How's the game difficulty? Easy for newcomers?

[LouisKM124]

I am not used to these type of games but really want to try it.

[Ironwu]

It is actually very easy for newcomers as long as they are willing to put aside preconceptions based on other games and take a few tips for new players. :)

[Recjawjind]

If you pay attention, read your abilities, the tutorials, and the description of things, you'll be fine.
There are multiple different difficulties, and if you're having a tough time, you can switch to a lower one, with the lowest making the game ridiculously easy.

[Kafik]

Yes, they have a story mode exactly for that. But I would try balanced first, the first couple of levels are the most difficult because you're limited in abilities and gear. Once you get to five things are a lot easier to overcome.

[Ironwu]

So, here are my basic tips for New Players:

* Play on Explorer mode.

* After playing for a couple of hours, START OVER. Things will go SO much more smoothly now that you know some of the basics of strategy and tactics.

* Prepare a balanced party FIRST before you go into major combat. Here are the Companions you should recruit first. Explore around in order to find them. They take little or no combat to get:

- Lae'zel FIghter
- Gale Wizard
- Astarion Rogue
- Shadowheart Cleric

* You should select one of those above roles for your character (I recommend Wizard). Then when you reach the final Companion to recruit (you can only have 4 in the party) send the duplicate to camp and recruit the final one.

* When you have Withers in camp and the gold, respec your characters specializations:
- Fighter to Battle Master
- Rogue to Thief
- Cleric to Life
- Wizard to Evocation School
Whichever you choose for your class, start that way.

* For your FIRST Feat, take 'Alert'. Yes, other folks might recommend Ability or some other one, but it is a total game changer to be able to act FIRST every single time.

* Don't jump into major fights early in the game. You want have a full setup before going hard in the game. EXPLORE. You get EXP for exploring. Talk to everyone. Read every book. Take what you can (but don't steal RED stuff) and send it to camp to sell when you reach a vendor.

* Quicksave often. Watch out for when the game Autosaves on its own. That means there is probably something important coming soon. Like a big fight. I have my Quicksaves and Autosaves limited to 3 each. I Manual Save at important points, like after a big fight or right before a major area.

* Make sure you are using Armor and Weapons you are Proficient in. Otherwise, severe penalties are applied!

Have Fun and don't sweat the small stuff!

Good Luck

[Daniel]

The most difficult thing will honestly be getting accustomed to the D&D quirks and game mechanics, especially if you’re used to JRPGs or games like WoW.

Generally speaking player characters are rather weak, or in other words enemies are a lot more deadly, at low levels one shots are not uncommon, healing (especially in-combat) is not as powerful, and you’re not really meant to soak up damage and heal it back up in D&D games, spells do not operate on mana but on a per-day/rest basis.

The turn-based system is rather easy getting used to, once you understood how D&D works.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

It will feel really hard at first, and then you'll have a cognitive breakthrough and everything will become trivial, on every difficulty level.

Hint: delete enemies before they can act using explosive barrels or any other exploit you can find.

The goal in this game is to prevent your opponent from taking any actions.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

It will feel really hard at first, and then you'll have a cognitive breakthrough and everything will become trivial, on every difficulty level.

Hint: delete enemies before they can act using explosive barrels or any other exploit you can find.

The goal in this game is to prevent your opponent from taking any actions.

Stop coping in the thread of a newcomer asking for advice.

[Sentient_Toaster]

It's more tunable now that they've added a Custom difficulty mode with a variety of settings.

The in-game documentation can be sparse on mechanics (e.g. what modifiers affect what exactly), so you might want to look at a wiki's take on the mechanics ( https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Gameplay_mechanics ).

Even if you're familiar with tabletop D&D 5E, there are a lot of changes, some of which might be quite unintuitive, so you'll want to take your time.

It's definitely not meant to be a ruthlessly difficult game that requires a lot of system mastery to make progress, but it is the sort of game where you'll want to think tactically in terms of positioning, what combos you can set up, etc (like, Create Water may seem like it's pretty niche if nothing's on fire or in immediate danger of such, but the Wet status effect makes creatures vulnerable to lightning and cold -- i.e. taking double damage).

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Every single fight in this game is designed around the idea that you delete the enemies before combat begins, or they delete you.

Progress and build your party with that in mind.

[Razorblade]

If you're willing to try new things and learn, the game shouldn't be a problem. You're obviously not going to 100% understand the system the second the game starts, and that's okay. There are several flavors of easy difficulty if you truly need it.

That being said, if you're easily frustrated if you don't immediately understand how to succeed at a game, you're probably in for a bad time. While the easier difficulties are very easy, it's not quite "spam Left Click through an entire action game without ever learning the mechanics" level of easy. You're not "owed" success like some games; you will be expected to learn something eventually.

That being said, the bar isn't terribly high on the lower difficulties, and even the higher ones become trivial once you get used to it.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

This is how "difficult" the game is:

https://youtu.be/rJSOibiuHyc?si=ikm1qcRFnH0p3HWQ

[MundM]

On easy difficulty, sure!
It's a D&D game, though, not a regular turn based rpg. Everything you do gets a dice roll, so you can't rely on numbers of your equipment, because you could do little damage, or you could one shot an enemy, which means you always have to play strategically and can't just overpower combat situations (well, of course you can by over leveling and revisiting previous areas, of course). So brain on will bring you the most joy.

[Taifun_Vash]

It's on the easier side of things, just read through you abilitys and don't rush through the story. You don't need to start on explorer mode like some guy suggested, just take your time to learn. There can be some battles that will be harder for you and some that are fairly easy. You can even avoid 90% of the battles.

[AsianGirlLover]

You’re gonna want to read and watch a few guides. Once you understand the basics, this game is GGEZ, even on Tactician.

[Shells]

The game is as easy as an RPG can get, especially the combat.

What makes it unneccessarily difficult at times is the fact that Larian fails to deliver a consistent and thorough tooltip system to explain their "house" rules - you better have basic D&D 5e knowledge anyway when playing the game.

As a tiny but representative example (this accounts for literally dozens, if not hundrets of badly explained items, features and mechanisms) take "Mortal Reminder", one of the defining features of the Great Old One Warlock class. The tooltip says that enemies have to pass a Wisdom saving throw or get frightened when they get critically hit by one of your attacks (weapon or spell). What the tooltip does not say is upon which of your abilitities (it actually is CHA) the DC (difficulty class) of the Wisdom saving throw is based. This carelessness in explaining things properly happens around every corner of the game. The whole combat log - Owlcat showed how to do this professionally and actually in a helpfull way - is another example for the atrochious way Larian shows their incompetence in user guidance.