D&D does genuinely suck at both being an RPG system in general and also at the specific sort of dungeon crawling resource attrition game it was designed to be, and BG3 does suffer horribly for being D&D. I’d say it being 5e is even worse, but it’s not like 4e was any better. 3.5e was interesting but an absolute mess, and I have limited exposure to earlier editions but what I’ve seen looks even worse and jankier. Like the character building is “this character is [class], number get bigger when level up, no choices, only number go up” and the combat is “you make a basic attack, because this is D&D 5e and that’s what characters do they make a single attack role; magic users can make a basic attack with bigger numbers once per day, in exchange for their normal basic attacks being worse; this is a very serious and respectable system that people play for some reason.”
Pathfinder is the only good version of D&D and even that still has problems from the whole “it’s still D&D, fundamentally speaking” thing no matter how much 2e does to mitigate all that design tech debt and give lots of flavorful build options and things different classes can do other than D&D’s bread and butter of characters either being a basic attack bot or being a worse basic attack bot that sometimes does a special attack.
Damn, imagine if instead of BG3 Larian had made a Pathfinder 2e game that had nothing to do with WotC’s mid setting or bad ruleset. I vaguely remember hearing about a mod project to overhaul BG3 to Pathfinder rules since the underpinning mechanics are the basically same and Pathfinder just has better class and ability design and balancing, is that actually real or did I imagine it?
The Pathfinder CRPGs are both pretty good and do their best with the “sort of D&D” obligations (it’s very hard to get tabletop groups to play something that isn’t at least D&D-like, in my experience), without all of the “original monster do not steal” Hasbro/WOTC here’s-even-more-illithids cliches. I was sick of those guys in the 90s.
Yeah, I liked Kingmaker despite its writhing brainworms, though I never managed to get into Wrath because every time I opened it up I got some decision paralysis/anxiety thing about making a character build and closed it before actually doing anything.
Owlcat’s Rogue Trader game was janky as hell but very fun and I need to go back and actually finish that someday. I’d really like to see them, or any decent studio really, do a Pathfinder 2e game, because that’s such an improvement over both D&D and over first edition Pathfinder.
though I never managed to get into Wrath because every time I opened it up I got some decision paralysis/anxiety thing about making a character build and closed it before actually doing anything.
I admit that Wrath had a demoralizing level of “doors closing behind you” choices where doing one thing narrows the rails more and more and denies other choices later. While understandable, it’s also stressful especially if you had a character concept and have to look up how exactly to make that the actual story path.
Lol I don’t have much to add. I just wonder now if I’m just blinded by 5e rules since I’ve really only know it and 3.5e and have been using it for years.
Absolutely - I wanted to love BG3, and for large parts I do. Some great characters, art, design, writing… but goddamn why did it have to be a 5e game? It’s honestly my biggest problem with the game. In BG3 there are issues so many that are fundamental to 5e, which can’t really be patched or changed. I never heard of a 5e->PF mod but if that exists I might actually finish the game
![[CW: enbyphobia ] This is either bait or made by a tourist.](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/ab4638a4-095b-479a-ab01-9bc27b03a2fa.webp){kind=link}
D&D does genuinely suck at both being an RPG system in general and also at the specific sort of dungeon crawling resource attrition game it was designed to be, and BG3 does suffer horribly for being D&D. I’d say it being 5e is even worse, but it’s not like 4e was any better. 3.5e was interesting but an absolute mess, and I have limited exposure to earlier editions but what I’ve seen looks even worse and jankier. Like the character building is “this character is [class], number get bigger when level up, no choices, only number go up” and the combat is “you make a basic attack, because this is D&D 5e and that’s what characters do they make a single attack role; magic users can make a basic attack with bigger numbers once per day, in exchange for their normal basic attacks being worse; this is a very serious and respectable system that people play for some reason.”
Pathfinder is the only good version of D&D and even that still has problems from the whole “it’s still D&D, fundamentally speaking” thing no matter how much 2e does to mitigate all that design tech debt and give lots of flavorful build options and things different classes can do other than D&D’s bread and butter of characters either being a basic attack bot or being a worse basic attack bot that sometimes does a special attack.
Damn, imagine if instead of BG3 Larian had made a Pathfinder 2e game that had nothing to do with WotC’s mid setting or bad ruleset. I vaguely remember hearing about a mod project to overhaul BG3 to Pathfinder rules since the underpinning mechanics are the basically same and Pathfinder just has better class and ability design and balancing, is that actually real or did I imagine it?
The Pathfinder CRPGs are both pretty good and do their best with the “sort of D&D” obligations (it’s very hard to get tabletop groups to play something that isn’t at least D&D-like, in my experience), without all of the “original monster do not steal” Hasbro/WOTC here’s-even-more-illithids cliches. I was sick of those guys in the 90s.
Yeah, I liked Kingmaker despite its writhing brainworms, though I never managed to get into Wrath because every time I opened it up I got some decision paralysis/anxiety thing about making a character build and closed it before actually doing anything.
Owlcat’s Rogue Trader game was janky as hell but very fun and I need to go back and actually finish that someday. I’d really like to see them, or any decent studio really, do a Pathfinder 2e game, because that’s such an improvement over both D&D and over first edition Pathfinder.
I admit that Wrath had a demoralizing level of “doors closing behind you” choices where doing one thing narrows the rails more and more and denies other choices later. While understandable, it’s also stressful especially if you had a character concept and have to look up how exactly to make that the actual story path.
There’s actually a really nifty looking game that’s going to do exactly that
Basically virtual tabletop Pathfinder 2E with virtual miniatures and dice rolls
Lol I don’t have much to add. I just wonder now if I’m just blinded by 5e rules since I’ve really only know it and 3.5e and have been using it for years.
Absolutely - I wanted to love BG3, and for large parts I do. Some great characters, art, design, writing… but goddamn why did it have to be a 5e game? It’s honestly my biggest problem with the game. In BG3 there are issues so many that are fundamental to 5e, which can’t really be patched or changed. I never heard of a 5e->PF mod but if that exists I might actually finish the game