Baldur’s Gate 3’s Act One map proves the Druids and Goblins are incompetent

The main conflict at the start of Baldur’s Gate 3 involves multiple factions, but the small scale of the map proves that they’re all very bad at doing their jobs.

As Baldur’s Gate 3’s Acts are set across large maps with connecting smaller areas, they lose the benefit of D&D’s “moving at the speed of the plot.” In D&D, DMs never need to account for travel or scale, as players arrive exactly when they need to in order to tell the most interesting story possible.

Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t have this luxury, so you’re left with thriving settlements next to incredibly dangerous dungeons. It’s a wonder anyone can get anything done in the city of Baldur’s Gate when there are Death Knights hanging out in the sewers, to say nothing of the secret cults seemingly everywhere.

Scale is a big issue in Act I, as pointed out by users on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Reddit. The Druid Grove exists right next to a nest of Harpies: monstrosities outside of the animal kingdom that lure people to their deaths, yet no one does anything about them.

There is also the issue of the Goblins trying to find the Druid Grove, which is a major storyline in Act I, despite the two being a short walk from each other.

“I always assume that distances on BG3 maps are heavily compressed, so the harpy nest might “actually” be farther away than it is in-game,” one user explained, while another said, “Kagha was probably hoping some Tieflings would wander there and get themselves killed tbh.”

One common answer involves an inaccurate scale. “Tbh I assumed the game map isn’t to scale. People keep looking for things that are right around the corner,” one user said, while another responded, “It would be basically impossible for the Goblins not to find the Grove if their camp was minutes away and they already have scouts as far as Moonhaven, which you can see from the Grove’s gate.”

It seems that Larian is expecting some suspension of disbelief when it comes to map size. After all, if the locations were a more realistic distance from each other, then you’d either have a lot more boring walking or more separation of areas (like the Githyanki creche).

In this case, a bit of disbelief improves the game, even if it does make the Druids and Goblins look incompetent.