Is the game hard?

[Sevein]

So my friend and I are not usually playing these games. Thou I’m a good turn based strategist I am not really looking to play this game as a challenge. We are kinda looking forward to play it as a role play game. We want to choose characters and builds based on “fun” rather than efficient. We don’t wanna worry about covering all knowledge and passives and making sure we have experts in all stats etc. we don’t wanna make sure we have a top tier combat team. We just wanna pick whatever we feel like and see whatever happens.

I know there is a story diff but I do kinda wanna play on the normal diff. I like a bit of resistance in combat making me wanna try to negotiate and avoid if it looks tough etc.

Is the game very challenging on the normal diff if we play the game with suboptimal char combinations and try to approach the game for an adventure rather than performing well at all times? For example, if we play with a bunch of rogues and no casters, will be gimp ourselves too much on normal diff because we lack intelligence and spellcasters? I’m afraid the easy diff will be too much mindless combat but maybe normal diff require us to actually plan the team comp more than we wanna role play if you get my point.

[Edstyles]

Its somewhat hard if dont know mechanics and rush the game.

For instance i very much wanted to get to baldurs gate as fast as posible to find Minsc. Well that also means i might be under level and feels harder cause of this. But all fights been doable.

[Cruddy]

There's 3 difficulty options and 2 of them are not particularly hard. Casters are not required either.

[katzenkrimis]

There are so many turn-based role-playing newcomers that came out of the woodwork and hopped on the band-wagon for this one.

To them it's hard, but medium difficulty is fine for the majority of experienced gamers.

[Occursus]

Originally posted by Sevein:

So my friend and I are not usually playing these games. Thou I’m a good turn based strategist I am not really looking to play this game as a challenge. We are kinda looking forward to play it as a role play game. We want to choose characters and builds based on “fun” rather than efficient. We don’t wanna worry about covering all knowledge and passives and making sure we have experts in all stats etc. we don’t wanna make sure we have a top tier combat team. We just wanna pick whatever we feel like and see whatever happens.

I know there is a story diff but I do kinda wanna play on the normal diff. I like a bit of resistance in combat making me wanna try to negotiate and avoid if it looks tough etc.

Is the game very challenging on the normal diff if we play the game with suboptimal char combinations and try to approach the game for an adventure rather than performing well at all times? For example, if we play with a bunch of rogues and no casters, will be gimp ourselves too much on normal diff because we lack intelligence and spellcasters? I’m afraid the easy diff will be too much mindless combat but maybe normal diff require us to actually plan the team comp more than we wanna role play if you get my point.

Honestly, it all depends on you. However, since you change the difficulty quite easily in the menu, you could try it out for a few encounters and see how it goes.

If it can cheer you on, in Tactican, it is still quite permissive when it comes to build. It spices things up, but it is still fair. The default is like that - but less spicy. You have a lot of room for creativity without optimisation !

[Devoras]

I'm not new to tactical games, for example I only play xcom 2 on legendary difficulty as it's the only difficulty to provide any kind of challenge. However I found Baldur's gate 3, even on the easiest difficulty, to be brutally difficult. Multiple fights I had to reload 10+ times until I got lucky enough to get through them. It is a very difficult game. And if you don't have the right abilities you can get stuck. For example. I ran into an enemy using a fear spell immediately that makes your entire party useless for a few rounds which is a death sentence. There are spells that can help resist that, but if you don't have the ability to cast them, you're just not winning that fight.

[jk2l]

This game have quite a bit learning curve. If you know dnd rule well and know how to min max. This game is very easy

But I think for general people never touch dnd before this game can feel overwhelming

[SollPicher]

BG3 is one of mine first tactical game (1st was original Fallout a great years ago). I choose middle level and some first fights were not ease, but now im on 2d act and its more easy than hard.

[Sevein]

Thanks for the answers guys! I think normal diff will be good and if I feel that we reach a point where our role playing took to much out of the performance of the team we could reduce the diff for some encounters. Think we will be fine thou. I’m an experienced turn based gamer. I just worries there was too much emphasise on making a perfect team and not only making good decisions with the team.

Thx guys!

[Brother]

just my tidbit, I am gonna change out shadowheart because other than a few moments i dont feel like a cleric is "needed" you can mostly get through encounters with potions and other classes, paladin as example if you want heals but still tank or damage, which is what i have

i just got into the second act and im probably grabbing a druid for more versatility, overall it hasn't felt like the type of game where you need like a "perfect" team comp, the usual, dps-ranged dps/-tank-healer, i was watching some people do coop and they weren't following the usual team comp and they were doing fine, just sometimes have to use more ingenuity

[doublejesus]

Lot of gamers out there don't use their rogues to scout and think it's a difficult game.

Sometimes my rogue just solo's encounters cause he can. I've already started picking them off 1 at a time might as well see how far I can go, next thing I know everyone is dead.

There's even some great boss cheese you can do I've done a couple of the old "banish them before dialogue" and surround them with a couple melee character, pop speed potions so when they come out of the shadow realm there's a nice pain party waiting for them before they get a round 1 turn. I love banish cheese cause most monsters don't have good cha and cha save spells are some of the most disgusting spells 5e.

[some guy]

if youre good with tbt games youre gonna crush this game. its less hard and more complicated if you dont know dnd at all. once you get to grips with your plethora of options it should be fairly easy. i think you can easily play balanced and go full rp and get some challenge out of it, without it getting too much to handle.

[Seizure Storm]

I wouldn't say its hard but I don't think you can sleepwalk the fights

[GrandMajora]

Even when playing in Explorer Mode, I ran into some trouble in Act 2, because I was rushing through the story instead of taking my time with side quests. This caused the enemies to rapidly pass me in level. But after a while, I started catching back up and they became easier again.

Even though I pretty much sped through and ignored quite a lot of side quests, I've still managed to reach level 12 before taking out all three Chosen. So I wouldn't call the game 'hard' for somebody who intends to go the completionist route and do as many quests as possible.

[bjornvermeulen4]

On normal i found a couple of fights harder.

Like auntie ethel because its timed if you wanna save the girl Gale hads these misiles that shoot several times bring him with hat spell , the watcher thing Focus him ignore the others and the fight in greyforge because i was facing soo many enemies it was insane had to reload take the high ground and burn or obscure the ladder .

[Captain Foambeard]

For me it kind of adds to the game, bigger reward the better you get.
I wouldn't want to be pretty much unstoppable from the beginning.
Just keep trying, or even cheesing!