Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Arrows Effects Rework MOD - I need your help / opinion

Hey guys,

Trying to rework the arrows effects in the game.
I'd like your opinion, especially on balance. Of course your opinion is welcome. Would you use such arrows ? Do you think it is more appealing than the current one ?

I'm currently foccused on fire, acid, ice, detonation and lightning arrows (the most "common" magical arrows).

CURRENTLY :
Most of them deal weapon damage if your attack roll is sucessfull AND/OR +1D4 damages if the target's ST failed.

Most of them also create a surface in a somewhat wide radius.
Surfaces create issues in my opinion because even if you miss entirely your target (attack roll + ST failed = no damage), she will suffer negative effects.

Arrows of fire : 2 types of damage (Attack roll and saving throw) + always apply burning through surfaces, which mean 3*1D4 additionnal fire damages + 3*concentration checks)
Arrow of ice : 2 types of damage (Attack roll and saving throw) + always force another saving throw to all characters in the area not to fall prone.
Arrow of acid : 2 types of damage (Attack roll and saving throw) + always apply acid (-2 AC) to all characters in the area.
Arrow of lightning : 2 types of damage (Attack roll and saving throw).

Arrow of detonation : Push every creatures in an area of effect, which is totally OP with the verticality in the game, and eventually boring in many situations (the worst being the boat to grymforge, obviously).

In my opinion it is overwhelming (hard to understand even when your read the logbook), poorly balanced (some are overpowered and others are really weak), and it doesn't make sense.
Currently the game assume that even if you miss, you have successfully shot at the character's feet so a surface is created. It is particularly wierd when you attack higher targets.
Your target and his close allies should not suffer any effects if you miss entirely in my opinion, especially so powerfull ones.

I also personnaly think that an additionnal saving throw for an additionnal 1D4 damage (which is very weak in the second part of EA) is weak.

I currently don't like the magical arrows and barely never play with them.
My idea is to rebalance the effects and to remove surfaces creation (>< changes) that would be more related to potions.

MOD :
Arrow of Fire
- Attack roll success : weapon damage + 1D6 fire damage
- Attack roll sucess = Dexterity ST. If ST failed : apply burning for 2 turns (3 * 1D4)

Arrow of Ice
- Attack roll success : weapon damage + 1D6 cold damage
- Attack roll sucess = Dexterity ST. If ST failed : apply frozen for 2 turns (target can't move)

Arrow of acid
- Attack roll success : weapon damage + 1D6 acid damage
- Attack roll sucess = Constitution ST. If ST failed : apply acid for 2 turns (-2AC)

Arrow of lightning
- Attack roll success : weapon damage + 1D6 lightning damage
- Attack roll sucess = Wisdom ST. If ST failed : apply electrified for 2 turns (reaction blocked)

Arrow of detonation (AOE)
- Individual attack roll success : weapon damage + 1D6 force damage

==> Arrows no longer create surfaces, but it change surfaces as currently (water become ice with an ice arrow, grease is burning with a fire arrow, water and blood are electrified with lightning arrows...).
==> The additionnal elemental damages are always done if your attack roll is sucessfull. I personnaly think that I shouldn't be lucky two times to deal more (but balanced) damages with magical arrows than with normal ones.
==> If you miss your attack roll : nothing happen. You have just missed the target
==> Rather than applying surfaces effects automatically to all characters in the radius, the surfaces effects are applied to a single character on a failed saving throw. I just reworked some of them for balance purpose.
==> Most arrows have the same kind of mechanics (>< surfaces). An attack roll and usually a ST to apply a status.

I personnaly think it is a lot more appealing, a lot more fun and a lot more balance than in the base game.
But what do you guys think about it ?

When this mod will be fixed I'll try to create a tutorial on how to mod games with BG3 mod manager and create a "let's try our suggestion through modding" thread with mod suggestions for us to wait until release !
(shove is an action, hide is an action, ranged weapons have different range, bless target reworked, choose your starting equipment thanks to Lostsouls,...).

Hi Maximuuus, I’ll merge this with your previous thread on a similar topic at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=840301, unless you have some specific reason for keeping them separate?

+1

Great suggestions I too think this would be more balanced and fun. Would also like to see the total number of these items available to be reduced.

The other thread was my first attempt to rework arrows. But after I tried a bit in game it didn't worked well mechanicaly.
Small surface radius don't work well so I decided to re-think things entirely.
I created a new thread to keep things clear and focussed on this new "suggestion".

+1 Well done. I hope Larian will include this in the base game and thus honor your effort.

So while I have to agree the side effects of special arrows are quite OP ( 100% accuraccy basically, if you miss you still have the surface, if you hit you basically nuke that poor thing on the other side) by removing the surface and guaranteed damage you emphasize a different issue.

Regarding the statuses applied by special arrows I think what you came up with is quite cool and I could see myself playing around this type of statuses instead of having those surfaces created under the feets of my target( if it still works like that? I'm talking based on pre-paladin build from 2022).

However...Players when they miss an arrow, will have 0 impact on the combat. But that subject is large and is a completely seprate topic(and for clarification -> Missing too often absolutely isn't a problem for me personally, but I played with people who managed to complain about it despite the loaded dice!)

With Larian introducing the loaded dice as an answer to misses , removing surfaces kinda goes against the spirit of reducing the impact of a " miss" during combat.
I really don't understand , like genually I do not posses the ability to comprehend people not enjoying risk management and a miss being part of it. Where does that frustration come from?

But misses and masses aside I think yeah, a "guaranteed" hit on a relatively common special arrow is just too much.

Personally I would remove special effects alltogether - I think that extra elemental damage would be good enough (and add quivers so they can be combined with other skills)

That said, your ideas do sound good to me - freeze sounds a bit powerful - I think chilled would be powerful enough.

I am not against some kind of paralysing missle, but I think it should be rare and valuable.

each area of effect adds to the load on the system so perhaps Larian just cut them back in a bid to limit stress on min systems i.e, it may have nothing to do with hits and misses

I understand the reasoning, but most spells, attacks, class features and so on can entirely miss and have 0 impact on combat.

I'm not sure why it could be a problem if magical arrows could entirely miss too. I can't be sure but I guess magical arrows are more designed with "surfaces" in mind than with a "always hit" purpose. In this case, the "always hit" seems to me like a side effect more than something designed on purpose. I may be wrong, ofc.


Thanks for your feedback. I could personnaly live without any special effects but extta damage too to be honnest but I think it is tacticaly interressing to have them (burning is great against caster/concentration, block reaction allow to bloc AOO, to escape,...).

I guess you only mean the part of chilled that is talking about movement ? It is also a possibility. I have chosen to freeze entirely mostly because of hamstring shot. I reworked it in another mod I'm still working on. In this mod you can use hamstring shot (movement /2) once per turn.

This bit sounds interesting as well, but I don't know if it is implemantable:

In Solasta chill slows just the movement, I think. May I ask: Did you think of "Frozen" to just restrict characters from moving, or a complete paralysis (skip turn) like in D:OS2? If it's just restricting movement, that I think it would be fine.

I would like such a change. Surface warfare annoyed me already in D:OS2. I'm playing without Karmic Dices, so I'm used to the miserable feeling of frequent misses. The special arrows are limited and cost money, that's a difference to a missed spell. I could accept total misses if the arrows were available in the release game version in about the same amount as currently (relatively cheap and easy to get). Although I'm still hoping that Larian will tone down magical stuff, potions, scrolls, food etc. in the release version.

What I don't like is that you cannot use the special arrows with the sneak attack of the Rogue. Do you think they could be made usuable or would that feel unbalanced to you?

Oh yes, I didn't explained the status well.
Frozen (homebrew status) description is something like "your feet are frozen in ice, you can't move".
Movement is reduced to 0, but characters can use all their actions/bonus action/reaction.


In my opinion, the amount of magical ammunition is good in the game currently. I personnaly never buy them so I don't have tons of them.
Just what I need to have fun, possibilities and a bit of ressources management. Of course I guess you can have an unlimited amount of them if you buy them each time merchants refill... Which is not something I like, but neither something I'd ever plan to do.



I'm not a TT player so I can't really say if it is balanced or not. I guess it would be powerfull, but not especially overpowered.
The additionnal damages a rogue could do compared to other class would remains the same whatever both of them use normal or magical arrows so I guess it would be fine. Let's wait for DnD players to be sure.

For my taste it's a bit too much in the loot. But I generally don't like the magical stuff which is in the game in overabundance. If I remember right, I never used a potion in combat except for healing, I don't use scrolls and used magical arrows 5 times since EA release. With your changes I would however use arrows more often, I think.

I think whenever stuff like sneak attack will be transferred to pop ups and enable combining it with other attacks (including arrows) would impact what arrows should do (also: are arrows part of multiattack at the moment, or are they treated like consumables?).

If combined damage is too much, one could even keep the arrows base damage, and just make it elemental (which would still make them useful depending on enemy resistances and vulnerabilities) and make the effects the “special thing”.

It is difficult to speak about item economy without seeing the final game. Will there be crafting, for example?


Ah, thanks. That would be fine. Did you consider per-turn saving throws to shake off the status? 5e does quite a bit of that. That way you could even extend effects by, let’s say one turn, and hopefully it wouldn’t get out of hand. I also wonder if Ice’s ability check, shouldn’t be strength - for one to diversify check’s further, and roleplay wise, it makes more sense for me for a character to “break” through ice, rather than dodge it.

I don't know if it is possible to force a ST at each turn. If you have a status / spell in mind that currently work like this, feel free to tell me.
It would be easier to check in the games files. I think it is a good idea.

And I'll definitely go for strength ST. That's a great suggestion.

But now that I think about it... What about flying creatures that doesn't need feets (nor wings for some of them) to move ?
Shouldn't they be affected by frozen ?

And thus you made me reinstal BG3.

Between Pathfinder, Solasta and BG3 I might be mixing things up but I am pretty sure spells like hold person, charm person, slowed or Tasha's Hideaus Laughter should make a saving throw every turn. Should is an operative word though.

Edit: I can confirm that Tasha's HL and hold person makes ST every turn. Charm doesn't, didn't try slow.


Ugh, that's a good question. If BG3 had a proper flying mechanics (like Solasta) I might suggest to ground flying enemies (bring them to ground level) when frozen.

Biggest benefit of flying in BG3 seems to be an ability to ignore surfaces, but with change from surfaces to status effects, I don't think making flying enemies ignore "frozen" effect (or burning) makes sense. I don't think it would feel wrong to freeze "flying" enemies in place, as with how they are presented in BG3 they feel pretty grounded anyway. It does feel like changing surfaces to status effect, could negatively impact flying though, as it's expensive spell that would bring even less value to combat.

edit:
Reducing character's movement range, would make things simpler, but as you mentioned hamstring shot already fulfills that function. Couple options I can think of:
1) grounded or flying - a unit can't move nonetheless
2) a character can't move, but can fly freely (legs are frozen, but he isn't frozen to the ground) - makes more senese with enemies with legs, one can wonder what is being frozen for enemy like Observer - though I don't know how the thing flies to begin with
3) flying range is reduced when frozen.
4) flyinbg creatures when frozen loose their flying status, but can still walk (or crawl - or not if they have nothing to walk or crawl with) - could walking spead be creature specific?

Larian loves their surfaces.
One thing I liked about dos2 was the mechanic of stacking a status, like first cold arrow sets "cold" then if hit by a cold spell it sets "really cold" lol.

I changed the wet status in one of my mods from vulnerable to cold/ lightning to take extra dmg per spell level. In a comp game this is easy to do.

With another mod sneak is able toggle so can be used with diff attacks

Removing surfaces from arrows seems ok.