Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Long list of notes from 80 hours of gameplay

In December I hardcore dove into this game and absolutely loved it! After I got a handle on the game, I just jot down notes on bugs, odd quirks, questions, and more that came up during play. I went through and divided my notes up into different sections such as things that are clearly bugs, general gameplay issues, quality of life improvement suggestions, and notes about the story. I didn't want to make threads for each nor hunt down to see if others had the same thoughts, but I figure if Larian sees something come up multiple times independently, that's good corroboration that something should be looked into. Now I haven't played since late December, but most of the issues held up through Patch 3 and the hotfixes right after it (though several came up after). This is my first Baldur's Gate game and my first Larian Studios game, so I've got a fresh eye on the game.

Sorted into their respective categories, here are my notes in no particular order of importance:

Bugs--clear breaks and errors
-I’ve gotten an error where I try to save (quick or hard save) and I’m told I “can’t save mid-dialogue” while I’m no longer in a dialogue. Nothing can turn that off, even if I get into a dialogue and get out. This happened once before Patch 3 and once afterwards. I’ve had it where I’m forced into a dialogue--such as when the goblin ambush spots the characters and makes a comment before attacking or the paladin of Tyr says something when coming into the toll house.
-In one playthrough, Gale never asked me for magical artifacts, but he mentioned that I gave him some while at the celebration. I had the items in my inventory and had a positive friendship with him. I think it happened because of some save scumming I did where he asked me, I reset, then he never asked me again.
-The hot bar lock unlocks itself from time to time.
-After hitting the hotkey for the Hex spell but then dismissing the spell leaves the mini menu open--even when switched characters. The only way to close this is through a reload.
-Somehow I moved the giant log in the camp even though I didn’t have enough strength. Not a single character could put it back either so it’s on the sleeping bags forever now.
-After a long rest, some characters end up in weird locations and are usually split up into a group of 2 then 2 ungrouped together. This is new since the last hotfix patch in December
-2-3 times when I have had 3 out of 4 party members drop unconscious, I get a message saying my party is incapacitiated, but 1 is still able to move.
-I’ve had times where Astarion is completely frozen in battle. I’ll get to his turn and everything is greyed out, but he has no afflictions or anything. This has even happened several rounds in a row and on 2 different occasions. This happened a 3rd time with my PC. The buttons go dark, but the little markers below the UI bar still showed I had full action, bonus action, and movement.
-During the cinematic in the underdark when you get on the skiff, only the PC shows up in the first few angles. Then the skill checks happen and the rest of the party appears for the remainder of the journey. This has happened twice.
-There’s a bug with medium ringmail armor where it cannot be collected. On several playthroughs the armor work by Haseid (bandit in the ruin), in the dank crypt sarcophagus, and one of the dead Flaming Fists killed by the Gith all cannot be looted aside from selecting “send to camp,” and I believe they are all ringmail.
-Find familiar and summon animal show the summoning animation twice whenever its cast.
-When killing the gnoll flesh carver, Flind, and Cyrel (in the Tollhouse) their meshes completely freak out and explode. These specific enemies have done it 2-3 times since patch 3 was released, but not before.
-When going down the hatch in the toll house or the Tiefling hide-out, I’ve had repeated issues where I click on the hatch, I go through a quick load, then I’m still standing at the hatch. I’ve had to reload the game to go down the hatch.
-After path 3, random dead bodies like the ones in the burned village have a green aura shimmering over them for no apparent reason. This also happened to Jhol and Demir’s bodies upon death, and some of the goblins in the goblin camp such as Priestess Gut and the dead illithid’s body.
-After the last hotfix patch in December, you can no longer take all of the items from a dead merchant (though I see how this might be intentional).
Sometimes the game will say that a familiar has leveled up, but nothing happens or changes.
-Wyll got mad at me for killing the goblins without him, but he was there the whole time. I reloaded and if I didn’t talk to him until the celebration, he was happy about it all.
-When Wyll is in the party and you approach the windmill, sometimes dialogue doesn’t start and you just go into combat. Wyll then gets mad you killed the goblins without talking to them despite not having any option.
-If you befriend Gale too rapidly, you miss out on some of his scenes and he is un-romanceable. Even with several reloads, when he jumps approval rating too quickly with no long rest, scenes won’t trigger with him in camp.
-Three times my PC didn’t show up in the second half of the romance scene with Lae’zel, so she just kissed the air. Very odd.
-It seems like savescumming can prevent some companion cut scenes from happening. Save, go to camp, cutscene, reload, go to camp, no cutscene.
-Repeated bug where an ogre throws a rock and it floats in the air and the character stands on top of it.

Issues--things that clearly aren’t intended or need reprogramming
-Often when multiple party members are in a row in initiative, one or more of them will gept skipped if you’re just using the space bar to end turns. It seems more likely the more people in a row there are.
-Mirkon (the boy you save the tieflings from) yelled at me when I found him in the Dragon’s Lair after saving him. He said he wished the harpies ate me. I’m guessing it’s because I failed to save the tiefling child, but that’s not at all clear as why, and I’m not sure how he’d know I even had a chance of helping.
-When a cutscene/dialogue happens right after combat, your PCs will bleed out and die while you’re having a chat.
-Also when a cutscene/dialogue happens right after combat all the characters are dragged over to wherever the PC that went last initiative is as they’re the one that is pulled into the dialogue. This makes it difficult to save a dying PC since they aren’t pulled over as well, and it’s annoying if you really don’t want that PC to do the talking (that one’s mostly just an annoyance).
-Very minor, but the UI box on the right of the screen with all the notes like “Astarion succeeded a Wisdom check” (idk what the box is called sorryyy), it always starts at the farthest back incident, so if I want to see what someone rolled, I need to scroll it to the bottom since it doesn’t start with the latest entry. It should be reversed.
-Can’t move explosive barrels anymore--not sure if that was intentional.
-Gale sucks the Iron Flask out of the locked chest. While it’s in the player’s inventory and has not been unlocked yet, Gale will ask for the Iron Flask and can take it. Upon unlocking the chest it’s completely empty.
-When returning to camp in the day and then leaving, the rest of the party remains at camp since they’re automatically ungrouped when you’re at camp.
-Filro the Forgotten is able to cast blur while affected by the sussa tree, but he can’t do any other spells (this happened in 2 different playthroughs)--he should really be an archer if he’s always encountered right there.
-Frequently enemies move out of mele with one of the characters and do not incur an AOO.
-After failing to sneak into the Blighted Village to avoid the ambush by going to the left of the entrance, my party was pulled to the middle of the gate after the dialogue with the goblins.
-Cobblestone shouldn’t get burning applied to it from scorching ray.
-Herb hangers make a chest opening noise when you select them.
-Under the Blighted Village through the cellar with the mouldering caskets. The skeletons all move out of initiative when waking the others up, making it impossible to stop them as the PCs are trapped in initiative. This wasn’t an issue before Patch 3 but has happened 3 times since then.
-Is the "Necromancy of Thay" book supposed to be on the ground? Every time I’ve found it, the pedestal on the table is empty and the book is on the ground behind it.
-When multiple party members are in a row in initiative and one is unconscious, the PC that comes second will roll a death save at the start of the OTHER PC’s turn, which breaks things if that first PC was going to use their help action. --They should not roll before they are selected in the turn order when sharing initiative.
-Is Yerle, the elf in the Goblin camp protecting the smoke powder, supposed to explode the whole room? Several times she deliberately targeted a barrel next to one of my PCs and blew herself up with everyone else.
-Halsin showed up after the celebration despite the fact that I didn’t free him, I only killed the leaders. This could easily be fixed by him saying he was able to escape amidst the confusion.
-When I called for Lump and his crew to join the fight, then initiative started over at the top of the round (moving back like 7 characters meaning I lost some turns)


QOL--adjustments to help smooth gameplay and immersion
-When the last enemy is killed but a PC is unconscious, initiative should still hold so they don't just keep bleeding out. Even if you enter into initiative again, they bleed out as they are not pulled into initiative.
-While walking around and a hidden check happens, it’s not always obvious what they noticed, and sometimes the flashing item isn’t visible. -- Maybe the camera could shift over, or maybe there’s a brief beam of light onto the object.
-Characters will autopath right onto spotted traps and hazards even if there’s plenty of room for them to avoid it. This isn’t so much an issue in initiative since you see the line, but out of initiative it becomes an issue, especially when it inflicts serious damage or explodes nearby objects. It’s an annoying break of immersion.
-When an Attack of Opportunity will happen from moving away from an enemy, the little arrow isn’t always obvious and is missed.
-It’s not clear when a PC needs to move to make a ranged attack that they need to move and it will invoke an Attack of Opportunity. I might see that they have to move a short distance, but that AOO arrow won’t appear. And when they only have to move a few steps, that’s not always clear either--which invokes AOOs and sadness. -- Maybe the whole enemy’s model or the PC flashes red when an AOO would occur from moving.
-There have been several instances of accidental or wrong clicks during a party member’s turn that wastes their movement. Could there potentially be some kind of movement recall? Specifically on paths where nothing happened other than movement.
-You should be able to set one of the PCs as party leader instead of having the currently selected character be the leader, and then the other PCs will only follow that character if you move them. So if I make Shadowheart the leader, but I need someone to run up a ladder to unlock a chest, I can select Astarion to control and have him complete the task without the rest of the gaggle following him. Also goes for post-combat. If Gale made the last attack, it’s annoying to have all the PCs race to follow him up to some obscure place I had him attack from.
-Mage hand feels pretty useless to me. I want to use it to turn off torches and pick up things on high shelves. Instead of just throwing objects, it should pick them up and be able to carry it around.
-Explosive barrels should not auto select to attack. I’ve set off a few too many explosions on accident while trying to loot.
-I’d like something to mark a key once it’s been used. That or have a separate key pouch that doesn’t take up inventory. I end up hauling a lot of keys around because I don’t know if they’ve been used or not.
-The magic pockets with the magical relics was really confusing. I thought it was a bug at first that the Staff of Crones and Sword of Justice was getting yanked off my characters until I read online that it was because of their relic status. If -I don’t want to give them to Gale, I should be able to give them to whomever I please. Maybe they just can’t be sold or dropped instead of using magic pockets.
-It’d be nice to have an immediate buy-back option at merchants. Too often I’ve sold good gear and had to weigh resetting or spare the gold to get it back.
-The characters seem to make a lot of noise every time they climb onto stuff.
-The talkative skeleton is weirdly noisy as he walks around the camp.
-There should be a way to use the help action to combine the strength of characters out of combat. Maybe if you click help, then click the other PC you want to help, you can then select the action you want to achieve and both characters' scores will be applied (or advantage is rolled for the check).
-While trading with a merchant, it’s far too easy to misclick barter and not get any gold from the transaction.
-There should also be a popup to say that a seller doesn't have enough gold for your items so you don’t sell everything for a huge loss.
-There should be a mass-selection option for inventory items. An auto-sort/adjust could be helpful too when they get spaced out in the boxes.
-When moving, characters can't step onto bodies, and that can cause issues with moving around in combat. There could be a right-click menu to either “loot” or “move here.”
-You should be able to shoot projectiles through a Darkness spell or other effect that obscures vision. I shot a fire arrow right after a darkness arrow and the arrow exploded upon hitting the edge of the darkness, not the target.
-In the Underdark, it's weird that the bulette pauses the party when it appears. I’ve sat multiple times just waiting for it to erupt before realizing the game paused itself.
-Characters aren’t able to stand up on their turn if they fall down at the start of it--even with full movement. It’s annoying for them to move 5 feet, fall down, and be useless. And if that can’t change, they should be able to make attacks at disadvantage while prone.
-The Mysterious Artifact should stick to Shadowheart’s inventory the same way Astarion holds onto the Necromancy of Thay book.
-Kanon, the tiefling that dies in the goblin attack shouldn't be free loot with his allies right next to his body--seems standard for other NPC groups like the Flaming Fist at the burned villa.
-When a character is out of movement, there should be a way to activate another ruler--that way you know where a dash could take you.
-Why can I just light any candle I find, but I have to find fire for my torches? I walk up to a candle, activate it, then stick my torch in it.
-Why are there random crates that you just examin? They’re in the middle of lootable crates, then you click to loot the next one and your PC has a random comment about it being just a boring crate.
-In the Blighted Village, the characters will be standing on the cellar door while saying “I don’t see any cellar.” Which is odd. Either they shouldn’t say that or there should be a hidden check for it.
-In the cellar in the Blighted Village, it’s not at all intuitive to move the crates to find the switch. I searched the area for a long time before turning to the internet. I didn’t even remember that you could move things at that point. There should be a clue about pushing things around.
-When a party member is unconscious, it seems like enemies deliberately target them, even with ranged attacks which should have disadvantage. For some enemies that might make sense given how smart they are, but I wouldn’t think a spider would disengage with one PC to attack an unconscious one. And while that might be the logical thing to do for an enemy, it can make it feel impossible to get that character back up.
-The dead tiefling by the bridge with the Gith should have things to say when casting Speak with Dead. It seems odd for a named body to not have anything to say. Same with Akra, the tiefling corpse near the goblin camp.
-The metal shield should have a different icon than the studded shield, it seemed funny that they looked so different when equipping.
-Knocking an enemy out should be more useful. Specifically, I knocked out Spike hoping I could talk to him since he happened to be drawn to my fight, but I had no way of talking to him. Upon finding him later after a long rest, he attacked on sight. After initiative is over, there should be a way to restrain unconscious enemies.
-Gale shouldn’t repeat all his dialogue when you give him an artifact, it’s very tiring to hear it all again.
-If you kill the drunk bugbears before walking up to them then approach, the PCs will comment that they’re drunk, not dead. Which is wrong. They just shouldn’t say anything.
-There are already a lot of suggestions for character creation, but I personally I would like to be able to choose my PC's pronouns. I can already choose a masculine voice when making a feminine character, so why tie pronouns to a feminine or masculine appearance? D&D is all about making a character however you want, and it's been an amazing space for people to try out different gender presentations and pronouns, so I would LOVE to see this brought in here, and all it changes is a tweak in coding since every NPC already has voiced lines for masculine and feminine pronouns. It would be lovely to add in they/them, though that would require much more work since that would be a lot of re-recording, but at least letting me decide pronouns separately from appearance would be a start.

Story Notes
-In the myconid kingdom, it was confusing that there were multiple myconid sovereigns. I talked to the first sovereign and was quite confused when he didn’t have much to say and I still couldn’t talk to other NPCs.
-In the Druid’s grove, I have a hard time understanding why all the druids were so okay with Khaga when she was so cruel and ruthless. Druids are usually thought to be too passive, so it’s strange that so many of them are going to take action under her rule. What also confuses me as to why Halsin put her in charge. Shouldn’t he have known she had a short temper? She doesn’t make any attempt to hide her true self (minus the shadow druid thing) from the other druids. If Khaga was a hardass and maybe just harmed the child (and maybe that harm resulted in her dying “on accident”) and wasn’t so nasty to the tieflings outright, I’d like her as a character much more.
-Upon his return, Halsin mentions he needs Khaga to assist with the tadpole issue, but then the next morning she’s nowhere to be seen and doesn’t have a role in that story beat. At first I was glad I didn’t kill Khaga despite how badly I wanted to only to then be confused and disappointed that she was brushed away so easily. I did like how Halsin dealt with her, however.
-If you kill Khaga, how is it that the druids outside know immediately and start attacking the tieflings? Maybe someone should run outside or sound a horn.
When the refugees are packing up to leave, one of the tiefling boys mentions he left his sword in the Dragon’s Lair, but I found no sword (maybe I just missed it?).
-For a Hellrider, it’s surprising to see Zevlor so shocked and afraid of the warg. He would have faced much worse in hell.
-The mysterious artifact should have some mention when having Shadowheart join your party. It took me a while to figure out that she is the one who brought it to the party. I didn’t befriend her for a while, so it took a long time for the first cutscene with her. Also, how does Lae’zel know that Shadowheart has it?
In the ruins, if you sway Gibblebok away from the area, it feels like you should be able to tell Andorn, the bandit at the door, that his boss shoved off. It feels odd to be forced into killing them after succeeding to avoid the previous encounter.
-Anders says Karlach has 1 horn when she clearly has 2. This makes it confusing to know if Karlach is actually his quarry.
-The dowry from the burned villa should be in the barn with the cow to give you more reason to deal with it. It felt a little odd that there was no reason to bother the poor animal.
-How does Lae’zel know about the poem on Astarion’s back? I had no idea what she was talking about when she first brought it up.
-Why is Astarian against the wyvern poison when he said he would prefer to die by poison?


Thanks for taking the time to read all of this! I put in the effort to take all of these notes because I really love this game, and I cannot wait to see where Larion takes it from here.