Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Looks like Larian cheese is here to stay

>is it still DnD

first i wanna adress this quesiton: yes.
Why is it still dnd? because DnD is not as rigid as you might think. Essentialy RAW are guidelines. The Dungeon Master used to be called the Referee and this is still what is job is. Dungeon Master is a marketing term.
At the end of the day DnD isnt played RAW. If theres no intentional houserules, theres bound to be unintentional ones. or rulings.
Basically saying any deviation from RAW causes it to be less DnD is fundamentally misunderstanding how DND is played. Its a game of rulings, not a game of rules.
If you play DnD and dont consider it that way, i would advise you to DM a oneshot for your group once. You probably just havent noticed that your DM has been giving "rulings" opposed to following rules for quite some time without you noticing.

>throwing people in dnd
It would require a grappling attack which im pretty sure Baldurs Gate doesnt have implemented (hopefully yet, grappling is fun)
As for actually throwing anyone: i dont think there has ever been a concrete rule for this. Maybe in 3.5 but no edition ive played for longer periods of time had any rules for that.
That of coruse doesnt mean it doesnt exist in the world. It means its a DM ruling.
Id personally count it as a grappling attack and a subsequent improvised weapon ranged attack.

>You don't get a choice in the matter. If a goblin with a fire arrow wishes to set your ground on fire and do guaranteed 2D4 damage to you, he automatically succeeds. Is this DnD?

Yes.
If the goblin sets the ground you happen to stand on on fire, you take damage. Theres plenty of spells in DnD that make you take damage no matter what. Theres plenty of damage attakcs you cannot save against.
Maybe you SHOULDNT have let the goblin set the ground on fire should you? Maybe you shouldnt have let the goblin notice you in the first place.

>you can do all of that in BG3
ill see that when i have more time. But somehow i think these sound like cherrypicked situations. Repeating "Is this DnD" after every poitn doesnt make you believe you more, it makes me question wether or not you care about wether or not it is "DnD" or wether you just assume that i do.


>Maximuus
now theres a more usefull post.

First up
>synergies between classes dont exist
thats sadly a 5e problem. i dont know why but somehow i think Mearls was to blame for this descision. People wanted their character to stand on their own after beeing forced into mandatory teamplay in the previous edition.

>- Jump/disengage = ennemies don't ever have any AOO and their melee haven't any control on the battlefield.
- Backstab = easy advantages leading to many useless spells/features/(bonus) action.
- Backstab = huge bonus over the AI
- Highground = easy advantage leading to many useless spells/features/(bonus) action.
- Highground = easy disadvantages for your ennemies. Combined with the advantage it's a god mode.
- Surfaces created by items break your concentration way too often (and if you dodge the arrow, the fire will still spread and break your concentration)
- Eating pig head in combats as a bonus action (looks ridiculous and) heal more HP than healing potion
- Dipping your sword in candle (looks ridiculous and) give players free additionnal damages over the AI.
- Shoving is so easy and OP that it's like an "instant win button" rather than a tactical choice.

Another issue that was solved in the previous two editions that had Disengage by default.
honestly jump irks me but mostly because its animation is ugly and because i dont see why it doesnt get an AoO, personally i think jump should be seperate from a disengage and it should provoke AoO as its reach is too high.
now on jump into backstab, actually RAW you can move AROUND an enemy in DnD without provoking AoO unless you leave the range of another enemy while doing so.
I personally never understood this ruling but flanking requires two characters anyway so its not like its particulary usefull to jump behind your enemy, at least RAW it isnt.
From what i understand the point of contention is that BG3 does backstabs while keeping this rule.
I see my issue with this, but i dont hate backstabs, i always figured DnD does backstabs weird (or more to the point, i never understood why DnD doesnt have a rule for facing, which is pretty much a staple of tile based combat systems).
The easy solution is to make Jumping vulnerable to AoO, keep disengage as a 5 foot step and change the ruling of AoO to be "leaving a threatened space" opposed to "leaving the range of the triggering character"
Should be a relativeley simple fix that alleviates about half of your concerns.

>surfaces
i dont mind.t hey are good.
the only reason people dont like them is because the Original Sin games had them
>break concentration
good. Positioning should be extremeley important for casters and quite frankly they are incredibly overtuned in 5e anyway.

>eating pig heads
well theres a video game issue where any food is the same, but i agree that eating food shouldnt count as a bonus action, it doesnt bother me much tho.
>Dipping a sword in the candle.
im more concerned into dipping your bow into a candle but admittedly id prefer a system where you actually have to apply oil to it.
its strange that this isnt already a thing since lighting oil on fire is.
>Shoving
i like for honor so im not complaining about cheesing by ledging. Or actually i did because one of my players finished the boss i was hyping up for half a year by throwing her off a cliff.
but for what its worth. 5e doesnt do "combat as sport", it does "combat as war".
Logically throwing someone off a high cliff should probably kill them, and doing so isnt very hard. Positioning matters.


All in all i agree with some of your points. But i think a few of them like the eating stuff is not that big a deal and other things could be fixed very easily, either by larian or by a mod that probably wouldnt be a lot of work to do

EDIT:
On height advantage. i simply cannot agree with you on that one. i think thats a good ruling and it mirrors the rules for concealment.
Now cover tends to be an AC bonus, i dont realy like how 5e does these thigns anyway. but at the end of the day shooting someone wwho stands on a ledge on top of your is bound to be harder than shooting someone whose profile is fully visible to you.
Likewise, shooting someone from a highground where its harder for the other to cover himself with a shield, duck behind cover or generally to reduce their target area.
I dont care if its balanced as long as it makes sense which it does in this case.

EDIT:
>Just dont use it
i dont agree with "Just dont use it"
and i understand the point of people not seeing that as an excuse.
Its a game created to take advantage of what the game world gives you. Therfore any option given to you should be a sound one.
i just dont see most of them as that bad.
My primary issue would be with AoOs and Jump, especialy jump i suppose.
I think ruling AoOs to trigger on leaving a threatened area (wether or not they enter another threatened area) would do a lot to mitigate larians problem with melee stickyness (OS2 had very much a simmilar problem).
It would of course also not be RAW dnd, but stickyness in general is something that 5e struggles with hence why the infamous Tunnel Fighter Sentinel Polearm Mastery build is considered "OP" despite only doing what your average Fighter could do in other editions.