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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • I can agree with you if I put myself in a “min/max” mindset, where you’re trying to get the best possible option in every situation - but in a roleplay sense, a tabletop sense, a story sense - it’s far more interesting if more than one character engages in conversation with the world around them.

    Having played loads of tabletop, emergent narrative often pits characters against challenges they’re not well-equipped for - which drives the story in interesting directions. The Barb might have a higher chance of failure in persuasion checks, but does that really matter? I guess it comes to the higher level question of whether you’d reload a save if you failed a speech check - if so, I’d argue that it doesn’t matter who talks if the player is just gonna reroll (as low rolls occasionally plague even the most erudite).

    I’m happy for mods to have a fix for the “No one talks but me” crowd, but my thoughts are that Larian has thrown in so many contextual responsiveness for each character/race/class that it’s honestly going to be interesting to see how different characters lead a conversation.


  • Speaking as someone who really enjoyed DOS2, I do have plenty of issues with its mechanics, with the movement ability problem you mention right in the thick of it.

    Once you learn the game systems a bit, you will always gravitate towards a similar set of skills. Mobility is so important in the game that you will frequently find yourself in situations where your character’s survival depends on it (and the AI abuses these skills constantly). So everyone gets a jump skill, two if it fits the build - and many of the jump skills are just teleports with rider effects, so everyone’s teleporting around. All builds tend to gravitate towards more damage, because you can’t apply CC without nuking their armour down first, and CC trivialises fights when it comes into play. Optimisation isn’t straightforward, and skills aren’t really on an equal footing. Maximising Warfare is how you become the best Necromancer, and the best Rogue, and the best Warrior, and the best Archer. Meanwhile, all the other skills (with the notable exception of Summoning) you can generally just leave between 2-5 to unlock their respective abilities, regardless of your build.

    The ultimate end-game of this is that loads of characters end up feeling very similar, even if they appear to do very different things on the surface. Once you get past much of Act 2 there’s very little variation in how you play the game and approach combat, and the story becomes the main driver for completion even as the core gameplay loop stagnates. I think I completed the game on my fourth attempt, but that was largely through my stubbornness rather than other factors.




  • In a bit of paralysis on build options at the moment. Played a lot of 5e in tabletop, but BG3 looks to be adding a lot of fun to playing martial characters, so I’m keen to give a Gish/Martial pure class a go. Options include:

    • Wild Magic Barbarian/Battle Master Fighter (Angry Exploding Hoplite! Double up on Duelling and Rage damage, Polearm Master spear with shield, Tank-ish with lots of utility from subclass features)
    • Totem Barbarian/Thief Rogue (Feral Wilder with two daggers, dual wielding and reckless for easy sneak attack - lots of off-hand strikes with Thief’s overpowered extra bonus action - there’s something visceral about a raging dagger barbarian that I want to explore)
    • Half Orc Drummer Valour Bard (Full Strength, expertise in Athletics, jump on cliff, kick folks off cliff, or blast them off with Thunderwave if there’s more than one, plus full spellcasting for shenanigans)
    • Acidic Dragonborn Spores Druid/Ranger (wade in with Shillelagh and spread the rot with staff and breath - depends on Spores implementation and need to maintain druid-level-dependent temporary health, otherwise barbarian would also be fun)
    • Half Orc GOO Warlock/Fighter (“I’ll give you something to be scared of!” - get big weapon, drop darkness with Eldritch eyes for advantage, get big crits which scare people, then use tentacle powers to restrain folks and crit them again)