Baldur's Gate 3: Quicksave is my favourite spell

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 minute ago, IlyaP said:

Having played CP77 for over 400 hours and multiple playthroughs, that too is a bug I've not experienced. And I've been playing it since *day one*. And except when I was experimenting with some mods, the game was always stable, and has, unmodded, crashed on me about 6 times in total, at last count. 

Perplexing. 

Oh man, try playing Witcher 3 Next Gen with RT on PC and report back the results...i love CDPR but that game was NOT meant to handle RT, it literally crashes every 20 minutes. RDR2 has been my most stable game recently, got about 2 crashes in 80 hours and the game only ever got buggy when i tried to force some mods down its throat (Rockstar hates modding for some reason and their engine dosent support it properly) 

[IlyaP]

11 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Fair enough, if the combat gets too frustrating ill certainly try it out, or lower the difficulty. Kudos to the peeps who are playing this game on Honor difficulty ! Also bare in mind im coming to this game after playing CP2077, RDR2 and Witcher 3 next gen recently, all 3 games are fucking notoriously easy. So the problem could be with me and i might just need to practice it out. There's a reason i avoid games like Dark Souls, Elden Ring etc 

Possibly. I get zero pleasure from playing games on Cosmic Nightmare Mode. Life's already annoying and challenging, why let our games be? As always, it's not my kink, but I won't kink shame. 

[IlyaP]

Just now, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Oh man, try playing Witcher 3 Next Gen with RT on PC and report back the results...i love CDPR but that game was NOT meant to handle RT, it literally crashes every 20 minutes. RDR2 has been my most stable game recently, got about 2 crashes in 80 hours and the game only ever got buggy when i tried to force some mods down its throat (Rockstar hates modding for some reason and their engine dosent support it properly) 

GTX 1060s don't support ray tracing - it's a card from 2016. And I'm not big on intense graphics, so whatever wow factor they produce would definitely be lost on me. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Btw the most important question….karmic dice, yay or nay ? I find that if you’re gonna save scum dice rolls it’s better to have it turned off otherwise the game will always factor in your past successes even when you reload and give you a similar result. So I’m playing with it off now for true DnD randomness lol.

[IlyaP]

39 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Btw the most important question….karmic dice, yay or nay ? I find that if you’re gonna save scum dice rolls it’s better to have it turned off otherwise the game will always factor in your past successes even when you reload and give you a similar result. So I’m playing with it off now for true DnD randomness lol.

I turned it off. A few developers - maybe Josh Sawyer? - explained why they found them to be an issue from a maths perspective. Or maybe it was something to do with the supposed random number generation system in relation to the karmic dice. 

Either way, I found a better experience with it off. 

[aceluby]

Karmic dice are off for me.  The problem is that it doesn't just impact your rolls, but your enemies rolls as well.  I much prefer pure randomness.  I don't even save scum (I don't think that's particularly fun), but I do think it provides a better experience.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Aand now I’ve been trying to defeat that fucking spider matriarch in the blighted village for the past hour and I keep dying against it…looked up a guide and it recommended the use of fire barrels of 6-8 against it lol. It was the same for the githyanki patrol. And the same for the demon commander in the ship in the prologue. 
 

can any tough enemies in this game ever be defeated WITHOUT the use of fucking fire barrels ? Seems like every guide on YouTube uses it. So much for tactical fights… 

 

Not enjoying the combat in this game at all, I really suck at it. Can I just over level and wipe out my enemies and bosses eventually ? 

Edited February 9 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Aand now I’ve been trying to defeat that fucking spider matriarch in the blighted village for the past hour and I keep dying against it…looked up a guide and it recommended the use of fire barrels of 6-8 against it lol. It was the same for the githyanki patrol. And the same for the demon commander in the ship in the prologue. 
 

can any tough enemies in this game ever be defeated WITHOUT the use of fucking fire barrels ? Seems like every guide on YouTube uses it. So much for tactical fights… 

 

Not enjoying the combat in this game at all, I really suck at it. Can I just over level and wipe out my enemies and bosses eventually ? 

That fight is annoying, but actually it’s a matter of just pushing spiders off ledges. Use spells like the thunder wave to blast the tiny spiders away. I hated the game the first few times I tried it but once you understand the combat system and the ways to play ( it’s not about taking turns hitting each other) it becomes more fun and tactical.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

That fight is annoying, but actually it’s a matter of just pushing spiders off ledges. Use spells like the thunder wave to blast the tiny spiders away. I hated the game the first few times I tried it but once you understand the combat system and the ways to play ( it’s not about taking turns hitting each other) it becomes more fun and tactical.

I hate using Gale, my go to party is Shart, lazael, myself (paladin) and karlach(love her best DPS) but I’ll give it a shot. I really dread entering combat and try to avoid it and be pacifist as much as possible, even missing out on side quests because of it. Here just for the story and characters. The camp scenes are my favourite part of the game lol. When it comes to combat my mainly just use melee and simple ranged attacks, the spells and special class attacks, otherwise than simple ones like firebolt, are way to complex for my dumb ass to know which to use when.  Not a fan of versatility in combat as it becomes cumbersome to position my characters and my stealth attacks never seem to work. I also feel the environmental damage stuff is a bit too prominent in the game, but I admit I’m a a causal rpg fan not a hardcore crpg guy. Maybe that’s why I’m not enjoying the combat. 

Edited February 9 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Poobah]

5 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Aand now I’ve been trying to defeat that fucking spider matriarch in the blighted village for the past hour and I keep dying against it…looked up a guide and it recommended the use of fire barrels of 6-8 against it lol. It was the same for the githyanki patrol. And the same for the demon commander in the ship in the prologue. 
 

can any tough enemies in this game ever be defeated WITHOUT the use of fucking fire barrels ? Seems like every guide on YouTube uses it. So much for tactical fights… 

 

Not enjoying the combat in this game at all, I really suck at it. Can I just over level and wipe out my enemies and bosses eventually ? 

There are huge numbers of ways to win these fights but most of the content mills churning out guides for early hard fights aren't gonna have them because they have more videos to smash out quickly while BG3 is the flavour. Using pre-placed explosive barrels is just a 0 IQ method that anyone can do with any class and no knowledge.

What level are you? That is one of the harder fights and there's nothing wrong with coming back later. If you made the spear from the two pieces you get from the cultists who tried to fight it and the owlbear you have an especially effective anti-spider weapon. What classes do you have, and what difficulty are you on?

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

5 minutes ago, Poobah said:

There are huge numbers of ways to win these fights but most of the content mills churning out guides for early hard fights aren't gonna have them because they have more videos to smash out quickly while BG3 is the flavour. Using pre-placed explosive barrels is just a 0 IQ method that anyone can do with any class and no knowledge.

What level are you? That is one of the harder fights and there's nothing wrong with coming back later. If you made the spear from the two pieces you get from the cultists who tried to fight it and the owlbear you have an especially effective anti-spider weapon. What classes do you have, and what difficulty are you on?

Balanced , level 4, paladin, Shart,lazael,karlach,have no idea about any cultists, spears and owlbears. I’m not good at finding all these hidden locations and quests either lol. Off to the goblin camp to gather some fire barrels because the guide said there are a lot of them there, just wanna get this part over with, and the barrels seems like the easiest way to do it…

im coming to this game from the Witcher 3 which is a million times easier, even on highest difficulty….

Edited February 9 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I hate using Gale, my go to party is Shart, lazael, myself (paladin) and karlach(love her best DPS) but I’ll give it a shot. I really dread entering combat and try to avoid it and be pacifist as much as possible, even missing out on side quests because of it. Here just for the story and characters. The camp scenes are my favourite part of the game lol. When it comes to combat my mainly just use melee and simple ranged attacks, the spells and special class attacks, otherwise than simple ones like firebolt, are way to complex for my dumb ass to know which to use when. 

Gale becomes pretty vital for lots of fights because he does crowd control and that’s massive.

It takes a long time to understand which spells are really useful or not. I’m in act 3 and I still don’t have a good grasp. I do know that grease saved me a lot in act 1 to just slow people down. Think of it this way, you don’t ever want to be going into a fair fight because you will lose. So you need to use magic and powers a lot to gain advantage. Spells like Haste, Hold person, darkness all work well to just stop you getting hit or hitting them more.

I also tend to like a party setup that has one tanky fighter, one ranged DPS, one crowd control and one support / utility. Your party sounds like a bunch of people all doing the same things, which is bad.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

 

I also tend to like a party setup that has one tanky fighter, one ranged DPS, one crowd control and one support / utility. Your party sounds like a bunch of people all doing the same things, which is bad.

How do you balance this combat gameplay aspect with the narrative aspect of having different party members in your roster at different times so you can hear all the unique banter during cutscenes ? I do keep shuffling companions just for that reason.  For eg you take Wyll to the goblin camp you’ll have some very unique dialogue with the goblins that you won’t get with the others. Ditto with having karlach with you when you find Raphael. But the combat difficulty is forcing us to just stick with 4 fixed party members ?

Edited February 9 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Heartofice]

41 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

How do you balance this combat gameplay aspect with the narrative aspect of having different party members in your roster at different times so you can hear all the unique banter during cutscenes ? I do keep shuffling companions just for that reason.  For eg you take Wyll to the goblin camp you’ll have some very unique dialogue with the goblins that you won’t get with the others. Ditto with having karlach with you when you find Raphael. But the combat difficulty is forcing us to just stick with 4 fixed party members ?

A few things:

You can swap characters in and out when you wish, you don’t need to stick to the same ones throughout the game. I often bring in different characters at different moments if it’s more thematic. I also bring in Astarian if I need to pick locks etc.

Plus there are plenty of times you get a dialogue scene with a character that isn’t even in your party at the time. 
 

Thirdly, you have the option to respec all your companions if you want. So if you don’t like their build just make them something else. It’s super cheap to do.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

How do you balance this combat gameplay aspect with the narrative aspect of having different party members in your roster at different times so you can hear all the unique banter during cutscenes ?

For the most part you don't, or you get a mod that gives you all the banter. 

There are only a few things you really should bring specific people for as part of their main questline, but the day-to-day banter stuff is pretty good no matter who you bring. 

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I do keep shuffling companions just for that reason.  For eg you take Wyll to the goblin camp you’ll have some very unique dialogue with the goblins that you won’t get with the others. Ditto with having karlach with you when you find Raphael. But the combat difficulty is forcing us to just stick with 4 fixed party members ?

For starters you're bringing the single worst person - Shadowheart. She is as built largely trash especially compared to basically anyone else. If you're doing it for RP reasons that's fine, I guess, but she's incredibly weak compared to everyone. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking you NEED a healer. D&D is not that kind of game, and using potions to heal is usually a lot better than using one of your more rare spell slots. Cleric spells are not very good early on for a lot of things (Command and hold person are probablky the best of the lot), cleric attacking is pretty trash, and cleric cantrip spellcasting is horrible compared to anyone else. 

If you're going to use shadowheart I'd recommend respeccing her and getting her stats and choices better. That's something you should probably do for EVERYONE, but it's especially true for shadowheart. 

You're also very melee-heavy if you're a paladin and that will make some things real easy and some things real hard. In particular you have virtually no nice way of crowd control or ranged attacks worth a damn. Shockingly dealing with a bunch of teleporting spiders that web things is going to make you have a real hard time. Gale with Grease goes a very long way of making a lot of fights doable, and gale against the phase spiders shooting firebolt at the web bridges and causing the spiders to plunge to their death makes things a lot easier.

You also have, as far as I can tell, absolutely no nice way of dealing with locks or traps. That's a pretty big detriment. You might be able to sneak shittily with Shadowheart - I've honestly never tried - but that's a big lapse.

Mostly, I don't get how you're wanting to complain that you should have 4 set party members with the makeup you have (which is not really good) AND you want to switch people out all the time. There's nothing that requires any of the party members you mentioned for the phase spider part - so why bring them?

Edited February 9 by Kalbear
taht taht taht

[FalagarV2]

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

For starters you're bringing the single worst person - Shadowheart. She is as built largely trash especially compared to basically anyone else. If you're doing it for RP reasons that's fine, I guess, but she's incredibly weak compared to everyone. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking you NEED a healer. D&D is not that kind of game, and using potions to heal is usually a lot better than using one of your more rare spell slots. Cleric spells are not very good early on for a lot of things (Command and hold person are probablky the best of the lot), cleric attacking is pretty trash, and cleric cantrip spellcasting is horrible compared to anyone else. 

If you're going to use shadowheart I'd recommend respeccing her and getting her stats and choices better. That's something you should probably do for EVERYONE, but it's especially true for shadowheart. 

 

I'd reccomend respeccing as a storm cleric. Shadowheart was in fact one of my most useful party members in my playthrough, especially in the second half, due to being a virtuose lightning (and cold) damage dealer, as well as doing divine damage and healing.

[Kalbear]

24 minutes ago, FalagarV2 said:

I'd reccomend respeccing as a storm cleric. Shadowheart was in fact one of my most useful party members in my playthrough, especially in the second half, due to being a virtuose lightning (and cold) damage dealer, as well as doing divine damage and healing.

Later on she (and clerics) can get a lot better, much like wizards do and for a lot of the same reasons. If you make her a light or a storm cleric she gets access to a lot of very good major damage spells. But the shadow stuff is just largely trash. More importantly early on she's very, very weak because early cleric spells aren't nearly as strong as early spells from almost anyone else, and druids at least can turn into a bear. 

[FalagarV2]

Yeah, true, but the Wrath of the Storm and Destructive Wrath abilities are pretty neat and are acquired already at the first few levels.

[Werthead]

I had Shadowheart in my party from Day 1 and I don't think she ever left (Gale and Astarion were my other usuals, but they at least got spelled at different times by Lae'zel, Karlach, Wyll, Jaheira and Minsc). In the early game her spellcasting game is weak, but she makes an effective tertiary fighter, and an even better missile support fighter (as she's less likely to engage directly and be cut down). Her fighting and spellcasting utility rises together, especially when she gets that freaking magic mace thing which can also fire freaking plasma beams across the entire level.

Low-level clerics in D&D always have been effectively weaker fighters who can provide magical support until they level their magic up to the point where they can be an effective secondary spellcaster; their magical damage potential is never as potent as comparable level mages (although high-level flame strikes are nothing to sniff at) but they can hang in much longer thanks to a much-reduced squishiness and being able to wear much better armour.

Her heal spells also later become all-party heal spells, which are pretty useful when the whole group is up against hardy foes and everyone is taking moderate damage per turn, although 5E's general focus has been on reducing in-battle healing in favour of making people more likely to survive fights and heal afterwards (to be honest I don't think it's that great at that, the level of in-battle healing required seems to be the same as 3E, only lessened because wizards have slightly better hit die).

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I had Shadowheart in my party from Day 1 and I don't think she ever left (Gale and Astarion were my other usuals, but they at least got spelled at different times by Lae'zel, Karlach, Wyll, Jaheira and Minsc). In the early game her spellcasting game is weak, but she makes an effective tertiary fighter, and an even better missile support fighter (as she's less likely to engage directly and be cut down). Her fighting and spellcasting utility rises together, especially when she gets that freaking magic mace thing which can also fire freaking plasma beams across the entire level.

I think that's fine - but that's also having Gale and Astarion. If you're going melee heavy with you as a paladin + Karlach + Lae'zel, it's not going to be okay to have her as a tertiary fighter and your primary spellcaster.