Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Perhaps Larian is the wrong studio

Bg1, BG2, IWD1, IWD2, NWN1 and NWN2 didn't have problems with that so whats your point?

I think my favorite thing I have seen so far in this thread is people who are criticizing BG 3 for "HP bloat" and then a few posts later, praising the combat system in PoE 2, a system with hp bloat like no other. I am starting to think the people with these criticisms are not even playing the game. Those "HP bloated" goblins which get complained about so often most of the time die in a single hit to spells like Shatter and pretty much all of the time die to single target hits, unless you roll a 1.



Here's a new concept for you, its called "verisimilitude," which refers to how believable a world is. Pretty much every successful fantasy writer is familiar with the concept. Just because a world is magical, does not mean that it doesn't need to be a world you could conceivably believe in. It needs to obey rules. A world which is not internally consistent causes the person engaging it to lose their suspension of disbelief and draws them out of the story. Unfortunately Faerun is a setting which fails absolutely miserably at this in almost every single way, but hey, its not like its ever been marketed for its good writing.

When you are standing on elevated ground, do you have an advantage against an enemy? Yes, you do, even if it is just increased line of sight. Note, I am not saying it needs to be implemented the way Larian has implemented it as advantage, but if you apply any logic to the world at all, there should be an advantage for being on higher ground. What that advantage should be is debatable, but there should be one. Likewise, if you set fire to a flammable surface, the surface should burn. Games recognizing situational things like this is an example of good game design. This game does have some egregious things which violate this concept, for example that dipping mechanic (get rid of it, it makes no sense), but a bonus for high ground is not 1 of them.

Star Citizen, again regardless of what people think of the community and game haha, has done an amazing job of connecting to the community. Comparing to a company that has just embraced it...this is rough.

I think I may have a clearer idea of why this isn’t a problem because I’m a programmer, so let me explain. Just about every programming language in existence provides very simple functions to generate pseudo random numbers with an even distribution. It’s not really something you can screw up easily, and I can’t really see a seasoned video game development team somehow being unable to generate a random number between 1 and 20.

Now maybe if you’re doing some kind of weird physics simulation rolling you could mess something up. But I don’t think that is what BG3 is doing.

And as for the possibility of the percentile chances being wrong...they aren’t. You can look at the roll DC and calculate the percentages yourself...you will see they are correct. So unless the code is somehow generating a random number “wrong,” And that’s extremely unlikely, then there’s no “hidden” balance problem with the rolls.

The reality is that you’re just going to get string of rolls that “seem” unfair. It happens with tabletop D&D and it happens with games. But there’s no demon controlling the dice. Sometimes you just get a string of bad rolls and that’s really all it is.

People say it's too late for this, too late for that; but I seem to remember it's been said the full game isn't gonna be ready for another year or so

Listen; it's too late for your optimism!

I agree with this. While it's undeniable that Larian has modified the HP of certain creatures in BG3, I think some very vocal people have really overstated the effects of this.


1) Larian is buffing the individual Goblins to reduce clutter and turn-time. Goblins are only CR 1/4 creatures. By the time your party is level 3, you'll need 6-7 of them for a medium encounter, 8-10 for hard*.
You'll have to further increase the numbers because BG3 characters are more powerful than table top (better loot, bonus action abilities)

2) There are plenty of other official CR 1/4 creatures that have similar stats to BG3 goblins. Kenkus have 13 hp, 13 AC, Grimlocks have 11 hp, 11 AC, standard Drow monsters are also CR 1/4 with 15 AC, 13 hp. Hell, even CR 1/8 guards have 16 AC, 11 HP. People are acting like 12 AC, 12 HP goblins are some sort of crime against D&D.

3) Realistically, based on the amount of Goblins we face in most of these fights at level 3/4 - they are acting more like CR 1/2 creatures. You know what else is a CR 1/2 creature? 32 hp Thugs with multi-attacks.

A few Goblins with some extra HP doesn't spell the doom of spellcasting effectiveness. If my campaign's primary enemy are the aforementioned those 32 hp thugs (very possible in a city adventure), are all casters useless then?


*Calculated with this tool a lot of Table Top groups use

You are, objectively, incorrect.

Average damage of a Longsword Attack = 1d8+3, so 7-8 damage.

Average damage of a Short Bow Attack = 1d6+3, so 6-7 damage.

Average damage of a Greatsword attack = 2d6+3, so 10 damage.

5e rules basic goblin is 7 hp.

BG rules basic goblin is 13 hp.

Under 5e rules, on average, a 1d8 weapon or greater will kill a Goblin in 1 hit. A 1d6 weapon will kill a goblin in 1 hit slightly less often than a majority of the time, just slightly.

Under BG 3 rules, no weapon wielded by a player character will kill a Goblin on average, not even close. Even the current non-resource class abilities to boost damage (Dueling FS, GWF, Sneak Attack) will not kill a Goblin in one hit, on average, with the sole exception of Sneak Attack at level 3 and beyond.

Ironically, you provided a great (partial) solution to the problem created by Larians lack of faith in the 6+ years of 5e playtesting. Don't make characters more powerful than the tabletop rules intended. Give them loot progression as intended and make their abilities only those assigned in the 5e rules. Aka, de-power low level players, so you don't need to rebalance literally every low level encounter.

Now lets tackle your claim that...what...Goblins are underpowered by the rules of 5e because other similar CR creatures have the same BG 3 stats? Good intentions for your argument, but bad execution. Yes, a basic Drow warrior has those stats. Know what else they have? Sunlight Sensitivity, a massive character weakness unless you're in an Underdark specific campaign. Goblins also have Nimble Escape, upping their mobility and making them more difficult to pin down in melee combat.

It's almost like the CR rating of a creature considers more factors than just AC and HP.........

I trust 6+ years of playtesting over Larian's attempt to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

I'm not really all that passionate about this topic; but i can get behind reducing the HP to be in line with the MM and just adding more mobs for the simple fact that killing a gobo in a single blow does feel great and killing large groups of enemies quickly does make you feel a little more like a hero

What you've said here has nothing to do with my arguments are. My points are:

1) Difficulty should be calculated at an encounter level (X vs X) as opposed to a 1-on-1 level. If you're buffing creatures, by reduce the encounter numbers, you can potentially gain the benefit of decluttering the fight, and vice versa.

2) Just because a Goblin has buffed HP does not make it an unsuitable encounter for its CR. This is more an answer to people saying enemies with 10+ hp at level 1 is absurd. I showed tons of other creatures from the MM with an equivalent CR (implying similar difficulty level)

I honestly have no idea what one-hit-kill on Goblins does to signify difficulty in the scope of an entire encounter (given point #1). Nevermind that is it is an incredibly arbitrary benchmark. Are dual-wielders godlike now because they can still one-hit KO goblins? If anything, this change encourages more team-play and strategic options. Instead of "attack" being the optimal choice, maybe this will encourage different tactics. Use 1 cast of magic missile to finish multiple weakened goblins off, etc.




The #1 rule of D&D (and the #1 reason why it works) is because what the DM says, goes. They can alter the campaign any way they want to make it work. Matt Mercer - probably the most famous DM in currently in the game - doesn't use Monster Manual stats (he HP bloats) - does that make him a bad DM?

The RAW game is far from perfectly balanced and riddled with tons of crazy, unbalanced stuff. You say 6+ years of playtesting - I say 6+ years of people complaining about imbalance and broken things in the game. You got crazy stuff like the Hex evoker, Coffeelocks, Hexblade dips, etc, all making through play testing. Not to mention infinity simulacrums true-polymorphed meme squads. Even Wizards have to add adjustments to their own RAW in adventure leagues. There's a reason why every class continues to receive updates - like with the upcoming Tasha's.




While I agree with the general idea that CR considers more than just AC and HP, why did you choose to nitpick one potentially inconsequential, environmental base weakness (no DM needs to force Drows onto the surface) to try to invalidate my point?What about Kenkus? They don't have nimble escape, but have a far more devastating Ambusher ability - that has FAR more TPK potential.

Besides, the point was that there are people saying HP bloats in BG 3 are inappropriate for the level of play, and I'm showing other examples from the MM that has that higher level of HP.





By that logic, I also trust a game developer with 20+ years of experience to adapt a table-top game into a videogame format.

Novelists do not make good screenwriters. Amazing book-to-movies adaptation are always reworked. Same with games. You have to respect the medium.

And it significantly extends the waiting time for the next turn.
Remember that this is a turn-based game, in the old games you could have thrown armies of goblins on the player and the fight was fast anyway.
In the case of a turn-based game, you are unable to do it.

Maybe the goblins are a bit stronger, but at the same time you can have fewer goblins on the battlefield

Rhobar121
Thx, you explain why, in a strict design point of view, RTwP works better than TB ! ^^

That RTwP works is a fact, however, the RTwP games are still dead (maybe except DA but it's more of an action game than an RPG)

Except it doesn’t.
But it’s pointless to argue about it because RTWP is not going to happen and it’s not the topic at hand.
Go and make your rants about it in the dedicated mega thread.

So bought BG1&2 EE on steam cause it was on sale.

I understand it is an old game, but my nostalgia glasses are screaming at me that there was better gameplay in 1998. Diablo or Starcraft arguably had a similar static isometric view and felt better in interface (just a little feedback on how people on here mentioned they felt the interface now is bad and they wanted something similar to the old interface)

Graphics wise, again about standard for the time, but surprised at how little they pushed the boundaries. Static tile maps, ends in hard square bounding edges, little to no 3d layering. This was a time when 3d cards were becoming mainstream and you had games like halflife and quake3, metal gear solid. Different genres but you also had final fantasy tactics which, while turn based, had rotating battle cameras on tile based combat fields and elevation/z-axis.

I also saw feedback on here on how the character portraits are lifeless and they wanted more realistic portraits like in bg1&2...those are straight up cartoons. Saw feedback asking for more banter and "chirp" responses when clicking on characters or doing actions.....I got tired of hearing my character say "on it" after about 5 minutes of clicking on things.....

rtwp combat? I kind of don't like it. Things just happen. I can pause and select specific targets or cast spells or what have you as I need, but it feels very UN-engaging and just watching things auto attack is boring to me. I have only wandered around the roads getting to the first inn, so maybe the bigger battles this plays better, but I like turn based honestly. I make a decision, move pieces like chess, adjust tactics based on each movement of the combat pieces, and it feels like I am controlling battle instead of watching it transpire before me.

I have not gotten vary far, going to keep playing bg1 and hopefully bg2 will have drastic improvements over the first, but I feel the nostalgia glasses are a little strong for the die hards on here hating the current bg3 game...sorry

It was always the wrong studio, artistically. The right studio would be Obsidian. But PoE2 sold a fraction of what DOS2 did, so they went with a better financial bet. I have 0 expectations that Larian will produce a BG game. Now I just want them to make a decent 5e game, and it isn't even that (don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like, but rules/gameplay feels arbitrary and combat plays out the same way every damn time).

The isometric perspective and the non layered environments were a feature, not a bug. The entire game was designed to look and feel as though you were playing with minis on a table top, not playing in a living world. Hence why you had voice over narration like a DM and other such details. It was made to appeal not to people who like video games, but rather to people who liked Dungeons and Dragons.

You can't just download a twenty year old game and hope to have the experience of people who played in 20 years ago when it was new. Nothing is timeless, everything ages. Tastes and standards change. I loved the original Deus Ex, it was probably the game that most informed the way I appreciate and play games, but there have been so many advancements since it debuted that it is all but unplayable any more. The original titles weren't perfect, but they improved with every iteration. . .Except NwN2 which, well, it tried anyway. . .What most people I have seen here are asking here is for a game inspired by the best of what Baldur's Gate tried to do because in spite of all of its faults it did do some things quite well. Specifically its emphasis on story. Even minor items had descriptions that suggested those things too had history and experiences worth knowing. By all means look at it with a critical eye, but try and temper it with a little charity when it is deserved.

Artistically BG looks outstanding so far.
That's literally the least of its problem.

And it runs circles around anything Obsidian ever did in that sense (even if PoE 2 was unusually pretty by their standards, admittedly).

I don't mean in terms of art assets - I agree, it looks stunning. I mean 'artistically' in recreating the spirit of the BG games. DA Origins did this. PoE did this. Pathfinder did this. DoS3 does not. I don't think Wizards and Larian are some evil corporation for going with a safer financial bet. I just wish they had called it Baldur's Gate: Subtitle instead of BG3. It is a cynical use of a revered title for a game that does nothing to honor the originals.

I don't think I would be whining about this game so much of I hated it. Right now this game to me is "harmless fun with great potential". I'm pretty sure by the final release it would be more than that. How much more depends on how far Larian is willing to improve it.