Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Surprised

This needs to be removed. Or at least for the hard difficulty. Between the surprised condition and the hide cheese you can steam roll anything.

I think that the surprised status is fine - and in fact is exactly what should happen - when combat starts on your first attack, it’s the fact that combat doesn’t always start, or start for all your party, that’s the problem.

There was a recent discussion of how starting combat from stealth, or just where the enemies can’t see you, could be handled better at https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=838946#Post838946.

It works fine in tabletop because you don't know what's coming. Here you can surprise almost every fight

I wouldn't remove it so much as nerf it (most of the time). As an example, one character (the one doing the first attack) gets an extra free turn.

However, the rest merely get a boost to Initiative. That's a real surprise effect, alright. Just less op. If you want to go stealth, you'll need a real dex party with ranged attacks to maximise it. Currently, one sneaky rogue means one very sneaky (and fast!) party.

Few things are broken with Surprised.

You get the actual full surprise round AFTER you initiate combat by attacking. So you really get two surprise rounds.

You can just decide to surprise a neutral enemy. They get no Perception check to notice your hostile intentions and avoid being surprised. It shouldn't be that easy to draw a Greataxe and go whack someone with it completely without stealth. I hate it when my high Perception characters don't even get a chance to avoid being surprised by some acidic goo ambushing me.

The initial "attack" against a neutral should perhaps just be a declaration to initiate combat and roll initiative. Stealth or Invisibility should be required to get any kind of free surprise turn, and even that should be possible to avoid with a Perception check (hear the footsteps of someone trying to sneak up on you).

Another thing is that even at low levels, the alpha strike damage is getting so high you can kill anything before they get a turn. Many things contribute to this - haste potions, giant strength potions, Action Surge, abundance of dipping and poison, Divine Smites that now also work on BA Pommel Strike and synergize with Haste, extra Bonus Actions from items that can be used for off-hand attacks, Moonbeam and Cloud of Daggers triggering twice before enemy gets a turn, game allowing multiple leveled spells per turn.. list goes on. They should actively try to downgrade the effectiveness of surprise attacks but so far they've only made everything much worse to promote this kind of combat that's more like a one-sided stomp.

The surprise should be a -2 to imitative role and that's it. You already get a free attack. Having the enemy skip a turn is way too op

The problem at the moment is that stealth attacks can very much backfire, you just don't see it often. The only example I can really think of is the spider matriarch. Either you fire one attack and all spiders get a free turn, or she's surprised.

-2 does essentially nothing to these enemies. I'm assuming surprise attacks exist so there's a chance to get the drop on any enemy. If such an enemy is surprised, it would be enough to enter combat automatically, but have the rest of your party attack once first before the enemy gets their turn. You're skipping the roll and have some extra time to get into position. That seems rather default for video games.

Yes, that's my understanding of the point of the surprised status. However, because combat doesn't always start automatically, you can end up with multiple free attacks. But in my view it's still the combat not starting automatically that's the problem, rather than surprise!

Though I guess it is true that with a sufficiently sneaky character you could still surprise most enemies and get a chance for your party to attack first, that seems a fair use of stealth. Well, as long as the enemies are given a fair chance to spot your character, anyway!

What gets me about surprise is when you enter an area where an ambush will happen, someone in the party makes their roll, says 'there's an ambush ahead', and you get surprised anyways when the entirely expected ambush happens. I saw it coming and I'm still surprised?!?

Yes, it feels as though if we have a successful roll we should avoid being surprised.

Trying to recall where we get surprised. There’s the duergar in the Underdark village, but there I think a successful roll does (or at least did) reveal them.

Then there’s the Spectator by the petrified drow and magma mephits in Grymforge. Can’t recall if we do get rolls there, but I think we might for the Spectator at least, and in that case get surprised anyway.

The slimes in Grymforge do give a roll to notice an ambush and they surprise you anyways.

Oh yes! I’d forgotten them. Yes, agreed that we shouldn’t get surprised there if we’re on high alert after succeeding the roll to realise there’s something amiss.