If you've finished the second act of Baldur's Gate 3, you'll have fought against the Drider Kar'niss, repelled an attack from Marcus and his winged ghouls, and stormed Moonrise Towers. In all three of these battles, you're aided by the legendary Harpers, a secretive organisation dedicated to protecting the innocent from the numerous evil forces that inhabit Faerun.
However, if you've experienced these fights, you'll know the Harpers didn't send their best. These brave souls serve only to distract enemies and do piddling damage as the player and their party do all of the heavy lifting.
Why are the Harpers so weak? The organisation certainly has an underdog mentality, they're essentially a group of do-gooders who often face impossible odds. Perhaps Larian wanted to show that even though the Harpers are individually weak compared to their opposition, their indomitable spirit means they can overcome any hurdle. That does ignore the fact that the Harpers get exterminated 100 per cent of the time if the player's party doesn't help.
A user on Reddit (NCBlizzard) has posited a different theory, with a mountain of evidence to back it up. It concerns the tag EXTRA_ATTACK_BLOCKED, an identifier that, when attached to an...