Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

As a matter of fact, this is a fantastic game and way more in the spirit of Forgotten Realms than the old, good Christian BioWare titles.
The game's content is more loyal, in fact, to the Greenwood vision of the original setting, which is absolutely incline.

The Forgotten Realms is the worst of all the D&D/AD&D campaign settings, being the most generic D&D/AD&D setting possible, aside from the presence of Ed Greenwood's fetishes, which were largely (though not entirely) concealed in the AD&D 1st/2nd edition version of the setting. It was employed by TSR as a replacement for the Greyhawk setting as the standard, default AD&D campaign setting following the ouster of Gary Gygax in October 1985.

Quick question, how necessary is a thief for exploration?

Shadowheart can substitute for a thief.

Level 5 is a game changer for my monk. He now has three attacks.

All character classes seem to experience a massive increase in combat power at level 3, which must be an intentional design decision made by "D&D 5th edition". From the beginning of D&D, a 5th level magic-user experienced a substantial increase in power from fireball and other 3rd-level spells but could only cast one a day, and this power increase was not replicated in the other classes. In BG3, however, Gale upon reaching 5th level gained two 3rd-level spell slots, and his arcane recovery ability could be used to restore one of those, for three 3rd-level spells per long rest. Moreover, the haste spell is made all the more valuable since paladins, barbarians, fighters, etc. all obtain an extra attack per round upon reaching 5th level, making a hasted 5th-level warrior-type into a killing machine. Even clerics obtain the 3rd-level Guardian Spirit spell, which creates a ring of damage around the cleric that hits enemies each round.

Oh i agree i was always a planescape gal myself. Tho we must give credit where is appropriate.

 

[darkpatriot]

Even if you go by the figure of 7.1% of people being gay or bi (which is almost certainly high), the chances of all 4 romanceable characters of the same gender as the PC being gay or bi are about .0025%.

And that is if we are assuming that in whatever universe your playthrough takes place in the characters of the opposite gender are either straight or bi.

If we go off of all 8 romanceable characters actually being bisexual it is drastically more unlikely by many orders of magnitude.

No real point to this post. I just felt like doing the math and wanted to present it as food for thought.

 

[Lemming42]

If Larian don't do Ravenloft or Dark Sun for their next game I'm (figuratively) firebombing their (metaphorical) offices.

 

[Lemming42]

Even if you go by the figures of 7.1% of people being gay or bi (which are high), the chances of all 4 romanceable characters of the same gender as the PC being gay or bi are about .0025%.

Presumably the idea behind it was that the player can choose whoever they want to be involved with and sort of ignore the rest - in other words, if you're a man and choose Gale, then the implication would be that Gale is gay/bi and that the rest aren't, and so on.

But then they have everyone get jealous of everyone else, and the NPCs are typically the instigators rather than the player, so it backfires and makes your entire party look like mirror images of the desperate sweat-soaked orgiastic chronic-masturbator Belgians who wrote them. And, like you say, it does just start to look very improbable in way that makes it all feel surreal and the characters feel cheap, to an extent that can't be handwaved away with "well, it's fantasy, it's a silly wish fulfilment fantasy".

What's interesting is that a lot of people, from all different demographics and from all different corners of the internet, aren't enjoying this angle of the game. Notably, even many people who generally really like this kind of thing are disappointed. My friend who's a big Dragon Age fan (she's even written fanfic of it which was genuinely well written and therefore a tragic waste of literary talent) is ragging on the game for this, on the grounds that none of the companions feel like they have any kind of distinct personalities in terms of their romantic preferences, and their attraction to you feels totally baseless and impersonal given that they'd be attracted to anyone in your place.

Larian shot themselves in the foot a bit with that because I bet if, say, Astarion had been exclusively gay and Karlach had been exclusively lesbian, both characters would have been adored by those respective communities. Gale could be a creepy bisexual loser to cater to that crowd too, if needed.

 

[GhostCow]

I did not do ANYTHING with gale.
For bear druid i made the fatal mistake of offering a drink at the grove after party, nothing about the dialogue suggested i was hitting on him.

I had a similar experience. At the party, I told him he should go mingle. Didn't pick any other dialogue options and ended it right after. In the next dialogue with him I had an option that said something like "hey, let's forget about what happened last night". When I picked it he was like "no" and I had to tell him to forget about it again. It makes no sense. I just went ahead and picked the forget about it dialogue despite not doing anything gay just to cut off any chance of future faggotry.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

You heard of bear sex, but what about DISPLACER BEAST SEX?!

Technically possible, since shapeshifting into a displacer beast is one of the unlockable Illithid powers.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

I find it a bit strange that I have no need for a wizard in my party.

Just my impression or full arcane casters are less essential here?

I've thought the same. Party composition so far seems to be more of a matter of picking what utility you want and letting scrolls and potions fill in the gaps. Haven't encountered a moment where I felt I needed a wizard or sorcerer.

Wow, just like in Original Sin.

Dark Urge is neat and fun

Narrator: *You stare...* - showing your head and eyes moving around.

Bethesda level of "tons of bugs, but they funny" retardation.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

So all it took for CRPG to be popular is Triple A production values. In the end, all that matter is looking pretty to general public.

Looking pretty and have bioware tier shitty character/romance writing.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Can someone photoshop a bear behind me?

Are you playing as Conan? The fuck

 

[darkpatriot]

Even if you go by the figures of 7.1% of people being gay or bi (which are high), the chances of all 4 romanceable characters of the same gender as the PC being gay or bi are about .0025%.

Presumably the idea behind it was that the player can choose whoever they want to be involved with and sort of ignore the rest - in other words, if you're a man and choose Gale, then the implication would be that Gale is gay/bi and that the rest aren't, and so on.

But then they have everyone get jealous of everyone else, and the NPCs are typically the instigators rather than the player, so it backfires and makes your entire party look like mirror images of the desperate sweat-soaked orgiastic chronic-masturbator Belgians who wrote them. And, like you say, it does just start to look very improbable in way that makes it all feel surreal and the characters feel cheap, to an extent that can't be handwaved away with "well, it's fantasy, it's a silly wish fulfilment fantasy".

What's interesting is that a lot of people, from all different demographics and from all different corners of the internet, aren't enjoying this angle of the game. Notably, even many people who generally really like this kind of thing are disappointed. My friend who's a big Dragon Age fan (she's even written fanfic of it which was genuinely well written and therefore a tragic waste of literary talent) is ragging on the game for this, on the grounds that none of the companions feel like they have any kind of distinct personalities in terms of their romantic preferences, and their attraction to you feels totally baseless and impersonal given that they'd be attracted to anyone in your place.

Larian shot themselves in the foot a bit with that because I bet if, say, Astarion had been exclusively gay and Karlach had been exclusively lesbian, both characters would have been adored by those respective communities. Gale could be a creepy bisexual loser to cater to that crowd too, if needed.

2 straight, 1 gay, and 1 bi for each gender would give a pretty good spread for people to select from no matter what their perversion, let companions be more distinct, and be less jarringly outside the realm of probability.

I suspect this design choice had to do with the whole body type and pronoun thing as well. Are the companions supposed to go off of pronoun or body type when wanting to have sex with the PC? Easier to get ahead of anyone complaining that some companion (and by extension Larian studios) didn't respect either their pronouns or their genitals by just making most of the companions romanceable and omnisexual.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Level 1-2 spells are amazing in DnD. Sleep, grease, charm, web, fear, all of those things can really wreck the shit out on an entire encounter if done right (and a bit of luck on the saving throws). I don't know if they are as strong in BG3 as they were in past games but it's a misconception that low level mages are "weak". The problem with low level mages is that they usually don't have many spell slots, not that the spells aren't super useful from the get go. Get to level 3 which is not that far off from what you are talking about and you get absolute nuke monsters like fireball.

As in Solasta, the old level 1 magic spell staples of sleep and charm person have been heavily nerfed per the rules of "D&D 5th edition"; though of course no computer game can replicate the usefulness of charm person anyway. Sleep has a harsh hit point limit, relative to the bloated hit points of enemies, which become even higher if playing on the hardest difficulty. Web seems to have been nerfed as well.

Someone should dig up Gary and ask him if he always wanted BDSM in his tabletop sessions

I already did and presented the Code of Ethics from 1984 when Gary was still there. There are prior versions of the Code of Ethics floating around and maybe Zed Duke of Banville has a copy of them. He should also weigh in on the entire sex was always a part of D&D.

That Code of Ethics from 1982 seems to be the oldest extant version, though it probably wasn't the first. There are later, more extensive versions of the Code of Ethics that can be found here.

As has been pointed out, it was only in 1987, following the 1985 ouster of Gary Gygax, that TSR focused on campaign setting material, which included the new Forgotten Realms campaign setting based on Ed Greenwood's personal campaign. Gygax thus had no connection whatsoever to The Forgotten Realms. Publication of new Greyhawk material had been temporarily suspended, and TSR promoted the new Forgotten Realm settings quite heavily, with an initial box set followed by not only many adventure modules but also much supplementary campaign setting material, beginning with FR1 Waterdeep and the North. TSR even brought the Oriental Adventures Kara-Tur setting into the Forgotten Realms, at the opposite end of the continent, issued a box set called The Horde to fill the space in-between, etc.

TSR was sometimes lax in its enforcement of its Code of Ethics. Notably, FR11 Dwarves Deep, written by Ed Greenwood himself, included a passing reference to the dwarves raiding human settlements for women, or purchasing them from slavers, as part of a plan to counter low dwarven birthrates; presumably, the details in Greenwood's own campaign were far more lurid. The novels set in the Forgotten Realms probably include many more examples, but I've mercifully read only a few of them. It's well known that Greenwood utilized his original FR setting as a means for exploring his fetishes.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I did not do ANYTHING with gale.
For bear druid i made the fatal mistake of offering a drink at the grove after party, nothing about the dialogue suggested i was hitting on him.

I had a similar experience. At the party, I told him he should go mingle. Didn't pick any other dialogue options and ended it right after. In the next dialogue with him I had an option that said something like "hey, let's forget about what happened last night". When I picked it he was like "no" and I had to tell him to forget about it again. It makes no sense. I just went ahead and picked the forget about it dialogue despite not doing anything gay just to cut off any chance of future faggotry.

This reminds me of a bug I saw regarding Haslin (not that I'm suggesting your experience was a bug).

So, there's a way to kill the grove without lifting a finger - well, not your own finger, anyway. It also allows you to get Haslin while on the evil route.

Use a Mage Hand to fly down to the idol and then push it off its stand. The druids will go insane and start the tiefling holocaust. They'll also be hostile to the player, but that won't matter, since you're not near them.

Then, sneak down and steal the idol and leave the area and let the druids their purge.

After this, you can go free Haslin and tell Minthara that the grove is ripe for invasion. She'll give you the usual speech, telling you to open the gate for her.

But when you get there, the battle will already be over. All the tieflings will be dead.

And the bug? Haslin will show up at your camp the night before, thanking you for all you've done for the grove. Then, after the battle, he will stand there while the goblins are celebrating over the corpses of the tieflings and pretend nothing happened.

And technically, nothing will have happened. You didn't kill anyone. The druids did that.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

 

[JamesDixon]

That Code of Ethics from 1982 seems to be the oldest extant version, though it probably wasn't the first. There are later, more extensive versions of the Code of Ethics that can be found here.

As has been pointed out, it was only in 1987, following the 1985 ouster of Gary Gygax, that TSR focused on campaign setting material, which included the new Forgotten Realms campaign setting based on Ed Greenwood's personal campaign. Gygax thus had no connection whatsoever to The Forgotten Realms. Publication of new Greyhawk material had been temporarily suspended, and TSR promoted the new Forgotten Realm settings quite heavily, with an initial box set followed by not only many adventure modules but also much supplementary campaign setting material, beginning with FR1 Waterdeep and the North. TSR even brought the Oriental Adventures Kara-Tur setting into the Forgotten Realms, at the opposite end of the continent, issued a box set called The Horde to fill the space in-between, etc.

TSR was sometimes lax in its enforcement of its Code of Ethics. Notably, FR11 Dwarves Deep, written by Ed Greenwood himself, included a passing reference to the dwarves raiding human settlements for women, or purchasing them from slavers, as part of a plan to counter low dwarven birthrates; presumably, the details in Greenwood's own campaign were far more lurid. The novels set in the Forgotten Realms probably include many more examples, but I've mercifully read only a few of them. It's well known that Greenwood utilized his original FR setting as a means for exploring his fetishes.

I was wrong on one point, but I was right on the rest. There was no sexual degeneracy that Mebs claimed in D&D going all the way back to 1975. That was her claim that I was arguing against. What I said about FR is true in that the sexual degeneracy didn't come about until Wizards took over TSR and got rid of the code of ethics.

Thanks bud, you are always a font of knowledge for things I got wrong and learn from.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Can someone photoshop a bear behind me?

Are you playing as Conan? The fuck

That or Lord Farquaad on steroids.

 

[Desiderius]

I think seeing 1000 pages of:

- "GAME HAS TOO MUCH FAGGOT NIGGER TRANNY"
- "NO, ACTUALLY YOU CAN KILL FAGGOT NIGGER TRANNY SO ITS GOOD"
- "BUT GAME STILL HAS TOO MUCH FAGGOT NIGGER TRANNY"
- "BUT OTHER GAME HAD MORE FAGGOT NIGGER TRANNY AND YOU LIKED IT"

in a loop, would be a bigger problem.

Pretty sure that guy *is* Jewish so whatever. Regressing hard to the mean.

Can we also take a moment to praise all this inclusivity Codexbros? This is the soul and heart of RPGs, like, OF COURSE

Why do they say "queer" so much when they mean "same-sex couples" or "gender nonconformity", both of which are far less offensive and far more descriptive terms. The word "queer" is like nails down a damn chalkboard, and I'm saying that as someone who likes the occasional cock. Auueuggh it's horrible. Seems to mainly be relegated to America, at least, people here still know that they'll get their teeth knocked out if they call you a "queer" to your face.

Anyway all the ostensible representation of gender nonconformity is sabotaged by the preset faces. You can't make a proper twink man or a proper butch woman, at best you can make a fugly crossdresser who looks like Robert Smith's roided-up body double or a "butch" who looks more like Sinead O'Connor drawn from memory by someone with advanced dementia, who also can't draw for shit. No offence to the actors who provided the preset faces, but they're the worst-looking people who have ever existed on planet Earth, the men far moreso than the women (sorry, I mean the Body Type As far moreso than the Body Type Bs).

If you try to make a twink man of your own, you'll look like a wrestler in drag, especially next to Astarion. The only solution would be to give Astarion a stake through the heart ASAP and then wear a full-face helmet for the rest of the game. Could represent a great roleplaying challenge, especially if you get arrested and your equipment is confiscated, so your mannish-ass face is on full display. Gives more of an incentive than ever to get your gear back before anyone sees.

Because the whole point is to queer traditional morality.

You're the mark, which tbf you admit in your own name so there's that.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Level 1-2 spells are amazing in DnD. Sleep, grease, charm, web, fear, all of those things can really wreck the shit out on an entire encounter if done right (and a bit of luck on the saving throws). I don't know if they are as strong in BG3 as they were in past games but it's a misconception that low level mages are "weak". The problem with low level mages is that they usually don't have many spell slots, not that the spells aren't super useful from the get go. Get to level 3 which is not that far off from what you are talking about and you get absolute nuke monsters like fireball.

As in Solasta, the old level 1 magic spell staples of sleep and charm person have been heavily nerfed per the rules of "D&D 5th edition"; though of course no computer game can replicate the usefulness of charm person anyway. Sleep has a harsh hit point limit, relative to the bloated hit points of enemies, which become even higher if playing on the hardest difficulty. Web seems to have been nerfed as well.

Someone should dig up Gary and ask him if he always wanted BDSM in his tabletop sessions

I already did and presented the Code of Ethics from 1984 when Gary was still there. There are prior versions of the Code of Ethics floating around and maybe Zed Duke of Banville has a copy of them. He should also weigh in on the entire sex was always a part of D&D.

That Code of Ethics from 1982 seems to be the oldest extant version, though it probably wasn't the first. There are later, more extensive versions of the Code of Ethics that can be found here.

As has been pointed out, it was only in 1987, following the 1985 ouster of Gary Gygax, that TSR focused on campaign setting material, which included the new Forgotten Realms campaign setting based on Ed Greenwood's personal campaign. Gygax thus had no connection whatsoever to The Forgotten Realms. Publication of new Greyhawk material had been temporarily suspended, and TSR promoted the new Forgotten Realm settings quite heavily, with an initial box set followed by not only many adventure modules but also much supplementary campaign setting material, beginning with FR1 Waterdeep and the North. TSR even brought the Oriental Adventures Kara-Tur setting into the Forgotten Realms, at the opposite end of the continent, issued a box set called The Horde to fill the space in-between, etc.

TSR was sometimes lax in its enforcement of its Code of Ethics. Notably, FR11 Dwarves Deep, written by Ed Greenwood himself, included a passing reference to the dwarves raiding human settlements for women, or purchasing them from slavers, as part of a plan to counter low dwarven birthrates; presumably, the details in Greenwood's own campaign were far more lurid. The novels set in the Forgotten Realms probably include many more examples, but I've mercifully read only a few of them. It's well known that Greenwood utilized his original FR setting as a means for exploring his fetishes.

Thank you for showing facts. However he will reject them.

 

[JamesDixon]

Thank you for showing facts. However he will reject them.

Notice how Mebs ignores the fact that Zed actually backed me up with the no sexual degeneracy thing. Too bad she rejects them like the good retard she is.

It's also hilarious that deludes herself into thinking that Zed said that there was sexual degeneracy back then when he never said anything of the sort.

 

[perfectslumbers]

I think the problem is less the characters being bi and more that you can't have any sort of platonic relationship with them. Either you're having sex or you're just cold business partners. This isn't a problem in any other romance RPG but it's a huge problem here, and makes the companions feel really bland.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

As in Solasta, the old level 1 magic spell staples of sleep and charm person have been heavily nerfed per the rules of "D&D 5th edition"; though of course no computer game can replicate the usefulness of charm person anyway. Sleep has a harsh hit point limit, relative to the bloated HP of enemies, which become even higher if playing on the hardest difficulty. Web seems to have been nerfed as well.

5E's concentration nerf is annoying in a videogame.

Concentration makes it so that you can only use a few buffs at a time, which is understandable. But then if you cast a spell like Hold Person, suddenly you lose whatever buff you had.

For a Wizard or Sorcerer, I usually find that all concentration spells are useless compared to Haste. But I lose Haste if I cast any of them. So all my spells have to be one-shot spells like Fireball.

But I still have some concentration spells, and every time I forget and use one, it cancels Haste.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Thank you for showing facts. However he will reject them.

Didn't you delete your account?

 

[The_Mask]

So anyway, I'm around lava, right? Rivers of it. I jump around to navigate. My girls roll: we find a chest.

Since I'm the man in this relationship, I get to digging. We find a chest.

Now I'm supposed to believe that wooden chests can survive being 5m away from rivers of lava. Forget the... erm... *unbearable*... that's one amazing chest ahead!

 

[The_Mask]

Didn't you delete your account?

A slut isn't special around other sluts.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Thank you for showing facts. However he will reject them.

Didn't you delete your account?

Yes but i recreated another would not want to disappoint the serial obsessive rate spammers at least they have something to do. :D
Anyways i am glad this game is an huge success i hope other devs will follow this example in future even tho i doubt it.

 

[Lemming42]

I think the problem is less the characters being bi and more that you can't have any sort of platonic relationship with them. Either you're having sex or you're just cold business partners. This isn't a problem in any other romance RPG but it's a huge problem here, and makes the companions feel really bland.

Yeah, my character's friendship with both Lae'zel and Karlach seems to be dead in the water even though they're both regulars in my party. Get back from an adventure and Karlach has nothing to say other than the same comment about her engine she's been saying since day one, and Lae'zel basically tells me to get lost. Basically does feel like having glorified hirelings.

I seem to remember this being a thing in Mass Effect as well, in that if you didn't pick the flirt option with someone, the conversation would suddenly dry up and they'd never have anything much to say to you after that, especially Liara in ME1. But at least it came a little later in the game, and there was some more platonic build-up between the player and the crew, rather than the sudden multi-person ambush of BG3.