I had far too many keys in BG3 without each chest having its own. I can't imagine it adding to my enjoyment of Divinity to have a bunch of additional keys with no easy way to tell which "chest key" matches the chest I found fallen off a wagon. The beauty of the lockpick in Skyrim is that it could be used on almost any chest. I only regret that BGS removed the unlock spell from the alteration school.
Uh, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Dark Urge though.
Its still a 100% custom character, just a slightly different story, and a bit more content.
Literally the only thing you really lose is the choice of background, and the whole idea of D&D5 Backgrounds is not something I'm much a fan of in the first place. Even worse in D&D5.5 where they doubled down on an already bad idea.
Haunted One isnt a great background, but its also not the worst, its inspiration events are easily enough to do.
And as a Dark Urge you get some pretty good items you wont get otherwise.
Quite frankly there is no good reason NOT to play a Dark Urge.
---
About being close to the original rules, well thats always the same discussion for every D&D game. Larian has a lot more homebrew than any other D&D computer game, but its fun on its own right. Rather than embarking on the endless quest of trying to "fix" it, I think I'll enjoy it for what it is.
---
Yeah there is absolutely no point to the Origin starts. I can only see disadvantages from them. You cant design your own character, you are stuck in a combination of race and class you dont want, its just bad.
Btw, for someone who just wants to finish Honor mode ASAP:
Personally I dont have archievements (GoG version), also I hate the very idea of archievements anyway. I want to play the games how I like playing them, thank you very much.
Interesting is really only the number of mods that are actually worthwhile to have installed though.
And yes the Modmanager stinks. I have a hard time thinking of a way to make it even worse than it is.
What it SHOULD do: Use all mods that are installed and that the current game needs, then allow you to enable or disable the mods as you wish while playing, of course with the risk of breaking the game.
It also shouldnt forget your search parameters whenever you switch to the installed tab. That makes no sense at all either.
I hope it's not a problem that I shared my thoughts. I know this topic has been discussed extensively, and not everyone will agree, but I hope my perspective might be helpful to others. I mean, it helped me a lot to think from a different angle.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, empathy and openness, that's a very healthy point of view.
But the more I think about it, the more I got frustrated by this whole this and how it got handled both by writers, and the community (not everyone, of course). Shadowheart's backstory involves brainwashing and sexual coercion in the cult, and the way she is eager to jump in into orgy, incestuos on top of that, is a betrayal of her arc and grotesque contradiction of what she has endured. It flies in the face of her trauma, her development, and any attempt to treat her past with respect.
Halsin not only make constant creepy advances towards the player and their partner, but also was a drow's sex slave. And how he remarks about this? "Not without it's positives. Doing things that were less than necessary", he tells us that he enjoyed it, and that's why he was eager to butt in. This is just dangerously flippant. Framing it as a joke is beyond disgusting. It seem to normalize, sexualize, or dismiss abuse — especially when it’s repackaged later as “fun” or “optional fantasy.” It’s just heartbreaking.
The topic should be handled with care, many people see games, especially immersive ones, as a form of escapism. So yeah, I have never been mocked so hard for choosing romance option before. I will never tag along with the dismissal of sexual abuse, in any form, in any medium. I will never tag along with the idea that rape is fun in hindsight, or that being broken by a cult can be waved away when it’s convenient for a sex scene that is a mockery of the whole ordeal. Nor do I accept the normalization of incestuous scenarios, even in fantasy, as mere fan service. And how is that is not a broader issue is beyond me. People who addressed this usually dismissed as prudish or ridicule. Fantasy doesn’t excuse this. "It’s just a game" doesn’t excuse this. You can explore dark themes with care — Larian just laughed at this. I guess this game is not for me, I wanted to enjoy it, I love DnD and the gameplay, but I guess I will never go back to this game. I have never being that hurt before by the game content.
See WotC latest plan: The Purple Dragon knights. A knightly order of Cormyr, created after killing a black dragon so old its scales faded to a dark purple which was the only connection to dragons they had.
Now, Purple dragon knights are suddenly multiversal do gooders who ride purple dragons. It has nothing to do with what the knights have been for decades and the purple (amethyst) dragons they ride do also not align with their goals.
But it doesn't matter, purple dragon knight must ride purple dragons.
Sammaster, a villain which wad 100% destroyed in D&D 3E, the books and novels making it very clear that there is no way to bring him back. Well, he is back because something, something multiverse.
The new generation if gamers do not know the lore and don't have the attention span to read lore. They want easily digestable slop that does not require them to think and care little about consistency as they forget most of what they pick up anyway.
Thats something you could add back with homebrewn rules.
Anyway, the rule specified by Einstein about physics is "make it as easy as possible, but not any easier". This is also a good idea for rule design for games.
AD&D was definitely not designed with this rule in mind. AD&D was completely bloated with endless individual tables for all kinds of things.
And the central goal of game design is always that the players are enjoying the game. Not realism.
Likewise D&D is designed for P&P. Making the rules easier speeds up the whole game. So in that regard I can see how simplifying the rule about attacks may have been a good idea. Even if its less "realistic".
---
D&D5 solved a lot of essential design problems of earlier versions. The proficiency bonus is an example. In previous editions of D&D, your level 20 fighter would end up with +20 to attack. Which means armor class was worthless, for you couldnt reach sufficient armor class anyway.
Knights of the Old Republic used d20, which was a simplified version of D&D3, and I have seen countless people make characters who focus on armor class and never understood why. I would forgo armor class and just put everything into offense and hitpoints, and I was much more efficient this way. For example a character like that can kill the final boss, who is like a half an hour on a defense focused character, within two minutes or less.
In D&D5 we get only a proficiency bonus of up to +6 from level 17 on, which is much less extreme. Armor class stays meaningful here.
---
The real complaint for me about D&D5 is that D&D5 dropped the essential Delay Action. This allowed your character to delay acting until the character later in the initiative queue would act. This was absolutely essential, but yet was "optimized away".
For example on the Nautiloid, when I want to do the final battle, I often reload if I dont like the initiative queue. It makes a huge difference and without Delay, I cannot fix it. You need someone before Zhalk, or after the Mindflayer, otherwise you cannot push the Mindflayer so Zhalk has to move and you get Attacks of Opportunity.
As a consequence, in BG3 absolutely every character has to take Alert as their first feat, unless of course they are Gloomstalker Ranger or Barbarian, who get a weaker version of Alert on level 3 and 7, respectively. Only then all your characters end up at the top of the initiative queue, always, and can coordinate what they do.
In Custom Mode you can set to reactions prompted. However unless you set that at game start, its ignored.
So either put this setting into the spot at top where the settings reside that cannot be changed anymore once the game started, or fix that so that newly joined characters and newly summoned creatures use the new setting.
Not "new", but most likely a recurring bug. Updates/Patches often bring back old previously fixed bugs... That is one of them... Workaround: Smoke Powder bombs or casting Create Water asap, and be careful with bombs, not to dmg crates or other stuff. In previous Patches this was also turning the Deep Gnomes hostile for me...
Unfortunately it is not possible to change the user name for a Larian account. However, if you delete the account you would be able to recreate it with a new user name, and optionally the same email address. Deleting the account will automatically disconnect any connected accounts, so you would be able to link them again to the new account.
If you log in to the Larian account website in a browser, when editing the account there should be a link near the bottom to delete it (on a grey background, along with an option to log out of all devices).
The only data that could be lost, other than the account information itself, would be the cloud copies of cross saves, if that function was enabled. The local saves and any platform cloud saves would not be affected.
Well, unless someone manages to create some sort of "Dungeon Master AI" that can create new high quality quests on the fly as a human dungeon master can (sort of), you will always have restrictions on the computer compared to real pen and paper sessions with friends.
---
And about the Kelthric fight, I dont remember how I solved that, I only remembered it was painful, but I did it "regular". However this walkthrough has an amazingly easy solution:
In short you buy bombs and throw them in a stack of 8 (for Kelthric) and 10 (for the Apostle) not on, but right next to your target. That wipes them out, easy.
Oh and if you buy the bombs in Last Night Inn, you have to throw away the first bombs you buy, because they are bugged and will blow YOU up instead of the target.
Hello, i have a trouble, when i`m runing bg3 it loads with whitescreen, i can hear all the music, it reacts on clicking mouse, i see a pointer (hand in armor). But thats it, i cant play. I`m tried check local files via steam, tried run without Larian launcher, tried restart Mac. It all wan`t help. If anyone know the solution of this problem?
MacOS Tahoe 26.4.1 Mac mini m4 256 gb game installed at SSD 1tb steam version
I don't think he is underrated. He has a relatively big part in the Act 3 story and was the cause that I nearly wiped in my Honour Mode playthrough (where I met him first in game). I had to run from the first fight once and then also only survived the later fight in the underground with his minions because Shadowheart was not immediately involved by pure chance and still could activate the spell to remove curses. The villain so made a big impression to me.
The thought to have him as an endgame ally however has some disturbing vibes. For an evil playthrough maybe?
Long-time DOS2 fan here. I recently came across Divinity: Original Sin – The Board Game and gave the previews an honest look, but something kept bothering me: it doesn't really capture what made DOS2 special on the tabletop. The thing I miss most is the map and encounter design — the way every fight in DOS2 is a little puzzle of terrain, elevation, and elemental interactions.
So if Larian (or whoever ends up making the next Divinity board game) is listening, I'd like to make a case for looking at two games as a reference:
(We can quietly pretend the third edition never happened.)
What made these games legendary:
- Opening chests for unique loot that actually felt like a discovery - Tactical positioning to control enemies and protect teammates - Action economy and turn-based decisions that mattered - Diverse class and weapon combinations - Custom character creation (especially in 1st Edition)
This is the kind of design space DOS2 lives in. Surfaces, high ground, line of sight, choosing who to lock down first — Descent already proved 20 years ago that this can work on a table.
But the real reason I'm posting: the Overlord system.
You might assume Descent is just another co-op dungeon crawler. It isn't. Descent has an Overlord player — a real human sitting across the table, controlling the monsters, springing traps, and playing cards to mess with the heroes' plans.
Heroes get cooperative party play, long-term character progression, and the satisfaction of pulling off a combo. The Overlord gets resource management, long-term scheming across a campaign, and the power to shape the battlefield turn by turn.
If the heroes use the terrain, the Overlord creates it. That asymmetry is exactly the kind of dynamic DOS2 hints at with its scripted encounters — except now it's a real person on the other side of the table reading your moves.
Why this matters for a Divinity board game: DOS2's signature isn't just "RPG with choices." It's tactical map design where the environment is a weapon, deep build customization, strategic readable combat, and asymmetry between sides — one party of misfits against a world that's actively hostile.
A pure co-op dungeon crawler can't reach that ceiling. A Descent-style asymmetric design absolutely can. If a future Divinity board game took that direction, I'd be first in line.
Curious if anyone else here has played the Descent games and feels the same way. And if any Larian folks see this — please consider it for the next swing at a tabletop Divinity. There's a real classic waiting in that direction.
It takes some time getting used to, but I would never be able to play BG3 with a mouse and keyboard-- the free movement, camera, ability to customize dials however I want to prioritize/categorize skills, and you can generally mimic a "mouse" experience by clicking in the joystick and moving your cursor around.
Yes, it takes time. But I would keep at it and also make it work for you.
Update: Part 3, Chapter 23 is now published. Demogorgon has arrived in his ship of chaos, the Pandemonium. Will he get his revenge, or will the adventurers escape the Iron Wastes.
BG3.5 - Hellraisers (Fanfiction) Baldur's Gate 3.5: Hellraisers - an original fanfic story that is a sequel to Baldur's Gate 3 Fanfic: The Afflicted. It picks up immediately after the events of Baldur's Gate 3 as characters from the previous fanfic - Fiovay, Kai, Aelun, Vlyn, and the other members of their party - travel to Avernus. Their quest is to save Karlach but also to hopefully find and rescue Darson, Aelun's father, from the clutches of Demogorgon.
