Baldur’s Gate 3 – What’s the Point of Equipping a Ring Without an Ability?

Yea it's not an issue at all.

I got a single player game, one with my best friend, and one with her and 2 of our other friends and everything is fine :)

0 connection to eachother.

• Before you engage, you can separate your characters by either dragging their portraits on the left side out of the row (in which case separation is indicated by the chain breaking), or by right-clicking their portraits and selecting "Ungroup" There should now be more space between the portraits. You can also Toggle Group Mode, i.e. (un)separate all party members, by pressing G.

  

  When they are all separated, they won't move towards each other on their own accord, and you can guide them separately.

  This is also extremely useful for scouting and disarming traps.

• Next thing to make sure of, is to not end the turn of the initiating character until all other party members are actively participating (unless you want other members to join in later, of course).

• For me, it doesn't actually matter whether I engage the enemy in Turn-Based mode or in Real-Time mode (I wonder if it depends on the Difficulty level, as I'm playing on Balanced difficulty, but I wouldn't know why that would matter).

• Once the enemy party is alerted, one or more of them might turn and notice party members that you had hidden behind them. They will still have the Surprised status, allowing for that initial non-challenged round, but if you want them to remain hidden, be aware of this.

• The advantage your party has over enemies is also somewhat dependent on their Initiative, in the sense that once they enter combat they might end up later in the row, with the consequence that they could be attacked (by enemies with a higher Initiative who lost their Surprised status) before they are able to act in the second round.

The steps that always work for me (trying to be as thorough as possible):

• Ungroup (G) and Hide (C for individuals, Shift+C for the entire group) the members of your party you want to engage the unaware enemies with.
• You can switch between Turn-Based and Real-Time modes (of course, in Turn-Based mode it's easier to deal with surprise movements of enemies).
• Place your party members individually, taking heed of the enemies' lines of sight. Remember to make use of higher ground and obstructions for strategic positioning.
• Once you're ready to strike, let the first character perform a visible/ audible action (unless the enemies are currently neutral, it doesn't even need to be offensive, as long as you attract their attention, such as casting a protective spell).
• That acting character will now roll for Initiative, and so will the Surprised enemies.
  Your other characters will remain undetected (unless, again, the changed lines of sight inadvertently caught them and they engage as well).
• You can now freely move your unengaged characters around, in Turn-Based or Real-Time mode. Being caught by Surprise, some enemies' positions might have changed, allowing for or requiring a different approach.
• Once they perform actions (anything that unhides them, really), they will roll for Initiative, and join the fight.