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.

Yeah, while spamming Vicious Mockery is super fun in the demon battle on the ship I don't know how useful it is at 3rd level when you get pact of the tome even with hex to make it hard to resist. Shillelagh might be more handy (and makes up for not choosing pact of the blade a bit).

I think overall it is hard to assess pact of the tome without knowing what Book of Ancient Secrets does if it is in or how ritual magic works (we know Ritual Caster feat is in). It could end up being super powerful if ritual magic is.

But this isnt matter of effectivity ...

Just as with Racial Ability Score bonuses, just as with Bard proficiencies, just as ... well, everything in the game.
We want to pick it oureself, no matter how good or bad it will be!

Just imagine that Larian would simply decide that all Fighters will only wear Greatswords, bcs they "seems to be best" ... and you would loose option to wield any other weapon!
That would suck right?

+1 Seriously, for a Warlock Guidance is just terrible. You are already concentrating on Hex to re-cast it - using guidance will break that - really anything that breaks your Hex concentration is going to be a problem and will screw over new players that won't be as aware of this.


First, big props to Rag for catching this - I can't believe you dismissed one of the greatest cantrips in the game Avguy.

Shocking Grasp is one of THE greatest Cantrips - of all time! It is one of the very few Melee Cantrips, you get advantage on armored targets, it strips the targets reaction so they can't Opportunity atatck you, or parry shit, or throw arrows bakc at you or any of the crazy shit you can do with reactions.




Gaze upon this wondrous spell in all its glory!

You could hit someone with this if they close the distance, strip them of their reaction and then run away.

Avguy, your opinions are now suspect sir! Repent! :P

Yeah, I forgot about concentration for guidance when I wrote that comment, but it did occur to me that something was off. It's just that guidance is an out of combat thing done by clerics, so the whole "it uses concentration and breaks hex" detail was burried pretty far down in all the debris floating about in my memory. I would have made a correction earlier, because of course that makes it horrible for warlocks, but my dayjob got in the way.

As for shocking grasp, I'm saying it's not that great because we're talking about pact of the tome warlocks, and melee range just isn't where I imagine they'd want to be. Particularly not when they could be using EB with invocation buffs from a safe distance. But I'm the first one in this thread to argue that it would be nice to have, and my reasoning explicitly mentioned the use of SG for disengagement. And water synergy.

So yeah, foul on guidance, but I think I was well within the lines on shocking grasp.

Guidance: Requires concentration, breaks Hex, awful for warlocks. I messed up. Horrible choice.

Acid Splah: I think cantrips made surface effects in EA initial release but everybody haded the surface mess and found it wildly overpowered, so Larian changed it (and firebolt). In other words,
you are right, which means Acid Splash is mainly interesting for its small AoE and not much else, which is a bit underwhelming.

Shocking Grasp: Great cantrip, but it is not high damage and it is melee. Melee + warlock = not good. I agree that the utility factor here is very neat, which is why I think it would be a good candidate for a pact of the tome warlock.

Thaumaturgy: This is an action with a set duration of 10 turns. It does not require concentration, at least not according to spell description ingame. I don't think I have tried it yet.

Light: Indeed.

One of the mods that I have loaded for early access adds pact of the tome for warlock. I fooled around with it, and the MOD does allow selection of three cantrips from the entire list of cantrips in the game.

My point here is that it is already possible to implement this with the code that exists in the game. Larian should do it, but if they don't it can be fixed by mods if needed.

Your repentance is accepted sir! ;D

I would make one final point about Shocking Grasp versus Eldritch Blast. Since EB is a ranged attack spell it means that anyone within 5 feet of you threatens you and will give you disadvantage on your ranged attacks against any target, including the one that threatens you.

Being able to switch to Shocking Grasp as a Melee Spell attack means you don't have that Disadvantage on the attack roll. Hex damage will still apply, but obviously you lose your Agonizing Blast +4-5 damage - so yes there is a damage tradeoff going down to 1d8/loss of AB damage, but the reaction removal and giving you the chance to run without having to deal with an Opportunity Attack + not having disadvantage seems well worth it to me.

I would argue that Shocking Grasp is the VERY best Melee spell attack cantrip of all of them. Thorn whip doesn't even compare (which is also a melee spell attack with oddly longer range).

AND, AND if some meaty plate-wearing dingus rolls up to you planning to beat you down while you are wearing your Patented Acme Warlock Pyjamas - you get Advantage on that attack roll - just Slap them right in that metal codpiece with the Shocking Grasp - and while they are on the ground crying about their now roasted nutsack, you can scamper away with a smile.

Do you have the name of the mod or a link? This is joyous news.

First of all:
Blackheifer ... you swaped our names in that second quote. xD

I agree ...
But if EA thought me something, its that if you dont find meele combat ... meele combat sometimes finds you.

Fixed! I meant to just quote AvGuy.

I think that it is Expanded Warlock. However, it looks like "Expansion" does it too (different mod, despite the similarity of name). I have them both installed, and its been several months since I've fooled around with it, so I can not say with certainty.

Hello everyone. This is my first time on the forum, and it was "Pact of the Tome" that made me visit it. Is there any way to ask the developers if they will change it? Or I'll have to go through the game with mods (I'm not arguing that the selected spells are bad, I just would like to choose some other)

I don't care how "great" the spells you are forced into are, Pact of the Tome is utter garbage simply because they stole all choice in the matter.

I wanted to make a rather unique warlock build, a Tiefling "Warlock" who's actually a Sorcerer skipping the middleman and ripping the powers from the Nine Hells himself, I didn't take Eldritch Blast as a starter cantrip, and planned to get Fire Bolt, Frostbite and Acid Splash, you know, something thematic to hell, something EB is not.
Now I'm leveling up and get confronted with this nonsense, guess my build isn't gonna happen for the time being, great game so far but this part's a bit of a "No Fun Allowed" stuff.
Is it gonna be a bad build? Maybe, I don't know, but that should be my problem, not Larian's.

I hope bumps are allowed on this site.
Because this is one.
There's an active thread on steam about this but I want as many people knowing about this