Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Let's focus on : dipping

I agree with the oil suggestion. If you had to coat your weapon in oil as an action and then ignite it on a bonus action next turn it'd be a lot more immersive and balanced at the same time.

I did. And I agree with all of it except for Larian exploring strategic options outside 5e. Can't really think of one thing really new except incentivizing tactical movement through height/flanking advantages -- which is an old D&D thing (that a lot of people feel are OVER-incentivized in BG3 EA). Even "barrelmancy" is a thing that could exist in D&D, through barrels of Alchemical Fire for instance...or plain old Fireball (wand if you have to), or potion of Fire Breath, etc. The issue isn't even that these things already exists in superior forms to those of Larian, but that Larian seem dead set on forcing these options on you at all times. Total waste considering how freaking complex D&D already is. To me, it kind of shows a lack of appreciation for D&D.

can someone more knowledgeable than me put the details of the dipping mechanism ? I think it cost a bonus action iirc, so potentially movement as well to get close to the source , duration is ? is it easy to set it up before a fight ?

I'm not sure I remember well but what does it cost to coat your weapon with poison ? Action or bonus action ?


You're right, I wasn't thinking about shove and barrelmancy while talking about "completely different systems" because as you said, those can easily be avoided. But you were talking about this so I should have been more precise.

Anyway that's not really what the thread is about.

Dipping cost a bonus action.

It doesn't really require anything else because you can have a torch or a candle in your inventory, let it fall on the ground for free, light it for free and dip for a bonus action.

It's a bit tedious and you have to remember to pick up your candle after dipping (for free), but that's how it work. Of course you can dip on any other fire sources if there is one.

You can do it outside of combats, but it's not really necessary because it really cost nothing more than a bonus action.

It last for 2 turns (nor 100% sure) and add 1D4 fire damages to all dipped weapons (even if you have 2 weapons, you dip both at the same time during the same bonus action)

What is so immersive about the basics of druidic magic warping because you encountered a ladder? Like talk about changing D&D to suit a game!

Also, I want to just beg you to stop talking about resources in this way. The time put into giving these models ladder animations is probably pretty trivial, it's not as if they had someone actually mocap a bull climbing a ladder you know, they just had an animator do it while he was doing all the other animation for the bull. What do you think is the total cost of that? Minutes? Hours?

It's silly. It's unnecessary. It devalues finding a weapon that has the inherent quality anyway. Or maybe makes it sillier - a fiery sword of ice, anyone?

Poison should still be included since that is a standard and expected thieve's tool. Being able to use poison as a bonus action might be a bit strong; full action maybe?

Quality of life, I don't want to wait for an animation to play for my druid to shift out of animal form, climb the ladder then shift back. It also creates new logical problems. If my character can briefly shift out and back into form to climb a ladder why can't she do the same to cast a spell or use an item? Having animals climb in animal form is the quickest easiest solution.

Thanks for the through information !
Then at least we can safely assume that the 'torch/candle' trick will not last. If DOS2 is of any clue, I think the "loot for free in fight" is a pure EA mechanism not meant to stay.

Agreed
Yes, this is stupid. Sheathing the weapon should cancel the fire (also hitting someone with it) Bows should never be on fire, only the arrows
The spells Flame Blade and Flame Arrows will most likely be pointless and I guess we won't be finding magical fire weapons
Anything we can do the enemies should also be able to do. Perhaps make this one of the menu options for smarter AI
Agreed. I think it should require an already existing flame source nearby, not a portable magic candle that never goes out.
Yes. Maybe a bottle of oil. Maybe could cast the Grease spell on weapons or dip them in a greased area. (Grease being flammable is usually DM dependent but could work in this case)

Can't really say pros and cons without coming across as super negative and critical (hint - I do not see any pros with the current candle cheese.) You covered most of my issues with it, only a couple of things I would add.
It should cost an action to light weapons.
Standing next to a source of fire should remove disadvantage from enemies attacking you if they do not have darkvision and the combat is in a dark area.

Dipping a weapon in poison is cool. But should be impossibkle in Combat and be prepared BEFORE combat starts. After all we are talking about a dangerous Process where you have to avoid contact with the poison at all cost. And carefully coating a blade is NEVER done in 6 seconds.

Dipping in fire or ICE is plain stupid and nonsense. It totaly devaluates Items with that feature. Long gone are the DnD days where the crowd stood in awe when a high lvl palladin draw its sword and it errupts in holy flames........ In larians game a farmer can hold a sword over an freaking candle and there you go..... welcome to Larians world.

Only hardcore Druid playing D&D fans would likely see it as the warping of some rigid "basics of druid magic". Even so, almost everyone would see it as warping basic physics itself. What is objectively more immersion breaking?


Wow. You have an entirely unrealistic view of how fast things can be done. Larian has likely already been working for WEEKS on this and they are far from done. Minutes? Hours? You honestly think this was something Larian threw together on an impulse while Swen was polishing and donning his armor? Haha. Moreover, this work is not anything near finished presently and will require more work with the expanding number of beasts made available to the Druid. Consider how slow the improvements actually come during EA (we have gotten like one new class in EA going on six months - while many classes/subclasses implemented still aren't working properly), and you'd be a fool not to realize this rather objective waste of resources WILL impact what else will be implemented down the road. Anything non-core PHB becomes less realistic to hope for, non-PHB even more so. One can only hope it will specifically be counted AGAINST the number of wild shape beasts that are made available to the Druid itself. Resources are limited and prioritizing one thing is saying no to another.

This is rigid naysay thinking. You don't want to wait all of two seconds for an animation to play (an animation that could be sped up for this purpose and even be played while moving)...while likely still having to wait for longer than that in queue for your turn to climb the ladder anyway? If the Druid moves first (and animation grounded you for a second), the companions behind could easily be made to climb ahead/skip turn. No/very little time would be lost in practice.

So you consider the breaking of physics itself to be less of a logical problem than taking slight liberties with some small specific D&D rules for quality of life purposes? Wowsies. Larian has already taken more liberties with their implementation of wild shape, I don't see you complaining about this. You can easily go from one shape to another in combat, DISMISSING a shape is now FREE, and changing in combat is a bonus action instead of D&D RAW full-action. And how is this much different from dismissing a shape during climbing ladders (and regaining it immediately after)? Besides, if you listened to the D&D rep on the panel of hell stream, he explained the reasons for limiting number of wild shapes are that tabletop D&D Druids have virtually unlimited selection of wild shapes that potentially could break encounters. This is not the case where Larian controls every encounter. A very quick change could be explained/roleplayed however you want...changing back to natural form for a short time and your body still is in flux for instance.

Agreed. But not even the whole arrow, just the pointy part of it. This would be the only dipping that isn't directly immersion breaking given the realism of wood burning.


Agreed. This has been an additional point of contention for me. Whatever the player can do that isn't grounded in something logically unique, the AI should be able to do. Not only for the sake of challenge in combat, but for realism and immersion of combat.


Agreed. There is a noticeable lack of responsiveness to environmental effects/changes in general. For instance, the early encounter with bandits at the ruin where the halfling archer is standing on wooden boxes. If you destroy this box, at least with the Mage Hand, the halfling will act is nothing happened and resume his position on the ground. The lack of realistic reactions & effects all contribute to making the game less immersive than it could easily be.

Yes, this is what I meant to say.

My druid being able to magically transform as much as he wants as long as ladders are involved is more immersion breaking. Having a bear climb a ladder is literally the elegant solution. I'd even prefer the animals just jumping the distance than seeing my druid constantly transform to climb ladders, like in Godhand.
https://twitter.com/lacquerleaks/status/1003411446607241216


I can't tell if you didn't read what I said or are just misrepresenting it, but I'm literally talking about the ladder climbing animations. That's what you brought up as being a waste of resources, and that's what I'm talking about. Obviously I'm not saying the entire druid implementation took hours, I'm saying the climbing animations took that long. Further, time spent on animations doesn't mean less time spent on class implementations or bug fixes, I'm going to guess the animators primarily animate.

If you can't be bothered to read my replies and respond in good faith just leave them alone, thank you.

well if they make it in line with poison - consumable i have no problem with it. as is i reckon it kind of brakes the new druid fire weapon spell as well but i have yet to see that in action.

Maybe, dipping only lasts three rounds and gives a 1d4 bonus fire damage. I haven't watched the vid but it might be possible to apply dipping on top of the spell.

The druid fire weapon spell deal 3D6 damages and is limited by your concentration. 3D6 is an average of 10.5 damages.

A 1D12 2H weapon + 1D4 additionnal damages is 9.

According to me the problem is dual wield because you can dip your two weapons at the same time.
2*1D6 + 1D4 average at 12 for a bonus action. This is too much and dual wield looks pretty OP.

I'm not experienced with 5e, and I've only had the game 6 days, but I'm already 99% sure they only added this feature to give you something to do with your bonus action if there isn't a convenient cliff to shove someone off. Not the worst idea in the world but the implementation is clumsy as all Hells.