Recently while playing Baldur’s Gate 3, I’ve noticed that sometimes after multiple very good or bad rolls in a row, my luck on the dice would suddenly seem to swing the other way. Was this randomness? Probably? But then a friend told me to turn off something called “Karmic Dice” in the game’s menu, and everything suddenly made sense.
If you’re like me, you might want to turn this mysterious feature off entirely for a more authentic D&D experience.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing what “Karmic Dice” was if you haven’t been immersed in the game’s early access. Basically, Karmic Dice is a sort of bad luck protection in Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s a setting that effectively manipulates dice rolls to prevent characters (both player-controlled and NPC) from having long streaks of good or bad rolls. So if you’ve been rolling especially badly lately, the setting will put a little finger on the scale to tip it in your favor. But it also seems to work against you if you’re having a long streak of good roles, and also will help and harm your enemies in the same way.
The idea of Karmic Dice is to help make sure things feel truly random, because everyone’s getting a consistent spread of different dice rolls. But the reality is that there’s an unseen hand guiding the dice some of the time. If you’re like me and want true, pure, chaotic randomness, you might want to navigate to the Options menu and under Gameplay, User Options, toggle those Karmic Dice off. We have a guide on how to do so right here.
That said, the community itself is divided on whether or not Karmic Dice should be on or off by default. While some argue that true randomness is the spirit of D&D, others have pointed out that in reality, Dungeon Masters will sometimes fudge dice rolls behind the screen in tabletop games to keep players from getting pissed off at streaks of terrible luck. They’re not wrong! But it is a little different having a human being decide when it’s important to lie a little about the rolls as opposed to a video game looking purely at the numbers and not at the table’s vibes.
Whatever the case, I’m glad I learned about the feature, which otherwise would have flown under my radar. Having played about ten hours with Karmic Dice on, maybe the next ten with Karmic Dice turned off will help me decide which of the two actually feels better.
For everything else you didn’t know you didn’t know about Baldur’s Gate 3, IGN has guides galore. Check out our guides to Races and Subraces, Classes and Subclasses, and How to Build a Character before you get started, and take a peek at our walkthrough whenever you find yourself stuck.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.