Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

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Burns

Burns

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Tasty The Treat said:
Well I finally got around to playing this game last night and I have to say, games like this usually aren't the type of thing I get all hyped about but this is absolutely fantastic. Probably my favorite RPG these days that isn't made by Bethesda, truly a standout title in this day and age, almost reminds me of Bioware RPG's during their GOAT era.

Only two things I don't really like about it, the dice roll system being one of them, and the way it has made me go about saving would be another. Like I don't mind the dice roll feel when it comes to combat, but I hate how it can affect interactions. I mean I get how this is Dungeons and Dragons and how they're sticking to the feel of that, but I hate having my success in interactions being decided by literal blind luck, just a casino-esque roll of the dice. This brings me to the second thing, which is how it makes me want to save all the time because the autosaves are apparently very sparsely spaced out and you never know when you will have some encounter where one bad dice roll can fuck up the way you would want to progress. So I'm falling into a save often and savescum strategy when I get to a part where a bad dice roll fucks me up.

Outside of that though I am blown away by the depth. Characters are fun, I like how I can basically play the game however I like and make whatever decisions I like. This isn't one of those RPG's where the devs try to railroad or force your decisions, I feel like I can truly approach any interaction however I like. The characters have also been a lot of fun and I like how the devs truly made a mature game for mature audiences, not some "lets make an M rated game but still try to please concerned parents/activists" sort of approach. It's no wonder it's become such a standout title this gen. Larian feels like one of the few big devs that doesn't have their head up their ass right now.
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Many of the rolls have alternate paths if you fail, but there are also some big rolls that can lock you into a path. It is hard to resist the urge to save scum, but the game can defiantly be played with minimal save scuming. The main save scuming mini game I played was pick pocketing vendors.

For example, the temple at the very start of the game has at least three ways to get into it (talking, picking the lock, and dropping the statue outside). Each of those options change how the combat inside plays out.

There is more than enough XP in the game that missing some quests here and there is not a big deal. It is literally impossible to see everything in this game in one playthrough. There are also a shit ton of items in the game too. Far more than a normal DnD game would have for these levels (I like the loots).
 
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Tasty The Treat

Tasty The Treat

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Burns said:
Many of the rolls have alternate paths if you fail, but there are also some big rolls that can lock you into a path. It is hard to resist the urge to save scum, but the game can defiantly be played with minimal save scuming. The main save scuming mini game I played was pick pocketing vendors.

For example, the temple at the very start of the game has at least three ways to get into it (talking, picking the lock, and dropping the statue outside). Each of those options change how the combat inside plays out.

There is more than enough XP in the game that missing some quests here and there is not a big deal. It is literally impossible to see everything in this game in one playthrough. There are also a shit ton of items in the game too. Far more than a normal DnD game would have for these levels (I like the loots).
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I feel like I would be far more willing to simply go with the roll of the dice on a second playthrough, for this first one it feels like I just want to do everything right and see the good playouts, but good to hear how it doesn't screw you that often. They seemed to do a truly exceptional job at designing this game to where you can just play it in totally different ways if you like. It feels like I am doing a fight evil do what it takes brutal good guy run this time, while I will probably go for more of a bad guy run if I do it a second time. I tend to do that a lot when it comes to open RPG's like this.
 
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V

velk

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Yeah, a lot of the failed skill checks are more fun than actually succeeding. They are very rarely hard gates to something, they're more of a story device.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

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There are quite a few significant rolls where you can lose companions forever. The game can be quite brutal when it comes to that. Maining a bard for your first play can help a lot with the conversion rolls. Advantage +1d6 for bard skill, +1d4 from your cleric skill, you won't fail often.
 
Borzak

Borzak

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Part way through another play. I realised I like the game but not a fan of the story and doing the story through again.

Any ideas for a more combat oriented turn based game that wold be more Icewind Dale like. Divinty? I've never played it but I own Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 and never even looked at it.
 
D

Droigan

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Borzak said:
I've never played it but I own Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 and never even looked at it.
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Divinity series isn't like Icewind (not pause combat). Game style is turn based similarly to BG3, however combat system is Larians and quite excellent. I love the Divinity games combat system. D2 is one of my all time favorite games.

So if you enjoy CRPGs that's 200+ hours of A+ tier gaming.

Don't need to play them in order for story since timelines are very far apart, but if you want to play them both, I would start with 1 since 2 is a bit better in terms of combat / classes and gives background lore of the world for 2.

They're similar to BG3 as in there are no random encounters. Everything is hand crafted, so no respawns. Story is much lighter than BG3, though it's Larians trademark IP with it's own humor which for some is hit/miss.

For 2 I would highly recommend a few mods that don't really alter the game (so good for a first run)

www.nexusmods.com

Party Size Evolved

Party Size Evolved is a quality-of-life mod that increases the default party size limit to 6, with the option to configure it higher or lower.
www.nexusmods.com www.nexusmods.com

Expands party size to 6. Play on tactician to still keep the difficulty up, but in Divinity 2 you play with 4 characters but there are 6 main ones. So you'd have to do two runs to get all character stories / encounters / events. With that mod you could play it once and get all content.

www.nexusmods.com

Free Pet Pal

Free Pet Pal - Grants free Pet Pal or a free Talent Point to your character(s).
www.nexusmods.com www.nexusmods.com

since pet pal is pretty much needed in Larian games. They put so much stuff into talking animals.

www.nexusmods.com

Fort Joy Respec - Definitive Edition

Highly recommended for new players! Places a Respec Mirror on Fort Joy's beach, near the early Voidwoken encounter.
www.nexusmods.com www.nexusmods.com

This just lets you respec earlier.

And lastly

www.nexusmods.com

Bedroll revives dead characters and gives Source

This is a conversion to DE of the original D:OS2 Source Bedroll by BakuDM. Exact same mod, just updated version to allow in DE. Play tested for about an hour and works fine.
www.nexusmods.com www.nexusmods.com

Lets you have a bed roll in your inventory, and when you click it, it resets source which lets you use special abilities tied to source more often. Having to go back to places where you can restore source is just a chore. Can't use it while in encounters, so doesn't trivialize anything.

For more combat oriented style game (still turn based), with a bit more "jank"...



It also has tons of mods where people create their own scenarios which are nearly fully combat focused.
 
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mkopec

mkopec

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If you want a more combat centric party based RPG like BG3 I recommend Troubleshooter.



Literally 100s of hours of 90% combat. Some battles are so large that it will take you hours to complete. dont sleep on the xcom2 shit either. thats mostly combat as well.

The Divinity series were great games, but still sort of like BG3 where there is tons of story shit.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

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mkopec said:
If you want a more combat centric party based RPG like BG3 I recommend Troubleshooter.



Literally 100s of hours of 90% combat. Some battles are so large that it will take you hours to complete. dont sleep on the xcom2 shit either. thats mostly combat as well.

The Divinity series were great games, but still sort of like BG3 where there is tons of story shit.
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Troubleshooter is grindy as fuck with super opaque systems and a character build complexity level thats probably 50-75% of PoE's talent tree complexity.

Highly recommend despite its many flaws.
 
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Borzak

Borzak

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Decided to stay with BG3 for a while. Dark Urge Paladin is different and so far has required a few work arounds from my normal kill anyone and everyone playthrough.

I have had Ice Wind Dale EE forever. I do not remember it being a full party adventure from the start with pre-made or pre-rolled characters.
 
Bald Brah

Bald Brah

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Borzak said:
Decided to stay with BG3 for a while. Dark Urge Paladin is different and so far has required a few work arounds from my normal kill anyone and everyone playthrough.

I have had Ice Wind Dale EE forever. I do not remember it being a full party adventure from the start with pre-made or pre-rolled characters.
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That's a path I never tried, dark urge resistant. I wonder how much different it is than the standard "good" playthrough.

i don't think you actually make a point of no return until act 3 where you would normally kill the elephant and get the slayer form? I wonder what the rewards are for resisting the dark urge since going full on dark urge are pretty good. You get slayer form and the special vendor, and can still kill everyone afterwards.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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It depends

If you play FULL restraint dark urge, then you never get the voices/demons trying to corrupt you and you can avoid most of the shit like killing your companions/etc and it plays relatively regular until act 3 and the Baal stuff. Eventually in the Temple of Baal, if you continue to show restraint/reject Baal, then he kills you and then Withers resurrects you and you are effectively free of the Dark Urge.

If you don't go full restraint and give into the dark urge and get the slayer form but still try to fuck up Baal's plans and do the "good" ending, then you get an ending where your guy eventually succumbs to the dark urge in the epilogue and is basically some catatonic psycho, pissing themselves literally, who just wants to kill everyone
 
Borzak

Borzak

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I put the dark urge paladin on the back burner I guess. The further in the more balancing this and that. Never done a druid and doing that one now. It starts off kinda meh but is picking up.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

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I decided against running a Dark Urge campaign, too.

I'm going to shelve the game until some of the truly amazing mod campaigns have been completed. It'll be months, possibly more than a year, but there are more than half a dozen high quality campaign mods in development and I don't want to get burned out on the game before the mods are finished.

One of the creators is building the city of Menzoberranzan and I'm incredibly excited about that.
 
Derkon

Derkon

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I'm just waiting for all those new subclasses to get added in. I played through Act 1 last year but got distracted by other stuff, will do a full run or two after that update.
 
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mkopec

mkopec

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Yeah these games that are so good, one needs to be careful not to overplay them and burn out. Give them some time and then come back re-invigorated. Almost like a rediscovery.
 
Fadaar

Fadaar

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I did two playthroughs, one single player and another co-op with 3 high school buddies. Was interesting to see different stuff between the two but I didn't really feel a need to do it a third time. Like yall have said, waiting for the autistic mods to come out in due time.
 
Borzak

Borzak

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Started a druid and it has been going okay. Got owlbear attack and I thought I was in the perfect spot to try it in grymfroge. Nere wouldn't come out of the cave the is blasted open to get him lol. It was no big fight but I was up on that platform ready and nothing.

Apparently patch 8 with the new subclasses went out on PS5 and nobody else. Sony or someone fucked up and had to take it down shortly after.
 
K

k^M

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Borzak said:
Started a druid and it has been going okay. Got owlbear attack and I thought I was in the perfect spot to try it in grymfroge. Nere wouldn't come out of the cave the is blasted open to get him lol. It was no big fight but I was up on that platform ready and nothing.

Apparently patch 8 with the new subclasses went out on PS5 and nobody else. Sony or someone fucked up and had to take it down shortly after.
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Owlbear vs the robot in the forge is still one of the most hilarious uses of gravity the game has.

Runner ups, a3 dude and hurling him over the edge & the paladins chasing down Karlach throwing them off the roofs. Weeeeeeee splat
 
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