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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Sep 2020
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Let's get back on topic with STs vs AC balance, yeah? We've already exhaustively demonstrated the statistical battlelines people ITT are strongly behind. my 2 cents: I am not a DnD expert so I can only compare Solasta with BG3 In Solasta I had a paladin of devotion, a ranger (dual wield, was also for scout and traps/locks), a cleric of war and a shock arcanist mage.
Lets see what I did with them in battles:
Paladin: attack and smite, unless they have so little HP that they die without smite anyway.
Ranger: cast mark and then attack
Cleric: cast spirit guardians before combat, then attack with weapon. Use holy word if someone goes down and fireball when there are several enemies close together
Mage: start combat by using your best damage spell from stealth, best take out enemy casters before they can see you. Counterspell was very usefull. I used fireball against groups of enemies and scoching ray against single enemies. firebolt when they are too weak to spend a spell slot and shocking grasp when they get close.
A few times I used slow when there were several enemies who can attack multiple times or fly for my paladin to reach flying or climbing enemies.
A few times I tried to use a CC spell, but they are wasted on weak enemies (they die the next round anyway) and strong enemies will probably resist them or they are immune.
I remember using hold monster on a golem only to find out its immune.
So I think that even Solasta preferred damage even though you can keep concentration and some CC spells are powerful. In BG3 its much worse because you cannot keep concentration and CC effects tend to end fast. In your [spoilered] list, your *full* casters seem to use about an even mix of to-hit spells and vs ST spells, if not preferably using leveled ST spells. You make a distinction between damaging spells and CC spells, which is interesting and tangentially related to this topic, but a separate issue from attack-roll vs saving-throw spells. Personally, I dislike a lot of single-target CC spells in 5e. Hold Monster, for example, is a 5th level spell that requires concentration AND the enemy gets a ST each turn to break out if they don't pass the initial save (which they likely will, through a combination of high stats, randomness, and legendary resistances). Add in the higher saves and loss of concentration in 5e...hard pass. AoE CC spells, or CC spells that don't require concentration, however, can be much more effective in general and maybe even in BG3. Hypnotic Pattern can negate an entire combat (especially in Solasta where enemies won't wake their allies); I've gotten a ton of use out of Blindness/Deafness -> especially upcasting it to hit multiple targets. And of course, there are the powerful Int ST spells of Synaptic Static and eventually Psychic Scream, since most monsters have weak Int STs.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jul 2022
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If we drop the math and look into the core of ST spells vs AT spells, we can clearly see that ST spells have much more soft/hard CC effects embodied in them, while AR have very few and mainly soft.
Meaning, that for them to be effective - a controlling effect on the enemy should yield more impact than straight up attacking it. This usually means bosses without sidekick crews, which are SEVERELY underepresented in bg3.
Why do they feel bad to use in BG3? Because there are no ideal situations to use them. Simple as that. Not because some numbers are wrong, being stats or calculations or anything else.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2020
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Meaning, that for them to be effective - a controlling effect on the enemy should yield more impact than straight up attacking it. This usually means bosses without sidekick crews, which are SEVERELY underepresented in bg3. Solo creatures tend to be either immune to most controlling effects or are trivial encounters. They rarely exist in any D&D session I've played or DM'd. Controlling spells are often referred to as "crowd control" for a reason. Their main purpose is to reduce the difficulty of a battle so you can focus on a few creatures at a time. Once you get to 5th level and have access to 3rd level spells like Hypnotic Pattern you can take out a room-full of minions with one spell allowing you to focus on the boss. In 5E first and second level spells just aren't that great for crowd control unless you can up-cast them which at the EA level cap isn't possible.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2020
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Why do they feel bad to use in BG3? Because there are no ideal situations to use them. Simple as that. Not because some numbers are wrong, being stats or calculations or anything else. did you see all the advantages AC attacks get in bg 3 the stacking is real... St do have AoE that's about it untill you get to borken ass spells later down the line..
Last edited by Lastman; 12/12/22 11:12 AM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jul 2022
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I understand that, but that's not my point. ST can also be amplified by Bane, weapon attacks, consumables (spike bulbs, grease bottles), other spells, items (absolute gloves, ritual axe). How is it different from bliss spores or bless or staff of arcane blessing for attack rolls? Point was, that using a single target controlling ST spell, even if it had a straight +4 bonus, against a regular bandit is suboptimal.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Oct 2020
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I understand that, but that's not my point. ST can also be amplified by Bane, weapon attacks, consumables (spike bulbs, grease bottles), other spells, items (absolute gloves, ritual axe). How is it different from bliss spores or bless or staff of arcane blessing for attack rolls? Point was, that using a single target controlling ST spell, even if it had a straight +4 bonus, against a regular bandit is suboptimal. The balance of all those is in favor of AC attacks by a huge margin. Half things that help ST are unreliable by themselfs because they need ST roll to hit not to mention most of them need concentration slot and a spell slot. In short it's really easy to get that 95% hit chance with AC attacks missing only on 1 rolls. Even the most hp buffed bosses melt in two surprise rounds as you can see in all sorts of solo videos on youtube. i bet if we had EA numbers for bane casts and bless casts the bless would sweep the floor with bane so hard...
Last edited by Lastman; 12/12/22 04:13 PM.
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member
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member
Joined: Oct 2021
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This is a relatively easy fix, so I'm not sure why it hasn't been implemented. In regular DnD, saving throw spells and spells that use attack rolls are relatively balanced in power, up until you get to higher levels where there are very few attack roll spells. The way that Larian has implemented the AC rebalance, that is lowering most enemy's ACs while increasing their health, means that damaging spells that force saving throws are doing far less damage in comparison to spells that use attack rolls. This is pretty easy to fix, either by increasing the damage that spells that force saves do (basically meaning that they are less reliable than in 5e, but still hit hard), or by decreasing the saving throw bonuses that enemies have, similar to what's been done with AC.
Right now it's merely annoying, as most classes still have access to damaging spells that use attack rolls, but when higher levels are added, this will severely imbalance most spell casters, compared to martial classes. A class that's hit particularly hard are Clerics, who in all of 5e, have only 6 spells that utilize attack rolls (in order of increasing levels: guiding bolt, inflict wounds, spiritual weapon, contagion, dispel evil and good, and plane shift (which is probably high enough level that it won't be in the game). Even wizards have a significantly more limited spell selection that won't be hurt by this compared to their other spells, especially looking at particularly fun and iconic spells, even ones like Fireball or Cone of Cold.
I'd really appreciate some sort of official statement from Larian regarding whether this is intended to be fixed at some point or not, given that it's been an issue since the start of early access. I thought Larian would implement the D&D rules without changes aren't they?
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