(originally posted throughout the month of August, 2023)

early unsorted Baldur's Gate 3 thoughts after ~10 hours of futzing around in the first area and 5 of those were while i was blackout drunk

Playing Dark Urge as a Githyanki Vengeance Paladin. It's honestly a bit of a bizarre and incongruous combination considering I usually try to just Be Nice in these games. I'm constantly worried I'm not being vengeful enough.

Please give me a button to highlight all interactables. My CRPG muscle memory is holding tab 90% of the time and if it ain't broke don't fix it. Similarly, I wish I just had a party stash.

I have run multiple 5e campaigns and have a pretty solid idea of how the system works, so the plethora of minor changes to make things run as a computer game are all throwing me way off. Mage Hand has hit points and charges on Short Rest, what the fuck? I can swap out prepared spells at any time?? Jumping??? Huh????

I knew in my head that the fundamental math of bounded accuracy means you're usually siting at about a 60-70% hit rate, but actually seeing the percentage value like it's XCOM or some shit perpetually hovering between 40 and 70 is weirdly disheartening. Same for constantly seeing CHECK FAILED popping up over everyone's head any time we walk past shit. Don't tell me if it failed, just show it if I succeed alright?

Party member stack rank so far:

1. Karlach. Seems cool. I've got a soft spot for the Blood War since Planescape Torment and Hordes of the Underdark.
2. Shadowheart. I guess the joke is that she's the token good/nice teammate despite being a cleric of an evil god?
3. Lae'zel. I'm an amnesiac Githyanki so she treats me like I'm an annoying newbie at work and it's kind of funny.
4. Withers. Doesn't actually count as a party member but the fact that he just shambles out of the dungeon where you find him and then shows up later totally unprompted is hilarious actually.
5. Gale. Seems like a self-important prick. Also a wizard; fuck him.
6. Wyll. Dude feels like the paladin from the Honor Among Thieves movie but played completely straight instead of for laughs. Unbearable.
7. Asterion. Vampire dandy is one of my least favorite character archetypes.

So far (Act 1, 25ish hours), Baldur's Gate 3 is an aggressively normal Forgotten Realms CRPG.

So it's within expectations, I guess.

Like, the mindflayer stuff is interesting because that shit is all way above the current level pay grade, but it's just bubbling in the background for now because my level 3-5 party can only handle goblins and gnolls. I had the same problem with Baldur's Gate 1 and that picked up a bit once you reach the city, so I'm hoping 3 will as well, but I don't know how it could like, surprise me.

The companions are a major facet of this. Again, I'm still in Act 1 so I assume (hope) there's going to be some more depth or wiggle room later, but they're all kind of just plain, and mostly the "sexy" races (humans/elves/half-elves; tieflings were weird and creepy back when Planescape introduced them and I don't think they are anymore since everyone just treats them as Sexy Devils rather than rolling 5 times on the "fucked up fiend traits" table, I will absolutely dump them into this same box). There isn't a single dwarf, gnome, half-orc, or dragonborn companion (hirelings don't count and you know it).

Because BG3 has multiplayer and the whole "Origin Character" system, the companions all have to follow the same template: average enough to allow for player input, with some kind of dark secret or ticking bomb that enforces party conflict, like a DM handed out secret index cards. Lae'zel probably seems new and interesting to someone who has never heard of githyanki but she does not appear to have any notable traits beyond being a "standard" githyanki (read: is an asshole to everybody). Karlach has a cool backstory but I'm pretty sure going up against Zariel is outside the scope of this campaign and she's already made up with Wyll.

Now, in a way, I'd say this is pretty true to Baldur's Gate as a series; the party members of 1 and 2 don't have that much going on narratively either, usually just having some kind of recruitment quest (or maybe a romance quest). But that was because they were designed to be hot-swappable based on the needs of your party composition and alignment; none could be so important you couldn't ditch them at a moment's notice. That's fine when there's like 20 of them, but if my active party is limited to 4 and all the companions are standing there in camp waiting for me to talk to them, I want a little more.

I wanna see some of the weird shit. Hordes of the Underdark came out 20 years ago and in that game you travel to the coldest layer of hell so that you can speak with the Knower of Names, who has the body of a butterfly and the head of a woman, to learn the name of the true love of a planetar to rouse him from his eternal slumber. Sure, Halsin the druid can Wild Shape into a bear, but in NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer I recruited an ancient bear god with rainbow fur who swore an ancient pact to destroy the cursed spirit-eater possessing my soul. In Baldur's Gate 2 a random sidequest led me halfway across the entire game world to kill a ranger and I ended up with the wizard stronghold.

I dunno. As a AAA release for a level 1-12 party I don't think Baldur's Gate 3 can actually be anything other than A Normal Sword Coast Adventure, I guess. I'm broadly enjoying it, but here's hoping it'll pull something crazy out of its sleeve as I start to hit those middle levels. There's a lot of game to go.

I have completed a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3

three out of five
it's a fun 5e combat toy box and a bog standard, narratively unremarkable DnD sword coast adventure otherwise, which lined up with my expectations
(not likely to get a Mask of the Betrayer level DLC to redeem it either, i don't think)

Act 3 is a mess held together with spit and prayers and it really should have been Act 1 instead (Act 1 should have been Act 2, Act 2 should have been Act 3)

Ending stuff ranged from underwhelming to actively annoying IMO

more thoughts to come when it isn't late at night
(encounter tables, scale of conflict, map/quest design)
someone remind me to come back to this later

#games #crpg