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!

 

[Nymrod]

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

But that's pretty much the point of the Lightning Rail. You shove someone, the ledges will likely be precarious and if they fall, they are out of combat barring teleportation (which is not unlikely)

 

[Nymrod]

OK this makes me super happy. Apparently it is possible already to mod the files to allow for larger parties. One thing I've always hated was the party size limit. It seems that the in game hard cap is not 4 but 8 (yes, EIGHT) though it does take a minute to get the mod to work (and we will need some UI mod in the future when we can have that many characters since it's already a bit wonky if you go past 5 people).

 

[Leatherhead]

I have to be clear here, using tactics is my preferred way to play D&D.

 

[Nymrod]

I have to be clear here, using tactics is my preferred way to play D&D.

Here is the thing, this is a CRPG

There will be people who want to play it mostly for tactical combat.
There are others who mostly want to see the story and all the possible quests
There will be people who will try to make the most broken legal builds possible to solo the game
And there will even be people who treat the game as a visual novel with a lot of needless (for them) combat fluff

A story mode will likely be a fairly good idea when this ends up live. Ofc given that a story mode doesn't need to much balancing, it doesn't need to be tested at this point.

 

[jgsugden]

Shove should follow the D&D rules - Replaces an attack (so not just a bonus action), and it is an opposed role (Athletics versus either Athletics or Acrobatics).

 

[Hohige]

If you want a powergame. Go sorcerer and metamagic shenanigans.
Otherside, Go Warlock.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sorcerer aint in yet.

 

[Hohige]

Sorcerer aint in yet.

Wrong thread, Sorry.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

OK this makes me super happy. Apparently it is possible already to mod the files to allow for larger parties. One thing I've always hated was the party size limit. It seems that the in game hard cap is not 4 but 8 (yes, EIGHT) though it does take a minute to get the mod to work (and we will need some UI mod in the future when we can have that many characters since it's already a bit wonky if you go past 5 people).

The size limit is to stop turns dragging on (if you have more on one side you have more on the other as well) and because of the modern expectation that companions be highly detailed and fully voiced. It's not technical.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Currently Larian is forcing it on players. There's a difference. Remember 5E is a huge success in no small part thanks to how it accommodates a wide range of players and playing styles. As is BG3 plays far too much like DOS2 and competitive video games, and far too little like D&D and cooperative table-top games.

But I'm tired explaining these things to you and won't respond further. To return to more constructive discussion, let me repeat that I'd rather see a more tabletop-like AI setting than just crude damage adjustments ("On Easy mode you have twice the hit points and deal double damage").

That is because the difficulty is the symptom, not the problem. The real problem is that the game doesn't play like the tabletop experience.