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

I agree with OP.

High ground advantages came from DOS 2, and works fine there because it's balanced with other mechanics that allow characters to move easily and teleport themselves and others.

But in BG3 the lack of honing makes it a cheese mechanic.

I would agree if the benefits were more subtle, like:

- Being higher increases range to spells, crossbows, and so on (not to attack rolls or damage).

- Giving movement penalties when walking from low to high ground, and bonuses to move from high to low ground.

- Fall damage being a one hit kill is ok to weaker enemies, but not to cheese enemies like Minthara, Matriarch Spider and so on.

- Being higher giving bonuses in perception tests to spot hidden enemies in lower ground (in future Acts).

Why future acts?
This would be great against Gith patrol!

Perhaps set Height Advantage yes/no as a setting toggle. It's the sort of thing that's GM discretion so maybe also leave it up to the individual player.

Yes, they could implement it to spot hidden Gith patrol members.

I'm all for toggle options. Larian should use that more so we can better tweak the gameplay and rules to our own liking.
Maybe (hopefully) more options will be added after EA. I'm guessing they want all players to have more or less exactly the same settings during EA. Makes it easier to evaluate feedback.
But too many settings will probably also make the game harder or more complex to balance.

The "balance" is not really a problem, people who toggle on/off certain features don't want "balance" to begin with. They want an easy and super-convenient experience.

What's important is for the game to be tuned around a specific experience and have a focused vision of what the standard should be.
For instance, battles being manageable with the core rules.

Oh, and at least a modicum effort to make the "hardest settings" still being somewhat doable, even if "super hard modes" in these games more often than not suck ass big time, since they are usually achieved through inane amount of HP bloat and damage buffs to the enemies and require cheesy strategies to come out on top. Not my jam, definitely.

Once that is done, anyone can feel free to cheat their way to comfort. And if they'll start complaining it's "too easy"... Well, they are the ones that chose to disable anything that made the game remotely challenging to begin with, so it will be on them.

I agree it's massively over tuned. Here are other considerations:

Some players are really attached to high ground Advantage (not even realizing that low ground disadvantage is a thing). So I'm still proposing using "Combat Advantage" from 4e, where high ground would give a +2 to hit.

Low ground Disadvantage somewhat acts as cover, but still feels silly since most trained riflemen/archers can hit a target on higher elevation. I'm somewhat mixed on removing it entirely (after discussions with other forum members), but it's either players don't notice it exists, they dislike it, or they think it should be a -2.

Lastly, high ground Advantage & low ground Disadvantage make no sense for spells.

Remember, the "-X" I say here is actually a "+X" for the target's AC.

We agree that giving advantage/disadvantage is strong. But I don't see why arguing about +2, although I prefer that to an advantage.

The reasons I gave are enough for high ground to have its advantage, but think about it, a +2 doesn't make sense, but a -2 or even a -5 makes sense, I'll explain.

A -2/-5 would make sense, as it's kind of a cover, like in the D&D rules. Why would someone shoot from high ground and not use their speed to get out of the enemy's line of sight and go into full cover? means he wants to watch what happens in low ground, so he's at an angle where only his torso or head appears, to watch. That would be a half cover or three-quarters cover. This rule could be measured by the distance the shooter is from the edge, or else by the height of the shooter in relation to the opponent. I prefer it to be the distance from the edge, because that wastes speed and makes more sense, it's more realistic, but in that case, a coverage indicator would be needed, which makes it a little more complicated.

Here I'll leave the D&D cover rules for you to see:

Cover
Walls, trees, creatures, and other obstacles can provide cover during combat, making a target more difficult to harm. A target can benefit from cover only when an attack or other effect originates on the opposite side of the cover.

There are three degrees of cover. If a target is behind multiple sources of cover, only the most protective degree of cover applies; the degrees aren't added together. For example, if a target is behind a creature that gives half cover and a tree trunk that gives three-quarters cover, the target has three-quarters cover.

A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.

A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The mighty obstacle be a portcullis, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk.

A target with total cover can't be targeted directly by an attack or a spell, although some spells can reach such as a target by including it in an area of ​​effect. A target has total cover if it is completely concealed by an obstacle.

Because the devs clearly have their mind set on "rewarding the control of higher ground" and they have been vocal about it (in interviews, I mean, since they hardly talk to the community to begin with) so we may as well compromise on something that is less disruptive.

Because the worse thing about "Advantage for height" is not even just how powerful it is (and IT IS powerful, to the point of being over-tuned, as we said countless time).
No, it's how implicitly pointless/redundant it makes a whole lot of class abilities and spells, since "Advantage" doesn't stack.

Agreed ... balance around default thing, and just allow people to do whatever they want ... ^_^

I completely agree with you.

People purging exploit mechanics are concerned about the standart experience, because if the game releases with a lot of balance issues, or full of "creative solutions" that doesn't link players to BG or D&D 5, it'll displease D&D 5 fans, and Wizards of the Coast and hurt Larian's sales. If that happens, we can all forget about Baldur's Gate 4, and about seing our characters in epic level.

Nobody cares if Larian makes a menu with "Homebrew Rules" putting all sort of shenanigans there that can be activated or not, or if people want to mod the game according to their preferences.

Making the game fun or broken is the job of the mods, a Larian shouldn't waste time on broken mechanics like barrelmancy or high ground advantage.

I'm throwing a plus two out there because some fans are attached to high ground strats. Completely taking away their crutch might lead to backlash. Even if combat would be more fluid and fun overall.

Personally I would like high ground Advantage to be removed completely, but Larian does want to make a game with mass appeal.
(Keep in mind I still have mixed feelings about low ground Disadvantage, I would like to see High Ground changes first).

I'm familiar with the rules for cover, but Baldur's Gate 3 already has collision detection. Which is something tabletop doesn't have. The player or enemy can move backwards and get out of range, or hide. The attacker is forced to use their movement to target their enemy.

When talking about low ground Disadvantage we do need to consider all the terrain benefits that a 3D game can provide. Cover in tabletop has always been a composite for that. So should characters in the game get double the benefit of terrain? That is the question when considering low ground Disadvantage. (Side note: I am implying that the current game state almost triples the value terrain can provide.)

Lastly, a -2 to -5 is the same as saying Disadvantage is fine in these situations. That's the expected value of Disadvantage depending on AC.
Advantage/Disadvantage Table

Putting exploitive mechanics inside a "Homebrew rules" menu in the game isn't a problem, IMO.

Just like they have done with "Gift Bags" on DOS 2 - they can put whatever they want in there.

It can't be done by mods because it's not possible to play coop using them.

My main concern is having absurdities like barrelmancy, outrageous high ground advantages and any other exploitive mechanics as the standart game experience.

According to you, collision detection makes up for the lack of the cover rule, so why not make up for the advantage/disadvantage rule? Apart from the other benefits of high ground that I've already mentioned.

But the point about -2/-5 is that, it would be more realistic, because with collision detection, you can't hit "just the head", so this cover rule would allow the attacker to do that, but with the difficulty of increased enemy AC.

To be clear, collision detection + other previously stated terrain benefits.

Could you clarify what you're asking?

I already said disadvantage from low ground is a composite for cover (so we have it accounted for multiple times).

In fact, disadvantage increases the chance of critical misses and decreases the chance of critical hits.

Right, but saving throw spells have been de-valued in other areas of the game meta, so it's nice to see situations where Sacred Flame has value (over using a crossbow, etc.).

Since this is Early Access, I'm just baffled why we can't even TRY playing with a more reasonable height advantage system.

Even after patch 5 I still think combat is the glaring weak link of the game. I enjoy tactical combat in games and the stupid king of the hill gameplay in BG3 is extremely irritating and off-putting.

I want to try combat with High Ground granting only more range, a better line of sight and an effective +2 AC from Low Ground's -2 attack. Even then moving to High Ground would still be a tactical advantage. I don't understand why it needs to be a braindead "I win" solution to everything.

I think Larian does need to include a cover mechanic. Cover should be pretty normal within the game. Maybe only have three-quarters cover for very special areas (they would act like zones that you stand in and if the target is on the other side of the zone, you get Three-Quarters Cover). This would allow Larian to setup special encounters with this in mind.

Cover confers a +2 AC and +2 to Dexterity Checks.

Three-Quarters Cover confers a +5 AC and +5 to Dexterity Checks.

High Ground confers a +1 To-Hit bonus.

Low Ground confers Cover to High Ground target.

Simple, gives a bonus to people on high ground without invalidating all kinds of skills that give Advantage, and implements Cover as a rule to use. This still makes it where everyone will want to get the High Ground, but it isn't completely over powering every encounter and back breaking to the players involved when the AI gets to the High Ground first, along with allowing skills and abilities to shine by allowing Advantage in those special situations.


Also, this. I think a lot of people who love RPGs but maybe is not familiar to DnD 5E ruleset is confusing "real world advantage" to "DnD Advantage". Yes, high ground should confer some type of real world advantage, but Advantage is a very special mechanic within DnD 5E that is only allowed in very unique situations and circumstances, like a Spell or Ability. Giving Advantage out by simply being above someone means an entire host of abilities are useless if there is verticality in the environment, which I really honestly think Larian did not intend to do for High Ground. I believe this was a change made early in development because "it made sense within a real world setting and we want to make verticality important" but was not quite aware of what Advantage actually does in DnD 5E.

This is why everyone suggests a more mundane bonus of like +To-Hit / +AC/Dexterity when High vs Low as it does confer a real advantage but doesn't provide the mechanic Advantage, that is very specific and different.

I feel very hopeful, with the removal of "Backstab for everyone" and "food > Clerics/magic" rules, that Larian can also now see this and hopefully make this change. While there is some work up front, I think it would ultimately make the game easier to develop and balance in the future.