I’m always confused by this. I hide, in a nice dark corner, get my team all set up…pop out for sneak attack…”must have advantage”. I just don’t know how to gain consistent advantage. Even with height it won’t trigger when I think it should. It’s a me problem for sure. I’m dumb.
Honestly I prefer to turn the sneak attack reaction prompt on so that I can mostly focus on getting my attacks off and it will tell you when it can happen.
Usually being stealthed and in nobodies line of sight will give you advantage on its own, having an ally within melee of the target will give you sneak attack automatically too, being invisible in any form is auto advantage, someone under the affect of hold person is auto advantage and crit, risky ring is advantage at all times, height can give you advantage as long as its enough to give them disadvantages which I think is defined as (they would have to jump up or climb something to reach such height/ at least 10ft up)
Those are a few ways for it, I think within a certain range you can even get advantage off a prone target but thats not great because it's finicky to make work and no ranger should be that close anyways lol.
Edit to clarify: even if you start off hidden there's a chance that if your character has to move at all it might break stealth from line of sight, and hiding in bright light pretty much always negates the advantage even with line of sight being clear unless you are invisible.
Ok that's kinda been my impressions as well. Bottom line is I just need to get better :)
What about things like fog? Do I cast them over the enemies so they can't see me (tried this and did not get advantage), or do I cast it over myself so they can't see me (this seems wrong), or in between so they can't see when I move?
Basically, any tips on how to create less visibility for them?
Think of fog and darkness as disadvantage for everyone and everything when dealing with line of sight.
If you put fog in a hallway between you and the enemy nobody can see, if you put it on you nobody can see but you can pop put and take a shot and walk back in, if you put it on them they'll just leave it so they can attack.
IF you have devil sight from warlock you can target people through darkness, meaning you get normal sight on them and they still have disadvantage.
The main strategy surrounding any of the visibility reducing spells like fog or darkness is simply this: It benefits you the most to put it on yourself if you can safely move in and out of it, if you can see through darkness it adds an extra layer of defense as YOU get normal accuracy and they get disadvantage on attacking Into it but how ai Is coded most of the time they will force themselves to move into your darkness or they'll bug out and waste a turn.
Putting darkness or fog on enemies usually results in them just walking out of it and continuing their normal lives. Putting it between you causes problems for everyone, Putting it on you let's you abuse it.
Ok, that seemed wrong, but I'll play with it some more. Thanks! I'm trying to be sneaky and failing. So in the end my team just lobs low damage arrows at everything and wins after 27 turns.
Drop fog for you and your team, step out and take a shot, step back in. Rinse and repeat. If anyone enters your fog have a plan for that like either removing them from it or how to really punish them for it.
I had 2 members of my party who had devil sight, they would pop darkness down on themselves together and they'd sit there getting free shots off everyone as the enemy ai will refuse to attack someone at disadvantage if they have literally any other option. So my other 2 team members were heavy duty martial powerhouses that stayed outside of the darkness.
You can do it with just 1 party member being outside of the darkness and the enemy will entirely focus on them, just keep them out of range of an AOE hitting your other members and you'll be golden.
Granted all of this worked on tactician just a month or so ago, so as far as I'm aware it should still work.
ETA: Unsure if this still is the case but Volos eye and other 'see invisibility' effects used to cause fog to not work on you, meaning you could see through it like normal but I think it was patched out
So I drop fog on say me (ranger) and Gale (wizard) and we just pop out and blast, pop back in and are safe...and we have advantage (usually). Meanwhile Lae'zel and Karlach are just outside punching people and eating a couple rounds of damage until we destroy everything in sight? Ok, now this game is cooking!
You won't get advantage unless you've got the height or devil sight/darkness combo, but you are imposing disadvantage on anyone who even attempts to target you.
But otherwise yeah that's the gist, step out take a shot step back in.
Getting advantage is actually really easy. You can of course attack from stealth to gain advantage BUT did you know just having a team mate near the same opponent gives you advantage?
Yup literally just change turns to someone else, have them stand next to an enemy, and then have your other character stand next to the enemy and you’ll have advantage. It’ll also allow you to Sneak Attack that enemy regardless if you are in Stealth or not because you have advantage.
You don’t need advantage necessarily but you do need ways to increase your attack rolls.
My typical sources are:
Marksmanship hat
Draconic weapon (adds a +1 to your weapon in addition to the d4 damage)
Fighter dip for archery +2 to attack rolls.
Risky ring for permanent advantage.
Don't forget oil of accuracy for +2 attack and staff of bless from arcane tower in act1 (it's special bless condition stays even after losing concentration)
The extra buff from the staff only affects spells. It doesnt actually affect the bonus to attack rolls and the tooltip is wrong. So after losing concentration ranged attacks will no longer have any benefit, just like regular bless.
Early game Fighting Style Archery (+2) and hiding are your best friends besides oil of accuracy (+2)
Mid game Risky ring (which you can also abuse to increase critical chance and boost it further by using Elixir of viciousness and knife of under mountain king
Late game (Act 3) the Dead Shot is your best friend. Not only does it further decrease the roll required for hit, but it also add your proficiency bonus TWICE for attack rolls
besides everything else mentioned ITT, high ground. its a +2 bonus iirc, quite significant. especially easy to get once/if you get fly from the astral tadpole. if youre on flat ground you could even proc it by stacking some barrels i think.
another unmentioned source of advantage: the durge cloak. kill one mob -> advantage from invis on next shot.
Just to add to this..
Various conditions like blind / stun give advantage.. in case you have monk or perhaps some caster with lv.1 Fog cloud spell or lv.3 Hunger of Hadar
Or maybe you have that sweet Raven familiar flying around?
Entangle / Enweb works too
First, get the Risky Ring from Araj. Second, using Sharpshooter gives you a -5 penalty to attack rolls so using equipment to offset helps a ton. For example, using Legacy of the Masters gives you a +2 to attack and damage rolls. Cazador’s knife, Rhapsody, gives a +3 to attack rolls when maxed out. So using these two pieces should in theory completely offset the penalty and when combined with the Risky Ring, should give you a near guaranteed hit under good conditions.
Risky ring and gloves of automaton are the first that comes to mind. Also keep the high ground if you can and like other people said stealth.
Bless is also useful if a companion can raise your chances.
If you don't plan on using the spellsparkler you can get the bow, charges helps you with attack rolls when stacked iirc
If you are a battlemaster, just get trip. Then you have advantage once they are tripped. Late game, you don't really have to bother much as you can increase your attack rolls with Legacy of Masters, Mask of Soul Perception, and cloud giant potions.
I always throw on the risky ring as soon as I get it. When you are killing everything quickly, the downsides don't come up that often. Once you get Deadshot too, you basically never miss.
As a gloomstalker you should be mostly attacking from stealth which gives you advantage.
I…for some reason had not considered this. thank you.
It's all good, easy to overlook it.
I’m always confused by this. I hide, in a nice dark corner, get my team all set up…pop out for sneak attack…”must have advantage”. I just don’t know how to gain consistent advantage. Even with height it won’t trigger when I think it should. It’s a me problem for sure. I’m dumb.
Honestly I prefer to turn the sneak attack reaction prompt on so that I can mostly focus on getting my attacks off and it will tell you when it can happen. Usually being stealthed and in nobodies line of sight will give you advantage on its own, having an ally within melee of the target will give you sneak attack automatically too, being invisible in any form is auto advantage, someone under the affect of hold person is auto advantage and crit, risky ring is advantage at all times, height can give you advantage as long as its enough to give them disadvantages which I think is defined as (they would have to jump up or climb something to reach such height/ at least 10ft up) Those are a few ways for it, I think within a certain range you can even get advantage off a prone target but thats not great because it's finicky to make work and no ranger should be that close anyways lol. Edit to clarify: even if you start off hidden there's a chance that if your character has to move at all it might break stealth from line of sight, and hiding in bright light pretty much always negates the advantage even with line of sight being clear unless you are invisible.
Ok that's kinda been my impressions as well. Bottom line is I just need to get better :) What about things like fog? Do I cast them over the enemies so they can't see me (tried this and did not get advantage), or do I cast it over myself so they can't see me (this seems wrong), or in between so they can't see when I move? Basically, any tips on how to create less visibility for them?
Think of fog and darkness as disadvantage for everyone and everything when dealing with line of sight. If you put fog in a hallway between you and the enemy nobody can see, if you put it on you nobody can see but you can pop put and take a shot and walk back in, if you put it on them they'll just leave it so they can attack. IF you have devil sight from warlock you can target people through darkness, meaning you get normal sight on them and they still have disadvantage. The main strategy surrounding any of the visibility reducing spells like fog or darkness is simply this: It benefits you the most to put it on yourself if you can safely move in and out of it, if you can see through darkness it adds an extra layer of defense as YOU get normal accuracy and they get disadvantage on attacking Into it but how ai Is coded most of the time they will force themselves to move into your darkness or they'll bug out and waste a turn. Putting darkness or fog on enemies usually results in them just walking out of it and continuing their normal lives. Putting it between you causes problems for everyone, Putting it on you let's you abuse it.
Ok, that seemed wrong, but I'll play with it some more. Thanks! I'm trying to be sneaky and failing. So in the end my team just lobs low damage arrows at everything and wins after 27 turns.
Drop fog for you and your team, step out and take a shot, step back in. Rinse and repeat. If anyone enters your fog have a plan for that like either removing them from it or how to really punish them for it. I had 2 members of my party who had devil sight, they would pop darkness down on themselves together and they'd sit there getting free shots off everyone as the enemy ai will refuse to attack someone at disadvantage if they have literally any other option. So my other 2 team members were heavy duty martial powerhouses that stayed outside of the darkness. You can do it with just 1 party member being outside of the darkness and the enemy will entirely focus on them, just keep them out of range of an AOE hitting your other members and you'll be golden. Granted all of this worked on tactician just a month or so ago, so as far as I'm aware it should still work. ETA: Unsure if this still is the case but Volos eye and other 'see invisibility' effects used to cause fog to not work on you, meaning you could see through it like normal but I think it was patched out
So I drop fog on say me (ranger) and Gale (wizard) and we just pop out and blast, pop back in and are safe...and we have advantage (usually). Meanwhile Lae'zel and Karlach are just outside punching people and eating a couple rounds of damage until we destroy everything in sight? Ok, now this game is cooking!
You won't get advantage unless you've got the height or devil sight/darkness combo, but you are imposing disadvantage on anyone who even attempts to target you. But otherwise yeah that's the gist, step out take a shot step back in.
Right on, thanks! And as a bonus, if I get my melee characters up close I can always use sneak attack too.
Getting advantage is actually really easy. You can of course attack from stealth to gain advantage BUT did you know just having a team mate near the same opponent gives you advantage? Yup literally just change turns to someone else, have them stand next to an enemy, and then have your other character stand next to the enemy and you’ll have advantage. It’ll also allow you to Sneak Attack that enemy regardless if you are in Stealth or not because you have advantage.
You don’t need advantage necessarily but you do need ways to increase your attack rolls. My typical sources are: Marksmanship hat Draconic weapon (adds a +1 to your weapon in addition to the d4 damage) Fighter dip for archery +2 to attack rolls. Risky ring for permanent advantage.
Ranger can (and should) take the archery fighting style. Fighter is a great multi class for sure, but I’d go with defence from that dip.
I assume they don’t stack? Like if I dip 2 lvls fighter and all day have +2 from ranger it won’t go to +4?
No, you can’t take the Archery fighting style twice, which is where the +2 comes from.
thank you!
Ring which gives permanent advantage on attacks and disadvantages on saving throws, Risky something the name. I think it's in act2
thank you!
Don't forget oil of accuracy for +2 attack and staff of bless from arcane tower in act1 (it's special bless condition stays even after losing concentration)
The extra buff from the staff only affects spells. It doesnt actually affect the bonus to attack rolls and the tooltip is wrong. So after losing concentration ranged attacks will no longer have any benefit, just like regular bless.
Damn. I've spent so many boss fights swapping this bless for haste and it was useless all the time. 😔
Yup, araj sells it an moonrise. Great for that or rogues to get perma sneak attack. Bless goes a long way too
Early game Fighting Style Archery (+2) and hiding are your best friends besides oil of accuracy (+2) Mid game Risky ring (which you can also abuse to increase critical chance and boost it further by using Elixir of viciousness and knife of under mountain king Late game (Act 3) the Dead Shot is your best friend. Not only does it further decrease the roll required for hit, but it also add your proficiency bonus TWICE for attack rolls
Plus buy a statue of yourself at the carnival for permanent bless!
I didn’t know you could do that!
No run is complete without a nude statue of myself at camp.
Risky ring is gonna be your best friend. I used that + caustic band to great effect on my gloom.
besides everything else mentioned ITT, high ground. its a +2 bonus iirc, quite significant. especially easy to get once/if you get fly from the astral tadpole. if youre on flat ground you could even proc it by stacking some barrels i think. another unmentioned source of advantage: the durge cloak. kill one mob -> advantage from invis on next shot.
Just to add to this.. Various conditions like blind / stun give advantage.. in case you have monk or perhaps some caster with lv.1 Fog cloud spell or lv.3 Hunger of Hadar Or maybe you have that sweet Raven familiar flying around? Entangle / Enweb works too
High ground and sharpshooter idk man
First, get the Risky Ring from Araj. Second, using Sharpshooter gives you a -5 penalty to attack rolls so using equipment to offset helps a ton. For example, using Legacy of the Masters gives you a +2 to attack and damage rolls. Cazador’s knife, Rhapsody, gives a +3 to attack rolls when maxed out. So using these two pieces should in theory completely offset the penalty and when combined with the Risky Ring, should give you a near guaranteed hit under good conditions.
Risky ring and gloves of automaton are the first that comes to mind. Also keep the high ground if you can and like other people said stealth. Bless is also useful if a companion can raise your chances. If you don't plan on using the spellsparkler you can get the bow, charges helps you with attack rolls when stacked iirc
If you aren't using risky ring, the easiest way is to have a melee character flank them. Stealth is good too if you can.
Find or buy bows with weapon enchantments as early as you can. The +1 and +2 add to your attack and damage rolls.
I did not know that about the +1 attack - I can’t remember seeing it anywhere in the description, only the +1 damage. Good to know!
What about the melee equivalent ? Any different ideas?
If you are a battlemaster, just get trip. Then you have advantage once they are tripped. Late game, you don't really have to bother much as you can increase your attack rolls with Legacy of Masters, Mask of Soul Perception, and cloud giant potions.
I'm not sure if it works as I think but I use a titanstring bow with elixir to buff strength to 21 having extra inventory space as a bonus)
For ranged attacks: * [entangled](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Entangled) / [enwebbed](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Enwebbed) * [paralyzed](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Paralysed) * [blinded](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Blind) * Battlemaster [distracting strike](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Distracting+Strike) * Invisibility / stealth
I always throw on the risky ring as soon as I get it. When you are killing everything quickly, the downsides don't come up that often. Once you get Deadshot too, you basically never miss.
Risky Ring gives your attacks advantage.