Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Let's face it: BG3 mechanics sucks and how to fix it.

Well, it could be another of these threads focused on whining how BG3 cheats dice rolls and it makes the game unfair. Although it is not: I believe writing such complaints is pointless. There always will be diverging opinions, especially when no one did sufficiently thorough statistical research based on good amount of collected data.

But it does not alleviate main problem with this game: it's indeed frustrating for many and frequently might feel unfair - as a subjective experience, not objective truth. Truth does not matter here, only experience. This is a video game, anyway. Its one and only purpose is to give fun to players -- as opposed to attempt at being a precise implementation of some system from the outside of video game domain (whether called D&D 5e or otherwise). It's neither a chess program, a compiler, nor logic simulator for VLSI chips.

Getting straight to the point: my playtime is about 250 hours for now (EA and release). I tried playing both in standard and karmic mode. My general feeling is as such:

Standard dice mode: everyone misses nearly all the time, spell slots mostly get wasted, encounters drag on forever. Prone to streaks and confirmation bias.

Karmic dice mode: much better experience overall (contrary to popular belief!), however enemies nearly always win saving throws. This makes half of the spells useless (high DC and Bane will not help you when they roll base 18 most of the time). Also the description lies -- it does not eliminate streaks, it only skews probability distribution to upper values (you can find a statistical analysis/histogram the net).

Another problem: difficulty in this game is practically equal to zero, as you can save/reload anytime and basically save-scum through everything, nullifying all game's systems. If you have patience to watch these horribly long loading screens, that is.

I was thinking about ways to improve it and a solution came to me which I think is both simple and effective in solving all of these problems once and for all. The idea is to replace (conceptually and algorithmically, but not visually) dice rolling with card drawing, as per following rules:

1. Instead of a d20 you have a deck of cards numbered 1 .. 20, randomly shuffled.
2. Instead of rolling a d20, you draw single card from the top of the deck.
3. When there are no cards left, game prepares another deck. Sometimes a deck can be reset (replaced by a new deck of 20 randomly shuffled cards).
4. There are 5 major decks in the game:
- for players/allies attack rolls,
- for players/allies saving throws,
- for enemies attack rolls,
- for enemies saving throws,
- for ability/skill checks outside combat.
5. In addition to that, there are a couple of smaller decks for damage calculation and other auxiliary purposes, following the same pattern.
6. All combat-related decks are reset when combat begins, i.e. game transitions from non-combat to combat state (first player character enters combat, but not subsequent ones).
7. Ability check-related deck is being reset on short or long rest. It also resets environmental checks (perception, survival, etc.).
8. All decks are SAVED into the game save file.

Consequences of using the system described above are:

1. It IS completely fair and it FEELS completely fair. Both of these properties are mathematically guaranteed. Everything evens up in rather short cycles of 20 draws. So you will always have your share of hits, crits and misses no matter what, and so do your enemies.

2. However, it is still random as you do not know exactly when these hits or misses will come - at least at the beginning/middle of the cycle.

3. Near the end of the cycle you might be able to predict what will likely happen basing on previous results in that cycle. And it's actually cool, because it enables another layer of tactical thinking. Now you think and calculate, instead watching mindlessly how dice roll.

4. Statistical properties are equal to those of unweighted dice. Also there is no room for speculations about dice rigging on game's side. The math is fully open and transparent here.

5. It is impossible to brute-force through the game by simple save-scumming (because of rule 8). On the other hand, it is fully valid to redo a failed fight (rule 6), or even a sufficiently long part of the fight (from cycle start). It is also possible to redo botched ability checks, but for a price of short/long rest. It's up to you to decide whether it is worth to do so (as camp resources are limited).

6. There's still a possibility to use save/reload to cheat a bit -- do some "trial" turns to figure out what the sequence of cards in current deck is, then reload and utilize that information. But again, it requires thinking and planning on your side, instead of stupidly pressing F8 until succeeded.

In my opinion this system would make the game much better. It's really how "karmic dice" SHOULD be implemented, instead of some shady tampering with regular RNG results.

If you agree with me on that matter, please help getting Larian's attention to that proposal. BG3 recently got a high praise and severe overhype, but in my opinion actual experience with this game is inferior compared to other cRPG games like original BG, DA, PoE or even Larian's own Divinity:OS series. And that's a shame, because otherwise the game is excellent. Especially such a great amount of high-quality content is amazing. Some improvement on mechanics side perhaps would make it truly one of the best cRPGs around, as all these overhyped reviews claim it to be.

There isn't a single premise of this thread I agree with and yet somehow it manages to get WORSE when we move to the suggestions to "improve" it.

I don't see the point of any of this. Larian made a poor job of implementing RNG then made it worse by introducing Karmic dice (the actual meaning of karmic has nothing to do with this context BTW). None of the other games I've played have this problem only BG3.

I play with Karmic dice turned off and don't have a problem hitting anything. Sure my party sometimes miss but they hit far more often. I play on normal and my level 7 party has Lae'zel and Karlach on +7 and +8 or +8 and +9 to hit (might be Karlach and Lae'zel). There again, I use mods so my party's stats are what they would be if I built the class.
All my party is either AC 19 or 20 so they they avoid getting hit more often than they get hit.

Your suggestion would change the whole game. You can increase the DC of your spells later to nearly 30 so even playing on Tactitian is not a problem. But you are right sometimes the battles are unfair because you of bad luck. But i finished the game twice (sorcerer and Necro) on tactitian and now i think the game is to easy. Although i know there are many new players new in this genre lured by genitales and bear sex and for those guys the game can be really hard. So there are many videos on YT teaching the mechanics etc.

To be clear, the system I am proposing is meant exactly as a replacement for Karmic Dice. Default RNG stays intact. If someone had a good experience with default one then it's fine. If not, they have an alternative which guarantees that if you had some bad rolls then you will have good ones quite soon (and vice versa). This is at the price of having less ability to save-scum. But still, it is optional. I agree that "karmic" is a misnomer here, that would mean outcomes are depending of your past deeds in the game, and it does not work this way (nor is intended to).

Karmic dice as a concept can go and blow asses somewhere else, to begin with.

Incredibly stupid idea in the first place, so any effort put into "replacing it properly" is almost implicitly redundant.

I don't think it would alter game balance, as you still have 20 outcomes with same probabilities, just as with default RNG. It is not weighted. Using only statistical tools (i.e. computing mean, variance, etc.) there should be no detectable difference between this and default RNG over some longer period (like 1000 samples). The difference will be visible over short period and that's a good thing because it eliminates the "bad luck" impression.

My dice rolls have been completely fine with this game. And it does not mean that you did have bad rolls, but that is what random is... it is random.
As you see most people who has ansvered has had normal good and bad rolls and that says that people will get god and bad rolls. I personally am not sure about Karmic dice, but that is my feeling. Nothing to prove it wrong or right. For new D&D player Karmic dice most likely is better option because it smooth out results.
In normal dice you just can have really many fails in row or really many good rolls in row. That is what real random is. I have had those strokes in real tabletop games also and in short term. Previous trhow does not affect how your next throw goes! In long run you should get about eqaul number of each dice roll result, but in short run... next roll can be anything and it does not depend on if you did roll good or bad in any previous rolls. Karmic dice chance that.

I don´t know how many year you have been studying math, but for me it is a work, so I can say. Dice in this game and randomness works just fine!

Are you sure you are playing the game right? Using skills your character's are proficient in, targeting enemy weaknesses etc. debuffing tougher enemies etc. Number's seem to be stack in favour of things getting hit. Karlach alone can burn through 1 or 2 enemies per turn. I think I died once so far, and it was due to some AoE cheese.

It is really rare for me to see sub 80% chance to hit. And if I do, I usualy opt to do something else.

Playing on standard dice, tactitian difficulty, 95% on all my spells in act 3.

I hold everything except undead ... I demand halt undead right now!

I'm speechless. In 200 hours of playtime shouldn't you have learnt something essential within the game mechanics other than trusting 55% odds to hit?

In Act 3, you rarely missed. With 10-13 proficiency bonus (on my rogue) I'm stabbing Gods themselves in the back until it is dead - this is in allegedly "easy" tactician difficulty (which is still hard, you just need to pay attention).

Larian maybe need to optimize the difficulty but 200 hours plus in game should've made you practically an expert handling enemies.

The only real Issue that is most likely perception based on my part is the perceived tendency of the game to have damage rolls that fall short of expectations. This appears to happen more frequently with the higher levels of difficulty. I'll use Magic Missile as a prime example, 2-5 damage per missile 3 missiles average damage should be 9 with a min of 6 max of 15. In explorer mode that's what you get, (over 300hrs playing between EA and live) you kick it up to mid level overall the average stays the same BUT... when it comes down to that mob that has 9 hp left you'll do 8. or throw out a spell that should do say 3-24 like Thunderwave and between save and low dmg rolls I have more often than not seen damage in the low single digits.

Or on the flip side of that (receiving end) I'm going to use the Gnolls in Act 1 as an example, they will use their ability for rapid attacks (can't remember the name ATM) and they will hit 2 of 3 times with damage on the high end of the possible every time they hit. I try something similar (potion of speed +Bless + Divine Favor) I get the floating :Miss: :Miss: :Miss:

This is the kind of stuff that happens in this game that annoys players so much. More often than not over an entire battle it averages out. But with the streaks we get, the possible seems to pop up more often than the probable. So far the Gnolls seem to have the outliers more often than say Goblins but any battle can go pear shaped quickly with just a few outliers thrown into a battle.

TBH the perception is that these outliers (really high or low) happen more often in favor of the mobs, that is the issue behind all these threads. But people forget that those critical hits from their Paladin with Divine Smite that kills the boss in one hit is an outlier too.

I've been on game forums a long time, but I just got here. All I can say is, do you really think the Devs will appreciate or even give your post a glance when you title it "Let's face it: BG3 mechanics sucks?" How rude! Try again.

I dont like people complaining about dice, So im going to complain about dice. *id insert a clown emoji here if the forum had one...*

Dnd is based on dice. Sometimes dice f*ck you. Sometimes the dice f*ck the npc's. Im both a player and a DM. The game system as is, is fine.

Most stereotypic thread type for any game based on dice that was made a video game.

One problem a lot of ppl have it that they do not even understand the actual propabilities. Another thing with using RNGs is that they are based on an algorithm. Real dice are not. Real dice are never 100% perfect. Real dice wear etc. So in a lot of cases real dice are less random than an RNG algorithm. That again may

give kind of a "wrong" feeling sometimes.

Yet it id entirely possible that the RNG is not working correctly. Always. Depending on which one larian used and how they implemented it there may be problems. MAY. I have over 700 hours played and cannot say i feel anything is off tbh.

And yes OFC it is annoying when the enemy does the 4th crit in a row while you do fail even the easies rolls...happens. Do not forget the times when it is the other way around. Ppl tend to remember bad experiences a lot better than good ones.

Someone supposedly recorded all their rolls in Act 1 and got something like 10.9 (enemy) and 7.4 (player). 10.5 being the perfect average. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to tell if something is off with a game like this. For all I know, they were using one spell really often that IS bugged.

Tim story time!


I recommend taking a wizard with school of divination along - you can rewrite couple rolls with a pre-generated number!

....So recode the game, retask some art resources, and ...
But I'm with you on the long resets. With 63 gigs just for the pre-release, you'd think you could do a round trip in less than two minutes. A LOT less.

Tim also has GDC (?) video where he talk about RNG randomness. Circa 2018? Before TOW release.

“People don’t actually want random roll, they want a good predetermined roll”.

The mechanics in this game do not suck. Maybe work on your character builds? Yeah, RNG can be frustrating sometimes, that's the nature of the R in RNG, right? There are ways to make the numbers work in your favor.

I hate being the git gud guy, but seriously, have you tried multiclassing? Don't use Dex save spells on mobs with high Dex?

I've had bouts of frustration but NOTHING that would make me come on here and whine about the mechanics. The game is too easy, IMHO.