Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Sorcerers, Bards, and other not-quite-Wizards

One aspect that hasn't been mentioned so far is the difference between those classes when it comes to roleplaying:
Wizards are scholars who learn about magic by reading magic texts and researching magic artifacts. Sorcerers on the other hand are simply naturally capable of doing magic even if they sometimes don't fully understand how their magic works (especially wild magic sorcerers). Bards are somewhere inbetween. They are talented when it comes to connecting the weave and music but they generally either go to a college or have a teacher to improve their magic.

When it comes to game mechanics, the bard doesn't really fit to the others. In my opinion a bard is closer to a cleric. Bards have less damage spells than wizards and sorcerers, but a number of buffs, debuffs and heals. Additionally they have some martial skill, so they can generally handle it when they end up in melee range of some enemies.

The main difference between sorcerers and wizards has already been mentioned multiple times: metamagic or knowing way more spells.
For those of you interessted in DnD 5e I'd like to point out a few things which Larian changed for BG3 compared to DnD:
In DnD a wizard can only change his prepared spells when he finishes a long rest. Combining that with the fact that you generally rest less in an actual DnD game, wizards are much less flexible than they are in BG3. Additionally they have to really think about their planed day when they decide if they are going to prepare situational spells like feather fall, enhance leap or invisibility.
A number of spells have been turned into ritual spells for BG3. Normally a wizard would have to prepare the spell and use a spell slot to cast detect thoughts, disguise self, enhance leap, feather fall or longstrider.
Learning new spells from a scroll takes time in DnD. So when you are in a dungeon and find that sweet "wall of fire" scroll, you better figure out a way to not get disturbed for 8h so you can learn and use that spell.
Metamagic has been altered aswell. In DnD all metamagic options unlock at the same level, so you can freely choose which combination you want to pick.
Distant spell in DnD doubles the range of a spell, instead of increasing it by just 50%. Considering that spell ranges in DnD are generally longer this allows you to cast spells from really far away (Fireball with distant spell has a range of 300ft in DnD).
Quickened spell in DnD doesn't allow you to cast 2 spells in one turn. If you cast any bonus action spell you can only use a cantrip or do something without magic as your action.
Empowered spell, which doesn't exist in BG3, allows you to reroll damage dice when you cast a spell and are unhappy with the result and can be used on top of other metamagic options.