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I played into Act 3 as a custom MC and recently started a new game as a Dark Urge F Tiefling Druid.
The options provided in game are absurd.

There is an annoying bug I've run into a few times where a character has an invisible action bar, but I haven't seen anything worse than that.
The only other real negative to me comes with the Act 2/3 storytelling and that's just a gripe with the primary enemies.

I've played games with many options, but I've never played a game that was so willing to screw you over based on your decisions. It's insane.

I haven’t been able to stop playing it.

Currently playing a human paladin and loving it. I’m constantly torn on restarting and going straight up evil just to see how things work out.

Experienced a few quest bugs and Inventory is horrendous are my only minor complaints.

I'm almost to Moonrise Towers on my second character, a Dark Urge Tiefling Druid.

The amount of options you have in game are insane. I absolutely understand why they went with EA and took so "long" to release. The depth of the zones is also pretty intense. I straight up missed The Arcane Tower in the Underdark somehow on my first playthrough. I also failed to trigger the Golem fight at the forge (but I found the spot, I just didn't have the needed materials).

I ended up restarting. Had a blast getting to where I was, and I can breeze through most of the Goblin/Druid stuff super easy now, so its not much of a chore.

Now that I have a better understanding of the game mechanics and what some stuff has time limits on, I'm doing pretty damn good. Using alchemy to full effect to keep my party from camping/long rest and being disciplined with what abilities that I use.

My first main playthrough I was pretty much pulling out all of the stops for damn near every encounter. Just being more conservative and using all tools on the table have let me stretch out my party and their abilities.

Can't bring myself to play an evil/dark urge character yet. Still went with boring old sword and board paladin who always keep his oaths.

 nels1031 wrote:
I haven’t been able to stop playing it.

Haven't wanted to. Near the end now, and I'm still getting sidequests.

Using alchemy to full effect to keep my party from camping/long rest and being disciplined with what abilities that I use.

Just a warning, especially if you're taking as many companions as you can, avoiding long rests can be bad.
A lot of the storytelling is embedded in the camping and 'end the day' cycle, and it prioritizes certain scenes and (seems to) randomize others (or at least the order they come up). You can actually miss important story beats for characters by not resting enough.
They moved some of it out (compared to EA) but its still a problem, and its more of a problem the more people and creatures you invite along.

Inventory is horrendous are my only minor complaints.

One useful (and the game doesn't tell you) feature for inventory is you can click and shift click to move groups of objects at once. And pick up more containers (like backpacks and pouches). Quickly dumping potions, scrolls and arrows off into their own bags helps immensely. Though annoying you can't always interact with them in bags (you can't scribe scrolls into a wizard's spellbook if they're in bags, for example)

You can also mark items as 'wares' and if you switch trading modes, there is a 'sell all wares' button.

But yeah, inventory and some camera jank are the biggest problems. Especially inside multi story buildings. Or inside and outside, it becomes a fight with the camera itself

Voss wrote:
some camera jank are the biggest problems. Especially inside multi story buildings. Or inside and outside, it becomes a fight with the camera itself

The camera is my biggest beef once you get into the titular city proper, later in the game.

So apparently they rolled out a Hotfix today and then rolled it back so I'm locked out of my Dark Urge Druid's last 3 hours of gameplay until it gets fixed...

I can't decide if the Dark Urge writing is good or not. I'm at the point where you know everything and I feel like it's probably their intended main character because

As far as gameplay goes...

Spore Druid is kind of weak and I hate having to keep a rogue in my party for lockpicking because they feel sort of worthless as far as combat goes.

Bard is just as good for lockpicking.

With the right background or class (rangers can definitely get it, as can some races), plus the ubiquitous guidance, anyone can get by. Most locks aren't that hard, and the lock picking kits for retrying come fast and easy.

If all else fails (even alternate paths- there's one big locked door in Act 1, where if you go around the corner, the wall is just gone), just break chests and doors. Force and fire damage often gets doubled. You'll lose a little loot by breaking containers, but there's so much that it doesn't really matter.

trexmeyer wrote:
I hate having to keep a rogue in my party for lockpicking because they feel sort of worthless as far as combat goes.

I have Astarian kitted out as an archer. Thinking I might just respec him as a ranger to get the full potential out of that and still have some lockpick/sneak action.

Also :

Sorry, Voss.

Eldrich Blast with two projectiles that knock back is so broken.

Almost done with an Act 1 as a Great Old One Warlock on Tactician. I think I did everything EXCEPT the Mushroom Picker quest because I don't care about that one at all.

This is my 4th playthrough of Act 1 (I did one in EA) and I'm still finding new things.

I've yet to get past the 2nd act, but have created several characters.

Only one is a race that does not come standard with darkvision. My first character, a Selune Drow GOO warlock, has really highlighted the value of having darkvision in the party.

I too keep astarion around more because it seems he has the highest perception of anyone. He is valuable, provided you can get him into CC with karlach or Laezel (whoever you take), once they are focused on your heavy hitter, make sure he's properly behind the target, then he's got advantage.

On my current playthrough, while in the Underdark, I found :

I've got like...4 boss fights that I know of left in Act 3 on Tactician.

Act 2 is the worst and thankfully shortest act. It's the shortest act by far.
Act 3 is buggy but I think it's honestly the best act assuming, and this is important, you completely clear the previous acts.
Act 1 and Act 3 are absolutely massive and have a stupid amount of things you can stumble on.

Minor Spoilers:
You need to do Lae'zel's quest in Mountain Pass and don't leave the Githyanki Creche until you find the REAL Blood of Lathender. It's not the most important item in the game, but it completely changes Act 2.

Also, don't start Act 2 until you find the forge and craft at least 2 items (preferably armor).

As far as builds go.

9 Monk/ 3 Rogue (Thief) does a ton of damage especially once you get a pair of legendary gloves in Act 3.
Battlemaster Fighter is just stupidly strong, especially hasted. Lae'zel carries everything.
Wizard gets really good in act 3, especially after you finish The Nightsong questline. You can also learn pretty much every spell in the damn game so the versatility is insane.
Conjured minions are REALLY strong.

I'm not impressed with Sorceror, but Twinned Haste on Monk and Fighter is strong.
Even with the Legendary Trident and Tavern Brawler, throwing Barbarian doesn't seem that good. Neat, but Monk/Fighter/Bard of Swords College seem stronger for Martial options.

 nels1031 wrote:


I killed them all...

...

...I’m going to see how an evil character will interact with them.

I think you already have

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I've yet to get past the 2nd act, but have created several characters.

Only one is a race that does not come standard with darkvision. My first character, a Selune Drow GOO warlock, has really highlighted the value of having darkvision in the party.

My entire party had it on my first run-thru. I didn't realize how big a difference it made until I picked up Lae'zel while testing the idea of a second run and went into the first mini dungeon, and it was _dark_.
Even with darkvision, I notice the vision cones of the selected character more now.

Testing out the spore druid and don't really like it. I should finish my original run, but it got interrupted by life, and I'm having a hard time going back to it. I'm also torn on doing Dark Urge and/or waiting for the first patch.

Cyel wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:


I killed them all...

...

...I’m going to see how an evil character will interact with them.

I think you already have

Yeah, sounds brutal, but they came off as evil (Bhaal worshippers) so I had to smite them as my holier than thou Paladin!

Also :

 nels1031 wrote:

Spoiler:

Just had my most tense moment yet. Had to rescue some prisoners from an underwater bunker, and a timer was going off before the whole place flooded, all while fishmen were coming in waves. Got all of the prisoners out with 3 turns to spare, then Karlach got ensared by a thrown net for two turns. Luckily kept my crew together and had just enough time to break her free and she made it to the ladder with a smidgeon of her movement left.

This was a huge plot point and I stumbled upon it solely because I was exploring and lockpicking while running around the city, trying to stop a serial killer. This game is awesome.

Also, a bug related to that zone and possibly elsewhere. Don't conjure a ton of minions during that specific fight and it's probably a bad idea in general. I ended up getting turns skipped and even had my final turn get completely canceled. Ultimately I had to give up on using conjures at all just for that fight because it would break initiative or something.

Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 were some of my favourite games of all time, but sadly I don't have a PC god enough to play 3, and the disc drive in my playstation stopped functioning after my daughter played Minecraft one too many times

I look forward to playing 3 at some point, I'm very jealous of everybody else right now!

My only problem is that Wizards are limited to only 6th level spells at max. I want METEOR SWARM!

Voss wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I've yet to get past the 2nd act, but have created several characters.

Only one is a race that does not come standard with darkvision. My first character, a Selune Drow GOO warlock, has really highlighted the value of having darkvision in the party.

My entire party had it on my first run-thru. I didn't realize how big a difference it made until I picked up Lae'zel while testing the idea of a second run and went into the first mini dungeon, and it was _dark_.
Even with darkvision, I notice the vision cones of the selected character more now.

Testing out the spore druid and don't really like it. I should finish my original run, but it got interrupted by life, and I'm having a hard time going back to it. I'm also torn on doing Dark Urge and/or waiting for the first patch.

There's a chest piece you can buy from a somewhat secret vendor in Act 3 that lets you cast 3 new kinds of spores, including an AoE haste spore. Meaning you can haste your entire party and minions, but you have to move through it each turn. Still, hasting 4 character + 6 Ghouls that can paralyze on hit + another 2-3 minions (Elementals, Planar Allies) is absurd. I'm pretty sure max damage for one turn would be Spore Druid + Battlemaster Fighter + Thief/Monk + someone who read the entire Necromancy of Thay (needs to be high wisdom, so it could be the druid). If it is the druid with Danse Macabre then you could throw in another Fighter/Paladin or maybe Barbarian Karlach with Thief for an extra bonus action and Action Surge. That should get you a lot of attacks (potentially throws if you want). Monk and Fighter alone can do 250~ damage themselves. You could definitely down most bosses in one turn on tactician. I haven't seen anyone over 600 HP yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Apparently you need 100,000 XP for level 12. I'm around 75,000 XP past that. So don't worry if you skip some quests here and there.

So I'm going on an offshore trip with likely lots of downtime mid-september.
I don't normally (in fact I don't think I ever have) pay full price for computer games, but the hype on this one makes me think it may be worth it.

How does it stack up to atmospheric, story driven games fro the past?
My favorites are Planescape: Torment, Tides of Numenera, Baldur's Gate 1&2, and Pillars of Eternity 1&2.
How does this measure up to those?

Finally finished my original run. Took a turn at the end as I considered what my character would do (cleric of tiamat turned wizard). And although they aren't exclusive, getting the 'Leave No One Behind' and 'Absolute Power Corrupts' achievements simultaneously made me laugh.

Finished at 84 hours, but deliberately didn't do several act 3 sidequests (nothing involving Astarion's quest, and skipped a lot of buildings and tie-ins with other stuff).

Ran with Shadowheart, Karlach and Wyll (who basically added himself to my party) and they really managed to shine at different parts of the story (Karlach especially in the endgame)

Bran Dawri wrote:
So I'm going on an offshore trip with likely lots of downtime mid-september.
I don't normally (in fact I don't think I ever have) pay full price for computer games, but the hype on this one makes me think it may be worth it.

How does it stack up to atmospheric, story driven games fro the past?
My favorites are Planescape: Torment, Tides of Numenera, Baldur's Gate 1&2, and Pillars of Eternity 1&2.
How does this measure up to those?

Largely depends on what you're looking for. Its a little less Freshman Philosophy 101 than Planescape Torment, has a lot more interaction than BG 1 or 2 (or anything else, really) and is a lot better written than either Pillars.
It craps all over tides of numenera, but so does a piece of burnt toast.
Mechanically, its better than all of them (though I can appreciate Pillars2 for moving away from Vancian spellcasting), and the free camera fights with the player a lot more.

The end is a bit weak, and the main story is a bit too Epic!!! for me, but everything else is real good.

Bran Dawri wrote:
So I'm going on an offshore trip with likely lots of downtime mid-september.
I don't normally (in fact I don't think I ever have) pay full price for computer games, but the hype on this one makes me think it may be worth it.

How does it stack up to atmospheric, story driven games fro the past?
My favorites are Planescape: Torment, Tides of Numenera, Baldur's Gate 1&2, and Pillars of Eternity 1&2.
How does this measure up to those?

I've literally never played those specific games so I'm going to compare it to the ME, DA, KotOR, NWN, and Arcanum games.

It's better than anything Bioware has done since BG2. I love ME2 and DA:I and I think Dragon Age has excellent world building, but BG3 is on a completely different level as a game. The DA series has some good companions, but even the standout Morrigan isn't much better than Lae'zel (if she is even actually better). The only weak companion in BG3 is Karlach and possibly a secret companion, but Karlach was added at the last second and I think she'll be fleshed out more down the road.

I'm not a big fan of Shadowheart, but she and Lae'zel have some of the best writing for companion characters I've ever encountered. BG3 actually suffers from too quality many companions.

Exploring the world is excellent, but the main quest is generally weak and suffers from having mediocre villains in the final act. Act 1 is excellent because it is a mixture of world-building and exploration. Act 2 is fine because it is short and focused. The side content of Act 3 is great, but the actual main questline is dull and the antagonists are laughable.

What really elevates BG3 above and beyond the CRPGs I mentioned is the amount of options you have and the quality of combat. IMO, the game is worth playing just for the Tactician fights and the challenge of maximizing your efforts.

Nearing the end of my "first" full playthrough, having just a few companion quests and a scavenger hunt quest (a clown's body parts of all things) and now I'm stressing what path to choose.

Its taking a lot of discipline to not start over as evil just to get Minthara as a companion. I was watching some clips of her convos and she seems like a wild character.

Oddly, for your second person listed there in the spoiler , I just ignored everything.

I know in theory that person is tied into more of the backstory, and some interesting speeches happened, but in my play-through that was largely a vulture who plainly had nothing to offer.

I think a quest bugged out in Act 2, and that was part of it, but I also had no real motivation to engage with that one at all.

Its taking a lot of discipline to not start over as evil just to get Minthara as a companion.

I've seen some suggestions that her route is buggy and interaction can end abruptly, so it might be worth waiting until patch 2.

But not 100% sure, because a segment of the fanbase is inflating 'cut content' to mythical levels that will never be satisfied. (personally, there was so much to do in act 3 that I knowingly didn't finish everything just to get to the end of the game).

Wanted to try something different- I've started a new playthrough with a nature cleric and (currently) 3 martial characters (ranger, barbarian and fighter archer) and struggling with it a bit. Partly its the low level D&D problem (just at the cusp of level 4), partly its not being able to warp the battlefield to even the odds.

Its a very impressive game - one I dont mind watching people play as they often play very different from me so its just plays out very different.

I also greatly enjoy that whilst people can enjoy the whole min-maxing thing etc - its not at all needed

I think Minthara was a victum of that cut content, and she's not simply bugged. After the beginning of act 2 there isn't much to her. Shart, Lae'zel and Astarion clearly got the most love from the developers. But to me the game has a strong 1st act and then starts to unravel a bit further into the game. And the fact you can't edit character appearance after creation is a big lose IMO, even Cyberpunk 2077 had that feature.

Still a good game but it's not without some issues.

 Thargrim wrote:
I think Minthara was a victum of that cut content, and she's not simply bugged. After the beginning of act 2 there isn't much to her. Shart, Lae'zel and Astarion clearly got the most love from the developers. But to me the game has a strong 1st act and then starts to unravel a bit further into the game. And the fact you can't edit character appearance after creation is a big lose IMO, even Cyberpunk 2077 had that feature.

Still a good game but it's not without some issues.

I don't think CP2077 launched with that feature.

Lae'zel has multiple boss fights along her quest chain, but can be completely skipped.
Shadowheart's chain starts out tied into the main quest and a portion of it is required, but the finale is optional.
Astarion is entirely optional, but does give you an optional boss fight.
Wyll's is optional, but also has a hidden a boss fight.
So far as I know Gale's chain doesn't have a boss fight, but it does lead you to a potential one (unlike the other characters it is avoidable).
Karlach has nothing, she's just tied into a MQ character and Wyll's stuff somewhat.
Minthara has less than nothing, so far as I know her only notable action is after the final boss of Act 2.
Halsin does have a boss fight and unlike the other characters he has to be alive to even access it.

Act 2/Act 3 companions


You can recruit Minthara, Karlach, and Wyll, but you can't have Minthara and Halsin. You can also kill 2/3 Goblin leaders and get Minthara, but you can't fully resolve the Tiefling quest line. Sadly, getting Minthara wipes out a very good merchant and one of Karlach's side quests. Wouldn't recommend it the first time through because you lose a lot of content by going for Minthara.



I found one thing I missed in Act 3 in Rivington and it should have been obvious.

They do really need to patch Act 3 up more because the lag and sequence breaking is out of control.

Voss wrote:

I've seen some suggestions that her route is buggy and interaction can end abruptly, so it might be worth waiting until patch 2.

Yeah, I had heard about her bugs. Not in a rush to jump into another playthrough until it gets a bit more polished.

I love this game, but the battle against the camera in Act 3 in addition to it being the most bugged portion of the game(but still playable and fun, to be fair) is going to make me reluctantly put this game down for awhile after I complete this playthrough.

New DLC for Warhams3, Starfield in a week or so, and CP2077 DLC coming soon are going to pull me off of this game soon enough, so it works out.

Going off community update # 24 it does sound like they plan on fixing stuff beyond just bugs. Might just be best to hold off on a playthrough to the end. They are going to expand the epilogues and fix Mintharas reactivity, and add the feature to change appearance in a patch later on.

Patch 2 will see a new optional ending for Karlach as well.