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I have been lurking for a long time and have seen many conversations regarding disengage as a bonus action. It is certainly a legitimate problem, but to me the much more egregious issue is bonus action: hide.. and I don't see it mentioned nearly as often.

I've recently started multiple playthroughs as a murder hobo to try out classes and avoid too many spoilers for when I "really" play the game. Killing everything on sight, including companions before they even open their mouths. Once I got to the ranged classes, I discovered how easy it was to beat ANY encounter solo without anything even sneezing in my direction. Attack with my action, hide with my bonus action, watch everything stand around and do nothing until its my turn again, repeat. It's especially easy with Warlock spamming Eldritch Blast. Goblins.. Undead outside the Talkative Skeleton.. it doesn't really matter what the enemy is or how many there are.

Sure, part of this is due to AI. I've gotten so proficient at this that occasionally I won't even hide just to have enemies get closer to me and save some time... knowing they can't reach and will immediately lose me again anyway on my next turn despite being repeatedly zapped in the face. That part probably needs to be fixed either way or else you'd just have rogues doing the same exact thing (which they should be able to do somewhat but not to this ridiculous extent... at MINIMUM intelligent enemies should run to your last known location, move their cone of vision, and check it out forcing rolls). But the main reason (IMO) is the same as disengage.. the game simply isn't balanced for having these things as bonus actions. I don't see where the upside is, seems like a lose-lose situation in my eyes and I really hope it doesn't make it through too many more builds.

[edit] Adding quick video to show that I am referring to:


Last edited by Celeras; 07/06/21 08:43 PM.
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Good point. Once I’ve discovered how broken the stealth is I’ve stopped using it at all in order to keep battles entertaining.


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Originally Posted by VenusP
Good point. Once I’ve discovered how broken the stealth is I’ve stopped using it at all in order to keep battles entertaining.

Same. I Hide my rogue and maybe Shadowheart if I need her heals, but not any other character that it doesn't make RP sense to Hide.

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Originally Posted by Celeras
at MINIMUM intelligent enemies should run to your last known location, move their cone of vision, and check it out forcing rolls

I hope this is what we will see eventually as the AI gets better and better.
That hide as a bonus action is unbalanced, I agree with. I think it should be a bonus action for rogues, though. A lot of things that make the rogue unique have been taken away already, and I think this would at least somewhat balance it out again.

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I don't know about this one, but to be honnest I'm usually not playing a lot with stealth.

But according to me in a turn based game it's completely ridiculous that you can hide as soon as you're in a creatures back. Just as backstab it's an exploit of the TB system that's completely uninterresting from a tactical point of view.
Being able to hide shouldn't be so easy at each turns. Hiding should be a real gameplay mechanic that rely on the knowledge and the use of the environment (light, verticality, walls...), on our characters builds and on our knowledge of the mechanic itself.

At the moment hiding is not something you have to think about. As a bonus action for everyone it's close to be free and if you suceed, once again you easily have other OP bonuses.
Even if some players can probably play better than other with it, It's usually another brainless mechanic you can use for the sake of it.

Ideas ?

First of all : I think every creatures should have 2 detections area.
- The first one is the visual one. The cone we actually have but any creatures should see a lot more further ahead. It could be very good if the further is the hidden character, the more the DC to see him is difficult.
- The second one should be the sound. A circle all arround the character would do the job if it's not possible to add real "noise" detection.

Second : we shouldn't have any bonuses of being hidden the first round after we click the button. Being hidden for an entire round should be necessary to have advantages and being "forgotten".
(easier variant : hide is an action rather than a bonus action...)

Third : I may be wrong but I think that if a creature have spotted you, you're considered visible for every ennemies. It would be better if it was individual.
There's not reason a creature engaged in melee can see my rogue coming in it's back, even if his friends see me with their eyes. It should be possible to hide for a specific ennemy and not for the entire group.

The DC to stay hidden should not be the same if you're in front of / behind / 5m away / 20 m away from the creatures.

This may be a bit complicated to implement and it's probably not a perfect answer but without any depth (what we actually have), mechanics are not fun even for the wider audience.
Players wants to be rewarded. Cheesy mechanics can be fun for a while but the reward quickly becomes uninteresting if it is constantly thrown at you.

Last edited by Maximuuus; 07/06/21 01:47 PM.

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Originally Posted by Maximuuus
First of all : I think every creatures should have 2 detections area.
- The first one is the visual one. The cone we actually have but any creatures should see a lot more further ahead. It could be very good if the further is the hidden character, the more the DC to see him is difficult.
- The second one should be the sound. A circle all arround the character would do the job if it's not possible to add real "noise" detection.
Like yourself I didn’t play much with stealth, even through I played with rogue intending to test stealth. Advantage and sneak attack is far quicker to get through other means, and with jump and shove using bonus action to go stealthy kinda feels like a waste of action.

I like your suggestion (reminds me more or less of what Deadfire did - and different creatures could have different sound/vision cone depending on their hearing/sight). Walking through hearing cone might require a stealth check.

I can see how bonus action stealth can be problematic as it makes enemies unaware of our position - one could potentially take potshots and hide without AI doing anything, if that is how it works. Making hide full action would mean that unless you are a rogue, you can attack and hide on the same turn.

What OP suggests sounds like a solid idea as well - enemies “investigating” last known position, especially if there is no other target. There even could be units with “Hunter” mindset - enemies like rogues might prioritise looking for stealthy characters, over charging at full-plate armoured warriors.

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Added the following video to OP to show what I am talking about for those who haven't tinkered with Hide much yet.


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Yeah, that’s awful. Needs to be fixed.

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Oh god yeah... another action economy issue aswell as an AI issue -_-

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ngl, that's pretty funny.

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I hope Larian sees this, but they might already be aware of it. +1 for the post anyway

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Easily fixed. Just give it a multi-turn cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Chief_Jericho
Easily fixed. Just give it a multi-turn cooldown.

Huh? How would that fix anything on its own? All that would do is make it take longer... you can easily sit there hidden until the cooldown comes back up. I think that would be the complete wrong approach.

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A cooldown is not really a fix. Part of the issue is pretty much everyone can Bonus Action hide when only rogues are supposed to be allowed to do that, which actually makes it that ever class can just attack then hide, and a cooldown would just make it that they wander out of the situation until the cooldown is done and the repeat the process.

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Only Rogues should be able to Hide as a bonus action to begin with, same as with Disengage. Everyone else are meant to have to use a full action on those things. Together with Expertise not being in the game and Sneak Attack being a declared ability rather than automatic, the Rogues really are hobbled.

That aside, the simplest fix is probably for the game to treat the thing indicating our last known position as a homing beacon for nearby enemies, including that they might throw Alchemist Fire and such items up there for safety.


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Originally Posted by TomReneth
Only Rogues should be able to Hide as a bonus action to begin with, same as with Disengage. Everyone else are meant to have to use a full action on those things. Together with Expertise not being in the game and Sneak Attack being a declared ability rather than automatic, the Rogues really are hobbled.

That aside, the simplest fix is probably for the game to treat the thing indicating our last known position as a homing beacon for nearby enemies, including that they might throw Alchemist Fire and such items up there for safety.

That would definitely help it after they readjust things to being how they should be, cause then you would have to move from that position and that would run the risk of being seen, and if you stay in that position you run the risk of being hit by an aoe intended to catch you.

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Bumping as this was not resolved in Patch 5 (and I can no longer edit the OP to add this information). They made Disengage an action (good!), but did not change Hide.

In fact, based on my brief testing this issue seems to be WORSE in Patch 5. Example: If you attack Lae'zel in the tutorial, after you end your turn hiding she runs straight into the Imp room and attacks everything in there unprovoked. It is only after the Imps are all dead that she will revert to "standing around" like the video shows until you kill her. This also happens with the Imps at the top of the stairs outside. Instead of standing around after you hide, they now run and attack the cultists working the cannons.

I guess you can make the argument that since you are hiding.. they don't know what attacked them and just zerg everything in the area instead. While that may make sense thematically, it is terrible for a video game and IMO an AI downgrade. However, any changes to the AI (like simply checking the PCs last known location when they hide and force a roll, as I suggested in OP) is a bandaid and does not change the underlying problem. Which is Hide as a Bonus Action.

Last edited by Celeras; 15/07/21 11:46 PM.
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Rogues in general get the short end of the stick with BG3.
Everyone can potion chug bonus action, thats a Thief class feature.

Everyone can use scrolls even when not having the spell on their spell list (example: Fighters using scrolls) Thats a 13th level class feature for Thief (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Second story work doesnt add distance to jump with Dex mod and climbing is not really a thing in this game so instead they get resistance to fall damage lolwat.

Bonus Action Hide is already mentioned here. So instead Thief's get 2 BA. Wut. That turns them into Dual Wielding death machines, coupled with the fact that EVERY character add Ability Modifiers to their off hand attacks (I'd say this is a bug since Two Weapon Fighting is a fighting style in the game that does nothing)

No Expertise is also already mentioned.

Crit success and Crit Fail on ability checks. In 5e these ONLY apply to attack rolls. This will likely interfere with Reliable Talent class feature, since 1's should be treated as 10's. But it could very well not.

Mage hand having its own turn in initiative. Mage hands require a turn to control and cant attack, so therefore cant shove. Also is not invisible. ONLY Arcane Tricksters mage hand is invisible, and uses a BA to control. Its not free. Still cant attack or shove tho. Also sneaking mage hands???? wut.

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Originally Posted by Celeras
Added the following video to OP to show what I am talking about for those who haven't tinkered with Hide much yet.


This is awful, and probably the best way to show how broken this iteration of the mechanic is.
Sometimes, a minute of video is better than hundreds of words.

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Originally Posted by Celeras
Added the following video to OP to show what I am talking about for those who haven't tinkered with Hide much yet.


That also looks like an extra-ordinary boring way to play. I mean - it's clearly an exploit but at the same time the downtime between turns is horrendous. If someone wants to play that way it feels like the punishment is pretty apparent. Unless you have a good book to read between turns.

However, in Multiplayer it allows the rogue to avoid being targeted most of the time for attacks while the mobs will go after someone else. I am not sure if that is intended behavior or not!

Can you hide during combat or is that supposed to be not allowed in the PHB?


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