Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Im so weak! Whats the deal?!?!

All my characters are at level 4, I have not gone to the Goblin Camp yet but i have tried and tried to win at the Whispering Spiders and the Hag, I can not beat any of them. I watch some videos of guys who have done those and they make it look so easy, i cant figure out what im doing wrong or what, im at a loss, i wish there was a difficulty bar to adjust or something cause im just not able to win at either of them maps.

Any help or tips what not would be appreciated, thanks!

What's your character job i.e. Ranger? Wizard?.....? Are you using the environment, bombs/ barrels..., sneaking into position before the battle starts? potions? There's quiet a bit of strategy involved or planning ahead. I am not the best at these games but find this is really easy with some planning.

The spiders are best eliminated slowly. If you sneak in to the bottom of the cave you can eliminate them one by one as well as sneaking to kill the eggs. So by the time you get to the Queen she's all that's left. Just lure her onto a web and burn the web so she drops into the pit below. If that doesn't work place your guys strategically so she can only ever hit one and keep shooting her.

Ahh, I want to help but I don't know what to work with. This is the kind of thing that would be really easy to help you wish if you had some video footage of you playing.

The Hag: are you talking about the fight before she retreats underground or in the room at the bottom with the cage? In my playthrough that bottom room she was bugged so I can't really comment on that.
The Phase Spider Queen: (I think that is what you were referring to) - Yeah this is a tough fight. Using a poison resistance potion on every member before the fight (they last until long rest) will help a TON. I only used one but that would be my first advice. Next would be to make sure you use some AoE (burning hands, bombs, other throwables) to hit all the baby spiders at once. I took out the regular spiders first, then focused on the queen when I wasn't surrounded by the babies.

Honestly, it depends on what your party consist of, spells etc and ultimately how you want to play the game or "win."
Winning can be done in a variety of ways, you can cheese the game for example, like using a single ranged character to attack, then move/hide, attack etc. This is slow and can get boring rather quickly. However, if you want to just kill things easily, that is one option.

Alternatively, you can split your party up and hide, then take them one by one to sneak attack the NPC, which will give you an enemy with much lower health. Chances are they will be surprised so you will get additional attacks on the enemy prior to them attacking.

Scouting can be beneficial and will let you come up with a better idea when using a given area. In most circumstances it is beneficial to take the high ground.

For the spider portion, most of the smaller spiders start on the bottom of the map rather than the higher ledges. You can take them out slowly and like a previous poster, fight the largest one last. Make sure to take out the egg sacs prior if at all possible as well.

For the Hag fight it depends on where you are having trouble. How is your equipment? What is your party made up of? If you have a ranger or warlock make sure you summon your familiars. The hide option is very useful here and allows you to sneak into the hags home and setup your party as you see fit. It is also best to eliminate the red caps prior. Some people use the Wyvern poison which seems to be quite effective, or you can be sneaky and gather a large amount of exploding barrels and set them up in a room.

When it comes to these games, there are so many ways to overcome obstacles by using your surroundings and certain spells. Spells like grease can be helpful as it causes the NPC to make saves and if they fail they fall down leaving them vulnerable.

Lastly, if you are having difficulty with certain maps/areas/npcs make sure you save prior to fighting. Once you do this, fix the error from your previous encounter and redo the fight.

I really don't want to derail this thread but while we're at it: I noticed that the red caps shape shift into their form from sheep. I remember passing those sheep earlier on the way to her tea house when they are still non-hostile. Has anyone tried killing them before the main fight even starts?

SPOILER:

If you pass a check, you never even see them as sheep. You see them as redcaps going "baaaa". Pretty funny. I said "baaa" back and they didn't go hostile so I just left 'em. Going to try the eliminate-early approach next time through!

Regarding the Phase Spider:

I ended up accidently getting into the fight after the previous and didnt rest so i was pretty much out of spell slots but I ended up still winning mostly due to one factor.

Each time the Phase Spider Queen would be around the edges of the platform I would cast Thunderweave which did minimal damage but it knocked her off the platform to the ground which did fall damage to around 40-50hp. I did this twice so totalled almost around 100 hp worth of fall damage

The little bastards suck but I also have an Evo Wizard with me and just used shatter to aoe them down without hurting my party as well.

If I got poisoned I tried to use things that would force the mobs to use their DC checks instead as that is not affected by poison.

I also tried to use command Halt on her when I could to buy me another round.

Jaz

Try getting familiar with the combat mechanics, hide/surprise, dipping in flame(can use candle) or poison, high ground, light, positioning for backstabs, using environment/shove off a high place.

It’s a hard game - Perseverance and changing tactics - try using different buffs & trying to arm characters with weapons they are most competent with, use your healing wisely - get your rogue using poisons & backstabbing.

Mhm! With a lack of a specific example to help you with, my best advice is to not treat combat like combat; treat it like a puzzle. You have many tools at your disposal, and they all can interact with each other-- as well as the world around you. There are already plenty of good suggestions here! Don't get disheartened; a guide or two can work wonders.

Give yourself some time with the curve; you'll be soloing things too, someday. :3

Combat as a puzzle is the idea indeed. I didn't have much to adapt to BG3 combat because I played so much Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2 that I already knew the codes. But I can understand it might seem overwhelming to new comers. So just try your best, learn bits by bits as you go through the journey and after a few playthroughs, you will dig the combat like we do and enjoy some good battles which, when you started the game, seemed impossible to win.

Beaten her once so far. Didn't realise I could burn the webs. Something new to try out

In my game, I ended up using one of those knockback arrows on the Phase Spider Queen. I thought it would just knock off some HP, but it ended up dropping her into the Underdark and killing her in one shot.

Later I went down the hole using Featherfall, and her body was there, allowing me to loot the nice set of mage robes.

Just pointing out it is possible to one shot her.

Sorta the opposite of ESO

Things work out best with planning, pacing and strategy.

Maybe obvious, but firstly make sure your characters are using the right weapons(important for melee mainly though). Light and finesse weapons for DEX fighters (rogue/ranger) and STR weapons for any character using STR (at this point most likely fighters only). Also make sure that your character is proficient with the weapons/armour it's wearing or wielding, this is a big issue that is easily overlooked. For some reason my ranger (DEX) wasn;t proficient with scimitars, but was with shortswords.
Same goes for casters, make sure your casters have as high casting stats as possible. This should be easy.

Then some staples; use the environment.Push anything off of everything and let anything fall on everybody.
Drop candles/rotched and dip weapons for added fire damage, same goes for poison.
Casting; IMO Mobility(mainly Misty Step)>AoE Thunder spells>Buffs>Burst Spells>Healing spells.

Is an encounter hard, work with hiding. Try to force advantage as much as possible whenever you can.
Also; try not to be a lootgoblin, actually use your consumables in battles. Most are very abundant and easily to obtain (potions and arrows etc.)

Plan your encounters ahead and save before them. It's a strategically demanding game. Going nilly-willy even into a group of goblins can be a TPK if your rolls go south/your resources are depleted.

Hope it helps.

This is a game that really demands you understand the "rules".

I don't know what your builds are, but here are some pointers:

1. There are two stats that affects your physical damages. Strenth and Dexterity. Most melee weapons work with Strength. Ranged weapons and weapons with the "Finesse" tag uses Dexterity.

2. Dexterity dictates armor class, AC for most classes. No armor and light armor get's a bonus to AC equal to your Dexterity modifier. Medium armor has a maximum of +2

3. On the topic of modifiers. Your modifier increases by 1 for every 2 ability score you have above 10. Your main ability scores should be 16 at best, 14 at minimum at character creation. Constitution should usually always be over 10.

4. Pay attention to the "to hit % Box" in the lower left corner, notice if there is red or green arrows. Being behind an enemy gives you advantage on attacks. Shooting into shadows gives disadvantage. (dis)advantage means you roll two to hit dice and keep the highest/lowest based on if its advantage. So this is huge. ALWAYS HIT THE ENEMY IN THE BACK!

5. Som attacks are "Save based" there the enemy rolls a save against your spell's Difficulty Class. The DC is dictated by your spell casting stat. Wizards use Intelligence, Clerics use Wisdom, Warlocks use Charisma. Keep these abilities as high as possible on these classes.

6. Health Potions and Food heal you during combat. It's a bonus action. Use it when you start taking damage.

7. Keep a balanced team. I prefer having Shadowheart, Astarion, Wyll or Gale and myself. If I play warlock or Wizard then I will take Lae'zel. I always pick Thief on Astarion and Battle Master on Lae'zel. Everyone are decent at both range and melee. Try to not run in to hit things in melee if it will put you in too much of harms way.

8. Don't rush in. Use the terrain to your advantage. Hide, make them come to you.

9. Focus fire. The enemy will hurt just as much if they are at 1 HP, overkill is better. Try taking down the low HP mobs first.

10. Be aware of your surroundings. Don't get pushed off a cliff etc. But you should push people around as much as you can!

11. Use crowd control. Learn how to use Fog Cloud, Hold Person, Sleep etc to your advantage.

12. Spell Slots are there to be used, but use them against the scary opponents. Don't waste a spell if you have a low to hit chance, use a Save based spell, or a cantrip then.


That's my pointers for now. You can of course also use dippable weapons etc, but I personally don't. I have no real trouble surviving battles. Combat is a nail biter in this game.
At a deeper note, figuring out what each class can do to really boost their damage output is also key.

Have you tried drinking the milk of human kindness?

Other than that, explosive barrels work well.

You also could've poorly spec-ed your character

Getting high ground at the start and stealthing when possible has fixed my issues with every fight so far

I had my imp left outside the house so that the red caps were dragged into the combat tracker before the reached the house. This gave me time to fight the hag alone for a few turns.

I really hate this "out of combat/in of combat" crap : /