Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Great news! Height advantage not that impactful.

I have seen a lot of complaints regarding the perceived OPness of height advantage.

These usually claim that height advantage offers a to hit bonus/malus that is equivalent to a +-5 on dice rolls.

This is actually not quite true. Assuming an even distribution of hit chances, height advantage only gives a +-3.5 equivalent on dice rolls.
Proof:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sum+from+n%3D1+to+19+%281+-+%28n%2F20%29%5E2+-+%2820-n%29%2F20%29+%2F19+*100+%2F5

This kind of makes me wonder:
Do some people intentionally spread misinformation?
Are they just bad at math?

At least heigth advantage is not as bad as many people claim.

+3.5 in a game designed with bounded accuracy is pretty significant.

And you can see it in the gameplay. It’s not just theory crafting. Fight with height advantage and backstab all the time and then fight with height disadvantage and attack head on.

You will see a significant difference in your damage output.

I don't think that height should give any advantage at all, besides increasing the range of ranged weapons, but not spells.

+1. Especially since ranged weapons are already lacking in range to begin with.

The arguments about height advantage are less about the numerical value of it, and far more about the sheer tactical value of its existence and how it affects the value of AC. You brought up the advantage part, but I see you are downplaying the combined effect of the DISADVANTAGE half of it too. Not to mention that its very existence also makes damaging spells targeting saving throws inherently worse to use compared to spells targeting AC in the vast majority of practical situations.

So I ask this. What is the actual benefit in keeping high ground advantage the way it is, knowing how much of an effect it has on encounter design and balance? Because if your only argument is literally 'I personally don't think it's as bad as people say it is! (even though it's probably THE most common mechanics-related complaint)', then maybe there actually *is* something wrong with it to begin with.

Some people have at least tried to suggest changing it to a +2-/-2 AC calculation instead (and reverting the changes Larian made to AC/HP in favor of pumping proficiency values instead so that saving throw-targeting spells aren't left behind in the dust).

Advantage being the equivalent of +5 is the convention in dnd circles. I have not done the math on this myself, I've just assumed that somebody, at some point, have.

That link you posted is making my browser give me warnings by the way.

Also a 3.5 averages to 4.

The +5 comes from assuming a 50% chance to hit. That means that you miss on 0.5*0.5=0.25 (or 25% of the time) and you therefor hit 75% of the time. This is equivalent to +5.

Now, you would be correct in pointing out that this is the maximum benefit possible from advantage. It declines as you both raise and lower your chance to hit. It does overestimate the value of advantage a bit.

However, it is almost certainly a better estimate than assuming an even distribution of hit chances. In a well balanced game you will not see very many situations where you hit on a 2, or very many situations where you only hit on a 19 or 20. Given the actual to-hit chances that you will encounter in BG3 the value is probably between +4 and +5.

It's 3.5 if you don't account for critical rolls, Natural 1's always missing and Natural 20's always hitting bring the value to +5.

It wouldn't be that bad if it was just advantage, but advagtageFOR/disadvantageAgainst is a net value of 10.

If it was just one or the other, I doubt forum members would be writing about high ground as often as we have.

Height giving advantage is an optional rule, I believe in one of the core books? Like flanking?

Thus, I don't mind it at all, I prefer that they focus on stuff that is not in the rules and breaks balance, like mages learning cleric spells or everyone having bonus action disengages.

I'd like them to focus on all of the things that you mention here, including the advantage for height.

I'm not sure even that is true. When you can make redundant whole spells or class abilities, in a game which depends on both, you are cutting out potentially vast amounts of balancing content for 'i'm higher than you are'.

Well sure, that value can't really be calculated.

Exactly. I'm of the thinking that if something renders not only spells, but even class abilities irrelevant, its too power.

When its not even a 5e rule that is doing it? Drop it.

I would have to disagree, I think height advantage should work with ranged and spells. It is taking advantage of 3D space, rather than 2D tabletop. But, I don't think say you on a small ledge just behind someone, and it gives you a melee advantage. That just doesn't sound right. There should be a slight benefit for ranged classes considering how OP melee classes seem to be. I have played a warrior, rogue, hunter and now playing a warlock, and melee definately have an easier life and do more damage it seems.

The game's current balance is only skewed towards melee characters right now because the Great Weapon Master feat is already implemented, along with the existence of a highly unrealistic 'threatened' radius on top of the 'target too close' malus that limits how ranged characters play. Ranged do get great benefits from being on high ground, but your argument now makes me wonder if high ground advantage is basically meant to act as a counterpoint to backstab advantage and a reward for staying outside of the double threatened and target too close penalties.

I often argue that high ground advantage is the big contributing issue to the imbalance in encounter design, but maybe that argument should actually be reversed, with the thought that high ground advantage actually exists because of backstab advantage. They are both definitely intertwined, and you can't get rid of one without the other.

There is supposed to be another feat that acts as the ranged equal for Great Weapon Master, called Sharpshooter. It increases damage inflicted by +10 in exchange for lowering your attack accuracy by -5. (It also disables enemy AC bonuses from partial cover, but there is no cover system in BG3... Unless the devs go with our suggestion of changing high ground/low ground to a +2/-2 AC system to act as the replacement for the cover system.)

It is likely that as long as high ground advantage exists, Sharpshooter will not be implemented within BG3, because high ground advantage basically removes the penalty.

Some are offering a compromise because the current state is just too advantageous. Height gives roughly +4 to hit and +4 AC vs those who are below you. I don't know if you are familiar with 5e but one of the main design aspects of 5e is bounded accuracy. The goal was to reduce bonuses so it would be manageable all the way to level 20 and bridge the wide gap that often appeared between high and low levels. So at level 20, characters get +6 to hit vs +2 to hit at level 1. It's not a big gap, certainly not as big as previous editions.

From my understanding, BG3 will cap roughly around level 10. That would mean +4 bonus along with your bonuses for ability scores and magic items. As you can see giving +4 bonuses so easily can disrupt combat balance (you are doubling proficiency bonus at level 10). Other tactics are tossed to the side. It just becomes a mad rush to be on top of the hill. It' doesn't make for more tactics. It reduces them.

So some are asking for +2/-2 or even just -2 for height disadvantage. I don't even like that but either compromise seems better than what we have now.

As for melee, I am not sure why you think it's better. Can you explain with an example? Because melee seems to be more exposed to attacks than ranged. You can shoot them and swing a sword at them. Maybe it's because your melee characters tend to have more armor?

Of course, melee has its own problems currently because all you have to do is run behind someone and again receive that +4 to hit bonus with almost no cost.

And I realize Saito already responded to you. I assure you, I am not trying to pile on you. I am just trying to have a reasonable discussion.

In my sessions melee is boss, I mean battle master is so crazy in the damage it can dish out and take. If you have a cleric for heals, with the use of the sprint and menacing attack, you can pretty much wipe out anything. Rogue is also nice, but more squishy which is the way it is suppose to be. But again, with their sprint they can cross an entire area, and attack practically anything with impunity.

With Wizard, it basically seems the only 2 go to spells are magic missle and heat ray that hit consistantly and do damage. Frost ray seems to suck, as well as fire ball.

Even with Lae'zel, with her limited run range not using sprint, you can most of the time use jump which uses less stamina, then run the rest of the way to wack something with Menacing blow and tear them up, and that is not even including riposte.

So yeah, I have played both melee's this includes both battlemaster and Eldritch Knight, both are way better with better hit ratios than either mage or rangers in my experience.

One can't really say we're piling on anyone if we're pretty much in agreement with the overall message, albeit for different reasons. :P

Melee on a tactical level might seem like they are behind the ranged... But on a practical level, I think Pandemonica's point is that they are way easier to use. Thinking on it further, they don't have to jump through nearly as many hoops as the ranged do in order to be effective. I think it could even be possible to do an all melee run by going to high ground and shoving off everyone that chases you (though obviously smacking them for damage before the shove, or shoving everyone but one or two enemies that everyone gangs up on instead), with maybe one tanky as hell melee parked below to pick off everyone you yeet off the cliffs or bridges.

Sure, ranged enemies would annoy you for a couple turns, but that's what all the grenades and bonus action healing are for, right?

(With the Bard mod, I ended up running a 19 AC College of Valor Bard who was supposed to be an archer. But he somehow doubled as the party tank and ended up being highly effective in melee because of Valor Bard's shield proficiency, and enemies would always aggro to him because he had his bow drawn half the time. 19 AC was apparently high enough that he was pretty much untouchable, even against enemy archers firing at him from high ground. Then I kind of figured out that I really should have just been using him as a melee instead of an archer. Eh.)

It's a fact that lots of spells and features are useless because of highground/backstab.

Just play the game to notice how impactfull it is (goblins camp combat). Highground is nearly a god mode because of advantage PLUS disadvantage.

It's not only about numbers.

Menacing attack is another broken mechanic. The frightened creature should not run away provoking an opportunity attack and should be fighting back, albeit with disadvantage. Running away from fear is the result of a more powerful action, like the Fear Spell (level 3 spell not available to us). Frightened creatures would have disadvantage to attack but that's it. Also, are you running behind monsters and attacking? That will create advantage (another broken mechanic). Try just attacking head on without going behind them. You should still win but I think you will notice a stark difference on how many times you hit.

Give your wizard a decent DEX and a crossbow full of fire arrows. Put the wizard at height advantage and watch monsters die. It's not just wizards. Any class can do this.

Jump/Disengage is also broken. It's supposed to be a full action but Larian in their great wisdom allows you do jump and attack. It used to be, you had to make a choice. Move long distances and forgo an attack or just attack. Now you can do both.

Just to give you an idea how broken this game is, I built a custom all ranger party. No wizards or clerics. I hardly had any magic healing (I think I had one ranger with cure wounds). I used Larian tactics to the fullest except for barrelmancy. Nothing could stop me. I was rarely in any danger. I entered every battle at full health due to healing food. I backstabbed, jumped and used height. I used special arrows and explosives. It was boring. The funny thing was, I could have done the same with any mix of the current classes. I'm not bragging. Anyone can do this. And that's why I am siding with those who are asking for some balance.