Something I just learned: if you cast Speak With Dead you get an ability for the rest of that day to recast it again for free!
It’s not really recasting it, you literally get the ability to speak to the dead until it runs out. It’s not specific to one dead person.
Right, but the ability is called ‘Recast Speak with Dead’. I just didn’t realize it would function until long rest rather than only letting you speak with one corpse - that’s fantastic news!
So, I finally got to test pickpocketing. I wanted an item that I knew a guy had, and I had good reasons for taking it (in my view at least) because I am suspicious that someone is up to no good and what I was stealing would let me investigate whether this is the case.
I went into turn based mode and put my main character in front of the target. I then snuk up with Astarion and picked the pocket of the target. I then had plenty of time to leave the room - about a minute, during which my main character was running around and doing random stuff - then I stepped away for a second, and when I came back the target had started a conversation with my main character, asking if I had pickpocketed them. I told them that I did not, and they proceeded to walk around the room repeating, “who could have done this?!”.
I’m curious if @Jophiel is trying to steal multiple items at a time, or something else, which is leading to different experiences?
It sounds like we had largely the same experience: You “successfully” pick pocketed someone yet were still confronted and accused of pick pocketing them and had to make a successful secondary Social check to avoid being caught despite your previous successful Sleight-of-Hand.
Nope - I successfully pickpocketed someone and there was no social interaction for a good amount of time, during which I could have easily left the area to avoid being caught at all; but instead I can stay by having a different character there. Note that I didn’t have to make a social check - my only option was to tell them that I didn’t pickpocket them, which had no roll - the narrator said “your innocence is obvious” and the guy left.
There was a long enough delay before the character noticed anything was wrong that I didn’t have my immersion broken - it clearly felt like a successful pickpocket check.
That’s going to be a YMMV thing and I’m not out to say no one else should enjoy something. Can only speak for my own experience.
I’ve had accusations made literally a second after (like, the moment I turn off Turn-Based movement) and accusations made a short while after. I haven’t bothered to time every event, of course.
Amusingly, the one time it said my innocence was obvious it immediately jumped into a second accusation and made me do it again 
I have no idea what Asterion’s skills are (never picked him up) so maybe he doesn’t have proficiency in a social skill to get the option and it defaults him.
[Edit: No, the Wiki says he has Deception and Persuasion so I dunno. Don’t seriously care either, but was curious]
So just to be clear, you turn on turn based mode, hide, walk up to the guy, pickpocket them, then turn off turn based mode?
After successfully pickpocketing I used Cunning Action to move as far as I could, ended the turn, then once it was my turn again I dashed as far as I could go again. By this point I could have left the area unchallenged, so there was no chance for the target to challenge me if I hadn’t purposely left my main character there. As long as you stay in turn based mode you can stay hidden and leave.
Good to know and I’ll have to try that. Still feels lame to me.
That said, I have to laugh that something I originally framed as “an annoyance” (and is just that) managed to generated 7+ hours and 40+ posts about it. You’d think I said the game was hot garbage or something. I’m enjoying the game just plenty fine even if I don’t fully enjoy all of the mechanics.
Oh, I’m not trying to argue you’re wrong or anything! I agree that what you describe sounds like a shitty experience, without your advanced warning I may not have known I need to be so careful, and at this point I just want to see if I can help you have a more “as intended” experience.
I’m playing now as a ranger, very early in it. I loved BG 1&2, but I’m struggling with orienting the view in BG3 and finding things. I need someone to shout “Go for the eyes, Boo!” soon.
BG3 hit 712,000+ concurrent players on Steam today.
Second place to CS:GO (1.17mil players) but well ahead of DOTA2 (610k)
This game is really good so far. It is giving me that old-fashioned, “play just a little more” feeling.
I think it plays way better with the Xbox controller than mouse and keyboard, once you get the hang of it.
The SDMB takes nitpicking and dragging out a topic to an art form.
Same here. I stayed up way too late playing for my old age. Enjoyed every minute.
So far I’ve only played on PC, but I did load it up on my Steam Deck to see how it runs; fidelity is definitely lower (it looks like a game again, on my PC it’s a hair from photo realistic) but it handles fine. I’ll eventually give it a try on Deck, though, and report back on the controller experience.
Shadowheart companion spoilers:
Earlier I mentioned that I hadn’t heard anything about Shar from Shadowheart yet. That finally changed last night! We found an abandoned shrine to Selune in an Owlbear cave, and after unlocking a chest I was able to loot some Selunic artifacts. Shadowheart asked me not to, and when pressed she confessed to being a Sharn worshipper. I acted accepting of her (my character is a Sage, so he would know Shar’s motivations; but I think something is off about Shadowheart’s Sharn worship…) but took the Selunic artifact anyways.
Overall the fact that she worships Sharn felt like a much more impactful reveal than it did in EA. I look forward to seeing where her story goes.
Shar’s my right-hand gal except she’s sadly hopeless in melee combat. No idea why exactly; her strength isn’t bad (and I used her first ASI to round up her WIS and STR) but she whiffs all the time. I wound up giving her the magical spear that procs True Strike on a miss to give her a fighting chance.
Side note for the New-to-5E, True Strike is widely considered the worst spell in the game. It consumes this turn’s action to give you Advantage (let you roll twice) on your next attack. Mathematically, you’re better off making two single-roll attacks over two turns since you can potentially hit and inflict damage twice. The only time it might be useful is if, for some reason, it’ll take you two turns to reach a target and there’s no ranged thing you can use your action on that turn (attack cantrip, etc).
Having it automatically happen via magic spear is pretty nifty though. Don’t go wasting time casting it for real, though.
I am very happy to see this:
I’ve been playing since Thursday. This game is brutal at times. Borderline unfair. I don’t even consider reloading a save to be “save scumming,” I consider it undoing the cheating that the game does.
I still love it, though. Great graphics, lots of meaningful choices with consequences, with an interesting story. If I were playing this as a tabletop campaign (I used to play AD&D way back when), I’d beg the Dungeon Master for mercy!