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

[notpl]

Bard is supposed to be casting tank

Sword bard is probably the best tank in the game. The bard gloves (+1AC) and evasive boots (+1AC) are extremely useful, and with a good shield and heavy armour proficiency you can get up to 24 AC, easy. Then, with defensive flourish, which is an S-tier ability, you're at 28AC. People attack you, they miss. Simple as.

You can peak at 31AC with lategame armor + a shield that gives you +3 AC + boots/gloves/helm + defensive flourish.

...This is all before spells. Frankly, at this point, AC-boosting spells are practically unnecessary.

How are enemies in your game living long enough to make attacks?

 

[lukaszek]

How are enemies in your game living long enough to make attacks?

there is always value in hodor. If one choses to go with smaller party and dont abuse haste/throwing/dual xbows then you will get hit, quite a bit

 

[Desiderius]

was gradually losing interest after making it to baldurs gate. Its quite packed in content while nothing poses challenge to my party.

so ive restarted as durge(thief) and going evil duo with shadowstar(bard).
I am having fun, proper dos3 experience like sven intended.

Both are helves so can wear shield. Bard is supposed to be casting tank

Depends what you want to do.

Cutting Remarks* may be the most unique effect the class can bring to the table and range on Bane is only 9m (Bane is important since so few things attack CHR saves) so all three Subclasses want to be in the thick of things.

OTOH the other unique feature of the class - the extra short rest - favors weapon abilities since unlike spells those recharge on short rest and two of the three subclasses do get the extra attack at lvl 6. Bane save debuff sets those up as well as spells and attack debuff makes tanking itself less necessary. That said main melee takes a lot of incidental damage that each trigger 10DC Concentration check so not great combo with keeping Bane up.

* - debuffing enemy saves *hard* on an as-needed basis is kind of absurd if you think about about. Also moving Inspiration to a Reaction is a big increase in convenience though Combat Inspiration is pretty great in its own right if you stop and think things through.

 

[Desiderius]

btw my trickster got 8int. I think it is using 14cha as spellcasting enabling stat? DC is however based off int

INT is your spellcasting stat but it doesn’t come up much until later since Sleep and Color Spray are no save and you can also just handle utility stuff to take load off of main caster/use attack spells. Lunk the Smart Ogre has 17 INT headpiece if you want to beat any saves. Myconoid vendor has Scorching Ray circlet too I think.

Later on when you get the ability to give save disadvantage from Stealth you can worry about INT, though you never get spells above level two.

 

[Yosharian]

So I just installed it...


A few questions:
1) Is it about pixel-hunting, with no tab highlight of interactive objects?

2) Any way to speed up the dialogues?

1) There is a bit of pixel hunting yes

2) Only skip button afaik

 

[Desiderius]

There's already a mod that highlights everything when you hit alt. Several skeletons and the like that can hold valuable items currently require pixel hunting unmodded.

 

[Desiderius]

A couple interesting discoveries:



Wyll has Joltshooter equipped so had a Lightning Charge when he cast a Plant Growth spell with its edge touching a brazier, which created a large burning area. Tracker Tak ran through the fire trying to get to the party taking 2 Fire damage, which triggered 1 Lightning damage from Wyll being Charged. It also evidently also ticked up the number of Charges to five which set off the extra six.

The random Psychic damage is from the Illithid ability which seems bad because its a combat only action but it did a ton of damage on this fight, with Ranger getting extra attack and having Bloodlust Elixir up. (Currently just using Speed pots on characters who don't have extra attack naturally)



Which got me thinking about Heat. Don't know yet but I think Heat and Wrath go up to 7 charges. But if surfaces (or just AoEs) both tick it up and apply it that could end up doing a lot of random damage. Here's another way:



Note that if you're standing in Acid (with Nature's Vengeance amulet) Hail of Thorns applies the Acid (-2 AC) to everyone hit by it, which is everyone in the area of effect (made save only halves damage). You can see that Shadowheart here got the Acid condition even though she made her save. I tested it with standing in Fire and it does the same with the Burning condition, which would turn Heat up fast with Cinder Shoes.



Hail of Thorns is weird. There's no attack roll involved, so High Ground does nothing (but nor is there a Low Ground penalty). The main damage packet uses Caster Stat vs DEX save like SH's WIS cantrip. If save is failed target takes weapon damage along with effects that enhance weapon damage (DEX bonus to damage, here the Acid ring that adds to Acid damage to each hit) but doesn't trigger a Poison check from a Poisoned weapon. Whatever happens on that save, everyone in AoE takes damage that can be halved by a DEX save. This spell was upcast so you can see surrounding characters taking 2d10 while the damage from the "attack" is only 1d8. Target takes both if they fail initial save but always takes the AoE regardless. Nature's Vengeace triggers conditions but dipped weapon doesn't not. Reeling condition from Giantbreaker XBow is not applied. Weapon is basically irrelevant.



And now for something much more straightforward. Cutting Words is just sick. I guess it takes up your reaction if it triggers but man what a reaction.

 

[Parabalus]

he random Psychic damage is from the Illithid ability which seems bad because its a combat only action

In the Creche you can turn all Illithid abilities into bonus actions for one character, makes them extremely good.

And now for something much more straightforward. Cutting Words is just sick. I guess it takes up your reaction if it triggers but man what a reaction.

Funny how in Solasta it didn't reduce enemy saves and it was still great. -10 to attack rolls for a boss? Reducing saves makes it insane.

 

[lukaszek]

any way to kill strange ox early, while its surrounded with other tieflings?

 

[Haplo]

There's already a mod that highlights everything when you hit alt. Several skeletons and the like that can hold valuable items currently require pixel hunting unmodded.

That's quite sweet. Was moping up the goblin fort leftovers yesterday and was slowly getting tired of discovering new things on 2nd / 3rd pass trough pixel hunting (including at least 2 semi-valuable magic items, like a ring of poison resistance and... something else).

And I thought to myself yesterday that if this trend continues, it may kill my enjoyment of the game.
At the same time, the autist inside me won't let me leave any stone unturned.

So now I guess we have a winner: 1st BG3 mod I'll download and install!

Btw. level 5 really is a huge power spike and I strongly advise avoiding multiclassing prior to it (except for rogue, maybe).

 

[Yosharian]

any way to kill strange ox early, while its surrounded with other tieflings?

Are you sure you want to do that?

 

[lukaszek]

any way to kill strange ox early, while its surrounded with other tieflings?

Are you sure you want to do that?

Spoiler

i know its ooze, and i want to use his ring early

 

[Desiderius]

There's already a mod that highlights everything when you hit alt. Several skeletons and the like that can hold valuable items currently require pixel hunting unmodded.

That's quite sweet. Was moping up the goblin fort leftovers yesterday and was slowly getting tired of discovering new things on 2nd / 3rd pass trough pixel hunting (including at least 2 semi-valuable magic items, like a ring of poison resistance and... something else).

And I thought to myself yesterday that if this trend continues, it may kill my enjoyment of the game.
At the same time, the autist inside me won't let me leave any stone unturned.

So now I guess we have a winner: 1st BG3 mod I'll download and install!

Btw. level 5 really is a huge power spike and I strongly advise avoiding multiclassing prior to it (except for rogue, maybe).

Is it ever. Unreal on Beastmaster. Playing a different game.

 

[gurugeorge]

There's already a mod that highlights everything when you hit alt. Several skeletons and the like that can hold valuable items currently require pixel hunting unmodded.

That's quite sweet. Was moping up the goblin fort leftovers yesterday and was slowly getting tired of discovering new things on 2nd / 3rd pass trough pixel hunting (including at least 2 semi-valuable magic items, like a ring of poison resistance and... something else).

And I thought to myself yesterday that if this trend continues, it may kill my enjoyment of the game.
At the same time, the autist inside me won't let me leave any stone unturned.

So now I guess we have a winner: 1st BG3 mod I'll download and install!

Btw. level 5 really is a huge power spike and I strongly advise avoiding multiclassing prior to it (except for rogue, maybe).

The world of "highlight x" mods doesn't seem to be quite settled yet. There are several of them that seem to work in different ways, I dunno.

The literal "Highlight Everything" is useless because it explodes the screen with tags and hitches the game a bit (also currently not working since Patch 2). There's a version of the same but using raw game files (as opposed to .pak) which the author says is less buggy and more reliable (but I hate using raw files because it's more difficult to keep track of them).

I think the best one all round of that type is probably "Highlight (Almost) All," which highlights everything that isn't empty, doesn't have useless junk, spoiled food, etc., and is up to date - but it still highlights things like torches, candles, etc., and it still gives a teensy hitch.

And then there's a "Modular Highlight Tooltip" which gives you modular choice of what you want to highlight, and seems to be made by a newbie with a different method (I think he's just bloody-mindedly gone through all the files and done the selection manually), which doesn't give a slow-down but might be missing some things; it's also up to date. This last also has a very handy "hide looted containers" optional, which should work with any of these.

Pick your poison lol.

(Note there's also this wonderful mod, "Search the Room," made during EA, but unfortunately it hasn't been updated for full release yet: you hide and use a perception check to highlight all lootable containers in LoS. Much immersion for a thief-ey character!)

I use "Modular Highlight Tooltip" (All in One, plus Wanderer, Collector and Search for Blood from the modular separates, which aren't included in the All in One - there are also Traps and Secrets modules, but that spoils the game too much) plus its "hide looted containers" optional. It's a few more .pak files, but it just seems to work more smoothly (though ofc that could just be illusion ). The only downside of this one for me is that there isn't a hide containers with spoiled food option yet, but it's on the author's to-do list.

 

[Desiderius]

Hide empty vases (98% of them) would add days back on to my life.

 

[Yosharian]

Alright it's just that I'm vaguely aware that killing that creature has a significant effect on something in a later act

 

[madrigal]

Alright it's just that I'm vaguely aware that killing that creature has a significant effect on something in a later act

Confirmed it happened in my playthrough.

Spoiler

Dammon not showing up at last light inn in Act 2

 

[Barbarian]

In the case you don't recruit Karlach, do the soul coins and infernal iron have any utility? I mean quest use and etc.

 

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

None that I've seen for soul coins. I assume you can still give infernal iron to the tiefling smith in act 2 to get some armour pieces.

 

[Barbarian]

Also there is an obscure and cheesy(and somewhat difficult, on tactician at least) method in hag's lair to both

Spoiler

get the hag's hair, kill the bitch and save her captives

You need to keep one of your companions hidden and away from the fight.

Spoiler

then after you get her to low health and strike the bargain, just before the last dialogue options, switch to the hidden character and deal her the final blow

.

Makes for an entertaining difficult fight since you will only have 3 characters and all the masked servants will join. Confirmed to working.

 

[Parabalus]

any way to kill strange ox early, while its surrounded with other tieflings?

You can kill him and others at no penalty, doesn't trigger the rest of the grove.

That ring + mask of the shapeshifter is free 1d4 on rolls for the entire party.

 

[skaraher]

Desiderius how does this game combatfagottery compares to Owlcat's Pathfinder ?

 

[lukaszek]

You can kill him and others at no penalty, doesn't trigger the rest of the grove.

all the tieflings attack me

 

[Raghar]

Hide empty vases (98% of them) would add days back on to my life.

You had option of not clicking them all.

 

[Desiderius]

Desiderius how does this game combatfagottery compares to Owlcat's Pathfinder ?

Seems more like a cross between Deadfire and D:OS. PF is more like 3.5 with the most popular multi-class builds converted into their own hybrid classes. The archetypes there are more for about tweaks to the main class to exploit certain niches where here like Deadfire they often open up whole different playstyles.

Itemization reminds me more of Deadfire too which brings a lot more dimensions into play maybe due to bounded accuracy.

It’s not as faceroll as Deadfire but once you get an idea of what you’re doing and where things are the lvl five power spike can certainly feel like it.

PF games were ultimately solvable without reloads since you could just blow out every check with unbounded stacking of bonuses where here there’s a risk of getting to the same place since enemies don’t pose enough of a threat to punish missed rolls and poor play, and even when they do you’ve got the Nahuelebeck mechanic of getting downed midcombat being no big deal in most cases.

I like how much skills matter in general but don’t like how few matter in combat itself.