Baldur's Gate 3 - Panel From Hell 3 Livestream

Redglyph said:

OK, that's interesting, I thought the DM would be more .. rigid about it, and would rather prepare the same surprises in the conversations so that you wouldn't necessarily know whether skills should be boosted or not. Unless you asked questions before the dialogue, to get some hints.

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A GM is under no obligation to make every solution work, but they shouldn't outright reject a valid attempt.

Like in my example from above, a GM could assign a very high DC to that bluff attempt. Or they could even decide that the guards all know each other in their very elite unit and that there was no way a bluff could EVER work….but what a GM shouldn't/couldn't do is flat out tell the player they can't try to bluff. (A good GM would probably ask for an insight roll, and if successful, warn the player about their imminent failure). You can try to tell your mom that you didn't eat the cookies while crumbs fall off your lips, even though it's never going to work.

It's like that for any valid action in the rules. The GM doesn't arbitrarily pick and choose which valid skills, spells, etc the player can use in a particular situation. But they very much can adjudicate how those attempts work out. In a computer game, because every response has to be anticpated and coded, the developers DO have to pick and choose which things can be used in a particular situation.

Redglyph said:

I'm not sure I understand, let me know if I'm wrong.

Normally one casts the spell or drink the potion before starting the conversation. For example, the player drinks Eagle Splendor to boost CHA before talking.

In a P&P game, you do that because you expect it to be necessary. But in a video game you don't know if you expect it, so you'd rather have the possibility to buff once you see it's necessary. That's what I understand from your discussion with others above.

The bit that is unclear is why you don't expect it in a video game while you do in a P&P game. If you start talking with an NPC, most of the time it's on purpose,
to progress in a quest or to get access to something. Usually someone else told you about that NPC. So you must suspect whether they may need persuading or not.

- Do you get more information before talking in your P&P game? If so, it's probably bad design in the video game. One should be able to inspect the NPC and get clues like "this one looks cunning, the conversation will surely be tricky".

- Or does the DM add persuasion rolls in the dialogue if you boosted CHA prior to it, in P&P? Which sounds a bit strange to me, but perhaps a case could be made for the game to do the same. It doesn't feel logical though, so I probably misunderstood that part.

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Valid questions!

It's actually your first assumption. In my experience video games aren't good enough yet to reliably tell the player if the usage of a certain skill will be possible in an upcoming event (e.g. dialogue). And for me it's just too much of a hassle to buff myself before an event just to find out that the designer hasn't intended a certain skill usage. So I wasted a spell and would reload.

In P&P that's different, because you know your DM and your group's culture. Also as a player I can more or less force a skill usage (within reason). If there's an NPC my PC can talk to then there's hardly a valid reason why the DM should forbid the usage of persuasion skill. Even if a successful persuasion doesn't help in the quest at all, my PC would still be able to do it, it auf least tex it. In a video game there most likely wouldn't be a dialogue option, if persuading the NPC wouldn't be in any way helpfull for the PC.

I know that the system shown in BG3 makes it a little too easy for the player in some cases, or said the other way round: it doesn't reward the players who think ahead.
But for me personally this system is the better design.

As always it would be nice for this to be customizable, like a switch to "enable spontaneus buff option in dialogues" in the game settings.

I just read Larian update and there is good news: Backstabbing characters no longer provides Advantage on attack.

Morrandir said:

In Solasta my fighter did more damage than my backstabbing rogue. So if backstab is roughly equally implemented in BG3 I don't think is OP. But then again, I haven't played BG3 yet… so you should know better.

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Mine too, but only because it had 4 attacks and 20 strength

Telstar said:

Mine too, but only because it had 4 attacks and 20 strength

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Oh, how did you get 4? Dual wield?

Morrandir said:

Oh, how did you get 4? Dual wield?

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No, 2h weapon. But an extra action triggered very often, not sure the conditions.