Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Druid Spells and Sleep

The druid has many spells that create a plant surface, but all opponents like to jump over them. It feels like there are not huge deadly vines growing there, but a small lawn. Maybe it's worth banning jumping in such areas?
Creating a huge layer of plants using 3 spell cells, but then you didn't notice a small candle or a random burning goblin came in.. and poof, everything burned down. I know how much Larian loves surfaces even with Divinity, but to have super-powerful druid spells burn with a torch is too much. Well, in the end, the branches are not dry. Well, these are strong spells that made them weak, now the opposite is true. 3 cell, thunderbolt or something like that, a good spell, but the fact that they removed the radius of action from him and gave him the opportunity to use anywhere from the player, too much. 3d10 is not a small amount.
And finally, I'll just add about the sleep spell, which has not changed in any way since its release. Well, it's very difficult to find a use for my favorite spell, the best option is goblins. But there are 2 nuances, the duration is only 2 moves and the best in the world is pushing with a bonus action. All opponents jostle wake up and throw potions at each other with cures, of course if they have them. To be honest, I don't understand why it can't be done with a normal action, the mechanics don't disappear anywhere, it gives you more choice what to do with the enemy in this situation, and it quickly gets boring.

I agree that the Druid’s movement inhibiting plant spells are underwhelming in BG3, because of movement distances and the fact characters can standing jump so far as you say. I think Niara might have mentioned this as well as problems with sleep in the focused feedback on spells she did a while back, but it doesn’t seem to have improved even though new spells have been added that are similarly affected.

Can say nothing to the Druid spells as I never played one, but as Sleep does work guaranteed without a saving throw there should be some countermeasures. The woken up creatures lose their action, if the one who wakes up would also lose the action by doing it, for me the spell would be probably too strong. I see it more of a problem that some races are absolutely immune to Sleep (although I'm always playing such a race).

This however sounds like feedback for WotC rather than Larian. O_o

//Edit:
So ... i have read how Sleep is supposed to work. :-/
And man was i surprised!

https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/sleep

I cant see there any mention about loosing an action by being forced to sleep ... on the other hand, its said in explanation of "Unconscious" condition that affected creature is supposed to "drop whatever it holds" ... so i dare to presume that Larian simply decided for us that uppon waking up we automaticly reach for our weapons?

If i may, i would much rather see Sleep to work as disarm, than loosing my action since when i play spellcaster, i dont really need to hold my staff, but Action is quite valuable to me! :-/

The problem here is rather that the spell is completely fixed. In dnd, you throw dice to check hp points. Usually it comes out average, and if you threw out a little, you can not even neutralize a goblin by wasting a cell. About the fact that you waste an action, well, this is to be expected, it's not an ordinary conspiracy, but the spell paralysis is even stronger there you can beat the enemy as much as you want. And you don't always lose your turn if an ally moves earlier on the initiative, then only he will spend the action. You can also wake up damage, for example with magic- 2 missiles at the enemy and 1 at the sleeper. This spell works normally only at the beginning, then the opponents will be so fat and almost everyone has a hard 1 resistance, so you'll distract the insects while you kill the main enemies.. although they still made 2 moves instead of 10.

Well, this is a completely different mechanic, although I understand its charm. However, here you can change weapons as much as you want, so I don't know how they will do it. And I like the loss of the action more, even if I have to lose myself, the enemy tried, used the cell, reduced my health so that the spell would work.. in the end, you don't want to get 40 damage from a fireball either, but what can you do.

I think the issue with sleep atm is that it’s a based set of hit points and the enemies have inflated hit points above RAW. This limits the use at higher levels. I may be wrong though…

Well, Larian's design has either directly or indirectly nerfed the vast majority of controlling/damaging effects in the game. Difficult terrain is meaningless, even eight strength Gale can jump right out of the area of effect, not to mention many spell areas have been reduced in size. A number of your area effects are now flammable, and can amount to just a piddly amount of fire damage in many cases. Enemy HP has been buffed and your damage dice are still the same. Enemies can remove the effects of spells via a bonus action shove. It's pretty hilarious really. I'd say they have systematically made spells worse, except for the wet plus lightning/cold buff.

So, if you like battlefield control, or even dealing damage outside of wet lightning/cold combo, you're out of luck. Larianized D&D focuses on hopping around the battlefield, shoving, and smacking things with a greatsword. A good spell is one that allows you to do this better.

BG3 should check to see if movement is inhibited by rough terrain, and if so, halve jumping distance to be in line with standing jump rules. I wonder how far BG3 characters can jump, is it really 1' for each point of Str? Seems more.

Sleep at level 1 is 22hp, level 2 31hp and +9hp each level after, however actual level 3 spells often outclass up-cast spells. Initiative order is key to using Sleep well.

I haven't played with level 3 Plant growth, but in TT its area is huge, reduces speed to 1/4 and allies can be exempt.

Entangle is more a spot movement inhibitor. It has a small area effect, though 20' is further than most characters can long jump, and a Str9 wizard can't automatically jump to safety from the middle.

BG3 uses running jump rules for standing jumps and a massive distance buff on top. With that in mind, Difficult Terrain needs to reduce jumping distance to 1/3, or just disable jumping entirely. The jumping ranges need to be more reasonable too. I had minotaurs just fly over a Sleet Storm, which is a huge area. Strong PC's jumping superhero high to reach elevation feels wrong in D&D. They're still human(oid). Climbing (Athletics) should also be a thing, and getting to a cliff should be harder so it has more tactical weight. And the Athletics skill needs a proper use.

Everything being explosively flammable needs to be changed. Web and Grease are supposed to be, but the amount of pyromania in this game renders the proper use of these spells pointless. The entire area of an Entangle or Plant Growth being instantly removed by a candle or torch, or a little splash from a fire bomb/arrow every enemy likes to spam, is really stupid.

How's Stinking Cloud btw? Does it explode too?

Being able to undo Sleep with a Bonus Action Shove is also wrong. It's already less useful because goblins have higher HP.

What's most important though, Larian need to work on their CC hate issues.

Gale was my guinea pig when testing the spells out. Jumping distance is definitely further than one's strength score, as Gale can jump 10ft. Meaning, if Gale is directly at the center of the 20 ft. area effect, he can clear the effect with one standing jump. Well, every area effect except for Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm that is. Those two effects would be too big for him to jump out of, assuming he was at the center.

I suppose the square Gale jumps into is half within the effect and half outside of the effect, but no saving throw is required.

Running high jump is 3' + Str modifier, so that's 7' for an 18Str Michael Jordan. That's clear space below your body and you can reach up your height x 1.5, Prince of Persia style. Standing high jump? Halve the clearance below.

So MJ running high jumps 7' and at 7' tall, adds 10.5' for a grand total of 17.5' slam dunk. Already over the top, add giant strength potions, we're clearly in epic fantasy.

(This jump would require the PoP animation with characters hauling themselves up with hands and feet. I wonder how implementing rope will affect this?)

Except that 7' clearance is not the number being used for high jump. BG3 is using the running jump distance and things are clearly a bit gonzo. (But with falling ladder glitch, gonzo is needed!) No wonder CC spells feel weak, everyone's flying over them.

Grease makes no mention of flammability in TT, and Entangle/Plant growth bring forth abundant greenery, i.e. full of water! Shouldn't be easily flammable, I could see a sustained flame like Flaming sphere or Wall of fire, but not instantaneous flames like Fireball.

We're all just frogs in a very big pond, huh

+1

Agree completely having said that I don't expect Larian to change their DOS2 infatuation with pyro effects and surfaces. I'm hoping for an extensive MOD that completely eliminates this part of BG3 including wiping out all of the nonsensical barrels of oil and firewine, firestalks etc ad infinitum.