Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

Cybsled · Sep 5, 2023

Balth fight is easy if you don’t care about the loot. Push him off edge of platform at start of turn and mop up the starting adds

Tuco · Sep 5, 2023

sleevedraw said:
Yurgir

I tried for like 15 minutes to trigger Yurgir's dialog and never could. He just instant aggro's me no matter how I approached that fight.

Phazael · Sep 5, 2023

I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.

Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.

But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.

Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.

And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.

Tuco · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter.

I got rekt by those gnolls when I was level 2. Noped my way into a lower level area and came back near the end of the act and curbstomped them. I think this was on balanced mode before I switched to Tactician.

For me Act 1 "meta" was all about trying to find the lowest level mobs available. I kept guessing wrong repeatedly which gave me a healthy respect for the mobs in the game and made me enjoy the difficulty. I think I got whipped by the gnolls, knights of tyr and spiders before teething on the goblin camp. Once I got some levels into and settled into some strong abilities (I did basically no research ahead of or during play, just tried stuff out) it was pretty easy even after jumping to Tactician.

Also git gud.

mkopec · Sep 5, 2023

sleevedraw said:
In latter Act 2 still. While I'm still having fun, definitely feels like things need some difficulty tuning. In particular, the fights against

Balthazar and Z'rell

need a nerf.

I did get past the former by pickpocketing his Haste potion and shutting down his spellcasting with Wizardsbane Oil, but Cloudkill when your characters are at levels 7 or 8 is bullshit unleaded. Second fight I just bypassed entirely; really glad that the option to do so is there. In that sense (that there's basically a way around every difficult encounter if you think outside of the box), I agree with Yahtzee's critique that the game is rewarding, but I definitely see the validity of it being frustrating as all hell for those without patience.

There is a few ways to deal with Balthazar when facing the nightsong thing. One way is just to push him off the ledge. Works well but you lose out on his lootz. Another is to gather up all the skellies sneaking around and putting them all in a pile, again, close to a ledge, so when he casts his mass corpse raising spell they are all in one area and you can push the majority of them off the ledge or use explosive or aoe to kill them fast. Or maybe, I have not tried, is jsut to take all the skellie bones and just throw them ober the ledge so you dont have to deal with any of that crap. You can counter spell his corpse raising spell as well. Not sure if he tries to cast it again, but you just have to deal with him then and not the 10 skellies. Im sure there are other ways to deal with that fight too. Although doable im sure im pretty sure youre not supposed to face him before nightsong, this is why they made that fight so difficult if you try to off him before you get to nightsong.

The one fight I thought was way overtuned was the gnoll king fight in act 1. Those gnolls are no joke with 3x crossbow attack which can one shot any of your dudes if they land all 3.

Phazael · Sep 5, 2023

Single player tweaking things with solid knowledge of the system, sure git gud applies. But this being billed as a MP showcase and all but requiring that you respec any story character you bring along to make them hold up? I mean seriously who fucking designed these NPCs? They are worse than the stock guys from the two pathfinder games. Having every mob have abilities the players never have might make for an interesting game challenge, even in a tactics style RPG, but its not DnD and its going to drive off the casuals especially with how massive luck swings are in a d20 system. I mean that entire Gnoll fight hinges on mostly coming at them from a certain direction and getting a character in range of a L8 Flind to make the speech check. And the highest level you are likely to be is L5, so unless you know to stealth cheese (and good luck getting that to work in MP fuckery) past the hail of fire arrows those cock smokers pepper you with, you are looking at a lot of reloads just to even get to the speech check. God help you if you come at them from below, because then you get blown the fuck up when their fire arrows hit any of the barrels and they have Advantage on you the entire fight.

Again, this game is mostly excellent, but the overtuned made by an 8yo murder DM shit where everything you walk on damages you is stupid. Its way too much for people who want to play multiplayer and unwind as a group, at least on the normal setting. More monsters with the actual standard stats would have worked so much better, but again I suspect their AI is too shitty for that.

Frenzied Wombat · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.

Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.

But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.

Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.

And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.

Yeah, the ground/environment hazard stuff is like cream cheese frosting on red velvet cake. A little goes a long way, but too much just ruins the whole thing. It was an overused and somewhat frustrating mechanic in DOS, and it is here as well. Primarily, you're forced to use it because it's a powerful mechanic that can't be ignored, and the result is usually a huge confusing on screen mess. The worst part of it was that they don't make it very clear where the exact "border" of each hazard area is, and no warning or "auto-stop" from running through one. The amount of times I had guys die or get injured because they decided to path through acid, or worse I move someone *clearly* on the edge of the area only for him to get entangled/poisoned/whatever is countless. The "hit box" for these AoE hazards is horrible to intuit.

Only other DOS related gripe is just plain simple walking/navigating outside. The environment does a really poor job indicating where you can or can't walk. I spend a huge amount of time grinding up against the edges of grass/rocks/cliffs whatever to find "a path through" because it really isn't clear what areas are accessible.

As for MP, my biggest gripe is not getting auto-linked to conversations. I start a convo with an NPC, and then I have to telegraph to my friend "dude, punch into my convo with this guy" because he's not watching my avatar 24/7 for an ear icon.

Kirun · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.

Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.

But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.

Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.

And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.

Sounds like your group is horrible at video games. Git gud fgt definitely applies.

My friend's wife plays with us, is garbage at games, and he gives her advice on her turn most of the time. And we still had to bump the difficulty to tactician starting around the goblin area because we were mowing down encounters(obviously we've had to reload saves a bit due to a couple misplaced fire spells into a firewine barrel). We had a few dicey fights in The Underdark and one in a certain Goddesses "area", but that has been it thus far and we're about 1/2 through Act 2.

Sure, a lot of "rules" are massaged and "changed" to fit either the narrative or gameplay. 5E also sucks balls. But we're NEVER going to get a 1:1 copy pasta of DnD rules in a video game. Hell, even the Pathfinder games change a bunch of shit from pen and paper.

There are definitely some things to dislike about BG3. But saying the game is too hard? Time to put down the controller, boomer.

Voyce · Sep 5, 2023

perhaps the most boring OP'd build to date

Burns · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.

Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.

But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.

Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.

And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.

For the Gnoll "bridge", I'm not 100% sure which you mean: For the hyenas that transform into gnolls, you can sneak up and murder them before they transform. Then you move up the hill and take out the other pack of 5. Both were little trouble, at level 4, but I think I may have had to go back to and camp after, because I proceeded to toll collector building and the "Paladins" there.

The cave, on the other hand, where the Gnolls are attacking the 2 guys with the locked chest (that you aren't supposed to open) was much harder, but I snuck in through the cave, from the the back. This funnels all the gnolls through the mouth of the cave. First attempt, I ran right up to the 2 dudes and tried to get them to run out the back of the cave...nope, they cant, boom fight into party wipe. Second attempt I lost half my team, but beat it. Of course the two idiot NPCs I was trying to save were the first to die. I did use some barrels to toss at the gnolls and positioned my people on high ground on the right side of the cave's mouth.

I still wanted to see what would happen if the dudes lived on my first goody-two-shoes play through, so I reloaded (even that I knew they worked for evil slavers). I proceeded to open the chest after finally getting them both through the attack alive (after ~10 reloads) and they attack me anyway...oh well!

Also, when I complain about difficulty, I mean that the hardest difficulty should be hard, in like 10+ reloads hard for major fights (not every encounter). Normal should be for regular gamers that are decent at playing tactical turn-based games, and easy should be for normies, gamers that are shite at turn-based tactics, or when playing with normies in multiplayer.

For Balthazar: He was super simple, barely an inconvenient. I mentioned it before, but when I knew I, as a goody-two-shoes, was going to need to kill him eventually, decided he should die as soon as I fooled him into thinking I was going to help him. So I snuck a Sausser anti-magic flower into his pocket, then proceeded to beat his minions to death. I didn't even know there was a bridge you could push him off of, so had to look him up, to make sure I was talking about the right guy.

Tuco · Sep 5, 2023

Voyce said:
perhaps the most boring OP'd build to date

lmao I was wondering if that was possible. hippity hoppity the mobs go bippity boppity.

Fly should 100% be a bonus action. It totally enabled me to faceroll Act 3. In some situations is so ridiculous I could have melee kited mobs (fly in, use my actions, fly out of mob range).

Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to go against a carbon copy of my group. 2 hasted barbs, a monk and a sorcerer hiding two zones away just concentrating on haste. I'm pretty sure the initiative roll would determine who wins. If the enemy barbs go first they'd easily one-shot me and vise versa

Pancreas · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
I like a lot about this game, but as someone playing couch co-op with their wife and another friend who occasionally jumps in online, Larian needs to admit it really wanted to make DOS3 instead of this. At least when it comes to the game mechanics. Story, art, graphics, and voice acting are all top tier, but their odd spin on the worst edition of DnD of all time is ruining the game for me.

Let me make my point by saying that anyone who complains this game is too easy is basically probably powergaming and save scumming, especially if they were anything less than L5 for that fucking gnoll bridge encounter. They basically tossed out the DnD rules (and the shitty 5e ones at that) in lots of places (L5 Spider boss somehow has an attack bonus of +12 and 125 hp?) but the gnoll encounter pretty much takes the cake. Gnoll Hunters armed with bows who are L3, but somehow shoot three times a round at a +5 to hit and spam a debuff thats not from table top that prevents the character from using their bonus action each round for the duration of the fight (uncurable and basically unlimited range of course). And oh yeah, they are all burning through about 1k gold worth of one use arrows and items that somehow magically never drop from them if you do kill them. These Gnolls also somehow generate criticals on natural rolls of 16 with their attacks. This is the "Balanced" setting. I struggle to believe anyone is besting that encounter on tactician and all that Explorer does in that fight is cut down on the consumable spam (along with the ability of the players to multiclass). Add to this that every boss or named foe has pretty much 4-5x the hp it should in table top along with nearly always the ability to full move and swing 3+ times (after even a Dash sometimes) at even lower levels, nearly always one rounding whoever they move up to, and its a recipe for frustration for anyone just trying to play the game as a casual table topper.

But mostly I am sick of having to jump around to get anywhere like a retard because nearly every square inch of space is covered in fire, frost, web, or poison. These are all DOS staples (and I hated them in those games), but the player mechanics were designed around that. Larian just took their AI and "balance" from those games and stretched a DnD 5e skin suit over it. And more poo, poison, and fire puddles than the average San Fran street. How about just using the existing rules and balancing around that? Maybe have the players fight actual 1/2 hit dice goblins in large numbers instead of every single goblin being two levels higher than the party half the time, built like an 8 year old powergamer DM made them, and armed with thousands of gold pieces of one use items? I suspect its likely because their AI never improved beyond the whole "shit damage goop all over the place and make the characters snared and CCed" routine from DOS1.

Its a single issue in an otherwise perfect game.

And don't get me started on their AI, which ignores the big Gith fighter bitch with 19 AC wrecking them with a magic spear to the face to dash two turns aross the map to mush a mage or other character who has not even taken any action.

I remember that gnoll fight. I was level 4 and it was rough on tactician but I squeezed out a victory first time. Using items, scrolls and having respecced everyone into optimal builds was important.

But to be honest, if I am playing on "hard" I expect the game to spank me unless I am using everything at my disposal.

Crowd control, target priority, breaking LOS, setting up traps(barrels) and ambushes, splitting the party to have a ranged character in a high position, pushing enemies off ledges, (not even into chasms, but just to split the enemy.)

Using choke points like doorways and making it hell to try and get through.

Buffs, bless, bardic inspiration, sources of advantage, anything to increase your chance to hit, sources of damage resistance, haste potions and using Alchemy to craft more.

If you utilize EVERYTHING the game gives you, combat becomes easy. The challenge is actually utilizing all those different systems.

Also the best damage mitigator is simply range/breaking line of sight. Starting a fight and running out to a better location and forcing the enemy to waste a few rounds coming to you is very powerful.

If you want an actual tank that forces the enemy to stick to them, you need the sentinel feat, or spells like compelled duel. Good positioning can force the enemy to eat an attack of opportunity now and then but for it to work every time you need sentinel.

Bottles of water are great for clearing up nasty ground effects.

Having good mobility options on each party member helps a ton too. Athlete feat is actually a really solid way to increase strength on fighter types and gives them great mobility especially with certain boots and rings.

The game has different difficulty modes but the real difficulty is determined by how many resources a player is bringing to bear in each fight.

Tuco · Sep 5, 2023

Pancreas said:
Also the best damage mitigator is simply range/breaking line of sight. Starting a fight and running out to a better location and forcing the enemy to waste a few rounds coming to you is very powerful.

It's funny how unintuitive yet powerful this strategy, that we've been employing in EverQuest for over 20 years, is. Anytime I used it in BG3 it felt like pure cheese.

Seananigans · Sep 5, 2023

Pancreas said:
If you utilize EVERYTHING the game gives you, combat becomes easy. The challenge is actually utilizing all those different systems.

This makes me think of Green Lantern.

Pretty true.

Phazael · Sep 5, 2023

Kirun said:
Sure, a lot of "rules" are massaged and "changed" to fit either the narrative or gameplay. 5E also sucks balls. But we're NEVER going to get a 1:1 copy pasta of DnD rules in a video game. Hell, even the Pathfinder games change a bunch of shit from pen and paper.

Did your friends wife build her character for her and tell her what to do? Because thats basically one step up from just making a prefab party member. And I am in no way talking about massaged rules here. Show me a gnoll trash mob in any version of DnD with three attacks around. Show me a L5 monster with 125 hp in ANY editioin of DnD. Show me anything in ANY edition of DnD ever that crits on natural attack rolls of 16. Thats the all in the first parts of Act 1.

And Pathfinder made a couple minor changed, but they did not use the shit edition and its pretty fucking close. And the Gold Box games had an almost perfect 1:1 rules equivalent to ADnD, even with weapon speed factors and initiative. Probably better AI than this, too, despite being the first game of this sort ever to exist. And 5e might be more complex than raw 2nd edition, but its ruleset is actually tailored to a video game type experience, so the AI and rules aspects should have been easy.

And again I say this as someone who loves everything else about this game, which I believe to be otherwise perfect (current year woke gay shit not withstanding). A game can be hard without being frustrating, especially a tactical RPG (see Tactics Ogre, XCom2, ect) especially when you have the vanilla milquetoast 5e rules already doing the work for you. All they needed to do was make AI that properly maneuvered mass hall trash in sensible ways instead of just shitting out damaging ground fields with a handful of souped up super mobs loaded with consumables. Anyone who experienced Pool of Radiance back in the day knows what I am talking about, as that game was even less forgiving but did not rely on frustrating bullshit to generate its challenge.

Phazael · Sep 5, 2023

Tuco said:
It's funny how unintuitive yet powerful this strategy, that we've been employing in EverQuest for over 20 years, is. Anytime I used it in BG3 it felt like pure cheese.

Again this is fine for Tactician and/or single player experience. Three people playing MP on normal are not going to have the patience to wait around for your sneak to stealth cheese the fights by stacking shit and explode barrels before the fight, using information probably gained from a failed prior attempt(s) or reading off the intertubes.

Also in this particular instance, those gnoles spam their debuff that robs you of your bonus actions, which does not require LOS. And those archers can all potentially (reliably even) one round anyone who is not a fighter type with a single round of shots after a full move. Its a great tactic and good tactical RPG design when the monsters are a horde of enemies playing with the same rules as the players. This is how many of the hardest fights in the first two BGs, Gold Box games, NWN, and even the Pathfinder games were often beaten. This game as they have redesigned 5e is not that game. In fact right around the time where you are getting your third or fourth level is about when the game starts regularly including flying/blinking monsters that just move to you and one round anyone not tanky (phase spiders are the first real taste of this) making choke pointing not really feasible any longer. At that point the game degenerates down to cheesing barrels and builds that only work in the PC game, along with stealth cheesing and likely resting every other fight to refresh your one button wombo combo. None of which makes for a very fun MP experience unless your crew are all murder hobo power gamers who know the rules inside and out, and/or playing cookie cutter power builds that exploit odd quirks in the altered system.

Penance · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
Did your friends wife build her character for her and tell her what to do? Because thats basically one step up from just making a prefab party member. And I am in no way talking about massaged rules here. Show me a gnoll trash mob in any version of DnD with three attacks around. Show me a L5 monster with 125 hp in ANY editioin of DnD. Show me anything in ANY edition of DnD ever that crits on natural attack rolls of 16. Thats the all in the first parts of Act 1.

And Pathfinder made a couple minor changed, but they did not use the shit edition and its pretty fucking close. And the Gold Box games had an almost perfect 1:1 rules equivalent to ADnD, even with weapon speed factors and initiative. Probably better AI than this, too, despite being the first game of this sort ever to exist. And 5e might be more complex than raw 2nd edition, but its ruleset is actually tailored to a video game type experience, so the AI and rules aspects should have been easy.

And again I say this as someone who loves everything else about this game, which I believe to be otherwise perfect (current year woke gay shit not withstanding). A game can be hard without being frustrating, especially a tactical RPG (see Tactics Ogre, XCom2, ect) especially when you have the vanilla milquetoast 5e rules already doing the work for you. All they needed to do was make AI that properly maneuvered mass hall trash in sensible ways instead of just shitting out damaging ground fields with a handful of souped up super mobs loaded with consumables. Anyone who experienced Pool of Radiance back in the day knows what I am talking about, as that game was even less forgiving but did not rely on frustrating bullshit to generate its challenge.

I dunno man I think you might just be bad. I came into the game not knowing shit and just read all the abilities, took hours on leveling up, and if a fight was too hard Id come back. The gnolls were the first challenge but my wizard CC carried me.

Think you're getting bogged down in the fact that monster stats aren't translating from the book a bit too much instead of

git gud fgt

Kirun · Sep 5, 2023

Phazael said:
Did your friends wife build her character for her and tell her what to do? Because thats basically one step up from just making a prefab party member.

Sorta? She told him what she wanted the character's theme to be and what she wanted it to "do". She's pretty experienced on the pen and paper side of things, she just isn't a "gamer" so that's the part that's difficult for her, I think.

Phazael said:
And I am in no way talking about massaged rules here. Show me a gnoll trash mob in any version of DnD with three attacks around. Show me a L5 monster with 125 hp in ANY editioin of DnD. Show me anything in ANY edition of DnD ever that crits on natural attack rolls of 16. Thats the all in the first parts of Act 1.

You never played a campaign with "home-brewed" mobs? A "boss" that your DM had as part of the narrative that he gave a few extra spells to? An extra +atk bonus? All of your DMs ripped shit straight out of the Monster Manual and never deviated?

Yikes, you've gamed with some shit ass DMs then. No wonder you feel like BG3 is too hard.

Phazael said:
And again I say this as someone who loves everything else about this game, which I believe to be otherwise perfect (current year woke gay shit not withstanding). A game can be hard without being frustrating, especially a tactical RPG (see Tactics Ogre, XCom2, ect) especially when you have the vanilla milquetoast 5e rules already doing the work for you. All they needed to do was make AI that properly maneuvered mass hall trash in sensible ways instead of just shitting out damaging ground fields with a handful of souped up super mobs loaded with consumables. Anyone who experienced Pool of Radiance back in the day knows what I am talking about, as that game was even less forgiving but did not rely on frustrating bullshit to generate its challenge.

This just sounds like some boomer cope.

"Back in my day, games were 100% amazing and didn't suck like the games those kids play now!!"

Those gold box games were fucking dogshit. Sure, I loved them and they were fun within the context of the year they released. But let's not fucking do the whole, "I walked uphill both ways!" schtick that this forum has devolved into over the years.

Those games were fucking awful, buggy shitfests using versions of DnD that sucked complete shit. Anybody who thinks DnD was a good roleplaying system prior to 3rd edition is just flat out wearing rose colored glasses all day. Fuck, even GURPS and MERP were better systems than 1st and 2nd edition DnD and both had plenty of problems themselves.

BG3 has plenty of issues. Buggy items, buggy 2nd half of the game, unfinished content, absolute garbage pathing AI, weird targetting issues, etc. Lots of little shit I could nitpick to death about the game, without a doubt.

But difficulty? I just don't get it.

Frenzied Wombat · Sep 5, 2023

I'm still in act 1 and only level 3 but combat difficulty hasn't been an issue so far -- the biggest challenge has been:

1) The overwhelming amount of spells, stats, rules, and other 5th edition shit I have no familiarity with, which is a good thing.
2) The map is 2D, but the environment is 3D, leading to some frustrating navigation issues where you think there's a path ahead, only to find out its unreachable
3) Having to reload to a way earlier save because of some bug that aggroed every Tiefling in the Druid's village simply because I talked to some fucking kid a few hours earlier.

The biggest challenge is to not lose a 30 year old friendship because my MP buddy smokes too much weed and refuses to get glasses, resulting in him accidentally targetting friendlies or not noticing an item is red and getting sent to jail. " DUDE, we're not fucking twenty years old anymore, you can't be OLD, AND rip 5 bong hits while refusing to buy a pair of glasses. FUCK"

BTW, don't shit on the Gold Box Series of games. They were epic for their time, and if I had to choose between an army of weak ass kobolds, or a few jacked up on expensive consumables, I'll take the former.

So far this is the best RPG I've played since Wasteland III + all the DLC's and will likely surpass it as I get farther and they patch things. If the Cleric and Rogue keep insisting on telegraphing their respective desire for LGBT++ action, I'm gonna get annoyed though.

Harshaw · Sep 5, 2023

Kirun said:
You never played a campaign with "home-brewed" mobs? A "boss" that your DM had as part of the narrative that he gave a few extra spells to? An extra +atk bonus? All of your DMs ripped shit straight out of the Monster Manual and never deviated?

I wiped a 5 man level 5 party with a den of kobolds once. Funny as fuck.

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