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Agreed. Given the Lore of the game the encounter is reasonably likely; the level certainly is not.

That said creativity as well as realistic stats both need to be equally encouraged. If i can outsmart the game within its lawful perameters then i deserve the red dragon scales.

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I see 2 options:

1.) There are enemies we come across that we can't feasibly kill at our current level. I prefer this option. However, in this case the enemy "level" needs to be labeled, at least for the standard difficulties, as cgexile said. Otherwise there will be an overwhelming amount of complaints from people getting into fights with enemies they can't beat without knowing they couldn't win beforehand.

2.) If we follow the default playthrough, ~every enemy we come across should be beatable. (boring). In this case, enemy "level" is basically irrelevant and could be hidden.

Red dragon: For single monsters, there's a big discrepancy between CR and what level party can beat it. Venomfang, a young green dragon in LMoP, is technically CR 8. However, a level 5 party could probably beat it with ~50% chance. I've heard stories of level 4 parties killing him. So, if the red dragon in BG3 is actually a young red dragon, combined with the buffs BG3 gives PCs through height/jump/etc, a "level" rating of 5 or 6 is probably appropriate which is not that far off from the listed level 4...

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This is a thing I've seen show up in D&D video games since about Demon Stone. Levels of various monsters being modified to allow for appearing in the plot as is appropriate. D&D tends to be designed that you start off with relatively minor local affairs and build up to the epic things, but a lot of computer game writing is counter to this with the idea of throwing the epic stuff in right at the beginning to see and then put you in lower level stuff until you can work your way up to dealing with that epic stuff.

I'm kind of okay with it in a tutorial because it allows for the epic opening they wanted. I'm also semi-okay with it for titles like "Archdruid" because I get a bit ehhh over titles being tied to a meta-statistic like level. If there's a druid grove it will have an archdruid and if the highest level person is level 4, so be it.

As for a 4th level red dragon... If the "levels" are more equivalent to "CR" from the tabletop, that would be a hatchling. Which would be medium...too small to ride. I think the dragon we see is large or huge so it would be Young or Adult...which would be CR 10 or 17.

But I imagine they are going for the dramatic conclusion to each chapter. I again think this comes from the difference in story pacing video game writers are used to as compared to the tabletop game is designed for.

Black Isle, Bioware, Oblivion, SSI and the like feel like they were designing toward tabletop pacing more than typical video game pacing. Where as the studios that have been designing D&D RPGs since then are more like they're coming from the video game side to the D&D projects. I don't particularly care one way or another. Either can work and I drop a lot of expectations for video game adaptations anyway.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
I see 2 options:

1.) There are enemies we come across that we can't feasibly kill at our current level. I prefer this option. However, in this case the enemy "level" needs to be labeled, at least for the standard difficulties, as cgexile said. Otherwise there will be an overwhelming amount of complaints from people getting into fights with enemies they can't beat without knowing they couldn't win beforehand.

2.) If we follow the default playthrough, ~every enemy we come across should be beatable. (boring). In this case, enemy "level" is basically irrelevant and could be hidden.

Red dragon: For single monsters, there's a big discrepancy between CR and what level party can beat it. Venomfang, a young green dragon in LMoP, is technically CR 8. However, a level 5 party could probably beat it with ~50% chance. I've heard stories of level 4 parties killing him. So, if the red dragon in BG3 is actually a young red dragon, combined with the buffs BG3 gives PCs through height/jump/etc, a "level" rating of 5 or 6 is probably appropriate which is not that far off from the listed level 4...


I disagree, there should be visual cues that the enemy is very strong (a cutscene in which is easily incinerates a squad of soldiers for example), but not big red button saying do not attack.

About the red dragon, the stats and size make it an adult one which is listed as a challenge for level 17 parties (note, challenge means beatable with about 20% resource usage but not in danger of dying). So a level 13 or so party could still kill it but it would be a close call.
A level 3 or 4 party killing it only shows how screwed up Larians combat system is.

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Originally Posted by Ixal


About the red dragon, the stats and size make it an adult one which is listed as a challenge for level 17 parties (note, challenge means beatable with about 20% resource usage but not in danger of dying). So a level 13 or so party could still kill it but it would be a close call.
A level 3 or 4 party killing it only shows how screwed up Larians combat system is.

Is it supposed to be an adult red dragon? If so, it's kinda lame. This is how a red dragon should look like-
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IbnQ2UhjgqQ/hqdefault.jpg


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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I agree wholeheartedly with the people here. I was really looking for a D&D game because I didn't want to have to deal with level scaling.

Please don't be afraid to try and change it now. It's one of the biggest issues for me.

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Originally Posted by Abits
Originally Posted by Ixal


About the red dragon, the stats and size make it an adult one which is listed as a challenge for level 17 parties (note, challenge means beatable with about 20% resource usage but not in danger of dying). So a level 13 or so party could still kill it but it would be a close call.
A level 3 or 4 party killing it only shows how screwed up Larians combat system is.

Is it supposed to be an adult red dragon? If so, it's kinda lame. This is how a red dragon should look like-
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IbnQ2UhjgqQ/hqdefault.jpg


It is.
When you examine the dragon you see its statistics (also something that should not be possible) and they match the statistic of an adult red dragon exactly. Also it is huge sized, both in its statistics and in the cutscene which only adult red dragons are.
Thats also not correct, only young dragons work for the Gith, but that would be only as large as horses so Larian probably upgraded them for looks.

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Originally Posted by Ixal
Originally Posted by Abits
Originally Posted by Ixal


About the red dragon, the stats and size make it an adult one which is listed as a challenge for level 17 parties (note, challenge means beatable with about 20% resource usage but not in danger of dying). So a level 13 or so party could still kill it but it would be a close call.
A level 3 or 4 party killing it only shows how screwed up Larians combat system is.

Is it supposed to be an adult red dragon? If so, it's kinda lame. This is how a red dragon should look like-
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IbnQ2UhjgqQ/hqdefault.jpg


It is.
When you examine the dragon you see its statistics (also something that should not be possible) and they match the statistic of an adult red dragon exactly. Also it is huge sized, both in its statistics and in the cutscene which only adult red dragons are.
Thats also not correct, only young dragons work for the Gith, but that would be only as large as horses so Larian probably upgraded them for looks.

Yeah that's why I was surprised you said it's an adult. When I first saw the cinematic trailer I didn't understand how come the gith are riding red dragons (my only experience with red dragons was my encounter with firkraag in bg2 and he seemed like a guy who will never let anyone use him as a horse) so I did some extensive reading about it in the fr wiki.


Larian's Biggest Oversight, what to do about it, and My personal review of BG3 EA
"74.85% of you stood with the Tieflings, and 25.15% of you sided with Minthara. Good outweighs evil, it seems."
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I agree with OP 100%.

A change Haslin fight would have to happen. He very well could get "hurt, poisoned, insert crippling ability here." All he can do to help the party is summon a low level bear for his abilities.... possible.

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Originally Posted by Ixal
Originally Posted by mrfuji3
I see 2 options:

1.) There are enemies we come across that we can't feasibly kill at our current level. I prefer this option. However, in this case the enemy "level" needs to be labeled, at least for the standard difficulties, as cgexile said. Otherwise there will be an overwhelming amount of complaints from people getting into fights with enemies they can't beat without knowing they couldn't win beforehand.

2.) If we follow the default playthrough, ~every enemy we come across should be beatable. (boring). In this case, enemy "level" is basically irrelevant and could be hidden.

Red dragon: For single monsters, there's a big discrepancy between CR and what level party can beat it. Venomfang, a young green dragon in LMoP, is technically CR 8. However, a level 5 party could probably beat it with ~50% chance. I've heard stories of level 4 parties killing him. So, if the red dragon in BG3 is actually a young red dragon, combined with the buffs BG3 gives PCs through height/jump/etc, a "level" rating of 5 or 6 is probably appropriate which is not that far off from the listed level 4...


I disagree, there should be visual cues that the enemy is very strong (a cutscene in which is easily incinerates a squad of soldiers for example), but not big red button saying do not attack.

About the red dragon, the stats and size make it an adult one which is listed as a challenge for level 17 parties (note, challenge means beatable with about 20% resource usage but not in danger of dying). So a level 13 or so party could still kill it but it would be a close call.
A level 3 or 4 party killing it only shows how screwed up Larians combat system is.

Some type of "enemy danger indicator" is a must, especially for people not familiar with d&d and typical monster difficulties. I agree that this doesn't necessarily have to be a level indicator. But I worry your suggestion could be difficult to implement...could you tell the difference between a level 7 vs 17 fighter from a cutscene?

Red Dragon: I didn't check the stats, but do you know if the in-game Red Dragon have legendary actions? An Adult Red Dragon without legendary actions is probably closer to a CR 10-12, as it has gone from having 6 attacks per round (3 on its turn, 3 legendary actions) to only 3...But yes, if this is an Adult Red Dragon then it should NOT be level 4.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
I see 2 options:

1.) There are enemies we come across that we can't feasibly kill at our current level. I prefer this option. However, in this case the enemy "level" needs to be labeled, at least for the standard difficulties, as cgexile said. Otherwise there will be an overwhelming amount of complaints from people getting into fights with enemies they can't beat without knowing they couldn't win beforehand.

2.) If we follow the default playthrough, ~every enemy we come across should be beatable. (boring). In this case, enemy "level" is basically irrelevant and could be hidden.

Red dragon: For single monsters, there's a big discrepancy between CR and what level party can beat it. Venomfang, a young green dragon in LMoP, is technically CR 8. However, a level 5 party could probably beat it with ~50% chance. I've heard stories of level 4 parties killing him. So, if the red dragon in BG3 is actually a young red dragon, combined with the buffs BG3 gives PCs through height/jump/etc, a "level" rating of 5 or 6 is probably appropriate which is not that far off from the listed level 4...


Level 4 can easily depending on the group, Ive had parties take it. Also in Tomb of Annihilation there is a Young Red - Tinder - that I added 2AC and another 200hp to and 5 level 5s took it down in 4 rounds. 5e parties are stronk


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Originally Posted by mrfuji3

Some type of "enemy danger indicator" is a must, especially for people not familiar with d&d and typical monster difficulties. I agree that this doesn't necessarily have to be a level indicator. But I worry your suggestion could be difficult to implement...could you tell the difference between a level 7 vs 17 fighter from a cutscene?

I strongly disagree. Let the context suggest which characters should be a poor idea to cross. And let the player pay the price if he goes out of his way to ignore the warning signs.

It worked flawlessly for years. Not sure why D/D would now suddenly need to flag enemies by levels.


Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
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It might just be a temporary issue with the level cap being 4. Like it's just not in the code yet for anything to be above 4 in EA

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My wish is they remove all the level indicators on monsters, but I guess there's a lot players who never played DnD and casual players so some kind of indicators is designed for QoL.

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I mean. I don’t recall levels being displayed in the original games ? As you mentioned, there is already an easy to use save / load feature and there is also a ridiculously accessible short rest / long rest option. So far I don’t see a permanent death either, I guess unless you shove the gith off the ship ?

Lore should fill in the blanks for monsters that you’re unfamiliar with, but may encounter in a combat situation. Maybe your character uses one of his skills to roll against to consider the threat of an enemy - like history, lore, arcana, idk.

I don’t love seeing total hitpoints numerically either, though. These numbers - levels - hitpoints - whatever, it’s all going to be available in the game files and easily accessible on the internet anyway.

Playing without those numbers available to you means that you’re going to play differently, and that’s ok.

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Originally Posted by Redacted
I mean. I don’t recall levels being displayed in the original games ? As you mentioned, there is already an easy to use save / load feature and there is also a ridiculously accessible short rest / long rest option. So far I don’t see a permanent death either, I guess unless you shove the gith off the ship ?

Lore should fill in the blanks for monsters that you’re unfamiliar with, but may encounter in a combat situation. Maybe your character uses one of his skills to roll against to consider the threat of an enemy - like history, lore, arcana, idk.

I don’t love seeing total hitpoints numerically either, though. These numbers - levels - hitpoints - whatever, it’s all going to be available in the game files and easily accessible on the internet anyway.

Playing without those numbers available to you means that you’re going to play differently, and that’s ok.


Advice like checking stats on the internet is not a good option in a computer game.

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First of all: "Level" isn't something that monsters/enemies in DnD used. DnD 5e uses Challenge Rating, which isn't the same. A CR4 is considered a medium challenge for a medium sized party of level 4. "Level" in BG3 is something similar, but not the same.

A Young Red Dragon is CR10. My experience is depending on party and players you can take on single targets of quite higher CR than their average level. I pitted my current group up against a Young Black Dragon (CR7) when they were 5 level 3 characters. Sure I nearly killed one player, but they didn't have too hard of a time.

So I think it's doable.

Now the Red Dragon we see the Gith riding looks bigger than a "large" creature, which is what Young Dragons are. A horse is Large, so is an Ogre. So you could ride a Young Dragon for sure.


----

Sometimes you want to have a monster at just the right time, and be a decent challenge. As a DM that's when you homebrew things. If you need bigger draggons, just make the Young Dragon Gargantuan, problem solved. People really shouldn't be married to the Monster Manual, not as table top gamers, or as video gamers. The MM is great for DMs, because we can quickly make an encounter, but when we want that little something extra we make our own.

---

For reference a Mind Flayer is CR 7, having one being "level 5" isn't too far from reality. Again: Home Brew works best when you need to tell a story.

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Originally Posted by Redacted
I mean. I don’t recall levels being displayed in the original games ? As you mentioned, there is already an easy to use save / load feature and there is also a ridiculously accessible short rest / long rest option. So far I don’t see a permanent death either, I guess unless you shove the gith off the ship ?

Lore should fill in the blanks for monsters that you’re unfamiliar with, but may encounter in a combat situation. Maybe your character uses one of his skills to roll against to consider the threat of an enemy - like history, lore, arcana, idk.

I don’t love seeing total hitpoints numerically either, though. These numbers - levels - hitpoints - whatever, it’s all going to be available in the game files and easily accessible on the internet anyway.

Playing without those numbers available to you means that you’re going to play differently, and that’s ok.


Totally agree with the OP and with you, aside from one thing. You can permanently kill companions, you can either fight them before they join your party AND you can attack them in camp when they aren't part of your group. They will become unresurrectable.

Also, aside from barremancy and surfaces being a big problem, there is also another creative way to kill that particular dragon and githyanki group...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...ncy_is_a_dead_meta_use_hoardermancy_for/

Either way, I don't think killing that dragon should be possible. Via barrelmancy or ... hoardermancy. wink


Last edited by Nicottia; 28/10/20 07:52 AM.
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Originally Posted by Nicottia
[quote=Redacted]

Also, aside from barremancy and surfaces being a big problem, there is also another creative way to kill that particular dragon and githyanki group...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...ncy_is_a_dead_meta_use_hoardermancy_for/

Either way, I don't think killing that dragon should be possible. Via barrelmancy or ... hoardermancy. wink



As I said, it shows how screwed up Larians combat system is, but I doubt they will change it because its their special snowflake thing they want to advertise.

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HAHAHAHA that video is hilarious!
Originally Posted by Ixal


As I said, it shows how screwed up Larians combat system is, but I doubt they will change it because its their special snowflake thing they want to advertise.

Think that's a little on the extreme. I think it's fair to say this kinda stuff will most definitely be fixed.

That said I agree with Tuco, I don't need levels, though i am happy enough if players want the option in settings totoggle them on/off. As for finding out like i ye olden days. I mean I killed the Ankheg bugs on the farm in BG1 at level 2 and Drizzt shortly after. Oh many a reset and playing with necromancy etc for extra bodies, but it was fun and the rewards were massive. However due to the RtwP nature of it, it was fast, so failure didn't cost you an hour, hence I could see why some form of indicator might for some be helpful.

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