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

I knew when I was writing that, that it read weird :P

Here is the fundamental difference between you and me I think. I do not believe that all styles of gameplay should be equally viable. In a tabletop game, if a group of level 1 adventurers attacked a dragon head on, would the GM have them win the fight? More likely the GM would have them all die a horrible death. Imo, some approaches to combat should be doomed to fail horribly. The thrill of overcoming all the failed attempts where tactics were insufficient for the fight is part of what makes challenging battles enjoyable to me.


Then adjust them, allow saves against the damage, limit them to certain items or even as you pointed out below, the "create bonfire" spell. Nobody here is saying surfaces have to remain exactly as they are, I am just saying I don't want them gone.


Homogeneous balance is balance of the worst kind. It removes all of the flavor from a setting.

That is not what I am saying. I agree that there should be unwinnable encounters and strategies. If we piss of a dragon at lvl 1 we deserve to die. But if we score strategies there should be different strategies that are really great to win one specific encounter and also some that are really bad. But not 1 that is really great, some that are so-and-so and a few that are really screwed. Variety is king, as you yourself later admit



That is what I am arguing for. And tbh, most others, too. When I look here or on reddit, most people argue that the surfaces need to be redesigned. It is just that:
1. not the majority of encounters needs them, make them special
2. they should some from things that are already in the rules.

Incidentally the surfaces that work like in 5e do feel like the better ones. Web for example is pretty fine:
- you get a save every round
- you only lose movement is lost
- you can try to break the enemies concentration to lose it, too
- the enemies can sacrifice the web for a round of AoE fire

See, how great that works? You actually have options here that are more interesting as "better not walk in stuff", "Better sneak into position before combat starts". Also the web fire is more interesting as even the enemy has to calculate if restricting movement is better or doing a little bit AoE. All around this works so much better. A Bonfire can create similar scenarios, where you block doors with it for example.



Depends. Not everyone should be as good in all things, I agree. But the overall things that someone is good in should be balanced. If not you just create strictly worse options, which are also rarely fun.

Yes, more and more of the system will need to be redesigned around Larian's porting of divinity content to this game

or we could skip rebalancing one of the most balanced and well received tabletop combat systems and keep as close to it as is reasonable, deviating only when it's more fun or for practicality

Create Bonfire is an incomparable cantrip to others, it's worse for damage, but it's the only cantrip that's able to set things on fire and burn them down - and its function is exceeded by common consumables. 5e already has flammable consumables, they burn for 2 rounds and do exactly 5 damage a round. How about we try sticking to the ruleset they picked up and see how it works out?

Why should every combat be a goddamned michael bay battle

I'm not going to requote the whole thing, but I agree with all of this.

Oh come on, it's not an unrealistic expection, there are literally mods on the nexus that go along way towards what we're asking for

How is it unrealistic?

Eh what can you do. People are passionate about different stuff. I don't envy Larian on that regard

I don't think 5e is too bad and my main gripe with it is that the specializations are not effective enough. For example battle master should have been focused on giving fighters battlefield control rather than being optimal for damage. Champion should give you more social options etc.

In the case of this game thought take surface effects for example. They can be caused by consumables and spells and abilities but this homogenization makes them feel samey and puts consumables on a much closer tier to spells and abilities which is never a good thing. I wouldn't have even batted an eye if they added surface effects sparingly in order to boost some otherwise underpowered abilities or racial traits that lack an oomph to them. In terms of the classes take the warlock class. They are capable of being a party face while performing exceedingly well in combat as well as having options for utility and battlefield control. Compare them to every other class in the game. This is a problem that exists in 5e as well mind you. I'd like to go on more about this but due to it being EA there is too much missing and too much underdeveloped to really be sure yet.

If there is a meta for something then everything else leaning in that direction that isn't meta is strictly a worse option. That being the case, there are plenty of examples where people have fun despite playing strictly inferior choices.

We can already see the changes Larian had to make, goblins have 3 times the hp and half the AC, to accommodate surfaces, and to accommodate their ridiculous height 3:1 advantage system

They're going to have to rebalance concentration as a result as well, which will rebalance concentration spells, which will...

this is just going to be a spiral of them gutting the system they were given to use, and it's going to be unrecognizable by launch (battles already feel more like Divinity than D&D, the game really wants you to just shit fire everywhere and burn your enemies out)

I think the goblin changes were also made so you could fight in smaller numbers

You're not really being smart about this are you?

You know Larian has to balance for multiple things and there are some things that 5e is not good with and some things that 5e is like any fucking system -- in short: context matters a lot and balance is always contextual.

As Abits mentioned the changes were most likely to ramp up difficulty while keeping the encounter number low, you can probably then imagine why they would want to keep the encounter number low.

You can also see how the other battles NOT involving goblins turns out. Guess what? A LOT less surface effects and a lot less manipulation of height.

Try looking at it from their shoes or what possible perspectives may have caused them to do so before going full drool cup.

Your logic seems sound until you remember that 5e has been play tested and balanced already over a long period of time by a pool of candidates far greater in number and diverse in playstyle than anything larian has access to. There are many ways to balance fights to be challenging without altering mechanics and the mechanics they have altered eschew the combat in ways that are counter productive to balance. Somebody even made a thread highlighting how the surface effects are absolutely domineering when it comes to concentration checks for spells. It is creating more problems than it is solving.

Nothing really "not 5e" about surfaces, they aren't the problem, it's how easy they are to come by, and the changes made to spells, that I don't like.
I'd rather see them make most items and spells behave as at the table top, and add a spell or two from their own making if they want more surfaces.

Thing is there are a plethora of rules for surfaces in 5e, and spells who create these effects. Want a burning thing on the floor? Well you got "Create Bonfire", a spell. So why does Firebolt do the same?


Swen often talks about understanding the language of the game, and I feel they are on to something but has somethings lost in transalation.

Completely agree with OP. I feel the same about the "it's not just like BG1 and 2" crowd.

Not to mention that there are other games that stuck close to 5e AND work way better than BG3.

I am definitely in the camp of not caring about 5e rules. I dislike D&D mechanics anyway, and if Larian were to take an axe to 5e rules and mechanics I would become their most vocal cheerleader.

However, I also utterly dislike the extent to which the game has those elemental surface interactions. Those don't add "tactical depth." They're just annoying, tedious, silly cheese. It is ridiculous that there would be all those surfaces so very conveniently available exactly where you want them exactly when you want them. Furthermore, it is also ridiculous that so many barrels of oil are just lying around everywhere waiting for the party to gather them up and cheese with them.

Honestly surfaces and area effects aren't a new thing to Baldur's Gate and they notoriously were pretty annoying
https://i.imgur.com/EC8OBSz.jpg
remember this guy?

I think they need to balance surfaces a little from pure gameplay perspective. Putting down brine or fire can decimate enemies since they have no option but to run through it. Fire also can remove things like grasping vines or grease and basically undermines the use of those spells completely. Also early enemies have way too many alchemist fires, acid vials, fire arrows, and acid arrows too.

Out of curiosity: Do you also waltz into a football game and declare you like baseball better, and that you hope they change the rules to accomodate you?

For 5E specifically only the upcoming Solasta comes to my mind - do you know other examples, I'd be curious to know? But previous D&D editions: Yes, pretty much agreed. Larian right now is bending the rules more than any other D&D C-RPG game developer.

While I think surfaces themselves are ok, I do think they need to be less readily available as it is now.

Frankly, one may ask what's the point of playing something like Wizard, when your average meathead fighter can just toss explosive or oil barrel and do carnage on par with Fireball at will and every turn if he so desires, with all these countless barrels of wine/powder/whatever you can collect from everywhere and stock in camp.

I can understand when you have a specific big encounter with opportunity to drop some trash, like that These kind of things ARE fine, when you have some explosive intended to be exploited in a specific encounter to help you a tad right there, where it makes sense and not overused everywhere.

But just being able to hoard barrels and toss them around willy nilly? That should be a no, IMO.