Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion A way to fix power creep and magic items, Attunement

Attunement is a mechanic from tabletop 5e. It is used to make sure players can get a lot of magic items, but limits how many of them they can have active at the same time.

Most of the classes get only 3 slots to attune to, with the exception of Artificer.

The way it works is rather simple. There are magic items that you can use freely like: Weapon +1/2/3, Armour +1/2/3, Shield +1/2/3, etc.

However, majority of strong items require Attunement like: cloak of protection, cloak of displacement, boots of speed, etc.

I have seen suggestions of making items simply add +2 to atributes, but I believe that’s just a bandaid on top of actual problem, which is insane itemization.

With Attunement you have to make choice of items you want, preventing things like: Casting a spell with Phalar Aluve, switching to your main weapon in real time and then starting a fight. This would help the game balance, while still keeping itemization as important part of the game, but less gamebreaking

The way to fix power creep and magic items is to exercise self-restraint if such things bother you. Imposing your way on everyone else is not the way to do it.
I think there is a mod on Nexus which provides Attunement. There are certainly lots of mods to make the game more difficult.

"Casting a spell with Phalar Aluve, switching to your main weapon in real time and then starting a fight" - I manage to not do things like that without Attunement. In fact I have managed to not do that for the more than two decades that I've been playing CRPGs.


IMO Attunement was one of the worst features of Solasta.

No, the way to fix power creep is by fixing potion of speed, nerfing Balduran greatsword, and nerfing broken systems like autocrit on paralysis and half orc giving an entire damage dice extra on crits. Nerfing surprise ambush on scripted bosses so they can't be ambushed while in dialogue and commencing battle puts all allies in combat regardless of distance.

Then you can work on giving other classes besides plate martials and monks some actual magic gear, since 95% of the items in the game are monk and plater 2H class items.

If you nerfed down the amount of extra attacks classes get and the power creep of consumable potions and some outlier weapons and crit damage amplification and guarantee, you'd solve most of the damage creep without making items BORING.

I'm reading these forums as, "don't change 5e mechanics unless they're the 5e mechanics that actually went in and I feel are broken".

Re: Paralysis

Any attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

Re: haste potions

When you drink this potion, you gain the effect of the haste spell for 1 minute (no concentration required). The potion’s yellow fluid is streaked with black and swirls on its own.

Note, 1 minute is a lot longer than 3 turns. I don't know why it gives a full round of attacks instead of one single one, unless it's like, a technical corner they cut.

Re: Half orc

Savage Attacks

When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.

The sword doesn't need nerfed, it's a legendary item for a reason. I can agree with the lack of caster gear. There just isn't a lot of it.

Sometimes I wonder if im playing the same game as people on these forums...

Ive found a good selection of loot. Some for monks or barbarians, about an equal spread of light, medium and heavy armour. A wide assortment of weapons and lots of rings and necklases. Some items only allow you to cast a spell per short rest and some have like 2 or 3 effects. Alot of items for casters to. I think more items for casters then for martials if im perfectly honest.

So when I see people complain about only magical plate and monk items beeing in the game it confuses the hell out of me, lol.

Attunement would be a good fix but wouldnt be needed for all items. Not all magical items have it in dnd either. Generally when an item allows you to cast a spell or spell like effect or it provides you more then a flat bonus to something it requires attunement. But like 90% of the gear in bg3 falls under that so attunement might be to restricting given the sort of loot we are getting.

To take the loot on my MC for examples (early act3)
Helmet: bonus to saves vs spells and +1 to con saves (the +1 to con saves is on all helmets though) dont think this would require attunement.
Chest: Legendary chest item. +1 item. Reduces incoming damage, can cast a spell with it, has a toggable ability that prevents me from beeing moved against my will. Defenitly a attunement item.
Gloves: When I do a certain type of damage on enemies I debuff them. Dont think this would require attunement but no magical item like it excists in pnp dnd to my knowledge. Dont think it requires attunement? Minor effect.
Boots: When concentrating, I cant be moved against my will. +1 athletics (on all boots) and gain a little bit of speed when I cast a concentration spell. Attunement.
Weapon: Legendary item. Wont even go into the specifics. Requires attunement.
Shield: Bonus to spell casting and my DC checks against my spells, can shieldbash with it (you can with alot of shields, which you normally require a feat for I think?), and advantage on dex saving throws. Attunement.
Cloak: Casting a spell in melee gives me temp hit points. Attunement.
Necklace: Allows me to cast a spell. Attunement.
Ring: WHen I do damage of a certain type debuffs the enemy. No known item from tabletop to comare to. Like the gloves tbh. Dont think it would require attunement.
Ring 2: Advantage on insight checks. Think ive seen comparable items in the tabletop and they dident require attunement.
Ranged weapon: +2 item, allows me to cast a spell. Resistance to fire and cold. Pretty sure this would be described as a legendary item on the tabletop.... DEFENITLY requires attunement.

So I add all of that together and I have a grand total of 7 items on my person that in pnp dnd would require attunement. And when you compare what you can do in bg3 compared to in dnd itself our characters are defenitly more powerfull for it. This all said. I do think the extra power is needed for the encounters. Larian makes encounters with the power they give to players in mind so if we restrict ourselves to tabletop rules I think a fair bit of rebalancing is required.

I have been thinking about attunement. No matter what, I think that items that allow you cast spells should require attunement (and maybe be given some passive benefits if that is needed for balance). I honestly dislike equipping an item, casting the spell it allows me to cast once, then switching for something else because I'm basically using a useless item until next long rest now.

I agree with Demoulius. There's plenty of gear for casters but it seems many are disgruntled that BG3 is the only game in the gaming universe that doesn't penalize for playing melee/martial over a ranged character.

What they should do at the least is require a throw for any use of a scroll.

RAW - Now with added Attunement.
https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1329?tab=files

To be honest, I didn't find attunement mechanic enjoyable in Solasta - I found it unsatisfying to find a fun item, only not to use it, cause my 3 slots are taken by more reliably useful items. I am also not sure if limiting amount of magical artifacts per character would really do much. I don't think characters need much combos to become OP. The game is just designed that way. The philosophy seems to be that you should click at anything, and a cool think will happen. Careful character building or tactics just aren't the focus.

I dont even understand what problem Attunement is even supposed to fix, exactly.

Other than to make certain people happy who like low magic settings.

Also if its supposedly a 5e mechanic, where exactly in the PHB does it turn up ?



By the way BG3 really doesnt have that many slots for items in the first place. We only get:

- Helmet/Headwear
- Armor/Clothing
- Shoes
- Gauntlets
- Cloak

- Amulet
- Left Ring
- Right Ring

- Primary melee weapon
- Secondary melee weapon / shield
- Primary ranged weapon
- Secondary ranged weapon

Then we get Musical Instrument, Torch, and Three items of "camp clothing", all of which is never enchanted anyway.

Compared to BG 1+2, we lost the girdle slot.



And compared to typical MMO amounts of slots, we have very few. For example Vanguard: Saga of Heroes had:

Head
Face
Chest
Feet
Hands
Legs
Arms
Waist
Shoulders
Wrist
Cloak

Amulet
Ring (2x)
Earring (2x)

Primary
Secondary/Shield
Ranged
Ammo

So thats 16(!) slots, compared to 8 in BG3.

There are a lot more slots, but this is the adventuring gear.

It’s in DMG, full description. Attunement limits the amount of OP magic items you can use with some exceptions.

"Some magic items require a creature to form a bond with them before their magical properties can be used. This bond is called attunement, and certain items have a prerequisite for it. If the prerequisite is to be a spellcaster, a creature qualifies if it can cast at least one spell using its traits or features, not using a magic item or the like. (If the class is a spellcasting class, a monster qualifies if that creature has spell slots and uses that class's spell list.)

Without becoming attuned to an item that requires attunement, a creature gains only its nonmagical benefits, unless its description states otherwise. For example, a magic shield that requires attunement provides the benefits of a normal shield to a creature not attuned to it, but none of its magical properties.

Attuning to an item requires a creature to spend a short rest focused on only that item while being in physical contact with it (this can't be the same short rest used to learn the item's properties). This focus can take the form of weapon practice (for a weapon), meditation (for a wondrous item), or some other appropriate activity. If the short rest is interrupted, the attunement attempt fails. Otherwise, at the end of the short rest, the creature gains an intuitive understanding of how to activate any magical properties of the item, including any necessary command words.

An item can be attuned to only one creature at a time, and a creature can be attuned to no more than three magic items at a time. Any attempt to attune to a fourth item fails; the creature must end its attunement to an item first. Additionally, a creature can't attune to more than one copy of an item. For example, a creature can't attune to more than one ring of protection at a time.

A creature's attunement to an item ends if the creature no longer satisfies the prerequisites for attunement, if the item has been more than 100 feet away for at least 24 hours, if the creature dies, or if another creature attunes to the item. A creature can also voluntarily end attunement by spending another short rest focused on the item, unless the item is cursed."

I fail to see why it's so important to dictate what other people want to do in a video game, just because you don't like it.

Don't like it? Don't use it. Make it a challenge to complete the game with only mundane items and class features. *shrugs*

I know I'd hate it if I had to give up most of my gear just to make someone that's better at the game than I am happy.

the only op item in this game that give gloves blade ward to everyone you heal, level 3 heal as bonus action give your party blade ward for 2 turns, or just use legendary mace from level 10 cleric, also don't forget you can use bless ring when you heal for better dodges and accuary

Too obvious and requires logic which is a complete stranger to these people.

Meanwhile there is an excellent mod on Nexus which I linked to 10 days ago. And guess what? The author of the mod makes Attunement an option (one which I choose not to use).

Because, and it is obvious when you think about it, for games being good the challenge in them must be carefully calibrated for the best experience.
Having OP items makes this impossible as how do you now plan future challanges? Based on people having and using the OP items or not.
And just telling people to not use stuff is a very bad thing (again, very obvious) as you now lock people out of content because they are "too good".

That response is idiotic. Calibrated for the best experience of who? If Larian add Attunement then how is the game calibrated for the best experience of me or anyone else who doesn't want Attunement.
As has been stated ad nauseum, all people like you need to do is either not use the OP gear or use mods. You say "telling people to not use stuff is a very bad thing (again, very obvious)" but you telling people they must have Attunement is somehow not a very bad thing? And how your position is "very obvious" to anyone with an ounce of sense is beyond me.

I'm not particularly interesting in making my game more difficult but I'll bet it already is more difficult than yours. I use mods to make things more in line with 5e rules so there are no 5 attacks per round for me; no weapon attack spells such as cleave and the rest; using Spiritual Weapon uses a bonus action each round; no 'until long rest' buffs; etc, etc. Given the currently available mos my game is calibrated for the best experience for me but because I'm not an idiot I am not asking Larian or anyone else to make the game only playable the way I like it.