Dice Roll Mechanics for Beginners

Introduction

 Welcome to this short little Guide about Baldurs Gate 3! We will cover how the dices work in Baldurs Gate 3 and tell you the important things you need to know about the dice in the game as a total beginner. If you like this guide make sure to leave a comment. We appreciate any feedback!

Dices?

As you may know already, Baldurs Gate 3 is a bit different than other Top-Down RPGs. In most other RPGs the amount of damage you deal or the amount of damage you take is often modeled after formulas. Those take your strength, defense, agility or other stats into account and spit out a number which you either deal to the enemy, or take.

For instance you have 10 strength and enemy has 5 defense. Often the formulas are simple + or - so here you would deal strength - defense = damage which would be 10 - 5 = 5 damage. Most RPGs are very simple in their damage calculation.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 - a Larian Studious Game

Baldurs Gate is different here.  Instead of simple damage formulas, we have dices which everytime you do anything, you roll the dice. (There are formulas at play here too, but the dice plays important role here)

This means if you

1. Attack someone
2. Defend yourself from an attack
3. Pickpocket the merchant
4. Try to throw a heavy object like a big rock
5. etc.

Everything gets rolled. Often you don't see it but if you do it looks something like this:

Critical Failure - very unfortunate

Basically you roll everything in the game but the ones you see on the screen are more important because they are often decisions in a dialogue you need to roll or a chest you want to lockpick. Failing those can lead to different outcomes.

So with the basic mechanic out of the way, we gonna lay out how you can optimize your early game dice rolls. As you might have guessed it, you can influence the number that comes out at the end of the roll.

Improve Attack Rolls

Your Attack Rolls are your bread and butter in the game. Let's say you're a wizard and you want to increase your damage and your chance of hitting your enemy.  Your primary stat as a Wizard is Intelligence.

The damage and hit chance is calculated like this: Output = d20 + Ability Score Modifier + Proficiency bonus (if any) + other modifiers (if any)

The d20 means dice 20 which is the normal 20 sided dice you use to roll most of the time. The rest is not so clear so let's look at those.

Ability Score Modifier

In short you'll get certain bonuses for the amount of points you place in your primary stat. In our example we have a Wizard and his/her primary stat is Intelligence. So if we place enough points into this stat, we start to get +1, +2, +3 as a bonus onto our rolls. This also scales into the damage of the spell which is a nice way to say we're becoming Gandalf later.

Proficiency Bonus

This bonus basically means that you have an act for something like Light Armor, Staffs or Sword and Shield. If you wield a Staff as a Wizard, you get a profiency bonus because that's what Gandalfs do. See here for more information

Other Modifiers

That's stuff you get from items for instance. Certain items give you a bonus on your intelligence which can result in a higher Ability Score -> higher dice roll.

Example Roll

Let's now walk through a example how everything get calculated. We use abstract numbers to get the point across.

Your stats: +2 Ability Score Modifier (Gandalf goes brrrr), +1 Proficiency Bonus, +0 other Modifiers

1. You attack the enemy with a spell. You need to roll 15 to hit the enemy.
2. You roll a 13 + 2 AS + 1 PB + 0 OM = 16
3. 16 is greater than 15 = You Hit!
4. You roll again and deal damage to the enemy

That's basically how it works. We won't go into detail how Saving throws for instance work but you can look it up in great detail here.

Increase Armor class (AC)

Your Armor class is the second most important stat because it acts as your "defense" stat. Attacks will be rolled against your AC (Armor Class). To increase your armor class you have to know what type of Class you play. Let's say you're playing a Wizard which has the Dexterity stat as it's Armor Class scaling attribute. You have to increase this stat because your AC will scale with your Dexterity.

This is different for every class:

Use above Table as reference. We recommend you put in some points every now and then to become more "tanky" the more you progress into the game.

More Information

Now you know in general how the game calculates things but there is alot more to know to optimize your build. Have a look in the Baldurs Gate 3 wiki for more information. We hope this short overview was helpful and wish you great fun with the game!