Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough Discussion

[Sarafan]

And it finally happened. After 115 hours I’ve beaten the game. I feel the same thing I felt after finishing Baldur’s Gate 2. The end of a very long journey and sadness that this is a goodbye with very good written characters (or should I say friends). I’ll miss them for sure. And finally I can read everything about the game without fear of encountering spoilers.

Spoiler

It appears that my character has a huge career in the Underdark before him. And I was right. Only 6.4% of gamers accepted a fate of Mindflyer so far.

 

[Brian Boru]

finally I can read everything about the game without fear of encountering spoilers

No, NO! There are 117 other endings and 257 secret routes we haven't told you about. You can't read anything until 2030s earliest.

 

[Frindis]

Finished the game earlier today with what I would say was a decent ending (got a "heartfelt thank you" achievement from Larian Studios, which was kind of cool) Will be doing a review later in the review section, but overall I would say the journey was an amazing one, but with a lackluster ending. The good thing is that the journey was so incredible, that to be honest, I wasn't even a bit sad about it. I just thought: "Ok, I guess it's time to play the dark urge (A more evil playthrough) version"

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I hear the dark urge character actually has a lot of background to the main story so I'm more curious to try it now.

Guess YMMV on the ending, it was one of my favourite sequences gameplay wise in the whole game.

Spoiler: Story ending spoilers

I had Karlach go full Illithid after having avoided using any of the tadpoles in the game leading up to it. There was a whole narrator monolgue afterwards about gradually becoming corrupted by the illithid form over time, so I decided that Karlach would rather just end it there than live and become twisted.

I was pretty satisfied with it. Bittersweet endings are always the best.

 

[Sarafan]

I would say the journey was an amazing one, but with a lackluster ending.

The concept of the ending part of the game is quite good IMHO. It seems to offer many possible outcomes. I'm aware of at least five possible routes which influence the course of actions for the main character. I have some doubts about the content of ending cut-scenes though. More about that in the spoiler section below.

Spoiler

The ending doesn't reveal the fate of player character nor his companions (with some exceptions). In BG2 ending you had a detailed description of what happened with characters that were in your party after the final fight. Also the ending in BG3 seems quite rushed and sketchy. No CGI, nothing about characters and locations we visited while playing the game etc. I expected that we'll get something similar to Fallout New Vegas ending, which revealed the future of NPCs, towns and factions. It may be an intentional move however to prepare for future DLCs, games or table-top RPG sessions.

 

[Sarafan]

I'm listening to BG3 soundtrack right now and it's incredible! There's a lot of tracks with vocals. I'm talking here not about vocalizations which usually rely on one or two vowels like in most game soundtracks, but true vocals! You only prepare such things when you're certain that you're doing a legendary game. We're talking about music written from scratch (including words and vocals), not some licensed tracks. Even big publishers don't want to pump money in such a thing. Check these:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWmvVEm5SC8

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSVRtM1x9wQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iog3XDY1krA

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxCDMxngoCQ

And of course this (tagged as spoiler, because it spoils one fight in the game):

Spoiler

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk2AqXsJsWU

EPIC!

 

[Zloth]

I think instrumentals and all-vowel-voice gets used a lot because A) it doesn't have to be translated and B) it doesn't distract. Essentially, the songs are like dinner music: something meant to be in the background, not the focus of attention.

You only prepare such things when you're certain that you're doing a legendary game.

Or Bard's Tale 4.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

That last one under the spoiler @Sarafan when the lyrics kicked in was a pretty great moment. Wasnt expecting it at all.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I have figured out why everyone thinks this is the best cRPG ever made. It's because I can right click on something useless in my inventory and move it to Guido's inventory.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I'm regretting the monk thing, but I suspect we are under-leveled. I've been letting Guido run the show, and this is his first cRPG other than the couple of hours we played Solasta. I keep telling him we can't beeline to the end. We need to go back and do the side stuff. Levels are hard to get in D&D games. We'll probably play over 100 hours and be lucky to be level 15, which means each level is important, and you can't afford to be a level behind or you struggle with every fight. It's still early game, so we may actually be 2 levels behind. We had to fight one of the Goblin camp leaders 4 times to win the fight.

Speaking of that, the ogres we hired were worse than useless. All they managed to do was to cause a dozen more things to join the fight, and the ogres weren't exactly taking them down easily, either. We didn't survive it, and I didn't call them again, and I won't be calling them in the future, and I suppose we'll be fighting them at some point because I'm not giving them 500 gold either. I guess this was a Larian joke.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm regretting the monk thing, but I suspect we are under-leveled. I've been letting Guido run the show, and this is his first cRPG other than the couple of hours we played Solasta. I keep telling him we can't beeline to the end. We need to go back and do the side stuff. Levels are hard to get in D&D games. We'll probably play over 100 hours and be lucky to be level 15, which means each level is important, and you can't afford to be a level behind or you struggle with every fight. It's still early game, so we may actually be 2 levels behind. We had to fight one of the Goblin camp leaders 4 times to win the fight.

Speaking of that, the ogres we hired were worse than useless. All they managed to do was to cause a dozen more things to join the fight, and the ogres weren't exactly taking them down easily, either. We didn't survive it, and I didn't call them again, and I won't be calling them in the future, and I suppose we'll be fighting them at some point because I'm not giving them 500 gold either. I guess this was a Larian joke.

Unless you have a mod that increases the level cap, the max level you can get is 12. Still, I would recommend doing as much side content as you can convince Guido to do, because especially at low levels an extra level is very significant, with level 5 specifically being a huge power jump (giving access to level 3 spells and Extra Attack for martial classes).

 

[Frindis]

@Zed Clampet Getting more levels is always fun since it opens up completely new ways to play the game, but I also want to emphasize that using the environment and your utilities to your advantage is more important. In a way, being underleveled is actually a good way to learn the game mechanics better, since you have to use different strategies (which there are an enormous amount of) to beat the fight and doing so without relying on powerful spells.

Obviously, this is easier said than done on first plays, but I just wanted to share that since I know that in BG3 you don't even need to be over lvl 1 to beat the game. That might seem completely ludicrous, but it's BG3.

Some funny stuff you can do and more to show the depth of BG3:

You can make a character that kills people by touching them. You can make a character that throws items with such force it rips the fabrics of space. You can make a character that can slap foes so hard they smell sausages. You can make a character so stealthy, you can stab, stab, stab, stab, stab and then stab yourself into victory. You can make a character into a literal monster with giant claws. You can make a character so small, you can visit places you really would not want to. You can make a character so radiant, even the mighty Zeus would think you were cool. You can make a character so icky, you basically smell like shait all the time. You can make a character that make animals want to call PETA on you. You can make a character that can leap so far, you'd finish the game before you say "Larian, wtf!." You can make a character so charming even the local bard wants to wed you. You can make a character that makes a new character! You can make a character that watches another character do live surgery on yourself and then be happy about it afterwards. You can also make a character that makes other people do live surgery with somewhat mixed results.

 

[Zloth]

(Quoting from a different thread - this fits better here)

I must say that Baldur's Gate 3 is very liberal in giving out magical items. I think almost every slot of every character is filled with a magical item and I'm not even in Act 2 yet, plus I've no doubt missed a bunch of them. It takes away a lot of the excitement of finding a new magic item, especially since a lot of them have fairly uninteresting effects.

Yeah, there's a lot of barely-magic items. Last night, my monk got a new robe. The old one was just a plain robe that gave frost resistance, so she was wearing that up to level 8 and a half! I very nearly missed finding the new one, too, so she could have easily still been stuck with it.

I'm regretting the monk thing, but I suspect we are under-leveled. I've been letting Guido run the show, and this is his first cRPG other than the couple of hours we played Solasta. I keep telling him we can't beeline to the end. We need to go back and do the side stuff. Levels are hard to get in D&D games. We'll probably play over 100 hours and be lucky to be level 15, which means each level is important, and you can't afford to be a level behind or you struggle with every fight. It's still early game, so we may actually be 2 levels behind. We had to fight one of the Goblin camp leaders 4 times to win the fight.

Also, there's interesting loot and fun side quests! Did you get underground in the village that was taken over by goblins?

When I got to the goblin camp, my HP was just over 30. I'm not sure of the exact level. I'm playing on tactical, so I've really got to get every xp point I can.

Speaking of that, the ogres we hired were worse than useless. All they managed to do was to cause a dozen more things to join the fight, and the ogres weren't exactly taking them down easily, either. We didn't survive it, and I didn't call them again, and I won't be calling them in the future, and I suppose we'll be fighting them at some point because I'm not giving them 500 gold either. I guess this was a Larian joke.

That's the horn from whats-his-name the Enlightened, right?

 

[Zed Clampet]

Obviously, this is easier said than done on first plays

There's no time for that. There's no time for reflection or planning or anything...The Truth (Guido) marches on with or without you He's getting the hang of the combat right now, getting better every fight, using the environment quite a bit.

However, and I blame it on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but my interest in RPGs has gone from nothing to high, so I'm already planning on doing a slow, solo playthrough pretty soon. I may even start it before Guido and I finish.

 

[Frindis]

There's no time for that. There's no time for reflection or planning or anything...The Truth (Guido) marches on with or without you

That sounds like a strategy one of my nephews uses when bouldering. He just brute forces his way to the top Or my other nephew when playing Divinity Original Sin 2: "Suddenly in combat, miles away from the party and we have to run and help him" I did that myself once too. They were somewhere else engaged in combat, while I was at our camp planting seeds in buckets.

 

[Zed Clampet]

They were somewhere else engaged in combat, while I was at our camp planting seeds in buckets.

This is how Guido and I play survival games. He only wants to explore and do combat. He likes to build a nice base, but that's the only other activity he wants to engage in other than crafting the latest weapon he unlocked. I like exploration and combat, too, but I like to do things "the right way" and grow food, cook meals that give you bonuses. Decorate the base (because more decorations give you better rest bonuses). Organize chests, etc.]

The other day in Dragonwilds, we were getting ready to leave the base to do a dungeon. I was cooking, and I said, "What are you eating? I haven't seen you cook anything." and his answer was "berries". He'd done nothing but pick and eat berries the entire game. He was born in the wrong time and place. He would have made one hell of a Spartan.