Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback CC Effects need a mass un-nerfing

Just got to 5th Level Lore Bard
Happily went and picked up one of my favorite 3rd Level spells: Hypnotic Pattern!
got into a few combats then finally found the perfect use for my new spell!
Targeted 4 enemies, 2 saved but just as well, split them up to deal with 2/2 as long as concentration holds
2 rounds later my concentration still holds but the monsters just up and eat my bard! WTF!
Notice the duration is 2 rounds only, just like that massively worthless sleep now.
reloaded to a save about an hour back before I leveled so I could pick another spell
played for 5 minutes or so then just quit for the evening out of frustration.

Why, why are the CC spells so massively nerfed? It's costing a spell slot(these things are limited you know, it's not like I'm just swinging a weapon to knock people out), it's costing concentration, they get a saving throw, it can be gotten around easily by using the help or shove or a damaging action. Why do they have to suck so much?

2 choices now:
- just don't play with them - ok then I just need to go ahead and respec my lore bard to another class
- play modded with longer durations - my current solution

I went ahead and saved the game and quit and immediatly went and figured out all the stuff with modding JUST for these 2 spells (only 5th atm, maybe more later). I don't want to get some super over powered gear or stats or anything like that, I don't want to have to turn Achievements off, I don't want to have to mess around with a mod manager. But there are an awful lot of builds that don't focus on damage as much and instead CCing enemies that need these types of spells to work to justify their inclusion in a 4 man party especially and just don't work without it. And while I'm out of the game, thought I'd voice my frustrations on being forced to mod the game closer to DnD 5e rules just to make my character work as it should.

I would like to play at least my first playthrough without mods but I really feel like just trashing my first run and starting over, mainly cause there was a lot of growing pains for those first 4 levels I feel like would be smoothed out and a lot easier if I was another class. But I did it because level 5 was supposed to be an awesome upgrade in power, and for a CC type bard that means hypnotic pattern. And there is not an awesome upgrade in power. While Wizards and Sorcerers are tossing out fireballs and clerics are charging in with spirit guardians. We get stuck with a 2 round Hypnotic pattern.

Oh yeah, I wanted an enchantment wizard as well but ONCE PER LONG REST?! Hypnotic Gaze is ONE USE PER LONG REST?! This is supposed to be a use ANY TIME but only once per creature. This is a melee skill that gives your opponent a save and requires your action every turn, why did it need such a massive nerf? Enchantment is just about worthless now for at least the first 5 levels? Haven't checked after they get their next power at 6 yet obviously but I see evocation didn't get a once per long rest shape spell power, it just always works. The difference is staggering and the design direction away from any meaningful CC in this game is clear. They want big dumb barbarians beating on each other and casters throwing fireballs and why would you want anything else. Are you not happy with lots of damage all over the place? Are you not entertained?!

Please fix, control effects are a part of DnD. If your worried they will increase the danger to a party then make sure to throw in some kind of tutorial when the party gets hit with one on how to use help and shove actions on your party to get them out of it but don't swing at us with kid gloves, we want the full DnD experience positive and negative.

Your complaint is not a new one. Unfortunately Larian hasn't seen fit to care nor to even bother telling anyone why they hate crowd control, and the rather sycophantic content creators haven't cared to mention any shortcomings of the game, let alone some of the wild homebrew choices that dramatically screw over party roles and completely mangle the 5E source material.

It is still a good game but it would have been nice if someone who could comment with some kind of volume would actually raise these things. That does not happen, and so us mere peons are limited to writing the occasional comment here, in the vain hope that Larian actually does read at least a summary of what goes on and will one day find it in them to offer some sort of response.

Yeah this is extremely disappointing. I was also trying to run a lore bard and enchanter wizard without realising they had been nerfed into trap choices. I'd rather play a fighter with extra attack and action surge removed than a CC class in this state.

Yeah WHY do they hate control spells so much? It's really boring playing only blaster casters and abusing Cloud of Daggers and Moonbeam for their doubled damage. Stuff like Hypnotic Pattern would be really essential for a solo or two man party. 2 turn duration assumes you have a full roster for the spell to matter at all and even then it won't ever get memorized over much better alternatives.

Burst damage is a MUCH bigger problem in combat overall. But they seem to love that. They changed Haste so that martials get double extra attacks instead of just one more and made Haste potions readily available. My level 5 EK was Action Surging 4 attacks, 6 with Haste. And casting two Fireballs per turn at level 8 with only three Wizard levels because they changed spell progression as well. They also made rings that add +2 damage on every attack and a lot of weapons have +1d4 damage (before dipping for another +1d4).

It's a turn based game where burst damage is so high you don't always get a turn in combat because you're dead. You also get to freely focus fire any target through other combatants because nothing gets in the way.

The Isobel fight is a good example of why massive burst damage is stupid for turn based combat. She got gunned down and cutscene triggered before I could do anything. I found out afterwards that it fundamentally changed my entire playthrough. They should find ways to lower burst damage, not increase it. And let control spells be a thing.

All expected since EA. Only modding will prob make this closest to D&D and game having actual balance and not relying on one trick pony one shots and homebrew. If you build core gameplay around having 200 actions per turn with maxed attributes for DPS it's gonna get old fast too. They didn't even bother changing the party size limit code from D:OS2 I don't believe Spellcasters needed more Nerfs since most of the Stuff is Badly Implemented so i still feel like i'm on EA.

Have to agree that limiting control spells to 2 rounds is kind of crap. It doesn't come up all that often as combats are pretty quick. But when it does, it sucks. However, i will say sleep is certainly not worthless. It has the 2 turn limit but it has been massively buffed from base 5e. They removed the randomness from the spell by just having it be the full dice roll and they also let you select targets instead of it going lowest HP to highest HP order.

Removing the randomness is a buff to some degree, but you don't get 'the full dice roll'. Sleep is 5d8 (average 22.5, max 40) in 5e and 24 in bg3, so it's only a very slight buff in terms of expected value. Certainly not anywhere close to making up for the duration.

They should probably rename the spell 'micronap'.

It's not about 'hate' it's about time, money, and resources. Don't put *any* CC in and it's utter crap, put some in and people will bitch on the forums, put it in but delay the game for another three years to program every single encounter special snowflake and you're looking at losing your publishing rights altogether as well as pissing off your backers who've already ponied up their cash and want to see an end product at the end of a three year cycle in an industry that sees hardware changes on that same cycle. It's not about hate, it's about being a business.

Larian has made it clear they aren't fans if dnd. They want the name to boost sells. This is a dis gane with a dnd coat of paint. Gane is still reasonably fun, but it us only like 50% dnd and 50% dos. And, the best parts are the parts that are closest to dnd.

I have to agree CC spells are too weak in this game, 2 turns is just a pointless waste of a spell slot, at the least they should last 5 turns.

Remember, Larian is aiming to make the game more friendly to newer players. Being stun locked by enemies for infinity until your party dies isn't fun. Everyone hates being stun locked (except maybe some of you masochists out there).

Easy fix, make it 2 turns on easiest difficulty, 3 turns in middle one, 5 turns on highest one.

Sounds like a solid suggestion to me

Remember being perma held by ghasts in BG1 & 2? Chaos spammed by enemy casters? Yes I actually loved that stuff because you had to learn counters.

For casters, inject spider venom or insect swarm and they couldn't cast a thing.

Remember fear in the older games? Yea, no thanks.

Here's an even better one. Don't give enemy spellcasters disabling spells in the first place? It's just as bad if not worse that they have every cultist cleric or another excuse for a caster Fireballing your party. There are so many spells to choose from that would fit evil death clerics better. It seems like only Fireball exists for Larian. Vampiric Touch? Bestow Curse? Animate Dead. No. They Fireball you.

All the best CC spells have been balanced with a Concentration requirement in 5e already. And Concentration is much harder to maintain in BG3 where you are constantly bombarded with elemental damage. And the enemies are always scattered over a huge open battle area. That's two significant nerfs to control spells already.

Just give them their actual 5e durations.

BG1 and BG2 are also irrelevant in this discussion, 5e is an entirely different ruleset that has already fixed the save or lose situations.

You need to break concentration, I rather like that mechanic. The best spell I `found` in this game bar none, is Magic Missile.

Enemy casters need to save for concentration on *every* missile hit. It's also the only spell that *always* hits and so far nothing I've seen so far [early act 3] is immune to it. It's even good against doors.

Defending against it - Counterspell is king. I made Gale a Lucky Diviner with Counterspell. Magic doesn't come near. He could only be better at it if he were a halfling.

And this is why they also have Shield as a reaction to make cool mini mage duels.

Finesse like this doesn't exist in BG3 unfortunately. It's just drink Haste -> Fireball Fireball Fireball durrrr. Or drink Haste dip candle-> whack whack whack action surge whack whack everything dead durrrr.

People scared of enemies being actual threats yet are fine with enemies throwing 25hp bombs on your 10hp characters. L0L

This is one of the reasons why bg3 can't be as good as bg1 or bg2. The fear factor has been lessened by a lot outside of cheese tatics done by player and the computer both. And, yeah, 5e is part of the problem so its not all on Larian in this case.

Newer players can handle these spells just fine. They handled them in earlier dnd games just fine. Why insult new players? We were all new at once. We learned the game. Why can't they? So insulting and demeaning to newbies.

Someone really peed in your Cheerios.

No one's asking them to do ANY more work, in fact it took MORE time to code all the CC spells that are already in the game and then go and decide "no, this duration is too long, it's not fun, make it a shorter duration instead to satisfy the dnd newcomers" than it would have to just straight import the spells.
Everything is already done just need to back up on their intentional nerfing a bit and this is fine. 5 turns is half normal duration and would be a nice comprimise and make the spells worth using. For me, gonna just play modded and be able to play the game the way I want to, which I believe was Larion's intent from the beginning.
I find a CC playstyle as preventing damage as opposed to healing it up afterwords to be supremely satisfying and exceptionally well fit for a turn based game even if I'm not dishing out massive damage.