Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Re: Shadowheart dies more than the PC

Bamfing is just poofing away to another spot with a teleport style ability haha. I pretty much agree with you on all points. The only thing to point out is that sacred flame is a canonically garbage cantrip because your save DC is so low early game and you need either ASI or proficiency to start bumping it up to be useful. Its more of a "eh, i got nothing else to do. Neat if it works. Oh nice, after 3 misses it did 1 damage. tight."

See, this is my issue - she's only the best at being a Cleric of the available companions because she's the only one who is. She's... not actually great at being a Cleric. Competent =/= great, and if I'm being honest, she's barely sniffing competent. I also disagree that Clerics shouldn't be put into vulnerable positions - WotC gave all of them Medium or Heavy armor and shields, plus Cure Wounds/Bless/Bane and even Invoke Duplicity are all touch or short range abilities. I think it was very much intended for Clerics to be able to get up close near the Fighters and Barbarians. I think it's a real shame that Shadowheart has to sacrifice her combat utility in order to make up for a weakness (AC) that most Clerics don't have and an even bigger shame that she doesn't make up for it by being outstanding out-of-combat, such as in stealth or diplomacy.

Anyway, this is a Feedback/Suggestions forum. I'm suggesting to Larian (because they mentioned it in their Patch notes) that if it's a problem that Shadowheart dies all the time (I personally think that it is), then there are a few very simple, sensible, and player/lore-friendly ways to fix that. I hope they do because I'd like to see where Shadowheart's story goes on full release, but as of right now she is by far my least favorite companion to bring along in the party.

I mentioned it to another person as well - for the playstyle you are talking about I have no disagreement that she is built poorly for it. 100% agreement. I was just building the case that she isn't across the board useless, the only reason shes is in any group is by virtue of being "a" cleric. She can be strong and unique in other ways that other party members can't be and does have interesting abilities if you want to take the time to play around with her stuff. The statements of least useful, dies at a sneeze, naked people are tougher than her, etc...I was able to play her as an absolute tyrant and loved having her and she rarely was injured and did a lot of damage and use. So, its there. If people were genuinely wonderin how or why to have her in the party, I tried to give some ideas that maybe hadn't been thought of.

Otherwise, agree! Cheers

hey I didn't say she died at a sneeze just that she lost concentration at a sneeze! and that she loses concentration before the naked man. loses concentration is not dying. so there

Dangit, that was the foundation of my argument! I capitulate, shes trash. Replace her sleeping bag with a garbage can and she can be a crappy grouch all day. :p

But did you make DEX your dump stat over INT?

Also, Fireball and Dragon's Breath. Fireball is why you need DEX unless you are taking Shield Master.

to late she's already been oscars woman!

+1 on OP's stat suggestions.

Though Gale died for me more than anyone else.

If you don't want the negative in her Dex, just put points into it at level 4. Or have people forgotten that?

Z.

her dex gets even lower ´d and she gets no bonus form medium armor even thou she as a cleric should have a proficiency from it.

...Making her an even *less* effective Cleric at Level 4 because she desperately needs the WIS for Sacred Flame and other spells.

She can use only light and med armor. Both these types add dex to ac, in her situation - substract. There are 2 ways: take heavy armor feat on 4 lvl, then you lose +2 wisdom, so lover DC and accuracy with spells, or add 1 dex on 4th level, and so you still lose +2 wisdom. I also think, 9 dex should be changed

I did respond to this later in the thread as well, but ill summarize a few posts I made:

- They are missing things in the game to help mitigate some issues. Like war caster feat for concentration.
- Having her stats the way it is right now makes ASI (the default ASI improvement they choose for you is TERRIBLE and I cant believe they do that to people) more important and you'll realize later you should have chosen more wisely and just done 18 wis because the throw save is so low and more than half her stuff fails, regularly.
- I hate to say "get gud" but at over 200 hours in the game now I rarely get knocked out, and I dont even remember the last time I died and I just kind of run into fights now and dont set anything "crazy" up. I, at least, got significantly better and when I play with people MP who are new im running around murdering everything and having to pick them up all the time and come out needing like a pot a fight. I could tell you in the moment why you shouldnt be where you are, but it would be hard otherwise to explain fighting tactics. There are a lot of ways for everyone to stay safe and still be right in the combat, being effective.
- This is a larger point: The way rests and encounter difficulty are, it makes sense to use every single spell you have every fight - and remember, there are lots of scrolls! When you have that in your head you do mirror image, bless (hopefully do those two BEFORE a fight), guiding bolt, and use that handy COMMAND spell to negate the person who is targeting you. Gale greasing, ray of frost to reduce movement speed, and using hold person, misty stepping into archers and thunderwaving them - you as a team take out the biggest problems and then go to work on the hack and slash stuff that youre stuffing with your heavies in front.

So the question is not can you keep her perfectly pristine while keeping her effective - you can - it is how easy is it to do so and should it be that hard. At this point, I don't think its hard at all. It was at first. Expanded feats and +1 shields and stuff like that at later levels will most likely help significantly as well. Right now shes as low level as everyone else and still a pretty tough cookie for it. A player using standard array would probably have her at 1 more AC than she has, which is significant, but with half this stuff being AOE and Environment is isn't AS significant as it would be in pnp. Theres too much stuff going on for AC to matter much and you can give her a +1 dex save throw hat early on in the game and combined with bless, kind of a staple, shes in a great position even with her current dex.

Not saying +1 to it wouldn't be great, but I also don't think it would be that noticeable. My 2c of course

1. I am actually "gud", as i experienced first death in the underdark, and my Shadowheart never died. My problem is, that I wanted to use her as a main front warrior, but with 9 dex it is impossible, so i keep her as back healer\debuffer. I really want her to have 14 dex and 8 Int, as it will give me much more tactical agility choosing my companions
2. I hope on release something will be done with resting system, because now it is really broken. Maybe add camp as one of fast travel locations via runes, and disable fast travel from any location. If current long rest system is not fixed, it is pretty possible to beat full game with any party composition, as for every encounter player will be able to use all available recourses. As for EA, i tried a lot to minimize resting, to increase challenge to me.

As whole, I understand. that game for now is very easy, and even with 9 dex it is possible to use Shadowheard without any problems. But I hope, we will have difficulty selection on release, and I always select Very Hard for any RPG. So I just want to keep my favorite companion from EA on release, and I really don't want to create custom Cleric for my party. But it is just my opinion, and so, it is only for Larian to decide

It would be nice to pick an archetype for the NPCs, while retaining domain abilities. Like going a heavy armor proficiency for her, but it plays with other stats to make it so she isn't the juggernaut. Frontliner? Ok, less constitution, higher dex, and can wear heavy armor. Concentration is going to be hard for and not as much HP, but harder to hit and can deliver inflict wounds, which I NEVER use because of her setup.

and the only way to fix resting is to fix encounter frequency, style, and difficulty. Running into 12 mobs is hard regardless of setting. Have 2 orcs guarding a cave entrance with an alarm drum 15 feet away from them and 1 is asleep is a lot different than the entire colony chilling in one spot. Removes stealth, distraction, illusion, shooting out drum, etc... so your spell nature, usage, and spam rate varies accordingly. Inside goblin fort - not outside - they had decent little puzzles to solve but they need a lot more of the chaining encounters where things can evolve rapidly or not at all if youre clever enough. Resting is needed less in well executed plans. Right now, we don't have that opportunity so go full Last Starfighter Death Blossom every fight.

Speaking for myself here on my 4 playthroughs with Shadowheart. For me I have never had any problems with shadowheart dying, though I do not like that she only has a 9 DEX. She should have a higher Dex score than 9 I think and hope that can be fixed later on.

At current you can abuse the AI to fix her with mirror image-Larians implementation is questionable at best, adding +9 AC instead of a chance of hitting images, and the AI doesen't handle it right. They simply refuse to target enemies whom they can't hit, even if they could destroy images, so they never attack shadowheart if you mirror image her.

Otherwise, you can give her heavily armored at level 4 to fix the AC issue. Bumps her AC by 2 (if you give her half-plate or +1 scale) to 4 (if you keep her in a chain-shirt) versus the best heavy armor in the game right now, chainmail.

Really, her STR and DEX should swap. If Larian wants to keep to the cover art, add a finesse spear for her. That's within the range of what a magic item can do, or heck, they could make spears finesse in general-no reason that breaks the game, really.

I love this change. It is both cool rp vise, and in a way of optimization

Unless its some kind of plot point, she's missing a stat point. Her stats begin as
Str 14
Dex 9
Con 13
Int 10
Wis 16
Cha 14

When you can start with
Str 14
Dex 10
Con 13
Int 10
Wis 16
Cha 14

Its stupid to use the half elf bonus point on dex rather than strength, given that it costs more to go from a 13 to 14 than a 8 to a 9. Fix it already Larian.

Shes straight up missing a stat point. You can have the exact same stats AND a 10 dex with point buy.