Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Still Too Much Cheese

I'm sorry to say, but there is still too much ability to choose this game which makes it too easy. What I mean is that stealth is still broken which still breaks the entire game. My Bard and Shadow heart we're easily able to wipe out three intellect devourers and we're practically right on top of them. All I had to do was have both characters in stealth mode, avoid the cones, shoot and stealth over and over again until they were dead. Each round shoot and stealth and they just stood there the whole time not even moving to look for us.

At least if you're going to keep the stealth the way it is currently, make it so that the enemies move to try to find you if you start to attack them and shoot them. That way even if you are able to jump back into stealth during your turn as a bonus action, the enemy might still find you and battle with you.

My admittedly completely subjective experience with no science to back it up was that enemies were even worse in patch 9 at triggering combat if they were attacked from outside the normal combat zone, even if my party weren’t in stealth.

I agree enemies should seek out the source of attacks though and/or combat mode should be triggered when you attack an enemy even if they don’t spot you.

In another thread, The_Red_Queen pointed out that in this patch enemies seem really unobservant of arrows and bolts hitting them from unseen sources, which I've experienced as well. [edit: and in this thread while I was writing this, lol]

I think another factor here is how much we've been playing this game - how many times have you fought those intellect devourers with SH? Probably at least twice with every available class? I think it's really easy to cheese things when we're super familiar with how every system works. That encounter is now trivial, but of course the first couple of times I played it, almost two years ago, I got wiped out in a hurry.

The intellect devourers are currently bugged : https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=830988#Post830988
Like, one of them didn't even take any actions during one of my playthrough.

I'm fine with encounters not being too difficult at that point. It's early Act 1 and it still need to be "manageable" for new players. After all, without that bug, one hit from one of them can be lethal 😅 It still need to fix it though, but I wouldn't call it easy. Especially if the player is surprised by them.

That being said, I hope encounters get progressively harder (even harder than currently). I'm not sure how : scaling with our level? better AI?
I don't see stealth as being a huge problem, personally. It could be improved and polished here and there. But not that outrageous. I don't actively try to cheese the game, to be fair. So, that's the only input I'll give on that 🙂.

That, yes!

+1!
That could be fix with added difficulty options/level when creating a new game, in my opinion 🙂

Yes, I have banged on about this Sorry for the repetition.

How about Spirit Guardians not breaking Invisibility?

Or potion of haste letting you cast double Fireball?

Are you saying that it does? Or that you want it to do that?
Because it shouldn't. Invisibility breaks if the user attacks or casts a spell or if the concentration ends.

That's not normal indeed. Haste (spell or potion) should only allow an extra action to attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action.

Personally, that I can think of right now, I could do with concentration not breaking when it shouldn't and smaller quantity of scrolls, potions and food.

It's not about early versus later fights. It's about Stealth as a Bonus for everyone. That is the whole point of Cunning Action for Rogues is to make it so they can stealth and attack and stealth again but no one else can. It makes it so Rogues are the only ones who can do this.

By allowing everyone to do this even at level 1, it cheeses the entire combat system. When I replay BG3, I try different combat tactics each time to test it. This playthrough, I tried the stealth, and it's still way broken. If a player discovers this early on, the game can become extremely boring and easy especially when the monsters don't hunt for you. That is just bad design, and it really needs fixing.

Time for a fighter playthrough challenge. Can I stealth my way through and therefore never lose a single HP?

Oh, I see what you mean.

I don't feel compelled to use "hide", personally. I only use it outside of combat (except for Rogue).

But it would indeed be nice to have "hide" as an action for everyone and as a bonus action when appropriate (Cunning action for Rogue, Goblin's Nimble escape, Ranger's Vanish at 14th).

RAW, "shove" should be an action as well, and "jump" only costs movement (not an action or bonus action).

Not that all homebrew rules are bad, but I don't see those ones as a logical improvement (especially not in terms of balance).
But I feel like this probably has been said multiple times on this forum already 😅

Yes. All these things would make the game better, but the stealth is definitely the most broken. It's gotta be fixed because dang. That's too easy. Everybody stealth, shoot, stealth. All enemies die.

Though I will say, I have done a Shove and Throw Enemies only playthrough up to the harpy fight, and my Barbarian solo'd all enemies using only throw and shove in every fight. No other companions. So that's dang broken too.

Yes, agreed on all points. Including that it’s probably been said multiple times, but I think it bears repeating! If enough of us make a fuss hopefully Larian will listen, as they did on reactions.

Gotcha, yeah, stealth in combat should be limited to rogue for sure.

In another thread, someone suggested that a take cover action or bonus action would be reasonable for other classes, which if reasonable, but won't happen

This is a really important topic, actually. I just watched a solo gameplay vid and you forget there's so much cheese everywhere. It makes me wonder what's the actual point in playing D&D or having a party in the first place. This doesn't even involve broken stealth this time.

They killed Minthara by plopping down an explosive barrel next to her. She doesn't mind and just waits for you to blow her up from a safe distance. The explosion also does not aggro the entire fort, not even the goblins in the next room. This just feels wrong on every step of the way including how easy all of it is.

Then they emptied the Zhent merchant's inventory by stealing. Only stealing is more like taking whatever you want from a container in this game. It's extremely easy and no one cares. Just take what you want, there are no consequences or any difficulty involved. Because of save scumming there should be some kind of reputation system that would create consequences even if you don't get caught. Even legendary thieves who don't get caught are known to be thieves.

Next, priestess Gut goes down in a "surprise" attack before she gets a turn. She's not at all suspicious at them dipping their weapons in a torch next to her. The surprise attack + another full surprise round + free fire damage + Divine Smite on every attack just takes her down effortlessly without having to spend any OP consumables. The amount of surprise attacks this game gives you is surreal and also Paladin's burst damage potential combined with unlimited resting is very OP.

Then, more explosive barrels are looted from the storage room. Nevermind having to carry heavy barrels through a hostile fort, you can just conveniently teleport them to camp with the press of a button. And instantly send them wherever you want with magic pockets to blow up more unsuspecting bosses.

Where's the game, actually? This is a children's sandbox.

Yes. There are a lot of ways to exploit the game. No doubt. What concerns me so much about the stealth mechanic, though, above all others is that it can be easily discovered by brand new players who know virtually nothing about D&D or the game or anything.

It's kinda an RPG staple to sneak. So even players who are brand new will do it as soon as they find out how. Then, when they learn you can shoot and stealth in the same turn, and enemies won't even hunt for you... It's over.

So yes, I agree that barrels teleported through pockets is cheese and Minthara exploding with no response is not good, but those exploits are less easy to discover, so they aren't as big a deal to the game as this stealth problem.

This is literally a game breaking issue. New baby player stealths. Shoots. Stealths. Realizes this can work on just about every fight. All challenge is completely removed from the game until there is a fight that doesn't let them do this. By that time, the player has NO idea how to strategically fight anything because they've been stealthing it the whole time. Thus, they get stuck, frustrated, and quit the game thinking it's dumb. Either that or they quit long beforehand because of just how dull combat is

I agree that the game’s handling of stealth is particularly egregious, but for me it’s the elements that affect you even when you are not trying to exploit the mechanics that I find really annoying. I’m generally okay with just not doing things that I think are silly, such as trying to hide my armoured paladin right next to an enemy, but it’s entirely reasonable to want to try to do some things stealthily - as you say it’s an RPG staple - so the fact that the game doesn’t handle it well means that trying to avoid cheese means cutting ourselves off from potentially clever and fun ways to do things.

For example, I hardly ever try to sneak up on enemies and enter battle with any of my characters stealthed any more, because too often the enemies don’t spot my characters and I can just keep attacking without combat triggering, getting an unreasonable advantage that I don’t want. Well, when the enemies don’t spot one of my characters, that character gets unlucky with initiative, and then takes an unwarranted hammering before I can bring the rest of my party in! But my point is that sneaking up and surprising the enemy is something I’d like to be able to do, but feel I can’t because of the way the game currently works.

Of course this is not THAT dramatic of an issue. But it would be nice to have stealth rebalanced.

Fun.
Don't judge it until you try it. :P

I went in here believing this will be a complaint to the amout of Waterdeep cheese we find around Baldur's Gate

I believe people shouldn't be punished for their creativity. I know it sounds strange when you put it this way, absurd maybe but... people have fun this way, if the DM allows it than it's not breaking rules. If you don't want this, don't use such mechanics, create your own traps, a bit further away and lure enemies there.

I, for one, love to hear how people get around difficult encounters, but I am a easy-level kind of player and I find BG3 EA to be impossibly difficult at times - so my voice might not carry as much weight around here

I don't want to be extreme here in either direction, so I apologize if it seems I am. The point here is that stealth is a major issue presently because it is a major RPG staple. If it is too easy to cheese, it breaks the game.

Let me give an example. I'm a new player. I've been presented with a dire situation - a tadpole in my head. I'm a serious gamer, so I'm going to play the game taking the most logical and careful approach I can because I'm roleplaying. I'm putting myself into the role of my character and becoming said character.

So, what do I do? I'm scared of mind flayers and devil's and devourers popping out at me, so I sneak. I come up on the devourers. Crap! Best be careful. Wait. I can see their sight cones. Okay. Just avoid them. Get into a good position so it's hard for them to get to me. Strategic gameplay.

I shoot. Wait. Oh. I can stealth as a bonus action. Okay. I do so with both characters. The enemies don't do anything. What? Should I now NOT do something intelligent and smart just so I can have enemies come after me? If I do, I break character, for why would my character who has found a valid method of wiping out enemies without being in danger do something that would endanger themselves just so me, the player can enjoy combat? Immersion broken. Either that or I continue to do what my character would do and have tedious and boring battles where my enemies don't fight back simply because Larian allows my characters to shoot, stealth, and enemies do nothing.

If the DM allows players to cheese, then that means the characters WOULD cheese because their lives are in danger and the characters are going to intelligently exploit the cheese to avoid the potential of getting hurt. That is why the cheese needs to be tamed, especially for something like stealth which is SO common. It makes players completely disengage from their characters to NOT cheese the game, thus ruining the roleplay.

Not sure what issue exactly you’re referring to here as a few have been brought up. I do find the handling of sneak when entering combat severely reduces my enjoyment playing sneakier characters, and though I guess I’d not describe it as game breaking for me this is a high priority fix rather than a “nice to have”. I like sneaky characters and desperately want to be able to play them without having to hamstring myself to avoid cheese.

Other changes, such as making hide an action (except a cunning action for rogues) are for me still important but lower priority. Particularly as I quite like my sneaky rangers and am quite happy that they can hide and shoot in one turn! Per RAW I don’t think they’d be able to at the levels we’re likely to get in BG3.