Baldur's Gate 3

Who is with me: Larian improves the BG3 engine, and starts putting out D&D campaigns, from the classics on. Buck the Baldurs Gate thing, and do some modules as games. Be my dungeon master, Larian.

Quests and gameplay bugs aside, am I the only one who has a gripe with how there are so little to no good looking helmets in the game? Most of the time it's set to Hide Helmet for all of my characters. I just want my Oathbreaker to look the part.

I just opened the game for the first time, haven’t started playing yet. The EULA is already entertaining. They encourage fan art because “there is no fiend in the Realms that doesn’t have a soft spot for idolatry, and admittedly We’re no different. So send Us your best work and know that mortals who amuse Us often get better perks”. There is more lighthearted, not-so-legal speech in here. I appreciate them considering those of us insane enough to read the damn EULA.

Is anyone else at awe with how massive this game actually is?

Like I was in a big zone in Act 2, explored the crap out of it, went past the next part of the main story line but decide to explore a bit more. I find a door to some seemingly small dungeon.. "Uh let's see where this leads." It's starts to become bigger and bigger, and then inside that there's another door to an even bigger place. Holy shit I'm completely lost, I don't even know what I've already left behind.

The only downside is that I get rather tired when playing splitscreen on my living room TV. Otherwise I think I wouldn't even leave my home for 2 weeks.

I would kill for the dynamic split screen from DOS2.

Controversial take: party size unlock is absolutely the best experience, feels more narratively justified and more like a 5e D&D adventure.

About to go into the final battle and finish the game off for my 1st run. I'll probably shelve the game for a couple months and play Starfield and Phantom Liberty and then give an evil run through a try.

Loved act 1, but not too impressed with act 3. Seemed a bit rushed and all over the place, maybe should've split the content up and made an act 4. Always felt with Larian games that the writing usually falls apart near the end and this game was no exception. Bit let down with the other 2 chosen fights as well. The highlight was definitely the house of hope, between the music, the characters you deal with and the fight itself it was absolutely my favourite part of act3.

I've also run into numerous bugs requiring reloads too. Jumping across a small gap and characters will get caught on some invisible wall and just die. Quests not completing or triggering properly. Companions repeating dialogue or just giving me dialogue as if I chose different outcomes from quests(looking at you Gale). Also managed to get two different outcomes for the same gather your allies quest so I guess I'll see if that works out or not. (EDIT: Just a dialogue/extra character glitch. Didn't have two skills in the allies bar to use for them)

All in all I enjoyed the game, but bg2 is one of my all time favourite rpgs and this fell short for me. I'm glad it did really well though, hopefully they can make an Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights game, that would be wicked.

Aw man... using a potion of Colossus or enlarge person before buying the statue of yourself doesn't make the statue gigantic 😩

Larian. Pls fix.

Laezel's been growing on me lately. Used to not like her that much at the start but now she's a permanent member of my party. Interested to know how others feel about her

Does it bother anyone else that if you're playing an elf, the narration for camp scenes never remembers that elves don't sleep? It's bad enough that the trance animation is very similar to sleeping anyway.

Stopping now after making it about 2/3rds of the way in on my second run. Had a blast, but with as many bugs as I'm running into now even before Act 3, I think it's best to shelve it until more fixes are made. Straw that broke the camel's back was missing romance scenes seemingly because I didn't long rest enough. That's funny because I felt like my party was getting wrecked a lot more than my first party was, so I had to be resting even more. Maybe by Act 2 I had figured things out more than I realized.

Next run (whenever that is) I'm thinking evil bard and fully Embracing My Potential, if you know what I mean. Also probably going to bump it up to Tactician when I hit level 5 on that run.

Disclaimer: if this is how you like to play that is okay.

I find it so confusing that people are asking for specific builds with what spells to take and what items to equip. Although it's a singleplayer game with a difficulty that doesn't require much optimization (if any) even on tactician. I really enjoy trying different builds that seem fun regardless if they are the strongest or not, so to me following a build would take out half the fun of the game.

I created my own character, drow elf druid. I think I messed up in the beginning and didn't grab one NPC, so my entire party is weak. No tank just warlock, druid, cleric, and whatever the vampire is. Do I have a chance to get a tank later?

Man. The Phalar Aluve is my favorite sword. I'm probably a bit biased because I'm running a Paladin/Bard, but the 1d4 plus to attack rolls and Cha, Wis, and Int saving throws while it's singing, has saved my bacon more times than I can count.

Act 3 bugs and unexpected quest lock offs make me sad. My Monk is now punching his way directly to the finish line and I'll roll a new hero and play again in a little while. Had a blast but a bit disappointed with the bugs.

How extreme are the consequences for not bringing companions with you on their specific quests?

I've been rolling with the same party all game and I'm really happy with it. I figured on my next playthrough, I'd just pick a different party composition and really get to know those characters on that playthrough, which would keep things fresh for me.

I don't mind missing out on random lore or conversation bits (that's the kind of stuff I'm trying to save for future playthroughs,) but it would bum me out a little if one of my camp buddies got mad and just left in a "bad ending" sort of way (I'd be more ok with a bittersweet "friends going separate ways" type scene, though, if it makes sense for the story.) I want to help everyone, but it just feels so video-gamey to add someone to the party, level them up, give them decent equipment, complete a quest, and then kick them out again just to get a better cutscene or something when that's not how I've been playing for the past 40 hours.

Specifically, I am about to enter the part of the Act 1 map relevant to Lae'zel and she hasn't been in my active party since I met Karlach.

So what do you think? Should I stick to my preferred play style and see what happens? Or change it up because I'm a chronic "good guy" gamer who wants to help everyone and get the "goodest" ending?