Wrathbone wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:01 am
I'd guess I'm around two-thirds of the way through. My experience has been highly positive overall with some real niggles about certain things, still mainly about some changes to the rules which I think overcomplicate things and don't improve anything, and also surfaces. God, Larian's obsession with surfaces annoys me.

I'll come back to that.
The one thing that I've mostly changed my mind about is the companions. Some of them are still perhaps a little too abrasive, but Shadowheart keeps showing these glimpses of vulnerability which shine through her prickly facade, and that makes her likeable. Gale is friendly but a bit smug, Astarion has grown on me and Wynn is interesting and affable (ignoring the obvious bug where I completed his sidequest with him in the party, then he immediately ranted to me that I did it without him). Lae'zel... I get it, she's a military-minded githyanki with no interest in anyone or anything that won't solve the immediate problem, but she's not a fit for my party. I imagine she'll become more interesting on an evil playthrough.
Regarding the rule changes, so many of the changes have clearly been done to accommodate Original Sin mechanics and it kills any semblance of balance. Adapting the rules is one thing, but the extent to which they've mangled some of the basics is frustrating. So many simple cantrips now cause surface effects which has a massive impact. As an example, in the first round of combat against one goblin, he cast acid splash at one of my guys. In the tabletop rules, that's a cantrip that does 1d6 damage against a single target. Let me list what happened in BG3:
- It did 1d6 acid damage to the target.
- This created an acid puddle which did 1d6 damage to the two party members standing either side of the target.
- One of them was carrying a torch, which ignited the acid puddle, causing another 1d6 fire damage to all three people.
- As each of the party members then moved out of the burning acid puddle, they each took another 1d6 damage (I forget whether this was fire or acid, or both).
- On the subsequent round, they each took another 1d6 damage from being on fire.
- My fourth party member had to use his bonus action to jump over the flaming puddle (note that it should be a full action to jump, but I guess the everpresence of surfaces convinced Larian that they should change it to a bonus action).
Tabletop acid splash: 1d6 damage against a single target.
BG3 acid splash: 12d6 damage on three targets across 2 rounds, leaving a burning puddle of acid.
It's ludicrous. That's not even an unusual situation I've described - that sort of shite happens I would say in about half of all fights. Being a wizard probably has some impact on that, but the endless amount of stuff that can inadvertently create an untraversable battlefield due to surfaces everywhere is dismaying.
That's an extreme example, but I'd be super-salty if that happened so make sure to provide feedback in the hope they scale it back.
On the surfaces front, I have a pro- and a con- scenario from my playthrough.
On the con side, at one point I was getting extremely pissed off with the exploding-flask spam in one fight. For context, it was fairly clear it was going to kick off, and being in a ruined cathedral, I spent a fair bit of time positioning my rogue on a rafter a couple of storeys up so he could snipe and sneak attack. During the fight, he was the first to drop, as half a dozen goblins took turns pelting him with fire flasks, and he burned to death in two rounds. My question is, it makes sense that someone high up gets an attack advantage, but shouldn't there be some kind of skill or ability check for someone 40ft below and 20ft away hurling something upwards? I have a hard time believing in a PnP game that would be an automatic success.
On the pro side, one of the latter areas sees two giant minotaurs hurtling out of the shadows at you. It might depend on where you run into them, but for me they had to come at me across a narrow bridge over an abyss. First of all, that meant them coming single file. Secondly, as soon as the first one appeared my wizard fired off his frost ray cantrip, making the ground at its feet icy. On his next move he leapt into the midst of my party (more on that in a sec), but the second one slipped onto his arse for a crucial two rounds, which allowed me to focus down the first and beat the second by the skin of my teeth as a result. That ice patch was a literal life-saver.
On the leap-attack... it wasn't something I noticed previously, but in this late-game area all the big enemies - minotaurs, hook horrors and, to my amusement, a bulotte - are able to leap across half the map, and spam this move to constantly focus your ranged characters, as they cause damage when they land, you have to pass a check not to go prone, and most of the above not only hit hard but get multiple attacks per round, some with cleave. What that means is within one of their turns they can down, potentially kill, 2-3 of your party members, and no amount of clever character placement can mitigate it because they can jump further than you can attack, meaning you are always within leap range. That can't be right.
The laser-focus the AI has for taking down your wizard is also a cause for annoyance. Yes, it's a clever move, but towards the end of the EA you're up against the aforementioned leaping enemies, plus there are ones slightly earlier that can teleport and attack in the same turn, so there is literally nothing you can do to prevent your spellcaster dying in the first round or two. I got sick of seeing Gale's death-hologram, I can tell you that

It puts me off actually playing a wizard, to tell the truth.
Combined with the bug I mentioned previously about not being able to travel to camp to res characters if one is already dead (surely this is a bug?), that's a cause for a lot of frustration and reloading.