Baldur's Gate 3: Quicksave is my favourite spell

[Denvek]

The new patch has canonised the existence of Bing Bong, the fan favourite doorman imp from the BG3 cast play D&D livestreams

https://www.polygon.com/23984165/baldurs-gate-3-patch-bing-bong-canon-dick-physics

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

I skipped 1440p and upgraded from 1080p to 4K, so in that case yes, the difference is absolutely worth it. And the reason I never went to 1440p is that I couldn't see a single difference from 1080p at all at close range. But 4K the difference is significantly noticeable.

Its subjective, i went from a 1080p 24 inch monitor to a 27 inch 1440p monitor and could absolutely see the increase in sharpness. Anyways lets stick to BG3 discussions here going forward...

[Werthead]

Got through Raphael's house (which took ages), started the fight against him, and the game crashed and now just flat-out refuses to restart.

Never change, Larian.

[Arakasi]

You’d think they’d have learned from the issues they had with divinity. Same engine, same problems apparently.

[Corvinus85]

Greeat! Only just started Act III.

[Werthead]

I reloaded the previous save and it worked.

Completed the Raphael quest, knocked off a few other sub-missions, started the Bhaal cult mission chain and, er, yeah.

Spoiler

Got completely obliterated by Orin in 5 seconds flat. Can't even be bothered to try that again until tomorrow.

There's a lot of massive, should-be-game-ending boss fights one after another in Act III, to the point where it gets a bit wearisome. And I've still got to do Cazadore and the game's big finale.

[Werthead]

I think I'm done with everything apart from the final battle. Exactly 100 hours in and hit Level 12 around 15 hours ago. They seriously underlevelled this game.

Spoiler

Just found the last body part of Dibbles the Clown. I have two quests showing - find the suspicious toys and tell Arabella her parents are dead - but both quests have bugged out and are apparently incompletable. Weird.

Trying to work out what to do next in the final part of the game:

Spoiler

Either go for the Netherbrain immediately or free Orpheus. As far as I can tell a semi-optimal outcome is to free Orpheus, get him to agree to become a mindflayer, defeat the Netherbrain and the Emperor and everything is rosy. However, Orpheus is a bit of an arsehole, so just taking down the Netherbrain and hoping Lae'zel doesn't rebel seems to be a valid alternate choice.

 

[Ser Lany]

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think I'm done with everything apart from the final battle. Exactly 100 hours in and hit Level 12 around 15 hours ago. They seriously underlevelled this game.

  Hide contents

Just found the last body part of Dibbles the Clown. I have two quests showing - find the suspicious toys and tell Arabella her parents are dead - but both quests have bugged out and are apparently incompletable. Weird.

Trying to work out what to do next in the final part of the game:

  Hide contents

Either go for the Netherbrain immediately or free Orpheus. As far as I can tell a semi-optimal outcome is to free Orpheus, get him to agree to become a mindflayer, defeat the Netherbrain and the Emperor and everything is rosy. However, Orpheus is a bit of an arsehole, so just taking down the Netherbrain and hoping Lae'zel doesn't rebel seems to be a valid alternate choice.

 

Yeah, there are so many side quests and so many boss battles at the end, I skipped a lot of the smaller stuff.  I found the order that worked best for me was Cazadore, Sharrans, Bhaal/Orin, final battle.

I've finished 3 play throughs and have never done several of the side quests:

Circus/clown

Free Orpheus

Raphael's house

I might free Orpheus this time,

Spoiler

or I might eat his brain 

I'm doing an illithad play through, sucking up all the worms and will use the fancy one at the end.

I'd have more powers, but I'm still chasing Astarion, so I agreed to share the true soul tadpoles with him, to get him to like me more. Hasn't worked so far.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Ser Lany

[Werthead]

I think I may have located the optimal outcome:

Spoiler

It takes some fancy dialogue, but you can rescue Orpheus, mollify the Emperor by promising to tadpole yourself if it all fucks up, then convince Gale/Gale volunteers to detonate his bomb.

Then during the final battle Gale explodes and kills the Netherbrain. Orpheus is still able to lead the war against Vlaakith, the Netherbrain's death de-tadpoles everyone and everything is great.

You might thing, "Well, not for Gale," but if you play as Gale, you get an extra special cutscene after blowing yourself up where your sacrifice earns you a place by Mystra's side as her astral champion and Chosen. This also works if you play as Gale and accept becoming an illithid: Mystra says "Fuck that noise," and ascends you in your human form.

There's no logical reason for Mystra not to save Gale even if he's just an NPC party member (the party just doesn't hear about it), so this seems the "best outcome." Like the party member who dies lives on anyway and gets to continue shagging the hot arcane goddess. Good job, everyone.

PSA:

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

I started a new playtrough with the new single save difficulty mode.

Having fun so far but I have failed to save multiple NPC's already and I actually killed Khaga at the grove for the first time because I failed necessary rolls.

Spoiler

I also failed the required rolls after getting chained by Gut and a servant of Raphael showed up and killed her and her ogre guard. 

There is probably a lot more awesome content behind failed rolls than I imagined.

[Ser Lany]

On 12/4/2023 at 3:40 PM, Werthead said:

I think I may have located the optimal outcome:

  Hide contents

It takes some fancy dialogue, but you can rescue Orpheus, mollify the Emperor by promising to tadpole yourself if it all fucks up, then convince Gale/Gale volunteers to detonate his bomb.

Then during the final battle Gale explodes and kills the Netherbrain. Orpheus is still able to lead the war against Vlaakith, the Netherbrain's death de-tadpoles everyone and everything is great.

You might thing, "Well, not for Gale," but if you play as Gale, you get an extra special cutscene after blowing yourself up where your sacrifice earns you a place by Mystra's side as her astral champion and Chosen. This also works if you play as Gale and accept becoming an illithid: Mystra says "Fuck that noise," and ascends you in your human form.

There's no logical reason for Mystra not to save Gale even if he's just an NPC party member (the party just doesn't hear about it), so this seems the "best outcome." Like the party member who dies lives on anyway and gets to continue shagging the hot arcane goddess. Good job, everyone.

 

 

 

That's awesome. Other than saving Orpheus, that is pretty much how my games have ended,

Spoiler

so it's good to know, especially since I am currently romancing Gale. I am playing as a bard this time.   I only romanced him once before when I first started and didn't know there was an act 3, it was a nice, but boring romance. They have either jazzed up his game, or being a caster changes everything. Wow! Go Gale.

Just finished Act 2 with 20 hours of game play. Might be a new record for me (I am getting much better. Only had to repeat 2 fights, the Halsin portal and the  General Throm boss fight at the end of act 2)

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Ser Lany

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

So would you guys say this is the best RPG since Witcher 3?

[Luzifer's right hand]

I just read that Scratch can free Dame Aylin with his help action.  Best boy indeed.

[Corvinus85]

I've only called on Scratch once and he didn't do what I had hoped he could do. (find invisible enemies) So yeah... good boy at the camp.

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've only called on Scratch once and he didn't do what I had hoped he could do. (find invisible enemies) So yeah... good boy at the camp.

He has access to the help action which can remove quite a few status effects including downed and it seems that works for NPCs that it can be used on. His help action is a licking/dog kisses animation. 

There is no risk as he does not die and the character holding his ball can resummon him after a short rest.

He also points chests that you can dig up out.

You lose nothing by summing him and he might actually be of some uses.

[Heartofice]

Ah! I had really not worked out what to do with Scratch other than just pet him occasionally and get attacked by people if I throw his ball at them!
 

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

So would you guys say this is the best RPG since Witcher 3?

I can't say I've really played that many RPGs over the past few years, mainly because many don't really allow the level of character creation or depth that would interest me. Baldur's gate is the first proper RPG I've played since Skyrim that I think fulfils that ability.

[Corvinus85]

5 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

He has access to the help action which can remove quite a few status effects including downed and it seems that works for NPCs that it can be used on. His help action is a licking/dog kisses animation. 

There is no risk as he does not die and the character holding his ball can resummon him after a short rest.

He also points chests that you can dig up out.

You lose nothing by summing him and he might actually be of some uses.

My character can constantly find buried chests, so never need Scratch for that. But now that you mention the his ability to remove the downed status, I suppose I could have used him to save Volo in the city. I still saved Volo with a more complicated maneuver.

Spoiler

This is the scenario outside the Steel Watcher foundry where Volo is tied up to a bunch of powder kegs by some cultists. The head cultist seems to ignite the fire that reaches the kegs in a few turns, so don't really have the time to fight the cultists and save Volo. 

So I immediately sent Astarion using misty step to Volo and destroyed the chair to which he's tied. This causes Volo to fall and be prone for a turn. But I only had one more turn to get him away from the kegs. Luckily I had a pair of boots on Astarion that can open dimension door. So I used that to get them both behind the battlefield. Then I finished the fight.

 

[Darryk]

On 12/5/2023 at 4:52 PM, Luzifer's right hand said:

I started a new playtrough with the new single save difficulty mode.

Having fun so far but I have failed to save multiple NPC's already and I actually killed Khaga at the grove for the first time because I failed necessary rolls.

  Reveal hidden contents

I also failed the required rolls after getting chained by Gut and a servant of Raphael showed up and killed her and her ogre guard. 

There is probably a lot more awesome content behind failed rolls than I imagined.

Best RPG since Witcher I guess but I prefer Witcher, Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity games.

[Ser Lany]

I am regretting my illithad decision, and seriously considering redoing my last 7 hours of play.

I think this song is about me 

Spoiler

I have a horrible looking face now, with a lot of veins covering it.  ugh.  I hate that this bothers me. I have to agree with Astarion. I wanted power, but not at the cost of my looks

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Ser Lany

[Werthead]

6 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

So would you guys say this is the best RPG since Witcher 3?

Probably not. It's likely not even the best Gatelike. I think Pathfinder: Kingmaker was not far off in quality and there seems to be widespread agreement that Wrath of the Righteous and Pillars of Eternity II were significantly better than Kingmaker.

Cyberpunk 2077 is also not as tactically interesting, but has better (if less in scale) reactivity: for all of the "BG3 will react to every choice!" the game does fall over wheezing a lot if you do something "unexpected."

The game's structure is also very weird. It does an excellent job of pacing in Acts I and II, and the buildup to the Kentheric Thorn fight at the end of Act II is very good, but in Act III the pacing goes weird and I can't see how you can easily avoid climaxing each story arc in rapid succession, leading to the "five ultra-hard boss fights in the last five hours of the game" issue, which is fairly tedious. Also, the game hits the level cap far too early, meaning those huge battles at the end of the game give you no material benefits from EXP and going up levels. It feels like the cap should have been (at least ) 14 rather than 12, or the game should have redistributed its EXP scaling so you hit 12 a few hours before the end of the game, not almost 20 hours.

It's also overall probably too long, and the tension and pacing flags towards the end. Act III is definitely too dense and introduces too many late-breaking new side-quests. The game actually feels like it could have been improved by being split into three distinct games with much better pacing (it's also worth noting the insanity of BG3 being significantly longer than the Mass Effect trilogy in its entirety, in just one game).

BG3 is a very good game, but it's incredible production values and meme-generating capabilities are glossing over a number of story, structure and character issues.

It is my third-favourite game of 2023 though, behind Phantom Liberty and Alan Wake II.