Baldur's Gate 3

[Sprite]

I deleted my save and restarted after this patch.

I’d not played in a while so it didn’t feel correct in going back to continue the save.

 

[Fezzik]

I also succumbed to the meta and made a Paladin (Vengeance Dragonborn) for my latest run. Really liked the Monk but it was hard to be the main character and have no charisma.

 

[R55NA]

Bought the game this morning on Xbox as it has finally launched.

(Thank you Turkey = £35)

 

[SDSmurf]

So I chose the less obvious (for me) route of Cyberpunk 2077, and splashed out on Baldur's Gate 3.

Regretting it at the moment as I've absolutely no idea whatsoever how to play. First try, the little brain things killed me just off the beach.

Second try, some dudes in a ruin wiped me out.

Cost us a lot of money so my Wife is literally sitting here making sure I carry on playing 🤣

 

[Fezzik]

That sounds like my first time with the game.

Try explorer mode.
There’s some very helpful guides on Youtube that cover the combat basics like positioning, advantage, AC, saving throws.
Check out the wiki - https://bg3.wiki/.

Don’t give up. I found it hard & overwhelming at first, now I’m obsessed.

 

[R55NA]

So I chose the less obvious (for me) route of Cyberpunk 2077, and splashed out on Baldur's Gate 3.

Regretting it at the moment as I've absolutely no idea whatsoever how to play. First try, the little brain things killed me just off the beach.

Second try, some dudes in a ruin wiped me out.

Cost us a lot of money so my Wife is literally sitting here making sure I carry on playing 🤣

£38 Iceland Store and wont need a VPN, nor a local currency card like Turkey store.

I have watched endless videos, I think I sat through and replayed this one several times as it is the most helpful for me, a complete novice to D&D:



The game does a shockingly poor job of guiding people along in an interactive manner. I refuse to sit there reading, and trying to understand Tooltips all evening.

I am around 15 hours in (5 hours of that is me sat idle watching Tutorials on Youtube) and so far I do not understand the hype - when did everyone suddenly love XCOM gameplay?

 

[Grand Prix]

The BG3 wiki helped me a lot when first starting out, told me everything I needed to know about classes, game mechanics etc.

The party composition matters quite a bit. This party carried me all the way to the middle of Act 3: Fighter/Paladin main character, Assassin or Thief Rogue for Astarion, Life Cleric for Shadowheart, and either a Berserker Barbarian (Wildheart Bear Barbarian is also good) or Evocation Wizard for damage output. I wanted my party members to be specialists so they could complement each other well.

I started as a Champion Fighter at first to keep things simple, later switching to a Paladin in Act 3 to add a bit more flavour, but that turns out to be the "meta" class. I changed Shadowheart to a Life Cleric as soon as I had access to Withers. If you give Astarion proficiency in persuasion as a Rogue, you can get huge discounts from shops even if he has a fairly low charisma level. Rogues get double proficiency bonuses at Level 6, and an extra feat at Level 10. Pretty powerful class if you ask me.

Spoiler: Act 3 spoiler

I've been having fun with experimenting in multiclassing. For example I made Minsc a Level 4 Ranger and Level 8 Berserker, the Hunter feature "Colossus Slayer" pairs really well with Barbarian.

 

[GTvsForza]

Welp, finally got the game on Xbox... died on the first boss. Good start...

I'm playing as my DnD character, a Blue Dragonborn Paladin.

 

[Meythia]

Now in my Honor Mode playthrough.
In my previous/first discovery run of finishing the game with no prior knowledge, I didnt find the always ready Quasit summon, but this thing is seriously broken and making the game all too easy for cancelling enemy surprise attacks or causing surprise on them, though this really only shines when you know what is coming ahead.

 

[Fezzik]

I'd really like that gold d20 but there's no way I could beat that mode without some serious cheesing. Maybe in co-op with a few people who actually know what they're doing, and I could just hang around the back Bard-ing it up.

 

[Meythia]

I'd really like that gold d20 but there's no way I could beat that mode without some serious cheesing.

Without my first playthrough I guess I would have died a few times already, and even with this knowledge there are surprising changes (not least because of the extra boss skills).
For example the way I killed the adamtium forge guardian basically was abusing the returning pike, I couldnt fathom any other method of winning that fight because of the change there.
I also didnt create a specific party to make it easy, but just picked different classes than before and so far it all works quite well, but without a bard it seems gold is actually something to manage instead of simply have.

Though this game is MUCH easier than Divinity on honor mode, the AI in BG3 isnt nearly as mean as it could be and not using many of the oneshot possibilities it propably could be abusing.

 

[Fezzik]

I do like that pike, especially with a few sources of bonus damage. With a ring, gloves & Ranger colossus/hunter’s mark I think it ended up something like:

1d10+1+3+1d4+1d4+1d8+1d6.
Per turn, in act 1. Add in some poison for good measure and just one-shot a lot of people.

 

[Meythia]

So, the Trials of Shar bugged on me.
I was able to insert 2 umbral stones into the first socket to call the lft, which made me 1 umbral stone short to open the door.
Okay I thought, lets see whether we can continue without finishing the trials and I went to meet Ketheric and as it turns out, the Trials are mandatory to finish.
Then I was okay, lets see if I can weasel myself through the door somehow, and guess what, the obvious solution actually works:
Mage - Spell - Knock - and the door is opend.
In the end, all you need to solve the whole dungeon is not a single stone but a mage with a bit of strenth, the long jump spell, feather fall, and knock. Jump down, open, use the teleporter to have your party follow.

(On honor mode, only 1 savegame slot, and I managed to have my savegame slot .... after I recognised my fault).

 

[R55NA]

This game needs Cross Play ASAP. Me and loads of my mates at work are now hooked, but all on different platforms.

Every person I speak to has a completely different story for how they got through Act 1. Very impressive game!

 

[Meythia]

Every person I speak to has a completely different story for how they got through Act 1.

What is your story?
I like how race and class open up different interactions with all the npcs.

I am a Drow, I went into the goblin camp and was welcomed with open arms.
And then I did my Drow thing and start murdering everyone there because they werent licking my boots enough.

 

[Grand Prix]

In the middle of my 2nd play through, going with some interesting multi-class builds this time.

Shadowheart is going to be a level 6 Life Cleric and Level 6 Paladin. Smites don't need charisma apparently, so I can just focus on wisdom and strength/dexterity. This build will use level 4 smites and spirit guardians, with still decent healing. Only two feats, but this is more of a support class anyway.

For Gale I took inspiration from Gandalf. I've considered a few different approaches for this, and they all use the dual wielding feat, of course. Larethian's Wrath or Phalar Aluve can use dexterity. 2 levels of Paladin and 10 levels of Wizard is the current plan. This will give access to level 4 smites and a level 6 spell. (Smite damage is capped to 5d8 sadly, no level 6 smite, bah! )

I've also thought of putting in 2/4 levels of Battlemaster Fighter instead of Paladin, for double fireballs with action surge, but will have no access to the highest spell slots if I do this. The staff doesn't benefit from dexterity unfortunately, unless I put in one level of Monk after Fighter/Paladin; Monk enables all of the weapons you have proficiency with (apart from heavy two-handed weapons) to use dexterity. Instead of Wizard, you could use Druid or Light Cleric to combine with one level of Monk, since Monk will also add armour class from wisdom. Would need a source for longsword proficiency though.

Still, even with robes I'm at 17/18 armour class with mage armour and dual wielding. Bracers of Defence would give 20 AC. Or could use the Gloves of Dexterity, but my main character is using those currently. I also use the magic weapon spell to improve the sword's attack roll. Lots of options between casting spells or just going full melee. It's more badass than pure wimpy wizard.

 

[Meythia]

Monk enables all of the weapons you have proficiency with

All weapons that Monk have proficience with as only granted by their class, unless bugged.

 

[Fezzik]

I messed up everyone's build so much by multiclassing without really understanding what I was doing. For the current balanced run I used the custom rules to turn off multiclassing and eliminate the temptation. Pure classes up to level 12 for everyone. Having a lot of sneaky fun with my gloomstalker Tav paired with assassin Astarion, we can mostly eliminate half the threats by the end of turn 1.

 

[R55NA]

That multi-class stuff looks so overwhelming. The standard class building is bad enough to keep track of

 

[Meythia]

I messed up everyone's build so much by multiclassing without really understanding what I was doing. For the current balanced run I used the custom rules to turn off multiclassing and eliminate the temptation. Pure classes up to level 12 for everyone. Having a lot of sneaky fun with my gloomstalker Tav paired with assassin Astarion, we can mostly eliminate half the threats by the end of turn 1.

With only 12 levels, I dont really see much benefit of multiclassing except for a few very specific non-caster builds, as casters would otherwise sacrifice their access to highlevel spells and number of spellslots per rest.

Propably interesting note regarding highlevel spells:
heroes feast creates 21 camp ressources per use.
If you used it on every camp-warmer companion per long rest, you can do infinite long rests without ever needing to look for food.

Also sidenote regarding highlevel spell slots:
you cant replenish them except for a single amulett that allows to replenish a level 6 slot.
While classes have ways to replenish slots with a seperate ressource to their own, they can only do so up to level 5.

Also side note on camp-warmer companions:
each of them could be used to reduce the damage your active party members are taking, just make sure to give the camp-warmers maximum constitution 🙄

On my current playthrough I recently fought the Steelsentinels main guardian.
Compared to tactician mode, I really was running unprepared with my builds, though there was no danger of death ahead because of items at hand.

 

[Fezzik]

With only 12 levels, I dont really see much benefit of multiclassing except for a few very specific non-caster builds, as casters would otherwise sacrifice their access to highlevel spells and number of spellslots per rest.

As mostly a dnd newb, it was reading too many guides & Reddit posts about optimised builds - pretty much all insisting that you need to multiclass. A couple of levels dip into Fighter for weapons/armor & action surge, 3 levels of Rogue Thief for the extra bonus action, a bit of Wizard for scroll-learning, etc. If you follow the advice the characters just become a min/max mess that isn't much fun to actually play.

My current dilemma, back in act 1, is what to do about Minthara now there's a reliable way to have her on a non-slaughter playthrough. I'd like to have her available for the party, but I'm not sure how I can justify my guys not killing her based on what they'd know at the time.

 

[Grand Prix]

All weapons that Monk have proficience with as only granted by their class, unless bugged.

I've tested this and it seems to apply to any versatile or one handed weapon, it just doesn't work for heavy weapons like halberds, great swords or mauls. Could be working as intended by the developers. It even changes the attack animations and guard stances of things like rapiers and longswords, and gives a kick bonus action for them.

As mostly a dnd newb, it was reading too many guides & Reddit posts about optimised builds - pretty much all insisting that you need to multiclass. A couple of levels dip into Fighter for weapons/armor & action surge, 3 levels of Rogue Thief for the extra bonus action, a bit of Wizard for scroll-learning, etc. If you follow the advice the characters just become a min/max mess that isn't much fun to actually play.

My current dilemma, back in act 1, is what to do about Minthara now there's a reliable way to have her on a non-slaughter playthrough. I'd like to have her available for the party, but I'm not sure how I can justify my guys not killing her based on what they'd know at the time.

For every character? Yeah, screw that.

I'm just goofing around with silly role playing builds, like a certain wizard with a sword. I don't expect them to be the most optimal. I use a build planner for this.

Some characters were meant to be multi-classed I think. Minsc identifies as both a Ranger and a Berserker, and apparently he was a silly strength-based melee Ranger in older titles with some Berserker rage for comedic effect. Melee Rangers are fun though. Jaheira is another, she worked well as a level 6 Battle Master and level 6 Druid, it made sense to me with her combat experience.

I might make Minthara a level 4 Assassin and level 8 Vengeance Paladin. She gives me vengeance-fuelled secret agent or ronin vibes. She's definitely a rogue character, one that the cult of the Absolute should not have ****ed with.

You could say that she used a Feign Death scroll, or she simply went unconscious, and then your party felt pity for her during her trial? Or the enemy of my enemy is my friend? I'm not sure either, it requires some imagination.

 

[Meythia]

The most recent hotfix has introduced serious graphical glitches onto my game (PS5).
At first I thought it was my console, but it also affects another PS5, so at least luckily not directly related to faulty hardware (completly different setup).
Interestingly it does affect my current savegame, an older savegame, a completly new game (on the fight to escape the Nautiloid), but not a very old savegame.
Also it doesnt appear in open spaces but only where the camera is likely panning through objects, and while in conversations.
All these bugs are getting really tiresome.

Seems like running the game in resolution mode is a bandaid fix, though I strongly dislike 30fps.

 

[Meythia]

So now honor mode completed. Trophy did not pop but okay, then in the next run where I will try to figure out more of the quests that I didnt find or finish.

Orin took quite some firepower to the face.
If "free cast" wasnt bugged, this fight would have been over before she acted.

 

[R55NA]

I have been putting a fair bit of time into this game still, and 90 hours in:

Spoiler: Progress Spoiler

I am still not yet in Baldurs Gate 😄

One thing I was hoping for in Act 3:

Spoiler: Act 3 Spoilers

was a Fix for Karlach in Baldurs Gate itself! Dammon died very early on for me, and I never thought that Karlach would now never be "fixed". Googling and asking on the Discord it seems that there is only one person in the entirety of this world that can fix her. The romance is now over!

Bit frustrating as it seems a tad lazy considering how well written the rest of the game is. Oh well, maybe on the next playthrough.

 

[Fezzik]

I have been putting a fair bit of time into this game still, and 90 hours in:

Spoiler: Progress Spoiler

I am still not yet in Baldurs Gate 😄

This sounds familiar. In my case it's over a hundred hours but that's spread out over many different Tavs. I generally get about halfway through Act 2 and decide to restart with another class/race/sex/murderer. Have accepted now that I'll never be finished with this game.

 

[Moglet]

I started playing this split screen with my wife at the weekend. So far we are 3 hours in and really struggling, even on the easiest difficulty. It seems the game is intent on screwing us over at every opportunity. Enemies seem massively overpowered, but maybe we're just playing the game wrong?

So far we've been in jail in Druid's Grove, which we escaped only to accidentally walk into a cave full of OP enemies and die. Then we tried to take on the "kill the 3 goblin leaders" quest only to be downed by Dror Ragzlin because even though we were hidden and attacking from above it somehow drew the attention of every single enemy in a 2 mile radius. Then we appeared in another jail, broke a wall to escape, only to have to fight 4 enemies with 1HP each and no items. We died almost instantly. At this point I quit the game and played Cyberpunk instead.

It's also not great at actually being a video game, at least on console:

• Barely anything is explained - D&D is huge, expansive, and full of lore which is impossible to communicate in a video game, but even the most basic game mechanics often rely on explanations that are only found in the loading screens. For example, early on I got caught stealing because I did not know that a red outline meant that item belonged to someone (and "Open" should surely be replaced with "Steal" in these cases?)
• There are constantly 2 voice chat markers in the top left corner of the screen - Even if things are explain via tutorial pop-ups I often can't read half of them due to these markers. These also cover the minimap at all times, making the map almost useless for player 1. This is not a cert requirement, it does not need to exist in split screen.
• There is no way of reviewing your stats when selecting a speech option that relies on a roll - You can view your player card but it is completely blank, making it a pointless option. Should I have noted these down on my phone instead?
• What is and isn't shared in your inventory is not clear - I know you can lock and unlock the inventory which is a great little feature but it seems like Gold is shared, but everything else isn't. I haven't been able to confirm this though.
• Choosing a voice for your character seems pointless - In 3 hours of playing the game I don't think I've heard my character say anything outside of the initial intro scenes. They don't even make a sound when they're being tackled to the ground which makes some cutscenes look unintentionally hilarious.

We're sticking with it to see if we can start to learn and understand more about the game, but for something that was considered game of the year for many people I'm surprised at how badly it deals with the actual game bit. The storytelling is fantastic, no doubt about it, but for me a "game of the year" has to actually perform well as a game, not just an e-book.

EDIT: While I'm here, why would you ever want to not apply bonuses on your rolls? It feels odd to have to opt in to these when there's seemingly no downside to failing a check with a bonus attached.

 

[R55NA]

I started playing this split screen with my wife at the weekend. So far we are 3 hours in and really struggling, even on the easiest difficulty. It seems the game is intent on screwing us over at every opportunity. Enemies seem massively overpowered, but maybe we're just playing the game wrong?

So far we've been in jail in Druid's Grove, which we escaped only to accidentally walk into a cave full of OP enemies and die. Then we tried to take on the "kill the 3 goblin leaders" quest only to be downed by Dror Ragzlin because even though we were hidden and attacking from above it somehow drew the attention of every single enemy in a 2 mile radius. Then we appeared in another jail, broke a wall to escape, only to have to fight 4 enemies with 1HP each and no items. We died almost instantly. At this point I quit the game and played Cyberpunk instead.

It's also very bad at actually being a video game, at least on console:

• Barely anything is explained - D&D is huge, expansive, and full of lore which is impossible to communicate in a video game, but even the most basic game mechanics often rely on explanations that are only found in the loading screens. For example, early on I got caught stealing because I did not know that a red outline meant that item belonged to someone (and "Open" should surely be replaced with "Steal" in these cases?)
• There are constantly 2 voice chat markers in the top left corner of the screen - Even if things are explain via tutorial pop-ups I often can't read half of them due to these markers. These also cover the minimap at all times, making the map almost useless for player 1. This is not a cert requirement, it does not need to exist in split screen.
• There is no way of reviewing your stats when selecting a speech option that relies on a roll - You can view your player card but it is completely blank, making it a pointless option. Should I have noted these down on my phone instead?
• What is and isn't shared in your inventory is not clear - I know you can lock and unlock the inventory which is a great little feature but it seems like Gold is shared, but everything else isn't. I haven't been able to confirm this though.
• Choosing a voice for your character seems pointless - In 3 hours of playing the game I don't think I've heard my character say anything outside of the initial intro scenes. They don't even make a sound when they're being tackled to the ground which makes some cutscenes look unintentionally hilarious.

We're sticking with it to see if we can start to learn and understand more about the game, but for something that was considered game of the year for many people I'm surprised at how badly it deals with the actual game bit. The storytelling is fantastic, no doubt about it, but for me a "game of the year" has to actually perform well as a game, not just an e-book.

Completely agree with you on this. The game is not friendly to newcomers at all! I only know what I know because a lot of my mates at work are playing it at the same time, so we are giving each other hints and tips, and watched a lot of videos on Youtube too! Not sure why they expect people to sit and read every entry in the guide.

I have yet to play it Multiplayer online, or Splitscreen so I can only imagine that might be a nightmare.

The lack of voice acting for your character does ruin the game for me a bit. He just pulls these dumb faces as reactions. They clearly have a lot of dialogue in the game for every other character, but why not the main one? Sucks the "role play" aspect out of it.

 

[Moglet]

Completely agree with you on this. The game is not friendly to newcomers at all! I only know what I know because a lot of my mates at work are playing it at the same time, so we are giving each other hints and tips, and watched a lot of videos on Youtube too! Not sure why they expect people to sit and read every entry in the guide.

I have yet to play it Multiplayer online, or Splitscreen so I can only imagine that might be a nightmare.

The lack of voice acting for your character does ruin the game for me a bit. He just pulls these dumb faces as reactions. They clearly have a lot of dialogue in the game for every other character, but why not the main one? Sucks the "role play" aspect out of it.

I think the main issue is that there is no real introduction to any of the game mechanics, at least not in a meaningful way. I really feel it would benefit from introducing mechanics during the intro areas via voice acting and actually carrying out actions. Text boxes are not engaging and players quickly switch off to them. With the sheer size of the game and the amount of content I'm sure they could have reduced the scope of one area, without it impacting the freedom of the player in any noticeable way, to make way for a better intro that explains the basics and lets you use them in combat to drive the point home.

I was also very surprised to learn about the resting system in the middle of combat when my wife was unable to cast spells for no clear reason. It's a pretty important game mechanic that you really need to know about!

 

[SDSmurf]

I'm playing BG3 with my son (he's on the bedroom xbox) and..... Google and YouTube are our friends.

Just when we think we're getting the hang of it, we get 'lose initiative 5 hit in one turn parry arrow arrow oh two of your party are downed'ed 🤣

Initially, didn't enjoy but we are now, even with bouts of utter frustration.