Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback How we can know the Sawyerism on spells with lv cap = 4??

For those who doesn't know, Sawyer's games always nerfed hard spells. IWD has no good spell(Enhanced Edition fixes it by putting BG2 spells on it), NWN2 is unplayable as a pale master or warlock without mods like spell fixes. I an pretty sure that if Larian decide to nerf the spells more than 5e already nerfed, everyone who enjoys play as a caster will just mod the game and fixes the nerfs.

That said, the lv cap = 4 makes impossible to judge how a fireball is. We can only speculate that maybe Larian did something awful with it like with firebolt spell. Nor animate dead, we all know that Larian had the awful idea of making impossible to have a mage hand and a familiar at the same time which implies that animate dead will become worthless. Honestly, if Larian will nerf necromancy to a single summon limit and the low HD undead 5e style, I would prefer that Larian will chose to NOT implement this class specialization. And let modders mod it into the game.

Is much better than having something so worthless in a game that exists only to cause frustration among the fanbase.

I also wanna add that while Larian seems to see the high tier magic as "non possible to exist on a video game", the predecessor of BG2 had a lot of powerful high tier spells and the 2e versions of then. For eg, disintegrate which is a mid tier magic on 2e OHK the enemy, on 5e only deals a little of damage. And OwlCat is implementing tier 10 magic into the game. The UI is bugged showing lv 6, but here is. Liches on end game can cast this spells.



Meanwhile on BG3, we don't even know if animate dead will gonna work properly...

Josh Sawyer doesn't work for Larian, never has. He works for Obsidian. And if you've played either of Larian's previous games, you'll recognise that high level magic was very much possible, essential even.

You can't compare BG3 with WotR. It goes to level 20 with 10 mythic levels on top. BG will be at most 10 or 11. Some of the mythic abilities are over the top. That's why they need to create a game built especially around them, with mythic demons and creatures. Can you imagine any of these spells against a bunch of cultists?

I mentioned Sawyer because I din't liked magic in any game that he worked. Firearms in other hands, FNV is amazing. As for comparing BG3 with PF:WoTR, I din't compared, only said that Larian is wrong about what they said about high level magic on D&D. And they said many times that they can't implement spells like Wish(which BG2 implemented in as a "list").

As for larian having "high level magic", I disagree. None of their spells are like stop time, wish, polar midnight, wail of the banshee and so on. Necromancers can only have a single minion and honestly, everything cool has long cooldowns. I honestly hate cooldowns...

Yay, instant death spells, so fun.

Face the ultimate boss, save -> cast insta death spell -> success win.
-> fail : load and try again.

That was an epic fight.

... yet!

When there will be all races and classes and specializations ... i would say its good time to incerase level cap. :-/
Not before.

some comments to the OP:
- I enjoyed playing NWN2 and PoE
- Josh Sawyer is not with Larian
- You have posted mystic lich spells. Those cannot be found anywhere in the official rules.
- At the moment we only have lv4 chars with lv2 spells. Nobody knows how higher level stuff is implemented.
- The game is based on DnD 5E. I agree that some of the DOS stuff is bad, but if you do not like 5E then you will still hate the game even if they implement the rules properly.

Wrong. Most bosses has immunity to this effects and extremely high saves, not mentioning, multi stages with minions and etc. On 3.5e,, you need to dispel death ward and if the ward is on gear, only disjunction can dispel it. Then lower the enemy saves and SR with minions and spells like cloudkill, then you can OHK the boss.

In many times, there are even more than a boss, and if you wanna try to OHK everyone in sequence, good lucky. See Jon Irenicus final battle on BG2 or the Lantern King on Kingmaker.


I know that Sawyer is not Larian, but some comments that I saw from Larian remembers me of him. Sawyer is amazing on designing video games firearms(FNV is a masterpiece) but when designing/adapting spells... As for the mythic path rules, it is a good way to pick a good system and IMPROVE it.

About the game being based on 5e, doesn't seem like Larian is trying to improve aka add more cool things. Seems like Larian is trying to remove cool things.

Looks like we have a different understanding of fun.
- Endless pre buffing before every hard fight is boring, especially if you have to do it again and again. It takes longer and longer as the game progresses.
- Fights where both opponents are buffed to almost perfect immunety against everything and where you need the right spell protection and spell protection removal tools to have a chance are also not very interesting. You have to read a guide or die 100 times until you find out how to defeat that lich and once you found out you just do the same thing again and again. It only helps to frustrate new players.
- I like the new concentration mechanic in 5E. You have to think carefully which spell to use instead of simply using all of them. Plus concentration can be broken easy (a bit too easy in BG3).

BG3 is great because of the high interactivity or reactivity. There are many ways approach almost every situation and it makes some things work that were never expected in a video game.
I do not like game just because they have the most complicated rule set ever. Making things complicated for its own sake is just annoying.
I dislike the large DOS influences in a DnD games because it means you have to repeat some nonsense OP stuff over and over (like jumping to get backstab advantage).

I like Kingmaker and WotR. But I play on normal difficulty because torturing myself with even more inflated monster stats is not my idea of fun too. I recently finished Kingmaker with a sylvan sorcerer, btw the first time I used a pure arcane caster as main char to finish a big DnD like RPG. When WotR comes out I will certainly play a martial char (probably bloodrager) since everyone and their grandmother has spell resistance, elemental resistance and immunity to status effects.
OK, then I just have to bash their skull real hard. (after endless, repetivive pre buffing, fortuanatly now with 24h duration.)

You don't need to end buff on kingmaker. In fact, you use buffs depending on the encounter. For eg, protection vs arrows against the stag lord, protection against electricity against Will'O wisps, is not as if before every trash mob encounter, you need to do something like



And the mobs should be able to cast spells like dispel, greater dispel and disjunction to remove those buffs from the player.

As for the concentration mechanic, it RUINS A LOT OF PERSISTENT spells. I see no reason to pick any other specialization on BG3 besides Evoker. Why I would ever pick a conjuration specialization if spells like cloudkill if I can lost the spell in a single round and dish far less damage than a cone of cold would deal? 5e also ruined non persistent spells. Why pick transformation if disintegrate is extremely weaker and has a usage far more limited? Necromancer for eg, can't raise high HD undead nor OHK enemies.

All spell schools on 5e got severely nerfed. But tehre are a exception. Evokation. Meteor Swarm on 5e deals 20d6 fire + 20d6 budgeoning damage AoE damage which is 140 AVR damage. Power world kill meanwhile can only OHK creatures with less than 100 hp. Why pick Power World Kill over an AoE spell which can kill far more dangerous creatures independent of their hp?

And this not mentioning that Evokers now has tools to protect their party members from team damage.

Evokation is the unique worth school on 5e and we can't even know if Larian will ruin it too or not.

As for playing martial class on WoTR due elemental resistances, see the lich spells which I posted, casters can do far more than throw fireballs there :P

Honestly, there is only thing which I think that BG3 is superior to the competition. The enemy AI. I saw so many enemies with dumb AI in games, clerics casting heal on themselves(which damages then) on NWN1 is the most iconic example.

What is this thread even about? A concern that high level magic won't be absurdly powerful?

I would be talking about the resting system, then. If Larian doesn't include some restrictions on long rest as a core part of the game, high level spellcasters probably SHOULD be neutered.

The more restricted long rests will be, the more powerful magic can potentially be without making the fights trivially easy.

What I really don't want is a situation where D&D spellcasters turn into DOS spellcasters where everything looks overpowered but feels underpowered. Spamming weak magic on cooldowns. D&D casters need to be able to peak when the situation requires it, and play smart rather than with reckless abandon.

I like what 5e did to save or die spells. While those spells still hit really hard and likely will one hit you if you fail the save (which is more likely with the bounded accuracy approach), there is at least some chance to not get utterly disintegrated and having to reload.

That is how magic will probably gonna be.

Also, every spell which a player can cast, an NPC can cast. And fighting an enemy caster able to cast tier 7 magic while you can only cast tier 5 is a nightmare on TT games. This spells would't be "pc only" spells. In fact, is common on games with tiered magicl progression to fight enemies with powerful spells before you can learn this spells.



Still hit really hard? Are you joking? Pick disintegrate for eg. A lv 20 barbarian with 20 con with average rolls and +5 con mod would have 19 * ( 7 + 5) + 12 + 5 hp or 245 HP. The average damage of disintegrate is 75 damage(10d6 + 40), which means that a barbarian on 5e can survive failing 3 saves and being disintegrated 3 times.

Pathfinder 1e modified spells like finger of death to deal massive damage. At lv 20, it can dish 200 damage. And Disintegrate can dish 40d6 damage. Or 140 damage on average.

Couldn't think of a more extreme example? :P

You get Disintegrate at level 11. It can one shot many 11th level characters who have taken a small amount of damage from something else and will reliably one shot characters a couple levels lower. Sounds powerful but still balanced to me, assuming you can't spam long rests at will and do it in every fight.

A lvl 20 Wizard can cast Imprisonment and permanently shrink a level 20 Barbarian inside a gemstone and make a pretty amulet out of it. Not powerful enough?

No, is not.

Disintegrate should disintegrate, not do damage. Simple as that.

Did you played arcanum? Extremely Fortified walls which can sustain multiple grenades can be reduced into dust with a single disintegrate. On Dark Sun : Shattered Sands, is one of the best psionics in the game.

I honestly don't know why so many people see problems with OHK spells which takes out an enemy but sees no problem with domination spells which not only takes out an enemy but also add the same enemy as an ally.

It will Disintegrate if you overcome the HP. It's much more balanced like that and it makes sense a weakened target is easier to disintegrate.

I wouldn't expect old school save or die mechanics to return any time soon.

Have you considered that one of those things can be broken, interrupted, dispelled, or saved out of after the fact, while an actual old school save-or-die cannot be? Most players don't really think it's fair or fun to have their entire campaign ended by a single bad die roll, or having to reload their game multiple times because heir only option is to succeed a random chance roll, with no gradation or middle-ground. A DM who thinks it's fair or fun to levy save-or-dies agaisnt their party and risk complete and irretrievable character loss based on a single die roll, beginning form party level 7 or 8, just because, is also a pretty rotten DM.

A 5th level spell should not be able to one-shot any creature in existence for free. That's a ridiculous idea and a person who suggests that it should is being equally ridiculous.

Disintegrate is plenty powerful in 5e, compared to the setting and backdrop that it is situated in. In fact, it's overpowered for its level bracket in terms of its potential damage output and its character-loss consequences if it zeros someone. It is for that reason that it is one of the only high level spells in 5e that is still an all-or-nothing on the save, rather than a save-for-partial, like the vast majority of other mid to high level damage-dealing spells.

It's been years since I've played. The only thing I know about 5e comes from Baldur's Gate 3. But it sure does sound like DnD players have gotten soft.

Used to be, things like Power Word Kill and Disintegrate kept things exciting. When characters died, it was okay. A new character was made. Stories were told about the old character dying.

If by 'soft' you mean 'generally more invested in the mental and emotional journey of their characters and more inclined towards immersed character play' than the highly disposable burner character style of play that was encouraged by older editions, then sure, call it that. It's a roleplaying game, and the more recent renaissance of D&D has focused more heavily on that - roleplaying - than on having to reroll a new character every few sessions and not really getting attached to any of them because you know you're going to have to reroll again in a few sessions time. To each their own; plenty of groups still play like that, and AL games are generally very min-maxed as well... but it's not the main pitch any more.

No, I mean what I said.

I mean, when all is said and done, 5E can still be a pretty lethal game. I wouldn't consider it any softer than 3/3.5E.

Power Word: Kill is in particular is far more lethal in 5E than 3.5E - both auto-kills at 100 hp, but 5E is a lower HP game compared to 3.5E (where characters have far higher CON stats). Also, in 3.5E spell resistance can save you from it. Disintegrate does packs less of a punch, but it can also land far more in 5E compared to 3.5E due to the way saves work.


For example, a 5E level 20 wizard with 16 CON, will only have an average 98-ish hp (6+ 19*3.5 + 20*3). That is still in range of a OHK by Power Word: Kill.

They are also in range of a OHK by an upcasted level 9 disintegrate (19d6+40 = average 106.5 damage). A single casting of Meteor Swarm (40*3.5 = 140 avg. damage) will also put them down.

In fact, a level 20 Great Weapon Master (GWM) Fighter can action surge and make 8 attacks @ 22 average damage (2*3.5 + 5 + 10) x8 = 176 total avg. damage)), which will also one-round kill that level 20 Wizard

A GWM bog standard Paladin can smite twice @ 49 damage (2*3.5 + 5 + 10 + 4.5 + 22.5), which is just enough to one round knock out that same level 20 Wizard.

Well, you were very unclear about it, so if all you came into the thread to do was to make a disparaging and derogatory comment about other players, then why don't you actually sit down and define what you mean by 'soft', and make it a conversation rather than an insult.