Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Confusion - per turn save?

I'm a long time player of cRPG and I consider myself quite adept with the older D&D3.5 or Pathfinder1 rules but I'm a bit unfamiliar with the D&D5 rules. My confusion is related to the how the spell "Confusion" works. Based on the spell's description ingame I'm expecting that once a creature fails its initial save and gets the status "Confused" it will remain so until the number of turns pass (I believe that by default, without upcasting, this is 3 turns) unless the caster fails a concentration save or the status "Confused" is removed. What I've noticed instead is that affected creature gets a save each turn and if it passes then the status "Confused" is removed... Is that how is supposed to work or is this a bug. You can see below an image with this per turn save highlighted in yellow.

[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zQwZKl8BGyPOfPXKBPXy1TkHo9kn7T2Z/view?usp=sharing[/img]

Most all status effects in 5e get a save every turn.

If your confusion spell doesn't have at least a 95% chance then don't use it.

At 95% it can only be broken on a natural 20.

Understood, so this is not a bug... I must say that I'm a bit baffled by this as, at least at first sight, non-nuker spellcasters seem to be at a serious disadvantage in this rule set.

In 5e, creatures get a new saving throw against most spells at the *end* of each of their turns. On a success, the spell's effect on them ends. Since it happens at the end of their turns, if they fail the initial save they're guaranteed to be confused for at least 1 turn.

BG3, however, has new saves happen at the *start* of creatures' turns. Thus, every creature gets 2 chances (effectively Advantage) to succeed on a spell before feeling its negative effects.

Additionally, there are various bugs in BG3 where failing the 2nd save STILL removes the condition from the creature, in what I assume is a "-1 x -1 = 1" situation. The game says "you failed, so toggle the confusion condition on your character" which toggles it from ON back to to OFF.

tl;dr: ST spells with durations in BG3 suck (except for maybe Hypnotic Pattern)

This is actually pretty important because a save at the start of the turn means you dont get to take actions on CC'ed mobs if they pass, whereas a save at the end means you at least get one more turn of hits until they succeed.

But I have 95% chance on holds on both my PC and Jaheira both in full caster DC gear which is very easy to do in act 3, and it even works on most bosses, you only need about 21-22 DC for this. Bosses still need heighten for 95% but regular mobs don't.

My experience still under Patch 6 (so in 2024), is that BG3 allows the saving throw at the START of the turn, in addition to the save already done when you cast it, so enemies need to fail twice in a row to even be affected one single turn ...

And that is two saves in a row for a spell (Confusion) that often will do nothing on many enemies.

I was bummed out when I realized this and unprepared it. I was lucky and two Gith had failed their save... but it had zero effect as they saved again at the start of their turn.

I am hoping this will be fixed as if it was a bug, even though BG3 is reaching the end of its patching cycle. Or maybe mods will be able to fix this?

I am happy to report I have a working mod to fix this !

In so doing, I have also done tons of testing that prove this bug.

With the current alpha mod (read: not posted anywhere just yet, for further testing) ...

a) The targets do their Saving Throw (hereby called save) as normal on cast ;

b) On their turn, if they failed their first save, they apply the Confusion effect (which is either 50% random attack or 50% do nothing, as per vanilla BG3 Confusion) ;

c) At the end of their turn, they make a new save and they get another Confusion effect if they failed ;

d) On Turn 2, they act according to their Confusion status before making a new save at the end of their turn ...

In short, all of this is vanilla really : the only difference is the Saving Throw is done at the end of their turn. Woot ! (so no more double save on the first round of casting it) Which is how Crown of Madness and Hold Person work already in BG3, so the double saves on Confusion really seem unintentional/a bug.

Other : I am considering allowing it 10 potential turns, like in the tabletop rules, instead of Larian's 3 turns. In practice, it would rarely be even 3 turns since there is a save every turn. It is certainly not as bad as 10 potential rounds of Hold Person! Any thoughts?

The mod to fix the main problem with the Confusion spell is published.

I also opted for the tabletop potential 10 rounds, though in practice the probability is high that it will not last 3 turns (a Saving Throw at the end of each turn). That is debatable.

* Mod.io or in BG3 : https://mod.io/g/baldursgate3/m/confusion-saving-throw-fix
* Nexus : https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/12088?tab=description

Tks Baraz!