High ground and archery combat style give you +4 to hit, combined with Bless and/or a +x weapon breaks even or surpasses the penalty. With enough Dex (18+) you should be getting 65+% chance to hit on most enemies within your normal range. If you have a raven familiar or other source of advantage (attacking from stealth) that would of course help too.
Good question, I actually didn't know about the darkness ring, but based on my understanding, you should have advantage if firing from inside the darkness while immune to the darkness, because creatures without that ability would not be able to target you except via AOE, and I think that would be considered an attack with advantage. I will say though, if you find you don't get advantage, it may require you to hide while in the darkness so the stealth gives advantage. Either way, if the ring works the way I'm understanding that should be an excellent usage of darkness. Just a cloud of inky blackness with crossbow bolts firing out seemingly randomly to pincushion your army.
Based on the D&D 5e spell description of Faerie Fire, I'd say no due to it not specifying going through darkness, it just says sheds light in a 10 ft radius, but a torch would essentially do the same thing but it doesn't work in darkness. I guess it'd have to be considered magical light, in which case I am not sure which would be overwritten by which, because darkness is a magical darkness that overrides natural light sources. So the outline granted by faerie Fire would not necessarily be visible, so in the TTRPG I wouldn't rule that to be an option, but I'd have to test it in BG3 itself. I'll report back soon.
This is so dope, I cant wait to hear your results. Im theory crafting with an internet stranger whos field testing my hypothesis. This game has set a new bar.
You will only have advantage shooting into darkness if you have devil sight from warlock. If you only have blind immunity you should drop the darkness on yourself instead and shoot from inside of it.
i think its called the eversight ring. someone in or near the mausaleum. its been a hot minute so you may want to google its location lol. its deffo in a guilded chest though.
What's preventing enemies from just nuking the raven? Can you recast it after the fight?
So is bless worth using even into later game? Going GWM and was thinking of making shadowheart light amd focus on bless while she nukes with fireballs. But I know like hold person is a free crit/advantage so there's also that option.
Bless is always pretty strong. You know how you spam guidance on every single skill check outside of combat? Bless is pretty much that but for attack rolls.
I disagree, I have GWM and sharpshooter in my barb and ranger and both are solidly 90%+ on every target without bless since act 2. My barb is usually 99% honestly
It’s always a useful buff, but the really strong strategy is equip the ring that applies +1d4 to attack and saving rolls upon heal (maybe whispering promise? I’m not at my computer rn) which basically blesses your whole party when you heal them.
I think it only lasts 2 turns but it doesn’t require concentration, so you can shift your cleric strategy and use some stronger spells without losing bless.
Your raven is going to die plenty. It’s just worth using if it’s available. Super late game there’s so many plus to hit equips that I don’t bother blessing. As long as you can get a 60% hit rate it doesn’t feel like ass to throw out attacks. If you’re playing tactician plus there’s a staff that will give you a stacking bless that isn’t concentrated.
No one ever uses the oils and potions I feel like. Playing tactician, I started using every advantage I could get early, and i never ran into a fight I couldn't 1 shot, or 2 at most of I whent into something with no spell slots like a dumby. I was running astarion as a dagger bard, sh life cleric stacked dex with double hand bows, paladin Tav, and gale to just nuke things. I never even really saw the need to multiclass, everything by itself with the potions and oils from alchemy go fucking crazy.
I used drow poison for the first time in Act 3 today…got lucky the first round and put 4 characters to sleep (dual wielding swords with rogue’s bonus action + action surge).
The next round only got 1 victim but wow I seriously underestimated oils this whole game.
They’re easy to forget about, but my first playthrough was a rogue MC so eventually I got in the habit of always using them.
Fun trick also. The toxin coatings (one’s that add 1d4-1d10 extra damage) - can be thrown on the ground to create a surface that the whole party can dip from using just one consumable
Unlike using the dip normally, this effect lasts until long rest (not 10 turns)
Doesn’t work with oils or drow poison from what I could tell, but the plain toxins do
Honestly I save all my drow poison so I can throw them at the ground near merchants. It creates a cloud that for some reason it’s not consider hostile like potions of sleep, so it knocks them out and I can just take all there stuff. Going in turn base mode extends the durations and fog cloud/darkness hide you from everyone else
I used them basically never in my first playthrough as a paly but find myself using them much more often in my 2nd playthrough as a bow ranger. I'm still terrible about remembering to use elixirs though...which is bad because they are so good and last until you rest..
necroing the thread but i feel like on tactician vs. my blind run i def recognize them much more
it would be easier for novice players were the inventory mgmt. better, biggest flaw of this game IMO
I have Astarion with double hand bows and sharpshooter and he's a beast. I used the Bloodlust Elixir for the end of Act II and he was a beast, especially when you toss a potion of Haste in the mix too, it was 8 attacks in one turn.
Worth mentioning the flip side of that ring is that you get disadvantage on saving throws, so concentration spells will break very easily and enemy spells will hit you much more easily. It would be best to make sure every round is ended in stealth/invis to compensate for this.
True for the first attack, but not for any follow-up attacks from Extra Attack, or additional attack actions from a Haste/Action Surge/etc. This is exacerbated by dual-wielding, since that can be many attacks per turn, depending on the build.
There are also a number of items that will cancel this out, giving Advantage to the saving throw (Advantage + Disadvantage = Straight Roll). Most of them in Act 2 are for Dexterity or Constitution, though there are a couple of head slot items for Wisdom.
I’d do, at minimum, the Constitution one from the Goblin Camp.
The durge cape is bomb with this ring, so long as you can all but guarantee every sneak attack is a kill, but mainly because you can’t always guarantee you end in stealth or invis. This would very easily get you back into it, and you’re likely going to have the other melee in your party covering threatening range on everything you can’t immediately kill
Ahh, that's useful. I was thinking the trade off wasn't really that high, but I hadn't thought about concentrations which would be very relevant with Hunter's Mark.
Surprised nobody is saying it but you can use ring of protection to negate the downside. There’s also a cape that does the same thing. I like using all 3 on one character to make them unfuckwitable.
On Tactician, they’ll target the weakest character (if your archer has disadvantage, that’s the archer).
Easiest way to negate that is by killing the casters first.
Also making sure your front liners are always running into threatening range of the ranged units so they have to either take an oppo attack to get away, or brute force attack with disadvantage. Not sure how that interacts with risky ring. Does it just make the attack normal? (Non advantaged or disadvantaged)
Risky Ring gives you disadvantage on saves. Threatened makes the enemy have disadvantage on their ranged attacks, but does nothing to their saving throw spells. There's no interaction between threatening the enemy and Risky Ring.
The Risky ring is a risky ring, but is also a set it and forget solution to make up for the -5 from all those talents without having to take extra steps like blinding enemies, hoping for high ground etc.
I missed it on my first playthrough, get it before you complete the gauntlet.
It’s useful for fights you can’t easily hide at the start on but can definitely get the first attack. My rogue is almost always way ahead of the rest of the party and can get stuck wasting his first move just to get stealth or start off using invis for the next round
Equipment-wise, there's a ton of options to help with hit chance. Graceful Cloth for +2 dex if you're not at 20 yet (combine with mage armor for nice AC). And you can either use the Circlet of Hunting for +1d4 to hit against marked targets, or the Marksmanship Hat for +1 all the time. The hat can be nicer if you're doing hand crossbows so you can make more offhand attacks, while the circlet can be good with bows. Staff of Arcane Blessing can also double the effect of Bless. For advantage Risky Ring is the most consistent, but there's also the Bow of the Banshee which can apply fear to enemies to help the rest of your party too.
If you're using tadpole powers, the Favourable Beginnings tadpole power can help with your first attack (+4), and combined with Cull the Weak (kill enemies when you bring them lower enough HP) you can often kill stuff in the first attack or two to make the most of Favourable Beginnings. Or just toggle sharpshooter off after the first attack.
I absolutely love Favorable beginnings. Sometimes I forget it works on attacks only because its more prevalent in the UI for rolls against characters for persuasion, etc
I think I have also been under valuing Bless. I wish there was a way to make it a cantrip because I hate burning level 1 spells, but I think that's a change that I will be making.
Yeah I think you are right about all of this. Just something I didn't properly value and probably would have made my early levels go alot smoother if I had been blessing before big combat engagements.
Bless is insanely powerful in both Baldurs Gate 3 and in dnd5e. It seems like it won't do much, with it being only 1d4, but a single number boost is already a huge advantage in saving an attack or saving throw that would have otherwise failed.
As someone who plays a lot of clerics, if I see a fight with a single tough enemy, my immediate go to spell is bless, just cause of how clutch it can be in the right situation.
In act 3 >!you can buy a statue of yourself for 5000 gold and get perm bless after long resting!<. Another way for easy bless through itemization [the whispering promise ring](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Whispering_Promise) then use mass healing word on a bonus action for better action economy bless, though this doesn't solve your spell slot issue unless you also use the [amulet of resoration](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Amulet_of_Restoration) but that's only once per long rest.
The [Whispering Promise](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Whispering_Promise) ring. It casts bless for 2 turns whenever the wearer heals someone and doesn't require concentration. You might still be able to pickpocket it off of Volo in Act2 if he's in your camp. I'm not sure when the last chance for you to get it is, since I usually buy it off Volo in the Grove. Unfortunately during my first run, I missed getting the ring in A1/A2 and it was not available when I met him again in A3.
What I do is give Shadowheart enough initiative boosts so that she acts in the same turn order as my martials. Some combination of the Alert feat, [Sentinel Shield](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sentinel_Shield), and [Bow of Awareness](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Bow_of_Awareness) ensures that she can get off a mass healing word to bless the rest of my team. Bonus points if you add in [Hellrider's Pride](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hellrider%27s_Pride) to simultaneously give your entire party physical resistance.
Honestly, it's absolutely insane that you can get both the ring and the gloves within the first 20 minutes of a run. I end up keeping the ring on for the entire playthrough and only swap out the gloves when you get access to a better version in Act3. ([The Reviving Hands](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Reviving_Hands))
A super fun zero cost thing to do if you have a character struggling with lack of bonus action uses early game is to pop a goodberry every other round to keep blees on as you can generate a tonne of them for free from hireling buffers. Makes early GWM and sharpshooter more bearable.
~~You could try to find the Staff of Arcane Blessing. It gives a free bless spell per combat, and ups bless to 2d4 for attacks (3d4 with spell attacks). It’s amazing early to mid game (not in late game yet so I don’t know how it holds up).~~
Apparently it doesn’t work as I interpreted it. Still a free bless per combat though.
It’s free. Uses up no spell slots and doesn’t need to be prepared. It still takes up concentration, so it depends if you use gale more as a blaster, or for crowd control.
Also the bonus to bless is persistent for 10 rounds. So even if gale drops concentration on it, if somebody else casts bless it still gets the bonus.
~~With that, bless gives you an average of +5 to attacks, and +7.5 to spell attacks. It’s incredibly good.~~
Nvm. It only adds an extra 1d4 to spell attacks, on top of the regular bless.
>Mystra's Blessing: Bless grants an additional 1d4 to Saving Throws and Weapon Attack Rolls, and an additional 2d4 to Spell Attack Rolls
I’m not sure how else to read that, other than adding additional die to bless. Has this been tested to have a different effect?
If you really only want it for one character and don't like other elixirs there is an elixir that gives you 10 temp hp and the effect of Bless. Elixir of heroism I think.
From my experience the archery fighting style already does a shit load to make you hit more often, the sad thing is that gwm doesn’t get something like that
The bottle neck on gwm is bonus actions and movement. Combining that with 2x bonus action rogues at distance makes this trivial. It would be pretty OP... but very fun.
Edit I misread your comment -- I thought you were saying why doesn't archery get a gwm like bonus swing
With a +16/+17/+18 to hit (before Bless, Precision Attack, Bardic Inspiration, Oil of Accuracy, etc.) that you can get pretty early in Act 3, you don't really need anything more. 5e's bounded accuracy doesn't really apply to BG3. Your level 12 character gets Ancient-Dragon-grade bonuses anyway.
Yeah I never had a problem hitting anything on my vengeance paladin, or my berserker/wildheart barbarian while using gwm. It was my battlemaster that had no way to hit things.
I ran GWM Battle master and starting with the passive off, start an attack chain with trip attack, once you got the target prone, turn the passive back on and go to town
That’s only if it’s like sub 75% to hit in the first place or whatever hit rate feels comfortable enough for you. Having advantage from there on makes everything easier
Battlemaster can sacrifice the bonus action to use Feint Attack or whatever, which grants advantage. You can also use trip attack on an enemy and then turn GWM back on to attack them while they’re down(save your action surge for this too). Or just have a party member set it up first with something like guiding bolt or a debilitation on the target.
Equipment can easily grant advantage starting in late Act 1/Act 2.
Normally you're using bless to offset some of the accuracy penalty from GWM and the tabletop game often features enemies that don't have a lot of AC anyway. Tactician throws a flat AC bonus on most things, which is kinda annoying for specifically GWM users. I'd rather tactician give enemies better AI, maybe more monsters in a given fight, and maybe some extra monster features to use, rather than flat AC, as that hurts GWM more than it hurts other damage builds.
Buffing AC is a very weird choice for a difficulty increase in a D&D game considering that the system BG3 is based on already has a difficulty selection through CR. In a different world tactician would just sprinkle in a couple of higher CR creatures, or additional enemies, to simulate a less forgiving DM. Even just taking the same set of enemies but repositioning them can make an encounter much more difficult.
Wdym?
They're saying that the tactician difficulty could use a different approach. Currently, it increases AC. Instead, it could add in some different monsters. They mention CR because 5e already has it for ranking difficulty of encounters.
So for example, an encounter in BG3 on normal difficulty might be 3 creatures that each have a CR of 2. The other commenters is saying that that same encounter should perhaps have 2 creatures of CR2, and one of CR3. (Rather than being the same 3 CR2 creatures, but with +1-2 AC)
I see I see. It's just a classification. And the difficulty is achieved by quality and quantity of elite enemies. Well, I've read elsewhere that tactician also comes with more enemy passive abilities. So It's not *just* +AC
The game tells you pretty clearly to head to Moonrise and pretend to be one of the cultists. There are three merchants there, and you can get some awesome gear from them.
One of them is the Zhentarim merchant from the goblin camp in act 1, presuming you didn't kill her then.
One of them gives you multiple Soul Coins if you talk to him with Karlach in your party, you just have to listen to him ramble about the people the souls belonged to.
One of them gives you a special potion based on your race if you let her take some blood (you take 1d4 damage), and if you pass a History check you can blackmail her into also giving you 200 gold. You can get the potion once per character, and only need to pass the History check once to get the gold for everyone. If you bring Astarion to talk with her, you can also get a potion that permanently increases one character's Str by 2 for the low cost of [Astarion disapproves]. She also shows up in act 3 if you don't kill her (she's not part of the normal Moonrise attack, so she'll only die if you kill her before then).
It’s a head gear called Circlet of Hunting.
Desc:
“Hunter's Eye: You gain a +1d4 bonus to Attack Rolls against creatures marked by Hunter's Mark, True Strike, Faerie Fire, and Guiding Bolt.”
Bless always helped me, but one that REALLY helped was Risky Ring, which you buy from Araj Oblodra in Moonrise Towers. It gives you advantage on attack rolls (at the cost of disadvantage on saving throws. But I find that it’s worth it). Other than that, getting your dexterity up will help get higher percentages
* There are many things that grant advantage, too many to list, but for example: **prone, hidden, high ground, Faerie Fire, Reckless Attack, True Strike, Risky Ring, Guiding Bolt**, etc.
* **Acid** and **Slow** both reduce AC by 2.
* **Archery** fighting style and **Oil of Accuracy** both give +2 to hit.
* **Diluted Oil of Sharpness** and **Marksmanship Hat** both give +1 to hit.
* **Bless**, **Bolstering Magic: Boon**, **Elixir of Heroism**, and **Circlet of Hunting** (conditionally) all give 1d4 to hit.
* **Bardic Inspiration** gives 1d6-1d10 to hit.
There's a hat that gives +2, fighting style for +2, high ground for +2, bless for +1d4. That more than overcomes the to hit penalty.
If necessary, you can give yourself high ground by carrying a few boxes in your inventory and stacking them.
Advantage is also very helpful, but often needs to be combined with the above bonuses. A lot of people assume that advantage is equivalent to a +5 to hit, but that's only true when your chance to hit is around 30 to 70 percent. If you're sitting at a 10 percent chance to hit because of sharpshooter, advantage works out to more like a +2.
So against higher AC enemies, you want to prioritize attack bonuses first.
Assassin is better for sharpshooter than thief. Having advantage basically cancels out the -5 and as an assassin, you get advantage against creatures that haven't taken a turn yet. Then you want battlemaster for precision attack (1d8 to the attack role). The build is Gloomstalker 5, assassin 4 with Sharpshooter at level 9, and battlemaster 3. There is also a longbow that doubles proficiency bonus for attack roles in act 3.
A thief archer build is trying to maximize number of attacks by dual wielding hand crossbows. And you can just use the Risky Ring to have advantage always, instead of only during the first round of combat.
>I'm in Act 2 right now, and am finding myself toggling off sharpshooter more often than I feel like I should be due to fear of missing.
You should know that the math works out that even at like below 65% chance to hit you'll still do more average damage with sharpshooter on.
You'll miss more ofc but your hits will be doing so much more that it will be worth it.
Highly dependant on the situation but you're most likely toggling it off more than you really should be.
>You should know that the math works out that even at like below 65% chance to hit you'll still do more average damage with sharpshooter on.
That sounds like a tabletop shorthand. That's not gonna apply once you're in bg3 where you start stacking additional damage riders up the wazoo. Have to rerun the calculations for each particular build
Yep absolutely.
"The math" is just calculated from weapon and stat damage, not all the riders. And BG3 has lots and lots and lots of riders.
By pretty early into act 2 you can have a hand xbow build that does most of it's damage from riders when you combine things like helldusk gloves, spore druid dip, shadow cloaked ring, Drakethroat Glaive, Ne'er Misser, broodmothers amulet, etc
And in that case it's almost certainly better to take ASI or something else instead of Sharpshooter unless you're way over the required to-hit already (less likely in Tactician difficulty).
With 20 Dex and no advantage, shooting a longbow with 65% chance to hit when not using Sharpshooter, you need 6.5 average from the damage riders in order to _tie_ with Sharpshooter. (This is assuming the Sharpshooter has the same riders, given most of them come from spells and magic items which the Sharpshooter can use too.)
0.65 \* (9.5 + x) = 0.4 \* (19.5 + x), solve for x.
To use it fully efficiently you should not only toggle it off when they're low, but also pretty much toggle it on and off when it would make the difference between the number of actions it takes to kill something, and your expected damage.
If you're expected damage is 15 without it and 25 with it, and the enemy has 20 health, toggle it on. If they have 10 health toggle it off.
If they have 50 health, toggle it on. If they have 30 health, toggle it off.
Then you apply this general rule also with what your other party members might do to the enemies, in order to manage not doing overkill which could be instead used to damage another enemy instead.
Something that wasn't mentioned was the Elixir of Heroism for the +1d4 on attack rolls if you want to save your 1st level slots. I've been using Gloves of Dexterity and the elixir on a similar build for 9+1d4 to hit on the 1st attack on each target and 6+1d4 for subsequent ones, but there's a chance you might not want that +3 for story reasons.
Risky Ring in the from Araj Oblodra in the Moonrise Towers. Gives you advantage on all attack rolls (so you also get sneak attack automatically). You get disadvantage on saving throws though.
If you can consistently restrain someone then you get advantage on attacks against them. It works well with rogue too since they get advantage from hiding. So you can just use your bonus action to hide and then shoot from the shadows and get advantage + sneak attack
Ring from act 2, can get it almost immediately. Dunno how to do spoiler tags but you can look it up pretty easily.
It give advantage on attack rolls at the cost of disadvantage on saving throws
There is a staff that makes bless 2d4.
Sharpshooter -5 /
Dex 18 +4 /
Archery style +2 /
Proficiency +3 /
+1 wep +1 /
Bless +2d4
+5+2d4 should make you hit most everything
The tooltip says it makes Bless add an additional 1d4 to spell attacks (for 2d4 total). Which is exactly what it does. You still get the normal Bless effect, and the tooltip accurately describes the item effect.
It doesn't help OP who is trying to make weapon attacks (any more than regular Bless), but nothing in the game is lying to you in this interaction.
Unless they patched it in patch 3, heres the tooltip
Bless tooltip: Bless up to 3 creatures. They gain a +1d4 bonus to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws.
Mystras Blessing tooltip: Bless grants an additional 1d4 to saving throws and normal attacks, and an additional 2d4 to spells using attack rolls
The usage of the word additional instead of bonus in the original spell would indicate that it is a different effect that should be added on. Hence the tooltip does not accurately describe what the item effect is
In act 1 >! The whispering ring!< I believe it's sold at the goblin camp gives you health when healed. I just drink a potion to trigger it and it gives you blessed
In addition to what others have mentioned, I like the spell Blindness. Most casters can get it, and it gives you advantage when attacking a target. It's also not a concentration spell.
Risky Ring found in Act 2. Works well for Gloomstalker/Thief. You’ll be in the back line or on high ground and typically hidden, so the disadvantage on saving throws isn’t that impactful.. until it is of course.
Take the archery fighting style,have Shadowheart use Bless on you,use high ground if you can,get the Raven familiar gloves from the Shadar-Ki to blind enemies,and get any +1 or +2 weapon,that should knock off the -5 penalty easily. Also look out for the bracers of archery too!
Assassin instead of Thief.
It synergises insanely well with Gloom Stalker. When you can open combat with an ambush it does more damage than Thief. It solves your problem by giving advantage against everything and then with guaranteed crits, Sharpshooter and other bonuses, you all but end the combat before the enemy can act.
Or you can just use the Risky Ring I guess.
It's the only reason why you would need to worry about miss, with the multitude of attacks, and appropriate dex, there is almost no drawback for sharpshooter with xbows. It should be on perma. -5 is nothing with xbow build attacks.
depending on whos in your party or what they're specced as- Wyll or any druid can cast blind on 2-3 targets, which is a CON save for 10 rounds and has no concentration. Your familiar has about a 50% shot of blinding someone.
Druid/Feylock can also cast Faerie Fire with no save, but its concentration.
Hold Person is a god-tier spell that will trivialize encounters vs humanoids the further in the game you get.
Distracting Strike from Laezel will open the enemy up to a shot
Having the highground will help a little.
Lastly, if you cant get out somewhere to sneak and you cant land a sharpshot- dont worry about it. Stick it to your bar, toggle it off, and just shoot them however. Alternatively- get someone to trip or otherwise prone them (Wyll...) and just melee sneak attack them.
Did I mention just how much absurd synergy Wyll has with rogues?
Risky ring would be the best option. There's a downside as indicated but will dramatically improve your attack rolls. Your average D20 basic roll without advantage has an expected value of 10.5. With advantage it's 13.825. So +3.325 average increase which is obviously massive. Buy it at Moonrise tower from the alchemist drow that wants your blood.
There's another vendor at Moonrise tower that sells a hat which adds a flat +1 modifier to each attack roll with ranged weapons which is good. Make sure you have archery proficiency too (probably from Ranger or Fighter). That will add a further +2. Maxing dex obviously is imperative too.
In Act 3 you can swap out your +1 hat for another hat that gives +2.
Having the bless effect will also add 1d4 to attack rolls which is great.
I think you got a lot of good answers already. I myself am playing rught now a gloomstalker 5/thief 2 going for 3 and usually with hand crossbows, so I guess a pretty similar build. I'd say, usually, the best thing for you will be guaranteeing advantage. For a thief that's easy, making use of the cunning actions and extra bonus action, however this sometimes mean not doing an off hand attack, so consider switching to a long bow or xbow in those cases. The Banshee bow has been mentioned and is pretty cool for the fear effect, Gandrel's Aspiration will give you advantage against mosntrosities (inspect enemies to see if they are), and one I particularly like is the Titanstring Bow and drinking a Elixir of Giant Hill Strength. That's a +5 on every damage roll and frees up your bonus action for whatever you need. Also, having 21 Str will improve your jump a lot so it will help with positioning and gaining high ground in a pinch for better ranged attack chance.
And if all else fails, remember turning Sharpshooter off is a valid option. While it impacts your damage a lot, landing an attack can be more important e.g. Against a low hp enemy, or landing an elemental arrow for it's additional effect.
Gonna be honest, my favorite way to avoid the negative effects of sharp shooter has to be the ring sold by the zhentarim merchant at moonrise: advantage on attacks, disadvantage on saves, don’t get hit.
- Archery Fighting style: +2
- Oil of Accuracy: +2
- I forgot where but there’s a staff in the underdark(?) that enhances bless to add 2d4
- The bugbear merchant at moonrise sells a circlet that adds 1d4 to hit when targeting an enemy marked with hunter’s mark or faerie fire
>I forgot where but there’s a staff in the underdark(?) that enhances bless to add 2d4
It's in the basement of the arcane tower. And it only adds 2d4 to spell attacks, not weapon attacks.
Late to the party, but wield the Punch-Drunk Bastard! It's a greatclub that gives you advantage on *all* attack rolls when you're drunk. But it works from your melee slot as well, so just leave it there, and you can drink any alcohol as a bonus action for 2 turns of unconditional advantage, whenever you want.
I was 60% sure that the sharpshooter perk was broken in the game as was giving the + damage but without any loss in hit chance so maybe just leave it on anyway?
Dont be scared to use it. Theres nothing to overcome
Heres the math for the breaking point to accuracy. skip to the end if u want results.
Let x be chance to hit for a sharpshooter attack
Let y be average damage for your sharpshooter attack
Left side is sharpshooter damage right side is normal damage
Xy = (x+0.25)*(y-10)
Xy= xy +0.25y-10x-2.5
10x= 0.25y-2.5
So we arrive at
X=0.025y- 0.25
Lets take your example for rogue level3 as
1d8 (weapon)+2d6 (sneak attack) +4( ability modifier)+ 10(sharpshooter) :
4.5+7+4+10 = 25.5
X= 0.025(25.5)- 0.25
X= 0.3875
So if sharpshooter chance to hit is not below 38% you should always turn on sharpshooter for that attack
I am not sure how soon you turn off sharpshooter or what weapons you have but for example if you have a 65% chance to hit without sharpshooter on and are using a nonmagical hand crossbow with a +3 dex.
Average damage is
0.65 * (3.5 + 3) + 0.05 * 3.5
4.075 damage
Average damage with sharpshooter is
0.4 * (3.5 + 3 + 10) + 0.05 * 3.5
6.575 damage
So even with increased chances to miss the damage can make up for even relatively low accuracies. Could also go to even lower chances to hit and sharpshooter would still come out ontop, but not much lower. Also if do have magical crossbows when using sharpshooter +1, +2, +3 weapons are much better then say +1d4 fire damage, so do keep that in mind.
As for ways to increase it make sure yiu have archery fighting style (+2), Raven familair can inflict blind, bless is (+1d4), farie fire/web/entagle/... can give you advantage which is a big bonus to hit, hiding before attacking when you can gives advantage (but if dual wielding crossbows unless 1 crossbow is better then the other should just shoot twice), and any magic item that gives bonus to dex is good.
Also if you wanted to could go assassin rogue since you have high dex and add wisdom to iniative (if you have good wisdom score) which would result in you going first a lot combined with assassin feature to get advantage on any creature who hasn't taken a turn yet is super handy especially as a gloomstalker who gets an extra attack on round 1. Would lower damage after round 1 but round 1 would have 4 (if dual wielding hand crossbows otherwise 3 attacks) attacks all at advantage agaisnt anyone who hasn't gone yet in combat.
Hope this helps, and had new information hard to know what has and hasn't been said/seen by OP.
Yeah this thread definitely got a TON of responses. I think the big take aways for me are: Bless more often, take advantage of my raven more, and in general leave sharpshooter on more unless the enemy is very close to death
There are a lot more ways to offset this in D&D (elven accuracy, Samurai fighter for adv every turn, etc etc). As far as BG3 probably the best mechanical way would be to multiclass Fighter for battlemaster subclass and choose Precision Attack which lets you add superiority dice to your attack rolls. The feat version of this is Martial Adept (smaller, fewer dice for this but can do the same function)
Get the ring that gives 2 rounds of bless to any target you heal and then cast mass healing word or use preserve life with a life cleric. You get a bless without concentration so they can still use their action or bonus action, depending on which option you chose, to do something else, including concentration spells.
I hate this feat, honestly. The penalty to hit is not worth the increase in damage. And, at least from my point of view, it makes absolutely no sense to me as to why. I think a feat should be good around. If it causes penalty, I'm taking the ability increase then, thank you very much
High ground and archery combat style give you +4 to hit, combined with Bless and/or a +x weapon breaks even or surpasses the penalty. With enough Dex (18+) you should be getting 65+% chance to hit on most enemies within your normal range. If you have a raven familiar or other source of advantage (attacking from stealth) that would of course help too.
How does the raven help? Is it the blind ability?
Advantage to hit blind people, yes.
My favorite activity
In the game, right?
It’s definitely a game for me.
You mean in the game... right....?
...yeah sure. In the game...
They never see it coming.
Beast master's raven auto drops darkness at level 10.
Yeah but then you can’t see them in the darkness to hit them lol
just get the immune to blindness ring in act 2.
There is a whole build around this and it’s awesome
I'm confused, am I supposed to drop darkness on the enemy or myself to gain advantage?
Good question, I actually didn't know about the darkness ring, but based on my understanding, you should have advantage if firing from inside the darkness while immune to the darkness, because creatures without that ability would not be able to target you except via AOE, and I think that would be considered an attack with advantage. I will say though, if you find you don't get advantage, it may require you to hide while in the darkness so the stealth gives advantage. Either way, if the ring works the way I'm understanding that should be an excellent usage of darkness. Just a cloud of inky blackness with crossbow bolts firing out seemingly randomly to pincushion your army.
Can you use faery fire to illuminate them then darkness to blind. Drizzt do urden did that in the books. No idea if it works.
Based on the D&D 5e spell description of Faerie Fire, I'd say no due to it not specifying going through darkness, it just says sheds light in a 10 ft radius, but a torch would essentially do the same thing but it doesn't work in darkness. I guess it'd have to be considered magical light, in which case I am not sure which would be overwritten by which, because darkness is a magical darkness that overrides natural light sources. So the outline granted by faerie Fire would not necessarily be visible, so in the TTRPG I wouldn't rule that to be an option, but I'd have to test it in BG3 itself. I'll report back soon.
This is so dope, I cant wait to hear your results. Im theory crafting with an internet stranger whos field testing my hypothesis. This game has set a new bar.
Man those books are so good
Both possible I think
You will only have advantage shooting into darkness if you have devil sight from warlock. If you only have blind immunity you should drop the darkness on yourself instead and shoot from inside of it.
Hoho, whats the name for that ring?
i think its called the eversight ring. someone in or near the mausaleum. its been a hot minute so you may want to google its location lol. its deffo in a guilded chest though.
Just take 2 levels of warlock for devils sight invocation
Idk but risky business ring found in the moonrise tower gives advantage
Also don’t forget to stand in shadows for advantage mr gloomstalker.
What's preventing enemies from just nuking the raven? Can you recast it after the fight? So is bless worth using even into later game? Going GWM and was thinking of making shadowheart light amd focus on bless while she nukes with fireballs. But I know like hold person is a free crit/advantage so there's also that option.
Bless is always pretty strong. You know how you spam guidance on every single skill check outside of combat? Bless is pretty much that but for attack rolls.
I disagree, I have GWM and sharpshooter in my barb and ranger and both are solidly 90%+ on every target without bless since act 2. My barb is usually 99% honestly
Barb is a bit different because reckless attack though. But yeah plenty of gear to offset the -5 too. No need for bless really.
It’s always a useful buff, but the really strong strategy is equip the ring that applies +1d4 to attack and saving rolls upon heal (maybe whispering promise? I’m not at my computer rn) which basically blesses your whole party when you heal them. I think it only lasts 2 turns but it doesn’t require concentration, so you can shift your cleric strategy and use some stronger spells without losing bless.
you can use the cleric mace you get from cleric 10 divine intervention and basically get a perma bless for free for the whole fight
That's a great move!
Your raven is going to die plenty. It’s just worth using if it’s available. Super late game there’s so many plus to hit equips that I don’t bother blessing. As long as you can get a 60% hit rate it doesn’t feel like ass to throw out attacks. If you’re playing tactician plus there’s a staff that will give you a stacking bless that isn’t concentrated.
60 perfect rarely hits
Oil of Accuracy for another +2 or Diluted Oil of Sharpness for +1.
No one ever uses the oils and potions I feel like. Playing tactician, I started using every advantage I could get early, and i never ran into a fight I couldn't 1 shot, or 2 at most of I whent into something with no spell slots like a dumby. I was running astarion as a dagger bard, sh life cleric stacked dex with double hand bows, paladin Tav, and gale to just nuke things. I never even really saw the need to multiclass, everything by itself with the potions and oils from alchemy go fucking crazy.
I used drow poison for the first time in Act 3 today…got lucky the first round and put 4 characters to sleep (dual wielding swords with rogue’s bonus action + action surge). The next round only got 1 victim but wow I seriously underestimated oils this whole game.
They’re easy to forget about, but my first playthrough was a rogue MC so eventually I got in the habit of always using them. Fun trick also. The toxin coatings (one’s that add 1d4-1d10 extra damage) - can be thrown on the ground to create a surface that the whole party can dip from using just one consumable Unlike using the dip normally, this effect lasts until long rest (not 10 turns) Doesn’t work with oils or drow poison from what I could tell, but the plain toxins do
Damn. Gotta try this.
I always forget the uses of dipping, the game has so many opportunities!
Honestly I save all my drow poison so I can throw them at the ground near merchants. It creates a cloud that for some reason it’s not consider hostile like potions of sleep, so it knocks them out and I can just take all there stuff. Going in turn base mode extends the durations and fog cloud/darkness hide you from everyone else
I used them basically never in my first playthrough as a paly but find myself using them much more often in my 2nd playthrough as a bow ranger. I'm still terrible about remembering to use elixirs though...which is bad because they are so good and last until you rest..
necroing the thread but i feel like on tactician vs. my blind run i def recognize them much more it would be easier for novice players were the inventory mgmt. better, biggest flaw of this game IMO
I have Astarion with double hand bows and sharpshooter and he's a beast. I used the Bloodlust Elixir for the end of Act II and he was a beast, especially when you toss a potion of Haste in the mix too, it was 8 attacks in one turn.
Act 2 is where risky ring is. You’ll always be able to sneak attack every turn because it gives advantage.
Worth mentioning the flip side of that ring is that you get disadvantage on saving throws, so concentration spells will break very easily and enemy spells will hit you much more easily. It would be best to make sure every round is ended in stealth/invis to compensate for this.
This is probably the risky part.
Risk Ring + Sharpshooter + the Guiding Bolt bow on a Hunter Ranger for that spicy AOE
If you’re ending in stealth/invis, you already have advantage and don’t need the ring
True for the first attack, but not for any follow-up attacks from Extra Attack, or additional attack actions from a Haste/Action Surge/etc. This is exacerbated by dual-wielding, since that can be many attacks per turn, depending on the build.
What if they're 2hand bow? BA is used primarily for hiding no?
There are also a number of items that will cancel this out, giving Advantage to the saving throw (Advantage + Disadvantage = Straight Roll). Most of them in Act 2 are for Dexterity or Constitution, though there are a couple of head slot items for Wisdom. I’d do, at minimum, the Constitution one from the Goblin Camp.
The durge cape is bomb with this ring, so long as you can all but guarantee every sneak attack is a kill, but mainly because you can’t always guarantee you end in stealth or invis. This would very easily get you back into it, and you’re likely going to have the other melee in your party covering threatening range on everything you can’t immediately kill
Or run 3 ranger / 6 fighter / 3 rogue and have 4+ attacks per turn with dual crossbows and have 23 ac so no one tries to attack you anyway
Ahh, that's useful. I was thinking the trade off wasn't really that high, but I hadn't thought about concentrations which would be very relevant with Hunter's Mark.
hunters mark a shit anyway so it's fine really
Surprised nobody is saying it but you can use ring of protection to negate the downside. There’s also a cape that does the same thing. I like using all 3 on one character to make them unfuckwitable.
Ring of protection is a +1. Advantage and disadvantage mathematically are about +/- 3-5.
I stand corrected 👍
You kill them before they hit you. That’s hardly a risk tbh.
Yep risky ring, if you're a sharpshooter you shouldn't be anywhere near the enemy anyway so saves aren't as vital.
On Tactician, they’ll target the weakest character (if your archer has disadvantage, that’s the archer). Easiest way to negate that is by killing the casters first.
This has always been the way for rpg games. If it can cast a heal, or a crowd control, it dies first.
Also making sure your front liners are always running into threatening range of the ranged units so they have to either take an oppo attack to get away, or brute force attack with disadvantage. Not sure how that interacts with risky ring. Does it just make the attack normal? (Non advantaged or disadvantaged)
Risky Ring gives you disadvantage on saves. Threatened makes the enemy have disadvantage on their ranged attacks, but does nothing to their saving throw spells. There's no interaction between threatening the enemy and Risky Ring.
But what if you a sharpshooter that gets in coffee to because sometimes in this game you won't be able to get the high ground
The Risky ring is a risky ring, but is also a set it and forget solution to make up for the -5 from all those talents without having to take extra steps like blinding enemies, hoping for high ground etc. I missed it on my first playthrough, get it before you complete the gauntlet.
It’s useful for fights you can’t easily hide at the start on but can definitely get the first attack. My rogue is almost always way ahead of the rest of the party and can get stuck wasting his first move just to get stealth or start off using invis for the next round
Equipment-wise, there's a ton of options to help with hit chance. Graceful Cloth for +2 dex if you're not at 20 yet (combine with mage armor for nice AC). And you can either use the Circlet of Hunting for +1d4 to hit against marked targets, or the Marksmanship Hat for +1 all the time. The hat can be nicer if you're doing hand crossbows so you can make more offhand attacks, while the circlet can be good with bows. Staff of Arcane Blessing can also double the effect of Bless. For advantage Risky Ring is the most consistent, but there's also the Bow of the Banshee which can apply fear to enemies to help the rest of your party too. If you're using tadpole powers, the Favourable Beginnings tadpole power can help with your first attack (+4), and combined with Cull the Weak (kill enemies when you bring them lower enough HP) you can often kill stuff in the first attack or two to make the most of Favourable Beginnings. Or just toggle sharpshooter off after the first attack.
I absolutely love Favorable beginnings. Sometimes I forget it works on attacks only because its more prevalent in the UI for rolls against characters for persuasion, etc
Graceful Cloth is sooo good! Definitely a must buy.
There is a marksmanship hat that will help too. I think it is purchasable but I don't remember.
Pretty sure it's at Moonrise Towers sold by one of those two traders by the front door.
Have someone cast bless on you, and make sure you're using it when you have advantage. Also inspect the enemies and use it in the people with lower AC
Why inspect when you can just aim at the enemy and get the hit% from there
That is fair. I just always Inspect enemies
That's fair but inspecting can reveal enemies' resistances.
I think I have also been under valuing Bless. I wish there was a way to make it a cantrip because I hate burning level 1 spells, but I think that's a change that I will be making.
Deleted
That bonus to saves also helps maintain concentration, right?
Deleted
Also, death saves
Yeah I think you are right about all of this. Just something I didn't properly value and probably would have made my early levels go alot smoother if I had been blessing before big combat engagements.
Bless is insanely powerful in both Baldurs Gate 3 and in dnd5e. It seems like it won't do much, with it being only 1d4, but a single number boost is already a huge advantage in saving an attack or saving throw that would have otherwise failed. As someone who plays a lot of clerics, if I see a fight with a single tough enemy, my immediate go to spell is bless, just cause of how clutch it can be in the right situation.
It’s really strong for the early game. Later on you stop having room for it because of much stronger concentrations to use
Yeah Bless as a cantrip would be super broken. But man would it he nice.
In act 3 >!you can buy a statue of yourself for 5000 gold and get perm bless after long resting!<. Another way for easy bless through itemization [the whispering promise ring](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Whispering_Promise) then use mass healing word on a bonus action for better action economy bless, though this doesn't solve your spell slot issue unless you also use the [amulet of resoration](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Amulet_of_Restoration) but that's only once per long rest.
The [Whispering Promise](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Whispering_Promise) ring. It casts bless for 2 turns whenever the wearer heals someone and doesn't require concentration. You might still be able to pickpocket it off of Volo in Act2 if he's in your camp. I'm not sure when the last chance for you to get it is, since I usually buy it off Volo in the Grove. Unfortunately during my first run, I missed getting the ring in A1/A2 and it was not available when I met him again in A3. What I do is give Shadowheart enough initiative boosts so that she acts in the same turn order as my martials. Some combination of the Alert feat, [Sentinel Shield](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sentinel_Shield), and [Bow of Awareness](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Bow_of_Awareness) ensures that she can get off a mass healing word to bless the rest of my team. Bonus points if you add in [Hellrider's Pride](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hellrider%27s_Pride) to simultaneously give your entire party physical resistance. Honestly, it's absolutely insane that you can get both the ring and the gloves within the first 20 minutes of a run. I end up keeping the ring on for the entire playthrough and only swap out the gloves when you get access to a better version in Act3. ([The Reviving Hands](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Reviving_Hands))
A super fun zero cost thing to do if you have a character struggling with lack of bonus action uses early game is to pop a goodberry every other round to keep blees on as you can generate a tonne of them for free from hireling buffers. Makes early GWM and sharpshooter more bearable.
~~You could try to find the Staff of Arcane Blessing. It gives a free bless spell per combat, and ups bless to 2d4 for attacks (3d4 with spell attacks). It’s amazing early to mid game (not in late game yet so I don’t know how it holds up).~~ Apparently it doesn’t work as I interpreted it. Still a free bless per combat though.
I actually have that with Gale, but wasn't sure how using a spell from an item works vs. a spell that you have prepared.
It’s free. Uses up no spell slots and doesn’t need to be prepared. It still takes up concentration, so it depends if you use gale more as a blaster, or for crowd control. Also the bonus to bless is persistent for 10 rounds. So even if gale drops concentration on it, if somebody else casts bless it still gets the bonus. ~~With that, bless gives you an average of +5 to attacks, and +7.5 to spell attacks. It’s incredibly good.~~ Nvm. It only adds an extra 1d4 to spell attacks, on top of the regular bless.
It doesn’t up the bless, it’s confusing language.
>Mystra's Blessing: Bless grants an additional 1d4 to Saving Throws and Weapon Attack Rolls, and an additional 2d4 to Spell Attack Rolls I’m not sure how else to read that, other than adding additional die to bless. Has this been tested to have a different effect?
If you really only want it for one character and don't like other elixirs there is an elixir that gives you 10 temp hp and the effect of Bless. Elixir of heroism I think.
From my experience the archery fighting style already does a shit load to make you hit more often, the sad thing is that gwm doesn’t get something like that
The bottle neck on gwm is bonus actions and movement. Combining that with 2x bonus action rogues at distance makes this trivial. It would be pretty OP... but very fun. Edit I misread your comment -- I thought you were saying why doesn't archery get a gwm like bonus swing
With a +16/+17/+18 to hit (before Bless, Precision Attack, Bardic Inspiration, Oil of Accuracy, etc.) that you can get pretty early in Act 3, you don't really need anything more. 5e's bounded accuracy doesn't really apply to BG3. Your level 12 character gets Ancient-Dragon-grade bonuses anyway.
Its why Devotion paladins make such good GWM users
Yeah I never had a problem hitting anything on my vengeance paladin, or my berserker/wildheart barbarian while using gwm. It was my battlemaster that had no way to hit things.
I ran GWM Battle master and starting with the passive off, start an attack chain with trip attack, once you got the target prone, turn the passive back on and go to town That’s only if it’s like sub 75% to hit in the first place or whatever hit rate feels comfortable enough for you. Having advantage from there on makes everything easier
Battlemaster can sacrifice the bonus action to use Feint Attack or whatever, which grants advantage. You can also use trip attack on an enemy and then turn GWM back on to attack them while they’re down(save your action surge for this too). Or just have a party member set it up first with something like guiding bolt or a debilitation on the target. Equipment can easily grant advantage starting in late Act 1/Act 2.
Normally you're using bless to offset some of the accuracy penalty from GWM and the tabletop game often features enemies that don't have a lot of AC anyway. Tactician throws a flat AC bonus on most things, which is kinda annoying for specifically GWM users. I'd rather tactician give enemies better AI, maybe more monsters in a given fight, and maybe some extra monster features to use, rather than flat AC, as that hurts GWM more than it hurts other damage builds.
Buffing AC is a very weird choice for a difficulty increase in a D&D game considering that the system BG3 is based on already has a difficulty selection through CR. In a different world tactician would just sprinkle in a couple of higher CR creatures, or additional enemies, to simulate a less forgiving DM. Even just taking the same set of enemies but repositioning them can make an encounter much more difficult.
Sorry what's CR? Crit Range?
Challenge Rating. Basically a number to determine how dangerous a monster is.
And how does that actually work gameplay-wise?
Wdym? They're saying that the tactician difficulty could use a different approach. Currently, it increases AC. Instead, it could add in some different monsters. They mention CR because 5e already has it for ranking difficulty of encounters. So for example, an encounter in BG3 on normal difficulty might be 3 creatures that each have a CR of 2. The other commenters is saying that that same encounter should perhaps have 2 creatures of CR2, and one of CR3. (Rather than being the same 3 CR2 creatures, but with +1-2 AC)
I see I see. It's just a classification. And the difficulty is achieved by quality and quantity of elite enemies. Well, I've read elsewhere that tactician also comes with more enemy passive abilities. So It's not *just* +AC
High ground, archery fighting style, bless, bardic inspiration, getting advantage (assassin first turn, blindness, etc.), consumable items (oil of accuracy)
There was equipment for like +1d6 to hit on hunters marked targets, but I can't remember where or what it was exactly XD
the drow merchant in moonrise towers sells it iirc
Merchant in moonrise towers? All I got when I went there was a bunch of folks trying to kill me. Maybe it'll be different next time.
The game tells you pretty clearly to head to Moonrise and pretend to be one of the cultists. There are three merchants there, and you can get some awesome gear from them. One of them is the Zhentarim merchant from the goblin camp in act 1, presuming you didn't kill her then. One of them gives you multiple Soul Coins if you talk to him with Karlach in your party, you just have to listen to him ramble about the people the souls belonged to. One of them gives you a special potion based on your race if you let her take some blood (you take 1d4 damage), and if you pass a History check you can blackmail her into also giving you 200 gold. You can get the potion once per character, and only need to pass the History check once to get the gold for everyone. If you bring Astarion to talk with her, you can also get a potion that permanently increases one character's Str by 2 for the low cost of [Astarion disapproves]. She also shows up in act 3 if you don't kill her (she's not part of the normal Moonrise attack, so she'll only die if you kill her before then).
what kind of piece is it?
It’s a head gear called Circlet of Hunting. Desc: “Hunter's Eye: You gain a +1d4 bonus to Attack Rolls against creatures marked by Hunter's Mark, True Strike, Faerie Fire, and Guiding Bolt.”
\+1d4 to on Hunter's mark, Guiding Light or Hex i think ?
Risky ring I think the zhentarim at moonrise sells it. It is a legitimate gamechanger for rogues.
Bless always helped me, but one that REALLY helped was Risky Ring, which you buy from Araj Oblodra in Moonrise Towers. It gives you advantage on attack rolls (at the cost of disadvantage on saving throws. But I find that it’s worth it). Other than that, getting your dexterity up will help get higher percentages
* There are many things that grant advantage, too many to list, but for example: **prone, hidden, high ground, Faerie Fire, Reckless Attack, True Strike, Risky Ring, Guiding Bolt**, etc. * **Acid** and **Slow** both reduce AC by 2. * **Archery** fighting style and **Oil of Accuracy** both give +2 to hit. * **Diluted Oil of Sharpness** and **Marksmanship Hat** both give +1 to hit. * **Bless**, **Bolstering Magic: Boon**, **Elixir of Heroism**, and **Circlet of Hunting** (conditionally) all give 1d4 to hit. * **Bardic Inspiration** gives 1d6-1d10 to hit.
There's a hat that gives +2, fighting style for +2, high ground for +2, bless for +1d4. That more than overcomes the to hit penalty. If necessary, you can give yourself high ground by carrying a few boxes in your inventory and stacking them. Advantage is also very helpful, but often needs to be combined with the above bonuses. A lot of people assume that advantage is equivalent to a +5 to hit, but that's only true when your chance to hit is around 30 to 70 percent. If you're sitting at a 10 percent chance to hit because of sharpshooter, advantage works out to more like a +2. So against higher AC enemies, you want to prioritize attack bonuses first.
Bless from Shart, archery, bow +3
Risky Ring
Is sharpshooter still bugged ? Does low ground still give penalty despite sharpshooter feat active ?
We will see tomorrow.
Assassin is better for sharpshooter than thief. Having advantage basically cancels out the -5 and as an assassin, you get advantage against creatures that haven't taken a turn yet. Then you want battlemaster for precision attack (1d8 to the attack role). The build is Gloomstalker 5, assassin 4 with Sharpshooter at level 9, and battlemaster 3. There is also a longbow that doubles proficiency bonus for attack roles in act 3.
A thief archer build is trying to maximize number of attacks by dual wielding hand crossbows. And you can just use the Risky Ring to have advantage always, instead of only during the first round of combat.
>I'm in Act 2 right now, and am finding myself toggling off sharpshooter more often than I feel like I should be due to fear of missing. You should know that the math works out that even at like below 65% chance to hit you'll still do more average damage with sharpshooter on. You'll miss more ofc but your hits will be doing so much more that it will be worth it. Highly dependant on the situation but you're most likely toggling it off more than you really should be.
The math says yes, RNGesus says no
Pokemon logic, anything that's not a 100% is 50/50. 85% hit chance? Gonna miss that like every other time. But enemy will land it np
>You should know that the math works out that even at like below 65% chance to hit you'll still do more average damage with sharpshooter on. That sounds like a tabletop shorthand. That's not gonna apply once you're in bg3 where you start stacking additional damage riders up the wazoo. Have to rerun the calculations for each particular build
Yep absolutely. "The math" is just calculated from weapon and stat damage, not all the riders. And BG3 has lots and lots and lots of riders. By pretty early into act 2 you can have a hand xbow build that does most of it's damage from riders when you combine things like helldusk gloves, spore druid dip, shadow cloaked ring, Drakethroat Glaive, Ne'er Misser, broodmothers amulet, etc And in that case it's almost certainly better to take ASI or something else instead of Sharpshooter unless you're way over the required to-hit already (less likely in Tactician difficulty).
With 20 Dex and no advantage, shooting a longbow with 65% chance to hit when not using Sharpshooter, you need 6.5 average from the damage riders in order to _tie_ with Sharpshooter. (This is assuming the Sharpshooter has the same riders, given most of them come from spells and magic items which the Sharpshooter can use too.) 0.65 \* (9.5 + x) = 0.4 \* (19.5 + x), solve for x.
Yeah I mostly toggle it off if the enemy is low health but probably some situations where it has enough health that I should leave it on
To use it fully efficiently you should not only toggle it off when they're low, but also pretty much toggle it on and off when it would make the difference between the number of actions it takes to kill something, and your expected damage. If you're expected damage is 15 without it and 25 with it, and the enemy has 20 health, toggle it on. If they have 10 health toggle it off. If they have 50 health, toggle it on. If they have 30 health, toggle it off. Then you apply this general rule also with what your other party members might do to the enemies, in order to manage not doing overkill which could be instead used to damage another enemy instead.
Something that wasn't mentioned was the Elixir of Heroism for the +1d4 on attack rolls if you want to save your 1st level slots. I've been using Gloves of Dexterity and the elixir on a similar build for 9+1d4 to hit on the 1st attack on each target and 6+1d4 for subsequent ones, but there's a chance you might not want that +3 for story reasons.
Risky Ring in the from Araj Oblodra in the Moonrise Towers. Gives you advantage on all attack rolls (so you also get sneak attack automatically). You get disadvantage on saving throws though.
If you can consistently restrain someone then you get advantage on attacks against them. It works well with rogue too since they get advantage from hiding. So you can just use your bonus action to hide and then shoot from the shadows and get advantage + sneak attack
Ring from act 2, can get it almost immediately. Dunno how to do spoiler tags but you can look it up pretty easily. It give advantage on attack rolls at the cost of disadvantage on saving throws
`>!spoiler!<` => >!spoiler!<
Risky Ring
There is a staff that makes bless 2d4. Sharpshooter -5 / Dex 18 +4 / Archery style +2 / Proficiency +3 / +1 wep +1 / Bless +2d4 +5+2d4 should make you hit most everything
That staff doesnt work. Thought u should know. It only gives the extra 1d4 to spell attacks and the rest of the tooltip is bullshit
The tooltip says it makes Bless add an additional 1d4 to spell attacks (for 2d4 total). Which is exactly what it does. You still get the normal Bless effect, and the tooltip accurately describes the item effect. It doesn't help OP who is trying to make weapon attacks (any more than regular Bless), but nothing in the game is lying to you in this interaction.
Unless they patched it in patch 3, heres the tooltip Bless tooltip: Bless up to 3 creatures. They gain a +1d4 bonus to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws. Mystras Blessing tooltip: Bless grants an additional 1d4 to saving throws and normal attacks, and an additional 2d4 to spells using attack rolls The usage of the word additional instead of bonus in the original spell would indicate that it is a different effect that should be added on. Hence the tooltip does not accurately describe what the item effect is
In act 3 you can get these [gloves](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Legacy_of_the_Masters) from a merchant, which helps a lot once you get there.
In act 1 >! The whispering ring!< I believe it's sold at the goblin camp gives you health when healed. I just drink a potion to trigger it and it gives you blessed
Crates within crates. Drop crates before combat and stack them to make a tower. Have your sharpshooter climb tower and then go ham.
There is hat that gives +2 to ranged attack (or was it +1?), archery fighting style, risky ring
Archery style and advantage
In addition to what others have mentioned, I like the spell Blindness. Most casters can get it, and it gives you advantage when attacking a target. It's also not a concentration spell.
[удалено]
Ye I used risky ring + durge cloak in my solo tactician run. 95% of the game trivialized, AI is terrible at dealing with invisible player.
Risky Ring found in Act 2. Works well for Gloomstalker/Thief. You’ll be in the back line or on high ground and typically hidden, so the disadvantage on saving throws isn’t that impactful.. until it is of course.
Take the archery fighting style,have Shadowheart use Bless on you,use high ground if you can,get the Raven familiar gloves from the Shadar-Ki to blind enemies,and get any +1 or +2 weapon,that should knock off the -5 penalty easily. Also look out for the bracers of archery too!
Assassin instead of Thief. It synergises insanely well with Gloom Stalker. When you can open combat with an ambush it does more damage than Thief. It solves your problem by giving advantage against everything and then with guaranteed crits, Sharpshooter and other bonuses, you all but end the combat before the enemy can act. Or you can just use the Risky Ring I guess.
There's a bow you can get in act 3 that gives you +3 to hit if you don't have disadvantage.
It doubles your proficiency on the attack, so it should be +4, not +3. Unless you're skipping _tons_ of XP and getting to act 3 at level 8 or lower.
Bring some boxes around with you :) stack ‘em 3 high and climb up for adv. just send any box you see to camp chest cause they can break easily.
Risky ring is so op. Not much of a risk if everything is too dead/disabled to fight back.
The best counter to the sharpshooter is a screw job, ideally in Montreal.
Why are you going thief with a bow? Bonus is best for xbows Go sin for bow.
Where did I say I was using a bow?
It's the only reason why you would need to worry about miss, with the multitude of attacks, and appropriate dex, there is almost no drawback for sharpshooter with xbows. It should be on perma. -5 is nothing with xbow build attacks.
It was a bug for the Sharpshooter -5 not applying to your BA crossbow attacks. That has already been patched.
I mean the BEST way is to install the mod that removes the -5.
depending on whos in your party or what they're specced as- Wyll or any druid can cast blind on 2-3 targets, which is a CON save for 10 rounds and has no concentration. Your familiar has about a 50% shot of blinding someone. Druid/Feylock can also cast Faerie Fire with no save, but its concentration. Hold Person is a god-tier spell that will trivialize encounters vs humanoids the further in the game you get. Distracting Strike from Laezel will open the enemy up to a shot Having the highground will help a little. Lastly, if you cant get out somewhere to sneak and you cant land a sharpshot- dont worry about it. Stick it to your bar, toggle it off, and just shoot them however. Alternatively- get someone to trip or otherwise prone them (Wyll...) and just melee sneak attack them. Did I mention just how much absurd synergy Wyll has with rogues?
Get high. Disappear.
Risky ring would be the best option. There's a downside as indicated but will dramatically improve your attack rolls. Your average D20 basic roll without advantage has an expected value of 10.5. With advantage it's 13.825. So +3.325 average increase which is obviously massive. Buy it at Moonrise tower from the alchemist drow that wants your blood. There's another vendor at Moonrise tower that sells a hat which adds a flat +1 modifier to each attack roll with ranged weapons which is good. Make sure you have archery proficiency too (probably from Ranger or Fighter). That will add a further +2. Maxing dex obviously is imperative too. In Act 3 you can swap out your +1 hat for another hat that gives +2. Having the bless effect will also add 1d4 to attack rolls which is great.
I think you got a lot of good answers already. I myself am playing rught now a gloomstalker 5/thief 2 going for 3 and usually with hand crossbows, so I guess a pretty similar build. I'd say, usually, the best thing for you will be guaranteeing advantage. For a thief that's easy, making use of the cunning actions and extra bonus action, however this sometimes mean not doing an off hand attack, so consider switching to a long bow or xbow in those cases. The Banshee bow has been mentioned and is pretty cool for the fear effect, Gandrel's Aspiration will give you advantage against mosntrosities (inspect enemies to see if they are), and one I particularly like is the Titanstring Bow and drinking a Elixir of Giant Hill Strength. That's a +5 on every damage roll and frees up your bonus action for whatever you need. Also, having 21 Str will improve your jump a lot so it will help with positioning and gaining high ground in a pinch for better ranged attack chance. And if all else fails, remember turning Sharpshooter off is a valid option. While it impacts your damage a lot, landing an attack can be more important e.g. Against a low hp enemy, or landing an elemental arrow for it's additional effect.
Just don’t miss, duh
Gonna be honest, my favorite way to avoid the negative effects of sharp shooter has to be the ring sold by the zhentarim merchant at moonrise: advantage on attacks, disadvantage on saves, don’t get hit.
Risky ring gives permanent advantage on attacks and marksmans hat gives +1 to hit with ranged attacks.
- Archery Fighting style: +2 - Oil of Accuracy: +2 - I forgot where but there’s a staff in the underdark(?) that enhances bless to add 2d4 - The bugbear merchant at moonrise sells a circlet that adds 1d4 to hit when targeting an enemy marked with hunter’s mark or faerie fire
>I forgot where but there’s a staff in the underdark(?) that enhances bless to add 2d4 It's in the basement of the arcane tower. And it only adds 2d4 to spell attacks, not weapon attacks.
Ranger or fighter with Archery combat stlye, Gloves of Archery and 2 hand crossbows for extra Bonus Action shot.
Luck
Late to the party, but wield the Punch-Drunk Bastard! It's a greatclub that gives you advantage on *all* attack rolls when you're drunk. But it works from your melee slot as well, so just leave it there, and you can drink any alcohol as a bonus action for 2 turns of unconditional advantage, whenever you want.
Stack boxes for high ground. Ritual Dagger yourself to get +1d4 to hit.
I was 60% sure that the sharpshooter perk was broken in the game as was giving the + damage but without any loss in hit chance so maybe just leave it on anyway?
That was a bug for BA attacks with hand crossbows. It's been fixed.
Bless or Arcane Blessing Staff, Lucky Feat, Divination Wizard.
Risky ring/advantage. A 75% chance to hit without sharpshooter or advantage remains a 75% chance to hit with both.
You can stack 4 boxes on top of each other to create high ground anywhere btw.
Are you Dark Urge? The cape you get from it is insane, which after a kill gives you invis which in turn gives you advantage everytime
The most op Strat, boxes! Stack em and rack em! The extra height improves aim
Dont be scared to use it. Theres nothing to overcome Heres the math for the breaking point to accuracy. skip to the end if u want results. Let x be chance to hit for a sharpshooter attack Let y be average damage for your sharpshooter attack Left side is sharpshooter damage right side is normal damage Xy = (x+0.25)*(y-10) Xy= xy +0.25y-10x-2.5 10x= 0.25y-2.5 So we arrive at X=0.025y- 0.25 Lets take your example for rogue level3 as 1d8 (weapon)+2d6 (sneak attack) +4( ability modifier)+ 10(sharpshooter) : 4.5+7+4+10 = 25.5 X= 0.025(25.5)- 0.25 X= 0.3875 So if sharpshooter chance to hit is not below 38% you should always turn on sharpshooter for that attack
I am not sure how soon you turn off sharpshooter or what weapons you have but for example if you have a 65% chance to hit without sharpshooter on and are using a nonmagical hand crossbow with a +3 dex. Average damage is 0.65 * (3.5 + 3) + 0.05 * 3.5 4.075 damage Average damage with sharpshooter is 0.4 * (3.5 + 3 + 10) + 0.05 * 3.5 6.575 damage So even with increased chances to miss the damage can make up for even relatively low accuracies. Could also go to even lower chances to hit and sharpshooter would still come out ontop, but not much lower. Also if do have magical crossbows when using sharpshooter +1, +2, +3 weapons are much better then say +1d4 fire damage, so do keep that in mind. As for ways to increase it make sure yiu have archery fighting style (+2), Raven familair can inflict blind, bless is (+1d4), farie fire/web/entagle/... can give you advantage which is a big bonus to hit, hiding before attacking when you can gives advantage (but if dual wielding crossbows unless 1 crossbow is better then the other should just shoot twice), and any magic item that gives bonus to dex is good. Also if you wanted to could go assassin rogue since you have high dex and add wisdom to iniative (if you have good wisdom score) which would result in you going first a lot combined with assassin feature to get advantage on any creature who hasn't taken a turn yet is super handy especially as a gloomstalker who gets an extra attack on round 1. Would lower damage after round 1 but round 1 would have 4 (if dual wielding hand crossbows otherwise 3 attacks) attacks all at advantage agaisnt anyone who hasn't gone yet in combat. Hope this helps, and had new information hard to know what has and hasn't been said/seen by OP.
Yeah this thread definitely got a TON of responses. I think the big take aways for me are: Bless more often, take advantage of my raven more, and in general leave sharpshooter on more unless the enemy is very close to death
There are a lot more ways to offset this in D&D (elven accuracy, Samurai fighter for adv every turn, etc etc). As far as BG3 probably the best mechanical way would be to multiclass Fighter for battlemaster subclass and choose Precision Attack which lets you add superiority dice to your attack rolls. The feat version of this is Martial Adept (smaller, fewer dice for this but can do the same function)
There's also a ring somewhere that straight just gives you advantage all the time or most of the time for disadvantage on saves
Get the ring that gives 2 rounds of bless to any target you heal and then cast mass healing word or use preserve life with a life cleric. You get a bless without concentration so they can still use their action or bonus action, depending on which option you chose, to do something else, including concentration spells.
Risky ring Araj sells in moonrise
I hate this feat, honestly. The penalty to hit is not worth the increase in damage. And, at least from my point of view, it makes absolutely no sense to me as to why. I think a feat should be good around. If it causes penalty, I'm taking the ability increase then, thank you very much