Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

This game is just too good. Great storytelling and amazing battles. I just took on a fight that I'm thinking I was too low level, but I survived on some timely misses by them and key hits by me, along with many many potions used. I went though quite the potion/scroll inventory. Leveled up after. A great cherry on top after the fight.

I restarted the other night. Same class and build but I wasn't being anywhere near sneaky enough originally. Also made a few decisions first time around that I kinda regret and have rectified on this new playthrough. Plus, now that I have a bit more of a grasp on the combat and how to play each character in my party, I'm having much more success.

Sneaking along and wiping out the Goblin Village inhabitants from the rafters above them was really cool, especially as I had destroyed the ladders so they couldn't get to me. Setting up ambushes and hiding around corners whilst luring enemies past for that glorious sneak attack is incredibly satisfying when it comes off — and is quite frustrating when you miss. 😅

Really enjoying this so far. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

I'm now in the "I'm going to buy it, but I definitely need to plan ahead so I'm not overwhelmed stage " I have no experience with anything quite like this game, the most RPG RPG's I've played are probably The Witcher 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverence, Skyrim and Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Initially I was thinking, as I favour action games, to go with something front line, and pretty simple. But the more I've pondered in the back of my mind, I've finally come to the decision I want to be some form of Battle Hardened Bard. Someone with charisma that I can Role Play as being a leader through their words and tactics, but who doesn't completely shy away from action. I then evolved that to maybe thinking, instead of being a second wave attacker, and inspiration, it'd be cool to play as someone who, in battle, takes advantage of the parties hard work, to finish off enemies with final blows (maybe a glory hound) and then maybe brag about it quite a bit, but not enough to conpletely annoy everyone. This to me sounds like a fun RP, something between Dandelion (The Witcher) and Face Man (The A-Team) 😂 although it'd be more tempting to perhaps have a few Howling Mad Murdoch traits thrown in haha.

I'm now going off on a tangent and thinking was the A-Team really based on D&D? The 4 party member set up, each with their own skill set and weaknesses. It really seems like it was 😁

Anyway, the point of this post is to establish a place to chat about this game when I get around to it, seek advice, and to initially ask if this approach seems like something that could work out okay for me as someone new to D&D? A little stealth, a lot of charisma, some weapon proficiency, tries to weasel, charm or full on con my way through some situations, and take time to seek the humour and fun in a dire situation.

Also, I wanted to ask (as save scumming seems a hot topic) what happens if you do die in combat, how does the fail screen/game over take effect. Does it just reset to the previous save, or something more punishing ala Dark Souls. As I imagine I will perish a lot as I learn what the heck I'm doing

@Ravix Haha. Love the A -team reference. As for your ideas to Roleplay, they are doable. A swords bard if you want to melee, or lore bard/rogue for more range. You could go warlock as well, but it sounds more like a lore bard with a couple dips into rogue based your description. I'm going lore bard myself and will take a lvl dip into Cleric at lvl 7 for some armor proficiency. So far I'm at lvl 4. bards are fantastic. Not huge damage dealing, but crowd control/buff/debuff and conversation winning all the time. As for death. I'm unsure. I came close a couple times but no tpk for me yet."knocks on wood". Good luck!

@Ravix I think I died once in an area with traps where i couldn't find the way out. And from what I can remember it loaded my last save when I died. Didn't really check if there were other consequences. It's a good thing I save a lot for those cases. I'm also not that experienced in D&D or CRPG, so I do a lot of trial and error. Testing what stuff does -> reloading etc to see what other options would do.
I can understand that save scumming is being frowned upon for experienced crpg/D&D players, but IMO it can only help new players to D&D/CRPG's.

@Lavalera thank you. Good to know. I tend to save a lot out of habit, even if I never end up needing the saves for any reason, just to avoid huge progress loss. My trusty fantasy RPG mantra is 'save before cave' which basically can translate to make a hard save before you do anything that might take a while and some other saves on the way, and that helps incase you need a compelte way out if you mess up with your inventory, weapons, items etc, and need to rethink what to take for that section.

I see nothing wrong with seeing different outcomes, I'll try and avoid that myself as much as possible, as I'm going to try to RP it as much as I can, and I want some bad outcomes to add to the journey, and ill try to do stuff that my character would do, rather than just me wanting to help everyone and see everything regardless of if it makes sense for my character. But sometimes these games do not exactly make it clear what one chosen response actually leads your character to do lol.

Combat it might be handy with, just to see what actual spells and actions do, as I have no idea. But hopefully I can experiment encounter to encounter to learn that stuff.

@Elodin thank you for the response 😄

In terms of advancing a character, what would the main differences be between picking a Lore Bard and a Valour Bard, for example?

I was thinking valour for having proficiency with a martial weapon I.e a Rapier and I guess survivability, but I also noticed "inherited feature" 'proficiency with a rapier' in the Lore Bard as well as being a separate feature from martial weapons in the valour Bard too.

And how do the proficiencies scale, or are they just a set thing where once you have them, you get an attack bonus, defence bonus etc?

Haha I used to love A-Team re-runs. And looking back it does seem like they were a proper d&d style party, and the more I learn about d&d the more obvious it seems 🤣

Edit: I think I'm ruling out valour now, it's not exactly what I thought it was, and survivability increase is because of shields, and I don't think I'll be using a shield, it doesn't fit. So maybe change to the biggest differences between Lore and Sword Bard?

@Ravix To put it simply, Lore bard is more caster focused and swords bard is more melee focused. You can also multiclass either to make them fit your needs as well. Generally only multiclass 1 to 2 lvls into something else. For me s Lore, I mainly stand back, buff and debuff and duo hand crossbows. Lore will also be a bit better and skill checks and magic secrets is a pick any spell option they get. Swords ironically is also good as a ranger using their slashing skill from a distance with bows is quite strong. Hope that helps and isn't too confusing.

I’ve made some headway but stopped to smell the roses a little tonight and understand some of the systems a bit better, a couple of hours messing around in the menus but things are making more sense now.

Also I figured out long holding up gets out the torch, and a single press is a hot button for jump, which helps lol. Oh, and hold down for stealth

@kyleforrester87 Which button is it to Spread Jam?

@JohnnyShoulder square

Cheers @Elodin partially confusing, but I'll get there. It's mostly because all classes, terms and systems are new to me, so I'm just working it out as best I can before starting on my journey and getting completely overwhelmed.

Most importantly, other than getting the game, (which I've had to force myself not to buy a few times already this week, as if I do I will download it, and if I download it I will start it, and if I start it I will never, ever finish FF16) I think I've got my name down 😅 I'm leaning towards some kind of half-elf sword bard, which I'm assuming will be pretty darn agile on top of being poetic and charismatic. But I'll have a good look before I finally lock in whether to go Lore instead.

I wish there was a feature for multiple names, so you could have an Elven name, a translated name and a stage name 😁 because Splendiferous Silverblood, known to his people as Ysblenydd Gwaed-Arian, and to his fans as The Splendid Silver-Blood needs all the recognition he can get 😁

Or Silver Tongue 🤦‍♂️ but that would require some acrobatic headcanon to why silvertongue is a family name, I suppose 👀

Playing as a drow seems really interesting too. It appears that Larian has put a lot of effort into races via dialogue choices etc

Would a Seldarine Drow Bard (or some sort of half elf variant) with penchant for rapiers, sneaking, charming and swindling be a good build? 👀

There was a BG3 update a few days ago. Since then, whenever I play the game, I get a PS5 overheating error. Even after half an hour. This does not happen with any other game. I know we have a heatwave in the UK at the moment but this is very odd. Has anyone else experienced this or know of it?

@Throb I’ve had it a couple times. I don’t think it happened during gameplay though. It happened once on the levelling up screen but I’ve tried to replicate what I thought was the cause of the issue but I haven’t had any problems since.

@Throb @KAIRU there were reports of this for FF16 too, but I think that was performance mode only.

What graphics setting/fps have you got for BG3? As switching to the other might be a temporary fix. Also seen people saying an extra fan is helping, so maybe when the weather gets back to normal the issue goes with it 🤞

I was about to check out the character creator, but I'm now a little nervous, as there's no save within that and I don't want to do half an hour of miniscule edits and then have it crash on me 🤣

@KAIRU @Ravix I've got mine on the 60 FPS setting. I've just been playing COD for 2 hours and nothing. I think they need to patch something?

On a different note, this game is bloody hard! I turned it down to Explorer and it's hard as nails

Any got a full RP backstory down for their character outside of the provided mini blurb and traits etc. I'd love to hear them? 😄

@Ravix If you’ve heard of the ‘Modern Rogue’ YouTube channel (which I highly recommend checking out), that’s basically mine in a nutshell.

The ultimate gentleman (woman, in my Rogue’s case), warrior and scoundrel.

I havent heard of that, but I can kind of guess at how that plays out based on other media etc. @KAIRU I settled on wood half-elf Bard. In my headcanon, I Started off as a pickpocket in the city surviving any way I can, because as a child my mother was murdered as she covered my escape, by thugs sent by my father, no less. He had realised she hadn't abandoned me like they had agreed, you see and he was some kind of military leader, who can't be seen as having Elven b*stards lol. Moved on to hustling and performing to get away from the low level crime bosses etc etc, not a bad person but have the skills required to hustle, deceive and charm. The usual street kid making their way into a better place type thing. Skills: Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Deception, Performance and Pursuasion. Which seem like a fun to play mix. Usual bardy attributes 16 DEX 17 CHA, but I added more wisdom and less intelligence, as that seemed more like street smarts. (May that bite me later on)

Then when I finished the character creation, I realised that you had to pick a "guardian" and that guardian is now the spitting image of my wood elf mother, so I'm excited to see what headcanon twists and turns that could bring about 🤣

I'm going to RP the hell out of this game, but hopefully from now on, using Larians own writing 😁 and sinply making choices based on my loose idea of how my character would exist in this world and situation.

Money well spent already, I say 🤣