Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 New Player

I can't recall being this excited about loading up a new game since playing Last Ninja on my C64 many many years ago. Nevertheless, my beautiful deluxe copy arrived from Larian this afternoon as a wonderful Tuesday afternoon pick me up. I'm not a traditional DnD player so may need help from time to time but I'm so looking forward to beginning the journey.

Awesome, enjoy your journey!

The only tips I like to give new players are:

• Quicksave fairly frequently: autosaves aren't very frequent and you can lose a lot of progress if you die
• Accept failure: failing a roll can lead to interesting results and give you a good story
• Don't over-think things: there is no one "correct" way to play this game. Just do what seems like a good idea at the time and enjoy your own game. There are things you'll miss in a single playthrough, but I can't imagine it's much fun trying to follow walkthroughs to make sure you've seen everything

If you haven't played D&D before there will be some things that you won't immediately understand, but plenty of people will be able to help out if you need it. Or just experiment - you can save in the middle of combat or a conversation if you want to see what happens. And if you want to look under the hood at the rolls, open up the combat log at the bottom right.

Above all, enjoy it!

You're gonna have a great time! I'm jealous, not only are you set to discover a great game for the first time but you also have all the nice goodies from a deluxe edition.. Have fun!

Also I don't think DnD knowledge is an requirement, you might need a little bit more time to familiarize yourself with the rules is all. I remember being so confused (and a little angry at times) why my players where dazed and skipping turnes on my first playthrough, not realizing they where spell concentrating and you gotta cancel first if you want them to use another action that requires concentration.
I think Larian made it much more obvious now when characters are concentrating on spells, so hopefully you wont struggle with this like I did.

My advice would be to make sure you go to camp and sleep regularly in game - you can easily miss interesting interactions and plot by not long-resting enough.

Have fun! I loved my first and second play through (currently in my third one).

On top of what others already wrote (which I think is all correct), I’d say give companions the benefit of a doubt. Their story arcs are great (and very different) and may offer quite a few surprises, if you leave them breathing room to show nuance.

Maybe leave the dark urge for a second playthrough. It hits much harder if you’ve experienced the regular plot already.

And if you want to try D&D at some point, you’ll find that at least the rules will come easily after playing BG3 ☺

Have fun is the most important thing.
You can't do anything wrong, even if it looks that way ( there are always second, third... playthroughs to experience things differently).

I would recommend talking to everyone and go everywhere, the game lets you. If a character is recruitable, take them in, they might surprise you.

Avoid spoilers, it's more fun that way. Don't go into the story sub forum here or the suggestion one, both can be very spoilers.

There are a lot of consumables, spellscrolls etc. - use them and don't hoard them. Most of them are not unique.

There are a lot of ways to beat the game - go with the flow and what seems right to you. Chances are, the game will let you.

And again: have fun.

If you're totally unfamiliar with DND, remember : never dispair when the odds seem unsurmountable, and don't be shy to use the "new game" button if you seem to be unable to advance or don't feel immersion with the race/class you chose at the beginning. Creating a character may feel a bit overwhelming. Choosing a race/class, origin and proficiencies are not very "intuitive". So restarting with different options can increase the fun.

Here's a few things I wish I understood when I picked up the game, which I think are great to know.

Weapon accuracy: For most melee weapons in most situations, Strength determines their accuracy. Melee weapons with the Finesse feature will use the highest of your Strength or Dexterity. Ranged weapons always use your Dexterity.

Equipment Proficiency: It's generally not a good idea to use equipment that a character is not proficient with, because you get penalties like being much less accurate with weapon attacks or be prevented from casting in armor you're not proficient with. There are exceptions, but for now it's going to be a lot less headache to just avoid using equipment you see the proficiency warning.

Dexterity: No matter what class a character is, it's helpful to have higher Dex. This means better chances of acting first in battle(this is extremely powerful), avoiding damage from spells, avoiding certain spell effects, making ranged and Finesse weapons more powerful, and increasing your Armor Class(higher AC=lower chances of getting hit by weapons). I generally run my whole party at 16 Dex, except the ones attacking with it I try to have higher.

there are wepons like flame blade which use your casting stat instead of str or dex but generally yes proficiency matters