Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback AoE spells that should not be AoE

The decision to make spells with more than one target area of effect spells with a limited area and agency over who to buff/disable instead of just clicking some targets is more than questionable to me.

I don't want to bring my wizard or warlock next to the dangerous melee fight just to get Bless on all of them. Or even worse, someone in my party has a summoned familiar other characters fighting with me somewhere in between and I can only waste one of the bless buffs on them. It might have to do with the current difficulty tuning of enemies, but when deciding between a buff/control spell or just blasting an enemy with damage, I almost always choose the latter because I get the result I expected. Please let me choose my targets for buffs. I can choose with scorching ray or similar damaging spells afterall.

To dispel the doubts that it might slow down combat or make it less enjoyable to simply click your intended targets:
It is faster to click your targets than to find the exact spot where your targets are closest to the center or barely still in the radius while less critical allies or enemies are not.
In quick and easy fights, these spells usually do not come into play anyway.
In difficult fights, right now it is frustrating to make tiny mistakes in positioning and then realize you can't cast at the targets you want to or even worse - be at the mercy of any npc movement.

At the relatively low levels of the Early Access it is very apparent with Bless, but I can imagine it only gets worse on higher levels when it's possible to upcast something like Hold Person to target several dangerous enemies or twin some high level spell only to be restricted by some tiny circle. I want to figure out challenging and interesting encounters, not run away until I funneled my enemies around enough corners to finally be able to cast the spells I need to win difficult battles.

Yeah, the multi-targeting with spells, those without attack rolls, has been discussed a number of times. It makes those spells, and Twinned Meta-Magic, much less useful. But, it's been this way for two and a half years, so I fear we may be stuck with it. Given the nerfing of most spells, either directly or indirectly, it may be a feature for all I know.

"Its been like this for two and a half years."

That sums up BG3 EA for so much stuff lol.

The last time I reported the issue with multi-target buffing spells not permitting you to pick your targets correctly, I was informed that this is working as intended, and that the design choice to make your buffing (and debuffing and control - since I was reporting both this and also twin-casting hold person as well) woefully ineffective and fiddly to use like this was deliberate.

I attempted to reiterate that this design choice was simply not acceptable on any level, but I'd strongly encourage anyone and everyone else to continue doing the same thought official channels as much as you have the stamina to do.

Ugh, that’s disappointing. I agree with you, the OP and everyone else who has said that these spells would be better individually targeted and it’s really annoying having to try to position characters and/or the cursor so as to try to affect who I want.

There are things like that, that really confuse me about Larian. How can they use bless and not find it incredibly tedious and frustrating?

The cynic in me says: "Because they've decided that buffing and debuffing is boring, and they don't want people to do it, because they don't want to do it themselves. They want people to focus on big flashy things, because that forward advertises better."

I hope they've changed their mind since your reporting, but I doubt it. And stuff like this really does make me think that Larian aren't actually all that great at game design. They just happened to find an unfilled niche making rpgs that cater to a desire for dumb, hectic, inconsistent chaos.

I honestly can't think of any other explanation. My first thought was: "maybe they have some silly rules about amount of mouse clicks per skill use" but:
1) their UI is very inefficient to begin with, so it can't be a priority
2) offensive skills targetting multiple characters, like Magic Missle or Scorching Ray work normally, so there is clearly double standards.

And there is of course, wider tendency to change tactical utility skills, such as push, into lethal offensive attacks.

One of my most present memories of the game is one fight where I tried desperately for some minutes to get Bless on my four chars and not the imp who was near, it was in vain. Maybe Larian thinks that such strong emotional moments in the end do count more than boring functional mechanics? They know better than us.

A mechanic for choosing targets is totally relevant and functional in this game.

Buff/debuff spells are essential in any RPG, and I'm not sure if this will be fixed upon release...

In my understanding, these spells are working this way because of the overpower they can cause within the game, so a certain difficulty was created to cast them in order to balance these abilities.

However, the buffs that enemies use seem to be well-directed...

BG3 DM likes to make hard times to his players...

I doubt it. First of all, concentration based spells in BG3 are already difficult to hold on to, due to the multitude of sources of guaranteed damage. For example, if I try to cast bless or bane when fighting goblins they will start chalking unavoidable granade and more likely than not will get the spell cancelled before I get any value out of it.

Also it is still very possible to target all the characters you want - the AoE previews selected targets, so it is just a matter of being patient and wiggling it around, until AI picks units you want. It does what you want it to do, just in a very inefficient and frustrating way.

I suspect it's some combination of reducing the power of the spell, making it a single click to cast, and more of a tactical decision.

Compared to Solasta, I cast Guiding bolt/Command/Inflict wounds more often and Bless less often, but when I see a good party grouping early in a fight, I strongly consider it.

The fact it's a concentration spell already makes it a tactical decision. You have to worry about concentration being broken (which is easier in this game than in tabletop due to various homebrew Larian changes) and you have to choose between having it and having a different concentration spell. They've just made Bless more situational to the point where its potential use cases make it pretty pointless and tedious to use. And the single click to cast is a dumb idea because you're probably wasting way more time trying to make it hit all the targets you want it to, as opposed to speedily just clicking who you want. Also, they let you click for damage spells, so clearly reducing clicks isn't all that much of a concern for them. Also if your good party grouping involves a familiar, enjoy the tedious time spent positioning it so you don't waste it on a familiar instead of one of your party.

Depressingly plausible.

Seriously? Bless as written is a no-brainer. There’s nothing tactical about casting a first level spell that increases the DPR of the party’s best hitters. If round one strikes all hit against moderate encounters, you end up saving spell slots. In Solasta it was a foregone click tax.

And lots more game elements need second click removed, dash and action surge spring to mind.

And familiars? By level 5 I’m only situationally summoning them, they’re simply less valuable.

Sure, Bless is very strong RAW, but making using it unwieldy/awkward to use shouldn't be the fix. After all, as others have mentioned, it's still possible to effectively select targets; it's just annoying to do so.

Better fixes would be to maybe reduce the bonus, restrict it to only proc 1x/turn or round, and/or affect fewer targets. Although actually, Bless is already nerfed in BG3 due to the ease of losing concentration, so the inability to also choose specific targets makes it way too weak.

But that's not a reason to make it sometimes impossible and often a bit difficult to hit your chars with Bless and not the summoned minion.

And btw, I also disagree, some familiars are very useful also at lvl 5. I always summon Wyll's imp f.e., it's high mobility makes it very easy to considerably diminish the effectiveness of enemy ranged and casters, and it's also some additional damage. Not to speak of the animal companions of the Beastmaster Ranger, they rank from useful/very strong to absolutely overpowered at lvl 5. So the party can easily consist of 5 or 6 (or even 7 if the Ranger also summons the normal familiar).

Ha ha, ever since 2014 we have known that bless is straight out OP, but that’s OK because it’s an iconic cleric action, just like wizards fireballing.

In TT because you say aloud who gets it. But in CRPGs you have to click, I’m sorry but I actually get sore arm playing 2 hours. Gym fixes it but I'm no friend of extra clicks. I toggle off reactions for paladins too (and seldom run out of smites, I find the game very easy now.)

I enjoyed Solasta, but the excess clicking was tedious.

For me, it’s fine as is. Sure the wrong person gets the buff sometimes but that just means you should consider guiding bolt or command instead - or do it anyway, it’s still strong affecting 2.

(Edit) I’d also be fine if they did it like Aid, everyone gets the bonus. OP but hey, SH is always running out of spells, so no biggie.

I don’t have any problem with beastmaster animal companion, they’re supposed to be level appropriate all the way up to 20. But blessing them shouldn’t upset you because of this - they’re part of your DPR. Buffing them is good!

However, come on about familiars. It’s a level 1 spell. Yes, they’re cool at tier 1 and remain useful at tier 2+ especially exploring, but I simply can’t be bothered with them in half the fights in EA once level 5. The party DPR has jumped so much they’re often an irrelevant waste of a click.

Bless though still retains its power, more so with extra attacks. Ditch the familiar, or have it space out its turn, bless the tanks and finish the fight round 3.

Ahh yes this has been brought up a few times, by me too, and yup... still the same weirdness going on. Spells like magic missile or scorching ray clearly let's us select multiple targets, bless should obviously work the same way.

I tried to fix bless selection through modding.

It work, partially.
You can individually select your targets but do not have the "1/3" "2/3" "3/3" (like with magic missile or scortching ray) when you select them, which may be confusing.
You also have to do an extra click when everyone is selected to cast IIRC. On top of that I still haven't played a lot with my mod so I don't know how the AI would react to those changes.

I guess it shouldn't be a hard work to fix this for experienced devs... but according to the answer they gave Niara, it just seems to be another wierd design choice.

+1

-1

Larian, please hold fast and don't implement the boring click-a-thon 'I win' Bless spell. The game is already easy-as.

Maybe the game seems easy because of years of replaying the same section over and over? Or you're just good at these games, because I still find the game plenty challenging. You can just turn up the difficulty when we get that option. Is clicking really that much of an issue? I've never been playing a game and thought 'gee, if only I had to click less'. Is that actually a thing people are concerned about? This forum is the only place I've ever seen it brought up as a concern. I genuinely don't believe that there's any reason behind this choice other than Larian wanting combat to be all about offense. That's a throughline that extends to most every alteration to the rules that can't be traced to technical limitations.

Sounds like you need a better set up. Make sure the table is at a comfortable angle (your arms should be bend at 90 degrees). I got wrist support for both keyboard and mouse, and now I can game for hours. Well, actually I could use a better chair for my back

EDIT. Uuuu BG3 emojis

but, it won't get any easier with better bless. It will just be less tedious.

And again, I don't know what game you are playing, but I never can get much milage out of concentration spells - I mostly forgone using them entirely. Unless I hide the caster, AI seems to target them with unavoidable damange. +AC is worth nothing, against 20+ damage unavoidable granades.

edit. I also remember specifically Larian rep saying how players don't use Bless and they think of ways of making it more fun. Here is a free tip - don't make it such a pain in the butt to use.

I might have driven the topic a bit too much towards Bless in particular. I think I would not mind too much for just Bless and Bane to stay the way they are now. I just highlighted the spells because everyone instantly knows what I am talking about mechanically.

My main concern lies with higher level spells. They are a much more limited resource even at high levels and should feel meaningful in the situation they are meant for. For Example when I upcast Hold Monster, I do it because I think there is more than one dangerous enemy, so I want to reduce the threat. I will never use a 6th level spell slot for that if it means taking out a strong fighter and their little goblin friend. Or when I spend several sorcery points and the spell slot to twin Greater Invisibility, I might want it to hit the rogue standing behind the enemy and the sorcerer themselves far in the back, not the paladin or barbarian meant to protect the party.

I also do not want it to turn into whatever the Pathfinder games made us do before every battle. The difficulty was crisp and it was sometimes necessary to use all resources available to beat a difficult set of enemies. To load a save game before the whole section, then prepare with buffs while my party stands in a clump, go into the scenario again, and then start that "surprise" fight just to get the necessary value out of spells was not too fun honestly. Fortunately WotC largely fixed that issue with the concentration rules. There should be no need to huddle together to exchange buffs before fights, which is what I sometimes did in BG3 to make Bless and Aid work. Going into combat after a surprising turn of events in a conversation or simply being ambushed should be part of the game after all.

I also played DoS2 and from what I experienced during the Early Access of BG3, I assume Larian's combat encounter design once again heavily relies on access and positioning of enemies. Limiting disabling spells like these therefore makes it so much easier to ramp up the difficulty. For former game, there was a completely standalone set of abilities, items and rules in place, making the whole game the masterpiece it is. However in BG3 it rips apart a somewhat different system designed by WotC.

I obviously did not have the chance to playtest higher level fights, but I fear that with that rip, magic almost literally loses its magic. Martial classes are already looking to be overall superior to spell casters just because they deal more damage. However, I do not expect or even want them to be equally strong damage dealers. I want them in the party for their versatility. So by taking away this versatility, they either become obsolete in the worst case, or in the case of balancing damage through items or changing damage spells, they just become martial classes with differently colored attacks. At least that is what they feel like at times.





The game being too easy in the EA mostly comes down to number tweaking and is a completely different issue. I trust Larian to handle that properly without much external feedback. For example adding difficulty levels for different kinds of players is a proven fix.

Unless you are talking about the perma-stealth issue with or without fog cloud trivializing every single fight down to just hitting meat bags. If those kinds of issues make it into the full release, there is no need to discuss about any combat related game play.

Click-use is a real thing! Developers try to limit when possible. Have a friend in the industry. Also, many of us BG fans are now 40’s or older. Our jobs require clicking too. That’s before even considering an 80+ hour mouse and keyboard game.

I use custom keybinds to move right hand clicks to the left hand.

BG3 is easy because it’s based on 5E, the easiest version of DND to date, and a system I’m well experienced in. It’s all about tactical positioning, order of actions and maximizing value of actions. I also play Panzer Corps, which is based around these aspects too.

I blew through the EA first go. The blighted village ambush and redcaps wrecked me, but nothing the retreat mechanic couldn’t fix. I’ve had harder times since trying new approaches to encounters.

So, I presume you'd actively support and campaign for spells like magic missile, scorching ray and eldritch blast to also be converted to the same one-click system that Larian have decided to use for bless, twin-spell and other similar buffs and debuffs.

Yes?

Dont give them ideas Niara!

That's an ingenious idea, with this simple feature they could perhaps double playtime, an important data for reviews. It would also make DLCs of differently shaped targeting areas possible, to reach some chars better in certain situations.

Thanks for the pointers. I’m onto that.

Nothing beats time away from the screen and exercise, plenty of. Weights and cardio is really good.

Nah, I find there’s just too much clicking and dragging in the UI. And that this is simply a long game to complete. Sure, much of this is on me, but UI counts for something too.

I do appreciate Aid being a simple cast. Problem with Bless sharing that mechanic is it’d be an auto-cast every single battle, echoing Haste in 3E.

Well, as an aging BG fan myself, I’d agree that life’s too short for some of the confirmatory clicking in BG3, and that I’d willingly trade the odd miscast self-targeted spell or dash for the sake of a more streamlined experience. But I agree with the folk who think the AoE approach for Bless, upcast Hold Person, etc is more of a pain than a timesaver and personally I’d willingly do a bit more clicking to have them affect the characters I want them to.

That sounds like a good setting to add, alike reactions where you can finely choose to make them auto or not.

I actually don't think it would be a good setting, for a very specific reason; the change isn't applied universally. As has been pointed out, numerous spells that have you choose targets still let you choose them freely. So the only way for a player to know what spells the change does and doesn't apply to ahead of time would be to list out the spells in the setting option, which would be a pretty dumb thing since no one could reasonably be expected to read it. And if they changed the way it works for any single spell, that means someone would have to go and either add or remove it from the list, which is tedious on their part. Unless they're doing something as blanket as having all control spells that let you choose targets be AoE instead. And if that were the case that seems like a dumb decision because surely that change could not possibly benefit every control spell of that nature, just like surely there would be attack spells that WOULD benefit from whatever click-saving ethos they're arbitrarily implementing. And in my opinion it would only serve as further evidence that any sort of click-time argument is just a veil over their real intent of making control spells less valuable and useful.

I don't quite understand your first sentence. I'm not after an easier game. Nor harder, truth be told. BG3 has got it pretty much right.

(BG3 is not noticeably easier nor harder than Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil from around 20 years ago. Combat wise they play similar except BG3 has verticality and ToEE has 3E buffs.)

There are two tedium's you and I are talking about:
1) The tedium of casting bless and clicking targets every combat, both in clicks and predictability of spell cast.
2) The tedium of Bless affecting someone instead of the ideal 3 targets, so you have to move and jostle to get it right.

But for me, there is no tedium #2. Bless is such a good spell, I don't care if it affects a familiar instead of say Lae'zel. The spell is so powerful it's already delivering value. (And with experience, my familiar is often not in the way.)

Yes, Concentration spells go down. That's 5E. However, most combats are decided by round 3, and concentration spells can last 1-2 rounds. Winning these first rounds are key, you leverage gains to focus-fire someone down to have an action-economy advantage. From there it's just potions of healing as you whittle down the threats to irrelevance.

I'll echo OP that we move on from talking about Bless specifically. The argument has been going in circles for a page now and doesn't look like it will progress any.

IN GENERAL, I agree that Larian should implement spells' targeting correctly: if you're supposed to be able to target specific creatures with a spell, that's how it should work in BG3. If only for consistency's sake (e.g, Scorching Ray vs Twinned Acid Arrow). I've seen twinning, upcasting, and specific spells mentioned as potentially problematic.

Btw, is target selection for upcast spells confirmed to operate via proximity? I've only seen it *theorized* ITT that upcasting works this way in BG3...

Meh... what if it affect characters that are not doing attack roll ?
You'll be fine to be driven to use specific spells because "bless is so powerfull" ?

Their system suck. Bless is a TARGET spell, not an AOE.
You look like the few guys saying that the chain system is so well designed...

Which is, of course, fine. Everyone is entitled to express their preferences as to how mechanics work, even ones that might be held only by a minority (at least on these forums).

Well, with regard to the 'tyranny of clicking' I can agree that having to click twice to Dash/Disengage etc. is really too much. But, I separate clicking for no reason and clicking for a reason. I admit, I don't think these spells need to be any worse, Larian has decided to weaken the vast majority in a whole host of ways.

That's not Larian priority. Their design require on average more steps than necessary - confirmation for self cast spells, entire hotbar management, chain system that is less efficient click wise than traditional system. As it was pointed before, there are offensive powerful multiple target spells that are implented correctly, when trading one needs to switch to barter manally as default screen lacks functionality, inventory management requires sending to stash or tagging items as wares one by one by using drop down menu, when looting there is no efficient way to split loot between party members like in other RPGs.

Streamlining, or efficient UI is simply not the thing in BG3. If Larian wants to remove clicks, they have plenty of ways to do so, before having to give spells targeting system not fitting their mechanics.

If Larian sees certain spells as too powerful, they are free to modify them - they take great liberties with the source material already. Making spells fiddly to target just doesn't have a positive impact on gameplay. Those spells haven't been nerfed, they just take more time to cast.

I think we ought to separate whether we're talking about buffs or enemy-targeting spells in this conversation AND recognise that D&D has a bad history with buff spells - which you've experienced in PF (3E's successor).

(3E TT and 2E BG2, especially ToB, suffered from buffs badly. To briefly summarise, 3E TT required a spreadsheet by around 9th level and BG2-ToB a spells cast in order list. Basically, play became work, and power level between normal and buffed characters was enormous.)

I'm all for enemy-targeting spells to have individual targeting, regardless of level. There's real tactical choice here and it's not repetitive. I never cast Bane because it's random and unreliable, although I recognise it synergises with subsequent AoE spells.

For Aid, I like this buff because it doesn't need to be timed - it lasts all day. The extra HPs balances well with the cost of slot spent, and this works when you upcast too. That it affects a 4th character + familiars/companions is basically irrelevant; I'm still not putting Gale in the frontline and something more than a strong breeze will still wipe the familiar. If beastmaster rangers benefit a bit extra? Good for them, it's a niche case.

Bless is different to Aid in that it has a offensive and defensive component, and it scales! A level 10 fighter can get good mileage from the spell too. I recognise the arguments around this spell and... I wouldn't call it a difficulty option but maybe an 'Area centre' or 'Individual target' toggle?

I don't want Larian to require buffing before battles either. And to their credit, they don't. 5E has a lot of slack built into the system. Play test characters were non-optimized and magic item bonuses were not assumed. If you play PHB only and pick efficient choices, you realize around level 12 you're well ahead of the curve and could've picked flavour over crunch.

Personally, I'm not going to choose a higher than normal difficulty. I find the party dynamics and questlines both engaging and dynamic as is and am not interested in numbers-bloat. Not reloading is challenge enough.

Yeah, agreed it's getting time to move on beyond Bless, but I'll answer.

If I cast bless on Fighter Tav, Wyll and familiar, missing out Lae'zel, I'm happy enough with 2/3. If I can only get 1/3, and I can recognise that by eye-balling it now, I'll opt for something else and reposition.

When actions/spells looks fiddly, I just move the character for better position next turn, do a half-decent action and bang space. I don't torture myself spinning the camera, twisting and contorting for 10 minutes.

(There's a fun guy called CasualVeteranGamer with play throughs on Youtube who plays similarly to me, or I he. He recognises early on if some action is too hard and adjusts accordingly.)

I don't have a problem with Larian chain or BG2 formation. I admit I haven't really followed that debate, I just press G a lot and Ctrl C. That's left hand, so I appreciate that.

Making a clear distinction between buffs and debuffs/disables might actually allow the best of both worlds. That way buff spells can change in the fashion of Aid and Mage Armor. Those that come to mind right away are Motivational Speech and Heroes' Feast (if we even get to that level). Maybe Larian should just not implement those at all for aforementioned reasons, but that is a different topic.

On the other hand spells without damage dice attached to them can then still make an immediate impact in combat with full player agency by just choosing targets.

I am pretty sure it was the use of twinned that brought my attention to this issue in the first place. So as the wizard already outperforms the sorcerer in most ways, which is a general 5e issue, the way twinned metamagic is implemented worsens this imbalance quite a bit. Despite the difference in power, I still expect a lot of people will play sorcerer, and almost every one building to be effective in combat will learn twinned metamagic, unless they read beforehand how it is implemented. An option to toggle between AoE and targeting would satisfy me personally as I would even mod the game for this to change. But I am not sure a lot of players frustrated by the AoE restriction would go into gameplay options to find this, unless they got a specific hint or tutorial advice for it.

Even if they do read twin spell before hand, they will be misled... because the description and the tool tip information claims that it works the way it's supposed to in 5e... when it doesn't. We are being given false information by the game here.

For the record - the other major problem that Larian's UI design and game engine have with AoE spells is this one:





This is a consistent issue that has been reported countless times and has never been addressed: the UI reports valid targets, but then does not check them.

In this situation, you can clearly see that the UI is reporting that 4 targets are within range of the grease spell where currently targeted; they are highlighted, and have the secondary inner circle on them to signify that they Will be affected by this spell.

When the spell was released, however - and rest assured there was no last second pixel slipping of the mouse or anything like that - the spell went off and only One target was counted as being affected by the spell, and only that one target made a saving throw. The other three did not make saves as they were counted as not being in the spell. This happens all the time, and is utterly unacceptable of any modern game - the UI feedback is literally lying to us.

Yes that's something I understood when I reworked arrows effects.

The center of the red circle define the characters position on the ground. If the AOE radius is not big enough to reach the central point of the circle down the characters, they won't be affected.

On the other hand, characters are highlighted and the circle change as soon as the radius touch it.

I hope this will be fixed at release because at this point it's just a shame.

Bless could work like magice missle i think someone made a staff that heals AoE targets in the same way.

About AoE UI yeah it's annoying when target are shown as effected but then they are not.

Targeting circles are badly made no way around it and if they highlight the spell should work simple as that OR you are better of without highlights altogether.

UI circles in general mediocre still time to impove those at least.

No clue why the whole circles under the enemies don't glow up. Same could be used when we leave reach and trigger AoO.
Bodies can cover those circles so it's not clear at all times.

Clarity is one of the most important aspect of any user interface. To be effective, people must be able to recognise it.