Who is with me: Larian improves the BG3 engine, and starts putting out D&D campaigns, from the classics on. Buck the Baldurs Gate thing, and do some modules as games. Be my dungeon master, Larian.
I'd love that but it's far too lucrative an idea for Wizards of the Coast to ever do it with the way their business is currently being run
Honestly, the number one thing I wished for while playing BG3 was DOS3. BG3 is great and all and the combat is fun, but there are so many things about DND 5e (and especially its combat) that just don't work well (both in BG3 and tabletop imo).
But DOS3, where every ability would be designed fresh, without any pre-defined requirements, combined with the amazing engine that they've built for BG3? That just sounds soo good imo.
So yeah, I can't wait for them to go back to working on something else actually.
This is what I've been thinking the whole time too. Absolutely love the game, but coming from Pathfinder I find 5e... lacking.
Can I get some love for my boy Raphael. Dude's a literal Disney Villain. His fight in the house of Hope has been the highlight of 2.5 runs.
My first run I killed him in one round and had to reload to hear the conclusion of his song. Tell me that isn't nailing a Performance check. He bought 1 minute of life with his voice.
Everybody gangsta till they hear the boss singing his own battle theme music.
When I began the fight, my wife thought the song was hilarious. Since I had a lot of trouble with it, by the time I finished, she hated it. She'd start groaning everytime Raphael would start singing.
Aw man, I decided to save and quit about 5 minutes away from this boss fight and now I'm super excited to play some more.
Edit: This was a great boss fight. "Liiiives, all mortal liiives, expiiire"
I think that was the highlight of the game for me, which is kinda wild because I only went on a whim. My story wasn't pushing me in that direction at all, just figured I'd poke around. Great fight, too. I'd been steamrolling everything for most of the act by that point, so it was nice to get challenged again.
The song was a pleasant surprise too. That, the harpy song, and the Ketheric/Gith battle music are going to be stuck in my head for a while.
10/10 game for that battle alone.
Here come the claws...
"Lives, all mortal lives ... expire ..."
Quests and gameplay bugs aside, am I the only one who has a gripe with how there are so little to no good looking helmets in the game? Most of the time it's set to Hide Helmet for all of my characters. I just want my Oathbreaker to look the part.
Agreed. The circlets are the only consistently good ones because they're barely there. It's tragic when a helmet is both a huge upgrade and distressingly ugly.
Agreed on the helmets. It would be great if the hide helmet option worked on the party members you leave back at camp.
My biggest gripe would be the inability to preview dyes though.
I just opened the game for the first time, haven’t started playing yet. The EULA is already entertaining. They encourage fan art because “there is no fiend in the Realms that doesn’t have a soft spot for idolatry, and admittedly We’re no different. So send Us your best work and know that mortals who amuse Us often get better perks”. There is more lighthearted, not-so-legal speech in here. I appreciate them considering those of us insane enough to read the damn EULA.
Really?! That's amazing. A little gem that probably almost everyone missed.
Are there others like this in the EULA?
There is, I believe they have an easter egg about Warlock pacts in there. A warning about being careful to sign your soul away or something like that.
Is anyone else at awe with how massive this game actually is?
Like I was in a big zone in Act 2, explored the crap out of it, went past the next part of the main story line but decide to explore a bit more. I find a door to some seemingly small dungeon.. "Uh let's see where this leads." It's starts to become bigger and bigger, and then inside that there's another door to an even bigger place. Holy shit I'm completely lost, I don't even know what I've already left behind.
minor spoiler for zone name in Act 2
I'm talking about the Mausoleum for those reading this.
The only downside is that I get rather tired when playing splitscreen on my living room TV. Otherwise I think I wouldn't even leave my home for 2 weeks.
I would kill for the dynamic split screen from DOS2.
I don't want this to sound like criticism, but a lot of the length of this game is due to the Cinematic Dialog. It would probably only be 40-60 hrs without it, ie it's about the same length as PoE or Tyrany. Planescape Torment, or both Owlcat Pathfinder games have considerably more content and depth; but the Cinematic Dialog is part of what has drawn so much attention to this game and that takes WORK.
This is going to be the game of the Decade due to the marriage of Classic RPG and Modern Graphic but it sacrifices a lot of Act 3 and some companion's endings (namely Karlach) on this altar.
I disagree with this. Unless you rush it the game is longer and bigger than tyranny, I'm 100h into the game and I'm still far from the end it seems. I couldn't get far into pathfinder video games because they're meat grinders with shitty balance. For kingmaker I was so bored of fighting the same ethereal enemies over and over and over and fights were very tedious because I didn't have an optimized team.
Bg3 is open, both like open world and open scenario. Combat is as good as exploration or narration imo.
Now I love planescape torment direly. But BG3 is bigger than that imo. There are so many secrets everywhere, and so many branches. PST doesn't have so many pathes, it's more linear in some ways. The intensity of the scenario is comparable between the 2, but PST is deeper in the philosophy and more intimate.
Controversial take: party size unlock is absolutely the best experience, feels more narratively justified and more like a 5e D&D adventure.
First thing I did once I had more than 3 party members! Game isn't quite balanced for it but the difficulty level changes helps. Ran into one bug already (getting on a boat in the underdark area) that made 3 party members forever invisible. Definitely makes the big battles super cool!
Once I finish my normal run I'm already planning a second modded run with Tactician Plus, Better AI, more spells and Party Limits Begone mods. I'm gonna go all out here.
About to go into the final battle and finish the game off for my 1st run. I'll probably shelve the game for a couple months and play Starfield and Phantom Liberty and then give an evil run through a try.
Loved act 1, but not too impressed with act 3. Seemed a bit rushed and all over the place, maybe should've split the content up and made an act 4. Always felt with Larian games that the writing usually falls apart near the end and this game was no exception. Bit let down with the other 2 chosen fights as well. The highlight was definitely the house of hope, between the music, the characters you deal with and the fight itself it was absolutely my favourite part of act3.
I've also run into numerous bugs requiring reloads too. Jumping across a small gap and characters will get caught on some invisible wall and just die. Quests not completing or triggering properly. Companions repeating dialogue or just giving me dialogue as if I chose different outcomes from quests(looking at you Gale). Also managed to get two different outcomes for the same gather your allies quest so I guess I'll see if that works out or not. (EDIT: Just a dialogue/extra character glitch. Didn't have two skills in the allies bar to use for them)
All in all I enjoyed the game, but bg2 is one of my all time favourite rpgs and this fell short for me. I'm glad it did really well though, hopefully they can make an Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights game, that would be wicked.
Aw man... using a potion of Colossus or enlarge person before buying the statue of yourself doesn't make the statue gigantic 😩
Larian. Pls fix.
Does it bother anyone else that if you're playing an elf, the narration for camp scenes never remembers that elves don't sleep? It's bad enough that the trance animation is very similar to sleeping anyway.
Laezel's been growing on me lately. Used to not like her that much at the start but now she's a permanent member of my party. Interested to know how others feel about her
I like her. Romanced her. She has always been in my party. Her and Shadowheart are both great. I had to tell the wizard to fuck off when I ran out of items I could part with so I don't know how I feel about him, but in general I'm not a fan of the class so he'd need a great personality to make up for that. I'm not a huge fan of Halsin, Wyll, or the barbarian even though I like all three classes. I've never met Astarion, so I'm not sure if I missed him or haven't gotten to him yet.
I sort of feel like all the characters are assholes. Interesting and entertaining assholes certainly, but I don't think I like any of them. Laezel, though, is at least perfectly upfront about who she is. She knows exactly what she wants, gives no fucks about anything else, and tells you exactly that. I think I asked if she loved me and she basically said wtf are you an idiot? We are mates, that's it.
Anyway my game just bugged and I can't move so I think I'm going to take a break and then start over again with a different character. I'm kinda sick of my female wood elf's stupid face. She always looks constipated.
Gale only eats three items. Just feed him the Absolute brand items you get in Act 1 and you are at no loss. They don't even matter for Act 2.
If you missed Astarion you aren't exploring. He's only missable if you don't explore the starting area. How much did you miss in this game?
Constipated Wood Elf face is really annoying, but they did need to nerf one of the most powerful races somehow.
Stopping now after making it about 2/3rds of the way in on my second run. Had a blast, but with as many bugs as I'm running into now even before Act 3, I think it's best to shelve it until more fixes are made. Straw that broke the camel's back was missing romance scenes seemingly because I didn't long rest enough. That's funny because I felt like my party was getting wrecked a lot more than my first party was, so I had to be resting even more. Maybe by Act 2 I had figured things out more than I realized.
Next run (whenever that is) I'm thinking evil bard and fully Embracing My Potential, if you know what I mean. Also probably going to bump it up to Tactician when I hit level 5 on that run.
Disclaimer: if this is how you like to play that is okay.
I find it so confusing that people are asking for specific builds with what spells to take and what items to equip. Although it's a singleplayer game with a difficulty that doesn't require much optimization (if any) even on tactician. I really enjoy trying different builds that seem fun regardless if they are the strongest or not, so to me following a build would take out half the fun of the game.
I come from MMOs, didn't know anything about DnD nor cRPGs, I needed to be told everything on how to build a char, what spells to take and what items to get. I don't personally ask but reading responses to other players questions helps me immensely.
It took me a month to learn the rules and understand what's available in game (DnD is hard lol, when you start from nothing) and now I can start making my own choices even if I don't yet fully understand everything.
I guess there are other people like me, BG3 is not only for DnD/cRPGs fans.
I created my own character, drow elf druid. I think I messed up in the beginning and didn't grab one NPC, so my entire party is weak. No tank just warlock, druid, cleric, and whatever the vampire is. Do I have a chance to get a tank later?
So you have Shadowheart, Wyll, and Astarion, at least. You missed Lae'zel? Did you get Gale?
There's a Barbarian character that you can pick up a bit later than the other companions. Make sure to get her before leaving Act 1, she makes a great front-liner.
There will be more companions to get in Acts 2 and even 3.
If you have Withers at your camp, you can also respec companions or get a hireling.
You can respec any character at whithers in your camp. Also as other have said circle of the moon druid can bear form to get an extra 60 hp (half from each cast) circle of the spore can spawn minions that can tank the hits that would other go towards your team mates.
It sounds like your problem isn't just that you don't have a tank but that you're solely relying on Shadowheart for healing. In my run I'm doing an ancient paladin so I've got lay on hands plus the heal aura to subside her healing.
When you level up you can also multiclass to get some desirable traits from another class to help your comp.
You can change classes once you meet an NPC early on. Explore around the starting area, and you'll meet someone that'll show up at your camp and let you respec anyone.
Also, druids can get tanky if they go the wildshape route
Warlock, Druid, and Cleric can be built into tanks pretty easily via Feats and Subclasses. Heavy Armor proficiency solves a ton.
That said you did miss Lae'zel, the Str Fighter; and Karlach the Barbarian.
Act 3 bugs and unexpected quest lock offs make me sad. My Monk is now punching his way directly to the finish line and I'll roll a new hero and play again in a little while. Had a blast but a bit disappointed with the bugs.
What bugs did you have? I guess I'm surprised to hear of complaints about it, I haven't really had any in 150 hours. Guess just got lucky.
How extreme are the consequences for not bringing companions with you on their specific quests?
I've been rolling with the same party all game and I'm really happy with it. I figured on my next playthrough, I'd just pick a different party composition and really get to know those characters on that playthrough, which would keep things fresh for me.
I don't mind missing out on random lore or conversation bits (that's the kind of stuff I'm trying to save for future playthroughs,) but it would bum me out a little if one of my camp buddies got mad and just left in a "bad ending" sort of way (I'd be more ok with a bittersweet "friends going separate ways" type scene, though, if it makes sense for the story.) I want to help everyone, but it just feels so video-gamey to add someone to the party, level them up, give them decent equipment, complete a quest, and then kick them out again just to get a better cutscene or something when that's not how I've been playing for the past 40 hours.
Specifically, I am about to enter the part of the Act 1 map relevant to Lae'zel and she hasn't been in my active party since I met Karlach.
So what do you think? Should I stick to my preferred play style and see what happens? Or change it up because I'm a chronic "good guy" gamer who wants to help everyone and get the "goodest" ending?
Some companions will leave the party permanently if you do not bring them with you for their subplots. It's not metagaming to put them in the party for things that are relevant to them, it's the opposite, it's bringing them along for something incredibly important to their personal journey.
Keeping it vague I left 2 different party members at camp for their subplots and I still have them both. There was some minor griping "wish I could have been there" type stuff but nothing beyond that.
Man. The Phalar Aluve is my favorite sword. I'm probably a bit biased because I'm running a Paladin/Bard, but the 1d4 plus to attack rolls and Cha, Wis, and Int saving throws while it's singing, has saved my bacon more times than I can count.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. (Website)
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