Originally Posted by Falmari
My first playthrough was on Balanced, my second on Tactician, I am on my third playthrough again on Tactician. From my experience there needs to be another difficulty level because Tactician does not present a significant increase in the difficulty level from Balanced.

Having completed my first game I wanted to up the challenge but I found that Tactician was no more challenging than my first playthrough. There were very few fights that now challenged me. Most were no more difficult to the experienced me quite a few were easier.

Anyone who has completed BG3 on Balanced will not be challenged by Tactician. Tactician is simply not a challenge for an experienced player.

Exactly my experience so far, 1st run on balanced with full RP, 2nd run on tactician - semi-RPing a good-Durge with a mix of somewhat broken-ish builds. Also, both runs I hadn't accepted the astral tadpole so I was kind of gimping myself a little.

But on my 3rd tactician run right now I have a self-imposed rule even to not use any illithid powers, no tadpole munching, no access to the tree of illithid ridiculousness and the game is still too damn easy. Skill checks are somewhat harder without favorable beginnings but still manageable. Oh and playing good Durge again, but with a twist - going for a total paradox of a Selunite Durge (tempest cleric/storm sorc multi, so somewhat a meta build I guess?) cause I wanna see how the game will behave (or break narrative) in act 2. Also, this time around I am not using any of the super broken builds, mostly testing how far I can get with wacky stuff like dual shortsword/dagger wielding Astarion thief/bard multi and Karlach berserking and throwing stuff at people (or picking up enemies and using them as throwables) - those 2 are my perma companions for now, 3rd is a filler for quests I suppose. Until I get mommy Jaheira.


Originally Posted by FreeTheSlaves
Yeah but if you're using Larianisms like Tavern brawler thrower(monk) or double hand crossbows; or 5Eisms like Warlock/Paladin, Rogue/Monk or Gloomstalker/Assassin to beat the game easily - that's really on you.

They're basically exploits at this point and shouldn't be held up as baselines.

In fact, they should get nerfed the heck down to reality:

- Tavern brawler shouldn't add anything to hit %
- Throwing weapons shouldn't calculate extra weight damage
- All crossbows should require a free hand to reload
- Duel-wielded handcrossbows should follow duel wielding rules and not add Dex damage to off-hand
- Paladin smites shouldn't access warlock slots
- Heck, impose TT heavy armour rules, <Str15 in plate? Disadvantage.
- Impose TT multiclassing rules, minimum 13 in prime ability scores for multiclassing
- Rework gloomstalker by removing 1st round extra attack. Assassin shouldn't be upstaged at assassinating.

And cut XP awards in half for Tactician. Characters will be lucky to hit level 11 at endgame.

Oh yes, I agree with you, but you are also forgetting how broken illithid powers are as well, even without munching on the astral tadpole (cull the weak and luck of the far realms are game changers).

Also, with XP cut in half you'll still get lvl 12 by late act 3 if you do literally everything there is to do. Before Larian cheekily disabled the numbers shown once you got max lvl my friends and I were trying to calculate just how much experience is there in the game and what lvl we could possibly reach if lvl cap wasn't a thing (using D&D experience tables) and by doing everything there is to do we could pretty much get to lvl 16 with ease, maybe even lvl 18 IF we kill all the bosses instead of having a few of them literally off themselves via conversation (since killing them grants more exp).

And speaking of difficulty: in my opinion the biggest offender is the AI. Enemies will just rush your lowest AC/HP companion like total tools totally running past and triggering attacks of opportunity (and that knowledge leads to ridiculous scenarios). Or they will just spaz out when a companion goes invisible. Or when you create dangerous terrain right on their asses (electrified/icy water, greased/webbed up fire) they will either try to run (and fall prone/eat more damage) or pass their turn for some reason... Also, items. There are so many broken, build defining items scattered even in act 1!

Last edited by Nicottia; 05/10/23 01:21 AM.