Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How Does The Dice Rolling Work?

Ah, that would explain it. Now I see. As much as I kinda like the way it's presented, I can now understand some people's dissatisfaction and that it's more than a subjective matter.

I really need to start compiling a list of all this stuff before I forget.

Natural 1's are only automatic failures for attack rolls. Just as rolling a 20 doesn't mean automatic success, rolling a 1 doesn't mean automatic failure, if your score is high enough an easy task is still an easy task and no matter how high you roll, you can't swim (athletics) up a waterfall.

This is a common misconception for people who don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything 5e (some of us have issues).

I think Larian is using loaded dice obtained from a Vegas casino in the game. Can't tell you how many times my 17 dex ranger has rolled a 1 on dex checks so far...I ran out of fingers and toes to count on.

Hah, I was feeling the same way, though I don't have a great history of great dice rolls.

It seems to me that the bonus from Guidance doesn't always apply even if it shows it doing so on the DC

I totally understand the sentiment of wanting to see the actual roll and DC, and then see the modifiers.

But! At this point I feel like I prefer the immediate effect of "did I roll high enough" without seeing a bunch of mathematics.

The only thing I would like to be included is the two dice of advantage/disadvantage to be shown in some form or fashion. To me that would increase the immediate effect of "omg look at my dice".

Probably the reason why there is no expertise in this game.

Somwhat related to this, I love all the talk about the general RNG involved with the virtual dice rolling already. The human brain is notoriously bad with randomness (it's just the way it is), there is so much perception bias (enemies always hit, my character despite a 75% chance misses four times in a row, broken, it's delightful if you're interested in randomness, like me.

Tim Cain really explained it all best in 2017. https://youtu.be/MEewLWDpscA?t=1498

Just from an emotional standpoint, I think I'd prefer to see the base DC and then have my bonuses added to my roll. Either seperately after the roll or maybe by changing the numbers on the die? Just because, I think it would be clearer that my character succeeded in doing something difficult because they are an expert (or have help, magical or otherwise), rather than my character doing something that looks easy without any instant indication that other people would have found it much harder to do.

That would give me validation that the choices I made in picking skills had a concrete effect and clearly show me when that lets me do soemthing I would have failed at otherwise.

This! +1

Yes, this is a very real thing. The current design basically hides your character's level skill and makes skill checks look like it's just an arbitrary dice roll. It's kinda preventing you from feeling awesome or seeing your character development.

The dice rolling is confusing. They should show the details and follow the 5e calculation transparently.

This game and 5e rules are already very complicated, no sense simplifying dice rolls.

You can see how much you skill affects the target before you roll by hovering over it. To me, that gets the point across well enough.

Yes I know you can mouse-over to see a breakdown of the roll. The breakdown is technically incorrect because it tells you that you roll a D20 + X and it also states that the target number is DC - X, but that would mean that you apply your modifier twice, which you don't. That's just bad layout though, the mechanics are doing what they're supposed to do except that for no apparent or explained reason they've taken one of the core dice rolls of the D&D system and turned it inside out. In practice it does (almost) the same thing but I'm betting that for most people who has played D&D since 3rd edition and on, it's a weird annoying that they implemented skill checks backwards. In the end though, it's probably like discussing which way to hang your toiletpaper

It makes sense to me - it shows what you need to roll to pass, rather then actual numerical difficulty. I think it is th more important and enjoyable information. I think that if we have actual DC rolling would be less impactful with post roll modification.

All it does - it calculated the roll beforehand and says: "Yo, you need to roll "X" to succeed".

Turn based system in Pathfinder does something similar - while it is not the most informative, I think it is the most immediately useful presentation - you need to roll "X" to hit, where is "DC is "X" adds additional steps like "what is my "Y" modifier" and "so what do I need to roll and what are my chances?".

Are the bonus to skill checks applied in the background? For example I needed to make a Int skill check on a DC of 7 and I have a +1 to Int. My roll showed a 6 but I still failed. So are bonuses not being applied correctly or is the game in this instance rolling a 5 and then adding the +1?

The game mechanic is subtracting your skill modifier from the DC you need to hit and then just rolling a straight D20 against the modified DC, rather than the D&D version where you roll D20 + modifier against a set DC.

So in your example, the initial DC was 8, and the engine modified that down to 7, and then rolled a D20 with no modifiers on it against that number.

Thanks

+1

This would be really rewarding and it would benefit the roleplay aspects and getting to know your characters' strengths and weaknesses.

Yeah I really don't understand how the current design was deemed better than depicting it how the rules actually do it, since there's no real mechanical difference anyway. Kinda seems like a "because we could" design choice but what do I know?