BG3

[Bartimaeus]

  On 8/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

About your irrational hatred for innocent bards...

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It was for the greater good. All bards are bastards.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/19/2023 at 10:20 PM, Bartimaeus said:

It was for the greater good. All bards are bastards.

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B-b-but I'm a bard! #NotAllBards

But right now I think my Bard is too good. He's good at skill checks, can do martial combat fairly well, can decently tank, and has a useful spell list. In a lot of ways it's like the opposite of what Bards were like in the IE games. Quite possibly the only negative is the lack of a unique rapier or scimitar for him to use.

[InsaneCommander]

I had that feeling of not getting things done in the beginning. But after leaving the Druid grove, there is a lot more going on.

I tried to pickpocket a guy, failed miserably and still went unnoticed when the woman that was speaking to him vanished in thin air.

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Never trust an npc that has 10 for all stats. Especially if her description says she is actually a fey.

This game does a bad job hiding things. You are warned when a perception check fails, which is basically the same as succeeding when it comes to traps with obvious mechanisms on the map.

I'm trying to be a good character, but the game won't cooperate. Unlike in other cases, I succeed at every check to avoid combat and have to come up with excuses to do it anyway. I think I'll start behaving as an intelligence 8 character and stop with the persuasion. Backstabbing globins is ok, but the Owlbear was not since it ended up causing

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the cub to eat his mother.

In another case, I blocked the doors of a house with barrels and forced the enemies to fight me one at a time. Where is my "Barrel's Gate" Achievement?

[MrBrown]

The popularity of this game continues to baffle me.

https://wccftech.com/baldurs-gate-3-topped-5-2-million-units-sold-on-steam-says-belgian-embassy/

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So I've finally found a major bug, and it's connected to a hard (for me) fight

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Auntie Ethel's Hair does not provide a +1 stat bonus like it says. I reloaded just to kill her because I was so pissed.

The fight itself is hard because her illusion clones share her spells and have their own actions....which means your party can get hit by 3 Hold Person or 4 Ray of Sickness. Oh, and she always wins initiative. It's not a great time, luckily Karlach hit her like a truck, Astarion was able to run fast and hit illusions with bonus actions, and my Bard had an AoE spell that killed her when she went invisible. I would honestly recommend waiting until you hit level 5 to hit Ethel's part of the swamp, you can do the Druid investigation outside of her area.

On the bright side, if you managed to see past the illusion for the area you realize redcaps are pretending to be sheep, which gives you a great dialogue where you play along.

[Gromnir]

  On 8/19/2023 at 10:20 PM, Bartimaeus said:

It was for the greater good. All bards are bastards.

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ad&d bards were idiotic with the triple class nonsense. 2e bards were suck. we actual liked d20 bards, but only if we had a dm who made skill checks meaningful. 4e skalds made decent leaders, but almost nobody liked 4e, so...

5e bards? the most obvious criticism we got o' d&d 5e bards is that they is too good at too many different things. parental marital status aside, am observing just how stacked is 5e bards. as charisma characters with skill bonus abilities which makes 'em a good choice as a face character, bards is an excellent choice for a single-player crpg such as bg3. bards are also full casters who are able to cherry pick the best spells from other classes. with one level o' life cleric, bards is elite healers if you wanna go that route and regardless they may provide a party a few o' the best buffs available in 5e. no, bards ain't as good as fighters in weapon combat, but they is solid and may be built better than solid if you need to be an elite weapon-haver. the bard class has many pros and few cons. 

am not planning on playing bg3 anytime soon, but if/when we do decide to give bg3 a chance, our likely first character will be a valor bard. sure, a halfling valor bard dual-wielding hand crossbows is ridiculous, but ridiculous is a selling point from our pov. we will note how the luck quality o' halflings is serious underappreciated. sure, hobbits don't fit the power fantasy image many players is trying to create with their bg3 avatar, but from a numbers pov, halfling luck is win. make intelligence a dump stat and choose drums. name animal.

 

if it makes you feel better, chances are we go dark urge which in a sense is bastard territory given the requisite dubious parentage.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Wormerine]

  On 8/20/2023 at 8:14 AM, Gromnir said:

5e bards? the most obvious criticism we got o' d&d 5e bards is that they is too good at too many different things.

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I would say it is a fair representation of being an artist - they should balance it as it is balanced in real life - underpay bards for everything.  “Well, I would pay you with this artefact if you were a worrier, but why won’t you do this quest for me for an exposure? No? Well, you clearly aren’t passionate enough about your job”. 

I do think bard is good to the point of being boring. I haven’t lost many checks and those that I did and cared about, could easily reroll using inspiration. I am out of inspiration - I burned all of it to convince

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Shadowheart to not be a dummy

[Sarex]

  On 8/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

I had to reload several times after stumbling across a phase spider queen who shoots venom. Ended up killing all the minions and luring her into a place she couldn't snipe from high up, and it only took all of my Bard's and Shadowhearts spell slots along with Wyll's warlock short rest slots. 10/10 encounter. 

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You can shove that spider of the ledge before it spawns any adds. You won't get any items though.

  On 8/20/2023 at 7:48 AM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

So I've finally found a major bug, and it's connected to a hard (for me) fight

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Try unequipping and equipping the items, that seems to fix the issues most of the time.

[MrBrown]

  On 8/20/2023 at 7:48 AM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

So I've finally found a major bug, and it's connected to a hard (for me) fight

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Auntie Ethel's Hair does not provide a +1 stat bonus like it says. I reloaded just to kill her because I was so pissed.

The fight itself is hard because her illusion clones share her spells and have their own actions....which means your party can get hit by 3 Hold Person or 4 Ray of Sickness. Oh, and she always wins initiative. It's not a great time, luckily Karlach hit her like a truck, Astarion was able to run fast and hit illusions with bonus actions, and my Bard had an AoE spell that killed her when she went invisible. I would honestly recommend waiting until you hit level 5 to hit Ethel's part of the swamp, you can do the Druid investigation outside of her area.

On the bright side, if you managed to see past the illusion for the area you realize redcaps are pretending to be sheep, which gives you a great dialogue where you play along.

 

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Magic Missile.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/20/2023 at 9:02 AM, Sarex said:

You can shove that spider of the ledge before it spawns any adds. You won't get any items though.

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I got stuck on a web and she teleported away after noticing a character. Maybe I'll give that a shot next year when the Enhanced Edition drops.

  On 8/20/2023 at 9:02 AM, Sarex said:

Try unequipping and equipping the items, that seems to fix the issues most of the time.

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It's not an item, it's supposed to be a permanent buff.

  On 8/20/2023 at 1:15 PM, MrBrown said:

Magic Missile.

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No Gale in the party and no scrolls. Didn't want to give up Astarion or Karlach whose combined single target damage clinched the deal, and Shadowheart's Guiding Bolts were useful to mark the real one.

[Bartimaeus]

My hatred for bards has expanded well beyond the simple confines of gameplay at this point: I despise the general concept of a bard and the type of character that plays them in of itself. When I clicked on the class during character creation and saw my character play the ridiculous animation in their foppish clothing, it instantly rekindled my forgotten loathing. It surely doesn't help that every time you run into one in these games, they're the absolute most annoying people that you naturally want to shove off the nearest cliff. Well, a little more than "want" in my case, considering I actually do it. There should be some kind of satisfying crunch sound for if someone dies from fall damage: what better music indeed than the succulent symphony of a bard's spine imploding into dust?

Edited August 20, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Wormerine]

  On 8/20/2023 at 3:06 PM, Bartimaeus said:

My hatred for bards has expanded well beyond the simple confines of gameplay at this point: I despise the general concept of a bard and the type of character that plays them in of itself.

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I will agree - and I find it problematic in BG3 due to how much the game defines for you. I had to work really hard to create a character I want to play with what the game gives me. Even so, it’s rather bland as quite often bard specific lines the game gives me don’t line up with how I want to roleplay. 

That isn’t issue that’s limited to bards - each class comes with pre-selected personality. I found sorcerers lines to be really insufferable in EA. 

I much prefers PoE1&2’s chanters to bards (as well as its implementation of race/class reactivity). 

[Hawke64]

Tried to start another playthrough as a wood elf (higher speed) sorcerer (Enhanced Leap and Misty Step) named Dark Urgency with 17 Str (couldn't get to 18) and 8 Int (don't need it anyway). The playthrough went reasonably well until I got into a battle against a certain lvl 11 boss and his skeleton friends. The NPC ally did what she could but not enough to win. It is the only necessary combat encounter to reach Act 3, because otherwise the army of the Absolute is blocking the road and walking into them results in being thrown into the corpse pile in the Tower (even after the departure cut-scene). Not sure if the character's class affects it, but I strongly doubt it.

An a positive note, I saved the tiefling bard with some help from Shadowheart. In the morning, the bard stood in a red circle for some reason and did not take the party to the Grove, but we still got a follower. On a related note, if the PC is dead when Raphael visits the camp during Long Rest and the party does not have any resurrection scrolls, it soft-locks the game - the devil does not want to talk to a companion. The butler (?) did not appear yet.

I probably will try to roll back a bit or try the same with a bard.

  On 8/20/2023 at 8:14 AM, Gromnir said:

ad&d bards were idiotic with the triple class nonsense. 2e bards were suck. we actual liked d20 bards, but only if we had a dm who made skill checks meaningful. 4e skalds made decent leaders, but almost nobody liked 4e, so...

5e bards? the most obvious criticism we got o' d&d 5e bards is that they is too good at too many different things. parental marital status aside, am observing just how stacked is 5e bards. as charisma characters with skill bonus abilities which makes 'em a good choice as a face character, bards is an excellent choice for a single-player crpg such as bg3. bards are also full casters who are able to cherry pick the best spells from other classes. with one level o' life cleric, bards is elite healers if you wanna go that route and regardless they may provide a party a few o' the best buffs available in 5e. no, bards ain't as good as fighters in weapon combat, but they is solid and may be built better than solid if you need to be an elite weapon-haver. the bard class has many pros and few cons. 

am not planning on playing bg3 anytime soon, but if/when we do decide to give bg3 a chance, our likely first character will be a valor bard. sure, a halfling valor bard dual-wielding hand crossbows is ridiculous, but ridiculous is a selling point from our pov. we will note how the luck quality o' halflings is serious underappreciated. sure, hobbits don't fit the power fantasy image many players is trying to create with their bg3 avatar, but from a numbers pov, halfling luck is win.

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Thank you for the information (wasn't familiar with the class' implementation in the previous editions) and I agree that the ridiculousness is one of the main points of Larian's design.

[Bartimaeus]

  On 8/20/2023 at 4:15 PM, Wormerine said:

I will agree - and I find it problematic in BG3 due to how much the game defines for you. I had to work really hard to create a character I want to play with what the game gives me. Even so, it’s rather bland as quite often bard specific lines the game gives me don’t line up with how I want to roleplay. 

That isn’t issue that’s limited to bards - each class comes with pre-selected personality. I found sorcerers lines to be really insufferable in EA. 

I much prefers PoE1&2’s chanters to bards (as well as its implementation of race/class reactivity). 

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It was honestly already a problem in primarily text-based games like even BG1/2, but it gets even worse when you throw in fully voiced dialogue*: there are going to be significantly less options to choose from due to the expense of having to voice what NPCs say back. So you get a lot of bland and/or mildly window dressed dialogue options that will work to get the same responses. There's definitely a lot of dissonance for me as well, as I'm playing a baby-faced Dark Urge Cthulhu-warlock, who I kind of imagine as being Elizabeth Bathory, and trying to navigate between "I'm fantasizing about tearing off and eating that person's face right now", "hello, I'm Mr. Krabs, and I like money", and "oh, the poor widdle bardy bard needs some help writing her sad little song about her dead master :'(" can be a lot of whiplash. I want to try to roleplay as my character, but I don't necessarily want to play Stupid Evil and murder everyone she meets. I feel like you almost have to imagine your own responses that at least sound more suitable for whatever you're trying to play, rather than what's literally written...but that basically takes you down the path of a kind of meta-gaming, as now you're thinking about dialogue options as "what do I want to happen" instead of "what should I say", and that's not great.

Of course, I know how it would take an utterly ridiculous amount of just writing (never mind voice-acting!) to really cover all one's bases, which is probably a point in favor of always playing a very generic main character that you view simply as a narrative tool rather than a real character. I mentioned a while back about it being very difficult to take roleplaying seriously in these kinds of games, and this has always definitely been one of the big problems with it.

*Mind you, I'm still of the opinion that semi-voiced is much better than fully voiced. I like characters having voiced lines to give them their unique flavor while also indicating their particular style and tone, as well as using voiced lines for dramatic punctuation and whatnot, but I prefer being able to go through dialogue at my own speed, which having everything be fully voiced is a huge impediment to. And I'm not going to sit through and listen to all of this idiot bard's entire dialogue tree, but constantly skipping all of their lines feels pretty disruptive and dissatisfying as well: semi-voiced a la the Infinity Engine games made for a delicate bridge between those two competing issues rather effectively.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Bartimaeus
double "effective"

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/20/2023 at 4:15 PM, Wormerine said:

That isn’t issue that’s limited to bards - each class comes with pre-selected personality. I found sorcerers lines to be really insufferable in EA. 

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Maybe it's because I'm rolling a Dark Urge, but I haven't noticed that. Unless you're talking about the class specific dialogue options and not comments the character makes.

Haven't played it since last night, but I forgot to mention Astarion and Karlach both came onto my Bard. Karlach needed to cool down so I threw some water at her.

[majestic]

The game just randomly decided to reset back to default. I started the game as usual, got greeted by the EULA, went through gamma correction and had to rebind my keys. I hope it doesn't do that again, otherwise I might have to go Dark Urge on it.

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:23 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Haven't played it since last night, but I forgot to mention Astarion and Karlach both came onto my Bard. Karlach needed to cool down so I threw some water at her.

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Lae'zel already told me she'll get what is hers at a time of her choosing. I can already see Bruno fawning over her.

Edited August 20, 2023 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:52 PM, majestic said:

Lae'zel already told me she'll get what is hers at a time of her choosing. I can already see Bruno fawning over her.

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Apparently she's into bondage.

[Bartimaeus]

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:52 PM, majestic said:

The game just randomly decided to reset back to default. I started the game as usual, got greeted by the EULA, went through gamma correction and had to rebind my keys. I hope it doesn't do that again, otherwise I might have to go Dark Urge on it.

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I've run into two weird bugs repeatedly (at least five times each) so far:

1. My controls get "desynchronized". Essentially, I will click to move somewhere, and instead of my character moving to where my cursor is, it goes somewhere else completely different. When this happens, it's not just that one click, but rather all further attempts at doing anything (including even using the hotbars and menus) are busted in this manner, and there is no apparent fix except to restart the game. I wasn't able to determine the how/why of this happens, but it may be something to do with minimizing the game, I'm not entirely sure.

2. The timestamps and order of my saves get muddled. My latest quick saves will suddenly start to have wrong and much earlier timestamps, and the game will place them many slots below the one prior to the bug starting to occur (maybe as much as 20 or 30 slots), and thus quick loading will load the old quick save instead of the new quick save. Making new quick saves does not help, the game must be restarted to start getting correct timestamps again (which will make new quick saves appear at the top of the list and be preferred for quick loading once again).

Edited August 20, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Wormerine]

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:23 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Unless you're talking about the class specific dialogue options and not comments the character makes.

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Yes, I am referring to class dialogue options. It’s been a minxed thing for bard. There were some good ones etc. I know this or can do this because I am a bard, but there has been also some odd ones.

[MrBrown]

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:52 PM, majestic said:

The game just randomly decided to reset back to default. I started the game as usual, got greeted by the EULA, went through gamma correction and had to rebind my keys. I hope it doesn't do that again, otherwise I might have to go Dark Urge on it.

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Game crashed for me once, and recommended to check the files (using steam, I think?). This reset all the settings, including the collector's edition items (endless gold bug!).

Edited August 20, 2023 by MrBrown

[MrBrown]

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:23 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Haven't played it since last night, but I forgot to mention Astarion and Karlach both came onto my Bard. Karlach needed to cool down so I threw some water at her.

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All my companions are coming onto me. It's quite annoying.

There seems to be some cut-off point, where you can lock in to a relationship. After that some of them started crying I chose someone else.

[Hawke64]

  On 8/20/2023 at 7:09 PM, MrBrown said:

All my companions are coming onto me. It's quite annoying.

There seems to be some cut-off point, where you can lock in to a relationship. After that some of them started crying I chose someone else.

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I think, if you've finished the Grove/Goblins storyline before reaching the approval thresholds, the romance events don't happen. At least, it was the first thing I did and then had those scenes only in Act 3 from a new companion and the Dream Guardian.

[InsaneCommander]

  On 8/20/2023 at 3:06 PM, Bartimaeus said:

My hatred for bards has expanded well beyond the simple confines of gameplay at this point: I despise the general concept of a bard and the type of character that plays them in of itself. When I clicked on the class during character creation and saw my character play the ridiculous animation in their foppish clothing, it instantly rekindled my forgotten loathing. It surely doesn't help that every time you run into one in these games, they're the absolute most annoying people that you naturally want to shove off the nearest cliff. Well, a little more than "want" in my case, considering I actually do it. There should be some kind of satisfying crunch sound for if someone dies from fall damage: what better music indeed than the succulent symphony of a bard's spine imploding into dust?

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You should retrain Wyll into a Bard. It will be even more satisfying when you kill him.

  On 8/20/2023 at 5:58 PM, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Apparently she's into bondage.

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Don't be naughty. It's "built for function rather than fun".

[BruceVC]

  On 8/20/2023 at 7:09 PM, MrBrown said:

All my companions are coming onto me. It's quite annoying.

There seems to be some cut-off point, where you can lock in to a relationship. After that some of them started crying I chose someone else.

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Be strong, I am confident you can handle companions hitting on you. Your character is trying to save the world, consider this another challenge in your journey 

https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-review/

BG3 got 97/100 from PC Gamer and the gaming journalist says its the best RPG he has ever played. GOTY for sure?

[bugarup]

  On 8/21/2023 at 6:54 AM, BruceVC said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-review/

BG3 got 97/100 from PC Gamer and the gaming journalist says its the best RPG he has ever played. GOTY for sure?

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I'm 3+ years from playing this game and am experiencing hype backslash already.