Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Concentration spells seem to be useless in BG3

Tried to use Concentration spells but the foes alway go for my casters so ther is no concentration anymore. So dealing damage quick work better for me on tactitian mode.
Do not play D&D 5 tabletop but i am sure that this is not the intension of the rule set.

Probably has to do with the fact that you consistently fight large groups of enemies, who tend to have positions set up so they can all hit whoever they want, too many ambushes with too many enemies.

Not gonna lie, most spells seem useless. Especially ones that only affect the character in dialog. Granted there are a lot of ways to play the game, so I think they should all exist obviously.

I just don't think D&D combat rules work great for a video game. It seems like youre better off just attacking every roaund rather than waste spell slots. I preferred the AP system of Divinity.

Or maybe I'm just not playing right.

Concentration is a waste of spells slots. As a ritual or cantrip using a bonus action are the best ones to use. I generally don’t use them. War caster doesn’t really help. Some a situation

They overpowered weapons over spell slots in numerous ways.

Weapons often have +1d4 elemental damage. Everyone in my party has that. You can buy Oils that improve weapon attacks You can dip. The Underdog gloves that give Advantage to melee attacks are just bonkers. Weapons have Tenacity to deal damage even if you miss. And the worst offender is Haste which gives martial classes a full set of attacks instead of just one.

Concentration on the other hand is much harder to maintain because of overuse of AoE effects, bombs and surfaces in general. And the AI likes to pounce on casters who can't get behind cover. Enemies have lots of teleport abilities to get to the mage.

Fireball and Lightning Bolt are still good. But stuff like Melf's Acid Arrow or even Shatter do really lackluster damage. Basically AoE spells are worth it. But even the best single target spells are lackluster at best. Telekinesis slams do 1d4 dmg lol.

See i am not the only guy who got this problem. My main char is a sorcerer so i can cast two spell per round. So two fire balls or scorching rays are way more effective than any concentration spell. The battles in this game are not that great. Had more fun in PF:WotR although you have many options to kill your foes in BG3.

They are very strong, but only if you can get your AC to 28. It really melts your mind when they bend every rule to make it impossible to cast them, even going so far as to just not letting you have a turn at all. Like if you have access to hold monster you skip every turn for no reason.

Cloud of Daggers is an excellent aera denial spell. Cast it in a doorway. Stand behind it, and sucker the AI into dashing through it. Use it to create choke points.

The only offensive concentration spell I use is witch bolt, it was invaluable to both tag the hag and on the spectator due to its immense mobility.

The sheer length of those lightning beams was a sight to behold.

Basically any boss / mob that jumps around a lot or splits like the hag (if theres any more later in the game) is an excellent time to use witch bolt.

Other than that for level 1&2 slots at least for a sorceror, you just spam twinned chromatic orb / ray of sickness, then magic missile / scorching ray when your sorcery points run out.

+1 , totally agree, the longer I play (right now 30hours) the more I don't like this DnD system, Divinity2 had a MUCH better combat system (I'm also playing on tactican diff).
My magic casters are so useless (lvl 4), yes the best from them (Gale) might cast a spell that deals twice as much damage as my barbar, but only two times per long rest, after that he is doing 1/5 of the damage of the barbar in every round after, if he even hits...
And because of all these limitations (short/long rest) I most of the time only use the free default attacks, which is super boring.

I hope there will be mods in the future to add "divinity 2 style combat" and the next game Larians does won't use DnD combat, there are so many reasons against it.

FYI I wouldn't recommend forming an final opinion about D&D based purely on your experience in BG3. Larian changed a lot of D&D rules, making BG3 kind of a hybrid experience between Divinity2 and D&D. Some rule adaptations/mixes work well, while others make the gameplay less fun. A version of BG3 with either closer-to-D&D rules or closer-to-Divinity2 rules *might* be better.

Now I'm not necessarily recommending D&D 5.Xe (lots of recent issues with D&D's parent company and the design direction of the game), but at the very least D&D is a different enough experience compared to BG3. E.g., casters are commonly considered overpowered in D&D: the opposite of your BG3 experience.

I hate the concentration tag being on SO MANY SPELLS. When deciding what to prepare or learn I look for that tag and then rule the spell out unless it is Bless or Haste.

I tried haste, enemy did ground slam, laezel got stunned from the lethargic.

Like why? Another great spell ruined by the concentration tag.

I like the idea of concentration spells, and the fact it forces me to choose what spells to use in particular situations. I really disliked all the pre-buffing in previous versions that I believe it was introduced to combat.

But I hate how easy it is to lose concentration in BG3, and I think from what folk have said that's not per 5e RAW. If there were just, say, a single check per round if we'd taken damage that round it wouldn't be so bad I think.

I don't have too much issues keeping concentration spells active and in my opinion they are quite powerful. At lower levels I mostly just used bless, but now in act 3 spells like dominate person or wall of fire have decided more than one fight in my favour.

To keep my concentration spells running I use a combination of high AC on my casters (20+), breaking line of sight, multiple options to prevent enemy movement and counterspell against the worst enemy spells.

Can't say I suffered this "inability to make use of concentration spells" some are denouncing here, but yeah, some of Larian's interpretations of the rules make breaking it a little more easier than it should be.

In general I like the addition of this concentration feature. But it should be improved, eg. like "The Red Queen" above said and maybe some spells should replace concentration with a fixed "lasts x rounds" instead.
But I like it eg. when an AI caster uses such a spell and now I have to try to attack the caster to break the concentration, I like that I can do something against the spell. And at least with the talent (at lvl4) that makes you good at concentration, it does not break that easily anymore

But yes, there is much room for improvement and balancing, which does not seem to be possible with the DnD system, because there also seems to be no real "getting stronger while leveling"? At least at lvl4 I do still the same damage/hitchance I did with lvl1. And I have the feeling that even at max level 12, enemies at lvl 4 will still be a threat, but I need to play more to find out

Well,

personally i don't like that system anyway. But thats a different matter. I think it has been established for D&D to avoid stacking too many boni. I would have chosen a different approach though.

It feels indeed that NPCs have it easier to maintain it than the PCs. I think the war caster feat does help. But some instances are just broken.

I was casting haste on my char while inside a darkness spell. I ran out but had to move back, removing and reapplying the blinded status, which broke my concentration without even rolling. Not sure if thats intentional.

Something funny is I'm pro dnd, but pnp concentration is something that I wish was tweaked in pnp and bg3. Laruan changed a lot of rules but kept concentration basically the same. I love the idea of concentration, but zi do wish casters were capable of concentrating on more spells as they level as they gain power and knowledge. Make it oart of levelling up ie. Once every 5 levels or use proficiency. And, of course, the more spells you try to concentrate on the harder it is when you are forced to roll check like when getting hit. Seems sad that you can't use sleep plus a defensive concentration spell at the same time. That said, kudos to Larisn fir implementing concentration properly for the most part. Dnd 4 Tha W!!!

Being blind shouldn't break concentration and at least for me having darkness cast on me by some enemy didn't break concentration. So if it happens by moving in and out of darkness that sounds like a bug.