To go sideways to Solasta a bit again and to also add to the difficulty discussion, I am currently quite a ways into a Cataclysm run of the DLC (currently level 8). Honestly, they should have either made the Scavenger a little harder or the Cataclysm a little easier, because the damage values are a little out of control on Cataclysm (50% boost it says, which means eating a fireball can turn into a party wipe). On the other hand, it did make me appreciate even the rather limited selection of spells Solasta provides at last, because there was finally reason to levitate enemies so they are indefinitely incapacitated, or use charm person/animal to keep something very dangerous out of the fight. It also showed how cheeseable the AI can be in certain situations, like how the giant camp can be cleared at level 4 or so by staying on the other side of the river and smoking them out one by one with Flaming Sphere which they try to avoid by making huge hops (something-something BG3's jumping something).
I do have to save-scum a lot, though, mostly for trying to get crowd control to work so that enemies don't overwhelm the team. Having a monk with stunning strike (which can stun everything, from undead to golems, apparently? Huh) really helps, and makes me confused as to why people think that monk is the weakest class in 5e. You no longer need strength like you did in 3/3.5e, you can make 4 attacks per turn at level 5, and while the damage isn't too high, it does get decent eventually. Re-rolling until both dexterity and wisdom were at 18 also gives him 18 AC right off the bat. The court mage is also a good addition, because given how good the shield is on Cataclysm (where one upgraded skeleton archer can easily knock 30-50 HP off of you if it pulls off a few good shots), I can only imagine how freaking broken it can be on lower difficulties - and I've seen discussions about running a party of 4 court mages. The balance is still "kind of" wacky.
Big bonuses to enemy rolls (+3 to everything) also showcase how flat 5e's combat can become when >90% of the ways you can affect your or enemy's accuracy are advantage/disadvantage-related. Disadvantage tends not to do jack when the enemy has something like +13 to hit, and attacks 2-3 times on their turn. It does make the AI change priorities in combat, so you can artificially make them target somebody with a lot of AC by using/giving Dodge to somebody with less. Speaking of Dodge - could it be that the monk is the last class to be introduced in BG3 because we have no Dodge yet? It's one less ki power if it doesn't exist.
