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

[Maculo]

So, what is everyone rolling for class?

5 Druids with bear transformation, because....I love nature and other reasons that I cannot disclose.

 

[Abu Antar]

Is armor penalty for spellcasting a thing in this game?

 

[Yosharian]

Honestly multiclassing is kind of a noob trap. At least, up to level 12. The vast majority of classes are better off pure. This ain't PF1E/3.5E.

So so, if you know what you are doing you can improve gameplay. Without limitations for example Sorcadin that is something I'm more familiar with. You have access to the full Sorc spell progression so your paladin will be able to have access to some nasty CC spells and problem solvers like desintegrate and chain lightning, while sporting heavy armor and being able to smite the living shit out of everyone on haste (that by the way has no limitations on which moves you can do on haste so it means more spells).

Spell Slots. You determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, and half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes. Use this total to determine your spell slots by consulting the Multiclass Spellcaster table.

half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes

I don't think you get full Sorc spell progression. Unless that's one of the things that Larian changed. In which case, holy shit fucking OP.

 

[Yosharian]

Is armor penalty for spellcasting a thing in this game?

No. If you obtain proficiency, you're good.

 

[Takamori]

Honestly multiclassing is kind of a noob trap. At least, up to level 12. The vast majority of classes are better off pure. This ain't PF1E/3.5E.

So so, if you know what you are doing you can improve gameplay. Without limitations for example Sorcadin that is something I'm more familiar with. You have access to the full Sorc spell progression so your paladin will be able to have access to some nasty CC spells and problem solvers like desintegrate and chain lightning, while sporting heavy armor and being able to smite the living shit out of everyone on haste (that by the way has no limitations on which moves you can do on haste so it means more spells).

Spell Slots. You determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, and half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes. Use this total to determine your spell slots by consulting the Multiclass Spellcaster table.

half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes

I don't think you get full Sorc spell progression. Unless that's one of the things that Larian changed. In which case, holy shit fucking OP.

From what I understood is that we are getting full spell prog no questions asked. The status limitation removal is whatever WoTC just set that to make sure people scale the right stats for multiclass, Larian is just making sure people fall for the good ol Ivory Tower.

Also FFS the Larian forums are pure shit to use, feels like I'm in a dial up connection. Fuckers cant even do forums right in fucking anno 2023

 

[Maculo]

Oh yeah Hexblade was fucking ridiculous. Not just for Paladins either, it's a monstrous dip for Bards too.

I don't have the knowledge to confidently state what constitutes a good multiclass, but I recall people memeing on Hexblade/Oathbreaker Paladin. I am not sure if Warlock 3/Oathbreaker 9 would be noticeably worse.

 

[Yosharian]

From what I understood is that we are getting full spell prog no questions asked.

Dude... no! Think about it, you could go Paladin 11/Sorc 1 and have full Sorc spell slots & spells known. There is no way it will work like that.

 

[Reinhardt]

so many dress wearers. codex is literally resetera.

 

[Yosharian]

Oh yeah Hexblade was fucking ridiculous. Not just for Paladins either, it's a monstrous dip for Bards too.

I don't have the knowledge to confidently state what constitutes a good multiclass, but I recall people memeing on Hexblade/Oathbreaker Paladin. I am not sure if Warlock 3/Oathbreaker 9 would be noticeably worse.

If you look at what you gain from Paladin 10/11/12, it's quite a significant loss. IDS is +4.5 Radiant damage per hit. Aura of Courage is very nice. Extra ASI/feat at 12. TWO extra 3rd-level spell slots at 11 (those hit fucking hard with Smites)

A lot of it is going to depend on the itemization within the game, if the game is extremely stingy with STR items (or there is just huge competition for the slot) then it might be the case that putting everything into CHA and rushing Pact of the Blade would be very good. But it's not a foregone conclusion, unlike a 1-level Hexblade dip which is just straight no-brainer.

There's also feature delay to consider, so not only are you losing out on features at the high end but you are also delaying your Paladin features such as Extra Attack. Getting Extra Attack 3 levels later is not really compensated for by having your character be a little (or even quite a lot) less MAD.

Multiclassing in 5E is really not the power play it used to be in previous editions. Hexblade and other aberrant subclasses (or Classes period, in the case of the hugely overpowered Cleric dip) aside.

 

[Takamori]

I just crossed an italian preview/interview with the game designer where this absolute fool brags about their bold idea of removing any stat requirement for multiclassing.
If this was bad in itself, what followed was the dimwit bragging about how they "reworked the assignment of spells and spell slots" to not make these poor multiclassing underdogs lag behind the privileged single-class players that were unlocking high level spells faster.

I'm starting to thin these people couldn't design a competent subsystem (or even just a decent homebrew rule) even if their entire lives depended on it.

From what I understood is that we are getting full spell prog no questions asked.

Dude... no! Think about it, you could go Paladin 11/Sorc 1 and have full Sorc spell slots & spells known. There is no way it will work like that.

I misinterpreted, but it seems they are messing with spell prog with multiclass, just removed limitation from stats.
But with full respec available at all times with no regard for player choice and staying power just respec everyone to anything that could be broken for X encounter.

 

[MerchantKing]

I like their games to an extent, but the forces whimsical poo poo really goes on my nerves

I hate the explosive barrels too.

 

[Yosharian]

I just crossed an italian preview/interview with the game designer where this absolute fool brags about their bold idea of removing any stat requirement for multiclassing.
If this was bad in itself, what followed was the dimwit bragging about how they "reworked the assignment of spells and spell slots" to not make these poor multiclassing underdogs lag behind the privileged single-class players that were unlocking high level spells faster.

I'm starting to thin these people couldn't design a competent subsystem (or even just a decent homebrew rule) even if their entire lives depended on it.

From what I understood is that we are getting full spell prog no questions asked.

Dude... no! Think about it, you could go Paladin 11/Sorc 1 and have full Sorc spell slots & spells known. There is no way it will work like that.

I misinterpreted, but it seems they are messing with spell prog with multiclass, just removed limitation from stats.
But with full respec available at all times with no regard for player choice and staying power just respec everyone to anything that could be broken for X encounter.

I think you interpreted the interview correctly, I think the issue is that the designer misspoke. There's just no way that they can have every spellcaster class stack with each other for spells known and slots, it's just not feasible.

What they might have done is made it so that pure spellcaster classes (bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard) stack in the sense of spells known, but even then it's kind of up for debate how they would do it because it's going to be really messy. Like, which class would the spells known even get drawn from? The class you're taking, or your parent class? Both? It's just weird.

 

[Steezus]

There's a non-commercial, community BG3 wiki that people have been putting together in hopes to have an alternative from Fextra
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

But it's struggling hard to get discovery on Google - for some reason it just won't get indexed.

Because thieving ass fextralife is SEO optimized and actual good wikis aint.

 

[Yosharian]

Also Paladin is known to drop off quite hard AFTER level 12 so it's not fortunate that the game ends there for people who want to do multiclass shenanigans with that class

 

[Yosharian]

As another example, many Paladin multiclass guides will say things like "level 5 is a great time to multiclass", then you look at the Paladin level progression and see that you're giving up +3 (minimum, providing you didn't build your character like an idiot) to your saves and anyone else within 10ft. of you, which you obtain at level 6.

Aura of Protection
Starting at 6th level, whenever you or a friendly creature within 10 feet of you must make a saving throw, the creature gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum bonus of +1). You must be conscious to grant this bonus.

But like, you can totally put all your points into CHA now instead of STR and gain 1-2 points of AB/DMG. That's definitely better than not getting paralyzed and insta-gibbed by a Hold Person spell, or failing a Fireball save and getting fried, or ... you get the idea.

If I was going to dip anything as a Paladin, I would be MUCH more tempted by Fighter 2 to pick up Action Surge, than anything Warlock-related.

But I still probably wouldn't do it because I would much rather have those juicy Pal 11/12 features.

 

[Takamori]

I like their games to an extent, but the forces whimsical poo poo really goes on my nerves

I hate the explosive barrels too.

Like the concept is fun used on occasion, problem with Larian is what if every fucking encounter we added explosive barrels. If they were just an opportunity and prize for player awareness for X encounter I wouldn't give shit to them on this regard.

 

[Pizzashoes]

So, what is everyone rolling for class?

I wish Mindflayers were a playable race, they'd be a natural fit for me, but since they're not an option I'll play a male Drow Sorc and will surround myself with a waifu harem consisting of Shadowheart, Karlach und Lae'zel.

I will not fuck the bear but I might have a word with the squirrel. It seems to be quite adept at handling nuts.

Waifu harem is degeneracy I can get behind. Will this game support that without mods?

I'll be going high elf fighter or fighter/thief with Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Minthara.

Early Access

I played early access and when my character didn't let Minthara or Lae'zel dominate him, they both went nuts and one forced a fight in the camp. I'm legitimately worried Larian's writers are vehemently opposed to maledom or even traditional dynamics. But if that's just token resistance, and you can slowly force them into submission...

Has anyone heard anything about how the Player Character from BG1/BG2 is handled in-game? In the Panel from Hell, I don't recall any of the devs saying anything about "being faithful to the legacy of Baldur's Gate." KOTOR2's route of you choosing what Revan was like, that is, male/female, light/dark, whatever, would be cool. I really enjoy the story arc of zero --> god. PC and Amelyssan killing each other in the Throne of Bhaal, leaving Bhaal free to slowly resurrect himself wouldn't be ideal but that would be a good middle ground.

I did read a bit about that Abdel Adrian's storyline. The PC dying at the end of his life, losing a fight (for the first time after reaping thousands of souls from kobolds to dragons to godchildren) to Viekang, who was a joke character, or to Slayer would be lame. How could the guy lose his soul to the taint of a dead god, after willingly giving up the taint. That doesn't make any sense thematically. Come on. And Bhaal doesn't even return as a god. Jesus.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/split-screen-is-a-must-for-baldurs-gate-3-on-xbox-series-s-says-larian

Split-screen is "a must" for Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox Series S, says Larian​

"We don't want to release it without it."

There's currently a question mark hanging over the Xbox versions of Baldur's Gate 3. They are happening but they're held up by Xbox Series S, which is struggling to run split-screen co-op at an acceptable performance standard.

An added complication is that Microsoft wants feature parity across the Series X and S versions of the games - so much so there's a suggestion Larian would not be able to release one Xbox version of Baldur's Gate 3 with split-screen co-op, and the other without it.

The last we heard from Larian was that it was working on it, and that it was weighing up some "compromises" - the suggestion being that split-screen co-op on Xbox Series S could, potentially, be removed. So when I spoke to Larian boss Swen Vincke about this last week, I asked whether a decision had yet been made.

"It's challenging," Vincke said after a brief pause.

"The team has been working hard on making it work, but they're still working on it. And the problem with optimisations is you finish one thing and then a new one pops up. So here, we're dealing with a situation where we just go through the motions.

"The team will manage because they managed to make [Divinity: Original Sin 2] run on the Switch - but it took time."

Does that mean, then, that Vincke is confident it will happen?

"I'm confident in the team," he answered. "If it's possible, they'll make it happen. But it's a very big game."

He added: "Somebody told me [something] the other day and I thought it was a really good way of saying it. They were talking about Call of Duty and they said every single time there's a player that comes in, you get a little zone around the player, and the more zones you have, the slower it becomes.

"We have the same thing in a game like BG3, where it's all fine and well if you have one character walking around the city, but if the party splits up and there's four characters going in four different directions in the city, and they start doing the crazy shit that I'm doing - fireballs, [etc.] - it's a lot of simulation that has to happen on one screen. And so that's taxing. That requires memory."

And so to the elephant in the room: if Larian cannot get split-screen co-op running to standard on Xbox Series S, can it, if it wants to - bearing in mind Microsoft's desire for feature parity - remove it?

"Well if you talk about feature parities, split-screen is a must for us," he said, "and we don't want to release it without split-screen, so we wouldn't want to do that."

I played the PlaySation 5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 last week, though I didn't get the opportunity to try split-screen co-op. And broadly, it works well, though there are still some things that need improving, and, thankfully, there's still some time to do that - the PS5 version comes out 6th September, a month after the PC version on 3rd August.

The PS5 version - as with the console versions of Divinity: Original Sin - uses radial menus in place of hotbars, and for menu navigation, which is a bit fiddly but works. The radial menus are also customisable so you can shove all your most-used abilities on one and it becomes much simpler to use.

Movement on PS5, meanwhile, is directly controlled by the thumbstick, as you'd expect. You don't point and click to move as on PC. I prefer this way of moving because it feels more natural to me, and I don't misclick on things, but the issue on PS5 at the moment is that locking the camera to the player exacerbates the game's frame-rate, and on PS5, currently, it's not great. It's in the 40s whereas the target is 60 - so Larian is aware of this and working on it. The result is a slight juddering and feeling of sluggishness.

There's also a slight dip in texture quality - the PS5 doesn't quite reach the level that PC does, which is a shame, particularly when in conversations and faces are seen up close. But perhaps split-screen co-op - and having the game effectively render two versions of the game - is a consideration here too.

On the plus side, the controller UI does a good job of tidying up a busy layout while keeping the important things clear, like how many actions and bonus actions you have left, and how much movement. And if you want to use this UI on PC, you can - just plug in a controller and it should auto-swap.

Overall, then, it's good but there are some improvements I'd like to see made, and that I believe are being made.

Roll on 3rd August.

 

[Takamori]

Glad to see Larian focused in stuff that matters for the game

 

[ArchAngel]

It matters for anyone playing it on console.

 

[Gradenmayer]

Glad to see Larian focused in stuff that matters for the game

I think they are making fun of recent Halo

 

[Nerevar]

What can we even do with 5e multiclassing? Is anything strong?

There isn't any 1 level of scaled fist or vivisectionist in 5e is there?

 

[Gradenmayer]

What can we even do with 5e multiclassing? Is anything strong?

There isn't any 1 level of scaled fist or vivisectionist in 5e is there?

It’s dogshit in 5e, so Larian chose to buff it in some way. Same as monk.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

It matters for anyone playing it on console.

Well, sucks to be them.

 

[Terenty]

I don't know much about the general plot of the game, but wasn't the main idea revolving around getting rid of the tadpol? And now you can have a whole collection of them in your head?