Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Adamantine Dwarf Challenge

People keep talking about needed a more difficult play through for BG3, so lets create a challenge and see how it works.
Rules for the challenge:

1) Turn Off Karmic Dice
2) Only one retry on locks with picks
3) No Respecs
4) Only Scrolls for resurrection
5) Once you change class you cannot go back. So it your at level 3 fighter and take a level of Wizard, your now going to level only wizard and if you want out of Wizard you need to take a different class and this is now your class going forward. (This is a bit of a hybrid approach of older DnD rules and the newer rules.)
6) Party wipe means game over
7) Play at Tactical Level
8) No Save Scum (Obviously)
9) No Mods
10) Only use the story companions as they come in the game. No hirelings unless you have no companions left due to death.
11) Only Casters may use scrolls
12) No use of Magic Pockets in combat

If there is something else I am missing please let me know. The idea is to create a challenging play through for those that feel the game is too easy. This is a SUGGESTION and nothing more. I started this play through, with a few other rules for my RP, a couple of days ago. I am at the Blighted Village now. No scrolls of resurrection used as of yet.

Things I would add/change to your list:

1. No magic pockets. If the companion doesn't have the item in their own inventory during combat, they can't use it.

2. Permadeath. No scrolls. If a companion dies, they're permanently out of the party. Use another companion.

The Magic Pockets, personally does not bug me as the party would be talking through things and would hand over an item if needed.

The Permadeath and my decision to use scrolls is a concession to the game. The scrolls make you pay attention and by not using the "God of Death" revive at your camp not paying attention can mean the lose of a character. I think the game is a bit unforgiving in some ways with death. I have seen the AI often of out of it's way to double attack a downed partied member despite them being out of the fight. I personally think they would ignore him as they have active targets.

That being said this was just my concession, Permadeath is a very viable play rule for this kind of challenge.

Oh, I get it. I just find that those two additions really impact my playstyle, making me more cautious. I end up approaching scenarios with a bit more respect for them.

Regarding the magic pockets, I get using it for keys and such out of combat. But in combat, if Billy has a potion of speed and he's halfway across the room, Sally can't easily ask him to hand it over. After all, she's got Dror Ragzlin breathing hot breath in her face. Ultimately, it makes a bigger difference than you'd think in the overall difficulty level, carefully parceling out which companion gets which consumables.

I get where you're coming from with the scrolls, but there are soooo many of them to be had. And, at least for me, the danger of suddenly losing, say, Astarion forever, looms as a major consequence. Again, it makes me respect the scenarios more and increases the overall difficulty.

I also do a few other things that I figured weren't worth mentioning. Like, I don't use barrels or fog cloud tactics, and I avoid using certain elixirs

Personally, I'm really hoping that Larian gifts us a harder difficulty level, one that is carefully thought out rather than a heavy fisted hp, attack, and damage bloat. I've always dreamed of playing a game where the NPCs follow the same rules as the PCs and still pose a threat, due to either sheer numbers of combatants, or better AI that learns from all the millions of players. Call me a dreamer.

Game settings (like karmic dice, and difficulty), no mods or save scumming are reasonble for people seeking a challange, but not nearly enough to create an actual challange. And permadeath doesn't make the game more difficult, it's likely to make the player more careful which makes the game even easier. And while the rest of the list could give people some ideas to challenge themselves, it's presented as an answer to requests for the game itself to have a higher difficulty, and that is just silly. People seeking a challenge generally don't want to artificially restrict themselves to get any sort of challenge, they want to test themselves against the game, within the game's own rules and mechanics.

Obviously, the best solution is for Larian to release a harder difficulty level.

But I still think it's more than fair to bandy about ideas for how to personally make the game more challenging.

I did not think to include that since I never used it. In combat swapping stuff has been something I have avoided from play through one. Great idea.


I partially agree with the use of barrels. I hate when I watch people sneak around placing barrels like no one would notice. Using barrels where they are is a valid tactic. Carrying a barrel to a close location to create a choke point a valid tactic. Having barrels in your backpack seems silly to me. On elixir's I am torn. I think they made them to long lasting. I understand the reasoning for coding simplicity. Maybe if you made them vanish with any short or long rest they could be better.


This last line made me laugh at loud. the concept of Ironman Gaming has been around for DECADES. Devoted players would want to up the challenge of a game and would create rules for playthroughs challenging others to stepup and try. Add to this that stepping outside a games mechanics is often what leads to the best RPG play. When you use and exploit every game mechanic there is a term from back in the day, we called it min/maxing.

Maybe your position is true among younger gamers. Not sure why as this is just a test of will power over the game. For old school gamers however the Ironman style challenges is a time honored and revered tradition.

Is that so? Name 5 other very big, trivialy easy, slow paced, heavily RNG based, story driven games that have a popular scene doing iron man challenges.

LOL, games with active hard core players doing Ironman challenges...

Okay Any of the Civ games, Xcom games, I know a lot of people did it in early CRPGs like the Gold Box series, Neverwinter Nights and so on. In today games I have seen people doing it in Cyberpunk, modern CRPGs like Solasta and the various Pathfinder.

Ironman gaming has been around a LONG time.

Just wanted to throw in Temple of Elemental Evil.

Planescape: Torment

Didn’t know i played adamantine dwarf mode during my first playthrough

Well ok i did save scum couple of dc 30 persuasion checks and I absolutely retry picking locks if i low roll and fail.

Also in my game only casters can use scrolls, i never fast travel and rest only when my party is totally out of spell slots and resources. Oh and I choose items based on looks, not stats

That's a good one. I make a point of doing that, also.

Nice...

I don't like the idea to put restrictions on ourselves. There should be a difficulty option which will include all of this.

Challenge accepted once I am done with my current run!

I am betting rule 5 applies to companions as well, riiight? Well, I know exactly what class Tav will be lol. But no respecs on companions, yeh, that hurts cause their 'default' stat spreads kind of lock them into very specific class options heh, but can easily get around that with some planning ofc. Kinda looks like I will have to drag Gale around and use Wyll for the entirety of the run for the 1st time in my life lol.

Solasta has its own Ironman challenge it's an option when you start a new game and cannot be changed during the game. You can only load your latest save and Permadeath if your party dies, it deletes your save.

Honestly solasta is worst than BG3 even with every custom difficulty settings. The amount of ac saves are ridiculous the classes are completely broken especially hombrew classes.

And I solasta it isn't even optional to go alone.
At least in BG3 Ansur the dragon is a little bit difficult.

How does that option make the game easier or harder? I've turned that off ASAP, no less as having it on makes things fare more opaque and less "predictable" (if you know your Maths). ;-) https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=709925#Post709925 All the hit-chances displayed on the screen aren't your actually hit chances anymore. And you have NO idea of what they actually are.

However, the karmic dice supposedly aren't supposed to merely go one way, that is in your favor. But enemies too. Or are they?! E.g. enemy has already missed two swings in a row and you've got all your protection spells up and running? Well bad news, next time, he's gonna hit ya where it smells funny no matter what!