Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Summoning Improvements

Sorry if this has been already discussed a lot.

Summoning is by far my favorite kind of magic in any fantasy game. The ability to bring forth powerful creatures to aid and fight for you is something I just can not resist, and while the later summoning options are not present yet in EA I do think the current options could be improved so I wanted to list ideas to help make Conjuration/Summoning feel better:

- Mage Hand and Find Familiar: I have noticed while playing that if I cast one, the other is cancelled out. While it could be a little on the powerful side to have more than one creature on the player's end, I think it would also feel better and reflect the strength/adaptability of summons. For example, if I want to use Mage Hand on my Arcane Trickster but I have a raven summoned, it feels like I am wasting the raven by using the mage hand. I would thus change it that Mage Hand and Familiars would not take up the same "slot" but instead would have their own slot. This would also extend to later for if other summoning magicks are added, so the slots could be Familiar, Hand, and Summon. Alternatively, Mage Hand and Combat Summons could occupy the same slot while familiars could be their own.

- Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand: Even if it reflects 5e I have felt like the Arcane's Trickster's Mage Hand should do more in the context of Baldur's Gate 3. While using it, I have had thoughts that it could be a lot better if it could pickpocket, take grenades out of my inventory to throw, or interact with other things like throw the sylvanus statue. I realize this could be a sizeable buff but it would also make it more distinct from the normal mage hand beyond being invisible.

- Shovel: I think Shovel should actually be made more permanent. Either being a new familiar that the reader of the scroll can summon once a day, or something more along the lines of a bound companion. I realize Quasits are very evil and do not like being controlled but that could be part of the character and the risks of commanding a demon, and he could continue to be a unique perspective on the world as well as a unique reward for exploration.

- Bitter Divorce: I think as it is this Wand is a little too strong, but I absolutely love being able to walk around with a zombie army that I summon. I would suggest some way to balance it while allowing us to still have multiple zombies, maybe the first (Connor) in combat being free but the rest (Generic Zombie) requiring a human corpse. And so it does not step on the toes of necromancy if it gets substantially added, the zombies could be scaled back a little in power. Alternatively, Connor could be made more permanent so that he does not fade out and limit it that you can only use it while he is not summoned, making it that multiple zombies is for Necromancers.

- Pact of the Chain: From what I have noticed, a few of the normal options for pact of the chain are missing, like the Pseudodragon. Adding these would make it feel more complete and would give warlocks even more options as prospective summoners.

- Find Familiar: Similarly, if Larian adds more very low level beasts I think Find Familiar should expand to include those, more options for players feels satisfying as long as they don't break anything, and it could allow for more distinctive roleplaying for some players to allow them to have more concepts complete, like an illusionist mage with a bunny familiar.

Err, I'd like to hear other people's ideas. Like if they think that everything is fine as it is, or if they have other suggestions for improving Conjuration/Summoning?

I like all these suggestions. Not sure if it's implemented in game but 5e allows familiars to cast their master's spells that have a range of 'touch'. So that by conjuring a servant you can basically increase the range of touch spells without risking melee attacks on you character. I think it would be cool if mage hand did the same thing, even though that's not in the 5e ruleset.

I forgot about that and I haven't noticed it in BG3, having familiars regain that would be very awesome and would make them feel so much more useful. It would even help justify a cleric using a feat to get it so that they can cast cure wounds at a range. And giving mage hand that capacity could be cool but as a cantrip it might be unlikely.

I kinda want to Necromancy this topic in lieu of the new update.

In particular they fixed the issue with bitter divorce and added some new spells.
But I am curious before doing any testing, does Flaming Sphere have any unintentional interaction with Find Familiar like how Mage Hand did so, since Mage Hand and Find familiar dismiss eachother?

Also new thought after more playing:

Familiars should not have their own turn, and neither should mage hand. Because of their low level nature, they are supposed to use the summoner's actions to attack, making them more balanced. As they are right now they bloat out the turn order and action economy. Furthermore, Mage Hand being summoned in combat had an issue for me where its turn didn't happen because it entered late which then made the spell a useless action.

Lastly, I would love to see eventually them add summoning and conjuration spells from other editions so that I can play a summoning warlock or wizard.

Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand is nerfed.

• Arcane Tricksters don't get it automatically. They are supposed to.
• It can't pickpocket, carry an object, or disarm like it is supposed to.

The first is maybe a concession to the problems of the second (allows swapping out for a useful spell), but it massively lowers the utility of the Arcane Trickster.

Oh yeah, Arcane Trickster is really really gimped:

- They can fail to actually have mage hand. Being able to pick is flexible but the ability to pick should only pop up if the character already had mage hand.

- They can't have a familiar cause mage hand will constantly dismiss it.

- It is only invisible rn, it is supposed to do a lot more. Mage hand in general is supposed to do more like pick up stuff and carry it to the caster or remove dangerous items, but Mage Hand for arcane tricksters is supposed to do so much more as the subclass is designed around this super Mage Hand that can pick pockets and disarm traps while remaining invisible.

- In combat it is a bit weird to use and while the Hands buff to be able to shove can be strong, generally I have found it better to just shoot an arrow, when it should have a use like pickpocketing an enemy's potions so that they can't heal.