Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My Feedback - Choice

I personally want D&D 5e the video game. I understand Larian may not have the technical ability to do that. They may not have the desire to do that. Regardless, I and others like me want this for the most part. Some don't I suppose. But there is a demand for it to whatever degree that is. There are however some things to consider. Whatever game Larian makes these things will still apply.

Some people want to control the way others play a game. Some demand a Dark Souls level of difficulty. Others want something slightly more difficult than Candy Crush. Every game has the ability to do this. It is why so many games have easy/normal/hard settings. It is simple to do... Some hate the minotaurs because they aren't D&D 5e minotaurs. They are Larian minotaurs painted to be D&D 5e. Some hate that Larian's minotaurs are too difficult. Some like to brag about how easy it is. The fact is there are choices by Larian that could have been made to appease most everyone. And it depends on what Larian was trying to get out of the encounter.

1) The encounter wasn't hard enough so they put 2 minotaurs there. Modified the stats & abilities. Gave one a magic item. They could have simply made D&D 5e minotaurs and added more up to the difficulty level. Or they could have added secondary monsters. Perhaps a darkelf enchanter who is bespelling them to give them the extras. Hidden darkelf casts Jump on one. Blade ward on another.


1a) They wanted the cool look of minotaurs but them to be special. You can make them special without trying to pass them off as traditional. Tried & true tactic of giving them a name and/or titles.
Simple way to signify that these aren't traditional minotaurs. Then you can change them to your heart's desire. Call them mini-bosses.

Point is they were changed from core minotaurs and passed off as traditional when they did not need to be. There were options to remain true to D&D 5e and still do whatever it is Larian wanted.
And this example applies to the rest of the game. You can remain true to the source material and still make it different. You just need to improvise and be creative about it. The minotaur encounter was nothing more than a disregard for the source material with the justification it is just "based off of it". When it didn't need to be.

Options.
Loaded dice is one of my favorite options Larian has added to the game. Not for my own personal preferences. But because it provides full spectrum options. Hard core or normal players can simply toggle it off. People who like it easier or less aggravating can toggle it on. This technique can literally be applied to nearly every aspect of the game. When Larian decides they need to change the tried and true rules of D&D 5e they could instead simply offer a toggle feature. I am told Larian has altered the balance of the rules by changing the Sorcerers metamagic quicken spell to 3 sorcerer points instead of 2. For whatever reason they decided to make that feature harder. When instead they should have left it at 2 and given players the option to make it 3 citing Larian logic balancing. There are current in game features that are not only unbalanced but down right game breaking ie Barrelmancy and Wizard spell scroll learning. The difference... and why I hate the quicken spell change but am okay with the other two. 1 is heavy-handed telling me how I HAVE to play the game. The other two are completely optional and I can simply not do them if I chose. But have the luxury or option to if I want to.

Freedom of choice is a massive decider for me. When you force your balance altering things on me I am chained to your will. When you make them optional I am free to yoda. Do or do not.
I can make the game easier by barrelmancy or wizard spell scroll learning or using loaded dice. Or I can simply ignore them and play how I want. Changing core mechanics gives me no choice.
The point is when you make these decisions Larian... remember that people often don't like being controlled or forced to do things your way as opposed to the core rules. Yet, when you give me the option to play your way... it is a boon. And appreciated. So be wary what you force and generous with what you give. Such as chastising players for playing human despite your "efforts" to add things like Tieflings.
LET US PLAY HOW WE WANT TO PLAY. With options to do other things. And remember you can change the core rules and monsters/abilities without making people think they are core. That is nothing more than some effort and imagination. You could always poll people for options if you find you are dry on ideas.

In the end what product you deliver will decide whether I buy your future products. Give me something as close to D&D 5e with tons of options to play how I want. And I just may end up a Larian loyalist. Dictate to me and try to "mom" me by chastising my choices and forcing me to play the way you want. And I'm likely to avoid you and look elsewhere. Your call.

Overall, the game is fun. But lacking. Such is early access. And that's my feedback.

Thank you for your feedback, Mjiton! I agree that options are great in general and that there should be more of those so that the players can tailor their experience as they want it. Ideally I'd like to see them have a similar meny to Owlcat's Pathfinder: WotR (including a "core" difficulty for those who want 5e as RAW as possible), but I get why that could be too much to ask for.

I also agree that Larian sometimes have an odd approach to re-touching 5e creatures stats without it being necessary (I believe GM4Him has been running a lot of tests on this and confirmed that most of these stat revamps are plain unnecessary).

So many tests, yes. The game is actually designed, encounter wise, for a party of 6 using RAW 5e rules and stats. So, somewhere along the way, they decided 4 and nerfed it all and did some serious homebrew to try to make it work.

I'm fighting for both 6 party size and a RAW 5e default setting with options to tweak rules how you want.

So, example: Magic scrolls can only be used by appropriate classes is a setting by default. Option, player can set to everyone can use any scroll regardless of class.

Default= Drink potion as Action. Option = Potion = Bonus.

That sort of thing.

And monsters = standard stats with a few homebrew monsters with options to turn off monster resistance, etc.

Actually I like homebrewed monsters. That way even those familiar with the monster will get surprised. Some tweaks do not harm the immersion.

In my mind the encounters in EA run fine. Changing the monsters will be too much work that will be aimed at a very narrow audience. Now if Larian is still creating new encounters, it can be cool to have some monsters that are copy from the monster manual. But rework is kind of no no , at least for me. I really do not see a reason why there should be two options for drinking option as this will require an overhaul of the whole combat system. It is also a very common houserule. I would rather have a balanced game in the foreseeable future with some deviations from 5e (most of them minor) than not very balanced product or a product in 2024.


I agree but creating two options might take away too much resources. I think Larian has to make their mind how to proceed and do it. Scrolls are finite after all. That being said, I will be a bit disappointed if they allow the wizards to learn cure wounds.

Actually, any tabletop group of more than 4 people becomes a bit messy. More skillful GMs might manage up to six but it is hard. The encounters are balanced around 4 people. The game runs fine as it is. What I find more problematic is that even in a four member party, we usually have reactions from a single character. It would be great if we have more often reactions from two even three companions.



Of course, this is all a personal opinion. Then again, I am a person who enjoys companion interactions and development, reactivity and the main plot. I am less picky on the mechanics as long as it provides balanced and interesting encounters.

Is it really a lot of work to make monsters more 5e?

Imps = Resistance. Add sting attack.
Intellect devourers = Resistance. Add Devour Intellect attack.
Phase Spiders (not Matriarch because she's a unique spider. Homebrew works fine with her) = no Misty Step and remove spitting. Give proper Ethereal Jaunt

Not huge changes.

We are going into the nitty gritty details here... The casual gamer will pobably not notice the difference. But I have already started so...


On the imps it does not sound too bad. At least give the resistance to fire, even though they are lesser imps. Why not learn new players that some creatures have elemental resistance?

I think they can just add the "young" tag to the intellect devourers. That way they can still surprise us with the grown up version. I am not too bothered about the int. devourers , though.

I actually liked the spit attacks and the misty step on the phase spiders... I was kind of used to a similar interpretation (in the sense of misty step) in BG1 and BG2. But that's me.

I am kind of split on the duergars... the encounters are already challenging and giving them advantage to all spell saving throws might be problematic for some (although spells such as chromatic orb and magic missile will hit just as fine). On the other hand, it is a cool feature...

That being said, I would not want to hijack the discussion with examples. Once again, overall I am satisfied with how the encounters worked on EA.

I have no idea what were you trying to say with those Minotaurs.
But i like the rest of your post, so +1 i gues.

I believe this one should be easy to explain ...
Since Larian so far didnt expressed any effort, nor plan to restrict number of leveled spells casted within a single turn ... BUT they obviously understand that this option is OP as f**k!!!

They probably decided to icerase this cost not as "making feature harder" but as "making feature a LITTLE more ballanced" ...
Yes, our sorcerer is still able to cast 2 Shatters per single Turn ... wich s/he should not.
But also he is no longer able to do that twice within first two rounds ... wich s/he would be able to, if cost remained the same.

The important question here is, if that is just placeholder until casting restriction will be implemented ... or if this is final version, but i guess time will tell, since Larian will not.

Except exact oposite:

Just this allone ...
If you have only 10 monsters prepared ... to "set standard stats" it would mean to check, compare and rewrite every single stat value that monster have ... that would mean at least 70 entries ...

Analogicaly if you have 100 >> 700 entries.

Then, when this work would be done ... you keep demanding futher:
Except sting attack ... wich is allready in game ... but on the other hand was (among resistances) specificaly mentioned by Swen as one of removed things from Tutorial, since monters were too strong for some new players.
Do you remember them talking about keeping records of that when, where and how often people die? This is the case.

Anyway, back to the "not huge changes" topic ...
The other two, both Devour Intellect and Ethereal Jaunt ... are not in the game, that would mean creating two additional spells from the scratch, its not just writing "now start using Devour Intellect" and voila ... the game must understand what is that thing suppose to do, how should the npc using it work and how should pc react on it ... that allone is quite huge change. :-/
And what would be the outcome? Litteraly two creatures that would seem "a little closer to 5e". Not sure if that is even worth it. :-/

Personaly i believe that removing poison spiting from Phase Spiders should be totally acceptable and satisfying ...
I mean what is the problem with "misty step" anyway? The whole idea of Phase spider "phasing" is dissapear on one place and then reappear on another one ... i dont see much difference here.
Just copy the same spell and name it "phasing" or something simmilar ... set spiders to teleport close to us so they can BITE in the same round instead of flying to other side of cave ... and the result should be fine enough, with hardly any cost since you allready have everything you need implemented.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I personally am not a huge fan of super open ended games that let you do whatever. Take Skyrim. I played it at about 200 hrs, finished the campaign, and let it go. It was just ok to me. My sig other on the other hand has something like 1200 hrs in it because he loves to mod the hell out of it and make it a virtual playground where he can do what he wants. I get it…totally get it. But it is not for me.

I personally like games with well-defined mechanics that I have to learn to master. Whatever they are. Whether it be dice rolls or planning my resting to have access to spells or having to set up ambushes while thinking about height/line-o-sight or preparing potions with limited resources …whatever. A well designed game should be challenging but beatable on normal difficulty. I also worry that trying to make a game everything = a diluted game with a lack of focus.

I think Larian should focus on tight mechanics…whatever they are…and make it as solid as possible. A solid core game can always be modded, but a disaster game trying to be everything can rarely be salvaged.

I realize this is a bit of an aside to the op’s point, and I am not arguing against more choices necessarily…I do understand the appeal of “let me play my way”. I think I am more just musing over my favorite games. Highly customizable sandbox games always rank much lower on my personal list than tight games with more rigid gameplay mechanics that were designed purposefully. Just my rusty two cents!