Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[processdaemon]

This has probably been mentioned but one potential path to have a 'good' (or at least not horrifically depressing) route for full illithidification would be to go down the Adversary route

adversary explanation from the Illithiad

The Illithiad is old (1998) and I don't know if any more modern sourcebooks mention it but I guess you never know what Larian might pick up on.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Personally I'm just mad that my personal niche of harem ownership is vastly eclipsed in popularity by cuck shit.

Yeah, but isn't your brothel harem game technically all NTR? Or do the whores not actually have sex with anyone else?

 

[Herumor]

If you can't turn into a full blown mind flayer then what's the bloody point of the premise?

It's game over, because that's the tadpole in control and you're dead and gone.

This has probably been mentioned but one potential path to have a 'good' (or at least not horrifically depressing) route for full illithidification would be to go down the Adversary route

adversary explanation from the Illithiad

View attachment 39484

The Illithiad is old (1998) and I don't know if any more modern sourcebooks mention it but I guess you never know what Larian might pick up on.

This is cool, but how likely is it? Have they (Larian) ever mentioned really obscure lore from D&D so far?

 

[jf8350143]

So if you don't mess around with the tadpole in your head, what do you gain?

Or you just simply lose access to a whole set of skills without getting anything?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

This is probably literally fabulously optimistic, but I'm hoping, by avoiding any and all "romances" in the game, that I'll be able to nope-dodge any and all gayness, transsexual references, bestiality, and anything else that has no place in a fantasy roleplaying game, even one made by creepy European people who used to actually make funny, clever games.

It is a dream of mine, you see; I long to be free of all this faggotry.

You can do that even in most Bioware games, save for Dragon Age 2.

 

[Raeyn]

So if you don't mess around with the tadpole in your head, what do you gain?

Or you just simply lose access to a whole set of skills without getting anything?

I would imagine you'd end up with different allies, so different questgiver/rewards. And of course a different ending.

If someone is playing simply to min/max and 'win' combats, I'd bet it's hard not to take the space slugs though.

 

[Tyranicon]

Personally I'm just mad that my personal niche of harem ownership is vastly eclipsed in popularity by cuck shit.

Yeah, but isn't your brothel harem game technically all NTR? Or do the whores not actually have sex with anyone else?

I get asked this a lot. There's actually no NTR in my game, specifically because I personally don't want that.

To expand on this, if you start a closed relationship with a character or ask them to join your harem, they will never cheat on you. In fact, if they are a courtesan, they'll also go inactive.

You can also have open relationships, which are open both ways.

Lastly, you can actually cheat on characters and they will be butthurt over it.

This has probably been mentioned but one potential path to have a 'good' (or at least not horrifically depressing) route for full illithidification would be to go down the Adversary route

adversary explanation from the Illithiad

View attachment 39484

The Illithiad is old (1998) and I don't know if any more modern sourcebooks mention it but I guess you never know what Larian might pick up on.

I will have to give Larian props if they actually let you infiltrate a mindflayer colony via the long con.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

It's game over, because that's the tadpole in control and you're dead and gone.

It's not a normal tadpole. The fact that you get special powers at all instead of just getting sick and having your jaw fall off and get replaced by tentacles should tell you that much.

This is cool, but how likely is it? Have they (Larian) ever mentioned really obscure lore from D&D so far?

I think they have, but I'm too tired to remember it. You can bet they poured over a lot of mindflayer D&D lore though.

So if you don't mess around with the tadpole in your head, what do you gain?

It's not the player's choices alone that get you these powers:

llithid Powers are a hidden skill tree used to enhance your command over your newfound illithid capabilities. Those who wish to harness the parasites' power must first find more of these parasites throughout the Forgotten Realms – some can be located inside jars and in pools of brine, others within the skulls of the infected. And then you must consume them.

You have to eat parasites. I guess this gives players something to do with all the parasites they find in the game.

Or you just simply lose access to a whole set of skills without getting anything?

Ideally, yes. But somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, I would say keeping your humanity (or whatever race) would be worth it, provided you aren't a power-hungry munchkin.

 

[Nerevar]

You can also have open relationships, which are open both ways.

Isn't that just NTR with extra steps?

Just think if you were trying to explain yourself to one of the Lords of Salem "No I'm not a witch I just communicate with Satan and perform some minor witchcraft."

 

[Tyranicon]

You can also have open relationships, which are open both ways.

Isn't that just NTR with extra steps?

Just think if you were trying to explain yourself to one of the Lords of Salem "No I'm not a witch I just communicate with Satan and perform some minor witchcraft."

Open relationships are not NTR or cucking because there is no expectation of sexual exclusivity. Cheating/being cucked is the act that defines NTR.

At any rate, there's only 1 scene in the game that doesn't involve the player, and that's in the prologue with two characters that you don't even really meet.

If you want to discuss this specifically, we can go shit up the Memoirs thread rather than this one: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/memoirs-of-a-battle-brothel-a-nsfw-cyberpunk-rpg.130459/

 

[Zeriel]

I dropped solasta before finishing it.

Solasta is all combat, basically no plot, and little item progression. The moment you get the key skills on all characters, you don't have much else to keep playing for.
This game has a plot, and you get items that can be build defining, from what we've seen so far. The Dark Urge showcase had a cape with "when you kill an enemy, become invisible" or some such on it, items like that will keep you playing even if the writing doesn't catch you.

That shows you how sad modern D&D is, and RPGs in general.

BG: Here's a ring that makes you invisible ALL THE TIME.

BG3: When the moon sets on the summer solstice and you kill a goblin using a scimitar, you can turn invisible for 1 turn.

You are both exaggerating how hard it is to trigger "when you kill an enemy", and underestimating how much more fun it is to set it up like that.
Also known as, being a contrarian fuck who signals OLD GUD NEW BAD to get codex karma from other contrarian fags.

I'm not a contrarian fuck who signals anything. I'm a person who grew up in the 80s and 90s who has opinions based on that because I actually played those games when they were new. Stop being a fag who worships decline, maybe?

Conditional effects are almost always lame as hell. And they are everywhere now, mostly because designers are obsessed with "balance".

 

[cpmartins]

Balance is the heat death of fun in an RPG.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Balance is the heat death of fun in an RPG.

Eh. Some degree of balance is necessary. Excessive focus on keeping any numerical variable tightly squared is not.

Larian for instance often self-sabotages itself with this stupid notion than no obvious exploit should ever be limited because "the player will feel clever discovering it and abusing it".

Except players will always find ways to abuse even some of the tightest systems, which is why the role of a designer should be to keep things in check.
To patch the cracks on the wall rather than enlarge them with a pickaxe.

 

[Tyranicon]

abuse even some of the tightest systems

Dnd 5e

I know you didn't mean 5e when you wrote tightest systems, but if Larian is following the pnp, there is plenty of fun for power gamers here. There are some seriously broken builds from a community that has had years to fine-tune them, and Larian being themselves, have added things like a super-powered Haste, etc.

BG3 will be an exploit-hunter's dream.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I wasn't thinking of any system in particular but the issue applies even there.

5e is ALREADY a system prone to break down past a certain threshold, Larian removing even its already-sparse brakes for the sake of "AWSUM" (broken implementations of Metamagic and haste, messed up action economy, no attunement, etc) simply doesn't help.

P.S. this is incidentally the same excuse that half of the Larian groupies on their forum keep using: "Well, D&D isn't a holy book to begin with".
Well, fuck you and your platitudes, mates. That doesn't mean destroying what little of it actually works will help anyone.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

And BG3 won't be for exploit hunters because exploits aren't hidden enough to need hunting. It's going to be for exploit trawl fishers.

 

[Takamori]

In theory you should have your player thinking on how to deal with X encounter with their current build and resources. With this game you are imposing rules to yourself to not exploit with how open it is, its fucking silly and I'm still mind boggled that Larian can't see how this detract from the gameplay experience.

 

[cpmartins]

In theory you should have your player thinking on how to deal with X encounter with their current build and resources. With this game you are imposing rules to yourself to not exploit with how open it is, its fucking silly and I'm still mind boggled that Larian can't see how this detract from the gameplay experience.

You are implying they care. I'm guessing with the pushback they got from the awful armor system in DOS2 they just gave up. "Let them have their fun". It works for me, but will it work for the majority? Time will tell.

 

[Zeriel]

In theory you should have your player thinking on how to deal with X encounter with their current build and resources. With this game you are imposing rules to yourself to not exploit with how open it is, its fucking silly and I'm still mind boggled that Larian can't see how this detract from the gameplay experience.

You are implying they care. I'm guessing with the pushback they got from the awful armor system in DOS2 they just gave up. "Let them have their fun". It works for me, but will it work for the majority? Time will tell.

The irony there would be that the armor system didn't actually "solve" any problem, just create new ones. It's like when Blizzard nerfs shit to remove a problematic mechanic... only for said mechanic to remain, only now you have pointless nerfs on top. The incompetency is the problem.

With the armor system, they wanted (apparently) to remove the prevalence of immediately chain-CCing all encounters into the ground. But what it achieved wasn't this; you could still chain CC encounters into the ground. It instead promoted using characters of all one damage type, so you could break through one type of armor quickly. Thus reducing build variety but not accomplishing its apparent design aim.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Yeah, there was this old post from DraQ (which incidentally incorporated my own) that summarised the issue fairly well:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...2-armor-system-discussion.135649/post-6991216

 

[blessed king of longing]

there's no way they would do such a rugpull like "the parasite was in control the entire time" unless you consumed every parasite in your path and spammed the abilities. it's just too retarded and they know that would piss people off, and they would be right for it

 

[Raeyn]

I hate that modders have to do it, but I hope they do find a way to fix all of Larian's fuckery over time.

The lack of permanence, the broken combat systems, alignment systems degraded to "relationship drama" with your party member's approval, destroying race bonuses+stats, etc.

The story better be damn good for me to overlook how bad the combat and systems will be... But we all know that is some seriously wishful thinking.

 

[Kiste]

I'm not a contrarian fuck who signals anything. I'm a person who grew up in the 80s and 90s who has opinions based on that because I actually played those games when they were new. Stop being a fag who worships decline, maybe?

So you're a nostalgic fuck with faggy rose-tined glasses.

 

[Zeriel]

I'm not a contrarian fuck who signals anything. I'm a person who grew up in the 80s and 90s who has opinions based on that because I actually played those games when they were new. Stop being a fag who worships decline, maybe?

So you're a nostalgic fuck with faggy rose-tined glasses.

Nope, you can go back and play those games now and they're just as good. People who claim otherwise are just writing apologetics for modern gaming industry decline. Or so retarded they actually prefer braindead pablum to proper design.

 

[Kiste]

Nope, you can go back and play those games now and they're just as good. People who claim otherwise are just writing apologetics for modern gaming industry decline. Or so retarded they actually prefer braindead pablum to proper design.

Of course you will find those games just as good as you did back then when you're a nostalgic fuck with faggy rose-tined glasses.