I see many responsen here saying tactician is fine, rest less etc When you know the dnd ruleset and are familiar with games of this genre. Tactician is the normal difficulty if you ask me
Act 1 is fairly balanced, but only if you opt out if spell casters to some degree.
First, the game is absolutely beautiful, the stories is extraordinary and it's a wonderful game. Finally.
However for us that like to min max, take it to the next level.
You need to play single class, without using elixirs and hardly potions and you are forced to remove spell casters from your group composition for act 1 to be somewhat challenging
And no I hardly rest and ran a full melee party, with an occasional blessing.
The issue is ac2 and 3 you recieve so many extreme high level items that you obviously want to try, but it makes the game extremly easy.
My Fighter/ranger/rogue, in act 3. Deals, unruffled, no buffs not even hunters mark, I hit for around 100 dmg per attack on a critical strike.(using a shortsword) With 16 critical strike rating and advantage, it will happen roughly once, twice per turn.
For me who don't want to install mods, I'm forced to look at it since personally the game has become boring. Above was a test character to maximize damage
A very quick fix is to add , similar to solasta, a bar where we can add hitpoints, to hit, ac.
Just increasing hitpoints on enemies by roughly 50% above what's in tactician shoukd already create a more interesting combat encounter.
So why is this?
This is a computer game using dnd rules. Enemy hitpoibts are basic vanilla (in tactician). However the items available already in act 1 is something you hardly encounter in a level 20 campaign.
Items such as bless on heal. Or, blade ward on heals (making the barbarian class pretty much obsolete in this game when it comes to their ability to soak damage, ).
I love the items and creativity. As a long time DM these are items I implement into my campaigns as well. However, I then also run encounters where, in table top, enemies will have roughly 50% up to 300% more hitpoints compared to baldurs gate 3
End end game bosses with 300 hitpoints are killed within seconds in bg3 without using anything then in game items are normal builds.
As tactician is now. You must set rules for yourself. Avoid mylti classing. Avoid spell casters with area of effect spells, avoid elixirs, avoid scrolls, avoid too much resting, and even avoid half the items available to you. Or the game have absolutely zero challenge what so ever. Combat in Act 1 pre level 5 is ok. Its easy, but feels decent as long as you avoid too much magic. But the later acts are so trivial its to the point the game actually becomes boring.
I want to be challenged without having to install mods that might make or break my game files.
The quickest solutions I have to Larian, as a dm with 30 years experience, is to add 50% hitpoints ontop of the current tactician setting. But for act 3 enemies need at least twice as much hitpoints. I don't think their to hit or DC or AC must be affected mich, this feels ok already. But enemy hitpoints pools are drastically low compared to the items and classes available to us.
Just add a harder difficulty or provide an in-game tool to set the game as we prefer.
We 2 manned the game in multi player on tactician and was literally giving up mid way through act 3 as the game was too easy. And this was with a hexblade and ranger
When you understand math, mechanics and combinations, together with the ruleset of the game. Tactician becomes story mode for us that enjoy a challenge.
That's it.
Wonderful game, beautiful voice acting, superb story. But combat is made for a wider audience of players. Understandable. But add a 4th difficulty or bump up tactician by 50% at least. (I dont even think this is enough) And give us a challenge. Thank you.
