Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Would a higher Proficiency Bonus be a good house rule for BG3?

Advantage is not the be all bonus, there are +1 and up along with additional dice rolls. There is a thread already about this, maybe take the convo their.

Remove Height and Backstab as Sources of Advantage/Disadvantage

I completely disagree with this, for a good couple of reasons (including cheeky ones), but I don't want to derail this thread. So I'll point you to a thread dedicated to the intuitiveness of the high-ground rule and reality (or lack of it) that it captures/models.

Real people also die from the first hit or get crippled for life, but that would make for a boring game or movie so we have to bend realism a little bit. We can't hand out mundane ways of granting advantage without nerfing the aforementioned spells that are designed to grant it at the cost of a spell slot to oblivion.

Like I said, I want stricter 5e rules. Im just saying I am not so opposed to house rules that make sense.

Again, I would argue that it is much easier to peg someone from my second story deck than it is on the ground.

Play nerf swords and such with some kids. See what I mean. It is SO much easier to hit one of the 5 kids running around from higher up than on the ground. Likewise, when even 2 screaming kids attack you with melee weapons, it is really hard to block all of them. Thus, advantage makes sense to me.

I agree with melee and that's why flanking would make sense but I totally disagree with highground even in your exemple.

Highground gives you a better overview and a better range. Not a better accuracy at all.
I could even say that your %to hit one of the 5 kids (with a snowball) would be better if you're on the same floor. But I won't take time to draw something to explain.

I don't think you would need to take the time to draw Maximuuus. Nezix did probably what you have in mind, in a thread dedicated to the intuitiveness of the high-ground rule and reality (or lack of it) that it captures/models.

I am of the opinion that high ground in a skirmish battle (like in BG3) should realistically provide no benefit what so ever, except improved range. But that thread is probably not the best place to discuss it (that one would be better).


On a different note, Hotfix 10 introduced more tweaks to the random number generation ... as I mentioned there, this here thread suggests (and quite relevantly imo) that perhaps BG3 could just change the base rules instead.

The high ground has been proven throughout history to be more advantageous in battle, is my point. My other is that it does improve accuracy. Seriously. Get a bow, fire at a target on the same level as you. Then get to a higher level and fire at the same target. I'm telling you, higher makes it easier especially when you add more targets and obstacles on the field.

Take the Battle of Helms Deep. You have thousands of orcs swarming the walls. Is it easier to hit an orc climbing a wall or at the base of the walls, or is it easier when they are on the wall with tons of allies and other orcs as well? If they are all on the same level, it is much harder to tell friend from foe and to even time your shot more accurately because everyone is on the same level milling about fighting. If you are higher, it is even easier to shoot over the heads of allies. Besides, you have the added disadvantage of having the enemy possibly coming at you to kill you while you're taking aim when in the same level. The stress alone is more if the enemy is on the same level with you. If you are higher up, you can see them better and know they can't really get you while you aim.

Anyway, I'm not saying they should keep high ground as an advantage. I just think that it is one of those things that they could make a reasonable argument for. High ground, again, is historically advantageous, so it makes sense to get advantage. I'd rather they focus on things that make no sense at all, like barrel throwing and eating food in combat and long rests being able to be spammed and actually encouraged for dialogue purposes.

Almost every sentence here was an argument for high ground's efficacy at removing cover, not the inherent benefits of high ground itself.
"...especially when you add more targets and obstacles on the field"
"when [orcs] are on the wall with tons of allies and other orcs"
"easier to shoot over the heads of allies"
It's exactly as you say. High ground is advantageous mainly because it allows you to ignore cover and more easily shoot in to masses of the enemy instead of enemy+ally groups. Also, it takes longer for enemies to reach you if they have to climb a hill vs run down a hill, so you have more time to shoot them.

And 5e already has a system for cover. Shooting past a character grants the target half cover (+2 AC, +2 Dex STs). Hiding behind a big obstacle or merlons (those protrusion on top of castle walls) grants three-quarters cover (+5 AC, +5 Dex STs). Notably, neither of these scenarios grant Advantage, which means they stack with other sources of Advantage. On a un-crenelated hilltop where there are no merlons to hide behind, the bonus for height advantage should then be +2.

I agree. That's why I said I'm not necessarily agreeing with high ground advantage. There are better ways of handling it than advantage. I'm just saying I wasn't as opposed to it. Bonuses are a much better tool than advantage.

Even with backstabbing, a bonus method would be better. +2 for each ally striking an enemy would be better than just advantage. So then, if I mass attack one for I am strategically benefitting more for doing this. It isn't the same to attack with just 2 as it is to attack with 4.

If the game were to go hyper-realistic with tactics you'd need a revolving sun. Having the sun at your back is a huge tactical advantage as your foes have to deal with glare in their eyes.Adding to this, getting the high ground also meant your units were at the battlefield first. So you would have more time to set up traps, learn the lay of the land, etc.
We can't logically give all the benefits of being the first-mover to "high ground". We have to separate the two.

Which goes to Mr. Fuji's post. If you put two equivalent armies in a vacuum and one starts on higher ground...
The benefits would be:

• The moments the enemy had to put down weapons to climb (climb speed)
• The reserved energy from not having to run up a hill (rough terrain)

We also can't give the benefits of having a castle to high ground:
If both sides just stood their ground and fired arrows at each other, their accuracy would be equivalent. It's why prior civilizations built forts and castles. You could design vantage points that could provide protection for your archers (Literally some castles had trapezoidal windows). It's also why Fortnite became a popular game, being able to create your own cover on-the-fly is more strategically interesting/advantageous than shooting at each other in a vacuum.

Go back and play old school Quake or Halo and high ground was mostly exposure. It was really easy to see a player standing on a structure. What mattered more was who saw the other first.
You're an adult versus children, you have a longer reach. Which is why taking polearm master and a glaive is a popular strategy in 5e.

I suspect that the ease of gaining an advantage is just a way to reduce rng. The current system of gaining an advantage such as attack from behind or high terrain is quite easy for the average player to understand.
Due to the fact that Larian targets a fairly wide range of players, RNG reduction makes sense, although you can argue whether it is the best solution (not too much in my opinion).

It’s odd to me that developers still see gamers as clueless individuals who have no ability to grasp different combat systems.

Video games aren’t a new field. They’ve been around for almost half a century now and is mainstream. Gamers have become much more sophisticated and to think the average gamer can’t figure out basic 5e mechanics seems a bit insulting.

But I guess that’s the price of building a AAA game. You have to cater to the lowest common denominator.

A flat bonus does more to reduce rng than Advantage. Especially for ability checks/saving throws where a 1 isn't an automatic failure. And even more especially since Larian's rng has streaks, where a 5 for the first d20 makes it more likely that the second d20 will also be a 5.

To bring the discussion back to proficiency bonus, modifying this value for various difficulty levels would be a much a much better option than all the workarounds Larian has implemented to improve success chance (backstab, height advantage, inspiration, loaded dice).

1) Adding a flat bonus is also a way to reduce the impact of RNG and it has less nasty side-effects than granting advantage.
2) The basics of dice rolling in D&D are dead simple. Roll a d20, add your bonus, see if you hit your target. If the game took three seconds to teach their players, it wouldn't be an issue. And if they do teach players what's going on, then a flat bonus is much easier to understand than advantage. If they really think their players are idiots and that they need to do the simplest possible thing, a flat bonus is better.

This...


And this...

Everyone understand why they choose to give easier bonuses to our %to hit... that's not a problem.

But many don't like that their answer is "advantage" for many good reasons.

You have too much faith in people
I have been playing WoW for years and all this time I have met a lot of people who, although they have lost hundreds (or thousands) of hours in the game, still have problems with the basic mechanics.
WoW has never been a very complicated game.
The extreme case was someone who has been playing for over 5 years.

I think no one would perceive players like that if in fact a fairly large part didn't act like that.