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

Loki is more of a Pact Blade Warlock if you think about it.

I'd say more Arcane Trickster Rogue.

Arcane Trickster Rogue ... totally Arcane Trickster Rogue.

Patch 5 ... darkness is still working like obstacle even if you have devil sight invocation.

Patch 5 Find Familiar, Mage Hand, and Flaming Sphere (and ostensibly Ranger's Beast Companion) all still dismiss each other. Additionally Mage Hand is still concentration, and both Mage Hand and Familiars attack in ways they shouldn't be able to.

Not sure if it's a bug or not, but minor illusion should be able to be casted from stealth like it says in its tool-tip description. Instead, it takes you out of hiding and starts combat.

Funny story ...
Fog Mist is working exactly the oposite ... wich means not at all. O_o

Tooltip sais "creatures cannot make ranged attacks into or out of the fog" ... so i thought it would be good protection against ambush in Blighted Village ... sadly, for some unknown reason, goblins were still totally able to attack me ... but i was unable to target them. -_-

Don’t step into a puddle… you end up losing all your concentration spells

At this point, concentration spells are worthless unless they are cantrips or item based spells.

Produce Flame is no longer part of the Druid Cantrips.

Animal Friendship is no longer a concentration spell!

Great post.

You kind of bring this up later, but in the cleric section, you have both bless and bane listed as working as intended which isn't quite true.

Those two spells allow the caster to select targets within range. Right now, you can't do that. You hit on this elsewhere though with how the sleep spell currently works, and the more broad statement relating to (a severe lack of) player choice, particularly in relation to how spells and spell targeting works.

If I want to cast bless before a fight, I shouldn't have to finagle my party into a position I want them in to not accidentally bless someone I don't want to, because I only want to use the 1st level slot (mainly because why on earth would you use Shadowheart to cast spells that require an attack roll if you can avoid it). Bane is similar. So is sleep.

And then you've hit the nail on the head about reactions and paladins. I've wondered that from the get-go with this game, once I saw that they have reactions set as a toggle. I have no idea what they're going to do, and I'm beginning to suspect they don't either since they've mostly just refused to do anything with reactions that didn't seem absolutely necessary, or avoid the issue altogether by forcing the player into situations that are.. less than optimal, to say the least. You point this out with hellish rebuke. Feather fall is another strange case. And while it isn't a spell, the riposte maneuver on battlemaster fighters works in a similar manner. It's just.. bad. And wildly unrepresentative of the ruleset they are seeking to emulate. I get that some sacrifices get made to translate a ttrpg into a videogame, but a certain other game that gets mentioned around here a lot implemented the ruleset in a fairly elegant way. I don't see why Larian can't do something similar, apart from the amount of time that would take (which would mean, probably, everything breaks for a while).

This is one of those times when I really wish Larian gave us any indication, at all, that they read these forums and would respond to us to talk about their design philosophy. I get some of why you don't do that, but it might alleviate some frustration, I would think.

Completely agree about Reactions and player choices during combat. I really for the life of me can't understand why someone would consider prompts for user inputs in a role-playing game intrusive. Please do intrude on the flow of my combat to ask me if I would like to react because that "intrusion" is the one that offers me choices, a sense of agency, and greater strategic maneuverability. The current implementation of Reactions is hands down the most disappointing aspect of the game.

I fully agree with the original post concerning the spells Web (shouldn't be just a surface), Mirror Image (implement it like the PnP version please) and the absence of Shield (maybe a pop-up menu if you have Shield prepare and the necessary slot available once you know the opponent's attack roll?). Mirror Image and Shield are particularly problematic. Wizards and Sorcerer depend on defensive spells to survive in battle. Even with the PnP version of Mirror Image and Shield, you still should be careful not to get in the thick of the fight because you don't want to be forced to use precious spell slots to simply avoid getting hit and do little else. It wouldn't unbalance the game to keep these 3 spells like their PnP original versions, especially since the martial classes have been given new weapon abilities to work with.

Top post has been updated with the new spells, and with the fixes that have been made to some existing spells.

In particular, for those not wishing to trawl, the new spells:

With patch 6, we now have Sorcerers, and with them a small handful of new spells:

Sorcerer Spells

1st Level Spells

Chromatic Orb: The primary tooltip for Chromatic Orb gives it a range of 60 feet, reduced from the original spell's 90 feet. This means that now, from maximum rang,e your target can move right into melee range with you on their turn, whereas in 5e, at full range, they generally can't. The continual crunching of spell ranges is a low visibility, yet very grievous nerf on spell caters everywhere. Beyond this, the tooltip says that you throw an orb that deals 3d8 elemental damage of your choice at an enemy.

This is immediately shown to be false if you bring up the selection window: Thunder Orb deals 3d8, but literally none of the other options do – they all deal 2d8, and create a surface. For example, the lightning Orb creates a water puddle. That sure makes sense. Display-wise, this spell highlights a problem that many of us foresaw, but Larian have gone ahead with anyway: The selection window has been co-opted to serve as both our choice of spell level, and our selection for the spell itself, which means we pop open a window with six pairs of identical icons, and no way to tell them apart without highlighting each one. Further more, there's no really sense to the order in which they appear. One my screen, for example, they appear in the order: Thunder Lvl2, Thunder Lvl1, Poison Lvl2, Poison Lvl1, Lightning Lvl2, Acid Lvl1, Acid Lvl2, Cold Lvl1, Cold Lvl2, Fire Lvl1, FireLvl2, Lightning Lvl1. There is really no rhyme or reason to it. On Swen's stream, his Chromatic Orb options appeared in a different order. At 9th level, when we have access to 5th level spells, this selection window will have to contain 30 buttons, unless the fix it.

The spell itself also has problems: Chromatic Orb is an attack roll spell, which means it is a precision spell. You are meant to be able to pinpoint your one inch orb of elemental pin at an enemy that's mixed up in the melee of your allies without risking them. If you miss, the spell does nothing, and that's the balance for the high damage for slot level that attack roll spells get to enjoy. Chromatic orb now creates a puddle if you use any element other than thunder, and that puddle means that you will harm and hamper your allies if you attack an enemy that is in melee range with them. The spell cannot effectively be used for its designed purpose any more, which is precise damage of a precise element to a precise target. Not only will your lightning orb make a water puddle and electrocute Lae'zel who is in melee with your enemy, but this extra damage, and more importantly extra status effect, are not given a save to resit or avoid, at all. A minor tap of free guaranteed damage is okay for a levelled attack roll spell – one minor tap – but inflicting a guaranteed debilitating status ailment without offering a save to avoid or resist, and doing so even on a complete miss, is not okay.

2nd Level Spells

Cloud of Daggers: Cloud of Daggers looks pretty nice in game, but I've always been a sucker for spirally swirly effects. The spell tooltip does not state the size of the area it creates, and it should. It looks like it makes a 10 foot circle, while the original spell is a 5 foot cube. It retains its 60 foot range, and as with many spells in BG3 currently has the same double-tap damage problem, just like Moonbeam. It is meant to apply damage when a creature first enters the area, or at the start of a creature's turn if it starts in the area: In specific to this, it does NOT apply damage to targets in the area when you first cast the spell, specifically for this reason.

Crown of Madness: Larian have elected to disregard the existing spell description for Crown of Madness, and write their own in its place. In doing so, they have completely neglected any mention of the fact that this is a charm effect. The spell doesn't say it, the tooltip doesn't say it. They also do not mention anywhere in the spell description that this effect is limited to Humanoids, and the spell cannot be cast on non-humanoid creatures. The tooltip ALSO does not mention that the target can attempt to save out at the end of their turn.

These things ARE both the case in the BG3 version of the spell – it just doesn't TELL you that any of them are. The spell has had its range crunched down from 120 feet to 60 feet, and it now only lasts for 3 rounds, instead of up to 1 minute.

The original spell specifies that the target must make a melee attack before moving, attacking a target that you get to choose. If it cannot do this, then it is allowed to act normally for that turn. The spell description in game does not say that they will be allowed to act normally under any circumstance, and says only that they will attack the nearest creature.

The spells actual behaviour is hard to work out, and the game does not help clarify this. The spell description only says that the target will attack the nearest creature. In my experience so far, this has rarely, if ever, actually happened, but the game does not explain why.

In one particularly telling experiment, A Crowned enemy was standing with a melee weapon out, and in melee range of both my caster, who was concentrating on the spell (thereby, the enemy was charmed by me, and so was not allowed to attack me) and Shadowheart, who had no effects on him. The enemy did not attack Shadowheart, despite her being a valid target in melee range, and instead ran away from both of us, up to Gale, and attacked him instead. It seems like the creature was allowed to act normally, but it's hard to say exactly why.

Enlarge/Reduce: The original spell allows you to cast Enlarge or Reduce on an object that is not being worn or carried. This is not the case in the BG3 version, and only living creatures are applicable targets. The spell description in game does not make any mention of changing the target's size category or weight, but these effects do seem to take place, just as the original spell describes. The other aspects of the spell all appear to be working correctly and read correctly as well. Reducing a companion so they become light enough for you to throw them across a gap works perfectly, and medium creatures can reduce in order to fit through small-sized crawlspaces, such as the back entrance to the kids' hideout in the grove.

Cloud of Daggers feels like it's missing sounds from the daggers when they swirl around or hit someone. It's oddly silent. I want to hear some wooshing and cutting when Lae'zel throws someone into the cloud!

Chromatic Orb's selection yet again highlights what a nightmare the UI is to use. Level 1 CO and upcast level 2 CO side by side, looking identical. Upcast options should be a separate "upcast" button over the base spell, not an identical icon right next to the original spell. At level 5 we would get a third identical icon with each element. Please make the entire UI a priority redesign.

Does Shocking Grasp's Advantage against metal armor work at all? I don't think I've ever gotten an Advantage with it.

Shocking grasp gave advantage on characters wearing very specific pieces of armour, which were not common, at least a few patches back - I've not checked the most recent patch.

(Mostly, it's useful as a Larian-ism surface abuse spell... cover an area in water, and you've got a cantrip that now does a die of damage to every target for multiple rounds without a save. It's silly and broken.)

The biggest issue that I have with the current patch is Crown of Madness is granted literally everyone advantage on its save, for no reason. Every creature, regardless of race or other abilities, rolls with advantage to save against this spell, currently, in every circumstance. It is not like other charm effects that grant advantage if you are fighting the enemy - crown of madness is specifically designed as a combat spell and doesn't have that caveat, so only targets that actually have advantage against charm effects should be getting advantage.

I would really like to see some of the more strange options of the Wild Magic Surge table in game, like transforming into a medium-sized potted plant, the appearance of a unicorn or the illusionary butterflies. I know it's not crucial, but I think it would add additional flavor to the wild magic sorcerer, when the effects are not always just helpful or harmful, but sometimes just plain weird and chaotic.

I like that there are more and more opportunities to use the disguise self spell, this offers a lot of roleplaying opportunities, especially with the charlatan background. There are some situations where an NPC, like Rugan, still recognized my character, even if I used disguised self, but I think it would be a lot of effort to check this for every NPC.

I like the current implementation of wild magic. I haven’t played a wild magic sorcerer in 5E, but I prefer not having a lot of frequent weird and dispruptive events occurring.

Tides of chaos doesn’t seem to be triggering wild magic surges, when used for out of combat skill checks.

It would require a lot of effort to make disguise self great. At this point, I would prefer that they hold off on fixing disguise self until other, easier fixes are made.

Darkness and fog cloud definitely seem broken. Enemies are making ranged attacks and hitting my PCs that are in fog cloud and magical darkness. Warlocks with Devil’s sight cannot make ranged attacks out of magical darkness.

I agree with you, this would be too much effort for a single spell. I think it would be impossible to take into account all the situations where it could be used, and I would not expect this in a game.
I like the spell very much just as it is right now
I have been positively surprised that it is possible to use this spell, and that it opens up a new approach and completely new dialogue options. And I like the animation when you dispel disguise self and your character staggers a bit. The spell animations in general are very beautiful.

Honestly i dont ...
I would like it much more working exactly as (Niara i believe?) suggested ...
You use Tides of Chaos > you get granted wild surge > your Tides of Chaos recharge ...

Also there certainly should be more non-benefitial effects (damaging, weakening, or simply just for fun).

I mean i know that having Advantage with every spellcast may seem OP ... but concider also you risk to cast Fireball on your party every time you cast, or heal your enemies ... i would say that ballances itself quite well.