Baldur's Gate 3 Rulings I like and dislike

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[@kalbarnes2494]

Players: “Shit we don’t have enough camp supplies to long rest!” Garlic Bread Domain Clerics: “Fear not children”

[@enzoponce1881]

Reminds me that there was a homebrew garlic bread subclass in r/unearthedarcana lol

[@Defcon5gamingn1]

​@@enzoponce1881I believe that is what he's talking about cause he covered it on the channel a while back.

[@enzoponce1881]

@@Defcon5gamingn1 huh, didn't know

[@WannabeCanadianDev]

Deep cut right here.

[@SecureBirch410]

@@enzoponce1881 yes well done that was the joke

[@Duncaii]

Biggest mechanic I hate: Rope. Lemme use it. You put it everywhere Larian, lemme tie it to this pillar and scale down the wall already!

[@troydenbrum2979]

I kept about 10 rope till the 2nd act thinking I may need it.

[@MadSwedishGamer]

Wait, so you're telling me I should stop hoarding all this rope? It's really not used for anything?

[@Deathnom]

Rope is extremely useful in this game. Ive gotten so much money from selling it.

[@DieDieNacho]

​@@DeathnomGood one 👏 👏

[@lordalex027]

Just like in Larian's other notable game, Divinity Original Sin 2, there are a LOT of items that are just there for flavor. Rope was also one of those in DOS2. Some were used in crafting related things like normal non-weapon hammers in DOS2 were used to repair weapons (DOS2 had a system where if you used your weapon for stuff besides hitting a dood (so doors, chests, etc) it would take 1 durability damage with each weapon having 20 IIRC... it didn't really ever become necessary to repair stuff, but still neat)

[@wulfywulfynrir1296]

Also, people REALLY sleep on how useful Silence can be outside of dealing with casters. My absolute favourite was when we were tracking someone down to his house and we wanted to take him by surprise (point of note, we did NOT have a rogue or similar character in the party) We waited until two am, went to his front door, and it was obviously locked. So we had our wizard cast silence on it and the barbarian smashed through it with his maul, and our target was still asleep in bed as we made ZERO noise

[@kalebaquinomileib8605]

No way you can actually do it

[@99baking]

You can actually stop certain NPCs from calling for backup with the silence spell

[@mayhewstorm1473]

Yeah people forget about the "Quiet" aspect of silence lol

[@DimkaTsv]

​@@mayhewstorm1473soo... Can you scream loud enough to penetrate it? Also this mean thunder damage would work quite well (well, probably it can be solved as reduced thunder damage by X) Also silence is absolute. It is either there or not. Silence won't be silent if there is sound. Granted if we turn silence into "dampen sounds by Y decibels", where Y value can be scaled with uplevelled casting it can actually be done, but horrible to rule around.

[@Compunctus]

@DimkaTsv Every entity in silence sphere is fully immune to thunder damage.

[@buddyisbored2355]

I cant wait for the skit video "D&D but the DM just wants to play Baldurs Gate 3" where the DM uses every single rule, regardless of if they work in a ttrpg or not

[@antarath517]

"Oof you guys probably should have saved before entering this room"

[@helgenlane]

"D&D but the DM just wants to play Baldur's Gate 3" is me wanting to run BG3 as a campaign for my players. All the maps in the game already have a square grid, it's like they intended for people to actually do something with it!

[@heyfell4301]

@@helgenlanethey really should release this story as a module tbh.

[@Ashai]

@@heyfell4301Wouldn't be surprised if they eventually did since the prologue to it exists already with Descent into Avernus

[@heyfell4301]

@@Ashai I didn't know the two were connected (as I didn't play Descent Into Avernus). That's cool!

[@vilizharp]

Honestly, the change I think I loved the most in BG3 was having pure utility spells like Speak with Animals and Speak with Dead last until your next long rest. It just feels so much better than having to potentially use three spell slots to try and find that one squirrel that happened to see the murder take place, or find the exact body of the guy in a battlefield that knows where the big bad evil guy went.

[@Reapor234]

Plus it's not concentration (can't remember if it is in the TTRPG or not) so Wild Heart barbs can use it all day without having to worry about recasting it over and over.

[@pharaoh2426]

Remember kids, at the start of the day you brush your teeth, wash your face, and cast speak with animals and longstrider.

[@conduit64]

@@pharaoh2426 and Mage Armor when appropriate.

[@masterbuilder7577]

@@pharaoh2426 wish it was that simple lmao, by the end of my summoner playthrough it was, gale: armor of agathis from magic item, darkvision, mage armor, summon familiar, summon minor elemental, summon elemental, raise dead, create undead. wyll: bind pact weapon, false life, summon elemental, raise dead. karlatch: shield of thralls, give gale his first and second level slots back. shadowheart: raise dead, create undead, aid at 5th level (once all summons are out of course).

[@cjnf11]

@@Reapor234 Well actually in BG3 it depends where you get that spell from. I use Speak with Dead as a spell from the amulet, and my character has to use concentration on it being "ready". As long as it is there I can re-cast it anytime until long rest. I use it on my main character rogue assassin, so that fits since I don't have other concentration spells on me. At least for now.

[@rivenentrerisavageandultim8399]

Another thing about XP in BG3, you don't only get XP from combat. You get it for exploring, and most importantly for talking your way out of a fight. If you're playing a high charisma character and succeed a really hard Persuasion check and convince the enemy to not attack you, you still get the XP as if you had defeated them. Which I think is amazing and really encourages more diversity than "Me want XP, me go murder hobo"

[@CrabCrow]

This! My bread & butter in TTRPGs is finding clever ways to avoid conflict and it sucks the reward structures only incentivize combat and even then, only killing.

[@thecrazything95]

There is a fun little exploit to this (it might have been fixed now though, and besides it kinda breaks the game so not very fun in practice): If you kill the enemies anyway.. you get no extra XP. Right, good, no exploit for double XP there!. Except if you talk, save, reload the save and THEN kill them. You get the xp for talking and killing, If you talk, save, load, knock out, save, load, kill you get 3x the XP.

[@jhonea6535]

Wait does that not count as defeating an enemy in 5e? 🤔

[@CrabCrow]

@@jhonea6535 If it's a combat encounter the enemy needs to be killed, captured, or flee on their own. The DM guide does mention granting XP for roleplay scenarios like intense negotiations or difficult skill checks like navigating a trap filled room. But if it was designed as a combat encounter you don't get anything for successfully avoiding it. At least, I've never seen a DM award it that way.

[@AceoftheVoid]

​@@CrabCrowI've seen many DM give xp for doing it this way Also Amy DM who used milestone leveling does this by default, which is one of the reasons milestone leveling is just better

[@vlixle2781]

Another great thing that BG3 added are the additional weapon actions. Makes a martials playstyle more varied than "I attack for the 5th turn in a row"

[@collenjets123]

I think one of my favorites was Mobile Shot with hand crossbows. It gave youa reason to use them over the other two.

[@crazywowgoer]

@@collenjets123 hand crossbows are SO good in BG3, especially as a thief rogue. Three full modifier shots per turn? One of witch has sneak attack? At level three? its just *chefs kiss*. Then add crossbow expert at level four for no penalty in melee, or go sharpshooter for that tasty plus ten damage per shot.

[@oOPPHOo]

Better than weapon masteries in my opinion. Even if it's more gamified, I like the varied and often more potent options with limited uses over the single at will weapon mastery per weapon.

[@sableyez]

They are playing around this for onednd, hopefully it sticks around

[@wren6387]

something i always try to encourage for martials is to "attack and." As in, its assumed by default you are attacking, so as part of your attack you should do something interesting. Interact with the environment, try to shove or trip or grapple an opponent, throw a table over, kick over a brazier and make a flaming mess, etc, and I find that really helps players get into the scene a lot more rather than just rolling to bonk then ending turn.

[@kingbulbasaur9460]

A change that I'm personally a fan of is the Pact of the Blade for Warlock letting them use their charisma modifier to attack, so you don't have to take the hexblade subclass if you don't want to.

[@bookbagfox]

Absolutely. It makes Archfey flow way better when you can use its melee range abilities and teleport toward people instead of just using them to run away.

[@Varrick111]

I've homebrewed that since Hexblade came out. There is no reason for it to be the level 1 dip ability when it is called "PACT OF THE BLADE". Make my blade do work for me, it's the magic thing!

[@LittleMountain90]

As someone who loves swordlock and hates hexblade, agreed.

[@solaire6116]

theres no hexblade

[@ForeverLaxx]

>don't have to take Hexblade You can't anyway because it's not in the game in the first place. Pact of the Blade was modified to be a more expensive copy of the only reason people dip into Hexblade to begin with.

[@TheManOfCardboard]

For those of you who also want to use maps but get rid of squares/hexes: String! Measure some string to your character's movement speed and cut it. When you move in combat, just place the start of the string where your character is, and you can lay the string down however you like to show the path they take Same thing to determine line of sight, but in that case the string must be a straight line between you and what you're trying to see

[@BornOnThursday]

I liked this about Warhammer 40k.

[@samu4176]

los works better with a solid object we use shashlik sticks for that

[@MySqueezingArm]

Wooden dowels snipped to a fixed length are also a good solution.

[@Eantrin]

I’ll have to see how it works in practice, but I like this string theory.

[@Reinkjaky]

@@Eantrin In our games we attach a string with the ring to all characters minis, and you can just move the ring until string is taut, and then just put mini into the ring or next to it so it doesn't take space. Works pretty well and you don't need to calculate squares every turn.

[@txt5220]

Featherfall and Jump both being ritual spells feels AMAZING. It makes traversal so much easier and when used in combat, Jump is basically flying.

[@hufismissing]

Longstrider too right after every long rest. Feels so damn good. Hopefully they update the character creation/level up UI to show ritual spells are in fact ritual spells

[@kevinjackson7169]

@@hufismissing It is annoying when you don't know if a spell is a ritual or not, however when in combat some (if not all) ritual spells do still use a spell slot.

[@Taurusus]

both being WHAT!??

[@mitchellmiller5064]

Letting players full heal on Potions used as actions may be problematic. It would make the Potions more valuable and I could see players wanting to just save them for after combat so they can get the most out of each potion. That is if you have the full heal still happen out of combat.

[@Lord_zeel]

@@kevinjackson7169 Right? It doesn't tell you in the spell selection in the level up screen! But also yes, they use a slot in combat - that's how BG3 handles rituals, as opposed to 5e where it adds ten minutes to the casting time. BG3 doesn't have extended casting time spells at all, so the distinction is just "in combat" or not.

[@Nanoqtran]

I believe the 2 short rest per long rest is specifically used in game because they need a motivator for you to Long rest in the game to trigger some story beats. So it doesn't make as much sense in traditional D&D because the DM can control the event pacing.

[@Thiole]

if you could do unlimited short rest, classes like warlock you could just get the tough feat I think it is, full heal, and all spells back every short rest and complete the game without a long rest.

[@XPtoLevel3]

100%

[@almightyk11]

​@@Thioleeasily fixed by adding exhaustion without long rests

[@eugenides04]

​@@almightyk11Okay, when does the Exhaustion accumulate?

[@benjordan1971]

​​@@eugenides04once per day, not sleeping is exhausting. That is if you use one dnd rules

[@alexeisenhauer5874]

7:12 In BG3 camp resources to rest is also great because it gives value to the random inventory and world clutter that usually is annoying but necessary to flesh out the environments.

[@BiggieD17]

Me carrying around 200lbs of random food, alcohol, and miscellanious items not knowing they added a feature if you never had enough camp supplies 😅

[@user-to7ds6sc3p]

@@BiggieD17 Assuming you talk about BG3. Always use 'Send to Camp' on Supplies, don't keep them in your Inventory. You can use Supplies from the Camp Chest for Resting without taking them out beforehand.

[@TheWither129]

Yeah, dude act 2 had me digging through everything i could in the hopes of finding food to survive, it felt oppressive and the constant rotten food was like the game was nailing in how inhospitable the land was, and made every random place feel important cus of the hope of something that doesnt expire like alcohol feel worth it. Digging through the ruins for a scrap so i might be able to rest was intense, especially with the threat of monsters jumping me. Now in act 3 food is a non issue and it feels so rewarding, like i fought through hell and now im in the light, in the sun, and everything’s gonna be alright. Despite the, yknow, murder cult and oppressive robo-guards, oh and the giant brain that threatens to turn everyone into mind flayers. We’re in a better place, but surrounded by even deadlier threats. Its such great progression

[@djinscar2304]

my only issue is that they give you way too much even on Honor mode. You can short rest every other fight and immediately long rest and you'll find 80 supplies before long resting again.

[@Raioknight]

I think what I like the most about Shove and Jump being SO prevalent in Baldur's Gate 3 is that it evens out the argument between martial or casters being better. It makes strength such a more useful stat, which a lot of martial tend to rely on. The environment is the martial's equivalent of magic.

[@MandalorV7]

Wizard: I cast fire bolt. Fighter: and I shoved that hag into the fire pit.

[@MonkeGeorge]

I mean it definitely helps because martials have a boost to physical stats comparatively, but realistically it depends on if your DM even has a complicated map set up in the first place. I was thinking back and can't remember too many instances where a full blown multi-layered map with good verticality was really used to much effect other than having different sightlines (like climbing on a roof). Many DM's just don't like the hassle of tracking the environment with that much detail, so alot of fighting feels 'flat' by comparison. Also it's not a good trade off fundamentally because it's not like casters can't push, they just don't have as high of a bonus. That's not as big of a limiter as "I'm melee focused, I have no magic and very few ranged options..."

[@CrusadiaIX]

Everybody has limited ranged options when you hit them with Command: Grovel

[@Lord_zeel]

I agree completely. It feels so cool to have a string character in BG3 and just toss people around, while in 5e strength is almost worthless and you can easily build Dex-focuses fighters and paladins. But in BG3, I wouldn't do that - I want my barbarians, fighters, and paladins to be able to jump long distances to explore without wasting spells on fly/misty step and I wand them one-action killing enemies by pushing them off the map. One thing though that's worth consideration: In BG3, the maps have a TON of verticality and the levels have intentional death pits and lava pools and such. Doing this in 5e would be a lot of work for the DM - not only because it's harder to design, but how do you SHOW it to players? Even most VTTs don't support this well. So things like jumping, climbing, and shoving just don't come up in D&D nearly that often because the maps you play on generally aren't designed to make those sorts of things useful.

[@toxicteapot7941]

You can do that at the table too, though. You can even grapple, shove, then action surge and get 2 attacks with advantage while removing the enemy the chance to stand up because grapple keeps them at 0 move. This is at level 5. Shove is already a powerful action and using an extra attack is much better for those martials than utilizing their one bonus action.

[@matthewkukowski4638]

Fun fact about camp supplies: in BG3, there’s an achievement for long resting using ONLY alcohol as camp supplies. I did it accidentally because of how much alcohol is present in Act 2 lmao

[@burningknight7]

same here lmao, I was like, "lets do this funny thing and get stupid drunk" and it popped up. Another reason I love this game, thinking about all the funny things players will do and putting them as actual achievements

[@SarcyBoi41]

The best thing about this is if you do it, all your party members wake up with a "hangover" debuff for the first 10 turns of the next day

[@zeratul____1228]

Honestly I really like how they have Speak With Dead being able to be re-casted until a long rest. Honestly makes it a lot more appealing of a spell rather then a single use 10 minute spell.

[@-Offstar]

Yeah same with mage armour, speak with animals, and several others being made to last until you long rest. That change actually makes them worth while, they might be useful or even game changing normally but they just aren't worth using a spell slot for a one off or short duration. More often then not it's a wasted spell as you aren't going to get useful information or it'll run out to soon.

[@PhoenixBlazer39]

Wait, what? I found an amulet of Speak with Dead, and had Shadowheart use it. I assumed it was a hard once per long rest, so tried to avoid wasting it on random NPCs.

[@-Offstar]

@@PhoenixBlazer39 Yeah from what I remember it isn't something the game outright tells you. You're supposed to just figure it out when you notice that after casting it the first time there are bodies that glow green and you get a recast Speak with Dead added to your "add to slot" options. There's tons of stuff in the game that it doesn't tell you and is meant to be a thing for people to figure out on their own. It's can kinda be annoying but allows for new playthroughs that can be very unique and different from your first as you discover new mechanics and areas you might of missed the first time.

[@albacore3473]

For whatever reason, it's not the same button to cast Speak with Dead when you're trying to do a subsequent cats. It's its own button on the side. @@PhoenixBlazer39

[@emeralddiscordian3116]

​@@albacore3473 it also is bugged on console and doesn't auto add to the radial

[@elmokaartinen3854]

Having played Warlock in a party where almost no one else benefitted from short rests in any other way than being able to use hit dice, I really loved the short rest mechanic of BG3. I pretty much had to arrive to every session with a prepared speech and roll 3 separate IRL charisma checks to convince the party (in a relatively time sensitive environment) to just stay for an hour. Being able to play a warlock or monk without having to do that in BG3 gave me a sense of euphoria that no other factor in bg3 could match.

[@tirell2075]

Yeah, while an hour rest can be good narratively I haven't found it used like that often, rather the narrative like being in the middle of a dungeon makes my friends reluctant to short rest because being undetected for an hour in the same spot, from patrols or responses to previous noise, seems infeasible. Not fantastic when a few classes are built around short rest resources.

[@chuck9246]

Not sure how long you guys have been playing together or how experienced your dm is but that shouldn't be an issue. Short rest classes need the option, when i dm i always try to make it known that it's not gonna kill you to take a break. If it is something truly time sensitive ill roll during the rest for consequences but the time sensitive nature will be stressed before i start encounters so short rest classes can adjust and not burn out. Punishing a player for needing rests, even if it's just 1 player at a table, is something im extremely against personally. I've played them alot, dmed for them alot, they're really fun. They get alot less fun when you cant use your abilities because you'll be punished for it. Id try to stress that aspect the most, especially to the dm, if they have your back then that'll go a long way towards fixing the issue.

[@ozzysmith2571]

Monk and warlock have always been my favourite and parties running classes that don't care about short rest always ruined me. Cuz I'd either barely do anything for an entire day OR do a lot in an encounter or 2 and then totally check out for the rest. Having the on demand rest is so nice.

[@romxxii]

with my Open Hand monk, I'd stretch out sessions between long rests to as long as possible. Turns out you're supposed to long-rest as often as possible, as it's used to advance story with your partymates.

[@Registeel1234]

@@chuck9246 If there's the possibility of consequences for taking a short rest, people will want to avoid taking that risk. The real solution is to have short rests last 10 minutes instead of a full hour. Its easy to justify spending 10 minutes to rest, its much harder to justify a 1 hour rest when time is sensitive. Short rests are already limited due to the nature of spending hit die to regain health. At some point, you'll have to take a long rest, because you spend all your hit die and can't keep going.

[@shadowmagus0413]

Im a big fan of awarding inspiration based on backgrounds. Backgrounds get so little use outside of character creation and the occasional RP use, so I think its a great idea.

[@TheJerbol]

acolyte background in 5e is literally the only one with a midly reliably useful feature, aside from outlander with the food thing but honestly who keeps track of rations

[@megan_alnico]

This is not unlike the World of Darkness games and their mechanics for regaining willpower. Do something consistent with the true nature of your character? Here have something that helps you succeed in your dice rolls.

[@Drekromancer]

This was one of the most readily exploitable ideas I saw in BG3 that would transfer to tabletop. It makes roleplay so much easier to reward, and it sets clear expectations for PCs.

[@explorer47422]

This is actually in the rulebook 5e, it suggests if a PC encounters or overcomes their flaw thematically they could be awarded inspiration, or interact with any of their 4 backgrounds in some way

[@frycook6396]

@@TheJerbol Boom, your group needs camp supplies. Outlander is useful and gets an inspiration.

[@Bocca888]

I was really hoping you'd talk about grouped turns in this video. In baldur's gate, if 2 or more allies (or enemies) have consecutive turns in the initiative order, they can basically take their turns at the same time, or in whatever order they choose between them. For example, goblin A, B and C are 1, 2 and 3 in the initiative order. The DM can move them all at once, and then roll their attacks one after the other. After the goblins' turn, the players Fighter and Cleric are 4 and 5 on the order. The players can choose where they want to move to, before either of them take an action if they want to. Then, the cleric who is 5th in the order can bless the fighter, before the fighter attacks, even though the cleric's turn is technically AFTER the fighter's turn. I think it's a really cool idea that can give players more opportunities to actively cooperate with each other during combat, while also helping to speed up combat a bit by getting multiple movements done at the same time.

[@AngryBoozer]

Really fun in multiplayer. I’m nuking enemies with a fireball, not noticing that my friend’s barbarian is charging straight into the blast zone.

[@brianolsen5435]

This is such a great change for multiplayer. Me and a friend can take the time to figure out our turns at the same time. Kinda essential with 4 player characters.

[@bingonight1504]

I was almost done with Act 1 when I figured this out. My brain fogs up thinking about every time I skipped a character's turn because another character was in the way blocking line of sight or you know, the ability to get into range at all

[@saphironkindris]

FANTASTIC rule, and makes complete sense if you think about it. They're moving at approximately the same time anyways, why not let the fighter duck out of the way of the wizard who's going firsts spell?

[@SecureBirch410]

This is one that works a lot better in bg3 though, where you are controlling your characters one at a time. It gets messy in multiplayer, where you both target the same guy and end up wasting a turn. dnd is a bit better since you wont like attack simultaneously but leads to the same thing where someone will just wait for the other to go first anyway.

[@Ookler]

To the revivify rule: Don't forget that there are no material components in BG3, so I do like it more that my players have a limited amount of revive and using them on an npc means a lot, because now they may not have enough to revive everyone in a worst case scenario. This comes back to having a tight economy, which is hard to do of course.

[@arturmical]

There is also no class requirement for the scrolls in BG3.

[@sol-hunter2332]

Yeah, i think im just gonna restriction how common those diamonds are. Not every store is gonna keep a 300g diamond.

[@tacoblocko]

there's also the inclusion of a time limit for revivify. it's like 1 minute.

[@block4562]

I tried to revive a certain pair of NPCs and got the message "target must be a player character" so there's that

[@savortherobot9709]

Yea thats the only thing I disagree with about this video. If It pissed me off in BG3 when I couldnt revify npcs even ones that fight with you. Im pretty sure they just made it so you couldnt use revifify on npcs in the game because adding plot lines for if you revived each important npc wouldve been so much

[@TheGoodColonel]

My favorite change is probably to Longstrider and Jump. Making those into rituals, and especially making Longstrider last as long as Mage Armor, is absolutely amazing.

[@lordmuhehe4605]

Feather fall too.

[@HeyzDexy]

Rituals are amazing, I don't want to imagine a world were they aren't

[@TheGoodColonel]

@@HeyzDexy They arent in normal 5e sadly

[@micahiwaasa9304]

One concept I had is spell slots you locked into boons like long strider, magic weapon, and so on. (Or curses!)

[@thexjed8285]

Not saddly. Ritual means it doesn't cost a spell slot. So technicaly just knowing longstrider allows whole party to have extra 10ft. of movement for no cost whatsoever. Not that great, if it were to last until rest. @@TheGoodColonel

[@wnnfs9423]

I love how Theif Rogues have a second bonus action; it’s so good. I know it would be broken in the tabletop but I still love it.

[@uberculex]

The sad thing is it wouldn't be that broken if it weren't for the "cast more than one leveled spell per turn" thing.

[@-Offstar]

Honestly it wouldn't even be broken. A second bonus action isn't really that powerful for most classes especially since you'd have to dedicate 3 levels to get it. A Sorcerer could use it to throw out 3 cantrips a turn, but that would burn through sorcery points way too fast. And 3 levels of Rogue really hurts Sorcerers since it stops spell and sorcery point progression. They'd be better off just going Warlock, Paladin, or Bard for more power and utility; or Fighter for action surge at level 2 and more survivability. Oath of Vengeance Paladin's could dual wield weapons, cast hunter's mark, and be able to use 2-4 smites a turn without additional multi-classing but again the 3 levels or Rogue will hurt their spell slot progression. They'd be better off just going Warlock to get powerful spell slots for divine smite and eldritch smite that can be used at the same time and some spells slots that come back on a short rest. Monks would benefit massively as they could get another flurry of blows each turn but Monks already have issues with ki points so an extra bonus action would just eat their ki points quicker so it balances out. Really the only 2 classes I can think of that benefit a lot from it without negatives are Ranger and Rogue. Rogues rely on sneak attack for damage so another bonus action helps increases the chances of hitting sneak attack and gives added utility. And Rangers are notoriously under-powered so a Rogue multi-class is often done as a Ranger for the sneak attack damage anyway so a second bonus action would help bring Ranger's up. Outside of them a second bonus action isn't all that powerful unless you're playing at like levels 16-20 where you can use Blade of Disaster or Crown of Stars that deal tons of damage as only a bonus action. For any other level there just really isn't anything insanely powerful that would make 2 bonus actions broken. At least not off the top of my head. I mean I guess you could do a two weapon fighting Rogue/Fighter which would have 6 attacks, 7 with haste at level 8. Or a dual wielder Rogue/Barbarian so you can use higher damage strength weapons in both hands that can hit 4 times a turn 5 with haste and the rage damage bonus at level 8. Then take 2 levels in Fighter to get two weapon fighting and action surge or a 4th level in Rogue and take the Fighting Initiate feat for two weapon fighting for the modifier damage on the bonus attacks. But even then it doesn't really make either of these broken it just narrows the damage gap between them and full caster classes.

[@Gaawachan]

@@-Offstar This is a good comment but please god break up the text a bit next time.

[@darkjackl999]

​@@-Offstarranger is nuts with it, totem barbarian is nutty when you get steed totem since rogue 2 lets you bonus action dash, also as someone abusing.. i mean playing a monk *its really good* with how good bonus actions are in bg3 getting them free is so cash money, especially with cunning action from rogue 2 Best multiclass in the game no question

[@zaltarical]

@@Gaawachanwe got the fucking comment aficionado over here

[@chrisedrington7945]

the EXP rule for BG3 also works really well because you still get it for avoiding combat, and exploration. One of the big reasons i've heard for doing milestone is that exp incentivizes murder hobing.

[@trentlewis1473]

It feels like they made BG3's EXP system a mathematical milestone. Everyone gains xp, even if they aren't in the active party.

[@RomanticGoblin00]

​@trentlewis1473 which helpful too because you be really annoyed dragging around level one Karlach because I recruited her after taken care the goblins

[@Danceofmasks]

just double dip, bro ... talk your way out of as many fights as possible, but immediately backstab them as they're leaving the scene. LUL

[@helgenlane]

Well, just give your players exp for solving an encounter, not just for killing. Pretty simple idea a lot of people suggested thousands of times already

[@slayeroffurries1115]

exp is, well, experience. It makes sense that talking your way out of a nasty fight would give your party exp, they would learn a thing or two with that interaction

[@DustySquitoNM]

I especially like the Misty Step rule because one of my players had her "medivac" spell combo she'd do where she'd Misty Step in, grab a downed player, and Thunder Step out again. She was a Warlock, so it consumed both of her spell slots to do it, and I thought that was a pretty rad last-ditch kind of combo.

[@talongreenlee7704]

I think the rule should be that you can’t cast two damaging spells in a turn. I don’t think it’s an issue to quicken mirror image and blow up enemies with a fireball on a single turn, but two fireballs in a turn is obviously too powerful.

[@Kal-213]

@@talongreenlee7704 That is a good idea. Or you could set something up in your turn like quicken grease and then fireball.

[@Shalakor]

@@talongreenlee7704 My Fighter with a Necklace of Fireballs knows what you're talking about. If someone has their heart set on casting two leveled spells in a turn, they'll just take the 2 or 3 level dip into Fighter. But, even then, a bonus action spell breaks Action Surge's usefulness for spellcasting, too, so then you're stuck with two actions you can't cast a leveled spell with if there's any bonus action spells you want that turn. It's so counterintuitive. Like, and by extension, what is even the intended use of Quicken Spell in the base design of 5E? Most scenarios without a specific multiclass and/or feat build in mind (both of which being considered optional variant rules if you'll remember), Quicken Spell is just worse for a straight Sorcerer than casting the given spell as an action would have been.

[@WillowGreenheart]

@@talongreenlee7704 Depends imo. I let my players do whatever with BG3 rules just for fun and... 4 fireballs are kinda overpower but it still used all his slots and he just sat there spamming cantrips. I would dare even say that Sorlock is stronger because hex + EB + quickened EB is stronger.

[@deathwrow9652]

Can just make it so that you may cast one spell that affects enemies per turn, and one that affects allies in that turn. Problem comes with target all spells hitting both, probably clarify that it is considered hitting enemies in that scenario, just for the sake of semantics. @@talongreenlee7704

[@Guille2033]

The XP system works in BG3 bc it's a closed system where Larian has placed a limited amount of monsters for you to fight so they can tweak how much xp each encounter gives. In tabletop DnD your player can simply say "I wanna go to the city sewers and kill rats, gimme xp"

[@ScientistMan96]

Conversely to that, in tabletop, the DM can dynamically adjust how much XP is given. Thus could make it a system in which XP is a way of saying how much you learned from that fight. Sure you can go into the sewers and murder every rat that moves, but after the first few, are you really learning anything new from killing a rat? Thus, have the rats giving diminishing returns on XP value, until they stop giving anything at all. Which is how IRL learning happens. If you're learning to play an instrument, then any random note will give you "XP" on how to play that instrument. Until it doesn't, and playing that same note teaches nothing. So you play several notes in series, etc..

[@AlphaOmega1237]

I'd say the XP system works because it's being handled by a computer. :P Seriously, the main issue with XP is that it's hard to keep track of properly (especially because the numbers involved get silly big) rather than players going to grind levels.

[@MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

And the DM can just go "no" or make rats worthless

[@Kahadi]

The DM doesn't have to allow it. Also, regarding the XP system in BG3, it's kind of like milestone experience. You do get experience for killing enemies, yes, but since it's a game with no random encounters, it's more like you got experience for completing the encounter than for killing the enemies. In a tabletop sense, you can just make it so that even if they tried farming weak enemies, they don't get any experience. Otherwise every cat would be level 20 just hunting rats for food.

[@PlayerZeroStart]

They can do that, and the DM can say "Rats are 1 xp". Or say that the players aren't able to find any rats. Or put a giant sewer monster down there to make the players earn their XP. You forget that the DM is not beholden to either the rules of D&D or the whims of the player.

[@amduil8168]

A spell combo I've really enjoyed is Misty Step, dimension door. Emergency evac combo. Whats that? An npc that is about to die? Get in there and evac them. A downed party member about to be finished off by an AOE? Evac.

[@Cressx]

That's how I did the Iron Throne section. Managed to save everyone (on tactician)

[@dharmeshmistry342]

You can go SO far too cause of the insane range on Dimension Door. I feel like BG3 really puts into perspective how massively blown up the size is on a D&D battlemap. A 20 foot circle on a 4th level spell felt kinda meh before I played BG3 but now it feels absolutely MASSIVE.

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Thunder Step works too, so long as it's one other character! It's 3rd level and even deals an AOE when you cast it. I used it in a game to save folks all the time. :)

[@Vaelyhn]

@@Cressx I also saved everyone, but my Karlach bugged and skipped the last 2 turns so she and Shadowheart died. Karlach had dimension door boots and had enough time and actions to save them both.

[@Vaelyhn]

@@dharmeshmistry342 It's too bad dimension door is so weak compared to the 5e version. 500 feet anywhere you can imagine, a nightmare to code in game I imagine.

[@idbuddy2184]

Honestly the whole allies next to each other in turn order able to go at the same time is really cool and i can see it being used to really plan on the fly or set up better combinations

[@dylanboczar999]

I honestly think it would be a nightmare in tabletop, where the game already sometimes grinds to a halt with tabletalk. In BG3 combat resolves a lot faster because so many things are automated, so it's less of an issue (plus often it;s one person controlling all the PCs, so there's no tabletalk necessary)

[@Lord_zeel]

@@dylanboczar999 I agree. If I in my own mind think "oh, I'll have the bard cast an AOE and then I'll have the cleric put Sanctuary on them" it's no big deal. But at the table this would be a massive conversation about turn order every single round with some people trying to plan, others insisting on going first, others still saying "I'm not ready yet you go first" and then still not being ready when it is their turn... it would be a lot.

[@Matthias129]

@@Lord_zeel I do agree that it's definitely a discussed at session zero possibility kind of thing. I will say though I've had plenty of tables where, with a set turn order, people weren't ready when it was their turn so that aspect at least wouldn't really affect me lol.

[@idbuddy2184]

@@dylanboczar999 of course anything rules related will be a group by group execution. I can easily see this as a way of making combat more interesting and if things are going poorly/taking too long then as a dm it's your job to step in i.e. "Hey you guys are taking too long person A its your turn act now or lose a turn". That said this could also be a good foundation for say mass combat rules group people up and have them share an initiative.

[@steeledminer616]

As much as I'd like to agree; BG3 did this as a "4 players are all going basically simultaneously let's not let them bog down the time" Tabletop doesn't GET that benefit since things have to resolve 1 at a time ANYWAY

[@MrSkillcap]

I feel a bit complicit in the magehand change. In early access I would go in and enter combat with one character to force all the enemies into turnbased mode and then have a second character sneaking outside of combat and repeatedly casting magehand to push them all into the spiderpit.

[@zbnmth]

O.o

[@Ztaticify]

Mage hand was pretty broken. Also everyone getting bonus action hide

[@welkingunther4298]

@@ZtaticifyThere's way more broken things in the game than magic hand. They should have kept it as it was. It's up to the players if they want to cheese the hell out of the A.I with things like that. Because even if they choose not to, you can can absolutely obliterate enemies even without min/maxing. Hell, I found the game too easy on my first playthrough and I made my own rule to never use elixirs, haste, and free action item drops etc. After act 1'ish (mostly after lv 4/5), I almost never felt challenged. The viconia fight caught me off guard, but thats about it.

[@talonshepard8694]

@@welkingunther4298 Were you playing on tactician? Did you do the optional fights like Raph? I'm not saying late game fights were exceptionally difficult, but without proper placement of your units and without some kind of strategizing to deal with the various fights "gimmicks" these fights would be nigh impossible. Raph in ascended form has a 10 meter wide 90 damage space lazer which if you dont space out your units enough (which is difficult in a fight that starts with 8 more cambions and he can summon even *more* units in) will likely one shot your spell casters/rogues/anyone who isnt inherently a bit tanky. Sure Shadow heart can res them all with a mass healing word, but thats assuming they dont get KO'd by cambions, and even if they don't, thats half your actions you're missing for a turn. Again not saying its exceptionally difficult to plan around, but how much more difficult can you make it than one shotting your characters on a given turn, as well as giving whatever is doing the one shotting immense amounts of sustain?

[@saphironkindris]

@@talonshepard8694 Difficulty of any given scenario depends on your team comp. Raph in ascended form is stunnable, That fight was stupidly easy for my monk who never let him take a turn with multiple stunning strikes per turn, and had enough charisma to convince the other demon to join me, and had companions with lots of AOE spells. Same with the Orin fight where stunning strike +multiattacks from my companions made stupidly short work of her. The final fight of the game was pretty crazy though. My team was not suited to fighting multiple spellcasters spread out over a wide area. I had to blow every support power at once and still only had enough to beat the brain via barrelmancy.

[@fog5835]

I also really really love that they've done away with hand economy. It's always been such a muddled mess in DnD that nobody keeps track of anyway. Not needing to spend actions to pull out throwables or switch between your ranged and melee weapons is great, and it still prevents switching weapons too ridiculously because changing what you actually have equipped is an action.

[@skiefyre123]

I love being able to start a fight where my melee characters are a bit to far away with a couple range shots then switching back to melee for reactions.

[@chazconkey5888]

I love that as a monk I can attack with a quarterstaff and still use my flurry of blows bonus action

[@Reapor234]

@@chazconkey5888 you always could in 5e. Flurry just required a Ki point and a free bonus action.

[@chazconkey5888]

@@Reapor234 then I'm stupid because in all my campaigns as monk I only ever used unarmed because I thought I couldn't use my bonus ki actions with a weapon(including monk weapons)

[@PoppySquidJr]

​@@chazconkey5888yeah you always could lol

[@esra3784]

You didn't mention the insane shove distance in the game. Scaling off of strength, so the Barbarian, Fighter, or Paladin who are barely using bonus actions anyway can almost always shove someone. And Baulder's Gate 3 has a lot of cliffs. Almost every fight we put someone in the void from full HP

[@tripp9278]

Yeah but yeeting someone out of the word costs you loot and any info that person may have had. Also if you let players do it then the enemies get to do it too.... We're all had a character yeeted into the void.

[@esra3784]

@@tripp9278 in Baulder's Gate, if they don't have a name, 99% of the time, they have worthless loot and no information for you. Into the void they go!

[@helgenlane]

Shove and jump distance are great additions actually. I would allow players to spend a bonus action to jump by spending only 5ft of movement, though I would also attach an athletics check to it. Shove distance is also fun, don't see how it would break any 5e game. But I hate it in BG3 because there are simply too many maps that go like that: succeed against shove or lose your character. It's not fun to kill a boss by yeeting them into void, it's not fun to get your character yeeted into void.

[@esra3784]

@@helgenlane oh I agree that shoving going farther off an athletics check, or a strong character would be awesome. But it's wildly powerful in Baulder's Gate with the sheer number of cliffs people enjoy standing next to. And the shoves also go like 30 feet, which is kinda ridiculous. Shoving someone 10 or 15 feet, might be cool, but yeeting someone halfway across a battlefield and off a mountain, into a hole to the under dark, as a bonus action, is a bit much, lol

[@karisaparolampinen]

​@@helgenlaneI don't think jumping with bonus action would be too popular amongst players, unless you remove the movement cost of jump distance. However, if the movement speed requirement is removed, it becomes a bonus action dash for strong characters.

[@chshizuru]

I really love the idea of making your background affect the inspiration points you get. If you're a soldier, then perhaps having a training or a mock battle with some more skilled fighter. If you're a sage then winning a game of chess against some big smart, or finding a book on a rare topic. If you're an entertainer then making a play in a crowded place, or helping that random bard write a poem. It really adds weight and meaning to picking your background besides just getting proficiencies in the stats you want.

[@rogen8094]

Absolutely. I also love the fact that sharing backgrounds builds a kind of bond between characters (role-play wise). For example, my MC and Shadowheart both have "Acolyte" so we are both inspired by the same things (and the party gets 2 inspiration points instead of just 1). This leads to neat moments where I'm like "We were both just blown away by that Selunite Ritual - that was friggin cool!"

[@adambielen8996]

Hells yes, this actually would make the Background relevant to how characters get played. The only time any of my character's backgrounds were relevant narratively was when I decided that my character was a bounty hunter and took that background.

[@666HeroHero]

Funnily enough. This is already how it works in Vampire the Masquerade and I think other World of Darkness TTRPG. They also allow you to have mutliple Willpower (inspiration), but with a limit, depending on your humanity stat I think.

[@chshizuru]

@@666HeroHero I believe BG3 has a limit of 4 inspirations as well. I'm absolutely positive i've collected way more without using any, but i never seen more than 4 available. Tbh, i'm not generally a fan of having just one inspiration point, multiple but still capped is better imo

[@khayyin359]

​@@666HeroHero As an oWoD player & GM myself, thank you for putting into words why I've enjoyed BG3's Inspiration mechanics so much. Since the game doesn't let us define a backstory, our Background is pretty much all of who we are until we start playing or choosing dialogue. I feel like the tabletop rules tried to do this well (separating "who you are" from "what was your old day job"), with Personality Traits, Bonds, Flaws, etc, allowing you to define in short phrases who the character is, and the GM can reward you based on matching roleplay. In practice, though, that led me to making single-page sheets with everyone's traits, and failing to react when they were triggered 😅

[@takeachance5881]

The part of why using bonus action for potion works in BG3 is that in BG3 bonus action is no less valuable than actions sometimes. Jumping pushing dipping are all bonus action and that's just those classes that doesn't use bonus action that much. Classes like cleric and ranger would honestly kill to get thief's double bonus action class feature. So using a bonus action for potion is very costly and demands combat assessment.

[@hazamax2139]

Yeah. At some few times I've actually used multi attack to throw a potion to the ground rather than the bonus action.

[@helgenlane]

Nah. Bonus action is still much much cheaper than an action and potions are so abundant you can chug them every turn if you'd like. BG3 simply changed the balance of 5e and it expects you to use potions in combat. In 5e you use potions only to bring someone back or between combat if you don't have spell slots. If potions were an action in BG3, they would be useless because any action is 95% of the time more valuable than drinking a potion and you can take long rests infinitely.

[@PowerSenpai]

@@helgenlane How valuable your bonus action is depends mainly on your class. For some it can be easy to justify just chugging something every turn but for others it is not quite as easy. Land Druid for instance does not do much with their bonus action so it is not that important, but Rogue often wants to use their bonus action to get advantage, change position or anything else.

[@uhhhpvp4691]

and monk. Thief/fighter is hands down one of the strongest builds. Double bonus and extra attack GG

[@plinyvicgames]

@@PowerSenpaiyeah, some classes get a lot more mileage out of bonus actions. my rogue almost gets more utility out of a bonus action than a normal action, but my warlock basically never uses thei bonus action because theres nothing to use it on other than potions

[@Fugicara]

I like how the biggest complaint I've heard about BG3 is that surfaces are really annoying and Jacob says "I like surfaces so much that we're gonna add them into 5E!"

[@FlorelaFTW]

He is going to turn his campaign into DOS2 lol.

[@taigaaisaka6305]

He's going to add them and a few sessions later everyone's going to hate them. They work in a game setting because it is a game setting. You can reload, you can restart the fight, you see really far ahead of you and know there are there among other things. Non of that works in tabletop. It would also slow the session to a crawl as everyone would need to be mindful of them, even worse for caster "I want to cast fireball" DM""The enemy is standing on water, thus they are wet, thus they resist fire" or "I want to go in an strike at the enemy" DM "The path to them has acid, so if you step on it you will lose AC" and stuff like that. You can argue "Well, that would make it so players need to be more creative and think more" yeah, good in paper, in practice you now made combat more annoying and slower for everyone.

[@eugenides04]

​@@taigaaisaka6305It all depends on how you implement it and how your table already does combat. If you're already using maps and minis(/equivalent)? Have either a variety of different shape/size "blobs" of colored cardboard to put on the map to very visibly show where the surface is. Could even ask the player to confirm that they're aware of the surface before commiting to an action involving said surface. That all said, if you don't use maps or if you don't think your friends would enjoy interacting with it, then sure, don't use it. I just really enjoy setting up situations like "Cleric casts Create Water>Wizard casts Lightning Bolt down mid for double damage."

[@helgenlane]

​@@eugenides04I like it, but lightning vulnerability is just too strong. Vulnerability is extremely hard to come by in 5e, but in bg3 you can just throw a bottle of pee at your enemy and suddenly they take double damage from chain lightning? Maybe give them disadvantage on saving throws against cold and lightning instead of vulnerability. Still strong, but at least not broken. Otherwise yeah, I always wanted to do it in my games, but it heavily complicates things (have to keep track of all the surfaces and interaction).

[@chongwillson972]

@@helgenlane you DO take more damage from lightning and cold in irl. and what you said doesn't cover everything, like attacks with no saving throws. i dont know i think my flaming sword should do something extra to a guy covered in OIL.

[@whym9877]

The one thing I'd personally like to add to combat is something i loved in marvels midnight suns, when you pushed an enemy into one of your teammates, instead of damaging both, your teammate would hit them. It made them feel even more like a team, using dr strange to throw someone into spiderman who would hit them for extra damage. Imagine throwing someone with telekinesis into Karlach for her to swing her axe and hit the person for extra damage!

[@johnparham655]

You could make that a reaction to keep it semi balanced! If you react to the enemy getting pushed into you, you can hit them for bonus damage. If you're not able to react because you just deflected an arrow away from you, you get knocked prone or take some damage

[@darkfire8008]

@@johnparham655 Can even set it up as a ready action if you don't want to burn your reaction; and even probably add your teammates stats to damage in that case.

[@Atom_of_pluto]

@@darkfire8008 readied actions use your reaction in 5th edition

[@isthisajojoreference]

The thing about potions as a bonus action is that it’s only so strong because there aren’t that many bonus actions so by making more things bonus actions it becomes a more contested resource.

[@cakel7896]

Agreed, wizards would drink a potion every turn in D&D, but in BG3 there are universal/item/illithid bonus actions that they might want to do instead.

[@silotx]

You don't have unlimited potions in D&D and potions being actions mean that there is absolutely no reason to drink one in most cases.

[@arikaaa69]

I think there is a simple solution to this, that being for the GM to give players more abilities or (preferably) items that use bonus actions, like magic weapons/armor with useful bonus actions effects so that even for classes that don’t have bonus actions by default, there’s some opportunity cost to using bonus actions to drink potions. And I think having bonus actions in general is fun for players

[@isthisajojoreference]

@@silotx Ya, if im in a game where potions are an action, I'm basically never going to drink one in combat.

[@toxicteapot7941]

It's not even that bad. The healing isn't huge and as a DM you can give out less potions or use save or suck spells (which I'm pretty sure they already are) to guarantee more damage than the bonus action will heal.

[@chrysdapyssa]

ive been using the bonus action roll the dice and action heal the full amount rule for health potions in my games for almost a year now and my players absolutely love it. it not only makes it easier to run “harder” combats where the players dont feel like they’re outmatched but they love having a choice which allows them to be a lot more tactical in combat. all in all its been a blast

[@andrewholland2763]

A month ago I too swapped to BA - roll for HP and Action - Max HP. I do have it as an Action to use a potion on an ally - still roll to heal in that situation though.

[@adryfoster3265]

Most evil idea for a potion rule; takes a bonus action to use, but the effects trigger at the start of your next turn!

[@fog5835]

My favorite change is that they made berserker reasonable. Penalties stacking with your bonus attacks but going away once frenzy ends is great, all your rages being frenzies is great, being able to throw enemies is great. Definitely running berserkers this way in the future.

[@cjnf11]

I've read how someone gave Tavern Brawler to Karlach and just threw spiderlings back at their spider mother with her, doing considerable damage.

[@KnicKnac]

Found my next character idea. Also throwing cups and mugs sounds fun too

[@cjnf11]

@@KnicKnac Well yeah, but still in the game mechanics you'd better throw weapons that have "thrown" property on them, this way their weapon damage is added. I haven't played around with throwing stuff myself yet, but I guess you can carry a collection of daggers/axes or something. Alternatively you can be a Fighter Eldritch Knight and just use Bound Weapon, this way your weapon returns to you after being thrown. There's also a ring that adds some throw damage too, I don't remember where I got it.

[@helflower2025]

@@cjnf11I can’t remember if it’s Arron or Dammon, but it’s called the Ring of Flinging and you can buy it for ~130 gold in Emerald Grove :3

[@cjnf11]

@@helflower2025 Ah.. yes, of course, I, ah, totally bought it. With money. Yep.

[@lukesandadordoceu4835]

On the subject of short rests, I love the effect of “Song of Rest”. It’s just a short rest and usable once per long rest, which isn’t too op even with a warlock in the party. Might make sense to apply it, especially if you use limited short rest

[@ZelphTheWebmancer]

That sounds a lot like the Catnap spell

[@lukesandadordoceu4835]

@@ZelphTheWebmancer yeah, but won’t cost a known spell, happens instantly and affects maybe all allies in a radius, only Vocal components and bard exclusive

[@ZelphTheWebmancer]

@@lukesandadordoceu4835 I see, so it's like Catnap but better

[@lukesandadordoceu4835]

@@ZelphTheWebmancer kinda

[@yoursonisold8743]

It is Bard exclusive though, so it's not gonna be relevant to every game.

[@vsGoliath96]

6:20 "My ring just flew off my hand!" It betrayed Isildur... to his doom.

[@Regarel]

The way Durge is handled is what made me like how they used inspiration. It was an incentive to do something that the player character may not want to do. The narrator being inside the characters head for their thoughts just works out great to be intrusive thoughts, moreso than murderhobos usually would have.

[@andrasziegenham6766]

Yes, but no. You get inspiration even if you resist the urge. You don't get inspiration if you choose an option available to all other characters. Which makes no sense, considering that choosing those options also mean resisting the urge 🤦‍♂

[@Crazy_Diamond_75]

The thing that actually bothers me about mage hand is that it's once per short rest _and_ it disappears if it gets too far away from you... which it always will because it just lags so hard in movement.

[@emotional_st0rm]

yeah its bc they let it actually draw aggro in BG3 so it would be too busted unlimited i think the tabletop works better where its just a purely utility spell

[@bdletoast09]

I really hate how they handled mage hand. During the drider fight I thought myself clever by using Stinking Cloud to neutralize them while they were grouped and snatch the lantern with Mage Hand... For my Mage Hand to be affected by the nauseous status. That doesn't make sense. Why is it treated like a creature?

[@BradTheAmerican]

It really grinds my gears when invisible mage hand is immediately seen by people even though they don't have the "see invisibility" condition.

[@thrillhouse4151]

The environments and surfaces are so good. I fell in love with the Grease spell at level 1-2, like even if the grease fails to knock ‘em prone you can just tell the other nerd in the party to Fire Bolt it. This video also hits differently if you’re doing your morning stretch with the phone on the floor. I’m like, yeah isn’t that cool tiny person on the floor!? I was actually scared to short rest at first in BG3 because in BG1 if you short rest in a dangerous area it felt like an 80% you’d get ambushed by a random encounter.

[@KibethSE]

Silence is also insanely well developed around in BG3. There's a prison under a tower right? Casting silence over the wall used to escape before blasting it, prevents guards from being alerted at range. They can still see what happened when they path by, but until then, they are oblivious to the destruction.

[@benja1378]

Uhhh thst sounds dope! Need to try that next time. I just murdered all of the guards since no one will notice in the levels above xD

[@girlkillsgods]

Yes! Also, silence works on the war drums in act 1, so the enemies can't call for reinforcements.

[@communisticus191]

Silence also allows you to do infinite thunder damage to anyone around you every turn so long as you pick up the Harper trapped chest. Stand in the silence range and trigger the trap as many times as you want, you take no damage because silence reduces thunder damage to 0.

[@WritingGeekNL]

You can use cloud or dark cloud to hide the sight actually. :) But the silence and cloud combo would have helped me even better. 😂

[@lucasnakamura2787]

that's EXACTLY how I did it. Got everyone out and never even had to roll initiative.

[@tadoriaselan3268]

I love giving the option for shove to be a bonus action, I think there's just a lot of things in 5e that could afford to be a "This is an action or bonus action but only once per turn" thing

[@uberculex]

It does kind of kill the disengage as a bonus action's value some.

[@Bek359]

​@@uberculex For characters with high Athletics (usually Martial classes), sure. Your Wizard party member is still gonna want to have Disengage as an option, especially if they're using their Concentration on something important.

[@uberculex]

@@Bek359 wizards can try to shove and hope to get lucky since they aren't using the bonus action anyways. They usually use shocking grasp instead of disengage anyways

[@SecularMentat]

I felt the same about the potion thing, I was on the fence about the bonus action as healing. But yeah it lets you put your players up against more challenging foes and still maintain some level of healing (without overtaxing the hell out of your healers).

[@Rurike]

I think it helps even like greater healing potion isnt a ton on average, so not like your able to get your full health back with a click ala skyrim

[@williamw8590]

It's also great in a coop video game because no one has to play a healer if they don't want to. My buddy and I co oped healer-less and just stockpiled potions and it was great

[@PlayerZeroStart]

A neat rule a DM I know does is that you can choose to drink a potion as an action or a bonus action. Using a bonus action means you roll as you do normally, but using a full action means you automatically get the max healing.

[@maj.peppers3332]

Our table has actually used the exact same house rule for a long time and we love it. Being able to use an action to get that guaranteed 10HP on a basic healing pot is SO much nicer than using an action and rolling 4HP lol but giving the option to use a bonus action and risk getting that 4HP instead of the full 10.

[@BucketPls]

The XP system in Baldur's Gate 3 is also not rewarding more or less depending on if you fight or talk your way out of it. Rewarding the player's choice instead of ferocity is a neat change I never seen or heard on D&D tables. I do however love milestones a lot more as a player. Just something so satisfying about finishing up an arc or chapter and hearing those sweet sweet words from your DM "You leveled up", making it all the more rewarding that you did in fact just complete something big! But at the end of the day, I guess it does not matter that much either way? Both have their negatives and positives, and I think certain type of campaigns are much better suited for XP instead of milestones!

[@BucketPls]

As for the one thing I wanted to add to my campaign, but one of the players got wildly defensive about, was the change they did on some of the spells/potions being up for the whole day instead of silly time limits. Like, when I play my Druid in D&D I'd like to have free access to talking to animals, or anything else that makes me feel like a Druid. Now the use of a single spell slot is not that big of a deal, but it quickly can become more depending on what is going on. The same for some of the buff potions, in D&D I never really know when to use them as they are expensive as all HELL at times, but work for a single battle only. Changing both these things to being up for the whole day will give players a lot more choices, as it might be more worth it to stay awake and keep the spell/potion going than it is to avoid the exhaustion or something. It also allows players to prep ahead of time in some cases, basically gambling their spell slots at the beginning of the day in case they might need it. Ended up dropping it as I believe D&D to be an 'our' game and not a 'me' game, but still kind of confused as to why it was such a sore spot.

[@satanhell_lord]

Quick exploit: if you talk your way out of a situation, you get XP and then killing the enemies DOESN'T give XP, which is neat... except if you save and load, in which case it now does ;p so a quick way to get some bonus XP if it doesn't bother you

[@OrangeGills]

On the other hand with XP, the DM can get the exact same feeling you mention with milestones by just handing out enough to level up when it feels appropriate i.e. completing an important objective.

[@CrizzyEyes]

Milestones are basically never needed in a CRPG (with proper design) thanks to not having to calculate things manually. XP numbers work very well in BG3 specifically because it's an either/or system

[@EldritchDoe]

​@@satanhell_lordyou can actually get triple XP if you: Talk your way out of it -> Save and load -> Beat them unconscious -> Save and load -> Kill the unconscious enemies 😂

[@ItsXodious]

Topic thats also worth thinking about: weapon actions like cleave, lacerate, prepare, pinning shot, etc. all of these short rest weapon abilities that add some extra flair to martial combatants!

[@danilakalinin6261]

It also helps to solve eternal problem of 2handed axe worse than 2-h sword and could be taken only for flavor. In bg3 big axe has slightly better special buttons than big sword.

[@zemtov]

11:05 this part of BG3 is what made me fall in love the most. I found an interaction in the game that made my characters blood explosive, and when you get hit you bleed on the ground. Which meant that now i was a walking grenade. I played a Warlock/Fighter, and i liked to get beaten up in the front lines until there was tons of blood everywhere and then flamestrike myself for a MASSIVE explosion. Felt so bad ass to stand in the flames of my bloodfire

[@adamwojnarowki]

My least favorite part of BG3 has to be crit fail/success on skill checks. I hate having a 5% chance of messing up whatever I'm doing no matter how much I specialize my character.

[@doctorbr2195]

Same and while getting the agency of the player with that 5% of fail It still encourages players to do impossible tasks because you have a 5% of sucess anyway like the 99 cd safe of the bank that there a puzzle to open It but If you get lucky you open it

[@Madasaur91]

I think that comes down to having to video gameify degrees of success/failure. Most of the time when I run games, if someone rolls a Nat 20 or Nat 1, I still take into account their modifiers, but sort of make something special happen one way or the other, which is easily done when it's all just the power of the imagination. As a video game designer you would have to consider a success, critical success, failure and critical failure outcome for every dice roll. So I think that for a video game, the 5% success or failure is fine.

[@deaconlasagna8570]

a lot of people play 5e this way too. i do with newer/less crunch oriented players because crits and fumbles are super fun for lots of players. i also play with spell crits. I get if you were a primarily tactical player this unbalancing would be annoying, but tbh its just the most obvious place you can feel the swinginess of the d20, which is still there anyway i mean you can have a +12 to a skill and still fail a dc 15 check which is wild.

[@aurora5481]

I don't mind it in skill checks, but I _hate_ it for saving throws. Love spending my highest level spell slot and overchannel to make an enemy caster with WC force to face with a DC30 concentration saving throw, and have them have a 10% chance of an auto-success on it.

[@SalamiJim]

@@Madasaur91 Spot on, game can't grade skill checks on a curve like we can as Game Masters.

[@gerbie42]

Regarding XP and Milestone. You can essentially do a mixture of them without having to keep track of different XP numbers. For example you could give out a Milestone Shard to your players and once they have 4 shards they level up. This way you can still give things out after encounters you feel should be rewarded and similarly gives players a better idea of their progression without having to keep track of an exact number or thinking of how much XP this specific thing should be worth. Just a quick idea.

[@Distruct10]

I think the main thing that makes XP fun is that it makes players feel rewarded for the actions they take, even the small ones or for very easy encounters, it makes them feel like theyre still going forward and it gives a lot of control over their characters since they can decide the actions they take (assuming you give XP for non combat things as well). Yours is a cool idea but it still has the problem with players not really knowing when theyll get a "milestone shard", they won't feel rewarded for the actions they take they'll just feel like they got the milestone shard whenever the DM thought it was most opportune. You could make it so that you give frequent milestone shards for actions the players take, and making it so you require more than 4 to level up, but at that point it just becomes XP by another name.

[@urcitenetom5017]

I love the idea of ingredients. In my campaign they can find ingredients in dungeons, but only limited amount, when they do a long rest, they can create a meal. This meal will improve you stats (until the next long rest), the imrpoved stats will be determined by the ingredients

[@Carl_with_a_k_]

“Holy shit I just ate this mushroom and I feel like Einstein, so it either raises intelligence or lowers it idk which”

[@loganwilliams4157]

Your caveman death explanation was a work of art. Thank you for this.

[@rogen8094]

"Why have alive NPC when dead does trick?"

[@lucasistrom]

One thing that has been bothering me is how powerful the prone condition is. It automatically ends your turn when you fall so things like grease feel way more powerful than they should be.

[@drewpydrewdrop3841]

Honestly when it happened I assumed it was a bug. A very weird choice to be surr

[@TheKillaShow]

It a relic from their divnity games. Knocking enemies prone is key cc in those games. And I guess Larian really really loves that mechanic.

[@seb8523]

@@TheKillaShow The reason why nails are so valuable in DOS 2. Combine them with your boots to be immune to slipping on ice (which otherwise happens during your turn AND bypasses the immunity you'd get from still being armored).

[@ChicaneryBear]

It's always funny when you slip on the grease, though.

[@lovelybitofsquirrel8272]

@@seb8523 wait WHAT???!! I never you could do that in DOS 2 :O so many combos in that games crafting system

[@fenwah1]

I have the same thoughts about death and resurrection. I just reason that in a world where a diamond can bring you back from the dead, there would be no diamonds in circulation at your local shop. They would have been either used long ago or be snatched up sitting in some powerful person's vault to safeguard them from death. Maybe low grade diamond powder is available for revivify, but anything larger will require a quest to obtain a diamond. Maybe that's just because I love heists though...

[@BearWith_You]

My group has been pretty terrible. Some can't really play every week so its caused some schedule wonkiness. Within like, a year, we've started up several campaigns. So far death has actually been impactful for us, despite how uneventful people say it is. Mostly because we end up having a death before we can get 300 gold worth of diamonds or Revivify. While diamonds can bring back the dead you have to remember that 300 gold, is a lot within the fictitious economy. Not every tom dick and harry can afford one

[@gravehammer4095]

Fabricate exists. Diamonds are just carbon, which is fucking everywhere.

[@fenwah1]

@@gravehammer4095 Fabricate excludes difficult to make things like glass, and diamond is much harder to make than glass. Unless your wizard has proficiency with chemical vapour deposition tools or something, then its allowed

[@elysseussy]

a dm i had awarded inspiration when you acted according to your traits/bonds/flaws - which i thought was really awesome. most of the time, those mechanics are barely considered in normal 5e tables, but i think knowing that you would get inspiration if you acted accordingly to how you had decided your character felt, or the people they cared about, or the flaws they posessed is really fun! and a great way to tie in the more bg3 inspiration

[@itmetetri611]

Thats exactly what bonds traits and flaws are there for

[@TandemTuba]

I think I might be most impressed with how they handled stuff that clearly wouldn't work in a video game setting. To recognize those and change them in a way that keeps the soul but makes them work in the system is so impressive.

[@sev1120]

Regarding the levelled spells point, the limitation ONLY applies if you cast a spell as a bonus action. Casting ANY spell as a bonus action, including a cantrip, prevents you from casting levelled spells as an action. But if you have a way of gaining additional actions (i.e. the fighter's action surge) you can cast multiple levelled spells so long as they only take 1 action to cast. Thats the D&D RAW

[@sqw33k]

Came here to type this.

[@kyledewitt4941]

The actual Fear spells applies a condition that uses the rules of being forced to run away from that creature and it happens automatically. The character can only make another save attempt if it ends its turn out of line of sight. The frighten condition that holds people in place comes from like dissident whispers and Menacing Strike so they did actually do both. Not sure why actually. Interesting.

[@483SGT]

Yeah turn undead literally moves them away so it's not a programming limitation as he speculated

[@sihplak]

I'm surprised you didn't mention weapon proficiency giving bonus action moves like piercing shot and lacerate. I think those are great additions, especially when short rest limited, since they can encourage more short rest use from players as opposed to the tendency of players to want to long rest all the time. I also think shove as a short rest is good, and jump as a bonus action can be good if implemented in a specific way; jump in BG3 requires 10ft movement plus bonus action to use, but often allows you to jump at least 15 ft away if not more. As such, in dnd I think making jumping with no bonus action be limited by movement and with bonus action getting the distance bonus would do well to balance it.

[@0Roach_]

The only issue with that is that they are then pseudo-Maneuvers from Battle Master Fighters, so if the Cleaves and Lacerates get added you might want to think of some tangible benefit for BM fighters, like maybe an extra Maneuver slot (since you start with 3, you have 4 instead for example)? Or maybe 2 more superiority die?

[@sihplak]

@@0Roach_ I don't think it'd affect battlemaster fighters at all since they still get proficiency weapon attacks and battle maneuvers overall can do a lot more. If anything, it makes martials as a whole have more abilities to keep them closer to magic users in combat efficacy over time

[@TheKillaShow]

@@0Roach_ I dont think Battlemasters will be worse for wear if weapons gave a minor alt attack/ability for being proficient with them. The only potential issue I see with it is causing combats to bog down a bit as players figure out which ability they have access to and if they have used the ability this long rest yet or not etc etc.

[@HunterTracks]

​@@TheKillaShowSo you mean, a tenth of the amount of choice the average high-level spellcaster gets on a turn? Just let martials do fun stuff lol.

[@TheKillaShow]

@@HunterTracks They already do have fun, not my fault you only attack attack attack on all your turns.

[@cicyflame]

I had a Wild Magic Sorcerer get a surge during a pretty rough encounter. It was the pink bubble one which i ruled as they couldn't use the verbal components of their spells. Honestly, it was really neat to see what they pulled out that didn't have verbal components. It really gave me a new appreciation for Mold Earth and Ice Knife, and especially gave me a new appreciation for Subtle Spell as a Metamagic option.

[@haltranger2105]

Its also insanely good for hiding spellcasting (whether to get the drop on a guy youre talking to with a secretly caster fireball or to trick that guard whos questioning you that his boss is calling or really anything else).

[@darkwatershadow]

I sorta get the square thing but I could never abandon them on the tabletop because it makes it way easier to judge your spacing from enemies. In BG3 it's a lot harder to know if a guy is out of reach of an enemy fighter or similar. It also lets you use the terrain to bottleneck more effectively when things are cramped because you know exactly how wide the hallways are or whatever. So squares definitely have their uses.

[@blunk778]

Without a defined grid to measure with, distance is left to DM fiat and that can make or break an experience due to its inconsistency moment to moment. A grid is empirical and its fair to everyone

[@Jebu911]

To be fair its also pretty unrealistic for you to know that the enemy can only move 30feet and keep a cheeky 35feet distance from them.

[@zepetv589]

I don't think this is that big of an issue, warhammer does not use grids and it's fine just... a lot of measuring with tape.

[@CrizzyEyes]

@@blunk778 Um, rulers _do_ exist. But it's completely reasonable to not want to spend lots of time measuring everything. Which is a non-problem in a computer game, although they should really include a measuring tool for some situations.

[@nekomancer47]

There were so many fucking times where I was just CENTIMETERS out of reach of an enemy and couldn’t target them. Most frustrating shit ever. On a grid, where it looks more nebulous, I can easily accept that. But with how BG3 is all fancy free with its movement, it can be so annoying to CLEARLY be within greatsword swinging distance of an enemy, but the game doesn’t allow it cuz it’s tEcHnIcAlLy 5.0004 feet away or some shit

[@tino258852258852]

Regarding the silence spell, bg3 did made me realize how much I've been missing by not forcing enviroment-related combat. I had so much fun pushing ppl into hunger of hadar, locking some spellcasters in a silence spell with a sentinel fighter inside, combining difficult terrain with things like darkness and a bunch of aoes like spirit gurdians to piss off anything inside, etc...

[@Reverendshot777]

Honestly BG3 has let me see how useful really simple lvl 1 spells can be amazing on the tabletop, like Grease! Who would have thought Grease would be the reason my party survived an encounter with an Ice Giant when we had already fought and killed a sea hag and were exhausted. Grease on the giant, giant has low dex. Giant failed his save on the Grease three times in a row including a Nat 1 where he fell on his own axe for damage. Beautiful.

[@Qwyndolin]

I love the cooking addition. We always lose track of our rations and stuff, though our DM does it a bit differently. We've got a cooking pot that we can add 4 different types of food stuffs to and there's a spreadsheet he made that gives each ingredient a different bonus to the party until we next take a long rest. Like cooking rabbit gives an extra 5ft of movement or an onion gives an extra 5 temp HP to the player. And if we're in town we just gotta find a place to eat.

[@NucleaRoquwell]

As someone who also plays miniture table top games (like Warhammer), I am 1000% on board for totally free movement and literal line of sight. Sometimes it can feel a bit cheesy when a model has a leg barely sticking out, but it makes partial cover and defensive structures feel so much more interesting to use, especially considering how verticality is (not) handled in 5e

[@enzoponce1881]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about weapon actions, because it solves A LOT of problems with martials being "boring" and gives them new resources to plan ahead in the battle, i would re-word some of the abilities to make more sense in 5e but overall you can just slap them in your game anytime and it's ready to go

[@MrKingHyena]

on the topic of "revivify only working on players" and similar mechanics ive taken a page out of destinies book, where theyve got dangerous zones where players cant revive. so ive give my antagonists a resource called "soul lanterns". theyre essentially these potent magical flames that use necrotic magics to lure in ambient souls and incinerate them to power itself. essentially anything that dies within proximity to a soul lantern has its soul destroyed and cant be revived with magic. i use these essentially as a way to make the fear of death tangible in areas where there should be a certain degree of anxiety and tension. the most common use though is ambience, if the baddies are attacking a settlement they bring these items with them. so when the party finds a razed village peppered with ominous ghostly torches they know the gravity of what happened there and exactly who did it. there are always exceptions and workarounds, as ever in DnD, but it makes the price of death greater than a spell slot or scroll

[@dcoffinh]

I love this

[@windstorm7686]

Here's the thing with Jumping and Shoving in BG3 vs. 5e. The way Jumping works might seem like BG3 does it worse bc it costs a bonus action, but one thing that it does different than 5e is that it gets rid of the "each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. clause. Meaning that in 5e, no matter your strength, you can only have a total movement as far as your movement speed. In BG3, it makes it so that Jumping is a little bit of extra movement for the cost of your bonus action, giving strength based characters the little bit of a boost they so desperately need. Also, BG3 also technically does the "you have to run at least 10 feet before the jump" thing by costing 3m of movement along with your bonus action. In the game, a 20 str character with 30 ft of movement can move 40 feet on their turn or more if they have any relevant jumping buffs. In 5e, you can only move 30ft no matter what. As for shoving I just kinda disagree that it costs nothing to do in 5e. Costing one attack is a lot for melee characters-who are the ones primarily doing the shoving-because it essentially halves their damage for that round. BG3 also makes it so that you can do things like dash as an action and then shove as a bonus action, which is something me and my friends end up abusing a lot. jumping and shoving as bonus action good.

[@abbygaleforcewind]

7:18 I love that there's an achievement for long resting off of only alcohol

[@BiGamma]

as someone that played DOS2...too much before BG3, learning those surface interactions and transformations was so much fun but also I am so happy that cursed fire is nowhere to be seen. The Blackpits 😨....so much necrofire....

[@svenjohanson6993]

I think one of my favorite things that bg3 has done is give subtle buffs to theif and monk. Wholeness of body and theif subclass now both provide characters a second bonus action durong their turns. This ends up buffing monks below average damage with more flurry of blows opportunity and gives thieves the option to dash and hide on the same turn for much more consistent sneak attacks.

[@pirateFinn]

Also Open Hand's AOE ability is crazy good in a way Monk usually couldnt really do

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

spamming flurry of blows is a terrible way to play monk.

[@Stormthorn67]

Two bonus actions is not "subtle" as a buff. Certainly not with things like the changes they made to dual wielding hand crossbows or with other bonus action attack abilities. Thief is a killing machine.

[@TheGuiltyPillow]

biggest change in BG3 I'm trying to get my DM to implement: Friends doesn't make the target NOT FRIEND. I always saw it as "I have a relaxing aura for this specific person so they are more comfortable around me." But WotC is just like "You were magically friendly so now they HATE YOU." I get them knowing you charmed them, you can talk your way out of that like "You're kinda intimidating. Im sorry.", but immediately becoming hostile to you is so overkill.

[@MrLex86]

It's kind of a mind control, or mind influencing at least, cantrip spell. So as both a player and a GM I've always found it reasonable that even if the target isn't out and out 'hostile' they're going to be pretty annoyed that you used mind altering magic on them. If it were a higher level spell, then I would expect them to maybe not notice that they've been influenced, but as a cantrip, it's pretty reasonable.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

that cantrip just should not exist to begin with

[@PunkerMachine]

I implemented the help action in a game this week because it was the first session and I already had two downed PCs, I think it's a very good way to make players strategize about who is gonna sacrifice their action instead of attacking the enemy or doing some other thing, to not let their companions die

[@supermcspotty]

Leveled spell rule is often misquoted. If a spell is cast as a bonus you cant cast another spell except a cantrip. This allows you to take a fighter dip for example and double fireball.

[@himedo1512]

This is true. But the game lets you bonus action and regular action leveled spell

[@Y00bi]

​@@himedo1512BG3 is balanced around it to be fair, at the table, healing word and misty step should have an opportunity cost.

[@HunterTracks]

​@@Y00biHealing Word, sure (at least unless you copy BG3 and rule that characters lose their action for a turn when they get revived), but Misty Step is typically a fairly poor use of a spell slot outside of very specific circumstances.

[@supermcspotty]

@@himedo1512 Yeah bg3 does. Too many times people think in the ttrpg the rule is only one leveled spell.

[@codysewell4775]

I actually know (Or at least I'm pretty sure) why mage hand is once per short rest! In the beta, it was a freely infinitely reusable action and I realized if you had a githyanki or arcane trickster rogue out of combat, they could use their invisible mage hand to shove an NPC. The hand would enter combat. The out of combat caster could then recast another mage hand which was invisible and out of combat, and continuously repeat this to cheese-kill anything that could be shoved off a cliff. I'm pretty sure this was their solution to that exploit, but I really wish they would've just put the caster in combat when their mage-hand entered combat.

[@totallynuts7595]

Even if the caster was dragged back in combat cast mage hand essentially every turn and push enemies down chasms while keeping out of the enemies range.

[@leechesg]

They could have just made Mage Hand not able to shove, since it's not able to in the tabletop and I really don't see it being so important to allow Mage Hand to shove

[@splatman7300]

@@leechesg yeah, that should have been the solution here. let me manipulate the environment as much as I want, and leave my utility spells out of combat.

[@greeniegreens7737]

Idea for short rest: rather than rolling anything, give the players a pool of hp (similar to lay on hands) that increases as they level up. It doesn’t replenish until a successful long rest.

[@ether4211]

I'd just go the lazy route that a mini short rest is 5 minutes per hit dice ( just enough time to catch your breath, tend a wound or have a drink to restore 1 dice worth of HP). This also puts a natural limit on how many rests you can have as monks/warlocks etc. can only rest by using one or more hit dice. This way the players can choose to roll the dice early for ki/magic up to their level/times daily but to do so they risk not having the ability to restore HP until they complete a long rest. If they start abusing short rests the DM can easily 'fix' the problem by reducing how much of their abilities come back per 5 minutes and/or impose exhaustion if they have not had an hour of downtime to eat/drink/rest in a 8 hour day.

[@grimmtb]

Great idea. I'm stealing this. Thanks!

[@shmeebs387]

Being able to add Guidance whenever you are prompted roll is a good ruling because a lot of the time in tabletop D&D, you don't always know when a skill check is coming. Like sometimes you want to jump or climb something, and your DM will decide it requires an athletics check. The cleric could have given you Guidance but didn't know the roll was coming.

[@isaacwright90]

In Pathfinder 1E, bards have varying levels of inspiration spells that add X bonuses (+3, 2d4, etc) to allies as an immediate action (reaction in 5E) and this game just uses that idea for guidance. It's amazing!

[@helgenlane]

Dunno, I just tell my DM that "I ask the cleric for guidance before that". Though guidance in dialogues is actually weird because that's not natural to cast random spells when you talk to someone.

[@geltric4779]

I love it for bardic inspiration but not so much for guidance because inspiration is a resource that still needs to be considered when handing it out. Allowing guidance to be cast as a reaction without cost trivializes skill checks and proficiencies

[@CrizzyEyes]

Maybe I'm lucky but I've never played with a DM that would be that much of a dick, unless it was a reactionary type roll (like avoiding a trap for example, but that's not a skill check). If the Fighter wanted to make a mighty leap and the DM asked to roll Athletics, he would certainly allow the Cleric to cast Guidance before the Fighter jumped.

[@matthewtompkins4338]

@@geltric4779The game has shown it kinda doesn’t though. If a character is good at something it’s just extra insurance against failure. If a character is bad at something it can mean the difference between failing and succeeding (and even then still not cut it since it’s just a D4) Guidance imo is just as much of a class ability as any other. It costs a cantrip slot which can be used on a lot of other very useful spells and it’s not available to everyone.

[@Evelyn-rb1zj]

I love the camp supplies idea too because it makes parties that want frequent long rests have to consider whether they have the resources which definitely makes the classes that are functional regardless or have short rest recharge abilities feel more useful rather than what I've seen some characters do where they blow all the spell slots in one fight and then demand a long rest before fighting again while a lot of the martial characters are still fully ready to fight something else

[@Vimek_Xol]

The ability to use multiple leveled spells in a turn is actually really easy to play at the table! Instead of making a bunch of exceptions and unique rulings on different spells, you can just make it so that any leveled spell can be cast as a Bonus Action so long as the level of the spell is equal to or less than the spell casting level of the player. That way, things like level 3 spells can only be Bonus Action cast if you can cast level 6 spells. This system also feels good for spellcasters in particular because they get to feel the mastery of magic more as they get to higher casting levels, as compared to half casters who will likely only get to Bonus Action cast spells of level 2

[@wizardswine]

I also feel the best approach for multiple levelled spells is just looking at all the bonus action spells and giving them a tag, like you have for concentration, cast time, etc. Something like "swift casting" which means it avoids the levelled spell limitation. Means you could avoid metamagic shenanigans but still allow misty step, healing word etc.

[@Sancho55]

I love the extra types of attacks that regular melee or ranged weapons have, that give the enemy a condition for just 2 turns, those are great

[@TitanBait]

I saw Dungeon Dudes mention those additional weapon abilities and how one D&D should just copy those entirely. They are flavorful and give different weapons actual differences rather than just flavor.

[@cjnf11]

I wish they were per battle though. It doesn't make any sense you have to rest to use those only once.

[@Wilsonbism]

Which also emphasizes the usage of other weapons rather than the one with the biggest dice

[@MonkeGeorge]

@@Wilsonbism I mean tbh I think the emphasis is already there since shields are a thing. By Act 2 I had every person in my party with an AC of 19-21. So barring the fighters/barbarians who benefit more from two-handed (either great sword or axe) everyone else had shields and therefore mixed it up with the more varied single handed / versatile weapons.

[@Ralathar44]

@@cjnf11Some of them are pretty strong skills. ESPECIALLY some of the custom abilities special weapons get. And in BG 3 you short rest alot so they are almost always available. People really underestimate how stong some of the skills are. Take the simple Lacerate. Bonus bleed damage + BLEED GIVES DISADVANTAGE ON CON SAVES so bleeding an enemy opens the door for blinds and poisons to land much easier which then gives your party advantage on lots of other things vs them. Same thing with pommel strike and backbreaker opening up future attacks. These are honestly very powerful. That being said, weapon abilities per battle instead of short rest prolly isnt THAT big of a deal. I'm just saying those abilities are much more powerful than they seem at first blush.

[@chileplease3474]

My absolute favorite thing has to be the extra actions that weapons give you, like the cleaves or concussive strikes. It's really dynamic and adds an extra layer than 'yup I'm going to swing, okay that's my turn'

[@swordsTime]

Mage Hand being limited to a short rest in BG3 has one simple, very good reason: it has a health bar and enemies will target it. If it could be re-summoned every turn in combat, that's an infinite meat shield.

[@Reapor234]

This was a change I was annoyed with at first, tbh. It made mage hand fell useless. But then I used it to eat up two enemy's Reactions so that another could escape scot free, and I've loved it since. Still sucks that it can't seem to carry anything, but at least it can still interact with switches and the like.

[@janTesika]

it's a utility spell. why can it be targeted by enemies? that seems dumb.

[@Reapor234]

@@janTesika the fact that mage hand and flaming sphere have health and can be targeted helps a lot in combat on both ends. - mage hand can be used to eat a Reaction for another character. - Flaming Sphere having health means the AI might target it instead of someone else, alleviating focus fire. Plus, if an enemy decides to use it and run away you have an option to get rid of it earlier.

[@shagore]

Why not limit it to "once per combat" and having it be at will out of combat, then? If I want to use my Mage Hand in exploration, then get in a fight that kills my mage hand because initiative, I can't resummon my mage hand once the combat ended and it's frustrating. It's also annoying with the Arcane Trickster. There are various things that can remove the Mage Hand invisibility, and once it's lost it appears you can't reactivate the invisibility without recreating the hand. And it's annoying.

[@janTesika]

@@Reapor234 still seems dumb to me.

[@trikkinikki6843]

If you haven’t played either of the Divinity Original Sin games, they both have *so much* of dynamic terrain stuff that you talked about, it makes the different magic types stand out from each other. I had seen them as effectively being DnD the video game when I first played them, and Divinity 2 also has four player co-op like Baldur’s gate!

[@serialBLEACHexpert98]

The Oil Pits though.

[@bradygroves988]

The biggest problem I see with removing the bonus action levelled-spell restriction is Sorcerers. Quickened spell suddenly becomes THE BEST metamagic option that any spellcast would be an idiot on to take and use as often as possible.

[@haltranger2105]

could just limit quickened spell to being usable only if the full action isnt used as a leveled spell

[@splatman7300]

bg3 did also somewhat counteract this by increasing the cost to 3 sorcery points instead of 5e's 2

[@feebleking21]

Baldurs Gate 3 is like a DND game that's so good you start taking notes on how they DM so you can improve your own games.

[@genericusername546]

I meannnnnnn... there are a few really nice changes, a few "WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?" changes and then a lot of "Eh I don't love it but I get why they did this"

[@yuugur666]

@@genericusername546 I can think of one for sure that belongs in the middle *as I watch my bae karlach get knocked, brought back up, able to do nothing because no action just bonus action so use a potion i guess, and then knocked again because healing often means nothing in the middle of combat, and then repeat that cycle for another fucking 3 rounds until she finally gets to attack the one guy thats left*

[@antoineguerrier2965]

@@yuugur666 Now imagine it's a multiplayer game and it's the only character you get to control.

[@BurningTNT]

Ngl my favourite thing in my short play time so far is giving each weapon one or maybe a couple special abilities that you can use once per rest if you’re proficient in the weapon, like concussing someone with a mace or flourish with a scimitar. It’s made low-level spellcasters a little more versatile for that stretch where you’re relying on weapons whilst giving martials more fun stuff they can do for being really proficient in lots of weapons

[@keynchris7059]

One of the best things a DM did with XP was at the end of each session every player can award another player 100xp for something cool that happened in game

[@TheThreeHeadedDragon]

Another thing with Mage Hand is that they gave it less utility than it has in D&D... particularly the Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand. Arcane Tricksters are supposed to be able to use the Mage Hand to unlock doors and chests, pick pockets, and disarm traps and the only thing they are able to do is disarm traps but they don't get to add your bonuses making it almost useless.

[@jxn314]

This bothered me so much while in a particular scene where lots of doors needed to be unlocked quickly and Astation’s mage hand couldn’t help

[@TheThreeHeadedDragon]

@zooker7938 Right?! It's flying! It's also annoying that Spiritual Weapon has to use a ladder when it is also flying.

[@helgenlane]

Arcane Trickster is absolutely useless in BG3. Not as bad as some rogue subclasses in 5e though lol

[@ravenwilliams7636]

I feel like the game makes assassins way better and trickster way worse, maybe I’m just bad at speccing characters but the assassin on my team is literally unstoppable and Astarion sucks ass 😅

[@justanidiotmk2749]

Honestly all the changes are fresh and i'd accept them on the table anytime.

[@doctorbr2195]

I just don't like How nat 1 and 20 works on bg3 for skill checks like my rogue can barely have a +12 on lockipick put If he takes a 1 he fails a cd 10 but If he takes a 20 he can open a cd 99 safe on the city bank

[@justanidiotmk2749]

@@doctorbr2195 that's essentially how it works raw though...

[@moonlight2870]

​@@justanidiotmk2749raw a nat 20 or a nat 1 only have effect in combat. And specifically for attacks. Not for skill checks and saving throws.

[@doctorbr2195]

​@@justanidiotmk2749no by raw you only have critical failure or critical success on attack rolls(I'm basing myself on 5e rules where most of the game is based but I know that changed on One D&D

[@doctorbr2195]

@@moonlight2870 exactly my point because on a battle I see that rule is more reasonable as there is really many variables on a combat that could make you lose an attack or get a luck shot even more because each round is 6 seconds by raw but when you are doing a skill check that you optimized your character to do and you lose It because of a 5% of you taking 1 is getting part of the players agency while still encouraging them to do impossible tasks because they have 5% of getting a 20 and having a critical succes.... literally there is a hole "puzzle" for you to open the 99 cd safe on the bank but you can Skip It If you have advantage on dex and get lucky

[@Arbaaltheundefeated]

My SINGLE biggest complaint about BG3 is the fact that when you have to make a roll in a conversation or cutscene event, you don't get to just choose which character in your group to make the roll with, or even simply auto-use the best chance in your party. You essentially just have to luck out with having started the convo / triggered the event with the correct active character, or reload a previous save so you can come back while controlling the one most likely to pass the test that's coming. Owlcat's pathfinder CRPGs had it automatically use the party's highest skill/ability score for such checks and it was SO NICE compared to the crap way this works (in the sense that there is no mechanic to address this, not just a worse one) in BG3.

[@CookinUpChaos]

Personally played in a few games with these rules implemented, especially the first ones about the potions. I can definitely say they are a great addition and make being a straight martial much more fun and viable

[@eugenides04]

One of my favorites is how bringing up a downed character from death saves costs them their next action. Makes playing "Healing Word Whack-A-Mole" a *lot* more dangerous for the players.

[@HugeCoffeeAddict]

My solution to this is having shart throw a potion on the downed ally, then use bonus action to cast sanctuary on them. They still don't get their action, but now at least they aren't going right back down 99% of the time.

[@OrangeGills]

I was also a big fan of this implementation. A lot of solutions have been pitched for how to discourage healing word whack a mole, but I think losing your action takes the cake.

[@CrizzyEyes]

Eh, it kinda missed the mark. I usually HW downed PCs anyway because it causes the AI to lose at least one action trying to attack them. In effect, you are trading your cleric's bonus action for the enemy to lose at least one action. The math is still very favorable for playing whack-a-mole.

[@DwWarWolf]

This also makes healing a bit more important as you don't want to lose an action and try to help the damage>healing dynamic ever so slightly closer

[@sadeknight9112]

It’s still a strong option but it keeps the feeling of danger instead of just resetting the field every time. There have been multiple times where I’ve been panic healing someone who keeps dropping while another character picks off the threats. Astarion MVP

[@1DJRikkiBee]

Gale's death bag is a great example of reviving a PC making a whole lot of sense as opposed to just "oops you died, come back real quick tho"

[@magicturtleult1481]

2 major changes i want to discuss that were touched on: 1. Short rests are instant. This was brushed over, but thats a *major* change. And one im implementing at my table (with the limited number of rests). Because this solves the "can we take a short rest" problem where short rest resource characters want to take breaks and others do not. And often a narrative makes it difficult to justify sitting and doing nothing for an hour. So giving players the ability twice a day, outside of combat to just instantly short rest feels pretty good to me. 2. Bards Song of Rest just gives the entire party a short rest in bg3. I. Love. It. That is all. It interacts with the short rest system in a neat way. Edit: Typo

[@AnaseSkyrider]

Regarding "doing nothing for an hour": a short rest (if it already can't) SHOULD include some kind of light activity, like looting the room and bandaging your wounds. Perhaps the optional rule that you need to expend charges of a healer's kit to get the healing benefits of a short rest might be to your taste for narratively justifying the time spent. Much like how they're required to Treat Wounds in PF2e.

[@matthewtompkins4338]

A good balance narratively is making a short rest take 10 minutes instead of an hour or instant. It makes perfect sense to want to sit down for 10 minutes after taking a long combat and doesn’t feel as punishing as taking a whole hour. It does mess with the rules for identifying magic items, I’m not sure how to go about that while keeping Identify useful. Perhaps it still takes an hour or can only be done during a long rest.

[@magicturtleult1481]

@AnaseSkyrider I can absolutely see that for certain games, but in the ones I run that just isn't a thing because it's a lot more rp and plot focused over any crawl. As a DM I just struggle to imagine scenarios where you can be in a hostile environment for an entire hour and recuperate (any dungeon being hostile). Of course, short rests do have activity and actions in them, but in my games they do not progress the game in any meaningful way and so feel like "doing nothing".

[@ea5yliver]

But then how are you resting? Have you ever just decided to feel better after running a few miles? 😅 It needs some level of rest in there, otherwise why would they even call it a short *rest* ? BG3 short rests are only instant because that's a perception of the player. Just like ritual casting being instant. You can't cast ritual spells mid-dialogue or in combat because those take 10 minutes, even if it LOOKS like it's instantaneous when outside of combat.

[@Cassapphic]

I personally run short rests generally raw except that the time doesnt have to be outright passive, if its light NON COMBAT activity they can get a basic short rest, although for some of the more specific benefits with described actions such as circle of land natural recovery, or attuning/ studying a magic item, you would need to dedicate the time to actually doing the tied activity.

[@Gamerdudegames]

I actually feel the opposite in that I wish BG3 had the square grid. The amount of times I've walked up to an enemy thinking I was in melee range, but I'm just outside my reach, but still get disadvantage on ranged attacks, has made me want to cry. 5 ft. squares for life!!!

[@hollowlord8548]

Ew

[@cherrytries2922]

Maybe it could just be toggled? I do the same thing. Good way of checking is just clicking the sword and hovering it over the target. Unless the pathfinder does some insane reroute, which will be visible, it’ll tell you if you can do it or if you need more movement

[@meredithhunter7146]

Same!

[@splatman7300]

I don’t think I’d mind if it was one or the other but the fact that it can so easily end up as both is frustrating as heck

[@mantomightbehere1569]

In pathfinder kingmaker the camping system is actually really interesting because there's different roles people can be assigned to when it comes to setting up camp from one persons being in charge of cooking, to one person being in charge of concealing your camp to maybe avoid encounters in the night, and one person in charge of foraging supplies and potentially getting some free camp supplies

[@ftg_vader8690]

I actually love the two short rests per day thing. Maybe short rest isn't the best name for it though. More like "the thing you can do twice per day to restore 50% of your hp and your other abilities." Consider as well that it works really well with having a lot more to do on a short rest, like all of the new weapon actions. I just like the freedom of it, that you can just do it whenever. Maybe my dm is just too stingy with normal short rests but I have a bad taste in my mouth from not being allowed to do them when the whole party wanted to. It does feel a lot more "gamey" but I guess just like with everything else in dnd, it depends on how much you want it to feel like a game and how much you want it to feel like a simulation.

[@helgenlane]

Two short rests is actually fine. Short rests are pretty useless in 5e anyway, very few things recover during them and only two classes benefit from them. BG3 is actually very generous with short rests because there are no hit dice and you always recover half hp.

[@CrizzyEyes]

Eh... If you want any kind of simulationist type game, then D&D, especially 5e, is honestly a pretty horrendous choice. They leaned into the correct themes and design patterns when designing this game, especially considering it is FR, the campiest of all settings.

[@GruntJoe0341]

@@helgenlane Warlocks, fighters, and monks benefit heavily from them, bards do to a lesser degree with rejuvenating their inspiration being restored, rangers can remove exhaustion levels in a short rest with Tasha's rules, wizards can use Arcane Recovery, it resets the DC for barbarian's Relentless Rage, druids get their Wild Shapes back, and blood hunters get their Blood Maledict back. Damn near every class benefits from them, unless we're looking at the health recovery, then literally every class does. They do tend to be poorly implemented by impatient DMs, though, and that tends to make things harder on classes that need short rests more than others.

[@helgenlane]

@@GruntJoe0341 warlocks and fighters, sure. But so what? Nobody plays monks, so we can pretend they don't exist. There are no classes in the game that "need" short rests. After two short rests spell casters have 0 spell slots left and nobody has any hit dice to spare. "Warlock can get spells", cool, but the wizard and cleric have absolutely nothing to do except cast rituals. Two short rests is a good balance and players always know what they can expect so they don't try to camp for an hour after every encounter.

[@kamerasengan]

​@@helgenlane Plenty of people do play monks, even if they certainly have their problems. Pretending they don't exist does a disservice when they are one of the biggest benefiters of short rests. Also, clerics and paladins get back their channel divinity(but cleric gets more of them) on a short rest which is pretty great, and if you use the optional Tasha channel divinity option for cleric, Harness Divine Power, you can even get spell slots back a few times a long rest. But I do think that short rests as a mechanic in 5e are underutilized and could be a lot better, there are definitely some classes like wizard and barbarian who get either only use out of a single short rest a day, or none at all(unless a specific subclass), and it makes me sad that in One D&D they are moving away from it. I'd also argue that Bards need short rests when their main class mechanic centers around bardic inspiration. Plenty of subclasses have special uses for their inspiration die. Druids getting wild shape back is really important for them, too.

[@diogomartins7171]

Small note, in case anyone hasn't mentioned this yet, but there is actually no rule against using two leveled spells in one turn in 5e. The actual rule dictates that you cannot use more than one leveled spell in a turn, but only if you use a spell as a bonus action. So any feature that gives you any extra action, makes it so you can use two leveled spells in the same turn.

[@RAMiNQULUZADE]

Well there is only one feature giving full action, "action surge". Haste doesn't give full action anyway.

[@seb8523]

Action Surge to double cast is kind of rare since it requires multiclassing. But a more common case would be using your reaction to cast a spell during your turn. Going by the "one leveled spell a turn" version the rule often gets simplified into, you couldn't for example cast Shield to protect yourself from an opportunity attack and use another leveled spell as your action. Or you couldn't cast a leveled spell as an action, and Counterspell an enemy trying to Counterspell you. That's why the distinction is important.

[@SophisticatedHermit]

​​@@seb8523Fighter dip is actually a very popular thing with many min-maxed nova caster builds for this very reason. Action surge spellcasts can be brutal.

[@RAMiNQULUZADE]

@@seb8523 You know Eldritch Knight is a thing, right? You can also learn spells through feats. U dont need to multiclass for that.

[@seb8523]

@@RAMiNQULUZADE Still very rare. As an EK attacking twice or even casting once and attacking is going to be a far better use of your action surge than casting twice in like 90% of cases. I have literally never seen it happen despite being in multiple campaigns with an EK. Double casting is attractive for characters that are primarily casters, not martials with supplemental spellcasting. So yeah OK it doesn't REQUIRE multiclassing like I said but you're just splitting hairs here.

[@zenmaster8]

On top of what you said about inspiration, I love that it allows you to get 4 inspiration max but even if you get a 5th, you still get a bit of xp for it. Ive totally spent all my inspiration on a really high risk high reward check. It also makes me feel good about using inspiration since i know i have some left in case and i get them consistently enough that i dont worry about a drought of inspiration

[@TeamFlenzil]

Love the idea of getting rid of squares! I hate having the ability to pre-plan my movement on an easy to see, agreed upon distance system. I'd much rather wait until my turn to ask for the ruler only to find that I'm 1mm too far away and so have to make everyone wait while I think of something else. Also hate being able to easily see if I'm going to provoke opportunity attacks by moving. Also can't wait to try to slip a ruler between two minis and leaning over the table with my phone light to try to read it and knock over a drink onto the map but then finding the ruler is too short to measure the distance or too long to fit. Probably better to just lay down long rulers on both the sides of the battlemap so everyone can use it as a reference and then probably draw lines across the map at, let's say, every inch? so you can still judge the distances in areas far from the ruler. In fact, I could probably just draw the lines once and then I don't even need the ruler anymore! Just glad to be rid of squares!

[@ytchanviewer5389]

I nominate this one as candidate for best comment.