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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • No mods or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. I just got proficient and practiced with quickly setting it up over multiple runs and character types. I normally use the same logic for almost every character for consistency:

    Generally wheel one is going to be standard melee and ranged attacks that all characters have. I’ll also put stuff on wheel one that some characters will use as much, or more than, their standard melee or ranged weapon attacks, like their most-used ranged attack cantrip, or Booming Blade for melee characters who have that. Weapon-specific attacks (like lacerate, charge, et cetera) can go here if there’s room… otherwise I’ll get them onto the first wheel with open slots after this.

    Wheel two will be standard actions… stuff like toggling lethal / non lethal damage, the disengage/sprint/stealth buttons, et cetera. Class actions (eldritch knight weapon bind, hex blade warlock weapon hex, barbarian rage, et cetera) go here too.

    Wheel 3 (and 4 if needed) I primarily reserve specifically for item toggling. If you didn’t know, you can shortcut equipment changes on the wheels by putting items in these quick slots, so for example: if I have the the lock-picking character using the advantage on lock-picking gloves when they open something, but a different set of gloves at all other times, then I can make a shortcut for both gloves and put them on the wheel, and switch them from there really quickly when needed, instead of digging through the character inventory screens and searching for them every time. Same goes for necklaces and rings that have a once a day effect and then you switch to something else, or that Dancing Lights necklace that you occasionally wear when you need to see something better and then afterward you put your normal necklace right back on, et cetera.

    Then the next wheels are for the spells for casters. Cantrips on the first, level one on the next, et cetera. If they don’t have many total spells (like an eldritch knight or a pure melee warlock or something) I might combine a couple of levels per wheel. If they’re an encyclopedia wizard with every spell known to humankind, I’ll just keep filling out wheels as needed, keeping everything roughly sorted by spell level.

    Last wheels, finally, are consumables like potions, throwing items, attack items, et cetera.

    It can be a pain to organize these for a few minutes at the start of the game, or each time when you first gain a new companion, but once you have them set up, it’s silky smooth from there and all your characters flow with the same logic regardless of class.

    There might also be a mod out there that helps do this, I’m not sure. I haven’t seen one yet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, there are half a bajillion mods for this game and I doubt I’ve seen anywhere near all of them. Hope this makes sense and helps, and have fun!






  • Hardware-wise:

    I have to say that when I’m docked, it’s my 27" 1440p monitor. I love the way it looks, and it perfectly integer scales with 720p, so I have the option of running stuff in 720p native with no jaggies, and it looks fantastic.

    When I’m handheld, I use a pair of light and thin bone conduction headphones so I can be anywhere in the house and have my ears open. I also use a simple pair of clip on 2x reading glasses to blow up the native screen, they cost me maybe $10 and really help out my 40s eyes.

    Software wise: This is my main PC, and you know I always sing the praises of Nested Desktop because I’m always needing to bounce to Desktop mode. Decky Loader has also been transformative over the years with so many good plug ins.

    But finally, I would have to say that the most impactful thing in recent times has been the Lossless Scaling frame gen… that’s a literal game changer. If you had told me three months ago that I’d be playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my Steam Deck at 90 FPS, I’d have looked at you like you had a third eye growing out of the middle of your forehead, but here we are.




  • So I’m 0-1 so far (Samsung-screened SD OLED). Tried Baldur’s Gate 3 with a large variety of settings, it either crashed upon boot or booted with no video.

    I know it’s a DX11 game so it rarely agrees with tools like this, but I was hoping, lol. If I try anything else, I’ll edit this same post so as not to take over the thread.

    EDIT: OMG. Make that 1-1. It was user error, I’d accidentally slid the files into the folder next door instead of the plugins folder.

    After fixing it, I booted it up and… WOW. I already had BG3 set to 720p Balanced, after doing the x3 multiplier (because who cares about input lag in this game) I’m now up into the 75 to 90 FPS range.

    This is absolutely NUTS, I’ve never consistently gotten more than 30 on the Deck on this game. What a game changer, at least for non-action games. Will have to see how bad the input lag feels on action titles, but just speeding up modern/slower RPGs alone is a big, big thing.