I didn’t read the entire thread so maybe this was asked an answered but does this game have an option for Auto Combat like the older ones did? I would prefer to just focus on my Spellslinging and let the fighters do their thing but it doesn’t seem possible.
You might have a look at the video below. 13.5 minutes long and gets a lot of the basics of combat sorted. There’s a lot to the game and this does not cover it all but with this foundation I think the other stuff becomes easier to get. Doubtless there are more videos like this by others.
Thanks, but basic combat mechanics are not really the issue. More concerned with how each class develops as they level up. I am spoiled by WOTR giving you the entire class progression on the level up screen.
He was far and away the easiest of the three for me, even without the bear.
Why? One word:
Rafters.
I took my whole party into the rafters, positioning the barbarian next to the closest ladder. Gale used up his one scroll of fireball to take out most of the minions, and then everyone–including the barbarian–took potshots at the remaining minions to kill them before they could sound the alarm.
Dror climbed the ladder, but he could only get to Karlach. He laid some whoopass on her, but we were able to focus-fire on him, and he dropped pretty quickly. Karlach almost managed to shove him to his death, but I got the angle wrong on the shove, and he just went back into the wall.
I loved that the rafters were there, and that the strategy worked so well.
I’m pretty much done with Act 1 but will go around cleaning up sidequests for a bit, and also waiting for the afterparty until my kids go to sleep, because I suspect I don’t want them watching over my shoulder for that.
That’s my biggest complaint about the game. I want to play a single character. I do not want to micro-manage the other party members in combat, I do not want to learn their classes and subclasses well enough level them up, I do not want to control how they interact with mine and other characters. I know a lot of people like playing a D&D party rather than a single character, so the game should keep that. Just let me automate the other characters.
I do love stealing their underwear. Tab and yoink! (Still waiting for the profit.) Although the gith-girl’s leather harness looks fabulous on my Tiefling.
That has never been an issue for me, because anytime I play a game like this (or MMORPG, or ARPG, really any CRPG) I will look for build advice, and they will inevitably show you the options at each level and give recommendations for each one. I almost never follow a build with 100% certainty, because if I did then it wouldn’t really feel like my character, but I do weigh their advice and options compared to what I want to do.
Using guides like that, I can plan ahead, and see if the character at level 20 is going to be where I want it. Sometimes a class will have a point where a feat or other option fundamentally changes how the character works, and so having that blueprint is essential. It’s hard to pick a path if you don’t know the destination.
This is pretty much me. I kinda feel like I have to min/max and fret about it a little. I think that is not really necessary in BG3 and, if nothing else, respeccing is easy and is the safety valve if I think I made a mistake.
Unless that shade of purple on your eyeshadow does not look correct in the sunshine, in which case… RESTART THE ENTIRE GAME.
(I may have been guilty of this.)
I have no idea how we’re in Year of Our Lord 2023 and “barber/surgeon/magic mirror” isn’t a default option we can assume will be in a CRPG.
If I can change my hair in friggin’ The Division, I should be able to change it in the sprawling seven-years-to-build 200 hours long Role Playing Game.
I 100% have (me: Argh! I forgot to change the default voice! I hate that one! delete campaign). The amount of time I have spend fretting over details of character creation vs. how little time I spend picking out clothes for myself every day is legitimately shaming 
.
I feel like it will be added in an update soon. It has to be…
I liked the method in Witcher 3 where you could visit a barber to change your looks. Seems like a great addition to a CRPG. Let’s hope this is something the mod community can manage (no idea if this is even moddable). Larian is great but not sure this is something they want to bother with and, even if they did, would probably take ages to be implemented.
If it was modded, I’d expect it’d be like Cyberpunk cosmetic mods where you entered values into an interface and it edited the character data file to reflect Hair004 instead of Hair009. Not a nice user friendly return to the character creation screen.
I feel like I’m making a lot of mistakes. I decided this is my practice game, where I try to figure out how to play. I keep ending up getting NPCs killed or having to kill people out of self-defense, which is not ideal for my kindness-loving Paladin, but as least my party’s still alive.
I’ve never given myself the freedom to make mistakes so this could be a growth experience for me.
ETA: I just sat an article for how to romance Astarion, and you need a guide for that? Dude is throwing himself at me when he barely knows me.
I thought so first as well. I left the temple, and:
There was a huge array of hostile goblins outside the door that seemed impossible to get past at my level.
But then I realized:
I can just teleport to another circle on the map from inside the temple. And then take out the goblins at will, with better positioning.
Sort of a cheese, IMO. But a real-life DM wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) put a party in an unwinnable scenario, so as ar as I’m concerned this is just a type of “DM’s discretion.”
Honestly it sounds to me like the great basis for a fantasy-themed comedy series.
SPICE WEASEL, THE BUTCHER OF FAERUN
“I’m just trying to help people! I’m so sorry! Here is your hand back good sir.”
If that was a show, I’d watch it.
Maybe not what you had in mind but…
Now I want to do a campaign as Groo the Wanderer.
The Barbarian class is perfectly made for that.
Almost done with the goblin camps, though I may have screwed up my save? We will see… spoilers:
As noted, I got brought straight to the Drow, who I promptly killed. I then fought my way out.
I decided to clear out the main hall before doing any side halls, which was a mistake as it turns out - the Druid I’m looking for was kept prisoner next to the Drow, and I could have had him join me for the rest of the adventure, apparently. Instead, I ended up killing the hobgoblin chief and the priestess before checking the side passage, which meant that Halsin went bear-form, slaughtered the guards, and escaped.
I cleared out the rest of the temple, although I did not delve deep into the Underdark - I found the Selunite outpost, cleared it out, destroyed the moon stone (I may have “allowed” Shadowheart to do it just to see what would happen…), fought a minotaur, and left. I’ll come back later, I’m sure, but for now my characters are mostly concerned with getting back to the Grove to see if Halsin can actually help me.
First I need to fight my way through the goblin courtyard, though - wish me luck…
As far as potentially screwing up my game -
Apparently at some point between when I was pretending to be a good little True Soul slave of the Absolute and when I started to kill goblins left and right, I committed some kind of crime. My main character has a status debuff called ‘Enemy of Justice’. I am hoping this clears up once I leave the Goblin Camp, but from googling the debuff it looks like sometimes it can get stuck on you and make the Druids attack you on sight…