Baldurs Gate 3: The Ultimate Dungeons and Dragons RPG Experience

I didn’t play Baldur’s Gate 3 at launch. I know, I know — everyone and their grandmother was raving about it, it won every GOTY under the sun, and I was over here like “yeah but have you seen the size of the download.” Look, I’m lazy. I admit it. I finally caved in January 2024 because my friend group wouldn’t shut up about it. “You have to play it.” “The bear scene.” “Just try it.” Fine. I tried it.

I lost an entire weekend. Then another one. Then I called in sick on a Tuesday. I have never called in sick for a game before. This is the kind of game that makes you forget to eat. My roommate walked in at 2 AM and I was still sitting there, covered in Doritos, arguing with a digital vampire about whether or not to suck someone’s blood. Not my proudest moment, but here we are.

BG3 is based on D&D 5th Edition, which means it’s the real deal — stats, dice rolls, spell slots, the whole thing. You wake up on a Mind Flayer ship with a parasite in your brain and approximately seven days before you turn into a squid-faced nightmare creature. That’s your motivation. Go fix it. Or don’t — the game literally lets you side with the squid-faced nightmare creatures if you want. That’s the beauty of it.

The Companions (And Why I Can’t Shut Up About Them)

Okay so the companion writing in this game broke me. Not in a dramatic internet way — in a genuine “I stayed up until 4 AM because I needed to know what happens next” way. I’ve played Mass Effect. I’ve played Dragon Age. I’ve played Persona. BG3’s companions are better. Fight me.

Astarion is the one everyone talks about, and yeah, he’s fantastic. He’s a 200-year-old vampire spawn with abandonment issues and a jawline that could cut glass. But what makes him work is the nuance — he’s not just “brooding sexy vampire.” He’s genuinely traumatized, and the game lets you see that unfold at whatever pace you choose. There’s a moment in Act 2 where everything clicks and you realize the writers knew exactly what they were doing from the first scene. I was not okay for about a week after that reveal.

Shadowheart I romanced on my first playthrough without realizing she’s basically the most popular romance option. I just liked her vibe — reserved, sarcastic, clearly hiding something. And the something she’s hiding is… well, without spoiling it, let’s just say her Act 2 reveal completely recontextualized everything I thought I understood about her character. I had to reload a save because my first reaction was so wrong and I couldn’t live with it.

Karlach broke me in a different way. She’s this enormous tiefling barbarian with a literal engine of hellfire where her heart should be, and she’s the most genuinely kind character in the entire game. The first time she calls you “soldier” I actually smiled at my screen like an idiot. Act III with Karlach — I’m not going to spoil it, but if you don’t feel something during her storyline, check your pulse because you might be a Mind Flayer.

Lae’zel grew on me the way a cactus grows on you — slowly, painfully, but eventually you can’t imagine your life without her. She starts the game ready to knife anyone who breathes wrong, and by Act III she’s asking you questions about what it means to be free. The character development is subtle and real and I respect it enormously.

Gale is the companion I initially wrote off as “generic wizard man” and then he turned out to have the most emotionally honest romance in the entire game. His whole deal — a magical bomb in his chest, desperate for approval, compulsively overachieving — hits a little too close to home if you’ve ever been a people-pleaser with anxiety. He’s also the companion most likely to say something completely unhinged at the worst possible moment, which I appreciate.

Wyll is… complicated. Not because his writing is bad — it’s actually really good. But because the game sort of sidelines him compared to the others. He’s the Blade of Frontiers, a warlock bound to a devil named Mizora, and his story is about reconciling the hero image with the messy reality. He deserved more screen time than he got, and I say that as someone who took him everywhere.

And then there’s Minsc. If you played the original Baldur’s Gate games, seeing him again with his miniature giant space hamster Boo is going to hit you right in the nostalgia. If you didn’t, he’s still a delightfully unhinged ranger who throws a hamster at people and calls it a tactical decision.

Classes (Or: How I Spent Three Hours in Character Creation)

Twelve classes from D&D 5E, and they all actually feel distinct. This is rarer than you’d think. Most RPGs have a “best class” and everything else is a variant. BG3 doesn’t have that problem — or if it does, nobody agrees on what it is, which means they did it right.

I played a Sorcerer on my first run because I wanted to throw fireballs, obviously. But my second run was a Bard, and let me tell you — Bard in BG3 is absolutely filthy. College of Swords lets you dual-wield while casting spells, which is as broken as it sounds. The dialogue options alone make Bard worth playing. There’s something deeply satisfying about resolving a tense standoff by playing a lute.

Paladin is the class everyone recommends to new players and they’re right. Oath of Vengeance hits like a truck and Smite never gets old. But the real question is: do you keep your oath, or do you break it? Because breaking your oath unlocks Oathbreaker, which is one of the most fun evil playthroughs in the game. I broke mine on purpose in my third run and did not feel guilty about it even a little bit. (I felt very guilty about it.)

The multiclassing in this game is genuinely deep. A Paladin 2 / Warlock 5 / Sorcerer X build sounds insane on paper and it IS insane in practice — the kind of insane that makes the game trivially easy if you know what you’re doing. The community min-maxers have found builds that can one-shot bosses. I’m not that person. I respec’d my character seven times because I kept picking subclasses I immediately regretted.

The Three Acts (And How Act III Made Me Lose My Mind)

Act I is where you’ll probably spend way too long because there’s so much stuff. I spent maybe 50 hours in Act I alone. The Druid Grove, the Goblin Camp, the Underdark — each area has enough content to be its own game. I accidentally stumbled into the Underdark at level 3 and got absolutely destroyed by a bulette. I loved every second of it.

Act II is where things get dark. Like, actually dark. The Shadow-Cursed Lands are oppressive in a way that most games don’t manage — everything is dim, everyone is suspicious, and the Last Light Inn feels like the only warm place in the world. Ketheric Thorm is a great villain because he’s not cartoonishly evil — he’s a grieving father who made a deal with dark gods to bring back his daughter. You understand why he did what he did. You still have to stop him. That’s good writing.

Act III… okay. Act III is ambitious and messy and I have complicated feelings about it. Baldur’s Gate as a city is enormous — the lower city alone has more quests than some full games. The House of Hope (literally a heist in Hell) is one of the best quests I’ve ever played. But it’s also where the game shows some cracks. Performance issues, some quests that feel undercooked, and a finale that’s either incredibly satisfying or slightly underwhelming depending on your choices. The community is divided on Act III and I think that’s fair. It’s still better than 90% of other games’ entire campaigns, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing the way Acts I and II do.

Combat — Or “Why I Love and Hate Dice Rolls”

Real talk: the D20 system will make you scream at your monitor. There’s nothing quite like having a 95% chance to hit on a crucial attack and watching that natural 1 come up. I’ve thrown things. My roommate has asked me to please stop yelling at 1 AM. I cannot make promises.

But that’s also what makes it brilliant. The unpredictability creates stories. “Remember that time Gale’s fireball bounced off a pillar and killed Shadowheart” is a sentence I’ve actually said out loud. The environmental mechanics — pushing enemies off cliffs, electrifying water surfaces, throwing oil barrels — turn every fight into a physics puzzle. I once solved an entire encounter by shoving every enemy into a chasm one by one. My party looked at me like I was insane. It was the most efficient solution.

Honor Mode is for people with more patience than me. Permadeath with buffed enemies? I tried it once. I lasted about three hours. I respect anyone who beats it. You are built different.

Races and Roleplaying

Your race actually matters in dialogue, which is something most RPGs claim to do but don’t really commit to. Playing as a Tiefling means NPCs react to your horns. Playing as a Drow means certain characters have strong opinions about you before you’ve said a word. Githyanki get unique dialogue that acknowledges their entire culture and history. I played a Dark Urge Drow Sorcerer on one run and the combination of those origins made certain scenes absolutely wild.

Multiplayer (Chaos Mode)

Playing with friends is where this game becomes pure chaos in the best way. Three of us played together and spent more time arguing about decisions than actually making them. “Kill the goblin” “No, spare the goblin” “I’m going to kill the goblin while you’re arguing” — this happened. The game handles split decisions beautifully, letting different party members literally go to different areas simultaneously.

Things I Wish I Knew Starting Out

Save often and in different slots. Not because the game is buggy (it was at launch, but most of that’s fixed), but because you WILL want to go back and make different choices. I have 47 separate save files and I’m not ashamed.

Short rest more than you think you need to. Warlock spell slots and Fighter action surges refresh on short rests. If you’re long-resting after every encounter, you’re wasting resources. I learned this the hard way around hour 60.

Talk to every NPC. Seriously. There’s a goblin in the camp who will tell you his entire tragic backstory if you ask. That backstory connects to a quest. I missed it on my first run and felt like an idiot when I found out on my second.

The environment is your best weapon. Fire surfaces, electrified water, grease, ice — use them. Some of the hardest encounters in the game become trivial when you use the terrain creatively. A friend of mine killed Raphael (one of the hardest boss fights) by luring him into a trap he’d set up with barrels and a well-timed fire arrow. Ingenious. I could never have pulled that off. I just hit things until they died.

Don’t sleep on cantrips. Fire Bolt does more damage than you’d expect. Toll the Dead is disgusting against wounded enemies. And Mage Hand Legerdemain is the most useful spell in the entire game for non-combat situations.

The Honest Score

9/10. And the missing point is entirely for Act III.

I know, everyone gives this a 9.5 or a 10. And I get it — on a technical level, on a writing level, on an ambition level, this game is phenomenal. But I’m docking that one point because Act III has real structural problems that the community has documented extensively. Some companion quests feel rushed. The lower city is overwhelming in a way that isn’t fun. And the final boss — without getting into spoilers — didn’t hit me the way Ketheric Thorm did.

That said? The fact that my complaints are “the last third of this 150+ hour game isn’t as tight as the first two thirds” should tell you everything. BG3 is the best RPG I’ve played in years. Maybe ever. It made me care about fictional people more than I care about some real ones. It made me learn about D&D. It made me stay up until 4 AM on a work night arguing about morality with an elf. What more do you want from a game?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start my fifth playthrough. This time I’m playing a Druid and turning into a bear. No other reason.

Available on: PC (Steam, GOG), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, macOS

What’s your BG3 story? Did you romance Astarion like everyone else, or are you one of those Wyll truthers? Let me know — I need to feel better about my choices.