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

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Edit: Just for the record since I was talking about the Adult Red Dragon:
When you see it in the EA your party is expected to be at level 4, maybe 5 in the final game, and the Dragon is presented as level 4, however its stats are on par with what is in the Monster Guide, and its challenge rating (CR) is 17, so regardless of it being level 4 it would be an extremely lethal encounter for a level 4 party.

Yeah, that's what I already said in my post.



With a mandatory asterisk, anyway, since apparently the dragon doesn't have fire resistance, which is both quite the oversight and precisely what makes the "barrel exploit" more effective than it should be.

Back to the point, the issue I have is not specifically if you will be able to fight the dragon or not, it's a more general dislike with this idea of labeling enemies upfront with an arbitrary level tag.

I never like explicit leveled opponents. That's almost universally true regardless of the ruleset.
Let the context suggest to the player what is too much to handle and be CONSISTENT across the entire adventure.
A wolf should always be a wolf, a troll should always be a troll. None of this crap about having a level 5 troll and then a level 20 one 15 hours later in the game.
I want to feel like a monster's threat level depends of what it is, rather how it's scaled to match my progression curve.

 

[Varnaan]

[cool guy post I totally agree with]

I think it's the kind of feedback that's worth providing.
Just get rid of monster/creature levels and only keep them as an indication for spellcasting ennemies, like when you fight a mage/cleric.
If anything replacing level with CR and adding a Caster Level tag for relevant enemies would be a good compromise.

I know, however at first I thought you meant to say that there attribute levels for creatures in 5E in your first comment and second your message caught me by surprise, because it seemingly contradicted your previous comment. Anyway, I was wrong in this case and ratings retracted.

It's my fault, I was too laconic/not clear enough.

 

[Gargaune]

there were more than 20 though.

the point is, I think you're just taking one word, and as I've demonstrated, someone can be mistaken about the meaning of, and taking it as original intent and then suggesting that tob changed it.

there were always scores of bhallspawn. Not millions, not even hundreds of thousands, but quite a few, with some exceptionally powerful ones as the cream of the crop.

Dude, I get that, the ending cinematic clearly shows hundreds or even thousands of them. I'm just saying that ToB would've benefited from BioWare sticking with a smaller number, like the score the Candlekeep monks are chanting about in the beginning, or maybe a couple of score. For example, it would've been more feasible for Melissan to corral them as opposed to tracking down and herding a small army into Saradush, and easier to account for the aftermath and who died where.

Why this Harpers hate?

That sounds like something a Harper sympathiser might ask...

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Dude, I get that, the ending cinematic clearly shows hundreds or even thousands of them. I'm just saying that ToB would've benefited from BioWare sticking with a smaller number, like the score the Candlekeep monks are chanting about in the beginning, or maybe a couple of score. For example, it would've been more feasible for Melissan to corral them as opposed to tracking down and herding a small army into Saradush, and easier to account for the aftermath and who died where.

Pretty sure Mellisan had some kind of special sense for who was/wasn’t a bhaalspwan and used some kind of magic to gather them all there. I think that’s how the expansion starts, with you being teleported there.

Basically, she gains power when one of you dies, so killing a hundred or two probably charged her up quite a bit. Then she’d be able to take out the others or turn them against each other, which is what she used you to do, giving her still more power. That storyline doesn’t work as well when all she has to do is kill about 10 of them to overpower the other 10.

I think that part made at least some sense and was probably done to fulfill the prophecies Sarevok saw about a war of sacrifice in the first game rather than just to have le cool and epic city siege battle.

 

[underground nymph]

I think what some people misunderstand is the fact that Baldur’s Gate was a huge thought out start up with the commercial side having a heavy tall in decision making throughout all the development process. Basically it was a retirement plan for a bunch of Canadian upper middle class guys (which worked out perfectly). Unlike modern day Indie RPG-fans-catering-companies which ambition is, at most, survive a day without going bust.

 

[Gargaune]

Okay, Kagha's path in the Save the Refugees quest really isn't in there, it doesn't have a quest entry in and of itself and barely works overall. If you talk to Zevlor and insist he takes his people and move on, he'll attack you. If you then report back to Kagha, all she'll say is that you should have then no trouble removing the rest of the tieflings. Without any other direction, I did what any self-respecting roleplayer would do... went on a killing spree. Murderhoboed my way through all the tieflings in the grove (and a couple of "Stop right there, criminal scum" druid guards), went back to Kagha... and still nothing. But after that point, if I left the grove (either to rest at camp or just going somewhere else), the Save the Refugees quest completed itself and the entrance to the Druid Grove got locked up by poisonous vines.

Now, I don't know whether you need to kill all the tieflings or just a particular few to get this result because the game doesn't tell you. You're also likely to incur a permanent Enemy of Justice condition, which should have all "allied" guards attack you on sight, but again the game doesn't tell you squat about whose allies. I assume that when I go visit the Goblin Camp, they're not gonna care, but we'll see. The Zhents definitely don't care.

So yeah, overall this is a very shoddy quest branch. Rather, it's a quest stub. You get zero direction through it, locked out of the grove and its traders, and a mysterious Enemy of Justice condition, for... 100xp and, admittedly, a bunch of loot. It's strange because Larian clearly made some lines and outcomes for it, but didn't link it all the way through. Nor is it like one of those other obviously unfinished or buggy WIP quests (e.g. talking to the Tyrists hunting Karlach, or rescuing the chick in the burning building). It needs reviewing for release, either implement it fully or cut it altogether.

Anyway, a couple of other questions:
- How can you select what items to feed Gale? No way I'm giving him the Sword of Justice, but I do have a couple of novelty or +1 items I can spare.
- Any way to disable Cross Saves? I didn't make an online profile, didn't even allow BG3 through my firewall, but it still lists "uploading cross save" in the menu.

 

[Varnaan]

It's already been confirmed that the entire Kagha side of things is being rewritten

 

[Yosharian]

People who've played a bit of the EA, I have a question, I'm trying to decide between the Knowledge Domain and the Life Domain for my Wiz/Cleric

1) I'm gonna have quite a bit of heavy armor users in my party, are there a lot of heavy armors in the game so far or are they rare?

2) Do skills like Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion come up often, or rarely? What about Investigation?

 

[Varnaan]

People who've played a bit of the EA, I have a question, I'm trying to decide between the Knowledge Domain and the Life Domain for my Wiz/Cleric

1) I'm gonna have quite a bit of heavy armor users in my party, are there a lot of heavy armors in the game so far or are they rare?

2) Do skills like Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion come up often, or rarely? What about Investigation?

1) There are some, the Grinch girl starts with a decent one and you'll find a few more.

2) There are checks for all skills all over the place, some have consequences and some are flavor, but I didn't notice any skill being totally useless.

 

[Shrimp]

People who've played a bit of the EA, I have a question, I'm trying to decide between the Knowledge Domain and the Life Domain for my Wiz/Cleric

1) I'm gonna have quite a bit of heavy armor users in my party, are there a lot of heavy armors in the game so far or are they rare?

2) Do skills like Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion come up often, or rarely? What about Investigation?

1) There are some, the Grinch girl starts with a decent one and you'll find a few more.

2) There are checks for all skills all over the place, some have consequences and some are flavor, but I didn't notice any skill being totally useless.

I thought Lae'Zel's starting armour was the only heavy armour in the early access build? I don't remember if I actually came across anything by myself, but I do remember reading some comments about heavy armour being very sparse in the currently accessible areas.

 

[Lacrymas]

Heavy armor is also hard to come by in the first few levels of D&D because it costs quite a lot of gold you can't afford. So that's actually good.

 

[jackofshadows]

- How can you select what items to feed Gale? No way I'm giving him the Sword of Justice, but I do have a couple of novelty or +1 items I can spare.

Say *no* to him and then talk again to choose via special dialogue branch.

 

[Yosharian]

Heavy armor is also hard to come by in the first few levels of D&D because it costs quite a lot of gold you can't afford. So that's actually good.

That's fine, I'm not necessarily talking about the short term, just generally speaking across the game, though I know the first hours of the game are not necessarily representative.

I'm just trying to figure out how valuable HA is vs having expertise in those knowledge skills & medium armour instead.

 

[Varnaan]

I thought Lae'Zel's starting armour was the only heavy armour in the early access build? I don't remember if I actually came across anything by myself, but I do remember reading some comments about heavy armour being very sparse in the currently accessible areas.

Spoiler

there are no enchanted heavy armors, but you'll find some lying around or as ennemy loot 2 are in the shattered sanctum, you'll fight a gyth patrol at some point and they drop their armor as well

 

[Spectacle]

I thought Lae'Zel's starting armour was the only heavy armour in the early access build? I don't remember if I actually came across anything by myself, but I do remember reading some comments about heavy armour being very sparse in the currently accessible areas.

Lae'Zel's half-plate is a medium armor, the same as the other Gith armor you can obtain. I can't remember if I found any heavy armors at all in my playthrough, certainly nothing that was worth using.

 

[Varnaan]

Lae'Zel's half-plate is a medium armor, the same as the other Gith armor you can obtain. I can't remember if I found any heavy armors at all in my playthrough, certainly nothing that was worth using.

Lmao wow I'm retarded, for some reason I thought it was heavy

 

[Yosharian]

Medium armour it is boys

 

[Spectacle]

In general about armor in 5e; Both medium and heavy armor exists at various price points from cheap to expensive, of course AC increases with price. (Lae'zel's half plate is actually a top-tier medium armor that should cost 900 GP, weird for a 1st level character to have)
Typically heavy armor users will have 1 better AC than a medium armor user with same tier gear, that's nice but not a huge advantage. The main benefit of heavy armor is that it doesn't require any investment in DEX, so you have more points for other attributes.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

In general about armor in 5e; Both medium and heavy armor exists at various price points from cheap to expensive, of course AC increases with price. (Lae'zel's half plate is actually a top-tier medium armor that should cost 900 GP, weird for a 1st level character to have)
Typically heavy armor users will have 1 better AC than a medium armor user with same tier gear, that's nice but not a huge advantage. The main benefit of heavy armor is that it doesn't require any investment in DEX, so you have more points for other attributes.

So as a non-magic, heavy armored melee fighter, one could treat DEX as a dump stat?

 

[Yosharian]

In general about armor in 5e; Both medium and heavy armor exists at various price points from cheap to expensive, of course AC increases with price. (Lae'zel's half plate is actually a top-tier medium armor that should cost 900 GP, weird for a 1st level character to have)
Typically heavy armor users will have 1 better AC than a medium armor user with same tier gear, that's nice but not a huge advantage. The main benefit of heavy armor is that it doesn't require any investment in DEX, so you have more points for other attributes.

Yeah but also STR armour requires high STR right? So you get to dump DEX, but you need high STR instead.

And DEX saves tend to be more important than STR saves I think

 

[Lacrymas]

So as a non-magic, heavy armored melee fighter, one could treat DEX as a dump stat?

Yes, but you still get penalties for skill checks and saves using DEX. Given how athletics is much, muuuuch more represented than acrobatics, it's not such a big deal. The saves might be problematic.

 

[Yosharian]

So as a non-magic, heavy armored melee fighter, one could treat DEX as a dump stat?

Yes, but you still get penalties for skill checks and saves using DEX. Given how athletics is much, muuuuch more represented than acrobatics, it's not such a big deal. The saves might be problematic.

Can you elaborate on the Athletics thing, is that a 5E thing or a BG3 thing? I play Pathfinder so I don't have experience on how often these come up

What I have heard is that DEX saves are far more common and useful than STR saves

 

[Lacrymas]

Can you elaborate on the Athletics thing, is that a 5E thing or a BG3 thing? I play Pathfinder so I don't have experience on how often these come up

What I have heard is that DEX saves are far more common and useful than STR saves

I'd say both a 5E and BG3 thing. Athletics tend to represent much more useful and general physical feats, like climbing, swimming, jumping, while acrobatics are more niche, with things like walking on ropes or equivalent, juggling, ice walking, some parkour here and there. That said, it mostly depends on the DM of course. In BG3, however, athletics checks are much more frequent and represented than acrobatics, afaik. As for saves, yes, DEX is more useful because more spells and abilities tend to allow DEX saves rather than STR.

 

[Yosharian]

Can you elaborate on the Athletics thing, is that a 5E thing or a BG3 thing? I play Pathfinder so I don't have experience on how often these come up

What I have heard is that DEX saves are far more common and useful than STR saves

I'd say both a 5E and BG3 thing. Athletics tend to represent much more useful and general physical feats, like climbing, swimming, jumping, while acrobatics are more niche, with things like walking on ropes or equivalent, juggling, ice walking, some parkour here and there. That said, it mostly depends on the DM of course. In BG3, however, athletics checks are much more frequent and represented than acrobatics, afaik. As for saves, yes, DEX is more useful because more spells and abilities tend to allow DEX saves rather than STR.

Is it like those deadfire checks where everyone in the group has to make a check and anyone that fails gets AIDS? or does just 1 person have to be good at it?

In BG3 I mean

 

[Spectacle]

In general about armor in 5e; Both medium and heavy armor exists at various price points from cheap to expensive, of course AC increases with price. (Lae'zel's half plate is actually a top-tier medium armor that should cost 900 GP, weird for a 1st level character to have)
Typically heavy armor users will have 1 better AC than a medium armor user with same tier gear, that's nice but not a huge advantage. The main benefit of heavy armor is that it doesn't require any investment in DEX, so you have more points for other attributes.

Yeah but also STR armour requires high STR right? So you get to dump DEX, but you need high STR instead.

And DEX saves tend to be more important than STR saves I think

There's a movement speed penalty for not satisfying the STR requirement of your armor, but it rarely matters much. A caster in heavy armor will usually have no problem getting in range to use his spells even if he's a bit slow, while a melee character is going to be focusing on STR anyway.

It's true that DEX is useful for saves an initiative rolls, but the difference between say DEX 8 and DEX 14 is only +3, so in both cases it mostly comes down to the luck of the D20, you won't notice that much difference from having shit DEX.