Baldur's Gate 3 Playthrough Discussion

[Zed Clampet]

My solo game is on hold for two reasons:

1) V Rising
2) I have to decide whether I'm going any farther in it right now. I've made it to a good place. I've got all the early companions and have killed the Paladins. I'm now going to make copies of this save file so I never have to do the very beginning again. From now on I start from here.

However, I don't like the fact that I'm using mods. I haven't got the balance correct yet, and it just feels pointless like I'm cheating.

 

[Frindis]

Speaking of mods, there is a couple of mods (forgot the names, but easy to find) that let's you get different chests with all the different clothes in the game + some extra. Nice way to add some extra flavor to the party, perhaps make one of the characters look a certain way or maybe a thematic thing going on.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finally got time to play again today. I managed to level everyone up to level 9 right before the final boss fight of Act 2, which was great timing.

Spoiler: Spoiler for boss fight

I didn't do a long rest before starting the boss fight because everyone was still at full health from the last short rest and with the extra spell slots from levelling up I didn't think I'd need to. I spent a bunch of high level spells on buffs before the battle started and managed to sneak a couple of my summons, who hadn't automatically joined the fight, behind some of the enemies. Then I used the last of my high level spells to quickly take out everyone.

At least, that's what I thought. Instead I entered the second phase of the fight with no high level spells left and really no answer to the insanely high defence of the big bad. I just had to slowly chip away at its health while trying to also kill all of the necromites it was summoning. At some point most of my summons were either dead or useless and I wasn't able to kill the necromites before they hatched, so I had to deal with the boss healing like 75% of the damage I was doing each round.

Luckily it focused most of its damage on Karlach, who was only taking half damage due to her rage and could be healed every time she was thrown from the platform in the middle, while spreading the rest of the damage around. None of my party members went down and I managed to get through the last 100 health by using a speed potion on everyone and getting double attacks for 3 turns.

There were definitely some things I could've done better, either in preparation or during the fight, but it all worked out fairly well. I'm now ready for Act 3 with a camp chest filled to the brim with loot to sell.

 

[Pifanjr]

@Zed Clampet I just entered Act 3 and now I understand why you think Monk's are so powerful. I got a pretty thorough ass whooping, with Wyll taken down before he even got a chance to act in the first fight. With how fast monks are and their immunity to difficult terrain it's also really hard to do any crowd control.

It also doesn't help that the Polearm Mastery + Sentinel combination is apparently bugged. Normally you'd get an attack of opportunity when an enemy enters your range (with a polearm that's at 10 feet) and if you hit their speed is set to 0, meaning that if the enemy doesn't have a reach weapon themselves they can't hit you. But in BG3 if an enemy is moving to attack your character with Polearm Mastery + Sentinel they finish their move and thus attack you even if you hit them with your attack of opportunity.
Luckily there seems to be several mods that fix this, though they're kind of janky because they just add a knockback effect instead of actually fixing the issue, which seems to be impossible with the current way the game is made.

 

[Zed Clampet]

@Zed Clampet I just entered Act 3 and now I understand why you think Monk's are so powerful. I got a pretty thorough ass whooping, with Wyll taken down before he even got a chance to act in the first fight. With how fast monks are and their immunity to difficult terrain it's also really hard to do any crowd control.

They are kind of impossible to get away from. There was a fight where there was one character we had to take down quickly and he was very far away and up high on a ledge, and I got my monk to him in the first turn. I made it even better by carrying extra consumables that made him even more mobile, like teleportation arrows. Those were very expensive, but they paid off several times.

My monk had a cape that along with his natural evasiveness made him nearly impossible to hit. Guido said he was immortal. Plus you get 4 or 5 attacks per turn, including an optional small one that is AOE.

 

[Pifanjr]

They are kind of impossible to get away from. There was a fight where there was one character we had to take down quickly and he was very far away and up high on a ledge, and I got my monk to him in the first turn. I made it even better by carrying extra consumables that made him even more mobile, like teleportation arrows. Those were very expensive, but they paid off several times.

My monk had a cape that along with his natural evasiveness made him nearly impossible to hit. Guido said he was immortal. Plus you get 4 or 5 attacks per turn, including an optional small one that is AOE.

After getting my ass whooped by monks, I managed to get the drop on three enemies and killed them all before they could even take a single action.

I now run around with 9 summons at all times, which makes positioning everyone a bit of a bother, but it does mean I have a major advantage in regards to the action economy. I could have gotten a tenth if I had gotten the Eldritch Invocation "Minions of Chaos" for Wyll, which I really should have. Maybe I'll stop by Withers and get it when I go back to camp.

 

[Zed Clampet]

After getting my ass whooped by monks, I managed to get the drop on three enemies and killed them all before they could even take a single action.

I now run around with 9 summons at all times, which makes positioning everyone a bit of a bother, but it does mean I have a major advantage in regards to the action economy. I could have gotten a tenth if I had gotten the Eldritch Invocation "Minions of Chaos" for Wyll, which I really should have. Maybe I'll stop by Withers and get it when I go back to camp.

I love summoning, but I didn't really dive too deeply into it. I was only playing 2 of the 4 characters, and the monk can't summon anyone (unless there's a feat for that), but I did carry around "summon elemental" scrolls and used those in the bigger fights.