Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How can you not savescum? Please share your opinion!

No, the Nettie situation is an example of how we as players need to think more about our actions! Its blindingly obvious that Nettie the apprentice druid is NOT going to be able to remove our tadpoles. So why does everyone ask her to do it? Because we are conditioned to believe that we should 'do everything' in games and that we will always be successful. BG3 is NOT like that!

There is no need to ask Nettie to help us. and there are multiple options to back out before things get serious.

And there is Zero need to kill her . . . even if you fail all the rolls. There is a Knockout option in combat (why does no one ever remember this?)

Nettie ending up dead is the result of the player making multiple poor choices, not dice rolls.

Unless of course you want to kill Nettie . . which is a valid choice. The druids are in theory neutral but are acting very hostile toward outsiders. They don't exactly earn any goodwill.

This is demonstrably false. A DC 10 roll will become a DC 7 roll with 16 attribute and a DC 5 roll with attribute 16 + proficiency 2. And the chances of rolling 5 or above (80%) is vastly different to rolling 10 or above (55%).

Yes, you get +1 to +4 based on you attribute level and another +2 if you have proficiency in the skill in question. Guidance adds another random +1 to +4. And these values are shown when you hover over the choice.

What we really need is more advantage dice, a few flat checks (Giving Fighters/Rogues a freebie to teach the guy to fight for example), and some better alternatives after we fail a roll perhaps including rerolls. It makes sense that if you fail to persuade someone you can't immediately try again, however there isn't a reason you can't try again to force open a door or identify a magic item, right? I feel like the data they're seeing regarding how much we're save scumming will make them change some of these systems.



Knock out isn't really implemented properly. When she wakes up she'll just try to murder you again like some 4 intelligence monster.

Could be. I was looking in log only, and wasn't shown there. Almost decided to skip taking any dialogue related proficiencies because my companions had same success rate as my main, which feels more like 50% than anything else.

Still, 55% vs. 80% reminds me about the Korean MMO Black Desert Online gear upgrading: it's about luck and not proficiency. Higher chance is better though, but still can fail and if that happens, knowing I had high chance to avoid failing doesn't help.

Dice rolls are exciting, mostly when used in fights, but only if the numbers and consequences are balanced, if they make sense. This will be very hard to get it right; where to add dice rolls and where not. Adjusting the unexpected in a way that feels acceptable to each of us.

Hello,
I am inclined to agree with most of what you have said, as I like many others have dealt with this kind of frustration. I know there are several threads that talk about dice rolls, formulas, fail rates and more, but at times it feels like you as the player are being cheated. When stealing an item that requires a roll of 4 for example and you automatically fail said roll can be frustrating. However, it is even more frustrating when you save scum and reload 6 or 7 additional times to get said item. Once you acquire this item, you have a chance to steal a better item, usually armor, that requires a roll of 16. When you had to re-load the same save 6 or 7 times to get the low item, but do not have to re-load again to get the 16 roll item, it seems kind of fishy.

Perhaps we are just that terrible at rolls or maybe the game is saying "okay you have rolled bad enough for one day here's a gimmie." It almost feels disingenuous at times. What are the odds of rolling 1's, 2's and 3's and having to reload 6-7 times in order to get a 4 or above.

I know there are other players out here that will disagree with much of what you or I have said, but I also agree with your thoughts on the trap mechanic. At some point it should just be an automatic if your stats or skills are proficient enough in said circumstance. If you do not meet the requirement, then yes it will blow up or whatever it does, if you do, then you win. Of course this is a dice game based off of 5e so I doubt it will happen, but I feel I see where you are coming from.

I think save scumming will be in any rpg anyways, its just up to you whether to do it or not.
I do save scum in some situations where I absolutely want something to happen, like saving that tiefling kid, otherwise I just roll with it. I think the dice rolls add a cool degree of randomness to the game and stay true to D&D. I've recently started playing the tabletop D&D with my friends who only heard about it from random mentions in movies and tv shows, and the amount of time my supposedly experienced and well-balanced character died, missed, and generally epically failed at everything because of the power of the dice was hilarious.

As a non D&Der this irritated me but it was explained it becomes a more significant thing at higher levels (at least in theory). But I still find it irritating; at least on my second play-through I knew to not waste any points on charisma because rolling a 3 is as much of a fail with high charisma is it is with having all the wit of... well, <insert witless sociopath here> kinda thing. And I roll a lot of threes, because it's apparently my unlucky number or something.

I know this part of the game never will please everyone no matter which way the devs go; between wanting no failure and wishing for unexpected results, there can't be compromise. Mods, cheats and save reloads are the answer, unless these can be adjusted with a very detailed difficulty setting.

In my case it's not wanting zero failure, it's more a case of either my PC has the skills or she doesn't. When she kinda sorta has the skills but they're only 20-25% of the equation (at least at this point) and a dice-roll does the rest then I don't see the point of investing in skills. But as I said I don't come from a D&D background and I'm likely to be missing the point.

Its more that your charisma modifier reduces the requirement number so you have a higher chance to pass a skill check, i.e. you have access to more combinations if your requirement is lower. Its just that it does not have that much impact right now because a 2 modifier will reduce the requirement from 10 to 8, so you still have plenty of chance to fail. But the higher you have it, the lower the requirement will drop.
I think in D&D the correct way would be to add the modifier to the dice roll rather than subtract it from the requirement.

Nettie really needs to die. Someone who poisons people without their consent when they ask for her help really needs a quick execution.

On the OP's point though, I somewhat agree, but not entirely. What we need is:

1. Better estimation of difficulty for the DCs. If it is a trivial(ish) task make the baseline very easy, e.g. a strength check of 5 so that anyone with a decent strength modifier is very unlikely to fail. (I think it is good to keep them though, because a strong character can fail a strength check on a 1, modelling them fumbling it.)

2. Keep it to one skill check per situation. I agree it is annoying to pass one skill check just to give us another.

I've given up on the kid, I will probably get to see her live on sheer luck on all the new playthroughs I will be doing by the time full release comes out, but so far she has dies 3 times in a row.
I'm guessing the whole failed skill check thing will become better once we break a certain level, and it seems bad atm because we are stuck at level 4 failing the same checks over and over. Time will tell.




Agree 100% You get into the grove, their leader kills a child and then another druid tries to kill you when you ask for help. Worst druids ever, would kill again/10.

What we really need is a difficulty slider. I would happily play on a very low setting. I am an explorer, and it annoys me when the game gets in the way of my exploring.

Same, pretty much. Who needs a game of chance or figuring out what skills I need when what I naturally gravitate towards is a game of wandering about aimlessly tripping over my scabbard and making terrible jokes to random terrified passers-by. Which does tend to be the way I play. Or just standing there staring at whatever it is I can't see.

This is how I see it too. It's not about getting rid of die rolls entirely. Of course you need to have die rolls for initiative and attacks and damage calculations, etc. But for skill checks, and especially in dialogue, it needs to be toned down. There is no fun involved in having to "win" five checks in a row in a dialogue to get the dialogue outcome you are trying to role-play towards. In dialogue situations, the die rolls are going against role-playing your character the way you want.

I can agree to that. Sometimes the game goes from a slightly hostile conversation to "Kill, Kill, Kill!!!" just because of a failed ability check.

Imo it's okay that a highly charismatic and convincing character fails to convince an NPC (even with a high chance), if it happens only from time to time and if it doesn't immediately escalate a situation to the most extreme. Being highly skilled in a certain area is - after all - not a guarantee that one will always succeed. I have been tracking my rolls (attack chances and ability checks) for over 1000 rolls now (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15ahq3jkENBJ_gLPDDeHFZDK2Kg9oZhCCaNZ6p8ijWPM/edit?usp=sharing). Even though some percentages are behind the expected value the over all picture shows that the game applies the RNG correctly.

I find the comparison to Black Dessert Online is at bit out of place though. The chances in BG3 are predictable and (assuming the game will be true to D&D) can be optimized the further a character comes along. It is possible to craft characters optimized for conversations, close combat, combat casting, insane mobility, utility rituals and more. But not all at the same time. It is a disservice to the D&D rule-set and the game so far to dismiss rolls and modifiers as nothing more than mainly RNG with some minor tweaks in chances. It might feel that way at the beginning (even though when tracking the rolls shows it isn't so) but the more a typical D&D character grows, the more those modifiers overtake the RNG. Heck, there are even feats in D&D that will guarantee that certain skill checks are always at least a 10, regardless of actual rolls.

Nettie will get hostile after failing the checks. If you are good you will not want to kill her, because she has a point. Talking to her also makes sense, she is the apprentice, she has additional information and might be able to help since she also studied the tadpole. There might have been recent conclusions she came to. It is logical to talk to her, if you had a disease and there was only a nurse nearby, who knows where the doctor is, you'd ask her for info as well.
Now yeah you could not knock her out, but I never got knocking out to work, the victims just died. It might only work from stealth and out of combat, I do not know, and there is noone telling you how it works. Stealing would be the optimal option, but not everyone's cup of tea.
You could use the cauldron, but there is an additional issue: When you press alt it is not highlighted, so you might totally miss it. You might as well miss the book that gives you the recipe for the antidote. Also there are roleplay reasons why you just do not rummage around in people's documents when the person is around. The game simply does not give you enough hints to make educated choices, that is why many players will just endlessly reload until they get the option they wanted, however improbable that is. That is an UI problem and a game design problem. The game funnels you into one option, partly because they created the encounter this way, partly because the game is lacking an actual relevant tutorial and partly because the UI is pisspoor and partly because their dialogue writing and conversation system is at times suboptimal.

Most of my saving has to do with dice rolls

I agree that Larian didn't write this one out well. There should be a better opportunity to back out without triggering a fight. You should be able to refuse the 'treatment' and leave without a fight (or with only one fairly easy check). But once you get 'treated' I'm fine with how things play out.