Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

Starting this post with hopes of many discussions of players character creations and choices made throughout your campaign. What race and class are you choosing? Will be playing solo, with friends, or both? Are you planning on going evil, good, or neutral? Have you played the previous Baldurs Gate games and/or pen and paper D&D?

I keep switching choices. I'm leaning sword bard, tempest cleric, or shadow monk. Not sure on race as im letting my daughter create my characters race and look. She plays Sims and is always making new characters. It is all part of my ploy to get her to play with me. She reads the ever popular romantacies, but scoffs at straight fantasy and D&D. So most likely I'll be playing solo. I always play good my first time through, but may start a second run half way and play a good and evil run. I have played both Baldurs Gate games and many isometric RPGs. I used to play D&D years ago and recently started again, DMing for the first time. I look forward to hearing others creations in this game.

I'm very excited to play this at some point, though I have no clue when I'll have the time! I've been avoiding any and all press about it for years now so I can experience it as freshly as possible when I do get to it. I'll definitely want to play through it co-op like I've done with most of the CRPGs I've played like both Divinity games and Wasteland 3. I hope the co-op experience is a bit better with this compared to D:OS2 though, as I was not a fan of how dialogue was handled in that game. I think Wasteland 3 is pretty much the ultimate example of how to handle shared stats and dialogue in co-op RPGs, so I really hope they take a page out of their book. I hope you'll be able to get your daughter to play with you! Pray for a good dice roll.

I’m really looking forward to this. Booked the week off work to play it. As for any choices I’ll make, I have no idea. I’ll decide once I’ve put the game on and the character creator is staring me in the face. I do know that I’m gonna be good. I can never bring myself to be evil in these types of RPG’s.

I’m really hoping it hooks me like Dragon Age: Inquisition did.

This will probably be a day one purchase but I'd like to know compatibility of playing multiplayer. if all my friends are gonna be on PC then I might have to buy that version

I am wondering if it's worth pre-planning a build. To be honest, I tend to just want to get into the game once I have it and don't like spending forever in the menus before hand, but I always worry I have rushed the process. So perhaps I should have a direction in mind before I start. Often I go classic sword and board although I found I enjoyed a crossbow wielding rouge in OS2.

I'm not that clued up on D&D rules either, although somehow muddled through BG1. Is BG3 pretty kind in that respect (tutorials and clear explanations, etc?)

Holy Moses, I have not lost myself to a game like I’ve done to this for years. Played it basically every waking moment I’ve not been working since it came out, even sacrificing a few hours of sleep to get more time in. Played almost 50 hours I think since it came out Thursday night, and that was with me needing like four hours to download and install the thing since there was no preload.

The astronomical difficulty spike of the Goblin Camp kinda sucks, and I hope they eventually patch in a smoother difficulty curve, but otherwise this is easily my game of the year. Just in awe of this every second I play it. The level of detail and how much the game can bend without breaking, and how it evolves with your choices it is like… how did human beings make this?!This is the game we have been sold multiple times over the years and it never lived up, but somehow BG3 actually pulled it off. The mad lads.

Ooops realised afterwards this is the PS5 version thread and I am playing on PC, but I just had to gush sorry.

@Pizzamorg Glad to hear it doesn't disappoint as the story unfolds! It sounds like the reactivity is off the charts if I'm understand you correctly, which is so exciting. Just started the game myself earlier this evening. I wasn't able to play for long as I am going through the game in co-op with one of my friends and he didn't have much time, but I can't wait to continue. Most of the time was spent in character creation which had so many options! I ended up going for a custom Forest Gnome Bard (while my friend went for Astarion). What are you playing as?

I'll be playing Solo, at least for a first run (heh, I say that like I have time for more than one). I want to make the choices and to play at my own pace.
I'll be playing a Rogue, most likely an assassin. He will be evil, neutral or lawful, probably neutral. His first stat will be dex, then Char (I'm playing a face assassin rogue), then wisdom. Strength will be a dump stat, with intelligence and Constitution probably at 10 both. I'll most likely be a human or a half elf, depending or racial bonuses (unfortunately they removed half as presented in the original 5e Player's Handbook, it's OP and I love it).
I'm playing with the idea of the evil origin that has the evil voice, but I'm leaning towards not having it.
I've played a bit of old Baldur's Gate, but the combat drives me nuts, it's awful. The real time with pause is a complete misunderstanding and butchering of DnD combat and rules. I'm so glad this is just turn based.
I've played pen and paper DnD an am actively in a 5e campaign, I've also played 3.5, so I'm excited to have an idea of the rules beforehand. I wish they could release the character creator early TBH. Also, I feel releasing 2 days after memorial day with 3-EA for the deluxe was kind of diabolical. I've also played a lot of OS2, but haven't beat it due to massive length. This looks like the better version of that game.
I do think it would be nice if the game let us do some sort of homebrew option, even on console too.
It feels like the real DnD game we've been waiting for, not having the issues previous have had.

I’m running two characters, one is a Half Orc that looks a little like Ron Perlman. I started as a Paladin as I liked the contrast between race and class. However, due to some choices I made, it actually changed me into a secret class I won’t spoil which is unique to the Paladin.

In my second Dark Urge play through, I am a Githyanki Monk, again for the weirdness of the contrast between class and race, plus I wanted to experience how the game played when I’d be using no weapons or spells. Honestly, in that regard, so far so good. The subclass I unlocked basically let’s me attack twice, and while a bunch of classes get the ability to attack even more than twice once you get to level 5 or earlier, being able to attack twice during those early levels is real game changer.

@kyleforrester87 From what I have watched, the tutorials are limited. However being a veteran DOS 2 player, you shouldn't have much of an issue. Just watching a video or 2 of Let's play has me confident in what to do with spells and such although I do have a D&D background.

I'm currently leaning Lore Bard, unless I see some cool sword bard videos. Will play warlock pact of the blades as an evil playthings after that or maybe concurrently.

@kyleforrester87 You’ll want to have some caution with your race and background since they’re locked in, but you can respec your charter including class early on in the game from what I hear.
Could someone that has played say when that is exactly

This game just unintentionally gave me one of the funniest gaming moments I have experienced in a long, long time. No spoilers outside of a very minor, inconsequential character's name and location.

***

My friend and I ran into a rat inside the Emerald Grove who told us to follow him some place for an item that chipped his tooth. We assumed this could be good loot, which was only confirmed by the fact he led us to the storage area. Quickly and quietly making our way inside with a lockpick, we run into this Tiefling lady called Pandirna. She wanted us to leave, but we convinced her that we belonged there. She was paralysed and helpless on the ground due to some concoction she drank and asked our resident bard Rashana to help her. After agreeing to pay the party if they helped her, Rashana realised that her healing spell was no match for whatever ailed this woman. We decided to try and steal some trinkets from the storage area and leave her behind as we didn't have another choice.

Turns out Pandirna took some issue with this and would decide to yell for the guards every time Rashana tried to leave the area. Apparently, the "promise" of helping her was a no-turning-back-type deal, even though she hadn't yet paid a cent to begin with. As our party is not in the business of Tiefling genocide (or alternatively, a suicide mission), we decided to try and avoid Pandirna being able to create a messy situation. First, we tried to trick her by disguising ourselves so we wouldn't look like the people who made her this "promise", but she saw through our deception. Secondly, we tried to put her to sleep using one of Rashana's precious spell slots, but she wouldn't take. She was one tough nut to crack.

Eventually, after around half an hour of saving and reloading because Pandirna decided to make our lives absolutely miserable, hatred and rage clouded our mind and we wanted nothing more than for her nut to crack with painful, deathly violence. Even this was a struggle, as sometimes guards would notice and join in and a whole different set of unfortunate circumstances would arise. Finally, we managed to stab her to death unnoticed and a sense of relief flooded over us. Sure, she may have died in what was technically cold blood, but she was also incredibly annoying and deserved every second of her pain. As we're not heartless, we decided to pick her body up and lay her rotting corpse out in the town (Grove?) square for a proper burial. Inexplicably, the townsfolk (Grovesfolk?) did not appreciate our attempt at publicly "entombing" her and would start unnecessary drama when we did. We realised our only option was to... bring her with us to our camp and put her corpse in one of our storage boxes.

Yup, Pandirna's final resting place is now a storage box in our personal camp. It may sound psychopathic, but I'll have you know we put a healing potion, a rotten mushroom and a ladle in her inventory to keep her well-rested inside. We have now dubbed this storage box "Pandirna's Box" and have vowed to take any and all innocent people who deserve to die, like Pandirna, back here to bring her company. Some may say this poor, disabled, paralysed woman did not deserve to die in a brutal and cold-blooded manner, but I think she got exactly what she deserved.

Yeah, that's one gaming memory I'm going to remember for a long time. Thanks Baldur's Gate III. I haven't laughed like that in a while.

@Tjuz 😄 Nice story. If you play again, I believe if you give her a lesser restoration potion/spell it might help. If you don't want another pandoras box, lol.

I just read this, I thought the early release on pc would help ps5 owners and this article confirms it.

https://www.techradar.com/gaming/consoles-pc/ps5-players-will...

How important is it to have experience with Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2? And are those earlier games in the series worth playing now? I have no experience with the series.

@Th3solution Those games were years ago, so I doubt there would be a need to play them before the third game. I realise they were remastered last gen, but still.

You would be better of playing Divinity Original Sin 2 to see how you get on with these type of games, as they are developed by the same studio.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, that’s a good idea. I reckon the basic gameplay and presentation should be really similar with DOS.

FYI, The PS store sale that went live today has the PS4 bundle of the first two Baldur’s Gate games discounted a healthy 70% — from base price of $50 down to $15. I probably will still skip them but if anyone had an interest in playing BG1&2 on their PS5 before BG3 drops then now’s your chance.

I wouldn’t recommend playing BG1 and 2 before 3 anymore than I would recommend playing Diablo 1 and 2 before 3.

It would be nice but not essential. They are old games designed for PC, the ports do a decent job of transferring it all over to controller but it’s not ideal.