Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Remove Height and Backstab as Sources of Advantage/Disadvantage

I completely agree with the OP.

I can see this, definitely. In PnP, how affective your spells are are based on you primary stat used for that spell. (Int for wizards, Wis for clerics/druids, Cha for warlocks, etc) This is taking into consideration who well your wizard is able to memorize and recall the spell, how close your cleric is to their god. Things like that. This is why high level practitioners, who have invested time into learning their craft, are immensely powerful.
Now, when you start taking into account height advantage into the mix, you might as well throw all that skill out the window. When even a 18 lvl wizard will fail to hit a creature, simply because they are on a ledge above them is, to me, absurd. Now, cover, yes. A creature can hide behind a brick wall to avoid a spell (assuming the spell is not an area of affect), and that is reasonable, but those mechanics are also in PnP.

I hadn't even thought of this at all but now you mention it, I'm actually quite shocked at the possibility of a high level caster failing to hit enemies above them. I truly hope Larian have considered the implications of their insistence on high ground combat mechanics.

Who cares if a high level wizard sometimes misses? Is that an issue? Are high level wizards always supposed to be able to hit?

Maybe the wizard has something to get advantage, to thus cancel out the disadvantage.

This really doesn't sound like much of a problem.

The issue is that squishy characters are being tasked with going to where there enemies are, and not being able to zone the enemy as they logically should. (And if they get within threatened range, they get disadvantage as well).

Of course there are other sources of advantage/disadvantage. But high ground & low ground are very prevalent throughout Baldur's Gate 3.

So yeah, it's not an issue if you have a party of Eldritch Knights. But it is definitely an issue if your party has a Warlock, Wizard, Sorcerer, and Cleric. (Which four friends wanting to play the game together could totally do).

It's anti-fun to have multiple encounters in a row where you realize your best option is to restart the battle and place as many characters as possible on the high ground. It breaks immersion and it's an unnecessary complexity.

It just doesn't make sense for casters to get advantage or disadvantage from changes in elevation. They're focused on their verbal, somatic, or material components, and they're not pulling back on the strings of a bow tensing their body. Casters shouldn't get improved chance to hit or reduced from an elevation change.

I don't understand why people don't get this:

Take a goblin, 10 base ac, 14 dex and leather armor. 13 ac in total. The most cookie cutter foe in Act 1 as far as ac goes. You're Joe Bloggs on the xbox. You've built your character right, a race with a bonus to strength. You have a 3 bonus and are using a weapon you are proficient in. This gives you 5 to hit against an ac of 13. This means you will miss the easiest foe well over 1/4 of the time, closer to 1/2. This does not sound like a good start to a mass market big seller. And this is the market Larian obviously hopes to hit, just look at all the percentages instead of numbers to roll. And this is with an optimised character, mind you.

Before they introduced the druid guiding light was the only way to induce advantage by spells and that's no easier to land than a weapon without some other way to help it. And they certainly didn't introduce the druid just so players could spam fairie fire so Laezal doesn't miss a goblin 7 times out of 20.

There's already threads complaining that the game is too hard, even with easy to obtain advantage. Can you imagine how many party wipes the three intellect devourers will cause at the start of act 1 without advantage?

No, the game is balanced already. Not completely tweaked, but balanced for those who don't know or don't want to learn the various ways to gain advantage. The question is, will they allow an option to switch off these systems for those who want a more core experience? I hope they do, because that's the sort of experience I'm looking for.

Advantage is pretty much baked into dnd, obtaining it via various spells or class abilities tends to be crucial to the game. I read a physicist who said his publisher once told him that every maths equation in a book was worth roughly 10% less sales. I have a feeling it's the same with manuals and videogames. I definitely don't think simplifying advantage is unbalancing, I just agree that that makes the game lose a lot of its flavour. It will however make the game easier for a lot of people and I have a feeling that is their primary motivation.

btw elevation clearly provides cover and allows you to see the whole body of your target in turn, offering an easier hit. An archer only exposes his head and the top of his body and bow, while below all is exposed. Obviously the higher the elevation the better the cover.

This just doesn't seem like a problem to me. Level 1 means we have little to no experience in what we're doing and the goblins aren't going to stand still for us - we should miss a lot. But monster manual goblins also tend to have very low HP, so when you do hit them, there's a pretty good chance that you going to take them out. Hitting doesn't mean that much if you can do it reliably; but one-shotting goblins early on feels great after a couple of misses! I really hope they restore goblins to something more in line with the monster manual.

They should just explain how advantage works and add less cheated way to get it ?

In D&D even help allow you to get an advantage.
The optionnal flanking rules, hiding/surprising, shove to prone. Bless is also a powerfull spell that increase your %to hit and lots of us suggested other bonuses to attack roll for highground (and/or backstab even if it's an exploit of the TB system).

Okay it's easier to have an advantage but players that complain about missing doesn't play with them and/or they don't understand at all how to create a character. This is because the games lack of tutorial and nothing more.

I still don't understand why they implement faery fire at all and why hiding is possible in combats because its 100% useless (except to bug the AI).
The spells that grant advantages/disadvantages are nearly never used by those ending the EA in solo and that's because except in very specific situations : it's a waste of ressources.

More flavour (to quote you) and a game that is not more difficult for newcomers ? Just increase the max party size ! Even 5 would be enough !

And/or allow us to stack a few new bonuses to attack rolls if missing is a problem instead of destroying a core mechanic of D&D to create a cheap core mechanic in your game (kangaroo TB exploit / highground god mode)

When talking about AC it's increments of 5% (1/20). So far an enemy with 10 AC, without proficiency or modifiers your attack would succeed to hit 55% of the time (11 opportunities to succeed out of 20). A plus 3 to AC would reduce by 15% and a bump of 5 (prof+2 mod+3) would raise the success rate by 25%. The player should have a 65% chance to hit against 13 AC (13 to 25, 13 opportunities to succeed), that's a lot closer to two thirds than one half. The player would miss about a third of the time.

If this really is an issue, Larian can always homebrew the proficiency table to be +3 for levels 1-4.
The fight is easier now, in patch 4 there's a minimum threshold of verticality to impose disadvantage. The player can now use the descending ground behind them to zone the intellect devourers without being punished for doing so. In patch 3 ranged attacks would be at disadvantage in that situation. It's great to actually be able to use some open space in Patch 4, instead of being forced to go for the high ground.
Interesting take, I still feel it's balanced with fighter and ranger in mind. I'm glad you're open to a more core experience.
Advantage is a mechanic in 5e, but it isn't baked into the game. Baldur's Gate 3 has more superfluous advantage/disadvantage than I can stomach. I haven't experienced that feeling in tabletop.

The game already has collision detection to see if a ranged attack could collide with the target. That's infinitely more valuable than cover. The player can also move out of sight and stealth. Both of these already bring immense value to terrain.

I think it's a matter of degree. I've no problem with positioning giving some advantage/disadvantage, but currently high ground is too make-or-break, to the point that it's a reload driver.

Yes highground should not give advantage, maybe range increase, but that's all.
Same for backstab, while the thinking of it is good, your character shall be able to autoface the threat coming unless, they are engage in a fight with someone else.

I agree completely. "Backstabbing" is just silly, better to have it work like in 5E. And same with height/low ground causing advantage/disadvantage.

The players talking about high ground being so easy to get in a battle, are assuming you know that there is a battle coming up and can spread your characters around and prepare for the battle. Once EA is over and the game is released, you won't know when all the battles are going to happen and where. So your party will be walking along, and boom, you're in a fight. You're clustered together and now need to move, prepare and attack on the fly. Just re-load, you say? That's where immersion is broken. By the time you can get your mage to high ground, they have probably already been killed by the enemies. Fairy Fire, Guiding Bolt, etc are extremely useful spells in PnP due to the fact they they do give you advantage on subsequent attacks without the need for high ground.

My point being, if you are playing straight through without reloading, the high ground mechanic is going to practically cripple you as your party is just walking along on your adventure. I believe this is why it's not implemented in PnP. If you are getting ambushed by monsters on high ground, it will be a TPK due to the fact that the enemy has advantage on EVERY attack made against your party, and you would have disadvantage on EVERY attack against them until you could get party members up there to push them off or something similar. In PnP, they would get advantage on the surprise round, but then normal attacks after that, and you would have normal attacks every round against them. This seems more balanced to me.

To HAVE to take Misty Step, and similar mobile spells just to make it through the game seems kind of silly to me. To HAVE to take any spell because it's crucial, otherwise you will have a hell of a time seems ridiculous, but again, that's just me.

Ok so, I was of the same opinion of the OP since the beginning but I really came to understand how broke this mechanic is just now that I'm mastering my own campaign (Descent into Avernus btw, thank you BG3! :D)
I can understand giving "advantage" against flanked targets. It is not a strict 5e rule (which uses the "help" action in order to give another player advantage on the attack role) but it is not unbalanced in this game since the party is almost always outnumbered and it's not so easy to always flank a target with two characters. Giving advantage for backstabbing an enemy just with a character alone doesn't really make any sense.

Unless you are hidden, in the middle of a combat an enemy just does not give his back to you to stab, it would face you instead (both in D&D rules and real-life). Even because turning around on your spot doesn't cost any movement point, since at the end of your movement you can pin down your character and make it face any direction he wants. Even without cheesing the broken jump mechanic my characters always have advantage in combat due to this rule. It makes half of the spells in the game completely useless.

The same thing concerning height advantage. I think having a higher position on the battlefield than your enemy should make it easier for you to hit him, but a straight advantage on the roll is just too much. Just give a +1/+2 on the hit roll (or, even better, just a range increase), most of the times it's sufficient to make the difference on a hit or a miss, and you still have a purpose for spells that give you advantage on attack rolls.

I'm sure I didn't say anything new, just want to spend my 2 cents on this.

If you justify the advantage because you are mostly outnumbered with your „4 people party“ you might actually hire at larian. At least you got the same design philosophy. No personal offense meant.

Calm down there @Baldurs-Gate-Fan. Actually reading @Sharet's post makes it clear that they are against easy advantage.
Their arguments is that giving advantage against flanked targets, while powerful, would be fine because it is so unlikely to happen with only a 4-person party.

Good post @Sharet, you basically agree with most of the people ITT.
-Advantage for ~free is too powerful and makes many spells/abilities significantly less useful.
-Backstabbing is nonsensical as enemies would realistically just rotate to face you (unless they are flanked).
-It's reasonable for height to grant a bonus, but Advantage is too much. +1/+2 or a range increase would be fine.

Seems most people think these things, so let's hope they change those things.

I'm kinda in the boat of only giving player advantage on ranged attacks when on higher ground.
I think it could be balanced by making weapon switching consume a bonus action and giving melee-attacks against non-melee-ranged weapons advantage.

You'd also have to fix stealth first.

IMHO, It would be better balanced if they implemented +2 cover AC against ranged attacks for targets in melee combat, then for high ground, you don't get advantage on your attack, but the opponent doesn't get +2 AC since you are shooting down into combat.