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Hi,
I am new to this type of game and BG3 seems fine! a bit frustrating when it comes to the combat rules of D&D and Turn Based but everything else looks very promising and I'm looking forward to the release. That being said I feel like i'm missing lots of hits in fights and even more hits when it comes to boss fights,I want to make sure this is not a bug, how is this influenced? What influences the hit-rating? I was fighting Ethel and luckily I managed to one shot her with Lae'Zel, while the party missess 90% of the hits(spells,arrow,swords) and do way less dmg.

Regarding the dmg, from what I read 1d10 = 1 dice that rolls a number up to 10.

But 1d10(1d8)+5 how is this calculated? You multiply with what's inside the paranthesis or is a different rule?
2d6+3 , how is this calculated?You roll twice and the highest number is used or the values are added for both dices?

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Because BG3 is based on D&D 5e it might be useful to read up on that. Though bear in mind the implementation in BG3 isn’t exactly as per 5e.

Roughly, though, when you attack with a weapon you (1) roll to determine if you hit, and (2) if you hit, roll again to determine damage.

For your to-hit roll, you roll a 20 sided die (d20) then add/subtract modifiers. For many melee weapons, that will be determined by strength and whether you are proficient in the weapon. Weapons that are tagged as “Finesse” use dexterity instead of strength. Ranged weapons also use dexterity. If you open your inventory and look just under your weapon slots you should see some numbers representing what number should be added to your d20 for melee or ranged attacks and hover over them to see how these numbers are made up. You will hit if the total number after modifiers is equal to or greater than your enemy’s armour class (AC).

There are all sorts of other factors that can change your chance to hit or not, but the basics are to make sure you’re wielding a weapon you’re proficient in and that your strength (or dexterity, if you’re using finesse or ranged weapons) is decently high. Usually you want one or the other to be 16 on character creation if your character is primarily going to be using weapon attacks.

Damage will be determined by the specific weapon, rolling one or more dice of a variety of sizes and again (usually) adding strength or dexterity modifiers. With respect to your specific examples:
1d10(1d8)+5: I assume this is from a weapon with the “Versatile” property. For these weapons, the first number is the damage if wielded two-handed, the second of one-handed (ie with a shield or other weapon in the other hand). If you are wielding such a weapon and have nothing in your off hand, you roll a d10 (10 sided die) then add 5. If you have a shield, for example, you roll a d8 and add 5.
2d6+3: Roll two d6s and add the numbers together, then add 3.

Again, there are other factors that can affect damage, but those are the basics.

If you want to take a closer look at what numbers are being rolled to help understand why you’re not hitting or what your damage is, you can expand the combat log at the right of the screen and try hovering over various elements.


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if you are stunned, dazed etc then that adds a debuff... if you have advantage {high ground or spell} then that adds an extra dice i.e, you roll 2D20 and pick the best result from them to do your math

the example you show is a longsword so D10 if you have just that equip and D8 if you have something in the off hand.. i see red_Queen covered this wink

spells bounce off most bosses unless you debuff them some how a Hex from Wyll or use a caster with 18 or 20 in their main casting stat so that adds +4 [18] or +5 {20} to your roll against their save

p.s, “Finesse” don't have to use dexterity instead of strength... its just they can if 1 is higher i.e, a str based character can still use a “Finesse” weapon

Last edited by Ussnorway; 20/02/23 09:57 PM.

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To add to what others are saying, the other type of check that happens in combat is a Saving Throw - spells in particular, the majority of them that cause status effects or deal damage, require an enemy to make a saving throw instead of your character making an attack roll - the spell will always be on target and do its thing and you don't make any roll at all; it's up to the enemy to attempt to resist it. Enemies make saving throws in the same way that you do - they'll roll a d20, and add their modifiers, and if they match or exceed your save DC, they'll pass.

If you're using an ability or spell with a saving throw, rather than an attack roll, it will tell you what type - such as Wisdom or Dexterity; that is the ability that your target will use to make the save and avoid your spell - a spell casting player will always use their casting ability score to deliver the spell and set the save DC, a battlemaster will always use their Strength/Dex to set their save DC, and so on.

The main reason to bring this up is that most damage-dealing spells of 1st level and higher (that is, not your cantrips) will always deal at least some damage, even if the target succeeds on the saving throw - this is almost always half of the damage that would have been dealt if the target had failed the save. With the present game, attack roll spells and abilities have been given a lot of favour - we have enemies with lower ACs (the number attack rolls have to meet or beat) than you might expect, and sometimes higher stats (which leads to them having slightly better saving throws than you'd expect), and lots of new bonuses that add to attack rolls against enemies, but not many that hamper their saving throws; this means that you will see a lot of enemies saving against a lot of your efforts, and taking reduced damage. This is a Larian design oversight currently.

Save DC is also harder to raise, and will increase by less overall over the course of your adventure, than your attack bonus will... while, on the other side, enemy saving throw bonuses climb a lot, and their Ac remains fairly stagnant... this means that in the later stages of the game, you'll be fighting with maybe a +12-14 attack roll bonus, against enemies with 21-22 Ac at most - giving you very good base changes to hit... but those same characters might have, at best, a Save DC of 19-20, while the enemies will have saving throw bonuses of +12-14 or even higher.. making it substantially harder to land saving throw spells. There are reasons for this, and it's not as unbalanced as it looks - but it's something that Larian's design doesn't seem to be bearing in mind for the time being.

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Thank you all for the precious information, indeed my Astarion had a crossbow instead of longbow and Lae'Zel had Axe instead of longsword so their proficiencies were at the bottom. MIght just start another playthrough and apply everything i found from scratch

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I'm not a DnD player and only entered the franchise with BG3, but some additional infos, I hope they are correct. Astarion is of the Rogue class which has proficiency mostly with "simple weapons", like light crossbows and short bows, but also f.e. with longswords (for Strength based Rogues, hmmm) or short swords or hand crossbows. A longbow is not a simple weapon but a martial weapon. Astarion is however by race an high elf who have proficiency with some martial weapons, like longswords and longbows.

So it would make no difference wether Astarion had a light crossbow or a longbow equipped, both are 1d8 damage (1d8 die translates in an average damage of 4.5) and both take their damage modifier from Dexterity (the "damage" stat of Astarion, till lvl 4 he has 17 Dex, which add +3 to the weapon damage of ranged weapons and "finesse" melee weapons). A longsword is not a finesse weapon but based on Strength. It would be a bad idea to give Astarion a longsword although he has proficiency because he has not the Strength for a good added damage. He has just 8 Strength, that would "add" a -1 to the damage (at least from the tooltip, never tried). So with a longsword he would do 1d8 - 1 (= 0 to 8 damage = 4 damage on average), with a short sword (finesse weapon) he would do 1d6 + 3 (4 to 9 damage, or 3,5 + 3 = 6.5 on average). A 1d8 finesse weapon like a rapier (for which Astarion has proficiency too) would do 4,5 + 3 = 7,5 damage on average.

However, because the short sword also is a "light" weapon, unlike the rapier, a second weapon could be used in the second hand, using a bonus action for attacking, which adds damage and is the better solution as a single rapier. Later with the Dual Wielding feat weapons without the "light" feature could be dual wielded too. But as I don't like Rogues and especially don't like dual wielding, and have no clue about the exact mechanics and damage calculation, I better stop here. wink

So, to sum up, weapons and damages in DnD/BG3 are not easy, but you get used to it quickly. You can see the proficiencies in the window which pops up with "I", on the left side. You also see the damages and modifiers under the character.

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Astarion as an elf should be proficient with Longbow, Light Crossbow and Shortbow but NOT Heavy Xbow UNLESS Astarion takes the Weapon master Feat at level 4.

Lae'zel should be able to use any weapon with proficiency but she would do best with Strength based 2 handed weapons like the 2handed sword, 2h axe, Maul, etc....


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I usually make Lae'zel a Battlemaster at lvl 3 and as she has the Great Weapon Fighting feature I give her the Great Weapon Master feat at lvl 4, and she gets a greatsword, which with 2d6 has most damage of the twohanders. At lvl 4 she can deal 98 damage (in theory, before hit chances, no crits, no potions or items) in the first three turns, my Berserker Barbarian achieves only 100 in comparison (with better hit chances of course).

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Originally Posted by Niara
There are reasons for this, and it's not as unbalanced as it looks - but it's something that Larian's design doesn't seem to be bearing in mind for the time being.


Hey Niara can you clarify this?

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To improve accuracy increase your main ability score at level 4, wield proficient weapons (viewable on character sheet page), prioritize getting +1 magic weapons, and attack from height and from stealth when possible.

As mentioned, if a character's Dex is higher than Str, use missile weapons or weapons with the finesse tag.

The cleric Bless spell and druid Faerie fire both grant extra accuracy. Bear in mind that advantage from the latter doesn't stack with advantage from hiding - they both grant access to the same thing. Devotion paladins have Sacred weapon which boosts accuracy for them alone.

Potions of hill giant strength grant Str21 and are highly prized by any melee fighting type. Buy whenever available!

Spellcasters don't yet have +1 magic wands/staves in EA, so they lag behind in accuracy a bit here.

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Originally Posted by Ussnorway
spells bounce off most bosses unless you debuff them some how a Hex from Wyll ...

You might want to double-check that, I understand Hex grants disadvantage on skills, not saves. If you want to lower saves, try Bane.

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Originally Posted by Ranxerox
Hey Niara can you clarify this?

Sure, though it gets increasingly long-winded the more you try to map out the spiderweb of inter-woven balance factors ^.^ I'm probably not going to convey it as well as I'd like, but I'll try to cover the major elements.

On reason why this balance is so lop-sided is partially a natural result of higher powered creatures having higher statistics that they need to attack effectively, leading passively to higher saves as well, but that's more a cause, rather than a redress - the main value point that accounts for the odd balance here is that in all but a few niche cases, attack rolls are going to do one thing - damage - and they'll generally to it to one target, and little else. Conversely, the extreme vast majority of spells use saving throws, and they have broader effects; the value threshold of being able to do ~20 points of damage to five targets (presuming that half of them save) is generally going to be more in non-epic-boss situations than doing ~100 damage to 1 target. Unfortunately, in major boss encounters, a single target that needs to take damage is far more common, and it's the major encounters that people remember better; fireball looks great and flashy to use it on a powerful boss, but even if the boss is nor resistant, and even if it fails its save, and doesn't use a legendary resistance... the fighter is still almost definitely going to do more actual damage to the same single creature on their own turn. In terms of damage spells as well, you're always going to get some amount of pay-off, when targets pass your saves; all bar one or two spells that offer saving throws for damage, still deliver partial damage when the enemy succeeds - they'll succeed far more often than the fighter will miss, but you'll always be adding some damage at least, if you're using a spell slot to deal damage.

On the flip side, there's utility - the value point of paralysing four large threats until they can save out is huge, compared to dealing significant damage to one of them, or minor damage to several of them... and to a certain extent, in the high levels, if your control wizard could land that upcast hold monster as easily as the fighter can land a sword-stroke, then the age old complaint about casters being overpowered would actually be true (in 5e, it's very much not, and people who claim they are are holding onto the stigmas of past editions where it very much was true).

It's not a balance that feels good, a lot of the time - especially as someone who plays spellcasters more than other classes, I can absolutely say that it doesn't feel great knowing that in those higher levels, important enemies making their saves is the norm, rather than the exception. But, discounting cantrips, there are about 18 attack roll spells in our entire spell lexicon, from a list of close to 800 spells... do take a moment to digest that ^.^ (a lot of the spells with attack rolls are cantrips, though, and 1st or 2nd level spells, so if you're a caster who favours those particulars as your bread and butter, spell sniper may still be of value to you)

((The slightly less charitable part of me feels like adding that she feels that there were simply some folks on the design team in the early days who just didn't realise that it was as lop-sided as it came out, all factors together, and wouldn't be told before running it through for the JC stamp of approval... but it did get that stamp and go live, so the final decision was that it's not as off the mark as I feel it was. *shrugs* I'm not infallible, and not without my own biases.))

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Originally Posted by FreeTheSlaves
Originally Posted by Ussnorway
spells bounce off most bosses unless you debuff them some how a Hex from Wyll ...

You might want to double-check that, I understand Hex grants disadvantage on skills, not saves. If you want to lower saves, try Bane.
It grants extra damage from your hits (the point)
And can normally be recast for free once the first target dies ... It's only the specialised melee warlock that doesn't hex bosses and that's situation


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Originally Posted by FreeTheSlaves
Spellcasters don't yet have +1 magic wands/staves in EA, so they lag behind in accuracy a bit here.
I believe someone said to me that +1 for spellcasting dont exist in DnD ...
But maybe i remember it wrong.

Anyway, spellcasters actually do have items that gives them +1 for spell hit chance ... they are items that produce lightning charges. wink


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BTW I'm quite surprised how much Karmic Dice influences the game. Till some weeks ago I played with weighted dices on, and the game was much easier as hits were much more probable. That is equal for the player and AI but the player can deal better with the faster and more damage intensive combat. I never bothered with mage armor or similar, didn't play a role that much. Without Karmic Dice I care for any AC I can get. grin

I think Karmic Dice should be described a "bit better" than now to the player ...

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Originally Posted by Niara
Originally Posted by Ranxerox
Hey Niara can you clarify this?

Sure, though it gets increasingly long-winded the more you try to map out the spiderweb of inter-woven balance factors ^.^ I'm probably not going to convey it as well as I'd like, but I'll try to cover the major elements.

On reason why this balance is so lop-sided is partially a natural result of higher powered creatures having higher statistics that they need to attack effectively, leading passively to higher saves as well, but that's more a cause, rather than a redress - the main value point that accounts for the odd balance here is that in all but a few niche cases, attack rolls are going to do one thing - damage - and they'll generally to it to one target, and little else. Conversely, the extreme vast majority of spells use saving throws, and they have broader effects; the value threshold of being able to do ~20 points of damage to five targets (presuming that half of them save) is generally going to be more in non-epic-boss situations than doing ~100 damage to 1 target. Unfortunately, in major boss encounters, a single target that needs to take damage is far more common, and it's the major encounters that people remember better; fireball looks great and flashy to use it on a powerful boss, but even if the boss is nor resistant, and even if it fails its save, and doesn't use a legendary resistance... the fighter is still almost definitely going to do more actual damage to the same single creature on their own turn. In terms of damage spells as well, you're always going to get some amount of pay-off, when targets pass your saves; all bar one or two spells that offer saving throws for damage, still deliver partial damage when the enemy succeeds - they'll succeed far more often than the fighter will miss, but you'll always be adding some damage at least, if you're using a spell slot to deal damage.

On the flip side, there's utility - the value point of paralysing four large threats until they can save out is huge, compared to dealing significant damage to one of them, or minor damage to several of them... and to a certain extent, in the high levels, if your control wizard could land that upcast hold monster as easily as the fighter can land a sword-stroke, then the age old complaint about casters being overpowered would actually be true (in 5e, it's very much not, and people who claim they are are holding onto the stigmas of past editions where it very much was true).

It's not a balance that feels good, a lot of the time - especially as someone who plays spellcasters more than other classes, I can absolutely say that it doesn't feel great knowing that in those higher levels, important enemies making their saves is the norm, rather than the exception. But, discounting cantrips, there are about 18 attack roll spells in our entire spell lexicon, from a list of close to 800 spells... do take a moment to digest that ^.^ (a lot of the spells with attack rolls are cantrips, though, and 1st or 2nd level spells, so if you're a caster who favours those particulars as your bread and butter, spell sniper may still be of value to you)

((The slightly less charitable part of me feels like adding that she feels that there were simply some folks on the design team in the early days who just didn't realise that it was as lop-sided as it came out, all factors together, and wouldn't be told before running it through for the JC stamp of approval... but it did get that stamp and go live, so the final decision was that it's not as off the mark as I feel it was. *shrugs* I'm not infallible, and not without my own biases.))


Ok understood ..Tks

Is this balancing different/absent in BG3?

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It's mainly that it's greatly exacerbated by many of the issues present in BG3's design and coding - the spell timing problem for when saves occur, the slightly overblown stats of creatures, the rampant unavoidable chip damage and automatic concentration breakers, the reduction in power or utility of many non-damage spells, the extra ease with which creature control effects and field control effects are broken or displaced, Larian's consistent buffing of attack roll bonuses and chances to hit without similar treatment to saves; all of these things exacerbate the divide, rather than redressing it.

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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by FreeTheSlaves
Spellcasters don't yet have +1 magic wands/staves in EA, so they lag behind in accuracy a bit here.
I believe someone said to me that +1 for spellcasting dont exist in DnD ...
But maybe i remember it wrong.

Anyway, spellcasters actually do have items that gives them +1 for spell hit chance ... they are items that produce lightning charges. wink
Wand of the war mage +1 to +3 increases the accuracy of ranged spell attacks. These range from uncommon to very rare.

Staff of the woodlands increases druid's spell attacks and DC's by +2. Staff of power and Staff of the magi both do the same for arcane casters. As you'd imagine these are all highly prized rare to legendary staves. I recall seeing some other items too.

That lightning charge staff only affects damage, not accuracy. Nice, as bonuses to spell damage are hard to come by.

[Edit] Forgot Rod of the pact keeper for warlocks. A powered up class specific 'wand of the warmage' that boosts accuracy and DC's.

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Ok i stand corected ...

Still, will double check that sparking items since im quite sure they gave me +1 to hit aswell ... maybe if someone would like to do me a favor and share combat log so i dont need to search for it, i would appreciate it. ^_^


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Spell sparkler does indeed grant bonus to hit when lightning charged. That just moved it up the tier list! I guess the other lightning weapons do the same, so that's something too.

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