Baldur’s Gate 3 – D&D (5th Edition) and How It Really Works

D&D (5th Edition) Tips

Сrеdit gоеs to ChaosKhan !

You need to understand 1 very important think about D&D5e and how it really works: The fights are basically decided, before the fight even starts.

The preparation for it is what wins them. If you rely on the hit-chances or tactical decisions, it means, that you already lost in the preparation phase.

Now, let’s talk about what it means in detail:

1. The game always warns you plenty when you are about to have a hard fight. There isn’t a single, arbitary “ambush”, that you don’t know is coming, ahead of time. You also have plenty of tools like Hide and Invisibility to scout ahead.
2. AC is super important. Every single point counts. So the next time you skimp on your gear just because 1 AC doesn’t seem worth it, think again. Those that don’t have high AC, REQUIRE high initiative.
3. Feats like Alert and gear that improves initiative rolls are absolute game changers for spellcasters and other high alpha strikers.
4. Specialisation is key – you want to be characters either quick and deadly or very tanky.
5. Longresting, pre-casting spells and maybe even dropping some barrels of explosives before a tough fight is coming is key to success. It makes a huge difference, whether you have Haste on your 2 warriors and your druid in Owlbear form at the beginning of the fight or have yet to activate it all.
6. Control is super important. The toughest fights are against humanoids and Hold Person is a brutally overpowered spell against those. You need to overcast it and even if the success rate is about 50 %, if you cast it on 4 targets simultaneously, you should take 2 out of the fight on average.
7. Scrolls, elixiers and potions exist for a reason. You want to distribute them between your characters and use them libreally.
8. Specifically in D&D, you need even numbers on your abilities. In fights, tons of actions work with “ability modifiers” and you modifier improves every 2 levels after 10 (while 8 gives you -1). As far as the game is concerned, 13 Str might as well be 12 Str and 13 Dex gives you as much armor bonus as 12 Dex. You really want to work with even numbers when creating and respeccing characters and if you can’t (for example, because you wanted to have Int 17 on your Mage during character creation), fix it with a Feat or some gear asap.