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

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).