Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Stinking Cloud sucks on bg3 - here's why

The problem with this spell on BG3 is that mechanically, all it does is to block actions on a failed save, while they're inside the cloud.
It does nothing against their movement, and the moment they step out, they can attack you.


On the table top game the spell also says:

"On a failed save, the creature spends its action that turn retching and reeling."

Which sounds to me that they basically waste their turn retching and reeling.
On BG3 the npcs will jump out or run outside of the cloud and then attack you on the same turn. They can also misty step out of it because also mechanically, it's not an action, but a bonus action.

So in short, you waste a lvl 3 spell slot and turn to maybe make enemies use their movement and/or misty step.
PS: Stinking Cloud is also heavily obscured on the table top and it is not on bg3 > Sleet storm has the same issue. It's not heavily obscured on bg3.

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/quest...ll-stinking-cloud-able-to-move-out-of-it

I think this is faithfully implemented as per the Stack Exchange RPG listing above for affecting actions. The answerer's post says the spell only kills Actions, not Bonus Actions or Movement, which is not an action.

The obscure part, I am not certain. We need to see this interaction during release.

Maybe. Besides the heavily obscured part.

The title should be "All control spells suck in BG3 and here's why".

Sleep - duration nerfed, waking up made easier
Grease, Web, Entangle, Plant Growth - catch fire immediately and vanish
Sleet Storm - enemies jump over its large area or just throw their fire bombs from there
Stinking Cloud fits right in.

Special mention to Color Spray that kind of already sucks in 5e. One turn duration. You have to place your squishy caster in melee range for it, and on your next turn the effect is gone already.

Has anyone tried Hypnotic Pattern in a combat situation?

Hypnotic Pattern is really powerful. I have used it a lot, huge AOE and it's very effective. They just stand there unless you hit them.

Do non-hypnotized enemies in BG3 attack/shove their Hypnotized allies in order to break the spell's effects, like they do for sleep?

I have not seen that happen - but it's supposed to be possible - of course this brings up one of the (many) problems with Shove as a Bonus action - since it should require an Action to break someone out of Hypnotic pattern.

I don't know if the AI has been modified to know to do that.

Hypnotic Pattern is also duration nerfed to two turns when it should be one minute.

Why do they hate control effects so much? These spells are already competing for the slot with Fireball. Why isn't Fireball nerfed to 5d6 then?

+1
Maybe they hate it because of how it might affect the party if used by the AI?

Thats why Stinking Cloud and Hypnotic Pattern require concentration in 5e. Perhaps they should teach the player to target concentrating enemy casters instead of nerfing an entire archetype to oblivion. Or just give enemies less control spells.

As a side note, they could also put more spellcasters in encounters in Tactician rather than giving enemies fire and push arrows and barrels. Add challenge from having to deal with (non-nerfed) control spells.

Good luck keeping your concentration on for one full minute with all these damage sources.