Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback By the love of Myrkul, STOP with HP bloat!!!

As I said in that fight it makes sense, with everything else in that game. If they were simply bloating to bloat, then other 'bosses' wouldn't have pretty standard hp. guts has around same amount as your party. The other leaders in goblin camp same. Ogres within 20 hp or so, goblins some have slightly increased (this do to their levels in a class. Which at times again makes since) So overall the hp bloat doesn't appear to be massive, or all round. It seems you are baised, or dead set on this do to one spider. If you want prove me wrong give me examples of other bloated hps, they can be vague I like vague. Like the minotaurs, or drow, or whatever.

As mentioned, ToEE was a turn based, tactical combat focused D&D game - and actually featured some of the best combat of any D&D. Mobs and bosses fought using intelligent combat, traps, numbers, surprise and to the degree available then, positioning. They did NOT need hp bloat. Momma spider in EA has mid level support spiders, mass mini spider spawn ability, climbing ability to make use of stealth/surprise, poison attacks, multi attacks and so on. There is no reason to add an unnecessaryhp bloat - especially as that leads to further bloat down the line.

I can accept some bloat where goblins are concerned (as goblins can have classes and levels just like the player character) but even then, most goblins should be lvl 1 normal goblins, just as most humans townfolk would be level 1 human bakers, groundskeepers, scullery maids and so on. But 100+ hp spiders (unless they are handmaiderns of Loth or such specialized 'boss' material) do seem to be overboard, and leading to 300 hp tigers, 500 hp ogres, 2k hp hill giants and the like. As pointed out, a 15th level fighter could have close to the 184 hp Firkaag the red dragon possessed in BG2, but numbers and tactics were still needed to overcome all those delicious dragon offenses and defenses. Firkaag didn't need more hp than the total hp of your entire group to be a good opponent.

The HP bloat is problematic, regardless of a lowered AC value. Simply due to the fact that fights, especially the larger ones, take longer and use up more resources than they should. I'm not saying that every goblin must have 7 HP, but neither do they need 15+ HP like some in the Selune temple/Goblin camp. It also devalues spells like sleep that are affected by the HP of the enemies.

That's not an example of something which could reasonably be an option. HP/AC has to be consistent - at least per difficulty level, otherwise the permutations for balancing become too difficult.

The excessive focus on balance is what is killing modern RPG's, but that is another discussion. The main point of a game is to be fun and entertaining. Balanced or not, seeing all your cool weapons/spells being ineffective against an enemy is not fun IMO.



Or just put 2x more goblins but maintain their P&P low HP.



Yep. He had a lot of nasty abilities and defenses. This is why he was a hard battle to take mainly on chapter 2 so most people left him for later chapters. He was not hard cuz you need to spend minutes spamming the same abilities over and over to kill him.

Now I found a gargantuous sized red dragon with 256 hp. His level? 4... Imagine on lv 15...

That's a silly thing to be saying in your own thread which is literally complaining about balance.

I wasn't using balance in the sense that everything has to be perfectly symmetrically equal, but that the more "options" that get put in, the harder it is to test properly, and the more likely things like what you are complaining about end up in the final game.

Ranged 4d6 AOE with poison cloud that last way too many turns. A level 4 spiders shouldn't have that, boss or not. Actually, 5e phase spiders don't even have ranged attacks, they are pure melee.

Also, that boss only give 20 XP, level 3 Goblins gives 25XP. Someone just put that there to see what players would do I think.

Hit points are a abstraction of how much an creature can "take" before going down. An elephant for eg, can probably survive a .22 LR rifle shot but a Rabbit probably won't, hence, this increased durability is translated to higher hp to the elephant. Seeing Goblins at low level with more HP than Ogres is just silly cuz defeat what HP are meant to represent.

The same happens to damage numbers. An Arbalest does more damage than a light crossbow, cuz and heavier crossbow can throw a heavier projectile and higher speed. Simple as that. Other mechanics like AC, are also abstractions of combat. The entire role playing game was born from war gaming. And game mechanics needs to "simulate" the fictional universe.

That last bit is true to many of the things I've said on other posts, and why game is in EA. Which is a testing ground for a larger group of people. Not sure about the entire dice thing I'll test it out, or do you have a screen shot of how much damage? I personally didn't check, or notice but again I took her down really fast, then focused the mid level. The fact that phase spiders are different in 5e is again probably do to Larian trying it out, and their noteable love for wide spread effects. Nothing really knew there, it's part of what makes them who they are. And the op is about HP bloat. Yet so far only one I've heard of is this spider.

I'll need to do more fighting with her, and make sure it lasts awhile this time, stead of 5 rounds top. Oh poor Larians going to have more information. In my playthrough which currently I've fought her twice she never used the aoe, instead summoned spiderlings, and hulked out.
So all goblins are supposed to be universal or near universal. Some of those goblins have classes in cleric, fighter what not which is standard in D&D. It increases their toughness, gives them some perks to make them a viable threat, and turns them from common mob to something a bit more dangerous. Also is used to show that they are not run of the mill goblins, but ones who have trained to do something in particular. Like guard the camp, or boss, maybe they have more experience in battle. Have just blah mobs that are easily one shotted is MMO mindset, not D&D. or most rpgs for that matter. Skyrim Bandit Bosses, Bandit archers, Bandit mages all have different hp levels to show their experience and their training. Goblins should not be any different #goblinsarepeople to. Unless of course you want a world filled with trash mobs, and no realism, one that is without the nuances like goblins having different hp, abilities etc as boring as watching paint peel. Which is an MMO thing and why I don't play them.

On to fights taking longer then they should, yes that is a problem it's not do to hp bloat. It's do to numbers of enemies, balance overall, and to many encounters coming at once. Then again all the encounters is part of most video games, were you mostly walk from one fight to the next. It's not hp bloat it's pacing, which since you can simply camp, fast travel isn't all that much of a problem at times. Though it can be. Which leads back to balance, Balance of not only combat, but the world. How do you make a world feel alive with only a small number of npc's in it. more often then not you dont' because it feels empty. So do you spread the map out a bit more. For instance moving Guts further away from main hall, moving the Zhent trader somewhere else, so on and so forth. Then your using more memory up by adding additional areas, which increases load times. So then you have other issues, which through EA can be fixed. One of the Guts fight problems can be fixed by simply having fewer goblins come to her aid, and having the Zhents stay out of it. Why they would really care about this fight, and not bug out is beyond me. Whoever wins they can trade with.

1 - In this games that you mentioned, EVERYONE criticize that enemies soaks too much damage on harder difficulties.

2 - ToEE was considered an hard game and din't inflated enemy hp and enemy hp uses 3.5e hp values, not 5e which area already inflated

3 - Nobody is complaining about goblins having levels, but a goblin with 50 hp should't be something common. Just like humans with 50 hp should't be a common thing.

Quoting the PHB of AD&D

"These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and / or magical factors. Let us suppose that a fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces"

The body of a mid level character is supernatural and hence, he can sustain supernatural amounts of punishment. An Goblin should't be that resistant. And note that on 2e, after lv 10, you barely get any amount of hp. 100 hp was rare even among epic level adventurers.

You probably didn't notice, but the spider with 138, which I killed easily at level 3, will use the "blink" ability everytime to put herself atop a spider web.
If you burn/destroy that web, she falls prone and takes around 38 dmg everytime she does it.

So... easy peasy. Just gotta play smart and as it was said, use the terrain/elements. It died pretty fast after the third "blink" on a web

Yeah. Now that you mention Firkraag : he haste himself, stoneskin, has incredible ac and attack speed, incredible attack damage, a AoE that can one shot your weak party member, a buffet attack that knock out everyone around him and send your character rolling to the edge of the area. Not to mention his magic resist, backstab immunity, invisibility detection and a variety of spells.

About resilience : Stoneskin made it so he could take like ten hit, and ten hit with his armor was quite a lot. Unless you dispelled it of course.
So yeah, I agree, Firkraag didn't need more hp. he just needed resistance against almost anything you could do to him, and the ability to two shot almost any party member.

I dunno about the HP bloat thing. If Larian can get closer to BG2 , I'd say yes, anytime, any day. So maybe yeah, less HP bloat, more defensive ability like stoneskin and what not. But since the levels of the character are low, its not like they can use buff and defensive spell yet . After all, you started BG2 at lv 7/8. And baldurs gate 1 was like, much more deadly and random . One critical / magic missile basically could kill anyone, you or enemy , during the first level.
Also, the HP scaled pretty quickly in baldurs gate 1 , contrary to the second. In BG1, you earned like 6 to 14hp every level, ending in 120 HP Khalid at the end of the expansion (durlag tower).

Barrels, pure and simple. They expect you to cheese everything with exploding barrels so had to pump up the hit points.

I an playing a D&D game. I wanna lethal spells and weapons. Not lethal barrels.

If Larian homebew or someone mods a "create barrel" spell into the game, is would be the most OP spell in the game...



And can die in two rounds to my necromancer. He is tough not cuz he has a lot of HP... I know cuz I soloed it as a necromancer some time ago.



By putting in a sequencer/contigency two lower resist + a greater malison, you can reduce up to 60% of enemy MR and make him deal a save vs spell at -8 penalty(-4 from malison + -2 from necromancer specialization + -2 from FoD spell itself), so, against Firkraag, the Red Dragon, the malison has a 95% chance of sticking. 65% chance of Firkraag failing his save against the FoD if the malison is on, 45% if it isn't. Combined, that's a 64% chance of failing his save. Then it's 95% to beat the remaining magic resistance with the FoD, for an overall 60.8% chance of the two-round kill. If you try to kill the same enemy using damaging spells, would take far more time on LoB with far less chance of success.



Yep... Gimmicky fights.

Cuz an spider failing from 5m takes more damage than being hit in the eye by a heavy crossbow bolt...

PoE2 has some mega boss who has 16k hp, which I feel is extremely stupid design.

So what your saying is you want ToEE, and not BG3. Cool they made that game if you didn't know, it's for 3.5 edition not 5e. Furthermore it seems like you simply have a spider probably I can take care of that. Then there is all that with Firkaag. So they pretty much made him near invincible with all that, and you were fine with that? I could quote you what all is wrong with that many things on one monster but I'm not going to. It's not (kept coming out it' snot) the game we are giving feedback on, or even the edition. Still it is good to be able to refrence things. So here goes.

Stoneskin on spider makes no sense. Immunity to backstab (spiders supposedly can see in many directions. Unsure of this may be untrue.) spider caster haste, spiders can cast magic, uh no. Spider that big having high AC no it's size alone, the inability to wear armor. Sure it's chitin can count as armor, maybe factor in it's dex. Would have to look up it's dex. Then subtract for size vs party. May bump it a couple higher. I'll need to look at it to see. Think it's AC was 13. It already has incredible attack damage (one shotting party members. With it's rage/haste it gets the 2 for 1 deal) Aoe it has that with it's long range poison spit. No buffet but it does have little ones to come to it's aid. No spells except for it's ethereal jaunt, no invisibility detection unless your own it's web. No backstab immunity though it could use it honestly.

In my book, I'd much prefer the spider. I'd be annoyed at the abuse of DM powers that created Firkraag, who appears to be near invincible. Were as the spider makes sense.

On to hp amount you factor in what it doesn't have compared to Firkaag stoneskin, spells, immunities, invunerabilities, aoe to outright kill one party member instead of slowly weakening them with poison, magic resist. Instead it has health, ethereal jaunt, some easily smashed babies, and 1 or 2 mid level underlings. Thinking we need to still give that spider something to beef it up compared to Firkaag. maybe stoneskin. Because if you do the math Firkaag had more hp through his resistances, his immunities, his stone skin then the spider does. More attacks do to his having spells, aoe's, buffet. Then there is fact you can send it tumbling if you break it's web.

I know your love for ToEE seems to have blinded you to those facts. Backstab immunity means no extra damage from your rogue, invisibilty detection shoots down one tactic completely, stone skin increases his armor that you said was already high to begin with. also doesn't it halve bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage? (unsure figured I'd ask) haste meaning multipule attacks/spells per turn, resist to magic so your mage, is just about useless so factor in any damage he'd be doing into total FirFir hp, and the previously mention sneak attack from your rogue. Then factor in any damage he avoids when he sends you flying across the room, with haste that could well be every round. (ignore this if you can get in close in that turn with him again. or equivelent amount of time.) Which unsure if ToEE is turn based or not. If it isn't just adds irrevelance to it since your moves are more hampered in turn based then other forms.

I counted in that area 1 goblin in that area with no wait guts didn't have 50 hp, that was the half orc warrior that had 50. The drow as well was close. Zhents have around 30 roughly. Again though difference of 3.5 and 5e about the amount of hitpoints they should or should not have. Several goblins had between 8 and 15. So wheres all the other 50's at? I'll look more.

Dude Firkaag is from bg2 not ToEE.

@dune

Ahh, my bad he keeps talking about ToEE. assumption on my part, unless he was also in ToEE. it's been forever since I played BG2.

This will gonna be length, there are a lot to awnser



Nope. I wanna BG3. I only mentioned ToEE cuz is a TB low level game like BG3. But BG2 is IMO better.




Did you read my post??? I literally made an strategy capable of soloing him in 2 rounds on LoB difficulty with about 60% success chance.




I prefer to fight enemies which has high AC, high mobility, good AI, a lot of things to consider than just an "bullet sponge"




Wrong. Stoneskin negate blows on 2e, gives 10/5 on 3/.5e and on 5e is very lackluster "This spell turns the flesh of a willing creature you touch as hard as stone. Until the spell ends, the target has resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage." https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Stoneskin#content