Am I weak or is "minimal" combat too hard?

[arioch2112]

So, my character, Zihira, is a Githyanki warrior whom I purposely made as strong as possible. She and her crew are level two, and she has Shadowheart, Gale, and Astarion. Gale died in the first combat, Astarion died next, and Shadowheart died after. Do I have the strength of a twig, or is this game just super hard? By the way, I have the game on the LOWEST POSSIBLE COMBAT SETTING.

[Tax evasion]

Right.
What fight ? "made as strong as possible" is like saying "I attack every turn". The early game is decently harder, as you hit a powerspike at level 4 and 5, giving you a feat and extra attack respectively.
Sometimes it's not about going "ooga booga" and run at them, all guns blazing, especially when outnumbered. Look around for interactable environment objects (oil barrels you can blow up, doors you can close, chokepoints, etc.)

[arioch2112]

Originally posted by Tax evasion:

Right.
What fight ? "made as strong as possible" is like saying "I attack every turn". The early game is decently harder, as you hit a powerspike at level 4 and 5, giving you a feat and extra attack respectively.
Sometimes it's not about going "ooga booga" and run at them, all guns blazing, especially when outnumbered. Look around for interactable environment objects (oil barrels you can blow up, doors you can close, chokepoints, etc.)

Well, it was in the fight in the sanctuary. You know, the one where the dwarves ambush you and your team? Also, I'm new to the game and didn't even know you could blow up the bloody barrels!

[Tax evasion]

The sanctuary ? The one where you meet a group upstairs, that tell you to "buzz off", and then enter the crypt ?
Yes, that is an specially tough fight early on if you don't know what's going on. I understand that you're struggling on it.
The general consensus is to kill mages first, then ranged, then melee (as they have less reach potential due to being stuck in melee), and to use everything at your disposal. And you can always run from a fight.

My advice would be to experiment, read some guides (especially the ones where "hit percentage" is explained), so that you don't feel lost going forward. I would also recommend experiencing the beginning of the game, and once you get a good feeling of it, start over with a new save to apply this knowledge, makes the rest of the game easier when you're not dragging past mistakes along.

[arioch2112]

Originally posted by Tax evasion:

The sanctuary ? The one where you meet a group upstairs, that tell you to "buzz off", and then enter the crypt ?
Yes, that is an specially tough fight early on if you don't know what's going on. I understand that you're struggling on it.
The general consensus is to kill mages first, then ranged, then melee (as they have less reach potential due to being stuck in melee), and to use everything at your disposal. And you can always run from a fight.

My advice would be to experiment, read some guides (especially the ones where "hit percentage" is explained), so that you don't feel lost going forward. I would also recommend experiencing the beginning of the game, and once you get a good feeling of it, start over with a new save to apply this knowledge, makes the rest of the game easier when you're not dragging past mistakes along.

Ah, got it! I've also learned to not recruit Gale since he seems to not be much of a help. After all, I don't even like him that much, and he died first so...

Thanks for the help! I appreciate it. /gen

[jonnin]

... wizards are 'late bloomers'. Around level 5, the end of act 1 (of 3) ish, gale will have powerful area of effect spells and double damage cantrips and a wider variety of powers. At level 2, he isn't going to be very interesting, but many people overlook that he can use a shield and light armor to stay alive.

the default companions were random rolled or allocated by a troll. You can't fix them until after this dungeon, though.

this fight is meant to be one of the first ones you encounter and it teaches you several things.
for example, outside, before they even see you, you can shoot the hanging rock and kill 2 of the 4 outside guys, then wait out their searching and then 4 on 1 bushwhack the archer and kill him, leaving the pathetic mage all alone and zero chances to do any real damage... she may sleep you or firebolt you, but it shouldn't do much to your crew.
then you can climb down the busted hole and light up an oil barrel, killing 1/2 the bad guys and hurting several more, and then open and close the door to avoid being shot while picking them off one by one from behind cover. Pure tactics. OR..
instead of climbing down the hole, you can lockpick or trick your way inside the door, cap the guy there, and pop the other door to again light them up & play 'doorway tag' with them.
The whole dungeon is set up to teach you about tactics over 'run up the middle and pray' combat approaches. And nearly (not all, but nearly) every fight in the game has a back way to get a better location, explosives to set off or stuff to drop onto enemy or places to boot enemy off a tall something for some fall damage and so on.

You can beat the fights with brute force up to a point but its a lot harder and gets worse and worse as you progress. Its so much cleaner to soften them up with ranged cat & mouse play for a couple of rounds before anyone even engages in melee.**

** ok, a lot of advanced players focus on killing most of the enemy in one round before they even get a turn. This takes more knowledge than can be put here, and its irrelevant for the level you are at now anyway (not gonna happen so cleanly at level 2-3, its more of a level 5+ thing). You can check out how to do all that if you want, but its winnable as above with a soften up stage and a finish off stage in 3-5 rounds total with the first 2-3 rounds you take near 0 damage because you move, shoot, move back.

[arioch2112]

Originally posted by jonnin:

... wizards are 'late bloomers'. Around level 5, the end of act 1 (of 3) ish, gale will have powerful area of effect spells and double damage cantrips and a wider variety of powers. At level 2, he isn't going to be very interesting, but many people overlook that he can use a shield and light armor to stay alive.

the default companions were random rolled or allocated by a troll. You can't fix them until after this dungeon, though.

this fight is meant to be one of the first ones you encounter and it teaches you several things.
for example, outside, before they even see you, you can shoot the hanging rock and kill 2 of the 4 outside guys, then wait out their searching and then 4 on 1 bushwhack the archer and kill him, leaving the pathetic mage all alone and zero chances to do any real damage... she may sleep you or firebolt you, but it shouldn't do much to your crew.
then you can climb down the busted hole and light up an oil barrel, killing 1/2 the bad guys and hurting several more, and then open and close the door to avoid being shot while picking them off one by one from behind cover. Pure tactics. OR..
instead of climbing down the hole, you can lockpick or trick your way inside the door, cap the guy there, and pop the other door to again light them up & play 'doorway tag' with them.
The whole dungeon is set up to teach you about tactics over 'run up the middle and pray' combat approaches. And nearly (not all, but nearly) every fight in the game has a back way to get a better location, explosives to set off or stuff to drop onto enemy or places to boot enemy off a tall something for some fall damage and so on.

You can beat the fights with brute force up to a point but its a lot harder and gets worse and worse as you progress. Its so much cleaner to soften them up with ranged cat & mouse play for a couple of rounds before anyone even engages in melee.**

** ok, a lot of advanced players focus on killing most of the enemy in one round before they even get a turn. This takes more knowledge than can be put here, and its irrelevant for the level you are at now anyway (not gonna happen so cleanly at level 2-3, its more of a level 5+ thing). You can check out how to do all that if you want, but its winnable as above with a soften up stage and a finish off stage in 3-5 rounds total with the first 2-3 rounds you take near 0 damage because you move, shoot, move back.

Alright, sick!

[Scheneighnay]

Even early on Gale can be extremely powerful, but you need to be careful with him.
First off make sure he has the 'mage armor' spell active at all times to make sure he doesn't always get hit.

His default subclass is Evocation, which starts him out with a super useful passive ability that makes it so that any AoE evocation spell won't hit party members, even if they're standing in the middle of it. So he can just cast thunderwave or burning hands, later on even the notorious point-blank-fireball without worrying about where your party members are.

If you want to change his subclass when you first get him, Abjuration is also one of my favorite choices because he gets an arcane ward as a passive, which mitigates damage and gets recharged every time you cast an abjuration spell, like mage armor.

[arioch2112]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Even early on Gale can be extremely powerful, but you need to be careful with him.
First off make sure he has the 'mage armor' spell active at all times to make sure he doesn't always get hit.

His default subclass is Evocation, which starts him out with a super useful passive ability that makes it so that any AoE evocation spell won't hit party members, even if they're standing in the middle of it. So he can just cast thunderwave or burning hands, later on even the notorious point-blank-fireball without worrying about where your party members are.

If you want to change his subclass when you first get him, Abjuration is also one of my favorite choices because he gets an arcane ward as a passive, which mitigates damage and gets recharged every time you cast an abjuration spell, like mage armor.

Thanks! I could also use a way to keep Astarion from dying... the man is 80 pounds soaking moist xD

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by arioch2112:

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Even early on Gale can be extremely powerful, but you need to be careful with him.
First off make sure he has the 'mage armor' spell active at all times to make sure he doesn't always get hit.

His default subclass is Evocation, which starts him out with a super useful passive ability that makes it so that any AoE evocation spell won't hit party members, even if they're standing in the middle of it. So he can just cast thunderwave or burning hands, later on even the notorious point-blank-fireball without worrying about where your party members are.

If you want to change his subclass when you first get him, Abjuration is also one of my favorite choices because he gets an arcane ward as a passive, which mitigates damage and gets recharged every time you cast an abjuration spell, like mage armor.

Thanks! I could also use a way to keep Astarion from dying... the man is 80 pounds soaking moist xD

Rogues have cunning actions. Meaning they can use a bonus action to hide, dash (double their movement), or disengage (move out of melee range without anyone taking a swing at you)

If you hold shift, you can see enemy lines of sight for hiding. But the gist of it is that Astarian's path to survivability is using cunning actions to make sure he doesn't take hits to begin with.

[arioch2112]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Originally posted by arioch2112:

Thanks! I could also use a way to keep Astarion from dying... the man is 80 pounds soaking moist xD

Rogues have cunning actions. Meaning they can use a bonus action to hide, dash (double their movement), or disengage (move out of melee range without anyone taking a swing at you)

If you hold shift, you can see enemy lines of sight for hiding. But the gist of it is that Astarian's path to survivability is using cunning actions to make sure he doesn't take hits to begin with.

Kay, cool! :)

[jonnin]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Even early on Gale can be extremely powerful, but you need to be careful with him.
First off make sure he has the 'mage armor' spell active at all times to make sure he doesn't always get hit.

His default subclass is Evocation, which starts him out with a super useful passive ability that makes it so that any AoE evocation spell won't hit party members, even if they're standing in the middle of it. So he can just cast thunderwave or burning hands, later on even the notorious point-blank-fireball without worrying about where your party members are.

If you want to change his subclass when you first get him, Abjuration is also one of my favorite choices because he gets an arcane ward as a passive, which mitigates damage and gets recharged every time you cast an abjuration spell, like mage armor.

I cannot disagree more. Put Gale in a shield + leather armor (good armor found at level 2-3 on dead drow at waukeen's rest, just a jump past the blighted village and a good stop to hit BEFORE doing much in the BV as there is no combat yet free xp there). Mage armor is not any better than this setup and a waste of a spell slot. If you need MORE ac later, mirror image and blur are strong, but by that point you will have magic armor & bigger nukes... still probably wasteful to burn too many defense spells.

Abjuration takes off about 1/2 a hit's worth of damage. I think mage armor gives you 3 temporary hit points (effectively). All the mage subclasses are kinda weak, TBH. Double potion creation is good if go deep into alchemy AND can make the rolls.

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Even early on Gale can be extremely powerful, but you need to be careful with him.
First off make sure he has the 'mage armor' spell active at all times to make sure he doesn't always get hit.

His default subclass is Evocation, which starts him out with a super useful passive ability that makes it so that any AoE evocation spell won't hit party members, even if they're standing in the middle of it. So he can just cast thunderwave or burning hands, later on even the notorious point-blank-fireball without worrying about where your party members are.

If you want to change his subclass when you first get him, Abjuration is also one of my favorite choices because he gets an arcane ward as a passive, which mitigates damage and gets recharged every time you cast an abjuration spell, like mage armor.

I cannot disagree more. Put Gale in a shield + leather armor (good armor found at level 2-3 on dead drow at waukeen's rest, just a jump past the blighted village and a good stop to hit BEFORE doing much in the BV as there is no combat yet free xp there). Mage armor is not any better than this setup and a waste of a spell slot. If you need MORE ac later, mirror image and blur are strong, but by that point you will have magic armor & bigger nukes... still probably wasteful to burn too many defense spells.

You can get him handwraps in the blighted village that raises his AC by 2 if he's not wearing armor.
Giving a wizard light armor isn't going to work out because light armor scales your AC with dex, which you shouldn't be investing in.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Originally posted by jonnin:

I cannot disagree more. Put Gale in a shield + leather armor (good armor found at level 2-3 on dead drow at waukeen's rest, just a jump past the blighted village and a good stop to hit BEFORE doing much in the BV as there is no combat yet free xp there). Mage armor is not any better than this setup and a waste of a spell slot. If you need MORE ac later, mirror image and blur are strong, but by that point you will have magic armor & bigger nukes... still probably wasteful to burn too many defense spells.

You can get him handwraps in the blighted village that raises his AC by 2 if he's not wearing armor.
Giving a wizard light armor isn't going to work out because light armor scales your AC with dex, which you shouldn't be investing in.

Those handwraps burn a slot that can have a better item (like, early game, the anti-archery ones from the grove vendor) and give the exact same result as having a shield but won't stack with a shield.
What else are you going to have? int, con, and dex split is fine, 16 int, 16 dex, 14 con to start is fine, and you can rebalance later with the 18 dex item. This is all early game anyway, as after a bit you have def spells that work with armor, not just instead of it.

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

You can get him handwraps in the blighted village that raises his AC by 2 if he's not wearing armor.
Giving a wizard light armor isn't going to work out because light armor scales your AC with dex, which you shouldn't be investing in.

Those handwraps burn a slot that can have a better item (like, early game, the anti-archery ones from the grove vendor) and give the exact same result as having a shield but won't stack with a shield.
What else are you going to have? int, con, and dex split is fine, 16 int, 16 dex, 14 con to start is fine, and you can rebalance later with the 18 dex item. This is all early game anyway, as after a bit you have def spells that work with armor, not just instead of it.

Higher con and wisdom for saves would go further.

Plus every other spell that boosts AC that I'm aware of requires concentration, which is pretty useless to a wizard who needs to concentrate on other spells.

[jonnin]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

Originally posted by jonnin:

Those handwraps burn a slot that can have a better item (like, early game, the anti-archery ones from the grove vendor) and give the exact same result as having a shield but won't stack with a shield.
What else are you going to have? int, con, and dex split is fine, 16 int, 16 dex, 14 con to start is fine, and you can rebalance later with the 18 dex item. This is all early game anyway, as after a bit you have def spells that work with armor, not just instead of it.

Higher con and wisdom for saves would go further.

Plus every other spell that boosts AC that I'm aware of requires concentration, which is pretty useless to a wizard who needs to concentrate on other spells.

mirror image does not, but it degrades as you use it up. This is my go-to.

other defense spells do not, but specifically only for AC, then yes. Haste helps and needs concentration but its not normally put onto yourself. Shield does not need it, but its very short lived, just the 1 round. Fire shield does not, and it prevents enemy from melee attacking you (they just won't if they have another choice). Blink does not, but its erratic.

I agree that late game save throws > AC. But mage armor vs leathers is act 1 discussion anyway. After that ... depends on the fight but armor (mage or leather either one) won't be enough.