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

1. Advantage does stack. Ludicrously, somebody quoted the specific rule explaining how they stack while simultaneously claiming that they don't stack. That is either deliberate absurdity or the very definition of a bad faith argument.

2. It is not contradictory to note that getting advantage is a defining feature of combat, while also disputing that all other combat rolls are "few and far between."

2a. Somebody said that my interpretation of the term "few and far between" as meaning less than 50% was too strict. If non-ranged, non-high ground attacks rolls constitute more than 50% of your attacks, then they are not "few and far between." If something happens more than once out of two times, it is common and frequent.

2b. If it is unfair for me to assume that "few and far between" refers to 50% of rolls or less, then it is also reasonable to conclude that Foresight will still provide advantage on more than 50% of attacks, making it incredibly awesome even in a world with high ground continues to provide advantage.

I think we fundamentally disagree on how DnD is played. I absolutely love that a shove is more powerful than any spell in the right circumstances, something that is also complained about elsewhere in this thread. To my mind, that is as it should be. Shove and the high ground advantage both simulate the creativity that I expect from my game and which the DMG encourages. Situational bonuses like the high ground advantage or a well-timed shove should be replete in DnD, far MORE common than a 9th level spell. As far as I'm concerned both are a pale imitation of what the tabletop offers but far better than nothing.

If you don't like the mechanic, fine, but your complaints that it is totes way more powerful than a 9th level spell that guarantees you sneak attack on every melee attack or massively extends your ranged weapon reach, both beneficial effects of Foresight, is simply ludicrous. If you have to resort to that level of hyperbole to make a point, it makes it seem like you don't really have one.

Advantage and Disadvantage
Sometimes a special ability or spell tells you that you have advantage or disadvantage on an ability check, a saving throw, or an attack roll. When that happens, you roll a second d20 when you make the roll. Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage, and use the lower roll if you have disadvantage. For example, if you have disadvantage and roll a 17 and a 5, you use the 5. If you instead have advantage and roll those numbers, you use the 17.

If multiple situations affect a roll and each one grants advantage or imposes disadvantage on it, you don't roll more than one additional d20. If two favorable situations grant advantage, for example, you still roll only one additional d20.

If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them, and you roll one d20. This is true even if multiple circumstances impose disadvantage and only one grants advantage or vice versa. In such a situation, you have neither advantage nor disadvantage.

When you have advantage or disadvantage and something in the game, such as the halfling's Lucky trait, lets you reroll the d20, you can reroll only one of the dice. You choose which one. For example, if a halfling has advantage or disadvantage on an ability check and rolls a 1 and a 13, the halfling could use the Lucky trait to reroll the 1.

You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, or spells. Inspiration can also give a character advantage. The GM can also decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.

So, does Larian have the right as DM to make Height an advantage? Yes. The rules say the DM has the right. Do advantages stack? No. 1 extra die.

Should height provide advantage? In my opinion, no. Why? Because it creates too much imbalance. That is the bottom line. If in every battle every character is fighting for the high ground in order to win, that takes away from this: "You usually gain advantage or disadvantage through the use of special abilities, actions, or spells. Inspiration can also give a character advantage. " These are the standard ways you gain advantage, not height. Height advantage, therefore, makes all the standard ways of gaining advantage almost obsolete.

We're using different definitions of stack. In my mind, the phrase "Advantage stacks" implies that multiple sources of advantage are better than a single source (when there are no sources of disadvantage/other factors to consider). And thus is false.
In your definition, you're only referring to the ability of advantage to cancel out disadvantage, right? Which my definition includes, but is not limited to.
Yes, me. The important distinction is "Total number of attack rolls for the entire party" and "Total number of attack rolls for a single character." My argument was that, FOR RANGED CHARACTERS, ~>50% of their attacks will be made from high ground (or low ground). Which is a small % of total party rolls, but a large percentage of rolls for that character.

And you're allowed to. But you're arguing against a strawman yourself: that Height Advantage completely negates Foresight (I'm not the original person who brought up Foresight).

My (and many others') arguments against Height Advantage is that it is too powerful for its cost (spending movement to walk up a hill, or spend 0 movement to climb a ladder) and that it makes various spells/abilities less useful. Not that it is always better in every single case. And, because of this, the tactics in BG3 converge too "walk up a hill and shoot" instead of making use of party synergies.

For the record, this was much worse when Backstab was still in the game, as then the tactics were always either "walk up a hill and shoot" or "walk behind and stab." Now, at least, party synergy/class abilities are necessary to give melee attackers Advantage.

I will say, I've been using Bless a LOT more now with backstab gone, and I'd probably use Faerie Fire more too if height wasn't an advantage. I mean to, but when I can jist get higher, why waste an action of Faerie Fire?

Now all Larian needs to do is remove the 2-for-1 hit+surface-creating consumables, and Bless will be back to it's full glory.

I think the githyanki fight is a good example of whats to come in term of damage. Height was an important tactical advantage against higher level foes. I doubt every maps will have this many height difference though. A small slope shouldnt have this much of an effect on the chance to hit, very frustrating. But when you are on a roof? I can live with that. I think they should increase the height requirement for advantage rather than removing it completely.

Low height no advantage, high height slight advantage.

I'm not sure who you are referring to ('someone'?), but if that was me, I was simply pointing out that advantage and disadvantage do not combine to give your either - if you have both on a roll, then they do not 'stack'. Your roll has neither - so it's a regular die roll. The rules state that, very clearly, in the section I quoted. I thought that it was being claimed if you 'add up' all the advantage (+) and disadvantage (-) sources, and you end up with more advantage sources (so net +), then you have advantage. That is wrong according to the rules.

Even after improvements in patch 4 this is still true. The benefits are available too the characters too frequently & at too low of a cost to the character.

I'm still open to more of a premium on giving the characters advantage/disadvantage.

here are my two cents on the matter:

advantage for high ground AND disadvantage for low ground are just too much of a disparity (basically +/-10 between the dice rolls of two combatants on differing height levels).
i could live with adv for (a reasonable i.e. >3m or 10ft) high ground WITHOUT also giving disadvantage when shooting or casting from low ground.
or give a flat +2 bonus and -2 malus for high and low ground respectively.
maybe this would be a good compromise, engaging with the verticality of the world is still encouraged and helpful but not as blatantly "THE thing to do".
best case scenario would probably be a "custom game rules/difficulty settings" menu, so everybody could adjust the game to his/hers/their liking, the hurdle here being the AI, which would need to be aware of the rule settings and adapt to them.

This is why I would like Larian to focus on time implementing Cover in the game.

High Ground confers Cover when being attacked from Low Ground (+2 AC and +2 Dexterity Checks) and High Ground grants +1 To-Hit to those on Low Ground.

Then, Cover can be also granted to areas to add more dynamics (think of like XCom that give Cover for another good example) to the combat that affects tactical aspects of the game.

With this implemented, High Ground is granting all the benefits that players want as advantage, but not over shadowing all the Spells/Abilities that grant Advantage as per the DnD 5E ruleset.

I enjoy the height advantage system. As its a variant rule its indisputably fair game and not an exploit.

I am most interested in being placed in a situation where it is - or can possibly be used against us. Where a superior force in number but not level has the high ground and we have to try to close the distance or fight at disadvantage from range.

This forces players to utilize spells such as Fog Cloud and Arrows of Darkness, or later spells like Wall of Stone (which your caster would have to stay behind to maintain concentration but could pop out of to launch spells at the enemy and then return).

I would like to see more use by NPCs of tactics that do provide cover and concealment to ground-based enemies. When you have low-level wizards, Booyahs and whatnot they should all be able to cast Fog Cloud and do so when someone has Advantage and is using it. Or use the Blind spell properly.

The problem is that I can't find anywhere in optional variants that High Ground grants Advantage. But, I do see many DMs give Cover and some flat bonus to hit.

There is an variant that Flanking (basically if one character is threatened and another comes up, both characters gain Advantage) gives Advantage but I don't see many DMs using this as this is more to 3E and 3.5E.

You are right, there is no specific Variant rule, that was bad wording on my part. The DM does have the right to determine advantage according to height though as the situation allows.

What I should have said is that Larian is within its rights to allow Height Advantage for attacks RAW.

This was how the gnoll encounter usually played out in Patch 3.

It depends on the enemies intelligence. An intelligent enemy should know fog cloud would be effective against a cluster of ranged attackers.

Fog Cloud definitely has value in any situation there is a cluster of ranged attackers. It doesn't need high ground Adv/Dis for this to be effective. I don't think the player should be over-incentivized to make good choices.

In the world we get a +2/-2 Fog Cloud still has the additional incentive.

I was thinking in terms of using fog cloud on yourself to hide in while closing the distance to the attackers or fighting in it while obscuring yourself from the attackers. If you are in a Fog Cloud you cannot be seen by ranged attackers so they cannot shoot you. Same with Darkness.

It really depends on the fight. But I've never been fond to give disadvantage for my own party. It's a nice why to blind a cluster of archers. If a spell has a 120 foot range, I like to use it

About 3/5 of playing a rogue is asking the DM, "OK, but can I get advantage if I do THIS?" (the fighter equivalent being "OK, but can I have more damage dice if I hit him with THIS?") and then hoping that your stunt is entertaining enough that the DM allows it. Every good DM, or rather I should say every DM who is slightly subpar or better, knows that there should be environmental hazards and opportunities for the players. These are by far the most ubiquitous sources of advantage/disadvantage in any DnD game, but they are either impossible or extremely difficult in a video game. This is what high ground advantage represents. If you wanted to make it more PnP-like, just require a perception check before the attack to determine if it gets advantage.

Honestly in the majority of fights I would say the impact is overstated. Either you need melee guys keeping the enemies on the ground, or the enemies will simply seek the same level as the party. If you have melee guys involved, then 1-2 members of your party are NOT making ranged attacks from above, in which case all of those other spells and abilities that detractors claim are now useless still have significant value. If devoting your entire party to ranged attackers who always seek the high ground is truly so powerful, and all other builds so weak, that the player is effectively "forced" to design their party that way, as one commenter claims, I have not observed that. While my archers are useful, contributing members of the party, my first playthrough used a druid and a fighter to pretty good effect. I have not noticed that my current playthrough using an archer ranger has been significantly easier, even though he does get advantage from high ground as often as possible. (But not always, and he is 100% reliant on other party members or his animal companion to keep enemies away from him, as even with Jump enemies can reach most perches that players can.)

It does appear that the game is simply adding +25 for each source of advantage and -25 for each source of disadvantage, instead of actually rolling two numbers. This is ought to be changed immediately. My character with two sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage should have the same chance to hit as a character with two sources of advantage, but the game reports one's chance to hit as 55% and the other as 80%.

Sorry, was thinking of Darkness for actually hiding in. The 2nd level spell. Not Fog Cloud.

Fog cloud is for the attackers since it removes their advantage.

But with Darkness you can.

1. Move in and out of to make attacks.
2. Stay in and all melee attackers get disadvantage.
3. Use to move on a position by hiding the team in the darkness cloud preventing range attacks from targeting them.

Fog cloud and darkness are the same spell in BG3 with different color clouds.