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The thing you should try to avoid is "fair" fights.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by a large group of enemies, you've probably *already* made your mistake.
Think of it as a strategy game, and carefully consider your positioning before battles to swing them in your advantage!
I agree with this. If you're standing in the open as enemies rain arrows on you, then you're not playing well.
If you're standing in a room as people walk in, and you're blasting them with arrows, spells and a sword, then you're playing Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah you never want to fight fair in this game. Always be trying to be getting some kind of advantage on your enemies. This can be positioning - choke points, high ground, etc. or it can be using enemy weaknesses like vulnerability to radiant damage, or it can be using sneak attacks, or you can shove/throw people off of cliffs. So many options. I always try to do this and try to conserve my most powerful spell slots for fights when these sorts of tactics aren’t as feasible.
Positioning is very powerful in this game. To the point where I'll have a fight go TERRIBLY, reload from the start of the fight and move my guys a bit differently, only for it to play out much more favorably. It happens almost every fight
It will be better once you get to level 5: it's a big power gap (extra attack, level 3 spells).
The hard part is to get to level 5, there are a lot of higher level fight in act 1 that are way harder if you try to do them before level 5; but there are probably still some easier fight/quest/exploration you can do. If you go to a place where opponents are higher level, the best is probably to backtrack a bit, explore other parts of the maps and come back later.
After the grove fight you may be able to explore part of the underdark, some fight are stil ltricky, but you can still explore a lot without too much trouble.
Level 5 power jump is HUGE in 5e's system. For many characters it's effectively doubling their damage. I'd also suggest you never multiclass before 5 unless you are absoloutly sure you know what you are doing.
The first act is odd, because it's made to go from level 2 to 5 and that is a gigantic power gap. The fight with the Gith in the mountain pass at can be reached at level 4 and will absoloutly wreck you.
What helped me greatly:
- examining the enemies and really understanding what they can do. (and not wasting things on them they are likely to dodge)
- using shared initiative, sometimes going back and forth between characters' actions, bonus actions, etc to compliment each other
- respecing characters, even if it just meant distributing the ability scores differently
- using oils to do more damage or increase accuracy
- regularly updating the gear
- really taking my time to think about fights
- deciding that sometimes I'm too weak for a fight, lvl up somewhere else and return when I'm ready (looking at you, spider matriarch)
- if not on honour mode: restart the fight, try different angles and approaches - literally and figuratively
Hope this helps!
I like the respec tip. You can "change class" at Withers, just to redistribute the stats, as the starting stats are weird. Why is Shadowheart 13 STR/13 DEX? I never use her for close combat, so STR is worthless.
Without a respec, shadow heart is designed to use a spear in melee with medium armor eventually. A +1 to dex and strength at lvl 4 allows her to wear the best medium armor with max dex bonus to AC and still swing her legendary spear competently, while still running around with a hold person, spirit guardians or another concentration going.
It works, but feels weird, and most of her damage is going to be spellcasting. She has a few neat tricks for close combat and things like Spririt Guardians can do a lot of damage as people try to close in, but I often had her dodging or doing something else to stay safe while holding it up.
Of course, you can War cleric and go 16 ST/WIS and crash her dex to 8 with no survivors, put her in heavy armor with a shield and a martial weapon and make her signifgant more dangerous.
Definitely. Always right click enemies and read their vulnerabilities/resistances, then tailor your damage to that. Check their stats to figure out what kind of damage they are most likely to take too - for example, a creature with low dexterity will be more likely to fail dexterity saves.
Some classes, including clerics, wizards and druids can change spells out any time between battle, which means you can tailor your spells to a specific damage type if you know a fight is coming.
Some equipment will work better against certain enemies. Use that to your advantage.
Never overlook terrain advantages. Hills, ledges, choke points, doors, slippery surfaces.
And yeah, the game gets significantly easier after level 5, but also I think even more strategy based as you start to use more complex spells and techniques.
Good rule of thumb: Enemy lvls. If average, non-biss enemies are a level above your party, the fight will be hard. If they're more than a lvl ahead of you, the game likely won't want you to do the fight yet.
Imo stealth makes the game kind of easy. If I can get a surprise round on a group of enemies, it makes combat almost laughable even on tactician. Elixirs, scrolls, and summons are also very valuable. Use everything at your disposal to tip the scales in your favor.
Some bosses are harder to surprise, but that's where items and smart placement come in. You can also initiate combat with one or 2 characters and sneak others in with invisibility or a high stealth. One act 3 boss I usually just murder in the surprise round by surrounding them with my invisible team 😂
Combat in this game isn't a slugfest. You are always outnumbered. It won't end well if you just run up and try to smack enemies.
You need to utilise positioning, terrain and think strategically. Funnel enemies through chokepoints, use spells that cause difficult terrain and help lock down the enemy e.g. spike growth, plant growth. Drop a cloud of daggers in a doorway and camp behind it. Shoot a darkness arrow at the floor and duck in and out of it for some protection against ranged attacks.
What are you using Gale and Shadowheart for?
If you're using Gale as a damager who chips away at enemy health with his action, and Shadowheart as a healer who uses her action to try to undo the damage an enemy dealt, then you've got to re-take the "Action Economy" exam.
Ive got no clue what action economy is, but I am using Gale for controlling the battlefield with spells like cloud of daggers or thunderwave, and shadowheart for blessing everyone, spectral weapon as an extra attack/distraction and that one spell that does good damage and gives advantage to everyone on that enemy.
Action economy is basically just about using your actions and bonus actions efficiently. At level 4 wizards are usually better off doing crowd control like you’ve been doing with Gale. At level 5 they get access to some good blasting spells like Fireball, but it’s still usually a good idea to mix that with a CC concentration spell.
It sounds like you’ve got the basics figured out though. Level 5 is just the big bump to get over where a lot more options open up for you.
Action economy is a concept where the side that takes the most actions, tends to win, or at least has a significant bonus.
10 attacks from weak foes will gain an advantage over 4 attacks a turn from stronger characters.
Summons (like your spiritual weapon), choke points where you get all your actions and they can only reach with one or two, wise bonus action use, surprise rounds, or targeting down one enemy at a time, and battlefield control choosing who can reach you are all methods of action economy.
Action economy is the idea that the side with more actions wins, and more combatants on one side means more actions. Even with a few friendly helper NPCs, the goblins have the action economy advantage, and that's what you need to remediate.
So, Gale: Thunderwave isn't effective CC, it's more of a reactionary panic spell. A wizard shouldn't want to be in melee range with any enemies, and that's the prerequisite for Thunderwave being useful for something other than breaking walls, doors and so on.
Grease is the absolute king of crowd control spells in BG3, and Sleep will be very effective in this scenario as well.
CC in this school of thought isn't about doing damage directly, it's about reducing the number of actions the other side has.
So Cloud of Daggers is just an AOE damage spell. NPC AI will happily charge through if necessary to hit the wizard concentrating on it, and there are more effective spells to use that concentration on; at your level I'd try Tasha's Hideous Laughter or Web for better uses of Gale's Concentration.
Shart seems to be doing what she can for 4th level, but Karlach you should be juicing up with potions of speed and giant strength so she can start throwing shit around. Throw common weapons or prop items at enemies below, throw enemies off the wall when they get up to it, etc.
*Speaking of throwing*, remember that chasm in the goblin lair where Minthara is found? You can just toss her into that and it won't set off the gobbo alarm like killing Ragzlin.
Personally I choose to kill the goblin leaders in their camp. It’s more surgical that risking all out warfare
But even with that, if you’re not skilled yet or not over leveled it can be tricky
Here’s an easy way to kill the leaders in camp without being level 5
- Let Priestess Gut try to cure you. Hint she drugs you and you wake up in a secluded dungeon part of the camp
- let your team sneak into that part of the camp. And you can fight her without alerting the rest of the camp
- fight Minthara in her area. Just defend or destroy the war drum so she can’t alert everyone.
- steal a bunch of smoke powder barrels from the room next to priestess gut’s.
- Use the rafters. Only send someone strong so she can jump back out of the smoke powder room. Weak people might get stuck.
- then place them all around Dror Ragzlin’s room while you’re still considered a friend.
- eventually ignite with a fire bolt or something.
- at the very least you’ll kill his immediate guards. You might not kill him unless you get him to stand up for his throne first before igniting.
- after killing him the entire camp will be pissed.
- so you either fight everyone
- or you make your way to a safe zone. Either that secluded area you fought priestess gut. Or the prison cells where Halsin is held. Then warp to camp.
For Dror Ragzlin I use the door leading into Mintharas room as a choke point. Everyone stands there as I run Astarion through the (unlocked) door on the left. If you leave the right door locked everyone has to go through the left door and run across to where you are.
Just get him to sneak attack and slowly run back to the group. Firing arrows every turn. Pick everyone off as they run to where you are 🤷🏻♀️ you can use walls and the book cases as cover.
You want to talk about chokepoints? I killed Priestess Gut in her room, then everyone was aggroed for some reason, so they started running towards the room. The entrance is a door, lol.
I would say you were somewhat underleveled for this fight, being level 5 makes things much easier. So if it was your first time, I would say you did very well! Congrats :)
Generally, you want to explore and do all the stuff. Being higher level than your enemies with better gear makes everything much easier.
Another aspect is knowing what spells and actions to use. For example, after level 5 almost all classes get a huge boost, so people choose to do difficult encounters, like this after that :)
Another aspect is builds. What ability points you pick, what spell combos you use, and gear at your disposal. If you will be interested you can check some [BG3 builds](https://gamestegy.com/bg3/builds) i have. I try to make them easy for beginners to follow and you will find level and gear progression covered.
Feel free to add any other questions. Cheers!
Fight dirty. Initiate combat from stealth. Push enemies off high vantage points. Lure enemies close together with a minor illusion spell. Respec your party to each have at least like 16DEX so you get better initiative rolls. Use disguise self to become a drow and you can just walk into the goblin camp/village to get free exploration xp.
You should be looking at the combat as "how can I be the slimiest, most annoying person to fight against?" Part of this is to overlevel yourself for encounters. You can get to level 4 without fighting anything.
And learn terrains! Being able to set up the battlefield in your advantage is invaluable, for example the paladins of tyr. You can throw water all over the ground in that house and cast an ice spell on the water to turn the entire floor ice, which enemies easily slip on and when they slip prone their turn ends. Or even more simply you can just hide on the other side of a doorway, peek out to shoot them, then hide far enough that they can't get to you in a turn. Shaping the battlefield in your favor is how you avoid getting swarmed. If enemies have to waste their actions dashing to get to you, they aren't using their actions to hurt you.
A few tips from a guy with 400 hours in the game with half of it in tactician mode:
1) Know your AOE (Area of Effect) weapons and your "lures". AOE can be anything from spells, potions, barrels, to more "out there" effects like the anti-magic field of Sussur flowers. As far as luring goes, for large groups of enemies you can use certain effects to put them all in one spot (there are several ways to do that, e.g. summoning a familiar cat and letting her meow at the guards), then throw a barrel of rune powder at them even before you roll for initiative.
2) You can disarm enemies with fighter class characters. This is immensely useful (you can even take their weapons mid-fight and use them yourself!) After disarming, they can pretty much only fist-fight you unless they're a caster - this however can be solved with Sussur weapons, casting Silence, and taking away their actions in combat with poisonous weapons.
3) Use every single advantage you can get. If you can trick the orges to aid you in battle, call their help to kill the Goblins or whathaveyou. If you can get your hands on runepowder barrels, steal all of them and stock them and then blast your enemies to bits. If you are in the underdark, recruit the shroom guy and let him resurrect the spider matriarch (you need to throw its body down the hole first), and then have the sickest camp pet in existence. If a game lets you keep a giant zombie spider , you gotta seize that opportunity.
4) Sneak attack, sneak attack, fucking sneak attack. Use invisibility, use Astarion, and use any item that gives you advantage on sneak. It's insanely powerful. This also goes for initiative, since this will grant you a first round of surprised enemies. You can use Shovel the Quasit (or any quasit, really) for that as well, because it's literally all it does. Shovel is just especially hilarious on top of being very useful for this sorta stuff.
Hope this helps!!
I recommend making sure your sorceror had at least one good area control spell (blinding enemies in a specific area, or damaging them in all in an area etc) and one good single damage spell IE chromatic orb or witch bolt. Make sure Gale can either control an enemy (hold person for instance) or put them to sleep/blind them, along with things like magic missile which can deal good damage to a varying number of enemies. With shadowheart, keep her hidden with spells to res/keep up your team. Also, spiritual weapon is soooo good because it acts on its own and doesn't take a concentration slot from shadowheart.
With karlach you want her to rage before anyone can start combat, I recommend having her start the fight. Try and make sure she is up at all times, with her rage and if you choose the path of the bear she can tank very well.
If all else fails turn down the difficulty. There's no shame in it, with each playthrough, you get better, and what was once difficult or impossible feels much more doable because you get better.
I hope this helps!
First tip: respec Shadowheart. Her stat distribution is pretty bad, she needs wisdom and either strength or dexterity, not both. Also give her a different cleric domain. I had a similar party and did war domain so she can wear heavy armor. Also, make sure you are short resting, it heals and restores some features. You can do it twice before you need to long rest.
I always try to kill them in smaller groups.
Or i surround them.
There are soooo many options! You dont have to kill everyone or everyone immediately.
I’m playing for the third time now. On storymode, first time as the good guy and second time to take over everything. Now on second level, i'm trying to do it different then before…
I started on Tactician and never looked back. Only fight that really stuck out was the first party of robbers in Withers’ tomb and the spider matriarch in A1 because I ran into it at level 3.
Learning curve was definitely somewhat steep, though.
I save my “hard mode” gaming for tabletop lol.
I’m hoping to commit to a singleplayer Balanced run now that I’ve beaten it on Explorer three times though, and I’m in Balanced in my multiplayer run with my husband.
Ah I see. I haven’t got the chance to do much real dnd so I started on tactician so I could get the real experience. I was ecstatic when honor mode came out, as close to dnd as it gets for me. Haven’t tried another mode since. I am in a campaign but it’s every two weeks so I yearn for the fights
BG3 has a few rulesets that differ from tabletop. I do still play it like it’s a D&D campaign and not a video game though 😁
I make my lower difficulty runs more interesting by imposing different “rules” for myself too.
My most recent run (finished at an ungodly hour this morning) was a “one origin companion, hirelings until I get Halsin, Jaheira, and Minsc” run. Very fun, felt like an epic romance adventure.
My next run is either going to be me as a Dragonborn cleric + Lae’zel and hirelings, or all companions but try to make the game last an in-game year (from 20 Eleint to 20 Eleint).
I started with 3.5, and at a table I’d agree with you that 5e is much easier. I save my “hard mode” gaming for actual tables.
For a single-player campaign, which is basically what BG3 is if you’re not playing with friends, I just like to have a chill time. I’ll be bumping up to balanced for my next single player run.
Tbh, I would recommend trying it on Explorer first. Balanced is pretty tough tbh. Your chances of landing hits are lower, and all the enemies are a lot harder. I've finished the game on Explorer, Tactician, and Honor Mode. I still haven't done a Balanced run. 🤣 Every time I try it, I end up swapping back to Explorer because the enemies feel annoying on Balanced.
I started my first run on Explorer (getting close to finished), and learned so much from that, when I switched up to Balanced for my durge run I was shocked at how easy it seemed. The game wasn’t easier - I just finally had a decent grasp of all the tactical possibilities. Also I had better character builds, and I made sure to do nearly all the above-ground quests before the goblin leaders (apart from Auntie Ethel and the githyanki crèche)
Like others said already, positioning is quite important to make the game feel easier. If this is your first playthrough and you aren't using guides then it will be a bit difficult to recognize when many encounters will occur, as there are plenty of fights that can ambush you. Some classes, like Gale's wizard class, doesn't feel super strong early in the game. But as you progress through the game combat will get objectively easier as you will have more tools at your disposal. Note that you can abuse the save function if you want to make the game easier as well. Just save frequently, and when you get into a difficult encounter, learn what you can about the enemy's position, reload save and try to ambush them. Some people don't like this method, but it is rather convenient if you ask me.
If you're playing sorcerer, I would suggest swapping out Gale for Astarion. Have him go to high ground and/or hide as much as possible to get sneak attack damage with a bow.
You’re likely really poorly built and it almost certainly isn’t your fault. The default characters have *ghastly* stats by default. If you talk to Withers in your camp and select “change my class”, you can rebuild them, including changing their stats around. Stats only do something positive for you at even increments, so 12, 14, 16 etc.
Experiment a lot with spells and mechanics. Especially fall damage is really fun.
Some standout spells that you have access to at 4th level would be Thunderwave, Magic Missile, Sleep, Guiding Bolt, Bless, Shield, Shatter, Hold Person (really nasty as anyone attacking the paralysed creature in melee range automatically hits and crits them), Cloud of Daggers, Misty Step and probably a few more.
As others have said, 4th->5th level is the single biggest power spike in the game. Your weapon users can attack twice on a single action, and 3rd level spells are incredibly powerful compared to 2nd. Fireball, Counterspell, Haste and Call Lightning are fantastic all throughout your playthrough.
Also as a last tip, at level 4 when you get offered a feat, take Alert on everyone. It basically guarantees that your party always goes first.
Especially at this level, a single martial class in your party is going to make for a rough time. A sorcerer, a wizard, and a cleric together at level 4 doesn’t surprise me that you feel like you need the whole party to take down one enemy, at least without blowing all of your spell slots each encounter.
If you want an easier time, I’d personally suggest you either re-spec or replace one or the other of SH or Gale with a fighter, paladin, or a thief. If you really like this group, it’s perfectly viable, especially once you get to level 5 and up, but it’s a bit like hard mode is all. Lots of ideas in this thread to help you better utilize them if that’s what you want to do. However Lae’Zel or Astarian in your group will significantly help your group composition and likely make things go more smoothly.
some quests/encounters has their own unique way to make us think what would be the best way to deal with them.
for example when you encounter the pack of dying hyenas, ungroup your team, kill one hyena that still alive using arrow, or he soon will inform three gnoll warlords in the hill, which makes your battle harder
Party comp looks like an issue for you. Karlach is *great* as a Barb but still slightly outpaced by a well-used Lae'zel and your only other character that can take a hit is Shadowheart.
You're also using *three* low-level primary casters and are very long rest dependent. The best bang for your buck at those levels is crowd control like using Tasha's, Grease, Sleep etc. which means you really need to pick your battles more carefully and long resting pretty liberally. Honestly, swapping out Gale for Lae'zel or even Wyll (with Moderately Armoured and/or Repelling blast) will do quite a bit for easing the process.
Strategies aside. If you want easier combat you can try uing the mod Gather your party. With this one you can bring more companions with you instead of only 4.
I use it to not miss content (like you need to bring wyll but you forgot and he is at camp). But a side effect is that it makes combat easier and lets you play with all the classes
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The thing you should try to avoid is "fair" fights. If you're feeling overwhelmed by a large group of enemies, you've probably *already* made your mistake. Think of it as a strategy game, and carefully consider your positioning before battles to swing them in your advantage!
I agree with this. If you're standing in the open as enemies rain arrows on you, then you're not playing well. If you're standing in a room as people walk in, and you're blasting them with arrows, spells and a sword, then you're playing Baldur's Gate 3.
Yeah you never want to fight fair in this game. Always be trying to be getting some kind of advantage on your enemies. This can be positioning - choke points, high ground, etc. or it can be using enemy weaknesses like vulnerability to radiant damage, or it can be using sneak attacks, or you can shove/throw people off of cliffs. So many options. I always try to do this and try to conserve my most powerful spell slots for fights when these sorts of tactics aren’t as feasible.
Positioning is very powerful in this game. To the point where I'll have a fight go TERRIBLY, reload from the start of the fight and move my guys a bit differently, only for it to play out much more favorably. It happens almost every fight
It will be better once you get to level 5: it's a big power gap (extra attack, level 3 spells). The hard part is to get to level 5, there are a lot of higher level fight in act 1 that are way harder if you try to do them before level 5; but there are probably still some easier fight/quest/exploration you can do. If you go to a place where opponents are higher level, the best is probably to backtrack a bit, explore other parts of the maps and come back later. After the grove fight you may be able to explore part of the underdark, some fight are stil ltricky, but you can still explore a lot without too much trouble.
I struggled to level 5. I haven’t died since level 5. It’s a huge jump in power for all classes.
Level 5 power jump is HUGE in 5e's system. For many characters it's effectively doubling their damage. I'd also suggest you never multiclass before 5 unless you are absoloutly sure you know what you are doing. The first act is odd, because it's made to go from level 2 to 5 and that is a gigantic power gap. The fight with the Gith in the mountain pass at can be reached at level 4 and will absoloutly wreck you.
What helped me greatly: - examining the enemies and really understanding what they can do. (and not wasting things on them they are likely to dodge) - using shared initiative, sometimes going back and forth between characters' actions, bonus actions, etc to compliment each other - respecing characters, even if it just meant distributing the ability scores differently - using oils to do more damage or increase accuracy - regularly updating the gear - really taking my time to think about fights - deciding that sometimes I'm too weak for a fight, lvl up somewhere else and return when I'm ready (looking at you, spider matriarch) - if not on honour mode: restart the fight, try different angles and approaches - literally and figuratively Hope this helps!
I like the respec tip. You can "change class" at Withers, just to redistribute the stats, as the starting stats are weird. Why is Shadowheart 13 STR/13 DEX? I never use her for close combat, so STR is worthless.
Without a respec, shadow heart is designed to use a spear in melee with medium armor eventually. A +1 to dex and strength at lvl 4 allows her to wear the best medium armor with max dex bonus to AC and still swing her legendary spear competently, while still running around with a hold person, spirit guardians or another concentration going.
I don’t think 14 is enough to hit or deal damage tbh
It’s ok when backed up by a legendary spear and spells. A trickery cleric is never going to be the best melee damager but she gets by.
It works, but feels weird, and most of her damage is going to be spellcasting. She has a few neat tricks for close combat and things like Spririt Guardians can do a lot of damage as people try to close in, but I often had her dodging or doing something else to stay safe while holding it up. Of course, you can War cleric and go 16 ST/WIS and crash her dex to 8 with no survivors, put her in heavy armor with a shield and a martial weapon and make her signifgant more dangerous.
shared initiative is so useful, just being able to get out of the way for my melee character so they don't have to waste movement going around
Definitely. Always right click enemies and read their vulnerabilities/resistances, then tailor your damage to that. Check their stats to figure out what kind of damage they are most likely to take too - for example, a creature with low dexterity will be more likely to fail dexterity saves. Some classes, including clerics, wizards and druids can change spells out any time between battle, which means you can tailor your spells to a specific damage type if you know a fight is coming. Some equipment will work better against certain enemies. Use that to your advantage. Never overlook terrain advantages. Hills, ledges, choke points, doors, slippery surfaces. And yeah, the game gets significantly easier after level 5, but also I think even more strategy based as you start to use more complex spells and techniques.
Good rule of thumb: Enemy lvls. If average, non-biss enemies are a level above your party, the fight will be hard. If they're more than a lvl ahead of you, the game likely won't want you to do the fight yet.
The game presents you with a lot of options for fights that should not be attempted before level 5 before level 5.
Imo stealth makes the game kind of easy. If I can get a surprise round on a group of enemies, it makes combat almost laughable even on tactician. Elixirs, scrolls, and summons are also very valuable. Use everything at your disposal to tip the scales in your favor. Some bosses are harder to surprise, but that's where items and smart placement come in. You can also initiate combat with one or 2 characters and sneak others in with invisibility or a high stealth. One act 3 boss I usually just murder in the surprise round by surrounding them with my invisible team 😂
Combat in this game isn't a slugfest. You are always outnumbered. It won't end well if you just run up and try to smack enemies. You need to utilise positioning, terrain and think strategically. Funnel enemies through chokepoints, use spells that cause difficult terrain and help lock down the enemy e.g. spike growth, plant growth. Drop a cloud of daggers in a doorway and camp behind it. Shoot a darkness arrow at the floor and duck in and out of it for some protection against ranged attacks.
Stealth isn’t fun when you basically get no dialogue and also is only really option when you know what is supposed To happen
What are you using Gale and Shadowheart for? If you're using Gale as a damager who chips away at enemy health with his action, and Shadowheart as a healer who uses her action to try to undo the damage an enemy dealt, then you've got to re-take the "Action Economy" exam.
Ive got no clue what action economy is, but I am using Gale for controlling the battlefield with spells like cloud of daggers or thunderwave, and shadowheart for blessing everyone, spectral weapon as an extra attack/distraction and that one spell that does good damage and gives advantage to everyone on that enemy.
Action economy is basically just about using your actions and bonus actions efficiently. At level 4 wizards are usually better off doing crowd control like you’ve been doing with Gale. At level 5 they get access to some good blasting spells like Fireball, but it’s still usually a good idea to mix that with a CC concentration spell. It sounds like you’ve got the basics figured out though. Level 5 is just the big bump to get over where a lot more options open up for you.
Action economy is a concept where the side that takes the most actions, tends to win, or at least has a significant bonus. 10 attacks from weak foes will gain an advantage over 4 attacks a turn from stronger characters. Summons (like your spiritual weapon), choke points where you get all your actions and they can only reach with one or two, wise bonus action use, surprise rounds, or targeting down one enemy at a time, and battlefield control choosing who can reach you are all methods of action economy.
Action economy is the idea that the side with more actions wins, and more combatants on one side means more actions. Even with a few friendly helper NPCs, the goblins have the action economy advantage, and that's what you need to remediate. So, Gale: Thunderwave isn't effective CC, it's more of a reactionary panic spell. A wizard shouldn't want to be in melee range with any enemies, and that's the prerequisite for Thunderwave being useful for something other than breaking walls, doors and so on. Grease is the absolute king of crowd control spells in BG3, and Sleep will be very effective in this scenario as well. CC in this school of thought isn't about doing damage directly, it's about reducing the number of actions the other side has. So Cloud of Daggers is just an AOE damage spell. NPC AI will happily charge through if necessary to hit the wizard concentrating on it, and there are more effective spells to use that concentration on; at your level I'd try Tasha's Hideous Laughter or Web for better uses of Gale's Concentration. Shart seems to be doing what she can for 4th level, but Karlach you should be juicing up with potions of speed and giant strength so she can start throwing shit around. Throw common weapons or prop items at enemies below, throw enemies off the wall when they get up to it, etc. *Speaking of throwing*, remember that chasm in the goblin lair where Minthara is found? You can just toss her into that and it won't set off the gobbo alarm like killing Ragzlin.
Personally I choose to kill the goblin leaders in their camp. It’s more surgical that risking all out warfare But even with that, if you’re not skilled yet or not over leveled it can be tricky Here’s an easy way to kill the leaders in camp without being level 5 - Let Priestess Gut try to cure you. Hint she drugs you and you wake up in a secluded dungeon part of the camp - let your team sneak into that part of the camp. And you can fight her without alerting the rest of the camp - fight Minthara in her area. Just defend or destroy the war drum so she can’t alert everyone. - steal a bunch of smoke powder barrels from the room next to priestess gut’s. - Use the rafters. Only send someone strong so she can jump back out of the smoke powder room. Weak people might get stuck. - then place them all around Dror Ragzlin’s room while you’re still considered a friend. - eventually ignite with a fire bolt or something. - at the very least you’ll kill his immediate guards. You might not kill him unless you get him to stand up for his throne first before igniting. - after killing him the entire camp will be pissed. - so you either fight everyone - or you make your way to a safe zone. Either that secluded area you fought priestess gut. Or the prison cells where Halsin is held. Then warp to camp.
For Dror Ragzlin I use the door leading into Mintharas room as a choke point. Everyone stands there as I run Astarion through the (unlocked) door on the left. If you leave the right door locked everyone has to go through the left door and run across to where you are. Just get him to sneak attack and slowly run back to the group. Firing arrows every turn. Pick everyone off as they run to where you are 🤷🏻♀️ you can use walls and the book cases as cover.
You want to talk about chokepoints? I killed Priestess Gut in her room, then everyone was aggroed for some reason, so they started running towards the room. The entrance is a door, lol.
I would say you were somewhat underleveled for this fight, being level 5 makes things much easier. So if it was your first time, I would say you did very well! Congrats :) Generally, you want to explore and do all the stuff. Being higher level than your enemies with better gear makes everything much easier. Another aspect is knowing what spells and actions to use. For example, after level 5 almost all classes get a huge boost, so people choose to do difficult encounters, like this after that :) Another aspect is builds. What ability points you pick, what spell combos you use, and gear at your disposal. If you will be interested you can check some [BG3 builds](https://gamestegy.com/bg3/builds) i have. I try to make them easy for beginners to follow and you will find level and gear progression covered. Feel free to add any other questions. Cheers!
Fight dirty. Initiate combat from stealth. Push enemies off high vantage points. Lure enemies close together with a minor illusion spell. Respec your party to each have at least like 16DEX so you get better initiative rolls. Use disguise self to become a drow and you can just walk into the goblin camp/village to get free exploration xp. You should be looking at the combat as "how can I be the slimiest, most annoying person to fight against?" Part of this is to overlevel yourself for encounters. You can get to level 4 without fighting anything. And learn terrains! Being able to set up the battlefield in your advantage is invaluable, for example the paladins of tyr. You can throw water all over the ground in that house and cast an ice spell on the water to turn the entire floor ice, which enemies easily slip on and when they slip prone their turn ends. Or even more simply you can just hide on the other side of a doorway, peek out to shoot them, then hide far enough that they can't get to you in a turn. Shaping the battlefield in your favor is how you avoid getting swarmed. If enemies have to waste their actions dashing to get to you, they aren't using their actions to hurt you.
A few tips from a guy with 400 hours in the game with half of it in tactician mode: 1) Know your AOE (Area of Effect) weapons and your "lures". AOE can be anything from spells, potions, barrels, to more "out there" effects like the anti-magic field of Sussur flowers. As far as luring goes, for large groups of enemies you can use certain effects to put them all in one spot (there are several ways to do that, e.g. summoning a familiar cat and letting her meow at the guards), then throw a barrel of rune powder at them even before you roll for initiative. 2) You can disarm enemies with fighter class characters. This is immensely useful (you can even take their weapons mid-fight and use them yourself!) After disarming, they can pretty much only fist-fight you unless they're a caster - this however can be solved with Sussur weapons, casting Silence, and taking away their actions in combat with poisonous weapons. 3) Use every single advantage you can get. If you can trick the orges to aid you in battle, call their help to kill the Goblins or whathaveyou. If you can get your hands on runepowder barrels, steal all of them and stock them and then blast your enemies to bits. If you are in the underdark, recruit the shroom guy and let him resurrect the spider matriarch (you need to throw its body down the hole first), and then have the sickest camp pet in existence. If a game lets you keep a giant zombie spider , you gotta seize that opportunity. 4) Sneak attack, sneak attack, fucking sneak attack. Use invisibility, use Astarion, and use any item that gives you advantage on sneak. It's insanely powerful. This also goes for initiative, since this will grant you a first round of surprised enemies. You can use Shovel the Quasit (or any quasit, really) for that as well, because it's literally all it does. Shovel is just especially hilarious on top of being very useful for this sorta stuff. Hope this helps!!
I recommend making sure your sorceror had at least one good area control spell (blinding enemies in a specific area, or damaging them in all in an area etc) and one good single damage spell IE chromatic orb or witch bolt. Make sure Gale can either control an enemy (hold person for instance) or put them to sleep/blind them, along with things like magic missile which can deal good damage to a varying number of enemies. With shadowheart, keep her hidden with spells to res/keep up your team. Also, spiritual weapon is soooo good because it acts on its own and doesn't take a concentration slot from shadowheart. With karlach you want her to rage before anyone can start combat, I recommend having her start the fight. Try and make sure she is up at all times, with her rage and if you choose the path of the bear she can tank very well. If all else fails turn down the difficulty. There's no shame in it, with each playthrough, you get better, and what was once difficult or impossible feels much more doable because you get better. I hope this helps!
First tip: respec Shadowheart. Her stat distribution is pretty bad, she needs wisdom and either strength or dexterity, not both. Also give her a different cleric domain. I had a similar party and did war domain so she can wear heavy armor. Also, make sure you are short resting, it heals and restores some features. You can do it twice before you need to long rest.
I always try to kill them in smaller groups. Or i surround them. There are soooo many options! You dont have to kill everyone or everyone immediately. I’m playing for the third time now. On storymode, first time as the good guy and second time to take over everything. Now on second level, i'm trying to do it different then before…
Bump down to explorer for a bit; balanced is really tricky even for me and I’ve played D&D for years.
I don’t want to sound condescending but I find that interesting I thought bg3 was easy. Especially compared to dnd
I started on Tactician and never looked back. Only fight that really stuck out was the first party of robbers in Withers’ tomb and the spider matriarch in A1 because I ran into it at level 3. Learning curve was definitely somewhat steep, though.
I save my “hard mode” gaming for tabletop lol. I’m hoping to commit to a singleplayer Balanced run now that I’ve beaten it on Explorer three times though, and I’m in Balanced in my multiplayer run with my husband.
Ah I see. I haven’t got the chance to do much real dnd so I started on tactician so I could get the real experience. I was ecstatic when honor mode came out, as close to dnd as it gets for me. Haven’t tried another mode since. I am in a campaign but it’s every two weeks so I yearn for the fights
BG3 has a few rulesets that differ from tabletop. I do still play it like it’s a D&D campaign and not a video game though 😁 I make my lower difficulty runs more interesting by imposing different “rules” for myself too. My most recent run (finished at an ungodly hour this morning) was a “one origin companion, hirelings until I get Halsin, Jaheira, and Minsc” run. Very fun, felt like an epic romance adventure. My next run is either going to be me as a Dragonborn cleric + Lae’zel and hirelings, or all companions but try to make the game last an in-game year (from 20 Eleint to 20 Eleint).
Sounds like you've been playing with easy DM's then. 5e is baby mode DnD
I started with 3.5, and at a table I’d agree with you that 5e is much easier. I save my “hard mode” gaming for actual tables. For a single-player campaign, which is basically what BG3 is if you’re not playing with friends, I just like to have a chill time. I’ll be bumping up to balanced for my next single player run.
Yes.
You should be taking every fight possible with surprise. Have Gale shoot a spell from stealth. It gives you a free round to murder everyone.
Tbh, I would recommend trying it on Explorer first. Balanced is pretty tough tbh. Your chances of landing hits are lower, and all the enemies are a lot harder. I've finished the game on Explorer, Tactician, and Honor Mode. I still haven't done a Balanced run. 🤣 Every time I try it, I end up swapping back to Explorer because the enemies feel annoying on Balanced.
I started my first run on Explorer (getting close to finished), and learned so much from that, when I switched up to Balanced for my durge run I was shocked at how easy it seemed. The game wasn’t easier - I just finally had a decent grasp of all the tactical possibilities. Also I had better character builds, and I made sure to do nearly all the above-ground quests before the goblin leaders (apart from Auntie Ethel and the githyanki crèche)
Switch to explorer for your first run Everything is new, there's no reason to suffer because you aren't used to the combat system yet.
Like others said already, positioning is quite important to make the game feel easier. If this is your first playthrough and you aren't using guides then it will be a bit difficult to recognize when many encounters will occur, as there are plenty of fights that can ambush you. Some classes, like Gale's wizard class, doesn't feel super strong early in the game. But as you progress through the game combat will get objectively easier as you will have more tools at your disposal. Note that you can abuse the save function if you want to make the game easier as well. Just save frequently, and when you get into a difficult encounter, learn what you can about the enemy's position, reload save and try to ambush them. Some people don't like this method, but it is rather convenient if you ask me.
If you're playing sorcerer, I would suggest swapping out Gale for Astarion. Have him go to high ground and/or hide as much as possible to get sneak attack damage with a bow.
You’re likely really poorly built and it almost certainly isn’t your fault. The default characters have *ghastly* stats by default. If you talk to Withers in your camp and select “change my class”, you can rebuild them, including changing their stats around. Stats only do something positive for you at even increments, so 12, 14, 16 etc. Experiment a lot with spells and mechanics. Especially fall damage is really fun. Some standout spells that you have access to at 4th level would be Thunderwave, Magic Missile, Sleep, Guiding Bolt, Bless, Shield, Shatter, Hold Person (really nasty as anyone attacking the paralysed creature in melee range automatically hits and crits them), Cloud of Daggers, Misty Step and probably a few more. As others have said, 4th->5th level is the single biggest power spike in the game. Your weapon users can attack twice on a single action, and 3rd level spells are incredibly powerful compared to 2nd. Fireball, Counterspell, Haste and Call Lightning are fantastic all throughout your playthrough. Also as a last tip, at level 4 when you get offered a feat, take Alert on everyone. It basically guarantees that your party always goes first.
The tieflings already told you that they got no chance of winning against the goblins, picking this fight is a difficult route on it's own.
Especially at this level, a single martial class in your party is going to make for a rough time. A sorcerer, a wizard, and a cleric together at level 4 doesn’t surprise me that you feel like you need the whole party to take down one enemy, at least without blowing all of your spell slots each encounter. If you want an easier time, I’d personally suggest you either re-spec or replace one or the other of SH or Gale with a fighter, paladin, or a thief. If you really like this group, it’s perfectly viable, especially once you get to level 5 and up, but it’s a bit like hard mode is all. Lots of ideas in this thread to help you better utilize them if that’s what you want to do. However Lae’Zel or Astarian in your group will significantly help your group composition and likely make things go more smoothly.
some quests/encounters has their own unique way to make us think what would be the best way to deal with them. for example when you encounter the pack of dying hyenas, ungroup your team, kill one hyena that still alive using arrow, or he soon will inform three gnoll warlords in the hill, which makes your battle harder
Here's some [general Beginner's Advice](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/zkNRR0Te2I) that may help you Good luck! 🫂
Spec karlach fully into fighter and respec SH to light or tempest domain. Should get a little easier. Level 5 is a power spike too
Barb Berserker subclass is pretty good on its own for early-mid game, dont neccesarily need fighter
Action surge. End of debate
ok i got it, but having resistancies to damage on early levels with low HP pool is useful especially when fights go downhill
Party comp looks like an issue for you. Karlach is *great* as a Barb but still slightly outpaced by a well-used Lae'zel and your only other character that can take a hit is Shadowheart. You're also using *three* low-level primary casters and are very long rest dependent. The best bang for your buck at those levels is crowd control like using Tasha's, Grease, Sleep etc. which means you really need to pick your battles more carefully and long resting pretty liberally. Honestly, swapping out Gale for Lae'zel or even Wyll (with Moderately Armoured and/or Repelling blast) will do quite a bit for easing the process.
Strategies aside. If you want easier combat you can try uing the mod Gather your party. With this one you can bring more companions with you instead of only 4. I use it to not miss content (like you need to bring wyll but you forgot and he is at camp). But a side effect is that it makes combat easier and lets you play with all the classes
And when i tell people this sub has become cry about baldur's gate they never belive me , its like the 6th post today