Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian's gimmicks are like an invasive species to an ecosystem

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On a completely unrelated note, it's kind of strange how utterly fixated people are on surface and surface interaction and barrels when not a single encounter hinges particularly on any of them. Surprise stealth atatcks grant a total of 8 free actions through the surprise system, yet somehow it's the completely redundant barrelmancy and surfaces nobody uses in EA that get brought up as this big balance offender.

You don't use surfaces in the Githyanki patrol fight when you can Thunderwave 2 of them off to their deaths if you position your wizard at the top of the barricade, and Bless and Mirror Images on 3 out of your 4 characters are more than sufficient to survive the initial barrage of attacks; then Lazael Frightening Strikes Baretha and CC's her to death with action surge, you kill off the raider with another Frightening Strike or an Inflict Wounds combo, and the "hardest" encounter in the EA is not so hard anymore.

Same with Bulette or Ethel, you surprise stealth attack them with a martial class backstab and proceed to grant your party 8 free turns of action to burst them down with, no surfaces used ever. When Lazael or any fighter can do 45+ damage in one action surge and frighten the character within the same turn, effectively half healthing the lv5 hardest bosses in EA with just one class, what's the need for barrels or surfaces? Won't even mention rogues.

When people keep yapping about surfaces I only have to assume they're playing really suboptimal party comps and spell loadouts for the use of barrels or surfaces to feel remotely necessary when martial classes are infinitely better than these gimmicks and far less convoluted than preparing barrels before combat.