Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does Crown of Madness even work?

Just tried to ambush the goblin squad at the windmill in the deserted village. I opened the fight by sneaking up behind the highest goblin archer, putting him down, and the hit the squad leader (Fezzerk [sp?]) with CoM. Even though he failed his save, he still promptly chucked a bottle of grease at the party instead of wailing on the 2 or 3 goblins closest to him. What gives?

Almost like that fight follows its own script

The spell never worked when I tried it out. Under no circumstances that I could produce, even having a crowned enemy adjacent to two potential targets they could have attacked in melee, did the spell have any effect at all. At the very least, if we can't control who they attack, the implementation should simply have the ensorceled creature randomly attack one hostile within range, but presently, it doesn't do anything.

Then again, the above implementation would make it better than tabletop, normally one would need to use their action to maintain control. Of course, no one uses the spell in tabletop, since it sucks. They could give us control of the creature, like Flaming Sphere or Mage Hand, and using said creature would eat into our action economy, I guess. In the end, I don't know why anyone would use the spell, if it's as bad as tabletop. Especially given the way Larian implemented Cloud of Daggers, one would just use it to damage enemies, twice for 4d4 damage with no save.

Yeah, I've never played 5e so I'm not that familiar with the spell. (Most of my TT experience is DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder 1.0.) It does seem mostly a waste of time, though a 2nd level spell that can turn an enemy on his buddies (instead of simply neutralizing him ala Charm or Hold Person) sounds cool in theory. It also fit thematically with my "Great Old One" warlock. Sadly, it seems I'll have to take a different approach.

Yes, it works. I'm currently playing a lot lvl 1 to 4, to test what class I'm going to play at release. In one of the lvl 3 fights I had Crown of Madness on Gale, as replacement for Shatter (a stupid choice), and cast it on a Gnoll with success. He/It attacked one of the comrades one time, then the spell was gone, presumably by a saving throw.

I usually stay away from any cc or similar spell (like Fog Cloud) in BG3, they suck in comparison to damage spells. I use Sleep once at the ruins, then throw it out, the only cc I keep on my chars is Grease on Gale. Maybe in later levels, when the enemies have higher damage, cc spells are an absolute necessity (I'm not a DnD player, don't know)? Currently for my playstyle at least it's almost always better to do damage than to try to prolong the fight with cc.