Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Cryomancer]

Sounds like you are proposing to, guess what, balance them.

Nope. Just make martial classes more interesting. But It is not "replacing the fighter". It is making then more supernatural, just like the wizard has access to supernatural spells, the fighter should have access to a supernatural body and supernatural weapons. On IWD2, animate dead on high levels create undeads with auras and self regeneration. A high level barbarian should be able to have this stuff, combat maneuvers(one of the few good things about 4e), chance to decapitate enemies on melee strike, or mutilate enemies, demolishes walls and buildings swinging his warhammer, move extremely fast, like 120 feet in a round and so on.

On 2e, If I an playing a campaign full of undead, of course a pure roleplay sorcerer that only picks cold and water based spells would have a much harder time than a Paladin which is a holy warrior with a lot of anti undead nasty abilities. But this doesn't means that the "water sorcerer" is not a interesting concept. Most of my builds are pure role play builds.

IT would made martial classes far more interesting. IF the aim is just balance, then remove either the martial or arcane classes would make Baldur's Gate 2 far more balanced. But better? Having a boring "I attack" class is a problem. HAving a unbalanced class is not. For example, pick VtMB. The game is extremely harder as a Nosferatu than as a Tremere. Removing Nosferatu or nerfing the deformity curse into a minor penalty on seduction would make the game extremely more balanced. But far worse. Low INT runs of Fallout 1/2 aren't optimal but are interesting.

The most iconic example is Gothic. I never made a pure mage in Gothic 1/2. Only on 3 and with mods like Returning. BTW, Gothic is not a game where you start with magic. Getting magic itself is a long quest. On returning for eg, many people consider necromancer teh hardest class to be played. But makes sense on Gothic universe.

CHAPTER 1 spoilers -> Returning - how to become a necromancer

You need to ask Xardas for apprenticeship. This option only exists on the mod, not on base game, after few days thinking, you become a novice of darkness. Now you need to train your spirit by paying mages to train your mana and train your INTELLIGENCE by doing intellectual stuff like runemaking, book reading,

and etc. After 30 int and 75 mana, you talk to Xardas to do the initiation into the circle of darkness. You must enter the monastery of fire magicians and kill a novice, that quest involves gathering information, planning a escape route and etc and after it, you are fully initialized into the circle of darkness.

Now you need to buy the scroll, the reagents, learn the first magical circle and how to make arrow of darkness rune and make the rune;

That is not optimal but is very interesting.

Maybe whine more about the conjuration side of things than the necromancer for once,

And one of the worst aspects of BG3 is being 5e which destroyed persistent effects.

For eg?

Pick Black Tentacles. An amazing spell which required no concentration, had a caster levle + 8 to grapple and dealt a lot of damage and compare with 5e tentacles require concentration and are far more easy to fail on grapple the creature. Cloudkill for example, was a amazing spell on BG2 and on 3.5e/Pathfinder games. I loved using cloudkill so much on kingmaker. On 5e, it no longer deals CON damage, requires concentration, and the damage dealt is smaller compared to 5th level evocations. Just 5d8 poison damage.

This are two amazing mid level conjuration spells which 5e ruined.

My guess is that every wizard on BG3 will gonna play as a evoker on BG3.

My main wizard on Solasta was using evocation, the unique school who worths being used on 5e. And BTW, shock arcanist in solasta is amazing. Interesting in mechancis and gameplay. Larian in other hands can only homebrew awful rules.

Except by the AI, there are nothing on BG3 better than in other CRPG's.

 

[rojay]

I wish the thread was closed until the next patch or whatever. There's critical amounts of autism in here.

A monk once spoke a koan: how can you distinguish the level of idiocy now and the level of idiocy yesterday, a week, a month or a year ago?

Answer:

Spoiler

the sound of one hand making a rude gesture

 

[Fedora Master]

I wish the thread was closed until the next patch or whatever. There's critical amounts of autism in here.

A monk once spoke a koan: how can you distinguish the level of idiocy now and the level of idiocy yesterday, a week, a month or a year ago?

Answer:

Spoiler

the sound of one hand making a rude gesture

I ask myself: What is worse? Seeing the thread being active despite nothing happening, clicking on it despite knowing nothing relevant has happened or actually reading the meandering autistic rants people post in here? The answer is: Me. I am the worst for even giving a shit about the thread.

 

[rojay]

I wish the thread was closed until the next patch or whatever. There's critical amounts of autism in here.

A monk once spoke a koan: how can you distinguish the level of idiocy now and the level of idiocy yesterday, a week, a month or a year ago?

Answer:

Spoiler

the sound of one hand making a rude gesture

I ask myself: What is worse? Seeing the thread being active despite nothing happening, clicking on it despite knowing nothing relevant has happened or actually reading the meandering autistic rants people post in here? The answer is: Me. I am the worst for even giving a shit about the thread.

I kid you not I just read most of the last day's posts in this thread and I feel like I just saw someone crap themselves in public.

It shouldn't be funny.

 

[Harthwain]

For example, pick VtMB. The game is extremely harder as a Nosferatu than as a Tremere. Removing Nosferatu or nerfing the deformity curse into a minor penalty on seduction would make the game extremely more balanced. But far worse.

But it is a minor penalty. The distance at which you are recognized as a Nosferatu by randoms is so gratuitous that I had no problem whatsoever walking pretty much out in the open without violating the Masquerade. You literally have to bump into people for that to happen. In the case of NPCs you will get unique reactions from them (which is nice), but both quest-related and shop-related NPCs will still interact with you normally after that, so the initial reaction is pretty much cosmetic. This means going though the sewers as the Nosferatu character in Bloodlines is essentially LARPing, which was severly disappointing discovery for me.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

For example, pick VtMB. The game is extremely harder as a Nosferatu than as a Tremere. Removing Nosferatu or nerfing the deformity curse into a minor penalty on seduction would make the game extremely more balanced. But far worse.

But it is a minor penalty. The distance at which you are recognized as a Nosferatu by randoms is so gratuitous that I had no problem whatsoever walking pretty much out in the open without violating the Masquerade. You literally have to bump into people for that to happen. In the case of NPCs you will get unique reactions from them (which is nice), but both quest-related and shop-related NPCs will still interact with you normally after that, so the initial reaction is pretty much cosmetic. This means going though the sewers as the Nosferatu character in Bloodlines is essentially LARPing, which was severly disappointing discovery for me.

Wesp5 is there a way to add a True Nosferatu mode patch to vtmb with a much larger detection radius?

 

[Testownia]

The most consistent, at least so far? Dragon Age...

Fun fact: the details of the entries in your codex change depending on your background and -- I suspect -- certain choices you make.
Also, the Mass Effect 1/2/3 codex contains blatant falsehoods that are obvious counsel/alliance coverups -- you know because they're things you were involved in.

Could you give examples of both? I'm honestly curious.

dragon age: can't remember off the top of my head
mass effect: in ME2 check the codex entry about the attack on the citadel, it lays the blame on something else(geth? I think?) with zero mention of sovereign/reapers

Mass Effect's codex is underrated. There's even a voiceover for each entry, I liked reading through it.

Too bad. I, on the other hand, discovered recently that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has quest/location specific banter. For example, when doing the Old Sycamore quest, when I rested in the same area, I got a unique conversation between Valerie and Linzi talking about the mite-kobold war.

 

[Nano]

Too bad. I, on the other hand, discovered recently that Pathfinder: Kingmaker has quest/location specific banter. For example, when doing the Old Sycamore quest, when I rested in the same area, I got a unique conversation between Valerie and Linzi talking about the mite-kobold war.

That's kind of stupid, considering you don't get banter if you sleep at the Will-o-Wisp trap.

 

[hell bovine]

Wrong. Necromancers are pretty powerful on BG2:SoA. Skull trap, Finger of Death, Horrid Wilting, all of this spells with penalty on enemy saves are even better. On BG2:EE, I've soloed the game as a necromancer. By casting a chain contigency with 2 lower resist + greater malison, the greater malison has 95% chance of sticking. 65% chance of Firkraag failing his save against the FoD if the malison is on, 45% if it isn't. Combined, that's a 64% chance of failing his save. Then it's 95% to beat the remaining magic resistance with the FoD, for an overall 60.8% chance of the two-round kill.

And I've soloed a necromancer in SCS/BG2, so? They are fun because of their limitations, but they are limited all the same. You can replace damage spells with others, you can replace e. g. finger of death with feeblemind, and the outcome will be the same. You can't replace clone spells, which are completely unbalanced due to how they are implemented. That is why a necromancer is weaker than an illusionist. It's just that it doesn't matter in the unmodded game, because it is so easy. The enemies are not good enough to take advantage of your weaknesses. They are not even good enough to watch their own (hence BG2 liches frying themselves with their spells).

By comparison, I've just had an imp kill Lae'zel on the gith ship, because I've moved her a little too close to those explosive containers, and the little bugger blew them up instead of attacking her.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A lot of encounters in BG2 can be beaten just by using cloudkill offscreen

 

[Anonona]

Chess is not a RPG. Is a strategy game.

Lets heavily nerf fallout new vegas and nerf anti materiel rifles, so a guy with a Katana will not be in a disadvantage against a anti materiel user with armor piercing ammo. Both weapons should be equally effective in dealing with armored robots at 200m because balance. Doesn't matter if having a AMR unable to hit a target at few meter away would ruin the "fantasy" /sarcasm

For a guy complaining about strawmaning, you just did that right now. He already said multiple times that there are diffrent ways to balance the game depending on what the intentions of the developers are. And that included making classes weak against certain things while strong against other. In this case the game will be balanced by the fact that the Rifle is used against armored enemies, needs ammo and needs to be aimed, while the katana is less powerful, needs to be close but you only need to swing it.

Again, you didn't read anything he posted and just charged against imaginary giants. He never said "every class needs to be able to do the same things", he recognized the virtue of a system with asymmetrical balance. You are the one that is strawmaning.

You are accusing me of ignoring you but you are ignoring my points. But you can easily debunk me posting a single example of ultra balance focused RPG game which doesn't ended on a homogenized boredom.

It would be useless. We can said games like Guild Wars, which has a healthy focus on PvP and is considered a great game, and you will dismiss it because "muh cooldowns". Many fighting games that are considered balanced are also pretty good. Games like Starcraft for example have each faction have weaknesses and strength that are played against each other. If we go with tabletop RPGs, seeing as you love to mention GURP so much, Fantasy Craft is a pretty good derivated of D&D which actually is able to reign in Caster supremacy while making martials fun to play. Also GURPS as far as I'm aware, is more of a "pick and choose" system, most people realize that it is "too simulationist" and will alter the rules as needed to assure the game is fun to play.

And in reality, almost every game is focused on balance, even games like Pathfinder were originally designed to balance D&D 3.5 by nerfing Mages and buffing Martials. Of course, it fail at it, but Pathfinder was born actually to be a more balanced D&D edition, a 3.75 edition if you will.

Again. Name ONE, just ONE game where it happens. Where the devs are extremely focused on balance and dind't produced a boring game.

Didn't he actually gave DOTA as an example of competitive game where balanced is achieve by making character counters to others? But it doesn't matter, because the issue with debating a game quality with you is that you hold "realism" and "simulation" so high in regard when considering the quality of a game. You say and repeat that "D&D were born from war games that simulated reality", yet Chainmail had a fantasy suplement and things like the hero class that was pretty much like a hero in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, killing enemies Dinasty Warrior style, mages and all that nonsense in a "realist" simulator. That is without ignoring that it abstracted rules in certain ways to make it fun to play, even if it wasn't realistic. But as always, you talk about things without knowing anything about them.

Besides, you still equate Balance with "everything has to be the same". When many people refer to balance in a RPG for example, is more like "Mages, Fighters and Healers should have different roles and all be needed on a party".

Look to the mmo genre. On 90s, we had a lot of amazing games. MMOs stopped worrying about mechanics and lore consistency and started to become too obsessed with balance

Those games are bad regardless of balance. The developers balanced the game in the most retarded of ways. But then again, almost all games fucking suck nowadays.


TL DR - Stop charging against imaginary giants Don Quixote. Balance is good but equity is bad, stop talking about both as if they were the same.

 

[Cryomancer]

They are fun because of their limitations, but they are limited all the same. You can replace damage spells with others, you can replace e. g. finger of death with feeblemind, and the outcome will be the same. You can't replace clone spells, which are completely unbalanced due to how they are implemented. That is why a necromancer is weaker than an illusionist
(...)

My point is that despite not being the most optimal wizard specialization, you still can have a hell lot of fun with it. And that is great.

As for clone spells, like project image, their existing is not a problem. Not even a single enemy casting disjunction to dispell the clone is a huge problem. And when I meant soloed BG2:EE, I was talking about the Legacy of Bhaal difficulty which buffs enemies a lot and makes insta death effects far more valuable.

A lot of encounters in BG2 can be beaten just by using cloudkill offscreen

I agree. The AI on BG2 is atrocious.

IMHO BG3 is inferior to BG2 in every aspect, except AI. Enemies on BG2 doesn't even have a proper AI. They take scripted actions and go in a mindless "kill, kill, kill" mode. The unique game with worse AI than BG2 is NWN1. Undead clerics casting heal on themselves and damaging themselves is o ridiculous...

------------

We can said games like Guild Wars, which has a healthy focus on PvP and is considered a great game, and you will dismiss it because "muh cooldowns".

I never said that GW1 is a bad game. In fact, I praised some things about the game. Just said that I found too repetitive and din't liked. I can dislike something an not consider it bad.

3.5 by nerfing Mages and buffing Martials. Of course, it fail at it, but Pathfinder was born actually to be a more balanced D&D edition, a 3.75 edition if you will.

I disagree that pathfinder is more balanced than D&D 3.5e. In mean, wizards and sorcerers has d6 hit points instead of d4. Which removes one of the biggest drawbacks of the class, the low survivability. Each sorcerer bloodline buffs then a lot but offers no drawback. IMO, if the player is a silver draconic sorcerer, he should't be able to cast fire based spells like fire snake and when he gainst immunity to cold, he should get vulenrability to fire. You have sorcerer of undead bloodline gaining stats, DR reduction, cool powers that ignore SR and none of the undead weaknesses.

And on D&D 5e, the same thing happens. Sorcerers gain a lot of cool stuff from his bloodline but no drawback. BTW, there are mods which adds sorc into BG3. The mod even features metamagic

sorcerer screenshot

https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/107?tab=images#

mages and all that nonsense in a "realist" simulator

Not truth. Magic doesn't exist in our world, but can exists in fictional world and the rules of magic needs to be consistent with the fictional world. Just like we can try to create a ruleset to simulate how a world with no electricity will gonna be, we can create rules to simulate how fictional "forces" would chance the world. Vampires doesn't exist. But it doesn't prevent us from picking the elements from his mythology and adapting to a "lets pretend" game. Vampires with no weakenss to sun, no sun damage like on ESO sucks IMO.

D&D magic is 100% based on Jack Vance magic system. It is not "IRL simulation" but is "literature simulation".

 

[Anonona]

I never said that GW1 is a bad game. In fact, I praised some things about the game. Just said that I found too repetitive and din't liked. I can dislike something an not consider it bad.

Then there you have it, a good game whose Devs cared about balance in a competitive enviromnet, but still gave each classes their own roles and allowed a significant amount of customization. Sure, classes couldn't do everything by themselves and certain combinations of class and sub class weren't good, but the point was that no class was garbage or unneeded and everyone of them could contribute significantly while being fun to play, all while allowing freedom for party compositions and the like.

So next time you demand an example of good game in which the developer cared for balanced as an argument, just remember GW1.

I disagree that pathfinder is more balanced than D&D 3.5e.

I know, that is why I said they tried and failed to balance the game. Yet it doesn't change the fact that the idea behind PF was to try and actually give a semblance of balance, and initially certain spells that were considered too powerful did get nerfed in several ways, like polymorph, while martial were given more feats and toys to play with. After so many years the balance issue may be even worse than it started, but it doesn't change the facts; PF was initially a game where the devs cared about balancing classes.

And on D&D 5e, the same thing happens. Sorcerers gain a lot of cool stuff from his bloodline but no drawback

And yet they are still worse than wizards. But D&D 5E design is, to put it lightly, "questionable". While many claim that it is balanced, I'm pretty sure you could effectively create a party full of casters that could cover any role.

Not truth. Magic doesn't exist in our world, but can exists in fictional world and the rules of magic needs to be consistent with the fictional world. Just like we can try to create a ruleset to simulate how a world with no electricity will gonna be, we can create rules to simulate how fictional "forces" would chance the world. Vampires doesn't exist. But it doesn't prevent us from picking the elements from his mythology and adapting to a "lets pretend" game. Vampires with no weakenss to sun, no sun damage like on ESO sucks IMO.

D&D magic is 100% based on Jack Vance magic system. It is not "IRL simulation" but is "literature simulation".

First of, what is "not true" about what you quoted?

Second, yeah, magic has to be consistent within its setting, but it doesn't have anything to do with balance. You can create the rules of a game, then create a setting in which magic adhere to those rules. Magic doesn't exist, so anyone can make up rules about how it works. You can even take myths and change them, just like vampires, because they are not real things. You may not like ESO vampires, but as long as they are consistent with the setting, what the myth is doesn't matter squat. Also is laughable to bring "canon" about this considering how wizards in D&D are so powerful it make classic literary wizards like Gandalf and Merlin look like chumps. Also literary inspirations means jack shit when you have garbage like twillight being inpired both by religion, myth and classic literature. You can create a game with cooldowns, balance it, and then create a setting that justify why spells cannot be casted in quick succession and have it being consistent. Regardless if you like it mechanically or not, consistency with lore and setting isn't in conflict with balance, it is a issue of good writing.

To reiterate, it doesn't have anything to do with balance. Sure, developers and creators can fuck up their games logic and consistency on the name of "balance", but is a failure of the creator, not the concept of balance itself. Or would you say that if a man commits atrocities in the name of justice, then suddenly justice is bad and only brings decline?

Finally, you must understand, every game is developed with an idea of keeping it balanced. ALL GAMES. The issue is that a perfect balance is impossible to achieve, as playes will always find ways to make a class better than others, even in the most balanced games. Yet it is still worthy to pursue because otherwise what you get is a bunch of fucking nerds in an internet forum arguing like retards about balance and how fighters are shit and mage are too op.

PS: And just to clarify, when I said balanced, I don't mean all options been equal, but that all options are fun and worthy to consider.

 

[Cryomancer]

just remember GW1.

GW1 seems great due the end game having skills and titles to try to get, not only gear farming by killing the same boss dozens of times. The point investment on skills remembers me of M&M VI. But honestly, the unique mmo which I liked a lot is DDO. It having cooldowns is a problem, but the dungeon design there is amazing.

The first floor of temple of elemental evil dungeon. A lv 7/lv 30 epic dungeon

ToEE DDO dngeon

https://ddowiki.com/page/Temple_of_Elemental_Evil_Part_One

And yet they are still worse than wizards.

You are right. However, in a situation where magic is severe restricted by a theocratic state and finding magical scrolls is hard, the sorcerer will have a upper hand. Since he can use his own blood to learn new spells. However, I prefer sorcerer because I prefer more specialized casters. I prefer mages that can do something than mages that can do everything. Just my opinion.

Also is laughable to bring "canon" about this considering how wizards in D&D are so powerful it make classic literary wizards like Gandalf and Merlin look like chumps

Well, I disagree. Pick Voldemort from Harry Potter for eg. He can cast Avada Kedavra at will, with no limitation of spell slots or anything. Can become a lich with 7 phylacteries, breed colossal sized monstrosities like Basilisks, control the life and death, control the minds of the others, destroy buildings with bombarda spell(...). Pandelume on Dying Earth, can create artificial life with human levels of intelligence. Merlin can conjure weapons and shape shift among a lot of things and Gandalf?

According to the VS battles

Spoiler

" Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Skilled swordsman, Light Creation (Can create light, either to see in dark places or to blind enemies), Telekinesis, Forcefield Creation (Created a forcefield strong enough to block the Durin's Bane's attacks), Immortality (Type 1), Telepathy, Mind Reading/Entrance into dreams (He can read minds and enter dreams), Communication with animals, Weather and Lightning Manipulation, Fire, Smoke and Heat Manipulation (Gandalf can create colored flame, create pillars of smoke, and cause fires to grow hotter and explode), Energy Manipulation and projection via Words of Command | All previous powers increased to a higher level (Stronger than Saruman), Invulnerability (He cannot be harmed by mortal weapons), Immortality (Types 1 and 2), possibly Power Nullification (After Saruman's staff was destroyed by him, he was stripped of most of his magic, despite the loss of Gandalf's staff having little effect on him) | All previous powers increased to a much higher level, Transmutation, Precognition, Resistance to Death Manipulation (In Lord of the Rings the land of the dead is a real tangible place, Mandos, and can be affected and exited. Ainur don't go there upon death, rather becoming spirits until the regenerate. The only way to keep them there is if they are physically brought there and held by physical might), Intangibility and Incorporeality (At the very least in spirit form), Immortality (Types 1, 3 and 4), Elemental Manipulation | Intangibility and Incorporeality, Reality Warping, Conceptual Manipulation" https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Gandalf

My greatest problem with spells on D&D is just one. Casters aren't that specialized. Would be cool if a wizard had to be forced to a "research theme" and only learn magic from this theme. So instead of wizards capable of casting wail of the banshee, stop time, wish, disjunction, meteor swarm and tsunamis, we will get the water elementarist spellbook, the necromancer spellbook with mostly necromancer spells and few conjuration and evokation like cone of cold, the abjurer spellbook and illusionist spellbook, the pyromancer spellbook illusionist spellbook. Abjurer spellbook and so on. But is just my preference. I know that a lot of people prefer more versitile spellcasters that can rest and change his entire spell loadout.

Water Elementarist spells on PAthfinder 1e

And this is why I honestly prefer sorcerer and warlocks. They are less powerful but are more specialized casters. I don't like that they are CHA based instead of INT based BTW.

BTW, on GURPS you have spell colleges and a lot of DM encourages you to focus in a single college.

 

[Harthwain]

However, I prefer sorcerer because I prefer more specialized casters. I prefer mages that can do something than mages that can do everything. Just my opinion.

Versatile mage is more useful in PnP. Having a specialist can be hit-or-miss, depending on the situation (with the Ranger being a prime example). Then again, a DM could take players' classes into consideration, so they don't feel useless.

 

[hell bovine]

My point is that despite not being the most optimal wizard specialization, you still can have a hell lot of fun with it. And that is great.

As for clone spells, like project image, their existing is not a problem. Not even a single enemy casting disjunction to dispell the clone is a huge problem. And when I meant soloed BG2:EE, I was talking about the Legacy of Bhaal difficulty which buffs enemies a lot and makes insta death effects far more valuable.

You were claiming wizard specialist are balanced in BG2, which they aren't, with wild mages being ridiculously overpowered as a result. Clone spells not getting dispelled is the smallest issue with them (and anyways SCS deals with that).

Neither is the fabled LoB difficult, because it uses same lacking ai, except with bloated numbers. Funny enough, last time I've tried it, they've bugged the enemy saving throws on LoB (version 2.5, I think), and gave enemies a penalty instead of a bonus. But this just shows that number bloating isn't the way to go. PK suffers from the same issue, unfortunately.

How enemies act in combat is as importants as their stats & abilities. That is the appeal of BG3, despite the numerous issues.

 

[Anonona]

Well, I disagree. Pick Voldemort from Harry Potter for eg. He can cast Avada Kedavra at will, with no limitation of spell slots or anything. Can become a lich with 7 phylacteries, breed colossal sized monstrosities like Basilisks, control the life and death, control the minds of the others, destroy buildings with bombarda spell(...). Pandelume on Dying Earth, can create artificial life with human levels of intelligence. Merlin can conjure weapons and shape shift among a lot of things and Gandalf?

Such a long rondabout way...

My greatest problem with spells on D&D is just one. Casters aren't that specialized. Would be cool if a wizard had to be forced to a "research theme" and only learn magic from this theme

...to agree with me. Wizards in D&D can do almost everything those great mages do all at the same time, and more. And please, Harry Potter? If you have a wand and know how to speak, as long as you are a wizard you can cast Avada Kedavra all day long. May have to take a glass of water to avoid throat dryness. Is retarded.

Pandelume on Dying Earth, can create artificial life with human levels of intelligence. Merlin can conjure weapons and shape shift among a lot of things and Gandalf

And yet they still cannot stop time or change reality with Wish. And their powers didnt break the story halfway throught just like a wizard can break a campaign mid level with spells like teleportation, fly, clarivoyence and the like.

At that point of power I would prefer to use a system like Ars Magica or even Exalted.

 

[Cryomancer]

Versatile mage is more useful in PnP. Having a specialist can be hit-or-miss, depending on the situation

Yep. Not that powerful but more interesting. Mainly when there are a story reason behind the "powers" that the caster gets. 2e shadow mage loses evokation and abjuration but is a interesting "kit" IMO.

You were claiming wizard specialist are balanced in BG2, which they aren't,

My point is that the difference between a illusionist and a necromancer is not that big and there are few situations where the necro is better. On Pillars 2, why anyone would even make a conjurer wizard?

halfway throught just like a wizard can break a campaign mid level with spells like teleportation, fly, clarivoyence and the like.

Teleport has counters like dimensional lock. Fly, how many D&D adaptations has it? I believe that only solasta. Clarivoyence depends a lot on the DM. As for stop time and wish, Dr Strange can REVERSE time and there are a lot of mytholocial creatures capable of granting wishes in his mythology like Djinns.

 

[Anonona]

Teleport has counters like dimensional lock. Fly, how many D&D adaptations has it? I believe that only solasta

A counter which isn't going to be present in all campaigns, and that if used every time would make the spell useless. Also, think about what you just said. PF:KM in a way nerf those classes by taking away some of their most broken tools. If you got teleport and fly just in Kingmaker just like you do in PnP, the travel mechanics will be absolutely useless. Owlcat actually arrives at a compromise making teleport harder to access through the Kingdom management mechanics. And fly pretty much can invalidate any level design. Solasta has it, but it is still quite limited.

Clarivoyence depends a lot on the DM

Yet a decent GM will still allow it to function. Otherwise it wouldn't be so different as removing it or nerfing the skill.

Clarivoyence depends a lot on the DM. As for stop time and wish, Dr Strange can REVERSE time

Sure, but Dr Strange is a fucking marvel comic superhero, which isn't renowned for their good writting or consistency. I mean, after so many fucking reboots, which version of Dr Strange are you talking about? And regardless of that, D&D is an RPG, don't forget the G. If the game presents Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian as valid choices that have as much value as Wizard, Cleric or Druid, I expect it to be so and not be phased out midway through. If we are going to be "Dr Stranges", then drop the pretenses of caster being non dominant and build a system balanced around the fact that the players are incredible wizards, like the afermentioned Ars Magica, or make everyone Gods like Exalted, but at that point is not Dungeons and Dragons anymore, more like Dimensions and Deities.

mytholocial creatures capable of granting wishes in his mythology like Djinns.

Yeah, but they aren't the classic wizard archetypes, aren't they?

Besides you can have balance without sacrificing "epicness". For a game that balances classes without losing in the "awesome" factor, look at Fantasy Craft Core Book's player races section, and see what the first race is. C'mon, I'll wait.

Spoiler

It's a mother fucking Drake that can become a full fledged dragon at high level.

 

[Sharpedge]

Yep. Not that powerful but more interesting. Mainly when there are a story reason behind the "powers" that the caster gets. 2e shadow mage loses evokation and abjuration but is a interesting "kit" IMO.

Specialists are pretty much always worse and the only reason to choose to make one is because of flavor reasons.

My point is that the difference between a illusionist and a necromancer is not that big and there are few situations where the necro is better. On Pillars 2, why anyone would even make a conjurer wizard?

For exactly the same reason they would make the choice in BG 2, roleplay reasons. The generalist mage is, under almost every circumstance, better than the specialist. There are some specific circumstances where the specialist Evocation mage is better than the generalist but that is more because of the interaction with its spell echo and certain spells which fire multiple projectiles.

The problem from a balance perspective with the specialists in Pillars 2 is Sawyer generically gave every specialist +2 power level with their own domain of spells but not all spells benefit from power level. If you look at that list of spells above that I use, you would think that I could benefit from being an Enchanter, but almost none of the Enchanter spells benefit from power level, so the "bonus" for taking it does nothing. The problem could be solved by making those buffs scale, but they are already really strong without scaling, so the solution would probably be to give a different bonus, say something like, "sticky enchantments," which make them difficult to dispel, or have a much longer duration, or not expire outside of combat.

Furthermore, the "special" bonuses for playing a chosen specialization aren't all equal, with most of them being fairly generic and then Evocation getting something which synergizes really well with its offensive spells.

It isn't that the spells themselves are bad, actually, most of the spells in Deadfire are pretty good, its just that not all of them benefit equally from power level so giving +2 power level to every specialization is a stupid idea and a more nuanced balance approach is required. Funny that, an approach which isn't to generically apply the same thing to every specialization, would probably result in a more balanced spread. At the same time, if we look at the banned spell schools, not all of those specializations are equally good. Conjuration is the one which probably has the best list of spells to ban and personally, I wouldn't mind losing Evocation and Illusion (although I really like Wall of Many Colours). Illusionist has some of the worst bans, losing access to Enchanting and Conjuration. The way the system is set up, what determines what is a good specialization is basically just what spells it bans, because there is nothing interesting about the schools to begin with.

Also, there is nothing in BG 2 that makes any of the specializations particularly interesting. If you removed the spell echo from Evocation in Pillars, the different spell schools in pillars would be more or less as interesting there as they are in BG 2. Specializations in BG 2 are about as balanced as specializations in Pillars if Evocation in Pillars did not exist. That is saying something about how dull those specializations are.

 

[Johannes]

Warriors getting wizard-like powers would be another form of boring banalcing.

 

[Nano]

The generalist mage is, under almost every circumstance, better than the specialist.

Specialist Mages work best in party-based games where companions can make up for your weaknesses. Which is the vast fucking majority of CRPGs. In these cases Specialists are undoubtedly better than generalists.

If you're playing a solo character you might as well play a Fighter/Mage/Thief if you're afraid of not having every single base covered.

 

[Cryomancer]

nerf those classes by taking away some of their most broken tools. If you got teleport and fly just in Kingmaker just like you do in PnP(...)Otherwise it wouldn't be so different as removing it or nerfing the skill.

Actually it makes kingmaker WORSE. Ground effects like Deadly Earth becomes extremely more powerful due the lack of fly. Deadly Earth is worthless vs a flying dragon on TT game. On Kingmaker, is a win button. As for teleport and dimensional lock. If you are in a lich cruypt, makes sense that the lich will have a dimensional lock to prevent his "research subjects" to escape for eg.

And regardless of that, D&D is an RPG, don't forget the G. If the game presents Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian as valid choices that have as much value as Wizard, Cleric or Druid, I expect it to be so and not be phased out midway through

I said many times. Make then more interesting. Not everyone equally boring to be played.

Warriors getting wizard-like powers would be another form of boring banalcing.

Not wizard like powers.

But a lv 20 barbarian with regeneration, aura, superhuman movement speed, 4e style combat maneuver, able to destroy fortified walls with a warhammer, decapitate and mutilate enemies with his axe and so on is nothing like a wizard but far more interesting. If someone implement a Nnja class, skills like Ultima Online Ninjutsu aren't anything like magic but are very interesting.

The generalist mage is, under almost every circumstance, better than the specialist.

You are right. But if something is fun to play but worse, guess what. I play games to get fun, not to min max my DPS number.

 

[Sharpedge]

The generalist mage is, under almost every circumstance, better than the specialist.

Specialist Mages work best in party-based games where companions can make up for your weaknesses. Which is the vast fucking majority of CRPGs. In these cases Specialists are undoubtedly better than generalists.

If you're playing a solo character you might as well play a Fighter/Mage/Thief if you're afraid of not having every single base covered.

That entire discussion was in the context of solo runs since Victor was making such a fuss about his solo Necromancer.

 

[Hobo Elf]

What are some of the most significant changes that Larian has done to the D&D mechanics? I keep reading how people say that they don't like the homebrew, but I've not found anyone specify what exactly are the changes.