Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Wizard Multiclass broken?

I’m not sure where to put this, but I’m curious if it’s intended or a bug. Currently, the game checks your multiclass spell progression, rather than solely your wizard spell progression, in order to determine what level spells you can scribe or cast. This means a level 9 Cleric, level 1 Wizard would be able to scribe and cast 5th level Wizard spells. Has there been any word on if this is intended?

It’s intended .

Also sure you can learn spells with lvl 1 wizard and 11 cleric but your spells will still scale with Wisdom and the wizzard spells will scale with INT meaning you won’t have many spell slots and your offensive spells will be gimped with crap hit chance as you will have Low intelligence.

In fact this is the sole reason why wizzard spells are the only ones that are INT based while all other casters are Charisma or Wisdom based . You can add 1 lvl of wizzard but your spell slots are purely dependent on INT and so is your hit chance with them

Hmm multiple stat dependency seems a small price to pay for a one level splash to essentially double your spell
Pool. I know that there are plenty of changes to D&D rules for this game but removing the restriction that you have to learn and prepare spells as if you were just that class but ONLY for wizard seems strange. Has Larian specifically said it was intended?

You aren’t doubling your spell pool though as you still have the same number spell slots a day, you are going to miss on a feat, and your offensive spells will suck.

And you can prepare spells as a wizzard based on your modifier meaning at 10 INT you can only have one spell from the wizard pool, at 12- 2 spells etc.

So you either Gona Gimp your main spell cast attribute or you will have to have a very limited use of the wizard spells.

I often dip 1 lvl wizzard on some builds but that usually just to get Haste or Shield, really the usefulness is rather limited.

I mean as a cleric you are potentially losing your 3rd feat which could be War Caster or Alert or max your Wisdom and in exchange you get Haste and some other utility spell as you won’t really be able to do much with offensive wizard spells.

The trade off seems balanced enough. And let’s not forget you can craft or buy haste potions so in Min/ max situation you are still better off full cleric

I appreciate the balance rationale. But my question still stands in if this is confirmed to be intended. It’s strange that Wizard and only Wizard gets to not adhere to the limits on spell casting and preparation that all other multiclass casters do. And ONLY if they are multiclass with another class with spell casting, which would allow for them to have slots for those spells.

As someone who works in software development, this really feels like a missed flag of some sort where the game is failing to check if the wizard is multiclassed (and instead only checking to see if they have the right spell progression) before checking if they can scribe the spell.

My question isn’t really a balance question. It’s strange that with no note in the game about Wizard multiclassed spell progression working differently, they would code it to work differently than it does in standard D&D. So I was wondering if Larian has commented in that difference. I don’T think it’s impossible that it is intended, but it feels like it could be a bug, and I’d like to know.

No , you got it all wrong , all spell slots are based on caster level
Like if you do 6 levels of sorc and 6 levels of bard you will still have lvl 6 slots. It’s just that as they don’t learn spells from scrolls , they won’t really have the lvl 6 spells.

But say you make a lvl 10 sorcerer and then 2 lvls paladin, this way you will have a lvl 6 slot which you can use for divine strike even though you won’t have a lvl 6 spell learned .

So it’s not really a wizard thing it’s how spell slots/ caster levels work , some classes get spells slots every level others every few levels but they all adds up to the total.

Larian broke this too - under 5e rules - which they supposedly implemented - a Wiz 1/cleric 11 should not be able to prepare (and thus cast) level 3 wizard spells. You would need a wiz 5 to do that. All you should be able to do is up-cast a spell you can prepare (cantrip/level 1 in this example) - that was another game unbalancing move on their part. It was also pointed several times during in EA. So the notion of dipping for level 1 to get haste & fireball should not work - and is way too cheap a price to pay for level 3 spells. The language around MC spell casting is not well written - so maybe Larian simply misunderstood. They basically made multiclassing jointly more powerful then the base classes - you should always lose something when multiclassing, that has always been the price for some additional versatility (which is not meant to be balance breaking, some edge cases notwithstanding).

WoTC literally uses Wizard as an example to make this clear:


You can’t prepare spells higher than your individual class’s spell progression would allow. If you couldn’t prepare it as a level 1 Wizard, you couldn’t prepare it as Cleric 19/Wizard 1

That said, there is another thread discussing this in detail wherein Larian apparently responded to someone’s bug report and told them that this is a bug and they are working to fix it, which is actually what I was trying to find out.

Works great for multiclassed worlocks. I have Wyll as a level 4 warlock and currently a level 1 bard. He uses his warlock spell slots first and then he can cast his bard AND warlock spells using his bard casting slots. Gives a warlock many more spell casting. Short rest he gets his warlock points back. Singing warlocks are much more powerful and the loss of a feat is made up for with triple the spell casting. Also the warlock spells when cast using bard slots will cast at the warlocks level.

This is a good use for the Warped Headband of Intellect that you get in Act I, which boosts your Int to 17. That gives you 4 prepared spells and a respectable +3 casting bonus with one Wiz level.

Has anyone tested the wizard in honour mode yet? Does this still work? Learning scrolls above the wizard level, I mean.

I can't *scribe* above my level.

I have not tested the Wizard 1 / Cleric 11 thing, so perhaps it is tied to caster level.

That's what I mean. The multiclass issue. Can a low level wizard still scribe high level scrolls if their total caster level is high. I haven't managed to test it in honour mode yet.

Yeah it still works. I tested this with sorcerer 2 / wizard 1. I could scribe and cast a shatter scroll (lvl2spell).

Thank you, thumbs up for letting us know!

I dunno, into one of the other ten bazillion threads about this ?



Why, exactly like the D&D PHB says it should work.

Surprising indeed.

No it's not how it should work.
In the multiclassing section of the PHB it says that the wizard spells you can prepare are determinded as if you would only have your wizard levels. So a multiclassed chracter with 1 level of wizard would only be able to prepare 1st level wizard spells. They even give the example of a wizard 3 / ranger 4 and state that he can't know 3rd level spells even though he has 3rd level spell slots.

It’s intentional per Larian, not RAW though. The limitation is the number you can memorize is limited to wizard level spell slots. Adding a single level of wizard can be a boon for spell variety when added to other spell casters. IMO it opens many doors to playing a viable Warlock that isn’t spamming Eldridge Blast.

I am the person who wrote to Larian and they confirmed that it is a bug/exploit and that they are working on fixing it.



So 1) Yes it's an exploit 2) it's not intended 3) They are working on fixing it 4) if you are using it you are a filthy exploiter and should feel bad that you need this as a crutch. :P

Also, it's not only not RAW, it fundamentally breaks core rules of the game.