D&D General The longer I play Baldur's Gate 3 ...

[Sulicius]

This game would have made a Better adventure than 90% of the adventures out there
Forget the party npcs and forget the magic items (although some would be good). I can’t spoil anything but there’s a lot to like

Well, there are no adventures with as long a development time as this one with as much playtesters, so it makes sense.

 

[Shardstone]

More magic items. In this specific case, handing out lots of consumables.
The ability to interact with objects (i.e. exploding barrels).
Three-dimensional terrain (i.e. climbing up to the rafters for a better shot, jumping across chasms). [She thinks the RAW is too punishing in the action economy to perform these stunts.]
Shoving, pushing, etc. [Bonus actions in BG3, so also RAW too punishing in the action economy.]
Multiple objectives (i.e. don't let this prisoner die, stop this enemy from escaping with the McGuffin, etc.) [It's not that we can't do this at the table, it's that we can't reload from the previous save state so the "story" isn't derailed.]

I do these all in diff ways on my theater of the mind campaigns.

 

[Shardstone]

At which point they are essentially something else, right?

I disagree. Theres more to these items then numbers.

 

[Shardstone]

Things to consider:

1.) I've seen a lot of suggestions for implementing BG3 elements into a product, but changing them so that they work better with 5E. We essentially already have most of it - there isn't much of anything in BG5 that doesn't equate to something in 5E that is built for the 5E design. Explosive arrows come from the Arcane Archer. Brewing potions rules are in Xanathar's and the DMG. Do you want a light emitting longsword with the finesse property that deals radiant damage ... ? Sun Blade. You want to be able to gather up a bunch of barrels of explosive material to sneak near a bad guy and then blow them up? Portable Hole.

We seem to be forgetting that Larian did the exact opposite of what you're asking to see: They took D&D and translated it into a video game - and tried to keep the essence of D&D in everything they did. Now you want to take the video game out of it - which means to translate it back to what inspired it. Some fits are better than others ... but in the end, all you're really getting if they make a BG3 supplement is the use of the BG3 names ... everything else you've essentially got in one form or another.

2.) They have been very clear in their design choices through the last several editions - and one major goal has been to reduce accounting and tracking of information. They realize that most groups do not track food or arrows. They designed 4th edition to essentially reset between encounters (outside hps and dailies). They want the game to be less intimidating to new players, and that requires them to keep it simple. We added back some complexity between 4E and 5E as they thought they went too far ... but they do not want to go overboard. There is a reason why advantage/disadvantage replaced almost all bonuses and penalties. They would not add back in a lot of +1/-1 tracking into the game ... and a surprising amount of BG3 makes use of those types of mechanics.

3.) BG3 is not a balanced game. It uses items and combos to enhance PC power at the higher levels to give you more of an epic PC feel while your characters are still 12th level. A non-optimized BG3 party will struggle in Act 3 in normal mode. An optimized one will find Act 3 fairly easy (combat wise - some puzzles can be a challenge if people do not resort to Google). When you are about to finish the game, imagine taking the 4 12th level PCs in the game and then put them up against a 5E 'by the rules' 12th level party. If you optimized your BG3 party (which is not terribly hard to do), you'll find that BG3 party is insanely more powerful.

None of these reasons are good for justifying why no magic arrows, new conditions, or other consumables, or advice for using terrain in the game.

 

[Burnside]

This game would have made a Better adventure than 90% of the adventures out there

The number one thing I wish WotC would take away from BG3 is how well BG3 is play tested versus how many obvious design and editorial problems make it through into the 5E published adventures.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The number one thing I wish WotC would take away from BG3 is how well BG3 is play tested versus how many obvious design and editorial problems make it through into the 5E published adventures.

This strikes me as one of the possible advantages of the upcoming D&D VTT. The VTT could be instrumented to report actual combat statistics and give a real time big data insight into class balance.

 

[Burnside]

This strikes me as one of the possible advantages of the upcoming D&D VTT. The VTT could be instrumented to report actual combat statistics and give a real time big data insight into class balance.

I'm more concerned with stuff that isn't going to be visible in analytics, but will be very obvious in playtesting. Like how the described action in Chapter 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is totally incompatible with the travel times laid out in Chapter 1 of the same book. Real playtesting like BG3 got would have quickly detected something like that. There are times with some of the hardcovers where I'm really not convinced that even one group has played through the entire thing from beginning to end once prior to publication. Either that, or playtest feedback is just ignored.

And I say this as somebody who is generally a big fan of WotC 5E adventures - there is stuff in every campaign-length adventure book that makes we wonder "how did it go to print like this?"

 

[MarkB]

I'm more concerned with stuff that isn't going to be visible in analytics, but will be very obvious in playtesting. Like how the described action in Chapter 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is totally incompatible with the travel times laid out in Chapter 1 of the same book.

Not actually the case - that was a criticism levelled when the adventure first came out, but it's based on a misinterpretation of the travel rules for sled dogs.

 

[Retreater]

I'm more concerned with stuff that isn't going to be visible in analytics, but will be very obvious in playtesting. Like how the described action in Chapter 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is totally incompatible with the travel times laid out in Chapter 1 of the same book. Real playtesting like BG3 got would have quickly detected something like that. There are times with some of the hardcovers where I'm really not convinced that even one group has played through the entire thing from beginning to end once prior to publication. Either that, or playtest feedback is just ignored.

And I say this as somebody who is generally a big fan of WotC 5E adventures - there is stuff in every campaign-length adventure book that makes we wonder "how did it go to print like this?"

I don't think it would've taken years of playtesting to find the issues with Frostmaiden. The perpetual darkness, the human sacrifice by good-aligned NPCs, the travel times, the disjointed campaign - that's all stuff that should've been caught with an editorial pass.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I'm more concerned with stuff that isn't going to be visible in analytics, but will be very obvious in playtesting. Like how the described action in Chapter 4 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is totally incompatible with the travel times laid out in Chapter 1 of the same book. Real playtesting like BG3 got would have quickly detected something like that. There are times with some of the hardcovers where I'm really not convinced that even one group has played through the entire thing from beginning to end once prior to publication. Either that, or playtest feedback is just ignored.

And I say this as somebody who is generally a big fan of WotC 5E adventures - there is stuff in every campaign-length adventure book that makes we wonder "how did it go to print like this?"

I would be astonished if print adventurers ever get playtesting like that. Would they even be still profitable?