Patch 8 for Baldur's Gate 3 Goes Live Today; New Race and Class
Patch 8 will hit Baldur's Gate 3 later today. Among other things, it will introduce a new character class, the first new race since the game's early access release, and highly anticipated improvements to the combat system.
Less than a week after the announcement Patch 8 to Baldur's Gate III, Larian Studios has announced what will be introduced to the game in the 40 GB update called Of Valour and Lore. The information was given during an event called Panel From Hell, which ended a few moments ago (the video can be found below). The patch is expected to be available for download within a few hours.
The biggest new features that Patch 8 will bring are:
1- A new character class - bard;
- New race - gnomes (creating such characters has long been possible thanks to mods such as Playable Gnomes from 2020);
- and improved the combat pace.
Masters of song and tongue
Bards are the the last character class that will appear in Baldur's Gate III (unless more will be added in possible DLCs, but first let's let the developers finish version 1.0 of the base game). It is supposed to be possible to create a character belonging to one of two subclasses.
- College of Valour - bards focused on combat.. Special skills will provide them with enough resilience to participate in combat personally. Particularly important, however, will be the ability to inspire allies with valor, that is, to strengthen them with various buffs (to damage inflicted, defense, etc.).
- College of Lore - bards focused on casting spells.. With the help of skillful wordplay and magical abilities, they are able to debuff and confuse enemies, while strengthening and inspiring allies (the creators reportedly recorded 97 different insults that fit every occasion).
Jam gnome
Gnomes are the first playable race to be added to Baldur's Gate III since the game launched in early access. Fans were eager to play as this race, resulting in mods such as the one I mentioned earlier. The developer did not specify whether this is the last race to appear in the game before the release of version 1.0.
Come crawling faster, AI
Another change awaited by the community was the speeding up of battles. Larian Studios decided to solve this problem by making minor enemies - goblins, animals, etc. - appear in groups. In this way, they will move and attack simultaneously, which is expected to noticeably shorten the duration of battles - especially the big ones.
Minor changes
This, of course, is not the end of the novelties that Patch 8 will bring. Also worth mentioning are:
- Killcams - critical hits from a distance, presented in a spectacular manner;
- Character hair upgrades - all hairstyles are to receive new shading, among other things;
- Improved multiplayer stability - made thanks to the implementation of network compression (those with weaker internet connections should notice a marked reduction in lag).
The full list of changes introduced in Baldur's Gate III as part of Patch 8 is available on the game's product card on Steam. Remember that saves game data from previous versions of the game will not be compatible with the latest one. So make sure you back them up - more details on this can be found here.
