Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Issues with the combat log and how damage boosts are handled

Feel free to corect me this time ...
Since im not really sure if i dint get this wrong. :-/

But the way i understands "Agonising blast"
(Source: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/warlock:eldritch-invocations)

Is that our Charisma modifier should be added to our damage.
Meaning our Eldrich Blast should do 1d10 without it ... and 1d10+ChaMod with it ...

Instead right now Agonising blast is completely separate damage "roll" with fix value. O_o
Meaning our Eldrich Blast do 1d10 without it ... and 1d10 with it, followed by fix ChaMod damage.

Here is the picture:


It may seem like minor and unimportant detail, and right now ... quite honestly it probably is.

Unless we get to Cracked Wall with Minor Toughness in Goblin camp ... or practicaly any destroyble wall in Grymforge.
Where our Agonising Blast is simply ignored, since it allone does "less than 10dmg" (unless we have 20 Cha, since the wall is also Vulnerable to Force damage ... didnt tryed that tho, my Wyll had 18) and therefore it is absorbed by Wall without any effect ...

BUT if we would have alterned damage calculation (1d10+Cha) more of our Blasts would be damaging the wall ... up to every single one.
Depending on our cha ofc.

Example:
When i tryed this Wyll had 18 ... meaning +4 ... therefore smallest possible damage would be (1+4)*2 (bcs Vulnerable) ... and voila! Every blast makes damage to the wall!
Instead right now i had to roll at least 5 ... so his potential effectivity has ben reduced by half. :-/

Again, i repeat im aware that this is quite minor issue ...
Unless in the future we will meet some kind of enemy that will have Minor Toughness aswell. :P
Better fix it now, right?

Oh, it might look like a minor issue, but you never know. It may have rippling effects.

For instance, if the target is a spell caster currently Concentrating on a spell, the fact that the game seems to consider Eldricht Blast With Agonising Blast as two sources of damage (at least, that's how I read the combat log you captured), then the target might have to do a Concentration Saving Throw twice. And I don't think I need to explain how this messes with balance ...

Well ... i was more focused on negatives for players.

IF we would like to talk about ballance in matter of keeping concentration ...
I would draw out Joker card and mention Dual Wielding Ranger with Hunter's Mark and either Dipped or Poisoned Hand Crossbows ...
(6 concentration rolls instead of 2)

You know ...
I was just posting something and then it hit me ...

The very screenshot in the other topic is proof that Larian IS capable of alterning damage calculation based on situations, or spells (and other boosts) used ...

But our characters make separate damage rolls for everything ...

If we Dip our weapons ... we get Weapon damage roll and then separate Fire/Poison roll ...
If we use Sneak Attack ...we get Weapon damage roll and then separate Sneak Atttack roll ...
If our weapons ... no in fact any of our artefacts ... have any magical effect that adds another damage ... its also separated.
Not sure about Batlemaster manouvers, since i killed Lae'zel in my last playthrough. O_o

Sudently it seems like this topic is much bigger issue then i originaly thought. :-/

It sounds as if this is another prime example of the game's lack of internal consistency.



If you want, I think it's still possible for you to change the name of thread to be something like "Issues with the combat log and how damage boosts are handled" (i.e. removing the focus on Agonising Blast in the title, making the scope broader).

Changed

I'm not sure it will have much effect on Larian's feedback collection. But at least, for those of us who like discussing topics in an organised manner (at least, as organised as we can do with the forum's tools), that's neater.

Larian's homebrew.

Are you sure about that? I haven’t checked myself but OP’s screen shots show AB as force. You’re not getting confused with Hex (which is necrotic)?

Eeeeh... Possible. I definitely need to make a thorough test myself. Will take a bit of time to get to that wall...

Back in 2020, I did my very first playthrough with a Human Warlock, and I definitely remember that these separate log entries with AB damage were already there. So it's not a recent change. Didn't pay much attention to them back then.

EDIT: Yep, most probably an engine's limitation. Captured a similar screen which clearly shows second entries for AB after every attack (blue arrows):



I wouldn't call it a minor issue. AB is a huge part of Warlock's damage output, because it's a flat bonus which is always applied when you hit with EB. At later levels, when Warlocks receive additional EB beams, AB bonus is applied to each of them, regardless of whether it was a single target or not. This allows Warlocks to be more or less on par with classes that receive multi-attacks. Any enemy with a damage reduction like this wall will make Warlocks much less useful in a combat.


P.S. A separate issue that can be seen here is marked by an orange arrow. The fact that my party stands at the temple's entrance and still hears Zarys barking her orders back at Zhentarim's Hideout is beyond ridiculous.

I have also payed this much more attention lately ... and while it seems that Engine indeed have problems with merging different damage types ... (aka Slashing + Fire ... or Force + Psychic ... or Piercing + Poison ... etc.) i would dare to say that with same damage type there should be no problem ...

Using Battlemaster Menacing Attack:

(borrowing the screenshot from other topic)

As you can see here (weapon was Everburning Blade) Menacing Attack did 2d6 for weapon, then added +3 for Str ... and THEN (and that is the important part) it added 1d8 from Menacing Attack as part of the same formula!
I cut the screenshot too high, so you dont see the damage itself ... but it gave 19 Slashing ... and then separately 3 Fire.

So it obviously CAN be done somehow!

Rage also gives damage boost as the part of the same formula, rather than separate 2dmg "roll" ...
Wich should be typologicaly much closer to Agonising Blast, since that is also conditioned flat bonus.

Oddly enough tho, Sneak Attack is calculated separately. O_o
Despite the fact that it also takes over damage type from weapon. :-/

Hmm all I can surmise is they’ve favoured keeping some things separate so you can see more damage numbers pop off overhead when you hit. Makes your hit feel more impressive and gives you a better sense of multiple contributing factors. However since we’re dealing with Damage Thresholds, I think it needs to be calculated properly.

Well, I think I may have an explanation why it has been implemented this way (not that I like it, mind you).

All of BattleMaster's manoeuvres are not augmentations of the basic attack, they are separate attacks, and (at least as of now) we have no ways to somehow augment them. Because of that, their damage comes as a single number.

Contrarywise, the Warlock's EB is augmented by Agonising Blast as soon as we pick this Invocation. However, it's still the same EB as the one we had at level 1. Apparently, implementing a separate EB+AB attack (so that it would have a single number, like manoeuvres) would result in Warlocks having 2 similarly looking EB icons: one basic, and another one which includes AB bonus in it (and this is where, I suspect, engine's limitations come into play). I perfectly understand why Larian decided not to go this way: either we would have 2 identically looking, yet different, EB icons on the hotbar, or they would have to implement a complete replacement of one skill with another. Considering that a lot of Warlock's invocations are essentially EB's augments, the total number of possible permutations will be huge.
Unfortunately, it resulted in this particular side effect, which only starts to matter when your target has damage reduction.

Regarding Rage - did you test the basic attack under the effect of Rage, or the specific attacks (like Reckless Attack, etc)? With the latter, they should be implemented in the same way as BM's manoeuvres, and have a single number. Thanks for the idea, I'll check it as well.

Sneak Attack: I'm not surprised. There are lots of issues with the internal implementation of SA (maybe it was one of the very first things Larian did, when they were just experimenting with how things can be done?). For example, occasionally it goes on cooldown, although I haven't seen this in Patch 7 yet.

Aha, here we go!

I did a detailed test of different attacks under the effect of berserker's Frenzy at character's level 4:

• Default attack - 1 entry;
• Weapon-specific attack (Lacerate) - 1 entry;
• Reckless Attack - 1 entry;
• Frenzied Strike - 1 entry;
• Enraged Throw, using corpse as an improvised weapon - 2 entries, but the second one shows damage done to the corpse rather than target, so this is okay;
• Enraged Throw, using a Handaxe from inventory - 2 entries, for some reason with different damage types (Slashing and Bludgeoning)!

Here are the screens:


I find it especially amusing that, for the main throw damage, the STR bonus is counted twice. Unless it's actually RAW and specific to either Rage or Frenzy - ?
In any case, DON'T TOUCH IT LARIAN!!!!111


This is a complete mystery to me. Why Bludgeoning? Which die was used to determine damage - the weapon's? It's the same value after all, but that might be a coincidence.
Another question is what the "Teghun was killed while Downed." line is doing here. At the point of his death, he was not only standing upright, but also attacked my berserker once. Unless it comes from this second damage entry, because at this point he already was technically dead (he had only 6 HP when I attacked him, and the first line did 10 damage).

Questions, questions...

I believe this is general Throw effect ...
And i believe it has ben created to simulate momentum of and object, that has ben throwed ... no matter what kind of item it is (i believe the same is happening when you throw a potion) ... and in Barbarian case, it also have chance to knock your enemy prone ...
That is where the "when downed" came from.

But i may be misstaken, obviously.

//Edit:
That is certainly possible ...

But i dont think we would need two icons at all, i mean we dont have them even now and there isnt much reason to not aply AB to Eldrich Blast after all ... all we would need is that buff, we have right now in our character's Passives (and i believe i have also seen in in character sheet) to altern calculation rather than adding separate damage "roll" ...

Maybe im wrong here ... its ben some time i was writing something and i was never exactly good in it.
But basicaly i imagine it like this:

IF "Agonising blast" = 1
Then add "Cha Mod" damage

While it should be:

IF "Agonising blast" = 1
Then replace "1d10" with "1d10+ChaMod"

Or something like that, you get the idea.

I suspect it's actually simpler than that. The logic of Throw knows that both throwable and target should receive damage. However, weapons in BG3 cannot be damaged (not this way, at least). So the game applies the damage to the target, tries to apply it to the throwable, sees it can't be done and instead of stopping at this point it redirects this damage to the only object in the interaction that can receive it.

Hang on, I actually tested it. When I threw a corpse, the corpse received damage, but there was no second entry for the target!

That sounds like something worthy of reporting then.
Good work!

I’ve also noticed corpses grunting or moaning when they’re thrown too lol

RagnarokCzD,

After thinking some more about it, I suspect it might be intentional. It looks like they are trying to give players a "hint" that using actual weapons in a fight gives better results than the improvised ones. Although, they might be already doing that by using different dice for weapon damage - smaller like 1d4 for improvised, actual weapons' dice for normal. Didn't check the numbers for corpse throwing, need to test again.

LukasPrism,

Didn't pay attention to it. That would be hilarianous.

Hm, I can't reproduce this bonus damage line with any other skill + item combo. Looks like this is a unique feature of handaxes thrown via Enraged Throw (maybe all axes, but I didn't have any others to test).The double dipping on STR bonus also doesn't appear if I don't do exactly that.

This makes me thinking it's intentional. Grab your handaxes everywhere you go, people, and don't even bother throwing anything else, unless it's live enemy and you are looking for tactical advantage, rather than pure damage output. You won't even get double damage if your Enraged Throw crits!