Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Focused Feedback: Spells

Mending, Message and Prestidigitation are missing from Wizard cantrips, however, as much as they're fun and almost indispensable cantrips for many players in actual 5e RP, it's understandable why they don't make the cut for a video game.

• I'd like it if we could have Mending to repair objects that get broken or shattered, but failing that perhaps it could restore a damaged object to full hp instead.
• Message could be given a situational role; since it's inaudible to anyone else, it can function as a form of private communication, and it could potentially also be used to initiate dialogue with a character from long range, such as talking to prisoners you're not supposed to visit, or other similar situations.... again though, it's niche. I'd like to see it, but I won't complain about its lack.
• Presti might be nice to have little camp scene niceties be improved as long as someone in camp has access to the cantrip – easy fire lighting, better food, easy cleaning, etc... creature comfort details. It would be background thing though, I imagine, so unless our camp gets a lot more atmospheric, probably also not worth the investment.

Acid Splash: The explode radius of the game's interpretation of this spell means that it can easily hit up to 4 targets, rather than the original 2. It creates a surface as well, but I'll write a section on that later; it's been heavily discussed by many already. (*Fixed*) This spell's explode radius should be reduced to 3ft; this brings it into line with the written spell, and would still allow you to catch two targets with it. Though the original spells specifically calls out targeting a creature, or two creatures, this one should benefit from being able to be targeted at a ground spot, as long as there's at least one target in its radius.

Blade Ward: The extra turn of duration is a positive boost to this otherwise difficult to use cantrip. Thumbs up from me for this one.

Dancing Lights: The ability to control and move the lights is much more limited in the game's translation, but it is acceptable. I'd very much like to be able to target it on four points within range, rather than one, as that would help it line up with the written spell better. I'd also like a few different colours...

Fire Bolt: (*Fixed: Surface spawn removed and d10 damage die restored*)

Light: I like light. It's neat and well handled for the most part. You can do everything you might want to with it, including casting it on an object and putting that object in your back to hide the light until you take it out. That's great. The one flaw is that you cannot dismiss the light in any way. The best fix for this is simple; have casting light on an object with the light status simply remove the light status again. Yes it'll take another action to do, but it's straight forward and saves you having to put another button somewhere.

Mage Hand: Just no. This is bad. Mage Hand cannot attack – the spell specifically calls that out, so WHY did you give it an attack? Mage Hand is not concentration, and the most it can carry is 10lb, so it can't realistically shove anyone. What Mage Hand should be doing is allowing us to open chests and doors at range, and to carry up to 10lb of stuff from said chests back to us, or around the immediate area as needed.

Minor Illusion: A better visual would be nice. I'm assuming the training dummy is a place-holder for now. Other than that, its translation into game does what you'd expect of it. Thumbs up.

Poison Spray: Seems to work as written and as described by the game's tooltips. Thumbs up.

Ray of Frost: (*Fixed!*)

Shocking Grasp: Seems to be working as written and as described in tooltips. On its own its perfect. It should, however, not be creating large swathes of electrified water or blood that can down an entire room... and I've seen it do that when combined with water on the floor. That's bonkers. Shocking grasp has advantage on targets wearing metal armour. If you want it to interact with surfaces, why don't you have it also grant advantage when targeted against an enemy that is wet, or standing in water? No extra effects or room electrification.

True Strike: The extra duration (slightly) improves this originally difficult to use cantrip. Thumbs up!

Missing: Alarm, Chromatic Orb, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Floating Disc, Hideous Laughter(*), Identify, Illusory Script, Shield, Silent Image, Unseen Servant.

Alarm is niche, but I'd like to see it added to the game if we have more travel and more camp-related surprises. Any situation where we might get ambushed at our camp, having any character with access to Alarm as a ritual could prevent surprise or something of that nature. It's understandable that it's not present in the game as currently presented, however.

Chromatic Orb is a puzzling one, especially given how much current game design favours and loves attack roll spells. I can only suppose that it is absent because it involves player choice in combat... more on that issue later, but the short is that anything that involves player choice in combat is largely incompatible with the current game design, and it absolutely NEEDS to be fixed.

Comprehend Languages is also puzzling, given how many “A language you can't read/don't know” I ran into just in the first chapter. There's more than enough material to warrant the spell's inclusion.

Detect Magic and Identify's absences are understandable for the time being, where everything even remotely magical is flashy, highly visible, and already fully identified from the outset. I'd like this to change, but if it doesn't, it's not something I'd rise hell over.

Floating Disc is one I'd like to see: given the mechanics BG3 is already using for summons, floating Disc would just be a summon with a large carrying capacity... a welcome follower for that noodle-armed wizard. Also the amusing consequence of everything cascading onto the ground when it goes away on along rest.

Hideous Laughter was removed from the wizard's list, even though it is in the game, and available to the Old One Warlock. Why? Why arbitrarily remove this spell from Wizards? Give it back. I'll break the spell itself down in the Warlock section, since that's where it is in the current game.

Illusory Script, Unseen Servent, Silent Image: These spells are understandably missing, due to their niche application, or function that doesn't apply well to a video game scenario.

Shield: The lack of Shield is utterly unforgivable, though comments from the team imply we'll get it later , when they've sorted some other things out... however, those comments describe a way of handling reactions in combat that is simply not going to cut it at all... this comes back to player choice in combat, and the way the game currently denies it.

To the spells that are represented:

Burning Hands: Seems to work both as written and as described by the game. The fact that fire bolt creates a surface and this doesn't is a bit silly. Fire bolt should not, while higher level fire spells maybe could. If Burning Hands was to create a surface underneath it, you would need to reduce its damage die by one. Otherwise it's fine as is.

Charm Person: As far as I've been ale to check, upcasting this does nothing; you don't get the extra targets, at least not as far as I've seen. That needs to be fixed. The other problem here is that its description in its spell card, its tooltip, and its status effect disagree with and contradict each other. One says that it gives advantage on all checks in dialogue (charmer against charmed), while the other says you have advantage on all charisma checks against the target. These are not the same thing... and it's concerning to think that Larian supposes they are. If the charmed tooltip is accurate (stating that we have advantage on all ability checks in dialogue with the target), we should have advantage on insight checks, as well as an Intelligence (history, religion, etc.,) checks we make in the course of conversation to mention, bring up, or respond to information... if the Spell description is correct (advantage on charisma checks), then we do not. They currently contradict.

Neither the spell card, nor the tooltip indicate that the charm will break on damage or harmful activity... though they do. That's kind of an important detail to leave out. Charmed targets will often go out of their way to provoke opportunity attacks and thus free themselves of the charm. They seem to do this knowingly and deliberately. That's a problem. Our characters take those opportunity attacks, despite knowing that the target is charmed. Also a problem.

Colour Spray and Sleep: These spells use the die average rather than rolling, and that's okay, in a pinch. The bigger problem is this: In the original rules, Colour Spray will blind 4 goblins on average, and can blind up to 8 on a good roll. In BG3 currently, it might blind 2 goblins, at MOST. Sleep, in the original rules, will sleep 3 goblins on an average roll, while in the game it can sleep 2 goblins at most... and it only gets two goblins because they aren't actually using the die average – at level one – it's 2 points higher, to Allow it to get 2 goblins.... die average would only get 1 goblin in game. This is a large weakening of these spells, as a result of the largely thoughtless changes to monster stats to favour attack rolls, to the detriment of everything else.

Disguise Self: Currently cannot be cast with a higher level slot. At all. No reason for this – I'm going to presume it's a bug, and I've submitted it as such. Otherwise the spells' function is very limited in game. More options would be good. Perhaps the ability to target a creature we can see to assume their appearance? (Yellow because it doesn't have higher effects using higher level slots, making upcasting not important enough to warrant Orange)

Expeditious Retreat: Currently works exactly as it does in the original rules, however, the spell itself doesn't indicate this, and that may lead it to be very misleading to people who don't already know 5e or the spell. Reading the tooltips and spell cards, right now, you'd believe that you have to cast it with your bonus action, but don't get any extra movement until next turn, since you'd have already used your bonus action this turn. In reality, it DOES also give you dash when you cast it, but it needs to say that.

False Life: False Life claims it gives a flat number (which is below the expected spell average), however in reality it gives more than that. At 1st level, it claims to give 5, but gives 7 when cast, while at second level it claims to give 10, but gives 12 when cast.

Feather Fall: Saving discussion about Larian's intention for handling reactions and player choice in combat for later, the fact that IFeather Fall lasts for the full minute after casting is actually a good tweak for a video game medium. The fact that we cannot actually use it to save people who need it, unless we psychically know ahead of time and pre-cast it, is unacceptable... I will say that in a game setting, we should certainly be *Able* to pre-cast it before jumping the party off a cliff... but that shouldn't take away from it being a proper reaction to save ourselves from an unexpected fall, which is the spell's primary purpose.

Find Familiar: The spell card says that it summons a fey, but it doesn't. Our familiar is a Beast, not a Fey – and this is a distinction that matters for various reasons. Inaccurate tooltip aside, this needs to be fixed. The bigger issue with Find Familiar as it stands is that we cannot use it for one of its most versatile applications, which is the delivering of our touch spells through the familiar. This is an important part of the spell, a very important part of it, in fact. This needs to be rectified.

Fog Cloud: Works as written in the original rules, however the tooltip and spell card do not indicate this; you get a larger cloud on upcast, but someone not familiar with 5e already has no way of knowing that.

Grease: Grease is not flammable. There was even a sage advice on this. If the spell created a flammable surface, it would say so. It does not. Lubricating grease just isn't a flame hazard. If the spell was “Oilslick”, sure... but it's not. It shouldn't burn; in fact it should douse and replace fire surfaces. A bigger problem exists with Grease, but it's an issue that plagues many, many spells, and I'll talk about it in more detail below. The issue is in timing; *When* you make your saves is very important to the balance of spells, and the current implementation throws that right out the window in a bad way. More on bad spell timing changes below. Fuji is fine with Grease creating a flammable surface. Larian likes surfaces; let's give them this one.

Jump: Works as written, however it hits up against a problem in the game's design. Distance travelled with a jump is just a part of your movement, and jumping itself does not, and should not, cost any part of your turn economy. As it is, this spell can let people jump upwards of 60 feet, and then use the rest of their movement as well... it should not do this, and it causes balance problems. The minotaurs with the 90 foot jump are an example of some of the tomfoolery this approach to jumping and movement causes. This is especially terrible considering the nearly-across-the-board decrease in spell ranges. (Added: Supposed verticality is also an issue here - we can't jump where we can't see, and we cannot move the camera to higher areas manually; even 'tactical view' does not answer this issue with being able to see higher floors. Our ability to jump upwards doesn't increase at all, partially as a reuslt of this.)

Longstrider: Works as written, though it's really quite excessively flashy in its visual effect. Since we often target this spell on allies or multiple allies, it highlights a particularly bad problem with targeting buff spells on allies, related to the game's pathing system and movement: I tried to cast this spell with Gale as the spell's second target Four times in a row. Each time, I prepared the spell, waited until everyone stopped running laps around me for some reason, moved my cursor until myself and gale were highlighted as the receiving targets.. held still to make sure everyone was still, and clicked the button. The character cast, everyone ran around like ninnies again, and Gale did not get the buff, because the spell missed him... only my character got it. On the subsequent three tries, I failed, each time, to buff Gale. Do fix this nonsense, Larian.

Mage Armour: No, just no. Mage armour in the game currently says it “Increases your AC by 3”. That is Not what Mage armour does, and for very good reason. Mage Armour gives you an alternate method of calculating your base AC: 13 + Dex, as long as you're not wearing armour. These are not the same things. The current application of Mage Armour will allow Monks, Barbarians or Draconic sorcerers, for example, to benefit from it alongside their unarmoured defence traits, when they are not designed to do so. We don't have those classes yet, but that's not an excuse. We will have: things need to be made and presented with that in mind, and not changed arbitrarily without thought. Most things in the 5e book are fairly simple and straight forward, moreso than other editions... but they're also like that for very good reasons, most of the time.

Magic Missile: Works as written, but it's not nearly as 'unerring' as it claims. Magic Missile should not miss; that's its whole deal... yet it has a nasty habit of doing so in this game. It should not plot tracking lines that can be interrupted – rather this spell should target LoS on the creatures in question, and provided that is fine, no trace is made; they should give a *visual* of streaking through the air, definitely... but they should not actually trace paths that can be interrupted, if the spell has functional LoS.

Protection from Evil and Good: This one seems to work as written and described. Thumbs up!

Ray of Sickness: Works as written and described, however, the spell card should indicate that it requires both a ranged attack roll and a Con save if it hits. It currently doesn't say this, which will mislead people.

Thunderwave: Thunderwave has received a small boost, in that it pushes targets 20 feet now. It seems to work as advertised, however, the spell itself has been made weaker relatively speaking, to the rules and the game by virtue of the way shoving now works... Thunderwave has far less value when you can shove someone 15 feet as a bonus action. It's not worth its spell slot, in light of that.

Witch Bolt: Mostly works as written, however, it doesn't snap when you range out; it should. It also doesn't accurately indicate concentration time, and the tooltips and icons are misleading and contradictory.

Acid Arrow: Works as written, however the tooltip references the target making a save, even though the spell is an attack roll, and no saving throws are involved at any point.

Alter Self: Alter Self is missing, even though several of its well defined functions could be used, and we would want to hope that the game will eventuality allow situations for the other ones too. If we'll never get to swim at all, that would be very unfortunate, but lacking that, the ability to give yourself a natural weapon attack that counts as magical and has a +1 bonus is a nice feature that could easily be done. Copying someone else' appearance also has useful applications.

Arcane Lock: Missing from the game, for no real reason that I can see, other than that it was deemed unlikely that players would ever want to re-lock a door... Maybe too niche, and I suppose that's understandable, but I'd still like to see it as an option. (Fuji has classified this as blue because niche)

Blindness/Deafness: The game does not have the deafened status condition, as this version of the spell clearly shows us. That in itself is a problem, especially for bards, who have many spells and abilities that depend on the targets being able to hear. The range on the spell is longer, which isn't bad thing. The spell also suffers from the bad spell timing problem that I've mentioned before. Spells of this nature have been made massively weaker and massively less appealing as a result of spell save timing changes. Hopefully it's not intended and they'll fix it.

Blur: Seems to work as written and described. Thumbs up.

Cloud of Daggers: absent. This creates a cloud effect that deals damage. I thought for sure Larian would be all over getting this one into the game.

Continual Flame: Missing, but for understandable reasons.

Crown of Madness: Missing, but for no discernible reason. It's a little bit more complicated than some spells, but not so much as to warrant its removal from the game.

Darkness: The game version of darkness says that you can't make attacks into or out of it. I don't know why; that's completely made up, and in fact, largely renders the spell useless. You've also done darkness in this instance completely incorrectly. Darkness creates an area that is Heavily Obscured. Trying to attack something *IN* an area that is heavily obscured is hard - you, the attacker, are treated as functionally blind against that target. The darkness does *Not* inflict the Blind condition on people *In* it; that's completely undermining the function of the spell and makes it purposeless.

• Someone *In* an area that is heavily obscured, attempting to attack someone who is *Not* in a heavily obscured area is *not* debilitated... in fact, they generally have *Advantage*, because *They* are an unseen attacker, in relation to the target they are attacking.
• If you are a sneaky halfling, in the depths of a long, dark cave... and some big job steps onto a high ledge and waves their torch around... you might be 120 feet away, but you can still see them, and you can still shoot them with your bow... at advantage, because *they* cannot see *you* in the darkness – their torch light doesn't reach that far. This is how light and shadow works.
• This is why drow get the spell; this is why drow assassins use the spell... they create a cloud of darkness, from which people can't see them attacking, and within which they are relatively safe from being attacked... but they can still see the lovely illuminated, lit up people on the outside that they want to shoot.
• Fix this, Larian, and while you're at it, fix light and darkness, and also, please, fix the fact that the Devil's Sight Warlock invocation doesn't work... because you get just as debilitated by Darkness as everyone else.

Detect Thoughts: While this does actually seem to function, sort of, it took some testing. It's deeply unclear the correct method of using this spell to actually get it to show up in conversation. Rewrite the tooltip and spell card to describe how the spell is actually used in this game; this is one of the places where, with its in-game functionality, you need to stray from the basic description and actually give details. It needn't be much: “While under the effects of this spell, you may get additional options in dialogues to read people's thoughts”, or something of that sort. The other minor complaint I have is that most people use detect thoughts to skim surface thoughts and direct their conversation – this method is subtle and undetectable. Using the probe is indelicate and is usually a last resort. We should get conversation prompts to subtly listen to surface thoughts (no roll or check), and then maybe get new dialogue options based on what we learn and how we might like to apply that.

Enlarge/Reduce: Missing from the spell list, even though it's clearly already in the game elsewhere. Please return it to Wizards.

Flaming Sphere: Missing. (*Now in game; See the Druid Spell Section when it's added; boy has this one got issues...)

Gentle Repose: Missing, but understandably so.

Gust of Wind: Missing, but could work like a cloud effect that pushes people in a direction once a turn?

Hold Person: Works as written and listed, but suffers badly from the spell timing problem, like other spells: even on a success, the enemy will get a second chance to save out, and if they succeed, you get no benefit from the spell at all, despite originally sticking it successfully.

Invisibility: Works mostly as written, with some problems: Many mundane actions break invisibility – such as Dash. That's ridiculous. Also, invisible characters do not take opportunity attacks, even when it would be advantageous to do so – no reason that the wouldn't, especially considering our characters do take opportunity attacks on charmed enemies, when it's a bad idea to do so.

Knock: Missing, and for no good reason. Put it in please.

Levitate: Missing. Flight and levitation cannot realistically be left out of this game, not in this day and age. (*Edit: This is not looking hopeful at all, since they've given us flying creatures that can't actually fly)

Locate Object, Magic Mouth, Magic Aura: All absent, but for understandable reasons.

Mirror Image: No. Just No. This is not how the spell works at all, and there's no reason for it not to work as written. The way mirror image is implemented in the game currently makes it *Massively* weaker than its PnP version. This one isn't even an issue of player choice in combat - accurate mirror image would be entirely automatic! In this game, any miss, even a natural one, causes you to lose an image... that's stupid. The way the spell should work, is that when you're attacked, you roll a die – if you successfully redirect, the attack is aimed at an image, who has an AC of their own and can still be missed. The game's Mirror Image spends itself out on the first three no-chance attacks that would never have hit you anyway, and that's no good. Fix This.

Misty Step: Works as written, but... for some reason... the spell description for the spell has been changed from referencing silvery mist, to referencing black mist... er... why?

Phantasmal Force: Missing. This one could be put in in a limited sense; you could create a summon image, or the appearance of a damaging surface, which would be tied to your target. The summon version could attack the target for the listed psychic damage, while their AI would treat the surface as real and attempt to avoid it (or take psychic damage from it if they don't). I suspect this comes down to the game's inability to handle player choice in combat again.

Ray of Enfeeblement: Working as written and listed but is another victim of bad save timing, making the spell weaker and less valuable.

Rope Trick: Missing, but understandably so.

Scorching Ray: Working as written and listed, except that its range has been halved... while creature's ability to move out of range has not been decreased, and in many cases is even stronger than in the original rules. This weakens spells like this overall.

See Invisibility: Missing, for no discernible reason.

Spider Climb: Missing, but I'd really love to see them put it in. (Incredibly unlikely as they'd have to go over all surfaces and make them climbable. Definitely not worth the effort.

Suggestion: Missing, but understandably so.

Web: In the original rules, web fills a cube; it's not a ground surface. Even when layered on the ground, it creates a 5 foot deep layer on the floor. Read that again. 5 foot deep. It's thick and nasty. Web offers no save out to restrained targets. Targets must use their action if they want to attempt to break free – but can stay restrained and use their actions for other things if they want to. The duration in game has also been drastically shortened (while fog cloud remained the same?). The result is that, overall, Web's actual value has been reduced substantially. I feel like I'm saying the same thing uncomfortably often...