After some advice from Jiz, I did a little better in the fight. After the one gate opens, I decided to run in there, casting area denial affect as best I could One thing I liked about BG2 is that you could pause the whole game and setup the battlefield to your liking. I don't know a way to do that in BG3.

I decided to not worry about the tieflings and concentrate on the gnomes. I threw down Web and Grease. I had some gunpowder that I chucked at them. The Warden seems to reflect spells when initially tossed - how do I account for that? Someone needs to defeat the Scrying Eyes because even if I get close, they just keep adding tank prison guards. I did get one of them.

I saw that Gale can cast Summon Elemental. I did that, but I had him positioned wrong. I thought the gnomes were going to run for the ship. They started to, but then started to trace back to the fight. I do not need them to do that. I don't know if they were going to help the tieflings or what, but that messed things up.

I got everyone but the Warden and the last two guards the eye summoned before I had a total party kill. But still. Close...

1. [b]No![/b] I have Gale, who is level 5. If I remember right, Fireball does 1d6 points of damage per level with no maximum. (Okay, I checked [url=https://adnd2e.fandom.com/wiki/Fireball_(Wizard_Spell)]this[/url] and the max is level 10.) So at most Gale can do 30 points of damage, and these guys they have working a prison are twice my level and always make their saves. But Wyll and Gale can do it.

One question - is it just me, or in 5th edition which I think BG3 is, can Mages cast their spells twice per memorization? You couldn't do that in 1st or 2nd edition and I haven't really kept up. This makes it much, much better for a video game.

2. [b]No![/b] I hired the Half-Orc Paladin (lol) but at level 5, he can't do much. That green elf chick is around and I dislike her, but I may just throw her in the party. I hadn't heard of Action Surge. Checking!

I really like that one giant Druid who turns into a fucking grizzly bear. Who is in my camp, but won't join my party. Why can't we get one of those? I have mostly been going with my gal (a monk) and then Wyll, Shadowheart and Gale. Shadowheart and Gale are must-haves, and I guess my monk is too. So that leaves room for one other party member, who has been any of the others. I really wish this was a six character party game.

3. [b]No![/b] I was doing these encounters without him. He has to hide to do backstab, right? Like, I tried to kill the warden in her office first and I did kill her on one of my attempts, but two of the other guards just knew about it (somehow - I shut the door) and followed the gnomes and mutants and picked them off.

4. [b]No![/b] I even have it memorized! I am a fool!

5. Yes! Absolutely, constantly and all the time.

Ok let's get real about this:

1. Do you have a high powered wizard that can just cast fireball the fuck out of shit yet?
2. Do you have a fighter or paladin that does mad physical damage yet that you can ALSO add the Action Surge buff to?
3. Do you have an elite Rouge such as bi vampire bro for massive sneak damage?
4. Have you been casting "Spirit Guardians" often with Shadowheart?
5. Have you been tempted to fap to Shadowheart yet?

There is no way for me to win the fight. I am seeing people complain about it with their party at level 9. (I am at 5.) I am also seeing that people had the Harpers help them, somehow, and that elf druid. (I guess you could add her to your party and make her a fifth member? Boy, that would have been nice to know.) I have neither of those things.

I finally started having SOME success tonight with the fight and then three more guards showed up with fresh hit points. Dumb dumb dumb. I am seeing comments like "this is making me want to quit the game" and such on the internet. I am going to restore from a save from before I helped the gnomes. Sorry fellas, I'll come back for you..............

But also, honestly, how on Earth was I supposed to level my team up when there are no trash mobs anywhere. Up until this point, this was a top 100 game for me, but the balance is so bad in this spot I can't look at this way any longer. They thought of everything but proper leveling.

I do dislike the Tower a lot. The trope is awful. Being in the baddie's lair.

You can't DO anything in this situation and I hate it. I'm trying to free some gnomes and tieflings. And hee hee hee, the prison warden catches wind of it, and of course she can be invisible and has 90 hit points. And every goddamn fight has them yell for their buddies to join and they all have 75 hitpoints.

Something is seriously wrong that at level 5, all my dudes have like 48 hit points. Not enjoying this part at all.

We're in some bad guy's tower and I am having trouble keeping the names of all the enemies correct. I hate the trope of "wandering around in the big bad's domain", and I could really use a quest marker for this one.

I found a bugbear selling some cool stuff, but I don't have enough money to buy anything interesting. Because there is no grinding. A little grinding is good!

It's a bad spot in a good game. For me. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, or whatever the second Jensen game was called had this enthusiasm-killing area where you run around vents too, and I otherwise liked it a lot. I did pick BG3 up last night again.

Totally with you - a lot of trash mobs in real D&D is not ideal because D&D combat takes sooooo long but I feel it would have been great just to beat up on something now and again in this one.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=148977 time=1747372282 user_id=3]
Also, for fuck's sake, throw in a trash mob or two. I've never gained levels in a game as slowly as BG3.
[/quote]

WHERE DO I GRIND?! I totally know the feeling.

In defense of the game though, good dungeon masters rarely throw trash mobs at a party. Instead the are always trying to push limits and at least try to knock 1 guy out. In Cyberpunk tabletop RPG on the other hand it's usually the other way around; the players themselves try to "edge run" as hard as they can for maximum reward.

I am going to pick this up again at some point, but I'm in a section where you're in the bad guy's castle and you COULD fight them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but of course that is not the smart thing to do, so you don't do that. I don't like the illusion of choice.

Also, for fuck's sake, throw in a trash mob or two. I've never gained levels in a game as slowly as BG3.

The fights can get tough. I honestly don't even remember the one you are referring to, but there are a lot of paths in this game.

One thing that might help is actually making additional saves DURING the battle. One for the start, then once you get a good combat round off save again.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=148659 time=1746137790 user_id=3]
I've never liked this about D&D. Learn "Knock" as a Wizard instead of "Sleep", and if you see a treasure chest you can't get into, you'll be glad you memorized Knock. If you get into a fight, Knock is useless. So you pretty much have to prepare the combat spells, because combat can happen at any time.
[/quote]

I guess all I was saying, is that it's an important part of the game - spellcasting - and you sort of have to play, fail, then restore and rememorize your spells. That's all.

The fight in question had a guy that got turned into a demon try to knock out a cleric. He brings a bunch of winged demons with him.

- If he kills the cleric, the fight is over and then you have ANOTHER fight with your party banged up right after.

- If the bad guy dies, but one of the winged demons knocks the cleric out, it still counts as the bad guy winning. The cut scene just has the demon carry her away.

- I knew every single undead monster in 2nd edition D&D, in order at one point in my life. I made a game about the order of the undead monsters. Rustled awake, I could probably get them mostly in order. I did not know that the winged demon things were undead. Knowing that would have been good info, so I could have Shadowheart "turn undead." This one is on me. You do pretty much need to examine monsters if you aren't familiar with them.

- You can cast Sanctuary on the cleric, but she's not in your party and will just start attacking things, breaking Sanctuary. (Sanctuary means you can't be targeted for attacks, but can take area damage.)

- You can't cast Feign Death on her, because she's not an "ally." This I object to. I object!

- There is a very long cut scene with pieces before the fight. And the fight is difficult. So you are hitting the space bar to skip over it a lot. I'd like a way to just skip it all. The game probably knows how many times I tried to beat that part.

- You can move furniture to block the ways into the room where the fight happens, but the way you do that is the worst part of the game. It is very, very fiddly and fussy. And nobody would ever just do that, you want to have the furniture there to slow down the demons, but you'd of course only spend time doing that if you knew a fight would break out.

- There are other people in the house you're fighting in who are not in your party. They are fine, but "surprised" the first round .... and the game has to show them being surprised. You can skip over them, GAME, I promise it's ok.

I don't know. It's a bad part in a good game, but I did finally beat the game and felt like I accomplished something, so I dunno.

Leap of Faith trial is some bullshit. There are ways to make it easier though and pics online of where the panels are.

I have not done that yet.

With quicksave, no leaps are leaps of faith!

Have you done the "LEAP OF FAITH TRIAL"???

Did you struggle with the "LEAP OF FAITH TRIAL"????

Did your spouse get tired of hearing you bitch about how you couldn't figure out how to do the "LEAP OF FAITH TRIAL"!?!?!?!?!?!

There was a fight in a settlement inside a D A R K L A N D ooOOoOOoO! that was frustrating.

Dungeons and Dragons has, in my opinion, always had an annoyance regarding prep for spells. You get a very, very limited number of them before you have to rest. I think that my wizard and cleric can cast ..... 8? Spells at level 5? I've been playing for over 40 hours.

This version of the rules allows for some other ways to cast them, like cantrips (spells that should be more available) and such, but still. That ain't many. You will have to choose which spells to prepare, of the ones you know. You'll know more spells than you can prepare. That SHOULD be an interesting decision, right?

Well, no. I've never liked this about D&D. Learn "Knock" as a Wizard instead of "Sleep", and if you see a treasure chest you can't get into, you'll be glad you memorized Knock. If you get into a fight, Knock is useless. So you pretty much have to prepare the combat spells, because combat can happen at any time.

More later, goooooddddd

My phone broke and I had to deal with fantasy baseball nonsense yesterday. I still managed to get some time in with BG3. I may take Monday off just to play it. I have not taken a day off work since Zork: Grand Inquisitor and that blew up at me.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=148489 time=1745651697 user_id=3]
So I dunno. I need a guide for the most part, and I do consult one. I also don't have unlimited time. It is very easy to miss sections in this game. If I were a sophomore in high school, this game could get away with more from me in the time department.
[/quote]

I really wouldn't worry about missing anything your first play thru! If anything, it's impossible anyway. My first play thru as the gnome wizard I definitely always leaned towards "good guy" decisions. In my warlock play, I'm try to make the evil dark draw Minthara my girlfriend (no shame. I like her style and how she talks lol); doing anything she wants while pissing off Shadowheart and others in my group. So far in my 2nd playthu I've encountered lots of stuff I didn't the first go round.

My other play thru with 2 of my friends over multiplayer is also different. It's the first game I've played where I had a chance to save the druid PC.. and due to everyone making decisions random things just kind of happen that again I'd never even seen.

Ok, this game.

There are some things that I want to have happen, and you have to roll dice.

I think I need to invest in potions that up stats. And also - the game does let you pick which character ought to do the talking. I should remember that.

How do I explain this. I will always be on the side of life and the underdog and the beaten and the maimed. So I'm in some area where gnomes are being treated badly. OK! I want to help them.

When I find myself talking to bad guys and a fight breaks out where it's 12 against 4, what the game is telling me is that I missed something. And that was the case in this one section. Talking to some other dark elves that were not immediately apparent, I was able to get them to agree to be on my side and "mutiny" against this one a-hole that was in a cave-in.

HILARIOUSLY, when the asshole gets out of the cave and starts to attack - because he wanted to kill the gnomes and I didn't - I was able to scoot my guys up a ladder on my second playthrough. I was also able to knock the asshole dude, who was probably a really tough opponent, into a chasm of hot, molten lava that he was standing next to. Don't stand near LAVA, dummy. Hahah! That part was great.

I was content to let the mutineers fight the ones that did not mutiny. This was mostly their problem anyway.

So I dunno. I need a guide for the most part, and I do consult one. I also don't have unlimited time. It is very easy to miss sections in this game. If I were a sophomore in high school, this game could get away with more from me in the time department.

I really like that video - thanks, Nikos.

I am just one dude and I recently came across the limits of my programming language - so there are limits, but the way that BG3 has affected me is as such:

- I have a shovel in the game as a weapon. It can also be used to dig. I WAS coding my game in a way where when I thought of something that should be revealed by a shovel, I added it. What I think I ought to do is really handle *everything* that could be dug. The whole game, I should think about that shovel.

- I love that there is a main character that the rest of the characters react to. "Tav" is the ear for the rest of the party. They are all trying to bang Tav. The love that player character, can't get enough. While it is too late for me to change the perspective of my game to where whoever is in the first slot gets all the focus, it's obvious to me that people love the interactions between characters. I have a lot of that in Cyberganked, but I will not feel shy about adding more.

There's more but I have to switch back to work. I like that BG3 is a triumph of design. It really is the designers that made this game so special. If Doom is a triumph of the programmer, and Photopia or Portal 2 is the triumph of the writer, and Star Citizen is the triumph of the producer, then I think BG3 is the best example of designers leading the way for a game.

[quote=RealNC post_id=148408 time=1745334610 user_id=914]
[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey" post_id=148355 time=1745137172 user_id=3]
It has made me realize my own WIP is not releasable, not with this thing out there in the world.
[/quote]

You're not the only one who feels this way. Except everyone else simply came out to state that players shouldn't expect BG3 to have much impact on other games because that would be an unrealistically high standard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfGQAlANKWs
[/quote]

I'm on the fence with this. People that didn't play a lot of real DnD beforehand were "blown away by choices". Those of us that did are used to so many choices it's hard to choose.

I feel like Cyberganked is more of a narrative vision combined with a true Ultra-Wizardry style gameplay and as long as it fulfills it's own purpose rather than DnD 5th edition expectations it will be awesome.