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Originally Posted by GM4Him
The game has SO much replayability it is sad to hear you may only play through once. I mean, I get the mechanics are a bit on need of some work, but there are so many story paths.

This is why I am out here trying to fight for cleaned up rules though. There are so many games out there that people can play that are more DOS-ish. I have literally been waiting for a good D&D TB game for a LONG time. Every stinking game has been RTWP or hack/slash or mmo... I haven't played a solid D&D TB game since Pool of Radiance.

Now I finally get one, and they don't do the rules right. THAT's why I get passionate about it. Besides Solasta and BG3, there aren't a whole lot of them. I really want some good old fashioned D&D played the way D&D has always been played. One round at a time.

And frankly, from a story perspective and delivery, Larian is the better DM.

I always try to find the best "good" path in a story. That's what I like. I like playing the good guy. Replaying a game to discover all the other endings isn't something that attract me. I can find that on Youtube. Replayability for me is building different parties to tackle the challenges. The big problem I see in BG3 is, because so many rules are broken, it pushes you towards a particular playstyle and only that playstyle. While the story maybe multi-faceted, the combat is not.

As for the hope of Larian changing directions and making BG3 more tabletop 5e? I really don't see it happening. They may make little changes but I really think a lot of stuff we see now, will remain. They aren't accidents. All the combat mechanics are intentional and beloved by the studio. It is what it is. I'll chime in on threads like this but I don't have any expectations of change. Like I said, I like to just shoot the breeze here now and read what others have to say about the game.

And yes, the story is miles ahead of Solasta. But only because Solasta you are heavily railroaded and there's only one path. The story itself, albeit somewhat generic, isn't bad and the world has grown on me.

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Yeah. I honestly have not had the best experience with all this. This is my first EA game. I don't usually post in video game forums. This is probably the last time I will be a part of an Early Access. And honestly, if larian doesn't listen to us, and give us a way to play this game with more of a 5e ruleset I probably won't ever buy another of their games. What is the point of playing Early Access when you give lots of suggestions and don't see any of them put in the game. So I really hope they put more of our suggestions in the game soon.

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Originally Posted by GM4Him
Yeah. I honestly have not had the best experience with all this. This is my first EA game. I don't usually post in video game forums. This is probably the last time I will be a part of an Early Access. And honestly, if larian doesn't listen to us, and give us a way to play this game with more of a 5e ruleset I probably won't ever buy another of their games. What is the point of playing Early Access when you give lots of suggestions and don't see any of them put in the game. So I really hope they put more of our suggestions in the game soon.

Honestly, Larian NEEDS to create a more direct conversation. Like I believe they should really really start to use this board and ask us questions, we are essentially free testers for them and direct communication will allow us to really cooperate and make the best BG3 that can be. They really need to ask us about individual 5e mechanics and stuff like that, gauge how fun that is to us.

Last edited by CJMPinger; 26/04/21 07:11 AM.
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Yes. Part of the issue I have had with this whole experience is that anytime I make a suggestion I get attacked for having an opinion and not liking certain things in the game, or someone really is opposed to my suggestion. It's one thing to disagree. What you usually get here on the Forum it's something different. I feel like it is nothing more than hostility. So, we are not really receiving any feedback from the company and the only feedback we get is constant bombardment from critical, negative, frankly toxic people. It's just not a good experience oh, and I don't feel like I'm really making much of a difference.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
What you and GM4Him are talking about is verisimilitude. A character in D&D cannot jump super lengths because the setting decided not to and even created a spell to perform jumping feats. The rules aren't exactly consistent using real physics. That's bringing real life science into a fictional setting. A red dragon can fly with smaller wings because the setting allows it to seem plausible but chose not to make superjump characters normal.
No, I am talking about consistency. I've used the red dragon as an example, but I could as well quote the "laws of magic" instead of real world physics. I could not make a dwarven wizard in BG1 or BG2, but now I can. So at some point the fundamentals of how magic works got reworked. The popularization of magic across the races is something I would expect to have a large impact on the various civilizations, yet I don't see that. BG city looks the same in all games, kind of like pseudohistorical Europe. Compare that to e. g. Arcanum, where you play in a setting that undergoes an industrial evolution. You can see how technology, despite being not as powerful as magic, is slowly taking over and the impact it has.

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Larian team does not need feedback. They already have an internal plan and roadmap. They do need that extra cash from EA though. And not having a <<<"feedback">>>> <<<<"forum">>>>> would look unprofessional.

Last edited by mr_planescapist; 26/04/21 08:49 AM.
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Originally Posted by bobcagyeon
Larian lied. Period.

.

Originally Posted by spectralhunter
As for the hope of Larian changing directions and making BG3 more tabletop 5e? I really don't see it happening. They may make little changes but I really think a lot of stuff we see now, will remain. They aren't accidents. All the combat mechanics are intentional and beloved by the studio. It is what it is.

.

Originally Posted by CJMPinger
Honestly, Larian NEEDS to create a more direct conversation.

.

Originally Posted by mr_planescapist
Larian team does not need feedback. They already have an internal plan and roadmap. And not having a <<<"feedback">>>> <<<<"forum">>>>> would look unprofessional.

.


I 100% believe all of this until given undeniable proof otherwise.

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I don't even care about how faithful BG3 may or may not be to the core DnD rules anymore. I came to realize over the past few months that I cared far more about how imbalanced the game is in general at its very core, and not about any comparisons between BG3 and the actual tabletop rules themselves. It just so happens that the vast majority of mechanics that contribute towards this feeling for me are the homebrew mechanics and changes that were haphazardly shoved into the system anyway.

I can also see how a fair amount of people that are arguing from the faithfulness angle may feel rather miffed, if not insulted at how BG3 has handled things. One may bring up how the RTwP games aren't faithful at their very core, but that's something easy to accept because of how obvious it is and that the developer vision is very clear there (and that most people's standards of balance are a lot more lenient when it comes to more action-based games, since there's a lot more moving pieces compared to a turn-based game). But BG3 somehow took a ruleset that was already turn-based to begin with, and transformed it into a highly imbalanced version with a lot of custom mechanics that appear to be designed around the idea that you should avoid engaging with the more faithful mechanics as much as you can, lest you get slapped with penalties that didn't exist under the base system. To make matters worse, there were some rather unflattering interviews earlier on that some have interpreted as Larian mansplaining to fans of the base system about how the rules can't be translated to a video game format in a 'fun' way, to the point where I now wonder if Larian is right to keep their mouths shut as they have been lately to avoid such additional blunders.

Still, it takes an awkward amount of effort to pull off something that so systematically neuters the base mechanics so much, that prior knowledge of DOS mechanics would generally serve you far better than prior knowledge of the DnD mechanics in BG3.

Most hardcore turn-based enthusiasts would have absolutely already ripped BG3 a new one if it didn't have both the BG name and Larian's name attached to it. Would people have found things like high ground advantage/disadvantage acceptable within any other game such as Solasta? Considering how people were right to argue about how bad dim light disadvantage was in terms of having far too much of an influence in decision-making during the earliest parts of that game's EA period, definitely not.

I mean, I don't think people are generally hostile to homebrew mechanics - Solasta is literally far more homebrew than BG3, after all, the difference being that they had to homebrew their world and subclasses while leaving the actual combat mechanics largely untouched. But the majority of BG3's homebrew mechanics are just bad by all metrics, faithfulness or not. Barrelmancy? Fine, I actually don't care about that. Backstab/high ground advantage and low ground disadvantage? That's not interesting at all, they just force a specific playing style and limit rather than expanding options.

Even so, I think people should really stop trying to use the faithfulness to tabletop arguments. It means nothing to anyone not familiar with the base rules, and it lets people reduce your arguments to ramblings of rabid purists. But argue from the standpoint of the balance and mechanical design on their own merits itself, and most of the gaming public would understand. Larian would probably be forced to listen if BG3 were to suddenly gain a reputation as a game with impressive visuals, but with a combat system that people can meme in a really reductionist but accurate way - the three major solutions of high ground, backstab, barrelmancy.

I almost wonder if bonus action shove and jump actually only exist as an over correction to high ground/low ground advantage/disadvantage. When you really think about it, almost all of the game’s questionable design can be traced back to that very mechanic. Without bonus action shove, entire fights would be taking place at the summit of a mountain. Without bonus action jump, reaching that summit becomes much harder. Backstab likely only exists to give melee an answer to ranged having high ground advantage.

I came to this type of thought during a mental exercise, wondering who would win in a fight between a BG3 party and a Solasta party. The latter would probably win handily, not only because they had access to proper reactions, but because the BG3 ranged characters would get screwed over by their very own low ground disadvantage mechanic the very moment the Solasta party gets to high ground. Maybe it’s the reason proper reactions aren’t a thing either - a wizard with Shield would effectively be untouchable to anyone on low ground.

Last edited by Saito Hikari; 26/04/21 07:04 PM.
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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
I don't even care about how faithful BG3 may or may not be to the core DnD rules anymore. I came to realize over the past few months that I cared far more about how imbalanced the game is in general at its very core, and not about any comparisons between BG3 and the actual tabletop rules themselves. It just so happens that the vast majority of mechanics that contribute towards this feeling for me are the homebrew mechanics and changes that were haphazardly shoved into the system anyway.

...

Barrelmancy? Fine, I actually don't care about that. Backstab/high ground advantage and low ground disadvantage? That's not interesting at all, they just force a specific playing style and don't encourage options at all.

I completely agree with the game not being balanced. I made a comment earlier saying, I never played 5e but combat was good in solasta but not in Baldur Gate 3. The animations and everything else is superb, but the mechanics of combat feel lame to me. I do not care if the game abides by 5e rules, or whether the drows are a subrace or a race by themselves. To me dnd is already made for turn based combats, you shouldn't alter it so much that it gives so easy advantages.

It would be like if XCOM gave you a guaranteed crit if you are at a higher elevation and enemies got -60 hit chance along with full cover bonuses. Why would you use bombs, rockets, flanking maneuvers, rangers, melee at all? Also I hate surface effects in bg3. In dos2 it works because every character can fly around everywhere. Phoenix dive, blitz, nether swap, teleport, many more abilities that can just ignore surface or height. That's why in dos2 elevation bonuses made sense and wasnt a big deal since it was a fragile bonus. This game however, enemies have to walk through all that with no magic armour or physical armour.

The combat balance is super weak in my opinion, just implementing a more balanced game's rules would be the easiest solution.

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Originally Posted by ash elemental
No, I am talking about consistency. I've used the red dragon as an example, but I could as well quote the "laws of magic" instead of real world physics. I could not make a dwarven wizard in BG1 or BG2, but now I can. So at some point the fundamentals of how magic works got reworked. The popularization of magic across the races is something I would expect to have a large impact on the various civilizations, yet I don't see that. BG city looks the same in all games, kind of like pseudohistorical Europe. Compare that to e. g. Arcanum, where you play in a setting that undergoes an industrial evolution. You can see how technology, despite being not as powerful as magic, is slowly taking over and the impact it has.

Faerun is a fake place built over years by one guy from his own campaign. WotC uses it as its default D&D setting and as such has to make it generic with many fantasy tropes. It’s going to be broken and lots of inconsistencies. Heck they pretty much tossed out the last 100 years because 4e bombed and they had to recon everything. The game dictates how the setting works which creates these problems. Look at the utter brokenness of the Warcraft story.

Faerun and D&D is not War and Peace. It’s not going to analyze every detail about the world. That’s for each table to decide. To expect highly realistic portrayal of the world and it’s evolution is somewhat similar to expecting Star Wars to explain the technology in that universe.

If it seems reasonable in the setting based on the boundaries of the world, then it works. That’s the extent of consistency you will get in D&D.

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It's not that combats "aren't good" in BG3 according to me. There are a lot of spells and features, the "arena" are interresting even if I'd like more choke points and close combats, you can sometimes interract with the environment, the verticality matter...

...but yes, they aren't balanced at all and you're doing the same thing again and again...

They're not tactical, they're not deep at all and the difficulty becomes very easy really fast when you know a very limited numbers of things.
The deepest thing to know in BG3 is backstab and highground... Hurra.

The first time you're playing it's +- ok but if you're not a noob tactical TB games player and/or someone that never played a D&D game before... It really becomes boring and unchallenging fast.

And higher level of difficulty won't change anything because the easiest things to know /understand in BG3 are also the most powerfull...

Oh yes you can also use the few other OP things or be "creative" with barrels so it becomes a real story mode.

On top of that we have "powers" our ennemy never use so we're very more powerfull than them ... Except when Larian add them frustrating powers to create a fake feeling of difficulty.... Hello minotaurs...

Last edited by Maximuuus; 26/04/21 03:36 PM.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
Still, it takes an awkward amount of effort to pull off something that so systematically neuters the base mechanics so much, that prior knowledge of DOS mechanics would generally serve you far better than prior knowledge of the DnD mechanics in BG3.

100% intentional. Their goal as a company is not to alienate a large part of their base, which are DOS1 and DOS2 players that have either 0 or a tenuous grasp of 5e. Those block of players do not care for the RNG dice fest, the seemingly excessive chances to miss, and the other resource and rest restrictions that come with 5e.

Why do you think that:

Larian initially only had 1 short rest? The intent with the story and the way the Origins work is predicated on long resting. They do not want players to end up chasing the Hag with 2 spell slots remaining and limited healing. DOS1 and DOS2 do not have a spell slot mechanic.

The free advantage and loaded dice minimizes the risk of missing greatly. The high ground importance is carried over from DOS2, wherein high ground provided extra range and extra damage. DOS2 players know to prioritize high ground in every fight.

RNG skill checks have been de-emphasized with the overabundance over Inspiration Points and now loaded dice. There are so many Inspiration Points in EA alone that, even with loaded dice, you will not come close to exhausting all of them if your main character has decent Charisma.

The game is literally not-so-subtly veiled to be as accommodating to returning DOS1&2 players as ostensibly possible, while also adhering to WOTC 5e demands to the satisfaction of them.

Quote
Larian would probably be forced to listen if BG3 were to suddenly gain a reputation as a game with impressive visuals, but with a combat system that people can meme in a really reductionist but accurate way - the three major solutions of high ground, backstab, barrelmancy.

Doubtful. Larian game developers are quirky and encourage these sorts of things. These are the things they want to showcase on Twitch, YouTube, and other platforms. These behaviors are encouraged by Larian from other games, not deterred.

Barrels, excessive surfaces, explosions, the overhyped interactive environment are all considered byproducts of the Larian sandbox that equates to THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. If you kill a named boss with setting up and luring it until a chain explosion, even if it breaks immersion that they would not notice you planting 20 barrels and pre-positioning before engagement, that is what they want to showcase.

The stealth/sneaking operates almost identical to DOS1&2 and can be abused in-combat and out-of-combat for infinite resources. Gold, money, and the price of rare/expensive items never has much importance in a Larian game.

If you know how to exploit the system, you can have infinite gold as long as you abuse the vendors every refresh. You can afford the best items early, which also makes difficulty and complexity trivial.

In DOS2, at least you were somewhat limited from wearing a more powerful item as early because you may not have the base stat requirement. And if the weapon exceeded your level, then your miss chance was much higher.

No such thing in BG3. If I can exploit the vendors or flat-out cheese stealth and steal rare equips at level 2, I am free to wear them. To Larian, that is innovation and applauded.


Quote
I almost wonder if bonus action shove and jump actually only exist as an over correction to high ground/low ground advantage/disadvantage. When you really think about it, almost all of the game’s questionable design can be traced back to that very mechanic.

Jump/Shove, etc. exist because Larian does not want you to be strictly confined to 1 action a turn. DOS2 was a base of 4 Action Points (2 full actions for the most part) with many ways to get more.

Larian placed those as bonus actions because it is pseudo 2 actions, especially when you shove enemies off high ground. Not to mention they have placed so many haste potion and flasks around, again, to ensure you can do more than one thing a turn.

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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
...but yes, they aren't balanced at all and you're doing the same thing again and again...

They're not tactical, they're not deep at all and the difficulty becomes very easy really fast when you know a very limited numbers of things.
The deepest thing in BG3 is backstab and highground... Hurra.

The first time you're playing it's +- ok but if you're not a noob tactical TB games player and/or someone that never played a D&D game before... It really becomes boring and unchallenging fast.

Yup. The same tactic over and over again. The more I played, the more I realized how poorly combat was implemented in this game. I guess for DOS fans, it’s fun but for someone who never played them like me, it kinda blows.

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Originally Posted by gaymer
100% intentional. Their goal as a company is not to alienate a large part of their base, which are DOS1 and DOS2 players that have either 0 or a tenuous grasp of 5e.

Snip the rest of your quote since the mods don’t like us to quote long text.

The more you analyze the game, the more you realize how disingenuous Swen’s quote is when he said they really tried to build BG3 as a 5e game and then had to make modifications.

This game was meant to be DOS3 but since Larian got the BG3 license they are hoping to cash in on 5e players too. They want their cake and eat it too.

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Edit : finally I just don't care and left this thread for now.

Last edited by Maximuuus; 26/04/21 04:05 PM.

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Originally Posted by spectralhunter
Yup. The same tactic over and over again. The more I played, the more I realized how poorly combat was implemented in this game. I guess for DOS fans, it’s fun but for someone who never played them like me, it kinda blows.

Even as someone who played both DOS games front to back, the current system sucks. They basically took the absolute worst parts of the overall DOS design philosophy and slapped it into BG3. Hell, a lot of the DOS-type mechanics that people often cite aren't even the same in BG3 as in DOS. If anything, a lot of them are actually even WORSE implementations than they were before.

- High Ground/Low Ground: High ground in DOS2 offered you a damage boost, while low ground resulted in a damage penalty. They also altered your attack range. DOS2 actually capped the low ground damage penalty at -5% damage, while the high ground bonus starts at +10% damage and increases by +5% for every point you invest into the Huntsman skill. The penalty being capped at a measly -5% means there is still an emphasis to getting to high ground, but characters on low ground could still retaliate. The exact modifier is completely unique to the mechanic. Meanwhile, in BG3, being higher or lower actually does not appear to modify your attack range by any significant margin unless you're at the very bottom of a cliff trying to shoot up or something, high ground/low ground affects your accuracy instead, the exact modifier is shared with several spells that grant the same bonus/penalty with a far greater resource cost, and the penalty is as massive as the bonus.

- Field Effects: Field effects at their core are largely unchanged from DOS2 to BG3. The major difference is how they interact with the rest of the mechanics. In DOS2, you potentially had access to many mobility skills that could take you across the whole map, and you could do the same to enemies with Teleport/Nether Swap too. Magic armor would also block many of their effects until depleted. In BG3, there is no such magic armor defense, you have a bonus action jump to get you out of them (and one could also argue that maybe bonus action jump is an overcorrection to field effects existing), and field effect damage forces you to roll a concentration check.

It's why I am worried about the community reaction to Paladin if field effects are to remain as is once they are released - people talk about the smites, but few have considered that almost all of their spells require concentration. It would really tragic for your Paladin to lose that Branding Smite just because you walked into a fire field on your way to attack an enemy standing within. And you can't just stand outside of the danger zone and wait for the enemy to walk out to pre-emptively smack them during their turn like you can in Solasta, because ready actions aren't a thing in BG3. A lot of the really good Cleric spells later on like Spirit Guardians requires concentration too.

Quite frankly, I have a small list of things that would have to change in order to bring a lot of the actual tactical decision making into the game.

1) Turn high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage into +2/-2 modifiers. Maybe even get rid of the -2 modifier entirely.
2) Turn backstab advantage into a flanking system instead, and reduce the modifier from advantage to +2.
3) Allow saving throws to mitigate damaging field effects and items such as barrels. Field effect damage should additionally not trigger concentration checks.
4) Add ready actions and proper reactions to the game. One can talk about how cumbersome reactions may or may not be, but ready actions don't have that problem at all, and I don't see a valid reason why ready actions at the very minimum should be absent, unless the engine really is as non-flexible for programming anything new outside of environmental stuff as people are starting to believe.

Originally Posted by Maximuuus
On top of that we have "powers" our ennemy never use so we're very more powerfull than them ... Except when Larian add them frustrating powers to create a fake feeling of difficulty.... Hello minotaurs...

The latter is very prevalent in DOS2 as well. It's why I hesitate to call DOS2 a tactical masterpiece today, even if I was highly impressed in my earlier playthroughs for its new ideas. But late game DOS2 more or less devolved into frontloaded turn 1-2 plays, just like BG3, and late game DOS2 was a complete balancing mess with some of the most insane rocket tag I had ever seen in a turn-based game. I fear BG3 is already headed towards that same path in other ways, even more because BG3's problems are already quite obvious in this EA phase, while from all accounts DOS2's balancing problems with the armor system weren't as obvious to anyone but the very far-sighted.

Most people cite the hardest boss fights in DOS2 as one of the two below.

1) Alice Aliceson, an undead flaming scarecrow whose major gimmick is nuking your whole party with a fireball with so many damage modifiers behind it that it'll one shot most entire parties unless you specifically prepare for it. She also has a high Retribution stat, and in Tactician difficulty, it's high enough to reflect 50% of damage you inflict back at you with only very specific ways to avoid that. One of the most common ways to deal with the fight is for a player to get someone with the ability to cast Teleport on high ground, and warp her over to the nearby merchant Jaehan, who happens to be a playable character from DOS1 (and as such is at max level), who will immediately destroy the boss for you.

The actual legit way to approach the fight is to cast Bless on her to remove her +50% fire damage Pain Aura and to turn all of the fire she's standing in into Holy Fire, providing your party +20% fire resistance and healing all non-undead/damaging all undead within. And then target her weak physical armor and then stunlock her into oblivion with physical status effects, while being mindful of that retribution reflect damage. Using healing abilities on her actually bypasses her damage reflect too, which is particularly effective with Soul Mate allowing you to link a party member and her together so that any healing said party member receives will damage her, but you're not going to know that without having gone through the fight several times beforehand.

Either way, you are not beating her without clairvoyance, there is absolutely no one in existence who would have been able to defeat her first try on normal difficulty or higher, simply due to her super frontloaded design. At least not without having the foresight to keep your entire party split up at all times.

2) Aetera, who typically opens her fight by teleporting away (which may or may not cost 1 AP, her teleport is unique), casting Blizzard on your party (which requires 3 AP and 3 source points), potentially casting Rain or another ice spell to freeze them if they lost all of their magic armor (1-3 AP depending on the spell used), and then drain a source point from a party member who lost their magic armor (which may or may not cost 1 AP). She'll cast Chain Lightning (3 AP and 1 source point) during turn 2, or Blizzard if she cast Chain Lightning during turn 1. Either way, that super frontloaded volley has her using abilities with far more AP cost during turn 1 than players can start out with (4, or 6 if Lone Wolf is in effect). Oh, and did I mention there are four dangerous wolf spirits in the fight too?

This is another fight that you're not beating without clairvoyance, unless you're extremely lucky - I did beat her first try, but only because I luckily had Fane's Time Warp cast on my archer before she froze my entire party during turn 2 (which still allowed my archer to take a turn despite being frozen), and archers were busted enough that he was able to do enough damage to one-round her.

DOS2 basically trains you to exploit cheese at every opportunity, perhaps to a level where I struggle to call it cheese when it's so clearly intended. BG3's haphazard implementation of the mechanics in comparison instead trains you to avoid engaging with the base DnD mechanics as much as possible, in ways I shouldn't have to explain at this point, and it only happens to look like cheese because the bonuses are insane with very little drawback.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
Quite frankly, I have a small list of things that would have to change in order to bring a lot of the actual tactical decision making into the game.

1) Turn high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage into +2/-2 modifiers. Maybe even get rid of the -2 modifier entirely.
2) Turn backstab advantage into a flanking system instead, and reduce the modifier from advantage to +2.
3) Allow saving throws to mitigate damaging field effects and items such as barrels. Field effect damage should additionally not trigger concentration checks.
4) Add ready actions and proper reactions to the game. One can talk about how cumbersome reactions may or may not be, but ready actions don't have that problem at all, and I don't see a valid reason why ready actions at the very minimum should be absent, unless the engine really is as non-flexible for programming anything new outside of environmental stuff as people are starting to believe.


They also need to add +2 cover AC against ranged attacks for enemies engaged in melee combat, and decouple jump and disengage, make them cost an action, and provoke AOO, and implement push as per 5e rules instead of their hulk push.

<sigh>

This is all wishful thinking though, I doubt Larian is backtracking from their insistence on including DOS mechanics in BG3 as much as possible.

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Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
They also need to add +2 cover AC against ranged attacks for enemies engaged in melee combat, and decouple jump and disengage, make them cost an action, and provoke AOO, and implement push as per 5e rules instead of their hulk push.

<sigh>

This is all wishful thinking though, I doubt Larian is backtracking from their insistence on including DOS mechanics in BG3 as much as possible.

I mean, those should be considered too, but I kept my list small because what I listed outside of reactions/ready actions should be trivial changes. Cover mechanics are clearly a step above, and I've accepted at this point that de-coupling jump/disengage is simply not going to happen unless backstab advantage and high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage are dealt with first - as they are clearly the very reason why jump/disengage even exists to begin with. Stamp them down first, and jump/disengage suddenly becomes far less abusable due to the removal of most incentive to use them offensively rather than defensively.

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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
[quote=Grudgebearer]They also need to add +2 cover AC against ranged attacks for enemies engaged in melee combat, and decouple jump and disengage, make them cost an action, and provoke AOO, and implement push as per 5e rules instead of their hulk push.

<sigh>

This is all wishful thinking though, I doubt Larian is backtracking from their insistence on including

...

to the removal of most incentive to use them offensively rather than defensively.

I personally think +2/-2 on high ground is too much too. In high ground you can move out of line of sight most of the time to not even be seen. But maybe that would be more applicable in higher difficulties, or add +2 AC to all creature in high difficulty to negate that bonus that way.

Joined: Feb 2020
Location: Belgium
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Originally Posted by Saito Hikari
Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
They also need to add +2 cover AC against ranged attacks for enemies engaged in melee combat, and decouple jump and disengage, make them cost an action, and provoke AOO, and implement push as per 5e rules instead of their hulk push.

<sigh>

This is all wishful thinking though, I doubt Larian is backtracking from their insistence on including DOS mechanics in BG3 as much as possible.

I mean, those should be considered too, but I kept my list small because what I listed outside of reactions/ready actions should be trivial changes. Cover mechanics are clearly a step above, and I've accepted at this point that de-coupling jump/disengage is simply not going to happen unless backstab advantage and high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage are dealt with first - as they are clearly the very reason why jump/disengage even exists to begin with. Stamp them down first, and jump/disengage suddenly becomes far less abusable due to the removal of most incentive to use them offensively rather than defensively.

Jump and disengage is not only a problem related to backstab and/or highground.

Disengage as a bonus action mean that melee ennemies never have a proper zone of control and they NEVER deal any AOO. Being engaged in BG3 just mean absolutely nothing.
It reduce a lot the depth of melee combats, the value of having a good position not to be engaged, the value of our own melee characters (control the battleflield, intercept ennemies) and the consequences of being engaged.

It is definitely as OP offensively than defensively.
It also create one more issue to the game's balance because we can deal a lot of additionnal damages to our ennemies with AOO... which is something they won't ever do.

On the other hand why shouldn't we jump as a bonus action or a part of our movement ?

+1 for your list. These are also my top priorities but jump and disengage are as high on the list.

A Push action a bit more balanced could also become very interresting tactically speaking but I guess it's something else I could choose not to use...
Having not to use the base games mechanics because they're too powerfull is something I never saw in any tactical games except this one.

Last edited by Maximuuus; 26/04/21 08:06 PM.

French Speaking Youtube Channel with a lot of BG3 videos : https://www.youtube.com/c/maximuuus
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