Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one to have made that mistake. Naturally, the general internet is full of people happy to say you’re a big dummy-head for not totally expecting that to happen. The same event also shut me off from the Gith creche but whatever, I’ll do that next time.
I actually hit level 8 before in the fight right before I had to slam the game into reverse. Going to hit it again soon and it’s gonna be Warcaster for everyone. Shadowheart? Warcaster. Gale and Wyll? Warcaster. Lae’zel and Karlach? Warcaster. Withers? Warcaster. Owlbear Cub? Friggin’ Warcaster. Ok, mostly I’m tired of Shadowheart’s Spirit Guardians or Call Lightning getting disrupted one round in despite an AC 20+
Things I can do but never do:
Throwing potions. I have a million potions and, aside from healing, barely use them at all. I rarely throw heal potions. I should. And probably throw some acid and fire and stuff while I’m at it. And use my Speed potions. What I REALLY need to do is get my potions off my personal character. Because I can attack as a bonus action, any other bonus action gets weighed against “Do I X or do I stab something?” and stabbing typically wins. If I gave potions to everyone else, they’d have more unused Bonus Actions to fill up.
Throwing in general. Karlach usually swords things. I know throwing is a fun meta and maybe I’ll get her Tavern Brawler for her Level 8 ASI. I have gotten into a habit of yeeting scrub enemies off of cliffs once the boss is dead instead of whacking them down. Satisfying.
Using Physics. Unless something is actively in my way, I never stack boxes or do anything creative. I’m hella boring.
Using Height. With my usual party, archery is a “Ran out of movement before reaching the target” thing, not a “plan to optimize my ranged damage” thing.
Speak With Animals/Dead. Ok, I’ll talk to obviously suspicious animals. Group of squirrels in a circle around a shrine? I want to know what they’re up to. Squirrel hanging out in a farm village? Probably ignored. I haven’t spoken to the dead since early on in Act one. I’m probably missing good content!
There’s a few iconic items I know I missed somewhere and one that I even know exactly how to get, but I can’t be bothered. Warped Headband of Intellect: I got the ogre horn but never used it
My brother in Shar, do not sleep on these. I’m also bad at using potions but a couple of these on your frontliners can turn a fight into a cakewalk.
I also need to use elixirs more because those are good until the next long rest.
Haste in this game is an extra ACTION, not just an extra attack. So after level 5 it’s two free attacks.
When I need big damage fast, I pop one on my paladin and just smash out a bunch of smites. Got the “you sure did finish that quickly” achievement for the Act 2 boss that way (and also a haste on Karlach).
Didn’t know that. Mainly because I never bother looking at my potions. I’m probably carrying 20# of the things with me, clinking around in my bags as I travel the Sword Coast. That’s not even counting alchemy.
Oh yeah, I did an initial “What’s this?” couple alchemy combines then nothing else because, well, potions.
Has anyone been playing with the item-driven builds? I’m trying to build up enough gear for a heat or lightning build. I’ve got some items that trigger “arcane acuity” that look meant for a gish-type, and also a couple items that make a poison-based fighter look neat.
No. I was going to put my Lightning Charge items on Shadowheart and have her use the hammer that damages a 10’ radius when you jump but it turned out that hammer does Thunder damage, not Lightning. So that ended that line of thought. I did respec SH as Tempest subdomain instead of Trickery though when I was trying it and kept here there.
I think I eventually DID see a weapon that does Lightning/Electric but it doesn’t really fit what I’m doing with her now and she has a better weapon.
Things I Don’t Do: Appendix A
Turn Undead. Amusingly, I largely forgot this was an option. Finally, in Act II, I was in the basement prison of Moonrise during the assault and some guys summoned a crapton of skeletons. I was “Hey, maybe I should…” and 2/3s of them just disintegrated. Huh.
Dip my Weapons. I tried it once and the surface wasn’t dippable and I never touched that button again.
Oh, I know I should. My list is “Cool things Larian added that I totally sleep on”
In other news, Larian social media guy says they’re working on some sort of post-creation appearance modification system. Cut your hair and get a tattoo!
Funny, I respecced Shadowheart as a war cleric, also to try lightning stuff with her. I just don’t think I have enough gear to generate enough charges, and now it’s too late because I’ve shelved her lightning weapon for the legendary spear she got at the end of Act 2.
Before I dive into Act 3 I’m going to do some big respecs for multiclassing. There’s no great reason to go past barbarian 5 so I think Karlach will get three levels of fighter or maybe something wild like warlock. Gale’s doing just fine as a pure wizard. A bard level or two for my paladin so that I can more or less shelve Astarion in exploration sequences. That will make her a little squishier, though, so maybe a couple levels of fighter or paladin for Shadowheart to make up for it. Or maybe FIVE levels of fighter and then the rest back into cleric.
So many choices! I love how easy it is to respec and try stuff out, though I wish camp inventory management was more robust to facilitate new loadouts.
Is that the reward after freeing Nightsong or from later on? I got that Glaive for it and looked at it, looked at my adamantium shield, looked at it and passed it to Wyll right there in front of her. “Uh, thanks!”. Was a little annoyed since NS was “Choose your weapon!” and then just hands me one I don’t want
Even two levels for Action Surge would be pretty boss. I should consider that.
I need to respec Shadowheart and dumpstat her INT/DEX/CHA and pump her WIS/STR/CON. Her wisdom and strength are already good but her CON is middling and, again, tired of losing Concentration. I promise not to break up with her even when she’s dumb, clumsy and socially awkward. No intent on taking her out of cleric though.
I sort of feel like Wyll would be more useful as a Warlock/Sorc and might do that. I know, Charisma class with a Warlock dip – how daring. Level 8 Warlock isn’t really impressing me on its merits though and he could swing in for Gale if he had a real spell set.
I have a save called ‘nooooooo’ because I assumed the game bugged there and I somehow got forced through a choice, but that’s whats supposed to happen. I already fucked up and picked the wrong weapon on the sussur tree quest so I was pretty irritated. Talk to nightsong later for a different and more versatile weapon, but still no choice. Very strange dialogue line.
For sure, and the damage upgrade from battlemaster or champion at 3 is also great. And then you’re just one level from an ASI.
Yeah, but cantrip scaling is by character level, not class level, so just enough Warlock to get the “Add your CHA mod…” is good enough for me (and why Warlock is so typically a dip). I’ll give up on Repelling Blast for metamagic and some extra Counterspells.
Just my thinking of course. Y’all try stuff and get back to me But my party loadout is Me (Rogue/Barb), Shadowheart, Lae/Karlach for heavy melee/tanking and then Gale. Wyll in Act II makes for mediocre melee even with Blade Pact and if I slot him for Gale, I feel the difference and not in a good way. Making him mainly Sorc would let him come along for the ride sometimes without feeling like I’m hurting my options.
Truth be told, I don’t think eldritch blast should get the same scaling as other cantrips. On the fighter <-----> caster spectrum, they’re much closer to fighters. They get a bit of armor, better hitpoints, and the ability to fight at range or in melee. Getting spells back on short rests also puts them in the martial camp (think of battlemaster dice or monk ki).
Eldritch blast is the only cantrip in the game that gets extra attacks as it scales, which makes it leaps and bounds better than all the others. That should be considered a class feature. It should just be a force-flavored firebolt for anybody who isn’t getting warlock levels.
But even so, having the +CHA version is less useful if you have lots of other stuff to do on your turn. The warlock’s primary function in combat is putting out reliable damage (as opposed to the highly swingy damage of casters with their generally big, singular rolls). You wouldn’t want to switch him out with your sorcerer, but with your rogue or ranger.* They’re usually going to eldritch blast (or shoot their bow), but they’ve also got stuff in their back pocket for situational casting.
I have a number of issues with how Warlocks are implemented in 5e but the rules be what the rules be, especially in a CRPG adaptation.
I respec’d Wyll as Warlock 2/Storm Sorc 6 and found him to be a lot more fun and useful for my party composition. I also gave him the “Lightning Charge” boots, gloves and staff. The staff generated charges when I do spell damage, the gloves give me Advantage against metal armored foes when I have charges and the boots that shock wet surfaces.
During one of the potential Act II big fights, Shadowheart cast a Sleet Storm and an NPC cast an partially overlapping Ice Storm. Wyll then casually (and unintentionally) stepped onto the patch and just lit up the enemy side of the battlefield with electricity. Everyone taking a d4 of damage each round and having to make Concentration saves was pretty funny. He’s also wearing a quest reward robe that adds his CHA mod to all his cantrips (not 100% sure if it doubles up on Agonizing Blast) and gives him temp hp each round. All in all, he’s pretty rockin’.
Sadly, Angry Russian Druid did not survive the fight, having eaten multiple paladin smites at the end. They are remembered by me looting their clothes, dying them blue & gold and wearing them where they look pretty sweet.
Also the amusing weirdness of me stripping all the dead Harpers and selling their stuff to the quartermaster so she can sell looted stuff back to me.
Edit: Side note, but there’s a sad scarcity of magical rapiers in game. I’ve seen one generic “+1 Rapier” on a merchant and had a named rapier before which had a mild rider effect but it had no enchantment stats (+1, etc). I’m not even sure if those non-stat items count as magical for resistance purposes. Tons of short swords, some scimitars but no rapiers. Perhaps more weirdly, I can only think of a single magical longsword I’ve seen but maybe I was paying less attention since my character uses Finesse weapons and Lae/Kar use chunky two-handers.
This is kinda fun. It was only a matter of time till someone min/maxed something like this:
Full Title: This Owlbear orbital strike in Baldur’s Gate 3 can deal 1,170 points of bludgeoning damage, which is enough to kill an adult red dragon four times
I respeced Karlach last night as a barb 5/fighter 3 and it’s much better. At level ten I’ll respec again to make her a barbarian 4/fighter 6, which will mean a freebie feat.
Larian says their first major patch is incoming. I’m hoping for better inventory management.
That would be most welcome. I think it might be the games biggest structural flaw, thankfully only mildly annoying. Also it might just be my computer, but the facial hair textures could use some work.
Be great if you could swap gear with non-party companions in camp without playing party-shuffle.
I assume there’ll be some technical fixes. I know some people are complaining about Act III being buggy. I feel like the game has a memory leak as it eventually (after a few hours) gets a bit stuttery and I’ve gotten up to 26GB RAM usage while playing.
I’m curious if there’ll be any passes for balance or nerfs. I’m not familiar enough with Larian’s previous CRPG titles to know if they just leave that stuff alone since it’s single-player anyway and do what you want or if it’s something they try to rein in. Plus a lot of it is baked into 5e rules and interactions so harder to tweak and say “Nah, that’s a d4 now instead of a d6…”
But my party loadout is Me (Rogue/Barb), Shadowheart, Lae/Karlach for heavy melee/tanking and then Gale. Wyll in Act II makes for mediocre melee even with Blade Pact and if I slot him for Gale, I feel the difference and not in a good way. Making him mainly Sorc would let him come along for the ride sometimes without feeling like I’m hurting my options.