Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Examine makes the game way easier than it should be

I wonder why we don't have to roll Arcana to get information for Examine. IIRC Loremaster worked like that in D:OS2? The engine should then already have the capability to make it so, I would guess.

I don't think it's a very good idea to basically give players access to the Monster Manual while playing D&D and patiently wait while they read the stats, vulnerabilities and resistences. Yes, Wizards are really strong in D&D etc etc, but by itself Intelligence is a pretty bad stat, so it would be nice if would have extra utility for revealing more information about whatever we're fighting.

And sometimes, just sometimes, when something is unique... don't give any information at all. The cursed fireballs in the game's best dungeon were fun and scary because you didn't know what CC immunities they had, so... you just had to try things. And when you finally figure it out, it feels great.

PS: Perhaps make this a Tactician-only feature? Personally I thought Tactician was super easy at all times (except Last Light before Isobels HP and AC were fixed so she didn't get KO'd before you even got a turn).

Honestly, it's not just the "examine" feature. The mere fact that we can mouse over an enemy and see our chance to hit them, or to have our spells pass their checks, is an ENORMOUS advantage. I can see this needing to be enabled by default in story and maybe balanced, but for tactician I really think it should be turned off.

It will be available on wikis online when people run tests to find out, it's a pointless restriction. I do agree with making Int more valuable somehow.

I don't think it's a pointless restriction. It's like saying that a monster's stats in tabletop might as well be visible to all since you could just look it up.
Yes, people who want to get through every encounter as easily as possible will just look it up. People who have TROUBLE with an encounter will look it up. But I can tell you that I, personally, would not look it up right away. *Most of the time* I do not examine enemies in this game. Hell, I played BG1 and BG2 countless times - both games which are much harder than BG3 - and I could not tell you exactly how many hp some enemies have, or their spell resistance, or their weakest saves, or information as detailed as *what the chances are for any one of my characters to succeed in hitting them or any one of my spells to succeed in affecting them are*. All information BG3 gives for *free*, which is humongous when you think about it - I can remember specific times in this game where I have moused over an enemy with a spell, saw their save chance, saw I was unlikely to succeed, and selected a different spell. If I didn't have that information, would I have said "Uh oh! Better go look it up", minimized the game, and gone pawing through the wiki? No, I would have likely just tried out the spell and wasted a turn. It would have made this very easy game more difficult.

...so don't look it up.
I fail do see the problem here.
If you think Examine gives you too much information, don't use Examine.
You control the buttons you press.

The problem with that is that sometimes some effects are clearly visible and they translate into very important buffs / debuffs. There is no way to actually read their tooltip without examining - these are things that a character living in that world should know or realize immediately, but without access to a tooltip we cannot. If we could read tooltips while hovering over characters and holding ALT or something I would agree with you, but sometimes Examine is necessary to see how conditions translate into gameplay (because it's far from obvious without examining).

I think D:OS2 did this very well - it really wasn't hard to have a Loremaster in the group. There were items that gave bonuses to the skill, and a single point in Loremaster gave you almost complete information about all very common enemies - dude's wearing heavy armor and a polearm, you can expect... etc. With an extra point or two (maybe just from items) you'd get valuable information for the less common enemies. It was great, imo. The option to completely ignore Loremaster and just take a look at the wiki was always there and will always be there, if people choose to play like that.

It is a change from previous games, but I don't think it's completely unwelcome. Before, you'd look at what you're fighting. Is it an Ogre? Probably not the wisest creature around, so Command should work on it... Is it a priest? Oh... kind of hard to tell, really. Some of them wear heavy armor, others don't. What about those Bhaalists? Are they Fighters or Paladins? Sometimes it's obvious that the robe-wearing drow is a cleric to someone with basic knowledge of religion because they wield a scourge with snakeheads, but the game isn't really built like ethat right now in the same way the old D&D games were. Appearance isn't always indicative of resistences and such, and while that sounds cool and WAS cool in D:OS2, it's very punishing with the 5e ruleset - you're not just wasting a turn, you're wasting one of your few spell slots. Lock + Bard + martial + druid is already such a stupidly strong combo because of short rests, and it might feel a lot more mandatory if wasting spells becomes a thing every encounter.

I'm not completely opposed to your idea for Tactician, mind you. But I wonder if it's not already a bit too late - at this point, most people have played the game at least once. They 'member previous encounters Still, the older games didn't even show AoE ranges for spells like Fireball, you had to learn them. That was cool, but... times have changed. I think we who would appreciate such things are in a minority. I'd be happy to have all this on Tactician only (maybe even a gameplay setting that can be toggled on or off in Options, like Pillars of Eternity did).

Because, as I said, it is *not just examine*. When you mouse over an enemy it automatically shows you the chance that you will hit them, or the chance that your selected spell will affect them. This happens without looking anything up and while it might seem minor is actually a humongous piece of information.

And yes, Raz, you're right that losing an entire spell slot can seem very punishing, which is why I think it should be an option, and not mandatory. But to me, in tabletop, guessing which saves an enemy is weak for is part of the charm of the game. It's true that for some enemies it can be harder to guess than for others...

But that's where skill checks can come in! (In a game that to be frank, does not utilize all the skill checks very well.) Let's say you're fighting an animal. Instead of 'examine' showing you ALL the information right away, you roll a nature check. 10+ shows you basic information like hp, 20+ shows you vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and 30+ shows you EVERYTHING - and when you roll that high, you can say you know the enemy so well that you DO know the chance you'll hit them or that spells will pass through them, and you can turn the "chance to hit" visual back on. Even before that, though, you could maybe give some flavor text that would allow you to guess.

You could have different checks for different enemies - maybe you need an arcana check when you're fighting a magical enemy like a golem. And maybe you could make this whole thing optional, if you want, for higher difficulties, which I think is fine - I can tell you I definitely don't remember the specifics of every enemy we fight in the game.

But you compare it to the old games not showing you a visual for the AoE range of fireball...for me this is something different. The AoE indicator is fine, because it's something your character SHOULD know. But even something as simple as hp, the old games didn't used to tell you EXACTLY how much the enemy had left - they'd tell you that it was 'barely injured', or 'injured', or 'near death'. To me, revealing information that your characters *should not know by default*, especially that which gives you such a huge advantage in battle, should be a reward for a skill check at the very least.

Not to mention that in 5e, the thing that this game is supposed to basically be, that are specific features that explicitly serve the purpose of granting functions akin to "examine".
It's something you are supposed to have to build for, to some extent.

This is a PC game, not a tabletop simulator. It is inspired by 5e, but under no obligation to copy it. If it did, monk would be in the dust bin instead of one of the strongest classes in the game. Moon druid would be top tier instead of bottom tier. Most classes would be played as certain races due to fixed ASI. List goes on.

This is a Larian game first and foremost. They as developers make the call for what will be a good PC and console gameplay experience. With that said, they really should have leaned in to making proficiencies and Int as a stat more useful. It feels like proficiencies outside Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Perception are pretty useless. My Arcana/History checks were few and far in between, and even when they were relevant, only less than half the time they made a real difference.

I think this is an artifact of Act 1 being their most feature complete, with more of those checks there, while by Act 2 and 3 things were rushed along.

This is a great suggestion.

Universal examine does feel metagamey by TTRPG standards. Only the DM has that info usually.

Look man, I see you saying this everywhere. This is trivial and obvious. It does not have to be said here. People are bringing up 5e here not because they are arguing that the game should be like 5e just for the sake of being more like tabletop, they are bringing up 5e here because they think the game would be genuinely *better* if it was more like tabletop. There are tons of things in literally every single video game adaptation of DnD that has ever existed that are not exactly like tabletop. The point is not "full faithfulness to tabletop." The point is "This is a specific mechanic that exist in tabletop that would actually bring more to the video game adaptation of it."

+1 for removing metagaming info from Tactician mode (or making a new, even harder mode). The hit percentage is the most egregious for making things easier than they should be in my opinion.

yeah +1 there should be more restrictions on higher difficulty.

I think this way you will make game just more annoying, not difficult. Effect of this will be ... wikis filled with info about every creature in the game.
And actually it's super rare when you really need to examine creature.

If you want to make this game more 'difficult', then hiding info could work with a little bit of randomness. You said ' were fun and scary because you didn't know what CC immunities they had, so... you just had to try things.' - You want randomness, not only 'hiding info'. Just imagine that you have playthrough 1: you encounter 5 x goblins (2 x fighters, 1 x goblin cleric, 1 x goblin wizard, 1 x goblin warlock) ... and 2nd playthrough, same pack but this time you encounter 5x goblin fighters (how AI handle fight it's another story). This example is stupid and trivialized but i hope you know what i mean.

I think adding randomness increases difficulty. What about making loot totally random? Currently you know where x item is, and the problem is every single time you start the game you know that x item will be there...

IMHO Path of exile is the best example of game where randomness makes game more unpredictable - the problem is people refuse to play that way. What they do instead? they play on standard leauge, pick a build from the internet, grind, trade and they win. There's no difficulty in this way of playing. And really, many people tends gravitate towards 'predictable' stuff.

+1 to this. I saw a screenshot post on Reddit of the "examine" window of a disguised NPC who was classified as "doppelganger". This is an extreme example, but I think it furthers the OPs point. The examine window and features of the interface give too much away sometimes.

I always advocate for potential changes like these to be optional to accommodate different playstyles. A toggle in the options menu or associating the restriction with difficulty setting would be a great solution.