Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

In short, spellcasters are only really needed for "trick fights". For shenanigans. For meme tactics. Not for general encounters. Also not even necessarily boss fights, unless a boss fight is also a trick fight.

I'm aware that this also has a lot to do with Owlcat's way of designing encounters, and not just because of the rule books. But how I feel about the way 3.5e treats casters is still the same. Making martial stronger is understandable, but the harsh punishment against spellcasters is too much.

Playing WotR now, I'd say that it is the classes that can target touch ac that are most useful (deadly earth is slightly less overpowered due to trip immune enemies, but still...). Unique enemies often have very high ac but very low touch ac, while at the same time hitting like a truck. Because of how dumb the ai, I just find it easier to spam skeletons while using anything ranged with touch attack (conjuration tends to ignore SR, though Ember can manage with rays; for now I've decided to ignore the kineticist class). This makes a lot of these supposedly tough battles easy, like that summoned demon end of chapter two (I think his touch ac was something like 6?). Funny enough the lady who tries to summon him is tougher.

The bloat is right. I had to min-max damn near everything in order to survive chapter 2 especially. I think the difficulty levels off again during chapter 3 and 4, but I can't imagine a newer player getting through on Core difficulty without having a completely optimized party if you intend to keep everyone single classed.

The chapter 2 superboss can be cheesed if you have the Close to the Heavens angel summon, who is immune to its physical attacks. I've heard you can also instakill it with a Dismissal spell if you're lucky, and despite what the spell says, you'll still get any loot the enemy had. The summoner lady is considered the harder fight, but apparently she's cheesed to hell if you drop a Glitterdust (or was it Faerie Fire) on her, as Glitterdust basically wrecks her concealment and the spell isn't subject to spell resistance and the enemy cannot save against it. Problem is, I don't think Camellia or Sosiel learn it naturally single-classed, and the other characters that might have to pick up the spell while leveling up. And checking my huge scroll stash, you don't find a scroll for it as well, except for the one in chapter 1 that you're expected to reveal an optional boss with.

I couldn't beat the superboss Playful Darkness in chapter 3 because I didn't have anyone capable of targeting her low touch AC besides Ember, nor did I have save DCs high enough to nail her down and lower her actual AC with my crowd control spells. Meanwhile I found the chapter 4 superboss laughably easy in comparison. Though I've heard Playful Darkness can actually be cheesed by abusing the environment - I've seen people talking about how she can supposedly be attacked out of range of your party by the area where the group of Succubi are.

I am fully aware of the Cave Fangs exploit, but I'm not going to use it because I expect that to get fixed.

I am fully aware of the Cave Fangs exploit, but I'm not going to use it because I expect that to get fixed.

I play on core and everyone is single classed (Except Regil who starts with 2 classes obviously). Some fights were tricky and required several tries, but I am now in Act 5 and face no problems anymore (no exploits either).

I play on core and everyone is single classed (Except Regil who starts with 2 classes obviously). Some fights were tricky and required several tries, but I am now in Act 5 and face no problems anymore (no exploits either).

I play turn-based 99% of the time (core difficulty) but there are moments where switching in real time actually makes some difficult fights significantly more manageable.
For instance every time there are a lot of (or few but dangerous) casters/snipers on the enemy side playing in real-time makes a lot easier to interrupt their casting/punish them with AOO.

Practical example experienced just the last time I played a couple of days ago:
When I crossed the Baphomet's prophet with his insanely high initiative rolls three reloads were not enough to spare me his bullshit AOE spell that drained 30-40 permanent DEX points to my entire party in a single cast.
When I finally approached the same fight in RT I closed the gap immediately and exploded the annoying fucker.

If there's one thing I can say I hope for in BG3 atm, then it's this: for the love of god I really hope playing a pure spellcaster in BG3 will be more fun than in these Pathfinder games.

Well, good news, there are some fun spells in D&D5e , even the cantrips. Many of them have interesting secondary effects added that are tactically useful and fun, like the pull effect of the vines, the summoning weapons that attack the enemy every turn, the flaming/waters sphere you can roll over tthe enemies "Raiders of the lost ark" style, the knocking effect of gust of wind and tide, planar shifting, merge into stone if they apply that... I am sure many of the spells would appear in the games.

Bad news, most of them you can only cast once at a time, due to the concentration mechanics of 5e. I´m not talking about the one that allows you to disrupt the caster´s concentration dealing damage to the caster, that makes sense. I am talking about the fact that you can only concentrate on one spell at a time.
Many buffs do not reach the entire party of four, most of them are f unless you heighten, are for only them and require concentration, so you lose them if you want to cast offensive spells.
Heck, you cannot maintain the paralysis in a creature you have with "hold person/monster", maintaining an animal/creature conjured (besides creating undead and similar, that are not that good in versatility or offensively unless you are a necro or similar) or cast a wall of fire or a storm without losing the previous spells.

I understand the need of those if you want to make a more dynamic tabletop game, with a faster pace and let your players focus on roleplaying and having fun... but I do not know if that simplification of the rules are really necessary for a videogame, where the game engine makes all the rolls for you no matter how complicated they are, takes care of all the calculations for all the spells you have activated and makes the enemies turn faster than what a human DM usually could achieve.

Those mechanics that make a roleplay table session more dynamic and fun make the videogame experience more limited than it could be. And I talk specifically of the concentration mechanics. Plenty of options for your casters, but they are reduced to cast cantrips or make the same tactical combos in every fight because they could only maintain one spell at a time so other combinations are forbidden. Double that because neither Solasta nor Bg3 allows multiclassing right now so you have to deal with one spellbook.

Solasta, even tho it makes the warriors more interesting, still has this limitation when you play casters. It follows very tightly the rules of D&D5e, so almost all the spells of the SRD are in the game, which is good, and they are applied as it is, purely RAW. In my runs I usually find myself repeating the same combos again and again even when trying new characters due to that limitation. They show you all the candy, but they only let you get one. You get the impression of a loss of potential of that formula, so many cool things you could do if you do not have to deal with the limited (for a videogame) concentration mechanics.

Bg3 added some interesting mechanics that allow you to have more options in combat. Since they made some rules changes I am still hoping that the devs or some mods would offer a solution that could make you have more versatility when you want to play pure casters. In D&D5e you can even make parties of casters-only so this addition would be very welcome.

Fighters in 5e have some pretty serious nova potential. Honestly, one of the stronger classes IMO.

I couldn't beat the superboss Playful Darkness in chapter 3 because I didn't have anyone capable of targeting her low touch AC besides Ember, nor did I have save DCs high enough to nail her down and lower her actual AC with my crowd control spells. Meanwhile I found the chapter 4 superboss laughably easy in comparison. Though I've heard Playful Darkness can actually be cheesed by abusing the environment - I've seen people talking about how she can supposedly be attacked out of range of your party by the area where the group of Succubi are.