Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 4 Character Party Limit Too Small?

More is definitely not always better. I'd rather have handful of meaningful choices presented to me rather than 103 classes and be expected to go through each and every one to find something I like. Wotr has way too many classes, feats and whatnots and it suffers for it. A lot of the content is buggy and reading through hundreds of options is a tedious. I'd rather they have 20 classes/subclasses at max and make those actually work well and be different from each other. Make the world react to your chosen class, present unique options etc.

i finally cant subside for my desire for dnd5e.. hence i'm starting solasta. i really hope that the bg3 companions given can synergize and compensate each other to form a party composition that i want for my playthrough. solasta doesn't seems to have multi-class so kinda hopeful and excited for bg3.. but on the other hand, the reactions and homebrew rules by larian kinda put me off a little. i hope larian continue to stay true to dnd5e. i don't like the +2 attack on elevation. since the ruleset mentioned advantage it should just have advantage instead. also the bonus action, etc.

pathfinder wotr is truly a masterpiece and a gem. i had myself a collector's edition and sadly.. due to the on-going conflicts. i hope i'll get it one day. the only thing i'll blame for mediocre framerates due to my aging GPU. still hesitant to pay up $750USD for a new GTX3070ti. the only thing i'm hating myself for disliking pwotr is punishing myself on a hard playthrough. already completed angel with core. haven't try newer other mythics. basically loving the game every bit. larian on the other hand... they have the right tools .. their engine, budget.. unfortunately personally i think they are not that quite the right team to work on the franchise.

They started of with High Ground Advantage (plus Disadvantage if you're on lower ground), and it was hated by many. It placed WAY too much emphasis on those things in combat, with the effective +10 difference between a character on high-vs-low ground. Additionally, many options were essentially invalidated: "oh you have a cool skill that gives you advantage on an attack, probably that has a resource cost? Well I can just climb 2 feet up a hill and get advantage that way!"

D&D 5e already has rules for giving +2 to AC in half-cover, so there is precedent for flat numerical bonuses. Since cover isn't implemented in BG3, just think of High Ground +2 as inverse half-cover.

would that be due to the design of the overall encounter has high ground availability? if one can just easily climb 2 feet up a hill to get an advantage would probably also mean a design encounter issue. or this could also mean that d&d5e ruleset does not translate so well into a game. but d&d is d&d. changing the ruleset basically means it's no longer d&d. also, is that a technical issue where half-cover could not be implemented? just curious.

Partially it's due to encounter design, yes, but I don't think it's an issue. A big limitation of PnP D&D is that verticality is hard, both to represent on a 2D battlemap and it adds additional math/bookkeeping. A video game solves all of these issues, and so BG3 would actually be worse if it didn't make use of high ground. It was always the High Ground Advantage (HGA) that was the problem, not the high ground itself.

Adding bonuses for things (even adding Advantage) isn't "changing the ruleset." The DMG (PHB?) specifically notes that the DM can grant Advantage for certain situations, which can easily be extended to giving a smaller flat bonus. The problem, again, was that HGA was so easily obtainable and so powerful that it overwhelmed many other things.

As for cover: the way I see it is that BG3 suffers from: a) not being on a grid and b) from every part of an enemy being targetable. Thus, to determine the amount of cover gotten (none vs half vs 3/4 vs total) BG3 would have to calculate every single possible path from you to all parts of the enemy, then report on the % of enemy that you can draw the projectile path to. That percentage would correspond to cover. This sounds a bit computationally expensive. (Whereas Solasta, on a grid, can simplify the calculation because everything takes up a whole 5x5x5 block. Thus you only have to draw a line from the center of your block to the center of the target block: if object in the way = full cover; if person in the way=half cover). BG3 would then also have to change the targeting system - otherwise people would complain about the enemy getting cover bonuses even though they can clearly draw a line to e.g., the enemy's hand.

You don't have any advantage in Solasta when you're higher. You both know the rules better than I but if I remember well it's not written that you should have any bonuses if you're higher.

That said, as Mrfuji said it was REALLY an issue in BG3. The difference between death and victory.
Now the verticality of the map is interesting and the bonuses/maluses are balanced.

This change was a great move and in my opinion it's probably one of the only combat mechanics in BG3 that should inspire Tactical Adventure.

I think he would need to get into more detail of how process of writing no/partial audio differs from full-audio. Outside sheer scope and exhaustion, what else was rushed in order to meet the deadline? I have ideas but they would all but empty speculation. The general gist is that full VO itself wasn't a problem, but way it was handled was. That said, at the end Josh said that with proper implementation he would do it again "because it is an expectation, which kind of suck but that's what it is". Why it sucks is what interests me - my guess is that it's drawing resources away from stuff that actual makes the game click, but that's just my subjective player's perception.

Solasta doesn't have high ground bonuses but it does have cover bonuses which seems easier to calculate with its grid system. (Edit for clarity: I'm saying Solasta's grid system makes cover bonuses easier to calculate than in BG3, not that cover is easier to calculate than high ground within Solasta)

Agreed that changing high ground to +2 in BG3 was an excellent decision. +1 or +2 seem absolutely perfect for a high ground bonus (cough cough Pathfinder gives a +1 high ground bonus), and importantly that bonus stacks with - and therefore doesn't invalidate - other sources of Advantage.

Agreed. I'd be interested in a full account from a dev on their experiences with no/partial/full audio, possibly taking into account the timeline of VO relative to the rest of development. And that's my guess too: that full VO just requires so much work and time.

Both, I think, are very good approaches. Solasta's map aren't as focused on verticality, so giving someone bonus because he is standing one square above an enemy makes little sense - on the other side grid allows for good implementation for cover bonuses. BG3 high ground has been working very well since they nerfed it to +2. I wish they wwill reign in the remaining homebrew so it adds tactically enhances the game, without overpowering it.

thanks for the well thought analysis. then in my opinion, it seems dnd5e is not well adapted or translated to a game compared to a pnp rpg. the high ground advantage is just one of the highlights. i can see the frustration of HGA but can be resolved with proper encounter designs. they should throw in some variety where not every encounter must have high ground?. i don't recall in pathfinder wrath of righteous having alot of encounters with the use of high ground. also what do you think about reaction? or bonus action? everyone can have bonus action wasn't that changing the ruleset?

You would do well to go play Solasta, if you haven't. It will give you a good idea how D&D 5e COULD be well translated into a video game. It'll teach you 5e way better than BG3. It'll also show you how verticality can be done well in a video game with wizards even being able to cast fly and spider climb, etc.

Ugh. Every time I play Solasta I think how much more awesome BG3 COULD be if they did combat and just basic movement mechanics better.

just got it installed and created up my party <3

😁👍

Keep in mind, much lower budget. I will say, there are maybe a few good models, but a number of really not good ones.

Overall, though, a good, fun game.

For a 5e experience, use Authentic difficulty.

5e does have a lot of problems, I'll admit. The randomness of the d20 isn't great when there isn't a DM to adjust things on the fly or fellow players to joke and commiserate/share joy with. It's simplified to the point of losing a lot of tactical options too. I'm a big proponent that video game adaptations should add back in a lot of the small bonuses that previous/other rpgs have, since a videogame can add them all automatically.

WoTR has some areas with high ground, but a.) I don't think any bonuses are given and b) I think it's literally impossible to jump/be shoved off those cliffs.

Those are pretty broad questions. I think reactions are incredibly important to the 5e experience, and having full control over them is vital. Giving everyone a bonus action isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but you have to be careful about stepping on other classes' toes. A generic bonus action should be weaker than all class/race-given bonus actions.

I enthusiastically second the suggestion to play Solasta. It represents the best of 5e combat. Have fun! Try to think of the terrible character models and sometimes bad voice acting as adorably-bad instead of offensively bad :P And remember, it's designed as a mostly linear game.

I really enjoy Solasta but for some reason I prefer the combat in BG3. I haven't been able to completely pinpoint why. I think the high ground and environmental factors add a layer of strategy that requires me to think about the battleground differently, and it's just overall more engaging. And I like how challenging some of the encounters can be - I actually preferred how punishing some of them were in earlier patches. Yes, I know there are mechanics that can be exploited, but I don't really utilize them, and I'm sure they can be tweaked so that they aren't so powerful in the final version. I'm really interested to see how they implement reactions - I can't think of a solution that is any better than the Solasta pop-up window, which I don't really mind.

With Multiplayer a core part of the design, Larian Studio will never increase the number of players in the party.

Never say never.

Besides, it's BECAUSE of 4 player Multiplayer that they SHOULD increase party size max. You literally cannot play with 4 players and do ANY side story quests with ANY origin characters. You miss out on a huge amount of story and character development, as if being punished for playing 4 player multiplayer.

Ah, but that's because you aren't playing as Larian Origins. Everything is perfectly fine if all players just play as characters they didn't create in a D&D crpg.

It depends doesnt it?

I mean ... i wonder about this since day 1 ... how will conversations lookalike when playing as Origin char.?
Will our avatar pick its choices and dialogue turn into cinematics ...
Will we have suggested or limmited options ...
Or will we have option to pick anything we want no matter how it fits the character just as we can now?

You get me right?
There is no quest progression if your Astarion just decide to keep feeding on animals, if your Shadowheart actualy know meaning of the word "secret", if your Gale go straight with his condition, or if your Wyll admits that he have more than general reason to hate Goblins.
And our characters certainly should know those things ...

The only way i can think of would be rewarding players for revealing their secrets in same time as NPCs would ...
Wich in Shadow case is still stupid bcs you get rewarded for failing yor mission. :-/