Random thoughts: just realized symmetrical and complex design is unnecessary

[yorname]

It's random, but I recently replayed BG1 and BG2 with SCS for the first time, and I didn't expect I'd say this, I hated it.

 

Yes it makes the games more fair and mages are doing what they are supposed to be capable of, but in a non-competetive game, fairness ≠ fun. There was no skill involved in the so called mage chess, you just remember what dispels what and go through the same automated process for every mage. Or don't and cheese them like unmodded. As a side effect non-casters can't even keep simple buffs like protection from fire on themselves. They must use the whole gear sets through the terrible inventory to have a chance to survive. As much as I hated Owlcat games, I could at least use mods for these repetitive things.

 

The funny thing is as I understand it, you aren't supposed to fight dozens of beholders at a time in DnD, that's why their abilities are so ridiculous. Now for the sake of "challenge" in SCS they become closer to their tabletop version, but you still fight dozens of them each time. Same thing as mage chess: doing it once in a while against your DM is probably fun, not in a video game where you run into a mage every five minutes.

No wonder Obsidian got out of their way to forbid pre-buffing in PoE, and didn't copy the fifty degrees of dispelling from DnD. I believe Larian deliberately avoided putting dispel magic in BG3 too. It's very much an unnecessary layer for the game.

[Lord_Mord]

1. You are totally right.
2. I still love BG1/2 with SCS.