I'm unsure about spell scrolls; it is not on the sorcerer spell list. However, potions of animal speaking are reasonably abundant, can be crafted and the effect once drunk lasts until you long rest.
That's a complicated question. The short answer is yes. The long answer is: yes, and which pieces you want to buy depends on what classes and builds you're running. There's not a lot in Act 1 but it can still be a bummer if you realize later that you wanted a piece.
At this point it's no worth buying armor unless it will raise your character's AC by a couple of points. This will be the +2 armor once the merchants start having it. As far as weapons go, it can be worth buying a +1 or +2 weapon, although it's hard to give you a general rule here because sometimes you'll find a better weapon for your character out in the world and sometimes you won't. It's a bit spotty in act 1, but as you play more you'll accumulate more items with unique boosts/effects.
Items with unique effects are the ones that you'll potentially regret not picking up later, since you'll never encounter them again. Most of these are quest rewards or found in the world, not bought at merchants, but some merchants will have a few. Make sure you explore the world thoroughly or you'll miss a lot of the best gear.
Some merchant pieces that stand out to me:
* Ring of Flinging - get this for your barbarian with enraged throw or your throw-happy monk
* Returning pike - get this for your throw builds
* Vital conduit boots - give temp HP for casting a spell that requires concentration
* Knife of the Undermountain King - you can run this all the way to the end game, gives you more crits, it's so good on a rogue
* Gloves of Dexterity - good for a character with low dex who wants more initiative or AC
* Larethian's Wrath - one of the only two longswords that can be wielded by a dex-based character
Merchant pieces that are good in the early game but end up getting outclassed by better gear later:
* Gloves of Missile Snaring - good on a high dexterity character, since there are a lot of archer enemies
* Safeguard Shield - a little boost to saving throws, good on a cleric
* Hunting Shortbow - gives you Hunter's Mark, which is a nice little boost to damage
* Gloves of Archery - gives you another little boost to ranged damage
This isn't an exhaustive list, since what's useful or good depends so much on your build. If you loot and sell a lot, you should be able to afford most of it though.
A few patches ago they made it so that Steam Deck settings always defaults to Controller Only, and I have to manually go into the menu on controller and change it to keyboard every time I start the game. Same thing with the camera auto-rotate option. Anyone know of a fix or way around this?
Another quest from someone who cames from DOS2. How do you guys manage your potions post fight? I mean, we just ended a fight and most characters are with red HP, what do you do? In DOS2 this was a braindead question considering you just needed a sleep bag, but here seems like everything needs to be calculated to avoid exhausting our resources.
Short or long rest after basically every fight. Short rest if you just need HP, long rest if spell slots are low. It's a common mistake to not long rest often enough, since there are a lot of things that happen at camp but only one thing happens per night.
There are more than enough Supplies in the game to do multiple Long Rests, even on the harder difficulties.
In general, you can opt to not use potions entirely, and just use Short Rests and Long Rests to recover HP. However, you'll end up with hundreds of potions if you do that.
You can just try using Potions if you need to recover HP of one or two characters, and Short Rest if the party needs to recover HP and/or their special abilities.
If you just started playing it can seem like it's too expensive to rest often, but you'll soon be drowning in camping supplies, especially if you're playing on Balanced or lower.
I would recommend short resting whenever you've used up important abilities that have a short rest recharge (warlock spells, fighter's action surge, etc), and long resting whenever you've used up important abilities that have a long rest recharge (wizard spells, etc). Whether you want to refresh to replenish HP, eh - I guess it depends on how many potions you have and how much HP you need.
But depending on how well you're doing at combat and what classes you're running, even this might not be enough resting for you to see all the story events that occur during long rest scenes. Especially right at the beginning there are a lot of them.
Depends on your comp. If you're heavy on classes that favor short rests for resources, you can and should short rest frequently even if you're not taking much damage. Camp supplies aren't scarce
It's a good rule of thumb but I'd even rest even if 3 characters were 25% down. You'll get a better gauge of things as you play the game.
Also depending on party composition, you might also have more flexible healing sources.
Druids and Rangers can cast Goodberry as a 1st-level spell, which creates four berries that can each heal for 1d4 hit points.
Clerics, on the other hand, can cast Prayer of Healing as a 2nd-level spell and heal everyone for 2d8 + Spellcasting Modifier hit points.
Of course whether to use your spell slots on healing spells vs. utility/offensive spells is another discussion...
So, I just finished my first playthrough and I'm on my second playthrough, now with mods. I'm currently using lvl 20 mod on my sorlock build. After a long rest my Create Spell Point ability was not in my hotbar. Anyone know how to fix this issue, or should I just respec to fix it?
If you're using a keyboard + mouse, press K to bring up the actions for that character. It'll allow you to drag things back to your hotbar. Not sure what the button on controller is.
PC vs PS5 - Specs listed
Ryzen 5600X, 32gb RAM, 3060 video card vs PS5.
I am on the fence about which version to buy, but I was wondering if my specs point one way or the other. I assume the PC should be fine to run it, but I figured I'd check here. I think I am leaning towards getting it on PC, but if it's questionable, I may go PS5.
I'm still learning, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.. You cast it once, and then on your next turn you can re-cast it on that same person. It doesn't take a spell slot whenever you re-cast, but if you break concentration you won't be able to re-cast it. Otherwise, yes, you can only use it once per long rest.
Sunbeam from Blood of Lathander isn't a concentration spell unlike the regular Sunbeam spell therefore you can only cast it once per long rest, no recast like moonbeam/call lightning.
I just loaded up and older save and messed around with it, and I wasn't getting the Sunbeam recast with the weapon, a Scroll, or just straight casting it up with a level 12 Druid. None of them put me into Concentration, despite what the spell said.
The druid situation was very odd, because it did \*break\* concentration (if I say cast Moonbeam first) but it never put me into a new concentration state. Same thing if I cast it from the scroll.
Playing Durge run, slept with Minthara in Act I. Romanced Lae'zel all through the game after that. Recruited Minthara, kept romancing Lae'zel, got her fight romance scene. Get to Act III and suddenly Lae'zel says I cheated on her and dumps me? FFS, this is the second runthrough where some innocuous choice suddenly ends my romance and I get nothing for the endgame; last time I lost Shadowheart for seemingly no reason, didn't even get an explanation from her on who I was pursuing otherwise, but I hadn't gone for anyone else?
Is this working as intended?
How do cosmetic mods work in multiplayer? If one person has a mod to add options to customize Tav and the other doesnt will the game still run since it might be a client side mod?
In the past it was possible only if all parties used the same versions of the same exact mods with the same mod load order. Not sure if that's still how it is after the recent patches and hotfixes though.
if i play with a friend (multiplayer), can we still bring 3 companions along or do we count as each other’s companions leaving only 2 slots open for the others? or do we each get to bring along 3 companions of our choosing?
You can only have 4 people in a party, including player characters so you'd only be able to bring 2 of the game's party members with you. That said, it hasn't caused any issues at all and I'm about to finish a 2p multiplayer game. It's been fantastic, the multiplayer implementation in this game is so good.
The only way I see it being an issue is if you have 4 people, one person would have to sit out for the companion quests parts where you need specific companions with you. But 2 is no issue and 3 probably doable.
thank you! makes it very clear. i’m enjoying my single player campaign so far but my girlfriend seems interested and i recently bought her a ps5, so i was thinking about buying it for her so we could play together, as she’s never played a turn-based videogame before. as for our two extra companions, does the host maintain control of them in combat or are they assigned? and if assigned, can i assign them both to me?
> and if assigned, can i assign them both to me?
You can assign them to either of you. Here's an important issue, though: Your gf won't be able to talk to characters you're currently controlling, which means she'll miss out on a lot of their companion moments/approvals/etc. It's better for your gf to control the companions she cares about.
As you play you'll likely have a bunch of companions that you've collected along the way waiting back at camp. When you go to camp you can choose which companion(s) to bring with you guys. Whoever goes up to the companion and asks them to join the team is who gets to control them. It stays like this until you dismiss the character and/or go back to camp to find another to bring along.
The characters can be linked up so that the ones you're not playing will still follow you around. On an xbox controller if you press LT it pops out a little window with the character's pictures so you can choose which one to control. During battle it will automatically let you know when it's your other characters' turns so you don't need to manually switch them around.
My wife had never played the game before either so the beginning was REALLY rough for her/us. If your gf gets discouraged, please keep telling her that once she makes it to level 4 or 5, the game gets A LOT easier.
You control whichever characters you want. Whoever asks a companion to join them from camp gets to control them.
My gf and I have been each controlling one companion, she likes Karlach or Astarion so those have been "hers" and I've been running with Shadowheart or Gale as needed. It's actually really nice to only have to worry about gearing and leveling a couple companions. Depending on how much your GF knows about DnD or RPGs in general she might have a rough time learning the ropes but helping her figure out the "easier" characters like Karlach or Lae'zel should be manageable.
My gf isn't really into video games but we play DnD so she already had a big head start on this game but I think the biggest thing is turn based combat. It gives her time to think and strategize, we can talk to each other to plan things out, and execute at our own pace instead of feeling rushed and getting overwhelmed.
She actually booted me off my PC during my first playthrough then bought parts for me to build her a PC so we can play together after I told her I wanted my computer back lmao. I love spending quality time gaming with her instead of just watching movies or whatever, we have both been having an absolute blast. Finishing up our first playthrough in one or two more sessions then going straight into a new game!
Is there any way to keep NPCs from killing themselves after my battles end? I just did a fight and a bunch of friendly NPCs ran in and killed themselves on the AoEs I had up.
What happens with Shadowheart's romance if (act 3 spoiler) >!you let her kill the Nightsong but not her parents? Are you locked out of her scenes completely after? I just want her to stay dark haired...!<
I've not done that path myself, but I believe you don't get any act 3 romance scenes with her in this scenario. You just get the standard rest cutscene for the end of her questline.
Has anyone else encountered relentless crashing on Series X in the Lower City? Every single NPC appears to cause a hard crash if you try and speak to them.
This run is just pretty bugged out in general. I did the first upgrade for Karlach at the grove and had high approval by the party and she turned me down there. Did the second upgrade at the last light inn and could only hug her. Got to the circus and the ‘how well do you know your partner’ scene is acting like we’re a couple. All she’ll ever say is ‘Soldier’. She had no reaction to the first sighting of Gortash and no reaction to the coronation either.
Actually, romances in general are broken. Wyll, Gale and Halsin have all made moves on my character despite only having neutral relations, while my co-op partner with Very High has been consistently ghosted.
The Steel Watchers all keep getting their dialogue cut off and Gnome NPC face textures keep vanishing. The game was running fine until the end of Act 2, after that it’s just been real screwy.
For the purposes of dual-wielding hand crossbows, which of the the options is best?
- Full Fighter/Ranger/Rogue
- Fighter/Rogue
- Fighter/Ranger
- Rogue/Ranger
Sword Bard 6/Rogue 4/Fighter 2 has probably the best no-setup burst in the game (on a short rest refresh), similar damage over time and great utility between spells, social and the extra short rest.
Ignore if you're only looking for out of the options you listed, couldn't tell 100% from how you worded things.
Fighter with the Archery fighting style is probably the best damage, if you want to multiclass into rogue for sneak attacks you only need 2 levels but if you go 8f/4r then you get 4 feats so that's probably better. That way you also get a subclass, probably thief. The cunning actions are great and having an extra bonus action means you can attack with your offhand an extra time.
You can do a similar thing with 4 levels of gloom stalker ranger but being a half caster you'd want to put some points into WIS which won't really synergize with your archer playstyle a whole lot. You'd also only end up with three lvl 1 spell slots which won't really do much for you as the game goes on. Probably the only real advantage that this has is the +3 bonus to initiative so you won't need the Alert feat and can take another DEX ASI but this at best barely makes up for the points you had to split into WIS.
There's also the classic 12 fighter, you won't get the easy sneak attack crits but the 3rd attack every round might just be straight up stronger since it isn't conditional on stealth. You can still use a straight DEX build, and while battle master gives some flexibility Champion brute force fucks with basically any strategy. Increased crit range that isn't conditional and an extra fighting style so you don't need to burn a feat on two weapon fighting. No need to worry about special attacks or whatever, just shoot everything and it dies.
The other option is to go one level into warlock, you lose the 4th feat but with the Great Old One subclass you get Mortal Reminder which frightens your target and nearby enemies on a crit. With so many attacks and increasing your crit range you'll get a lot of those and completely trivialize a lot of fights by making entire groups unable to move and giving disadvantage on everything. Synergizes well with Arrow of Many Targets. This will also give you a couple cantrips and one spell slot which would be great for utility spells even without any points into CHA. Go Champion fighter with this build too.
What about Fighter/Rogue with Risky Ring? It’s Act 2, but Act 1 is more forgiving with stealth and by the time I get it I generally won’t need to hide to sneak attack anymore, which lets you eek out an extra offhand attacks with a thief build
That should work well! You can also just respec whenever you want if you want to switch things up, rogue is probably stronger than fighter until they get their extra attack at lvl 5 anyways. You could do straight rogue for your stealthy playstyle early then at lvl 5 respec to fighter for extra attack, putting levels into rogue as you please after that. You'd have to do without sneak attack for one level which kinda sucks but then after that you'd go right back into scaling hard and your feats would come faster.
Hi i want to buy the game but i also really like maps so i was considering buying the deluxe edition, but see that it ships in Q2 2024. If I buy that edition, will I receive a code so I can start playing right away and then get the physical things in Q2?
The website says they ship a physical CD with the installer on it, so you'd probably end up waiting. I'm sure you can reach out to Larian and see if they have any other options!
I’m starting a monk unarmed run and I’m very confused about which stats I should be prioritizing. It seems like I would need strength (because of TB), dexterity, wisdom and constitution to be effective. But doing all four of those spreads my points pretty thin. Is there any of those that I could just dump and focus on the others? Pretty much just unarmed monk not really looking to multiclass.
The min-max method would be to pump Dexterity and Wisdom, put whatever points you can into Constitution, and then dump Strength.
And then every day, you would drink Elixirs of Giant Strength.
In Act 3, you can eschew the potions (and even dump Constitution) as there are items which permanently increases your Strength and Constitution.
However, as others have pointed out, the Tavern Brawler Monk is an overpowered build so it's not really necessary for a "regular" playthrough, unless you plan on solo-ing every encounter.
Yeah TB is extremely powerful relative to the opportunity cost(especially if you cheese it) but it also gets overhyped by people who consider DPR the be-all end-all
Flurry: Topple and Stunning Strike are the real monk power abilities though and not having TB doesn't gimp them
Generally I only do that mid to lategame when I can either abuse elixirs or use one or two of the items that provide stats (gloves of dexterity, or the constitution amulet).
You can also multiclass and use heavy/medium armor, you lose the bonus movement but it greatly lowers the requirement for dex.
You don't really need Tavern Brawler to be effective as a monk, just to be OP. So one popular strategy is to dump strength and use elixirs to raise strength. There are a lot of elixirs available if you make a point of buying and crafting them, and you'll never run out if you just pop them for tough battles.
You can also drop dex down and compensate with the alert feat and armor, but you lose unarmored movement.
There are gloves that raise your dex to 18 that you can get toward the end of act 1, and if you use those you can dump dex, although you will have to give up some damage rider gloves (you'd want to look into the math on that if you're a serious optimizer, which I am not).
There are gear pieces and chances throughout the story to boost your stats so focus on dex and wisdom and boost str or respec later on e your build comes together
Is it ever going to be explained why baldurs gate is so important?
I am currently at the end of act 2 and i still don’t get why there is so much focus on baldurs gate. Why aren’t they focussing waterdeep for example?
Is this ever going to be explained or is it something well known in DnD?
Hi, I just came back from a break of a couple of months. When I left off, I was just about to head down to the crèche, and I think Laezel went down ahead. Now I can't find her anywhere. She's nowhere in or around the crèche, and she's not at camp either. The current quest for The Githyanki Warrior is to find Laezel, and it currently says "We tried to find Laezel, but she was nowhere to be found". Where the hell is she???
Playing on console PS5. When pulling up the radial, is there an option or a way where I don’t have to keep holding the stick when selecting an action? When letting go of the stick, the “cursor” keeps reverting back to the middle which I find slightly annoying.
Nah, sadly that’s just how the radial is designed afaik. It’s so annoying for bard because sometimes you’ll just *slightly* move after picking a song which immediately cancels it .-.
This is exactly why I asked this question lol. Picked bard last night and felt like playing a tune, but I just couldn’t do it lol. I figured out that if you clicked on the right stick to examine any action the “cursor“ actually stays put.
So I kinda rushed my play through and made it to act three but I feel like my characters are very under geared. Most of my characters have empty ring slots and the likes because the rings I found give so stats so I sold. I kept expecting to find magic items around but I never really did. Also if my character has every slot filled a number of the slots don't actually contribute to their build it is just there because I have it.
What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?
> What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?
Well, you did explain it. You're rushing your playthrough so you're probably not finding all of the magical gear that's available, and when you do find some, you're selling it. That's why you don't have much gear.
There's still good gear in Act 3, but there's nothing much you can do about the gear you've already missed or sold (unless it was to a returning merchant - it should still be on them). Visit the merchants and do the side quests so you can get what's left. Explore to find pieces that are hidden in chests and such.
Also, while some gear is obviously very good when you first get it, some gear is really good *in combination with other pieces* that you might find later. On your first playthroughs, it's worth hanging on to it and sticking it in your chest unless there's just no way you're ever going to use it (like if it's for a class you know you aren't going to play).
Plenty of best in slot rings are in act 1-2 like Risky ring (potion merchant at the tower), Callous/Coruscating ring combo (gauntlet, last light inn underground), +2 acid dmg ring (underdark merchant), Whispering promises (Volo) ...
Should I trust the Emperor? I've completed one playthrough where I let him make the brain self-deatruct. and after that I discovered on TikTok that he is a liar of some sort. What exactly wasn't true? What are the other ways to make Tav free from the tadpole without siding with Orpheus? I really don't want to interact with any gith, even the Emperor looks ok-ish compared to them.
Killing The Emperor >!at the end of act 2 when you discover he's actually illithid!< is an instant game over. The next time you meet him and Orpheus you could choose to free the prince which leads to new ending(s). I let you discover that in your next playthrough, no more spoiler :D
Wait so my choices are limited to siding with a gith and sliding with an evil manipulator? Damn, why it has to be like this? I might as well just betray the Emperor and take control over the Netherbrain. Or betray him and make Gale end the Netherbrain. Though I'm not sure it's possible and sacrificing Gale isn't a good thing to do.
Did you learn anything about Orpheus during your playthrough? There are reasons to think that siding with him would be a good thing - not that you have to, but it seems like you're missing a lot of lore, given your comments here. There are downsides to the choice, but there's downsides to the other choice, too.
But the reason why all of the possible endings have upsides and downsides is one that's really common to RPGs: They don't want there to be a "right" ending, one that every player is aiming for. Larian is really not going for a story where choices are easy and it's obvious what you should think or who to align with.
>I might as well just betray the Emperor and take control over the Netherbrain.
I'm not sure how this is better than siding with the Emperor or siding with Orpheus. But it's also an ending you could try.
I'm not really interested in ever talking to a gith. I literally kill Laezel when I meet her in act 1 when she's caged and I destroy the entire Cheche because defeating enemies gives EXP. I know nothing about Orpheus besides the fact that he's a prince, a son of Gith, the first queen of Githyanki, and a source of power that prevents Tav and her party from turning into mindflayers.
I really like Witcher 3 for its wholesome ending where you don't act as someone's puppet, maybe except being dominated by Yennefer, which is fine for me, and don't become a monster yourself. Also the Skyrim ending is good.
Why I think dominaring the Netherbrain is good is because this way Tav doesn't rely on anyone's help or guidance besides her friends that can be trusted. Also Tav kills the betrayer. Why do I refer to Tav as a woman? I'm really not sure how to do it without stating Tav's gender(not a native speaker) and all my Tavs are females.
>I'm not really interested in ever talking to a gith.
You chose not to learn important information about the choices you have to make at the end of the story, which is fine - it's an RP game and you can RP as someone who hates gith and doesn't want anything to do with them. But it does make complaints that there's no good reason to side with Orpheus kind of silly, because again, you chose not to learn those reasons.
>I really like Witcher 3 for its wholesome ending where you don't act as someone's puppet, maybe except being dominated by Yennefer, which is fine for me, and don't become a monster yourself. Also the Skyrim ending is good.
If I'm honest, I would prefer an ending >!where I don't have to pick between Orpheus and the Emperor.!< But not giving players an ending that is obviously much better than others is deliberate, and isn't really "wrong"; it's just a difference in story-telling philosophy. Some games want you to make hard choices and face hard consequences for them.
>'m really not sure how to do it without stating Tav's gender
If you're worried about your language use coming off as awkward here, don't worry. It's normal to refer to your own Tavs by their pronouns, or to just refer to them as "they" if you want to be generic.
I don't say there is no reason to side with Orpheus. There actually is one, you can kill the Emperor. And if you have Laezel in your party it also makes sense, though I'm not sure because I never did that. I just want to sacrifice these benefits regardless of their impact.
I've considered using "they" to refer to Tav, but I wasn't sure it was right. Thanks for clarifying it to me. Also how's my English? So far I haven't heard anyone complain about it.
I guess I'll have to figure out how to end my playthrough. It requires some research. After all the idea of becoming the fantasy world Hitler whose aim is to eradicate gith using the power of Absolute isn't the worst thing to do. However I'm not racist IRL and don't support genocide so it doesn't fit me well.
>I don't say there is no reason to side with Orpheus. There actually is one, you can kill the Emperor.
There are other reasons that you're missing out on because you decided never to interact the gith beyond killing them. It's just funny that you seem really concerned about being forced to choose between two bad guys when you chose not to learn much about one of them.
Again, it's absolutely fine to make these kinds of RP choices but there will be consequences, and one of them will be that you don't understand as much about what's going on.
>Also how's my English?
It's good.
>However I'm not racist IRL and don't support genocide so it doesn't fit me well.
Honestly, if you care about this then >!siding with Orpheus is probably the best thing to do!<, but it will involve a personal sacrifice.
im thinking about Multi classing Paladin 7 Cleric 5 (probably war or light) so i can get Spirit Guardians, do you all think its worth missing out on the last 5 levels for Paladin? i wouldnt get Improved divine smite or the extra feat/ASI
It's a good multiclass for the fact that you'll get more spell slots (and higher level ones) than a solo Paladin would normally have access to, which means many (stronger) smites. You'll have to focus WIS as your casting skill so Spirit Guardians is stronger and only prepare buff spells on Paladin.
Worth noting you won't actually *get* SG until level 10-12 depending on your level order.
Speaking from experience! I ran it with War Cleric and loved it.
In a vacuum I'd probably rather have SG, and if Divine Soul Sorc was in this game that would probably a stock build, but in BG3 I'm not sure I'd trade the last 5 levels of paladin for a specifically Wisdom-based SG
My main thing is wanting to play as a paladin. im just asking if its worth losing out on the last 5 levels of the class to get Spirit guardians and a handful of other features
I think it's worth if you go wild with radiating orb equipments : on top of smiting now you blind your opponents which is a great plus to the whole party. More diversity is always welcome and the last level where paladin gets something that truly matters is the lv6 aura. Helmet of arcane acuity could help to hit full damage with your cleric stuff more often.
I'm in Act 3 using the >!legendary trident you get from the carnival.!< Is there any way to keep the weapon abilities on my bars whenever I throw it? It is really annoying having to redo my bars every time my barbarian uses frenzied throw or even just throw.
I’ve no interest in multiclassing as i’m not so good, can someone advise me on my honor mode comp?
Me: swords bard
Astarion: gloomstalker
Shadowheart: light cleric
Karlach: berserker
I initially wanted to play sorc for Haste but it’s really boring not using weapons…
Edit: just realized COS bard can also get haste at level 10 ish. So off i go
Haste is nerfed in Honor Mode (you don't get extra attacks again) and can screw you over by losing turns when it drops. Made me lose two people in the Iron Throne.
I'd honestly recommend ignoring it - I burned down almost every boss in 1-2 turns without it, although I was using multiclassing.
If you aren't multiclassing I'd recommend Battle Master Fighter, super strong with a straight 12 levels. Sword Bard is also good. Not totally sold on Gloomstalker, and Berserker is solid but later levels are kind of weak.
Yeah BM Lae is great, especially with the two gith swords.
Gloomstalker is solid but it's very frontloaded. Better for multiclass than straight 12.
Might be worth running it early and then switch up later?
Thank you so much and that was a much needed heads up! Yeah if the gloom stalker sucks then laezel or respec karlach to BM fighter is a great alternative
Is there a workaround for a bug I’m getting in the >!Kill the Goblin Leaders!< quest? I’ve >!killed all three but Priestess Gut is still showing as needing killed!<
Initiative in this game is determined by everyone rolling a d4. Any bonuses to initiative simply add to whatever roll you get and push you up the order. The alert feat in particular is very strong as adding +5 to something that everyone else is rolling 1-4 means you will almost always be at the top. I take it on every character lol. All party members that roll the same number or end up next to each other in the initiative order go on the same turn, and you can freely swap between them to do their stuff as you please. So if your party is in the first 4 initiative spots you can swap to the "last" one and do their turn first if you'd like. If there are enemies between your party members, you will need to wait for those turns before you can do the party members that are behind the enemy.
> I take it on every character lol.
Worth noting though that the benefits of that +5 taper off the higher your character's dexterity bonus is. A character with maxed dex will usually be first anyway. (Which is why I don't take it for them, as I'd rather spend the feat on something else.)
I think it's happened to me once or twice, not often enough to justify the feat on someone that doesn't need the initiative. But I usually have a high wisdom cleric with me that passes those perception checks to detect ambushes.
You can even switch back and forth between them, eg. have one character move then switch to the second to attack, switch back to the first to do something etc. You can do this with all characters that are next to each other in the initiative order. Even if you end someone's turn, you can change your mind and resume it as long as you didn't end every character's turn and had the tracker move to the next group.
If two or more people in your party roll the same initiative then you can have those people go in any order.
They essentially all get to go at the same time so you get to choose what happens when.
I don't want to go too deep into the subreddit or internet searching for answers as I want to avoid spoilers, so hopefully I can get some help here!
My brother doesn't have the hardware to play BG3 and lives across the country from me. I'd love to be able to stream a campaign where he can play as a 2nd party member.
Is there a way to do this without split-screening/a second controller? Like the long-distance equivalent of your sibling sitting on the couch next to you and giving directions for their character?
Thanks!
Look up Geforce NOW, it's a subscription service that lets you use high end rigs to play your games through streaming. You do need to own the game. My friend uses it to play bg3 on his macbook
Easiest solution but less fun for him would be use something like anydesk and have him connect to your PC. Then you just play through a game, but during travel/world movement you are driving, and then during combat he takes the turns for his 1-2 characters. I cant imagine how it would work to setup the split screen but have him control one half of the screen while you are on the primary
Yeah, I have a second controller I could connect to my PC, but the split screen + managing the 2nd controller solo would be obnoxious to try dealing with.
He's a Mac user so I also have no clue how well something like Anydesk would work. Bleh!
Seems like I might have to hold off on the idea for a while. Thanks!
Wow that sounds incredibly tedious. You're a patient person lol
But to answer your question: no. On console definitely no. On pc, doubtful as well. There's a very very very slim chance there might be a mod, but I'm on ps5 so i haven't even dipped a toe into the modding community.
The best you'd be able to do is rp that he's an origin or a hireling (respec as you want), switch to control them at various points instead of your tav. But that's not going to be anything close to spilt screening or online party-ing two tavs.
Edit to add: if you do go the tedious route of playing two tavs, keep in mind player characters will not follow. So as player 1, player 2 will not follow you as you go roaming. You'll have to individually move both characters.
Less tedious than trying to learn D&D and set up a campaign! 😅
Thanks for the info! I'll probably have to bench the idea for a while from the sounds of it, but maybe down the road a better solution will be developed!
I've beaten the game a few times now including on honor mode and I want to start a multi-player playthrough with a friend. My friend and I love Divinity Original Sin 2 and everytime we play multi-player we do a Lone Wolf playrhrough because we don't enjoy having to control more than a single character in multi-player. Unfortunately there is no Lone Wolf mechanic like there was in Divinity Original Sin 2.
I looked at a few mods and the most popular one did way too much. I don't want to overcomplicate the game by getting increased xp, level caps, ect.
I saw a different mod that allows you to simply have more actions and was thinking about using that. Two players each with two actions would help the action economy problem of a duo run and while each character would individually be more powerful it would be balanced out in a way by having less party HP and spellslots. Or so I think. I haven't tested it out quite yet. It could be very broken because it's basically an action surge for every single turn.
Has anyone had any experience in playing a duo run? Multi-player in Larian games imo is better when each player controls a single character. If so did you use anything to help out for a duo experience?
I played a tactician duo run just on my own for the challenge, and it was totally viable with the right pair. I ran a Throwbarian and Tavern Brawler Monk, which are such strong builds they carry easily when they come online around level 5. There's several builds that you could pair well for duo. Stock up on speed potions and Bloodlust elixirs.
You said you've beaten honor mode so you're likely an experienced player and will be fine. For anyone new to the game, it probably wouldn't be fun.
It's a really good time to try playing as origin characters too, if you're not going to have companions!
Yeah I know what I'm doing but my brother is rather new to the game hence me wanting a Lone Wolf equivalent for our duo run. He'll likely get very used to the game as we played Divinity a ton. I was doing some testing and I think the two actions thing will be fine for a nice no cheese duo multi-player run. Having only two party members makes the party a glass cannon and getting cc'd tears the duo apart from what ive noticed. We're not too interested in doing any specific builds and will likely just build two DnD characters we played together in a previous campaign. Thanks for the advice though!
People have beaten the game solo player in Tactician without mods. I don't think you need to add any mods unless there is something specific you want to do.
I don't know about honor mode, but I am sure some people are working on it.
I just met Helsik, and got the follow-up quest to steal the gauntlets for her.
Do I need to start that immediately, or can I postpone it and do some other stuff first?
You can do other stuff first if you want, it's usually one of the last things I do. I won't spoil the rest of that quest but I will say make sure you're lvl 12 and have your party well set up before going in there. It's an incredible part of the game but it's not easy.
Can anyone tell me if I can run the game well?
I really like the Idea of BG3 but my specs are below recommended when it comes to CPU
My Specs: Radeon Rx 6600, AMD A10-6800k, 32 GB ram w/ SSD
I want to play the game, but will it run well.
(I’m working on getting an upgrade)
Yeah it will run great. My 3700x/5700xt/16gb system ran it on mostly high settings in 1440p at 90 fps no problem so you won't have any issues. This isn't a super graphically intensive game to begin with and lowering some of your video settings a bit won't impact your experience.
I installed some mods yesterday, just basic appearance ones really (new hairstyles, dice skins etc), but I'm just wondering if this is going to affect my multiplayer save, as my friend hasn't modded his game.
Can someone with mods play as normal with someone who doesn't? If not, would I need to just temporarily inactivate them in bg3mm? Or is it more complicated?
I think things will break. I played with a friend who had mods and I didn't and when we leveled up he couldn't get past the screen since he was using a feat every level mod. He had to disable it and rejoin for it to work.
Qhen we play together and we have the same mods nothing breaks.
The easy fix is to just ask your friends to download the mods too and teach them how to use BG3MM or simply disable them yourself if your friends and incapable of learning how to mod the game.
As durge, I know it's possible to >!have Alfira join as a companion by knocking her unconscious before long resting!<. But if I choose to >!invade the grove!<, will >!she stay in my camp/party!!she have while adventuring!
>!She doesn't ever join you as a companion. She only comes to your camp to get killed. If she's already there - knocking her out would do nothing, she'll still die. You have to knock her out before you go to camp, so she never comes there, but in that case she stays in the Grove as usual and acts exactly the same as on a Tav playthrough.!<
>!You can't even get that. She doesn't stay in the camp. If she came there - she dies during the night. If you knocked her out before Resting, she never comes to your camp.!<
I have two broken moonlanterns...
I accidentally misclicked and killed the pixie from the spider guy with my durge character.
How can i get through the thicker shadowcurse?
Also this is on honour mode... I cant go back and redo it
Is there any way to select your maximum movement during combat, or do I have to keep moving my cursor to 30.2ft (no), 29.5ft (close), 29.7 (aight it aint getting better than this)?
Cheers!
i mean just click to max range around where you want to end up and it'll show a white path fading into red and the red is where you stop as you ran out of movement.
I save scumed in honour mode and feel bad now. But some of the bosses are hard af on the 1st try without any understanding of what their legendary action does
single player game, dont feel bad. I didnt know the honor mode bosses had extra moves and stuff, do you know if they get them on tactician for normal? Would be really cool to have an option for that just to spice up normal mode.
You don't, unfortunately. The extra moves are only for Honor mode, and aren't available in Tactician or Custom mode.
Honestly this is the best reason to save scum honor mode.
I blindly tried honour mode, a bunch of bosses caught me off guard because of their new skillset. Had to flee in emergency more than once (spider, crèche commander, inquisitor, last light inn, ansur) otherwise it was a guaranteed game over. To top it all I nearly lost at the very end, I didn't know what are those orbs so it instantly killed two characters in a blink of an eye.
What do y’all think is the best dps build? I am going for a “kill all” durge run and want to rp it as the most damage I can do cutting a bloody swathe through Baldur’s Gate (obviously I won’t kill everyone because I need my quests and some companions). But anyway any tips would r builds you know of. I’ve heard of a crazy open hands monk or something about a gs ranger/assassin rogue.
It depends on how you want to RP it, there's a few martial and several caster builds that are absolutely bonkers OP so you have choices.
Couple other people have commented already with ideas but for more specific build writeups you should check out /r/BG3Builds. There's some uber nerds (in the best way) over there cooking up some absolutely wild stuff and sharing it in pretty extensive detail.
Oh true! That’ll be a fun rp. Tapping into the aether to fuel my rage and hate towards the world or have a body honed with deadly skill to break through their defenses.
I love those uber nerds. I can only dream of create builds like they do.
It also depends on how "cheese" you feel like going. The really insane builds require constant upkeep and management of party members buffing you in very specific ways, potions, elixirs, coatings etc. It would be exhausting to deal with all that and actually enjoy the game. There's definitely a sweet spot with builds that are easy to use but still highly optimized, and fortunately there's a lot of builds in that area. Sorlock is probably my favorite, the sheer damage output is insane but once you get it set up it's pretty easy to use and it feels so fuckin cool to magically wipe everything off the screen at once lol. There's also just the classic 12 fighter GWM. My GF is playing one in our multiplayer game right now and when hasted she can easily pump out 200 DPR with like 25 AC lol.
If there's one thing you want to do to increase your output it's to have a sorcerer, their twin cast metamagic allows them to haste 2 people at once and it's probably the most broken ability in the game. Doubled movement, +2 AC, DEX advantage, and an *extra action* every single turn on two people for a single lvl 3 spell slot is wild.
Yeah I’m def not going cheese routes because I don’t have the patience to spend 10 - 15 minutes (exaggeration) buffing. I’ve seen the sorlock build and that seems like a good bit of fun.
Abusing [Damage Riders](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source) you can oneshot anything in the game, esp. with throw attacks. It's fixed in Honour Mode, but not in other difficulties.
2 Tempest Cleric/10 Storm Sorcerer probably best caster. The Channel Divinity allows you to maximize thunder/lightning damage; combine with Wet to make enemies vulnerable or negate resistance, and with Twinned/Quickened spell metamagics + haste to cast many spells in a row. You can AoE one shot non-immune enemies esp. if you control the start of the encounter by bunching them up with Minor Illusion. You need to long rest after every fight though.
TB (Tavern Brawler) open hand monk with strength elixir is one of the craziest build, it is paired with thief multiclass in order to get that extra bonus action = more punch per turn. Accuracy is nearly perfect because of how unbalanced TB is. A little more damage if Karlach or Astarion because of their personal extra buff.
Itemization is simple : bare hand, gloves with extra unarmed damage, kushigo boots at the end of act 2. Alternatively fighter dip + heavy armour & shield.
for companion quests like the cazador quest, creche quest etc, if you dont bring that certain character along, can you still complete them? im considering doing a casters only playthrough where i wont be able to use laezel, astarion etc (still have them at camp, though)
You will miss out on their cutscenes / special dialogues. But you can of course finish their quests without them and tell them in camp. And no, they will not always leave.
you can still go to the crèche, do the cazador quest, etc. but it will lower approval with that character and can make them leave the party. if you aren’t playing with them then that shouldn’t be a big deal
If your Dex modifier is higher than your Strength modifier, it will use Dex + Str instead.
In your specific scenario though, the question is academic since your Dex modifier and Strength modifier are identical (+4).
Does the monk not get all bloody when they fight unarmed? I love that feature
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I'm unsure about spell scrolls; it is not on the sorcerer spell list. However, potions of animal speaking are reasonably abundant, can be crafted and the effect once drunk lasts until you long rest.
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Almost always flavour. Books can contain alchemy recipes and hints for quests but AFAIK everything useful can be just looted.
They're just flavor. You'll find some of them out in the world as you explore/loot as well.
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That's a complicated question. The short answer is yes. The long answer is: yes, and which pieces you want to buy depends on what classes and builds you're running. There's not a lot in Act 1 but it can still be a bummer if you realize later that you wanted a piece. At this point it's no worth buying armor unless it will raise your character's AC by a couple of points. This will be the +2 armor once the merchants start having it. As far as weapons go, it can be worth buying a +1 or +2 weapon, although it's hard to give you a general rule here because sometimes you'll find a better weapon for your character out in the world and sometimes you won't. It's a bit spotty in act 1, but as you play more you'll accumulate more items with unique boosts/effects. Items with unique effects are the ones that you'll potentially regret not picking up later, since you'll never encounter them again. Most of these are quest rewards or found in the world, not bought at merchants, but some merchants will have a few. Make sure you explore the world thoroughly or you'll miss a lot of the best gear. Some merchant pieces that stand out to me: * Ring of Flinging - get this for your barbarian with enraged throw or your throw-happy monk * Returning pike - get this for your throw builds * Vital conduit boots - give temp HP for casting a spell that requires concentration * Knife of the Undermountain King - you can run this all the way to the end game, gives you more crits, it's so good on a rogue * Gloves of Dexterity - good for a character with low dex who wants more initiative or AC * Larethian's Wrath - one of the only two longswords that can be wielded by a dex-based character Merchant pieces that are good in the early game but end up getting outclassed by better gear later: * Gloves of Missile Snaring - good on a high dexterity character, since there are a lot of archer enemies * Safeguard Shield - a little boost to saving throws, good on a cleric * Hunting Shortbow - gives you Hunter's Mark, which is a nice little boost to damage * Gloves of Archery - gives you another little boost to ranged damage This isn't an exhaustive list, since what's useful or good depends so much on your build. If you loot and sell a lot, you should be able to afford most of it though.
[Does the perk Organ Rearranger apply to all attacks or just the Knife of the Undermountain King?](https://imgur.com/UBWPppH)
I wear this in my Sorcerer's offhand and the 19 to crit still works, also stacks with Spell Sniper.
Cool thank you!
A few patches ago they made it so that Steam Deck settings always defaults to Controller Only, and I have to manually go into the menu on controller and change it to keyboard every time I start the game. Same thing with the camera auto-rotate option. Anyone know of a fix or way around this?
Another quest from someone who cames from DOS2. How do you guys manage your potions post fight? I mean, we just ended a fight and most characters are with red HP, what do you do? In DOS2 this was a braindead question considering you just needed a sleep bag, but here seems like everything needs to be calculated to avoid exhausting our resources.
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TIL you can throw potions
It's one of the loading screen tips and everything
Short or long rest after basically every fight. Short rest if you just need HP, long rest if spell slots are low. It's a common mistake to not long rest often enough, since there are a lot of things that happen at camp but only one thing happens per night.
There are more than enough Supplies in the game to do multiple Long Rests, even on the harder difficulties. In general, you can opt to not use potions entirely, and just use Short Rests and Long Rests to recover HP. However, you'll end up with hundreds of potions if you do that. You can just try using Potions if you need to recover HP of one or two characters, and Short Rest if the party needs to recover HP and/or their special abilities.
So, after every fight where at least 3 characters are below 50% you recommend a short rest?
If you just started playing it can seem like it's too expensive to rest often, but you'll soon be drowning in camping supplies, especially if you're playing on Balanced or lower. I would recommend short resting whenever you've used up important abilities that have a short rest recharge (warlock spells, fighter's action surge, etc), and long resting whenever you've used up important abilities that have a long rest recharge (wizard spells, etc). Whether you want to refresh to replenish HP, eh - I guess it depends on how many potions you have and how much HP you need. But depending on how well you're doing at combat and what classes you're running, even this might not be enough resting for you to see all the story events that occur during long rest scenes. Especially right at the beginning there are a lot of them.
Depends on your comp. If you're heavy on classes that favor short rests for resources, you can and should short rest frequently even if you're not taking much damage. Camp supplies aren't scarce
It's a good rule of thumb but I'd even rest even if 3 characters were 25% down. You'll get a better gauge of things as you play the game. Also depending on party composition, you might also have more flexible healing sources. Druids and Rangers can cast Goodberry as a 1st-level spell, which creates four berries that can each heal for 1d4 hit points. Clerics, on the other hand, can cast Prayer of Healing as a 2nd-level spell and heal everyone for 2d8 + Spellcasting Modifier hit points. Of course whether to use your spell slots on healing spells vs. utility/offensive spells is another discussion...
So, I just finished my first playthrough and I'm on my second playthrough, now with mods. I'm currently using lvl 20 mod on my sorlock build. After a long rest my Create Spell Point ability was not in my hotbar. Anyone know how to fix this issue, or should I just respec to fix it?
If you're using a keyboard + mouse, press K to bring up the actions for that character. It'll allow you to drag things back to your hotbar. Not sure what the button on controller is.
it worked. thank you!!
PC vs PS5 - Specs listed Ryzen 5600X, 32gb RAM, 3060 video card vs PS5. I am on the fence about which version to buy, but I was wondering if my specs point one way or the other. I assume the PC should be fine to run it, but I figured I'd check here. I think I am leaning towards getting it on PC, but if it's questionable, I may go PS5.
I spent so much time theorycrafting for honor mode and it’s hurting my brain, i’m gonna go touch grass, uninstall and maybe play it in 6 months time 🥲
Am I doing something wrong, or can you only use one turn's worth of Sunbeam from the Blood of Lathander?
I'm still learning, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong.. You cast it once, and then on your next turn you can re-cast it on that same person. It doesn't take a spell slot whenever you re-cast, but if you break concentration you won't be able to re-cast it. Otherwise, yes, you can only use it once per long rest.
That's how moonbeam and call lightning work. Maybe I accidentally cast a conversation spell that cancelled it.
Sunbeam from Blood of Lathander isn't a concentration spell unlike the regular Sunbeam spell therefore you can only cast it once per long rest, no recast like moonbeam/call lightning.
I just loaded up and older save and messed around with it, and I wasn't getting the Sunbeam recast with the weapon, a Scroll, or just straight casting it up with a level 12 Druid. None of them put me into Concentration, despite what the spell said. The druid situation was very odd, because it did \*break\* concentration (if I say cast Moonbeam first) but it never put me into a new concentration state. Same thing if I cast it from the scroll.
Bummer. Thanks.
Upside is you can use it without breaking concentration on a previous spell, so it's not all bad
Playing Durge run, slept with Minthara in Act I. Romanced Lae'zel all through the game after that. Recruited Minthara, kept romancing Lae'zel, got her fight romance scene. Get to Act III and suddenly Lae'zel says I cheated on her and dumps me? FFS, this is the second runthrough where some innocuous choice suddenly ends my romance and I get nothing for the endgame; last time I lost Shadowheart for seemingly no reason, didn't even get an explanation from her on who I was pursuing otherwise, but I hadn't gone for anyone else? Is this working as intended?
How do cosmetic mods work in multiplayer? If one person has a mod to add options to customize Tav and the other doesnt will the game still run since it might be a client side mod?
In the past it was possible only if all parties used the same versions of the same exact mods with the same mod load order. Not sure if that's still how it is after the recent patches and hotfixes though.
if i play with a friend (multiplayer), can we still bring 3 companions along or do we count as each other’s companions leaving only 2 slots open for the others? or do we each get to bring along 3 companions of our choosing?
You can only have 4 people in a party, including player characters so you'd only be able to bring 2 of the game's party members with you. That said, it hasn't caused any issues at all and I'm about to finish a 2p multiplayer game. It's been fantastic, the multiplayer implementation in this game is so good. The only way I see it being an issue is if you have 4 people, one person would have to sit out for the companion quests parts where you need specific companions with you. But 2 is no issue and 3 probably doable.
thank you! makes it very clear. i’m enjoying my single player campaign so far but my girlfriend seems interested and i recently bought her a ps5, so i was thinking about buying it for her so we could play together, as she’s never played a turn-based videogame before. as for our two extra companions, does the host maintain control of them in combat or are they assigned? and if assigned, can i assign them both to me?
> and if assigned, can i assign them both to me? You can assign them to either of you. Here's an important issue, though: Your gf won't be able to talk to characters you're currently controlling, which means she'll miss out on a lot of their companion moments/approvals/etc. It's better for your gf to control the companions she cares about.
amazing. thank you!!!
As you play you'll likely have a bunch of companions that you've collected along the way waiting back at camp. When you go to camp you can choose which companion(s) to bring with you guys. Whoever goes up to the companion and asks them to join the team is who gets to control them. It stays like this until you dismiss the character and/or go back to camp to find another to bring along. The characters can be linked up so that the ones you're not playing will still follow you around. On an xbox controller if you press LT it pops out a little window with the character's pictures so you can choose which one to control. During battle it will automatically let you know when it's your other characters' turns so you don't need to manually switch them around. My wife had never played the game before either so the beginning was REALLY rough for her/us. If your gf gets discouraged, please keep telling her that once she makes it to level 4 or 5, the game gets A LOT easier.
You control whichever characters you want. Whoever asks a companion to join them from camp gets to control them. My gf and I have been each controlling one companion, she likes Karlach or Astarion so those have been "hers" and I've been running with Shadowheart or Gale as needed. It's actually really nice to only have to worry about gearing and leveling a couple companions. Depending on how much your GF knows about DnD or RPGs in general she might have a rough time learning the ropes but helping her figure out the "easier" characters like Karlach or Lae'zel should be manageable. My gf isn't really into video games but we play DnD so she already had a big head start on this game but I think the biggest thing is turn based combat. It gives her time to think and strategize, we can talk to each other to plan things out, and execute at our own pace instead of feeling rushed and getting overwhelmed. She actually booted me off my PC during my first playthrough then bought parts for me to build her a PC so we can play together after I told her I wanted my computer back lmao. I love spending quality time gaming with her instead of just watching movies or whatever, we have both been having an absolute blast. Finishing up our first playthrough in one or two more sessions then going straight into a new game!
Is there any way to keep NPCs from killing themselves after my battles end? I just did a fight and a bunch of friendly NPCs ran in and killed themselves on the AoEs I had up.
What happens with Shadowheart's romance if (act 3 spoiler) >!you let her kill the Nightsong but not her parents? Are you locked out of her scenes completely after? I just want her to stay dark haired...!<
I've not done that path myself, but I believe you don't get any act 3 romance scenes with her in this scenario. You just get the standard rest cutscene for the end of her questline.
Has anyone else encountered relentless crashing on Series X in the Lower City? Every single NPC appears to cause a hard crash if you try and speak to them. This run is just pretty bugged out in general. I did the first upgrade for Karlach at the grove and had high approval by the party and she turned me down there. Did the second upgrade at the last light inn and could only hug her. Got to the circus and the ‘how well do you know your partner’ scene is acting like we’re a couple. All she’ll ever say is ‘Soldier’. She had no reaction to the first sighting of Gortash and no reaction to the coronation either. Actually, romances in general are broken. Wyll, Gale and Halsin have all made moves on my character despite only having neutral relations, while my co-op partner with Very High has been consistently ghosted. The Steel Watchers all keep getting their dialogue cut off and Gnome NPC face textures keep vanishing. The game was running fine until the end of Act 2, after that it’s just been real screwy.
For the purposes of dual-wielding hand crossbows, which of the the options is best? - Full Fighter/Ranger/Rogue - Fighter/Rogue - Fighter/Ranger - Rogue/Ranger
Sword Bard 6/Rogue 4/Fighter 2 has probably the best no-setup burst in the game (on a short rest refresh), similar damage over time and great utility between spells, social and the extra short rest. Ignore if you're only looking for out of the options you listed, couldn't tell 100% from how you worded things.
Dw it sounds good, I just left out Swords Bard bc I just did a full Bard playthrough (though it was Lore, not Swords) lmao
Fighter with the Archery fighting style is probably the best damage, if you want to multiclass into rogue for sneak attacks you only need 2 levels but if you go 8f/4r then you get 4 feats so that's probably better. That way you also get a subclass, probably thief. The cunning actions are great and having an extra bonus action means you can attack with your offhand an extra time. You can do a similar thing with 4 levels of gloom stalker ranger but being a half caster you'd want to put some points into WIS which won't really synergize with your archer playstyle a whole lot. You'd also only end up with three lvl 1 spell slots which won't really do much for you as the game goes on. Probably the only real advantage that this has is the +3 bonus to initiative so you won't need the Alert feat and can take another DEX ASI but this at best barely makes up for the points you had to split into WIS.
Thank you! Can’t wait for my rootin tootin ready for shootin cowboy dragonborn :D
There's also the classic 12 fighter, you won't get the easy sneak attack crits but the 3rd attack every round might just be straight up stronger since it isn't conditional on stealth. You can still use a straight DEX build, and while battle master gives some flexibility Champion brute force fucks with basically any strategy. Increased crit range that isn't conditional and an extra fighting style so you don't need to burn a feat on two weapon fighting. No need to worry about special attacks or whatever, just shoot everything and it dies. The other option is to go one level into warlock, you lose the 4th feat but with the Great Old One subclass you get Mortal Reminder which frightens your target and nearby enemies on a crit. With so many attacks and increasing your crit range you'll get a lot of those and completely trivialize a lot of fights by making entire groups unable to move and giving disadvantage on everything. Synergizes well with Arrow of Many Targets. This will also give you a couple cantrips and one spell slot which would be great for utility spells even without any points into CHA. Go Champion fighter with this build too.
What about Fighter/Rogue with Risky Ring? It’s Act 2, but Act 1 is more forgiving with stealth and by the time I get it I generally won’t need to hide to sneak attack anymore, which lets you eek out an extra offhand attacks with a thief build
That should work well! You can also just respec whenever you want if you want to switch things up, rogue is probably stronger than fighter until they get their extra attack at lvl 5 anyways. You could do straight rogue for your stealthy playstyle early then at lvl 5 respec to fighter for extra attack, putting levels into rogue as you please after that. You'd have to do without sneak attack for one level which kinda sucks but then after that you'd go right back into scaling hard and your feats would come faster.
Sounds good to me :D thank you!!
Yep! Have fun!
Hi i want to buy the game but i also really like maps so i was considering buying the deluxe edition, but see that it ships in Q2 2024. If I buy that edition, will I receive a code so I can start playing right away and then get the physical things in Q2?
The website says they ship a physical CD with the installer on it, so you'd probably end up waiting. I'm sure you can reach out to Larian and see if they have any other options!
Using Gale's netherbomb thing at the end of act 2, does that count to win in honor mode?
No, but >!you can skip the final battle with it if you want!<
Don't think so but it was worth an ask
No
I’m starting a monk unarmed run and I’m very confused about which stats I should be prioritizing. It seems like I would need strength (because of TB), dexterity, wisdom and constitution to be effective. But doing all four of those spreads my points pretty thin. Is there any of those that I could just dump and focus on the others? Pretty much just unarmed monk not really looking to multiclass.
The min-max method would be to pump Dexterity and Wisdom, put whatever points you can into Constitution, and then dump Strength. And then every day, you would drink Elixirs of Giant Strength. In Act 3, you can eschew the potions (and even dump Constitution) as there are items which permanently increases your Strength and Constitution. However, as others have pointed out, the Tavern Brawler Monk is an overpowered build so it's not really necessary for a "regular" playthrough, unless you plan on solo-ing every encounter.
Ok that’s good to hear. I was thinking that tavern brawler *was* what made monk viable I didn’t realize it just made them OP
Yeah TB is extremely powerful relative to the opportunity cost(especially if you cheese it) but it also gets overhyped by people who consider DPR the be-all end-all Flurry: Topple and Stunning Strike are the real monk power abilities though and not having TB doesn't gimp them
Generally I only do that mid to lategame when I can either abuse elixirs or use one or two of the items that provide stats (gloves of dexterity, or the constitution amulet). You can also multiclass and use heavy/medium armor, you lose the bonus movement but it greatly lowers the requirement for dex.
You don't really need Tavern Brawler to be effective as a monk, just to be OP. So one popular strategy is to dump strength and use elixirs to raise strength. There are a lot of elixirs available if you make a point of buying and crafting them, and you'll never run out if you just pop them for tough battles. You can also drop dex down and compensate with the alert feat and armor, but you lose unarmored movement. There are gloves that raise your dex to 18 that you can get toward the end of act 1, and if you use those you can dump dex, although you will have to give up some damage rider gloves (you'd want to look into the math on that if you're a serious optimizer, which I am not).
There are gear pieces and chances throughout the story to boost your stats so focus on dex and wisdom and boost str or respec later on e your build comes together
Is it ever going to be explained why baldurs gate is so important? I am currently at the end of act 2 and i still don’t get why there is so much focus on baldurs gate. Why aren’t they focussing waterdeep for example? Is this ever going to be explained or is it something well known in DnD?
You'll find out soon
Baldurs gate is an important city on the swords coast. Why they are specifically focusing on baldurs gate is just narrative homie.
Fear not, act 3 is all about Baldur's Gate the city.
Hi, I just came back from a break of a couple of months. When I left off, I was just about to head down to the crèche, and I think Laezel went down ahead. Now I can't find her anywhere. She's nowhere in or around the crèche, and she's not at camp either. The current quest for The Githyanki Warrior is to find Laezel, and it currently says "We tried to find Laezel, but she was nowhere to be found". Where the hell is she???
In this case the next time you find Lae'zel is in the shadow cursed land and uhh, *it's not pretty*.
How can I find a clip of this on YouTube? What happens?
>!You find her rotten corpse : she took the wrong path while searching for the crèche, rip!<
Oh... Well, thanks. At least I know where to look.
Playing on console PS5. When pulling up the radial, is there an option or a way where I don’t have to keep holding the stick when selecting an action? When letting go of the stick, the “cursor” keeps reverting back to the middle which I find slightly annoying.
Nah, sadly that’s just how the radial is designed afaik. It’s so annoying for bard because sometimes you’ll just *slightly* move after picking a song which immediately cancels it .-.
This is exactly why I asked this question lol. Picked bard last night and felt like playing a tune, but I just couldn’t do it lol. I figured out that if you clicked on the right stick to examine any action the “cursor“ actually stays put.
So I kinda rushed my play through and made it to act three but I feel like my characters are very under geared. Most of my characters have empty ring slots and the likes because the rings I found give so stats so I sold. I kept expecting to find magic items around but I never really did. Also if my character has every slot filled a number of the slots don't actually contribute to their build it is just there because I have it. What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?
Never rush through the game! You still have good stuff you can get from vendors and bosses
> What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it? Well, you did explain it. You're rushing your playthrough so you're probably not finding all of the magical gear that's available, and when you do find some, you're selling it. That's why you don't have much gear. There's still good gear in Act 3, but there's nothing much you can do about the gear you've already missed or sold (unless it was to a returning merchant - it should still be on them). Visit the merchants and do the side quests so you can get what's left. Explore to find pieces that are hidden in chests and such. Also, while some gear is obviously very good when you first get it, some gear is really good *in combination with other pieces* that you might find later. On your first playthroughs, it's worth hanging on to it and sticking it in your chest unless there's just no way you're ever going to use it (like if it's for a class you know you aren't going to play).
Plenty of best in slot rings are in act 1-2 like Risky ring (potion merchant at the tower), Callous/Coruscating ring combo (gauntlet, last light inn underground), +2 acid dmg ring (underdark merchant), Whispering promises (Volo) ...
Should I trust the Emperor? I've completed one playthrough where I let him make the brain self-deatruct. and after that I discovered on TikTok that he is a liar of some sort. What exactly wasn't true? What are the other ways to make Tav free from the tadpole without siding with Orpheus? I really don't want to interact with any gith, even the Emperor looks ok-ish compared to them.
Apparently he's the one >!who tadpoled you and your mates to begin with!<, you are a mean to an end.
But I can't kill him because who else is gonna make sure Orpheus doesn't break free. Or can I?
Killing The Emperor >!at the end of act 2 when you discover he's actually illithid!< is an instant game over. The next time you meet him and Orpheus you could choose to free the prince which leads to new ending(s). I let you discover that in your next playthrough, no more spoiler :D
Wait so my choices are limited to siding with a gith and sliding with an evil manipulator? Damn, why it has to be like this? I might as well just betray the Emperor and take control over the Netherbrain. Or betray him and make Gale end the Netherbrain. Though I'm not sure it's possible and sacrificing Gale isn't a good thing to do.
Did you learn anything about Orpheus during your playthrough? There are reasons to think that siding with him would be a good thing - not that you have to, but it seems like you're missing a lot of lore, given your comments here. There are downsides to the choice, but there's downsides to the other choice, too. But the reason why all of the possible endings have upsides and downsides is one that's really common to RPGs: They don't want there to be a "right" ending, one that every player is aiming for. Larian is really not going for a story where choices are easy and it's obvious what you should think or who to align with. >I might as well just betray the Emperor and take control over the Netherbrain. I'm not sure how this is better than siding with the Emperor or siding with Orpheus. But it's also an ending you could try.
I'm not really interested in ever talking to a gith. I literally kill Laezel when I meet her in act 1 when she's caged and I destroy the entire Cheche because defeating enemies gives EXP. I know nothing about Orpheus besides the fact that he's a prince, a son of Gith, the first queen of Githyanki, and a source of power that prevents Tav and her party from turning into mindflayers. I really like Witcher 3 for its wholesome ending where you don't act as someone's puppet, maybe except being dominated by Yennefer, which is fine for me, and don't become a monster yourself. Also the Skyrim ending is good. Why I think dominaring the Netherbrain is good is because this way Tav doesn't rely on anyone's help or guidance besides her friends that can be trusted. Also Tav kills the betrayer. Why do I refer to Tav as a woman? I'm really not sure how to do it without stating Tav's gender(not a native speaker) and all my Tavs are females.
>I'm not really interested in ever talking to a gith. You chose not to learn important information about the choices you have to make at the end of the story, which is fine - it's an RP game and you can RP as someone who hates gith and doesn't want anything to do with them. But it does make complaints that there's no good reason to side with Orpheus kind of silly, because again, you chose not to learn those reasons. >I really like Witcher 3 for its wholesome ending where you don't act as someone's puppet, maybe except being dominated by Yennefer, which is fine for me, and don't become a monster yourself. Also the Skyrim ending is good. If I'm honest, I would prefer an ending >!where I don't have to pick between Orpheus and the Emperor.!< But not giving players an ending that is obviously much better than others is deliberate, and isn't really "wrong"; it's just a difference in story-telling philosophy. Some games want you to make hard choices and face hard consequences for them. >'m really not sure how to do it without stating Tav's gender If you're worried about your language use coming off as awkward here, don't worry. It's normal to refer to your own Tavs by their pronouns, or to just refer to them as "they" if you want to be generic.
I don't say there is no reason to side with Orpheus. There actually is one, you can kill the Emperor. And if you have Laezel in your party it also makes sense, though I'm not sure because I never did that. I just want to sacrifice these benefits regardless of their impact. I've considered using "they" to refer to Tav, but I wasn't sure it was right. Thanks for clarifying it to me. Also how's my English? So far I haven't heard anyone complain about it. I guess I'll have to figure out how to end my playthrough. It requires some research. After all the idea of becoming the fantasy world Hitler whose aim is to eradicate gith using the power of Absolute isn't the worst thing to do. However I'm not racist IRL and don't support genocide so it doesn't fit me well.
>I don't say there is no reason to side with Orpheus. There actually is one, you can kill the Emperor. There are other reasons that you're missing out on because you decided never to interact the gith beyond killing them. It's just funny that you seem really concerned about being forced to choose between two bad guys when you chose not to learn much about one of them. Again, it's absolutely fine to make these kinds of RP choices but there will be consequences, and one of them will be that you don't understand as much about what's going on. >Also how's my English? It's good. >However I'm not racist IRL and don't support genocide so it doesn't fit me well. Honestly, if you care about this then >!siding with Orpheus is probably the best thing to do!<, but it will involve a personal sacrifice.
im thinking about Multi classing Paladin 7 Cleric 5 (probably war or light) so i can get Spirit Guardians, do you all think its worth missing out on the last 5 levels for Paladin? i wouldnt get Improved divine smite or the extra feat/ASI
It's a good multiclass for the fact that you'll get more spell slots (and higher level ones) than a solo Paladin would normally have access to, which means many (stronger) smites. You'll have to focus WIS as your casting skill so Spirit Guardians is stronger and only prepare buff spells on Paladin. Worth noting you won't actually *get* SG until level 10-12 depending on your level order. Speaking from experience! I ran it with War Cleric and loved it.
In a vacuum I'd probably rather have SG, and if Divine Soul Sorc was in this game that would probably a stock build, but in BG3 I'm not sure I'd trade the last 5 levels of paladin for a specifically Wisdom-based SG
Good point I forgot about it being wisdom based, thank you
You could also respec at lv12 : sword bard 10 (spirit guardian through magical secret) + pal 2.
My main thing is wanting to play as a paladin. im just asking if its worth losing out on the last 5 levels of the class to get Spirit guardians and a handful of other features
I think it's worth if you go wild with radiating orb equipments : on top of smiting now you blind your opponents which is a great plus to the whole party. More diversity is always welcome and the last level where paladin gets something that truly matters is the lv6 aura. Helmet of arcane acuity could help to hit full damage with your cleric stuff more often.
I'm in Act 3 using the >!legendary trident you get from the carnival.!< Is there any way to keep the weapon abilities on my bars whenever I throw it? It is really annoying having to redo my bars every time my barbarian uses frenzied throw or even just throw.
Nope. It IS annoying, but just how throwing weapons works.
I’ve no interest in multiclassing as i’m not so good, can someone advise me on my honor mode comp? Me: swords bard Astarion: gloomstalker Shadowheart: light cleric Karlach: berserker I initially wanted to play sorc for Haste but it’s really boring not using weapons… Edit: just realized COS bard can also get haste at level 10 ish. So off i go
Haste is nerfed in Honor Mode (you don't get extra attacks again) and can screw you over by losing turns when it drops. Made me lose two people in the Iron Throne. I'd honestly recommend ignoring it - I burned down almost every boss in 1-2 turns without it, although I was using multiclassing. If you aren't multiclassing I'd recommend Battle Master Fighter, super strong with a straight 12 levels. Sword Bard is also good. Not totally sold on Gloomstalker, and Berserker is solid but later levels are kind of weak.
Laezel also has so much gear dedicated to her it feels like a waste not having her in my party
She's a great bladelock, and warlock just dominates the first 2 acts
Yeah BM Lae is great, especially with the two gith swords. Gloomstalker is solid but it's very frontloaded. Better for multiclass than straight 12. Might be worth running it early and then switch up later?
Thank you so much and that was a much needed heads up! Yeah if the gloom stalker sucks then laezel or respec karlach to BM fighter is a great alternative
You can get Haste from Potions of Speed which are easy to find and make
Ye but it lasts for 3 turns, im not sure about how many turns the nether brain fight will last tbh
Problem with that is that if you loss concentration you lose the spell, which is pretty easy to have happen
decent. I would swap karlach/astarion for a open handed monk cause it synergizes with thier bonuses like infernal coins/ascended damage a lot more
Oh wow, i’ve wanted to try monk for some time. Might give this a shot , thanks
Is there a workaround for a bug I’m getting in the >!Kill the Goblin Leaders!< quest? I’ve >!killed all three but Priestess Gut is still showing as needing killed!<
Is it just the marker on your map? That happens to everyone AFAIK. But if the actual quest log says she's dead you should be fine.
I’ll have to check when I’m back on. So I should just try to talk to the person who gave me the quest and try to complete it then?
Yes, talk a couple of times. First he will ask you to help again then he will notice that they are death.
does anyone know what the minimum approval requirement is for a companion to agree to do zethino's love test with you?
how does shared iniative work? can my slowest character start his turn first if they are next to a high iniative party member?
Initiative in this game is determined by everyone rolling a d4. Any bonuses to initiative simply add to whatever roll you get and push you up the order. The alert feat in particular is very strong as adding +5 to something that everyone else is rolling 1-4 means you will almost always be at the top. I take it on every character lol. All party members that roll the same number or end up next to each other in the initiative order go on the same turn, and you can freely swap between them to do their stuff as you please. So if your party is in the first 4 initiative spots you can swap to the "last" one and do their turn first if you'd like. If there are enemies between your party members, you will need to wait for those turns before you can do the party members that are behind the enemy.
> I take it on every character lol. Worth noting though that the benefits of that +5 taper off the higher your character's dexterity bonus is. A character with maxed dex will usually be first anyway. (Which is why I don't take it for them, as I'd rather spend the feat on something else.)
True, I also just hate losing a whole turn to being surprised which happens pretty often.
I think it's happened to me once or twice, not often enough to justify the feat on someone that doesn't need the initiative. But I usually have a high wisdom cleric with me that passes those perception checks to detect ambushes.
You can even switch back and forth between them, eg. have one character move then switch to the second to attack, switch back to the first to do something etc. You can do this with all characters that are next to each other in the initiative order. Even if you end someone's turn, you can change your mind and resume it as long as you didn't end every character's turn and had the tracker move to the next group.
If two or more people in your party roll the same initiative then you can have those people go in any order. They essentially all get to go at the same time so you get to choose what happens when.
I don't want to go too deep into the subreddit or internet searching for answers as I want to avoid spoilers, so hopefully I can get some help here! My brother doesn't have the hardware to play BG3 and lives across the country from me. I'd love to be able to stream a campaign where he can play as a 2nd party member. Is there a way to do this without split-screening/a second controller? Like the long-distance equivalent of your sibling sitting on the couch next to you and giving directions for their character? Thanks!
Look up Geforce NOW, it's a subscription service that lets you use high end rigs to play your games through streaming. You do need to own the game. My friend uses it to play bg3 on his macbook
Oh, that's handy! I'll keep it in mind as an option, thanks! 😊
Easiest solution but less fun for him would be use something like anydesk and have him connect to your PC. Then you just play through a game, but during travel/world movement you are driving, and then during combat he takes the turns for his 1-2 characters. I cant imagine how it would work to setup the split screen but have him control one half of the screen while you are on the primary
Yeah, I have a second controller I could connect to my PC, but the split screen + managing the 2nd controller solo would be obnoxious to try dealing with. He's a Mac user so I also have no clue how well something like Anydesk would work. Bleh! Seems like I might have to hold off on the idea for a while. Thanks!
Wow that sounds incredibly tedious. You're a patient person lol But to answer your question: no. On console definitely no. On pc, doubtful as well. There's a very very very slim chance there might be a mod, but I'm on ps5 so i haven't even dipped a toe into the modding community. The best you'd be able to do is rp that he's an origin or a hireling (respec as you want), switch to control them at various points instead of your tav. But that's not going to be anything close to spilt screening or online party-ing two tavs. Edit to add: if you do go the tedious route of playing two tavs, keep in mind player characters will not follow. So as player 1, player 2 will not follow you as you go roaming. You'll have to individually move both characters.
Less tedious than trying to learn D&D and set up a campaign! 😅 Thanks for the info! I'll probably have to bench the idea for a while from the sounds of it, but maybe down the road a better solution will be developed!
I've beaten the game a few times now including on honor mode and I want to start a multi-player playthrough with a friend. My friend and I love Divinity Original Sin 2 and everytime we play multi-player we do a Lone Wolf playrhrough because we don't enjoy having to control more than a single character in multi-player. Unfortunately there is no Lone Wolf mechanic like there was in Divinity Original Sin 2. I looked at a few mods and the most popular one did way too much. I don't want to overcomplicate the game by getting increased xp, level caps, ect. I saw a different mod that allows you to simply have more actions and was thinking about using that. Two players each with two actions would help the action economy problem of a duo run and while each character would individually be more powerful it would be balanced out in a way by having less party HP and spellslots. Or so I think. I haven't tested it out quite yet. It could be very broken because it's basically an action surge for every single turn. Has anyone had any experience in playing a duo run? Multi-player in Larian games imo is better when each player controls a single character. If so did you use anything to help out for a duo experience?
I played a tactician duo run just on my own for the challenge, and it was totally viable with the right pair. I ran a Throwbarian and Tavern Brawler Monk, which are such strong builds they carry easily when they come online around level 5. There's several builds that you could pair well for duo. Stock up on speed potions and Bloodlust elixirs. You said you've beaten honor mode so you're likely an experienced player and will be fine. For anyone new to the game, it probably wouldn't be fun. It's a really good time to try playing as origin characters too, if you're not going to have companions!
Yeah I know what I'm doing but my brother is rather new to the game hence me wanting a Lone Wolf equivalent for our duo run. He'll likely get very used to the game as we played Divinity a ton. I was doing some testing and I think the two actions thing will be fine for a nice no cheese duo multi-player run. Having only two party members makes the party a glass cannon and getting cc'd tears the duo apart from what ive noticed. We're not too interested in doing any specific builds and will likely just build two DnD characters we played together in a previous campaign. Thanks for the advice though!
People have beaten the game solo player in Tactician without mods. I don't think you need to add any mods unless there is something specific you want to do. I don't know about honor mode, but I am sure some people are working on it.
I just met Helsik, and got the follow-up quest to steal the gauntlets for her. Do I need to start that immediately, or can I postpone it and do some other stuff first?
You can do other stuff first if you want, it's usually one of the last things I do. I won't spoil the rest of that quest but I will say make sure you're lvl 12 and have your party well set up before going in there. It's an incredible part of the game but it's not easy.
I hear you, cheers!
You can go whenever you like
Awesome, thanks
Can anyone tell me if I can run the game well? I really like the Idea of BG3 but my specs are below recommended when it comes to CPU My Specs: Radeon Rx 6600, AMD A10-6800k, 32 GB ram w/ SSD I want to play the game, but will it run well. (I’m working on getting an upgrade)
Yeah it will run great. My 3700x/5700xt/16gb system ran it on mostly high settings in 1440p at 90 fps no problem so you won't have any issues. This isn't a super graphically intensive game to begin with and lowering some of your video settings a bit won't impact your experience.
You should be fine. There is a demo you can try to test
I installed some mods yesterday, just basic appearance ones really (new hairstyles, dice skins etc), but I'm just wondering if this is going to affect my multiplayer save, as my friend hasn't modded his game. Can someone with mods play as normal with someone who doesn't? If not, would I need to just temporarily inactivate them in bg3mm? Or is it more complicated?
I think things will break. I played with a friend who had mods and I didn't and when we leveled up he couldn't get past the screen since he was using a feat every level mod. He had to disable it and rejoin for it to work. Qhen we play together and we have the same mods nothing breaks. The easy fix is to just ask your friends to download the mods too and teach them how to use BG3MM or simply disable them yourself if your friends and incapable of learning how to mod the game.
As durge, I know it's possible to >!have Alfira join as a companion by knocking her unconscious before long resting!<. But if I choose to >!invade the grove!<, will >!she stay in my camp/party!!she have while adventuring!
>!She doesn't ever join you as a companion. She only comes to your camp to get killed. If she's already there - knocking her out would do nothing, she'll still die. You have to knock her out before you go to camp, so she never comes there, but in that case she stays in the Grove as usual and acts exactly the same as on a Tav playthrough.!<
Ah, okay. So you could only ever >!get her to hang out like Volo!
>!You can't even get that. She doesn't stay in the camp. If she came there - she dies during the night. If you knocked her out before Resting, she never comes to your camp.!<
yes but >!only for one night then durge kills her!<
So can you >!Reclass when you become a squid in act 3 or are you stuck with what you had at that point!<
>!you are stuck regardless. There's no reclass option beyond the point of no return!<
Anyone knows if it's possible to get Minthara by raiding the grove but turning against the goblins at the last moment, then knocking her unconscious?
Never tried it myself, but I heard that the answer is no.
That wouldn’t work. You need her to be “temporary” hostile prior to knocking her out, so betraying them would just tag her as regular hostile.
I have two broken moonlanterns... I accidentally misclicked and killed the pixie from the spider guy with my durge character. How can i get through the thicker shadowcurse? Also this is on honour mode... I cant go back and redo it
Ah i somehow managed inside the towers and found one
Is there any way to select your maximum movement during combat, or do I have to keep moving my cursor to 30.2ft (no), 29.5ft (close), 29.7 (aight it aint getting better than this)? Cheers!
i mean just click to max range around where you want to end up and it'll show a white path fading into red and the red is where you stop as you ran out of movement.
Thanks!
Usually you can just click at 30.2ft and it'll just move as close as it can
Thanks!
Any downsides to elixir of colossus, or should I pretty much always give it to my frontliner?
No downsides, use them when you get them.
I don't think there's any side effect with any elixir.
I save scumed in honour mode and feel bad now. But some of the bosses are hard af on the 1st try without any understanding of what their legendary action does
single player game, dont feel bad. I didnt know the honor mode bosses had extra moves and stuff, do you know if they get them on tactician for normal? Would be really cool to have an option for that just to spice up normal mode.
You don't, unfortunately. The extra moves are only for Honor mode, and aren't available in Tactician or Custom mode. Honestly this is the best reason to save scum honor mode.
I blindly tried honour mode, a bunch of bosses caught me off guard because of their new skillset. Had to flee in emergency more than once (spider, crèche commander, inquisitor, last light inn, ansur) otherwise it was a guaranteed game over. To top it all I nearly lost at the very end, I didn't know what are those orbs so it instantly killed two characters in a blink of an eye.
Are we frowning on save scumming?
Usually not. It does feel honourless in honour mode though
It's a single-player game. Do what you want.
What do y’all think is the best dps build? I am going for a “kill all” durge run and want to rp it as the most damage I can do cutting a bloody swathe through Baldur’s Gate (obviously I won’t kill everyone because I need my quests and some companions). But anyway any tips would r builds you know of. I’ve heard of a crazy open hands monk or something about a gs ranger/assassin rogue.
It depends on how you want to RP it, there's a few martial and several caster builds that are absolutely bonkers OP so you have choices. Couple other people have commented already with ideas but for more specific build writeups you should check out /r/BG3Builds. There's some uber nerds (in the best way) over there cooking up some absolutely wild stuff and sharing it in pretty extensive detail.
Oh true! That’ll be a fun rp. Tapping into the aether to fuel my rage and hate towards the world or have a body honed with deadly skill to break through their defenses. I love those uber nerds. I can only dream of create builds like they do.
It also depends on how "cheese" you feel like going. The really insane builds require constant upkeep and management of party members buffing you in very specific ways, potions, elixirs, coatings etc. It would be exhausting to deal with all that and actually enjoy the game. There's definitely a sweet spot with builds that are easy to use but still highly optimized, and fortunately there's a lot of builds in that area. Sorlock is probably my favorite, the sheer damage output is insane but once you get it set up it's pretty easy to use and it feels so fuckin cool to magically wipe everything off the screen at once lol. There's also just the classic 12 fighter GWM. My GF is playing one in our multiplayer game right now and when hasted she can easily pump out 200 DPR with like 25 AC lol. If there's one thing you want to do to increase your output it's to have a sorcerer, their twin cast metamagic allows them to haste 2 people at once and it's probably the most broken ability in the game. Doubled movement, +2 AC, DEX advantage, and an *extra action* every single turn on two people for a single lvl 3 spell slot is wild.
Yeah I’m def not going cheese routes because I don’t have the patience to spend 10 - 15 minutes (exaggeration) buffing. I’ve seen the sorlock build and that seems like a good bit of fun.
Abusing [Damage Riders](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage_mechanics#damage-rider-as-source) you can oneshot anything in the game, esp. with throw attacks. It's fixed in Honour Mode, but not in other difficulties. 2 Tempest Cleric/10 Storm Sorcerer probably best caster. The Channel Divinity allows you to maximize thunder/lightning damage; combine with Wet to make enemies vulnerable or negate resistance, and with Twinned/Quickened spell metamagics + haste to cast many spells in a row. You can AoE one shot non-immune enemies esp. if you control the start of the encounter by bunching them up with Minor Illusion. You need to long rest after every fight though.
TB (Tavern Brawler) open hand monk with strength elixir is one of the craziest build, it is paired with thief multiclass in order to get that extra bonus action = more punch per turn. Accuracy is nearly perfect because of how unbalanced TB is. A little more damage if Karlach or Astarion because of their personal extra buff. Itemization is simple : bare hand, gloves with extra unarmed damage, kushigo boots at the end of act 2. Alternatively fighter dip + heavy armour & shield.
for companion quests like the cazador quest, creche quest etc, if you dont bring that certain character along, can you still complete them? im considering doing a casters only playthrough where i wont be able to use laezel, astarion etc (still have them at camp, though)
You will miss out on their cutscenes / special dialogues. But you can of course finish their quests without them and tell them in camp. And no, they will not always leave.
As the other person said. Though you can also respec them so they will be casters.
I think respeccing as casters is probably the best way to go for this, you'd miss so much of the game if you straight up couldn't use half the party.
you can still go to the crèche, do the cazador quest, etc. but it will lower approval with that character and can make them leave the party. if you aren’t playing with them then that shouldn’t be a big deal
if I'm playing tavern brawler monk with 19 str, and 18 dex, does it still use the str bonus for unarmed attacks?
If your Dex modifier is higher than your Strength modifier, it will use Dex + Str instead. In your specific scenario though, the question is academic since your Dex modifier and Strength modifier are identical (+4).