Baldur's Gate III

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

Shadow heart is so good in act two (especially if you found a certain weapon right at the end of act 1). Spiritual weapon, raise undead, spirit guardian, even the melee necro spell at higher spell slots. Bless is a great spell. Feel like it would be very hard to play without her utility.

But yeah, that particular weapon…. It can trivilialise many act 2 encounters.

I've not got to Act 2 yet but I can imgaine her daylight spell will come in useful for it

Full version for Mac tomorrow, hopefully companions won't run right into my Cloud of Daggers after combat ends now.

Oh god that is so annoying. There needs to be a dismiss spell button

Had a real problem with my characters running straight into bibberbang at every given opportunity

There needs to be a dismiss spell button

There is, active concentration spells appear in circles near the hotbar, with little Xs on them to end them.

But when you kill the last bad guy your companions will immediately trot toward you like puppies, so you're in a bit of a race there.

Thank you!

Shadow heart is so good in act two (especially if you found a certain weapon right at the end of act 1)

finding this is the first time I had to look up a guide, on account of I completely missed the ceremonial mace and there is no way I would have ever thought to check all of those shitty drunk kobolds for it, and I also missed the statue puzzle somehow despite looting that room pretty thoroughly

gotta stop checking pots and burlap sacks and start checking statues I guess

but I must check the burlap sacks! honestly the loot I am most excited about lately is new clothes, there should be way more outfits imo, though it is funny to switch around people's underwear and unique pants

This game is intense, I feel like “I’m finally reading Ulysses” except “I’m finally deeply immersing myself in D&D mechanics”

I read ahead, and I’m sticking with story mode, I don’t wanna subject my crew to the challenges at the expense of multiclassing

I think I'd be a lot further through this game if I didn't feel compelled to check every burlap sack and crate, looting every glass bottle and bundle of rags I see until I'm encumbered, then try to work out what to do with it all.

Incidentally, I don't know why sometimes I go to examine and loot a crate only for me to pick up the whole crate and put it in my inventory. Sometimes I don't realise this because, well, I'm in a place with a whole bunch of crates, and then I wonder why I'm walking around all encumbered.

I had to take a break from this after getting so annoyed at being stuck in what seemed like a game breaking situation.

Ended up loading the earliest save I had that was at the beginning of the dungeon and high tailing it out of there. Still had some weird shit happen teleporting out. Instead of getting “you cannot teleport from this location”, my main character was getting “this character cannot teleport in their current condition”. They didn’t have any strange status effects on them. Looked it up online, and apparently having one of your characters shove the problem one fixes it. OK, lol. It worked.

Anyway, started cleaning up other quests in Act I and II and crossing my fingers I don’t suffer the same problems when I return. Pretty sure that area’s mandatory for plot progression.

Great game, but this kinda stuff can really ruin the fun.

The dank crypt area is discussed here and elsewhere as being the hardest part of the game, not only is it “a tough fight to begin with” but also the player’s unfamiliarity with the mechanics of it

When I had Shadowheart separated from my party after falling through a pit, I couldn’t rest, couldn’t figure out how to save her, but at the time, I didn’t even know inventory management :/

I definitely prefer the combat in DOS2, which in BG3 feels a lot more restrictive. OTOH, I now understand spell slots.

Act 3, just hit level 11. Cannot stress how much fun the spellcasters become as you level up. Shadow heart is a beast, while a station who was my mid game beast has suddenly become the least powerful in the party.

Also want to clarify, I only romanced the emperor for the achievement……

*astarion

I actually love the combat in this game. In some otherwise great games, turn based combat can get really repetitive and a hindrance to the story. Feels like each encounter is a bit different, has meaning to the plot, and is pretty exciting too

Tonight I went in search of the Githyanki creche. Great area. Loads of books and crannies to explore, which is really hitting my FromSoft legacy dungeon nerve

*nooks, but yes books also. I got a trophy for reading a hundred books

Act 2 is when the fromsoft really turns on. Bloodborne/dark-souls/elden-ring vibes the whole time

And Act 3 = Game of Thrones. I’m not a fantasy guy so there’s probably a million better comparisons from those more versed in that world. I really like the diversity of tone between the acts! They’re all very distinct in gameplay, visuals, and story. I did need to take a pause from my act 2 binge tho. Now that I’ve give. It a week, I’m really loving act 3

Out for Mac

Why is this game so fun and yet so non-addictive? I love it. Very comfy playing for 90 min a day and don’t feel any desire to stay up all night as I did/do with a From game or even Slay The Spire

My party is at Level 5 and it’s like “oh, finally I can do [x]”

Oh I dunno. I've only had it 3 weeks and I'm 70+ hours in

But maybe it's because you literally "end the day" in this game, which puts a nice full stop to the end of each mini-chapter. The various missions are clearly demarcated too

the end of the day camping trip is such a good idea, check in with all the people hanging out, pet the dog, play fetch, sort through chest full of nonsense, perfect way to wrap everything up til next time

wish the camping supplies meant more, would have been cool to get like dinner scenes with people reacting to the food and drink but that's a tall order on top of many others and they had to draw the line somewhere

also think it helps that there is just so much to do, especially if you backtrack in an effort to see it all, which increasingly feels not possible in one playthrough and that is great

Man, a well placed Cloud of Daggers can really grind em up. Absolutely smoked a boss and his boys with it.

Just wish your companions were smart enough to NOT walk directly through it after a fight.

yeah I love Cloud of Daggers. you wanna walk through here? you sure?

kinda deflating to get an "investigate X" quest, think "ok, time to gather clues!" and then there's just a marker on the map showing exactly where to get the evidence to convict.

Man, a well placed Cloud of Daggers can really grind em up. Absolutely smoked a boss and his boys with it.

Just wish your companions were smart enough to NOT walk directly through it after a fight.

― circa1916, Sunday, September 24, 2023 7:12 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

So funny to read posts like this so concurrent with my gameplay. Cloud Of Daggers > Boss moves out of it > *BAM* smack him back in with a well placed thunder spell > Dies

I did have a little bit of frustration in the Underdark earlier when NPCs were making lots of references to characters and things I hadn't come across yet.

There are so many ways to approach and access that area, and I found myself exploring it piecemeal while exploring other parts of the overland. This meant it was all too easy to just stumble into an area, clearing it out, and only later finding out what the signficance was.

For example The Arcane Tower was one of the first places I went to in the Underland. Had loads of trouble with those laser beam things. Picked up what I assumed was Sussur Bark for the weapon quest, then it wilted in the sun. Later realised it was Sussur Bloom I'd picked up, not bark. Much later I encountered the Myconids who told me to get some special ingredients from the Arcane Tower I'd cleared out days before. Unfortunately I'd already used those ingredients while doing some Alchemy, not realising they were important to a quest. I was kicking myself. Luckily I read up on a way to be able to buy them from a couple of nearby merchants if you long rest a few times... Later, I did that whole thing where I sailed across the lake to help the gnomes, but when I got there the Duergar kept saying I owed them money (still don't know why). I wanted to get the aforementioned ingredients so I could tie up the loose ends of the above quest I just mentioned, so I fast travelled back to the Myconid camp. Suddenly my whole party are banging on about a guy suffocating to death under some rubble. I had no idea who this guy was or what they were talking about. It was only much later that I would encounter Nere, but it wasn't clear at all what was going on, and I'm still more than a bit confused by this part of the story

Yeah, that aspect of the game doesn’t get better in the other acts lol. Feature or bug? A necessary evil of the open ended design

It's just part and parcel of the non-linear open world experience. On the whole I am impressed with how often stuff like this DOESN'T happen in this game. Think about how easy it is to break whole quests in Elden Ring by not speaking to that one NPC three times etc...

After finishing goblin/Druid stuff I kinda fell quickly into Underdark endeavours and probably-prematurely found myself at the foot of the Adamantine forge

It felt like the forge was broken, everything was stuck, couldn’t find a lever to get the thing to descend and so I hit it with an arrow and then couldn’t get back up

But then I realized that the real problem was that I needed to “hold a button to confirm the combination of objects” when putting a mould in. Like I just hadn’t put it in yet. Anyway I was ill-equipped to murder a big robot but I murdered him regardless with tactics and zeal

I’m half-cheating I guess, I don’t read walkthroughs but I kinda give myself a whiff of “here’s the best Act 1 armour for Astarion, i.e.” articles. Apparently double Adamantine splint is good for my paladin-Shadowheart tag teaming so that’s what I did. They look weird standing side by side wearing the same outfit, like an embarrassing red carpet moment