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

[Ontopoly]

My money's on Fluent reborn.

No. I'm not a creep, just a man passionate about RPGs. The only people I'm obsessed with are Orma and user0001 and neither of them have enough power to get me banned.

yes
i'm actually lowkey crushing on one irl tbh

Josh Sawyer? Me too!

 

[FranticDistortion]

add vampire to game
give him plot thing that removes all vampiric about him (except emo dialogue)

super design

If we are on the quest to remove the plot device, then I expect Vampire Spawn players to have to face the drawbacks of playing as one.

In before you learn to "control" it and use it for even more superpowers mid-game.

I already said this. I'm betting money and a pizza party that the PC in this game is going to be the Adversary, or some kind of play on it:

"When an illithid undergoes ceremorphosis, it can occasionally take on some elements of the absorbed host creature's former mind, such as mannerisms. This typically manifests as a minor personality feature, such as a nervous habit and/or reaction (e.g., nail-biting or tapping one's foot), although the process that determines the type and number of traits so inherited appears to be stochastic. An adult illithid has even been known to hum a tune that its host knew in life. Usually, when a mind flayer inherits a trait like this, it keeps it a closely guarded secret, because, were its peers to learn of it, the illithid in question would most likely be killed. This is due to an illithid legend of a being called the Adversary. The legend holds that, eventually, an illithid larva that undergoes ceremorphosis will take on the host's personality and memory in its entirety. This "Adversary" would, mind and soul, still be the host, but with all the inherent abilities of an illithid."

Reddit thread (yes I fucking know) on people using this for their campaigns: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/2q1g7y/has_anyone_run_a_campaign_using_the_mindflayer/

This will be a way to give the PC psionic powers, allow them to get away with keeping their personality and memories, etc.

The Adversary is an already existing character though — Strom Wakeman. He's the canon character that wrote The Illithiad, he spread the rumor of The Adversary to make the mindflayers paranoid.

Well there are occurrences where mindflayers just go rogue and separate themselves from the hive-mind, maybe dude was running away both from his Bros and Gith, which is why he attacked city and grabbed bunch of random people in a hurry.

For example, mindflayers who decide to study magic are often exiled if not killed, e.g. Alhoons. But they are liches or proto-liches, which does not appear to be the case in the trailer.

There are couple of irrelevant illithids like Xicvizt in the lore who go rogue.

During the late 1480s or early 1490s DR, Xicvizt sensed a strange presence in the Underdark. Investigating, he found the demon lord Graz'zt. Soon he disconnected from the illithid hive-mind and went rogue, starting to worship Graz'zt and becoming a warlock. He retreated into a lair and allied with a group of githyanki.

 

[Ontopoly]

I only have high hopes for the gameplay and exploration, the writing is obviously made-up on the spot and going to be Tumblr-tier. I also rewatched some parts of the gameplay video right now and I think people are jumping to conclusions about the vampire being gay. He says he tried to seduce the noble to bring him to his master, you don't need to be gay to do that.

God forbid the character is gay might make codexers uncomfortable.

the issue is they are all gay

It's not even clear at this point whether Astarion is gay as his reference to that man was in the context of luring a victim to drink blood.

Regardless however there are far more interesting parameters to judge character writing besides sexuality but of course if you are a raging neckbeard you might be afraid to catch the gays if you are playing a video game in close proximity to a fictional one.

He is not gay unless you want him to be.

Larian has said that you can romance any character you want, aka player sexuality, just like DOS 2.

And Rome.

 

[DeepOcean]

Jesus, the life of a modern RPG fantasy NPC must be really though, being forced to accept any degenerate sexual fantasy, if the PC wants your ass, you poor NPC must accept it without lubrication on the middle of the Avernus wastes, as there is always time for some buttsex even if devils are running after you, it doesnt matter if your poor NPC backstory is of a womanizer, the PC dick is special and have gay magic. If you dont like buttsex, poor you, you are not allowed to have a personality because online degenerates want your dick/ass. Modern RPGs are like gay porn with some not so serious story to add dramatic background to the gay sex.

 

[FranticDistortion]

Jesus, the life of a modern RPG fantasy NPC must be really though, being forced to accept any degenerate sexual fantasy, if the PC wants your ass, you poor NPC must accept it without lubrication on the middle of the Avernus wastes, as there is always time for some buttsex even if devils are running after you, it doesnt matter if your poor NPC backstory is of a womanizer, the PC dick is special and have gay magic. If you dont like buttsex, poor you, you are not allowed to have a personality because online degenerates want your dick/ass. Modern RPGs are like gay porn with some not so serious story to add dramatic background to the gay sex.

Wasn't codex's whole issue that companions and npcs are the ones trying to constantly jump on player's dick? Your tirade kinda misses the whole point of codexian antiromance movement.

 

[jackofshadows]

Jesus, the life of a modern RPG fantasy NPC must be really though, being forced to accept any degenerate sexual fantasy, if the PC wants your ass, you poor NPC must accept it without lubrication on the middle of the Avernus wastes, as there is always time for some buttsex even if devils are running after you, it doesnt matter if your poor NPC backstory is of a womanizer, the PC dick is special and have gay magic. If you dont like buttsex, poor you, you are not allowed to have a personality because online degenerates want your dick/ass. Modern RPGs are like gay porn with some not so serious story to add dramatic background to the gay sex.

Yeah, now imagine all that shit in a coop session

 

[DeepOcean]

Wasn't codex's whole issue that companions and npcs are the ones trying to constantly jump on player's dick? Your tirade kinda misses the whole point of codexian antiromance movement.

I agree and NPCs jumping at you is awful but I dont like this everyone is bi and must accept sex with you that is why I dont like romances at all. NPCs should be their own characters with personalities and I hate distasteful manipulative pandering towards players. NPCs should be able to say fuck you and not go over the way to accomodate your every whim, player pandering can really reduce the quality of everything on a RPG, fuck , pandering in general can ruin anything, just look to the latest Star Wars abomination.

 

[FranticDistortion]

Wasn't codex's whole issue that companions and npcs are the ones trying to constantly jump on player's dick? Your tirade kinda misses the whole point of codexian antiromance movement.

I agree and NPCs jumping at you is awful but I dont like this everyone is bi and must accept sex with you that is why I dont like romances at all. NPCs should be their own characters with personalities and I hate distasteful manipulative pandering towards players. NPCs should be able to say fuck you and not go over the way to accomodate your every whim, player pandering can really reduce the quality of everything on a RPG, fuck , pandering in general can ruin anything, just look to the latest Star Wars abomination.

They did say that Gith girls loves fucking around and will cuck player and companions may end up not liking you (which can't be mitigated by spamming presents for them) at all. Your complains are weird, because in most games you need to fill some bars to make characters like you, but people savescum the fuck out of it and complain that character is shallow for liking them, when they literally said everything that companion wanted to hear.

 

[Razzoriel]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

 

[DeepOcean]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

 

[Razzoriel]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

I meant how it dealt with relationships. The story by itself is grim with a human mutant marrying an infertile woman and raising someone else's child (isnt she an orphan though?). But overall until you reach that point it seemed more "natural" and not over the top like Bioware's shenanigans.

 

[FranticDistortion]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

You can literally block every hoe in that game.

 

[FranticDistortion]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

I meant how it dealt with relationships. The story by itself is grim with a human mutant marrying an infertile woman and raising someone else's child (isnt she an orphan though?). But overall until you reach that point it seemed more "natural" and not over the top like Bioware's shenanigans.

To be fair, their relationship was established in the books already (Yen was a grade A cunt in the books). And no, Ciri is not an orphan, but her father is kinda... Well, here is short summary of the books if you care
https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/co..._source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

 

[DeepOcean]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

I meant how it dealt with relationships. The story by itself is grim with a human mutant marrying an infertile woman and raising someone else's child (isnt she an orphan though?). But overall until you reach that point it seemed more "natural" and not over the top like Bioware's shenanigans.

It feels natural because the game already assumes an old relationship is there instead of you having a game bar that you fill by giving bullshit presents then saying what the NPC wants you to say, by my experience, that gaming approach result on characters acting like they have 12 years old.

Maybe it is just the fact that Bioware sucks at writing but I didnt see any game developer that made a romance that didnt read like a 12 year old girl fantasy, so I have the stance of being against romances, period.

 

[Tyranicon]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

I meant how it dealt with relationships. The story by itself is grim with a human mutant marrying an infertile woman and raising someone else's child (isnt she an orphan though?). But overall until you reach that point it seemed more "natural" and not over the top like Bioware's shenanigans.

It feels natural because the game already assumes an old relationship is there instead of you having a game bar that you fill by giving bullshit presents then saying what the NPC wants you to say, by my experience, that gaming approach result on characters acting like they have 12 years old.

Maybe it is just the fact that Bioware sucks at writing but I didnt see any game developer that made a romance that didnt read like a 12 year old girl fantasy, so I have the stance of being against romances, period.

An industry-wide problem is that writers are ham-stringed because they have to write for a wide demographic which includes 12-year-olds. Indie RPGs don't usually have this problem because they target very niche audiences.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am not playing BG3 until they let me be a druid. Shapeshifting druid in 5e is what it is all about.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah because 5e is WoW basically.

 

[FranticDistortion]

No one mentioned how The Witcher dealt with romance options so far.

Yeah, you become a married cuck at the end of Witcher 3.

I meant how it dealt with relationships. The story by itself is grim with a human mutant marrying an infertile woman and raising someone else's child (isnt she an orphan though?). But overall until you reach that point it seemed more "natural" and not over the top like Bioware's shenanigans.

It feels natural because the game already assumes an old relationship is there instead of you having a game bar that you fill by giving bullshit presents then saying what the NPC wants you to say, by my experience, that gaming approach result on characters acting like they have 12 years old.

Maybe it is just the fact that Bioware sucks at writing but I didnt see any game developer that made a romance that didnt read like a 12 year old girl fantasy, so I have the stance of being against romances, period.

Persona 2,3,4,5 have couple of good ones each, but social connections is one of the main themes not an afterthought in them.

 

[LESS T_T]

Article from the latest issue of Dragon+ magazine: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2020/03/02/in-the-works-baldurs-gate-iii/content.html

Baldur's Gate III

It’s hard to miss our excitement this issue for the year 2020. We’re as delighted with this double-crit of a century as we would be if we’d been rolling d20s with disadvantage and been rewarded with that incredible result. Another big “20” that’s fast approaching is the anniversary of Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Released in September 2000, we’re especially pleased to know that Baldur’s Gate III is scheduled to debut on Steam Early Access later this year in a fitting tribute to that occasion.

In Baldur’s Gate III, Larian Studios (the team behind Divinity: Original Sin) places the fate of the Forgotten Realms in your hands, as a malevolent presence intent on devouring its foes from the inside returns. Never let it be said that video games aren’t educational. When the first trailer for BGIII aired in June 2019 many D&D players learned the term ceremorphosis for the first time, as they witnessed the violent birth of a mind flayer. Producer Larian has now shown off the cinematic introduction to the third Baldur’s Gate video game, and it adds another fascinating piece of lore about the illithids. The word many players will be adding to their vocabularies to describe a mind flayer’s enormous flying ship is nautiloid.

The action-packed movie that kicks off Baldur’s Gate III sees the Sword Coast under attack from a deadly aerial assault. With dragon riders in pursuit, the tentacles of the mind flayer’s nautiloid ship snatch citizens from their own streets. Worse is to come, as those taken are implanted with “tadpoles” designed to hollow out their host and create new illithids in their place.

“Swen Vincke came up with the story of the mind flayers and the tadpole on an airplane. A few of us were flying to talk to the D&D Team about the story, the lore, and how we were going to implement fifth edition into our game. We had all been reading lots of D&D books and Swen had seen the image of the tadpole crawling into an eye. He said, ‘What if mind flayers invade Faerûn again?’” remembers Adam Smith, Senior Writer at Larian.

“But ceremorphosis is a quick process. On the first day your nails start dropping off and your hair starts falling out. We wondered if we could get away with putting players on such a short clock, because five days is not a long time in RPGs! To make it more fun, we decided that the tadpole in their heads is different.”

Having barely survived a crash-landing at the start of Baldur’s Gate III, players find themselves stranded in the middle of an inhospitable wilderness. As far as they know, they only have a few days to get rid of the parasite before they sprout tentacles where there previously weren’t any. As they desperately seek a cure, it becomes obvious that a psychic link with the tadpole gives them new powers and some other unexpected benefits (including improved physical capabilities such as being able to jump further, as well as unique abilities for each character—being able to walk in the sunlight in the case of vampire Astarion). As these dark powers awaken, should players resist and turn evil against itself? Or embrace the lure of the power devouring them from within and see how far it will take them?

“The more you use your tadpole by selecting it from the options within dialogue, the stronger the influence of your tadpole becomes. But the more you use it, the quicker you unlock your powers,” says Larian Senior Designer Edouard Imbert.

“It’s that duality we’re introducing. It’s comparable to Bhaalspawn, which is a nice link to Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II. We want players to be wary this thing is still inside them, and the fact that they can turn into a mind flayer is still there,” warns Smith.

To add to the chaos, a new cult known as the Absolute is on the rise. It quickly becomes clear that certain enemies you encounter within this faction also have tadpole powers, making them more interesting (and more dangerous!) opponents. Don’t be surprised when that priestess you’re facing off against suddenly uses telekinesis to drop one of the temple’s statues on you.

FIFTH EDITION RULES
One of the most impressive elements of Baldur’s Gate III is the way it takes D&D fifth edition tabletop rules and applies them to a video game environment. Players will recognize the ability to move, take an action, and use a bonus action—with an expanded list of options available for that bonus manoeuvre. Yet the translation goes beyond the nuts and bolts of the system to include the roleplay elements which help make D&D such a rich experience.

“You will recognize everything from D&D but sometimes an adjustment has been made. We extended certain things and streamlined others. It is fifth edition for sure, only slightly adapted for a video game,” Imbert says. “It’s still problem solving in a narrative context rather than being solely combat based, which is a great cocktail for enjoyment. There are fights you can sneak around, you can use your Charisma and convince people to let you through and so forth. If you’re extraordinarily lucky with your dice rolls you may not fight a single time!

“We’re bringing that sense of immersion from the roleplaying tabletop experience. In our excitement to tell a story we’ve made sure our characters have names and personalities, even when they fight. One gnome may cry out if you kill the other gnome because that’s his brother!”

As faithful as the translation is, Imbert recognizes that not every element of such a massive roleplaying system could make the transition into the game.

“We had to limit a few spells because some don’t work as written in a video game. For example, wish is a very powerful spell it was difficult to translate. Or as a related example, as a druid you could choose to wild shape into any animal you’ve ever encountered, but realistically for our game we had to choose which those would be.”

COMBAT READY
One area that has been carefully integrated is fifth edition combat. However, gamers who have ploughed hours into the original Baldur’s Gate series of games should note that the combat style is changing from real-time with pause to a turn-based system. “We’ve proven with our Divinity: Original Sin RPG games that a turn-based system works and is a lot of fun, so I fully support the decision to swap,” says Imbert.

Combat differs slightly from the tabletop rules with the expanded number of bonus actions available to choose from. The Larian team found it was more fun from a video game perspective if players had several potential actions available on their turn.

“You can shove someone to trigger a Strength saving throw, pin them down with your arrow, then move away. That’s the kind of cool combo you want the players to be able to carry out. Turns are now team based, so it’s not the turn of your character, it’s the turn of your team. That allows you to switch between characters so you don’t have to wait for one to finish their turn before you can do everything with another,” says Imbert.

The ability to throw an item as a bonus action also led to a classic D&D moment during the live playthrough Dragon+ was invited to. While running from two opponents, Vincke used his action and his movement, then wondered if he had something in his inventory he could hurl at his pursuers: “I’ll throw my boots at them,” he said, causing howls of laughter when they connected with the target and caused a few points of damage.

This being a video game world, certain combat options also needed to be smoothed out during playtesting. Goblins, it turned out, were an especially nasty creature to come up against because of their built-in mobility during battle.

“Goblins have Nimble Escape, which allows them to ignore an attack of opportunity. I was very eager to implement that in Baldur’s Gate III, but we quickly realized that it was a real pain for the players. I decided to change it so that only goblin rangers have Nimble Escape but goblin melee opponents don’t,” Imbert says.

ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS
Another element of D&D that has been cleverly integrated into the game is the ability to use your environment. Taking an elevated position at least 2.3 meters above a creature will give your character advantage on their attack role. As with Divinity: Original Sin II, there’s also the potential to use surfaces to aid you in combat, drenching them in grease to slow your enemies before setting them alight to injure them. You might also dip your sword or arrow into fire to do additional damage or spread those flames even further.

“If you walk right into a major fight in Baldur’s Gate III, it’s going to be hard. I’m not talking about those popcorn moments where you kill three goblins and feel good about yourself, I mean the more difficult encounters. The elevation of areas in a level, alongside sneaking and hiding in the shadows, is a tool we’ve given the players to prepare for an encounter. To fight the strongest opponents, you’re sometimes going to have to use that level design,” Imbert suggests.

“For the first time ever in a game we have destructible platforms. You could shoot the bridge and have someone fall to their death in the chasm below. It’s an insta-kill, which is good if they’re a major enemy. But you’ll also lose all the gear they had on them.”

TIME WAITS FOR NO MINSC
The question every fan of the Baldur’s Gate series will be asking themselves is: will we see a few familiar faces from past games? “Fans of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II are going to look at our game and have certain expectations. Some of those expectations we’re going to completely shatter. We’re set 100 years after Baldur’s Gate II and we are taking everything in the Forgotten Realms D&D books as canon,” Smith says, the earlier playtest confirming that Volo is in the game. “We don’t want to take away the expectation that they might meet this or that character again. But we’re not going to change timelines or do anything crazy to introduce anyone, we’re using the lore very respectfully.”

“Making Baldur’s Gate III is a dream come true. If you talk to people who make RPGs for a living, they have either come from a D&D background or have played six or more D&D RPG video games. This is such a huge deal for us that a lot of us fell off our chairs when we realized we would be working on it. It’s a big challenge but we are so confident in our team and our technology that we know we can pull this off,” Smith says.

Baldur’s Gate III will be available on Steam Early Access later in 2020. Gather your party and subscribe for Baldur’s Gate III updates at the official website.

 

[Jimmious]

I am not playing BG3 until they let me be a druid. Shapeshifting druid in 5e is what it is all about.

Quoting from the article LESS T_T just posted:

We had to limit a few spells because some don’t work as written in a video game. For example, wish is a very powerful spell it was difficult to translate. Or as a related example, as a druid you could choose to wild shape into any animal you’ve ever encountered, but realistically for our game we had to choose which those would be.”

That seems to indicate that there will be druids.

 

[FranticDistortion]

Article from the latest issue of Dragon+ magazine: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2020/03/02/in-the-works-baldurs-gate-iii/content.html

Baldur's Gate III

It’s hard to miss our excitement this issue for the year 2020. We’re as delighted with this double-crit of a century as we would be if we’d been rolling d20s with disadvantage and been rewarded with that incredible result. Another big “20” that’s fast approaching is the anniversary of Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Released in September 2000, we’re especially pleased to know that Baldur’s Gate III is scheduled to debut on Steam Early Access later this year in a fitting tribute to that occasion.

In Baldur’s Gate III, Larian Studios (the team behind Divinity: Original Sin) places the fate of the Forgotten Realms in your hands, as a malevolent presence intent on devouring its foes from the inside returns. Never let it be said that video games aren’t educational. When the first trailer for BGIII aired in June 2019 many D&D players learned the term ceremorphosis for the first time, as they witnessed the violent birth of a mind flayer. Producer Larian has now shown off the cinematic introduction to the third Baldur’s Gate video game, and it adds another fascinating piece of lore about the illithids. The word many players will be adding to their vocabularies to describe a mind flayer’s enormous flying ship is nautiloid.

The action-packed movie that kicks off Baldur’s Gate III sees the Sword Coast under attack from a deadly aerial assault. With dragon riders in pursuit, the tentacles of the mind flayer’s nautiloid ship snatch citizens from their own streets. Worse is to come, as those taken are implanted with “tadpoles” designed to hollow out their host and create new illithids in their place.

“Swen Vincke came up with the story of the mind flayers and the tadpole on an airplane. A few of us were flying to talk to the D&D Team about the story, the lore, and how we were going to implement fifth edition into our game. We had all been reading lots of D&D books and Swen had seen the image of the tadpole crawling into an eye. He said, ‘What if mind flayers invade Faerûn again?’” remembers Adam Smith, Senior Writer at Larian.

“But ceremorphosis is a quick process. On the first day your nails start dropping off and your hair starts falling out. We wondered if we could get away with putting players on such a short clock, because five days is not a long time in RPGs! To make it more fun, we decided that the tadpole in their heads is different.”

Having barely survived a crash-landing at the start of Baldur’s Gate III, players find themselves stranded in the middle of an inhospitable wilderness. As far as they know, they only have a few days to get rid of the parasite before they sprout tentacles where there previously weren’t any. As they desperately seek a cure, it becomes obvious that a psychic link with the tadpole gives them new powers and some other unexpected benefits (including improved physical capabilities such as being able to jump further, as well as unique abilities for each character—being able to walk in the sunlight in the case of vampire Astarion). As these dark powers awaken, should players resist and turn evil against itself? Or embrace the lure of the power devouring them from within and see how far it will take them?

“The more you use your tadpole by selecting it from the options within dialogue, the stronger the influence of your tadpole becomes. But the more you use it, the quicker you unlock your powers,” says Larian Senior Designer Edouard Imbert.

“It’s that duality we’re introducing. It’s comparable to Bhaalspawn, which is a nice link to Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II. We want players to be wary this thing is still inside them, and the fact that they can turn into a mind flayer is still there,” warns Smith.

To add to the chaos, a new cult known as the Absolute is on the rise. It quickly becomes clear that certain enemies you encounter within this faction also have tadpole powers, making them more interesting (and more dangerous!) opponents. Don’t be surprised when that priestess you’re facing off against suddenly uses telekinesis to drop one of the temple’s statues on you.

FIFTH EDITION RULES
One of the most impressive elements of Baldur’s Gate III is the way it takes D&D fifth edition tabletop rules and applies them to a video game environment. Players will recognize the ability to move, take an action, and use a bonus action—with an expanded list of options available for that bonus manoeuvre. Yet the translation goes beyond the nuts and bolts of the system to include the roleplay elements which help make D&D such a rich experience.

“You will recognize everything from D&D but sometimes an adjustment has been made. We extended certain things and streamlined others. It is fifth edition for sure, only slightly adapted for a video game,” Imbert says. “It’s still problem solving in a narrative context rather than being solely combat based, which is a great cocktail for enjoyment. There are fights you can sneak around, you can use your Charisma and convince people to let you through and so forth. If you’re extraordinarily lucky with your dice rolls you may not fight a single time!

“We’re bringing that sense of immersion from the roleplaying tabletop experience. In our excitement to tell a story we’ve made sure our characters have names and personalities, even when they fight. One gnome may cry out if you kill the other gnome because that’s his brother!”

As faithful as the translation is, Imbert recognizes that not every element of such a massive roleplaying system could make the transition into the game.

“We had to limit a few spells because some don’t work as written in a video game. For example, wish is a very powerful spell it was difficult to translate. Or as a related example, as a druid you could choose to wild shape into any animal you’ve ever encountered, but realistically for our game we had to choose which those would be.”

COMBAT READY
One area that has been carefully integrated is fifth edition combat. However, gamers who have ploughed hours into the original Baldur’s Gate series of games should note that the combat style is changing from real-time with pause to a turn-based system. “We’ve proven with our Divinity: Original Sin RPG games that a turn-based system works and is a lot of fun, so I fully support the decision to swap,” says Imbert.

Combat differs slightly from the tabletop rules with the expanded number of bonus actions available to choose from. The Larian team found it was more fun from a video game perspective if players had several potential actions available on their turn.

“You can shove someone to trigger a Strength saving throw, pin them down with your arrow, then move away. That’s the kind of cool combo you want the players to be able to carry out. Turns are now team based, so it’s not the turn of your character, it’s the turn of your team. That allows you to switch between characters so you don’t have to wait for one to finish their turn before you can do everything with another,” says Imbert.

The ability to throw an item as a bonus action also led to a classic D&D moment during the live playthrough Dragon+ was invited to. While running from two opponents, Vincke used his action and his movement, then wondered if he had something in his inventory he could hurl at his pursuers: “I’ll throw my boots at them,” he said, causing howls of laughter when they connected with the target and caused a few points of damage.

This being a video game world, certain combat options also needed to be smoothed out during playtesting. Goblins, it turned out, were an especially nasty creature to come up against because of their built-in mobility during battle.

“Goblins have Nimble Escape, which allows them to ignore an attack of opportunity. I was very eager to implement that in Baldur’s Gate III, but we quickly realized that it was a real pain for the players. I decided to change it so that only goblin rangers have Nimble Escape but goblin melee opponents don’t,” Imbert says.

ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS
Another element of D&D that has been cleverly integrated into the game is the ability to use your environment. Taking an elevated position at least 2.3 meters above a creature will give your character advantage on their attack role. As with Divinity: Original Sin II, there’s also the potential to use surfaces to aid you in combat, drenching them in grease to slow your enemies before setting them alight to injure them. You might also dip your sword or arrow into fire to do additional damage or spread those flames even further.

“If you walk right into a major fight in Baldur’s Gate III, it’s going to be hard. I’m not talking about those popcorn moments where you kill three goblins and feel good about yourself, I mean the more difficult encounters. The elevation of areas in a level, alongside sneaking and hiding in the shadows, is a tool we’ve given the players to prepare for an encounter. To fight the strongest opponents, you’re sometimes going to have to use that level design,” Imbert suggests.

“For the first time ever in a game we have destructible platforms. You could shoot the bridge and have someone fall to their death in the chasm below. It’s an insta-kill, which is good if they’re a major enemy. But you’ll also lose all the gear they had on them.”

TIME WAITS FOR NO MINSC
The question every fan of the Baldur’s Gate series will be asking themselves is: will we see a few familiar faces from past games? “Fans of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II are going to look at our game and have certain expectations. Some of those expectations we’re going to completely shatter. We’re set 100 years after Baldur’s Gate II and we are taking everything in the Forgotten Realms D&D books as canon,” Smith says, the earlier playtest confirming that Volo is in the game. “We don’t want to take away the expectation that they might meet this or that character again. But we’re not going to change timelines or do anything crazy to introduce anyone, we’re using the lore very respectfully.”

“Making Baldur’s Gate III is a dream come true. If you talk to people who make RPGs for a living, they have either come from a D&D background or have played six or more D&D RPG video games. This is such a huge deal for us that a lot of us fell off our chairs when we realized we would be working on it. It’s a big challenge but we are so confident in our team and our technology that we know we can pull this off,” Smith says.

Baldur’s Gate III will be available on Steam Early Access later in 2020. Gather your party and subscribe for Baldur’s Gate III updates at the official website.

“The more you use your tadpole by selecting it from the options within dialogue, the stronger the influence of your tadpole becomes. But the more you use it, the quicker you unlock your powers."- This seems fun. Hope player can go all the way to becoming a Mindflayer.

Also apparently there are tons of people with upgraded tadpoles (a whole cult), which solves problem of PC being chosen ones.

Druids confirmed!

 

[mondblut]

I agree and NPCs jumping at you is awful but I dont like this everyone is bi and must accept sex with you that is why I dont like romances at all. NPCs should be their own characters with personalities and I hate distasteful manipulative pandering towards players. NPCs should be able to say fuck you and not go over the way to accomodate your every whim

Be glad you are still permitted hetero sex in games. These broads ain't going to stay bi for long.

 

[ChildInTime]

So what's the endgame for super-tadpoles? Super-illithids? How does that even work - i.e. shielding a vampire from sunlight, if they are just little psionic bugs?

 

[hell bovine]

There is also that other movie on yt, with the gith lady intro, where she remarks that something doesn't add up. That they should be already bleeding from the nose etc., but instead they feel and act like on magical steroids.

(maybe daddy B. impregnated an elder brain once upon the time, and now they carry Bhaalspawn tadpoles around, lol)

It's called brainfuck (and is Turing-complete).

Don't insinuate it was only about the physical act. He loved it for its mind.
(that's how they should do romances in RPGs... )

 

[AwesomeButton]

Phoneplebes don't belong. If you can't truly commit to the Codex by sitting in front of a PC for several hours (years) you need to leave.