LogInLarian "neutered" a whole faction.
Larian Studios
I remember the battle inside Moonrise Towers as one of the most difficult in Baldur's Gate 3, not because of the challenging enemies but because Harpers kept stepping into the acid pool I left and turning against me.
Thankfully, they wouldn't be hard to defeat if I chose to, as they lack a very important skill, according to a massive code investigation conducted by one thorough player.
According to Reddit user NCBlizzard (via GamesRadar), Larian "neutered" Harpers by disabling their extra attack, and it's not just a minor bug – 22 out of the 25 Harpers from Act 2 (as well as 6 out of the 8 Flaming Fists that appear at Last Light) suffer from this ailment as they all have an EXTRA_ATTACK_BLOCKED tag in the code. This is a pretty big issue for Rangers and Fighters as they rely on their extra actions a lot.
Could it be done on purpose? "There are multiple factors for that: intentional game design, letting the player be the dominant force in a set scenario, preventing the NPCs from taking center stage during combat, making the Harpers look like underdogs, etc.," says NCBlizzard, but it looks more like a simple bug.
Harpers are already weaker than their opponents, the player notes, and Larian could have just removed the feature entirely if it was intentional, without adding code lines. What's more, NCBlizzard says Larian is "inconsistent" with the tag's use.
"They added that tag to all the fighters in the Harpers, and all the rangers except for one Harper: Harper Karrow. And similarly-confusing, they added EXTRA_ATTACK_BLOCKED to a druid with no wild shape ability (Harper Chenti), two wizards that you never even see fight (Harper Donner, Harper Tumeril), a Harper that's equipped with Ranger gear, is a wizard class, but only has a ranger/druid spell and no Extra Attack feature (Harper Mijah), and a cleric of all things (Fist J'ehlar)."
There are some other bugs NCBlizzard noticed, and you should check out the full post here if you want to get to the bottom of it.
Hopefully, Larian will fix this in Patch 7 in September (if it is indeed a bug) when it finally brings mod support to Baldur's Gate 3.
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