Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Druid Class is Disappointing

...for someone coming from tabletop. Ahem, this will be a complaint post, but let me throw a few caveats out before I begin. Also I originally posted this on reddit but having lurked here for a while I think it might be better to post this here.

1. Druid is viable as a class, and actually pretty strong.

2. Baldur's Gate 3 is still my game of the year. My gripes with one class won't detract from the fact this game is amazing.



With that out of the way, I think Larian's changes to core mechanics and druid mechanics *really* messed up the typical druid fantasy. In tabletop, Druid has the second most versatile spell selection behind wizard, a plethora of control spells, tons of utility, the ability to jack of all trades reasonably well, but very mediocre damage. In BG3, druid spell selection is actually insanely gimped, their control spells are hard countered by game mechanics and bugs, their utility falls behind, but they gain a LOT of damage. Even though it features many of the same mechanics, the balance is so heavily shifted away from their typical strengths that they feel like a different class. So I'm going to go through each category and focus on why they failed to implement the class in a familiar way.



Control Spells

The way that druids controlled the battlefield was always focused less on direct debuffs(such as hypnotic pattern), and more so on terrain modification. But almost all of the control spells as implemented are severely gimped by the mechanics changes, to the point I wouldn't even consider Druid to be a viable controller. It can be WHEN it works, but it's a tossup IF it works in a given fight. Going through the list...

Fog Cloud - Doesn't work properly with vertical interactions. If you are fighting on any sort of uneven terrain or from above/below, the enemy can often fire out of the fog cloud without suffering the downsides. I saw this especially suffer in the Zhentarim hideout with the crates and cliffs, but you'll find it fails to work correctly even in more "normal" terrain.

Entangle - AoE width was heavily nerfed, and can be jumped over. Can also be destroyed by an errant candle or any fire damage. Also switching between melee and ranged without cost means it can be ignored by most enemies.

Spike Growth - Amazing damage still, but same as Entangle. Countered by free weapon swaps, any fire, and the jump ability.

Plant Growth - All the same counters apply. Weapon swaps, fire, jump.

Sleet Storm - Doesn't obscure anymore. In tabletop it would douse open flames, but in this fire seems to counter it?

In summary, druid control spells are still okay when they work, but the inconsistency and design changes heavily nerf it to the point of frustration.

Spell Selection

I don't need to go into this too much, but suffice it to say they have the narrowest selection outside of perhaps Cleric at certain levels. They only get 6 3rd level spells. No summoning spells are present until level 7. Sorcerers and Bard get far wider selections(even if they can't take them all at once). I know Larian wasn't trying to pull in spells from supplements and just focus on things from the player's handbook, but many changes to base spells also hurt. If they were going to do that they could have at least included some of the niche but powerful options like Wind Wall, but nope. Goodberry's whole point of viability was that it could be used to heal without any waste. Lowering the amount of berries and adding randomness makes the spell absolutely awful, and kind of kills Druid as a secondary healer since efficiency was why they functioned. If they allowed lifeberry it might counteract it, but not as is. A lot of the changes betray a misunderstanding of what druids are supposed to be. Also why are there NO summoning spells for animals?

Damage Options

This is actually an area where druids got buffed, and *MASSIVELY*. The thing is, there's already tons of damage options, and druids were always supposed to be more defensive in nature. Why does Moonbeam hit twice per turn? Why can you empower call lightning with a flask of water or a first level spell? Druids were never supposed to be high damage dealers, and now they're one of the best blasters in the game. It doesn't feel right at all. It's even worse when you factor in wild shape(which has its own problems). Most wild shape options are mediocre, but things like the owlbear are kind of ridiculous. All together the class shifted away from utility towards blasting, and it doesn't feel at all like tabletop.

Wild Shape

Hoo boy, this is a fun one. I'm glad for the bug fixes, but they still got wild shape wrong for the most part. In tabletop, it was overpowered at low levels(thank god they fixed that at least), but had a lot of different forms for different situations. As an example, you'd use Bear as your standard "fighter", Hyena for when you needed more HP and range(Hyena was *fast*) to deal with snipers in an open area. Spider forms for enemies in elevated positions. Wolf for enhancing ally damage and dealing more damage.

They *tried* to do this in BG3, but for the most part they actually made the balance between forms significantly worse. Bear is middling, as goading roar is inefficient and kinda buggy. Wolf gets one auto crit(which is nice), but otherwise kinda sucks. Spider is *completely* overpowered with at will web and a super jump. Then you get no other good forms until Owlbear which trivializes tons of content by being so powerful. Tabletop had issues with wild shape being too strong at certain levels, but did a good job making similar CR forms competitive with each other. And for the love of god let us use our concentration spells while wildshaped! BG3 got the balance of forms relatively to other part members better, but made it so that you generally use only 1 form most of the time.

Conclusion

Druids don't feel right at all. They're best as a magical blaster now, or abusing one or two high damage shapeshift forms. Their utility, control, and flexibility got pretty gutted compared to tabletop. Some of it was due to bugs. Some of it was due to core gameplay changes. And some of it was due to 3rd level spells being hard countered by a freaking candle. A lot of this could be fixed with some simple tweaks.

Make Moonbeam work as it did in tabletop. Make "wet" only add a little of damage to lighting spells, rather than the massive boost. Fix vertical sight obstruction. Either change how jumping interacts with terrain hazards, or boost the AoE back to tabletop. Make terrain hazards not hard countered by *any* source of fire. Make sleet storm have a fog effect included. And do a balance pass on wild shape forms. Moon druid exclusive forms should be a lot stronger. Forms for all druids should be weaker, or have at least a cooldown for things like web spam. Bring back conjure animals as a 3rd level spell(but nerf it heavily! maybe only 1-2 animals?), as well as wind wall or warding wind.

As is, I'm probably going to restart as a bard because by level 6 I'm tired of playing druid. It's just too inconsistent and not enjoyable. It's not that the class is even bad. It's just not the defensive utility platform it's supposed to be. I think this is the only class they really dropped the ball on.