Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

My honest opinion from what i have seen so far;

Wrath of the righteous looks incredibly good and so does BG3.

WOTR does appear to be offering a lot more mechanics through mythics paths where you can become angels, devils and liches ect....it looks really really frickin good....like really good. WOTR also possibly looks to have better story writing and companions. Owlcat are based in Poland and arent necessarily all about diversity and gender neutral crap like Larian is. I think Larain have gone waaaayyyyy to far with this stuff and Owlcat have completely tuned it down eg Larian has gone woke and Owlcat are not woke.

BG3 on the other hand looks better visually and i think has more potential due to there budget.

Thoughts people?

I am not touching the "woke" part of the OP

When I have to compare both games currently I would say Wrath is way better. But how much you can compare them is debatable and not only because of the different state of development.
Owlcats games are more grand, they need to be as they are adding kingdom building or crusade leadership into it. They also have the advantage that they do not need to create the whole story by themselves but are implementing published adventure paths (although with a lot of modifications which so far made the game better).

Whats definitely better in Kingmaker/Wrath are the companions. The Kingmaker ones were already better than the BG3 ones as far as I can tell (even when they were a bit stereotypical in Kingmaker) and the Wrath ones look even better.

But you see a very different way of design in the Owlcat games and Larians BG3. Owlcat goes wide and include lots of subclasses, even obscure ones, and even creates more subclasses themselves. And for DLCs they add even more things like companions.
Larian in the other hand goes into detail with full voiceover and cutscenes.

What is better? I don't know. It also always depends on the execution.

Immersion is the biggest difference IMO.

WoTC is way more immersive than BG3. Despite it's good gameplay and graphics, BG3 always throw at our heads that it's a video game.

A book need paper and you hold it in your hand but when you're reading it's a story you see in your head.

A film show images but when you're looking a good film you forget that you're in your sofa looking at your television.

Despite the obvious requirement for video games (like a user interface), WoTR is WAY better than BG3 to make you feel that most things you see is a part of the story or the world.
But it's not that hard because despite it's beautifull 3D, there are ALWAYS something in BG3 that bring you back to reality.

- the user interface. A few elements are beautifull but 95% of every menu, hotbar, map and mini map is at best random/common, at worst awefull.

- the world is completely frozen. Nothing ever happen... Even when you destroyed the goblins leader those at the blighted village continue waiting without turning hostile.

- time does not exist. It's night when the player decide to click on a button.

- non magical things like jumping or pushing someone when you're a human look magical.

- faste traveling look like a cheat code rather than a travel.

- the main menu invite players for a story of runes and boat next to a cave rather than inviting you to write a story (pathfinder) or to invite you for a journey in the world (pillars of eternity).

- there are no drawings in the game. Everything is so common and lack of personnality. The portrait, the maps are just gamey and awefull.

- companions have a story that "does not look realistic (believable ?) at all".

Just a few exemple... In my opinion that's a BIG difference with a lot of other cRPG and BG3.

BG3 lack the pen & paper style and what makes the experience very immersive. WoTC is good at that.

Of course immersion depends the player... For a lot of players it only mean beautifull 3D and for other it only mean eating and drinking...

Ehhh... It's like PoE2 vs. D:OS2 back in a day.

Apples to oranges. Different RPG genres for different audience, on different budget, with a different experience in mind. There will be some audience overlap between two, and preferences for one over the other, but overall there is very little to compare.

I wish for both to do really well, and I wish myself to enjoy both games for their own merits.

EDIT:
And you aren't necessarily all about geography . Owlcat games is based in Russia, and fortunately, Poland isn't occupied at the moment.

Firstly, the level of these games is completely different, but both games are good in their own way. Second, Owlcat is a Russian developer, not a Polish one. And personally, I don't really see any "gender-neutral" things in BG3. What exactly are you talking about?

I would stay away from the "woke" part the OP is implying for BG3. We will have enough of those threads popping up post launch I fear. I don't feel like opening that can of worms myself. I cannot comment on Pathfinder WOTC myself as I haven't really been following it. Baldur's Gate 3 seems to be shaping up as what I would expect from Larian, a bit less grand scale and go for a more detailed approach, though it is hard to judge at this point in time what the final product will be, in all fairness. It will come out in late 2022 at the earliest and more likely in 2023. So yeah..

Overall I like the route they turned into with patch 5 and hope they continue tinkering along that route. I quite like the companions we have so far, but am really curious about what others we will be getting (I am counting on 8 to 10 companions myself, with maybe more added as free updates?) .

Hey Nyloth

The woke part i am talking about is the extreme political correctness that is currently making all mainstream media, streamed content and cinema content (that comes out of Hollywood) especially unwatchable.

eg they are more concerned about gender diversity and inclusion and political correctness then they are about producing great content. Owlcat have completely ignored this crap and Larian seemed to have embraced it.

For this reason i think WOTR will be better.

What exactly is overly "woke" about BG3?

He! I was wondering when we would get this thread.

P:WotR hands down. Yup it's an unfair comparison ... for BG3. The only dimension on which BG3 would beat WotR is on graphics technical quality, and even there NOT on graphics aesthetics. Everything else -- story, characters, setting, world-building, systems, mechanics, gameplay, combat, UIs, range of options for players, the "look" of the game (i.e. graphics aesthetics/art style), the level of responsiveness of the devs to fan input and feedback, and even bang for my buck -- WotR is waaaaaay better than BG3.

@ OP, I too think that WOTR looks like a great game, and as someone who came to BG3 as a longtime fan of BG1&2 I am sad to admit that WOTR is maybe more the game I was looking for than BG3 in terms of a modern equivalent/successor of the previous BG games.

That being said, I am really getting annoyed by how your post and several others in the past weeks/months construct a straw man to try and degenerate the discussions on this forum into a kind of idiotic gamergate reactionary bullshit. Gay people exist, feminine males and masculine females and everything in between exists, people having sexual intercourse with whomever they want exist, so please do yourself a favour and take your bullshit attempts to politicize games back to /pol or parler. It really blows my mind that such narrow-minded frustrated infantile idiots like you feel the constant need to bring up other people's sexuality and gender experience on a forum about a videogame set in an imaginary world. Like what the fuck is wrong with you guys, if you're so obsessed by the gay and queer perhaps you should start questioning yourself why the fuck you even care this much about it as apparently most other people seem to simply not care how people think about and what they do about their genitalia and agree it is total bullshit to oppress people because of what they say, think, and do with said genitalia. I can't stop thinking about that Hungarian anti-gay EU parliamentarian who made his career out of targeting LGTBQ and the "gender" agenda and got caught with plenty of mdma pills and other drugs on a clandestine gay chem-sex party during lockdown. Kinda validates my hypothesis that the most vocal opponents of 'the gay' are those who truly feel 'the call of the gay' inside of them but chose to fight it - and thus themselves - instead of simply embracing their own homo-erotic fantasies and without realizing the fact that they feel so threatened by 'the gay' living rent free in their heads is more telling about their own fragile sexuality in denial than about 'the gay' and society ...
Now please bugger off and take your cringe anti-woke crusade somewhere else. Btw, I hope you're aware the father of modern computing - Alan Turing - was gay too, so while you think you're probably super funny edgy and hetero you're actually wasting your live on a machine invented by a gay man - how ironic.

*took-the-troll-bait.jpg*

I pretty much agree with your post.
I am often confused why so many people are so hung up on *other* peoples preferences. I mean, no one is forcing you to become something you are not? That is, after all, the point. Just tolerate other people being different and go on about your day.
I mean, the "all-companions-are-bi"-approach ensures that you don't even have to worry about incorpatible sexuality. So no chance of your favorite companion, who could be your one true (in-game) soulmate not being interested in your character.
If there would be such a thing, I would understand it.
Personally, when I play games I want to see a good resolution and incompatibility is a RL thing I can really do without..



On the other hand, Serra? Wheren't you murdered by a Planeswalker ages ago? How can you run around and write forum posts? oô

Serra: I agree100% with your post. Well said.

I understand what you mean, but can you tell me more specifically where you have seen such content in the game? If you are talking about 'all bi', then for me this is a convenient tool than political correctness. I would not like to get a cyberpunk situation where you have one romance at all. Strong women? I hasten to disappoint you, they are in the Pathfinder, Wenduag generally hates men.

Otherwise, I don't see anything like this in first act.

I also didn't notice anything that you are talking about in DOS2 (Larian's last project). I know that people here on the forum constantly write about political correctness (for example, in the topic about elves), but this does not mean it is in the game.

Honestly, some of our companions are already showing racism and xenophobia, and our character can literally praise slavery. Not very politically correct, don't you think?

Everyone sees only what they want to see. That's why I am convinced that if someone really wants to take offense at the "evil drow" or perceive the Tiefling as real refugees, he will do it. But personally, I do not see this, and I do not see that Larian indulged American Trends. Owlcat also does not follow these trends. Both are somewhere in the middle. I'm sorry that I will again take Cyberpunk as an example, there was a strong indulgence of political correctness. This was very noticeable after the Witcher, where this was not at all. Honestly, this should serve as a bad example for all developers, political correctness does not make the game good or interesting, you should not listen to every user on twitter, huh.


Although we haven't seen the rest of the companions in BG3 and we don't know what the future holds for us. That's why I thought that maybe you have some information that I don't know about. Because right now I don't see it in the game.

Thx, Fox, not sure if you're referencing some MTG lore i'm unaware of - stopped playing/buying MTG long time ago already - i just like the artwork of that specific print of the card and it has a lot of nostalgia value for me as it was the first card I really wanted that I obtained trough trading in high school . A 4/4 flying , attacking does not cause this creature to tap, angel for 4 mana only, little 12 year old MTG obsessed me instantly fell in love...

Slightly off-topic, so I'll put it into spoilers:

To be more on topic:
As someone who actually disliked Pathfinder 1 and mostly likes BG for the banters (and, lets be honest, the romance =P) - would WOTR still appeal to me?
Then again, maybe I should play DOS2 first..

I prefer anything else at this point. Larian just used the BG license to make D:OS3 with more hype. They arent listening to the fan base, the D&D rules are their versions. You cant create your own party or save/export characters from one game to another, the heart of TT D&D.



***off topic***
Can I ask what you feel is "woke" in BG3? I personally do like a lot about this game, but I dont feel there is an agenda they are pushing, so im curious to hear why you think there is. This adverse reaction to "wokeness" is dumb. Hey you cant sexually harass people or make crude jokes on gender or race. Does this mean you should be ostracized from society, no. Does it mean you could lose your job and friends because people dont want to be associated with your behavior, yes. So where is the problem with "wokeness"? You cant bully people anymore, which is good. You have to be respectful to women, which is good. It doesnt stop you from being who you are, unless youre a creep, bully, or rascist.

I'm very much looking forward to WotR. Just got through another playthrough of P:Km (again stopping in Act ~6? because jesus the game is too long), so I'm excited that WotR will be tighter in scope and closer to ~80 hour instead of 150+ hour playthroughs from what I hear!

Honestly I think that Pathfinder, with the extreme amount of abilities to choose from during leveling up and to use during combat, is just better for a (combat-focused) crpg than 5e. In Pathfinder, your basic class-independent character can make decisions regarding: full attack vs separate move+standard actions, whether to move or use a move-equivalent action (drink a potion in P:Km), acrobatics to avoid AoO, charging the enemy, fighting defensively, flanking, and delaying your turn. In 5e, if you want to avoid AoOs or become more defensive, you have to sacrifice your action to do so. And move actions can't be replaced with anything. Additionally, the stacking bonuses in Pathfinder allow more for more party synergy and buffing compared to 5e's "oh you already have Advantage and Bless? Nothing else I can do then."

Larian has stated that they feel like low-level BG3 characters don't have enough to do (hence making more things into bonus actions), which is entirely 5e's fault.

I also don't see anything "woke" about this game. Also find the idea of "woke " to be odd. So if someone uses woke as a pejorative does that mean they're asleep?

Just remember, if you win a fight on Facebook or the Larian forums we can have equality for everyone. Of course if you lose the 14th amendment gets repealed. So, downsides...

Doesn't anyone else think its odd that the concept of and hatred of 'wokeness' came from social media? Its almost like social media is there to create conflict so they can sell stuff to people. But that can't be.../s



WOTR has a lot of interesting permutations and looks like it has enormous replay and build potential.

BG3 has the same incredible outcome potential and with its multiplayer and possible DM Mode, and additional campaigns has the potential to be a platform.

I think the devs from Larian look forward to playing WoTR and Owlcat can't wait to get its hands on BG3.

Both sets of devs probably look at pointless "who's game r better" quarrels and are like "what a bunch of idiots, lets grab a beer"

I'm ignoring the part about woke. Apart from that, i have completed WOTR beta twice and on the 3rd playthrough. What i can say the game trumps BG3 in every aspect. I only completed BG3 EA once and since then i haven't even touch it nor have ANY desire to play (with the new druid class).

I have so much fun in WOTR and all my playthroughs were turn-based. Biggest issue for me is BG3 indeed is a DOS2 clone slap with dnd5e ruleset. Also with just a party of 4 in BG3, i can just assume personally this is due to Larian wanted the multiplayer as 4 would be more feasible? to play along with friends. I play DOS2.. it's cool that they include the multiplayer part.. but i have NEVER once participated in DOS2 mutliplayer. perhaps there are many who loves DOS2 for its multiplayer? Personally, i just like to play single player. So in WOTR .. the 6 party character is really awesome.

And bear in mind WOTR / pathfinder is not an easy game.

To give credits where its due, the only thing that BG3 beats WOTR are the visuals. But, it's just my personal taste WOTR looks state of the art for me too. Just that it's current state it's still very buggy.