Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback You can't lose to a lone boss

The way downed characters and/or the help action work should probably be changed.

Today I fought the Spectator, which I'm guessing is supposed to be a difficult fight considering its high amount of hit points and powerful attacks.
But it's virtually impossible to lose to it.
Every turn it will damage one character and try to paralyze another. In my encounter it focused damage on Lae'zel.
But the problem is that as soon as Lae'zel is downed, I can just use the help action, then it kills her again, I help, repeat.

As long as I have a character near Lae'zel she won't ever die, and so I won't ever lose, and I would guess that this is the case with a lot of other bosses that are faced on their own.

Yes, that is the problem. I think they should introduce the system from DA: O.
If a character is defeated in combat, they should automatically rise after combat.
A defeated character may have a debuff that will only be removed when resting.
Optionally, you can allow characters to be rise up in combat with scrolls.

I guess the drow werent present in your encounter?

That is a result of 2 mechanics.
1) Help action restoring your HP. Raw you should only be able to get a party member up by feeding them a potion or using a spell, which are limited resources.
2) Action economy (this one isn't Larians falt). Creatures that are designed to be bosses tend to have legendary actions (ability to act more then ones per round).

Yeah that was exactly my thought

The Medicine skill in 5e allows for stabilising a dying character, which effectively puts them in the state of being unconscious but not needing to make Death saves. The Healer's kit also gives this ability.

Neither gives them 1hp and gets them walking again, though.

More slippery slope problems with their hombrew rules. Items as a bonus action? Well we cant have players reviving others as a bonus action, better remove that function of potions alltogether. So how can we bring up downed players? Oh, well just scrap the incredibly usedful command called 'Help' and make that the new +1 potion. By making items a bonus action, they must nerf potions to prevent them from being a healing word on every player... and then we remove the ability to add advantage to an allies attack because we need the real estate.

Yeah, boss fight somewhat feels easy, its a lot harder to deal with 4+ enemies tho, but I guess its ok for a early access, hopefully they balance stuff after a while

I find it amazing how people see a problem here tbh... what do you guhs want? That after someone goes down players have to jump through hoops to get them back on their feet?

It would give more value to healers if help couldn't bring up KO'd characters. I like it.

There definitely need to be good ways to bring them back during combat. If you generally had to finish combat before getting them back, getting critted would be extremely detrimental and probably just cause you to quickload rather than fighting through it.

As for the spectator, it alone is definitely not meant to be some superboss EA endgame content. I'm sure we'll have tough solo bosses later on.

Well there are no giant bosses as of yet. This is early access and maxed at level 4! I’m sure once you fight let’s say anything with a breath weapon that shoots a cone of pain and nails 3 of your guys at once you will change that stance

That's not the problem. The problem is the way a single remaining enemy is programmed to keep attacking the weakest party character, even if it's downed. That becomes a player exploit, as in the OP's example where one party member can keep throwing heals on the downed member to retain that enemy focus, and the rest can attack while being ignored.

I brought this up in another thread, about how unrealistic it felt to see a single remaining enemy (not a boss) attacking the downed party member on the floor, while ignoring the other rest of my party about to hill him because we were being ignored.

No intelligent enemy would act that way. If you have knocked one member of an opposing force unconscious, why would you suddenly ignore the other three threats and keep whacking the one on the floor? What's the greater risk, those three who are about to attack, or the chance that the one you're hitting might get back up with a Help action? It feels like just a poorly designed "go for weakest party member" AI routine.

Lol if you focus on the others they will res the one thats downed.

Some enemies (like the gith at end of ravine) can kill off your guy if hes on the floor at the start of the fight.

*splat* good luck ressing that.

OP is ignoring both the drow in thr fight with the Beholder and the stun ray. Maybe he was lucky a few times in a row with saves against its effect? Having your guys be unable to act for a few turns is very nasty.

Also consider this: if you are outnumbered and basicly know you are going to die. What would you try to do? Take 1 down with you or spread the scratches around that they can then just heal off?

Not always, the downed party member may just be stabilized and still downed, as in the OP's example. That's an exploit that makes a fight too easy, when used intentionally that way.

It could be fixed by either shifting the AI to the most dangerous current target, or else randomize the AI's attack focus each turn between a downed party member or the most dangerous standing one.

The unlimited magical healing really needs to be removed from "Help".

A downed character needs to stay down unless you use a potion or healing spell on them.

It's crazy...you can't kill a PC because they get brought back for free every turn. But you can kick someone in a pit or water and they are insta killed. Killing is impossible and trivially easy at the same time.

Someone who fell to a bottomless pit showing up at the camp is very immersion breaking though.

If you fight the Spectator with the drow the difficulty drastically changes.
You have a chance to fight him alone, but you have to get to the solution of the problem before the fight: it's kinda a reward for a smart thought

I agree. The enemy should rather attack the character who came to help the one down.

Out of interest, how are you supposed to fight without the drow? As soon as combat starts he starts to remove petrification

There's an item that pops out a spectator

🤔

Must cause alot of stomach issues 😂