One of the most fundamental systems of tabletop games and titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 is the dice-rolling system. In general, if you have any experience with these you know they leave it up to a luck factor. However, with key tips and ideas on how to maximize your skill proficiencies, you can pass dice rolls with a breeze. When dealing with dice rolling you should always try to keep your characters optimized to what they’re good at. In doing so you can ensure that most of your dice rolls are more likely to succeed. This is usually common sense, but in a world of magic, anything is possible.
One of the beautiful aspects of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that every character has something they’re going to add to the party in terms of skills. So make sure to poop and explore what each companion or player character can do before you enter a potential situation. Ultimately this means just checking your character sheets and maintaining items that will further your goals. For instance, Asterion is naturally good at opening doors, for this reason improving it further can lead to guaranteed success rates. You can further add to this with magical bonuses that make your party go above and beyond!
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Ability Score Modifiers
To make sure you have a character build that fits the skill checks you’re looking to succeed in you’ll first want to understand how scores affect them. Skills and dice rolls are enhanced by the use of abilities scores dictated by your build and stats. Each stat is associated with a list of different skills with dexterity, wisdom, and intelligence being the most widely ranged stats. Each one can make your gameplay easier by adding up to a natural plus five depending on your score. For every two points above ten, you will receive one ability modifier point.
These can be increased with features, boons, and magical abilities, however the higher a stat is, the more useful that person will be with skills associated with that stat. To further this, ability scores can impact your stats negatively if you have less than ten points in a stat. In this way, things such as bane and bestow curse can make your skill rolls worse. However, if you can mitigate these damaging effects with counter spells, healing, and general item optimization you’ll have an easier time. Dangers in negative losses in skill checks can be detrimental and honestly hinder a group more than level gap disparity.
Advantage vs Disadvantage
Every skill check roll will be in three different states of being. The first is simply a neutral roll where neither side has favor, and all that matters is the bonuses and debuffs of the roller. However, two other states exist which allow the player to further have a manner of success or failure. The first is having an advantage on a save or roll because of the nature of your character being talented or superior in the action. For instance, a fighter with a commanding strike gains an advantage on their next attack. Advantage acts as an additional dice roll where the higher number between the two is taken as the result.
Advantage can make any skill or situation easier, and why you should optimize your character builds in Baldur’s Gate 3!
Beyond this, the other state is at a disadvantage during your role. This implies that the other factor either has an advantage, or you have a weakness against this state. This doesn’t exactly work like vulnerability or immunity however on dice rolls a smaller number of two dice will be used. This means even if one of your dice has a critical success, and the other has a critical failure, the one will be used over twenty. As the complete opposite of advantage, these can be a much more difficult situation. To avoid this, make sure to use characters who are proficient in the skills you’re trying to roll for.
Classes and Races
Importantly, you’re going to want to maintain character classes that can maintain skills along with their combat efficiency. This can be a hard gamble, but everyone is good at something. Even the champion fighter with its basic action economy can be overwhelmingly potent in athletic roles and skills about strength. In this regard, even if someone isn’t good at something innately, you can increase it with other classes like the Bard with their bardic inspiration. Other methods to make your classes and skills more potent include using magic and items, however your classes and races are key.
Races like the Githyanki have the potent ability to use astral knowledge to increase their skills further. Aside from this, some natural adaptations make certain characters better at skills than others. Elves are known for their grace and dexterity, dwarves for their constitution, and orcs for their strength. So using your race’s advantages for skill checks can make for the best possible outcome. Still, though, there are more factors to be considered when you want to make your skill saves more successful.
Skill and Class bonuses really do make all of the difference in Baldur’s Gate 3!
Buffs and Magic
Very important early on is the use of buffs and spells that increase your ability scores and skills. These can come in many forms from rallying to enhancing ability. Among some of the most powerful of them though are bardic inspiration and guidance. Together they can give the player an additional ten points of skill proficiency at level 2 onward. This is very potent, but mixing it with your natural skill is a surefire way of succeeding in most situations. A major flaw that exists in this concept however is the fact that there are things like anti-magic that can come into play.
Aside from this, a lot of these buffs will take away points from whatever they have charged for. Because of the fact these buffs are usually associated with one skill or another, you need to plan out how you’ll use them. Luckily, because of the nature of Baldur’s Gate 3’s optimization system, you can stack your skill bonuses with magic. This means that some of these abilities can be saved for a last resort, or in case of an extremely difficult choice. Ultimately this means that no matter how you build your character you should at least keep something like guidance on hand. Luckily characters like Shadowheart will have this innately so long as you don’t change their class.
Stacking Magical Buffs
The key to making sure you always succeed is knowing which abilities can be stacked with which. For instance, mixing bardic knowledge and guidance can give you an exceptional boost in most skills. If you have access to Laz’el you can increase this further with her astral knowledge, and in some cases even further it with Gale’s enhanced ability. In this way, combinations are the absolute best way of making sure you get through a skill check successfully. Overall though, not every ability and magical skill can be stacked. Because of this, you have to take time to learn each spell and ability to figure out what will work best for you!
Skills like Bardic Inspiration can really make a difference in and out of combat!
Not every ability will be able to be stacked together so it’s very important to learn which ones work and which don’t. In this way, it goes a long way to increase the potency of your builds by learning rituals and spells that can further your advantage. Because of this, it takes a little more insight into how things operate in tandem with each other and learning the intricacies of the game. However, once you have a hold on things you start to realize that different domains of magic can be added together to produce amazing results. To add to this, mix in optimized equipment so you can take your dice rolling to the next level!
Features and Environmental Bonuses
Class features can be one of those things that make certain skills easier than others. There are many different types of features you can take throughout Baldur’s Gate 3 for you to choose from. While most can give you magical abilities or extra damage types, many also improve your skill rolls in general. This can come from either physical ability modifier increases to just having a favored advantage on a specific task. Unfortunately features in general are not given out in abundance which means you’ll have to make sure what you pick counts for what you want. There is no universal best way to go about it but when mixed with environmental bonuses you have a chance to shine in character creation.
Using your environment is probably the best thing to do in any situation. Things such as fire, explosives, acid, water, and any other amount of small items can increase your chances of success. These are all incredibly situational, but if you use your wits and size the moment they can make all the difference. So make sure to stay vigilant, and at the very least try to keep your party’s perception as high as possible. If done you will be able to get a hint towards potential advantages that may be lying around. Creatures with dark vision, or sensitivity to sunlight can be taken out easier with simple torches if you know what you’re doing. In this, every small item can be a massive bonus if used correctly.
Class features like Actor can play a key role in making certain archetypes like the rogue shine!
The Lucky Feature
A bonus to any build that makes them better equipped to fight roll failures, and increase success is the lucky feature. Halflings will get this naturally allowing them to reroll a failure once a day. However, any player can spend a feature to get this, and it can prove to be one of the best features in the game for this type of character building. It can ensure that even the worst-case scenario natural one becomes a potential success. The one flaw with this ability is that you’ll need to pick and choose which roll you redo because once it’s finished you won’t be able to do it again.
Immunities, resistances, and Vulnerabilities
Immunities in Baldur’s Gate 3 act as their form of advantage where effects will be completely useless from a certain type. In these cases along with vulnerabilities dice rolls can be further impacted in such a way that makes it hard to damage enemies with certain things. The most common form of this is resistance from races like the Dragonborn and Tieflings. These elemental resistances can be a huge bonus to players and combatants, but environmental effects can be limited. They make or break a situation depending on how well they are implemented so make sure to keep them in consideration. To go along with this, vulnerabilities are the opposite effect which can be used against enemies to maximize your results.
Vulnerabilities are common among monsters and creatures throughout Baldur’s Gate 3. They take many forms from extra damage to sensitivity under a certain condition. In both cases, they can be used to maximize your advantage against a creature by forcing them to a disadvantage. Additionally, some vulnerabilities will increase the bonuses you have against whoever has it with added ability modifiers. For this reason, it’s good to have a wide variety of tools around so you can exploit these vulnerabilities to the max! When combined, they are one of the best ways to optimize a character but require some planning and preparation beforehand. So make sure to study up on enemies and see which damage types are more detrimental to what!
Warding Bond is a great example of a resistance spell you can get early on!
Equipment Optimization
The final aspect of increasing your roll success rate is through equipment Optimization. This refers to using equipment that better suits your character’s skills rather than focusing on attack or defense. In this regard you want equipment to further the utility of your build rather than protect you from incoming damage. So, in doing so you either get an added amount of spells, ability modifiers, or debuffs to use on the enemy. Some equipment can be used to gain immunities and resistances that further make this goal easier to accomplish. However, the most important aspect of equipment being optimized for your build is that you will be able to go above and beyond the norm.
No two builds will be the same, and it’s up to the player to find what works for them best. However, no matter what route you choose to go, the best choice is to always appraise and read your gear. You can learn a lot by combining different equipment pieces to stack spells and features. In this way, you make your build more efficient, and easy for the party to deal with. However, any of these strategies can be used to make sure that your character has a better chance of succeeding in their dice rolls. The only threat you’ll have left is those treacherous natural ones you’ll get now and again.
