How Much of D&D Is Actually in Baldur’s Gate 3?
Speaking of: it’d be a relatively easy transition, considering the bulk of Baldur’s Gate 3’s mechanical systems are taken right from the current 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Largely focused on the base player races and classes of 5th Edition’s Player’s Handbook, Baldur’s Gate 3 is, broadly, systematically very close to the tabletop game.
Some things have changed—obviously, without a DM the act of playing Baldur’s Gate 3 is very different to playing Dungeons & Dragons, and a lot of the dice rolling you’d do on the tabletop is automated for you in Baldur’s Gate 3’s combat and narrative elements. Larian also took the opportunity to make some quality of life changes to some of 5th Edition’s systems—characters don’t need prerequisite stats to multiclass in Baldur’s Gate 3, for example—and in particular some of its subclasses. But otherwise it is about as close to a video game version of Dungeons & Dragons as you’re going to get without playing D&D itself through a Virtual Tabletop system.
We’ve largely focused on narrative elements so far—so speaking of mechanics, let’s break down a few of the key D&D systems that are important to Baldur’s Gate 3, if a little confusing to newcomers…
