The Baldur's Gate 3 update features a nerf to Astarion directly shaped by the D&D rulebook
Nov. 3, 2023It’s bad news for Rogues and Rangers across the board
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A tweak to bringBaldur’s Gate 3further in-line with the D&D ruleset has spelled bad news for Astarion (and any of your Rogue or Ranger player characters).
Yesterday,Baldur’s Gate 3 patch 4dropped, bringing 1,000 changes to the RPG in what might be its biggest patch yet. Among those isthe ability to actually wash your charactersand thedestruction of the game’s humorous ‘Sex%’ speedrunning category. But as players have dug further through the patch notes, they’ve found more changes - and one of them is a pretty targeted nerf to Astarion.
Under the ‘Combat and Balance’ section of the notes, there’s a bullet point that reads, “When a character uses an off-hand ranged attack, Dexterity is no longer added to the damage.” To be fair, that’s intentional - the D&D rules state that when you use a weapon in your weak hand, it doesn’t add your ability modifier to the damage roll. Dexterity is an ability modifier, so it shouldn’t have been added to the roll, and in fact, it’s not added to that roll when performing an off-hand melee attack.
While this is a correct interpretation of the rules, however, it still counts as a pretty hard nerf to Dex users in my book. Admittedly, in my playthrough, Astarion went in with a dagger in his off-hand, not a bow, but there’ll be plenty of people who opt for a ranged assassin build on their Rogues who will be hit pretty hard by this change over the course of a campaign. Monks and Rangers also make substantial use of Dexterity, though the frequently unarmed combat of the Monk might mean they’re not hit too hard. The Dark Urge Ranger/Rogue playthrough I’ve just started, however, is in absolute shambles.
Astarion, Shadowheart, and Lae’zel actors pitch Baldur’s Gate 3 DLC inspired by Stardew Valley and their D&D campaign.
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I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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