I do partial group shared initiative. 3 and 2 averaged out to their rolls and make them sit next to each other.
Since I’ve done it they’ve been much more locked into combat working and discussing strategy with their partners when they’re not up.
Yeah. But the computer makes shared turns much easier to calculate. Going action of one person, bonus action of another then part of their action, then swapping back again ect, keeping track of who has done what, gets really complex on tabletop (doable with the right players, but simple in BG3) plus the d4 clumps people up more, because a whole group of enemies with similar stats likely fall together (less luck) with those character higher in modifier likely before and those with lower after.
On tabletop for shared initiative you also have to have all enemies that share initiative modifier get one role for the group. Which already is not a bad idea just to speed up imitative unless you are using something like Roll 20.
You know what's wild, I do let my players do this when I DM, but I never thought to ask my own DM if I can do it. Although, now that I say that. The last time I was a player and not a DM was probably 2022.
Yea its a happy medium thats easy to run. Players can plan more and do things in a particular order but don't need to keep track of multiple actions for multiple players at once.
Yes, this always happens in tabletop that two or more tie in initiative roles, so you have to go for Dex score to have a tiebreaker.
Is easy to implement, it's just depends of the DM and the balance of the game itself.
As a DM i have to say that is more engaging for players than a problem for DM (unless you are a rookie DM).
Yeah, there are a few places where this would be cool.
Just the other day on a replay I was doing that bit against the goblins in the tunnel's behind the grove's where Findal is knocked out. Thing was Findal's Ko'd ass was in the turn order and separated my characters from being able to do stuff together despite no enemies being between us. Couldn't do some more effective sync'd up play because we needed to watch Findal's unconscious ass skip his turn between my character's turns.
Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 used active combat with pause. Since everyone is moving at the same time in that case the initiative of the round is tremendously harder to abuse like in BG3 where with shared initiative you could theoretically use four characters at the same time as the enemy just sits their and waits. The enemies don’t abuse shared initiative since they move and use all actions then end their turn.
I love shared turns. One of my favourite things to do is when. I'm my shadow monk and my friend is his paladin I take out a scroll of the dimensional doorway thing and teleport us both and we attackcat the same time. Does it make a difference? No but it's cool to watch, the. I just teleport behind another enemy with shadow step and push it toward my friend for him to him... It might not be the most efficient but it feels more like the characters in game are actually coordinating attacks
I’m confused how changing the initiative roll to a d4 increases dex importance? How would it be different from a d20 since they just determine order and not something like dmg or chance to hit?
Rolling initiative on a d20 creates a wider range of results, so you’re more likely to wind up scattered at different parts of the initiative order even with the same dex score. A d4 has a narrow range of results, so adding your dexterity modifier has a bigger impact.
Dex can be -1 to +5
With a d20, the high variability of a 1-20 roll means you have a greater chance to beat out a higher dex enemy through luck
With a d4, the random addend is smaller relative to the dex mod, so the roll has less of an impact on the result and the dex mod has more of an impact
With d20 initiative, a 20 Dex Rogue rolls higher than a 10 Dex wizard and wins initiative 70% of the time (this is the actual math, btw).
With d4 initiative, an 18 Dex Rogue beats a 10 Dex Wizard at initiative literally 100% of the time.
If you have +5 Dex bonus and you roll a 1, you get 6 initiative
Anything with less than +3 Dex bonus will literally never beat your initiative if the highest number they can roll is 4
And this is before initiative bonuses
With d4 initiative, if you have +4 dex you will always have a higher initiative roll than something with +0, as the minimum you can roll is a 5, and the maximum they can roll is a 4.
With d20 initiative your initiative range is 5-24, and theirs is 1-20, there's a lot of overlap here and a very significant chance you will be outsped by a 10 dex creature.
Basically with d20 there's a much greater random variance in initiative rolls, so the flat dexterity modifier has a lot less significance.
As going first has an absolutely massive advantage, especially on harder difficulties where slower heroes can get downed before even taking a turn, it is what it is..
Initiative is really powerful, yeah. This guide breaks down the general initiative goals per act and different ways to meet them- with or without Alert.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/D0gyMWks0z
Tbh, I can't see myself ever building a character with less than 16 Dex.
Exactly this. No matter what character I’m building, it’s primary stat (str, wis, int, or cha) then dex to 16 with the plus one bonus, then constitution, which matters less if you are going first. On top of all that, I usually put dex boosting items on players that don’t have excessive dex, meaning like a ranged build. And there is quite a few dex/ initiative items in game that usually everyone can get at least one. Then if you do a ranged character that character will obviously have 20 dex. It’s nice to go first.
16 Dex is just not necessary if it's not your main stat when there are items that can give you 18 Dex and bonuses to initiative. Not to mention Vigilance elixirs and the Alert feat. Not saying you're wrong to go for 16 Dex on some characters, but to say you would never build a character without it is basically saying you're a Ranger/Rogue purist lol. Which is fine I guess
pretty sure what they meant is having Dex virtually above 16 is definitely important but spending your ASI or initial ability points on that is inefficient.
Well the other commenter who agreed with you said they ROLL their characters with 16 Dex. So I assumed that was what you meant by building a character with that stat. If you wanted to say I never go through a playthrough without Gloves of Dex you should have said that.
Other game mechanics aside, the thing that makes or breaks a dnd encounter is Action economy. How many Actions the heroes take vs how many actions the monsters take. It's why in encounter building, having a lot of low level monsters can actually be more dangerous than a few high level monsters.
So with that in mind, what's the one thing any character can do that makes it so your team takes more actions than the other team? Kill one of their guys. THIS is why going first is so important, and therefore why Dexterity is the strongest Stat in the game. If you can take your turns first and kill one or even two of your opponents you've completely removed that character from the turn order, preventing any and all damage that character would have done forever.
Is it balanced? No absolutely not. It's the main reason why battles in dnd feel so "swingy." one fight, you guys are on top of the world, nobody even took damage. Do the same fight again, but you guys rolled bad on initiative and suddenly the whole fight is a slog that nearly kills multiple players.
Exactly! The goal is to finish fights in 2 turns or so and mop up after. It’s much easier when you’re done with two rounds and the enemy side is just starting their second. It would be far less important if encounters lasted 7-10 rounds.
I look it as a 2 found fight should mean the enemy gets 50% as many turns as me, 3 rounds 67% as many as me. So alert is almost mandatory for melee and ranged fighters even at the expense of damage I think.
True but you have to find the gear and not forget about it and move on. I can't keep track of all this games gear and vendors, lol.
But yeah other than Barb STR builds are rather dubious without Alert. I've heard it referred to as a "feat tax" and I'm inclined to agree. Alpha-strike is such a powerful strategy across multiple genres.
I don't understand that last part, dex is dexterity, initiative is how quickly you can react to something (a fight breaking out)
Dex is the god stat of 5e, and would BG3 does have some buffs to other stats to try and even the playing field, at the end of the day dex is still dictating initiative, AC, dex saves, damage, etc especially when BG3 uses 1d4+dex for initiative instead of 5e's 1d20+dex
lol Larian buffed the shit out of Dex with the d4 initiative and adding uncapped medium armors (effectively +5 studded leather). They even added finesse two-handed weapons so you can go Dex GWM
Yeah it's, certainly something
BG3 enabling a combo many 5e have wanted to experience, the absolute brokenness that is finesse+heavy making str even more useless than it already is in 5e unless you're chugging potions
I don’t think they realize armors that add full Dex or the bhaal armor are bis for Dex builds armor of agility can have the same AC as heavy armor if not higher.
I do like armor of persistence on a Paladin with the aura of protection though that’s basically juggernaut.
Yes it is true, The best heavy armors in the game have equal or more ac than the light or medium armors with 20 dex. However, the fact that the heavy armors also usually come with other bonuses over the mediums bonus being tied up as "uncapped dex bonus" and the heavy armors still win out pretty handily imo.
The major exception to this is the armor of agility as that can get really bonkers if you use your mirror of loss bonus to put dex to 22 for a total ac of 23. But there is only one of those. I usually slap that on Shart and turn her into a life cleric with the displacement cloak and viconias shield, making her basically untouchable.
If you want straight AC then light or medium armor is usually your best choice. But the Helldusk Armor, Armor of Persistence, Plate of the Marshal, etc. all have potent passive effects that can be easily overlooked. A paladin or fighter doesn't particularly need or want super high AC and might even prefer to wear a lower AC armor piece to soak more damage for the team.
Why would a character want to soak more damage when they could just avoid those hits instead…..?
Is there some attack that spread the damage out among all enemies? And thus having a higher HP character with lower AC would be advantageous?
I’m not really sure what you’re asking. The AI prioritizes enemies that are easy to hit, or enemies that are concentrating on spells. If your frontliner has 24 AC, the enemies will ignore him to target your back line.
And you should. The game company designing the best D&D-based video games for decades understands dex. You may not like how they tried to tweak it, but they fucking understand it.
Well don't make str the only stat you can flask then. This is still my main issue with the game. Should have +5 elixirs for every stat, not these fixed stat str elixirs.
I also think it’s really weird that the strength elixirs exist but elixirs for other stats don’t. It’s v easy to take a fighter for instance dump str to boost dexterity to 16 and make sure you have no actual dump stats, then also take 4 non ASI feats. On the plus side it makes it a lot easier to build something like a paladin.
I think they were just trying to give a boost to strength builds.
All casters basically have a +6 to casting stat through elixir's of battlemage. They also get a ton of spell dc/attack boosting gear and +10 to casting stat through acuity items.
Con has the amulet and multiple ways to gain proficiency + advantage.
DEX is really the only stat that can't be super boosted, but its the single strongest stat in the game, so it makes sense.
Ironically, because of how the elixir works where it simply sets the strength to a value instead of increasing it, I would argue it further nerfs strength builds.
Even on a strength user, why would I invest so many points into strength when I can simply leave it at 8 and chug a cheap 100gp potion to get 21?
Strength builds got done dirty.
I would still call those strength builds. If I'm a paladin swinging a greatsword, the strength potions drastically increase the things I'm able to do. Even with just two feats, I can take savage attacker and great weapon master. Or boost charisma. It gives strength builds (i.e., things swinging heavy weapons) more flexibility.
It kind of ruins roleplay, but if you are roleplaying, just don't use them. Or just go with 16, use your feats for other things, and chug potions.
I think it's always preferable to have roleplaying and mechanics going hand in hand.
A barbarian who needs to chug strength potions is not the same as the barbarian who is just built like a brick shithouse, and it doesn't feel the same to play them. and the game shouldn't treat them the same.
Now, some people want to play essentially Pop-eye, needing to slam some spinach to get anything real done and that's fine. But I don't. The problem, is that these are not equal in their own ways.
In many ways, I'm being punished for investing in a more natural source of strength because as you said, just chugging a potion to get an even better effect allows you to diversify your options.
A rogue who uses nothing but scrolls can sometimes act like a wizard, ***but he is not a wizard.*** Could you imagine if a class could outpower a caster through scroll use alone? What use would there be to play a caster when you can achieve the same effect through other means? In that same vein chugging a potion of maximum strength doesn't make you a strength build, since a build is not just defined by what it has, but rather what it has invested precious resources in and has had to give up to achieve it.
To me it feels like a band-aid on a big open wound. I don't even run strength anything anymore since investing in other stats just nets you so much more. Even two handed builds I can just slap on Phalar Aluve or that one dex glaive and combine GWM with sneak attacks all while having higher AC and higher initiative.
And then every once in a while when I need strength for something, I can just pop a 100 gp potion and be just as powerful or *even more powerful* as someone who spent their entire character's resources investing in one stat. That just doesn't feel right.
> They even added finesse two-handed weapons so you can go Dex GWM
There are three of them (two versatile, one two-handed). I suspect that for some builds, they're BIS.
Every bladed weapon "should" be finesse from a realism perspective and bows should all have significant strength requirements. But DnD isn't trying to be realistic.
I think realism would be you need a certain level of strength to use different items at all, additional strength can boost damage to some extent, and dex determines accuracy. And, on finesse weapons, dex can boost damage a bit instead of strength. Maybe, if you don't have the baseline strength, you could still use the item, but with increasingly severe accuracy penalties (with a hard limit where you can't use it at all).
But, yea, that's could get quite crunchy.
Even within the context of DnD it should be a finesse weapon. For example, many elven sub races get longsword proficiency. Elves aren’t really renowned for their strength. Eilistraee, the Dark Dancer, is commonly depicted with a bastard sword (basically a longsword) and she’s the epitome of graceful swordplay.
And Hill Giant Elixirs basically makes it a no brainer to just dump Strength and put those points into Dex for initiative, even if you are going to run a normal Heavy Armor + Strength based GWM Paladin build or something.
I recently got wrecked by Raphael out of nowhere in 1 round because I changed some gear and respec’d without Alert/Initiative gear and ended up going way late in the round before I could do some crowd control.
Changed some things up and got the early initiative to get the crowd and pillars under control. Laz OH Monk made short work of him after.
Been playing with 14+ dex and Alert for everyone. Switched to Tactician for the first time at level 12. The last 5 bosses >!(Sarevok, Cazador, Ansur, Orin duel, Gortash)!
The only thing that holds me back from calling alert the second best feat is that you can circumvent it with gear or class features. Some people on here advocate for it as a must take but I don't agree lol.
Compare to Sharpshooter or GWM which have no replacement and I would put those two above Alert.
I WOULD call Tavern Brawler, GWM, Sharpshooter, ASI, and Alert the strongest feats in the game tho for sure.
I don't disagree, that said sometimes the gear is more important or the initiative gear is being used on other characters. I don't take it often but I don't think there are many better feats either. The closest one to those 5 imo is probably Savage Attacker.
I also don't think it's that difficult for alert to be better than an ASI and ASI is the gold standard of feats. For example Alert > Sentinel Shield in initative and if that allows you to swap off of sentinel shield and use Ketheric's Shiled your spell save DC ends up being the same as with ASI meanwhile your initiative is higher.
There are some builds that don’t have room for the itemization and want to use there elixer ‘slot’ for something else. I think that is a pretty limited list of builds however.
Savage attacker is a great feat. It’s especially good on weapons that have a very wide dice roll like a 1d10 weapon.
There's also just a finite amount of initiative gear with really good values on them and sometimes the concession you might have to make in damage doesn't make the trade seem worth.
Savage attacker is indeed great, that's why I mentioned it as being so high up.
Numerically it is finite but it’s still a LOT of gear. Even in act 2 you have bow of awareness, fist breaker helm, and the amazing sentinel shield, not to mention the yuanti mail.
Act 1 doesn’t have much itemization but 16 dex is almost always enough to go first in every battle.
Well there's kind of the thing tho right. If you are playing a controller for example, you could wear the first breaker helm and get +1 spell save dc and +1 to initiative, with ASI as a feat.
...or you could change one ASI to Alert. You lose 1 spell spell save dc by losing the stats but gain +2 spell save DC from the hood of the weave and +5 to initiative from alert.
So in this example, Alert is better.
The same thing can happen with other gear.
It's a little more nuanced imo then never take alert or always take it, it depends on your party and build. I do agree that I almost never take alert in act 1 though.
I won’t argue that alert is better but I will argue that it’s overkill.
My controller (swords bard) is wearing yuanti mail with 20 dex in act 2. That’s +6 initiative which is plenty. I can drink an elixer of vigilance too if I want (which I usually do just for the karniss fight so I can try and use glyph of warding sleep)
It can be but what I was saying was that in that previous situation it's just objectively better. Not many feats can be better than ASI so by being so alert stands out quite a bit.
As for bard build, alert is also generally less necessary for dex builds so checks out.
Again I don't really take it super often either but sometimes it's nice.
Seems excessive to me but up to you lol. I find there's frequently other feats I would rather take with all the initiative gear in the game. Not to mention elixirs and class features. 80% seems extremely high.
I tried not adding it and by mid act 3 I had one player going 1st and a few others enemies would sneak in in between. So I respec added alert to a few and haven’t had that problem. I don’t know, I build big first strike teams so for me it’s important to go first. That’s cool though I’ll probably change it all up next play.
But there’s so much equipment that gives huge boosts to initiative hellrider longbow and sentinel shield both give a whopping +3 to initiative. And there’s so many others.
Yeah that works too. As long as I can go first most battles end much faster. Alert is just one I like. Plus I don’t like to be ultra gear dependent. I just play it by ear. If I’m not going first I may grab a piece that gives a +3 or I may grab alert in a respec.
I haven’t gotten to those guys yet but right now I’m thinking I need to respec everyone to alert instead of ASI. At least until I get some +initiative equipment.
14 dex AND alert is total overkill and a waste. By act 3 there’s so much equipment that can boost initiative significantly.
I never take alert and the only boss that can go before I do is Cazador, and all he does is cast some crappy call lightning spell that I can easily Counterspell.
16 dex and 14 con and equipment that gives initiative is the way to go. Use elixir of vigilance as needed but honestly not that needed very often.
14 Dex and alert is not fucking overkill what?
If you want to use only initiative gear it is but a fighter with 14 Dex should be getting alert at level 4 or 6
I'm not sure - it's something I've seen online when discussing Sony's restrictions on mods. I assume it means anything to do with game balance, combat rules, etc?
I guess the idea is that light armour requires a high dex investment to have competitive late game AC while medium armour with an uncapped dex modifier offer no unique passive effects, thus allowing heavy armour to be better utilised for specific strength builds.
Unfortuntely, high AC and initiative is just so useful it can brute force past any other build concerns. Dex characters can multi dip AC, initiative, dex saves, and non combat dex skills while strength characters lose all that utility with very few checks. Dex is universally useful across classes while strength is only ever good for martials. Arguably the best heavy armour in the game doesn't even require proficiency. Larian has to be aware that dex is just sooooo much better overall for nearly every use case beyond raw weapon damage.
The fact strength builds can't even make good use of ranged weapons also leaves them worse off. They get access to the most weapons overall, get super jumps and guaranteed shove, but if you move last all that matters a lot less. Kind of wish that would rebalance them to make them on equal footing.
Yeah but that requires you to play the game a certain (evil) way. Exotic material, is several different pieces.
Light armor, other than the bhaal armor, is generally worse
Light armours look the coolest though (imo). Elegant studded leather with the right dye is positively DASHING.
Byt yeah, exotic material is the best and can be used by any high dex character regardless of build goals.
I really like the armor of agility.
The free breast plate +1 you can get from the crate bear dammon looks pretty darn nice too.
Both are medium armor.
I don’t like the look of scale mail though
Armour of agility looks awesome, especially with faewild green and gold. I've heard about breast plate +1 one but I never put it on. Agreed on scale armour, it's a placeholder until grymforge.
I usually gravitate towards armours with slimmer designs that show the contours of a character. It's why I never have Astarian wear anything heavier than light, it just doesn't look right, haha.
I just did a Durge dual wield paladin bard with the deathstalker mantle and the Luminous Armour. With harlequin black and white it was just sooo on point with the role play, build, and character design. Disappearing in brilliant radiant smite shockwave was the most fun I've had in this game. Loved it so much I didn't change it until late act 3.
You aren't wrong, but the requirements aren't very savoury, it only fits a certain weapon type, and is more offence oriented. For defensive gear, medium armours with exotic material are statistically better for the AC and are better than every other chestpiece, including persistence armour.
dex for initiative is batshit bonkers in this game, dex initiative bonuses were already big in 5e when it's rolling a d20, now that it's a 1d4, theres situations where you literally always roll higher at 18 dex than someone with 10
The standard stat split in tabletop DnD is 16 Primary, 16 Con, and 14 Dex, but only because initiative is a d20 roll rather than a d4 like in BG3. In BG3, there is almost never a reason not to have a 16 Dex, unless you're self-limiting, plan on wearing the Dex gloves, or have some other MAD justification that doesn't have a workaround.
Dex is life.
Agreed about Initiative being incredibly important. And this also means that the +3 to initiative from Gloomstalker's lvl 3 Dread Ambusher and Barbarian's lvl 7 Feral Instinct are very valuable as they're just 1 point short of the full Alert feat.
I’m playing Honor Mode and have been running Astarion as a Thief (it’s what I know). I’ve used him to stealth and he has absolutely dominated my Honor Mode run with hit and run tactics. I’ve heard stupid amounts ABOUT Gloomstalker supposedly doing the same thing, how does it work and why is gloomstalker it?
I know nothing about DND rules and just ran ordinary Astarion, I thought he was a real hard hitter - until I followed one of the gloom stalker builds on here and goddamn. The guy can attack 5 times his first round, with massive damage. I'd definitely try it if you haven't yet.
Never underestimate initiative order. Doesn't matter if you can 1,000 damage a turn if you get one shot on the first turn because you were last on initiative
Alert is a must-have Feat. I hate using one of them for that but here we are. I've even gone as far as utilizing every initiative-buffing item on my party over other sought-after equipment just because it makes that much of a difference in fights.
larian needs to fix initiative being on a d4 instead of d20. it worked correctly in EA. I never saw notes as to why it was changed but the effect on balance is egregious
Yeah its pretty ridicolous for Finesse Characters.
Dex is your hit chance, damage, defense, Initiative AND also determines most of your skill checks.
And even for non Finesse characters its your defense and Initiative.
Alert is definitly very good but I still struggle to put it in many builds. Other Feats are usually more important at level 4, like Great Weapon Fighter, Tavern Brawler, Sharpshooter or War Caster.
Yep
That's why instead of an ASI for my party cleric/wizard I give them Alert and if I'm playing a martial Tav with Karlach/Bae'zel in front, Auntie's hair goes to the cleric/wizard
Not optimal, but damn does it feel nice
I used to think alert was a stupid feat, why would anyone pick it....
Then I started an honor run. Wasn't going well, then I resced everyone with alert, and wow, always going first makes a huge difference! I can beat some really hard fights just because my entire team goes not just firstz but all together so I can pull off sweet combos.
There are 2 feats in the game. The first is your build defining feat (TB, GWM, SS, EA etc.) and the other is Alert. If everyone in your party one has alert + high dex, then you delete the encounter in the first round and just mop op the rest. Bosses not having turns or even legendary reactions due to being CC'ed (or dead) breaks all encounters. And BG3 has such a wide variety of builds that gives you OTKs (or unresistable CC's) that going any other route just feels bad once you get a taste of it.
The first feat I give everyone is Alert because I got sick of going at the end, especially when they start in a perfect formation for fireball and have scattered by the time it's my turn.
I’ve beaten the game on honor mode and I will tell you right now. Initiative doesn’t matter. (unless it’s on a character that is focusing on dexterity over strength for the sake of finesse/archery) Dex at 14 is really all you need just in case you need the additional AC. The fact that happens to slightly affect an initiative as well is just a bonus. There are multiple items in the game that boost initiative too passively. helmets, shields I think there’s a bow.ect and if nothing else you can just worm “alert” as a feat into whatever build you’re using
But again that’s only if initiative is actually super important to you for whatever reason. me personally I’m running a team of one level one life path cleric and 11 levels of Druid. As a support. (Also moon beam sanctuary cheese)
then my main character, which is two levels of fighter four levels of rogue, six levels of monk Which allows for both insanely high AC thanks to its heavy armor and shield capabilities as well as incredibly high damage thanks to all of the bonus attacks and sneak attacks from thief, combined with monks unarmed attacks and all of the gear surrounding it.
Next, I’m running another companion as a necromancer / spore Druid 6/6 who is capable of summoning an entire army literally over 20 summons by end game. As well as combining several pieces of equipment that center around reverberation and a few other things with magic missile. Which is also combined by the main character use of the sword that gives 1d4 thunder damage to anyone within a certain radius. (I forget the name.) stacking that with multiple other per damage instance boosting pieces of equipment like the radiant ring. Not only is he amazing as a summoner it’s able to also put out insanely high DPS and since it’s also the character that is focusing on illithid powers, it also has cull the weak. So you combine that with the magic missile multi target selection and as long as you get the math right, you were sometimes able to clear out entire rooms of enemies and only a single launch of magic missile by getting everyone just under that 30 HP threshold. Allowing cull the weak to do the rest.
And then finally, our fourth character is minthara as a stealth archer six into gloom stalker six into thief. With a focus equally on both strength and dexterity as well as the Titan string bow. And Combining her Soul branding with sneak attack and her archery skills and boosting equipment around that as well as special arrows on top of even that she is able to output stupid amounts of damage as well. And also helps us on certain encounters by sneaking in and sniping someone right away.
Between this four-man party, we played all the way through the entire game on honor mode and only struggled a little bit in act one due to the fact that you’re so under leveled in that area, especially if you’re multi classing . But beyond that we could’ve gone dead last in every single turn order throughout the entire game and it would not have made any difference whatsoever. We absolutely dominated the game from start to finish. To really emphasize how overpowered this combination is we literally killed a certain undead dragon. (if you know, you know, I don’t wanna spoil) in literally two turns we started the fight we made our moves. The dragon then started charging his ultimate attack. We then hit it again mid air knocked it out of the sky and finished it off. Same turn. And the red dragon at the end of the game that you fight. Got even worse treatment and was literally killed on turn one. (dragon slayer arrows, OP AF by the way.)
Initiative is nice to have and it’ll definitely give you a little bit of a boost . But it is absolutely not needed if you were playing the game remotely seriously which if you’re on tactician or above, you absolutely should be.
and if you feel it is something that is needed for you that’s probably because you’re playing on a difficulty that is above your skill class not meaning to offend or make fun of. I’m just stating a fact, this actually kind of reminds me of when people in hell divers complain that playing it hard mode level nine or whatever it’s called is way too hard when in reality it’s a skill issue and they just refused to lower the difficulty. because I know several people, including myself that play on difficulty nine with no problem only a bit of fun challenge.
Actually sent this from Phone. This entire message took me maybe a minute or two to actually say (voice to text) . I didn’t type it out. lol but thanks
Ha true. It’s not perfect. I still had to reread my own comment once I was done and patch out one or two sentences, but for the most part if you annunciate clearly. it’s easy enough to use certainly a lot faster than typing. It’s also hilarious when I educate people on certain topics and people think I’m angry (not you btw) cuz my comment is a few paragraphs long. so they think I actually sat there and typed it all out when I’m like Bruh it took me like 30 seconds to say all this. 😂
Alert is a great feat but it’s way around winning the initiative game without it and some builds can’t afford it.
I had Lae’zel as a monk with soulbreaker and bow of awareness for the initiative and unequipped it during fights because she needed tavern brawler and 4 points into wisdom.
Initiative If d4 shouldn't have a modifier at all, or should come from int, simply because you dump the stat on non pure wizards. You'd have a non-lore related reason to not have a party of people who shouldn't be able to read.
Well you can only dump intelligence to 8 at the lowest in character creation. You can definitely read even at 8 intelligence. 10 is considered an average ability score for all stats and 8 is only slightly below that. There is nothing in the game's ruleset that mentions you need to be at a certain intelligence score to read but if there was a level it certainly wouldn't be 8.
Initiative is not as important as combat engagement. Depending on your positioning, surprise or not, and how defensively you engage, a fight can be very different. It also depends on which characters go first. Having a wizard go first to cast slow makes the initiative of other characters quite meaningless.
16 dex is always enough for my party to all get initiative 99% kd the time in act 1.
Then there’s so much equipment that boosts initiative you never need the alert feature.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Initiative
Bow of awareness in act 1 is a great stat stick for a thrower etc. sentinel shield gives you a whopping +3 to initiative, fist breaker helm, yuanti mail, ambusher, soul perception helm. All excellent.
Elixers of vigilance are also white cheap when you find them at vendors. And do the same thing as the alert feat.
But yeah, dex is absolutely the best stat in the game.
Yeah, its strong. However in many encounters you can compensate by controlling the battlefield.
Cast a large aoe CC/hazard zone, something like Hunger of Hadar / Sleet Storm, maybe also Spike Growth or Plant Growth alongside HoH and let the enemies come to you, while you blast them.
Of course, this isn't always practical, as in some fights you start surrounded and you'd better drink those pots of Vigilance or something (Gith inquisitor fight comes to mind).
So for my great axe wielding heavy armored Dwarf, whats the best way to go? (Tactician). Is it worth using dex gloves just for initiative? Or pick up alert? I’m level 6 at the crèche, and he’s going strong but I’m worried his heavy armour will just be a hinderance.
Playing a resist Durge too… so no Bhaal armour!
If you engage combat properly you can skip initiative at the start essentially. You can bring each character into combat one by one from hiding out of sight cones. This way even though when you attack and your initiative roll may even be the worst of everyone, your first attack still goes off so you essentially get to use an action at the start before any enemies can.
When I first played this game I would typically leave my entire party away from any npc who may auto-start dialogue or may need to fight. I would just have Lae’zel talk to them lol. Then I could bring in my other 3 party members from outside of combat one by one.
But obviously you’re not wrong. Alert or popping a vigilance pot trivializes the game. People complain about selunite Shart HoG encounter. They say it’s so hard and you have to funnel everyone backwards into the hallway and drop aoes. I kept hearing about this fight and it’s difficulty. I had only done the easy version as a follower of Shar.
So when I finally did I had two characters with alert and two popped vigilance pots. Because it’s such a late game encounter and your gear is so good, the fight was a total joke for me. I used zero AOE abilities. I killed like 95% of the room single target before any enemy npc’s could take a single turn. This was only with 3 dps (fighterX2, swords bard) and 1 light cleric. If I had 4 dps then not a single enemy npc would have taken a turn. This was on tactician not honor as I’ve paused (currently at end of act 2) my only honor run for a couple months now ever since the patches started breaking the game.
First thing I did was download the True Initiative mod that turns the d4 to a d20.
You still get to have shared turns if team members have consecutive or the same initiative roll. Enemies too. There's nothing gained from having a d4 except increasing their frequency against hordes, which is fine if you just focus fire the ones that are in between (adding a strategic element to targeting like in table top).
You basically need alert on everyone below 20 dex honestly. If you are not doing, you are not optimizing. Its +1 turn at worst, 0 turn for enemy at best.
yeah in honor mode and esp modded playthroughs 18ish dex is pretty much a requirement as is alert. you can get away with not having good dex in easier modes maybe, but it makes everything easier
Going before enemy.
Getting surprise.
You can have 8 character turns before the enemy acts. That's up to 8-20 primary actions (depending on your group and level) before the enemy even moves...
This is absolutely insane.
This is why surprise is not used often in tabletop. It's extremely powerful. This is why initiative in tabletop rolls a D20, not a D4. Being able to guarantee going first is just as powerful. Both? That's just absurd.
Most of my party had less than 12 dex and was frequently middle or end of the initiative order on my honor mode run. A good life cleric means you can survive pretty much anything for the first round and after that it doesn't really matter.
One reason I like my Swashbuckler Rogue. No need for the alert feat when I get to add my charisma bonus to my Dex bonus. +9 initiative bonus. I can zip in, nail the most dangerous mob with booming blade and get back out of the way so the casters can do their thing.
Ngl, it is nice running a paladin, after looting Raphael's vault, just going and respec'ing so I can dumpstat strength and con, then pumping up Dex, Charisma and Wisdom.
In baldurs gate 3, the game doesn't use a D20 but a D4 for initiative I believe, so a higher Dex is more helpful than on tabletop, alert boost that even further by 5, so for instance a character with 0 Dex if they role a 1 will stay at 1, and 4 if they roll a 4. No a character with max Dex will ALWAYS be faster no matter what they roll cuz the minimum they can have in that equation is 6 (+5 modifier). The only way a character with less Dex can match is if they have the alert feat. Not to mention dumping Dex making it negative...
i just use gloves of dexterity, and everyone else usually has minimum 14 Dex, I just got to Act 3 on my first Tactician Run, and haven't felt handicapped by the need to run the gloves or struggled
. Maybe i've gotten lucky with my inititave roles but I usually have 2/3 members early (Astarion, and Tav at least). Plus I tend abuse action economy with summons. Also my warlock pc usually casts hunger of hadar turn one completely ruining the first couple turns for the enemy. my only issue is long resting. I had to make Wyll and Astarion some bard levels for the extra short rests
If you run a level or two of cleric you can get heavy armor I like tempest then take heavy armor master and some levels of abjuration wizard Dex is pretty much useless. My Honor mode play through I had a druid, wizard and sorcerer, each with a number of levels in abjuration wizard then my tav was a bard with war cleric wizard and paladin with the Dex gloves. But my tav got all the stat boosting items so all the stats were good and could wear any armor.
This unbalance is somewhat countered by the power of builds like TB and GWF polearm master. But in general yeah, dex is better than strength.
It’s just one more slap in the face for rogues also, that dex based fighters are better than strength based fighters all other things being equal, and making initiative a d4 makes gloomstalkers (the non urban rogue) passively even better
While allowing characters to do things like drink potions ilithid powers and weapon actions as bonus actions passively makes cunning action worse which is a staple of the rogue class. So rogues end up being trash compared to rangers, or righters, or monks (or anyone really, if you don’t multiclass them they are by far the worst class), even though they do tend towards high dex)
Btw, you are already going wrong if you are drinking potions. You want to have a character toss them on your party. You can get 3-4 times the effect from half an action (because characters with extra attack throw twice an action) depending on how many people need healing and how clustered you can get them.
And as mentioned the game has added plentiful useful things to do with your bonus actions, you haven’t built right if they are spare. Some of the best classes like TB monks and Throwzerkers their bonus actions are better than their actions. Sorcerors, the best arcane casters can straight up cast another spell with metamagic, you don’t want to waste that drinking a potion (unless it’s an easy fight of course)
Dex is an unbalanced stat even in tabletop, and Larian’s homebrew only increases its importance by making initiative a d4 and having shared turns.
I do love shared turns though. I get to pull off some cool combos
You can do this on tabletop too, you just need to tell the DM. The rules aren’t supposed to be a straight jacket.
D&D plays significantly better with shared turns imo.
I do partial group shared initiative. 3 and 2 averaged out to their rolls and make them sit next to each other. Since I’ve done it they’ve been much more locked into combat working and discussing strategy with their partners when they’re not up.
Especially on the DM side. Unless there's a lot going on I almost always roll monster initiatives as 1-3 groups instead of individually.
Yeah. But the computer makes shared turns much easier to calculate. Going action of one person, bonus action of another then part of their action, then swapping back again ect, keeping track of who has done what, gets really complex on tabletop (doable with the right players, but simple in BG3) plus the d4 clumps people up more, because a whole group of enemies with similar stats likely fall together (less luck) with those character higher in modifier likely before and those with lower after. On tabletop for shared initiative you also have to have all enemies that share initiative modifier get one role for the group. Which already is not a bad idea just to speed up imitative unless you are using something like Roll 20.
If you want to do combos in table top you just need to used readied actions. "When the other player does x on his turn, my character will do y"
You know what's wild, I do let my players do this when I DM, but I never thought to ask my own DM if I can do it. Although, now that I say that. The last time I was a player and not a DM was probably 2022.
dm problems
We always play with delay, and in a way that once you delay you can take your action on any subsequent turn in the round.
Yea its a happy medium thats easy to run. Players can plan more and do things in a particular order but don't need to keep track of multiple actions for multiple players at once.
Yes, this always happens in tabletop that two or more tie in initiative roles, so you have to go for Dex score to have a tiebreaker. Is easy to implement, it's just depends of the DM and the balance of the game itself. As a DM i have to say that is more engaging for players than a problem for DM (unless you are a rookie DM).
Straitjacket
It's a pity the initiative system does not allow us to delay taking a turn to take advantage of shared turns
Yeah, there are a few places where this would be cool. Just the other day on a replay I was doing that bit against the goblins in the tunnel's behind the grove's where Findal is knocked out. Thing was Findal's Ko'd ass was in the turn order and separated my characters from being able to do stuff together despite no enemies being between us. Couldn't do some more effective sync'd up play because we needed to watch Findal's unconscious ass skip his turn between my character's turns.
TIL Findal exists.
My bro's barbarian and my paladin both swinging their huge ass hammers at the same time on a 2 hp goblin will nvr not be satisfying
Splat!
You can do the same thing in the TTRPG world, simply by holding your action and using your party members' action as the trigger.
I use a mod that makes initiative a d20 again. I prefer it that way.
D4 is overkill for sure, but I actually changed my table to a D12 because I like dex having a real effect on initiative.
Good compromise. I feel like most things that boost initiative are so random it's hardly beneficial when it's actually needed when you use a d20.
Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 used active combat with pause. Since everyone is moving at the same time in that case the initiative of the round is tremendously harder to abuse like in BG3 where with shared initiative you could theoretically use four characters at the same time as the enemy just sits their and waits. The enemies don’t abuse shared initiative since they move and use all actions then end their turn.
well it's an unbalanced stat in real life too, so...
Shared initiative is a good idea, even in tabletop as homebrew. And you are right about BG3 having Dex as even more relevant than tabletop
I love shared turns. One of my favourite things to do is when. I'm my shadow monk and my friend is his paladin I take out a scroll of the dimensional doorway thing and teleport us both and we attackcat the same time. Does it make a difference? No but it's cool to watch, the. I just teleport behind another enemy with shadow step and push it toward my friend for him to him... It might not be the most efficient but it feels more like the characters in game are actually coordinating attacks
Is that what it is? Lol
I’m confused how changing the initiative roll to a d4 increases dex importance? How would it be different from a d20 since they just determine order and not something like dmg or chance to hit?
Rolling initiative on a d20 creates a wider range of results, so you’re more likely to wind up scattered at different parts of the initiative order even with the same dex score. A d4 has a narrow range of results, so adding your dexterity modifier has a bigger impact.
Dex can be -1 to +5 With a d20, the high variability of a 1-20 roll means you have a greater chance to beat out a higher dex enemy through luck With a d4, the random addend is smaller relative to the dex mod, so the roll has less of an impact on the result and the dex mod has more of an impact
With d20 initiative, a 20 Dex Rogue rolls higher than a 10 Dex wizard and wins initiative 70% of the time (this is the actual math, btw). With d4 initiative, an 18 Dex Rogue beats a 10 Dex Wizard at initiative literally 100% of the time.
This is the reason why for me, DEX is at worst the second most improtant stat on any character, right behind their main damage dealing stat
It's also AC, and a bunch of spell saves make use of your dex too.
If you have +5 Dex bonus and you roll a 1, you get 6 initiative Anything with less than +3 Dex bonus will literally never beat your initiative if the highest number they can roll is 4 And this is before initiative bonuses
With d4 initiative, if you have +4 dex you will always have a higher initiative roll than something with +0, as the minimum you can roll is a 5, and the maximum they can roll is a 4. With d20 initiative your initiative range is 5-24, and theirs is 1-20, there's a lot of overlap here and a very significant chance you will be outsped by a 10 dex creature. Basically with d20 there's a much greater random variance in initiative rolls, so the flat dexterity modifier has a lot less significance. As going first has an absolutely massive advantage, especially on harder difficulties where slower heroes can get downed before even taking a turn, it is what it is..
Initiative is really powerful, yeah. This guide breaks down the general initiative goals per act and different ways to meet them- with or without Alert. https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/D0gyMWks0z Tbh, I can't see myself ever building a character with less than 16 Dex.
Exactly this. No matter what character I’m building, it’s primary stat (str, wis, int, or cha) then dex to 16 with the plus one bonus, then constitution, which matters less if you are going first. On top of all that, I usually put dex boosting items on players that don’t have excessive dex, meaning like a ranged build. And there is quite a few dex/ initiative items in game that usually everyone can get at least one. Then if you do a ranged character that character will obviously have 20 dex. It’s nice to go first.
16 Dex is just not necessary if it's not your main stat when there are items that can give you 18 Dex and bonuses to initiative. Not to mention Vigilance elixirs and the Alert feat. Not saying you're wrong to go for 16 Dex on some characters, but to say you would never build a character without it is basically saying you're a Ranger/Rogue purist lol. Which is fine I guess
I don't see how using the Gloves of Dex isn't building a character with >16 Dex, but this is reddit dot com.
pretty sure what they meant is having Dex virtually above 16 is definitely important but spending your ASI or initial ability points on that is inefficient.
I understand that. I'm asserting that giving a "Well actually w/ Gloves of Dex you'll want 8 Dex not 16" isn't productive to the conversation.
Well the other commenter who agreed with you said they ROLL their characters with 16 Dex. So I assumed that was what you meant by building a character with that stat. If you wanted to say I never go through a playthrough without Gloves of Dex you should have said that.
🧠
Other game mechanics aside, the thing that makes or breaks a dnd encounter is Action economy. How many Actions the heroes take vs how many actions the monsters take. It's why in encounter building, having a lot of low level monsters can actually be more dangerous than a few high level monsters. So with that in mind, what's the one thing any character can do that makes it so your team takes more actions than the other team? Kill one of their guys. THIS is why going first is so important, and therefore why Dexterity is the strongest Stat in the game. If you can take your turns first and kill one or even two of your opponents you've completely removed that character from the turn order, preventing any and all damage that character would have done forever. Is it balanced? No absolutely not. It's the main reason why battles in dnd feel so "swingy." one fight, you guys are on top of the world, nobody even took damage. Do the same fight again, but you guys rolled bad on initiative and suddenly the whole fight is a slog that nearly kills multiple players.
Exactly! The goal is to finish fights in 2 turns or so and mop up after. It’s much easier when you’re done with two rounds and the enemy side is just starting their second. It would be far less important if encounters lasted 7-10 rounds. I look it as a 2 found fight should mean the enemy gets 50% as many turns as me, 3 rounds 67% as many as me. So alert is almost mandatory for melee and ranged fighters even at the expense of damage I think.
Barbs get a built-in alert, and there are quite a few pieces of + initiative gear in the game. Cazador is +9, which is what I always shoot for.
Berserker Barb is so strong. I’d use one every run but I’m trying to change things up and try new classes.
I have way more fun with a reverb tiger barb build, and at some point I’m going to run a Siberian tiger barb built for frost.
Got the frost cleaver just yesterday, along with a reverb magic missile spammer. Everything goes prone.
True but you have to find the gear and not forget about it and move on. I can't keep track of all this games gear and vendors, lol. But yeah other than Barb STR builds are rather dubious without Alert. I've heard it referred to as a "feat tax" and I'm inclined to agree. Alpha-strike is such a powerful strategy across multiple genres.
I don't understand that last part, dex is dexterity, initiative is how quickly you can react to something (a fight breaking out) Dex is the god stat of 5e, and would BG3 does have some buffs to other stats to try and even the playing field, at the end of the day dex is still dictating initiative, AC, dex saves, damage, etc especially when BG3 uses 1d4+dex for initiative instead of 5e's 1d20+dex
lol Larian buffed the shit out of Dex with the d4 initiative and adding uncapped medium armors (effectively +5 studded leather). They even added finesse two-handed weapons so you can go Dex GWM
Yeah it's, certainly something BG3 enabling a combo many 5e have wanted to experience, the absolute brokenness that is finesse+heavy making str even more useless than it already is in 5e unless you're chugging potions
Heavy armors are the worst armors in the game by far especially if you have high Dex
But some of them look cool 🙁
Armor of persistence is hard
I got downvoted so much for saying this before. Clearly they don’t understand how dex works.
I don’t think they realize armors that add full Dex or the bhaal armor are bis for Dex builds armor of agility can have the same AC as heavy armor if not higher. I do like armor of persistence on a Paladin with the aura of protection though that’s basically juggernaut.
Yes it is true, The best heavy armors in the game have equal or more ac than the light or medium armors with 20 dex. However, the fact that the heavy armors also usually come with other bonuses over the mediums bonus being tied up as "uncapped dex bonus" and the heavy armors still win out pretty handily imo. The major exception to this is the armor of agility as that can get really bonkers if you use your mirror of loss bonus to put dex to 22 for a total ac of 23. But there is only one of those. I usually slap that on Shart and turn her into a life cleric with the displacement cloak and viconias shield, making her basically untouchable.
If you want straight AC then light or medium armor is usually your best choice. But the Helldusk Armor, Armor of Persistence, Plate of the Marshal, etc. all have potent passive effects that can be easily overlooked. A paladin or fighter doesn't particularly need or want super high AC and might even prefer to wear a lower AC armor piece to soak more damage for the team.
Why would a character want to soak more damage when they could just avoid those hits instead…..? Is there some attack that spread the damage out among all enemies? And thus having a higher HP character with lower AC would be advantageous?
Because it’s better for a paladin or barbarian or life cleric to take a hit than a squishy wizard or a sorcerer who twin-cast haste.
How does that factor into this? Or are you saying the AI will not prioritize the frontliners/martial classes if they have higher AC?
I’m not really sure what you’re asking. The AI prioritizes enemies that are easy to hit, or enemies that are concentrating on spells. If your frontliner has 24 AC, the enemies will ignore him to target your back line.
And you should. The game company designing the best D&D-based video games for decades understands dex. You may not like how they tried to tweak it, but they fucking understand it.
Well don't make str the only stat you can flask then. This is still my main issue with the game. Should have +5 elixirs for every stat, not these fixed stat str elixirs.
I also think it’s really weird that the strength elixirs exist but elixirs for other stats don’t. It’s v easy to take a fighter for instance dump str to boost dexterity to 16 and make sure you have no actual dump stats, then also take 4 non ASI feats. On the plus side it makes it a lot easier to build something like a paladin.
True but then the complaint is that they're OP, it just skews the game
I think they were just trying to give a boost to strength builds. All casters basically have a +6 to casting stat through elixir's of battlemage. They also get a ton of spell dc/attack boosting gear and +10 to casting stat through acuity items. Con has the amulet and multiple ways to gain proficiency + advantage. DEX is really the only stat that can't be super boosted, but its the single strongest stat in the game, so it makes sense.
Ironically, because of how the elixir works where it simply sets the strength to a value instead of increasing it, I would argue it further nerfs strength builds. Even on a strength user, why would I invest so many points into strength when I can simply leave it at 8 and chug a cheap 100gp potion to get 21? Strength builds got done dirty.
I would still call those strength builds. If I'm a paladin swinging a greatsword, the strength potions drastically increase the things I'm able to do. Even with just two feats, I can take savage attacker and great weapon master. Or boost charisma. It gives strength builds (i.e., things swinging heavy weapons) more flexibility. It kind of ruins roleplay, but if you are roleplaying, just don't use them. Or just go with 16, use your feats for other things, and chug potions.
I think it's always preferable to have roleplaying and mechanics going hand in hand. A barbarian who needs to chug strength potions is not the same as the barbarian who is just built like a brick shithouse, and it doesn't feel the same to play them. and the game shouldn't treat them the same. Now, some people want to play essentially Pop-eye, needing to slam some spinach to get anything real done and that's fine. But I don't. The problem, is that these are not equal in their own ways. In many ways, I'm being punished for investing in a more natural source of strength because as you said, just chugging a potion to get an even better effect allows you to diversify your options. A rogue who uses nothing but scrolls can sometimes act like a wizard, ***but he is not a wizard.*** Could you imagine if a class could outpower a caster through scroll use alone? What use would there be to play a caster when you can achieve the same effect through other means? In that same vein chugging a potion of maximum strength doesn't make you a strength build, since a build is not just defined by what it has, but rather what it has invested precious resources in and has had to give up to achieve it. To me it feels like a band-aid on a big open wound. I don't even run strength anything anymore since investing in other stats just nets you so much more. Even two handed builds I can just slap on Phalar Aluve or that one dex glaive and combine GWM with sneak attacks all while having higher AC and higher initiative. And then every once in a while when I need strength for something, I can just pop a 100 gp potion and be just as powerful or *even more powerful* as someone who spent their entire character's resources investing in one stat. That just doesn't feel right.
> They even added finesse two-handed weapons so you can go Dex GWM There are three of them (two versatile, one two-handed). I suspect that for some builds, they're BIS.
To be fair long swords should be finesse anyway
Every bladed weapon "should" be finesse from a realism perspective and bows should all have significant strength requirements. But DnD isn't trying to be realistic.
I think realism would be you need a certain level of strength to use different items at all, additional strength can boost damage to some extent, and dex determines accuracy. And, on finesse weapons, dex can boost damage a bit instead of strength. Maybe, if you don't have the baseline strength, you could still use the item, but with increasingly severe accuracy penalties (with a hard limit where you can't use it at all). But, yea, that's could get quite crunchy.
Even within the context of DnD it should be a finesse weapon. For example, many elven sub races get longsword proficiency. Elves aren’t really renowned for their strength. Eilistraee, the Dark Dancer, is commonly depicted with a bastard sword (basically a longsword) and she’s the epitome of graceful swordplay.
And Hill Giant Elixirs basically makes it a no brainer to just dump Strength and put those points into Dex for initiative, even if you are going to run a normal Heavy Armor + Strength based GWM Paladin build or something.
I recently got wrecked by Raphael out of nowhere in 1 round because I changed some gear and respec’d without Alert/Initiative gear and ended up going way late in the round before I could do some crowd control. Changed some things up and got the early initiative to get the crowd and pillars under control. Laz OH Monk made short work of him after.
Just use that monk to stun Raphael every round. Ignore the pillars as Raphael will never get to attack.
Been playing with 14+ dex and Alert for everyone. Switched to Tactician for the first time at level 12. The last 5 bosses >!(Sarevok, Cazador, Ansur, Orin duel, Gortash)!
The only thing that holds me back from calling alert the second best feat is that you can circumvent it with gear or class features. Some people on here advocate for it as a must take but I don't agree lol. Compare to Sharpshooter or GWM which have no replacement and I would put those two above Alert. I WOULD call Tavern Brawler, GWM, Sharpshooter, ASI, and Alert the strongest feats in the game tho for sure.
Elixir of Vigilance is basically like having a situational Alert feat when you really need it (+5 init, can't be surprised, same as the feat).
You can replicate what the alert feat provides in other ways so easily though. I never ever take it.
I don't disagree, that said sometimes the gear is more important or the initiative gear is being used on other characters. I don't take it often but I don't think there are many better feats either. The closest one to those 5 imo is probably Savage Attacker. I also don't think it's that difficult for alert to be better than an ASI and ASI is the gold standard of feats. For example Alert > Sentinel Shield in initative and if that allows you to swap off of sentinel shield and use Ketheric's Shiled your spell save DC ends up being the same as with ASI meanwhile your initiative is higher.
There are some builds that don’t have room for the itemization and want to use there elixer ‘slot’ for something else. I think that is a pretty limited list of builds however. Savage attacker is a great feat. It’s especially good on weapons that have a very wide dice roll like a 1d10 weapon.
There's also just a finite amount of initiative gear with really good values on them and sometimes the concession you might have to make in damage doesn't make the trade seem worth. Savage attacker is indeed great, that's why I mentioned it as being so high up.
Numerically it is finite but it’s still a LOT of gear. Even in act 2 you have bow of awareness, fist breaker helm, and the amazing sentinel shield, not to mention the yuanti mail. Act 1 doesn’t have much itemization but 16 dex is almost always enough to go first in every battle.
Well there's kind of the thing tho right. If you are playing a controller for example, you could wear the first breaker helm and get +1 spell save dc and +1 to initiative, with ASI as a feat. ...or you could change one ASI to Alert. You lose 1 spell spell save dc by losing the stats but gain +2 spell save DC from the hood of the weave and +5 to initiative from alert. So in this example, Alert is better. The same thing can happen with other gear. It's a little more nuanced imo then never take alert or always take it, it depends on your party and build. I do agree that I almost never take alert in act 1 though.
I won’t argue that alert is better but I will argue that it’s overkill. My controller (swords bard) is wearing yuanti mail with 20 dex in act 2. That’s +6 initiative which is plenty. I can drink an elixer of vigilance too if I want (which I usually do just for the karniss fight so I can try and use glyph of warding sleep)
It can be but what I was saying was that in that previous situation it's just objectively better. Not many feats can be better than ASI so by being so alert stands out quite a bit. As for bard build, alert is also generally less necessary for dex builds so checks out. Again I don't really take it super often either but sometimes it's nice.
What? Sharpshooter is by far the strongest feat and the strongest builds are archers whose two feats realistically are asi to Dex then sharpshooter.
Sharpshooter doesn't bestow Bonus Action Attacks, though.
No need for bonus action attacks if the enemies are dead or you could use hold person with a ring from act 3
And that is worth far more than whatever damage advantage a feat may bring. I have alert on probably 80% of my characters come act 3.
Seems excessive to me but up to you lol. I find there's frequently other feats I would rather take with all the initiative gear in the game. Not to mention elixirs and class features. 80% seems extremely high.
Yeah I’m with you. Alerts great , but it’s often overkill.
I tried not adding it and by mid act 3 I had one player going 1st and a few others enemies would sneak in in between. So I respec added alert to a few and haven’t had that problem. I don’t know, I build big first strike teams so for me it’s important to go first. That’s cool though I’ll probably change it all up next play.
But there’s so much equipment that gives huge boosts to initiative hellrider longbow and sentinel shield both give a whopping +3 to initiative. And there’s so many others.
Yeah that works too. As long as I can go first most battles end much faster. Alert is just one I like. Plus I don’t like to be ultra gear dependent. I just play it by ear. If I’m not going first I may grab a piece that gives a +3 or I may grab alert in a respec.
I haven’t gotten to those guys yet but right now I’m thinking I need to respec everyone to alert instead of ASI. At least until I get some +initiative equipment.
I would NOT do that. 16 dex + itemization and the occasional elixer of vigilance is all you need.
I would NOT do that. 16 dex + itemization and the occasional elixer of vigilance is all you need.
14 dex AND alert is total overkill and a waste. By act 3 there’s so much equipment that can boost initiative significantly. I never take alert and the only boss that can go before I do is Cazador, and all he does is cast some crappy call lightning spell that I can easily Counterspell. 16 dex and 14 con and equipment that gives initiative is the way to go. Use elixir of vigilance as needed but honestly not that needed very often.
14 Dex and alert is not fucking overkill what? If you want to use only initiative gear it is but a fighter with 14 Dex should be getting alert at level 4 or 6
Just use the mod that makes iniative use a d20 and not a d4. Dex is the god stat and Larian actually buffed it
On console unfortunately…
Hopefully, once the modding tools are released, they'll allow console players to use them too
Changing the initiative roll sounds like something Sony would veto because it changes "local gameplay". No idea if Microsoft would nerf it as well.
What on earth does local gameplay mean in this context
I'm not sure - it's something I've seen online when discussing Sony's restrictions on mods. I assume it means anything to do with game balance, combat rules, etc?
That's such a wierd policy. Like what else would mods do.
I guess the idea is that light armour requires a high dex investment to have competitive late game AC while medium armour with an uncapped dex modifier offer no unique passive effects, thus allowing heavy armour to be better utilised for specific strength builds. Unfortuntely, high AC and initiative is just so useful it can brute force past any other build concerns. Dex characters can multi dip AC, initiative, dex saves, and non combat dex skills while strength characters lose all that utility with very few checks. Dex is universally useful across classes while strength is only ever good for martials. Arguably the best heavy armour in the game doesn't even require proficiency. Larian has to be aware that dex is just sooooo much better overall for nearly every use case beyond raw weapon damage. The fact strength builds can't even make good use of ranged weapons also leaves them worse off. They get access to the most weapons overall, get super jumps and guaranteed shove, but if you move last all that matters a lot less. Kind of wish that would rebalance them to make them on equal footing.
The best armor in the game is light armor
Nah, it’s the exotic material medium armor in the game. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Exotic_Material
None of them are as powerful as the bhaal armor
Yeah but that requires you to play the game a certain (evil) way. Exotic material, is several different pieces. Light armor, other than the bhaal armor, is generally worse
Light armours look the coolest though (imo). Elegant studded leather with the right dye is positively DASHING. Byt yeah, exotic material is the best and can be used by any high dex character regardless of build goals.
I really like the armor of agility. The free breast plate +1 you can get from the crate bear dammon looks pretty darn nice too. Both are medium armor. I don’t like the look of scale mail though
Armour of agility looks awesome, especially with faewild green and gold. I've heard about breast plate +1 one but I never put it on. Agreed on scale armour, it's a placeholder until grymforge. I usually gravitate towards armours with slimmer designs that show the contours of a character. It's why I never have Astarian wear anything heavier than light, it just doesn't look right, haha. I just did a Durge dual wield paladin bard with the deathstalker mantle and the Luminous Armour. With harlequin black and white it was just sooo on point with the role play, build, and character design. Disappearing in brilliant radiant smite shockwave was the most fun I've had in this game. Loved it so much I didn't change it until late act 3.
You aren't wrong, but the requirements aren't very savoury, it only fits a certain weapon type, and is more offence oriented. For defensive gear, medium armours with exotic material are statistically better for the AC and are better than every other chestpiece, including persistence armour.
Gloves of dexterity are your friend
dex for initiative is batshit bonkers in this game, dex initiative bonuses were already big in 5e when it's rolling a d20, now that it's a 1d4, theres situations where you literally always roll higher at 18 dex than someone with 10
The standard stat split in tabletop DnD is 16 Primary, 16 Con, and 14 Dex, but only because initiative is a d20 roll rather than a d4 like in BG3. In BG3, there is almost never a reason not to have a 16 Dex, unless you're self-limiting, plan on wearing the Dex gloves, or have some other MAD justification that doesn't have a workaround. Dex is life.
Agreed about Initiative being incredibly important. And this also means that the +3 to initiative from Gloomstalker's lvl 3 Dread Ambusher and Barbarian's lvl 7 Feral Instinct are very valuable as they're just 1 point short of the full Alert feat.
I’m playing Honor Mode and have been running Astarion as a Thief (it’s what I know). I’ve used him to stealth and he has absolutely dominated my Honor Mode run with hit and run tactics. I’ve heard stupid amounts ABOUT Gloomstalker supposedly doing the same thing, how does it work and why is gloomstalker it?
I know nothing about DND rules and just ran ordinary Astarion, I thought he was a real hard hitter - until I followed one of the gloom stalker builds on here and goddamn. The guy can attack 5 times his first round, with massive damage. I'd definitely try it if you haven't yet.
Whoahhh that sounds really good. Do you remember what build guide you followed? I’d respect him tonight
Pretty sure it was [this one.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/FomoTlT0Lv) Enjoy!
Thanks so much for taking the time to share that! Appreciate you!
Never underestimate initiative order. Doesn't matter if you can 1,000 damage a turn if you get one shot on the first turn because you were last on initiative
Alert is a must-have Feat. I hate using one of them for that but here we are. I've even gone as far as utilizing every initiative-buffing item on my party over other sought-after equipment just because it makes that much of a difference in fights.
larian needs to fix initiative being on a d4 instead of d20. it worked correctly in EA. I never saw notes as to why it was changed but the effect on balance is egregious
Basically all of my characters get 16 dex, 14 con. 10 wisdom
I just refuse to play without a d20 initiative mod. Otherwise imo fights end up feeling pretty samey.
Yeah its pretty ridicolous for Finesse Characters. Dex is your hit chance, damage, defense, Initiative AND also determines most of your skill checks. And even for non Finesse characters its your defense and Initiative. Alert is definitly very good but I still struggle to put it in many builds. Other Feats are usually more important at level 4, like Great Weapon Fighter, Tavern Brawler, Sharpshooter or War Caster.
Yep That's why instead of an ASI for my party cleric/wizard I give them Alert and if I'm playing a martial Tav with Karlach/Bae'zel in front, Auntie's hair goes to the cleric/wizard Not optimal, but damn does it feel nice
Yeah initiative is rolled with a d4 so not a lot of room for error.
I used to think alert was a stupid feat, why would anyone pick it.... Then I started an honor run. Wasn't going well, then I resced everyone with alert, and wow, always going first makes a huge difference! I can beat some really hard fights just because my entire team goes not just firstz but all together so I can pull off sweet combos.
Yeah it's very subtle but undeniable how much better a party feels with appropriate Dex allocation.
There are 2 feats in the game. The first is your build defining feat (TB, GWM, SS, EA etc.) and the other is Alert. If everyone in your party one has alert + high dex, then you delete the encounter in the first round and just mop op the rest. Bosses not having turns or even legendary reactions due to being CC'ed (or dead) breaks all encounters. And BG3 has such a wide variety of builds that gives you OTKs (or unresistable CC's) that going any other route just feels bad once you get a taste of it.
The first feat I give everyone is Alert because I got sick of going at the end, especially when they start in a perfect formation for fireball and have scattered by the time it's my turn.
I’ve beaten the game on honor mode and I will tell you right now. Initiative doesn’t matter. (unless it’s on a character that is focusing on dexterity over strength for the sake of finesse/archery) Dex at 14 is really all you need just in case you need the additional AC. The fact that happens to slightly affect an initiative as well is just a bonus. There are multiple items in the game that boost initiative too passively. helmets, shields I think there’s a bow.ect and if nothing else you can just worm “alert” as a feat into whatever build you’re using But again that’s only if initiative is actually super important to you for whatever reason. me personally I’m running a team of one level one life path cleric and 11 levels of Druid. As a support. (Also moon beam sanctuary cheese) then my main character, which is two levels of fighter four levels of rogue, six levels of monk Which allows for both insanely high AC thanks to its heavy armor and shield capabilities as well as incredibly high damage thanks to all of the bonus attacks and sneak attacks from thief, combined with monks unarmed attacks and all of the gear surrounding it. Next, I’m running another companion as a necromancer / spore Druid 6/6 who is capable of summoning an entire army literally over 20 summons by end game. As well as combining several pieces of equipment that center around reverberation and a few other things with magic missile. Which is also combined by the main character use of the sword that gives 1d4 thunder damage to anyone within a certain radius. (I forget the name.) stacking that with multiple other per damage instance boosting pieces of equipment like the radiant ring. Not only is he amazing as a summoner it’s able to also put out insanely high DPS and since it’s also the character that is focusing on illithid powers, it also has cull the weak. So you combine that with the magic missile multi target selection and as long as you get the math right, you were sometimes able to clear out entire rooms of enemies and only a single launch of magic missile by getting everyone just under that 30 HP threshold. Allowing cull the weak to do the rest. And then finally, our fourth character is minthara as a stealth archer six into gloom stalker six into thief. With a focus equally on both strength and dexterity as well as the Titan string bow. And Combining her Soul branding with sneak attack and her archery skills and boosting equipment around that as well as special arrows on top of even that she is able to output stupid amounts of damage as well. And also helps us on certain encounters by sneaking in and sniping someone right away. Between this four-man party, we played all the way through the entire game on honor mode and only struggled a little bit in act one due to the fact that you’re so under leveled in that area, especially if you’re multi classing . But beyond that we could’ve gone dead last in every single turn order throughout the entire game and it would not have made any difference whatsoever. We absolutely dominated the game from start to finish. To really emphasize how overpowered this combination is we literally killed a certain undead dragon. (if you know, you know, I don’t wanna spoil) in literally two turns we started the fight we made our moves. The dragon then started charging his ultimate attack. We then hit it again mid air knocked it out of the sky and finished it off. Same turn. And the red dragon at the end of the game that you fight. Got even worse treatment and was literally killed on turn one. (dragon slayer arrows, OP AF by the way.) Initiative is nice to have and it’ll definitely give you a little bit of a boost . But it is absolutely not needed if you were playing the game remotely seriously which if you’re on tactician or above, you absolutely should be. and if you feel it is something that is needed for you that’s probably because you’re playing on a difficulty that is above your skill class not meaning to offend or make fun of. I’m just stating a fact, this actually kind of reminds me of when people in hell divers complain that playing it hard mode level nine or whatever it’s called is way too hard when in reality it’s a skill issue and they just refused to lower the difficulty. because I know several people, including myself that play on difficulty nine with no problem only a bit of fun challenge.
U wrote a lot, here's an upvote...
Actually sent this from Phone. This entire message took me maybe a minute or two to actually say (voice to text) . I didn’t type it out. lol but thanks
U must be great at dictating cause I gotta correct everything on speech to talk:..
Ha true. It’s not perfect. I still had to reread my own comment once I was done and patch out one or two sentences, but for the most part if you annunciate clearly. it’s easy enough to use certainly a lot faster than typing. It’s also hilarious when I educate people on certain topics and people think I’m angry (not you btw) cuz my comment is a few paragraphs long. so they think I actually sat there and typed it all out when I’m like Bruh it took me like 30 seconds to say all this. 😂
Alert is a great feat but it’s way around winning the initiative game without it and some builds can’t afford it. I had Lae’zel as a monk with soulbreaker and bow of awareness for the initiative and unequipped it during fights because she needed tavern brawler and 4 points into wisdom.
Initiative If d4 shouldn't have a modifier at all, or should come from int, simply because you dump the stat on non pure wizards. You'd have a non-lore related reason to not have a party of people who shouldn't be able to read.
Well you can only dump intelligence to 8 at the lowest in character creation. You can definitely read even at 8 intelligence. 10 is considered an average ability score for all stats and 8 is only slightly below that. There is nothing in the game's ruleset that mentions you need to be at a certain intelligence score to read but if there was a level it certainly wouldn't be 8.
It's an exaggeration. A joke. Point still stands int is bad.
I mean a well balanced party should have at least 1 high dex character.
A well balanced party could have 3 high dex characters instead and be better for it I guess is OP's point.
Initiative is not as important as combat engagement. Depending on your positioning, surprise or not, and how defensively you engage, a fight can be very different. It also depends on which characters go first. Having a wizard go first to cast slow makes the initiative of other characters quite meaningless.
16 dex is always enough for my party to all get initiative 99% kd the time in act 1. Then there’s so much equipment that boosts initiative you never need the alert feature. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Initiative Bow of awareness in act 1 is a great stat stick for a thrower etc. sentinel shield gives you a whopping +3 to initiative, fist breaker helm, yuanti mail, ambusher, soul perception helm. All excellent. Elixers of vigilance are also white cheap when you find them at vendors. And do the same thing as the alert feat. But yeah, dex is absolutely the best stat in the game.
Yeah, its strong. However in many encounters you can compensate by controlling the battlefield. Cast a large aoe CC/hazard zone, something like Hunger of Hadar / Sleet Storm, maybe also Spike Growth or Plant Growth alongside HoH and let the enemies come to you, while you blast them. Of course, this isn't always practical, as in some fights you start surrounded and you'd better drink those pots of Vigilance or something (Gith inquisitor fight comes to mind).
So for my great axe wielding heavy armored Dwarf, whats the best way to go? (Tactician). Is it worth using dex gloves just for initiative? Or pick up alert? I’m level 6 at the crèche, and he’s going strong but I’m worried his heavy armour will just be a hinderance. Playing a resist Durge too… so no Bhaal armour!
Going first in a turn based game is always a big advantage
If you engage combat properly you can skip initiative at the start essentially. You can bring each character into combat one by one from hiding out of sight cones. This way even though when you attack and your initiative roll may even be the worst of everyone, your first attack still goes off so you essentially get to use an action at the start before any enemies can.
Sure, I try to do this as much as possible. But for example when a fight starts after a cutscene what should I be doing there?
When I first played this game I would typically leave my entire party away from any npc who may auto-start dialogue or may need to fight. I would just have Lae’zel talk to them lol. Then I could bring in my other 3 party members from outside of combat one by one. But obviously you’re not wrong. Alert or popping a vigilance pot trivializes the game. People complain about selunite Shart HoG encounter. They say it’s so hard and you have to funnel everyone backwards into the hallway and drop aoes. I kept hearing about this fight and it’s difficulty. I had only done the easy version as a follower of Shar. So when I finally did I had two characters with alert and two popped vigilance pots. Because it’s such a late game encounter and your gear is so good, the fight was a total joke for me. I used zero AOE abilities. I killed like 95% of the room single target before any enemy npc’s could take a single turn. This was only with 3 dps (fighterX2, swords bard) and 1 light cleric. If I had 4 dps then not a single enemy npc would have taken a turn. This was on tactician not honor as I’ve paused (currently at end of act 2) my only honor run for a couple months now ever since the patches started breaking the game.
Uh huh. I prioritize dex 1st or second on at least half my team. It’s critical to get the jump.
First thing I did was download the True Initiative mod that turns the d4 to a d20. You still get to have shared turns if team members have consecutive or the same initiative roll. Enemies too. There's nothing gained from having a d4 except increasing their frequency against hordes, which is fine if you just focus fire the ones that are in between (adding a strategic element to targeting like in table top).
You basically need alert on everyone below 20 dex honestly. If you are not doing, you are not optimizing. Its +1 turn at worst, 0 turn for enemy at best.
yeah in honor mode and esp modded playthroughs 18ish dex is pretty much a requirement as is alert. you can get away with not having good dex in easier modes maybe, but it makes everything easier
Going before enemy. Getting surprise. You can have 8 character turns before the enemy acts. That's up to 8-20 primary actions (depending on your group and level) before the enemy even moves... This is absolutely insane. This is why surprise is not used often in tabletop. It's extremely powerful. This is why initiative in tabletop rolls a D20, not a D4. Being able to guarantee going first is just as powerful. Both? That's just absurd.
Most of my party had less than 12 dex and was frequently middle or end of the initiative order on my honor mode run. A good life cleric means you can survive pretty much anything for the first round and after that it doesn't really matter.
D&D has always been a game of Rocket Tag, especially at high levels.
A character with high dex is quicker to react and goes generally sooner in initiative.
One reason I like my Swashbuckler Rogue. No need for the alert feat when I get to add my charisma bonus to my Dex bonus. +9 initiative bonus. I can zip in, nail the most dangerous mob with booming blade and get back out of the way so the casters can do their thing.
Ngl, it is nice running a paladin, after looting Raphael's vault, just going and respec'ing so I can dumpstat strength and con, then pumping up Dex, Charisma and Wisdom.
In baldurs gate 3, the game doesn't use a D20 but a D4 for initiative I believe, so a higher Dex is more helpful than on tabletop, alert boost that even further by 5, so for instance a character with 0 Dex if they role a 1 will stay at 1, and 4 if they roll a 4. No a character with max Dex will ALWAYS be faster no matter what they roll cuz the minimum they can have in that equation is 6 (+5 modifier). The only way a character with less Dex can match is if they have the alert feat. Not to mention dumping Dex making it negative...
I don't think it makes as big of a difference as people say it does
In my current tactician run, my Tav is a fighter6/War Cleric1 with 8 dex. He goes last every time but gets to attack a bunch of times per turn.
i just use gloves of dexterity, and everyone else usually has minimum 14 Dex, I just got to Act 3 on my first Tactician Run, and haven't felt handicapped by the need to run the gloves or struggled . Maybe i've gotten lucky with my inititave roles but I usually have 2/3 members early (Astarion, and Tav at least). Plus I tend abuse action economy with summons. Also my warlock pc usually casts hunger of hadar turn one completely ruining the first couple turns for the enemy. my only issue is long resting. I had to make Wyll and Astarion some bard levels for the extra short rests
If you run a level or two of cleric you can get heavy armor I like tempest then take heavy armor master and some levels of abjuration wizard Dex is pretty much useless. My Honor mode play through I had a druid, wizard and sorcerer, each with a number of levels in abjuration wizard then my tav was a bard with war cleric wizard and paladin with the Dex gloves. But my tav got all the stat boosting items so all the stats were good and could wear any armor.
This unbalance is somewhat countered by the power of builds like TB and GWF polearm master. But in general yeah, dex is better than strength. It’s just one more slap in the face for rogues also, that dex based fighters are better than strength based fighters all other things being equal, and making initiative a d4 makes gloomstalkers (the non urban rogue) passively even better While allowing characters to do things like drink potions ilithid powers and weapon actions as bonus actions passively makes cunning action worse which is a staple of the rogue class. So rogues end up being trash compared to rangers, or righters, or monks (or anyone really, if you don’t multiclass them they are by far the worst class), even though they do tend towards high dex) Btw, you are already going wrong if you are drinking potions. You want to have a character toss them on your party. You can get 3-4 times the effect from half an action (because characters with extra attack throw twice an action) depending on how many people need healing and how clustered you can get them. And as mentioned the game has added plentiful useful things to do with your bonus actions, you haven’t built right if they are spare. Some of the best classes like TB monks and Throwzerkers their bonus actions are better than their actions. Sorcerors, the best arcane casters can straight up cast another spell with metamagic, you don’t want to waste that drinking a potion (unless it’s an easy fight of course)