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

I think consistency is important. Enemies and NPC's can deviate from PC's rules-wise as per 5e, but a random nameless Githyanki or even a boss like Nere should never have a ridiculous ability score spread. That directly compares with PC's and it doesn't make sense enemies of the same race are so much stronger, tougher, smarter and more charismatic than anyone in your party. Why does cannon fodder get godly stats when heroes have to use point buy? The heroes should be the exceptional individuals who triumph even against unfair odds.

This is what a usual Gith should be like, not 16/18/17/16/18/16 style nonsense Larian gave them.


To make fights harder without inflating enemy stats, they should force the player to start the fight from a disadvantageous position for once (and no, the Gith fight doesn't count because they actually expect you to metagame the encounters like Swen does when he plays, and surprise them from the elevation even if you actually talk to them + the cheap res merchant makes death irrelevant so that risk doesn't really exist). Add more Gith rather than make the few extraordinary with insane stats and expect the player to metagame with knowledge the PC's don't have. But everywhere they let the player cheese and alpha strike the enemy from advantageous elevated positions. You can massacre the entire Zhent hideout by attacking from a position they will never be able to reach. With haste potions, void bulbs, poison and fire dips, and especially Shoves, it doesn't even matter if you give enemies +50hp and insane stats since they don't get a turn, or half of them are dead before they do. Auntie Ethel's 112hp easily go down in one surprise attack before she gets a turn. Larian's focus is off in designing encounters. They should focus more on the set-ups than just up the stats + include mandatory high ground everywhere. Where is the hallway fight where your tanks hold off a swarming goblin horde (melee, not spamming fire bombs or jumping over your tanks), and then suddenly they bring in reinforcements behind your?

The there's the extreme disregard for stats with fights like Grym or the Spider Matriarch, and overriding D&D stats with puzzle-like solutions. I don't like these fights. The puzzles are easily solved and then the encounter has no replay value. I prefer team and class based tactics for combat rather than a boring one-time puzzle to solve. The extreme invulnerabilities/vulnerabilities like Grym's are way too far out and create fights that belong in an arcade game rather than an RPG with systemic combat.

Sidenote, making all Gith fluent in Common takes the alien out of an alien race. There could have been other solutions. With only a few of them speaking common with an alien accent would have made all of the Gith much more exotic and cool. Now they're just humans with a different skin. Bit of a flavor fail since they come from another plane of existence.