Same here. I’m playing through but not to the point of making it a suicide pact.
It’s like… I want to see what happens but when it’s something really bad I’ll go back.
I’m guessing that’s a pretty common way to play it. I’m that way with most CRPGs.
Obsessively reloading until everything is perfect sounds horrible, but reloading now and then to avoid something really bad, of course.
I’ll reload combat if it’s looking hopeless and I don’t feel like grinding out a win with one straggler.
I’ve save scummed mostly when I’m curious about different choices. I just ruined a possible path because I was shit talking Raphael, and I won’t reload that.
One thing I did do the other day was really save-scum hard to steal a weapon using command: drop. I’m not going to keep playing that save because 1) it was cheap and 2) getting the weapon sets a flag that you’re not supposed to activate yet, but I wanted to check out.
I save-scum if pickpocketing because my intent isn’t to explore the story path of me getting caught, it’s just to get something that I want. Plus “break out of jail” isn’t an interesting addition to my tale. Though, in my current play, I’ve just bought everything I wanted like a respectable member of society and had little issue with money so it’s pretty moot this time around.
Other than that, I’ll reload in combat if the game interface (or my use of it) leads to something stupid like me wasting a turn by melee-swinging at air when I just wanted to move. Or accidentally ending Concentration or hitting End Turn or whatever. I also have no guilt about getting back to the same game state so, if I successfully landed a Hold Person then had a UI flub, I’m gonna reload until that Hold Person sticks again.
Aside from that, Inspiration is handed out pretty generously and the main flow of the story is pretty forgiving so I don’t often reload for plot/dialogue based reasons. And I find combat easy enough on Normal difficulty that I don’t usually need to try a fight more than once or maybe twice.
I usually wait until a second run to make different choices, but if I have determined that I’m not going to play an entire run just to try a minor variation then try it and revert to a save.
That’s why I avoid pickpocketing in RPGs (almost?) completely.
Sure, but there are so many things you can switch. I’m switching little things, not like whether or not to save the Grove.
I definitely backed up and redid three key points (maybe more but these I remember off hand). One was losing a surprise fight that would have completely changed Act II and another two were situations where I would have permanently lost a party member I didn’t want to lose.
I have also exited and restored a few times in Act III because an innocent click suddenly made me a wanted Dwarf by the cops.
I got the Halsin bug on PC, and before the last patch came out.
Pickpocketing things is entirely an RP choice, I’ve been throwing money around like crazy (basically I buy all magic items whether I need them or not just in case) and I still have more than I know what to do with.
True, but I didn’t know that in my earlier plays. However, while it’s nominally “RP”, nothing about it (or even getting caught) is interesting from a narrative standpoint. Failing a roll to spare a prisoner or convince someone to help you or trick a guard might have some interesting or amusing consequences. Failing a pickpocket is just “oops, sorry” or “time to pick locks out of prison then go about business again”.
Things are starting to get a bit buggy. I stopped before Shadowfell and went back and completed some things. On the map it still showed the dude who wanted the ledger was there. I went back and did the whole speak with the dead thing again. Now I’m back at Shadowfell and Shadowheart says we have to go back to the library to get the spear. She had the spear. I got the spear awhile ago. Now it’s not there.
Nope it’s just gone. I changed weapons and was having her carry The Blood of Lathander. Now the spear is just gone. Didn’t sell it. Didn’t drop it. She told me to go back to the library but it wasn’t there
Speaking of bugs, I encountered the Halsin bug where you can’t get him to meet you at the lakefront to lift the curse, instead he just keeps hanging around in camp despite the quest log telling you to meet him at the lakefront. Fortunately, there is a way to fix it that doesn’t involve rewinding your game all the way back to the first time you get the quest update to meet him at the lakefront. (Apparently if you do almost anything else after the original quest update for the meeting, the quest will bug.) To fix it, you:
Kill the Flaming Fist lute player who was sick and you probably healed by returning his lute. After killing him, cast “Speak with Dead” and interrogate him. Than go talk to Halsin in camp again and you should be given a new conversation option about lifting the curse.
Granted, killing the lute guy can get you in some trouble. Best bet is if you have summons available, summon something to go over and kill him for you while you hang around outside the inn. Then dismiss the summons. No one seems to be the wiser.
What difficulty are you playing on? In a second playthough I’m looting a lot more trash than I did the first time around so I can buy a lot more special arrows/elixirs/etc and buying all magic items wouldn’t be remotely possible for me. I think I’d need like at least double the money and probably closer to 3x to buy every magic item. I’m not hurting for money, but I’m still judicious about what I buy and come the Lower City I know there are some things I’ll have to delay buying until I do more questing.
Partially related note: I’m min-maxing a lot more this time around and my Astarion archer build is just shredding things.
eta My game has become incredibly buggy regarding following + selecting characters + moving to input locations. 20% of the time it’s unplayable. Dunno why. It wasn’t like this immediately after the patch.
This is expensive… should I try Baldur’s Gate 2 first?
Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 were a different game studio (Bioware) and different set of D&D rules (2e).
I’d probably consider Divinity: Original Sin 2 by Larian (same studio) as the most recent “close enough” title. Which now says in its Steam description: The critically acclaimed RPG that raised the bar, from the creators of Baldur’s Gate 3…
Which, to be fair, the Divinity series probably played a big part in Larian getting the license to make BG3.
I won’t presume to know what counts as “expensive” for you or your available cash flow but a run in BG3 is probably good for 100-120 hours of game time so, even at $60, it’s got a decent return on investment. It’s also very replayable due to different story paths and character options.
Unfortunately, it’s not likely to go on sale any time soon. Right now, at full price and four months after launch and in the middle of Steam’s fall sale, it’s STILL the number five best selling game on Steam.
There is an easier way to fix that Halsin waits around instead of lifting the curse bug. Just have someone else initiate the conversations that trigger the quest and he should go where he is supposed to go. I had that bug and this worked for me.
Tactician, and the difference is that i sell all those special arrows and the overwhelming majority of elixirs as I never found them to be necessary and wouldn’t remember to use them even if I wanted to. “All magic items” was also a slight exaggeration, I buy all the ones that sound somewhat useful… there is a lot of useless crap out there also.
Not needed, no. This is my power gaming run though, and it’s needed for that.
Just killed Ansur + adds in 1 turn as soon as I got to the city at lvl 10. Pretty sure I could solo him in 1 turn at lvl 12 if I had enough special arrows. You could probably also do this with just a paladin if you got good smite crits, I guess…
I wonder what it would cost to buy all the reasonably useful stuff in act III.
Off the top of my head:
I’m sure there’s more, and you’re not actually buying the strength gauntlets, you’re trading them instead of paying for the portal to the House of Hope. Also not 100% on prices, but I think they’re pretty close.
Give Dammon 250gp worth of silverware in Act I, buy fancy armor for 7k in Act III instead of 20k 
How into retro gaming are you? BG2 is over 20 years old at this point. If that doesn’t bother you, then yes, absolutely, BG2 is a gem of a game. But it’s very different from BG3 in terms of game play. BG2 combat was real time, and strategy was largely a matter of knowing the best order to cast your spells in. The hand-painted maps were gorgeous, but mechanically they were all flat planes with a few walls, but no real z-axis, terrain, or interactivity. BG3 is turn based, and hugely environmental, with a strong use of z-axis, major emphasis on positioning and tactics, manipulating enemy positions, special terrain modifiers, and tons of reactive and interactive elements.
The production values are also much higher, even after controlling for changes in technology and money. BG2’s production values were good for their day, particularly compared to other, contemporary RPGs. BG3’s production values are absolutely top-notch, particularly the voice acting, which is about the best I’ve ever heard, in any genre or medium. BG2 had great writing by the standards of video games. BG3 has great writing by the standards of movies or prestige television.