Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Enemy attacks on downed companions

Does this bother anyone else, or is it just me? In a recent 4v4 fight in an enclosed area, I noticed how an enemy fighter would strike a downed companion on the floor next to them, instead of the two other members of my party standing right next to him and ready to strike on the next round.

I get that Larian has programmed the AI to go after weak or low AC members of your party. But it's just not efficient or good tactics for the enemy to waste a combat action on someone who is already unconscious. Maybe it's a bug? If it's an intentional design I don't think it makes sense.

Basically right now if you got an ally down, they are free sheild for the rest of your party; while the rest of your party just attack the enemy without worrying about being target.

Actually, based on PnP experience, finishing off downed characters is very sound tactics, downed PCs have a tendency to jump right back up again with a little healing.

Yeah, it was already pointed several times across multiple threads, but the AI in this game genuinely loves to bully on the weak.
If you have anyone with low AC and/or low HP and/or downed, expect the enemies to get to the point of bum-rushing even past your opportunity attacks as soon as they'll get their chance to focus-fire the poor bastard.

I appreciate it if my computer enemy is playing dirty against me, it keeps me on my toes and always looking for a payback. Room for improvement is still to be made, because other than falling back down, there is no penalty or consequence for having your teammates fall unconscious multiple times during a fight, and you can use that to absorb big hits for the rest of the team.
A suggestion would be to have teammates be counted as dead right away if they drop below a certain amount of negative hitpoints. Basing this treshold on the maximum HP of each individual character would be reasonable to me.

I think this behavior should be different from different creatures and how they evaluate threats. Animals are probably gonna go after the obvious threats. Zhentarim may stop to double-tap.

As for your suggestion: that's actually basically the rules, although 5E doesn't have negative hitpoints. It has to come all in one hit.



From the PHB: "Damage at 0 Hit Points. If you take any damage while you have 0 hit points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer instant death."

Additionally, it's the case that the "unconscious" condition turns any attacks from creatures within 5 feet into automatic crits. So that means that one attack on a downed character automatically changes the situation from three death saving throws to one all-or-nothing roll, and a second hit is certain death.

@Postwave
Predatory animals are well known to attack a single target and not let go until it is dead. You can find a lot of video evidence for this and even domesticated breeds like pit bulls, rottweilers and dobermans share this characteristic. Animals are not stupid, and almost every apex predator is a pack hunter which is what makes them dangerous in the first place. Solo hunters like tigers are simply biological freaks of nature who have more power and speed than they have any right to and are also usually acrobatic and extremely intelligent. You can read about how a single tiger killed hundreds of people in India before anyone even figured out that it was a tiger responsible because of how stealthy it was. Jaguars stable diet consists of rainforest crocs.

I am also vehemently against dumbing down the AI as it is the worst possible choice. This is not an ARPG where a perfectly tuned AI will destroy you consistently. For me it is a much bigger concern to get proper isometric party controls as this would allow for a much greater control of party positioning and movement outside of combat and play a much bigger impact.

Okay, sure, maybe I'm wrong on animals. I don't fight animals in real life much.

Part of the difficulty is that the D&D hit points abstraction makes things very different from real life, or even TV/movie combat. A D&D adversary with one hit point is as deadly a threat as an un-injured one. A real-life human beaten so badly they drop? Even if they're not dead, you probably have a few minutes to turn your attention to the others swinging swords and throwing magic at you.

The AI does make decisions, I have seen enemies leave a downed party member when being attacked from range. I have also seen it try to finish off a party member when it's not in their interest. So if there is already a calculation being made, then maybe it just needs to be tweaked.

Thanks, I didn't know this was already a topic. It still seems weird to me that if you're a fighter with two melee enemies standing right next to you, you'd hit the downed character on the ground instead of the immediate threat that could finish you in the next round. I'll check out that other thread.

when i dm intelligent enemies i only go for downed PCs if the players have shown to get them back up with magical healing.
but since everyone can pop up allies with just a single action enemies HAVE to target downed players or killing them would be impossible.
the problem here obviously lies with the "help" action. (not to be confused with the 5e help action)

While going after weaker characters is a smart tactic, I would like to see some way for the Fighter-types to be able to pull aggro off of them.

For example, their attention will shift when someone melee attacks them or whoever is dealing the most damage to them.