Baldur's Gate III

also yeah that first real dungeon fight kicked my ass so hard, and indeed most battles even at lvl 5 now I seem to be clearing just by the skin of my worgs teeth, what has helped enormously is summoning the invisible flying imp to scope out the scene in advance, invisible imp MVP

Well I have definitely brown a few quests and killed potential party members I know that. It's all a part of it I guess

*broken

One of the reasons that multiple runthroughs is the norm

Yup. I need to get used to the idea that you don't (and can't) do everything in the first run. I'm so Souls-pilled though that I insist on thoroughly exploring all areas before leaving them. No stone unturned

Found Karlach and she is already great, except for the part where she goes HAM after the fight with the fake paladins; I barely made it out alive after my third try against them, and of course she proceeds to wreck the place and set everything on fire, which kills Astarion outright and nearly my character and Shadowheart. Eventually she calms down by accidentally killing herself.

Who decided the Gauntlet of Shar dungeon in Act 2 was a good idea? Like cool, let’s have a labyrinthine, 4 layer dungeon with a map that will show you exactly one layer.

I honestly can’t tell if my game is broken or what. I’m watching walkthroughs and none of them are matching up with what I’m seeing. Good job, Larian. Glad I put like 50 hours into this.

Also it’s cool how your PS5 directional pad randomly stops working in conversations. I’ve accidentally started fights like a dozen fights because of it.

Why is nobody mentioning how borked this game is on PS5 in reviews?

Yeah all that stuff happens to me too. The dialogue thing is super annoying - I think it happens when you enter dialogue in turn-based mode, so try fiddling with that and seeing if it works.

I'm still having the thing where poison mist isn't visible.

And I'm worried that some sussur bark I spent ages looking for might have magically disappeared from my inventory. I sincerely hope not

I'm assuming this will all get patched but in the meantime it's very frustrating

I’m at a point where the game is just straight broken. The only save I have is rolling a 30. But I can only roll 29 with everything maxed out. I’ve never been so furious at a video game in my life.

have not encountered any bugs yet on PC, one time I "perceived" a giant clump of dirt but it wouldn't let me dig the chest up, but whatever those all seem to be little fun treats that don't matter like an extra mushroom in mario bros

mostly just agree with the polygon video Leee posted above, the options and branches and completely unnecessary detours in only the first map is tremendous

Yeah no bugs to report playing on PC. Careful with your inventory re: dog Latin. It might be a bug for you, but I’m kicking myself at accidentally selling a quest item amulet (I knew it was a quest item, just bulk sold some necklaces for cash). Have a stupid quest marker that is going to be there forever unless I can track the exact merchant I sold too but that’s long gone

Yeah no bugs to report playing on PC. Careful with your inventory re: dog Latin. It might be a bug for you, but I’m kicking myself at accidentally selling a quest item amulet (I knew it was a quest item, just bulk sold some necklaces for cash). Have a stupid quest marker that is going to be there forever unless I can track the exact merchant I sold too but that’s long gone

Woke up in the middle of the night stressing about party composition. Can't imagine not having a tank, a healer, a rogue and a wizard, but I don't want to be any of those, I want to be a secret fifth guy doing random fun bullshit.

Turns out it wasn't a bug. Sussur Tree bark wilts in daylight

So I'm at the stage where the game is asking me to get on with the next part of the quest, but there are still things like visiting the Githyanki creche I need to do. I'm not sure whether to do all that stuff first or if I'm really meant to just plough on and leave certain quests for another playthrough

You can definitely leave some quests behind. I never did the Githyanki creche stuff or the mountain pass. Shit, I never even recruited Gale (I tried, but I failed the strength check to pull him out of the portal). I could have save scummed until I succeeded, but I decided just to roll with it (no pun intended). This is absolutely a game that expects you to be comfortable with not seeing everything and not succeeding at everything. I think that is really cool and I think more game devs could stand to learn from the example.

agreed, super cool game design it's almost not even tempting to roll back to a previous save, I only do it when I stumble into a battle I was in no way prepared for and get absolutely murdered or like when I found Jaheira(!) and then minutes later huge surprise fight and she along with all the harpers are dead, could have just moved along but that sucks, do over please

I really need to get the obsessive "have to see everything, no stone unturned" thing out my head. I did it with Elden Ring on first playthrough which meant there wasn't much else left to explore on subsequent runs

I also need to get out the habit of save scumming quite so much. I don't do it that often, mind you, but sometimes I just want the thing to happen, you know.

Nobody is interested in me romantically right now.

There is something about dice-rolling that "really kinda works" in the context of irl D&D but is frustrating in the context of a video game RPG; it runs counterintuitive to the pleasure centres that are triggered by completism. I save-scummed (once) last night when Gale didn't read a scary book right the first time and the internet said that was that, the book was shut. Fuck that! I re-loaded and re-rolled and read the book and now Gale is a lich or something

There is something about dice-rolling that "really kinda works" in the context of irl D&D but is frustrating in the context of a video game RPG

This is a really interesting point and I'm not exactly sure why, I guess we want to see the real dice? but also there are rolls behind the dm screen irl, do we trust humans over computers? kind of the same question I've had playing poker online

can we trust computers to play a game of chance or is that a strictly human thing

xp haha FGTI I got to that bit last night, and I used Gale! I can't read the rest of it? It's still an open quest and hints I might be able to. Maybe another character could give it a go?

You've got that "Karmic Dice" feature that I don't completely understand

Karmic Dice is just a setting to prevent a run of consecutive low rolls, like a DM who fudges the outcome if you keep rolling poorly.

Turns out it wasn't a bug. Sussur Tree bark wilts in daylight

It's stuff like this and the gnome catapult that keep me reading this thread vicariously.

@ dl apparently if you don’t pass three consecutive dice rolls then nope the benefit is closed to you

Gale’s annoying, tho. He asks to eat and I can’t see the details of what artifact he wants, so I wave him away to contemplate what to feed him, but if you wave him thrice then he leaves, so…

I’ve spent too much of feeding him learny scrolls to dismiss him tho, I have archmage plans for him

Last night I played a couple hours and was visited by a dream visitor who I since subsequently read up on, and yes this game is insane

I think karmic dice tries to offset runs of high and low rolls, which can mean that you pass a bunch of easy checks with 17s and 18s that were way higher than the roll you actually needed, and then arbitrarily fail another easy check because the game thinks you must be due a 2

Most people seem to turn it off

These characters all seem to have:

- An addiction which makes them rather needy and dependent on some hard-to-find substance or artefact which they invariably shove into their chests
- A back story involving a cruel oppressor whom they're running away from

I'm halfway through chapter 3 and have reached the hard-capped level, all the fight encounters have been pretty easy now that everyone in the party has a million powers but the game is still fun and interesting

To satisfy your meatworld thirst: https://www.polygon.com/23879237/baldurs-gate-voice-cast-high-roller-dnd-stream

Curious to know what Shadowheart's actress's accent is -- Northernish?

Shadowheart? I'd say RP really

Ah, I thought I recognised the actor Jennifer English's name - she also is the voice of Latenna in Elden Ring. I have no idea why I looked this up previously. Maybe because it's quite distinct

Mm had a save game data crash or something… reinstalling? I hope I win it back. Dunno if I’ll start again otherwise

The servers were down last night and it wouldn't let anyone connect. I got around it by switching off 'connect to internet' on my PS5

Yeah it started working again for me. I met Karlach and decided that I’d had enough of this ineffective party and I’m gonna respec Shadowheart with that Wilson dude to make her actually useful

I'm playing as a wizard, so I respecced Gale to a Bard and swapped Astarion for him.
Now I've got me, Karlach, Gale and Shadowheart, but I'm worried I have too many rangey heal casters and only one tanky melee person.

Shadowheart is a pretty good healer but she takes so much damage, I find myself spending enough potions and spells keeping her health up as seems worth it.

Killed Minthara by Thuderwaving her into a Cloud of Daggers, now I want a four-caster team.

Is Shadowheart viable? I have her as a support healer in my party with Karlach and Astarion (I'm playing as a sorcerer), but in tougher fights she ends up not contributing much (maybe I'm just being tactically stupid). I think I saw somewhere that she has some decent offensive spells too and that I should grind a little to level her up first?

I found that Shadowheart didn't really get good until I hit Act 2 (which felt thematically appropriate), where her Turn Undead ability and the various kinds of radiant damage spells become extremely useful (Spirit Guardians is particularly great)

Also, Guiding Bolt wherever possible

I re-statted Shadowheart to have more focus on just WIS, STR and CON so she could hold her own in physical fights a bit better but yeah by Act 2 she has a lot of spell slots and a lot of enemies that are prone to getting mulched by just standing near her.

So much of her stuff requires concentration you just have to be careful you're picking the right one for the current encounter

I respec’d Shadowheart away from trickery and more toward “healing” both to zup up her heals and to give her heavy armour proficiency. Slapped a scale mail on her and I think she’ll be having an easier time now

Gonna keep my party basic basic for now (paladin rogue cleric wizard)… Astarion even as a thief is just too powerful a ranger/sneak attacker to let go, even if I’m not as tanky as I’d like

Also respec’d my pally main to get him 2H proficiency (I had picked duelist). A greatsword is smitier than etc etc

Something I didn’t realize is that making Gale an evocation specialist, apparently, eliminates friendly fire problems? Maybe I might cast that thunder wave thing without just hitting my own folks, now?

God the thunderwave thing is so dangerous. But when it works, it works