Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Party and Enemy Difficulty Balancing

As some have probably noticed there are scenarios where combat becomes more difficult than it feels like it should be, e.g. damage surfaces and enemy tactics.

While those are a common thread something I haven’t seen really brought up is how balanced a 4 person party should be against certain enemy types in 5e. With goblins being the most used example I will use them as wel. A goblin in 5e has a CR rating of 1/4 in 5e which means to have a relatively challenging encounter a party of 4 lvl one players can tackle 4 goblins. Where BG3 feels different is that you can reach max level in EA and still have the same hard encounters as you did at lvl 1. There so far doesn’t seem to be a feeling of proper scaling where as the player/party there is a sense of progression in how strong you are.

I know part of this is based around the action economy but as it stands right now I feel that the monsters are too strong for what we can expect to see in player/party progression. While I know it’s hard to understand at this stage what proper balancing would look like I can definitely feel that at the beginning levels encounters could prove to be less difficult/deadly if the monsters had a reduction in HP so that cycling through the turns in initiative feels meaningful as the enemy is broken down.

Just my two-cents and so far I have loved this EA and I can’t wait to see what the final product will look like!

yep, the enemy balance is really off. there are a few situations where you end up facing about a dozen level 4 goblins; you are literally buried in dice. the kuo toa temple is another one, if you fail the difficult persuasion check you find yourself completely surrounded by 8-10 kuo toa and an angry redcap "god". the 2 super minotaurs also rough. Why they didn't think normal 5e minotaurs were enough of a challenge that they had to give them a leap attack and multiattacks I'm sure I don't know.

This brings me to my biggest issue with the game. It's like playing D&D that's DM'd by the biggest A-hole you know. A stickler for RAW and ruthless in combat encounters, curb-stomping any downed players.