Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 4 combat tweaks feedback

Generally, I think combat has improved - enemies seem to be making fewer dumb decisions (although too many of them are attacking the invulnerable flaming rock, and there's still way too much casting of sleep on characters resistant to sleep and characters with too many HP).

The Gith fight is harder, and while some of the loot is better, there's no Gith half-plate any more, which makes it less worthwhile. An enjoyable challenge though.

The Mephits are way too easy! All the neat game design that went into the original battle location is now wasted. I like that the Wood Woads now start in a regenerating position, but have they lost their tree-teleport ability? Sneaking up on them by jumping across to the island further west is now pointless, and the extra (easily solved) difficulty of the jump across the water to get to them from the front has been removed. (Am I also right in thinking that a lot of other jumps that previously required crates or strength boosts are now easier?)

The Hag is also too much of a pushover, literally. You can kill her in her hut without much problem, the traps on the rocks no longer reignite, and in the final fight itself you can now just position your party/sneak behind her and take away most of her hit points before she does anything. You can also just sneak up and shove her into the abyss, which is easy sleazy cheese.

(A brief aside - not sure if Auntie's well is now working as intended - it gives you an HP boost but then a handicap the following day, regardless of whether Auntie is alive or dead, whereas before it gave you the boost with no handicap if she was dead.)

Overall, the combat was more fun, I think, but IMO Larian have made a few too many concessions to those who were complaining about certain fights being too hard.

regarding dumb enemy behaviour:
My 4 chars stood close to an enemy with a ranged weapon (a goblin close to the drow priestress, I focussed damage on her and she was dead when it happened.)
The goblin with a bow provoked 3 AoO from my party when he tried to walk to a high position. It could have been 4 but Gale had a crossbow equipped.
Looks like our attacks slowed him down. He did not reach the highest point and so he did not attack this turn.

regarding difficulty:
Many fights feel very easy because the game expects you to abuse dumb enemy behaviour and activities that should not work if the game applied the actual DnD 5E rules.
Balance is kind of broken because the game is too easy if you abuse Larian homebrew cheese and it is too difficult if you play it like a DnD game.

Interesting perspective. I've never really played any DnD games (apart from BG1 and 2) so am approaching this purely as a game in its own right, on which basis I think it's pretty good.

Combat is still only about abusing high ground and trivialising the encounters.

Where you rarely can't do that, you can use free backstabs and an overpowered menacing strike that makes enemies flee in panic triggering AoO's (which it shouldn't do).

And resource management is never an issue when you can spam long rest at will and always be at full resources. Wizards can use all their spell slots to spam amulet -overpowered Magic Missiles in every fight.

I hope the next patch will fix that so combat will start to be enjoyable and actually tactical.

All of BG3's shortcomings in combat really make you appreciate how well raw 5e actually plays. I honestly don't think any of Larian's changes make the game better. The only thing I like is Wizards learning all cantrips from scrolls. It makes no sense they couldn't since they can learn all leveled spells.

Yeah, I fear there is no way to avoid the Larianesque gameplay.

So true it hurts and it's aggravating lol

I think everything could match with a bit more balance.

Barrelmancy is a choice for fun but even diping could be a strategy like another one. Highground and backstab/flanking could be very interresting in such a tactical game if it wasn't THE thing to do again and again with all our range/melee characters.

Shove could also be very interresting if it wasn't sooo easy, such could be thunderwave (I realize in my last playthrough that this spell is completely insane).

I really think Larian's "concepts" are interresting, but I really hope they won't stay THE only good way of playing this D&D game.

I want more choices and their concept would definitely be more choices... if they weren't the only ones that are good.