Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why the aggressive 5e Feedback?

90% sure this will be added in the game later. Not for awhile though as we're in the testing phase.



As far as AC and hp bloat goes. Fix resting and then they can put the values back to normal. I do enjoy hitting more, but if the encounters stay the same length it's one half a dozen or the other. Although I could maybe see a meta happening with everyone having magic missile. Depends how they'll handle casters in future changes

This is easy.

It's because the player's attacks and spells are largely still using the same numbers as the standard 5e system, and that system has different HP and AC for the monsters ( NOT the PC's) than BG 3 does. Spells which affect a certain amount of HP are intended to take out multiple weak foes. Good luck with Sleep, Color Spray, and Burning Hands in this game. Good luck later on with AoE spells like Fireball, which are supposed to be strong against masses of low HP foes, which no longer exist.

Spells which rely on enemy saving throws are comparatively weaker because the enemy ability scores have not been tampered with. Sacred Flame has a lower chance of impact than Firebolt because of the AC change, but it does damage still based on the standard 5e rules, and that does not account for the increased enemy HP, so when you do hit, it is not as impactful as it is intended to be.

You are now informed.

I agree with many of these criticisms (ie. I *HATE* the convoluted DOS2 loot/item system), but to say "end of story" in early early access is beyond silly. The obvious imbalance from virtually unrestricted rest can't be allowed to stand and Larian must surely know this. Let me address a few of your points:

"Height rules" - assume you mean the ease of getting advantage with ranged attacks from a height advantage? If so, *vehemently disagree*! It is an easily understandable tactic that makes maneuvering/mobility important and combat more interesting. It is a way to adjust difficulty of combat without necessarily introducing stronger enemies.

"Save scum" - can be fixed to some degree by disallowing saves in the middle of combat or even introducing "save stations".

"Beach" - grasping at straws here with your criticisms here. Would think the lack of a proper "day-night cycle" would be a much more glaring "DOS3" deficiency. The original BG had a more realistic system and this feels like a big step down. This is exacerbated by the storyline hinting at illithid tadpoles being ticking time bombs and Gale having an additional explosive orb in his chest on allegedly a timer. You have no sense of the passage of time and you have no sense of whether this is a leisure stroll in the park or if you're actually pressed for time. Besides, introducing day-night cycle would be another layer of tactical combat, something Larian normally excel at. Win-win. This issue will detract from the game unless addressed.





1. Not in D&D rules.
2. Implementation is unrealistic, unbalanced and a chore to repeat every combat. Ie. having an perpetually burning candle in the inventory you can drop for free and dip for a bonus action - doubling your base damage with dual-wielded daggers.

Hi my good sir. It’s the DM (according to the rules) that set the DC of the battle. Would the rules be different, the DM would have to change the battlefield in accord. If we simply change the rules, yes, the battles will be easier. Do you truly believe that changing the hp and ac values of the foes are the best way to improve the gaming experience regarding difficulty?

As you’ve mentioned and if you go some pages back, you’ll see that my point is that Larian is destroying the spells slots values for the sake of that Hp values popping out of people’s head every single turn

Wish you all the best

Personally I'm married to the story and settings more than the rules; as long as the game play is fun I'll be happy. That being said I hope they have that difficulty choice menu in the final release.

3. Compete directly with Divine Favor, but require no spell slot, concentration to keep up and set things aflame.

It's pretty much Searing Smite with 1d2 less damage and none of the cost.

Easily understandable does not equal good. It promotes samey combat where without fail the best strategy is to get the high ground each and every time and stay there. If you can't get the high ground, it sucks because it's harder to hit the enemies and easier for the enemies to fight you. I really, really wish people who keep saying that they love advantage for high ground would realize that it sucks when you're the one on the low ground.

One thing you do not want in a hundred hour game with lots of combat is for it all to feel the same. But it's pretty likely with fire, barrels, AoE's and surfaces everywhere and high ground/backstab advantage.




Both of those are terrible ideas, because it is forcing players to play a certain way.

Yeah, I think @Sludge Khalid and @Stabbey are making the same point and it's spot on -- the analysis of how bless and sacred flame are nerfed is fantastic. Same goes for hold person. Hold person is really one of the cleric's most powerful spells and has been so since 1st edition. But in the current BG-DOS hybrid it's not a spell worth casting.

I think people people who don't know 5ed are just concluding that clerics just suck. Look at all the threads complaining about SH stats. * But I don't think the flaw is in the build as much as the rules, right now you can't build a cleric caster you should build melee clerics.

In 5th ed -- 7hp, 15 AC goblin fails savings throw and the next round the cleric gets a guaranteed hit and crit which is good. In a "hard to hit / easy to kill" scenario this is a useful spell. You get a certain hit that worth two hits in two rounds.

But, if you are dealing with 15 hp goblins with a really high "to hit" chance it's a bad use of a spell slot -- better to attack three times in row and take the goblin down that way. You chances of hitting are much higher than the goblin losing the saving throw. It makes a class based game in which clerics combine support and offensive spells into a one where the cleric can only be effectively used as martial / healer.

I had lots of fun playing with other classes I got bored playing my cleric of mystra. I built her as a caster (because Mystra) only to find that, under current rules, I should have built her as a front line basher and backup healer.

* (although I do agree that strength and dex should be flipped -- why build a strong trickery cleric?)

Classes, races, spells, monsters, combat, the feel of a D&D world, skill checks, dice rolls, ability to approach combat & interaction in many different ways. There is so much to like in this game & we are only a month into early access.

I accept that there are some changes required & I accept that the more hard core D&D players want a perfect rendition right out of the box - that aint gonna happen & has never happened.

But for my part Im a fan of D&D first & foremost even though i stopped playing a long time ago - creating a D&D world that I can play & getting as close as we can to a tabletop version within the confines of a video game (& the developers vision, budgets, timeframes etc) is what i want.

Stuff can be debated but the amount of people who throw their toys out & hate on a game because it isnt a perfect vision - i dont think those people are objective enough & understand the commercial reality. I believe we are very lucky its Larian Studios taking this head on ..and no im not a Larian fanboy ive not played one of their games - but i appreciate their vision & passion from what I see at this early stage.

Spell slot value related to action economy can only be understood if you can grasp the big picture. What are the spell value of Fairie Fire? Well, depends on how much advantage you get every single battle. Is it worth using it in BG3? I’d say it’s a bad investment.

Now pretend that Larian remove the advantage homebrew. Is it worth the spell slot? No! Because there’s another homebrew that increase HP values.
Meaning that your joe will have to concentrate for more rounds until the foe is beaten.

Ok ok, Sludge. Let’s remove that two homebrew rules as we all agree that they’re bad for spell slots optimization. Now we’re good?

No!! The Joes are throwing bombs and shooting arrows with surfaces that breaks concentration!

You see the catastrophic failure of DnD rules implementation concerning action economy?

It’s a chain of bad decisions in a row for the sake of “ wow, my players do not miss :)”

id rather play JRPGs

Not to mention that the argument "missing too much is no fun" (on which, supposedly, all these changes were made) is dubious, in my book. Fun for whom? Is there a wide survey/playtest that confirms this, or is this "just" an opinion of a couple of people at Larian? Not that their opinion doesn't matter, mind you, quite the opposite, but somehow it's not the same if it's just a couple of people, or a wide consensus. Also, if "missing is not fun" - when you drive that argument to it's logical conclusion, then why even have attack rolls in the first place? Surely it would be more fun - by that logic - to have each attack automatically hit, and just roll for 1-x damage? Except that we intuitively know this is wrong, and isn't in spirit of D&D at all. And also, what does "too much" mean and how do you quantify it - what is the limit at which fights are no longer "not fun" because misses do not happen that much? Who decided on this and how?

So it's a bad argument in my opinion, because I don't see the data behind it and the logic doesn't stand, and yet the whole revamping of the rules is based on the premise that it is true.

And you know what to do when you’re missing way too much?
Cast faerie Fire!!! Oh yeah, we do not need to spend this spell slot anymore because the game babysited the player

Sad but true

This ^^^. Larian could quite realisticallty please both DDOS barrel mages and core D&D fans. It is only a question of tweeks in the code.

Second ponit is extremely good. Because you can rest "at camp" anywhere at any point even bloated HP makes little difference. If you rest in a dungon you need supplies of food and stuff otherwise you starve. You need 1lb of food per character a day otherwise you become....dead. You also run the risk of being attacked by monsters/law enforcement while camping depending on how naughty you are. Resting in the underdark is REALLY brown trouser time.

If the rest mechanics were changed and HP bloat was removed this would make it really good. I agree some mechanics are wonky like entire maps aggro from a stealth attack nobody saw or jumping beans etc. These will obviously be fixed as they have stated in the megathreads. Killing 5 gobins with a lv 3 magic missile or fireball is fine because the REST mechanics are currently allowing you to refresh spells so quickly. If you need supplies for every rest and were attacked when you rested in dungeons etc. it would make it significanly more D&D feeling.

Perfect.

I'm still in the this can be improved camp. Like @soul-scar we could have a 'core' rules mode. But it needs to be the default, not the alternative. One of the problems with having this game made by people who only recently discovered 5th ed (as opposed the long times fans at the early Bioware / Black Isle / etc) is this misunderstanding of the "to hit" thirst. Tabletop players drool over +5 weapons. Drool drool over 17th level feat. Repeat the +12 hackmaster jokes. Why? Because those items / feats give you a better chance to hit.

This is unlike DOS where you hack away at an oak with a handaxe. In DOS2 think I only missed a few times near the end game because I didn't understand weapon level. Otherwise I always had something like 95 percent chance to hit all the time.

Then don't make a DnD game, they should of just made a third DoS. They said they were making a DnD game, this is NOT a DnD game.

I really hope so.

Now this I can agree with. Larian started at the wrong end. And it might be as people claim that they were working on DOS3 when they got the lisence for Baldur's Gate, and had to change a lot on the fly.

Now I'm no programmer, but I don't really see how hard it is to just take the players handbook and start implementing the ruleset as is?


I personally don't mind "homebrew" monsters, but it should be pointed out that the Monsters in the Monsters manual is very very well put together mathematically, it all makes sense. Thing is: There's way to few of each monster. So you want to homebrew to get more variation. But at least start with the standard basis for a goblin, and go from there...

As far as core rules being the default, isn't it more important to test the new rules in EA? The core rules have already been tested and a game mode for it can come later.

Having played some Solasta, I can see why they'd want to spice things up with new actions and environment interaction. Doing the same basic attack over and over gets a bit stale. Not to hate on Solasta either, I really like how they handled group dialogue, resting, and traveling on the campaign map. Both games have their pros and cons. I'll be happy playing both games as they come out for different reasons.

As I’ve said. Capturing the big picture is important to know the impact of the rules that they’ve changed. If you go through the pages of this very post you’ll see some. That’s not for the sake of “be faithful to raw DnD5e” this is more about balance. No one is complaining about weapon skills in the forum because they do not break the system. As is, the current rules destroyed spell values. And taking spells out of the core of the system will do no good for the joy of the players.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous argument. And if it's true for some, which I assume it is, it seems like something that can be solved with an easy mode rather than a major revamping of what they claim to be porting as closely as possible.