BG3 BG3 General Talk

[JDR13]

I'm not so sure. The way grouping and hiding works means they may not be part of the battle till they join. What you have been describing sounds just like how the mechanics work when not everyone in the group is pulled into combat, which can be either because they are broken up or they are together but others are hiding.

Why wouldn't the hidden characters be pulled into combat though? I would think they'd be included automatically. (While still being hidden unless failing a check?) Since you can't do anything with those characters if anyone in the party is engaged in combat, it doesn't make sense not to include them from the start.

 

[Stingray]

Was your rogue "separted" from the rest of the party? (as in not chained together). If your party is in stealth and you trigger a fight with a member of your party, the rest of your party isn't automatically entered into that combat. If you uncrouch them and they're within sight of the enemies, they'll roll initiative and enter the fight.

Your rogue doesn't even need to be unchained from the party for this to happen. Happens to me all the time with the entire party still chained. You have to take some kind of action to get the rest of your chars pulled into the combat (like unstealthing, getting close enough to be spotted, taking an action, etc).

If you're in this state and you attack with, say, your rogue who initiated the combat, then end your turn, then you just threw away that turn for the rest of your party because they never even entered the combat during that turn.

Why wouldn't the hidden characters be pulled into combat though? I would think they'd be included automatically. (While still being hidden unless failing a check?) Since you can't do anything with those characters if anyone in the party is engaged in combat, it doesn't make sense not to include them from the start.

It's probably a result of the co-op mentality, wanting to let other players (characters) continue doing what they're doing without getting automatically pulled into fights other people start etc.

I think it's intentional, not a bug, although it could use some adjusting maybe.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

Why wouldn't the hidden characters be pulled into combat though? I would think they'd be included automatically. (While still being hidden unless failing a check?) Since you can't do anything with those characters if anyone in the party is engaged in combat, it doesn't make sense not to include them from the start.

I dunno what their thoughts were. My guess is because when sneaking you may not want everyone jumping in - but there may be a distance factor involved or maybe its whether they get "seen" and forced out of hiding they all jump in .. or some combination of things. I play a rogue and do a lot of stealth combat so just reporting what I have seen - both stealthed as a group and when I scout ahead.

I just had the battle tonight so its fresh in my mind. I am pretty sure I was not unchained (I hadn't pulled the party apart) but I could have done it by accident and not noticed my rogue was ungrouped so can't rule that out. Anyhow we were all in stealth (I used the group stealth mode) and my rogue got far enough ahead that when he attacked (which initiated combat for him), the other three were still down the path around the corner so maybe that is why (non of them got detected by the enemy and hence didn't get pulled into battle is my thought). I had to select them individually and move them into the area until the "combat started" activated for each of them.

Anyhow I know stealth and grouping and distance can impact some of the combat turns so think its more this since I haven't seen any mass reporting of it being bugged. Or maybe it is and no one else I know has had the problem. I'm in a small community and know a bunch of people playing and none of them have said anything. Maybe its a rare bug. I just know Red has misjudged the mechanics once already so was thinking this might be another case of that.

 

[JFarrell71]

Your rogue doesn't even need to be unchained from the party for this to happen. Happens to me all the time with the entire party still chained. You have to take some kind of action to get the rest of your chars pulled into the combat (like unstealthing, getting close enough to be spotted, taking an action, etc).

If you're in this state and you attack with, say, your rogue who initiated the combat, then end your turn, then you just threw away that turn for the rest of your party because they never even entered the combat during that turn.


It's probably a result of the co-op mentality, wanting to let other players (characters) continue doing what they're doing without getting automatically pulled into fights other people start etc.

I think it's intentional, not a bug, although it could use some adjusting maybe.

yeah, you're right, I wasn't sure but you needed to be unchained.

So, to everyone, what you need to do in this situation is click on your other characters' portraits and tell them what to do. Don't expect the game to ask you because they're not in the combat.

 

[JFarrell71]

Since you can't do anything with those characters if anyone in the party is engaged in combat, it doesn't make sense not to include them from the start.

You can do things with them, though. You can control them normally.

 

[JDR13]

You can do things with them, though. You can control them normally.

I meant non-combat things. i.e. You can't go off and explore while another party member is engaged in combat. I mean, you could in a way, but you'd be stuck in turn-based mode so it's kind of pointless.

 

[Corwin]

Twice now, I have had my complete UI disappear from my screen in the middle of a fight and could do absolutely nothing except load a saved game which seems to clear the problem. I definitely hadn't pressed any keys to hide the display, so I think it's simply a random bug.

 

[Stingray]

Twice now, I have had my complete UI disappear from my screen in the middle of a fight and could do absolutely nothing except load a saved game which seems to clear the problem. I definitely hadn't pressed any keys to hide the display, so I think it's simply a random bug.

F10 doesn't bring it back?

 

[Corwin]

No, that was the first thing I tried.

 

[JFarrell71]

Twice now, I have had my complete UI disappear from my screen in the middle of a fight and could do absolutely nothing except load a saved game which seems to clear the problem. I definitely hadn't pressed any keys to hide the display, so I think it's simply a random bug.

it's happened to me exactly twice also. Fortunately, you can save in the middle of a fight, and as you said, reloading fixes it.

Edit: it happened to me a third time tonight, out of combat this time. Apparently, it's specific to Lae'zel. I saw that somewhere, and I believe all three times it's happened to me, it's been with Lae'zel. Out of combat, I didn't have to reload because talking to Lae'zel with the character I created returned her UI.

 

[Redglyph]

I'm not so sure. The way grouping and hiding works means they may not be part of the battle till they join. What you have been describing sounds just like how the mechanics work when not everyone in the group is pulled into combat, which can be either because they are broken up or they are together but others are hiding.

My 2nd example was the textbook 'surprise' example in the PH, on the first page describing combat mechanics. There's nothing complicated about how a combat is initiated after an encounter, surprise or not. And the fact that some party members were in the combat queue but were never active is not something I've seen in the rules, and it's unexpected.

The 1st example happened during a combat that, so far, was executed normally. There was no effect on my party members making them pass their turn. It was even less expected.

I could partially reproduce the problem from a save file but the outcome depends on saving throws so it's variable.

I think that, as long as some characters are hidden, they're not included in the combat, which is illogical. But there are variations of this issue that are even more illogical.

PS: Reported, hopefully they're doing something about it.

 

[Redglyph]

Beware of the trade window too. If you switch characters during a trade and hover items to see their stats, some are correct with regard to the character, others aren't.

For instance, if you start trading with a mage, then switch to a rogue (you have to finish the transaction first because it will remove any pending items), hovering a rapier will show that the rogue is not proficient with that weapon (despite the finesse attribute). If you close the trade and restart with the rogue, it doesn't show the warning anymore.

Always start a trade with the character that will use the item unless you are sure about the stats.

 

[booboo]

Some things I noted:
1) missing - ability to sneak attack with off hand weapon? It's not an option I can find - I saw people mention this in EA. Annoying if you miss with your main hand and have advantage.
2) spells:
* you can now target multi-target spells like bless *yay*
* fly - doesn't actually fly...it's a slow jump from point x to y. You can't simply hover in the sky and fireball people, like solasta did. Very disappointing
* wall of fire (yep I can cast it now) - only allows the 'wall' form, not the circle allowed by rules. Still a great spell, esp with stupid monsters.
The *%#!!! spell descriptions are still appaling. Please Larian, you spent all that money on making the game pretty and you can't provided a regular spell descriptions? WotR and Solasta did a far better job. So, of course, I go to the PHB, but then the spell doesn't work like that...

 

[Redglyph]

Some things I noted:
1) missing - ability to sneak attack with off hand weapon? It's not an option I can find - I saw people mention this in EA. Annoying if you miss with your main hand and have advantage.
2) spells:
* you can now target multi-target spells like bless *yay*
* fly - doesn't actually fly...it's a slow jump from point x to y. You can't simply hover in the sky and fireball people, like solasta did. Very disappointing
* wall of fire (yep I can cast it now) - only allows the 'wall' form, not the circle allowed by rules. Still a great spell, esp with stupid monsters.
The *%#!!! spell descriptions are still appaling. Please Larian, you spent all that money on making the game pretty and you can't provided a regular spell descriptions? WotR and Solasta did a far better job. So, of course, I go to the PHB, but then the spell doesn't work like that...

Agreed, the descriptions are not helping. I've seen some that were even wrong and showed a spell as having a disc AoE instead of a cone (I think it was burning hands).

Can you still do a sneak attack as bonus action if you miss your first attack? I thought that this makes you lose advantage since you're not hidden anymore. That being said, I'm suspicious of the advantage/disadvantage accuracy in the attack roll when a rogue is trying to do a sneak attack. Sometimes the rogue is clearly hidden and his target visible, yet he's considered at a disadvantage.

 

[booboo]

With sneak attack, all you need is advantage or a teammate nearby (Assuming you ar enot attacking from hidden) - all the cases I wanted to use the bonus attack were in combat, after missing with my main weapo. In Solasta you could def SA with offhand weapon, but BG3 has no 'button' for it. I think it really hampers rogue utility and seems to be an oversight? This was pointed out in EA...but seems to hav slipped though the cracks. And yep, seems like like SA doesn't always trigger correctly - the DM is cheating to save its NPCs ;-)

 

[SveNitoR]

I meant non-combat things. i.e. You can't go off and explore while another party member is engaged in combat. I mean, you could in a way, but you'd be stuck in turn-based mode so it's kind of pointless.

If you start combat with one character in real time (like a sneak attack), the other ones are not automatically in turn based mode and can walk around normally.

It allows incredibly cheesy tactics (abusing the limits of this system severely), since one can sneak around the viewing cones of the enemies ,while they are frozen in TB combat.

 

[JDR13]

If you start combat with one character in real time (like a sneak attack), the other ones are not automatically in turn based mode and can walk around normally.

It allows incredibly cheesy tactics (abusing the limits of this system severely), since one can sneak around the viewing cones of the enemies ,while they are frozen in TB combat.

I didn't know that was possible. I don't remember ever doing that when I played Act 1 in EA, but it's been awhile so it's possible I just forgot.

It does sound like a weird exploit, and I don't understand why Larian would allow it to work that way.

 

[JFarrell71]

General preference question:

In games like this that have several companions, are you the sort to mix and match them a lot, or do you mostly stick with a given set, maybe only switching them out (or not) to do companion quests?

I recall that Larian/Sven were originally going to lock in your companions somehow, I think after Act 1, but reconsidered, and decided to make them all available throughout the game (unless you killed them, obviously)

I tend to stick with a few because I want to see all of their interactions with quests, their banter, etc, and if I switched them out a lot, I would never remember who I had at which points, which would make seeing new stuff on replay much more difficult.

Second, related question: who are you going with, entirely or mostly as the case might be?

I made my main character (I'm not doing an origin playthrough this time, in other words), and have settled on Lae'zel, Astarion and Gale as my other three. When I get to the part of the game where the non origin companions show up, I may be tempted. Especially by Minsc, as I always used him in BG2.

 

[Stingray]

I always stick with the same set, once I get the guys I want to keep. Using a custom main char + Shadowheart, Astarion, and Karlach. Might replace Karlach with Minsc later if it's an option.

 

[JDR13]

I like to eventually settle on a favorite group, but I think that's going to be hard because of the smaller party limit here. I don't feel like I can even have a proper D&D party with just 4 adventurers. It's also going to be difficult for me not to take Jaheira and Minsc along just because.

I think a lot of people will mix and match though. It seems like Larian developed the game with that in mind with the way everyone gains XP even when they're not in the party. I mixed and matched in Divinity: Original Sin because I wanted to complete all the companion quests, but I'm not sure if I'll do that here.

I recruited all the companions that were available in EA, and Gale was easily my favorite. I also liked Astarion despite being annoyed by the way he talks. Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Wyll didn't stand out to me in any way, and I don't t see much appeal in any of them from a personality standpoint. As for the remaining companions, I only know I won't be recruiting Minthara.

If I wasn't so concerned about balance, I'd use one of those mods that increases the party size.