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

I'm trying to replicate on my party members, and I'm not seeing the large red "negated" text in the attack roll. It may be Spell specific. I had my PC on high ground, shadowheart shooting a crossbow from low ground. Shadowheart hiding negated the low ground. I enwebbed my PC and Shadowheart's aiming percentage estimate showed two green arrows, one red arrow, but the hit percentage is not adjusted for having +1 advantage. I am currently unable to replicate the situation described in my previous post (everything is dead), so I will have to start a new playthrough.

This is working correctly, at least according to 5e RAW. The hit percentage should not be adjusted for having "+1 advantage;" any amount of Disadvantage cancels out any amount of Advantage to a normal roll.

Definitely let us&Larian know if you find a situation where advangage/disadvantage are subtracted to result in "+1 Advantage."

And I think a flat bonus for highground and backstab to increase the %to hit (eventually) + the necessity to learn and play with the deep and interresting DnD advantage/disadvantage mechanic at higher difficulty level was better.

Combats are brainless in BG3 if you play the game as intended and nothing will change for higher difficulty levels (except that you'll have to learn not to use true strike and so on anymore )

You're fan of jump/disengage but want it not to be a disengage anymore. Okay.

I got this idea from a recent discussion on feat balance & character customization/uniqueness.

What if all characters got a flat +1 (or +2 or +0) bonus to attacks from High Ground, but there was also a feat that gave you +1 Dex and Advantage on attacks from High Ground? (This feat would probably replace sharpshooter since there is no Cover in BG3)

Similarly, what if there was a feat that granted you advantage on melee backstabs? (No bonus without the feat)

I feel like these would be fairly balanced, allow characters to be more distinct in playstyles, and be a compromise option between the "Yay High Ground Advantage" and "Boo, RAW don't give a bonus for high ground" camps...

Just to clarify ...

Are you talking about regular feats (meaning instead of others, at level 4) ...
Or possibility to take this two (or either of them) feats "for free" at level 1? O_o

/edit:
Since that second option seem interesting ... it would certainly finaly show Larian at least how many people actualy want this.

He's talking about level 4 and 8 feats.

If I can understand that players (me included) enjoy that our position matter and give us various bonuses... I don't understand this obsession about having an advantage.

Backstab advantage won't ever make sense to me. Neither is any flat bonuses if we can turn arround for free, if the creatures cannot react and face us and if we can jump to disengage as a bonus action.

The game should first be enjoyable and not frustrating without this mechanic. If missing is a problem when we don't have advantages, they don't have anything else to do than reducing the ennemy's AC and/or eventually add flat bonuses.

Isn't there enough spells and features and actions you can make in DnD to have one or give one to your companion(s) ?

IMO advantages shouldn't ever be such an easy reward... It should be the cherry on the cake at the normal level of difficulty and it should only become more and more important the more you increase the difficulty.

I'm always an advocate for a free level-1 feat. I feel that it just makes characters more fun to play, having more options and not feeling like you need to sacrifice an essential ASI for a cool feat. It would be interesting to see how many players chose one of my suggested Advantage feats vs some other feat...

But here I was specifically just talking about the RAW level 4 and 8 (maybe 12???) feats selection.

It can make sense. "You have trained extensively in the art of getting behind someone whilst in combat and striking their vital points. You have advantage on attack rolls when behind someone."

Alternately/in addition, a feat could grant you bonus damage when you attack someone's back. "Vital strike" or something.

I like options, but I like them to be optional options. Different characters can choose different feats to make distinct characters.

Correct me if I'm wrong but why would anyone increase his strenght/dext by 2 rather than choosing this feats ?
Isn't the deal +1 additionnal damage and +5% to hit VS +25% to hit ?

Additionnal damages if you attack an ennemies back could be an interresting feat according to me but the damages should depend on how easy it is to go in their back.

A feat that trigger sneak attack damages if you're attacking an ennemie's back could also be (rather than requiring an advantage or another character engaged)
Usefull for rogue and multiclassed characters.

I'm with Maximuuus here.

D&D 5e is not designed to account for which direction a creature is facing. Backstab doesn't make any sense without that. "Behind them" isn't a concept. If you want it to be, there need to be more elements to facing; at a bare minimum, you need to be able to adjust your facing without moving. Making this feel right would not be a small task.

Advantage should be rare and should require significant effort to achieve. Most ways of getting advantage in the game require that you give something up in exchange. It might be a spell slot. Or you might spend a turn or two hiding and waiting for your target to come into range. Or your barbarian gets a little reckless and gives everyone else Advantage against them in exchange for getting Advantage themself. Or your front-liner spends their turns knocking enemies prone so the rogue can run in and stab them while they're down. If you're playing a game where flanking grants Advantage, it's a little easy, but at least you have to be aware of positioning. In general, if you want Advantage, I think you should have to work for it; Advantage is too valuable to give away for free. Making it a feat feels like too small a cost for something so valuable - it just means that everyone with a ranged character is going to take the High Ground feat because it's such an obvious choice, and then we end up exactly where we are, but everyone has one or two less attribute points.

Im affrad i would never understand how is "jumping over creature so it cannot react" anyhow worse then "click on button (read as start evading) and run around the very same creature, that once again cannot react". :-/

I wonder if that situation would look better if jump/disengage (since i really dont see difference) would make AOO automaticly miss, instead of canceling it totally.
You know like ... you jump over creature, it swing its sword, bcs that is something any sensible being would do, but you were faster ...

Wait now ... you are able to adjust your facing without moving. O_o
At least i do that almost all the time.

When you push Ctrl, so your character wants to automaticly attack ... and move your mouse around ... your character will allways face the mouse, regardless of if there is anyone or not. O_o

@Maximuus
I agree that getting advantage on all high ground ranged attacks is powerful. But,
1.) By choosing this feat, you're forgoing the likely +1 to AC, +1 to ability checks, +1 to Dex ST, and +1 damage that increasing Dex +2 would get you
2.) My idea was that this feat would replace the base (+0/+1/+2) gotten by other characters on high ground, so it's only a net ~15-20% buff to hit instead of a 25%
- 2b) Thus it wouldn't stack with other sources of advantage, whereas normal characters would still benefit from it and get the (+0/+1/+2)
3.) You'd only get the benefit of the feat when you have high ground. Which is often, but not always. Whereas +2 Dex applies to all attacks
All the above serve to make the feat less overwhelmingly powerful. But I admit it still may be too OP.

@grysqrl
D&D 5e base rules is not designed to account for Facing, but the DMG does have Optional Facing Rules. Which at the very least means that it isn't crazy to homebrew facing rules (or adapting the DMG optional rules). The main problem, as you state in your post, is that BG3's "Backstab Advantage" is gotten for free. A feat cost may be too small of a cost, but it's more than the cost in BG3 right now.

The more I think about it, the more I like "Backstab Advantage" being replaced with some kind of "Backstab bonus to damage," probably with a feat cost.

Of course they will miss, they shouldn't have tried it, you have the high ground

You know during all my play throughs, I have never realized that about pressing the ctrl key. Thanks!

There's nothing to understand. Disengage as a bonus action is the mechanical issue I was pointing at.
Jumping in heavy armor and/or jumping to always disengage doesn't really make sense but "the jump" is not the problem here.

We can turn without moving but it's not a reaction at all.

Hopefully, our ennemies is not smart enough to use backstab efficiently so using ctrl usually help the player. It doesn't prevent the player to have easy cheesy advantage on every attacks.

@Mrfuji to be honnest I cannot imagine how it could be possible to translate the facing rules in BG3.
It means an AC that is different in front and on our side if we have a shield.
It means being able to rotate our characters as a proper reaction which could eventually be possible but possible exploitable.

Not sure how it works with multi attack in the PnP, maybe you'll be able to enlighten me.

I'm moving behind and use my first attack. Ennemy react and face my character. I'm moving behind once again because I still have movement and use my second attack with advantage.
Imo this would quickly become boring. How to prevent this ?

About the feats I really don't know. If my dexterity is 11/13/15/17 I'll have all the bonuses in your point 1) too, which as you said may be very OP.

About damages yes. Definitely. The more I think about it, the more I think it could be a very cool homebrew.

Modifyer *1.5 ? +1D4 ? Proficiency bonus added to damages ?

I think a feat that gives the player easy advantage on attack rolls would become an auto-pick. War Caster with advantage on con saving throws is a really strong pick. Maybe a +2 to hit from high ground to replace sharp shooter and a +2 to hit from backstab as feats.

Do you realize that you really underestimate their power? O_o

No. You seriously overestimate their power.

The problem with Facing is exactly as you said, because in 5e you can freely circle around enemies. My ruling would be: when you move from someone's front or side arcs to their back, they get an AoO because you're leaving their threatened area (their front and sides). This is maybe a valid interpretation of the rules, depending on how you read the lines "A creature can normally only target areas in their front and side arcs [for Facing]" and "You can make an opportunity Attack when a Hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach." Thus, you're trading getting AoO'd for advantage on your attack(s).

Proficiency Bonus to damage is consistent with many feats & class abilities. It's possibly slightly too powerful but eh whatever.

Quite possibly my suggestions are too powerful. However, alone (and separate?) you suggestions seem too weak. You already get a +1 from just increasing the relevant stat, plus other bonuses. Maybe if you got +1 to Dex and +2 to hit from high ground, and the ~same for the backstab feats?

It's really challenging to homebrew the powerscale of a feat. The challenge is that in the current game-state verticality is everywhere, and jump makes easy backstab opportunities.

Using ASI as a baseline, the player would get a +1 to modifiers with ASI (+5% accuracy putting points into dex).
Going back to the homebrewed feats: a +2 to hit is already 10% and a +1 to dex could be a 15% increase to accuracy, depending on the character sheet.

Focusing on backstab if the feat implies that it only works with melee dex weapons, that should be fine. It'd be popular for rogue and dex ranger, but other classes wouldn't consider it. I think advantage would be fine in this situation, it'd put rogue in a swashbuckler powerscale when using backstab (as rogue is now).

Bonuses from higher ground still would need more strict conditions to be met. Hypothetically if we commit to making high ground advantage into a feat... I'd do it like this.

• Base-game verticality adv/disadvantage removed.
• The feat would also apply a +1 to dex.
• The feat would grant +2 to hit if no enemies are within 30 feet.
• The feat would grant proficiency for all ranged weapons.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Circling back to the discussion in general... as this did give me some fresh ideas.

The game-state probably would be healthier if:

• Low-ground disadvantage is removed (it really doesn't make sense, bows were used to hunt birds as well as warfare).
• High-ground advantage only applies if no enemy is within 35 feet & the character is at least 10 feet higher in elevation. (most enemies can move 30 feet in a round).

With these changes, high ground advantage would be implying that you could safely posture for a focused shot. And you may get hit with an arrow for leaving the character exposed.

As long as backstab is tied to melee dex weapons I think any solution could work, whether it be a feat or just base-game.

Here's a question for Larian.

If the dice have been changed twice because players missing attacks might be anti-fun, then why is low-ground disadvantage still in the game?

But this will still devalue a lot of things that grants advantage in DnD.

What happen today ? Highground and you does not care being targetted, with the disadvantage you're god.
What will happen if advantage for highground is kept ? Highground but each turn we'll go away of the cliff to break the ennemy's lign of sight. New tedious tactics.

Whatever : still running for highground because it gives you the best and usually necessary bonus not to miss too often (even if your suggestion is obviously less broken than now).

According to me the real question is "If the dices have been changed twice because players missing attacks might be anti-fun, then why isn't the ennemy's AC reduced?"
That's the only goal of ennemie's AC. Lower AC wouldn't have any consequences except that we'll miss less often. They have to know what they want : if missing is the main problem then they could just reduce the AC... Problem solved.
Am I wrong ? Is there something I'm not thinking about related to AC ?

- Advantages in BG3 devalue conditions, spells, features and synergies betxween characters for the sake of "missing less often because missing in a video game is boring" - which is true but my perception is that "missing less often" is not at all what advantage is about.
Advantage is a reward for smart and tactical moves and not something required at each turn because your DM is bad at balancing combats and/or to compensate the lack of tools to increase the %to hit in DnD.
Blinded, paralyzed, petrified, restrained and prone are not really worth it if half your characters can have easy advantages.

Advantage/disadvantage should stay an "advanced" technique.
Various flat bonuses would also help with the "missing too often" issue and will give us new tools to improve our %to hit without breaking anything related to the the advantage mechanic.
It would also allow us to have an (additionnal) advantage (on top of it) through any DnD possibilities. It shouldn't be necessary at this "normal" difficulty levels but may be at higher and whatever the difficulty it means more choices to increase our %to hit, more meaningfull synergies, more meaningfull tactics and way more depth to combats.

- Giving the best bonuses just by going higher (or going behind) will not allow anything interresting to play with the %to hit at higher difficulty levels.
What will we have to fight better AC's ennemy's ? Bless for an additionnal +1d4... definitely but what else ? Proficiency bonuses, +"x" items; better modifyers... yeah yeah that's very DnD but DnD doesn't have "higher difficulty levels".
Which tools will we be able to increase our %to hit over ennemies with an increased AC if the best bonus is easy to have and required in the normal difficulty level "not to miss too much" ? Well... nothing...