In the days after Baldur's Gate 3 came out, I observed a subtle rift within its audience. While the response to the game was overwhelmingly positive, there was a notable divide between players who were finding even the first few hours genuinely difficult, and those who were rattling through the first act. I saw it on social media, I saw it among my friends and colleagues. And over time, I came to realize that there was a single factor fuelling that divide: how well the player knew D&D.
It's no secret that Baldur's Gate 3 is a pretty direct adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. While Larian has made a few tweaks to rein in some of D&D's most complex mechanics and broken spells, its CRPG remains a faithful digital reincarnation of the classic TTRPG. That means that some legends of the game feature throughout Baldur's Gate 3 – Magic Missile, Sneak Attack, and Bards with +6 Persuasion, to name a few – but it also means that some of D&D's more complicated ideas have stuck around.
