Yes, I have EE Keeper, did not know we can change play-character stats. Probably a lot of things I don't know about it. I remember using EE to give my party Antidotes, though. Seems like every other time they encountered baddies they'd poison one or more of my party!

Options in EE are almost limitless. You can for instance give your player a special petrifying gaze attack that turns enemies into stone. I once did a short playthrough of a beggar who'd turn people to stone. It's just an example of what can be done with the BG Keeper.

Ha ha that sounds pretty sweet! So your beggar was like Medussa.

Well I'll just give Hadden some sort of boost to his stats, maybe start him Level 2 instead of 1. I noticed BG is similar to the table-games we used to play, in the sense that this game levels up pretty slowly. 🎲 Which I like. Because back in the day when we all rolled dice, it took a long time to level up one of our PCs, days, weeks or months, not hours. When somebody finally went up, it would cause for celebration.

Baldur's feels harder than the table-games though, that's why I want to cheat a little. With the table-games we could choose modules, here are some examples. These were basically adventure books, and they were all leveled. So if most of your party was Level 3, we could choose a module which too easy, just right, or even too hard!

To me, Baldur's feels too easy sometimes, but too hard other times (especially when poison or some exotic magic gets involved). I want to at least try to level the playing field for Hadden Nuff.

Buffy's playing ESO every morning but currently porting over to BGII EE for much of the rest of the day.

I enjoy BGII but it does take quite a bit of party tweaking to suit me. Currently Buffy is an Archer but has a fairly full suite of Druid spells. Acadian is a L13 Fighter dueled to Thief. Minsc is a keeper and he is a Monk. Aerie is also a keeper and she's a Sorceress. Will pick up Mazzy as our other keeper soon and plan to turn her into a human Inquisitor. That leaves a guest slot that will likely settle down into Nalia and perhaps later Imoen.

Is Acadian an NPC who can be hired or picked up? Or a custom-made PC? If he's a player-character, how are you able to get two PCs in one party?

Buffy is the protagonist. Acadian is a a created NPC. You can build your whole party of (max) 6 if you want. We are using in game NPCs for the other 4 party members.

Okay, that right there. Acadian is a "created NPC". How did you do this?

Because what I want to do is roll a PC, and then add my own NPC into his party. But I've noticed BG only has pre-made NPCs.

It is not real intuitive. I'm playing BG II EE Shadows of Amm.

Single Player > New Game > Create your PC up to where you get Accept available at the bottom of the menu but don't click Accept. Instead, click Create Party. The next menu allows you to make additional custom party members.

Ah, that's BG2, I am playing the first game. Maybe that's why I can't find any options

Aww, sorry. I played BGI first one time with expansions back around 1990 then immediately moved to BGII and really preferred it. I also tried Icewind Dale one time and went back to BGII. As modern computers got stupid about older games, I had to give up BGII. Thanks to GoG with the BGII EE and some encouragement for SubRosa, I added BGII back into Buffy's very limited lineup of ESO and BGII.

I am glad to hear you are having fun with BG2 again, after all these years. I might get back to it with either January or Blood Raven someday.

Renee: This works in BG1 EE as well. At the very end of character creation there will be a button for Create Party.

You can also create a party by going to the Pregenerate Character button, which is right below the New Game button. It takes you through the whole character generation. Then at the end click on Export, and pick a file name for the character. That saves the character for later. Do this for all the self-created NPCs you want.

Then when you want to start a new game, go to the New Game button, create your main character there, and as Acadian said at the end click on Create Party. It will show a list of 6 character slots, with the one you just created at the upper left. Then you can go to the other slots and pick Import, and select the characters you pregenerated before.

This is handy because it gives you plenty of time to pregenerate each custom NPC. Especially since if there is not a portrait you like, you can exit the game and go find/make one. Or if you want to exit the game to check on a rule about skills or something. Then you don't have to start completely over.


Acadian: Now you have me thinking of doing BG2EE with January as a Paladin, and bringing in a couple of friends. Maybe Okami/Ryo as a Fighter/Thief. Or as a Thief dual-classed to Fighter. All I ever use a thief for is traps and lockpicking. Once those are at 100, I don't see much need for more Thief levels. Then maybe Gadget as a Cleric. That is how I ran him in Icewind Dale.

Then maybe I could also run Aerie as a sorcerer. I never thought of running Minsc as a Monk! The last time I made him a Barbarian.

Okay cool I'll try looking for that next time I'm playing some BG.

So Buffy's still splitting our game time between ESO and BGII EE. We rely quite heavily on the editor to tweak things and have at least a couple games in BGII going. What seems to be giving us the most fun is Buffy running solo as an elven no-melee mystic archer. She is sort of similar to a Shadowdancer thief dualed to Mage with a boatload of bow enhancement - and little resembles any vanilla class.

About the fact she is no melee. Psychologically, do you think there's any connection, even a subconscious one, that this has anything to do with your former career as a pilot in the Air Force? I don't know if you ever saw combat, but as a pilot, you would've gotten that perspective where you'd never have to see combat first hand. Everything's very precise, you might only get one chance to fire that missile into its target, but everything's also from a distance. You'd be trained in this way. Which is similar to your elf, who's entire approach toward combat is specifically geared toward not dealing with enemies in close quarters.

It's a stretch, I know, but this is how I think in terms of my own characters, sometimes. I sometimes realize there are certain aspects of them that I've subconsciously inserted or inspired from my own habits/psyche/emotions/whatever. If I roll somebody who is particularly evil for instance, there are times I realize what's really going on when they become torturous, or gross, or whatever. Maybe I'm releasing pent-up anger from the past, or dealing with stress which is going on in my day-to-day.

But I have my limits. I could never roll a Rattler, for instance. Because there's just nothing there in my own head which equates to somebody THAT evil.

Damn, sorry. I need coffee! ☕

Nope. I was a pilot in the Marine Corps and we get plenty of opportunities to take metal to the face. Lol. Buffy's no-melee fetish stems from the fact that she is too small and weak to do anything with a 'hitting stick' except piss off her foe. Nor is she strong enough to properly wear real protective armor. Hence, she learned early on to rely on ranged weaponry with magic, speed and stealth to compensate for her limitations. At least she's a small target.

It is cool that you are getting back to BGII after all this time. I still enjoy playing those 20 year old games. They are as fun as they ever were. More fun, as now I know how to mod them with the console and save game editors.

Thanks, SubRosa, and I certainly agree. EE was a dramatic improvement since BGII became unplayable for me years ago due to glitches. Thanks for your comments through the thread regarding the editor as it really provides the flexibility that I want. I've been running Buffy in numerous combinations and set ups but keep coming back to going solo as a mystic archer being the most fun - sniping and casting with no melee.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now y’all. Anyone here going to check it out?

I'm curious about BG3 but, like all D&D games, it starts with a couple inherent drawbacks. D&D rules try to preclude bow + magic and force you to bow + melee if you wanna be an archer. And for mages, the cumbersomeness of pre-memorizing spells the night before pretty much rules out regular mages and sorcerers can't multi/dual class. . . . I do look forward to seeing some reviews of it though.

I am giving it a serious look. Have been attempting Pillars of Eternity again, after a long time away from it and that has given me nostalgia for the isometric goodness of BG and ID.

Sheesh, I still haven't even barely finished the original BG!

Is the game isometric view like the originals?

I want to say that Buffy would be a Ranger, but I’m not sure how close BG3 follows D&D 5E rules. In D&D 5E, Rangers are basically fighters that can cast a reduced number of spells from the Druid spell list. They start with a proficiency in martial weapons which includes longbows. The other option in D&D 5E would be Fighter and taking Arcane Archer as the Martial Archetype when reaching level 3, but that doesn’t seem to be an option in BG3… yet. In the table top, you don’t really have to do anything to memorize spells every night, it just gives you the chance to swap out spells after taking a long rest. I did read on an IGN article that multiclassing is a thing in BG3.


Mostly, though I’ve heard you can zoom the camera in to an over the shoulder view, if you want though.

BG3 was made by Larian, who also did the Divinity Original Sin games. I played D:OS 1, and it looks very similar to BG3. It is a 3d isometric game. But it is turn-based, rather than real time with pause, unlike previous Neverwinter, Baldur's, and Icewind Dale games. That has its pluses and minuses.

I personally find it more minus, as turn based games in general are slower, and drag combat out. They also add in micro-managing things, like how far you can move and still attack in a turn, change weapons, stand or kneel, etc... Plus your party cannot move in formation and act as a unit, which makes teamwork harder, and battles more chaotic, as you quickly get all spread out. The real time with pause in games like Pillars makes combat flow a lot more smoothly.

Also, because it is Larian making it, there is no command console to tweak the game with, either to cheat or just fix bugs (I cannot imagine playing an Elder Scrolls game without the command line to fix bugs, especially for quests).

It does have mod support. But I am not sure how mod creation works. I did not see any developer supplied modding tools. So my guess it is something like Pillars of Eternity 2, where you can use an advanced text editor like Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code and write it all out in code.

Well, given that the reviews seem to indicate that it is good, and the fact that people in my D&D group are enjoying it, I decided to take the plunge and get Baldur’s Gate 3 for my PC. I will post my impressions once I have spent enough time with the game.

Fabulous! Looking forward to hearing your impressions.

I am eager to hear more about it too. In spite of what I said about turn based games, I am still thinking of getting it myself.

Should I do a new thread for it or do you folks think it’s fine to discuss it in this one?

This is probably a good one to keep it in. We are already talking about it here, and it is in the series.

Very good. I’ve still not made it out of the character creator yet, so it may be a bit before I can talk about it. And I promise, no spoilers.

Well, just put the spoilers in

Ok, I broke down and tried out BG3.

It is an addictive game. I have been playing it non-stop since I got it.

I also have not played any of the recent editions of D&D. I stopped at 3.5. So it might be that this is similar to 5th edition rules. I don't know. I have seen a mod that adds more 5E spells, so I am guessing it might not be.

It does feel a lot like the Divinity Original Sin games. But the ability to mod helps alleviate that. And it does have more of a D&D feel than that ever did. The old stats are there. The skills are different from what I am used to, and they have profiencies, which give you a bonus to your skills. There are also Feats, but it feels like you get them a lot less than you did in D&D 3.5.

There is no command console.

There are a lot things the game does not tell you. So buckle in.

You will find mounds of dirt by passing perception tests. But you cannot do anything with them without a shovel. You can buy one in the Druid Grove, which is the first settlement that you come across, relatively soon into the game. You can also get them randomly. You only need one, just leave it in your inventory the entire game.

There is a new system of Resting. There are two types: Short Rest and Long Rest. A short rest heals half you damage, and I think refreshes your spells. A long rest takes you back to your camp. It is its own worldspace, where all of your companions will be waiting. You can talk to each there, change out who is in your party, that sort of thing. Kind of typical in most RPGs these days, like the Normandy in Mass Effect. You can sleep there, and it heals all your damage, refreshes all your magic, etc... However, to sleep you need camping supplies, aka food. You will find it throughout the game. You need 40 points of food to sleep. So don't sell any of it. Hoard your vittles.

There are about 8 or 9 companions in the game. They are called Origin Characters. Each has their own quest, like companions usually do. You will find a Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard pretty quickly. There is a Warlock in the Druid Grove, and his quest leads you to the Barbarian (Karlach, whom he thinks is a baddie, but she's not). What is unusual about the Origin characters is that you can play one as your main character if you want. And I think the companion version is still out there, and you can recruit them. Or so I gather.

There is also a special Origin character called the Dark Urge. He starts as a Dragonborn (Fus Roh Dah!) Sorcerer. But if you play him, you can change him to any race, class, sex, appearance you want. The only thing that you cannot change is his background, which is the Dark Urge. Basically you have an evil past, and through the game you will be continually prompted to commit evil acts by a voice in your head. Or so I understand it. You don't have to give in to the voice, you can still play a good character. But those urges are always there. I might try this out when playing Blood Raven.

I think there are some other non-Origin character companions too, like Minsc and Jaheria. I have not gotten far enough to find them however. Apparently you can find Jaheria in Act 2, and Minsc in Act 3.

It has all the standard D&D classes. You can multiclass. Though how is not obvious. When you level up, there will be a little button in the window telling you your new class updates that you can press to multiclass instead. I do not think there is an XP penalty for multiclassing. And I do not know if there is any limit to the number of classes you can take.

You can edit your character's appearance. It was not as intuitive as I would like. I spent about a day constantly going back and restarting to tweak January's appearance. The main thing to start with is that there are four body types. You pick them at the bottom of the screen from a row of little buttons. They are average woman, average man, big woman, big man. In addition you have a choice of sex at the top of the screen, giving you options for female, male, and non-binary. I went with NB for January to see what that is like. It has no bearing on your appearance at all. So far someone called me "They" once in the game, I think it might be just that pronoun use that is different.

There are no sliders for face or body. You have about half a dozen preset faces to choose from for each race. They are well done though. So no complaints. You can pick your hairstyle from a bunch of options. Plus colors for hair, eyes, makeup, scars, facepaint, and the like. You can also select from several voices. The acting is good. But my only complaint is that they are all English, so in the end they all feel really similar. It would have been nice to have more variety. Even if it was just choosing between Posh, Chav, Irish, and Scottish. I still can't tell when my character is talking, because I can't distinguish her voice from most everyone else's.

Speaking of which every voice in the game for every character is English. Even goblins.

You can move things in this game. I mean like crates and barrels. In fact, you can even pick up chests and put them in your inventory. So if you cannot pick a lock on one, just carry it with you for later. The game never tells you can do this, and it is not very intuitive. It won't tell you what you can or cannot move. Just mouseover what you want to try to move, click and hold, and try to drag it aside. If it is moveable, it will show you a gray outline of where it will go.

This matters, because there are several places with levers hidden behind crates, and you have to move them to find the lever, to open a secret door, to reach the rest of the dungeon. There is also a very early dungeon with a bunch of oil traps on the floor, that will flood the room with oil, and then firebolts will fly from the walls and ignite it. But if you move crates over the traps, that will block the oil, and you might survive.

Magic use is still something I am getting used to. You have cantrips, which you can use with no limits, so that is good. I think that is from 5E. You will have some basic damage spells, that do an ok amount of damage, like 1d8. I created January as a High Half Elf, and she started with a Firebolt cantrip that does 1d8 damage. It is nice. Not awesome, but nice.

You still have to prepare your spells from a list, at least with cleric, paladin, and wizard. But you cannot take a spell multiple times. I think the game lets you cast the same spell as many times as you want, until you get to your casting limit for the day. You can change out your prepared spells, but then you have to rest for them to take effect (not sure if it is a short or long rest). I have not tried a sorcerer, so I am not sure how they differ from wizards in this. Though I might try multiclassing January as one later.

There are weapon and armor presidencies. But it seems like you can use anything you are not proficient in. If you do have one, it unlocks extra actions you do with them. And there are a lot of those. Everyone has a bunch of basic actions like jump, crouch, dip (as in dip an arrow into a flame to turn it into a flaming arrow), shove, etc... There is even a non-lethal attack mode which is nice to have for a change. Then on top of that you get bonus actions granted by weapon feats, like special attacks. Then you get bonus actions due to your class. Then you get spells. Then you get feats. When you are playing a spellcaster you can get a ton of stuff in your action bar really fast. Thankfully there is a Custom view where you can put the things you use on a regular basis.

This is a very vertical game. By that I mean there is a lot of stuff you can climb on top, like roofs, hills, cliffs, etc... Height matters in combat, as you get penalties to attack enemies higher up, and bonuses to attack ones lower down. You can also jump across chasms.

It is Turn based. And you cannot hold your action. You have to act, or end your turn, in order. If you have multiple characters going continuously, you can pick their order however. There are also regular actions, and bonus actions. Some spells and abilities are bonus ones, which you can take in addition to a regular one. For example, the Barbarian's rage is a bonus action. So take that first, then you can make your attack as a regular action. There are a lot of bonus actions like that, which you want to do first, because they usually are minor buffs.

Fighting is intense. Like the Divinity games, pretty much every fight is a boss fight. There are no trash mobs, no walkovers. Even goblins are a real threat. Once you are out of the tutorial, you will be taking a lot of damage, every fight. I cannot imagine playing this game without a cleric in the party. They will spending a lot of time healing. I rolled January as a Paladin, and took the sublcass with the most healing options, and I am glad of it. Both she and the cleric spend a lot of time healing the party during battles.

The map is that from the Divinity games, and it is... confusing. There is so much stuff on it, but most of it makes no sense when you look at it. There is no compass heading, so you can lose your bearings really fast. I found that keeping the mini-map unlocked works the best for me, because that does have compass headings on it. So I can look at that to see where I am going.

There is fast travel. But it is only to waypoints that you discover as you go. You can fast travel from any point on the map. But you can only to to the specific waypoints.

Oh, when you rest and go to your camp, after you wake up the next day it takes you right back to where you were on the world map. Also time does not seem to pass. It is always daytime.

There is an option to respec your character, changing class, appearance, etc... Once you are out of the tutorial the first dungeon you come across will probably be the Dank Crypt. You have to explore down into it. There is a secret button you need to discover in an area behind a statue of a deity. Pushing it opens a secret room. Within is a room with a giant sarcophagus. Activate it, and an undead guy named Withers pops out and talks to you. He will leave, and will then be in your camp. Go to him, and he will respec your character for a small fee. But you cannot change your appearance or race.

The camera is very limited. I cannot find a first person option. You can zoom in and out a certain amount. But you cannot change the angle from which you view the game. So you cannot ever look up, which can be annoying when you are trying to fight someone above you. You can press the O key to go to a top down view however. You can also rotate the camera a full 360 degrees, which is nice.

Ok, mods. There is mod support. But it is not robust. I have no idea how the mods are made. They are binary files however, and there are no modding tools. So I don't know people make them. But there are a lot of them. So maybe it is not too hard.

Mods come in .pak files. Unzip them from whatever zip or rar file you download them from and copy them to this folder: Username\AppData\Local\Larian Studios\Baldur's Gate 3\Mods

Then you have to use a mod manger to active them, otherwise the game will still ignore them. The BG3ModManager seems to be the most popular one, and I am using it. There is no real installation. Just copy it to your drive and run the .exe. You will want to set up your game path file in its preferences once you start it.

It had some bugs when the game was released, but those were fixed already.

You will need the Full Release Mod Fixer, otherwise your game will CTD on startup. This comes with an additional option file that removes an annoying error message, which I recommend using as well. Otherwise it terrifies you by telling you it cannot create a working story. Even though it is fine and you can just click that to make the message go away. The optional mod just removes that message. You will not need this anymore, as it fixed in an update to the game. However, the same fix causes the game to lock up whenever you need to make a dice roll if you still have a Mod Fixer. So delete your old Mod Fixers.

These did not originally appear in the BG3 Mod Manger. But now they do show up at the bottom under Overrides. You cannot turn them off or on, they always work so long as they are in the mods folder.

Action Resources replenish AFTER combat - this is an absolute necessity. Otherwise you will need to be doing a full rest after every battle. It replenishes all your spells and abilities after every fight. I would not play the game without it, given that nearly every fight is a boss fight. It won't replenish your health however.

Short Rest Tweaks - this mod increases the number of short rests you can take. I am using the 99 rests option. The downside is that once this is used, it is always active. Even if you remove the mod, you cannot change to a different version without starting a New Game.

These two mods do not work together! Well, yes they do, here is how. Start with only Short Rest Tweaks active. Start you game, make a new save, exit. Now deactivate short rest tweaks. Then turn on Action Resources Replenish. Go back to your new save, and you will still have your higher number of short rests.

Choose Your Stats - This is your basic character trainer. It gives your player and all companions a potion at the start of the game. You drink it, and it will put a bunch of options down in your action bar. You can change your stats by adding or subtracting from them, gain feats, proficiencies, increase movement rate, armor class, etc... You can use each option multiple times, to get the end stat you want. When you are done, there is an option to click on to finish. The potion remains in your inventory, and be used again as many times as you want.

Carry Weight Extra - increases your carry weight to some insane amount. Basically you won't have to worry about how much you can carry, and just play the game and have fun instead.

Unlock Level Curve - is one I am trying out that raises the level cap to 20. It is normally at 20. Since I am still only level 4, I am not sure if this is good, bad, or whatever.

Level 20 Multiclass - is another one I am not using right now. It also raises the level cap, but in a different way. You can still only reach level 12 in any one class. But if you multiclass you can reach a total of 20 in both combined.

In addition there are some race specific mods I am using, but they are probably superfluous with Choose Your Stats. They are Elf Unleashed, Half-Elf Unleashed, Human Unleashed, etc... They basically add a few extra starting feats to each race in question.

Wow, thanks for the detailed info!

Yes, the game is 100% a “tweaked” version of D&D 5E. It’s probably as close as you can get to the tabletop experience without actually participating in an actual tabletop game. It’s very, very close.

I’m having a good time with BG3, but I do have some… observations about the game.

1.) The listing for nudity and strong sexual content on the rating is no joke! Heed it. Indeed, your party’s character models come equipped with removable underwear that, upon removal, provides you with a good view of all of your characters’ bits and bobs. There is an option that supposedly allows for you to “turn off” the nudity, but it doesn’t seem to do much beyond maybe obscuring some of the more explicit details of the body (like female breasts have their nipples obscured). I’m currently playing a Dragonborn, a race of lizard like humanoids that are descended from dragons, and instead of a cloaca like you might expect for a lizard being, for whatever reason the males have human like genitalia, only covered in scales. With the nudity turned “off” you can still see all of this on him, so I’m not sure what is going on with that. I guess the best practice here if you don’t want to see your characters naked is just to never ever click on the underwear that they are currently equipped with. I should probably play around with this more but honestly, I don’t want to, lol. Whatever, I can deal with it, just not really sure what it adds to the game.

2.) After you’ve spent 6 hours creating your character in the character creator, the game forces you to do it all over again on a separate character! Yay! The game tells you absolutely nothing about who or what this character is besides referring to them as a “Guardian”. Since it allows you almost full control over what this character looks like (they apparently can’t be of the Dragonborn race for some reason), it seems that this character is going to be important to the story somehow. It annoys me a bit that we get to customize this character while knowing nothing about them and their relevance to the story, but not really a big deal.

3.) You can not max out a stat at the beginning of the game even if you have enough points to do so. It is possible I’m just not understanding why but it seems like an arbitrary limitation. In the D&D 5E campaigns I’ve played, we either roll dice for our stats or the DM will give us a spread of set numbers we can use wherever we want, so this part is a bit unfamiliar to me in the game.

4.) Goblins, despite being evil little brats, are frickin’ adorable in this game and I just want to cuddle them.

I have the nudity turned off too, and I only took a character's underwear off once to see what they did with a non-binary character. That was enough for me.

It does not surprise me though. Cyberpunk was exactly the same. It seems to be the current trend in video games that there are options to pick for genitals. If you have the nudity turned on you will get options to choose your character's genitals, the same as other body parts.

The Guardian character is a mystery to me too. I just skimmed over creating them. I did see a character in the cinematic right before the crash who looked like the Guardian. I think it was when the nautiloid was flying over the city of Baldur's Gate. There was another guy beside him with a telescope.

I think this character shows up later in the game. Not as a companion, but rather in cutscenes, maybe as some sort of mentor/narrator? I have only read some mentions of it in reviews, I have not gotten to them actually being in the game.

Given the English accents and small statures, Goblins are basically homicidal versions of Oliver Twist. But instead of sweepin' ya' chimmnay fur ya guv, they want to gut you and eat your innards.

I read something similar, that they are a guide or mentor of some sort.


Like I said, adorable!
I felt a small pang of remorse when Skorge and crew slaughtered their little war party at the gate to that settlement with the druids. They were so cute, with their little bows and scimitars!

Some other observations.

You do not need a Rogue to pick locks and deal with traps. First you need Thieves Tools for locks, and Disarm Trap Kits for traps. Sometimes picking locks/disabling traps uses one up, sometimes it does not. If you fail it uses one up, but sometimes when I succeed it also uses one. So stock up on these.

Doing either is a Dexterity check. It is modified by the Sleight of Hand skill, which gives you a bonus. There is also a pair of gloves you get early on that gives you another bonus to it. I think there are other things that can also boost it, but don't remember what they are right now.

Detecting traps is a Wisdom check, and uses the Perception skill. So having a proficiency in Perception will give you a bonus at that. There is no trap detection mode. It just happens passively as you go through the world, and all your party members will roll for it. So there is a pretty good chance someone will see a trap if it is there. However, the game does not automatically stop movement upon finding a trap. So it is not unusual to see it, and then step on it before you can stop (turns out right clicking with that mouse will halt all actions. Too bad I never remember that).

They have a sort of Karma system that allows you to reroll failures in most tests. You build up these points by doing inspirational things. Each background from character generation has certain actions that accrue inspirations. This is in both the PC and the Origin companions. You can bank a total of 4 of them. Each time you want to do a reroll, it uses one of these points. It is a nice system that can help prevent your game from being ruined by one bad roll.

The environment is something you can often alter. By which I mean throwing an acid or fire bomb will set the area around the target on fire or bathed in acid. But there is a 2nd Level Cleric spell called Create/Destroy Water that you can cast on the such areas. If you go the create route, it causes a rainstorm, and that puts out the fire and acid. But if you then cast a lightning spell in the pool of water it forms, it will cause damage to everyone in the pool.

The same is with things like pools of oil. You can shoot fire into them and cause a big explosion. There are also barrels of oil in some places that you can shoot with fire spells to blow them up. I have seen barrels of water too.

So keep in mind that you can probably manipulate the environment to your advantage. Usually I only notice these things after the battle is over.


Edit to add:

Oh, and there is no Alignment in this game. Though Paladins still have to follow a code of ethics based on their order.

You can also throw things. There is a button for it in the Common actions list. Those things you can move like crates, you can also pick up and toss around. You can do this in combat, and literally use them as throwing weapons. I just tried it with a crate, and killed a guy with it. Hilarious!

There are generic Hirelings you can recruit as well. You get them from the same NPC who respecs your characters. I have not tried them, but my impression is that they are the same as the generic Adventurer's you can hire in the Pillars of Eternity games. You basically create them from scratch and they join your party. But they have no quest or anything unique about them.

Unless you want to become…

OATHBREAKER!!!

I am not sure how that works. It somehow happened to me in the aftermath of the Aunt Ethel quest. I was just sort of going along and I met the person I rescued, and in the dialogue it gives me the option of using a wand for her. I had no idea what it was, how I got it, or what it would even do. So I used it, and it animated her dead husband. I was like, WTF was that?

Immediately after that dialogue: OATHBREAKER!

I still have no idea what that means or does. But since I had no clue what was going on, I went back to a save just before that point and instead I broke the wand.

That is one thing about this game. It serves up some pretty dire consequences for your dialogue choices, without making it clear what those might be. Save your game often. For example, the game often gives you the option of trying to read people's minds to gauge their intentions. I tried that once, and the guy immediately went hostile and attacked me. I did not see that coming at all.

In the lore, Oathbreakers are Paladins who, well, break their Oaths. If you perform an action that somehow goes against what your Oath is supposed to be about, then you are considered an Oathbreaker. Honestly I haven’t looked much into it, so am unsure what that entails or if it is reversible. It seems a bit ridiculous that you can do something without being aware of what you are doing and automatically be considered such. I guess with gods it really is that black and white, ey?

I tried reading the Druid leader’s mind and failed. She scolded me for trying it, lol

I have been confused on how the game does armor and dexterity bonuses. I just found this, so I will post it here:

Light Armour: Full Dexterity modifier added to based equipped armor.
Medium Armour: Gain +2 max Dexterity modifier plus equipped armor.
Heavy Armour: No benefit from Dexterity modifier

Khajiit, is this how D&D 5E does it? I have not played since back in the 3.5 days, when it was all over the map what armor allowed what Dex bonus. I remember the Chain Shirt was kind of the sweet spot, giving you a +4 or +5 to AC, but allowing a similar Dex bonus. Now, it's not nearly as OP. But this way is simpler.

Pretty much yeah, but in addition to diminishing dex bonus, the heavier medium armors and heavy armors will impose a disadvantage on stealth checks.

Yes, the stealth penalty is there in BG3 as well. I think a ran across one suit of magical armor where the stealth penalty was removed, as part of its enchantment.

It is nice and neat, so it is hard to complain about. But I do miss my OP chain shirt nonetheless! I just looked it up. It was +4 to AC, and +4 Dex Bonus.

I also just read that there is no arcane spellcasting failure for wearing armor. But you do need to have a proficiency in the armor. So that looks really good for a future playthrough with Blood Raven.

I found an article explaining the Oathbreaker Paladin. It sounds a lot like the old Anti-Paladin/Blackguard class from older D&D. Basically your evil paladin, who looks good in black.

Some notes on Classes.

BG3 is still pretty much the same as D&D 3.x when it comes to the base classes and multi-classing. Every time you level up, you can pick a new class to do it in. From what I read there is no experience penalty for it, and so no favored classes. You can be a level 1 character in every class if you want.

There are no ability score requirements for multiclassing.

Here is a guide someone wrote

There are no prestige classes like in 3.5. But the standard classes do have subclasses.

I have only played a few classes so far. So my observations are limited. However:

Paladins absolutely rack ass in this game! Holy fuck are they badass! They get divine smite at level 2, and it adds a huge amount to your melee damage when you use it. It acts like a 1st level spell, so it uses your spell slots. So you are limited. Not that anything can take more a few of those and remain standing. As you level up, you can upcast it to do more damage.

The Fighter I was not that impressed with. I know they get some stuff, still have good hit points and all the weapon and armor presidencies. But they lack a lot of the really cool Wow abilities that other classes get. Like Divine Smite above.

The Barbarian is also an absolute beast. They don't have to go unarmored, but they start with an ability called Unarmored Defense. When they are not wearing armor they add their Constitution modifier to their armor class. And of course your Dex modifier adds on to that as well, as normal. So really that is the route you want to go. Plus they get the highest hit die, and their Rage is a Bonus Action. So you can Rage out and still attack in the same turn.

There is an Origin companion who is a Barbarian. I did this with her, gave her a pair of bracers of defense, have the cleric cast a shield spell on her, and she has the best AC in the group. As soon as I found her, I stopped using the Fighter and put her in instead.

Clerics start a little slow. But they pick up speed around 4th level and up. They start with a spell called Guiding Bolt, which not only does damage, but it also makes the next attack upon the target have Advantage. That must be some kind of 5th Edition thing. It basically means the target is vulnerable to things like a Rogue's Sneak Attack. It took me a long time to realize this, and was criminally under-utilizing this ability. Use either in combo with a Rogue, or just to set up your tank's next attack.

Inflict Wounds is another 1st level spell that does huge damage, but you have to be in melee range.

Shield of Faith gives the target a +2 to AC until the next long rest. Really good spell. Paladin's get this too.

Create/Destroy Water is handy for putting out fires, which does matter, as people throwing firebombs or acid sprays at you will set the ground on fire or make it acidic for multiple turns, doing damage to you the whole time. Creating water will put it out. On the opposite side, mud will significantly slow your movement, maybe making it impossible for your tanks to close to range. So a Destroy Water will remove the mud (I think, I have not tried it yet). Casting water on someone before they go into a fire will also give them resistance to it.

Silence is one to be careful with. It is an area effect spell, that cuts off all magic use by everyone who is in the zone, friend and foe alike. Since it works a spell, a Paladin's Divine Smite is included in this. So be careful kids!

Spirit Guardians is a 3rd level spell (so you get it a character level 5). It sets up a zone around that does damage to all enemies that come within it, every round. Very handy. You can cast this, be curing people, and still kill the bad guys at the same time.

The Rogue I just could not get a good handle on, so did not keep in the party for long. I could not figure out how to get Sneak Attacks on people. (This was before I figured out the Guiding Bolt spell). I think it is also supposed to be possible if the Rogue is attacking at target that is already engaged with a party member. But that never seemed to work for me when I tried it. Maybe I just never had the right chance, and don't remember.

The Wizard did not do much for me. He kept almost dying too quickly, which is a common thing all around in this game at the start. However, being a wizard seems to work more like a sorcerer did in the old days. All the spellcasting classes choose what spells they are going to prepare. Then they can cast any of them any number of times. So you don't take Identify 3 times, and Magic Missile once. There is a limit to your casting slots for each level, which tops out at 4 per level for everyone. This makes wizards a lot more useful IMHO.

The Cleric works exactly the same way with their spells. They have a large pool of spells to chose from, but they have to prepare a set amount of them between Rests.

I am not sure how Sorcerers work in all this. I suspect that they do not have the big pool of spells to pick from at any time and change out as needed. I *think* on level up you learn a small number of spells, and you can only cast them. So you never go through the preparation phase, but have less to chose from overall.

Sorcerers also get access to something called Sorcery points at Level 2, and can do Metamagic with them. That seems to be things like altering spells' range, how many target's they effect, turning off friendly fire for area spells, etc... I think you can also use these points to get extra spell uses for Paladin abilities like Divine Smite. A lot of guides suggest the Paladin/Sorcerer route, just for the this.

The Warlock is a class I have been having fun with. Their basic Blast invocation does 1-10 damage, so that is a huge step up from the older versions of D&D where it was only 1-6. You can add knockback to it, and extra damage based on your charisma. And at higher level you can multiple beams. At the start of the game, your Warlock will probably be the best ranged fighter you have.

They can also create a magical Pact weapon that they can summon, or turn a regular weapon into one. It makes them work pretty good as a sniper mage/melee fighter. Plus they have some good armor magic. There is an invocation that gives them the Mage Armor spell without using a spell slot. Pus other spells that give them bonus hit points.

Screenshots. These are tough. FRAPs does not work with BG3. I have no idea why not.

However, Windows 10 does have a built in Game Bar feature that you can turn on in your Settings -> Gaming section. You start with Win + G. Then start your game. In game press Win + Alt + PrntScrn to save a picture. It will save it to your Videos\Captures folder.

Here is a screen shot of the game. Your characters get very dirty.

There are some really visually breath-taking places


In other news, I decided to stop using that Level Cap increase mod. My characters are getting too overpowered at this point. I am leveling up twice a gaming session. So I might try that other mod that lets you get up to 12 / 12 level with multiclassing. Or not use one at all. I'll probably start a new game for this, given that now I have a better idea of how the game works.


Oh, and other things the game does not tell you. You will find little crevices and burrows in your journeys. But you are too big to get into them. If you have a Gnome or Halfling you can cast a Diminuation spell or potion on them, and then they can get in. Or a mage can use the Gaseous Form spell. Thankfully I took this with Wyll the Warlock. But I missed a lot of those places before he could get it.

In 5E, there is also the Oath of Conquest Paladin that could suit an evil character. I’m really hoping that Larian will add some of the extra subclasses from 5E. There’s some really good stuff there.

From the 5E player’s handbook:
Sneak Attack
Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe’s distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.
You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.

The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Sneak Attack column of the Rogue table.

Now, in BG3, there is actually a button on the hot bar you have to hit to activate it, but it *should* work as long as you either have advantage on the attack or have an ally in melee range of the target, and don’t have disadvantage on the attack.


The game really does look beautiful.

I wonder if a Druid could wildshape into a rat or something else that is small to fit through there…