Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Will there be a variety of magical bows?

Hello,

There are many famous magical bows for archer heroes in fantasy literature. The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice #1) by John Flanagan, Fire (Graceling Realm #2) by Kristin Cashore, Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1) by Robin LaFevers, Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass #3) by Sarah J. Maas.

Many of these bows are written about in Advanced Dungeon and Dragon pantheon books like "The Ruins of Gorlan" by John Flanagan. Some may sound familiar to you...the Luckbow made from unicorn horns, the Heartbow from the 1981 cinematic feature film: The Archer: Fugitive from the Empire, and the Windbow from Misha - God of the Wind Giants that strikes perfectly once per day when you call his name.

Fantasy stories are littered with amazing magical bows. BG3 has +1-+3 bows and the Oathbow. That's it?? There are hundreds of magical swords, spears, and non-bow weapons out there.

Do the DEVS plan on creating "original content - magical bows" for the BG3 game??

Respectfully,

MGB

I don't have an answer to your question, but where do I get a +3 bow? Or are you talking about stuff that has been leaked to apper in the game at full release?

It's an incomplete version of Act one. The level cap is 4. +1 weapons are already supposed to be a big deal in this level range.

Yeah, magical weapon bonuses are much reduced in 5E. I'm playing in a P&P campaign and my 11th level paladin has a +2 magic sword - I've seen nothing with a better bonus. The design philosophy behind 5E was to reduce all that AC/bonus/stat bloat - "bounded accuracy". I quite like it - things are more threatening, especially when you can't simply activate N spell effects and walk into battle thanks to concentration. I played the PF Wrath beta - and there I was eventually a (glowing) walking arsenal. I mean I enjoy that - and building interesting characters - but I also have space for the 5E philosophy.

Aside for the fact that anything above a +1 at level 4 in D&D would be A LOT regardless of the edition considered, from what I've read in general (even before I started playing BG3) a +3 in 5th edition is considered basically a Holy Artifact people would write songs about, as a +5 would have been in second/third edition.
Case in point: Carsomyr, the holy sword +5 for Palins you loot from the Red Dragon in BG2 (and one of the most powerful weapons in the game, barely matched even just in Throne Of Bhaals that dealt with literal deities, has been rescaled as a "simple" +3 Weapons (with a lot of extra perks) in 5th edition.

If Larian keeps being Larian, you can be sure magic bows will fall from trees.

Yeah, jokes aside this is something that somewhat worries me, given how dreadfully bad the itemization has always been in their past games.

What I'm wondering is: will Larian have the good taste and sensibility to make the powerful items "scarce" (and notable) enough to make them matter as memorable finds... or we'll be showered by constantly escalating loot every couple of hours?

Either way, anything would be an improvement over the DOS 2 approach "Whatever you just found will be made obsolete in the next 10 minutes or so".

The EA looks to me like they are trying to respect D&D and BG1&2 in this regard.

But they already couldn't help themselves and created so many trinkets with weird minor magical powers. The "whenever you heal, you pull the target or your weapons will be coated in poison" kind. I don't get these weird conditions. Why can't it just be "apply poison once per rest"? Where's the logic in needing to heal to get an offensive buff?

Or the "when you Shove you get +1 AC" ring. Why can't that be a "buffed Shove once per long rest and +2 bonus to resist being Shoved". It's the "Bracing Ring" but it actually doesn't protect against being Shoved at all.

I hate the flood of magic junk in DOS games and I'm not a fan of how they are handling D&D magic items here either. The items need to make sense. Someone crafted them for a specific purpose, not to play a mini-game of "if X happens you get buff Y".

I actually like magical items with weird special abilities and situational conditions of use way more than the constant escalation in numbers other games (included past Larian titles) tend to go for.

At the very least, DnD itemization means we won't see any stupid critical hit chance/critical damage modifiers.

In literally every single game where both of those stats show up as random substats on gear, you're an idiot if you don't chase for those two stats in particular. Especially in DOS2. Turns everything into a massively imbalanced damage race in the end.

There's a reason DOS2 Definitive Edition literally cut critical hit chance modifiers in half.

I just want to say that i really like both amount, and kind of magical items in this game ...
It is a little tedious sometimes to figure what will work well with other stuff and wich character will use wich artefact better ... but that is part of the fun for me. ^_^

I wish they would just do it exactly like Bioware did in BG1.

Very few magic items that all have descriptions and illustration, and no nonsense powers. Everything you find is significant. I get the feeling of magic junk in BG3 already. A lot of stuff gets casually sold, or never bought. Even Sorrow that seems like it should be really special but the downside is just too crippling to consider using it.

I liked how 3e had masterwork weapons to bridge the gap between starting equipment and magic items. Masterwork were improved but strictly non-magical, making magic items even more special. I'd like to see masterwork items in 5e that would improve armor and weapons in small ways. +1 to max dex bonus, remove stealth disadvantage, lighter, +1 to damage etc. Medium Armor especially could do with increased max dex bonus (+1, +2) to make them worth using.

On the other hand, some items should have ben really powerfull ... until players started demand alternations ...
For example Dragon Breath axe ... that is giving additional fire damage to burning targets ... back in Patch 1 it was almost every swing, since even cantrips was making enemies burning ... now, i think i didnt proc it even single time in patch 5

Lets just hope that there will be more magical bows than the official sources. There are shamefully few magical bows, that are not just generic weapon variants.

I just want to say that getting Carsomyr is still one of my favorite moments of gaming ever. It was such a good reward for a very tough battle