Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Q&A Your questions needed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...e_3_qa_your_questions_needed_adventurer/


From the Director of Publishing @ Larian Studio Twitter

@Cromwelp
Asked this already in Discord, but if y'all want to organize a big list of questions on Reddit from the community I promise we'll tackle some of them in the next update, and then further in future updates towards launch. It's easier to do this if people organize.

I don’t reddit, but if somebody here could post mine or anybody else’s questions on our behalf, that would be mighty kind.

-Will all companions be origin characters?
-Will companions beyond the 4 character limit join the team and just hang out in camp, so do we need to commit to our party picks?
-Can the inclusion of any non-PHB content aside from githyanki be confirmed?
-What is the guiding principle for difficulty levels (more enemies, adjusted rolls/stats, etc...)

You do well, stay away from reddit if you can, it´s a trip you may not come back...

Already done

I also don't reddit so:

1. Will we be able to use custom portraits like we did in BG?

2. On a continuum from etched in stone to "we'll listen to EA feedback" how committed are you guys to the 4 party model? Can EA participants change your mind on this issue?

3. The initial companions lean evil. Will there be redemption / corruption paths for origin characters? Can, say, Vic Shadowheart or Astarion become good or neutral?

4. How many companions will we see at launch?

(and thanks for doing this!)

Sure

This I think was answered somewhat recently. Only the 5 origin characters announced so far will be in EA at this time. Additionally, many of them are leaning evil deliberately because most players tend to play on the side of Good, and Larian wants to encourage players to try out the evil paths, which tend to get less feedback.

Yeah. Guess I'm using 'lauch' to mean a year from now instead of EA. What would be the better to term to use?

You could use 'in total' rather than 'at launch', or specify 'full launch/release'.

Good suggestion, thanks!

4. We know about 5 origin characters. Once the game fully launches many companions will we see? How many in total?

Here are my questions:

1. Will there be an auto level up system for companions as an option or will we have to take care of it ourselves all the time ?
2. Can we recruit monsters as companions ?
3. Will there be an automatic save before combat or will we have to make sure we save regularly ?
4. Will there be a way to turn off some of the UI like the line of movement for characters for immersion ?
5. Can we increase the font size of dialogues and UI, especially if we are playing on a TV ?
6. Will controllers be supported in EA ?

There are MMO guilds from games like DDO, Neverwinter (official D&D ptoducts) and frrom many other places that are reving up for this game. Will there be a way to create a guild in the game? Also on the forum here will there be guild recruitment section?

I’m going to go ahead and say probably not. As far as multiplayer is concerned this is a co-op campaign game. Why would it have a guild system? What would guilds actually do?

I don't expect Larian will devote resources towards making any in-game way to create a guild for their non-persistent world, story-driven campaign for 1-4 players. You can always recruit people to play with by making a thread on the forums here or on Steam. If there's enough demand, there could be a sub-forum for that sort of thing.


***

Some questions:

1. Will the ability to create a full custom party of 4 characters be available within 1-2 months of Early Access's Sept. 30 launch date?
2. Different D&D languages won't be present in dialogue, but will there be text-only instances of different D&D languages, in books?
3. Long question, but please stick with it: Four important roles are melee fighter, offensive caster, defensive caster/healer, and trap detector/dis-abler. It's difficult to create a flexible party with only 4 party members. Custom characters can cover some double-duty using the bonuses granted from backgrounds to cover some of the proficiencies. Origins probably will have a fixed background, and often, fixed classes. How much flexibility will be there to use different origins to cover all those roles? Does that answer change if you wish to use somewhat compatible alignments in the party?

I noticed during presentations that the camera can be zoomed in to a basically third person view, will you go all the way and implement WASD as an optional control scheme or is there only mouse control?

I also do not do reddit and so would greatly appreciate my questions being included. Pretty much all the questions I would ask re. optionally bigger party size and custom characters v. origin characters others have already put in, so I'll skip those two issues. Thank you!!!

1. Can a rough percentage estimate be provided on how much of the game's content is combat versus the noncombat parts?

2. Roughly what percentage of combat encounters can be avoided through alternative actions or checks?

3. When combat is avoided in some manner, will our returns (quest/story outcomes, XPs, loot, etc.) be equivalent to what combat would have provided?

4. Will the game have a 'Story Mode' or something similar?

5. Are the art assets we are currently seeing for environmental objects such as walls, cobblestones, pillars, etc. final versions, or will they eventually be replaced with assets created specifically for this game?

6. Can the game be paused during exploration?

7. What kind of crafting, if any, will the game have?

I'm not sure where, but I think on one of the streams (July 18th I think?), it was mentioned that a design goal of the game is to always have a way to avoid combat - at least with intelligent characters. That's why all the fighting encounters with goblins and such start with conversations, to give a way to talk your way out of a combat encounter.

I don't know if non-speaking/non-intelligent creatures which are aggressive can have ways to avoid all possible fights. Maybe with Animal Handling and Speak with Animals or something.

That said, avoiding combat might possibly require you to make roleplaying choices you would otherwise would not prefer.




You can enter turn-based mode at any time during exploration, as was shown off on the gameplay streams, and advance time in 6-second increments.




Good question. Hopefully it will be better than DOS 2's "500 ingredients, each with exactly one use only."

Raze actually responded to this general question in another thread last night:

My question is if we will get to choice between the two features of noble background at character creation

Feature: Position of Privilege
Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

Variant Feature: RETAINERS
If your character has a noble background, you may select this background feature instead of Position of Privilege.

You have the service of three retainers loyal to your family. These retainers can be attendants or messengers, and one might be a majordomo. Your retainers are commoners who can perform mundane tasks for you, but they do not fight for you, will not follow you into obviously dangerous areas (such as dungeons), and will leave if they are frequently endangered or abused

Are you sure about this? Is it confirmed that combat can *always* be avoided in some way? [I try to listen to all the streams, but as I'm hearing impaired I don't always catch everything that's said, and even the CC (which is not always available) quite often doesn't keep up or gets things very wrong.]

Yes this is something that bugs me greatly, but I can't see any way a game can be made to avoid this.

Yes, but once you enter TB mode, can you then freely exit TB mode without having taken any actions or having advanced time? In other words, can this be realistically used as a way to pause the game (stop time from advancing) and allow you to leave your computer and go do something else?

Based on Swen's usage, in my view it does appear to be a toggle in that way, but I'm sure that's something we can all easily find out 3 weeks from tomorrow regardless