I love the Baldur's Gate series. It was literally my first ever experience with the wider world of Dungeons & Dragons, outside of a few episodes of the D&D cartoon series.
And yet... it doesn't escape my mind that the AD&D 2e ruleset was kind of clunky.
So! I thought it couldn't hurt to ask: under a hypothetical 5e remake of the game line, what classes could you see various NPCs actually being?
* Minsc: I would definitely pin this guy as a Berserker Barbarian with Proficiency in Survival and Animal Handling. It matches with his lore and in-game abilities far better than the more "name accurate" Beastmaster Ranger - Boo is more like a familiar than a proper animal companion.
Jan Jansen: Multiclassed Artificer (Gunsmith) and either Wizard (Illusionist) with Proficiency: Sleight of Hand, or Rogue (Arcane Trickster). Gunsmith gives him an excuse for his Flasher-Master-Bruiser Mate, and the other class depends on whether you consider his illusionist spellcasting or his rogue's talents more important.
* Mazzy Fentan: Paladin of Devotion. I know she's not one in AD&D, but her entire status is really boiled down to a meta-humor joke on the AD&D stigma of racial class restrictions. I'd rather hoik the gag and play her straight.
Landon Long
>a hypothetical 5e remake Would be Skyrim reskin with dialogue choices limited to: Eager Yes, Yes, Sarcastic Yes, and Can You Repeat?
Landon Cruz
Imoen... honestly, given she starts the entire series as a rogue, and then picks up magic, my first thought for her is "Arcane Trickster Rogue".
Likewise, Nalia is an Arcane Trickster Rogue, which really works well with her "magic-aided vigilante do-gooder fluff". Yeah, it makes her identical to Imoen, but she was freaking well designed to be an Imoen Clone because Imoen was originally supposed to wind up dead/non-playable after Spellhold.
Edwin: Evoker Wizard. Literally a 1 to 1 transition here, although this version gets a lot more bang for his buck. I suppose you could argue he works better as a War Mage or a Loremaster, although I'd like to see those arguments first.
Oliver Flores
Also most of the content would be removed and the rest streamlined into a completely linear adventure with zero exploration left.
Also ugly CGI.
John Roberts
The game soul be easy as shit because 5e is D&D on tutorial mode. You would also have a gay Drizzt and s 50% chance of your character being a transgender because muh diversity.
Michael Young
I think that something similar to Neverwinter Nights would work well with 5e rather than 3.5e
>dialogue choices limited to: Eager Yes, Yes, Sarcastic Yes, and Can You Repeat? With Beamdog in charge I don't doubt this. The extra characters in BGII:EE and the disaster known as Siege of Dragonspear speak volumes about how they write their characters.
>Post a single paragraph where it states you can be whatever you like >It's not brought up even once throughout the entire rest of the book >DEGENERACY
Grow up.
Matthew Lewis
>Imoen: Bard (college of lore) >Jaheira: Cleric (nature)
Why not >Imoen: Rogue (Arcane Trickster) >Jaheira: Druid (Circle of the Land: Forest) + Armour feats
Sebastian Cook
Huh, why do you feel those classes make the most sense, in some of them?
Also, where are the King's Blood Sorcerer and the Spellthief Rogue coming from? I've never heard of them before?
Cameron Morales
I'd actually argue that Nature Cleric makes more sense for Jaheira; not just because of the whole "Fighter/Druid can wear metal armor" thing from the game, but off the top of my head, I don't recall... no, wait, Jaheira can officially shapeshift in Baldur's Gate, can't she? I could have sworn she didn't use that power, for some reason...
Christopher Cruz
Because when you multiclass Imoen she can learn any spells in the game. Having said that, I guess spellthief could work.
Insofar as Jaheira is concerned, why waste feats? She's much more martial than other druids already, just make her a nature cleric.
King's Blood Sorcerer is in the DM's guild, but it was officially endorsed by Unearthed Arcana so it's considered part of the UA release lineup.
When I said spellthief I meant Arcane Trickster; mea culpa.
Jaxson Anderson
Oh yeah? How about Volos guide where the choldriths "choose the gender identity of their goddess" and the kobolds who have no concept of monogamy and can switch genders over time? The kikes at Hasbro as slowly injecting D&D with SJW garbage. They're just keeping it subtle so that pussy fucks like you won't complain, you'll just say "grow up" while canceling yet another game session because you have to stay home and "watch the little guy" so that your wife can go out clubbing with her friends. Happy wife, happy life, right?
Caleb Rodriguez
Kobolds have never had a concept of monogamy.
Jason Moore
>choose the gender identity of their goddess
Given that that goddess is Lolth the Demon Queen of Spiders, who has literally never been portrayed as in any way good (and most recently in OotA basically destroyed half of Menzoberranzan because it was convenient for her to do so to further her goals in the Abyss), this can hardly be seen as a "good" thing.
> and the kobolds who have no concept of monogamy
I'll direct you to Races of the Dragon (published in 2006) for the earliest reference to that tidbit that I'm aware of, though I think it was brought up in a Dragon magazine earlier.
It's because it makes sense for them. They're an egg-laying fecund species that reproduces like crazy as a natural counter to the fact that they get killed off like crazy due to how physically weak they are. They're like rats. Rats aren't monogamous; why should kobolds be?
Colton Allen
In terms of in game abilities it would make more sense to switch Mazzy and Keldorn's oaths since Mazzy had haste and shit like that
Christopher Cook
>Jaheira: Cleric (nature) >Jaheira: Druid (Circle of the Land: Forest) + Armour feats You're both wrong.
Jahiera: Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
Owen Perez
>this can hardly be seen as a "good" thing.
Except drow are now a chaotic good ranger race so actually it is acceptable. Also i dont give a shit about obscure 3.x splatbooks, this is the fucking core rulebook.
Jeremiah Ross
Most drow are still evil. That's a meme.
Camden King
...
Jeremiah Bennett
Choldrith and kobolds are not in the core rulebook. You specifically brought up Volo's Guide, which is a 5e splatbook.
Races of the Dragon isn't an "obscure" 3.5e splatbook, either, it was a major release part of a "Races of..." series, and because it featured kobolds (a fan-favorite monster) so prominently it was actually hugely anticipated and fairly well-received...for its kobold parts. The rest of the stuff less so, to the point where it was nicknamed "Races of the Kobold Sorcerer".
However, you're objectively wrong about drow now being good, as my pic actually IS from the 5e core rulebook. Even as it presents them as an option, it takes the time to point out that the DM is free to disallow drow, and that drow are by and large evil bastards with just one noteworthy exception.
Which I personally think is bullshit, Liriel Baenre is noteworthy too, if for nothing else than the fact that her actions are directly responsible for drow magic (if not items) now functioning normally on the surface world. Then again I suppose it would be something of a stretch to call Liriel "Good". She's fairly solidly Neutral, maybe leaning Good.
Wyatt Scott
>but dm you HAVE to let me play a drow, I know they are rare but so are adventurers in general so ergo you should let me play a drow.
Why not just put them in the fucking monster manual where they belong. Why put something incompatible with 90% of D&D parties into the core book?
Justin Harris
>Why put something incompatible with 90% of D&D parties into the core book? Because the most well-known and well-liked stuff dealing with D&D are the games, followed by Salvatore's books. The subrace option is essentially fan service.
Sebastian Green
The videogames, that is--sorry, muddled my own point a little there.
Nolan Baker
Drow actually aren't incompatible with any party, it's just that a lot of DMs don't feel like putting in the effort.
Samuel Watson
There's a shit-ton of stuff in 5e that is designed to work in some settings but not others. They told us that 5e was going to be modular and to a large degree they've lived up to it. Not as much as I would have liked as I was rather hyped for one of the earlier, GURPS-like designs that was suggested, but it's still really clear that they're trying to build on options instead of just bolting things into an uber-setting.
Parker Gray
>Why not just put them in the fucking monster manual where they belong.
But they are in the monster manual
Jaxson Wright
>And yet... it doesn't escape my mind that the AD&D 2e ruleset was kind of clunky. no 1st ed, but it's still up there
Sebastian Cruz
>The extra characters in BGII:EE and the disaster known as Siege of Dragonspear speak volumes about how they write their characters. Really disliked the first EE because of the fanfic characters.
I can sort of understand the argument for some extra characters for more romance options. Men had three flavors of elf. Women had Anomen. Sure they could change Anomen into what they wanted, but that's probably not that exciting. I saw the romance as a very minor side thing though, so not something I thought about until someone brought it up.
Blake Miller
>Imoen: Bard (college of lore) There's no dual classing or class switching in 5e?
Oliver Cruz
Yeah 5e seems almost tailor made for a 3/17 split with a lot of classes.
No reason Imoen, at the BG2 level, couldn't find the levels to be a Rogue 2-3/Wizard X.
Colton Rodriguez
>Yeah 5e seems almost tailor made for a 3/17 split with a lot of classes. That's a shame. Abuseable in some systems, but I think having a character be able to take up a different path is fairly important in a story. Especially for classes like thieves.
Blake Wood
>And yet... it doesn't escape my mind that the AD&D 2e ruleset was kind of clunky. The only reason 5e isn't a clunky mess is because it has zero mechanical depth. There's literally nothing there.
Basically this is what would happen.
Aaron Wright
Yeah, back then Bioware made the romances a neat little easter egg to add depth to some of the characters. Now a significant portion of Bioware's fanbase buy their shit solely for the opportunity to play a AAA budgeted dating sim.
Oliver Lee
They are user.
Joseph Martinez
There is, but it's generally better to stick with one class, I believe. And besides which, the Big Conundrum of Imoen is whether to keep her as a thief or to dual her as a mage. But the 5e Bard is a full caster that can steal spells from other classes while also choosing any three skills to be proficient in, with two more from background, AND getting Jack-of-all-Trades and Expertise.
Basically - why choose between Rogue-Imoen and Wizard-Imoen, when you could just have both?
Jose Smith
>Really disliked the first EE because of the fanfic characters.
I'm hardly going to say that they were seamlessly integrated, but I actually liked Rasaad and Neera.
No opinion on Dorn or Baeloth, as I played a Good character with high Reputation, so Dorn didn't stick around and I didn't even bother trying to get Baeloth to.
>Women had Anomen.
Originally Haer'Dalis was supposed to be an option too, but it was cut for time, and, well, SEE my earlier post wherein I gave a 5e class and subclass to every BGII character for my opinion on him
Benjamin James
I agree with this user, honestly. Besides, 5e subclasses allow for so much greater depth - and multiclassing is so different to the formula used in 2e - that I, personally, would wanna stick with singleton classes wherever possible.
Jose Martinez
Those are all monster races you kill so who cares? Just Deus Vult them
Elijah Gutierrez
>I think that something similar to Neverwinter Nights would work well with 5e rather than 3.5e
No 4e vidya ever because wizards and hasbro dropped the fucking ball
Jose Morgan
NWN wasn't even 3.5, it was 3e, so it's even missing what few improvements 3.5 had
Julian Anderson
You can't blame hasbro for the murder-suicide
Zachary Rogers
Almost true. That last Neverwinter mmo is bound up in 4e stuff in a very weird way with its Great Weapon Fighter or Controller Wizard classes and 'dailies' that you can use every couple of minutes.
Cooper Gutierrez
kobolds and other shit are not humans, aliens are supposed to be alien
Jaxson Cox
>Basically - why choose between Rogue-Imoen and Wizard-Imoen, when you could just have both? Because it would fit her character more
Aiden Richardson
so Veeky Forums ruined d&d rather than /v/
inb4 >Veeky Forums >genre fiction
Ayden Clark
>There's literally nothing there. Don't sperg, user. 5e has so much depth in it.
Anthony Evans
The characters were always the best part, but that's slipping. Now Bioware goes out of their way to make their characters ugly and annoying to satisfy SJWs.
Ryder Reed
Y'know I always figured as much. Haer'Dalis would have been a pretty interesting Romance option; who else starts a relationship by being kidnapped to an interplanar prison?
