D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

Baldur's Gate III is now available for early access on Steam and on Stadia.

I couldn't get the Steam version working on my Mac, but the Stadia version works just fine. The opening tutorial level is pretty gruesome (at one point I had to squish somebody's brain) and the mind flayer airship you're trying to escape from beings to mind the movie Aliens a lot.

Character creation is quick and easy, although options in the early access are limited. The gameplay is like Divinity Original Sin 2 with the 5E rules layered over it. I've only played an hour or so of the game, and as an early access game, it is occasionally a bit buggy, but nothing showstopping (yet).

This isn't a review (I haven't played enough of it to do that, and I don't think it's fair to review an early access version anyway); it's mainly just an alert to the few people who don't already know it's available. If any such person exists!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is utterly dismissive of the play experience of many many gamers.

Players don't "get away with" anything, as if players and DMs are competing against each other. Your viewpoint is alien to me.

There's nothing wrong about "playing monsters dumb", and there's nothing wrong with hoping Larian emulates it, so BG3 doesn't become just another DOS2 computer game.

Even if you coded the monsters to act dumb, there is no mechanic to force equal dumbness on the players. So the monsters charge in waiving melee weapons and get massacred by PCs with bows who back away away whilst shooting (NB this is also an effective tactic in BG1).

The main reason is that 5e rules allow for an attack and a move every turn. You can turn an attack into movement (dash) but you cannot turn movement into an attack, so backing off is effectively free.

 

[reelo]

This is utterly dismissive of the play experience of many many gamers.

Players don't "get away with" anything, as if players and DMs are competing against each other. Your viewpoint is alien to me.

There's nothing wrong about "playing monsters dumb", and there's nothing wrong with hoping Larian emulates it, so BG3 doesn't become just another DOS2 computer game.

Actually, a DM who plays every "monster" equally "dumb" is wrong. Opponents of roughly average (or above) intelligence should use tactics like neutralizing casters and healers first, or or going for a kill on a downed PC if the situation warrants it.

 

[Nymrod]

Actually, a DM who plays every "monster" equally "dumb" is wrong. Opponents of roughly average (or above) intelligence should use tactics like neutralizing casters and healers first, or or going for a kill on a downed PC if the situation warrants it.

Truth be told, every monster that doesn't have high intelligence is in turn described as cunning. Most creatures need to have a basic understanding of combat to survive in D&D worlds. No monster should be played as if it was stupid. Heck when it comes to playing monsters intelligently it pretty much amounts to letting them cheat when it comes to available information, letting them act as if they have foreknowledge of what spells the pcs might have or their favourite tactics (because a really intelligent monster should be able to deduce these things).

 

[CapnZapp]

there is no mechanic to force equal dumbness on the players. So the monsters charge in waiving melee weapons and get massacred by PCs with bows who back away away whilst shooting

If asked to choose between

* acting heroically and tabletop-like is invalidated
and
* acting tactically is rewarded

I'll choose the latter every time.

I don't understand why you view this as somebody being forced. I just want to be able to feel like a mighty hero valiantly striding forth, since, you know, this is D&D. Nothing forced about it.

Again - there is no competition between DM and players.

 

[CapnZapp]

Actually, a DM who plays every "monster" equally "dumb" is wrong. Opponents of roughly average (or above) intelligence should use tactics like neutralizing casters and healers first, or or going for a kill on a downed PC if the situation warrants it.

We're not talking about your game here. We're discussing the fact that encounter and monster design in BG3 pretty much make modern-feeling tactics obligatory. When you can't play D&D like you play... D&D, something is off.

If only a small subset of BG3 monsters had good ranged attacks (and the wits to use them) that would be a different story.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If asked to choose between

* acting heroically and tabletop-like is invalidated
and
* acting tactically is rewarded

I'll choose the latter every time.

Your choice. When the game is complete I expect it will have a "story mode".

I don't understand why you view this as somebody being forced.

When you design a game, you have to assume that players are going to play the game, i.e. use the most effective tactics possible.

I just want to be able to feel like a mighty hero valiantly striding forth, since, you know, this is D&D. Nothing forced about it.

Again - there is no competition between DM and players.

It's not a competition between the DM and the players, but it is a competition between the monsters and the players, and the monsters are playing for their lives. It's the DM's job to a) play the monsters in accordance with their intelligence, and b) to provide players with a suitably engaging challenge.

 

[Nymrod]

An issue for fighters is the short rest idiocy. If your fighter could start every fight (or at least every other fight) with all his dice and his second wind while the casters ration their spells, there would be a lot more parity.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

An issue for fighters is the short rest idiocy. If your fighter could start every fight (or at least every other fight) with all his dice and his second wind while the casters ration their spells, there would be a lot more parity.

I expect areas where you can "go to camp" will be more limited in the final game, but even with no spell slots fighters are still going to be better using bows or pushing people of ledges than using a sword.

 

[Nymrod]

I expect areas where you can "go to camp" will be more limited in the final game, but even with no spell slots fighters are still going to be better using bows or pushing people of ledges than using a sword.

Then maybe, just maybe, it shouldn't be that easy to shove people off ledges. Heck in the underdark I shove some of those duergar so hard, they need two turns of dash to return to the fight. They are freaking duergar, it shouldn't be so easy to shove a dwarf around.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then maybe, just maybe, it shouldn't be that easy to shove people off ledges. Heck in the underdark I shove some of those duergar so hard, they need two turns of dash to return to the fight. They are freaking duergar, it shouldn't be so easy to shove a dwarf around.

Indeed. Although it's not that useless a tactic in PnP either. I remember one fight atop the lightning rail in Eberron...