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Baldur's Gate III

Me: Finally, done.
Game: You need a guardian <opens second character creation screen>

(it's only appearance tbf)
 
Yeah, it's not really clear what that whole guardian thing is about - in Early Access it was "who do you want to romance?"
 
Tbh I'm now remembering why this style of game irks me a bit. All the dialogue second guessing and worrying that something or other will cut off a major plot line...

Also there's an early boss fight that pissed me off. Will probably know if you've got there. Particularly at level 3.

It is a good game mind you, just has its flaws. I might stop playing for a while as my completionist tendencies mean it'll probably be a 100+ hour effort.

I did win though, but kind of cheesed it. Admittedly could have achieved cheese results through better prep.
 
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Too much to take in, might start again on the easy mode.

Been watching a few youtube vids but it's like it is in another language...
 
Went with spore boy but tempted to start over as a monk. About four hours in. Chose draconian, and there seems to be no cosmetic difference between male and female - not sure if that's intentional.

Can't figure out how to choose which spells to memorise and also a bit puzzled why everybody has the same stats. Should probably look it up. But a weedy drow has the same strength as a massive half-orc?
 
I found the bear. I thought I'd leave the convo I was in so I could change into a wolf and talk to him. Leaving that convo pissed him off and now he's an enemy and all the goblins are friends and ugh, I think I can't avoid killing him. And my last save was an hour ago. :(
 
tommers said:
Went with spore boy but tempted to start over as a monk. About four hours in. Chose draconian, and there seems to be no cosmetic difference between male and female - not sure if that's intentional.

Can't figure out how to choose which spells to memorise and also a bit puzzled why everybody has the same stats. Should probably look it up. But a weedy drow has the same strength as a massive half-orc?
Click to expand...

Draconian I think is intentionally gender neutral in general appearance, they have gone to the trouble of designing different genitals after all.

Stats are based on class afaik. Generally I think it's good that you can have any stat tied to any appearance, how that makes sense in RP terms/which character model you choose is up to you.

Few notes (no spoilers):

Character select I chose the wrong gender identity by mistake... I was quite drunk, and it's quite easy to avoid (and all to the good really), but character model and voice don't define how people refer to you in game. Got to select gender identity. You can't change identity in game afaik.

Respec is cheap and available early. You can completely respec any character, even class. Just can't change race/identity etc (I think there are some appearance modifiers available at some point, but no full redesign). I'm not sure it's a great idea for story flow to go about totally respeccing origin party members though, kind of tempting mind.

Inventory management - options > interface lets you turn off auto adding stuff to the hotbar. I recommend doing this, it quickly becomes an unmanageable lump of bottles, torches and scrolls you won't use. Also you have to unlock the hotbar (right) to change what you have in it.

Wizards can learn spells from scrolls - this is fairly cheap and a good way of expanding your choices. You get a discount on your chosen school.

The party view (tab) is where you do most management. Spellbook is where you manage prepared spells. Preparing spells is quite generous (as I recall in 5e you need a long rest to change), just need to click to select/deselect out of combat. The bar in the middle shows what you have prepared... Don't have druid, but imagine it's the same?

Passives are enabled by default, even if they give a debuff. d&d players will be familiar with great weapon master's -5 to hit, +10 damage (all-in). You need to deactivate this in the passives part of the quick access bar at the bottom (or you can probably do it through party menu). You can also toggle non-lethal attacks here.

The reactions page of party view is also useful. It's on the spellbook page (despite not being spells for half the classes, but there you go). Here you can enable things that happen by default... In terms of reactions this is important because you only get one reaction per turn. My wizard has a reaction from a magic item, a reaction from the warcaster feat, a reaction from being a tiefling and the standard opportunity attack. I am very unlikely to use the latter. Conversely my rogue will always use sneak attack where available, so you can set that to proc by default (i.e it will work even if you chose standard attack but actually have advantage). You can set it to ask which reaction you want to use, that's also kind of helpful if you want to understand how combat works.

Bonus actions are important to understand for anyone who hasn't played 5e (or just watched too much critical role like me). It's not too complicated - you can drink a potion or jump etc; a limited set of sub-options. But for specific classes it's more important... E.g a dual-wielding rogue will use their bonus action to attack by default. Assume similar stuff happens for monk. Some spells (e.g spiritual weapon) can only be cast as a bonus action.

It's also worth periodically checking in on the character sheet in party view. Note what abilities you have and use them. Also pay attention to proficiencies, and bear in mind that 5e places hard limits on what a class can use (this is generally good imo).

Also for stuff like armour it's not going to change that much. AC is literally what you have to roll on a d20 to get past the armour (plus bonuses, which iirc can't go over +10 even if you're fighting a ludicrously high dex monster), so it's always going to be +2 and the like, and your base AC will stay broadly the same. Means something that gives a +2 bonus to AC is really significant, while +3 is like legendary shit.

Inventory management is kind of shit... But it's worth getting used to the right click menu that allows you to send stuff to camp or between party members. I wish they had like a sub pack for your 'wares' so they're not in the already cluttered and hard to sort general bit. And I dunno, craftable sub-packs for potions, scrolls etc.
 
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Also, yeah, quicksave works so just spam F5. You can set save limits in options (by default it's 25 quick/autosaves iirc, so they will start deleting themselves). Oh, also it has a fairness feature enabled by default... That prevents streaks of bad rolls. Some may want that turned off.

e2a: karmic dice.

Note also 'autoselect character after combat' might relevant in some encounters. It's set to avatar by default, which is probably what you want. 'Restore' (same character you had selected entering combat) might be helpful if you have a high charisma party member though.
 
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Also, basics, worth playing with a multi-button mouse if only to set 'centre on character' (I mean who the fuck is going to regularly press 'home' on a keyboard+mouse game?). Makes navigating the environment so much smoother.
 
Oh, another important mechanic is casting spells at higher levels. So e.g healing word is 1d4+3, but it will add a d4 for every level... cast at level 2 it's 2d4+3 etc. Also very relevant for charm spells and other things you might use out of combat... if you want to read someones mind without aggroing them, but know they have high wis, you'll need to up the level you cast at.

Which leads to another 5e thing... most people who know 5e will have some background knowledge of how ability scores work. Like I know that a warlock's abilities are based on charisma, or a druid's on wisdom. Those stats will always be high for those classes. That affects a lot of things... If I know I'm going into combat with a druid I might favour spells that require an intelligence save rather than wisdom.
 
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Concentration mechanic is also important... That is some spells (very useful ones - major buffs/debuffs) will hold as long as your character isn't distracted (by e.g a mace in the face). It is important both when you're working out your own combat strategy, and anticipating that of others. If you know/think that an effect is caused by an enemy maintaining concentration, you can target them and try to break it through attack > saving throw (or more definitively through a spell like sleep). Abilities that give casters advantage on concentration (warcaster) can also be very useful, depending on build.

Advantage, for total noobs, is just rolling twice and taking the higher. Disadvantage is taking the lower (and best avoided).
 
Cid said:
if you want to read someones mind without aggroing them, but know they have high wis, you'll need to up the level you cast at.
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The detect thoughts seems bugged. It shows you your wis modifier but uses int.
 
tommers said:
The detect thoughts seems bugged. It shows you your wis modifier but uses int.
Click to expand...

I haven't really used it in BG tbh. I know that in 5e it can be used for surface thoughts, then if you want probe deeper the target can make a wis save. It may have been a bad example, ahem. e2a: right, yeah - you can only cast it at one level far as I can see. In fact yes, for most effects like that it's a straight wis save so casting level isn't relevant. Oops.
 
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Oh, also skill checks are individual, not party afaik. Largely relevant for stealth mechanics... Some DMs will make a party roll, then take an average. Can make for more fluid RP. With BG every party member is rolling off against anyone who might detect them. Basically it makes sense to use the split party mechanic and send someone with good stealth and passive perception up ahead. Based on different stats, but e.g I think Astarion is specced with +2 to perception by default (so he gets +1 from 13 wis, +2 proficiency making +3). He's on +7 stealth, +3 perception for me at the moment, so a good scout.
 
I'm getting into this more, but the only one action is pretty frustrating at times.

Level 4 now and I'm getting used to it.

Anyone find Ogre and Bug-bear yet? :D:D:D
 
I think I preferred how the pathfinder games did the levelling, there you could see the exact benefits that each level of each class gives you, so you could plan a bit better. I guess you can experiment with the respec guy but I don't really know 5e D&D so I'm just adding levels in my chosen classes and hoping for the best.
 
The tips videos from this new channel are quite handy. I think largely spoiler free, enough that I don't remember any anyway:





I haven't watched the whole of the following one, it opens with what seems like a spoiler (and one very minor act 1 spoiler), but the item being discussed is actually from the digital deluxe edition. And the inventory sorting tips are just... needed (got to retrace my steps and find all those backpacks now). And just watched the dialogue chapter, also very useful.

 
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A lot of these videos always mention getting ready for a fight, I just seem to walk into them without any warning. I suppose they are doing quite a bit of F5ing.
 
Dandred said:
A lot of these videos always mention getting ready for a fight, I just seem to walk into them without any warning. I suppose they are doing quite a bit of F5ing.
Click to expand...

Split party, sneaky type/high perception up front as scout. Crouched and you'll see the red enemy sight cone. And make liberal use of wasd to move cameras around. Or, caster heavy parties, summon as scout. With dialogue, above guy says you can use the change character option to reposition if you're anticipating combat. Have not tried myself.

e2a: fwiw I think you're right anyway. But this type of game has always been strategy heavy.
 
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So is it good then?

I loved the Divinity games that Larian did.

I reckon BG3 is likely to be a bit different to BG1 and BG2 due to that ^ - they are wildly different developers.
 
Epona said:
So is it good then?

I loved the Divinity games that Larian did.

I reckon BG3 is likely to be a bit different to BG1 and BG2 due to that ^ - they are wildly different developers.
Click to expand...

It is very good... It's just a lot. A lot of mechanics, a lot of things to do, a lot of choices.
 
Cid said:
It is very good... It's just a lot. A lot of mechanics, a lot of things to do, a lot of choices.
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That's good - I like my games to be a lot :)

Won't be able to get it til it is in a sale of some sort, but looks like my PC meets minimum spec so definitely want it :)
 
Actually I looked into it and it seems to run on Linux fine using proton, which apparently is now built into the steam client.
 
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