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!

 

[MarkB]

I'd say the most dangerous character is the assassin you never even see. In BG2 at very high levels, melee was extremely effective since defense against melee was much easier to overcome. Sure casters had dozens of save or die spells to throw but an invisible melee character with the right equipment could often end the encounter before it ever begun.

Casters at high levels in BG2 were generally neutered by the presence of casters on the opposing side with their ever-escalating arms race of defensive spells. It was generally a race for your casters to strip away their casters' protections while they were trying to do the same thing to you, so it tended to take a couple of rounds before either side had a decent chance of actually landing their save-or-die spells.

I'm glad that's not an effective option in 5e - it got rather tedious after awhile.

 

[Nymrod]

Casters at high levels in BG2 were generally neutered by the presence of casters on the opposing side with their ever-escalating arms race of defensive spells. It was generally a race for your casters to strip away their casters' protections while they were trying to do the same thing to you, so it tended to take a couple of rounds before either side had a decent chance of actually landing their save-or-die spells.

I'm glad that's not an effective option in 5e - it got rather tedious after awhile.

BG2 casters were just ridiculous. The spell trigger line of spells were FR spells created specifically to explain why the Simbul was so OP she could handled multiple Red Wizards by herself and were NEVER intended to be used by the players (the sourcebooks were they were printed said as much). Meanwhile in BG2, every last caster has multiple ridiculous contingencies that go off instantly as soon as they are engaged. Add those to a creature with insane save or die abilities like a demilich and the battle of dispels just would require savescumming. Much easier to send in and invisible Korgan/Minsc with every protection you can afford to pound them to dust with a hammer of thunderbolts.

I laugh at the idea that any part of BG2 combat is worth replicating. BG1 was much better balanced if not for how overequipped the enemy often was (who gave all those kobolds exploding arrows that are effectively fireballs?)

 

[Gradine]

In BG1 my melee characters would constantly get peppered with ranged attacks before closing the distance. Why should BG3 be any different?

That said, the idea that melee is pointless in 5e has been way overblown over the years. Still, it's always good to carry a backup ranged weapon.

 

[CapnZapp]

There should be a place for all archetypes in D&D because playing fantasy archetypes is such a big part of fantasy RPGs. And that includes melee.

This is so obvious it shouldn't need saying.

 

[CapnZapp]

That said, the idea that melee is pointless in 5e has been way overblown over the years. Still, it's always good to carry a backup ranged weapon.

I would this to be as true for BG3 as it is for the tabletop experience.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Much easier to send in and invisible Korgan/Minsc with every protection you can afford to pound them to dust with a hammer of thunderbolts.

This tactic should work in BG3 - leave most of the party out of the fight all together, and send in the toughest character, buffed to the max. 5e has nothing like as many long duration buffs as earlier editions, but you could certainly slap Invisibility and Shield of Faith on a character (must test if multiple Shields of Faith stack in BG3) and chug potions of Giant Strength. No chance of losing concentration if the caster is outside of the fight.