Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 RELEASE THREAD

[Alienman]

Looking back, it does fall apart. Especially after trying an "evil" playthrough. It opened my eyes to how limited the game is. The choices mean nothing. For example, the factions treat you the same, and regardless of how you play, you will end up in exactly the same spot. The only difference is a few helpers during the end. And Act 3, the less said the better. It's been cut to death, and the quests end up as a checklist you chew through a la Assassin's Creed map sidequests.

 

[Eisenheinrich]

Looking back, it does fall apart. Especially after trying an "evil" playthrough. It opened my eyes to how limited the game is. The choices mean nothing. For example, the factions treat you the same, and regardless of how you play, you will end up in exactly the same spot. The only difference is a few helpers during the end. And Act 3, the less said the better. It's been cut to death, and the quests end up as a checklist you chew through a la Assassin's Creed map sidequests.

maybe we have different interpretations what "falling apart" means. I leave it at that. Can't say anything about evil playthrough tho, I played neutral good since that aligns more with how I approach RPGs.

 

[volklore]

The thing that annoyed me the most with the CnC in the ending is :

Spoiler

Wether you go with the emperor or free orpheus, the plan is the same. In the emperor path, the emperor takes the stones and MCs the brain or you become illithid and do it. In Oprheus plan he becomes an illithid or you do as well. They are exactly the same path. Dude is supposed to be a famed hero of a race that's all about fighting mindlfayers and writers couldn't come up with a different plan for that path... Very lame.

 

[whydoibother]

Come on. You have to be borderline retarded to aggro the entire goblin camp without noticing any of the HALF MILLION options for "pacific infiltration" the game offers.

Why would you do that, that's the problem. Did you read any of the last 10 pages? There are zero reasons to be peaceful with the goblins story-wise and mechanically.

Bro, you ARE the evil playthrough. That's why you can't see it, you murderhobo'd your way through it.

 

[Black]

non-retarded "evil" person would side with druids against rapefugees and gobbos, not "please, let me go, gobbo masterrace person! here - i will lick your feet!"
larian was right treating evil alighnment as "retarded evil" - that's exactly sort of people who play evil path.

Is there even an option to side with Kagha and shadow druids?

 

[Reinhardt]

Come on. You have to be borderline retarded to aggro the entire goblin camp without noticing any of the HALF MILLION options for "pacific infiltration" the game offers.

Why would you do that, that's the problem. Did you read any of the last 10 pages? There are zero reasons to be peaceful with the goblins story-wise and mechanically.

Bro, you ARE the evil playthrough. That's why you can't see it, you murderhobo'd your way through it.

there is nothing evil in killing monsters.

 

[Space Satan]

Can this be an excuse for being a hlaf-elf?

 

[Reinhardt]

Can this be an excuse for being a hlaf-elf?

 

[Desiderius]

You can lick his feet

no

Yeah, I had to look that one up because I obviously never discovered it either. If you simply pickpocket him you don't get the real ring. I had killed him and gotten it so looked up how Inspiration was tirggered. Once he's on the bridge he's easy to take out without alerting camp. Whole area is an exercise in aggro management.

 

[Desiderius]

Come on. You have to be borderline retarded to aggro the entire goblin camp without noticing any of the HALF MILLION options for "pacific infiltration" the game offers.

Why would you do that, that's the problem. Did you read any of the last 10 pages? There are zero reasons to be peaceful with the goblins story-wise and mechanically.

Bro, you ARE the evil playthrough. That's why you can't see it, you murderhobo'd your way through it.

there is nothing evil in killing monsters.

He's referring to the stupid part of evil. Surprised BlackAdderBG didn't feel right at home in Gobbo camp.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Got a new computer so giving bg3 another run, jfc what a difference going from low/medium to ultra makes as well as having things load fast.
Anyways, couple of random things i'll rant about for the benefit of the peanut gallery:

-Dark urge origin is a must for custom pcs. It really should be the default and whilst they don't do enough with it for my liking (or maybe i haven't been resting enough to see all the related scenes), playing a bhaal spawn or w/e slots in the plot perfectly and starts building up the baddie trio far more effectively. Not to mention makes bg3 feel more of a true bg1-2 sequel and makes the pc enough of a snowflake where it helps justify him being the big boss whereas before i was just a random schmuck with a tadpole who was somehow in charge of a bunch of characters all more interesting then him.

-Everyone who has ever gaslighted me on Halsin and the offering drink at party=wanting gay sex debate can kindly go fellate themselves. This time around i ignored Halsin at the party completely and when later on i talked to the guy to start getting the shadow quest resolved the "i hope i didn't come off as too strong at the party" option appeared regardless. So turns out offering a drink or not doesn't matter, the Bear D wants you even if you ghost him.
And when i talked to him again later because he was bugging a bit at the last inn made the mistake of asking him "how are you enjoying it at camp?" and it turned really really gay and awkward with no way to abort so reloaded just to avoid triggering that dialogue flag in case it matters later on. I still expect him to hit on me in act 3 but at least this time i can honestly say i went out of my way to ignore him yet it still does nothing so it will put to rest once and for all how relentlessly gay the male pcs in this game are and no it's not the fault of people being social retards.
I am also starting to seriously loathe Halsin and how unless you are going for a haha evil route he is all but forced on you, at least wyll and astarion can be refused (although imo Astarion is one of the most fun characters to keep and his campiness is made clear from the start+i might be the only one on the codex who actually likes Wyll when he isn't prancing around, he is literally Irene from troubleshooter). If there was an option to refuse his company i completely missed it, which brings me to...

-Gale. Ignored the weird portal completely this time around (which is what i did in my og playthrough until i learned i had missed companions and went back to pick them up, should have stuck with that in retrospect) and my run is already 10 X better. You don't even really need a mage in bg3 imo especially when there are a fair few subclasses offering magic in their kits anyway.

-Either i got gud or the devs nerfed difficulty. Feels like i'm breezing through most fights with a handful of exceptions.

-I still really hate the ui. Got a bunch of mods to help address this but honestly it all still feels bad and managing gear is still one of the most annoying things to do in this game when it's usually one of the things in an rpg i enjoy the most.

 

[Larianshill]

Just finished the game as the evil Dark Urge. No words can possibly describe how much this experience sucked.

 

[Fedora Master]

Can this be an excuse for being a hlaf-elf?

Every mid ethot will now cosplay as Shadowheart.

 

[Fedora Master]

Just finished the game as the evil Dark Urge. No words can possibly describe how much this experience sucked.

Suffer

 

[whydoibother]

Just finished the game as the evil Dark Urge. No words can possibly describe how much this experience sucked.

What was your biggest issue, the illithid stuff or the general clusterfuckery of having so many overlapping script triggers in Act III?

 

[Sunri]

Can this be an excuse for being a hlaf-elf?

Every mid ethot will now cosplay as Shadowheart.

Thats a good thing

 

[Larianshill]

What was your biggest issue

I think I talked about what my issue is at length, it's the utter lack of content. At the last panel from Hell, Swen claimed that they poured a lot of love into the evil playthrough. Where is it?
Goblins have no content. Mintharra has no content. The less is said about the evil path in act 2, the better. Act 3 is nearly indistinguishable from the act 3 I've played as the lawful good paladin, except the way I resolved the mummy quest. The slayer form is very, very subpar. And then we have the ending. For the entirety of act 3 Mintharra is pushing you towards taking control of the cult, Astarion does it too. When you do that, it's a 30 second long cutscene that ends with all your companions (including Mintharra) brainwashed by you, and then roll credits. Compare it to destroying the elder brain, which offers you a significant amount of closure about your fate and the fates of everyone else, even without the endling sliders.
I'll give credit where credit is due - the duel with Orin and the murder tribunal were pretty good. So was making Astarion into a super vampire. But those were the sole bright spots in an otherwise very boring and uninteresting playthrough.

This does not relate to the evil playthrough at all, but the mandatory illithid bullshit in the final quest really grinds my gears. The story is pushing the necessity of this sacrifice on you, but there's perfectly good Gale with a perfectly good nuke in his chest. But when you attempt to use him to bypass squidding out, the game tells you "No, fuck you, we wrote this tragic choice where you sacriifce either Orpheus or yourself, and you don't get to bypass it". Then why give Gale the bomb at all? So that the speedrunners and game journalists can skip the final boss?

 

[Sacibengala]

I want a mod that take all the companions that are alive from the old games (I found 4 or something) to get together and challenge your party to a fight to death in the new one.

 

[Larianshill]

This does not relate to the evil playthrough at all, but the mandatory illithid bullshit in the final quest really grinds my gears. The story is pushing the necessity of this sacrifice on you, but there's perfectly good Gale with a perfectly good nuke in his chest. But when you attempt to use him to bypass squidding out, the game tells you "No, fuck you, we wrote this tragic choice where you sacriifce either Orpheus or yourself, and you don't get to bypass it". Then why give Gale the bomb at all? So that the speedrunners and game journalists can skip the final boss?

Inb4 someone asks "But what about Gale, though".
1) After Gale martyrs himself, he still has his soul, so Mystra would just take him to paradise and give him 72 virgins. The way I see it, he only wins.
2) Who gives a shit about Gale, he's a totally unrelatable character with no discernible personality. I don't like Astarion, but at least I understand him.

 

[Abu Antar]

Came back after a few days, and the mundane chest is broken. What a bummer.

 

[Shaki]

Came back after a few days, and the mundane chest is broken. What a bummer.

*fixed, it was specifically in the patch notes

 

[Desiderius]

Got a new computer so giving bg3 another run, jfc what a difference going from low/medium to ultra makes as well as having things load fast.
Anyways, couple of random things i'll rant about for the benefit of the peanut gallery:

-Dark urge origin is a must for custom pcs. It really should be the default and whilst they don't do enough with it for my liking (or maybe i haven't been resting enough to see all the related scenes), playing a bhaal spawn or w/e slots in the plot perfectly and starts building up the baddie trio far more effectively. Not to mention makes bg3 feel more of a true bg1-2 sequel and makes the pc enough of a snowflake where it helps justify him being the big boss whereas before i was just a random schmuck with a tadpole who was somehow in charge of a bunch of characters all more interesting then him.

-Everyone who has ever gaslighted me on Halsin and the offering drink at party=wanting gay sex debate can kindly go fellate themselves. This time around i ignored Halsin at the party completely and when later on i talked to the guy to start getting the shadow quest resolved the "i hope i didn't come off as too strong at the party" option appeared regardless. So turns out offering a drink or not doesn't matter, the Bear D wants you even if you ghost him.
And when i talked to him again later because he was bugging a bit at the last inn made the mistake of asking him "how are you enjoying it at camp?" and it turned really really gay and awkward with no way to abort so reloaded just to avoid triggering that dialogue flag in case it matters later on. I still expect him to hit on me in act 3 but at least this time i can honestly say i went out of my way to ignore him yet it still does nothing so it will put to rest once and for all how relentlessly gay the male pcs in this game are and no it's not the fault of people being social retards.
I am also starting to seriously loathe Halsin and how unless you are going for a haha evil route he is all but forced on you, at least wyll and astarion can be refused (although imo Astarion is one of the most fun characters to keep and his campiness is made clear from the start+i might be the only one on the codex who actually likes Wyll when he isn't prancing around, he is literally Irene from troubleshooter). If there was an option to refuse his company i completely missed it, which brings me to...

-Gale. Ignored the weird portal completely this time around (which is what i did in my og playthrough until i learned i had missed companions and went back to pick them up, should have stuck with that in retrospect) and my run is already 10 X better. You don't even really need a mage in bg3 imo especially when there are a fair few subclasses offering magic in their kits anyway.

-Either i got gud or the devs nerfed difficulty. Feels like i'm breezing through most fights with a handful of exceptions.

-I still really hate the ui. Got a bunch of mods to help address this but honestly it all still feels bad and managing gear is still one of the most annoying things to do in this game when it's usually one of the things in an rpg i enjoy the most.

Wiz just covers so much. Need some big jumps? Slot that in. Forgot your face? Detect Thoughts. Need to nuke a Boss? Wet Witch Bolt is no save and Spell Sniper gives both Improved Crit and no crit fail. Fire vulnerable enemies? Scorching Ray or Flaming Sphere with surfaces. Playing martials that make things bleed (disadvantage on CON saves) switch to Poison (damage plus disadvantage on attacks and ability checks), or knocking things Prone (disadvantage on DEX saves) attack DEX with nukes, Dazed (disadvantage on WIS) attack that with any number of control spells. Longstrider, Mage Armor, etc. It's really good support if you want to go with pure martials that can't cover that utility for you and Gale himself can get tanky with Shield spell, Shield equipped, and Mirror Image. He gets a lot of casts with Arcane Recovery but he's also the perfect guy to use consumables when he runs out.

As for personality he's the blowhard who talks big about himself a lot to make up for his gnawing insecurity. Like Trump. Let him wear himself out with it and he ends up ok to have around.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I've been able to transcribe every scroll into Gale's spellbook. Due to the limits of the Vancian system, it feels like the choosing a pair of shoes in a store that has 10 thousand of them dilemma. They can be super squishy, and battlefields here are super mobile, complete with a wide offer of teleporting spells for you and your party, so it's not just a thing of make them camp somewhere safe.

 

[Delterius]

hey guys remember how the best thing we had to look forward to was, and i quote, 'the rad trial scene in the nwn2 oc'

 

[Desiderius]

I've been able to transcribe every scroll into Gale's spellbook. Due to the limits of the Vancian system, it feels like the choosing a pair of shoes in a store that has 10 thousand of them dilemma. They can be super squishy, and battlefields here are super mobile, complete with a wide offer of teleporting spells for you and your party, so it's not just a thing of make them camp somewhere safe.

There's no reason for Gale to be super squishy. Staves are versatile so he can equip a Shield, and there are four good ones in Act 1 alone. Shield + Mage Armor + DEX puts him at 16 base then Shield spell gets him to 21 as needed and you can add Mirror Image if you want. Saves Staff + saves Shield is +3 to all saves. I keep him on high ground for Ray spells so he doesn't get attacked much anyway. You can Shocking Grasp for free Disengage if you need it. Round off DEX and INT at level 4 (or respec into 16/16 with Spell Sniper) and he's up to 17/18.

You choose spells on the basis of which element/save you want to attack on which fight and swap in the situational spells outside combat when you need them. Witch Bolt + Wet can be default especially if you've got Wyll using Armor of Agathis or are taking advantage of Lightning items.