The combat mechanics need some understanding of tabletop

Nope, following a guide alone won't take you too far (but it's good to teach the basics of character customization), but you need experience on how to approach combat tactically. Think it like a chess game, knowing how to move the pieces and how to capture won't get you anywhere you need to understand actual tactics and strategy 

My first playtrough took me around 90 hours because I knew next to nothing and kept m dying and dying and dying and dying. I'd say I only started mastering the combat during my third playtrough, it's a very steep learning curve and the game makes a very poor job teaching you how to fight.

My only advice is to play story mod until you finally click with the mechanics. Enemy encounters can be rather brutal and unforgiving

Once you learn though, you start to think the game is pretty easy because it allows some crazy builds. Normal mode start to get trivialized when you understand the game allows you to absolutely break everything. That's the moment you're ready for tactician mode! 

Divinity is much much much harder than Baldurs Gate. Like incomparably harder. In Divinity I need to cheese evert fucking battle because this game is a endless CC nightmare, if you don't take average first enemies will destroy you

However I've found BG3 system to be significantly more complex with strange hidden mechanics that take a while to get going. Character customization in Divinity sounded more straightforward as you expected from a videogame, while Baldurs Gate inherits complex mechanics, skill tree, classes feats and whatnot that imo turns the game harder to understand 

Actually, a lot of official 5e Campaigns are much, much bigger in scope than BG3 (Storm King's Thunder probably being the largest), even though all of them are fairly linear, just like BG3. Maybe linear is too harsh, but they are funnel based at best, which means no matter what you do in certain parts of the game (giving you freedom of choice), you'll end up at the same place that serves as starting point for next "chapter". This type of Campaigns started back in 80s with D&D Dragonlance line - and that's why you have clear divide from that point on, with official D&D owners pushing for more linear "Campaign books", instead of Setting books and smaller "Modules" that you can plug into any world, like they used to do.

Honestly, I feel kinda bad for anyone who thinks that BG3 style is "tabletop" experience (and anyone who has similar tabletop experience), since, while technically somewhat true, it is quite a subpar experience, given how much you're limited in whatever you do in it. You don't actually need large worlds to have fully open ended gameplay at the table, a small island is more than enough, but if you populate it with interesting things, few factions that have opposing goals, and one or two underlying mysteries that permeate that world, you got yourself all the ingredients for actual living and breathing adventuring world, instead of theme parks that is BG3 and Larian games.

BG3 succeeds brilliantly in certain aspects - it is really good mega-dungeon crawl (which it really boils down to), its choices, no matter how much smoke and mirrors which don't matter much in the long run, are interestingly made, its immersive sim aspects are well incorporated, though somewhat limited.

Where it fails is being actual BG sequel, being D&D 5e game (it is 5e adjacent, at best) and being fully-fledged CRPG.

But I said all that already in that review a year ago, and depending of what aspects of the game you care for, you will like it more...or less.

Yeah I know what ya mean, open but funneled down linear paths at times. 

Tbh, I don't really know much about table top gaming outside of YouTube Let's plays. It caught me interest in my adulthood and I don't have any friends to play with. With love to get a group together or find a group at some point. I can see you're point about it being more freeing than Divinity/BG3 but for us lonely souls Divinity and BG3 are the best we're gonna get. 

Well, you will find the group much easier if you learn to GM - there is perpetual shortage of GMs for right about any system, so buying into "build it and they will come" philosophy is good starting point. Dragonbane boxed set would be a good choice for that, it is fairly rules light spin on Runequest, and packs pretty much all you need inside the box, including campaign and cardboard minis for it. D&D Essentials Kit is another similar product (though without cardboard minis), which is probably the best way to get into D&D 5e currently, if you want that. Or maybe wait til next year for new Starter Set for D&D 2024 eidition, they are updating Keep on the Borderlands, classic from 1979, which served as an introductory adventure for new players and DMs, written by Gary Gygax himself, to serve the same role in that Starter Set. If you want more wacky take on old D&D (and you like Pirates of Caribbean premise of mixing real setting with fantasy), Pirate Borg is excellent choice for that (comes with a short sandbox-style campaign in the book).

Other option is to try out some of the virtual tabletops (Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds...) and try to find a group there that has GM (unfortunately, can't really help there, never played virtually).

As for CRPGs, try Arcanum - this is still considered, among core CRPG fans, one of the best CRPG ever made - it is not without its flaws (all RPGs that are not tabletop suffer from inherent faults that are not really solvable, until we have full AI GMs), but it is game that every CRPG fan should play.

Bump. Adding thread to list list so I xan comment later.

Man, I've been chasing that Arcanum high since the first time I played it in the mid-2000s. Larian's games came the closest of all, IMO, especially BG3.

Arcanum being broken was part of the fun of it, it's like playing Marvel vs. Capcom to use a completely different genre as an example. I never did care for D&D rules much, TBH.

I wished BG3 had some DLC or expansion upcoming to replay it, but I get Larian wanting to move on to a thing of their own.

Hehe, happy to see people still enjoy the game. :)

Arcanum actually is on my list and I am the more excited now that I know Tim Cain worked on it.

Yeah, not many CRPGs come close to Arcanum. I'll admit, I prefer Fallout 1/2 from settings standpoint, but Arcanum is both mechanically and worldbuilding-wise much deeper game. Tim, Leonard and all those Interplay's alumni, so to speak, really knew how to make them back in days - there is visible passion and ambition in those games, though often held back by smaller budgets and tight schedules.

D&D itself is quite divisive - 3e and onward are quite different games from what D&D initially was, and there is a reason why most popular trend for quite a few years in TTRGPs is Old School Renaissance (OSR), which are games that are made with TSR's D&D principles, or even compatibility, in mind. But they work much better at the table compared to video games - I'd say best D&D edition for video games is 3e, and Pathfinder games, as "D&D 3.75" really show that (though they not implemented anywhere near perfect).

But yes, there are much, much better systems, either established TTRPGs or those made specifically for CRPGs - I don't think it matters much what system Larian uses, for me it is more important if they stick to current D:OS design pattern, which is, from my POV, more suited to action-RPGs than CRPGs, or move away from it and expand in scope, while retaining best things about D:OS (that come from Vincke's obsession with Ultima VII and its interactivity - which is a good thing).