Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback [Spoiler] Minotaur - Please Adjust

It is a little ridiculous, but more so thematically and visually than in terms of difficulty. Right now their jump is more of a "fly" than a jump

What I experienced / saw are minautaurs that are beyond CR 4 as they can do a 3-combo attack that hits 100%. In short ...

Attack #1 : supernatural jump that knocks you prone it seems 100 % *
Attack #2 hits 100 % as you are prone
Attack #3 (charge, though zero feet) also hits 100 % as you are still prone (same turn).

* Prone 100 % : Astarion 18 Dex and my main 16 Dex were knocked prone 3X in a row (in all, so seems to be 100%).

Let's ignore that Charge requires 10 feet movement, as a melee attack on a prone character would be worse anyhow.

Now, for others here, I understand you attacked them in a context where you may NOT have suffered that jump-combo of 100% hit for 13-54 damage (1d6 from death-from-above +2d12+4 +2d8+4). Some of you "jumped them" and so faired better.

If they do the 3 attacks I described, following their supernatural jump, they are no longer CR 4.
As for their super jump, I guess they are Absolutes, as the tadpole is the explanation given by Larian Studios for the character's super jump.


That AI also had the following two other "cheats" (capacities that bypass the game systems) ...

CONTEXT : I am behind the Selune gate, which I closed when luring them to it and activated the trap ! I had a whole ambush set for them !

BUT ...
1) Though the trap worked 100 % against my characters even in turn-based they did not trigger when the minautaurs walked on the stairs and jumped about 20 feet upwards on the left-hand guard tower.
My characters doing the same move/jump could never evade the trap.
2) They jumped directly on my characters even if they were both hidden and out of line-of-sight (no line of attack/sight). The first time I thought it could be a coincidence, but a 2nd minautaur jumped *on* Shadowheart (from the tower to the top of the gate) though she was both hidden and out of line-of-sight. I therefore notice they have a radar.

AI : while it is an issue that other mobs become braindead when you hide, the minautaurs here were able to jump directly on my characters even when hidden without any line...

Imagine that my whole ambush set-up using the Selune gate, ironically, screwed me over more than if I had just straight-up attacked them since I suffered minautaurs that were immune to the trap and jumped over the gate directly on my characters. My main was KO on the second attack and therefore lost 2 Death Saves with the third attack, in one turn (so much for my Blade Ward and being out of sight on the gate).

After that strange CR X attack, Laezel (Battlemaster) was able to dispatch them. In normal melee, you can do fine and they have weaknesses (low Dex and Wis).

Command: Halt spell or frighten ranged attack by leazel helped alot. You see the red dot before you start fighting. First time arround I was lvl 3 when encountering them, didnt go well, leveled up and than found the halt spell which made it easy. The encounter is a challenge 5 so yes it is supposed to be difficult

It's strange because I killed both of them quite easily in my second playthrough and I jumped down into the Underdark from the spider's lair which puts you directly against them without time to set anything up. My suggestion is to space up your characters, use potions of speed and focus fire one at the time. It worked like a charm for me.

I feel my above post is not being really read ... What I describe is really broken *if* you suffer that attack form... if not they are normal minautaurs.

My characters were spaced out all right : they were behind the Selune gate with a whole trap / ambush set-up.
Turned out that it made it much worse (3 attacks with 100% chance to hit player character) than if I had just attacked them outright.

nb : I will send a feedback directly to Larian.

Also, it seems so random. Like, why are there not one, but two Minotaurs just aimlessly wandering around. And so far from Labyrinth (assuming it's in BG3)?

Anyway, I got to the Underdark by going down the well and then jumping down after the Phase Spider fight. The "angry DM" was like, "Welcome to the Underdark, MFS!!!". Both minotaurs engaged in battle as soon as I landed, immediately TPKing me in one round. After several tries, and one Potion of Giant Strength later, Lae'zel was lucky enough to shove them off the high walk ways, sending them falling a long way down, dealing half or more damage to them. Making them prone and my party having the high ground was just barely enough of an advantage to squeak by for the win.

That encounter is NOT for a level 4 party!

What gripes me about all the underdark fights is the depth that they deviated from the monster manuals. Just giving them an thematic attack like a cleave or something ontop of the charge I feel would be fine. But their jump also does aoe *pass test or damage and prone* and they have multiattack.

Right now they got extra:
-more movement
-Multi attack
-Aoe jump (which also crosses insane distances) thst does aoe attack upon landing
-shockwave. Not sure what it is (aoe cleave maybe?) But i saw it a few times.
-charge not requiring 10 feet of movement before they can use it.

Their movement ranges that they gain by using their charge and jump make them so insanely fast I cant fathom they put it in the game and went 'yes. This is a perfectly balanced fight'

Dropping everything but the charge, maybe give them a special sweep attack (if shockwave already is that, let them keep that) and call it a day. The fight would still be a very big challenge not to lose anyone without requiring the player to burn all their abilities in 1 fight.

I killed them first try, and the TOTAL amount of damage that the minotaurs dealt to my party was 7. 7 damage. I didn't use any cheesy stuff like barrelmancy or overpowered consumables, either. I feel like I should make a video showing people tips for handling this fight.

Chiming in to say that I found the minotaur difficulty level to be appropriate. Difficult, but not TPK-multiple-times difficult.
For PnP 5e, it would definitely be too difficult as it would almost assuredly lead to a PC death. But this is a video game; you can reload if your whole party dies. You can reload if any of your party dies. You also have scrolls of revivify.

That said, them (and us) jumping every single turn was silly. I'd be fine with their Jump ability if it was restricted to their first turn, or only usable every 3-4 turns.

I killed them first playthrough too. I wasn't as lucky in subsequent playthroughs, but If I did it anyone can. I usually suck so hard in these kind of games I'm quite proud of myself.


My rule of thumb is that as long as it's doable without silly Larian shenanigans, it's fine.

So because many of you did not suffer the following issue, you think it is fine ?

Attack #1 : supernatural jump (25 feet including upwards) that knocks you prone (seemed 100% for Astarion and my Wizard with 16+ Dex each).
Attack #2 hits 100 % as you are prone
Attack #3 (charge, though zero feet) also hits 100 % as you are still prone (same turn).

Total of 1d6 +2d12+4 +2d8+4. No rolls to hit.

If you are close, they do not do the jump-combo of death.

Normally, in D&D, the minautaur rolls to hit twice if they manage to charge/gore first, albeit with a Reckless (Advantage, which is cancelled by any Disadvantage).

EDIT: again, if you do not suffer that combo, they are easy to hit (Reckless) and have low Dex and Wis.

Please tell me how you managed that? Because I dont buy it.

I was stuck in a conversation (walked in the mycanoid cloud) so the Minotaurs were in melee range before I even got to react. The 1st minotaur was right on top of me. The 2nd moved about 200 feet in a single bloody turn with all their jumps and charges included in its movement. They have advantage on all their attacks, got an aoe knockback and a charge. I find it highly unlikely that they only did single didgit numbers.

And people saying that they could win the fight... Thats not the point now is it? I also beat them on my first go, had almost no spell slots and while Gale died, he was the only one. The point is that just about every encounter in the underdark has this form of difficulty and the monsters are very...... Homebrew. They took the appearance and statlines from the monster and dident look at their attacks and abilities. For that they just fumbled something together.

Can confirm. I stumbled into them with Lez, Shadowheart, and Wyl and mopped them up in two rounds. My main, a thief, and Wyl were low health but not dead. They missed one out of two attacks against my party. I just popped a potion of speed on Lez, her three attacks and a backstab took one down, and then with the other I cast rain, used an ice arrow, and beat him to death while he was doing backstrokes on the ground.

@Baraz The knocking down isn't 100%. Typically half of my party falls prone from the first jump. Unfortunately, I think you got super unlucky
Even if it did, this is addressed by spacing your party out. I'm fine with some encounters being incredibly lethal without foreknowledge. It's a game, so game-over then reload.

@Demoulius, I'm not Firesnakearies, but if the initial minotaur misses their attack then the rest is decently easy with some luck.
Use Fighter's Menacing Attacks that cause fear. If you use action surge and fear both minotaurs, that's a full turn where neither of them hit you.
Use hold person/web/other spells to restrain them
Use bane on them to reduce their likelihood of hitting.
Use potion of speed to increase your dps

Maybe not the point you're making, but there are a lot of people in this thread discussing the difficulty of the encounter. Larian, and all DMs, are allowed to homebrew monsters. (Again, I'll agree that the minotaurs jumping every turn looks silly)

Difficulty ties directly to available monster abilities. If the minotaurs didn't have this jump+knockdown ability, they'd be a cakewalk

@mrfuji3 : in relation to space between my party members, read my previous post. I was certainly the best prepared player ever ...

There is no resistance to a minautaur jumping 20 feet up onto a tower of the Selune gate, knocking my hidden MC prone, and then doing two automatic hits. RIP in an ambush position behind the Selune gate with the trap activated (that only triggers for me). I did defeat them otherwise (1 dead, 1 KO, Laezel MVP)

But I do note the Jump-prone of death-is-not-automatic (that is good). Dex was probably not used in the roll.

For those who think it is about being noob or ill-prepared :
- I was in a super defensive ambush position, using the Selune gate (closed) and trap (activated), but ironically starting in close quarter combat is easier.
- I cleared the ENTIRE goblin camp on first try ;
- I defeated the Gith patrol when I was level 3 on first try ;
- I defeated the Spectator on first try and surprised (but with one character KO/not dead).

It is not about bad play. Prone = 2 auto hits and not CR 4 nor 5. Otherwise, they have weaknesses and can be defeated on first try.

This previous post? If I'm understanding this correctly, instead of the minotaur knocking down all your party members, it knocked down only your player character and attacked them 3 times?

If so, that's exactly the right strategy. You use healing word to get them back up, and still have 3 character's worth of ~full turns before the minotaur gets to act again...

If I'm understanding this incorrectly, and the minotaur still knocked down all your party members, then they just weren't spaced out enough...?

But yes @Baraz, I agree that the Selune gate trap should trigger for the minotaurs. If it doesn't, that's a bug that Larian needs to fix. Your plan was interesting and should have worked; Larian should encourage that type of play.

The slight 'semantic' misunderstanding here is that I count the damaging jump-make-prone as an attack, which makes three attacks:
- the first (1d6 and prone) that seemed automatic (prob. uses Str vs Str and not Dex, hence my failure to resist)
- a second 100% hit : 2d12+4
- a third (Charge/Gore 0 feet) 100% hit: 2d8+4 (which, in my case, was also a Crit from being KO).

IMO, just tweaking the jump/prone attack and/or making the Charge attack require 10 feet could adapt the encounter a bit better, but Larian statistics will tell.

Ah, but crits don't matter once your down. The first attack should not kill you. The second attack should probably bring you down to 0HP. The third attack will give you a death saving throw. (This is how BG3 works right? PnP a crit is 2 failed saving throws, but in BG3 it's just one?)
On your turn, you might fail a death saving throw and bring you to 2 total.
Then it's your party members' turns who can bring you back up. Right?

The issue with encounters with small # of monsters is that they individually have to be extremely lethal and/or have multiple attacks, or else the players' party of 4(or more) will just absolutely overwhelm the enemy with action economy.

Although we are getting a bit off topic : I forget how I failed to save the character, but the next turn the minautaur ignored Laezel in melee and instead ended the dying character. Normally, creatures who wish to live focus the active threats, but anyhow. No matter, we have tons of Revivify scrolls. It did not matter to me: the 3 left characters focused on ending the two minautaurs rather than saving a character.

In retrospect, using Dex or Wis spells would have been much much better than my ambush/trap attempt.

Knocking down wasent 100% for me either. But if you did fall down the amount of incoming damage was pretty severe.

Menacing attacks is an interesting way to weaken them. Hadent considered that myself (mostly because Lae'zel wasent in my party at the time)
Hold person should not work on Minotaurs. They arent humanoid but large monstrocities. You would need hold monster, which is a 5th level spell. Web would work though. But only for a turn because you cant anchor the web between walls. (does it work like it does in pnp? Im not sure, havent tried the spell)
-Bane is a -D4 penaly to hit. If they have advantage chances that it wont do to much are fairly high.
-Using consambles can help at a pinch. Used a potions of strength and speed myself. But those give you bonuses, they dont make the minotaurs less nasty.

Anyway, whatever or not the player has good odds of fighting them (they are beatable, but it can be rough) isent the issue. To me anyway. More that these minotaurs arent minotaurs. And sure theyre allowed to homebrew here and there but.... every. single. fight. in the underdark is one such fight. At a certain point it isent fun anymore and the way that Larian amped up the difficulty is...lazy. All the monsters have been buffed in the same manner. They can all outright fly with how far they can jump, do aoe damage (which is the Bulette's signature move but ok), all have multi attack, all have some form of charge or sweep or BOTH. Basicly the only difference between these monsters is their HP bar and their 3D model. Because of this the fights arent interesting or memorable. Just hard. The difficulty also means that the underdark has only deadly encounters which any DM will tell you isent a good idea to put infront of your players.... unless you hate them with a burning passion I suppose.