Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Grease and Web

Every time I try to control the battlefield with Grease or Web they explode spectacularly within seconds from something.

If you attack anything with Everburn Blade within 5 miles of a Grease or Web area... they explode.

Goblin uses bomb / flask / fire arrow.. they explode. Enemy spellcaster misses with a Fire Bolt.. they explode. Missed projectiles should generally fly right over small surfaces. But of course not if you're looking for any excuse and ignoring all logic just to trigger more boom boom.

Buthir throws a rock at a PC standing at the edge of a Grease.... it explodes! This is beyond ridiculous now.

This obsession with "synergy" and explosions is completely ruining the control aspect of a Wizard. These spells are meant to control the battlefield, not to be yet another excuse to create explosions, and weak ones at that. Knocking an Ogre down and keeping it at bay is infinitely more useful than dealing 3 damage to it.

Has anyone ever had these control spells last for more than 1 turn???

And by the way.. why do rocks thrown by a 16 Strength human explode and create an AoE blast knocking people back 5 meters? Is this total anime now? This stuff is really dumb.

Being flammable, I've found the next to useless really. The damage if set afire is inconsequential, and at higher levels the damage will be meaningless. Their effects simply don't get a chance to provide their intended purpose: to provide either advantage to melee attacks, or in the case of Web advantage to melee or ranged attackers.

But even if they weren't set afire, their duration has been nerfed by 80%, and any difficult terrain they might impose is quickly ignored by enemy units that have almost unnatural jumping ability. They simply hop out unless they've been rendered prone or enwebbed. Web has been further nerfed by not robbing the enwebbed enemy's action to save out, the save happens automatically.

All in all, two classic spells, rendered largely useless.

Yep they do need a lot preparation to get value out of and even after they are mediocre. At higher levels they will indeed be worse off. They could do with a fix if it's not to late.

First most of them need concentration and that just doesn't give you the value for it and it's not really worth the bother right now.
You can use that concentration on better spells.

Grease doesn't so it's naturally better. At the same time jump doesn't need a runin leading to AI just jumping out of everything hazardous.
Meaning you need to layer it with AoO to even have a chance of doing something.
To top it off enemies don't make new checks when starting their turn in it. They first need to move for some reason but of course they don't instead they jump out. Forcing a ckeck at the start of the turn would help with this problem.


Second snares and simillar surfaces override other hazards meaning you can't make a new surfice that would have both effects of grease and web let say. That alone would improve it and it would fit the whole surface gameplay that Larian is known for.


Third surfaces will always get removed by blood from hits and that shouldn't happen they should combine not override. It's the same thing with acid and poison all those things should mix not override...leading to 1 turn use at best in most cases.

We know that engine lets you combine surfaces DoS 2 had healing fire .

The fire ignite mentioned can be a problem due to explosions with minimal damage though at least players can control it on their side somewhat using poison as dips and using other cantrips.

If we could combined those surfaces to make new ones instead of overriding everything this could be fixed as well. Example if you Wet Web or grease you get wet web or wet grease that woudn't explode from fire.

in the end i'll leave this here as well Thunderwave spell should snuff out fires like it does in Solasta how that one got pass Larian i don't know.

It's so baffling. Why does Larian do this? Do they only blindly see an opportunity for "surface interaction" in everything? Are they really so narrow minded that all they want to do is blow stuff up in "tactical combat"?

If anything the AoE's of these spells should be increased because of the vast open area design everywhere and the ridiculous jumping. But I'd rather see the jumping brought back to a reasonable level.

They also nerfed Sleep's duration and allow enemies to wake each other up with a Bonus Action rather than a Full Action. So I guess they just passionately hate control for some reason and want to remove it as a viable purpose for a spellcaster. Why?? Does it have something to do with making enemies passive which is against some misguided design doctrine where every turn must be amazing for everyone?

Yes, it looks like most controlling effects across the board are funneled into creating damage opportunities, as opposed to traditional divide and conquer gameplay of D&D controlling effects, i.e. damage mitigating effects. Take Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Sleep, both durations slashed by 80%, but now they create incapacitation which procs critical hits, at least for melee attacks. But this leaves most area effects which proc prone and restrained conditions out in the cold, as they can't do any real damage and advantage is easy to set up and get elsewhere. Not to mention, that most controlling effects require concentration and a failed saving throw, no real way to buff them like attack rolls. It leads to DOS style play, not D&D play, pretty disappointing.

I guess we're supposed to be getting them wet and damaging them with electricity and cold, but that's not the type of gameplay I thought I was signing up for. Honestly, I'd be fine with Larians additions if I could ignore them. Unfortunately, I can't ignore them.

Lastman, I agree with your comments on the implementation of these spell presently. The insight into how Larian's systems have worked in the past is appreciated, as I only have a few hours experience in the DOS games. If they are determined to continue the surface madness, I do hope they do another pass over spells that involve them. I would prefer a wet web/grease to one that's not, as at least then one could get some 'D&D style' tactics from these spells. But with such a low duration you'd only have the combined surface for about a turn anyway, so still not too useful. I did notice the surface replacement you mentioned with regard to blood pools. Even a single sword swing can ruin half your area effect!

I did notice one thing I believe they added recently, Web can be used to remove fall damage if you jump onto it. Maybe they're still monkeying with the system? Putting out fires with Thunderwave would be cool.

I think they should take another hard look at their combat design in general. The aforementioned divide and conquer style battlefield control MUST be an integral part of D&D combat, or any tactical combat for that matter. It will only get more glaring later in the levels. This includes, but is not limited to:

- designing battlefields where you actually have chokepoints
- not allowing enemies to effortlessly jump or teleport around any AoE effect you might place to hinder their movement
- allowing AoE control spells to actually do their job without coming up with various ways to instantly blow them up
- not giving almost every enemy some form of powerful new ranged attack
- torches and flaming weapons not igniting ground effects unless they actually touch them (intentional action, i.e. Dip)

A controller spellcaster must be a valid way to play the game. Blowing stuff up is fun and all but it gets old, and there should be a "smarter" way too.

Very good suggestions, I agree, not only in terms of crowd control spells, but also because of the use of pets, steel defender (in the future) and all these summoning spells. They will all be redundant if they always die instantly from explosions or, as the case may be, there are simply no enemies left.