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

Hey there,

So the problem I have has to do with damage reduction, or rather the lack of it.
I do understand that in d&d armor class means evasion really and damage reduction is achieved by evading. But it is immersion breaking beyond believe when my bareass naked mage takes the same damage from a hit as my heavy armored dwarf.

So my suggestion would be to give heavy and possibly medium armor an armor bar that depletes by taking damage, bug negates a certain percentage of that very damage. Once the armor is broken you need to do a short rest to repair it.
Also a shield should give you extra ac against arrows as this is literally the main purpose of a shield.

As it is there is really no benefit to using heavy armor and little benefit to using a shield as at the end all of it cumulates into nothing but the ac number.
For the board game this may make things easier and all but for a video game I find it to be nonsensical.




Thanks for reading let me know what you think and in case this topic was allready discussed somewhere I didn't find it, sry.



Edit: Basically the same as in Divinity OS2 but whith damage negation (Some heavy armor: Physical: 40%/20HP Magical/Hazards: 15%/15HP) and AC. For heavy armor to not get AC/evasion bonus from dex makes perfect sense I think.

I'm not sure you understand how AC works, but maybe that's on the game for not explaining it very well yet.

No, you don't understand, actually. AC is not "evasion." An attack that fails to "hit" does not necessarily miss. In the case of heavy armor, failing to overcome AC might mean hitting the armor and the attack having no effect. For a dexterous character, it could mean they dodged.

The problem is you are misinterpreting what an attack that fails to deal damage really is. Heavy armor DOES reduce damage taken, by making it less likely that you take damage in the first place. Your "immersion breaking" stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how armor works. You do not take a diminished damage while still taking damage; you take NO damage, or the armor didn't work.

An easier fix to this "problem" is to have the "missed" attacks have different animations depending on the kind of armor you are wearing. Heavy armor should have a higher chance for the attack to land, but just bounce off harmlessly. Light armor should be more evasive. Medium armor can be a mix.

No, I do understand all of this. My problem is that one and the same enemy with identical damage rolls can hit my naked mage and my heavy armored dwarf and it makes no difference, it's 10DMG either way.
That's what I was saying above I do understand the system I just don't think it's a good one.

Of course, because if the enemy manages to get past the much more effective armor, the damage will be the same. That much is sort of obvious when you think about how one would go about attacking someone wearing armor.

The fact you're wearing a breastplate doesn't mean a cut to your neck or a stab under your armpit is any less damaging.

I say you don't understand because you're treating it like a roll of 17 against an AC of 18 means the attack didn't land; it may well have, but the armor prevented the damage. The only way for armor to be represented the way it actually works in real life is through an AC system. The whole point of the damage roll afterwards is to determine how damaging of an attack it was. If you roll a 19 against an AC of 18, you managed to get past the armor *somehow* and actually deal damage to the person wearing it. The amount of damage you deal afterward is representative of just how well you managed to do so.

The reason your naked mage takes the same damage as an armored dwarf is because *armor prevents the hit in the first place.* If the attack lands, the damage can be the same.

when you roll 10 and the armor class is 11 then you make no damage. the damage is so reduced to zero.

=> fact: the armor reduces the damage. q.e.d.

If it aint broke don’t fix it. Ac has worked fine for half a century now.

AC isn't meant to simulate armor as damage reduction, it's meant to simulate armor as damage avoidance. The idea behind it is that armor doesn't reduce the damage you take, it instead prevents you from taking any meaningful damage.

An example of how this would play out IRL is is you try to slash a person wearing plate armor with a sword. The armor won't reduce the damage of the sword but will instead prevent the sword from doing any damage and have it just bounce off the plate. Beating an enemy's AC represent doing actions that get around the protection of the armor such as striking in exposed areas or hitting with enough force to bypass protected areas.

Another example would be blocking an arrow with a shield. The shield won't reduce the damage an arrow does but instead you won't take damage in the first place since it would have been blocked.

If you want standard damage reduction on your character, you should look into the heavy armor mastery feat (reduces any non-magical b/p/s damage you take by 3) and the resistance system.

On a single attack you're right.
But on an entire combat (or multiple combats) your wizard will most likely take way more damage than your fighter.

This.

An extremely simple solutions is, when an attack misses:
- If you're wearing light armor, it says "dodged!" and the animation is a dodge
- If you're wearing heavy armor, it says "blocked!" or "absorbed!" and the animation is...idk nothing? somehow it should represent the weapon hitting your armor
- If you're wearing medium armor, 50% chance for either of ^ animations

A more complex system could actually take into account the roll, armor AC, and dex bonus:
- roll <10: "missed!"
- 10 < roll < base AC of armor (not including Dex bonus): "blocked!" or "absorbed!"
- base AC of armor < roll < full AC (including Dex bonus): "dodged!"
- if wearing a shield and the shield's +2 AC mattered: "blocked!" and the animation is of the character lifting their shield

I do personally prefer Poe1&2 system where armor provides damage reduction and reduce attack speed.

I do find armor to simply not be a very interesting choice in D&D, but it works alright. AC is a heavily abstracted system, but it works fine.

A bigger cause for the problem is BG3 presentation giving this abstraction a specific meaning (like dodging the hit) instead of various things that AC can represent - like a character deflecting an attack with his shield or a hit bouncing from the armour without penetrating it

Oh, no. Fuck, no. Please, God, no. Please.

Now, putting aside the fact that this a licensed game based on a well-established system and it should NOT be up to the developers to change it at will...
There's also the fact that if we are going to revamp damage mitigation in any other way, you chose what's arguably the worst reference possible out there.

I do agree that D&D 5th edition is not exactly exceptional in that area, either, but if changes were going to be made, there are better alternatives in spades.

Actually, something like this would be pretty cool.

We know what percentage of an AC is DEX, Armor, Shield (or other defensive bonus like a spell, or item), etc.

So a "miss" (with a roll greater than 10) could generate an animation and flavor-text calling out a "category of miss" due to a particular thing in the collective AC.

It would make combat more interesting to see and be told why seemingly "good" rolls result in ineffective attacks (like bouncing off shields, body armor/hides, other weapons (parry), magical fields, etc.)

Maybe in Baldur's Gate 5.

The thing is, the AC concept as well as the whole combat system in D&D is abstract. Why would a high level fighter have 100 hit points? He is no more likely to avoid having his arm chopped off than a common peasant if the blow hits the right way. This is the "hero" factor, which is movies is why a rain of arrows fails to kill the hero, when others fall like flies around him. Of course it also reflects his skill, but it is a combination of skill and "hero luck".

For the armor class, you should understand that an "attack" is really an abstraction reflecting one round time worth of fighting, with several blows/swings/stabs involved. Maybe only one hits something other than armor, maybe the armor is hit and causes a bruise, many things can happen. Maybe the hit is just a scratch and doesn't cause real damage. The "attack", AC and "damage" are all abstracts. This is hard to forget, especially because animations suggests otherwise, but that is the combat system in D&D.

There are other systems out there where an attack is taken more literally and you would roll on tables to find out what happens in detail: A hell to role play, but it might work on a computer. It would not be D&D though.

So why does a succesful attack give the same damage to an armored guy as to an unarmed one? Well, statistically, over several rounds, the armored guy take less damage. Now you may like this abstraction or not, and I respect it if you don't, but personally I like it for its simplicity.

I think I need to further clarify what I mean.
D&D rules are not meant for video games. I don't think that simply carrying over the 5e ruleset will work that well.
Time and time again I'm getting the feeling in this game that none of what I do or skill really matters. It's all just luck.
My Warrior who can not cast spells or is trained in Arcana can just do magics if the dice says so. Where in RPGs usually things like armor, weapons, attributes and tactics determine what kind of build you play here it just doesnt matter that much.
At the end it feels more like picking a skin and pulling the lever on a slot machine.

That’s a very interesting observation from which I’d draw a different conclusion.

I agree that classes feel too similar because of the way scrolls and some bonus actions are implemented. You’re blaming it on the randomness inherent to 5e. But the reason, I feel, are the changes Larian made to the system.

In 5e, there are restrictions on classes which make them unique. Not every class gets to use their bonus action every turn. Scrolls aren’t for everyone and wizards can’t just learn any spell.

Though the combat system is shared between classes, the way each class interacts with it (and non combat phases, mind you) should make playing feel different and not just “pulling on a new skin”.

I don’t think BG3 characters feel samey because they all have Armor Class. I think it’s because everyone can shove, hide, heal and cast all the spells they like.

Nope. :-/

Even tho i really liked simmilar system in Dragon Age ...
Armor just works different way in this game, and in my quite honest opinion, it works well enough to leave it be.

Well, you're totally wrong, and so is Larian in almost all of the ways they deviated from the rules.

The entirety of the game is based around two things: roleplaying and rolling dice. It has always been that way. You're rolling the dice to represent random events and roleplaying out those results. So yes, you are pulling the lever on a slot machine. Want to make a perception check? Pull the lever. Want to persuade someone of something? Pull the lever. Like in real life, even the most skilled fighters can get hit and sometimes they die. A higher AC reduces the chance of that hit landing.

The issue you have with your "Warrior" being able to do magics if the dice say so is because the game is NOT following the rules of 5e. A "Warrior" should not be able to cast magic.
Your class determines what sort of armor, weapons, ability scores, and tactics will work for your character, and that influences your build. A Wizard cannot wear heavy armor. A Wizard cannot use martial weapons.

You just seem wholly unfamiliar with the D&D system, which I think gives great insight to the fact that the changes Larian has made are perceived as negatives even by those who are unfamiliar with the system they are SUPPOSED to be using.

But you don't think it's immersion breaking when someone has 100hp and takes multiple massive cuts from a Greatsword to go unconscious? That's what we are also seeing in BG3.

You have to understand the whole HP - AC - Damage is a massive abstraction. It does not emulate realism. A "miss" against AC in D&D means dodging or blocking or armor absorbing the blow. Likewise a "hit" in this game system doesn't mean your weapon cuts the enemy. It could mean they block the weapon but get punched in the face, or deflect the hit just enough to make it a grazing wound. When someone has high HP it's more like stamina. And when that stamina runs out you can make a finishing blow against someone who has been cut and bruised, but not lethally.

Of course, it doesn't help that Larian have failed to present either case, hits or misses, properly. Their misses are always clean misses where a tanky enemy dodges like a butterfly, and their hits are massive cuts that create pools of blood everywhere for gimmicky freeze/electrify purposes.

So yeah, it's the game's fault for making players feel something is wrong.

It needs to be the latter so that characters in heavy armor can also still dodge and players can more accurately see the dynamic between light and heavy armor. But complex is what a CRPG can do well.

I would also like the possibility of "on hit" properties like Armor of Agathys to trigger on a "miss" that was an AC deflection. It's a bit counter-intuitive for such a protection to only work when you take damage, which you're trying to avoid anyway. You try to pump your AC as high as you can, which actually makes those protections not trigger. It should be a deterrent rather than "revenge damage" that still allows attackers to safely miss without any risk. A system that would account for misses that still connect would make that possible.