Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[NJClaw]

5E completely blows at offering player choices in character builds in actual rules. Weapons? Automatically given by class. Skills? You select what skills you are "good" at and those will have higher rolls. Stats? Have always been a pseudo-choice in DnD.
Feats? There are not even 60 of them in total, spread over multiple books: https://www.aidedd.org/dnd-filters/feats.php
And all they really do is reinforce an already existing strength of a character, not adding anything really interesting.
It really is as I said, you make two choices, one at level 1, another at level 3, and the rest of the time character advancement is pretty much autopilot - though spellcasters do get to make some kind of choice more often...*

You can change "5E" with "AD&D" and everything would still stand true. The only difference is that in AD&D you can pick weapon pips, but calling that "character building" or "customization" is a bit of a stretch.

DM will adapt the campaign to suit their characters.

There are DM s like that? O_O

If there are such players, why would not there be matching DMs?
It all depends on how you play your tabletop games.
For some groups it's always a challenge between DM and players. But if you're not into munchki.. minmaxing and optimization, what are you doing in such a group?
And for others it a shared adventure, not a survival of a fittest test, so it would only be natural if DM seeing his players created 1-hp mages and weak-for-armor fighters, won't send them fighting the Tarrasque right away, but instead lead them on a "bring a cat down from a tree" epic quest or something like that.

I'd rather find a gm that would crush me for making such a stupid decision. The problem with dnd is permanently killing someone is too big of a deal so DMs are afraid to do it too much. Nobody wants to put in that much preparation just to have it all go to waste. At least that was my experience when I played table top for a while.

The occasional bit of insight from someone that has barely any experience on the matter is always interesting, but seldom useful. You talk about "DMs", but how many DMs have you actually met? Because I've been constantly playing D&D for almost 20 years and half the DMs I have met don't have any problem with killing characters if players are okay with it (at least a third of them don't even care about players' opinion on the matter).

 

[Lacrymas]

If you want to play a crippled, blind commoner, the campaign won't revolve around killing, duh.

 

[NJClaw]

The way I view it, adventuring is a profession with a very low Darwin threshold. The stupid die. The normies die. You have to be exceptional in either mind or body to survive the adventuring life. That is why you are adventurers. That is why you solve things that others can't. They are either incapable or dead (same thing, usually).

If you want to be a dramaqueen and play a crippled, blind commoner with a tragic backstory, Darwin gets you. Without pity or remorse. Nature is a bitch, and you just offered yourself up as a sacrifice. Congrats! Now, roll up a new character and wait until we have a chance to introduce him.

If you want to play a crippled, blind commoner, the campaign won't revolve around killing, duh.

One time a player of mine played a blind crippled commoner (3.5 has the commoner class, which gives you nothing from level 1 to 20) and took every prestige class, feat and archetype that could improve his survivability.

The commoner is so weak that he satisfies the Survivor prestige class' requirements with a single level (while you usually need at least 5 levels in any other class). The Survivor gets no offensive abilities at all, but in 5 levels he gains access to high level defensive features (stuff like the Damage Reduction of a 19th level Barbarian and Improved Evasion, that a Rogue can take only at level 13). The character was useless, but he was able to stumble through the first part of the adventure without dying.

 

[Cael]

If you want to play a crippled, blind commoner, the campaign won't revolve around killing, duh.

Then, the system you want is World of Darkness, not DnD.

 

[Lacrymas]

I have "DM'd" a campaign where all characters were poor commoners and the campaign goal was paying the feudal lords' demands for the month. I have a friend who is obsessed with mundane shit in his fantasy.

 

[fantadomat]

Yes, your penchant for cheating is well documented, fanta.

Cheating is irrelevant,winning is important in life .

Post your times for rolling 18/00 fighter/druid.

Rogue for life.

 

[thesheeep]

I have "DM'd" a campaign where all characters were poor commoners and the campaign goal was paying the feudal lords' demands for the month. I have a friend who is obsessed with mundane shit in his fantasy.

Not gonna lie, that does sound somewhat interesting for a session or two.

 

[Silly Germans]

In BG1/2 you also had next to no character building choices after you picked your class and stats.
I like the simple approach if you have a larger party. Skill points are pretty much pointless in party
based games. I haven't seen a game where you couldn't cover all skills as a party anyway. So far
it sounds like a 5'th edition based game will be much closer to the originals than the third edition
games were.

 

[Lacrymas]

Not gonna lie, that does sound somewhat interesting for a session or two.

You'd be surprised what desperate people in poverty are willing to do and get themselves into.

 

[Lilura]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Nobody cares about your blog.

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

I’m no TB purist, but it’s retarded to claim that BG is a more faithful adaptation of D&D than the GoldBox games. I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun. Also turn-based, and a faithful adaptation of D&D.

 

[fantadomat]

I have "DM'd" a campaign where all characters were poor commoners and the campaign goal was paying the feudal lords' demands for the month. I have a friend who is obsessed with mundane shit in his fantasy.

Not gonna lie, that does sound somewhat interesting for a session or two.

I had a similar thing,the guy that played for a first time constantly was coming up with all kind of schemes and constantly rolling 20s when i tried to punish him. It was good drinking party .

 

[DraQ]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Relevance deprivation syndrome is a bitch.

 

[Lilura]

Nobody cares about your blog.

Why am I ranked no. 1 on Google for pro-tip keywords then? Do you know who I am, pleb?

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

AD&D 2nd Edition isn't turn-based.

I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun.

Dark Sun is shit compared to Baldur's Gate.

 

[DraQ]

They cannot simply bloat enemies here since it's DnD but they will probably just add more or them for most encounters.

That's actually an auto-incline because bloat is one of the things that don't work - either "kind-of" or at all - that Larian keeps putting in their games for some obscure reason.

 

[Lilura]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Relevance deprivation syndrome is a bitch.

I remember when we first "met". You had 25,000 posts on the 'Dex and I had 1,000.

Now, I have 3 million views and am first-ranked on Google for the greatest RPGs of all-time, whereas you have only managed 5,000 more shitposts.

 

[Cael]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Nobody cares about your blog.

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

I’m no TB purist, but it’s retarded to claim that BG is a more faithful adaptation of D&D than the GoldBox games. I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun. Also turn-based, and a faithful adaptation of D&D.

Too bad Dark Sun's engine doesn't work at all well on modern machines, even with DOSBox. Shattered Lands is just crashville 80% of the time.

 

[DraQ]

I remember when we first "met". You had 25,000 posts on the 'Dex and I had 1,000. Now, I have 3 million views and am first-ranked on Google for the greatest RPGs of all-time, whereas you have only managed 5,000 more shitposts.

Good job, maybe eventually you will get as famous as Britney or something.
Don't you have something to do, BTW?

Like finding the best way to tile your Diablo 2 with mobs or something?

 

[Lilliput McHammersmith]

Nobody cares about your blog.

Why am I ranked no. 1 on Google for pro-tip keywords then? Do you know who I am, pleb?

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

AD&D 2nd Edition isn't turn-based.

I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun.

Dark Sun is shit compared to Baldur's Gate.

Yeah I'm gonna call bullshit. Dark Sun is not shit, and is a better adaptation of AD&D 2nd Edition rules. And yeah, citation needed on AD&D 2e not being turn-based, because it most certainly is.

Lilura, I know you base your entire ego on your precious little blog, but literally nobody cares about it.

 

[Thunar]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Nobody cares about your blog.

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

I’m no TB purist, but it’s retarded to claim that BG is a more faithful adaptation of D&D than the GoldBox games. I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun. Also turn-based, and a faithful adaptation of D&D.

Too bad Dark Sun's engine doesn't work at all well on modern machines, even with DOSBox. Shattered Lands is just crashville 80% of the time.

It ain't crashfest, that's a meme.

 

[Cael]

The original Baldur's Gate is the greatest D&D-based RPG of all-time, and the 4th-greatest RPG of all-time.

It makes the Goldbox games seem like pieces of shit in comparison.

Read this authoritative retrospective, and despair [link].

It's still one of the worst adaptations of the DnD rules.

Baldur's Gate is the best adaptation of D&D rules outside of ToEE.

Way better than Goldbox, which is D&D-lite in comparison.

I challenge anyone on the 'Dex to go against my retrospective; I will light you up on my blog.

Nobody cares about your blog.

I love BG as much as anyone, but the Gold Box games are objectively more faithful because they are Turn-Based.

I’m no TB purist, but it’s retarded to claim that BG is a more faithful adaptation of D&D than the GoldBox games. I’ll do you one better, Dark Sun. Also turn-based, and a faithful adaptation of D&D.

Too bad Dark Sun's engine doesn't work at all well on modern machines, even with DOSBox. Shattered Lands is just crashville 80% of the time.

It ain't crashfest, that's a meme.

It is for me, unfortunately.

 

[Lilura]

Good job, maybe eventually you will get as famous as Britney or something.
Don't you have something to do, BTW?

Like finding the best way to tile your Diablo 2 with mobs or something?

Says the guy with 30,000 posts on the 'Dex, most of which are on the Elder Scrolls.

You know, you're not a bad poster, DraQ. But it's not like you're first ranked on Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm and ToEE retrospectives, is it.

 

[Saravan]

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

 

[DraQ]

Lilura's is the only flavour of autism in there (if any), Ontopoly is just dumb.

 

[Duralux for Durabux]

I remember when we first "met". You had 25,000 posts on the 'Dex and I had 1,000.

Now, I have 3 million views and am first-ranked on Google for the greatest RPGs of all-time, whereas you have only managed 5,000 more shitposts.

Lilura in a nutshell: