Baldur's Gate III

I’m hugely enjoying this so far. Plays pretty well on PS5 and once you know where everything is, controls pretty well too!

I am pretty rubbish at combat, it’s definitely going to take me a while to get used to that, it’s not really like anything I’ve played before. Another thing I have to get used to is saving often! I’ve had a few situations go bad very quickly only for me to find I’m a fair bit back from my last save.

But the world is so well realised and diverse, the characters are enjoyable and the quests engaging. I can imagine I’ll spend a serious amount of time in this!

I've gotten through a few big fights by the skin of my teeth, usually having to really set up the area to do it. Have party split and using stealth at the start. Walking in and starting a cutscene or conversation then that leading to a fight usually puts you in a bad position. If you've the party split then when the conversation starts the group in it will join the battle but you can then position the other group in real time while the first group is waiting for turns. The players character can get pulled in to some conversations.

Also the levels mean there's huge jumps in power between certain levels, level 4 bringing feats and for most classes level 5 bringing lvl 3 spells and some huge abilities.

I hit level 5 and I've got some crazy power abilities now.

There's a character you can get for your camp near the beach that lets you respect for 100 gold, only thing you can't reset is race/background and the worm powers.

Did the beholder fight under levelled and that thing has crazy initiative and multiple big attacks, running in normal my heavy armour character died from full health before he even got his first turn.

If you're in stealth you don't generally even start the cutscenes. I sent rouge into a boss room and other than a little bit that was red where he could have been spotted if stealth failed roll I was able to wander around the whole area. The red area on ground is only for stealth checks, if you're not stealthed then enemies can see you outside of that area so if you have a stealth character seeing a red area then your non-stealth characters will get seen before they get that close.

If you're very cautious you used a stealthed rouge to lead party so you can see the red from sight of enemies, and then when you do you split the party up. Position everyone and then either start fight with your front line characters or with your high initiative character so they get first move.

If the rest of the party is spit and stealth they won't come into the fight but as soon as it starts you can switch to them and still control them in real time while everyone else is paused to position or think about what to do. You can then attack with them and join the fight.

Generally I have the rouge stealth attack someone to start fight, and since he's got high initiative the enemies don't get to go ahead of him. I then use whatever spells or attacks to get the rest of the party to join.

Bunching up in the game is also bad as there's so many area of effect attack they can hit you with, and as with the other larian games there's a lot of floor effect.

The short and long rests make a difference as it's not something you've to deal with in other games so not over doing rest as there's some things you can time yourself out of but also not going into fights unprepared.

Some lucky dice rolls for the likes of Persuasion, Intimidation and Deception are carrying me through with little fighting. Almost want to start some fights just to hone my skills.

Went the wrong way and did a bunch of other missions instead of the goblins stuff in the north of the map, and then was able to enter the building part of the camp using a tiny hole and let the rest of the party in the back door. That back door took hours to get to that point before figuring out where I was and then using and coming from both sides to open it.

Used a magic cat illusion catnip (so not a spell) to lure people around, and placed a load of barrels or got them alone and sleep/sneak ganked them. Last goblin boss got them from both sides and then had a defending position in her room to fight the dozens of others who then charged into my killzone of ice and darkness. Using a glaive with extra reach to attack into the darkness or attacking from ranch from outside.

Once you get further into the game spells shouldn't really be used for the 1 hit does a bit of damage spells, they either should be nuking groups/bosses or putting some effect down or giving the rest of the party an advantage. The classes that aren't meant for a bit of hitting will have attack catnips to use, they're not as powerful as the attack level 1 spells but you should only be using them to finish off someone if you've not got any big thing to do.

Oh man what a game. I've now reached two different places where I can progress to the next act of the game, and I've turned back because I want to keep finding new things where I am. Also decided to take the opportunity to switch up my party a little by swapping out Asterion for Gale. While I liked Asterion's stealth and the ranged damage he could do from it, Gale has some awesome AOE abilities which can do huge damage. I love how the members of your camp also level up with you even when they're not in your party.

The radial customisation on PS5 isn't great. I've ended up with lots of wheels for my created character filled with spells and potions, but even trying to tidy them up I've ended up with some blank wheels which won't seem to delete.

But man the game is just so addictive.

I'm mostly just going with one fighter, Karlach. Then Shadowheart, Gale/Asterion and I'm a sorceror. I usually cast a spell with Shadowheart to have a giant weapon appear which I use for physical damage (and enemies can target it too instead of a character), and can also summon small animals or a big ball of fire with Gale which again, does damage but enemies target it too. Have Karlach set up so she has more movement and can do two hits per turn.

I did try going two fighters with Lazael, but found I was often spending more time trying to keep both alive than doing damage as me/Shadowheart. Some fights can go on longer than I'd like though.

Used Wylls pack spell to bind the singing sword to him as I thought that fitted, he's not proficient in longswords but making it a pack weapon ignores that and makes it that it uses his charisma rather than strength or dexterity.

Im near the end of Act III and i dont wanna finish the game, but then again i know ive missed SO much on my first run so it'll be like a new run regardless.

I took 1 level in Wizard recently for my tempest cleric, having the lighting melee catnip was useful as cleric level 7 didn't give much but I respected out of it to get a new feat with cleric level 8 but might go back for character level 9.

That 1 level of wizard got me an additional persuasion option where I got a boss to get themselves killed instead of fighting, there's a trophy tied to the fight so reloaded a save to get that but will going back to other save to continue from there.

Got another bit where as I'd picked up a random musical instrument off someone (I've no bard in party so it's no use) I got another options too, could have easily not picked it up or lost it or sold it or not get it off the person.

People should try to avoid reloading saves if a roll doesn't go how they want it as the alternative might be just as good or better in either gameplay or story.

There's a tab alongside the inventory tab called "reactions", It controls those popup during combat and some of the auto attack stuff.

Some of them don't use any charges or spells or anything so those are set to "on" and "don't ask" by default which normally is good as it save you time.

But if you've used a spell or anything that makes the enemy run away, like frighten or turn then you definitely don't want you characters hitting them automatically as that'll knock the spell off.

I used "turn undead" to drive off a mass of shadow creatures, and then my characters just hit them as they were near or disengaging making the effect go off instantly.

Found Act 2 very dark and bland. Some of the fights were interesting but just going about not so much, some of the fights and choice lead to some interesting stuff.

Restarted to try to get 2 trophies for spider queen and golem thing, and got one and approaching the other now. This time I fought the Githyanki patrol rather than talk them out and good god that fight is hard, they're all level 5 and it's 2 fighters and 2 rangers so all of them have at least 2 actions plus at least 1 bonus attack per turn with the ability for the fighters to regain an action point.

My heroic stand against them involved casting fairy fire on them to give myself advantage and then casting darkness on my group so anyone inside the black cloud was blinded and had disadvantage. For me the advantages cancelled out but for them they didn't. They couldn't shoot in and some of their melee attacks missed but they still were doing a lot of damage even blinded when they entered. Even at the end the last ranger was high up and it was about then my darkness' 10 turns wore out and I only won by the skin of my teeth.

Some classes you can only change spells on level up, or have to learn/forget some. So it's a trip to withers.

Warlocks have to be particular.

Cleric know every spell for their level when they reach a level and can change prepared spells on the fly outside combat just spells slots used stay used.

Wizards can learn any spell from a spell scroll for gold, so you can learn a spell off a scroll and then respec and that will already be learned so you can pick ones you've not got so no need to use a level up learning some useful but limited spell spell.

Redid Act 1 to get some trophies, and must have wondered around a bit after arriving at the forge so when I went back to free the guy everyone was dead or gone. Also entirely forgot about laezel so never recruited her and didn't realize that until I wondered up to the githyanki patrol and she ran up to report to the guy with the dragon, she was level 1 so died instantly. Even if she wasn't in my party I was able to use a scroll on her.

Ready to leave Act 2 as well and feeling much the same as other people, did not enjoy the dark settings as much as the setting of Act 1, hopefully the city setting of Act 3 will get things going again.

New patch also due out today, including a mirror in your camp which will allow you to change your appearance (not things like race or origins though). Not sure what else is included.

Sweet. My character looks like this dude.

I can finally change his face. :p

If you pick up backpacks and pouches, you can store things in them, like a backpack for books, one for scrolls, a pouch for potion ingredients, a backpack for arrows etc. Stuff you don't think you'll use that often.

Or a lot of things you can just Send To Camp and it'll be in the Travellers Chest in your camp.