Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 - tips, tricks & helpful information

[LizardWizard]

I will be playig Lore Bard as well and am considering dips. Warlock 3 seems an obvious one as well

Pact of the Blade, and then a melee bard?
REMINDER that the AI, at least in the Early Access version, prioritizes targets with lower AC. So if you are in melee range, with low AC, you might get nuked frequently.

If you go Blade you might as well go Valour or Sword

Lore Bard gets magical secrets at 6. 9swords/3lock is cucked. If Thirsting Blade is in you're better off just using that. Wyll will be getttng Shield prof from being Human so there isn't any real point in going Valor unless you want to a beta inspire bot.

Swords Bard needs 10, you're better off 2paladin/lock/sorc/10 Swords

 

[whydoibother]

I’m very confident you can play a Dark Urge semi-good play through with companions and everything. Then you go serial killer in a couple of years

[*](Shadowheart) Evil shadowheart, He mentioned he was doing a full on evil playthrough with Lae'zel, Minthara and Shart,playing as durge, so you'll probably be able to take her really dark

Unironically the party I was thinking off as well. The three dark dames and Bhaal.

 

[jackofshadows]

3 feats at 12th level cap - really makes your choices limited.

For my planned build it would be Alert + Elemental Adept + ASI or War Caster.

Yeah that's why I'm thinking about ditching alert entirely. Amazing feat, sure but on tactician I'll be sneaking around a lot so except for some potential very specific fights there's no way enemies will surprise me, rather the other way around.

 

[Jermu]

yeah its hard to say yet according to fshittylife any weapon which you have proficiency with is considered monk weapon so if thats true it changes quite a lot of stuff

anyway since Im retarded I theorycrafted my party a little bit

Spoiler

Charname lore bard 11 / 1 life/knowledge cleric
skillmonkey + support
dip gives: guidance, medium/heavy armor and shield profiency, better heals or 2 x proficiency
alert + lucky/metamagic adept/ASI depending on perma attribute increasing consumables

Minthara vengenace pala 9 / 3 battle master fighter
3rd level spells unlock at 9 haste/revive looks tempting + higher smites if needed
dip gives: action surge + battle master stuff looks about the best dip there is
alert + ASI

Shadowheart 12 storm sorcerer or divination/abjuration wizard fuck immersion since I got a bard already don't want to go cleric
wizard: alert + ASI + war caster/metamagic adept if available
sorcerer: alert + ASI + elemental adept
probably wizard since I got 2 charisma heavy characters

frog lady 12 battle master fighter (flexible slot)
ASI + polearm master + sentinel + great weapon master/alert

kinda went heavy for skillchecks with charname since I dislike savescumming

You could get Guidance with magical secrets, no? The expertise is certainly cool though

I will be playig Lore Bard as well and am considering dips. Warlock 3 seems an obvious one as well

sure, but since its lvl 6 takes a while to get it + missing medium/heavy armor and shield is probably bad. At least shield since you probably wont do any meaningful dmg with bow or whatever

 

[Yosharian]

The AI is going to regret never targeting my high AC Sorcadin if that's truly how it works

 

[whydoibother]

Reading the tl;dr of that interview Swen did, he recommends NOT playing origin characters, and strongly recommends NOT playing Dark Urge on first playthroughs. Dammit, Swen, stop busting my balls.

 

[Grauken]

Reading the tl;dr of that interview Swen did, he recommends NOT playing origin characters, and strongly recommends NOT playing Dark Urge on first playthroughs. Dammit, Swen, stop busting my balls.

He probably talks about casual players

 

[jackofshadows]

The AI is going to regret never targeting my high AC Sorcadin if that's truly how it works

Pretty sure AI consider concentration too as well as %HP so not just AC, most probably something else too.

 

[LizardWizard]

Reading the tl;dr of that interview Swen did, he recommends NOT playing origin characters, and strongly recommends NOT playing Dark Urge on first playthroughs. Dammit, Swen, stop busting my balls.

Only 20% even finished DOS 2. Swen just trying to sell people on the the sunk cost option. Most people aren't playing through a 80-100+ hour RPG more than once.

Why you choose just the generic mainchar, that has objectively less content and a

Spoiler

worse item list.

over Durge.

 

[Incendax]

Reading the tl;dr of that interview Swen did, he recommends NOT playing origin characters, and strongly recommends NOT playing Dark Urge on first playthroughs. Dammit, Swen, stop busting my balls.

If you plan on playing more than once, I don't see his recommendation on not playing origin characters mattering. You'll see both sides of that origin character either way. Dark Urge I can kind of understand. Like in DOS2, playing Fane or Lohse hits differently if you've played the game "Normal" at least once before that. But the difference wasn't so huge that it really mattered, since you see things the other way on the second playthrough.


So fuck it. Play an origin character or a Dark Urge character. Do what you want.

 

[Yosharian]

The AI is going to regret never targeting my high AC Sorcadin if that's truly how it works

Pretty sure AI consider concentration too as well as %HP so not just AC, most probably something else too.

And how would the AI know that I'm concentrating on a spell?

Metagaming DM is bad DM

 

[Abu Antar]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

 

[Jermu]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

probably but you can do some checks to resist doing action x

 

[Grunker]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

We don’t know for sure, but they’ve strongly hinted that you can play it resisting the urge

 

[whydoibother]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

probably but you can do some checks to resist doing action x

Thing is, that's unreliable. And if you are doing an evil run anyways, failing a check to not kick the child off the cliff is okay. But if you are trying to tame the urges, and you fail a check that gets a party member killed or a quest locked out, that's a reload.
So I wouldn't play DU in a "good run".

 

[Barbarian]

Some dev leaked that other origins will actually face off against the Dark Urge at some point.

Interesting. An actual (potential) villain playthrough. I think there is weight to the theory that the origin will reveal itself to be a reincarnated/amnesiac bhaal. Makes the potential redemption arc for the origin bizarre though.

Anyway fuck it, first playthrough half drow dark urge assassin who tries to be a good guy.

 

[whydoibother]

Some dev leaked that other origins will actually face off against the Dark Urge at some point.

Larian paying homage to cult classic cRPG Divinity Original Sin 2.

 

[Grunker]

Sounds like changing companion classes is 100% in

Fuck yes. Time to make a spreadsheet and make a full gimmick party. Love it.



Jermu

 

[Barbarian]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

We don’t know for sure, but they’ve strongly hinted that you can play it resisting the urge

It has been somewhat established that originally "tav" was dark urge by default but they changed it because many players would be annoyed of losing control of their character.

Makes sense that they originally planned it to be the standard origin. It is a sequel after all, and it seems this origin is the only thing which really ties in to original games.

There are screenshots of earlier versions of the ea where the tav had the "blood, blood, blood" moments.

 

[Jermu]

yeah thats why I listed pure wizard/sorc for shadowheart, otherwise 1 cleric dip which would not be too bad for armor/shield proficiency + guidance + bless

 

[Grunker]

Isn't Dark Urge murder hobo run?

We don’t know for sure, but they’ve strongly hinted that you can play it resisting the urge

It has been somewhat established that originally "tav" was dark urge by default but they changed it because many players would be annoyed of losing control of their character.

Makes sense that they originally planned it to be the standard origin. It is a sequel after all, and it seems this origin is the only thing which really ties in to original games.

There are screenshots of earlier versions of the ea where the tav had the "blood, blood, blood" moments.

I dunno what whydoibother seems so certain of the opposite, but I got the strong vibe that missing a check won’t ever mean you banish a companion, but it does mean that story beats and random scenes will be forced on you.

Truth is none of us know.

 

[Barbarian]

A shame the companion options seem so lame. Hard to plan a party.

 

[whydoibother]

I dunno what @whydoibother seems so certain of the opposite, but I got the strong vibe that missing a check won’t ever mean you banish a companion, but it does mean that story beats and random scenes will be forced on you.

In DOS2, at the end the origin companions whom you didn't complete side quests for, wanted to ascent to godhood and attacked you. I'm 99% certain it will be similar here for DU. And they've already said companions are competitive, so you can't resolve everyone's issues.

 

[Grunker]

A shame the companion options seem so lame. Hard to plan a party.

I disliked all of the companions at face value. Playing the EA I warmed up to all of them, especially Shadowheart.

Astarion was the only one I still thought was downright awful.

 

[Grunker]

I dunno what @whydoibother seems so certain of the opposite, but I got the strong vibe that missing a check won’t ever mean you banish a companion, but it does mean that story beats and random scenes will be forced on you.

In DOS2, at the end the origin companions whom you didn't complete side quests for, wanted to ascent to godhood and attacked you. I'm 99% certain it will be similar here for DU. And they've already said companions are competitive, so you can't resolve everyone's issues.

Key is “at the end”. You made it sound like Dark Urge might take away companions mid play through