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]

Sure but that's actually one of the things that make it feel less D&D to me.

In fact, it feels too much like DOS2.1 to me...

It depends how you play. In our first 5e session one PC accidently set another PC's cloak on fire.

 

[Nymrod]

Miniature Giant Space Hamster

I'd rather have a Tyranohamsterus Rex

 

[Nymrod]

Not much of a spoiler - there's bandits in this game - but the first proper bandit gang you encounter attack on sight. Feels rather wonky to have to kill named humans without ever learning their story.

I would guess the priestess and the spawns are the two obvious candidates for evil. But I thought the Githiyanky fighter was evil too? Not sure I'd peg the wizard as good, "self interest" most often translates to neutral in D&D...

Yeah I actually loaded a different save first time I got to those ruins because I thought that there must have been a way to resolve an encounter with named NPCs differently. I mean why even name them if you cannot interact with them outside combat? How would I even know their names? Speak with Dead?

 

[CapnZapp]

Githyanki racial stereotyping!

Vampire racial stereotyping!

I actually don't mind racial stereotyping in fantasy games.

In fact that's why fantasy races were invented in the first place!

 

[CapnZapp]

My only issue so far is how hard it is to get peaceful resolutions without save scumming. But that's part and parcel with 5E's bounded accuracy. Quite a few of the situations qualify as hard or very hard after all and you cannot focus your build well at low levels.

It would help if the player character weren't assumed to always be leader.

If you send someone charismatic to the front to take the face role, you would much easier be able to focus on your strengths.

 

[MarkB]

Not much of a spoiler - there's bandits in this game - but the first proper bandit gang you encounter attack on sight. Feels rather wonky to have to kill named humans without ever learning their story.

I would guess the priestess and the spawns are the two obvious candidates for evil. But I thought the Githiyanky fighter was evil too? Not sure I'd peg the wizard as good, "self interest" most often translates to neutral in D&D...

One thing I really liked was that even the individual goblins in the encampment were named. It made the world feel more real than if it were just a bunch of "goblin tracker" and "bugbear thug" critters.

 

[CapnZapp]

Historically, Larian does. In fact, they do both. Which hilariously rewards doing all the quests then killing everyone.

On the other hand that makes sense.

You gain xp for effort put in. The effort of killing stuff is still required even if the monsters are no longer a quest obstacle.

 

[CapnZapp]

Does that make players polite murder hobos or diplomatic murder hobos?

Murderous diplomat hobos?

(Every answer that still makes them hobos is correct)

 

[CapnZapp]

I struggle to see why I am not killing Lae'zel, Shadowheart and Astarion soon after meeting them.

I believe you can?

Or, at least, tell them to F off, which amounts to the same thing. (At least I assume I will never see them again)

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm enjoying it but there is currently a bug affecting many (myself included) that has put everything on hold. I can't load my most recent saved games - crash to desktop every time. I can go back a couple of days and load an old save, or start over fresh - but can't load the games with the most progress. I've submitted a couple of reports as I'm sure many others have. I think I'll wait until it gets another patch.

It's Early Access.

If you (or I) can't accept losing our progress, we should wait a year for the finished game.

What I want is a way to bypass the intro, starting a fresh character on the beach where you meet Shadowheart.