Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Sorcerer is coming!!!!

I'm happy to hear the addition of Sorcerer, and can understand why the team decided to include this class: it's popular and they already had a lot of the means to create it (by this I mostly mean the spells as game data). Patience with the process is important. Don't expect very complex classes and races right out the gate with this if you want a quality game. I imagine the reason they're going these particular routes is to build upon the classes and races that already exist (using the existing game data) to build something more niche. All I'm saying is that it makes sense. I appreciate the developers' effort.

Bards in particular are probably difficult. People have determined that expertise is in the game, sure, but two big bardic features are reactions and bardic inspiration. Inspiration is particularly tricky: is it a separate icon (clunky)? Is it just automatically applied on your next d20 roll (weak)? Does it open a pop-up prompt with every d20 roll until you use it (seemingly against Larian's philosophy)? Does it apply to all d20 rolls made in the next round? Implementing bard isn't difficult in a technical sense, but it very much involves complicated decisions that might affect other systems.

I understand advocation for patience and understnading (especially with covid), but "right out of the gate" is a bit misleading at this point imo. It has been a year of EA, and 3-4 years of working on the game. It's not that unreasonable to expect that more classes would have been released by now. There's also the question of: what does releasing sorcerer get Larian? Is it just to please fans who want new content? Or is there an aspect of sorcerer that is relevant to EA testing and balance? Both are fine, but tbh I'd prefer that Larian released content that fulfilled the latter, since earlier testing and feedback (the point of EA) would better help Larian develop the game.

I can see bard having long meetings about design, same as we've been waiting for an update on reactions.

Yeah I apolagize for that. Dident mean to disrupt this thread discussion with another discussion alltogether

@Dragonsnooz lets agree to disagree on this subject matter. We both brought up points for and against and we just arent coming eye to eye on it.

About sorcerer beeing the easiest to implement.... Im not to sure about that. I think if Larian has to implement every single metamagic combo and how they interact with further magic in the same turn it might run into a very decent amount of code that they need to implement. Also dont forget its not just supposed to implement for purely sorcerer classes. If someone multiclasses and uses metamagic for spells outside of the sorcerer spellbook the effect needs to apply as well.

I dont know how complicated or easy that is, but that doesent sound like 'the easiest job' to me...

My best guess after watching Datamine Videos is expanded Act1 Areal.

Wenn new Class like Sorcerer is integratet it might mean that the Magic system has been reworked and shaped that you see the differents when playing a Wizzard, a Cleric or a Sorcerer.
Spellusing is normally not just that everyone can use everything.
So a more defined Magicsystem might blow up Gamepatch, aswell as new Textures, new creatures more geometry wise as therea are a lot of new objects ingame.

But,... that does not mean that everything will be accessable in EA Version.
As in Datamined Videos proof, theres so much more in your BG3 Files which u never see when playing EA BG3.
So alot of stuff is just in the files but not playable.
That a simply is another reason for a bloated Patch.

Probably its a mix of everything.
New things and old things replaced, updated, filled in for future use, etc ,etc.

If anything, that sounds like an additional argument against it.

Then, logicaly, they were not people i was talking about.
Simple as that.

As spacehamster95 said:
"If you look at reddit, there are plenty of people who vibe with their sense of humor."

And if you look deeper, you can easily find people who are regulary upset about it ...
Those are people i was talking about.

More like as one of several dozens potential weapons ...
I mean we allready could throw it to damage someone, is abylity to slap someone over face with it so different? o_O

Personaly i believe it could be potentialy excelent silly weapon ...
I would give it 1Damage period (no damage rolls, sorry) ... and durability roll with Dificiulty 15 for Salami to break, and therefore become unusable as a weapon. :P
And i cant imagine why would people mind ... sure, if Salami would actualy give 1d8 Bludgeoning, i would be first against it, but as long as it stays as useless weapon as salami would actualy be ... i dont see any problem. We allready can equip kitchen knives and cleavers ... pans would be wecomed too. :P

I can absolutely understand that, it would be indeed unfortunate ...
But it would not be misstake of the salami.

After all, in last PFH, we were also specificaly presented only few things ... but there was a lot more changes. :-/
I believe there is little misstake in our expectation too, PFH as far as i could tell, is not ment to be informative ... its ment to be a show, preferably fun show, with some tiny tidbits here and there ... then there are patch logs, released later, and their main purpose is being informative.

Or, someone who seen last PFH thought "hells, this is actualy funny" and created that small part of code (basicaly just another weapon) by himself in his free time ... then present it to Swen and Swen was like "Hells, why not ... they asked for it, after all."
So they add it to the game and it cost litteraly nothing.

Im not from game industry myself, but i was told by my friend working in CDPR that some easter eggs was created exactly like this.

I honestly wonder how does it look in Larian ...
Is whole company focused on Sorcerer ... or are there separated departments, working on different classes, and wichever finish their work first we get? O_o
I mean, we were told in Patch 4 that Nick (the guy who turned into the cow) was responcible for implementing Druids (or something like that) yes? So, he could easily be either leader of project that was curently entire studio focused on ... or he was just leading his department. o_O

My point is ... if second option was the case, and Swen told us that they "want to" implement hard and dificiult things first ... that dont mean at all that they concidered Sorcerer to be hardest, they might just fail in their ambitions to implement Paladin (or *instert class here*) first.

Also i dare to say that if they would like to implement easiest class ... they would start with Barbarian.

Paladin? O_o
I cant quite imagine how they want to implement Lay on Hands ... we kinda figured out Smite in other topic, it would not be perfect, but it would be acceptable, but LoH? As far as i know, nobody even talked about it so far.

Also what is so hard about Druid? O_o
I mean, personaly i would like much more if we had to "scan" (its not the best word i know) beasts to get their forms into our list of shapeshift possibilities ... but except changing their stats in forms, they are basicaly another Wizard with different spells.

Upcasting is easier to code (I would assume) then metamagic would be. Because we know upfront what a spell's upcasted version is. Most of the times more damage, more projectiles or whatnot. Metamagic can be more nuanced then that though.

You can turn spells that cost 1 action to cast into bonus actions.
Make spells that only target 1 target suddenly target several.
Increase range, or in the case of spells with no range; give them range.
etc. etc.

Its alot more then just making upcast versions of excisting spells. Also if they would turn it into modifiers, when would they apply? Before casting? Would activating the metamagic feat that you want to use swap out your spells for different ones? If you want to remove somatic or verbal components, how do you pick between the 2 and how does it effect the spells? Is it easy code to just remove that portion of the spell in that case? Not to mention that if you got a metamagic option, it has to work for all spells that you can have. Add multiclassing to the mix and thats alot of spells that they have to make sure work properly.

Having said that, I dont code. So for all I know its actually alot easier then I think it is. But I can inmagine that with the big number of spell and metamagic combinations possible they needed some time for this. If nothing else, they got alot of variables to deal with. Because of that saying that Sorcerers are easy to implement isent necesarrily true I feel. Theres alot of things that metamagic can influence when you factor in dual classes. I plan to play all the casters with a single level of sorcerer just to see the wild magic shenanigans I would try to test the way metamagic works with other classes but uh...... Lvl 3 sorcerer/lvl 1 whatever class doesent really allow that much testing I think

Also, bear in mind that most of the classes have 1 or more subclasses that gain spells from excisting spellcasters. Even the barbarian can gain some spells that he can cast. It makes sense to get the spellcasting done first, so if you need those subclasses' their spells (or feats that handle like spells) you have them on hand. Aside from that, most of the martial classes are pretty....simple. I think they want to get the more complicated things done first before they do the simpler ones to round up the classes.

How rough are we talking here? If its close but just a little off or abit messy in the code but gets the same effect?

Also dident they say they worked on spells in a general fashion? Maybe they remade some spells and made sure they were streamlined across the board. Bless brought up a aoe bubble IIRC that randomized which targets you buffed. While you are supposed to be able to pick what targets you buff in range. While at the same time magic missle allowed you to target 1 or 3 targets for its projectiles just fine. It felt off and some streamlining was defenitly needed. And some bug fixing to. Magic missle could hit objects in its path for example while its supposed to always hit <_<

Code and how much time it takes aside. I still think they did it because other classes with spell casting needed excisting spells and abilities for their own options. Like barbarian ritual casting with the totem warrior path for example.

Good News!!! Sorcerers receive bonus bloodline spells (Tasha rule implemented).

Checking out this video on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/q3jwt9/draconic_bloodline_teaser_from_egx_day_1_live/

U can see that the sorcerer gets bonus first level known spell according to the draconic bloodline they choose. On another screenshot it seems, there is an alternative to draconic sorcery (please Wild Mage), but I have not been successful locating any info on that front.

Also, Chromatic Orb is implemented with the new update.

Lovely!!!

Omg this looks awesome! (except the robe tho, that is at best quite good. :P )
Thanks for sharing. :3

//Edit:
So ... concidering the teaser ... it seems like we dont get starting equipment (yet?).
Also, since i allready talk about robe ... im i the only one who concider it sad that new classes gets so pretty armor, but older had just generic? :-(

I think the wizard robe might have been a placeholder (or I hope at least, it looks like a bathrobe compared to the sorcerer's gear).

I honestly hope they all are placeholders.

Rogue have too little pockets to my taste. :P
Ranger is too little blending in the forest to my taste.
Not sure about Fighter and Cleric tho. :-/

I would say that Fighter should seem to be much more armed, but that is matter of more than just amor. :-/

I always figured that the whole 'we're working on the harder classes first' statement was just spur of the moment fluff that people unfortunately took at face value. And honestly quite frankly demeaning to fans of the 'less complicated (read: martial-focused)' classes. We already know Larian loves their explosions too, the balance for the melee were always atrocious compared to the mages in the DOS games.

Like I've said in a different thread, they're probably working on all of the classes at once. Sorcerer is probably the only one in a good enough state to release for EGX/the anniversary month, because virtually every other yet to be implemented class requires a working reaction system. Their presence at EGX was likely required in some way, so they had to save something for that.

Probably why we didn't get a class for patch 5 either, they needed to save Sorcerer for the anniversary just in case they couldn't get reactions/any other class ready in time. Though the silver lining is that Larian can't tiptoe around this issue any longer, we most definitely WILL have an answer for how they plan to implement reactions in the patch after this (and the wait for it may be longer than the one between patch 4 and 5 for this very reason), unless it's another story/cutscene-focused patch without a new class.

So I think ive found the source of the Salami reference....

I was looking at previous panel from hell because I realized I hadent watched it yet:

[video:youtube][/video]

Seems this is what the dual wielding Salami was referring to. Or they did things like that before and this just continued it, dont know xD

The salami ordeal is a slap in the face. Would have been a cute addition as an easter egg.

Sorcerer really wasn't my first guess to be the next addition. It sure seems like its the easiest addition though... gonna be excited when I see Aberrant Mind subclass added for them.
My hopes are raised that we will finally see the mess with scrolls resolved and the magic system overhauled to make Wizards actually function like they should.
If they don't touch on that subject with this patch at least we'll have confirmation that they are completely oblivious to the feedback.

But I have to say I'm a little bit confused as I was convinced we were going to see Paladins come next. Then they could touch on the topic of missing deities and issues with Clerics as well. That would give a ton of replayability to Act 1.
Gonna be a blast to install the game again only for it to be gone in the next few days when I hit level 4 with the whopping two subclasses the Sorcs have in the PHB.

Waiting to see the patch notes for the QoL improvements.

Now I need my Paladin Oath Breaker =) (I know its not PHB but one can dream)

I was hoping it would have been the Paladin as well as then it would have given me a definite reason to run through the to 4th level again. At least with the Paladin, you have both a fighter and spellcaster in one. Maybe they'll surprise us in this one and let us go to 5th level or even have Opened more area for us to explore. Come on I can wish, can't I?

I wouldn't hold my breath mate. We would already have heard the level 5 hype coming from the EGX attendees.
The new area topic... meh. That really wouldn't have an impact. We have a pretty big playground as it is. The problem is that theres so much to fix and tinker with as is, that adding more things to that pile would only work against them. The mobs need rebalancing, theres still missing subclasses for the Wizards and Clerics and they're still mixed up with letting Wizards learn Cleric spells, the glaring issues with their homebrew additions and changes in regards to combat which have been met with opposition since day 1, etc...

You can wish for it, certainly - but I don't think you quite understand what you're asking for - Level 5 would bring so much chaos into the mix as things stand as its a HUGE powerspike for every class - with level 3 spells and what not.
I think we'll see level 5 introduced in the last patch before release when they roll out every class so they can iron out the issues that will no doubt arise but with Larian you can't be sure of anything. Their approach to Early Access is... unorthodox to say the least.

Their last patch was a welcome sight but still underwhelming, this one is shaping out to be a good one, again, only if they address the issues that have been talked about here since January or even earlier. I would like nothing more than to say that they're taking the game in the right direction, gotta wait for those patch notes first though. Their updates are so far apart that you gotta wonder if all their ''internal debate'' ever amounts to anything but - ''we're sticking to our original decisions''

Gods, I need to see those patch notes right now.