Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Karmic Dice

The description indicates this is specifically to stop you getting unreasonable streaks of bad luck and if its to exist, that is clearly how it should work. It should absolutely NOT work in reverse. However, I have just spent over an hour and a half trying to saving scum 3 successful checks in a row and it was unbelievably frustrating. I didn't keep count for all but the 3rd check, but I would estimate around 100 attempts in total. This was in a single conversation, so I had to roll 3 consecutive successes without saving.

The checks were as follows:

DC 12 with +2 modifier = 55% chance
DC 7 with +2 modifier = 80% chance
DC 12 with +3 modifier = 60% chance

In total, this works out about a 1 in 4 chance (73.6% chance of failure specifically)

Put aside whatever you feel about save scumming, if you have a 1 in 4 chance and fail around 100 times before finally succeeding, its rather unlikely that you actually had a 1 in 4 chance. The most likely explanation is not that I got extraordinarily unlucky (0.736^100 = 4.87E-14 which is essentially a never event). Its a lot more likely that I actually had a much less than 1 in 4 chance of success.

Most conspicuous, however, was how the failures were distributed. The 1st check was about 50/50, which by the numbers is what you would expect. The 2nd check, which should have been about an 80% chance of success was FAR below this. I would estimate around 30%, which over a non trivial sample size (around 50 attempts) is very significantly low. Again, if true RNG, this is extremely unlikely to be so far off what the numbers would predict.

The final check, a 60% chance, I did count the exact numbers and I failed 21 times in a row. This alone is extremely unlikely (0.4^21 = 0.000022, or about a 1 in 50,000 chance). After unselecting Karmic dice, I succeeded after 3 attempts, which given the actual probabilities involved is totally unremarkable.

This leads me to believe Karmic dice is a two edged sword.

Larian, if this is the case, you NEED to change this. No, excessive fortune is not a problem. Getting screwed over by bad rolls is a really unfun experience in a single player RPG and the basic idea behind Karmic dice, to mitigate against the frustration this can produce, is a good idea. However, making save scumming even moderately unlikely consecutive outcomes all but impossible is far more frustrating than having the odd string of bad rolls. If things go unreasonably badly, I can just reload. If I cannot succeed a MODERATELY unlikely series of checks after ONE HUNDRED ATTEMPTS, that is drastically more annoying than any RNG bullshit I have ever had with Solasta for example.

And yes, I can turn the option off. Many players wont even be aware of this. Further, an option which is meant to mitigate against frustration should not add to frustration in equal measure. Sometimes you need to be a bit lucky. Making this all but impossible, and me not even being aware of how it is happening for a long time (its not like the description explains this to you), is very annoying.

And before anyone responds by saying I was just unlucky, run the numbers for yourself. What I describe above is very unlikely to be just bad luck.



Edit: It occurs to me there is further evidence in support of what I am saying in the form of critical failures and successes. I had 5 critical successes, the first 4 of which were all on the first check, and the 5th on the 3rd check after I turned off karmic dice. I had 7 critical failures, which were distributed over all 3 checks. Firstly this means my estimate of 100 attempts is plausible. 4 critical successes on the 1st check, where I had around 100 attempts, is well within the range you would expect, and 7 failures (100 1st checks, 50 2nd checks and 20 3rd checks) is again within the range of what you would expect for 170 attempts.

Secondly, it gives further weight to karmic dice mitigating against good as well as bad luck. Not rolling a single critical success in 70 non first check attempts is actually rather unlikely, and the fact that a normal number of critical successes occurred on the first check suggests that with consecutive successes, the dice became increasingly weighted against me.

When it gets to the point where a mere two prior successes means even a 60% chance on paper appears all but impossible, A) the effect is far too strong in either direction (the effect size really should not be this powerful) and B) strongly suggests that, as per my OP, it appears to be cutting both ways.

I did also relatively early on roll an inspiration dice on a failure on a 3rd attempt, expecting myself to get it back from the inspiration you gained from the event, but that didn't occur (the inspiration must have been gained before concluding the dialogue) so I then reloaded, but the inspiration roll was successful. I refused to relent after that, largely out of bloody mindedness and because I though well, its only a 1 in 4 chance, surely I cannot continue to be THIS unlucky (in retrospect, I absolutely should have just used the inspiration dice). Granted, its a small sample size, but again, consistent with what I believe to be true about Karmic dice. I was able to succeed immediately after a prior failure, but 3 consecutive successes appeared to have a negligible chance of success.

Additionally, when playing the game more generally, consecutive dialogue checks have not been a notable issue. I believe failed checks that still result in success due to a 2nd roll with advantage still reset the Karmic Dice counter. This sequence of checks was during a camp sequence where all the rolls, though using a dialogue window, were not charisma based checks and so no advantage applied.

So I'm hearing quite a bit about this Karmic dice issue.

Is there a current consensus that it is best to switch it off?

From what I have read this seems to be the case as apparently the advantage it gives enemy dice rolls outweighs any benefits it gives you.

Seems strange that they would implement such a broken mechanic if what I am reading is accurate.

There got to be something wrong with Karmic dice.
While clearing traps in the Shar Temple I got 6 critical fails in 10 mins.
3 of those were in a row on the same trap. I have so many bonuses so I only lose when I get a critical failure.
And to roll 3 critical fails in a row with Karmic dice active is not right.

There have been issues with rng implementation in BG3, both for non-Karmic and Karmic dice. Originally (patch 4 of EA), Karmic Dice lead to "bouncing" between high & low rolls. Since then, it has been officially updated twice (that I know of) to: only bounce from low to high rolls and then to have the effect of increased rolls against higher DCs. The latter update possibly overwrote the first update's limitation to only cause positive change. The rng system for non-Karmic dice was originally terrible but was later fixed to be good (i.e., uniform).

That said, this issue here may be a seeding issue as you were constantly reloading to do the same set of checks. The game might have started with a similar seed each time, resulting in a similar string of rolls.

But yes, I agree that Karmic Dice should only reduce bad luck or at least have a much weaker effect, especially given the existence of dialogues that require multiple checks in a row.

Probably best to switch it off, yeah. In combat it'll help the player if you're fighting against high AC targets (or otherwise are fighting with penalties: e.g., in Darkness, while blinded, from low ground). Otherwise it seems to be a net neutral to negative thing, especially for dialogues.


From what I'm remembering, Karmic Dice doesn't affect the # of critical fails. Out of 735 Karmic Dice rolls, a 1 was rolled exactly 5% of the time. I think this is because, in BG3's code, a natural 1 supersedes everything and thus prevents the Karmic Dice correction from happening.

Ah, I see. The ingame desciption only says "Karmic dice avoid failure streaks, while keeping the results mostly random."
I thought it would apply to nat 1's as well since we usually have proficiencies and bonuses to deal with low rolls but nat 1s is automatic fail.

If it doesn't affect nat 1's then it just becomes even worse if enemies benefits from karmic dice.

I'm gonna keep it off for now.

I am not 100% on this one, because 5 critical successes and 7 critical fails isn't a large sample size. That said, it did seem like critical successes were being supressed after the first successful role. 0 critical successes in 70 or so roles is certainly possible, but pretty unlikely (0.95^70 = 0.027 or 2.7%). It was also notable that the critical successes and the first role and the critical failures on all 3 rolls were well within the expected range.


If enemies benefit from Karmic dice, that would completely undermine the point of the option, at least in combat. Enemy good luck is necessarily player bad luck. Getting hit by an unusually large number of crits of often worse than rolling 1s too often, unless its something like a save or die effect.