I know, I feel bad even saying this. But honour mode is still a little bit too easy. For example, I just fought Malus Thorm and didn't take a single point of damage.
I didn't take any damage against the hag, either.
Don't get me wrong. Honour Mode has definitely gone in the right direction. I love the increased prices. It means I can't buy everything outright, and it even makes me consider using sleight of hand from time to time. The one save is perfect. It adds a level of pressure that I truly appreciate, and I think it's great that the action economy has been shifted in regards to haste/speed.
Still. I guess I'd like to see fewer consumables and resting supplies. Less opportunities to rest, perhaps. Maybe more enemies but no extra xp accompanying them.
I'm not using barrels or throw builds or tempest/sorcerers or sneaking assassins. It's just that, after a certain amount of time, we get really good at this game. Better, I think, than some folks might realize.
Again, I'm sorry to sound like I'm complaining when you've done such a great job with giving us Honour Mode. Just maybe make it a bit harder, if possible?
I think the trick is to not meta-game too much. I mean, yeah, I can prepare and suprise-snipe everything, too.
For your amusement, try the 'D20 Initiative' mod [the game, for some reason uses D6's for Initiative, so a +4 Dex bonus is ludicrous] and roleplay a bit. So, instead of setting up your prepared ambush, walk up to things, engage in dialogue and go from there. This separates the groupings a bit, and makes your tactical choices a lot more difficult at times. Now, your rogue isn't *always* at the front of the line, even when rolling a 1 and so on.
I'm not surprise attacking anything. I make a point of initiating dialogue first.
I don't even prep. I walk around with the same spells selected. I never use strength potions. I never respec after my original build. I don't use water with lightning or cold.
It's just, well, take Thisobold, for instance. It's a fight I just finished a bit ago. I stood on the ramp leading down to him... the one facing him. The scene triggers. I tell him I'm not drinking. Combat starts. I cast sleet storm. He can't get to me. Neither can the undead beside him. From range, my main and Shadowheart take him out, spell by spell. I'm talking cantrips. I'm using ray of frost on my main. Meanwhile, Lae'zel and Minthara are cleaning up the other undead, only one of which (the actor) even got close enough to try to hit us. Again, the whole encounter goes by with zero damage to my party. Shovel stayed invisible the whole time, not bothering to intervene.
This is what I'm talking about. It's not difficult.
*
As far as mods, I tend to avoid them. I'm sure I'll use some in time, eventually, but that will be some time after the definitive edition is released.
I think discouraging frequent long rests would be a good way. Keep in mind that the number of spell slots and other ressources you get in dnd is designed to have 4-6 encounters before you long rest.
Given the story and our condition, it would fit quite well to add some permanent debuffs when long resting too often. (Honestly I was actually quite disappointed on my first playtrough that there weren't any bad consequences for ideling around instead of looking for a cure.) They could say, if we take too long, the Emperor has to sacrifice some of our own power to hold up the defences. Maybe permanent -1 to Con, Int and Wis (or all stats) for every 7th(?) long rest we take? So every time we would transform if it was a normal tadpole, we loose a part of ourself.
You should keep an eye on the death march mod on the nexus. The mod author actually beat Larian to the punch adding legendary actions to the game. It's still a WIP, with only ACT 1 being completed (act 2 update around the end of the year). But this is THE difficulty mod if you dislike HP/stat bloat.
Do you think it would help if there was a “customize” option for honour mode? Like there is for the “custom” version of the game? So that you could make your team the weakest possible and the enemies the strongest possible.
Well i actually got ass kicked from the inquisitor. After 40 hours and before that almost died to Grym.
Pls don't say to me that it will go down after act1.
I will try now with Paladin or something stronger. With druid I failed with sorc I failed with cleric and with barb. Well I do a legit run no turning off the computer or something like that.
Reverting all the player overpowering changes they did would be a proper way of making the game harder. Not just for honor mode but regular harder modes too.
Shove distances, free spell memorization, potion throwing, amped up Help action, jump distances, haste buffs, unrestricted multiclassing, unrestricted scroll use, easy vulnerabilities like "Wet" etc.etc.
Unlimited Long Rest is the worst offender rules wise but also the hardest one to fix. Camp supplies don't really do anything except add frustration if you run out so they'd have to go much further than that.
Then there's all the environment cheese, stealth cheese and kiting the AI with Dashes from a buffed up action economy.
Do you think it would help if there was a “customize” option for honour mode? Like there is for the “custom” version of the game? So that you could make your team the weakest possible and the enemies the strongest possible.
I don't know, possibly. A part of me feels like honour mode should be the hardest possible scenario, but that's just my initial layman thought.
Originally Posted by ZOZO1006
Well i actually got ass kicked from the inquisitor. After 40 hours and before that almost died to Grym.
Pls don't say to me that it will go down after act1.
I'm not necessarily saying it gets easier as it continues. For me, Lae'zel and Karlach beat Grym down with mauls. I liked the new ability, but the combat went smoothly for me. I always felt in control of the combat.
I breezed through the inquisitor after coming back out of the astral prism. I'm trying to recall the details. I believe Lae'zel stunned him with the soul breaker greatsword, and from there, everything went downhill for the inquisitor. His new ability manifested twice, but never had an opportunity to do anything.
I'm playing a straight sorcerer with the urchin background. My main party is Lae'zel and Shadowheart, fighter and cleric, respectively. Before Act II, I was using Karlach, then I switched over to Minthara when I had the opportunity. Karlach was a tiger barbarian, and Minthara just the standard paladin.
I'm not using sneak attacks. I'm not using the wet condition. I'm making a point to always trigger dialogue first. The hardest fight I've had thus far was with the masked servants of the hag. And that was completely my fault. I put masks on all of my characters along with the spell protection from good/evil. I intended to slip by, but then I figured, oh heck, I'll just attack this one masked servant. And here's where I screwed up. I had Shadowheart cast "hunter's mark" from the bow she had. Which was a concentration spell, which negated protection from good/evil, causing Shadowheart to be taken over by the hag. Unfortunately, she had a fireball scroll and used it on the rest of the party, which caused more concentration loss. It was a hot mess for a moment, but I managed to recover.
Other than that, I can't think of anything that's caused me serious concern. I'm struggling outfitting everyone with the new prices, of course, but other than that, the combats are running on the easy side overall for me.
I can outline my tactics for just about every combat thus far. In each scenario, I've always felt like I was in control of the conflict, from root to leaf.
Yeah, I'm in more or less the same position, though I do get caught off guard here and there; I've raised Gale multiple times already [the D20 Initiative really sets some balance straight; Astarion can roll a 1 and be last to go]. Certain bosses have been amped up *considerably*, but very much manageable thus far. I've just gotten to Act 3 now. Last game I bee-lined straight for Ansur at level 10 with Act 2 gear and got my arse handed to me. Was nothing I could do, I got completely massacred.
If you do die and continue on Custom, you can keep the Honour Ruleset and actually set some things to make it a bit harder [more fair]. So, hidden passive perception rolls, or not seeing the target DC for skill checks and you can increase the resting costs up to 120. I love those additions, but I'm trying to beat it on honour first. But this is the only way to get it, you can't start custom with those rules.
The hardest difficulty mode should require meta gaming. It's not fun to have to limit oneself in order to make things more difficult. I want to suffer through the hardest challenge and only make it through due to the most optimal build and clever strategies possible. Sometimes that should even require picking up certain classes/abilities just to be able to compete against the boss's mechanic. This tests player knowledge and gives a great sense of accomplishment, all while encouraging the use of more than 4 non-rotating party members.
To clarify, I love the addition of honor mode, and I think Larian has done an absolutely fantastic job with it and the other added content so far. It certainly adds a great load of spice to this already incredibly replayable game, not to mention the well-needed balancing changes for some broken mechanics it brings with it. That being said, I do have some small comments.
Players going through honor mode now have probably already beaten the game at least once if not even more times. Having the new boss mechanics is a lot of fun, but they still don't disrupt the already optimal strategy in the normal modes. If anything, I only got close to wiping on my first playthrough on trash. During the inquisitor fight, the one time the legendary action mechanic seemed dangerous, they provide a scroll of globe of invulnerability right before, nullifying any risk of wiping and trivializing the fight.
This worsens late game, as bosses do not scale whatsoever with the power of an optimally built party. This is a frequent issue of Larian games, but I feel legendary actions are poised perfectly to nullify this issue without turning bosses into uninteresting damage sponges. The issue for now is that bosses late game do not have legendary effects that have any real impact or force optimally built characters to play around them. Most simply play off of the boss's current strengths rather than reinforcing their weakpoints.
To begin, I will give an example of how legendary actions can create a new mechanic to nullify a previous optimal strategy to a fight, that example being the Nere fight. Normally, I rush Nere down and kill him within the first turn. However, during my honor run, I noticed his punishing ability that not only increased his survivability but also retaliated against attacks. Because of this, I changed my strategy to one of picking off the supporting Duergar before finally finishing off Nere. (Balthazar is a worthy example too, but, following much worry, I shockingly totally steamrolled him by targeting him despite the mechanic after accidentally prematurely starting a fight)
Nere's legendary mechanic accomplished 2 goals. For one, it made Nere a more menacing opponent and forced me to create a new strategy, and for two, it added a layer of replayability to honor mode for the player who has already played through normal BG3 and knows its challenges all too well. Unfortunately, most other fights do not do this. Instead, they just add layers onto an existing strength of the boss (meaning that the strategy to beat them is exactly the same). I will list some examples of this below:
Ketheric Thorm: Legendary action reinforces existing strategy to pick off the necromites and then defeat Ketheric Raphael: Legendary action reinforces existing strategy to target Raphael last/control Raphael until he's the last one left and all pillars are destroyed Viconia: Legendary action reinforces existing mechanic of punishing those who have been heartmapped (it does nothing if you do not let her exploit that mechanic, leaving the fight essentially the same) Gortash: Legendary Mechanic does nothing? I don't even remember what it was; that's how easy the fight was. Mechanic should address the meta of destroying all traps in a room then luring Gortash to the room, i.e. reactivating destroyed traps.
I did not beat all of the bosses in act 3 since I wanted to mitigate risk and get my golden dice, so I can't speak for other bosses. That being said, I think there could be some great tweaks to these legendary actions that really force players to think and add some flavor to the overall honor mode experience. Although it wasn't totally necessary come act 3, I loved having to optimize my strategy and mitigate risk for a one-save run. I can't wait to give honor mode another shot and defeat all the bosses I skipped in act 3 during my first run.
Well for me Grym pushed every one into the lava it was really hard to recover from that. And I even used the hammer but suprise I got instead of 4 - 6 imps.
But the inquisitor got 1 lvl 3 magic missile and he summoned 5 Greatsword all of them hitting like a truck 30dmg with 50% resistance and 30 hp. I got destroyed in the second round. Well I think dropping the legendary sword in act 1 from Voss Is cheating. At least for me it feels cheating. For me killing Raphael in act 1 is also cheating.
What I don't understand why haste and bloodlust is still an issue . It don't gives a full round attack any more. It adds just 1 attack.
Well for me Grym phshez every one into the lava it was really hard to recover from that. And I even used the hammer but suprise I got instead of 4 - 6 imps.
But the inquisitor got 1 lvl 3 magic missile and he summoned 5 Greatsword all of them hitting like a truck 30dmg with 50% resistance and 30 hp. I got destroyed in the second round. Well I think dropping the legendary sword in act 1 from Voss Is cheating. At least for me it feels cheating.
I was referring to the sword you get in the creche, not Voss'. I've never tried to get Voss' sword in Act I. I also don't like that kind of gameplay.
Positioning in the fight with Grym is helpful. Trying to make sure you don't get knocked into the lava, but rather land somewhere safe.
I'd have to relook at the inquisitor, but I thought he only started with two charges for that. I could be wrong. That aside, might be better to avoid magic missile with him, lol, that sounds like a bad outcome. Anyway, he didn't last that long in my current playthrough.
I think you had just luck. Or I had bad luck. Grym have a huge aoe radius and it's an aoe that can deal 20-30 dmg only my sorc don't falled into the lava. Everything else was just dead instant. ( my druid had 80 hp +50% res) The only way to avoid this is the boots from Minthara. For me i meet him on Honor for the first time it was a surprise.
Well I want to be honest on purpose I don't read the description of any legendary ability. Because this is my first experience and its almost like a new game.
But I also understand that some ppl just want the golden dice. I had a series where I beated the game solo w/o of any crazy stuff. And now I used tadpole resurrecting 3 more pt member and I died. For me its an improvement.
Also for me Honor is Honor I need to beat it with honor I will try to beat it w/o any crazy stuff legit. After that I will just jump down from the ship after starting a new game. The pump up the difficulty even more in custom&honor - 1 proficiency and so and so...
Do you think it would help if there was a “customize” option for honour mode? Like there is for the “custom” version of the game? So that you could make your team the weakest possible and the enemies the strongest possible.
This, I am at a loss for why this wasn't added, where you can do Honor Mode + and choose even higher difficulty settings. Some of the settings they have added for Customize are great, like not being told about passive ability checks like perception and survival and increasing the camp supplies needed to long rest, decreasing the money in the game even more, no death saving throws, removing multiclassing, hiding enemy health and other info.
I agree, Honor Mode should be harder. People who play it are already experts at the game. I remember Grym being insanely hard in my first Normal playthrough; now in Honor with a monk and his special disengage it was a piece of cake.
Well. I had a fight where I had to run, flee and resurrect.
[spoilers] Orin is no joke. Admittedly, I just walked straight up, failed some checks and had her murder Halsin - only to loose three guys in my party on the second round. The first, everyone was CC'ed. [/spoilers]
@JandK : I understand Larian's combat design to be puzzle-like as in "if you think about it hard enough, every combat has a fool-proof method for success". I don't know how true that is, but I feel as though you're asking for "fool-proof solutions" to be removed from combat.
If that's correct, consider this : let's say the best method for any given combat has a 95% success rate. Then, a player playing perfectly has a 36% chance of being alive after 20 encounters. I don't know how many fights it takes to complete bg3, but I'm assuming it's quite a bit more than 20. How should the game be balanced between "challenging" and "finishable"?
@rodeolifant : the spoiler tag uses the singular : [spoiler] rather than [spoilers]
There are so many things a player could do to make the game harder:
No Armor/naked runs
Only green weapons
Stay at level 1, Never level up
Never long rest
Make your main stat your dump stat (e.g.: barbarians/fighters, make your strength 8; wizards make your intelligence 8; bards make your charisma 8; rogues make your dex 8)
Wear armor and use weapons your character is not proficient in, giving yourself disadvantage
I'm impressed by this playthrough:
^ Complete the entire game on Tactician mode, with a level 1 party.
I kind of agree with Lillith above -- but also that alot of the game is pretty easy to find the "optimal" method that makes things a breeze. But, some of it ultimately has to come down to player agency and willingly making the decision to not do things in the most optimal manner or method, or even choosing to play subobtimally. Especially in a game like this, I don't think there is a way they can give the "uber challenge" that some players want from everything, while still making it playable, enjoyable, and beatable to players OTHER than that small subset at the same time (it's a waste of resources, in my opinion, to make a mode specifically and only for a small portion of players to be able to enjoy). Some player agency I can think of from your examples and posts I saw ---
You mentioned running the Urchin background -- this could be for RP; but judging from your party composition, I assume it is to give your PC "Sleight of Hand" proficiency without having to take a Rogue. Maybe accept the struggle of not having a proficient lockpicker by choosing not to have a rogue-type in your party?
You mentioned using Sleet Storm on Thisbold -- perhaps don't prepare an AOE concentration-breaker/ice field as one of your spells? You created an environmental effect targeting a lower save on the target you were fighting in that regard - in a game that heavily rewards environmental effects and surfaces.
You mentioned using Protection from Good/Evil when preparing to go against the Hag -- try running the fight without that spell (as I've always personally done)?
You may not be using the absolute "Strongest optimal" party or choices - but from the way you've described some things you are playing with a level of meta-gaming and optimacy that goes beyond what Honour Mode was really designed to be.
It's not really meant to be "Tactician+" -- it's kind of the step-child; a Balanced mode with some new mechanics and difficulty adjustments that restricts you to not being able to save scum out of bad RNG.
