I mean, the game is amazing, has amazing dialogues, atmosphere and all that, but damn… the combat is surely a downer. Feels like theres no “real” tactic to the game other than just keep on (mindlessly) trying until the battle is won. And yes, I’ve done all quests, sidequests, with a “non-meme” party on the balanced difficulty and I’m -still- having lots of “please don’t use (x) skill or else my whole run is done for” moments.
/shurg Can’t say I’ve found it this way, but I’m pretty used both to DnD mechanics generally, and Larian’s approach to encounter design in specific. (I’ve so far had exactly one combat game over, because I was dumb and let Ragzlin get into the rafters and chuck javelins at me for like 20 damage a pop.)
Positioning matters, your environment is something to be used to your advantage, abilities that boost your accuracy are very powerful, and different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses. /shurg Hard to give much specific advice, because different encounters and party compositions demand different tactics and threat assessment.
I’m not a huge fan of D&D 5E, and I think the Divinity combat mechanics foundation lent itself better to both this kind of game and to Larians encounter design (which is natural since they invented the Divinity mechanics).
In general I felt like I had more and better tools in D:OS2, with more interactions and synergies and in general more fun in combat.
Still, I like everything else better in BG3, and it’s not like the combat is awful. And it might improve on higher levels.
You’re playing it wrong.
BG3 is a role playing game. You gotta play it like real life. In real life, if things don’t go your way, you drink strong alcohol. I highly recommend tequila or whisky.
Charisma too low? Tequila. Dexterity too low? Whisky. Enemy with 1HP dodges 3 attacks in a row? Tequila.
The game is easy as pie.
I haven’t found it that way. I’m generally D&D has a lot of “save or suck” abilities. Generally this applies to spells where either you make your saving throw and nothing happens, or you fail and something catastrophic happens. It feels very swingy - one turn you’re ahead, the next turn your barbarian is paralyzed and your wizard is blinded.
It also applies to attacks and other abilities, though. Try to stack buffs that give you bonuses to attack roles and saves. Bardic inspiration, guidance, enlarge/reduce, etc. help to minimize the suck for you and maximize the suck for them.
Good luck!
I think we should just deal with the consequences. Make a plan, go for it, and deal with whatever happens. The only time you reload is when you die. Or when something REALLY bad happens.
Save scumming kinda spoils the fun and removes a lot of the tension.
And if poor rolls meant I had to murder La’Zael at the start of the game so be it. She was obviously meant to die like all those poor innocent deep gnomes.
I reloaded there because I was expecting more dialog options along the line that didn’t result in my Paladin breaking his oath. Oh and non-lethal damage seemingly still broke my oath?!
I can’t think of any other moments Ive had to reload due to braindead conversation options but I have been frustrated a few times.
Are you immediately running into battles or are you taking the time to examine the environment and enemies before initiating battles? Obviously it’s not always possible, but I usually spend a few minutes to plan some things before starting a fight.
I look at the environment to see if there are any items I can use to my advantage (barrels, chasms, etc.) or any optimal places to position my people (e.g., up high and out of sight for my rogue).
I also examine the enemies before hand to look at their strengths and weaknesses, and I change out my prepared spells accordingly.
In a game with dice rolls, it’s inevitable that some things will come down to luck. But I do think there’s still a lot of “tactical” planning to be had both during the battles but even before the fight starts as well.
