Yesterday I completed a game of Baldur’s Gate 3 at the Tactician level of difficulty, the second highest supported. According to the developers, Larian Studios, only 5% of players accomplish that. I have no plans to play at the highest level of difficulty, something only a very small number of players have completed successfully. It’s a game not a death march.
I’ve been playing BG3 off and on since it was introduced in pre-release. It is an excellent role-playing game—possibly the best. Pre-release consisted of the first chapter only and I played to the end of the chapter multiple times, at least once for every character class (wizard, rogue, ranger, cleric, etc.). Since the game went into general release in 2023, I have played it through multiple times.
By far the most fun playthrough was as something called “Dark Urge”, a creature subject to and occasionally overwhelmed by violent urges to perform evil deeds. I have a limitation. I cannot satisfactorily roleplay as an actually evil character so my Dark Urge was actively trying to fight his evil nature, something I found very close to home. The ending of that playthrough was very satisfying.
The limitation restricts my ability to play as what are called “origin characters”, pre-built characters with substantial back stories and distinct goals. The origin characters with good orientations are the Gale (wizard), Wyll (warlock), and Karlach (barbarian). I’ve played as Gale; in the game I am just beginning I am Wyll. I have only completed the prologue but I’ve found it very immersing.
I’m on my second playthrough overall and doing it at Tactician level. So far (close to the end of Act I), I’ve found it not as difficult as anticipated, at least once I got to level 5 for extra attack.
I played a fighter first time through — I think that class is easier for me to understand. Shadowheart, Gale and Astarion were my main companions though I wished there had been alternate to Astarion. If I did another playthrough I was going to have a character that left me less dependent on him, but once I decided to go Tactician I ended up playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, which is not a lot different than the previous fighter.
In my Tactician-level playthrough I found the fight that ends Act 2 to be the hardest—I almost gave up.
The very first time I played through Act 1 in pre-release was as a fighter. Since then as I said I’ve played at least Act 1 as every class. The playthrough as a monk was the most consistent with my play style.
My present playthrough as origin character Wyll is going quite well and so far it has been surprisingly fun.
I found Gale more useful in past (or understandable to me) and that probably came at Wyll’s expense. For some reason I never had a good understanding what a warlock was good for. It seems a lot of people like Warlocks, but my impression is that they are multi-classing them, including warlock-paladin. Maybe I’ll look at this next level up.