Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Surface Effects + Savings throws

So theres a lot of discussion about the overtuned nature of Firebolt and other cantrips that leave surface effects. My gripe is related to this as its about the fire damage left on surfaces. Just started a new game and was dropped to 2 HP within seconds of after clipping some fire on the ground, getting lit on fire, and it ticking twice for 4 damage(once on hit, once on expiration of debuff). This is part of the balance issue of bringing DND into the world of Divinity. The HP pools in DND are not so tolerant of these mechanics in their current form. This specific scenario may be an issue with how freely Larian hands out debuffs, whereas a game like DND has a mechanic called a Savings Throw, which comes up constantly as you play the game. In fact, especially for lower tier players (0-10), there arent many harmful effects in the game at all that do not call for a hit roll that beats out your AC OR savings throw against a spell DC. This game does not make use of the defensive components of DND that it should be.

Surface effects are conceptually very similar to "Save or Suck" spells like Burning Hands/Fireball... There is an area of space being covered with pain and to avoid this pain, you are tested on how nimbly you can get out of the way(dex) or how much you can stomach a noxious cloud (con) or how well you can stay focused if a wizard blankets an area with a crowd control effect (cha). The simple addition of saving throws as a means to mitigate/avoid surface effects would assist in the balance issues this game is experiencing right now. Even just having the possibility of reducing a fire damage tick by half is a drastic improvement. It can make since in the spirit of "running across the fire and trying not to burn yourself" or "stepping in places that look less flamed up" or "stepping in the stones sticking out of the acid puddle rather than down in it".

At least for the sake of debuffs handed out by the surfaces, perhaps standing in the surface goes unchanged but using all these debuffs that are not in 5e, would work a lot better with the mitigation/avoidance rules of 5e. I would personally like to see all cantrips that produce surface effects to require a save throw. Stick to 5e as much as possible, just add Create Bonfire cantrip and make Firebolt D10+lights flammables. Produce Flame cantrip could be added as well, honestly BG3 Firebolt feels like 5e Produce Flame, they could just rename it and make it a Druid spell lol. Whatever happens, DC saves need to happen more often.