Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Several dicerolls for one outcome is bad

The Neetie situation was really awkward in my playthrough. Multiple skill checks was pretty confusing. And stealing the antidote after the fails checks, even more (she acts like you persuaded her)

+1

However in some cases (Like Nettie) it would be better to give us multiple chances to SUCCEED, not multiple chances to fail.

I just saw this thread... +1 1000 times over.. I have been DMing D&D and far to many other games to list over the last 30 yrs or so.. The amount of multiple rolls for just 1 good outcome is really shocking.. When there are multiple avenues for a situation by all means have multiple rolls. Like picking pockets... success or failure... Then if you fail the merchant may catch you for another roll so you can persuade your way out. Perfect for multiple rolls. There are far to may situations where there is only one success or failure with 2-3 rolls .. It should only have 1 roll... With a high DC, or with disadvantage if the situation deems it.

Yes, this, 100%, Scream it from the mountain tops. If I were anywhere near Larian's offices I would be throwing paper airplanes through their windows with this written on it.

If Larian wants to have skill challenges like this, then they need to completely rethink the design of it.

1. A challenge should always be "You need X Successes before Y Failures," and Y shouldn't be '1'. 3 Successes before 1 Failure is bullshit.

2. Never ever ever ever ever have the same roll twice in a single challenge. If I need to successfully roll Sleight of Hand to take something, then Deception to lie about taking it, that doesn't sound so bad. Having to roll Deception twice in a row is bullshit, because if they didn't believe me the first time, how was it a success?

My personal take would be to either have a single skill check at the end of a large dialog tree, with your choices in that tree determining the DC for the final roll that determines the actual outcome, or you have X number of rolls that are guaranteed to happen, whether you pass or fail. The more you pass, the easier the final, determining roll becomes.

Well, they did add special rerolls in dialogue for this, but I suggest they could give us a bit more rerolls (rewarding characters with good skills). On the other hand, their intention is to make failing fun, but it is not always the case. :P

New guy here.

Keep it that way, more multiple dice roll checks all the way. This is virtual game with quick save/load option after all, so its kind of a save scum prevention measure. If one really needs to pass all dice rolls and cant accept the judgment of Fortuna you have to pay in time and loading screens. How about making the game register if one is loading constantly and making the rolls harder and harder until they cant be passed any more?

Also why do I have always to succeed in dice roll to get something of value, would it not be fun if failing dice rolls would net a better outcome then passing it? Each time you fail a roll it ends in fighting. Kind of understandable that some people want to go save scum and always pass the rolls.
Please keep in mind what you did with goblin fort, if you dont pass with guards you can still sneak in. I wish for more such options and not the tunnel shooter design where you have absolutely kill everything in your line of sight.

Swapping hats

Nettie's a dwarf stubborn, bullheaded, and narrow minded at the best of times. One roll wouldn't really change her mind mind, much like in 5e animal handling you have to succeed on several rolls to turn a creature from hostile, to friendly.

Having someone tell you that they may be changing into a mindflayer, in the middle of your home, and you have no way of healing them. Well your not going to be friendly to them, at most your somewhere between hostile and neutral. Then they threaten you, your home, everything you love. To a dwarf this is a biiiiig nono, put it bluntly thems fighting words, and they really don't care about your roll. So the dc goes up, again you try to intimidate them, (very hard thing to do to a dwarf their bloody stubborn, and fanatical when it comes to clan/home etc) dc goes up. If you pass these yeah you just succedded in cowing a dwarf. It may be the reason behind why that particular skill check is so hard.

1. your a danger to everyone around you. Including her, and her 'family'

2. she has no way to heal you, and yeah she feels bad about it but your noone to her, more to the point she doesn't know anything about you other then your going to change into a brain eating, mind raping entity that believes everyone is a lesser being and is either food, or slaves. The druids outside are her family, friends, loved ones.

3. The only one she knows can cure you is gone, believed to be dead, or captured.

4. She may very well be a part of the fanatics that want all outsiders gone. Your not only an outsider you just admitted your the biggest threat to the druids, because who knows what you were like b4 the tadpole, and how long it's been since you got tadpoled.

5. she believes what she is doing is right, not just for the druids, the tieflings, and their children but for you as well. (morbid but hey been done before)

So five things that maybe happening in her mind, first check sways her a little, mark off one, next check is harder meaning your going against the next harder thing, so on and so forth.

So I really again can see why the did it this way, but I can also see changing the number of rerolls or adding bonuses for each successful pass. Doing away with it all together eh not a big fan of for reasons explained above. Also again you can knock her out. Seems everyone just thinks about killing for the most part. Oh kill, kill, kill em all with fire. Cause you know dwarves are weak to fire!

knock em out, or run?? Put them all to sleep, then leave? Hold them, knock em out, and put them to sleep, then run? (just ideas, and I know of a couple combats you can run from. knocking people out just helps.)

Multiple rolls in a row for one success is what Las Vegas does, not the city of Baldur's Gate!

Except there are no Y failures. Its one failure and its done. You pass 3 times then fail on the 4th and its over. Now I have to kill her to get the antidote. I ain't letting her live after I passed 3 times and Larian being the terrible DM tells me to go fuck myself.

So the problem with multiple dice checks in a row for one outcome is that the difficulty grows exponentially. It makes the chance of success dismally small and it's frustrating and feels bad if you succeed on every other roll but fail on the last one, which statistially is an overwhelming possibility. A good version of this kind of thing is to have a situation with multiple aspects and failing one aspect only leaves you with a partial success. Like in this case you pass a medicine check to figure out what she did to you, an insight check to realize that there's an antidote and then a persusasion check to get her to give it to you. Just off the top of my head. Furthermore your suggestion of the game keeping track of a players saves and reloads is absolutely terrible and amounts to just a huge fuck you to the player. No, there is no place for mechanics like that.

For me it depends what the roll is for and if the consequences are clear, then we can have multiple rolls that make sense. For example, the first check is evading Netties attack with athletics. This makes sense. Then there is a persuasion check attached to make her rethink. That is still fine, however then there is the option of a third check, which is again a persuasion check on the same topic, which then makes only sense if you do not want the player to go that route. And then it is sort of bad game design, as multiple rolls will greatly decrease your chance of success, but a failure will just incentivize your more to just reload. Also while your bonuses are shown, the mali are not, so you can not make an educated guess about the real chances of passing the check.

It does not help that the consequences are not directly clear and neither are the other outcomes and solutions to the issue at hand, some more intriguing and rewarding as the two clear options (persuasion and attacking).

I agree.
Nettie's one feels like the DM is trying really hard to make us kill her or steal from her.

I think the best direction would be to have no rolls, until the final one. The choices you picked before the final one determines how high the DC you need to beat for your perssuasion/deception/intimidation roll.

The player gives the huge F t the game by save scuming and not accepting the outcome of the dice. There is no place for mechanics like that.

Social encounters need a drastic overhaul.

This sounds good

What I really love about having to pass 3 ability checks in 3 sentences is... not being rewarded for it at all. No xp, no gold, no items, etcetera. Good thing this isn't an RPG that incentivizes role playing, dialogue options, character builds and non combat proficiencies... I love only being rewarded for killing everything, every time. That's what a CRPG is... right?

I can understand why Larian wants multiple Skill Checks in a dialogue and I am not necessarily opposed to that in principle but the Nettie conversation is a bit harsh.

I think that underlying problem with multiple Skill Checks isn't so much the risk of failing one or more of them in itself, but rather that the Skill Check Conversations has been designed so that any single failed check usually just means "NO" and will probably start a fight, and successful Skill Checks (especially the Nettie one) doesn't necessarily mean any measurable success or reward (reward for convincing Nettie is... not getting to kill her I guess? You lose out on her loot and XP and isn't really provided with any meaningful indicator of you just managing to succeed at what is maybe the hardest string of Skill Checks in EA).
As such, failing one of these Skill Checks will usually shut down any sort of player agency (which is important to have) and give you the "simple & boring solution" to the challenge you're facing.

What I feel like needs to be done with Skill Checks isn't reducing the amount (necessarily) but instead a bit of a different approach: Failing a Skill Check shouldn't necessarily just gate you off from it's related content, right now a failed Skill Check basically means "NO, FAILED!" but in a more dynamic RPG a failed Skill Check could also mean "Yes, but [incurring some damage or negative consequence to succeed at action]" or "No, but instead [narrative branch or other, less-than-deal opportunity for dealing with challenge]". I realise this is a lot tougher to design than simple YES/NO logic gates but currently the game engine is really designed as a very mechanical old-school DM who constantly makes you roll to succeed and provides little reward for success, or alternatives when you fail. This would also be a good reason to add Skill Check XP to the game, to provide some form of reward for actually succeeding at Skill Checks.

Of course, judging from their D:OS track record, dynamic and interactive story-telling isn't really one of Larian's strengths but hopefully they'll manage to improve a bit on the options we're presented with in this game

TL;DR: Currently failed Skill Checks are just hard stops, should let you progress at some resource or plot cost or provide alternate, less ideal options for progressing .

Couldnt agree more

+1 to thread

Is anyone at Larian studios familiar with math and probabilities?
Passing one check requiring 16 or higher on a d20 = 25%
Passing two checks requiring 16 or higher on a d20 = 6.25%
Passing three checks requiring 16 or higher on a d20 = 1.56%
And when all three checks are required to pass for an outcome to occur, well, good luck.