Incompatibility between Find Familiar and Animal Companion. Plus some balancing concerns.

[Mizzles]

An issue I noticed in the game is that the Animal Companion and Find Familiar are mutually exclusive for the ranger. The Familiar is not a concentration spell, and neither is the Animal Companion, both are class features.

In my opinion they should both be available at the same time. The concern here is that any summoned monsters; or conjured creatures will also be incompatible with the Familiar and/or animal companion from both the ranger, Warlock, Wizard and other classes. I'm not terribly far in the game and conjuration spells don't really seem to be in yet for PCs so I'm pretty sure this is an oversight or stop-gap functionality. Warlocks in particular benefit from high-cost efficiency spells like summoning and are more highly impacted by this.

The Familiars in general are definitely over-performing compared to TT, but my expectation is that it's because it costs a spell slot each day from the non-ranger casters.

Ideally the familiar shouldn't cost a spell slot for the wizard since it's normally a ritual cast spell, taking it as a learned spell should probably be the inherent cost. As it is though, the Familiar would be absolutely worth the Magic Initiate feat for any class, the blind alone from the Raven is highly abuseable, and there seems to be a bug where Fly is a free action. This allows you to walk in, blind, and fly out without provoking any AOOs.

Anyway, in general the Familiars are extremely good and probably need to be weakened and in exchange made more usable for existing casters.

I have some other concerns regarding class abilities, but definitely need to invest some more time, the big one for me right now is Arcane Recovery, it needs a once-over as it seems to recover too many spells compared to other classes currently in the game. If it remains as it is and recovers every spell slot instead of spell levels = to half caster level they will significantly outperform Warlocks daily spell recovery even with the assumed one SR per LR built into the game (At level 4 the warlock has 2 level 2 spell slots and can recover 2 once per day through a SR. The Wizard has 4 level 1, and 2 level 2, and can recover all 6 once per day).

Warlocks were bad in TT, but they weren't THIS bad relatively speaking.

There are also some issues with highly abusable action/bonus action interactions. The worst offender I noticed is that you can perform an action to cast a spell, or shoot a sneak attack arrow, move, then use a bonus action to use an off-hand weapon attack. This is pretty funky when used with a spell-caster like the Warlock, or more importantly, a Ranger, Rogue, or Fighter. In the case of the Rogue you can sneak attack an arrow, then move and bonus action off-hand. This is normally restricted in TT by action economy. You can't switch from shooting to dual-wielding for no actions. You also can only use the off-hand attack if you use the attack action. My last bug-bear with Duel-Wielding in general is that you shouldn't ever use the DW stance. If you attack in close range with DW toggled it automatically throws your bonus action attack at the same target, this is pretty bad since frequently you don't want to do that.

In summary:

1. Familiars are incredibly powerful, and need to be toned back in exchange for better usability. The Imp or Quasit might need an HP buff or something, but I haven't tested that enough yet. Find Familiar/Animal Companion/Summons/Pact of the chain familiars need to all be possible to field all at once. Enemy fighters SHOULD also try to make cost effective attacks at Familiars to remove them to prevent them from being this dominant. Frequently the Raven just gets ignored and racks up an upsetting number of blinds in a close melee. IDEALLY, an enemy caster just Magic Missiles it, or a enemy Dual-wielder hits it with an offhand after stabbing your fighter with a MH attack.

2. There is some serious issues with the implementation of Arcane Recovery and the impact it will have on Caster class balance. Wizards are already good. Do they need to recover spells better than everyone else as well?

3. Action/Bonus action economy for Duel-Wielding is very abuseable. There are also probably some usability changes that should be implemented for DWing to prevent players from accidentally spending their bonus action on their main-hand attack target. It's pretty bad when the one-hand stance is superior to the DW stance in practicality.

Thank you so much if you made it this far, I worked for a Game Studio for over 7 years; but I have a tendency to ramble. I noticed a lot more while playing, but chalked a lot of it up to EA implementation. So far I'm loving the game and as a big fan of DOS, BG and DND I hope this feedback is helpful.

EDIT: Wanted to add that I completely understand things from Tabletop need to be changed to fit the media, or create a more balanced experience. That's totally expected and I don't particularly have an issue with the several significant ways that BG 3 deviates from the 5e ruleset. Just commenting on things that I couldn't find discussion on, and seemed like they might be problematic.

[Hobocop]

I'm not seeing the issue with Arcane Recovery since it works pretty much exactly as it does in the sourcebooks. The main issue is the one short rest between long rests limit which severely hampers Warlocks.

[teksuo]

yeah if you pick animal companion your familiar is wasted. feels kind of wasteful.

the others can benefit from their early skills, seems unfair.

thats why my ranger picks the other option on that level up.

[Mizzles]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

I'm not seeing the issue with Arcane Recovery since it works pretty much exactly as it does in the sourcebooks. The main issue is the one short rest between long rests limit which severely hampers Warlocks.

The version in BG 3 does not work like the one in 5e tabletop. I'll explain further.

In 5e:

Arcane Recovery: You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your Spellbook. Once per day when you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended Spell Slots to recover. The Spell Slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your Wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

So, for example, if you’re a 4th-level Wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of Spell Slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level Spell Slots. This means that a warlock would recover 2 level 2 spell slots on any short rest, and a Wizard would recover two spell levels worth of spells. That's a massive difference in spell recovery between 5e and BG3. Obviously I don't think there is a problem with changing Arcane Recovery to be simply usable once per LR outside of combat.

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by Mizzles:

Originally posted by Hobocop:

I'm not seeing the issue with Arcane Recovery since it works pretty much exactly as it does in the sourcebooks. The main issue is the one short rest between long rests limit which severely hampers Warlocks.

The version in BG 3 does not work like the one in 5e tabletop. I'll explain further.

In 5e:

Arcane Recovery: You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your Spellbook. Once per day when you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended Spell Slots to recover. The Spell Slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your Wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

So, for example, if you’re a 4th-level Wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of Spell Slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level Spell Slots. This means that a warlock would recover 2 level 2 spell slots on any short rest, and a Wizard would recover two spell levels worth of spells. That's a massive difference in spell recovery between 5e and BG3. Obviously I don't think there is a problem with changing Arcane Recovery to be simply usable once per LR outside of combat.

That's exactly how it works in BG3, though? My Gale at Level 3 (functionally identical to Level 4 thanks to rounding) gets the option of recovering either two level 1 slots or 1 level 2 slot. Identical to tabletop. Again, the real problem is that you only get one short rest before you have to take a long rest, which makes the Warlock's main benefit kinda useless.

[Mizzles]

Originally posted by Hobocop:

Originally posted by Mizzles:

The version in BG 3 does not work like the one in 5e tabletop. I'll explain further.

In 5e:

Arcane Recovery: You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your Spellbook. Once per day when you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended Spell Slots to recover. The Spell Slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your Wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

So, for example, if you’re a 4th-level Wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of Spell Slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level Spell Slots. This means that a warlock would recover 2 level 2 spell slots on any short rest, and a Wizard would recover two spell levels worth of spells. That's a massive difference in spell recovery between 5e and BG3. Obviously I don't think there is a problem with changing Arcane Recovery to be simply usable once per LR outside of combat.

That's exactly how it works in BG3, though? My Gale at Level 3 (functionally identical to Level 4 thanks to rounding) gets the option of recovering either two level 1 slots or 1 level 2 slot. Identical to tabletop. Again, the real problem is that you only get one short rest before you have to take a long rest, which makes the Warlock's main benefit kinda useless.

You're right! I think I made a mistake when testing. I'm betting I popped it when I only had 2 level 1 spell slots to recover, and didn't get the option, or misunderstood the UI. XD

As an aside I like the way they adapted the protection fighting style for fighters, but need to figure out if Dueling works properly. Since it should work with 1h and shield, but the text seems to imply it works with one-hand and empty hand, do you happen to know how that one works? If not I need to test it lol.

[Hobocop]

Originally posted by Mizzles:

Originally posted by Hobocop:

That's exactly how it works in BG3, though? My Gale at Level 3 (functionally identical to Level 4 thanks to rounding) gets the option of recovering either two level 1 slots or 1 level 2 slot. Identical to tabletop. Again, the real problem is that you only get one short rest before you have to take a long rest, which makes the Warlock's main benefit kinda useless.

You're right! I think I made a mistake when testing. I'm betting I popped it when I only had 2 level 1 spell slots to recover, and didn't get the option, or misunderstood the UI. XD

As an aside I like the way they adapted the protection fighting style for fighters, but need to figure out if Dueling works properly. Since it should work with 1h and shield, but the text seems to imply it works with one-hand and empty hand, do you happen to know how that one works? If not I need to test it lol.

Haven't tried Dueling yet. I like Defense since AC is kind of at a premium with the current availability of armor, and its been working out.

[Mizzles]

Ya, historically I don't like defensive since it's not really that good outside cases like you're describing. It's just a flat 5% decrease to your chance to get hit. If anything I'd look at finding ways to buff it. Maybe a +1 ac, and a +1 ac while using a shield or off-hand weapon. Stuff like dueling and Great Weapon Fighter are the most popular because they can increase your average damage by a lot. Protection with the changes is like a what, 15% reduction for nearby allies to get hit?