My household internet sucks so I just finished downloading it now (overnight).
I like what I've seen of the ranger. Its probably the most criticized 5E class and, while I don't think their solution is great for PnP, it makes a lot of sense in a video game.
Also the drow not having sunlight sensitivity is a godsend.
Just met Shadowheart. You can comment on her name, but unfortunately you are not allowed to burst out laughing.
She gives you the "durr you've seen dragons and mindflayers and space travel but you still think my name is weird?" argument when you ask her about it, so I'm not sure the writer thought it was weird in the same way we do
That's quite a shame about the faces being chosen from a fixed list, but hopefully the full release will have more options. Wonder if anybody's created a video of all of the available faces yet...
(Usual disclaimer about how this is my own opinion, not Beamdogs, and that I'm not an employee of the company)
I have to say I'm not a fan of how this game treats intellect devourers like they are goblins. A level one party (with two party members) fighting 2-3 intellect devourers, in any edition of the game, would almost certainly die if they get in its melee range. They are CR2 monsters in 5E.
It's not a perfect comparison clearly, but from a CR standpoint its like fighting 2-3 ankhegs or ogres. Without really needing much in the way of strategy to do it (or at least I didn't need any).
Edit: Looks like they reduced the AC of them by 5 compared to PnP (12 AC vs 7 in the game), and cut their health from 21 to 15.
Just met Shadowheart. You can comment on her name, but unfortunately you are not allowed to burst out laughing.
She gives you the "durr you've seen dragons and mindflayers and space travel but you still think my name is weird?" argument when you ask her about it, so I'm not sure the writer thought it was weird in the same way we do
I actually read it that way: she says "you can call me SH", not "my name is SH", and she's coy about that name by the reply you've quoted. So it's obvious the writers not only intended that to be not her real name, but there's actually much more to it. Check out the box she's carrying. Immediately reminded me about
The chest of Davy Jones
Then it clicked for me: "shadowheart". Maybe if you romance her, she literally can give you her heart...
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
(Usual disclaimer about how this is my own opinion, not Beamdogs, and that I'm not an employee of the company)
I have to say I'm not a fan of how this game treats intellect devourers like they are goblins. A level one party (with two party members) fighting 2-3 intellect devourers, in any edition of the game, would almost certainly die if they get in its melee range. They are CR2 monsters in 5E.
It's not a perfect comparison clearly, but from a CR standpoint its like fighting 2-3 ankhegs or ogres. Without really needing much in the way of strategy to do it (or at least I didn't need any).
Edit: Looks like they reduced the AC of them by 5 compared to PnP (12 AC vs 7 in the game), and cut their health from 21 to 15.
I find the entire overall premise of the start of the game far-fetched and highly unrealistic for a 1st level character: you're in a nautiloid which crashes in Hell, where you are confronted by illithids, red dragon riding githyanki, and demons. And you don't automatically, immediately, and entirely forgettably die?!
(Usual disclaimer about how this is my own opinion, not Beamdogs, and that I'm not an employee of the company)
I have to say I'm not a fan of how this game treats intellect devourers like they are goblins. A level one party (with two party members) fighting 2-3 intellect devourers, in any edition of the game, would almost certainly die if they get in its melee range. They are CR2 monsters in 5E.
It's not a perfect comparison clearly, but from a CR standpoint its like fighting 2-3 ankhegs or ogres. Without really needing much in the way of strategy to do it (or at least I didn't need any).
Edit: Looks like they reduced the AC of them by 5 compared to PnP (12 AC vs 7 in the game), and cut their health from 21 to 15.
I find the entire overall premise of the start of the game far-fetched and highly unrealistic for a 1st level character: you're in a nautiloid which crashes in Hell, where you are confronted by illithids, red dragon riding githyanki, and demons. And you don't automatically, immediately, and entirely forgettably die?!
Devils technically. But yea. The fact that they had to throw in several "regeneration" stations suggests to me that even their internal testers were having problems getting past some areas early on. Which they should.
I don't even mind them being level 1. But make it pretty clear how outmatched you are. Kind of like how KOTOR shows a soldier losing a fight against a dark jedi as you watch on. Make it clear you are lucky to be alive and the only reason is because of some external reason (ship was under attack, forces diverted elsewhere, etc).
Hey, @kanisatha, it's not like that actually. You're not directly confronted by illithids, red dragon riding githyanki, and demons. Reasons? Play the game to find out the details. Only by devourers and a few imps.
Whether you like random 10 minute fights or not - it can hardly be said that this is anything like classical Baldur's Gate, where minor encounters are short and decisive. More to the point (I have not played the open release yet) - if it is accurate that you can safely jump out of their range each turn, then 10 minutes are entirely too long for a battle with a foregone conclusion.
To be fair this is a starting encounter - where the number of abilities are limited on both side. But personally I don't want to spend 10 minutes on anything that is not a major encounter.
On the easter egg, I don't like the writing. Can't point exactly as to why.
The situation described in the Ars Technica review where the Mindflayer eats your brain (is this a game over? not clear from the article) while you companions stand bored in the background seems pretty bad.
From what I have watched & read I think it confirms most of my concerns: to epic a scale too quickly & overcorrecting the D:OS quirkiness to be much grimdarker than I prefer.
It's a minor thing but I don't like how the Hex spell is handled. Basically, when you cast it another version of the spell appears in your castable spells section. Maybe I just misread something but its easy to miss.
Also do you only get one short rest per long rest? Its not clear to me how this works. In 5E there is no limit on them normally.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
I don't mind turn based combat so I am fine with the battle speed. Turned based tactics is one of my favorite genres. There is little delay between actions even now so it goes smoothly.
I can respect why the RTWP crowd gave a distaste for it though. There is something special about the feeling of urgency and quickly being overwhelmed that the harder fights of BG1 and 2 give you. It feels like a real battle.
It's pretty clear from the reviews and number of current players that this game is going to be a success, and I'm happy to see it. DnD games that make money and penetrate into the mainstream pave the way for more DnD games, of multiple kinds, in the future.
Some of the companions feel more like cliches than others. Gale is a total bro and is easily my favorite. Astarions whining has rubbed off on me.
The best characters so far are the minor NPCs though. The two tiefling kids selling rings, and the elderly herbalist lady who took a very grandmotherly attitude to my halfling were both highlights.
I don't like how lock picking, when there is no time limit, on even mundane things has a limit on how often you can do it. Per 5E rules the only thing that should happen on a failure is it takes longer for you to open the lock (especially for someone trained in opening locks).
It's especially silly when I'm talking about a typical trunk lock using a rogue who should be proficient with thieving tools. This is literally what they do.
(it might be another thing if it was some exotic lock that the character might not be familiar with, or some kind of trap, but this is what looks to be a pretty common trunk).
I only got 2 attempts to open a trunk in the druid area and then after that the option was greyed out. Breaking open the chest apparently means you get nothing.
It should be either
1) You lack the skill to open this particular lock (a threshold system like BG)
2) You have enough skill but it may take you several tries to open it. Maybe failure makes it more difficult with each attempt.
There are also no critical failures on ability checks in 5E.
Just met Shadowheart. You can comment on her name, but unfortunately you are not allowed to burst out laughing.
She gives you the "durr you've seen dragons and mindflayers and space travel but you still think my name is weird?" argument when you ask her about it, so I'm not sure the writer thought it was weird in the same way we do
I actually read it that way: she says "you can call me SH", not "my name is SH", and she's coy about that name by the reply you've quoted. So it's obvious the writers not only intended that to be not her real name, but there's actually much more to it. Check out the box she's carrying. Immediately reminded me about
The chest of Davy Jones
Then it clicked for me: "shadowheart". Maybe if you romance her, she literally can give you her heart...
It's less "coy" and more "annoyed that you dare question her awesome name"
I don't like how lock picking, when there is no time limit, on even mundane things has a limit on how often you can do it. Per 5E rules the only thing that should happen on a failure is it takes longer for you to open the lock (especially for someone trained in opening locks).
It's especially silly when I'm talking about a typical trunk lock using a rogue who should be proficient with thieving tools. This is literally what they do.
(it might be another thing if it was some exotic lock that the character might not be familiar with, or some kind of trap, but this is what looks to be a pretty common trunk).
I only got 2 attempts to open a trunk in the druid area and then after that the option was greyed out. Breaking open the chest apparently means you get nothing.
It should be either
1) You lack the skill to open this particular lock (a threshold system like BG)
2) You have enough skill but it may take you several tries to open it. Maybe failure makes it more difficult with each attempt.
There are also no critical failures on ability checks in 5E.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
How many 10 minute fights are there in BG that isn't a boss or major encounter? Even dragon fights tend to be faster than that (win or lose).
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
God yes. 10 minutes for what should be a trash mob fight?
The first time I fought the brood mother in Dragon Age: Origins, it took me close to 10 minutes to defeat her and that was an epic battle.
Even if you don’t use cheese tactics, you can drop any of the dragons in Baldur’s Gate in less than 10 minutes.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
God yes. 10 minutes for what should be a trash mob fight?
The first time I fought the brood mother in Dragon Age: Origins, it took me close to 10 minutes to defeat her and that was an epic battle.
Even if you don’t use cheese tactics, you can drop any of the dragons in Baldur’s Gate in less than 10 minutes.
It's worth considering the sum of total combat encounters by time. A 10 minute trash fight in BG3 might replace 5 trash mob encounters in BG2. If that's the case, then the combats might be more reasonable in nature.
It reminds me of actual tabletop D&D. You only have a few encounters per session. BG1/2/NWN/PFKM/etc all throw a lot more at you because their fights are so fast, relative to tabletop.
That review could very well have been written by me. A very painful read. Without even having played the game, this was exactly how I envisioned the game turning out. And just like the author, I also would find myself constantly save-scumming those endless D20 rolls, and that will get aggravating pretty darn quickly. Tedious combat - no surprise there at all. But most of all, the horribly written companions? I'll take the "empty" companions of BG1 over these oh-so-very-detailed companions any day. Feel very strongly now that my skepticism and pessimism were wholely justified and have been vindicated. Yeah it's EA. Maybe some of this stuff will get "fixed." But how do they fix the fact that this was their (the BG3 devs') first impetus? Their gut feel for how a BG3 game ought to be? Any fix, I fear, will be putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.
In the spoilers regarding the first few encounters of the beginning of the game, the review author showed me that my sense of honor and morality was going to be horrifically offended at least three times. I would have rage quit the moment the game forced me to kill innocent people. I would *not* accept help from anyone who had just tried to kill me. And even the *succeeded* intelligence check leading to a main character death would have been very likely to cause a rage quit from me.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I knew this was Larian's writing style. (Very edgy, very biased towards evil characters. Any good characters have to have something seriously wrong with them if they're included in the game.) I was hoping to be proved wrong, but all that hope has been immediately dashed.
Everything the reviewer points out confirms everything I was afraid this game would be. BG3 will be getting a hard pass from me. I don't want my money to go to support the creation of this kind of a game, even though I'm in a small minority of gamers.
Luckily I have a treasure trove of older games to keep me entertained.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
God yes. 10 minutes for what should be a trash mob fight?
The first time I fought the brood mother in Dragon Age: Origins, it took me close to 10 minutes to defeat her and that was an epic battle.
Even if you don’t use cheese tactics, you can drop any of the dragons in Baldur’s Gate in less than 10 minutes.
It's worth considering the sum of total combat encounters by time. A 10 minute trash fight in BG3 might replace 5 trash mob encounters in BG2. If that's the case, then the combats might be more reasonable in nature.
It reminds me of actual tabletop D&D. You only have a few encounters per session. BG1/2/NWN/PFKM/etc all throw a lot more at you because their fights are so fast, relative to tabletop.
I don't think a 10 minute trash fight replacing 5 different 45 second to maybe a minute trash fights is a good tradeoff...
Hey, @kanisatha, it's not like that actually. You're not directly confronted by illithids, red dragon riding githyanki, and demons. Reasons? Play the game to find out the details. Only by devourers and a few imps.
Anyway, here is the first Easter Egg.
I found out what was bugging me about this description. "Cryptid". What? Leaving aside that its a very modern term, what meaning would cryptid even HAVE in Faerun? The realm has monsters, magical races, familiars, ANIMAL COMPANIONS. "Cryptid" is just completely non-sensical. Its like Larian put a D&D skin on, copy pasted some proper nouns, but have no idea what language is appropriate for writing D&D.
So, ship crashes, in usual Larian fashion you are left on a beach. I wander around and accidentally run into combat with three 15 HP Intellect Devourers. I figure I'm screwed, as even my character says one or two hits might be lethal for me. So, what to do?? Well, I am a Rogue, I have a bow. I shoot. I can't let them near me, so I jump away after each shot. They never get in range and all three fall within about 6 or 7 turns. It's this kind of obvious yet still satisfying freedom that Larian does so well at, and it's why their last two games have been so popular. You have so many options at your disposal when it comes to combat.
Taking 6-7 turns to accomplish this would be too tedious and frustrating and aggravating for me.
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
God yes. 10 minutes for what should be a trash mob fight?
The first time I fought the brood mother in Dragon Age: Origins, it took me close to 10 minutes to defeat her and that was an epic battle.
Even if you don’t use cheese tactics, you can drop any of the dragons in Baldur’s Gate in less than 10 minutes.
It's worth considering the sum of total combat encounters by time. A 10 minute trash fight in BG3 might replace 5 trash mob encounters in BG2. If that's the case, then the combats might be more reasonable in nature.
It reminds me of actual tabletop D&D. You only have a few encounters per session. BG1/2/NWN/PFKM/etc all throw a lot more at you because their fights are so fast, relative to tabletop.
And I keep saying, this isn’t a tabletop session. I am not goofing around with friends. I am being immersed in a story and a journey and if that pace of story is interrupted by meaningless battles that take 10 minutes to complete then it becomes jarring.
That review could very well have been written by me. A very painful read. Without even having played the game, this was exactly how I envisioned the game turning out. And just like the author, I also would find myself constantly save-scumming those endless D20 rolls, and that will get aggravating pretty darn quickly. Tedious combat - no surprise there at all. But most of all, the horribly written companions? I'll take the "empty" companions of BG1 over these oh-so-very-detailed companions any day. Feel very strongly now that my skepticism and pessimism were wholely justified and have been vindicated. Yeah it's EA. Maybe some of this stuff will get "fixed." But how do they fix the fact that this was their (the BG3 devs') first impetus? Their gut feel for how a BG3 game ought to be? Any fix, I fear, will be putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.
In the spoilers regarding the first few encounters of the beginning of the game, the review author showed me that my sense of honor and morality was going to be horrifically offended at least three times. I would have rage quit the moment the game forced me to kill innocent people. I would *not* accept help from anyone who had just tried to kill me. And even the *succeeded* intelligence check leading to a main character death would have been very likely to cause a rage quit from me.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I knew this was Larian's writing style. (Very edgy, very biased towards evil characters. Any good characters have to have something seriously wrong with them if they're included in the game.) I was hoping to be proved wrong, but all that hope has been immediately dashed.
Everything the reviewer points out confirms everything I was afraid this game would be. BG3 will be getting a hard pass from me. I don't want my money to go to support the creation of this kind of a game, even though I'm in a small minority of gamers.
Luckily I have a treasure trove of older games to keep me entertained.
To be fair, now that I have played it, that is one of several outcomes. I persuaded the innocents to leave. I didn't engage in a battle of wills with the mind flayer (suicide for a low level character of any type) but still killed it. Astarion never even tried to kill me. I've been playing as a good character and have not been forced into anything evil. Yet.
But I can't deny that there do seem to be more evil companions than good ones.
Hey, @kanisatha, it's not like that actually. You're not directly confronted by illithids, red dragon riding githyanki, and demons. Reasons? Play the game to find out the details. Only by devourers and a few imps.
Yes I know. But it is the general environment and context within which things are happening. So if anything, the question then would be why isn't the PC being confronted by a bunch of illithids and/or devils resulting in insta-game-over?
I can respect why the RTWP crowd gave a distaste for it though. There is something special about the feeling of urgency and quickly being overwhelmed that the harder fights of BG1 and 2 give you. It feels like a real battle.
It's pretty clear from the reviews and number of current players that this game is going to be a success, and I'm happy to see it. DnD games that make money and penetrate into the mainstream pave the way for more DnD games, of multiple kinds, in the future.
Sorry, but I don't see this being the outcome of BG3's success at all. BG3's success may lead to more games, D&D or otherwise, that are just like BG3. But there's no reason why it would lead to more games in general and specifically games that are unlike BG3.
It's worth considering the sum of total combat encounters by time. A 10 minute trash fight in BG3 might replace 5 trash mob encounters in BG2. If that's the case, then the combats might be more reasonable in nature.
But there's no evidence of this. From all the reviews, both from players and reviewers, it certainly looks like there's just as much combat in this game as in any other comparable game. That certainly was true of the D:OS games.
In the spoilers regarding the first few encounters of the beginning of the game, the review author showed me that my sense of honor and morality was going to be horrifically offended at least three times. I would have rage quit the moment the game forced me to kill innocent people. I would *not* accept help from anyone who had just tried to kill me. And even the *succeeded* intelligence check leading to a main character death would have been very likely to cause a rage quit from me.
Yup, exactly how I felt as well reading that review. I also would've rage-quit over these forced "choices." Not a chance in Hell I would accept killing those fisherfolk in cold blood like that. Not a chance in Hell I would be willing to travel with a "companion" who had tried to kill me or even threatened to kill me.
Sorry, but I don't see this being the outcome of BG3's success at all. BG3's success may lead to more games, D&D or otherwise, that are just like BG3. But there's no reason why it would lead to more games in general and specifically games that are unlike BG3.
I don't have any insider knowledge into the buisiness strategy of WoTC, but I do see that this is common for large, successful IPs. They tend to have a main series of games and a variety of spinoffs and lesser known titles. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, they've all done it. If they feel like more eyes are on DnD because of this, I can see the reasoning for pursuing this path.
I'm more confident in the fact that if it was a flop, we wouldn't see another DnD game for several more years at least. And the title that did come out would be likely to cater more to casuls and non-DnD players, not less.
That review could very well have been written by me. A very painful read. Without even having played the game, this was exactly how I envisioned the game turning out. And just like the author, I also would find myself constantly save-scumming those endless D20 rolls, and that will get aggravating pretty darn quickly. Tedious combat - no surprise there at all. But most of all, the horribly written companions? I'll take the "empty" companions of BG1 over these oh-so-very-detailed companions any day. Feel very strongly now that my skepticism and pessimism were wholely justified and have been vindicated. Yeah it's EA. Maybe some of this stuff will get "fixed." But how do they fix the fact that this was their (the BG3 devs') first impetus? Their gut feel for how a BG3 game ought to be? Any fix, I fear, will be putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.
In the spoilers regarding the first few encounters of the beginning of the game, the review author showed me that my sense of honor and morality was going to be horrifically offended at least three times. I would have rage quit the moment the game forced me to kill innocent people. I would *not* accept help from anyone who had just tried to kill me. And even the *succeeded* intelligence check leading to a main character death would have been very likely to cause a rage quit from me.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I knew this was Larian's writing style. (Very edgy, very biased towards evil characters. Any good characters have to have something seriously wrong with them if they're included in the game.) I was hoping to be proved wrong, but all that hope has been immediately dashed.
Everything the reviewer points out confirms everything I was afraid this game would be. BG3 will be getting a hard pass from me. I don't want my money to go to support the creation of this kind of a game, even though I'm in a small minority of gamers.
Luckily I have a treasure trove of older games to keep me entertained.
To be fair, now that I have played it, that is one of several outcomes. I persuaded the innocents to leave. I didn't engage in a battle of wills with the mind flayer (suicide for a low level character of any type) but still killed it. Astarion never even tried to kill me. I've been playing as a good character and have not been forced into anything evil. Yet.
But aren't all of these based on D20 checks? And very high checks at that? So at best, to avoid those evil outcomes, one would likely have to save-scum a lot.
Comments
I like what I've seen of the ranger. Its probably the most criticized 5E class and, while I don't think their solution is great for PnP, it makes a lot of sense in a video game.
Also the drow not having sunlight sensitivity is a godsend.
She gives you the "durr you've seen dragons and mindflayers and space travel but you still think my name is weird?" argument when you ask her about it, so I'm not sure the writer thought it was weird in the same way we do
I have to say I'm not a fan of how this game treats intellect devourers like they are goblins. A level one party (with two party members) fighting 2-3 intellect devourers, in any edition of the game, would almost certainly die if they get in its melee range. They are CR2 monsters in 5E.
It's not a perfect comparison clearly, but from a CR standpoint its like fighting 2-3 ankhegs or ogres. Without really needing much in the way of strategy to do it (or at least I didn't need any).
Edit: Looks like they reduced the AC of them by 5 compared to PnP (12 AC vs 7 in the game), and cut their health from 21 to 15.
I actually read it that way: she says "you can call me SH", not "my name is SH", and she's coy about that name by the reply you've quoted. So it's obvious the writers not only intended that to be not her real name, but there's actually much more to it. Check out the box she's carrying. Immediately reminded me about
The chest of Davy Jones
Then it clicked for me: "shadowheart". Maybe if you romance her, she literally can give you her heart...
That combat takes about 10 mins to finish. Are 10 mins tedious and frustrating and aggravating? Not for me.
Devils technically. But yea. The fact that they had to throw in several "regeneration" stations suggests to me that even their internal testers were having problems getting past some areas early on. Which they should.
I don't even mind them being level 1. But make it pretty clear how outmatched you are. Kind of like how KOTOR shows a soldier losing a fight against a dark jedi as you watch on. Make it clear you are lucky to be alive and the only reason is because of some external reason (ship was under attack, forces diverted elsewhere, etc).
Anyway, here is the first Easter Egg.
To be fair this is a starting encounter - where the number of abilities are limited on both side. But personally I don't want to spend 10 minutes on anything that is not a major encounter.
On the easter egg, I don't like the writing. Can't point exactly as to why.
The situation described in the Ars Technica review where the Mindflayer eats your brain (is this a game over? not clear from the article) while you companions stand bored in the background seems pretty bad.
From what I have watched & read I think it confirms most of my concerns: to epic a scale too quickly & overcorrecting the D:OS quirkiness to be much grimdarker than I prefer.
Also do you only get one short rest per long rest? Its not clear to me how this works. In 5E there is no limit on them normally.
it is when you can't adjust the battle speed.
I can respect why the RTWP crowd gave a distaste for it though. There is something special about the feeling of urgency and quickly being overwhelmed that the harder fights of BG1 and 2 give you. It feels like a real battle.
It's pretty clear from the reviews and number of current players that this game is going to be a success, and I'm happy to see it. DnD games that make money and penetrate into the mainstream pave the way for more DnD games, of multiple kinds, in the future.
The best characters so far are the minor NPCs though. The two tiefling kids selling rings, and the elderly herbalist lady who took a very grandmotherly attitude to my halfling were both highlights.
It's especially silly when I'm talking about a typical trunk lock using a rogue who should be proficient with thieving tools. This is literally what they do.
(it might be another thing if it was some exotic lock that the character might not be familiar with, or some kind of trap, but this is what looks to be a pretty common trunk).
I only got 2 attempts to open a trunk in the druid area and then after that the option was greyed out. Breaking open the chest apparently means you get nothing.
It should be either
1) You lack the skill to open this particular lock (a threshold system like BG)
2) You have enough skill but it may take you several tries to open it. Maybe failure makes it more difficult with each attempt.
There are also no critical failures on ability checks in 5E.
So I can't even point to that as a reason for it getting greyed out.
It's less "coy" and more "annoyed that you dare question her awesome name"
This sounds like a bug that should be reported.
How many 10 minute fights are there in BG that isn't a boss or major encounter? Even dragon fights tend to be faster than that (win or lose).
God yes. 10 minutes for what should be a trash mob fight?
The first time I fought the brood mother in Dragon Age: Origins, it took me close to 10 minutes to defeat her and that was an epic battle.
Even if you don’t use cheese tactics, you can drop any of the dragons in Baldur’s Gate in less than 10 minutes.
It's worth considering the sum of total combat encounters by time. A 10 minute trash fight in BG3 might replace 5 trash mob encounters in BG2. If that's the case, then the combats might be more reasonable in nature.
It reminds me of actual tabletop D&D. You only have a few encounters per session. BG1/2/NWN/PFKM/etc all throw a lot more at you because their fights are so fast, relative to tabletop.
In the spoilers regarding the first few encounters of the beginning of the game, the review author showed me that my sense of honor and morality was going to be horrifically offended at least three times. I would have rage quit the moment the game forced me to kill innocent people. I would *not* accept help from anyone who had just tried to kill me. And even the *succeeded* intelligence check leading to a main character death would have been very likely to cause a rage quit from me.
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I knew this was Larian's writing style. (Very edgy, very biased towards evil characters. Any good characters have to have something seriously wrong with them if they're included in the game.) I was hoping to be proved wrong, but all that hope has been immediately dashed.
Everything the reviewer points out confirms everything I was afraid this game would be. BG3 will be getting a hard pass from me. I don't want my money to go to support the creation of this kind of a game, even though I'm in a small minority of gamers.
Luckily I have a treasure trove of older games to keep me entertained.
I don't think a 10 minute trash fight replacing 5 different 45 second to maybe a minute trash fights is a good tradeoff...
I found out what was bugging me about this description. "Cryptid". What? Leaving aside that its a very modern term, what meaning would cryptid even HAVE in Faerun? The realm has monsters, magical races, familiars, ANIMAL COMPANIONS. "Cryptid" is just completely non-sensical. Its like Larian put a D&D skin on, copy pasted some proper nouns, but have no idea what language is appropriate for writing D&D.
And I keep saying, this isn’t a tabletop session. I am not goofing around with friends. I am being immersed in a story and a journey and if that pace of story is interrupted by meaningless battles that take 10 minutes to complete then it becomes jarring.
If that was about the brain monsters, that fight certainly wasn't 10 minutes for me. 2-3 turns at most.
To be fair, now that I have played it, that is one of several outcomes. I persuaded the innocents to leave. I didn't engage in a battle of wills with the mind flayer (suicide for a low level character of any type) but still killed it. Astarion never even tried to kill me. I've been playing as a good character and have not been forced into anything evil. Yet.
But I can't deny that there do seem to be more evil companions than good ones.
I don't have any insider knowledge into the buisiness strategy of WoTC, but I do see that this is common for large, successful IPs. They tend to have a main series of games and a variety of spinoffs and lesser known titles. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, they've all done it. If they feel like more eyes are on DnD because of this, I can see the reasoning for pursuing this path.
I'm more confident in the fact that if it was a flop, we wouldn't see another DnD game for several more years at least. And the title that did come out would be likely to cater more to casuls and non-DnD players, not less.