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

andreasrylander: Given that I have only just warned about quoting long posts in full, doing so in the very next post can only be seen as unwise. Consider yourself having been duly warned about future behaviour.

Should I have modified the old post? Maybe we can restore that one and include my modified answer? I don't know what to do here. I mean, I took the old post away since it seemed to piss you off, and then I gave a more thorough answer, but then that apparently made you angry aswell. I am not sure what to do? I don't want to cause any problems. Am I not allowed to quote anymore?

We do have the option to link posts. If you click on the post number in the upper right the URL will update to go specifically to that post.

An old post of mine from earlier in the thread.

Oh cool, thanks! I will do that in the future! =)

Spoiler tags are pretty good for hiding quotes to shorten your post. Been doing this recently myself; pretty sure this is what you guys are talking about.

Either removing unneeded content, linking as suggested by DragonSnooz (the link can be copied from the post number at the top right) or indeed by using spoiler tags, though generally that's only necessary for content that doesn't already exist such as e.g. the infamously long DXdiag output.

But just as a reminder to everyone, it's generally good etiquette to keep non-original content to a minimum as it's variously tedious and/or awkward for people to scroll through lengthy quoted text.

Been a while since I've played the early access, but am definitely not in favour of the easy availability of Advatnage/Disadvantage being gained simply by climbing - especially as the devs seem to have created height areas in almost every single area of the game so gaining height isnt exactly an issue.

One of the issues I have with it is that there doesn't seem to be much of a penalty (if at all) in actually climbing things like ladders regardless of length , compared to travel over flat ground. I know 5th edition has rules for climbing that increase cost of movement. For a start it doesn't make any sense that someone can climb a long ladder and still be able to launch an attack at the end of it.

Yeah, if anything it appears as it climbing very long ladders is the equivalent of 5 feet of movement or something, you race up those ladders faster than regular terrain as it seems. Seems like another Larian quirk, as it was basically like that in the DOS games too. I don't even care too much about that, but I am more troubled by the extreme presence of height differences in EVERY single combat encounter, making those things a regular thing and not even fun anymore. Now it's all centered around climbing and jumping up... all the time. I just PRAY for fights that are close quarters, face to face. Those fights are VERY few.

I've mentioned this in the past, implementing:

• proper movement cost for climbing
• proper movement cost ascending steep hills (rough terrain)

Along with the collision detection in the divinity engine innately gives a lot of strategic value to terrain.

The game would be more enjoyable with that instead of Advantage from high ground and Disadvantage from low ground.

+1
Climbing a ladder should realistically cost double movement. But even costing normal movement would be better than the ~free cost ladders have now.

I still think that implementing collision detection and cover is too much work for too little benefit. Currently, you can target any portion of an enemy to hit. So in order to detect cover, the game would basically have to calculate all possible lines-of-sight to your target's body parts and determine what % of them were blocked.
It's much simpler and similar enough to just change height advantage/disadvantage to a flat +2 to hit when elevated. Maybe also a -2 to hit when on a lower elevation.

Yeah I get how it would be hard to implement the cover mechanics in BG3 with the current engine, that's fine I think. Giving bonuses instead of advantage on height would be a very fair thing to do while not disrupting too much of the balance. As it stands now it's all a chase to the highest points and ranged is *FAR* superior as a consequence, to melee.

A +2 for High Ground at best, and no penalty for low ground since the enemy on high ground can sometimes choose to move out of line of sight where you can't even target them. A +2/-2 swing would still be so powerful it would be the focus in every fight. Let's not forget you can Shove too when someone tries to get to your hill. +2 and the range increase would be plenty of reason for archers to seek high ground.

Not all fights should be about "who gets the high ground". There are choke points, chasms, streams, big trees, corners, pits, trenches.......high ground is not the only terrain with tactical valule. No, I didn't say fire surfaces.. Larian... no.

Range should also be a bigger factor with ranged weapons. With high ground you can shoot really far with the same accuracy as point blank range. It's crazy seeing some of those shots with the same 94% accuracy.

I would also very much like to see climbing cost more movement. You should be able to break a ladder with someone in the middle to make them fall. No one is ever in the middle. It's a teleport with a really slow animation. And roll some Athletics or Acrobatics checks when climbing or jumping in combat to reach that high ground or wherever. What are those skills for, currently?

Backstab is a silly overpowered feature that has become the default attack with free advantage. Just not for AI, only players. Turn it into Flanking that requires at least two attackers on different sides, and grants +2 attack so that spells like Faerie Fire are still useful as well.

I like +1/-2 because it leads to counterplay and an interesting balance between saves and attack rolls. Save spells can't get that easy +1 to hit but they don't have to worry about getting hit by -2 penalties. +2/-0 is clean but it's still a straight buff to ranged weapons while offering nothing to save based spells.

Part of me would prefer high ground acting as a variant of cover. It'd be more interesting if (Assuming high ground Advantage/Disadvantage is removed):

• A character could get cover for moving characters behind another allied character [Ally(+2AC)---Ally---Enemy]
• A character could get cover for standing on an elevation at least 12 feet higher on the vertical axis [Ally---15 foot hill---Enemy(+2AC)]

Then we can have more clarity on to-hit throughout the whole game. (It could also work as a -2 to-hit).

Part of the reason I prefer cover to flanking in 5e is that it adds strategy without being overbearing. One campaign I'm in had flanking giving advantage and the group voted to remove it after 7 sessions. We all agreed it was too easy for both sides to get advantage. We had several encounters where we all had advantage.

In 5e, cover grants an equal bonus to Dex STs, which could help address your point @Rack. High ground bonus of +2 to attack could also increase the save DC of any DEX ST spells you use.

Advantage and disadvantage are able to cancel out in BG3. So if your enemy is on high ground, applying truestrike would negate the attacking disadvantage effect. It also stacks, so if your enemy is on highground with Blur, applying truestrike alone will not remove your attacking disadvantage. I wouldn't say Larian's system removes the value of the X amount of spells, but means for them to be used differently. If you are to hover over your roll in the combat log, it will tell you if your attack had advantage/disadvantage effects calculated or negated.

Not too sure how this fits but you may have some insight - my level 4 Shadowheart using a shield was able to reach 19 AC standard. Shield of Faith bumped to 21. Even at 21 AC, I'd still get trucked if I didn't observe enemy advantage or impose disadvantage, simply because of the modifiers. A lot of the things we have the potential to fight have huge modifiers to their attack rolls (+4 and +5s), and if no huge modifier, vastly superior numbers. Having my 21 AC cleric trashed in one turn by trip attack, multi-attack, action surge'd melee inspires me to use the abilities you said were ruined, on top of the looming pressure that the rest of my party could share the same fate. If anything, I'd say make the AI also attempt flanking, as they already run for highground (if ranged). I'd go as far to say that in the EA, advantage/disadvantage is far more costly if not mitigated with the spells you mentioned. Claiming advantage/disadvantage by height and positionging turns the game into "king of the hill" is almost like saying you don't know how to break a line of sight and don't know how to judge ranges.

There is also the presented issue of attempting to run around an NPC for that backstab. If you're not meticulous, you're more than likely to trigger an attack of opportunity with your side exposed - I have definitely died from not being meticulous in my positioning. The counter would be, "just jump" and I personally believe there should be an acrobatics check if jumping out of an attack of opportunity - maybe it hasn't been implemented yet.

Maybe if we started out killing rats, the system's general progression of AC and spell availability would make sense, but we're not. We're asked to go find a druid in the middle of a giant goblin warband, lead by netherese infused fanatics. Have to keep in mind, WotC is working WITH Larian - so whatever the finished product is, they signed off on it.

Is this true? In PnP it doesn't matter how many sources of advantage or disadvantage you have; if you have at least 1 of each, the attack is made at normal.

I'm actually not opposed to BG3 working this way, as it would help make such spells like Blur, Faerie Fire, etc more useful.

Using those spells is definitely a sub-optimal strategy. You can use them of course but there's always something better.

That's how the game works, even if you can stack. Having a position that gives you an advantage in BG3 is so easy that anything from D&D (><Larian) has close to zero value.

After reading the tutorial you know that you have to be higher than your ennemies. That's how the game is build, not for us to "use those spells differently".

The problem with backstab is the same but the other issue you're talking about comes from disengage, not jumping. Adding a dexterity check when you disengage mean you can't ever just disengage.

The "one cancels many" aspect of the 5e advantage system is definitely it's biggest weakness. So long as stacking does not lead to "double advantage" or "triple disadvantage" etc, then I would call it an improvement.

I can't say that I have been able to observe consistent behaviour in the advantage system of BG3 EA, so it would be nice to know how it is *supposed* to work ( according to Larian rather than 5e ).

I fought jumped onto a mushroom and used blur. The only way I could fully break disadvantage in that specific comp/situation was to use truestrike and move to equal ground. THAT is a king of the hill ending, but if I had any other abilities to provide advantage, I could very easily have attacked from beneath him. I can't think of many fights where I could just walk right in and destroy from high ground, either. I would often be uprooted or threatened for even trying. Every fight where high ground won me the fight was after I pre-planned and set up for an encounter, which would require scouting/prior knowledge. I would SPECIFICALLY move to locations that made enemies walk the longest way around. Considering the amount of people complaining about hit chance and fights being too difficult, I think it was the smartest move to lessen the learning curve and appeal to a broad audience.

I'm 88% sure there is no stacking advantage. The rolls in the combat log detail only 1 (one) advantaged attack roll, and it details everything else pretty well, so no real reason to believe otherwise. It's more of a, "fight for one advantage" deal in this game which includes but is not limited to king of the hill style gameplay.

I personally am also a fan of the one button jump/disengage BA