This is how I feel. And honestly how the developers of BG3 seemed to feel. Additional context for other readers if not necessarily for you, but 3.5 and Pathfinder have a lot of what they call the “magical Christmas Tree effect” where someone using Detect Magic on a player character would see a magical aura around every single one of your body parts. Barring specific character build decisions there was usually a best-in-slot magical item for every place you could have one, and the difficulty curve of the game assumed that you would.
5e, especially early 5e, attempted to curb this. Magic items were rare and powerful, but more importantly interesting. Strict numerical bonuses were powerful but boring so they were mostly eliminated. Flash or nothing was the name of the game, and indeed some magical items literally do nothing but enhance looks.
BG3 said no to this. Many possible character builds can only be done, or are strongly encouraged, with sets of magic items. It was an attempt to add depth and choice back in while restricted by a system that had little of it.
Yeah, but unfortunately they kept 5e’s design principle of “you barely get any feats”. I want my characters to be interesting because of who they are, not because of what glowing doodads they looted from more interesting dead people.
Also class + level is so coarse. I’d rather be able to, like, buy individual things I want. Get XP for doing a quest, buy more sneak attack. Or a spell slot. Maybe hit dice. Really let me mix and match.
But DND 5e is designed to have a small decision space in builds. They want the half paying attention guy’s character to perform about as well as the optimizer, instead of the huge gap between those archetypes that 3e had.
I always thought it was the most interesting class because each power comes with a weakness, and they grow in power as you level up. Very X-Men like. Here’s some curse examples for people who don’t know what the class is about:
Clouded Vision - Your eyes are obscured, making it difficult for you to see. You cannot see anything beyond 30 feet, but you can see as if you had darkvision
Wrecker - The destructive power of the Abyss and its teeming hordes of demons seeps from your very pores and into your belongings and surroundings. Held objects gain the broken condition when you use or equip them but regain their actual condition if employed by anyone else. Disable Device becomes a class skill for you and you can make checks to destroy non-magical traps as a move action without the need to use tools or take any action beyond simply touching it.
It’s one of the reasons I love Pathfinder more than DnD. So much variety and creativity in the classes. More reading
Clouded vision was the curse/perk I wanted to pick! It looks so fun to play. And my vision sucks so I could lean into that aspect of my self for the character rather than something more annoying
BG3’s Devs didn’t feel like 5E was too shallow, iirc they said that their next game wouldn’t be 5E because it was too complex and they felt it didn’t correctly fit what they wanted in a game. Have you checked the divinity games? Their systems are much, much simpler than 5E is.
I’m hyped beyond belief for the next divinity game, Divinity, but I warn you, the game system will be much simpler.
Either way it’s a system designed for pen and paper, which inevitably imposes some limits compared to something custom tailored for a video game format from the get go.
This is how I feel. And honestly how the developers of BG3 seemed to feel. Additional context for other readers if not necessarily for you, but 3.5 and Pathfinder have a lot of what they call the “magical Christmas Tree effect” where someone using Detect Magic on a player character would see a magical aura around every single one of your body parts. Barring specific character build decisions there was usually a best-in-slot magical item for every place you could have one, and the difficulty curve of the game assumed that you would.
5e, especially early 5e, attempted to curb this. Magic items were rare and powerful, but more importantly interesting. Strict numerical bonuses were powerful but boring so they were mostly eliminated. Flash or nothing was the name of the game, and indeed some magical items literally do nothing but enhance looks.
BG3 said no to this. Many possible character builds can only be done, or are strongly encouraged, with sets of magic items. It was an attempt to add depth and choice back in while restricted by a system that had little of it.
Yeah, but unfortunately they kept 5e’s design principle of “you barely get any feats”. I want my characters to be interesting because of who they are, not because of what glowing doodads they looted from more interesting dead people.
Also class + level is so coarse. I’d rather be able to, like, buy individual things I want. Get XP for doing a quest, buy more sneak attack. Or a spell slot. Maybe hit dice. Really let me mix and match.
But DND 5e is designed to have a small decision space in builds. They want the half paying attention guy’s character to perform about as well as the optimizer, instead of the huge gap between those archetypes that 3e had.
i really liked the… I think it was the Oracle class in pathfinder. that would be fun.
I always thought it was the most interesting class because each power comes with a weakness, and they grow in power as you level up. Very X-Men like. Here’s some curse examples for people who don’t know what the class is about:
It’s one of the reasons I love Pathfinder more than DnD. So much variety and creativity in the classes. More reading
Clouded vision was the curse/perk I wanted to pick! It looks so fun to play. And my vision sucks so I could lean into that aspect of my self for the character rather than something more annoying
BG3’s Devs didn’t feel like 5E was too shallow, iirc they said that their next game wouldn’t be 5E because it was too complex and they felt it didn’t correctly fit what they wanted in a game. Have you checked the divinity games? Their systems are much, much simpler than 5E is.
I’m hyped beyond belief for the next divinity game, Divinity, but I warn you, the game system will be much simpler.
Either way it’s a system designed for pen and paper, which inevitably imposes some limits compared to something custom tailored for a video game format from the get go.