Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[janior]

I did not expect that picking a drow as my character will be so much fun

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

IMO this is entirely wasted because most people want to play custom character... instead of Karlach or Wyll.

Except I've seen a number of streamers already replaying the game as origin characters.

I wouldn't mind an Astarion playthrough either, since it had some interesting stuff from the little I played.

That said, I do think Dark Urge seems like the most interesting option, and I am probably going to do a replay of the game just for him.

 

[Fedora Master]

a number of streamers

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The connection to the original games is boilerplate

Fake news. There are multiple returning characters - Jaehira, Minsc, Viconia, Sarevok, and probably more. There are also Bhaalspawn.

Boilerplate would just be meeting Minsc in a bar somewhere, having him talk about his hamster and send you off on a quest.

 

[overtenemy]

There's a post some pages ago about Jaheira being 13 AC. Hasn't anyone commented regarding the inanity of adding old NPCs to this game? Throne of Bhaal has to be canon, else Sarevok couldn't be here, and if it is Minsc and Jaihera could skullfuck every encounter in the game at the same time. I'm not familiar at all with 5E but with the old rules Jaheira would likely not even lose a single hitpoint while doing so. And if Sarevok is a bad dude in this, well...

I suppose there are those who demanded the presence of old characters to form some sort of tenuous connection to the IP but the truth is their inclusion feels insulting when you consider prior events.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-elden-ring-church-vows-antagonisms-revert-npc/#:~:text=Baldur's%20Gate%203%20offers%20immersive,story%2C%20creating%20a%20unique%20experience.

• Adding a feature like the Church of Vows from Elden Ring would make the game more accessible by allowing players to restore relationships with NPCs or factions they may have angered.

Don't trust this author. And don't let him near your children:

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I am still in the first act, but what is the point of camp supplies? I am playing on tactician, but I loot so many camp supplies they are actually starting to become a bit of an encumbrance issue. They are certainly not limiting my resting in a meaningful way.

I try my best to not burn through combat resources unnecessarily, but I am still taking a short rest after most fights. So far I have only had to have like 3 or 4 full rests, but in that time I have still amassed more than 1,000 camp supplies.

Do they become harder to acquire later in the game? If not, I am really not sure why they were included. They just give me busy work without actually placing any real limitations on how often I rest.


Maybe it is also due to my party composition with only one character that really needs long rests for important abilities (a cleric) while the rest of my party (Fighter/Warlock, Fighter, Barbarian) restore many abilities with a short rests.

Send them to camp (you can do that directly from inventory) if they get to heavy. At 80 a pop you can run through them fast if you're fighting a lot and blowing through your spells. If you're playing normally it will feel like somewhat too much but if you're murderhoboing you'll need all you can get. I tend to use skills to avoid combat so then it's way too much, at least in Act1.

I'm in act 3 with all companions and my long rest cost is 40 supplies..?
What increases it past 40?

Not playing on storymode faggot.

Granted, most of the edgelords here don't even play on tactician, just pretending for reputation.

"it's so easy, zoomer shit." *smells own fart* "I steamroll every fight, what's storm sorcerer even doing?" *smells own fart* "I hate niggers and women".

Christ.

Boomer tumblr, as someone once said ...

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

There's a post some pages ago about Jaheira being 13 AC. Hasn't anyone commented regarding the inanity of adding old NPCs to this game? Throne of Bhaal has to be canon

5E, as I understand it, is based on the novelizations, not the games.

and if it is Minsc and Jaihera could skullfuck every encounter in the game at the same time.

As someone else said, Jaheira is a half-elf, and basically in the human equivalent of her 70s.

By your logic, Gorion should have been able to easily mop the floor with Sarevok when he first met him outside Candlekeep, given that he'd taken on a dragon before.

It's been 100 years and two cataclysms per the lore. Justifiable to power down both characters, especially considering meta reasons, like the logistics of having two somehow still level 40 characters from two rulesets ago in a level 13 game.

I suppose there are those who demanded the presence of old characters to form some sort of tenuous connection to the IP but the truth is their inclusion feels insulting when you consider prior events.

There are those. And what a shock that they're still not going to be happy even though they got what they wanted.

 

[MerchantKing]

also

I don't get how they can't beat it. I killed it on the first try on tactical when I was playing this. Just use the gimmick items to win like you're supposed to in a Larian game.

 

[overtenemy]

If Jaheira is now so old how is Minsc even there? I thought he was a human.

Besides, there are rules for older characters losing stats and what not. Even if we suppose Jaheira has become too decrepit to make use of her fighter levels none of them prevent her from casting the sort of high level druid spells that would trivialize the game. I agree with you in that I can see WHY they did it, but what I'm saying is it'd be preferable to not have them at all.

 

[MerchantKing]

If Jaheira is now so old how is Minsc even there? I thought he was a human.

Besides, there are rules for older characters losing stats and what not. Even if we suppose Jaheira has become too decrepit to make use of her fighter levels none of them prevent her from casting the sort of high level druid spells that would trivialize the game. I agree with you in that I can see WHY they did it, but what I'm saying is it'd be preferable to not have them at all.

He got immortality from shoving Boo up his ass so many times.

 

[Alienman]

That, and he was made stone. Which someone later on undid.

 

[Immortal]

I am still in the first act, but what is the point of camp supplies? I am playing on tactician, but I loot so many camp supplies they are actually starting to become a bit of an encumbrance issue. They are certainly not limiting my resting in a meaningful way.

I try my best to not burn through combat resources unnecessarily, but I am still taking a short rest after most fights. So far I have only had to have like 3 or 4 full rests, but in that time I have still amassed more than 1,000 camp supplies.

Do they become harder to acquire later in the game? If not, I am really not sure why they were included. They just give me busy work without actually placing any real limitations on how often I rest.


Maybe it is also due to my party composition with only one character that really needs long rests for important abilities (a cleric) while the rest of my party (Fighter/Warlock, Fighter, Barbarian) restore many abilities with a short rests.

Send them to camp (you can do that directly from inventory) if they get to heavy. At 80 a pop you can run through them fast if you're fighting a lot and blowing through your spells. If you're playing normally it will feel like somewhat too much but if you're murderhoboing you'll need all you can get. I tend to use skills to avoid combat so then it's way too much, at least in Act1.

I'm in act 3 with all companions and my long rest cost is 40 supplies..?
What increases it past 40?

Not playing on storymode faggot.

The only turn off I have of tactician mode is the health bloat, this game has a lot of combat with a lot of enemies. I love turn based but some of those 15 goblin/gnoll/ghost/gith fights are a doozy. Not excited by the idea of them living even longer.
Otherwise it feels like the superior balanced mode.


(This entire game can be triviliazed with Stealth Barrelmancy and Environment abuse anyways - so let's not jerk ourselves off too hard on the difficulty bandwagon.)

 

[Eisenheinrich]

The only turn off I have of tactician mode is the health bloat, this game has a lot of combat with a lot of enemies.

Too bad for you.

I love turn based but some of those 15 goblin/gnoll/ghost/gith fights are a doozy.

Now this is clearly hyperbole. As far as turn based combat goes, this game is smooth sailing. I cleared the goblin camp in the defiled temple and besides there being like 15 enemies against my party, it was a breeze.
Like I understand a lot of the criticism, but the smootheness of the tb combat is proven and not an issue, even on tactician.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I did not expect that picking a drow as my character will be so much fun

With a disguise spell, you can be anyone anytime. Drow in the first area got some reactivity. Gith in the crèche gets some.

I'm not a fan of this. You literally talk to the goddess of gith and she has no idea you're in disguise. And suddenly you can speak like a gith, too, knowing their specifics and shit. It's ridiculous.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

(This entire game can be triviliazed with Stealth Barrelmancy and Environment abuse anyways - so let's not jerk ourselves off too hard on the difficulty bandwagon.)

Agreed. Yet everyone does. I mean ... I carry crates with me to build a watchtower in certain fights from which I hail arrows. Is it cheesed? Yes. But is it fun? Also yes. '
Normies are having a fucking hard time.

 

[Shaki]

Oh and about Bhaalspawn nostalgia... not quite. This is how the original saga protagonist would have made sense itz.

Remember how every single bhaalspawn npc/antagonist was some bloodthirsty and powerhungry monster constantly yapping about ardent desires to become the new god of murder.

Meanwhile original charname/abdel adrian could be played as puresoul paladin goldylocks of the goody innocent heart. There was the occasional cutscene and gravitas about your evil heritage but it didn't translate in most of the game.

In BG 1 & 2, there are only 4 Bhaalspawns, Charname, Imoen, Viekang and Sarevok. Of these 4, only Sarevok fits your description.

In Throne of Bhaal, you meet a shitload of bhaalspawns, and while many are murderous, you also meet multiple neutral or good ones. The fact that majority of Bhaalspawns you meet are murderous antagonists is also easily explained by the fact that this is the type of Bhaalspawn that is simply most likely to survive and get in your way. Majority of good/neutral ones were either hunted by psychos like Sarevok, or they're in hiding trying to live a normal life despite their heritage.

Idk where you get your idea that "every single bhaalspawn npc/antagonist was some bloodthirsty and powerhungry monster", it's simply not true.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I did not expect that picking a drow as my character will be so much fun

With a disguise spell, you can be anyone anytime. Drow in the first area got some reactivity. Gith in the crèche gets some.

I'm not a fan of this. You literally talk to the goddess of gith and she has no idea you're in disguise. And suddenly you can speak like a gith, too, knowing their specifics and shit. It's ridiculous.

EA buyers get an item that let's you spam disguise ad nauseam. I put that shit back in camp because it trivializes many encounters. While I like the idea of NPCs behaving differently towards you (Goblins calling you "You excellence" as an example when you're in Drow disguise), but it shouldn't be handed to you from the start. That's lame

 

[perfectslumbers]

Finally finished the game. I didn't mind the ending, I had a nice conversation with all of my companions and got to see where they're going in life now. But the final combat encounters were worse than The House at The Edge of Time. The main mechanic was summoning the allies you've made throughout the campaign which is absolutely terrible in a game with AI that spends as much time sitting there and thinking as it does in this game. The other main mechanic was cannons shooting at you, unfortunately the texture that indicates where the cannon will shoot was invisible on my graphics settings and I spent a few hours dying to invisible cannon fire. Several terrible plot twists and plot threads are introduced right at the end. It reminded me of watching The Avengers when I was 11 and the entire movie was just nonsense about aliens destroying New York or wherever. Oh nooo the aliens are destroying all the buildings and faceless nameless citizens! Who cares? I didn't even care about that shit as a child. BG1 and BG2 had amazing final encounters because they made it personal, Sarevok and Irenicus fuck with you throughout the game in various ways. In BG3 they just throw boring villain after boring villain at you and pile up countless plot twists and pointless mysteries.

Act 3 was mixed. I think the side content was generally fine. The encounters and puzzles needed polishing but there was a good core to work with there, and while there was performance issues my PC isn't amazing so I could accept it. The main quest content in act 3 was seriously undercooked though. I killed Orin in one round and Gortash basically just sat there picking his nose during the fight. Combined with the plot twists and late introductions, and the messy

Spoiler

Orpheus/Emperor

content that feels suddenly thrown together, as if it were rewritten a week before the game comes out, and act 3 was disappointing overall.

I still hold that the game would've come out much better without the Illithid plot line at all. Mindflayers are an excellent horror enemy, in gameplay where they limit the players agency with stuns and instantkill attacks (which haven't been implemented), through body horror where they infest you and use your body as an incubation chamber, and in the horror of them creating thralls and altering your mind and identity. Larian never really does anything with any of this though. Throughout the game mindflayers are either just trash enemies with a stun attack or there to push the "No race is inherently evil!" thing WOTC loves by throwing rogue criminal-eating mindflayers at you. The mindflayer colony in BG2 was a much better use of mindflayers as villains than anything in BG3.

Something I slowly realised throughout the game is that most of the choices are fake. Many of the dialogue checks I would use inspiration on didn't actually do anything and many of the seemingly important dialogue options all lead to the same conclusion in a really artificial manner. The most obvious example is the Creche which at first appears to have earth-shattering decisions based on how everyone treats it and the dialogue options present, but the shitty plot requires that nothing actually happens. So the end result of the Creche is always the exact same, and the choice made in the astral plane has no effect on the rest of the game. At that point the guardian even says "I have very important information that could shake the foundations of everything we know! I can't tell you yet though because you're not ready ~~~~" So much of the game is forced to bend to a boring nonsense main plot.

The games biggest boon is the level design which is far more systemic and free form than the combat-mazes of Owlcat's games, and the games excellent puzzles and solid (up until act 3) encounter design. The game is absolutely brilliant when you're given a tough situation or an enemy camp to take down and you just have to figure out how to do it. The game is at its worst whenever the main plot is moving forward, or whenever you're going through dialogue. There are some good moments with the companions but for the most part Larian can't write a convincing character to save their life. Just compare the returning characters to how they were in the old games and you'll see an gargantuan gap in dialogue quality.

I think a lot of this could be fixed with a definitive edition but the amount of work required might not be worth it to Larian, I suspect it's likely that they'll just smooth over all the encounters and add some extra dialogue here or there and call it a day. Maybe they really will fix it though, with how much this game sold. BG3 has the potential to be really great and I would like to see Larian fulfill that potential.

 

[Shaki]

I did not expect that picking a drow as my character will be so much fun

With a disguise spell, you can be anyone anytime. Drow in the first area got some reactivity. Gith in the crèche gets some.

I'm not a fan of this. You literally talk to the goddess of gith and she has no idea you're in disguise. And suddenly you can speak like a gith, too, knowing their specifics and shit. It's ridiculous.

EA buyers get an item that let's you spam disguise ad nauseam. I put that shit back in camp because it trivializes many encounters. While I like the idea of NPCs behaving differently towards you (Goblins calling you "You excellence" as an example when you're in Drow disguise), but it shouldn't be handed to you from the start. That's lame

I mean, disguise self is a lvl 1 spell that doesn't cost spell slots, you can infinitely spam it even without the item.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

I did not expect that picking a drow as my character will be so much fun

With a disguise spell, you can be anyone anytime. Drow in the first area got some reactivity. Gith in the crèche gets some.

I'm not a fan of this. You literally talk to the goddess of gith and she has no idea you're in disguise. And suddenly you can speak like a gith, too, knowing their specifics and shit. It's ridiculous.

EA buyers get an item that let's you spam disguise ad nauseam. I put that shit back in camp because it trivializes many encounters. While I like the idea of NPCs behaving differently towards you (Goblins calling you "You excellence" as an example when you're in Drow disguise), but it shouldn't be handed to you from the start. That's lame

I mean, disguise self is a lvl 1 spell that doesn't cost spell slots, you can infinitely spam it even without the item.

It should come with a cost, it's way too powerful.
At the same time I guess most players aren't even aware of this exploit, because they're not thinking in those ways.
They will rush the frontline, spam fireball and use cleric as a field medic. This behavior has been observed for quite a while.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

They can't complain about debug items being left in the game if you say they're bonus items.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

some of those 15 goblin/gnoll/ghost/gith fights are a doozy.

Funny to see people shit on games like Pillars for trash combat encounters, but not Original Sin 3. Same with the bugginess and Kingmaker. Suspicious lack of criticism for the later parts of D:OS 3 from the journos compared to harping on Kingmaker, are they actually monocled TB enjoyers?

Spoiler

ofc not, they and a lot of people are just retarded sheeple, incapable of comparing game mechanics

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Finally finished the game. I didn't mind the ending, I had a nice conversation with all of my companions and got to see where they're going in life now. But the final combat encounters were worse than The House at The Edge of Time. The main mechanic was summoning the allies you've made throughout the campaign which is absolutely terrible in a game with AI that spends as much time sitting there and thinking as it does in this game. The other main mechanic was cannons shooting at you, unfortunately the texture that indicates where the cannon will shoot was invisible on my graphics settings and I spent a few hours dying to invisible cannon fire. Several terrible plot twists and plot threads are introduced right at the end. It reminded me of watching The Avengers when I was 11 and the entire movie was just nonsense about aliens destroying New York or wherever. Oh nooo the aliens are destroying all the buildings and faceless nameless citizens! Who cares? I didn't even care about that shit as a child. BG1 and BG2 had amazing final encounters because they made it personal, Sarevok and Irenicus fuck with you throughout the game in various ways. In BG3 they just throw boring villain after boring villain at you and pile up countless plot twists and pointless mysteries.

Act 3 was mixed. I think the side content was generally fine. The encounters and puzzles needed polishing but there was a good core to work with there, and while there was performance issues my PC isn't amazing so I could accept it. The main quest content in act 3 was seriously undercooked though. I killed Orin in one round and Gortash basically just sat there picking his nose during the fight. Combined with the plot twists and late introductions, and the messy

Spoiler

Orpheus/Emperor

content that feels suddenly thrown together, as if it were rewritten a week before the game comes out, and act 3 was disappointing overall.

I still hold that the game would've come out much better without the Illithid plot line at all. Mindflayers are an excellent horror enemy, in gameplay where they limit the players agency with stuns and instantkill attacks (which haven't been implemented), through body horror where they infest you and use your body as an incubation chamber, and in the horror of them creating thralls and altering your mind and identity. Larian never really does anything with any of this though. Throughout the game mindflayers are either just trash enemies with a stun attack or there to push the "No race is inherently evil!" thing WOTC loves by throwing rogue criminal-eating mindflayers at you. The mindflayer colony in BG2 was a much better use of mindflayers as villains than anything in BG3.

Something I slowly realised throughout the game is that most of the choices are fake. Many of the dialogue checks I would use inspiration on didn't actually do anything and many of the seemingly important dialogue options all lead to the same conclusion in a really artificial manner. The most obvious example is the Creche which at first appears to have earth-shattering decisions based on how everyone treats it and the dialogue options present, but the shitty plot requires that nothing actually happens. So the end result of the Creche is always the exact same, and the choice made in the astral plane has no effect on the rest of the game. At that point the guardian even says "I have very important information that could shake the foundations of everything we know! I can't tell you yet though because you're not ready ~~~~" So much of the game is forced to bend to a boring nonsense main plot.

The games biggest boon is the level design which is far more systemic and free form than the combat-mazes of Owlcat's games, and the games excellent puzzles and solid (up until act 3) encounter design. The game is absolutely brilliant when you're given a tough situation or an enemy camp to take down and you just have to figure out how to do it. The game is at its worst whenever the main plot is moving forward, or whenever you're going through dialogue. There are some good moments with the companions but for the most part Larian can't write a convincing character to save their life. Just compare the returning characters to how they were in the old games and you'll see an gargantuan gap in dialogue quality.

I think a lot of this could be fixed with a definitive edition but the amount of work required might not be worth it to Larian, I suspect it's likely that they'll just smooth over all the encounters and add some extra dialogue here or there and call it a day. Maybe they really will fix it though, with how much this game sold. BG3 has the potential to be really great and I would like to see Larian fulfill that potential.

When Swen talked about doing "smaller games" I was hoping they don't go back to the Divinity Setting. I really don't care for that. But the core foundation of BG3 (encounter and level design, dungeons and exploration, heck even NPC's) would be great for a new Icewind Dale. Some locations evoked the same feeling of IWD, like the Grymforge or the Monastery. I want more of that.
One can only dream ...

 

[Lemming42]

Playing Gith creche after skipping it the first time around. Is there any way out of the doctor's lab after the shitty tadpole-remover device explodes? The doctor has locked me in and lockpicking the door seems to turn the entire creche hostile.