Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Differences and Similarities between BG3 and D&D5e core ruleset.

This, there has already been adjustments to animations, character creation skill info, voice lines, barrelmancy, and whatever else.

Imagine they cut corners purposely to get the EA version out the door asap for deadline & testing purposes.

+1 to those asking for a more faithful implementation of the ruleset.

I'm not as sure as @fallenj is about the placeholder, in a recent interview Larian claimed that WotC gave them carte blanche and left them without an approval process:

https://wireframe.raspberrypi.org/

If they wanted to cut corners it would have been far less work to take D&D 5e rules and implement them instead of reworking the basics of the action economy and thus forcing themselves to rebalance all classes through all levels to make up for it.

When it comes to gameplay they have tweaked pretty much nothing except for reducing surfaces and fixing some minor bugs. That's not even close to what would be necessary to give the combat system some resemblance of balance after they 'cut corners' by implementing their vision.

Anmations, character customisation, UI... yeah these are WIP and pretty much everybody here knows that those are being finished as times goes on. I don't even see there any complains from people on this board (except for the aweful party controls).

All great points. I agree with you, all of those changes would make this game way better and I dont play D&D. However watching many games I would argue I have seen advantage given to backstabs/flanking enemies during their attack even when in plain sight.

Id like to double down on dipping weapons, that is a fun mechanic but its very powerful and magical and should a spell of sorts. In no way shape or forms should every character be given an ultimate power of dipping their weapons making them magical flaming swords/bows.

Also I'd like to double down on items that make no sense and have no immersion like healing characters grants your weapon poison. They really should give items some lore and backstory and make them harder to earn or achieve. Not just random high tier loot just in corners or on low level enemies.

Generally a idea been thinking about for a while now.

Couple examples would be combining disengage with jump making it one ability. Sneak attack not actually being additional dice roll but a math formula based on level.

@biomeg changes are not just going to happen over night. Also they don't include all changes in the patch notes.

People complain about everything, why we got toned down companions recently.

This is a great comprehensive list.

I think the ones that bug me the most is dip, because I feel like it will make the game to DOS-like, which is not a bad thing. But I just feel the design of the game is going to be plagued in environmental effects now, and I don't want BG3 to remind me of DOS. And jump... I feel the jump as is, may be a little to overpowered, and unless I am missing something does not require a athletics skill check. If it does not require a check, than I feel that takes away from higher strength characters being able to more easily do things like climb, and jump, and allows low strength characters like rogues and mages to use what I think is going to become a cheese tactic of getting height advantage. IMO, if you want to be a mage that climbs or jumps to get advantage you might want to invest in some strength, for instance.

You know what really worries and concerns me most?

The comments we see in virtually all of their interviews that reference their play data collection and what it 'obviously' means.

For example - in that interview, the speaker from Larian talks about how they could look at the play data and see that few people were ever using buffing or debuffing spells like bless... and drawing the conclusion from that that people didn't like or want buffing spells and that they wanted spells with impact and damage instead.

They just... see some data and then decide what THEY want it to mean, and they seem to do this everywhere.

Never mind that people don't use spells like bless right now because it's functionally impossible to use effectively, given how the AI will always abuse tricks to automatically break your concentration, and specifically give high priority to to concentrating character - that all they need to do is knock you down to break the spell. Never mind that debuffing spells are equally impossible to use effectively right now because you'll often get no effect from them when the enemy saves out at the start of their turn, even after failing the initial save, and is never detrimented at all. Never mind that saving throw spells have multiple layers of mechanical changes making them weaker, less effective and harder to use than direct attack roll spells, in the current system... Never mind that they've lowered ACs, increased hit points and given free advantage all the time for everyone - we don't need Bless as much because of their system changes that detract from the strategy element of the game...

No, no, no... obviously we're not using buffing and debuffing spells very often because we don't *Want* to use them... that's obviously the reason, of course...

This is a really insidious underlying problem that I've seen pop up in the background of every public interview and every community announcement they've made, and it's really bothering me.

I agree strongly. Data is meaningless outside of context. The designeers have created a situation where buffing is discouraged and assumed that people don't buff because it's boring. I think the devs should try playing IWD a few times. "potion of strength, prayer spell, bless -- okay, time to take on the demon . . ." Or BG2 for that matter where spells like "breach" -- a debuff -- were critical parts of combat.

I like Larian but I don't like their attitude towards the DnD ruleset -- devs that had more confidence in and commitment to the ruleset would ask themselves "people aren't using buffs, how can we encourage them to do so" instead of concluding "bless is boring, that's why no one is using it"

Exactly!!

Honestly if it cost a bottle of oil or alchemist's fire or something I wouldn't mind it.

I do mostly agree the other things you said but particularly this... i dont mind poisons on a level appropriate basis... we shouldn't have access to 7di6 stuff imo... not at 2nd-3rd level...

Their are plenty of items already on paper that do make sense... better judgement on when we should get which ones needs to be present also though... haven't seen that thus far... and its hard to explain why all these things make the game not feel "right"...

+1 to this - im loving BG3 but - i don't know how larian can say that they tried 5e rules and it didn't work when i own Solasta also and it most Definitely works. And works well

Exactly, clearly they weren't too interested in actually implementing true DnD rulesets. Solasta does that amazingly well, and with ease.

This so much. So many people forget that statistics are just mathematical 'facts', but the conclusion you derive from them are just opinions (I guess that's the root of the joke of people doing statistics always tell 'never trust a stat that you have not falsified yourself').

Larian doesn't sound like they understood that and that's what makes me so frustrated with them dropping 5e extensive playtesting to implement their solutions that completely lack the view of longterm effects they bring with them thus creating this sub par combat experience that will only get worse with more classes and levels.

I agree it does seem they very much had their own agenda from the get-go, not necessarily being too invested in making this a DnD experience. I do love Larian though, and I freaking love their games, but I just hoped this one would be faaaar more faithful to the 5th edition ruleset as I think they are amazing. Truly hoping they will make some changes in the end.

The game has a great D&D feel to it already despite the mix of 5E & Larian rule implementation - you cant expect them to ditch all their IP - take a very close look at whats happening to Cyberpunk - get to over ambitious from the ground up & unless you have millions & millions of dollars & patient financial backers you get a poor outcome.
I want them to take their time & spend the money on developing the game - not on ensuring that every single D&D 5E rule is perfect - this is not a requirement for the wider audience for the game (including D&D players - apart from the extreme few) - personally im loving the direction the game is going & where its at, Im worried they try to implement to much & we lose the quality right through till the end.

I guess there's a lot of place in D&D for proper and balanced (Larian's) custom mechanics.
It's not about the game being 100% D&D accurate and nothing more... It's about not having a few OP mechanics that totally determine combats and the difficulty of the game.

It would be awesome to have MORE things to do than in D&D... But if those new options are too powerfull this is no longer options but what you have to do.
Custom combat mechanics need tweaks to become part of D&D's combats mechanics.

I agree. Higher AC, lower HP.

While I might get some hate for this. Dungeons Dragons 5 after reading more of it is better for me then Dungeons Dragons 4.

That being said Dungeons Dragons 5 is not my favorite edition.
Cleric was like a one persons army in DD 3.5 overpowered however Advanced Dungeons Dragons i.e Baldurs
Gate 1 and 2 propably got it quite right.

In DD5 I feel Cleric has been nerfed to King Dome Come (from 3.5) hell it takes even some effort for me to create a Cleric that is ok for the party. In neither pen or paper or this game do I want to take LIFE Domain I do not like being heal bot.

My favorite PHB domain Tempus has not been included so for this ALPHA I created a Light Domain Cleric.

There are 4 characters not 6. You could argue that Neverwinter Nights only one character but that was DD 3.5 I could create my Cleric demigod in powerlevel in Neverwinter Nights that also had lots of powerful magical items.

I feel that order to have food not healing you need to have more HEALING power then Shadowheart Trickery domain Cleric.

In all seriousness I do not think it will happen in this game if they remove food does not heal it will need a lot of balancing and changes. They like their environment stuff call it DOS2 (Divinity Original Sin 2) adapation to DD5.
Day and night and weather things hell yes want them in game and most other things you mentioned I am ok with them but I doubt they will be changed except some exceptions maybe.

I have played lots of Pen and Paper including Dungeons Dragons. Tell me which low level party of level 3 and 4 characters want to risk and attack a Goblin Temple fortress? There is no load/save in Pen and Paper but I doubt they want to assassinate all the Goblin leaders in a fortress at level 3 with rumors the Goblin might have allies (Ogres, Drow leader etc. and NPC party etc)?

I feel that food healing is there to make it possible in the games current state. You could still remove food healing but then maybe example increase party size to 5 or 6 and give us access to more healer companions that can join the party.

This is my estimation and I do not complain game is difficult in current state. In fact I want to play the game likely one difficulty level above Normal when released I feel Normal does not yet give enough challenge. I killed all the Goblin leaders and then went to courtyard and killed everyone in courtyard and fortress on first try no load. I was level 3 when fought Gut and Drow leader etc.. but became level 4 inside the Temple and then went out and killed everyone as level 4 party on first try all this no load needed. I would not call it very easy, but I guess I like challenge specially when there is even load option.

In addition do not know if DD5 has it but instead of potions a thing would be like a healing wand with say 50 charges....
speculated how game could be without food healing. Well that or I guess they get lots of healing potions.

Food healing is just weird, especially DURING combat. Absolutely ludicrous. And clerics, even in 5th edition, are still beastmode man. Particularly once you get spells like Spirit Guardians and sick shit like that.