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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Apr 2014
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A really good combat-oriented DM will keep your party on the edge of death most of the time. It's what makes things exciting.
What BG3 really needs is a better set of tooltips to ease players new to 5e or players coming off of DOS2 into the system. Really emphasize Advantage vs Disadvantage, how the action economy works, guiding them into abusing the environment and the effective ways to combo with the party. Basically, use everything, unchain your party frequently, scout effectively, know how reactions work (how to intentionally trigger them, how to deflect them, how to prevent them), and use the right Action vs Bonus Action at the right time.
My observations from the forums and steam is that players familiar with tabletop are doing quite well, players from DOS2 have the right ideas but aren't familiar with the spells and systems enough to put them to use effectively, but players from BG1 & BG2 are really struggling because they're still used to the 2nd Edition rules and balance.
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Oct 2020
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I have had a lot of battles that went well, and i have had many encounters that I had to try a few times, or just avoided because I knew I would be toast and I didn't want to spend 20 minutes dying. However I made ti to the goblin camp and I think I am way underleveled because I have been talking my way out of a lot of fights so my gear is kind of eh and I lack experience etc. I have tried the hobgoblin in particular about seven different times and it isn't pretty. I agree with you, the enemies seem overpowered. At the very least, they miss a lot less than i do and seem to be able to move a lot farther than I can in one turn. The amount my party is missing is really just crippling. I'm not sure how you can miss Cleave, for example, when you are standing literally right next to the enemy. I share your frustration, OP, and I agree What I would like to see is being allowed two actions instead of one.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2020
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A really good combat-oriented DM will keep your party on the edge of death most of the time. It's what makes things exciting.
What BG3 really needs is a better set of tooltips to ease players new to 5e or players coming off of DOS2 into the system. Really emphasize Advantage vs Disadvantage, how the action economy works, guiding them into abusing the environment and the effective ways to combo with the party. Basically, use everything, unchain your party frequently, scout effectively, know how reactions work (how to intentionally trigger them, how to deflect them, how to prevent them), and use the right Action vs Bonus Action at the right time.
My observations from the forums and steam is that players familiar with tabletop are doing quite well, players from DOS2 have the right ideas but aren't familiar with the spells and systems enough to put them to use effectively, but players from BG1 & BG2 are really struggling because they're still used to the 2nd Edition rules and balance. You make a number of good points here. The first is that I would steer clear from combat-oriented DMs. I come to TTRPGs and indeed cRPGs for roleplay, not combat and in cRPGs in particular the combat tends to be the aspect I'd be most willing to part with (not that it can't be good or enjoyable, I love turn based combat in Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire). Also you're articulating a point that I haven't been able to properly articulate myself; the game needs to teach its players how it expects to be played. If it's going to expect players to make such high level use of everything at their disposal then it needs to be better at communicating that. Putting players in situations early on where creative, out of the box decisions are obvious and straight forward charging into combat would be suicidal. As well as teaching players all the systems you mentioned. Because I'm playing like I would play a standard cRPG on normal mode, where you can get through most combats by brute force with deeper system mastery needed for bigger challenges and boss fights.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2020
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Excerpts : (...)
Group movement: So I know combat is ahead, but my comrades keep following me when I try to setup a good position. I can not block a certain position with my melee fighters, because my mage trails in behind totally not in cover. I can only clunkily remove one, or select sneak individually to move them one by one. This system is cumbersome, unintuitive and hurtful in combat. You can also initiate combat by yourself beforehand and to setup, but this is also just explained as a sidenote and not shown as a tactical tool.
A perfect example of everything is a fight in the ruins that starts as soon as you unlock a door. So my main is a rogue, he opens the gate. My melee fighters are behind him and behind them is my mage. The enemies are mostly ranged. My rogue starts, unsneaked so I figure, best get a shot off and let them come to me. It only occured to me tonight before sleep that I could have lighted the candles left and right of the door, lighted my arrow and hit the oil barrel in the middle of the room, the stuff just never lighted up and I was never told. Next in line are three ranged dudes of them, they approach get in range to hit my mage and let loose, that is three arrows hit and the mage goes down. So reload and try to get my group into position, but I can not really, because of the movement system. So I do the best I can, start the fight in sneak, and manage to kill one guy right away. My plan is to cast a fog so I can move up my melee fighters, however initiative makes it so that I should have done that last turn, so my fighters can move up this turn, so it is delayed. Meanwhile one enemy just throws an oil barrel into the doorway and all bets are off again and the plan fails, as anyone moving through fire or acid will take a lot of damage. So I sit there until the fire is out and otherwise can only pop out and shoot arrows. Once it is out, I move, but the ash is hindering my movement, never knew that, so my fighters take a beating while not approaching as far as possible. My mage misses his fire bolt and the sleeping enemy is out of my shortbow range. The fight was not particularly hard, but it was long and not particularly fun, because my options were limited and I limited myself, because the endless possibilities were not known to me.
Responding to the group movement issue (which is tedious and hampers my fun) : - Enter turn-based mode (before combat) : this is the most precise way of getting ready / in position. - Other method : drag portraits out of the "chain", so they each do not auto-follow. When portraits (bottom left) are side by side, they follow. When there is a space between them, they do separate paths. This is NOT at all obvious and I would never have known had I not learnt it in DOS1. Your point about no information or no way of learning the basics is quite true. I presume they will work on that during the year. Larian's early version is developing the core systems, so the helpful tips are not really there yet.
Last edited by Baraz; 11/10/20 04:10 PM.
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