Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Butter]

It's almost as if you can gain reputation with the factions and party members throughout the course of the game...

You're right. Getting pegged by your party members is so much more satisfying after 20 hours of them bitching at you.

 

[J1M]

It's almost as if you can gain reputation with the factions and party members throughout the course of the game...

Pop media used to be powerfantasy, now it's miseryfantasy
And I don't mean BG3, I can't even buy the damn thing

Buy it from GOG instead.

 

[Robber Baron]

Buy it from GOG instead.

I plan to coop it with a friend and don't want to rebuy it on Steam

 

[Shrimp]

Buy it from GOG instead.

I plan to coop it with a friend and don't want to rebuy it on Steam

I was under the impression it'd have crossplay between different versions? IIRC even cracked versions could play with GOG/Steam users since Larian didn't bother putting in any DRM.
I'm fairly certain this was the case with their previous games at least, but I don't know if this one's going to be any different.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

That article linked shitting on the game was pretty gay, TBH. Right away I know I'm in for the worst type of BG fan because he was hoping for MINSC AND BOO style antics and drew a comparison to Star Wars to help readers understand his gripes. Then he gets all moral-faggy with the innocent fisherfolk being lead to slaughter even though he notes they are under Illithid mind control and rather than see this as the narrative clearly showing the danger of an Illithid he can't believe he just splattered a poor father and mother upside the head with a morningstar because this did not align with his moralfaggery. Then he gets super pissed how his party dislikes him and hilariously notes that the elf girl thinks his character is an incel leading me to believe that Larian has found a way to dynamically insult every player uniquely.

For that reason his complaints on the combat mean fuck-all because he's clearly a tourist and was wondering why he couldn't match spells with a lich and despite the claims he has had decades of D&D experience he is shocked that an Illithid would use mind powers to manipulate the minds of others.

He also threw shade at Fighters which means he's such a pro-magicfag that I genuinely hope the first roadblock in this game is a guy with a minor globe of invulnerability just so people like him quit.

Article sucked. BG3 will likely suck, but that article did an awful job of exposing it.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I have no money to buy Larian's outrageously priced game right now. But I would have liked to buy it if they had priced it more reasonably, or offered an EA discount. That would have been nice.

 

[Delterius]

Right away I know I'm in for the worst type of BG fan because he was hoping for MINSC AND BOO style antics and drew a comparison to Star Wars to help readers understand his gripes

wait

there's no minsc and boo antics?

this game is pure incline

 

[AwesomeButton]

The spell bound to "0" is called "Slap your dick on the table"

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Delterius]

is this game feature complete or something

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The spell bound to "0" is called "Slap your dick on the table"

View attachment 15251

I just want to take a moment to point out how ridiculous it is that hotbars still go from '1' to '='. If your hand is on the mouse you cannot fucking reach '='.
There's an entire fucking left half of the keyboard they could be using for default keybindings. This seems like something that's just blatantly copied from game to game without any thought put into it.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

I just want to take a moment to point out how ridiculous it is that hotbars still go from '1' to '='. If your hand is on the mouse you cannot fucking reach '='.
There's an entire fucking left half of the keyboard they could be using for default keybindings. This seems like something that's just blatantly copied from game to game without any thought put into it.

These niggas think you got ET fingers lololol

 

[Jezal_k23]

I'm a fan of using CTRL+Stuff, SHIFT+Stuff or ALT+Stuff. But we don't really see that anymore.

 

[Shrimp]

lol check out the Ars Technica preview: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020...access-mediocre-rpg-amazing-rendering-engine/

Somebody felt like being a contrarian today!

The reviewer starts out by gloating about how he's played D&D for 40 years yet halfway through the review he suddenly considers it a downside that the game requires you to roll dice for stat checks before making a very big deal about how he doesn't actually want to kill - let alone fight - enemies with hostile intentions towards you. Because of this he fells compelled to savescum in order to continuously reroll the CHA check until it lets him avoid combat.

Tell me again, why am I supposed to take this guy seriously?

 

[The Wall]

What we would ever do without Infi! Thanks for compiling all relevant videos, so I don't have personally to hunt them down. If World ever ends in nuclear fire, Infi will make sure we have best seats to watch the show

 

[Jezal_k23]

These early previews are all shit. I'd wait for more well thought out videos and more measured impressions.

 

[Shrimp]

The spell bound to "0" is called "Slap your dick on the table"

View attachment 15251

I just want to take a moment to point out how ridiculous it is that hotbars still go from '1' to '='. If your hand is on the mouse you cannot fucking reach '='.
There's an entire fucking left half of the keyboard they could be using for default keybindings. This seems like something that's just blatantly copied from game to game without any thought put into it.

If they remain insistent on including their enormous hotbars in their games I sure as hell hope they finally let us have multiple of them displayed at the same time.
I don't recall it being much of an issue in DOS1, but in DOS2 I frequently had to skip back and forth between 3 hotbars full of miscellaneous actions and abilities just to find the one thing I was looking for. It sure didn't help that picking up random loot like potions and scrolls automatically placed them on the bars so you had to manually drag them off to avoid them cluttering your bars even further.

 

[Cryomancer]

In a scale where 0 is SCL and 10 ToEE, how faithful BG3 is adapting D&D rules?

 

[whydoibother]

Took me 20 minutes to finish my purchase, because apparently so many people were buying on release, Steam's checkout couldn't handle it.
Then 10 minutes of preallocating disk space, first time I see that take so long.
And now I need to wait 180 minutes for the download to finish. And I have to leave early tomorrow to travel for a work related appointment.

Okay, so how do I roll dice here to determine if I make a character and go to bed, or if I make a pot of coffee?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Real monocled players use the mouse with their left hand.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm a fan of using CTRL+Stuff, SHIFT+Stuff or ALT+Stuff. But we don't really see that anymore.

I've played a lot of MMOs where you tend to have a lot of abilities and slowly moved towards modal input switching between 'modes'(active hotbars) using mouse buttons.
e.g., one mode will have single target abilities, another will have utility stuff, another will have aoe abilities, so on and so forth. Probably doesn't sound too intuitive for people that haven't used things like modal text editors.

 

[Infinitron]

In a scale where 0 is SCL and 10 ToEE, how faithful BG3 is adapting D&D rules?

I have just the article for you: https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-biggest-differences-dnd-dungeons-dragons/

Baldur’s Gate 3: Biggest Differences From D&D
Baldur's Gate 3 does a great job of staying true to most of the rules, but a few major changes were made to accommodate video gaming.

Baldur's Gate 3 is the latest game to try and adapt the Dungeons & Dragons rules to the video game format. Baldur's Gate 3 does a great job of staying true to most of the rules, but a few major changes were made to accommodate the shift to video game.

There have been a number of D&D video games released over the years and some have adapted the rules more faithfully than others. Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 did an admirable job of adapting the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, but even those games changed things when needed. Baldur's Gate 3 uses the current rules for Dungeons & Dragons, and the Early Access version of the game has revealed some of the changes that Larian Studios have made.

Grids Are Out, Lines Are In
The battles in Dungeons & Dragons games generally use a game board that is broken down into a grid, with each square equalling 5ft of movement. This determines how many squares each character can move during their round in combat.

Baldur's Gate 3 uses the exact same movement system from Divinity: Original Sin 2. Each character has a certain amount of movement each turn and they are free to move around the battlefield in a line created by the player. The other movement rules apply, such as Attacks of Opportunity, and the player can still perform the Dash action to move double their speed.

Alignment Is Gone
In D&D, a player determines their alignment at character creation, which represents a loose set of ethics and morals that they will follow. Alignment rarely comes up as an in-game mechanic in the current edition of D&D, especially when compared to the older iterations of the game, where classes were often locked behind alignments.

In Baldur's Gate 3, a player is free to decide how their character will act at any time. The player's choices will brand the character with certain tags, which will allow them to use certain dialogue options in conversation, such as a Cleric knowing about a religion or a Dwarf knowing dwarven history.

Spell Changes
Baldur's Gate 3 shows an incredible amount of devotion to the D&D ruleset, but a few spells had to be altered in order to fit within the video game environment. These include Fire Bolt dealing 1d6 damage instead of 1d10, Shocking Grasp not dealing additional damage to enemies wearing metal armor, and Blindness/Deafness being changed to Blindness, as there is no deafness status effect.

There are some spells that had an effect determined by a random dice roll changed to a specific number. In D&D, the Sleep spell affects 5d8 hit points worth of enemies, whereas the Baldur's Gate 3 version of the spell affects 24 hit points each time.

The Bonus Spell/Cantrip Rule Is Gone
The most overlooked rule in the D&D Player's Handbook is found on page 202. It states that, if a character casts a spell as a Bonus Action during their round, then the only spell they can cast with their Action has to be a Cantrip. A lot of DMs and players miss this rule, which means spells like Healing Word are far more powerful than they should be.

The Bonus Action/Cantrip spell rule is gone in Baldur's Gate 3. It's now possible for characters to cast a spell as a Bonus Action and use a regular spell as an Action. This means Clerics can cast Cure Wounds and Healing Word in the same round. It's unclear if this rule will be enforced in the full version of the game.

The Thief Subclass Is Way Better
The Thief archetype for Rogues in the D&D Player's Handbook is generally considered to be weaker than the Assassin and the Arcane Trickster. The Assassin is more effective at performing sneak attacks, while the Arcane Trickster has access to spells. By comparison, the Thief's abilities are far more situational. The Thief doesn't get a good ability until level 13 (Use Magic Device) and most D&D campaigns don't last that long.

The Thief archetype has received a boost in Baldur's Gate 3. The Fast Hands ability now gives the character an additional Bonus Action on their turn that can be used on anything, while Second-Story Work gives resistance to falling damage.

Magic Items Are More Common
Magic items are rare in the current edition of D&D. The designers decided to give player characters more abilities in response to this, while the few items that did appear were more powerful, but came with new restrictions, such as having a limited number of uses each day.

Baldur's Gate 3 is heavily based on the Divinity: Original Sin 2 engine and many magic items from that game have been adapted for D&D. As such, it's far more common to find +1 items, potions, and scrolls. The magic arrowheads and explosives from Divinity: Original Sin 2 can also be found in Baldur's Gate 3, and they can perform AoE attacks that leave effects on the battlefield.

Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access is available on Google Stadia and PC on October 6, 2020.

 

[whydoibother]

Real monocled players use the mouse with their left hand.

No, we use our dick on a drawpad.

 

[Gromlintroid]

Classic IGN, why the fuck didnt they just play for half an hour.

23 minutes sounds dumb as fuck