Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Magic Items In Early Access

So Been Playing The Early Access Since its gone Live And in my Opinion There are Hardly Any Magic Items, Armor, Loot ect. Larian PLEASE add More Stuff to find !!!!! I understand its First Act early Access But More Loot has to be Added to the Game,
Or Have a toggle Button To Increase Magic/Loot find.

Thanks

One thing that bothers me about armor is the way only two of the companions have better than light armor proficiency. And one of those is already wearing the best armor in the game at the start.

So there's not a lot of upgrade potential when it comes to armor. Get the Scale Mail +1 (and drow armor for the light proficiency) and call it a day.

There's not a lot of point to the other armors, like The Oak Father's Embrace medium armor. The AC isn't high enough to make it worthwhile. It doesn't compete with the Scale Mail, not to mention the downside of taking extra damage from beasts. (Which I think is nicely balanced with the undead benefit, but not at the AC loss in comparison to Scale Mail.)

In addition to what I was saying about the armor above, I also have an issue with the spears. These are strength weapons. The only companion with a strength higher than 10 is Lae'zel. So the spears aren't useful for the companion characters.

They're also two handed weapons. So now it needs to be used by someone with a reasonably high strength who doesn't dual wield or use a shield. And that someone also has to want to use a spear over other two handed weapons that do more damage. Ultimately, it's not likely that the spear is going to be appropriate for many players.

Nevertheless, there are two great magic spears in the game. In my party, spears go unused, and I hardly want to sell them because I don't feel like the sale price is high enough.

Anyway. I'm not saying those spears should go away. I guess I'm just barking at the moon here.

What's the point of magic items if they are everywhere? They need to a be a little rare to be fun to find, IMO.

The original Baldur's Gate made it special to even get your hands on a +1 sword before reaching the city and looting one was much more rewarding than just buying one at Feldepost's inn.

With BG3, the characters are low level, hanging out in the middle of nowhere after a crash, and they can already get their hands on dozens of magic items, including multiple instances of many weapon types. It's almost too much already if you ask me.

I hate to admit it, but I do agree.

Making magic items a lot more rare would increase the perceived value.

Well said Maze.

I'd argue that they should add more variety with armor designs and color variants without too much stat boosting before we reach Act 2.


You said it perfectly.
Warped Headband of Intellect is the perfect example of being too much for early access.

Absolutely agree with Maze. For flavour, having more variants of the same stuff (like goblin X etc.) would be nice, but the game definitely doesn't need MORE magic items per area...

I think you guys haven't played the original BG1 in a while. You can get a diamond worth 800 gold, a ring of protection and a ring that doubles your first level mage spells before you have any real fights. A commoner in Beregost gives you a ring of protection for delivering a letter. You can steal a powerful wand of lightning in Beregost. You can get a +1 greatsword off an easy to beat half ogre just southeast of there. A +2 longsword (plus 1 cold damage) off a bounty hunter, a shortsword +2 off a bunch of hobgoblins and Thunderhammer smithy and Feldpost's sells a bunch of them .Ffs you find a plate of ankeg mail sitting around in a field in Nashkel! Not to mention a wizard in High Hedge. This is just the early levels. The wilderness is CRAWLING with magic.

This is Forgotten Realms, there's magic everywhere. I think they've got the magic items just right. If you're not going around stealing from everyone, it will take you time to kit out your party, just as it should.


oops also forgot the +2 warhammer with lightning damage off an easy to beat cleric beside Beregost!

There are too many magic items in BG3. Most merchants have multiple magic items in their wares, even if it makes no sense. The tieflings are both refugees and fighting for their lives against goblins? Why in the world does the blacksmith:
a) have magic items, given that he's a refugee?
b) has not given them out to help defend the gate??
Merchants should have 1, maybe 2 magic items max.

The amount of magic items you find while exploring the world is fine, although I'd be fine with less.

In other news:
the armors present in the game are off. I think Larian has the idea that heavy armors are later game items, while all lighter armors are early game items. This is NOT true in 5e.
All characters should start with the low-mid tier armor in the category they are proficient with (leather armor, chain shirt, and chain mail).
Then all characters should, at roughly the same time (levels ~2-3), find an upgrade in their tier (studded leather, breastplate, and splint)
Then all characters should, again at roughly the same time (levels 4-6), find another upgrade in their tier (studded leather+1, half plate, full plate)
And continuing on, except now they find more and more magic armors.

I agree with Maze comment. I just want to chip in my opinion on the headband of intellect here... It *looks* awesome the first time you find it, but its use case is really quite limited. A wizard is going to be pushing int anyway, so the headband just gives it to them a level early (if you get it at 3). After the wizard reaches 18 naturally through ASI the headband goes in the trash (or to another character as a buff to int skills, which is hardly broken).

It might get more mileage on an EK, but even there once you hit level 5 you will do more damage just attacking. Its a buff, but I do not think it is enough of a buff right now to overcome the advantage of the battlemaster over the EK.

In other words... the only time it is useful at all is at low levels, and that is exactly when we get it.

If they add the attunement mechanic from 5E then it will get discarded by even the EK as soon as they find three attunements that are better.

I am plenty willing to criticize Larian's approach to BG3 (and have done so in other threads) but I think that the intellect headband is very well placed, and should not be removed, or placed later in game. (In DMG it is listed as an "uncommon item" which means that it can show up in treasures appropriate for 1rst level or higher).

I think you haven't played BG3 in a while.

You can get tons of magic items and tens of thousands of gold (approx 85k by level 4/end EA) in reality for free courtesy of pickpocketing without limitation or risk (when you know the technique and/or can savescum). You have access to a large amount of powerful exploding barrels. Every player can shove huge creatures to their deaths, roll twice on attacks due to guaranteed advantage, dip weapons for +1-4 damage, etc, etc.

Staff of Arcane Blessing is +1-4 attack/save and +2-8 spell attack roll. Something akin to a +5 weapon obtainable at level 2? Seems "balanced" in a way The Spiffing Brit would use the word.

Shattered Flail +2 heals wielder 1-6 hp each time you cause damage. If used in combination with another overpowered item Sapphire Spark that nearly doubles Magic Missile damage, you get healed for each missile. Brokenly OP, especially considering a Magic Missile-build is one of the top burst damage-dealers in 5e even without magic items doubling damage.

Warped Headband of Intellect sets intelligence to 18 and allows quick meta-gaming builds where intelligence can be made a dump stat.

Also, we are comparing level 4 magic item progress in BG3 vs level 8-10 in BG1.

INT as a dump stat is a trap build that will only pay dividends in early access while we are unable to level past 4. A "stupid" wizard with headband and a greatsword will be weak next to a fighter at level 5 when the fighter gets double attack and the wizard doesn't. The stupid wizard will also not be able to reach 20 int, so they will fall behind the power curve for any spell that allows a save.

Its an uncommon item in 5E Dungeon Masters Guide, which means that the authors feel that it is appropriate loot for characters level 1 and up.

Hidden items you only know about because you've played the game a hundred times or read about them on forums or in walkthroughs don't count, man.

You don't see anyone mentioning the Secret Sword as proof of there being too many magic items in BG3.

It is an uncommon item that is GUARANTEED at a very early stage, and that makes the item a lot more versatile and powerful as builds can be made around it - when this clearly isn't the case in 5e. Intelligence 9 instead of 16 equals +9 points to allocate. How much is that +1 extra intelligence modifier worth in BG3? Is it worth +9 points and two feats...for possibly 3 levels of gameplay (20 int obtainable at level 8 at earliest in a game that might max out at level 10)? Suddenly your "stupid wizard" looks very smart indeed.

Also, we're not only talking about "stupid wizards" here. Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters are two subclasses that also stand to benefit significantly. This becomes less of an issue if Larian lets us roll characters like in the original series (which I hope they do).

Secret Sword?

What secret sword?

Can someone please expand on this? Where is there a secret sword?

It must be very secret, since I haven't found any swords that are particularly exciting through numerous playthroughs.

There are some items you might not notice if you always take the same path through the game, but that is not the same as "secret".

There are too many pointless magic items in BG3. Honestly there's so much that just isn't worth using. Part of that might be a combinatiob of the classes Ive played so far, 5e, and Larian homebrew; Ive not played enough to really know yet.

But so far my best armour option as a Rogue is to take off my armour and use a Mage Armour scroll of which I can get 3 before reaching the Grove. And that is equivalent to the best light armour AC in all of EA. As a Ranger, just knick Lae'zel's set in the tutorial and you have the best available. Both of those are acquired in the first 10 minutes of the game, with 20-25hrs to go of ZERO armour progression unless you deliberately make yourself less effective in combat.

Weapons feel the same to me, though I concede that could be because my characters have all been DEX based and good Finesse weapons are rarer than Strength ones. But overall I agree the party upgrade experience is lacking for me so far.

Pretty much every item he listed you can get by level 3...

It's a videogame. Of course you can grind, savescum, and exploit the lack of sensible AI behaviour if that's the way you want to play the game.

In numerous EA playthroughs, I've never used dip, only experimented with barrels and shove, not used poison, and actively used movement to height only to get in melee range. If you are not good at DnD combat, using these options might help you, but there isn't really any need to use them.

As for the magic items ( the actual topic of the thread ), while they are numerous, few are particularly worthwhile.

Of the ones you list, the Shattered Flail implementation is completely broken in EA, and would not be particularly OP if correctly implemented as described. The Staff of Arcane Blessing and Sapphire Spark are ambiguously described, so it is less certain what their intended effects actually are, but I think they are both also broken EA implementations, which should be flagged as bugs.

The Warped Headband of Intellect is a hand-placed plot item central to part of the story, which you only get by role-playing specific paths. It's of marginal use; there is always someone in the party who can benfit from better skill roles. If you choose on subsequent playthroughs to deliberately build your character around it, that is your choice; play the game the way you want to.