Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Gnolls are BS

So, this post is gonna be about Gnolls. They are complete BS. Decided to pop out my text box that tells me the rolls and damage done and all that good stuff, and discovered this fun little fact. So a Gnoll use his bite attack on shadowheart. 3 times in one turn. That is already way too many attacks for a level 4 Gnoll to have, but let's continue. He dealt 11 fire damage in one hit, so now my question is: why the hell is the Gnoll bite dealing fire damage? Also, fun little fact, it was a Critical Hit. He rolled a 16, and got a Critical Hit. Excuse me Larian, but WTF? Since when is a 16 a 20? I know there are abilities and equipment out there that can cause critical hits on a 19 or 20, but on a 16? Seriously? Please please please tell me this is some kind of bug or something, because if Gnolls get 3 attacks per turn, cause fire damage with their bite, and can crit on a 16 I'm going to flip my lid.

I stopped playing the game after I stated reading the combat logs:

-Opponents getting criticals on low rolls.
-Spell durations based off real time, and not actual turns of combat.
-Many creatures (including pets) have absurd stats, abilities, attacks, and status effects.
-Advantage on attacks with high ground (not a thing in D&D, and "high ground" can be 6").
-Cantrips applying status effects (often even on misses too), and not even getting a save for those status effects.
-Not hidden, but 3 to 4 proficiency checks after 1 to 2 sentences of conversation. That's insane.
-The change in spell stats is BS too. Not even talking about status effects, which sucks (in D&D barrels aren't meant to be feared), but many other spells too.

Divinity can add status effects to surfaces, spells, attacks, etc because the game was designed for it. D&D rules wasn't intended to require a high spell slot spell to counter a cantrip that sets everything on fire or freezes everything! If I wanted to play DoS I'd play DoS I or II. This was, and is being marketed as a D&D 5e game, but a lot of what I am seeing is not D&D.

What went so absurdly wrong that the Gnolls got close enough to deal damage in melee?

.

This is all just free xp

Rule of cool strikes again, I recon...

Except I don't have a high dex character who can use a rapier, because I set my party up the way I like it not the way you like it. Also, I ended up attacking Flind right away, and they got a high initiative roll, so they are constantly closing in on me, I'm just using Ray of Frost to slow them down. But that isn't even the freaking point of this post, it doesn't matter if you managed to get in a good sneak attack, it wouldn't even matter if I nuked the lot of them with the absurd amount of scrolls and throwables I have, the issue is that the Gnolls would still be allowed 3 attacks per turn and get Critical Hits on stupidly low rolls. Also, Gnolls with bows exist, and they very much like to make themselves and their acid arrows known. And their triple fire per turn, that almost always crit because they apparently aren't bound by the rules the PC's are and get to crit on low rolls.

So use Astarion.

I see I've found a troll, goody me.

No I was being totally serious. I was using stock characters and stock bows and danced through this. So Gnolls might play a little rough That is news to me, like I said, I think one might have yelled at me and another might have plinked me with an arrow but it was nothing I would call combat. I have fought them at least a dozen times trying different things out in Early Access. I can't make the Gnolls more in line with 5th edition for you, all I can do is offer you advice for how to get through the encounter and continue with your game.

But even if you aren't exaggerating, and even if they are stupidly over powered, they are still ridiculously easy to deal with, so I still sort of fail to see an issue regardless of whether you're stuck (my assumption) or just venting.

"Don't play melee characters" isn't really a solution though, it's just avoiding the issue.

Its a ridiculously easy series of fights between the ability to ambush the entire pack (can kill like four with two Shatters, PC + Wyll), ability to kill all the Hyenas without aggro'ing anything with stealth, and then the option to tadpole the big bad.

That said: Enemy stats, dice rolls, damage rolls, high ground, surfaces, etc etc that vary wildly from the 5e ruleset break the balance of what is supposed to be a 5e game, and thats the core issue OP is experiencing, it just happens to be dressed as a bunch of gnolls right now. They basically introduced these functions and then had to compensate with the bonus actions they gave us.

It feels really silly, and I'd prefer they just get rid of inflated enemy stats and abilities/surfaces, fix dice rolls (Probably a bug that will be fixed lol), and make bonus actions/jumping function how its intended in 5e.

Sure Quiet Country Cafe. That was always the beauty of the BG series, enemies and players operated pretty much by the sames rules (except you Saverok, who I never managed to kill as a kid in a fair 6 vs 1 fight). I am not disagreeing with any of this, but running up and beating things down with your sword won't always work. I wasn't trying to dismiss his grievances, I was trying to offer advice on how to beat the encounter and move on. That's it.

And this is why the game is essentially broken as is, because the encounters are not designed with 5e balance in mind but they are designed such that ranged combat is so superior that making a melee character is gimping your party. Monks will be all but useless as it stands now, because some of the nastier encounters can be soloed at range using the broken stealth system, but trying to use melee in the same encounter is essentially suicide.

Challenge rating in 5e actually means something to the balance of the game. A single ogre has a challenge rating of 2, meaning it is a solid risk-reward encounter for a group of 4 second level characters, 3 ogres is coming up CR 7 on the encounter calculator I found - you can't even have level 7 characters in the game yet. Standard 5e gnolls are CR:1/2 but these gnolls are way beyond that with the multi-attacks they get, actually only pack lords and fangs of yeenoghu have multi-attack, pack lords get 2 and fangs get 3.

Point being if you use ranged, altitude, surfaces, and the broken stealth system you can cheese these combats, but outside of that you are going to get torn apart which is why you have so many people complaining about the difficulty.

+1
multiattack is not uncommon for this low CR, but 3 full attacks are bonkers. Icing on the shite cake: ranged multiattack in this game


this. And the AI targeting makes melee useless and mages a death wish

Yeah this is the whole game as it is now in a nutshell. Feels and plays somehow like Divinity, yet it's got the 5e rules shoehorned into it, like it has some identity trouble deciding what game it should be.
I really don't get why you would go against years of balancing 5e by changing everything and add your own rules over it. Feels like Larian is a beginner DM who would go crazy on the homebrew rules for the sake of fun and giggles only to come up with something really unbalanced and not working at all.

As as for the multiple checks in conversation on different stats... the only modules of D&D I can think of where you have checks which requires different stats to succeed on a specitic tasks are the modules designed to have TPK. Looking at you Tomb of Horrors or Death House. Those modules are fun to play to some extent if you have likeminded players, but in a videogame ? It just adds some more frustration to an already frustrating game.

The problem is selfmade i feel.

In a DnD campaign that many will know, you encounter a pirate chief at level 1 or 2. That guy is bonkers. 50+ HP and 3 attacks. Super strong guy, thats a boss fight, not your every day gnoll.
Now gnolls have 3 attacks, why?

Because in a usual game of DnD, you basicly got: Ability mod +3, proficiency +2 and thats it. +5 for your attacks with non magic weapons in the early stage. Level 3 some fighting classes get a+2 and you might cast buffs. Thats what you got to work with.
In BG3 however you basicly have advantage on every attack, every shot of a bow is made with elemental bonus damage, you shove people every turn in addition to your attacks, your Level3 rogue has 3 attacks already with 1 auto hit, your cantrips hit even if they miss, everyone has access to powerful ranged AOE damage via throwing stuff.
Your avarage damage is just way beyond the level of what is possible in a game of DnD in that level.
So your opponents need more DPR aswell. More DPR -> more deadly fights. That is how such games work.

I take no issue in the AI targeting the weakest character if they are intelligent beings. Indeed i always felt its stupid, that archers shoot the guy with that fancy sick full plate, instead of the guy in a robe.
Problems only arise if they can one-shot your backliners. And they can one shot your backliners, because they need to have high DPR, because with all the "free" buffs you get in BG3, your group has insanely high DRP. Thats just a power spiral doing what it does.

yeah but aggro is a thing even on tabletop. If your fancy knight is just dueling with one single opponent enemy archers are morally compelled to shoot glass cannons, but if you have a raging barbarian in your ranks it should be the immediate threath to be dealth with asap before your own front line collpase and that threath comes to you.

I have seen gnoll hunters taking AoO from my ranger just to keep shooting Gale to death even if i was murdering them

Man i hope people can mod the rules so it is actually a dnd game

One problem of this fight so far is that they've introduced at least one status effect I can't find anywhere in 5E, which is "Soulblight" or something like that. It makes the target unable to use bonus actions or reactions, and one of the gnoll casts it almost constantly so it's either some kind of made up gnoll cantrip or this gnoll has more spell slots than I've ever seen. Also really doesn't help that the boss has the most insane weapon I've ever seen, this thing is some kind of flail that, last hit I took, did 12 physical damage (dunno what kind, cause it was overshadowed by) and 30(!!!!) of some kind of magic damage, psychic I believe. Edit: got myself a new record for damage from Flind's weapon, 17 bludgeoning and a whopping 47 psychic.

Yeah. Taking AOO is especially stupid since they can move out with jump and still shoot xD

Tactic wise, its actually 90% of the time the best call to ignore even the "raging barbarian". Spread out, shoot the weak ones. Even if there is an axe swinging barbarian. A fireball throwing mage is just as much of a threat and he is easier to take out. so...
I´m actually happy about the challange that you need to protect your mages heavily. That was one of the weaknesses of kingmaker, that you could just have your AC70 vivi/monk aggro everyone and not be hit at all while your mages rage havok on the enemy are being completely ignored.

The way the AI acts when a character goes down is just freaking stupid, I've had enemies literally stop going after the wizard who has set them on fire several times already just to turn around and run back a few feet to stab the person who went down. Um, hello? It's me, the wizard that is currently roasting you alive? Could you maybe pay attention to our fight instead of trying to stab the KO'd character who is no longer a threat to death?

To further highlight this absurdity, this actually makes it easier to rescue since Revivify also teleports to a location of your choice. I've let party members get sacrificed knowing the cost was low thanks to attack, jump/disengage, action surge, revivify, teleport to more tactically sound position. Fighters are the real wizards in this game.