Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Better UI for spells

Right now a new player will never understand spell slots and spells per day rules with the current spell UI. Not to mention up-casting lower level spells. There is no indication of how many spell slots you have left (maybe the small number at the button of the icon like we had in the old BG games?), there is no tool-tip that explains up-casting.
I would suggest looking at the mini spell book they did in the Neverwinter Nights 2 game.

Also a character should have a more clear concentration indication. When concentration breaks the game should tell you "[character name] concentration on: Hex, was broken" for example.
The in game icons are so tiny and it's really hard to understand what is going on. And when you put the mouse on the icon you don't really get information about the condition.

I read the title and came in ready to agree, but after reading the content of your post I'm a little confused.

There's absolutely an indication of spells you have left. It's right above your action bar. The little boxes. I think that works perfectly well.

Upcasting also makes perfect sense with the UI. You have the base spell icon, then to upcast it, you use the icon that has the "II" on it for 2nd level.

That said, I think the tooltips definitely need work (off the top of my mind, I don't recall any difference in the tooltip for 1st and 2nd level Grease)
I also think the current implementation is bound to get a little crazy in the later levels. You're already looking at a bunch of icons just at level 4, and you're just going to get even more icons later on (both having more variety of spells, and also different spell levels for upcasting). Would rather just 1 icon per spell, and just a different way to choose how to fit it into a higher spell slot.

I agree that the spells could use more information. It would really help if there was some form of expanded UI to allow you to get more information. For example, I understand that most wizard spells are impacted by the intelligence stat, but what about hit chance? I'm not familiar with D&D rules, but I would assume that maybe Dexterity might improve spell hit chance? Maybe I'm way off there, but it would really help to know what stats affect what through an expanded UI. I also read in some other post, although I couldn't find it now, that it would help to have more detailed explanations of spell effects. Take for example the "Fog Cloud" spell which states that it makes impacted creatures "Blinded" and "Heavily Obscured." It would really help if those effects were underligned and some other color (yellow for example), and you could mouse over them to get a description of what they do. Pyre (by SuperGiant Games) is a good example of a game that implemented such a feature successfully and I feel like this game could benefit from something similar.

+1

For Prepared spells (Cleric, Wizard, etc.), the good old spellbook style UI, with empty slots you fill and, below it, you mention how many spells of that level can be cast per day.

Much easier though for Spontaneous casters.

For casting a spell with a higher spell slot, you could have a special icon like "Use a level 2 spell slot" and then you select the level 1 spell you wish to cast boosted. Otherwise, I would not mind if you have to just cast spells at their original level.

Spell book should be a spell book in look as well, also magic item icons should not be purple or green. They could add some unique icons like in BG for magic items.
I am not sure if they use new icons or is it just some early access thing, but it looks like as if they just imported every item icon from DOS2.

Look no further than NWN2 for the quick cast menu.

Sort all prepared spells by level in a separate pop up UI.

On top, add tabs for +1, +2, +3... which turn the slots into up-leveled ones. If you want to cast Burning Hands with a 3rd level slot, select tab +2 which shows Burning Hands as a 3rd level spell.

Simple!

The current UI that puts every single activated ability on the same quick bar is horrible. And the spell UI that shows all possible up leveled spells all the time... horrible.

Never liked it.

Can you offer a suggestion how you can find and cast your spells faster and with less clicks?

Factor in that prepared spells change and that almost every spell can be up-cast with higher level slots.

On more grip I have with spells is there shouldn't be their version propagating in the next level with their icons. When you select a spell on your spell bar, it should let you choose which available level of the spell you intend to use. One icon should suffice.

I would love to see the "II" on level 2 spells' icons, for clarity.

Casting a spell which can be cast at a higher level would be much better to have a second interaction, instead of taking two spots on the hotbar. Click once to cast, then a dropdown for spell level which could be faded slightly if no slots are available.

Yup!

Totally agree, especially, since the UI for that already exists in the game - the Hex spell gives a secondary menu to choose which skills get disadvantage.

So many things could be done like this. They could have a pop up for :
- Cantrips, spells 1-9
- Innate & Class Abilities
- Consumables
- Thrown
- Tools
- Available Bonus Actions
These could then be sorted by category or name, or pinned to the screen if the player wanted them to be. And the good thing is they only need to be on screen if they have any sub-buttons. Don't have any thrown items? No button! Don't have any bonus actions for some reason? No button! Only have 1 potion left? Well that IS your consumable button! Until you get more, that is.

I agree with the OP, especially regarding concentration spells. There should be a visual effect indicating if a character is currently channeling a concentration spell. As it is right now, you just have to remember if you had once cast or not. It's pretty frustrating to cast a concentration spell, and then see that you've cancelled a prior one.