Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Incorporate 5e Cover Rules, Remove Height Adv/Dis

I very much agree with this sentiment (and that of the OP). I think getting a simple bonus to attack while elevated is fine, but giving advantage is too much. 5e removed lots of the fiddly numbers to make combat easier to track, but we don't have to worry about that with a video game, so it's not something to be as concerned about. Advantage is simple to track on the tabletop, but it is also very powerful and shouldn't be handed out to easily. Just being out of reach is a great reason to find the higher ground - it doesn't need to grant advantage.

Isn't this just changing the name? The latter mechanic, shooting over Y to shoot Z already exists, in the Advantage of high ground, exactly as per your example. I'm not sure how the game calculates shooting at z through y, but if it's applying disadvantage now, that would be the same as the AC bonus Z gets, or at least similar?

Ultimately, the difference is one of numbers and how much elevation *can* impact combat.

Right now, being higher than your enemy is *always* a benefit, with a roughly average +5 to your attack rolls (Advantage). That's huge. Additionally, your target will have -5 to their attack rolls (Disadvantage), coming out to a net benefit of +-10!!! to the target that is elevated. That's.....that's just insane.

Using Cover mechanics, the elevated position is *sometimes* as a benefit, and the difference is noticeably less impactful. Being higher than your target would only be a benefit if it somehow allowed you to ignore the target's Cover. If there is no cover between X and Z on a flat plane, then X would get no benefit to their attack roll from being in an elevated position.

They did reduce enemy AC, and increased enemy HP, which alters the effectiveness of spells which work based on an amount of HP or AoE spells.

I disabled the advantage/disadvantage from height and tbh...the game plays better

also got rid of the "too high" bullshit from spells and abilities

it DOES make the game a touch easier, but (and this is a HUGE but), I've been restricting myself to one long rest for every FOUR encounters, and I increased the number of short rests to 2 per long rest.

This makes the game feel oh so much better! This is how the game should be, 5e isn't about Brutal Combats -> Long Rest, it's about resource management

Please email this mod to Swen asap. They can work on incorporating Cover mechanics later, let's get these changes in ASAP.

(joking, I'm aware we don't have his email)

I still believe you'll have to wait for the Complete Overhaul and Removal of D:OS System Mod lol.

There absolutely needs to be some form of cover. And a way to know if you have it.

Trying to move Gale behind a tree or under a ledge usually does nothing. They can shoot him anyway through foliage or a ledge because of the curvy flight path arrows have. Being able to shooting someone without a line of sight with advantage is a big problem. Ranged weapons need to check a direct path. And foliage clearly needs to give some level of cover if you can't actually see your target.

Going to 3rd person mode to check if the enemies can see you should matter when you are trying to find a safe position.

It doesn't matter if I'm using a bow, or a sniper rifle, if I have high ground, I'll have an advantage, double that if I have cover. Your net benefit is also wrong. You don't have a +10 to hit because you have high ground, you have the advantage roll, + any bonuses you may have, and minus any penalties, are you human, shooting into a darker zone? The penalty to your opponent does not affect your hit chance. Being higher does, because, as in the example laid out in the post I replied to, you can shoot over that cover, whether that's another NPC, or a boulder, or a barricade. There's a reason snipers go for high ground today. I don't really want to go into the full physics of projectiles here, but we'll suffice it to say that arrows or bullets do not climb higher as they fly farther, but drop, and that drop can be significant, according to the range, and the initial velocity of the projectile.

Advantage is like around +4.5 bonus to hit, so u hit with advantage and enemy hit u with disadvantage, it is like +9 net, your comment is wrong.

Attack with Advantage in DnD world means just better accuracy. But high ground advantage in real world actually means two different things: 1. higher damage due to ballistics and gravity 2. better accuracy due to overcomming eventual obstacles. If we had proper cover mechanics in BG3, which gives flat bonus to AC, then it would be possible to implement high ground to counter this flat cover bonus and maybe adds some extra damage. But I believe we should not add the DnD Advantage to those attack. They are not more accurate per se. I still believe it's a little bit harder to shot somebody from above because lesser hitbox. It's really just a way to overcome obstacles and deals higher damage if I will hit the target.

Speaking about arithmetic mean (average) there is 3.3 difference. Standard roll has mean 10.5 while advantage or disadvantage has 13.8 resp. 7.2. Median for d20 roll is 10 or 11, whille median for advantage is 15 and disadvantage has 6.

Wrong, for a host of reasons.

1. Not bringing in IRL flight patterns of objects.

2. The "net benefit" is different from a +10 to-hit. A flat +10 to-hit would actually be less impactful because then the lower attacker wouldn't suffer as badly. This is just bad faith arguing on your part.

3. You're...making my point? Elevation changes should be beneficial, just not as stupidly game breaking as they are now where there is a functional equivalent of +-10 to the to-hit rolls between them (it's actually more than that because the chances of a Crit and a National 1 are doubled respectively). Implementing cover rules per the rules of 5e drops that number to +-4, and significantly, also makes less impact on various Class Abilities like Rogue Sneak Attack and others that rely on advantage/disadvantage. It also means that having the height advantage isn't *always* a benefit or a detriment, depending on the lay out or how you play.

Actually, let's revisit #1. Snipers go for high'ish ground, not the highest ground. Because you don't want to silhouette yourself against the sky/backdrop. Snipers are trained to go for the location with the best ingress/egress, best sightlines, and best cover and/or concealment. This may be the highest ground, this may not be. They don't do it to increase the range of their rifle, they don't do it because it makes the rifle any more or less accurate. A properly doped up rifle and sight makes changes in elevation practically irrelevant in terms of hitting your intended target at ranges. Doubly so if you have some of the newer sights and laser rangefinders that account for elevation/windage when you're sighting-in. I went to school for it, I'm pretty well versed.

Lastly, and this is why I wanted to revisit it as you clearly don't know what you're talking about, bullets absolutely do 'climb' as they fly further. Unless you have the most insanely stupid sighting-in for a rifle, bullets will leave the rifle and achieve a higher elevation during their flight than their point of origin. This is to compensate for the impact of wind resistance and gravity on bullet flight path and the minimal difference in point of aim versus point of impact at most ranges. But if your rifle is dialed in for 300m and you aim at the head of a target only 50m away, chances are pretty good you'll miss because the bullet flight path will go over the target (caliber dependent). This is a simplistic discussion but it gets the point across -> https://www.hornady.com/team-hornady/ballistic-calculators/ballistic-resources/external-ballistics

A much more mathematically inclined friend of mine showed me the full breakdown, but it's actually slightly more than that because Critical hits and Nat 1s come into play to skew the averages a bit more.

Additionally, the rules of 5e literally make Advantage/Disadvantage equal to a +-5, at least in terms of calculating Passive skill checks. PHB page 175, "If the character has advantage on the check, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5"

I think elevation giving advantage only makes sense.

Also positioning benefits are in rules. Page 252... So I am not even sure what exactly you're so offended about with Larian using the rule.

Three reasons:

1. They didn't actually implement that rule (only the Advantage part and not the other 90% of the optional rule)

2. No one uses that. Some DMs use Flanking, some don't. I've literally never seen a DM use Facing.

3. They literally used the same mechanics as "Backstabbing" in DoS 2 but didn't include the ground indicator to know if you're going to get it or not.

I lied, 4 reasons:

4. Advantage for positioning yourself behind someone is drastically overpowered, and it cheapens other sources of providing advantage. This gives melee combat an extreme amount of "sameyness" where the objectively best choice, each turn, is to circle-strafe your opponent to get Advantage, then they do the same to you.

It does not matter who uses it or not - it's official in print and everyone can use it at will. Reality is that the rule is there. It also does not need 100% carbon copy down to last letter, but what they do is close enough. As you can see attacking from behind gives both advantage and -2AC in case creature has a shield. All fine and dandy by rules.

That's certainly much better than people here meming, as if it's some sort of never heard of thing completely unrelated to 5e, when in fact it's bloody there in print black on white page 252.

It also does not matter if it's overpowered or any other silly reason in your head-canon - the rule is there. Take it to WoTC if you think it's so busted, not to Larian.

Right, speaking strictly about attack rolls there is critical hit/miss. The flat equivalent depends on AC but its somewhere between +-4 and +-5. That flat modification from PHB is too generous for my tasting, especially when ability and skill check rolls don't use critical hit/miss mechanic. But whatever.

Advantage or disadvantage has also another builtin "feature", they don't stack, while normal flat modifiers usully do. They also cancel each other. All of those are reasons why I think high ground rule should not use advantage/disadvantage rule but something else. (EDIT: Adv/Disadv. should be quite rare, undeniable conditions)

Attacking someone from the rear is already in the rules. If you attack someone who cants see you; you get advantage. Its not taken from Divinity at all.

Height giving advantage I could have sworn was in the book somewhere but cant for the life of me find it. Height also imposing disadvantage on you if you attack the one higher up though is sheer overkill. It makes the game lean so heavily on having higher ground if you want to succeed that it becomes silly.

Simply replace height giving advantage/disadvantage by a ±1d4 to attack rolls only ?
The differential will be around ±2.5 on both sides, instead of ±5 wich should litteraly halve the benefits.

This way it will also be cumulative with other boni/mali by spells (like bless/bane will add/remove another d4), but advantage would require more work from player, like facing enemies to "backstab" them (minor illusion, cat become suddenly useful), or other effects like true strike and such.

Right now the combo height = both advantage to attack + disadvantage to enemy is flat OP.

Using high ground to remove natural covers is fine, adding a slight bonus to hit / malus to be hit looks fine to me, but automatic advantage makes thing too powerful, not to mention some nasty combos like auto-sneak attack with ranged weapon for the rogue...