Where is all the gear?

[Alxndr]

In DoS:2 gear drops from almost every enemy, most of it is nothing special but you do get some really good items. In BG:3 though it seems like gear is almost non existent? Like I found a pair of gloves that says "-1 damage from bludgeoning". Ok... that's "helpful".

I suspect because BG:3 uses dice for damage, there's gear out there in the world somewhere that instead of having a stat like 1d8 it might be 2d20 or something that lets you hit harder.

What am I missing?

[Arlen]

I don't know what game you are playing, but magic gear drops like candy. You can get a greatsword in the tutorial that give +1-+4 fire damage by killing the Cambion fighting the Illithid, lots of magic gear in the grove merchants inventories, Volo sells a good early game ring for cleric or you can pickpocket it, there is gear aplenty if you simply play the game.

If you kill the "paldin of Tyr" for Karlach, he drops a greatsword that casts shield of faith at will, tons of Staffs for wizards, the only thing I would say is very scarce are bows, but the game drops a lot of special arrows so it kind of offsets that issue.

[Alxndr]

Originally posted by Arlen:

I don't know what game you are playing, but magic gear drops like candy. You can get a greatsword in the tutorial that give +1-+4 fire damage by killing the Cambion fighting the Illithid, lots of magic gear in the grove merchants inventories, Volo sells a good early game ring for cleric or you can pickpocket it, there is gear aplenty if you simply play the game.

Yeah I have that everburn sword it's awesome. But generally speaking most of the gear I find doesn't actually have any stats on it. It's just like decoration gear?

[󠁳⁧⁧squilliam fancyson]

I think it really depends on how far along you are in the game. The start of the game is notorious for mostly not having a lot of gear. Most traders have unique items specific to only them, and boss characters + important characters tend to have gear on them as well. Quest rewards also give you gear as well, like the ring of protection from mol in act 1 that gives you +1 ac and +1 to saving throws, after you finish her quest. There aren't any item pieces that manipulate base dice rolls, however there are plenty of gear pieces that add additional dice rolls like elemental damage and whatnot, if certain conditions are met. Most small fights don't really give you any impactful stuff outside of stuff to sell to traders, or camp supplies/alchemy ingredients.

[Arlen]

Originally posted by Alxndr:

Originally posted by Arlen:

I don't know what game you are playing, but magic gear drops like candy. You can get a greatsword in the tutorial that give +1-+4 fire damage by killing the Cambion fighting the Illithid, lots of magic gear in the grove merchants inventories, Volo sells a good early game ring for cleric or you can pickpocket it, there is gear aplenty if you simply play the game.

Yeah I have that everburn sword it's awesome. But generally speaking most of the gear I find doesn't actually have any stats on it. It's just like decoration gear?

What do you mean? You can get +1 stuff in the grove by simply buying it from the merchants. slap the missile defense gloves on your wizard, and he is much harder to kill, I mean really mate, the gear is there.

[belgix]

Originally posted by Alxndr:

Where is all the gear?

Not a lot in Act 1 (there is still some I used up to the end of the game like the Blood of Lathander) but plenty of it in Act 2 & 3.

[Nibbie]

Remember that DOS has the "Lucky Charm" or whatever stat, that gives every loot action a chance to create gear. Get it high enough and you could constantly find good items even from random barrels and crates, so loot goblining everything was actually worthwhile. You only needed it on one character to benefit the whole party even. It did devalue most rare items though, and encouraged loot goblin behaviour, so I'm not surprised they stepped back on that. Instead, most magic items in this game are unique to their respective sources, with little to no random drops. They mostly come from completing quests, buying from merchants, or looting off of important people.

[alanc9]

Most of the enemies in the early game just aren't high-level enough to have anything but mundane gear. The Forgotten Realms are high-magic, but not that high-magic.

[Chaosolous]

You gotta look around, some is hidden, some is crafted, some is on enemies.

Be meticulous.

Orrrrrr use the wiki.

bg3.wiki

[Lethan]

5th edition is considerably less magical than 4th or 3rd editions or when compared to DOS2.

Just because BG3 uses the 4th version of the DOS engine (aka the DOS4 Engine) does not mean it follows the same rules of Larians' personal IP

at most you will see +3 weapons with maybe 2 other things going on ... vs the level 16 gold stuff with 5 things going on of DOS2 and they will number few and fixed. All the +1/+2 normal things are just that... +1 hit +1 Damage +weapon template, unless specifically a named item.

It takes some serious effort; but at most... you are dealing 1k damage without cheesing unlimited action points. But honestly? Expect sub-100 damage on an average turn. This game is drastically smaller numbers when compared to DOS2 - by design. Not worse off for it, either.

[FunkyMonkey]

A lot of the gear can seem underwhelming when it only gives a +1 to attack rolls for example but that is a limitation of the d20 system the game uses. Going higher than +3 in the end-game would imbalance the game too much so the most gear gives you is +3 to attack rolls and armor bonuses follow a similar progression.

All I can say is that while the numbers seem small, they are a lot more meaningful than they might first seem.

[Apocalipse]

Most of your damage throughout the game will come from skills, manipulating dice like having lucky, guidance, bless etc..

Gear taps into a small portion of that and if you get early on lathanders legendary mace to do the shadow parts, then you will see how its the same combo of radiant damage or skills that you would get later in the game, or through skill specific attacks.


It's Definitely another approach then baldurs gate 2 where upgrading gear was important. But you now have more time on your hands in the real game, and lose less by crafting gear combo.

[jonnin]

apparently this version of D&D, the gear makes the character so it comes in very slowly until you get to about level 4. Its there, and if you know where to look its not hard to find some, but at the same time, there is a lot of pure garbage until you get to the blighted village/waukeens/toll house etc areas.

lets see, before that, and ignoring the +1 junk vendors in town, you get..
the spear in wither's area
the short sword in the blighted village
heavy axe if you kill the owner
+1 dagger, roll to take it
anti spider spear, assemble, requires killing neutral, not quite friendly thing
and a number of almost complete rubbish items like dead amulet, color spray ring, boots of lightning charges, etc. The guidance amulet is powerful. Dancing lights isn't bad esp if you can't see in dark.
And stuff you bought is going to be very good, some of it for the whole game like ring of fling never goes out of style, nor do the free blade ward & bless when you throw a potion on the group (ok, that actually fades into not necessary by act 2).

By the time you clean out the goblin city/temple thing, you will have tons more good stuff, it really snowballs after you cross the broken bridge.

any weapon with +1d4 element/etc damage is worth having. Any item that adds damage, the same. Even small amounts... after a while you have 4d4 damage from your neck/gloves/weapon/etc and that doubles down per hit so your 3+ hits per turn are suddenly punching 12d4 and more damage... that is how it works. You don't get big 2d20 weapons here, you stack little stuff deep.

DOS isnt a fair comparison. Partly because you can designate 1 character to eat some of their skill points in *creating* epic loot in otherwise empty containers. You then fill your bags with high end items just poking barrels around towns.

[Mike Garrison]

In DOS2 they drop all that gear because gear comes in "levels", and you always want to keep replacing your gear with higher-level gear.

In D&D 5e, gear is "flattened" compared to DOS2. All longswords from the start of the game to the end of it do exactly the same base damage. It is the characters who level up, not the gear.

So what will happen is that over the course of the game magic items will either drop or be found or be for sale from vendors. You decide which ones you want to use for which buffs fit your character.

I usually find myself replacing my gear about 3-4 times in the game. Typically +1 stuff becomes available in Act 1, +2 stuff may start being available in Act 2, and +3 stuff (legendary) is mostly only available in Act 3.

[hannibal_pjv]

Heh! Most of D&D puritist says that BG3 do give too much magical gear!
;)

So in reality, BG3 gear drops are plenty and ower the top of what real D&D would give. It may be less than what DOS2 does. But that is different game with different power balance.

[wtiger27]

There is some gear in Act 1 alone, that might last your char for the whole run. Some is the Titan String bow and the Grymforge armors. The Harold crossbow is one more. Depending on the class of your char of course.