Ability Check | Baldurs Gate 3 Wiki

Making an Ability Check

To make an ability check, roll a D20 and add the relevant Ability Modifier. As with other D20 rolls, apply bonuses and penalties such as Skills or Proficiencies, and compare the total to the DC. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success and the character overcomes the challenge at hand, otherwise, it's a failure.

Passive Checks

A passive check is a special kind of ability check that doesn’t involve any die rolls. Such a check can represent the average result for a task done repeatedly, such as searching for secret doors over and over again.

Here’s how to determine a character’s total for a passive check: 10 + all modifiers that normally apply to the check. If the character has advantage on the check, add 5. For disadvantage, subtract 5. The game refers to a passive check total as a score.

Ability Checks and DC

Each action has what's called a Difficulty Class (DC) and its determined by its Difficulty Level.

Difficulty class is the number you must roll with the D20 to pass the ability check. The task difficulty when performing a DC are:

• Very Easy: 5
• Easy: 10
• Medium: 15
• Hard: 20
• Very Hard: 25
• Nearly Impossible: 30

For Nearly impossible cases, you have to have a very high Ability Modifier, other bonuses and almost a perfect 20 roll on the die.

For example, if you are trying to open a door you cannot open and it has a Strength check DC of 15. Your character has 18 Strength, so he has an Ability Modifier +4. So if you try to force it open, you have to roll the D20 and add +4 to that result. If the result is higher than 15, the door will be forced. However, if you should fail the roll nothing or something bad may happen, like for example jamming the door and making it impossible to open.

All of these operations are calculated by the game automatically,  and you can check the results at the bottom of the screen.

Ability Modifier Table

The ability modifier will be added to the D20 roll according to the Ability Score for the corresponding Ability.

To determine an Ability Modifier, subtract 10 to the Ability Score, then divide the result by two rounded down as shown in the table below.