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- If you really want to use surfaces adapt them to DnD systems, you can e.g. make a constituion check every turn to determine whether you take damage and after success you are not burning/poisend etc. anymore. If there is only a 30% chance of a high constitution character to take damage you needn't to bloat anything


Running through a small patch of fire in leather boots shouldn't do any damage much less kill you. I feel like the surfaces are a bit too lethal right now. I don't know if we need checks but they need to be made more forgiving somehow.

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Originally Posted by dunehunter


In most case warlock just uses EB in BG3 because dc spells sucks now compared with auto attack.

Fighter in BG3 has no grapple so sorry no such combo.

I recommend you to play the game before comment, your experience is on paper.


You are out of your mind wrong. Shatter is still king in level 3-4 combat, one of the few things held over properly. Do you all also not realize that Scorching Ray + Hex works?

I'm aware you can't grapple. Go look at my post history. Adding Grapple, and fixing about a million other small changes to make the rules more closely follow 5e will result in melee combat being significantly more important. For example, the Precision maneuver that you just casually didn't respond to. You know, the game you claim to know better than I?

Really weird too that you haven't realized that Fighters can take the best advantage of the GWM feat, making them broke as shit and able to 1 round nearly everything pre-Underdark via a Haste Potion + Action Surge + Advantage + Bless. Almost like you don't know the game systems (5e or DoS) nearly as well as you think you do.

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Originally Posted by Eugerome

I don't know why you would assume 5e is not for me - I have been enjoying it as a player and a DM. But this is not about 5e, this is about BG3.

I think you are missing my point. In 5e most of the joy doesn't necessarily come from combat, but from the roleplay. The rogue will shine if your party is breaking into a dungeon, scouting ahead, stealing from npc's. But in combat you pretty much do one thing - you set up and execute Sneak Attacks.

BG3 exploration and social interactions are scaled down compared to 5e. I am sure you can't deny that. Most of the time you will be fighting.

And if during the first chapter of the game the rogue's key feature brings very little to the table, then why play it. That is the point I am trying to make.

I feel like tweaking the enemies is the simplest solution. If every goblin you faced in EA was a 7 HP 15 AC goblin then the game would quickly become incredibly boring and frustrating for classes that focus on hitting AC. Which at the moment comprise 4/6 classes in EA. I include Warlock in this because most of your time you will be using Eldrich Blast for damage output.

Which is why Larian scales goblin AC - they seem to have AC 9-14 from what I saw. Which I think is a perfectly fine approach.


Because you think Rogue's only purpose in combat is to be a Sneak Attack generator?

Remove all of the stupidly added Bonus Actions everyone gets and see how much more useful Rogue's become in combat beyond just Sneak Attacking.

The easiest solution? Start from the rules of 5e and tweak as needed. Stop thinking that every individual character needs to be able to be the star of every single combat. Stop thinking that having 1 character miss or do little to no damage in a fight must be avoided at all cost. Realize that the player controls a *party*. So yeah, in one fight the Fighter gets to GWM the boss into oblivion while the Cleric is just casting buff spells. Maybe the next combat is against Shadows so the Fighter is just swinging wildly, doing little, but helping keep the enemy in place for the Cleric to drop a big Turn Undead.

Seriously, realize that "It isn't fun to miss, so we need to make it so players don't feel bad" is wrong, and so many problems go away. Larian then gets to take advantage of 6+ years of play testing, for free, and can focus resources on the already identified weak points. BG 1 and BG 2 lasted for over 2 decades, longer than some people playing BG 3 have even been alive, and still are constantly topping "best RPGs of all time" lists. Follow their example, trust in the rules of 5e.

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I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3

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Originally Posted by Zorax
I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3


I agree with you 100%, but the problem is we aren't even remotely close to the hardcore option being in the game. Based on the hard left turn from the 5e ruleset and direct porting of so many DOS 'features', it seems like Larian isn't interested in that hardcore option.

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Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
Originally Posted by Zorax
I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3


I agree with you 100%, but the problem is we aren't even remotely close to the hardcore option being in the game. Based on the hard left turn from the 5e ruleset and direct porting of so many DOS 'features', it seems like Larian isn't interested in that hardcore option.


I wouldn't give up about that so early in the EA process. This was their first shot and I think they of course come from the DOS battle system which is fundamentally different. We won't persuade them to remove surfaces and to be honest I think they don't even need to. But instead of adjusting DnD things to their creations they should adapt their creations to DnD which is far easier in my opinion. And doable. And our job is to provide them ideas and suggestions on how to do that. Given time I'm sure they will implement at least some of these ideas.

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Originally Posted by Zorax
Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
Originally Posted by Zorax
I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3


I agree with you 100%, but the problem is we aren't even remotely close to the hardcore option being in the game. Based on the hard left turn from the 5e ruleset and direct porting of so many DOS 'features', it seems like Larian isn't interested in that hardcore option.


I wouldn't give up about that so early in the EA process. This was their first shot and I think they of course come from the DOS battle system which is fundamentally different. We won't persuade them to remove surfaces and to be honest I think they don't even need to. But instead of adjusting DnD things to their creations they should adapt their creations to DnD which is far easier in my opinion. And doable. And our job is to provide them ideas and suggestions on how to do that. Given time I'm sure they will implement at least some of these ideas.


Wholeheartedly disagree. Because doing it that way ends up in the massive mess of mechanics we have now. And this game wasn't marketed as DoS 3 set in Faerun. It was advertised, and milked for all the nostalgia, as a D&D game in the spirit of the Baldur's Gate series. Starting from an entirely different game system results in butterfly effects that ruin the adaptation attempt. Changing one small thing, like letting everyone Hide as a Bonus Action, carries down through dozens and dozens of different balance changes. Having so many surfaces chips away at HP in a rule system that isn't built to support that, whereas DoS 1 & 2 were developed, at their core, as being games where you went into every fight with full resources.

Starting from the other direction (the rules system you want to use) means you get to take advantage of all the balance built into that system. You get 6+ years of play testing, for free, and tons of additional content available. Start with the rules, then build the mechanics. I get that modding DoS 2 code is easier, and if they want to make the cheapest game possible that's the route I'd go. But if they want to make the third installment of the Baldur's Gate series and a game that will remain monumentally popular 20+ years from now, start from the rules first.

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Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
Wholeheartedly disagree. Because doing it that way ends up in the massive mess of mechanics we have now. And this game wasn't marketed as DoS 3 set in Faerun. It was advertised, and milked for all the nostalgia, as a D&D game in the spirit of the Baldur's Gate series. Starting from an entirely different game system results in butterfly effects that ruin the adaptation attempt. Changing one small thing, like letting everyone Hide as a Bonus Action, carries down through dozens and dozens of different balance changes. Having so many surfaces chips away at HP in a rule system that isn't built to support that, whereas DoS 1 & 2 were developed, at their core, as being games where you went into every fight with full resources.

Starting from the other direction (the rules system you want to use) means you get to take advantage of all the balance built into that system. You get 6+ years of play testing, for free, and tons of additional content available. Start with the rules, then build the mechanics. I get that modding DoS 2 code is easier, and if they want to make the cheapest game possible that's the route I'd go. But if they want to make the third installment of the Baldur's Gate series and a game that will remain monumentally popular 20+ years from now, start from the rules first.


The fundamental DnD mechanics are implemented correctly (mostly) they just changed much in terms of enemy stats, advantage/disadvantage and action/bonus action need of skills/spells. I admit this has a huge impact on gameplay from a player perspective but I don't think it is hard to change or very time consuming from a programmer perspective (it's just the enemy database entries and a few lines of code). The real time consuming stuff is the testing after changing to original DnD ruleset when they see that certain encounter wouldn't work if you apply original DnD ruleset. But that's what EA is for. I fully agree with you that first step is to go back as close to DnD as possible and then look how they could integrate their own stuff like surfaces so it works with the rest of the system. But as I wrote I don't think it is so hard to do that that I would give up hope it is ever coming. They will have no choice if they want to ever come to an end with balancing issues...

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Pathfinder Kingmaker has a very simple solution for the 15AC problem.

They have an option to boost your dice rolls in combat. It's the default setting. If you want to go hardcore then you can set the rolls to be realistic and whiff to your heart's content.

I mean - I hate Pathfinder Kingmaker's story, but they handled implementing the tabletop rules very well. It's an extremely mature take, they know that following the rules to the letter isn't a casual experience for a CRPG.

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Originally Posted by st33d
Pathfinder Kingmaker has a very simple solution for the 15AC problem.

They have an option to boost your dice rolls in combat. It's the default setting. If you want to go hardcore then you can set the rolls to be realistic and whiff to your heart's content.

I mean - I hate Pathfinder Kingmaker's story, but they handled implementing the tabletop rules very well. It's an extremely mature take, they know that following the rules to the letter isn't a casual experience for a CRPG.


I aggree that Pathfinder Kingmaker stayed pretty close to the ruleset. But they managed to screw up when it came to encounters and the enemies the threw at you. Especially later in the game far too many enemies used touch AC targeting skills against you which rendered the typical heavy armored knight useless and made dex tank builds far stronger than they needed to be. The enemies were also far easier to hit with touch AC so that playing a kinesticist (DLC) for example made for a far easier playthrough. So just staying close to the rules wouldn't fix e.g. the encounters in BG3 (e.g. with 20 goblins at lvl 3/4) but it would be a step in the right direction.

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Originally Posted by dunehunter
Originally Posted by 1varangian
Originally Posted by Isaac Springsong
To fix up a DRASTIC misconception that have been spouted as truth in this thread:

Larian has stated that the difficulty for this EA is the intended "Hard" difficulty. Not story mode, not normal difficulty. Hard. They are intentionally doing this to gather data on which fights may be harder or easier than intended.

This feels like "easy" with a lot of cheese sprinkled on top.

If this is really the "hard" difficulty the following things need to happen:

- Barrels get realistic weight and placement
- Long rest has consequences (like random encounters)
- Visibility cones are extended so you can't hide in plain sight and cheese with Stealth
- Disengage is an action
- Shove uses an attack
- Jump in combat triggers an AoO
- Free backstabs every turn are removed
- Equipping a Shield is an action (switching equipped weapons can be instant or a bonus action, but the end of turn Shield cheese needs to go)
- Armor can not be removed much less equipped in combat
- Wizards can not learn literally all spells (ok maybe this is a bug?)
- Magic pockets are removed so you can't use items from whoever's inventory who isn't even in the same fight
- Torch is not the best weapon
- add more enemies rather than give everyone fire and acid bombs and paint every battlefield in surfaces
- Goblins get their stats back smile



+1

I forgot to add..

- "Help" does not magically and infinitely revive unconscious characters

The scenarios where an "aggro magnet" character gets knocked out and is revived by "help" and then knocked out again in an endless loop while the rest of the party is attacking the enemy are ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Zorax
I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3


It's not simpler. It's simpler for a forum poster to SAY. It is not simpler for Larian to implement.

Adding a second mode or an "option" to the game would mean needing to make three completely separate builds for testing balance and mechanics, and to support all three modes. That is essentially tripling the workload of the design and QA teams, and tripling the time and resources needed, and likely reducing the quality of all modes.

That is a LOT more work than essentially reverting a lot of their changes closer to 5e and then making smaller tweaks from there to keep it closer to 5e, but still fun for most people.

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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by Zorax
I think there is a rather simple solution for everyone in this thread:

- if you want to hit regularly and come through the story without much optimizing take a low difficulty whre AC and attributes for enemies are lowered but keep their HP as in DnD ruleset
- if you want to play hardcore DnD take a higher difficulty level with pretty much all stats as in the rules (there will be a few deviations but that is unavoidable)
- if you want a high difficulty but a game mechanic based on bloated HP stacks and safe hits as 95% of all games out there just play one of them or wait for DOS3


It's not simpler. It's simpler for a forum poster to SAY. It is not simpler for Larian to implement.

Adding a second mode or an "option" to the game would mean needing to make three completely separate builds for testing balance and mechanics, and to support all three modes. That is essentially tripling the workload of the design and QA teams, and tripling the time and resources needed, and likely reducing the quality of all modes.

That is a LOT more work than essentially reverting a lot of their changes closer to 5e and then making smaller tweaks from there to keep it closer to 5e, but still fun for most people.

So why don't they start with hardcore 5e rules for the "hard" difficulty?

Then for "normal" difficulty lower the ACs, let everything be a bonus action etc.etc. whatever they think is more "fun".

For me fun is having to think in combat instead of merrily spam free and bonus actions and jump and cheese with a huge arsenal of Gouda.

Last edited by 1varangian; 18/10/20 02:23 PM.
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Originally Posted by 1varangian
So why don't they start with hardcore 5e rules for the "hard" difficulty?

Then for "normal" difficulty lower the ACs, let everything be a bonus action etc.etc. whatever they think is more "fun".

For me fun is having to think in combat instead of merrily spam free and bonus actions and jump and cheese with a huge arsenal of Gouda.


We're probably more in agreement than you seem to think. I'm saying that having the game rules and systems work drastically differently based on difficulty level is a lot more work, because you need to test and balance all the difficulty levels. People will expect the eventual full release of a $60/$80 game to have all the difficulty levels properly tested and balanced.

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wow does so many people really want cookie cutter enemies. Which is what happens if you pull monster stats straight out of the rule book. Even Dms tweak and adjust somethings, especially if the monster in question, or those previously used were simply slaughtered like sheep. Usually even sheep fight back better then baker monsters. I can't put my list of inner goblin Hp amounts do to fact that it's used on the other thread exclusively about hp bloat. Mostly the 137 hp spider, that falls like (insert favorite fall joke here.) a fat kid on a pile of doughnuts.

As for the massive amount of 50+ hp goblins I'm still looking for those. Sadly I think it's just some few peoples exageratted, inflated reaction to one creature. Which isn't giving good feedback, but instead pointing to something that really isn't a problem.

Goblin having 7 AC and 12hp makes it still fodder for any half baked party, of alcoholic, half blind, one legged dorfs that come bumbling through. What is a problem though is cookie cuttering the crap out of everything, or copy pasting everything. So when you waltz into a room full of xyz, instead of being shocked, and quickly adjusting your fly. Your reaction is 'Oh that has xAC, yWisdom, Zintellegence' so you bring out the same bullshit spells you've been using, and reusing throughout 100's of hours of playing the game. Because all you want is bland, boring, cookie cuttered enemies. Thats like digging up a dog and holding a curb stomp party.

roomie most of read my mind they brought down some cookies. You see how predictable 'Using the stats in the monster manual is' my space case roomie can pick up on it and bring me cookies.

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Originally Posted by clavis
Goblin having 7 AC and 12hp makes it still fodder for any half baked party, of alcoholic, half blind, one legged dorfs that come bumbling through.


The problem is that just smashing a goblin with a hammer is not the only option in this game. For that you are right it doesn't really matter whether the goblin has 6 or 12 HP. But for spells like "Sleep" it does! And for tons of other stuff too that was carefully balanced in DnD 5e. More and more balancing issues that Larian has to fix with every new addition and deviation they make.

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