From the developers of the Divinity games. Very little real info at the moment, apart from the just released teaser trailer below showing mind flayers as the bad guys. I expect we'll learn/see more at E3.
I haven't kept up with the changes in the Forgotten Realms from the 4th and 5th editions of D&D. Roughly how long since the original BG games (2nd Edition) would this take place? I saw some people mention 100 years? So, some possible references/cameos from the original games given the potential time difference. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I really need to get back to playing Divinity Original Sin 2. Should play BG1 and 2 again (again, again, again), too
I'm pretty reticent about the whole thing. From what I've seen of the Divinity games from these guys, they're very much "systems people" and not so much "story people".
Obsidian would have been a much better choice IMO.
Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
If this is an alternative to another Divinity game then that has me interested. Out of the latest two Divinity games I preferred Original Sin over Original Sin 2 in terms of its writing. Which as others have said, having followed Larian's Divinity series, their writing isn't great. Even Divinity Original Sin 2 felt really dated. Like an old isometric game just with newer graphics (and not one of those iconic games like Fallout, more of the middling tier you'd play, but just skip through all the dialogue to the fights).
Having them use a D&D setting rather than their own may help with the story a bit as they'll have material to work with. I can't say that I've enjoyed any of the settings in the Divinity series outside of Dragon Commander (and you barely saw any of it). Feeling rather incongruous - like a bunch of zones stitched together with random NPCs thrown about like in an MMORPG.
The trailer does nothing for me however. The Mindflayer's presumably an exaggeration for a trailer's sake, and the actual gameplay will be different. It did look pretty dumb from knowing how Mindflayers work, so I guess they're trying to appeal to another audience - "I like Divinity. What's this? Ooh that was cool. Hey I wonder what that was about? Cool!".
...Something to pick up in a Steam sale perhaps. Neither the Divinity or Baldur's Gate series particularly grabbed me. However at least I played most of the Divinity games. I barely made it out of the tutorial areas of either Baldur's Gate game (Pillars of Eternity does seem like a more appropriate successor. I didn't finish that earlier...).
Hmn, which is to say, I'll take another Planescape game. The original played similarly to Baldur's Gate, but as a setting it engaged me more. Baldur's Gate seems simple enough conceptually for a company for Larian to work with. I'd hate to see what they'd do with Planescape or Torment: Tides of Numenera released by them.
Melissia wrote: I
Baldur's Gate didn't stop existing after BG1, you know.
To this point, every single BG game has involved the Bhaalspawn arc. That includes Dragonspear. The franchise has been built on that narrative foundation, and suddenly going in a very different direction but retaining the name is, at face value at least, trading purely on nostalgia.
I love Larian's work, backed the Kickstarters for both D:OS games and have racked up ungodly playtimes on them. They do good work, and I have no doubt that this is gonna be a fun game, and I fully plan to get it, play it, and mod the ever loving crap out of it. But leading with "Hey there, we're making a sequel to one of the most important game series in this IP, never mind CRPGs in general, but it's gonna have absolutely nothing to do with that series beyond the name and geographic location" is...not a good look.
Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaalspawn (or Bhaalspawn-spawn), is certainly possible.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.
The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities. (this is also not discussing the canonical Bhaalspawn in non-video game materials released by WotC who is dead)
All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game entails.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.
The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities.
All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game.
Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.
So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.
Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.
Precisely. The Bhaalspawn, the central nexus of the entire Baldur's Gate series, is unequivocally out of the picture (either by ascending in ToB or by getting shanked by a random party of players in a published adventure).
So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.
There are no more Children. Their job is done. They brought back Murder Pappy by getting massacred (which if you remember Alaundo's writings, is precisely what they were created to do).
Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.
Precisely. The Bhaalspawn, the central nexus of the entire Baldur's Gate series, is unequivocally out of the picture (either by ascending in ToB or by getting shanked by a random party of players in a published adventure).
So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.
There are no more Children. Their job is done. They brought back Murder Pappy by getting massacred (which if you remember Alaundo's writings, is precisely what they were created to do).
Just because they are dead, doesn't mean their story is finished. The aftermath of their lives and actions are still ongoing.
Ehhh not sold on this one really, considering D : OS was far too comedic and slapstick in its storytelling for my liking. But the games looked nice and played well so if the story is rigth and same goes for the mood and atmosphere I will considering giving the benefit of the doutbt.
Sterling191 wrote: To this point, every single BG game has involved the Bhaalspawn arc.
I find that completely and utterly irrelevant.
BG3 is...
1: Set in the same setting. In fact, the same city as the first game, and that city's name is Baldur's Gate. 2: Set in the same fictional history as the first two games. 3: Set after the third game chronologically, meaning it will have its story influenced by the first two games at least a little bit.
Finally, that the Bhaalspawn storyline is "over" (at least from our perspective, anyway) doesn't mean there can't be more stories to tell in Baldur's Gate.
Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 were following a single character who was a Bhaalspawn - they were a single story set in the city regions but the city was more the backdrop to that story rather than the focus of the story in itself.
So yeah Bladur's Gate 3 not involving that storyline will feel very odd. That said its been decades and a good partof me is happier that they aren't messing with that original story; it also frees them up a LOT from not having to try and re-create favoured characters from that series. Instead doing their own thing with the setting leaves them far more room to make something good
Also I'm really shocked at this, I've never liked Llarions writing and honestly found many of their games were very poorly written story wise. They failed to grab the player and they were very much more "game then story" driven games. Heck in the game where you turn into a dragon you make the biggest move in the whole game (that of starting to turn into a dragon) not by actually following a quest line or anything, but by becoming so bored and exploring the whole of the starting area that you stumble upon the pathway out that triggers it. This is also right after your lead character that you interact with specifically told you to "stay in the village". So the game not only instructed you, but set you up to not wander not explore and basically relied on you falling into it.
THAT said they excelled themselves with Original Sin 2. It still has some of the same issues, but the gameplay and structure is much closer to BG experience than many other 3D games have achieved in the RPG market as of late. They got that party feel; they got those different characters; sure they haven't yet got to the stage of having two of them fight it out to the death becausae they hate each other (normally just before you go to fight the end of quest boss). but they are getting there.
Honestly right now I'm interested, where as prior to Original Sin 2 I'd have been very sad to hear this news.
Which is me saying that they've come a very long way; still have some issues (they are not near the same league of story tellers in games that, say, CDProject Red are); but they might do it ok.
I'm kinda excited for this, but they really need to get the look/feel/atmosphere right. This could end up really good or just be a complete fumble. So keeping hype in check until we see some gameplay.
the divinity/developers previous games are a bit stylized/cartoonish for my tastes. But i'm glad they are making it, imagine if bioware was doing it...oh the dread.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.
The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities.
All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game.
Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.
So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.
Not.. really. The Bhaalspawn are all dead, and the major canon change that happened in the wake of the re-emergence of a bunch of gods is they're now more vague, distant, and don't show up as Avatars and wreck crap personally. So maybe a few NPC cameos and people/books will remark on past events, but don't expect more than that.
Anyway, according to the interviews (of which there are quite a few at this point), it isn't a direct continuation of any kind. It'll have Spelljammer ships in it, but the old story done and in a box.
There will be 'references,' but the new story was built in tandem with the Descent to Avernus PnP adventure this summer and will play off the back of that.
And the giant invasion of mind flayers and their ancient spaceships, which should seriously be a continual TPK. In groups, they're super-geniuses (which should mean clever tactics and use of their OP abilities) with domination and stun lock abilities and can just plane shift out when things are troublesome. A group of several can just stunlock and murderize adventurers with great ease.
Is three a reimagining? A straight sequel? How much are you taking from the originals?
SV: The previous Baldur's Gate games were based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. We're now Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. A lot of stuff has happened in Forgotten Realms. A lot of stuff has happened in Baldur's Gate, so this is going to be a new entry.
There will obviously be references to everything that happened in the first and the second, but this is very much its own story. You needn't have played the previous Baldur's Gates to understand what's going on, but if you have, you will recognize the references. For example, if you just look at the teaser trailer, you will notice the guy's from the Flaming Fist, he has a flaming fist on his chest.
So, this game is more keeping in the tabletop lore than it is directly coming from Baldur's Gate 2.
SV: Yes. It's very much set into Forgotten Realms and where the universe is at now, but it is its own story. We worked very closely with Wizards, they actually adapted certain things for us so that it would work in the video game also. They've been very, very flexible in that. There are adaptations that we had to make to turn it into a video game, but it features a lot of the iconic stuff that people love about Dungeons & Dragons.
If 'Flaming Fist because a Flaming Fist is on his chest' is the depth of the references, my eyes are going to be rolling forever.
What you're doing in Baldur's Gate 3, is that now influencing the tabletop version of the world of Baldur's Gate?
SV: Yeah, and we worked very closely with Wizards on this and the people that worked on what used to be called Eclipse, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. They spent a lot of time with us and we spent a lot of time in their offices.
There's been close collaboration on planting the seeds of what we needed in Descent Into Avernus, which starts just before Baldur's Gate 3 the video game. There's a lot of stuff that you will find in there that you will see referenced back inside of the game and vice versa. There's seeds planted for stuff that will evolve into the video game.
At another point early on, he mentions the basic script outline was done back in 2017. Larian has been working on this before D:OS 2 got release, interestingly enough.
But the fact that this is - so far as I'm aware - made by a team that has no affiliation whatsoever with the original group that made the earlier games means that the name isn't making me particularly disposed to buy it. If anything, it might hit my cynicism just right to act as a negative inducement.
Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.
How did Bhaal recover his portfolio from Cyric?
Cyric is mad powerful right now, let alone mad. The character is annoying though, evil Mary Sues get my goat, though he isn't an evil Mary Sue to a fraction of the extent of Nagash. Cyric was merely successful as an evil ascendant deity, Nagash has extra portions of fiat while being as complete unremitting dick to everything and everyone. The Nagash story arc was difficult to read for this reason, I suspect Cyric's will be like that
Not.. really. The Bhaalspawn are all dead, and the major canon change that happened in the wake of the re-emergence of a bunch of gods is they're now more vague, distant, and don't show up as Avatars and wreck crap personally. So maybe a few NPC cameos and people/books will remark on past events, but don't expect more than that.
.
Not sure on that. Indications are Imoen had a long an successful career as an archmage/guild boss with enough rogue levels to be of special utility to Khelben Blackstaff and Elminster. If she survived the spellplague there is good reason to give her candidacy as a replacement Chosen of Mystra, who were for Elminster to choose.
She gave up her active divine powers so she can be trusted with Chosen status. A solid choice for a Bhaalspawn with longevity well into the new timeline. Other characters from the original story, particularly those with elven blood, should still be kicking around if set in the 5e timeline.
If set sooner the new game will more easily get to channel Minsc, which is an opportunity I doubt they will want to miss, and will disappoint fans if not included.
People saying the name is just for nostalgia and marketing sake because Baldur's Gate original story is done remember me of all the people saying that the new God of War was just using the name of Kratos to generate sales, that isn't was related like at all because Kratos story had ended.
And I don't know here, but with GOW4 they couldn't had been more wrong.
Well, since one of the people saying it isn't building off the original story is one of the lead devs/designers for Larian (in interviews), I'm pretty sold on that stance,.
If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.
Tannhauser42 wrote: If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.
Plus the Llarion team are well used to making team based rpg games. A lot of the more recent RPG games have been pushing for much smaller to solo RPG games. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it never works well for a DnD style game. It really spoilt Neverwinter Nights that you only had a really tiny party because you had so many options and classes and skills, but you could only use a very small number in any one party. Whilst that meant you had to be picky it also kind of broke things in a game engine that was sort of designed to have large enough parties to have a "healer, fighter, mage, thief, etc...." kind of setup so that you had specialists, but overall a broad base of skills within the party.
Tannhauser42 wrote: If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.
I'm with you on that sentiment.
The Pathfinder one is finally in a finished state (barring a few new bug from the last DLC), but as RPGs go (choices, consequences, storytelling)... it's pretty lacking. And while the rules/mechanics are (largely) done correctly, the encounters lean toward either super easy or over-buffed.
And while I'm annoyed they're trading on the BG name, I'm actually glad they aren't rehashing that story- 'Chosen One' godspawn nonsense isn't particularly interesting, even if the side quests were.
--
I'm just uncertain Larian's writing and mechanics will be up to snuff, or at least up to my tastes. Neither impressed me with OS 1, and I wouldn't buy 2 on a bet.
D:OS was great and so was 2 so I'm excited to see what they do with BG. Haven't seen Mindflayers in awhile so that's different - I imagine they'll tie in why they're bothering with surface dwellers.
I kinda wish they'd gone for a simple Forgotten Realm title instead of BG, since yknow, BG's story is done. But, then again, BG is a setting for lots of goings on in FR, so who knows.
I'm guessing its been so long since a big DnD game of that style that they felt sticking "Baldurs Gate" onto it in some form was going to be a big marketing pusher and bigger than perhaps using Icewind Dale or many of the other "in setting" locations.
BG is the big daddy of DnD games in terms of sheer popularity and market awareness.
Voss wrote: Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
1: What does the narrator have to do with writing?
2: How do you know the story is done? It could be a continuation or this could just be about the city Baldur's Gate.....
3: Mindflayers are not that bad and ANYBODY can get around their DC saves with the right enchantments on items or buffs. Just be better at the game. Also I have never read anywhere about Mind Flayers not bothering surface cities. They do operate primarily in the Underdark or on other planes, but they go where they get brains.
The funny part of asserting "the story is over!" is there was actually a planned Baldur's Gate 3 game that got canceled, which was supposed to better link BG and Icewind Dale.
In fact, THIS Baldur's Gate 3 has more to do with BG1 than the original studio's planned BG3 did. At least this one can say it is set in Baldur's Gate in the aftermath (even if it's not necessarily the immediate aftermath) of the Bhaalspawn Crisis.
Voss wrote: Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
1: What does the narrator have to do with writing?
2: How do you know the story is done? It could be a continuation or this could just be about the city Baldur's Gate.....
3: Mindflayers are not that bad and ANYBODY can get around their DC saves with the right enchantments on items or buffs. Just be better at the game. Also I hav ine never read anywhere about Mind Flayers not bothering surface cities. They do operate primarily in the Underdark or on other planes, but they go where they get brains.
So uh, what are you on about here?
1) uh, what? OK, this seems obvious, but a narrator adds a tone to writing. In os2 particularly, the narrator is goofy and fairly snide. The narrators voice and tone significantly affects the writing of os2 (for the worse). And that goes beyond just the basics of how having a narrator in a game to _tell_ you what's going on is a cheap device, rather than just letting the game show you what's going on or finding out yourself by exploring the world.
2). Again, obvious. Because they've said it is. Not only are all the bhaalspawn dead and bhaal canonical returned (and the protagonist of the PC games given a single identity and canon name before he died), but the Larian devs have openly stated that the new game has nothing to do with the original beyond 'references' to past events.
3). Ah. A 'get good' for tabletop rpgs. Fantastic.
Feel free to list the spells that 'get around' mind flayer stunning blasts.
Particularly list the ones available at 7th level when mind flayers are level appropriate encounters.
Don't bother with items, because that requires the DM to freely gift the party with 'anti mind flayer' items prior to throwing them at the party, which rather defeats the purpose of using a 'gotcha' monster in the first place.
The rest also seems obvious. Why go after places that might have people who can retaliate (ie powerful adventurers available for hire, or rulers who are powerful themselves, which is a given in the FR), when you can go after victims who can't retaliate? Keep in mind these creatures are innately super-geniuses lead by a godlike intelligence who are all perfectly aware that anyone knowledgeable would kill them on sight. (Except folks.like the drow who find them useful neighbors, because they pacify the immediate area and are a good export market and are intelligent enough to realize a fight against drow cities would involve unacceptable losses).
Mind flayers are risk adverse and intelligent about it.
----
@Malus- my memory of bg2 is that didn't actually work. It should have, but undead weren't coded with immunity to brainsucking.
That mindflayers are risk averse and intelligent about it makes them a good end-game adversary for a campaign.
I mean one could say the same about a Dragon, or a Devil (not necessarily a demon, mind you, chaotic evil tends to be more risk-prone tahn risk-verse), or a Beholder.
3). Ah. A 'get good' for tabletop rpgs. Fantastic.
Feel free to list the spells that 'get around' mind flayer stunning blasts.
Particularly list the ones available at 7th level when mind flayers are level appropriate encounters.
Don't bother with items, because that requires the DM to freely gift the party with 'anti mind flayer' items prior to throwing them at the party, which rather defeats the purpose of using a 'gotcha' monster in the first place.
We're not talking about a PnP game, we're talking about a video game where you don't have to rely on the individual whims of a DM.
The player will have tools available to counter some of the abilities of the mind flayers, just like they did in BG2. That could be items granting immunity to stun or confusion etc., it could be spells such as the old Chaotic Commands (5th level cleric spell) which made the player immune to stun, confusion, chaos, etc., it could be summons of undead creatures which are immune to confusion, charm etc. and cannot be mindsucked.
I believe that Mindflayers were encountered in two of the Neverwinter Nights games (HotU and SoZ), and both of them had the locals concoct some means of resistihng control-- one of them solved the problem by having a merchant sell the player a helmet that blocked mind control / mind reading, for example. Actually I think there was a story element where you were forced to either take it off and risk mind control in order or force a quest to turn violent (and you were not in an advantageous position).
In addition to this, I'm super excited for some really good CRPGs coming to the Switch. Baldur's Gate I & II, Planescape and Icewind Dale all on the same day, and then Neverwinter Nights a few months later. I'm interested to see how they play on the Switch.
Voss wrote: Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
It's D&D. Every single DM and player LITERALLY makes their own lore, stories, gods, and then mishmashes what is in the books in to fit their theme.
Voss wrote: Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
infinite_array wrote: In addition to this, I'm super excited for some really good CRPGs coming to the Switch. Baldur's Gate I & II, Planescape and Icewind Dale all on the same day, and then Neverwinter Nights a few months later. I'm interested to see how they play on the Switch.
Wait what now? That is some hotness right there. Will they also have touch screen capabilities because Yes. Please.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
1: What does the narrator have to do with writing?
2: How do you know the story is done? It could be a continuation or this could just be about the city Baldur's Gate.....
3: Mindflayers are not that bad and ANYBODY can get around their DC saves with the right enchantments on items or buffs. Just be better at the game. Also I hav ine never read anywhere about Mind Flayers not bothering surface cities. They do operate primarily in the Underdark or on other planes, but they go where they get brains.
So uh, what are you on about here?
1) uh, what? OK, this seems obvious, but a narrator adds a tone to writing. In os2 particularly, the narrator is goofy and fairly snide. The narrators voice and tone significantly affects the writing of os2 (for the worse). And that goes beyond just the basics of how having a narrator in a game to _tell_ you what's going on is a cheap device, rather than just letting the game show you what's going on or finding out yourself by exploring the world.
2). Again, obvious. Because they've said it is. Not only are all the bhaalspawn dead and bhaal canonical returned (and the protagonist of the PC games given a single identity and canon name before he died), but the Larian devs have openly stated that the new game has nothing to do with the original beyond 'references' to past events.
3). Ah. A 'get good' for tabletop rpgs. Fantastic.
Feel free to list the spells that 'get around' mind flayer stunning blasts.
Particularly list the ones available at 7th level when mind flayers are level appropriate encounters.
Don't bother with items, because that requires the DM to freely gift the party with 'anti mind flayer' items prior to throwing them at the party, which rather defeats the purpose of using a 'gotcha' monster in the first place.
The rest also seems obvious. Why go after places that might have people who can retaliate (ie powerful adventurers available for hire, or rulers who are powerful themselves, which is a given in the FR), when you can go after victims who can't retaliate? Keep in mind these creatures are innately super-geniuses lead by a godlike intelligence who are all perfectly aware that anyone knowledgeable would kill them on sight. (Except folks.like the drow who find them useful neighbors, because they pacify the immediate area and are a good export market and are intelligent enough to realize a fight against drow cities would involve unacceptable losses).
Mind flayers are risk adverse and intelligent about it.
----
@Malus- my memory of bg2 is that didn't actually work. It should have, but undead weren't coded with immunity to brainsucking.
Oh geez, a "narrators are bad I don't need my hand held!" argument. Good grief.
And a "They already said it wasn't related!" because people definitely cannot lie or ommit information intentionally(lolHideoKojimaRaidenMGS2lol) and the story absolutely cannot go on any further AFTER the return of Bhaal. That is ludicrous. Definitely not a thing!
Also, we are talking about a video game and not a PnP. Also, if you are having issues with the PnP Mindflayers I can see your issue right there. You are waiting for the DM to hand feed you items instead of seeking out powerful items or having them enchanted for specific purposes. If you don't have anything at 7th level that boosts INT or Will Saves, you are probably playing the game wrong.
You act as if the Underdark is a place of gentle souls only looking for a peaceful existence. Totally not filled with demon worshiping elves who kill as a hobby and enslave other races for fun and dwarves who are so bitter and curmudgeonly that they don't even like other bitter and curmudgeonly dwarves. Or their escapades on other planes where you run in to the possibility of running in to powerful Archons or the Githyanki and their swords that can cut the strands of fate straight from a creatures soul.
The surface is Disneyland in comparison to planar travel and the Underdark.
Voss wrote: Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.
1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.
2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.
So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.
3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances
Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.
As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.
1: What does the narrator have to do with writing?
2: How do you know the story is done? It could be a continuation or this could just be about the city Baldur's Gate.....
3: Mindflayers are not that bad and ANYBODY can get around their DC saves with the right enchantments on items or buffs. Just be better at the game. Also I hav ine never read anywhere about Mind Flayers not bothering surface cities. They do operate primarily in the Underdark or on other planes, but they go where they get brains.
So uh, what are you on about here?
1) uh, what? OK, this seems obvious, but a narrator adds a tone to writing. In os2 particularly, the narrator is goofy and fairly snide. The narrators voice and tone significantly affects the writing of os2 (for the worse). And that goes beyond just the basics of how having a narrator in a game to _tell_ you what's going on is a cheap device, rather than just letting the game show you what's going on or finding out yourself by exploring the world.
2). Again, obvious. Because they've said it is. Not only are all the bhaalspawn dead and bhaal canonical returned (and the protagonist of the PC games given a single identity and canon name before he died), but the Larian devs have openly stated that the new game has nothing to do with the original beyond 'references' to past events.
3). Ah. A 'get good' for tabletop rpgs. Fantastic.
Feel free to list the spells that 'get around' mind flayer stunning blasts.
Particularly list the ones available at 7th level when mind flayers are level appropriate encounters.
Don't bother with items, because that requires the DM to freely gift the party with 'anti mind flayer' items prior to throwing them at the party, which rather defeats the purpose of using a 'gotcha' monster in the first place.
The rest also seems obvious. Why go after places that might have people who can retaliate (ie powerful adventurers available for hire, or rulers who are powerful themselves, which is a given in the FR), when you can go after victims who can't retaliate? Keep in mind these creatures are innately super-geniuses lead by a godlike intelligence who are all perfectly aware that anyone knowledgeable would kill them on sight. (Except folks.like the drow who find them useful neighbors, because they pacify the immediate area and are a good export market and are intelligent enough to realize a fight against drow cities would involve unacceptable losses).
Mind flayers are risk adverse and intelligent about it.
----
@Malus- my memory of bg2 is that didn't actually work. It should have, but undead weren't coded with immunity to brainsucking.
Now I feel bad about chiding the other dude, really someone resorted to "LULZ GIT GUD SCRUB"
Well I mean, he is being given a ton of resources to deal with these issues pretty easily and his response is "THE DM ISN'T HAND FEEDING ME ANYTHING" sooooo, yeah. He really needs to "git gud" as it were.
Dreadwinter wrote: Totally not filled with demon worshiping elves who kill as a hobby and enslave other races for fun
Let's be fair, Dreadwinter.
The Drow worship a goddess, not demons. Sure, she's a goddess who makes her lair in one of the various versions of hell and is astonishingly vile and evil.
But still, a divine entity. In DnD, not all gods are good-aligned. It's an important distinction, because Llolth is a very jealous, possessive, and paranoid goddess whom barely tolerates her own children existing as deities that evil drow worship. She really doesn't tolerate drow worshiping anything other than her and her subordinates, and drow that do that usually end up either as sacrifices, or turned in to insane half-spiders.
Dreadwinter wrote: Totally not filled with demon worshiping elves who kill as a hobby and enslave other races for fun
Let's be fair, Dreadwinter.
The Drow worship a goddess, not demons. Sure, she's a goddess who makes her lair in one of the various versions of hell and is astonishingly vile and evil.
But still, a divine entity. In DnD, not all gods are good-aligned. It's an important distinction, because Llolth is a very jealous, possessive, and paranoid goddess whom barely tolerates her own children existing as deities that evil drow worship. She really doesn't tolerate drow worshiping anything other than her and her subordinates, and drow that do that usually end up either as sacrifices, or turned in to insane half-spiders.
Dreadwinter wrote: Totally not filled with demon worshiping elves who kill as a hobby and enslave other races for fun
Let's be fair, Dreadwinter.
The Drow worship a goddess, not demons. Sure, she's a goddess who makes her lair in one of the various versions of hell and is astonishingly vile and evil.
But still, a divine entity. In DnD, not all gods are good-aligned. It's an important distinction, because Llolth is a very jealous, possessive, and paranoid goddess whom barely tolerates her own children existing as deities that evil drow worship. She really doesn't tolerate drow worshiping anything other than her and her subordinates, and drow that do that usually end up either as sacrifices, or turned in to insane half-spiders.
Ehhhh, I guess it really depends on how you look at it. Asmodeus is considered an "Arch-Devil" and not a god, but in reality he has all the power levels of a god and he is worshipped as such. I guess it all depends on what kind of magic you impart to your followers or the title you prefer I guess. To make it even worse, God's/Arch-Devils/Demons are generally not even the highest powers in these settings.
Togusa wrote: Eilistraee would like a word with Llolth.
Considering Llolth had her murdered/murdered her (I forgot which, but well, she got better and the distinction isn't important), I'm sure Eilistraee would like numerous pointed words with her mother.
Dreadwinter wrote: Ehhhh, I guess it really depends on how you look at it. Asmodeus is considered an "Arch-Devil" and not a god, but in reality he has all the power levels of a god and he is worshipped as such. I guess it all depends on what kind of magic you impart to your followers or the title you prefer I guess. To make it even worse, God's/Arch-Devils/Demons are generally not even the highest powers in these settings.
There ARE multiple levels of deities, so that's true. But the main thing about deities in Forgotten Realms is that they are empowered by worship and are granted a Portfolio which are the various concepts they represent. Llolth has a stranglehold on the concept of "Drow" and a major grip on "Spiders". Her actions in control of Drow society are in part to ensure that she maintains this power. Also because she's a cruel-hearted possessive [expletive deleted] who has love for no one but herself. But be that as it may...
Asmodeus actually ascended to become a Lesser Deity, taking on the portfolio of Indulgence and the domains of Knowledge, Order, and Trickery, putting him on the same level as Llolth.
Forgotten Realms theology and divinity are actually kinda fun topics. Anything from quasi-deities, to actual gods starting with demigods up to overdeities.
Togusa wrote: Eilistraee would like a word with Llolth.
Considering Llolth had her murdered/murdered her (I forgot which, but well, she got better and the distinction isn't important), I'm sure Eilistraee would like numerous pointed words with her mother.
Dreadwinter wrote: Ehhhh, I guess it really depends on how you look at it. Asmodeus is considered an "Arch-Devil" and not a god, but in reality he has all the power levels of a god and he is worshipped as such. I guess it all depends on what kind of magic you impart to your followers or the title you prefer I guess. To make it even worse, God's/Arch-Devils/Demons are generally not even the highest powers in these settings.
There ARE multiple levels of deities, so that's true. But the main thing about deities in Forgotten Realms is that they are empowered by worship and are granted a Portfolio which are the various concepts they represent. Llolth has a stranglehold on the concept of "Drow" and a major grip on "Spiders". Her actions in control of Drow society are in part to ensure that she maintains this power. Also because she's a cruel-hearted possessive [expletive deleted] who has love for no one but herself. But be that as it may...
Asmodeus actually ascended to become a Lesser Deity, taking on the portfolio of Indulgence and the domains of Knowledge, Order, and Trickery, putting him on the same level as Llolth.
Forgotten Realms theology and divinity are actually kinda fun topics. Anything from quasi-deities, to actual gods starting with demigods up to overdeities.
Recently I played a Drow rogue in a friends game, and he was really unaware of this deity. He kept having trouble understanding the concept of a Chaotic Good dark elf!
1. Micro Transactions, Loot boxes, and Season passes
2. My beloved 5e to get raped by game designers and regurgitated into a live-service Dragon Age 3 style mess
3. Pandering, oh so much pandering to the nerd crowds
4. A Broken buggy mess that will day 1 be patched, and then promise a "road map" of how it will be the game money bags, I mean fans, deserve
5. Won't be Epic Exclusive, until pre-launch, which will need to be purchased at Game Stop, and then it will go Epic Exclusive.
6. You will need to buy new classes, ala Capcom
7. A few more "gameplay trailers" with no actual gameplay, but a bunch of pre-rendered videos.
1 - I LOVED BG1, BG2, and TOB, best RPG series i've ever played. Thats a high pedigree to live up to.
2 - I liked the gameplay more or less for DOS1 and 2
3 - The writing/premises for DOS 1 and DOS 2 were good
4 - I HATED DOS2 for being a hilarously buggy, exploitable mess to the point where the bugs arbitrarily selected my ending for me. Removed all agency from me, made all the choices I made irrelevant. Just complete, utter nonsense. No developer worth their salt should release a game in that kind of state.
5 - Mind flayers are just completely obnoxious monsters. Pain in the butt to fight.
I always thought Mind Flayers were simple on paper. By the time you are supposed to be facing them, you have well over 50-60 HP, and you can likely be healed quickly enough by at least 2 members of the party. Also, by that level your magic user SHOULD be able to outright oneshot a single Mindflayer. And if he's being controlled, your fighter should have no problem doing 50-70pts of damage in a single turn.
Traditionally, beholders are a far more dangerous direct combat opponent, while a Mind Flayer requires more work to bring out in to the open to combat.
I always thought Mind Flayers were simple on paper. By the time you are supposed to be facing them, you have well over 50-60 HP, and you can likely be healed quickly enough by at least 2 members of the party. Also, by that level your magic user SHOULD be able to outright oneshot a single Mindflayer. And if he's being controlled, your fighter should have no problem doing 50-70pts of damage in a single turn.
Mind Flayers are accompanied by subservient monsters, so the main issue is getting to them. Like any Controller, they have a variety of ways to handle PC's, and like any good monster, the PC's have several ways of dealing with them.
Beholders are ri-god-damn-diculous to fight no matter the level or battleground. Hell, even preparing before a fight doesn't really help because of just how paranoid a Beholder can be - they plan for ANY and ALL eventualities, to compare these things to Mind Flayers is just...you can't.
Also, what I think a lot of people forget is that going to find Mind Flayers somewhere, either in their cities or various slave pens, the PC's SHOULD be doing ample research on what they're going to find. Any parties that run into a Mind Flayer controlled area without at least knowing what they're going to be facing deserves a TPK.
Mind Flayer. Even when they've got plenty of mind controlled pets and servants.
Beholders prepare for so much, and even then there's so many small differences that a party can't identify from a simple glance while most Mind Flayers are technically similar enough, but a small difference on a Beholder changes out an eye that swaps out what sorts of deadly spells it knows and potential resistances..
Neither. They're both BS rocket launcher tag monsters, though the beholder benefits more from the HP bloat of later editions.
I always thought Mind Flayers were simple on paper. By the time you are supposed to be facing them, you have well over 50-60 HP, and you can likely be healed quickly enough by at least 2 members of the party. Also, by that level your magic user SHOULD be able to outright oneshot a single Mindflayer. And if he's being controlled, your fighter should have no problem doing 50-70pts of damage in a single turn
Not sure what this scenario is based on (or edition). But in 5th edition, no, a 7th level wizard (level appropriate for the 7th level mind flayer) isn't doing 71 points of damage in one shot. Come back at 13th level when you've got disintegrate and are feeling lucky about their saves.
Blasting just isn't that effective, and most control spells got heavily nerfed (and several of the ones that could work aren't even available yet- for example hold monster vs hold person (which affects only humanoids))
Meanwhile, with intelligence saves against stunning blast, any two of your fighter and two healers are likely to be stunned, because everybody bar the wizard (and theoretical rogue) doesn't have an int save bonus to speak of, so their starting point is a 65% chance of failure (+0 vs DC 15). Alternately the mind flayer can just target someone first with dominate monster (DC15 wisdom save) Huzzah for 7th level monsters with 8th level spells (which shouldn't be even showing up for another 7 or 8 levels)
So, rocket launcher tag. And that's just one mind flayer with no help.
Frankenberry wrote:Also, what I think a lot of people forget is that going to find Mind Flayers somewhere, either in their cities or various slave pens, the PC's SHOULD be doing ample research on what they're going to find. Any parties that run into a Mind Flayer controlled area without at least knowing what they're going to be facing deserves a TPK
That's largely true, except....
a) 5e context. A lot of defensive measures went pop and dissolved into the ether of an edition change (or are ridiculously high level and so aren't relevant, like Mind Blank, and that still doesn't prevent the stun effect). In fact there are no spells that prevent stun, and no way to stack bonuses until you can reliably save. About the best you can do is find some way to finagle advantage on saves and add +1d4 from bless.
One of 5e's design goals was to limit the ability to affect the math much, so bonuses are tiny or nonexistent (were talking a 'progression' of +4 over 20 levels). A mid-teen DC is actually a pretty big deal. Especially on the minor saves (Int, Str, Cha) that don't come up very often, because there are literally less than a dozen things in the entire game that use Int and Cha. It's just when they come up, they're campaign-wrecking.
b) BG3 context. This isn't about wandering unprepared into mind flayer territory. This is about an army with multiple squads of mind flayers in your house and spawning more mind flayers. That's functionally untenable for a party using the 5e ruleset- with mulltiple mind flayers, statistics are going to result in a TPK sooner or later. Sooner or later the entire party is going to fail, party members are going to get mulched by the brain attack, and each successive round is going to be worse after that (because you have to save out of the minute long stun, and by that point they will have further chances to stun you).
Neither. They're both BS rocket launcher tag monsters, though the beholder benefits more from the HP bloat of later editions.
I always thought Mind Flayers were simple on paper. By the time you are supposed to be facing them, you have well over 50-60 HP, and you can likely be healed quickly enough by at least 2 members of the party. Also, by that level your magic user SHOULD be able to outright oneshot a single Mindflayer. And if he's being controlled, your fighter should have no problem doing 50-70pts of damage in a single turn
Not sure what this scenario is based on (or edition). But in 5th edition, no, a 7th level wizard (level appropriate for the 7th level mind flayer) isn't doing 71 points of damage in one shot. Come back at 13th level when you've got disintegrate and are feeling lucky about their saves.
Blasting just isn't that effective, and most control spells got heavily nerfed (and several of the ones that could work aren't even available yet- for example hold monster vs hold person (which affects only humanoids))
Meanwhile, with intelligence saves against stunning blast, any two of your fighter and two healers are likely to be stunned, because everybody bar the wizard (and theoretical rogue) doesn't have an int save bonus to speak of, so their starting point is a 65% chance of failure (+0 vs DC 15). Alternately the mind flayer can just target someone first with dominate monster (DC15 wisdom save) Huzzah for 7th level monsters with 8th level spells (which shouldn't be even showing up for another 7 or 8 levels)
So, rocket launcher tag. And that's just one mind flayer with no help.
Frankenberry wrote:Also, what I think a lot of people forget is that going to find Mind Flayers somewhere, either in their cities or various slave pens, the PC's SHOULD be doing ample research on what they're going to find. Any parties that run into a Mind Flayer controlled area without at least knowing what they're going to be facing deserves a TPK
That's largely true, except....
a) 5e context. A lot of defensive measures went pop and dissolved into the ether of an edition change (or are ridiculously high level and so aren't relevant, like Mind Blank, and that still doesn't prevent the stun effect). In fact there are no spells that prevent stun, and no way to stack bonuses until you can reliably save. About the best you can do is find some way to finagle advantage on saves and add +1d4 from bless.
One of 5e's design goals was to limit the ability to affect the math much, so bonuses are tiny or nonexistent (were talking a 'progression' of +4 over 20 levels). A mid-teen DC is actually a pretty big deal. Especially on the minor saves (Int, Str, Cha) that don't come up very often, because there are literally less than a dozen things in the entire game that use Int and Cha. It's just when they come up, they're campaign-wrecking.
b) BG3 context. This isn't about wandering unprepared into mind flayer territory. This is about an army with multiple squads of mind flayers in your house and spawning more mind flayers. That's functionally untenable for a party using the 5e ruleset- with mulltiple mind flayers, statistics are going to result in a TPK sooner or later. Sooner or later the entire party is going to fail, party members are going to get mulched by the brain attack, and each successive round is going to be worse after that (because you have to save out of the minute long stun, and by that point they will have further chances to stun you).
Man, I have a great story about my Goliath Battle Master rolling +8 AC three turns in a row and being unhitable by the beholder. The whole party laughed well that night.
Voss wrote: Neither. They're both BS rocket launcher tag monsters
I apologize for the substandard experience you have been provided by your DMs thus far.
Yeah, I am not understanding his arguments here. I mean yeah, mindflayers are a pain and you should fear running in to a whole city of them. But one with minions? lolno. 2-3 with Minions, maybe pop some spells and quaff some pots but still no.
Voss, you keep saying 7th level players. If the players are 7th level, then the normal difficulty encounter is one single mind flayer with no support against 4 PCs. The Mind Flayer has +1 to its initiative roll, which doesn't give it good odds to act first and it can only act once per turn. It is severely at a disadvantage due to the action economy.
It has low strength, dexterity and constitution modifiers, so even with advantage it has not amazing odds of passing saves against spells targeting these ability scores. Any non-spell ability targeting those ability scores is golden.
For example, a mind flayer wears a breastplate which is medium armour made of metal. Cast heat metal (a level 2 spell for Bards and Druids) on item, 2d8 (plus 1d8 per extra level cast at) fire damage to anyone touching it and needs to save vs Con or drop the item that is being heated. If it cannot drop the item it has disadvantage on all attack rolls until the beginning of the players next turn. Taking off a breastplate takes 1 minute so it cannot do that in a single round. Voila, you just keep casting Heat Metal with your Bard (who will most likely be acting before the mind flayer as they'll have a higher Dex bonus and also get half their proficiency bonus added to their initiative roll thanks to Jack of all Trades) to keep the mind flayer at disadvantage and use bonus actions to give players bardic inspiration to help save against stun from mind blast or tentacles. The Bard can also use countercharm to give everyone advantage against the 1/per day casting of Dominate Monster.
Of course they can simply target the Bard. If the bard isn't using bonus actions for Heat Metal he isn't giving disadvantage, if he's using actions for countercharm he's not casting Heat Metal.
And of course Heat metal has the same range as Mind Blast if I remember right, about 60 feet? And Heat Metal requires concentration so you can't hold a buff spell as well. It's pretty good if you can somehow ensure that the angry squiddie isn't going to blast you with something else to break your actions. Heat Metal a pretty powerful spell in it's own right.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Of course they can simply target the Bard. If the bard isn't using bonus actions for Heat Metal he isn't giving disadvantage, if he's using actions for countercharm he's not casting Heat Metal.
And of course Heat metal has the same range as Mind Blast if I remember right, about 60 feet? And Heat Metal requires concentration so you can't hold a buff spell as well. It's pretty good if you can somehow ensure that the angry squiddie isn't going to blast you with something else to break your actions. Heat Metal a pretty powerful spell in it's own right.
If it is targeting the bard then the fighter can get up to it and demolish its face with 2 attacks a round. If you have a Battle Master then you trip it on the first attack (strength saving throw with an Mind Flayers +0 bonus or fall prone) and then pummel it on the next. Then everyone just stamps on its head as it lies on the ground
Basically, there are lots of ways to deal with Mind Flayers, just be creative and find ways to target its weaknesses.
As a very low xp 5E DM (about 2 years) I just want to say two things about 5E:
1. It's made a lot of players very happy, and it's very suitable for first time players. The encounter difficulty isn't that bad and it's really suited to parties with proper levels being able to demolish anything of a like Difficulty rating.
2. It's made a lot of DM's very sad, because it's practically impossible to balance the encounters based around the sheer threat range of certain classes. Lets say I have a group of 5 level 3 adventurers. Forget their classes, the sheer number of things I have to account for to even make an encounter last more than one round is staggering. I usually end up having to break the game, and throw in DM God actions. "Oh, the monster had a potion of full heal!".
That's the thing. We play the game to have fun. But it's a very thin line between killing the entire party, or making them bored with weak encounters. It wasn't this hard in 3rd for me as a DM. I wish I could make the Mindflayer a fun encounter as a battle, but it always results in one thing, either the melee class killed in on the first turn, or the magic user class locked it down somehow, and then the party kills it.
Melissia wrote: Errr, I gotta ask how that's different from previous editions. At least 5e doesn't have "save or die" mechanics which could tpk on the first turn.
Good old "Rocks fall" can still be there if needed, however
Melissia wrote: Errr, I gotta ask how that's different from previous editions. At least 5e doesn't have "save or die" mechanics which could tpk on the first turn.
In 3rd it felt like the parties were not as powerful as they are today. Hell, in 1st if the Wizard looked a puddle funny he could slip and die from the fall damage. Things felt a lot more, I dunno, dangerous, in the past. Now the parties are much more able to survive what would have been a TPK before. Cure light wounds, looking at you!!!
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: In 3rd it felt like the parties were not as powerful as they are today.
Third edition was basically the epitome of munchkining and abusing rules for power. It was easy to break and find super powerful builds.
I find there are some pretty broken RAW spells in 5E that could use some errata.
Control Water: Until the spell ends, you control any freestanding water inside an area you choose that is a cube up to 100 feet on a side. You can choose from any of the following Effects when you cast this spell. As an action on Your Turn, you can repeat the same effect or choose a different one. This can get very broken in a hurry.
So lets say you are in ship combat. You "part the water" causing the opponent to drop 100', do 10d6 damage, and you then release the waters, resulting in roughly 172800x2 cubic inches of water coming down ontop of you. This results in bludgeoning damage. How much? Well that much water weighs 6242lbs, do 2d6 per 100lbs, or 125d6 damage, on each side. So 250d6 damage bludgeoning. Then the monster/target has to make it back to the surface. But it can't because it's dead.
And now Fezzik is crying because his Leviathan fight which he spent hours crafting, working on, building, painting the terrain, the model, etc...is over. On the first cast of the battle. Because the Leviathan took 780ish damage.
They wouldn't take full fall damage, since 100' in 6 seconds is more time than it would take gravity to pull them down that height. So the water is being pulled away below the speed of gravity, which means whatever is in the trench is going to just kind of sail down the rising water to the bottom.
Also, the description of the spell does not say the water crashes down:
The water then slowly fills in the trench over the course of the next round until the normal water level is restored.
This could instead be the water flowing back in from the bottom, rather than crashing down on the top. This would mean no damage would be dealt as rather than the water coming down on top of the Leviathan like a wave it flows down the sides of the trench and raises the Leviathan up as it refills the space.
Boom, problem solved, no killing everything in the sea for you.
So lets say you are in ship combat. You "part the water" causing the opponent to drop 100', do 10d6 damage, and you then release the waters, resulting in roughly 172800x2 cubic inches of water coming down ontop of you. This results in bludgeoning damage. How much? Well that much water weighs 6242lbs, do 2d6 per 100lbs, or 125d6 damage, on each side. So 250d6 damage bludgeoning. Then the monster/target has to make it back to the surface. But it can't because it's dead.
.
A little bit of physics is a bad thing. Water weighs one metric ton per square meter. This means you should be outright flattened every time a wave hits you.
Water flows though.
Alternately: you part the water, the opponents ship slides down to the bottom, you reverse, the ship rises to the top. No damage.
The truth is somewhere between the two scenarios, and the DM can decide where.
1: Why is a Kraken, a gargantuan (minimum 20ft x 20ft board presence on a map but likely larger; Krakens are larger than the largest gigantic squid ever recorded, easily) deep sea creature, in a 100 foot shallow to begin with? That would really put them out of their depth, quite literally. But on the flipside, if they're not in a shallow, as a DM, I'd have the Kraken make an athletics check (its skill would be +7 with advantage in this situation due to being a natural swimmer) to either halve or negate the fall damage by reacting to dive to minimize damage, depending on the level of the PCs and how much they really need to do this level of damage to survive.
Regardless, the Kraken wouldn't normally be at the surface of the water anyway, at least not at first. The Kraken has 30 foot range with its tentacles and is aiming to destroy your boat to cripple your ability to fight back (it has the Siege Monster ability and does double damage to structures, and yes, it's quite intelligent enough to realize this-- more intelligent than most wizards in fact, at 22 intelligence!), reducing the damage to 7d10, or around 40 damage on average, 70 at most, and if halved, 20 damage on average, 35 at most. A Kraken has 472 hp, so you're doing about a tenth of its hp with this move if you succeed, not a bad turn all things be told-- although given that you just put the Kraken at 100 feet away from you (plus change), the Kraken can just retreat and then attack later in ambush and grab your boat to prevent you from doing this again (I remind you, the Kraken is intelligent; not doing this is like having a dragon fight you without using its wings and breath!).
2: Bear in mind this line: "The water then slowly fills in the trench over the course of the next round until the normal water level is restored."
In other words, the Part Water use of Control Water actually is deliberately a lot slower than what you described, and it's worded in a way that makes it clear they imagined it to be filling in harmlessly (at least insofar as you risk drowning but won't be crushed). No, this doesn't make sense by science. It's not science. It's magic. You'd have to use the Flood effect to have it happen immediately, and Flood has no description of being able to damage creatures or objects-- in fact, a Huge sized ship only has a 25% chance of capsizing as a result of the flood spell! So all you'd manage to do by doing the Flood effect immediately is inconvenience the Kraken. Which fair enough, is probably useful. Maybe could use it to disperse its ink cloud or something. But the actual flood, nor Part Water, wouldn't do any damage, particularly not to a Kraken. Furthermore, the Flood action only sends a 20 foot wave out, not a 100 foot wave.
3: The Part Water or Flood effect would actually very likely capsize your ship in the process or cause it to sink, because the Kraken would be attacking from under your ship. Even if you argued somehow the spell wouldn't have done so, a creature like a Kraken would have been gripping and attacking your ship from the start, so attempting to do this to the kraken would also do it to your ship. Down you go! I hope you can swim. The Kraken can.
Please, sir. I am a veteran DnD player and an accomplished DM. I've seen far worse attempts to powergame than this
[ edit: for some reason my head had it as you meaning the Kraken... if you meant the actual creature, the Leviathan, that's going to be even harder to kill this way, as it can use Control Water as a Legendary Action, itself-- meaning it can cast the spell outside of its turn order. The Kraken would actually be an easier fight this way, the Leviathan is going to wreck your GAK if that's the only gimmick you have! In fact, the Leviathan is 300-500 feet long, so it's actually bigger than the area of effect of your spell! ]
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: In 3rd it felt like the parties were not as powerful as they are today.
Third edition was basically the epitome of munchkining and abusing rules for power. It was easy to break and find super powerful builds.
Even some of the earlier spells could break encounters.. Just an average grease spell can ruin some monsters.
Yeeeeah, I loved 3 so much. It really felt like you were fighting against the DM. They had to come up with some really interesting stuff to check your group.
Or they could make you roll everything random and not munchkin anything. I have always been lucky with ability score rolls so there have been times where I have been forced in to stat buying.....
Given how many misclicks (to the point of accidentally attacking party members) the DEV made, that UI is terrible.
They went hard on D&D5's standard, move and bonus actions, but you can attack with shoves and throws in addition for free (and outright killed things with thrown boots). What? Either use the game mechanics strictly or don't. But don't mix and match.
The encounters are... weird. Despite taking advantage of perfect meta knowledge and knowing exactly how to handle every encounter, the fights were basically complicated puzzle fights that still ended in coinflips that slaughtered half the party. That really didn't feel like D&D
So... having tadpoles eating your brain over the course of a week to transform you into a mindflayer...gives you magic jumping powers. OK, you aren't paralyzed in agony as it slowly chews your grey matter, losing more and more of your ability to function so there can be a game, but the resulting creature doesn't have magic jumping powers, so... why, though?
Voss wrote: The cinematics were really impressive.
The gameplay not so much:
Given how many misclicks (to the point of accidentally attacking party members) the DEV made, that UI is terrible.
They went hard on D&D5's standard, move and bonus actions, but you can attack with shoves and throws in addition for free (and outright killed things with thrown boots). What? Either use the game mechanics strictly or don't. But don't mix and match.
The encounters are... weird. Despite taking advantage of perfect meta knowledge and knowing exactly how to handle every encounter, the fights were basically complicated puzzle fights that still ended in coinflips that slaughtered half the party. That really didn't feel like D&D
So... having tadpoles eating your brain over the course of a week to transform you into a mindflayer...gives you magic jumping powers. OK, you aren't paralyzed in agony as it slowly chews your grey matter, losing more and more of your ability to function so there can be a game, but the resulting creature doesn't have magic jumping powers, so... why, though?
Good points, the most effective weapons seemed to be "feature" elements - ie thrown boots - doing the same or more damage as the bow! Bizare -also don't recall Mage Hand being that powerful before?
It's basically the same interface as Original Sin 2 has. I think some of the miss-clicking might be because he's playing standing up at a desk which is a bit too low for comfort so he's not got his mouse-hand in the natural relaxed position its likely used too. Which is likely throwing off some of his coordination. Some might also be because he's on live display and trying to present and talk and stand and everything all at once.
It's got an open beta coming up so hopefully that will allow for a lot of bug fixing, polishing and tuning things to suit what the market is after.
Good points, the most effective weapons seemed to be "feature" elements - ie thrown boots - doing the same or more damage as the bow! Bizare -also don't recall Mage Hand being that powerful before?
Correct. Mage hand explicitly can't do _any_ of the things it does in the demo. It has a short list of things it can do (pick up objects <10 lbs., get stuff out of open containers, open unlocked doors, or pour out a vial). It absolutely can't attack, activate magic items, or carry more than 10 pounds. Its a cantrip, so its intentionally limited- small bonuses, basic damage, lights and the like.
Unseen servant (a 1st level spell) can't even do several of the things shown.
The throwing and shoving is more the domain of telekinesis (5th level spell).
I get breaking some rules in the transition from PnP to video game, but it needs to have some rhyme or reason (usually something to do with the necessity of the format change- this often hits illusion and divination spells fairly hard, for example), not simply because it was a cool thing in their own game.
I also noticed that the rogue couldn't seem to do sneak attacks at range (either when undetected, or when an ally was adjacent to the target). That's a huge nerf to the class, and the 5e version of the rogue is really reliant on pulling off sneak attacks every round to contribute to the fight.
Post all the hype and turn based is bad/turn based is good shilling from paid media, the only thing I can now say about this game is that it is well marketed.
I will pass for now and wait for real reviewers. But my hopes are reasonably high.
Overread wrote: It's BG3 even if they'd not marketed it the name along would have marketed itself pretty well.
I dunno. I saw a lot of pushback after the PAX coverage, to the point that the Wrath of the Righteous kickstarter (a followup to Kingmaker, using Pathfinder, by Owlcat Studios) saw a bump in the middle of its 'funding plateau.'
Unrelated story, unrelated edition, unrelated... everything really. The Dev in the video even mentioned the city shown isn't Baldur's Gate, its somewhere else, and the crash site is 200 miles to the east. (Which to me suggests that, like the original game, the city is going to be fairly irrelevant to most of the game- something you don't have access to at all until several chapters in)
I honestly think the D&D brand would have carried them just as far without giving people the wrong impression to get offended by. Some of this is the sheer age of the originals. Its been 20 years. The original fans wanted a proper sequel (based on some planned material lurking around for BG3: The Black Hound, dating to the days when Black Isle died), and the younger Divinity fans largely don't care- its a very different game in many respects.
Unrelated story, unrelated edition, unrelated... everything really. The Dev in the video even mentioned the city shown isn't Baldur's Gate, its somewhere else, and the crash site is 200 miles to the east. (Which to me suggests that, like the original game, the city is going to be fairly irrelevant to most of the game- something you don't have access to at all until several chapters in)
Not really that big of a deal, considering the city of Baldur's Gate made no appearance in the second game.
Unrelated story, unrelated edition, unrelated... everything really. The Dev in the video even mentioned the city shown isn't Baldur's Gate, its somewhere else, and the crash site is 200 miles to the east. (Which to me suggests that, like the original game, the city is going to be fairly irrelevant to most of the game- something you don't have access to at all until several chapters in)
Not really that big of a deal, considering the city of Baldur's Gate made no appearance in the second game.
/Shrug/ Something that doesn't matter for a sequel with the same story and carrying over the protagonist and supporting characters. And truthfully, Baldur's Gate wasn't even important in the original, the main quest takes you in and out of there pretty quick if you focus on it.
It matters more in a cynically marketed 'third game,' that doesn't do any of that. Or carry over the feel or structure. There are two decades of expectations for what 'BG3' was going to be like. I'll grant that doesn't matter to Larian's core audience, and rightly so. But that begs the question of who this is for. From the UI, it looks and feels like a Divinity sequel. From the Wizard's tie ins, its linked to the Descent to Avernus adventure module, and a lot of major differences between 5e and 2e. For the Baldur's Gate community they've....scrawled 'gather your party' under the logo as a subtitle. That's pretty cheap.
See that's funny, because I see people expressing entirely valid reasons they think the game will not be good on its own merits plus some additional complaints that it lays claim to a legacy it doesn't really make any effort to earn, and when I played ME:Andromeda I found it to be superior to the two numbered sequels to the original(and only really good) ME game and most of the complaints to be ludicrously overblown nitpickery.
Yodhrin wrote: when I played ME:Andromeda I found it to be superior to the two numbered sequels
I couldn't tell you how good it was, I was too busy falling through the floor or having important story missions be unable to be finished because of how buggy and unfinished it was.
Yodhrin wrote: when I played ME:Andromeda I found it to be superior to the two numbered sequels
I couldn't tell you how good it was, I was too busy falling through the floor or having important story missions be unable to be finished because of how buggy and unfinished it was.
honestly, for me it was the opposite. I thought the story was lackluster for Andromeda, and the gameplay to be the best in the series. I never encountered any of the glitches people freaked out about and I was a day 1 buyer.
I hace Baldurs Gate 3 on my wishlist, however considering I slept on both divinity games, and couldn't get more than an hour into baldurs gate 1 before I lost interest. I probably won't end up buying it. This is one of those weird genres where I like the idea of playing them more than I like actually playing them.
Yodhrin wrote: when I played ME:Andromeda I found it to be superior to the two numbered sequels
I couldn't tell you how good it was, I was too busy falling through the floor or having important story missions be unable to be finished because of how buggy and unfinished it was.
honestly, for me it was the opposite. I thought the story was lackluster for Andromeda, and the gameplay to be the best in the series. I never encountered any of the glitches people freaked out about and I was a day 1 buyer.
For me it was the writing. When the flirt option (and it was the only flirt option available) with an NPC was my character literally asking "What do I have to do to get you to flirt with me?" I accepted that it was not for me.
So I went back and replayed the 3 other games instead and enjoyed Garrus/FemShep all over again. Testing out his reach and my flexibility and him savouring the last shot before popping the heat sink. His and Tali's romances were the best in the series, I think. The romantic part not beginning until the second game really helped them feel more like a real love story than, say, Ashley or Kaidan as it felt that it took time for them to get to know each other and that their feelings grew over the course of the story. Just felt like it developed naturally, in my opinion.
Spelljammer ships in it, but the old story done and in a box.
