Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Good cantrip for High Half-Elf Barbarian?

What's a good cantrip to take for a High Half-Elf Barbarian? Damage spells are kinda pointless it feels since (s)he will be using melee weapons backed with a 21 strength to smash with, but there will be times (s)he will be out of melee range so maybe a ranged damage cantrip might be ok? I know Firebolt is useful fairly often for any character it seems.

Well, it would use your intelligence, so I wouldn't advise picking anything you expect to use against an enemy unit. Barbarian can't concentrate on anything while raging in 5e, if this carries over to BG3, Mage Hand and Dancing Lights are out too as picks. Can anyone in your party use the light provided by the Light cantrip? Blade Ward's resistance is useless while your raging, so it seems a pretty awful pick. I guess Firebolt could be used to set fires, but that's about it besides Light.

Why are Mage Hand and Dancing Lights out?

Bcs Barbarian loose concentration during rage?

Oh I did not know that. Thanks.

consider 'Light'
its set and forget
your character already has Darkvision (12m) so the only real use for it is to cast on things like the Phase Spider Matriarch to make her unhiden

Yeah, somebody needs to see if Barbarians can concentrate on spells while raging. In 5e D&D, they can't do that. Not sure if Larian has such a fine eye for detail like that though, so maybe it's possible in BG3.

Nope no spells while raging, Tried a “skald” by choosing bardic initiate. Could not use viscous mockery. But I could play my drum

I like mage hand so we can push and throw things happily together just can’t rage, but he get mad when you kill Mr. Handy

Mage hand is solid choice ...
You dont loose much, since it have little to none use in combat anyway.

I tried it, it cancels the spell if you rage, also you cannot cast any spell while raging. Casting becomes disabled.

I think if you cast light on an enemy they get a DEX saving throw against your spell DC? If so, low INT might mean a barbarian would struggle to apply it. Though if noone else in the party has the cantrip it might still be useful to cast on a party member without darkvision.

You have to cast it on an object yes... There is not save, the point of having light source (light, or dancing lights) is that is makes hiding harder

Not quite following you. Are you saying you cast Light on an object near the Matriarch (or other obscured enemy) rather than the enemy themself? I was picturing her all lit up so you could see her wherever she phases to, but of course that wouldn't work now I think about it as she won't be holding weapons, and I think you can only target armed creatures, in an attempt to apply Light to their equipped weapon.

I agree, if you're applying Light to an object in the environment there's no save, only when trying to light up an enemy's weapon. I admit, I've never really tried to do the latter, but I guess it might be worth a go on an enemy that was likely to try to hide, maybe?

Light needs to cast-able on the armor or the weapon of the willing target. Whenever Lae'zal equips a ranged weapon she loses the Light provided by the cantrip, as the spell defaults to the equipped weapon. This is rather annoying really.

I agree. Though not as annoying as when Daylight does the same, given that costs a level 3 spell slot (this idiot cast it on her druid, who turned into an animal at which point everything promptly went dark again!).

I'm not sure if the BG3 implementation that Light only affects the equipped weapon is per 5e RAW, in which case we probably need to just suck it up and be careful who we cast the spell on and on which weapon, or just cast it on something in the environment instead. Or whether there is some wriggle room in 5e that means Larian could make this feature a bit easier to use. Given disadvantage caused by darkness, hiding, etc is an important part of the game, and I don't like the idea o making abilities like darkvision and devil's sight pointless, I wouldn't be in favour of breaking balance by making it *too* easy to create and maintain light, however convenient it would be in practice .

Light, in tabletop anyway, can target any object whose dimensions don't exceed 10ft. You can douse the light by covering it, but covering means unequipping in BG3. If we could cast in on armor it'd always be present, but dousing it would be problematic, if the need should arise.

Ah, thanks. So if we put light on our armour then if we wanted to hide, we'd need to take it off our armour to hide? Would it affect things like invisibility spells?

Apologies, I'm aware I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here, so feel free to ignore!

Lol, in tabletop walking around invisible broadcasting 20 ft. bright light and a further 20 ft. dim light would be a no go for stealth, but who knows given BG3's stealth system. It would be an interesting experiment to execute in game, I believe I'll try next time I'm there. I imagine since you can hide anywhere when invisible in BG3, no checks required, that the Light spell wouldn't even matter. The radiating light would likely impact the rest of party though, if they were trying to hide without the boon of invisibility.

Light can be cast on any weapon... not just the weapon you actually use


so i carry a spare staff [its big and its not heavy] but as a barbarian you probably want a javelin

like a candle you can move this item around the floor as a free action... picking it up/ [equip or throw counts as actions or bonus]

i suggest a Javelin because you can throw it at the spider [hit or miss] it will then be placed on the map at the spiders feet so you did a little damage lite it up + unlike a candle it doesn't blow up when that spider puts a web spell down

not the best spell but imo worth playing around with... anyway hope thats cleared things up