Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Successful 99 throw!

Not necessarily, as stated abowe ... most things could remain exactly as they are.

I see ...
I accept to agree to disagree.

And i would say roll would be redundant here.
There is lots of Cursed items in DnD that player cant just "let go" ... and there is no rolling involved either.

I can imagine how impossible odds would make the situation tense and add some weight ... like giving all you have to your save, rolling the best you could and still being unable ... yes, it can help portrait how hard it is.
Unless the player would suceed ... thats where frustration of impossible odds lays.

But that is exactly the problem with Critical Sucesses in skill checks ... and quite possibly one of big, if not even main reason they are not used that way in tabletop (unless homebrewed otherwise).

Here i would say that is quite different situation.

Yes ... player technicaly failed, but if DM overolled his Passive Insight, and player was not suspicious at all about the guard to make their own check ... that is i would say all right and by the book.

---

That is not mutualy exclusive ...
You can do ridiculous things, unexpected things, and often even stupid things ...

You just ... know that you cant suceed when you do them.

You missunderstand me ...
There is quite difference between rolling for snap a grown tree with your fist ... and rolling to see how much damage you do that tree with single punch, not expecting to snap it in half!

Barbarian can absolutely "try" to snap a tree ... and sometimes they dont even need to be drunk.
BUT! And this is the core of my point ...
There is important difference between when DM lets you roll for snaping a tree ... while knowing he wouldnt ever let you do that.
And when DM lets you roll for anything else ... damaging said tree, checking if your bones will hold together, impressing others with how strong/stupid/both you are ... while you as a player KNOW you would never snap said tree.

Its all about seting an expectations and fulfilling them.

The more DM promises you one thing, and give you something entirely different ... arguably much less cool ... the more frustrated you will become. :-/

That is admitedly tricky question ...
Obviously its all about ballance ... DM that says no to everything except what they prepared are just as railroading as DM who basicaly ignores what are you trying to do and gives you results that suits his story.

I would say that the difference here is ... player agency ?
Yeah, i gues that is good word.

As long as you feel like your agency is still firmly in your hands ... i gues both can be ... well, lets say even at worse case scenario, still quite ok.

The problem is (and i admit that is basicaly matter of personal prefference) ... that for me, the more i get things that feels unrelated to my atempts, the more i feel like my decisions dont matter ... like im not a protagonist of the story, and sometimes not even participant, more like just an observant with really close up seat ... and i felt that a lot during BG-3 ... not as much as in some other games admitedly, but still a much more than i would expect concidering all that praising about importance of decisions and story permutations.
I gues im just dificiult to please.

All the more reason to make them meaningfull i would say.

In tabletop i would have more sympathy for a DM that was surprised with another bullshit our crew invented ... and sometimes we come with plans so crazy, that even Joker would probably rather pass then try them.
In videogame, there is no surprise ... everything you can come with is what devs prepared for you, its all smoke and mirrors and you can allways just follow the path they prepared for you ... and it will remain this way, untill we create AI capable of self awarence ... and according to sci-fi after that point, we will have different worries that DnD story.

So ... im not really even sory, but if you write yourself to the corner ... its your own misstake ... and maybe, juuuuuust maybe, you should try to change that thing a little before you left it out. :-/

Yes, that is core of my complaint ...

Hey, lets try something.
Imagine with me different scenario, ok?

You get to the scene ... just like you do in final version ...
You get options to try dominate the brain with various ways ... just like you do in final version ...
BUT! There is no roll this time.
You just pick your stat ... try to dominate the brain ... it shakes your effort ... smash you with that psyonic wave ... and Emperor will drag you out trough portal.

My question is: What would change, froms story perspective?
Wouldnt it still be the exactly same desperate, yet impossible plan you were led to believe it will work, until you tryed?

If that would be the case, i would agree with you ...
The problem is that our effort was not messaged as furtile ... very unprobable yes, but still possible ... that is the problem with Crit Sucesses for skill checks.

And feel free to corect me, if i remember wrong ... but isnt there option to hide DC in your campaign settings?
Yes, i know that such option (again, unless i remember it wrong) is new ... but we have to remember that some people still havent played the game ... try to look at this from their perspective aswell:
They see just another check ... they try > potentialy they reroll few times ... they suceeed ... and they fail automaticly ... and they have no idea why, bcs they never ever seen its DC 99.

I gues its obvious that i didnt bother to watch it whole ...
That indeed changes things ... a bit ... i still dont like it, but now a little less, when i know that there is actually some effect.

It could be messaged better tho ...
(And yes, i have read the whole post before i reacted, but i still wanted to say those things ... so i did. :P )

Once you reach invisible and unnoticeable trigger ... yes.
That was my point.

Whole world is waiting for you ...
Floric can be blocked in her room for quite litterally years, if you Long Rest often enough ... and still perfectly fine ...
You can find the burning Inn and instead of helping her went to completely other way ... explore swamp, save Marina, save Zhentarims from Gnolls, kill/save Karlach, wipe out Goblin willage and their camp, and lots and lots of other stuff ... unless they changed something, but last time i tryed it was still possible ...

This "teaches" you basicaly, that there is no hurry. (Same story is with false urgency about your tadpole.)
Until you reach point where out of sudden, with no warning, time matters for a while.

That was my criticism ... incosistency.
Game teach you one thing ... and then sudently it makes exact oposite ... and i just feel like sometimes its for no other reason, than our not-so-friendly DM can have his "HA! Got ya!" moment ... and that sucks. :-/

Ah, the second and third parts of the battle are before and after he turns into the avatar of Myrkul. Sorry, my memory of that fight was a little hazy and I thought of those as two separate entities.


I specifically said "he got a healing spell cast on him", i.e. it was cast by someone else. In fact, we know how he was healed after that first fight - he recaptured Nightsong.


I disagree with a lot of what you're saying about that fight, and I recognise that people can enjoy a video game in different ways and that's fine, but I think we're seeking different things from this game. It looks to me like you're focussed more on the combat, and you want to have a clearly set out goal and know what you've got to achieve in each battle, whereas I'm playing for the story and characters, and the purpose of the combat is to serve that story; and therefore for me it was fun when the game threw out a twist I wasn't expecting.

So no, I don't think it would have been better if the game had told me in advance the total number of HP he had in all three battles, or if it had told me that the battle would be in three phases. For me, that sort of surprise is fun and ramps up the tension. I like to imagine what the party is thinking at that point, suddenly having to decide whether to go after him, and if they can afford to rest to recover. Yeah, I'm sure it doesn't make any difference to the next battle, but deciding "we can't let him get away, we'll have to make do with a Song of Rest and press on, get those scrolls ready in case we run out of spell slots" is part of the story for me that wouldn't have happened without that first phase.

Talking about wasted effort, the result would have been exactly the same if you'd killed Ketheric on the top of the tower, and then a cutscene played showing you that you needed to go to the basement where you'd fight two separate bosses, one of which could be the avatar of Myrkul. Why would that be more satisfying than Ketheric pulling off an escape? Assuming that there isn't a bug that allows him to actually die before the escape, but then again, our D&D games often allow major villains to get death saves.

Hitpoints are a bit of a weird mechanic because they can't represent an exact amount of injury. We say 'hit' or 'miss' because it's easier, and RPG video games animate hitting or missing, but the first few times you hit an enemy you're not driving a sword into their chest. I saw someone describe hitpoints in tabletop games as an abstraction of your stamina wearing down, then getting minor wounds, and then the last couple of hits would be major injuries. I guess from there it's not too hard to see the hitpoint bar not as the amount of injury it takes to kill an enemy, but the amount of attacks needed to complete the current task. There are loads of games where reducing an enemy to 0HP usually kills them, but major bosses end up panting on the floor while they give a monologue. Sometimes it is cheap when a game takes away an enemy that you thought you'd defeated, but I thought this one was done well. Maybe that's the quality of the writing, maybe it's just what I put into it.

Clearly I didn't pay any attention to what this thread was actually about, lol. My mind went immediately to lockpicking. Apologies, I'll see myself out.

I dont really think those things are mutualy exclusive.
Also, you are wrong ... what im looking for is coherent ballanced experience ... i never understand people who "dont mind bad combat, bcs they are more focused on the story" ... nor people who "dont mind weak story, bcs they are more interested in the combat" ... in my opinion, those things should be ballanced and support each other, trying to separate them, even in case when you are trying to determine where is the focus is therefore a misstake.

Where did you get this? O_o
I mean its great that you think it ... but since nobody was suggesting such thing, it seems a little out of nowhere.

All you see when you reach the roof, and start fighting Ketheric, is that he have i dunno f.e. 500HP ... nothing else.

And what you will see as you will fight him is that he will escape at some point ...
> The only difference is that in curent version, you have him almost killed ... it dont really matter if he runs with 1HP, or 20 ...
> And in this version he would run around half lets say.

First of all, im quite sure you cant rest at that point.
Second, and that is also important ... i would dare to say that this apply on both cases. O_o

Indeed ... but my suggestion was not to remove first phase, just integrate it closer to the wider narative of that whole encounter.

To me? It would be more satisfying ... bcs my effort were not negated.

I fighted the vilain ... i spend lots of resources in that battle ... and it had the desired results > vilain is dead.
That makes me feel like my actions had meaning.

When i fight the vilain ... and i see the next hit WOULD kill him, bcs i played the game for last few dozen of hours and it is working this way with everyone else ... but in next scene he in perfectly vital, healthy, and i need to start over ... i dont have that feeling. :-/

Never said it is ...

And what difference does it make?

You need to hit enemy enough times > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to catch enough eggs > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to i dunno, fill your drink > RESET cut scene > start over.

That is the problem here ...
Not HP ... but what lack of them presents, it presents your progress in task ... and you want your curent progress to count for something. :-/

Have you ever downloaded any big file on dial up connection?
Do you remember the situation where you had 99% and then window telling you "connection lost" appeared ... and you knew you will have to start it all over again?
THATS how it feels.

I think its allways cheap ...
I think it allways feel like when you order a grilled Rothé Ribs ... and got smelly fish soup instead.

I dont really think those things are mutualy exclusive.
Also, you are wrong ... what im looking for is coherent ballanced experience ... i never understand people who "dont mind bad combat, bcs they are more focused on the story" ... nor people who "dont mind weak story, bcs they are more interested in the combat" ... in my opinion, those things should be ballanced and support each other, trying to separate them, even in case when you are trying to determine where is the focus is therefore a misstake.

Where did you get this? O_o
I mean its great that you think it ... but since nobody was suggesting such thing, it seems a little out of nowhere.

All you see when you reach the roof, and start fighting Ketheric, is that he have i dunno f.e. 500HP ... nothing else.

And what you will see as you will fight him is that he will escape at some point ...
> The only difference is that in curent version, you have him almost killed ... it dont really matter if he runs with 1HP, or 20 ...
> And in this version he would run around half lets say.

First of all, im quite sure you cant rest at that point.
Second, and that is also important ... i would dare to say that this apply on both cases. O_o

Indeed ... but my suggestion was not to remove first phase, just integrate it closer to the wider narative of that whole encounter.

To me? It would be more satisfying ... bcs my effort were not negated.

I fighted the vilain ... i spend lots of resources in that battle ... and it had the desired results > vilain is dead.
That makes me feel like my actions had meaning.

When i fight the vilain ... and i see the next hit WOULD kill him, bcs i played the game for last few dozen of hours and it is working this way with everyone else ... but in next scene he in perfectly vital, healthy, and i need to start over ... i dont have that feeling. :-/

Never said it is ...

And what difference does it make?

You need to hit enemy enough times > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to catch enough eggs > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to i dunno, fill your drink > RESET cut scene > start over.

That is the problem here ...
Not HP ... but what lack of them presents, it presents your progress in task ... and you want your curent progress to count for something. :-/

Have you ever downloaded any big file on dial up connection?
Do you remember the situation where you had 99% and then window telling you "connection lost" appeared ... and you knew you will have to start it all over again?
THATS how it feels.

I think its allways cheap ...
I think it allways feel like when you order a grilled Rothé Ribs ... and got smelly fish soup instead.

I dont really think those things are mutualy exclusive.
Also, you are wrong ... what im looking for is coherent ballanced experience ... i never understand people who "dont mind bad combat, bcs they are more focused on the story" ... nor people who "dont mind weak story, bcs they are more interested in the combat" ... in my opinion, those things should be ballanced and support each other, trying to separate them, even in case when you are trying to determine where is the focus is therefore a misstake.

Where did you get this? O_o
I mean its great that you think it ... but since nobody was suggesting such thing, it seems a little out of nowhere.

All you see when you reach the roof, and start fighting Ketheric, is that he have i dunno f.e. 500HP ... nothing else.

And what you will see as you will fight him is that he will escape at some point ...
> The only difference is that in curent version, you have him almost killed ... it dont really matter if he runs with 1HP, or 20 ...
> And in this version he would run around half lets say.

First of all, im quite sure you cant rest at that point.
Second, and that is also important ... i would dare to say that this apply on both cases. O_o

Indeed ... but my suggestion was not to remove first phase, just integrate it closer to the wider narative of that whole encounter.

To me? It would be more satisfying ... bcs my effort were not negated.

I fighted the vilain ... i spend lots of resources in that battle ... and it had the desired results > vilain is dead.
That makes me feel like my actions had meaning.

When i fight the vilain ... and i see the next hit WOULD kill him, bcs i played the game for last few dozen of hours and it is working this way with everyone else ... but in next scene he in perfectly vital, healthy, and i need to start over ... i dont have that feeling. :-/

Never said it is ...

And what difference does it make?

You need to hit enemy enough times > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to catch enough eggs > RESET cut scene > start over.
You need to i dunno, fill your drink > RESET cut scene > start over.

That is the problem here ...
Not HP ... but what lack of them presents, it presents your progress in task ... and you want your curent progress to count for something. :-/

Have you ever downloaded any big file on dial up connection?
Do you remember the situation where you had 99% and then window telling you "connection lost" appeared ... and you knew you will have to start it all over again?
THATS how it feels.

I think its allways cheap ...
I think it allways feel like when you order a grilled Rothé Ribs ... and got smelly fish soup instead.