Certain settings hold greater significance than others and warrant review prior to commencing your gameplay. Review, for instance, the multiplayer features, which, as per reports from fellow players, are enabled by default. Unless you wish to have others join you without invitation at their convenience, it's advisable to adjust this setting before initiating a new game.



Similarly, the same holds true for the savegames feature. I recommend deactivating Steam Cloud Services and Larian Studios' Cross-Save functionality.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015166965

Karmic Dice, which are activated by default, serve to prevent prolonged sequences of failure while maintaining a predominantly random outcome. This mechanism acts as a safeguard against persistent strings of positive or negative dice rolls within Baldur's Gate 3, effectively curbing the occurrence of extended patterns of fortunate or unfortunate outcomes for characters.

Personally I recommend with that option off, for an authentic Dungeons & Dragons experience.

Trying to manipulate Karma with Karma is bad Karma.

The game has an autosave feature, but it is only triggered before what the game considers to be dangerous events. You are well advised to use quicksave often by pressing F5 to be prepared for accidents of all kinds.

Especially if you, like me, tend to spend your time managing your inventory, there will be no auto-save. Nothing hurts more than having your party wiped out by a trap or a critical failure roll - and then realising that the last time you saved was an hour or more ago...

When you save the game at the end of your session, try to save it in a safe place, preferably your camp. It is also worth making two savegames. One where you are currently exploring and one where you have returned to your camp. This way you will not forget any ongoing events, such as monsters chasing you or traps.

Problems with picking up stacks? Change the interface options.

Pressing F10 (default keybind) allows you to conceal the GUI, enabling you to capture screenshots devoid of the buttons located in the bottom left corner.

When you access the Inspiration (hotkey P), Journal (hotkey J) or Map (hotkey M) you get also access to two additional very helpful tabs.



The Tutorials messages and more can be found in-game, as well as the Dialogue History, which can be particularly useful for looking up your most recent dialogues from your last game session. Give it a try!

The toggle armour set visibility and helm visibility options are easy to miss, as they are hidden by default until you mouseover the relevant columns in the inventory interface.

It is easy to accidentally walk into a Cloud of Daggers cast by allies. Also easy to miss is the tiny on-screen button that allows you to cancel an ongoing Concentration spell.

This is a tip you may see very early in the game and is very important for Paladins.



Some battles cannot be avoided, either by accident or for other reasons. However, the killing of temporary hostiles can be a violation of your Paladin oath. You can avoid breaking the oath and still win a fight by disabling deadly attacks.

The toggle for this option is hidden in the passives.

Three important icons for important toggles. Very early on in the game, you will reach a point where the default setting of your hotbar will not display all of your skills. But you can add rows, lock them to prevent accidental changes, and even move the red columns by dragging them around to make the bar fit your needs and tastes.

You can barter with traders but you do not have to. Using the selling options makes it much easier to get your hands on gold, and you can use the Sell Wares option to sell unwanted items in bulk.

Holding CTRL while selecting items in your inventory allows you to select multiple items.



Holding SHIFT even lets you select entire rows of items.



Making it easy to move items between characters and marking them as wares for sale.

Gnomes, Dwarves, and Halflings possess the unique ability to navigate passages that remain inaccessible to others, opening up a realm of new possibilities.

In nearly every encounter, you'll discover environmental elements that can be harnessed to your advantage. For instance, you can strategically target and bring down a chandelier to strike at your adversaries.



You can also trigger levers, traps and flora among other things by using ranged attacks.

You can throw healing potions to help a downed companion up.
The basic Cure can be cast from afar too!

Your ally is put to sleep or charmed? Try giving them a push to wake them up!
No need to actually hurt them...

Amidst the chaos of a battle, identifying foes can prove challenging. To gain better visibility, press the "O" key for a top-down view. Additionally, you can use the "^" key (the one above TAB) to highlight all characters, both allies and adversaries.

You can see the dice rolls made during combat by mouseover the lines in the combat log.

As you stumble upon buried treasure, your characters will instinctively conduct a survival check to identify any surface indications of where to dig. Should you not succeed in this attempt, you can still initiate the digging process by choosing the corresponding option from the inventory menu. Remarkably, even without a clear indication of the burial spot, you can make an attempt and possibly uncover the treasure through sheer luck.

Your initial encounter with the Disguise spell might occur when experimenting with the Speak with Dead spell on a recently deceased individual.

For reference: https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/1694343783414906936 (official clip)

However, the spell's significance extends far beyond this. Early on in the game, you will learn about Goblin raiders under Drow leadership. By employing the Disguise spell, your reception and experience will be markedly distinct if you're not already playing as a Drow. Give it a shot!

Do not miss the grouping and hiding toggles. These are invaluable tools for sneaking around and avoiding traps. Also great for stealthy approaches where you engage an encounter with one character after another from stealth, surprising the enemy in the process.

Your companions will often comment recent events, even without a marker above their heads. Make sure to check on them before the night, for the extra flavour each of them have to add.



Even if the event which lead to this scene is about another character, you can be sure everyone has a comment parat. Checking on your companions and having them involved in your adventure can enrich your gaming experience significantly.

Employing the ALT key to highlight loot is effective. However, it is worth noting that numerous items, often integrated into the environmental decor are not be highlighted. Regardless, these objects still possess value, whether for utilization during a Long Rest or simply for selling. For reasons unbeknownst to me, especially alcohol is affected...

Soul Coins are items that can be quite valuable as you progress through the game. They can also be easy to miss, either in plain sight or hidden in a nearby container. However, they have a special characteristic that gives clues as to their location. If you listen carefully, you can hear a demonic whisper when you are near a Soul Coin. Do not ignore this hint.

You can dismiss additional player characters by talking to them.





They will be stored in that very creepy looking wardrobe in your camp (only available when there are actually bodies inside) until you welcome them back into your party (right-click on the character in the wardrobe and drop them back into the game).





https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015842445

This explaination of how Ability Points in Baldur's Gate 3 work is so good, it is worth to be preserved and presented towards any newcomer to the game!

Originally written by Recjawjind
Let's go by the different stats rather than classes, that might make it easier, to break down what exactly every single one does.

Strength determines your hit chance and damage for all weapon and unarmed attacks. Every 2 points in strength (generally), give you a flat +5% chance to hit, and +1 damage. There are exceptions that I will touch on with the other stats. It also influences your carry capacity, and jump distance. Every 2 points additionally improves your chance at succeeding at strength saving throws, and checks based on strength by 1. Generally, strength saving throws consist of effects that want to move you against your will, think knockbacks.

Dexterity determines your hit chance and damage for all ranged weapon attacks, same as strength. Dexterity however also works for melee weapons that have the "finesse" tag. These use your dexterity instead of strength, if and only if your dexterity is higher. Monk unarmed attacks and attacks with monk weapons count as finesse, so dexterity by itself determines everything about them. Dexterity also improves your armor class, effectively reducing your chance to be hit. No armor and Light armor gets the full bonus, medium armor only up to +2 (at 14 dexterity) and heavy armor gets no bonus. It also influences your initiative, meaning you go earlier in combat with a higher dexterity. Dexterity saving throws generally includes damaging effects that you can halve on a success. Think a fireball exploding, or a bolt of lightning striking.
It has no influence at all on spell based attacks, even if they are ranged.

Constitution mainly determines your health. Every 2 points in constitution gives you 1 extra HP per level, which applies retroactively. They also increase your armor class for barbarians, if you are not wearing armor. Constitution saves generally include things like resisting poisons or avoiding sickness. They, most importantly though, also include a casters ability to keep concentrating on a spell they have cast. Some spells say they are "concentration", which means the caster has to stay focussed on them. When they take damage, they must make a constitution saving throw to avoid loosing focus on the spell. You can also only concentrate on one spell at a time, but you can still cast non-concentration ones while concentrating.

Intelligence is the casting stat used by Wizards, eldritch knight fighters and arcane trickster rogues. It improves the chance of your spells hitting, and determines how many spells you can have ready to go at any given time. Generally for casters, your stats do *not* increase the damage of your spells (with some exceptions), only their chance to land, and chance for the enemy to resist. Intelligence saving throws are very rare, and include things like mind flayers attempting to stun you by blasting your mind.

Wisdom is the casting stat used by Clerics and Rangers. Increasing wisdom increases the chance of their offensive spells to land, but once again, does not increase their damage usually. It also increases how much they heal with their healing spells. Wisdom saving throws are usually effects that would take control away from your character, like charms and paralysis. Wisdom also increases the armor class of Monks, if you are not wearing armor.

Charisma is the casting stat for Sorcerers, Warlocks, Bards and Paladins. It once again improves the chance for their spells to hit, and in the case of Warlock specifically, with the commonly chosen "agonizing blast" ability at level 2, the damage of their main attack (eldritch blast). Charisma saving throws usually consist of effects that would remove you from this plane, like banishment.


I hope this little breakdown of the stats helped you make decisions on what to pick, for each class.

Generally, if you want to play a full caster, I would allocate your stats with the following priority: Main casting stat > Dexterity > Constitution.

Source:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/1086940/discussions/0/3823047564747770790/#c3823047564747829702

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015444196

You cannot decide what to play?
You got the impression your character is weak?
You feel like the game is too hard for your party even on Explorer difficulty?

Here are some tips and class recommendations I can give you to make things easier.




STR 17
DEX 15
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 8
CHA 8

Pretty straightforward to play, the sort of tanky frontline fighter who wears the heaviest and most robust armour and shield. Unlike in other games, this tank can hit quite well in melee and range, with a focus on melee attacks. At level 2, you gain Action Surge, which allows you to take an extra action between each short rest. And since you normally rest after a fight to heal, you can use this skill for all your fights. What we want here is simplicity: lots of health, heavy armour, no fancy magic and a high chance of hitting.


Damage is determined by the stats of the weapon. So whether your character is very strong, aka has a lot of Strength, or hardly any Strength at all, has little effect on the damage, unless the weapon specifies otherwise (e.g. adds an ability modifier to the weapon's damage).

To hit, roll a twenty-sided die (1d20), and if you roll higher than the target's armour class, you hit. That is the general gist of it. But there are also modifiers and proficiency.

Example
Target has armour class 17, which means you need to get a score of 17 or higher.

Now we add the modifiers and proficiency.

For every two scores above ten in ability score, you add a modifier score.

For melee attacks we use STR, so STR is for our fighter 17 which means the modifier is +3
For range attacks we use DEX, our fighter got 15 DEX which means the modifier is +2

There you can also see why we aim later on to get our ability scores in character developement (aka leveling) to a round number. 17 = +3 vs. 18 = +4

If a character is proficient in something they start with +2 bonus which gets another +1 for every 4 levels.

Proficiency for level

1-4 = +2
5-8 = +3
9-12 = +4

Back to our target with armour class 17:

We got +3 from STR 17 and +2 if our fighter uses a weapon which they are proficient with.

17-3-2 = 12

That means after considering the strength and proficiency we need actually to roll 12 or higher.

Every +1 in modifier and proficiency can be understood as +5% better chances with the 1d20 (100% divided by 20 => each score worth 5%)

By having positive modifiers and proficiency in weapon we affected the hit rate from only 15% to 40%. High armour class, whether due to sturdy armour or DEX boni for agile targets is sure hard to deal damage against.

The companion Shadowheart is a Half-Elf with High Elf ancestry. That gives her the cantrip (a spell which does not consume a spell slot and therefore can be used indefinitely without rest) Firebolt. Since Firebolt is an INT based attack she has a naturally low hit rate with no beneficial modifier to enhance her attack.




STR 16
DEX 8
CON 15
WIS 17
INT 8
CHA 8

The tanky healer with a focus on healing. A Life Domain Cleric not only gains special healing spells, but also additional bonuses to the amount healed. Throughout the game you will find equipment that makes healing even more powerful. Easy to play and highly recommended for beginners who expect a cleric to be a healer. Yes, a cleric can do more than that, but having a dedicated healer can make things a lot easier.

If you prefer you Cleric to use more ranged attack than melee attacks, you may switch the recommended STR/DEX values.




STR 8
DEX 16
CON 15
INT 8
WIS 8
CHA 17

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015444196
A good recommendation for beginners who want to play a caster is to multiclass a Tempest Cleric and a Storm Sorceress, starting with the Tempest Cleric. The main benefit is the heavy armour and shield proficiency that you gain for your caster, making them 'tanky' aka much harder to kill compared to a normal Sorceress, while still being able to cast spells. The Tempest Cleric also comes with two nice starter spells for extra survivability, while the Storm subclass for the Sorceress is great for repositioning. Easy to play, great to learn caster, especially compared to the Wizard.

Another great thing about playing a Sorceress is that they use Charisma as their spell modifier. If you play a Sorceress as your main character, you will by default get a bonus to your Persuasion checks.

~ Always looking good is kind of magical ~




STR 8
DEX 17
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 15
CHA 8

While it may seem counterintuitive for a beginner to play an Assassin, there are many advantages to learning how to make the most of stealth attacks and advantages. It could hardly be easier than with an Assassin, and you also get someone with good lockpicking and trap disabling skills. A Bard could be an alternative, but an Assassin is definitely easier to play as a beginner.




STR 10
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 8
CHA 17

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015444196
Great for beginners to get into Paladin and the Oath keeping mechanic, whereas we just want a strong melee caster who can wear heavy armour and weapons. Essentially a Warlock with Eldritch Blast that gets really strong and is easy to play from the start. What makes this recommendation special and good for beginners to learn are the special effects and synergies - specifically the Pact Weapons. You can either summon a Pact Weapon out of thin air or turn the weapon you are holding into a Pact Weapon.



And because Pact Weapons use the Spellcasting modifier, which is Charisma for the Warlock, you can wield any weapon you want, regardless of whether you have high Strength or Dexterity. Sounds good? Because it is. With the Paladin's heavy armour and Smite attacks, you can become an all-round spellcasting battle machine.

Keep in mind: while it does not matter much with so little levels in Paladin whether you keep your oath or not, you still need to redeem yourself before you can respec an oathbreaker character.

Do not forget the scrolls. My recommendations here are made with simplicity in mind, to give you an easy start. Therefore, I cannot recommend Wizard. However, your characters are not completely without magic, as they can still use scrolls. This is especially important when you run out of spell slots, or just need that extra fireball, etc.

Of course, there are many more ways to set up your character. These recommendations of mine are made to win the game when you are struggling and to make things as easy as possible. I recommend always having in party

a tank
a healer
a damage dealer caster
a specialist

That could be

a Battle Master
a Life Domain Cleric
a Sorcerer
a Assassin

As far as the races go, it really doesn't matter which one you choose as long as you keep in mind the specific traits, like a Gnome having a lower movement range, which makes it harder for them to get close in combat, while a Half Orc is quite hard to kill. These differences are there, but they are rather insignificant as I want you to enjoy your personal characters as much as possible. As time goes on, you will learn more about the game, find out about other combinations and classes, try things out with respecs and so on. This is just to get you started. An orientation, if you will.


STR 17
DEX 15
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 8
CHA 8

seems quite extreme compared with the default recommendation for a fighter, or what the companion characters have, right?





So why do D&D players do not what is considered "min-maxing"?
Why are so many using "imperfect" characters?
Has that any gameplay reasons?

More or less.

The answer is: role play gaming reason

It is not just about having the best stats in X and becoming a master in X that way. It is how your character "grew up" is reflected in the stats as well.

Take, for example, the imaginary character Reyna.
A Gnome who was orphaned as a child when bandits attacked her and her parents' wagon on their way to Baldur's Gate. Her rescuers, the Flaming Fist, arrived too late to save her parents, but just in time to drive off the bandits before they could get to Reyna. She grew up in a house of Helm, inspired by the bravery of her rescuers, and all she wanted was to be strong enough to protect others. She worked and learned hard as an acolyte before becoming a War Cleric.

She is of rather small stature (-STR), but trained hard (+STR, +DEX) and got good body condition (+CON). As a Gnome she is naturally dexterious with her hands. In addition she is quite clever (+INT), and educated (+WIS). Growing up in a temple gave her little interactions with the broader world (-CHA).

And this is how she could look like, including the stats.



It does not have to be perfect. There is a saying that "nobody is perfect". But that is good, and an adventure becomes especially meaningful when you overcome challenges despite being "imperfect". You are good as you are, and that is how we D&D players see our characters. If everyone ran around with maxed-out stats like half gods, what would be the point of an adventure? Think of it less as an isekai with an overpowered hero who gets a harem, and more as an adventurer with an interesting past, a story that takes an unexpected path. Whether it is for glory, wealth or something else, it is your story. And character development is an integral part of growing up.

It can happen that you get stuck in a place where jumping will not help or is not possible. If this happens, you can use the Map Menu (M) to access unlocked waypoints and use one to teleport out of your predicament.

There are special locations in the game where you can enjoy the vocalised versions of the background music.

https://bg3.wiki/

A well maintained community wiki



https://www.bg3.gg/builder/

A character builder for planning

A great source to lookup information regarding the Dungeons & Dragons mechanics.



What you need and want to know for Baldur's Gate 3 is accessible for free.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/

Whether you want to know more about D&D mechanics in general, or it is about more specific things like whether certain armour boni stack or do not stack: D&D Beyond is a great place to start with.

Try this example which answers frequently asked questions about
Unarmored Defense, Extra Attacks and Channel Divinity in regards of multiclassing
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/customization-options#ClassFeatures

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2378500/Baldurs_Gate_3__Digital_Deluxe_Edition_DLC/

A common question is whether or not it is worth buying the Digital Deluxe Edition content. There is no definitive answer, as different people have different preferences. What I can assure you is that you will not miss out on anything in terms of gameplay. What makes the Digital Deluxe Edition so special to so many players is two things

a) It was suddenly given to everyone who pre-ordered the game, with an announcement just before release.

b) The real treasures of the Digital Deluxe Edition are the artbook and the OST, while the in-game items are negligible.




ㅤ
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015176662

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3034860637

Baldur’s Gate 3 is no exception to the rule of manual settings changes producing finer-tuned results than presets. Even so, there is something to learn from these one-click configurations. Using the RTX 3070 for reference, running at 1440p, the Ultra preset averaged 102fps, High 105fps, Medium 122fps, and Low 156fps. From this, we can see that High probably isn’t worth bothering with at all, and that to get the meatiest framerate improvements, we’re going to need at least some of BG3’s individual graphics options at Low level.

It will still be a balancing act, as all-Low settings are clearly uglier than Ultra. Nevertheless, I reckon I’ve found a combination that will give the best of both presets. First, here’s the full list of changeable settings, along with how they impact performance against that 102fps result on Ultra.

Although dropping this from High to Low only nudged performance up to 106fps, a 4% increase, this is actually one of the more impactful settings to change. It also doesn’t make models look that much worse, so it’s fine to reduce.

This can probably stay on High, as changing to Low only gave me an extra 1fps.

As above, there was just one additional frame per second to be gained from the Low setting, so keep this high.

I’m also not convinced that this needs lowering. Medium isn’t significantly faster, at 104fps, and Low just hurts fidelity too much.

I’d suggest turning this right down to Trilinear mode. It gives a relatively spirited boost, up to 107fps on my RTX 3070, and the visual quality difference is minimal.

Stick to High. Low gave me a mere 1fps improvement, so isn’t worth the cut.

This might help with slow-loading textures when enabled, but won’t visibly affect performance at all when Baldur’s Gate 3 is installed on an SSD.

Switching this off is arguably unnecessary. Losing the extra detail didn’t change my average performance by a single frame, and large crowds are rare anyway.

You can set this to Low for a modest yet tempting speed boost; up to 108fps in my case, and without seriously damaging how shadows look. There is one tradeoff, a weird raked effect on certain ground textures, but it’s not too frequent or bothersome.

Leave this on High, I say. Low doesn’t seem to affect average performance either way.

This, on the other hand, can be reduced for a little framerate nudge. Low quality got me 107fps, a 5% rise.

The big gun. While DLSS is best deployed at 1440p or higher – 1080p with upscaling will always look slightly fuzzier – it’s highly potent in Baldur’s Gate 3, turning that 102fps average into 130fps on the sharpest Quality setting. If you’ve got both a GeForce RTX card and a high-res gaming monitor, it’s ideal.

Other graphics cards still have an upscaling option, though again, I wish it was a newer version of FSR. This 1.0 iteration could get my test PC up to 128fps on Ultra Quality mode, but it looks nowhere near as crisp and clean as Quality DLSS. Maybe only consider it if you’re playing at 4K, or are really struggling with 1440p.

AMD’s sharpening filter doesn’t really help or hurt performance, though if you’re going to use it, I’d suggest leaving the sharpness slider no higher than about 25%. Any higher and it starts to look overly digital and processed.

If you’re not using DLSS, which overrides this setting with its own anti-aliasing, stick to the default TAA. SMAA might prevent that texture flickering mentioned above, but otherwise doesn’t smooth edges as effectively – the entire point of AA. It performs identically, in any case. There’s also a DLAA setting, which is basically DLSS’ AA component without the upscaling. It does look a tad sharper than TAA, though is slower as well, dropping my test PC’s performance to 96fps.

Ditch it. Sometimes, disabling ambient occlusion will rob a game of half its shadow detail, leaving everything looking flat and fake. Here, though, the visual loss is hard to spot, and jettisoning AO’s rendering needs got my PC up to 108fps.

You can turn this off, if you don’t like the blur effect that appears when chatting to party members, but know that it won’t affect performance if you do. Same for merely switching from the default Circular blur effect to the alternative option, Gaussian.

There’s no need to change this from the highest setting, Quarter Denoise, down to just Quarter. It’s no faster, and why would you not want de-noising?

Strangely, turning these off – they’re on with the Ultra preset – actually cut performance down to 99fps. Presumably because doing so angers God? Just leave them on.

No oddities here, just a simple post-process effect that can be disabled or re-enabled with no impact on framerate.

I only got a single bonus frame per second from turning this off. Leave it enabled, then, for better-looking soft textures.

Evidently, there are no individual settings (outside of DLSS and FSR) that can magically send framerates skyrocketing by themselves. By combining a few choice changes, though, it’s still possible to give Baldur’s Gate 3 a respectable jolt. Here’s what I’d call its best settings to use:

• Launcher option: DirectX 11
  
• Model quality: Low
  
• Texture filtering: Trilinear
  
• Shadow quality: Low
  
• Fog quality: Low
  
• Ambient occlusion: Off
  
• Everything else: Ultra preset equivalents

Without any upscaling, these settings got my RTX 3070 / 1440p setup from 102fps to 129fps. That’s a 26% boost, with the same settings shunting the GPU’s 4K average up by 23% (56fps to 69fps). Maybe not the biggest proportional upgrades we’ve wrung out of one of these performance and settings guides, but at 1440p especially, it’s faster than using the Medium preset while keeping the vast majority of settings at Ultra level.

And, with the addition of Quality DLSS, that 129fps becomes 155fps, high enough that you’d need at least a 165Hz monitor to see every frame. FSR 1.0 on Ultra Quality may also be worth using, though since it gave me 153fps while being unable to match DLSS’s sharpness, there’s only one serious upscaler choice for GeForce RTX owners.

--- excerpt from
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/baldurs-gate-3-system-requirements-pc-performance-and-best-settings-to-use

A tip for a very easy to use software, made by the same author who brought you the renowned Display Driver Uninstaller. Works with any game that has an actual memory leak.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3031161135

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3027526886

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017038167
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