Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Wizard Class Implementation: Discussion & Feedback

What Turnip said wouldn't make Wizard better vs Sorcerer though, or? That's your main complaint, right? I really enjoyed the playthrough with my Wizard. It's my favorite class usually. It's probably not the best class in BG3, but it seemed fine to me.

I don't see how you can compare re-speccing to learning spells with scrolls and then easily adapting on the fly to whatever you need. Your spell loadout is fine, but as a Wizard you just have many more options and can try those out easily (I think I had all of yours except Ray plus things like Thunderwave, Haste, Conjure Elemental, Banishment around the same time). Need Feather Fall, or Knock? Two clicks and you have them. Same is true for sub-classes. Want a blaster, Evoker. But you can also play a Necromancer, a Wizard who relies mostly on CC and so on. There a so many fun spells in BG3 and as a Wizard you can have enjoy and play around with them all.

Is a Wizard better than a Sorc in battle? Probably not, but I don't think that's a big issue. You still do plenty of damage if you want to play a Wizard instead of a Sorcerer. Metamagic is powerful and a lot of fun (I play a Sorc on my second playthrough), but I do feel much more limited with my spell selection and overall less helpful outside of combat, except for dialogues where Charisma is great. Sorc also has some really fun lines, whereas most of the creativity of the Wizard dialogue options were likely spent on Gale and Elminster.

Itemization generally seems to be better for melee classes, and in terms of dialogue options, the team clearly had more fun with some races and classes than others, but I don't think you can say a Wizard is 100% trash in this game.

I think it is an issue as there is relatively little use for magic outside of combat after Act 1.

Also, I think all the people just saying it is per 5e are really either not understanding or downplaying how massive the Larian buffs to Sorcerer are. The Quicken Spell metamagic alone is *HUGE* and keeping it as a fixed cost of 3 Sorcery points (+1 vs 5e) regardless of spell slot absurdly low. Even things like the Haste buff allowing more spell casts per round is a larger buff to Sorcerers since it acts as an multiplier and can be combined with i.e. Twinned Spells.

There's also some other buffs to Sorcerers such as they getting an extra metamagic pick and an extra bloodline feature early compared to RAW. For example, the flight from draconic bloodlines is moved earlier to level 11 allowing you to get it in game. In contrast, Wizard progression is kept as per RAW which for keeps abilities like evocation's Overchannel out of player hands, even though it is supposed to be granted at the same level as flight for Sorcerers.

Larian also adds a lot of items that grant extra spell casts, which also helps the Sorcerer overcome their otherwise smaller amount of flexibility.

Wizards make better Summoners since Sorcerers do not get Summon Elemental. However, with the weird multiclassing changes you can just play Sorcerer 10/Evoker 2 - that way you sacrifice Sorcerer level 11 passive and a feat for getting the nice Sculpt Spell feature plus the ability to learn spells from scrolls from all levels (!) just like a Wizard.

You are right, but compared to older versions of DnD and to PF wizards are much weaker. Better to have a fighter (with three or even more attacks per round). At least Larian should overhaul concentration. And not allow even Goblins to move across the complet battlefield to go for your mage.

Wow didn't realize it was that bad. Haven't touched D&D stuff post 3.5.
So much more spell slots in D&D 3/3.5 ! And even more for D&D second E. (I now only mostly play Pathfinder or D&D3.5).

Only one lvl 9 spell slot for a lvl 20 wizard? Ridiculous.

I was wondering how crap it is that you get no extra spell slots at level 12, god what the heck have they done to spell slots in 5e???

This is just the trashiest ruleset ever for arcane spells.

Between level 12 and 18 only 1 level 6 slot like wth is the point???

I agree that 5e really dropped the ball when it comes to spells per day. It's really bogus.

Two things you have to keep in mind are:

1.) 5e casters get much more powerful cantrips than their 3.5e/PF1e counterparts. When out of spell slots, they're no longer limited to using a sling or casting acid splash for a whopping 1d3 points of damage.

2.) 5e wizards can cast ANY spell they have prepared, whereas 3.5e/PF1e wizards had to prepare specific spells in specific slots. Don't underestimate the power of flexibility - a level 20 5e Wizard can have multiple 6th-9th level spells prepared and choose the best one for the situation.

I prefer to cast time stop four times a day and could do without cantrips. I guess they canceled time stop in 5e? Did they?

So in PF:WotR i can make a extremly powerful sorcerer or wizard WITHOUT a single damage spell or conjuration spell. This is not possible in BG3! And that is the main difference. There are more schools of magic than Evocation and Conjuration. Furthermore the concentration concept of 5e is bullshit and inconsistent because you do not need concentration for summoning creatures. Seems they nerfed all schools of magic except Evocation and Conjuration.

So what when you can hardly even use level 6+ spells, this isn't 'more powerful'.

Use a sling when out of spells? In BG2 you just polymorph self instead or multi / dual class some thief or fighter levels and use better weapons.

@schpas Time stop exists in 5e, but in a weaker form. 1.) You can't put down multiple surfaces that'll all directly harm an enemy. 2.) 5e wizards are limited by concentration, which'll heavily restrict the amount of buffing/AoE effects you can do while time stopped.

Depends on the level. I'd put the tradeoff point somewhere around level 15. Until that point, a 5e Wizard basically has the same number of high-level slots as a 3.5e/PF Wizard, but with the flexibility of D&D 5e casting. A 5e wizard has more powerful cantrips, whereas a 3.5e wizard has scaling leveled spells (e.g., the 1st level spell Snowball will do 5d6 damage at levels 5+).

To refocus on BG3 and the thread topic: high level spell slots aren't as relevant as the level cap is 12 (and you can long rest ~anytime). So casters pretty much just strictly benefit from the more powerful cantrips and spell preparation mechanics. Imo BG3 is more directly comparable to BG1 than BG2, and it's BG1/low-levels that a wizard would default to a sling for most turns.

I agree Wizards are nowhere near as good as Sorcerers. However, I don't agree the solution is to give them metamagic to enable them to do what a Sorcerer can do. We already have Sorcerers available to do what Sorcerers do.

Given how much worse Wizards were than Sorcerers, I was a little surprised Wizards weren't less popular. The only class that is really unpopular is the Cleric, so I think Larian will adjust Cleric sooner than they will Wizard.

Take away scroll casting from those that shouldn't have it and suddenly the wizard will look much better. Then remove the consumables that shouldn't exist and their homebrewed (pun!) Alchemy system. Give casters their ability to craft scrolls based on spells known (massively favoring wizards of course) and see what you think. Pruning the massive amounts of scrolls everywhere would add value to wizards scribing a few extra fireball scrolls for the day.

If they just used to the bloody rules they have license for they'd immediately improve the game, aaargh!

Man, these outcries for how "good" 3.5 used to be are getting so fucking old after all these years.

Also, note the disconnect between "muh mage doesn't feel powerful enough" and the unchanging reality across multiple D&D versions of casters getting pretty much fucking broken at higher level.
5th edition included.


Yep.

Hard disagree. The evocation passives are plain busted. Removing friendly fire from your aoe spells and adding spell casting modifier make for extremely potent and efficient aoe damage, whereas sorcs and warlocks have to select less targets to affect with an aoe spell so as not to splash their martials, summons, and ally npcs.

Moreover, the sheer flexibility of Wizard courtesy of scrolls is crazy. The problem is that just like rogue, powerful passives like learning spells via scrolls or extra attacks from rogue or action surge from fighter should not be made available via multiclass. Multiclass really ruins the viability of pure builds because for many classes, the later level passives don't overcome the sheer OP nature of extra actions or scroll learning. Gear like the 17 int circlet also guarantees that you can use wizard spell without much of an issue as an off-class.

But this is not wizards being weak, this is itemization and consumables and multiclass passive availability breaking the balance. Same goes for abusing surprise and sneak attacks or throwing potions for an aoe heal where consuming the potion only heals one person. Stupid design.

Lol wizards are amazing in this game and in general far better in 5e than 3.5 especially when it comes to early game.

More spell slots are needed sure, and scroll casting should go for classes that aren't supposed to (or intelligence scores below 8) but that's it.

More spell slots would be welcome, or (if I may) downcasting. The homebrewed larian potions are amazing and well flavoured so leave them.

The biggest downside to wizard is that there is very little reason to go several levels in Wizard. You only need 1 lvl to get access to every wizard spell in the game.

Specialisation bonuses

What you quoted said 'very little reason' - not no reason. But I would agree that in some cases the level 2 spec bonus is pretty juicy, so you would likely want to go 2 levels in.

But still, with some specialization in a particular element a Sorcerer 10/Wizard 2 is superior to the Wizard in pretty much every way and can learn all spells. You can get sculpt spells, learn all spells, have stat bonus to one element of your choice and metamagic.