Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback DIPPING

I'd like to officially suggest in it's own thread the Dip action is modified so that adding elemental damage to a weapon requires the use of some kind of consumable. E.g. an oil or Alchemist's Fire or similar for fire.

Why?

Flavor

- Setting metal weapons on fire by merely dipping them in fire is asinine. Same with wooden weapons not being destroyed. Using flames as small as a candle is really silly. That is not how fire works in Faerûn, or anywhere else.

- Dipping in poison makes sense but a small vial or a spider creating a permanent huge pool of poison for everyone to dip in does not.

- Flaming weapons are no longer cool or anything special if everyone uses them all the time.


Mechanics

- I'd like Dip to be a proper tactical choice instead of a no-brainer thing to do always. Right now the mechanic is as deep as "Do you want to add 1d4 Fire damage to your weapon before attacking, Yes or No?"

- Duration could be made longer with a consumable

- Lighting up a torch and dropping it on the ground to dip should not be a free action. If anything, it negates the need for fun environmental synergies of using ground fires, braziers or wall mounted torches.

- It's too powerful for such little effort and no cost other than using a Bonus Action. E.g. fire for 3 turns on a Thief with 3 attacks = +8d4 = ~20 potential extra damage basically out of nowhere

I don't use dip - it's so absurd and unintuitive that I tend to forget about its existance.

I think the idea in itself is neat and make sense with some weapons. While dipping bow/crossbow still looks silly with how it is presented, it makes some kind of sense - arrows can be lighten on fire and shot out. I prefered magic ammo from earlier titles, but in a pinch this will do.

Dipping a melee weapon in fire, giving it fire status is straight up dumb. If it was me, I would make it do 1d4 fire damage to the wielder every turn and make a constutution check to not drop the weapon.

I agree with this suggestion.

A consumable to use before dipping would be a great improvement of the mechanic.

It would limit it's use so it's not anymore a free bonus damage for everyone.
It would become a tactical choice.
It would not anymore reduce the appeal of flaming weapons (atm they're only cool because you don't have to dip them...)
The mechanic would look more way more immersive in the game's setting.

On top of that, it could remain balanced in comparison to poison. If I'm not wrong poison only deals poison damage while a dipped weapon have a chance to ignite the target.

I'd also add that :
- wooden weapons should not be dippable
- the visual effect for bows/crossbow should change so only the arrows/bolt are in flame.
- the visual effect of all weapons should change so our characters hands are not totally in fire anymore.

I'm just not sure about the cost. Do you use the consummable for a bonus action then dip for another one ? Or is this an action with a single button for both ?

Imagine coating your weapon as a bonus action then cast a firebolt on it with Gale to ignite it at range.
It would be cool.

Love the idea! +1

Dont see any reason why all throwable vials cant work as those ooze bulbs from Hag ... aka. either coat your weapon with it, or throw it. :3

And it should work only with regular arrows ...

Or at least not with those, that would directly counter each other.
Doing Fire and Cold damage with single arrow is just odd.

That litteraly never happened to me. O_o
I didnt know its even possible.

How about if posioned weapons had a small chance to cause "poisoned" (disadvantage) status to balance it out?

So the real suggeston is to remove dipping. Because we also have coating which is exactly what you ask for.

How do you coat in fire?

Dipping is ridiculous and should be removed completely, at least from a reality standpoint. (I know it's a game...but still)

The only non-magical melee weapon that should benefit from being on fire is a torch. If I hit you with an unlit torch, 1d4 damage. If the torch is lit, 2d4 damage because the fuel oil that's keeping the torch alight can spatter all over you, do instant flaming damage, and possibly set you on fire. Cool, great.

If I hit you with a meter long, razor sharp sword, having some flaming oil on it isn't going to do ANY extra damage to you. That's absolutely ridiculous. Wooden blunt weapons, as someone else also said, shouldn't be a thing, unless it's soaked in oil first and then useless after one combat. Then maybe...

If I shoot you with a flaming arrow or crossbow bolt, please trust me, it not going to be ANY more damaging if the projectile is on fire. It's going to have ZERO chance of setting you on fire. And, unless it's a special, super heavy, blunt arrow with an oil soaked rag wrapped around the end (making range go way down and accuracy nearly non-existent) the flame is going to go out as soon as you fire it.
Dipping projectile weapons is stupid to put it nicely.

On the other hand...give us slings as a weapon and special ammo that could explode on contact, THAT makes sense. In place of a heavy metal projectile or stone, it could be a clay shell made containing flammable gel, alchemist fire, etc.

Rant over...

I may be wrong, because I didn't use it much, but I think you can right-click on Alchemist fire for coating.

I also think flaming weapons doing extra damage through non-magical means is pretty dumb, especially since the game does have magic for that, but for game reasons I can suspend some disbelief and imagine an oil or chemical can burn really hot or something.

But I can't suspend disbelief enough to accept a metal weapon bursting into flame on a quick dip in fire, much less a candle. There should be some sensible limits to this nonsense.

I like the concept of dipping/coating, and I'm perfectly willing to suspend (some of) my disbelief in exchange for the coolness of a flaming or poisoned weapon.

But a strong +1 that the mechanic should be relatively balanced, and be a bit more realistic than it currently is. Dipping/coating shouldn't be the free-material + bonus action cost that it currently is. To remain a bonus action, it should cost a consumable (oil flask, alchemist's fire, poison). Then it'd make sense (and remain somewhat balanced) to ignite an oil-coated sword by dipping it in a fire source.

Perhaps oil flasks could be less expensive, but require an additional dipping action to ignite (can you pre-oil a weapon before combat?).
Whereas Alchemist's Fire flasks are more expensive, but automatically light the weapon with their use and the flame lasts longer.

Oiling the blade is a part of weapon maintenance by the way.

Yeah the whole "making everything awesome for everyone all the time" is getting really fucking old.

I would also reduce the extra damage from a dip to be just +1 point of whatever elemental from whatever it was dipped in.

Frankly, I'd rather 'dipping' be removed, it's just stupid. But, I suppose your suggestion is a better state of affairs than what we've got.

I'm totally on board for poison dips actually. I mean if there's a creature that spits venom at you so that there's a pool of it at your feet, please feel free to dip that blade and stab someone with it, or dip that arrow and fire away. That makes sense. If I coat a dagger in rattlesnake venom, you can be sure it's going to do extra damage if I stick it in you.

I'd argue that it should be an action regardless - because if it's not, then you're undermining features and perks that specifically let professionals do it more efficiently, such as Fast Hands from rogue (an already marginalised perk), letting you take the Use an Item action as a bonus action - this perk is ideal for coating weapons, which would normally be the "use and item" action.

I don't use dipping because the idea of it is so ridiculous that I always forget it exists.

Maybe. I think that any consumable's action use should depend on it's strength & cost (by default, all items unless otherwise specified fall under the Free Item Interaction action category...which I suppose then defaults to an action because you've already used your free-item interaction to draw the potion). A quick-coating consumable that costs a significant amount and/or deals little damage wouldn't be terrible as an item, compared to the more-common action-use coatings. Potentially Larian could even allow Fast Hands to use such quick-consumables as a free action instead of a BA (assuming Larian implements the 1x Free Item Interaction restriction of course).

But yeah I do see where you're coming from, especially with the strength of dipping in BG3. +1d4 damage takes ~4+ attacks to start having positive worth assuming non-magical items and basic attacks. This is on the edge of being worth it for fighters, so making +1d4 damage dipping a BA is probably too strong.

A consumable could also extend the (fire) duration beyond 3 turns which factors in with the "worth it" calculations. I think 10 turns. That way it could be something you do at the start of a tough fight at the cost of a relatively rare and expensive consumable. A melee Fighter could easily spend an action while closing in to melee range with the enemy. And I really Fast Hands letting Rogues coat their daggers faster. I like a higher cost because then it's less spammable and more special.

So +1 for Action, with the possibility of extending duration and raising cost.