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No_one  8mo ago (text post)   2761 thread views

Baldur's Gate 3 thread (no spoilers outside of spoiler tags) - reviews, technical matters, griping etc.

Intro

Baldur's Gate 3 is a sprawling, slightly kitschy, long-winded,accessible yet also quite challenging[1] role-playing game with fairly high production values that apparently pissed off other CRPG devs.

A sort of interactive pulp swords & sorcery novel. It's a flawed if IMO provisionally worthy yet lesser sequel to Baldur's Gate 2. Lesser but still rather good.

It is like heroin to CRPG types despite a slight tinge of woke, the dumb and optional romance system, and some flaws which are going to be rectified by mods fairly quickly or solved by the time you get to Baldur's Gate and can actually buy a fucking quiver, gem pouch or potion case. Romances are optional, the personal quests of party members are fairly interesting and quite decent afaict.

It allows up to 4 people to play what's essentially a D&D campaign without someone having to be GM. Perhaps some people would like to play it together in the evenings and it might strengthen this community? If playing thrice weekly for 4 hours, you could probably clear it under half a year even with a bit of save-scumming that's necessary for some of the tough fights.

Don't rush- perhaps Larian will give it paused realtime or FPS play or just speed up the computer turns which should be instant but sometimes (5% of the time) take 200-300 ms to decide per enemy mook.

As it's a significant cultural artifact and probably of interest to enough people on this forum, I believe it deserves its own thread.

For mods: ||It's not related to 'science, politics or philosophy', however, I feel it maybe deserves an exception due to its high profile. Factorio, a decade old game popular with Motte kind of people has 29 hits in search, BG3 has 25 mostly from the last 2 weeks. All argument and no play makes Jack a dull boy, no ? ||

Rules:

  1. Please post in the appropriate subthread. I'm going to start with 'reviews, technical issues, rant & gripe, gameplay advice, lore'. Feel free to make another top-level subthread if it doesn't fit into the other categories.

  2. For story and lore discussion not known to people familiar with general D&D, use spoiler tags, which are doubled pipes = '|' repeated twice without the quotes. Spoiler tag end is another set of doubled pipes.

  3. Story discussion only in the 'lore discussion' thread.

  4. Please report any comments spoiling the plot outside of the stuff that's in the intro cinematic.

[1]: I'm at around +2sd of ice people mental acuity and a disgusting minmaxing scrub who almost cleared** the infamous 'tactics' mod for BG2+ToB and I'm being challenged by the high difficulty fights in BG3. Even a run-of-the mill fight turns deadly if you're not paying attention, and certain fights are positively malicious.

And I'm just in chapter 2 atm. Yes, if you want you can re-roll PC and every party member for every dungeon but in essence that's just like save-scumming but worse. You don't have to do it, and I only re-rolled main char because I was unfamiliar with the ruleset and wanted to try a few different options. The dungeon puzzles, so far, seem mostly bloody obvious, I've encountered some mildly challenging treasure related ones, surely there's going to be a few good ones too.

**am not sure I ever cleared the final fight of the entire game with the tactics mod.

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Gameplay Advice and questions.

I'm amused to find out that a bit of cheese that was present in infinity engine games made the transition to this one.

Spoilered because once you know about it, you'll be tempted to abuse it and while it's not really game-breaking (effectively not different to just having more short-rests it feels.. cheesy.

items that increase constitution when repeatedly swapped out 'heal' characters due to what I guess are rounding effects. So effectively, healing outside of combat without having to rest. This item swap cheese worked in BG2 too, where, however, time passed and there were nifty regenerative ioun stones, sadly missing from this game.

After playing through Act 2, I think I'd advise starting the game as one of the origin characters, specifically Shadowheart or Lae'zel, rather than creating your own.

For one thing, you get to have 4 written characters in play at once rather than 3+generic protag

But also, it feels like the game is supposed to be their story. Eg. Shadowheart begins holding the MacGuffin, and a lot of the game locations & NPCs are directly related to her personal quest. Lae'zel has a pretty obvious character arc tied up in the main plot too. The world-shaking revelations don't land the same way for Tav or the other companions, who are just along for the ride.

I disagree. Creating your own character and playing it through the story is 90% of the fun in the Baldur's Gate series and Dungeons and Dragons as a whole. Of course, managing four Origin characters is easier than three, but it isn't difficult to figure out when to swap characters into the party when a milestone in his or her personal quest approaches. For example, swapping in Lae'zel when your party heads to Rosymorn Monastery to find the githyanki creche or bringing in Karlach when you find an infernal piece of iron and take it to Dammon working outside the Last Light Inn.

Playing as an Origin character might be better for a subsequent playthrough.

**Critical Advice **for those going into the Underdark and thinking of doing some sidequest smithing.

The Adamantine Forge gets bugged easily, and stops working after killing the boss. The only sure way of smithing two items seems to be doing it back to back, so make sure to get both chunks of the mithril ore and both moulds you want and then to do it at one time.

Okay.. chapter 2 question: does anyone know whether shadow-cursed undead / harpers should be neutral to Githyanki spec-ops squads ?

Just got hit with one cunning ploy - I use my rogue and his insane running/ hiding skills to introduce these two groups. No dice. They ignore each other for some bizarre reason.

They really shouldn't. Both groups are happy to attack anyone else on sight? So what gives..

Oh, man. I just started Act 2 and I want to kill the githyanki. I really, really want to kill the githyanki and I'd have given it the good old college try the first time I saw them, were it not for that pesky dragon.

This is highly unusual for me, since I'm generally "oh no, that would be too mean/cruel/violent" when it comes to "smush kill or talky talky?" choices in encounters, but fudge this lot, they need to die yesterday, the stuck-up prats who think they can just swan around murderating anyone they see because they are so superior to non-githyanki.

Gosh, I was not expecting this! Now, gotta get back to plotting how I can wipe them all out at once...

I just started Act 2 and I want to kill the githyanki. I really, really want to kill the githyanki

Did you find the creche under the Rosymorn Monastery?

I just did, and I'm slowly and carefully slaughtering my way through them with no regrets.

Possibly I may go "shouldn't have done that" later if there's an important quest I need them for, but honestly - the more I explore the monastery and find the records of the githyanki landing, attacking and murderating everyone, the fewer qualms I have about "they gotta die, all of 'em".

I have no particular feelings towards them. They do seem needlessly cruel and it's not doing them any favors. Let's just say I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised during act 2 by the githyanki.

I hope so, otherwise It's Clobberin' Time!

I just beat the game. Depending on when you acquired some of your companions you might be locked into a class-path that isn't intuitive.

I respec'd Karlath and Shadowheart, eventually running the following party Main Character: Gale: Evocation Wizard Shadowheart: Life Cleric Astarion: Assassin Rogue Karlach: Berserker Barbarian

It's not complicated, but it gets the job done and lets you experience the game for the first time so that you can have fun making weird party compositions for your next run after you feel like you've got a strong handle on the game and know what to expect. Karlach is an HP tank that eventually becomes a khorne-tier murder berseker, Astarion does regular sneak attack damage, Shadowheart eventually becomes an high AC heal tank, and Gale give you the CC & sheer damage you need. Fireball solves everything.

Fought every battle normally and had a great time. With one exception. The True Soul Nere fight. Save scum. plant barrels. do whatever you have to do. That fight was an absolute nightmare and you can get screwed on spell slots due to its time restricted constraint.

I respec'd Karlath and Shadowheart, eventually running the following party Main Character: Gale: Evocation Wizard Shadowheart: Life Cleric Astarion: Assassin Rogue Karlach: Berserker Barbarian

Curious if this party makeup works in Tactician Mode.

Yes, imo. I use all of them but I haven't re-specced them. I guess one could min-max Karlach a bit..

Gale's pretty good as he is, Shadowheart can't do DPS but is a healer/buffs, Astarion is a great assassin although I think I gave him a level in fighter so he can use the ability bonus with his other hand and use heavier armor.

Karlach is good as she is. Although I really wish you could talk her into filing off those unsightly horns. Besides, how can tieflings wear helmets ?? Makes no sense.

I don't use Gale much as my PC is a lvl 1. fighter/sorceror. Fighter so you can wear full plate, have a shield and cast from that, sorceror because it's very flexible and has some unique features, such as being able to haste 2 fighters once per long rest.

Laezal is a great fighter too, due to her insane leaping ability and numerous unique buffs the githyanki get in items.

Wyll is extremely strong too due to the blade pact spec. Can use any weapon as a pro, can cast very solid spells quite often. A Warlock can cast 6 high lvl spells after one long rest.And the force beam cantrip is fairly strong due to very little force resistance in enemies at least, so far.

E.g. I use all the party NPCs.

...whaat. Nere? That was an extremely easy fight.

.. I imagine you did not bribe the duergar into helping you out, right?

Ah, line up explosive barrels everywhere to take out the opponents you haven't a prayer of even standing up against - an oldie but a goodie! And courtesy of /r/drama, I was made aware of this glorious playthrough, with the appropriately cinematic ending 😁

Jordan Peterson voice

Feral halflings - you think they are funny, but they are no joke!

Well, if by this stage of fantasy, you don't know to never underestimate the halflings, there's no hope for you except a quick death 😀

When you fought Nere, did you have the aid of the duergar that wanted him dead? I found that to be a huge help - especially in that it seemed the duergar I was still fighting preferred to try to kill my new "allies" instead of my party.

A few people have said things to the effect of the game turns into a bit of a buggy mess in act 3, with the illusions of choice falling away and the devs' politics becoming more intrusive? Can you confirm/deny, without any spoilers? I'm not sure if I should hold off on playing more of the game until major patches arrive.

Act 3 is absolutely the weakest act (although it also had my favorite Boss). I did not encounter any bugs but there are so many parts of the narrative being kept track of that Act 3 is where something would show up. I've heard of bugs showing up regarding Oathbreaking Paladins in Act 3, but i never had one.

If you've already sunk your teeth into the game into Act 2 then it's worth it to see it through to the end.

My biggest complaint with Act 3 isn't the devs politics but rather that there are so many plot threads that need tying up that the Act doesn't have a strong "Do X then Y then Z" narrative structure. Instead it feels much more like going down the checklist of plot points that need to be wrapped up. A bit of a "wait remind me who this is?" issue.

The best part of Act 3 is that you really get to feel like your party has come into it's own. Everyone is levelled up. End game equipment starts coming into play. You feel like everything you've been building towards has really come into it's own and you can bask in the fruits of your labors. But the game really simply isn't balanced at that level 12 and the solution of 'add more enemies' tends to make some combats a slog.

It's a Larian CRPG so the illusion of choice is precisely that. Most conversations are more about the tone/flavour of how you respond than an actual diverging choice. But there are still real choices in how you want to approach the ending and i'm satisfied with the path I took for (in my eyes) a maximum Good ending.

Is Act 3 as long as the other acts ?

Honestly I don't mind lack of structure. I hate when games like BG2 or Fallout 1 lock you into one story you must do or X. I like the exploration of ever hairier places.

Alright. I'll keep playing. :)

But the game really simply isn't balanced at that level 12 and the solution of 'add more enemies' tends to make some combats a slog.

I saw that they removed wizard protections spells and dumb downed the casting. 12+ lvl BG2 wizard fights, especially unnerfed were a treat. You had enemy wizards have contingencies, and killing them was very non-trivial.

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