This game hates me (SOLVED)
Soido
Member Posts: 338
So much for my no-reload run. I had exactly 14 HP and met 2 kobolds. The very first arrow they fire made 8 and 6 damage respectively on my dwarf berserker. Just the exact amount to kill. What is the chance of this to happen ?
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The f with this game. Never will be in my RPG Hall of Fame. Nothing else than a casino gambling RNG game.
I like RPG like a game of chess, like DAO was sophisticated tactical game. I hate this excessive rng element in BG. I am not of control of dices. There is no strategy in this rpg mayhem. God doesn't play dices as one famous man said.
Okay keep the rng for fun at minimum, but here it is so excessive and pervasive.
I am not cool constantly reloading saves and hope the dice this time will be good good. Because it takes away the accomplishment reward and feeling. There is no accomplishment in winning to good dices only.
Because if I say look I beat BG no-reload, then everyone knows you were lucky and nothing more.
I don't know, not very fond of DnD as gaming concept (mechanically)
Larian took a hot potato in their pocket if they make such a dice-pervasive game
So, if you build for defense ... splint mail, 17 Dex, a helmet, and a shield or ring. They only hit you on a natural 20, so there's a one in 400 chance that both arrows hit. They can't crit, so they can't do more than 12 total damage.
Also, the D&D ruleset, in older editions, is just really deadly at low levels. They've introduced changes over the years that mitigate this - things like not instantly dying at 0 HP. In BG1, this manifests as the principle that fighting in melee as a level 1 character is almost always a bad idea. A berserker is a great character in the long run - but what you really want at level 1 are archers. With this party, go where the ranged enemies aren't, let your companions do the killing with their ranged weapons (bow, sling, throwing daggers), and have your protagonist run around distracting the enemy.
That, and most no-reload attempts start by picking up a bunch of minimal-risk XP to get a few levels before facing any real threats.
What you've described could possibly happen if you’re unlucky...but: so what? The DM and players have a choice:
*accept the result, which happened legitimately but unfortunately, and deal with the consequences
*if they prefer not to, pretend the encounter didn’t happen and either retry the scenario, or ignore it altogether and continue (nothing wrong with this, especially if there are time constraints to a game, or if the players are just really unhappy that it spoils their experience too much) - this is the nearest thing to a reload...or
*forget about D&D altogether, drink beer and play frisbee for the rest of the day
There are no right or wrong answers to what to do - if you dislike the result and don’t want to reload at any cost...then take a breather?
Personally I love the game, it’s a good approximation of D&D, but if I’m getting frustrated with it then try another game for a while and come back to it...it’s a very rewarding experience really. Life, like this game, is often governed by chance, not everyone succeeds to finish an adventure to the end every time, but the story is worth it.
BTW when Einstein said “God does not play dice” he was referring to quantum Mechanics, not D&D...he’d probably have loved D&D, because it’s played by humans rather than God, who prefers UNO.
Because DAO was not dice game. DAO was the zenith of rpg gaming. Here is a fireball spell from DAO
Area of Effect - Sphere (m): 7.5.
Initial fire damage: (100.0 + Spellpower) * 0.3.
Fire damage over time: (100.0 + Spellpower) * 0.3. Over Duration: 5.0s.
Range: 25m.
Conjuration time: 1s.
Do you see anywhere dice above ? DAO was a game of chess. In DAO when you die you see your mistake when you analyze what happened. There is nothing to analyze in BGEE, it was bad dice that was all it was, like in the screenshot
2. Baldur's Gate was not originally meant to be played No-Reload. NRL is a challenge run type that veterans have started playing in order to spice things up. (I have yet to have a NRL run get past chapter 4, for reference). It is exceptionally deadly for the unprepared. A Baldur's Gate No Reload run is comparable to a DAO solo run and requires similar levels of preparedness.
3. As @jmerry has implied, you were very likely underequipped. It would help if we went over what you were equipped with, so that we can do a Post-Mortem (and so that you're equipped with better knowledge should you take up the dice again)
You have THAC0 randomness, you have damage randomness, you have spell save randomness.
I think modern rpgs should get rid of some of these, and maybe keep only 1 randomness source. Either THAC0, or damage, but keep the rest as real science.
But when you have so many rng randomness, it becomes excessive and pervasive and spoils the game
Definitely wouldn't call DAO sophisticated or tactical but am glad you enjoyed it.
But dice rolls are not exactly random - they are chosen or “weighed” depending on e.g. the armour you’re wearing, the visibility, the light level, how healthy/tired the character is feeling etc. All the factors together create a final number or range of outcomes, which can’t always be predicted.
For people who like the influence of factors and numbers and a sense of intrinsic uncertainty in every action, then this is great. If not, well then you’re looking more at something like Diablo I guess...
D&D and BG are not all about dice rolls anyway...look at all the dialog options you have for instance...but even then you can’t really predict the outcome of your words, just like in real life
These kobolds wield shortbows with 1d6 damage. I just find it hard to believe that one of the kobolds hit me for 8 damage.
Here is Wikipedia link
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Kobold
It could be that no-one’s ever noticed this before, if it is a bug that is. But the first step is reporting it officially as a *query* and something you’d like looking into.
The only way to do 1d8 damage is if the kobold has two pips in shortbows. However the kobolds have 1APR so that is not the case. A bug
They have +2 damage from proficiency (indeed they have 2 pips in shortbow). Notice their APR is actually 2. It must be 2 pips in shortbow.
Minimum damage of 3 is concerning, since it's entirely possible to roll a character with exactly 3 HP (any Wizard with a negative CON bonus)
Kobolds have THAC0 19 and my AC missile is 0. I wear helmet so is not critical.
They must have rolled d20 of 19 or 20 exact in order to hit me. Because in order to hit THAC0=0 you must roll equal or bigger to (19-0). Remember my missile AC is 0 with splintmail and 17 dex.
The chance a kobold to roll 19 or 20 is 10%. The other kobold also hit me so another 10%, or cumulative 1% chance two kobolds to hit me in the same round.
There is more, the damage. The first kobold hits me for maximum damage, so the kobold rolls 6 in 1d6, or 16.7% chance. The other kobold hits for 6 so he rolled 4 or bigger , or 50%. Cumulative is 8.33% chance
Then 1% hit chance multiplied by 8.33% damage chance is 0.0833 % chance
0.0833 % This game hates me. Odds for this are 1 in 1200 attempts
If I had one billion dollars I would open a casino in Las Vegas and name it Baldur's Gate. I think it will be a nice name next to Bellagio and the Mirage.
Then I will throw half of the blackjack tables and roulette tables away and replace them with BGEE tables. Customers will be so hooked that they will play for 8-10-14 hours and order drinks and food and rooms in the Baldur's Gate casino-hotel.
TBH, I've always found that the "Baldurs Gate successor" stuff was mostly referring to a single player game, with a world that seemed very large, with tons of people and quests and so on, and played with a party
(and mostly really from BG2) with lots of dialogue, strong personalities, interparty conflicts, romances, etc.
DAO isn't a successor of BG tactically. It's a successor of BG (and BG2) in the epic scope and the dialogue. The entire Elder Scrolls series didn't have it, Knights of the Old Republic had it to a limited degree, NWN didn't have it, NWN2...sort of a little bit had it. DAO was really the first game to bring that back.
The calculation for damage ignores that the kobold that rolled 6 could have rolled 4 and vice-versa, i.e. the chance of this happening is 1/6, not 1/12.
In addition there would have been more than 2 kobolds, so if you had not died immediately more attacks would have come in to increase the chances of killing you.
Nevertheless your basic conclusion is correct - in this encounter you were very unlucky.
However, your conclusion is also misleading, if you are really serious about wanting to do a no-reload game (which is extremely ambitious for someone new to the game and not likely to give a satisfying result). Over the course of a full run (which for me would be BGEE, SoD and BG2EE) you would certainly come across hundreds of encounters and probably into the thousands if you don't know the best routes to avoid them. In many of those encounters you have multiple ways to die, not just being shot by arrows. If you thus even allow what seems like a tiny chance (such as 1%) of dying to each possible threat, then death becomes statistically certain long before you come close to the end of the game.
In relation to this specific encounter, don't think of kobold archers as a weak enemy you should simply be able to brush aside. We've said before that missiles are very strong in BG1 and that applies to enemies as well as you. It's not always easy to do, but if you really want to play no-reload you do need to either:
- find a way to avoid encounters with missile users entirely (particularly at low levels)
- always have NPCs take the lead when moving your party and in combat (in unmodded BG the vast majority of enemies will attack the nearest character)
If you hate how dangerous kobold archers are by the way, I imagine you will be really pissed off when a full group of bandits ambush your level 1 party during travel ...
As I said in another thread, a major reason why some people continue to play the game is the challenge of managing the odds. The game is complex and the odds are ever-changing, so no run is ever quite the same. In a different game, I might enjoy playing it a few times to learn what results were achieved by particular actions, but once I'd done that I don't suppose I would want to play it further. In BG many individual factors are uncertain to at least some degree, so it takes a lot of knowledge and concentration to achieve an overall result with a high degree of certainty. The same is true each time you play the game, so giving it a lot of replayability.
He said something like BGEE DnD has issue with early level being unfair. But once you make a few levels up and get HP, then situations like 1 in 1200 become rather the exception than the norm. Once you advance and have a good optimized and rounded party you will have response to these rare events and not be a sitting duck to the rng dice mechanics. At that point the game starts to shine, but early on it may disappoint being a very broken mechanics
You could die in late levels of course, but that is not much because of the dice being bad but because of tactical errors when you have much more tactical options to counteract. But in this early stage when you don't have yet access to many options you are sitting duck on the mercy of the dice.
But video games rpgs provide another powerful stimulant. Music and graphical expression which are captivating also. DAO made that leap many years ago and thingslike the below video still remain in fans hearts
I have to tell you that I enjoyed Fallout 1 and 2 a lot too. It is a turn-based system but it is made so well and it is rpg and it is hard rpg. I played Wasteland 2 DC and it is also excellent rpg game. I played Gothic 2 and 3 and it is amazing rpg games. Risen 1 also great. DAO, DOS these are good and not trivial games. These are classics. So video rpg games are good. of course if they are made well.