Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Latest gameplay video, spell casting rules

Hello Larian and people from this community, first of all, I'd like to thank you so much for taking on this big project with a lot of expectation. And bringing that game we all loved back to life, you guys are amazing.

The reason I'm making this topic is because on the last gameplay video you uploaded, here :
https://youtu.be/XSc17QXxfyU

We see a lot of cool stuff which makes me wanna play it sooooo bad. But that's out of the subject. in the video, we can see that your cleric is using guiding bolt as an action, and than uses healing word as a bonus action.
There is a rules that a lot of people don't know about but it's quite important for the balance of the game as well as, logic, kind of, as well.

Under the spell casting rules in the player handbook, this is written, I quote :
"Bonus Action
A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action."

If you use a full on spell (so not a cantrip) as a bonus action, you actually never have the time to do another spell for an action. Meaning guinding bolt healing word are not okay, while healing word and sacred flames is !


It might sound like I'm bitching for nothing important but if you take classes like sorcerer into account that could quicken a spell for example, you can come in those situation where a sorcerer just cast two fireball in a single turn, making the game very unbalanced IMO.

If it's too hard to put in the game; I understand obviously but I at least wanted to let you know about this rules.

Thank you for reading ! Can't wait to play the game, much love ♥

I could not find the moment in the video (over an hour long) : you can have a timestamp in the URL when you share a Youtube video.

It is an important rule in the game. You can only combine a Cantrip and a Spell in one given character's turn.
( Nuance : a spell as a Reaction, so "out of turn", can still be done. )

https://youtu.be/XSc17QXxfyU?t=1837

There you go, this is when he uses guiding bolt, than later on (but during the same turn) he uses healing word.

Those two character had the same initiative so they can like play during the same turn (which is a cool addition, I think)

Also, you can use a reaction during your turn :> it doesnt have to be out of turn but yes, reaction is a different thing than the bonus and normal action.

+1

That's a great catch!


In 5E the rules for casting two spells in the same round are exactly as you've stated: the second spell must be a cantrip.

That rule is especially important with Sorcerers.


In 5E Sorcerers have metamagic which allows them to quicken a 1 action spell and cast it as a bonus action at the cost of 2 sorcery points.
If the second spell as a cantrip rule isn't enforced a player could conceivably cast a fireball and then quicken a fireball and cast it as a bonus action in the same round.

That could potentially unbalance sorcerers and give them more nova potential then any other class.



(This of course assuming that metamagic is being implemented.)

There's no way they are not aware of this already. They are literally working with WotC, right? This and the other obvious deviations from the rules (weird reaction system, potions as bonus actions for example) must be deliberate. Frankly, the BG games let characters attack and cast spells in the same turn, so this wouldn't be the first time a DnD game bulldozes over the action economy of the PnP game. And honestly, that completely unbalanced bastardization of the rules (cast 'n attack) is one of the most enjoyable things about the BG games - it led to the godlike fighter/mage builds.

Some other subtle things like ladders costing no movement are probably just works in progress.

I'm concerned about things like the player seeing the enemies' exact current and max health and their exact hit chance, which is a deviation from the "information economy" of the PnP game. The HP values might just be a WIP thing as well - it would be trivial to adjust the HP labels to only show "badly injured" etc.

The original BG was a 2e game with 60 second rounds, in which you could accomplish quite a bit. This game is 5e with 6 second turns, in which you would not expect to do much.

It does look as if Larian feel that absolutely accurate action economy translation makes for a poor videogame. Not being a PnP player, this doesn't offend me, so long as it works.

The original BG2 use AD&D rules, where a round is 6 seconds, same as always (A turn is 60 seconds) and you only have one movement, one action in the same round.

"The number of actions a character can accomplish in one round, i.e, in six seconds of real time, is limited. Some actions can only be performed once per round. These actions are: casting a spell, using a quick item such as a potion or a scroll, using an ability from an equipped item such as the Cloak of the Sewers' polymorph, or using an innate ability like the Kensai's Kai or a Spell Trigger. In any given round, it is only possible to use one action taken from all categories combined. It should be noted that the wizard spell Improved Alacrity lifts this restriction for spells and innate abilities, which can then be used at will"
AD&D

D&D5e uses a 6-second round system where a creature has one movement action, one standard action, one bonus action and one reaction action in the enemy´s turn on the same round. You have the same number of actions per round in the videogame.

D&D5e

2e rounds were indeed 60 seconds, but you could still only take one action per round. You could not make attacks and also cast a spell. BG rounds were 6 seconds, at least in player-perceived time, but they just built separate "ability rounds" and "attack rounds" that could overlap letting you attack and also cast spells in the same round.

Oh, I checked and you´re right. You can combine fast-weapon attacks with quick spells in the same round in the BG2 videogame, indeed.

I have to point out that you can also combine spells with casting time of one bonus action (Like shield of faith, holy word, etc) and an attack/cantrip/action in the same round too in 5e.

In BG you had spells with a casting time of one round and quick spells, and classes that could attack several times per round. That would be the same in both games because in 5e you also have those.

But bg3 uses the reaction system so you also have one action more in the enemy´s turn.

I am not 100% sure, but I think in BG1+2 you could only cast one spell per round and a round was 6 seconds. There was no quicken spell or other meta magic.
In ToB you could become a magic machine gun with improved alancrity+robe of vecna, but it is so powerful because this ability is the only thing that breaks the one spell per round rule.
Of course there were spell triggers and contigencies, but then you had to cast the spell when creating the trigger.

I have played vanilla BG, not EE and no mods.

I have never played 5E, so I did not know that you cannot cast 2 spells in one round (action+bonus action)

AD&D 2e ( the last time I played PnP ) was a more loosely defined experience in many ways, and much was left up to the DM to decide how things flowed best in any situation.

Turns were approximately 10 minutes, used while travelling, searching and other out of combat activities. Combat used approximately 1 minute rounds, during which you could do only one activity. So you could attack with a weapon ( or grapple, wrestle, overbear, punch etc ), OR cast a spell, OR bind wounds, OR drink a potion etc.

Activities like attacking were assumed to include movement ( up to half movement points ) plus maneuvering/feinting etc, not just a single blow. Some high level characters could roll for hit 4 or 5 hits in a single round.

Activities like casting a spell, or drinking a potion were assumed to involve retrieving items from wherever they were on your body and preparing them, while under combat stress.

Basic initiative for turn order was rolling a die for each side with modifiers for surprise etc. Tied initiative was ALLOWED, meaning 2 combatants could kill each other. There were advanced initiative rules that were optional, for which the combat round was divided into 10 segments of 6 seconds each. Both spells and weapons had a number from 0-9 associated with them ( which indicated how long the spell took to cast, or how slow the weapon was ) which indicated the segment in which the spell fired or the weapon first hit.

In real PnP play, the DM would probably allow more to occur in a round than this, because pulling a potion from your belt pouch and drinking it is probably NOT a 60 second action. One common optional rule was to allow more than one spell if their combined casting time ( in segments ) was less than 10.

Because the rules of 2e were a lot looser than later editions ( and ultimately up to the DM's discretion ), it was easy for the developers of BG1/2 to build a system that suited them.

The 60-second round made up of 10 x 6-second segments, has since changed into the 6 second combat rounds familiar from 5e. It is interesting to note in the BG3 gameplay, just how much a character can do - move, cast a spell, drink a potion and remove your boots to throw at/to someone, all in 6 seconds. Impressive!