Baldur’s Gate 3 Advantage and Disadvantage in Combat, Explained

As you progress through the story of Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll begin to notice how crucial securing Advantage on your attacks is, as well as avoiding positioning your character so that they’re hindered by Disadvantage. However, this can often be quite tricky to wrap your head around during combat, but don’t worry — we’ve got all the information you’ll need. Follow along below for everything you need to know about Advantage and Disadvantage during combat in BG3.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – What Is Advantage & Disadvantage in Combat and How to Trigger Them, Explained

In Baldur’s Gate 3, Advantage and Disadvantage are two special conditions that occur during combat when your character takes their turn. As you progress through the game and start to encounter higher leveled opponents and creatures, you’ll inevitably realize just how important triggering Advantage and avoiding Disadvantange will be when it comes to keeping your party alive and getting the upper hand in battle.

Advantage means that when you make an Attack Roll, you will get to roll two dice instead of one, and take the higher outcome as your result. This is important to trigger as it gives you twice the chance of meeting the enemy’s AC or securing a Critical Hit. Advantage will be indicated when you make an attack by a green arrow pointing upwards.

Disadvantage means that when you make an Attack Roll, you will roll with two dice instead of one, and take the lower outcome as your result. This can hinder your efficiency in battle by stopping you from landing your attacks, and potentially wasting limited Actions or valuable Spell Slots. Disadvantage will be indicated when you make an attack by a red arrow pointing downwards.

If a situation occurs in which you both have Advantage and Disadvantage, they cancel each other out, and you will instead roll one D20 plus your modifier. While Advantage is a huge key to success and ultimately relied upon by certain classes such as the Rogue’s Assassin Subclass, Disadvantage is the last thing you want and should be avoided by all costs in battle.

How to Get Advantage During Battle in BG3

• Attack a target while being hidden. This is particularly great and easy to achieve for Stealthy Classes such as the Rogue, who can utilize their Hide Ability to sneak up close to their opponent and gain Advantage for their first attack.
• Attack a target that is within 1.5m of an ally. This one revolves around some simple positioning of your comrades, ensuring that the frontliners play together and flank to gain this Advantage, which will therefore increase the success rate of their Melee Attacks, improve their damage output, and make them more viable across the board.
• Attacking a Prone target within 3m. Enemies can be knocked Prone by certain Actions and Spells such as Backbreaker, Topple, Grease, Thunderous Smite, and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. If you have any of these Actions within the combat options of your allies, remember to utilize them to give your party an upper hand in battle.
• Attacking an enemy that is Restrained. Enemies can be Restrained through both Magical and non-Magical Actions, such as casting the Paladin’s Ancient Wrath, or sneaking up on an enemy with a Stealthy comerade and using Rope to tie them up.
• Various Spells, Cantrips, and/or Abilities that grant Advantage. Guiding Bolt, Shocking Grasp, True Strike, Faerie Fire, and Blindness are all capable of inflicting Advantage on a target, so if you have any of these Abilities within your Character’s or party members builds, you can use them to prompt Advantage for either yourself or an ally to secure a valuable hit and deal easy damage.

How to Get Disadvantage During Battle in BG3

• Making a Ranged Attack on an enemy within Melee Range. This is why it’s always important to have Melee Weapons equipped even on your ranged party members, as you never know when you’ll find yourself stuck at melee range where your Bow and/or Spells won’t work well. Even attempting to attack within this range will more often than not just be a waste of an Action, as the odds are heavily against you, without even taking in other restricting factors for your roll such as the potential of high AC on the target.
• Attacking an enemy obscured by Darkness. If your character doesn’t receive Darkvision through a Racial trait, then any attack they make in Darkness will automatically be rolled at Disadvantage. For this reason, it’s always handy to keep a light source on hand for characters who may need it – whether this is with the use of a Torch or a Spell / Cantrip such as Dancing Lights, is up to you.
• Attacking an enemy outside the maximum range. In Baldur’s Gate 3, the maximum range for Spells and Attack Actions is 18ft. Attempting to attack an enemy outside of this distance will provoke Disadvantage, so you’ll need to move into range first to avoid this. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to expend your first Action to Dash and move into range, and then use your following turn or an Action Surge to strike.
• Various Spells, Cantrips, and Abillites that inflict Disadvantage on the target. Bone Chill, Vicious Mockery, Protection From Evil and Good, Blur, and Blindness, are all capable of imposing Disadvantage on a target’s next Attack Roll, so be sure to use this to your advantage to make it harder for strong enemies to hit your party members.

That’s everything you need to know about Advantage and Disadvantage in Baldur’s Gate 3 combat. Now that you’re aware of the methods you can use to avoid and grant these conditions on the enemy, why not take a look at our guide covering the best Feats for Astarion? As a Rogue, Astarion has multiple ways of triggering Advantage both from a ranged or melee distance, so ensuring he has a strong build enhanced by Feat selection will be worthwhile for the remainder of your BG3 playthrough.