Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Pact of the Tome - How does it work in the Full Game.

But those differences to the spell pools are permanent changes...once you select that patron those spells will be available for you to learn at any point you wish. Key difference here. Pact of the Tome doesn't give you unrestricted access to cantrips you're not supposed to have. It only gives a one time access to cantrips you're not supposed to have and you can only select three.

Thats a very good point!

To be honest ... it feels a little as if Larian was affraid that people will pick something else than the Blade for Wyll ...
I mean Blade got extra attack for free, while there is invocation for the same ...

When one boon gets clear buff while other get clear nerf ... its a little suspicious.

Given all the other things in the game, I would find it curious if Larian can't manage a one time selection involving all cantrips.

And if I have a choice of all cantrips then I'm not sure I really like those picks, at least not in every context.
Guidance is a great choice, obviously.
Vicious mockery does insignificant damage, but also imparts a single target debuff, so it isn't quite terrible. But it competes against eldritch blasting the target and has no utility value out of combat. The big bads that you want to debuff with this can probably either make their wis ST or hit despite disadvantage, and anything smaller can be EB pushed.
Thorn whip does minor damage and pulls the target, which is nice in a few circumstances. Good when someone's standing on high ground and taking shots at you. Fits a "move them around" theme.

But I would also consider acid splash for the surface effects. Having acid pools around to annoy enemy mages could be very useful. I would consider ray of frost for mostly the same reason. Toss a water bottle, ray of frost over it, and now everybody is falling down, while you're just standing tall and eldritch blast punting everything back on the other side of the ice. Then there's shocking grasp. It's not that great but it does offer lightning damage, which synergizes with water, and it provides safe disengagement on top, in case you can't EB punt a target away.

And then there's thaumaturgy for the dramatically inclined. It might seem like overkill but if you really want to make your intimidation checks then 20 cha, guidance, proficiency, and thaumaturgy all combined really ought to do it.

And then of course there's light, in case you just like to be able to see in the dark without darkvision.

Have to agree with others, that the spell selection thing is probably due to an engine limitation. I also agree that I would not have chosen Vicious Mockery. There is also the casting stat issue. It may well be necessary to create warlock-specific versions of a spells in order for it to use Charisma instead of Wisdom (Thorn Whip).

Which brings us to Shillelagh, which has a big overlap with Pact of the Blade.

Which brings us to the pact-specific invocations if they are in the game. Blade should need Thirsting Blade to get it's second attack, and Book should need Book of Ancient Secrets to cast ritual spells. But BG3 does not have ritual spells. My guess is this will be replaced by three spells that would be rituals in PnP that you can cast once per long rest. Something like Find Familiar, Detect Thoughts and Speak with Animals.

Since they've already figured out how to have the same spells/cantrips on multiple class spell lists surely they would just create a "pact of the tome spell list" with just cantrips on it. Then having that spell list only accessible to the tome pact warlock shouldn't be anymore difficult then having only Eldritch knight fighters get spells instead of all fighters.

This is not an engine limitation. It takes less than half of a working day to implement this and then couple of hours to test it. Stop defending large software companies with your uneducated opinions.

I always like when people talk about development of a game like BG3 as if it's nothing and they could do it in five minutes. Can't wait to see the games you make.

+

I am a software developer in a company more or less same size as Larian. I know what I am talking about. This is not due to a technical limitation.

You are not the only software developer here. There is a big difference between implementing something from scratch and patching it into legacy software.

Is it tho?
When you have Friends you can only concentrate on one of them ... its good tohave options ofc ... its just not as good as it may seem.

Im affraid cantrips dont make surface effects on their own ... they only react to whatever target is standing in.

IMHO Shockung Grasp is best meele cantrip ...
It gives fair dmg, advantage on metal-armoured targets, and it disable reaction!!!
That mean much more than safe disengage ... you can for example disable counterspell to enemy Wizard!
It would be much more appealing if you could deliver it trough your companion tho.

Dont Thaumaturgy also require concentration?

Indeed.

//Edit:
Anyway ... since Ritual casting seems to be missing, i think pact of the Tome loose lots of its appeal.

Are you a software developer?

Are you arguing that implementing “Choosing 3 elements from an almost static list” requires so many working hours that instead there should be workaround with fixed three selections?

My opinion is that the current pact is just a placeholder. Same for Lore Bard’s extra skills. If they make the release as they are, it is a design choice, not a technical limitation.

I have been (academic, not games), now retired. I have spent months trying to get legacy software (inevitably poorly documented) to do something so simple that it should do doable in a couple of hours. And BG3 is built off legacy software going at least as far back as DOS1.

I am minded of a Tolkien quote: "short cuts lead to long delays".

First reaction: What does a "Book of Shadows" have to do with Thorn Whip or Guidance? Flavor fail. Bone Chill, Minor Illusion and Thaumaturgy seem more appropriate from the available selection.

I would argue guidance actually is better than Friends, assuming you're comparing it to Friends specifically and not just using that as a random example of a concentration spell. Guidance applies to any skill check and it won't result in immediate aggro of the target, which likely defeats the point of the spell.

As for this discussion in general, I do think it's annoying. I was never going to use pact of the tome to begin with, but in principle I think it's a bad approach. Even if it's the only approach they could take due to technical limitations, that doesn't make it not bad. It just means it was the best bad option.

Not what he said, though. And if you think it is an unsurmountable technical limitation then why don't you explain why?

I can believe that there are limitations I don't understand, but as a layman, I don't understand how this is different from any other item in the game that gives you spells, or from new spells gained (you can choose!) when leveling up...

But being able to ritual cast is far more important than a couple cantrips anyways, and why people actually choose this pact imo

Hey all, I'd recommend sticking to explaining what we want or don't want to see and (constructively!) debating the merits of different features from a game experience perspective, at least if considering the technicalities is going to be a bone of contention. Fortunately, only Larian need to worry about the practicalities of implementing changes in the game, so it's not something we need to argue about.

They are iconic to specific classes - Guidance to cleric, Thorn Whip to druid and Vicious Mockery to bard.

I gues it depends on situation ...
Both have their uses.

+1

+10!!!

But if someone knows any, they can tell us right?
I would be very interested in that.