Baldur's Gate

[clear yarrow]

They both do care

[exotic pelican]

Rogue I hear is most tricky to use properly.

[desert dove]

Yeah, I'd put Rogue next, because managing Stealth is difficult.

[exotic pelican]

I haven't tried a rogue yet. I kicked Astarion out of my group early. Next playthough I won't

[desert dove]

Yeah, im trying a good party right now, but next playthrough is eeeeeeevil. So Dark Urge, Astarion, drow lady or Gale, and Lae'zel.

[quick bobcat]

I also wanna do an evil playthrough next

I saw a couple of choices you can make as the dark urge and...

they are absolutely cursed

[desert dove]

So I hear. Looking forward to it.

I may not be able to stomach a full playthrough as a bad guy, but I at least want to try.

[quick bobcat]

like there are some genuinely horrific choices you can make as the dark urge. I dunno if I'll even stomach playing as it

[exotic pelican]

[desert dove]

Oh fucking hell, a ||hook horror||?!?!

AAAAAAAAA

[weak cedar]

Like starlight evil?

[desert dove]

Dear god, those things are terrifying.

[desert dove]

No, actual evil.

[weak cedar]

[exotic pelican]

||I don't think silence works on them even though it should. They see with sound. I think I remember trying silence and they still found me.||

[desert dove]

Man, this Gloomstalker subclass saved my ass by letting me hit three times before the monster even had a chance to move.

Oh hell, oh fuck, I think I'm about to be attacked by a ||bulette||

YUP

[exotic pelican]

Good thing monsters hate each other too

[quick bobcat]

masque, have you found the ||myconid|| settlement yet?

[desert dove]

Not yet, I'm still trying to find the ||slave with the boots||

Okay, so apparently the ||bulette|| disappears at a certain point, so it's more of a "this is what you can look forward to later" fight. Phew.

Time for a long rest!

[weak cedar]

You ever going to do a tactition run?

[quick bobcat]

I do recommend finding the settlement first

there's something that can help you out a bunch there

[desert dove]

Probably not. I play games to have fun & relax, and I don't find dying repeatedly relaxing.

[desert dove]

I mean, I have no idea where it is yet.

[weak cedar]

Ah right

[desert dove]

Yaaaay, I got to play fetch with Scratch!

[weak cedar]

Do you give him many pets masque.

[desert dove]

Of course

Now time for a shower.

[weak cedar]

https://twitter.com/eurogamer/status/1692542479134757096?

Eurogamer (@eurogamer)

Baldur's Gate 3 is punishingly heavy on your CPU once you reach Act 3. @digitalfoundry explains why and whether there's anything you can do about it: https://t.co/xLG3aZRl5e

Twitter · Aug 18, 2023, 2:22 PM

[quick bobcat]

I just did this

[desert dove]

Interesting. I wonder if my CPU's extra cache will help, or if it'll still struggle.

[weak cedar]

Would they fix it in an update?

[desert dove]

I would hope so, but no way of knowing if it's even fixable.

[exotic pelican]

https://youtu.be/vPlsqbM4AHs

[quick bobcat]

Welp, the final fight of act 2 ||was way easier than the fights before it ||

[desert dove]

Okay, I found the Myconid town. But I'm also carrying ||sussur blooms|| and need to figure out wtf to do with them because they're ||preventing spellcasting||.

[sweet moat]

They're basically useless except for one specific spot in the Underdark, and you really don't need more than one. Theoretically you could use them to make an anti-magic field against enemies, but that's way more trouble than it's really worth.

In any case, that one specific spot where they're needed already has a couple there, so you don't need the ones from the tree.

[desert dove]

Gotcha.

[kindred talon]

respec into fighter for all your characters, make it all the way to the end, lob them at the absolute

[night oracle]

Didn't Larian say that gnome tossing is a thing?

[kindred talon]

I like druid

but man, it's hard to imagine playing this game without high charsma

I don't suppose there's Cha gloves you can get or whatever

[desert dove]

Not that I'm aware of.

[kindred talon]

they fucking killed wyll again

what the fuck

[heavy hound]

If you surrender to ||the tadpole you can eventually get expertise in all the talking skills, which solve the low charisma problem||

[kindred talon]

I res wyll

then suddenly the game decides that 'sneaking into a restricted area is a bold one and you're about to find out' so now I'm in a battle with wyll

WHAT IS HAPPENING

[heavy hound]

Does he have a hag mask on or something, or an item in which he can become "mad"?

[kindred talon]

he's hostile to me!

I guess I shouldn't have rejected him

[heavy hound]

This sounds like a weird flag for him that got turned on somewhere and not property turned off, if it isn't something he is wearing.
Some items are not immediately obviously cursed

Like the laughing ||Monk sentient amulet, could that be it?||

[kindred talon]

gale has it in his bag

I'll wait for him to die and see what he has on him

But the problem is that I think the game thinks I've tresspassed somehow

[heavy hound]

Doesn't explain why he is mad tho

[desert dove]

Ah, made it to ||Grymforge||

[heavy hound]

TBH I would have reloaded back the 1st time this happened until it didn't happen anymore
Annoying but I feel that preventing it from happening would be easier than debugging the problem

[kindred talon]

alright, so the game is just completely bugged now

I'm at the last light inn, I go to swap out Karlatch for Halsin, I get to camp, Halsin is beating Wyll into the ground, then I put Halsin in the party, leave camp... I get a dialogue about having someone in the party who's not welcome in moonrise and have to fight or flee... and now the harpers at Last Light are hostile to me

I don't know when this bug appeared but it's probably like 5 or so hours of gameplay I'd have to lose

[glossy palm]

Im basically waiting for the first major patch next month before trying to play again from the bugs i got

Plus it seems people are reporting issues after act 1 ( which is understandable they werent beta tested like act 1 was)

[kindred talon]

yeah it's kind of like how I feared

act 1 was extensively tested but the rest hasn't been

idk what's wrong with my save file but I don't think I can save scrum back far enough without getting very depressed lol

I wonder if there's anyway to submitting the save file to the developer

[heavy hound]

Act 2 was pretty solid for me

Act 3 definitely shows more cracks

So far nothing gamebreaking, or that it couldn't have been fixed by a reload

Mostly some weird NPCs interactions that don't happen as you'd expect

[kindred talon]

I think this all started when I tried to walk into moonrise with my boi

[heavy hound]

I did go to moonrise and killed half of it before assaulting it for real at the end, so I had been "trespassing" as well in that area but it didn't cause anything to break

[kindred talon]

Yeah something was just corrupted by the file

[quick bobcat]

That's really unfortunate

[kindred talon]

I’m looking at this circle that’s on a bench and the first time I looked at it it had a bunch of z fighting going on

[quick bobcat]

I've experienced a whole bunch of (admittedly more minor bugs) so far too

Most of them in act 2

[heavy hound]

Sounds like a really difficult bug to troubleshoot tho, I did notice that the whole trespassing system is pretty wonky tho so it doesn't surprise me too much

[quick bobcat]

This game can get really be a handful sometimes

the already inferior combat system and often unclear quests and dialogs are enough on their own, but with bugs in the mix it can be a little too much

I had to take a break just now because I was getting overly frustrated with the game

[desert dove]

Uuuuuugh, I have been TPKed multiple times by the duergar in front of ||the rock pile Nere is stuck behind||. I just can't kill them all fast enough.

[night oracle]

That's about where I'm at

[desert dove]

Ugh, finally got through that fight. Now to free/kill ||Nere||.

[night oracle]

||I've been using trickery and saying i'm an absolute too and then get to the point with Nere. That'll be interesting ||

[desert dove]

Yeah, that got the guards to leave me alone, but ||taking on them and Nere turned into a suicide mission.|| So I set up to take them out on their own.

[quick bobcat]

You can ally with some of them and they will help you

Before the fight

[desert dove]

Ooh, neat.

I may try that next time.

[quick bobcat]

You don't have to take on everyone

[night oracle]

||I actually was allied with Nere on the first try but that's still too many dwarves||

[quick bobcat]

Are the only romancing opportunities available in act 1?

Because I haven't gotten any since

[desert dove]

Well this could be a fun combo

[quick bobcat]

Heat feels so bad

You take so much damage for what? Like 1-2 extra damage on your hits?

[desert dove]

Might be worth it for a Tiefling with Fire resist tho. Free damage.

[kindred talon]

maybe

[night oracle]

[Karlach Intensifies]

[kindred talon]

the problem is that Karlach is probably the least likely to burn a target unless you set up a build that way

[sweet moat]

In Act 2 I had found a ring of self-immolation (no joke), and when I saw what it does, I actually died laughing at the game for having that as a reward for the hard fight I had just fought moments before, and I then I tossed it over to Wyll, who's my junk manager and item seller.

[night oracle]

||Got Nere to help me clear out the dwarves, asked him questions, said i'd work for him, then killed him before he teleported away. On the downside, me letting him kill these duarg slaves made wyll and karlach disapprove :< ||

[sweet moat]

........Whyyyyyyy would you ||kill all the slaves? ||

[night oracle]

||I didn't, Nere was already doing that on his own. I just didn't lift a finger||

[sweet moat]

Exactly!

[night oracle]

I wanted to get info from him! They are sacrifices I am willing to make

[sweet moat]

Ah, the true neutral path.

Or chaotic neutral?

Maybe even neutral evil?

[night oracle]

Probably neutral evil? I mean, i'm doing good I think but I won't say no to stuff like that if it gets me ahead

I wonder if this stacks?

[sweet moat]

I think they do.

[night oracle]

Well, karlach shall test it out

[sweet moat]

She's the best choice for it anyway, since she's a damage sponge.

[night oracle]

I cleared out ||Nere|| and the others next to the ||cave-in, but there was the entire rest of the camp of duarg. Yet they're all gone, and I know I didn't attack them because i'd have to have fought at least twice as many||

You say that but I have her as eagle rage

[desert dove]

Yeah, those are a nicer version of the boots I got earlier in Act 1 that just prevented you from being Enwebbed.

[sweet moat]

I actually found out recently that the whole eagle heart path for barbarians is the only way you can get a jump attack, and...man, that's such a wasted opportunity. Why isn't that available for all martial classes (rogues, fighters, monks, barbarians paladins, rangers, etc.)?

[night oracle]

Yeah i got those too

Yeah that's 100% why I took it, and i've used it several times. It's so much damage

[sweet moat]

Those boots that you get from ||Nere|| are awesome.

[night oracle]

KARLACH SMASH

[sweet moat]

I should've gotten it on her...

[desert dove]

Yes, but it's incredibly finicky. I started out using that with Karlach, but there were so many instances with "Path Blocked" "Height Too Far / Not Far Enough" that I gave up and went Bear.

[sweet moat]

Berserker is so...basic.

It gives an extra attack, but it's not as cool as bear or eagle.

[desert dove]

I wound up getting Karlach a sword that can Silence an enemy on hit, which is kinda fun.

[sweet moat]

I still have yet to find any weapon better than the Bloodied Greataxe for her.

And I'm a little disappointed in that fact.

I've found better weapons for everyone else so far.

[night oracle]

I crafted the ||sussur greatsword||. Bloodied I think is more damage but the on-hit silence is hard to pass up

...Gee. ||two pools of acid dripping from the ceiling. Why do I sense spiders. ||

[desert dove]

Same. For some reason I couldn't make a Longsword, so I did a Greatsword & gave it to Karlach.

[sweet moat]

The Sussur bark can only be used for a sickle (wtf?), a scimitar (useless for my team, nobody can use it), and a greatsword. I chose the greatsword since Karlach uses it, and I didn't like the damage output at all.

[night oracle]

Not too different except for the top end

Oh wow, those weren't spiders

[sweet moat]

Nnnnnope.

[night oracle]

Well that was easy

[night oracle]

Annoying how you can clearly see skeletons on the ground in an area that's patently obvious that it's gonna be an ambush, but you can't attack the skellies in advance

https://vxtwitter.com/0koiii/status/1691846193339400213

[jaunty basin]

when people were talking about "barrelmancy" earlier, is this what they meant?

[night oracle]

[sweet moat]

Yup

[night oracle]

I approve of the choice of music

[sweet moat]

Ahhhhh, the good ol' days. I really need to play D:OS 2 again.

So. Much. Barrelmancy!

[night oracle]

With the death...mist?

THose were nasty barrels.

I saw another video where someone did similar with a line of the alchemist fire pots, going up a street to a porticullis. Which I assume is act 3 so I didn't post it for spoilers' sake

[jaunty basin]

the more times I see D:OS come up in random conversations and videos, the more conspicuous it is how often lighting stuff on fire gets mentioned even in <5 sentence descriptions of the game

[night oracle]

Ixrec: think of Half Life and its conveniently placed explosive barrels. Add BG type gameplay

Bam, you have D:OS 2 barrelmancy

[jaunty basin]

too bad DOS/BG don't have the gravity gun

[night oracle]

Indeed

[sweet moat]

Me whenever I use Deathfog Barrelmancy on a boss: https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2022/9/14/2947217.png

[night oracle]

Deathfog, that's it

I have to wonder though, where did they get that many barrels to explode the goblin camp didn't think there were that many in act 1

[jaunty basin]

it could be a compilation of multiple smaller explosions?

[sweet moat]

There's also no way they could've carried all of that without being suuuuuuuper encumbered.

[night oracle]

Multiple trips I get, just the sheer amount of them

[desert dove]

Oh. I would've picked a Scimitar then, for when my Ranger gets stuck in melee

[desert dove]

I've seen this video with a different caption

Have to say, one of my favorite bits of the whole duergar fight I did earlier was giving Karlach a potion of giant strength and having her throw one of the dwarves down a ladder onto his buddy.

Also, i discovered that revivify can resurrect someone who got thrown into a pit.

[sweet moat]

Wait, really?

[kindred talon]

yeah the scroll does too

[desert dove]

Mhm! Click the scroll, click the character portrait on the left side, it'll say they're out of range, but give you a "Select location" pointer. Click anywhere inside the circle and they'll appear there.

[kindred talon]

if they get thrown in a pit they spawn a bubble

which you can loot

[night oracle]

Yeah, I tested this out at the ||Nere|| fight. Wyll got thrown into the lava but somehow wasn't dead dead. Just "skull over head and timer counting down" type. Revivify scroll let me warp him out of there and back on his feet

ka-zzzs

[kindred talon]

fuck you, lady shar

you dick

[sweet moat]

[kindred talon]

my party members ||died like 5 times to this stupid ass invisible path trial. Then I just used Halsin to turn into a raven and fly over it.||

[sweet moat]

[unborn stratus]

that happened to a friend as well, laezel got shoved into the lava and was only downed

if they only get knocked down when thrown into lava imagine what a tiefling does

mf just stands in it lol

[kindred talon]

this feels like another bug

when ||you talk to the demon that Raphael wants you to kill, there's supposed to be a an insight check that allows you to persuade him to kill his minions/etc but that doesn't seem to show up on a warlock. You can listen to the song but there's no insight check that gives you the chance to do anything except search the temple||

apparently this is a warlock specific bug which is just... ugh

[quick bobcat]

There's another way to do that boss without fighting him

[quick bobcat]

No, actually. The 'barrelmancy' build is a little misleading in name, but it refers to getting yourself an unbreakable chest, filling it up with an insane amount of items so it becomes very heavy, and then just lobbing it around with telekinesis. Because the chest is extremely heavy, it effectively one-shots anything it touches

It's a wildly effective and overpowered build that needs only a few levels to reach full power and can one-shot literally any enemy or boss in the entire game

Not only that, but moving your chest doesn't cost action points in combat so you can literally kill everyone before they even have a chance to do anything

It's just a funny way of abusing the game mechanics

The only annoying with about this build is that since the chest is so heavy, you can't carry it in your inventory so you have to manually drag it around with your mouse wherever you go

[heavy hound]

I kinda wanna see if I can finish the game in the weekend, I still have so many secondary quests in act 3 tho

[exotic pelican]

I am in act 3 and I keep finding time consuming quests to do that looked like they would be quick quests.

[heavy hound]

Yeah a lot of stuff goes a lot deeper than I thought

Just done with the ||Shar temple bit|| and man that fight was intense

[night oracle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15u9z0g/i_think_i_broke_unarmed_strike_on_monk_168320_dmg/

[night oracle]

I might have to investigate this

[night oracle]

Top 3 I see are more DnD stuff, KOTOR 3, and "curse of strahd"

[glass veldt]

Give them KotOR 3- dammit

[night oracle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15tld7a/what_other_ip_would_you_give_larian_to_work_with/ the thread proper

[glass veldt]

Also give them Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and then confuse everyone with the most expansive, most engineered, deepest Pokémon game to have ever existed. And it’s a spin-off.

[quick bobcat]

I just want more divinity

[jaunty basin]

skyst·2 days ago
Imagine force pushing a barrel of lightsabers at some idiot

[glass veldt]

[night oracle]

I think that is technically their next plan after a long well deserved rest

[desert dove]

I would kill for a Shadowrun game done in BG3 fashion.

[eternal hawk]

I hope we get a lot more CRPGs from BG3 success.

[exotic pelican]

I bet EA will tell Bioware to make one now. They're going to try to get one more rpg out of Bioware's past prestige. I don't think anyone who knows respects Bioware anymore.

They can put on the box, "From the makers of Baldur's Gate"

[night oracle]

To be fair, Dragon Age 4 has been in development for a while already, and this is known

[jaunty basin]

speaking of DA, what does everyone here think of those three games? (I've heard Inquisition in particular depends a lot on who plays it and what expectations they bring into it)

[quick bobcat]

[jaunty basin]

||you've shapeshifted into a cheese wheel? am I parsing this right?||

[quick bobcat]

||See than djinn? He got angy at me ||

[exotic pelican]

The grand prize from that game is really good. I'm still using it.

[exotic pelican]

Dragon age 1 was really good. I never bothered to play any of the others.

[quick bobcat]

Wait what, you can actually win something from it?

I thought it was just a scam

[exotic pelican]

There's a trick to it

[jaunty basin]

it can be both

considering how much people talk about outside-the-box solutions to quests in this game, I'm hoping there's a way to outscam the scammer and then they give you a legit prize out of respect

[exotic pelican]

If you just play the game like normal || you will never win. Something has to be done to win. ||

[quick bobcat]

makes sense

[night oracle]

I think there's a couple people in General gaming who have played them recently. I think they liked the earlier CRPG style of 1 and 2 over the hybrid version of Inquisition, but you'd have to ask them

[sweet moat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIynuCeLOoc

Verdict: straight-up 10/10, a masterpiece.

[quick bobcat]

lol

I wonder what rating they gave to DOS2

cuz if BG3 is 10/10 then DOS2 needs to be 11/10

[sweet moat]

They gave it a 9.6/10

Which is...basically a 10, if you average up.

[quick bobcat]

hm. Fair, I guess

I would still personally rate BG3 just a liiiiittle lower than DOS2 though

[sweet moat]

Personally, I do think that BG3 is an amazing RPG and another masterpiece from Larian, but it still doesn't surpass D:OS 2 in my eyes. D:OS 2 is still the pinnacle of RPGs.

[quick bobcat]

DOS2 just does almost every possible thing right, whereas BG3 is held back in a couple of areas

which I don't really fault Larian for tbh... but it is what it is

[sweet moat]

Pretty much, yeah

[heavy hound]

I mean I didn't bounce off BG3 the same way I did on divinity so obviously I like it more

They are both obviously great tho, not saying divinity is bad, it just didn't hook me the same way

[sweet moat]

That's fair

They both hooked me the same way, but they also both scratch different itches.

[heavy hound]

That said, I do feel like a 10/10 is a bit much in the current state.
I think it will be a 10/10 after like, a few weeks of bug fixing

Especially for act 3

It's not awful even on that but you do encounter then often enough to detract

[sweet moat]

I simply like Divinity's combat, tone, and gameplay mechanics more, while I like BG3's storytelling (barring a few of the characters), character customization, and gorgeous locales.

[quick bobcat]

I guess for fans of DND BG3 is more favorable. You were a fan of DND before playing the game so it makes sense you would like it more

[sweet moat]

I think if you combined the greatest parts of both games into one, you'd get probably THE best RPG ever made, surpassing every single other game in the genre for years.

But as it stands, Divinity is still edging out BG3 as the better game for me.

[heavy hound]

I would definitely like the game less if you swapped out the d&d gameplay system so that's subjective

And I definitely like the lore and narrative in BG3 more

But yeah, I definitely see if someone spent a lot of time with Divinity, liking BG3 gameplay less

[desert dove]

I only played the second one. It was fun, but the "dungeons" were all the same cookie-cutter copy & paste designs, which got old quick. I hit a quest I couldn't solve about the middle of the game and just gave up. DA2 is pretty much the one most fans dismiss, because it was such a radical departure from DA1's gameplay, so I definitely wouldn't recommend it to start. DA:I seems to be the best middle-of-the-road approach, from what I've heard.

Really, I like the world building of Dragon Age more than the gameplay.

[heavy hound]

Interestingly with the 3d, the hornyness, and the more dark lore, BG3 looks more of a sequel to Dragon Age: Origins than to Baldur's Gate 2

[night oracle]

The gameplay's actually fairly similar to 1, 3 had the biggest gameplay style change. The fact it repeated the same designs all over the place and you visited the same locations like 5 times turned a lot of people off. Generally though the writing is considered one of the best

[eternal hawk]

There was romance in the first two BG games too.

[quick bobcat]

Has anyone bought the statue from Boney? What's the point of it, it didn't even appear in my camp

[heavy hound]

As for the DA games, I played them all recently.
DA:Origins is my favourite, and it's the most RPG of the bunch.
It's very good if a bit dated, and also very buggy without some community patches, but definitely worth playing.

DA2 is more controversial, the gameplay change I didn't even mind, I even liked it more in some places,it doesn't scratch the same itch but action RPGs are another genre I like so it was fine.
The story I really liked too.
The problem with it is that it had like, 20 tiny maps it reuses over 65 hours of gameplay, IDK if the map department was hit by the bubonic plague and 3 people were all that was left, but it's baffling, it really gets unbearable by the end.

DA:I is not bad, but also it's a lot more high fantasy compared to 1 and 2, which can be a problem, also it's open world and as such the story is a lot more meandering and there is a lot more busywork, but it's an above average Open World games and the story is still very good.

[night oracle]

[eternal hawk]

I agree with the first Dragon Age being the best one.

[heavy hound]

Walked into a standup comedian, who challenged me at doing better than him, ||so I threatened the whole room to laugh more or I would have killed them.||

I love Barbarian

[kindred talon]

I kind of go back and forth on where I'd rate it. Act 1 was definitely a 9/10 maybe even a 10/10 area, but act 2 feels rather buggy in a way that's just not fun

[heavy hound]

I didn't met nearly as many bugs as you in act 2, so obviously my experience is different
Act 3 seems like it puts strain in some elements of the game that needed a bit more time in the oven which is why it breaks more often

[kindred talon]

well it's like that warlock thing I mentioned last night

I had to save scrum backwards 2 hours of gameplay in order to redo the dialogue because I didn't really want to lose asterion.

[heavy hound]

Also the visual glitches I don't mind, they are annoying, the big problems for me start when the bugs are gameplay related, which has happened more than a few times in act 3, while I only encountered it very rarely in act 2 and 1

[kindred talon]

and I couldn't do it on my actual 'do dialogue' character but Gale.

[heavy hound]

Yeah yeah, it's why I said we had different experiences

It'd expect you to see Act 2 differently

[kindred talon]

well, what I'm trying to get at is that on paper this is a minor bug but in fact it has huge implications down the road

[heavy hound]

Which minor bug?

[kindred talon]

the missing dialogue choices for warlocks

[heavy hound]

In which dialogue and why would that lead to losing Asterion?

Because with that dude ||I just murdered them all, I don't even know what Asterion had to do with it.||

[kindred talon]

essentially for non warlocks: ||you have a dialogue option that has the demon recite it's contract, which, if you succeed an insight check, gives you options to talk the demon to death or greatly reduce his forces. If you succeed all three deception checks, you can get the demon to straight up kill himself without a battle.||

Warlocks, on the otherhand: ||have a specific dialogue choice referencing the fact that you're a warlock and know about contracts. Given the dialogue in that choice, I suspect you're supposed to automatically bypass the need for an insight check. But it looks like the game considers that you've failed the insight check without even rolling and only presents you with other dialogue that has you search for the solution to the contract (or fight a rather difficult fight)||

Asterion's involvement is: ||if you have him with you when you meet Raphael at last light, he tries to make a bargain with him to find out about the scars on his back. If you have him with you when you meet him outside the tomb, Raphael tacks the deal onto the 'kill my old enemy'. If you don't kill him and end up freeing him from the contract, Raphael doesn't consider the deal fulfilled and Asterion is so upset he'll try to walk away from you||

[heavy hound]

Oh I wasn't using Asterion in that part of the game, and also I just murdered everyone in the room without even talking to them because when I enter a room and they threaten me, the way I play my character is that I say the most aggressive possible thing back and that usually ends in fighting

He did bitch at me because he didn't meet ||with Raphael but he seems bad with substance abuse, IDK if it was a good idea for him to start making literal pacts with the devil
He doesn't have the restraint, so I didn't mind||

[kindred talon]

it ends up revealing a rather significant chunk of backstory for him

[heavy hound]

Yeah I'm not focusing on him this playthrough, my character is way too direct to meet his approval most of the time anyway

I'm fine if I don't get the whole thing, that's for a different character in the future

The one side character I definitely did all I could with, was Shadowheart

Also Wyl to a decent extent

Act 3 spoilers for Wyll ||Daddy issues resolved, broke him from the contract, all good stuff||

[sweet moat]

Act 1 is an easy 10/10 for me. Extremely polished, fun, and adventurous, just what I'd imagine from Larian. Act 2 is a 9/10, with its awesome soundtrack, spooky theming, and genuinely unsettling atmosphere, but it's got some bugs (notably that nasty one I had while fighting the tollhouse lady).

I've heard...things from Act 3, both very good and very troubling. We'll have to see how it holds up for me.

[desert dove]

I need to swap Gale out for Wyll in this good guy playthrough, I think it'd fit the story better. But I need to respec Wyll to be my bomber instead of a melee fighter.

[sweet moat]

He's actually a surprisingly good melee character in my playthrough, and I didn't even intend for that to happen, lol.

[heavy hound]

Act 3 I didn't like much how it started but it definitely grew on me more and more.
It's just a massive city with a ton of things to do, a lot of them are a continuation from previous acts quests (which makes me wonder how many just aren't there for me for how I handed some situations) and some are related to the main conflict, but not all of them

It's less focused compared to the previous 2 acts, it feels like you have 20 things to do at once as you start it, but once you get to the resolution of those various stories it really feels good do see all those resolutions and payoffs

[sweet moat]

I actually like the sound of that.

I love how Act 1 gave you a million things to do right off the bat. It made me feel like the world was absolutely massive and I was just a small part of it.

Divinity does the same thing in its Act 4, and it was soooooooo cool.

I f*cking LOVE Act 4 in D:OS 2.

[heavy hound]

That said, you do encounter a lot more bugs and glitches and some system that aren't quire as polished grind against your enjoyment a bit more.
Which isn't ideal, hopefully patches will smooth out that part

[sweet moat]

Then again, they had redone Act 4 by the time I got to it, since it was apparently a lot more empty before.

[night oracle]

I think larian was saying that it's not that act 3 is unoptimized, it's just that much more detailed/intricate since there's so much more going on there, and having to load all that puts strains on some machines

[heavy hound]

I'm not even talking about the performance, that one fluctuates a bit but it's workable for a turn based game

It's straight up bugs that are the problem

For example, you get caught trespassing, you do a deception check and they go "sure, you can be here"
Immediatly after they forgot they told you could stay and catch you again

And that's like, one of the many things that feel like they aren't working as intended in the act

Down to some dialogue that doesn't make sense for the choices you made, in which they clearlty did set up some flags wrong, and a gaggle of other small issues that they aren't game breaking so far, but are all annoying

[desert dove]

Hopefully patch 1 gets most of those bugs.

[heavy hound]

To be honest, not all of those bugs combined did as much as the whole inventory system working as intended to get me annoyed at the game

[desert dove]

Yeah, the inventory system needs work.

I am so looking forward to an "infinite carryweight" mod.

[heavy hound]

Yeah I can't think what I'd do if I was playing a low STR character

They should have added bags of holding you could buy, that rather than being actual bags just upped your max weigh limit on the character you have them on

If they wanted to keep this as a mechanic

[quick bobcat]

Well you don't need the insight check to kill him. You can persuade him to let you look around and then you can just kill him whenever you like

That's what happened to me

I did it in a pretty fun way too

[weak cedar]

https://twitter.com/pcgamer/status/1692934968421351624?

PC Gamer (@pcgamer)

Baldur's Gate 3 - Animal Dialogue of the Day:

"Hello, servant ape. Would you kill those rats, please? Their presence vexes me."

Likes

478

Twitter · Aug 19, 2023, 4:22 PM

[quick bobcat]

[weak cedar]

Cat

[sweet moat]

F*ck yes, I need this. As well as an "inventory item swap" keybind.

[desert dove]

Huh. Apparently if you start the game as Lae'zel, she gets ||confronted by a different Githyanki, who helps you out through the rest of the Nautiloid sequence||. This lets you potentially get 5 characters during the intro if you start a multiplayer game with one of you playing Lae'zel. No idea if he's in other parts of the game after that.

[sweet moat]

This is literally what Owlcat Games did with the Pathfinder games, and let me tell you, it was sorely needed, and it's such an awesome solution to the inventory weight problems. You can carry sooooooo much in those games.

[desert dove]

https://www.ign.com/wikis/baldurs-gate-3/Things_to_Do_First

TIL you only need one shovel.

I thought they got used each time.

[sweet moat]

Yeah...

There's also no use for rope, which is...dumb.

[desert dove]

Yeah, I hate that. Rope is one of the most useful things to have in D&D. It should be a way to descend into places like the starter dungeon.

[sweet moat]

I've heard it's because there used to be a crafting system in the game that was scrapped early on, similar to how it was in Divinity. This allowed you to craft grappling hooks, toolkits, and other items, but Larian felt it would've just added too much complexity into an already complex game.

And tbh, I can understand that viewpoint, but still, we need the ability to scale cliffs with rope.

[night oracle]

That's probably why there's so many gems then. For you act 3 folk, do the gemstones have any use by then?

[sweet moat]

It's one of the number one things you can do in D&D.

Nope

[desert dove]

Huh, that's fair. Crafting systems usually turn out to either be utterly useless, or completely broken ways to make shit tons of money.

[night oracle]

Vendor time it is! ...I need to use my like 5000 gold.

[sweet moat]

Divinity's crafting system was relatively solid, but it was ultimately optional.

[sweet moat]

Almost 12K gold here. :P

[desert dove]

I just want one thing: a player home with bookshelves I can put all these books in, and an art gallery for all the paintings.

[night oracle]

I'm still in act 1!

[desert dove]

Must. Collect. All. The. Books!

[sweet moat]

Having the option to buy a house in Act 3 would've been so cool.

Or even create your own shop.

[quick bobcat]

40k

my entire party (except shadowheart) is wearing the same gear as they did in act 1 because I haven't found anything better

I wish you could toggle certain pieces of armor on and off, like in terraria

instead of the whole armor set

I wish I could see shadowheart's new hairstyle without it being obscured by her helmet. It looks great

[sweet moat]

This utterly boggles my mind. I found sooooooooooo much better stuff in Act 2 for everyone and everything, except for Shadowheart's armor and Wyll's shield, both of which are made from the ||Grymforge||, and Karlach's Bloodied Greataxe.

I found capes, I found better armor, I found better weapons, I found better rings, better boots, better helmets, better necklaces, everything.

[quick bobcat]

I found capes, which weren't even in act 1, yes

[sweet moat]

Also, you can. I have helmets toggled off for almost everyone.

[quick bobcat]

but other than that I didn't find much new stuff. Maybe a ring or two but that's it

[quick bobcat]

oh? how?

[desert dove]

For fun, making a Dark Urge Drow for later and... god dammit, the clipping ruins this hair

[quick bobcat]

what's the best light armor you found?

[desert dove]

https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Spidersilk+Armour

[sweet moat]

Hover over the helmet slot in your inventory, and there should be a little popup above it that gives you the option to toggle the helmet off for dialogues or for it to be toggled off completely.

[quick bobcat]

thanks

[sweet moat]

OOooooh, I found much better than that. :P

[quick bobcat]

mine's 13 ac

I found the 13 ac light armors at like level 3 and haven't changed them since

(I'm almost level 11 now and in act 3)

[desert dove]

Yeah, this does have Advantage on CON saves, which is useful for a spellcaster.

Or the +1 stealth for a Rogue.

[sweet moat]

Let me get on for a sec and I'll show you what I have

[weak cedar]

Merc I’m getting the game on PC too.

[night oracle]

My monk's been wearing that armor ever since i found it early

I think that source suggests otherwise... now i gotta check

[quick bobcat]

I've been wearing the same boots, gloves, helmet, armor, shield and amulets on ALL of my characters (except shadowheart) since like act 1

[weak cedar]

Has your CPU had any issues in act 3?

[quick bobcat]

Not so far but I haven't made it to baldur's gate yet

[kindred talon]

you don't need the check to kill him but you do need it if you want to dialogue your way into an easier fight

[quick bobcat]

I'm only in rivington

[night oracle]

Huh, no, that's the armor i'm wearing

I feel like I got this really early on

[weak cedar]

You still playing on tactition?

[night oracle]

AH, i guess the ||drow|| from the goblin camp was who i got it from

[quick bobcat]

Yes

[weak cedar]

Nice.

[quick bobcat]

Heh, your light armor has less AC than mine, and I found it in early act 1

Aren't the night walkers from act 1 as well?

[weak cedar]

That’s pretty low

[quick bobcat]

I only just now found better light armor (ac 14), in act 3

[sweet moat]

I only need to roll an 18 to get a critical with my rogue, he has advantage on almost everything almost every time, and whenever he rolls a 2 or lower on melee damage rolls, he rolls again and takes the higher result. He's got advantage on ALL saving throws, he's a stealth master, and he can deal up to 30+ damage per hit.

One less AC is nothing.

[heavy hound]

I have no idea how that's possible, I have like 6 legendary weapons
Like 7 shields I could swap around, one stronger than the other, and so many armor and helmets

My main rotates between 3 helmets

[sweet moat]

Oh, and he adds his ability modifier to off-hand weapon attacks too.

[quick bobcat]

I dunno, I still think the gear progression in DND sucks ass

I changed weapons like once on most of my characters throughout the entirety of act 1 and 2

[heavy hound]

With Gale entirely thanks to the gear I can clear a room in a turn

Literally it doesn't even need to be Gale, any other character could equip that staff and that ring (I think it's a ring) that gives me haste

To be fair tho, the game has a lot of good wizard gear

I have like 3 staves that are pretty good, and one that is godly

And only one Gale

Also Gale wears an absurd armor that makes him look like a massive slut

That wasn't necessary as a detail but I felt it needed to be included

[quick bobcat]

[heavy hound]

Picture since I feel like you deserve this

[quick bobcat]

[sweet moat]

Jeeeeesus.

[quick bobcat]

[sweet moat]

Methinks that wasn't designed with him in mind, lol.

[kindred talon]

what....w hat is that

[heavy hound]

I like the resistences

[kindred talon]

where's that from?

[heavy hound]

Act 3

[kindred talon]

oh

bought?

[heavy hound]

No, quest

[kindred talon]

ew

[heavy hound]

To be fair, it's not my only option, this is probably a bit better, but those resistances...

[night oracle]

Clearly was designed for Astarion

[desert dove]

Great, now I want to make a girl spellcaster, thanks.

[quick bobcat]

okay I'm now in Wyrm Rock and... my fps is starting to plummet

I'm playing at like 40 now

for some reason my gpu utilization hovers at 50%

very weird

[heavy hound]

CPU seems to be the bottleneck for this one

It's not texture and shit but a bunch of npcs pathing and going around and the number of elements that seem to be the problem in the city

[quick bobcat]

Well both my CPU and GPU usage are low

And yet my fps is low too

Very weird

Why are they not being used?

[heavy hound]

I also noticed that the memory leak rears its head a bit faster in the city, so might be time for a restart if you didn't do it recently

[quick bobcat]

lol

[heavy hound]

I can't help think that this is not good and it will bite me in the ass but it's too funny not to

[sweet moat]

This sounds like what happened to Merc, lol.

Or at least what we all thought was happening before he realized it was just a torch

[quick bobcat]

[night oracle]

Would Astarion consider it spicy?

[desert dove]

Neat

[night oracle]

(barbs should be able to equip two two handed weapons dangit)

[sweet moat]

It's a very good helm, BUT it's heavy armor, meaning that none of my party can even use it.

[desert dove]

That's kind why I want to run an Eldritch Knight Fighter for a future playthrough, wearing all the neat heavy armor I find (and whacking stuff).

... okay, I kinda want to play Wildheart Barbarian now just for this

[exotic pelican]

Yep, I gave Karlach that and she was the loot hauler from then on.

[desert dove]

... TIL a target that is Wet becomes Vulnerable to Cold & Lightning damage.

🌩️

[sweet moat]

Zip-zap.

[kindred talon]

Hurray I finished the game

Didn’t even need to do act 3

[sweet moat]

RIP

[kindred talon]

Imagine needing 3 acts

Pathetic

[sweet moat]

[kindred talon]

Kagth and us are the same va

Stone door has a voice actor

Makes sense

I was reading yesterday that apparently the game had a completely different story

[heavy hound]

Barbs should have proficency in everything

[kindred talon]

At one point

Something about ||your guardian (Daisy) (in early access they were called who do you desire) and the story was centred around something like daisy trying to convince you to stay in dream land “down by the river”||

[heavy hound]

I did check, in early acces just before the release the voiceline was ||"who do you dream of at night"|| which is interesting

[kindred talon]

||yeah and they wore that dress that shows up randomly in a cut scene||

[heavy hound]

And it's not ||wrong compared th what the guardian is now||

[kindred talon]

I think it was more explicit

Narrative wise

[sweet moat]

Yeah, apparently the story was a LOT darker and all of the companions were a lot more evil and/or morally ambiguous. Wyll, for example, was actually an egotistical smartass who was faking being a hero and really just wanted fame and glory and couldn't care less about anyone else. Gale's malady was actually permanent and wasn't going to be semi-"cured" by Act 2, and would also force you to give up only the really powerful artifacts and not any old magical item, and he'd also actively go against your leadership if he didn't like what you were doing. Shadowheart was reportedly a lot more evil, uncaring, and generally aloof. Lae'zel was even more racist and disapproved of everything you did if it wasn't an evil/asshole choice. Asterion was even more of an asshole and, like Gale, would actively plot against you in order to gain more power. Karlach didn't even exist at the time.

[kindred talon]

Karlech was definitely a late addition

[sweet moat]

And it was this characterization and storytelling that initially turned me away from the game, because it felt unnecessarily grimdark and dumb.

[kindred talon]

In early access wyll’s quest was focused around getting to be the one who put down the goblin leaders for some reason

[sweet moat]

Wyll's story was completely rewritten from the ground-up, and they even hired a new VA.

[kindred talon]

Yeah

Wow 2.5 million early access players

[sweet moat]

[kindred talon]

I suppose o should save scrum now

||sorry mystria||

You duck

[kindred talon]

am I an adventurer or a landlord? this is getting a bit silly

This seems like another bit of cut content ||wyll’s backstory memory||

[heavy hound]

Why would it be cut content?

You mean like if you played it in a flashback?

[kindred talon]

I mean the implication is that it's meant to be shown to you as a cutscene

at least in part

like ||how Shadowheart's wolf thing is shown to you||

[heavy hound]

Not sure if it was ever planned to be shown, maybe.
||Unlike Shadowheart cutscene which they wouldn't have to make a lot of custom assets for the flashback, a whole flock of Tiamat cultists, plus them summoning her through 5 Tiamat themed totems, and stuff like that, sounds like a bigger commitment||

Shadowheart ||stuff was literally a wolf, a few justiciars and the mother superior, and fancy camera angles.||

And all of that was assets they'd have to make for the game anyway even without the flashback

I wouldn't be too surprised either way, if they came out saying "this was planned but didn't" or "no yeah we never planned to show this"

[kindred talon]

I don't see the point of a mindlink if it's just going to be the narrator telling you what you're seeing.

[heavy hound]

I think they show things literally once as a cutscene in the game of those mind visions.

I am skeptical that all the others instances were cut content

I think it's more likely that the one you do see it as a cutscene was the outlier

[kindred talon]

so... are monks, as a class, just broken?

[heavy hound]

IDK, there are a few builds that are pretty strong but a lot of classes are pretty broken

Monks are actually considered to be relatively weak in 5e

They did put in a lot of monk centric items in BG3 that definitely change that equation tho

[quick bobcat]

Yeah so my performance is fucking atrocious now

Turning down settings doesn't even do anything

LOL

All the books in sharess' caress are hilarious

[quick bobcat]

lol

pffffft

I've never actually played icewind dale or neverwinter nights, how do they relate to baldur's gate?

[night oracle]

act 1 goblin stuff

[night oracle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/c1cnj4/whats_the_relation_between_baldurs_gate_icewind/ercc1ml/

[quick bobcat]

[desert dove]

Icewind Dale is a northern region of Faerun (the world BG is in), very cold (hence "Icewind"). Neverwinter is basically the New York City of Faerun.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Icewind_Dale
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Neverwinter

As the poster mentioned, the games themselves have little to do with each other plot-wise. They're just all set in the same world, Faerun, aka The Forgotten Realms.

[heavy hound]

I played them way too long ago to give a substantive revieww of those games, all I can say is that I have fond memories of them...just not many memories

[desert dove]

I recall playing BG1, but never finishing it.

[sweet moat]

Iirc, the Icewind Dale games and BG1 and BG2 are considered amazing games, but very much so a product of the era, and also very outdated these days. They also use an entirely different system compared to 5e in BG3.

Also, because of the technology at the time, you can't expect them to be long games. They'll take about 20 hours, 30 hours max. Still a respectable length, especially for the time, but below average for long-form RPGs these days.

[desert dove]

Yeah, BG1/2 and Icwind Dale were based on D&D 3e which... ehhhhhh.

[sweet moat]

Not even 3.5? Oof.

[desert dove]

Oh wait I was wrong. BG1 is 2e.

[sweet moat]

Damn, that's old

[desert dove]

... don't make me break out my Gold Box games.

[sweet moat]

[desert dove]

But yeah, NWN was the one based on 3e

[sweet moat]

Isn't that one still being updated?

[desert dove]

Yeah, there's tons of mods and fan support for NWN. It had modding support from the beginning.

[exotic pelican]

Yeah I remember spending a long time rolling my main character's stats in BG1 or 2. I wanted STR 18/00 which was a thing back then. There were tiers to strength 18 that ranged from 01 to 00 (which was 100). At level 100 you got like +3 to hit and +6 damage.

[desert dove]

Yeah, AD&D was weird about that. Hitting 18 STR meant you then rolled percentile for "just how OP are you?" and 00 was the pinnacle every Fighter wanted.

[eternal hawk]

BG1 and 2 hold up really well, outside of using 2e which is a really dated system.

Although BG1 is brutal because low level dnd sucks.

[desert dove]

Yeah, this was the "Wizards get one spell and are screwed after that" era.

No cantrips.

[eternal hawk]

It's also a complete saga, you take your character from 1 into 2, they become really powerful in the end.

There's also a lot of content, you can't see everything in one run. People put thousands of hours into those games.

[exotic pelican]

I remember getting a lucky roll for Power Word Kill (or some other instant death spell) to work on that red dragon.

[eternal hawk]

Neverwinter isn't as bad to back to, 5e gets its roots from 3e so you should in general kind of know what's going on.

Going from 5e to 2e is tough, the system is very different.

[exotic pelican]

Some of these Baldur's Mouth newspaper headlines are funny.

[quick bobcat]

God, act 3 is overwhelming

There's just so much shit happening at once

[heavy hound]

Yeah once you are a it for a while it starts to clear up, but often most quests go pretty deep, and have several steps, especially the companion ones

To me it seems like the are gearing up ||for a final confrontation with the absolute army and you gathering your allies or failing to do so, we'll know when we get there||

[exotic pelican]

I am up to 116 keys found. They keychain only weighs 1.26.

[quick bobcat]

All my gold weighs like 50kg

[neon ledge]

It's a good thing I'm playing on my Steam deck cause no one writing those 10/10 reviews saw fit to mention that there isn't a pause button that actually stops the entire world

The Deck can at least suspend at will

[exotic pelican]

You can turn on turn-based mode. That pauses the game.

[neon ledge]

Nope

The rest of the world continues on without you outside the combat bubble

That also doesn't help during cutscenes or anywhere else that turn-based mode isn't available

[kindred talon]

yeah it's a bit weird

[glass veldt]

Huh, I didn’t notice that yet

Weird

[sweet moat]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of the fact that the pause/menu button doesn't actually pause the game. Lots of games do that in singleplayer, and it's kinda dumb.

[jaunty basin]

I'm often on board with menus not pausing the game, but I still want a real pause button for when I have to actually stop playing for a minute

one nice thing about emulators is getting the pause feature for free

[quick bobcat]

I agree, it's weird

[heavy hound]

It being a turn based game largely it's not the end of the world.
I assume it's that way because the multiplayer system is organised so your friend can just join at any moment if you set it up that way

I wonder if you disable that altogether it gives you back a normal pause system, if it doesn't it should

Just tried and it doesn't, yeah if you select "close" as your multiplayer visibility, it definitely should enable a real pause system

[neon ledge]

Yeah I just did that and the cutscene didn't pause so

[night oracle]

[kindred talon]

Wow that’s a broken conversation

[night oracle]

Huh. I just realized that the map teleport function... also lists "Camp".

[night oracle]

Righto. Off to try the Hag again, now that i'm level 6..

[sweet moat]

Yeah, you should be able to beat here at that level. I beat her at level 5.

Though it was fairly tough. Hold Person is a bitch of a spell.

[night oracle]

Indeed

[kindred talon]

use ability enhancers to give you advantage on wis rolls

[heavy hound]

That's a good idea but at that level, a level 2 spell slot is a pretty tall ask

Also you have to mantain concentration on it

[night oracle]

I didn't even need it

I snuck around to the side and entered her room and nicked stuff... then snuck back into the big arena. Still got surprised by her but I was able to easily clear out all the doppelgangers then just pile onto her

Helps that Karlach has the sussur greatsword. Silence on hit

[sweet moat]

Yeah, that would've been very helpful against here...

[night oracle]

Karlach is ready

[sweet moat]

Boss: exists
Karlach: "Hold on, I've got a weapon for this..."

[night oracle]

Pretty much

"Oh, skellies are weak to bludgeoning? HAMMER TIME

[sweet moat]

I think I've fought skeletons...once? Maybe twice?

They're surprisingly rare

[night oracle]

True

The greataxes are good damage (green one has extra fire), The first warhammer has ABSOLUTE POWER which is gigantic damage and knockback

[sweet moat]

Which is odd, because they're all over the place in most D&D campaigns, lol.

[night oracle]

Second has this, but i haven't tried it in action yet

And my swords are, well

A bit broken

[sweet moat]

Wtf, that's an awesome longsword.

[kindred talon]

the trick to the dopplegangers is magic missile

[kindred talon]

you might even say it's a greatsword

[sweet moat]

If I ever play a Paladin, that's the weapon they'll have forever.

[night oracle]

Right? I just knew that the greatsword would be better for Ethel herself

But for everything else, there's Mastercard the longsword

[sweet moat]

Wait...

Aw f*ck

It says when it hits an object

[night oracle]

You picked something else to make?

[sweet moat]

Not a creature

[night oracle]

Ah that

[sweet moat]

So any hit on a creature won't necessarily be a critical.

Never mind, that's lame as f*ck.

[kindred talon]

transmute them into a chair then hit him

[kindred talon]

it's not, really. A lot of objects have some level of immunity, like immune to damage below x points. it always hits reasonably hard

[night oracle]

No lockpick? Hack the door open with the sword!

Case in point, just found a medium toughness big door and she just hacked it in two hits

[night oracle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtKfjSqyfUo

[clear yarrow]

Fit check

[night oracle]

Shadowheart looking rather epic

[heavy hound]

This armor is nuts
You get it from one of the endgame fights so click at your own risk.

The fact that ||literally anyone can wear it, is hilarious, Gale is getting this one and will have 24 AC with a +1 shield on||

[quick bobcat]

what the fuck is that jeez

[night oracle]

Ooh. I just had a listen to the origin stories intros on the char creation. All interesting/already known if you've played and met the other characters in act 1. The Dark Urge's intro does sound super cool 😮

[night oracle]

8000 gold?!

[kindred talon]

I've noticed the listed price is rarely what you can sell stuff for

[desert dove]

The what?

Do you mean when you first get out of the pod, or something else?

[night oracle]

On the char creation screen

They all introduce themselves if you select an origin story, there's a little "play intro" button

[quick bobcat]

wait you guys didn't listen to each character's intro before picking one?

oh wait, I forget that 93% of players made their own character

[night oracle]

Pretty much this, yes

[quick bobcat]

I'm like the only person who picked an origin character

[night oracle]

Heretic!

[quick bobcat]

mainly because I wanted as many origin stories as possible in one playthrough and also because I didn't wanna spend 3 hours in character creation

[night oracle]

I am doing monk on my first playthrough because I wanted to from the get go. Second playthrough will be later, and I'll be doing Dark Urge.... Bard.

Which will be interesting

[heavy hound]

Yesterday I had a fight that made me forget all the fucking bugs it was so well built up to and in general fucking awesome

NGl I am definitely going to try again Divinity 2 (after a lenghty pause)
The writing is so solid that made me a big fan of Larian already.

[night oracle]

[desert dove]

Well shit, I never noticed this.

[desert dove]

Yeah, I went straight to a custom character.

[exotic pelican]

I wanted to try Divinity: Dragon Commander because I heard the story was good.

[night oracle]

I would actually recommend an origin story for D:OS2, they're the best. (Fane IMO is the most interesting)

[heavy hound]

I should try Divinity Dragon Commander at some point, I like RTS and I like the idea of playing a RTS and suddently going into dragon mode and blast shit

Also the dragon has a jetpack in that one

[exotic pelican]

A game with a jetpack dragon can't be bad.

[night oracle]

I did play that years ago, but I don't really remember much about the story in particular

[heavy hound]

Jinx

[night oracle]

Except that you could make choices that affect which allies stick with you and whatnot

(I distinctly remember being offered a bride by one faction... the undead. She was a skeleton)

[heavy hound]

If they had the same writing team all this time, she will be wholesome and supportive, if Karlach is any indication

[night oracle]

I can't remember what I picked

[quick bobcat]

Lohse is the best imo

Fane is close though

my party on my first (and only) playthrough was ranger lohse, inquisitor fane, figher red prince and rogue sebille

yeah I completely changed some characters' classes (like fane and lohse) but it fit them I think

[night oracle]

Who was the default ranger again? I think i did him, fane, Lohse and Red Prince as my first playthrough

[quick bobcat]

Ifan is the default ranger

I hear he's like the most boring origin character so I didn't go with him

the other origin character is Beast, but I didn't want a dwarf

he has the most kickass theme song though

okay, second best, after Lohse's sing for me

[night oracle]

Oh I went Fane origin but had Ifan in my team, I mean

Because god DAMN rangers are broken

[quick bobcat]

they are strong, but not even the most broken shit you can do

iirc there is some really busted ass tea item and the skin graft spell which are completely bonkers

[night oracle]

Yeah but that's added complexity. Ranger damage out of the box was just crazy

[quick bobcat]

tbh as strong as ranger is, DOS2's difficulty is compeletely off the rails in some places

I got absolutely murdered by every single enemy in act 4 even though I did everything I could and milked all the xp in all the acts prior

and in the final boss fight ||all my characters died early on except fane who just went invisible and let the big bad guys kill each other||

and bear in mind this was on standard difficulty

BG3's tactician is a cakewalk in comparison

[quick bobcat]

did you finish BG3 already?

[heavy hound]

No, but a lot of overarching narrative of secondary and companion quests are finishing

[quick bobcat]

holy shit, I found the answer to all your inventory problems. There's a "chest of the mundane" in the arcane tower in act 1, which will transforms any items you put into it into forks, knives, etc, which weigh almost nothing. You can put all your heaviest items into it and carry this chest with you

the only disadvantage it has is that you can't fucking tell which item is which, because they're all cutlery and stuff

until you take that item out

[night oracle]

[desert dove]

This actually has good pointers for new players:
https://youtu.be/-RavauwcjMI

[night oracle]

https://www.ign.com/articles/a-baldurs-gate-3-dark-urge-player-killed-nearly-every-act-1-npc-and-stored-them-in-one-house

[kindred talon]

No owlbear cub?

[night oracle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DhdyLejqLk

[quick bobcat]

That's true, owlbear cub is the best one

It's so cute

[sweet moat]

How'd you have trouble with the final boss? I beat him in three turns, no joke.

Still, definitely gonna try to play D:OS 2 on Tactician next time I play. Same team: Ifan (leader, long-range sniper, support healer), Fane (battle mage), the Red Prince (fighter and supporting fire mage), and Lohse (water mage and main healer).

[quick bobcat]

How? I got wrecked

[sweet moat]

You just wait until the main bad guy spawns that big worm and then you teleport over to the platform the main bad guy is on. Then you flatten his ass and the battle is yours because no one of grave importance or threat level can reach you. Very, very easy. In fact, it was one of the easiest battles in the game.

[desert dove]

Okay, watching the latest Jimquisition episode about BG3... now I kinda want to roll a Bard.

[quick bobcat]

Huh

I just stayed on the low ground, I guess that was my issue?

But what do you mean by 'main bad guy'? There's a lot of bad guys in that fight

[sweet moat]

There...shouldn't be, if you played things right.

There was only like three for me.

Everyone else was on my side.

[quick bobcat]

||I had to fight Lucian and dallis as well as Braccus and the worm and even more if I'm remembering right||

Basically no one was on my side, it was a free for all

[desert dove]

Oh man, my next playthrough is going to be a disaster then.
https://manebooru.art/images/4021779

[sweet moat]

Yeah, so you f*cked up somewhere and made things 10x more difficult than they needed to be, lol.

Or I suppose you found a different means of reaching the same end...that was 10x more difficult than it needed to be.

[quick bobcat]

I thought that was inevitable?

Like that's just how the fight goes and how it's supposed to be

It was pretty fun watching them whack each other though

[night oracle]

Nah choices matter there too

[sweet moat]

Idk how I managed it, but I managed to convince both Dallis and Lucian to join forces with me to defeat the greater evil, and also make them trust me with the power of the Divine.

[heavy hound]

I feel like the final fight will be hilariously easy because I went through so much gathering of allies that I can't imagine we wont completely destroy whatever's coming

[jaunty basin]

that is my usual experience in games that do the "list of allies whose sidequests you did" style of ending variation

[night oracle]

I think it's not just allies though, some of the choices you make earlier in the game are relevant to the final fight and whether some people ally themselves with you or not

[heavy hound]

Yeah there is specifically a mission during the final act that lists who will flock to your banner in the final fight

My list is extensive and I haven't yet finished

[quick bobcat]

oh, but you see, I chose ||to distrubute source to everyone||

[quick bobcat]

I currently have like... arabella in my list? And that's it

[heavy hound]

I have a long list but it includes ||Volo|| so we might actually just lose

[quick bobcat]

oh yeah and ||volo||

I'm fucked

[sweet moat]

Merc, you were doing so well in Act 1, and then you just fell apart completely in Act 2.

[night oracle]

The russian translates to "the situation is out of control"

[heavy hound]

I must admit I felt absolutely overpowered but the last couple of difficult fight were close

Admittedly I didn't have gale with me because the other characters had to be there for story reasons, and there wasn't space for him, which definitely made things harder, still...

[sweet moat]

Imagine if a mod makes it so that you could have everyone in your party.

Everyone.

[quick bobcat]

I blame the game for bullshit encounters!

did you know that if you ||don't help Mol then marcus actually convices jaheira to let you in... and you can kill him before the fight ||

at least that's what I read

[heavy hound]

In a patch they did buff Isobel HP so they agree that encounter was too much

[quick bobcat]

ah, so good to know it wasn't just me being a dumbass

I didn't wanna save scum so I just rolled with it

[sweet moat]

I swear, I must be the luckiest motherf*cker in games and the unluckiest motherf`cker IRL. I had zero issue with that fight, on God.

[quick bobcat]

fr?

/j

[sweet moat]

Fr fr

🇫🇷

[quick bobcat]

I've been exceptionally unlucky in this game so far

though I think it's not entirely my fault, like a lot of encounters are just scripted weirdly

I didn't manage to save the ||imprisoned dwarves and tieflings|| in act 2 because... I thought I had to do it after ||letting nightsong go||

so I ended up with everyone dead basically

[heavy hound]

Some are not just a straight up fight which I enjoy, some rewards having situational scrolls or spells at the ready for example, some really want you to crowd control rather than kill some targets...it's all to give non immediate damage spells some value because let's be real, if you don't do that there is never a reason to prepare remove curse for example

[quick bobcat]

literally everyone

[kindred talon]

I saved them the first time by ||falling into an goo world and breaking walls after||

[quick bobcat]

also halsin stayed behind because of I lost the fucking isobel fight

[kindred talon]

But yeah

I found the ||prism fight extremely difficult||

[quick bobcat]

and fucking ||lae'zel got captured and will probably be killed|| in act 3 so I have like... no one

literally no one

[quick bobcat]

you mean killing the githyankis in the creche?

or which fight

[heavy hound]

If you need to fill a specific slot with something there are hirelings

[quick bobcat]

I mean I'm assuming your unused companions will go towards your "allies" list

[heavy hound]

I rolled a hireling monk because the game gives you so many monk items that it felt silly not to have someone that could at least equip them and I could trot out just in case I felt like it

[kindred talon]

The one where you’re ||ambushed in camp by a port full of monks||

[quick bobcat]

oh I think I know what you mean

[sweet moat]

Merc, while you could still theoretically get a good ending, at this point I'd be asking myself if it's worth it to continue down this path of horrible luck, and just start fresh?

[quick bobcat]

uhuh, and redo 2 and a half acts?

no way

[kindred talon]

Tbh if I restart I’m probably going to wait for them to patch fix act 3

[sweet moat]

Hindsight is 20/20

[desert dove]

Hopefully Patch 1 won't take too long.

[sweet moat]

It's said to have over 1000 bug fixes.

[weak cedar]

Isn’t act 3 just lots of CPU problems?

[sweet moat]

Basically

[desert dove]

That's a big problem, yes, but there's other bugs.

[sweet moat]

And a few other more minor issues, iirc.

[sweet moat]

I saw that. :P

[heavy hound]

There are defintiely a lot of things that went wrong in my playthrough, lots of quests I can't finish because of NPCs that are dead, some of them because I killed them but still

[weak cedar]

Anyone here been soft locked?

[quick bobcat]

I fucked up sooo many quests, I think it's kind of annoying that they don't give you any worthwhile alternatives

[heavy hound]

Not nearly to the Last Light level of disaster but I expect quite a few things that could have been done differently that I simply didn't find the solution, or wasn't interested in doing things that way

[desert dove]

I ran into a weird bug on Saturday where my UI disappeared right as I switched to Karlach to sell some stuff, and then I could not get any keybind to work, including Esc. Had to force quit the game and reload.

[kindred talon]

Had that a few times

I’ve had conversations that were weird or missing dialogue options, etc

I’ve also heard there’s a lot of content that got cut last minute

Like epilogues and stuff

Apparently it’s in the files it’s just not hooked up

[sweet moat]

I've run into this one a lot, especially with Karlach

[desert dove]

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15xb0x0/fextralife_is_likely_using_bots_to_manipulate/

Folks are recommending this wiki instead: https://bg3.wiki/

[quick bobcat]

uh oh, I got stuck in a ||djinn lamp|| please help

[desert dove]

Phenominal cosmic power!

Itty bitty living space

(Can't do small, smh)

[night oracle]

Jeez

[night oracle]

npc: Go save these ||gnomes being held prisoner by the duegar!||

Me:

Right... those people that are already dead. Not by my hand, mind you...

[sweet moat]

Y'all are a bunch of murder hobos, I swear...

[night oracle]

It wasn't me! It was ||Nere||!!

[sweet moat]

Yes, and you stood by and let him do it.

[night oracle]

[kindred talon]

I walk into a room and nearly kill npcs because they're vampires and I have daylight on my weapon

[sweet moat]

[sweet moat]

Mega cameo. :P

[heavy hound]

I just realised that when you free ||Volo from the goblin camp he tells you "I can't wait to pick your brain"||

[night oracle]

The bastard

[heavy hound]

I'm curious, what did you do about ||Raphael||?

If you already solved it

[exotic pelican]

|| I fought him and rescued Hope. ||

[heavy hound]

That whole section, ||and especially the fight||, is my favourite bit in the whole game

[exotic pelican]

|| I got the hammer too ||

Yeah the music during that fight is great

[heavy hound]

||The motherfucker sang his own fucking boss theme, you can't not love it||

Also IMO the hardest fight I encountered, largely because I didn't have an arcane caster with me

[exotic pelican]

|| I didn't have too much trouble. I had Hope helping me and I talked his demon friend into helping me instead. ||

[heavy hound]

Wanted to bring Karlach because ||Avernus||, Needed Shadowheart because buffs and heals especially in the social conversations, and needed Asterion ||because it was a fucking heist, of course I needed the rogue||

Yeah same I had both ||the dude helping me and Hope but also, it's 6 cambions and Raphael with 666hp and he's level 17, he hits fucking hard||

[exotic pelican]

I don't have a rogue in my party so I've been using Gale with dexterity gloves for most of my game.

[heavy hound]

Without much AOE because no Gale it was a challenge

That said, ||hold monster on Raphael and two fucking enraged barbarians hitting him over and over, once the cambions were dead, did the trick, it was getting the upper hand and not be dead that took a bit but I can't complain||

[heavy hound]

Asterion with reliable talent and experise on sligh of hand is so fucking broken
Every roll under 10 is brought to 10 and he has like +13 without guidance, so 24 is the floor of what he can roll

Guidance included

[exotic pelican]

My paladin with haste can do about 150 damage a turn. Since she is half sorcerer she has a lot of spell slots to use Divine smite. I used Gale || to focus down those soul pillars and I had three summons out to keep the other monsters busy. ||

[heavy hound]

My main is 4 barb 8 pld so yeah, that helps a lot
Not as many spell slots but I keep them for fights like that one

For the ||Soul Pillars|| I just brought my main to them since she can fly and at the time she was specced for dual weilding hammers/maces (because I dropped STR and I was using a mace that set my str to 21)

And hammers were good since they were vulnerable to bludgeoning.

[exotic pelican]

I just used magic missile

[heavy hound]

Since from ||Raphael I stole the gauntets tho,|| i switched to a two handed builds using the gauntlets, because great weapon fighting is an hilariously broken feat

[exotic pelican]

|| did you steal the necklace too?||

[heavy hound]

||Stole everything||

That one I left on Karlach since her build is on unarmored defense

So her con gets added to AC

[exotic pelican]

|| Since my paladin is using the gloves and necklace I respect her strength and constitution to 8 so I could reinvest those points into other low stats. I know that's kind of cheating though. ||

[heavy hound]

I mean, it's not something you can do in normal D&D, respeccing to be optimal, but it's fun to do in a videogame in a way which would just be annoying on pen and paper.

[desert dove]

I woke up this morning to the sudden realization that, despite being Archery focused, my Ranger should still be dual wielding melee weapons.

[exotic pelican]

Yes, everyone should have melee and ranged weapons. My wizard even has a crossbow just in case he gets stuck in some kind of silence bubble.

[desert dove]

I mean, I've got one melee weapon, but completely forgot I could dual wield.

[exotic pelican]

I never looked into what dual wielding was like in 5e. I remember in second edition it used to be more trouble than it was worth unless you had a very specific build for it.

[desert dove]

In tabletop, IIRC you get a penalty for attacking with your off-hand weapon unless you specifically have a Dual Wielding class feature or feat.

I may be thinking of an older edition though.

[quick bobcat]

My rogue actually seems to do more damage when attacking with both of his dual wielded hand crossbows than doing sneak -> sneak attack with a single crossbow

[desert dove]

Yeah, Rogues are not optimal in this game, sadly.

[quick bobcat]

in combat, I do think so yeah

but outside of combat they're actually incredibly useful

being able to pick any lock, spot and disarm traps, being able to persuade or deceive most characters and pick pockets is reaaaally useful

[desert dove]

While true, any high-Dex character with Sleight of Hand proficiency can do all of that. My Ranger is fairly good at it all even without the skill proficiency.

[quick bobcat]

I heard that rangers are actually quite weak as well

[desert dove]

Rangers have a bit of a jack-of-all-trades problem. However, my Gloomstalker Ranger is fucking powerful on the first round of combat. If I start by shooting something before combat has actually begun, my level 5 Ranger can get off four shots:

1. Out of combat attack
2. Dread Ambusher attack
3. Regular attack
4. Regular attack

I've also got the bow that gives Electric charges, so by the time I hit the 3rd or 4th attack, I've built up enough charges to trigger the bonus Electric damage hit. I was able to take the Hag down to half health just on the first round of combat with that.

[eternal hawk]

Rogue isn't too bad with some of the changes they made.
Thief gets an extra bonus action per turn, if you mutliclass into two-weapon fighting that's a decent damage with sneak attack + 2 offhands.

You can also multiclass a rogue into Gloom Stalker, you can really ramp up the damage then.

[desert dove]

I don't know any of these vtubers, but they're going to be playing BG3 in a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/live/8jDTWBc7EQE?feature=share

[jaunty basin]

Kiara, Nerissa, Bijou, and Calli I think?

that should be amusing

[night oracle]

Not sure about the second both yeah, those other three look correct

That's gonna be chaotic

[jaunty basin]

yeah, Nerissa and Bijou both debuted just under a month ago so I wouldn't expect anyone outside #1033585093526179840 to recognize them yet

[night oracle]

second but yeah *

Not sure why both was there I did recognize Bijou

[quick bobcat]

act 3 gamers: what's the proper way to complete the felogyr's fireworks thing?

[exotic pelican]

I don't think that quest was finished. I ended up just eliminating everybody upstairs and that finished the quest. There was no other way to trigger any other event. There is a secret stash of explosive barrels in the basement I used to help set up a chain reaction.

[desert dove]

Okay, yes, this is a chaos stream.

Someone clicked an AoE ability and hurt the whole group as soon as they got out of the pods. Now they're freaking out about Us.

"It's a nice little brain!"

[heavy hound]

In 5e dual weild works is pretty simple
Having a 2nd weapon allows you to do an attack with it using your bonus action when you take the attack option

In the game it's a bit simplified, you can always take the attack option with the bonus action even if you do something else with your action

That attack is done without adding the stat bonus to the damage.
So for example, a shortsword would roll a simple 1d6 even if you had +4 dex bonus

[desert dove]

Yeah, I thought they simplified it. So I can do it, just without the DEX bonus.

Still, that's an extra attack.

[heavy hound]

True, but it does use the bonus action so that's worth keeping in mind

Ranger are also proficent with shields, so a shield is also a good option to put in your offhand

[quick bobcat]

my entire party is wearing the same light armor and holding a shield

[night oracle]

Oh my god is that Kiara's character

[heavy hound]

As a sidenote, under your weapon icon, you can toggle dual weirld on and off, that way it doesn't automatically do the 2nd attack (you can still do it manually)

This is helpful in case you want to keep the bonus action for something else

[quick bobcat]

[desert dove]

Yeeeahhhhhh

[heavy hound]

For most classes I'd put on a shield in the offhand, rangers however use hunter's mark pretty often, and in that case if you are attacking a marked targed a 2nd attack is pretty good

Since the 2nd attack also rolls the mark damage

[quick bobcat]

you might also want a second attack as warlock if you used hex

[desert dove]

These girls are just chaos gremlins.

[night oracle]

Yep

No Astarion love l

[desert dove]

Oh god, they're going to fight the demon

"The devil is level 8 and has 100 HP."
"Never mind."

[night oracle]

Can they even hit him with his 18 AC?

[desert dove]

Looks like no. He's resisting the spells and I'm seeing a lot of Miss messages.

[night oracle]

[desert dove]

I actuallly tried to take him down the other day. We got him down to 35 HP before the Cambions showed up & started one-shotting people, so I had to hit the console in a panic.

Wow, they got a very different intro to Asterion than I did.

Ohhhh they bugged out

They killed her to get her out of the dialog.

Reload

[heavy hound]

That quest seems to be pretty fragile currently

I should be able to finish the game today.
If I am not it might become a problem since on the 25th Armored Core is here

And on the 6th it's Starfield.

There is zero chill with game releases this summer

[night oracle]

2023 is madness for games

[desert dove]

I'm fine until October, when Cities: Skylines 2 comes out. I'll probably pass on Starfield until the first patch.

[heavy hound]

I'll play it through gamepass so I'll happily try it out, just to see how Bethesda it is on release

[desert dove]

They're just skipping all the cutscenes by killing the opponents before they can say anything.

[kindred talon]

ultimate dark urge run

[heavy hound]

I'm definitely not doing another run for at least a few months, maybe a year, but man I do want to do an Astarion run in which he goes full fucking vampire lord bullshit.

Assuming you can

That dramatic asshole is built for it, it'll be so good.

[desert dove]

Should be able to

[heavy hound]

Also after finishing the companion stories, man, this game has definitely a theme of dealing with abuse going through it, and it does it very well.
Well at least you can chose to deal with it healthily, being this kind of game you can definitely also not

Actually, isn't literally ||every origin companion story tied to some form of abusive relationship|| now that I think about it? Well admittedly Laz'ael is more about indoctrination so maybe that one doesn't fit actually.

Astarion with ||Cazador||
Karlach with ||Gortash||
Wyll with ||Mizora||
Shadowheart with ||the Mother superior and Shar||
Gale with ||Mystra||

[kindred talon]

Tav with ||my need to loot everything||

[sweet moat]

Technically, Karlach isn't an origin character.

[heavy hound]

Wait you can't start as her? I was positive you could

No yeah I'm sure

I'll actually check tho

Yeah she's there

[desert dove]

I think she was added late to the dev cycle, she wasn't in there during EA. And reportedly her Origin story is a bit weak compared to the others.

[sweet moat]

That's strange...all over the subreddit people were saying that she wasn't an origin character at all. I guess that changed.

Also, seeing Wyll ||without the horns|| is weird now, lol.

[heavy hound]

He just ||never gets them if you kill Karlach I assume right?||

So interesting

[sweet moat]

I would assume?

Unless Mizora decides to screw with him anyway

[desert dove]

Yeah, I spoiled myself on that today. If you ||kill Karlach, Mizora apparently taunts him about it, and then awards you with a decent spellcaster robe.||

[heavy hound]

I do love that ||Karlach was a valid target because they replaced her heart with an infernal engine, and in the contract says that valid targets are limited to "The Infernal, the demonic, the heartless and the soulless"||

That classic devil "technically correct" trickery

[night oracle]

https://twitter.com/megasett/status/1693817460292731075

Meg (@megasett)

I wasn't aware your Steam profile picture was what BG3 would use but here we are

Likes

183

Twitter · Aug 22, 2023, 2:48 AM

[desert dove]

I'm guessing that's for multiplayer?

[night oracle]

Even single player you see it at the start of the game/creating char

Though it then sticks to your created character

[heavy hound]

Ok so, BG3 is finished, what a fucking trip
Act 3 is definitely a bit rough, a few quests broke, all were still basically completable even tho some breaking cut me out of some options.
Also some dialogue was definitely wrong, they clearly had some lines that were there that don't account for some of your choices, that's going to take a while to catch some of these because it's a lot of moving parts.

Also they need to tighten up the performances for sure.

Ultimately tho, great experience, the finale was good but the highlight were some of the companion and secondary quests which IMO it's where the writing truly shines, fucking phenomenal.

I look forward to a 2nd playthrough in a year or so, and see if they managed to make it more robust, felt a bit walking on eggshells on Act 3 to try actively to not break the quests rather than in Act 1 and 2 in which I was trying to break them to see if the devs accounted for it.

Spoilers: Went ||full Mindflyer by the end because the moral dilemmas that were put to me demanded that happened, didn't go evil or anything, surprised you can go "good mindflayer"||
||I liked my finale a lot and the story of a pragmatic but just character that grasped for power and sacrificed a lot personally to keep to their principles.||

[night oracle]

i'm nowhere near finishing, but i think i'll do a second playthrough in late november. I found a charger that should hopefully keep my PC rig powered while on the plane (though maybe not the whole time)... BG sounds like a great thing to play

[kindred talon]

given it's rating I'm not sure I'd play it in public

[night oracle]

fair point

I'll just avoid romance and the 'hide clothes' button!

A bit of murder never hurt anyone

[desert dove]

You can turn off the really spicy bits at least.

[sweet moat]

||surprised you can go "good mindflayer"||

I mean, isn't there a ||good Mindflayer in the mycanoid colony||? Not sure why this is a surprise.

[heavy hound]

In hindsight makes sense but the game makes this association with ||becoming more attuned to the parasite and grabbing more power, with corruption, so I expected that if I went too far I'd lose control of the ambition of the character and eventually be forced to make a power grab, but you don't||

[kindred talon]

you can walk in on an orge and a bugbear bonking, and as far as I know you can't really turn those things off

[heavy hound]

Yes but it's like, primetime tv level of lewd

[kindred talon]

I also has halsin once completely lose his clothing while turning into a bear, so that was fun

and it's quite gory too

[quick bobcat]

wtf you can seduce ||the emperor||?!

[kindred talon]

allegedly you can seduce ||Wyll's patron||

[quick bobcat]

this game is insane

[quick bobcat]

my blood... is explosive now?

[heavy hound]

Yeah I did get that, it definitely proven to be a bad but it was pretty funny

So it was overall a win

And it's probably at least not terrible if you have fire resistence

[night oracle]

Wyll you horndog

[quick bobcat]

[kindred talon]

it's honestly kind of weird the githyanki have such relations, given they have some sort of weird queen bee shit going on

[heavy hound]

I am not sure if the queen deposes all the eggs tho

Also the egg thing was something that was evolved purposefully in them using magic, not a natural evolution IIRC, so it kind of makes sense they'd keep the urge

Or at least it's concievable

[kindred talon]

I asked Lae'zel about it once and she BBQed meshe said there were a specific class(?) group(?) of githyanki that do so

given that it'd be a right job to lay an egg that size with hips like that, I assume they're not 'normal' looking githyanki

[sweet moat]

[night oracle]

[eternal hawk]

Spoilers about Karlach ||Parts of her questline can't be complete because it took place in an area that was cut right before launch. So she'll have different endings available when they either add that area in or move the quests. ||

[sweet moat]

Well that's...unfortunate.

Is the ||area that was cut|| in act 3?

[eternal hawk]

It is.

[sweet moat]

Alright, so at least I'm not missing anything at the moment

Still in act 2, haven't played in a bit. I've been distracted by JoCat's D&D campaign (much shorter sessions than Critical Role, allowing me to go through them faster).

[night oracle]

....

So I ||refused to give the weapon to the Queen Gith and said 'ha fuck you you're no god, you can't kill me from afar!'||

||She called my bluff ||

[heavy hound]

[night oracle]

Siiiigh. And ||the last save is before the fight with the inquisitor...||

That's my sign to go to bed

[sweet moat]

Oh yeah...that's a very dickish conversation. You aren't even given time to save before you're thrust into it, and if you fail it, you have to go back before the fight.

I also started to taunt her, and then she started to get angry and told me not to test her, and that's when I checked my last save and realized it was before the fight, so I backed out and apologized for talking back, saving my skin but for some reason upsetting Wyll and Karlach in the process (they got over it).

[heavy hound]

To be fair, you are warned that it's a stupid move multiple times to go meet the crechè at that point, so it makes sense that if you go along with it you are placed in a difficult situation

[sweet moat]

Yeah

[heavy hound]

Also I never got in a fight with the inquisitor before the conversation, you guys didn't have Lae zel with you?

[night oracle]

I did, but I didn't want to ||give them the weapon||

[sweet moat]

I didn't, the dude just attacked because I had the artifact.

"He wants it for himself."

[heavy hound]

I showed them the ||weapon, then gave them the weapon, the weapon then returned to me, as it does, so I were sent to talk with the inquisitor myself||
No need to fight anyone

[night oracle]

[heavy hound]

Well you eventually have to kill them all, but it's after

After they let me ||get inside the artifact to have a talk with the Guardian, which was where I was hoping this would lead||

[sweet moat]

Meh, the inquisitor was an asshole, and I really don't like the Githyanki, so his head went flying, as well as his guards.

[night oracle]

Oh yeah i'm pretty sure I will kill the entire creche

But I didn't expect the queen to just say ||YOU DOUBT ME and then not even a battle, just game over||

[sweet moat]

Baldur's Gate 3: F*ck Around & Find Out Edition

Available in stores near you.

[kindred talon]

the trick is to lick the weapon so the queen doesn't want it anymore

[desert dove]

One day I will do a playthrough as either Lae'zel or my own Githyanki, and just give the entire creche the finger.

[sweet moat]

Honestly, playing as Lae'zel is probably the only way she can actually be a good-aligned character.

And also have any sort of interesting personality besides "mah sword fer mah queen!"

[heavy hound]

Spoilers for my playthrough
The Crechè and the ||fact that they tried to kill us after we came out of the prism, is where she started the "are we the baddies" process||

[sweet moat]

Same here, but she's still bland

[heavy hound]

By the end she is ||fully committed to revolution and I love it for her||

Nevermind that she is just as commited to ||this prince and maybe monarchy is not the best way to go, baby steps, and this other dude seems much better||

[polar seal]

It was initially at 'very positive' for all-time reviews for a couple weeks, but the sheer amount of positive reviews coming in has pushed the overall average over the edge

[heavy hound]

One thing that this game does exceptionally well, and it never got old in more than 100 hours, is when you start a fight, and the music is all serious and tense, and you score a kill and it dinamically goes into a heroic swell.

This might be one of the most impressive examples of dinamicly changing music I've seen in any game.

It seriously contributed to my enjoyment of the game so much

[quick bobcat]

I think you might love DOS2's dynamic music as well

each of your characters has an 'instrument' which you assign at character creation and the music will dynamically switch to that instrument when you switch to that character during a fight

[heavy hound]

When I recharge my massive RPG battery I will give it another shot.

[quick bobcat]

basically almost every fight theme in the game has like 6 variations to cover all the instruments

[heavy hound]

I'm so completely spent after this game

[quick bobcat]

I think I'm gonna start another playthrough right after I finish this one