Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Chromatic Orb question

While there are some differences between the wizard and sorcerer spell lists, they do share a majority - in particular, Crown of Madness, Chromatic Orb, Reduce/Enlarge and Cloud of Daggers are all be available to wizards as well, and they are all available to gale when he levels up in BG3.

This is correct, it makes for a better spell. Well, if you are ok with Larian surfaces that is. People who hate those... Well, what did you expect? It's Larian.:)

I'm indifferent to it.

Extend spell are meant to prolong spells that has a duration of 1 minute or longer. For example buffs like haste, invisibilty etc or debuffs like slow and fear. Those are really powerful spells so doing nothing ain't exactly how I see it
It is not meant to be used for short 3-4 turns debuffs, and in RAW it doesn't.

Now, imagine multiclassing a sorc with cleric, getting access to divine buffs and extend spell definitively gets worth a sorc point.

That is both matter of future ...

If i remember corectly, invisibility spell now last forewer. O_o
We do not have haste, slow or fear ...

Anyway, we obviously didnt understand each other.
I know what Prolonged spell do in Tabletop ...
I was talking here about BG-3 ... and there as far as i know, isnt much :-/
You could theoreticaly prolong Friends ... but that would mean implementation metamagic even to dicerolling UI. :-/ Wich obviously nobody worked on yet.

Simmilar to subtle spell ...
You are suppose to cast secretly with this metamagic ... in BG-3 you are just able to cast under effect of Silence.

A very valuable use for extended spell as a metamagic in 5e is actually your ability to set-up for a difficult battle the night before. You can use spare spells slots and sorcery points (shuffled around flexibly as needed), to cast long term buffs with extension, so that they're last you through the next day, and your major battle, when you've slept and regained the slots you spent on them. Some primary candidates for this include:

Mage Armour
Aid (High level aid increasing the max hp of the party is super valuable)
Death ward
Darkvision
Foresight (!! If you've got your ninth spare at the end of the day, casting an extended foresight and then sleeping to get that ninth level spell back is amazing)

This is one of the most valuable ways of using Extended Spell, but it's unlikely that we'll actually be able to do this in BG3, sadly.

I am not huge fan of surface effects but I like this one. The only thing is that perhaps they might dispose of the poison surface and make poison 3d8 as well like thunder (w/o poisoned condition). That way it won't compete with the ray of sickness spell.

I mostly agree with replies in this thread that Chromatic Orb should be versatile and either deal 3d8 damage of chosen element to targeted enemy and activate existing surfaces or create a surface if targeted on the floor.

However, I suspect that simply creating a surface might be too little tradeoff for wasting a whole spell slot, so I have an addition to this suggestion - what if ground targeted Chromatic Orb would also deal some additional damage with Dex saving throw to everyone caught in the surface blast? This damage could be something like 1d6-2d4 for Fire orb (as its surface would deal additional 1d4 damage on application and apply a 1d4 dot), 2d6 or 2d8 for Thunder orb and 2d4 for all other Orbs.

This way:
- There will be a versatile 1st level ranged small AoE spell that is missing in PHB (and Ice Knife is only in Xanathar's book) and low-level casters would have a non-cantrip option to AoE out of melee.
- Players will be able to choose between 3d8 damage to one target and less damage + potential dot / debuff surface or 2d6/2d8 damage to several.
- Thunder Orb will have a purpose if ground targeted - it wouldn't create a surface, but would deal the most amount of AoE direct damage. While this variant would compete with melee Thunderwave, its main feature is the pushback and Thunder Orb still doesn't have it, so the competition is balanced.
- This option might be a compromise for Larian and some DOS players who like to play with surfaces as Chromatic Orb itself would provide lots of such options for them and DnD Players who like the iteration of 5e orb and don't like surfaces - they can just not use the spell's ground targeted splash effect.

EDIT: Although, it might mess Twinned Spell + Chromatic Orb combo for Sorcerers, so it's up to Larian to decide. At least give us the suggested option of 3d8+ damage to single target or area surface.