Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Wizard - Abjurations school - needs improvement

I have notice a fair few issues with Wizards and specifically abjuration specialists so far:

(1) I think we do need ritual casting, One of the bonuses of being a wizard in 5e is they can cast ritual tagged spells straight from their spell book. They dont need to mermorise them.

(2) I think find familair is poorly implemented. In 5e its a permanent spell, You cast the familair its yours forever or until killed when you need to resummon. In BG 3 it vanishes when you rest. Meaning to have a familair always costs you a spell slot and 1 of you spell memorisation slots. Hardly worth it for 1 hp raven or similiar.

(3) The Abjuration specialism ability is arcane ward, In 5e rules : The ward has hit points equal to twice your wizard level + your Intelligence modifier. so with 16 int that would be 7hp at level 2, In BG 3 is has a flat 3hp at lvl 2. Nearly worthless.

(4) The arcane ward is recharged by casting abjuration spells, It recharges 2hp x the level of abjuration spell cast. In 5e the wizard can recharge it by ritually casting alarm without expending spell slots or use the sheild spell in combat to recharge it. BG doesnt have ritual casting, the alarm spell or the shield spell (the best lvl 1 abjuration spell). The only lvl 1 abjuration spell implemented is mage armour so the only way to recharge the Arcane Ward is to waste a spell slot to recast mage armour (which you probably already have up) again for a net gain of 2hp.

Wizards sacrifice alot for their abilties (no armour proficiencies, poor weapon proficiencies, no healing and lowest HP totals) and its really sticks out that they dont have them. I started a game with a cleric for comparison. They fair much better are closer to the 5e rules and much much stronger.

Lastly the game itself looks beautiful and so far it has been really exciting. Good Work Larian!

I agree with all of this..

1000% agree with these points.

I was disappointed to learn that ritual casting is not implemented. Arcane Recovery has a separate menu that pulls up. Ritual spells should have the same (only accessible out of combat).

Find Familiar is a bit strong, but if it costs a spell slot instead of being free (like Ritual spells are in 5e) it might be permissible. I would rather they scale back the power level and make Ritual casting a thing.

Hopefully, Alarm (as a Ritual) will be added to the game as well as other options to charge Arcane Ward. Mage Armor and Protection from Good and Evil are the only things that recharge the Ward that I have found so far.

I will have to experiment with find familiar more. I am not really finding it "a bit strong" yet.

everything here is true.

Plus don't forget that the strength of the abjurer lies a lot in the reaction spells, which don't exist - yet.

Beat me to it.

Ritual Spellcasting *does* exist in the game....just not where it should.

For example, if you make a Ranger you can "ritually" cast Find Familiar. Aka they just make it a Cantrip for them and not actually take 10 minutes. The fact that Rangers have ritual casting but Wizards don't is bonkers.

Oh really? I hadn't tested the Ranger just yet. I'm hoping that they have a plan for ritual spells going forward.

I agree with everything the OP says. Arcane Ward should function like it does in PnP, and we should be able to see how much HP it has remaining.




I'm guessing that this situation is temporary, because the ritual casting system isn't in place yet.

Ritual casting a spell, by the book, takes 11 minutes. I think in BG 3, it should take 60 real-time seconds.

If short resting happens instantly I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to cast ritual spells without any delay, as long as you’re out of combat.

I'm wondering if Short Resting is missing a UI, but that's a different subject. If only allowed to cast it out of combat a 12 second casting for a Ritual Spell would be fine.

The ravens get flyby (although it isn't really stated). So you can fly up (reg movement), blind the target, and use the fly command to escape. All other attacks get advantage. Really clutch.

On a side note, I just realized that what we have currently doesn't even match with what Swen said few weeks before this release.
At the time he claimed that their current plan was to treat "short rest" as something that was happening implicitly between each combat (essentially turning all the "short rest" resources in "per encounter" ones in practical terms, like PoE 2 does).

I guess they are experimenting around with ideas in this phase.

Minor correction: Wizards at level 1 also have Protection from Evil and Good, which is the single strongest abjuration spell of that level. Aside from that, full agree.

This is awesome feedback, hope they listen.