Baldur's Gate 3, finally!
Jan. 1st, 2024 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
got_quietAs I promised myself, with the new year I'm finally playing Baldur's Gate! I'm trying to approach things with tempered expectations, because the hype for this game is too high for anything to really match, and even the best video game writing is still video game writing. I have Divinity Original Sin 2 still somewhat fresh in my mind, so I kind of knew what to expect, but the first thing I noticed was how much less I like the combat system in Baldur's Gate. I've never liked the DnD system, and it doesn't make much sense to me as a video game system, but it seems like since this is a DnD product it's got to try to interpret DnD rules. I miss the Divinity system already, but I'm sure I'll adapt.
The other thing I was a little surprised by is that character creation was a little limited in terms of facial options. I'm not the sort of person who spends much time customizing my character so it wasn't a huge deal, but I like to tweak things a bit and you couldn't really. I guess that guarantees that your dude is relatively decent looking regardless. I went with a human fighter. Very vanilla, I know, but I've enjoyed sword and board classes. Having physical strength and being able to defend my allies is my power fantasy.
The fandom for this game spends a lot of time on the companions, which isn't surprising, so even without seeking out spoilers I had a general idea of who everyone was and what their deal was. So I unfortunately don't get to enjoy Asterion's extremely obvious bullshit unsullied by knowledge. But even so he's really not subtle. I thought he'd be my clear fave, but Gale immediately won me over with the academese in his intro, so currently he is my fave.
I'm not familiar with the Forgotten Realm's setting well enough to set up a good background for my Tav. He's got an Acolyte background, prefers to intimidate rather than persuade, and is only as self-sacrificing as he thinks will only get him in minimal trouble. He's mostly interested in keeping people from killing each other and getting through the bullshit than doing what is right. He has however already managed to adopt a dog.
It's a different experience playing these sorts of games solo like this. When I duoed Divinity we had no extra party members, so if you ran into a scenario you either had the skills for a good roll or you didn't. But here I might end up dealing with something where my stats are not as good as my companions', and that's a mild annoyance because I'm the sort who is constantly regretting the choice I didn't make. So I've decided instead of feeling like I screwed up every time my Tav has to roll a persuasion check while Gale is standing right next to me, I'm just going to hard commit to Tav leading the way with nothing but a half assed intimidation skill and fucking things up as he may.
And I have fucked up a whole lot so far. My Tav has fallen through floors, gotten eaten by harpies, and is currently trying to figure out how to break Astarion out of jail. Things are not going well for our poor Baldurian gentleman.
The other thing I was a little surprised by is that character creation was a little limited in terms of facial options. I'm not the sort of person who spends much time customizing my character so it wasn't a huge deal, but I like to tweak things a bit and you couldn't really. I guess that guarantees that your dude is relatively decent looking regardless. I went with a human fighter. Very vanilla, I know, but I've enjoyed sword and board classes. Having physical strength and being able to defend my allies is my power fantasy.
The fandom for this game spends a lot of time on the companions, which isn't surprising, so even without seeking out spoilers I had a general idea of who everyone was and what their deal was. So I unfortunately don't get to enjoy Asterion's extremely obvious bullshit unsullied by knowledge. But even so he's really not subtle. I thought he'd be my clear fave, but Gale immediately won me over with the academese in his intro, so currently he is my fave.
I'm not familiar with the Forgotten Realm's setting well enough to set up a good background for my Tav. He's got an Acolyte background, prefers to intimidate rather than persuade, and is only as self-sacrificing as he thinks will only get him in minimal trouble. He's mostly interested in keeping people from killing each other and getting through the bullshit than doing what is right. He has however already managed to adopt a dog.
It's a different experience playing these sorts of games solo like this. When I duoed Divinity we had no extra party members, so if you ran into a scenario you either had the skills for a good roll or you didn't. But here I might end up dealing with something where my stats are not as good as my companions', and that's a mild annoyance because I'm the sort who is constantly regretting the choice I didn't make. So I've decided instead of feeling like I screwed up every time my Tav has to roll a persuasion check while Gale is standing right next to me, I'm just going to hard commit to Tav leading the way with nothing but a half assed intimidation skill and fucking things up as he may.
And I have fucked up a whole lot so far. My Tav has fallen through floors, gotten eaten by harpies, and is currently trying to figure out how to break Astarion out of jail. Things are not going well for our poor Baldurian gentleman.
