Baldur's Gate 3 Catch-All

Hype!

September, late September at that, is far enough away (for the console release of Baldur's Gate I + II) that I'm considering turning to the PC once more. Bah! The force is strong to revisit the Sword Coast.

I'll try to make do with Invisible Inc Console Edition, and Seven: Enhanced Edition, on the PS4!

Still no leak or details on turn based vs rtwp?

(edit: fixed a typo, nothing new here.)

Cladmir wrote:

I've never had the pleasure to play Baldur's Gate 1 or 2. Am I missing something important as a gamer? I mean, are those games something that I *better* play before Baldur's Gate 3 (I like Divinity Original Sin 2 so I am willing to give this a shot, but I also didn't play Divinity Original Sin 1 either)?

Well, um, yes and no. The first thing to realize is that Baldur's Gate is Second Edition AD&D, which is a weirdly complex, arbitrary rule set that was pieced together over about twenty years. It started out as tabletop fantasy wargaming, and they added magic, and then magic items, and .... just kind of went crazy from there. The systems aren't well integrated, glued together sometimes in completely arbitrary ways. As an example: sometimes positive numbers are good for you, sometimes negative numbers are good for you, sometimes you want to roll high, sometimes you want to roll low, and there's no real rhyme or reason to the rule set.

So, they were writing Baldur's Gate for people who already knew those rules. There were millions of tabletop AD&D players. They were the primary market, and didn't need this stuff explained. The exciting bit about BG was the fact that they finally managed to put "AD&D into a computer!"... earlier attempts had been, you know, okay, but never all that complete, and this was the first time they got most of the rules working.

So you've gotta learn that system, which contemporaneous players didn't need to do. Then you have to deal with the foibles of the pen-and-paper game, like first-level characters being incredibly fragile. One bad hit can kill you dead, ending your game instantly. This is just how AD&D works; we used to roll up big batches of characters, see who lived, and then make up backstories for the ones that made third level. So you need to save early and save often, because you don't get that luxury in the computer game. Either your character lives or it's Game Over.

Once you're past all that, BG1 is just okay. It's decent, but the big exciting thing about it was just D&D in a computer, a pretty faithful creation of a low-level campaign that would match up well with a tabletop adventure. It's not until Baldur's Gate 2 that the game really takes flight; you start at about ninth level, where characters have gotten genuinely tough, and you're off on a series of epic adventures with many of the modern trappings, like interesting companions, lots of side quests, lots of voice work, and an overarching main plotline that's actually quite good. It's large, intricate, and reflects high-level AD&D adventuring pretty well, although they have some weird variant rules for high-level characters that didn't exist in the paper game.

Basically, it's not really any better than most modern adventures would be. The thing is, it was done twenty years ago. In 1998, you were able to play a game that stands up pretty well against games being made in 2018. So it was absolutely goddamn mindblowing at the time, and fairly pedestrian now. The fact that you can even still play and enjoy it speaks of how well they did with it.

It also has one other advantage: D&D was a battle-tested rule set. That is, they'd been using it for twenty-ish years, and it has a lot of good design ideas in it, as weirdly as the various rule systems were cobbled together. So the fights can be really fun and challenging, because they're drawing on a huge body of lore and a great deal of knowledge of how to make an AD&D encounter interesting. Bioware didn't have to spend much time figuring out any of that, it was all ready to go, so they could focus on their engine and their adventure.

So it really does play very well, and makes a nicely coherent whole, but learning AD&D 2E is ... well, it's not really a fair thing to ask. You have to be pretty dedicated to spend that much time with a game.

garion333 wrote:

Still no leak or details on turn based vs rtwp?

First person open world shooter/RPG-lite

*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Still no leak or details on turn based vs rtwp?

First person open world shooter/RPG-lite

You can also use L- Gems to speed up your short rests and you can spend L-Bucks directly to speed up your long rests. L-Gems and L-Bucks can be converted to L-Coins (a new Larian cryptocurrency that your computer mines by default on roll count 15 in the initiative order) and you can use L-Coins to buy XP or Power Boosts that grant you additional spell slots.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

The trick is to be eating octopus when you are watching it.

Just don't get any in your eye... otherwise... well...

Honestly this is the one thing I couldn't stand in Baldur's Gate.

I may have played a paladin at times but Noober just had to die. Like every time.

that's 1000 free xp though if you put up with him long enough, if memory serves.

400XP, at the end of the video. Still a lot of XP in a game that had a max level of 7 or so.

I am curious to see how deep they go with player races, backgrounds, and the like. I won't be surprised if they keep it to PHB at launch but I would love some of the variants from Tome of Foes or new races from Volo's.

As long as I get my beloved Tieflings, it's all good. (Boo to Pathfinder : KIngmaker on that front, making Tieflings paid DLC!)

..although a Kenku would be great too!

Hmm, getting a very strong urge to go back and play now.... start at 1 or just go back to 2 again...

Have to say hi to the Character I made and actually got in the game too

BlackSabre wrote:

Hmm, getting a very strong urge to go back and play now.... start at 1 or just go back to 2 again...

Have to say hi to the Character I made and actually got in the game too ;)

I just bought 1 and 2 on sale at GoG

Yeah, I have the remastered versions on steam as well as on the Ipad Spoiled for choice.

Of all things, I'd be really keen to get a physical copy if they released an epic user manual like they did for BG2. Or make it a digital release, I'd be up for that too, something like a formal wiki for when I'm trying to work out how I'm going to multiclass or pick feats/spells.

Agreed. I still have my copy along with the cloth map. It was spiral bound too which means it was easy to read and just digest all the bits of info like spell info and character bios.

I loved the spiral bound manuals, they were like 200 pages or something crazy like that. I'd order that for sure.

If you'd like to join a group of people here playing Baldur's Gate 1 together as we wait for BG3, the game just won the GWJ CRPG Club vote. We're starting up this weekend.

Here's the thread for Baldur's Gate, and here are details on the club if you are curious.

Come join us!

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

If you'd like to join a group of people here playing Baldur's Gate 1 together as we wait for BG3, the game just won the GWJ CRPG Club vote. We're starting up this weekend.

Here's the thread for Baldur's Gate, and here are details on the club if you are curious.

Come join us!

Fixed the BG1 thread link for you.

Eleima wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

If you'd like to join a group of people here playing Baldur's Gate 1 together as we wait for BG3, the game just won the GWJ CRPG Club vote. We're starting up this weekend.

Here's the thread for Baldur's Gate, and here are details on the club if you are curious.

Come join us!

Fixed the BG1 thread link for you. :)

D'oh! Thanks Eleima! I went and repaired it now as well.

Ahead of the Global gameplay reveal this evening (UK time!) a French website has apparently leaked a couple of screenshots. There is an RPS article about it here

It basically looks like Original Sin 2. But with D&D characters. I have no person issue with that I hasten to add, but it would indicate the TBS is an option (if not the default) combat mechanic. It's going to be interesting to see how people react I think.

If the story works well I will be fine with the look but yeah it is Divnity 3: Baldur's Sin

I believe they're showing it at PAX East, which starts today. I'm hoping to get a healthy view of it when I'm there tomorrow/Saturday.

woah. interesting choice of tense for the dialogue.

farley3k wrote:

If the story works well I will be fine with the look but yeah it is Divnity 3: Baldur's Sin

Boooooooo I knew I didn't want Larian anywhere near this.

*Legion* wrote:
farley3k wrote:

If the story works well I will be fine with the look but yeah it is Divnity 3: Baldur's Sin

Boooooooo I knew I didn't want Larian anywhere near this.

Why not?

Probably because he wants real time pausable.

Anyone wanna go the other way and implement or mod a realtime or slow time with pause for Original Sin 2?

I'd love to see more games go the realtime with slo mo like in the Tower of Time game. Or perhaps a slo mo speed for turn based games. (It'd be much better than battle autofinishing)

I dug the past tense dialogue options. It made me feel like we were going to get a Dragon Age 2-esque narrative set up with most or part of the game’s story being told in flashback.

Vector wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
farley3k wrote:

If the story works well I will be fine with the look but yeah it is Divnity 3: Baldur's Sin

Boooooooo I knew I didn't want Larian anywhere near this.

Why not?

For me, personally, I fell out with Divinity pretty quickly because I got tired of the way the game auto-leveled the badguys to keep up the challenge. They felt like damage sponges in the worst way, and if that's what i'm going to be getting in BGIII.... I mean, i'll still probably try it, but that's a real letdown.