Baldur's Gate 3

[simple spire]

I got the date before killing him

[hexed inlet]

I don't remember if I got it before or after

[simple spire]

Karlach and Wyll are a bit odd because they’re not people trying to break free of indoctrination — they’re people trying to put their lives back together in the wake of indoctrination

[hexed inlet]

my friend is playing through bg3 for the first time blind currently and any time someone brings up karlach I'm like "we love karlach, karlach is so good"

[simple spire]

I was disappointed that Wyll’s whole story about how he became a warlock was exactly what he thought it was

[hexed inlet]

oh you mean it would have been cool if mizora was manipulating the whole thing?

[simple spire]

It feels like a setup for an immense betrayal of that sort, yeah

It all feels a little too pat

That Wyll is right that the circumstances justified things

[hexed inlet]

I think with the whole duke ravengard thing being pretty woven into the plot and also part of wyll's story they didn't have space to do a ton more with him

or it really would be the wyll show

[simple spire]

I just found his plot kind of uncompelling

[hexed inlet]

he's very vanilla

[simple spire]

He became a warlock to save the city, and that was the right thing to do, but his dad didn’t know what he had done until eventually he showed his dad with telepathy

[hexed inlet]

he would definitely be the hero of a slightly pulpier fantasy story

[simple spire]

That’s … there’s not really much there, and it misses what I think was a chance to have Wyll showcase a different kind of indoctrination

[hexed inlet]

he's just like, Man: the Guy

[simple spire]

The kind where you think everything was justified and it really wasn’t

And the early parts of his story really feel like that’s being set up

And then it just … doesn’t do anything

I dunno he’s a fine character but he stands out in the simplicity of his conflict

He suffers for doing the right thing but he keeps hope and eventually that turns around

[hexed inlet]

ye, Man: the Guy

[simple spire]

Indeeb

I just see the potential for more

[clear kestrel]

Wyll got rewrites iirc

Which probably effected things

Like the dynamic should be all about him and his demon lady, and it is for the most part

But that should climax with her, him and his dad

And it sorta does

But othertimes, it just... doesn't

Depending on choices and timing in act 3

[simple spire]

I think it would be an amazing piece of tragedy if Wyll telepathied his experiences to his dad, and his dad revealed that couldn’t possibly have happened the way he thought, and that Wyll was tricked.

The way Wyll keeps insisting he has no doubts or regrets really feels like a setup

[clear kestrel]

Patch notes now out on steam

[hexed inlet]

sweet

[clear kestrel]

Time to finish my Good Guy Durge run so I can have a Bad Guy Durge run

[hexed inlet]

if I finish this honor run I'd like to try an evil durge solo honor run

as a vengeance paladin or something

[clear kestrel]

I'll probably do a sorcerer run or something

[hexed inlet]

yeah I'm considering that too

going hard on ice or lightning or something

because there are all those items that affect elemental damage/spells and I'd like to try going hard on that

[clear kestrel]

set yourself on fire

[hexed inlet]

I think ice would be fun, slowing and slipping people

and it has decent spells

ray of frost, ice knife, chromatic orb, ice storm, glyph of warding

lightning seems strong too although there's not a ranged cantrip for it

can you get tanky with a sorcerer like you can a wizard?

[clear kestrel]

No idea

Probably?

[rich plover]

I don't think there's an equivalent to abjuration ward, but sorcerers get shield (and I guess mage armor?). Multi class into storm cleric for heavy armor proficiency and you could be pretty tanky.

[hexed inlet]

oh very true

that would work well with a lightning focused build

[rich plover]

yeah, definitely. any cleric would get you Create Water, which would be good for either cold or lightning

[hexed inlet]

you can also just throw water bottles

gotta be one of the most underused items

[clear kestrel]

I dunno

Depends if you date Karlach

[hexed inlet]

lol

[hollow wind]

I'm playing a new run with some friends, I wanna go thunder hammer cleric

[hexed inlet]

enjoy

[winged vapor]

It’s only out for Pc now right ?

[dawn valley]

i think i may have lost my BG3 files 😦

[hollow wind]

Did they make any class changes or balance changes? It seems like there's hardly any major changes

Tons of stuff for mod content and story stuff

[dawn valley]

i dunno if i'm gonne to re dl the game thsi week end

[rich plover]

looked like mostly just support for evil playthroughs (endings, dialogue) and bug fixes, but I stopped reading at the start of the bug fixes because of spoilers

[winged vapor]

Well and a ton of easy to install mods

[clear kestrel]

Yeah no big mechanics changes if you exclude mods

[severe robin]

No big changes if you exclude the big changes they did :3

[clear kestrel]

😛 ya

Modding community is going well

[safe jungle]

oh hey they gave Karlach an ending where she unambiguously uh

fixes her heart problem

[simple spire]

Wait what

There's a surprise

[safe jungle]

yeah if you ||Become the Absolute with Origin Karlach as a show of her newfound powers she'll literally rip out her own heart as she unleashes an army of demons and illithids upon the world||

[simple spire]

... ah.

||Girlboss moments?||

[safe jungle]

ofc

she gets a voiced monologue and everything

[hexed inlet]

girlboss! we love karlach

[safe jungle]

I think she might be the only origin character who gets like ||a fully voice evil monologue|| for her ||Absolute|| ending

[dawn valley]

okay so i am re dowloading the game (plus I have lost all my mods it's great i swear)

and i kinda want soemthing like a hybrid spellcaste/martial that has undead minions and sadly the oathbreaker is a bit limited on the stuf it can summon

maybe sporedruid ?

or sporedruid/ranger ?

[neon junco]

Spore druid id say is the best summoner option for heavy summon focus imo but the other one is necromancy wizard 6 and Eldritch knight fighter 6

Get the nice buffed animate dead from wizard but also have good INT for fighter stuff and boost your spellslot leveling a bit more than non a caster martial

[dawn valley]

that's actuallty a pretty cool idea

but on the other hand i'm think with shileagh and flame blade i don't really have to put a lot in dex/str for melee attack

plus there is tuff like the sporekeeper armor plus the staff of cherished necromancy

[neon junco]

I know there's a few melee weapons that let you use your spellcasting stat as the modifier

[simple spire]

There's a rapier, and there's Jaheira's scimitar

Maybe some others

[neon junco]

Conversely a summoning necromancy wizard might not need high INT and can main str/dex because a lot of the necromancy stuff scales by wizard level and not INT modifier

And you could use spells that arent attack rolls or forcing saves.

And otherwise stab most of the time

[simple spire]

TBH the lack of a second attack hurts a lot if you're trying to melee

[neon junco]

Id pretty much always recommend going 5 levels in one class first unless it's an extremely specific build like bard 3 dual crossbows

[simple spire]

There's an argument to be made that if you want to do melee wizard the best way is something like Swords Bard 6/Wizard 6

[neon junco]

Assuming not respecting which ig you could multi class 1-4 then respec single class at 5

That's a great option for full spellcasting level slots

The summon spells get a lot from up casting

Id go with that

[simple spire]

Could drop 2 Wizard for Paladin if you want smites

[neon junco]

Sword bard 6/necromancy wizard 6

[simple spire]

Various ways to do it, but the big thing is Swords Bard 6/Wizard 2 at a minimum

[neon junco]

Wizard 2 subclasses doesn't really get much summon support or summon spells at all

[simple spire]

Ah, not even for necromancy?

Never mind then

But yeah go high int, grab various utility and buff spells from bard

[neon junco]

And bard doesn't have any summon spells unless lore

[simple spire]

Ring of Eldritch Scoundrel at late-game

Well, also, all you need for 6th level wizard spells is wizard 1

[neon junco]

It's simple bee line necromancy wizard 6 for animate dead at 5 and the pretty powerful summon buff at 6

[simple spire]

Makes sense

[neon junco]

If you're going undead summons it's hard to pass up extra summon on animate dead and +prof to their HP and damage

Adds up when you have like 4+ undead summons

Although Spore druid 6/Necromancy 6 can be a front lining tanking summoning monster and imo the best dedicated summon build but your melee attacks will be weak with no extra attack or other class features buffing it so it'd be better to like use close range spells

[safe jungle]

I want a pokey spear that I can use spellcasting modifiers for

Modding tools are out so maybe in a week there’s gonna be a bunch of mods

[severe robin]

Oh, right, I could do that silly idea I had now...

[dawn valley]

That's partially why i want to multiclass into ranger$

[simple spire]

The advantage of swords bard is full casting progression

Although if you're doing something like Druid 7/Ranger 5

There's an argument to be made there because ranger does get half casting and you get 4th level druid spells that way

However if your other class is wizard, swords bard is unequivocally better due to the way wizard spell learning works

[dawn valley]

i mean most of the speel that would be interesting to be learned that way (like creat undead and the works) i can learn laready with my level in druid

[safe jungle]

Full warlock so I can turn gortash into a stone statue

[dawn valley]

but i was thinkin of a 7/5 or 6/6 split

but i would need like at least level 5 for beat master

(in truth i'm like level one so i have a long way ahead of me)

[neon junco]

Like a reach weapon that uses spellcasting mod?

Or like an actual Spear weapon type

[safe jungle]

A spear

A reach weapon would be nice too I guess

[soft tundra]

i always felt like, with the late game water god stuff, a spellcasting trident would have been neato

[simple spire]

It wouldn't have been out of line for that one trident that does Wet on hit

[winged vapor]

I just want a fast moving spellblade that actually feels like a spellblade. Is that so hard lol

[hexed inlet]

is bard not that

[simple spire]

Totally possible to do that

[winged vapor]

Not really, it doesn’t cast as part of its attacks

[simple spire]

Only a problem if you want single-classed

[hexed inlet]

my one full run I played a swords bard with I think a bit of fighter

but I mostly used control spells and shot people

[simple spire]

But given you can get Ring of the Eldritch Scoundrel right at the beginning of Act 3

You can spend an entire act stabbing/shooting and then casting spells

[hexed inlet]

band of the mystic scoundrel?

[simple spire]

That one

[winged vapor]

Yeah well that is in act three. But also magic sword swings kinda only exists with smites

[simple spire]

I did a two-handed weapon Paladin 2/Swords Bard 10

Had a great time

The gf is doing something similar but a dual-wielder

[dawn valley]

the gnome to squid pipelione is real

I'm think to romance Karlach with a gnome

[storm sinew]

Having done so, it's delightful.

[neon junco]

Gotta love they patched the game so gnomes can be kissed properly via bending down

[hexed inlet]

accidentally played for quite a long time today, here's my extremely hinged dark urge solo sorcerer

[simple spire]

Ooh she looks good

[hexed inlet]

the dye on the armour is modded

I had to give the new mod manager a little spin

[severe robin]

Have the modding tools releasedd yet?

[dawn terrace]

Yes, patch 7 dropped a couple days ago.

I'm praying that BG3 mods on console less restrictive then Skyrim where.

[neon junco]

New modding stuff is real neat

You can just install mods within the game and the 16 character multiplayer is one of the mods, easy large parties

[severe robin]

How do you access them, and how easy are they to use?

I had a very silly idea for a mod once, and want to see about making it a reality

[neon junco]

As for making mods you install the new toolkit

I was talking about installing mods as a player it's very convenient to get other friends in on your multiplayer without going through the old mod manager

[dawn terrace]

If you've got any big mod ideas you gotta wait for the script extender to be updated.

[hexed inlet]

if it's something simple like replacing one thing with another then it's probably fairly easy to do

there are a LOT of mods that sprang up immediately about like making gortash into a halfling and changing withers' name to bone daddy

[sonic pollen]

can you still get achievements with mods enabled?

bc i'm going to start doing more honour mode runs and I don't want to not get the credit for it

[neon junco]

I think not, unless you install the mod to enable achievements with mods

[sonic pollen]

damn

[clear kestrel]

There's always a mod that bypasses the achievement disabling

[rich plover]

how's modding work with multiplayer? everyone separately installs all the mods before joining the session?

[neon junco]

Yea

I think in new patch 7 manager if you try to join a multiplayer game without the right mods it gives you the option to just install it in the same menu

[soft tundra]

thats really good

[clear kestrel]

Loading into a BG3 game like a Counter strike custom lobby

[soft tundra]

the game cant always handle being super-split up very well but i love the idea of the larger parties mod and having two distinct parties attempting different things

[neon junco]

Yea extremely convenient especially to people new to crpgs and video games in general

Being able to easily play with absolute video games beginners modded is amazing imo

The only thing I think is weird is I think it requires you to install every mod even ones that seem like it should only be client side like UI stuff

I say I think but it does give you the popup so I just installed it and I never tried to join a game without same mod store mods

[hollow wind]

If you're needing a hand on honor mode stuff, I'm always down

[clear kestrel]

All these folks saying modding is gonna get us a full length custom fan made campaign, or a rework of BG1 and 2 in BG3, or a persistent online multiplayer experience

I appreciate the enthusiasm but, no, that won't happen

[neon junco]

I'm not sure how extensive the tooling kit is but Larian worked directly with the person who did the script extender and mod manager

Crpgs don't tend to get huge mods I assume because it's more difficult than a 3d engine like Skyrim or fallout NV

We'll see but I doubt it since BG3 base campaign is so extensive with so many interconnected moving parts that either it's gonna be nearly impossible to do custom entirely new campaigns with current assets being so tightly knighted together or easier since a lot of it is in place already and reusable

[clear kestrel]

Voice acting would still be a big barrier

As would any new 3d assets, I think you can go a long long way with recycling but there's still limits

And even with it being one of the most popular games of late, it then needs to foster a big modding scene

And then some of the things, like a persistent online multiplayer whatever just aren't feasible

[neon junco]

A big barrier that didn't stop like the mini campaigns in NV and with new fan voice acting and new assets

It's just whether a small group of people happen to choose to do so

Even if it does I doubt it'll be like BG3 good, it's a really high bar with likely so much going behind the scenes for choices and decisions that it'd be hard for fans doing it as a hobby could match. New Vegas is kind of easier cause the quality of the base game varied a lot in terms of writing so it's easier to make something similar in quality

[clear kestrel]

Sure it did, but NV is probably the second most modded game of all time

And had a huge mod community leading into it's release

[neon junco]

It might pick up faster for BG3 with its official toolkit, less needing to reverse engineer a lot of things

[clear kestrel]

Yeahl, but it's also starting from pretty much nothing

When NV game out, Morroblivion had already been made as an example

[neon junco]

The toolkit only come out like 2 days ago and I don't know if many modders have had a chance to look through it and see what it's capable of

[clear kestrel]

Bethesda engine games already had a huge very dedicated and talent modding community

Like, my point is more, it could be the best easiest to use modding toolkit in the world

And it still might lack the amount of people needed for big things to happen

The bethesda toolkit has decades of support and users and projects and all sorts that makes newer stuff, like for example custom campaigns in NV and Skyrim, easier

[neon junco]

Conversely if the toolkit does have some real features that lowers barrier to entry a lot it wouldn't need as many people or support to get something done of the same quality as a Bethesda game

[clear kestrel]

I don't think that's always true

[neon junco]

And like, those Bethesda engine modders had to start with nothing as well

[clear kestrel]

Sure, but they started from nothing 20 years ago, and now we have big stuff from them

Because everyones stuff built on each others over time

[neon junco]

Also divinity original sin 2 had some modding uses the divinity engine.

[clear kestrel]

For sure

It's very limited

From my experience, it's all class stuff with a couple attempts at side missions at best

Now, the BG3 toolkit will help aleviate that

[neon junco]

Yea I'm not saying next week there will be bg2 remaster in bg3

[clear kestrel]

But some folks are expecting like, BG3 Enderal. I'm saying, you need a lot of things to lead up to that even with an amazing toolkit

[neon junco]

I agree with that

If anything probably the BG3 modding community if it picks up will be able to do some big mods in like at minimum 5 years and likely longer so by that time larians newest game with the newest divinity engine could be great if the devs supported it officially

[clear kestrel]

Yeah, I think if/when they do another project, if that one launches with mod support, that's when we'll get crazy stuff

[neon junco]

It's good to start early, cause Minecraft has been around like 13 years and they tried mod support on the C based windows edition and even though with technical specs it is the superior version to JavaScript it just has too much JavaScript based mods to easily port over so modding on Windows version just flopped at first and I still think it's not near the point of the JS modding community after these years

The devs couldn't predict Minecraft modding scene would be a thing at all at the time but hindsight is 20/20

[simple spire]

What's more likely is that we'll get pretty much what we're already getting: some new or updated items, new hairstyles, some modified ancestry, class, and spell traits, changes to player counts, removing certain restrictions, etc.

[clear kestrel]

For sure

[neon junco]

It took about 3 years for Larian to make and release DOS2 and 2 of that was early access. I assume their next game is gonna be great and if it is I wouldn't be surprised if the BG3 modders jump shop to the newer game and BG3 stays at relatively minor mods for a long long time

Especially if it's the same version of the divinity engine BG3 is using now

[soft tundra]

some of the best/mod desired mods for bg3 already exist, which helps/hurts future potential wild mods

[neon junco]

Also true, Larian did a great job and ironically means less design space for modders than a jank game cause less needs fixing via mods.

But also Alfrira as companion mod when, is her VA on fivver

[simple spire]

Leave Alfira alone

She and her wife are settling down

[hexed inlet]

raccoon lady, being a sorcerer with no KO-ing ability to speak of, did do the regrettable alfira thing

[severe robin]

No party members?

[hexed inlet]

they don't understand my cool murder-y vibe

[simple spire]

Are you going for the Most Evil ending?

[hexed inlet]

I hope so

things are going well, cleared out most of the underdark and did the zaith'isk today

I think I got my record for zaith'isk buffs, it was like +15-20 on my saves

[soft tundra]

those buffs are so good

[hexed inlet]

bliss spores, staff of arcane blessing, headband of intellect, elixir of heroism

if I was playing a cleric I could have cast resistance on top of that too

which would be 1d6 + 2d4 + 3 + 1d4 + 1d4

so it's +8-25

[wise mango]

argggghhh, I forgetti what happens to Alfira if you play as a durge.... ||I really wanted that fucking drip for my build but I accidentally wiped out the goblin camp in one long rest and so I never got the chance to knock her out, so instead I resolved to just, do all of the rest of act 1 on a single long rest and after like, 4 hours and the only loss I've suffering in BG3 in actual months I get to the elevator aaaaand. She's right fucking there to greet me. Not even telling her to actually fuck off will save her, I wouldn't've even minded all that much if I missed out on the cape||

Time to restart the run all over

[hexed inlet]

tragedy

[wise mango]

truly

I'm thinking that Imma just ditch the rest of my party for this next run

honour mode solo sorlock Eld Blast only run

[hexed inlet]

my silly dark urge solo sorcerer has been having a bit of a time of it

I was stuck in meenlock hell for a while

and turns out they don't even have any good loot

[wise mango]

Meenlock?

[hexed inlet]

yeah

pointy fey bastards in the last light basement

[wise mango]

never been down there

although I'm going to have to for this build

[hexed inlet]

why

[wise mango]

Need the Coruscation Ring

I think it's down there

[hexed inlet]

what is the point of that thing anyway

I've been going ice focused, plenty of throwing water on people and making them slip over

[simple spire]

There are ways to use the radiant damage to trigger a shitload of rider effects

Also the radiant damage is especially good if you’re doing a bunch of attacks each of which can get its own damage riders

[hexed inlet]

huh

[neon junco]

Didn't honor mode change a lot of damage riders

Specifically only enabled during honor mode

[simple spire]

Possibly? The big thing is the boots of stormy clamor + gloves of belligerent skies

Which as a pair let you do 4 turns of reverberation for every instance of radiant damage

You then pair that with the Callous Glow ring

And hell, a Phalar Aluve buff gets you even more reverberation

[wise mango]

yeah that, since I'm using Eldritch Blast and scorching ray and shit I get a ton of them

add in the shoes of quaking in your little boots and the spellsparkler and the Markoheshkir and I'm setting up a good lightning charge/radiant orb, reverberation stack set up

[hexed inlet]

the face of someone who has just received jimjams

her hair's not normally that colour, it's just blood

[clear kestrel]

Ah I was worried it was jam

[soft tundra]

or jim

[sonic pollen]

it might be jim

[safe jungle]

Where’s Jim

[dawn valley]

I've come again to ask wich woman i should romance in my durge playthrough

[dawn terrace]

Good or evil?

[clear kestrel]

Minathra for fun, Shadowheart for sad

[hexed inlet]

don't ask questions you don't want the answer to

[austere hinge]

I would vote Lae'zel because I have no idea how that would go

[simple spire]

Lae'zel is imo the best romance by far

[austere hinge]

I love my frog wife

[neon junco]

Amongst the women Laezel has very very different endings

I believe at least 3 unique to her

[austere hinge]

I have not reached them yet but I really should keep going

I just love my frog wife in general

[neon junco]

One of them is very tragic even by bg3 terms

I saw it cause I wasn't gonna do a Baezel run again and it was devastating as a Laezel fan

[austere hinge]

oh no

[simple spire]

The ||evil|| one?

[neon junco]

Not sure which one is the ||evil|| one

[simple spire]

||Gets eaten by Vlaakith?||

[neon junco]

||Yes that one, also the one where she unalives herself||

[safe jungle]

There’s also her ||Absolute ending||

[simple spire]

Oh true

[safe jungle]

Where she ||also leads a rebellion against Vlaakith and is clearly winning with her githyanki and Illithid slave armies||

Absolute ending seems to give the origin characters what they want

No strings attached

In exchange for their humanity

[clear kestrel]

*some strings attachted

[austere hinge]

wow I sure wish I could click on those

sadly I do not trust myself

I love my frog wife

[neon junco]

The payoff is worth it if you don't

They are, i'd say in the top 5 endings and like 4 of them are Lae'zel

[neon junco]

Honestly that's what I would have chosen first few playthroughs

[simple spire]

Lae'zel is I think at the heart of the narrative

Astarion and Shadowheart are similarly well-written

[neon junco]

Shadowheart's endings are relatively more quiet, the peak of her narrative resolves before the game's post ending

Some of Lae'zels endings have the "big ending that could lead into a cameo in a sequel" vibe to me even though she probably won't

Or moreso "the journeys just started" vibe

[simple spire]

Yeah, Astarion and Shadowheart are similarly well-written but they are not at the core of what's happening in the way she is

[neon junco]

Even though larian won't do BG4, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if 3 was a setup for gith rebellion in 4

Most of the other companion's endings are fairly like localized around themselves except some of Gale's but even then he isn't taking an active role like Lae'zel

Wyll's could affect baldur's gate

[simple spire]

I think Larian made the active decision to have the companions' actions lead to potentially big changes

[neon junco]

That's true they have a big impact on their area but Laezel is ||multiplanar warfare and next closest is Gale as a new god in the faerun pantheon||

[safe jungle]

I for one welcome Wyll’s ||demonic tyranny in his Absolute ending||

[clear kestrel]

Astirion ||got a fun new evil ending||

||They set themselves up as a hero of light in a world of shadows, but they're in control of both sides||

[safe jungle]

Karlach becomes ||a girlboss||

[neon junco]

Honestly the evil endings feel good, cause it feels realistic in that most people considered evil arent comically selfish or want to destroy the world because bad childhood but have legitimate desires to improve some part of the world in their own way, which is considered evil to the people it doesn't benefit or are unwilling

A good example of how normal or good people can become evil through their motivations

[hexed inlet]

the honor mode gang has made it to act 2

after an extremely scuffed grym fight

[safe jungle]

The fact that cyric became insane because he was dumb enough to review his own holy text after he enchanted it to mind control anyone who read it still is hilarious

[wise mango]

is there any other Grym fight?

[hexed inlet]

on my second run I beat him in 2 turns without taking a hit

that was on tactician too

[safe jungle]

I threw hammers at it until it died

[wise mango]

I beat it to death

[hexed inlet]

yeah this one was with a monk

[wise mango]

I do not care that I am melting, it is dead

[hexed inlet]

I'm a bit nervous for act 2 but despite many fuckups the run has proved resilient to failure

I want those golden dice

also I'm not sure if the game thinks I'm romancing lae'zel or shadowheart because I got both their cutscenes

and gale's magic macarena iirc

[wise mango]

oh you're doing honour mode?

[hexed inlet]

see: the caption of that image

brb

[wise mango]

IDK if it was just raw luck but mine run through was fairly easy. I mean, think about how many times you actually full wipe in BG3

plus, since I knew it was harder I made like

absurd builds sent from the depths

[neon junco]

You could even smith adamantine gear before fighting him then fight him to BS

[hexed inlet]

I haven't done this but I might give it a go tbh

the closest I have is hill giant strength chugging tavern brawler monk laezel

which I just did because I thought laezel would make a good monk

[wise mango]

I'd recommend a swords bard tav using ranged weapons

since it makes you very good at talking and turning people into dead bodies

[hexed inlet]

I did that on my first run that beat the game

can confirm it was strong

my tav on this one is a rogue

thoughts for them, gale, and shadowheart?

[wise mango]

do you want them to keep their original classes?

[hexed inlet]

yeah that would be nice

although paladin shart would be fine, I am enjoying the cleric's excellent spell list

[wise mango]

Gale: Gale
Gale (Wizards Keep Wizarding)
Shadowheart: Bless/Spirit Guardians
Make her extremely mobile and suddenly you have a moblie AoE that can solo fights and honestly a full cleric is enough to do this just fine if you make them life domain for insane healing utility. Or you could have the become God's Strongest soldier as a Barbarian Berserker/Devotion Paladin/Champion Fighter/War Cleric (5/2/3/2) essentially you want to use GWM and items and abilities that lower your crit chance to obliterate foes from the face of the earth, always be reckless attacking and then smiting on top of that
Tav: Thief Rogue Full Automatic Hand Crossbow
Not much getting around it. Become the machine gun you were always meant to be. 9 Attacks in a single turn is insane especially with sharpshooter

[simple spire]

My Gale build in my playthrough was White Draconic Sorcerer 1 (for armor of Agathys)/Tempest Cleric 1/Abjuration Wizard 10

Take magic missile and shield with the sorcerer level

You armor up with Agathys, and later on Fire Shield Cold, max your arcane ward stacks, toss a create water on the enemies, and run around triggering AoOs

Eventually you can get permanent blade ward in various ways

So you never take damage ever

[hexed inlet]

📝

[wise mango]

ngl a build I found really fun with Gale was Oops All Summons, which is a necromancer with Conjure minor and normal elemental as well as find familiar. Pairs well with chain warlocks and clerics with HF and Aid to summon a horde of really OP goons (Ghouls are swinging for 3d6+3 with paralyse or 3d10+3 damage with lifesteal on prone sleeping or knocked out targets which Ice Storm really helps with)

really unbalances fights when you outnumber the horde encounters

plus the imps can go invisible for free suprise rounds

[hexed inlet]

yeah I think I'll either go 1 fighter/5 abjuration tank, or full summoner mode on gale

[neon junco]

Ironic that swords bard is one of the best ranged builds from what was likely unintentioned use of ranged flourish since the description contradicted how it could be used as 2 attacks

Also act 2 spoilers but Gale has a unique summon weapon that no one else in the game can make

And it requires a pretty high persuasion check to convince him but if you're Gale you can just choose to make it

[rotund rapids]

Playing through for the first time, and goddamn the mood whiplash from dealing with the hag and the widow, where the various moods present include from "child eating" and "distraught," directly into the post-goblin party where the mood seems to be "I want to have fuck with you" from every one of my companions sure is something

_ _
While Zevlor says "There were so many we couldn't save" in the background jfc this is not the time to be forcing me to file a complaint with HR

[hexed inlet]

I did this yesterday and I didn't need to do a check at all, I just weighed in that I thought he shouldn't worry about any consequences for doing it and he was like yeah fuck it then

also I hit level 7 and decided to try stopping at 6 monk for laezel and putting levels into barbarian

[zealous shale]

My friend did some great bg art

https://x.com/theHayHaylstorm/status/1834022462905778670?t=9UvtpdzhLkUN3whY70qxOQ&s=19

Hayley (she/her) (@theHayHaylstorm) on X

Part 2 of Festival of Heroes! ✨🎊 #bg3 #baldursgate3 #bg3fanart

Twitter · Sep 12, 2024, 12:13 AM

[clear kestrel]

Nice

[safe jungle]

Alfira was unavailable

On account of being in hiding

From ME

[zealous shale]

I've told her she should illustrate children's books

[clear kestrel]

My Tav painted with Alfria

[simple spire]

She definitely should

[zealous shale]

Shes done Tav comms before

[clear kestrel]

||I hope not the way my Tav did||

[hexed inlet]

[simple spire]

Worrying

[hexed inlet]

concerning

[soft tundra]

adorable

[zealous shale]

Oh, when you said "my tav painted with her" I misunderstood

[simple spire]

I suspect that was intentional

[clear kestrel]

I did mean Alfria ye

[tiny flint]

So like, question about Alfira now, how does she work when you just have a Tav?

Is she just not recruitable then?

[simple spire]

She's not recruitable period

Larian was doing a funny

[tiny flint]

Ohhh, I thought she was like briefly recruitable but then the urge happens and she dies

[simple spire]

She joins your camp during a long rest, and then she dies before the end of said long rest

[tiny flint]

Ahhh ok so then what normally happens

[soft tundra]

she goes with the tiefling caravan

and you encounter the tieflings again later and later

and in her best possible ending she ends up in baldur's gate singing above a famous tavern

[simple spire]

And also married

[clear kestrel]

Roommates marrying? I assume for tax purposes /s

[neon junco]

April's fools should be they actually make Alfrira recruitable but she leaves because she misses her one day wife

[rich plover]

April Fools Day: Alfira is the dark urge

[safe jungle]

Alfira paints with you

Like how Orin painted with Zevlor

I love how Orin’s Bhallist followers kinda misinterpret Bhallist teachings

[hollow wind]

I do think it's a little silly we only see her a day.

It's like, you're nice, but I like you from my basic campaign where you lived. As Durge, I'm not sure why he'd care so much

but then again, on a Durge run there's really not that many true you lose control moments

[neon junco]

Turns out the durge was right, Bhall just wants bigger numbers of dead people

How or why is not relevant

[simple spire]

I do miss Bhaal’s earlier FR characterization as less omnicidal and more of a schemer

[neon junco]

Bhaal cultists almost got away with the whole iron crisis that was probably one of the largest elaborate schemes

Act 3 ||ig we hit Sarevok too hard when we killed him in 1 cause he waited centuries to then just kill people in plain sight cause Bhaal?||

[simple spire]

Aye, and the history of the dead three paints him as a brute, yes, but a thinking brute

[simple spire]

Also ||kinda ignores his whole characterization in Throne of Bhaal||

[safe jungle]

I mean he is a schemer still

Just a schemer whose end goal is “make number of murder go up”

Scheming to murder a person is okay unless it means you are wasting your time that could have been spent killing more people

[simple spire]

I mean I guess? Old school Bhaal's goal was power, not "I hate everyone"

And that was honestly more interesting, imo?

[safe jungle]

I suppose yeah

What would be a non evil god of murder be like

[simple spire]

They would probably try to speak to all aspects of murder, including the social structures that sanction it

"Murder is an adversarial social ritual" kind of thing?

[hexed inlet]

gale is entering his chad arc

also I had an incredibly scuffed yurgir fight because I talked him out of killing me then tried to steal his orb while invisible and apparently that just Does Not Work

he killed 3 of my party and the rogue threw a spectator and scuttled away

after they killed it I fled to camp, rezzed the rest of the party, and went back for a successful round 2

[safe jungle]

Za orb?

[hexed inlet]

?

it's not even his orb really

it's just an orb that's nearby him

[safe jungle]

The orb

Oh yes

Now I remember

One of shar’s smooth round orbs

[hexed inlet]

yes

[neon junco]

If I were wanting to make the numbers go up I wouldn't do targeted assassinations that take time and planning

I'd like, sabotage a ship to sink it

Or plot to turn the steel watchers against the citizens

Would have made a nice subplot decision of do I stop the cult from sabotaging the steel watchers and indirectly help gortash or something

Still sad we won't get to see a Larian Upper City

[safe jungle]

Dreading Wizard of the Coast in house bg4

[zealous shale]

Hopefully a bg4 doesnt happen for a long time, and is given to a good studio

[hexed inlet]

I got through the most nervewracking part of the honor mode run today

fight took like 4 or 5 turns, by the end of it two of us were on half hp and aylin didn't go down once

and I did the gith so now we're in act 3

the one mistake I made was not putting volo's eye on another character, so now my half-illithid tav looks a bit cracked out

[soft tundra]

yeah i find that once you get into act 3, theres enough "easy" act 3 stuff to start with you get yourself the last power boosts to get the rest of it done

re: honor mode runs

truly act 1 is the lethality zone

[hexed inlet]

her current status

[hexed inlet]

you can also always run away and resurrect/rest if a combat is going south

but you can't do that once you jump down bone boy's stupid hole

[soft tundra]

yeah

and theres some nasty ways things can play out once you commit

ive had a few runs end due to some silly moments in said hole

[hexed inlet]

I was so hyped when I beat bone boi though

I did a little shout lol

was really quite nervous going into it

[clear kestrel]

Spoilers for late game durge content

Very cute

[hexed inlet]

aw :)

[hollow wind]

The easy way to early honor mode is to just run a party of 3 characters and leave number 4 in camp. If the 3 go down, you just rez

But Honor mode in act 3, unless you're an idiot like me and decide to challenge Ansur or Cazador, isn't too bad

if you prep yourself and have an understanding of the fight mechanics it works out

Also I don't recommend doing what I did, honor mode Durge

[hexed inlet]

I've had a couple fights where part of the party had to run away and rez the rest

[wise mango]

Act 2 spoilers
Me and my normal amount of summoned goons

[hollow wind]

I may have accidentally started a war between the tieflings and ruids because I wanted a sale...

[hexed inlet]

but nothing where I was at a huge risk of wiping from having everyone engaged in combat

[wise mango]

I actually think I outnumber ||Ketheric's Legion Of Bones. Mine is just better than his lol||

[hexed inlet]

that is so many fucking goons

[wise mango]

it took so long to longstrider them

[hollow wind]

It also helps to always have someone with misty step to bug out

[wise mango]

it was such a pain

[hexed inlet]

I think I'm gonna respec my rogue to be like 4 rogue 5 ranger for a bit

[hollow wind]

I thought they added a QOL if you longstrider a player, it auto longstriders their summons?

[hexed inlet]

two or three of us do

[wise mango]

I wish

[hexed inlet]

longstrider really should be an AoE like feather fall

same with enhanced leap

[wise mango]

Gale, master of the horde, had to upcast 5th level longstrider like 4 times

[hexed inlet]

gale is also my party's longstrider bitch lol

his job is to haste laezel and use abjuration stacks to protect everyone

[wise mango]

but yeah we have: 10 skeletons, 1 raven, 2 fire elementals, 2 ice mephits and we used to have an imp

all with 5th level Aid

[hexed inlet]

laezel btw has like a hundred feet of movement speed

she's so fast

[wise mango]

||NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THE MIND FLAYERS KILLED MY BONEY BOYS||

[austere hinge]

I love my fast frog wife

[hexed inlet]

my tav is dating shadowheart but her and laezel did fuck

[soft tundra]

at this point i cant play the vanilla option anymore, i have to pick durge or an origin, its just so much more content

[wise mango]

^^^

Reallll

only reason I'm even touching Tav again is I wanted the drip

[clear kestrel]

They know

[hexed inlet]

introducing the "what's the worst that could happen" gang

[neon junco]

An unrealistic wish but what if Minthara was an unlockable origin character and it starts you off in the events right before the default intro

[clear kestrel]

Doing an evil Wyll run now

RP being, Wyll encourages everyone to get as much power as they can to protect what they think is important, damn everything else

But I still dunno if a full on evil Act 1 and 2 is worth it?

Like attacking the Grove etc, you lose out on so much content

But it is content I've done like 3 times now

Do folks think it's worth experiencing for an evil run?

[hexed inlet]

I don't think attacking the grove is really that interesting

do knock minthara out instead of killing her though

[clear kestrel]

For sure

Like, you raid the grove, get that Minathra cut scene

And then like, lose out on good side quests and loot cos of it

[hexed inlet]

yeah

[simple spire]

In general I think the game makes your life subtly and not-so-subtly harder if you go evil

[soft tundra]

It is "faster"

[dawn valley]

I play a dregonborn should i go for a lae zel romance ? Lizard on frog action ?

[simple spire]

Allegedly she comments some on your being a dragonborn, although I saw very little of it in my own playthrough

That said, Lae'zel's romance is really good

[austere hinge]

She likes dragonborns and half orcs a little more than others because of powerful

So it's a good one

Halflings do not get anything.

[clear kestrel]

Short races don't even get a companion 😦

(I blame the kissing animation)

[simple spire]

TBH if I were putting out a mass-market CRPG the amount of bullshit I would have to deal with if I wrote a romanceable short companion would probably be a calculation in there somewhere.

[austere hinge]

kiss your local halfling to make up for this

[clear kestrel]

Could of tied a gnome into the whole gondian thing to

Maybe they got family in the steel watch factory or something

Make them a sorcerer

[austere hinge]

I just like halflings ;-;

I was so very happy to see the druid apprentice was a halfling

she was cute

[neon junco]

Thanks to modding every companion has a gnomified version mod in the mod store

Like Minithara

[clear kestrel]

Minor PSA, they've broken the Shovel quest slightly

If you wanna keep them permanently, have a non-spell caster use the scroll, exhaust dialogue, then speak to them as a spellcaster

[soft tundra]

nooo not my Fork

[clear kestrel]

Plus side, I have 2 of then

But I think only 1 is permanent

[neon junco]

Huh weird

I remember the non wizard way to keep shovel meant you couldn't change the name for some reason

I liked Basket

[soft tundra]

im a Fork enjoyer

[clear kestrel]

Well the issue is, wizards can't keep him now

Gotta have a non magic user summon him first

[neon junco]

Weird

I think Basket (not guilty gear one) should be available to casters and non casters

[hexed inlet]

I did the shovel thing recently on a sorcerer, what I had to do was not choose the draconic soul dialogue and not change its name

because either of those made it break

also, honor mode gang update (tav took the photo)

it turns out if you ignore w'wargaz and thus don't encounter the bridge githyanki, you fight all three leaders down in the basement

so that was pretty cool

progress today also included robbing the wizard tower blind

[hexed inlet]

act 3 boss spoilers ||uh. um. honor mode run going well? I fumbled the dialogue options||

we took him down basically unscathed and with a total of like 3 spell slots used

||the echoes also got cc'd to death before they could do anything||

[severe robin]

Can you no longer copy the spell into your book?

[clear kestrel]

Not sure, might not work

But it should automatically unlock for sorceres and warlocks to

But it doesn't

Unless a non-spell caster casts it first, then you talk to shovel with your spell caster

[clear kestrel]

Yeah once that happens, the rest is pretty easy ime

[hexed inlet]

my guy had 340hp, 26 ac, and 4 attacks per turn

[severe robin]

Cause, it used to be that it was buggy and hard to trigger, but Wizards could skip it by just scribing the scroll into their spellbook

[clear kestrel]

Ye

But now it's still buggy

[neon junco]

Did you know ||Sarevok has actual boss mechanics where if you kill his echos at Valeria's prison it really buffs him a lot and for funsies my group killed all 4 echos and he was wild but a lone humanoid boss was focused down afterwards||

[simple spire]

He has a number of boss mechanics

[clear kestrel]

Looking into some of the more obscure things that can happen in the game

Did you know that ||you can get minsc to kill Jahira in a dialogue scene||

[neon junco]

That's wild

In what circumstances

[clear kestrel]

Be durge ||go to murder tribunal, bring Jahira and Misnc, become an unholy assassin of Bhaal, they'll both go to attack you, pick the right dialogue choice and you can mind control Minsc to stab her, instant kill||

There's clips on YouTube for the curious

[soft tundra]

always something new to learn!

[neon junco]

Huh damn

I do want to see his reaction to that

[safe jungle]

He does not take it too well

[neon junco]

I did figure but I want to see personally how not well. Some of the stuff Larian puts in the game for the worst of the worst actually makes me feel bad as a person and I think that's neat a crpg let's you be that awful.

[simple spire]

I know the "generic mass-murderer" version of evil is popular with CRPG players who just don't really want to engage with the world and see the evil as a form of performative bathos, but personally I find it kind of tepid.

I'm always impressed when a game understands that evil is horrible and that it should make you feel horrible (Jade Empire is good about this)

Just finished my replay of BG1EE

I will not be playing Siege of Dragonspear

[neon junco]

Bg3 has a good variety of evil now with new endings, the more interesting literary one of they're the hero of their own story but not yours, comically evil, and mundane selfish evil at expense of others

And they're various standalone or combination of these I think is nice.

And when I mean comically evil it's not just evil to ridiculous degrees but like extreme degrees of evilness you'd basically find only in fiction.

[soft tundra]

its fun to be evil as an origin too

Evil Gale was genuinely a lot of fun, once i got past my horrid act 1 choice

[hexed inlet]

honor mode update, did a bunch of stuff in the city and hit level 12, including killing mystic carrion who is definitely the strongest dude I've fought so far, he actually downed one of my party members

theoretically speaking I could go kill orin then team up with gorty and emps, detonate gale, and beat the game like that

I don't think there's really any reason for me to fight like raphael, ansur, cazador etc

[signal tendon]

Oh?

[rotund rapids]

Playing this game and getting flashbacks to when I used to run 5e every time Shadowheart Spirit Guardians an encounter into bits.

Also apparently Karlach is too tall to see the plights of gnomes, because damn if she doesn't just have no responses to anything regarding the deurger enslaving the gnomes or me freeing them

[clear kestrel]

Yeah like, if you go to the mushrooms first and they talk about being attacked

Karlach is like "hmm well we should talk to the Deurger to, get their side of things"

Like honey, no, they're slavers

[gleaming pivot]

Being in Hell too long affects everyone it seems. 😛

[hexed inlet]

she's doing her best

after I finish this honor run I'm thinking about waiting a while then doing a modded karlach origin run

[rotund rapids]

She's got a crick in her neck and just can't look down far enough to see them, so as far as she's concerned they might as well not exist 😭

(Astarion cared, at least. I think he was a dick about it, but at least he said something.)

[clear kestrel]

I'm probably gonna let the modding community cook for a bit

Then come back and do a Lazrel run

Cos I'm betting an update will come in the next month that'll break all the mods for a bit

And you can never be sure if the mods you're using will be updated to fix it

And if they don't ,womp womp goes that run

[rotund rapids]

rip, I've gotten that in some other games. And then sometimes the mods do update, but they don't leave up the old versions so if the update itself broke the save then you can't rollback and you're still out of luck lol

[clear kestrel]

Exactly, and steam doesn't let you pause updates these days

[hexed inlet]

it doesn't? when did they take that out

[clear kestrel]

Years ago

[hexed inlet]

huh

[clear kestrel]

Atm you can make it pause an update...
Until you launch the game

Then it'll force an update

So you can like, disconnect your Internet, then launch it

But I shouldn't have to and it only takes 1 mistake

And sometimes it'll just update anyway!

[soft tundra]

he just has really nice motivations/doubts about it the entire way

[hexed inlet]

rip

[simple spire]

Spoiler for whining about the sloppy BG 1/2 connection: ||Here’s a fun little continuity snarl that I had forgotten: when Sarevok is revived in Throne of Bhaal, he is explicitly not a Bhaalspawn any longer||

[soft tundra]

one day ill find a way to play through those games

[simple spire]

I love ‘em, just replayed BG1

Starting BG2 again today

[soft tundra]

I have a really hard time getting into the older edition stuff, it keeps pushing me off the experience

but i think eventually itll get there

[simple spire]

FWIW BG1 is comparatively skippable

It’s doing a different thing and I think it’s important to CRPG history and it is a very good game

But a lot of the big innovations that lead to CRPGs as we understand them are BG2 building off of that foundation

[soft tundra]

i do like the way bg2 starts

"oops im in a cage" is a fun opener

[simple spire]

BG1 is sort of an old-school hexcrawl with a central plot

BG2 is a cluster of really excellent adventure modules with a central plot

But any one of those modules is great on its own

[soft tundra]

honestly id love to hear about these "modules"

[tiny flint]

It’s a classic

[hexed inlet]

gamers

we did it

it took one try spanning 50 hours and 8 minutes

the golden dice are here

[neon junco]

Tbf she spent a lot of time in the 9 hells where like everyone is a slaver and still maintained a positive outlook on life.

I'll sort of chalk it up to she didn't know

[simple spire]

Maybe I'll talk about them in #video-game-discussion ? If you're interested?

[soft tundra]

i am interested!

[rotund rapids]

Astarion be complaining about how he's tired and needs to rest and it's like man you are literally a rogue with full hit points remaining (every other party member is hanging on by a thread because enemies sure do do 20-30 damage per activation in Act 2)

[clear kestrel]

Tbf he's used to be asleep that time of day

[soft tundra]

its so funny cuz Rogue is genuinely the one class without expendable resources barring subclasses

genuinely Rogue can go all day without a rest

hes just a sleepy sheepy

[rotund rapids]

We're in the shadow cursed lands! It's the closest thing we've had to night so far!

[neon junco]

Hey there's uh HP

And movement

[hexed inlet]

trying to apply self-control and not just immediately go from my honor victory into a new run

[simple spire]

Play BG2 :D

[hexed inlet]

I looked at some screenshots and I feel like it's a bit above my crustiness threshold

morrowind I can manage but this is like daggerfall

[simple spire]

nooooooooo

[hexed inlet]

I'm sorry, I'm a spoiled zoomer

I don't doubt it's good but I sincerely expect I would bounce off it pretty quickly

I should maybe try something a bit newer, like pillars of eternity

[neon junco]

Pillars 1 was great at the time but NGL I'd find it lacking after bg3

Narratively at leasta

The combat is definitely more complex and difficult

[simple spire]

I will say I'm surprised you think it looks so terrible, I find its art holds up pretty well because it's not 3D

[hexed inlet]

I think "so terrible" is a lot stronger than I intended

it just looks a bit difficult to interpret and the UI doesn't seem great

and when your character is like 20 pixels there's not a lot of room for fashion which is one of the main reasons I play games

[simple spire]

Huh, really? These are things I always felt were strengths of the game

Not the fashion thing tho

There is no fashion element

[hexed inlet]

I was streaming my honor run the other day and one of my friends hopped on and was like "oh huh your party actually looks good, mine's always a mess by this point"

this is what I aspire to

this just really doesn't do it for me and my zoomer eyeballs

[simple spire]

(I will tell you that the horrible selection circles are an addition of the EE and they can be turned off for much simpler green/blue/red circles)

[hexed inlet]

I respect that you enjoy this game and I understand the reasons why, I believe you that it comprises a series of excellent adventure modules and think it seems like quite a good game, but unfortunately it just isn't for me

[simple spire]

Yeah, that's reasonable

I just wanted to mention the selection circles because I hate them

[hexed inlet]

^^

I understand

[gloomy cloud]

https://x.com/durgesimp/status/1836009002620043321?s=46&t=qAXZht0ZozwLN2gAfU6TGA

🔞 ℝ𝕚𝕟 🏳️‍⚧️ CEO of Durge (@durgesimp) on X

I can't fuckin breathe

(Credit: .bhaal.babe on 🕜 app)

Twitter · Sep 17, 2024, 11:47 AM

[hexed inlet]

very good

[neon junco]

I agree, to me bg2 and bg1 the characters in world look like pixel blobs

I rely mostly on their general shape and color and associate that with their character icon in dialogue

My tolerance for older game has gone down with time as I play games that refine modern QoL features

Especially ones that have mods for QoL features

There's games I do want to be able to enjoy like KOTOR cause story kind of doesn't age but the game itself holds me back

[soft tundra]

yeah, they're very Playable but they're the kind of games that could sometimes use a fresh coat of paint

[neon junco]

I've been spoiled by being very selective with games that are like almost entirely fun for me with practically 0 grievances and refunding games that do have persistent personal issues with

[clear kestrel]

I got him to say the thing

[hexed inlet]

eyyy

[soft tundra]

such a fun line delivery

[simple spire]

The Very Popular Astarion

[wise mango]

jesus he looks like he's been through the ringer

[soft tundra]

do you know the context for him saying that line? cuz 100% he has just gone through the super ringer

[severe robin]

Do other characters have a line for that?

I've never actually done that chain of events

I'm just too good 😎

[clear kestrel]

Some have different reactions

Lazel for example

[severe robin]

Does everyone have a reaction, is more what I meant

[clear kestrel]

I don't know for sure

[severe robin]

I'm going to assume if Astarion and Lae'zel do, they probably do

[simple spire]

How do you get out of that, anyway?

[severe robin]

I just never trigger it.

If you do, any teleportation can get you out of it; and there's a portal that opens so you can escape (For some reason?)

||(Seriously, who puts a convenient escape portal a short jog away from the deadly trap designed to kill the people who triggered it?)||

[soft tundra]

party members damaging structures

[hexed inlet]

you can jump

or fly

[clear kestrel]

I triggered it on purpose cos I found the ||quest to get the crest boring||, and the ||creche was gonna die anyway||

[rotund rapids]

I just got the ||crest|| as a matter of course, because I was scouting ahead with my wizard Tav and I just ended up acquiring all of the ||weapons for the very obvious puzzle|| without violence.

[clear kestrel]

Yeah but it's so dull

Like there's no loot worth getting there

And I can get ||the mace|| without it

[dawn terrace]

Yeah but ||you don't even need the ceremonial weapons. The regular variants work for the puzzle and the bonus damage is nice.||

[tacit sluice]

Also you can ||lockpick the secret door, assuming you're talking about the key to get the sun mace. Which is what I did, on accident.||

[clear kestrel]

Or I can just like

Walk past it

Which only benefits me

[tacit sluice]

Yeah but then you miss out on loot

[clear kestrel]

What loot am I missing

[tacit sluice]

Well, you miss out on ||loot that doesn't have a chance of also killing a party member if you fuck up||

[clear kestrel]

So the only cost is a chance of expending a scroll of revivify

Or money at withers

This is like my 4th playthrough, I'm gonna skip stuff

[tacit sluice]

Yeah but Astarion will get all whiny about it if it's him

[clear kestrel]

Which is a thing i wanted to experience

[gleaming pivot]

Good, sounds like you're on the right path.

[hexed inlet]

me: I need to stop thinking about baldur's gate
my brain: honor mode solo dragonborn barbarian :)

[simple spire]

Straight Barb 12 or something more complicated?

[hexed inlet]

are there any fun barb multiclasses?

I was thinking about putting 1 or 2 into cleric for some good buffs and occasional god dialogue

I also might do 1 level of draconic soul sorcerer for the unarmored AC and utility spells like minor illusion and enhance leap

[simple spire]

I'm big on Barb/Rogue/Fighter

There are various permutations of it that work

[safe jungle]

Rogue so that you get two quick actions

So that you can reckless smash twice per turn

[simple spire]

I'm personally fond of Wildheart Barb 6/Thief Rogue 4/Fighter 2

You can build it around dex weapons if you like but you're honestly probably better served going for the heavy stuff

[neon junco]

Fun? Bladepact Warlock, you cast armor of agathys before combats then slap enemies with your charisma based weapon. I would not bring it to solo honor mode

[hexed inlet]

I'm not gonna do it single save

[gloomy cloud]

I need god dialogue

but I am a paladin

[hexed inlet]

there's a mod for that

[soft tundra]

bear barbarian gets extremely silly with all the stat boosting items in the game

[neon junco]

Barbarian does get real nice gear, even barbarian specific gear

[soft tundra]

and no shortage of good magical 2-handed weapons

[neon junco]

Al the greatswords you could ever want

Shame as the dedicated doorbreaker there's like 3 unique magic mauls

[soft tundra]

on my karlach run after a certain point in game i just respecced stats/feats to have proficiency in Int saves via feat and had 18/20s in multiple stats, it was great

[neon junco]

Everytime I play martial it's hard not to do 2 handed, the items are just really good for 2handed

[soft tundra]

im a shield addict myself

[neon junco]

Considering AC for players gets high quick so like shields are nice but sort of overkill

I use shields on like casters mostly

In ttrpg I usually do the opposite with shield over 2H

[soft tundra]

yeah especially once you get Cool Shields

[neon junco]

Yes the shield bash reaction is so strong

Especially since prone ends turns it's just wild defensively

[soft tundra]

also shield fashion 😎

[hexed inlet]

I like them :)

[soft tundra]

I'd hire them

[austere hinge]

I wanna squish they snoot

[dawn valley]

dragon born gan rise up

[dawn valley]

it's not easy being green tho

[hexed inlet]

green man

[austere hinge]

Gremens

I'm gonna squish all their snoots

[hexed inlet]

you will have to pass a DC 15 sleight of hand check

[dawn valley]

All the hybrid druid build i found "Oh you should dip 1 or 2 level in fighter" and i say bullshit, we are commiting here we're going 6/6 on the druid fighter build

[hexed inlet]

please do not do this

at least go 7 druid 5 fighter

honestly though basically every class benefits from having their first level be in fighter, it's that good

[neon junco]

Every class? Could be, every subclass? Lesso. Spellcasting life cleric gains very little from fighter 1 cause they get much more self healing from an extra cleric level and the defensive bonuses probably aren't as useful as having more cleric stuff

[dawn valley]

Yay but level 6 fighter get another feat

[hexed inlet]

yeah clerics don't get a ton from it

[neon junco]

I would say fighter 1 is great for any weapon user

[hexed inlet]

it's good for wizards and sorcerers too

heavy armour and proficiency in con saves

[dawn valley]

For prozfiency in CON yay

[neon junco]

I see starting level 1 as fighter, yea CON save proficiency is amazing on concentration spells

[dawn valley]

(If i go eldritch knight i can get some funk non throw spell like shield

[neon junco]

BG3 is fairly enemy number heavy compared to ttrpg cause computers make handling many NPCs easy so often more attacks are heading your way and you're usually making more concentration checks with chip damage

It's like the moment I twin cast haste on a teammate and myself (I live dangerously) suddenly every random enemy range attacks me and i'm making 6 concentration checks

And most are like don't even do enough damage to get past the base DC so the CON prof means i'll pretty much always pass it

[dawn valley]

(I'm still thinking that a third feat on a multiclass character can be broken)

[hexed inlet]

not really tbh

after 2 and at max level there's not a ton of impactful feats

[neon junco]

What subclass is the druid

[dawn valley]

Spore

[hexed inlet]

you can get the ability score improvements in a bunch of different ways

like the blood potion or mirror of loss

[neon junco]

Spellcasters still have few feats that are better than just ASI in your casting stat like maybe warcaster or resilient (CON), feats aren't huge for them

Martial classes often get their strongest feat at 4 and supporting feats aren't like huge unless you're using PAM/Sentinel

[dawn valley]

Con waw alreday going to be taken at one point
I'm going at least fighter 5 for extra attackk

[hexed inlet]

if you go druid 8 fighter 4 you'll still have 3 feats

[dawn valley]

Yay but no extra attack and only one attack per turn is crippling for melee

[hexed inlet]

I mean it makes no difference when you're a bear

[neon junco]

I think they're using weapons not wildshaping

[hexed inlet]

druids are spellcasters when they're out of wildshape

[neon junco]

Spores druid uses their shapes for their spore stuff

[dawn valley]

Yay i' l not wildshaping

[neon junco]

Although I just noticed the spores damage bonus applies to unarmed attacks too, hmm spore druid/monk

A monk with good WIS and not a STR monk seems nice since a lot of monk magic items scale off WIS

or DEX

Spore Druid/4 Elements seems interesting

4 Elements can be used while raging? Hmmm

4 Elements monk/berserker barbarian just sounds funny. I am achieving inner peace through great violence.

I am so centered I can throw fire from my fists

[simple spire]

inb4 reach heaven through violence

[gleaming pivot]

OK Jagganoth.

[dawn valley]

Also the flawed helleduke gauntlet inflict fire and necrotic

Open palm can deal necrotic too i think don’t know at wich level tho

[simple spire]

6

Necrotic, Psychic, or Radiant, chosen at will.

[neon junco]

Yes thank goodness for at will

Considering act 2 makes necrotic useless

[hexed inlet]

it's nice to be able to change them out with passives yeah

I did it a lot with laezel

[clear kestrel]

About to do a pro gamer move

[hexed inlet]

uh oh

[neon junco]

Skip the encounter but get the XP, EZ

Simply time efficient

-My Durge

[hexed inlet]

it's not that one

[clear kestrel]

Yeah it's ||the mizora|| one

[neon junco]

Is it not ||Killing all the pod folks in end of act 2?||

[clear kestrel]

||so if you purge her, you get a game over as Wyll||

[neon junco]

Oh

That's funny

[clear kestrel]

It is a bit yeah 😛

Like the squads left looking around like wtf happened

[neon junco]

So like is there a cutscene

Or it just ends

[clear kestrel]

Normal cutscene, ||wyll gets consumed by fire|| then game over

[neon junco]

That's him like ||breaking the pact and being sent to hells as a lemure right?||

[clear kestrel]

Yup

[safe jungle]

Who wouldn’t want to be a lemure

Nonsentient flesh monster

[neon junco]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/gQRrkKJbLB

[simple spire]

I just think it’s funny to refuse to take Mizora’s new pact and save Ravengard anyway

[inner steppe]

@austere hinge You rolled 5

[austere hinge]

I think I literally rolled a 1

[clear kestrel]

Watching some evil run content

At the big ||flaming fist rally speech|| at the end of act 3

Fucking ||Sarevok|| can be there

Just chilling

And none of them are like ||hey wtf||

[hexed inlet]

^^

I did not know that

[neon junco]

"Hey you like a Bhaal fan or something, your Sarevok costume is like really good"

But also to be fair no one would really expect them to be the actual Sarevok considering those that even know of him would think he's dead from like age from the centuries or that was he killed.

Unless the end of bg1 his brother told everyone Sarevok is back alive but iirc he kept that a sort of secret

[clear kestrel]

Sures he's just a Bhaal cultist cosplayer saying "let us being glory to his name and bathe our way in blood"

[simple spire]

I mean given that Sarevok was explicitly no longer a Bhaalspawn after Throne of Bhaal, and was never at any point a Bhaal worshipper, I am content to accept that as an explanation

[hexed inlet]

what's the murder tribunal all about if he's not a bhaal worshipper

[simple spire]

I mean I guess he suddenly is as of BG3 🤷‍♂️

Hence why "this isn't actually Sarevok, it's a cosplayer" seems fine to me :D

In BG1 he just wanted to start a war to try to awaken Bhaal's power within himself because, you know, godhood

In Shadows of Amn he shows up briefly in hell to try to provoke you into getting angry

[hexed inlet]

he has a funny hat

[simple spire]

In Throne of Bhaal he ditches the hat, bargaining for a small amount of your spirit to bring him back to life

[hexed inlet]

the real plot hole

how does he get the hat back

[simple spire]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/baldursgategame/images/d/d2/Sarevok_Anchev_SAREVOK_Portrait_ToB.png/

The man himself (as of ToB)

[hexed inlet]

do you reckon he can see ok out of those

[simple spire]

Honestly given the man was carrying an 18/17/18/17/15/10 stat spread, I'm not sure he needs to

[neon junco]

Pretty much all the named NPCs in D&D were PCs with great stat spread that stuck around

[hollow wind]

|| How do you keep him? My understanding is if you're a Durge who embraces the dark, he tries to kill you to get Bhaal's favor? ||

[clear kestrel]

Nah you can just to get Bhaal's favor

[sly flare]

I've been playing BG3 again and I've somehow managed to agro, all of baldurs gate?

[simple spire]

You shouldn’t have said they were from Rivington

[hexed inlet]

hm

[rich plover]

are you wearing a Neverwinter Yankees baseball cap?

[simple spire]

Boston’s Gate

[clear kestrel]

Gortash is a mets fan

It's all about the mets baby

[simple spire]

Bane's Chosen would never be a Mets fan

Gortash is an opportunistic fan

[tiny flint]

I could imagine in a modern setting Baldur’s gate is the sword coast’s Philly

Just gets destroyed by fans whether their team wins or loses

[simple spire]

What is the Sword Coast's Chicago

I mean Waterdeep is clearly NYC

[rich plover]

Gritty is just A Guy instead of someone in a mascot suit

[sly flare]

isnt Baldurs gate NYC because it's the city

[neon junco]

Gortash is the guy who always changes jerseys to the winning team at finals matches. He's got a spare jersey in his bag so minutes before the end he can change out and boast about being on the winning side

He would also be the type to say if he had the chance he could do better himself as an athlete

[hexed inlet]

waterdeep is more The City than baldurs gate is

[simple spire]

Waterdeep is way bigger

[sly flare]

All of my forgotten realms knowledge is from Baldurs gate, so I just assumed it was the city because it's the name of the game

[simple spire]

Baldur's Gate is a notably influential trade hub with an area of influence bordering Amn to the south

[sly flare]

but that does make Gails whole thing make more sense

[simple spire]

But as city-states in Western Faerun go it is by no means the most prominent

(It's also in close proximity to Candlekeep)

(And Candlekeep is, in fact, a big fucking deal)

[neon junco]

I am still upset we got to see baldur's gate aggain and didn't see upper city

Like that's where all the interesting stuff is, it' a wealthy trade hub with extreme income disparity. The rich upper city has all the coolest stuff for adventurers to loot

[soft tundra]

life in Baldur's Gate is pretty rough!

which is part of the appeal as a setting

[neon junco]

That is true, but like we see so much of the rough part of the city in D&D which makes sense for starting low level modules but there's not like game of thrones mezzoberran where everyone is a top tier monster or extremely powerful regular person and it's a game of being the ant amongst anteaters until you're one of many ant eaters.

As for bg3, the 1st 2 acts were all rough places and rivington is too so there's already a lot of that in the game. Just skipping into upper city to see something new like a "civilized" proper city society living in seemingly infinite luxury but full of power struggles and secrets would be interesting

[soft tundra]

I really wanted to attend a formal party or ball

really let someone like wyll or astarion shine

i know wyll gets the short end in content in so many ways but man letting him show off being a Noble more would go a long way

wyll navigating a fancy social function like the dragon age ballroom would rule

[tiny flint]

Yah Wyll outside of his romance stuff with dancing doesn’t really do much with his noble background

But also yah we don’t really interact with many nobles to begin with tbh besides Wyll’s dad

[hollow wind]

Here's a BG3/DnD question.

What's a WOW shaman closest to?

[rotund rapids]

In 5e, unironically the artificer (able to build towards range or melee, healer or damage, able to get some placeable semi-stationary units that buff allies or attack enemies). In BG3 idk but probably the cleric?

[neon junco]

Druid also fits the profile above sort of since it has summons that can attack or buff/debuff, healing, damage, and also decent melee in wild shapes but that's kind of mutually exclusive with everything else

[simple spire]

Can you give those of us with no WOW knowledge a sense of what that means?

Something like paladin 5-7/light cleric 5-7 is impressively general-purpose, tho

[rich plover]

It's not in BG3 but Circle of the Stars druid is up there. You summon (de)buff auras and also get normal druid stuff

[neon junco]

Druid is like, alternative cleric assuming mechanics wise imo.

Even lore wise there's nature clerics, which are like druids that found god

Like even more than most druids with nature gods cause Halsin does not stop talking about Silvanus, nature clerics just got the direct line to their god

[hexed inlet]

the bg3 druid grove is very cleric coded

traditionally speaking I don't believe 5e druids are explicitly aligned with a god

[neon junco]

Yes that's basically the difference, traditional druids get their powers from attunement with nature and an understanding of all aspects even if they focus on a single aspect like forest, desert, decay, etc so they don't really have hard allegiances to any deity if any even if they have favorites

Nature cleric blurs the line of like, worshipped nature and a specific deity so much they get divine powers and like older DND editions druids were like that too and had to worship nature entities for druid power so it gets fuzzy if you look back enough

Like the, what's really the difference between a fiend deity worshipping cleric and a celestial warlock

Besides their patrons power level

[safe jungle]

I do wonder, can a warlock become more powerful than the patron

At level 12 it seems like Wyll is drawing quite a bit of power from Mizos

And does borrowing patron’s strength weaken the patron somehow

Or is warlock pacts an infinite power cheat

[simple spire]

In Forgotten Realms all divine casters have to be

Outside of FR divine casters don't need a god, not even clerics

[safe jungle]

Druids aren’t divine casters though right

Although every Druid in the game seems to have some kind of shrine to someone

Except Minsc I guess

[neon junco]

Yesnt? Depending on the patron usually they give like spare power but in return the tasks the warlock completes gives them more power directly or indirectly or they just need something done but ideally each warlock under a patron is a net benefit to its overall power so more is better but also like if a patron has like a continent of warlocks and is extremely powerful, what's the difference between it and a god. Or like it and a fiend deity?

Celestial patrons usually directly gain power from what their warlocks do, like the warlock does a good task and everyone gets stronger cause the connection to deity is stronger. Fiends feed off of souls, either like from the souls a warlock takes or corrupts or just waits until the warlock is dead and eats all the power in their soul they've built up

Hags idk, they need groceries done

[simple spire]

They are

Druid was literally a variant cleric in AD&D

[tiny flint]

The only thing they really have stopping them from getting that label in 5e is that they don’t have a lot of the paladin/cleric exclusive spells

But also spell lists aren’t as regulated as like in PF2E

There’s just generally a lot of overlap between specific classes, namely cleric/paladins and wizards/sorcerers

[simple spire]

Nor is "divine caster" strictly mechanically defined as in 3e iirc

Either way, clerics and druids do need gods in FR

[simple spire]

It's not really clear, in part because the patron concept was specifically extremely vague in 3e when warlocks were created, and dealt mainly with various godlike beings in 4e when it was developed

Even in 5e it tends more towards that

The idea that like, Some Fucking Guy could be your patron is a little bit of a hiccup when it's possible to punch some fucking guy in the face and some fucking guy cannot do the things he's empowering you to do

[neon junco]

The line blurs between, you becoming stronger than an arch wizard patron, and you ascending beyond your gods status and taking their place in the pantheon

Just one is much harder than the other

[simple spire]

It would be fun if at, I dunno 12th level or some shit, a warlock explicitly got some kind of bonus related to "yeah you can tell your patron to fuck off now"

"Now you are the archfey"

[tiny flint]

I will say I do feel like with 5e, even if patrons weren’t gods anymore they do tend towards like, extremely powerful beings

Like an archfey is still wildly strong

Fiends mostly refer to the upper echelons of hell

And great old ones are pretty much god level

I’d say mizora is just kinda weird as a patron because she’s never really shown to be particularly powerful or even all that clever

[simple spire]

Aye

[tiny flint]

She kinda gets shit on a lot throughout the game

[safe jungle]

Yeah mizora is the weird part

Like wyll isn’t too far from her power level by end game

[tiny flint]

I’m not even sure cambions could make pacts before BG3

[safe jungle]

Hell she even sticks around for his evil ending

Despite the fact that she’s basically an ant compared to the Absolute

[simple spire]

It is kind of odd that we get not one but two cambions of tremendous influence and power

[safe jungle]

Raphael is unusually powerful for a cambion right

[simple spire]

Yes

I think it's mentioned his dad is someone important?

[safe jungle]

His dad is one of the lords of hell yeah I think

[simple spire]

And like, okay, I can buy that he's been around for a while and has had outsize opportunities on behalf of his father

[safe jungle]

A result of a union between Mephistopheles and a human woman

[simple spire]

In some ways it tracks with his whole deal

He's trying way too hard, you know?

Dude has an inferiority complex

[tiny flint]

Yah Raphael is at least a go getter

He has a lot of damned souls

[simple spire]

But Mizora is like ... I dunno she seems to be kinda a failgirl

[tiny flint]

Mizora to our knowledge has only a pact with Wyll

[simple spire]

Zariel keeps her around for giggles I guess

[tiny flint]

Who she tricked when he was 17

[safe jungle]

Mizora seems like a sycophant of Zariel

[tiny flint]

So so far her only manipulation record was with a literal teenager

[simple spire]

I do think it would be better if Wyll had not actually saved Baldur's Gate as part of his pact

And it had been all or in part an illusion or a trick

[safe jungle]

Speaking of how the hell did a warlock who just formed a pact with a lowly cambion of all people defeat an entire army

[tiny flint]

Didn’t he just defeat a small cult?

[simple spire]

Weren't they about to literally summon Tiamat