Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Patch 5 combat encounter difficulty discussion

In general, outside of the Gith fight, I feel like most of the fights are easier in this patch. I really like the removal of backstab advantage as it really makes you utilize more abilities, and everything feels more like D&D.

I did the Gith fight relatively early, I beelined for it basically after the blighted village (stopping for the Sword of Justice), mainly because I was super excited to check out the higher difficulty. I did hit level 4 before the fight thanks to having kill the Commander Zhalk (sp?) in the prologue.

I took quite a somewhat different approach to the Gith fight - leaning much more on the OPness of haste as currently implemented (2 levelled spells!!) and crowd control, but otherwise didn't need to resort to barrel, dipping, height, or stealth cheese. It's definitely much more RNG based than before, but I did do my best to stack the odds in my favor. I've done the fight this way twice (reloaded after the first one to see how replicable this was) with the first time coming down to the wire, whereas the 2nd time was much easier.


Party Composition for the Gith Fight: Player: Land Druid (Coast), Lae'zel Battlemaster, Gale Abjurer, Shadowheart.

Prebuffs (pretty much the usual): Aid + Mage Armor (Gale) + Shield of Faith (Lae'zel via sword) + Bless (level 1 - everyone but Druid)

Key Magic Items: Sword of Justice (Lae'zel), Hellrider's Pride (Druid, Bladeward on Heal), and at least 1 potion of haste for each party member


Key Spells / Abilities
Command (Cleric) - probably the most important spell. It only had 50-60% success per target, but the key was upcasting it at level 2 (2 targets), and doing it twice (w/ haste) so you're blanketing the entire Gith squads. There's still RNG but you have a good chance of denying a few of the Giths their turns, which lets you snowball the fight.

Sleep (Wizard) - your most reliable CC - but can only be used once the Giths are at certain HP thresholds. There is no save and the Giths have no immunity, so it's a guarantee way to CC them. A powerful side effect of this as currently implemented is that you have a 100% hit chance when you're within 5 ft. This includes spells like Scorching Ray, inflict wounds, Guiding Bolt etc - perfect for executions.

Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Wizard) - the other CC I spammed with Gale when I can't use sleep. Gives the prone condition so you can get an attack at advantage. There's a chance the spell ends if you do that though. It's also concentration so you can't spam it like Command or Sleep.

Moonbeam (Druid) - despite having the DC bugged at 5, it's still very useful due to it having a bit of AOE, 100% chance of hitting each time, and the bonus tick you get on the target's turn. The damage adds up over various turns. Need to be careful to use with Sleep/Hideous Laughter though not to end the effect early.

Trip/Menancing/Disarming Strike (Battlemaster) - I had disarming/trip/riposte for this run (wanted to try something new). Trip is the primary go to, unless it doesn't synergize with the initiative order (i.e it's your last attack and they get up next turn). The Giths might make all the saves but the extra damage definitely helps.

Magic Missile - super reliable way to pack on damage, which is amazing for this fight due to how high the GIth's AC is.

Invoke Duplicity - no-save method of giving your melee attackers advantage.

Healing Word - really important if anyone goes down. When combined with Hellrider's Pride it makes preventive healing worth it too (instead of waiting for someone to go down) thanks to the blade ward applied.


General Approach:
I basically ran right in, so every character started on the low grounds. The Giths have good AC (17), and overall pretty decent saves, so in most cases I try not to waste actions on 50/50 attacks (if there are other options).

My strategy was basically to stack the odds in my favor and snowball the fight early by using haste potions to spam them with an overwhelming amount of CC, and then start focusing down on whoever isn't CC'ed or in a situation where I have advantage. A key thing to do when using the haste potions is to stagger the usage a bit, so you don't have every character getting hit with lethargy at the same time later on.

In both situations, I was able to CC a good portion of the Gith party, and focus down one to at least get them within Sleep hp range. I primarily target base on situational advantages and position within the initiative. In general, I relied on advantage attacks for Lae'zel when possible (esp. when using action surge), though with bless and a +1 sword she does have a decent chance of landing a hit.

I try not to metagame too much to expose the assassin Gith so Lae'zel tends to eat a pretty nasty backstab in the first round. I got pretty lucky in both cases from an initiative order standpoint (I can see her easily going down fast if other Giths go after the Assassin), but once she's exposed, she's usually a pretty easy target since she has lower hp than most.

Once the fight becomes 3 v 4, it becomes pretty easy, especially since your whole party is hasted. The biggest struggle I had towards the end is when there's 1 Gith left and I start running out of spells and losing concentration on buffs like bless, which leads to a depleted Gale/Shadowheart having no options but 40% - 50% chance attacks/cantrips. However, at this point, the fight's essentially done - even with the low % swings, your party can outlast a solo Gith.

In both fights, my Druid still had tons of slots left at this point thanks to how economical Moonbeam is. In both cases, I mainly relied on Moonbeam to tickle the Gith to death while the rest of the spell slots are used with the Healing Word + Hellrider's Pride combo to help outlast.