An Introduction to Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate 3, by Larian Studios, is the spiritual successor to the first 2 Baldur's Gate games developed by Bioware and their spinoffs, which were cult classic computer RPGs based on the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game. Set in the fantastical realm of Faerun, the story leads inevitably to the metropolis of Baldur's Gate - a major harbor along the Sword Coast, lying between Amn and Calimshan to the South and the northern cities of Waterdeep and Neverwinter. the It focuses on turn-based, party-based combat, rich storytelling and impactful story and dialogue decision trees, and the balancing between unrivaled freedom to explore loads of varied and handcrafted side content with an intriguing and compelling main scenario. Your decisions matter, your skills matter, the way you build your characters matter... and they can all come together to great success or abject failure. The game is filled with nooks and crannies filled with treasure, monsters, potential enemies (or could they be allies? your way with words might just sway their hearts).
Game System Basics
Baldur's Gate III is based on a modified form of the 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. You have a party of up to 4 characters, which can be played via local or online co-op or populated by NPCs - it is advised to have at least some NPC characters as many key story points are contained in the NPC companion interactions and character quests.
At the game's core is the 20-sided dice, also called the d20. Every action you take that requires skill - be it lying your ass off to get away from someone accusing you of being a thief - to swinging your sword or aiming your bow at a monster - will rely on the result of the roll of a d20, in addition to a variety of bonuses that you may be able to gain through various means. If this is too complex, just remember BIGGER NUMBER BETTER.
To aid you in your endeavors, your characters and other living beings are endowed with 6 basic attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Attributes
Strength: Your physical might. Affects: carry weight, how easy it is to hit with and how much damage you deal with most melee and improvised weapons, the ability to bash open obstacles, how far your character can jump. Also affects the Athletics skill, which is mainly used for shoving people in combat, and may allow you to run/jump/swim/climb various environments or give other unlockable dialogue options.
Dexterity: How agile you are. Affects: how easy it is to hit you (heavier armors may restrict the bonuses you gain from this stat), how early you go in combat, how easy it is to hit with and how much damage you do with ranged weapons, melee weapons marked with the "finesse" tag, thrown weapons, and spells with an attack roll. It affects whether you can dodge traps and AoE spells for half damage, skills like Sleight of Hand (pickpocketing), Stealth, and Acrobatics.
Constitution: How hale and hearty you are. Affects: how many hitpoints you have. Also certain spells require ongoing concentration checks every round; if you take damage your constitution determines how likely it is that you fail to keep your concentration (and thus interrupt the spell). Helps resist poison and disease, and increases the amount of hitpoints regenerated during a short rest.
Intelligence: How smart you are. Affects: spellcasting for Wizards, Eldritch Knight Fighter subclasses. Skills include Arcana (identifying magical effects), History, Investigation (finding hidden objects, some dialogue), Nature (arcana check for natural effects), Religion (same as history for religious knowledge).
Wisdom: How mentally resilient you are. Affects: spellcasting for Druids, Clerics, also key stat for Monks. Lots of debuff spells and conditions require Wisdom saves. Skills affected: Animal handling (surprisingly useful, and not just for bear sex), Insight (detect lies, lots of dialogue options), Medicine, Perception (detect traps, dialogue options, detect hidden enemies), Survival (tracking, avoiding problematic terrain).
Charisma: Your ability to socialize. Spellcasting stat for Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. Social skills include Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion, which are all fairly self-explanatory. Also may make merchants and NPCs friendlier or more antagonistic.
All attributes are scored on a range from 1-20 (stats with 0 generally lead to death or paralysis, and stats over 20 are generally reserved for monsters outside of magical effects). To determine how effective each stat is, you subtract by 10 and divide by 2, rounding down. So a score of 10 gives a +0, a score of 17 gives +3, a score of 8 gives -1, etc. It is generally highly recommended to aim for even-numbered stats as odd-numbered stats give basically no increased benefit e.g. going from 12 to 13 constitution gives no extra hitpoints, while going from 13 to 14 will give you +1 hitpoint per level.
Combat
Combat is purely turn-based, and can be entered into solo or with your whole party at once depending on the positioning of your characters (there is a toggle to keep the party together, if you initiate combat with one character while this toggle is active the entire party will enter battle - if you are ungrouped, then the only characters that enter battle are those that are within range and detected by the enemy). Turn order is based on initiative - d20+your initiative (dex) modifier. This initiative does not change throughout the entire combat encounter. Therefore it is good to go first as high alpha damage (first strike) can significantly help or hurt your party.
Each turn is divided into movement and three separate action classes, each character gets to use one of these per turn by default:
Action: The "main" thing you do in a turn, like attacking with your weapon, hiding, dashing (using your action to move twice the distance you normally do), disengaging (move out of melee combat range without triggering an opportunity attack from an enemy), casting most spells, etc.
Bonus action: Auxiliary actions. Stuff like drinking a potion, using a portion of your movement to jump, shoving an enemy, casting certain spells.
Reaction: Things that you can do in reaction to someone else doing something. Note that you only have one of these per turn, so if you have multiple reactions you should choose carefully when presented the opportunity to take one. By default the only reaction that everyone can use is the Opportunity Attack, which is when an enemy moves out of your melee attack range you can get a free strike in with your melee weapon.
Skills
Most things you do in the game rely on skills to determine success or failure. Unlocking a chest or door? That's going to be a sleight-of-hand(dexterity) check using thieve's tools. Finding the right words to calm down someone who is about to fight you? That's going to be a persuasion(charisma) check. Don't overlook your skills, just because you can fight your way out of encounters doesn't mean it's always the best idea. A honeyed word could open the door to a side quest. Remembering a key detail about a fallen civilization with your history skill(wisdom) might give you a pivotal clue to unlock a gate that prevents you from looting a juicy chest.
FAQ
A: Deal with it
Q: What is a "critical success/failure"?
A: If you roll a 1 on the dice (called a natural 1), you automatically fail what you were trying to do. If you roll a 20 on the dice (nat 20), you automatically succeed.
Q: This is a PC game, won't it be terrible on console?
A: There is a fully controller-centric UI.
Q: I saw this really cool outfit/weapon on social media, do I need to buy the battlepass to get it?
A: What battlepass?
Q: Is it really as good as they say?
A: Yes
