Over the past two weeks I've been giving the sorcerer a proper go. I didn't do it at the start of patch 6 cause of technical issues which are fixed for me now.
We already know the sapphire spark is overpowered.. but now it has some competition that doesn't rely on a magic item. The most powerful spell in the game right now.. is cloud of daggers.
Cloud of daggers currently deals 4d4 slashing damage in quite a large aoe - you can almost always get 3 or more enemies in it to start with, and there is NO SAVE. But what really makes this spell bonkers, is that it deals damage both when you cast it, and at the start of the turn for each enemy standing in it. Meaning it deals a guaranteed 8d4 damage on any enemy it is cast on. For comparison the overpowered sapphire spark magic missile deals 8d4+4 to a single target with a level 2 spell slot.. and I think most people already agree that's too strong.
So how do we fix cloud of daggers? Well the biggest issue is that it deals damage twice before the enemy can react to it. As per the 5e rule on the spell, the enemy should take damage "when they enterthe spells area for the first time on a turn, or start their turn there." As per a sage advicearticle, casting the spell does not count as them entering the spells area, but Larian seems to have interpreted it that way.
Here is a link to the sage advice article on the topic:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-april-2016 the specific question and answer here relates to moonbeam but they also list off other spells with similar wording including cloud of daggers.
"does moving it into a creature’s space count as the creature entering the area? Our design intent for such spells is this: a creature enters the area of effect when the creature passes into it. Creating the area of effect on the creature or moving it onto the creature doesn’t count. If the creature is still in the area at the start of its turn, it is subjected to the area’s effect."
And yes moonbeam is the second spell I take issue with, because it has the same double dipping on damage built in in bg3. Though it is not as powerful s cloud of daggers because there is a save for half damage, and because it has a MUCH smaller aoe - much smaller than in 5e while cloud of daggers has a much larger aoe than in 5e. Moonbeam would be much more satisfying with a large aoe in my opinion, so if the reduction in its aoe was a balancing factor, consider fixing the double dipping on damage instead and then boosting the aoe back to 5ft radius, not 2.5ft radius or whatever it is right now.
The other issue with moonbeam is that you can't move it while in wildshape. The wildshape rules specifically state that you can use actions grantedto you by spells that you are cocnentrating on while in wildshape, so I should be able to spend an action to move a moonbeam while wildshaped. Perhaps this was removed to try to balance moon druid since they could just use their wildshapes to make them very tanky while also dealing lots of damagewith spells this way? But this has always been a thing in 5e, and while I agree moon druids are broken in 5e.. I think the fact the wildshape options forthem have been heavily nerfed in this game makes up for that already.
Okay when I said spell timing I wasn't just talking about damagetiming.. but save timing is important too.. many crowd control spells in bg3 that should allow the enemy a save at the end of their turn, or give them the option to attempt a strength check to break free instead give the creature a save at the start of theirturn. That means you can cast entangle on someone for example, and if they make a save, they're fine.. if they fail their save, then it comes to their turn and they get a SECOND save to attempt to break free, before their actual turn.. so they need to fail two saves in a row for the crowd control to actually be effective against them. Hold person was the biggest culprit for this that I knew about a while ago though I haven't tested in a while so it may have been fixed.. but I do know that entangle and ensaring strike both have this issue. Both of these spells should require an action and a successful strength check to break free, but instead the ensared/entangled creature gets a free saving throw at the satrt of their turn to break free.. this heavily nerfs these spells which are just okay spells in 5e anyway and don't need nerfing.
Other spell issues: One that I saw mentioned on reddit which I tried out recently is that twinning a spell can allow you to hit the same creature twice at the moment if you target the ground behind them with the second ray. This is incredibly strong in certain situations and definitely feels like an exploit.
Mirror image.. I've griped about it before but it was my favourite spell in 5e and it's just sad in bg3.. while it does still protect you from some attacks it often feels wasted. If an enemy rolls a natural 1 (or any number that wouldn't have hit you anyway) you lose an image without having gained anything from it. And it doesn't have any chance of protecting you from crits anymore.. so the most damaging enemy attacks aren't negated at all.
