Baldur’s Gate 3 Karmic Dice explained: What is it & should you turn it on?

Eye-roll at the dice roll when it never goes your way.

By Cole Luke

Published: Wednesday, 09 August 2023 at 13:02 PM

Keeping true to its Dungeons & Dragons roots, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a dice system that determines how things play out, be it for ability checks or during combat.

But there are forces at play that might make the dice do weird things, hence why we have Baldur’s Gate 3 Karmic Dice explained for you today – with what is it and if should you turn it on or off.

Dice were also a feature in prior Baldur’s Gate titles (as well as most D&D games) so if you played those, you should know what to expect outside of this new Karmic Dice system.

Whichever path you opt for, you’re bound to have a lot of fun no matter what – but we’ll lay out the options for you so you can make the best decision for yourself.

When the going gets tough in BG3 – and believe us, it gets tough – and you can take any sort of advantage by opting for one or the other, we’d recommend you go for that.

What is the Karmic Dice in Baldur’s Gate 3?

In the options menu, Larian has quite a vague description of what it entails.

“Karmic Dice avoid failure or success streaks, while keeping the results mostly random.”

To provide a little more depth, the Karmic Dice serve to balance the scales of fortuitous and less fortunate dice rolls.

The former include successful checks, hit attacks and critical strikes, while the latter constitute their opposite outcomes such as rolling a one – a critical failure – and having your entire party annihilated.

By having it turned on (which it is by default), the game seeks to balance the distribution of these outcomes, aiming for overall parity for a theoretically more balanced playthrough.

Therefore, if your rolls consistently err on the side of misfortune — whether in battles, perception checks, or similar instances — the odds are destined to sway in your favour over time.

Read more on Baldur’s Gate 3:

Should you have Karmic Dice on or off in Baldur’s Gate 3?

If you are a Dungeons & Dragons purist then you may want to leave Karmic Dice off, as in real life dice have no similar function and will fall how they fall.

If you spec your party well, then your advantage rolls should keep your head above the water – but the Karmic Dice system may look at this and decide that you’re having far too easy a time of it and throw some curveballs your way.

This can be quite frustrating if you have put all the work and maths in, so if you fall into this camp, we’d recommend turning it off.

If you’re new to Baldur’s Gate and all things Dungeons & Dragons, then you might want to leave it on if you’re unsure of what you’re doing – as it could ultimately give you an easier play through and won’t punish you as much for being a newcomer.

You could also just leave it turned off altogether and save frequently during combat encounters and dialogue sequences and reload your save until the dice behave.

How to turn Karmic Dice off or on in Baldur’s Gate 3

To turn off Karmic Dice, go to the systems menu, and access the “User Options” segment. There, you’ll find the choice to enable or disable Karmic Dice.

Fortunately, this can be done at any time, so if you find you have a preference for one or the other, you won’t be stuck with your decision.

If you are a D&D regular and have friends who are pretty die-hard players, perhaps don’t mention to them that you use Karmic Dice if you find you have a better experience with it turned on, as it is proving to be quite controversial within the community…