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!

 

[cbwjm]

I can't recall where I read(heard?) it, so take this with a grain of salt, but I thought Larian was planning on implementing every race and class that is in the PHB. So, yes, Dragonborn, Gnome and Half-Orcs for sure are coming and the other 6 classes: Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin and Sorcerer.

That's my understanding as well. Currently it is just in early access so a lot of content won't be available.

 

[cmad1977]

Btw I've yet to have any graphics issue. Maybe it's because my PC is a beast.
I really hope this proves to be friendly to modders

I’ve had a few. Nothing too surprising given the nature of the game at this point. Also nothing game breaking. I had to restart the game a couple times but that was day1-2.

As a whole, I’m pretty impressed with how they implemented the 5e rule set into their engine.

 

[Nymrod]

I’ve had a few. Nothing too surprising given the nature of the game at this point. Also nothing game breaking. I had to restart the game a couple times but that was day1-2.

As a whole, I’m pretty impressed with how they implemented the 5e rule set into their engine.

Yeah they have captured the feeling of D&D. Which might not be entirely optimal for a video game, mind you. But that was their intent. For me robust mod support will be the ideal next step for this. Give this game decent support for modders and in the next few years we may see amazing things coming out of the mod community. BG games are still supported to this day!

 

[Seramus]

I really really want an option to disable confirmation on self only spells/abilities.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I can't recall where I read(heard?) it, so take this with a grain of salt, but I thought Larian was planning on implementing every race and class that is in the PHB. So, yes, Dragonborn, Gnome and Half-Orcs for sure are coming and the other 6 classes: Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Paladin and Sorcerer.

There is stuff for all the PHB races and classes in the game files if you unpack them. It looks like the only non-PHB races are gith, MToF tieflings, duergar, svirfneblin and variant half elves. Personally, I will be impressed if they manage to include all PHB content. Anything else is just gravy.

Other factors aside, there are plot reasons for not having PC goblinoids, such as near the beginning, you come across a fight between goblins and humans+tieflings. The human/tiefling side is automatically flagged friendly, the goblin side is flagged as hostile.


Addendum: the naming on some of the skin tones makes me think Genasi might make it in.

 

[MNblockhead]

They don't.

You can get it on Stadia, with very low system requirements.

Except that you need solid bandwidth and even if you have great bandwidth it can give issues is you use wifi.

If playing on a TV with the Stadia dongle, I find that it is more forgiving with wifi. But when I try to run in Google Chrome on my laptop, I'll have seven times the recommended minimum bandwidth and it will say my network is not stable. I have to connect by ethernet cable to my router instead of using WiFi with playing stadia on my laptop in Google Chrome.

 

[CapnZapp]

Except that you need solid bandwidth and even if you have great bandwidth it can give issues is you use wifi.

If playing on a TV with the Stadia dongle, I find that it is more forgiving with wifi. But when I try to run in Google Chrome on my laptop, I'll have seven times the recommended minimum bandwidth and it will say my network is not stable. I have to connect by ethernet cable to my router instead of using WiFi with playing stadia on my laptop in Google Chrome.

Yes, but I replied to someone making a different complaint.

 

[Aldarc]

I will try this game when there is a mod that allows one to play as a hobgoblin or orc (even half-orc). Since it is very obvious the actual studio won't release such options.

Until then, as impressive as the videos I have watched look, I kind of feel excluded from enjoying this.

There is already a mod for BG3 that allows playable hobgoblins, minotaurs, and mind flayers.

 

[Nymrod]

There is already a mod for BG3 that allows playable hobgoblins, minotaurs, and mind flayers.

Which really doesn't make much sense in the case of mind flayers given the plot. Heck there are several cases of playable races that by the old lore cannot undergo ceremorphosis though 5E doesn't seem to take that into account, already having a gnome-based illithid (they would have to undergo a much more complex ritual to become a mozgriken instead.) Halflings used to not be viable candidates too, you need a humanoid within a certain height range. I'm sure it works on hobgoblins and bugbears, unsure if it would work on goblins.


I wonder how far the erotic mods will go. DA:O had a very large number (sure it's not Skyrim which likely has more erotic content than normal content at that point) but they did seem very proud of their sex animations.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not that difficult to mod the PC to pretty much anything in the game. But the plot/dialogue will likely not make sense.