A few things are certain in Baldur's Gate 3—you'll always roll a natural 1 at the worst possible time, your druid will spend most of their playtime casting longstrider on their minions, and the Harpers are wimps.
Not Jaheira—she's fine—but when it comes to the Absolute cult they're up against, they're pretty outmatched. Anyone who's done the siege on Moonrise Towers will tell you that those smite-happy paladins will chew through your NPC mates like holy knives through redshirt butter.
Well, user NCBlizzard on the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit has had enough, diving deep into the code of the game and coming away with a harrowing revelation: they've all been fighting with one hand tied behind their back this whole time (via GamesRadar).
"We aren't even too sure on whether or not this is a genuine bug and oversight, or a confusing and completely bizarre and insane work-around characteristic they intentionally added in but in a really bizarre and especially inconsistent manner; and at this point, any clarification would be most welcome."
The bug in question? Many of the Harpers, but not all of them, have the "extra_attack_blocked" tag slapped on them. This stops them from using their Extra Attack, a feature most classes get at level 5 (except for, say, the College of Swords bard, which gets it at level 6).
Initially, as someone who has spent quite a bit of time DMing D&D 5th edition (otherwise known as 5e, the system Baldur's Gate 3 is based on) and thinking about the woes of action economy in encounter balancing (translation, the impact group size has on how hard stuff is) I went in anticipating I'd have an easy answer.
See, in 5e, the amount of "Actions" one side has matters way more than that side's raw numerical power. The more creatures there are, the less a whiff punishes them, and the higher chance they have of rolling a 20 for some extra damage. The Harpers, I thought, have this 'Rock Lee wearing weights' restraint because there's a lot of them, and each getting two attacks would probably be a bit much when you're fighting alongside (or against, if you're bad to the bone) like, 10 of them.
NCBlizzard, however, has peeled away enough layers to this glass onion that I'm starting to second guess myself. Here's the data they present:
I think some of their arguments aren't too convincing—for example, the idea that the Harpers losing a straight fight against the Absolute cultists (even with Haste) is proof of a bug. We're crucially involved in this brawl, and your average BG3 party is so hopped up on powerful magic items that the Harpers are essentially cheating by having you on-side. If they were remotely on par, the siege of Moonrise would be a steamroll.
Other points, however, are more compelling. Harper Karrow, who is just some guy, is exempt. Conversely, characters without access to extra attacks—like a druid without wildshape or a wizard—have code limiting them from a feature they wouldn't get in the first place. The pièce de résistance? Backup Harpers—as in, NPCs that fill in for dead ones—are all spared the nerf. Why.
NCBlizzard's current theory is that these NPCs were given these tags to test them as Shadow-Cursed Undead, seeing as they ought to only be able to attack once when zombified, and forgot to turn it off for (checking my notes, here) almost 7 patches, now.
I reached out to Larian for comment on this, and was told no comments would be forthcoming—not something I blame the studio for. It's revving up engines on two new games and this is clearly a big technical quagmire to get into on something they're, ostensibly, soon to be done with.
My own personal theory is that the "bug" was unintentional, but its consistent inclusion is on purpose. The assault on Moonrise Towers feels chaotic in the way that all BG3 combats are, but it's appropriately hard, and the Harpers being a little wimpy helps you feel like the generals leading a march against unassailable odds.
As for why the reserve ones can still attack twice: I am choosing not to think about it because it will drive me up the wall. It certainly wouldn't be the most cryptic part of the game, not by a long shot—Karlach's fourth wall break earns that title.
