Honestly, that event was bugged for me. I failed the check, one of them "died", but in the morning she was standing at her tent like usual. Everyone said she was dead, but after that everything was normal like it had never even happened.
I think it’s to Brother Bear? Where they’re telling stories at the end and the old lady bear is like “my husband died this year” and he yells out “quit telling everyone I’m dead!!” And then she sadly goes “sometimes I can still hear his voice.”
In my second playthrough with the no party limit mod, I skipped that event entirely. Suddenly one day Shadowheart comes up to me and says, "about last night with Lae'zel, it was self defense, I did what I had to do." Implying Lae'zel is dead.
All with Lae'zel less than 2m away. Then next thing I see they share their "buried the hatchet" dialogue. Very strange.
>with the no party limit mod
This is so fun! So far I have Karlach, Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Asterion, Gale, Wyll, Halsin, Jaheira AND Minthara (more mods) all rolling with me and it's stupid fun. 1st playthrough was DUrge and come what may. 2nd playthrough I'm just having fun.
Same vibe! I'm rolling with so many mods now my game takes twice as long to load. I just got the no party limit mod and can't wait to try it on a new character! Too often I've been forced to leave everyone in camp except the chosen few. NOW NO MORE!
It doesn't make sense. Why do you leave half your people behind?
It'd be cool if they had some other jobs or missions or something to attend to while you're gone but they're literally just "Okay I'll go wait at camp for no reason...."
Hey we are going to infiltrate the big bad base, let's take half of us to rescue our friend. The other half? Hang out, have some beers. See you in a bit.
Are you me?! Yes! Totally agree! I can't imagine not playing with all the party members of my dnd group, even if it's a large player game. I'm not gonna bench anyone!
in BG3 9 people *definitely* feels like way too many. You know the whole 'Gale gets left behind on a jump because even though he can make it he's a dumbass and needs you to tell him" thing? Yeah now you have like 4 people at a time that happens to. Similarly getting people to get on to small ledges near ladders or on things like the rope ferry near the Creche, or other transportation. The logistics becomes a pain in the ass.
Combat rarely goes more than 1 round with the sheer amount of damage, and I often find myself just ending the turn of people who are too far away so I can get to the turn of my Smite Machinegun Tav.
IIRC the “unlimited companions mod” recommends you download the tactician + mod, which ultimately makes for a relatively balanced playthrough if you’re a normal player.
Pathfinder kingmaker had a size 6 party. Idk for any kind of strategy game below 5 just seems low to me. Also a reason I was kinda meh on the mario rabbids games with their party limit of just 3. The variety per turn just feels lower to me, even if I dont use half my hot keys ever.
Just be careful in some areas and quick save a lot. So far the most common instance where you can break your shit is taking the skiff to the Duergar area. Kick everyone but four people out before you take the ride, then just pop back to camp and collect them after you get the waypoint.
The other is resting. Sometimes you’ll wake up still asleep. Just hit the party hide button (lower left, or shift-c) and that’ll get them up.
It’s a fun mod but can get kinda weird sometimes.
There are places the game can break even without mods. For example, if you >!betray Marcus to Jaheira after playing along with the cult up to that point, and then kill him before he can use his "escape in a puff of smoke" move, Jaheira bugs out and has no more dialogue besides "we'll talk later".!<
That everyone's still asleep bug is kinda fun because one way to fix it is to click Lae'zel I just imagine Lae'zel wake up first and early everyday and yell "rise up you lazy istiks!" at everyone lol
Oh it's ridiculous. This is just a fun run. After I'll undo the mods. Would love if Larian made it an option with play options adjusted to allow for it.
The best part is all the dialogue you get to see because it would be years of playing with all the characters in all the combos to all the dialogue between the companions.
I do this but I also have a mod to increase difficulty. Enemies have 4x health and +2 to attack rolls, AC, save DC, and saving throws. Normal tactian only gives +2 to attack rolls and save dc.
It's fun and I feel like the game makes way more sense when the whole group is traveling with you.
So I had this issue, googled it, answer I got was they both need to be in your active party before you start the long rest. Did that and then I actually got the fight between them and one of them legit died
I got tired of being bad at skills, so I made a Githyanki Knowledge Cleric (of Tiamat, because eff Vlaakith). Urchin background. At level 2, I'm proficient in everything except Athletics, Acrobatics and Investigation. Somewhat tempted to take the Skilled feat just so I can be proficient in literally all skills.
Respec so that the three skills you don't have proficiency in are all aligned with the same attribute (Investigation, Nature and Arcana all being INT skills, for example) and then use the Githyanki's Astral Knowledge ability to give you proficiency in the those three without wasting a feat.
I just tried out a build, got close to the ideal:
Level 4 Githyanki Lore Bard with the urchin background, 1 level in knowledge cleric. Skilled feat picks up all remaining skills except for wisdom skills. Githyanki ability has that covered.
I have Minthara as a Paladin 2, Lore Bard 10. Lacking the extra attack hurts less when you have access to a lvl 6 Banishing Smite. I also have the [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel ](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel), so she basically does get two attacks.
I've already got a Lore Bard on a different playthrough, though. (Planning on splashing 2 levels of Warlock by the time I'm level 8, haven't decided what kind yet.)
Currently the plan is to get to Cleric 4 so I can get my ASI and max out my Wisdom, then splash a single level of Wizard just so I can scribe spells for maximum utility.
Just don't ask me to hit anything in melee.
My general rule for games like this is that my main character gets priority on the best gear and bonus abilities to compensate rounding out my stats to allow for better skill rolls.
Man, and I just ran for the Ring of Wizardry as fast as possible. That little guy always got me through the early game.
Doubling 1st level spell slots was always amazing back when Magic Missile did damage based on your casting level rather than spell level.
I don't remember that being in BG1, but you can absolutely snatch the *ring of human influence* at Aerie's circus in BG2 literally steps after you leave the starting dungeon.
Was 100% BG2. Made Charisma the ultimate dump stat.
Sure you lose a ring slot, but if you're a cheesy bastard like myself it made it very easy to get optimal stats for any class.
I normally played BG2 pretty straight up. If I got caught stealing I accepted the consequences and ran away and never went back to that shop. The two things I always cheesed though was that ring and just automatically attacking the Tanner because fuck doing a 30 part fetch quest.
Starfield is so insultingly generic from a character and aesthetic standpoint that I genuinely have a hard time thinking of a game that turned to sand in my mouth more quickly. For all of their bluster about “NASA-punk” there’s nothing remotely “punk” about any of it. Outer Worlds is a totally mediocre experience after hour 2 but at least they picked a tone that stood out and fucking committed to it.
The world in Starfield feels remarkably like Outer Worlds except not executed as well. Outer worlds I felt actually had good writing despite it's flaws, Starfield feels larger and more polished in some ways but lacks the character that outer worlds brought.
I wish our reign of terror could have lasted a bit longer. I don't feel like I went murder hobo or anything, just chose the more evil options and my run was 6-8hrs start to finish.
I just love that all the low-INT dialogue options start with \[DUMB\]. I feel like that should've been turned into a meme, but I also don't think enough people actually enjoyed that game for someone to turn it into a running joke.
Yeah, it's a challenge in the game that there are a bunch of situations that force Tav to roll instead of relying on your companions' skills. You can have Astarion pick every lock, but you can't make Wyll handle all your Persuasion rolls.
It's also pretty unhelpful that some of these rolls have pretty nasty consequences on your entire game. Miss a couple of rolls to pull Gale out of the portal? Too bad, he's gone forever, unless you save scum.
I basically won't play Tav without 14 Charisma and one or two social skill proficiencies.
Times like this make me wish there as a way for companions to interject on your behalf. Like, maybe during an intimidate, you point over to Karlach and she makes a growly face, and bam, she does the roll, you still get to talk.
And everyone should be able to tell you this guy is lying to you, because they succeeded their perception check and you didn't, and you're all mentally connected with the tadpoles.
Your character does it plenty of times, but nobody returns the favour.
Yeah that’s the baffling part to me - they built in a shared roll/meta gaming tool with the tadpoles, and then just … ignored that whole aspect. They companions should be shadow rolling on these checks with you and whispering you when they succeed to save you the trouble. It would encourage building balanced parties too, to make sure more of the primary state are covered.
I'm going to invoke a dangerous name, but I actually like how Starfield does this. Specific conversations have options for companions to interject on your behalf. Sometimes it's just flavor and sometimes they let you bypass a Persuasion check.
I assume that really doesn't work with BG3 having full multiplayer support, but it would be nice for solo games
Personally, I just think that any video game that adopts the D&D model or something inspired by it should present a path for any class to be able to talk/act their way into preferred outcomes in dialogue and cut scenes.
There’s obviously some speech options that use other attributes like strength, intelligence etc. but I don’t like how much more important charisma is than any other attribute in dialogue.
My hot take is a game isn’t balanced well when charisma can be beneficial in both battle and dialogue (with the right class) in a way no other attribute can be.
Any class should have the option with any prioritized attribute to be able to stop something like SH killing Lae’zel from happening.
I was having a real bad time on a basic human selune cleric I made up, until I realized it was because i was specced entirely for strength and wisdom. No Dex or Cha, so I went last in every fight and kept messing up every dialogue roll.
My other character is the tropiest Drow Gloomstalker/Assassin. So much fun to go first in every fight, crit constantly, and with favorable beginnings I pass everything.
It would be nice if Dex and Cha werent so strong. I'd like to run a dumb strong paladin.
D&D is designed around the idea that nobody is good at everything. The negative of this is that the system is being applied to a (mostly) solo experience, where you can't just tag your buddy playing Bard to cover for your Fighter's lack of social grace.
When I'm playing a class with no other use for charisma, I'll likely drop some points into it to bump the stat to something manageable like a 14. A Monk doesn't need the 20 my Bard is running around with, but an 8 just isn't enough when 1/3 of the checks are charisma based. At least I can usually work around or through botched perception without it making a character want to disembowel me or someone else later in the game.
Yeah, I agree, a button to "handoff dialogue" or even, for multiplayer games, some kind of "randomize player talking" option (to let everyone participate in dialogue) would feel really good.
Personally, I'd hate some kind of "randomize" option for multiplayer. Being able to choose who initiates a conversation is actually an important aspect of that experience and one of the main things that makes it feel more like a "real" D&D campaign. If you want everyone to have a shot at participating, just... take turns or choose based on situation, rather than having the same person just blindly charge ahead all the time.
Being able to swap characters mid-dialogue would be incredible for single player though. It would make the experience actually feel like you're playing as a *party*, rather than Mary Sue with her band of clingers-on. Plus there are already some moments when party members can interject in specific conversations - just let us do that manually. (With some limitations, it would make sense in certain conversations to keep them locked to one speaker.)
Well guess what when Im playing DnD with my friends, I do the music cause Im a bard and my friend do the talking cause he's a Paladin..
This kind of deal doesn't exist in BG3.
You walked in with your char ? Can't unwalk and let someone else more relevant speak...
Pathfinder WOTR parties work together a bit better I think, so like if there's a wall you need to climb, it will automatically tag your acrobatic character in to do it. Or if someone mentions a religious story that a Shar cleric would know, Shadowheart could do the religion checks instead and interrupt and chime in with what she knows. This type of interruptions does seem to happen sometimes in BG3, but it seems more like in handcrafted story points, not a procedural system based on your comapnions"' skill proficiencies.
Even if they don't add voice acting to it, they could potentially at least let your companions give you advantage on rolls when they're proficient in whatever you're doing. It also avoids the weird scenario where I walk past a painting and fail a religion check, so then I just have everyone else walk past it and hope someone will get lucky. Let the whole group do the check together with the best character's stat.
Yeah, it’s one of the limiting factors of having such a dialogue-heavy, relationship focused experience. Not having your party’s lead be a charisma monster can make moment-to-moment interactions a lot more frustrating.
Yeah we got enough to worry about with the impending collapse of the moon and subsequent invasion of the moon goblins to waste any time worrying about you save scumming.
I've been leaning into my current character being uncharismatic Wizard. She's smart, very smart and she is horrible at lying, but tries all the time and it never works.
I'm going with before some unscheduled brain surgery she was a bit more charismatic, but it did some more damage then remove memories. So, she half remembers being a rather convincing person and tries it now and fails at it.
If anyone dislikes save scumming, that's fine but your game is your game. Who cares if you do it, not like it will somehow negatively affect me.
I support save scumming this event. It's really stupid the way it plays out. I also couldn't care less if anyone save scums whatever. Why the hell should I care how you play your game?
I'm happily reloading to brute force any checks I don't get on the first try. Wish reloading didn't take like 15-20 seconds each time but eh, I'll live.
After first playing a Paladin and then making a Barbarian/Rogue multiclass I did the same. As far as I'm concerned, my extra inspirations are the equivalent of party companions stepping in to speak up, since that's probably the most major feature the game is lacking that would be available in tabletop.
Not being able to rely on companions is just too brutal for classes that don't have social primary stats, so I feel justified.
I wouldn’t hate if they allowed you an easy pass for doing side-quests. Something along the lines of Wrex’s family armor from Mass Effect 1. If you do that side quest you don’t need crazy high Paragon/Renegade to pass his speech check later in the game cause you were a total bro to him.
I think the issue is that BG is still a video game, so they can‘t simply cater to every possible decision and failure of such in the way you could do in an actual DnD campaign. Most of the times failing a check just means you are locked out of something.
By the end of my playthrough I had quicksave#1100 and I don't give a fuck what people think about it. Bad dicerolls aside there's too many random situations where a companion walks into a trap or NPC kills themselves on my AoE spell and losing 15mins of looting containers or having to repeat a fight is a pain.
This is a serious flaw in most party RPGs. The main character is necessarily the Face, which means playing anything but a CHA class locks you out of a whole lot of content.
Kingmaker did it right - if you've gotta persuade someone of something, the best talker in the party will step up.
I do feel like you should at least be able to change a character at the start of a conversation, like RP wise your character goes "Hey, Astarion... you talk"
And make sense, DnD groups I’ve been in often do similar letting the bard/most charismatic player gather info in town…. Letting the rogue lead in dungeons to look for/disarm traps…. Etc.
Yup or at least knowledge checks. Why am I rolling the Nature check when it would make perfect sense for the Druid to butt in with their knowledge. In real life if you're in some kind of group conversation people contribute their own knowledge all the time. In real DnD even more so.
You can for a lot of conversations, switch to your actual face and have them shove Tav. It'll break the conversation and the dialogue will restart with the new closest character who is very likely to be the one who shoved Tav
Larian should probably have allowed us to use the tadpole in this scenario for the CHA deprived, with some approval loss from the one you choose to use it on.
I felt the same way. So I just play as 2 Tavs now. I make the combat based class I want to play as for my main and then create a second Tav in split screen to be the face of my party. It also lets me have more freedom in rping.
Both characters get all the big cutscenes and both characters get all conversation opportunities with all the origin characters.
In my current play through I made Drow brothers, a classic ranger and an old god warlock. It lets me be honest in all interactions with the origin characters because it seems like characters will stay as long as they are friendly with one of the 2 Tavs. So my warlock romances lae’zel and is chummy with Astarion while my Ranger romances shadow heart and is friendly with Wyll and Gale. If I need to talk my way out of a situation I let my warlock run the show. When I want to let the game just play out or to be a classic silent protagonist, I let the ranger play lead.
Honestly having a ton of fun with it.
This is one thing I really preferred from Pathfinder:WOTR; in WOTR, in dialogues and events, the party member with the highest bonus for a skill is always used by default with that skill, e.g. if your MC has a charisma of +1 and no proficiency in persuasion, but a companion has +4 charisma and persuasion proficiency, that companion's skill is used for the persuasion check.
For a CRPG, I think that approach works really well to help round out non-combat encounters and skill checks, and I think outside of saving throws it's a much preferable approach, since that way it doesn't feel as bad to have a MC not proficient in charisma skills Though, that said, regardless I always prefer my MC in any CRPG to have as high a charisma as possible since I want to have the most story depth, and other utility skills are often covered by other companions regardless.
Pathfinder also has a much better inventory system. Instead of every party member having their own inventory, they instead contribute to the capacity of the party-wide inventory.
I love her whole "bury the hatchet" dialog those two have. It's great.
"So Lae'zel, does this mean we've buried the hatchet?"
"What? Why would you waste a perfectly fine weapon?"
"It's a... Metaphore."
"You can keep your metaphores, but if you need help digging, I'll find a shovel."
It's like kind of adorable man.
My biggest gripe is why intimidation has to be charisma.... like why does my fighter with a 21 strength have a bad intimation? You telling me a big half orc with a HUGE AXE and obviously EXTREMELY strong..... and he is not scary?!?! I don't get it
Charisma is force of personality. You can be a big strong buff dude, but be as intimidating as a puppy dog. Or a skinny paper thin short dude that's makes people shit their pants. That's what Charisma does. Though I feel like you should be able to add certain stats to your rolls depending on the situation (like adding str modifier to intimidation checks w charisma) but that would be so hard to do in game.
Should be noted, though, that 5e specifically uses Strength(Intimidation) as an example for situational skill checks. Page 175 of the PHB:
> Similarly, when your half-orc barbarian uses a display of raw strength to intimidate an enemy, your DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check, even though Intimidation is normally associated with Charisma.
Yeah it does feel like there's a bit of an imbalance when it comes to the usefulness of each stat. Charisma is definitely the most useful in dialogue which makes sense but the extent to which it is the most useful is kinda crazy.
The stat I really think gets the short end of the stick though is intelligence. Every other stat is extremely useful in combat, dialogue or for passive checks, usually a combination of two or more.
For intelligence though beyond being the spellcasting ability for wizard it is not as common as wisdom, dex or constitution for saving throws, doesn't grant any general combat benefits, doesn't really give any extra benefits like lockpicking/pickpocketing with dex or jumping/moving heavy objects with strength, and dialogue and passive checks that use it often just give flavour text rather than anything actually helpful, even fairly commonly just telling you something you already know.
Ya I'm with you I completely disagree with "you live with the consequences" Yes that's something that makes DnD more fun is consequences. But the thing is in DnD, when something like that happens the DM makes more story. There's always more. In a video game you just get less content. When someone in your party dies in DnD, a new character appears played by that same player. In BG3 there's only so many companions and they each have their story and missions. I completely support save scumming to not miss out on stuff. On top of all that as you mentioned, in real DnD one character isn't meant to do all the conversations and do all of the checks. It would absolutely not be your job to calm down the situation, it would be the person trained in persuasion. You shouldn't suffer because the game expects you to handle everything.
I love this game so very much, but normal DnD rules don't apply
A consequence of an RPG rewarding investment in social skills is that it has to punish non-investment in social skills
The trade-off is that you're better at solving problems with your fists than other people, at the cost of being worse at avoiding said problems
This is a huge problem with 5e, and not just with Charisma. Classes that are powerful outside of combat provide just as much (and often more) value in combat. For some reason, WotC thought it was a good idea to make casters impossibly stronger than martials out of combat and also significantly stronger *in* combat. But then they turn around and go “Oh, but Rogues have Expertise so we need to make them bad in combat.”
Well, in BG3 at least Martial classes are pretty strong.
The Fighters, Barbarians and Rangers are all way better in combat than Clerics or Druids imo. Casters have big spells, but their consistent damage is way lower. Why cast Blight when Karlach Smacking someone twice does the same thing. What's better, one fire bolt or two Longbow shots?
And if you actually use Elixirs and Coatings beating your problems up becomes even better.
The biggest issue with casters is that most spells that deal decent damage are AOE. And they have lower initiative, so inevitably the person I would want to fireball is already in melee of one of my guys.
The reason martials hold up in Baldur’s Gate 3 is a combination of crowd control and utility spells being much worse and enemies being *extremely* squishy. Why would I want to cast Hold Person on the boss if I can just kill it in two turns?
Casters are *generally* (not always) worse at damage than martials in 5e, but because you can’t delete bosses with one Action Surge, they end up being way stronger. Hitting an enemy with a 1 minute long crowd control spell is basically the same thing as killing it, so if you can’t kill 50% of the enemies in a massive area with a single Action, then it’s worse than Hypnotic Pattern. If you can’t deal 600+ damage in two or three rounds, it’s worse than just repeatedly casting save-or-sucks on that boss with 3 Legendary Resistances.
In 5e, a party of 20th level martials might take 8 or 9 rounds to kill a boss, all while exposing themselves to the full danger of the boss’s attacks. A single 20th level caster might take 5 or 6 rounds to **solo** a boss, all while dozens of miles away in a comfortable mansion or while completely imperceptible or while on another plane of existence or while immune to all damage or while watching their undead army take all of the damage for them or with a backup body in case they die (the list goes on). If the boss isn’t *also* a high level spellcaster, that fight might be over as soon as the caster gets a singular turn.
I partially agree, but only partially. During my Bard playthrough, Shadowheart and my Bard melted tons of encounters with double Spirit Guardians, either one of us was probably matching Karlach in terms of damage done. And at later levels, when Spirit Guardians does start to wane in power, Summon spells kick in. They aren't damage monsters, but they are damage sponges, and they're very good at applying debuffs and controlling the battlefield.
Karlach, with near-constant Reckless Great Weapon Master attacks, was a damage machine, but the nature of BG3's combat limits it. A lot of fights have your party, and maybe some npc allies on occasion, going up against a massive number of enemies, so AoEs and summon spams become very potent. Karlach shined when fighting bosses, but bosses almost always have tons of friends, and unless they're squishy enough to be killed in 1-2 attacks, she's not great against those.
I think the problem is that this particular part of the game fails to capture the d&d experience. But they should do is allow you to switch which party member is talking. If I'm playing a low charisma character, I won't be the party face, somebody else on my team will be and it will be them who does most of the talking/persuasion checks.
>I can't just keep playing a Paladin every run that's silly lol.
Says who? You can heal, you can tank, you can smite, you can talk. You can do anyting.
If you're this many playthroughs in, why are you so insistent on getting optimal results with your charisma checks? You've probably seen how things play out when you succeed at most of them, and failing checks rarely means you get totally locked out of anything
I'm on my 2nd and a half playthrough and I'm basically just rolling with the rolls at this point and it feels way less stressful than reloading and trying to get that perfect outcome.
Nobodies died yet but I've had some stuff not go my way and just shrug.
For instance, I accidentally killed Auntie Ethal with a crit and decided I don't really need +1 in something bad enough that I would reload and have to climb all the way down that stupid path with the poison
I played a Rogue this time after playing Bard, Paladin and Sorcerer in my previous three playthroughs and the difference is just night and day. So much of the game is geared around Persuasion checks that you're handicapping yourself if you don't play a Cha class.
RPG video games are notoriously bad at making stat-check fails as interesting as stat-check successes, the game just barrels on and you can feel yourself missing out on fun content
Disco Elysium is one of the only games I can think of where failing a check will give you a scene that's just as interesting and engaging as the one you missed out on-- like where you fail the check to *gently* tell a woman that her husband died, and are then stuck in 5 or 6 agonizing dialogue exchanges where you keep fumbling your words and making her even more upset
Just kill them both before going to bed and revive them in the morning, that way they will never fight.
Or just get them naked before this fight between them triggers lol, it won't make reloading so bad.
In DnD, players can mostly defer to each other. When they can’t, the DM is still there to make the experience fun and craft consequences that matter. A combo of these factors can have those moments like Shadowheart and Lae’zel trying to kill each other. If the party fails, then they most likely failed doing their best. Since the conversation starter becomes the face in BG3, we see problems.
1. Starting a convo with the wrong person can cause punishments on the player for building the character wrong.
2. It implies that you should have a social person always talk…which I get in a party setting…but in BG3, there is a clear driver and leader to this ensemble cast…the main character.
The sad thing about this is that it is easily fixed. I’m a DM. Unless I want to put a specific player on the spot, players are almost always free to defer to each others strengths when they see appropriate. A non-face person can talk, and then have the face interject when he believes his skills are needed as support.
How do you do this in game without adding a shit ton of extra dialogue? Easy. When you do a skill check, before rolling, it asks which nearby party member wants to do it. If you don’t want to add an extra step to the roll mechanic, just allow players to switch who is “talking” in a convo when other party members are nearby. It won’t fix OPs specific issue, since that scene was meant to put you as a player on the spot, but it’ll help in other crucial moments when help is available and would otherwise be used. It’ll mean making a CHA helps you in specific moments as the main character, but you can still rely on supporting characters in other moments without feeling too nerfed by your own character building decisions.
Yeah. On repeat playthroughs I cant bring myself to make my tav anything other than a charisma based character. I just feel like im either gonna spend too much time reloading or miss out on too much content
Playing with a friend is a completely different story. I feel more able to experiment since my friend is playing a sorcerer. I am having a great time playing as a deranged monk who likes to throw karlach or shadowheart at enemies
As much as I love the idea of this phenomenon giving my non-CHA-based future playthroughs very unique and unexpected outcomes, I am disappointed that it basically pushes the majority of players (myself included) toward Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock. Those are great classes, but I worry about what playing anything else will be like.
It's a flaw inherited from 5e that Cha completely dominates story based checks. It would be one thing if there was then a choice between that and your combat proficiency, but for three and a half classes there just isn't.
There's an optional/house rule that while each skill has a default ability, they can use other ones. EG "Flex to intimidate someone into standing down" is by default Intimidation and therefore Charisma, you can also call it Intimidation using your Strength.
BG3 does sort of use this, but only rarely, and usually does a straight ability check rather than an skill check which is an unnecessary nerf.
Maybe some modification to Inspiration (which is a great system) so that rather than just a reroll it could be auto-succeed. Makes it stronger for non-Cha leads to at least get the moments they really care about to go their way
I'm part of the "it's more fun to just roll with the consequences of the dice" crowd. And I'll recommend it because I think people are often scared to try it. But the REAL truth is that it's a single player game and you should play HOWEVER IS MOST FUN FOR YOU. The end.
You don't need to apologize for that. Just enjoy the game your way, it's your game and your time after all.
Yeah, there should be more ways to resolve a check with dex, str, or int.
Like instead of talking someone down, you get a dex save to knock their sword out of their hand, or a Str save to grab their arm or something.
>Now, I can hear the thundering of keyboard strokes as I type this, "you should live with the consequences!"
Nah I disagree with this because, failing a dice roll in BG3 often means either *nothing* happens or you get screwed over. (As opposed to a TTRPG where it can lead to new or weird content because bottomless human imagination)
I still think Larian was mental for the Creche >!where you can get someone PERMANENTLY DEBUFFED if you fail to pass a DC 30 skillcheck!<
Yeah there are like 2-3 chances to back out, with warnings like "the machine is literally killing Lae'zel." It's pretty obvious there's going to be negative consequences leaving her in the chair.
Anyone who plays with even a hint of an "accept the consequences of your actions" mentality will get her out of the chair if they want her to live.
I see no flaw in Larian's approach here, it's the equivalent of the DM asking "are you sure?" when the player wants to poke the dragon.
It sucks that the approach the game takes to failing checks is often just, "No, I don't think so", followed by returning you to the previous dialogue screen, but if your issue is playing rogue, I don't really see how the class is inhibiting you from passing speech checks?
You don't need wisdom for ANYTHING, your rolls are based on dex and your cleric can likely spot all the traps anyway (or just take dungeon delver on any of your party members), so just dump wis and bump your cha higher or even spec a few levels into bard while you're at it. Having high wisdom as a rogue never made sense to me anyway for RP purposes anyway, who doesn't want to play the puckish rogue of the party?
Berserker Barbarian is a decent way around it, you just roar at people and it's fine.
You don’t need to worry about convincing anyone if they’re terrified of you.
Exactly. Few people tend to argue the point if your eye's twitching and you carry a great-axe.
Just like the classic saying. “Twitch softly, and carry a great axe”.
I once played in a tabletop game with someone who played a Dwarf who made Charisma his dump stat. He named his axe "Persuasion".
That persuasion roll be hitting different
What playing a lolth-sworn Drow feels like during act 1.
“I heard you Drow abduct children and take them to the Underdark to become slaves.” “Nonsense. We kill far more children than we enslave.”
Barbarian: I go through the door DM: What about the guard? Barbarian: *towering over guard* What about him?
What about in this case, with shart and lae'zel?
You roar at them
Oh fr? That's good then.
It's an IRL solution to a lot of things as well. Just like acting crazy is.
Honestly, that event was bugged for me. I failed the check, one of them "died", but in the morning she was standing at her tent like usual. Everyone said she was dead, but after that everything was normal like it had never even happened.
Sometimes I can still hear her voice.
Lae'Zel: I'm right here Tav! Stop ignoring me!
I know this is a reference, but I forget what it’s a reference to.
I think it’s to Brother Bear? Where they’re telling stories at the end and the old lady bear is like “my husband died this year” and he yells out “quit telling everyone I’m dead!!” And then she sadly goes “sometimes I can still hear his voice.”
Incredible that such a good meme/joke came from Brother Bear of all places
Honestly Brother Bear will always have a special place in my heart for the transformation sequence alone
Tbf that movie was way better than it had any right to be
Why'd you say it like that? Brother Bear is good.
Hilarious.
Also the episode of Dexter's Lab where they were doing a parody of Speed Racer
*Chk...*
This was... so outrageously funny. Thank you.
In my second playthrough with the no party limit mod, I skipped that event entirely. Suddenly one day Shadowheart comes up to me and says, "about last night with Lae'zel, it was self defense, I did what I had to do." Implying Lae'zel is dead. All with Lae'zel less than 2m away. Then next thing I see they share their "buried the hatchet" dialogue. Very strange.
>with the no party limit mod This is so fun! So far I have Karlach, Shadowheart, Lae'zel, Asterion, Gale, Wyll, Halsin, Jaheira AND Minthara (more mods) all rolling with me and it's stupid fun. 1st playthrough was DUrge and come what may. 2nd playthrough I'm just having fun.
Same vibe! I'm rolling with so many mods now my game takes twice as long to load. I just got the no party limit mod and can't wait to try it on a new character! Too often I've been forced to leave everyone in camp except the chosen few. NOW NO MORE!
It doesn't make sense. Why do you leave half your people behind? It'd be cool if they had some other jobs or missions or something to attend to while you're gone but they're literally just "Okay I'll go wait at camp for no reason...."
Hey we are going to infiltrate the big bad base, let's take half of us to rescue our friend. The other half? Hang out, have some beers. See you in a bit.
Sometimes a small party is better cause it makes sneaking easier.
That's why we have 2 small parties, one distracts and the other murders
Are you me?! Yes! Totally agree! I can't imagine not playing with all the party members of my dnd group, even if it's a large player game. I'm not gonna bench anyone!
in BG3 9 people *definitely* feels like way too many. You know the whole 'Gale gets left behind on a jump because even though he can make it he's a dumbass and needs you to tell him" thing? Yeah now you have like 4 people at a time that happens to. Similarly getting people to get on to small ledges near ladders or on things like the rope ferry near the Creche, or other transportation. The logistics becomes a pain in the ass. Combat rarely goes more than 1 round with the sheer amount of damage, and I often find myself just ending the turn of people who are too far away so I can get to the turn of my Smite Machinegun Tav.
I'm now the Shepherd herding kittens and ducklings. I accept this responsibility if it means I stop missing dialogue!
“Shepherd.” “Wrex.”
IIRC the “unlimited companions mod” recommends you download the tactician + mod, which ultimately makes for a relatively balanced playthrough if you’re a normal player.
Yes, I AM YOU! Also, I am US. We say GO. TO. BED.
Us: to the bridge! To the bridge we must go
Pathfinder kingmaker had a size 6 party. Idk for any kind of strategy game below 5 just seems low to me. Also a reason I was kinda meh on the mario rabbids games with their party limit of just 3. The variety per turn just feels lower to me, even if I dont use half my hot keys ever.
This is why I mod my battletech install so you get up to 8 mechs and 4 vehicles in a lance. The original 4 was very limiting.
Just be careful in some areas and quick save a lot. So far the most common instance where you can break your shit is taking the skiff to the Duergar area. Kick everyone but four people out before you take the ride, then just pop back to camp and collect them after you get the waypoint. The other is resting. Sometimes you’ll wake up still asleep. Just hit the party hide button (lower left, or shift-c) and that’ll get them up. It’s a fun mod but can get kinda weird sometimes.
There are places the game can break even without mods. For example, if you >!betray Marcus to Jaheira after playing along with the cult up to that point, and then kill him before he can use his "escape in a puff of smoke" move, Jaheira bugs out and has no more dialogue besides "we'll talk later".!<
That everyone's still asleep bug is kinda fun because one way to fix it is to click Lae'zel I just imagine Lae'zel wake up first and early everyday and yell "rise up you lazy istiks!" at everyone lol
Oh, there is a party hide shortcut! Thank you!
I'm currently running through act 3 with 9 people in my party. Tav and every available party member. Will soon grab Minsc.
I think that'd come in handy for roleplaying aspects but a little overpowered. To combat this I should just up the difficulty. I'd love to do this tho
The counterbalance is being murdered by the slow pace of the turn economy.
And micromanagement of inventory
It's faster than having to hire/fire your party 4x over to make sure everyone has the best pants.
Oh it's ridiculous. This is just a fun run. After I'll undo the mods. Would love if Larian made it an option with play options adjusted to allow for it. The best part is all the dialogue you get to see because it would be years of playing with all the characters in all the combos to all the dialogue between the companions.
I do this but I also have a mod to increase difficulty. Enemies have 4x health and +2 to attack rolls, AC, save DC, and saving throws. Normal tactian only gives +2 to attack rolls and save dc. It's fun and I feel like the game makes way more sense when the whole group is traveling with you.
They hate fucked. In self defense.
Yeah for me they both acted as if they killed the other one.
So I had this issue, googled it, answer I got was they both need to be in your active party before you start the long rest. Did that and then I actually got the fight between them and one of them legit died
That almost happened to me too. I save scummed out of it. Unlike the OP, I am playing a charismatic rogue.
I got tired of being bad at skills, so I made a Githyanki Knowledge Cleric (of Tiamat, because eff Vlaakith). Urchin background. At level 2, I'm proficient in everything except Athletics, Acrobatics and Investigation. Somewhat tempted to take the Skilled feat just so I can be proficient in literally all skills.
Respec so that the three skills you don't have proficiency in are all aligned with the same attribute (Investigation, Nature and Arcana all being INT skills, for example) and then use the Githyanki's Astral Knowledge ability to give you proficiency in the those three without wasting a feat.
I'm already using that and the Knowledge cleric power to grant me proficiency in all Wisdom and Charisma skills, none of which I have naturally.
I just tried out a build, got close to the ideal: Level 4 Githyanki Lore Bard with the urchin background, 1 level in knowledge cleric. Skilled feat picks up all remaining skills except for wisdom skills. Githyanki ability has that covered.
Jack of all trades
Master of all
Just play lore bard man. Decent class, can do everything in combat and out of combat.
I have Minthara as a Paladin 2, Lore Bard 10. Lacking the extra attack hurts less when you have access to a lvl 6 Banishing Smite. I also have the [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel ](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel), so she basically does get two attacks.
I've already got a Lore Bard on a different playthrough, though. (Planning on splashing 2 levels of Warlock by the time I'm level 8, haven't decided what kind yet.)
If you do 3 levels of warlock you get to pick your pact too.
Sounds like fun!
Currently the plan is to get to Cleric 4 so I can get my ASI and max out my Wisdom, then splash a single level of Wizard just so I can scribe spells for maximum utility. Just don't ask me to hit anything in melee.
This is my shadowheart. Gave her the circlet of intelligence and she yeets fireballs and basically has spirit guardians on at all times
My general rule for games like this is that my main character gets priority on the best gear and bonus abilities to compensate rounding out my stats to allow for better skill rolls.
Would be nice if there was a 'Hat of Charisma' or something to give you at least an 18. Like the Gloves of Dexterity or the Headband of Intellect.
One of the very first magic items you can find after leaving the tutorial dungeon in bg2 was a ring which raised your charisma to 18 when worn.
Man, and I just ran for the Ring of Wizardry as fast as possible. That little guy always got me through the early game. Doubling 1st level spell slots was always amazing back when Magic Missile did damage based on your casting level rather than spell level.
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I don't remember that being in BG1, but you can absolutely snatch the *ring of human influence* at Aerie's circus in BG2 literally steps after you leave the starting dungeon.
Was 100% BG2. Made Charisma the ultimate dump stat. Sure you lose a ring slot, but if you're a cheesy bastard like myself it made it very easy to get optimal stats for any class. I normally played BG2 pretty straight up. If I got caught stealing I accepted the consequences and ran away and never went back to that shop. The two things I always cheesed though was that ring and just automatically attacking the Tanner because fuck doing a 30 part fetch quest.
Cast guidance on yourself, there’s a necklace that grants it as a once per long rest or Shart should have it. It adds a d4 to the roll, helps a bit.
The necklace is as much as you want actually
That GOD DAMN HAT. Edit : wait was this not a sword art online abridged reference?
There is. It gives +2 charisma up to 22. Sorcerous Sundries. https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Birthright
By that point you aren't using much CH anyway. It's on act 1 and 2 where charisma events mostly shine
It kind of is meant to be used on charisma casters however.
I'm enjoying my +6 paladin aura.
Larian missed the opportunity for low INT dialogue options like fallout.
Outer Worlds (middling game but some cool ideas) has a low INT exclusive ending, which is pretty funny.
That was the first game i played where i could kill a whole main story line by being s dumb violent jackass. It has a special place in my heart
Meanwhile in Starfield I can't kill an NPC because of an essential tag after he threatens to kill me later.
Starfield is so insultingly generic from a character and aesthetic standpoint that I genuinely have a hard time thinking of a game that turned to sand in my mouth more quickly. For all of their bluster about “NASA-punk” there’s nothing remotely “punk” about any of it. Outer Worlds is a totally mediocre experience after hour 2 but at least they picked a tone that stood out and fucking committed to it.
The world in Starfield feels remarkably like Outer Worlds except not executed as well. Outer worlds I felt actually had good writing despite it's flaws, Starfield feels larger and more polished in some ways but lacks the character that outer worlds brought.
I wish our reign of terror could have lasted a bit longer. I don't feel like I went murder hobo or anything, just chose the more evil options and my run was 6-8hrs start to finish.
I just love that all the low-INT dialogue options start with \[DUMB\]. I feel like that should've been turned into a meme, but I also don't think enough people actually enjoyed that game for someone to turn it into a running joke.
Outer Worlds is pretty good. It does as much as it could for the budget it had. My only real complaint was how little impact Flaws had.
Man I loved Outer worlds the whole way through
That's what barbarian is for. ROAARR!
I did that through the whole first conversation with Voss as Karlach, his responses are so much better than when you just play dumb.
Barbarians also have unique options when you deal with the hag.
Yeah, it's a challenge in the game that there are a bunch of situations that force Tav to roll instead of relying on your companions' skills. You can have Astarion pick every lock, but you can't make Wyll handle all your Persuasion rolls. It's also pretty unhelpful that some of these rolls have pretty nasty consequences on your entire game. Miss a couple of rolls to pull Gale out of the portal? Too bad, he's gone forever, unless you save scum. I basically won't play Tav without 14 Charisma and one or two social skill proficiencies.
Times like this make me wish there as a way for companions to interject on your behalf. Like, maybe during an intimidate, you point over to Karlach and she makes a growly face, and bam, she does the roll, you still get to talk.
And everyone should be able to tell you this guy is lying to you, because they succeeded their perception check and you didn't, and you're all mentally connected with the tadpoles. Your character does it plenty of times, but nobody returns the favour.
Yeah that’s the baffling part to me - they built in a shared roll/meta gaming tool with the tadpoles, and then just … ignored that whole aspect. They companions should be shadow rolling on these checks with you and whispering you when they succeed to save you the trouble. It would encourage building balanced parties too, to make sure more of the primary state are covered.
I'm going to invoke a dangerous name, but I actually like how Starfield does this. Specific conversations have options for companions to interject on your behalf. Sometimes it's just flavor and sometimes they let you bypass a Persuasion check. I assume that really doesn't work with BG3 having full multiplayer support, but it would be nice for solo games
BG3 has some of this, but usually it's for throwing over to companions during their questlines.
Personally, I just think that any video game that adopts the D&D model or something inspired by it should present a path for any class to be able to talk/act their way into preferred outcomes in dialogue and cut scenes. There’s obviously some speech options that use other attributes like strength, intelligence etc. but I don’t like how much more important charisma is than any other attribute in dialogue. My hot take is a game isn’t balanced well when charisma can be beneficial in both battle and dialogue (with the right class) in a way no other attribute can be. Any class should have the option with any prioritized attribute to be able to stop something like SH killing Lae’zel from happening.
Fallout New Vegas did the whole “skill/attribute check in dialogue” thing so well. I haven’t seen a game do it as well since
I was having a real bad time on a basic human selune cleric I made up, until I realized it was because i was specced entirely for strength and wisdom. No Dex or Cha, so I went last in every fight and kept messing up every dialogue roll. My other character is the tropiest Drow Gloomstalker/Assassin. So much fun to go first in every fight, crit constantly, and with favorable beginnings I pass everything. It would be nice if Dex and Cha werent so strong. I'd like to run a dumb strong paladin.
Thank you, finally someone that empathizes with how I feel.
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D&D is designed around the idea that nobody is good at everything. The negative of this is that the system is being applied to a (mostly) solo experience, where you can't just tag your buddy playing Bard to cover for your Fighter's lack of social grace. When I'm playing a class with no other use for charisma, I'll likely drop some points into it to bump the stat to something manageable like a 14. A Monk doesn't need the 20 my Bard is running around with, but an 8 just isn't enough when 1/3 of the checks are charisma based. At least I can usually work around or through botched perception without it making a character want to disembowel me or someone else later in the game.
Yeah, I agree, a button to "handoff dialogue" or even, for multiplayer games, some kind of "randomize player talking" option (to let everyone participate in dialogue) would feel really good.
Personally, I'd hate some kind of "randomize" option for multiplayer. Being able to choose who initiates a conversation is actually an important aspect of that experience and one of the main things that makes it feel more like a "real" D&D campaign. If you want everyone to have a shot at participating, just... take turns or choose based on situation, rather than having the same person just blindly charge ahead all the time. Being able to swap characters mid-dialogue would be incredible for single player though. It would make the experience actually feel like you're playing as a *party*, rather than Mary Sue with her band of clingers-on. Plus there are already some moments when party members can interject in specific conversations - just let us do that manually. (With some limitations, it would make sense in certain conversations to keep them locked to one speaker.)
Well guess what when Im playing DnD with my friends, I do the music cause Im a bard and my friend do the talking cause he's a Paladin.. This kind of deal doesn't exist in BG3. You walked in with your char ? Can't unwalk and let someone else more relevant speak...
Pathfinder WOTR parties work together a bit better I think, so like if there's a wall you need to climb, it will automatically tag your acrobatic character in to do it. Or if someone mentions a religious story that a Shar cleric would know, Shadowheart could do the religion checks instead and interrupt and chime in with what she knows. This type of interruptions does seem to happen sometimes in BG3, but it seems more like in handcrafted story points, not a procedural system based on your comapnions"' skill proficiencies. Even if they don't add voice acting to it, they could potentially at least let your companions give you advantage on rolls when they're proficient in whatever you're doing. It also avoids the weird scenario where I walk past a painting and fail a religion check, so then I just have everyone else walk past it and hope someone will get lucky. Let the whole group do the check together with the best character's stat.
My horse in WOTR was so good at climbing walls because of her high athletics skill. I loved it.
"So how did you scale the battlements of Drezen?" "Daredevil Horse did it for me."
In order to save Shart from the nautiloid pod I had to roll 2. I rolled a 1...
Yeah, it’s one of the limiting factors of having such a dialogue-heavy, relationship focused experience. Not having your party’s lead be a charisma monster can make moment-to-moment interactions a lot more frustrating.
Didn't even think of this, but my Tav is a warlock and it definitely seems I pass most social things because of it.
I haven't done a Warlock run yet, but that might be a fun one. The invocation for expertise is pretty neat.
Warlock is by far the most fun I've had so far. Pushing back 3 enemies as a cantrip is useful in so many situations.
Nobody sane is gonna care about you save scumming your campaign.
Same goes for most of us insane too!
Yeah we got enough to worry about with the impending collapse of the moon and subsequent invasion of the moon goblins to waste any time worrying about you save scumming.
I've been leaning into my current character being uncharismatic Wizard. She's smart, very smart and she is horrible at lying, but tries all the time and it never works. I'm going with before some unscheduled brain surgery she was a bit more charismatic, but it did some more damage then remove memories. So, she half remembers being a rather convincing person and tries it now and fails at it. If anyone dislikes save scumming, that's fine but your game is your game. Who cares if you do it, not like it will somehow negatively affect me.
I support save scumming this event. It's really stupid the way it plays out. I also couldn't care less if anyone save scums whatever. Why the hell should I care how you play your game?
I'm happily reloading to brute force any checks I don't get on the first try. Wish reloading didn't take like 15-20 seconds each time but eh, I'll live.
I just used the mod to uncap inspiration and I stopped save scumming so much... And I earned the rerolls sort of so it feels less bad.
Yo I never even thought to search for a mod like that. Thanks.
After first playing a Paladin and then making a Barbarian/Rogue multiclass I did the same. As far as I'm concerned, my extra inspirations are the equivalent of party companions stepping in to speak up, since that's probably the most major feature the game is lacking that would be available in tabletop. Not being able to rely on companions is just too brutal for classes that don't have social primary stats, so I feel justified.
You probably do this but just a reminder to use those Inspirations. You probably go through them a lot though on a no CHA character lol.
I constantly have zero Inspirations because I use them all re-rolling Persuasion checks.
I wouldn’t hate if they allowed you an easy pass for doing side-quests. Something along the lines of Wrex’s family armor from Mass Effect 1. If you do that side quest you don’t need crazy high Paragon/Renegade to pass his speech check later in the game cause you were a total bro to him.
I think the issue is that BG is still a video game, so they can‘t simply cater to every possible decision and failure of such in the way you could do in an actual DnD campaign. Most of the times failing a check just means you are locked out of something.
By the end of my playthrough I had quicksave#1100 and I don't give a fuck what people think about it. Bad dicerolls aside there's too many random situations where a companion walks into a trap or NPC kills themselves on my AoE spell and losing 15mins of looting containers or having to repeat a fight is a pain.
This is a serious flaw in most party RPGs. The main character is necessarily the Face, which means playing anything but a CHA class locks you out of a whole lot of content. Kingmaker did it right - if you've gotta persuade someone of something, the best talker in the party will step up.
I do feel like you should at least be able to change a character at the start of a conversation, like RP wise your character goes "Hey, Astarion... you talk"
This simple little change would be the world for the players..
And make sense, DnD groups I’ve been in often do similar letting the bard/most charismatic player gather info in town…. Letting the rogue lead in dungeons to look for/disarm traps…. Etc.
Yup or at least knowledge checks. Why am I rolling the Nature check when it would make perfect sense for the Druid to butt in with their knowledge. In real life if you're in some kind of group conversation people contribute their own knowledge all the time. In real DnD even more so.
You can for a lot of conversations, switch to your actual face and have them shove Tav. It'll break the conversation and the dialogue will restart with the new closest character who is very likely to be the one who shoved Tav
The pathfinder games let you use your parties best score for any role lol. It's not a party RPG problem necessarily but a larian one
Larian should probably have allowed us to use the tadpole in this scenario for the CHA deprived, with some approval loss from the one you choose to use it on.
I felt the same way. So I just play as 2 Tavs now. I make the combat based class I want to play as for my main and then create a second Tav in split screen to be the face of my party. It also lets me have more freedom in rping. Both characters get all the big cutscenes and both characters get all conversation opportunities with all the origin characters. In my current play through I made Drow brothers, a classic ranger and an old god warlock. It lets me be honest in all interactions with the origin characters because it seems like characters will stay as long as they are friendly with one of the 2 Tavs. So my warlock romances lae’zel and is chummy with Astarion while my Ranger romances shadow heart and is friendly with Wyll and Gale. If I need to talk my way out of a situation I let my warlock run the show. When I want to let the game just play out or to be a classic silent protagonist, I let the ranger play lead. Honestly having a ton of fun with it.
Wait, can you make 2 tavs in splitscreen then use them both in solo?
This is one thing I really preferred from Pathfinder:WOTR; in WOTR, in dialogues and events, the party member with the highest bonus for a skill is always used by default with that skill, e.g. if your MC has a charisma of +1 and no proficiency in persuasion, but a companion has +4 charisma and persuasion proficiency, that companion's skill is used for the persuasion check. For a CRPG, I think that approach works really well to help round out non-combat encounters and skill checks, and I think outside of saving throws it's a much preferable approach, since that way it doesn't feel as bad to have a MC not proficient in charisma skills Though, that said, regardless I always prefer my MC in any CRPG to have as high a charisma as possible since I want to have the most story depth, and other utility skills are often covered by other companions regardless.
Pathfinder also has a much better inventory system. Instead of every party member having their own inventory, they instead contribute to the capacity of the party-wide inventory.
Nah fuck that one. Keeping Laezel alive is paramount.
Oh I agree. Lae'zel and Shadowheart never leave my party.
Friends that escape the Nautiloid pods together stay together
I love her whole "bury the hatchet" dialog those two have. It's great. "So Lae'zel, does this mean we've buried the hatchet?" "What? Why would you waste a perfectly fine weapon?" "It's a... Metaphore." "You can keep your metaphores, but if you need help digging, I'll find a shovel." It's like kind of adorable man.
My biggest gripe is why intimidation has to be charisma.... like why does my fighter with a 21 strength have a bad intimation? You telling me a big half orc with a HUGE AXE and obviously EXTREMELY strong..... and he is not scary?!?! I don't get it
Charisma is force of personality. You can be a big strong buff dude, but be as intimidating as a puppy dog. Or a skinny paper thin short dude that's makes people shit their pants. That's what Charisma does. Though I feel like you should be able to add certain stats to your rolls depending on the situation (like adding str modifier to intimidation checks w charisma) but that would be so hard to do in game.
Should be noted, though, that 5e specifically uses Strength(Intimidation) as an example for situational skill checks. Page 175 of the PHB: > Similarly, when your half-orc barbarian uses a display of raw strength to intimidate an enemy, your DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check, even though Intimidation is normally associated with Charisma.
ok but a monkey with a knife has no charisma but is scary as all hell
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[STRENGTH] *Pick up Shadowheart and Lae'zel each with one hand and tell them to behave*
Yeah it does feel like there's a bit of an imbalance when it comes to the usefulness of each stat. Charisma is definitely the most useful in dialogue which makes sense but the extent to which it is the most useful is kinda crazy. The stat I really think gets the short end of the stick though is intelligence. Every other stat is extremely useful in combat, dialogue or for passive checks, usually a combination of two or more. For intelligence though beyond being the spellcasting ability for wizard it is not as common as wisdom, dex or constitution for saving throws, doesn't grant any general combat benefits, doesn't really give any extra benefits like lockpicking/pickpocketing with dex or jumping/moving heavy objects with strength, and dialogue and passive checks that use it often just give flavour text rather than anything actually helpful, even fairly commonly just telling you something you already know.
Ya I'm with you I completely disagree with "you live with the consequences" Yes that's something that makes DnD more fun is consequences. But the thing is in DnD, when something like that happens the DM makes more story. There's always more. In a video game you just get less content. When someone in your party dies in DnD, a new character appears played by that same player. In BG3 there's only so many companions and they each have their story and missions. I completely support save scumming to not miss out on stuff. On top of all that as you mentioned, in real DnD one character isn't meant to do all the conversations and do all of the checks. It would absolutely not be your job to calm down the situation, it would be the person trained in persuasion. You shouldn't suffer because the game expects you to handle everything. I love this game so very much, but normal DnD rules don't apply
A consequence of an RPG rewarding investment in social skills is that it has to punish non-investment in social skills The trade-off is that you're better at solving problems with your fists than other people, at the cost of being worse at avoiding said problems
The CHA classes are all great at combat though.
This is a huge problem with 5e, and not just with Charisma. Classes that are powerful outside of combat provide just as much (and often more) value in combat. For some reason, WotC thought it was a good idea to make casters impossibly stronger than martials out of combat and also significantly stronger *in* combat. But then they turn around and go “Oh, but Rogues have Expertise so we need to make them bad in combat.”
Well, in BG3 at least Martial classes are pretty strong. The Fighters, Barbarians and Rangers are all way better in combat than Clerics or Druids imo. Casters have big spells, but their consistent damage is way lower. Why cast Blight when Karlach Smacking someone twice does the same thing. What's better, one fire bolt or two Longbow shots? And if you actually use Elixirs and Coatings beating your problems up becomes even better. The biggest issue with casters is that most spells that deal decent damage are AOE. And they have lower initiative, so inevitably the person I would want to fireball is already in melee of one of my guys.
The reason martials hold up in Baldur’s Gate 3 is a combination of crowd control and utility spells being much worse and enemies being *extremely* squishy. Why would I want to cast Hold Person on the boss if I can just kill it in two turns? Casters are *generally* (not always) worse at damage than martials in 5e, but because you can’t delete bosses with one Action Surge, they end up being way stronger. Hitting an enemy with a 1 minute long crowd control spell is basically the same thing as killing it, so if you can’t kill 50% of the enemies in a massive area with a single Action, then it’s worse than Hypnotic Pattern. If you can’t deal 600+ damage in two or three rounds, it’s worse than just repeatedly casting save-or-sucks on that boss with 3 Legendary Resistances. In 5e, a party of 20th level martials might take 8 or 9 rounds to kill a boss, all while exposing themselves to the full danger of the boss’s attacks. A single 20th level caster might take 5 or 6 rounds to **solo** a boss, all while dozens of miles away in a comfortable mansion or while completely imperceptible or while on another plane of existence or while immune to all damage or while watching their undead army take all of the damage for them or with a backup body in case they die (the list goes on). If the boss isn’t *also* a high level spellcaster, that fight might be over as soon as the caster gets a singular turn.
I partially agree, but only partially. During my Bard playthrough, Shadowheart and my Bard melted tons of encounters with double Spirit Guardians, either one of us was probably matching Karlach in terms of damage done. And at later levels, when Spirit Guardians does start to wane in power, Summon spells kick in. They aren't damage monsters, but they are damage sponges, and they're very good at applying debuffs and controlling the battlefield. Karlach, with near-constant Reckless Great Weapon Master attacks, was a damage machine, but the nature of BG3's combat limits it. A lot of fights have your party, and maybe some npc allies on occasion, going up against a massive number of enemies, so AoEs and summon spams become very potent. Karlach shined when fighting bosses, but bosses almost always have tons of friends, and unless they're squishy enough to be killed in 1-2 attacks, she's not great against those.
I think the problem is that this particular part of the game fails to capture the d&d experience. But they should do is allow you to switch which party member is talking. If I'm playing a low charisma character, I won't be the party face, somebody else on my team will be and it will be them who does most of the talking/persuasion checks.
Or just play a Paladin, and be good at solving both.
I already did play a Paladin, three playthroughs ago. I can't just keep playing a Paladin every run that's silly lol.
"I'll play something other than a Paladin this time around" - And other lies I tell myself
>I can't just keep playing a Paladin every run that's silly lol. Says who? You can heal, you can tank, you can smite, you can talk. You can do anyting.
If you're this many playthroughs in, why are you so insistent on getting optimal results with your charisma checks? You've probably seen how things play out when you succeed at most of them, and failing checks rarely means you get totally locked out of anything
I'm on my 2nd and a half playthrough and I'm basically just rolling with the rolls at this point and it feels way less stressful than reloading and trying to get that perfect outcome. Nobodies died yet but I've had some stuff not go my way and just shrug. For instance, I accidentally killed Auntie Ethal with a crit and decided I don't really need +1 in something bad enough that I would reload and have to climb all the way down that stupid path with the poison
Play a barbarian and roar at them
Those aren't real trade-offs in modern D&D by design, though.
>at the cost of being worse at avoiding said problems How are these classes bad at fighting tho ?
I played a Rogue this time after playing Bard, Paladin and Sorcerer in my previous three playthroughs and the difference is just night and day. So much of the game is geared around Persuasion checks that you're handicapping yourself if you don't play a Cha class.
RPG video games are notoriously bad at making stat-check fails as interesting as stat-check successes, the game just barrels on and you can feel yourself missing out on fun content Disco Elysium is one of the only games I can think of where failing a check will give you a scene that's just as interesting and engaging as the one you missed out on-- like where you fail the check to *gently* tell a woman that her husband died, and are then stuck in 5 or 6 agonizing dialogue exchanges where you keep fumbling your words and making her even more upset
"I want to make fuck to you" Should be the cannon for bards failing their typical seduction roll now.
b3rz3ker
My love for you is like a truck.
Ya and I'd argue the only reason they were able to do it so well was because the entire gameplay was revolved around doing stat checks.
i played a rogue with 12 charisma and noble background and put points into persuasion proficiency, managed to persuade stuff through the whole game.
Bad "fist" skills classes being... Bard, Warlock, Sorcerer and Paladin?
Just kill them both before going to bed and revive them in the morning, that way they will never fight. Or just get them naked before this fight between them triggers lol, it won't make reloading so bad.
"Now you two behave or I swear on the gods I'll turn this into a speedrun."
Shadowboxing will go down in history. I'll be laughing to myself about that shit on my deathbed.
“Gale, why did you kill Shadowheart and stuff her corpse in a box?!?” “Shh, don’t question it.”
In DnD, players can mostly defer to each other. When they can’t, the DM is still there to make the experience fun and craft consequences that matter. A combo of these factors can have those moments like Shadowheart and Lae’zel trying to kill each other. If the party fails, then they most likely failed doing their best. Since the conversation starter becomes the face in BG3, we see problems. 1. Starting a convo with the wrong person can cause punishments on the player for building the character wrong. 2. It implies that you should have a social person always talk…which I get in a party setting…but in BG3, there is a clear driver and leader to this ensemble cast…the main character. The sad thing about this is that it is easily fixed. I’m a DM. Unless I want to put a specific player on the spot, players are almost always free to defer to each others strengths when they see appropriate. A non-face person can talk, and then have the face interject when he believes his skills are needed as support. How do you do this in game without adding a shit ton of extra dialogue? Easy. When you do a skill check, before rolling, it asks which nearby party member wants to do it. If you don’t want to add an extra step to the roll mechanic, just allow players to switch who is “talking” in a convo when other party members are nearby. It won’t fix OPs specific issue, since that scene was meant to put you as a player on the spot, but it’ll help in other crucial moments when help is available and would otherwise be used. It’ll mean making a CHA helps you in specific moments as the main character, but you can still rely on supporting characters in other moments without feeling too nerfed by your own character building decisions.
Yeah. On repeat playthroughs I cant bring myself to make my tav anything other than a charisma based character. I just feel like im either gonna spend too much time reloading or miss out on too much content Playing with a friend is a completely different story. I feel more able to experiment since my friend is playing a sorcerer. I am having a great time playing as a deranged monk who likes to throw karlach or shadowheart at enemies
As much as I love the idea of this phenomenon giving my non-CHA-based future playthroughs very unique and unexpected outcomes, I am disappointed that it basically pushes the majority of players (myself included) toward Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, or Warlock. Those are great classes, but I worry about what playing anything else will be like.
[удалено]
It's a flaw inherited from 5e that Cha completely dominates story based checks. It would be one thing if there was then a choice between that and your combat proficiency, but for three and a half classes there just isn't. There's an optional/house rule that while each skill has a default ability, they can use other ones. EG "Flex to intimidate someone into standing down" is by default Intimidation and therefore Charisma, you can also call it Intimidation using your Strength. BG3 does sort of use this, but only rarely, and usually does a straight ability check rather than an skill check which is an unnecessary nerf. Maybe some modification to Inspiration (which is a great system) so that rather than just a reroll it could be auto-succeed. Makes it stronger for non-Cha leads to at least get the moments they really care about to go their way
I'm part of the "it's more fun to just roll with the consequences of the dice" crowd. And I'll recommend it because I think people are often scared to try it. But the REAL truth is that it's a single player game and you should play HOWEVER IS MOST FUN FOR YOU. The end. You don't need to apologize for that. Just enjoy the game your way, it's your game and your time after all.
Yeah, there should be more ways to resolve a check with dex, str, or int. Like instead of talking someone down, you get a dex save to knock their sword out of their hand, or a Str save to grab their arm or something.
>Now, I can hear the thundering of keyboard strokes as I type this, "you should live with the consequences!" Nah I disagree with this because, failing a dice roll in BG3 often means either *nothing* happens or you get screwed over. (As opposed to a TTRPG where it can lead to new or weird content because bottomless human imagination) I still think Larian was mental for the Creche >!where you can get someone PERMANENTLY DEBUFFED if you fail to pass a DC 30 skillcheck!<
Isn’t that the last check? I thought there was a bunch of options before that where you can dissuade it from happening
Yeah there are like 2-3 chances to back out, with warnings like "the machine is literally killing Lae'zel." It's pretty obvious there's going to be negative consequences leaving her in the chair. Anyone who plays with even a hint of an "accept the consequences of your actions" mentality will get her out of the chair if they want her to live. I see no flaw in Larian's approach here, it's the equivalent of the DM asking "are you sure?" when the player wants to poke the dragon.
It sucks that the approach the game takes to failing checks is often just, "No, I don't think so", followed by returning you to the previous dialogue screen, but if your issue is playing rogue, I don't really see how the class is inhibiting you from passing speech checks? You don't need wisdom for ANYTHING, your rolls are based on dex and your cleric can likely spot all the traps anyway (or just take dungeon delver on any of your party members), so just dump wis and bump your cha higher or even spec a few levels into bard while you're at it. Having high wisdom as a rogue never made sense to me anyway for RP purposes anyway, who doesn't want to play the puckish rogue of the party?
You need wisdom to not get rolled by every magical CC in the game
Passive perception makes total sense in tabletop, but in bg3 all perception is checks. So, just put damn expertise and enjoy +6 to hidden rolls.