Hey all, long time D&D pnp player, long time BG and even older D&D game player, and long time turn based CRPG player, who just picked up EA to "get a feel" of the game before launch day.
Every. Single. Encounter. is a total party kill for me. Am I stupid or doing something wrong here?
I've watched several dozens of hours of BG3 game videos, PFHs, etc. I've DM'd and played thousands of hours of low level D&D games. I've played thousands of hours of CRPG and tactical turned based games. However, I've never had a TPK on every single encounter in any of those games. If I were a pnp player, we'd have fired our DM or found a new DM by now.
So far, I've barely made it to the crash site, but I've had to redo every encounter on the ship and crash site at least 2-3 times in order to not have a TPK. Even for "normal" difficulty, this seems like too much for a level 1-2 party. I know the "explorer/story" difficulty will boost the PCs abilities, but I feel like I should be able to play "normal" difficulty and not have a TPK on every single encounter (maybe 1 or 2 deaths, but not a TPK). I also understand that not every encounter is a combat encounter and some can be avoided via talking, which I have done when possible.
I've seen a bunch of walk throughs with tips on each encounter from those who learned over the last 3 years of EA of where to position your party members and pull or shove or sneak or whatever to help set up the perfect encounter situation, but I feel like I (and new players) should be able to experience the game on my own without having to lean on 3 years of EA knowledge to avoid TPKs on every encounter.
I'm only a few hours into EA and I'm nearly ready to rage quit due to frustration. Don't get me wrong, I think the game is amazing in depth and breadth, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong in terms of encounters, because I'm playing as a new player in similar ways that I've played other games (not rushing into combat, equipping best spells and weapons/armors, having balanced party, etc.). Is the base "normal" difficulty just more extreme than other games? Or is it one of those games that just expects you to continuously die and then reload saves until you eventually get passed that encounter with luck?
