Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough Discussion

[Zloth]

OMG, that party is going to be a thing of beauty! Think about how lovely those campfires are going to be

They could sing 4 part harmony AND play instruments!

(And they could get the Warlock Eldrich Blast cantrip with that one feat and do quite well with it.)

 

[Zed Clampet]

I didn't realise Minthara was a possible party member. I was busy killing all of the goblins and she was hanging out with two of them, so I snuck up on her and attacked her before she could say anything.



Warlocks are just regular mages really. They only get two spell slots of their highest spell level, but they get them back after every short rest, so you should be able to use both in every fight. They can also get some extra spells to use once every long rest from their subclass and/or Invocations. Other than that they just have a very powerful cantrip in Eldritch Blast for when the fight takes more than 2 turns (or you have the Repelling Blast invocation and see an enemy near a cliff/drop).



I didn't know you could break your oath in Baldur's Gate 3, that does seem annoying.

I didn't know anything about eldritch blast. The rest of his spell lineup seems unimpressive, but if he has a great cantrip, then that makes up for everything as long as you don't get bored doing the same thing over and over again. Also, I'm guessing all the big guys of Act 3 probably shrug off Eldritch Blast. But they shrug off everyone else's spells too, so that's not a knock against Warlock. The big thing is that if eldritch blast is all you can do in a turn. At the highest level it does 4d10? plus attribute bonuses, so if that was the only attack you were allowed in a turn and you did about 26 damage, that would be one very long fight. He'd be better off buffing a damage dealer or debuffing the bad guys. Lea'zel and my monk can do well over 100 damage per turn now, and the sorcerer, while not nearly as much of a single target damage dealer, can do crowd control and a lot of utility spells. I give Shadowheart credit for all the people she can summon, so she can do decent single target damage and also crowd control, and she can heal.

Druid, though, is probably better than Cleric for healing because of being able to call a water elemental, which can heal someone every round. He can also call the woodland creature, then slip into dinosaur form and eliminate armor, which is incredibly helpful

Damn, I don't even remember what I'm posting about. Think I'll stop and have a bite to eat.

Oh, and we beat the game. That last battle is something else. That's why my brain is fried.

 

[Frindis]

Druid, though, is probably better than Cleric for healing because of being able to call a water elemental, which can heal someone every round. He can also call the woodland creature, then slip into dinosaur form and eliminate armor, which is incredibly helpful

Cleric is the best healer in the game, there is no competition for that first place. I have not played druid, but I don't need to, that is how good Life Cleric is Just to throw in a few examples with most of the spells being exclusively for Clerics. Ok, I MIGHT have shown a wee to many spells, but just wanted to flex my point.

Oh, and we beat the game. That last battle is something else. That's why my brain is fried.

It really is, fun and "all over" fight with some tense moments. Good job to you and Guido!

 

[Zed Clampet]

Cleric is the best healer in the game, there is no competition for that first place. I have not played druid, but I don't need to, that is how good Life Cleric is Just to throw in a few examples and without going into the other healing spells Life Cleric shares through Clerics Class ordinary healing spells.

It really is, fun and "all over" fight with some tense moments. Good job to you and Guido!

I am well aware of all the ways a Cleric can heal someone; however, I still vote Druid, and it really isn't close, particularly for a long battle. First of all Druid also has Heroes' Feast and Mass Cure Wounds. But on top of various healing spells, you can get close to thirty healing every turn through his water elemental. In a fight that takes 20 turns, that's 600 hp healed by that alone. In short fights healing isn't really necessary.

 

[Frindis]

That is a cool elemental! That said, you get it when you are level 9. Before lvl 9, Life Cleric has more healing spells and with a class action almost giving you twice the healing back aka Cleric is the best healer class overall. Late game, I still believe a Ceric is much better because while you in theory could have your Myridon last for countless more rounds than a Cleric could heal you as good, your party would not survive that long anyways because of for example legendary actions buildup that wipes your team of the ground (depending on what potions/scrolls you have accumulated) or you just can't get that far because of particular boss timers. Not to mention 20+ turns are quite rare in my experience and burst healing is most what I personally rely on in let say 3-6 turns that the average fights lasts.

 

[Zloth]

Eldrich Blast is 1-10 force damage plus charisma bonus of +4 for 5-14, average of 9.5 per hit. You've got to actually hit, so maybe 6 damage per shot times 3 shots will be 18 damage. But it's FORCE damage, which is rarely resisted, it's at range, and it knocks back pretty hard. The shots can be made at different targets, too. That's one hell of a cantrip! (There's also a pair of gloves in Baldur's Gate that can turn a cantrip into a bonus action. I need to play around with that to see how much it might help.)

That's for warlocks, though. Other classes can't get the +4 or knockback. They need it, too, because the warlocks have VERY limited spell slots. Those arcane restoration things that restore a single spell are a big deal to a warlock. On the plus side, one short rest and the spell slots are all restored. (Still, Wyll has a LOT of scrolls in his inventory.)

I started playing again last night. As I've been wandering through town, I haven't needed a long rest in a while. It's been nice because my main character got a buff that adds 1-6 to all attack rolls and skill checks that will only last until a long rest. I've started exploring the Soo Ehr river lately, which has been leading to more battles, so I probably should get back to town proper.

Oh, and we beat the game. That last battle is something else. That's why my brain is fried.

Or chewed on by mind flayer worms! How many did you end up using? What was the final quick save count?

 

[Frindis]

Hmm, I wonder how well the Repelling Blast on the Eldrich Blast would work with the Illithid power Repulsor. Like if you use the Eldrich Blast to push the enemies a couple times near a drop and then use the repulsor action to push them some more. Might be a fun combinations for traps also, pushing them into those. I played with a Warlock on normal mode the first time I beat the game, but I can't remember doing much of pushing enemies, so I don't believe I got the evolution of it.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finally had some time to play a bit more. So far I'm just clearing some of the rooms down here, which has been fairly trivial.

One of my favourite tactics right now is to drop a Hunger of Hadar on a group of enemies with Wyll, then drop a Spike Growth on the same area with the Dryad from Conjure Woodland Beings, use the entangle from the Wood Woad the Dryad can summon to keep enemies within the area and putting Karlach near the edge with a reach weapon and the Polearm Master + Sentinel feats to stop enemies from exiting.

Hmm, I wonder how well the Repelling Blast on the Eldrich Blast would work with the Illithid power Repulsor. Like if you use the Eldrich Blast to push the enemies a couple times near a drop and then use the repulsor action to push them some more. Might be a fun combinations for traps also, pushing them into those. I played with a Warlock on normal mode the first time I beat the game, but I can't remember doing much of pushing enemies, so I don't believe I got the evolution of it.

I haven't actually gotten any Illithid powers. I don't want to add additional worms into my head, it's crowded enough there as is.

 

[Frindis]

One of my favourite tactics right now is to drop a Hunger of Hadar on a group of enemies with Wyll, then drop a Spike Growth on the same area with the Dryad from Conjure Woodland Beings, use the entangle from the Wood Woad the Dryad can summon to keep enemies within the area and putting Karlach near the edge with a reach weapon and the Polearm Master + Sentinel feats to stop enemies from exiting.

That poor enemy who managed to struggle through the death trap only to get slapped in the face by Karlach while she is laughing.

 

[Pifanjr]

That poor enemy who managed to struggle through the death trap only to get slapped in the face by Karlach while she is laughing.

To be fair, last time I tried it one of the enemies walked out the other side and threw a fireball at my party. Luckily they weren't bunched up at the time, but my Dryad was still instantly incinerated.

 

[Zloth]

I did the same sort of thing yesterday. I hit 11th level and my Ranger took that plant growth thing. It's nice because, unlike the spike growth spell he got much earlier, it doesn't require concentration and slows them by 75% instead of just 50%. Then Shadowheart threw in an insect plague to sit over the plants. I was hoping that would not only add damage but stack with the plant growth.

I'm not so sure it really did, but it certainly slowed the baddies down a lot. Unfortunately, it turns out that ANY fire damage in the area burns up all the weeds! Wyll has a pet demon that normally attacks with fire rays, so the plants didn't last long. Still, it was enough.

A lot of party members are complaining about getting some sleep now. NO! My sweet buff is still going, and half the party still has over half hit points!

 

[Frindis]

I like to put spike growth in narrow openings or in tight corridors, then I put down two or three cloud of daggers close to each other. Then I pull my party back, fan them out and just wait. Usually I use a summon to aggro the boss/enemies, so my party can be in a defensive position the whole time. Another strategy I use is a couple of cloud of daggers and sleet storm, because enemies will often slip and fall, preferably inside the cloud of daggers. That strategy actually worked quite well against an Act 2 boss because he was walking towards me from a sloped corridor, so whenever he would slip and fall, he would slide down towards the bottom. I didn't even know that was possible, so I also had some good laughs chipping away the boss health pool, while he never managed to get to me.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Apparently I romanced Karlach and didn't know it. That's what I took from the ending sequences where she clearly acted like we were lovers. Maybe a cutscene failed due to us being in multiplayer.

*****

That is a cool elemental! That said, you get it when you are level 9. Before lvl 9, Life Cleric has more healing spells and with a class action almost giving you twice the healing back aka Cleric is the best healer class overall. Late game, I still believe a Ceric is much better because while you in theory could have your Myridon last for countless more rounds than a Cleric could heal you as good, your party would not survive that long anyways because of for example legendary actions buildup that wipes your team of the ground (depending on what potions/scrolls you have accumulated) or you just can't get that far because of particular boss timers. Not to mention 20+ turns are quite rare in my experience and burst healing is most what I personally rely on in let say 3-6 turns that the average fights lasts.

Yes, but Druid has all the good healing spells that Cleric has, so the water elemental is basically extra. The only comparable thing for Cleric is the "angel" who can revive the dead.

We generally don't heal at all in 3-6 turn battles unless something unusual happens. But even if a long battle is just 10 turns, that's an extra 300 healing in addition to all the healing the Druid can do. It doesn't really matter though. it's just whoever you prefer.

Spoiler: final battle stuff

I brought Shadowheart into the final battle, and she only cast one healing spell, the 70 heal (which Druid also has) on Orpheas during the final sequence. She wasn't helpful other than that. She was going to cast Sanctuary on Orpheas, but it wasn't necessary. The entire finale was maybe 5 turns. The fights to get to the final battle were much worse.

We got what I assume was a bad ending because Guido decided to

Spoiler: Dark Urge stuff

Accept the Dark Urge as his destiny. The last scene has him sneaking toward the celebration camp carrying his dagger. Although, to be honest, there is no way in hell he would be successful at this, so I'm just imagining that the noise woke someone and we murdered him instead. As a sorcerer just using a dagger, Moi could have killed him, much less everyone else in camp. Plus Withers was there, and Withers doesn't sleep. You mean to tell me that Withers, who organized the event, grabbed a beer and watched as Dark Urge killed everyone? I doubt it.

Plus, we got the All's Well that Ends Well achievement.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Eldrich Blast is 1-10 force damage plus charisma bonus of +4 for 5-14, average of 9.5 per hit. You've got to actually hit, so maybe 6 damage per shot times 3 shots will be 18 damage. But it's FORCE damage, which is rarely resisted, it's at range, and it knocks back pretty hard. The shots can be made at different targets, too. That's one hell of a cantrip! (There's also a pair of gloves in Baldur's Gate that can turn a cantrip into a bonus action. I need to play around with that to see how much it might help.)

That's for warlocks, though. Other classes can't get the +4 or knockback. They need it, too, because the warlocks have VERY limited spell slots. Those arcane restoration things that restore a single spell are a big deal to a warlock. On the plus side, one short rest and the spell slots are all restored. (Still, Wyll has a LOT of scrolls in his inventory.)

I started playing again last night. As I've been wandering through town, I haven't needed a long rest in a while. It's been nice because my main character got a buff that adds 1-6 to all attack rolls and skill checks that will only last until a long rest. I've started exploring the Soo Ehr river lately, which has been leading to more battles, so I probably should get back to town proper.


Or chewed on by mind flayer worms! How many did you end up using? What was the final quick save count?

Guido was hosting, and I never remembered to ask him how many quicksaves we used. Nothing would really surprise me. We saved a ton. In my own game, there's no doubt I'm going to trounce you I'm a quicksave machine. I can't stop.

In my solo game, I'm using all the classes I claimed were terrible, likely because I didn't know what I was talking about. I'm playing a bard. I'm going to have a party of 6. Right now I'm thinking of Bard, Warlock, Druid, Ranger and two Paladins.

Unfortunately the game is already too easy on Tactician, so I need to look up difficulty mods. The problem, I suspect, will be in finding a reasonable one. Modder: "Game is too easy. I'm going to give everyone...an extra 9000 health!" so I may end up making my own Tactician Plus. Honor Mode is apparently the same as Tactician but without saving. I didn't really look at the custom difficulty because you can't change it once you set it.

Worse comes to worse, I'll drop one of the Paladins, and if it's still too easy, I'll drop the Ranger, but I really, really want to have a party of 6, so I'll exhaust all the options first.

I've been thinking a little about a fallen Paladin playthrough with 4 Paladins. I've never actively tried to do an evil playthrough in anything, so I'm not sure how that will turn out. As with real life evil, I can probably think up justifications for my behavior.

 

[Frindis]

Honor Mode is apparently the same as Tactician but without saving.

Honor Mode is not the same as tactician because honor mode have different action economy and legendary attacks on bosses and those are not subtle differences. Obviously permadeath is the big on and bosses also have more HP and mobs can behave differently. There are also some cheese tactics that will not work in honor mode.

I do believe the more difficult part of the honor mode is the part before the battle. Did you prepare enough? Did you position yourself correctly? Did you buff fully? You suuure you are ready? You might be very ready, but often you don't feel ready. You might get that sneaking suspicion that something is not quite right.

 

[Pifanjr]

I do believe the more difficult part of the honor mode is the part before the battle. Did you prepare enough? Did you position yourself correctly? Did you buff fully? You suuure you are ready? You might be very ready, but often you don't feel ready. You might get that sneaking suspicion that something is not quite right.

This is my biggest worry if I do ever try Honor mode: I'll want to be fully prepared for each battle, but it's so tedious that I'll either get bored and give up or I skip the preparation and die.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Honor Mode is not the same as tactician because honor mode have different action economy and legendary attacks on bosses and those are not subtle differences. Obviously permadeath is the big on and bosses also have more HP and mobs can behave differently. There are also some cheese tactics that will not work in honor mode.

I do believe the more difficult part of the honor mode is the part before the battle. Did you prepare enough? Did you position yourself correctly? Did you buff fully? You suuure you are ready? You might be very ready, but often you don't feel ready. You might get that sneaking suspicion that something is not quite right.

It sounds great if you like that sort of thing. In this type of game, I'm a casual player who likes role playing. I'll plan 150 hours ahead in Satisfactory or Factorio, but BG3 is a story game for me. I don't want to take notes, etc.

But another reason I couldn't care less about Honor Mode is because we had countless bugs and map glitches in our co-op game, two of which caused us to have to reload an old save or suffer major consequences. These problems didn't bother me at all at the time because reloading was a thing. I would have been furious in Honor Mode. I just don't think the game is polished enough for me to trust it in Honor Mode. Granted, our problems may have been multiplayer and network related, but to say it left me wary of Honor Mode is an understatement.

 

[Frindis]

This is my biggest worry if I do ever try Honor mode: I'll want to be fully prepared for each battle, but it's so tedious that I'll either get bored and give up or I skip the preparation and die.

I was more confident when I got to Act 3, so I did get a bit more aggressive, but I also got punished for a couple moments when I just went in or skipped some preparation. I found it quite fun to plan in Act 1 and Act 2, but in Act 3 I did want to finish it up a bit faster. So I guess you can say (at least for me) that Act 3 was a bit more messy for me, but rarely anything to dangerous.

One of the biggest mistakes I did on honor mode was to venture into an area I had never been to before. Yeah, THAT is not very smart, but it was definitely adrenaline pumping!

It sounds great if you like that sort of thing. In this type of game, I'm a casual player who likes role playing. I'll plan 150 hours ahead in Satisfactory or Factorio, but BG3 is a story game for me. I don't want to take notes, etc.

You could just go completely blind into honor mode. It is not recommended, but would definitely be a big challenge if you are up for the task. Probably get some hilarious stories doing so

But another reason I couldn't care less about Honor Mode is because we had countless bugs and map glitches in our co-op game, two of which caused us to have to reload an old save or suffer major consequences. These problems didn't bother me at all at the time because reloading was a thing. I would have been furious in Honor Mode. I just don't think the game is polished enough for me to trust it in Honor Mode. Granted, our problems may have been multiplayer and network related, but to say it left me wary of Honor Mode is an understatement.

You could also use the tip I mentioned earlier in a post and copying your manual save so that if a game breaking bug did happen, you could roll back to an earlier save. It's not perfect, but at least it would help.

One thing Larian could have done is to have an emergency save prompt option. Like, Larian could have done this for particular areas or scenes in the game where some "honor mode ending bugs" are happening more often and the player could have the option to save manually. It would obviously be up to the players if they used it legit or not, but at least it could have made some of the earlier patch honor mode runs more safe.