Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Rogue Feedback

So I have played about 12 hours in the early access and I will preface the feedback I'm about to give by saying I am really enjoying the game so far. That being said as a fan of rogues in 5e I do have some pain points about how they are handled in the game.


Sneak attack

To start of my sneak attack doesn't scale or at least as far as I have played. I am a level 4 rogue right now and the ability still says 1d6 for a sneak attack when normally it increases by another dice every odd level.

I can not sneak attack with an offhand attack. Sneak attack being a 1 per turn ability usually incentivizes dual wielding as it doubles your chances of one attack landing and dumping your sneak attack dice into the enemy every turn.

Sneak attack feels tedious to specify every time. This wasn't such a big deal until I fought a target that was mirror imaged while I was hasted. I missed my first attack to an image and then wasted some damage neglecting to hit the button again. This scenario also was made more frustrating as I spent my two main hand attacks attempting to get the sneak attack but ended up hitting the images and then had to use the offhand without sneak damage even though it was technically available in the normal rules.

The first issue I think may be a bug but if its the intention I'm not sure I agree with that direction for sneak attack. The last two issues could be resolved by having a toggle similar to the attack of opportunity toggle for sneak attack that just applies to the damage to the first applicable weapon strike from the rogue, regardless of mainhand or offhand.


Cunning action

This is probably going to cause some controversy but disengage should not be a bonus action for everyone. It removes a core weakness of some classes while devaluing a main rogue feature in the game. Rogues in my games have always been lagging behind in power of other classes but they re more versatile with their action economy which made them appeal to me. Being able to disengage as a bonus and then dash to double move with no attacks provoked is a very rogue like thing but cunning action in this game has basically been reduced to bonus action dash. Its also extremely frustrating that every enemy in the game that you corner can easily jump past your characters and run away.

I would implore you to consider making disengage cost an action again to make your movement not provoke rather than make it a bonus action leap that's free movement for everyone.

Expertise

I'm disappointed expertise was left out of the rogue class.


Some non-rogue things I have noticed

Everyone can use scrolls. Maybe a holdover from divinity but it feels wrong. Considering the level 13 thief ability of use magic device (which I hope is in the game as its my favorite ability) it also takes some wind out of the rogues sails but it feels odd that my battle master fighter has cast more non cantrip spells than my wizard and cleric combined.

Shove as a bonus action and not requiring an athletics check from what I can tell feels way too strong but incredibly fun.

Pindown and Slash feel like they should be battlemaster only or fighter only. Topple and crush seem fine available to everyone. At the end of the day though this is far from a deal breaker and if more people like it than hate it I'd rather it stay as is.

I have no clue how to use mage hand in this game. I summoned the hand over an object and then it dissipated shortly after I tried to interact with it with my cursor clicking on it.

Off hand attacks are adding stat modifiers to damage. Not sure if this was a design choice or a mistake but 5e required additional investment of the two weapon fighting style in fighter to achieve this. If it is on purpose than two weapons will almost always out pace two handed weapons.

Could we get a hotkey to toggle more detailed tooltips? An example would be I see my attack has 95% accuracy but I could hold alt or control to see how that calculation was made.

Can we get a UI element or dialogue to let use know when a trap disarm kit or thieves tools is consumed. I seemingly disarmed 6 or 7 traps in a row until I failed one and found out my kit was consumed afterwards.

The AI goes out of their way to finish off downed players. Maybe its how my tabletop games are ran but this feels like odd behavior for both intelligent enemies and simple minded ones. An intelligent enemy will know that their time is better spent dealing with he active party members while one is on the floor bleeding to death and an unintelligent enemy feels like it would do the same as the downed party is no longer a threat in their mind. I can logically see if a party flees from their downed member an enemy going back to finish the job or a NPC with a specific vendetta against a party member would have reason to ensure they are dead but otherwise it feels unnatural and a jerk move form the AI.

There doesn't seem to be a way to disengage from combat. Without spoilers my main character went left in a fork in the road rather than right where an NPC was and triggered a group of level 2 enemies when I was still level 1. I dashed around a corner and hid. The enemies stopped pursuing but combat led on for many rounds until I eventually just reloaded my last save and went right instead.

In the above scenario I also found out the game doesn't auto save after a very important story moment that led up to said fork in the road. That feels like an oversight considering the hard loading screen after crash landing.

Astarion revealed his secret nonchalantly in dialogue related to my talk with the Cambion. I then rested again and happened upon what I assume was supposed to be the actual way his secret is revealed to the player and my character was surprised to find out a second time. I don't know what triggers either but felt out of sequence in this specific case.



That being said, I am really enjoying my time despite the above issues I have. What I am most impressed by is the dialogue of all the characters even the minor characters like the children in the grove caught me off guard with how much detail and care was put into each one. I am also appreciating the effort that went into making the environment intractable in combat. My favorite two experiences so far are when I had pushed gunpowder barrels off of the rafters onto a burning brazier too thin out a room of enemies and when an enemy had pushed my party member into a spider pit to my surprise. Even in an early access state this game is very fun and entertaining.