Baldur's Gate 3: Quicksave is my favourite spell

[Luzifer's right hand]

Haste makes the game much easier. 

I focused on using that from the start because that was really strong in BG1+2 too.

Potions are good for the start and the spell comes pretty early. Twinned haste from a sorcerer on two characters with bonus attacks is just OP. The alert feat is good on the sorcerer because you can ensure going first.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Luzifer's right hand

[Heartofice]

I also tend to find the combat just frustrating and long winded in the game, and that is a pity. Sometimes there are just fights that come out of nowhere and become a matter of save scumming your way to victory. The fight I talked about upthread was one of them, I was pretty close to never bothering playing the game again at that point!

Even after that I got to the bit with the Githyanki and 'The emperor'. Those Monk bastards could attack 4 times a turn, set off nukes in your hand and punch you out of existence. It was really when I save scummed and went back and swapped my party around that I managed it.

[Darryk]

A friend of mine is good at devising complex builds that lead to unstoppable characters (he did this in Baldur's Gate 2 as well). He's breezing his way through tactician mode.

He finds these crazy loopholes. For example he pointed out that warding bond works even if the person who cast it is still back in camp. So he gets a bunch of hirelings, makes them all clerics with very high constitution, and casts warding bond on all his party members.

[David Selig]

I found Tactician mode easier than I expected on my second playthrough when I knew what I was doing and which spells and skills are the best.

IMO healing is pretty weak in this game, it's almost always better to focus on dealing maximum damage and crowd control the enemy than on healing. Once I started focusing on the most powerful disabling spells (like "Hold Person") and on dealing damage instead of trying to heal my team the combat became much easier. Parties without any healers in them are completely viable unlike many other RPGs.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, David Selig said:

I found Tactician mode easier than I expected on my second playthrough when I knew what I was doing and which spells and skills are the best.

IMO healing is pretty weak in this game, it's almost always better to focus on dealing maximum damage and crowd control the enemy than on healing. Once I started focusing on the most powerful disabling spells (like "Hold Person") and on dealing damage instead of trying to heal my team the combat became much easier. Parties without any healers in them are completely viable unlike many other RPGs.

Healing is weak in d&d in general, by design. They want encounters to not be endurance matches. Very different design requirement compared to something like mmos or other crpgs.

[Darryk]

Being able to drink healing potions as a bonus action (think it's a standard action in D&D) also goes a long way towards making healers redundant.

[Denvek]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Being able to drink healing potions as a bonus action (think it's a standard action in D&D) also goes a long way towards making healers redundant.

Drinking your own healing potion is a bonus action in D&D - it's giving it to someone else (which I haven't worked out how to do in BG3) that's a full action.

[Underfoot]

7 hours ago, Denvek said:

Drinking your own healing potion is a bonus action in D&D - it's giving it to someone else (which I haven't worked out how to do in BG3) that's a full action.

I think you can throw the potion at or near them using the throw action. 

[Heartofice]

11 hours ago, Denvek said:

Drinking your own healing potion is a bonus action in D&D - it's giving it to someone else (which I haven't worked out how to do in BG3) that's a full action.

You can open up all inventories by pressing Tab when you have a character selected and right click on a potion to drink it, as if it was in your own inventory.

Took me a while to work that out

[Darryk]

15 hours ago, Denvek said:

Drinking your own healing potion is a bonus action in D&D - it's giving it to someone else (which I haven't worked out how to do in BG3) that's a full action.

Guess my DM is just being a dick then.

[Corvinus85]

So did this get changed about the healing potion? Because at release drinking a healing potion was pretty much a full action.

[Heartofice]

45 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

So did this get changed about the healing potion? Because at release drinking a healing potion was pretty much a full action.

I'm pretty sure its a full action, but I haven't checked recently. I ran out of healing potions.

[Corvinus85]

48 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I'm pretty sure its a full action, but I haven't checked recently. I ran out of healing potions.

And it's one of the aspects I dislike about BG3's combat. I keep reading about these inventive ways to win a combat but all I experience is shoot/strike the enemies before they strike you because wasting a turn on some maneuver will more than likely get a character killed.

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

And it's one of the aspects I dislike about BG3's combat. I keep reading about these inventive ways to win a combat but all I experience is shoot/strike the enemies before they strike you because wasting a turn on some maneuver will more than likely get a character killed.

I don't disagree. I almost never have the opportunity to run around or reposition my characters, which is almost vital to most fights, because I don't have the time. I can't possibly waste a turn dashing when I could be killing something.

 

[Arakasi]

It’s not a great combat engine as it’s basically divinity original sin 2 with a different rule set. At the end of the day it still focuses around repeated actions and height and surface gameplay. The draw of the game is the plot, characters and open endedness of it. I think you just force your ways through the battles to get to the story.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm loving the game and I still think that real time with pause would be far superior.

The throw mechanics and item abilities and interactions are probably the most fun parts.

[Whiskeyjack]

2 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

 item abilities and interactions are probably the most fun parts.

Think this is a pretty important part of figuring out combat.

Personally, I love the combat and the game overall.  Over 100 hours in now, and still really enjoying it.

[aceluby]

Got this in September and have been absolutely obsessed with it. First playthrough was a vengeance paladin that I turned into an Oathbreaker on accident immediately. Between Tav and Lae'zel I just crushed through everyone w/ melee, romanced Shadowheart, and leveraged Astarion for lockpicking and archery support. Total play time was 95 hours for my first campaign.

Started a new playthrough and created two custom characters via couch co-op, so am playing a bard healer and a druid wild shape w/ Karlach and Gale. Only up to level 3 so far with that one.

Also have a multiplayer campaign with some friends. In that one I'm playing a sorcerer with my friends playing as a wizard and barbarian. We're level 4 in that one and about to take down the Goblin camp in Act 1. That game is pretty significantly slower than my solo games, but WAY more fun

[Luzifer's right hand]

I stopped my evil Durge playthrough because it felt a bit unsatisfying. A lot of the evulz options were fun but playing evil felt unsatisfying otherwise.

As I suspect that future patches will improve upon some of the evil content I decided to play goodish again.

I have restarted multiple times before I played my first character(a boring half-elf sorcerer) to act 3 and reached act 2 with my evulz Durge gnome and a hith barbarian(both add a lot of fun dialogue options with that combo).

Now I'm playing with a non-evil Durge drow bard and this combo seems to have even more options than the gith/barb combo. Bard is a lot more fun than I expected. A great class in this game. I'm playing with Asterion and Lae'zel as Barbarians and Gale as Sorcerer. My character does not do much I guess as hasted Lae'zel and Asterion are more than enough. I made Asterion a tiger heart barb for the lulz actually because the idea if him making everyone bleeds seemed funny but that is actually a strong combo although not as strong as throw berserker.

I used respec a lot my sorcerer game to test options for my party members and I throw berserker and tavern brawler monk are were probably to most effective simple options apart from pure fighter which works really well in this game. Most op thing I tried was probably sword bard with the arcane acuity hat. That combo can basically disable anything in the game from what I saw.   

[Corvinus85]

When you play with gunpowder, you get blown up. I went down to the Zentharim cave and attempted to get some kind of mission/reward, but I had already done the missing cargo quest and I must sold off the wares or lost them somewhere. Anyway the lead merc wasn't best pleased and decided my party needed to die. My response was to have Astarion shoot a fire arrow at the gunpowder on the floor which killed almost all the mercs - one of the easiest fights I had. I wonder what I missed by not actually completing the quest normally, but I'm well past it now.