Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Can i as a old dnd gamer enjoy bg3?

I was raised on classic as baldurs gate, icewind dale and fallout 1.
Of course i continue my RPG adventure with game like nwn 1&2, kotor 1&2, etc.
Most of the games i played was real time with pause.
I can accept turn based in strategic games like alpha centauri, call of power or endless legend/space.
I can also accept it in RPG games with post-apocalyptic/steam punk nature like arcanum, fallout 1&2 or colony ship.
I been playing larian games since dragon knight saga.
I tried dragon commander, it was a strange mix of risk/rpg and rts.
I also tried divinity original sin 1&2.
In the first game i got lost while exploring the beginning of the game.
In the second i got bored by the second act, i got that every encounter was turn based.
At the beginning it was nice but later it has become a nuisance since i was winning every encounter but everyone had to take they sweet ass time.
For me the sweet spot was dragon age origins where combat was in real time but you could create tactics for every character.
I loved every other aspect of bg3 ( at least what i watched on youtube).
The only things that gets me off from getting this game is turn based combat.
I was never a fan of both recent x-com games when it comes to combat.
Secondly i was disappointed by D:OS 2 in terms of combat.
I love great character interactions, conversations, different way to resolve quests, etc.
What i hate ,from my first impressions, : turn-based combat, dnd 5e, and no custom portrait option.
Maybe custom portraits is not a big deal for most people but for me it is.
I created hundreds if not thousands of portraits for my crpgs. From bg, icewind dale through tyranny to nwn1&2.
One thing that this game has going for it is modding since i love modding games.
I do not remember how many hours i spent modding oblivion.
Thanks for your honest answer.
Cheers,

Everyone’s different, of course, but I played and loved BG1 & 2 when they first came out, and also enjoyed the IWD, NWN, KotOR games and Planescape:Torment. Dragon Age:Origins is still up there as possibly my favourite game. And it took me three goes to get through D:OS and I’ve still never made it past act 2 of D:OS2. In short, liking earlier Larian RPGs isn’t necessary for appreciating BG3.

And I do love BG3, and much prefer its turn-based combat to the RTwP of the earlier BG games and many of their more recent successors. It’s not great for massive battles, but then I’m not sure the combat in those worked brilliantly for big fights either. I do absolutely agree that the real time with pause of Dragon Age:Origins and DA2 with the programmable tactics was the best RTwP experience I’ve had, but certainly don’t have any issues with BG3 being turn-based only and think it lends itself to interestingly-designed, tactical and meaningful encounters. But then I also enjoyed learning about 5e for the game and personally don’t care about custom portraits (though am glad the generated portraits were improved from early access).

In short, I don’t think there’s any substitute for giving it a go and seeing what you think!

Well it is an adaptation of 5e, it is turn based because that's how D&D works, and your character portrait is whatever your character actually looks like. You custom design your character's actual look and that's your portrait.
So if those are deal-breakers, then no you're not going to have a good time.
But if you can cope with those, then I'd say this is a worthy successor to BG1/2. I've enjoyed the heck out of it and have played since early access and I'm still playing it and trying out stuff.

Based on your comments re DOS 2 I don't think you'll like BG3 any better.

Based on your comments about 5e you may actually like BG3 less than DOS2.

Despite Act III being a tad untidy the game is very good overall and in some respects excellent. It has a ton of content and a lot of variety and despite many hours in EA and several play throughs since release I am still finding new things, and new ways to play.

In the end though the feel of the game play is very similar to DOS2 albeit with a much better story, a more interesting setting, a real class system, and superior graphics etc.

Hard to say: I'm a long time DnD player and played all editions at some point and I love BG3. Your party feels like a bunch players making their quirky characters and the game gives you a lot of freedom to approach things. It might be one of the best approaches to get the table top feeling in a computer game.
Of course, if you don't like 5e, you might not like the game.
And yes, you can't make portraits, but you can customise your character at the start.
I haven't played any Divinity game yet, I discovered Larian through BG3, so I don't know, how similar they are in terms of gameplay. I like the turn based combat in BG3 and most of the implementations.
Maybe look at a let's play ( I would recommend only first act though to not spoil too much) before buying the game?

I really can't say. I would say the appeal of BG3 is very, very different than that of Infinity Engine games and Tim Cain's RPGs - their focus and priorities are just in different places.

But if the combat is what you are worried about, I wouldn't. If you suffered through Fallout1&2 just fine, than BG3 shouldn't scare you.

D:OS1&2 are closes counterparts to BG3, but in my opinion BG3 is superior in quite a few aspects. While I have issues with BG3 narrative, it is stronger than in previous titles giving players more direction. I did feel D:OS1&2 had a lot of aimless exploration while looking for something interesting to happen. D:OS2 act2 was an extreme drag, and BG3 has nothing close to that. I also feel combat in BG3 is a bit more sporadic - or at the very least it's combat offers quite a bit more variety, while D:OS2 armor system made everything feel homogeneous.

So, yeah. I can't promise that you will click with BG3, but I think it would be worth giving a shot.

In my experience the 'enemy turns take forever' aspect is not that different in BG3 compared to DoS2. I like turn based combat myself, but if you have low tolerance for how long it can take to resolve a battle, then I think BG3 might not be much fun.

Sounds like we are pretty similar in terms of the cRPG eras we grew up in, and I definitely share your views on the importance of Portraits.

It's deep in the marrow of the game for me. When NWN came out I assembled 2,600 portraits for use in the game from all my old artbooks. So that's what 13,000 individual TGA files? Huge Large Medium Small and Tiny targas, for each portrait set. Took me something like a whole year just to assemble my portrait library for Jah Din's Ultimate. I'd say even flying with hotkeys in photoshop and turning myself into a crop master, it still probably took a good 5 minutes per portrait because unlike these jank gen ai's we see today, I tried to keep a list of the source and the artist for each one. And then to come up with a labeling system that would be comprehensible, so I could actually navigate my own library, flat bed scanner - tough going there. In the end my strategy was more to Load as needed, rather than using the game as the gallery portrait browser, although previewing TGAs was a total pain at that time. Also the Vault had caps to the filesize for packages, so trying to split and categorize, all a huge part of the process. To me the custom portraits (along with custom soundsets for barks, and custom scripts) were the thing that separated BG from all other games that came before it.

Anyway, total and complete agreement there. I'm not entirely satisfied and never have been, but I can say this is probably the closest anyone has come to giving me what I want in 3 dimensions. Not the broad spread, but the templet there. It's an excellent start.

If I'm anything to go by, I think it's fully possible for you to enjoy BG3. I had no prior experience with any previous Larian title, and I also had a rough impression of combat and party management, since like you I was used to the RTS blend on that. The Pathfinder series gave me a lot of what I wanted for scratching the real-time/oldschool infinity engine itch, and custom portraits, but those games didn't have the Realms which is a major draw. But then BG3 gave me Scratch! They also have this cinephile sensibility for representing the avatar, which feels very next level to me. I mean compared to the sort of paper dolls and sprites I'm used to. Still there's a gap there for me between the portraits and the stuff we can create using the tools provided in-game. On the one hand that's frustrating, because I'd love to see something like a BG3 that can produce an image for use in say BG1 or BG2. BG2 in particular was pretty rough going I felt for the vanilla portraits. Also the way the wind is blowing, the kinds of portraits that are now available from mass grift stable diffusion makes me immediately suspicious of any portrait I see that looks too badass and doesn't have an attribution. I'd almost rather have a paint by number approach using professionally 3d modelled work by actual human beings, which is what BG3 is giving us.

The whole concept of an Origin character, I didn't like that at all, but I also didn't really realize that Origin was a term they used for the Motion Capture. Like the point of origin is where all the infra-cams triangulate to do the Mo Caps, and that changed how I thought of the term. Cause otherwise I was just like, 'why aren't these Origins meaning what Origins meant in Dragon Age?' heheh Cause I understood that one. This new take though, what I'd love to see is a game with a dozen Origins instead of 6, and a party of 6 instead of 4. You can get close to this with Mods, even already, which is encouraging. I mean the full game has only been out for a year, so there is some room for optimism, even if I wish the game was in this state since like 2020 when it first entered the wild.

I still have a hard time branching out fully into 5th edition, since I prefer my AD&D comfort zone for class archetypes and systems, but it wasn't too hard to pick up and just start running. I think the combat system in place here just works better all around with the party of 6, like the old games. It makes micromanaging each character's turn in TB less onerous. Less pressure to min-max every single round, or pre-buff, or even allowing for things like skipping turns within the party to speed things up. Similar to BG2 where you might just charge into an encounter on the blind, and get shit handled with slings and arrows, or regular weapon attacks. To me that's just a more BG style game-glow.

The game changes dramatically right around the Mid-point, because that's when Characters start getting more summons and you can manage the game more like a party, with extra ups in the turn order sequence. Also the lvl 5 power spike, which is basically the same in terms of impact as the old BG1 days. Getting over that initial hump the game really comes together in the second act for me. What can I say, I love Skeletons! But then in Act III things take a bit of a dip. Still, even when the game has it's lulls, there are plenty of enjoyable moments, and it was very satisfying to reach the end of the campaign.

It's absolutely worth every penny in my view, and probably my favorite game now. Never expected that while playing in Early Access honestly, I was super nervous. Also never expected to ever see a BG game again though, so all in all it was a net win for me and they basically delivered. To have seen such interesting times! Still feels cool

I think it's worth giving a go, especially if it's on special. I think it's like 20% off or something now right? Not too shabby

D&D was created for pen and paper and is thus round based.

Therefore all computer games that adapt D&D are also round based. Some just attempt to hide it, more or less.



Cant say I get this statement at all.

Dragon Age: Origins played just like BG1 and BG2. You paused and gave different characters different commands. Its not possible to control multiple characters at the same time otherwise.

By the way, the rulesystem of Dragon Age was also still created as a pen and paper system. Thats how they playtested the system without implementing it on the computer. It was thus also round based.

And in regards to strategies, you could very little in DAO, especially compared to BG2.



D&D5 is the youngest and most successful instance of D&D. What is your problem with it ?



Custom portraits are a huge deal to me and BG3 has the perfect solution. You design your characters looks and BOOM you get the character portrait generated from that. And its 100% consistent in regards to looks and artstyle with all other portraits, too ! Wished BG1 and BG2 would have had that.

I must have wasted endless hours back then just looking for portraits on the internet for BG1 and BG2, while finding very few candidates that fit well enough into the game. It didnt help that the art style between BG1 and BG2 changed, too.

If you enjoyed painting your character portraits yourself, thats your perogative. I am not that good of a painter, and neither are the majority of people. Learning to draw and paint well takes a lot of time, time I simply dont have.

… and you like modding, then a custom character portrait mod could be an ideal start.

Turn-based combat is fine. Think of it as real-time with auto-pause for each character.

BG III portraits are of course based on your character appearance choices during creation. I like that well enough, but I would have also liked to see scaling like they did in NWN2, where you can modify the width and height by a certain percentage.

One thing about BG III that still bugs me is the concentration requirement for certain spells. In the older games you could cast blur on yourself, launch a cloudkill, and put a hold person on someone else and have these all going at the same time. In BG III you can galide with only one of those three to concentrate upon.

DA:Origins had this AI editor where you could set up how characters behave when they are controlled by AI. So you could kinda set up what they are to do, without actually having to control it.

Not a fan, but there is a group of players who like this kind of play. Deadfire did something similar.

That's not really a BG3 thing but a 5e thing. It carries over from there. Most non-instantaneous spells in 5e have a concentration requirement to keep them going.

I have been playing turn-based games for over 20 years. My first ever game that i played was turn based aka civilisation 1.
When i tell you i do not like turn-base combat system in party based RPGs, this means i do not since checked it in multiple of games.
No one is telling you to paint your portrait. There are countless of fantasy images on the net. It is easy to find one, resize it and apply to your character.
I do not like to watch how my character looks, i prefer to look on ideal version of my character face.
I spent countless hours on dragon age origins or in da2 to make character portrait actually look good or funny, only to find that i do like them after couple of hours.
I prefer a custom portrait, it takes less time and is easier.

That is what i hate about modern games. Back in the day i could experience game right of the bat.
Nowadays i had to mod it for them to become playable, at least for me.
Same goes for MMOs; i cannot just play it; i have to change the UI, resize it, change font, etc.

It seems he didn't even play that game.
The tactics window was one of the best aspect of that game, it eliminated the need to micromanage your party; If you set up your tactics right, you could just focus on playing your main character, most of the time. Of course, you still had to micromanage in the most difficult fights.

I did play through them, i mean fallout 1&2, but that was years ago.
I tried newest versions of xcom and xcom 2. I didn't enjoyed it that much.

That is what i am afraid of.

Nice to find a friendly soul. I think we are in the minority. At least that is my experience when surfing through the web.

Back to the topic.
I did enjoy AD&D but also game implementation of 3rd edition (nwn1) and 3.5 implementation (nwn2).
That is why i love pathfinder games aka kingmaker and Wotr.
Unfortunately, wotr is kinda too long for me tastes or at least it takes too long to get interesting.
The selling point of wotr was the mythic path system and it starts to roll out in chapter 3.
I love 3.5 dnd of pathfinder but i miss dnd setting, like you.
I even tried ddo but that game was made for old pc's. I need to play it on very low resolution to make comfortable for my eyes.
Another pushback from bg3 is that you will not become a powerhouse like in nwn persistent worlds.
Some nwn servers allow to advance to level 60.
I WANT to become powerful. I want to become superman in RPGs. I really do not get why they locked us up at level 12.
I have the same feeling i do not know if i can get into dnd 5e.
3.5 edition had so much complexity; dumbing it down feels meh.
To be frank i never understand why this game is called bg. From my knowledge it has nothing to do with bg1&2.
Also from all the character they could have a cameo they had to add minsc, why that idiot. Why they couldn't add Edwin.
Also they changed viconia backstory, and we have to fight her.
Jaheira and Viconia were the best female characters in bg2. In bg1 i liked safana and shar-teel more.
Unfortunatelly not cannon, i loved Baeloth the Entertainer, from beamdog black pits bg ee addon.

I'll address a few points.

There are mods to go past lvl12 but you'll need an xp buff mod to get to 20 which is the normal max for 5e.

While the protagonist of BG1/2 plays no role,
BG3 is 100+ years after BG2 so anyone not of a long-lived race is almost certainly dead. Minsc only survived because the big goof got turned to stone and spent most of it as a statue. He and Jaheira are both potential companions.

It took me a while to get used to casters NOT being able to cast like 5 buffs on the whole party.
Now I love the Concentration requeriment. Much more interesting.

Aka used a plot twist to keep him alive. I have nothing against such plot twists but there are more interesting characters like viconia, edwyn. Edwyn is far more interesting companion. He is especially fun in bg2. It is especially fun when he got turned into female. Instead of making viconia a enemy, they should have turned her as a companion. It would be much more fun as a cameo.

That is good you can get to level 20 via mods but that is not the point. The point is that developers designed game in way that you won't be op. I hate when we are introduced this kind of handicap.

For me, leveling is one of the main points of an RPG. In nwn 1 you start as a noob and you end up as a man who could defeat a king of hell.

I'm not sold on BG3 for exactly your concerns OP, so I think you should do what I am doing which is waiting for the game to be on sale for a significant discount (ideally 50% off) before considering trying it. I cannot justify giving Larian anywhere near full price for this game (and it's not a money issue but rather one of principle; I can easily afford it).

I kinda feel the same.
It feels like i wanna force myself like this game.

When EA first launched there were a lot of hard core Baldur's gate fans on the forums. If you are one of those then no, you will not like this game. Just like most of the hard core Baldur's gate fans that were here.

Truthfully you probably are the only one can answer this question since its about you.

Wtf I'm as hardcore a BG1+2 fan as could be ? I own the original CDs and I own the GoG version so I can easily play it on computers without CD drive (which is now most of my computers), too, as well.

And I love BG3.

Its in many ways even better than BG1+2, too. Like they may finally have a satisfying way to play evil. Something you could technically do in BG1+2, sure, but it was a PITA to keep your reputation in the tolerable range and it really wasnt that enjoyable compared to going all out goody two shoes.

And yes its not perfect, for example romances kind of suck, but well they havent been that great in BG2 either, so whatever.

Proposing a general rule that if you like BG1+2 you wont like BG3 is definitely completely absurd.

It's true that there were a number of fans of the first two games active on the forums in early access who decided that BG3 wasn't for them, and therefore understandably moved on. But there are also plenty of fans of the old games, myself included, who did enjoy BG3 and so stuck around. Whether the OP would turn out to be one of the fans of the old games who doesn't like BG3, or one who does, as you say only they can tell, and possibly only if they play the game.

I do think there's an extent to which we should trust our instincts, though, and if the game isn't grabbing someone after they've watched streaming and they've not enjoyed playing games with similar mechanics before, there's unfortunately a decent possibility that they won't get along with BG3. Given a love of the old games, if I were them I'd probably still buy the game on sale and give it a go to see if it could win them over. But then I was blown away by the first look at the game and bought it on the first day of early access, so I'm clearly not in the same position

It has been a while, it's just what I remember the forums being, pretty toxic and a lot of hate towards the direction at that time. Well that and the dead silence from devs, if I remember correctly they did the first patch after Christmas or new years and EA launched roughly around Sept-oct...something like that.

That's fair and yeah, hitting a sale is always nice. Same, bought the game and been on the forums off and on for a while. Never played bg series though it was DOS and NwNs series for me : /

Personally I've never posted a, should I buy this game? question on any forums before. I've always stuck to my own opinion based on gameplay trailers and such if I wanted to pick the game up or not. I've had some hits and misses, but there mine to make. Threads like this are nice for convos but truthfully like i said on the second line. He's the only one that can answer that question, we already did a long time ago.

My biggest gripe with BG3 and Larian is that feels, at least to me, that they are pissing on the old fans. Lets just grab the IP and make it in a way that it doesn't resemble the original title in any way.
When lotro was made, the developers decided that it would focus on the books rather on the movies. It was rather a bold move. Instead to cater to movie fans they decided to cater to hardcore audience. When blizzard made wow they decided that the game should look similar to warcraft 3.
So yeah, if someone makes a game and name it like a game from 20 years ago, i expect to have at least some resemblance to the original product.
I didn't mind it if they made a game in forgotten realms named different, i take offense that they named it baldurs gate 3.
I wouldn't if it would name it differently. Naming products this way suggests that it is a continuation of original series.


The problem is that this game feels, at least from youtube, like dragon age origins in 2024.
I love some aspects of it and hate other aspects.
I wouldn't be so angry about it, if it was named differently.
I do not know, call it differently trap of the mindflyers or some other name.
For example, icewind dale I and icewind dale II share the same name despite one game has nothing to do with the second game.
I do not mind because gameplay and focus of the both games are the same aka hack and slash in dnd setting.
Same goes with nwn 1 and nwn 2. Games are totally different; Yet the core reminds the same. Focus on module building and character progression.
The problem i have with bg3 that it has nothing in common with the original title.


I kinda lost of bg1&bg2 original discs and own original bg1&2 on gog and EE on steam and gog.

Back to the topic.
What are you saying? How can you play evil in this game, they is one evil companion aka Minthara companion and she join you in act 2. In bg1 you had Eldoth, Xzar, Viconia, Shar-teel, Edwyn.

Strange that you say that since from what i have found on youtube people like the romances.

My anger towards this game comes from the fact it is named bg3 and has nothing to do with its predecessors.

Well, as we've said it's totally your call whether to play or not and if you feel that it's not your BG that's fine, though your initial question was whether an old time fan of the original games could enjoy the game and the answer to that is yes as many do. But of course whether you will or not is a different question, and if you're already angry at the game without even having played it that's not a good sign.

But I am going to put my moderator hat on here and say that, while I'm sure folk who have played all the games would be happy to talk about similarities and differences between the games and answer your questions, we will need to take the heat down to have a constructive debate Our forum rules request that we don't use excessive language and "pissing on the old fans" qualifies, and seems particularly inflammatory when more than one old fan here has said they've enjoyed the game. You may want to take a cue from your signature

???
One Evil Companion? There is a horde of them ...
Astarion CE, Lae'zel LE, Shadowheart NE, Durge CE

Holy, ROFL this is a blast from the past. Yeah, this is what I was talking about, a lot of people used to call the game Divinity Original Sin 3.

I can see the comparison for DAO, in some aspects at least. Teen/young adult me would probably make fun of you for even saying that ( I was a hard core DAO fan, owned the game on xbox, ps, and now pc). NwN1 was based on d&d 3rd edition and made by Bioware. NwN2 was based on 3.5 and was made by Obsidian (which is the edition I grew up on). Yeah its going to share some aspects (it is based on the city of Neverwinter in forgotten realms) but, not the same company nor same edition.

I'm guessing its called Baldur's gate 3, because, in some way the stories are linked. Someone else that beat the game and played the previous games would have to answer this one.

Anyway, I actually just came back because the kit came out finally and plan on playing a Dark Urge run, hopefully reach act 3 this time : /

take it easy

I some how missed this reply, my comment was about the early days, late 2020, not all bg fans.

I created my signature around 20 years ago. I changed a lot during that period. I was very chill person when i was 15 or 20, now i am not.

I am just experessing my emotions without calling names, I am trying to express how i feel about this in most peacefull way i can manage. I do not offended or attacked anyone. It is already hard to control my emotions when talking about this subject.

Balduirs 1&2 have a dear place in my heart so cannot be emotionless about it. Sorry that you feel that broke some rules.

When i observe how people behave on twich, youtube and other social media. It is hard to compare level of discussion to what we present here.

I thought about whether the statement "pissing on the old fans" is inflammatory. Re-phrasing this to "dispensing lant upon the historical clientele" would probably soften the blow, but I guess in either case perhaps the inflammation comes from making an implication that Larian decided to offend fans of the older BG series? Or, perhaps it is a cry against the entertainment industry's general predilection for over-extending a brand name long after the thematic coherence with the original art has been lost (cf. Star Trek franchise)?

BG III does have a few thematic tie-ins with the older series. The "coin on edge" theme for the protagonist is still there to a degree, but I felt the BG III dialogs could have been a little more explicit about it. I also wonder if The Emperor in BG III = The Hidden in BG II, and in that way the BG III story is rooted in one of the enigmas left behind by the older games. And finally, the ending of BG III leads in to what might be a resolution to the tale of the Dead Three. There is enough material here for a BG IV !

You're allowed to publish a tract claiming Larian deliberately offended BG1&2 fans. It's the evocation of urine (however worded) that's inflammatory. Believe me, mods don't want to deal with an inflamed urinary tract.

Magnificent pun aside, let's move on from this aspect of the conversation.

I am a fan of Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2. I am also 54 years old (I *think* that qualifies as "old") and I enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3 as well.

It probably should have been called something other than "Baldur's Gate 3" but I can understand why they went with the big juicy market signal, and it did at least involve more time in the city Baldur's Gate than Baldur's Gate 2 did. As long as you let Larian's game be Larian's game (and don't try to shoehorn it into a direct sequel to BG2) its fun.

LOL!
Dwig wrote 100% what I could have, only difference being my 56 years

Heh I have you both beat at 57 years!

I agree that bg2 have nothing to do with baldurs gate itself, as a city I mean, at least it was a continuation of bhallspawn story. That is why it had a subtitle shadows of amn.
When spellbound released a game in gothic universe they named it Arcania: A gothic tale. They didn't name it Gothic 4 because it has nothing to do with older gothic games, in terms of game design, gameplay, etc., despite being the same universe.
I have nothing against the idea of using an existing IP to create your own story. Looking how much flack beamdog got for siege of dragonspear because they changed behavior of original baldurs gate companions.
If the game story takes you to baldurs gate, you have the right to use it in your game title but naming it bg3 suggests it is the continuation of original games.
I do not know what angered me more the fact it is turned based or the misleading title.
Normally I wouldn't give 2 cents about it, if it was any other game but I am very emotional about it because I was raised on baldurs gate 1&2.
There are 3 games that I get very emotional : baldurs gate, civilisation and heroes of might and magic. Civilisation I was the first game I played and bg1 was the game that most of geeks in my school were talking about ; since I was the only guy on my block that had PC and this game caused that many guys from my class was coming to my house to play it. It has very special place in my heart.
That is why I am very emotional about this topic. Probably too emotional. Getting too excited is bad for me.

Plenty of evil options BTW. I just played my first evil playthrough and my party included my evil Tav, Lae'zel, SH, Astarion, and Minthara. While it's true Wyll he was evil enough early on to kill Karlach at my behest (I really wanted for my Tav). I never bothered with Gale because I didn't need him but I'm confident I could have corrupted him to at least be a useful idiot for my schemes.

I must say the moment was quite dramatic and satisfying in a role-playing way. It really was an impulsive decision. I think they did a very good job with evil routes all things considered.

Yes, the game has, from the very beginning, gone to great lengths to cater to the evil side. We know this. It's the good side that has been consistently screwed over. Fewer good companions, and they're the lamest of the companions. No good equivalent to the Dark Urge concept. And most of all, poor and weak (and sometimes downright horrible) good endings for the game. It's very clear to me that Larian wanted this game to be their gift to evil players.

I am definitely an old player. Played the DND White Box back in the day. I enjoy BG1 more than BG2 and any of the other IE games. That said BG3 may be one of my favorite games of all time. I really enjoy the turn based combat, though. They really went far in making the combat encounters unique. The fights at first are interesting, and then they add wrinkles to them; i.e. enemies that teleport your characters away from each other, enemies that disguise themselves, enemies that turn invisible, etc., etc. My first playthrough did have a number of bugs, but the thing now plays really well on consoles all the way down to a Steam Deck, which is quite amazing. I would imagine that people that are not familiar with the game could be overwhelmed, but if you are familiar with RPGs that learning curve would be shortened. I love it and wish Larian would continue with DND in the future but alas…

Most of my playthroughs are "good" and I have found them to be very satisfying. I certainly wouldn't call any of them "lame". The Dark urge good playthrough is terrific and very rewarding. Currently playing my first Origin as MC as Wyll and I love it.

Well, I accept that there is a certain amount of subjectivity to it. By my standards of what qualifies as a "good" playthrough, BG3 falls way short. But when it comes to the DU, it is as far as I am concerned objectively impossible for such a thing as a "good" DU playthrough. By definition, being the DU equals being evil.

I’m on record as wanting the ending for a good (or at least selfless) character to be just a little less bleak, but that’s a long way from feeling that the game is targeted specifically at evil protagonists. If we look at the game as a whole, there are tons of satisfying and genuinely moving moments for a good character. I’ve just completed Act 2 for the third time and the gratitude of the tieflings for saving them, Shadowheart’s reclamation of her heritage and the healing of the shadow-cursed lands I think are all lovely rewards for virtue. And there are moments small and large throughout the game that budding heroes are more likely to come across, from the dance of the myconids to Astarion coming to terms with his past and rejecting what it could have made him into. That is, while the “good” playthrough may be a story of sacrifice, I think the game also does a decent job of showing how the good protagonist leaves the world a better place.

As to whether a Durge playthrough is by definition evil, I guess that depends on questions both of instinct vs action and personal identity and responsibility for a past one no longer remembers. The Durge story is the BG3 equivalent of the first games’ protagonist who also struggled with a violent nature even when good, though there are perhaps also commonalities with Revan from KotOR. I guess if one wants an uncomplicated, unconflicted good character then none of those stories would be one’s cup of tea.

Imo the dark urge story falls very short whether you play evil or good. Unfortunately the urges are treated the same way as tadpoles. That is, only the binary choice at the end of the questline matters, regardless of whether your character resisted or gave into the urges along the way. The lacking companion reactivity does not help the writing.

I quite agree with RQ. The Astarion story has different outcomes depending on your choices, but the one I ended up with was very satisfying from a "good" point of view. That was great drama, well above what one might expect from a typical D&D adventure. I have not played the Dark Urge and I probably never will ... not my kind of thing.

And by the way, the new mod manager does allow some great options. I am using the Greater Trickster mod for my cleric of Tymora (coin on edge!), and it provides just the right skill set without being overpowered. It's much better than the original Trickery domain.

You don't believe in second chances?

I think I do understand what you mean though in terms of there being no "good" equivalent to the Durge character. Every origin character in the game has some skeletons in the closet.

i can agree the DU defaults to being evil and i like that leaning into the 'kill, rape, burn!' of its nature unlocks a pure evil finish because that encourages a dail it back on the next play

imo the DU romance is easy the best written storyline of the game with all the others being "do this and i'll bed you" the DU is the only one that they [your romance] gets to save you from your shit as much as you help them

Fully agree.

On the other hand, if you don't have a romance going, the writing shows its weakness again. Instead of a romance partner the character with highest approval is cast in a certain scene. And since approval is only a metric of how much the companion likes my character, but does not reflect whether my character likes them... Well, that scene just felt silly.

By comparison, nowhere in my Gale origin run did I feel that I need to romance a companion in order for the story to work.

On a side note, you can lean into evil all you want, and still change your mind last minute in the dark urge quest line, and you will get treated as a hero afterwards. Everyone collectively forgets what happened before. Imo Shadowheart's origin story handles the same concept much better.

Thanks, @The Red Queen! This is definitely something for me to hold on to as a positive.


This is how I tend to see almost every "choice" in BG3, and hence why I tend to reject the claim that the game is strong on choice. As I have described it in the past, I believe BG3 gives players the *illusion* of choice, but where in reality most of your choices and actions don't really matter, and only a single critical decision, usually at the very end, matters.

Again, this^

I see this as exactly Larian rewarding players for playing evil, by saying to them: Don't worry. There won't be any *real* consequences for doing all manner of evil things (including eating the tadpoles). In the end, you just have to do one thing, and all of the past is forgiven and forgotten and you get to be acclaimed as the "hero." That is utter b.s.

I will rephrase my question.

I enjoyed the following RPGs: dragon age origins, dragon age 2, baldurs gate 1, baldurs gate 2, icewind dale 1, pathfinder: kingmaker and wotr, tyranny, fallout 1, fallout 2, arcanum, Colony Ship, Black Geyser, kotor1&2, jade empire.

Rpgs that am neutral about: Neverwinter nights 1, Neverwinter nights 2, Pillars of eternity 1&2, Encased, divinity dragon commander, divinity original sin 1&2, gamedec, greedfall, technomancer.

Game i didn't like ( not for me): planescape: torment, nwn 2: mask of the betrayer, dragon age: inquisition, skyrim ( too much fixing with mods to make it viable).

I have nothing against turn base combat overall since i love civilisation since the first game.
My gripe with turn base combat when it start to drag for too long.
I had this experience within divinity original sin 1 & 2.
I want to get into bg3 but this is my biggest barrier to entry when it comes to it.

No clue, sorry.

BG3 combat doesnt seem slower to me than BG1 or BG2 combat.

I sometimes required half an hour and more for certain BG2 encounters though.

The turn-based combat pace is OK for most of the encounters in BG III, with one notable exception that almost made me lose my mind - the poltergeists in Jannath's house. It is a very unique combat and I can see what Larian was trying to do there, but you'd better have something else to do like maybe folding laundry while those Spirits of Molasses are taking their turns.

I just did that one and I agree that it's annoying.

In general though the advantage of RTwP is that it lets you plow through hordes of mooks. The problem with RTwP is that the devs throw hordes of mooks at you. Turn based does boss fights (and mini-boss fights) better than RTwP.

Honestly, cutting down on the chaf filler fights and leaning into fewer (but more interesting) fights is a good thing IMO.

Could you elaborate on this.
I heard this many times that every encounter has a purpose in bg3.
That this mean that it is hand crafted, scripted or related to task or quest.
I played so many isometric RPGs that have tons of mobs that no purpose of being there; there are just there to prolong the gameplay like in icewind dale, nwn OC or many encounters in wotr.


I kinda have to disagree. I played wasteland 2 and wasteland 3. Combat was fun in the beginning but after time passed combat started to drag on and on. Same goes with the encounter in D:OS 2; it felt like there were enemies around every corner.

When RTwp games does this is acceptable since you can pass easily through it. When turn based games does it, it is horrible aka games like that are not enjoyable.

I don't think it's about rewarding evil (as the evil path is simply lacking in content compared to good), but rather a lack of commitment. You can play evil but won't be locked out of the good ending, you can play good but won't be locked out of the evil ending, even if this means your character does a 180° turn at some point.

This is not true for all the writing, notably when Shadowheart makes her choice there are no "take backs". A similar origin character concept, but better written.

But tbh, if you want a good amnesiac protagonist story, my recommendation would be Planescape Torment instead.

Well, they are handcrafted, but this does not mean every encounter is well designed. I like turn based combat and enjoyed most of it, a lot of encounters felt unique, maybe a few felt like filler.

The ghost quest was the only exception to that, imo it is one of the worst designed encounters I have ever played in a computer game. I have not tried it a second time, so no idea if Larian ever changed it.