pathfinder are very good and quite unique. the problem there is very poor pacing.

If you disliked both Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 and Pathfinder . . . I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you aren't going to like the finished Baldur's Gate 3. I'm somewhat hopeful Larian will tone down the Divinity surfaces/barrels but they are going to make the game that appeals most to the mass market . . . and given that the vast majority of steam reviews are very positive (and their existing DOS fanbase) . . . I suspect the gameplay isn't going to change much (or at least not move closer to true 5e rules)