Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Can we PLEASE start getting CANONICAL monsters in the game?

You do know you'r just posting opinions right??? The tone you used sounds like you belive those to be facts? Clearly you are hostile towards anyone that doesn't agree with your posts - narrow opinions.

I like your first reply in the first quote: "And I genuinely don't." It's great you should look more into that feeling, because there is nothing wrong with that and there is a hide clue in it for you.
It was spot on it's clear you don't like it. You posted your opinion but maybe now you should stop attacking people who do not agree with you? Nothing wrong if i post my feedback right? i never quoted you directly.
The whole lord of the rings thing is just ridiculous same as the stuff after, not worth replying to.
Adaptation is transformative by it's nature if it's not, it's a copy. If people repeat that. it should be a clue?
Show me one game that didn't do it, can you? please i really want to know it.
If you can't live with that so be it, no skin off my back.

The whole idea of homebrew is in the spirit of DnD DM, Larian is making game campaign for us. Sound like you don't like your DM and how they do things?? Do i have to say it??
Anyway, by the sound of things you are telling me that you didn't expect elemental surfaces in the next Larian game, really? You joking, right?

Not sure what part of fictional world gets broken due to poison on touch. Even on earth we have poisons that can kill you just by touching it so why woudn't it make sense in a made up magical universe?? Where you can shot poison rays and fireballs. So funny.

And on a side note, no one transformed "your" monster it's still a phase spider, you didn't even comment on the looks, animations, effects which are way more important than the stats.
After all you can take 5e stats/abilities of Mud mephit and slap on spider model and animation sprinkle it with spider abilities like web or spit poison and vast majority of casual players will still see it as a spider. yes it would even be Immune to poison damage! OOOw, that game braking homebrew! Poor Forgotten Realms the whole realm is doomed!

If you use phase teleportation ability on it then everyone will know it as a Phase spider. If you ask me even you woudn't know those stats were from Mud mephit without triple checking everything.

In old games like BG 2 you can't even look at those stats and the game is still great without that option. I'm sure you were posting back then as well, how they homebrewed mosters?? Give me a brake.

It may be ideal, if you wish to take the higher ground, to ease off on the aggressive insults, sarcasm and violent condescension you're employing when responding to others, Lastman. You can't really tell someone that they shouldn't spend their energy attacking other people, when your own post, in its tone and phrasing, is doing nothing but attacking that person in an even more aggressive manner.

when you only discipline one child when two are fighting, you are approving of what the other child did.

And if you'll illustrate to me where the other party actively and directly insulted, belittled or attacked another forum poster personally in this thread, I'll be glad to redirect my statement. He didn't, and as yet has not.

Regardless, I won't derail any further; I just wanted to encourage folks to calm down and focus on the arguments and stances, and not each other.

yeah i agree, but i don't really need anyone hammering points for me, do you? so you reap what you sow. IF you end it at bottom line - pretty fucking stupid. Not sure what to say to that. I guess i could ignore him, you'r right.

Anyway, what we could do is look at that particular fight more in detail and see what can be improved.
There is always room for improvement. Like i said in my original post by adding more monsters other spiders, giant spider those would work great as a team. Maybe even sword spider homebrew that's in the game. But that was ignored.

They could change how range attack gets used by Phase spiders. Ease up on frequency of range attacks, make it a one off at 50% HP or random. Right now they do spam range attacks for some reason. Hopefully it's AI working in progress.

Mixing those up with melee attacks would definitely improve that fight and make it better. Same for Ettercaps those keep spaming web or lets say Gaint spider if they would add those. Every turn having web thrown at you by raw Gaint spider would be the same thing. Homebrew is not the problem if you use it right.

I don't disagree that some degree of adaptation is gonna likely be necessary for the game, but I also agree with the spirit and much of the substance of Tuco's argument (which I acknowledge was delivered far more aggressively and antagonistically than it needed to be). As has been pointed out before, Larian has a whole host of potential monsters to choose from. Sticking with the phase spider encounter example (which I dislike for reasons unrelated to adaptation stuff), why make the creatures phase spiders if you're also gonna give them a bunch of abilities that are already present in another spider monster? As I mentioned in another post, they're just making things harder on themselves without much meaningful gain. Like, what is gained substantively by changing the stats of monsters when there are other monsters that could fill the same role without changing their stats?

Regarding homebrew in principle, yes I agree that homebrew is in the spirit of D&D and TTRPGs as a whole, but this isn't just someone's personal game around a table. It's an adaptation of a beloved setting that is also the sequel to a beloved franchise. I don't think it's unreasonable, with that context, to expect that Larian would take an attitude of "stick with the setting as given unless changing things gives a clearly better experience." A lot of the changes I've seen discussed seem to just be changes for the sake of changes. And when taken into consideration with a lot ofthe other system changes that Latian have made, it's not unreasonable to think that Larian doesn't actually care much for the property they're adapting. Honestly, speaking as someone who themselves doesn't care or know much about D&D and knows literally nothing about the Forgotten Realms as a setting, Larian is approaching this game in a way that makes me think they actually care about D&D either. Not that I think they actively dislike it, it just seems apparent that they're more interested in doing their own thing and bending the D&D acoutrements to fit, rather than making an effort to exemplefy the benefits and strengths of D&D's system and setting. Their approach to monsters is just a microcosm of that.

Does that make Baldurs Gate 3 a bad adaptation? I don't really know. It's too soon to tell where it will end up.

Also just to touch on the poison issue, the fact that poison seems to seep into your boots to affect you *is* kind of silly. Not stritctly world-breaking but another example of them deviating from how D&D works for seemingly no reason beyond that's how they wanted to do things.

Let's take Star Wars for example. What makes a Rodian a Rodian. Is it just the creature's looks and appearance? If a Rodian started flying like a Geonosian from cliff to cliff, everyone would wonder what the heck is happening.

Creatures in stories like BG3 have set characteristics. Remove those, and the creature loses its original identity. Intellect Devourers that no longer devour intellect but act like thugs for Mind Flayers causes them to lose their original identity.

So, again, why use a monster and strip their identity when there are plenty of other monsters you can use that fit better?

5e is light on Raw spiders types as far as i know, nothing wrong with homebrewing a few. There is a well known sword spider in game already and those are from 3.5 if i remember correctly. What we get is diversity and millions of casual players will not care one bit what stats were used.


it's not unreasonable, but you are forgetting that millions of people like their "thing" and Wotc thinks Larian way is the way to go. They are the gatekepers of DnD. It was clear from day one at least to me that surfaces will still play a part in BG 3. THey did made it more subtle.


i think there is room for improvement. But throwing homebrew and adaptation under the bus because one hates Larian surfaces or whatever just isn't my cup of tea so i can't support that. I believe homebrew will make for a better game if they do it right.
What i do support is improvement and suggestions that add or change those adaptations.

Well, if you go down that road it's silly that arrows get through steel armor as does sickening ray, we shoot made up arrows and other stuff as well. It's fictional universe as i said before.

I completely wrecks any real sense of CR, and in fact, makes Larian's job even harder.

If they'd started with core DnD and then adjusted based on need, instead of starting with DOS and implementing homebrew rules, then they wouldn't be months behind on development, and in a scenario where balancing is all but impossible.

Well, yes and no.
Because on one hand, sure, I'm familiar with the secular notion that subjectivity is implied in this type of discussion.
On the other hand, incidentally that post included a whole bunch of FACTUAL statements that weren't particularly relying on my opinion of them (but I'm not shy to share that too).

I never even began to worry there was anything remotely wrong with it, but thanks for the endorsement, I guess?

Well, no shit, Sherlock. I don't, indeed. If you were trying to for a "gotcha moment" I'd say you are falling a bit short of the target.

By the sound of it you have some issue with reading comprehension. Or you are being disingenuous and a bit too fond of your own strawmen. Pick one.
Not sure how else someone could even begin to do the logical jump from "I don't like how abused that feature is" to "SO YO UTHOGUHT THE GAME WOULDN'T HAVE ANY?".

Can't think of any poison that could kill me from the ground while walking over it with a pair of boots, but sure, embrace your delusion of realism I guess.
Also, Jesus Christ at that selective nitpicking.


I have no idea what point you are even ATTEMPTING to make here.
The Phase spider has always been defined by its "stalker-like" approach of ambushing players in melee only, so it's not just a matter of stats. Its abilities, its animations and its typical role in a fight have all been subverted and replaced here.
It's also a fairly iconic monster in this saga, since it played a role in the past chapters, so seeing it flipped on its head just because Larian suffer a heartache every time it' has to renounce its recurring gimmicks for three minutes straight can admittedly be a bit annoying.
I'm sure you can do all sort of idiotic and pointless (if not even harmful) stuff if you really put your hearth in it, but it doesn't mean I have to endorse it as if it was some manifestation of peak of human creativity.



I'm sure I could sell you a box with two bricks inside rather than the new GPU you wanted to order on Amazon for your PC and you wouldn't know how much you got screwed over until you actually took the time to open the package.


1- Just because you "can't look at the stats" it doesn't mean they don't play their role. Also, you definitely can if you go to take a peek behind the curtain.
2- Previous Baldur's Gate games took their fair share of liberties as well and definitely not everyone of them was for the better. Some were even forced by the game being RTWP, other were mostly alterations according to the difficulty setting, etc...
3. ...But at least that Bioware didn't HATE the idea to stick closely to the canonical bestiary, at least on a surface level. The DID try to make these creature resemble what they were supposed to be, at least when the mechanics required were in place, instead of playing entirely differently.


Jesus Christ, look at this cheeky kid acting high and might even when called out.
Yeah, you know perfectly well who she was referring to.

Those two are facts. here is a long to 5e Phase Spider. As claimed by Tuco it is a different monster archetype (more of a rogue? Disappear and stab) then what was delivered (snipe from distance and teleport away).

And I found Weaving Spider, which might not be an exact copy of Larian’s reimagining of Phase Spiders, but there indeed is a ranged spider archetype, which Larian could use if they wanted to have a ranged spider.

Per my earlier post - I suspect the reason why Larian changed the implementation of the Phase Spider is because they do not have a proper readied action system in place (which I think they need to fix first and foremost). The alteration of monsters is a symptom of a bigger issue (an incomplete combat system - i.e. no proper reactions/readied actions).

The Phase Spider's Ethereal Jaunt, if implemented per the monster manual, is a very frustrating fight for BG3 player because Phase Spiders will always get a free shot on you first coming out of the ethereal plane, whereas in PnP at least you can ready an action to trade blows with them.

To be fair, the Weaving Spider isn't from the monster manual or any official WoTC - it's actually from a 3rd party (Paizo) book Tome of Beasts (aka homebrew). Also, a Weaving Spider isn't actually a spider per that stat-block - it's a construct (think robotic spider) which probably doesn't fit the theme of the area.

Let me go through your points one by one.

As I've said, I'm not against homebrew as a concept. You're very right that the majority of players won't care-I certainly didn't. I did not like the fight, but not because I don't like that they changed the phase spider's stats. However I don't really see what diversity is actually added by changing the spider. Plus what I've seen of how a phase spider is meant to act sounds interesting as well. Sneak-attacking at random could have created a lot of tension in the combat. It's not like there are any enemies that could already do that in the game.

I too think that homebrew can make the game better if done right. I'm just not convinced that Larian is doing it right. I don't mind surfaces in principle-though people have pointed out elsewhere the ways that it disrupts other D&D systems-and I even enjoyed an early use where using ray of frost on burning sections of ground could put out the fires. I felt really clever figuring that out. I'm not ever going to advocate never changing or adapting things from one media to another, but I think that sometimes the best improvement that can be suggested is "this homebrew attempt isn't working, it needs to go." Sticking to the surface example, I'm ultimately fully neutral on those. If they stick around in an improved form, I'll be fine with that. If they get removed completely, (which I don't expect to happen) I'll be fine with that too. Surfaces are a thing that I don't honestly think will enrich the game meaningfully even in their best version. Nor do I think their presence will negatively impact the game once they've been altered and improved.

Firstly let me say that I'm never going to advocate for perfect world consistency at the expense of fun or interesting story. Quite the opposite, I think story or enjoyment should always trump strict adherence to logic. But there's still got to be an internal logic to the world. Saying it's a fictional universe doesn't absolve it of a need to make internal sense. Saying "it's a fictional world, it doesn't matter" isn't a good rational. There has to be some line of logic that players can get invested in. I'm not saying the poison thing is a cardinal sin, but they don't even try to justify it. With your arrow example, you can hit someone in steel armor with an arrow because the arrow hits one of the chinks in the armor. Ray of Sickening is explicitly magic, it's not hard for an audience to justify that working in their heads.

In my opinion the poison thing really isn't a big deal, but I'm against saying, "it's a fictional world, it doesn't matter." I think the bar should be, "it makes things more fun/interesting/easy to use, it doesn't matter." Dismissing a hole in logic just because it's a ficional world absolves the creators of too much responsibility.

I remember being terrified when I saw TWO(!) wood woads along with a bunch of mud mephits, but decided to give it a shot with my party of level 3's anyway. I completely obliterated them, lol. Very confusing.

I guess I didn't take notice, but it does seem odd, phase spiders not acting like the core rulebooks does seem VERY odd.

I wonder why Larian did choose to do this in the first place? The assumption that Reactions and Ready Actions are not implemented correctly or at all seems like the surface issue.

You know, I will say this, though. It is true that there aren't really a huge variety of spider types in 5e. Giant, Phase and Giant Wolf, along with Swarm of Spiders.

BUT, that said, why not use ALL these types in the spider lair instead of 2 Ettercaps and 4 Phase and 1 mama plus some babies maybe?

So, instead of how it is now, why not start with two Swarms of spiders that attack almost as soon as you enter the Apprentice lair with her journals? Then, maybe 2 more as you round a bend. Thus, showing this lair is FULL of spiders. Then, while roaming, two Giant Wolf Spiders attack, dropping from unseen webs above. Then two more.

Suddenly, as you are nearing the mama lair, THAT'S when you encounter the Ettercaps. Then, finally, in the heart of her lair, you face Mama and 2 Phase Spiders with proper stats. However, Mama has twice Phase Spider stats and can cast some magic with spell slots, etc. Maybe she can Poison Spray you and such. Whatever. The point is, give us baby monsters to enjoy slaughtering that weaken the characters a little. Then hit the player with the boss fight. Don't make every fight so tough. I'd love that lair to be full of baby spiders and then Mama comes out to play.

You guys could get just as worked up about 5e not being "CANONICAL" to 2e, if that were your original experience of the game. To me 5e is just as much of a bastardization of classic AD&D as certain spiders spitting and poison splashing in BG3 are to you. It seems like you're getting fixated on a couple specific details, when really there are larger game design flaws that are detracting from your enjoyment of the game. (Setting looking more like Southern California than a high fantasy environment... no towns... all of act 1's areas becoming obsolete after you finish the "content"... maps just being a series of interconnected pathways instead of geographically believable terrain representing Faerun at large... I could go on.)

No. We are suggesting something. We aren't saying we don't want other changes too. I come out here and suggest things as I play the game or write my fan fiction that I think will improve the game... you know... the whole point of EA?

Of course there are other important things for them to focus on, but this is an important thing too. Again, Forgotten Realms is like Star Trek. It has some creatures that are established in terms of their abilities and types. Imagine playing a Star Trek game an having a Klingon act like a Vulcan. No wait. Not just one but ALL of them. What makes a Vulcan a Vulcan? Logic. So if a Klingon was acting like a Vulcan, Trekkies would say, "But why do? Why not instead replace all your Klingons with Vulcans instead of having all these Klingons act like Vulcans.

Now...If for some reason there is a VERY good reason why every creature in EA isn't really living up to the standards of their race, like the Absolutes influence in the region has messed with all their genetics or something crazy, and the reason isn't stupid, then fine. Fans can live with that. What fans don't like is a developer changing characteristics unnecessarily to fit encounters when they could use other monsters that would fit better and all the monsters would maintain their legit established traits.

Fair points all, but wouldn't the Klingon analogy work more along the lines of if, e.g. Githyanki weren't a space-time traveling race bearing a grudge against the Illithid? Spending so much time on Phase Spiders spitting feels more like quibbling about tribbles than Klingons/Vulcans.

Phase spiders are a notable example among many.

The issue at hand here is PRECISELY that this bastardization of the bestiary keeps happening over and over across the entire EA for no apparent other reason than Larian going all in with their “We put more divinity in your Forgotten Realms”.

Phase spiders are supposed to be basically rogue spiders, minotaurs are supposed to charge you, not Hulk stomp you into a fine paste, goblins are supposed to have nasty group tactics but not to be individually “Tanky”, spectators should have two RAY ATTACKS per turn and an average of 40 HP ( peak at 60 if maxed out) not four random actions readily available at will and 90 HP, hook horrors doing the hulk stomping sounds new as well, gnoll archers should NOT be medieval Gatlings who put wood elves to shame, those swamp monsters aren’t supposed to be low level enemies, etc, etc, etc.

The regularity of these ass-pulls is arguably even more grating than their egregiousness.