Since money is a little bit tight right now due to inflation and all that crap I had originally decided to postpone buying Baldur's Gate 3. I'm usually quite a patient gamer who wait for games to come on sale years down the line. There are quite few games that I've bought on launch the last year. Those games being God of War (PC), Elden Ring and Diablo 4. Now, Baldur's Gate 3 joins the club.
Baldur's Gate 3 follows the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition rule-set. I've played countless hours of Dungeons & Dragons using this rule-set as a dungeon master so I knew everything about character creation from the get go. I knew just which race and class I wanted to play and which stats and proficiencies to choose for him.
I made a Githyanki Fighter named Axii. This kind of models a character I started playing myself around a year ago in a campaign that sadly fell apart after just a few sessions. That character was meant to go into the Psi Warrior subclass which functions a little but like a Jedi. Since that subclass isn't in Baldur's Gate 3 I'm going to go into the Eldritch Knight subclass once I reach level 3. The Eldritch Knight is a fighter that utilizes magic to strengthen his attacks and bypass a lot of resistances.
I was kind of hesitant to choose a fighter in this game seeing as going around swinging a sword in a game where you can use a ton of different spells ot alter environments and conversation outcomes. I decided to go for it anyways as I've had a bit of an attraction to classes who wields big swords lately.
When I picked my stats I chose to favor strength and charisma for the most part while forgoing intelligence. This will affect the outcome of different role-play choices and the likelihood of succeeding with particular skills. Charisma usually boosts chances of making successful conversation choices in terms of persuading or intimidating people. Having low intelligence simply means that I'm dumb. I'll suck at all kinds of checks that rely on intelligence like deciphering some ancient text or solving a puzzle meant for 3rd graders.
I also chose to be proficient in insight and intimidation. Insight handles the ability to read people. I'll have an easier time understanding if people are lying or being truthful. I chose intimidation because I want my character to be a bit of a hardy warrior who doesn't take shit from people. That suits his background as a soldier.
To sum it up my character is a yellow-skinned lizard-like man with black and red hair who lives his past life as a soldier. He's not particularly smart but he can easily hold his ground both in conversation and in a fight. That's Axii for ya.
So far I've barely played for 3 hours. Most of that was spend fine tuning my character to be just like I wanted him to be. I've played past the intro section of the game which lays down the hook for the coming story. It's a simple hook which is essential to a good start in any game of Dungeons & Dragons in my opinion. This makes the players feel less railroaded towards their destination. A good DM in a game of DnD will railroad the players towards their destination while making it feel like their choices took them there. It's all a manipulative game.
I won't delve to much into the story just yet since I've barely started out. What I've uncovered so far is that me and a few other unlucky ones were captured by Mind Flayers and infected with their worms which over time will turn us into new Mind Flayers. After escaping their ship and the 1st layer of the Nine Hells we now have to find a way to stop this process. When I quit the game yesterday I had just landed on a beach and was about to start exploring the nearby wilderness.
So far it seems like a really solid game that it very true to the 5th edition rule-set of Dungeons & Dragons. The story also had me hooked from the beginning. I'll be back once I've played some more.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.
