Today, during the so-called Panel from Hell: Holy Knight, Larian Studios unveiled Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 9, now available to all owners of the game on PC (the developers said they need a bit more time to bring the Mac version up to speed).
Arguably the most significant addition is the Paladin class, which comes with two subclasses based on the type of Oath chosen by the player.
■ Oath of Devotion
- Following the ideal of the knight in shining armor, these Paladins act with honor and virtue to protect the weak and pursue the greater good.
- Holy Rebuke: Call upon your Oath to grant an ally a vengeful aura that deals 1d4 Radiant damage to anyone who hits them with a melee attack.
■ Oath of the Ancients
- Paladins who walk this path fight on the side of light in the eternal struggle against darkness, vowing to preserve the sanctity of life and the beauty of nature.
- Healing Radiance: Call upon your Oath to let nature heal all nearby allies.
In a very interesting and fitting twist, though, it is very well possible for Paladins to lose their way if their actions contradict the oaths they’ve taken. In such an eventuality, they will be contacted by the first Oathbreaker, a mysterious figure promising untold powers if the Paladins renege their oaths once and for all. This unlocks the Oathbreaker subclass, which comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Of course, it’s also possible for Paladins to redeem themselves.
Beyond the new class, there are a few additional highlights for Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 9:
○ Players can now progress to Level 5. This makes for a significant power boost for all classes, opening up 3rd-level spells like Fireball to those with spellcasting abilities.
- Revamped Reactions System
○ Reactions are a unique type of combat action that can be triggered by various combat circumstances – for example, an enemy in melee range running away can trigger an Attack of Opportunity.
○ Players can now choose whether or not to use a Reaction when one is triggered, allowing for more strategic combat!
○ The ‘Fly’ spell can be used in and out of combat to do just that – fly. Spread your wings and fly to otherwise out-of-reach treasure or out of reach of enemies.
Of course, the full Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 9 changelog is too long to be posted in its entirety, but there are some additional noteworthy tidbits:
- Rebalanced combat encounters in late Act 1.
- Added new spells and spell scrolls.
- Overhauled the tooltips.
- Extended Combat Cams to player and enemy melee Critical Hits, summons, Wild Shapes, and several spells and abilities.
- Added Command spell variants.
- Made Minthara a paladin.
- You can now delete save files by playthrough.
- You can now dismiss summons with a dedicated action
- Added a Smart AI to increase behavioural differences between animals and humanoids. Notable humanoid fighters now know when actions won’t succeed and when to prioritise easy wins.
- Made NPCs better at deciding when to Shove characters to their death.
- Made NPCs more patient and smarter with healing spells, preferring to heal those with lower HP.
- Made waypoints easier to click.
- Updated the overhead icon that indicates when someone wants to talk to you.
- Added overhead feedback for when a Saving Throw outcome applies to a condition.
- Improved the animations for sheathing and stowing weapons gamewide.
- Enabled the Riposte reaction by default.
- Rebalanced the weights of common items.
- Made it harder to destroy items like doors and chests.
- Original owners of pickpocketed items now recognise those items as their own
As a reminder, Larian Studios announced the release date of Baldur’s Gate 3 at The Game Awards 2022. The cRPG will be released in August 2023.
