WotC World Reveal of Baldur's Gate 3

At PAX East today, gameplay footage of Baldur's Gate 3 was revealed for the first time by Larian Studios.

According to PC Gamer, the Early Access version of the game will launch this year with five characters:

• Wyll, Human Warlock
• Shadowheart, Half-elf Cleric
• Lae'zel, Githyanki Fighter
• Gale, Human Wizard
• Astarion, Elven Vampire Spawn Rogue

And you'll be able to create characters using these six classes:

• Fighter (Battle Master, Eldritch Knight)
• Wizard (Evocation, Abjuration)
• Rogue (Arcane Trickster, Thief)
• Ranger (Hunter, Beast Master)
• Cleric (Life, Light, Trickery)
• Warlock (Fiend, Great One)

15 races include (amongst others):

• Elves
• Dwarves
• Humans
• Githyanki
• Drow
• Tieflings
• Vampire Spawn

 

[Azzy]

I'm hyped that this game will be turn based.

So am I, I've never cared for the RT D&D games.

 

[Azzy]

Also: Early access? Really. I may be too old for this and don't understand how beta testing works nowadays. But a story driven RPG of the epicness and scale that a BG3 should have and then it gets released in early access? Are they running out of funds or what?

These days, you either get paid early access or buggy release that gets patched to hell and back. Which usually amounts to the same thing.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Okay guys, just on the basis of historical D&D games, which ones have been the most popular? The ones that have stuck close to the actual tabletop rulesets. Nobody mentions Hillsfar, Al-Qadim: the Genie's Curse, or Sword Coast Legends when they talk about the greats.

 

[TheFailasouf]

Okay guys, just on the basis of historical D&D games, which ones have been the most popular? The ones that have stuck close to the actual tabletop rulesets. Nobody mentions Hillsfar, Al-Qadim: the Genie's Curse, or Sword Coast Legends when they talk about the greats.

This is so wrong.

ToEE was as faithful as it gets to 3.5 and while it's been applauded for that, no one cared enough to play it.

Icewind Dale has no story and close to no NPC and certainly not any NPC you could recruit and really was basically just combat and still sold more than ToEE and is more fondly remembered because as much as it hurts TB fanatics, IE's implementation of D&D combat, while not perfect, was pretty damn fun. Turns in D&D is an abstraction that helps make a session runs smoothly because otherwise the DM would need to register and compute way too many things at the same time and the DM is not a computer. On a video game, the DM IS a computer and it's the only opportunity to see how D&D unfolds when allowed to get closer to its vision of narrative flow through real time combat (with as many pauses as needed ether to navigate the interface or just think about your move).

Having to take turn for every single encounter is just boring. I wanna fireball the goblins i see on the edge of the map, not wait for m arbitrarily decided turn and watch everyone do their thing before I get to do it. This is what happens on a table btw. If a player declares that he fireballs the thing the DM just described, a good DM does not roll initiative first, he allows it to happen because it flow much better with the storytelling than imposing a structure when it's not needed.

It's even worse that it's team by team and not character by character.

 

[Teemu]

Having to take turn for every single encounter is just boring. I wanna fireball the goblins i see on the edge of the map, not wait for m arbitrarily decided turn and watch everyone do their thing before I get to do it. This is what happens on a table btw. If a player declares that he fireballs the thing the DM just described, a good DM does not roll initiative first, he allows it to happen because it flow much better with the storytelling than imposing a structure when it's not needed.

It's even worse that it's team by team and not character by character.

You can cast that fireball at the goblins in the Divinity: Original Sin games without having to wait for combat to start. That’s how you can start a fight, by launching an attack on the enemies.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Baldurs gate 1 and 2 were as also turn based. It was just hidden a bit IIRC. It actually felt clunky because of that.

 

[TheSword]

Some of the comments crack me up.

The incredibly successful BG1 and BG2 were both turn based computer games. What in your wildest dreams made you think BG3 wasn’t going to be turn based?

Turn based just means that characters have a finite number of attacks or spells in a six second period, and move a certain speed. It doesn’t mean waiting around.

The differences between 5e and the other d&d rulesets is negligible. Can anyone point out any substantial difference between 5e and 3e or ad&d that would affect gameplay?

It is fundamentally a D&D game. That is what has always marked the BG series as unique. What were you expecting honestly? It bemuses me.

 

[slobster]

Some of the comments crack me up.

The incredibly successful BG1 and BG2 were both turn based computer games. What in your wildest dreams made you think BG3 wasn’t going to be turn based?

Turn based just means that characters have a finite number of attacks or spells in a six second period, and move a certain speed. It doesn’t mean waiting around.

The differences between 5e and the other d&d rulesets is negligible. Can anyone point out any substantial difference between 5e and 3e or ad&d that would affect gameplay?

It is fundamentally a D&D game. That is what has always marked the BG series as unique. What were you expecting honestly? It bemuses me.

Well I mean to be fair, the original BG games were sort of a hybrid of turn based and real time. Under the hood it was turn based, but actions played out in real time and you had to actually pause the game to give yourself enough time to think things through and give detailed commands. If you left the game running, it was easy to accidentally leave a character or two without commands in the corner of a map or the middle of a melee, forgetting them and having them waste several actions.

This is a more explicitly turn based system than any previous BG game ever has been.

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay guys, just on the basis of historical D&D games, which ones have been the most popular? The ones that have stuck close to the actual tabletop rulesets. Nobody mentions Hillsfar, Al-Qadim: the Genie's Curse, or Sword Coast Legends when they talk about the greats.

But Dark Alliance get's mentioned a lot