Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback larian what is the piont in introducing hundreds of spells in the game if 90% of then are useless?

Wizard, Druid, Cleric spells ect......

90% of them you will just never use and you will just bee-line to the best spells on every level for each class.

You also nerfed alot of wizard spells compared to D&D 5th Edition. This was a mistake because you just added more spells onto the useless list.

Wizards are probably the weakest class in the game early on and become more powerfull in the later levels. You donr really hit those later levels though due to the level 12 level cap. So why nerf there spells?

Polymorph is nerfed, banishment nerfed, hypnotic pattern nerfed.......No dispel magic, no suggestion. Plus there is a huge amount of wizard spells missing and level 4+ wizard spells are no that good in general.

The most optimal way to play a wizard in bg3 is to just cast fireball and magic missile. This is crzy when all your hard work and creative design went into making hundreds of spells..........

...............that i will never use.

I think Concentration is the biggest problem/barrier to using a lot of spells since the AI will prioritize you if you are concentrating on a spell. My go to for that is to cast a concentration spell and then pop an Invisibility potion so I can't be found.

Having said that I find more and more that there are spells that are great that I haven't understood HOW to use them.

These are all amazing spells and if you are not regularly using them you are bad at the game and life :P

Longstrider
Jump
Misty Step
Haste
Sanctuary
Shield
Shocking Grasp
Thunderwave
Dancing Lights (for dealing with traps)
Light
Daylight
Fireball
Cone of Cold
Lighting Bolt (better than Fireball IMHO)
Hold Monster (so good, works great on Raphael)
Ice Storm
Minor Illusion
Disguise Self
Goodberry
Shillelagh
Planar Binding
Conjure Elemental
Conjure Woodland Being
Feather Fall
Silence
Armor of Agathy's
Aid
Heroes Feast
False Life
Fog Cloud
Guiding Bolt
Inflict Wounds
Healing Word
Command
Heat metal
Spiritual Weapon
See Invisibility (Crucial in Act 2 if you don't let Volo dig your eye out)
Enhance Ability
Cloud of Daggers
Spirit Guardians
Glyph of Warding (so fucking good)
Evard's Black Tentacles (combine with a frozen water surface and a choke point, it's just brutal)
Guardian of Faith
Freedom of Movement
Sunbeam
Blade Barrier
Create Undead
Globe of Invulnerability
Otto's Irresistible Dance (Combine with Evards Black Tentacles because it's funny when they have disadvantage on dex saves lol) - You don't get a save when the spell is first cast. Only after 1 round. Enjoy crumping.
Tasha's Laughter
Resistance (cast before Harpies fight and other stuff)
Sleep
Colour Spray
Ensnaring strike (especially from a ranger)
Shield
Spike Growth
Fire Shield (excellent for Melee casters - Bards/Locks should always get this) Cold shield plus Armor of Agayths.

Bad Spells - these should never be used, they are bad.

Melf's Acid Arrow
Witchbolt
Sacred Flame
Grease
Flame Blade
Vampiric Touch
Web
Plant Growth
Sleet Storm (because Con)
Stinking Cloud (because Con)
Protection from Energy - (Because Con)
Lightning Arrow (Bugged)
Flesh to Stone (Concentration AND it's Constitution based save - just a shit spell)
True Strike (the worst spell ever)
Circle of death (Constitution Save)
Insect Plague (Constitution Save)

I would also add Hypnotic Pattern - it will disable entire encounters allowing you to take down enemies one by one.

I found sleep rather useless outside very early game. Usually if enemy is HP low enough to effective, it is just easier to kill him. In old editions it was a good crowd control spell for lesser enemies - I didn’t find it to be that effective in BG3.

Totally agree with you, OP, except for that this is a D&D problem and not a Larian problem. It is the case that a whole lot of spells in D&D are pointless, and on top of that the problem of being able to run only one concentration spell at a time makes many spells unusable.

Agree, more of a D&D5th problem.
Example of TRUE STRIKE in D&D.

TRUE STRIKE

D&D5th:

You extend your hand and point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses. On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn't ended.
*ADVANTAGE
you roll a second d20 when you make the roll. Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage, and use the lower roll if you have disadvantage.



"D&D3.75", Pathfinder (best implementation in my opinion...):

You gain temporary, intuitive insight into the immediate future during your next attack. Your next single attack roll (if it is made before the end of the next round) gains a +20 INSIGHT BONUS. Additionally, you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attackers trying to strike a concealed target.
*INSIGHT BONUS
An insight bonus improves performance of a given activity by granting the character an almost precognitive knowledge of what might occur. Multiple insight bonuses on the same character or object do not stack. Only the highest insight bonus applies. Can affect AC, attacks, checks and saves.


D&D Second Edition

A glimpse into the future ensures your next blow strikes true. The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll the attack twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden.



BG3:

Gain Advantage on your next Attack Roll.

It's not a DnD problem, imo; it's a computer game implementation problem.

DnD has a lot of spells that are utility based, or oddly specific, and yeah some of them are better picks than others. But the reality is that any computer game implementation of DnD - every implementation that has so far existed, at least - fails miserably at approaching the creativity and problem solving of tabletop. Lots of weirdo spells that have niche utility uses are perfect for a TT wizard. In a TT game, though, it becomes hard to think of a reason to use them.

Witch Bolt is good if you want to save up on spell slots and want to wear down an enemy with big health.
Sacred Flame does not require line of sight, nor does it suffer from advantage/disadvantage BS, I *think*, it can be extremely useful to hit targets with an otherwise low hit %

Color Spray is awful and so is Sleep due to the health limit.

Feign Death.

Utterly useless spell, except maybe... yes indeed - it does have a fantastic use! I'll give a clue,
Part of the fun is finding the optimized use of these spells. Yes, some are destined for mediocrity. A few are stinkers even. But finding gem use is cool.

Sacred Flame almost NEVER hits - ugh, so bad. Since it's dex save results in not half damage but NO damage it really kills the usefulness.

Sleep is a great low level spell - it gives you at first level a HP total you can utilize to put as many creatures you want to sleep as long as they fall under that HP total. So if you have a bunch of mobs that are injured but not dead you can just select them all to put them to sleep. It's a notoriously great spell at low levels, and even higher levels if you want to upcast. There is no save to the sleep effect. The strategic synergy is huge.

Color Spray is essentially the same, mobs don't get a save, so if you are dealing with low health mobs that can still output damage and are grouped you can blind them all. The HP total is much higher for Color spray and it can be upcast to great effect.

Feign Death is useless.

I have to agree, lots of spells are something that you could use but because you have better ones why would you use them ? Casters could be made to choose more strong specializations for example all frost spells gets buffed or all acid spells are getting buffed.. this can be done via items without changing D&D rules.

Also lack of this strong caster specialization and strong caster items, i find all the non caster classes that uses weapons and armor to be 2x stronger in combat...


It kinda is D&D problem because it determines all the spells, but it could have been bypassed by using strong caster items and mythic path like in pathfinder Wotr... in BG3 it could have been the illithid powers that buff casters together with specialized items that buff specific type of spells.

Sleep is a great spell if utilized thoughtfully.

Until you get Cull the Weak, at which point Sleep becomes a silly choice, at least in this type of game. I could see it still being useful in some sort of tabletop game if you didn't want to kill an enemy. But in BG3 we don't take prisoners.

I must check it out, but I strongly suspect Feign Death will end the fight with temporarily hostile guards. Useful for 'fighting' your way out after being caught thieving.

I've got the boots of Feign Death (recharge on a short rest) and expensive potions of invisibility. I recently used two of the latter when I could've used the former.

That's two uses for the spell when thieving.

If the enemies are low HP I just kill them instead of putting them to sleep or something, and there's plenty of enemies that don't have high dex, and even some that do this is a good way to take care of them if they impose other disadvabtages on you through some BS like mirror images or whatnot.