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Zellin Offline OP
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Hello, dear Larian
Here is my big list on what I think should be changed/imroved. More incoming, I'm trying to split it all by one theme in a post. Sorry for repeating some points that been told by someone already, but I'm really willing to add some actual suggestions, solutions, explanations in most cases and don't want them to get drown in comments of other topics. Consider this one my open letter.

Immersiveness and realism.

1. Combat, movement and theft logic.
1.1. Arrows should not create surface much bigger than space right under their original target.
The flasks on arrows can't be really big, so it's just some amount of acid/burning oil/freezing component that dripped of the target. Gaz/fog is another case, more likely it's some explosive reaction creating gaz, so it can be a little peace of something that makes a lot.
1.2. Dipping short melee weapon should cause dexterity check and damage from the surface in case of fail.
It's really possible to burn your hand if you're dipping a knife in burning oil. Ranged weapons are exceptions since it's bolts and arrows we should dipp. And I don't know how clumsy you must be to fail dipping something long.
1.3. Common food shouldn't be consumable during the fight. Or not all food at least.
Turns in this game are short and it's hard to imagine someone eating whole plate in the middle of a fight in a few seconds. Chewing an apple... maybe.
1.4. Healing effect on common food should be replaced with really slow regeneration effect.
It should address the logic "eat well, get well", but shouldn't turn food into another kind of magic, which makes healing potions lose their value.
1.5. Changing weapon should consume bonus action point.
It's not like we are making our weapon change it's shape at whim, so it's something to take time for.
1.6. Enemies could use a bit more caring for their hides, like not trying to run through fire to our characters, hiding and trying to escape if things are obviously not in their favor.
Basically they should use same arsenal of smart moves (use of invorement as well) that we have. It will make fights more interesting and beliveable. So far I made marauders in ruins burn in a turn or two, just because they were way too determined to kill Shadowheart standing behind the fire first.
1.7. Grenades and spells that do not cause damage themselves, shouldn't turn friendly NPC aggresive.
I just dropped a bottle of water, why so angry? Plus some spells are meant to help stealthy characters distract NPCs, not start a fight with them.
1.8. Please, replace stealth-break effect from all not damaging spells with stealth check.
As said in previous point: stealthers do use spells for distraction in D&D. And not being able to cast in stealth makes Arcane trickster way less appealing than in table-top.
1.9. Please, make NPCs aware of them being robbed again like in D:OS2 only partially. Excluding their inevitable assumption that it's our deed.
It was nice to have NPC not being clueless dummies and some additional chalenge for thiefs. The only bad part about it was that somehow NPC would always think that it's us who robbed them. So make them searching for a thief, but not just the player character. And maybe allow us to lie to them how we caught the thief for a bit of reward?
1.10. Please, fix throwing small creatures at enemies to not being inevitably lethal for creatures.
Creatures are not rocks, they have there own agility, some of them do jumping on big distances every day, so they are quite used to hard landings. But a creature that survived the throwing actually can add some depth to the combat by panicking and hampering our enemy moves. If you ever dealt with a panicking cat, you know what I'm talking about.
1.11. Please, allow us to climb on all tables and flat chests, like you did with crates.
It's strange and inconvenient that we need to search for particular type of furniture to climb on. There surely enough place for a grown up person on all tables and chests I saw so far, but alas the game tells me that there is not enough even when I try to jump on them.
1.12. Remove the ability to put big crates, barrels and chests in inventory. Strength shouldn't matter.
The inventory supposed to represent our backpacks, pockets and belts, it shouldn't be possible to put a ~50 liters barrel in a backpack, considering how they look in the game. And even if we are lucky enough to have the very special backpack that is big enough to contain such a big object, it would create considerable hindrance for climbing and fighting. Also It should address those "way too much cheese with barrels" concerns.

2. Conversation and cutscenes.
2.1. We should be able to use what we have in our inventory for a conversation.
For example making someone dying drink a health potion instead of casting healing on him (saving Findal).
2.2. If an NPC lies to us there should be insight check always and always with logical responce if we pass the check.
Nettie's "cure" was one piece of being artificially clueless for my drow rogue, while there should be insight check with 1-5 difficulty since Nettie nearly confess herself. Also that moment asks for knowledge check before we ask "What is it?". Some characters may be able to recognise the sting.
2.3. The cases when we are going to kill currently friendly NPC should be solvable throught dialog.
Like poisoning or luring into a trap with passing a deception ("Have a drink", "I need to show you something") and/or dexterity ("Oops, sorry for that (poisoned) niddle") check. Right now I feel really stupid coming to Kagha and telling her "I'm asked to kill you" to start a fight, while I have some deadly poison and wine with me.
2.4. Mitigate shoked and happy facial animations, please, or even better make it possible to choose our emotions somehow.
It seems inconsistent when my evil Lolth-sworn drow jokes around about how drow kill kids more often than enslave, chooses to entirely ignore little tiefling-girl problem and then stares super-shoked at her corpse.
2.5. Please, improve companions and coop-comrades involvement in cutscenes and conversations.
Make us being able to tell them to deal with some talking through dialog option and make their own dice-rolls. Also in some cutscenes companions seem missing, like when I already have Shadowheart, Gale, and then stumbling on Astarion with his knife and those two not even shown worried, not making a single move to help (Shadowheart maybe, but Gale doesn't strike me as the type).
2.6. Make companions more eager to talk.
If they want to talk about something right now, comment on current situation and we are free to talk, they should talk. If wouldn't click on Lae'zel and Gale I would never get their outbursts after Nettie's incident, but in reality that's something they would do without me asking.
2.7. Please, make companions more lively in the camp.
Calling me if they want to talk, talking to each other about our little adventures, walking around, keeping the fire, whatever, but not just playing same animation over and over.
2.8. Companions should approve/disapprove what we choose to do, not what we got on dice. If there are numbers somewhere behind approves, the failed attempt can be approved/disapproved less than succesful to adress that our little evil company loves succesful people more.
It's just how relationships work. We do not dislike someone, just because someone else didn't listen to his persuation attempt.
2.9. Either remove approvement/disapprovement for not very impactful deed of ours for companions that are not with us, either show us how they got to know.
It's cool that they know. It's strange that they know literally everything.

3. Overall immersion moments.
3.1. Please, improve camp connection to the rest of the world.
In your previous games I really loved how you did it with Dragon knight tower, End of Times, Lady Vengence. And while current camp is mostly the same thing, there are some points missing. In previous games we would be lead to find the place, make that place our own, expand it. And we would be able to rest somewhere else. Right now the camp is some kind of poket dimension we create somehow and then it changes on it's own, and we can rest and have a bedtime chat only there. Would be great to make the camp be found on the actual map after some kind of conversation that it's getting late and we need some safe place to sleep, that could also come with some explanation why we wouldn't rest in some other places. Moving to new region? New camp, with new apperance. In Baldur's Gates itself I would even imagine some appartments instead of camping in the forest.
3.2. In case you'll make body types for player characters NPCs should get their variety as well.
It'll really improve their individuality, allowing us to recognize them more easily without even looking on the names.
3.3. Please, add day/night change and schedule for NPCs.
The game really asks for it now with vampire spawns being a thing - feeding time! Also night is a good possibility for those killing friendly NPC attempts without getting whole camps against us. Also it can be one of instruments to address point 3.1. of this list. Maybe tie the cicle to some quest points instead of clock, it can make it easier to increment "Find your camp" quest.
3.4. Weather changes would be cool.
You know without me that weather is a great tool to add some mood to the scene. But random weather even better, when you want to add some uniqueness to each playthrough.

Last edited by vometia; 24/10/20 12:43 PM. Reason: edited at request of OP
Zellin #699181 15/10/20 11:26 AM
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Reward, gold, gear.

1. Experience gain and loot.
1.1. Remove experience gain from kills and persuations at all. Give experience for completing stages of quests, short events and passing checkpoints on the map.
It's already said enough times that killing everything is much more rewarding than finding peaceful solutions. In the same time it can be way too complicated math to create equal rewarding for different solutions and somehow consider that after peaceful solution we still can kill everyone and gain even more experience. I'm suggesting to give experience only for achieving some goals instead of using methods. So it would not matter how we got things done, if we got them done we have our sweet exp.
1.2. Remove armor loot from killing enemies or replace it with scraps.
It should mitigate killing spree being a farming gold possibility. Plus it's improvement to realism, armor supposed to be damaged after our smacking the enemy to the death.

2. Economics.
2.1. Adjust prices and markup at vendors, please.
It's normal not to be able to buy an armor easily so early in the game, but right now to buy a few arrows, we need to loot every piece of junk and that's not fun at all. I suppose the price we can see on a tooltips is the first cost, It should be lower for ammo and potions.
2.2. Return spell components to high lvl/expensive spells at least and add those components to vendors.
With out enough of money sinks, being able to loot everything and finding most of best gear in loot and quest rewards, we will eventually get to the point in game when "I have more gold than I'll ever spend". And that removes normal reason for playing greedy at some moments.
To avoid inventory flooding components can be represented by one item, "Components purse" with limited amount of uses (~20 casts), and possibility to "refill" at vendors or find refillers in loot. Actually components for lower spells can be made same way in "Minor components purse" item with lower refill price and higher loot chance.

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D&D 5E battle rules rework.
I used this site https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex to make sure I'm not bending any rules unintentionally. In overall I would say that while some of your changes are logical some others mitigated differences between classes way too much.

1. Actions and attacks.
1.1. Disengage should be separated from jumps. And it should be full action for everyone but lvl2+ rogue.
It's way too OP that we can just always jump away from every threat on every character and kills positioning tactics. And aside from being faithfull to D&D 5E, it's logical, you need some agility to easily move away from a fight. Disengage being bonus actions for rogues is part of them being agile and fast.
1.2. Please, add Dodge action.
Sometimes it feels more important to do everything possible to save the character than do anything else with him (hello, Gale), but we simply can't do that.
1.3. Please, make Help work as in D&D 5E.
Working exactly like in D&D 5E it'll still help in a way against prone (in preventive way even), sleeping, enwebbed, ensnared and some other things. It will lose anti-downed effect ofcourse, but that one is unrealistic and useless, we are getting our characters up with help just to get them downed again in a turn.
1.4. Hide should be full action for everyone but lvl2+ rouge.
Same as with Disengage rogues are pro with hiding others are not. Come on, you're killing appealing sides of my favourite class, Larian.
1.5. Please, add Ready action or mode.
It's inconvenient that on each turn we are forced to act now or never, with no way to decide to wait a bit for enemy's move.
I can imagine 3 ways of implementing Ready action from D&D 5E:
A) Right by the book. Click Ready to switch on planning mode, click on enemy we are going to observe, click on direction (let's add segments around the enemy) or a point on landscape or one of our characters to say if we are waiting for movement or being on the spot or attack attempt, click on our action that should be used, click Ready again to switch off planning mode and move on, consume Reaction point and lock the character from being used. If the enemy does what we expected - execute prepared actions consuming Action, Bonus action and movement points, if not - skip the turn. Maybe better would be to change the rules here slightly and allow our character to act at the end of turn if the readied reaction wasn't executed.
B) D:OS1 approach. Click on Ready to move our character to the end of queue for current turn. After the end of turn move our character back where he was originally by initiative.
C) Semi-D:OS1 approach. Click on Ready to make our character able to make his turn at any given moment by the end of current turn.
1.6. Please, add Search action to represent more active search by forcing one more perception roll.
In some areas it's way obvious that there is something hidden and in table-top session in such area I would insist on searching more thoroughly than just take one look, one roll and move on. Plus, it'll make players reload less to find secrets. To make things more interesting and avoid abusing of active search let's make failing to many rolls for same spot potentially dangerous. For example a trap my be activated acidently, while searching.
1.7. Shove should be full action/type of attack as in D&D 5E. Maybe with melee attack being done in addion at the same time, if melee weapon chosen at the moment of shoving.
Bonus actions stand for something fast and simple or doable at the same time as normal action. Some classes ability to perform some full actions as bonus actions is way of showing their mastery in corresponding areas. Effectivly shoving someone, who doesn't want to be shoved, in a middle of a fight is not that fast and simple even with some training. Only with a melee atack it maybe possible to shove and strike with weapon at the same time.
1.8. Please-please, add Grapple action/type of attack right as in D&D 5E plus living shield effect.
While on first sight it's not needed, cause you just control one enemy, while loosing your mobility and there are so many other ways to controll an enemy already… on the second sight it's a cool way to save a character by using grappled enemy as a living shield. So technicly grappling someone should slow down our character, but incoming attacks should be mostly transferred to the grappled enemy, and his sapient comrades should think twice before attacking our grappling character.
1.9. Please, make it possible to perform additional bonus actions instead of full actions.
According to D&D 5E we can perform what would be bonus action more than once in a turn, just with full action(s) being replaced by additional bonus action(s). It's not that hard to jump twice in a few seconds for example. And it would be great improvement to our movement possibilities in a fight.

2. Spellcasting.
2.1. We should have a way to intentionally stop concentrating on spells and cantrips with prolonged effects that require concentration.
It's very inconvinient and inconsistent when we cast fog cloud for example and then can't do a thing in that area, while it's our own magic, on which we are concentrating to keep it existing. By D&D 5E a caster can just stop concentrating at any moment for free to get rid of his own spell effect.
2.2. If there is nothing to put on fire/or freeze to ice and the spell or cantrip doesn't create fire/ice surface by D&D5e - don't create fire/ice surface.
While it's fun to put things on fire (pyromaniac here), and fights were fun in D:OS2 with all those surfaces, with D&D lack of teleportation abilities for melee fighters too many surfaces turn each fight into mages, archers and jumpers contest. In D:OS1 there was same exact problem, I'm playing it now with 2 melee classes and it's painfull as hell even with full backpacks of grenades to deal with surfaces.
2.3. Please, tie scrolls and magic items to classes as they are supposed to be by D&D 5E.
Having them being usable by everyone with no restrictions doesn't make the game more fun, but makes it harder to tell one class from another and decide who should carry them. And after that it removes some tactical planing considering characters firepower.

Last edited by Zellin; 18/10/20 02:38 PM. Reason: typo
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I very much agree with your feedback. On your notes about economy
I also find it way to cheap (200gp) to revive a fallen comrade. Death
should be an actual threat. Sometimes you may have to just leave a
character dead and move on.

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Originally Posted by Bruniik
I very much agree with your feedback. On your notes about economy
I also find it way to cheap (200gp) to revive a fallen comrade. Death
should be an actual threat. Sometimes you may have to just leave a
character dead and move on.

Thx. More incoming actually.
But about the revives... On one side - yes. On another I believe they have companions possible deathes plotted, so they most likely giving us that opportunity to keep them alive to kill them later with all the dramatic effect. So it's one of those conflicts between making it dramatic epic and making it perfect mechanics-wise, which I'm not daring to touch. Maybe I'm wrong. In this case, permadeath for companions should be there at least on higher difficulty.

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+1 to this and a lot more. Cantrip ground effects, short rests are useless when you can LR anywhere anytime, backstab advantage, high ground advantage, stealth/fog cloud/darkness enemies have no idea what to do, barrels, enemies unlimited spell slots/arrows/flasks, enemies focusing low hp/ac/downed targets, offhand hit calculation, offhand dmg... etc. etc. etc.

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Balance and difficulty.
First of all I should say I think it’s ok to make sapient enemies to be treated the same way as player's character (PC) , giving them classes and gear. Just make sure they have their racial features and actually work the same exact way and we are fine.

1. Combat balance.
1.1. Make enemies AC and HP as they are in D&D 5E, excluding those PC-like enemies.
D&D relies on random a lot and even with lower AC for each enemy it's quite possible to have your attacks as "miss, miss, pathetic scratch, miss, finally a hit!.. miss…". It's ok when you need to take off ~50HP and it's really frustrating when there is ~150HP. Plus the problem with such spells as "Sleep".
1.2. If you wish to reduce the amount of misses without weakening enemies, subtract the amount of disadvantages from the amount of advantages (and vice-versa) instead of complete removal of each other's effects like in actual D&D.
Let's imagine we have high ground with a bow against a cornered enemy, who's slightly obscured. By current rules we'll just roll dice only once as if there are no advantages or disadvantages. But actually we have 2 whole advantages against 1 disadvantage, so I'm suggesting to consider it as 1 whole advantage, roll twice and take the bigger number. It will give a bit more weight to tactical planning, allowing us to increase our chance to hit without making anyone permanently weaker or stronger.
1.3. If you wish to make some boss-fights more difficult than with AC and HP right by the book, just give them some companions of their own.
It's simple solution, that won't break any spells and may even replace frustration from scratching fat-fat boss with joy from little wins during the fight.
1.4. Align monsters traits and actions with actual D&D 5E. Again excluding PC-like enemies and excluding plot-based changes like intellect devourers (do we really have to fight them after the crash?).
Phase spiders shouldn't spit with poison, only bite. Something with ranged attack that "teleports" around among webs is a problem with only cheese-like solution. I personally stealthed through most of the fight with the Spider Queen and that shouldn't be possible without bending too many D&D rules (prev.post).
Minotaurs shouldn't have that knock out on jumps. It leads to whole party death in a turn if they notice us right after landing.
The Hag is a special case. Considering how hags are basically witches she could learn a few new tricks and use some artifacts during the fight. But illusions are not supposed to effectively cast spells or fight, they’re just magical play of light. So she could still use them to make us attack the wrong target and she could heal and protect herself a bit, while we are wasting time on illusions. Illusions should mimic her healing and protection spells animations of course.
And so on…

2. Conversation rolls.
2.1. Add some difficulty to the tadpole rolls.
It feels like cheating right now. Also it's quite unrealistic that our character, which just got those powers, is so pro in using them.
2.2. Remove chains of persuasion rolls.
Like with Nettie. It's simply annoying and looks like a bad DM attempt to put the party on the rails. It's quite cool that we should give her the whole speech to persuade and I would leave all the phrases there, but let's roll only on the last one. Previously chosen ones can give us advantage/disadvantage or some modifiers on the roll, but no rolling for 3 times phrase after phrase, please.

Last edited by Zellin; 28/10/20 08:48 PM. Reason: typo
Zellin #734666 15/11/20 02:17 PM
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Abilities&skills value.
Here I went through analyzing if skill checks been used where they should and if they were treated equally or we got some skills being favored. If I'm not mentioning a skill it means that aside from possible bugs I'm seeing it as properly implemented.

1. Strength-based.
Strength nearly always suffers from heavy devaluation in VG versions of D&D. And unfortunately BG3 is no exception at the moment. There are checks missing and dexterity is much more delivering for combat (D&D itself fault). I'm not insisting that all following suggestions should be implemented all together, but they all may help with raising Strength value.
1.1. Add Athletics check (or Acrobatics check, depending on what's higher) for climbing on everything but ladders and passing through difficult terrain.
To avoid making some areas totally inaccessible for some characters, the characters should be able to help each other.
1.2. Allow us to use Strength modifier for Intimidation checks when it's higher than actual Intimidation. Or allow us to use Strength as a modifier for Intimidation.
1.3. Allow us to use Strength for bows and longbows if it's higher than Dexterity.
In RL pulling a string requires considerable strength, while proper targeting and placing the arrow requires dexterity. So it's only logical to make both abilities accountable for shooting from bow and longbows. Crossbows are exception since they may have pulling mechanism.
1.4. Make slowing down from too heavy inventory more noticeable.
At the moment we can put in inventory nearly twice more than characters carrying capacity with nothing happening. Would be better to make it as a kind of progression. The heavier above the capacity the slower.
1.5. Add more parts to rivers where we can walk through water, but with Athletics check similar to Stealth in vision cone check.
It's only for those places where rivers are a bit deeper and probably faster, but not too deep to require swimming. If the check is failed the character is prone and suffers from choking (1d4 damage per round).
1.6. Apply proper weight to such objects as barrels with liquids and powder, rocks, containers.
1.7. Consider inventory weight in attempts to drag around something heavy.
Dragging around a barrel with a full backpack is harder than just dragging around a barrel. With that added should be one QoL feature added - drop backpack, creating backpack container with all our inventory, after we take everything from it back to inventory it should disappear.

2. Dexterity-based.
2.1. Stealth and invisibility should have checks against listening, when moving.
At the moment stealth is a "little" bit overpowered as moving mode and in the same time useless as a skill to be proficient with. That's because If we don't get in the vision cone, we don't even roll for stealth. All NPC should have listening circle in addition to the cone. And we should roll for stealth every round in those circles if we move or cast spells with verbal component.

3. Intellect-based.
3.1. Add meaning to passing Arcana, History and Religion checks.
We are making a lot of checks for those skills which give us nothing but slightly more enlightened dialog options. In some cases we don't get even that. Religion check with Anders for example: we just understood that he's more likely lying to us, but we can't confront him immediately, we need to go to Karlach first anyway.
3.2. Add some Nature checks before the Underdark.
At the moment it feels like we don't even need that skill till we step in the Underdark and start making checks for it every 5 meters. Doesn't the surface have some nature too? Not so hostile nature, but still with something to know about it. I would apply Nature checks for:
A) Gathering plants for alchemy. If the check is failed, destroy the plant instead of gathering.
B) Recognising some types (mud or vines) of difficult terrain from afar. Otherwise, we shouldn't know that it's difficult terrain till we step in it.
C) Telling illusion from reality, when it comes to hiding one type of plants with another (the swamp).
D) Recognising poisonous fruits (apples from the swamp).

4. Wisdom-based.
4.1. Add Insight checks where they should be (someone lying to us, pretending in front of us, hiding truth, suffering from inner conflict).
I already mentioned it as a part of conversations and cutscenes problems. Only wish to add here that without those checks the skill is practically useless at the moment, while it could help us avoid some problems and for example lead to Kagha's betrayal investigation.
4.2. Add some Medicine checks in the game.
So far I saw that skill being used only once. While it's supposed to allow us to stabilise downed comrades at the very least. In actual D&D 5E the skill is quite useless too, but here some thoughts on how it could be used with some homebrew:
A) Stabilizing downed party members without any additional materials.
B) Slightly(1d4+Medicine) healing downed party members with consumption of a healer's kit.
C) Applying as a modifier to consuming healing potions ourselves.
D) Checks for corpses to understand what killed them by wounds.
E) Checks for side quests and dialogs where it suits. For example: burning inn quest could make us treat scorches on those whom we just saved after a check, the tiefling with broken legs in the grove could also use a Medicine check.
4.3. Add some Survival checks in the game.
One more heavily underused skill, while our characters are pretty much in a situation that asks for this skill to be used. Here where the checks could be applied with two drops of homebrew:
A) Searching for our camp for the first time.
B) Stages of improving our camp.
C) Gaining more useful loot from crates and barrels.
D) Modifier for short rest healing.
E) Allowing spellcasters to restore a spell slot on short rest based on a roll with DC20.

Last edited by Zellin; 17/11/20 03:35 PM. Reason: Better formatting
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Battle mode, movement and interactions changes.

1. Battle mode, turn-based mode and moving in the battle.
1.1. We should be able to move through friendly or smaller character's space as in D&D 5E.
It's really frustrating when just because of initiative order one of our own companions totally blocks our way to some area, as if he stands there with widespread hands saying "You shall not pass!". Even more frustrating when a little rat is being considered as an obstacle. So, please, fix it. Perfect if with proper animation applied, not just clipping through.
1.2. We should be able to stand up on our turn at the cost of half of our movement points and even attack with disadvantage if we are prone. As in D&D 5E.
Being prone doesn't include being unconscious so we actually can act and stand up on our own. And without those abilities fights with enemies like bulette are way too difficult.
1.3. Please, make the whole party enter battle mode if one of the party members entered it, doesn't matter what.
It's one of the greatest exploits and annoyances at the same time, which persists from D:OS. On one side we can start a fight with only one character and then come with the rest of our characters on our terms on that one character turn. On the other side if the rest of our characters are nearby, but in stealth, it all turns into a mess with them not rolling for initiative and not participating in the fight till we manage to switch to them and make them participate.
1.4. Create a big field of turn-based mode or even put all the world/current area on turn-based mode when we are fighting.
Turn-based mode supposed to give us precise control over our character in a fight, not make us slower than the rest of the world. But at the moment it does both. I probably beat a record for fast thinking and using controls, when I was killing a group of goblins in one room before a goblin from another room would enter at his normal walking speed. Add here rats and squirrels running in the middle of a fight at their normal speed, when we are supposed to be able to throw them… and you get the whole picture.
1.5. Add the formation scheme, which should be applied when we start the battle in a chained group.
You had this feature in D:OS1-2, but it would be great to improve it a bit:
A) Do not use the same formation for march. On the march we would want to have our character with the highest perception going first. In combat we would want our heaviest melee fighter to be closest to the enemies.
B) Allow us not just choose the scheme, but apply particular characters to particular spots. Some inspiration can be taken in Dragon Age: Origins. It had a separate formation interface with a scheme made of spots and a list of our characters, which we could drag in their spots.
1.6. Create some kind of smooth transition between ended battle and peaceful state for cases when we have downed or dead characters.
We should be able to help our fallen comrades before any after-battle conversations will start and regroup. It probably can be done by leaving us in turn-based mode, but to back up certain scenarios like Gale's death or no opportunity to revive dead characters, we should be able to exit that state unlike with normal battle mode.
1.7. Please, allow us to split climbing between 2 turns.
Sometimes our characters end their turn near some climbing spot with some movement points left, but not enough to climb the whole way. So we waste the points.
It also may be an interesting addition to give advantage on attacks against a character which stuck halfway climbing between turns.

2. Moving outside the battle.
2.1. Characters should break formation to go through narrow passes.
At the moment characters are trying to keep "diamond" formation, which leads 2 of them to “fight” for each narrow pass. They clip through each other when climbing, one of them always steps in a surface effect if we are going through some narrow clear line...
2.2. Do not move characters in a chained group unless the leading one moves away from the rest.
If the distance between characters is growing, they should run faster than usual for a few seconds to catch up and make the formation. But if the distance isn't changing or it is closing, they should stay where they are. Better if the distance will be measured from the closest character or some virtual point in the middle of the group. Also changing the leading character shouldn't count as change of distance.
2.3. Please, teach our characters to jump one by one when in a chained group, with no need to give the command to jump to each one of them.
It may be done in one of 2 ways:
A) When we move in a chained group use the jumping distance of our character with the shortest jumping distance. When we use the jump and make enough steps to clear the landing spot, the next character jumps from the same starting spot to the same landing spot. Then again a few steps, next jumping character. Similar to how characters are climbing at the moment, but with jumps instead of climbs in between.
B) After we jump with one character, the next one should attempt to jump from the same spot in the same direction. If something makes it impossible for him, he steps back and says what caused the problem: "Too far", "No place for me there"... In the same time other characters do their attempts, using their jumping distance.

3. Interactions.
3.1. Make sure we stay in control of who does the talking even if an NPC initiates the dialog.
My main character released Halsin, Halsin says “thank you” to Shadowheart just because she’s closer. I’m... loading last save to make sure my main character will stand closer next time. That’s the perfect example of the problem. Possible solutions:
A) If “Conversation and cutscenes 2.5” implemented with possibility to change who’s talking, treat the party as a whole at the start of every such conversation. All characters should stand in a group or around the place with no one sticking out too much and then we should make a click to choose who’s talking and that character moves in the spot-light with rest moving to their normal space slightly behind. That would be the perfect version, because in the example above it could be Shadowheart, who released Halsin.
B) Do not allow NPC to initiate a dialog, but make them do a “bark” to let us know that they have something to say.
An exception can be made for cases when we are not supposed to answer and the NPC talks to the whole party anyway.
C) Default all such talking to our main character. It’s somewhat the worst version, but at least our main character will be the shining star most of the time.
3.2. Please, teach our characters to actually carry objects instead of carefully throwing them around.
The implementation should look like this:
We get a button for "carry/put down". We use it on an object that we can move, but cannot put in our inventory. After that the object floats moving with our character (perfect if with proper animation). The character is slowed if the weight of his inventory plus carried object weight is bigger than his carrying capacity. NPC can react accordingly if the object is stolen. But the character can go in different areas and go through unlocked doors by pushing them without losing the object. And we can attach objects that way to the whole group and move them all together. When we are done with carrying the object, we just click the same button to put it down and choose a spot close to our character. It should solve 2 problems: 1) not being able to carry something to another area; 2) can carry only with one character at once.

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Good feedback, I agree with all of these except for 3.2. That one sounds like it would just be more of a pain. The rest of your suggestions would be great!

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Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
Good feedback, I agree with all of these except for 3.2. That one sounds like it would just be more of a pain. The rest of your suggestions would be great!

Thanks.
About 3.2. You mean more of a pain for us or programmers? If for us, then why do you feel so? I saw this kind of moving heavy/huge things around implemented in other games and it worked better for me than what Larian are using. Less clicks to move an object far away, no separation between moving the object to new location and coming there with or character(they move together)...

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Balance and difficulty.
I've made my thoughts on AC/HP/etc known in other forum posts. In summary, I would be happy with all of your suggestions 1.1-1.3 (I suggest that HP shouldn't be changed significantly; if AC is changed then STs need to be similarly changed)
1.2: In this "subtract disadvantages from advantages" scenario, what if you have 2 Advantages? 3d20 pick highest or normal Advantage?
--My suggested solution is to make height/backstab a flat +1 to +5 bonus that stacks with other flat bonuses. (I suggest +2 or +3)

1.4 Larian, as the DM, is allowed to change monsters. However, they should make less monsters with disengage jump abilities (spider, minotaur, bulette) because this invalidates the role of tanks/frontline fighters

2.1: I'm fine with tadpole rolls being auto successes, with the assumption that something actually bad will happen to us if we use it too much. If there is absolutely no consequence (and in fact, more benefit in that you get more story and you dominate others' minds) from using the tadpole, that's bad. Cost-benefit/risk-reward is important.

Battle mode, movement and interactions changes.
1.2 Currently the game automatically has characters stand up, using half their movement. EXCEPT if you fall over during your turn; in this case your turn ends. A fix for the latter is much more important than making the former manual instead of automatic.

1.7 As far as I know, climbing ladders does not cost any movement??

I either strongly agree with or am not opposed to the rest of your suggestions from your past 3 posts (the ones I've read). Good feedback.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Balance and difficulty.
I've made my thoughts on AC/HP/etc known in other forum posts. In summary, I would be happy with all of your suggestions 1.1-1.3 (I suggest that HP shouldn't be changed significantly; if AC is changed then STs need to be similarly changed)
1.2: In this "subtract disadvantages from advantages" scenario, what if you have 2 Advantages? 3d20 pick highest or normal Advantage?
--My suggested solution is to make height/backstab a flat +1 to +5 bonus that stacks with other flat bonuses. (I suggest +2 or +3)

1.4 Larian, as the DM, is allowed to change monsters. However, they should make less monsters with disengage jump abilities (spider, minotaur, bulette) because this invalidates the role of tanks/frontline fighters

2.1: I'm fine with tadpole rolls being auto successes, with the assumption that something actually bad will happen to us if we use it too much. If there is absolutely no consequence (and in fact, more benefit in that you get more story and you dominate others' minds) from using the tadpole, that's bad. Cost-benefit/risk-reward is important.

Battle mode, movement and interactions changes.
1.2 Currently the game automatically has characters stand up, using half their movement. EXCEPT if you fall over during your turn; in this case your turn ends. A fix for the latter is much more important than making the former manual instead of automatic.

1.7 As far as I know, climbing ladders does not cost any movement??

I either strongly agree with or am not opposed to the rest of your suggestions from your past 3 posts (the ones I've read). Good feedback.

1.2. 2d20, never more. Not willing to make it overpowered. I'm managing to get 4 advantages at once sometimes.
1.4. I'm agreeing on the fact that they are allowed to change. Just some changes at the moment are making fights nearly impossible or asking for a lot of cheese.
2.1. So far there were no real consequences. The Absolute is always there to save the day until we are properly indoctrinated.

1.2. Yeah, the skipped turn part is what concerns me. Stand up manually or automatically - I do not really care. The point is: we are not unconscious, we should be able to act.
1.7. It does. Try to come to a ladder mid fight with just a little bit of movement points and the game won't allow you to climb.

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Originally Posted by Zellin
D&D 5E battle rules rework.
I used this site https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex to make sure I'm not bending any rules unintentionally. In overall I would say that while some of your changes are logical some others mitigated differences between classes way too much.

1. Actions and attacks.
1.1. Disengage should be separated from jumps. And it should be full action for everyone but lvl2+ rogue.
It's way too OP that we can just always jump away from every threat on every character and kills positioning tactics. And aside from being faithfull to D&D 5E, it's logical, you need some agility to easily move away from a fight. Disengage being bonus actions for rogues is part of them being agile and fast.
1.2. Please, add Dodge action.
Sometimes it feels more important to do everything possible to save the character than do anything else with him (hello, Gale), but we simply can't do that.
1.3. Please, make Help work as in D&D 5E.
Working exactly like in D&D 5E it'll still help in a way against prone (in preventive way even), sleeping, enwebbed, ensnared and some other things. It will lose anti-downed effect ofcourse, but that one is unrealistic and useless, we are getting our characters up with help just to get them downed again in a turn.
1.4. Hide should be full action for everyone but lvl2+ rouge.
Same as with Disengage rogues are pro with hiding others are not. Come on, you're killing appealing sides of my favourite class, Larian.
1.5. Please, add Ready action or mode.
It's inconvenient that on each turn we are forced to act now or never, with no way to decide to wait a bit for enemy's move.
I can imagine 3 ways of implementing Ready action from D&D 5E:
A) Right by the book. Click Ready to switch on planning mode, click on enemy we are going to observe, click on direction (let's add segments around the enemy) or a point on landscape or one of our characters to say if we are waiting for movement or being on the spot or attack attempt, click on our action that should be used, click Ready again to switch off planning mode and move on, consume Reaction point and lock the character from being used. If the enemy does what we expected - execute prepared actions consuming Action, Bonus action and movement points, if not - skip the turn. Maybe better would be to change the rules here slightly and allow our character to act at the end of turn if the readied reaction wasn't executed.
B) D:OS1 approach. Click on Ready to move our character to the end of queue for current turn. After the end of turn move our character back where he was originally by initiative.
C) Semi-D:OS1 approach. Click on Ready to make our character able to make his turn at any given moment by the end of current turn.
1.6. Please, add Search action to represent more active search by forcing one more perception roll.
In some areas it's way obvious that there is something hidden and in table-top session in such area I would insist on searching more thoroughly than just take one look, one roll and move on. Plus, it'll make players reload less to find secrets. To make things more interesting and avoid abusing of active search let's make failing to many rolls for same spot potentially dangerous. For example a trap my be activated acidently, while searching.
1.7. Shove should be full action/type of attack as in D&D 5E. Maybe with melee attack being done in addion at the same time, if melee weapon chosen at the moment of shoving.
Bonus actions stand for something fast and simple or doable at the same time as normal action. Some classes ability to perform some full actions as bonus actions is way of showing their mastery in corresponding areas. Effectivly shoving someone, who doesn't want to be shoved, in a middle of a fight is not that fast and simple even with some training. Only with a melee atack it maybe possible to shove and strike with weapon at the same time.
1.8. Please-please, add Grapple action/type of attack right as in D&D 5E plus living shield effect.
While on first sight it's not needed, cause you just control one enemy, while loosing your mobility and there are so many other ways to controll an enemy already… on the second sight it's a cool way to save a character by using grappled enemy as a living shield. So technicly grappling someone should slow down our character, but incoming attacks should be mostly transferred to the grappled enemy, and his sapient comrades should think twice before attacking our grappling character.
1.9. Please, make it possible to perform additional bonus actions instead of full actions.
According to D&D 5E we can perform what would be bonus action more than once in a turn, just with full action(s) being replaced by additional bonus action(s). It's not that hard to jump twice in a few seconds for example. And it would be great improvement to our movement possibilities in a fight.

2. Spellcasting.
2.1. We should have a way to intentionally stop concentrating on spells and cantrips with prolonged effects that require concentration.
It's very inconvinient and inconsistent when we cast fog cloud for example and then can't do a thing in that area, while it's our own magic, on which we are concentrating to keep it existing. By D&D 5E a caster can just stop concentrating at any moment for free to get rid of his own spell effect.
2.2. If there is nothing to put on fire/or freeze to ice and the spell or cantrip doesn't create fire/ice surface by D&D5e - don't create fire/ice surface.
While it's fun to put things on fire (pyromaniac here), and fights were fun in D:OS2 with all those surfaces, with D&D lack of teleportation abilities for melee fighters too many surfaces turn each fight into mages, archers and jumpers contest. In D:OS1 there was same exact problem, I'm playing it now with 2 melee classes and it's painfull as hell even with full backpacks of grenades to deal with surfaces.
2.3. Please, tie scrolls and magic items to classes as they are supposed to be by D&D 5E.
Having them being usable by everyone with no restrictions doesn't make the game more fun, but makes it harder to tell one class from another and decide who should carry them. And after that it removes some tactical planing considering characters firepower.



YUP!

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Originally Posted by Zellin

2. Conversation and cutscenes.
2.1. We should be able to use what we have in our inventory for a conversation.
For example making someone dying drink a health potion instead of casting healing on him (saving Findal).
2.2. If an NPC lies to us there should be insight check always and always with logical responce if we pass the check.
Nettie's "cure" was one piece of being artificially clueless for my drow rogue, while there should be insight check with 1-5 difficulty since Nettie nearly confess herself. Also that moment asks for knowledge check before we ask "What is it?". Some characters may be able to recognise the sting.
2.3. The cases when we are going to kill currently friendly NPC should be solvable throught dialog.
Like poisoning or luring into a trap with passing a deception ("Have a drink", "I need to show you something") and/or dexterity ("Oops, sorry for that (poisoned) niddle") check. Right now I feel really stupid coming to Kagha and telling her "I'm asked to kill you" to start a fight, while I have some deadly poison and wine with me.
2.4. Mitigate shoked and happy facial animations, please, or even better make it possible to choose our emotions somehow.
It seems inconsistent when my evil Lolth-sworn drow jokes around about how drow kill kids more often than enslave, chooses to entirely ignore little tiefling-girl problem and then stares super-shoked at her corpse.
2.5. Please, improve companions and coop-comrades involvement in cutscenes and conversations.
Make us being able to tell them to deal with some talking through dialog option and make their own dice-rolls. Also in some cutscenes companions seem missing, like when I already have Shadowheart, Gale, and then stumbling on Astarion with his knife and those two not even shown worried, not making a single move to help (Shadowheart maybe, but Gale doesn't strike me as the type).
2.6. Make companions more eager to talk.
If they want to talk about something right now, comment on current situation and we are free to talk, they should talk. If wouldn't click on Lae'zel and Gale I would never get their outbursts after Nettie's incident, but in reality that's something they would do without me asking.
2.7. Please, make companions more lively in the camp.
Calling me if they want to talk, talking to each other about our little adventures, walking around, keeping the fire, whatever, but not just playing same animation over and over.
2.8. Companions should approve/disapprove what we choose to do, not what we got on dice. If there are numbers somewhere behind approves, the failed attempt can be approved/disapproved less than succesful to adress that our little evil company loves succesful people more.
It's just how relationships work. We do not dislike someone, just because someone else didn't listen to his persuation attempt.
2.9. Either remove approvement/disapprovement for not very impactful deed of ours for companions that are not with us, either show us how they got to know.
It's cool that they know. It's strange that they know literally everything.


I like these ideas but there is no chance they will be able to implement them in a good and consistent way throughout the game, because there are way too many variables to account for. You should keep in mind this is not a d&d session but a video game, and you can't improvise on the spot like a human DM. You have to stick to the story you have. So if you need character to lie to you for the story to progress you can't have the player figuring it out mid sentence. You also can't have multiple options for every NPC you can kill in the game simply because it's too much work. The only thing they can do is give us more options than what we have right now, but they can't give us unlimited options.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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Zellin Offline OP
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Originally Posted by Abits

I like these ideas but there is no chance they will be able to implement them in a good and consistent way throughout the game, because there are way too many variables to account for. You should keep in mind this is not a d&d session but a video game, and you can't improvise on the spot like a human DM. You have to stick to the story you have. So if you need character to lie to you for the story to progress you can't have the player figuring it out mid sentence. You also can't have multiple options for every NPC you can kill in the game simply because it's too much work. The only thing they can do is give us more options than what we have right now, but they can't give us unlimited options.

Welp, my task is to suggest. Their to decide if they can or want to implement all of this/some of this.
But so far… talking about exposing lies in their quest design it wouldn't open totally different routes, it more like would allow to skip some pain on the way. And as I said in my later post in some cases (Kagha) it would just lead to the quest. Imagine we are talking to Kagha the first time, succeding the roll and narrator says "She seems conflicted, she hides something. Maybe you will be able to find the answer if you take a closer look." - and that's it. The player now knows for sure that he can pry a bit and find something.
And about killing via dialog I wouldn't really apply that to enemies, attacking which wouldn't lead to some bloody mayhem (kill you, kill your father, you brother, you mother and that guy which just pass by, who happened to be a quest-giver) or which we are not supposed to kill stealthy. At the moment there are like…*hard thinking*… 2 such enemies? Kagha and Dror. We can kill stealthy some and some others are just surronded by cannon fodder by design.

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I swear I replied to the thread thinking you for your time in putting this together. But don't see it so, thanks.

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Originally Posted by RumRunner151
I swear I replied to the thread thinking you for your time in putting this together. But don't see it so, thanks.

Must be some king of forum gremlin, who ate your previous thanks. Anyway thank you for appreciation.

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Originally Posted by Zellin

Welp, my task is to suggest. Their to decide if they can or want to implement all of this/some of this.
But so far… talking about exposing lies in their quest design it wouldn't open totally different rougtes, it more like would allow to skip some pain on the way. And as I said in my later post in some cases (Kagha) it would just lead to the quest. Imagine we are talking to Kagha the first time, succeding the roll and narrator says "She seems conflicted, she hides something. Maybe you will be able to find the answer if you take a closer look." - and that's it. The player now knows for sure that he can pry a bit and find something.
And about killing via dialog I wouldn't really apply that to enemies, attacking which wouldn't lead to some bloody mayhem (kill you, kill your father, you brother, you mother and that guy which just pass by, who happened to be a quest-giver) or which we are not supposed to kill stealthy. At the moment there are like…*hard thinking*… 2 such enemies? Kagha and Dror. We can kill stealthy some and some others are just surronded by cannon fodder by design.

Welp, I stand by what I said. Don't get me wrong, more nerative choices=good, but there are an infinite number of possibilities for each potential choice, and the writers can only implement choices that can develop the story they want to tell, since they can't improvise like a human DM. The case you described with Kagha is fine, but you can't generalize it in any way. Because maybe in this case it works, but in other cases it might not. For example, you can add option to force Shadowheart to reveal what the artifact is or even option to steal it and figure out yourself, but it will hurt the pacing of the story.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
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Originally Posted by Abits

Welp, I stand by what I said. Don't get me wrong, more nerative choices=good, but there are an infinite number of possibilities for each potential choice, and the writers can only implement choices that can develop the story they want to tell, since they can't improvise like a human DM. The case you described with Kagha is fine, but you can't generalize it in any way. Because maybe in this case it works, but in other cases it might not. For example, you can add option to force Shadowheart to reveal what the artifact is or even option to steal it and figure out yourself, but it will hurt the pacing of the story.

I got what you mean the first time. I'm trying to explain, that I'm not trying to insist that they should create infinite number of possibilities. They should avoid feeling of lack of those possibilities, when the player character enforced to act stupid not because of player choice or circumstances being stronger than him, but because there is no option to act smart.
PS: By the way talking about insight rolls, they did implement "detect thoughts", aren't they? So it's same route with different flavour.

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