... if the DM allows it than it's not breaking rules. [...] 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
100%. I think the majority here are very serious (and that's totally okay!), but larian is like the goofy DM for people who are playing D&D for making a fun story where anything goes and silliness is rewarded. Again, that's *clearly* a minority position, but I'm definitely on team silly-creativity-and-absurd-problem-solving-is-fair-game
That's not the issue I'm talking about here. Putting aside all goofiness, etc., this thread is about how the cheese destroys the gameplay for the player who is attempting to play an RPG (ROLEplaying game). I want to be able to become my character, and so I try to do whatever I can to survive. As I'm attempting to survive, I learn that simply by hiding, shooting, and hiding again, my enemies will not even try to look for me. Survival instincts (Character me) say, "Keep doing this because this means you won't be in as much danger. You can snipe your enemies until they die. Why would you do anything different?"
The player in me then says, "Because just sniping an enemy who never comes looking for me is boring. If I want to actually have fun with combat in this game, I need to MAKE myself no longer hide, shoot, hide so I actually have some sort of combat."
"Ah, but stealth is the only thing that makes sense for ANY character to try to do as much of as possible when mind flayers and intellect devourers and goblins and duergar and drow and gnolls are out there. Why would you do anything different?" says the character in me. "It makes no sense. If I can stealth, shoot and stealth and win every time - or just about every time - why would I do anything differently? That's stupid."
"Because," says player me. "Where's the challenge in that? Where's the excitement and thrill that comes from wondering if you might not actually succeed in combat? That's boring gameplay."
"I don't care about gameplay," says character me. "I care about surviving this whole thing. You're not the one who has to suffer through the consequences of taking damage, getting poisoned, etc. I do. Are you actually telling me I need to stop doing something that means automatic wins for me just so you can have some fun? Screw you, Oh-Ominipresent-Authority-Figure!"
"Sigh. But the D&D 5e rules say you can't Stealth as a Bonus action. It's an Action. That makes a lot more sense from a balanced gameplay perspective," player me says.
"I don't care," character me says. "If I CAN shoot a spider on a web and make her take tons of damage from a fall, and she keeps jumping up on the webs so I can do it again, I'm going to shoot the webs under stupid spider matriarch lady as many times as I need to until she dies and I win. If it's easy, sucks to be you and her. AND if I can stealth, shoot, stealth the entire time while I shoot the webs out from under her so she never comes and finds me, and it is even EASIER sucks to be you and her."
"No. I'm going to make you not do those cheese tactics so that I can enjoy maybe some challenging combat where enemies aren't morons who do nothing while I shoot them endlessly from hiding," player me says.
Then player me has to force character me to shut the frick up so I can enjoy some challenging, exciting combat. I have to limit character me and tell him to constantly shut up. "You can't drink potions as Bonus Actions even if the game allows it. If you drink a potion, I won't let you use an action afterwards."
"But I have to give up my bonus now as well, meaning I can't even drink a potion and use a bonus action," says character me. "And that hinders me WAY more than my enemies. You're essentially doing the opposite, now, by limiting me in such ways, Player. You're making it so that the enemy has even MORE advantages against me. So, instead of me having super easy cheese battles where I can snipe enemies from hiding and they never come look for me, now I have enemies super easy cheese battling me and sniping me from hiding or using potions as bonus actions while I can't, etc. You're LITERALLY killing me."
"Sigh. I don't know what the solution is, Character me," says player. "I want to enjoy the game. I want to become you and have the game only allow me to do what makes sense from a player and character perspective. Instead, because the devs want a goofy and silly game, I'm forced to now choose. Do I play as a character and utilize every possible advantage I can, making the game boring, or do I play as the player and force the characters to be at a disadvantage just so I can kinda sorta enjoy some challenging battles - all the while in the back of my mind knowing that I could, at any moment, start exploiting cheese to make my life easier and just win the fight?"
Again, this is not as serious for some cheeses. People realizing that they can teleport barrels across a battlefield using magic pockets and then dropping them on enemies and blowing them up is creative cheesing. Most players aren't going to think about doing such things. I'm not as upset by that kind of stuff. In most games, there is that kind of cheese where players who have been playing the game for some time will think of such things and have fun with it.
I'm talking about STEALTH here. Stealth is an absolute basic component of RPGs across the board. Assassin's Creed, Dragon Age, BG1 and 2, IWD1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2... the list goes on and on. You stealth so that you can sneak by or sneak up on your enemies, and then you get a surprise attack. Hopefully, you can weaken them a bit before they get an attack so that you have an advantage in battle. I have NEVER played an RPG that allowed me to just stealth, shoot, stealth my way to total victory with enemies never even trying to find me. Shoot! In the old Dark Forces video game, I shoot an enemy from hiding and they at least run around - even if it was like chickens with their heads cut off. They'd get shot and start searching for who was shooting at them, even if they couldn't find you because your hiding place was too good.
Not BG3. I was LITERALLY 10 feet from the devourer and just kept shooting it over and over again until it died because its sight cone was facing a certain direction and it never moved to find me. I just popped out from behind a pillar, shot it, dropped back into stealth and went behind the pillar again for ALL 3 devourers. I'm sorry, but no matter what way you look at that, that's WAY too broken.
I hate the current shove mechanics too, but quite honestly, I might play 50% of EA and never once try to shove someone because I'm using other tactics and just forget about it. Other newby players might do the same. But most players will certainly use stealth because it is a staple for the genre. Thus, it is far worse of a cheese than shove, web-shooting, barrels dropping, etc. Lots of Larian cheeses are experimental cheeses. You learn them as you experiment. Stealth is not such a cheese. And that is my point. Not having a proper stealth system completely ruins gameplay.
