Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Choose a reward after completing a quest : an itemization problem ?

I just "re-noticed" this in a new patch 5 playtrough (the hype is high again, I just restarted a new one...)

When you ended the quest at the Waukeen's rest, you can choose your reward between two choices : a shield or an amulet.

It's a big NO for me because this looks like an aweful thing of MMORPGs (with the popup asking you to choose and so on).

I don't get why this should be necessary if we were rewarded by the items we can buy or find in the game...
And we aren't rewarded enough according to me.

I never had the feeling in my playthrough that I have found enough appropriate items to improve my party.
You can even not find +1 basic weapons of all kind. It would be fine if magical items were intended to be rare but they aren't...

I'm not saying that there aren't cool items in the game but a lot of them aren't usefull because they are defining a playstyle and/or are usefull in very limited situations.

- stand in fire to deal additionnal fire damage
- advantage when attacking bleeding targets
- poison on weapons when you heal someone
- additionnal poison damage if you cast a poison spell
- +1 to AC after shoving someone (seriously WTF is that)
- need the mark of the absolute
- more damage to the spectator or beholder (don't remember which one)

It's hard to find a +1 short sword that would be usefull to any dual wielder and to every elves but you find tons of things you won't ever use if it does not suit your playstyle.
Items should not define how we're supposed to play but they should suits our choices whatever they are.

If most of those very specific items were replaced by more "common" items, we would be more often rewarded by something usefull for out party and choosing would never really be necessary.
I guess it's better to solve the problem than the consequence.

Ofc there's room for such items but isn't D&D about players agency ? Where is this agency if so many items tell me how I should play ?

Obviously I keep in mind that the game is still in EA but who knows if this is considered as "done" or "work in progress" ?
Are they going to add A LOT more magical items to act 1 ?

+1

I also have a huge issue with this. We should be rewarded more for awesome roleplay with unique magic items like the Flail in BG2, and not be able to so easily by such unique magic weapons in shops. Weapons +1 or +2 are fine for shops for hefty prices, but more unique items should be very rare in shops or hugely priced, and they should be items you find after killing the hag or girh or spider lair or something like that. The ones in shops should only be affordable towards the end of EA.

So there should be a slow progression. First you might afford some +1 weapons and armor for one or two, then everyone, then you get slightly better, more unique items. I shouldn't be able to max out on equipment before I reach level 4.

And yes, the Dragon Axe was awesome before. Now, never mind. It sucks. Put it back to what it was and make it more expensive. That should be double or triple the cost if it can set people on fire like it used to. Or, have it be a quest reward. That's what I'm suggesting. Stuff like that. Give us those unique items, make them cool and fun, and make them worth the price you have to pay to get them.

Getting awesome items is one of the MOST vital elements of D&D. I don't care about equipable salami. Give me awesome weapons and equipment. Lame items = lame D&D campaign. But getting awesome items easily is also no fun because the items are then boring after awhile and you have nowhere to go from there. People gotta work for it for it to be truly awesome and rewarding.

Oh, like Zalk's sword. Love it. But if I get it in the first fifteen minutes of the game, where do I go from there? My fighter gets the sword and never needs another weapon for the rest of the game. Instead, let me acquire his sword later or something. I still want it, and it's by no means easy to get, but my point is it is too soon to acquire something so cool.

I don't really think that below the level 5 threshold the items should really get any better in quality.
If anything the game seems to be already alarmingly generous with them at times and it's easy to imagine that things could escalate out of control in the next levels.


That said, I'm not the biggest fan of the "Pick your own reward" either. But it's not a big deal as long as they keep avoiding randomly generated magic loot and any piece of equipment stays unique and handcrafted.

I never liked “pick your reward” windows either - or maybe it’s that I never like games that use that kind of stuff (Hack&Slash, MMOS).

I suppose the advantage is that player can pick something that will be of use for them, rather then being given item they have no use for. I thing biggest downside for me in games that use that system is that they offer “generic rewards” - if it is one of a kind item, surely you won’t force player to be able to acquire only one during a playthrough. And so, the choice is usually between 3 boring/procedurally generated items, making it far less exciting to me.

Just an observation: a number of those items replicate features of the DOS2 ruleset. Create a surface so you can inflict additional damage was usually the first move in a DOS battle.

Itemization wasn't a strength in D:OS2 either, it was worse in D:OS2 actually because items were extremely level-dependent and something good you could find at level 3 was basically useless at level 5, even though it might have had a bonus that would suggest "use me until the end of game".

Best example that comes to mind now is something later in game: a certain compass with extreme bonus to luck...

Personaly i kinda like design used for magical items ...
It seemed allways boring to me to have just +1 or +stat ... to have there some when you do X you gain Y ... or you casuse Z ...
Much better in my eyes.

But the "pick your reward" window pisses me off aswell ... especialy since you are then forced to play the game in certain way. :-/
For example
So how does that work anyway...
Are those NPCs crafting rewards for us? Are they materializing fron the Void?
Ots the same problem as there is with Vendors ... you kill Vendor and sudently 90% of his inventory vanishes somehow. :-/
I like the most how it works with Zevlor ... and his gloves ... ypu can steal them, you can buy them, or you can get them as reward.

It might have a certain MMOish stink, but personally I don't mind the choice. Depending on party composition, I would prefer one or another in different playthroughs. As long as the items are fixed, of course, and not randomly generated.
Things might change easily after release. For example, in Solasta's EA there was a veritable shower of really good items, so my party was packed for life around level 4. In release version, most of it disappeared (to the point that a note I find after a certain boss fight explicitly mentions "armour and shield", yet when I reach for the armour stand, the +1 shield is nowhere to be seen).

I think there are several design advantages to creating items this way rather than making them more generically powerful. Firstly, players may not be aware a playstyle exists until they see something that specifically points to it. Secondly, players get to feel smart when they do find that specific circumstance when their item shines. Lastly, it's better to have items that some love and some hate rather than items to which players are indifferent (paraphrasing Mark Rosewater's 2016 GDC talk).

To that last point, I really like both items mentioned in the above quote. The poison one works when the character becomes healed, rather than heals. It combos with healing potions, healing spells and abilities such as second wind or Astarion's bite. I've been having a ton of fun with Astarion as a dual wielding thief whose blades are virtually always poisoned. And the ring of personal space I just find funny. I can't see myself being this fond of a generic +1 weapon.

All that said, I agree that picking rewards stinks. It makes me feel like the person I helped is being really stingy : "You saved my life, now choose either boots or gloves beacause I'd rather die than give you both."

Giant euphemism.
Itemization was the single biggest flaw in both DOS 1 and DOS 2... And not for the lack of competition, given that the games had few other stinkers.

To be clear, I'm not talking "Less than ideal" tier here. I genuinely think DOS 2 had one of the WORST itemizations in the entire (sub)genre of party based CRPGs.
In that sense BG3 is already leaps and bounds above the starting point, no doubt about that.

Problem is, BG3 doesn't just need to compare to the awful itemization in DOS 2, but with BG2, which conversely is more or less the "gold standard" of how to distribute an almost IDEAL itemization across a long-ass "epic CRPG".

I particularly love the "I would have burned if you did not come, my soldiers are almost all dead, an important NPC from Baldur's Gate has been kidnapped, the goblins looted everything... but you can still choose between this powerfull shield or amulet, we don't need them"^^

Lol...just...lol

Is the choice in question made through dialogue or an OOC UI window? Because I can see how the latter would feel MMO-like, but the first? That only comes off as natural to me.

The dialog end, the NPCs are going away and this appear in the middle of your screen.
It's not an amulet

+1 for better 'special loot'.

For me what misses in current itemization is convincing backstories and lore for items. Both BG2 and IWD were very good and better at this than the current BG3 build. Several things stand out as a bit lacking at this time and should be improved IMO:

- better lore and environmental integration of items: i don't want to find a weird spear in the crypt with a generic ability, I want to find a spear that actually taps into the history of the place and with an ability that makes sense given its supposed history. So rather than having a generic +1 spear that gives advantage on next attack after a miss, I want to find a 'spear of the crypt elders' from whose flavour text and placement the nature of its abilities should follow logically. For example, it could be cast as the spear of a long forgotten founder of a cult which was then used in initiation rituals in a malevolent cult that is closely linked with the undead. Then it would make sense to have the spear have an effect which connect to that by either giving an advantage against undead (e.g. +1 against undead, or cast protection from undead once a day, etc).

- a more basic, and less story writing intense in between would be to seriously consider which item can be looted where and from whom. By this I mean that on the one hand, items placement should make sense both lorewise and mechanically
eg: a weapon with poison abilities would make sense when related to the hag, but it makes a lot less sense to find it randomly in a merchants inventory - although even this could be remediated by adding something in the flavor text that explains how it belonged to someone living at that location and who was known for being a poisoner. Alternatively, an item that let me cast misty step should be placed somewhere it makes sense either in terms of narrative (in the tomb of someone who was a mountain guard that was known for his/her ability to seemingly jump from one summit to another) or in terms of gameplay mechanics (the item with misty step is place somewhere that makes it use apparent or even necessary (e.g. after it is found in the tomb we can use it to access an area or solve a puzzle that requires misty step), or ideally in terms of both narrative AND gameplay (e.g. finding the legendary weapon of a long forgotten undead hunter that gives advantage against undead in a dungeon were you need to fight some undead). The burning sword on the nautiloid is a good although simple example of how it should be: it is wielded by a demon-something from hell that is hard to kill, so yeah sure it makes sense that it adds fire damage and it also feels very rewarding to loot as it is hard to get.

- besides simple narrative additions, a lot of my dissatisfaction has also to do with the lack of 'build up' towards rewards. I want to learn (by reading, perceiving things in the area, by dialogue with npc's, etc) that there is a powerful item somewhere, that I might acquire it, but that I will need a way to find it first and that it won't be easy given the items appearance in myths. I want to hear tales about a powerful weapon that is thought to have been lost at the site of an ancient battle, or guarded by a secluded cult, etc. to motivate me to go look for this item, i don't want to simply loot any expensive looking chest and go, "hmmm this could be the 'main chest' of this area lets see what's innit". No, I want to be teased about its existence beforehand, then I want to have to overcome difficulties in obtaining it, and then I want to be rewarded with satisfaction that comes from knowing I obtained something that required some thinking to obtain while also being reminded in game that also lore-wise I actually acquired something rather special - the stuff of the legends the villagers in the tavern spoke about, or the myth told to scare the kids at the campfire.

Anyway, I would prefer to have more named, unique items with a story that fits its placement and characteristics and less 'generic item A with generically generated item ability B attached to it, found in randomly refreshed inventory of generic merchant D' that goes by the name of 'Generic weapon of Generic ability B +1'

I don't mind the selection of loot as quest rewards. I've had the same thing in real DnD sessions where you can "select an item from a chest" or "choose an item from my hoard".

+1 to the more unique items. Itemization in BG1 and 2 really added to the feel of the game, with the backstories and unique features.

I like how this was made in Dragon Age: Origins ...
You brought some material to crafters and they told you "I can make X or Y out of this ... what do you want?"

That would make sence. :-/

SenSe, Ragnarok, it would make senSe.

But yeah, crafting options while bringing in the materials is a fairly different scenario.
We already have something similar here with the Sussur Bark Weapons.

Oh, I must also mention that I found those windows infuriation in D:OS2 due to the inability to compare it to the items I already have. I can't recall if that is still a thing in BG3.

xD xD xD xD xD