How do you deal with overpowered heroes?

[ApathicAlpaca]

No doubt about it, BG3 suffers from the same issue as Divinity, the characters become broken and OP in the mid game. I find that the power boost at level 5 (second attack) starts the process and around level 8 or 9 the group usually is too strong for any encounter, including act boss. The city itself then becomes a veritable slaughterhouse but only for your opponents.

There are some ridiculous power spikes on top of the usual spell/weapon progression, like Flight without any restrictions (via part-illithid node) but even if you do completely without these, the group will quickly scale beyond the enemies you encounter.

How do you guys deal with it?
Tactician mode is (for me) super annoying in early game because you lack the tools to efficiently deal with the boosted enemies. But I think for mid/late game it might be the only way to get some challenge back into fights. What do you think?
Can somebody who actually plays Tactician comment on how challenging you feel the late game (starting in BG) to be? Over the top? Just right? Still too easy?
Or maybe there are mods to address the balancing problems?

Thanks.

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EDIT:
FYI guys I found what I was looking for in two great mods:
1) 'Lethal Enemy AI' which actually changes the enemy behavior to be much more intelligent (and deadly), e. g. focusing on pushing you over cliffs, concentrating attacks on knocked out heroes etc.
2) 'TacticianPlus' mod that allows you to flexibly increase enemy HP and offensive stats. It has several presets so you can just increase HP or just increase offense or both, in varying degrees. Tactician normally means +30% HP and +2 to attack rolls and spell DC.
Using this mid, I set it to +60% HP and added a level-based scaling. So now enemies in the late game will get much more than just a fixed +2. This is such a genius idea that I must wonder why the devs did not implement it in the base game. OBVIOUSLY a horrifying CR 16 dragon should get more Tactician bonuses than a lil level 1 imp. This mod allows you to do just that. Oh and you can even make it add armor and save bonuses as well, if you want.

I have not tried it yet but it sounds like both mods combined should be pretty much what I am looking for.

[MugiCharlie]

I don’t get it… you go out of your way to build a strong team with synergies and then complain the fights are too easy? That’s the whole point of getting stronger and having your build come online. I’ve played on tactician since the start and yes I agree the beginning levels are much harder than the ending levels but that’s because I have been stacking my team up every time I find new items man. Why would I be surprised that my team is demolishing when that’s what they SHOULD be doing with all the magic items I’m using. To me the githyanki patrol fight at level 4 is the hardest fight I had. And the only fight that came close was the level 8 shadow bush ambush when I was around level 6 in act 2. But going into act 3 I’m crazy busted and I’m glad. That’s what I was building up to this whole time.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Well, it does feel disappointing if the oh-so-dangerous city (controlled by 2 netherstone-infused badasses, after all) is a kindergarden.
For me, the last challenging fight (but only if you are ambushed, not if you prepare for it) was the Githyanki hunting Lae'zel in Shadowcurse lands jumping on you while you are still level 7 and they are 9.

I think the point of upgrading and optimizing your team should be to BE ABLE to deal with the encounters but still be challenged to some degree.
Might be a subjective thing but NOT paying attention to upgrades or team composition should be for story mode imo.

They just haven't scaled the enemies. There must be MORE and/or higher CR and/or some passive buffs that fit into the lore (e. g. troops of Orin and Gartosh being buffed because *spoiler spoiler* etc.).
Hmm.

[hannibal_pjv]

Try not to do everything. Speed run to act 3 without any magical items and 0 money and at level 5 or 6. It should be more challenging then.
The problem is that game is balanced for gamer who do about 50% of possible things. If you do everything you automatically will be OP.
In real tabletop. The GM would make the game easier or harder depending on how strong / experienced the players are. In computer game it is much harder unless you make some auto system where difficulty is directly changed based on player levels. But that does not take account what magical items players have.

Aka... Try to avoid getting XP and good items!

[iFrame]

Both my playthroughs were on Tactician. I don't play PnP although i have experience in cRPGs. Game was ridiculously easy. I did not min-max, no OP builds, no respec for companions, no synergies like thunder/lightning with environment, no cheese tactics like oil barrels or pre-positioning stealth, pre-potion chugging etc etc. Fights were all plain fair & square fights where i just charge into battle. I intend to do a solo run later on. Difficulty is a joke to be frank.

One of the major culprits is definitely combining 5e with Divinity: Original Sin mechanics. D:OS mechanics is infamous for being grossly imbalanced although fun.

[goodbye_bonito]

Tactician doesn't add any challenge to late game. It only creates problems in early act 1, but then the same issues you described affect it the same way

[Dragens.Euci X]

what I don't get is that people are min maxing their team and then being surprised that the game is way too easy. Its the same with every game. Min Maxing is always going to make the game easier this is what min maxing is for to give you advantages and advantages are never feeling challenging.

[Orion Invictus]

I enjoy it, get too cocky, and inevitably get smashed.

[Empath demon]

i enjoy Larian games, but this is why I never finished DOS 1 or 2 but wandered off about 2/3rds of the way through - eventually it just feels like an inventory management slog on top of a narrative roleplay fiction rather than (eg) XCOM 2 level of tactical challenge. When there's no possibility of losing it's not really a game per se, even if it's still quite fun. I haven't attempted a tactician playthrough yet, but I'm almost done with act I and I don't really want to just replay it all again so idk.

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

Don’t level up your character after lvl 8, that’s the only way to play the game in tactician mode.

The biggest issue with BG3 is "we designed fight to be able to do with underleveled 4 fighters or 4 bard or 4 wizards or even 4 unarmed barbarian".

Yes it is fun, but every cheesy mecanics should be not that powerful in a true tactician game mode.
I ended the act 2 at level 6, this is not normal I already have ideas to deal with Raphael/end fight with a lvl9 team in tactician (with avoiding most fight/quest to not gain XP, everything become really expensive since you have really few items and gold) Even avoiding exploration to not be overleveled act 2.

[✙205🍉🐆→]

it is all controlled by strong opponents such as Lich or Demogorgon

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

Originally posted by hannibal_pjv:

Try not to do everything. Speed run to act 3 without any magical items and 0 money and at level 5 or 6. It should be more challenging then.
The problem is that game is balanced for gamer who do about 50% of possible things. If you do everything you automatically will be OP.
In real tabletop. The GM would make the game easier or harder depending on how strong / experienced the players are. In computer game it is much harder unless you make some auto system where difficulty is directly changed based on player levels. But that does not take account what magical items players have.

Aka... Try to avoid getting XP and good items!

it is really really hard. lvl6 at the end of act 2 is : ignore 95% of content in act 1 AND 2 ( dodge the refugies fight to not have XP, kills druids, rush in esclavagist, rest to not fight Nere, act 2, only two fights, I killed Balthazar using ennemies in the room before to not receive any XP from it.

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

( I don’t use barrels, pushing ennemies into holes, illithid things and every gimmicks the game offer)

the act2 ending was quite hard because I refusel to put a single level in fighter for personnal balancing opinion.

[ApathicAlpaca]

Apart from chosing strong classes (Monk, Palalock, Wizard + spell druid) I did not care a lot, for sure I replaced equipment on opportunity but I certainly didn't roam the map just to do all the stuff.

With a level 10 team on Tactician, Raphael fight was no challenge. It was not particularly easy and certainly no pushover fight like all the others but challenge is something different. Nobody got knocked out, the evil uber boss himself was disappointing, the only 'challenge' in the fight are the mechanics with the pillars.

Don't get me wrong, BG3 is still a great game with a cool story, lotsa places to explore and so on. I just wish they had learned some lessons from their previous titles and dealt with the scaling. By now it should be ABUNDANTLY clear that level ups and equipment let your team scale off the charts. Since they are unlikely to bend the 5e rules to combat that, instead the enemies should be buffed in some way or their numbers should increase.

Here's hoping they add a true hard mode in the future.

PS: Also if somebody found a mod to increase difficulty, let me know :)

[ᵀᴴᴱ Uʟₜiᴹₐᵀᴱ ᴰᴱᴳᴱᴺᴱᴿᴬᵀᴱ]

Originally posted by ApathicAlpaca:

Apart from chosing strong classes (Monk, Palalock, Wizard + spell druid) I did not care a lot, for sure I replaced equipment on opportunity but I certainly didn't roam the map just to do all the stuff.

With a level 10 team on Tactician, Raphael fight was no challenge. It was not particularly easy and certainly no pushover fight like all the others but challenge is something different. Nobody got knocked out, the evil uber boss himself was disappointing, the only 'challenge' in the fight are the mechanics with the pillars.

Don't get me wrong, BG3 is still a great game with a cool story, lotsa places to explore and so on. I just wish they had learned some lessons from their previous titles and dealt with the scaling. By now it should be ABUNDANTLY clear that level ups and equipment let your team scale off the charts. Since they are unlikely to bend the 5e rules to combat that, instead the enemies should be buffed in some way or their numbers should increase.

Here's hoping they add a true hard mode in the future.

PS: Also if somebody found a mod to increase difficulty, let me know :)

Let’s hope TacticianPlus will not be a dumb +2 AC +2 on save rolls, +30% damages +50% health, Difficulty should not be lazy designing

Bring more spells on ennemies, limited Long rest, more health on Boss for sure,
Improving some ennemies, I want barbarian rushing my wizard and be able to destroying him if I don’t protect with summon/blind/ immobilize
Wizards that have big AOE that forces me to not stack my group
Rangers being a real threat to make me using Darkness to force him to come closer.
etc

[Samiri]

We must be bad at the game, because me and my friend have died several times in fights. We just killed the ACT 2 boss and had to try that one 3 times.