Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Grauken]

Butchering children or animals usually is the edgy path, that's not evil just moronic. There has to be a reason. Say a deadly disease breaks out in a children's hospital and you have to either burn it down with everyone in it or let the disease run wild and claim even more victims. A true evil path shouldn't feel like an "evil" path, it should just be a path with many seemingly rational choices that leads you down an increasingly dark road until you lose all sense of good and evil

You can't have one without the other, you need both outcomes for it to be truly evil. If you have your suggested dark road without any of the aspects I brought up, it becomes just as childish/edgy as just meaningless slaughter.

You can be thoroughly evil without killing anyone. Killing is just the most simple way for developers to convey that someone is evil, its mostly cheap and not convincing.

An evil path shouldn't start with you making moronic evil choices right out of the gate, it should lead you toward realizing that you're evil and accepting it, so it has to start subtly and then increase the pressure to slowly turn your character evil. That can be done in many ways and some of them may include killing, but it really doesn't have to.

An evil moment in the game that could have been improved is when you tell Marianna that you have the hag's staff to bring back her husband. You either give it to her or break it in front of her. That's edgy evil, but they could have easily added some text saying something to the effort that you realize nothing good can come out of bringing her dead husband back with hag's magic. That would have been a good, rational choice that is, from Marianna's perspective, evil, and yet makes a lot of sense. Do enough of those choices and you have a solid evil path.

 

[Saark]

Funnily enough, of all the places, I think cultivation or "murim" novels do this best with their Orthodox/Unorthodox/"Demonic" factions. It works much better to explain the conflicts between opposing points of view. While one of the three is perceived as evil and cruel, all of the three are capable of "evil" acts. It is more about operating inside a certain set of values than rigid morality.

I think the True/Renegade Aeon paths in WotR did a fairly decent job at it as well, where "maintaining the timeline" could easily be considered evil, but you did it to remain impartial in your task. Letting selfish constructs like morality affect your choice in order to act kind or good, ultimately made you a renegade and even limited your ability to advance in the mythic path. While this is more of a Lawful vs Chaotic dilemma, it heavily ties into the good vs evil one as well, and there's certainly ways to explore these concepts that aren't going to lead to people picking one choice over the other 9/10 times.

Succumbing to or using Akachi's Curse to your advantage in MotB: Well written.
Succumbing to or using the Dark Urge in BG3: Lmao.

 

[Rhobar121]

The game has great mechanics so I don't see any reason for Larian not to add a tactician+ in a patch that allows us to interact more with the best parts of the game.

What would it be?
+1 armor, +1 attack per enemy level, adding more scrolls and potions to select enemies, adding +1/2 minor goons to select encounters? Won't change the difficulty much. If you're rolling the enemy, you are ROOOOOLLLLING them.
And fights like Raphael, for example, seem very well tuned. I was on the edge there.

From what I've noticed tactician significantly improves AI over medium, and also gives +30% more hp as well as +2 AB & +2 spell DC.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i met Karlach.

I grinded my teeth through the whole encounter. The writing was SOOOO bad. God damn.

I took Wyll expecting some kind of conflict but apparently it took little convincing to make him relent. I even got approval from him for saving this bitch lmao.

I also have no fucking clue of what the bitch was talking about. Who the fuck is Zariel am i supposed to know?

 

[volklore]

The game has great mechanics so I don't see any reason for Larian not to add a tactician+ in a patch that allows us to interact more with the best parts of the game.

What would it be?
+1 armor, +1 attack per enemy level, adding more scrolls and potions to select enemies, adding +1/2 minor goons to select encounters? Won't change the difficulty much. If you're rolling the enemy, you are ROOOOOLLLLING them.
And fights like Raphael, for example, seem very well tuned. I was on the edge there.

From what I've noticed tactician significantly improves AI over medium, and also gives +30% more hp as well as +2 AB & +2 spell DC.

Imo the way to do it is increase the enemy health for once. Biggest issue atm is things don't get to act. And give maybe a scaling damage and ab boost based on enemy challenge rating or smth.
Another good change would be reverting initiative to d20 (t's is d4 atm in the game) to make it harder to outright win, but also introduce a delay turn function so you can still have fun with combos (but at the cost of delaying your turn).

 

[Saark]

An evil path shouldn't start with you making moronic evil choices right out of the gate, it should lead you toward realizing that you're evil and accepting it

That's only one aspect of it, though. Many people who are considered evil, did so believing they were 100% righteous in their cause. History is written by the victors, after all, and in many situations and conflicts, there's no good or evil side, same as many choices aren't inherently good or evil. Slaughtering the Grove in order to prove your worth to Minthara, allowing you to infiltrate the Cult of the Absolute could easily be justified, yet many would argue it is decisively the "evil" choice.

 

[Grauken]

And give maybe a scaling damage and ab based on enemy challenge rating or smth.

Scaling of any sort is absolute cancer

 

[volklore]

And give maybe a scaling damage and ab based on enemy challenge rating or smth.

Scaling of any sort is absolute cancer

Not scaling with your level. just scaling the difficulty buff depending on enemy challenge rating. So instead of making a flat buff to everything you retain the early balance (instead of having OP goblins) while also increasing the later diffulty. Because I think the games fine at lvl 1-5 it just needs to be harder after that.

 

[Saark]

I also have no fucking clue of what the bitch was talking about. Who the fuck is Zariel am i supposed to know?

One of the nine Archdevils. Shes the Archdevil of Avernus, the first layer of hell, where the vast majority of the Blood War is being fought. So basically, the game is trying to tell you that the level 1 barbarian you just met was a high-ranking officer in the Blood War for over 10 years, and one of Zariels champions. Yep. Exactly.

 

[Rhobar121]

What exactly are you retards arguing about? It's a damn 5e to ruin a character you have to do it on purpose and there's still a good chance you'll fail.
The difference between a character you start the game with 16 main stats and a character with max stats is 10%.
Even multiclassing unlike previous editions is largely nerfed and apart from a few broken combos it's usually better to play a pure character especially since you will most likely lose access to a feat or two.
The whole damn edition was designed with RP in mind, not deep combat.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I also have no fucking clue of what the bitch was talking about. Who the fuck is Zariel am i supposed to know?

One of the nine Archdevils. Shes the Archdevil of Avernus, the first layer of hell, where the vast majority of the Blood War is being fought. So basically, the game is trying to tell you that the level 1 barbarian you just met was a high-ranking officer in the Blood War for over 10 years, and one of Zariels champions. Yep. Exactly.

That's what i thought but it just made little sense.

Ho, and this Archdevil had Paladins of Tyr doing her bidding? Let what? All though i assumed she just manipulated them to give this Karlach broad chase. But then, is this Karlach lying to me by telling me they are "evil"? Because unlike Zariel, i know who Tyr is so i'm not exactly sure what is going on here.

BTW, is Karlach NOT a demon? She looks like one. There's good demons? Why did Wyll relent? Because Karlach rebelled against Zariel? That makes her good?

I'm so fucking confused lmao.

 

[Rhobar121]

The game has great mechanics so I don't see any reason for Larian not to add a tactician+ in a patch that allows us to interact more with the best parts of the game.

What would it be?
+1 armor, +1 attack per enemy level, adding more scrolls and potions to select enemies, adding +1/2 minor goons to select encounters? Won't change the difficulty much. If you're rolling the enemy, you are ROOOOOLLLLING them.
And fights like Raphael, for example, seem very well tuned. I was on the edge there.

From what I've noticed tactician significantly improves AI over medium, and also gives +30% more hp as well as +2 AB & +2 spell DC.

Imo the way to do it is increase the enemy health for once. Biggest issue atm is things don't get to act. And give maybe a scaling damage and ab boost based on enemy challenge rating or smth.
Another good change would be reverting initiative to d20 (t's is d4 atm in the game) to make it harder to outright win, but also introduce a delay turn function so you can still have fun with combos (but at the cost of delaying your turn).

I tested the increased stats and it definitely improves the game, I had to practically double HP for it to make a difference.
Boosting AB and Spell DC also works pretty well.
What I don't recommend is increasing the AC a lot. More than +2 already starts to be problematic.
I'm not sure if there's a way to reasonably increase the damage dice so that some fights aren't impossible. You would probably have to edit each enemies individually.
Although that doesn't seem necessary right now as the enemies seem deadly enough if they can survive the first turn of combat.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Evil for the sake of a goal works much better to me.

Yeah, evil is inherently self serving and therefore goal driven. It's why I think the duergar came closest to being evil done well, and was disappointed when I couldn't figure out a way to side with them against the cult, which they clearly found objectionable.

 

[Zayne]

was disappointed when I couldn't figure out a way to side with them against the cult, which they clearly found objectionable.

You can side with *some* duergar against the cult

 

[Rhobar121]

I also have no fucking clue of what the bitch was talking about. Who the fuck is Zariel am i supposed to know?

One of the nine Archdevils. Shes the Archdevil of Avernus, the first layer of hell, where the vast majority of the Blood War is being fought. So basically, the game is trying to tell you that the level 1 barbarian you just met was a high-ranking officer in the Blood War for over 10 years, and one of Zariels champions. Yep. Exactly.

That's what i thought but it just made little sense.

Ho, and this Archdevil had Paladins of Tyr doing her bidding? Let what? All though i assumed she just manipulated them to give this Karlach broad chase.

Speaking of which, is Karlach NOT a demon? She looks like one. There's good demons? Why did Wyll relent? Because Karlach rebelled against Zariel? That makes her good?

I'm so fucking confused lmao.

It is very easy to find out that they are not paladins if you use speak with the dead.
Karlach is not a demon/devil but tiefling (they were completely gutted in 5e or 4e)

 

[Saark]

Ho, and this Archdevil had Paladins of Tyr doing her bidding? Let what? All though i assumed she just manipulated them to give this Karlach broad chase.

From some of the conversation with them, they only pretended to be Paladins of Tyr and were quite sick of having to keep up the charade. It doesn't make this any less retarded, though. Shes a Tiefling (basically the results of one human parent and one extraplanar evil parent, be it demon (chaotic evil), daemon (neutral evil) or devil (lawful evil), or offspring from 2 tiefling parents) that was sold to Zariel as a kid and raised to be, well, what she is.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

Ho, and this Archdevil had Paladins of Tyr doing her bidding? Let what?

I mean, paladins don't actually dedicate themselves to a deity any more, so whoring out for some hell skank seems on brand.

My Vengeance paladin is apparently dedicated to the general idea of vengeance. It's like his Smites are powered by Twitter, or something...

 

[Rhobar121]

Ho, and this Archdevil had Paladins of Tyr doing her bidding? Let what? All though i assumed she just manipulated them to give this Karlach broad chase.

From some of the conversation with them, they only pretended to be Paladins of Tyr and were quite sick of having to keep up the charade. It doesn't make this any less retarded, though. Shes a Tiefling (basically the results of one human parent and one extraplanar evil parent, be it demon, daemon or devil, or offspring from 2 tiefling parents) that was sold to Zariel and raised to be, well, what she is.

Actually half man and half devil is Cambion. Its a bit diferent thing.

 

[volklore]

The game has great mechanics so I don't see any reason for Larian not to add a tactician+ in a patch that allows us to interact more with the best parts of the game.

What would it be?
+1 armor, +1 attack per enemy level, adding more scrolls and potions to select enemies, adding +1/2 minor goons to select encounters? Won't change the difficulty much. If you're rolling the enemy, you are ROOOOOLLLLING them.
And fights like Raphael, for example, seem very well tuned. I was on the edge there.

From what I've noticed tactician significantly improves AI over medium, and also gives +30% more hp as well as +2 AB & +2 spell DC.

Imo the way to do it is increase the enemy health for once. Biggest issue atm is things don't get to act. And give maybe a scaling damage and ab boost based on enemy challenge rating or smth.
Another good change would be reverting initiative to d20 (t's is d4 atm in the game) to make it harder to outright win, but also introduce a delay turn function so you can still have fun with combos (but at the cost of delaying your turn).

I tested the increased stats and it definitely improves the game, I had to practically double HP for it to make a difference.
Boosting AB and Spell DC also works pretty well.
What I don't recommend is increasing the AC a lot. More than +2 already starts to be problematic.
I'm not sure if there's a way to reasonably increase the damage dice so that some fights aren't impossible. You would probably have to edit each enemies individually.
Although that doesn't seem necessary right now as the enemies seem deadly enough if they can survive the first turn of combat.

Yeah I restarted with the ''tactician plus'' mod with the ''scaling'' option which set the bonus stats according to enemy proficiency bonus instead of the flat +2 from tactician. Which I think should start it off at +2 for low level enemies and then progressively increase it according to enemy proficiency bonus. And so far I picked the +60 percent extra health option (which basically doubles the original health boost). Early game seems basically maintained, except for the cambion boss in the nautiloid which was made a bit too much of headache to care so i just dropped his sword, blew up the mindflayer with barrels and left.
Will see if I need more health later on but so far so good. I also added the BG3 fixed mod which reverts haste to PnP.

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

You can side with *some* duergar against the cult

God fucking damnit. Can you spoil it for me? I probably won't touch the game for a year or so after I'm done cleaning up this run, because fuck Act 3, but I kinda want to know what I did wrong.

 

[Saark]

paladins don't actually dedicate themselves to a deity any more

Neither do clerics. They dedicate themselves to a domain, which often coincides with worshipping a deity, but they don't lose powers for not believing in their god anymore if they still uphold the values of the domain/oath they draw power from. It's weird.

Actually half man and half devil is Cambion. Its a bit diferent thing.

Ye I might've mixed that one up. Cambions seem to have true demon/devil lineage, whereas tieflings are either further descendants of such bloodlines or were exposed to other hellish contraptions or simply cursed. Who cares, just kill them all.

 

[PapaPetro]

Karlach is not a demon/devil but tiefling (they were completely gutted in 5e or 4e)

Now you mention it, there's tieflings everywhere in the game; I think they outnumber humans.
Did Baldur's Gate become Sigil or something after the Second Sundering?

 

[Zayne]

You can side with *some* duergar against the cult

God fucking damnit. Can you spoil it for me? I probably won't touch the game for a year or so after I'm done cleaning up this run, because fuck Act 3, but I kinda want to know what I did wrong.

There're two duergars talking shit about Absolute, they're right before room with Sergeant and gnomes. You can also talk to them and they'll tell you they want nothing with Absolute, just Nere's gold. But Sergeant wants to slave for Absolute, which is wrong and unduergarish. You can offer your help and pass a check to demand half of Nere's gold for your services. Then they ask you to kill Observer eye, so Absolute wouldn't know what happened here. After you free Nere rebel duergars join you in a fight against Nere and Sergeant. After the fight they give you your money and you can also pass a check to free gnomes from them.

 

[Rhobar121]

You can side with *some* duergar against the cult

God fucking damnit. Can you spoil it for me? I probably won't touch the game for a year or so after I'm done cleaning up this run, because fuck Act 3, but I kinda want to know what I did wrong.

Spoiler

If you've talked to everyone, you should come across one couple that you can convince to kill Nere together.
They give you a small quest and when you complete it, they promise to help you.
This causes most of the Duegar (except those that are part of the absolute) to side with you when fighting Nere.

 

[MerchantKing]

Btw Shadowhart is like 50 years old in the game

So the gray hair is her natural hair color.