Frequently Asked Beginner Questions

Absolute Basics Questions Simply Answered

F.A.Q. for Beginners

The longer you play Dungeons & Dragons, the less you think about the questions you had as a beginner. This guide is intended for brand-new players who are playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time and are struggling with terminology and mechanics that may be explained in-game, but not enough to really understand.

For more beginner tips see also
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025093305

I wish everyone a great time with Baldur's Gate 3
and Happy Adventuring!

Roll 1d6 for Damage

1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d20

What do those number d number mean?

The "d" stands for dice.
The first number the number of rolls you do.
The second number for the sides the dice have.



The most famous die is the d20, the twenty sided dice of which each number on the dice has a 5% chance to occur (100/20 = 5).



Weapons for example use specific dice like 1d6 for a Scimitar

Because you throw a six sided dice to determine the damage value, 1d6, the damage can range between 1 to 6 / 1~6.

So if a weapon has e.g. a damage of 2d6 it translates into: roll two (2) six sided dice (d6) and take that as damage value. The weapon damage value will be displayed as 2~12, because the lowest value would be snake eyes (1 and 1) and the highest double six.

Dungeon Master Trivia

Baldur's Gate 3 has as houserule/homebrew that a nat1 or a nat20 aka natural 20 are critical hits no matter when used. In the pen & paper version that critical hit originally applied only on attack rolls.

"Natural" means in this context that you roll a d20 and get a 20 as natural value, without the additions nor substractions of any boni.



Critical hits automatically succeed (20) or fail (1) regardless of the actual difficulty class (DC).

Pop-Quiz!

What damage does this high level Firebolt spell do?



Answer: 2~20 Damage (Fire)

Armour Class

In most games armour is depicted like this: the stronger the armour a character wears, the more incoming damage can be absorbed before actually dealing damage. In Dungeons & Dragons it works a little different. But it is actually quite good and helps to create a fair gameplay once you understand how it works



The base armour class every character has is 10. That means when you roll for an attack with 1d20, you need to roll 10 or higher, which is a basis of 50%+5% to hit - or 50%-5% to deflect the damage.

When an attack roll fails, the value rolled is lower than 10 in this example, then it is a miss. The damage is fully deflected unless other boni apply.

Boni such as dexterity, armour, shield and spells.

Due to the combination such as armour gives mali on dexterity, a balance is created like that a heavy armoured fighter is less likely to stealth in comparison to an unarmoured but agile thief. And so the balance that a mage might be "squishy" while able to cast powerful spells while the heavy armoured fighter is strongly limited with that.



The Scale Mail raise the basis armour to 14, limits dexterity bonus to a maximum of 2 and gives disadvantage on stealth checks.

That means if an agile thief is to wear such they can get a maximum of armour class 16 while having disadvantage in stealth.

So, what about that dexterity bonus? Where does it come from?

Ability Score Modifier

In the character sheet of Minsc you can see below, the Ability Score modifiers are on the left side.



There is a +4 modifier for strength , +1 for dexterity and +3 for constitution.

That has something to do with Minsc's actual stats

Strength 18
Dexterity 12
Constitution 17
Intelligence 10
Wisdom 10
Charisma 10

(Infernal Tides values)

The value 10 can be considered neutral. No mali nor boni.

For every two points in an ability score there is one additional boni.

so it looks like this

8 = -1
9 = -1
10 = +0
11 = +0
12 = +1
13 = +1
14 = +2
15 = +2
16 = +3

and so on.

Minsc's strength is 18, so he has 8/2 = +4 on strength as modifier.
If his intelligence would have been 9, he would have a -1 there.

Simply said: the higher an ability score the higher the modifier.

The modifier itself is a bonus which reflects the value of an ability score. Take for example, moving a heavy stone has a difficulty check with the difficulty class (DC) of 12. You roll a d20 to determine whether you are successful or not. A strong character adds their modifier onto it.

So it becomes 1d20 + modifier + proficiency.

To keep things simple we will first show it without proficiency.

Minsc has a strength of 18, so he gets a modifier of +4 on that roll. That means

+4 is the lowest, he needs 12 or higher to succeed (or a natural 20/1 to critical succeed or critical fail).

Because of that the lowest he has to roll is 8 (12-4). If Minsc rolls with a d20 8 or higher he will succeed. Thanks to the +4 modifier the challenge of that ability check has become 20% easier (4x5%).

And what about proficiency?

Proficiency is another bonus which gets considered in such an ability check. It comes from the skills a character has. A fighter e.g. is proficient in Athletics checks and gets automatically a bonus in that skill. Which makes them proficient in Athletics.

Minsc has a proficiency of +7 in Athletics.

So if he rolls it is a 1d20 + 4 (strength modifier) + 7 (athletics proficiency because moving a heavy stone needs athletics). That means Minsc must roll 12-4-7 => anything higher than 1 to fail.

Because he is strong and very athletic!

Pop-Quiz!

What value you need to roll to hit an enemy with an armour class of 15, proficiency +3 and your modifier to hit +2 ?

Answer: 15 - 3 - 2 => 10 or higher, which equals a hitchance of 55%

Remember Your Passives

Some passive feats come with a drawback if they are used.



Remember to toggle those on/off whether you need them or not.

Commonly forgotten passives are Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter.
When toggled on they deal additional +10 damage on your attack, at the cost of -5 on the attack roll. -5 on a pure d20 equals -25% accuracy for the attack roll. Make sure to increase your chances to hit, e.g. with the spell Bless, before using that passive feat to make the best out of it.

What about saving throws?

Saving throws are done to resist an attack/spell. Which saving throw modifier is used depends on the type of attack.



At the bottom of that skill description you can see it has

• a range of 18 meters
  
• the target needs to do an intelligence saving throw to resist
  
• to cast the spell the intelligence modifier is used
  
• the spell replenishes with a long rest

Different spells use different ability scores for saving throws





And the effect can vary.
Ensnaring e.g. imagine it like you getting bound by vines at place, so you put all your strength into to free yourself => strength saving throw, prevents you from getting ensnared

Fireball on the other hand has a dexterity saving throw, making it depending how dexterious you can dodge the explosion => but it will not prevent the damage entirely



The saving throw is made against the power of a spell. That means for a spell to succeed the attacker has to have a high ability score and proficiency in their spellcasting.

While to resist/deflect aka save yourself against the effects you need a fitting proficiency.

Another example would be illussion and mind control magic. Because of the danger of such it is common that players not only not neglect their character's wisdom ability score but also try to get proficient in wisdom saves if there is such magic to be feared from the enemy.

Reminder: Ingame Tutorials

You can reset the popups for ingame tutorials any time through the settings.



You can also access the ingame tutorials by pressing M for Map, J for Journal, P for Inspiration and switch to the Tutorials tab.

Inspector "T"

When using T to inspect, you can easily mouseover the descriptions of items, skills and more and read the additional meanings of bolded items. In this case you can see the detailed explaination of what it means when a character gets the condition surprised, which occurs when ambushed.

Surprised by an ambush -> the initial turn the characters cannot act -> those not surprised (the ambushers) can attack without worries during that turn

When can I respec my character?

Once Wither's joined your party at camp.

When can I hire hirelings?

After you have reached level 4

Spell Slots

In this game the main resource for casting spells are spell slots.
The resource indicator can be found on top of the hotbar.





The squares. With numbers above which indicates the level of each spell slot.

It is much easier than in other games where you have e.g. 100 mana and a spell cost 32 mana and so on. Instead the number of spell slots tells you precisely how often a spell of a certain level can be casted before you need to replenish your spell slots. Most resources like spell slots need a long rest at camp to be replenished.

Example: Fireball

The probably most famous spell from Dungeons & Dragons is Fireball.
As you can see i nthe screenshot above it needs a level 3 spell slot to be casted and consumes one action per turn. That means the caster -here a sorceress- has to choose whether to cast Fireball or use an attack e.g. as she has only one action per turn available.

There are three level III spell slots available. So if you want to use only Fireball you can cast it at least three times aka as many times as level III spell slots or higher are available.

Because you can use higher level spell slots for lower level spells, the sorceress can use the level IV and level V slots for Fireball as well. Some spells become even stronger when a higher level spell slot is used. That is called "upcast" and can be used tactically if e.g. you want a stronger heal cast. It depends on the spell if such an option is available. But you can never use a lower level spell slot for a higher level spell.

Cantrips

Cantrips are special spells which do not consume a spell slot. Those you can cast even after you have spent all spell slots. That way e.g. a mage can continue attacking with Cantrips which they are more likely to hit than with a weapon they might be lacking modifiers and proficiency with.

How long is One Turn?

One turn = 6 seconds

1 minute = 10 turns

Therefore, once you enter turn based mode e.g. for stealth, each turns allows you to act as if six seconds pass in real time. Great for actions which need some planning and cunning.
Like getting past a guard e.g.

Advantage and Disadvantage

How do Advantage and Disadvantage work?

When you have advantage it means that instead of one d20 you roll two d20 and take the result which is higher.



When you have disadvantage it means that you roll two d20 instead of one and take the result which is lower.



Advantages/Disadvantages can occur in and outside of combat and increase / reduce the chances to succeed a roll drastically. During combat you can e.g. see with the target selection why an advantage/disadvantage is applied. In the example above you can see the symbol of double dice and next to it the text that the attack (ranged) is outside the effective range of the weapon. Making it harder to hit the target.

Pop-Quiz!

You got advantage.

You roll a 1 and a 16.

Which of the dice rolls you take?

Answer: 16 - the advantage rule overrules the critical failure as you are to take the higher result. Same goes with disadvantage where if you roll 20 and 14 you are to take the 14 despite the 20 would normally be a critical success.

Can I Fast Travel?

You sure can, by using the waypoints menu from the map menu. The waypoints are marked with the purple sigils in the world.





When using Fast Travel keep in mind, that it does not count as instant teleportation. But more as fade to black and you only see your party appear somewhere else, but they actually took their time to get there.

How to rearrange the Hotbar?

Press default "K" to open up your "Spell Book", which has all the character actions and spells listed. From there you can drag and drop the desired icons onto your hotbar.

You can also use drag and drop to rearrange the icons in your hotbar and remove them by dragging them outside the hotbar. Take note of the tiny lock icon on the right side of the hotbar and the +/- to increase the rows.

Sometimes actions and spells a character can get exceeds the available space. Drag and drop the red divider bars to your liking and needs according.

Do lightnings matter?

Yes! it might not be clear right away, but especially in combat and during stealth the environmental lightning matters.

Stealth becomes easier when you create a dark environment.





The change is indicated by that "sun" icon. Full sun for bright place, half for dark and empty for very dark aka low visibility. In combat in can affect your hit attack roles. Most races have darkvision which allows them to battle normally even in darkness wheras races without darkvisions might suffer disadvantages.

The Light Cantrip or the Flame Cantrip to have an easy to use lightsource with you I recommend to have ready to counter darkness.

Off-hand Auto-attack

How do I prevent my off-hand to auto-attack?

The default setting is: if you have two weapons equipped e.g. two daggers, your attack would be followed automatically by an off-hand attack. Which can result in a waste of the bonus action if the target is already dead with the initial attack. Because of that it is better to always toggle off automatic off-hand attacks.

Always Ask for Reactions

Why should I set my reactions to always ask?

Would it not be better if e.g. my character autoattacks when there is an opportunity to do so?



No. It is comfortable that the game can do it automatically for you. But it is not recommended, because you want to have full control over you reactions as resource.

What I mean with that: imagine you have two enemies engaging you in melee and if one of those moves you can use an opportunity attack. One would die from that, the other not. Now if the other, with more health moves away, an auto-attack would not get a kill. And if afterwards the one with very low health moves, you are out of reactions. The opportunity which would have been more advantageous for you got wasted that way.

In the same fashion you can bait the NPC enemy into autoattacking you. Making them eventually losing reactions.

Thanks for Reading!

Happy Adventuring!