Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Serious balance issues ranged vs melee

I guess it really is no secret at this point, but the way this game uses height, sightlines, stealth, and AI create the perfect storm where using anything but ranged combat is a huge handicap, if not suicidal. If you can find a hard to reach high ground you can simply shoot/hide/repeat and kill all your enemies. Goblin camp? No problem, can even be done solo by a good ranged class, but it will take a long time. Melee, you won't last 1 round before you become a pin cushion or a blood stain from critters that are so much more effective at melee than the PCs. The huge number of AOE attacks, terrain attacks, etc... by the AI just magnify the problems created for melee. Monks are pointless because they have very little in the way of ranged options so they are just mulch waiting to happen, whereas at least warriors, paladins, rogues and rangers can use bows. Even when it comes to melee, it's better to have thunder wave, eldritch blast with the repelling invocation, shocking grasp, or thunder arrows than it is to go head to head in melee. And another poster that was commenting on whether cantrips are OP isn't all that wrong, the secondary effects of fire blast and ray of frost are insanely good and still have potential to do something even if they miss. Miss a melee strike and you can forget it. Lastly the height advantage on ranged attacks are BS because melee really doesn't have any usable equivalent manner of improving their accuracy. Heck I specced my fighter into eldritch knight because I realized quickly how useful even a few spells are.

I think this is potentially a major issue if it isn't fixed unless we are looking for a wizards and warlocks simulator.

Just got hammered by goblins all above me casting and shooting was pointless to even attempt to fight them. Fleeing DOES NOT WORK.

Hard disagree. Melee characters are just fine to play and deal respectable amounts of damage.

And they are squishy as hell. But please, go try to melee down goblin camp, because with ranged you can do it without taking a single hit. You can even solo it with a ranged damage character if you do it right because height advantage + stealth = broken AI.

It is true that melee could get a little buff. I did liked the Cleave action they added to great weapons, cause it allows you to hit multiple targets at a time and act as crowd control but it can only be used once every short rest and it seems to nerfed compared to the power some casters have. Also the opportunity attack areas seem too small, taking into account that when we play D&D the area a melee character can control is 15 feet wide.

I honestly believe a little buff would only work if Larian fixes the broken stealth system and NPC AI to limit sniping abuse. Like I said, and others on this board have also said, ranged + stealth makes a lot of the biggest fights soloable without a scratch because the AI won't go looking for you. Advantage is a big deal, and granting advantage for attacking from high ground (ranged) is really hard to equalize with melee that doesn't benefit ranged as well. I have little faith that Larian will fix the darkness/devil's sight and the description of darkness tells me that they really have no intention of doing it.. (a warlock with devil's sight should have no issues making ranged attacks on targets inside a darkness spell),so much for a melee warlock mix that uses the same trick to get advantage. The only way I can see fixing it is to nerf the hell out of the height bonus to ranged attacks, maybe make it a +1 to hit at most, which would also give melee a step up when fighting on the low ground because they wouldn't be turned into a pin cushion in the first round particularly if they have a high ac.