this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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All things BG3!
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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This game gives me the same vibes as Bioware games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I was craving for something like this, without the microtransactions and gambling bullshit infesting most modern games.
I'm not fond of DnD mechanics but it's ok, it's worth it nonetheless, BG3 is truly spectacular.
DnD 5e mechanics works ok-ish, nothing really wrong with them. But 4e would have been waaaay better. Imagine more battlefield manipulation, more pushes and pulls. And a bit more dangerous ground, not DOS levels but a bit more. 4e would shine then.
I do agree with the person you're replying to, in that I'm not a huge fan of DnD mechanics - "works ok-ish" is what I would also say about them. It does do its job just fine, so this isn't a big issue by any means.
Related to game mechanics in BG3, my personal issues are as follows:
Heavy reliance on RNG in combat. In turn-based games, I always prefer game mechanics which work as I planned, maybe with small variance (i.e. look at Advance Wars). Basically I prefer when my planning is the part determining how the combat flows (damage or cc? Which target? Where do I move to?) - there'll always be some "I'm not sure what happens on next round" due to just not being able to know what the enemies will do on their turn, so I don't really need even more RNG in the form of hit/miss (& save) rolls. Basically: chess is a good game as it is, I wouldn't want to have a 50-50 coin toss determining if I can kill a unit or not.
Practically everything related to the resting mechanic. I really feel like I would enjoy the game more if I just had fully recharged spells (and other stuff) in the beginning of any fight - and obviously then balance the game with that in mind. Where needed, devs could tag a certain area as "no resets here" so you know you'll be forced to do a couple of fights in a row without resets.
I do want to finish this with another disclaimer that I do think BG3 is a great game, and these are really just minor issues - I completed it yesterday and enjoyed my time for the whole ~120 hours. But my two biggest issues that I can point out about the game's mechanics are both just base mechanics of DnD.
Re point #2… was completely agree. Resting has always been horrible in every Baldurs Gate game. There is little to no consequence to resting in these games. Start fight, alpha strike, rest, repeat. It takes me out of the game when the mechanics don’t match the environment. I’m aware that resting is optional, but still… Unless you’re running a pure martial team, you’ll need to rest before the sun hits high noon.
The Owlcat Pathfinder games solved this problem brilliantly. They baked it into the gameplay by adding fatigue after so many in game hours, and the camp was something you setup in place, not some static map you revisit every very time. By far my most favourite resting mechanic I’ve seen in cRPGs. If I could change one thing about BG3, it would be this.
The Pathfinder PC games have one fatigue problem IMO and it's that fatigue/resting should just happen while you travel (literally just add time based on fatigue timing) so you can just click somewhere, go there, and play without needing to manually rest.
Otherwise I was a big fan, especially with corruption in WOTR
Solid argument. It was a pain to pop into a map supe up with buffs do half the map then have someone bitch about being tired.
But that’s the Seela always took remove fatigue for her lay on hands blessing.
But that’s a solid qol upgrade for sure.
Pillars of Eternity 2 took a different approach to resting by making pretty much everything encounter based, except for some "ultimates". Was a while since I played it last but boy was it refreshing to not "needing" to rest after every encounter. The first game was more traditional with most things returning on rests. Two classes though were entirely encounter based and I used them in pretty much every run. Chanter (Bard) and Cipher (Psyker). Also Larian's two previous cRPGs (Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2) don't use rests.
But resting is a core feature in D&D and in the tabletop there is the trope of the five minute adventuring day for a reason.
Personally, I like the RNG. It means you can't guarantee much. You have to plan on what you might do if you fail. Some players won't like planning for possible failure, which I understand, but I think it adds depth. You can choose to use a spell like magic missile, which is a guaranteed hit but low damage, or you can choose to use a more powerful ability but it may fail, and what will you do if it does. It's one more thing to consider. If it's a guaranteed hit/kill then you don't need to think of how you may have to mitigate what happens on a fail. You can also never be totally safe. Even if you have a lot of armor/health/saves you can still fail, so you need to decide on equipment that might help you when you fail rather than stuff that will just keep you from failing.
I didn’t anticipate liking the dice rolls as much as I do in conversations and actions like lock picking. Like, I love how you can completely whiff something. My character’s got all these stat boosts for lock picking, but sometimes you roll a CRIT fail with a 1. To me, it’s like the tools slipped and broke the lock. It feels oddly realistic because we all have just fumbled something in real life that we dang well know how to do.
Although in combat a bunch of bad dice rolls recently almost got Halsin benched because HOW ARE YOU MISSING THIS MUCH HOW PLEASE BITE THAT DUDE WITH ONLY THREE HP LEFT ALREADY.
Without the ability to revive, I totally agree combat could be tough. I dint use the karmic dice, just pure random. You sometimes just end up on a bad luck streak and it's rough. As long as you can finish the fight, you're fine though. You may spend more resources than you wanted, but that's how it goes. (I also don't just long rest after every fight. I try to play like tabletop and only rest when it's critical. It makes spell slots much more of a resource to manage and spend.)
Yup, I have to say that I completely understand why some people like it - it adds to the chaos, and your job is to mitigate/control the chaos (by eg. choosing to use Magic Missile like you mentioned). It's just not something I personally enjoy. :D
If you dislike these, check out Divinity 2:OS. Lot less random, more fluid combat, doesn't have that familiar 5E crunch. Keeps most of the good stuff, and even adds in its own unique stuff that makes combat and game play even better imo. BG3 brought some improvements, but also was forced to work with WOTC kinda outdated systems....