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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Apr 2021
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Is it just my impression or enemy casters have unlimited spell slots? If that's the case I believe this should be rectified as it makes fights quite unfair.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Apr 2021
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They have unlimited Cantrips but should not have unlimited spells slots.. they should have the same amount of spells as casters of that class. So a level 3 Wizard enemy should have 4 level 1 slots and 2 level 2 slots..
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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Apr 2021
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I am not so sure, in the goblins hall there was a lv2 human wizard who cast Command a ridiculous amount of times.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2020
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If you raise enemies you can see they have more spell slots than a player could have. Not unlimited, just more. Most of the time they have higher stats too. The player is almost always the underdog. It's similar in TT if you are curious.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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Yeah, I also get the feeling they have waaaay more spell slots than they should? I certainly hope I wrong about that.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jun 2020
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They do indeed have far more spell slots than they should; as Aishaddai mentions, you can raise a variety of them with Glut to see this, since they come up with their full ability set. It's not just one or two extra; it's more like a level 5 character with eight 1st level slots, six 2nd level slots and four 3rd level slots... while others have custom homebrew 'abilities' which emulate 1st or 2nd level spells that they can use unlimited as bonus actions.
This is NOT at all the way it goes in TT (and if it is you should probably get a new DM); enemies play by the same rules as you except in very specific exceptional circumstances.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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Enemies rarely follow the same rules as players. This is quite common for the AI to have any chance against the player. This isn't a big problem.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2020
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Only players have levels. Enemies have challenge ratings with custom rules. To me its the same principal. You do not follow the same rules as enemies in this sense.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Feb 2020
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Enemies rarely follow the same rules as players. This is quite common for the AI to have any chance against the player. This isn't a big problem. Yea and that's especially necessary when the players have so much WTF OP tools the ennemy won't ever use... They're really bad at balancing combats. Can't understand how they can miss that using the rules of a game that had already done all the job for them... They should have use a D&D encounter builder...
Last edited by Maximuuus; 28/04/21 05:09 AM.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2020
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In base 5e enemies don't really follow player rules too closely, though having every spell caster have more spell slots than an average wizard is eh to me. Arguably some casters should have less, like a gobbos shaman could cast less spells a day than a trained drow wizard.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jun 2020
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To all those saying that enemies don't follow the same rules as players... Yes. In 5e, they generally do.
For example....
Archmage; quintessential high-end spellcaster enemy.
Archmage is a CR 12 creature, able to pose a moderate but not overwhelmiong threat to a group of 3-4 level 12 player characters.
In the Archmage block there is this section:
"Spellcasting. The archmage is an 18th-level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC 17, +9 to hit with spell attacks). The archmage can cast disguise self and invisibility at will and has the following wizard spells prepared:
Cantrips (at will): fire bolt, light, mage hand, prestidigitation, shocking grasp
1st level (4 slots): detect magic, identify, mage armor*, magic missile
2nd level (3 slots): detect thoughts, mirror image, misty step
3rd level (3 slots): counterspell, fly, lightning bolt
4th level (3 slots): banishment, fire shield, stoneskin*
5th level (3 slots): cone of cold, scrying, wall of force
6th level (1 slot): globe of invulnerability
7th level (1 slot): teleport
8th level (1 slot): mind blank*
9th level (1 slot): time stop
*The archmage casts these spells on itself before combat."
This is exactly the spell capabilities an 18th level player character wizard would be expected to have, with the exception that the enemy spellcaster has a slightly lower save DC and attack bonus than the equivalent player Wizard would have, because the archmage is only rated at Pb+4, while an 18th level character is Pb+6.
They absolutely DO use the same rules and limitations as player characters, and do not generally cheat the rules with excessive extra casting capabilities. Resorting to cheating the stats is a sign of a poor GM, poor balance, or poor game design.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2014
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Enemies having more spell slots or higher stats is poor design. It makes your player character feel inferior when you find that out through examining the enemies.
Why are we limited to 28 point buy and how did some random miniboss get much higher stats? Why does your PC, the hero, look like a commoner compared to random NPCs?
It feels unfair in a bad way.
Take Minthara for example. She's not threatening in any way, one of the easiest fights. But her stats are much higher than your PCs, probably to make her a tougher opponent. But they could have designed her as a level 8 Cleric with lower stats instead. She could actually be a better fight and a real threat with 4th level spells. You would defeat a higher level enemy who uses impressive powers unavailable to you.
That would be unfair in a good way.
Last edited by 1varangian; 28/04/21 07:54 AM.
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member
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member
Joined: Mar 2021
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Some npcs have higher walking speeds than they should, like 12m per round. Npcs like Minthara, for example. I may be remembering it wrong, but I think I saw a gnome with this speed as well. Maybe they all have it. I'll check if I remember tomorrow.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2020
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@Niara The CR system is messy when it comes to certain things. CR is in reference to how it as a enemy can challenge a group of adventures. Depending on the level range of the campaign you have to account for things as a DM like which items you reward to your players and team composition for example. Like a bandit at cr3 can have more hp and multi attack than a fighter at level 5.
For a campaign you don't have to adjust anything and could simply pick an enemy from a higher challenge rating or you can severely limit what rewards a party can attain or you can make some changes. Regardless an enemy from the campaign can, but does not have to, follow the same rules to the letter as players.
Their are all sorts of supplement books out there to help make campaign's. Some players, if you let them, will stomp an encounter into dust if you aren't careful. Some challenge without overwhelming the players helps.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Sep 2020
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To all those saying that enemies don't follow the same rules as players... Yes. In 5e, they generally do.
For example....
Archmage is a CR 12 creature, able to pose a moderate but not overwhelmiong threat to a group of 3-4 level 12 player characters.
"Spellcasting. The archmage is an 18th-level spellcaster. <snip> The key point here is that the Archmage is a CR 12 creature but an 18th level caster. So in BG3 it'd be given the designation of "level 12" but would be able to cast 9th level spells, something no level 12 player can do. Similarly, I am not so sure, in the goblins hall there was a lv2 human wizard who cast Command a ridiculous amount of times. A "level 2" human would likely be a 3rd- or 4th-level spellcaster, which would give them access to 6-7 spell slots. As Niara and Aishaddai said, a enemy with a CR of X needs to pose some kind of threat to the entire party, which is why they often have better abilities (spells, multiattack) then an equivalently-leveled party member.
Last edited by mrfuji3; 28/04/21 02:50 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jun 2020
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@Niara The CR system is messy when it comes to certain things. [...] For a campaign you don't have to adjust anything and could simply pick an enemy from a higher challenge rating or you can severely limit what rewards a party can attain or you can make some changes. Regardless an enemy from the campaign can, but does not have to, follow the same rules to the letter as players. I'm well aware; CR is a guideline, and has been moderately carefully balanced using a set of rules that add up and calculate a creature's offence CR and defence CR, and along with other modifiers work together to create the final projected challenge rating for the creature - being a projection of a moderate but not overwhelming threat to a party of between three and four player characters of a level equal to the projected CR. I am very well versed in all of this, and use it along with the necessary adjustments to make custom creatures quite regularly as and when I need to for a game. Because CR represents a moderate threat to a party, a well rested party with good synergy or good planning can usually punch substantially above their CR, at the cost of more of their daily resources, but at relatively low overall danger. This is normal, and a good DM accounts for it without punishing the possibility that a group won't be as tactically organised. There are, of course, a number of specialised cases of individual creatures or certain scenarios where setting a higher CR monster can be disastrous for the group, even if they'd normally be able to punch at that weight on another creature. Spell access vs. spell immunity by level is one such most notable case (it's even highlighted in the DMG as a classic case where this kind of outlier crops up), and a good DM watches out for these situations when designing encounters or areas. Please trust me when I say I know what I'm talking about. In a video game, our DM (Larian) as ABSOLUTE control over exactly what we are able to see, where we are able to go, and what we can fight, when... they have no player anomalies to account for because they control, absolutely, what we can and cannot do or be, and what we can or cannot try. This means that they have zero excuse for lazy hack jobs that unbalance encounters, or for cheating the rules unfairly because they haven't wrapped their heads around proper encounter design; unbalancing a creature by giving it far more spell access than it should, or even *Could Possibly Ever* have, without adjusting its CR, is just ridiculous, lazy and stupid, and it pushes players towards cheap, cheaty strategies and immersion-breaking cheese. Of course, we've already seen that that's what Larian wants, because that's what their developers define 'fun' as being. The key point here is that the Archmage is a CR 12 creature but an 18th level caster. So in BG3 it'd be given the designation of "level 12" but would be able to cast 9th level spells, something no level 12 player can do. It should either display as Level 18, or as CR 12. Anything else is Larian's failure and not something that we should account for or accept... I know this is how they do it right now, and it's not an excuse I accept. Calling such a creature Level 12 is just Larian showing that they have not understood the system they're working with yet. It doesn't matter what internal level or external CR a caster character is, it is never going to have eight 1st level slots, six 2nd level slots and four 3rd level slots; that's not how magic works in 5e. It is a hacked, cheated character that is breaking the game's rules, and it's a poor excuse, and a lazy one, to actually designing fair and challenging encounters.
Last edited by Niara; 29/04/21 04:34 AM.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2020
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In a video game, our DM (Larian) as ABSOLUTE control over exactly what we are able to see, where we are able to go, and what we can fight, when... they have no player anomalies to account for because they control, absolutely, what we can and cannot do or be, and what we can or cannot try. This means that they have zero excuse for lazy hack jobs that unbalance encounters, or for cheating the rules unfairly because they haven't wrapped their heads around proper encounter design; unbalancing a creature by giving it far more spell access than it should, or even *Could Possibly Ever* have, without adjusting its CR, is just ridiculous, lazy and stupid, and it pushes players towards cheap, cheaty strategies and immersion-breaking cheese. Of course, we've already seen that that's what Larian wants, because that's what their developers define 'fun' as being.
It doesn't matter what internal level or external CR a caster character is, it is never going to have eight 1st level slots, six 2nd level slots and four 3rd level slots; that's not how magic works in 5e. It is a hacked, cheated character that is breaking the game's rules, and it's a poor excuse, and a lazy one, to actually designing fair and challenging encounters. I am in full agreement here. Not sure why people are defending Larian.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Jan 2021
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In a video game, our DM (Larian) as ABSOLUTE control over exactly what we are able to see, where we are able to go, and what we can fight, when... they have no player anomalies to account for because they control, absolutely, what we can and cannot do or be, and what we can or cannot try.
This means that they have zero excuse for lazy hack jobs that unbalance encounters, or for cheating the rules unfairly because they haven't wrapped their heads around proper encounter design;
unbalancing a creature by giving it far more spell access than it should, or even *Could Possibly Ever* have, without adjusting its CR, is just ridiculous, lazy and stupid, and it pushes players towards cheap, cheaty strategies and immersion-breaking cheese.
Of course, we've already seen that that's what Larian wants, because that's what their developers define 'fun' as being. Well said.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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@Niara The CR system is messy when it comes to certain things. [...] For a campaign you don't have to adjust anything and could simply pick an enemy from a higher challenge rating or you can severely limit what rewards a party can attain or you can make some changes. Regardless an enemy from the campaign can, but does not have to, follow the same rules to the letter as players. I'm well aware; CR is a guideline, and has been moderately carefully balanced using a set of rules that add up and calculate a creature's offence CR and defence CR, and along with other modifiers work together to create the final projected challenge rating for the creature - being a projection of a moderate but not overwhelming threat to a party of between three and four player characters of a level equal to the projected CR. I am very well versed in all of this, and use it along with the necessary adjustments to make custom creatures quite regularly as and when I need to for a game. Because CR represents a moderate threat to a party, a well rested party with good synergy or good planning can usually punch substantially above their CR, at the cost of more of their daily resources, but at relatively low overall danger. This is normal, and a good DM accounts for it without punishing the possibility that a group won't be as tactically organised. There are, of course, a number of specialised cases of individual creatures or certain scenarios where setting a higher CR monster can be disastrous for the group, even if they'd normally be able to punch at that weight on another creature. Spell access vs. spell immunity by level is one such most notable case (it's even highlighted in the DMG as a classic case where this kind of outlier crops up), and a good DM watches out for these situations when designing encounters or areas. Please trust me when I say I know what I'm talking about. In a video game, our DM (Larian) as ABSOLUTE control over exactly what we are able to see, where we are able to go, and what we can fight, when... they have no player anomalies to account for because they control, absolutely, what we can and cannot do or be, and what we can or cannot try. This means that they have zero excuse for lazy hack jobs that unbalance encounters, or for cheating the rules unfairly because they haven't wrapped their heads around proper encounter design; unbalancing a creature by giving it far more spell access than it should, or even *Could Possibly Ever* have, without adjusting its CR, is just ridiculous, lazy and stupid, and it pushes players towards cheap, cheaty strategies and immersion-breaking cheese. Of course, we've already seen that that's what Larian wants, because that's what their developers define 'fun' as being. The key point here is that the Archmage is a CR 12 creature but an 18th level caster. So in BG3 it'd be given the designation of "level 12" but would be able to cast 9th level spells, something no level 12 player can do. It should either display as Level 18, or as CR 12. Anything else is Larian's failure and not something that we should account for or accept... I know this is how they do it right now, and it's not an excuse I accept. Calling such a creature Level 12 is just Larian showing that they have not understood the system they're working with yet. It doesn't matter what internal level or external CR a caster character is, it is never going to have eight 1st level slots, six 2nd level slots and four 3rd level slots; that's not how magic works in 5e. It is a hacked, cheated character that is breaking the game's rules, and it's a poor excuse, and a lazy one, to actually designing fair and challenging encounters. I would say that larian has a much more difficult task to balance matches correctly. The DM can adapt to the group on an ongoing basis by appropriately selecting the risk. This cannot be done in the game. How to balance the game when you have no idea what the player will have in the team. A player may as well have a team consisting of only combat classes that do not require much rest, or a team based entirely on classes that require more common rests. Certain enemies will, of course, be a much greater threat to one type of team than to another. Do you see where the problem is? Of course, the composition of the team itself is not the only thing that the creator has to take into account.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Feb 2020
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I would say that larian has a much more difficult task to balance matches correctly. The DM can adapt to the group on an ongoing basis by appropriately selecting the risk. This cannot be done in the game. How to balance the game when you have no idea what the player will have in the team. A player may as well have a team consisting of only combat classes that do not require much rest, or a team based entirely on classes that require more common rests. Certain enemies will, of course, be a much greater threat to one type of team than to another. Do you see where the problem is? Of course, the composition of the team itself is not the only thing that the creator has to take into account. Really ? How is it possible that Solasta is balanced then ? How would it be possible to balance any party based video games ? It looks like you're making up false assumptions. D&D is pretty well balanced and the issues of BG3 only comes from Larian's changes and nothing else. Not sure why you're trying to convince yourself of something else because it's absolutely obvious. This thread is about spellslots but it's not the only problem. How could you explain that some people struggle with a party of 4 while others can solo'd the game with any classes ? Because it's D&D ? No... Because it's Larian and their breaking game balance mechanics everywhere. Hope they'll realize BG3 has the potential to become a real, deep and balanced tactical TB game that could easily be simplified for the newcomers.
Last edited by Maximuuus; 29/04/21 09:56 AM.
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