Why 5th Edition? Breaking Down Baldur's Gate 3's Choice In D&D Ruleset That Powers The RPG

mmorpg.com:

As we creep closer and closer to the actual release date for  Baldur’s Gate 3 , there’s been an almost explosion of hype across the internet. Along with the standard screenshots from the Early Access, and the debates about companions and character builds, there’s also been a surprising amount of new players that are being brought into the franchise and are asking for help. A surprising amount of them have no prior experience in D&D, and feel more than a bit lost and confused on mechanics.

Baldur’s Gate is a franchise that takes place in one of the popular world settings for the D&D tabletop game- Forgotten Realms. Prior versions used different systems and mechanics, and now that the third iteration of the franchise has moved on to 5th Edition (5e) and the DOS engine (Divinity: Original Sin), some long-time fans are also more displeased with the fact that their beloved franchise is different than perhaps what they were hoping for. As much as I dislike Wizards of the Coast for their poor handling of the OGL and their edition issues, 5e is probably the best possible rules system of D&D to use for a computer game. It’s not as complicated and contradictory as older editions, it doesn’t have all that many moving parts, but it has enough character growth to feel good to play so that your characters feel like they can impact the world. And I say that as someone who would far rather play a Pathfinder 1e or 3.5e game if given a choice. It’s just that, for all the things I dislike in how the tabletop system operates, it actually translates really, really well to an RPG played on PC or console. The frustrations of not having all the options for character builds is actually a downside for coders and programmers, and even