Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Stealth & Ambush Game Mechanics Megathread

One can dream. We will see what’s up on Friday.

I haven't read all the posts but I read some that is missing the main point: you can shoot with your action and then hide with your bonus action. Then all mobs will just skip their turn. You can repeat this until everything is dead. A 1. Level without prof in bow/stealth and 8 dex can kill every mob in the game without ever getting hurt.

This is very broken and was the same as in DoS2, but there you needed to have some invisible skills etc making it a little more hassle.

Now they have made hide into an action instead of bonus action which stops some from doing it, but you can still do it.

What they need is the mobs looking for the character when they know he just hides. Or hide themselves. Or go dodge action. Or use cover. Or run away. Or use aoe actions/spell where they were last seen. Or a mix of all depending on the mob. So they just don't auto skip their turn waiting to die. And since they know the player character is hiding somewhere they should have a much easier time looking for him. And maybe even easier and easier for each time he does it in the same fight. Think as a GM and this would have been fixed long time ago.

The problem is that they don't want to "fix the exploit" because they think "exploiting is super-fun". Every single one of their public demonstrations of how the game works is built on the foundation of them (Sven or whoever in the dev team is playing the game at any given moment) using cheesy tactics as if their own lives depended on it.

Otherwise they'd have an INCREDIBLY SIMPLE fix that would solve most of the (remaining) problems now that HIDE is back to be an Action: they need to force any player in close proximity of an ongoing combat inside the initiative queue and in turn-base mode.

That aside, yeah, even some tweak to the AI to make it so that NPCs SEARCH for a potentially hidden enemy would make a world of difference.

So, I found some information that explained that when someone acts out of Stealth on any actor, initiative is rolled immediately. The only question this leaves, if true, is what will AI do when a Rogue attacks and bonus actions Hide in the same round and that is the only combatant involved, or if all other hostile PCs/NPCs are hidden?

It's a step in the right direction but it still leaves so many questions about specific interactions and mechanics.

@Zyllos - my thoughts exactly. If the AI is still not reactive then the rogue will be able to simply steamroll everything. I'm all for a rogue having their roguish abilities but not when they are implemented in a way that is simply broken/nonsenical. Still, I'm happy that hide is now an generally action.

Hostile NPCs “should” move towards the last known location of a hidden PC. As per 5E rules, your position should revealed whenever you attack. You can only move so far and hide after making an attack, so any NPC using dash should eventually be able to find a rogue by dashing towards the last known location.

Is Rogue confirmed to be getting cunning action hide or is it assumed?

Hiding should still have an ability check DC to contend with.


I don't believe there will be any further changes to AI at this point outside of mods. I 'm trying to access what is written in stone to date.

WolfheartFPS got to play the game for about 4 hours after PfH and according to him you cannot hide close to enemies in combat anymore. Its called their threatened zone. Dont know if this stops you from peppering them with arrows from a distance, but combine this with also moving towards last seen spot and we might be getting somewhere.

Yes, based on the playthrough in Ghent on 7 July, it does look as though there have been some changes, though still very much caveated as what Wolfheart and I played might not have been the final, final build.

But it looks as though:

Hide will be a full action (I assume, though it is not confirmed, that there will be a cunning action Hide for rogues)
It is now much harder to attack without initiative being rolled (I was not able to snipe at enemies, even from out of range, without initiative being rolled and my character coming out of stealth - I didn't get enough time to play around to confirm it's actually impossible, but at the very least it no longer seems easy)
I didn't see this but as Momento says Wolfheart says he tried to hide behind an enemy and found he couldn't in the "threat zone", which I assume the melee range that also applies to Attacks of Opportunity, or that is used to judge whether a character is threatened for the purposes of sneak attacks (I'm sure there's a formal 5e definition but I'm too lazy to look it up just now)

In short, it does look as though there are improvements to stealth planned. It's not clear they will prevent cheesing entirely, and in fact I'll bet someone can work out how, but I'd settle for a system that I actually had to work hard to exploit rather than one I could hardly avoid cheesing. So I'm now cautiously optimistic about stealth.

That sounds promising! As long as you can't literally backstab someone (as a rogue) and then hide next to them ;-) *where did he go?* (pssst.....behind you?)

yes and no... as far as i know, the AI will act smarter and try move towards point of attack... problem is, a rogue that goes down the thief tree, has a action and two bonus actions, meaning you cant really catch them... secondly you have improved invisibilty ( i asume it is in as 4th level spell ? ), and you can also use haste, extended haste, wich gives you a real extra action...

At this point its speculation, but it do sound like there is improvmenets to the AI, and that is the only saving grace that can fix this or partly

Well it doesn't have to be perfect. As long as you have to move around and the mobs try to find you and has a chance to do it is enough maybe. Right now it's so much quicker to do the exploit than normal fighting since they skip their turn. There has always been good to kite/use environment for cover/hiding etc in many games, but normally it takes longer than going in close and hitting them in melee.

Glad to see this topic finally made it into mega threads

Just found this thread after buying BG3 EA.
Cant wait for the full release and i love playing stealth characters but the stealth mechanic is simply broken...
I dont know much about DnD rules.. all RPGs i played were videogames but i think simply having enemies rush to positions where you last attacked would fix alot..
Even then you could be OP as a rougue but having to move all the time would make it much more interactive rather than simply being able to kill everything as a lvl1 rogue...

I really hope i wont have to self police my whole rogue run..

In any case, the fact remains that a character under the effect of haste will be able to use two actions - one to attack and the other to return to hiding.


This way, the exploit persists even if it can be used later in the game.

Yeah, I never actually used the attack + hide BA approach before ...but out of curiosity tried it yesterday, and it is seriously broken. AI did nothing *unless* I was right behind them and used a melee attack (at least in one case, character pivoted around and I failed my hide check - but knowing this you can just attack, then side step where their vision cone will be, and hide).

From range - snipe (sneak attack), hide, snipe (sneak attack), hide etc I used Astarion to kill everyone near the starting area temple (bandits). The AI just seemed totally stymied if you weren't visible.

Supposedly there is now a check to avoid re-hiding in the threat zone...and I hope you can't still simply sneak attack from range and as a rogue, hide again as BA. Rinse and repeat. That is surely something they can fix with minimal effort (like most other games that have stealth. c'mon Larian!) And yep, haste would make this even worse....

Looking at their gameplay demonstration it was still possible for a character outside combat to...

a) move around as much as they wanted without being pulled into turn based mode

b) sneak up on enemies without having to do a Stealth check.

What's with not using the actual SKILL for sneaking? Why is someone with -1 and Disadvantage on Stealth as good at sneaking as someone with +14?

Even though Hide might be an action now, Rogues can still attack and BA Hide. And Rogue would be the exact class I would play sneaky with. So it can't be a broken "I win" button.