Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Heavy Armor Damage Reduction

Armor of Agathys doesn't increase AC, it gives temp HP. That's why it makes sense for a protective spell to have a damage trigger when being hit. I still agree with your larger point (or mrfuji's, I guess) that everything missing the same way should be adressed.

The idea is clearly that it chills an attacker on contact. It shouldn't matter if their weapon is deflected by armor, it's still contact just the same. The "on hit" damage shields just don't work well with the AC hit/miss system - it would be too complicated to consider misses that actually touch the target so they just made them trigger "on hit". Even though in the same system a miss can also be a hit.

That design has always made damage shields like Fire Shield unappealing to use in D&D. Wizards want to not get hit in the first place and cast AC buffing spells. Which makes the damage shields trigger less. Some are based on duration so they just become strictly worse.

The idea of a "protective" spell that requires you to take damage to work is pretty silly in the first place.

If you didn't connect solidly enough to damage the ice, then clearly you didn't strike it hard enough to trigger the spell - the spell must have a threshold, after all, since otherwise it would be exploding every time a fly landed on you or a leaf blew onto your shoulder. We determine that threshold by a successful hit that reduces the temp hitpoints.

How about Fire Shield?


Now that should burn the bugs and leaves, too. It's mostly just a rules mechanical limitation, one a CRPG could easily go around. My stance remains that the damage shields are poorly designed both mechanically and conceptually. I always hated Fire Shield in every iteration of D&D because it assumes you must take damage for it to be at all useful. It's completely counter-intuitive to what a defensive (or offensive for that matter) spell should do in the first place.

So you accept that the logic is perfect for Agathys, then, excellent ^.^

Same goes for fire shield - you *don't* want it exploding in flames every time a leaf or a speck of dust lands on you, or a mozzie lands on you... and no sensible mage would design the spell to be that over-sensitive! It would, most likely keep said leaves and bugs away, due to being an aura of thin and wispy flames, but they aren't going to make it explode, obviously. It must have a threshold for triggering, and that threshold is registered as being passed when an actual aggressive force hits you. It's perfectly sensible.

Fire shield is not a defence - it doesn't defend or protect you from harm at all, and that isn't its purpose. It's a deterrent, which is different, and it's an environmental protection - it is not a defence spell. You're calling it a defence spell, and then claiming that it's poorly designed as one, when it's simply Not designed as one at all. Agathys is a defence and retribution spell, and you don't have to take actual damage to trigger it - it protects you with a buffer of hit points that aren't yours and don't harm you when they are hit, and it retaliates when something suitably harmful strikes that buffer, protecting the caster themselves and their actual hit points from harm.

This is all pretty darn sensible and well designed, in my opinion. It works just perfectly.

But this isn't really on the main topic at this point, so I'll leave off here ^.^

Well I can't really agree. Fire Shield, or damage shields in general, triggering on armor contact (i.e. "miss") is exactly what a Wizard would want the spell to do instead of having to get hurt for it to work at all.



I noticed Shadowheart seems to be blocking with a shield now and there's a wooden thump instead of a clean dodge. It still says "miss!". But did they work on this? Anyone notice with medium or heavy armor, or a metal shield?

I agree OP, as someone who does fencing IRL heavy armour should be reducing all damage to the point where you should not be taking any damage. Heavy armour can even absorb the full swing of a halberd, mace and long sword. Only axes / bear form and explosive magics should be able to damage heavy armour.

The drawback to heavy armour should be that your forced to repair it after every fight and that it should be expensive to do so, that way the player must decide if they want to accumulate gold or being protected.

...this is exactly what heavy armor is doing?? It gives you higher AC, making it more likely for the enemy to miss and deal zero damage because the enemy hits a completely protected part of your body. But you can still be hit - joints in the armor, neck and head if you're not wearing a helmet. Also, AC with the "full hit or complete miss" (and HP for that matter) are abstractions in D&D that simplify complex interactions, and D&D 5e in particular is designed taking this into account. If you changed all armors so they subtracted X from incoming damage, then you'd have to rebalance a bunch of mechanics: concentration, abilities that activate when you take damage, etc.

I don't disagree that different damage types should affect different armors - and monsters - differently. Weapon damage type importantness is something I'd like to see return, especially in a video game which can more easily handle the nitty gritty details.

-1 for any type of weapon/armor durability system in BG3. Just no.

If Larian would just animate combat to match the system correctly we wouldn't have threads discussing armor damage reduction. But since they have PCs in heavy armor dodging, here we are.

I think they added sound of shield getting hit in this patch so that's a nice touch. Still dodge animation though.

Not something I am getting bothered by anyway