Combat Extender, Game Mechanics, and Balance Changes
Exhaustion
Characters will accumulate stacks of "Exhaustion" if they are downed, killed and revived, or spend 7 turns in combat. They gain three stacks if they flee from combat. Characters remove 2 stacks of exhaustion by short resting, and 3 stacks by long resting. Exhaustion begins as a minor but noticeable debuff to maximum HP and movement speed, but increasing levels of Exhaustion are increasingly debilitating. You do not want to wait until a character is downed in Listo to heal them! Letting characters get down to low HP and then juggling them back up with Mass Cure Wounds is less viable in Listo as they will get rapidly exhausted by being downed and raised multiple times. This also means that Revivify is a less powerful tool, as it costs the spell slot to cast plus you bring back an increasingly exhausted ally.
Attunement
Listonomicon has implemented "Attunement" as a mechanic, inspired by the similar rule in the tabletop version of D&D but changed significantly to fit this video game. Specifically, this mechanic limits the number of magic items any 1 character can use/equip at a time. In Listo, you can attune to up to 6 items. A custom assignment of what does, or does not, require attunement has been done for all vanilla magic items and over 350 items added by mods. Not every magic item requires attunement! Out of your 6 attunement slots you will be challenged to make the best combination of items you can gather, loot, pillage, purchase, and earn; and can fill the rest of your gear slots with things that do not require attunement.
There is another layer of complication: You can equip up to 8 Rare magic items, 7 Very Rare magic items, and 4 Legendary magic items. Within these categories, only 4 armor pieces and 3 accessories (rings, necklaces, instrument slot) can be Very Rare; only 2 weapons, 2 pieces of armor, and 2 accessories can be Legendary. Example: A legendary helmet and pair of gloves would block any more legendary armor. A legendary sword and shield will block equipping a legendary bow. However, your Very Rare and Rare magic item limits are still unusued. Listo heroes by end game should be a more varied mix of some legendary equipment, mostly Very Rare equipment, and a few Uncommon/Rare trinkets that fit around other limits.
Generic +1/+2 gear, adamantium weapons and armor, niche and gimmick items, magic items that allow casting minor spells in a limited fashion, and/or generally weak items do not require attunement. Many vanilla and mod items are reduced from Legendary/Very Rare down to just Rare or Uncommon. This hopefully provides a new way to make many unloved items more competitive, not by improving and unbalancing them, but by providing them a role as non-attunement items and/or by making them not count against your equipment limits. If you find something that should not require attunement, or something that should, or items you believe need to go up/down a rarity category, feel free to mention it in Listo's discussion channels.
New Encounters, Old Encounters, New-Old Encounters, and Old-New Encounters
Listonomicon combines Encounters Overhaul (EO, formerly AEE), and Vulkrana's Undead Encounters (VUE), and optional Many More Monsters (MMM) (with MMM-EO patch!) with Combat Extender (CX) and optional Absolute Wrath (AW). Listo also uses More Basic Enemies in Fights, which seeds several vanilla encounters with additional mooks to help offset the increased party size. Optional Deadlier Honour Mode (DHM) is a new addition to Listo that adds encounters, boss fights, and dungeons that are designed with the intent to challenge your mastery of game mechanics, and will place high level enemies throughout the game for a supreme challenge. Many MMM encounters, DHM, and the Spelljammer adventure mod are not included in CX edits (yet) but will be as CX updates.
EO and VUE natively work together very well, and fill empty spaces in Act 1 and 2 (and 3, in VUE's case) with new and interesting encounters without overlapping each other. Where these mods add encounters to the very early game (on the way to, in, and around the Druids Grove, Nautiloid Crash, and Wither's Crypt), CX has been used to create ways for your party to win. By giving enemies various damage vulnerabilities or exploitable negative conditions or other limiting factors, balance has been restored so that a level 3 party should be able to do all very early game content (everything before the Blighted Village) with no or only minor route optimization. e.g. you do not need to worry about sneaking past an encounter on the beach and coming back to fight when you are stronger. The exception is the bonus skeleton encounter outside Wither's crypt, if you return to the crypt after clearing it and taking a long rest: These skeletons can still mess up low level heroes! Everything in and after the Blighted Village, the Underdark, and beyond, however, is more dangerous and should not be explored until the party is level 6+ and has accomplished most/all of the Grove storyline, beach, swamp, and goblin camp.
If you plan to enable every extra encounter mod, know that the game will not be "Balanced." However, if you are an experienced and patient player, it isn't too hard. Save often, and be prepared for fights to rapidly spiral out of control as one encounter triggers another triggers another.
Game Balance and Combat Extender vs Extended Level Scale
With Combat Extender, enemies will have access to 5e, Luma Spell Library, Spelljammer, Planescape, and Homebrew spells, will fight smarter, and receive additional buffs to catch up/try to keep pace with exponential player power. Enemies receive feats similar to what choices a player would make, such as enemy rogues taking Deadly Alacrity and enemy mages taking Spell Sniper. Enemies receive class features, especially in Act 3, that high level player characters do: Improved smites, enduring rages, bigger sneak attacks, higher spell slots, etc.
Enemies receive a flat increase to HP plus a proportional increase to HP according to the player’s level. Their stats, AC, rolls, etc are improved proportional to their own level. This means all enemies are more dangerous (with higher level enemies being even more dangerous) - but the player can, and will, still experience some amount of power fantasy as they eventually outpace the power of mook enemies. Boss enemies, however, will scale in level to remain an inescapable threat to the player - and as that scale passes certain thresholds, they will qualify for more boosts and boons and buffs. The goal of this enemy tuning is to keep combat interesting for longer, challenging players to consider their equipment, spells, and class features with more critical thinking than vanilla BG3. Bosses are especially tuned, with many assigned direct manual tweaks to provide them with new abilities and sources of danger, while preserving (or adding) a path to victory such as a new critical weakness, a condition for players to exploit, etc. CX decisions are made on the assumption that players will honor Listonomicon’s recommendation to keep party size between 4 and 6 characters, and play on the Custom Difficulty settings described at the bottom of the List install instructions (mostly tactician, with harder shopping and more food required for Long Rest), as well as explore all of the options they now have such as enhanced access to feats, new magic items for sale or found in the world, etc. Some of the new spells given to enemies can be quite nasty, but the most debilitating ones (like turn to stone, or banish) should be limited to boss caster encounters like Nere and Balthazar. As a baseline, boss fights are tuned to be challenging, regular encounters should be less easy, and Larian has allowed us to enable honour mode rules (including anti damage rider cheese and enhanced enemy abilities) without the single save limit.
You are expected to run away from some fights, especially if you stumble into them too early and unprepared. Assess your enemies, and choose to come back when you are ready! Do not blindly run into every encounter. You will be challenged to pick your fights during Act 1 and will need to gather characters, gear, and levels to prepare for some enemies.
Combat should be surprising and challenging, not slow, tedious, or difficult to the point of being unfun; please report enemies appearing with excess HP and AC. The one known flaw in CX is that there are a small number of transforming enemies who interact in unpredictable ways with Combat Extender. Some gain too much HP, some don’t get any bonus HP at all, and it is inconsistent. Enemies that are scripted to appear and join a fight-in-progresss do not always receive their CX tweaks correctly.
Many manual entries have been made in Listo's Combat Extender config to cover various encounters added by mods. EO and MMM have received many Act 1 CX passes, and all modded Act 2 and 3 encounters are slowly being play tested and altered to make their experience consistent with the rest of Listonomicon. Check #combat-extender-tests-and-ideas on our Discord for the latest test config files and to discuss how to make CX better!
Many vanilla encounters have been significantly altered through the use of Combat Extender. Specific encounters in need of a punchup to stay relevant versus player power in Listonomicon have been tweaked, with some normal and many boss encounters being given feats, new spells, or the unique abilities of other creatures. Goblins, fae, Kuo-toa, and similar creatures with access to magic are now effectively wild magic sorcerers. Many beasts, goblins, hobgoblins, fae, and Kuo-toa are wild magic barbarians. Some enemies and creatures have become spellcasters. Be on your toes!
In Act 3, the gloves come off so-to-speak. Enemies like Sarevok are merciless tanks who dish supreme damage multiple times a turn. Cazador, Lorroakan, Ansur, Carrion, and other enemy mages have greatly extended spell lists as befits their place as powerful spell casters. The members of the Murder Tribunal have many dirty tricks to blind, poison, slow, or control you. The Fist of Bane has distributed a great number of Gortash's looted magic items. And worst of all, the rush to the Netherbrain is packed with more enemies, more dangers, and more surprises. Not every fight is a carefully tuned challenge, but the encounters originally designed to challenge an unprepared level 12 vanilla party have been scaled.
Party Size, Game Balance, and Performance
Recommended party size is between 4 and 6. Use more companions at your peril. You set your party size with the Mod Config Menu.
Nothing stops you from filling your party with 12 characters. But this is detrimental to game performance and completely trivializes encounter difficulty.
The option for an unlimited party is convenient for ensuring story-relevant characters are available for the scenes and situations where you need them. It’s also easier to juggle inventories around, compare stats, and other activities when you can add and remove a larger number of party members. However, even one extra party member is another action, bonus action, multiple gear slots, another opportunity to roll high on initiative, more healing or offensive spells, etc, added to your party’s power in encounters. The game gets exponentially easier as the party size increases, and Combat Extender, Honour Mode, and other mods and game features can only do so much to counteract this phenomenon.
Listonomicon is recommended to play with 6 or less characters in the party. 3 or 4 for a challenge, 6 is what Ajax playtests with. But it is up to you (and changing the party size in the mod configuration menu) to figure out how many (or how few) heroes is fun – and what your PC can handle. For example, my PC can survive most of the game with 6 heroes, but two necromancers who also summon four familiars and a beholderkin each on top of misc summons, Aid, Hero's Feast, Longstrider, and other buffs, leads to many CTDs. YMMV. If the game is feeling too easy, drop your party size and/or try enabling some of Listo’s optional mods.
You can enable Sit This One Out 2 in Optional Mods if you want to maintain a large party, but make some companions unable to join combat.
Do not ride boats with more than 4 party members. At this time, the only known game breaking bug caused by party size is riding the boats to Grymforge. If any characters get stuck, dismiss as many working characters as possible; ride the boat back to the UD; and then ride the boat back to Grymforge, and the missing characters should arrive safely in Grymforge. Sometimes characters will fall off elevators and other moving platforms in the game when you have too many members. The creche elevator has a hard time fitting everyone. Excess party members may fall off the moving platform in Shar's temple. All other level transitions I have tested work, so far.
Customized Custom Difficulty
Listonomicon’s recommended custom difficulty settings have enemy aggression, power, and equipment set to “Tactician.” The player gets no special bonuses to rolls and neither do enemies. Camp costs are tripled, meaning it requires 120 Food Units to long rest. Merchant prices are x4, and selling prices are 1/4. Nothing in the UI is hidden from the player such as NPC health or roll DC previews. The customized difficulty is just like you started a game on Tactician, with food and shopping made more difficult. If you plan to use Randomized Equipment Loot (optional mod), it may be a good idea to reduce the merchant price setting (decreases price to buy, increases profit to sell) to help balance out the unpredictable access to magic items and equipment.
Mod Configuration Menu
When you pause the game, you should see a new option for the Mod Configuration Menu. If this button does not work, you can also hit “;” to open the MCM. The various (official) mods in Listo have already been configured to work together with each other and the rest of the list, and match the intended game experience. Some of the optional mods have preconfigured settings. Use this menu to edit settings further to your taste. If you decide that your character is walking too fast, or too slow; you don’t like the config for auto loot seller; you want to disable all of the liquor being sent straight to your camp chest; or otherwise want to change settings, you can modify many mods in the MCM or find their config files in [listo install location]/mods/zzz_ListonomiconModSettings/SE_CONFIG. Make changes at your own peril!
Initiative
Initiative in Listonomicon is calculated using a roll of d8+dex+bonuses. The vanilla calculation uses a d4 while the tabletop uses a d20. There are pros and cons to all three approaches. d8 was chosen to provide enough randomness to prevent most characters from consistently “beating” the initiative mechanic, while still enabling rogue (assassin)s, and other characters who heavily rely on going first to reasonably guarantee success with the Alert feat, high dex, and +init gear. You can change this using MCM.
Optional Difficulty Mods and Recommended Tweaks
Listo Hard Mode: Go to [listo install location]/mods/zzz_ListonomiconModSettings/SE_CONFIG. Rename CombatExtender.json to something else (like CombatExtender.json.backup). Then, rename Hard Combat Extender.json to CombatExtender.json. This will load an alternate, harder CX config. The goal of "Hard Mode" is NOT to make Listonomicon into a difficult game. It is to give people an option to make Listonomicon more difficult. Enemy HP and stat increases are more dramatic, and playtested spells or abilities removed from the normal config due to being too powerful/too disruptive are not removed here.
Absolute Wrath is the patrician's choice for a more challenging, and more random, Listo experience. It can be used with or without the CX setting change. This mod randomly assigns buffs, changes, and abilities to enemies (with some logic built in to avoid giving out the most powerful effects until the party reaches higher levels). These buffs range from mild (resistance to common damage types) to wild (explodes on death in a cloud that disarms and confuses anyone nearby while triggering a wild magic surge). Listo's CX config intentionally applies a number of curated choices from AW to various enemies; enabling Absolute Wrath will enable both the original purpose of the mod (random distribution of modifiers), and the part of Listo's CX config that hands out intentional, chosen AW modifiers. tl;dr even if no random effects are assigned in a particular fight, Listo will overall be harder - but consider this the "Wild Wasteland" experience.
Listo Easy Mode: If you would prefer to reduce the challenge of Listonomicon, there are a few tweaks you can make. It is recommended that you still use Listo's customized custom difficulty settings, but turn trader prices down to x3.5 and reduce the camp supply cost to long rest to whatever you prefer. Then, go to [listo install location]/mods/zzz_ListonomiconModSettings/SE_CONFIG. Rename CombatExtender.json to something else (like Combat Extender.json.backup). Then, rename Easy Combat Extender.json to CombatExtender.json. This will cause the game to load an alternate CX configuration. The alt config will still be more challenging than vanilla through the various tweaks and changes to specific encounters throughout the game, however the global increases to enemy stats and HP are much smaller. e.g. the static boost to enemy and boss health will be lower, so their HP still increases as the player's level does, but the increase has a much lower minimum and maximum. Enemy boss scaling will be less aggressive (Player Level in Act 1, Player Level+1 in Act 2, Player Level+2 in Act 3), and the gap between improvement increments will be bigger. So instead of enemies getting +1 AC every 6 levels, for example, they will get +1 AC every 7 levels instead. Many specific encounter changes are removed, giving enemies less access to feats, magic items, spells, and effects.
Deadlier Honour Mode (DHM) Bosses and Encounters: This optional mod adds boss fights, dungeons, and encounters throughout BG3 designed to challenge experienced players who know how to exploit game features and truly want to flex their tactical genius. It is not recommended to enable DHM unless you truly love BG3/Listo combat, want more of it, and want to brag about clearing bosses and dungeons.
Ceremorphosis, or "Seven Days to Die Mode," is an optional challenge mod that puts a severe time limit on your adventure. Take too many long rests without finding a cure or a way to slow down your transformation, and it will be too late!
Other Ways to Make Listo Harder/Easier
Increasing your party size will quickly and dramatically decrease the difficulty of your Listo experience. Even one extra hero over the recommmended party size will be more magic item slots, actions, spells, and resources added to your repetoir. Patient and tactical players should be able to succeed with just 5 or even 4 heroes in their party, but many fights have extra enemies in them on the expectation that 6 heroes will be faced, so a small party may find that combat takes longer than normal and the additional rounds spent fighting will risk more frequent Exhaustion triggers.