Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Stupid decisions should have consequences

That sounds like somekind of "hardcore" or higher difficult lvl to me. You guys dont want the game be too easy, but Im not sure what it has to do with consequences. Player who plays on easy or very difficult lvl, the consequences should be the same. Lots of people like to play game on easy mode.

I mean, I don't have any stake in what rules fall under Story Mode, which is the Easy difficulty for Larian games. Honestly I am just not going to play on that difficulty. No offense to anyone that does.

In regular difficulty I think instant death for doing something incredibly stupid seems fair.

Absolutely agree with this.


Agreed. The reload function makes the experience much easier than a TT-session. Although I'd argue that, like Leucrotta said, death shouldn't be the only possible outcome of every "stupid" decisions, but certain death is certainly better than pretending nothing happened. In this particular case, a full player team wipe could be the answer. Downing the majority of the party while one got away with low health and thus can help the others up (and I definitely want to hear the party whine about the character decision back at camp later on :'] ), being captured could be another (although not sure that makes sense in this particular case), or perhaps one of the companions could butt in and try to disarm the situation by singing the dragon's praises. Imagine Gale jumping in trying to talk us out of the situation, perhaps bribing it with gold from our inventory (that our character can either refuse, support or ignore), and depending on the result the dragon either flies away with our gold or ... Burn the party down to the ground. :]

Also, I really want to mention that I'd even say that *most* players are really attached to their characters when it comes to TT and that *most* would rather attempt to metagame a bit rather than RP themselves into a certain death. In a TT-game, it can really put players in an awkward position if the DM often have high CR enemies that either forces the party to wipe or being rail roaded into a certain story path.

Don't get me wrong - if it happens once in a while then that is *mostly* fine with me as that is totally something that could happen - sometimes enemies are simply stronger than you are. BUT, only as long as the DM handles the situation well.... But seriously, forcing a party of ... Let's say low level, good alignment paladins to stand face to face with an adult red dragon might demand that the players either A) wipe, because dying heroically trying to stop it is what their characters would do despite certain death - or B) metagame, and try to figure out a RP-reason why afterwards. is kind of a douche move, imo.

Yup. In this situation, imo it's acceptable and even expected that the DM will metagame a bit on the players' behalf. E.g., saying "are you suuuuuure you wish to do this?" or "Give me a perception check. [Perception] Okay (regardless of the result), before you release that arrow, you take a good look at the dragon and realize it's way too powerful for you. You may want to find a different way." It's perfectly fine, even good, to have your party come face-to-face with an overwhelming powerful enemy. That sets up a great contrast for when the party becomes that powerful. But players are dumb, so extra care must be taken with these situations lest the players charge in and die.

Of course, it's more difficult for a videogame to be as reactive to the players. But again, consequences like TPK are less punishing in a videogame because reloading.

...wait, actually it's not more difficult to do this! Enemies in BG3 have (I think still have?) level indicators, AND you can freely inspect enemy stats. I don't want BG3 to have either of these to be honest, at least not without a nature/arcana/int check, but I'd prefer deadly enemies and these indicators over the lack of either.

+1! +1! +1!

Just as it is with Mind Flayer on the beach. :3
There should be a LOT more dialogue traps.

I'm not sure about this. Yeah, stupid decisions should have consequences, but insta death is just frustrating, nothing else. You should at least get the chance to fight the dragon when it attacks you, even if your chances of survival are slim. In a tabletop session, players would be outraged if the DM said 'and you all die, no combat, the end.'

I cannot be the only one who instantly thought of the fire corpse-witch-thing on the north side of Cloisterwood (DoS2). I can't be the only one who accidentally stumbled upon her when I was exploring and just got wiped out... A lot. :<

EDIT: and that damned witch is one hella good argument/indication that Larian (just like Owlcats) do have a tendency to drop insta-death encounters in lower level places. ; _ ;

I dunno ... it have exactly same outcome as attacking level 10 dragon ... on level 4. O_o
It just saves time like this.

And since we are not on a tabletop session ... and we CAN reload (on contrary to them) ... i would certainly preffer saving time. O_o

Yes but attacking an Adult Red Dragon in a brightly lit outdoor area with no real cover at level 4 is about the dumbest thing you can do - in a TT session a good DM would give you several outs and warnings and ask a ton of questions before allowing the action to take place. If no one headed those warnings, hints and so forth then game over. Better luck next time.

That is a realistic encounter. If you allow combat to start you open the door for players to cheat and use black-magic fuckery to try to win an encounter they could never win.

HEEEEELL YEAH!

One way or another, at least our stupid choices would have consequences. Anything that isn't just 'the dragon and the githyanki rider fly away' would be an improvement.

Imo it depends on how this is presented in the game. In PST the Lady killing TNO is one possible solution to his quest and becomes an ending to his story, if the player choses to. Whereas in BG2 there are some instances where an unkillable assassin will kill your character as a method of "protecting" the main plot. And to me that is the difference: is this "game over" a part of the story or something immersion breaking.

edit: Actually, there is one example involving mindflayers in NWN: HotU. Your character is trapped in an illusion caused by midnflayers, and there is a character who is very obviously trying to lure you to "give in". If you choose that option in dialogue, you get a "game over".

I wonder if the lack of non-standard game-overs has to do with the multiplayer aspect in some form. In pretty much any other game having your MC get drained by Asterion or have their brain sucked out and eaten by the injured mindflayer, would be a 'GAME OVER', but that isn't the case in BGIII. It's rather odd.

Yup, very much so. That, and cheap resurects.

I just leave this here:
Just for the fun.

Yes, I agree with this. Also there has to be timing involved in how long the rider stays there by the bridge (maybe 8 sleeping sessions as an example - after that he leaves and only the raiding party is encountered), because if you avoid the scene and comeback after you are lvl 10 and can maybe manage to kill him that would just be bad. I do think he should use breath weapon and fly away if you poke him, likely killing lvl 4 characters if not the remaining party of githyanki can do the job.

I nearly died out of laughter reading this. X]

but you have to admit, it's alarmingly accurate

There are already examples of this in the game, the very first roll of the game is a mild one that I think, is supposed to teach you that just because you can, does not mean you always should.

A big stupid decision that follows with an easy tpk is the mind flayer you find after crashing, you can choose to peek into its thoughts after it gets distracted, and if you do so, you have a very high chance of having your brain gobbled up.

Now when it comes to the red dragon? I am betting if something can be killed, it will be, no matter how much higher level or stronger than the party is at the time, players would find a way, that is the only reason I can see why it should always fly away. But honestly I would be fine with it being killable. In general I agree though, dumb decisions should lead to dumb deaths!

+1 for more dialogue traps and hilarious consequences. I felt during my plathroughs that there are some but i would prefer if Larian is more brave about it I think.

I was actually expecting "a teaching moment" during the tutorial (Disco Elysium did a great job introducing hilarious consequences during the first hours of the game and teaching you to be excited about every decision you make going forward) but I might have just missed it as others mentioned there is something like that already.