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

[Incognito]

The arguments are not about baby orcs. I think most people would agree that killing a baby orc is wrong, unless we are talking about complete ancient OSR, where all orcs were always irredeemably evil. The goblins in question are enemy combatants. The only issue is, they are not actively killing anyone right now. Can a paladin walk into the stronghold of goblin cultists and start killing goblins? Most people would say yes, reddit says no.

That’s why no one should treat reddit users like people.

 

[NecroLord]

The arguments are not about baby orcs. I think most people would agree that killing a baby orc is wrong, unless we are talking about complete ancient OSR, where all orcs were always irredeemably evil. The goblins in question are enemy combatants. The only issue is, they are not actively killing anyone right now. Can a paladin walk into the stronghold of goblin cultists and start killing goblins? Most people would say yes, reddit says no.

By their retarded logic, the paladin should allow them to rampage first, before taking any action. In other words, the paladin could've prevented the rampage from taking place, but chose not to act because he could've fallen and lose his paladinhood.

 

[Larianshill]

They already rampaged. By the time you, the player, arrive at the location the goblins have already murdered many people, taken a druid leader hostage and are torturing a captive to find out where the refugees are hiding, so they can slaughter them all for the glory of their dark god.

 

[Tyranicon]

You know dnd is a fantasy because you have multiple intelligent humanoid species coexisting at all.

 

[NecroLord]

They already rampaged. By the time you, the player, arrive at the location the goblins have already murdered many people, taken a druid leader hostage and are torturing a captive to find out where the refugees are hiding, so they can slaughter them all for the glory of their dark god.

Cool.
So, what are those retards still arguing about? The paladin should go full "RIP AND TEAR" on some goblin ass.
Letting evil take root and cause irreparable damage or letting evil go unpunished are seen as outright crimes by any paladin.

 

[Larianshill]

The argument of the opposing side seems to be that you can't definitely know that this specific goblin before you is evil, and slaughtering them all without making the distinction between the innocent and the guilty is unpaladinlike. Some of them could have been forced into service. Also, a paladin is the protector first, and should stay his hand and show mercy as a first resort.

 

[NecroLord]

A-ha, so the paladin should cast Detect Evil to see whether or not every damn goblin is evil?
I can't even...

 

[NecroLord]

"Hey, brah, let me just cast Detect Evil on a fucking BALOR, just to see if it is truly evil..."

 

[Larianshill]

A-ha, so the paladin should cast Detect Evil to see whether or not every damn goblin is evil?

That doesn't work anymore. Detect Evil is now called Divine Sense, and only detects fiends, celestials and undead.

 

[NecroLord]

Right.
Sadly, it is 5E we are talking about...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Links? I wanna laugh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat..._of_talk_about_oathbreaking_heres_my_2_cents/
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...ing_all_the_posts_on_here_about_oathbreaking/
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...addition_of_breakable_paladin_oaths_has_made/

I disagree with you. Their stat sheets list a general weal for the race as a whole.

The way DnD seems to be going, is that there is a lot more agency for individuals within a race to be something other than their racial stereotype. Which is just fine. I actually support that.

I'm totally fine with, "You made nice with a goblin and then killed it. Your Oath breaks."

I'm totally fine with, "You randomly attacked a goblin for no damn reason at all other than to take their rusty sword and to practice swinging your hammer.. Your Oath breaks.

I have an issue with, "These goblins have proven to be evil. And then the game makes it difficult to just attack these evil goblins.



My issue is that even with all of that as background context, these goblins have already demonstrated their willingness to attack a druid grove and some refugees on the road. There is no in game context given for the idea that the refugees did something to the goblins first to incite their attacks. Nor for the druid grove to have incited the attack.

Every bit of context you can draw from the game indicates that the goblins are setting up shop in a nearby abandoned temple, and are the aggressors in this story. Even without meta knowledge, you can pick all of that up just by defending the druid grove and talking to everyone in the grove.

Goblins in general might still be N.E. Goblins in general might have agency, but these goblins have already demonstrated their choices.

Thanks rusty. I hadn't been pissed off in awhile and was falling below Codexian quota.

These guys should have a convention so we can take them all out with a single dirty bomb.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm not sure what all this fanfiction about Khalid being dead in BG2 is. Canonically, Khalid heroically perishes while holding off an ogre so the rest of the party can smell flowers somewhere in the forests of the Sword Coast. Unfortunately, the ogre hit him so hard that his body was obliterated and no raising was possible. It's terribly tragic.

 

[NecroLord]

I'm not sure what all this fanfiction about Khalid being dead in BG2 is. Canonically, Khalid heroically perishes while holding off an ogre so the rest of the party can smell flowers somewhere in the forests of the Sword Coast. Unfortunately, the ogre hit him so hard that his body was obliterated and no raising was possible. It's terribly tragic.

He was gibbed?

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'm not sure what all this fanfiction about Khalid being dead in BG2 is. Canonically, Khalid heroically perishes while holding off an ogre so the rest of the party can smell flowers somewhere in the forests of the Sword Coast. Unfortunately, the ogre hit him so hard that his body was obliterated and no raising was possible. It's terribly tragic.

He was gibbed?

Yeah. You haven't seen that scene in Baldur's Gate 1 where you go to recover that dwarf's belts from the ogre? The party gets distracted and faffs off somewhere but Khalid didn't get the memo and charges in before meeting his valiant demise. It happens the same way every time I play, I'm not sure how you missed it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The arguments are not about baby orcs. I think most people would agree that killing a baby orc is wrong, unless we are talking about complete ancient OSR, where all orcs were always irredeemably evil. The goblins in question are enemy combatants. The only issue is, they are not actively killing anyone right now. Can a paladin walk into the stronghold of goblin cultists and start killing goblins? Most people would say yes, reddit says no.

Out of curiosity - even in ancient OSR Orcs are able to procreate naturally?

The arguments are not about baby orcs. I think most people would agree that killing a baby orc is wrong, unless we are talking about complete ancient OSR, where all orcs were always irredeemably evil. The goblins in question are enemy combatants. The only issue is, they are not actively killing anyone right now. Can a paladin walk into the stronghold of goblin cultists and start killing goblins? Most people would say yes, reddit says no.

That’s why no one should treat reddit users like people.

If I could ask Gary about whether a paladin should spare a baby future redditor... In fact I don't think I would need to ask.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Broke my plan of leaving BG3 untouched until release because I've nearly gone through two full playthroughs of the BG series this year (Just about done with BG2, then hauling ass through ToB) since I've apparently been in the mood for it and I felt like fucking with mods. Quick side note before talking about BG3, BG1 banter pack's solid, portraits portraits everywhere is ridiculous but fun, SCS is interesting in that it makes fights more challenging but I'll likely skip it for future plays simply because it doesn't make them challenging enough to require thought and it mainly boils down to just loading all my casters with shit to break magical defenses, whatever the romance and sex mod is called is a disappointment in that it isn't sexy and isn't funny so there's not really any point but this might be due to playing a chaotic evil male barbarian so I'm missing the goofier shit like fucking Firkraag, and Imoen romance IS entertainingly funny even though it appears I can't rape her and in fact the romance may be off entirely since she blew chunks after I killed the silver dragon in the underdark.

Quick BG3 thoughts then, doesn't much feel like a Baldur's Gate which wasn't all that surprising given the lack of world map and Larian's previous games, but I do have a titanic boner for it after fucking around a bit. Haven't been playing through all of what's available in EA since I don't want to ruin it for myself too badly but I've been dicking around the starting area trying different classes and different routes/solutions/options. One notable thing is I keep bumping into extremely minor C&C in characters reacting to super granular specific situations, cases where Larian could've simply written dialog in a neutral way to cover multiple possibilities and saved themselves the extra animation and voice work. Case in point, when you reach the druid grove you can head up a hill and some tiefling chick's about to be tastefully raped by a bugbear assassin that climbed up a cliff. You charge forward and kill the bugbear, and then I accidentally clicked on her with another party member than the PC (And one that didn't get the killing blow) and she had unique dialog saying "OH YEAH I WOULD'VE BEEN TOAST IF NOT FOR YOUR FRIEND OVER THERE" or something along those lines. Not a quest, barely even a random little encounter (Closest BG approximation would be some random NPC encounter in a wilderness zone) and they tracked who in the party killed the bugbear and had special dialog if you talk to her with someone else.

Another case, tried out barbarian. In the nautiloid you can find the cleric in the pod getting centipedes in her vagina and barbarian has a unique option to make a strength check to rage and bust the pod open rather than doing it like a normal person. I rolled, got a natural 1, failed, then said "Eh fuck it" and left her in there since I'd freed her on a previous character. Later on when you meet up with her again after the nautiloid she's awake (Rather than unconscious, the pods work as escape pods so it's neat that she's on her ass if she was with you adventuring but in a better situation if left in the pod) and trying to bash the locked door to the nearby crypt open. She bitches a little about the PC leaving her behind but does give credit for attempting to use retard strength to bend bars and lift gates (So another minor callout for very specific C&C of playing a barbarian, making a strength check, failing it, and then leaving her) and then you can say STAND ASIDE WOMAN BECAUSE I, BARBARIAN, WILL RAGE THAT DOOR OPEN and then she immediately shoots you down by saying if you're too much of a pussy to open the pod on the nautiloid then clearly you aren't going to be bashing a door open and you could conserve your strength.

All this C&C isn't all that important mechanically and I haven't been playing deep enough to see what (If any) long term C&C there may be with actual gameplay consequences rather than the game just acknowledging your actions, but it's pretty damn impressive. Also possible that the fine detail C&C will drop off a cliff and they're front loading to make a good impression much like the evil Obsidian, but still. Good shit. Not exactly C&C but during the final nautiloid sequence you can beat up the devil the mind flayer's fighting and jack his flaming greatsword before the ship crashes, too. Everyone's telling you to ignore it and go push the button, and as time advances a couple cambions run into the room to make shit worse, but cool little boost if you pull it off.

Few other notes, combat's been nice. D&D's got you doing less flashy shit than the DoS games obviously but encounter design's been enjoyable and they're often set up in ways you can potentially give yourself advantages. Hopefully the ghost line for movement will be improved on release since I have had a few situations where it'll tell me I can make it to someone and attack this turn and then run out of movement and stand there with my dick in my hand. Performance is surprisingly fine on my old 970, can play on high and it's just peachy. Harpies have their tits out with nipples which is terribly important and I'm glad Larian opted for that. It is nice that the paladin oathbreaking differs somewhat based on your flavor of paladin, too. Nature paladin will end up with a broken oath if he kills the owlbear defending her cub, but a justice paladin can scream "MAN HAS DOMINION OVER BEASTS" and kill the monsters and collect the unhatched owlbear egg to "Exchange for a generous donation to the church" with a wizard to put in his cum jar. Haven't fucked around with the goblin lair since I apparently headed off in the wrong direction so I can't weigh in on fallen paladin status for killing goblins. I would say killing the goblin prisoner back at the druid grove should probably count as a fall for a justice paladin since the goblin's already dealt with but I'd also say releasing her should make you fall too. Didn't do either, saved her from getting killed by a tiefling then said she was staying in there.

TLDR summary: BG3 owns but it does feel more like DoS3 than BG3 while playing it.

 

[Grunker]

otoh multi deserves brofist for informative and funny post

otoh multi deserves eternal jihad for talking bad about glorious scs

hence i am left with no option but to merry christmas

 

[Bah]

Quick BG3 thoughts then, doesn't much feel like a Baldur's Gate which wasn't all that surprising given the lack of world map and Larian's previous games

There is a world-map. One of the edges of the current zone to load it up is near the entrance to the Goblin camp. I don't think you can leave the starting zone in EA though, but you can see some of the other zones that you can travel to.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

otoh multi deserves eternal jihad for talking bad about glorious scs

In my defense I was mostly positive toward it, but since I've played the BG series out the ass it didn't dramatically shift how I played other than making enemy casters more of a speed bump which then made me think I should just do without it since I mainly play the BG series as comfort food to tear through it anyway.

Quick BG3 thoughts then, doesn't much feel like a Baldur's Gate which wasn't all that surprising given the lack of world map and Larian's previous games

There is a world-map. One of the edges of the current zone to load it up is near the entrance to the Goblin camp. I don't think you can leave the starting zone in EA though, but you can see some of the other zones that you can travel to.

That might help then. If this whole starting area is the self contained newbie zone and then the game opens up with at least a bit more exploration (Depends on if they go more BG1 or 2, probably be like 2 where you get specific places to go rather than just randomly exploring yourself) that'd be nice, but since the newbie area's still got a bunch of shit going on it's hard to directly compare it to the other BG games. BG1 for example is my favorite since I like adding all the nodes to the map and crawling over everything, but vast swaths of that are absolutely nothing and you might get some random spawns. BG3 doesn't have that same sense of exploration and adventure but it's also much more content dense since you get handmade combat encounters with fairly often unusual terrain, multiple methods of attack and solutions, more non-combat options, etc. Definitely do want at least SOME world map shit though even if it's more like BG2 where you hear about something and then get a location on your map.

Speaking of exploration though, another small thing I'll give BG3 credit for is it appears they may be doing the BG1 thing of hidden goodies. Did find a random-ass skeleton hidden in some weeds with cash and a magic item on it. Not as good as finding ankheg plate in a field or a ring of wizardry in a tree but I wouldn't be surprised if there's plenty of shit I'm missing.

 

[Fedora Master]

BG3 owns but it does feel more like DoS3 than BG3 while playing it.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

The arguments are not about baby orcs. I think most people would agree that killing a baby orc is wrong, unless we are talking about complete ancient OSR, where all orcs were always irredeemably evil. The goblins in question are enemy combatants. The only issue is, they are not actively killing anyone right now. Can a paladin walk into the stronghold of goblin cultists and start killing goblins? Most people would say yes, reddit says no.

That’s why no one should treat reddit users like people.

Most active social media users aren't people. Bots are endemic to Reddit more so than other sites.

 

[Swen]

BG3 owns but it does feel more like DoS3 than BG3 while playing it.

So you agree BG3 is good?

 

[Cryomancer]

aces species are basically just visuals at this point, D&D has been WoWified

Races in wow till WotLK matters more than in 3E D&D. Obviously nowadays, you have shit like Dwarf warlocks. 2E is the LAST edition which did races right.

So you agree BG3 is good?

For Larian fans? Yes, for BG1/2 fans? A bit.

Every product has its target audience. Sawyer said in a GDC video that the overlap between PoE and DOS2 is very small but between PoE and PF:KM was big. Because Larian appeals more to Normies. OwlCat and Obsidian to Grognards. Anyway, despite my critique towards Larian, I'm grateful for them for bringing TB back which was dead in mainstream RPG since Infinity Engine. If we can play PFKM, PF:WotR, PoE 2 in TB and Rogue Trader will be TB only, is mostly thanks to Larian.

Also. 99% of the haters here will buy BG3. Nothing is more "Codexesque" than "I have 5000 hours in this game and here is a 500 page essay about why it sucks"

 

[Fedora Master]

Nobody asked you.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

l buy BG3.

Make sure to buy it from certain privateers to ensure you get the best deals.