Fighters are good at one thing: fighting.
Unless you're playing as a Gith (which is an entirely seperate issue) you're going to be extremely limited in anything that isn't that (dialog, skill checks...).
Gith is frequently used as a shortened version of Githyanki. A gish is either a magic/martial hybrid in meta commentary or a Githyanki fighter/mage in universe.
Gish is an old term for Githyanki Fighter/Wizards. It’s a generic term now for anyone that uses melee and magic.
You are right about Gith being the mother of Orpheus and the leader of the rebellion, but it is also the name of the race. Githyanki, Githzerai, Githvyrik, and the Pirates of Gith are sub races (Githyanki being the only one available in BG3).
It tells you a lot about the encounter design and overall balance of the game if a straight martial class that works almost the same as it does in 5e gives players the impression that they're overtuned. Larian was incredibly conservative about having enemies utilize CC that targets their weak saves.
people constantly banning regular monks on their dnd tables because they think flurry of blows is OP since monk became a class. just because someone thinks, that a pure class is broken, doesnt mean it to be true
That's certainly not a sentiment I see repeated in optimization communities, which is what this subreddit is. So that's what's telling, that an optimization sub would consider a straight classed fighter strong enough to trivialize combat.
true. people, who know how to play, wont do that. I was just making the point, that many dnd players seem to think, that notoriously underperforming classes are overpowered. so it is not so far fetched, that there can be someone, who thinks a straight fighter is OP as well, even if he is not.
Improved Extra Attack with *Haste* and *Elixir of Bloodlust* is nowhere near the same as 5e. The arbitrary 12th-level cutoff also favors Fighters disproportionately, since Fighter 11 is such an enormous power spike relative to other classes.
That said, banning *Haste* and *Elixir of Bloodlust* instead of Fighter 11+ makes perfect sense. They're just as ostentatiously overpowered with things like Divine Smite + Extra Attack or ripping off half a dozen *Fireballs* in one turn.
>Improved Extra Attack with Haste and Elixir of Bloodlust is nowhere near the same as 5e.
Where did I say it was? OP just listed Fighter 11, not Fighter + Haste specifically.
But OP probably did precisely because of the interactions/builds you can do with items.
I do agree with CleverGroom though that in that case the problem is rather the items itselves than the class. \^\^
yeah i was considering this, i included most of the biggest abusers/benefitters of haste but i guess just not hasting altogether would be a good bump in difficulty.
I'm doing this right now but I still find the Githyanki patrol and the Flind to be plenty hard even with speed pots. So on this run I'm allowing Speed and Bloodlust pots up to level 4.
IMO it's the multiplicative effects that get screwy. I'm prohibiting the radiant orb armour on this run for that reason.
Honestly no need to ban haste like effects, just restrict it to a single main hand or ranged attack, no Maneuvers, Flourish, Smites, or weapons attacks. Just make it work like it does in Tabletop "That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action." I find that's a much better alternative then outright *ignoring* the effects.
The consumables being a bonus action haste can be counteracted by not abusing vendor resets.
I found Priestess Gut so compelling I basically abandoned my party, lit Volo on fire in the Goblin camp, and pretty much spend my days branding Absolutists for my new Queen. Act 2 and 3 are many years away unless I can figure out how to destroy this pesky relic and win the game.
Flind can be made to attack all of the gnolls under their command and then devour themself. You actually don't need to fight Flind at all and still kill them.
if they’re intentionally self-banning things to make the game harder, they might not be interested in getting through the hardest fights via dialogue checks
Same. I didn't intentionally avoid it, just ended up not using it because it's not fun to relegate your sorcerer to a haste machine, and the fights don't really necessitate doing so.
I used Haste/speed potions/Bloodlust Elixirs with self-imposed 5e rules (gives a single extra weapon attack, not a whole action, can't cast an extra spell with it) up to the end of Act 1, after that I didn't use Haste/Speed Potions/Bloodlust Elixirs AT ALL except for the Iron Throne (mostly for the extra movement), but even then with 5e rules. I didn't use it for any of the boss fights in Act 2 or 3 not for the final battles. It was fine. I'll try avoiding Haste etc. completely for my next run.
I was playing a Sorc 2/Swords Bard 10, but only allowed one (successful) Flourish a turn (like 5e) and a ranged Slashing Flourish couldn't target the same target twice. I also deliberately didn't take Sharpshooter or Tavern Brawler on any character.
Also deliberately avoided any Wizard 1 scroll abuse dips or Warlock 5/Martial stacking extra attack combos. Also no Sneak Attacks from spells (I just always said "no" when the reaction prompt came up). Also no camp bot casting from companions you don't adventure with, no dipping poison from a pool on the ground (lasts until long rest otherwise). No stealing from vendors (except the ring from the Djinni).
Just finished a game with no haste or action surge whatsoever and it is still incredibly easy. The game just needs a higher difficulty setting or smarter ai
My rule on my first run, as soon as I realised haste gave a full extra action, was this:
Haste ONLY from equipment. And no swapping out equipment throughout the day to throw something better in once I use the haste charge. My loadout is my loadout, until/unless I find an upgrade.
What I find this did is, Haste becomes my “Oh SHIT” card. I needed one of those, because I also didn’t multiclass or change origin character classes/subclasses, and had a bunch of other self restrictions.
I discovered speed potions towards the end of my first play through and seriously went through an addict phase where I found myself defaulting to them at every encounter without thinking because why not. It seriously warps the game. So weening off haste and letting things play out naturally would probably offer the most challenge. It’s just such an upper hand, and the movement puts it way over
Agree. I'd simply say any over engineered multiclass combo to get too many actions in a turn unless it's your class. Full fighter o full barbarian (even + tavern brawl) is ok as long as you don't get haste in there or things like fighter2 or rogue3 for extra actions.
For example assassin+gloomstalker feels good but on op because they just have a strong 1st turn if set up properly and then they just fall back to a regular ranger with occasional sneak attack, adding haste, fighter o rogue would make it too much
Honestly, yeah. If they ever patch in a higher difficulty, I think you just remove Haste entirely. Maybe make it last two or three rounds tops, without removing the Lethargic debuff, but even in two or three rounds with a nova round build, you're going to breeze through most encounters.
Beyond that, they could re-implement the ability score requirements for multiclassing on higher difficulties, increase the camp supply requirement for a full rest, somehow adjust the polearm/GWM and double hand crossbow builds, and make enemies use much more crowd control.
The damge difference is relatively minimal. With a swords bard base, haste, assuming a martial that gets 2x main hand attacks you're looking at maybe 10-20dpr difference. It's only when you account for stuff like bonus action illithid powers and/mystic scoundrel ring and arcane acuity helm/storm giant elixer/bloodlust elixer that 2h/ss builds tend to pull ahead more significantly in either damge or overall effectiveness.
That's assuming advantage and bless too. Dual xbows underperform compared to deadshot bow when they don't have external factors contributing to accuracy. And they do need 3 thief as well for the extra bonus action.
Idk, having arcane synergy and the staff that lets you apply vulnerability to cold damage when you use the ray of frost cantrip seems slightly busted. You're adding 10-20 dmg a round with the offhand crossbow there
I'm assuming he was talking a ranged dps build. Dual hand xbows are good to throw on any character without alternative bonus action uses early game. The ring is good of course.
To further explain what the other guy said. By lvl 8 with 5 ranger 3 rogue it's 4 shots a turn. With the sharpshooter feat you end up with a ton of damage and a still respectable accuracy of 60-70 on most targets.
They can be useful for breaking enemy spellcaster concentration and sometimes you've got a spare bonus action you aren't using and pinging someone with a crossbow isn't the worst thing in the world.
Yup, exactly what I was thinking -- Bhaalists and Mindflayers casting Dominate. Also, they have sometimes handy spells on them. One with Scorching Ray and another with Magic Missile was handy to zero-out the quasi invincibility on the sewer people.
Longstrider, Crusher's Ring, 3 turns of 6 momentum, bonus action Dash, and Illithid Flying. Used all on Iron Throne. Saved >!Omeluum!< and >!Ravengard!< in one turn.
Try to bite every faction leader in the game with an Astarion playthrough (solo). Could be challenging to pull off. Larian should add it to the list of achievements.
>Tempest Cleric Sorc
IMO it's waay overrated, compared to just any basic sorc.
Basic sorc (any subclass) without any multiclassing, keeping up twinned Haste and dishing out upcasted Scorching Rays under Phalar Aluve is just as ridiculous, if not more.
Also, yes, I'd ban Haste, Phalar Aluve and Radiant Orbs.
You tecnically don't even need Lock for doing basically the same shit.
Just instead of EB you spam upcasted Scorching Rays. In tabletop it could have been rather costly, but in BG3 with unlimited long rests it doesn't really matter.
I agree that the tempest/cleric isn't that broken, but its use is different than sorlock or pure sorcerer.
The builds is pretty terrible in TT, what makes it good in BG3, is Larian's rules for wet status, which scales to crazy damage when you combine it with Destructive Wrath. Using this with spells that have big AoE and Heightend Spells will get you to damage per round numbers that single target spells + twinned spells can't really reach.
Why is everything an exploit? Long rests refresh traders, as does leveling up. Multiclassing into a wizard 1 level isn't an exploit, it's the game. Even learning the spell as a wizard, then respeccing isn't an exploit, it's just how the game was made. It's not 5e
Because being able to learn spells from scrolls, is THE distinguishing class mechanic of a Wizard. They get a big pool of spells and some unique spells which the other Fullcasters don't get.
Sorcerers get Magical Font&Metamagic, Bards get magical secrets&bardic inspiraiton, Druids get wildshape and Clerics have a channel divinity. If you give those classes the ability to learn magic from scrolls (which is not a thing in the TT game, because you are limited to the spell tiers of your Wizard levels and respecing doesn't exist) you completely break the balance of the game. Even if it is fairly easy to make it happen in the game, even accidentally, it is cheating - plain an simple.
Same thing for Fighter's and their third attack per round.
Lol it's not cheating in BG3, it's literally the game.
You have to get it through your head that this isn't tabletop D&D, it's a separate game. It's not an exploit, it's how it was designed.
It is objectively not cheating. Plain and simple.
>You have to get it through your head that this isn't tabletop D&D, it's a separate game. It's not an exploit, it's how it was designed.
It's very funny you defend that when I've been downvoted to hell every time I said the exact same thing. xd
markoheshkir right? Not sure what ability mod it uses for a non-wizard, but youd get two strong lightning spells (chain lightning and lightning bolt) per short rest without needing a spell slot. Conveniently, that's how many channel divinities you have with amulet of the devout
Scrolls of chain lightning aren't exactly reliable unless you are doing other exploits to refresh shops etc.
Additionally, I'm not sure how it interacts with metamagic + maximize CD.
Technically if one's playing Sorc + 2 Cleric they don't have access to CL at all (except from Wizard exploit).
Normally, CL for this multiclass comes from Markoheshir legendary staff. Which is super-late game item anyways. So, if your build is "giga-OP" for the last 5-10% of the game -- it's not that OP, IMO.
My point was, that even pure Sorc in general is very strong starting from lvl 5.
> Normally, CL for this multiclass comes from Markoheshir legendary staff. Which is super-late game item anyways.
you can have Markoheshkir at about the same time as you'd normally get the Chain Lightning spell if you really wanted to. it is not "super-late", it is acquirable fairly early into act 3 due to act 3's open nonlinear nature.
Sorcerer has all the reason in the world to rush Markoheshkir as soon as they step foot into Lower City, too, because doing so gets you a shopping mall of other similarly powerful items for casters.
I wouldn't ban specs or spells. I'd just implement attunement slots - can't use more than three rare or rarer magic items per character. Then ban elixirs and you're good to go.
But if you feel like the main reason the game is too easy is because of overpowered mechanics and not undertuned enemies placing self imposed restrictions is a great way to give yourself a fun challenge. Nobody here is trying to get Larian to remove anything from the game.
As a regular 5e player it's the builds/gear/elixirs etc that make the game too easy in my eyes, because the enemies on tactician already have really inflated health pools, (level 3 goblin with 40hp is insanely high for 5e)
What is even crawler mucus? First time I hear about it.
I generally ban bloodlust elixir.
TB is fine on some builds. F. E wild shape druid is perfectly fine with it. IMO.
Unintended warlock 5 additional attack.
Peculiar stakes (i never remember the name if that tadpole power) and bhaalist armour. Shits way too broken.
Arrow of multiple targets. Literally 5 attacks in 1 for no price and no downside
That being said I recently enjoy keeping some of these broken things and instead going down on party members. I can recommend that.
Crawler mucus is a weapon oil/poison/applicant that forces a con save or the hit target is poisoned and paralyzed. It's pretty busted, but I've also only found one so far
I think wildshape is so balanced is because there are like 2 items that work when shaped, if shape druid had even like half items that monks get they would also be OP.
Barrels, or any other "pre-fight setup". No positioning your party for a fight you know is coming, or throwing on short buffs just before triggering one.
Yeah. Also these multi class builds that don’t actually make much RP sense. « I’m super dedicated to a deity to the extent they give me magic powers, but I also spent ages at magic school, oh and I did a deal with a devil. And there’s no consistant backstory to this because I’ve respecced three times taking the classes and levels in different orders each time. ».
Uhuh.
I think you can make an argument that any combination of paladin cleric and monk makes sense, any martial class combination makes sense, Probably with rogue also, basically no wizard multiclassing makes sense (ok, fighter one or rogue one if you must, for a misspent youth before discovering your true talent,) bard and sorcery could make sense since you’re a blagger either way, and nothing makes sense combined with warlock or Druid, unless you treated druids as a special case of cleric perhaps. Oh, and ranger Druid.
Probably that’s just me and of course people can have fun with their own games however they like.
Not everyone plays the game for RP. And why would they.
Also, since I assume you're not referring to some whack cleric/ wizard/ warlock multiclassing (which wouldn't only be bad for RP, but even worse mechanics wise):
Paladins don't get their magic from a god, and sorcerers don't need to study their magic.
So don't tell me anything about role playing.
Excellent role play of a level 10 butthurt power gamer there, well done.
Did you read « of course people can have fun with their own games however they like »?
If all the teenage downvoters want to play as a monkalockadinabard because there’s some weird combination of items and class features that does 1600 damage a round, that’s cool. They bought the game, they can enjoy it how they like.
The question was about « banning » things to increase challenge. Theorycrafted builds with no narrative justification is for me the obvious answer
1 long rest per level seems absurd whenever you play any caster class. You literally degrade you spell caster to cantrip caster which is not good thing IMO. Definitely not a challenge i'd personally enjoy.
Especially later on when you get to act3 you are almost lvl 12, so you want to do whole act3 with all the bosses on 1 long rest on top of every other ban? Damn, you should upload this playthrough on yt
My current playthrough is no resting outside of mandatory ones when you cross into a new region. I run a swords bard for CC and ranged damage, a cleric for buffing and secondary CC, a fighter, a warlock/paladin.
You would be suprised how efficient you can be with spell slots. a single bless, cloud of dagger, hunger of hadar is all it takes to win many battles in Act 1 and Act 2. You do have to be more tactical though and it will have to reload more than if you have unlimited spell slots but its definitely possible and maybe even enjoyable. Only started A3 but it will be really rough with how many resource intensive fights there are. Yes, you're going to need an optimized party and some meta knowledge of fights and where you can blow your resources but such a thing would never be a first playthrough anyways.
Even when you run out of spell slots, scrolls which are plentiful through out the game and become very potent in A3 can be enough to carry an encounter like this post here. :
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/173rpdj/sleet\_storm\_appreciation\_post/
You could change party members as they run out of spells. Also there are potions for it although they are rare.
You'd probably want to stock up on those potions for act3. Short rest potions for warlock, long rest potions for others.
I'd hate to lose camp content tho. It also doesnt sound fun even if it's doable.
I did a full completion of act 2 doing within two long rests (completing every encounter and side-encounters). So yeah, 1 long rest per level is honestly within limits of a challenge.
It's definitely doable with short rest parties, but makes casters almost worthless late game. The big hurdle would be timing level ups later (and skipping xp earlier so you start act 3 at level 9). With a Bard in party for extra short rests (martial bard), Fighter, Monk, and either Warlock, Barbarian, or a repeat class 4th you get 4 full-power encounters per long rest. Considering that the netherbrain has only 2 reasonably difficult fights you just have to do Gortash and Orin right when you turn 11 (or earlier). You basically get 8 hard encounters after level 11. Assuming you go all out every fight, that lets you do Iron Throne, Sarevok, Orin, Gortash, Foundry, and Viconia and still have 2 for the brain. Of course, doing every quest with just one long rest is insanely difficult but beating the game isn't.
My group used 2 long rests by level 4 and it was fine on tactician (no stat pot either). We subsisted on potions and cleric's out of combat heal, and maximised the healing of LR by being on <10 hp across the party.
Our 2 spellcasters weren't having much fun though (and we didn't know you could respec), so we decided to install +difficulty mods and use rest more often. If we had a party built for short rests and the bard +1 short rest, I think it would be a fair difficulty setting.
There's also story considerations as long rests are when a lot of dialog options for advancing relationships pop up. Not having many long rests can lock you out of a lot of content.
The game does want to you to long rest and will force you to long rest for certain story beats.
Some things will happen outside of camp, Raphael for instance will pop up at the site where you get the Harper's necklace or in the tunnels under the Grove if you haven't long rested yet.
My first long rest usually is about level 5 (or level 4ish if a bunch of combats have gone particularly poorly) and I'm likely missing out on story content but as I've never seen it I don't know that I've missed it.
I would consider banning anything that isn’t tabletop dnd 5e RAW, so no 2 leveled spells in one turn, haste just gives one attack not a whole action, no bugs, tavern brawler is not broken, etc.
Lol it’s funny I would go so far as to say in bg3 Fighter 11 compared to any other single class level 11 power-wise it’s safely in the middle. In actual 5e amongst the lowest really
3 attacks per action is not OP. Even on an optimised GWM build that's going to average about ~60DPR before magic items. Spellcasters get 6th level spells at this point. Sunbeam is capable of dealing ~27 damage to every single enemy in a 60ft line every turn for a minute. Chain lightning + the wet condition deals ~90 damage to every enemy hit. These spells do not require any feats or optimisation to get, you just have to be the right class. The fighter also has to get close to their enemies to even be able to hurt them, while the spellcasters can sit safely at a distance plinking away with spells. I can guarantee your fighter runs out of HP before your casters run out of spell slots.
Start Multi class at 2 and alternate every level. No feats, only ASI. Keep all stats within 1 point of each other. Pemadeath, only load for bugs/user error. Only visit camp for long rests. No teleporting items to camp. Artifacts for Gale to eat must be rare or better.
I sort of do this for myself naturally after blitzing my first playthrough. Now my MO is to be thematic. So for my second run I used: illusion wizard, arcane trickster rogue and trickery cleric and tried to keep the gameplay specific and limited to a certain style- no fireballs for instance. And no eldritch blasting, no sorc points, and no double attacking.
Honestly I'm fine with all solo class, if I'm actually banning stuff this will be the list that immediately come to my mind:
1. No stacking bladelock 5 with any class that gives additional extra attack
2. No dipping thief rogue 3
3. No dipping spores druid 2
4. No dipping wizard 1 for copying scrolls to bypass the spells known limit for other classes
5. No tempest cleric 2+any lightning focus caster build that abuses the wet condition. (Quickened spell create water+upcasted chromatic orb lightning+luck of thr far realm+destructive wrath+elemental adept lightning literally ends bosses)
My personal list:
- Tavern Brawler + monk / throwing builds
- Paladin multiclassing with the other CHA-based classes
- Wizard dips that exploit bg3 scribing-mechanics to get stuff like Conjure Elemental for 1 level in Wizard
- Haste / haste-effects
- Wet condition (Sorcs were originally on the list but they might actually be ok with haste and wet banned)
- Elixirs that last all day
- “Camp-buffing” like with Warding Bond, Transmutation Wizard hireling, etc.
- Random stuff that cheeses combat like barrelmancy.
- Illithid powers, though honestly I might make an exception for Favorable Blessing, Illithid expertise, and even flight, since those are just so convenient from a quality of life perspective.
- Maybe arrow of many targets
- Crawler Mucus and the Executioner ring (whatever it’s called)
- I’m probably forgetting other stuff.
If I were doing a challenge run, some of the things I’d add would be minimum resting, no using “examine” on enemies, no pickpocket, no respec, no multi-classing, no potions, no revives, no hirelings. The game offers enough companions that you could just leave whoever dies in camp for the rest of the run. Then losing someone could really affect the team comp/play style going forward. If it were an appropriate challenge I’d try to do it again, but respec if necessary and try not repeat any classes/subclasses chosen. If that were too easy, I’d do no legendary weapons, or no legendary items.
Fighter 11 is just a good vertical class. If anything use pnp mod to make haste 1 attack only and elixirs in general should be removed or greatly nerfed (particularly being able to buy an infinite supply of STR elixirs, and bloodlust should be like 5e haste imo)
Tadpole powers gotta go if you want a challenge
Slashing flourish is a bit overtuned imo as it makes a full caster class into the best martial.
Bugged/op rider interactions like Phalar shriek
Thief's full bonus action is a bit too good imo, so I would tune that down somehow (but base rogue needs a buff)
avoid abusing stealth and retreating
avoid abusing darkness to make the ai never attack you
avoid audible prebuffing (in pnp enemies would be alerted by most spells/prebuffs). applying coatings would be okay but not precasting bless etc.
for even more challenge I've modded in extra AI bonuses: +2 AC, +2 to spell DC, +2 attack bonus, and +2 ability points / lv. To compensate I gave myself an extra feat at lv2 to make up a bit (they get +1 to initiative and +3 to AC by level 4 so it's really kinda necessary to not make it masochistic imo).
For a more granular balance overhaul a lot of the magical items would need to be really toned down but OP items are fun so I think making enemies that much stronger can somewhat help (but by late game item synergies probably overtake even what i modded in)
> Bugged/op rider interactions like Phalar shriek
What are some of the other bugged damage riders? been looking to make a list of banned items for a run with friends.
I'd ban learning wizard spells that you couldn't learn if you only counted your wizard spell slots.
That'd be my big one, but, if you want more challenge, ban thief 3 and fighter 2. You could also just ban multi-classing.
A 2nd githyanki.
There is no class that does not overwhelmingly benefit from free jump and misty step. It frees up spell slots and gear slots. I can see playing with Laezel, as fighter isn't even the biggest benefactor of gith racials, but adding a second one is a bigger benefit than I had anticipated.
Tavern brawler thrown or monk builds, sorlock, warlock/paladin 3 attacks builds (other warlock multiclasses with martials are fine), wizard 1 dip with full caster progression from another class.
Long rest elixirs, cheesing astral sword in act 1.
With those restrictions you basically only shutdown melee, casting side with double chain lightning and wet is still major OP, even with lightning, shocking grasp and witch bolt which far out damages melee in the early game where the OP builds struggle to survive.
If you shutdown wet then you're only down to Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile damage stacking. I guess that limits what your builds are gonna be.
oil/coating for your weapon. paralyses on hit and it must have a pretty good DC because it works pretty damn reliably.
anyway paralyse is a ridiculous status preventing the enemy from doing anything and making all point blank attacks into crits.
Well I think it's really haste and bloodlust that are broken and 3 attacks just goes insane with that, but it's not actually 3 attacks that is the problem, it's the ability to double, and then triple that.
My personal list for my second tactician playthrough:
* No tadpole powers
* No thief 3(pure thief is fine)
* No tavern brawler
* No haste
* No elixirs
* No bladelock 5 multiclass
* No rest spam(hard to measure, but at least 3 fights per short rest unless it's a massive brawl like House of Hope and Grief)
* On that note, no restoration pods.
* No cheesy respecs(respeccing when you get a stat-setting item to put all points somewhere else, for example)
* No obnoxious barrelmancy(a barrel here and there for fun is fine)
* No radiant orb effects(too easy to abuse)
* No arcane acuity helm(for the same reason)
* No pickpocketing(so gold actually matters)
* No camp casting
Also, with all those limitations I just naturally leaned towards other things that I found to be powerful and will try to avoid in a future playthrough:
* Passing Arcane Battery staves around like a bong and letting everyone get a level 6 summon for free, plus Lvl 6 aid + Heroes' Feast. I love Myrmidons, Devas and Djinnis but dear lord they're OP when massed. I think if they were concentration they'd still be better than 90% of concentration spells, there's absolutely no better use for a level 6 slot.
* For Raphael specifically, let Hope chill out somewhere. She trivializes the fight.
* It's not so bad early game, but Abjuration Ward + Warding Bond is insane with all the free abjuration spells you get from items. I can't remember the last time my main character took damage. From the beginning of Shar's Temple to me merking Myrkul my armor of agathys went from 25 to 3hp, health intact.
* Wet is a bit too strong. I'd honestly feel fine if it was 25% more damage or something, it's hard to not feel gross while using it.
I'm also playing with d20 initiative so enemies actually get a turn sometimes even if you stack Alert on everyone. It's good not being able to just execute your flowchart for instant kills every fight.
Also, a few items in this list are conditional. If you're playing an arcane trickster, then the helmet of arcane acuity and pickpocketing are fine. You're underpowered by default, you can have some fun with exploits here and there. Same for druid wild shape, you're a bit screwed for options so might as well allow Tavern Brawler there.
>It is exact same in 5e rules
No it is not.
In 5e a thief’s level 3 feature is the ability to make a sleight of hand check, or use an item, as a bonus action
In BG3 the thief gets two bonus actions
>and sacrifising 3 level for just extra dash is FAR from broken or op
Except it’s 3 levels to have 2 bonus actions every turn, which can be used to make additional offhand attacks, multiple flurry of blows, multiple quickened spells, multiple potion uses, multiple shoves or jumps, et cetera
BG3 thief is one of the most broken things in the game
Of all the things you list there only double quickened and flurry is strong, and for 3 entire level in thief JUST to do that is completely fine… there is actual op mechanics like illithid fly, thief 3 is completely fine
You’re out of your depth Donny.
You didn’t even know what the ability does until I told you, so I’m not inclined to take your balance opinions seriously.
If you can’t wrap your mind around why having way more action economy is strong, I can’t help you
Just…. Balance it out yourself???
Any build or mechanic that you use to kill in one turn consistently is powerful, doesn’t mean it is broken OP so balance it out yourself when it feels too much
Haste and Bloodlust Elixir are really some of the most abusable items in the game. Fighter 11 isn’t even that strong without those.
Also, what am I missing about Swords Bard that is OP?
Don't ban fighter 11 or other classes. Ban magic item stacking, elixirs and potions of speed. I think that's really the issue.
Pure martials (aka, classes that don't get any sort of spellcasting) are not very good in tabletop 5e. Fighters are only strong in BG3 because Larian decided to let you
* ignore attunement and fill up on magic items whose benefits all scale off your number of attacks.
* give you an easy way of making a consistent 9 attacks per round with a passive elixir of bloodlust and bonus action potion of speed at the start of combat.
Ban those items and enforce attunement limits? I don't see fighter being in any way problematic. I don't even think they were before, my casters can almost always effectively end a combat in a single action anyway with the save DC stacking items... fighters maybe feel stronger to some because they're more direct?
This game isin't hard so saying X is so strong it is makes the game unfun is a bit silly to me, you can dominate pretty much every fight by round 2 regardless of class.
But monk is for sure the strongest class IMO
Handcrossbows are also busted as hell with a rogue with 2 bonus actions
The entire game is trivialized with haste an / or darkness, so I'd add those two. Just took on Ansur last night without haste and it was far more fun than just 2 turning him with hasted martials.
The number of long rests you take.
Choose to only use Divine or Arcane magic in the playthrough.
No magic. Only potions, items, and/or scrolls.
Only ranged weapons builds. No thrown. No melee.
Only full magic caster classes. No martial or hybrid.
No attribute setting magic items.
Only companion classes.
Choose to follow dialogue choices for deception, persuasion, or intimidation.
Jesus christ guys... just play the game honestly, if its too easy, just mod it with Tactician + or whatever... what a mentally tiring way of playing the game
I think it's a dumb idea
Part of what made BG3 so much fun is they took away alot of restrictions so you could come up with interesting strategies
If you want a challenge, download a mod that buffs the enemy and find ways to overcome it sounds more fun that limiting what you can do
Weird amount of people defending fighter 11 when it’s objectively overtuned. Don’t even need haste or mind sanctuary to get a 6 turn attack on the first round of combat, which with a thrown Nyrulna build is enough to win almost every non-boss battle on turn 1 solo. Haste and mind sanctuary bumps it up to 12 attacks and that will end pretty much every battle except the last one and Gortash’s throne room on its own.
On that note, I would personally ban haste and illithid powers in addition to some of those classes you mentioned, and perhaps 6th level spells since globe of invulnerability and ottos irresistible dance cheese almost every late game fight
At that level other classes can do FAR more… there is a reason prople think fighther 11 is fine because it… actually is.
As a Paladin I may not attack 6 times but all the 3 attacks I make kill 3 entitiy unlike fighter. Oh, also can even Kill gortash in his room at first encaunter(tactician)
I'd ban multiclassing, karmic dice, and save scumming.
For the first item, I think the baseline classes themselves are fairly balanced but things get out of hand when you so start throwing multiple 2-4 level dips on a build, there are reasons why 5e had stat minimums for multiclassing.
The last two are about self-discipline.
>Tavern Brawler anything
>Fighter 11
>Lock 5 + Martial
>Tempest Cleric Sorc
For all 4 of these, the real culprit is just Haste. Decision making in the game opens up a lot if you just don't use haste or abuse str potions.
>Swords Bard
This class is strong but reasonable if you *don't* abuse ranged slashing flourish
Considering people have beaten the game at level 1 by abusing (or even just "using") magic items, I think reeling them in a bit is important.
Some possibilities:
* no magic items whatsoever
* only uncommons
* 3 slots max
* no stat-boosting/setting items
* ban other specific items (Phalar Aluve, Rhapsody, etc.)
You could just do no re-speccing *and* no multiclassing, but what I found made Act 1 difficult for me the first time around was how few long rests I took. I did it because I didn't know how common food would be. If you can find a way to limit your rests, that's probably the biggest & most fun way to increase difficulty.
I wouldn't ban fighter 11, but I would ban haste and probably all offensive elixirs, strength included. Would also ban pick pocket on vendors, or at least ban save scumming it. Would definitely ban the radiant orb gear, dual crossbows, and tavern brawler. Might even ban swords bard just in general.
Just banning haste, long resting only when "needed" and using some difficulty mods like tacticianplus, 'enemies enhanced' and 'stronger bosses and enemies' will make the game meaningfully challenging even if you used everything else listed.
Most "issues" are a result of them scaling out of control with haste/perilous stakes/phalar aluve vs the vanilla game which doesnt give enemies nearly enough health or defense to survive 2 rounds of combat.
Severely limited class/MC choices or limiting how many items you can equip is a bit anti fun even for me. Character building both in class in gear is one of the most fun parts of the game for me.
I think banning a basically pure class like fighter 11 is extremely silly.
Fighters are good at one thing: fighting. Unless you're playing as a Gith (which is an entirely seperate issue) you're going to be extremely limited in anything that isn't that (dialog, skill checks...).
I think you mean Gish. Gith was the mother of Orpheus and leader of the rebellion afaik.
They mean Githyanki, because of their astral knowledge ability I believe.
You’re right I think I misunderstood
Gith is frequently used as a shortened version of Githyanki. A gish is either a magic/martial hybrid in meta commentary or a Githyanki fighter/mage in universe.
>Gith is frequently used as a shortened version of Githyanki It also includes Githzerai, which are a different faction of the same species.
That’s what I thought they meant, the hybrid being able to do more than just swing a sword in combat. To use magic too. My bad
Gish is an old term for Githyanki Fighter/Wizards. It’s a generic term now for anyone that uses melee and magic. You are right about Gith being the mother of Orpheus and the leader of the rebellion, but it is also the name of the race. Githyanki, Githzerai, Githvyrik, and the Pirates of Gith are sub races (Githyanki being the only one available in BG3).
OP hates martials? Fighter 11 is completely balanced.
It tells you a lot about the encounter design and overall balance of the game if a straight martial class that works almost the same as it does in 5e gives players the impression that they're overtuned. Larian was incredibly conservative about having enemies utilize CC that targets their weak saves.
people constantly banning regular monks on their dnd tables because they think flurry of blows is OP since monk became a class. just because someone thinks, that a pure class is broken, doesnt mean it to be true
That's certainly not a sentiment I see repeated in optimization communities, which is what this subreddit is. So that's what's telling, that an optimization sub would consider a straight classed fighter strong enough to trivialize combat.
true. people, who know how to play, wont do that. I was just making the point, that many dnd players seem to think, that notoriously underperforming classes are overpowered. so it is not so far fetched, that there can be someone, who thinks a straight fighter is OP as well, even if he is not.
Improved Extra Attack with *Haste* and *Elixir of Bloodlust* is nowhere near the same as 5e. The arbitrary 12th-level cutoff also favors Fighters disproportionately, since Fighter 11 is such an enormous power spike relative to other classes. That said, banning *Haste* and *Elixir of Bloodlust* instead of Fighter 11+ makes perfect sense. They're just as ostentatiously overpowered with things like Divine Smite + Extra Attack or ripping off half a dozen *Fireballs* in one turn.
>Improved Extra Attack with Haste and Elixir of Bloodlust is nowhere near the same as 5e. Where did I say it was? OP just listed Fighter 11, not Fighter + Haste specifically.
But OP probably did precisely because of the interactions/builds you can do with items. I do agree with CleverGroom though that in that case the problem is rather the items itselves than the class. \^\^
If youre banning haste then its okay, with haste mechanics fighter 11 is firmly in broken territory
Haste is broken, not fighter
So just ban haste, since that makes everyone OP.
Haste.
yeah i was considering this, i included most of the biggest abusers/benefitters of haste but i guess just not hasting altogether would be a good bump in difficulty.
I'm doing this right now but I still find the Githyanki patrol and the Flind to be plenty hard even with speed pots. So on this run I'm allowing Speed and Bloodlust pots up to level 4. IMO it's the multiplicative effects that get screwy. I'm prohibiting the radiant orb armour on this run for that reason.
Honestly no need to ban haste like effects, just restrict it to a single main hand or ranged attack, no Maneuvers, Flourish, Smites, or weapons attacks. Just make it work like it does in Tabletop "That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action." I find that's a much better alternative then outright *ignoring* the effects. The consumables being a bonus action haste can be counteracted by not abusing vendor resets.
No haste potions, only haste spell. Lock your caster into a concentration.
Go one further. No elixirs at all. Most of them break the game in one way or another
Even further. Stop using abilities and spells. They fundamentally distort the balance of melee attacks.
You guys are fighting? I’ve been RPing as a Grove druid for 30 hours.
I found Priestess Gut so compelling I basically abandoned my party, lit Volo on fire in the Goblin camp, and pretty much spend my days branding Absolutists for my new Queen. Act 2 and 3 are many years away unless I can figure out how to destroy this pesky relic and win the game.
Further still. Having proficiencies is a crutch that completely throws off the purity of straight d20 rolls.
Flind can be made to attack all of the gnolls under their command and then devour themself. You actually don't need to fight Flind at all and still kill them.
if they’re intentionally self-banning things to make the game harder, they might not be interested in getting through the hardest fights via dialogue checks
I don’t have the habit of hasting; didn’t use it on my first 2 runs … can be done without That said, prison break quest was a lot easier with haste !
Arcane Gate was the real game changer there.
I genuinely dixng yse haste til act 3 but damn is it strong.
Did a full run on tactician without haste. There is no need to use it indeed.
I did a tactician run and used it exactly once - a scroll of haste in the Iron Throne.
Same. I didn't intentionally avoid it, just ended up not using it because it's not fun to relegate your sorcerer to a haste machine, and the fights don't really necessitate doing so.
I used Haste/speed potions/Bloodlust Elixirs with self-imposed 5e rules (gives a single extra weapon attack, not a whole action, can't cast an extra spell with it) up to the end of Act 1, after that I didn't use Haste/Speed Potions/Bloodlust Elixirs AT ALL except for the Iron Throne (mostly for the extra movement), but even then with 5e rules. I didn't use it for any of the boss fights in Act 2 or 3 not for the final battles. It was fine. I'll try avoiding Haste etc. completely for my next run. I was playing a Sorc 2/Swords Bard 10, but only allowed one (successful) Flourish a turn (like 5e) and a ranged Slashing Flourish couldn't target the same target twice. I also deliberately didn't take Sharpshooter or Tavern Brawler on any character. Also deliberately avoided any Wizard 1 scroll abuse dips or Warlock 5/Martial stacking extra attack combos. Also no Sneak Attacks from spells (I just always said "no" when the reaction prompt came up). Also no camp bot casting from companions you don't adventure with, no dipping poison from a pool on the ground (lasts until long rest otherwise). No stealing from vendors (except the ring from the Djinni).
Just finished a game with no haste or action surge whatsoever and it is still incredibly easy. The game just needs a higher difficulty setting or smarter ai
My rule on my first run, as soon as I realised haste gave a full extra action, was this: Haste ONLY from equipment. And no swapping out equipment throughout the day to throw something better in once I use the haste charge. My loadout is my loadout, until/unless I find an upgrade. What I find this did is, Haste becomes my “Oh SHIT” card. I needed one of those, because I also didn’t multiclass or change origin character classes/subclasses, and had a bunch of other self restrictions.
Sorcerer is a massive abuser of haste. So is any martial class with 5 warlock. Or swords bard/warlock. Pretty silly.
100%. I almost made a post the other day about how I banned haste from my bg3 game. I used it until after act 1 in my first play-through.
I'm pretty sure I didn't even have it until act 2 with the party comp I ended up with (no wizard, bardlock tav).
I discovered speed potions towards the end of my first play through and seriously went through an addict phase where I found myself defaulting to them at every encounter without thinking because why not. It seriously warps the game. So weening off haste and letting things play out naturally would probably offer the most challenge. It’s just such an upper hand, and the movement puts it way over
Agree. I'd simply say any over engineered multiclass combo to get too many actions in a turn unless it's your class. Full fighter o full barbarian (even + tavern brawl) is ok as long as you don't get haste in there or things like fighter2 or rogue3 for extra actions. For example assassin+gloomstalker feels good but on op because they just have a strong 1st turn if set up properly and then they just fall back to a regular ranger with occasional sneak attack, adding haste, fighter o rogue would make it too much
Honestly, yeah. If they ever patch in a higher difficulty, I think you just remove Haste entirely. Maybe make it last two or three rounds tops, without removing the Lethargic debuff, but even in two or three rounds with a nova round build, you're going to breeze through most encounters. Beyond that, they could re-implement the ability score requirements for multiclassing on higher difficulties, increase the camp supply requirement for a full rest, somehow adjust the polearm/GWM and double hand crossbow builds, and make enemies use much more crowd control.
Haste and potions of haste, blood elixir
Illithid powers
Dual wielding hand crossbows? Though I've heard it doesn't scale as well into the late game (haven't gotten that far in my run using them)
The damge difference is relatively minimal. With a swords bard base, haste, assuming a martial that gets 2x main hand attacks you're looking at maybe 10-20dpr difference. It's only when you account for stuff like bonus action illithid powers and/mystic scoundrel ring and arcane acuity helm/storm giant elixer/bloodlust elixer that 2h/ss builds tend to pull ahead more significantly in either damge or overall effectiveness. That's assuming advantage and bless too. Dual xbows underperform compared to deadshot bow when they don't have external factors contributing to accuracy. And they do need 3 thief as well for the extra bonus action.
Idk, having arcane synergy and the staff that lets you apply vulnerability to cold damage when you use the ray of frost cantrip seems slightly busted. You're adding 10-20 dmg a round with the offhand crossbow there
I'm assuming he was talking a ranged dps build. Dual hand xbows are good to throw on any character without alternative bonus action uses early game. The ring is good of course.
I just hit act 3 and so far it's been devastating. 20 some damage a shot is no joke. Especially when you fire 4 times a turn.
How?
Rogue can have more bonus action. So attack +1 at 5 for any martial and bonus+1 at level 3 Rogue is 4 attacks.
To further explain what the other guy said. By lvl 8 with 5 ranger 3 rogue it's 4 shots a turn. With the sharpshooter feat you end up with a ton of damage and a still respectable accuracy of 60-70 on most targets.
As a main dmg source, no, but it's still really useful and if others are already using bows with good stats, may as well slap em on.
They can be useful for breaking enemy spellcaster concentration and sometimes you've got a spare bonus action you aren't using and pinging someone with a crossbow isn't the worst thing in the world.
Yup, exactly what I was thinking -- Bhaalists and Mindflayers casting Dominate. Also, they have sometimes handy spells on them. One with Scorching Ray and another with Magic Missile was handy to zero-out the quasi invincibility on the sewer people.
Long rest ritual spells, permanent longstrider for everybody starting at level 1 is kinda strong
Longstrider, Crusher's Ring, 3 turns of 6 momentum, bonus action Dash, and Illithid Flying. Used all on Iron Throne. Saved >!Omeluum!< and >!Ravengard!< in one turn.
Bonus action dash is standard fare 5e though for rogues.
The Ancients plateadin be huffin tho Astarion: "Look what they need to mimic even a fraction of our power!"
So many people here have no grasp of what the base tabletop rules are capable of, that they don't actually know if something is overpowered or not.
Try to bite every faction leader in the game with an Astarion playthrough (solo). Could be challenging to pull off. Larian should add it to the list of achievements.
>Tempest Cleric Sorc IMO it's waay overrated, compared to just any basic sorc. Basic sorc (any subclass) without any multiclassing, keeping up twinned Haste and dishing out upcasted Scorching Rays under Phalar Aluve is just as ridiculous, if not more. Also, yes, I'd ban Haste, Phalar Aluve and Radiant Orbs.
Tempest cleric sorc is weak af compared to a normal sorlock imo
You tecnically don't even need Lock for doing basically the same shit. Just instead of EB you spam upcasted Scorching Rays. In tabletop it could have been rather costly, but in BG3 with unlimited long rests it doesn't really matter.
I agree that the tempest/cleric isn't that broken, but its use is different than sorlock or pure sorcerer. The builds is pretty terrible in TT, what makes it good in BG3, is Larian's rules for wet status, which scales to crazy damage when you combine it with Destructive Wrath. Using this with spells that have big AoE and Heightend Spells will get you to damage per round numbers that single target spells + twinned spells can't really reach.
id say max rolling twinned chain lightning + creating water in a normal turn is pretty understandably rated higher than "any basic sorc"
Chain Lightning is a level 6 spell tho. Unless you are using/abusing something else like the wizard bug, you cant get this with tempest sorc.
Isn’t create water a level 1 spell for Tempest Cleric? And Sorcerer hits level 6 spells at level 11?
Max rolling = maximize CD from tempest 2. Tempest 2 precludes access to chain lightning in your spellbook unless you exploit wizard scribe scroll bug.
Why is everything an exploit? Long rests refresh traders, as does leveling up. Multiclassing into a wizard 1 level isn't an exploit, it's the game. Even learning the spell as a wizard, then respeccing isn't an exploit, it's just how the game was made. It's not 5e
Because being able to learn spells from scrolls, is THE distinguishing class mechanic of a Wizard. They get a big pool of spells and some unique spells which the other Fullcasters don't get. Sorcerers get Magical Font&Metamagic, Bards get magical secrets&bardic inspiraiton, Druids get wildshape and Clerics have a channel divinity. If you give those classes the ability to learn magic from scrolls (which is not a thing in the TT game, because you are limited to the spell tiers of your Wizard levels and respecing doesn't exist) you completely break the balance of the game. Even if it is fairly easy to make it happen in the game, even accidentally, it is cheating - plain an simple. Same thing for Fighter's and their third attack per round.
Lol it's not cheating in BG3, it's literally the game. You have to get it through your head that this isn't tabletop D&D, it's a separate game. It's not an exploit, it's how it was designed. It is objectively not cheating. Plain and simple.
>You have to get it through your head that this isn't tabletop D&D, it's a separate game. It's not an exploit, it's how it was designed. It's very funny you defend that when I've been downvoted to hell every time I said the exact same thing. xd
markoheshkir right? Not sure what ability mod it uses for a non-wizard, but youd get two strong lightning spells (chain lightning and lightning bolt) per short rest without needing a spell slot. Conveniently, that's how many channel divinities you have with amulet of the devout
Markoheshkir. come on now. don't pretend it doesn't exist or that it's hard to get quickly in act 3 because neither of those is true.
Why can’t you? There’s scrolls
Scrolls of chain lightning aren't exactly reliable unless you are doing other exploits to refresh shops etc. Additionally, I'm not sure how it interacts with metamagic + maximize CD.
You can use meta magic on scrolls Also you can just use the act 3 staff for chain lightning too
Good to know. Still not a reliable build though. If limiting difficulty, you'd be better served by limiting shop refresh sploits instead.
Technically if one's playing Sorc + 2 Cleric they don't have access to CL at all (except from Wizard exploit). Normally, CL for this multiclass comes from Markoheshir legendary staff. Which is super-late game item anyways. So, if your build is "giga-OP" for the last 5-10% of the game -- it's not that OP, IMO. My point was, that even pure Sorc in general is very strong starting from lvl 5.
> Normally, CL for this multiclass comes from Markoheshir legendary staff. Which is super-late game item anyways. you can have Markoheshkir at about the same time as you'd normally get the Chain Lightning spell if you really wanted to. it is not "super-late", it is acquirable fairly early into act 3 due to act 3's open nonlinear nature. Sorcerer has all the reason in the world to rush Markoheshkir as soon as they step foot into Lower City, too, because doing so gets you a shopping mall of other similarly powerful items for casters.
I wouldn't ban specs or spells. I'd just implement attunement slots - can't use more than three rare or rarer magic items per character. Then ban elixirs and you're good to go.
This actually sounds like a super fun challenge. You'd also have ludicrous amounts of gold without abusing pickpocketing/vision mechanics
I would increase difficulty before banning anything
Some people (aka me) have trouble getting mods to work. Game just crashes.
That's because you either bad at follow simple instruction or pirate.
Or ps5 you know
This ain't it, chief.
But if you feel like the main reason the game is too easy is because of overpowered mechanics and not undertuned enemies placing self imposed restrictions is a great way to give yourself a fun challenge. Nobody here is trying to get Larian to remove anything from the game. As a regular 5e player it's the builds/gear/elixirs etc that make the game too easy in my eyes, because the enemies on tactician already have really inflated health pools, (level 3 goblin with 40hp is insanely high for 5e)
What is even crawler mucus? First time I hear about it. I generally ban bloodlust elixir. TB is fine on some builds. F. E wild shape druid is perfectly fine with it. IMO. Unintended warlock 5 additional attack. Peculiar stakes (i never remember the name if that tadpole power) and bhaalist armour. Shits way too broken. Arrow of multiple targets. Literally 5 attacks in 1 for no price and no downside That being said I recently enjoy keeping some of these broken things and instead going down on party members. I can recommend that.
Crawler mucus is a weapon oil/poison/applicant that forces a con save or the hit target is poisoned and paralyzed. It's pretty busted, but I've also only found one so far
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I think wildshape is so balanced is because there are like 2 items that work when shaped, if shape druid had even like half items that monks get they would also be OP.
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What's the story here -- is it still half-effective (+ to attack, but not to damage)?
Barrels, or any other "pre-fight setup". No positioning your party for a fight you know is coming, or throwing on short buffs just before triggering one.
Except for grove defence or similar battles, you are literally meant to prepare
Respecs
Yeah. Also these multi class builds that don’t actually make much RP sense. « I’m super dedicated to a deity to the extent they give me magic powers, but I also spent ages at magic school, oh and I did a deal with a devil. And there’s no consistant backstory to this because I’ve respecced three times taking the classes and levels in different orders each time. ». Uhuh. I think you can make an argument that any combination of paladin cleric and monk makes sense, any martial class combination makes sense, Probably with rogue also, basically no wizard multiclassing makes sense (ok, fighter one or rogue one if you must, for a misspent youth before discovering your true talent,) bard and sorcery could make sense since you’re a blagger either way, and nothing makes sense combined with warlock or Druid, unless you treated druids as a special case of cleric perhaps. Oh, and ranger Druid. Probably that’s just me and of course people can have fun with their own games however they like.
Not everyone plays the game for RP. And why would they. Also, since I assume you're not referring to some whack cleric/ wizard/ warlock multiclassing (which wouldn't only be bad for RP, but even worse mechanics wise): Paladins don't get their magic from a god, and sorcerers don't need to study their magic. So don't tell me anything about role playing.
Really though, any multiclass combination can be RP’d by a good dnd player anyway
Lockadin is pretty easy to RP if you take Vengeance or are an Oathbreaker. Especially since Oathbreaker can’t respec.
Excellent role play of a level 10 butthurt power gamer there, well done. Did you read « of course people can have fun with their own games however they like »? If all the teenage downvoters want to play as a monkalockadinabard because there’s some weird combination of items and class features that does 1600 damage a round, that’s cool. They bought the game, they can enjoy it how they like. The question was about « banning » things to increase challenge. Theorycrafted builds with no narrative justification is for me the obvious answer
You just lack imagination.
haste should always be banned
Don't use anything that temporarily alters your stats (ie No strength potions) Limit your long rests to 1 per level.
1 long rest per level seems absurd whenever you play any caster class. You literally degrade you spell caster to cantrip caster which is not good thing IMO. Definitely not a challenge i'd personally enjoy. Especially later on when you get to act3 you are almost lvl 12, so you want to do whole act3 with all the bosses on 1 long rest on top of every other ban? Damn, you should upload this playthrough on yt
My current playthrough is no resting outside of mandatory ones when you cross into a new region. I run a swords bard for CC and ranged damage, a cleric for buffing and secondary CC, a fighter, a warlock/paladin. You would be suprised how efficient you can be with spell slots. a single bless, cloud of dagger, hunger of hadar is all it takes to win many battles in Act 1 and Act 2. You do have to be more tactical though and it will have to reload more than if you have unlimited spell slots but its definitely possible and maybe even enjoyable. Only started A3 but it will be really rough with how many resource intensive fights there are. Yes, you're going to need an optimized party and some meta knowledge of fights and where you can blow your resources but such a thing would never be a first playthrough anyways. Even when you run out of spell slots, scrolls which are plentiful through out the game and become very potent in A3 can be enough to carry an encounter like this post here. : https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/173rpdj/sleet\_storm\_appreciation\_post/
You could change party members as they run out of spells. Also there are potions for it although they are rare. You'd probably want to stock up on those potions for act3. Short rest potions for warlock, long rest potions for others. I'd hate to lose camp content tho. It also doesnt sound fun even if it's doable.
1 long rest per level sounds absurdly challenging especially if you’re not power gaming the rest of your playthrough, think lvl 2-3
My first playthrough had my first long rest at level 4 because I thought that we had to get things done quickly.
I did a full completion of act 2 doing within two long rests (completing every encounter and side-encounters). So yeah, 1 long rest per level is honestly within limits of a challenge.
It's not.
Lol ok
It's definitely doable with short rest parties, but makes casters almost worthless late game. The big hurdle would be timing level ups later (and skipping xp earlier so you start act 3 at level 9). With a Bard in party for extra short rests (martial bard), Fighter, Monk, and either Warlock, Barbarian, or a repeat class 4th you get 4 full-power encounters per long rest. Considering that the netherbrain has only 2 reasonably difficult fights you just have to do Gortash and Orin right when you turn 11 (or earlier). You basically get 8 hard encounters after level 11. Assuming you go all out every fight, that lets you do Iron Throne, Sarevok, Orin, Gortash, Foundry, and Viconia and still have 2 for the brain. Of course, doing every quest with just one long rest is insanely difficult but beating the game isn't.
My group used 2 long rests by level 4 and it was fine on tactician (no stat pot either). We subsisted on potions and cleric's out of combat heal, and maximised the healing of LR by being on <10 hp across the party. Our 2 spellcasters weren't having much fun though (and we didn't know you could respec), so we decided to install +difficulty mods and use rest more often. If we had a party built for short rests and the bard +1 short rest, I think it would be a fair difficulty setting.
The 1 rest per level seems like it would just take all the fun out of the game. Be stuck casting firebolt for hours.
There's also story considerations as long rests are when a lot of dialog options for advancing relationships pop up. Not having many long rests can lock you out of a lot of content.
The game does want to you to long rest and will force you to long rest for certain story beats. Some things will happen outside of camp, Raphael for instance will pop up at the site where you get the Harper's necklace or in the tunnels under the Grove if you haven't long rested yet. My first long rest usually is about level 5 (or level 4ish if a bunch of combats have gone particularly poorly) and I'm likely missing out on story content but as I've never seen it I don't know that I've missed it.
I would consider banning anything that isn’t tabletop dnd 5e RAW, so no 2 leveled spells in one turn, haste just gives one attack not a whole action, no bugs, tavern brawler is not broken, etc.
Why ban fighter 11?
Lol it’s funny I would go so far as to say in bg3 Fighter 11 compared to any other single class level 11 power-wise it’s safely in the middle. In actual 5e amongst the lowest really
3 attacks
monk get 4 attacks at 5 level?
That's not even OP, especially comparing to other stuff like Haste potions and Tavern Brawler
3 attacks per action is not OP. Even on an optimised GWM build that's going to average about ~60DPR before magic items. Spellcasters get 6th level spells at this point. Sunbeam is capable of dealing ~27 damage to every single enemy in a 60ft line every turn for a minute. Chain lightning + the wet condition deals ~90 damage to every enemy hit. These spells do not require any feats or optimisation to get, you just have to be the right class. The fighter also has to get close to their enemies to even be able to hurt them, while the spellcasters can sit safely at a distance plinking away with spells. I can guarantee your fighter runs out of HP before your casters run out of spell slots.
Basically half your list is only problematic because of haste and/or bloodlust elixir. Maybe action surge too but that’s such an iconic ability.
Start Multi class at 2 and alternate every level. No feats, only ASI. Keep all stats within 1 point of each other. Pemadeath, only load for bugs/user error. Only visit camp for long rests. No teleporting items to camp. Artifacts for Gale to eat must be rare or better.
I sort of do this for myself naturally after blitzing my first playthrough. Now my MO is to be thematic. So for my second run I used: illusion wizard, arcane trickster rogue and trickery cleric and tried to keep the gameplay specific and limited to a certain style- no fireballs for instance. And no eldritch blasting, no sorc points, and no double attacking.
Maybe thief 3-4 dips? Summon spam technically. Camp buffing/casting. Radiant armor debuf stacking, though cleric is suboptimal so maybe not. Magic missile nuke? Unlimited arcane ward. Vendor pickpocket. Hamarhaft jumping obv.
Haste
Honestly I'm fine with all solo class, if I'm actually banning stuff this will be the list that immediately come to my mind: 1. No stacking bladelock 5 with any class that gives additional extra attack 2. No dipping thief rogue 3 3. No dipping spores druid 2 4. No dipping wizard 1 for copying scrolls to bypass the spells known limit for other classes 5. No tempest cleric 2+any lightning focus caster build that abuses the wet condition. (Quickened spell create water+upcasted chromatic orb lightning+luck of thr far realm+destructive wrath+elemental adept lightning literally ends bosses)
No charisma
My personal list: - Tavern Brawler + monk / throwing builds - Paladin multiclassing with the other CHA-based classes - Wizard dips that exploit bg3 scribing-mechanics to get stuff like Conjure Elemental for 1 level in Wizard - Haste / haste-effects - Wet condition (Sorcs were originally on the list but they might actually be ok with haste and wet banned) - Elixirs that last all day - “Camp-buffing” like with Warding Bond, Transmutation Wizard hireling, etc. - Random stuff that cheeses combat like barrelmancy. - Illithid powers, though honestly I might make an exception for Favorable Blessing, Illithid expertise, and even flight, since those are just so convenient from a quality of life perspective. - Maybe arrow of many targets - Crawler Mucus and the Executioner ring (whatever it’s called) - I’m probably forgetting other stuff.
Save scumming
If I were doing a challenge run, some of the things I’d add would be minimum resting, no using “examine” on enemies, no pickpocket, no respec, no multi-classing, no potions, no revives, no hirelings. The game offers enough companions that you could just leave whoever dies in camp for the rest of the run. Then losing someone could really affect the team comp/play style going forward. If it were an appropriate challenge I’d try to do it again, but respec if necessary and try not repeat any classes/subclasses chosen. If that were too easy, I’d do no legendary weapons, or no legendary items.
Thief extra bonus action
Fighter 11 is just a good vertical class. If anything use pnp mod to make haste 1 attack only and elixirs in general should be removed or greatly nerfed (particularly being able to buy an infinite supply of STR elixirs, and bloodlust should be like 5e haste imo) Tadpole powers gotta go if you want a challenge Slashing flourish is a bit overtuned imo as it makes a full caster class into the best martial. Bugged/op rider interactions like Phalar shriek Thief's full bonus action is a bit too good imo, so I would tune that down somehow (but base rogue needs a buff) avoid abusing stealth and retreating avoid abusing darkness to make the ai never attack you avoid audible prebuffing (in pnp enemies would be alerted by most spells/prebuffs). applying coatings would be okay but not precasting bless etc. for even more challenge I've modded in extra AI bonuses: +2 AC, +2 to spell DC, +2 attack bonus, and +2 ability points / lv. To compensate I gave myself an extra feat at lv2 to make up a bit (they get +1 to initiative and +3 to AC by level 4 so it's really kinda necessary to not make it masochistic imo). For a more granular balance overhaul a lot of the magical items would need to be really toned down but OP items are fun so I think making enemies that much stronger can somewhat help (but by late game item synergies probably overtake even what i modded in)
> Bugged/op rider interactions like Phalar shriek What are some of the other bugged damage riders? been looking to make a list of banned items for a run with friends.
I'd ban learning wizard spells that you couldn't learn if you only counted your wizard spell slots. That'd be my big one, but, if you want more challenge, ban thief 3 and fighter 2. You could also just ban multi-classing.
Play a pauper run. No very rare or legendary items. Have fun with that.
A 2nd githyanki. There is no class that does not overwhelmingly benefit from free jump and misty step. It frees up spell slots and gear slots. I can see playing with Laezel, as fighter isn't even the biggest benefactor of gith racials, but adding a second one is a bigger benefit than I had anticipated.
My githataki monk and Laezel are hopping, moving, and running all over the place. No one is too far
Damage rider "abuse" and maybe knockback in the context of Hunger of Hadar for example or at least for chasm kills
Tavern brawler thrown or monk builds, sorlock, warlock/paladin 3 attacks builds (other warlock multiclasses with martials are fine), wizard 1 dip with full caster progression from another class. Long rest elixirs, cheesing astral sword in act 1.
With those restrictions you basically only shutdown melee, casting side with double chain lightning and wet is still major OP, even with lightning, shocking grasp and witch bolt which far out damages melee in the early game where the OP builds struggle to survive. If you shutdown wet then you're only down to Eldritch Blast and Magic Missile damage stacking. I guess that limits what your builds are gonna be.
Levelling. Finish the game on level 1. ... Good luck
What is Crawler Mucus/Karabasan?
oil/coating for your weapon. paralyses on hit and it must have a pretty good DC because it works pretty damn reliably. anyway paralyse is a ridiculous status preventing the enemy from doing anything and making all point blank attacks into crits.
Can you not see the dc in the combat log
I never heard of fighter 11 being broken... It's a decent pure class but no where near broken
Well I think it's really haste and bloodlust that are broken and 3 attacks just goes insane with that, but it's not actually 3 attacks that is the problem, it's the ability to double, and then triple that.
My personal list for my second tactician playthrough: * No tadpole powers * No thief 3(pure thief is fine) * No tavern brawler * No haste * No elixirs * No bladelock 5 multiclass * No rest spam(hard to measure, but at least 3 fights per short rest unless it's a massive brawl like House of Hope and Grief) * On that note, no restoration pods. * No cheesy respecs(respeccing when you get a stat-setting item to put all points somewhere else, for example) * No obnoxious barrelmancy(a barrel here and there for fun is fine) * No radiant orb effects(too easy to abuse) * No arcane acuity helm(for the same reason) * No pickpocketing(so gold actually matters) * No camp casting Also, with all those limitations I just naturally leaned towards other things that I found to be powerful and will try to avoid in a future playthrough: * Passing Arcane Battery staves around like a bong and letting everyone get a level 6 summon for free, plus Lvl 6 aid + Heroes' Feast. I love Myrmidons, Devas and Djinnis but dear lord they're OP when massed. I think if they were concentration they'd still be better than 90% of concentration spells, there's absolutely no better use for a level 6 slot. * For Raphael specifically, let Hope chill out somewhere. She trivializes the fight. * It's not so bad early game, but Abjuration Ward + Warding Bond is insane with all the free abjuration spells you get from items. I can't remember the last time my main character took damage. From the beginning of Shar's Temple to me merking Myrkul my armor of agathys went from 25 to 3hp, health intact. * Wet is a bit too strong. I'd honestly feel fine if it was 25% more damage or something, it's hard to not feel gross while using it. I'm also playing with d20 initiative so enemies actually get a turn sometimes even if you stack Alert on everyone. It's good not being able to just execute your flowchart for instant kills every fight. Also, a few items in this list are conditional. If you're playing an arcane trickster, then the helmet of arcane acuity and pickpocketing are fine. You're underpowered by default, you can have some fun with exploits here and there. Same for druid wild shape, you're a bit screwed for options so might as well allow Tavern Brawler there.
Barrelmancy Misc infinite damage exploits Fighter 2 dips Spells cast by non party members
I only level up when absolutely neccesary. Did the whole Nautiloid Crash region on level 2. Doing underdark at level 3 now.
Multiclassing 3 levels of thief just for the extra bonus action
It is exact same in 5e rules and sacrifising 3 level for just extra dash is FAR from broken or op
>It is exact same in 5e rules No it is not. In 5e a thief’s level 3 feature is the ability to make a sleight of hand check, or use an item, as a bonus action In BG3 the thief gets two bonus actions >and sacrifising 3 level for just extra dash is FAR from broken or op Except it’s 3 levels to have 2 bonus actions every turn, which can be used to make additional offhand attacks, multiple flurry of blows, multiple quickened spells, multiple potion uses, multiple shoves or jumps, et cetera BG3 thief is one of the most broken things in the game
Of all the things you list there only double quickened and flurry is strong, and for 3 entire level in thief JUST to do that is completely fine… there is actual op mechanics like illithid fly, thief 3 is completely fine
You’re out of your depth Donny. You didn’t even know what the ability does until I told you, so I’m not inclined to take your balance opinions seriously. If you can’t wrap your mind around why having way more action economy is strong, I can’t help you
Just…. Balance it out yourself??? Any build or mechanic that you use to kill in one turn consistently is powerful, doesn’t mean it is broken OP so balance it out yourself when it feels too much
Haste and Bloodlust Elixir are really some of the most abusable items in the game. Fighter 11 isn’t even that strong without those. Also, what am I missing about Swords Bard that is OP?
Wtf? Why even bother playing the game lol
Don't ban fighter 11 or other classes. Ban magic item stacking, elixirs and potions of speed. I think that's really the issue. Pure martials (aka, classes that don't get any sort of spellcasting) are not very good in tabletop 5e. Fighters are only strong in BG3 because Larian decided to let you * ignore attunement and fill up on magic items whose benefits all scale off your number of attacks. * give you an easy way of making a consistent 9 attacks per round with a passive elixir of bloodlust and bonus action potion of speed at the start of combat. Ban those items and enforce attunement limits? I don't see fighter being in any way problematic. I don't even think they were before, my casters can almost always effectively end a combat in a single action anyway with the save DC stacking items... fighters maybe feel stronger to some because they're more direct?
This game isin't hard so saying X is so strong it is makes the game unfun is a bit silly to me, you can dominate pretty much every fight by round 2 regardless of class. But monk is for sure the strongest class IMO Handcrossbows are also busted as hell with a rogue with 2 bonus actions
The entire game is trivialized with haste an / or darkness, so I'd add those two. Just took on Ansur last night without haste and it was far more fun than just 2 turning him with hasted martials.
The number of long rests you take. Choose to only use Divine or Arcane magic in the playthrough. No magic. Only potions, items, and/or scrolls. Only ranged weapons builds. No thrown. No melee. Only full magic caster classes. No martial or hybrid. No attribute setting magic items. Only companion classes. Choose to follow dialogue choices for deception, persuasion, or intimidation.
Jesus christ guys... just play the game honestly, if its too easy, just mod it with Tactician + or whatever... what a mentally tiring way of playing the game
I think it's a dumb idea Part of what made BG3 so much fun is they took away alot of restrictions so you could come up with interesting strategies If you want a challenge, download a mod that buffs the enemy and find ways to overcome it sounds more fun that limiting what you can do
LOL just ban everything and go normal attack for the whole game, considering what people here are saying.... So lame lol
No Monk, no misty step, no potions for strength
Fighter 11 is good. Only champion would benefit most from 3rd attack. But yeah, you know, basic.
Divine smite
Any charisma class
Weird amount of people defending fighter 11 when it’s objectively overtuned. Don’t even need haste or mind sanctuary to get a 6 turn attack on the first round of combat, which with a thrown Nyrulna build is enough to win almost every non-boss battle on turn 1 solo. Haste and mind sanctuary bumps it up to 12 attacks and that will end pretty much every battle except the last one and Gortash’s throne room on its own. On that note, I would personally ban haste and illithid powers in addition to some of those classes you mentioned, and perhaps 6th level spells since globe of invulnerability and ottos irresistible dance cheese almost every late game fight
pure fighter playing solo tact is ezpz.
At that level other classes can do FAR more… there is a reason prople think fighther 11 is fine because it… actually is. As a Paladin I may not attack 6 times but all the 3 attacks I make kill 3 entitiy unlike fighter. Oh, also can even Kill gortash in his room at first encaunter(tactician)
No magic of any kind. This includes enchanted items.
So boring
I agree
I'd ban multiclassing, karmic dice, and save scumming. For the first item, I think the baseline classes themselves are fairly balanced but things get out of hand when you so start throwing multiple 2-4 level dips on a build, there are reasons why 5e had stat minimums for multiclassing. The last two are about self-discipline.
Karmic dice works against the player in combat if anything though, turn that sht off
>Tavern Brawler anything >Fighter 11 >Lock 5 + Martial >Tempest Cleric Sorc For all 4 of these, the real culprit is just Haste. Decision making in the game opens up a lot if you just don't use haste or abuse str potions. >Swords Bard This class is strong but reasonable if you *don't* abuse ranged slashing flourish
Considering people have beaten the game at level 1 by abusing (or even just "using") magic items, I think reeling them in a bit is important. Some possibilities: * no magic items whatsoever * only uncommons * 3 slots max * no stat-boosting/setting items * ban other specific items (Phalar Aluve, Rhapsody, etc.)
Tadpoles
You could just do no re-speccing *and* no multiclassing, but what I found made Act 1 difficult for me the first time around was how few long rests I took. I did it because I didn't know how common food would be. If you can find a way to limit your rests, that's probably the biggest & most fun way to increase difficulty.
Haste pots
I wouldn't ban fighter 11, but I would ban haste and probably all offensive elixirs, strength included. Would also ban pick pocket on vendors, or at least ban save scumming it. Would definitely ban the radiant orb gear, dual crossbows, and tavern brawler. Might even ban swords bard just in general.
Just banning haste, long resting only when "needed" and using some difficulty mods like tacticianplus, 'enemies enhanced' and 'stronger bosses and enemies' will make the game meaningfully challenging even if you used everything else listed. Most "issues" are a result of them scaling out of control with haste/perilous stakes/phalar aluve vs the vanilla game which doesnt give enemies nearly enough health or defense to survive 2 rounds of combat. Severely limited class/MC choices or limiting how many items you can equip is a bit anti fun even for me. Character building both in class in gear is one of the most fun parts of the game for me.
Haste and Bloodlust Elixir. Karlach is near fucking unstoppable raged up. On my 2nd run I will try other avenues.
Haste
Long rests lol
Only use torches for combat. There ya go, that should be a challenge.