Baldur's Gate 3

[rastaban75]

I'm playing Wyll as a Sorlock in this playthrough. Two levels in Warlock and the rest in Sorcerer (I might multi into another class at the last two levels). Practically this means I use almost exclusively Eldtrich Blast in offense and I don't really mind the rather limited selection of spells he has. Quick spell for another cast of Eldtrich Blast as a bonus action on some more demanding battles. Some scrolls can help in tight situations as well.

Despite the grim atmosphere, I really love Act 2. The small shadow-infested town (Reithwin) is excellent and every one of those encounters with the mini bosses feels great. I will attempt some of them later tonight. Yesterday I did the prison underneath Moonrise and I got a happy ending for all the prisoners; it went much better than I anticipated with a sort of divide and conquer strategy.

Party is level 8. I do have a serious problem with Lae'zel though, who got a major permanent (and I mean permanent) debuff in the creche. It's a serious bummer as it hit her in some major stats that she needs as a front line fighter. I really didn't know about the debuff (learned it later by looking up guides and such) - I didn't get it on previous playthroughs for mainly dice-related reasons. This is a situation where save scumming would be the way to go, but when I realized it I had already made much progress.

 

[rastaban75]

I put Lae'zel aside for the time being. Hired Halsin at first which is multiclassed into Druid (Circle of the Moon) + Cleric (Nature) and then, since I entered the temple of Shar, Shadowheart who I mutliclassed into Fighter (Eldtrich Knight) + Cleric (Light). I'll use her in the temple as it's very closely connected to her character and see how it goes from there.

Eldtrich Knight has the weapon bond skill which makes throwing weapon builds good, I suppose. I haven't got a good throwing weapon right now, but I'll make sure to try that when I get one.

I thought about trying a drunk build, as I found a weapon in Act II (Waning Moon tavern) that becomes very good when held by a drunk character. IIRC, there are other items with similar bonuses. I think this would fit a dwarf main character with a red nose more.

Other than that, I'm waiting for Wyll to reach level 10 in order to get a third Eldtritch Blast beam - this should be devastating.

 

[Andyster]

So I had the question earlier if my first play difficulty was because the game was hard or I just didn’t understand the systems well enough.
It was very much the systems understanding. My party is so much more powerful than my first play. I’m level 9 my roster looks like

durge 6 monk and 3 rogue for the extra bonus attack and will 3 get 3 more monk but an extra bonus attack is huge. Stunning strike is huge.

Minthara: 8 dragon sorcerer 1 wizard. Mostly a twinned spell haste bot to be honest with some nice damage capability.

Laezel 2 paladin-6 light cleric of vlaikith. Pretty hard to hit and can hit a lot of aoe buttons, some heals. And can drop smites for decent single target.

Astarion: Hunter 5 Assasin 4 gets a lot of dual wield shots and does a lot of damage and a bird for blinding. When I need high single target he is a murder bot.

Shadowheart: Aoe queen tempest cleric. Get them wet and then start dropping lightning again and again and can get max damage when we really need to mess someone up using channel divinity.
Almost every fight that was super hard on my first play through has become kind of trivial. One turn to kill Balthazar in his base, one turn to kill Thorn after he rose didn’t even get one attack.

 

[rastaban75]

I'm practically done with Act 2. Finished the main boss fight and did the dialogue pieces that come next. I only have to do one fight with the githyanki before the exit and then on to Act 3 and I'll probably use Jaheira on that one.

 

[rastaban75]

A fun short video with all 6 origin character voice actors + the narrator i.e. the people with the most words spoken in the game.

The cast of Baldurâs Gate 3 together for the first time ever!

www.youtube.com

 

[OneBigClam]

I suppose I should get this game. I have the space now. And if I wait too long there will be no one left playing to discuss it with.

 

[rastaban75]

I suppose I should get this game. I have the space now. And if I wait too long there will be no one left playing to discuss it with.

Don't worry, this is game a will be playing for a long time. I will take a break after the 3rd playthrough, but I plan on more.

 

[Andyster]

So, got to the big vampire today and literally killed him in one punch. I pre-buffed my monk and cleric with daylight and haste ready to feel frustrated like I had my first play through.

Then he moved right up to a ledge after Getting counter spelled so my monk just walked up and did a flurry of blows push and he dies and because he goes to his casket you don’t even lose loot from killing him that way.

Also the evil Shadowheart ending is

Spoiler

just mean. The gameplay is easier because the crowd splits between people on your side and people on Viconia’s. Oddly I had made her an aoe queen just for that fight. But when you get to her parents Shar makes you kill them and then erases her memory of the event seems just petty

.

 

[Andyster]

Okay I kind of want to play a good dark urge run. I think this character is much more in the spirit of the original game and I want to see how much dumb evil shit is actually required.

I feel like to a large extent durge is an excellent lemons from lemonade situation. Forcing a cannon ending onto players this much later just sucks.

Spoiler

I’m still a bit unclear about what happened that allowed Bhaalspawn to be a thing again. What exactly happened with the solar and Bhaal’s essence?

 

[rastaban75]

Okay I kind of want to play a good dark urge run. I think this character is much more in the spirit of the original game and I want to see how much dumb evil shit is actually required.

I feel like to a large extent durge is an excellent lemons from lemonade situation. Forcing a cannon ending onto players this much later just sucks.

Spoiler

I’m still a bit unclear about what happened that allowed Bhaalspawn to be a thing again. What exactly happened with the solar and Bhaal’s essence?

I really don't know. The lore thing has got me confused as well.

Spoiler

In particular, from the reading I did on the subject, Gorion's ward (the protagonist of BG1 & 2), died along with the other last remaining bhaalspawn after a fight broke between the two of them in the city of Baldur's Gate just 10 years before the events of BG3 (1482DR vs 1492DR). That's the "official" hero that Wizards of he Coast ended giving as "canon" - and someone that BG3 seems to be taking into account by name, since there is a scroll/book somewhere in the game (I don't remember where but definitely saw it) that mentions "Abdel Adrian" which is the name given to Gorion's ward canonically. Now where another bhaalspawn could come from, I have no idea, it doesn't really makes much sense. Neither Sarevok's role in all these events. I believe in theory that after the last bhaalspawn were killed, the "essence" would return to Bhaal who would again be a god, but in a weakened form.

On top of all that, there is also the question of Jergal who features prominently in the game. Why is he here and takes a direct interest in the events? Maybe he is to take back his divine portfolio from "the dead three" after their plans fail.

 

[rastaban75]

I've spent around 450 hours in this game (early access included) and it still continues to impress me. I went to Jaheira's home in the city yesterday and looked into her little "realm"/private basement.

On my first playthrough, I totally missed it.

On my second playthrough, I was evil and she was already dead, so it was just robbery.

On my third (current) playthrough I went in with her on my party. As long as she was with me, her traps wouldn't trigger. She has this large badger down there, along with a few informant rats - I proceed to talk to animals as usual. Fun. She then tells me that there isn't really nothing of value behind this locked bookshelf/door. I knew she was lying, there were two pretty good items back there, which I ended up giving to her (the amulet was from her late husband anyway). Then there was a small something else that triggered a very nice and long speech from her which I really liked.

I don't know how they managed to cram so much detail into this game. An optional dialogue with an optional party member on a secret basement. Many easy things to miss, but they bring characters to life.

 

[Andyster]

I have a really fun warrior build going right now.

I cannot for the life of me figure out the appeal of rogue or wizard. Sorcerer seems much easier to use.

 

[rastaban75]

Neither is a favorite of mine, but they do get some intersting skills or advantages:

Wizard:
* can learn spells through scrolls
* level 10 gives a huge buff to some of the subclasses (I especially like the Evocation and Abjuration bonus)
* the only intelligence-based class (I like that for role-playing purposes)
* neat specializations like Necromancy

Rogue:
* sneak attack
* bonus cunning actions
* uncanny dodge and evasion

Assassin/Gloom Stalker is a really good combination, I tried it with Astarion. Gale as a pure Evocation wizard was also very reliable.

 

[mrpier]

Wizards are nerfed, since they don't get all their spells and some of the spells they get aren't as powerful, which is understandable as they are nearly impossible to implement/balance in a game. Still find them fun to play though. Maybe they could've given them a little something to compensate, like an extra feat, but all the spellcasters are strong anyway.

 

[Andyster]

Wizards are nerfed, since they don't get all their spells and some of the spells they get aren't as powerful, which is understandable as they are nearly impossible to implement/balance in a game. Still find them fun to play though. Maybe they could've given them a little something to compensate, like an extra feat, but all the spellcasters are strong anyway.

I mean it’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that they don’t offer the kind of easy bake op that sorceror’s do where it’s just like cast twinned spell haste. Which is just a lot of easy power.
I’m still experimenting with ideas and builds to see if I can do better.

 

[rastaban75]

I played the Gortash fight 6 or 7 times last night, till I got the achievement of not triggering any traps. I thought I got it, but the problem (apparently) was that I triggered traps in the coronation hall before ascending to him. So I reloaded a save from a bit back and climbed through the fortress by other means, avoiding the fight with his minions below him. Eventually I kept another save where I barely took any damage.

You just have to lure him outside in order to not trigger any traps (at least that was the most obvious way to me). It seemed a rather easy fight this way, despite his hit points and skills. When I attempted the fight inside with my whole party in, the dialogue triggered and he tried to "reason" with Karlach in some way. When I kept the whole party outside waiting and sent Karlach to initiate the dialogue, he immediately insulted her. I used her to do that, not just for roleplaying purposes (which made sense), but also because she has high initiative and can dash to the outside in one turn.

I love the portrayal of many of the characters in this game. Gortash I just love (to hate), he really is a massive evil a-hole and his whole appearance and voice are perfect - well, the voice actor is a well-know professional of course.

 

[rastaban75]

So, BG3 and Larian won seven at the Golden Joystick awards: best visual design, best storytelling, best community, best studio, best PC game of the year, best overall game of the year and an individual award for Neil Newbon who voiced Astarion.

Not that such awards mean much anyway, but it's glad to see the studio getting recognition for all that work.

 

[Andyster]

I killed Gortash last night and hit 12. They’ve kind of done the impossible—they made a pure fighter into a fun character. My gnome is very close to invulnerable because I’ve stacked damage resistance to a really high level. There’s a weapon in act 1 that grants dr on hit and my character has really high initiative and with the fighter 3 attacks per action you can get 3-4 actions in a round.

Between that and a 10 bard 2 fighter archer this party has just a wild amount of apr. I paired this with a mix of sorlock Wyl and evocation wizard Gale.

 

[rastaban75]

I killed Gortash last night and hit 12. They’ve kind of done the impossible—they made a pure fighter into a fun character. My gnome is very close to invulnerable because I’ve stacked damage resistance to a really high level. There’s a weapon in act 1 that grants dr on hit and my character has really high initiative and with the fighter 3 attacks per action you can get 3-4 actions in a round.

Between that and a 10 bard 2 fighter archer this party has just a wild amount of apr. I paired this with a mix of sorlock Wyl and evocation wizard Gale.

For Gale, try to find the single scroll of Artistry of War spell. It's on a rare book in the vaults of Sorcerous Sundries.

Only a wizard can learn it of course - this is like a Magic Missile on steroids (which is already potent enough for a high level evocation specialist). You can also boost it with gloves (Spellmight) you can get from Lucretious, the head of the circus. You can get those either by collecting all the pieces of Dribbles or you can just steal for much quicker results. These gloves add lots of damage to such spells, with zero drawbacks, since they cannot miss in the first place. For other spells, like Eldtritch Blast, you lose some chance to hit with this pair of gloves.

 

[-Troopa-]

PC Gamer reports: Baldur's Gate 3 Devs found a 34% VRAM optimization technique while developing the Xbox Series S version. This could directly benefit performance on all platforms.

I saw a related article that discussed how the Series S and Steam Deck are encouraging/forcing some devs to put more work into optimization of their games, which ultimately benefits all platforms.

 

[east1226]

PC Gamer reports: Baldur's Gate 3 Devs found a 34% VRAM optimization technique while developing the Xbox Series S version. This could directly benefit performance on all platforms.

I saw a related article that discussed how the Series S and Steam Deck are encouraging/forcing some devs to put more work into optimization of their games, which ultimately benefits all platforms.

Developers tend to do a crappy job of optimization. I get that it is hard, but it really is critical. I am glad something is forcing them to do it more.

 

[Andyster]

I think I want to take a crack at a tactician run. I’m thinking an eldritch knight build, cleric, swords bard and a disabler wizard or wild magic sorceror.

 

[rastaban75]

I was thinking of tactician too, but I think I will delve into modding the next time.

 

[rastaban75]

OK, so modding seems to be like a rabbit hole. I installed several mods, several of those adding cosmetic stuff. Others spells, items and a new class. Or more than 4 party members.

Honestly, having a glorious beard is probably the #1 reason to mod this game:

That's D'Runkk Ard, the barbarian shield dwarf I rolled as my main character. I'll multiclass him into bard somewhere down the line, I guess that will be called Bard-barian or something. I plan to apply a "drunk" build on him later in acts 2 and 3 when the appropriate items will become available.

His dream "guardian" is also a dwarf. A lady one, and bearded one at that.

 

[docSpock]

Hmm, do these mods work on Mac? I should look into it. I am trying to recapture the excitement I had to get into this game in August but various little things in character creation are bothering me. Mods might be the answer.

 

[Andyster]

The bard implementation in bg3 continues to be a wonder. This has long been my favorite class in pen and paper that just didn’t make it to video games well especially in bg1.

In this play through I’ve got a lore bard which is a totally different approach to barding than the two excellent bards I’ve built so far. It’s a really strong controller buffer caster

 

[rastaban75]

The game nails the feel of classes. I never felt more "barbarian" or "druid" or "bard" or "ranger" than I did with BG3 - or anything else for that matter.

Bards excel at role-playing of course. With high charisma, jack-of-all-trades and the ability to perform, it's a joy to use at dialogue. You could even make a party consisting of 4 bards and it would be extremely fun while performing with different instruments. I've seen videos of performing parties.

Let's see how I'll do with my current barbarian who will become a bard when I get the extra attack. I have strength at 17 and charisma at 14 so I can have decent scores with both classes' skills. The modded version of the game allows me more than 4 party members (using 6 right now) and it's really fun this way. I also have the artificer class modded-in and it seems to be very interesting. I need to do more tests, though, and I haven't decided who to turn into an artificer permanently. Maybe Jaheira in the long run?

 

[Andyster]

Command drop as a gearing strategy is overpowered apparently. On the nautiloid used it to get the devil’s flaming sword without having to kill him.
And that’s nice but then used it out of combat on Kithrak Voss to get Lazel her silver sword in act 1.

 

[docSpock]

So goblins are deferential to drow? Had no idea. It’s a good thing I didn’t go all murder hobo on them then.

 

[rastaban75]

So goblins are deferential to drow? Had no idea. It’s a good thing I didn’t go all murder hobo on them then.

Depends on how to deal with the tiefling/golbin situation in general. You may want to murder them, or not.

There is this vague alliance of goblins and drow in the game simply because they are both groups shunned by the general population of Sword Coast, so the "Absolute" you keep hearing about enlisted them to fight for her. There are examples of this alliance in Act 1.

 

[docSpock]

I see. I picked drow because the race attributes seemed to mesh nicely with the wizard class but I’m not aware of the history or relationships between various races. Pretty much everyone I meet thinks they “know” who my character is or what he’s about because he’s a drow. We’ll see where this goes.

 

[Andyster]

My own personal class tier list for full or near full classes.

s tier these four In my opinion offer some really amazing levels of power. The fighter and sorcerer in a kind of amazing single role and the bard and cleric offer flexibility.

• bard can be very good at every role. Swords bard does really high damage, lore bard has strong debuffs and huge spell selection.
• fighter one extra feat and one more attack make them just do more damage than everyone and as you gear up this compounds.
• cleric light cleric is extremely strong at defense and tempest cleric as offense.
• sorcerer metamagic is really powerful. Twinned haste and being able to force advantage on a wet blasting chain lightning is wildly useful.

a tier all of these classes are really strong and good, but they don’t neatly fit into a kind of easy, breezy party optimized for killing shit.

• paladin: when you can smite this class can be s tier. It’s just not as consistent as 3 attacks per action and one extra action per short rest. In My opinion its support abilities trail fighters damage but in a different party it may be worthwhile. Paladins as a source of bless so clerics don’t need to give it is great.
  
  
• monk: mechanically I love this class but in my opinion it trails fighter in late game. It’s also squishy compared to fighter and paladin.
  
  
• wizard if sorcerors didn’t exist I think I’d take a wizard on s tier. They are really strong but for videogamey reasons they trail sorcerers in my opinion because metamagic leads spell variety in almost all cases and see my dips section for another problem.
  
  
• ranger kind of an a minus tier. Two of the specs are great hunter is one of the strongest aoe specs, and gloom-stalker does very good single target and stealth and the pet one seems cool but I just haven’t gotten animals to be that great. one of several classes I prefer in a multiclass build.
• warlock Is probably my favorite multi class class. It has really strong striking abilities and some good spells and unique abilities but gives up a bit too much imo.

b tier these classes are good But you have to want their thing per se. If you want a sneak attack, shapeshifter or rage attack class these are good for it but if you just want a striker, support or control you can probably do better with less effort.

• druid, I really like how wild shape is Implemented for a circle of the moon Druid and spores does great necromancy style but I just don’t think the spell list is as good as the other casters.
• Rogue, sneak attack gets really powerful but it’s just not it for me. There’s a lot of effort and you may miss, and like I think my vision for the rogue is closer to what a swords bard can do, lots of apr. This class also multis really well with ranger, and monk.
• Barbarian. I’m not saying any of these are bad but they just don’t seem kind of easy to build a party with. You can totally build great builds with all 3 of these classes but it just feels a bit harder imo.

 

[Andyster]

Amazing dips

• wizard, for one level you can learn any spell to your spell book as bard, cleric or sorceror and there’s an item that will set your int to 17. With no rest to swap out spells you can get a few specialized spells for any situation. Since you don’t really get anything amazing off of a level 12 feat you’re swapping a 3rd feat in these classes for all the arcane spells you can find a scroll for.
• fighter for two levels you can get one extra action per turn.
• warlocks for 2 levels you can add crazy good striker ability to a sorcerer or bard or for 5 levels you can create an incredible paladin multi
• rogue 3 levels can be incredible to get assassin or thief to go with ranger or monk.

 

[rastaban75]

Apparently, there is a deluxe physical version of the game available for order. Huh.

Among the platforms, XBOX is also mentioned, with availability Q1 2024:

Baldur’s Gate 3 - Deluxe Edition Xbox - Larian Merch Store

Larian Merch Store|

eu.merch.larian.com

 

[Andyster]

Act 3 is pretty unplayable on patch 4 hotfix 11 on Steamdeck. Routinely getting this weird lag where none of my party members follow along with me. For like 30 seconds and this repeats as different parts of the city stream in.

Maybe this is a sign to take a break. I have a few things I’ve already paid for waiting on me.

 

[rastaban75]

Yet another major patch just released. As expected, they added Honor mode, a harder version of Tactician, which apparently adds new tricks and skills to major bosses.

New ending cinematic dialogues as well for some characters. A really welcome addition.

 

[Andyster]

Yet another major patch just released. As expected, they added Honor mode, a harder version of Tactician, which apparently adds new tricks and skills to major bosses.

New ending cinematic dialogues as well for some characters. A really welcome addition.

I really hope this fixes my Laezel origin character run. It was going so well and then just hit a wall at the city where it got to be unplayable.

 

[rastaban75]

The update momentarily broke my mods, but they are working again.

I'm doing this playthrough slowly, I'm at the forge currently. Party at level 6, my main is barbarian 5 and bard 1 at this point.

 

[rastaban75]

Apparently, one new thing you can do with the latest patch is the ability to hire Minthara even you side against her in Act 1. You just need to knock her out while fighting her.

She will appear normally in Act 2 in her predicament of sorts.

In my current modded playthrough I used a mod that did something similar: when dealing the killing blow on her she disappeared which supposedly will allow her to be in Act 2. I haven't reached that stage yet, but it's not long till I find out. I plan to have both her and Halsin in my party. I want to get them to the Creche after I hire them.

 

[Andyster]

I’m enjoying my tactician run. Karlach as a barbarian is really ripping them a new one. Barbarian, fighter, lore bard and warlock is pretty good. Contemplating if I want to respec my fighter as a paladin to replace some of the buffs lost from no cleric once I get the dex gloves from the crèche so I can stack str, cha and dex.

I think the two things that strike me about tactician is that at least at low levels hard cc matters a lot more than absolutely maximizing damage and that doubling the rest requirements really make consistency > peak damage. The short rest recharge of warlocks and cutting words really shines here, as does damage reduction of two front-liners.

 

[rastaban75]

Really happy for Larian for all the awards they won. Even though they've grown, they still remain an indie studio at heart. All the interactions I've seen between people involved show that there is a real passion about what they do, and it's always welcome to see the owner, head of the studio, game director being the same awkward plate-armor-wearing nerd.

They did also announce the immediate release of the game on XBOX (X and S) in a very stealthy way during the awards. That was kind of unexpected.

 

[docSpock]

They did also announce the immediate release of the game on XBOX (X and S) in a very stealthy way during the awards. That was kind of unexpected.

Apparently they forgot to announce it.

 

[DeadLazy]

Apparently they forgot to announce it.

I was expecting it to drop for the game awards. I doubt that was forgetfulness though. I haven’t purchased it yet but I will probably get it for X-mas.

 

[Andyster]

Watching my wife play this game is fucking torture.

My wife and I both love rpgs but seeing her not care about optimizing and crunching and really taking seriously the mechanics in any crpg and just get by by playing the lowest difficulty is

 

[docSpock]

I have got to ditch this Astarion dude, he’s like some kind of Mirror Sarah. I’m ready to march through the Underdark where hopefully hijinks will ensue.

This game has something of a Kingdoms of Amalur feel to it where there’s a TON of fantasy stuff that’s up to the player how they feel about it. I haven’t decided yet so all the talk of heroism feels weird.

 

[Andyster]

If anyone is wondering the ps5 version of the game is also really great as of patch 5? P. My wife wanted to play it so I’ve been doing my tactician run on there. The cutscenes blow up really nice on the big screen.

Cleave barbarian is a really good martial build. They can just cut through a crowd. Turn on cull the weak and they can quickly thin a herd. I paired it with Lazel which makes my frontline so secure.

Then a back line of bard and sorlock. I made one big mistake which is I didn’t horde summoning items. I’ve been somewhat underestimating this as a tool because trying to do max damage with every player gets you through on normal.

 

[rastaban75]

Certainly one of the best mods I've used so far is one that allows you to transmog items, taking the appearance of something else of the same type. You could be using some sort of heavy ominous armor for example but look like you are wearing casual camp clothes. I plan to do something with the weapon my main uses, which is twice+ his size and looks awkward. Probably will turn it into some sort of double-axe.

 

[DeadLazy]

I have got to ditch this Astarion dude, he’s like some kind of Mirror Sarah. I’m ready to march through the Underdark where hopefully hijinks will ensue.

This game has something of a Kingdoms of Amalur feel to it where there’s a TON of fantasy stuff that’s up to the player how they feel about it. I haven’t decided yet so all the talk of heroism feels weird.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean. The source material of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting was always just a vehicle for fantasy, really. I do think they captured something of a unique asthetic with the original pen and paper materials (that I still own) but one reason I never gravitated to the video games is they never captured it. It feels like just an excuse for everything to exist. That said, at least so far, none of it feels uncanny or Star Treky yet to me.

Well maybe a bit Star Treky but I expect that from any game with AD&D as its source material. Too bad I still think first edition is the best.

 

[rastaban75]

My current main character, who is a combination of barbarian and bard, seems like someone with a split personality. Sometimes in dialogue you get a set of options like:

"[BARBARIAN] Aaargh! I drink the blood of my enemies!"
"[BARD] I play a shoothing song while a recite a story"

From a pure roleplaying perspective, it's the booze that explains it all. I indulge from time to time to make this consistent. Not that I don't love the combination without an explanation. I mean, I really like how he carries a heavy two-handed weapon and a lyre at the same time.

Currently the party is in Act 2, pretty much ready to advance the story. I don't play it for the difficulty, this run is purely for the fun of it. Since I installed a mod that allows you to have an unlimited party I'm using 6-7 characters.

 

[docSpock]

So I guess I made all the goblins mad at me by killing their leaders but I gotta go through them to get to the Underdark. I could swear there was a secret passage that bypassed all those goblins but maybe I imagined it.

Also I think I killed a potential companion character because she had A LOT of loot on her including sexy underwear. A shame too because she was a drow like my character but instead of giving me solidarity she gave me sass.