Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Drow - please change Dancing Lights

This feels like a place where a change from 5e RAW should be made.

In the TTRPG, Dancing Lights is a cantrip with a a high potential for shenanigan and tactical use. But in this game it's just a big light source and drow have Superior Darkvision. Minor Illusion might fit better for the limits of the games mechanics.

Or they could allow you to move the dancing lights once you've cast them.

You still suffer disadvantage on attack rolls against targets in shadows, my dark vision characters had to deal with it sometimes, so dancing lights really helped my allies.

I mean, all it does is make lights. You can make them look humanoid, but most creatures will either think "That is clearly someone messing with me" or "Pretty light go swoosh". It takes a unique range of wisdom/intelligence to be fooled by something like that.

I'm more concerned with minor illusion actually doing something worthwhile, personally.

Things I've done with Dancing Lights in table top include:

Faking the appearance of an incorpeal undead creature.

Lure a patrol of enemies off a cliff to pursue the "torchlights" they had caught sight of in the middle of the night.

Spread throughout a room to create several points of bright bright light.

Send signals.

Startle an enemy by putting one in their face to interfere with their next attack.

provide a path for an ally to follow.

support a bardic performance

A few other things here and there.

But yeah, I expected it wouldn't have as much functionality as it did in the tabletop, I'll have to consider the fact Darkvision just reduces things to Dim rather than normal vision.

I think that Dancing Lights should be able to move and/or split, or else not be Concentration.

1. and 2. are clever, 3 and 5 should not work in the rules (it's dim light, and if disadvantage were that easy to impose everyone would do it), and 4 6 and 7 are on the scale with what I think could be easily added to the game in minor interactions.

1 and 2 could be written in as novel solutions to a problem, or rather a similar use-in general I'd like to see more cantrip solutions to problems. That's the real use of them, not as surface creating super-damage dealers.

Infringing on illusion spells.



Fair



?



Fair



Unbalanced tablerule stuff.



Fair



Cool stuff



Which is the only normal thing to do here.


I think the only point that should be changed is that you should be able to do 4 separate lights. "Moving it as a bonus action" is already implemented in that it is already one, so you just cast it again. In that regard it is a slight buff, but one that works fine.

Number three is mis-stated, it was more I split them out for more coverage because there were lots of pillars in the cavern we were in and I was trying remove any spot of total darkness....though eventually I dropped them in exchange for my variation of Flaming Sphere (lightning instead of fire...)

I see. As I said, being able to do 4 individual lights would be appreciated indeed.

First, you can't "infringe" on other spells-there is more than one way to peel an apple, and you can mimic a will o' wisp or something like it because you made a floating light, or because you made an illusion of a will o' wisp.

Also, if you could make floating lights with minor illusion we've entered into the philosophical point of "what is light?", so suffice it to say that he's right in general that there are some uses of the spell.

More generally, I would love to see them spend more time on writing these kind of interactions into the game. YMMV, but thinking of clever cantrip uses is part of what makes wizards/sorcerer's fun on the tabletop, I'd like to see a nod to that part of DnD.

on the faking an incorporeal undead....I used the option to have the lights take on a vaguely humanoid shape and then had my character, a bard, freak out and start intoning prayers (acolyte) to try unsuccessfully to turn the "spirit" away....this was further supported by other party members taking the hint and also trying to "turn it" and dropping Thaumaturgy effects as well.