Baldur’s Gate 3 players are fiercely debating the merits of turning off its Karmic Dice mechanic (updated)

While many RPG fans have their sights firmly set on the release of Starfield in September, Baldur’s Gate 3 has also been earning a lot of attention ahead of its full release next week.

Promising plenty of cool quests and battles, the game, which has been in early access since late 2020, is bound to attract a legion of loyal PC players upon arrival, many of whom will have been planning their first playthrough for a long time.

With a wide range of races and classes to choose between, these would-be adventurers are facing some tough decisions build-wise. Currently, however, the aspect of the game that looks to be losing them the most sleep ahead of release is a mechanic that could affect the amount of damage you inflict no matter your playstyle.

Are you hoping to become a formidable force in Baldur’s Gate 3's battles?

User Havelok has recently ignited a pretty fierce debate around the setting in question, dubbed ‘Karmic Dice’, by re-sharing a seven month old post about it to the game’s subreddit, captioning it: “Newer players may not know about this, so I figure it's worth a reminder PSA as we approach launch.”

The original post saw user akdavidxy share the results of some in-game tests they'd conducted in an effort to establish how playing with the mechanic enabled affects combat encounters.

“Even though the data set might not be large enough for precise results, it is quite clear that in the current version of the game, Karmic Dice imposes a massive penalty on the player, in particular if you try to run tanky [high armour class] characters,” they concluded, encouraging other players to turn off the setting.

“The mechanic helps those that do not know anything about the system succeed more frequently than they would otherwise be able to, if they happen to make the worst character imaginable,” argued Havelok in response to another user asking why it’s enabled by default. “It is most punishing to those who know the system well and make an optimised character.”

A number of fellow players have suggested that, due to this distinction, it’s irresponsible to assert that every player jumping into the game would benefit from disabling the setting.

User mmimzie argued that Karmic Dice can actually benefit the player, saying: “it's really only diminishing turns to rolls that can fail.”

Others questioned whether akdavidxy’s findings are still relevant, suggesting that changes might have been made to the system ahead of the game’s full release or since the testing was done.

Update: A Community Manager from Larian has now commented on the post, saying of the potential issue with Karmic Dice highlighted in it: "this is a combination of an edge case scenario and a bug that’s been fixed for the release version of the game."

Regardless of whether you plan to play Baldur’s Gate 3 with Karmic Dice enabled, make sure to follow us for guides to its graphical settings, mechanics and mods.