Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So...is this game still being made, or what?...

then you're a sucker for punishment because that's going to be Baldur's Gate 3 all the way. I assume you hated wands in BG1 as well?

i like to create "powerful characters" while inside a set of rules that are fair for everyone involved.

I don't like to just sidestep the rules and add to myself magic bonus stats. May as well playing using a trainer to rewrite all my stats and skills at that point.

A point buy system is perfectly fair: "Here's a bunch of points for each one of you. Find a way to make the best possible use of it".
A roll system without a game master acting as guardian? It's basically a free pass to cheat your character creation. And let's be honest here, if the game gave you all only, say, three rerolls for your dices and forced you to stick with one of the results, you would hate it.

Why is even rolling stats an issue of debate in a game where the very game mechanics are legal exploits?

1. Pickpocketing. Virtually zero risk & time for the best and repeated supply of loot and money in the game. Completely trashes the risk vs reward mechanics in the game.
2. Unlimited rest. Breaks balance completely. Imagine the Champion Fighter with its emphasis on passives vs classes who are balanced with much more powerful active abilities with limited uses.
3. Overpowered early loot + meta-gaming knowledge. 18 intelligence circlet allows a specific "stupid wizard"-build to profit in a way you might as well have "cheated with rolls".

As for rolls; yes please. BG3 is vastly more a spiritual successor of DOS2 than BG2. Rolling is paying homage to the old series and old-school D&D.

Because I dislike each one of these things, too?
Well, except the third one, really. People are massively overestimating how good that circlet actually is. The necklace that adds 1d4 to each magic missile is arguably twice as valuable.
The "stupid wizard" build is a stupid idea that will most likely stay viable only in EA to begin with.

Once again, two wrongs don't make a right.

We don't even know if rolling makes it into the game, but the two first issues are staple Larian mechanics and isn't likely to change.

The headband is by itself not super powerful, but with meta-gaming it allows for that specific build to in effect gain an advantage around +19 ability points in the point buy system, unless hideously mistaken. That's pretty significant and relevant. Not sure how long you imagine people rolling to beat that, but at that point rolling will likely already have required more work than any of the "Larianisms".

And yes, I agree about the MM necklace. At least when we begin approaching medium-high level gameplay (endgame, DLC or BG4) with level 10 Evocation Wizard (add intelligence in dmg to each die). Then upcast MM. Then add 2 levels Fighter for Action Surge to do it twice every battle (rest to recharge). Add Warlock level for Hex to boost even further. Of course, the wizard being "Swen's fave" benefit from both of these and that OP staff as well. I really dislike Larian's Diabloesque item-focus!

Any mages worth their salt will aim to reach INT 20, which requires to have a NATURAL STAT ("Ability") already high enough.
A mage with 8 INT and a circlet adding two INT point won't reach 20. He will reach 10 and set the stat at 18 again because of the circlet, wasting two points.

More in general an item that sets your basic primary stat at 18 will be obsolete rather quickly, especially when later in the game you will feel the urge to free that equipment slot for more powerful items granting more valuable bonuses (a plain +X t some stat, additional spell slots, more damage for a certain class of spells/abilities, some extremely useful resistance... You name it).
At that point if you built you mage to have 8 INT "because of the circlet" you are pretty much fucked for the late game or stuck with a suboptimal option.

The circlet will maintain some (marginal) value mostly for classes that will use INT as a secondary stat. Which implicitly decreases its overall importance even more.

But we are digressing, anyway,

Also, Larian already confirmed months ago that dice rolling for stats will make into the game at some point. I'm not worrying about a "IF". I know it's coming. It doesn't mean I have to like it.

The +19 ability points are in stats that are less useful (to a wizard) than intelligence. To get that +19 points you have to dump int on your wizard, which means that you suck until you get the circlet. After you get the circlet you are a beefy wizard that will then fall behind all the melee classes when they get double attack at level 5. You will fall behind the other wizards when they take the ASI bump to 20 at level 8.

Even if you go EK you are still gimping yourself relative to a fighter that takes battlemaster and stays stupid. The circlet is a meme.

Furthermore, its not even a Larianism. The circlet is "uncommon loot" in the Dungeom Masters guide, which means that it is appropriate for character levels 1rst or higher.

(Its also supposed to take an attunement, so once they add that feature the circlet will acquire an opportunity cost).

Yeah, this kind of gear exists in regular DnD, and I'm not all too concerned about them. They're really a non-issue.

Solasta has them, but they require attunement there. There's another similar item called the Belt of Dwarvenkind that sets your CON to 19, though you end up with a 50% chance to grow a beard after you take a long rest, which stopped a lot of people from using it in Solasta (and it'll probably do the same thing in BG3).

The utility of such items falls off a cliff as you progress and find better accessories, and building around their existence is basically shooting yourself in the foot.

Itemization, vendors and pick pocketing completely ruined DOS2 for me. Its way too hard to ignore, in a RP sense.
Way too many random magical items with random stats randomly spawning in vendors every 30 minutes. And its also everywhere in the world. After 2 hours of gameplay didn't care for anything. Nothing felt special and 90% of the <<<unique>>> items were junk. The game <hooks> you with that stupid WOW rarity color system; green, blue, purple, red...it gets old VERY fast. Only purple/red items are useful and also are everywhere, especially out of Fort Joy.

That actually is one thing I adore in BG2. I always go back to the game for the items. Some much cool stuff and I love that long history bit that explains where the item came from. Like your reading a D^D items lore manual POE also did that, kind of.

Not necessarily shooting yourself in the foot IF you are trying to build a character who will have a bit MAD of a stat sppread, an Item like that can free stats up and make it easier to make a weird mix. A Barbarian and Wizard mix would be more than a bit MAD with how both classes focus on the other class's dump stat, but with the Circlet, one can easily make a Barbarian/Wizard multiclass without sacrificing effectiveness in both BUT with the tradeoff that they will not be able to use "better" or more interesting head slot items, if it gets removed their Wizardry is instantly reduced, and it takes up an attunement slot. Overall though to me it feels like a fair trade and can be a rewarding thing to build around IF you are aware of what you are giving up to do so.
And givi9ng it to Laezel actually would be good for making her an EK or a Fighter/Wizard multiclass to fit the Githyanki fighting style.

My point is that its not broken good. You can fit it into a few niche builds that aren't bad, but mostly you would do that to fit a role playing concept, not a min-max power build.

I find items like the Circlet are most useful to bump up a character's secondary/tertiary stat (i.e. INT for eldritch knights or arcane tricksters, among others) until they are able to raise it up on their own through ASIs. It doesn't make any sense on a character whose primary stat you want to get to 20 anyway.

I haven't seen a ton of interesting headwear in 5e, not that some doesn't exist and more can't be homebrewed. The real cost of the Circlet is that it eats up a precious attunement slot, and there are so many better things you want to use that slot for down the line. It's a decent first attunement item, but you're generally going to want to replace it before too long.

Well, I happen to agree, but for your own sake take a friendly advice and don't go on Larian's Discord to say any of that.
At least if you don't want to end under some sort of rabid parody of a siege that goes more or less along with the tired tune "HOW DARE YOU!" and "IT'S JUST YOUR OPINION!".

I took a look in there 3 hours after I tried to help define what you meant by itemization.

...You weren't kidding. I legit had not run into ANYONE defending DOS2's itemization until today.

This quote by someone in there really leapt out to me, though.


DOS2 had an illusion of an open world, but it really wasn't. There's a reason why there's a recommended level map for the entire Reaper's Coast. The worst part is, not only did it suffer from stat bloat, but it also had a hidden level-based damage formula. I believe it was something like -20% damage inflicted for every level you were below an enemy target, and +20% damage inflicted for every level you were above them. Could be 25% or 15% instead, but the game doesn't tell you this, yet it's extremely obvious there's something there.

BG3 is honestly far closer to being open world than DOS2 ever was.

That makes two of us.

In the years I’ve discussed these games since they came out, with friends or on communities like RPG Codex, RPG Watch, etc. I struggle to remember people who were even just neutral about the system.

Most thought it was bad, many thought it was downright awful and for few people I know it was downright a deal breaker, enough to put them off from playing the game despise any recommendations that “It does even some things well”.
Sometimes without even enough insight to be able to point what didn’t work exactly. They knew only that dealing with loot in the game was tiring busywork and it didn’t feet right.

People who LIKED the system and would argue with a straight face that it is just as good as BG2?
Basically unicorns.

Oh god yeah.... the Larian itemization system .... -_-

By the way I may be wrong but I absolutely do NOT expect Larian to add attunement mechanics (or item identification) to the game.

It doesn’t seem to fit their current strive to make the game as frictionless (and toothless) as possible.

Pretty sure about that too... ritual casting is probably out aswell. Aswell as proper mechanics for scrolls or what spells wizards can learn. It's all a damn shame, if so....

My experience with DOS2 was exactly this. I had to do very specific content and ONLY that content at certain levels. There might as well been a mmo-like glowing path, leading me to where I could actually go and where I wasn't supposed to go. it was bizarre. I'm sure an expert with the system can bypass it, but for a new player, i felt very constricted.

Not directed against you in particular Saito (do you prefer Saito or Hikari as a short name? Or would you just prefer the whole name?), but I have to be honest - I'm really puzzled by people calling BG3 open world. It's like people have forgotten what that term means in a game, and only use it as part of latching on to popular phrases. BG3 is not, and is not even remotely approaching, open world. It is a series of narrow paths interconnecting fixed diorama events in place, and literally nothing more. It is the furthest thing from open world without being wholly linear. There is no exploration - there is only following the rigidly formed corridors to the next events - and while it may be a network of different fixed corridors that let you run to the events in almost any order you want, it's STILL just corridors leading in fixed ways to fixed events, with nothing else at all in the world. It doesn't feel like a world, open or otherwise - it feels like a stage, upon which we are anchored and locked and restricted by convenient physical walls and waters.

Breath of the Wild is an Open World game. Skyrim is an Open World game. BG3 is very much NOT an open world game in ANY sense of the word.