Is It Just Me, Or Has Tactician Difficulty Been Nerfed To The Ground?

[snowstalker77]

I played Baldur's Gate 3 on its first week of release. I finished Act 1 as a dex monk. The combat felt both fun and fair (my hardest challenge was reading the Necromancy of Thay , even with Resistance and Heroism I had difficulty passing the saving throws. The worst encounter for me was actually with the spectator and the drows in the underdark , and even that was doable without barrelmancy).

But now?

I'm getting crits left and right, and I'm hitting a lot more than missing (this is what convinced me something might have been tweaked). I checked to make sure that my karmic dice were turned off, and that I was still in Tactician mode, and yes, they were set to off, same as on my Week 1 Dex monk character.

I'm currently playing as Barbarian (subclass Berserker) Karlach, but everyone else is built the same. The first gnoll battle with the hyenas and owlbear fight, which gave me some trouble on my first playthrough, were easily resolved in this one.

[Snaef]

Would rather see some items tweaked, more 5e restrictions enforced, less nonsensical Larian houserules and an economy / magical item pool that is more appropriate for a level 1-12 campaign

[ProestUnicorn]

Kinda fun to watch people starting to talk about low difficulty more, after peeps got to know the game, month ago whoever tried it was ostracised as elitist neckbeard with no life, even if that was very civil and educated complaint :d

But yes, game is very, very easy. The easiest cRPG I have played(which is a lot) and definetly the easiest DnD/pathfinder based. Comparing BG3 tactician with some of the other games like Pathfinder:WotR, tactician is around ''normal'' or lower setting with difficulty going Story>Casual>Normal>Daring>Core>Hard>Unfair.

Game can be enjoyable even for people who look for a challenge in a game, but honestly, it is my 2nd playthrough, I've got 140h in the game, got through act 2, and to Gortash in act 3 in both and just can't force myself to playthrough the rest, because it is way too easy on top of act 3 being generally worse quality than other acts.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Origineel geplaatst door Snaef:

Would rather see some items tweaked, more 5e restrictions enforced, less nonsensical Larian houserules and an economy / magical item pool that is more appropriate for a level 1-12 campaign

This. The reason the game is so easy is because of some hilariously bad game design decisions from Larian that just totally ruin any sense of balance.

You shouldn't be able to take one level of wizard and 11 of cleric and then just have the spells from both classes in their entirety. Getting enemies wet should 100% NOT make them take freaking DOUBLE DAMAGE from lightning spells. I was hitting 160 damage chain lightnings, that's insane.

Elixirs of Bloodlust are also completely busted and should not stack with potions of haste. First of all the haste pots are entirely too common, second of all three actions a turn is just madness. Deepend Pact and Extra attack are not supposed to stack for a reason, so that a paladin/warlock isn't just an objectively better fighter than an actual fighter. Three attacks per action is the entire point of a high level fighter.

And I have no idea what lunatic thought that multiple leveled spells a turn was a good idea but the entire design of 5e is balanced around the idea that you will NEVER get to cast multiple leveled spells a turn outside of the very specific interaction with action surge. Letting haste and quicken spell both be used to cast full spells was absolutely a terrible idea. With the elixir of bloodlust I can cast FOUR spells in one turn. That's sheer lunacy. Between this and the water trick at one point I was able to do nearly 500 damage in a single turn, to a single target with chain lightning.

And don't even get me started on how broken the consumable arrows are. Yes lets give archers (who are already really freaking good with a thief dip and dual hand crossbows) arrows that actually mimic darkness, silence, fireball, thunderwave, lesser restoration, and misty step. That's not going to break anything I'm sure.

[Platapoop]

Larian homebrewed way too many things that broke balance, and now anyone with two braincells that makes a decent build breaks tactician. Enemy AI is also very poor. I understand they wanted it to be more fun than 5e, and yes Solasta was somewhat boring, but even a very smol team had better game balance than BG3.

I'm not sure why bosses don't have legendary actions, but it makes bosses just normal enemies with slightly larger health pools. Pretty sure almost all bosses, you get to see them do one attack before they are completely vaporized.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

Origineel geplaatst door Platapoop:

Larian homebrewed way too many things that broke balance, and now anyone with two braincells that makes a decent build breaks tactician. Enemy AI is also very poor. I understand they wanted it to be more fun than 5e, and yes Solasta was somewhat boring, but even a very smol team had better game balance than BG3.

I'm not sure why bosses don't have legendary actions, but it makes bosses just normal enemies with slightly larger health pools. Pretty sure almost all bosses, you get to see them do one attack before they are completely vaporized.

Further on this there are several fights that are just lazy.

Raphael is 100% weak to hold monster. He legit can't pass that save, and that would be fine if he had legendary resistance, but he doesn't. That would be not that bad if he had counterspell, but he doesn't have that either. Not only does he not have it, not one of the mobs in that room has it. Which makes it hilariously easy to kill him.

Same with Cazador. He's a freaking vampire spellcaster but he doesn't know counterspell? The wizard that's literally standing next to him doesn't know it either? And it's not like Larian didn't know they could do that because Sarevok has a wizard in the room with him that knows counterspell. He also has legendary resistance. Hell Sarevok was harder to kill than Gortash and Gortash is supposed to be a chosen but he doesn't even have a special form.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Stat bloat is the only difference between difficulty levels.

Larian took the easy way out.

I've played all three difficulty levels, including playing Tactician solo, and my conclusion is that Tactician just isn't fun. It's beatable, but it's a boring slog.

The most fun I've had is playing Exploration mode solo. You hit more often, get hit less, but it's still a challenge sometimes because you are outnumbered and the action economy is against you. You can challenge encounters higher level you are and it feels better.

Tactician is just a slog, but barrels work just the same.

[Baldurs_Gate_2]

Origineel geplaatst door Grumpy Old Guy:

Origineel geplaatst door Snaef:

Would rather see some items tweaked, more 5e restrictions enforced, less nonsensical Larian houserules and an economy / magical item pool that is more appropriate for a level 1-12 campaign

This. The reason the game is so easy is because of some hilariously bad game design decisions from Larian that just totally ruin any sense of balance.

You shouldn't be able to take one level of wizard and 11 of cleric and then just have the spells from both classes in their entirety. Getting enemies wet should 100% NOT make them take freaking DOUBLE DAMAGE from lightning spells. I was hitting 160 damage chain lightnings, that's insane.

Elixirs of Bloodlust are also completely busted and should not stack with potions of haste. First of all the haste pots are entirely too common, second of all three actions a turn is just madness. Deepend Pact and Extra attack are not supposed to stack for a reason, so that a paladin/warlock isn't just an objectively better fighter than an actual fighter. Three attacks per action is the entire point of a high level fighter.

And I have no idea what lunatic thought that multiple leveled spells a turn was a good idea but the entire design of 5e is balanced around the idea that you will NEVER get to cast multiple leveled spells a turn outside of the very specific interaction with action surge. Letting haste and quicken spell both be used to cast full spells was absolutely a terrible idea. With the elixir of bloodlust I can cast FOUR spells in one turn. That's sheer lunacy. Between this and the water trick at one point I was able to do nearly 500 damage in a single turn, to a single target with chain lightning.

And don't even get me started on how broken the consumable arrows are. Yes lets give archers (who are already really freaking good with a thief dip and dual hand crossbows) arrows that actually mimic darkness, silence, fireball, thunderwave, lesser restoration, and misty step. That's not going to break anything I'm sure.

Are you the fun police?

[Revan619]

Tactician is in a very odd place. You do not need to min-max to win. The only challenging part is the early pre level 4 section. Even people using default classes are finishing the game with no problem.

Maybe the encounters need to adjusted. I dont mean artificial difficulty by just increasing stats or numbers of enemies. Maybe some actual tactical updates.

[snowstalker77]

Origineel geplaatst door Platapoop:

Larian homebrewed way too many things that broke balance, and now anyone with two braincells that makes a decent build breaks tactician.

Don't even have to try, just pump everything into fighter subclass battlemaster for act 1, that and having 2 short rests per day basically trivializes boss encounters. Even better if you have 2 of them.

Precision attack
Trip Melee attack
<combat starts>
Precision attack
Trip melee attack
Action surge
Precision attack
Trip melee attack
<enemy dies>

Was able to take out a level 5 enemy when I was level 3 just because I struck first (the fake paladins of Tyr that were hunting Karlach.).