Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Several dicerolls for one outcome is bad

Hi.

I've stumbled across a few situations where I had to do several dicerolls in order to succed.
Example: Squishing Edowin's tadpole and (iirc) the Nettie situation.

This is less than ideal design. If something should be hard to achieve then up the target difficulty. Don't make us roll twice.

Noone is is saying "Ah, but did you really hit" and make you roll again when you hit a goblin the first time.

"The Nettie Situation" has you roll either 3 or 4 times.

Having players make multiple rolls to succeed at a single task is usually something a new GM does when they are out of ideas on how to move the game forward and it's utterly bizarre to see it done so prominently in a game where the writers presumably were not forced to come up with dialogue and outcomes on the spot.

Some situations warrant those rolls however. The tadpole and Nettie examples are perfectly fine.

-The tadpole example is the tadpole in your head working against you. Its trying to survive and keep one of its companions alive.
-Nettie is also a very good example of well placed dice rolls. You basicly told a druid that you have a parasite in your head that will change you into a brain eating alien. She doesent have the expertise to heal you and the one person who does, is missing and might be dead. To protect you and others she goes for the most humane option available to her. She is basicly giving you a mercy kill to make your passing as painless as possible while also keeping the people around you safe. Convincing someone in that situation to change their mind SHOULD be insanely difficult.

I think Larian did a very good job here personally

Then make the 1 skillcheck hard.

Demanding several different skillchecks is what I would call a rookie mistake or vindictive GMing in a tabletop situation.
1 check for initial success - fine. Several checks after that to succed more or get additional information - fine.
Several checks to succed at all - not good.

+1.

Don't make me persuade twice or more for ONE single task. It works if you move what ur persuading about. Like gold. You agree to this amount, persuade for more THEN you want even more? the DM will like...persuade for higher amount, like going from 200 -> 300 -> 400. But persuading or w/e for a single task is stupid and just punishes you for succeeding the first time because now u gotta do it 2 or 3 more times and you fail once, and that's it. Specifically in nettie's thing. Fail once its over but I pass once and its not over?

Can we play by the same rules here?

As a DM I'd never do this as it wastes time, and that is echoes in others' responses.

If there were multiple fail states for the different checks applied, happen over the course of a huge chunk of the adventuring day, like with downtime activities and the differing rewards from such; one could argue this situation would warrant 3 checks.

That is not the case here.

Passing the first checks mean nothing as the dialogue progresses anyway toward the final one. Failing the important ones thereafter is a pass or fail situation that just pointlessly adds a another layer to such. And then the final check (to lie about whether or not you'll take the wyvern Venom if things get real bad) is essentially a conversation ender with strings attached.

This is the furtherest from how any DM worth their salt would handle this situation, not even in games made pre-5e. There's always thay old addage "Don't make the party roll on things that's already going to happen, as you'll just make them feel like their choices don't matter."

Edit: a solution to this would be to have these options presented through dialogue, like normal. And/or provide them based on Nettie's disposition, which would change with the dialogue chosen through the conversation and affect the check at the end.

What you say should matter.

THANK YOU. I just failed both of these encounters because of the multiple checks that require wildly different proficiencies... though even with high proficiency i am failing checks miserably. but I would have passed if the first roll was all it took. having multiple rolls is extremely frustrating, especially when these rolls effect the party's Approval/Disapproval depending on what happens.

This, this, this, and THIS.

Nothing changes between the skill checks you have to make with Nettie, it's just:

Nettie: "No."
*Indimidation check successful*
Nettie: "Still no!"
*Indimidation check successful*
Nettie: "Nope not happening"
*Indimidation check successful*
Nettie: "Hmmmm gonna go with no"
*Indimidation check successful*
Nettie: "Ohhhhhh alright."

It's bad GMing in so many ways. It's repetitive, goes against the rules of the game, makes it feel like your dice rolls don't mean anything, and frustrating as hell if you fail on the fourth check. No halfway competent GM would ever do this to their players.

There have been several conversations like this and every time, I just can't help but agree. This is rookie DM mistake.

If the thing we're trying to do is hard, up the DC. If it's super duper hard, up the DC and give us disadvantage. Don't give us this flicker of hope by succeeding the first time then giving some dumb plot reason to why we didn't do what the check was for so we need to try it again.

Ive also DM'ed a few groups and while it hasent occored like they do in bg3 the concept by iself does not mean bad DMing.

Heres an example taken from a group I DM'ed for. The players had done something (I think they stole something, cant recall. Lets call it X) and got caught by someone. That NPC chased the players and confronted them followed by a mob. My players came up with the following plan that they were going to try and pull off: Talk to people who are blaming them of X and defend themselves by bluffing together an alibi (deception). They then wanted to walk towards and through the mob as they were defending themselfves while planting evidence on someone else. (hard sleight of hand check) and then shift blame to the other party (persuassion) in the same conversation by asking them to show whats in their pockets. (realisticly those people should also get a perception roll but I decided to keep that out, it was allready complicated as it was)

Thats a scenario ive had players discuss but for reasons I cant recall they never went through with it.I think they just murderhoboed their way out or one of the players deviced a more diplomatic solution *shrug* its been a few years so half of the details are lost on me im afraid.

Point is. Multiple tests by themselves are fine. So long as they are relevant in context. In the example that I just gave no single 1 check would be enough to pull off the complicated act that they were trying to pull there. If you have to roll 3 or 4 times for the same thing; then fair enough. Dont do that.

My experience with Nettie dident get past the 1st skill check as I failed that one miserably so dident get to see them xD but the tadpole that you want to crush dident seem that out of place honestly. Its a parasite in your mind that is trying several ways to influence you not to kill one of its kind. Something like that shouldnt be easy to resist and I think you could keep trying to squish it after you failed a test as well. Which you wouldnt be able to do either if you cant allow multiple tests. Oh you failed that test so squish it? Tough luck. Your character is 100% convinced to leave it alone. Even if he pretty much knows that hes just been influenced to do something against his own best interest.

Yeah I dont think that alternative would sit well with people either.... What do you guys propose they should do in that scenario?

You're just entirely talking out your ass here by your own admission.

Your examples and the game experiences do not mash up. The examples we are talking about are succeeding on checks, but the game basically saying no, screw you. So an appropriate example from your DM experience would be your players successfully deceiving the mob, then someone in the mob going: "... Bull shite!" and then having your players roll again for the same deception check.

For the tad pole, memory is fuzzy, but the check was to squish the bug despite it trying to mess with your mind. That is a clear distinction. The check was not to resist the effects, but to perform a very specific action while trying to combat the mind stuff. Your reward for succeeding? Do it again.

+1 on this. It reminds me of first time GM's who require you to roll stealth for every guard you sneak past (They fail to see that your chance to fail will become very high when forced to make that many rolls).

And again: +1.

And yes, I felt like that guy in that "am I an idiot to you" meme during the "blue squishy worm" scene. And then I got disapproval from my party, I was like: "are you kidding me?"

I would like to win with skill, not by reloading scummed save games over and over again.

I thought I had seen multiple tests with her but then renembered I failed at the first test. That said with the tadpole I do recall multiple tests and IIRC I failed one but still got to squish it.

But lets take the Nessie situation under a little closer look and see if 1 single test is realistic, yeah? You are trying to convince a druid who you just told to her face that you have a illithid tadpole in your brain Who has NO way of removing it and want to ask her to just let you waltz right out of there. Oh and remove the poison plox.

No single test should be able to get you out of the shitter in that situation. You should be able to convince her of several things at least. 1: that you arent an actual thread. Something that the mere presence of the tadpole already debunks so good luck with that one. 2: That an actual solution is nearby and can be reached in time. She already tells the player that she herself cant solve it. But the lost druid leader (forget his name) could. But since his status is unknown, again; good luck with that one. 3: That her act of poisening you isent in the best interest of the people at the druid conclave. Even with 1 and 2 taken into consideration. Which from her perspective; it is.

Her acts are totally in character for a druid. Infact like she says shes trying to be mercifull to the player while also protecting the people around her.

Il see if I cant stumble my way back to the druid conclave. Ive avoided her since last time but I want to see the implementation for myself. But again, I dont see a problem with the concept of multiple rolls in complicated situations by itself. Maybe they just need to work on the way the conversation goes.

No, you just don't know what you're talking about. It's not interesting to make a player roll athletics every time they reach for a handhold when climbing a single short wall outside of combat, and it's not interesting to make a player roll multiple intimidation checks to scare someone into handing over an antidote. No competent GM would ever do this. If something is supposed to be hard, you give it a high DC, you don't force multiple rolls in a row towards the same discrete task.

I must be the only one who actually finds the repeated skill checks a good thing - keeping thinks unpredictable and beyond the control of a single lucky roll.

Rolling more dice makes the outcome less random, not more. If you were to roll 2d20, for instance, you would have a drastically higher chance of hitting the midrange (high teens low twenties) of the possible outcomes than you would of hitting an extreme (2 or 40). If you just roll a single d20, you are just as likely to roll a 1 as you are to roll a 10.

In the case of multiple skill checks in a row, it just arbitrarily increases your odds of failure. 'More likely to fail' is the exact opposite of 'more random'.

The Nettie checks were horrible, I passed 3 intimidation checks to then fail, its too much.

Exactly.