Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A discussion on how the game's current combat mechanics design heavily restricts tactical options

I argue that DnD is a cost/benefit analysis system, but I think there's a time/practicality factor into it as well. A common consideration is that each round is actually 6 seconds in real time, and a lot of the things in that list are things that might arguably fit into that time window. At the same time, few of these would even apply to a combat situation.

To eat food and immediately heal from it mid-combat is a whole other level of suspension of belief.

That said, there's also a reason I chose not to mention eating things in combat as that much of a problem, even though I would argue that it is purely from a logic standpoint. But from a practical gameplay standpoint, the current encounter design pretty much revolves around the ability to heal often. It's ultimately a concession based on the idea that most people would find the game too hard and are ultimately adapting to the system, because let's face it, there are few cRPGs like this that exist to begin with. I mean, it is cheap, but like, the only practical solution is to replace all of that food with potions, which is purely flavor and only several degrees less ridiculous.

Consider our first playthrough of D:OS2 or Pathfinder: Kingmaker, right? Whoever claims they didn't find either game that hard their first time through is straight up LYING.

I actually do have a priority list in terms of things I think should get addressed first. The most critical one is the high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage system, followed by bonus action disengage and finally backstab advantage. I am of the belief that every other thing mentioned in the OP is either directly or indirectly influenced by those three existing to begin with. Like the impact that even a single one of these has on the current gameplay design is several levels above food healing and barrelmancy combined.

The best part is, the high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage system is probably the easiest one to fix without really doing anything special to the engine, I'd think.

I mean I am really not trying to turn this into a debate but considering you can move 30 feet I guess u can swallow whatever in that time..but again its a game option..in BG3 when u use a food u cannot use a potion..Its there yes, but you dont have to use healing by eating food..no one is forcing you to make max use of eveything in the game. Essentially what ppl want is; they just dont want other players to have that option, so it is weird.

I think more features being implemented to the game is just better because u can always "not use" them or just remove those my mods. Combat mechanics tho is an other issue since they are usually hard coded and must be adressed.

Okay I see your point. If it has no impact upon my gameplay and it can just be an option then you are right. I don’t care.

But if the changes Larian has made, whether it be food or home brew rules, affects how the monsters behave or affects their strength and durability, then I have a problem.

I wish they'd try implementing food similar to the way POE2 did (and Kingmaker to a lesser extent) - required for resting, limited in supply, and gives your characters a bonus until the next rest (based on recipes).

Not only will that fix the healing economy by making potions matter again, it's an interesting mechanic that can potentially help with the infinite resting problem we have right now - since if food is limited and it can grant you useful bonuses, you might not abuse resting as much.

In game, it could be something like a lesser version of the heroes' feast spell.

As long as Larian doesn’t expect players to eat all the time, I’m okay. Otherwise it’s DOS: Baldur’s Gate 3 edition with WoW DLC.

Hmm, would it be spoilers if I mentioned something about Pathfinder: WotR? I mean, this would be beta information, but information about the beta itself is supposed to be publicly available up until the end of chapter 3, so...

The resting mechanic in WotR is drastically different from Kingmaker. It does more than simply refill your health and restore your spell slots, you are now able to craft potions and scrolls while resting too, depending on a party member's Knowledge Arcana or Religion check.

However, there is also a 'Corruption' mechanic when resting in that game, because well, most of the game takes place in a realm of distorted reality between the material plane and the demonic Abyss. It progresses in three stages. The first is an across the board stat reduction that was considered bad enough by many other beta testers that I've only ever seen people talking about the first stage. I don't know what happens at the second and third stage, but the game's loading screen warnings about the third stage leads me to assume it's an automatic game over. The amount accumulated can be drastically reduced if a chosen party member's Knowledge Religion check succeeds in shielding the party from the brunt of the impact while resting, with the total amount of corruption and the difficulty check to reduce how much you gain being higher depending on exactly where you rest. The meter only resets if you rest in a safe zone (as in, back at base camp, wherever it may be because the game does not really have a single centralized hub area like Kingmaker did).

Because of this, camping no longer requires camping supplies and rations. You can do it in most places at any time, so long as you're aware of the drawback of the corruption mechanic.


This is pretty much the entire point of why I made this thread. I complain less about D:OS2's design because most things outside of the armor system worked well enough for the context of that game. But I take issue with bringing in a lot of the same design philosophy into a DnD-based BG3 and not even doing anything on either side of the spectrum very well over here.

This is actualy interesting point ...

Just a question: Would it feel better if your character would only bite off one bite ... and throw away the rest?
Since it seem to me like you can totally take it that way.

Picking an item in your Inventory mean you're taking something in your backpack and that doesn't make any sense in combats.

You can take and light your candle for free to dip each turn, you can prepare your barrels for free, you can equip a shield to any of your characters for free at each turn,... That's tedious but this obviously lead to many exploit.

That's probably why many games uses quickslot for items, considering they're not in your bag but hanged on your belt.

It increase the tactical value of the game once again because you have to choose wisely what you may use in combats.

A mix between the usual 5/6 quickslot and the unlimited use of inventory items could be great.

5 quickslot for potions, 3 for scrolls or dippable items (considering dip would require an item), a quiver with 4 slots for magical arrows/bolts, maybe one more slots for a few items i.e a torch or another small magical item.

This is all you should need in combats and at the cost of a bonus action, that would increase the meaningfullness of our choices.

If you want to eat a slice of pig you can do it before the fight begins... Or maybe hanged it on your belt... I guess...

HA. Yes I myself remembered who you are from the Obsidian forum.

My concern with PoE2 was simply that inclusion of a TB option was merely a stepping stone to completely removing the RTwP option in future games, and I think that concern remains valid. I have the same fear for the Pathfinder games. But for now I'm a huge fan of Owlcat as a cRPG studio precisely because they're doing a great job of providing both options to players, which is what is best IMHO. And yes, I am so loving P:WotR, and it is by far my most highly anticipated cRPG right now.

Me I know ksnisatha from the Beamdog forum

Hi. Yes that one too.

Great post by the OP! I was actually about to make a separate post about some of these issues (namely the disengage as a bonus action and backstab mechanics).

Admittedly, I am fine with a few liberties here and there regarding rules, as both Jeremy Crawford and Larian in previous interviews have mentioned that there need to be some changes for a video game vs. tabletop. However, I definitely have an issue with disengage being a bonus action, even if decoupled from jump, since it also takes away that tactical decision of whether I take an attack or get the Hells out of Dodge (which to me could still be a decision choice for melee characters low on health or trying to get closer to a healer). The way it currently works, even ranged characters can "jump/disengage" out of the threatened range and still get a shot in. My main issue with the current backstab mechanics in EA are that it's difficult for us to direct where our characters are facing at the end of the turn, so it's harder for the player characters to protect their backs and avoid a backstab than it seems to be for the NPC enemies.

I wanted to make a change to the main post due to a discussion in a different thread, but discovered that apparently this forum only allows you to edit posts in a 72 hour time window. Why is this even a thing?

Anyway...

Upon further review, it appears Larian only really made changes to AC and HP for the goblins, and it's only really noticeable there because most of the goblins are on the extreme ends of the curve. as Sharp mentions here.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=758428#Post758428

Most other enemies are almost identically the same as their tabletop counterparts in terms of stats. Still, the goblins make up about 50% of the EA content, which is where this perception generally comes from. The changes to enemy AC/HP probably isn't as drastic as we say it is, but it also leads further credence to the idea that the high ground advantage/low ground disadvantage and backstab advantage have a far bigger effect on the game's balance than anything else.

Actually it would be good to start finding ways to figure out which of these may be a keystone issue. Should we start asking to have forum members respond with what they feel is the order of biggest to smallest issue?

Definitely. Everything is intertwined, and changing one thing will definitely affect the balance of the others in some way. But the extent of the actual changes vary from mechanic to mechanic, which is why I've singled out stuff like eating in combat, barrelmancy, and field effects (outside of using shocking grasp on puddles of water to cause stun with no save) as low priority. Enough that if the other things were addressed first, then everything else mentioned in the giant walls of text might not even need to be adjusted. I realize that if you take the list at face value, it sounds like a lot is wrong with the game, when in reality it's really just 2 or 3 really, really major issues.

Right now my priority list is the following.

1) High ground advantage/low ground disadvantage changed to +2 AC attacking from low ground to high ground
2) Backstab advantage nuked or changed to some kind of flanking system
3) Bonus action Disengage changed to standard action (note that I did not say bonus action Jump, I think Jump should be left alone, it's the Disengage part that is the real issue)
4) Threaten range being too large (should just be tied to whether or not an enemy is able to opportunity attack), and get rid of 'Target Too Close'
--Probably optional if the above four are addressed first--
5) Bonus action Shove changed to standard action

If Larian is able to get player controlled reactions and ready actions into the game, I'd place them between number 2 and 3 on my list.

My priority list for what is making combat stale.

1) The combined value of high ground giving advantageFOR/disadvantageAGAINST (With Threatened's radius being what it is).
All three synergize to make ranged combat stale. So, I'm open to all variants of solutions, whether high ground no longer gives disadvantage on incoming attacks, etc.
2) A proper reaction system which should help mitigate Backstab's impact.
3) Backstab being limited to stealth/rogue, or another form of a premium.
4) The total number of scrolls available is too much.
...the rest all fall into a mixture of "you don't have to use it". So, it's hard to quantify them, so I'm going to put them at a tie for 5th. Larian has the option to tweak a few things to make them less bothersome. And, I'd like to prioritize the four listed before the rest.

Basically this^^. The top 3 are almost going to be universal though maybe in different orders.

1. As I commented elsewhere, I'd like a range buff for bows/crossbows fired from height but honestly high ground is tactically advantageous enough inherently that I don't feel anything needs to be put in to replace advantage/disadvantage...just drop them.
2. I'm for just dropping it here as well, no bonus.
3. Agree make jump its own thing and disengage an action.

5. I would like to see Shove made an action rather than a bonus action. I'd also like to see a trip/topple action that knocks an enemy prone rather than flying across the map. Yes I know that some staves have this as an action, but imo it should be a universal action.

This. This mirrors my priority list 100%, i cannot agree more.
I think most of these would not be that problematic to implement and add a toggle for and looking at most common complains around combat on this forum, I think it would be a popular move to do.
I think to able to do small tweaks to gameplay is even more important for a game designed to be played multiple times.

I like everything on this list, except that I think Jump should be removed as an action entirely. It should just be an automatic part of movement.

You want to go from point A to point B? Great, you walk there.
You want to go from point A to point B and there's in the way? Great, you walk there and jump over obstacles as needed.

There's no need to have the player micromanage jumping and there's no reason it should cost an action.

Well i support those changes..... but have anyone of you thought a little further?
Lets say all of this gets change the way it should be..... the encounters will have SUCH a dramatic dificulty spike without all the Larian cheese that they would have to rework most encounters. Now think about ALL the hundreds of encounters that have allready been designed also for act 2 and act 3...... suddenly you must rework them because Larian designed them with Larian cheese in mind.

The chances that this game will become a DnD game ist next to 0. You can see it yourself an the last Panel of Hell. Its more easy to make Larians Cheese getting approved by WotC instead of making a DnD game.