Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks I simply have no idea what to do.

I rarely ever post on forums. But I just don't know what else to do. I desperately want to enjoy this game, but I just cant, because it is simply too damn hard! I've even turned the difficulty down to the easiest setting, and I feel like that barely makes any difference at all. I just keep hitting wall after wall and, even though I really don't want to, I'm seriously considering quitting and giving up on this game.
Here's what's happening. Whenever I get into a battle, It "literally" takes everything I have to get through it. My party seems to miss about %70 of their attacks, and whenever they do land a hit, they barely do any damage at all to enemies. Whereas enemies rarely ever miss my party and they do insane amounts of damage to them. Either that, or they cast some kind of extremely powerful AOE spell on them, which damages all my party members so much, that it pretty much renders the fight unwinnable. I've equipped them with the best gear and weapons I can buy, but I feel like every single enemy encounter in the game is a life-or-death battle. No matter how small the enemies I'm fighting. Even when it comes to the magic users, I'm simply finding magic almost useless, as it takes every single spell they have to get through a battle, which means they have nothing left by the time the next fight comes.
So I'm stuck in this cycle of spending hours trying to get through a single battle and getting party wiped over and over again, only to get frustrated and quit, making no progress at all.
Balders Gate 3 has such wonderful lore, writing, characters, art ETC... And I feel like I'm unable to enjoy ANY of it because I just cannot get anywhere in this game because of the absolutely insane difficulty.
I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I'm honestly considering giving up on this game.
If anyone has any advice at all, I would greatly appreciate it.

Hey, don’t despair! I started off finding the easy mode challenging, and now I’m doing pretty well on tactician. It takes time and patience to get good at understanding the mechanics of combat, and how best to use your characters.

Which characters are you using, with what builds and stats, and is there a specific battle (or battles) you’re having trouble with right now?

Take your Time Bro..
This Game is Kinda overwhelming sometimes especially for a First Timer with this style of Game..
and i Mean this is Not a Normal RPG of nowadays.. its like Old Timer RPG the ones i grew up. yeah im really Old..
But Try to see some Tips and Tricks this Game has A Bunch of Cheese to it..
Just my best Tip always. Play as Charisma Based, Focus on Intimidation especially.
yu will Make the entire Game a Cake walk no joke.
and with charisma yu can Manipulate, persuade evrybody almost on doing the job for yu..
Meaning.
yu will just kill then with your words or make the entire encounter super easy and trivial becouse yu made evrybody betray evrybody..
Becouse yu have a Silver Tong..haha xD
Its like Fallout New Vegas when yu know what yu are doing..

BTW always Just Always Explore and talk to evrything..
if yu are afraid of screw things up super bad.. Save a lot.

Another Great Tip..
Like i Said before.. go with a Build on Charisma for a easy experience..
Play as Palock (Paladin/Warlock)
Play as Sorlock ( Sorcerer/Warlock) Durge is the Best one for this..
Play as Hexablade (Fighter/Warlock) this one is a little bit Tricky yu cannot spend stuff wrong or the build wil sux.
Can use a Bard too.. they Mix pretty well with Sorcerer and Warlock too.
And all of then are Charisma.

It's difficult to say anything without the specifics.

The game is based on D&D, which is massive. I found it helps a lot to look up some base game mechanics (most important stats for classes, some spells, and effects, etc). There are a lot of little things the game never tells you.
You generally want your most important stats to be even numbers
While all classes are great, some of them make the first few levels easier to bear than others.
Full spellcasters will most likely need a long rest after every 1-2 battles
Party composition is essential, my most effective party was the most unorthodox
You can reclass origin characters, and in some cases, it's even advisable, even if to redistribute some stat points.
Positioning party members can also make a huge difference.
Enemies do not scale, you will walk into fights you are under-leveled for.
Everyone has different preferences, I found the game extremely difficult with a sorcerer, but very easy with a bard.

You can do this, take a deep breath. There are a lot of friendly users on this forum, and hopefully you'll find good advice that can help you along on your campaign. I've finished 2 playthroughs and am on my 3rd run on tactician. I normally use Durge (abjuration wizard for better defense or land druid), Astarion (rogue/ranger), Shadowheart (cleric), and Gale (evocation wizard). Pretty much 3-magic + 1 rogue xD In the beginning, good spells to put on magic-users: magic missile on Gale, Silence on Shadowheart, firebolt on Astarion (so he can light barrels on fire).

Here are a few simple tips that could help any party out at level 1:

• Always have a ranged weapon on your characters. Check and make sure the character is proficient with either longbow, shortbow or crossbow (I prefer longbow, because this allows you to hamstring characters). Make sure you put a ranged weapon on magic users, because there will be times where you are silenced or need an attack but can't move close enough.
• Put another weapon or a shield in your character's off-hand. Unless you are using two-handed weapons, you can often put an offhand weapon (such as a dagger on a rogue) or put a shield on your character. Shields increase your armor/defense, and often come with abilities such as no critical hits, reel or shield bash. Characters such as wizards often cannot wear heavier armor until you reach higher levels. So you either need to unlock that ability, or toss a shield on them and wear mage armor.
• If you're not winning by running head-on into a battle, look for ways around/stealthier routes.
• Use the terrain to your advantage. Look around and see if there are smokepowder barrels, chandeliers/braziers, levers, poison switchers or even hanging marble rocks. There are classes (e.g. Land Druid) that specifically mess with the terrain. Burn the ground your enemies walk on, set up walls of fire, use sleet storm, so you freeze the ground and enemies spend all their time standing back up and being struck by lightning. Don't underestimate how much time that can buy you.

So I guess I can give you a bit of input generally speaking.

If you’re very new to the game, you may not know that you need to long rest regularly at camp to replenish your spellcasting powers. You’re only going to be stuck with your weakest spells if you don’t long rest after every couple of battles (especially in the early game). If my most powerful spell was firebolt, I would lose every battle, haha. It WOULD be frustrating. In fact, I didn’t understand the long resting mechanic at first.

Second, some spells are way better than others, and it’s important to know what to pick for each character. For example, sanctuary (cast by a cleric) is an absolute lifesaver, and I have come back and won many battles as a result of that spell. If you’re interested to know which spells I think are strongest for the different casters, I’d be happy to tell you.

Third, I think it’s important to always have one tank character, who can deal decent damage in the beginning of the game and soak up some of the damage dealt by enemies. Lae’zel as a Fighter, or Karlach as a Barbarian, would work well for this. I personally think that a team of four spellcasters is pretty weak in the beginning.

Fourth, you can actually avoid a lot of battles by playing as a character who has high charisma. I absolutely love playing as a bard! I’ve talked myself out of so many sticky situations and saved my own life several times over, I’m sure. You get the same amount of XP for talking yourself out of a fight as you do for actually fighting.

Fifth, if you know what’s coming in a fight, ungroup your party members and strategically position them for best results, so that they aren’t all grouped together as a huge target for enemies. That way, not everyone will be killed by one area of effect spell.

I normally play as a spellcasting college of lore bard (with one level of cleric for medium armor, shields, and the sanctuary spell), then I’ll have Shadowheart as a cleric, Lae’zel or Karlach as a tank, and then either Astarion or Gale as another spellcaster. I like to respec Astarion into a bard, and having two bards actually works pretty well for me. They have an ability called cutting words, on the college of lore route, that decreases the chances that an enemy will hit a character. Gale has some awesome spells but I do think I prefer bard over wizard.

YouTube is full of guides covering every aspect of BG3.

Had the same wall before me as you have, now I'm complaining, that the game is in most instances to easy. Some tipps that might help:

Take it slowly. By that I mean, explore everything, talk with everybody, do sidequests, think around the corner. Every skill is in the game for a reason e.g. speak to animals or dead. Don't rush into combat, the power curve is very much in your favor, but at the beginning you will struggle and fight some uphill batlles.

Make use of items like potions, scrolls and so on and dig a bit into alchemy. A few speed potions can turn a battle from suicide into a cakewalk. And remember, you can throw a lot of things, including enemies and potions (which results in a nice aoe heal).

Some early game spells are almost to good to be true, e.g. scantuary or command. Command grovel takes enemies completely out of the fight.

You want to have at least one character in the party, that can do burst damage. Laezel as a pure fighter is a strong option, I personally go with a paladin multiclass for my main because divine smite is almost to good to be true. The burst damage is really insane. If you feel more like a wizard, water + chromatic orb is really really strong.

Always gang up on enemies, take them down one at a time. An enemy with 1hp left is as deadly as an enemy at full health.

Make use of short and long rests, short rests provide a lot of healing and refresh the spell slots of warlocks, so a padlock or Wyll will always have options after short rests. And make sure you level up.

Shop till you drop, there many great early game items available for early game e.g. the ring of whispering promise (party bless on heal) or the caustic band. Don't be fooled by small addtional damage numbers, these things stack up to some impressive damage.

Always try to have advantage in combat, just check some tutorials.

Make sure that characters are proficient with the armors and weapons you give them, that makes a huge difference.

Look around, some encouters can be made a lot easier by using exploding barrerls conviently put next to enemies.

Call in the cavalery, you get three ogres fighting for you early in act 1.

Thank you all very much. I'll take this all into consideration and keep trying.
In response though, People tell me alot about positioning and sneaking as well. But the problem I'm finding is that I simply do not see enemies before I'm attacked. The second they're out of the fog of war, the battle starts and I have no time to position. Also, I'm finding myself in situations where there just are no strategic positions, like higher ground, available. And even though my character is a Rogue, sneaking just does not work. The enemy FOV is everywhere, and on the rare occasions where I actually can sneak up on someone, I'm lucky if I can do any damage at all in the double digits.
I'm really hesitant to rest at camp after every battle because that advances the plot and I don't want to rush through the story so fast.
Just for frame of reference. My party is level 7 and I've just made it to Moonrise Tower. I was stuck in The Gauntlet of Shar for about a week because I just couldn't make any progress. I was only able to get through it with some massive cheese, which I hate to do because I feel like I'm missing the experience.
Thanks again for the advice. I'll keep looking around for anything that can help.

Some good advice there. I will add/support some:
- talk your way through encounters
- use ogres
- long rest often - there is so much fod in the game that you will 20-30 days worth of it bu end of Act1 (also - send it to camp)
- killing off all those 1-3HP opponents is mandatory! Magic Missile spell ...

Try out the custom mode . There is so much more options to make your game easier.

Any specific battle you are struggling with? Because at level 7 you have reached a point in the game, where you can theoretically overpower everything on tactician mode with raw strength. And I'm a bit surprised that you don't see enemies, there are some surprises in the shadowcursed land, e.g. touching a dead raven in a specific place causes many to spawn, or these blighted wood things, but most of the baddies stand in plain sight.

Tactical positioning.

I recently had a hard time in the mountain pass with a slightly under-levelled party versus reanimating undead. I had hacked them down to just two before a series of bad RNG and were outnumbered again - and losing!

We withdrew, leaving behind a sacrificial skeleton as rearguard. This split the enemy with some pursuing, the remainder ganking the rearguard.

I took the initial pursuers down and leveraged my numbers to cripple key undead. Downed undead reanimate at full health, but crippled undead stay crippled. Then in one round I overwhelmed the 2 key undead so there couldn't be more reanimating. From there it was destroy in detail.

Recognise when situation is changing, and reposition for a more limited goal. Leverage an advantage to snowball into overwhelming odds.

Also, Withers is a resource, use him. You can raise the fallen, most foes can't. Yes, this is brutal and cynical, but victory needs no explanation.

There are already some great replies here, so I'll just add this: It isn't you.

The game does not do nearly enough to help along people who are new to the lore or gaming mechanics, and it is absolutely valid to feel frustrated/angry/depressed in response. I hope that it starts to click for you.

Some ideas if you don't want to get caught with your pants down while exploring:

1) Use a low camera angle to look ahead
2) In new areas, put your party in sneak mode
3) use familiars to scout ahead. You can decouple them from their master. Yes, they will probably die. But that what they're for.
4) don't rush in to combat, but let the enemy come to you. Attack them from a distance while they waste their actions on movement.
5) together with the point above: keeping a small formation can help your party members help each other. Thrown potions and haste spores can effect multiple characters that way.

On Easy or Normal you don't need any of the gadgets/cheesy methods the game offers (like stealth, surfaces, higher ground, shoving, special/good items, surprise, buffing potions, scrolls) to win through. You just have to use the abilities of the chars. So there seems to be something wrong in the understanding of the classes and abilities, perhaps. It's difficult to give more general advice without dealing with specific situations. One thing to say, in my opinion you are underleveled for the area if you are really in Moonrise Towers with lvl 7, and not in the surrounding Shadowlands. Levels do a lot.

Question: if you find it so difficult to sneak to enemies, why don't you use a ranged weapon (or two hand crossbows) to attack and skill your Rogue accordingly?

I understand the OP's frustrations. I grew up with "normal " RPG's , so d&d rules can be difficult. Even when using cheats. My problem with the game is though that the journey towards a questpoint is frustrating, cause the map has so many stops and walls and name on, you need to see to bypass. You REALLY don't want to know how much time i lost @ Rosaryn Monastery, because i didn't find the entrance....

Also : You need to have person x in your party to start / continue quest y. WTF? Can you at least make it : Tell person x i'm waiting for him / her in place z to discuss?

What are 'normal' rpg's? If you'd ask me, I'd say that D&D is the standard from which others derived.

It's not a problem with the mode and probably not even with the difficulty setting he picked.
If he's struggling so much even in the early hours of the game, it seems clear that he simply doesn't understand some of the FUNDAMENTAL RULES of engagement of the game.

What stats to raise, what items to equip on each character, what abilities to use and against whom.
Unless he's going to give a lot more details OR post some video of him going through an encounter and showing off what he does right and wrong (and it's probably a lot of the latter) the only sensible advice I can think of is "Watch at least one or two tutorials explaining the foundational mechanics of the game" (like what a proficiency is and how to use spell slots and other abilities).

I've seen happen with other people who (turns out) weren't even leveling up their characters after the tutorial and so on.
And yeah, with a party of level 1 characters everything is a DEADLY THREAT.

5th edition is also on the simpler side, as far as rulesets go.

In fact, according to many, almost to a fault.

I think this is the soundest advice. When I got interested in the game for its immersive-sim potential, I made myself familiar with 5e rules and it helped a lot. It also will stop you from blaming poor Shadowheart for missing so often with her Sacred Fire ...