Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Pre-Release Thread [EARLY ACCESS RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Zeriel]

I kinda thought Gods were kinda not too all powerful beings, like they can kill probably an entire city or a country but if they are not careful they can get killed themselves by either some heros or another aspiring lesser god or something to replace them.

There are some instances in which the general rules were contrived in some Deus ex machina but overall there is no realistic way to kill a god as a mortal with the exception of having literally the stars align and everything wrong that could happen for that god happen for your sake.
There's also the historical exception brought by the times of trouble, heavily talked about in the BG, in which Ao, the overgod entity that overpowers all other gods, got pissed off and stripped them of some of their powers, bound them to their mortal avatar which allowed for plenty of killings and usurpation shenanigans. God avatars, although still far more powerful than the vast majority of mortals, are indeed killable, but outside of the time of troubles, it doesn't matter, because they can always reform new ones. What made those time special and why Bhaal hastened a plan to be reborn in the first place has to do with the fact that being killed in their avatar meant their actual death during those times.

Mind you, Ao doesn't have any real lore to him, he's like the writer and at times the DM self insert to just pull off something from their ass. He's something above all gods, something that doesn't answer to worship, and that is mostly ignored by all until writer decides Ao must do something to move the plot forward.
Forgotten Realms is such a gem of ""systems"" right?

Gods do not usually enter the prime material plane with their actual being (because it would damage the plane, cause chaos and invite other gods to war, or might piss off Ao again) so you shouldn't even have an opportunity of thinking about contending with them. And I don't think you want to reflect on the implications of going to their home turf.
Simply put outside of typical contrived mcguffins to move plots to where the writer wanted it to be, there's no real systems thought out to deal with the divine here. If you want a campaign of god slaying it would involve a lot of creative license and would probably start at the basics of something like being granted a divine spark by a god or stealing it from a demi god and moving through the divine ranks.

tbh gods are not as special as you are letting on in 2e. Ao is hardly the only creature like that, I seem to vaguely remember from reading Ed Greenwood's books that he implied Ao has counterparts in other crystal spheres. Your average Forgotten Realms god is way down on the cosmic totem pole, non-god beings like Asmodeus are canonically significantly stronger than your average FR god. The only consistent metric I think they ever established is that god-like beings that don't require belief for their powers are the real big-wigs. You can kill a God's avatar and make his believers lose faith in him and thats it, see Aoskar. Whereas you kill an avatar of a cosmic being like Asmodeus and you can pretty much expect that one of his snakes is gonna come crawling out of some crack with just as much power as before.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Ao is hardly the only creature like that,

To the best of my knowledge, Ao is the only overdeity that has been specifically named as such. They are far above the affairs of mortals(and, arguably, lesser-tier deities themselves)

 

[Zeriel]

Ao is hardly the only creature like that,

To the best of my knowledge, Ao is the only overdeity that has been specifically named as such. They are far above the affairs of mortals(and, arguably, lesser-tier deities themselves)

I could swear there was a section in one of the Time of Troubles books where Ao meets "counterparts". Or maybe it was his superior? Either way, Greenwood was implying Ao wasn't unique.

Edit: Ah, this must be what I was remembering: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Luminous_being

It does seem to be implied that Ao is just one of many overgods though. Certainly the hierarchy of the gods in FR and the other crystal spheres doesn't really map to how it is handled in the other planes, which would imply there is some hierarchy like the overgods keeping it in order.

 

[Lutte]

tbh gods are not as special as you are letting on in 2e. Ao is hardly the only creature like that, I seem to vaguely remember from reading Ed Greenwood's books that he implied Ao has counterparts in other crystal spheres. Your average Forgotten Realms god is way down on the cosmic totem pole, non-god beings like Asmodeus are canonically significantly stronger than your average FR god. The only consistent metric I think they ever established is that god-like beings that don't require belief for their powers are the real big-wigs. You can kill a God's avatar and make his believers lose faith in him and thats it, see Aoskar. Whereas you kill an avatar of a cosmic being like Asmodeus and you can pretty much expect that one of his snakes is gonna come crawling out of some crack with just as much power as before.

None of the things you mentioned are relevant to the Forgotten Realms.
Aosk-who?
Asmodeus exists in multiple d&d settings with different interpretations.

Things are going to become really gnarly if you make assumptions that somehow everything works perfectly fine cross campaign settings and without contradictions.

 

[Zeriel]

tbh gods are not as special as you are letting on in 2e. Ao is hardly the only creature like that, I seem to vaguely remember from reading Ed Greenwood's books that he implied Ao has counterparts in other crystal spheres. Your average Forgotten Realms god is way down on the cosmic totem pole, non-god beings like Asmodeus are canonically significantly stronger than your average FR god. The only consistent metric I think they ever established is that god-like beings that don't require belief for their powers are the real big-wigs. You can kill a God's avatar and make his believers lose faith in him and thats it, see Aoskar. Whereas you kill an avatar of a cosmic being like Asmodeus and you can pretty much expect that one of his snakes is gonna come crawling out of some crack with just as much power as before.

None of the things you mentioned are relevant to the Forgotten Realms.
Aosk-who?
Asmodeus exists in multiple d&d settings with different interpretations.

In 2e they're supposed to be broadly in the same setting, when you summon demons in FR you're supposed to get baatezu or tanar'ri. I guess none of that applies since we're on 5e now though so whatever. Just throw everything out.

 

[hell bovine]

Stats aren't everything. While Eddie is the best mage in both games, Yeslick and Aerie are far more powerful than Vicky, simply because she's a single class cleric. And you don't even get an evil thief in BG2, unless you count Hexxat (whose scripts were extremely buggy the one time I've tried her).

Viconia also has 50% magic resistance. She's far more sturdy than Yeslick due to the 19 DEX (Yeslick has 12) and magic resistance, and Yeslick cannot read scrolls due to his 7 INT. Yeah, Yeslick has 1 and a half ApR, whoop-di-doo. In BG2, this trend of the evil companions being stronger is not so true anymore and that's a different beast entirely.

19 dexterity makes her slightly harder to hit, not exactly sturdy. If you want your cleric to tank, Quayle does it better; I've had him take on Karoug & the weres all by himself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Stats aren't everything. While Eddie is the best mage in both games, Yeslick and Aerie are far more powerful than Vicky, simply because she's a single class cleric. And you don't even get an evil thief in BG2, unless you count Hexxat (whose scripts were extremely buggy the one time I've tried her).

Viconia also has 50% magic resistance. She's far more sturdy than Yeslick due to the 19 DEX (Yeslick has 12) and magic resistance, and Yeslick cannot read scrolls due to his 7 INT. Yeah, Yeslick has 1 and a half ApR, whoop-di-doo. In BG2, this trend of the evil companions being stronger is not so true anymore and that's a different beast entirely.

19 dexterity makes her slightly harder to hit, not exactly sturdy. If you want your cleric to tank, Quayle does it better; I've had him take on Karoug & the weres all by himself.

quayle isn't a qt drow

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Imagine those people trying to play the old Gold Box games, Wizardries or M&Ms. I'm always surprised they know how to type a review.

The chicken and egg thing. What came first, players who would be lost in their own virtual toilet if BG3 were to simulate one? Or all those games that would play themselves. One may go all Ripley on this, and it's tempting to do -- as it also pleases our own ego.

I'm leaning towards the latter; as we all used to play these games as mere kiddos and didn't have much a problem getting the gist of them as every game used to be like that. The term "JRPG" should spring a clue here also, as JRPGs are typically pretty linear affairs alongside a narrative, with some Combat thrown in between as roadblocks before the next cutscene is being triggered. For Larian the question probably isn't so much whether they should make the game play itself too; but how to introduce players who are used to games playing themselves to the idea that their games may not. IIRC I remember seeing a presentation of how there were some adjustments made already for DOS2, though I don't remember the specifics. That said, if they introduce non-optional in-game GPS and compass after raging about the same thing being so dumb (damn true) in their build-up to Original Sin, I'll pass.

 

[Ulrox]

quayle isn't a qt drow

No, he's a qt gnome

 

[Lacrymas]

Call me crazy and deviant, but I prefer Viconia to Quayle.

 

[turkishronin]

Here's a good example of the kind of audience Larian needs to reach with their AAA BG3:

I come from a background of almost exclusively console RPGs - Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, etc. As a kid, I didn't have access to a PC powerful enough to run a game like Baldur's Gate.So I downloaded Divinity: Original Sin after reading glowing reviews. I literally could not find my way out of the first town. Everywhere I turned was a dead end, and I needed to find online walkthroughs to lead me through the confusing steps (that I would've never guessed on my own). [To be fair, I had similar issues with Torment: Tides of Numenera and Pillars of Eternity. Though I did okay with Shadowrun.]I guess I'm just not good at reading the minds of game programmers who can't be as flexible as real life Dungeon Masters. I really wish I could get into these games, though.

Wasn't Divinity: Original Sin released in 2014 with higher system requirements? What was the original Divine Divinity? Don't know what this person is talking about.

He was struggling with writing proper sentences

 

[alyvain]

quayle isn't a qt drow

I never quite understood whether Quayle's the same character in BGII.


And now I'm thinking about all the weird cameos in the upcoming game

 

[Zeriel]

Ladies and Gentlemen, you've got your info on gods in the Forgotten Realms all wrong. Up until the Time of Troubles, the gods DID NOT require worship in order to gain power - this change was declared by Ao after the whole sordid affair. Just to give some perspective, Baldur's Gate I takes place around 20 years after the Avatar Crysis, and Baldur's Gate III - 156 years. Compared to the entirety of Faerun's history, gods actually NEEDING mortals is something completely new.

I understand that's the canon, but that old model doesn't really make sense. How did Gods die before then? Planescape was 2e and definitely had the belief aspect in there, which just leads me to believe Greenwood didn't think much about it before 3e and then "fixed" it when he realized his mistake.

 

[Efe]

gods dont make mistakes, you just didnt understood before a certain point in time

 

[Atlantico]

which just leads me to believe Greenwood didn't think

That's the long and short of it. Greenwood doesn't think and is certainly no authority on anything AD&D related, be it lore or gameplay - not in FR and certainly not other settings..

He's no "lead designer" of FR either, he's just on the sidelines while other people who have a modicum of talent write.

He didn't write the Avatar trilogy, nor did he write Prince of Lies, which are the lore-books on how FR gods function and their powers and limits. He just wrote Spellfire, where Elminster is fucking some hot thots.

So he's an authority on his own personal fanfiction, if that tickles your fancy.

 

[hexer]

Hoping to visit Ilsensine's realm in BG3!!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I never quite understood whether Quayle's the same character in BGII.

many of the BG2 cameos were butchered and it was one of the worst aspects of the game
e.g., I think this requires Keldorn in your party(because apparently the MC wouldn't recognize Ajantis...), but you actually kill Ajantis. Yep, he was one of the paladins you thought were monsters when you enter Windspear hills, Keldorn throws an offhand comment about recognizing Ajantis as being one of the dead ones.
And unlike how many situations in BG1 can be resolved, you can't just mass invis and walk past. You have to kill them to move the story forward. This along with a lot less interaction with charmed people was

 

[Neanderthal]

Ladies and Gentlemen, you've got your info on gods in the Forgotten Realms all wrong. Up until the Time of Troubles, the gods DID NOT require worship in order to gain power - this change was declared by Ao after the whole sordid affair. Just to give some perspective, Baldur's Gate I takes place around 20 years after the Avatar Crysis, and Baldur's Gate III - 156 years. Compared to the entirety of Faerun's history, gods actually NEEDING mortals is something completely new.

I understand that's the canon, but that old model doesn't really make sense. How did Gods die before then? Planescape was 2e and definitely had the belief aspect in there, which just leads me to believe Greenwood didn't think much about it before 3e and then "fixed" it when he realized his mistake.

The only gods I know of who were "killed" before the Avatar Crisis was Aoskar, and he:
1. Was killed by the Lady of Pain, who may as well be something akin to an Overgod.
2. He isn't "really really" dead. There are some hints that it's more akin to a coma.

And Mystra's original version (Mystryl), who was destroyed due to a Netherese mage casting the only 12th level spell in existence and fucking up the Weave. And even then she basically reincarnated.

And Amaunator...well, he's a complicated and somewhat contradictory case. But he also wasn't "really" dead. His afterlife exists as late in time as Baldur's Gate II, and he straight out reincarnates soon after.

Aoskar was worshipped in Forgotten Realms? Wouldn't think a planar god of portals would have much truck wi a backwater prime.

 

[santino27]

The only gods I know of who were "killed" before the Avatar Crisis was Aoskar, and he:
1. Was killed by the Lady of Pain, who may as well be something akin to an Overgod.
2. He isn't "really really" dead. There are some hints that it's more akin to a coma.

And Mystra's original version (Mystryl), who was destroyed due to a Netherese mage casting the only 12th level spell in existence and fucking up the Weave. And even then she basically reincarnated.

And Amaunator...well, he's a complicated and somewhat contradictory case. But he also wasn't "really" dead. His afterlife exists as late in time as Baldur's Gate II, and he straight out reincarnates soon after.

Moander was a bit of an edge case too, though he got demoted to demigod before his supposed death that wasn't really a death.

 

[Ulrox]

many of the BG2 cameos were butchered and it was one of the worst aspects of the game
e.g., I think this requires Keldorn in your party(because apparently the MC wouldn't recognize Ajantis...), but you actually kill Ajantis. Yep, he was one of the paladins you thought were monsters when you enter Windspear hills, Keldorn throws an offhand comment about recognizing Ajantis as being one of the dead ones.
And unlike how many situations in BG1 can be resolved, you can't just mass invis and walk past. You have to kill them to move the story forward. This along with a lot less interaction with charmed people was

Is it that terrible though? Many of the bg1 characters weren't very well developed. The only point where I thought this was a problem, was with Xzar.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

many of the BG2 cameos were butchered and it was one of the worst aspects of the game
e.g., I think this requires Keldorn in your party(because apparently the MC wouldn't recognize Ajantis...), but you actually kill Ajantis. Yep, he was one of the paladins you thought were monsters when you enter Windspear hills, Keldorn throws an offhand comment about recognizing Ajantis as being one of the dead ones.
And unlike how many situations in BG1 can be resolved, you can't just mass invis and walk past. You have to kill them to move the story forward. This along with a lot less interaction with charmed people was

Is it that terrible though? Many of the bg1 characters weren't very well developed. The only point where I thought this was a problem, was with Xzar.

They deserve better fates than dying as random trash mobs which are entirely possible to overlook.
Or Safana trying to have a werewolf kill you for a bounty.

 

[Yosharian]

many of the BG2 cameos were butchered and it was one of the worst aspects of the game
e.g., I think this requires Keldorn in your party(because apparently the MC wouldn't recognize Ajantis...), but you actually kill Ajantis. Yep, he was one of the paladins you thought were monsters when you enter Windspear hills, Keldorn throws an offhand comment about recognizing Ajantis as being one of the dead ones.
And unlike how many situations in BG1 can be resolved, you can't just mass invis and walk past. You have to kill them to move the story forward. This along with a lot less interaction with charmed people was

Is it that terrible though? Many of the bg1 characters weren't very well developed. The only point where I thought this was a problem, was with Xzar.

They deserve better fates than dying as random trash mobs which are entirely possible to overlook.
Or Safana trying to have a werewolf kill you for a bounty.

There's a philosophical lesson here

 

[Lilura]

Behold. I'm back: bigger, badder and better than before.

What brought me back? Baldur's Gate 3.

For those who don't know who I am, please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Lilura. I'm better than you because I have a blog that garners millions of views per year, and you are naught but a shitposter lost in the shuffle, and unread. You are but a gnat compared to my power.

That's right: I have a blog. It's a big blog. A big Baldur's Gate blog. Built by me from the ground up. Not a cent has been invested and not a cent has been requested. I can neither be bought, bargained with nor reasoned with. This is pure power-blogging at work.

My blog started off small and then BOOM - Lilura ruled. The incline steepened acutely. Stack me up against other commentators. Oh, that's right. You can't because I've crushed the competition with my King Content. These impudent, spineless and fickle upstarts pulled the plug when they realized they couldn't compete. They looked upon my write-ups and despaired.

In this (admittedly limited) sphere of human endeavour, I am the butthurt generator par excellence. I've written off people here, there and everywhere, I've deleted hundreds of comments, blocked all kinds of posters, conducted what amounts to a blog-wide purge, and yet I'm still number one, still on top, indeed, still soaring above and looking DOWN, because no one can doubt my integrity, dedication and passion for Renaissance-era RPGs such as Fallout, Baldur's Gate and Jagged Alliance 2. When it comes to defending the legacies of these classics against criticisms based on degenerate current gen fads, trends and "sensibilities", I have been, are now, and always will be poised.

This announcement of BG3 will only reinforce my dominance of the Baldur's Gate narrative: I will leverage my prolific extant commentary in order to push my BG3 commentary to the apex and forefront. This is grave news for those who have posted against me in the past out of petty spite, but good news for everyone else.

Looking forward to watching my blogstats incline by an order of magnitude as a direct result of this announcement. This is going to be good.

 

[Fairfax]

 

[DalekFlay]

This thread has reached peak lore nerd.