Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

Made my way to Act 2 now making as many unseen choices as possible. Really have to force myself at times. Only having 4 companions certainly makes picking my 'group' easier though.

It’s been a while since I posted any updates on my seemingly endless BG3 playthrough. Progress is limited due to a general lack of time to play, but the other reason I’ve not dropped new updates in over a month is because I lack much new to say about the game.
In a word, I still love the game and consider it one of my favorites of this generation. Of course, I’m not done yet but I doubt it will fail in its final moments. Nevertheless, there’s still a lot of game left for me to conquer.

How close to the end am I? I really can’t tell. But I have reached a point where the number of quest markers on the map is actually decreasing with each play session rather than increasing. Several quests and objectives that have been dangling along for what seems like forever (even going back to Act 1) are finally concluded, which can be very satisfying. For example I just beat the Hag lady once and for all (I had killed that witch once already 😤) And not before making a proprietary grenade from a recipe I discovered which made her throw up the child Vanra that she had swallowed. I finally tracked down Mol, dusted off Dame Aylin’s quest, and have found most of Dribbles (I think I lack only the head). I brought the long murder investigation to a conclusion. I finally met Mystra, I’ve yet to forge the crown though. I’ve just met Astarion’s family(?) and will seek out Cazador soon. And I even had a one-night lapse in judgement involving Mizora 😅

Despite checking off many of the questlines that have been dangling, I still have yet to find Minsc or rescue Lae’Zel from Orin. I suppose those are some of my next areas to focus on prior to doing the heavy late story stuff like getting the hammer and dealing with the Steel watch, etc. Still loads to do.

I have found that a lot more of my time is spent in non-combat stuff lately. Such that when I do have to do combat I’ve forgotten many of the abilities that I have and techniques to use. Most of my combat scenarios lately end up in a war of attrition until I outlast the enemies through gradually whittling them away. I’m still winning my battles though, so I don’t think I’m underleveled. It’s just a change from Act 2 where I was fairly easily mopping the floor with the enemies there at the end.

Looking forward to the Thanksgiving holiday we have here so I can spend a little more time with it.

@Th3solution Nice. So many of the companion quests are really satisfying to finish off. Astarion's is really powerful and it sounds like you haven't done Shadowheart's either? And the story involving your missing companion is also a really good one.

So still plenty to go I'm afraid

@Thrillho I have rarely used Astarion during my playthrough, since my Tav is a monk/rogue and an expert lock picker and trap disarmer. I only really bring Astarion along when it fits the story. But I think I’m close to finishing his so I might prioritize that sooner rather than later. The other companions I’m not sure how much I lack. My missing companion is likely the one that has the most things to do for wrapping up their questline. It feels like some of the companion quests dovetail together with the main story so I’ve held off pushing those forward. But sometimes I’ve been doing a sidequest that feels extra and optional and then it has a strong connection to the main story. Like the murder investigation, or the Raphael interactions, for example. Then there’s some that could be easily skipped and not affect the narrative, like the Gazette quest or the Suspicious Toys. Thus I am trying to do everything. 😅

Still playing this game, slowly but surely winding down. Got to play some over the recent holidays (although less than I’d hoped) but I’m feeling really satisfied that I’m not really opening up many more side quests and rather seem to be gradually checking them off.

Of note, I’ve taken care of Astarion’s quest with Cazador and ended up choosing to defeat him and also choosing to not finish the ritual as Astarion. I saved all the vampires and turned them loose to live in the Underdark.

I’ve rescued my companion, and dealt with Orin and have her netherstone. I’ve also made it into Devil’s Fee and the House of Hope. (Good grief Harleep definitely was an uncomfortable encounter…) I’ve actually got the Orphic hammer and saved Hope at this point. I had to pause there though and am trying to fight my way out. It’s fairly tough combat here and I think I still have the boss fight yet to go. Maybe I can complete that during this upcoming weekend and then I’ll finally be ready to deal with Gortash and the Steel Watch. Outside of that, I don’t have much else to do on my list except for a couple minor things like trying to find Omeluum. Obviously there’s still the whole final encounter quests to do, which are likely to be very long but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel now.

@Jammer I’ve definitely warmed up to Shadowheart after her initial icy interactions in the early game. But I had ventured too far along with Karlach by the time I grew to appreciate SH as a possible romantic interest, so although my relationship with SH is at the ‘exceptional’ level, I was locked out of advancing things any further. I think the watershed moment to be able to progress romance is somewhere in the first act, but not exactly sure when the firm lock-out happened. But Karlach is a really great partner. The writing and voice acting for her has been wonderful because the character really pulls off the brutal, strong, and ruthless temperament while actually being sweet, caring, affectionate, and vulnerable when you really get to know her. I love how goofy she is too with her idle animations being her little dance moves. In contrast, SH stands around very prim and proper, always like she’s an aristocratic ceremony. 😅

What class are you going to do this time for your Tav?

@Jammer Yeah, I’d like to see how it plays out to do the evil choices also, as I’ve done mostly a good path (sometimes it’s morally grey territory though). I had SH leave the Shar religion and spare Nightsong which I guess is the more “good” option.

@Th3solution If you haven't finished the House of Hope yet there is an excellent fight to come with a very memorable soundtrack

@Thrillho I did finish it, actually and it was indeed an excellent final fight. Thankfully I had laid the groundwork to have some help (Hope and the big demon dude… Yargur, or something like that) so it wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but it was one of the tougher encounters still.

This week I took care of Mystic Carion, and chose to rid the world of that crazy guy. That was fun.

So I have some really good equipment after doing some of these late game areas. House of Hope especially has some good stuff there.

Next up, try to get Omellum and then need to disable the Steel Watch and get Gortash’s stone. That’s pretty much it though. Then I can proceed to the end game… I think. Fingers crossed I can make good progress this weekend and at least get to the end game area, because I heard that’s quite expansive in its own right.

@Th3solution I did have to do a bit of a save scum to get the big devil dude on my side and I can't imagine having to fight both of them! I did find it funny that it's Raphael's VA doing the vocals for the song for the fight.

You've still got some fun things to go but it does feel a slog to finally get to the run in to the end.

Have you got a settled party now though?

@Thrillho Yes, that was a treat when Raphael’s voice kicked in on that music. I also really enjoyed the character Hope. She was so cute and funny. And the whole wordplay/symbolic aspect of her embodying the actual psychological emotion of ‘hope’ was excellently done.

Dozens of hours earlier I had done a favor to Yurgir and I don’t even remember exactly, but he was already in my good graces and had visited me at my camp once. Convincing him to turn on his master for the fight wasn’t difficult. An unintended consequence of having him was that I wasn’t able to save Hope’s sister Korilla during that fight. Apparently if you switch to non-lethal blows when attacking Korilla and merely knock her out then you get some additional interactions with Hope after the fight, but Yurgir killed her.

Today, I realized I hadn’t done the House of Grief, so I went there and finished of my Sheart companion quest. I chose to spare SH’s parents, which is what I think is the virtuous thing to do, although it’s definitely one of the most morally grey decisions. The parents themselves almost convinced me to have her sacrifice them so she would be free of her curse but I think she’d rather have her parents and suffer instead of live with the guilt, which would be another form of lifelong suffering anyway.The boss battle there against the Shar Mother Superior was one of the toughest for me; even harder than Raphael. It took me two attempts and I still barely squeaked by. I was poorly prepared though, and could have helped myself out if I had been ready for all the blindness fog they cast at you. And the Bone Chill spells making my party unable to heal was another difficult handicap.

Maybe I’ll finally get to the Omellum and Steel Watch stuff tonight.

Oh, and I’ve settled my main party as Karlach, Shadowheart, Gale and my monk-rogue Tav. I switch out party members when it makes narrative sense though, especially for Lae’Zel, Astarion, Minthara, and Jaheira. Have barely used Wyll, Minsc, and Halsin. What was your preferred party?

@Th3solution I think I spammed wall of fire quite a lot for that battle in the House of Grief as the enemies were funnelled down the stairs. But yes, another good fight!

My party was Rogue Tav, Karlach, Lae’Zel, and one other which mostly depended on the scenario. I think I erred towards Gale in the late game but my play style was mostly having the two girls run around using multiple heavy attacks each round rather than this magic nonsense

@Thrillho Magic is a double edged sword in this game. It can be really overpowered, but you have such a limit on how many spells you can cast between long rests that it gets annoying having to ration them. So I can see how you might want to just skip magic entirely. For me, I like having the option, and although Gale has poor mobility, limited spells, and dies if he’s hit by a strong breeze, I like having him around. 😄

And I just discovered there’s a whole questline I forgot about that I still need to do — by saving Duke Ravenguard from the underwater Iron Throne he reminded me I need to go find the dragon in the Wyrmway. I don’t care that much about Wyll’s storyline but I figure I should do this dragon quest. [sigh…] This game will truly never end.

@Th3solution That’s another epic fight you’ve got coming up then 😁

And yeah, I just found magic so hit and miss, quite literally a lot of the time, that I didn’t use it fully. Gale is a fun companion as well so he was mostly my plus one. Some high level defensive dome spell was very useful towards the end.

@Thrillho Finished the Wyrmway and I can’t believe I almost skipped that. It was really a fun and epic side quest. Not only was it enjoyable with the trials and the cool boss fight, it had very key plot elements too. It’s pretty crazy that they locked crucial lore and narrative information that the Emperor is actually Balduran, the hero and founder of Baldur’s Gate, in Illithid form behind such a difficult quest to get to. Perhaps it would be easier to find the Wyrmway if I’d been more devoted to Wyll as a companion, but there wasn’t much by way of clues or information until I saved Duke Ravenguard, which is in and of itself a pretty hard side quest on its own.

If I was really paying attention, perhaps I would have found the Wyrmway without Duke Ravenguard and Wyll teasing out the clues, but I doubt it. Even with Wyll basically telling me point blank where to look for it and how to enter, I still had to look it up online to get there. It was no easy task. I had to fumble around trying to figure out how to get under the prison and finally settled on using ‘feather fall’, which was the first time in nearly 300 hours I’ve ever used that. 😅 Once I realized they would work, I got through the hidden entrance fairly easily; much easier than fighting my way through dozens of strong enemies in the prison to work my way through. But yeah, not sure I would have known to use a lightning spell on those specific torches without some help.

Anyway, the boss was quite fun and I just squeaked by that one too, but did so on the first try. It’s super attack devastated my party and killed 2/4 of them instantly, but my Tav is pretty OP at this point and was able to finish him off in the following turn. I should have taken advantage of the defensive dome tactic you mentioned but in the end I was able to brute force through.

I was disappointed that the dragon had to be (re)killed and wouldn’t be joining as an ally against the Elder Brain. I have quite a collection of people and groups who’ve committed to help me, so I should be okay, but still — a dragon on my side would have certainly been quite a boon

Another surprise happened as made my way to what I thought was my final quest at the Steel Watch foundry — I came across the Umberlee (sp?) disciples and the funeral. I was confused by the significance of the area until I read online that I was really ‘supposed to’ do this before the Iron Throne so I would have had a dilemma of to kill the submersible pilot or not. Fortunately I saw on Reddit that you can still salvage the quest by going and killing him after the fact and come back and they give you the reward as if you’d taken the quest beforehand. It’s a glitch, to be sure, but a welcome one because the Wavemother’s Robe reward is quite a powerful item, even if my Tav looks ridiculous in it. 😂 Shadowheart on the other hand…

@Thrillho @Th3solution

You know that massive collection of scrolls you have in your inventory by now but never use, Sol? Maybe use some to help supplement your (Gale's) spells as it will help save some of the more important known spells from being used up too early 🤫

As for magic being 'Hit or Miss' this is where you have to focus builds on your chance to hit, the dice rolls etc. You can use your own party members to visualise via a percentage the hit chance of your spells, and in fights it gives you this info on the enemy you hiver over. It is also handy to see how good your own defences are against spells and melee simply by aiming different attacks at all your party members. It helps understand the dice rolls and how they affect hit chance as a percentage, and your party defences vs different spells and attacks, and it really helped me understand how the game works. Don't waste a spell of a certain type if the hit chance is low on a certain enemy as they might have a good counter stat to that type, use something else or use crowd control instead to create other opportunities next turn. Get buffs beforehand from your cleric or debuff the enemy. Attacking from high ground gives a bonus and putting the target at a disadvantage with support spells gets another bonus.

Time to roll a new magic focused character, with Shadowheart and Gale also in the party, Thrillhouse? 😄

@Ravix Indeed I have a mass of scrolls I could use/need to use. Same for potions and elixirs. I’ve been hoarding for a rainy day, but I’m at the point in the game where I think I can cut loose with some of these consumables. In fact, I have so many items and pieces of armor, accessories and rings, headgear, weapons, magic arrows, and throwables that I am having a hard time finding things when I need them. I’m spending a lot of time in the menus searching, saying to myself things like, “I know I have some item or equipment that protects me from blindness… now what was it?” It was the same thing with making that huge jump from the bridge to get under Wymrock Prison — I knew there were items and spells I had which would negate a large fall, but didn’t remember what they were (since I hadn’t used anything like that to this point) nor which accessory, scroll, spell, or potion would grant me that. As it turns out, there were multiple options, but I chose to put some boots on one character that granted the feather fall spell and was able to cast it on the whole group. Piece of cake. I came to discover I have 10 Dimension Door scrolls too and could have easily done it with a couple of those too. 😅

Larian have done a good job of making multiple ways to get somewhere or accomplish some task, so I’m overloaded with choices at this stage. Especially since I have been using Gale and magic with him and Shadowheart, they often have some kind of spell for every situation at their disposal. And if they don’t, then I have a scroll for it that Gale can learn.

I also have more gold than I could spend and a chest at camp that is chock full of items I can sell. I’ll never spend it all. And yet I still feel the urge to open every barrel I come across… 😂

On the subject of playing different roles, I would like to do a second playthrough and try to use Wyll, or play as a Warlock on my Tav, or as a Bard, or use my Druids more. Those are the 3 main classes I have not messed around with much. Also Paladin. I have used Minthara a little bit but not enough to feel comfortable with her skillset to bring her along in the final fights. I feel comfortable with my main party and I have them outfitted fairly nicely at this point.

@Th3solution I mean use those scrolls to simply cast spells in combat. It saves you using a saved spell so it is cheaper to cast and can give you a powerful move when you are out of your own relevant spells.

Yeah, the inventory is something else. First run I collected everything and barely used anything 😅

Bard is THE best class. Hey, @Tjuz maybe we have found another member for the 'impossible to organise so it will remain just an idea' 4 bard squad run. A tourning band of Push Square Bards, adventuring, entertaining and murdering their way through Faerun 😅

What month are you in now with BG3? About month 5? More? 😬 I can only apologise, Sol, haha.

@Ravix Believe it or not, my first trophy was in late May! 😅 So closer to eight months. 😵

And I know that playtime is only one of many metrics to consider when gauging enjoyment and one’s money’s worth, but pound-for-pound this has to be the best return on investment for any game I’ve ever played. Even at $70 the amount of content and level of fulfillment per dollar is off the charts. The last game like this that I felt I could take to a deserted island and play ad infinitum was probably RDR2. The Soulsborne games are also in that category, in part because of the replayability with different builds.

A Bard run may need to be in the works. It sounds like fun. I do feel like I need to move on with my life before I start driving myself insane with thoughts of tadpoles in my brain. But because I did a really thorough run this first time, I do feel like any subsequent runs can be more targeted. I’ve long since reached the level cap, so I know I could get away with a shorter playthrough and still level up sufficiently. In addition to experiencing some of the classes I missed, I also wouldn’t mind tinkering with mods on a subsequent playthrough. I forgot who it was but one of the users said there’s a mod that expands your party so you can have the whole gang present while you explore and hear all the dialogue and banter that you missed. 😄

@Th3solution wow, that is a long haul. Also, sh**, where does time go? 😬😬😬 brutal.

The way you class it I fully agree with. It is why I have a similar top-tier of games, that can't really be touched by other games for what they offer as experiences and pure value. The Witcher 3 (your next big game) Elden Ring (my only Fromsoft game) KCD 1&2, BG3, RDR2 and maybe GTA4 but that is a bit old now and so I keep it separate.

Probably the best of the bunch in terms of value was TW3 as I got the edition with all the DLC for super cheap, and even though it took me a few attempts to get into it, it was basically like 3 full games, all much better than most individual games to begin with.

But every single one has a very similar quality about it, they are made in such a thorough way, their open worlds are actually either functional and logical, or just really well designed and planned out, and they are stuffed full of well written content, characters and are fun to play.

It is perhaps why I try to seek out mostly games of a similar standard and can struggle when games aren't that, unless they have some unique draw that somehow distracts me enough from them not being as good as the others. So a Watchdogs or a Far Cry kind of game where it isn't perfect but it has ebough about it to still be fun. And then good indie games don't need this giant scope as something being made with care and passion on a small scale is still great in a different way.

Can you imagine you are yet to get through both The Witcher 3 and Elden Ring. You have some good eating ahead of you. And KCD, but I feel you don't dare to even try that 😛