Baldurs Gate 3

[Kyanion]

This is D&D, it's not cheese, it's working as intended

What the traditional D&D has really piss poor high level scaling and always has but since it is a computer game and you can insta die the second you step into a screen and are forced to reload better kill them offscreen? That was boring as hell.

[Northern Goblin]

This is D&D, it's not cheese, it's working as intended

It was cheese because the AI wouldn't react to Cloudkill, as the player hadn't entered their line of sight they would simply sit in it.

The EE version somewhat fixed it, but it certainly isn't how a DM would have their NPCs act in a D&D game.

[Makabreska]

Almost as cheese as off screen Cloudkill stacking.

Nothing beats going for the beholders with Balduran's shield.

[Cairhiin]

OR stack everything on one hero who was immmune and hope he could solo their entire group of Illithid. I agree with you it was kinda ugh.

This is a pretty good tactic, usually some melee hero buffed (Chaotic Commands, Protection from Evil, Death Ward, Haste, etc.) into high heavens; similar tactic works on the Beholders (just get a Shield of Balduran) and send your melee hero in alone.

Luckily, Mindflayers in 5e don't really kill instantly. Extract Brain still requires the target to be reduced to 0 hitpoints on the attack.

[Cairhiin]

Honestly the Shield of Balduran was the worst kind of cheese. The right solution to fighting Beholders is an Antimagic zone (which would have worked wonders in BG since they cannot escape by levitating nor can they use telekinesis and disintegrate to cheat antimagic by throwing rocks at you). Facing a beholder head on is just death.

Oh ye, I agree with you but trudging through that Beholder den and having to waste large amount of spells to fight them is really rather tedious. The shield would also not work if the Beholders actually had the antimagic field central eyebeam.

[AeneasBK]

This is a pretty good tactic, usually some melee hero buffed (Chaotic Commands, Protection from Evil, Death Ward, Haste, etc.) into high heavens; similar tactic works on the Beholders (just get a Shield of Balduran) and send your melee hero in alone.

Luckily, Mindflayers in 5e don't really kill instantly. Extract Brain still requires the target to be reduced to 0 hitpoints on the attack.

Good reason to roll a Berzerker/Barbarian main or have Minsc; that and Kangaxx. I like a hard fight but when there's essentially only one valid way to get a fight done it's a bit silly.

- - - Updated - - -

Ultimately, Beholders just suck.

I had always thought that Beholders were meant to be incredibly rare creatures kinda like dragons just... uglier; was surprised at how many you face in BG2 although I guess once you've made a video game asset you want to get your monies worth. But the Elder Orbs or w/e they are called were as powerful as I figured they ought to be, just didn't think you'd be carving a swathe through several of them at once (?? dafuq)

[Cairhiin]

I had always thought that Beholders were meant to be incredibly rare creatures kinda like dragons just... uglier; was surprised at how many you face in BG2 although I guess once you've made a video game asset you want to get your monies worth. But the Elder Orbs or w/e they are called were as powerful as I figured they ought to be, just didn't think you'd be carving a swathe through several of them at once (?? dafuq)

Basically, Beholders are solitary, and have an entire hive dedicated to the defense of themselves and their treasure. They typically have a large amount of dominated slaves. Fighting a beholder in its lair is an incredibly dangerous fight. The lair is multi tiered with a central shaft through which the beholder can access the entire lair quickly. The beholder den in BG2 isn't really a good representation. Even the smaller Gauth you encounter are normally solitary creatures. Why they chose to pack them like that I don't really know; maybe to provide more of a challenge? Maybe to reuse the sprites? The Beholders also lack their antimagic field eyebeam (luckily).

Fun fact about Beholders:

Beholders can produce others of their own kind, but the process has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with psychology.

When a beholder sleeps, its body goes briefly dormant but its mind never stops working. The creature is fully aware, even though to an outside observer it might appear oblivious of its surroundings. Sometimes a beholder’s dreams are dominated by images of itself or of other beholders (which might or might not actually exist). On extremely rare occasions when a beholder dreams of another beholder, the act creates a warp in reality—from which a new, fully formed beholder springs forth unbidden, seemingly having appeared out of thin air in a nearby space. This “offspring” might be a duplicate of the beholder that dreamed it into existence, or it could take the form of a different variety of beholder, such as a death kiss or a gazer (see “Beholder-Kin”).

It might also be a truly unique creature, such as could be spawned only from the twisted imagination of a beholder, with a set of magical abilities unlike that of its parent. In most cases, the process yields one of the three principal forms of the beholder: a solitary beholder, a hive, or a death tyrant.

- Volo

EDIT: Actually, after checking my Volo's Guide to Monsters, it would appear that a hive is possible (i checked after reading above quote). It would feature 3-10 Beholders birthed from a dream of a Beholder. The dreamer is the dominant one. However, it still is not the same as the hive in bg2.

[AeneasBK]

There is a Beholder hive city southeast of Amn that has hundreds of HIVE MOTHERS and thousands of normal beholders (and innumerable slaves, raided from Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan over centuries). The entire area has a heavy beholder presence in the Realms. So yes, there are hive cities were you'd face dozens of beholders at once; ofc in tabletop you are never meant to raid those places but rather try to infiltrate them to save a specific slave or negotiate with some hive mother for a magic item.

Yeah I'm totally unfamiliar with Forgotten Realms lore other than a few lost hours reading up about the various gods and the upheavals that distributed which spheres they were in control of / avatars of; or however you'd describe it. I did read a lot of the 2e Monstrous Manual tho which is where I probably got the idea it was a solitary 'dragon' like villain/ end boss type monster rather than a grunt/shock trooper like they are in parts of BG (the tomb under the temple district of Amaunator (or whoever he was, the dude you have to heal to kill) has a bunch randomly chucked in when you're already on a big quest to kill just one of them; kinda waters down the threat )

[Cairhiin]

There is a Beholder hive city southeast of Amn that has hundreds of HIVE MOTHERS and thousands of normal beholders (and innumerable slaves, raided from Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan over centuries). The entire area has a heavy beholder presence in the Realms. So yes, there are hive cities were you'd face dozens of beholders at once; ofc in tabletop you are never meant to raid those places but rather try to infiltrate them to save a specific slave or negotiate with some hive mother for a magic item.

I did not know this either by the way, gotta check it out. That's really interesting. Which invalidates my point about the hive in BG2, as its clearly possible.

[Cairhiin]

Here is a link in the wiki about the Eye Tyrant Wars
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Eye_Tyrant_Wars
The Alimir Hive is one of the larger hives in FR (the other being under Anauroch and fully under the control of the phaerimm until the return of the Shadovar). Zokir is their capital and likely the largest beholder city in Toril (and certainly in Faerun)

Thanks for that link, learn something new in Forgotten Realms all the time apparently!

[FlubberPuddy]

There. Thats the gatekeeping right there. New fans arent lesser than old fans and as such if a franchise makes a Thing thats more appealing to new fans than old fans there is nothing wrong with that. I was confused when bg3 was announced cus i thought it was the dungeon crawler games. Had no idea there was an rpg like that before dragon age. Im hyped for it cus it looks like a fun game with customizability and social interaction with my favorite gsme system. And my feelings arent any less legitimate just cus i never played or even hurd of 1 and 2

100% trueee.

I never played BG1&BG2 and when I heard Larian was making BG3 I became super excited, especially on hearing its turn-based. Because BG3 piqued my interest on the BG series as a whole I went and purchased BG1&BG2 EE and am currently playing through BG1 and enjoying it. Like I enjoy it more than Pillars of Eternity 1 starting O_O!

Gatekeeping is disgusting and I'm glad that Larian are making BG3 and it will most likely be as successful if not more successful than their bombastic DOS2 they recently made.

[Makabreska]

Honestly I don't think there is any fictional setting with comparable amount of lore as FR

Dunno man, but Warhammer is rich af.

[Endus]

This is a pretty good tactic, usually some melee hero buffed (Chaotic Commands, Protection from Evil, Death Ward, Haste, etc.) into high heavens; similar tactic works on the Beholders (just get a Shield of Balduran) and send your melee hero in alone.

Luckily, Mindflayers in 5e don't really kill instantly. Extract Brain still requires the target to be reduced to 0 hitpoints on the attack.

That's what Intellect Devourers are for.

Two abilities; one forces the target to save, and a fail means they roll 3d6. If the result is their Intelligence or higher, they're Stunned, and it only ends if they regain at least a point of Intelligence (which generally means magic like Lesser Restoration; you don't recover from this over time). The second means they do an Intelligence contest with the target, if they win, they invade the target's head, eat and replace its brain, and immediately learns every single thing the victim knew and adopts all their features; they essentially become that character, but under the DM's control. You can force them out with some magics, but that leaves the victim a brainless dead body.

Either ability is devastating. The combo is particularly brutal. And these things are only Challenge Rating 2, as opposed to a Mind Flayer's 7; they're likely to show up WAY earlier. And when the players are WAY less able to handle this kind of thing.

Sure, none of that's a given, but if you toss 4-6 Devourers at a party and they focus-fire, you can probably write off their target.

[Halicia]

Saying the Baldur's Gate franchise should have ended at the conclusion of the Bhaalspawn arc is like saying once you hang Onyxia's head in Stormwind you can never go back.

Both are giant sprawling cities that are the focus point of so many different quests and story arcs.

This isn't a worthwhile comparison. The game you're referencing isn't called Stormwind, and your character isn't "deleted" after turning in Onyxia's head.

I also apparently need to mention again that Baldur's Gate was never about Baldur's Gate, and there weren't "so many different story arcs". There was one story. Your character's. And the majority of it didn't even take place in or near Baldur's Gate.

[Trifle]

That's what Intellect Devourers are for.

Two abilities; one forces the target to save, and a fail means they roll 3d6. If the result is their Intelligence or higher, they're Stunned, and it only ends if they regain at least a point of Intelligence (which generally means magic like Lesser Restoration; you don't recover from this over time). The second means they do an Intelligence contest with the target, if they win, they invade the target's head, eat and replace its brain, and immediately learns every single thing the victim knew and adopts all their features; they essentially become that character, but under the DM's control. You can force them out with some magics, but that leaves the victim a brainless dead body.

That'll teach people for making int a dump stat !

[Makabreska]

And people are STILL trying to redefine the definition of "sequel".

[Cairhiin]

And people are STILL trying to redefine the definition of "sequel".

IWD2 also isn't really a sequal to IWD!

[Cairhiin]

How so? The main villains are the children of Belhifet

I was being sarcastic, I should maybe have mentioned that. Since people are trying to define what a sequel is and isn't.

"But I can't play the same character."

"But it's 30 years laters."

"But it's the wrong D&D edition."

[Cairhiin]

I actually wonder if BG3 will be built so as to have a sequel in itself. I can see that story stretching on. At the same time, 5E has a clear 20 level structure so it's harder to extend the campaign past that (not that you need to).

This is kind of a good question; I think I read somewhere that the level cap of BG3 is 10. If so then a sequel is quite likely.

[Ghostpanther]

This is kind of a good question; I think I read somewhere that the level cap of BG3 is 10. If so then a sequel is quite likely.

You must go a long time between levels if that is true. The game is going to be bigger than Divinity 2.