Poll of the Day > Baldur's Gate 3 EA launches tomorrow

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh4Cet-Itiw

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Uploading another video now. It seems like the game breaks more frequently whenever I record but whatever.

There's a decent showcase of combat in this next one.

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Second video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTrRD26zpM

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I'm finally getting around to end of EA. Cleared everything on the surface to my knowledge(I took extra time to make sure no nooks and crannies were left unturned and I actually found a few hidden chests as well as some enemies I hadn't discovered yet!).

Just now started the Underdark. Even this place looks massive.

According to GOG Galaxy, I have 41 hours in the game on primarily one playthrough. I've gotten as far as the druid grove with a second and am in the middle of the first ruins on the third.

I imagine the time it would take to experience not necessarily every possible outcome but just multiple, in this build, would put me at well over 70 hours.

What a damn good time. That said, I might wait until the next big update to play anything but my second party.

When it's cleaned up a bit, this game will really be something else.

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can you romance party members like in BG2?

you can even have a baby in BG2 kind of

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Yes. It's still in its early stages, but it's there for every companion.

Except for Wyll. He died in my first playthrough, but given the way the romance convos are laid our, I presume it's there for him too.

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I cant wait to play on console in 40 years. :(

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It ain't that far away man lol

IIRC, Larian was pretty fast with their ports of the DOS series.

I would say we'll see them within 2 years. Which does sound a bit daunting, I'll admit.

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got to the end of early access with my third character a gold dwarf life cleric. After I learned that the in-game cleric was TERRIBAD, I decided to be one myself

I liked playing as cleric, but I wish shadowheart was better than trash, because I liked playing as a tiefling warlock better.

My first character was ranger, and maybe it was because I didn't know really what I was doing yet, but I seemed super weak and had little fun compared to the other two characters

I actually liked Shadowheart quite a bit.

I don't think she's as awful as people make her out to be. She's very much a primarily support character, although there are spots where she can contribute offensively. Guiding bolt is stupid good and she tends to hit with her melee more often than the given percentages would lead you to believe. She's vulnerable to attacks of opportunity, but I found an item that grants her Misty Step. That was great for letting her run up and sneak an attack, and then she could safely teleport away.

Warlock is super fun and stupid good.

Ranger seems decent based on what I've played, but I don't have a lot of time with the class.

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Rangers are pretty much trash currently at least, even with the improvements.

Yeah of the NPCs the cleric is the worst of the lot as far as building a char of that class. It has the absolute worst domain by far, that literally does nothing for the party. That being said, honestly the biggest "advantage" of the cleric is the ability to use healing word to bring other chars back up quicky, not it's not HORRIBLE if you play with her instead of a custom cleric.

Warlocks are pretty great, and having 2 of them rocks pretty well. Fighters/rogues are arguably the best since you can go eldritch with both of them and gain significant advantages in the process.

Cleric/Fighter/Fighter/rogue combo for instance gives you 3 chars that can cast magic missile and sleep (both are no fail). The fighters can use action surge to double cast the first round. If you switch out the cleric for a mage, that means the ability to cast 6 magic missiles the first round.

Fighters get well, alot of hp as well, can self heal, use all weapons, get a fighter specialization (+1 ac, +2 attack bonus for ranged attacks, +2 damage for 1 handed weapons (works with a shield) etc).

IF you build your fighter dex based, and go with eldritch, you get mage armor even without a wizard in your party, which with 18 dex (at level 4), and a shield, gives you insanely high ac (especially if you take the +1 ac from fighter spec). This lets your fighters use robes as well which give a variety of benefits.

That all being said, in the end there are basically 2 good choices for a primary character (other than for theme etc), a Eldritch knight dex based fighter, or a cha based warlock. Even if you want high cha and persuasion though, a Half-Elf wood Elf fighter, gets +2 to cha +1 to dex and con, longer movement range, stealth for free, darkvision, and with just 2 points invested into cha you end up with a 14 cha....which is only +1 less than a warlock to persuasion checks.

Meanwhile the same cha has 16 dex/16 con...highest possible AC (without spells), ability to use both ranged and melee weapons with the maximum bonus to hit (especially if you go with the +2 to ranged attacks), almost the absolute max hp possible in the game (max is if you snag toughness at 4 instead of dex...giving +8 total hp).

Meanwhile once you hit level 3 you can shut down any enemy with less than 28 hp (or multiples), and with 2 fighters and a rogue in theparty, you can shut down all/most of them. You have the potential to pound out 18d4+18 damage on your first round as well (with a wizard in the party) which till the underdark kills most enemies in 1 shot.

Anyway after playing a bunch the eldritch knight seems like the most op/strongest char in the current game.

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Is the game overall better to be played by yourself or co-oping with a friend?

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Well I found out the hard way that if laezel is dead at the end of the tutorial she ain't comin back. Her body is just on the beach and you can't revive her. Why was she dead, because I wanted to see what happened when I killed the level 8 tutorial boss! It only drops a normal greatssword :(

So seemingly, shadowheart might not be as bad as I first thought... but only because of a glitch!

I haven't tested it myself, but some people on reddit were saying that her "pass without a trace" ability she gets at level 3 is glitched, and instead of giving +10 to stealth checks it gives +10 to ALL checks, so that should make rolling those hard dice checks in conversations a little easier, lol

Finally got multiple custom characters to work!

https://i.imgur.com/Qm9b1EB.png

I tried doing a 4th, but my PC couldn't handle it. It might could if I lowered the graphics settings, but that was too much work.

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So multiplayer is really cool.

I had one instance where it was bugged, but sometimes your other characters can all have their own input in a dialogue.

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can't wait until more of the early access update drip. like morphine.

finally trying out the glitch with shadowhearts ability making skillchecks easy and it. is. awesome.

I wouldn't recommend it for a first playthrough, but anyone going through again and again just wanting to see all the possible checks without having to reload all the time will love it. I think the highest DC ive seen so far was a 4, and I've already seen one more path through a quest than I've seen before because of it

I think I'm a little too in to what is basically a demo! Started my first solo run today. Trying warlock. Pushed Lae'zel right off the ****ing edge of the nautiloid, lolololol