Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General We need Non-Combat XP

So right now the ONLY thing we seem to get combat for is killing stuff, I'd like to see XP awarded for more things, skill checks, milestones etc. as it is, you're gimping yourself by talking your way out of problems, and... I'm not sure I like that as it dischourages well.. sucess. we should get SOMETHING for sucessfully talking our way past a fight

We should be getting exp for each encounter, whether it was resolved peacefully or violently. The way it is it just punishes the player for not being a murder hobo. And not even "give less exp for peaceful", no. If the total exp for that counter by killing would have been 200, then the peaceful option should be 200 too. You had to pass a skill check(s) to get that peaceful route, you should not be punished for how you made your character and what you did. Missed loot because you didn't kill? Sure. Exp? No, players should get that either way.

I'd not mind a TINSY less XP on the theory that you save resources that can be spent elsewhere, but I agree as you also don't gain resources from looting corpses.

yeah they fell right back into the div 1 and 2 problem. Why gimp yourself talking your way out of stuff. Even if you do it by accident, go back and kill them because they made avoiding it less worth it

I've been getting XP for discovering places, so it's not limited to killing stuff.

I'm also don't appear to be behind in XP despite using deception to avoid combat and in general not trying to kill everything I see.

Saying that, they really should go with XP as reward for encounters and not per head. This will allow to make abstraction of the how encounter are resolved and not reward one path more than the other.

Uh, in dos and Dos2 you got xp for exploration, solving quests, discover secrets and using dialogues and stuff like that. You can go back at the end of the act and kill everyone for extra xp if you want to but it´s not mandatory.


It would be great if you also have xp for exploration, uncover secrets and the use of skills ( dialogue, thievery, arcana and nature checks, perception and investigation,...) and things like that. I expect we would have those at full game release.

As long as I am NOT getting 25 xp for delivering a letter from NPC A to NPC B - I did not select the Postal Worker class, no matter how postal my character might get.

So wait I didn't get any XP when I reloaded to not have to kill Nettie?

So I have to murder everyone to get XP?

This is something that Pillars of Eternity did really well. Your main source of XP was from completing quests, however you went about completing them (with a little extra from filling your bestiary codex, exploration, and skill encounters)

The problem with XP from kills is that a lot of players feel a tension between roleplaying and playing optimally. If you want to play optimally, that generally means taking the route with more XP and loot. So some players feel actively encouraged to sacrifice roleplaying, by a roleplaying game.

It's kind of a shame, because it seems like Larian didn't really look at some of the design choices in some of the great recent CRPGs...

I don't think it should always be equal. Sometimes it'll be easier and take less effort to talk someone out of fighting you than it would be to kill them, and vice-versa.

I expect POE is not the model to aspire to, because the thing about "after killing X number of creatures of this type you do not get more xp" was a bummer.

I remember playing a third of the game without a single xp gain after killing ceaseless amounts of creatures in the game, specially in the expansions and the (very accurately named) Endless path dungeon. In a game where usually there´s no way to solve quests besides pure hack´n slash and spell smiting if you do not get something in return after a few fights it gets tiresome.

That and the fact that the level cap was way low. I remember playing both expansions at the level cap, without gaining xp and usually with better stuff than the one I got there so I enjoyed the story, but the endless combat between plot advancement was a pain.
After I finished it the first time never went back to the game, not even to make a new story to import the game to POE2.

Put in all the options and let each player play how they like?

So what if aome people prefer killing enemies for loot?

Some people want to take peaceful options?

Make both viable.

I mean remember this is early access. I would bet they are planning on having more non combat XP. If they aren't, they really need to because any DM worth their salt will reward their players for diplomacy and finding alternatives to resolving things.

Just bc it's EA doesn't mean it shouldn't be said. We don't know if they are, we don't have a roadmap or a list of things to be added. So everything should be said to bring notice.

I fully support xp being given per-encounter, with skill checks and etcetera awarding xp. The same amount of xp, not less. As someone who loves playing persusasive characters I don't want to penalized for talking my way out of situations.

+1 Exactly this.
They should also tag the NPC's as belonging to certain quests/peaceful dialogue resolutions - so if you do the peaceful way out and get XP for that, you shouldn't be able to murder them afterwards for double XP.

I would love a confirmation from Larian that XP from quests/dialogue is in the works so we can stop reiterating on the same ideas constantly. Do they have a list of known/accepted changes, bugs, requests?

an issue tracker would be SUCH an improvment, and the ability to mention other issues...

agree - but then the level cap should be raised

I totally agree

My favourite game is still Deus Ex (the original one)
You get exp for exploration and doing quests, not for killing or using skills.
This way you are free to approach every situation however you like ( sneaking, talking, fighting, . . .) without feeling bad about it.

Deus Ex did so many things right with their game design that even today, it is an amazing example of this