Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Honor mode still too easy

Things I would like to see to make this game more difficult. The biggest issue is that there are too many resources, Too much camp supplies, too many scrolls, potions to be found, too much good equipment etc.

- reduce available found food by 70% - Long and short rests should be rationed
- No multiclassing. There is no way to balance multiclassing cheese
- remove the surprise enemy effect.
- (people wont like this one) Remove 50% of itemization. Too many weapons and armor.
- Random enemy attack as you're just exploring the map
- rez only through scrolls
- Reduce found scrolls and potions 60%
- Make pickpocketing very difficult.

I know many will disagree with the above but I hope we get a mode where you need to manage your recourses more and offers more of a challenge.

Honor mode isn't just about making the game harder. It's about having an authentic (honorable) campaign, as if there was a DM who isn't giving you a do over. I'm all for more difficulty options, but Honor mode is fine as it is.

I would also like it to be harder. It's way too easy at the moment.

One thing I would suggest for camp supply cost... make it cost one camp supply bag (40) per member/pet at the camp. Four people at camp? 160. Add in Scratch? Make that 200. Bring in another potential companion? 240. And so on.

There are a lot of increases in difficulty I'd like to see. I just fought everyone in the House of Grief. I didn't take any damage. I primarily used scrolls and cantrips throughout the entire combat. The only spell slot I used was for an insect plague.

I triggered the dialogue first. I didn't use any sneak attacks. I didn't use any barrels. It's just not hard enough.

I agree, besides if OP wants something harder, Custom Mode might give them a challenge, BG3 isn't supposed to play like a souls like game anyways.

Honour Mode was the response to feedback about Tactician being too easy. Thus the inclusion of legendary actions on bosses.

It's still too easy. That's a more than fair bit of feedback for the developers.

Beginning of act 1 is the hardest. Once you start getting gear and weapons it's way too easy. Not once did I not have enough resources for a full rest. What's the point of food.

The beginning of Act 1 I find no issue if you're smart about where you're going, though that's maybe meta gaming. Even so, I would prefer different campaign difficulties that all have toggles.

That makes it so you can't go below a challenge treshold in say, food consumption. But, people who aren't loot goblins aren't forced to pick up everything, either. For the sake of realism, I also wouldn't mind a forced "food decays" option in honour mode.

If you didn't take damage and primarily used cantrips and scrolls.... HOW would limiting long rest make anything more difficult ? You dont even need any rest after that battle. No HP loss, only 1 spell slot lost.

I can't even imagine how you defeat the entire Shar army in HoG using only cantrips. Except maybe if SH can persuade them to change sides and they fight eachother while you're on the sidieline ? But I wouldn't consider that too easy combat. Just clever roleplaying.

Something's not equating here. There must be a more serious inconsistency in the system to allow you to do that, than having frequent long rests. Shouldn't you address the "how was it even possible to do this using only cantrips" ? Why were you invulnerable ? How did cantrips do so much damage to obliterate an army that has outnumbered and outgunned you, and that you should therefore be able to defeat only by clever tactics ?

That would be useful for Larian. And also for players who don't find it too easy.

The long rest suggestion is only one of many that I have.

Regarding the fight, I used *scrolls* and cantrips (along with the insect plague spell slot). The scrolls are a big part of that.

First, my characters have high initiatives, either through dex, items, and/or alert. That goes a long way.

Second, because I'm going first, I completely control the battlefield. Insect plague, sleet storm, etc. My main is a draconic sorcerer (white) who focuses on cold spells. (No, I do *not* use water to create the wet condition.) I have the snowburst ring which allows my ray of frost spells to create ice surfaces under targets. This causes just about all of them to fall prone. When you add in areas that are difficult to move through in large combats like this, it helps you stay in complete control of the entire fight.

A couple of summons (familiar, Us, cambion) block the rear and slow things down there. As I recall, I also kept Astarion in the back with them. His AC is rather high (25) helping him avoid hits. Meanwhile, he's using poison attacks.

I also have two characters in my party with counterspell. That helps keep everything under control, especially if you're selective about which spells you keep enemies from casting.

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Seriously, even streamers who aren't great at the game (in my estimation) are getting through honour mode rather easily. If you get a chance, watch WolfheartFPS's playthrough. While I always watch his channel and appreciate his content, I think his playstyle is--as of late--lackluster and underwhelming, but even he's walking through most of the encounters. Now, in fairness, he long rests *a lot* more than I do, but whatever. The point remains.

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I don't really know how to stream, but I'd be happy to provide some example gameplay of what I do if I can figure it out and if anyone would care to see.

Hello, adventurers
I have few thoughts about difficulty of a game (and why it's often much easier that it should be).
1. Changing the parameters of the roll to initiative greatly simplifies the game.
Dice roll D20 was changed to D4. The consequences of such a change are that my party's members often act one after the other, which, in turn, makes it possible to concentrate attacks on a specific target (and, with a high probability, eliminate it).
How exactly do I choose target? In pen-and-paper campaign I never knows who of my enemies acts next (and this is good thing). But here, via UI I have that data. I always know the order in which my enemies will act. Given the above, I can eliminate the targets before they can take action. It is not necessary to
destroy, there are many spells to control/disable the opponent. With advantage of that meta gaming data, I can use spells much more effectively, that I should.
Ability to see the attributes, states and descriptions of any NPC in greater detail also does a disservice to storytelling as well. Example: who is that charming and suspicious old lady from the Grove, who sells potions? Oh, nice old lady has strength and charisma 18 and constitution 16. Her Health is 112 aaaand her race is fey. In any case, I shouldn't know this.

I think it is possible to hide the order of actions of the enemies on the panel by putting a question mark instead of names and portraits before the move (action) is made.

1.2. Inventories of (almost) all vendors in the game are unlimited source of magic items. Every time you rest, the merchants' inventory is updates and new items appear in it. Infinitely. There is small list of unique items, with does not appear again, but items +1, +2 are infinite. These items are also very cheap. I can understand the appearance of scrolls and potions in the druid grove, they clearly have trained alchemists and guys who can write scrolls, but weapons? Especially when the tiefling blacksmith is killed/gone. Anyway, there is too much magic items, which leads to their devaluation. This kind of magical inflation cannot be a good thing. Imagine how your attitude about scrolls will changes if they are no longer 'respawned' by merchants. Scrolls will become a real treasure. Especially for a wizard, who can learn spells from the scrolls. To sum up: an infinite number of scrolls, potions and magic trinkets greatly simplifies the game.

2. (+ about difficulty) In the D&D E5 (in all editions, truly), every level up increase character's strength dramatically and the difficulty of the battles linked with a difference in levels between the opponents and the party. So, any slowing down exp. progression equal to increasing difficulty.

3. I disagree with the statement that the limiting long rest will make a good service. The game has an extensive system of relationships with companions, which is evolves through dialogues in the camp. All that system will crumble like card house with long rest limitations. It's not possible to change, it's to basic mechanic of game storytelling. And it's not only about companions, it's tool of main plot as well.
But alternative exists - areas with lock down of teleportation runes. Good mechanics, which, for my taste, is used too rarely.

Yes, I'm also not a fan of making honor mode so that it locks people out of content. Limiting long rests severely will just make some classes weaker and others stronger -- which is useless when you can beat the game with 4 characters that barely need long rests to start with. The same goes for taking out multiclassing. The gains aren't worth the losses.

If shop inventory of merchants doesn't reset, initiative is reworked and optimally much harder to win, enemies have additional resistances, spells and immunities I would already be pleasantly surprised. Anymore shouldn't be a default setting, but optional.

Yeah, I'm using the D20 True Initiative mod, that alone makes it a *lot* better.

Scrolls and potions should be limited, imo. Vendors shouldn't replenish every long rest/level up, imo.

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A lot of you might disagree with this, but I think the following would be incredibly beneficial to honour mode:

Remove all rare, very rare, and legendary items from the game. Let the villains use them, if necessary, but do not let the players get access to them.

That would be a phenomenal change. It would force players to use some of the incredibly interesting--albeit less powerful--items. Suddenly, all new builds would become viable.

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I also think many of the feats should be reworked. One day I'd like to make a post about that with some suggestions.

Your build seems pretty OP, are you sure you're not Min-Maxing?,

Because if so, that might be why it's so Easy for you, also your Strategy is pretty well planned, I wouldn't have thought about doing combat that way.

From what I'm seeing in this thread, there are more than enough options for making Honor Mode harder for yourselves if you *actually* want it. Ffs

Such as what? Playing a spellcaster but not casting spells? Fighting without weapons?

What's with all these suggestions that players self-restrict instead of just playing by the rules of the game? Why is it so difficult to get that players want to follow the rules of the game *and* be challenged?

Asking for a harder mode is a more than reasonable suggestion to Larian. Combating that suggestion by saying players should self-restrict and make up their own rules is entirely unnecessary and unhelpful.

I'm now leery of the make it harder mantra. Seems to me that's simply going to narrow the game experience to the same dozen OP builds and tactics.

Self-restrictions work perfectly well for customizing difficulty. You can make your own "hard" mode by selecting the rules you want to apply. Different players have different ideas about what the "actually hard mode" should entail. You think massively increasing the camp supply requirements is a good idea, I think that change would only make the game more tedious. Each to their own. No "official" superhard mode could satisfy everyone. Asking Larian to make 10 separate difficulty options is clearly not reasonable. Why do you even want it? For the bragging rights? Nobody cares. Just make up the rules you find fun and fair, and stick to it.

How can you increase the difficulty of a game that isn't even balanced yet? I can buy most of the best items in the game, I can use Illithid powers with no consequence at all, I can multiclass in or out of a warlock without the burden of a patron and shoot 3 laserbeams per action out of darkness where enemies can't John Cena me or retaliate.

I really think we all want the same thing here, but some of you are jumping too far ahead into adding specific features when it would serve the cause a lot better to join with the other people in asking Larian to balance the game.

Yes, balance....

"Hey Larian! Some of us want all powerful tools nerfed into oblivion, because the players who are less skilled than us may have too much fun with them. We can't have that! Please Larian, destroy the toys of the other kids!"

Dude, nobody is forcing you to multiclass into a warlock!