Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Rumors of Higher Difficulty Mode coming...

@ Maximuus - I agree about not having to limit yourself. And you will know from my posts (I have agreed with many of yours) I have been very unhappy by Larian's 5e implementation. But AC is important - and it should be where it is supposed to be to have balanced 5e encounters. Being able to get a 32 AC , as some people are people have shown, is just game breakingly high and almost nothing can hit you. Personally, I don't see the fun in that, especially if you know its based on a broken/poor implementation.

Of course, I agree that many other things are more problematic in general (the list is long...)

I am still waiting for 'core' mode. I may try play with some mods, but I *resent* having to do that in a game that was supposed to be the 'definitive 5e experience'.

In fact, I don't know when I will replay BG3 - I'm quite tired of it now and I've moved onto other things (Cyberpunk 2077 atm). I'm now looking forward to W40K: rogue trader. That at least will follow the rules.

I still kind of vicariously lurk here in the hope that something will change to improve the mechanics of the game.

With all due respect, I think there is nothing "stupid" about self-limiting or adding extra rules to the ones that the game provides. For some games it would not make much sense I agree, but for an RPG it does, just like the official DND rules can be tweaked by a DM. It depends on each individual player I guess. For me, some things are just immersion-breaking, so in the heat of the action, I even forget it exists. An example is jumping around while doing battle. I jump of course -- to get over chasms, fires or onto something high. But I can't imagine fighters jumping left and right on a battlefield. So when I see an enemy do it I remember, oh yea the game allows this. But I 'll fight normally in a way that I think a fight should be fought. It is much more difficult to win, but the victory tastes much better. At least I can make a ballad of my victory, without the audience laughing at me. You get the picture ?

Other example, I don't have a thief in my party. My bard PC does the sleight-of-hand work (she's got charlatan background) and is also my scout and representative. So she wears gloves of thievery and the the ogre circlet to boost her INT to 17. I also have tons of gloves and helmets that are better in battle so in theory I could switch gear to fight better and switch back for the city and dungeon crawling, but this seems so un-heroic-fantasy-like. (Imagine Frodo putting his mithril shirt on and off when there are orcs nearby or go away)

I want to repeat that this is not a critique to players who play differently. It's that the game gives many options. You can try to make a balanced party that resembles the heroes you love to read about or see on the screen, or you can optimize to beat the game. It's a choice. If you do the latter, obviously combat will be much easier. I'm all in favour of a higher difficulty level if it can make gamers happy, but you can make the game ,as it is now, more challenging yourself too. It is not a stupid thing to do.

I play this way not to make combat mopre challenging, but because it makes the whole game more immersive and appealing. Several times it looked hopeless to even pass a boss and get to the end, but in the end I did make it. Showing how rich the game is and that (fortunately) you don't need to be overpowered to get there.

Finally I agree with everyone who think there are still too many bugs that should be corrected before adding new stuff (with inevitable new bugs)

If they want to make the game challenging they don’t have to rebalance anything tbh.

Just remove Withers from Tactician and bam- the game is now exponentially more difficult.

The big balance issue in the game aren’t the items or OP builds - it’s withers and always have been.

Being able to always play optimized party, being able to rebalance your stats completely when you find a new item instead of planning ahead, being able to change your entire party into totally different classes that synergizes with each other instead of playing to the companions classes strengths and weaknesses.

For example by D&D rules a sorcerer is balanced by having set number of spells and only being allowed to replace a spell one time when they level.

With Withers that isn’t the case as you can for trivial sum respec your entire class every time you level and totally change your entire spelllist before each combat, making the sorcerer class a lot more busted

Or the fact that you can find say the gloves of dexterity and then just respec with withers and lower your dexterity to 8 , use the gloves to set it to 18 and now you have 6-8 extra points of stats to put whenever you want.

With Withers you don’t have to plan ahead or make real choises like “should I chose this spell or skill that is really helpful in the beginning but is useless in end game?” Because you can just take the spell and then respec and swap it later for virtually no cost.

It also makes the evil path even less rewarding as being able to recruit Minthara as the only paladin companion should be a huge deal but it really isn’t when you can just respec Wyll or Shadowheart into paladin at any point

It’s really that simple to balance the game and make it harder and challenging- just remove Withers on Tactician , he is beyond OP and gamebreaking and the mode will really live it’s name as you really need to be a good tactician to beat the game without him

1. Anyone who actually plays like that is in dire need of a mental health intervention, and I don't think there's any need to balance the game around crazy people.

2. Performing this procedure of madness would have a miniscule effect on the difficulty of the game.

Minuscule effect on the difficulty?

What are you like 15 years old? None of the all time great RPGs from the past like Fallout 1-2, BG1-2, Wasteland, etc allowed to competely respec any character at will , any day any time any place for no price .

Respecing is not a part of the d&d gameplay in general, it’s also RP immersion breaking being allowed to change key characters classes at will just because

Like shadowhearth becoming Light domain or totally different class yet acting all game as a trickery/ shadow cleric .

Withers is OP and it’s ok for him to exist in Normal mode for casual people who likes to change their build all the time, but having him on Tactician which is supposed to be for experienced hardcore players is a travesty.

Tactician should be all about making difficult choises and planning ahead - like choosing to start with 8 Dexterity and gimp yourself most of act 1 but with the idea to get the gloves and up to 18 this getting huge stat buff at the Crèche- this should be a tactical decision, but with Withers you just respec the moment you get them for free and that’s it.

Okay guys we are walking the border here a bit with the tone of the comments. Lets keep this civil please.


I made a few suggestions about this in the Adamantine Dwarf Challenge thread I started.

None of your examples affect the actual gameplay to any significant degree. It's compulsive minmaxing with questionable to modest gains.

There's no need to respec your sorcerer before every fight, because the available spells will always be good enough. Once you max out your main stat, a few extra points in your less important stats aren't going to help you kill anything quicker or safer. You get more than enough spells and spell changes to be effective at any level. And Paladins are just Paladins, no one cares.

This is a simple example, I soloed Tactician and only managed to do it because I could respec all the time.

I gutted Cazador round 1 before he could make a move and turn into mist because I took Alert feat before the fight.

Then after the fight I dropped Alert as I didn’t need too much initiative and dipped one level into cleric for sanctuary for the Raphael fight. Then after that fight I respeced into assasin/ gloomstalker for the House of Grief fight . Etc etc.

I even had Laezel to set her strength to 8 as she got the 23 STR gloves so she ended up as both mele and ranged killer as I poured the extra points into dexterity and Con.

I can get Alert and high initiative before every fight with high initiative boss and then go back into whatever I chose for the rest.

I can change my classes from mele to ranged , to Crowd control based depending on who I am facing, thus bypassing any of the bosses strengths .

How is this a good RP design and how can anyone expect a challenging experience when you can literally fine tune your party all the time?

I don't need the developers to worry about balancing issues that I can completely avoid by not being an idiot. If you felt like you needed to abuse the respec feature to solo Cazador, that's your business, but you could have just not. Why even try to solo the game if you then go out of your way to avoid the combat? It's not even like using a potion of speed where the broken mechanic is right there in your combat interface. That's like four loading screens of effort to literally avoid gameplay. I don't care about that. You can't make a game abuse proof, and there's little point in doing it.

The real problem is when you play the game how it's supposed to be played, and it doesn't offer enough challenge.

I understand you don't think the respec option is good for the game.

That said, I don't use the respec option, and I still walk through the tactician difficulty. That's what folks are saying. The game is currently too easy in tactician, even without using exploits.

Yes, exploits make everything easy.

But the game is already easy even without exploits. That's what I think a lot of people seem to be missing.

I think i proved it with my video series that as a casual player w/o w/o w/o ect ect and +10 w/o this and that no death I beated the game easy and by making many mistakes.

There was only 2 real challenge Ansur the dragon and dialog checks funny thing was that I had 24 charisma and proficiency + friends .

Actually solo is such a big punishment specially if someone don't want to abuse resting. Half of the content was missing, and I think in the full run I only got like 6 inspiration.
So its somehow unbalnced.
Because solo in combat is easy.
But if you play alone and don't want to save scum. It will become a real problem as you will fail in almost every second dialog chek. And the fact that it's even more boring to wait to do 1 action because you play alone. It will be even more frustrating that as a solo player you will fail almost every where what is not combat .
So outside of combat every part just becomes 3X times more difficult.

For what it's worth to the developers, while it's easy for me to complain that the game should be more difficult in tactician mode, I'm sure it's not an easy process to find the sweet spot. And I would be disappointed if the only solution involved extra hit points and more attack bonus for the enemies. My point is, I get that it might take a while to get things right. I guess I just hope and trust that it's being worked on.

In short, I want tactician mode to be as hard as it is to get a message through to Larian! (jk)

I will really argue this point. I am doing a heavy RPG play through and can tell you I have found some challenge more than a few times. However my real dispute with this statement is the line; "when you play the game how it's supposed to be played". The game has no set way to be played. Features are optional, choices a player makes. If you want to make use of every min/max, scum save and forget RP just do mechanic decision then your right, the game is super easy. However that is not the way they likely intended it to be played. This is after all an RPG, so some level of role play was likely expected.

There is no supposed to play or right way to play, except to have fun.

I didn't really mean it as a judgement on how people should play games. I just think there's a distinction between exploitable gameplay features and exploitable quality-of-life features. Respec isn't meant to be an actual gameplay feature. It's there in case the spell you picked three levels ago doesn't work how you expected it to work, or because you feel like being a warlock for a while, or because you want to mess around with your party, etc.

I'm all for balancing actual spells and items and improving the AI, but once someone goes through four loading screens to get an edge in a fight with a quality-of-life feature, they only have themselves to blame. I don't mind them doing it, but what's the point in patching something like that?

I seriously don't know what you guys are talking about.

Well I am sure it's not intentional to play solo in a 4 pt member game. But out of that i pretty sure I played as intended.
I used some broken items but only for a short period of time just to point out that its broken. Then I sold them or I just forgot where I putted them. I don't used respec I just used single class no prebuff no cheese no barrels no death no save scuming and I only sleeped when the game forced me.

As reading Zentu 's Dwarf challenge I am almost qualified to all of the points expect the opening. There are a simple some door's and locks that cannot be beated by a flail. And without other parti members I could not play out this part of that challenge.

I'd rather increased difficulty would force you to manage your resources and use your team abilities better, i.e. play better. Rather than adding even more stats to enemies and forcing players to copy the most broken OP builds from the internet, and use cheesy exploits.

But I'm assuming Larian resorts to the latter. That's why I lost interest in Act III. The game plays like a brainless smash fest already.

Repetita iuvant, as it seems there are hardheads objecting even to the most easy and simple implementation to do.

I’d also ban build videos that 15 minutes in suddenly go… “and then you respec after finding these gloves”. But it’s harder to implement.

None of this matters. Respec is there for minmaxers with OCD, but it doesn't actually affect the gameplay. You only complain about it because you can't stand the idea of someone exploiting it. Or using it in a video. In a single-player game. Which probably means you're a minmaxer with OCD, but I digress.

I give a serious suggestion to improve the game, removing options in a higher difficulty mode (not in every mode of course) because these options are exploitable, therefore against the purpose of an higher difficult mode.

There are exploits derived from features, and even if in a single player game they are not that important they tend to put the game itself in a bad light. Community know them, why not ask for their contingent removal? Inevitably, the community itself is showcasing exploits, what I don’t like in some parts of the community itself is the way some exploits are treated as ‘normal’ min-maxing.

Exploits matter and should be addressed. And Withers is an easy one to address. What’s your problem with removing it in a new mode Gottfried? Since you think you are the better player and the only one not exploiting the game your conclusion is that ‘it doesn’t matter’?

Who do you think you are Gottfried? Think you’re entitled to address me that way?
You are the kind of hardhead I was referring to, even came out to reply with a personal attack confirming it. I don’t know why the mods are not banning you. All you care is to underline how you played the game fair, while all others according to you are idiots (your words); OCD minmaxers (again your words); giving irrelevant suggestions because only you know ‘the real problem’ (your contribution to the thread). What a douchebag. If they ban me instead for this, it was worth it.

Anyway. Have another hint for Larian: no shared XP for companions in camp in Honour mode. Another easy (afaik) implementation.

Tweak rules and not use some core mechanics of a game is very different. Keep in mind that this is a video game and our "DM" has already tweaked many things.

When you are playing DnD you are not limiting yourself because things are broken OP. When you are playing TT games you are using the rules the game allow and you're bot changing them "because".

Sure I may not have written "stupid" because everyone is free to play how he wants to... but I guess most players of turn based video games are looking for a challenge without having to not use this, this, this, this and this.
I'm not even talking about barrelmancy which is a "full play style"that require a lot of efforts.

But I won't ever be happy to die or feel challenged by the game if I choose to let my party die because I "don't want to use" a poorly balanced base mechanic of the game like throwing a potion...