D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

Baldur's Gate III is now available for early access on Steam and on Stadia.

I couldn't get the Steam version working on my Mac, but the Stadia version works just fine. The opening tutorial level is pretty gruesome (at one point I had to squish somebody's brain) and the mind flayer airship you're trying to escape from beings to mind the movie Aliens a lot.

Character creation is quick and easy, although options in the early access are limited. The gameplay is like Divinity Original Sin 2 with the 5E rules layered over it. I've only played an hour or so of the game, and as an early access game, it is occasionally a bit buggy, but nothing showstopping (yet).

This isn't a review (I haven't played enough of it to do that, and I don't think it's fair to review an early access version anyway); it's mainly just an alert to the few people who don't already know it's available. If any such person exists!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

At the same time, if there is not strategic value to melee combat in the fantasy setting, the presence of so many melee combatants breaks verisimilititude does it not. Ultimately the ruleset should match the worlds it tries to describe. If the rules ultimately give a clear advantage to range (even physical range) over melee in ever situation, why would melee be prevalent?

If you are comparing to the real world, it is very difficult to shoot a bow accurately whist also retreating from the enemy as fast as they can run towards you (unless you are a Mongolian horse archer, in which case you RL broke the game).

The flaw that encourages ranged combat actually lies in the 5e ruleset itself. It has nothing to do with Larien, who have made several tweaks to 5e rules to try and make melee suck less.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

An interesting patch note from the Solasta EA:

Monsters should no longer shove you to your death. We will re-introduce this feature when we roll out the difficulty settings, but it was too punishing for new players

A fun tactic in Solasta is to cast sleep on wall crawling spiders....

 

[Nymrod]

If you are comparing to the real world, it is very difficult to shoot a bow accurately whist also retreating from the enemy as fast as they can run towards you (unless you are a Mongolian horse archer, in which case you RL broke the game).

The flaw that encourages ranged combat actually lies in the 5e ruleset itself. It has nothing to do with Larien, who have made several tweaks to 5e rules to try and make melee suck less.

No I am not. I am guessing you do not understand verisimilititude as a concept? Forgotten Realms, Eberron, any of Wizard's campaign settings are full of melee archetypes. If the ruleset invalidates them, it is a piss poor match for those worlds.

 

[CapnZapp]

But

I believe I have made it clear that I consider your opinion an extreme outlier. That is all I can say to you.

 

[Nymrod]

And really, I've talked about it on their forums but the way jumping works just looks idiotic. We are not frogs. A wizard doing standing leaps a full story high makes little sense but more importantly looks ridiculous.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I believe I have made it clear that I consider your opinion an extreme outlier. That is all I can say to you.

What you consider is demonstrably wrong. It is not an "opinion" that the 5e ruleset favours ranged combat, it is demonstrable fact. Even if (big if) a melee character can close with a ranged character using the dash action, that's an action lost. Since most fights in 5e last 3 rounds, that's a -33% damage penalty for melee characters.

As mentioned, you could make mechanical changes to make melee better - significantly buff melee damage, restrict ranged characters moving or impose an accuracy penalty, get rid of unlimited cantrips, add lightsabres, cut warlocks, switch to Action Points, etc. But then you have a game that doesn't resemble 5e at all. "Make the AI stupid" is not something that would work.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And really, I've talked about it on their forums but the way jumping works just looks idiotic. We are not frogs. A wizard doing standing leaps a full story high makes little sense but more importantly looks ridiculous.

True, but I don't see any way to code running jumps without going down the action game route (see: Tomb Raider), and not allowing jumping at all would greatly restrict level design (see: NWN2). The 4-10 foot standing jumps allowed by the tabletop rules are actually pretty silly if you saw them in RL, and that's before you start adding in class abilities and spells.

Solasta does more with wall climbing for mobility, but their world is made out of blocks.

 

[CapnZapp]

No I am not. I am guessing you do not understand verisimilititude as a concept? Forgotten Realms, Eberron, any of Wizard's campaign settings are full of melee archetypes. If the ruleset invalidates them, it is a piss poor match for those worlds.

Of course. That doesn't need saying.

 

[CapnZapp]

To guard the archers from close quarters combat.

In most D&D combat (except for very easy fights) the party will want to avoid the enemies focusing their fire.

There's an implied assumption about choosing to be an archer that is "I want to avoid melee".

But since a party likely only has two characters built on sturdy warrior chassi this often backfires.

As a warrior you need to offer up your warm flesh to the monsters, so they don't focus their fire on just one of you.

This is one of the biggest hidden costs of ranged combat.

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, if nobody suggests to them to do it differently, then yes, it probably will be the same. But then, that's the whole point of Early Access - to gather feedback and make changes accordingly.

Which they can't do unless you actually give them feedback. Ideally before they actually implement difficulty levels.

I feel confident my personal feedback isn't going to make one iota of difference, which is why I can't be bothered to seek out other venues than this one.

But it does feel like Marian is about to learn how players actively want them to go back to the core rules, and skip their own tweaks to the rules.

Maybe this indicates they will make other changes that bring the game experience closer to the tabletop experience too...