Are you ready to encounter Goblins, mind flayers, and the occasional grumpy NPCs in Baldur’s Gate 3? Well, hold onto your wizard hats because BG3 also comes with a dicey setting like the old series titles that could heavily affect your battle scenarios: Karmic Dice. You can find this dice setting in the game’s options menu and, much like a D20 roll with no proficiency bonus, you might scratch your head, and wonder what it does and whether you should keep it on or off in BG3.
It’s a very crucial element to consider because if you roll too many critical hits in a row, Karmic Dice will bring you back down to Earth with a not-so-gentle thud. On the other end, if you’re cursed with a streak of failures, it will cut you some slack. But does this balancing act help your gameplay, or does it mess with the randomness we’ve come to love (and hate) in dice-based RPGs? This Baldur’s Gate 3 guide explains the Karmic Dice, how it works, and whether to turn it on and disable it once and for all.
What is Karmic Dice in Baldur’s Gate 3?
You can think of the Karmic Dice setting in Baldur’s Gate 3 as your own cosmic referee, controlling your dice rolls and forcing them back toward balance. The game describes it as a system that “avoids failure or success streaks while keeping the results mostly random.” What this means is that Karmic Dice prevents you from experiencing a string of bad (or good) rolls. If you’ve been failing many checks (be it Persuasion, Deception, or in battles) in a row, it will turn the odds in your favor for your next roll. But it works in the opposite direction too. If Lady Luck has been too generous, Karmic Dice might also result in a failed roll as its function is to keep the equal balance between “good” and “bad” dice rolls.
In other words, it operates as a safety net for those BG3 players who don’t want to live and die by the wild swings of pure RNG. But, of course, like every magic spell, this balancing feature doesn’t just apply to you—it also applies to your enemies. So while Karmic Dice stops you from landing three critical misses in a row, it can also save that goblin shaman from rolling a trio of critical fails.
Should You Turn Karmic Dice On or Off in Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3)?
I’ve played with this setting to learn about its good and bad and it’s enough to say that I’ve consulted both the gods of fate and RNGesus himself. The game’s vague description doesn’t do it justice, but as already discussed above, Karmic Dice is a feature added to improve the randomness of your dice rolls. In theory, it sounds like a nice, balanced system. But in practice, it’s a mixed bag.
When I first started playing, I left Karmic Dice on by default by thinking, “Sure, why not? A little help from the dice gods couldn’t hurt.” And to be fair, in the early hours when you’re still learning the ropes (or tripping over them), this dice set seems like a gentle hand guiding you through the chaos. It kept me from experiencing the soul-crushing moments when every DC check was doomed to fail. I wasn’t constantly facepalming over my rogue tripping over a pebble while trying to sneak past an enemy or my sorcerer botching every Arcana check.
But it wasn’t long before I noticed that combat encounters and skill checks were going to become weirdly predictable. Like, I’d land a crit, and then immediately I’d think, “Welp, here comes the critical miss.” Like the game was reading my mind, balancing my highs with inevitable lows. Instead of basking in the glory of a lucky roll, I started dreading what was coming next.
Then I hit Reddit and the Steam community to see if I was alone in my dice-related paranoia. Turns out, I wasn’t. Many players noticed the same pattern: the moment you get a string of good rolls, this BG3’s Karmic Dice tries to even things out, which can lead to frustrating moments when there is an unnecessary fail roll in a very critical dialogue option. One user even joked that Karmic Dice was like an overzealous DM who can’t stand seeing the party succeed too much. Others pointed out that it can make high AC builds squishy, as the enemies get similar boosts to hit chances, leading to an unnatural number of crits against you.
So, I turned Karmic Dice off. And surprisingly, what a difference that made. The randomness felt… well, truly random. My rolls weren’t being babysat by some unseen force. If I rolled a critical hit, I could celebrate without holding my breath for an incoming failure. Fights became more unpredictable and, honestly, more exciting. High AC characters like my heavily armored fighter were the walking tank they were supposed to be, instead of getting failure in the face every few rounds.
There is another benefit of turning off the Karmic Dice, my characters’ specializations started to matter. With the setting on, my wizard was failing Arcana checks just as often as my muscle-headed barbarian. But with it off, I started seeing more consistent success in areas where companions were operating like they should be, making their proficiencies feel impactful again.
But that’s not to say Karmic Dice doesn’t have its place. If you’re new to Baldur’s Gate 3 or tabletop RPG mechanics in general, leaving it on can help smooth out some of the more punishing aspects of the game. It keeps you from hitting the long, frustrating stretches of bad luck that could make you want to rage-quit mid-campaign. But if you’re my type of player, and crave that pure, unfiltered dice experience, then turning this dice setting off might be the best choice.
I played the rest of the BG3 with the Karmic Dice turned and it gave me far better results. However, if you’re still on the fence, consider experimenting with both settings. Play a few hours with Karmic Dice on, and then try it with the setting off. You will find out what resonates with your playstyle more. After all, no one’s telling you to pick a side for good—you can always switch back and forth whenever the mood strikes. And remember, if things don’t go your way… there’s always save-scumming (you may know this, reload the game after dialogue or check failure).
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