Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The problem with "creatively breaking the game"

You find a creative way to beat an encounter.

You do it once and it's really cool and rewarding.

You do it twice and it's still fun.

You do it three times and it's just another game mechanic.

That in my opinon is the most fundamental problem with Larians combat gimmicks. Every gimmick, when done over and over, becomes just another mechanic. Shoving someone off a cliff isn't creative anymore when you do it for the 27th time. It's just the way the game is played.

What I would like to see is specific fights having specific gimmicks. Getting a barrel in place and blowing up your enemies shouldn't happen all the time. It should only be possible for a small number of fights, so it feels special. Same with shoving someone off a cliff. Maybe that only works if they land in lava or deep water, which isn't found everywhere.
You can't have "a moment" every fight. If everything is special, nothing is. Less is more in this case.

This would also help to bridge the gap between DOS2 fans and 5e players.
Normal fight: Closer to 5e
Special fight: Closer to DOS2

Well, you can do this in Larian's previous game.



It seems they thrive on these memes. Sucks for players who want more serious storytelling and gameplay like BG1 and BG2.

I agree with the first half of your post. I expressed basically the same ideas once. A number of others did so in various threads (see also posts by grysqrl and Saito in the above-mentioned thread).

a) It would be great to have a basic and inside-the-box combat that is viable and satisfying. Otherwise, what is meant to be outside-of-the-box, creative and game-breaking tactics become the default. They lose their "aha" value. Or their "moment" value, as you say. Their magic. Specialness stops being special.

b) By viable here, I mean that it should be possible to complete the game using only basic tactics. What many fear is that, as creative/gimmicky strategies become the norm, Larian balances the game's difficulty to be reasonably challenging when using these strategies, and then not using them means playing on a much harder difficulty. So the philosophy of "we just give you systems, now be creative to solve the problems we throw at you" risks, paradoxically, stifling creativity and player agency. It's the idea of fights as puzzles, but of the kind that admit only a few, unsatisfying solutions. Indeed we might be forced to use the "outside-the-box" tactic that the devs used in internal playtesting to overcome a given fight.

c) As a consequence of the two points above, combat risk becoming stale very quickly, and negatively affect the replayability of the game. I have a glimmer of hope that these fears won't become a reality. But anyway ... we'll see how it turns out.


I don't really agree with the idea that specific fights should have specific gimmicks. That would limit genuine creativity. If you come up on your own with the idea of barrelmancing a fight, but then the game says "ah ha, good idea, but this solution is not accepted on this fight", it's disappointing. I don't think Barrelmancy or any other particular Larianesque/cheesy tactics should be fundamentally restricted. I just wish that all fights be winnable without those tactics.

Well ... that's one thing I'd be quite happy to see. At any rate, I think this is all into "Larian's vision" territory, and I'm not too interested in discussing that in depth. Nor do I think they are too interested in listening to how they should make combat in BG3 feel like. Which doesn't mean anyone should refrain from doing it.

The issue with that approach, is that it further removes the focus of the party members and their abilities being the determining factors of how combat is won, and moves it to "figuring out the gimmick for that battle", which is along the same lines of the current model which also shifts focus away from the characters, and centers combat around managing the environment, like DOS.

I agree 100% here. DND and indeed roleplaying games are not about "fun gimmicks", but playing characters that feel special in their own way, able to do things that few or none of the others can do. So, you can solve fights and quests by doing things in different ways, for sure, but it's based on your characters unique abilities and skills, not everyone's mutual ability to climb high, stand behind an opponent, throw and explode barrels or push people.

Technically, you can describe each game not only RPG in this way.
In practically every game there are some more or less effective tactics that literally trivialize the game or just break it.

I admit that complaining about the barrels starts to irritate me a lot.
I would understand if the game forced you to use them, but it is not.
In order for the barrels to be effective, the player must use them deliberately.
I can bet that the game will be able to be played without much difficulty on the highest difficulty level without using a single barrel (which was true even in DoS2).

Gravity, however, is a completely different matter.
I understand that some people may not like throwing opponents from heights, but this will not change because they would have to rebuild practically the entire game. Making it an action instead of a bonus action will not change the effectiveness of this tactic.

The difference being that only 10% (or some other percentage) of all fights would have gimmicks to begin with. That would make gimmicks something special and using your abilities the default.

Character abilities are currently inferior to environmental damage and push/fall damage. The focus of combat in BG3 is not centered around effectively using your character's abilities to overcome your opponents, it's centered around make the best use of terrain and surface effects. It's the literal antithesis of actual DnD combat.

I don't really buy the "you don't have to use it" argument. You can apply that to everything. A specific subclass is way too strong? You don't have to use it. Some magic item completely breaks the game? You don't have to use it.
Feels like a blanket excuse for any balance issue...



I know. I'm suggesting a possible fix for that.

In practically every games those mechanics aren't designed as basic strategies.

In BG3 you have a tutorial for highground advantages and the entire map is designed with verticality. On top of that you also have a button to shove your opponent as an action bonus whatever your class.

You also have a tutorial for backstab and a disengage button to use it as an action bonus each turn which has a huge impact on melee combats (ennemies won't ever had AOO)

Dipping is also something you can do each turn easily with the button everyone have... At each turn our 1D8 weapons can be better than 1D12 greataxes our ennemie's may use... On top of that you can dip in candle and throw them on the ground for free to dip everywhere.
But maybe everyone don't like it so their weapons are normal... Try to balance a game with that...

Those tactics are made to be used often and they broke the game/the balance. Some of them can't be avoided and the game can be very hard/frustrating if you don't use those basics.

Finding bugs or exploit is not really the same as giving players usual actions that break it.

Unfortunately, at this point in the development cycle, I don't believe there is a solution. Those game mechanics are baked into every aspect of the game, even level design. I don't believe Larian could move away from the path they've chosen, even if they wanted now.

In every game there are by far the best tactics that can easily spoil the fun if you abuse them.
What is the difference between putting a few barrels on yourself from stacking many skull traps to one shot the boss in BG2?
Or releasing cloudkill into the room from the very edge of the screen? This was by far the most effective tactic in most fights.
Technically, none of these methods were even an exploit.

If you discovered an immortality exploit (as in the older bg) would you use it as it is the most optimal way to play

But limiting the distance to 5ft., making enemies smarter to avoid ledges, and not guaranteeing a 100% success from invisibility would. The buffed up Shove distance is probably the biggest offender. If you would need 2 or 3 Shoves to push someone over the edge they would get a chance to react and move to safety, or you would need multiple characters teaming up to push the same target.

Making it an action would also mean it's not a free thing you can attempt in addition to attacking or casting spells every turn. Right now, even the 9 Strength Wizard will spam Shoves just because they're free. If it's a choice between a weak Shove and doing something else you're actually good at, you probably won't Shove much with that character. Big difference between always Shoving and rarely Shoving.

You are trying to create a false equivalency between an OP 2nd edition DnD spell that could be exploited, and Larian's intentional inclusion of barrelmancy/surface spam/push spam as the primary focus of combat.

It's apples and oranges.

Man at this point, I would just LOVE seeing a FLAT battlefield somewhere.

I would love to see choke points. Cover. Confined spaces. More dynamic battlefields rather than always the same king of the hill race where enemies are widely scattered and given extra ranged options and surface bombs.

I want to place my heavily armored Fighter in a choke point, cut off a horde of zombies and AoO the bejeezus out of anyone who tries to get past me to reach the squishy party members. When was that ever possible in BG3 EA? Even the goblins don't have a melee horde to wall off. Or to put to Sleep.

I agree. They've given nearly every creature either an AOE attack, or some multi-hit jump attack that completely nullifies the concept of character positioning. Couple that with free disengage/jump, no readied actions, and a really poorly conceptualized implementation of reactions, and you've got some really blasé combat that devolves into the same surface/high ground/push schtick.

Those are all things that slipped through in the balancing process. BG2 wasn't perfect. It would have been a better game if those Cloudkill tricks wouldn't work.
But just because things sometimes slip through doesn't mean you stop trying altogether with some "If you don't like it, don't use it" mentality. Especially for things that are really obvious like barrelmancy.

I keep thinking that if the mechanics Larian is bringing to BG3 are OK, spring them on your DM in your next tabletop game.

Oh god YES!!! So much this!!! I want more normal combat encounters without high ground chases and bombs and enemies being one million miles away -_-

Largely agreed. On barrels specifically I just dislike their presence. Faerun is not some post industrial dystopia where barrels of oil / explosive brandy / gunpowder are hanging around. Oil barrels are an annoying anachronism. And the commonness of smokepower is at odds with Forgotten Realms lore -- the goblins have all the smokepowder ever produced on Toril.

And those anachronisms really stand out because the art team has been fantastic at avoiding the common anachronisms of medieval fantasy art -- no square hay bales, no factory produced sewer pipes . . .

And yes, once discovered those tactics become:

1. Stale. Throwing a void bulb to launch someone off a cliff is just a standard tactic. To their credit, Larian changed the mephit fight by moving the mephits. But it's still a bog-standard DOS2 fight. The wood woads have a surface that hurts your party and heals them. You need to change that healing surface into one that harms them. Firebolt, caustic bulb, void bulb -- all enemies are on fire, just clean up.

And now it's a bit better because the woads are not standing on their surface but you would be hard pressed to find some who counts that as their favorite fight in the game.

2. Bot like. I like creativity but I don't like Tab A goes into slot B. (one the reasons I never liked IWD fights as much as I liked BG2 battles) Larian is really pushing "you are supposed to pitch the hag in the pit" in recent communications. We made yeet graphics for a reason. So, how do you get her in the pit -- thorn whip? void bulb? Rothe form? go invisible and push? -- isn't creativity, it's carrying out instructions.

Now I enjoy non-cheat yeets. Drink a strength potion, sneak up on a hook horror and push them off the cliff. Great fun!

And I don't consider that cheese when it's used consistently with rules. Strength potions are limited resource and stealth is a class feature that comes at cost -- thieves make do with leather or padded armor because they need to sneak quietly. If the rules were implemented properly, that effort would swallow two full action rounds in combat and it involves two contested checks -- sneaking is a contested check and strength is a contested check Again, it's fun, it's the sort of thing you would on table top session.

But go invisible and push isn't that. DnD has rules in place to prevent "go invisible and rule the game" from taking in place. But BG3 hasn't implemented those rules -- instead, pushing is free and it works more often than not, there's no reason not to try it on a bonus round. Where is the mechanism that allows enemies to hear noises made by invisible characters? Chain mail clinks, foot prints appear in mud or (if you roll a one) you just have to sneeze at the wrong moment. And this is something that DnD has been dealing with since 1st edition -- invisibility should not be the tactic that dominates the game.