As a wizard guy, I go for this class or any magic using class in every game I play. But so far it seems that the wizard draws the short end of the stick way too much in this Baldur's gate. If I would add one suggestion it would be to add intelligence bonus to damage for the wizard evocation spells and cantrip's. Since those seem to play such a huge part in this game.

Nah.

Certain of their spells got kinda fucked up... Mostly debuffs. But there's a solo run mage on the web for BG3 I think. And yeah granted " someone did it" doesn't mean it works as it should( Cause someone also finished the game without leveling up).

Idk, I guess it's more a question of difficulty level. When they will be introduced should solve your problem with mages. And use mage armor + mirror image if you struggle with survivability.

+1

Its because they upped the mobs hitpoints to that they'd last longer against melee/ranged but then didnt bother increasing the damage from spells, particularly as mob AC was generally lowered but saves were not.

Wizard has issues in BG3, but not to being underpowered itself. Game mechanics make the class more frustrating to play than it should be.

• Encounter AI usually focuses on wizards over other classes, even when it is illogical to do so. You can abuse this and control enemy movement in encounters.
• Dim light disadvantage: Melee gets to counter this with backstab, with a wizard I hope you brought dark vision.
• Verticality disadvantage/advantage: forces you to move a wizard into sub-optimal positions. The enemy wants the high ground and your wizard does too, so the game asks you to move the wizard next to the enemy.

If these three points are addressed wizard is fine. Note, none of these had any changes to the wizard class itself.

Additionally, maybe because of the way the game does the camera angle, maybe for other reasons, combat arenas are small in size, and there are no longer any spells which allow the wizard to stay safely out of enemy range. If the wizard is at maximum range to Fire Bolt an enemy, the enemy can move and dash to get within melee range of the wizard, forcing the Wizard to disengage, and even then they'll never be out of range of the enemy.



Not that it's a complete fix, but if you have a skull, you can drop it, cast the Light cantrip onto it, and toss the skull to provide light.

Wizards also lack the Shield spell.

If you're looking for pure damage potential, you should be fine as soon as fireball and lightning bolt are in.

Enemy HP has been substantially increased to compensate for their reduced AC, so those won't do as much damage as is expected.

That's true, but that applies to all classes. I thought OP was talking about wizard in comparison to other classes

Wizards are too weak lmao...Early access you can solo the entire game using a shield dwarf wizard... Wizards are broken OP currently in early access. They currently have access to divine spells in the core game they should not. There is a head band of perfect intellect allowing you to do a str / con build and still get 18 intellect. Magic missle is the strongest spell in early access. Evocation wizards add int to damage roles as a class feature other wizard subclasses do not its part of the core to evocation wizards.

Wizards have access to every spell currently in Early access.

Casters in general in DND are not the highest single target damage dealers warriors are casters are aoe damage dealers. Its also not unheard of for enemies with intelligence in a party attacking the to take out the artillery as oppose to the tank. If you were in actual combat situations enemies being smart enough to take out the guy lobbing balls of fire in the cloth armor is not unexpected. Vs taking out the character in plate armor with a shield. There are lots of ways to reduce enemies attacking you as a wizard at the same time Misty step being the easiest utility spell for this getting yourself to a location where you are difficult to target while you reign fire down on your targets.

The idea wizards are under tuned is a little funny. Currently they are more powerful in early access than they should be. There primary spells are missing but at the same time melee classes are also missing there big utility abilities. Such as multi attack. So a wizard in early access has access to the best armor can use the same weapons as fighters, can cast all the spells a priest has access to. Does not need high int because they can get a headband of perfect intellect very early in the game. Basically they are a jack of all trades and best / only arcane spell casting option.

A shield dwarf mage is the single most over powered character in early access. 17 str 17 con, Heavy Armor, 18 Int, Can use 2 handed great swords as well as long sword and shield. You can even duel wield as if you needed more over powered abilities. They basically do everything. You can heal like a cleric do ranged damage with spells on par with any other class. Use a 2 hander at close range, Swap to duel wielding for an off hand attack. Switch to a shield for when your being attacked. Your getting 9 7 7 7 hp. You could even take great weapon fighting since you dont need heavy armor or take +1 str +1 con for even more hp and attack value.

So 34 hp 18 str 14 dex 18 con 18 int 8 wis 10 charisma in early access so you have a 19 ac before a shield spell // bonus action as needed. You can use a 2 handed sword when attacking in melee with a +4 damage bonus +1 for the sword so your dealing 2d6+5. You have access to magic missle to ensure you deal damage when you need to. You have ray of frost for ranged damage that you can do until the end of time with int modifier as an envoker. You have cleric healing spells because its in game currently though it should be removed eventually. So you have healing word / shield as optional bonus actions. You have a couple of aoe spell options if needed. If an enemy does come in melee range you can always 2 hander to the face. Swap to Duel wielding make an off hand attack swap to sword and shield so you have the higher ac when its there turn to attack you can even use a shield spell to buff your ac up to 21. A lot of this stuff is possible because the class is not as designed in 5e core aspect and the items / tools you have access to in early access that you should not due to action costs and things not working as designed.

You should not have access to divine spells at all. You shouldn't be able to swap weapons at a whim. And a headband of perfect intellect that early in the game is just exploitable. The entire game can be soloed with just a shield dwarf mage its been done already more than once.

I believe you are missing his point ...
Its not matter of what potential Wizzard have ... he just want bigger numbers, when he casts a spell.

Exploits aside, and I do consider being able to learn other classes spells a exploit. A wizard just simply cannot compete with the other classes. Keep in mind I havent been trying to exploit the system, but to play a wizard as it's set up in D&D rules. A wizard with 18 strength can do more damage with a staff then a wizard with 18 intelligence can do using it's cantrips.....That's just not right.

Now unless it's expected that we rest a wizard after every fight. 1st and 2nd level spells (What we have access to so far anyways) are extremely limited. And shouldn't hurling a ball of fire (Even the cantrip) be every bit as deadly as a arrow shot from a longbow? It's not.

I dont know magic missle is probably amongst best damage early out for what you get out of it your talking average of 1d4+1x3 6-15 damage vs 2d6+4 = 6-16 damage its pretty even and magic missle cant miss. Top damage late game your talking. 1d4+1x5 so 10-25 damage vs 2d6+10+5 17-27 damage. But with a 30-60% chance to hit on the sword vs a 100% with missles.

More Static numbers +4 str bonus +1 weapon bonus +2d6 so your talking 10-25 vs 7-17 damage of dwing your talking 5+5 +2 so 12-22. Mages are a little stronger in early access overall damage wise. Outside big number damage but fighters can do more damage on the opener. Due to adrenaline rush and there your talking multi attack bonuses. There is the amulet that gives you+1 missle on your magic missle and you get an additional missle using it as a level 2 spell for 5 missles total. vs the best melee weapon being the justice sword. The numbers are pretty close overall. Magic missle having the 100% hit rate however. Numbers are pretty even. Outside game exploits. First turn the fighter has an edge for best possible damage but isnt consistent.

The numbers are pretty close to even. The fighter could make 2 attacks but at same time the mage can cast the missle's 3x at 5 missles and 4x at 4 missles. Also range is not limited and you can hit multiple targets. Generally speaking fighters do beat mages at single target damage vs the mage beats the fighter at aoe damage thats the biggest difference.

That's being specific to in game numbers. 8d6 lightning bolt is still 8-48 vs 34-50 at level 6 fire ball your hitting multiple targets. numbers are always pretty close but single target fighter always beats the mage at single target damage in dnd its the way the game is designed melee wins single target loses aoe damage war. The spell has the bigger single hit damage but the fighter is getting 2 attacks at the same time. DWing your talking 18-27 damage consistantly. Great weapon fighting being the biggest difference maker as every extra attack is adding an additional +10 damage. + Criticals vs not being able to Crit against 100% chance to hit.

A wizard strictly by dnd rules is the utility caster vs the Sorcerer which is the battle caster. The sorcerer because of things like twinspell ect is the ideal aoe damage dealer hitting large numbers of enemies for above average damage but the fighter / barbarian up close with the 2 handed sword typically does the most damage on a target. I mean even if your a wizard a ball of fire on yourself doesnt really benefit you. Same time the archer could fire a bow typically faster than you could cast the words for a spell and if it hits your heart you would be just as dead IRL as if you lobbed a ball of flame which doesnt necessarily kill the target. It explodes catches everything on fire but even irl you can survive a moltive cocktail being throw at you more so than a bullet through the chest with accuracy. Thats applying logic to both people have survived being struck by lightning same regard more frequently than being shot in the heart with a bullet. I have an uncle that actually survived being struck by a lightning bolt. So i mean you do the math theoretical math the odds do make sense. It also does make sense to kill the damage over the tank. I mean when I play games I will generally kill the squishiest target first or the healer.

This actually isn't that much of a thing. The only enemies that exhibit this behavior are the goblins. Almost everything else is close to their actual tabletop stats. The bosses however are generally agreed upon to be extremely overtuned stat-wise if you're just fighting them from the perspective of a DnD game and not abusing Larian mechanics.

The real problem is generally everything else - the sheer number of enemies in some encounters which makes the action economy heavily stacked against the player, the lack of key reactions like Shield which would allow Wizards to defend themselves during the enemy turn, battlefield design which makes height such an overwhelming factor, the existence of the height mechanics themselves that results in the idea that AC below 14 might as well not exist on a statistically practical level if you're being attacked from high ground, enemies having new and overtuned items and abilities such as the special arrows and teleporting spiders with AoE spits and the minotaur being able to jump at your party from way beyond sight range with an AoE shockwave attack as a bonus action, and so on.

All that combined makes casters feel iffy to utilize if you're not using them to set up some insane alpha strike tactic.

The other day I made a wizard charactr and am currently playing through a run where Nobody uses any spells, class abilities or features at all, and everyone just uses shove and throw, and nothing else (haven't decided yet if I'll use bonus action food healing yet... haven't needed it yet though). It's truly disgusting how smoothly it's going and how little thought or effort is required to do this.

Not really a relative comment on wizards per se, but I choose wizard because they're archetypally the weakest for shoving and throwing... Still thought I might throw it in for an additional aside for how poorly made this game's combat mechanics are. It's so ridiculous.

And that is where my issue lays. This is D&D, a wizard that isn't throwing spells around isn't a D&D wizard. Somebody mentioned a dwarven wizard soloing the game using a shield....what? Did Kelek use a shield? Vengure? Mestron the magnificent or Elminster? This game is going to be a hit. And rightfully so. And Larian is going to profit from this. Also rightfully so. But please, try to stay true to what put Dungeons and Dragons on the map.

Thats... sad.

Can you please record me encounters with Bulette, Minotaurs, and Githyanki Patrol?

Did you use foreknowledge of the headband of intellect for that? If anything is overpowered, that is. Maybe not the headband itself, but knowing that is available soon at the time of character creation.

The headband serves no purpose to this run, since, as I mentioned, I'm not using any class abilities, features or spells, at all. I'm using all and only Larian's larianisms - Throw and Shove, primarily.

I don't really have a set up for recording, no, but I may be able to grab you some screenshots as I do it.

That would be fine too.
Thanks!

I kinda do want to see it in action as well, would be easier to analyze as well as it'd likely help in demonstrating what is wrong with these mechanics right now.

How did you manage the encounter at the grove's gates then? It's a bit of a distance to the nearest ledge, as I reckon - what did you throw goblins off?

Unless you have set up some sort of a conveyor belt to deliver goblins from the gates to the cliff, you would have to actually use weapons, no?

If you are up on the cliff area approaching, melee gobbos when not targeting NPCs will run up to you to try and melee, making them very vulnerable to a push.

Conveyor belt lol. Nah, they deliver themselves to the highgroudn outside of the gates. Andd it's a 3r floor kind of thing so it hurts.

Yeah, I remember that hillock, use it all the time. 2 problems though:

• The drop isn't particularly high. Would require several iterations, esp. with tough leaders. I remember shoving a goblin down during an encounter just before their camp. I sent it all the way down to the road, from the highest point, and he survived the fall with about half HP remaining. This knob is peanuts in comparison. Should have taken a while, I guess.
• Some goblins do lock up on NPCs, and it might not be easy to make them pay attention to your paragliding offers.

I mean, if that encounter has been done without using a single spell or weapon, well you have my respect. A daunting task indeed.

Remember that you can also carry 400lb of various junk to throw, and you can happily throw goblins at other goblins until they've all been bludgeoned to death.

I'm looking at my options of compiling some actual viewable feedback for this, since folks seem interested - I'll probably start over if I can find a good way to showcase it.

You need only one throw to see how broken this mechanic is.

It's like a 9yo player at a table going "I throw the enemy 20 feet over the edge at the other enemy below and kill them both!"

And the DM goes "ok".

What I meant was that ordinarily you would stack points in intelligence for a wizard, and leave her/him weak in the strength department. Unless you know beforehand about the headband. Did you happen to make your wizard extra strong?

Yes, I made the wizard strong; Her name is Ka'chu'ka and she has 17 strength, same as Lae'zel. She has 9 Int and 8 Wis and 9 Cha. She's Totally a Wizzard; she casts 'Throw' and 'Shove' and she knows those two spells super good. She's a good Wizzard, too, because she can cast her spells as many times as she wants each day and she never runs out of energy. Other Wizzards must surely envy her, she thinks.

To Rutger, I did restart, and got screenshots as I went. I'm trying to highlight what I'm throwing and at whom, during major encounters. This evening I did the ship, killed the whole control room (commander, cambions, etc.), then went and did the ruins (above, inside and skeletons), and then went and did the gate at the grove. Gate at the grove went as smoothly, boringly and thoughtlessly as I had feared; stood back throwing boxes and crates and the occasional goblin at the enemies below, from the hill. Fight took about two rounds, no-one but enemies died, and on the whole it was very brainless.

Took lots of screenshots as I went, though if this pans out as a project I want to work on seriously, I'll eventually make a new focus thread where I can collate the screenshots and give some proper dialogue to accompany it.

P.S. Varangian; That *literally* was my first action at the gate - throw the archer goblin on the hill with me at one of the other archer goblins to kill them both outright from the impact damage (except it was more like 60 feet in total travel distance).

P.P.S: Next up we're heading in the direction of the gith patrol, since I'm playing the character more or less to form; she interrogated Zorru with Lae'zel, and now they know where they're going.

Where are these scrennshots?

Not prepared yet; I'm gathering them as I go, and I'm intending to put them together in a proper thread where I give some detail along with it ,that could be used as proper feedback, possibly. Depending on how it goes I may get something respectable up in a few days.

So, you've practically made a wizard with a fighter build... And it's the game fault that your fighter-wizard is capable of doing the fighters things? Great work at proving nothing but the fact that D&D allows you to built your character ignoring his class needs and act as a weaker version of another class.

Shove and throw don't work like this in D&D rules-as-written


Fighter doesn't even get to shove and throw like it can in Baldur's Gate 3. Niara is talking about how the homebrew mechanics supersede any class's skillset. Choosing the wizard class is an experiment on how over-tuned Larian's homebrew is.

The issue being shown is with just strength and the homebrew, one doesn't need anything else.
Which is a big problem.

The homebrew is too strong right now that it makes class features semi obsolete. (Technically a Str Thief Rogue would actually be the best shover cause they also homebrewed two bonus actions but I digress.) Normally in 5e class identity is strong enough that you in some way have to play to your class's abilities or apply them to move forward. Here, it is being shown that BG3 can not just be beaten classeless, but is also EASY to do so and not a challenge that people would assume.

It sounds like what he's really saying is that high strength characters are game breakingly overpowered and need to be nerfed IMMEDIATELY! Maybe cap Strength at 14 or 15 during character creation.

None of my non-strength based characters have been able to throw people around and usually can't even get a successful "Shove" going. It's just a wasted turn so I don't use Shove. I'll throw grease bottles though.

They could nerf Lae'Zel, too, then. Maybe drop her strength to 15 and bump her Con or Dex. (should probably put it into Charisma to be honest. She could use a boost there)

Just hide and you'll have 100% to shove.

Except they aways see me coming unless they're staring out over the edge thinking wistfully of ... what ever it is they think of.

I'd also like to to see the Owlbear and Bulette being tossed around. Or doesn't it work on them? Because I could certainly believe a Str 17 char could toss a goblin around and probably bugbears and most "normal" size creatures with the proper leverage.

The issue isn't with strength or even the concept of the mechanic, its the implementation. Base 5e doesn't have bonus action shoving. And not on this ridiculous level. And it is super easy to go into stealth right now and 100 percent shove people. Heck, a MAGE HAND, a cantrip that is meant to not harm people, can shove Goblins off cliffs with 100 percent chance. You could beat this game purely through Mage Hand, and only mage hand.
Capping strength would be going at the wrong part of the problem, changing the shove mechanic, which is already homebrew, would be the solution. Making it an action, make it not 100 percent chance with stealth, and make the distance scale with strength and less extreme, and it will be a much more reasonable mechanic and in fact could be a fun bit of homebrew.
Also, personally, Laezel's stat spread is fine. If anything, if I had to move stats around, I'd dump her wisdom and maybe her dex by a few points to give her some intellect so she can be a serviceable Eldritch Knight without the headband, always felt like a better subclass due to what I know about Githyanki fighters.
As it is right now, it is overpowered and is breaking and obsoleting the other systems.

I get the impression the reason why you don't hear as much hubbub around the throw action is because it's a relatively hidden thing (the game doesn't tell you that you can pick up larger objects and throw them, much less enemies), and that you need a higher strength score to pull it off. That means for MCs that aren't Strength-based, you MUST include Lae'zel in your party to notice this, and there's probably a fair number of people in the community who hate her enough to never consider that option.

I am entirely indifferent myself, and the highest strength score in my preferred party is my Bard at 13 strength, and it's only that high for carrying capacity purposes.

Once Paladin gets introduced, either the class itself and/or the companion, expect a lot more people to notice.

I do a warlock, Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion usually so strength for the party I make is fairly low but even then Push is abusable as all hell (Also randomly I'd up Astarion's int a teensy bit to make him a better candidate for Arcane Trickster, High Elf + Vampire feels like it'd conventionally be good for magic).

Based on the DS:OSII post mortem video on the Game Developers Conference Youtube channel Larian puts that kind of stuff in there intentionally for the people who would have fun with it, for example on PvP and Co-op and people who are just looking for silly things they can have fun exploiting. I don't see how it's a problem for anyone who role-plays their character (and rolls a character as they'd really play it). I don't usually play a fighter for my main char but even if I did it wouldn't bother me if someone else played their high-strength character as a shove-and-throw character. Is this just about not having anything that isn't 5th Edition in the game? Because if that's the case then I suspect some people are setting themselves up for disappointment.

I also can't get hide to work the way some people seem to get it to work. I can't even get away with hiding behind the chimney on a rooftop or being on the other side of the rooftop ridge. If the enemy even sniffs in my direction it usually breaks my concealment and then they start lobbing acid/fire/grease bombs at me and buffing their friends. I believe the engine needs better (3d) line-of-site calculations. If an Ogre(?) is at ground level and I'm hiding on the other side of a rooftop ridge it shouldn't be able to see me but they usually can if the ground level distance is within their vision cone.

And I haven't had any better luck with Mage Hand. Does Mage Hand use the Strength of the caster? I'd love to be able to use Mage Hand to clobber certain enemies but I can't. I can't even use it to pick up a bottle (antitoxin?) that's on top of a mantle in a certain dungeon. In fact I can't get to that bottle any way I try even though I can clear the rest of the stuff from the top of that fireplace mantle. But I can break it with a range attack. But that's beside the point. Why care if someone else can beat the game using a tactic you wouldn't use? Let them have their fun. The relevant question is: "Can the human at the keyboard beat the game by playing the way they want?" The game isn't being written for any one of us nor just one group of player. The GDC videos show that Larian wants people with different play styles to have fun their own way. That's a good thing.

On the other hand: Mage Hand not being able to bring me stuff is a problem. Items that say "Unknown Name" (or whatever it was) when I mouse over them is a problem; a cosmetic problem, sure, but it's going to look bad if it's in the released version. Placeholder graphics showing in inventories is a problem. Being seen when it shouldn't be possible to see me and I'm not moving is a problem. Having to climb over boxes and down to get to the space between the wall and the boxes just to open a barrel next to them that I should obviously be able to reach without moving is a problem. I'm guessing the container objects have a "front" that indicates the place the player needs to stand to interact with the container and the dev placing the objects isn't paying attention to how the objects are placed. There have even been bookcases that aren't accessible from the front of the bookcase; the game wants you to walk to the other side of the dungeon wall behind the bookcase. That's a problem. I won't even get into the "stickiness" of the character chaining for party management. Dynamic movement of tails, hair, and dead bodies going "wacky" and flip flopping all over the place is a problem. The occasional "two overlapping health bars" is a problem. The animated dialog scenes with chars standing on top of each other and items obstructing the camera view is a problem. The dialog camera looking at nothing is a problem. There was a problem with weight management where if you sold a stack of 5 items that weighed one pound each (so 5 pounds for the stack) it only reduced the weight you were carrying by one pound. And the list goes on. When this next update drops I'm going to make a bigger effort to open more bugs reports for problems.


Anyway, I still don't understand what the problem is with having things in the game that other people would use that I wouldn't. It just needs to be winnable when I play my way at some difficulty setting even if it's "old man with bad eyes" mode. It shouldn't have to be "my way or the highway".

Mage Hand as far as I know can take the hide action, which works if a target is not seeing you. Right now hide is very broken and you can do it mid combat as long as you are far enough away from the vision cones. And so a normal mage hand can essentially hide and then push. Have the caster way out of combat and you essentially can freely push enemies without even encountering them. Same with an imp or arcane trickster mage hand, but even worse cause they can be invisible thereby getting hide easier and thus pushing so much easier.

And the concern is a balance thing, and Larian balancing the game around the homebrew, when the homebrew should instead be balanced to the system.

If the game is based around it, it'll become a shove fest. And if it isn't but shove is unchanged, the challenge is completely removed and classes feel more like set dressing. If shove is balanced it'll actually feel like a rewarding mechanic that isn't an instant win button and a natural part of the game.

Also I have a laundry list of problems with mage hand, shove just being one in said list. I've ranted on it a lot.

Honestly the better way to look at balancing that would be to really consider the point in the game and make some of the fights more balance in line with party and some fights where you need to use the tactics like push and shove or barrels. Like both times when I did the goblin cave I simply walked all around the building and placed barrels next toe enemies till the floor was covered shot one arrow covered in fire and cleared the room. Spider burning the web makes sense to make the fighter easier other encounters that stuff should be significantly less impactful. When your at a numbers disadvantage or levels disadvantage now and then those tactics should be made usable but other times it should not be and it should be made more difficult since the druid play through the most challenging fight I found was the minotaurs which felt a little over tuned for level you end up typically fighting them at being around 3-4. The bullet running frequently was annoying the first time I encountered it in the current patch as well was annoying after my party was knocked prone when it spawned my party was lower end of hp I might I had 1 character go down I had rezed them back up bullet was about half way but felt like it could go either way cause i had not used a short or long rest and most of my abilities were used up I think i had like 4 spell slots between the characters with almost all my abilities expended so fight was pretty even paced i felt like the bullet should not have run there as well it should have tried to make me reload my save file at least even if the odds were about 20-30% it could have won the fight.

Its just about the concept they should retune some of the fights mechanically.

The bullette and the Gith are pretty easy in general the minotaurs are by far in patch 4 the hardest fight in the early access. Prior to patch 4 they were not bad you could pretty easily take them down seems like they were tuned up in patch 4 to the point of being a little over tuned. Its pretty easy for a party to get caught off guard even if fully preped for the fight at level 3 or a squishier party. Especially with 1 character having resistance to a specific damage type. Also they do tend to jump your wizard first which can make the fight a pain in the buttox.

The bullet isnt to bad if your abilities are all up and running and you dont get your whole party knocked down. It will honestly run outside that also for the person thinking of pushing / shoving that fight generally you dont encounter the bullet on high ground so pushing / shoving doesnt really work for that and if you were to use it to say a bottomless pit you would lose out on the loot off it.

I mentioned you can use a shield dwarf wizard to solo the game its been done a few times now. Because of dwarves getting proficency to use the best armor 2 handed weapons and access to a head band of intellect as early as level 3 if you are smart about it. So you can build a shield dwarf with stats like 17 14 17 8 8 10 and still be in an ok spot because at level 4 you will be at 18 14 18 18 8 10 for stats. You'll get optimum ac bonus and basically only 1 below average stat. In addition you can basically equip 2 hander for melee combat swap to an off hand to get an extra off hand attack for a bonus action then switch to weapon and shield before ending your turn to keep your armor class bonus up. They can cast divine spells by getting them all the scrolls and cast mage spells so you can magic missle and healing word on the same turn if you need to. There is also an item will let you get +1 extra missle from magic missle you can exploit for even more pew pew.

So basically you get a 17 flat ac 19 with shield equiped 21 with shield spell as a bonus action if you need it. You have access to magic missle, healing word, and misty step so you never has issues with ranged damage or healing or closing distance. you have a +5 to hit in melee + proficency bonus the extra attack doesnt matter because your level capped at 4. You dont need stealth mechanics because you have access to the darkness spell if you need it. Also you can just swap asterion in if you need to pick pocket something. Without using him for the fights. or save scum till you succeed for it. You get +4 hp on every level as well putting your around 30-34 hp range at level 4. You basically get to be a better fighter cleric mage and rogue than other classes. And you dont need a bow because you can just ray of frost targets if you need to for ranged damage. Its more exploitable than it should be if wizards didnt have access to all the divine spells as well it would be less broken but still a little over powered at low levels. Currently because of divine spells being castable its brokenly over powered.

Normally low levels wizards are fairly week till about level 5. The headband of perfect intellect and lack ability to role ability score also impacts this a lot with being over tuned. Having above average ability scores is going to make anything feel strong.

I'll have to try hiding out of sight and sending the mage hand in for shoving then. That sounds useful so thanks for that. I don't remember the Mage Hand lasting very long though. Like last time I tried that the hand disappeared after one turn because it took so long to get to the target. And it didn't even do anything to the enemy which I assumed was because it used the Strength of the caster. If that's the case then it will probably be no more useful than when my Str 10 Wizard tries to shove.

And I'm concerned about balance, too. I'd hate to see the game balanced for the edge cases and the cheese. I keep seeing stuff nerfed out of the game and arguments for more nerfing. (My Ranger still wants his Dire Spider companion back. At least I think it was a Dire Spider. It was useful and patch 4 turned it into a nearly useless, wussy wood(?) spider.) If this EA is at the base level difficulty and all the useful features are nerfed out people will turn to the cheese to get through and if that's removed then mods to change the game which only helps people who can write mods or who can find a mod that does what they want. And if people can't enjoy the game without mods they're not going to feel good about their purchase. I'd like the next patch to include difficulty levels so Larian can leave the fun stuff in for base and easier difficulties and pull out or nerf things for the harder difficulties; but I'm not holding my breath.

And I still don't understand how having an effective shove gimmick turns the game into a shove fest unless the players simply have no self control. But if they're having fun does it even matter? The important thing is that it should be possible to get through base difficulty without dying. Not easy, but possible. Having a base difficulty that requires you constantly reload and try again or which requires you know exactly what's coming isn't fun. The game should be balanced for "first contact". That first play through should be survivable and fun on the base level. Not easy and you may barely escape some fights and have to rest and try again. But I hope they don't make it like that ridiculous video game from '80s(?) which was video playback from a laser disc player driven by simple left/right/dodge/jump actions. People had to memorize the order of each action to get to the end and there always seemed to be a line of people ready to pump quarters into it. (of course I was still playing the vector games like Tac-Scan, Space Duel (one-player, two-ship mode), and Tempest so we all have our weaknesses).

and my wireless keeps glitching so I'm going back to sleep.

This sounds broken af lol

One can only hope Larian introduces the concept of "Session 0" to the game.

Be it in a minimalistic version --> LOTS of options, or in a more elaborate way --> explaining all of the HUGE amount of options in a separate tutorial. Heck, they should even ask you when starting a new game, if you want a "Session 0".

And by LOTS of options I mean:
High ground (game mechanical) advantage on/off/flat bonus
Backstabbing advantage on/off
Flanking on/off
Bonus Actions RAW/Larian style
Weapon swapping RAW/Larian style
...
and so forth

And "Session 0" should be separate of the nautiloid ship, maybe in Baldurs Gate or I'm some village or whatever.

That would make many, many people happy, I believe.

There is a reason why WotC, DndBeyond and others praise it so much.

So many people are advocating for these grossly overpowered features like Throw or Barrels. On an easy or "Larian fun" difficulty setting sure, but not on normal or higher. They are a gimmick that turns combat into a joke so they shouldn't be what the game is balanced around.

This thread was about Wizards but everyone is talking about Throw. That says it all.

It'd be really cool to have a session zero built into the game.

That was my fault for the derail. I had meant it to only be a little aside to the thread, but other folks took more of an interest than I planned.

I'm intending to continue the run and make notes along with the screenshots, etc., and when I'm ready I'll put it up in its own thread, so for the time being, I'll just ask that people let this thread get back to to original core of its discussion and leave my silly experiment on its own for now.

The issue with adding a bunch of silly things that can be exploited is that players naturally gravitate towards things that help them win in the easiest way. D&D mechanics and rules are based around attrition - you use up resources to gain some kind of benefit. Bigger benefits tend to have higher costs or chances of failure. When players can get bigger benefits for really cheap costs (through silly exploit the game stuff), it devalues the mechanics which have higher costs, and players will be less inclined to use those.

It makes the effort Larian is going through to put in all the original pen-and-paper mechanics, systems, and spells somewhat of a waste because players will be using the "silly things to exploit the game" mechanics a lot more than the pen-and-paper stuff.

Well I rolled up a Shield Dwarf Wizard with Str 17; Sex 14; Con 17; Int 8; Wis 8; Cha 10 and didn't even make it off the ship alive. Couldn't sneak up on anything by Hiding, Casting Mage Hand, making sure I was hidden, sending the hand in and *boom* it was always spotted and combat started. If it was hit once it would vanish. Certainly nothing that would help a weak Wizard survive.

To add insult to injury (Spoiler below):

So the shove/toss mechanic doesn't make up for the weakness of Wizards as far as I can tell. If I could actually sneak up on the enemy it might have been different.

What, if anything, boosts spell resistance? Maybe Mage Armour could boost Spell Resistance so that enemies couldn't so effectively use Sleep against Wizards. Gale usually hits the ground, snoozing, before he can do anything useful and too often stays asleep through the whole battle. If Wizards weren't taken out of the fight so quickly they'd probably fair better.

So I agree that Wizards are underpowered and would add that I feel a lot of the battles are overpowered in favor of the enemy.

Playing solo is still a skill check. Playing party wise it should be easy you just play the shield dwarf similar to a fighter with magic missle till you get the headband and you cant just hide you still need to make use of your spell mechanics to off set skills. Its the ability to play the class properly. Remember you can strop lazeals armor for armor bonus cause that gives you a 17 ac.

Ive done the bridge + the mid flyer // both cambions and all the imps using a 4 character party with multiplayer tuned the way i wanted it to be tuned. There are skill cap ways to do things like using the Enviroment is a way to make alot of the content easier. When your playing a solo character your going to cheese as much as you humanly can to do content. Wizard and Eldritch Knight are the only characters ive seen do a solo run thus far. Which is essentially doing the fights the same way your exploiting magic missle and armor advantage and you still use things like barrels make fights favorable via positions where you can use shove from high ground, all of those things are tools your going to need to do to solo a run but the ship you should easily be able to clear that with any class / spec / build. I could honestly probably clear it with a character with all 8's for ability scores its not that difficult to clear the ship and as any race the ship is like a free clear unless your trying to clear zariel / the mind flyer. You can kill the first set of imps with like 1 attack so. Like wise you can clear the second set in a similar fashion using Oil from barrels and arrows dipped in fire.

When your at a numbers disadvantage tactics like that make sense. There are lots of ways to advantage fights. Like skeletons in the crypt. You can move them all while they are unconcious via str 16+ character 17 is easier. to one corner with the switch res them and aoe kill them with 2 attacks. You could also do something similar using barrels with a single character. Slow time, Haste pot, push button end turn cleave jump clear throw barrel with any flammable object placed. Thats the solo way to do the fight you can also prebarrel and use a fire arrow plus cleave with the right placement of the adds and the fire. Prebarrel pop oil fire press button cleave the adds when they spawn. They will all die from fire ticks on there turn if your cleave hits all the adds.

There are plenty of ways to go outside the box for advantage. I mean you those effects are thinking outside the box that as a dm players should be rewarded for being creative. I've played more than my share of campaigns where i got creative to shut the dm down on stuff they were like theres no way you guys will survive this. Skeletons around dismember the corpses before they become a problem. Necromancer is a problem strip the graveyard at night to remove any options to animate dead bodys for the necromancer. Large number of enemies buy poison with delayed effect deliver it with free wine. There are lots of ways to get creative to even out numbers in a fight when the odds are against you having ways to do that is not something I myself am against. But it should not always be something that feels like your doing the same thing frequently I think chapter one limits that a bit as a lot of the map situations make that the best tactic.

I would home they think of alternate ways to get around that down the road. Water soaked ground is a good way to stop fire issues. Make people get creative use lighting ect instead or ice + arrows to be different.

I was just reading some 5e stuff ... and look what i have found.

Empowered Evocation
Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast.

So ... i would say that you will get what you want, it would not just be so soon.

An unwritten rule for homebrew is that if you give characters a benefit that significantly benefits one class, then other classes need to be compensated. Non-Spellcasting classes all get abilities that increase their DPS as enemies have a higher than average HP pool. Wizards have nothing to accommodate for that fact and do not benefit from monsters AC being lowered. The spell pool is a lot smaller, not including all the spells in the game, and say chromatic orb; they give that to the sorcerer? That's a wizard spell! As it's a PC game, creative freedom for spell use is highly diminished, thus further weakening what a wizard can do. If anything, wizards need some compensation if the other classes are receiving them. I'm honestly disappointed Larian is not sticking to the rules and is essentially changing this into a different game.

ehm....chromatic orb is an arcane spell available to both sorcerers and wizards in both 5e phb and in BG3, it hasn't been a wizard only spell since Ad&d. In fact, in 4e it was a sorc only attack and had some similarities with how it's portrayed in BG3.

I do agree with you that Larians constant home brewing messes up the balance between the classes but if we want them to stick to the rules, we should also be on the same page which rules those are.

I know that when you reach level 4 you get a swap option when you go to level your character. You can add 2 point to intelligence there. I do that with my characters, if I feel they need a little more strength, dexterity, wisdom., ect. I just add points there when I reach the current max level of 4.

Old thread and some things have changed (like barrelmancy). That said one thing that would improve things for all casters is if Larian 1. FIXED Range on spells to be 5e spell range (many currently are not), and 2. Fix the MOB's to be 5e accurate for AC, HP, and ability. Until they do that, casters will not have a true 5e experience in this game.

To be honest it's kind of hard to talk about balance for individual classes when the combat itself is so easily exploitable. Just look at the fiend/mindflayer fight. It should be something one gets through by the skin of their teeth, instead it's just a shoving competion that only actually gets tricky (read, impossible) when the other two fiends join the fight.

Same for the masks, same for any other hard fight. If you got issues just hide, jump all over the place 'til you get to a good position and the issues are gone.

Cmon … how many wizards you know are earth shattering at lvl 4…
Gales a staple in my party mirror image, burning hands, magic missile, acid arrow the list goes on ..they are a little more challenging but hardly an issue…

Since the Basic and Expert rules, Wizards have always been my favorite D&D class. I originally played Wizards as blaster, it took me years to evolve my playstyle. Since 3.5 Sorcerers are the best aoe blasters. And Warlocks are good single target blasters. Wizards are versatile and are best played as controllers, especially in 5e. Currently we have limited options in BG3, with only Evokers and gimped Abjurers available. Once Enchanters and Diviners are added, the Wizard's real power will become evident.

Wizards are pretty meh until they reach level 5 and gain level 3 spells at which point they pretty much delete rooms of monsters. Fireball does 8d6 on a failed dex save to everything in a 40 foot diameter so pretyy much anything with 30hp or lower is dead. Animate dead for 24 hours is pretty amazing for solo wiz/sorc/cleric also.

You know that's not going live like that without some serious mob adjustment. I do love me some fireballs though. I once, in pathfinder (irl TT) gota four round time stop and dropped 1200 damage with fireballs and delayed blast fireballs.

I can't wait for my sorc to get fireball...

LOL. I literally solo the entire act 1 with a wizard. No other class, except perhaps the sorcerer, can come closer to the power they deliver.

I've seen the game solod completely on wizard, warlock, sorc and druid now.

Wizards are fine, if a little boring to me. I prefer spontaneous spellcasters.

This is funny considering back in the days of 2nd-3rd edition, all Wizards got for cantrips were lousy 1d4 damage spells and mage hand or prestidigitation. Wizards are by far better than they used to be at low level.