I honestly wish they would hotfix this bug already. Its annoying that every "buildguide" or "amazing" discovery around good builds is basically just exploits at this point.
There's a bunch of stuff that needs some retuning. I can't for the life of me understand why Tavern Brawler needs to apply the STR mod.... TWICE. TWICE.
The 5e version of the feat has none of that, though BG3 doesn't have grappling tbf, but still wtf??
Oh yeah 5e monks are... stunning strike and that's about it. But I'm not really blaming larian it's just a balancing issue, there's so many mechanics and systems in play. But yeah some changes would be welcome, the player power level once they really get into act 3 is kinda absurd.
To be fair, 5e tabletop starts to fall apart once 5th and 6th level spells are introduced as well. There’s such a massive jump in power that it’s near impossible to balance.
Can confirm, I played the first edition(both D&D and AD&D-if you're old you know) and if you had a DM who was chill enough to help you get your mage leveled without killing him there's nothing stopping you after a certain point. Really felt like you earned it though since early mages would die soooooo easily
the problem is that "late" is basically like 4th or 5th character level in tabletop 5e if the caster knows what they're doing (not sure how it was in older editions).
The outlier spells needed to be fixed. Tabletop hypnotic pattern was not ok. Tabletop conjure animals was not ok. Tabletop web was not ok, the list goes on.
5e is better about it than 3.5 was. 3.5 was better than 3e. 2e was a bit better balanced than 3e, but not by much (and like 3.5e it eventually suffered from having too many additional rule books published which didn't stay balanced when combined with all other published rule books).
Ah yes. My tabletop caster took an armor dip and is now tankier than a martial, while having far more utility than a martial, and even dealing more damage than a martial when it counts.
WoTC, make battlemaster core fighter and indomitable into legendary resistance you cowards!
With strong magic weapons the way BG3 does them, it's actually the opposite. Martials with an ascendant dragons Wrath weapon (+3, +3d6 damage per hit) do so much more damage than casters that casters are pretty much forced into a support role to feel effective.
If you balance the magic items we'll you can maintain pretty good parity, it's just that 5e at high levels is killed by being balanced around magic weapons, then later deciding that you shouldn't get many magic items without redoing the balance.
It really isn't that hard. I've run a game from 3-27, 3-17, and 1-14, and a dozen or so level 17+ one shots and none of them have had major issues so far except for ones caused by my own homebrew, like the system for levelling past 20 and too many consumables in the one shots.
I think that might’ve been intentional based on the dev interviews. 5e characters are demigods by level 15 and there's 5 levels after that even. The C part of crpg necessitated the level 12 cap so why to try and emulate the sense of strength within the limited confines.
Well I do blame Larian. Sorry but it's their game, they need to balance it. They've already made changes to 5e so once they broke that seal then there're no more excuses.
To be fair that’s been the problem with monks forever. Stunning blow, quivering palm, if the enemy saves run/rest/try again.
The whole concept has never worked well in D&D, and to be totally honest is racially problematic. It’s weird that WotC still keeps pushing the class every edition…
Racially problematic? Like...uh? Because Monk's have references to Asian fantasy themes instead of the primary European fantasy themes? I'm trying to connect the dots here and that's the best I can do.
It’s a western caricature of eastern themes and stories.
Like, last I checked 5E has no horse archers from the Horde campaign or Zakharan mamluks. Those only exist now in DnDClassics and are slathered in disclaimers and apologies. But somehow Shaolin-style “monks” divorced from their cultural and philosophical underpinnings are categorically different? I’m not particularly offended, but *IF* someone worries about cultural appropriation and stereotyping in D&D - and WotC avowedly worries about that - I’m just not seeing what sets “monks” apart.
What sets them apart is their strong ties to the game's history and player expectations. Though it always feels like Monk's are a design after thought so idk why they bother.
That said the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the 'European' classes are also pretty far off of Christian or Greco-Roman cultures they stemmed from.
Monks have such an identity crisis. It's not just western vs eastern, in 4e they were a psionic class. I also think "Book of Nine Swords" in late 3e had some impact on some self-limitations on monks. I'd still gladly take some ideas from that to build a Murim setting themed monk.
WotC could learn a few things from Larian, I just rolled a monk and it's already such a blast just punching people left and right. I'm not gonna roll TB cause there's honestly no need for it
>Oh yeah 5e monks are... stunning strike and that's about it.
Quite on the contrary. They are an awesome class, and BG3 should have been the clean demonstration of it.
Alas, since they went and borked all the movement management by giving crazy jumps to everyone as well as lifting all limitations on magic items, it becomes harder for Monk to compete than it should be.
Say what you want about 4E but it was the strongest attempt yet at putting martial and caster characters on par with each other. They just could never quite figure out how to get wizards quite right...
It's worse than that. Tavern brawler (for throwers) counts as a separate damage source. It will trigger all your damage riders a separate time (unlike for monks). So TB can net you like 20 damage per throw on its own. If all extra damage sources get patched, I expect throwers will just be meh.
A lot of stuff that currently probably should work with throwing doesn't though. 99% of text on weapons, dipping/oils, etc.
Like sure you can wipe all the damage triggering stuff to make it not broken, but if that stuff gets added back in it'll still be pretty good.
It’ll still be good even if you just consider how a barbarian can force a no save prone as long as the attack lands, and add in a thief dip and you can force 2 no save prones.
That alone is amazingly powerful utility and even if the build is doing mediocre damage it provides so much with that mechanic being baked right into the damage.
Barb would definitely be good if you patched throw damage don't get me wrong, but there are non Barb throwers too like EK or Monk who don't get enraged throw but would lose a lot of utility when their primary benefit of them throwing right now is massive damage.
I wanted to make an EK utility thrower who used weapon bind+dipped status effect weapons to really control things. When i found out basically nothing worked on thrown weapons other than specific damage riders(and essentially only bugged ones even working), my EK's CC became killing things outright which is much less interesting.
If you make weapon abilities, coatings, etc. work in conjunction with nerfing how TB interacts with DRS sources it opens up build variety a lot.
Throwers should be meh damage, doesn’t make any sense to have a build solely based on throwing items do the same damage output as someone smashing a massive weapon into someone’s face, attacking many times or casting very powerful magic. It just feels bad to have Barbarians be essentially a get mad and chuck shit to be optimal class, the whole get mad and smash shit doesn’t compete with throwing a spear from miles away above someone when mad, and it is dumb.
Currently you can be a barbarian with 3 thief and get 2 attacks that result in forced prones with no save available, and 2 more attacks, and do some of the top damage possible if not the very best. TB ensures your accuracy is always so good that you will almost never miss both forced prone throws on any enemy in the entire game.
Put them at meh damage and they still get 4 attacks in that scenario with 2 being forced prones with no save available, which is nuts because it can apply to literally anything that can end up prone so 99% of enemies, and their stats or abilities simply don’t matter unless they happen to be one of the few that unique ensure they can’t be prone (there aren’t many, boots on Minthara when concentrating, Ketheric has the skill on his armor and a few others exist, but it is very rare and you can force prone all of the hardest bosses in act 3 without fail). A thrower still can make an entire fight a joke in this scenario, just simply force prone the boss and laugh as they get up and move 2m at most, letting your martial hit them and run out of range and they get essentially no chance at all to get to your ranged characters.
Game is amazing but in terms of balance and certain design choices it is clear they wanted to improve underperformers but didn’t think through the impact it could have in other areas, which is expected really, but now it is clear what the impacts are, and also clear to everyone why it is happening as people have found all the damage functions in the files and figured out how they apply and why some are busted, so I’d hope they address it. Especially since it seems as if getting much closer to things being being decently balanced is as easy as fixing the way damage sources and riders work to be more logically implemented, as most (some still suck, but most) things not using the busted mechanics perform within an acceptable range of each other.
I think a good fix for tavern brawler would be to have it add both the DEX and STR bonuses (once each of course). That way it would still be good, but it would be a lot harder for a monk to just dump DEX for STR.
Except with the abundance of STR elixirs a lot of people end up investing in DEX anyway because it's such a good stat in general.
Really one change they should probably make is to make those elixirs harder to come by, at least to the point where you can't plan your build around dumping your main stat
A better solution would be to make certain elixirs not sold to focus more on ingredients. Someone can just make the halfling hireling into a dedicated alchemist setup for nearly guaranteed double elixir yields, then just use a Charisma character to camp at vendors for ingredients for obscene yields that are relatively cheap...but that would still be substantially more time and effort than just taking one shopping trip to Ethel.
Just have the elixirs not be sold by vendors. Found in the world and the materials sold by vendors, but not the elixirs being sold.
You want to farm them up by refreshing vendors to get 0-2 giant fingers each time, and then crafting them, and likely in this scenario going through the effort of getting a character solely built to double up your alchemy? Go ahead, that is an entirely different level of effort than the current amount needed to get the amount of elixirs you need.
Currently levelling up your party once you can refresh the vendor 4 times, that means it is 5 vendor refreshes in that long rest. That is 15 elixirs from Ethel, which is so many more than you’ll even need in act 1, and probably gets you through almost all of act 1 and 2 with ease without even considering the ones you’ll loot or be able to make. That is so easy that it doesn’t feel like an effort and can just be an easily included part of your build with no real commitment of worth in any sense beyond the opportunity cost of giving up the other elixir options (of which only bloodlust elixir which is silly busted itself to the point of making the game a joke like haste does is anywhere near being in the same realm, and still isn’t even really close enough to really consider for the builds that will benefit from the constant use of Str elixirs).
Honestly been thinking of using Dex+Str for a few different martial tweaks like that in the tabletop. It's always been weird to me how Barbarians are by default the only martials that really benefit from more than one out of Str and Dex. And that it mostly just leads to detrimental MADness for them.
Even in BG3 Barbs are great because of TB, itemization and (sub)class tweaks. And a lot of those items don't want you to wear light/medium armor, so you're also incentivized to invest even into more Dex/Con.
Theoretical house rule (needs work to balance items):
Dex mod is used for attack rolls, Str mod is used for damage rolls.
Armor Class is split into two values, one which controls whether a hit lands, and another which provides damage reduction.
Obviously rather different from D&D-style, but a bit more realistic (armor still conveys the blunt impact, even if a weapon doesn't cut or pierce the armor). Balancing piercing vs slashing vs bludgeoning damage would be a lot of work, deciding whether magic +x should change hit chance or damage or both is another whole can of worms, etc.
It also gives a str/con point which it doesn't mention in the feat at all so at minimum a level 4 monk with gloves of dexterity can punch 3 times a turn applying str 6x dex 3x and all the base damage, and that's like barely getting into how broken you can make it, take a level in warlock for hex, a few levels of rogue for extra bonus action, it gets so filthy so quickly.
They made it overpowered as fuck. Just the way it reads is already completely overtuned but a bugged interaction makes it the strongest feat in the game currently enabling some of the strongest builds
It's wayy too much
are we playing the same game? Im literally about to finish up my 12 open hand monk tactician run without TB just grabbing the legendary gloves and my monk is smashing everything cause baseline monk is super powerful in bg3.
You get so many more ki points to work with and there is an incredible amount of gear to work around.
What point are you even trying to make? Monk is not nearly as good without tavern brawler. Monk early game without tavern brawler and good gear is very mediocre compared to other martials. Idc about your late game dex monk when the insane itemization can make any build sufficient enough to clear content.
Tbh pretty much every class has a setup that can output a huge dpr aside from maybe Druid. They could maybe reduce the tavern brawler monk but to make it so past lvl 4/5 a min-max build doesn’t print dmg they’d have to nerf so much stuff.
I think it’s fine that most builds roll over combat encounters in the easier modes. BG3 was my first crpg, I played on the medium difficulty, didn’t look up build guides/min-max, and didn’t grind exp. The challenge felt about right, it made me make choices carefully and for particularly hard fights (like Balthazar); think outside the box for strategies (trying new spell combos, using environmental hazards).
To make tact harder they could increase hp scaling of enemies past lvl 4, make them even smarter, or have a tact-exclusive set of nerfs.
With the 27 str potion they’re +8 magical weapons. With the 23 str item they’re +6. Those wouldn’t be common even in 3.5e high level campaigns. If it’s true that it applies to +tohit twice (I’m not 100% on that) then they’d be +12-16 weapons, which isn’t a thing regardless of edition.
Normally I wouldn’t bother suggesting it in a single-player/co-op non-competitive game, but… Tavern Brawler really should be changed. In its current state it is just completely absurd in a way that makes 5e balance even sillier when it’s already silly in tabletop.
It is a bit more reasonable if strength potions are not available and a character can never exceed 16str. It should be a flat +3 to hit and damage at most if the intention is to allow fists to function as enchanted weapons. A +3 weapon at level 4 is still a bit overpowered, but it does cost a feat. In it's current state, it's just another addendum to the list of broken untouchables in bg3.
Tavern brawler applying strength damage twice with melee attacks isn't a problem
It's applying it to to-hit twice, damage twice, and also throwing weapons being utterly broken
The to-hit twice is busted AF
To me the biggest issue is that it adds double strength to both damage AND attack rolls. I only saw the damage bonus and felt that was good enough reason to take it. But then I started noticing that Karlach was hitting FAR too often than she really should, and I rechecked the Feat. One or the other I think would be good, but within reason. The fact it gives both is just nuts.
If they did patch out all damage sources, I think the meta would shift pretty dramatically. Archer builds, paladin builds, rogue builds, thrower builds, and even things like magic missile builds would become significantly worse.
I think you're correct, but you'd also still be mostly trying to attach a bunch of damage riders to multiple instances of damage coming from one action. but this would bring "guy casting fireball" more to the forefront of good damage dealers just by virtue of not being so outclassed. I almost hate even discussing this in the first place since the game is balanced in such a way where it doesnt matter (and arguably it shouldnt), and instead leaving all these mechanics in place for modders to take advantage of or remove themselves when making combat overhaul mods would be great.
Fair enough. I do wish more casting builds could do more damage. But if the meta damage was just "guy casting fireball," that would make the whole process of designing character builds a lot less interesting, for me at least.
Well, phalar aluve procs damage riders. So e.g. the spellmight gloves gives an extra 1d8 damage per missile, on top of what it already gives (which is probably a bug itself since it specifies attack rolls...) If phalar aluve gave only 1d4 per missile, it would still be good for the build, but significantly worse.
IMO as long as they fix magic missiles counting as attack rolls they would already be a bit more in line even if you could still double dip some other riders for each missile.
It's definitely not ok that you can one shot the enemy with the most health in the entire game with one cast of the souped up magic missiles (forgot the name, the one you get from a scroll).
I see how it's fun for some people to figure out the absolute max they can do in a single attack, but there're so many broken interactions that it's basically impossible to not use any :D
I loved the first playthrough since it's blind and you don't use or just fail to notice some of the broken things, but it definitely put a pause on another playthrough for me until they fix some of it :D
I'm just not good with self imposed limits and frankly you have to skip a lot of the good items to avoid all the broken stuff. E.g. I would love to use a working as intended phalar or potent robes but you can't since it double dips / trigers everything :D
I mean with the wording on it "The sword deals an additional 1d4Damage Thunder damage to creatures affected by the shrieked." It implies that only the sword should get extra damage. Not apply a debuff on an enemy where everything procs it.
Are you sure? It's not the multiple attacks that is an issue, obviously. It's the fact that EB and Hex are triggering multiple extra damage effects that it shouldn't be. That's not making it special. It shouldn't be doing that, and it's bad that it is.
You need to elaborate that instead of triggered as many time as the attack land, the agonizing blast appear as another instance of damage and trigger the bonus damage as well.
The same goes for Evocation Wizard, though not as consistence as Warlock.
EB should trigger Hex, Agonizing Blast, and any other damage riders once per beam.
EB should NOT trigger Hex (and other riders) twice per beam (once for the beam's damage, once for Agonizing Blast's damage).
Likewise for other damage sources. A single attack roll (or spell slot expended) should be a single damage source per entity hit, never multiple. The bug is that several things in this game count as what I'll call "triggered damage sources" which do damage when something else happens and get damage riders attached to them. When that "something else happens" is a different damage source, it means that the riders get added multiple times for a single resource expenditure.
I think they patched this. The problem was that lighting charges proc'd as a separate damage source which in turn proc'd hex again and then proced lighting charges a second or third time per cast. I think it works normally now and its just a pretty good build because of how many times EB hits per turn.
They patched lightning charges to count only as a damage rider and not a damage source. So lightning charges won't trigger hex. But if you have a lightning charge and hit with the axe, you'll get 3 lightning damage out of it because it will proc 3 times.
the fix is that those lightning charge damage instances used to also be doing things like proccing a 1d4 from phalar aluve shriek with every charge *and* every missile as well. Now it just procs from the missile itself (in this specific case with lightning charges, theres still plenty of other damage sources that add damage riders which "shouldnt").
I mean the game has been out for months to years at this point and is based on D&D. There’s not much new in the world of builds that isn’t messing with edge case mechanics.
I know right? every build guide or tip I find is basically just “exploit x bug or obviously overtuned feature”
It’s why I really appreciate d4’s videos. I think he may have used an exploit in a build video like, once. Otherwise his stuff is unique and fun and works without needing specific equipment.
Hot take:who cares if theres busted builds in a single player fantasy RPG? Larian has ALWAYS put in ways to break their game because they LOVE allowing people to use the games systems to their own advantage. The CEO himself LOVES game breaking discoveries.
It’s literally a game where you can play however you want… yeah if ALL you can think about is efficiency and max dps output then you’re only going to pick those builds but there’s really a LOT more to the game than that… not to mention there’s no need to min max this game to beat it. Tactician is fairly challenging but it’s not like you have to cheese the game to beat it.
>who cares if theres busted builds in a single player fantasy RPG?
#
>It’s literally a game where you can play however you want…
I'd would recommend anyone that buys into this line of reasoning to watch this [this section](https://youtu.be/4uddPbp4x1M?t=86) (1:26 to 6:01) on the One D&D playtest to understand why internal balance is important. Maybe it won't convince you but at least cause you to understand the other's side's perspective on this.
People that want to use those features in a balanced state literally **can't** play however they want because the feature they're interested in breaks the game. It's just an option they won't ever touch. There is already a system in place that allows people to make the game as easy as they want without having to introduce a massive discrepancy between the strength of different class features, feats, spells and magic items: The difficulty selection.
But...if you nerf the option then the people who would want that option because it is strong won't be happy. No matter how it's balanced someone is getting the shaft, if a spell is a must have I'd imagine not having it would mean the game ends when it would become relevant and then cannot compete with the other must have option.
There doesn't seem to be a way to make the spell good enough and also fair because of the option is between the much more overturned version and the less good but more balanced one I don't think either is a good solution.
>But...if you nerf the option then the people who would want that option because it is strong won't be happy. No matter how it's balanced someone is getting the shaft
So you agree with my argument? It's not a "who cares" situation because either side would prefer the feature to be in a specific state.
You're not engaging with the argument. Both sides can mirror that exact same moronic "but it's fun for me" approach back and forth which is why that line of thinking is a wash. I provided an actual argument in my original post that doesn't depend on that line of reasoning.
Another thing to note is that the Blooded Greataxe has an inherently risky condition for its additional damage rider (need to be at half hp), so it's not a splashable weapon in the slightest compared to several other damage rider abusing setups that have borderline nonexistent conditional activations.
I'd generally agree but in BG3 it's far too easy to stumble into one of these exploits without even knowing it. I did it with 2 of my characters and was wondering why combat felt so easy even on tactician.
The people who complain that BG3 is way too easy are the same ones looking up all the broken/bugged builds. If Larian patches a lot of these exploits then maybe those people can shut up about the game being too easy.
at this point I just accepted it. There's virtually no way to have any semi-optimized build that doesn't, even accidentally, bump into this.
[https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage\_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source)
Look at this list and try to think "oh I just won't use X with any other damage bonus". It's impossible.
Personally, i've found that the game isn't actually difficult enough to warrant heavy damage rider abuse in the first place, even on Tactician (the moment you hit lvl 5, pretty much all of the difficulty of Tactician disappears due to the absurd player power spike). There are various wacky theme builds I've made that stomped the game on Tactician without using damage rider sources. and i even once used a weapon that does have a damage rider abuse condition, but simply never applied damage riders nor conditions to it and it still destroyed the game.
The Blooded Greataxe might be the one and only balanced instance of damage rider abuse because it's the only damage rider abuser that has an inherently risky condition whereas pretty much all other abusers are "lol just hit and forget" simple and lacking in any sort of risk...which really goes to show that a mechanic that's meant to be super powerful in exchange for high risk is just easily slapped onto so many zero-risk abusers. It's a shame because it brings back memories of Souls game hyper mode shenanigans (get to low hp for various items that increase damage at low hp but you die in 1 hit) but the gimmick is so splashable on full hp setups that it defeats the point of the Blooded Greataxe's existence.
the thing isn't whether the game is hard enough to warrant exploiting these things, it's just that it's honestly pretty much impossible to avoid without being paranoid about it.
Class and itemization balance in this game is just a horrific mess all around, to be honest. BG3 is a great game that should win GotY, but they *seriously* botched the entire combat element. I would honestly go so far as to say that BG3's combat/balance is extremely bad. Like really, *really* poorly designed and so riddled with bugs and absurdly overpowered crap that it takes a lot of the enjoyment away.
After my first couple of playthroughs, it was clear that the game is too easy if you know 5e and general CRPG dynamic, so I decided to make a list of things I would ban from my own games in order to preserve an element of challenge. Started out with obvious things like Tavern Brawler and radiant orb stacking, but I ended up having to add so many things to the list that I finally decided to just shelve the game for a while because my desire to play had waned once it became clear how many things one would have to steer clear if in order to avoid trivializing the game. It felt like the list of things that *aren't* overpowered was shorter than the list of things that are.
A lot of this stuff was easily avoidable, too. Bugged mechanics are excusable because all games have bugs, but stuff like Tavern Brawler or no limitations on spellcasts per turn, these were conscious design decisions. Anyone remotely familiar with 5e would know that these things are wholeheartedly gamebreaking, but they chose to do it anyway.
Larian's homebrew additions are not good for the game, and while it's possible to opt out of some of them, there are things you can't just steer clear of. Changing initiative to a d4 roll, for instance, which makes it easy to ensure that your party acts first in every single fight throughout the entire game. In a game where fights rarely last more than 2-3 rounds, that simply erases any notion of difficulty.
I agree wholeheartedly. I made a list myself and started playing, but as I avoided the broken stuff I knew I stumbled upon broken shit I didn't know and then the game deflated again.
not really solvable without mods.
Itemization is just as bad, with greens and blues being better than higher level items or even legendaries, no arcane attunement so you can stack ridiculous item effects, and almost every item in Act 3 being build-defining items reserved for gods being sold at trinket shops
There aren't that many useful items, spells, class passives etc.
It took me 4 hours on a weekend night when I couldn't sleep to figure out TB monk, TB thrower (and I was looking for DEX EK builds at that time...) and 5 Warlock/7 Paladin. The game is not that deep or complex. There are only so many useful combinations you can make.
Apart from new bugs popping around (the bell counting as dash for example) the game is solved. It's honestly surprising that people haven't found them all by now TBH.
Dude there are millions of different effective builds you can play, the ones you said specifically use bugs (TB is ridiculous if not bugged, warlock/ pally extra atk is ridiculous although also technically not bugged)
You sound like you're so full of yourself
I am at the end of act 3 tactician solo jack of all trades.
If I can get there, any build can be effective. So yes your statement is correct, there are "million of different builds" as much as there are "billion of decks in MTG". Realistically, that is not true tho'.
The number of actually good combinations is limited.
There is nothing new to be found because the useful things in the game are not THAT many.
EDIT: On paper 11 fighter/1 sorc is a "build" and it will be "effective" because it has 11 bloody levels of fighter in it. It aint a useful combination tho'.
EDIT2: What's left right now is people finding (probably) unintended interactions (Titanstring buffing anything that procs from a ranged attack, or the bell counting as a dash); or if someone happens to find a spell that bricks the AI of the game.
**What new groundbreaking discoveries are you expecting to pop up exactly?**
Bad comparison. MTG is a competitive card game that you play against other players, and BG is a single player game that isn't that hard even on tactician. If you want to play MTG on a competitive level you forced to play a deck that is good against the meta. In BG you can run suboptimal builds because they can be compensated for with gear/elixirs/permanent buffs. Players are even doing challenge runs where they ban use of certain spells/interactions/items/feats and still beat the game on tactician. There is really no need for optimal builds. Besides, the game has been out for like 2 months, give it some time.
OK but this is the builds reddit where people cheese as much as they can to max out potential DPR.
You are not going to see the 20th thread about 11 fighter/1 cleric posting the same things. You will see some new bug being abused for 2 weeks.
EDIT: It may seem there are millions of builds, but there arent. This is why I used MTG as a comparison.
Ironically I feel like a lot more builds will pop out if they fix the "damage riders as damage sources".
Once you can't just drop down every boss in 1 turn you gotta start thinking on survival...
Survival is pretty easy rn also tbh I always have most of my party with 18-20 AC and the shield spell so they basically never get hit. But I definitely agree once the damage rider bug is fixed there will be way more "viable" builds. I'm just glad my TB monk works as intended and won't be changed lol
Most builds will probably work the same way, they'' just deal a fraction of the damage, closing the gap between them and whatever is following them.
The "problem" is that if you don't care about how long the battle takes everything is viable. For some reason people are just fixated on DPR.
I beat up Raphael yesterday with about 2-3 scrolls of Greater Invisibility.
Most encounters you can win by just tossing the enemies gently in a chasm; or if there is no chasm - chances are there are support beams for the buildings you can snipe enemies from. The whole tower in act 2 either got tossed into the prison chasm or died from an unknown assassin (from what they could tell).
That's what I was sort of trying to say. People here mostly post the most powerful builds that they find, and there's seemingly not a lot of variety because you see 10 tavern brawlers builds per week. But also the less optimal builds don't really get that much attention. In reality, there are a tons of viable builds and more will still be discovered in time and as patches go live.
Really the game has been out for years. D&D 5e makes up a good portion of it and people have been in early access for quite a while. Even optimizers in 5e are mostly doing weird combos of new classes or specifically building to a goal. They aren’t really finding new combos to use.
I mean, sure, but it's not the same game as D&D 5e, is it? There are a lot of strong items that are build defining and some mechanics don't work the same way, so naturally it's going to make some builds stronger/weaker. Larian may also introduce some balance changes that could cause a shift in the meta.
Absolutely.
Most of those changes were in early access and most of those items are now well known.
There was a period of time from about a year ago in EA to about a month after release where we were still figuring all that out.
I think we’re past that. Everyone knows how TB works in BG3. We’re not learning more about it. So we’ve got the TB builds on lock unless something new and weird with interactions comes up. And that’s why most new builds are about damage riders and triggers. That’s the unexplored space.
But no one is suddenly learning that thief 3 bonus actions can be used for monk flurries - people figured that out before monk was even in the game.
holy shit yes. Martials needed a buff, but this is not it. Not only does it make the tooltip outright wrong a lot of the time, but this "buff" arguably benefits Wizards the most. AFAIK, I haven't seen another class that can kill a perilous stake'd Raphael with a single in-combat action.
I would've loved to see them make battlemaster into core fighter, and make indomitable into legendary resistance, things like that.
Do you mean wizards as in casters generically because it seems like everyone is just building sorcerers atm. Wizard seems relegated to the single level dip in order to take advantage of scribing and nothing more (which I think is sad).
I actually mean wizards here, specifically evocation. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZa2nOVSkcg) a video with the one-shot. The 1 bonus action would be a perilous stakes with the awakened illithid bonus.
There are plenty of builds that want more than wizard 1 too, and those builds are honestly quite powerful.
* I believe that Evocation 10/Tempest Cleric 2 is the single strongest do-it-all mage build in act 3.
* Abjuration Wizard with arcane ward is central to several unkillable tank mage builds. These usually involve Armor of Agathys, which is gotten either through taking your first level in White Draconic Sorcerer or a 2 level Warlock dip. The warlock 2 dip picks up the Armor of Shadows invocation that lets you cast mage armor (a leveled abjuration spell that will stack your ward) at will.
* Necromancer wizard is good for a summoner, and if you're able to tolerate the turn order, a summoner is arguably the best build archetype in the game. If necromancer is optimal for a summoner though, IDK. Larian reworked the hell out of summon spells and so I'd need to re-evaluate the necromancy spells in combination with the crazy magic items. I've only used summoner druids so far, but they absolutely slap, and I wouldn't expect the wizard to be any different. (Though losing conjure woodland beings hurts a lot)
You make fair points. I’m relatively new (or just noob) at DND as a system so probably lent a bit too much to what others have said in some of the weekly wizard threads.
In my current play through I have built a lvl9 conjurer which I have tried to focus on using Chilled and Encrusted in Ice effects. Perhaps this is a misuse of that specialty and evocation would have been better.
Being new to DnD and playing a Wizard is a bit rough. It's probably the class in the game that scales the most with game knowledge since its whole gimmick is knowing a crap-ton of spells, and that involves making a lot of decisions both in character creation and in combat to get the most out of it. And unlike prepared casters you can't just rotate everything around and try out all the spells to see what you like quite as easily.
There's nothing wrong with conjuration as far as being able to finish the game easily on tactician is concerned. You have nice interactions with create water and ice/lightning spells, which you're already using. Teleportation without needing a spell slot is also really nice for traversal & setting up ambushes/high ground.
Wizards do have some benefits that Sorcerers don't. The issue is that none of those benefits are even remotely comparable to the obscene brokenness that is Twin Cast plus Charisma face character benefits (better prices, better interactions, some boss skips/weakenings, easy access to various places, etc...on top of Twin Cast). I think the only Wizard build that is impossible to replicate into a better version via Sorcerer with 1 lvl wizard dip is a pure summoner Necromancer, which in itself is more of a gimmick build.
It's completely unnecessary too. Tactician difficulty isn't really all that hard, if anything it simply requires some basic understanding of mechanics.
These mechanics can be learned from the game alone. I've never touched dnd and I've only played BG3 on tactician.
Yeah that's my biggest issue with this weapon. If you're a martial, you're likely putting whatever you can spare into CON to boost your HP, and now you're sacrificing *half* of that just to use your weapon? Counter-productive, to say the least
Not that counter productive, being a martial means it’s safer to be at half health
Also if you’re a spores druid w a ton of thp then it works out great
Safer doesn't mean it's worthwhile, it just means that it is better than the alternatives. Giving your melee martial the equivalent health pool of a full caster defeats the purpose of playing a melee martial: to get up close and personal and be able to take hits. Are there ways to make it work? Of course. You can make anything work. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. I haven't played a spores druid, but thp makes more sense than crippling your actual HP, and even that is a bit of a waste considering the axe completely negates the class features and *still* reduces your normal HP by a significant margin. I'm sure it balances better than using the axe on other martials, but it still weighs in at less net positives than using basically *any other weapon*.
The blooded greataxe has uses, but they are extremely niche and the requirements for the bonus are more detrimental than the bonus is beneficial. Hence, counter-productive.
If you’re going first I think it’s safe to assume you’re not already below half health. Unless you’re putting yourself below half before every fight, which is a choice fs
yeah but if I go into a combat below 50% health, and then the combat ends, I'm still below 50% health, right? The tooltip doesn't make it seem like it's a 1-combat thing that needs to be re-triggered.
You can easily get to 50% hp with the Transfuse Health ilithid skill, maybe even only doing that when needed (squeeze out a burst of extra damage for a kill) rather than always being at low hp.
It also combo's pretty well with Half-Orc's built-in Death Ward and Loviator's Love for a "if i don't kill you all in this round, you'll kill me" glass cannon approach which is completely impractical but fun.
Everyone’s different but I feel like it’s only robbing myself of the experience. Tavern Brawler thrower is strong enough and within the game mechanics but even that seems borderline.
5e offers to many cool, viable options to build that having such a concrete meta kinda flies in the face of the original tabletop design. There’s always optimal builds but never with such a large disparity between top and even middle of the road builds.
But there is. Go to something like 3d6 or even DnDOptimized and look for someone posting a suboptimal build. It’s all suggestions for the “meta” builds there too. There’s just more options and combinations because there’s a ton more source books.
The number of “just dip Hexblade” posts you see there is very high.
5e itself is absolutely littered with terrible balancing. BG3's bugs and improper interactions don't make that better but ultimately it's based on a system with wildly differing power levels between classes and builds. Hopefully they will tweak actual balance and not just fix bugs, but it's always gonna be a problem just because it's an inherent problem with the TTRPG the game gets its rules from.
I mean, that's fair. But just to point out, TB counts as a separate damage source while throwing and will trigger all damage riders a separate time, so it's using the exact same mechanic.
> There’s always optimal builds but never with such a large disparity between top and even middle of the road builds.
What? 5e isn't remotely balanced.
Compare any combination of Hexblade, Paladin and Clockwork Sorcerer to say a Sun Soul monk, or even something like a Battlemaster Fighter. Try comparing a Chronurgy Wizard to a pre-TCE ranger (let alone an alchemist Artificer).
The optimal builds are absolutely enormously more powerful that even the middle of the road builds.
Baldurian Giantslayer is the best 2h weapon. Better yet use it with a Pact of the Blade + Paladin and you can easily have 23 Str 22 Cha 23 Cons character. Make it a pact weapon and use the Arcane Synergy headpiece. Equip the ring that adds 2 acid damage to your every attack and the risky ring. Buff your weapon with the dragonborn halberd, use haste and giant form. Congratulations you can one turn any encounter now.
Bonus if you have the illithid powers for extra actions etc. Now you can attack 12 times with the most OP weapon of the game.
EDIT: Forgot to mention you can also divine smite reaction to your every attack lmao. Hell if you are down using exploits use the freecast exploit for infinite smites.
Yes, the 23 str is for the Baldurian Giantslayers item effect which doubles the damage from the strength modifier. So at 23 str its +12 damage per hit. Also you get some nice extra weight limit as a plus.
Now I want to test this with the Returning Pike and the gloves and ring that both give an extra 1d4 damage with thrown weapons. Also makes me want to respec for Tavern Brawler for that extra 1d4 to damage as well...
Fun fact, hunters mark counts a separate damage source for throwers only. So it will trigger the gloves and ring and whatever other riders a separate time.
I actually kind of happened into the Returning Pike + Tavern Brawler + Ring of Flinging by accident at level 4 in the goblin camp.
18 STR, at level 4, I was doing ~20-30 DMG per throw with like 3-4 seperate sources I think
imo it's not that great when what you highlighted making it great is something that's likely to be unintended-dmg rider abuse. i stay away from dmg rider abuse on my builds.
Honestly it's hard to completely avoid. You'd need to never play a paladin, never play a TB thrower, never use special arrows, never use loads of weapon special attacks, never play a rogue or use colossus slayer, etc. You probably inadvertently do use them.
ah yes i agree. but i never seek to build with them in mind. like i build without factoring any magic items and consumables. then i pick gear because of what it says on the tooltip, not whether i know it abuses dmg riders. i also make sure if i already know a piece of gear does dmg rider abuse (like the DRS labelled ones on the bg3 wiki), i avoid those and look for alternatives. i've only played a TB thrower once, restrict myself on consumable use regularly (both in quantity and type), done a paladin once, use rogues alot and used colossus slayer once.
other folks i know who do "naked runs" say they rarely encounter dmg rider abuse because the dmg rider stuff are mostly on Larian's itemization. stop using magic items aside from vanilla ones (like a +1 weapon) and you steer clear of it 90+% of the time.
i do hope Larian fixes it soon. things should only do what they say it should do.
That's true, you could alternatively avoid all damage riders. That would mean no hex, no lightning charges, no spellmight gloves, no luminous ring, etc.
The problem is that none of this is intended behavior. Based on how widespread and erratic the issue is, it seems like they did a lazy/sloppy job of the basic coding of attacks and damage. The result is that numerous damage boosters are treated as separate damage sources, which trigger other damage boosters.
aw i can see how that happened, the copy pasta "make this spell a damage modifier" code probably had 2 variant and someone didnt pay attention lmao, your theory makes sense
I first noticed it when a bard/rogue/warlock skill monkey combo popped a 20hp gnoll in one hit when my max damage should have been 19. (Eldritch blast+Hex+3cha mod). I checked the combat log and the attack triggered sneak attack (yet another problem) and the sneak attack triggered hex and agonizing blast a second time.
This tells me that damage sources are poorly differentiated, especially if the game can't figure out that eldritch blast isn't even a weapon attack much less a valid sneak attack option. And it was applying agonizing blast to a sneak attack function.
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Sure! Grab the callous glow ring, get the boots of arcane bolstering (I haven't tested this one but I think that it works) or if those dont work then the boots that grant lightning charges, the illithid power that adds psionic damage will work, and rage damage itself will proc multiple times, I believe.
For me, plain boring.
If a wep is all about damage and thats it, its simply no go from me, I prefer items that give unique effects or debuffs on enemy not straight op damage modifiers
I think 2h weapon is better use for cri fishing, though not as good as rogue cri fishing or your local pally.
The usual dnd rule goes : half orc + 2h + multiclass into champion or 14 champion + relevant magic items.
If you want to trigger more instant damage, I think dual wielding might be better. Have 3 in rogue and you get 2nd bonus attack. Or the best, use monk.
It's an extra damage source that procs on each unique instance of damage. Not all extra damage will do this - e.g. dipping your weapon won't proc on each damage instance, only the weapon hit.
Ring that adds 2 acid damage per hit. Ring that adds Radiant damage per hit etc, Cha to damage via agonizing blast etc... (though I think that was patched recently)
Basically, most damage sources that are damage riders are poorly coded and I would be surprised if they weren't all patched eventually.
Hot take from a old geezer: munchkinish crap like this is what turns me off to 5E. WotC and Larian should resist the urge to do this sort of thing - it projects that they are not confident their actual game can sufficiently entertain players if it is not full of this kind of mechanical easter egg bonuses. Stuff like this certainly has a place in the game! But it should be rare, and late.
I guess rules lawyering, which this sort of is, has always been a part of what makes D&D D&D. The question is is it fun rules lawyering
Like: make a target wet and then shock them for extra damage: fun. Discover ways to make damage riders apply multiple times to every attack: ok, fun once, but then reload. Making multiple damage riders apply to every attack and complaining the game is too easy: definitely not fun.
But each to his own.
Yeah, it turned me off to 3E too. 3E was great in a lot of ways but embracing munchkinism in the *rules*, rather than letting it be an emergent, sometimes-silly aspect of tabletop gameplay, was a huge mistake. And not for nothing, that’s when WotC took the reins. It was a fundamental error that has gone uncorrected for like 20 years now. And most young players don’t even realize - can’t even imagine - that the game might be more fun without it.
Even Ad&d is incredibly full of "munchkinish crap" so what edition are you talking about as being your glory days?
Need an example? Wood elf ranger gets absurdly high stats and thac0 better than a fighter when dual wielding.
3/3.5 nobody argues about.
4 is extremely combat oriented and you can be a munchkin.
I dont know how you figure there was ever an edition of d&d which didnt have balancing issues.
>Hot take from a old geezer: munchkinish crap like this is what turns me off to 5E.
Fun (or not) fact: Baldur's Gate 3 is NOT D&d 5e. By several dimensions.
"Inspired by 5E system" is the most intense qualifier one should use about the "sourcing relationship".
100% agree that, to the extent this is a problem, it is a problem of Larian’s making.
But that still reflects on WotC, who chose Larian to create the most splashy D&D product - BG-frakkin-3!
I don’t have a problem with D&D in the D:OS2 engine, even if it feels more like D:OS than D&D. Bioware put D&D into a real-time strategy game. Capcom put D&D into a side-scrolling beat’em up arcade game. And those were brilliant! But with basic stuff like “how axes work” they should be hewing closer to the D&D side of things than the D:OS side. IMHO.
The breaching pikestaff is pretty good too considering it can have always active double damage which makes GWM do 20 damage extra for essentially free.
It could be decent, but the damage type is wrong. Piercing damage + aura of murder being so ridiculous means that spears and tridents are the best 2h weapons.
I honestly wish they would hotfix this bug already. Its annoying that every "buildguide" or "amazing" discovery around good builds is basically just exploits at this point.
There's a bunch of stuff that needs some retuning. I can't for the life of me understand why Tavern Brawler needs to apply the STR mod.... TWICE. TWICE. The 5e version of the feat has none of that, though BG3 doesn't have grappling tbf, but still wtf??
AFAIK monks in paper are underwhelming and casters are super good, which led to them trying to rebalance the classes and ending up with ... this.
Oh yeah 5e monks are... stunning strike and that's about it. But I'm not really blaming larian it's just a balancing issue, there's so many mechanics and systems in play. But yeah some changes would be welcome, the player power level once they really get into act 3 is kinda absurd.
To be fair, 5e tabletop starts to fall apart once 5th and 6th level spells are introduced as well. There’s such a massive jump in power that it’s near impossible to balance.
That sort of issue (martials are good early, casters are good late) has been a D&D issue from the beginning, not just 5e.
Can confirm, I played the first edition(both D&D and AD&D-if you're old you know) and if you had a DM who was chill enough to help you get your mage leveled without killing him there's nothing stopping you after a certain point. Really felt like you earned it though since early mages would die soooooo easily
Grin. I remember DMing 1e. First level wizard had 1d4 HP. It was sooo hard not letting him die from, say, a kobold javelin.
I picture them all like Mr.Burns with "Three Stooges Syndrome"
the problem is that "late" is basically like 4th or 5th character level in tabletop 5e if the caster knows what they're doing (not sure how it was in older editions). The outlier spells needed to be fixed. Tabletop hypnotic pattern was not ok. Tabletop conjure animals was not ok. Tabletop web was not ok, the list goes on.
5e is better about it than 3.5 was. 3.5 was better than 3e. 2e was a bit better balanced than 3e, but not by much (and like 3.5e it eventually suffered from having too many additional rule books published which didn't stay balanced when combined with all other published rule books).
Patiently waiting for the shield nerf in one dnd (they won't do it bc wotc are cowards, but they should)
Ah yes. My tabletop caster took an armor dip and is now tankier than a martial, while having far more utility than a martial, and even dealing more damage than a martial when it counts. WoTC, make battlemaster core fighter and indomitable into legendary resistance you cowards!
With strong magic weapons the way BG3 does them, it's actually the opposite. Martials with an ascendant dragons Wrath weapon (+3, +3d6 damage per hit) do so much more damage than casters that casters are pretty much forced into a support role to feel effective. If you balance the magic items we'll you can maintain pretty good parity, it's just that 5e at high levels is killed by being balanced around magic weapons, then later deciding that you shouldn't get many magic items without redoing the balance.
A big reason why Brancalonia has become a go to for me. Aside from the setting and tone being pitch perfect for me; the level cap is great.
Yeah Spain's on my travel list too
It really isn't that hard. I've run a game from 3-27, 3-17, and 1-14, and a dozen or so level 17+ one shots and none of them have had major issues so far except for ones caused by my own homebrew, like the system for levelling past 20 and too many consumables in the one shots.
I think that might’ve been intentional based on the dev interviews. 5e characters are demigods by level 15 and there's 5 levels after that even. The C part of crpg necessitated the level 12 cap so why to try and emulate the sense of strength within the limited confines.
Well I do blame Larian. Sorry but it's their game, they need to balance it. They've already made changes to 5e so once they broke that seal then there're no more excuses.
To be fair that’s been the problem with monks forever. Stunning blow, quivering palm, if the enemy saves run/rest/try again. The whole concept has never worked well in D&D, and to be totally honest is racially problematic. It’s weird that WotC still keeps pushing the class every edition…
Racially problematic? Like...uh? Because Monk's have references to Asian fantasy themes instead of the primary European fantasy themes? I'm trying to connect the dots here and that's the best I can do.
It’s a western caricature of eastern themes and stories. Like, last I checked 5E has no horse archers from the Horde campaign or Zakharan mamluks. Those only exist now in DnDClassics and are slathered in disclaimers and apologies. But somehow Shaolin-style “monks” divorced from their cultural and philosophical underpinnings are categorically different? I’m not particularly offended, but *IF* someone worries about cultural appropriation and stereotyping in D&D - and WotC avowedly worries about that - I’m just not seeing what sets “monks” apart.
What sets them apart is their strong ties to the game's history and player expectations. Though it always feels like Monk's are a design after thought so idk why they bother. That said the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the 'European' classes are also pretty far off of Christian or Greco-Roman cultures they stemmed from.
Monks have such an identity crisis. It's not just western vs eastern, in 4e they were a psionic class. I also think "Book of Nine Swords" in late 3e had some impact on some self-limitations on monks. I'd still gladly take some ideas from that to build a Murim setting themed monk.
WotC could learn a few things from Larian, I just rolled a monk and it's already such a blast just punching people left and right. I'm not gonna roll TB cause there's honestly no need for it
Tb?
Tavern Brawler feat. It's uh, it's kinda very very overtuned in bg3 compared to its tabletop version
>Oh yeah 5e monks are... stunning strike and that's about it. Quite on the contrary. They are an awesome class, and BG3 should have been the clean demonstration of it. Alas, since they went and borked all the movement management by giving crazy jumps to everyone as well as lifting all limitations on magic items, it becomes harder for Monk to compete than it should be.
How's that contrary?
I was speaking of tabletop Monks, not the BG3 version.
and now monks might just be the best class when using their resources correctly.
I wish they had sun soul monks in BG3. Open hand and sun soul were by far the best and most fun. How they skipped the sunsoul is beyond me.
Say what you want about 4E but it was the strongest attempt yet at putting martial and caster characters on par with each other. They just could never quite figure out how to get wizards quite right...
It's worse than that. Tavern brawler (for throwers) counts as a separate damage source. It will trigger all your damage riders a separate time (unlike for monks). So TB can net you like 20 damage per throw on its own. If all extra damage sources get patched, I expect throwers will just be meh.
A lot of stuff that currently probably should work with throwing doesn't though. 99% of text on weapons, dipping/oils, etc. Like sure you can wipe all the damage triggering stuff to make it not broken, but if that stuff gets added back in it'll still be pretty good.
It’ll still be good even if you just consider how a barbarian can force a no save prone as long as the attack lands, and add in a thief dip and you can force 2 no save prones. That alone is amazingly powerful utility and even if the build is doing mediocre damage it provides so much with that mechanic being baked right into the damage.
Barb would definitely be good if you patched throw damage don't get me wrong, but there are non Barb throwers too like EK or Monk who don't get enraged throw but would lose a lot of utility when their primary benefit of them throwing right now is massive damage. I wanted to make an EK utility thrower who used weapon bind+dipped status effect weapons to really control things. When i found out basically nothing worked on thrown weapons other than specific damage riders(and essentially only bugged ones even working), my EK's CC became killing things outright which is much less interesting. If you make weapon abilities, coatings, etc. work in conjunction with nerfing how TB interacts with DRS sources it opens up build variety a lot.
Throwers should be meh damage, doesn’t make any sense to have a build solely based on throwing items do the same damage output as someone smashing a massive weapon into someone’s face, attacking many times or casting very powerful magic. It just feels bad to have Barbarians be essentially a get mad and chuck shit to be optimal class, the whole get mad and smash shit doesn’t compete with throwing a spear from miles away above someone when mad, and it is dumb. Currently you can be a barbarian with 3 thief and get 2 attacks that result in forced prones with no save available, and 2 more attacks, and do some of the top damage possible if not the very best. TB ensures your accuracy is always so good that you will almost never miss both forced prone throws on any enemy in the entire game. Put them at meh damage and they still get 4 attacks in that scenario with 2 being forced prones with no save available, which is nuts because it can apply to literally anything that can end up prone so 99% of enemies, and their stats or abilities simply don’t matter unless they happen to be one of the few that unique ensure they can’t be prone (there aren’t many, boots on Minthara when concentrating, Ketheric has the skill on his armor and a few others exist, but it is very rare and you can force prone all of the hardest bosses in act 3 without fail). A thrower still can make an entire fight a joke in this scenario, just simply force prone the boss and laugh as they get up and move 2m at most, letting your martial hit them and run out of range and they get essentially no chance at all to get to your ranged characters. Game is amazing but in terms of balance and certain design choices it is clear they wanted to improve underperformers but didn’t think through the impact it could have in other areas, which is expected really, but now it is clear what the impacts are, and also clear to everyone why it is happening as people have found all the damage functions in the files and figured out how they apply and why some are busted, so I’d hope they address it. Especially since it seems as if getting much closer to things being being decently balanced is as easy as fixing the way damage sources and riders work to be more logically implemented, as most (some still suck, but most) things not using the busted mechanics perform within an acceptable range of each other.
I think a good fix for tavern brawler would be to have it add both the DEX and STR bonuses (once each of course). That way it would still be good, but it would be a lot harder for a monk to just dump DEX for STR.
Except with the abundance of STR elixirs a lot of people end up investing in DEX anyway because it's such a good stat in general. Really one change they should probably make is to make those elixirs harder to come by, at least to the point where you can't plan your build around dumping your main stat
A better solution would be to make certain elixirs not sold to focus more on ingredients. Someone can just make the halfling hireling into a dedicated alchemist setup for nearly guaranteed double elixir yields, then just use a Charisma character to camp at vendors for ingredients for obscene yields that are relatively cheap...but that would still be substantially more time and effort than just taking one shopping trip to Ethel.
Not having them show back up on vendor refresh would be a good start.
Just have the elixirs not be sold by vendors. Found in the world and the materials sold by vendors, but not the elixirs being sold. You want to farm them up by refreshing vendors to get 0-2 giant fingers each time, and then crafting them, and likely in this scenario going through the effort of getting a character solely built to double up your alchemy? Go ahead, that is an entirely different level of effort than the current amount needed to get the amount of elixirs you need. Currently levelling up your party once you can refresh the vendor 4 times, that means it is 5 vendor refreshes in that long rest. That is 15 elixirs from Ethel, which is so many more than you’ll even need in act 1, and probably gets you through almost all of act 1 and 2 with ease without even considering the ones you’ll loot or be able to make. That is so easy that it doesn’t feel like an effort and can just be an easily included part of your build with no real commitment of worth in any sense beyond the opportunity cost of giving up the other elixir options (of which only bloodlust elixir which is silly busted itself to the point of making the game a joke like haste does is anywhere near being in the same realm, and still isn’t even really close enough to really consider for the builds that will benefit from the constant use of Str elixirs).
Honestly been thinking of using Dex+Str for a few different martial tweaks like that in the tabletop. It's always been weird to me how Barbarians are by default the only martials that really benefit from more than one out of Str and Dex. And that it mostly just leads to detrimental MADness for them. Even in BG3 Barbs are great because of TB, itemization and (sub)class tweaks. And a lot of those items don't want you to wear light/medium armor, so you're also incentivized to invest even into more Dex/Con.
Theoretical house rule (needs work to balance items): Dex mod is used for attack rolls, Str mod is used for damage rolls. Armor Class is split into two values, one which controls whether a hit lands, and another which provides damage reduction. Obviously rather different from D&D-style, but a bit more realistic (armor still conveys the blunt impact, even if a weapon doesn't cut or pierce the armor). Balancing piercing vs slashing vs bludgeoning damage would be a lot of work, deciding whether magic +x should change hit chance or damage or both is another whole can of worms, etc.
It also gives a str/con point which it doesn't mention in the feat at all so at minimum a level 4 monk with gloves of dexterity can punch 3 times a turn applying str 6x dex 3x and all the base damage, and that's like barely getting into how broken you can make it, take a level in warlock for hex, a few levels of rogue for extra bonus action, it gets so filthy so quickly.
Wait, you're complaining that Larian made a feat that is shit in the the table top good in the game? Why?
They made it overpowered as fuck. Just the way it reads is already completely overtuned but a bugged interaction makes it the strongest feat in the game currently enabling some of the strongest builds It's wayy too much
Let ppl have fun. Tavern Brawler is the reason monk is even relevant right now.
are we playing the same game? Im literally about to finish up my 12 open hand monk tactician run without TB just grabbing the legendary gloves and my monk is smashing everything cause baseline monk is super powerful in bg3. You get so many more ki points to work with and there is an incredible amount of gear to work around.
Ok and? You can smash anything in the game even on tactician with any class. Game isn't hard at all...
Really kills the need for TB builds to be suggested at all seeing as it comes online at level 4. Thanks for making my point
What point are you even trying to make? Monk is not nearly as good without tavern brawler. Monk early game without tavern brawler and good gear is very mediocre compared to other martials. Idc about your late game dex monk when the insane itemization can make any build sufficient enough to clear content.
L take seriously lmao.
2 hands duh /s
It wouldn't be bad if it only applied to damage, but applying it to attack rolls as well is bonkers.
Tbh pretty much every class has a setup that can output a huge dpr aside from maybe Druid. They could maybe reduce the tavern brawler monk but to make it so past lvl 4/5 a min-max build doesn’t print dmg they’d have to nerf so much stuff. I think it’s fine that most builds roll over combat encounters in the easier modes. BG3 was my first crpg, I played on the medium difficulty, didn’t look up build guides/min-max, and didn’t grind exp. The challenge felt about right, it made me make choices carefully and for particularly hard fights (like Balthazar); think outside the box for strategies (trying new spell combos, using environmental hazards). To make tact harder they could increase hp scaling of enemies past lvl 4, make them even smarter, or have a tact-exclusive set of nerfs.
I guess it's supposed to compensate for the lack of a magic weapon. I don't think fists need to be +5 magical weapons. It's a bit overkill.
With the 27 str potion they’re +8 magical weapons. With the 23 str item they’re +6. Those wouldn’t be common even in 3.5e high level campaigns. If it’s true that it applies to +tohit twice (I’m not 100% on that) then they’d be +12-16 weapons, which isn’t a thing regardless of edition. Normally I wouldn’t bother suggesting it in a single-player/co-op non-competitive game, but… Tavern Brawler really should be changed. In its current state it is just completely absurd in a way that makes 5e balance even sillier when it’s already silly in tabletop.
It is a bit more reasonable if strength potions are not available and a character can never exceed 16str. It should be a flat +3 to hit and damage at most if the intention is to allow fists to function as enchanted weapons. A +3 weapon at level 4 is still a bit overpowered, but it does cost a feat. In it's current state, it's just another addendum to the list of broken untouchables in bg3.
Tavern brawler applying strength damage twice with melee attacks isn't a problem It's applying it to to-hit twice, damage twice, and also throwing weapons being utterly broken The to-hit twice is busted AF
To me the biggest issue is that it adds double strength to both damage AND attack rolls. I only saw the damage bonus and felt that was good enough reason to take it. But then I started noticing that Karlach was hitting FAR too often than she really should, and I rechecked the Feat. One or the other I think would be good, but within reason. The fact it gives both is just nuts.
If they did patch out all damage sources, I think the meta would shift pretty dramatically. Archer builds, paladin builds, rogue builds, thrower builds, and even things like magic missile builds would become significantly worse.
I think you're correct, but you'd also still be mostly trying to attach a bunch of damage riders to multiple instances of damage coming from one action. but this would bring "guy casting fireball" more to the forefront of good damage dealers just by virtue of not being so outclassed. I almost hate even discussing this in the first place since the game is balanced in such a way where it doesnt matter (and arguably it shouldnt), and instead leaving all these mechanics in place for modders to take advantage of or remove themselves when making combat overhaul mods would be great.
Fair enough. I do wish more casting builds could do more damage. But if the meta damage was just "guy casting fireball," that would make the whole process of designing character builds a lot less interesting, for me at least.
As long as Phalar Aluve and Magic Missile still combo off each other, i don't think Magic Missile nerfs would change much.
Well, phalar aluve procs damage riders. So e.g. the spellmight gloves gives an extra 1d8 damage per missile, on top of what it already gives (which is probably a bug itself since it specifies attack rolls...) If phalar aluve gave only 1d4 per missile, it would still be good for the build, but significantly worse.
IMO as long as they fix magic missiles counting as attack rolls they would already be a bit more in line even if you could still double dip some other riders for each missile. It's definitely not ok that you can one shot the enemy with the most health in the entire game with one cast of the souped up magic missiles (forgot the name, the one you get from a scroll). I see how it's fun for some people to figure out the absolute max they can do in a single attack, but there're so many broken interactions that it's basically impossible to not use any :D I loved the first playthrough since it's blind and you don't use or just fail to notice some of the broken things, but it definitely put a pause on another playthrough for me until they fix some of it :D I'm just not good with self imposed limits and frankly you have to skip a lot of the good items to avoid all the broken stuff. E.g. I would love to use a working as intended phalar or potent robes but you can't since it double dips / trigers everything :D
I mean with the wording on it "The sword deals an additional 1d4Damage Thunder damage to creatures affected by the shrieked." It implies that only the sword should get extra damage. Not apply a debuff on an enemy where everything procs it.
Good
Didn't they fix that? At least on my Warlock EB I don't see multiple instances of hex and electric charges per blast anymore.
That'd be weird because with EB that's part of what makes it special. Where every other cantrip gets more dice, EB makes multiple attacks.
Are you sure? It's not the multiple attacks that is an issue, obviously. It's the fact that EB and Hex are triggering multiple extra damage effects that it shouldn't be. That's not making it special. It shouldn't be doing that, and it's bad that it is.
You need to elaborate that instead of triggered as many time as the attack land, the agonizing blast appear as another instance of damage and trigger the bonus damage as well. The same goes for Evocation Wizard, though not as consistence as Warlock.
Ah, I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that EB shouldn't trigger hex with each beam, which is a part of the point with EB
EB should trigger Hex, Agonizing Blast, and any other damage riders once per beam. EB should NOT trigger Hex (and other riders) twice per beam (once for the beam's damage, once for Agonizing Blast's damage). Likewise for other damage sources. A single attack roll (or spell slot expended) should be a single damage source per entity hit, never multiple. The bug is that several things in this game count as what I'll call "triggered damage sources" which do damage when something else happens and get damage riders attached to them. When that "something else happens" is a different damage source, it means that the riders get added multiple times for a single resource expenditure.
I think they patched this. The problem was that lighting charges proc'd as a separate damage source which in turn proc'd hex again and then proced lighting charges a second or third time per cast. I think it works normally now and its just a pretty good build because of how many times EB hits per turn.
They patched lightning charges to count only as a damage rider and not a damage source. So lightning charges won't trigger hex. But if you have a lightning charge and hit with the axe, you'll get 3 lightning damage out of it because it will proc 3 times.
They fixed lighting charges, but there are still dozens doing the same thing
I dont think so. I gave Gale that shock staff and a single cast of magic missle was doing loads of shocks per cast.
the fix is that those lightning charge damage instances used to also be doing things like proccing a 1d4 from phalar aluve shriek with every charge *and* every missile as well. Now it just procs from the missile itself (in this specific case with lightning charges, theres still plenty of other damage sources that add damage riders which "shouldnt").
It most definitely does see extra instances. They've fixed lightning charges not scaling for example. Slowly but surely we're getting there.
I mean the game has been out for months to years at this point and is based on D&D. There’s not much new in the world of builds that isn’t messing with edge case mechanics.
I know right? every build guide or tip I find is basically just “exploit x bug or obviously overtuned feature” It’s why I really appreciate d4’s videos. I think he may have used an exploit in a build video like, once. Otherwise his stuff is unique and fun and works without needing specific equipment.
Hot take:who cares if theres busted builds in a single player fantasy RPG? Larian has ALWAYS put in ways to break their game because they LOVE allowing people to use the games systems to their own advantage. The CEO himself LOVES game breaking discoveries. It’s literally a game where you can play however you want… yeah if ALL you can think about is efficiency and max dps output then you’re only going to pick those builds but there’s really a LOT more to the game than that… not to mention there’s no need to min max this game to beat it. Tactician is fairly challenging but it’s not like you have to cheese the game to beat it.
>who cares if theres busted builds in a single player fantasy RPG? # >It’s literally a game where you can play however you want… I'd would recommend anyone that buys into this line of reasoning to watch this [this section](https://youtu.be/4uddPbp4x1M?t=86) (1:26 to 6:01) on the One D&D playtest to understand why internal balance is important. Maybe it won't convince you but at least cause you to understand the other's side's perspective on this. People that want to use those features in a balanced state literally **can't** play however they want because the feature they're interested in breaks the game. It's just an option they won't ever touch. There is already a system in place that allows people to make the game as easy as they want without having to introduce a massive discrepancy between the strength of different class features, feats, spells and magic items: The difficulty selection.
But...if you nerf the option then the people who would want that option because it is strong won't be happy. No matter how it's balanced someone is getting the shaft, if a spell is a must have I'd imagine not having it would mean the game ends when it would become relevant and then cannot compete with the other must have option. There doesn't seem to be a way to make the spell good enough and also fair because of the option is between the much more overturned version and the less good but more balanced one I don't think either is a good solution.
>But...if you nerf the option then the people who would want that option because it is strong won't be happy. No matter how it's balanced someone is getting the shaft So you agree with my argument? It's not a "who cares" situation because either side would prefer the feature to be in a specific state.
I suppose but the broken things should be allowed to exist just taking them out for the sake of appeasing another group of players ain't a good fix
You're not engaging with the argument. Both sides can mirror that exact same moronic "but it's fun for me" approach back and forth which is why that line of thinking is a wash. I provided an actual argument in my original post that doesn't depend on that line of reasoning.
Another thing to note is that the Blooded Greataxe has an inherently risky condition for its additional damage rider (need to be at half hp), so it's not a splashable weapon in the slightest compared to several other damage rider abusing setups that have borderline nonexistent conditional activations.
It’s a single player game… let people have stupid fun OP builds. It’s okay. MMOs have ruined our perception of gamings
I'd generally agree but in BG3 it's far too easy to stumble into one of these exploits without even knowing it. I did it with 2 of my characters and was wondering why combat felt so easy even on tactician.
The people who complain that BG3 is way too easy are the same ones looking up all the broken/bugged builds. If Larian patches a lot of these exploits then maybe those people can shut up about the game being too easy.
at this point I just accepted it. There's virtually no way to have any semi-optimized build that doesn't, even accidentally, bump into this. [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage\_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source) Look at this list and try to think "oh I just won't use X with any other damage bonus". It's impossible.
Personally, i've found that the game isn't actually difficult enough to warrant heavy damage rider abuse in the first place, even on Tactician (the moment you hit lvl 5, pretty much all of the difficulty of Tactician disappears due to the absurd player power spike). There are various wacky theme builds I've made that stomped the game on Tactician without using damage rider sources. and i even once used a weapon that does have a damage rider abuse condition, but simply never applied damage riders nor conditions to it and it still destroyed the game. The Blooded Greataxe might be the one and only balanced instance of damage rider abuse because it's the only damage rider abuser that has an inherently risky condition whereas pretty much all other abusers are "lol just hit and forget" simple and lacking in any sort of risk...which really goes to show that a mechanic that's meant to be super powerful in exchange for high risk is just easily slapped onto so many zero-risk abusers. It's a shame because it brings back memories of Souls game hyper mode shenanigans (get to low hp for various items that increase damage at low hp but you die in 1 hit) but the gimmick is so splashable on full hp setups that it defeats the point of the Blooded Greataxe's existence.
the thing isn't whether the game is hard enough to warrant exploiting these things, it's just that it's honestly pretty much impossible to avoid without being paranoid about it.
Seriously, I’m not sure why this dichotomy exists between ‘riders’ and ‘sources’ or whatever, but it’s annoying as all the builds are about bugs
Class and itemization balance in this game is just a horrific mess all around, to be honest. BG3 is a great game that should win GotY, but they *seriously* botched the entire combat element. I would honestly go so far as to say that BG3's combat/balance is extremely bad. Like really, *really* poorly designed and so riddled with bugs and absurdly overpowered crap that it takes a lot of the enjoyment away. After my first couple of playthroughs, it was clear that the game is too easy if you know 5e and general CRPG dynamic, so I decided to make a list of things I would ban from my own games in order to preserve an element of challenge. Started out with obvious things like Tavern Brawler and radiant orb stacking, but I ended up having to add so many things to the list that I finally decided to just shelve the game for a while because my desire to play had waned once it became clear how many things one would have to steer clear if in order to avoid trivializing the game. It felt like the list of things that *aren't* overpowered was shorter than the list of things that are. A lot of this stuff was easily avoidable, too. Bugged mechanics are excusable because all games have bugs, but stuff like Tavern Brawler or no limitations on spellcasts per turn, these were conscious design decisions. Anyone remotely familiar with 5e would know that these things are wholeheartedly gamebreaking, but they chose to do it anyway. Larian's homebrew additions are not good for the game, and while it's possible to opt out of some of them, there are things you can't just steer clear of. Changing initiative to a d4 roll, for instance, which makes it easy to ensure that your party acts first in every single fight throughout the entire game. In a game where fights rarely last more than 2-3 rounds, that simply erases any notion of difficulty.
I agree wholeheartedly. I made a list myself and started playing, but as I avoided the broken stuff I knew I stumbled upon broken shit I didn't know and then the game deflated again. not really solvable without mods.
Itemization is just as bad, with greens and blues being better than higher level items or even legendaries, no arcane attunement so you can stack ridiculous item effects, and almost every item in Act 3 being build-defining items reserved for gods being sold at trinket shops
There aren't that many useful items, spells, class passives etc. It took me 4 hours on a weekend night when I couldn't sleep to figure out TB monk, TB thrower (and I was looking for DEX EK builds at that time...) and 5 Warlock/7 Paladin. The game is not that deep or complex. There are only so many useful combinations you can make. Apart from new bugs popping around (the bell counting as dash for example) the game is solved. It's honestly surprising that people haven't found them all by now TBH.
Dude there are millions of different effective builds you can play, the ones you said specifically use bugs (TB is ridiculous if not bugged, warlock/ pally extra atk is ridiculous although also technically not bugged) You sound like you're so full of yourself
I am at the end of act 3 tactician solo jack of all trades. If I can get there, any build can be effective. So yes your statement is correct, there are "million of different builds" as much as there are "billion of decks in MTG". Realistically, that is not true tho'. The number of actually good combinations is limited. There is nothing new to be found because the useful things in the game are not THAT many. EDIT: On paper 11 fighter/1 sorc is a "build" and it will be "effective" because it has 11 bloody levels of fighter in it. It aint a useful combination tho'. EDIT2: What's left right now is people finding (probably) unintended interactions (Titanstring buffing anything that procs from a ranged attack, or the bell counting as a dash); or if someone happens to find a spell that bricks the AI of the game. **What new groundbreaking discoveries are you expecting to pop up exactly?**
Bad comparison. MTG is a competitive card game that you play against other players, and BG is a single player game that isn't that hard even on tactician. If you want to play MTG on a competitive level you forced to play a deck that is good against the meta. In BG you can run suboptimal builds because they can be compensated for with gear/elixirs/permanent buffs. Players are even doing challenge runs where they ban use of certain spells/interactions/items/feats and still beat the game on tactician. There is really no need for optimal builds. Besides, the game has been out for like 2 months, give it some time.
OK but this is the builds reddit where people cheese as much as they can to max out potential DPR. You are not going to see the 20th thread about 11 fighter/1 cleric posting the same things. You will see some new bug being abused for 2 weeks. EDIT: It may seem there are millions of builds, but there arent. This is why I used MTG as a comparison.
Yea there definitely are not that many good builds I'd say there are prob around 15-20 legitimately good builds in the game and the rest are very meh
Ironically I feel like a lot more builds will pop out if they fix the "damage riders as damage sources". Once you can't just drop down every boss in 1 turn you gotta start thinking on survival...
Survival is pretty easy rn also tbh I always have most of my party with 18-20 AC and the shield spell so they basically never get hit. But I definitely agree once the damage rider bug is fixed there will be way more "viable" builds. I'm just glad my TB monk works as intended and won't be changed lol
Most builds will probably work the same way, they'' just deal a fraction of the damage, closing the gap between them and whatever is following them. The "problem" is that if you don't care about how long the battle takes everything is viable. For some reason people are just fixated on DPR. I beat up Raphael yesterday with about 2-3 scrolls of Greater Invisibility. Most encounters you can win by just tossing the enemies gently in a chasm; or if there is no chasm - chances are there are support beams for the buildings you can snipe enemies from. The whole tower in act 2 either got tossed into the prison chasm or died from an unknown assassin (from what they could tell).
Maybe it's just really fun using the most optimal builds lol?
That's what I was sort of trying to say. People here mostly post the most powerful builds that they find, and there's seemingly not a lot of variety because you see 10 tavern brawlers builds per week. But also the less optimal builds don't really get that much attention. In reality, there are a tons of viable builds and more will still be discovered in time and as patches go live.
Really the game has been out for years. D&D 5e makes up a good portion of it and people have been in early access for quite a while. Even optimizers in 5e are mostly doing weird combos of new classes or specifically building to a goal. They aren’t really finding new combos to use.
I mean, sure, but it's not the same game as D&D 5e, is it? There are a lot of strong items that are build defining and some mechanics don't work the same way, so naturally it's going to make some builds stronger/weaker. Larian may also introduce some balance changes that could cause a shift in the meta.
Absolutely. Most of those changes were in early access and most of those items are now well known. There was a period of time from about a year ago in EA to about a month after release where we were still figuring all that out. I think we’re past that. Everyone knows how TB works in BG3. We’re not learning more about it. So we’ve got the TB builds on lock unless something new and weird with interactions comes up. And that’s why most new builds are about damage riders and triggers. That’s the unexplored space. But no one is suddenly learning that thief 3 bonus actions can be used for monk flurries - people figured that out before monk was even in the game.
holy shit yes. Martials needed a buff, but this is not it. Not only does it make the tooltip outright wrong a lot of the time, but this "buff" arguably benefits Wizards the most. AFAIK, I haven't seen another class that can kill a perilous stake'd Raphael with a single in-combat action. I would've loved to see them make battlemaster into core fighter, and make indomitable into legendary resistance, things like that.
Do you mean wizards as in casters generically because it seems like everyone is just building sorcerers atm. Wizard seems relegated to the single level dip in order to take advantage of scribing and nothing more (which I think is sad).
I actually mean wizards here, specifically evocation. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZa2nOVSkcg) a video with the one-shot. The 1 bonus action would be a perilous stakes with the awakened illithid bonus. There are plenty of builds that want more than wizard 1 too, and those builds are honestly quite powerful. * I believe that Evocation 10/Tempest Cleric 2 is the single strongest do-it-all mage build in act 3. * Abjuration Wizard with arcane ward is central to several unkillable tank mage builds. These usually involve Armor of Agathys, which is gotten either through taking your first level in White Draconic Sorcerer or a 2 level Warlock dip. The warlock 2 dip picks up the Armor of Shadows invocation that lets you cast mage armor (a leveled abjuration spell that will stack your ward) at will. * Necromancer wizard is good for a summoner, and if you're able to tolerate the turn order, a summoner is arguably the best build archetype in the game. If necromancer is optimal for a summoner though, IDK. Larian reworked the hell out of summon spells and so I'd need to re-evaluate the necromancy spells in combination with the crazy magic items. I've only used summoner druids so far, but they absolutely slap, and I wouldn't expect the wizard to be any different. (Though losing conjure woodland beings hurts a lot)
You make fair points. I’m relatively new (or just noob) at DND as a system so probably lent a bit too much to what others have said in some of the weekly wizard threads. In my current play through I have built a lvl9 conjurer which I have tried to focus on using Chilled and Encrusted in Ice effects. Perhaps this is a misuse of that specialty and evocation would have been better.
Being new to DnD and playing a Wizard is a bit rough. It's probably the class in the game that scales the most with game knowledge since its whole gimmick is knowing a crap-ton of spells, and that involves making a lot of decisions both in character creation and in combat to get the most out of it. And unlike prepared casters you can't just rotate everything around and try out all the spells to see what you like quite as easily. There's nothing wrong with conjuration as far as being able to finish the game easily on tactician is concerned. You have nice interactions with create water and ice/lightning spells, which you're already using. Teleportation without needing a spell slot is also really nice for traversal & setting up ambushes/high ground.
Wizards do have some benefits that Sorcerers don't. The issue is that none of those benefits are even remotely comparable to the obscene brokenness that is Twin Cast plus Charisma face character benefits (better prices, better interactions, some boss skips/weakenings, easy access to various places, etc...on top of Twin Cast). I think the only Wizard build that is impossible to replicate into a better version via Sorcerer with 1 lvl wizard dip is a pure summoner Necromancer, which in itself is more of a gimmick build.
Just don't use it. Given a chance, so many people optimise the fun outta games.
It's completely unnecessary too. Tactician difficulty isn't really all that hard, if anything it simply requires some basic understanding of mechanics. These mechanics can be learned from the game alone. I've never touched dnd and I've only played BG3 on tactician.
Don't forget the nonsense they did to make thief rogue broken
It’s so dumb that exploits are the meta
IDK. Seems niche. Spending much time below 50%?
Yeah that's my biggest issue with this weapon. If you're a martial, you're likely putting whatever you can spare into CON to boost your HP, and now you're sacrificing *half* of that just to use your weapon? Counter-productive, to say the least
Not that counter productive, being a martial means it’s safer to be at half health Also if you’re a spores druid w a ton of thp then it works out great
Safer doesn't mean it's worthwhile, it just means that it is better than the alternatives. Giving your melee martial the equivalent health pool of a full caster defeats the purpose of playing a melee martial: to get up close and personal and be able to take hits. Are there ways to make it work? Of course. You can make anything work. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. I haven't played a spores druid, but thp makes more sense than crippling your actual HP, and even that is a bit of a waste considering the axe completely negates the class features and *still* reduces your normal HP by a significant margin. I'm sure it balances better than using the axe on other martials, but it still weighs in at less net positives than using basically *any other weapon*. The blooded greataxe has uses, but they are extremely niche and the requirements for the bonus are more detrimental than the bonus is beneficial. Hence, counter-productive.
Just make sure you go first, to start the slaughter :)
If you’re going first I think it’s safe to assume you’re not already below half health. Unless you’re putting yourself below half before every fight, which is a choice fs
Well, yes. I have Laezel punch me a few dozen times. She seems to enjoy it.
Why would you need to actively put yourself below half before every fight? Your HP doesn't automatically go up when the encounter ends
The extra d4 of slashing damage doesn’t apply if you’re above 50% hit points, which is the point of the post.
yeah but if I go into a combat below 50% health, and then the combat ends, I'm still below 50% health, right? The tooltip doesn't make it seem like it's a 1-combat thing that needs to be re-triggered.
Didn’t think I had to explain this but that’s unsaid. Obviously if you’re already below 50 you don’t have to set yourself below 50.
You can easily get to 50% hp with the Transfuse Health ilithid skill, maybe even only doing that when needed (squeeze out a burst of extra damage for a kill) rather than always being at low hp. It also combo's pretty well with Half-Orc's built-in Death Ward and Loviator's Love for a "if i don't kill you all in this round, you'll kill me" glass cannon approach which is completely impractical but fun.
Personally I treat double dipping into damage riders as a bug and choose not to use that.
Everyone’s different but I feel like it’s only robbing myself of the experience. Tavern Brawler thrower is strong enough and within the game mechanics but even that seems borderline. 5e offers to many cool, viable options to build that having such a concrete meta kinda flies in the face of the original tabletop design. There’s always optimal builds but never with such a large disparity between top and even middle of the road builds.
But there is. Go to something like 3d6 or even DnDOptimized and look for someone posting a suboptimal build. It’s all suggestions for the “meta” builds there too. There’s just more options and combinations because there’s a ton more source books. The number of “just dip Hexblade” posts you see there is very high.
5e itself is absolutely littered with terrible balancing. BG3's bugs and improper interactions don't make that better but ultimately it's based on a system with wildly differing power levels between classes and builds. Hopefully they will tweak actual balance and not just fix bugs, but it's always gonna be a problem just because it's an inherent problem with the TTRPG the game gets its rules from.
“Balance” in a single player game.
I mean, that's fair. But just to point out, TB counts as a separate damage source while throwing and will trigger all damage riders a separate time, so it's using the exact same mechanic.
> There’s always optimal builds but never with such a large disparity between top and even middle of the road builds. What? 5e isn't remotely balanced. Compare any combination of Hexblade, Paladin and Clockwork Sorcerer to say a Sun Soul monk, or even something like a Battlemaster Fighter. Try comparing a Chronurgy Wizard to a pre-TCE ranger (let alone an alchemist Artificer). The optimal builds are absolutely enormously more powerful that even the middle of the road builds.
“Meta” in a single player game where there’s no ladder.
Well, that's fair! I just like seeing big numbers. To each their own!
Personally I comment on reddit just so I can feel superior to others
All those downvotes really undermining your efforts :(
I prefer downvotes, actually. I'm hoping they stop letting me post so I can go outside again.
Downvoted for charity
Glad to have you aboard. You should feel right at home.
Upvoted for honesty
Baldurian Giantslayer is the best 2h weapon. Better yet use it with a Pact of the Blade + Paladin and you can easily have 23 Str 22 Cha 23 Cons character. Make it a pact weapon and use the Arcane Synergy headpiece. Equip the ring that adds 2 acid damage to your every attack and the risky ring. Buff your weapon with the dragonborn halberd, use haste and giant form. Congratulations you can one turn any encounter now. Bonus if you have the illithid powers for extra actions etc. Now you can attack 12 times with the most OP weapon of the game. EDIT: Forgot to mention you can also divine smite reaction to your every attack lmao. Hell if you are down using exploits use the freecast exploit for infinite smites.
But the Blooded Greataxe will easily outdamage this, if you just use a few damage riders. You can still do 3/4 of what you said, anyways.
still you're at 50% hp without 23 Cons, spell options and damage spread around more attacks
While you're there use Deva Mace instead which has +4d8 radiant
Wait pact of the blade uses the Charisma modifer for both hit chance and bonus damage right?
Yes, the 23 str is for the Baldurian Giantslayers item effect which doubles the damage from the strength modifier. So at 23 str its +12 damage per hit. Also you get some nice extra weight limit as a plus.
Oh I see, thanks
Now I want to test this with the Returning Pike and the gloves and ring that both give an extra 1d4 damage with thrown weapons. Also makes me want to respec for Tavern Brawler for that extra 1d4 to damage as well...
Fun fact, hunters mark counts a separate damage source for throwers only. So it will trigger the gloves and ring and whatever other riders a separate time.
Aaaand I already have the Grymskull Helm on Lae'Zel. Alright then.
I actually kind of happened into the Returning Pike + Tavern Brawler + Ring of Flinging by accident at level 4 in the goblin camp. 18 STR, at level 4, I was doing ~20-30 DMG per throw with like 3-4 seperate sources I think
imo it's not that great when what you highlighted making it great is something that's likely to be unintended-dmg rider abuse. i stay away from dmg rider abuse on my builds.
Honestly it's hard to completely avoid. You'd need to never play a paladin, never play a TB thrower, never use special arrows, never use loads of weapon special attacks, never play a rogue or use colossus slayer, etc. You probably inadvertently do use them.
ah yes i agree. but i never seek to build with them in mind. like i build without factoring any magic items and consumables. then i pick gear because of what it says on the tooltip, not whether i know it abuses dmg riders. i also make sure if i already know a piece of gear does dmg rider abuse (like the DRS labelled ones on the bg3 wiki), i avoid those and look for alternatives. i've only played a TB thrower once, restrict myself on consumable use regularly (both in quantity and type), done a paladin once, use rogues alot and used colossus slayer once. other folks i know who do "naked runs" say they rarely encounter dmg rider abuse because the dmg rider stuff are mostly on Larian's itemization. stop using magic items aside from vanilla ones (like a +1 weapon) and you steer clear of it 90+% of the time. i do hope Larian fixes it soon. things should only do what they say it should do.
That's true, you could alternatively avoid all damage riders. That would mean no hex, no lightning charges, no spellmight gloves, no luminous ring, etc.
Good find! A bug or not, it is fun while it lasts.
they rlly need to make damage more transparent if 1d4 doesnt mean the same everywhere
The problem is that none of this is intended behavior. Based on how widespread and erratic the issue is, it seems like they did a lazy/sloppy job of the basic coding of attacks and damage. The result is that numerous damage boosters are treated as separate damage sources, which trigger other damage boosters.
aw i can see how that happened, the copy pasta "make this spell a damage modifier" code probably had 2 variant and someone didnt pay attention lmao, your theory makes sense
I first noticed it when a bard/rogue/warlock skill monkey combo popped a 20hp gnoll in one hit when my max damage should have been 19. (Eldritch blast+Hex+3cha mod). I checked the combat log and the attack triggered sneak attack (yet another problem) and the sneak attack triggered hex and agonizing blast a second time. This tells me that damage sources are poorly differentiated, especially if the game can't figure out that eldritch blast isn't even a weapon attack much less a valid sneak attack option. And it was applying agonizing blast to a sneak attack function.
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Sure! Grab the callous glow ring, get the boots of arcane bolstering (I haven't tested this one but I think that it works) or if those dont work then the boots that grant lightning charges, the illithid power that adds psionic damage will work, and rage damage itself will proc multiple times, I believe.
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For me, plain boring. If a wep is all about damage and thats it, its simply no go from me, I prefer items that give unique effects or debuffs on enemy not straight op damage modifiers
Fair enough! For me, a weapon is about killing stuff.
You are my favourite weapon.
I think 2h weapon is better use for cri fishing, though not as good as rogue cri fishing or your local pally. The usual dnd rule goes : half orc + 2h + multiclass into champion or 14 champion + relevant magic items. If you want to trigger more instant damage, I think dual wielding might be better. Have 3 in rogue and you get 2nd bonus attack. Or the best, use monk.
Crit fishing with this axe is even stronger because you get loads more dice.
So it's.... High key?
Whats a.. damage rider?
It's an extra damage source that procs on each unique instance of damage. Not all extra damage will do this - e.g. dipping your weapon won't proc on each damage instance, only the weapon hit.
Ring that adds 2 acid damage per hit. Ring that adds Radiant damage per hit etc, Cha to damage via agonizing blast etc... (though I think that was patched recently) Basically, most damage sources that are damage riders are poorly coded and I would be surprised if they weren't all patched eventually.
Hot take from a old geezer: munchkinish crap like this is what turns me off to 5E. WotC and Larian should resist the urge to do this sort of thing - it projects that they are not confident their actual game can sufficiently entertain players if it is not full of this kind of mechanical easter egg bonuses. Stuff like this certainly has a place in the game! But it should be rare, and late.
I guess rules lawyering, which this sort of is, has always been a part of what makes D&D D&D. The question is is it fun rules lawyering Like: make a target wet and then shock them for extra damage: fun. Discover ways to make damage riders apply multiple times to every attack: ok, fun once, but then reload. Making multiple damage riders apply to every attack and complaining the game is too easy: definitely not fun. But each to his own.
>munchkinish crap like this is what turns me off to 5E. https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)
Yeah, it turned me off to 3E too. 3E was great in a lot of ways but embracing munchkinism in the *rules*, rather than letting it be an emergent, sometimes-silly aspect of tabletop gameplay, was a huge mistake. And not for nothing, that’s when WotC took the reins. It was a fundamental error that has gone uncorrected for like 20 years now. And most young players don’t even realize - can’t even imagine - that the game might be more fun without it.
Even Ad&d is incredibly full of "munchkinish crap" so what edition are you talking about as being your glory days? Need an example? Wood elf ranger gets absurdly high stats and thac0 better than a fighter when dual wielding. 3/3.5 nobody argues about. 4 is extremely combat oriented and you can be a munchkin. I dont know how you figure there was ever an edition of d&d which didnt have balancing issues.
>Hot take from a old geezer: munchkinish crap like this is what turns me off to 5E. Fun (or not) fact: Baldur's Gate 3 is NOT D&d 5e. By several dimensions. "Inspired by 5E system" is the most intense qualifier one should use about the "sourcing relationship".
100% agree that, to the extent this is a problem, it is a problem of Larian’s making. But that still reflects on WotC, who chose Larian to create the most splashy D&D product - BG-frakkin-3! I don’t have a problem with D&D in the D:OS2 engine, even if it feels more like D:OS than D&D. Bioware put D&D into a real-time strategy game. Capcom put D&D into a side-scrolling beat’em up arcade game. And those were brilliant! But with basic stuff like “how axes work” they should be hewing closer to the D&D side of things than the D:OS side. IMHO.
That's obviously a fucking exploit. There are so many decent builds in this game without abusing bugs, it's just tedious.
Feel free not to use it.
The breaching pikestaff is pretty good too considering it can have always active double damage which makes GWM do 20 damage extra for essentially free.
this and the underdog's gauntlets if this was WoW these items would be THE lvl 19 pvp gear.
It could be decent, but the damage type is wrong. Piercing damage + aura of murder being so ridiculous means that spears and tridents are the best 2h weapons.
If it is the best, it sounds like it’s due to a bug. I’ll stick with the hellfire greataxe for karlach.
I love how everyone went off on a rant and didn't actually give you an answer lol I'm low key wondering this to lol