I’ve had this game on my list for a while, was hoping it would be on gamepass but that didn’t happen yet. It was on sale this past month so I decided to jump in and buy it.
I’ve never played D&D before, the only D&D lore I know is from Stranger Things. But the hype around this game was off the charts and I wanted a big RPG to play.
I’m about an hour into the game and I’m total lost. Game doesn’t do a great job of slowly walking you through stuff it expects you to know the rules of D&D and I’m confused as heck.
I can see the threads of an awesome game but I wish it slowly walked the player through the details (for beginners at least).
Are there any recommend videos to watch for complete
Noobs?
For reference, I now have three extra party members. Got to a camp where I hit a stone that was hanging in the air, it dropped to the ground and created a hole. I jumped in and immediately got into a fight. Because of the cramped space and my lack of understanding the abilities and combat, the fight took me 45 mins, and everyone in my party but my created character died. I was able to beat all the enemies but none of my party came back to life afterwards, that normal?
I don’t have the game but I’ll be following this thread. I’m interested in the story and characters in BG3 but I really do not dig Larian’s style of turn based tactical combat. My dream situation for the game would be to crank the difficulty down to baby mode and just button mash through the combat. But from what I’ve seen even the “easy” difficulty requires you to really engage with the systems and is not considered particularly easy. So, interested to see your take on it and follow your progress.
If a party member dies, you have to revive them using either a scroll of revivify(every character should have one in their inventory), a spell that you can learn on a specific class or paying someone after a bit at your camp.
Lucky Ghost on Youtube has a guide he put together for beginners
There’s a lot, as D&D is the core of the game, but it’s fun and the only thing keeping me from every finishing this game is my not wanting to engage with everything.
So instead I look up a build and decide to aim for that as best as I can.
Okay I got you. I’m sure there are BG3 beginner videos that can help you better than me, but I’ll try and help
The first area you’re supposed to feel kind of lost, it’s the beginning of the story and you go around the map until you find the first settlement. Also, that area you’re in jumping through that hole. There is a door on the bottom towards the beach and you can dice roll persuade them to open it. There is an important npc further into that area
If you’re willing to I would start a new game and choose explorer difficulty. It doesn’t change the difficulty, enemies still behave exactly the same as the other difficulties. it just lowers the health for enemies so if you do fail a fight or want to redo a fight it will be 10-20 min instead of 45+ min.
2 1/2. If you do start a new game, I would pick monk. It’s the easiest class to understand and has good mechanics for beginners. They can attack multiple times and has the ability to knock down enemies so they lose a turn. Or even Paladin is a good one with Oath of vengeance subclass. they eventually get haste, which is a powerful spell that can be cast on anyone and lets them attack more per turn.
This is not a regular turn based game, you need use the items the world gives you to succeed. Not just health potions, I’m talking about buffing potions, debuffing potions, poisons, elemental arrows, traps, scrolls etc. Furthermore, sneak and jumping is a very powerful tool in this game. It allows for flanking, remember you can split your party individually or even in groups of two and have them flank around an enemy by SNEAKING or JUMPING for better advantages there’s a button on the controller (I can’t remember which one) that allows you too see the enemy sight of line, you could send in someone like Astarion and have him pick off a few of them with sneak attacks get advantage on a hill, or house, then engage in battle.
Honestly I don’t look down on anyone for save scumming because this game can be ridiculous with its RNG rules. You can miss out on half of your party members with a bad dice roll. So before a big moment you can pause, save, play the scene and if the dice doesn’t roll in your favor just reload.
Your party members can also talk to npcs. So for example if you’re talking to someone and there is a high history dice check you can swap to a party member who has a high history stat and get a better chance for a dice roll.
There’s a lot more, but honestly you’re not going to fully comprehend how to play the game until you’re a few hours deep. It’s complex, convoluted, even sometimes annoying. But that’s also kind of the point, Larian wants you to experiment, try new things, try encounters from different angles. It’s up to you if you want to invest that time because it’s a long RPG that’s about 110 hours. But totally worth it once things start to click.
All the origin companions have quest that I think directly tie into the overall story (maybe not all of them) of the game, the story itself is pretty interesting to me, but I can’t say the whole thing is good yet as the furthest I have made it to is just before the 3rd act.
This was so great!! Thank you. The fact I’m only an hour and a half or so into the game, I’ll restart and change the difficulty. I’ll go with a monk too maybe.
Everything you’re describing is one of the reasons I was interested in playing the game, it sounds like you can do so much off the cuff stuff. It’s just that it seems so cumbersome just to move around.
And splitting up my party, didn’t know I could do that.
On Reddit I read that there are multiple difficulty modes and also additional settings to make it very doable. The combat system is not my jam but I would definitely go tinker with that.
My gaming sessions are very short lately with three kids and work but I ended up restarting and putting about 3 hours into the game again. Restarted it on an easier difficulty and as a monk. Definitely having a better time and combat is making sense but there’s still a ton of stuff to manage and learn.
I got to the grove and met Kalga, I’m enjoying it so far but man, I have like a ton of questions available to me now.
So an exploit I learned, and use because I’m a hack, if you lower the difficulty mid combat (or raise and then lower it) then you’ll regain all your health. Enemies also regain all their health, but dead enemies stay dead. It was a god send for just helping me complete fights. I scummed my way through BG3 my first run (trying to stop myself on my second run, but who knows when I’ll finish my second run). There’s also the obvious save scum for rerolls. I say scum, but it’s a game. Especially if you’re low on time just do what’s fun for you (whether that’s playing it straight or augmenting it). There’s also always the option of mods (even on console now).
The game is very “explorer” heavy. You can do as a much as you want or not do anything. It’s best to take the game slow, but also I definitely didn’t take it slow my first run. You can skip stuff like the entire Kalga plot if you want or go knee deep in it.
Monk is a little weird because you need to have a good amount of Dexterity, Wisdom and Strength to fully utilize.
One thing that people do is focus on Dexterity(also increases initiative) and Wisdom at the character creator and use elixers of giant strength(21 strength) for the missing strength.
Also once you reach level 4, you should get tavern brawler as your first feat and stop using weapons until later. As it adds your strength modifier twice to your unarmed attack, giving monks(and barbarians that focus on throwing things) a really good boost to their damage and hit chance.
I went back into the game, loving the concept and the story and all the ways the player can tackle things but I HATE, I’ll repeat, HATE the combat. And the thing about the combat, you’re fighting hordes of people!
I’m still in the first section, got to the troll village. I used my speaking ability to get in. I got to a section where I’m talking to the head of the camp, the ending of the conversation ended in us going to fight, but since I’m in their castle, now I have like 30 enemies pulling up.
That many enemies around me with a combat I’m not “gel-ing” with, just gives me no reason to want to play. If I could skip the combat or just fight 4 People at a time to get used to the combat, I would enjoy it more.
I mean, you both can and should be doing the thing you just said (skip the combat or fight smaller groups). That’s like a worse case scenario and much harder to deal with.
For example you don’t have to fight any of these groups. You can tell the grove people to f off and take their chances on the road and use the “true soul” thing to BS your way through the whole enemy camp. It’s been a while, but I remember pretending to be on their side, doing something with attacking the grove, and then when I went there just being on the grove’s side. There were less enemies to fight and more allies.
Something like that. Either way, definitely you want to keep combat to smaller groups and BS your way through things when possible. Stealth is always an option. So is just BSing your way through conversations. So is not BSing your way through conversations and just genuinely deciding to switch sides (at least in terms of the grove conflict).
Yeah, that’s why I save often, just saying the wrong thing can get you in a fight. As for fighting large groups, we generally need to do so from a position where we have advantage.
Then we also have to take into considerstion different ways to start a fight. Like if you summon an Imp, you would take advantage of it’s in visibility to send it ahead to attack first. Before running in with the party afterwards.
This causes the enemy group to be surprise and gives us a free turn. Or if you know you will fight a group, you could set a trap in the center with explosive barrels, cast minor illusion to get around it and cast or throw a fire ball or explosive.
I like the dialogue, and I’ve sort of been doing what you’re saying. When I spoke to the camps “witch” I BS-ed my way to her walking my team to her chamber to “heal me from the worm in my head.” I did that segment a few times to see the different outcomes, but it always ended in fighting her. I had to do the fight a few times to ensure my team with first or else she would call for help and then I’m surrounded by a million people. Restated that fight like 4xs and got to a point I defeated her before she called for help.
However when I met the leader of the camp, the way I want the dialogue to go, it always ends in a fight unless I do what he tells me (which since I’m role playing, I don’t want too) but I guess the only way to get out of fighting him and the 20 people around him, I’ll have to do what he says.
I just wish I liked the combat more. Everything else about the game is great, but I’m just not feeling the combat this early in.