The Baldur's Gate 3 update features a nerf to Astarion directly shaped by the D&D rulebook (2024)

A tweak to bring Baldur's Gate 3 further 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 4 dropped, bringing 1,000 changes to the RPG in what might be its biggest patch yet. Among those is the ability to actually wash your characters and the destruction 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.

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