Topic: Baldur's Gate 3

@BearsEatBeets oh yeah, I told Mol

So yeah. Consequences, I guess 🤣🤣

@Ravix 😮😮Did she still remain on your list of allies? If so maybe she is just joking. Either way, maybe it worked out for the best I didn't tell her. 😁

@BearsEatBeets will have to wait until she grows up lol. It'd be cool if it was one of those where they do another game in the future and you could use an old save with past consequences, like they did with TW2 to TW3, but not likely in this case. More just a loss of an ally. I did test not telling her out of interest too, and just said I had the contract and persuaded her to join the cause to prove her worth. So that's how you get the ally in that instance. Selective memory, just not telling her the details lol.

@Ravix Just saw this line in the update too

You can now talk to Mol more about her contract with Raphael in the Guildhall.

Eager to load up my final choice save and see the new extended epilogue.

Right then, this is the next big game for me to get my teeth into so I just wanted to ask if people had any advice for someone going into this pretty much blind.

And I don’t know whether to go for my standard stealthy, quick attacking type of character or something a bit different.

@Thrillho I'm a week deep, about 8hrs and absolutely loving this game. I'm playing blind(ish) with a bit of research on good spells to select when levelling up and which sub-classes are good.

Stealth and quick-attack is my jam as well funnily enough!
I have created a 'Charismatic Rogue' character, which has been awesome so far. I dumped INT and instead started with 17 DEX / 14 CON / 14 CHA.

Then chose a race that was solid enough with persuasion. So I've got all the stealth and sneak attacks, but my character can also be the 'face' for the group and engage in all the conversational checks, using deception/persuasion to talk his way in/out of situations.

I actually restarted about 4 hrs in, just to play from the start again once I understood combat a bit better. My first CRPG, never thought I'd fall for it as much as I have. Closest I played before was Disco Elysium, also really decent.

@Thrillho Me and @Ravix tried to give some general tips/advice on the previous page of this thread that you might want to glance at. I also found a Youtube channel called 'Fextralife' had a lot of quick helpful vids early on.
I think there are tons of different ways you can successfully build your character and the companions can always specialise in areas your character isn't good in. You find a full team of them pretty quickly.

@CJD87 @BearsEatBeets Thanks both. I spent far too long tinkering with my character but eventually settled with the rogue urchin wood elf Silva (forest in Latin).

I didn’t quite get to the end of the prologue last night and combat is a bit overwhelming at the moment but I just need more time to play around with it.

Big thumbs down for not being able to pause the game or cut scenes though. Annoying when I’m trying to play and the baby wakes up crying and I have to leave the game to its own devices.

@Thrillho The no pause isn't ideal I agree. It's not the same, but if you switch to turn-based mode I think your characters will be safe as nothing should happen until you take your turn. At least I believe that's true.

Just started playing this game and as an older gamer who's been around since NES times, I gotta say this is probably the best game I've ever played. It's got so much freedom, awesome rpg mode, and has that tactical Final Fantasy Tactics vibe with turn based combat and all. Good choice Thrillo on the Rogue. I'm still in Act 1 but made Astarian an assassin rogue and he's my number one killer and sneak attack artist lol. I chose to play as an open hand Monk and am loving it. Still in Act 1 and already have 65 hours but would like to eventually play online, thought i've not tried it out yet.

@Thrillho Haha your character looks crisp, nice job ! (Stings a bit though seeing how much better your PS5 experience is vs my Deck playthrough lol)

The lack of pause during cutscenes is certainly annoying, but generally most future scenes are driven by dialogue options - and will organically 'pause' whilst awaiting your response selection.

Combat seems massively overwhelming at first, but honestly it gets easier. I'm playing on the middle/normal difficulty 'balanced' which I feel is giving me a solid challenge but not kneecapping me.

Some general tips - when equipping weapons/armor, always make sure you're putting appropriate items with the right proficiencies. (EG Don't put 'heavy' armor on a character that can only handle 'light armor')

Take your time also, the beauty of the combat is that there is no rush. Positioning is also really key, with high-ground attacks being nearly always preferable.

But my biggest advise - don't do as I did and prevent playing due to wanting to read up on the mechanics... "just play" and get used to it. If something is confusing , or you want tips, I'd suggest reaching out here or via the sub-reddit. IMHO - PushSquare and Reddit have the best communities, with GameFAQs being a pit of toxicity ha

Good luck and keep playing, it really is great

@CJD87 Yeah, I'm just throwing myself into it as trying to figure everything out via guides is just too overwhelming.

I managed to clear the dank crypt last night so have Withers on board now. Still struggling a little with the combat but slowly getting there. Like lots of these games and strategy/RTS games it feels a little clunky/convoluted playing with a controller but I'm sure it will all become more intuitive.

After 57 hours me and my brother finally reached Baldur’s Gate. I love how easy it is to get distracted. The amount of times we planned to progress the story and then ended up spending hours doing other things instead.

@Thrillho it sounds like you are progressing at a similar way to most new players. I wasn't comfortable until I'd done quite a bit of the early area, long rested a few times at camp to see how storyline advancing works and eventually settled in to quest hunting by talking to random npcs, and exploring without a set goal just to see what I could find in a certain grove area you may or may not have stumbled upon yet.

As for the cutscene pause, there is not really many actual proper cut scenes, most are just dialgue scenes and you can quick save at any moment during those 😄

@Thrillho Hopefully the combat will grow on you the more you play. At first I wasn’t a fan, to the point that I dreaded most combat encounters, but now I’ll happily get into a fight!

@Ravix I've done plenty in Emerald Cove and picked up a fair few tasks from there. Just been exploring the Blighted Village and am heading into the goblin camp with Sazza who I freed in the Cove. Had to reload recently after opening a barn with two ogres getting it on

@Bentleyma I'm getting the hang of it. I've subbed Lae'zel and Wyll into my group which has made things seem a bit easier. I'm a bit confused as to why entering combat in stealth only lets me use my main character though.

@Thrillho your other party members will be failing stealth checks, perhaps? Stealth checks happen when you're in the red area, and a good rogue will remain hidden, whereas a giant Gith fighter... might not lol. If you separate yourself from the party you can stealth, and then have them go in after (or before) to create chaos as you sneak around assassinating, otherwise they should at least attempt to crouch if you're hitting down when grouped as a party. If you stay out of the red areas that pop up you will all remain in stealth out of combat st least.

Ahhh, the early discovery joy, I loved that phase of the game, where everything is new and random and you can discover all kinds of stuff 🤣

I bet whatever happens for you in act one is different on my entire act one, I mean I can already tell as you saved Sazza, whereas I just stopped them killing her unjustly, and then left her there once i had the information I needed 😅 which means we probably made most decisions different. I mean, for one, I accidentally discovered a secret tunnel hidden in the Grove and ended up going on a Goblin killing spree (they started it) but it literally only happened as I was being nosey and just utterly in awe of just being able to do stuff in a way I wanted 😁

@Ravix I hadn’t realised about splitting the party up but found this separately to your post and it makes quite a difference for combat! My party are now level 4 as well which is making combat easier and giving me more options to play with too.

I’ve just finished in the goblin camp and this video popped up on my Twitter feed. So many ways of taking on this area and many of them I would never even have thought of!

I did wonder what that potion the goblin “healer” gave me was meant to do but turns out the sleeping potion does nothing to my wood elf

@Thrillho you finished it? I remember spending days there exploring and going back and to before actually fighting any Goblins 🤣

Did you walk in and just start a fight, or did you chill for a while and check out some random encounters? Or did you not fight the goblins and do the other thing instead? 👀

@Ravix Because I had Sazza with me, I could just waltz into the camp and do what I want.

I had to kill the “healer”. As the sleeping potion didn’t affect me she turned aggressive. She’s meant to look the door beforehand so it’s just you but I snuck the rest of the party in and hid behind her and killed her before she called for reinforcements. Found the secret passage under her room but haven’t explored yet.

Freed the bard, spoke with everyone else, and rescued the bear/druid with the resultant fight.

So I’m just at the point of heading back to the grove to protect them from the goblins but told them I’d help them out in battle.