Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Protecting allies by giving them stuff

I got sick of Zevlor and the other Tieflings dying in Minthara's attack on the Druid Grove (those Sword Spiders hit like trucks), so I thought I'd experiment a bit ... I remembered in Fallout 1 one of the most fun things to do was reverse-pickpocket good weapons etc on to allies to increase their effectiveness in battle. I've also noticed that often, the only spells and potions most enemies cast are from scrolls and items they have on them. (Another little trick: if you don't want to be knocked out of the rafters or off the high ground in the Goblin Camp, you can simply trade with them or pickpocket them for their Arrows of Roaring Thunder before everyone turns hostile.)

There's no reverse pickpocketing in BG3 (is there?), but you CAN give allies and neutrals items by trading during dialogue. So before the Druid Grove battle, I gave Zevlor a potion of greater healing, some food, and a bunch of scrolls. And sure enough, during the fight he cast Magic Missile twice (he only does so once usually) and Shield of Faith once on another ally. (He never drank the potion because this time OF COURSE the Goblins only attacked my party members and the Tieflings were unharmed.)

Anyone have any other fiendish ideas on how to abuse this? Could it work with weapons as well?

Also, why do most characters in the game not have any spells memorised?

Reverse pickpocketing would be interesting to add. I doubt it'd be able to complex enough to do things like implicate someone else with stolen goods BUT, in the vein of fallout it could serve a function that trading doesn't, forcibly affecting someone with something negative.

Being able to affect someone with a poison or put something harmful like a flame arrow in a NPC's inventory so they get poisoned or combust into flames could be quite fun to do, runs the risk to being discovered but with skill the individual character could avoid being discovered at least the first time it happens to a NPC group.

Also most characters in the game are not spellcasters and in fact by base 5e design most are not supposed to be able to use scrolls.

It's called put-pocketing, thank you very much

Yeah, it's a trick I've used, especially if I need a fragile NPC to survive a hard encounter. I've given out healing potions to the tieflings before the siege battle, and also to Sazza before saving her from the spiders (as that usually aggros everyone in the Dror Ragzlin area). Sure enough, they use them!