Fate Unwoven
Baldur’s Gate III Toolkit (Unlocked) // Baldur’s Gate III
Systems Design & Balancing, Isometric RPG Design, Exploration & Storytelling
Level Summary
“Fate Unwoven” is a systems & exploration-focused single player (& co-op) level for Baldur’s Gate III. Tasked with a rescue mission in the ruins of a fallen magocracy, players must master a custom wizard subclass focusing on dunamancy: the study of potentiality, gravity, and time.
Design Goals
Custom Wizard Subclass
Implement and balance a custom wizard subclass that fits within the base game
Exploration & Storytelling
Players free to explore a level filled with unique interactions & environmental storytelling
3D-Isometric RPG Design
Expand my design experience to utilize BG3’s camera system to support the player
Implementation Details
Custom Wizard Subclass
For this project, I wanted to implement and balance a custom wizard subclass based off of Critical Role’s “dunamancy”: a study of magic based on potentiality and probability.
For this project, I implemented three “minimum viable product” spells and one class feature, as well as designed three additional “stretch goal” spells. I wanted to create interesting spells that meaningfully contributed to the BG3 spell library: spells that encourage players to use them in fun and creative ways.
I tracked all of my balancing in Microsoft Excel, and began by planning out my spells, encounters, and other key stats. This helped me keep on an eye on all the variables I had to consider, and gave me a central location to see how everything worked together.
Wormhole
The first spell I created was “Wormhole”: a 3rd-level utility spell that allows the caster to teleport another entity - both allies and enemies. This spell gives the caster the chance to control the battlefield and the key positioning of entities.
In the example below, the caster uses the spell on Karlach to skip some difficult terrain and enter into melee range of a difficult-to-reach enemy.
Temporal Chaos
Leaning into the “time” aspect of dunamancy, I created “Temporal Chaos”: a 4th-level debuff/boost spell that has a chance to pull an entity through time, skipping their turn with a roll from a custom Wild Magic table.
This spell can be used as a high risk, high reward spell: it can provide your party with the edge they need to turn the tide of a battle, or may benefit the enemy! Or, especially daring players can cast it on their allies to see if the Wild Magic is in their favour.
Gravity Fissure
Utilizing the graviturgy aspect of dunamancy, the final spell I implemented was “Gravity Fissure”: a 5th-level damage/wall spell that has a chance to push or pull entities away from or towards it.
This spell can be used to drastically change the environment of a battlefield, creating a deadly wall of force for foes and friends alike.
Exploration & Storytelling
One of the key features of Baldur’s Gate III is the commitment to filling every nook and cranny with things for players to explore. Even within this linear level, I worked to uphold this core pillar, from hidden riddles & puzzles to non-critical path encounters with special loot.
One example of this is the “Gilded Mirror”, an optional riddle the player can engage with for some loot and some extra insight into the fallen civilization they are exploring.
Many of my interactions and encounters had Osiris scripting going on in the background. Though it took me a second to get used the declarative language, I enjoyed having deeper control over level mechanics to create fun interactions!
While I did not have the scope during this short development cycle to feature many NPCs and conflicting factions, I was able to use environmental storytelling to weave a narrative throughout the level. It doesn’t have to be complex to be a compelling story!
3D-Isometric RPG Design
While I’ve developed several levels for RPGs, I wanted to take on the challenge of adapting my design skills to BG3’s detachable, 360° isometric camera. Though my basic design principles stayed the same, there were several adjustments I had to make for this style of level.
One aspect I had to spend a bit of extra time on was scale. Since players can see so much more of the level / see the level from a higher vantage point, I realized I need to scale down my level a bit. Even in a space that was meant to feel grand, I found that constraining the physical space actually helped the space feel better. As an offshoot of this idea, I found that sloping the level slightly downhill helped the feel of the space immensely, providing a more natural movement for the party.
Keeping with this this theme, I worked to include Points of Interest every screen or two to make sure I was filling the level in a meaningful way. This naturally worked quite nicely with my goals for verticality - something that is very powerful in all games, but especially so with this camera. I was able to combine extreme verticality with environmental hazards to create fun and interesting challenges for players to overcome!
Design Process & Iteration
Especially with monitoring scope while teaching myself this unknown engine, I made some key level adjustments throughout my milestones.
On the physical side, the final boss encounter underwent significant changes. Through playtesting, I found that my original design put the player at too much of an initial disadvantage (and honestly, I felt that it wasn’t that interesting of an encounter). Adding more vertical layers while providing more cover and flank routes evened the odds considerably!
Additionally, I found that swapping the Displacer Beast out for a Spectator, as well as adding in a couple “fodder” ranged enemies drastically improved the interest and pace of the combat.
The final boss encounter at Whitebox (left) vs. Launch (right), with added routes & vertical layers
I also iterated on my custom spells: namely - how to make them stand on their own. I wanted these spells to offer something unique to the game, and gave players freedom to use them in creative ways.
For example, ‘Temporal Chaos’ originally did not have the Wild Magic surge on a failed save. I found this was too close to (and not as useful as) base-game spells such as “Confusion” or “Hold Person”. Adding the Wild Magic roll added some interesting behaviours while supporting the theme of dunamancy.
Part of what helped accomplish this was lessening mechanical constraints. Again for ‘Temporal Chaos’, I eventually opted to make the spell affect allies instead of only enemies. This way, players could truly “roll the dice” (pun intended): Wild Magic giveth, and Wild Magic taketh away!
Next Steps
While my initial development cycle has finished, I’m not done with this project! I’m looking forward to continuing to expand this campaign in a few key areas:
Publish: Publish my current mod as a “demo” version to get community feedback
Stretch Goals: Implement my “stretch goals”, such as additional spells & class features
Expand Narrative: Expand the campaign to include more NPCs & factions, similar to the full Baldur’s Gate experience
Post-Mortem
What Went Well
Scope
With so many risks, such as teaching myself a new engine (that I maybe shouldn’t have had access to?), I generally did a good job of monitoring and controlling my scope throughout this process.
Learning the Engine
In general, I’m really happy with how much I learned about this engine in such a short amount of time. I taught myself a good range of skills, from stats to level editing to Osiris scripting. I also am proud that I was able to share some of what I learned to help out other developers: we don’t hoard knowledge!
What Went Wrong
Scope
While in a lot of areas I scoped pretty well, there were some places that I did not. In particular, I focused more on gameplay polish rather than aesthetic polish in the later milestones as I tried to squeeze in more content. Though I think this made the level stronger, it was not an ideal pipeline!
What I Learned
Isometric, 360° Design
As discussed above, I learned quite a bit about the unique challenges for isometric, 360° design. It’s great to be able to build on my experience from first- and third-person design!
Supportive Systems
As this project had dual focuses of systems design and RPG design, I learned a lot about how to develop a system - in this case, my dunamancy subclass - in ways that allows players to use the system creatively. For me, this meant lessening a lot of my self-imposed restraints on the player so that I can see the crazy and fun ways they use dunamancy!
Gallery
