Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Rename, rework and split karmic dice

Function 1 (X)
-- "lowered armour class for all entities by 3 (fewer misses on both sides)"
Function 2 (X)
-- "weighted dice in dialogue (proficiency and expertise bonus is doubled up to a maximum total of 8)"
Function 3 (X)
"Classes receive boosts to scripted passive checks" (clerics and paladins will be boosted on religion, druids on nature, rogues on Insight, etc. The goal is to reduce OOC knowledge mishaps)

My problem with the first function is that, as is, higher armour classes receive higher AC penalties. This reduces the amount of viable playstyles. Fast paced combat shouldn't happen at the expense of needing a glass canon party. Hence, I'd prefer a flat AC deduction.

My problem with the second function, as in the game, is that that my no wis no int paladins will succeed about any check.

Meanwhile, my heavily specialiced druid kept failing and failing. Charisma characters will steamroll the game while wisdom and int Tavs barely get use out of their specialities. I don't think that's fair. Characters should be able to preserve noteable weaknesses. Improving only proficiency and expertise already there would solve that.

For the last function I propose, I think this is necessary to avoid severe roleplaying mishaps. A D&D enthusiast may be able to roleplay as "The weave?" --> 3, "never heard of it" moment from your Wizard Tav, but is pisses some people off.

Karmic/loaded dice shouldn't even be in the game. It was just a kneejerk reaction to people complaining about missing.

They added it to appease people.

I think it's a good decision to appease the roleplay loving, but D&D unfamiliar crowd.

I prefer to call it “story mode” 😛

But yes agreed, If it brings in more players and thus profit, I can only see this as a good thing. More money to a system I like as long as they have a RAW ish system/mode.

Yeah, that's completely accurate! I think it should be improved and split up, though. Tick as many boxes as you like or choose none at all.

Is that what karmic dice actually does? I've never been sure. Function 1 does seem a weird one if so, and not something that someone who wanted functions 2 and 3 would necessarily also want.


No problem with including some sort of loaded dice element if that is something that would give some players a better experience, though I do think it should be turned off by default. Right now, I think it's on unless turned off.

No, karmic dice currently messes with everything all at once. I'm asking for a way to split them up, so each element can be chosen separately. I've outlined a suggestion on how to phrase each box and what it could do. At the moment, karmic dice are not explained in game.

As someone said, it's really optional features to create a "Story Mode". People used to roleplay games, but not D&D, can enjoy the game more this way. Unfortunately, the current karmic dice system leaves much to be desired. If it's going to be a feature, Larian should commit to it fully. That for me means asking themselves why players want it and refining it. (Faster paced game, stronger ability to choose story outcomes, avoiding felt OOC)

Oh, okay. I thought you might have come across a new explanation somewhere! I would want to see a clear explanation of what karmic dice currently do (and this should definitely be set out in the game) before agreeing that any particular changes to the system would be an improvement. I'd also want to see any proposals in the context of whatever else Larian are intending around the different difficulty settings that presumably they do mean to introduce, but don't think we have any info about yet. I'm not sure whether splitting out functions would be desirable without this info. It's not something I've felt is missing, but then I don't tend to use karmic dice anyway except by accident when not realising they've been switched on again by a new patch!

I do agree with you completely that Larian should be absolutely clear on the purpose of the karmic dice setting (if it's kept) and make sure that it's fulfilling that purpose, and though that's no different than any other feature the fact that we don't know what karmic dice is doing and so can't judge how successful it might be at doing the things it might be for is a particular annoyance! And I also agree that changes to the dice behaviour in favour of the player might be something that some, but not all, players might want as part of a story mode.

It's proven what karmic dice do to AC. For my other points, I can only trust my own observation. I have some misgivings about characters with perception bonuses as high as 5 (seemingly) not rolling any better. Some passive checks such as lowish medicine, arcane also only very rarily fail with it on, while high ones are rather tricky and unpredictable. This system doesn't particularly make sense to me. I'd prefer If characters just rolled better on what would /make sense/ for them to know.

At the moment, one may believe these dice are Larian's divine (karmic) punishment for people thinking their rolls were weird and nonsensical /before/.

I don't get what Karmic Dices have to do with AC but do you have a source that could enlighten me ?

Karmic dices are not supposed to do anything you describe nor suggest.
They are supposed to generate random numbers a bit less randomly.

I really hope Larian will pick that modern way, where you can adjust different aspects of your game difficiulty to have as as (un)Ballanced as it pleases you ... and things like Easy / Normal / Hard ... and yes, even "story mode" are just profiles with suggested settings.

Rather than have just few options of wich you have to pick no matter if they suits you or not.

+1

They're not doing what I suggest because these are the suggestions I want implemented. As for removing the randomness, that is not strictly the right way to see it in terms of gameplay consequences (In this example, enemies chance to hit translates to a specific AC. Thanks to how much more often they hit thanks to karmic dice, it's as If you had lowered your AC). See:


https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=838587

It's the same with every other check in the game. The cutoff points are 5, 10, 15 and 20. Because the lower numbers are disproportionally removed, karmic dice is a a Story Mode function. I do not mind the existence of altered dice, but I think their Implementation needs work.

Totally agree, but at least we can turn it off. I'm all for choice and would like to see a faithful 5e rule option, even if Swen doesn't think it works!