Baldur's Gate III (2)

[Chen]

So read through the early access faq and they’re saying they expect this to be in early access for at least a year? That seems kinda ridiculous to me.

[The Hellbug]

It's consistent with the time Original Sin 1 and 2 spent in early access.

[Clertar]

Considering that This Land is My Land has been on early access for one year...

[Cespenar]

The way people are jumping on Early Access games, few games have any economical reason to not to do Early Access anyway. It's a studio's dream to get a percentage of their revenue one whopping year earlier.

[Saintheart]

The way people are jumping on Early Access games, few games have any economical reason to not to do Early Access anyway. It's a studio's dream to get a percentage of their revenue one whopping year earlier.

I'm sorry, but is nobody going to fanboy over the fact we have a user named Cespenar commenting on Baldur's Gate 3?

[Cespenar]

I'm sorry, but is nobody going to fanboy over the fact we have a user named Cespenar commenting on Baldur's Gate 3?

I mean, it would be more surprising if such a user didn't comment on BG3.

[huttj509]

Noticed a reference in the prologue that I'm genuinely surprised the streamer I was watching didn't comment on.

Spoiler: Because spoiler tags are easy

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Yeoman Chambers in the tank like in Mass Effect 2. Turned into an Illithid, or turned into organic goo for a Reaper, which is better?

[Morty]

The way people are jumping on Early Access games, few games have any economical reason to not to do Early Access anyway. It's a studio's dream to get a percentage of their revenue one whopping year earlier.

Not to mention the marketing value. People are going to be talking about it way more than if they'd held off until release.

[CantigThimble]

"Goofiness" and less-serious elements of a story can take many different forms and be pretty subjective. Baldur's Gate had such elements for sure and so did Divinity. But it's not unreasonable to accept them in one but not the other, since the style was pretty different. And I think Divinity leans on them a lot more.

I will say, this is something I was concerned about as well. I enjoy the sense of humor in Divinity sometimes, but I was also hoping it didn't take over BG3. After playing the EA for a... concerning number of hours considering how long it's been out, I can happily report it hasn't. The game takes itself quite seriously, and when characters do make jokes it feels like the characters making the jokes, not the writers. The only mildly fourth wall breaking joke I can think of was an NPC I met and asked if they wanted to join my party and they responded with "What, just like, follow you around? No thanks."

On a more general note, this game is really fantastic. I can't say it's like any RPG I've ever played. The degree of responsiveness the world has to what you do, and the flexibility in ways to approach your problems is quite astounding. I managed to engage in psionic subterfuge, sell my left eye and start a war in a single run run and I'm sure I haven't seen a third of what's in just the early access yet.

[Eurus]

I'm playing it now, enjoying it so far, although I've just started.

Spoiler: Question

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I don't suppose there's any way to help the injured mind-flayer by the wreck that's controlling the villagers? I mean, yeah, monster... but this is the poor person that I turned into a mind-flayer through unwise button pressing, so I kinda feel like I owe her one.

[Narkis]

I'm playing it now, enjoying it so far, although I've just started.

Spoiler: Question

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I don't suppose there's any way to help the injured mind-flayer by the wreck that's controlling the villagers? I mean, yeah, monster... but this is the poor person that I turned into a mind-flayer through unwise button pressing, so I kinda feel like I owe her one.

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I don't know if there's any way to help it, but if Larian followed the lore then that's not that poor person anymore. It's a newly-born Mind Flayer that ate her brain and hijacked her body. You SHOULD feel guilty for condemning someone to such a horrible fate, but two wrongs don't make a right

[Morty]

I've been hearing some good things, but also some not very encouraging ones. The game seems to cleave closer to 5E D&D than I hoped in some cases, so I likely won't be able to play a fighter or a rogue in a way that's satisfying. But I'll have to check some detailed accounts of those two.

The... not stellar 5E weapons list seems likewise unchanged, which is disappointing and also shoots down some of my favorite concepts. I didn't hold out much hope for that, but still.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm playing it now, enjoying it so far, although I've just started.

Spoiler: Question

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I don't suppose there's any way to help the injured mind-flayer by the wreck that's controlling the villagers? I mean, yeah, monster... but this is the poor person that I turned into a mind-flayer through unwise button pressing, so I kinda feel like I owe her one.

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Yes, there is. Pass the intelligence check to try and enter a battle of wills with it, then fail the subsequent wisdom check. It will be fine.

It will eat your brain and you will be dead.

But it will be fine.


(Coincidentally, this appears to be one of the instances where the optimum approach to the scenario is to be a murderhobo and walk up and stab things first, there's another later with some looters who will fight you after dialogue, you can murder two of them without the dialogue to make the fight a lot easier.)

[Corvus]

Don't have it yet (got too many other games to finish first) but have been watching others play it.

I don't know if it is just me but the cutscenes seem kind of off. The PC seems to spend most of the time staring off into nothing with a blank expression.

[Keltest]

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Yes, there is. Pass the intelligence check to try and enter a battle of wills with it, then fail the subsequent wisdom check. It will be fine.

It will eat your brain and you will be dead.

But it will be fine.


(Coincidentally, this appears to be one of the instances where the optimum approach to the scenario is to be a murderhobo and walk up and stab things first, there's another later with some looters who will fight you after dialogue, you can murder two of them without the dialogue to make the fight a lot easier.)

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I have come to appreciate games that include ways for a non-standard game over when you do something dumb like that. I saw a "review" article that was about a page length of some guy complaining about that specific scene, and the whole read im like "dude, you allowed a creature that telepathically dominates and eats people access to your mind. What did you think would be the outcome?"

[GloatingSwine]

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I have come to appreciate games that include ways for a non-standard game over when you do something dumb like that. I saw a "review" article that was about a page length of some guy complaining about that specific scene, and the whole read im like "dude, you allowed a creature that telepathically dominates and eats people access to your mind. What did you think would be the outcome?"

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On the other hand, it puts the instant death behind a success on a check, with a harder check on a different stat to avoid it after that. If you fail the first check you're fine. Which makes it feel like a "gotcha" from the developer.

I'm pretty sure that's the sort of thing that would pop up in a DM horror story over in the roleplaying forum, probably ending with "and then I threw all my D4s at his face".

[Narkis]

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On the other hand, it puts the instant death behind a success on a check, with a harder check on a different stat to avoid it after that. If you fail the first check you're fine. Which makes it feel like a "gotcha" from the developer.

I'm pretty sure that's the sort of thing that would pop up in a DM horror story over in the roleplaying forum, probably ending with "and then I threw all my D4s at his face".

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I really don't mind a game putting bad outcomes behind succesful rolls, especially if it comes early and often enough to not blindside you, as seems to be the case here. It makes it so you don't always click the Skill option without thinking. And I have no problem buying that characters with a higher mental score are in more danger against a Mind Flayer.

edit: What seems very goofy though is that the rest of the party doesn't even try and save you there. They just stand around watching you get nommed.

[Hatu]

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I really don't mind a game putting bad outcomes behind succesful rolls, especially if it comes early and often enough to not blindside you, as seems to be the case here. It makes it so you don't always click the Skill option without thinking. And I have no problem buying that characters with a higher mental score are in more danger against a Mind Flayer.

edit: What seems very goofy though is that the rest of the party doesn't even try and save you there. They just stand around watching you get nommed.

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I very much mind that. The whole point of skills is to represent the expertise of a character that we do not ourselves posses. Giving detrimental effects to success on skill check breaks the whole point of the system.

The idea seems to be that only a character with a powerful intellect can manage to open a telepathic link to the mind flayer in the first place, and thus a failure suffers no consequences. But that ignores that a powerful intellect should also recognize some of the dangers inherent in that and thus be better able to shield itself from the consequences. After all, the mind flayer is on death's door, so it's hardly a given that it cannot be defeated in psychic combat.

To me, it really does feel precisely like a "gotcha" moment, where a malicious DM can provide a misleading choice then punish you for trying to use your skills appropriately.

-H

[Keltest]

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On the other hand, it puts the instant death behind a success on a check, with a harder check on a different stat to avoid it after that. If you fail the first check you're fine. Which makes it feel like a "gotcha" from the developer.

I'm pretty sure that's the sort of thing that would pop up in a DM horror story over in the roleplaying forum, probably ending with "and then I threw all my D4s at his face".

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Its not success on a check, its success on a check, and then failure on a followup check. I dont actually know what happens if you pass the subsequent wisdom save, because i stepped on the sorry squid's head and put him out of his misery, but it isnt just "oh, haha, youre smart so you died."

[Eurus]

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I don't know if there's any way to help it, but if Larian followed the lore then that's not that poor person anymore. It's a newly-born Mind Flayer that ate her brain and hijacked her body. You SHOULD feel guilty for condemning someone to such a horrible fate, but two wrongs don't make a right

Spoiler

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Yeah, that's true. Killing a newborn anything sits poorly with me, but I can't really blame Larian for that, it's being faithful to the Always-Evil description.

[GloatingSwine]

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I really don't mind a game putting bad outcomes behind succesful rolls, especially if it comes early and often enough to not blindside you, as seems to be the case here. It makes it so you don't always click the Skill option without thinking. And I have no problem buying that characters with a higher mental score are in more danger against a Mind Flayer.

edit: What seems very goofy though is that the rest of the party doesn't even try and save you there. They just stand around watching you get nommed.

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I do. Because successful checks are the result of intentional player investment in stats. If you tie failure to investment you're telling the player their choice to invest in was bad and they shouldn't have done it.

It's contrary to good game design principles if you punish a player for doing something (putting points into Intelligence) you originally told them was good (mages use this stat).

Have bad options, but don't tie them to investment you told the player was good.

[Dienekes]

On checks and failures.

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I honestly think it is in how it is presented. I have not seen the scene, but if you have a character that goes: Only the most learned of minds even has a chance of creating such a link, and that is not all, after is a battle of wills!

Then I would be completely fine with it. The GM has given adequate warning that this is a two-part problem and that the first successful check is not enough for a win.

To me that is the same as making a stealth based encounter where the further you get in, the more dangerous it gets and failing at the end causes much more damage than failing at the beginning as it is now harder to run away. Perfectly reasonable way to handle the situation and flows directly from the situation at hand.

But if with no context the player is left thinking that the Intelligence check is the win condition, only to then lose a follow up check they had no way of knowing about? That is being a **** GM.

[Gray Mage]

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I very much mind that. The whole point of skills is to represent the expertise of a character that we do not ourselves posses. Giving detrimental effects to success on skill check breaks the whole point of the system.

The idea seems to be that only a character with a powerful intellect can manage to open a telepathic link to the mind flayer in the first place, and thus a failure suffers no consequences. But that ignores that a powerful intellect should also recognize some of the dangers inherent in that and thus be better able to shield itself from the consequences. After all, the mind flayer is on death's door, so it's hardly a given that it cannot be defeated in psychic combat.

To me, it really does feel precisely like a "gotcha" moment, where a malicious DM can provide a misleading choice then punish you for trying to use your skills appropriately.

-H

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I feel like should recognize is an action that falls on the umbrella of Wisdom, which the failed check means that no, the character didn't.

[GloatingSwine]

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I feel like should recognize is an action that falls on the umbrella of Wisdom, which the failed check means that no, the character didn't.

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However, the wisdom check comes after the intelligence check. It's not that you make a wisdom check to see if you realise you're doing a dangerous thing, you don't, the wisdom check only happens if you succeed at the intelligence check to do the dangerous thing and acts as a willpower test to see if you survive the dangerous thing.

The fact that you survive if you fail the intelligence check and die if you succeed at the intelligence check but fail the wisdom check is the problem.

The potential for negative consequences shouldn't depend on a successful test. If your DM made a trap that only ever went off if you made a successful investigate roll to find it, and if you didn't find the trap it couldn't possibly go off, would you call that good adventure design?

[Keltest]

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However, the wisdom check comes after the intelligence check. It's not that you make a wisdom check to see if you realise you're doing a dangerous thing, you don't, the wisdom check only happens if you succeed at the intelligence check to do the dangerous thing and acts as a willpower test to see if you survive the dangerous thing.

The fact that you survive if you fail the intelligence check and die if you succeed at the intelligence check but fail the wisdom check is the problem.

The potential for negative consequences shouldn't depend on a successful test. If your DM made a trap that only ever went off if you made a successful investigate roll to find it, and if you didn't find the trap it couldn't possibly go off, would you call that good adventure design?

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Lets use an analogy here. Lets say youre a rogue who wants to go into a room. First, you try and see if you can open the door. Its locked, so you pick the lock. Ok, successful check, the door is open, you can go in. But theres a trap just inside the door, where it couldnt be seen while picking the lock. Fail the perception check, trigger the trap, boom, bad things. They arent being punished for being a good lock picker, they just have access to additional situations with potential bad outcomes.

[GloatingSwine]

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Lets use an analogy here. Lets say youre a rogue who wants to go into a room. First, you try and see if you can open the door. Its locked, so you pick the lock. Ok, successful check, the door is open, you can go in. But theres a trap just inside the door, where it couldnt be seen while picking the lock. Fail the perception check, trigger the trap, boom, bad things. They arent being punished for being a good lock picker, they just have access to additional situations with potential bad outcomes.

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Except that the door only existed at all because you can pick locks. If you couldn't pick locks, there wouldn't have been a door.

[Keltest]

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Except that the door only existed at all because you can pick locks. If you couldn't pick locks, there wouldn't have been a door.

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Sure there would have been. You just couldnt go beyond it.

[GloatingSwine]

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Sure there would have been. You just couldnt go beyond it.

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A skill check you haven't specced to attempt is a door that isn't there. It's an option you don't have.

Also, in your hypothetical you don't get to decide whether to step through the door after you've opened it, once you've opened the door the GM won't let you do anything else.

[Keltest]

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A skill check you haven't specced to attempt is a door that isn't there. It's an option you don't have.

Also, in your hypothetical you don't get to decide whether to step through the door after you've opened it, once you've opened the door the GM won't let you do anything else.

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Ok, the door itself is trapped then. And dont confuse a door that you cant open with a door that isnt there. Opportunity cost is a thing.

[Hatu]

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Ok, the door itself is trapped then. And dont confuse a door that you cant open with a door that isnt there. Opportunity cost is a thing.

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Then either Find Traps is a separate skill and should show up from the start, or Disable Device covers both and a success should disarm the trap as easily as it opens the door.

I mean what is the point of a skill system if a "success" results in a worse state than failure?

You roll 18 on your survival check. You think you can safely identify which mushrooms are safe to eat, and you become overconfident. Make a save vs Poison!

You get a critical success on your swim check. You have so much fun splashing about that you lose track of time and swim so far out to sea that you exhaust yourself and drown before you get back. If only you stuck to a doggie paddle.

Time to negotiate a big contract. You start using all those jargony terms you learned in business school. But that just annoys the ice-cold merchant so he charges you triple the market price! Meanwhile the hopelessly crude antics of the odious comic relief amuse him, so Odie gets it for free.

How are any of those cases any different than the mind flayer? In each case the DM has arbitrarily decided that the tactic used by the expert has exactly the opposite result that was intended. The DM is describing an appropriate explanation for a FAILED skill check and insisting it can now only happen on a success because... reasons.

The whole point of having a random element in the skill system is to adjudicate when that sort of thing happens, yet here the DM is asserting it happens automatically AND penalyzes people for daring to avoid that fate.

It's completely backwards.

-H