First off, I'm playing as Tammerine (pre-lich Tammy) a strongheart halfling archery ranger with animal focus. My go to familiar is the cat or spider, my go to animal companion is the wolf or bear (or giant raven).
Feel free to share your own life lessons, I'm currently in part 1.
1) being evil is super easy, barely an inconvenience. But it also means Karlach and I can never be friends... *restarts game*
2. Don't have your cat attack someone in a burn zone. *summons new familiar*
Being able to understand this thread might just get me to suck it up and buy this game.
The start of the game does seem to be threading the wire of "hiring all the cool characters from the memes and trailers" and "killing them off-hand thinking they're a random encounter."
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3. The more your companions whine about resting too often, the more you should rest. (Okay, this isn't really a life lesson per se, but make sure you rest a lot in Act I. Of course resting irl is always good...)
4. There are surprisingly many problems you can solve by having a barbarian throw something at it. You know, like a spear or a gnome.
5. The whole world can burn to the ground as long as Scratch and the Owlbear cub are safely at camp chasing each other around.
6. In the blighted village there is a gnome tied to the blade of a running windmill. There are two levers you can choose from to turn it off, lever on the right speeds up the windmill, launching the unfortunate gnome to his death.
I have no idea what the lever on the left does.
7. When you make a deal with a ogre mercenary company to fight for you in exchange for a thousand gold pieces (when I had 81 to my name, just having made it rain gold at the merchant) it's best to summon them for a battle they have no hope of walking away from *pours a 40 on the corner in memory of Lumpy*
8. I am now triggered by opening barn doors.
Being able to understand this thread might just get me to suck it up and buy this game.
Yes, you should.
I say that as someone that usually has zero interest in this type of game.
Some highlights so far.
I got the achievement for defeating something with an unarmed strike when my cat killed priestess Gut with a critical hit after Gut killed my wolf.
I was fighting giant eagles after I had to pillage their nest and the last one knocked Lae'zel off the rooftop with its gust ability and she was down to 1 hit point and was out of healing potions so she climbed the ladder and struck the killing blow.
Was fighting gnolls and the last one was on a tall rock and so Karlach was the only one that could climb up so she gets hit with a critical hit and is down to 5 hit points and she hits the gnoll with a critical hit knocking it down to 2 hit points and after her round was finished it was the gnoll's turn so the only thing she could do was shove him off the rock, which it failed it's saving throw and went splat.
I also found an encounter that was straight up ripped from my a#$+$$$ brother's campaign as a kid, including the set up and my character level.
I found the beholder at 5th level, it did not end well (though it did end quickly).
Fortunately it's just a spectator, not a full on beholder. But yeah... that's a little underleveled for that area.
One of my criticisms of Larian's world design (not just BG3 but the DOS games as well) is that they often design the world in a way that makes it look like you can explore anywhere you like, open world style, but in reality the world has monster walls you can very accidentally walk into and get torn to shreds. They either need to adjust their style or level adjustment for encounter design, or make more linear worlds where you're not going to wander somewhere you shouldn't before it's time.
Your story about Karlach (who is Best Girl, who my PC may have abandoned her love interest for at the end...) leads to another lesson:
9. If in doubt, Shove the motherf%!#ers.
10. Unless you want to loot them. Then pickpocket, then shove them.
10. Stock up on Arrows of Ilmater (prevents whoever is hit from healing) for harder opponents.
When I fought Minthara I had Karlach and Lae'zel going around shoving her minions into the pit while my archer ranger picked her apart from the other side.
Goddamn stupid f$@%ing tests of Shar!!
I've never been good at stealth in video games.
Capn, have you gone to Moonrise first (after having been to Last Light)? If not, leave the tests of Shar. You don't want to get to the end of that dungeon until after you go to Moonrise once. (You will go back to Moonrise later).
I don't want to spoil anything, but this is an area where everyone telling you, "Go to this Quest Place" DOES NOT mean "do all other quests first before going to this place," as it often does in computer RPGs. In this case, you know how all the NPCs keep saying, "Hey, you should really go to Moonrise"? It actually means "Go to Moonrise right f+!#ing now."
Larian's area design is extremely horrible in terms of its relationship to plotting/pacing, and often you end up not heading toward the places where you should be going and/or even outright avoiding the one place you should be. I've been (re)playing DOS2 and it's the same problem... the plot and encounter designers very clearly want you to do certain things in a particular order, but the world designers apparently got an incorrect memo they were building an open world. (And meanwhile the sidequest designers are just f+#*ing a!*%~$$s and/or 13. Main quest: "The world is ending RIGHT NOW." Sidequest: "Please resolve this argument between a dog and a cat.")
As for stealth, IIRC the shift key will show you the vision cones without actually sneaking so you can get a sense of creatures' movement/line of sight. (If you are on console, I have no idea what button it is. While I've played with the controller (I play on SteamDeck), it is harder to figure out how all the commands map.)
Also, I believe for many of the tests, only one person needs to do them, you don't need to drag everyone through. So for example for the stealthy one, just have your stealthiest/can turn invisible party member do it.
Yes, I went to Moonrise Tower first. :)
Okay good. (You're moving fast!) (I didn't and then screwed up and had to replay about four hours worth of adventure.)
Yeah, my entire first weekend was basically a wash because I helped invade the druid grove and didn't find out that that would shut off Karlach until Sunday.
Okay good. (You're moving fast!) (I didn't and then screwed up and had to replay about four hours worth of adventure.)
I just rolled with that, it was too much work to go back and do it.
I also did the Goblin Camp completely arse-backwards, by sneaking into the heart of the keep via the underground passages, befriending the bizarrely Scottish spiders, releasing said spiders, then healing them as they tore through the goblin ranks.
That then made the entire camp hostile to me (it wasn't me, it was the spiders!) and I had to fight my way out instead of being able to poison half the camp first. I also couldn't save the owlbear cub doing it that way. I only barely survived by summoning the ogre reinforcement squad and letting them soak up a lot of incoming fire.
Yeah, Larian's quest design is pretty ropey. In both cases, doing the quests in reverse order broke some things, which seemed a bit lame given how much they're boasting about their interactivity.
Yeah, my entire first weekend was basically a wash because I helped invade the druid grove and didn't find out that that would shut off Karlach until Sunday.
The famous one glorious moment of drow sex versus Spend a satisfying rest of the game with Karlach conundrum.
Karlach is best girl, but I feel like I need to see what happens once going the other route. Especially since there are ways a good character can sort of accidentally annoy the druids and/or tieflings. (Like in a new play through, Zevlor attacked me.... For reasons I wasn't expecting him to attack me for.)
I started a Shadowheart origin play through and that's interesting. Some dialogues and extra content related to her being a Sharran show up.
Yeah, my entire first weekend was basically a wash because I helped invade the druid grove and didn't find out that that would shut off Karlach until Sunday.The famous one glorious moment of drow sex versus Spend a satisfying rest of the game with Karlach conundrum.
...I don't want to play this game anymore...Yeah, my entire first weekend was basically a wash because I helped invade the druid grove and didn't find out that that would shut off Karlach until Sunday.The famous one glorious moment of drow sex versus Spend a satisfying rest of the game with Karlach conundrum.
I will note that you can still recruit and romance Minthara (it involves knocking her unconscious) doing a good run and keep Karlach. You just miss That One Scene.
Oh yeah, the infamous softcover altar scene which is no doubt has a modded hard-core scene
I ended up looking up how to cheese it and I ended up having Astarion trap find his way through and then I triggered the trial and then switched back to Astarion and grabbed the mcguffin.
The other trials I figured out on my own and somehow got the devil a@$%+~! to kill himself and his minions, which was hilarious!
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So, the bartender thought he'd drink me under the table and ended up exploding.
F+%~ing lightweight.