When I checked out Steam broke. I was using like 60 credit and covering the rest but now I have the game and the credit so I guess my card ate it all.

I need to see character pics Moose and Brian.

And well anyone else if they happen to be playing.

It's so goddamn good. I'm like 80 hours in and I think I'm finally almost done with the first act.

Act 2 has quietly bullied me into putting magic back into my party. I was greedily just jumping and hitting everything with warhammers.

@Merc

Did you finish? What are your non-spoiler thoughts on Act 3? I'm closing in on it and I'm seeing a lot of people complaining about it. Both performance wise, even on great computers so I'm getting nervous, and content wise.

I moved into Act 3. I will report any major bugs or hiccups I run into.

Really looking forward to doing a more purely evil playthrough. I've done a few evil things along the way, mainly not shying away from using the tadpoles and trying to push them on my team, but my barbarian is still generally heroic.

I mostly can't wait to slap tieflings around in a new life.

I came into possession of this and love the flavor of the Grim Irony effect. I haven't used it yet but I really hope it makes a squeaky honking noise when it crits.

This game was so good. I finished it earlier this morning and even though I spent a disgusting amount of time exploring it I am already planning for my evil character playthrough to mop up leftover achievements. I've never played and clicked with a CRPG like this before and this will be a game that sticks with me for a long time as an example of one that opened up and made appealing an entire genre for me.

The performance did tank in Act 3 (god the load times) but my laptop wasn't running it perfectly in Act 1 and 2 either. I did not run into any major bugs. Only a minor one that caused a few quests to be permanently present in my journal. I did something without really thinking that locked me out of an area so I couldn't progress a few quests but they never entered a "completed" fail state and just stayed in my journal telling me to go do things I could no longer actually do.

Edit: Oh yeah, there was one thing that happened that I thought was a major game breaking bug that was going to see me stuck unable to proceed but... it was just player idiocy. Apparently during a boss fight I had toggled non-lethal damage on at some point. So when I beat the fight I hadn't actually killed the boss or gotten their loot. So when I finally ran out of ideas and returned to double check its corpse for an item needed to progress it was conscious and alive with 1 HP.

Started my Dark Urge playthrough as a Rock Gnome Bard and it's difficult for me to commit to evil.

Act 1 Stuff but EVIL

+

So far I've killed Gale and let Arabella die to the snake. The latter was particularly difficult to do because they give you several chances to change your mind and then don't even give your Dark Urge character inspiration for it. I guess because they didn't do it with their own hands lol. I've also been picking off Tieflings and any other Grove NPCs that are secluded, or can have the doors to their chambers closed. So when I march back with a goblin army it will be even more of a pushover. Act 1 Dark Urge exclusive scene spoiler + The Alfira murder was goddamn brutal. The way it just lingered on her mutilated corpse while your character stands over it. While I don't really enjoy the idea of my character actually being an out of control murderer, I do love the aspect of comically lying to everyone around you about how the latest corpse happened. "Oh a boar came into camp last night and gored her but didn't wake you all up" got a good laugh out of me, especially with Lae'zel towering over my PC. Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae'zel (later replaced with Minthara) are going to be my team if they will all stick with me. I'm going to kill or disgust everyone else into leaving. Astarion seems to be down for whatever, Lae'zel disapproves of the weirdest stuff, and Shadowheart I'm going to force into Shar worship this time so she can be my gnome's ultimate emo GF.

Almost back to Act 2 in my Dark Urge playthrough. Just the Creche stuff in the Mountain Pass left. Exploration is going faster since I know where things are, but I'm still having to dig in every corner looking for XP because the Tactician battles are pushing me a little more due to them hitting harder.

Some of the early Act 1 Tactician fights before you have even a hint of power behind you may as well be the Balthazar battle from much later on. Like nothing major changes, same battles and enemies, but they definitely utilize tactics and other stuff the Balanced mode enemies ignored in favor of marching into woodchippers.

I do feel myself getting kind of burnt out (FINALLY) but I only have six more achievements to go.

I saved up the summonable NPC items I found for the final battle this time. Now that I'm here again I'm sad to report you can't blow the horn and summon the three ogres from Act 1 or Balthazar's brother from Act 2 to help you.

Your character doesn't even acknowledge the bell being used to try to summon the brother but says "no sense in bursting my lungs to blow this horn, the ogres are too far away to hear us" when trying to summon them.

@Boc

When you get to the final battle, the villain speaks to you and addresses your present party with epithets. I didn't remember this from my first game and don't have the saves anymore to go back to. And on this save I literally only have my core group and all other companions I killed or let die so I can't redo it with a new team to see them all. Please post what you get. I know you said you use Wyll, I'm sure he's got a good one.

The epithets I received	+
Shadowheart - The Daughter of Darkness (maybe different if she doesn't side with Shar?) Astarion - The Ratcatcher Who Became a Lord (maybe different if he doesn't ascend?) Minthara - The Avenging Exile Dark Urge - Murder Incarnate (maybe different if you resist/refuse the Urge through playthrough?)

---

The final battle was very, very hard for me on Tactician. I was relentlessly save scumming and still worked my way into a position that I just had to abandon and completely restart the gauntlet after hours of play. Even going back fully prepared (took every single scroll and potion from my camp chest with me) I struggled a bit. I was very surprised seeing as how I completely melted through it on Balanced.

Anyway, I've now 100% completed Baldur's Gate 3 and I believe it's my favorite game of all time. I've literally never beaten a game and then immediately started a new playthrough that I went on to see through to the end for another 100+ hour romp.

I'm going to have to explore the CRPG genre further now, to see if it's this game specifically I'm super high on or if it's just the style of the genre I'm infatuated with now that I more comfortably understand how they play.

Spoiler

+

That probably means the epithets only happen during a Durge playthrough. It never made sense to me that I didn't notice them and geek out over them on my normal playthrough, anyway. So I'd have to do a good Durge playthrough at some point to see the rest. While I actually quite enjoyed Act 3 eventually (mixing Jaheira and Minsc into my party helped a lot) it definitely started to wander compared to the first two acts. I can't get over how perfect the first two were, in fact. It sucks that so much of Act 3 was cut (Upper City stuff) and you can really tell how mashed together and borderline aimless everything gets. It almost feels like they should have shuffled things around to make Act 2 into Act 3 and have the Baldur's Gate section be Act 2. Ketheric and his fucked up family had a lot more screen presence than Orin or ESPECIALLY Gortash, for me anyway. My first run ending: I freed Orpheus, I became the mindflayer and destroyed the crown. I then killed myself on the dock in front of everyone with a dagger to my gut. Karlach, my romantic partner, burned to death while crying over me at the end of the same dock. Laezelle, my bff, shrugged and flew off with Orpheus to enslave and rape the rest of the galaxy. Basically leaving my friendless un-ascended Astarion standing with his thumb up his ass and the sun rising. It was actually hilarious how each thing made my good ending more depressing as it unfolded.

I've actually been thinking about a third playthrough. I did absolutely nothing with Wyll ever so I need to see his story. Maybe I'll use mods and be a hobgoblin or myconid.

Spoiler	+
I haven't set foot on (in) the Iron Throne yet. It is honestly the biggest reason I want to run through again; it being tied to Wyll and his pops is just happenstance. Gotta try to save my boy Omeluum. I hate the Gondians so I blew them up both times without a care lol. And the only thing worse than the Gondians is Wulbren Bongle, that stupid little fucker.

Minthara

+

I really like her but you have to commit so hard to evil to get her in Act 1 that it's wild how much gets sacrificed. That and all of her lines and stuff still aren't fixed, so she is but a shell of what she could be. That being said I LOVE her voice actor and she was a great companion on my evil run... until she started glitching in Act 3 and I'd have to routinely kill her and have Withers revive her so she would stop saying one single line of dialogue when spoken to.