Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 2 Suggestions for passive & active skill checks

2 SUGGESTIONS:

TLDR - 1) add a hidden (from the player) check system into the game for passive checks that have to do with exploration/discovering something in the environment (perception/investigation/survival for tracks/arcana/etc) that allows for MULTIPLE hidden checks with an increasing DC for repeat failures before total failure; and an interval cooldown (10-30sec) so its not spammed (intentionally or accidentally) by walking by back and forth for a few seconds in the area to the system. Encourages exploration and re-exploration of previous areas in case players can't find anything on their 1st pass instead of instant fail. Allow at least a greater chance of success requiring multiple fails with DC's determining it rather than a single roll and a single pass. Repeat checks = increasing DC before it becomes unmanageable. Makes it FEEL immersive as sometimes you dont find something on your 1st pass and you DO need to look again as well, this gives the chance & more immersive FEEL to look again rather than running around touching everything until something POPS or you're aware you've failed because pops happen on the 1st pass because it's supposed to.


2) for Active checks, dont use the simplified D&D DC success/fail system, creativity doesnt translate well into this restrictive game system. Use a mini-game like the rock-paper-scissors (but a better 1 that is less skill based so you dont win/lose everything from skill alone and more luck based to add more risk to guaranteed successes and reward for more guaranteed fails). Have DC determine what kind of advantage/disadv player has in the mini game like in DOS: 1. This allows even your non-proficient character to have a small chance rather than in DOS:2 where its instant fail on persuasion or you never even had a chance to succeed because your non-persuasion character initiated an event or a dialogue by accident forcing a reload where you know you'll succeed with the other character. Its FAR more preferable to give your non-proficient character a chance (albeit if the DC is high they have to overcome a high hurdle) or where your proficient character can still fail (low DC gives a strong adv in the mini-game but doesnt guarantee success) leading to more engagement with the system from the player to "earn" their success and accept their failure (because it was in the player's hands mostly) instead of the game's binary system doling it out.


Design thoughts: So....in D&D the advantage is that there is limitless possibilities limited only by your creativeness/intelligence to get around puzzles/etc as well as DM's that can take pity on players in some situations and throw their players a bone for some poor roles etc in order to keep their failures from being too severe (Matt for critical role, etc). Games dont have that, so the binary success/fail metric with advantages/disadv's that D&D 5th edition employs doesnt translate well all the time with active/passive checks etc. Things such as partial successes leading to a reduced successful outcome or complete failures lead to by repetition of smaller failures is a far more engaging and rewarding GAME system that actually does lean more into the creative ways players can succeed in the game just like in the tabletop game by getting around situations in a myriad of ways because they're not INSTANTLY locked out of options.


This was a HUGE problem w/ DOS:2 where persuasion checks or animal talent was just a binary success/fail where unless you had the required number of points in persuasion there wasnt even a chance of success no matter the dialogue options - this feels terrible when persuasion options keep coming up in dialogues and you know you can NEVER try them. At least the rock-paper-scissors mini-game with increased/decreased number of times of times needed to win was a WAY to work around "partial success/failure" where there was a chance. I hope there is a mini game where a roll can determine if you have a chance but the odds can be increased more than just the 5th edition limited "advantage/disadvantage" only method. The sheer openness of the tabletop game REQUIRES a simpler system for DM's to keep the game running smoothly, but a videogame is restricted from the start, so preserving that over-riding restriction of singular adv/disadv is not a well executed adaption.


My suggestion for a better system for the passive traits like perception/investigation/survival/etc checks is that there be a silent (invisible check) happening in the background if you go near a switch/check area with repeat hidden failures being required (w/ increasing DC's with each repetition) before a total failure occurs. if a player succeeds - great! If the hidden check fails as a player walks by an area, the player doesnt see anything (not even a UI showing a failure as the player is not aware a check happened and therefore not aware of a failure) and keeps searching until he gives up and tries another way or tries to re-explore older areas in another attempt to find something. As the player comes back around to the same check area where another silent check can happen hidden to the player who would never even know if he's founds something useful or not as repeat failures can lead to total failure during which the player will never find the hidden interaction in that playthrough and is forced to find an alternative means to progress. I suggest the failed hidden checks to occur with maybe an incrementally higher DC for every repeated failed check to allow for an eventual total failure in the case of an excessive repetition of walking by the check area 2-4 times w/o finding anything. Also put an internal timer (10 sec or more) on the hidden check so players get the sense of actually EXPLORING the area to see if they find anything again and again, instead of it spamming in the course of a player just walking back & forth 5 times in the space of 3 seconds (where they are gaming the system). The longer the interval the more discouraged the player is to "game the system" as it would simply take too long to re=explore everything 2-4 times every 30 sec or so as several hidden checks become hundreds of hidden checks over the course of the game. This leads to players sometimes checking an area 2-3 or more times if they are very unlucky and fail ALL checks and continue to find nothing which also adds an element of realism where sometimes re-examining something reveals something missed before or sometimes reveals nothing and you've wasted time or sometimes there really isnt something there and its a red herring or in your head.


The only way to game this would be look online to find triggers - but with SO MANY passive checks/triggers over the course of the entire game and with alternatives open to players to brute strength their way through (or whatever fail-safe the devs work in to allow some progression in key areas), ppl will stop checking online for ALL triggers in a game as well eventually - they unknowingly may even have totally failed several checks by exploring it multiple times thoroughly leading to looking it up online to lead to nothing as it is too late and the check has total failed already a while back. Witcher 3 & DOS:2 have already proven that rather than sitting through 3min loading screens for the 20th time, ppl would rather just accept the consequences of their actions and move on to look for alternatives once looking for clues has finished. Also looking something up online is the eventual reveal for everything anyways, this way at least makes each playthrough unique in that everyone will have randomly decided outcomes for a lot of checks as well as various mini-game outcomes (some with low DC's that usually get found by most ppl, some with high DC's than only get found with luck or investing into that trait) but it's never as punishing as previous systems where its either 1 chance of success or nothing; or where you NEVER EVEN HAD a chance of success because you didnt take the minimum requirement for persuasion = that DOS:2 system made repeat persuasion options completely redundant and non-intractable if you're non persuasion character ever initiated a dialogue by accident, it's execution in the game felt TERRIBLE!


thanks for reading!