Boulder's Gate 3 (there maybe Droobs ahead)

If you can handle something like Dragon Age: Origins or XCOM you'll be fine - it's no more complicated imo.

Strong agree, I have never played tabletop D&D and though I've played games inspired by the rules (Dragon Age and Planescape) have never really understood these rules and still don't.

As an example I still don't really know what AC actually is, but knowing more is better is enough. You don't need to optimise everything by any means.

It plays a lot like how I remember DA:O playing (though I'm sure it's more different in reality) and that was the first cRPG I ever played (unless KOTR counts?). It's not trying to please everyone and doesn't hand hold as much as most modern games. It's a bit like the From software games in this respect.

It requires a little bit of work to not build your companions 'wrong' and inadvertently make combat much harder. Unlike the From games, the fact you can respec everyone for a tiny amount of gold means it's not really an issue.

To save time, I mostly copied from one website, but you could absolutely trial and error, or actually do the stat maths to get a balanced party more organically.

Re: Bichii.
It's always interesting to read the experiences of someone who approached with a different mindset and made different decisions.

As I said I loved the game..first game I've played so much in a short space for ages. Just the combat. I love xcom, each of my moves is easy to plan and execute. By the end my main character had about 6 or more wheels full on things to pick and then camera was often annoying. Then the enemies turn would take for ever later on as there were twenty that had to make their moves. It was occasionally fun when all the spells came together but it was just way way too combat focused. If it had half the battles it might have been a 10/10.

As aunt said to make the combat easy I would have had to use the inventory system a lot and my god it's even worse than the Witcher 3 on console. So so bad just to find stuff and move it around or use it etc.

Loved the setting, story, locations, characters, variety of choices where to take the story etc etc.

I kind of get the frustration with some of the later battles, waiting for enemy turns can take a while and the camera can be really shit. For 90% of the game though it’s been fine.

Also you know you can customise the radials right?

Possibly you didn't actually want an explanation, but I'm going to give you one anyway.

AC = Armour Class, and it's the number needed to hit someone/something.
It's based off the concept that you roll 1d20 to attack, and then add a multitude of bonuses, based on proficiency, DEX or STR, magic weapon bonus...
The basic AC of an unarmoured person is 10.

If you or anyone else is interested in any of the other obscure D&D rules just let me know.

I'm alternating between keyboard and mouse and pad. Have to say I find pad a bit annoying and it's a less usable experience that slightly puts me off couch play.

It's mostly fine but inventory management is a pain, and the default radials aren't great in combat (I often can't find what I want quickly, and am too lazy to spend ages customising them all). I can see how battles would take longer on pad. Also getting the thing I want highlighted in the world is fiddly and the bloody item tool tips often get in the way (but without them you can't tell what anything is). Selecting multiple things to send to camp is slow.

I imagine if I only played pad I'd spend to the time to customise more and get used to it.

I now tend to try and save inventory management for a KB+m session.

Thankfully those days are in the past!

BG3 is great, but I’ve definitely found it an increasing slog as I’ve gone through. It’s not OS1&2 bad just yet, but everything about it just requires that little bit more effort than other games and it begins to wear a little. And combat is the worst part for that. Even just walking anywhere results in something trying to slow you down every couple of mins or set you on fire.

Wha...you can do that? God this game is ridiculous.

I think the counter argument is “the game is hard if you rush it blind” really.

You didn't use Astarion?! Now I know you're fucking high.

You 100% rushed it if you finished it on your first playthrough in 60 hours.

Do you ever wonder what Timmy is doing now bichii? Does it keep you up at night