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Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
it does not per the both the description of the spell, which says nothing about it catching fire, and per the direct quote of the creator of 5E rules, who also said no, it does not catch fire.

What you do in your home game is on you, what Larian has done by making it catch fire in BG, is just another example of their meddling with the rules, completely changing the utility of the spell.

Again, there is no comparison to burning hands, burning hands requires your wizard to close to within 15 feet to cast the spell, that's the tradeoff, you have to get close to combat. Flammable grease can be cast from 60 feet onto a fire source itself to catch fire or can have a simple candle thrown on it to ignite it, and creates a burning surface that enemies now how to avoid or take damage.

It's utility goes far beyond the simple damage of magic missile.
Again, not arguing that Larian's implementation is balanced. Also not arguing that Jeremy Crawford says grease isn't flammable.

Turning a surface from causing [prone] into causing [Dex ST for 1d6 fire] seems inferior tbh.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
it does not per the both the description of the spell, which says nothing about it catching fire, and per the direct quote of the creator of 5E rules, who also said no, it does not catch fire.

What you do in your home game is on you, what Larian has done by making it catch fire in BG, is just another example of their meddling with the rules, completely changing the utility of the spell.

Again, there is no comparison to burning hands, burning hands requires your wizard to close to within 15 feet to cast the spell, that's the tradeoff, you have to get close to combat. Flammable grease can be cast from 60 feet onto a fire source itself to catch fire or can have a simple candle thrown on it to ignite it, and creates a burning surface that enemies now how to avoid or take damage.

It's utility goes far beyond the simple damage of magic missile.
Again, not arguing that Larian's implementation is balanced. Also not arguing that Jeremy Crawford says grease isn't flammable.

Turning a surface from causing [prone] into causing [Dex ST for 1d6 fire] seems inferior tbh.

If that were the only change, I might agree, but now you have a DOS flaming surface that enemies have to walk through or around, that you can now use the broken push system, to push them into after your attack for additional damage.

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I don't remember this being an especially hard fight in my first playthrough with no foreknowledge. The party clustered inside the tea house door or just out front, and we picked them off as they arrived, with maybe a melee fight vs. 2 at the end. I didn't use any surface effects or other cheese.

I can see where aggro'ing them in a group outside, close to the party could be tough. I'm just at this point with a playthrough on this new version (taking my time), so I'll see if it goes this well again. Maybe they increased the difficulty?

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The first time I triggered this encounter I just ignored the Redcaps and followed the Hag down into her lair. They all despawned and I didnt have to fight them. On my second play through I ambushed them while they were still in sheep form. In neither case did I feel like the encounter was broken or overpowered. Now that I better understand the mechanics of the game, almost nothing in early access seems difficult at all.

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On my first playthrough when I didn't know anything about D&D rules or this game, I killed all the redcaps without any problems in open space without any tricks. All my characters were on level 3 and nobody even died and I didn't use high ground or anything.

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Originally Posted by Rippley
The first time I triggered this encounter I just ignored the Redcaps and followed the Hag down into her lair. They all despawned and I didnt have to fight them. On my second play through I ambushed them while they were still in sheep form. In neither case did I feel like the encounter was broken or overpowered. Now that I better understand the mechanics of the game, almost nothing in early access seems difficult at all.

Right. Once you realize that the game design is centered around, height advantage, broken backstab, broken stealth, and broken push, almost all of the encounters become trivial except for one or two

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Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
Originally Posted by Rippley
The first time I triggered this encounter I just ignored the Redcaps and followed the Hag down into her lair. They all despawned and I didnt have to fight them. On my second play through I ambushed them while they were still in sheep form. In neither case did I feel like the encounter was broken or overpowered. Now that I better understand the mechanics of the game, almost nothing in early access seems difficult at all.

Right. Once you realize that the game design is centered around, height advantage, broken backstab, broken stealth, and broken push, almost all of the encounters become trivial except for one or two

The fight is very easy without using any of those, as several people have all said.

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Originally Posted by Warlocke
Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
Originally Posted by Rippley
The first time I triggered this encounter I just ignored the Redcaps and followed the Hag down into her lair. They all despawned and I didnt have to fight them. On my second play through I ambushed them while they were still in sheep form. In neither case did I feel like the encounter was broken or overpowered. Now that I better understand the mechanics of the game, almost nothing in early access seems difficult at all.

Right. Once you realize that the game design is centered around, height advantage, broken backstab, broken stealth, and broken push, almost all of the encounters become trivial except for one or two

The fight is very easy without using any of those, as several people have all said.

I'm sure you are playing the game gimped and completely disregarding all of the Larianisms.

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Originally Posted by Grudgebearer
I'm sure you are playing the game gimped and completely disregarding all of the Larianisms.

<image redacted in quote>
You have had a recent warning about remaining civil, a warning that you have evidently chosen to disregard. I hope that a 7-day suspension will make the point more emphatically for you.

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Hmmm, dunno - I found the redcaps pretty easy, but that was maybe mostly due to me blinding them so they never really managed to hit any of my characters.
Also helped that they pretty much file in one by one (if the fight gets triggered by the ethel cutscene) through the muddy terrain and that the elder redcap didn't really manage to get his buff off until the end.

I remember the fight being more difficult (but still managable without cheese) in an earlier patch playthrough, though so it's probably a matter of luck/positioning.

All things considered I think the fight was rather bland (Maybe give ethel the sleep spell in addition to the poison orbs or have one redcap positioned closer to the entrance?)
On a positive note: I was impressed that their pathfinding up to the teahouse entrance didn't bug out. Shows promise for some other battles which have pathing issues.

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Yes, DnD combat is heavily influenced by luck and forewarning. If you are surprised and have lame dice rolls, you are probably toast, even if you are a ninja ( with or without cheese ).

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Originally Posted by etonbears
Yes, DnD combat is heavily influenced by luck and forewarning. If you are surprised and have lame dice rolls, you are probably toast, even if you are a ninja ( with or without cheese ).

BG3 has a number of implementations in to reduce the impact of such randomness, more so than any other remotely D&D-based computer game in history, and more is likely to come with the implementation of feats such as Lucky - which probably will be brokenly OP in BG3 due to broken rest mechanics. I would argue Larian have gone much too far with the homebrew in this regard though, ie virtually guaranteed advantage, barrelmancy, all the implementations that easily trivialize most if not all encounters.

Ultimately though, BG3 is a computer game that allows you to savescum, it's groundhog day all day every day till you get it right. As such the need for a balancing encounters that accounts for bad-RNG, isn't nearly as required as in a tabletop game.

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Originally Posted by Seraphael
Originally Posted by etonbears
Yes, DnD combat is heavily influenced by luck and forewarning. If you are surprised and have lame dice rolls, you are probably toast, even if you are a ninja ( with or without cheese ).

BG3 has a number of implementations in to reduce the impact of such randomness, more so than any other remotely D&D-based computer game in history, and more is likely to come with the implementation of feats such as Lucky - which probably will be brokenly OP in BG3 due to broken rest mechanics. I would argue Larian have gone much too far with the homebrew in this regard though, ie virtually guaranteed advantage, barrelmancy, all the implementations that easily trivialize most if not all encounters.

Ultimately though, BG3 is a computer game that allows you to savescum, it's groundhog day all day every day till you get it right. As such the need for a balancing encounters that accounts for bad-RNG, isn't nearly as required as in a tabletop game.

Yes, exactly. Almost all computer games allow you to replay, and most have exploits, whether intentional or not. The goal for most game development is to cater for the widest set of playstyles possible, to encourage the largest player base possible.

That's why game series often change mechanics over the years, usually to simplify and broaden the appeal. Of course, that can be annoying if you liked the existing mechanics, but game development is a business, not a charity, so their reasoning is not necessarily the same as any given player.

In terms of BG3, I think that Larian's opinion is that they want to give you lots of things to do, and leave it up to you to decide what you use. I'm perfectly OK with that, although I recognise that there are a small number of choices that are not optional ( such as height advantage ) which can only be fixed by making that an on/off toggle; so I hope Larian consider making such mechanics optional.

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Originally Posted by etonbears
Yes, exactly. Almost all computer games allow you to replay, and most have exploits, whether intentional or not. The goal for most game development is to cater for the widest set of playstyles possible, to encourage the largest player base possible.

That's why game series often change mechanics over the years, usually to simplify and broaden the appeal. Of course, that can be annoying if you liked the existing mechanics, but game development is a business, not a charity, so their reasoning is not necessarily the same as any given player.

In terms of BG3, I think that Larian's opinion is that they want to give you lots of things to do, and leave it up to you to decide what you use. I'm perfectly OK with that, although I recognise that there are a small number of choices that are not optional ( such as height advantage ) which can only be fixed by making that an on/off toggle; so I hope Larian consider making such mechanics optional.

The problem, is that Larian said from the outset, that they wanted to make a proper 5th edition DnD game, not a reskinned DOS clone, and they've done nearly just that.

At the moment, the game plays like you took a bunch of DnD characters, dropped them into DOS, and then told them that most of their class-specific skills no longer mattered or weren't class-specific any longer.


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Iron Foot is pretty stupid, but if you start the fight at lv4 from the highground mounds and slap mirror images on at least 3 party members, you should have little issue dispatching 2 redcaps before the other 2 can climb up, and then you just thunderwave/push them off or frightening strike the threat.

Unfortunately this game really encourages cheese and not engaging battles via dialogue.

It's so much easier to kill the Redcaps by attacking them outright outside Ethel's house and get 4 free surprise turns that allow you to take out one or two of them before the other 2 can just react, and Ethel herself you just backstab engage at her house after she port Myrena out (you have to choose not to confront Ethel, or you don't get a surprise attack on her to delay her action pattern).

This game has serious balance issues in that you're much more powerful battling pre-emptively than you are in actual straight up combat. Everything is about getting that intitial surprise turn of burst, and it makes a ton of difference. It's really not fun, just consumables spam and surprise stealth attacks, or you engages in a really cheesy RNG dice fest 50-60% hit miss battle.

It also punishes you to not precast utility spells like bless and mirror images pre-battle as you was precious turns that make the difference between eating an attack for half your health or being able to do the same to the enemy before hand or CC a high threat target instead of wasting a turn buffing yourself.

The drawback is supposed to be that buffs tick down out of combat, but in actual practice most encounters don't really last more than 6-7 rounds to begin with, so it's a moot drawback.

And nobody wants to spend a turn casting bless, using a precious limited spell slot and concentration, only for a mere arrow or thrown fire grenade breaking concentration and wasting your slot.

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I just never engage right in their face. I force them to travel 2-3 turns to me. Grease or the new druid moonbeam attack force bottlenecks they don't want to use. If you're going to betray the Hag, then it's a matter of dealing with the sheep first.

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Originally Posted by Lethan
I just never engage right in their face. I force them to travel 2-3 turns to me. Grease or the new druid moonbeam attack force bottlenecks they don't want to use. If you're going to betray the Hag, then it's a matter of dealing with the sheep first.


If you're wood elf you can out run them every turn after an attack. As a wood elf druid you can literally kite them around the swamp and they will never touch you. Especially if you get Crusher's ring for thee extra +3m.

Lots of boring cheese in this game. Who knew limiting combat to a single action per character and making average combat pure roll of the dice would yield terrible results and encourage cheese.

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I don't find that dice rolling encourages cheese. In this BG3 actually reminds me of early BG1. At low levels your characters would get one attack or spell per round too, except in real time the turns passed quicker, so perhaps the misses weren't that noticeable. But aoe spells helped a lot with that (web especially) to keep enemy disabled. Of course you could use cheese like kiting (and there were many other tricks that made the game ridiculously easy), but not using them would not turn combat unbeatable.

Similar in BG3: I don't consider it cheesy to use spells that cause difficult terrain, that is what they are for. And they are a reliable strategy in this encounter, since you can combine them with other spells and items, such as thunderwave or repelling blast. That is the part of D&D-based games I've enjoyed.

For me the cheese comes from enemy reactions (or lack of) to some spell effects, for example I've noticed they don't really try to avoid moonbeam, just run through it. I've sent some feedback reports, but that basically depends on how much they can improve enemy ai. Which, to be fair, is still better than in many other cRPGs I've played.

But I agree with the criticism on some of the melee mechanics like jumping, imo they should provoke attacks of opportunity. I'd also prefer flanking like in Pathfinder Kingmaker.

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Originally Posted by ash elemental
I don't find that dice rolling encourages cheese. In this BG3 actually reminds me of early BG1. At low levels your characters would get one attack or spell per round too, except in real time the turns passed quicker, so perhaps the misses weren't that noticeable. But aoe spells helped a lot with that (web especially) to keep enemy disabled. Of course you could use cheese like kiting (and there were many other tricks that made the game ridiculously easy), but not using them would not turn combat unbeatable.

Similar in BG3: I don't consider it cheesy to use spells that cause difficult terrain, that is what they are for. And they are a reliable strategy in this encounter, since you can combine them with other spells and items, such as thunderwave or repelling blast. That is the part of D&D-based games I've enjoyed.

For me the cheese comes from enemy reactions (or lack of) to some spell effects, for example I've noticed they don't really try to avoid moonbeam, just run through it. I've sent some feedback reports, but that basically depends on how much they can improve enemy ai. Which, to be fair, is still better than in many other cRPGs I've played.

But I agree with the criticism on some of the melee mechanics like jumping, imo they should provoke attacks of opportunity. I'd also prefer flanking like in Pathfinder Kingmaker.


Why would I use Web or some other concentration requiring garbage when I can slap on two short swords or even my 1h clubs, conjure a flame sword or shillelagh, and do far more with Moonbeam than a difficult terrain spell you waste a slot on only for 50%+ time the enemy gets a saving throw, or the spell misses, and you're there at square one.

Spellcasting in this game sucks big time. Virtually spam Magic Missiles on casters or moonbeam on druid.

Get Darkvision perk on Wyll, get high ground, and still with high ground and backstab advantage the hit race on some enemies is a pitiful 75% that feels more like 40% some times.

And for what? If the Hex+Ray of Fire combo does not hit or I don't use Force Missiles with the Underdark necklace, I do maybe a third of the damage Lazael does in a single regular swing without dipping on fire or counting Wyvern Potion.

Meant to feel good on Shadowheart to Channel Dvinity? Too bad it requires concentration and will never compete with Bless, which also requires concentration, so until you get staff of Arcane Mastery in the Underdark tower, you're stuck maintaining a single spell while filling the gaps with Inflict Wounds and hope you neither need healing in the long run because once those spell slots are gone on Cleric, you're back to 1-2 damage Sacred Flames landing 30% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Zenith
Why would I use Web or some other concentration requiring garbage when I can slap on two short swords or even my 1h clubs, conjure a flame sword or shillelagh, and do far more with Moonbeam than a difficult terrain spell you waste a slot on only for 50%+ time the enemy gets a saving throw, or the spell misses, and you're there at square one.
Why would I use melee if I find that playstyle boring, regardless of how overpowered it can get? BG1 and 2 were, in terms of classes, not balanced at all. You could have a very easy time spamming wands in BG1, yet not everyone did that. Because other playstyles were viable too, as the game didn't require you to use wands to win. Same case in BG3. I find melee boring, don't use it often in games and so I'm not very good at it, but that is not a game stopper in BG3.

With aoe spells, it's the area that you can cover that matters. A redcap won't make it through a web and spike growth patch in one turn, even when making the saving throws. Consequently, it doesn't matter if every ranged attack or spell that turn hits, because you have spells & items to blast it back to square one the next turn. I have replayed this battle using different terrain spells, and the result was the same.

The only fight were my druid's party needed that high ground was the githyanki patrol, but even here web worked. But I suspect you'll be level 5 when you get there in the full game, which means level 3 spells.

Technically, you can also cheese any melee encounter with the flaming sphere spell, in which case dice rolls won't matter, and there is no risk to your party. But I don't count it as a working strategy, since the spell just exploits enemy ai.

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