Boulder's Gate 3 (there maybe Droobs ahead)

This was handy in the hag fight. She kept running away around the pit, leaving trails of fire and acid and I struggled to catch her.
Lae'zel popped a potion to triple her already excellent jump distance - I leapt right over the pit and headed her off.

I'm not certain, but it felt like they dished out a lot more XP in Act 3. I felt like I was leveling once every couple of hours when I got to the final act. I suspect they wanted to make sure even those that were ignoring side content were able to make it to level 12, so ramped up the XP rewards.

As with most these games, always best to have a full compliment in your party (which is 3 companions). Even if you don't particularly want Lae'zel there, best to have her until you get 3 different people to join you. It doesn't take too long.

Ditched Starfield and got this instead. Wow. The opening couple of hours are just great. It feels so premium. Even works great on a controller. The inventory is immediately obvious and even the weapon wheels are pretty good. Impressive.

You can respec pretty easily once you get a short way into the game, so I wouldn't worry too much about gimping yourself.

I did my first bit of levelling yesterday. I probably could have done it sooner as a few had two levels but it wasn't immediately obvious that I could do it.

Man, that's a whole new level of confusion. Then you can multi-class? Fuck that, one class is confusing enough I ended up going what I felt was right and I guess I can always respec if needed. Trying to specialise characters as melee, ranged, spell caster, support etc.

My Gythi Bard is quite the enigma though. My dialogue options are very diverse, from a Githi "Fuck you, you weakling", to a charming bard, to a devious liar. So I get lots of approvals and disapprovals from the same party members as I'm not exactly consistent with my responses, which probably isn't helpful for relationship building. I'm trying not to worry too much though and just go with it.

I've also now got to leave two companions at camp, which is a tough choice. I guess it makes sense to rotate anyway to keep everyone levelling up.

Oh ok. I’ll have a play around anyway to see who I like best.

Astorian has kind of grown on me a bit. He's a dick but kind of fun. Lae'zel irritates the hell out of me though, but I think she's probably going to turn out to be really useful.

She's my tank of choice and as hinted at on the previous page, I've got her and Astie's initiative set so high, they can basically murder anyone (so far) between them before anything else happens. It's made latter stages combat a lot easier and more satisfying.

How do you set initiative high then? I assume that dictates your battle order?

Also, when I levelled up I didn’t get to change my stats. Does that happen automatically? Or do they stay the same and you increase them with items and spells?

Indeed. I've got Astarion with a misty step amulet, too. Between those skills, their huge init and their boss weapons, if Astarion kicks off a fight with a sneak attack from behind, he immediately gets the next "combat" turn, then Lae'zel does. They both have up to four attacks and bonuses with their skills, can usually take out most high end bosses and a couple of tough mobs before they get a turn, leaving just drones to clean up.

It has cut down on a lot of boring conversations.

My next play through I'm planning on going full evil assassin multi-classing rogue with shadow monk. Just teleport around being stealthy then absolutely screwing up bosses. Plus giving in to every single Dark Urge evil option no matter the cost.

For the most part respeccing isn't useful until later. As the default options are generally fine. So it's really there for if you want to fuck around with some multi-class nonsense or you've got an idea for a build that goes with a high level item.  You probably need to get all the interlocking systems understood first otherwise it won't achieve a whole lot. 

Plus multi-classing is often a waste of time before level 5 or so. Lots of classes get tasty abilities in the 1-4 then level 5 is generally a big step up. So spell casters get access to level 3 spells at class level 5. Martial classes (barbarian, fighter, paladin, monk) get a bonus attack at level 5, and doubling your damage output isn't worth missing.

Basically don't sweat it or worry about FOMO. Most the default options, e.g. abilities and classes of the companions, work out the box. You can mix and match whatever companions you dig and still work out ways through almost any situation. Need to go in a back way but left a Rgoue at camp? There'll be a wall to smash with a hammer, or your wizard can make you all fly to just go around an obstacle, or you can drink a potion to become tiny and go through a small hole. 

Picking Bard as your main is a good choice though. They're pretty good in any situation, the absolute best at conversations, but they can get by with enough lock-picking or enough spell casting that you can just pick your party based on personalities you enjoy.