Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough Discussion

[Zed Clampet]

Bard is absolutely not useless and you can consider them a jack of all trades with some incredible good party buffs.

I was wanting to try them out and see how they are. In my solo game as soon as I come across one (and don't kill her) then I'll give her a try. In general, though, maybe my tactical strategy is still coming around, but I need to kill stuff as fast as possible, and if the bard doesn't really contribute to that philosophy, as the rogue doesn't, then I'll have to get rid of them.

There is plenty of strategy in my strategy, but it doesn't call for a lot of sneaking and singing. But I'm not playing on the highest difficulty. If I did that, I might have to adapt a bit.

Potion of hill giant strength helps my monk a LOT. It just needs some hill giant fingernails. I need to make friends with a hill giant tribe and make sure they get a lot of calcium.

The 9th level Ki Resonance thing is great! You hit them with it and, whenever you like, you can make them explode for 3-18 damage in a 5m radius. Dex save to half damage. Doesn't sound like a whole lot, but there's a trick: if you set up 2+ enemies, the explosion from one will set off the other. It reminds me a little of Dragon Age's "Walking Bomb" spell, but it has still another bonus: it doesn't hurt your party!

So far I've managed to keep fairly stocked with that potion from being frugal with it and just finding them around. Wouldn't mind having a lot more of them, though. I was out of health potions for a long time, but the place we are at now seems to restock them.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yeah, the whole healing dynamic has really changed a lot. I guess all those decades of nobody wanting to play the healer finally made them decide to just dump them.

OH FOR.... OK, so I've been wondering how to make various potions, elixirs, and whatnot. I've found quite a few recipes but even more have been missing. When I grab various plants and monster bits, I get the recipe for how to combine 3 of them into an ingrediant that can be used for alchemy. What I didn't know is that the recipes for the second step don't need to be found. All you have to do is make the salt, ash, or whatever ingredient it is the raw materials makes and POOF! You know the recipe for the potion/elixir/oil. I just combined the 123 ingredients and had 24 recipes unlock!! Eeeeeesh. Wait, what the frak is tadpole elixir??

Anyway, I highly recommend hitting that 'extract all ingredients' button often.

That's good to know. I have a ton of ingredients, but when I recently checked what I could make with them I only had a couple of recipes and not enough to make any useful ones.

Also, are you supposed to be able to copy scrolls into your spellbook or something?

Only wizards have spellbooks and can thus copy scrolls.

 

[Frindis]

The 9th level Ki Resonance thing is great! You hit them with it and, whenever you like, you can make them explode for 3-18 damage in a 5m radius. Dex save to half damage. Doesn't sound like a whole lot, but there's a trick: if you set up 2+ enemies, the explosion from one will set off the other. It reminds me a little of Dragon Age's "Walking Bomb" spell, but it has still another bonus: it doesn't hurt your party!

I need to try a monk soon, that 9th level KI sound a lot of fun!

I was wanting to try them out and see how they are. In my solo game as soon as I come across one (and don't kill her) then I'll give her a try. In general, though, maybe my tactical strategy is still coming around, but I need to kill stuff as fast as possible, and if the bard doesn't really contribute to that philosophy, as the rogue doesn't, then I'll have to get rid of them.

There is plenty of strategy in my strategy, but it doesn't call for a lot of sneaking and singing. But I'm not playing on the highest difficulty. If I did that, I might have to adapt a bit.

Ahh, I see. Then it will depend more on the bard. With the exception of the buffs I mentioned, a bard is also pretty good for crowd control, so that will be of help in focusing the damage for your other damage dealers.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I need to try a monk soon, that 9th level KI sound a lot of fun!

Ahh, I see. Then it will depend more on the bard. With the exception of the buffs I mentioned, a bard is also pretty good for crowd control, so that will be of help in focusing the damage for your other damage dealers.

Ignore the "(and don't kill her)". I just found out about The Dark Urge, and that Guido is playing him.

 

[Zloth]

I'm right at the last battle for act two. Oh my. It seemed so easy at first...

Spoiler: Act 2 final boss

So, you finish off the big bad guy and he decides to kill himself by jumping into a pit. You don't stop him because... uhhh... he's really heavy and his armor is so gaudy that nobody wants to wear it? Whatever the case, he falls and something in the chasm gets very angry, comes out, and attacks you. A big something that looks like somebody welded a collection of giant skeletons together. 390hp, 20AC, resists piercing and slashing (and even bludgeon if it isn't magic), hits like a wide brick, radiates an aura of cold, and so on. It also can make 3 of those skeleton incubator things per round anywhere on a big map. If it wants, it can "eat" one of the skeletons to heal itself for quite a bit of damage.

So, my main archer has a70% chance to hit and just does around 5 damage. Karlach as a monk can hit it pretty good, if she manages to hit. Dame Aylin just hits for 4 or 5 damage. Wyl should do OK damage if he manages to hit. Shadowheart, using her radiant artifact mace, only has a 45% chance to hit and only does 5-9'ish damage. My first try really wasn't even close.

There's a thing, though: it's completely immobile. Most of its attacks are melee, too, if you don't count the skeleton things. Also, Dame Aylin is immortal. Maybe I could run around, killing every skeleton incubator that pops up, and plopping it with weak arrow attacks when I get extra time while Aylin slowly whittles it down? Cloudkill would work awesome except the boss is totally immune to poison. Maybe I've got similar, though.

Edit: Nope. Even worse than before. Every round, somebody is going to get hit for 20-25 damage and be frightened for 2 rounds by the boss' gaze weapon. (There's a save, but I need to roll a 20 to make it.) The incubators show up so spread out that even the whole team can't get to them all in time. The Deep Chill that radiates out a few feet from the thing prevents all healing. Dame Aryl is smart enough to stay outside of that range so she can resurrect, but the boss also has a power that sucks everyone toward it - once she gets in that field, she stays dead unless you can manage to move her out.

On the plus side, I've got a couple of fog cloud spells that will blind the thing, at least until Wyl gets his concentration broken.

P.S. The cutscene engine was having issues last night. Some of the scenes' animations would play several seconds ahead of the voice acting. When I tried to go to the final room, the cutscene wouldn't kick in at all. I had to quit the game and restart to get it to work.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I swear my average dice roll today is a 3. It's so bad I'm considering scum saving, which is something I didn't want to do.

The other day during the co-op campaign, I had a miracle run of great rolls. I was talking to someone who we assumed was going to murder us with little difficulty, and I had to do a bunch of rolls while talking to him. I needed anything from 14 to 20, and I swear there were about 8 rolls. I had guidance going and a small bonus here or there, but there's no way we should have made it through that. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded having to fight this guy and his minions because he seemed interesting, but I did get an achievement for talking my way out of it.

Fast forward to today, and I can't successfully intimidate a small child.

 

[Pifanjr]

I had to protect an NPC from some guy with his minions. I got the guy down to 7 HP when the NPC I was supposed to protect triggered three Opportunity Attacks and was promptly downed, triggering a cutscene where the enemy just slowly walked away carrying the NPC while my party just kind of watched.

I normally don't reload saves just to get a better outcome, but this just felt ridiculous. So I tried buffing the NPC before triggering the fight, but I'm pretty sure that didn't actually prevent her from being hit even once and I still lost. After another reload the NPC managed to get into a corner of the room while I blocked the enemies from getting close, which finally worked.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I had to protect an NPC from some guy with his minions. I got the guy down to 7 HP when the NPC I was supposed to protect triggered three Opportunity Attacks and was promptly downed, triggering a cutscene where the enemy just slowly walked away carrying the NPC while my party just kind of watched.

I normally don't reload saves just to get a better outcome, but this just felt ridiculous. So I tried buffing the NPC before triggering the fight, but I'm pretty sure that didn't actually prevent her from being hit even once and I still lost. After another reload the NPC managed to get into a corner of the room while I blocked the enemies from getting close, which finally worked.

We had an NPC die on us the other day because we needed water to put out a fire, and neither one of us had it. We'd have had to reload to outside the area and go looking for merchants selling water, but we decided just to let it go. From now on I'll be carrying water for sure.

 

[Zed Clampet]

How is Wyl the Warlock? Thinking about subbing him in for Shadowheart just to see what he's like.

 

[Pifanjr]

How is Wyl the Warlock? Thinking about subbing him in for Shadowheart just to see what he's like.

I love Wyll's Eldritch Blast with the Repelling Blast invocation, which makes Eldritch Blasts push enemies 15 feet away. His Imp familiar is also pretty useful, especially if you cast Aid to give it 5 more health, and though he only gets two spell slots, he gets them back at the end of a short rest instead of needing a long rest. I can recommend getting counterspell and fireball, both are very useful.

The only possible downside is that Wyll has a lot less to say than Shadowheart. Shadowheart has quite a lot of ties to the main campaign, Wyll is just kind of tagging along most of the time. I've enjoyed the times he's spoken up though.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Well, today was a bit frustrating. Lots of failed rolls, and the day ended with a battle we've decided we can't currently win, so when we log back in tomorrow, we're going to just skip it. There are about 16 hard hitting enemies that are very damage resistant. Even with our best spellcasters, sneaking into a better position, etc. It just wasn't winnable for us. We're way under-leveled and not D&D geniuses.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm slowly getting ready to head towards Moonrise Tower. There's a silly amount of people I'm expected to rescue there, but they'll have to wait until I'm done with all of the side quests. For their sake I hope there isn't a limit to the amount of long rests I can do without consequences.

 

[Zloth]

I'm slowly getting ready to head towards Moonrise Tower. There's a silly amount of people I'm expected to rescue there, but they'll have to wait until I'm done with all of the side quests.

Uhh, actually, yeah. As I found out, some will perish. It's NOT based on rests, though. Let's see, how to do this without spoiling more than you want spoiled? OK, let's try this.

Spoiler: What triggers the fails

There's a BIG quest for Shadowheart in this area. Before starting the very last portion of it, you'll get a warning that some quests will be unavailable if you keep going and the warning is conveniently located next to a fast travel point. So, if you get it, just make sure you've got the fast travel point on your list, and you're free to pop out and do other quests.

Spoiler: What quests get failed

The ones that will fail are the search for some of the tieflings that left the Grove and the search for... umm... that gnome guy who's name starts with W.

Spoiler: How to do them without ending Act2

There are two entrances to Moonrise Tower. There's the main gate and also a back door that goes to the basement. (Oh, and there's a hole that a cat is using - I don't know where that ends up.) If you use the one that goes to the basement, you'll find yourself in the prison. The people you want to rescue are in there. You can pop in, get them out, and get out again to go do other quests in Act 2. If you finish the quest in the first spoiler, though, all the prisoners will be dead. Unfortunately, that's what happened to me.

Regarding my own adventure, I'm starting to think I can't finish off the final boss of act 2. I simply can't dish out enough damage to finish it before everyone gets killed, even with great rolls. I think I can do it with different characters, but it means re-doing quite a bit.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Uhh, actually, yeah. As I found out, some will perish. It's NOT based on rests, though. Let's see, how to do this without spoiling more than you want spoiled? OK, let's try this.

Spoiler: What triggers the fails

There's a BIG quest for Shadowheart in this area. Before starting the very last portion of it, you'll get a warning that some quests will be unavailable if you keep going and the warning is conveniently located next to a fast travel point. So, if you get it, just make sure you've got the fast travel point on your list, and you're free to pop out and do other quests.

Spoiler: What quests get failed

The ones that will fail are the search for some of the tieflings that left the Grove and the search for... umm... that gnome guy who's name starts with W.

Spoiler: How to do them without ending Act2

There are two entrances to Moonrise Tower. There's the main gate and also a back door that goes to the basement. (Oh, and there's a hole that a cat is using - I don't know where that ends up.) If you use the one that goes to the basement, you'll find yourself in the prison. The people you want to rescue are in there. You can pop in, get them out, and get out again to go do other quests in Act 2. If you finish the quest in the first spoiler, though, all the prisoners will be dead. Unfortunately, that's what happened to me.

Regarding my own adventure, I'm starting to think I can't finish off the final boss of act 2. I simply can't dish out enough damage to finish it before everyone gets killed, even with great rolls. I think I can do it with different characters, but it means re-doing quite a bit.

Spoiler: Act 2 Stuff

We rescued all those people yesterday and are trying to figure out what we need to do at this point. We are struggling to figure out what needs done in what order. We've still got half-a-dozen open side quests, which I assume have to be done now or they'll be forever lost if we somehow, hope against hope, manage to murder "the general". We can't do that now anyway because we don't have the relic you are supposed to recover from the mausoleum. We were wandering through the mausoleum when we came to a battle in the cave system that we can't seem to win. It's quite a difficulty spike. We had no problem with the mausoleum boss guy. No idea where the relic is, but if it's in this cave system then we are going to have to come back to it later.

 

[Frindis]

Regarding my own adventure, I'm starting to think I can't finish off the final boss of act 2. I simply can't dish out enough damage to finish it before everyone gets killed, even with great rolls. I think I can do it with different characters, but it means re-doing quite a bit.

I bet that victory is going to feel sweet! It's one of the bosses in the game that I think is truly a boss. I am happy that Larian never nerfed the boss because while it is one of the harder bosses in the game at the time you get there (for some even harder depending on their level *looks in the direction of Zedclampet and Guido* ), it is also a fair fight.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I bet that victory is going to feel sweet! It's one of the bosses in the game that I think is truly a boss. I am happy that Larian never nerfed the boss because while it is one of the harder bosses in the game at the time you get there (for some even harder depending on their level *looks in the direction of Zedclampet and Guido* ), it is also a fair fight.

The question is how many minions does he have. We do okay as long as there aren't legions of riffraff all doing 30 damage each turn.

 

[Frindis]

The question is how many minions does he have. We do okay as long as there aren't legions of riffraff all doing 30 damage each turn.

I so want to answer that open question with another question, but I can't because spoilers

 

[Zed Clampet]

I so want to answer that open question with another question, but I can't because spoilers

If you mean who have we left alive, our goal is 'no one'.

 

[Pifanjr]

You know that loading screen tip about being careful when moving around during combat because you don't know if you'll run into more enemies or allies? I'd never really given it much thought, but today I came to a realisation.

I was exploring with my invisible imp around a group of enemies when I accidentally interacted with a chest and lost invisibility, causing my imp to go into combat. I figured I'd just turn it invisible and fly away, but it turns out you can only flee from combat by going to camp and summons can't do that. I figured I could maybe lure the enemies into a trap. However, I couldn't find a good spot until I noticed I was pretty close to a building with a large group of allies.

So I lured the entire group of enemies to the bridge, set up a moonbeam and cloud of daggers to force them to take damage if they wanted to follow me and let my allies do most of the work.

It does turn out that while enemies will gladly run through an AoE attack to get to you, your allies will gladly do the same to get to an enemy. No one died though and they all healed themselves to full afterwards, so it seems this strategy can be easily repeated.

 

[Zed Clampet]

You know that loading screen tip about being careful when moving around during combat because you don't know if you'll run into more enemies or allies? I'd never really given it much thought, but today I came to a realisation.

I was exploring with my invisible imp around a group of enemies when I accidentally interacted with a chest and lost invisibility, causing my imp to go into combat. I figured I'd just turn it invisible and fly away, but it turns out you can only flee from combat by going to camp and summons can't do that. I figured I could maybe lure the enemies into a trap. However, I couldn't find a good spot until I noticed I was pretty close to a building with a large group of allies.

So I lured the entire group of enemies to the bridge, set up a moonbeam and cloud of daggers to force them to take damage if they wanted to follow me and let my allies do most of the work.

It does turn out that while enemies will gladly run through an AoE attack to get to you, your allies will gladly do the same to get to an enemy. No one died though and they all healed themselves to full afterwards, so it seems this strategy can be easily repeated.

I killed everyone with a well-placed fire wall attack. By "everyone" I mean Shadowheart, Gayle and Wyl.

Speaking of allies (and me) doing dumb things. I leapt to an area yesterday without ungrouping first, and apparently Halsin couldn't jump as far, so he took off running in a different direction without me immediately noticing and started a battle all by himself with about 10 enemies and no one else around him. I tried to back him up with the theory that everyone else could circle around and surround the enemy. I moved him, did an ice spell for some damage and difficult terrain between him and the enemy. And then I turned him into an owl bear with 65 health. Unfortunately, the enemies did much more than 65 damage during their turn regardless of the distance and difficult terrain. They forced him back into human form and killed him before he got to move again.

 

[Zloth]

@Zed Clampet - eh? You don't need a relic to defeat the general.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Zed Clampet - eh? You don't need a relic to defeat the general.

Really? Well, they sent us after his relic, so I assumed they were related. We're just trying to clear everything before we fight him.

 

[Frindis]

was exploring with my invisible imp around a group of enemies when I accidentally interacted with a chest and lost invisibility, causing my imp to go into combat. I figured I'd just turn it invisible and fly away, but it turns out you can only flee from combat by going to camp and summons can't do that.

If you lose line of sight for example, the enemy will eventually lose interest (if the area is large enough). I know this because I was kiting redcaps from the swamp in Act 1 one by one since I couldn’t take them all at once. I’m not sure if their perception affects how quickly they lose aggro though.

Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever been in a situation where I was using a summon to get rid of aggro, but in theory it should work just like with a character. I guess despawning the imp could work also?

 

[Pifanjr]

If you lose line of sight for example, the enemy will eventually lose interest (if the area is large enough). I know this because I was kiting redcaps from the swamp in Act 1 one by one since I couldn’t take them all at once. I’m not sure if their perception affects how quickly they lose aggro though.

Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever been in a situation where I was using a summon to get rid of aggro, but in theory it should work just like with a character. I guess despawning the imp could work also?

I didn't mention it for brevity's sake, but I did actually despawn the imp, which did work, but then I tried luring them one by one with a minor illusion and they spotted my summoned skeleton, which then ran all the way to the allied base with all of the enemies running after it.

 

[Zloth]

FINALLY got through that boss!

Spoiler

I loaded an older save, dreading going through the <ahem> squishy area all over again. As I was prepping up Gale, I noticed that Wyll DID have a Wall of Fire scroll! What's more, my main character had Evard's Black Tentacles, which I had noticed before but forgot it does bludgeoning damage.

I was also having a lot of trouble keeping the thing blind. I would hit it with a blindness arrow, which should last 3 turns, but then I would find it wasn't blinded!? What was happening was that Shadowheart, with her glowy mace, would get near the thing, it would fail its save, get blinded again, and then would unblind when Shadowheart walked away. Except... it didn't. The game got kind of screwy. It wouldn't show as blinded when I hovered my mouse over it, but it did when I aimed at it?? In earlier runs, I just noticed it wasn't blinded, tried to blind it again, and couldn't because it was actually still blind. Grrrr....

Anyway, I dropped the wall of fire on it - also covering a couple of the spots to climb up and get close to the boss - and dropped the tentacles on it as well. Shadowheart turned OFF the light and also put resistance on the monk. We bashed away on it pretty hard that way. When skeleton things would try to run up close to it, they would get an opportunity attack from somebody/thing then burn up in the fire wall. Of course, Dame Idiot also walked right into the flames, so she kept reviving and dying every time her turn came up, but we were able to defeat the boss fairly easily. I even got the achievement!

Soooo many hours wasted because I missed a couple of things in my inventory!