Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Spell-incantation Turned based solution, BattMusic

I love the game so far it is pre-alpha and animations ( including walk animation), cinematic,
even the music is already really good, I even got to like the turned base battles with Larian:

Battle music, sound effects improvements:
A bit adjustment, that I think would be nice and cheap:
My personal opinion is, that I would rather hear more louder "death" screams or pain voices/sounds,
sound of falling enemy, than too much bass on jumps/falls/push ability effects.
That would make the tone of battle a bit more sinister, darker, a bit more like baldur s gate. ( If we uncheck the "reduced violence" button. )
Also I think the tone of battle music could be also a bit more serious/darker and less "heroic", less like divinity,
so we get the feeling, that we are in a whole different universe.

- Spellcasting - might be more complicated adjustment not sure if it is possible,
but I think it would be very cool:
If we choose a spell we see an animation, that the character is "holding the spell" in one place, this is generally
like in divinity 2 .
This is perfectly okay for low lever spell, but I think it looks a bit silly for high level spells...

If we cast a time stop or a finger of death that rips the soul out of the enemy, and
spell casting takes 1 milisecond, one click, it takes away the feeling, that you are using a special spell.
1) They could use some incantation/some simple hand movement/rune/symbol drawing/channeling, like 150 milisecond after you choose the
spell from your menu bar, you want to cast.
The animation of casting is already running, but we haven't choosen the target yet. ( We can even choose a new spell at this point. )
2) When the target is choosen the animation would go to lastest stage to the "shooting" part.
3) We did not waste any second with casting animation, because it was animating while we
already selected the spell from "menu" bar, and it only shoots when we choose target.
(Some "uniqueness" with combination of basic hand movement in different order and "particle" system... With some similarity to original game. )
4) I repeat this would be only for bigger higher level badass spells with higher casting time and not for magic missle....

It is also okay to have spells with less sound effect, less bass, so the players sees how cool is, when
a big 9th level fire rain is shot and the whole battlefield is in chaos. So you got the feeling,
that this is the special spell, that I can only cast once per day.


What do you think?

In addition to incantation, how about improving spell effects and move away from DOS and more to the core D&D RPG animations? This can easily work in turn-based as I've witnessed it done amazing in a turn-based D&D game in development now.

When I think of Baldurs gate I like to see magic missile, lightning bolt, summoning circles etc.

Example Magic Missile spell effect
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2420B

Oh, the incantation like in Baldur's gate or NWN - love that.

The issue with the incantations is that they would need to record them for every single voice actor/actress which would mean extra work.

Maybe they will, I agree it is an integral part of the D&D 5e magic system along with somatics and spell components. Then again maybe the Psionic tadpoles forgo those needs.

Maybe for your party but I guess they'll be a bunch of enemy mages too, I agree with the op and adding voiced spellcasting is indeed lore/rule friendly (or even a must for the vocal component)
Also I think some animations should have a lot less cartoony/overly fantastic efects,such as dash and jump.

They already need to record or are in the progress of recording hours of dialogue. This wouldn't be much of an issue to add, and it would make the spellcasting more immersive for dnd fans. The animations for the spells look great.

Yes, definitely agree on the spell casting. If I do cast something like finger of death, I want to feeling that I'm casting something incredibly powerful, not just have a pop, flash and death, I wanna invest in my super powerful abjuration, and be punished a bit for attempting it. Interrupting also should be a part of it, if theres a long incarnation, theres a risk of being interrupted if spotted and conversely interrupting other casters.

Presently, the spell-casting looks more like super powers, not very D&D like.

Same animations as in DOS2,character hitting his chest to cast a shield,never liked it xDD

Hi there,

I don't know the incantation rules of dnd5, but what I do know is that back in dnd2, some incantations took time to perform.

How will it be rendered ?

Do powerful spells will take 2 or 3 rounds to be launched ?

Meanwhile, does the magician will have a kind of concentration animation ?

Thanks a lot

It's been a while but last time I saw spells on 5e they were all instant cast (Maybe some lvl 9 has some sort of casting duration?not normally as in BG tho)
On the demo the mage casting Witchbolt doesn't have any special animation I believe,but I think you always have to roll contentration if you suffer dmg while maintaining a spell.

OK, that's a weird choice. You can instant cast the most deadly spell as if it was a chromatic orb...

Well i guess it'll do since this studio knows how to make good rpgs, but still, this is a second disappointement for me.

Not really, they just need a Male-female-alien one, just like NWN/BG did.

Interrupting might be hard to implement, I think it is not something which goes well, with this turned based style.
The voice acting does not have to be, that "unique" in my opinion. Let say, that only priest/paladin, druid, wizard/sorcerer/warlock needs this.
That is 3 class only as spells are the same.
If voice action is only for group of spells maybe 30-35 different 6 sec voice line. (male/female as it was mentioned)

Making animation is harder, although I have no idea, what stage they are at, maybe it would take too much resource to change existing animations or to make them a bit more complicated or longer.

Regarding enemy spellcasting letting them animate is harder, without making fight longer:
If it is about enemy and team initiative, I would consider moving like 2 enemies at the same time (depending how much we face), to make combat a bit faster.
Same way you move 2 character when playing in multiplayer, with your friend.
That way you can have longer casting animation, when one warrior and one wizard moves the same time.
That is an other AI stuff, that might be also very-very complicated, and it might have compatibility issues.

That's not enough for a AAA game today,

In your opinion.

The rest of the game is fully voiced and motion-captured so those lines need to be too or else it breaks the immersion.

6 seconds is a long ass time considering the game is TB and you're going to be casting spells a lot,I'd say 2 to 3 seconds max.

Don't you ever forget bards again buddy