Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

Kharzette said:

My game ended with a your party has been defeated (I can see through the darkened screen that everyone is alive and full health). I reload and it just happens again. This was after a rest.

So I guess I'm starting over?

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Go back an auto/quick save.

Is hold person basically an i win button? You can use heightened spell with sorc + hold person and almost guarantee it lands, the shit just takes an enemy out of the encounter.
Tasha’s laughter is also a great spell, though atleast that one is more like a mez as you can’t do dmg. I haven’t played a dnd game in ages kind of funny hearing these spells names that are only faintly recognizable to me from 20+ yrs ago

I think I'd have to go back alot of hours, through some crazy dire peril. I'll investigate.

mkopec said:

Do the women characters throw themselves at your male character the same?

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In my game, yes. Laezel told me she was going to taste me "one of these nights" and that was only a few hours in. After the second night at camp, literally as I entered the druid Grove.

Shadowheart is a little different since her whole thing is about keeping info close to the chest but she definitely started showing me attention sooner rather than later. And karlach literally within the first conversation shes like, I'm all pent up and all I think about is sex.

Conversely, I've spent regular time talking to the males and while gale is showing some level of trust/affection, not a single one has hit on me despite knowing that they can and will.

I think it's just the latent foh degenerate homosexuality on these boards. You know, the " thou doth protest too much" crowd

Jesus Karlach as a frenzy barb is a monster. She hits like a damn truck. There’s been times when she is under frenzy she 2 shotted an enemy like it was nothing. I definitely have to do a playthrough with a barb.

Yea if you like Karlach as an NPC do yourself a favor and go respec her out of shitty animal rage and in to berserker immediately. They gigabuffed how frenzy works and how it builds its fatigue stacks or whatever and she can absolutely obliterate big single targets with it

Nola said:

Jesus Karlach as a frenzy barb is a monster. She hits like a damn truck. There’s been times when she is under frenzy she 2 shotted an enemy like it was nothing. I definitely have to do a playthrough with a barb.

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I did like 8 play throughs in EA and Barb was by far my favorite. Wasn't expecting it. Only got convinced to try it after reading some posts. My big hang up was that I didn't want to play a character with zero RP skills because I didn't want to miss out on stuff. Turns out Barb Intimidate plus Tief Thaum opens up an entirely new way to play through dialog. Almost as effective as a High Cha character and more fun.

Pasteton said:

Is hold person basically an i win button? You can use heightened spell with sorc + hold person and almost guarantee it lands, the shit just takes an enemy out of the encounter.
Tasha’s laughter is also a great spell, though atleast that one is more like a mez as you can’t do dmg. I haven’t played a dnd game in ages kind of funny hearing these spells names that are only faintly recognizable to me from 20+ yrs ago

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Yes, hold person is an amazing spell. A lot of people use casters as nukers, which they absolutely can be (in my weekly game I'm a storm sorc 8, tempest cleric 2, my teammates are a homebrewed battle master and a monk and pretty much every round i do triple the damage of the other two), but using casters as controllers is INCREDIBLY powerful. Being able to just outright remove combatants from a fight with things like banish, hold person, hideous laughter, etc cannot be overstated.

The issue is that as you start getting higher level, the creatures you face start getting better and better tools to deal with abilities like that. The most straightforward are legendary actions and legendary resistances. Legendary actions let the creature take certain actions on someone else's turn, and legendary resistances let the creature just choose to make a saving throw (generally 3 times per day). Most of the time your not going to fight a large group of enemies with legendary resistances, unless you really screw up or your DM is trying to kill you, so you can still rely on hold person and the like in plenty of circumstances, but you are absolutely not going to be succeeding if you try to banish an adult dragon in the first couple of rounds

Hold person is very situational, but extremely powerful when it's the right time for it. Trying to spam hold person in the Gith stronghold for example is gonna be a bad time.

I think the two most busted things I've stumbled in to far are are the Thief subclass giving you an extra action, and taking a single multiclass level of wizard on your arcane caster letting you scribe scrolls of any level. My bard picked up a single level of wizard and could immediately scribe fireball/haste/ice storm scrolls I had sitting around and can cast them as bard spells lol

ronne said:

Hold person is very situational, but extremely powerful when it's the right time for it. Trying to spam hold person in the Gith stronghold for example is gonna be a bad time.

I think the two most busted things I've stumbled in to far are are the Thief subclass giving you an extra action, and taking a single multiclass level of wizard on your arcane caster letting you scribe scrolls of any level. My bard picked up a single level of wizard and could immediately scribe fireball/haste/ice storm scrolls I had sitting around and can cast them as bard spells lol

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yeah, they did some sideways stuff with spells in this game. in theory it's supposed to streamline stuff but the reality is that it allows you to do things like that. it defines class spells in only the most loosest of terms.

on that topic, i appreciate that they are wanting people to not feel so overwhelmed by spell options, but i also hate that it chooses your pact of the tome warlock spells for you. man, i don't want that whip spell. or vicious mockery. guidance is nice, but only because the people i'm playing with didn't pick a class that has it, and even then, there's that necklace that has it. i want to pick SPECIFIC spells. boo

j00t said:

yeah, they did some sideways stuff with spells in this game. in theory it's supposed to streamline stuff but the reality is that it allows you to do things like that. it defines class spells in only the most loosest of terms.

on that topic, i appreciate that they are wanting people to not feel so overwhelmed by spell options, but i also hate that it chooses your pact of the tome warlock spells for you. man, i don't want that whip spell. or vicious mockery. guidance is nice, but only because the people i'm playing with didn't pick a class that has it, and even then, there's that necklace that has it. i want to pick SPECIFIC spells. boo

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I'm really not feeling warlock in general honestly. The game encourages such frequent long rests that I find the wizard guy to be way more valuable with huge entire spellbook being available for swapping for weird niche situations like needing a fly or grease or whatever, and with his recharge skill he can go balls out just as hard as warlock.

ronne said:

Yea if you like Karlach as an NPC do yourself a favor and go respec her out of shitty animal rage and in to berserker immediately. They gigabuffed how frenzy works and how it builds its fatigue stacks or whatever and she can absolutely obliterate big single targets with it

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I am using her, can you explain what you mean by that? I am using her default (wild magic) that she has. From what I understand it only gives positive effects (has so far), like adding explosive bombs every turn, damage shields and the likes. But she doesn't hit that hard so far (level 4).

I think I'm 20? hours in, still in Act 1. Running around, finding new stuff everywhere. Not gone to underdark yet. The game is so good. Music and audio, including voice acing is all S tier. Story is interesting. Combat is fun on tactician, only had to reload a few fights. The large spider queen for instance because Wyll eldrich blasted her off a cliff and I lost my loot which is unacceptable. That was the first try and it went really well. Then she proceeded to oneshot my characters on the next 6-7 attempts since her additional attacks keep hitting downed characters putting them at full death status. Guess she kept a grudge from the first try.

The music at some moments of this game is really quite epic


There is an ability that you can get that summons a pack of ghouls, and their ability to paralyse on hit is overpowered as hell. You summon up a pack, and within a turn or two you can CC most monsters. Combine that with a wizard lobbing empowered fireballs, or chain lightning, and it can turn big groups of tough monsters into a bit of a joke.

The level 12 cap is a bit of shame, as you hit that surprisingly quickly once you reach Act 3, and then its purely gear based progression, with some of the gear being pretty ridicously overpowered compared to the relatively situational effects of the magic items in Act 1.

All round though, its a really excellent game, and I'm already excited for my next playthrough to try out some of the bigger options that I didn't try on my "go go good team" Paladin run.

I went back as far as I dared and still have my resting == game over problem.

Kharzette said:

I went back as far as I dared and still have my resting == game over problem.

Spoiler: Theory

I think it might have something to do with the wizard companion. He died early on and I didn't have money to resurrect him so he's just been kind of rotting in camp. Has a stink area around him.

Right before the game unceremoniously ends his corpse levitates for a bit. Would be nice if it would explain what is going on and why some dead guy I barely know is causing my party to be "defeated" when they are all standing at full health.

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That's funny, and it would jive with Gale's story. You don't have any revival scrolls? I have never used the undead respec guy for a rez, vs just stealing/buying a scroll.