“We’re two different beasts, and we just want to make sure that people understand the scope of Solasta 2 and have the right level of expectation around it.”
Man, i wish that game (both of them really) was based off a good system. 5e is easily the worst (serious) ttrpg on the market and it ruins even bg for me. Owlcat really are the saviors of the genre for not shying away from making games in real systems.
I keep seeing this sentiment and I just don’t get it. From the perspective of someone who has never played a TTRPG and whose only experience with 5e is BG3, it is an incredible system compared to other CRPGs I’ve played.
It is simple enough to get into quickly and complex enough to remain interesting for hundreds of hours. Small numbers + simple math + transparent formulas make it very easy to understand what is happening why and how build decisions influence combat.
Meanwhile in Rogue Trader, I barely understand what any of the stats actually do or how damage is calculated. How much more damage am I going to do by putting point into offensive stats? How do defensive stats influence the damage received? On top of that every levelup presents you with dozens of options for traits for every single character in your party. How am i supposed to make an informed decision here? Just reading through them all would probably take an hour. I ended up just using build guides and getting bored because just picking the options someone else tells you to is not very exciting. The Pathfinder games are much the same in complexity from what I’ve seen.
If someone has some tips to get into those systems I’d appreciate it. I’d like to get into Pathfinder/Rogue Trader, but it just looks like way to much work until you get to the fun part.
First and foremost; owlcat is a bad DM. I prefer the games, but they assume you are a veteran (and a specific type of veteran at that!). If you want to understand them you’re best bet is to just go make an actual Pathfinder character (aonprd.com is the entire ruleset of Pathfinder released for free), it’ll help you get a basic idea of what things actually do what. As far as RT? No advice there, i just played until it clicked (although you don’t have to be an expert for RT).
As for ttrpgs in general though ::: spoiler spoiler 5e is very bad. If you go look at actual simple games it’ll be clear just how complicated 5e actually is. World/Chronicles of darkness is a great example of an actual simple ruleset; you get 9 stats and a handful of skills, you just put a specific number of points into those things (up to level 5 usually) at character creation and the rest of it is RP. If you want to do something you roll that many dice and anything above a 7 (in Chronicles, it changes in world) means you usually succeed at what you’re doing. More dice above a 7 means you do it better.
From a player perspective all that extra complexity doesn’t actually provide many options to customize your character. You get to pick a set class and a set subclass. Congratulations you’re finished. Everything else is flavor. Sure, many simpler games I’d recommend have just as much flavor, but they also often have more freedom in making your character mechanically too.
As a DM? Oh boy, that’s where 5e catches fire. It doesn’t give you any of the tools you need. CR? Literally doesn’t mean anything. All balance is vague vibes the DM has to figure out. The economy? Doesn’t exist, even if you spend money to get the extra book that has all the items (evil monetization btw) it still doesn’t tell you how much you should actually expect a player to have, or how much any individual magic item actually costs. Telling a story? It’s got no advice there either iirc, but the idea that it’s setting agnostic is very much a lie that gets in the way of new DMs :::.
If you want my recommendation on TTRPGs; play something simple that actually presents as simple, preferably one that doesn’t gouge your wallet like DnD does. Cain is very easy, the structure is easy on a DM and character creation is even easier. Chronicles of Darkness is more in depth and expects more out of a storyteller (it’s version of a DM) by virtue of being open ended, but it’s also very easy to make a character and the setting is immediately familiar to everyone (it’s just modern day earth but with horror stuff existing in the shadows). Cyberpunk has an app that makes character creation a walk in the park, but DMing it is a little more complicated than Cain.
Pathfinder is great if you want to learn it, but it’s an investment to learn.
I appreciate the detailed response.
I agree that individual classes in BG3 could offer more options. A lot of levelups are just “you have this passive now, period”, but I found multiclassing to fix that, by offering more interesting choices. Finding the right breakpoints for how much to invest into each class to get the most benefit was fun for me. I generally enjoy the min-maxing aspect of RPGs more than the roleplaying.
Most of your criticism seems to come from comparing it to other TTRPGs and I get that not enjoying DnD in TT will affect your enjoyment of a game like BG3, but I’m looking at this from a CRPG players perspective.
My comparisons are classic Fallout, Divinity, Rogue Trader, VtM - Bloodlines, Cyberpunk, etc. Compared to those games I enjoyed DnD as a system the most, but I will probably give Owlcats Pathfinder games a chance.
Yeah, for an alternative perspective 5e is great by crpg standards and tbh I think it is a great ttrpg, it just struggles due to its ubiquity and the fact that it’s design inherently limited its expansion.
Ubiquity is easy enough to understand, it’s so popular that a lot of people have gotten tired of it, especially given the limits.
And the limits are real. It was meant to be greatest hits edition, so every class is meant to feel unique. This is unique features, aesthetics, even spell lists, further expanded with subclasses. Then there was an attempt to balance classes. Also a great thing to do, but good balance is really difficult and they often chose tastes over balance (after a certain point martials fall behind spellcasters). Ultimately these and a few other elements resulted in the ability to choose between 9 (later 10) classes with a handful of subclasses, and that’s more or less it for your character customization. Feats are an optional rule, and as such there aren’t that many and most aren’t much better than the ability score increase, except the handful that are broken. They couldn’t really introduce new classes and they only added a handful of extra subclasses per class over the years. All this means that when you’ve played 5e for a while it’s easy to find yourself in a position where your character feels pre-made, especially if you have a preferred archetype.
There are other less than perfect design decisions as well like balancing around a larger number of daily encounters than most players will experience ever, much less averaging at.
Popular alternatives tend to run into 3 categories, each with their own issues.
-You have 3-likes, such as pathfinder 1 (pf1) which has a ton of customization and typically so fucking little balance that if you’re new you’re going to want to ask someone to review every idea you have.
-You’ve got 4-likes like pathfinder 2e (which I personally wish I could play without having to dm), which often face criticism for being overly gamey and samey, they show their math and utilize known techniques to ensure balance. Character creation can feel dry, especially the books, but you have lots of options and it’s hard to make a character that isn’t useful and even harder to make one that doesn’t need the rest of the party. I stand by that more people would like them if they gave them a chance.
-Then you’ve got more PBTA games where the rules are lighter and it’s more focused on collaborative storytelling. Those who like them prefer them, but fundamentally it’s just a different type of game.
Personally I’d love to see some more pathfinder style attempts at the 5e vibe, because I do think 5e captured the vibe of what a quintessential ttrpg could feel like. I just am kinda tired of it specifically.
I can see how the lack of build variety can get boring. People who are into TTRPGs probably spent way more time with DnD than I did. For me the entire system was something completely fresh with BG3, which probably made me enjoy it so much.
And I’d like to add, I’m really excited for when pathfinder 2 makes it to crpgs.
Yeah it’s worth adding that 5e is over a decade old at this point. When it was new it was wildly popular with ttrpg people too. It’s also definitely a bit of a “after over a decade of it many are tired of it”
Personally i think Pathfinder is one of the better ttrpgs to make into a crpg. It has meaningful choice at almost every level and during play, while 5e kinda has neither of those. If you’re interested in the Pathfinder games the second one (wrath) is way more polished, but adds the mythic system (basically a powerful extra class) on top of the base character building so it’s a little more complex and difficult.
If you’re interested there is a starfinder game coming out this year based on starfinder 2e (which is just Pathfinder 2e in space). I don’t know much about the developer, but the system is more streamlined than 1e with a focus on mechanical balance and an action point system instead of the old style standard/full/bonus/etc system.
I’m just past act 1 in Kingmaker, and even having seen 4 level ups, I don’t think they’ve been noticeably more interesting than 5e, and this is quite similar to the Pillars of Eternity games (I never played 3.5e or Pathfinder tabletop, but I’m pretty sure I understand the lineage there). Plenty of level ups are just putting points into a handful of those skills that, at least in CRPG form, don’t really manifest in interesting gameplay the way they do in Larian’s engine, or even the passive checks that happen in Solasta.
As I see it, 5e’s main advantage is speeding up the math, which matters a lot more when you’re calculating it by hand. The main thing I prefer about it other than that is that it’s a flatter character progression. Using Pathfinder: Kingmaker as an example, a single level up’s worth of to-hit and armor class turned a Bear-Like Ent from “nearly impossible” to “trivially easy”, and I saw the same phenomenon play out plenty of times in Pillars as well. In 5e, you do get more powerful, but not by orders of magnitude like those 3.5-based systems, which makes any given encounter feel more tactical rather than feeling like you should have just gained a level to trivialize it.
I’m guessing you’re referring to Starfinder: Afterlight. I’ll look into it once it’s released.
As for the action point system, DnD’s action system was one of my favorite parts about it. Most action point based systems I’ve seen so far have balancing issues that seem difficult to get rid of.
For example in Fallout going from 9 AP to 10 AP effectively doubles your damage output, because it lets you attack twice per turn, so anything less than 10 agility is just bad. In Divinity I always felt bad about having to waste AP on movement on melee characters, whereas ranged characters can spend almost all their AP on attacking.
DnD’s system on the other hand is less flexible, but more consistent in that I rarely get into a situation where I can’t do anything meaningful on my turn, because I had to spend all my AP on movement.
5E was very successful for what it was intended to do: make D&D approachable and simple for the casual mainstream audience at the expense of absolutely everything else.
Which yes, unfortunately makes it very unsuitable for use in video games.
Oh I’m not suggesting it wasn’t a successful scam, the general audience always manages to be dumb and gullible. I’m saying it’s all around terrible and by far the worst real ttrpg maybe ever. I wouldn’t even recommend it to a new player because it’s both too complicated yet somehow entirely hollow.
It’s just bloated with historical baggage, this hobby has way too many hyperbolic “critics”. 5e probably isn’t even the worst version of Dungeons & Dragons, let alone many major games like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, or Vampire: the Masquerade that have serious structure and culture problems
5e probably isn’t even the worst version of Dungeons and Dragons
THAC0 and Descending AC have entered the chat
They’re just awkwardly presented, the core mechanic is essentially the same as what we have now the numbers just go a different direction.
Out of the three you mentioned only shadowrun is anywhere close to as bad as 5e, and at least shadowrun is infinitely more fun if you actually get it.
it’s both too complicated yet somehow entirely hollow.
That they managed this feat is truly a marvel, but for me I think the worst part of 5E is how little help it gives the DMs.
I’m not sure it’s the worst system ever though, there are some stinkers out there.
Worst real system. I could name some that are just straight up art projects or actual memes, but systems actually meant for real people to play them? No contest.
And yes it’s almost fascinating how they made it so complex but with absolutely nothing to actually do. It might be the editing? Not sure.
I’d love for you to explain what you mean. I’m not exactly thrilled about wizards themselves but 5e is fine. I do prefer other systems but to say it’s the worst is insane given 4e exists.
Alright. For one example 5e has basically no real character creation yet it’s still way to complicated to make a character, and that extends out to every part of the experience. The economy? Doesn’t exist. Exploration? No tools for it on either the DM or player side. Combat? Very few options unless you homebrew (which is generally a bad thing to rely on) yet still complicated enough to take ages for a new player. Roleplay? The least complicated problem in that it has no systems to support it what so ever, but that removes any selling point as well. They’re are some issues outside of the game (like the monetization) and likely a lot of smaller issues i don’t remember as well, since it’s been a long time.
And yes 4e is better than 5e. I dislike both, but 4e just isn’t for me where as 5e is bad at what it does.
Edit: it mostly boils down to being complicated without actually having choices or even giving you tools to run the game. Pathfinder is a complex, maybe even bloated, game, but that complexity exists to give you the opportunity to do more. In 5e it exists to be more verbose with something that could have been edited down to a single booklet.
What do you mean by there’s no character creation exactly? I’m not sure I understand what you think is missing there. I will die on the hill that 4e is far worse. Also I actually don’t mind the lack of exploration for example I homebrew almost everything anyway I’m running Daggerheart currently. There’s plenty for combat if you treat combat as a group exercise instead of a solo one although yeah martial is a bit lacking
Character creation is stupidly truncated, there is very little you can actually do to make a character yours when compared to more complex systems, while still being bloated by any other standard.
I got what you meant but what is it that you would want? What’s an example of character creation you like?
That actually sounds pretty fun
