legend

My understanding is deeper investigations are now strongly suggesting the levitation is from ferromagnetic, not superconductor.

This story has a tendency to keep coming back from each critique, but this one feels pretty strong. Guess we'll see if this roller coaster has any more peaks left or if we're finally coming to a stop.

I'm going to be really curious how this wild success affects what Larian does next and how WotC wants to proceed. 

I mean, a big expansion much like the previous BG seems all but guaranteed at this point, but I wonder what else they're going to do.

10 minutes ago, Brian said:

It looks more like a ball than bolt so I’ll say fireball. Thank you nerd 

 

Question: yes it’s dumb but whatever

  Hide contents

I got a full party and the person was like “I’ll wait at camp” and I’m like “what fucking camp? We just crashed landed.” And the person was like “bye Felicia” and ran the fuck away. I tried to follow but bumped into some goblins. So do I need to find this camp or is it the rest option someone talked about in the party? It was confusing when it happened but also kind of funny  

 

Not really a spoiler so much as it's a fundamental mechanic  Not sure how you got as far as you did without using it! 

You can choose to "go to camp" kind of whenever and whereever. You set up camp by pressing on the camp button on the bottom right side if you're on M/KB or it's one of the action options from the controller (the short rest option is also in the same menu). When you go to camp, your whole party is there. It's where you long rest, switch out characters in the active party, where various story threads advance, etc. So it's kind of critical to the game! If you don't long rest, your magic characters won't get their spell slots back and you only get two short rests per long rest which is also kind of critical (short rest restores health and gives back some abilities for different classes). To change your characters, just walk up to someone currently in the party, tell them to stay at camp for now, and then go talk to someone else at camp and tell them to join.

5 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

@legend

I don’t want to try to claim I’m some type of badass either.  I have to retry battles a lot to figure it out. I may well just surrender and lower it to the middle difficultly. I will post here if I do!

Haha no worries. I do get the appeal, but when you're digging the story I usually find for the first time it's better to play it normal otherwise progress will be slow.

My friend and I played through DOS2 together first our first play through. We tried it on hard and after a day or two of that we had to cede and play it on normal or we knew we would never finish given finding hours where we could both play was rough  

If you're playing solo it's not that bad to have the time sink, but I usually want to get a feel for the game and move through the story a big faster than I can manage on hard for the first try. There is a very good chance I'll replay this on hard though!

Hope it works out for you either way!

17 minutes ago, atom631 said:

Im like level 4.5. I have 2 options:

 

  Hide contents

but before the options - I finished helping the refugees and they all left the grove. I rescued the druid and now hes in my party, but only at camp? Im assuming there a limit to the amount of party members and I need to swap him out with someone? 

 

As for my options I need to either travel to the moonlight tower (i chose through the underdark since Im a drow) or Go find the creche (or whatever the green alien leader is). But I went to do that and its telling me the next area is really hard and Im underlevelled. So is there more to do in this area? I do have  1 sidequest I want to do before I head out - something about fighting the devil near Risen Road. 

 

 

 

BTW, tip for newbies since you might miss it: when martial classes reach level 5 they usually get "extra attack" which means if you use your action to attack, you can attack again. But you have to choose to do so, so make sure you're getting your extra attack in!

35 minutes ago, Brian said:

Grease and Fireball has been by go to spell combo super early on. 

To be clear, do you mean grease + firebolt or grease + fireball? The latter you don't get until level 5, which is still act 1, but maybe not "early."

The answer is of course yes to both, but fireball is fucking awesome even on its own (and always has been in DnD)

Fireball is such a great spell. 

Just putting this out there: the knock back eldritch blast Warlock pact is pretty awesome in this. I've tumbled many an enemy to their instant-doom with a fucking cantrip from 90 feet away  

3 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

I'm going to end up taking a long ass time to beat this game. Still very early in after 12 hours and playing on the hardest difficulty which makes me restart some battles. This is kind of how I go through these, but I'm tempted to lower the difficulty to speed things along since it's so popular.

I would probably save the harder mode for later. The normal mode isn't "easy." It will still force you to think outside the box for a lot of battles.

7 hours ago, Bacon said:

I mean if could get rid of both factions, I would. Goblins, orcs, Dragonborn, and druids are all on the chopping block. I am heartbroken I can't just team up with the cool demon race and get rid of both sides.

 

And like, how is getting rid of the druids a bad guy thing? They're druids.

Feel like you're making my point!  

Really puzzling why the only allies you'd find with that attitude are the baddies.  

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

Twist my words harder why don't ya? But yeah, it is a shame that you gotta be a good boy for the vast majority of romantic encounters. I don't really think that is a good choice. Even then the choices are all or nothing. You either kill everyone or you don't. I feel my complaint is valid and undeserving of your mockery thb. It's hardly about the romance as I said in the spoiler.

"Why can't I only commit selective genocide" sure is a take!

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

I am somewhat disheartened to learn how much romance depends on you being the good guy.

  Reveal hidden contents

I really want to kill the druids, but not the Tieflings. Is there a way to do that? From what I know, picking the goblins will end up with everyone in emerald grove dead and prevent your from starting a romance with most of your party. Well, it's really not even the romance I'm worried about but I really don't want to kill the cool demon race. I like them.

 

The game's characters aren't aren't a harem and actually respond appropriately to the main character's actions, even though the game very much let's you make those choices? Pretty unforgivable.

I love this dumb series. I'm digging the art direction in this one too.

3 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Phil Spencer now taking personal control of MS technical efforts to get the split-screen co-op working on the Series S.

I’d say they should just make an exception on full support for S, but it would look bad and Larian probably wouldn’t roll back on it after pledging to get it working. 
 

The S was such a short sighted decision. 

I really liked the juxtaposition of the dialog option and his face  

11 hours ago, atom631 said:

I have no idea what to do

 

  Reveal hidden contents

at the goblin camp, inner sanctum where you have to kill the 3 leaders. 

 

I think its optional, but holy shit. theres so many of them. 

Some tips.

10 hours ago, Brian said:

The e-peen is definitely OP. My rolls are all on point. 
 

I will echo what atom said and wish there were more explanations. It definitely feels like the game expects you to know DnD rules and terms which is not the case for me. I also feel the Wizard class is definitely not the most beginner friendly class. I have no clue what I am doing during leveling. 
 

I am enjoying the game and rolling with the punches and not worrying about outcomes. First game in a long time where I won’t look anything up. I completed the cathedral. Back to exploring. 

If you or anyone else is struggling, and you're willing to read, I highly recommend reading through the various rules and class descriptions on DnD Beyond. That will also give you a preview of where things are going for your class.

E.g., class page for wizard: 

Wizard

WWW.DNDBEYOND.COM

---

Wizard Class Details Clad in the silver robes that denote her station, an elf closes her eyes to shut out the distractions of the battlef...

You can also look at the "Game Rules" drop down and select what you want to learn about. And if you want, you can "create a character" and just walk through the level up to whatever level to see what it would be like.

10 hours ago, Bacon said:

The biggest mistake I made was taking debuffs and utility spells. As I have learned, fuck that shit like 90% of the time. Just take different types of damage.

 

That's how I usually play video games. Just stack up on damage. I thought this game would be different but it sure ain't at the start.

Debuffs and buffs are fucking awesome, but when you're low level with few spell slots and enemies die quickly, they're not as good.

53 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Question about your special powers you learn about very very early: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I’m reluctant to use the ithilid powers, like, at all. Does anyone know if I’m being TOO cautious or if it does have some pretty major implications down the line? Probably tough to know with the game only a few days out…

 

This is what I'm struggling with. It's DnD so there is probably a cost  But it's interesting that

Thus far, I haven't

but I am holding on to them.

2 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

Did you play Kingmaker and WotR? If you haven’t, I recommend them both. I’m a fan of Pillars too. 

I played a bit of Kingmaker. It wasn't quite as free feeling as this, but I ultimately fell off not because of that but because the story just wasn't gripping me. I might still give WotR a shot at some point though.

7 hours ago, stepee said:

So this would be clean energy right? Can we put in a bill to ban it yet or do we have to wait until there it’s proven?

Not quite, but it helps in a couple important ways (if it is a room temperature super conductor). 

1. My understanding is this is *one* of the missing technological pieces for practical fusion, but there are others too, so we wouldn't get to build it instantly. Other things would need breakthroughs too.

2. It would, however, give us perfect efficiency batteries that never lose their change and last a very long time. That's great for lots of reasons, obviously, but one of the big problems with renewable energy is we need to be able to store for later which means batteries, but our battery tech sucks. So this would solve that issue.

1 minute ago, Bacon said:

Also, I cannot stand the small/regular male body type. I'm not really wanting to be a muscle wizard, but I refuse my character to be so short 'n scrawny. I was hoping to make a fat lazy noble sorc who revels in indolence (I swear it's not a self-insert **he lied**)  but alas, muscle wizard it is then.

In the Pillars games, the "Might" stat increases the power of a wizard's spells. Mostly it was an attribute mechanic reason, but Josh Sawyer (the lead dev) worked it into the lore that casting spells takes a toll on your body so that muscle wizards were common  

This game is on track to being a GOTY contender for me which is amazing because I absolutely adored TOTK which came out this year too. Both these games are like once in a generation kind of games, and they came out the same year. If it weren't for TOTK, I'd feel like it was already decided that this would be it.

40 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Also, I'm still not far at all into the game because I have restarted 4 times. I really should have stuck with my 3rd restart which was going fighter as it was a flawless experience. I was level 3 before I even made it to the attack outside of that one village on my fighter. I think I have nailed what I want now tho.

Battlemaster fighter is a phenomenal class for newcomers. It's just plain good in general, adds a lot of combat options, gives you defense so you can't flub as easily and ist more stragihtforward in the mechanics. Things like getting your superiority dice back on short rest make it easier to think about.

3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

For those who have played both, how similar is this to Dragon Age: Origins? I've heard the two games being comnpared to each other. DA:O is one of my favorite games of all time so if I like DA:O would I like this?

I'd say you'd like it. This is more hardcore than DA:O, but at the time DA:O was the closest thing to something as hardcore a full DnD ruleset other than the original BG games. So I have to imagine if DA:O was one of your favorite games that you like something more strategic with more focus on highly customized player experiences, which this does better than any other game.

I don't know if you've played DnD proper, but it's astonishing how closely they've matched the rule set with very few deviations. And the best part of their matching is how much they let all the different skills, classes, etc. shine. There are so many different ways to tackle situations and ways interactions can unfold.

The only thing that is maybe a variable is whether you'll like switching to full turn based vs the pseudo turn based of DA:O. I'm also a big fan of the Pillars games which are the pseduo turn-based games, but I prefer the full turn-based for something like this.

3 hours ago, Bacon said:

I'd say so. Wish some things were more simple. Like, I hate how stealth works and I just want a normal turn invis for a sneak attack and so far I haven't noticed any backstab crits. Like I'd be willing to call this Dragon Age: Origins: Tactics. I'm pretty sure I would prefer the simplicity of DA:O over this tho. The biggest thing that makes it feel not like DA:O is how you can't just hit things. Kinda nuts how low some of the percentages get. I know there is the advantage system, not really sure how it works, but setting up advantage isn't a thing I care for, and aside from a few moments, I haven't really had an advantage outside of high ground and stealth. At times I wish I could just walk up and hit someone.

 

Also, it's annoying when a fight starts out with very poor rolls. I've restarted once or twice because literally nothing happened on my end due to poor rolls.

The not hitting things is very true to form of DnD  Bear in mind that the whole armor class system is based around increasing the odds of a miss, not reducing damage. Because of that, misses are common and you have to roll with it. A lot of the gameplay strategy comes down to thinking about how to manage that. For example, magic missle is not a lot of damage, but is a guaranteed hit. That can be really useful if you (1) just need to finish someone off or (2) need to break their concentration. Stuff like that.

But yeah, it can feel grueling in both this and proper DnD. We all have our stories of crit failing 4 times in a row   BG3 actually has "Karmic dice" on by default to bias things in your favor when you fail because it can feel rough.

Oh, I'll add that if anyone feels like the dice is painful get the Lucky feat. It's well known to be one of the best feats for any class in DnD proper and it works very well here. Basically, fail your roll? It will ask if you if you want to reroll it, and you get to do that 3 times every long rest.