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Baldur’s Gate 3 is a masterpiece built on a bad tabletop game
(www.polygon.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Baldur's Gate 3
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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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DND 5e is a horrible system. Bg3 would be better if it was built on something else. The reasons they focus on in this article aren't really the reasons why.
the adventuring day is trash. It's especially bad when there's no human dm to be like "no you JUST had a long rest you can't have another". Though apparently most tables do one fight per long rest on average anyway, which is insane. That's not how the game is balanced! Bg3 kind of sort of limits you by making you get supplies, but that doesn't really make a big impact. Also there's good berries.
there's very little room for mechanical customization and optimization. You pick a subclass, skills to be slightly better at, and some stats that matter but not a whole lot. Pretty much every early character is going to do their main thing at +5. But that modifier is dwarfed but the comparably huge 1d20 random factor.
I didn't even notice I wasn't proficient in my weapon on a new game the other day for like an hour. I lost the +2 Prof bonus but the +1 magic bonus mostly made up for that. And since the random factor of 1d20 is so big in comparison, it doesn't make a big difference.
But character mechanics are very shallow, especially at low level. Compare pillars of eternity 2 where there are many more classes, class combinations, and the way weapons and armor work is actually interesting.
dnd's armor system is kind of stupid. This is a dead horse. But like come on ac as avoidance, no concept of damage reduction (outside of one feat and rare sources of 50% reduction).
no degree of success or failure. Rolling a 30 vs a target of 5 is the same as rolling 5. A human dm will probably be better here, and they could have programmed it for some of the skill checks. But for combat that's not how DND works.
the assumed miss rate is pretty high. Whole turns can go by where everyone just misses. This is better at 5th level where you have two attacks, but low level can become a slog.
they didn't implement take 10 (or 20) so the game has a lot of boring rolls that don't really mean anything. Mostly picking locks and searching. It's very save scummy, especially when failure is just a dead end.
personally I vastly prefer a low random factor. I liked how new Vegas skill checks were either you had it or you didn't. No save scumming. No "why did my barbarian roll so high on arcana but my wizard at +10 rolled so poorly"
1d20+stuff gives flat probability, which I dislike. Every outcome on the die is equally likely. That doesn't feel good to me.
I could go on but it's late. 5e kind of sucks. Article didn't nail why.
magic feels really bad in this system early on when all they canreally do is spam cantrip after missing all their spells
plus healing spells feel very weak compared to potions
Potions got Buffed in the game iirc normaly drinking one I an Action not a bonusaction
That is correct. Although many, many tables have that as a homebrew rule too.
There's also the fact that generally DND magic has every spell as a bespoke effect. There's not an underlying system you can reason about. You're not really expected to make your own spells. You don't really tweak the ones you get very much. What can you do with a 4th level slot vs 5th? You can kind of infer from the examples, and maybe there's details in the DMG somewhere , but it's not foregrounded.
They also are very, well, mechanical rather than magical. You declare you're casting, check off the spell slot, and the spell just happens. Some people might prefer this taste, but it makes it feel very mundane and bland to me . Compare like Mage (awakening, 2e) where you're always looking for ways to stretch how far your spells can go, balancing risk, and looking for thematic boosts.
The "looking for ways to stretch how far your spells can go" bit from Mage always struck me as "playing mother-may-I with the Storyteller." I really prefer it as a player when my abilities do what they say they do, and as a DM when my players' abilities don't require me to make too many judgment calls, which can lead to players who are more persuasive IRL getting their way more often than players who aren't.
I think I meant more about "I can take a -6 on the roll to affect all the guys and risk it not working" or "I'll risk three dice on paradox" for stretching your spells rather than "I can totally cure cancer with life 2, right??"
DND doesn't really have much tactical depth for the spells. They do what they say and always work (unless saved against). You never get the "I don't know if I have another spell on me!" trope.
What you meant I think shows up in DND too. Players being like "can I use mage hand to swing a sword?" or "can I use create water to drown him?" That's more an annoying player problem, but I see what you mean about some systems enable it more than others.
You'd probably really dislike Fate, then, where it's almost entirely based on what the table agrees makes sense for your free form written character traits.