Baldur's Gate 3: There's a ghaik in my loot! (Now out on Xbox!)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Baldur's Gate 3: There's a ghaik in my loot! (Now out on Xbox!)

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Goa Tse-tung: Feb 11, 2008; ;3; Yams Fan

ugh another mod appealing to the gale gaze https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/6498

# ? Feb 5, 2024 16:31

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# ? May 20, 2024 20:17

DarkHorse: Dec 13, 2006; Nap Ghost

Peteyfoot posted:

I bounced off the original Baldur's Gate and then Divinity II due to getting overwhelmed during combat. I started BG3 recently and was feeling okay about it (I�m on balanced difficulty) until I entered the harpy encounter outside Emerald Grove and Wyll immediately got one-shot. I want to give the game a fair shake, can I get any tips on what might improve my enjoyment of the combat system? I think my two mental hangups are:

1. I feel like I'm going into a combat encounter blind, even with examining enemies. In each encounter so far I've been trying to react to a bunch of unknown abilities and strengths, which I have found stressful! To be fair I haven't done the best job of scouting out the map before an encounter starts, for example I thought there was just one harpy I could take down and it turns out there are four harpies aaaaAAAA

2. I'm pretty blind to my own party's strengths and weaknesses as well. Is there a gameplan or "build" I can follow? Unlike action games where I can rely on reflexes, or MMO gameplay where a party has "roles" that I understand very well I am definitely playing very reactively with no strategy. During combat I am usually mousing over my abilities and learning what's available to me on the spot and guessing what would be optimal for that particular character's turn in the immediate sense. Positioning tips would be great too, my party is usually randomly whacking on people around the combat area!

I'll try any and all advice given, BG3 looks really cool so I'd love to put some effort in instead of giving up!

e: gramer

Others have already gone into more detail, so besides seconding lowering the difficulty I'll just share some conceptual stuff that might help

The game has turn-based combat, so take full advantage of that. Take your time, consider your options, and if your characters appear in initiative as a group consider the order you have them take actions. For example, have an ally engage an enemy in melee before Astarion so he gets his sneak attack, even if Astarion had the higher initiative
Because things are turn-based, consider the "action economy" - every turn your character gets an action, a bonus action, and movement to spend. Conversely, every enemy has an opportunity to spend their actions. Being able to efficiently spend your resources and deny the enemy theirs will help your combat effectiveness.
For example, every turn an enemy spends prone, webbed, paralyzed, or otherwise blocked from attacking is basically a turn wasted. This is where your Crowd Control spells like Grease or Web come in handy. You can attack them directly or block off choke points while you deal with other foes
To that end, it's generally better to focus fire and drop enemies fast rather than spread damage around. A dead enemy can't attack, while two enemies at half HP are still generally fully combat capable
As others have mentioned, healing in combat is generally sub-optimal as you're spending an action to undo damage already dealt that could be used to prevent future damage instead. This can be used to your benefit however, as healing a downed ally will force the enemy to use an attack to down them again, possibly sparing another ally from getting downed

# ? Feb 5, 2024 17:46

F4rt5: May 20, 2006

And you'll get better once the very good advice above settles in your mind. My first playthrough was kinda hellish until act 3, as a not very experienced D&D player. Just so much stuff to think about and consider. My second playthrough now I just slayed the harpies without them getting many hits in, and everything is just a much easier fight (still on Balanced, no karmic dice). When it clicks it's fun, and I'm sure to do yet another playthrough with another completely different Tav after this one.

e: Like I knew the basic D&D 101 stuff like dice, crits, stats, Magic Missile (for attacking the darkness) etc. But I never even played the original BG, NWN etc or made / played a tabletop character. So basically a freshman. Suffice to say I'm hooked and really want to join an IRL tabletop game with friends I know have done this before.

F4rt5 fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Feb 5, 2024

# ? Feb 5, 2024 18:42

An Taoiseach: Mar 23, 2008; World's Strongest Love

By the time you get to the trials, i had settled nicely into Karclach, throw, Lae'zel, sword, Gale, magic missile and Tav, debuff, and hadn't taken Shadowheart out since act one, and continued not to do so.

Then, after not brining her along for the Nightsong- because why should I change up a winning team after all- she left camp for good. Probably should have expected that, in fairness. But, i got Jaheria pretty much right after, so felt a bit better

# ? Feb 5, 2024 18:50

Springfield Fatts: May 24, 2010; Pillbug

Multiplayer question: we started a game with three custom characters and we wanted a fourth guy to join in when one of the players was not present. It wouldn't allow him to make a new fourth and would only let us use the third unused custom character. I saw some sketchy work arounds opening multiple instances of the game around this on the internet, is there a better way to handle this?

# ? Feb 5, 2024 19:19

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

Is there a (roughly) spoiler free list of what classes/backgrounds interact with the Dark Urge? Was thinking about starting it up, but not sure if I want to just go sorceror for fun, or something more interesting

I think a few pages back someone mentioned that Selunite clerics get something special? Was going to probably go with Shadowheart as my romance due to thematic reasons and I hear she has some great interactions in the later parts of the game, and there'd probably be some fun interactions with shadowheart as a cleric team?

# ? Feb 5, 2024 19:46

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

If this bothers you, one of the best Warlock / Sorcerer robes in the game requires you to NOT be Dark Urge, unless you take some very metagamey steps to circumvent it. The Dark Urge-specific rewards tend to gravitate towards martial classes although I can see how a Durge-resisting Selunite Cleric would be an interesting choice thematically.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 19:55

Black Noise: Jan 23, 2008; WHAT UP

Our Durge is a Frost Dragon Sorc minus that one robe. The cloak is actually very good on them since they are a blaster caster. Their build is different though since they are using the fire acuity hat for +dc +attack. So round one they are gathering power with scorching ray and round two they activate spell might and start freezing everyone. Then if they confirm the kill bloodlust lets them get off another twin ray of frost.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 20:01

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

exquisite tea posted:

If this bothers you, one of the best Warlock / Sorcerer robes in the game requires you to NOT be Dark Urge, unless you take some very metagamey steps to circumvent it. The Dark Urge-specific rewards tend to gravitate towards martial classes although I can see how a Durge-resisting Selunite Cleric would be an interesting choice thematically.

Ah that's good to know. I know about the metagaming with Alfira yeah, I don't really mind missing out on rewards if I mess it up, all part of the plot!

Maybe the real question is who else do I want to bring along? The plan is to run the resist route, so I could always go with a martial class or a sorcadin or a multiclass from cleric later on maybe

I accidentally got slightly spoilered on what's ultimately going on for the Dark Urge but I don't really know the details, so was thinking it would be fun if there's any special interactions or dialogue to consider

# ? Feb 5, 2024 20:05

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Jaheira becomes a more interesting companion on Durge runs, Minthara also ties into some lategame Durge stuff although again you have to game the system a little if you want to keep her around on a good playthrough.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 20:12

wizard2: Apr 4, 2022

exquisite tea posted:

It looks awesome, as does my pointy hat.

it's true

haters of Dual Staff/Pointy Hat Technique beware

# ? Feb 5, 2024 20:56

Black Noise: Jan 23, 2008; WHAT UP

I think some of the best traps in the game are those repulsers in the mountain pass. I set off some barrels that dropped from the ceiling in act 3 and I thought �Nice but needs more oomph� this is my Rogue bias though.

We have GCLubricant but no GC :argh:

# ? Feb 5, 2024 21:21

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Weird Pumpkin posted:

Is there a (roughly) spoiler free list of what classes/backgrounds interact with the Dark Urge? Was thinking about starting it up, but not sure if I want to just go sorceror for fun, or something more interesting

I think a few pages back someone mentioned that Selunite clerics get something special? Was going to probably go with Shadowheart as my romance due to thematic reasons and I hear she has some great interactions in the later parts of the game, and there'd probably be some fun interactions with shadowheart as a cleric team?

Tempest cleric of selune ---> storm sorcerer will plow through the game easily if you want to mix that in with the durge run.

Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Feb 5, 2024

# ? Feb 5, 2024 21:35

Jenny of Oldstones: Jul 24, 2002; Queen of dragonflies

I'm on my first playthroughs, one solo and one with my spouse. I love this game so far and generally try to do the good things. Last night my bleeding heart helped children, donated to a bum, and then felt really sorry for 7,000 vampires. Yeah, I love this game.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 21:41

Jay Rust: Sep 27, 2011

i'm probably near the end of act 2 and the fatigue is starting to set in (not entirely the game's fault, i did have like ten false starts, also i'm a miticulous explorer), i really really blame the amount of buttons, i never should've given everyone tadpole powers, my hotbars look like endgame raid-ready mmo action bars, and my guys are only level 8. Plus i maybe stupidly decided to keep everyone up to date on their equipment, so the mental work i have to do whenever i receive a piece of equipment is starting to add up. And the consumables... thank god for the auto-sorting bags mod because otherwise i'd be in hell, instead i'm just in heck.

I wonder how the game plays if you roleplay it properly, i.e. you treat the stated time limit before illithidation as an actual time limit, instead of a narrative conceit that you can ignore in favour of helping some smugglers out with their caravan troubles instead. Would you end up underlevelled, i wonder?

# ? Feb 5, 2024 21:59

Weird Pumpkin: Oct 7, 2007

Lawman 0 posted:

Tempest cleric of selune ---> storm sorcerer will plow through the game easily if you want to mix that in with the durge run.

Oh that does sound fun, I'll give it a try!

# ? Feb 5, 2024 22:06

Entropic: Feb 21, 2007; patriarchy sucks

Ratios and Tendency posted:

The harpy fight is nasty. Use the lvl 2 cleric spell calm emotions to block the song.

If you really want to cheese that fight, have a cleric pre-cast Silence in the spot where the harpies show up before you talk to the kid.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 22:15

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Jay Rust posted:

i'm probably near the end of act 2 and the fatigue is starting to set in (not entirely the game's fault, i did have like ten false starts, also i'm a miticulous explorer), i really really blame the amount of buttons, i never should've given everyone tadpole powers, my hotbars look like endgame raid-ready mmo action bars, and my guys are only level 8. Plus i maybe stupidly decided to keep everyone up to date on their equipment, so the mental work i have to do whenever i receive a piece of equipment is starting to add up. And the consumables... thank god for the auto-sorting bags mod because otherwise i'd be in hell, instead i'm just in heck.

I wonder how the game plays if you roleplay it properly, i.e. you treat the stated time limit before illithidation as an actual time limit, instead of a narrative conceit that you can ignore in favour of helping some smugglers out with their caravan troubles instead. Would you end up underlevelled, i wonder?

You would end up not only underleveled but missing giant chunks of context for later content, imo. Some of the threads that get wrapped up in act 3 are only satisfying if you've gotten invested in them through the other acts, primarily the tieflings but to a lesser extent some groups or characters like Dame Florrick or the Ironhand Gnomes.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 22:17

tarbrush: Feb 7, 2011; ALL ABOARD THE SCOTLAND HYPE TRAIN!

CHOO CHOO

Jay Rust posted:

I wonder how the game plays if you roleplay it properly, i.e. you treat the stated time limit before illithidation as an actual time limit, instead of a narrative conceit that you can ignore in favour of helping some smugglers out with their caravan troubles instead. Would you end up underlevelled, i wonder?

I did my first run this way and it makes it a bit harder as you tend to be a little under leveled until the very end game, and you don't get as many of the items and quests.

But it generally works really well, and you see far fewer of the seams of how they made the game

# ? Feb 5, 2024 22:17

wizard2: Apr 4, 2022

Jenny of Oldstones posted:

I'm on my first playthroughs, one solo and one with my spouse. I love this game so far and generally try to do the good things. Last night my bleeding heart helped children, donated to a bum, and then felt really sorry for 7,000 vampires. Yeah, I love this game.

the vampires should determine their own fate, I say

# ? Feb 5, 2024 22:33

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Jay Rust posted:

god dual-wield quarterstaves looks so loving dumb

look my storm sorcerer needs two electrodes ok

# ? Feb 5, 2024 23:20

Eifert Posting: Apr 1, 2007; Most of the time he catches it every time.; Grimey Drawer

Dawgstar posted:

So I just started and if I'm trying to play a good character and wondering how much is this going to interfere with making friends with Lae'zel?

Be a badass and don't gently caress with her agency and she'll love you. You don't have to kick puppies.

# ? Feb 5, 2024 23:27

Black Noise: Jan 23, 2008; WHAT UP

During the Tavern long rest event the Paladin started complaining that they can't unequip their camp clothing.

I'm not an editor this just popped into my head. Act 3 spoilers https://youtu.be/Nyd9th6seMA

# ? Feb 5, 2024 23:53

Black Noise: Jan 23, 2008; WHAT UP

mistake delete

# ? Feb 5, 2024 23:55

grack: Jan 10, 2012; COACH TOTORO SAY REFEREE CAN BANISH WHISTLE TO LAND OF WIND AND GHOSTS!

wizard2 posted:

the vampires should determine their own fate, I say

That fate being "Let's all murder a bunch of people."

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:12

mycot: Oct 23, 2014; "It's okay. There are other Terminators! Just give us this one!"; Hell Gem

grack posted:

That fate being "Let's all murder a bunch of people."

Throwing stones in glass houses and all.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:14

Thundarr: Dec 24, 2002

wizard2 posted:

the vampires should determine their own fate, I say

I mean, we've been to the Underdark. Most of the people down there are dicks anyway. Except for the myconids and they probably don't taste great so they're safe.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:22

Black Noise: Jan 23, 2008; WHAT UP

"They pinky swore to be wholesome 100"

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:31

Peteyfoot: Nov 24, 2007

Thank you all very much for your advice! I read all of it and will try different things until I find something that works for me! Slowing down instead of trying to rush through the combat has helped me immediately. I have started getting familiar with my spells and abilities and I now feel more comfortable with what's going on. Also gently caress those harpies for now, I will return later and lovingly separate their souls from their bodies. :evilbuddy:

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:32

Shard: Jul 30, 2005

Speed potion also helps a lot

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:47

Knuc U Kinte: Aug 17, 2004

Took down the musical boss in honour mode in my first time through act 3 and the power went out during the convo after.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:49

Shumagorath: Jun 6, 2001

Knuc U Kinte posted:

Took down the musical boss in honour mode in my first time through act 3 and the power went out during the convo after.

https://www.apc.com/us/en/product/B...ceable-battery/

# ? Feb 6, 2024 00:54

Big Bowie Bonanza: Dec 30, 2007; please tell me where i can date this cute boy

As I�m working my way through my 7th playthrough it�s striking me how tiny the game map actually is. My first time into the underdark it felt so huge and I am realizing there�s only like� 3 mandatory combat encounters in the underdark before you get to grymforge. It is incredible how they make comparatively little feel like SO much your first time through

# ? Feb 6, 2024 01:41

Ginette Reno: Nov 18, 2006; How Doers get more done; Fun Shoe

Big Bowie Bonanza posted:

As I�m working my way through my 7th playthrough it�s striking me how tiny the game map actually is. My first time into the underdark it felt so huge and I am realizing there�s only like� 3 mandatory combat encounters in the underdark before you get to grymforge. It is incredible how they make comparatively little feel like SO much your first time through

Even with games with comparatively giant maps this tends to be the case for me on subsequent playthroughs. I've beaten Elden Ring three times and the first play was like 120 hours. Subsequent ones were like half that and I was just as completionist each time. Actually even more so because my first Elden Ring play I don't think I did Malenia or Mohg.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:22

Slider: Jun 6, 2004; POINTS

Why aren't the paintings worth anything in this game?? I steal every single one I see and only become more and more disappointed

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:42

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Big Bowie Bonanza posted:

As I’m working my way through my 7th playthrough it’s striking me how tiny the game map actually is. My first time into the underdark it felt so huge and I am realizing there’s only like… 3 mandatory combat encounters in the underdark before you get to grymforge. It is incredible how they make comparatively little feel like SO much your first time through

I think someone made up a chart somewhere and even to scale its a small slice of the sword coast.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:44

wizard2: Apr 4, 2022

Slider posted:

Why aren't the paintings worth anything in this game?? I steal every single one I see and only become more and more disappointed

it is odd. artwork has been straight up loot table reward currency in D&D since the olden days, but it is relatively unexciting in value here... still, you should absolutely steal every painting you can get, because it is very satisfying.

maybe some modder can go add some zeroes or something!!!

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:48

grack: Jan 10, 2012; COACH TOTORO SAY REFEREE CAN BANISH WHISTLE TO LAND OF WIND AND GHOSTS!

wizard2 posted:

it is odd. artwork has been straight up loot table reward currency in D&D since the olden days, but it is relatively unexciting in value here... still, you should absolutely steal every painting you can get, because it is very satisfying.

maybe some modder can go add some zeroes or something!!!

I'm guessing the devs realized that players will steal everything that isn't nailed down so they kept the values low so as to not completely gently caress the economics.

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:49

wizard2: Apr 4, 2022

grack posted:

I'm guessing the devs realized that players will steal everything that isn't nailed down so they kept the values low so as to not completely gently caress the economics.

so far, i always end up with too much gold by mid Act 3 even after the shopping sprees

I have no clue what would even need to be adjusted to make the gold economy for fun for some 2.0 Definitive Edition patch or whatever

# ? Feb 6, 2024 02:52

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# ? May 20, 2024 20:17

Turds in magma: Sep 17, 2007; can i get a transform out of here?

wizard2 posted:

so far, i always end up with too much gold by mid Act 3 even after the shopping sprees

I have no clue what would even need to be adjusted to make the gold economy for fun for some 2.0 Definitive Edition patch or whatever

You'd need an actual fun gold sink. Not repair, not some lame crafting system.

I propose material costs for spellcasting

# ? Feb 6, 2024 03:03

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