Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback I stopped playing in Act III

Combat, especially boss combat, feels really dumbed down to a point where you just bring martial classes and equip them with the absurd weapons and armor and other damage enhancing gear and go hit things with Haste.

Shadowheart and Gale feel like they're not doing anything useful anymore at level 12. SH can be a Bless and heal bot for the martials and Gale can do some puny irrelevant spell against enemies that are resistant to everything before he inevitably gets knocked out. Meanwhile my EK Tav is unkillable with high AC and a helm that keeps bringing him back up every turn, and Karlach is dishing out higher damage than any spellcasters can. Switching SH and Gale into two more warriors would undoubtedly be a much better solution. One archer to make use for the stupidly OP bows I found.

It feels like whatever D&D rules existed and made the game balanced and interesting to play, are now thrown out in favor of mindless smashing using stupidly OP magic weapons.

I think the same! Martial have several ways to buff themselves and break the rules of the game. Apart from the items that are much stronger for them.

Spellcasters are much weaker in this game, just watch the amount of videos there are of martial killing bosses in one turn and alone in tactical mode

I'd certainly agree to restrictions on martial spellcasting from scrolls. Pretty silly really.

The game systems/rules completely breaks down by mid end game.
No point to EXP. No point to levels. No point to magic.

Its all about what OP magic items you have.

Level cap IS WAY TOO LOW. Lev 12 characters get Level 18 to 20 godly items.

Please Mr. Larian do something so I don't have to exercise self-restraint or take the initiative and learn how to use mods.

How many times do we have to listen to you people whinging about this stuff? What do you think is going to change? Half the stuff you moan about is not even BG3, it's 5e.

1. First, no it isn't. For whatever balance problems 5e has, it would definitely not be advising you to hand out items of the strength that Larian is handing out in this game, or the unbalanced tadpole powers, and haste is written the way it is in 5e for a reason (which Larian changed for this game in a way that greatly empowers martials.)
2. It is entirely a legitimate criticism when many players find that the final act of the game becomes a slog because ill-considered items and powers makes combat trivial. For example, I paid good money for this game and I could not enjoy a full playthrough because of the above issues, 2/3rds in it became a chore. I'm waiting to see how things go with future patches and such before I commit to another playthrough. My conclusion from this would not be "Oh I need to use mods!" it would be "I shouldn't buy Larian games in the future." If I can't get at least one good playthrough out of a game, I usually don't think that investing my time in trying out a bunch of mods to make it fun would be worth it.

Honestly, what is the point of your post? What do you lose by people pointing out some of the issues with this game's difficulty? What harm is being done to you or your experience?

Eh, while yes I agree, the game has a looooot more items specifically designed to bash stuff on the head until it's dead that are majorly martial oriented, spellcasters aren't off as badly as you guys claim they are.

I finished the game once with an ice oriented silver dragon sorcerer (balanced difficulty, which I played mostly blind and didn't make the most powergamey decisions) and I am close to finishing the game again with a fire oriented red dragon sorcerer, but as a Dark Urge origin and on tactician, on my Durge I went a bit more powergamey with spell picks though.

Yes, high lvl spells are utter garbage, of all of them I very rarely use globe of invulnerability. Chain lightning sounds fun on paper (for something like storm sorcerer/storm cleric multiclass - which is next on my to-do list once the game gets some patches and maybe tactician is made a bit harder), but as it is implemented in the game it's utter garbage for anything that's not lightning damage oriented. Thing is, while martials are all fun and broken, I mostly use twinned haste on Jaheira (moon druid, myrmidon wild shape is more OP than any of the items you guys are complaining about) and Astarion (dual wielding hand xbows, yes, 2x hand xbows are stronger than the legendary longbow available in act 3) and use fireballs/scorching rays for days, hell on tactician my sorcerer Durge won duel against Orin in 1 round! All it took was 2 upcast scorching rays... My sorcerer can destroy most bosses with upcast scorching rays, it's pretty ridiculous, while also debuffing said enemies with radiating orbs and also dealing extra damage to illuminated targets thanks to callous glow ring. The 2 rings I am abusing are also available in act 2, so long before you get access to the end game broken legendaries. The only thing that stops spellcasters is imho spell slots, unironically. But since the game allows us to spam long rests with no consequences, well... it actually rewards us with more content for long resting often. Unless we're in act 3, which is long rest content starved at some point.

Could the game use more caster oriented items? Hell yes, especially boots. Should Larian nerf current legendaries/very rare items? Nah, just add more for variety.

The thing about those caster items (and I think that probably even better than upcast scorching rays is simple upcast magic missiles, if you use ALL the items that add +damage die per missile), is that, well....I kind of think they're a pretty crappy way of balancing casters. They "boost" casters by narrowing the number of spells they have to choose from (because anything other than some spell that has multi-hits becomes a pointless use of a spell slot, except as you mentioned, haste for further enabling your martials.)

Well, magic missiles are indeed strong but the thing is they are force damage, as it is in the game, we have no ways to increase force damage output aside from some items. Also, magic missiles can never crit, they are static damage. Very reliable, but static. Also, magic missiles are useless against githyanki (and enemies who cast shield - and sadly, on tactician they are smart enough to use that reaction if they have the spell available). Now something like scorching rays can miss, yes, but it can also crit. Also, Markoheshkir staff works really damn well with scorching rays - it increases damage per ray and then on top of that fire bloodline increases that as well. Oh and let's not forget the heat you get from using fire spells which you can use to further increase fire spell damage. So yeah, in my case I am better off casting scorching rays that can crit over magic missiles, but magic missiles are the king of early game though.

Edit: But yeah, I agree, items as they are in the game are so damn poorly balanced it's sad.

Bestow Curse actually grants universal damage increase. My spore druid applies it, and then gales casts art of war/magic missiles with clown gloves and there goes 300-400 damage in one cast.

Nothing against your post, I hear you loud and clear. I do find it ironic that literally tens of thousands of people are saying the fights are too difficult on Explorer in the beginning of the game and IMPOSSIBLE once you hit the level cap. Seriously, it is pretty insane how many people are on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and both cause people to quit. Granted, there are far more people on Reddit and YT saying it is too hard, but I still feel ya. if you're familiar with pretty much any edition of D&D the game can become easy very quickly. Use Tasha's Hideous Laughter instead of sleep at low levels and the bosses are dead pretty quickly. Learn dance it higher levels and, once again, boss fights are a complete joke. I had Gortash dancing the entire fight, it was ludicrous. Making dozens of potions of speed sure helped. Sure they only last 3 rounds, but the majority of battles are over well before then when every character drinks one on turn one, the a potion of heroism +2-5 more attacks/spells/wtv for the rest of that turn then 2-6 more attacks/spells/wands/tables/thrown smokepowder/alchemist fire/grease backpacks (Heh, yeah, backpacks with about 25 bombs that pop for around 400 damage...it is insane. Throw the bag, which is weak, the alchemist fire sets off all the rest, it is absurd. Fun, but absurd.). People like us actually do have to police ourselves which is silly, but a fact. If an effect should only last 5 rounds and it lasts until a long rest or until con is broken, just end it on your own after 5 rounds. Is it a good solution? No. But Larian can't make it more difficult and easier by adjusting spell and item effect durations based on difficulty level unless they actually added an even easier level and an even harder one.

The two things I would do first, if I were Larian, is raise the level cap and have enemies scale after level 12. Even if they just added more spell slots for level 6 and below along with feats/skills. There is just way too much content to cap at 12. I played at level 12 for over 100 hours, had 173K XP after level 12. That is ridiculous. The story was great, but that is far too long to go with no progression. If they can't do higher level spells and such bc they are too powerful, like I said, just add more of the lower level ones then. Or allow multi-classing to 20 with no one class above level 12 and no spell slots over level 6. The custom XP tables are already in the game up to level 20, as is the progression which they would need to change. Like I said, too much content for zero progression save a slightly more super weapon even though you already have a wand of 22-66 damage per swing (example).

The next thing I would do is cap Haste. If you go with the old "Each turn is a minute, there are 6 segments per turn" then Haste would last 6 rounds or until con was broken and only one person could get it.That spell, in particular should be fixed. Same goes for Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Ottiluke's Irresistible Dance
. I forget the duration in 5E, but I have never seen the spell end. And it works on Giant Steel Watch Robots? I get if you figure out how they are being controlled and you cast it on that, but the robots? No, that's silly.

I won't cast Haste. I just don't. I'll pop potions, but not with the entire party and not every fight. Again, are they perfect solutions? No. "Don't cast it" sucks, but the level cap is what did me in. I just couldn't deal with not seeing my stats go up anymore. The first 45 hours or so were no big deal, but basically, the entirety of Act 3 I was at level 12. I quit with Wyrmway (Wyll's part), the House of Hope and my final stone holder boss which also wrapped up the Murder quest from the very beginning. The "Hand-bag" one, so I had quite a bit of XP left to earn. And was level 12. With 273K or so total XP (100XP total is required to hit level 12). 271 hours in my first run to not finish was a bugger. Ahh well, maybe I will mod it, maybe I'll avoid enough content on my current playthrough to not get bored, though I actually enjoyed playing my first character more. I picked hte jacked body for this one and am just not a fan. Stupid decision. I work out a lot irl and wanted the character to look more like me, but he is simply to jacked. The other is a little too thin, but still closer to my build. Lol, I am having less fun at this point in my playthrough bc I made my muscles too big. Stupid. I also picked a straight Cleric of Corellon Larethian/Tempest as opposed to a Gloomstalker/Storm Sorcerer and the latter was just more enjoyable for me to play. *shrug.* My fault I guess. I'd rather be able to adjust cosmetics than completely respec though. I'm 100% sure most people would disagree with that one though.

OK, so ends my wall of text.

I seriously cannut undrestand how anyone can think fights too difficult. Sometimes you mess up or yopur dice do. The stupid shove can do you in but even though i know how D&D works i played most of the fight without even CCing. Just plain hitting stuff and casting DD spells. But thats just me. Some fights are really designed bad.

Ragarding casters. Larian changed some rules. Shove gives melees basically an extra attack that can instakill if done right. Casters usually miss the skills and stats to shove successfully. Apart from that do the enemies succeed on lots more saves than i would expect given their saves and my characters spell DC. NPCs are created like PCs so every guardsman is a hero. D&D usually does not do that.
We are missing some INT and WIS feats too. They changed 5e too much to work properly anymore. With all the magic items, mostly weapons, the melee classes get way ahead of casters. D&D spellcasting is desiged to have lots of impace with few casts. Not working very well in the game. Stealth is not working well either.

Don't get me wrong, i like the game. I have 800+ hours. Funny enough 600 of them are in EA. After finishing 2 playthroughs i stopped after an hour into the 3rd. Says a lot i think. Expectations only partly met. I hope the future brings remedies. I am not a big fan on modding.

Sadly larian seems very stubborn regarding changes to their homebrew rules. Shove and jumping mechanic beeing a prime example. That messes up the whole D&D combat rules. Add a lot of barrels, ground effects and lots of more or less usefull/useless magic items and you have what we have now:


D&D themed DOS. Made me sad (even if i like the game otherwise).