Baldur's Gate 3

[Lhynn]

The problem is that most of the companions flaws arent their fault.
Laez is, but weve dealt with assholes with a big mouth in other rpgs and they were fine. Surprisingly that makes her one more the more palatable companions.

Astarion is the ****** noble kid, its fine. That he is a slave of a powerful vampire is fine too. I dont like the prick, I want him under my boot, but I dont hate him either, I cant, theres nothing really to hate.

Karlach is a butch ****, except she likes the ****, and that she is nice, and that somehow makes her bearable.

Wyll is nothing, he is a bland loaf of stale bread, he is a white sheet with some doodles on the side. I cant hate him.

Gale is a mary sue, and I really should be hating this prick, but he talks silly and he never gets in the way.

Shadowheart is just all around feminine and I appreciate that, but she is not my type of woman.

They are all just not who id rather adventure with. I wish I had Xzar or Ajantis or Edwin or Kagain. Id even settle for Viconia or Shar tell, even Safana would do. But none of these fuckers interest me, they are not people I want to be saddled with, they are children, they are immature, they are more of a protagonist of the story than my character is. Every single location seems to hold things that are deeply related to their backstory, it feels like im sidekicking with a bunch of teenagers.

[Boontaker]

The problem is that most of the companions flaws arent their fault.
Laez is, but weve dealt with assholes with a big mouth in other rpgs and they were fine. Surprisingly that makes her one more the more palatable companions.

Astarion is the ****** noble kid, its fine. That he is a slave of a powerful vampire is fine too. I dont like the prick, I want him under my boot, but I dont hate him either, I cant, theres nothing really to hate.

Karlach is a butch ****, except she likes the ****, and that she is nice, and that somehow makes her bearable.

Wyll is nothing, he is a bland loaf of stale bread, he is a white sheet with some doodles on the side. I cant hate him.

Gale is a mary sue, and I really should be hating this prick, but he talks silly and he never gets in the way.

Shadowheart is just all around feminine and I appreciate that, but she is not my type of woman.

They are all just not who id rather adventure with. I wish I had Xzar or Ajantis or Edwin or Kagain. Id even settle for Viconia or Shar tell, even Safana would do. But none of these fuckers interest me, they are not people I want to be saddled with, they are children, they are immature, they are more of a protagonist of the story than my character is. Every single location seems to hold things that are deeply related to their backstory, it feels like im sidekicking with a bunch of teenagers.

This is a consequence of Larians origin gimmick. They ARE the protagonists, and unless you choose the dark urge background you are a slightly more vocal companion, just like the ones withers can summon for you. Shadowheart, Gale, Lae'zel are protagonist tier for the story arc they have. Astarions probably is as well but vampires are turbo lame at this point, I can't help but see all vampires as ****. The complete lack of ending slides is the nail in the coffin about your personal story. If we had a few slides mentioning the outcomes of your decisions and quest results that would add more satisfaction to not playing an origin character.

[agentorange]

Natural consequence of the push towards playing "yourself" in an RPG rather than embodying a character. Eventually you end up as nothing but a stat machine that watches a story unfold through other characters. You can't write a strong protagonist when you have to take into account the thrembo-billion possible choices that the player might make, especially when those choices would seem to come from wildly different personalities.

[The_Mask]

[rusty_shackleford]

Has Larian made any statements on when the editor will be released?

[maidenhaver]

Same energy:

[SoLong]

Since this game (or more precisely, a mod for the game) is the entire reason I found this forum I guess I should add my five cents?

Keep in mind I haven't played it all the way through yet. I'm at the end of Act 2 and basically just combing it and Act 1 for anything I missed just in case before I go to Act 3 and lock myself out.

First, the good:

The environment is fantastic. Not just the graphics (yes, those are neat too) but the way how gosh darn atmospheric everything is speaks very well for the designers. A lot of it can be utilized in battle as well: I can lure an obnoxiously strong spider queen on a web and destroy the web so she falls down and either insta-dies or takes a ton of fall damage. I can push enemies of ledges straight to their deaths. I can lure them into water and freeze them solid or electrocute them until they're crispy.

The battle system also managed to win me over. Battles can take a long time depending on how good your team works but it's nice and very accessible in my opinion. Some of the changes to initiative made some feats rather OP though, if you can afford them since feats are so expensive in 5e.

The characters, as a whole, are good. Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach are the most well-rounded of the lot. Their characters have an actual arc and Lae'zel in particular won my heart (platonically at least) because I expected her to be yet another bland-as-beige Strong Female Character (because there aren't enough of those Reying lying around). The meh/bad ones are discussed later.

Instead she's a very conflicted woman who, while being very physically strong and intimidating, has her entire being built around serving someone who is ultimately not worth her loyalty. It was actually quite interesting to watch her character develop.

Shadowheart is also in the "this person is not worth your loyalty, for the love of god STOP" camp. I found it very fitting that she and Lae'zel hated each other despite the fact that, out of everyone in the group, they had the most in common.

Karlach reminds me of an older female relative and I can't hate her. She's fun to be around even if her connection to Wyll's patron feels a bit flimsy.

The storyline is also good. There are all the neccessary ingredients for a truly outstanding adventure in here, even if the writing stumbles in very predictable places (more on that later). Some of the side characters and villains outright steal the show (Hi Auntie Ethel!). Some goes for the music which manages to be immersive without bombing an entire orchestra every other battle.

I also appreciate that the game trusts me to figure stuff out myself and doesn't tutorialize me until I fall into a coma. As a side note, I thought it a nice touch that the child characters in game aren't invincible, making certain decisions much more serious than they usually swould've been in other games.

As a last note: I still found little secrets and side areas after going through everything in Act 1 and 2. (Like a hidden cove full of fanatically religious ku-toa. Very short quest and side trip but utterly hilarious).

The meh:

The entire thing is based on DnD 5e and even though I think that the character building options in DnD 5e are more restrictive than in, say, Pathfinder it's still relatively solid.

It just annoys me that we have to choose between a feat or attributes +2 because the attributes are almost always going to be better. This also has the side effect of making multiclassing a huge clusterfuck for newbies to the game or genre, which is probably why the easiest difficulty stops you from multiclassing alltogether.

Some of the mechanics can bug out or behave weirdly. There are certain debuffs that get applied when you are spotted killing some NPC which can last even if everyone in the faction is later killed and this mechanic even persists if the NPCs turn against you (the goblin camp in Act 1 is prone to this if you choose to infiltrate instead of just mowing your way through).

There are, unfortunately, characters who aren't as good as the three leading ladies. Astarion and Gale I would place on the high end of meh because they do have good characterization and writing. I just don't really warm up to their characters. I want to like Astarion since he fits into the foppish thief mold I usually enjoy in games but he's just a bit too much of an *******. He also disapproves of decisions that are in his own best interest for seemingly no other reason than to be a **** (like saving Isobel at Last Light, because letting the villain kidnap the only source of protection against the curse trying to kill everyone is such a good idea to him).

Gale is... bland. Not offensively bland yet but the problem is that he gives every other kind of magic caster **** (at least with a sorcerer the back and forth sniping is hilarious) but if you also play a wizard Gale treats your character like and upstart and overshadows you nearly completely. And well, chances are you might want a wizard because BG3 has made several changes that male sorcerers less desirable. You can now change out wizard spells on the fly (meaning you don't need to long rest to change your selection) and you can cast any prepared spell as often as you have slots for it, so in practice wizards get the sorcerer's flexible casting for free too, in addition to their spell copying from scrolls.

Sorcerers have really only metamagic left which, while powerful, is very limited as a resource.

TL;DR: Want to wreck **** as a caster, play a wizard.

Then there are Minthara and Halsin. I'll discuss them both because they're mutually exclusive characters. Let me start that I love their basic storyline and visual design (though I strongly favour Halsin for both).

Then I need to stop because it is very, very obvious that both of them were implemented very late in production. They are severely underdeveloped. Not just as romance partners (more on that later) but just as characters too. They have very little to say or do and if my information is correct this will not change in act 3. Which is a shame because they are playable pretty much only then.

There are also some clipping bugs and other stuff but nothing game breaking.

The bad:

Wyll. Wyll, Wyll Wyll. Take the blandness of Gale, the ego of Lae'zel and the bad god/patron choice of Shadowheart and you get Wyll. He's our black teammember and yet he is, perhaps ironically, the stale white bread of the group. He ties very strongly in the story

► Show Spoiler

because he's Ravengard's son and saving daddy is important later on, what with him being the Duke of Baldur's Gate

and yet... I feel like he's overcompensating. No, not for having a small **** (the character creation makes sure that everyone is equally puny ) but rather for not living up to the grandiose hero reputation he's trying to project. He comes of a bit more like a LARPer than a serious hero or adventurer. The fact that most of his power and fighting power comes from a devil doesn't help. Still, I can't hate him because he's just too bland and inoffensive.

Next up is the world building and set dressing. While whoever designed the environment deserves some kind of award (and possibly a BJ) whoever was in charge of NPC design and placement deserves an impromptu penectomy. No, I don't care if someone will moo about it, a fantasy medieval city, even a trading city, should not look like ******* 2023 Chicago. I was spared having to experience that myself but the playthrough parts I watched of Act 3 were very notable for their... "diversity". And an over-abundance of beardless dwarves (maybe they thought that copying/pasting Varric from Dragon Age would earn them points?). Also, the guards in the city are somehow exclusively women. Does Baldur's Gate hire it's police department from the mythical tribe of amazons now?

My suspension of disbelief was laready overtaxed at the beginning. That small isolationist druid circle in act 1? It has a normal halfling, a black human woman, a male black elf (no, not a drow, a black dreadlock elf with pointy ears), a female black elf, a black human man, a black dwarf and a few scattered normal humans, elves and half-elves through the mix. That sounds like a fantasy convention in New York circa current year, not a quasi-medival hollow in bumfuck nowhere. DnD is supposed to have very limited modes of transportation unless you're an archmage and can cast teleport with a sneeze.

Even more strangely the forced tokenism then stops for most the rest of act 1 and 2. Maybe because most of the faction you meet after that are criminals or enemies or both, so they have next to no black members to avoid unfortunate implications or something, I dunno.

Also, I hate how Isobel and her girlfriend are portrayed. They're fine for most of act 2 and then, near the end, this ******* woman with no boundaries suddenly starts oversharing her bedroom activities as if talking about that with someone you've known for less than an hour was perfectly natural. Seriously, that was ****** up and I swear whoever came up with that wasn't so much writing words as vomiting them through a pen.

In hindsight maybe calling this five cents was a mistake.

[Davaris]

This is a degenerate game for sodomites and other hellspawn.

Even installing BG3 corrupts the soul.

[JobertTheMan]

This game is to woke for me

[JoeSmol69]

Not woke enough for me, the fact I can't customize my companions in order to fix what is clearly wrong with them. Like Christ, did they even use the ESG or get Blizzard's diversity scoring system for this?

[BENEFACTOR]

This is a degenerate game for sodomites and other hellspawn.

Even installing BG3 corrupts the soul.

You know some people like to have fun.... One of my girlfriends enjoyed watching the kinky scenes in BG3 with me .


The combat was great fun too

[Grey Wolf of Turan]

Hello friends
Does anyone have link to mods for turkish localization of Baldur's Gate 3?
I speak english but turkish subtitles would be nice to have for words I don't know.
Thank you friends

[Oyster Sauce]

I... I just met a Githyanki with vitiligo...

[agentorange]

vitiligo is the new heterochromia for making a super special unique OC character

[rusty_shackleford]

I've never seen a person with vitiiligo irl, seen probably a dozen in video games in the past year.

vitiligo is the new heterochromia for making a super special unique OC character

I have heterochromia

[wndrbr]

vitiligo is the new heterochromia for making a super special unique OC character

I have heterochromia

gay

[Oyster Sauce]

Can't wait to come across a half-orc with sickle cell disease

[Watser]

I have vitiligo but the far majority of the spots are along my spine and around my hips. Have a couple small spots on my neck so in general you don't really notice unless I take my shirt off.
It came after my alopecia areata stopped so now I'm just waiting for my immune system to get bored of this and do something spicy, like lupus, instead of these cosmetical but harmless afflictions.

[Oyster Sauce]

I'm really glad there are so many pointless 2 foot gaps to hop over so the party AI can fail to jump along, force me to split the party, swap to the ******, jump across, recombine the party, and then switch characters again.

[SoLong]

I... I just met a Githyanki with vitiligo...

Oh for ****'s sake, really? The magical space elf-toads get a human skin condition now?

Is there no low modern character designers won't sink to?

[maidenhaver]

They look bogged.

[Ticarsem]

Act 1 was really good, better than I'd expect from a 5e game. Then Act 2 and 3 get a lot worse in writing, gameplay and concepts. Wow the bad guy is a big old evil brain from hell... so cool. A lot of the complaints about this gamer are kinda juvenile though, I saw 3 sex scenes in my 80 hour playthrough and 1 of them was blacked out and comedic. I only had one male companion though so maybe if you have a sausage party it gets worse.

[Oyster Sauce]

I love spamming quicksaves because one companion will decide to **** off into the lava while the other 3 use the path just fine. At least it isn't lethal when the ******* shuffle around into poison gas and land mines for no ******* reason.

[Agesilaus]

I will buy this game when it is 80% off. Until then I have too much of a back log and too much dislike for Larian games.

[Mystic_Sausage]

Also feel that quality drops significantly in Act 3. City feels kinda bland, if you already reached max level and have strong items, there is much less pressure to press further in side content.
Act 2 had at least Ketheric, who was kinda charismatic villain and the whole lore setting was not bad. While looking at Orin and Gortash, it's hard for me to take them seriously

[WaterMage]

How much damage necro + minion can dish in Baizuo's Gate 3?

Assuming Lv 5, 7, 9 and 12. Before lv 5 no minion so is a worthless question. Assuming no save and all hits to simplify the calculation.

• At lv 5, using heightened schorching ray, assuming that every single one hits is 8d6 damage + 2 skeletons each one dealing d6+3 piercing + d10 necrotic damage = 28(spell) + 11*2(minions) = 50 damage on average
• At lv 7, blight(8d8) + 4 skeletons( d6+3 piercing + d10 necrotic damage) + 3 from proficiency bonus for each minion = 36(spell) + 14*4(minion) = 92
• At lv 9, detrhone*(10d6 + 20) + 4 skeletons + 4 proficiency bonus + elemental = 55(spell) + 60(15*4) + 10 damage = 125 damage
• At lv 12, desintegrate(10d6+40) + 4 flying ghouls(animate dead) + 4 ghouls(dense macabre) = 75(spell) + 4*18(rounding 3d6+3(str)+4(pro)) + 4*9(2d4+1(str)+4(pro)) = 183

Note : Disintegrate in previous D&D editions used to be a terrifying save or die spells Detrhone is very unlikely to get it at lv 9 unless the pc rushes to get it in act 3. Is just a theoricrafting.. But does anyone knows a way to reach over 200 damage with necromancers without counting critical hits and gear?

[Oyster Sauce]

There's an encounter where you have to face a mirrored version of yourself. For some reason my mirror looks a little off...

[maidenhaver]

Apollonian vs Dionysian

[Segata]

Jennifer English on growing up ***** and becoming a video game icon in Baldur’s Gate 3​

https://gaymingmag.com/2023/10/jennifer ... rs-gate-3/


What’s your opinion on LGBTQ+ characters’ voice work, should they be voiced only by LGBTQ+ actors?​

-I would like to see more of it, more genuine representation. I think mainly because when you’re ***** and you look up who voiced a ***** character and find out that a ***** actor plays them; it means so much more.

I don’t want to be stopped from playing a straight woman, but you know, heterosexuality is the norm and is not considered taboo.

As far as race is concerned, I feel really passionate about it. I don’t think in this day and age we should be having white people playing other races. You know, I think it’s all about fairness and giving communities that aren’t as represented more of a push, and I think there are so many talented actors out there. I hate the argument of ‘oh, but we couldn’t find anyone else.’ Yeah? Look harder. Look hard at different agencies. There are so many brilliant actors from all walks of life. You can find them.

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't care about the opinion of musical instruments.