Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Get over the differences from 5E

Rather too many people here getting frothy over changes from core 5e rules. Larian do their own version of 5e rules. Elemental surfaces are fun, make the map layout and positioning absolutely crucial, and allow for much more tactical play. Some people get hung up on minute differences from 5e: maybe enjoy the game as it is, if it doesn't work in the game, then critique it in those terms. 5e isn't a bible and it's not useful to be fundamentalist.

Exactly my thought. Whats that undying obsession to be word for word like the books?! Have you guys even played BG2?.?
I recently played again BG2. Read throuh D&Dadv.2e . Half of all the spells dont match, discriptions are different ect ect....
But somehow playing BG2 was an incredible experience, as I remembered it.. It FELT d&d.The ATMOSPHERE is spot on.
BG3 doesnt have to be letter by letter a 5e game to be great.

The changes make the game worse

The optimum tactical play in this game is to run 4 tiefling wizards spamming magic missiles, because it ignores all the ill conceived changes to targeting they've made, and you have fire resistance to deal with the entire world being on fire all of the time

A changed ruleset might be fun but while the DnD 5e ruleset is balanced the stuff Larian is throwing at us is not. And with every deviation they have to balance more, time they could use better to improve the game at other points (e.g. story). And by the way there are already enough threads about DnD vs Larian rules so if you have something useful to contribute do it there. If you read these threads you will also see that there are a lot less fundamentalists than you think and many DnD folllowers have valid reasons to question Larians approach.

I don't really care what rules the game follows as long as it's good.

That said, I find it extremely annoying that I'm constantly on fire or drenched in acid because every goblin is spamming explosive arrows and bombs. This ceases to be tactical or fun if it's the norm.

I also don't like the amount of cheese and overpowered combat moves this game has. Like the free overpowered shoving and disengaging. Combat is reduced into mindless spamming of overpowered abilities rather than smart positioning and tactics. And this difficulty is apparently supposed to be "hard". Looking at the 5e rules, most if not all of the cheese and overpowered abilities are Larian changes.

Or 4 Thieves, or 4 Battlemasters, or Battlemaster (Lae'Zel) + Thief (Astarion) + Ranged Shove Warlock (Wyll) + Disposable slot (Player character). There's plenty of variety in terms of what works to the point that you may as well just be saying "Coordination is the optimal strategy".

I don't have that much of a problem with changes from 5e, unless they are really unbalanced.

You know, I love people that respond like you.

Because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Yes BG 1 and BG 2 were and are not Virtual Table Top engines. They changed how some spell and abilities worked. So why is that different than what Larian has butchered into DoS 3: Faerun DLC?

Black Isle made changes when it was *necessary*, because a computer can't accurately recreate various effects like a human DM.

Larian made changes based on...literally no idea. Because they felt their style of play (DoS where every surface is an effect, every fight must be at full resources, every fight has to try to have a new gimmick, barrelmancy, etc) was superior to the style of Baldur's Gate? Because a few people with minimal experience at D&D played a few rounds and didn't like seeing "miss" chances? Because they have so little knowledge about how to balance a game properly and didn't trust the rules of 5e, which have been play tested for 6+ years now?

And you're right, BG 3 doesn't have to be by the letter a 5e game to be great. In fact, in *can't* be for the same reasoning, computers today still can't handle certain spells/abilities. BUT THE DIFFERENCE is that Larian started with DoS 2 and tried to hamfist in the bare minimum buzz terms from 5e to make it seem like a D&D game, rather than starting from the base rules of 5e and tweaking them to make it work in a digital environment. That's why BG 3 feels like a buggy DoS mod, and not a D&D game.

Changes such as removing spell reactions (and configurable reactions in general) and drastically underpowering both players and monsters are bad, however

The player is underpowered?

Larian sells the game as a Baldur's Gate game and a D&D game so they have to stick to the rules.
Minor changes are great because everything in the tabletop don't work in a video game but this is not supposed to be a DoS-Like (even if some DoS's mecanics are great and suits very well to the game).

D&D exists for about 45 years so yes, it's a bible and it looks like the 5th edition is really appreciated by role playing players. I trust them and I'd love this game to become a true BG and D&D experience.

I didn't realize all of those players were still playing the unaltered first edition, I guess it really is hard to improve perfection though.

BG 1 and 2 started from the table top rules and adjusted as was *necessary*. They became two of the greatest RPGs ever made, to the point where a major studio is making an unbelievable popular sequel 20 years later.

BG 3 is starting from DoS 2 and incorporating the bare minimum needed to make the game sorta seem like a D&D game, but in name only.

The rules of 5e have 6+ years of playtesting to support them in addition to baked in added content. DoS 1 and 2 were great and fun games, but their balance was laughable, to the point of being meme'd into the ground. If you think you can design a better rules system for an RPG go right on ahead. But there's a reason 5e has absolutely dwarfed every other RPG in the market.

It's not very helpful to make blanket statements like this or to be fundamentalist about a particular set of rules. Honestly, how many other rulesets have you ever played? 5e isn't considered the best ruleset any more than Coke is considered the best drink in the world. I've played about fifteen game systems over about thirty-five years of gaming. I'd choose almost any other system than 5e for my campaigns. It has the primary merit of being widely known, allowing Larian to reach a wider audience.

I think your wording is rather over the top here but I do agree that shoving is rather too useful and it's odd that main hand attacks are routinely less powerful than the free shove move.

Goblins with fire arrows - again, agree, slightly too common. I think this could be toned down. Maybe they're going for lots of visual effects to showcase the EA game, and will tone it down (along with the number of empty containers, junk and scrolls, I hope). Also, clearly, barrels should weigh more.

I like the idea of disengaging being harder, too. I would suggest ladders be very risky to climb if there's a foe at the top. Holding ground/ defending a narrow area should be more doable than currently.

Yeah, that's the point. 5e is in a great sweet spot of accessibility without unnecessary complexity. It's a fantastic game system that is shallow in one end of the pool to help people get introduced, then gradually gets as deep as a player wants, to a point. Beyond that point, we enter the realm of splat books bullshit and such.

I don't know, a dozen or so? Nothing even holds a candle to 5e in terms of simplicity creating synergy and balance. 5e isn't even remooootely perfect. The rules for Stealth are a travesty. RAW Summons still make DMing a nightmare. But looking at 5e and trying to deny it's a better system than what's out there is like trying to say the horse and buggy is better than the car because they have lower emissions. There's a reason it became so wildly known and more popular than any other ruleset, ever.

So start with 5e. Tweak it as needed to work in a computer game. Rebalance the parts that have been identified as not working well (Ranger class, Stealth rules, etc). Don't start from DoS.

5e has 6+ years of playtesting and support as a tabletop game, claiming its history somehow validates it as a crpg is nonsensical. I'm also not sure how to tell you this but BG 1 and 2 were far from balanced and that can't be made more obvious than by the fact that you had to cite their fame as crpgs and not their fame for game balance.

Well if you look at combat you could say the same for D&D the optimum is to run 4 Druids who cast woodland beings and polymorph them into t-rex. or some other insane builds.. that's not the point in D&D and that's not the point in BG3

The optimum tactical play in DnD has always been to run 4 Wizards because they're awesome. So it's true to the spirit of the tabletop.

5e is not perfect but it's good.
changes to it are not necessarily bad.
but they used 5e as a base and made changes to it for the worse.

i just want a good system. 5e would be a good system.
if they changed it for the better i would be happy.