@henryvines
BG3's the least larian of the three games for sure; the heavy restrictions of 5E and the brand keep a lot of their worst tendencies in check and they've managed to pull off a much more open, flexible world vs. their previous games. level differentials are less prohibitive, the writing is significantly less clownish, and the encounter design's probably as strong pound for pound as D:OS2 (which is to say very strong vs. the majority of crpgs past or present) while skirting some of the more odious gimmickry and pitfalls of their homebrewed rulesets (round robin initiative, diablo itemization, barrelmancy/nonstop floor is lava stuff etc)

the downside's that it's not a very robust ruleset for what's ultimately a very long tactical combat game with some extra stuff on the side, the character building's way, way, way more railroaded then either of the previous games, and it's significantly easier on top of it (arguably a natural consequence of losing D:OS2's frankly insane level scaling). in some ways the ruleset underserves the quality of encounters, and it's very easy to fall into an optimal flowchart of sorts if you're the kind of person prone to it cos it's quite basic at heart and doesn't allow the freedom of an underrail, pathfinder:kingmaker, knights of the chalice, or even D:OS2, despite being just as combat focused

narratively I don't think any of the three games have particularly good stories or tell them particularly well, but BG3 at least has some strong characters, due in no small part to the fabulous voice acting cast, mocap work, and overall production values. as much as I'm a fan of crpgs of all sizes these things do go a long way after dozens and dozens of hours, especially when D:OS was never strong in that area to begin with. reactivity's also better in BG3 than the previous games but all three of the games like to present the illusion of choice fairly frequently, and D:OS2 and BG3 suffer in their main story for repeatedly giving you agency only for it to be pulled away the second you accept the offer. on a micro scale (sidequests, character arcs, etc) BG3's definitely the best of the bunch, but on a macro scale (main thruline) it's a wash; they're kinda all bad because the story often comes before the player(s) (which would probably be fine if they didn't fake you out constantly)

to actually answer your question, I'm midway through a very lazy protracted replay of BG3 that started late last year and I think I think it's probably the strongest of the three games overall, especially if you were to only do a single run and not get into how the sausage's made too intently. D:OS2 is almost certainly the best for a pure combat experience, and D:OS1 has a quaint charm to it in the first half and a stronger co-op system that actually accounts for two people making decisions rather than a sonic + tails hierarchy, but it doesn't do a lot else better than its sequels

in short: bg3 > d:os2 > d:os1 I think???

sorry this was mad fuckin long. I just kinda rambled and here we are. I think D:OS2 and BG3 are both worth playing, and I kinda think D:OS1 is too, but it's more interesting as one of the first big wavemakers of the so-called rpg renaissance and a stepping stone to D:OS2 and D:OS3 (BG3) than it is in a vacuum. you could do better, you could do worse: that's the larian promise