Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

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Caliane

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Looking forward to Icewind Dale and a fully-customizable party being the intention, but I'm enjoying characters with actual personality in the meantime.

Are Planescape and Tides sci-fi games or are they also D&D? Got the impression they were sci-fi or sci-fi adjacent.

Speaking of sci-fi I might finally play Fallout 1 and 2 at some point in the CRPG Crusade, and believe it or not I haven't played Warcraft 3 or Diablo 2 yet either so I might as well slide them into the pile. Assuming WC1/2 and D1 aren't necessary. I'll probably need to trim some fat from this list if I want to actually get through it.

I've got WC3 (Battle Chest) and D2 (Switch remaster) as well as pretty much everything on the list I posted before. What's the best way to play Fallout 1 and 2 these days? Surprised they never got an Enhanced Edition type remaster. I guess buy the trilogy version on PC?


I forgot there was a "Fallout Tactics", never hear anything about it.
planescape is d&d/spelljammer. takes place in Sigil. the city of doors.

tides is sci-fi/fantasy. takes place in the far far future. the ninth world like middleearth/hyborian age. but now, 5 "eras/worlds" removed from us. civilization has formed, built spaceships, collapsed, 8 times.
you the PC are the cast off clone body of the Changing god, who has formed its own consciousness.

for the fallouts. possibly. could also just do the more modern Wasteland 2 and 3.
 

Asshat wormie

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Looking forward to Icewind Dale and a fully-customizable party being the intention, but I'm enjoying characters with actual personality in the meantime.

Are Planescape and Tides sci-fi games or are they also D&D? Got the impression they were sci-fi or sci-fi adjacent.

Speaking of sci-fi I might finally play Fallout 1 and 2 at some point in the CRPG Crusade, and believe it or not I haven't played Warcraft 3 or Diablo 2 yet either so I might as well slide them into the pile. Assuming WC1/2 and D1 aren't necessary. I'll probably need to trim some fat from this list if I want to actually get through it.

I've got WC3 (Battle Chest) and D2 (Switch remaster) as well as pretty much everything on the list I posted before. What's the best way to play Fallout 1 and 2 these days? Surprised they never got an Enhanced Edition type remaster. I guess buy the trilogy version on PC?


I forgot there was a "Fallout Tactics", never hear anything about it.
Fallout Tactics was great. On par with 1 and 2 imo.
 
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Borzak

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Done the series multiple times over the years. Reading this thread reminds me how shallow/bad some new games are. 20+ years later and didn't improve much.
 
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Rajaah

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20230314_210917.jpg

Noob question, when I get scrolls like this with a spell on them, can mages "scribe" those? Or are they just a one-shot quick item?

My "Mage Spells" book is empty and no options to add anything to it.

As it is all my casters have is Magic Missile and it's been like that for ages (on Chapter 3 now) so I'm pretty close to just letting the non-Dyna mages fall off and get replaced by fighters.

Fallout Tactics was great. On par with 1 and 2 imo.

Is it a Tactics style game? Like FF Tactics? Or an RTS? Was said earlier that it's a different kind of game than FO1 and 2 being CRPGs.
 

Asshat wormie

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View attachment 463508
Noob question, when I get scrolls like this with a spell on them, can mages "scribe" those? Or are they just a one-shot quick item?

My "Mage Spells" book is empty and no options to add anything to it.

As it is all my casters have is Magic Missile and it's been like that for ages (on Chapter 3 now) so I'm pretty close to just letting the non-Dyna mages fall off and get replaced by fighters.



Is it a Tactics style game? Like FF Tactics? Or an RTS? Was said earlier that it's a different kind of game than FO1 and 2 being CRPGs.
Yeah its turn based combat closer to FF Tactics than crpgs
 

Prodigal

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A mage should be able to right click on a mage scroll in inventory and choose scribe to add it to their spell book.
 

Burns

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A mage should be able to right click on a mage scroll in inventory and choose scribe to add it to their spell book.
This. For the first copies you get, you scribe (learn) the scrolls for the mages you plan to keep, then you can use them like consumables. Be aware: Wizards can not scribe scrolls from the opposite spell school of their various specialties. Example: Xan can not scribe/learn Fireball and Dynaheir can not learn sleep.
 
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Rajaah

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This. For the first copies you get, you scribe (learn) the scrolls for the mages you plan to keep, then you can use them like consumables. Be aware: Wizards can not scribe scrolls from the opposite spell school of their various specialties. Example: Xan can not scribe/learn Fireball and Dynaheir can not learn sleep.

Cool, now I get it, the character in question needs to have it in their inventory and examine it. I pooled all my spells to Dynaheir and booted out the other two, getting a lot more exp now with hero/Minsc/Imoen/Dynaheir. Might just keep it like this, might go back and recruit Jaheira/Khalid again, unsure. Right now I'm farming Ankhegs for mega-exp up north, got a few characters at Level 3. Last story advancement I did was the bandit camp.
 

Ridas

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One important advice. If you plan to play BG2 with the same hero, you will import him over at the start. All his stats and exp will carry over.
In BG1 you will find a Tome for each stat. Use it on your hero. There are more in BG2 and it will make your main a powerhouse in stats. Don't waste them on companions. In BG2 you can chose whoever.
 
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TJT

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View attachment 463508
Noob question, when I get scrolls like this with a spell on them, can mages "scribe" those? Or are they just a one-shot quick item?

My "Mage Spells" book is empty and no options to add anything to it.

As it is all my casters have is Magic Missile and it's been like that for ages (on Chapter 3 now) so I'm pretty close to just letting the non-Dyna mages fall off and get replaced by fighters.



Is it a Tactics style game? Like FF Tactics? Or an RTS? Was said earlier that it's a different kind of game than FO1 and 2 being CRPGs.
Is this the enhanced edition btw? It looks pretty good and clean.
 
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Rajaah

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Yeah, it's the EE. I've got the EEs for BG1+2, ID+PT, and NW. Gotta go original version for FO1+2 and TOEE which I wasn't planning on until today.

On Chapter 6 now, everyone's at level 6-7 and finally kicking some ass. The Ankheg cave got me several levels, and you can also lug their shells back to Beregost to sell for 500 G each. Don't need to worry about money anymore after that.

Took Monday off, then yesterday was a snow emergency, so I basically plowed BG1 for like 20 hours between them. I couldn't seem to turn the game off and now it's almost done, I think. BG2 soon.

Also bought Fallout 1+2 and Temple of Elemental Evil so those can go on the list too. I think my current order is looking something like:

-Baldur's Gate (Almost done)
-Baldur's Gate II (Plus Temple of Bhaal)
-Fallout (Might do this alongside BGII since for the first time ever I really feel like playing FO1)
-Fallout 2
-Planescape Torment
-Icewind Dale (Might do this one sooner, like after BGII, cause dungeon crawling and character customization are two things I wish BG had more of)
-Temple of Elemental Evil (Read that this is a tremendous game, but also read that it's terrible without mods, so unsure at the moment)
-Neverwinter Nights
-Pillars of Eternity
-Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
-Divinity: Original Sin
-Divinity: Original Sin II
-Pathfinder
-Pathfinder II

Edit: Added notes
 
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Borzak

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Icewind is a real dungeon crawl, but it's light on the story compared to BG1 and 2.
 

Tholan

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One important advice. If you plan to play BG2 with the same hero, you will import him over at the start. All his stats and exp will carry over.
In BG1 you will find a Tome for each stat. Use it on your hero. There are more in BG2 and it will make your main a powerhouse in stats. Don't waste them on companions. In BG2 you can chose whoever.
If i remember correctly, one of the tome was in the Shipwreck's coast in a cave full of sirens ?
 

Tuco

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I played Fallout 1 after FO3 came out I think. It held up nicely. If you like BG1 I think you'll enjoy Fallout 1.

Rajaah Rajaah impressive progress! In the time you've gone through a huge chunk of BG1 I've played for about an hour and it's been the only game I've played. Keep us up to date!
 
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Ridas

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Fallout 1 is a good game, but Fallout 2 is the real deal. It is a great game and has some funny moments. You can even play with Int 1 and you are basically a cave man then and get treated accordingly.

And yes, one Tome is in a Sirens Cave. Another one at Gnoll Stronghold. Others are Candlekeep Catacombs and Baldurs Gate I think.
 
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Rajaah

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I played Fallout 1 after FO3 came out I think. It held up nicely. If you like BG1 I think you'll enjoy Fallout 1.

Rajaah Rajaah impressive progress! In the time you've gone through a huge chunk of BG1 I've played for about an hour and it's been the only game I've played. Keep us up to date!

I set aside a lot of time for it and then could not turn it off, was crazy. Been ages since that happened. Not sure what it is that's so compelling about this game, but I always wanted to finish a level up, or look into a side quest someone gave me, or check out a newly-appeared map location. It was so hard to stop playing to like, sleep.

I really like this game, but it's also very... proto? Like I'm looking forward to seeing how some of the others advance on the formula, especially visually. PoE1 is 60 FPS and BG1 is like 20 FPS which was rough after trying PoE1.

Looks like all I have left are a relatively short Chapter 6 and 7 that are basically two big dungeons. I'm surprised I made so much progress in the game because I didn't use a walkthrough at all and had to figure it out about 50% from scratch. Only even referred to the guidebook on things like classes and stats. Just totally winged it in the actual game progression outside of that and this board. Did a fair amount of side quests, but focused on the main quest, and the game was always pretty clear about where to go next and what to do.

Never got "lost" which I expected to a lot in an open game like this. Closest thing I can think of in console RPGdom is Romancing SaGa 2 and 3 on the SNES/SFC (now also on Switch I believe). They both have similar open world maps where new locations unlock as you go. I spent a ton of time just outright lost in those games though. Vague objectives and usually unlocking any of the important locations meant talking to the right person, who could be like 8 zones away. Baldur's Gate actually did this formula right with clear objectives and letting me unlock things by simple exploration.

Looking at the world map, I visited about two thirds of the locations on it and did a fair amount of side quests but probably nowhere near all of them. Didn't see any of the southeast side of the map (mountains etc). If BGII uses the same maps maybe I'll see those areas there.

One important advice. If you plan to play BG2 with the same hero, you will import him over at the start. All his stats and exp will carry over.
In BG1 you will find a Tome for each stat. Use it on your hero. There are more in BG2 and it will make your main a powerhouse in stats. Don't waste them on companions. In BG2 you can chose whoever.

Alright, I'll make sure I do this before I finish the game. I don't think my Paladin needs Int but I'll get some of the others. Gonna finally use some guides for this. Next time I play (tonight probably if I don't get tied up) the plan is:

-Finish Chapter 6 dungeon (Tomes of Str and Wis here)
-Get Cha Tome from Gnoll Stronghold (a place I thoroughly plundered earlier, hope I didn't get it and sell it or something)
-Get Con Tome from Pirate Cave
-Chapter 7 dungeon (getting Dex Tome on the way)

Optional: Two other Wis tomes I could get and I could grind more Ankhegs (or better yet Sirens) for a couple more levels. Not sure what level you need to finish the game but I have everyone at 6-7 and they were taking a full-on beating in Ch 6 so far. I'd rather just finish the game rather than doing more grinding though, and grinding seems very unnecessary in this game. Only did it midway to catch-up (2-3 to 4-5) since the main story was outpacing the party levels.
 

Rajaah

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Gonna miss running around at bardspeed with the Cheetah Boots. Don't even remember where I got those but it was a real game-changer. Was zipping all over the place for the second half of the game. Not looking forward to going back to normal walk speed in future games. These boots are probably a lot of the reason why I booked it through the second half of the game so fast.

Annnd game beaten, everyone was at level 6. There were a few very nasty parts later on, like the spiders with AOE webs (unless you bring the Spider's Bane 2HS), and the twin basilisks at the end of Ch 6 (unless you bring a bunch of anti-petrify scrolls from a temple). Got most of the stat tomes, everything except Int and some Wis.

The final chapter was pretty hard, particularly several of the group battles (the one outside the final boss temple and the one in the temple, right before the final boss). Had to pull the foes out one at a time to have a chance and it took a while. I thought the final battle was straight-up impossible for a few minutes, then realized the thing that was annihilating me were room traps around the giant floor face, not the actual fight.

Beat the game on Normal. Have Golden Pantaloons and that one good helm and a few other things to hopefully bring into the next game. I should skip the Siege of Dragonspear inter-quel, yeah? Since it's newer Beamdog content and would eat up a bunch of time. Kind of tempted to play it anyway just to get the "full picture" so someone tell me it's unnecessary!

Starting BG2 RIGHT NOW
 
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Burns

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Gonna miss running around at bardspeed with the Cheetah Boots. Don't even remember where I got those but it was a real game-changer. Was zipping all over the place for the second half of the game. Not looking forward to going back to normal walk speed in future games. These boots are probably a lot of the reason why I booked it through the second half of the game so fast.

Annnd game beaten, everyone was at level 6. There were a few very nasty parts later on, like the spiders with AOE webs (unless you bring the Spider's Bane 2HS), and the twin basilisks at the end of Ch 6 (unless you bring a bunch of anti-petrify scrolls from a temple). Got most of the stat tomes, everything except Int and some Wis.

The final chapter was pretty hard, particularly several of the group battles (the one outside the final boss temple and the one in the temple, right before the final boss). Had to pull the foes out one at a time to have a chance and it took a while. I thought the final battle was straight-up impossible for a few minutes, then realized the thing that was annihilating me were room traps around the giant floor face, not the actual fight.

Beat the game on Normal. Have Golden Pantaloons and that one good helm and a few other things to hopefully bring into the next game. I should skip the Siege of Dragonspear inter-quel, yeah? Since it's newer Beamdog content and would eat up a bunch of time. Kind of tempted to play it anyway just to get the "full picture" so someone tell me it's unnecessary!

Starting BG2 RIGHT NOW
You can always play Siege of Dragonspear when you replay the game in a year or two. I think it's ~20 hours and you can bring 10 or so items over to BG2. It was forgettable content though.
 

Rajaah

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I think I'll give SoD a run and switch it down to Story Mode, just to get the story without struggling with the actual gameplay portion. This'll also make it take a lot less time. I'll turn it back up to Normal for BG2.

I checked out the beginning of both of them already, and while BG2 is definitely higher-quality, SoD's story is interesting enough that it grabbed me quickly. Going from being a wandering hero/outcast type in BG1 to a hero of the realm and worshipped war leader with throngs of people turning out to see you in the first chapter of SoD was a trip. Main thing that makes me want to play it though is that you go to Avernus (Hell 1) at some point and a whole chapter takes place there. Been wanting to see a D&D game (module or video game) that goes into the Nine Hells pretty much forever.

When I was looking this up, I saw something in the wiki about how Planescape Torment also goes to the Hells. How much, though?