D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 will now be releasing August 3rd on PC and September 6th on PS5, increased level cap, race & class details and more

[Seramus]

I didn't say it was very hard. I said that it requires you to constantly upgrade your gear and get into every possible fight, otherwise you're distinctly underpowered for what the game expects. Fights that are clearly intended to be minor deals are absolute knock-down drag-out affairs if you don't do that.

You really don't have to upgrade your gear very often. Certainly sometimes or the fights become the drag-out affairs you speak of, but once every 20 hours or so is fine. DOS2 is no Diablo.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You really don't have to upgrade your gear very often.

You really do. A weapon that's 2 levels higher can easily do double the damage (or 80-90% more) of what you have - at least when I played, and I don't think they changed that. There were mods that changed it though. At 3 levels higher, if you don't upgrade, you're absolutely stuffed. That's totally abnormal for a CRPG and completely normal for an MMORPG or Diablo-type ARPG. I'd reinstall it and take screenshots (because the wiki is borked) but it's 59 GB and my internet is not fast (which will be great fun tomorrow trying to download 122 GB!).

DOS2 is no Diablo.

In terms of level/equipment upgrade? Absolutely it 100% it is a Diablo or a WoW. In terms of how often you are forced to upgrade over time played? It might be slightly less extreme, but then you also have four characters do deal with, so not really, and either way it's more extreme than any other CRPG by a long margin, and further it conflicts strongly with the immersive sim, "do it your own way" and role-playing-heavy orientations of the game.

In the defense of DOS2 I will say it was a fad that was hitting gaming at the time. The Witcher 3 was also infected by it, but patched repeatedly to make it less of an issue. Even Cyberpunk 2077 kind of has the issue, but loot is so wildly abundant in that that it's not a big problem - I notice the Phantom Liberty expansion is explicitly going to delete that element though and make it more about the right tool for the right job.

A number of games have done this, actually - Ghost Recon: Breakpoint launched with a Diablo-style colour-coded "constant upgrade" sort of loot system, but after a few months patched in an optional system where there was no strict loot upgrading, and guns did specific things and specific amounts of damage.

 

[Divine2021]

Eh, I loved the writing and combat in Divinity Sin 2, and I don’t feel weird or bad or guilty (?) for doing so. It was mad fun and creative and unlike anything I’d ever played before. And I wouldn’t call it grimdark at all, that’s just a weird take in my opinion. It was different. And that difference was awesome.

 

[WanderingMystic]

Thanks, this really nails it down for me, in a way which I understand. I've always wanted to play a bard who's a true jack-of-all-trades, and it seems to me that Swords is the way to go with that, not Valor as I had been thinking. Valor, from your breakdown, seems to be just taking hits. Who the heck wants to take hits in a fight? To paraphrase Patton, I don't want to die for my group, I want the other dudes to die for mine (in a fight).

Swords seems to give a character who's pretty good in a fight, pretty good at healing, and above average in skills and exploration, which is what I really like. It doesn't help that I'm a dilettante in real life (seriously, just look at my post history, I dabble in everything and am a bit mercurial in finding "the thing" that I really like). That makes it the College which I will likely most enjoy, and possibly the class that I most enjoy. I will admit that the Bard was the class in the 2nd Edition PHB that I really fell in love with during my first read.

Honestly if you want the jack of all trades then go lore. Lore gets you better skills and better spells, you will be using a rapier as your weapon regardless of which subclass you use.

Swords gives you more combat ability at the cost of being able to buff your companions.

Valor is great at buffing and being a front line character, so the big difference between valor and swords is swords does more melee damage valor has more ac. Swords buffs itself while valor buffs your allies.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Honestly if you want the jack of all trades then go lore. Lore gets you better skills and better spells, you will be using a rapier as your weapon regardless of which subclass you use.

Swords gives you more combat ability at the cost of being able to buff your companions.

Valor is great at buffing and being a front line character, so the big difference between valor and swords is swords does more melee damage valor has more ac. Swords buffs itself while valor buffs your allies.

I don't think this summary is quite right.

Lore specialises you as a caster, compared to the other two. You get more skills, but you're not more of a "jack of all trades" in the gameplay sense, just in the skill usage sense.

Swords and Valor give an extra attack, Lore does not. As Bards don't have good damage cantrips unless you blow magical secrets on Eldritch Blast and don't have good damage spells without magical secrets (esp. as Larian cruelly nerfed Dissonant Whispers, bizarre given the buffs they've given some spells), those attacks can matter.

Lore is likely to blow most uses of Bardic Inspiration on the very OP version of Cutting Words that BG3 has, unless that is changed for release (last I played it applied minus inspiration die to basically every d20 roll the enemy made until your next turn).

Valor doesn't add anything good inspiration-wise - Swords usages are on you but they're also pretty powerful - their shove, for example has no save or check associated with it.

But it's quite likely Larian have messed with a whole bunch of these abilities. For all we know, Magic Secrets got nerfed, Valor Bards got turbo-buffed, and so on.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Gotta wonder why Larian decided to implement the Valor subclass when everyone who wants a gish bard is going to play Sword. They should have added a different bard subclass instead, like say Eloquence.

I assume it's because they promised all PHB subclasses. They might spice up their version.

 

[jgsugden]

I assume it's because they promised all PHB subclasses. They might spice up their version [of Valor bard].

I'm very eager to see all the spice they put into the game. I admit I am disappointed that 8 of my 10 most desired subclasses are not here for release. I am hoping that we'l be able to see what they've changed up so that we can pick things that may not be obvious in the initial level 1 view of the character builder. 20 hours, 40 minutes to go.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Explain it to me like I’m a Gen Z who’s only ever played 5E.

Only 8 companions? And some get introed later? And ONLY 4 party members? Does that mean if I don’t play a healer I have to use one of the only other 2 healers, both who don’t look interesting at all.

I planned to go Bard but I’m worried I won’t have the healing I’ll need if I don’t take either the Druid or Cleric companions.

BG1-2 gave you options (lots of companions) but this seems lacking in that area.

Also why are all/most of the companies like morally grey in their descriptions?

I feel like I’m being pigeonholed into playing a healer class.

 

[Seramus]

I feel like I’m being pigeonholed into playing a healer class.

No worries, Bard IS a healing class!

 

[Ondath]

Explain it to me like I’m a Gen Z who’s only ever played 5E.

Only 8 companions? And some get introed later? And ONLY 4 party members? Does that mean if I don’t play a healer I have to use one of the only other 2 healers, both who don’t look interesting at all.

I planned to go Bard but I’m worried I won’t have the healing I’ll need if I don’t take either the Druid or Cleric companions.

BG1-2 gave you options (lots of companions) but this seems lacking in that area.

Also why are all/most of the companies like morally grey in their descriptions?

I feel like I’m being pigeonholed into playing a healer class.

If you've played 5E, you should know that you don't need a dedicated healer most of the time - the game will probably give plenty of potions, and most of the HP recovery should be easy to do by taking a Short Rest between encounters.