Baldur’s Gate 3 is now influencing actual D&D rules

Oh, how the tabletop has turned

Larian Studios

Larian Studios’ fantastic use of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition ruleset in its phenomenal CRPG Baldur’s Gate 3 has been widely celebrated and even key leadership figures in the D&D design team have been influenced by their experience playing the game.

One of them is Jeremy Crawford, lead designer of D&D 5E. In a video showcasing upcoming changes to the tabletop game’s core rulebook, Crawford at several points mentioned how his experience with Baldur’s Gate 3 influenced some of the incoming adjustments.

Chief among all those examples is a change to Cloud of Daggers, which is going to be a pretty significant buff to the spell. In the upcoming rule changes, casters will be allowed to move their Cloud of Daggers around, preventing enemies from easily leaving its area-of-effect.

Crawford commented that he thought about implementing this change for a while now, but that using it in Baldur’s Gate 3 gave him the final push to actually go through with it.

Another Baldur’s Gate 3 shoutout came with a section covering changes that will be made to the Cantrip Produce Flame, which will be made smoother to use in the future after Crawford ran into some clunkiness with it in Larian Studios’ game.

While Baldur’s Gate 4 won’t be made by Larian, which is moving on to a project of its own after delivering some final updates to its hitherto greatest hit, the hype around D&D in recent years is making sure that there are plenty of video game projects using the license on their way.

Aside from the mountain of awards Baldur’s Gate 3 deservedly won, it influencing the license it’s based on my be one of the greatest compliments the CRPG could receive.