Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

@HallowMoonshadow Don't write off Lae-zel just yet...! I only kept her in my party originally due to wanting a strong melee fighter, but as her story develops she quickly became one of my favorites. For me, she is up there with Astarian and Gale!

@HallowMoonshadow @CJD87 Lae'zel is really good to have early I'd agree. I think it's almost weighted that way story wise as she is who you encounter first. I quite liked having a party of people being quite prickly at each other at first, too 😅 so I think I ran with Lae, Astarian/Gale and Shadowheart, but after some time that's when we swapped to Karlach to replace as the beasty tank role for the forever party.

I also did everyone's side stories on my one massive playthrough, so there was plenty of time to weigh up who I liked the most as I moved on with the game 😁

Glad you're enjoying it, and as things are only just getting started for you, and you seem plenty invested early, I know you are going to absolutely love what they do with all the companions.

One of those games I'd love to be able to play again from scratch with no prior knowledge. Fingers crossed for some light amnesia 😛

@Ravix In fairness the only companion I really didn't click with was Wyll.... otherwise the rest are all class! Gale was a favorite of mine also, and his storyline is probably one of the best I think

@HallowMoonshadow @Ravix How easy is it to mess up getting characters to join your party? It seems like there are some characters that I read a lot about so it would seem they are automatic companions and others who are maybe missable?

@Th3solution I mean, if you play games, I doubt you'd really miss them. There is maybe a specific one that is more unique. But if you're looking around anyway, there's quite clearly opportunities presented.

Unless you're The Dark Urge, then you may miss Gale 👋

It's a game best going in as blind as possible though, apart from learning about how the battles work and how to build different classes

@HallowMoonshadow I'll just add on, I think placement wise it is fairly easy to discover all characters if you explore or follow the hints in the game itself, beyond that, you interact with all the characters in this game (companion or otherwise) as if they are real people rather than game characters, and I know you can do that @th3solution so really it's left up to the player themselves how their game goes.

It's hard to describe it, but it really is up to the player themselves to discover.

@Ravix Ah, I see. I was wondering just because a friend said he missed a whole character story arc because he killed or attacked that character early on. He did say it was fine and he didn’t feel like he got a partial experience because of it, so I guess it’s all good.

@Th3solution well, killing them will usually end any further interactions with them, I suppose. One of the many troubles with that kind of thing 😅

@HallowMoonshadow Reading all of that makes me want to replay the game, which I think I’ll do this weekend. It’s been on my mind a lot, too, as I’ve been playing Dragon Age Veilguard.

I got my ass kicked by those spiders in the beginning. When I do another playthrough I’ll try and think of some better tactics—I kept getting ambushed and poisoned and could never get properly healed or make any headway without getting attacked by more spiders, and unable to move due to the spiderwebs.

@HallowMoonshadow good to hear of your journeys 😁 I hope you've been going to camp a lot, as that is a good way to advance all companion relationships and interactions to make sure everyone remains engaging, even those not in your party.

Has Astarion provided any... interesting... camp moments yet? 😛 and Gale must be told "no means no" every 10 minutes, at least 😅

@HallowMoonshadow

Did you let Astarion
take a good bite? 😛
I sure did, and then it went on, and on, and on and then uh oh 😂 it led to a surprise trophy though, proving Larian thought of quite a few possibilities.

Ah you've seen quite a lot then, I think. Must have crammed it all in to each rest. I take it you have started doing each companion's "side quests" which can be thought about as their actual main quests tbh, due to the size and quality.

I can't really remember if it's possible to miss stuff like that or not, I just remember being told to rest a lot early on to trigger a bunch of stuff. But they may have patched it long since to make it all happen in a way that doesn't require as many rests.

Did you visit a very pleasant glade with it's very own tea room, by the way?

Ah, I miss the natural discovery in this game, and how things would pop up on the way to other things and usually lead to vast, unexpected quest chains

Yet another has finally joined late to the Baldur's Gate 3 party. I've been playing it for a week and a half or so now (approaching 20 hours), and so far I'm loving it. I'm really glad I decided to put the difficulty all the way down on the easiest setting though, as I was worried about being too overwhelmed whenever I finally dove into the game. Initially I had to get used to some things, but it hasn't been bad overall.

I'm still fairly early in Act 1, but I did start my romance with Shadowheart tonight when I camped. Lae'zel didn't seem too happy that I picked Shadowheart over her though, basically saying I'll miss out on her and that maybe she'd spend the night with Astarion instead then. If I do a second playthrough someday, I promise to pick you Lae'zel... lol

@Hapless Male Half-Elf Paladin. I'm doing a good run.

@HallowMoonshadow I have all 6 of the origin companions in my party now after getting Karlach this morning. I have Halsin and Scratch back at my camp. I have several side quests still left to do in Act 1, like Lae'zel's main companion quest with the Githyanki Crèche that I kind of unintentionally left until later instead of doing it early.

I did get through all 3 of them without fighting thanks to a YouTube video. I did have to fight my way out after pushing Ragzlin off where he was standing, but I managed. I do have to fight goblins any time I go around their camp and such, which is a bit annoying, but I can travel around them for the most part for the time being.

@HallowMoonshadow It probably would make sense for me to replace Lae'zel would somebody else now that I have Karlach, but I like that she'd solid at both close combat and ranged combat. Since I gave Lae'zel the Great Weapon Master feat, she can be pretty powerful too.

I am further into Act 1 now and took out a lot more goblins today, so I'm spacing it out some. I'm on my way to Moonrise Towers through the Underdark.

Not really. I looked at the menu and I noticed I had a few upgrades, but I don't think I even did that. I did have Gale absorb one tadpole, but after reading about that, I think that'll be the one and only tadpole I have anyone absorb.

@HallowMoonshadow That's a female being sexist against females. It must be because you think Astarion is dreamy... Seriously though, it wouldn't matter what I thought if I wasn't joking. lol

I've hardly used Wyll or Gale at all. Obviously I'll use them when I do their personal quest lines, but otherwise I've gotten by without heavy magic.

I do finally have one complaint, and that is it can be easy to get lost and spend quite a bit of time failing to find the way forward. Obviously I'm using the Underdark to get to Moonrise Towers, but I went one way and ended up at the Arcane Tower. I had no idea it was a dead end basically, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to find my way out and move forward after wrapping up everything inside. Turns out that was all a waste of time, so I ended up spending a decent amount of time finding one of the other ways you can go through the Underdark. I still love the game now that I'm on the right track again going another way, but I do hate wasting so much time in a game at times.

@HallowMoonshadow I had Karlach and Lae’Zel as I liked strong character that can bonk bad guys over the head with big swords.

Later on when you can unlock abilities so they can have 3+ goes in a round easily, you can wipe the floor with them.

My Tav was a rogue so I pretty much never used Astarion.

Man, this game is really something. I’ll leave some early impressions when I get a moment.

Ah, you're here @Th3solution one of us!

I was going to say "let us know how you get on here and if you do have any questions there's a wealth of players on here that can lend a hand.

But i'd not research too much beyond mechanics (attack rolls, and the like) as everything else is best to discover for yourself."

But it seems like you're already in the flow of things, so I'll leave you to it 🫡 (remember to sleep and eat at some point 😛)

I’m merely 8 hours along, but this game might become my new obsession.

It’s hard to say though, because I do feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of the game and its mechanics. I’m mostly floating through the early sections, exploring and learning a lot of things on the fly. I am benefiting by having played a little bit of it a year to two ago when I messed around with it briefly. At the time it was intimidating and I opted to come back later, but I think I learned more than I realized because some of the game’s aspects are coming back to me. Also, reading a lot of the tips online have helped, which were not as plentiful right after the game released.

As far as character choice, I felt like I wanted a unique experience from other RPGs I’ve played, so rather than going with a fighter class or mage, all which felt too much like generic roles I’ve done in other games, I went with monk. I liked the looks of a monk build I saw online so I’m a Wood Half-Elf Monk. It’s largely Dex / Wisdom focused, with the Way of the Open Hand subclass.

There’s a lot of moving parts in this game, and the tutorials help, but so many aspects don’t really get good explanations. Still, I’ve been gaming for a lot of years, and some things just are second nature and I’ve figured out a lot on my own. It’s a gamer’s game, for sure. Definitely not for the casuals. Also thanks to those who have offered some tips and little nuggets of advice, many of which have helped the onboarding also.

I was able to defeat Commander Zhalik, which apparently is no small feat, since the trophy for beating him is only at a 28% rate, whereas the trophy for escaping the Nautiloid is at 80%. I’m kicking myself for not checking his body before I skedattled, however. I got too rushed with the other enemies closing in. Apparently he drops a really OP sword for Lae’Zel. Doh! 🤦🏻‍♂️

Despite having some basic idea what I’m doing now, there’s so many mechanics and techniques I’m sure I’m totally doing wrong. I’m playing on the default difficulty, by the way (Balanced I think it’s called). I’m not too proud to turn it down to Explorer later though. But so far, so good.

Current I’m in the Emerald Grove. I have collected Shadowheart, Gale, Asterion, and Wyll, and saved Lea’ Zel. Discovered Withers. So far my favorite member of the party is Gale. Astarion seems interesting as well. I’m not sure about Shadowheart. She’s a little… I don’t know, annoying and snobby. And Lae’Zel is just too gruff and irritable. We’ll see.

On thing I love about the game is the save anywhere status. I’m not reloading saves as a rule, and living with my choices and failures, but still I like having the comfort that I can put it down any time and not lose progress. I don’t know what the difference between regular saves and Quicksaves is. Just the ability to name the save file?
And is there some basic advice about item hoarding? I suppose the only advantage to picking up all the junk is the small price you get when selling the skulls, bones, books, plates, cups, etc.?

Anyway, suffice it so say it’s been a great ride so far. And I know I’m just getting started.

Tagging @Ravix @HallowMoonshadow @Thrillho and anyone else I might have missed who’s curious about my early thoughts.

And Rav, since you had wondered about it — I’ve tried the game for an hour or so on the Portal and it works quite well on it. Since the game doesn’t have any timing based inputs, it really fits the Portal so there’s no consequence if there’s a lag, a stutter, or a disconnect. All the haptics work, even the satisfying little click of the triggers when pulling up the menus. My only complaint would be that the game is so beautiful on my large screen OLED that it’s definitely not as visually striking on the Portal, although it still looks great. There’s just so many intricate details in the environment that the smaller screen misses some of that impact. The text is quite small on the handheld too, and there’s a lot of text in this game. I can read it fine, but it’s something to consider. But yeah, I plan to play some of it on the Portal, but most probably on the TV.