Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Enemies should follow the same rules

I'm not a fan of the way some NPCs get inflated stats and hit points.

If they are supposed to be stronger, increase their level, but follow the same rules for whatever class they happen to be in.

Take the githyanki, for example. Someone just dumped extra hit points on them.

Nere's stats are ridiculous.

Or look at the goblin boss in the first fight outside the grove. I'm pretty sure he's level three and has a proficiency bonus of +3. Why?

The druids in the grove turn into bears with 19 hit points? Why? That's not the same as the player character druid.

I think consistency is important. It's also important to, for lack of a better phrase, play fair. I don't trust people who think the rules apply differently.

I agree, though boosting AI's stats is a common way of making the game more challenging, as human player will always be the smarter. BG3 can be too blatant with it's padding.

I quietly hope that Larian will just replace those characters with higher level versions for the final release.

Yep.
Every now and then we can agree on something.
I don't care how challenging a game can get (as far as it keeps things reasonable, of course). If an encounter needs more enemies or disadvantageous terrain it's fine.
But both sides should play by the same rules, otherwise it feels like a crooked premise.

+1

The thing about some creatures in tabletop is that they are weak but use different tactics. (For example goblins would know how to move to cover after attacking, disengage and hide, take advantage of the terrain, attack in higher numbers - even if each individual attack is weak. An owlbear wouldn't, but it would hit harder, have longer reach, and have more life.)

Using inflated stats just destroys the game balance and spells that used to be great at low levels are mediocre. Take for example Sleep, 24 hp might seem huge, until you realize that no, every mob and their mother has 18-20hp. Want to put a group to sleep? Haha, I mob, take it or leave it. Upcasting? Ok, well the lvl 4 mobs now have 40-60 HP. Bad luck, mate. Still just 1. An AoE spell turned into a single-target spell by a weird gameplay choice.

I'm not saying Tav & team are left weak. With all the rare gear around, all the combos, effects, and statuses one can inflict, it's easy to mow down 90% of the EA content, with the bosses needing a bit more planning and thought. But it's not always fun.

Throwing extra actions per round, extra HP, armor, and high attributes isn't the solution. Gith patrol, I'm looking at you and shaking my head. Make the mobs work within the existing rules. Want a tougher mob? Make it lvl 6 or 8, like the prologue illithid & cambions. Want it smarter? Give it better tactics. I"m not saying we go BG2's way where every mage was a genius with contingencies & chain contingencies (and boy, all these A+ students trying to ambush me for 100g?? Is life in Amn so damn hard? Do they have 20 years of student loans to pay off?) - but not all monsters were created equal. There has to be a better solution than inflated monster stats & action nr to add difficulty.

+1
HP is less offensive, especially for monstrous and/or larger-than-medium enemies. But increasing NPC - especially for playable races - stats and changing how abilities work for NPCs is certainly annoying and feels unfair, even if its in our favor. 5e PCs are supposed to be exceptional, with incredible stats that allow them to become the heroes of the city/realm/world. We shouldn't find random fighters with significantly higher ability scores.

Edit: In response to what @Neleothesze said about Sleep. It is important to take that into account, although increasing an enemy's level and simply increasing their HP has the same effect in this situation. But yeah, for weak enemies without levels (e.g., goblins), simply increasing their HP has cascading effects with other in-game abilities. The same is true for increasing enemy ability scores - Oh look, now all enemies effectively get a +1 or +2 to their STs, further weakening ST spells in BG3.

Za'krug (the goblin boss) has a simple explanation: Instead of giving him a finesse weapon and a +2 proficiency bonus he should have, Larian decided to give him a greataxe, STR 12 rather than STR 10 and a +3 proficiency bonus. His total attack bonus is still +4 as it should be according to the Monster Manual.

The githyanki are just ridiculous though. Not only do they have inflated HP but inflated stats, including combat relevant stats, as well.

The druids can be explained: Their bear form is that of a black bear which has indeed 19 HP in the MM, while the player for some reason gets to transform into a polar bear (42 HP).

It's a rather weird design and I'd prefer they'd stick closer to rules, in addition to applying the same rules to monsters and players alike. But it seems like correcting that falls, once again, to the modders.
Also, as others already stated, the decision to inflate monster HPs devalues spells like sleep, as well as some other abilities. It's really annoying...

Yes, exactly. For bosses and important quest fights, level and stat/HP increases might act similarly but for your run of the mill encounters, you'd get to use a wider range of spells that would otherwise become subobtimal.

I haven't relied on saving throw spells since i inspected half the npcs/monsters around and found out that they bought their stats Diablo Immortal-style. All that gold we're not getting? It's cause the monsters used it to PTW apparently.

I think the druid bear forms are a holdover from the patch before the druids were released.

They are turning into the same bear as the ranger gets for a companion, but the druid bear form ended up being stronger.

Which, to my way of thinking, means the druids in the grove need that adjustment.

I'm totally shocked by this thread. Weren't you the guy like not that long ago, JandK, who kept arguing that Larian is awesome for not having monsters with proper 5e stats and abilities? Now... you're saying Larian shouldn't have done such things?
I'm so confused.

Btw. I thought the idea about the goblin boss, and others like him, was that he had extra HP and stats because he was marked and blessed by the Absolute. If you notice, all goblins and monsters with the Mark are tougher than standard ones. Goblins who aren't marked have typical goblin stats. Well, at least the last time I checked anyway.

It's not confusing.

There are rules for players. I think the NPCs should, by and large, follow those same rules.

That doesn't mean those rules should be exactly congruent with 5e in every circumstance. That's another conversation.

The point is, whatever the rule is for the PC, the NPC should roughly have to abide by it.

OK. I see. You want monsters and NPCs to be created just like PCs are created. Geez! That would be a LOT of work on Larian's part because NPCs are created in the same way as PCs. They don't have Character Levels like PCs do. They have Challenge Ratings. So Larian would have to create all their monsters the hard way from scratch instead of taking already done for them monster stats and maybe tweaking them.

And I'm still a bit confused by this. The Goblin Captain has similar stats to the Goblin Boss. Goblin Bosses have roughly 21 HP with AC 17. He just doesn't have Multiattack and Redirect attack or a javelin. Right? Instead, he has the Warcry ability and Action Surge, I think. So how is that not playing by the same rules?

And the githyanki are slight variations of the D&D 5e githyanki. One is like a ranger version. One is like a rogue. One is like a cleric, and one is like a fighter. Aren't they playing roughly by the same rules?

+1 to internally consistent rules for the world to make it more convincing. If the combat encounter is too easy, there are ways to make it more difficult that don't involve making enemies adhere to one set of rules and PCs another.

No way. I suspect it would be less work than it takes you to write your lengthy replies in the reaction thread, lol.

Jokes aside, I could go through the game and do every NPC in a couple days, tops. And that's me, one person.

Agreed! 100% +1
With one small note:
Githyanki ... its not just about HP ... their stats are quite crazy aswell.

And yes i know we were promissed Rolled Stats, so maybe we get something so incredibly crazy too ...
But still, last time i checked they had something like 18-14-15-11-12-16 ... what saving throw they are bad at ... well, that would be: None! :-/

Enemies with no weaknesses are not cool Larian (except for Madara) ... they are only frustrating.

+1
With the added mention that if a fight needs to be cheesed to be won, it's not well designed. No ifs or buts. I don't care if some class can solo something by exploiting various mechanics. I can too. Big deal, it's not an achievement. I don't play my games to exploit mechanics - it's a lot less satisfying than winning based on the characters' own strengths. That's why they're roleplaying games not bug-finding games (not because I knew a fight was there and pre-rolled 20 explosive barrels, positioned my stealth team in just the right corner where the hag's AI will always fail, savescummed for initiative, etc) Sure, I'll do it if it lets me see all the game content, but it's not fun.
If you can be deus ex machina-d out of the plot by a rabbit (goddess), you're still not OP enough, man.

My favorite is the AI is getting smarter...boarder-line cheese even...love it.

The Spectator jumping out to the fringes of combat range and targeting casters first...nice touch, It didn't save him in the end, but I had to rez Wyll and Gale was on save from joining him.


The three Ogre stooges in the Blighted village:

The last time I ran a sharpshooter I could pretty much kill them from the kitchen window across the street (without initiating combat).

This time they were not there...what? So I sent the invisible imp over to spot, and sure enough, they are there.

The first long range stealth shot initiated combat, and they dashed under my window to break LOS and toss acid flasks at me (or poison...it was green).


I was still able to hurt them badly on the way over...the imp finished one...Astarian another (running up and down the ladder).

The last one came in the "Barn Door" at full health and didn't stand a chance...still a far cry from sitting ducks.


This is every group...you may evade detection for a shot or more, but they run strait at you shouting "over there!".

They will find and cheese you if they can.

I am sympathetic to your argument in general, but I found the "Grym, Eternal Protector of the Forge" fight to be enhanced by its complete and utter lack of weaknesses. I don't like how DnD can almost default into a core gameplay loop of just lowering HP with whatever moves you have. Enemies without weaknesses can be fun by forcing you to get creative outside of how you do other fights, as long as they incorporate some other mechanic that gives you a fighting chance.

?
He's extremely vulnerable to any Bludgeoning damage as long as he's been heated by lava in the past two turns.
And very easy to kite around with with the way he's always aggroing the last hitter.

These are textbook cases of vulnerabilities to exploit. Also, if you manage to drag him on the center of the platform he's pretty much done.

The Githyanki encounter is challenging, but not like Drizzt in BG1 was.

You have to know your party, and plan for the fight. Each party is different.


Two Warlocks with Darkness saved me my first time...ducking in and out of cover to pick them off. I was like WOW they are tough...had to restart the battle several times after getting wiped.

A Bear-Barian can take a few rounds of abuse at level 4...3 party members went down, with 2 dirt naps...close one.

A level 5 party with a Bear-Barian can stand toe to toe.


This time I have a hunter at level 4, but I don't have Lae'zel. I will likely draw them out into an ambush...or just go high and pull them into a kill zone.

To me that's not cheese...its planing. These kind of battles are satisfying when you beat them.


...Don't get discouraged.


P.S. Now that I know that the AI is targeting casters I will likely have my imp (primed with Dragon's Breath), Wyll, and Gale all invisible on top of the bridge.

My hunter and Astarian will long range pull from the same area.

Sure they will Misty Step and hit the archers...but not all will appear at once...and the other three will be ready to answer.


...Wyll picked up Magic Initiate Bard...for heroism and Vicious Mockery...that will help too.

Well, Drizzt in BG1 (and 2) wasn't even supposed to be "an encounter", strictly speaking.

It was a easter egg/cameo from a "D&D celebriity" that the Murderhobo player had to go out of his way to turn into an actual fight.

Like when you met Elminster during Throne of Bhaal (except in that case I don't think you could actually fight him no matter what you did? It's been a while).