Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What's the meaning of "cheese" or "hide cheese"

Hi @Madscientist,

You welcome ! And your post is on the mark.

But just so you understand why I made this post, I am not a gamer at all - w/ Covid-19 - now I am, at least with BG3. So I lack background big time.

So in regards of cheese, well: Killing Gale in my party so I can throw his body around and kill few vilains with his necrotic damage is an acceptable solution. The "engine" allows me to do it, and it's not buggy, it work as intended within the rule of the engine. And lots of fun too, especially when you throw him off the balcony in goblin camp and then use my mage hand to keep dragging his body around ..

But I found out, from a Larian's interview, that it wasnt the intended design or goal, to throw Gale's body around. So that is an exploit I would say, according to the definition.

So I'm just thinking this post should help people to expose those "cheese strategy" and be turn into feedback for the team ?

Now thats something interesting.

All discussions about which companion is most powerful are wrong.
The correct answer is: Gale is the most powerful one, but only when he is dead. He can damage enemies but they cannot damage a dead character.
So much about people saying mage hand is useless.

not necessarily^ i think there is some tuning there with inventory locks in combat and the exploits currently in game expand beyond just inventory/combat as there are things related to class balance, no risk resting, abundance of consumables/potions, etc. and there are various threads that go into further detail for these areas.

specifically highlighted in my original post tho - i do think its foolish to be able to throw a healing potion at an ally and they get healed upon impact

reality check:
When I see people throwing eggs and fruits at someone there is only one possible explanation:
Those are BG3 players who want to heal this person!

No, you shouldn't be able to rummage round in another character's backpack in the middle of combat as a free action.

For me "cheese" means anti-immersive implementations, oftentimes unbalanced and more often than not needlessly and crudely injected into the game despite there being a plethora of objectively better D&D alternatives, because Larian loves silly fun that much - and moar iz betta!

Pickpocketing is an example of cheese that likely won't change, DOS2 had the exact same issue. It is essentially a never ending dispenser of free stuff. Once you know the mechanics/savescum, there is zero risk for almost no effort for the best supply of loot and gold in the game. Totally breaks any sort of reward vs. risk balancing mechanic. You might say you can ignore stuff if you don't like it, but you still feel punished for roleplaying (anything other than an amoral kleptomaniac) in the game. This is pretty bad for a roleplaying game that takes itself seriously and that attempts to walk in the shoes of the BG classic (who at least had a balanced law & order system). And this is but one of way too many cheesy half-assed implementations.


My ideal game would reduce encumbrance capacity drastically. Realistically your entire party shouldn't be able to carry a single barrel - without reducing movement speed to a crawl. So the cheese is in several layers. This isn't based on "muh realism" as it might sound, but a certain consistent internal logic is helpful for immersion. The loot focus (that detracts from the character build focus), most of it trash or unbalanced homebrew, feeds into this. Larian's insistence on excessive loot is why I never finished DOS2, and I imagine partly why the large majority of players never did.

Although I LOVE XCOM 2, and am playing it right now in fact, there is no way that game would transfer to this game. First, there are some people here that complain this game is too difficult, if they think this game is difficult, there is no way they would last in XCOM. Second, there is people that complain about "save scumming" in this game, and that is basically all XCOM is. You make one mistake, or have a bad RNG roll in XCOM and you are quite literally done. Not to mention, your team is dead, and in that game when you lose your soldiers, it hurts, bad. Especially if they are SGT or higher.

There is a lot of stuff in XCOM I do wish they would integrate in this game though. A way to possibly build our camp up for certain abilities or bonuses. More random encounters. A better sense of urgency and such just to name a few. I also see why they integrate "cheese" into this game. You have game "journalists" (God I don't even want to call them that nowadays) that complain about any game that isn't just cake walk, with no challenge or risk. Complaining about gatekeeping if there is any type of barrier to see the story. So they integrate the barrelmancy into the game for people like that I think. But honestly, you DON't have to use them. I have never used barrels, hardly any scrolls in any of my play throughs, and I have not had much difficulty with the battles. So I doubt very much Larian is EVER going to remove them.

That has to be one of the most creative and hilarious strategies I have heard so far.

"Papyrus Cheese" was a problem even in the original Baldur's Gate, where every group of gibberlings seemed to have one or two libraries. According to the AD&D DMG, scroll production is not a trivial thing, and certainly the value of a scroll should be high. The basic elements of scroll fabrication included the following:

1) Must be 7th level or higher to scribe, and of level high enough to cast the spell normally
2) Takes 1 day per spell level of preparation per scroll, and chance of success is not 100%
3) Requires special paper, but not too expensive
4) Requires special ink ... this is where it gets really interesting! A Protection from Petrification ink requires eye of basilisk, feather of cockatrice, and venom from a Medusa snake. And also some crushed peridot and topaz gems, and six pumpkin seeds.

I just don't think scrolls should ever be included in random treasure drops.

For once I would be happy if only classes who have a spell on the list of their class spells can use a scroll.

It is a magic setting and players expect to find magic stuff.
Its hard to find the right balance between being able to find cool stuff while making it so rare that finding it feels special.

I think BG1 did it right.
Getting your first weapon+1 felt special.
Unique stuff was very rare in the beginning and finding it felt very importent.

In BG2 it was a bit too much for my taste.
I finished ToB only once. It felt boring for me. When you get epic encounters, loot and abilities around every corner it stops feeling epic very fast.

From this position BG3 has too many magic items.
- You should get unique items only from "bosses" or at well hidden places.
- Shops should not get new magic items when you rest.

But I thought bard AND rogue (when higher level) could use scrolls, among other classes that has magic like wizard / cleric. That's what I read in some d&d rules webs site.

The fighter, though, should only be worry about how to swing a sword/weapons.

I could start quoting stuff from what I read, but perhaps this is where people with more background should shine in ? I mean, if as a battlemaster with my full plate armour, shield / sword I can use a scroll to silence a bunch a wizards and then start swinging my sword around - trust me, I will find a way to make it fun!

I am not the expert for DnD rules.
And I have played so many games that its easy to be confused which rules is from which DnD edition, Pathfinder, DSA or whatever.

Lets put it that way: Scrolls should only be usable for characters than can use them under DnD 5E rules.

Its possible. Sheathing and drawing are both free actions. I know the warcaster feat lets sword and shield eldritch knights cast freely too as well as other things. I don't see a problem with scrolls. Frequency of scrolls is a different issue though.

The problem with scrolls is that any class can use them in BG#

A spell scroll bears the words of a single spell, written in a mystical cipher. If the spell is on your class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible. Casting the spell by reading the scroll requires the spell’s normal casting time. Once the spell is cast, the words on the scroll fade, and it crumbles to dust. If the casting is interrupted, the scroll is not lost.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/spell-scroll

The only exception is a level 13 rogue using the "use magical device" skill.

Ok. I think its fair though to allow use. I'm pretty sure casters are quite a bit more powerful than martials. It's just that EA has not reached the power spikes yet. For a martial to not attack is a trade off depending on the situation. Losing rage, losing extra attack, losing stunning strike, losing crit smite chance, etc. Frequency of scrolls found should be whats tweaked not the ability to use them.

Let martials have a choice.

And that is how you get a broken game that plays like you dropped some DnD characters into DOS2, but stripped them of class requirements for half their skills. Not to mention that there's near zero reason to choose eldritch knight as a sub-class since you can just load up your battle master with scrolls.

Welcome to hybrid classes. Lol.

Eldritch knight's problem is not spells because booming blade, green flame blade, and shadow blade are not phb first of all. So you are screwed either way. Second is all about action economy as well as the good war magic locked to level 18. Even if you fix those two things it still contradicts 4 extra attack. Scrolls should be the last thing on an Ek's mind.

Why would a battle master not be using the superior die? You think a single scroll would ever be better than supper die? Read that list. No reason to use scrolls. If you're min/maxing, which I assume is what youe are talking about, it's a sharp drop in dpr. Also assuming a vacuum 1v1. In a team fight who cares which party member sent the spell flying? As a mage the less you are required to use a spell slot the more you can nova an encounter. If you like casters you should be all for this. Not to mention upcast is where the money is. Base spells are just ok most of the time.

So is the problem you have with EK's or wizard domination over martials?

With the right spells wizards can build to better martials than martials that range from 10min to an hour to a full day. Relax. No need for drama. You lose nothing and gain tactical options without relying on resting.

"hybrid classes"? Where exactly is that in the PHB or DMG?

Some subclass are based on the idea of mixing classes together. Eldritch knight is a fighter with wizard spells. Hexblade is a warlock with more of brawler focus like a fighter. Paladin oath of the ancients is a Paladin mixed with druid. Every class has a sort of hybrid option. Hence hybrid class is how I see them. Some are very strong, others not so much. I can list the phb ones if you want.

My definition of cheese mostly consists of mechanics or environmental factors that end up overpowering traditional strategies so much that you're pretty much expected to take advantage of them if you want to have an easier time. Even worse when the game happens to be balanced around said cheese, to the point that approaching an encounter with a traditional mindset and without any foresight means you're paddling up shit creek and you can expect a reload.

High ground advantage/low ground disadvantage isn't what I'd consider cheese, it's just a highly questionable design decision. Taking advantage of it by itself isn't cheese. But what pushes it into cheese range is the existence of bonus action shove, which further emphasizes control of the high ground by rewarding players with an opportunity for bonus damage via yeeting things that try to pursue your party. Not to mention that the existence of an ability that anyone can use which can outright result in instant kills when used at certain angles really shouldn't be a bonus action to begin with. There's a very good reason why the high ground/low ground advantage/disadvantage system as well as bonus action shoves don't exist in tabletop DnD, and BG3 is basically proof of why.

Stuff like barrelmancy is also low hanging fruit in this regard, but probably the absolute biggest offender is the idea that you can have a single character start a fight and roll initiative, and the rest of the party can just sneak around the whole battlefield doing whatever they want as long as they don't use an action that breaks stealth or walk into a sight cone, while the one character in combat just stalls their turn. That is what pushes barrelmancy into 'neat environmental prop' into 'highly abusable mechanic that can potentially delete most encounters'.

The game currently isn't what I'd consider legitimately hard, and taking advantage of the cheese mechanics doesn't mean you're smart, it just means you learned how to flip the chess board to play checkers instead.

It's kind of telling that the vast majority of advice on how to tackle fights in this game ultimately boils down to figuring out how to abuse the homebrew mechanics and/or the environment, instead of being character-specific or advising on effective use of abilities.