Difficulty Option between Balanced and Tactician?

[Intern Waffle]

I've been playing Tactician. First playthrough I got a bit into Act 3 on balanced, and it ended up getting not hard but annoying and I stopped playing. That was more a game design issue (the artist mansion fight is quite possibly the worst designed fight in any game ive ever played in my entire life, and it was taking the game 3 minutes per turn for enemies to even figure out whre they wanted to move to).

Now I'm on Tactician and I've done the bulk of act 1...well, not really. I still have to finish the teahouse, investigate kagha, go to the underdark, even step foot in the goblin camp, etc.

It's more fun than balanced but it's ever so slightly too unfair for my tastes. It feels like every turn is spent with two people healing.

So what should I set things to for an even balance between the two?

I have aggresion, power, and loadouts on balanced, but additional combat mechanics on tactician, and it seemed to completely nerf the fight that made me decide to change it (the 4 auntie ethel people with masks- what a mess of a fight on tactician! ridiculous) because they all died in 2 or 3 hits whereas before they would've taken 5 or 6 each. Would that be "power"? Should I slap power back up to tactician?

[Raz]

Between your last thread and this; you're blaming your lack of knowledge, tactics in a fight, and overall just being bad at this game as poor design choices of the game.

Pretty sure I have said this before to you, but if not, I will say it now; Examine everything is your best friend as knowledge is power in this game, and knowledge informs how you handle a fight. Examining Ethel tells you her Legendary trait to summon more and examining her also tells you which one is the real one compared to her false clones.

Not even sure anyone can advise a setting that would be to your liking because this is strictly a you problem.

[Inardesco]

No.

Power gives extra to hit-chance to allies and enemies, aswell as improving their saving throws.

So they would roll a D20+ 2 (dex) + 2 (proficiency) + 3 (tactician) against you in combat. Most notably within the Crypt Ruin area because you're still lvl 2 at that point. It also increases base health pool of enemies and aliies.

Personally, I don't like extra to-hit bonus. So power is the one I keep on balanced and I crank the rest up to tactician.

[pirate135246]

stop using your actions on healing. This game is a knowledge check, there are tools for every scenario that make the game a joke even on Honour mode.

[Intern Waffle]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

No.

Power gives extra to hit-chance to allies and enemies, aswell as improving their saving throws.

So they would roll a D20+ 2 (dex) + 2 (proficiency) + 3 (tactician) against you in combat. Most notably within the Crypt Ruin area because you're still lvl 2 at that point. It also increases base health pool of enemies and aliies.

Personally, I don't like extra to-hit bonus. So power is the one I keep on balanced and I crank the rest up to tactician.

So power is basically "Rolls"? That might explain why everything barely hits and/or I take loads of hits lol. The descriptions in the custom difficulty menu aren't very good IMO, it's not super clear what they're doing.

I don't mind the enemies having extra health and I even want encounters to have extra enemies, but the sheer force they have on tactician is really rough lol

Originally posted by pirate135246:

stop using your actions on healing. This game is a knowledge check, there are tools for every scenario that make the game a joke even on Honour mode.

I don't play the game by min-maxing and cheesing, I play by picking things I think would be fun or in-character. Doing that the first time, I found most encounters slightly too easy. Now I want them to be slightly too hard. But tactician itself with no changes is a bit frustrating, and feels spongey.

[Yakubian Demon Magick]

Originally posted by pirate135246:

stop using your actions on healing. This game is a knowledge check, there are tools for every scenario that make the game a joke even on Honour mode.

playing bard is so OP with read thoughts and using the parasite

[Inardesco]

You can read more on difficulty here; https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Difficulty#Tactician_mode

[northernwater]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

No.

Power gives extra to hit-chance to allies and enemies, aswell as improving their saving throws.

So they would roll a D20+ 2 (dex) + 2 (proficiency) + 3 (tactician) against you in combat. Most notably within the Crypt Ruin area because you're still lvl 2 at that point. It also increases base health pool of enemies and aliies.

Personally, I don't like extra to-hit bonus. So power is the one I keep on balanced and I crank the rest up to tactician.

tactician is +2

[northernwater]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

I have aggresion, power, and loadouts on balanced, but additional combat mechanics on tactician, and it seemed to completely nerf the fight that made me decide to change it (the 4 auntie ethel people with masks- what a mess of a fight on tactician! ridiculous) because they all died in 2 or 3 hits whereas before they would've taken 5 or 6 each. Would that be "power"? Should I slap power back up to tactician?

You need to take the time to understand the DnD roll based system and how to bias these rolls. Understand damage riders and stack damage types.

Ignore the words "aggression, power, and loadouts" and read what AC, DC and Damage rolls are made of and how they relate. Read the log after every combat round so you can understand why things happened how they did. The log can be hovered over with a mouse to see more detail.

The higher difficulties are for people who enjoy understanding the dice mechanics.

[Intern Waffle]

guys, i understand how to play the game. i literally said i played it up through half of act 3.

i am asking for advice on what the difficulty setting options actually do and how to tweak them to get "A little harder than balanced but a little easier than tactician".

not sure why this thread attracted the kind of people who you can tell are super eager to explain a band to a woman wearing their shirt, but you're not needed here

[Moonbane]

The game is easy nenough as it is already. You have custom mode if you cant handle tactical.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

guys, i understand how to play the game. i literally said i played it up through half of act 3.

i am asking for advice on what the difficulty setting options actually do and how to tweak them to get "A little harder than balanced but a little easier than tactician".

not sure why this thread attracted the kind of people who you can tell are super eager to explain a band to a woman wearing their shirt, but you're not needed here

You didn't actually give people a lot to work with. You didn't like it when the enemies died too quickly, but you didn't like it when you ended up taking a lot of damage.

Combat in D&D tends to be be brutal and quick. Kill the other side before they can kill you. The longer any combat goes on, the more likely it is for you to lose it. So "the enemies died in a couple of rounds" is generally what you are looking to accomplish.

It's just not clear to me what you are looking for.

[Draknalor]

Videos with bosses if you need some advices

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGWAuK6_6ib3MbjHLXCTY67cN8T5eL8kj&si=buFXXIn3Q1jNkvHW

[Raz]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

I don't play the game by min-maxing and cheesing, I play by picking things I think would be fun or in-character. Doing that the first time, I found most encounters slightly too easy. Now I want them to be slightly too hard. But tactician itself with no changes is a bit frustrating, and feels spongey.

It will feel that way if all you're doing is going into combat as "Oonga bunga, bash, bash, massive magic hit" and nothing else. Enemies don't get "spongey" from Balanced to Tactician. Goblins go from 12 HP to 15. Minthara only gains 12HP from the change. Even when you start dealing with enemies who's HP jump by almost 100HP gained, the HP gained only equates to one or two extra rounds into a fight added (one Great Weapon Master character deals 30 damage on average without any damage riders, critical hits, and even higher if they have Savage Attacker), hardly a "sponge" by the terms of it.

You don't have to min-max the game to have an easy time with the combat.

Example; Gyrm is not immune to command. He takes double damage from Bludgeoning. Cast Grovel, beat on him with a hammer. No need to stat change from whatever is present on the Companions, no need to chug all the haste potions on everyone and attack him 3 ~ 4 times per person. No need for some busted and broken Multiclass combination. Just one or two people with Mauls, two with Command, and keeping the guy submerged in the lava. His nearly 500HP is gone in three or so rounds and he probably hasn't touched the party.

Pray, tell, how does a combat encounter go, step-by-step, and I do mean step-by-step?

Lets make it easier; the Gnoll fight on the Risen Road with the four Gnolls eating the corpses of the caravan: how do you normally approach this fight in combat? What characters do you bring? What skills do you normally Prepare and use?

[Fitness Lauch]

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

Originally posted by pirate135246:

stop using your actions on healing. This game is a knowledge check, there are tools for every scenario that make the game a joke even on Honour mode.

I don't play the game by min-maxing and cheesing, I play by picking things I think would be fun or in-character. Doing that the first time, I found most encounters slightly too easy. Now I want them to be slightly too hard. But tactician itself with no changes is a bit frustrating, and feels spongey.

Put a dedicated life cleric into the group with proper gearing (whispering promise, hellrider gloves, ring and boots which improve healing etc) if you want to heal. It's the only spec in the game on which healing is actually op, on pretty much everything else it's a waste of an action.

And min-maxing/cheesing isn't necessary, you can crush honor mode very easily without using consumeables, prebuffing or surprising the opponent but by just having a balanced party.

[Intern Waffle]

Originally posted by Raz:

Originally posted by Intern Waffle:

I don't play the game by min-maxing and cheesing, I play by picking things I think would be fun or in-character. Doing that the first time, I found most encounters slightly too easy. Now I want them to be slightly too hard. But tactician itself with no changes is a bit frustrating, and feels spongey.

It will feel that way if all you're doing is going into combat as "Oonga bunga, bash, bash, massive magic hit" and nothing else. Enemies don't get "spongey" from Balanced to Tactician. Goblins go from 12 HP to 15. Minthara only gains 12HP from the change. Even when you start dealing with enemies who's HP jump by almost 100HP gained, the HP gained only equates to one or two extra rounds into a fight added (one Great Weapon Master character deals 30 damage on average without any damage riders, critical hits, and even higher if they have Savage Attacker), hardly a "sponge" by the terms of it.

You don't have to min-max the game to have an easy time with the combat.

Example; Gyrm is not immune to command. He takes double damage from Bludgeoning. Cast Grovel, beat on him with a hammer. No need to stat change from whatever is present on the Companions, no need to chug all the haste potions on everyone and attack him 3 ~ 4 times per person. No need for some busted and broken Multiclass combination. Just one or two people with Mauls, two with Command, and keeping the guy submerged in the lava. His nearly 500HP is gone in three or so rounds and he probably hasn't touched the party.

Pray, tell, how does a combat encounter go, step-by-step, and I do mean step-by-step?

Lets make it easier; the Gnoll fight on the Risen Road with the four Gnolls eating the corpses of the caravan: how do you normally approach this fight in combat? What characters do you bring? What skills do you normally Prepare and use?

this forum is *insufferable*

I am simply trying to get advice on custom difficulty settings to make the game harder than balanced and not as hard as tactician

to see that and go on a ted talk about how "the game's not actually hard" and fixate on the word hard and explain the history of the concept of video game difficulty and ask me to show you a step by step combat log is RIDICLOUS

I simply want to know which custom settings actually do *what* and which ones I avoid to avoid "nearly everything misses and enemies hit extra super hard".

if you guys play actual DND I bet you have a LOT of trouble keeping players, huh?