Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 5 - Druid Grove Secret Tunnel Statue Traps Still Suck

Sorry, but the traps in the secret tunnels are still MAJORLY unfun. If anything, they are worse. You can still sneak past them to avoid setting them off, which makes no sense because if I'm sneaking into an enemy base, they wouldn't harm me. Most enemies will sneak in if they find a secret entrance, so sneaking to avoid a defense is illogical. The defense would only work on idiot enemies. Besides this, there appears to be no other way to disable them except to shoot them repeatedly. This also makes no sense to me, since arrows against stone do very little damage. When they are destroyed, the explode into a huge massive number of boulders that fly everywhere, also very illogical. Their range has INCREASED, so they are even more deadly and difficult to disable.

So now that I've given my negatives, let me just say that the concept is fun. I like the idea of these statues that hurl fire at unsuspecting victims. I like that they glow blue at first and then red when launching attacks. I just think that there should be some other trigger mechanisms or puzzle that players should be able to do to disarm them and/or they should be able to get close enough to use their Disarm Kit to disable them. By this, I mean, they should be able to somehow maneuver around behind them or something to deactivate them or to some sort of panel or something that could do the trick. So either a disarming puzzle or the ability to use a Disarm Kit (or both) on a control panel or something.

Also, I am finding this area to be a bit glitchy. Enemies triggered when I came near, but then the dialogue continued without me. Next thing I knew, my Dire Raven was selected outside of dialogue and when I switched back to my MC, the dialogue was mostly over already.

Oh, and until High Ground Advantage goes bye bye, I'll probably mention it in just about every post. It still makes combat difficult. The goblins on the high ground in this battle weren't super tough or anything, but it was annoying that I couldn't hit them. Each time I tried to shoot them, 36% chance of success because they had high ground advantage. 36%? Come on! I'd rather have more goblins to fight in this scene to make it more challenging than to have high ground advantage to try to make the fight more difficult. I LOVE slaughtering massive numbers of enemies with my heroes. Makes me feel like my heroes are truly heroic. So I'd seriously rather have twice the number of goblins here than high ground advantage to make the fight challenging.

I agree with the sneak only way to avoid the statues seems silly. Would think once the druids tell you about it either through rescuing the one in the tunnels or otherwise they'd maybe give you an item that would bypass the statues. Like a blessing or trinket or something.

As for the high ground advantage... I've always enter the caves from outside the druid encampment and was the one on the higher ground... I always just stealthed to the one up above and then thunderwaved him down below while picking off the rest of them. Interesting that you've had this entire encounter played out so different.

This is a backdoor for their grove. It makes a ton of sense to have hard to defeat traps guarding it.
What does not make sense to me is why the goblins are there, seemingly invisible to the traps. If it affects the player (who is not part of the grove and therefore an intruder), it should be affecting the goblins too.

Why is this illogical?

The goblins are there because they were chasing the druid.

I'm not knocking the concept of the traps. I'm saying the execution needs work. What doesn't make sense is that you can sneak to get past them. You shouldn't be able to sneak. You should have to somehow disable them via some sort of puzzle, or via an item you steal and/or acquire from a druid or something of that nature. Shooting a statue until it explodes with a crossbow makes no sense and neither does sneaking.

I agree that something is off about the room. Like there should be a secret lever to deactivate them for a bit, or something.

Its is a little weird. Id prefer if they were unbreakable, im sure we can use the loose boulder to shield ourselves by moving them at the right spot and jumping behind them. A lever AFTER you get through would be perfect.

I thought you needed to be wearing the circlet the druid has in order to run safely through. Spoilers, I was wrong.

It USED to be that way, and that worked. If you had a nature circlet on, either from Nettie or the druid in the tunnels the statues wouldn't attack. THAT makes sense. That I would be happy with.

But even that is no fun when you get blasted by those statues a thousand times with no way to stop them.

Still, the circlets make sense so that the druids can go through without issue.

Haven't tried yet, can you also wild shape and go through? That would also make sense.

I would love that option ...
You will be able to protect only half of your party, other half would be torn appart by statues.

And imagine that expression on the Halfling Druid face, when he realize that you stole his circlet, and he is now supposed to run.

I was only disapointed, when i find out that my halfling is not small enough to walk there freely, while Goblins obviously are.

So ...
Disable by "being small" or "sneaking" or "wearing Druid circlet" sound good to me. :P
But i would still say that you would need all those options.

Party leader wearing circlet disables. As long as one person has it. 😔

You know... as long as a friend of druids is with you, you are considered a friend

Question here is what even is "party leader"

Is it custom character? What if there are two? :P Wich one is leader? :P
Is it controlled character? What if you want to use some other, for some skill? Will party be obliterated, when you switch characters?
Is it character that is standing in front? Well, we all know that you only need to switch characters, to start russian ballet performance.
And what if "party leader" whoever it is, is somewhere else, and you just went to scout with someone else? :P

Nah ...
From game-mechanic perspective its more logical to approach everyone individually.
Same as i dont quite like the "switch" idea ... its just like "we created this super secure passage, nobody gets through ... unless they somehow flip this lever".
But!
If you combine those ideas together ... you can get satisfying resolve: Wearer of that circled could (read as: Should) be able to turn those statues off (at least temporary) ... it would even be nice of that Halfling Druid to do that, when rescued.
Since there curently no way to obtain this item (except stealing, or killing some druid) it would kinda make sence bcs in their perspective, grove would be protected ... and only they would have option to turn the protection off.

Does nobody ask themselves if those Statue Traps in the tunnel are triggered by line of sight or hearing?

Thers a big difference in interacting with them. Sneaking in plain sight is totally acceptable then because you dont make noise which triggers them.
If the triggered by sight, i would be instantly fired upon.

So by this example we realized they are triggered by sound.
And those traps are not intelligent enough to differ between friendly or foe.
BUT
Larian could make it so that when WEARING that Headband which gives +1 Nature and opens up door to Library is also making you blind to those traps.
As therres only one of those ingame so far, that would be a nice tactical choice to make.

* There are two.

One is weared by Nettie (F, Dwarf, healer inside the grove) ... another one by Findal (M, Halfling, victim of Goblins).

Sneaking to get past them makes no sense. If I'm an enemy sneaking into my foe's home base, if I'm able to sneak right past the defenses, then the defenses suck. I don't care if they are sound activated or sight activated, if I can sneak past them, the druids need better defenses. Why? Because most enemies who enter into their enemy's base are going to be sneaking. They aren't going to be casually walking.

I think there does need to be more than one way to disarm them.

1. The Nature Circlets. Makes sense that Druids can put them on and walk around without getting killed.
2. Maybe being in Wild Shape form, like wolf or bear or whatever. The statues recognize animals as friends.
3. A Puzzle Disable Trap, allowing players who don't find a circlet and those who aren't druids to be able to disable the traps in some way.
4. The ability for a Rogue (or whoever) to use a Disarm kit to disable.

These make sense. Sneaking does not, and neither does destroying them with a bow or crossbow. I could even see destroying them somehow with a hammer or an explosion of some kind, but not an arrow or bolt.

It would be really, really nice to be able to rescue the druid there without having to destroy all the druid defenses. I understand making them destructible for people doing the evil run, but for people helping out the druids and tieflings there should really be a way to get recognized as friendly by those.

Yes. It is clear WHY the goblins are there, but thanks for clearing that up anyways.
That is not what I was mentioning. What I said was

I can see the goblin thing. They are naturally sneaky little things, because goblins have:

Nimble Escape. The goblin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of its turns.

Really though the heart of the problem is the whole cavern and the statues themselves as have been covered in many ways by everyone. Allow for a disabling mechanic that makes sense, other ways of obtaining the circlet. Such as stopping the shadow druids from their take over should grant one. Rescuing Halsim, etc. Maybe hide one in the chamber you get locked in with netti and give us a way of stealing it without aggroing everyone.

In response to a question someone asked earlier, it seems to me this patch the statues have a larger range than before. You can block line of sight, so going invisible, casting darkness, etc will stop the statues. You can even leap frog a double stack of crates as a wall to hide behind your way past the statues. All creative but ultimately just poorly designed defense mechanism. I mean its really effective which is why we are complaining, but in a game play perspective and story wise it seems like just a mechanic designed to torture players for saving the halfling druid.

Yeah ... every goblin in the world, except Sazza.