Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian's communication, faithfulness to 5E rules, and the players who feel betrayed.

I agree. Lots of individual options and settings for rules and difficulty so players can customize their experience as close to their own liking as possible is the way to go.

Such melodrama.

This game was always advertised as a triple AAA game based on D&D 5E rules.
It was never advertised as a D&D 5E simulator.

Throwing words like betrayed around when it's simply a matter of your goals (a D&D 5E simulator) and Larian's goals (a fun video game based on D&D rules) are different is silly.

Currently, the Druid can shape shift every turn, and therefore that amounts to hundreds of HP per use of Wild Shape. Am I wrong?
EDIT : I had the impression, during the stream, that the druid could use Wild Shape many times per "charge", but I may be wrong. If it is one shape shift per use of the Wild Shape feature, my point is wrong and all is fine.

In tabletop, Druids are already powerful with one shape shift giving x extra HP.

I am NOT asking Larian to follow the rules 100%. I am asking Larian to better design their game system.

- The story and visuals are great and interesting though. And I had fun.

True. I don’t feel betrayed. More disappointed at a missed opportunity to make this an AAA D&D simulator. I’ll keep pushing for more 5e implementation but at this point I’m not holding my breath.

Like vinegar is based on wine. If you ordered it, because you wanted something to drink, you might be rightfully disappointed.

Same. Although in this thread I was even asking this. I was just asking for a better communication.

I agree with the first statement. They said as much a couple of times. (If I wanted to be cheeky, I would give one quote : "this is based on D&D, so we’re using their combat system. We had to make a few tweaks").
As for the second statement, well, they never used the phrase DnD 5E simulator. But when asked specifically about the rules, they painted their changes as minimal (and I said, everybody is judge of whether their changes are minimal). Also, they said, at least twice, that they're the Dungeon Master ... which is really appealing to the tabletop way to play. (As an aside, because this is going beyond the scope of my original post, I think they said they want to provide a tabletop feel, in particular narratively, with player agency, the multiplayer support, minimal reloading, etc.)

Anyway, if you want to believe that I'm asking for a DnD simulator, or that my problem is that Larian's goal is not the same as mine, despite what I wrote, feel free.

Yeah, I think the problem is that initially (there's a thread/convo somehere on here) they were going for a fairly faithful reproduction of 5E - that was what I thought I was buying into. Mayeb didn't read the fine-printm but I recall that as a selling point way back when this was announced. That's what persuaded me to go for the EA. The longer I played, the clearer it became that was not what the case. Based on what we're seeing, I think we need to resign ourselves to not getting it either. Clearly for many people this doesn't matter, but for many others, it does. What's worse, that the EA is limited to low-level D&D only - the issues with game balance are likely to explode (literally) once higher level play and multiclassing are introduced. And *none* of that will have been 'play-tested' by the EA community. I think the decision not to go above level 4 in EA is really short-sighted - of course, if they simply ignore feedback they don't like, then it's all moot anyway.

I just add a message on Jeremy Crawford Twitter giving some flavor of what is happening here.

"Well, it was a pleasure to see you. However - and it is not linked to you of course - we were a bunch of D&D5 fans disappointed after this panel, feeling completely ignored by Larian about several deep unbalances in fundamentals rules (not just some "homebrew stuff") for months."

Awesome message! Please let us know if you get an answer! =)

Well, there is a D&D simulator (Solasta) which demonstrates that combat can be 10 times more fun than in BG3 when you just stick to the table top rules.

I would not care one bit if there rules had nothing to do with D&D at all, if their combat would only be half as fun as a D&D 5E simulator.

I am just not happy with 10 times as boring and 10 times as convoluted.

Don't expect a reply, WotC really does not care about if a video game is true to the rules, just look at Sword Coast Legends, that was D&D in name only. I expect as long as Larian pays their cut to WotC, they can do whatever they want. Neverwinter Nights Online I have not played but that looks to be another D&Dino too. I believe there been several other poor adaptions.

At no point did they claim not to change or tweak core rules. Whenever the changes they made are for better or worse is up to debate, but they can't be accused for lying. It's more of "that's not what I wanted you to do", rather then "that's not what you promised to do". BG3 is precisely what Larian was pitching, and we had gameplay demos long before it was available for purchase - anyone surprised by it, was deceived by his own mind, not advertisement or interviews.

And while EA is there for players to provide the criticism, it is also work in progress. Game being unbalanced at this stage is absolutely understandable.

Most of what you're reading isn't criticism, it's whining.

That's not how I understood it. I understood the change as you no longer need a bonus action to revert back to your "person" form, and can morph from one to another in the same round.

You can see here in the stream that Sven was still limited by 2 charges of wildshape - he had to burn a short rest to regain them when he realized he forgot to unequip the mask (if you look closely you can see the counter by where the spells are)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/917781367 - at 02:14:00

Yes, this will be broken with the Druid's level 20 feature (especially for Moon Druids), but the Moon Druid is already borderline broken at level 20 anyways RAW.

Trying to understand this specific point at the moment.
I read on forums that in RAW, a Druid CAN morph from one form to another in the same round...

So what's the difference in BG3 ?

If changing form cost a charge of Wild Shape, all good. It is like tabletop, which is pretty powerful !
If you can change every turn with a Bonus Action for a duration, which is the impression I had when watching (most probably false impression), then it is out-of-whack.
During the stream, he used it often, which gave me the impression (false impression it seems) you could change often with one use of Wild Shape, including in combat.

Sure.

So compared to 5e RAW, for normal druids, it's not huge. Normally you need a bonus action to go back to humanoid form (i.e. to cast spells). So you basically get an "extra" bonus action when coming out of Wildshape in BG3.

Normal Druid 5e RAW: Wildshape Form -> Bonus Action Dismiss > Human Form (has 1 action left)
Normal Druid BG3: Wildshape Form -> Free Action Dismiss > Human Form (has 1 action, 1 bonus action left)

Result: 1 more bonus action (whenever you're returning to humanoid form)


For Moon druids, you also get the same bonus as the normal druid when returning to humanoid form. The big difference is that for BG3 Moon Druids, on a turn that you're going from shape 1 to shape 2, you can choose to cast a spell in between. In RAW, you have to choose between going form 1 to form 2 (and only getting an attack action in one of the forms), OR stay in humanoid form after casting the spell (and wildshaping again the turn after). So if you want to cast a spell between forms:

Moon Druid 5e RAW: Wildshape Form 1 -> Bonus Action Dismiss -> Take Action (Cast Spell) -> End turn in human form
Moon Druid BG3: Wildshape Form 1 -> Free Action Dismiss -> Take Action (Cast Spell) -> Bonus Action Wildshape -> End turn in Wildshape 2

Result: No need to wait a turn to gain Shape 2.

Because each time you wildshape you basically get temporary hit points added like a hp shield, this means Moon Druids in BG3 can stay relatively safer when casting a spell. Note, you can only do this once per short rest (you have 2 wildshape charges) - so it's not like you can do this every round.


By level 20, most of your wildshape restrictions are gone - you can cast spells in animal form, and you can do it a limitless amount of time (which is why I say by 5e RAW Moon Druids are insanely OP, because they have the strongest forms and can transform most easily (just 1 bonus action). Meaning you can heal yourself 100+ hp per turn based on the forms you can do it in.

The only thing the Moon Druid needs their humanoid body for is to use certain items (by RAW your DM determines if your wildshape can use an item). I.e. got a badass artifact staff? If your DMs ruled that you need your human body to use that, then you need to revert back to humanoid form to do it.

So in BG3, this free-action to revert back to humanoid will basically cover off the only (minor) weakness Moon Druids have in terms of wildshaping. It's not a big deal because they are mostly "immortal" at this point.

So you never had an actual argument to make. Cool, nice to know.


Honestly, I'm fine with the wild shape stuff within the context of everything else that exists in BG3 as is. The action economy in BG3 more or less completely revolves around a lot of things suddenly being considered bonus actions, so one should realize that wild shape being one too is probably a necessary change to allow them to keep up with the curve. Though even if all the other things like jump/disengage and bonus action shove didn't exist, bonus action wild shape is probably still an okay change regardless.

It's also an indirect confirmation that the devs are probably going to double down on this bonus action focus (or maybe their engine simply doesn't support a way to implement proper reactions and ready actions, the same way it doesn't appear to support true flight at this point, so the action economy's hyper focus on bonus actions may actually be compensating for the lack of such features). Giving feedback to rein this in may ultimately be a futile effort, and our time might be better spent giving more productive feedback elsewhere. I accept that I don't have to like this and that there are people who do enjoy this kind of thing, though I also already paid for the game and might as well see this through to the end to understand the thought process behind the underlying mechanics. Maybe the mid/endgame won't end up being a total balancing disaster as I predict, like how the last third of DOS2 ultimately turned out.

That said, this isn’t to say that DOS2 was a bad game. If anything, most things worked out in that game well enough. But the major problem was the armor system, which contributed to insane number bloat in the end that choked out unoptimized characters by endgame, funneling tactical variety into major cheese strategies. Late game boss fights devolved into nuking the boss in your first two turns or face a total party kill, because they often had one-shot level offense and some on tactician mode appear to start battles with more AP than player characters did.

To see signs of something similar this early in BG3 already is quite worrying. It’s almost like they took DOS2’s design philosophy in regards to action economy and encounter balance, and expected it to work in a DND setting. Larian is quickly discovering that it’s not that simple, as DND is a system that purposely splits up your resources and limits your actions, inherently revolving around trying to come up with creative solutions within your limits.

A faithful adaptation of 5E rules??
I am more looking into a faithful adaptation of BG1 and BG2, which the game IS NOT. BG3 is being built on top of DOS2, it feels nothing like an upgraded baldurs gate game (Atmosphere, UI, items, dialogue...)
Couldn't give two crap about D^D <rulesets>. Whatever makes the game fun and interesting is good for the gameplay.

I am starting to wonder if Larian really got creative freedom to work with the Baldurs gate license...I 100% do not trust WOTC. Its like they only gived the rights for some story elements and some D^D mechanics...Oh and that catchy Baldurs gate III title.

On this particular topic, I kind of wonder if WotC pulled out BG3 because they got spooked by their direct rival Paizo contracting Owlcat to create Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Not really a coincidence that that the Baldur's Gate IP that basically sat dormant for like two decades suddenly reappeared right when Paizo and Pathfinder started making a big move into the gaming scene.

That said, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous would probably be right up your alley once it releases. It's not nearly as pretty as BG3, but it's still a wonderful experience so far as a beta tester myself. It's not trying to be as deep and melancholy as BG3 tends to be, but it's a whole lot of fun. It's definitely shaping up to be the best RTwP game I've ever played so far, bar none. If anything, the writing is leagues ahead in terms of making your main character feel like an actual character in the story, rather than some random schmuck in a party full of special people.