Baldur's Gate 3 - Discussion Post #2

Who is with me: Larian improves the BG3 engine, and starts putting out D&D campaigns, from the classics on. Buck the Baldurs Gate thing, and do some modules as games. Be my dungeon master, Larian.

Quests and gameplay bugs aside, am I the only one who has a gripe with how there are so little to no good looking helmets in the game? Most of the time it's set to Hide Helmet for all of my characters. I just want my Oathbreaker to look the part.

I just opened the game for the first time, haven’t started playing yet. The EULA is already entertaining. They encourage fan art because “there is no fiend in the Realms that doesn’t have a soft spot for idolatry, and admittedly We’re no different. So send Us your best work and know that mortals who amuse Us often get better perks”. There is more lighthearted, not-so-legal speech in here. I appreciate them considering those of us insane enough to read the damn EULA.

Is anyone else at awe with how massive this game actually is?

Like I was in a big zone in Act 2, explored the crap out of it, went past the next part of the main story line but decide to explore a bit more. I find a door to some seemingly small dungeon.. "Uh let's see where this leads." It's starts to become bigger and bigger, and then inside that there's another door to an even bigger place. Holy shit I'm completely lost, I don't even know what I've already left behind.

The only downside is that I get rather tired when playing splitscreen on my living room TV. Otherwise I think I wouldn't even leave my home for 2 weeks.

I would kill for the dynamic split screen from DOS2.

Controversial take: party size unlock is absolutely the best experience, feels more narratively justified and more like a 5e D&D adventure.

About to go into the final battle and finish the game off for my 1st run. I'll probably shelve the game for a couple months and play Starfield and Phantom Liberty and then give an evil run through a try.

Loved act 1, but not too impressed with act 3. Seemed a bit rushed and all over the place, maybe should've split the content up and made an act 4. Always felt with Larian games that the writing usually falls apart near the end and this game was no exception. Bit let down with the other 2 chosen fights as well. The highlight was definitely the house of hope, between the music, the characters you deal with and the fight itself it was absolutely my favourite part of act3.

I've also run into numerous bugs requiring reloads too. Jumping across a small gap and characters will get caught on some invisible wall and just die. Quests not completing or triggering properly. Companions repeating dialogue or just giving me dialogue as if I chose different outcomes from quests(looking at you Gale). Also managed to get two different outcomes for the same gather your allies quest so I guess I'll see if that works out or not. (EDIT: Just a dialogue/extra character glitch. Didn't have two skills in the allies bar to use for them)

All in all I enjoyed the game, but bg2 is one of my all time favourite rpgs and this fell short for me. I'm glad it did really well though, hopefully they can make an Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights game, that would be wicked.

Aw man... using a potion of Colossus or enlarge person before buying the statue of yourself doesn't make the statue gigantic 😩

Larian. Pls fix.

Does it bother anyone else that if you're playing an elf, the narration for camp scenes never remembers that elves don't sleep? It's bad enough that the trance animation is very similar to sleeping anyway.

Laezel's been growing on me lately. Used to not like her that much at the start but now she's a permanent member of my party. Interested to know how others feel about her

Disclaimer: if this is how you like to play that is okay.

I find it so confusing that people are asking for specific builds with what spells to take and what items to equip. Although it's a singleplayer game with a difficulty that doesn't require much optimization (if any) even on tactician. I really enjoy trying different builds that seem fun regardless if they are the strongest or not, so to me following a build would take out half the fun of the game.

Stopping now after making it about 2/3rds of the way in on my second run. Had a blast, but with as many bugs as I'm running into now even before Act 3, I think it's best to shelve it until more fixes are made. Straw that broke the camel's back was missing romance scenes seemingly because I didn't long rest enough. That's funny because I felt like my party was getting wrecked a lot more than my first party was, so I had to be resting even more. Maybe by Act 2 I had figured things out more than I realized.

Next run (whenever that is) I'm thinking evil bard and fully Embracing My Potential, if you know what I mean. Also probably going to bump it up to Tactician when I hit level 5 on that run.

Act 3 bugs and unexpected quest lock offs make me sad. My Monk is now punching his way directly to the finish line and I'll roll a new hero and play again in a little while. Had a blast but a bit disappointed with the bugs.

Man. The Phalar Aluve is my favorite sword. I'm probably a bit biased because I'm running a Paladin/Bard, but the 1d4 plus to attack rolls and Cha, Wis, and Int saving throws while it's singing, has saved my bacon more times than I can count.

I created my own character, drow elf druid. I think I messed up in the beginning and didn't grab one NPC, so my entire party is weak. No tank just warlock, druid, cleric, and whatever the vampire is. Do I have a chance to get a tank later?

How extreme are the consequences for not bringing companions with you on their specific quests?

I've been rolling with the same party all game and I'm really happy with it. I figured on my next playthrough, I'd just pick a different party composition and really get to know those characters on that playthrough, which would keep things fresh for me.

I don't mind missing out on random lore or conversation bits (that's the kind of stuff I'm trying to save for future playthroughs,) but it would bum me out a little if one of my camp buddies got mad and just left in a "bad ending" sort of way (I'd be more ok with a bittersweet "friends going separate ways" type scene, though, if it makes sense for the story.) I want to help everyone, but it just feels so video-gamey to add someone to the party, level them up, give them decent equipment, complete a quest, and then kick them out again just to get a better cutscene or something when that's not how I've been playing for the past 40 hours.

Specifically, I am about to enter the part of the Act 1 map relevant to Lae'zel and she hasn't been in my active party since I met Karlach.

So what do you think? Should I stick to my preferred play style and see what happens? Or change it up because I'm a chronic "good guy" gamer who wants to help everyone and get the "goodest" ending?

I don't want to know where it is, just if it exists and if it's missable in a particular act:

Is there a cowboy hat in this game, and can I miss it by progressing too far?

No additional details please! Thanks!

Not sure what they changed in the new update, but it doesn't just crash occasionally, it bricks my entire PC. Literally have to do the horrible 'hold power button down to turn off' manoevre, which always feels to me like Deebo choking out Craig.

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, yeah!". Got to the point I'm seriously thinking about uninstalling the game because I can't risk fucking up my PC like this just for a game (entertaining though it is). Just about to start Act 3, gutted because I want to see where my characters' stories go.

So I'm about to fight Kendrick and I haven't found the other ring of the True Love set nor given the book to the He Who Was dude. Will I be able to do those things, or will it immediately make me go to BG?

Okay, first time I thought I would be able to enter a burrow hole but nope. A rat familiar can't enter a burrow hole? Nevermind it'll probably be able to do next to nothing on the other side. Can't you let me poke around at least so I can see if it's worth casting 2 spells (disguise and reduce size) or calling up my druid to get in there?

Say I go down the Oathbreaker path for a while. When I switch back, will I still have access to the skills I learned as an Oathbreaker?

I challenged The Prison Warden to a dual, and then accidentally fired my crossbow, killing her lol. Insta-Oathbreaker. I wanna see what the skills are like

Uh I just got Karlach, so now I'm cooking with fire

I'm seeing some conflicting information about Act II out there regarding order of operations. From what I've read, it sounds like I'll get a pop-up warning when I'm about to trigger something that would affect other quests. However, I'm also seeing a lot of people saying that you should just beeline to Moonrise ASAP before doing any side quests. So which is it? Am I free to explore, work on Halsin's stuff, etc. as long as I don't trigger that pop-up? Or is there a timer going as soon as the stuff at Last Light kicks off?

Has anyone else had the bug where pressing the level up button causes the game to crash to desktop?

I've played through one whole playthrough and I'm starting my modded run but I can't seem to level Asterion from 4 to 5. I looked it up and I found a reddit thread that has a lot of folks sharing the same problem with no one conclusive solution. I just wanted to double check if it's a vanilla issue with somebody else. Otherwise I just wanted to start the discussion here.

So, I've come to the conclusion that the game is actually not that open ended when it comes to how you want to do things.

For example, I killed gortash and only gortash at his coronation, but Duke ravengard died anyways, you could argue hey maybe he was killed by someone else to get back at your character but it still sucks.

Killing gortash right away also completely removes certain areas and quest lines and also bugs certain other quests very disappointing.

Another thing in regards to romance, apparently if you don't trigger certain flags you can end up not romancing a character you want. I was not able to romance shadowheart on my second playthrough because I rushed act 1 a bit and didn't have enough approval for her and the game seem to insinuate that that was fine and I could do it later. But, apparently that wasn't the case and I cannot romance Shadowheart at all now in Act 3.

Ive been loving the random interactions between laezel and shadowheart and occasionally with astarion as well. Is great to see everyone start out a certain way and eventually change their opinion on certain events and other companions - feels like we're really on a journey and evolving together

Haven't really explored much with the rest of the cast. Any other companions have fun quips / interactions?