Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

Honestly, I think it's a toss up between this, Armored Core VI, and Lies of P for my personal GOTY this year.

It's amazing playing a game where your choices and decisions actually have consequences. I couldn't imagine how tough this game is on Tactician difficulty too, but it'd be amazing doing a co-op playthrough with four players.

@Throb talk to the skull 😁 the crate of stuff is right outside your cell, and if you can't pick the lock with the lockpick you smuggled into jail in your booty, the skull can help. Failing that, remember you can separate party members, so they could technically come and rescue you if you control them (that would actually be really fun, and I wish I'd have done that now)

@KAIRU Lies Of P is incredible too, totally hooked on both of these. I split my gaming time between the two at the moment.

@Ravix Only 1 character got out, picked up the items and became massively encumbered. I then switched character to someone who had dimension door and teleported another out of there. Once you kill one of the baddies, you can loot the key to the cell and then free everyone Now I've got to rearrange all the inventory because it's all on one character

@Throb oooh, you all got arrested. Only my Tav got arrested 😅 but as a Bard I just talked to the skull, got my stuff and killed my way out with another NPC who happened to be in another cell at the time.

I wish I'd have thought of the split party jail break at the time though, that would have been fun sending the three others to break me out from the outside.

@Throb Yeah, the three games I mentioned before are the three games this year that have just completely captivated me and had me hooked. They're all brilliant.

I'm looking forward to playing more of this later tonight. Will finally assault Moonrise Towers!

@Ravix This split party thing... So you can have different characters in different areas and switch between them? Sort of like GTAV characters? I've always just had everyone together in one group

@Throb Correct-o. Press L2 then Triangle on the party members you want to separate

I know you weren't replying to me but I figured I'd answer anyway. 😅

@KAIRU @Throb yep. It's how I managed most battles early on. Why risk everyone's life when I can use some to outflank the enemy before they enter combat.

It's also good for distracting people while you're up to no good pickpocketing, or "investigating" locked rooms etc.

But it's also something I just stumbled on by chance, I don't remember much of a tutorial for doing it.

You can even be in completely different game areas, as it uses the co-op mechanics with anyone in your party able to be anywhere doing anything at the same time as you

@Ravix Yeah, I can't remember how I quite discovered it too, but it's a neat thing to do all the same!

@Ravix @KAIRU That's a game changer! I'm surprised it didn't give that a tutorial

@Throb It’s brilliant if you have Astarion in your party or if you’re playing as a rogue during potential upcoming combat scenarios.

Having Astarion be sneaky and scout ahead and maybe even pick off an enemy or two whilst remaining hidden is absolutely awesome.

I entered the lower city last time I played, and I'm kind of just overwhelmed and don't know what to do first. I did some of the murder investigation stuff, and Elfsong tavern. Initialy I got the Stop the Press quest, but it didn't really fit into the flow of literally having just spoken to the person who is slandering us, as they want us to help them with their own problem, so I reloaded until I do some more stuff that maybe upsets that person again, just for my own headcanon. Don't get me wrong, I won't be helping either of those who want me to side with them, but for continuity it did feel a bit strange that the one party is trying to hinder us while we are trying to overcome someone, who's downfall will benefit them.

I guess my solution is to go back to where the quest initiated once I'm ready, and then follow it through. Or maybe thinking on it, headcanon my way into believing the attack in the press is using old information acquired from them while they were still fearful of our meddling selves entering the city, and wanted to make sure we were public enemy number one, despite them since realising we could actually be the means to an end. That might be the way I have to go, as I want to be doing the side content first, really.

Got back into the groove of things last night. Mixing some investigations and side content together to make my own narrative flow once more.

I got locked into an absolutely massive battle at once point, where I blew up about 5 enemies, before a huge fight kicked off, I didn't have shadowheart in the party, so my healing was very limited, but the initial battle was very satisfying. I then went on to loot everything I needed to, including some tasty sounding vault keys, but by then the noise had dragged in the Flaming Fist and a steelwatcher, so I had to then deal with them 😅😅 managed it, had to do 2 short rests to heal up, and by that point, somehow 6 more Flaming fists had appeared and "accused me of stealing" while I'm standing over the corpses of a bunch of bad guys, like come on give me a break haha. I then dealt with this wave, each party member had about 10hp left, and I fast travelled out of there as fast as I could, incase more came 😬😬

Big win though, I got to go back and steal sooooooo many fireworks and barrels of powder. My camp is now filled with explosives that I'll let Karlach hurl at people in every fight to come, I guess 😁😁😁

Boom, Boom, motherf***er

Fought a pretty powerful wizard and his monsterous minions. So much fun, finally had a really nice overpowered use for Hold Person, to make him unable to attack at all, and I got to test out Hold Monster ok his minions, and a Sphere of Immunity that I could nip into before attacking the wizard, to negate his retaliation spells 😁 very satisfying use of the tools I had available

I almost wish there was a new game plus, just to be able to fight through the whole game with your more final builds, as it's immensely fun. And I'm going to make sure I try to get into as many fights as possible before the end to really make the most of the levelling up

I tried the Moonrise Tower fight but I think I'm still a little under-levelled. I'm sure there are a few more spots on the map that I haven't been to in the Shadow Cursed Lands yet, so I reckon I'll have to check those out first.

@KAIRU if you're still struggling and have tried a few different fight tactics for turning the tides, I did notice when I was exploring Moonrise there is a way you can enter via a hole in the roof, if you head left before going in the door and have a little look around you can jump/climb your party up to the rafters, which might give you a new approach. Not sure how it works in combat, if it triggers or if you can sneak completely around, but at the very least it should provide advantage on ranged attacks and spells, if you can catch them all while they are bunched together too with AOE spells that could give a good head start.

A large part of that fight for me was starting with an AOE ice surface spell which made a good chunk of the enemies fall over right away, then I could take out the Ogre, and then rain spells from above with Gale who teleported to the rafters, picking off the next person in the attack queue at a time, and keeping others as prone ad possible.

(you can use scrolls or thrown items/arrows if you don't have any of the AOE surface spells prepared)

@Ravix Funnily enough, I actually noticed the roots you could climb up, but I guess I just couldn't see the roof as it looked like there was nowhere else to go up there. I might check it out again!

@Falcon94 that is a common bug. It was for me too, but I didn't have him in my party and only saw it at camp. Eventually it went away.

@Falcon94 On the plus side, Shadowheart's looking hella good. 😏

@Falcon94 f*** Wyll. (Okay he grew on me a bit after his ridiculous first impression of a white knight who seeks acclaim more than pride, and seemed a lot more legit caring afterwards, but I never have him in my party, as he serves no use)

What we need to focus on is how that's a long ass cape you've got! What is it? 😁 Since switching to using capes that apply effects, I've only had weeny short capes, which has saddened me a little. Especially for my Bard tav who rocked the long DLC Cape for a good while before switching to buff capes. Although I've now found a charismatic hat to make up for it, it is absolutely ridiculous and bedazzled, which is perfect 😁😁 I do still miss long capes.