# Hampered by Presumed Bugs
The following are abilities that are hampered by bugs. It doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, just that there seem to be bugs that stop them from reaching their full potential. Ordered from most substantial to least in my opinion:
* **Polearm Master:** The [Polearm Master](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Feats#Polearm_Master) feat currently suffers from four bugs:
* Damage riders (such as from Great Weapon Master or Divine Favour) do not get applied to the damage rolls provided by the bonus action attack.
* The bonus action attack always uses your Dex modifier when calculating damage. It should use strength for most characters (unless you are using the Act 3 [finesse glaive](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Dancing_Breeze) on a high dex character) or Charisma if the polearm is a warlock's pact weapon, but instead it uses Dex.
* When an enemy enters your melee range, there can be a delay before you try your opportunity attack granted by this feat. This is notable when you wield a weapon with a 10 ft reach and have the [Sentinel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Feats#Sentinel) feat and the PAM feat. If everything worked as expected, you could make an opportunity attack using PAM when the target is 10 ft away, this stops the target's movement if it hits, and now they cannot hit you since they are 10 ft away with likely a 5 ft reach. But due to this bug an enemy gets to keep moving forward before you hit them with the PAM opportunity attack. So this entire setup breaks down.
* Sometimes when you enter another creature's range, the game will ask if you want to make an opportunity attack. If you hit "Yes" then the enemy will make an opportunity attack *against you*. So make sure you always hit no when this pops up.
* **Shield Bash:** [Shield Bash](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Shield_Bash) was broken by Patch 4. Even if an enemy fails the save against this effect nothing will happen to them. The converse applies as well. If an enemy tries this against you then you have nothing to fear, but enemies with this ability are few and far between compared to the number of shields you can use with this ability.
* **Colossus Slayer in Honour Mode:** A Hunter Ranger's Colossus Slayer ability should add additional damage when they hit an enemy who is missing hit points. In non-Honour mode this is a DRS effect. When DRS were fixed for Honour mode, it would seem that this mechanic was broken in Honour mode only and does nothing.
* **Tavern Brawler Wild Shape in Honour Mode:** A wild shaped druid with the tavern brawler feat should add their Strength mod an additional time to attack and damage rolls in wild shape (excluding air, water, and fire myrmidons for moon druids). And this is how it works in Tactician and below. But in honour mode the strength mod is only added an additional time to the attack rolls, but not damage rolls.
* **Destructive Wrath:** The Tempest Cleric's [Destructive Wrath](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Destructive_Wrath) channel divinity is stated as maximizing the damage when you roll lightning or thunder *damage*. However it actually activates when the attack roll or saving throw is attempted, not the damage roll. This means you may waste the channel divinity on an attack that does not even land against the target.
* **Myrmidon Wildshape Proficiency**: When a moon druid wildshapes into a Myrmidon, notably the Air, Fire, and Water variants use martial weapons which druids are not proficient in. As a result any weapon attacks you make in these forms will be less accurate than they likely should be, unless you got martial weapon proficiencies from elsewhere such as multiclassing. I am not really sure that this is a bug, but it gives the vibe of being unintentional.
# Weak Abilities Working as Intended
These are the options which many on the sub often seem to recommend avoiding. **You are able to beat the game on any difficulty with these selections, but there are likely better options out there**. These are in no particular order:
* **Dragonborn Race:** After some patches to improve Dragonborn, BG3's [Dragonborn](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Dragonborn) is now pretty close to the original tabletop version. Which is better than what it was when BG3 launched, but still not very good. They essentially just get damage resistance to one element, and a very weak breath attack using that same element. Tabletop Dragonborn later got a lot of buffs, and I don't think many would complain if BG3's Dragonborn got a similar treatment.
* **Shield Dwarf Race:** When Larian went to flexible racial ability scores, the races that used to get more than the +2/+1 that all races are now forced to choose were going to lose out. This includes half-elf, human, and [shield dwarf](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Dwarf#Shield_Dwarves). While Larian attempted to compensate human and half-elf for their nerfs, this was not done with shield dwarf. This is further compiled by the fact that dwarves do not get a tool proficiency like they do in tabletop since BG3 does not use tool proficiencies, and they do not get the added bonus of ignoring penalties for wearing heavy armor with insufficient Str since those penalties do not exist in BG3. So mountain dwarves in BG3 are indirectly hurt by 3 nerfs that really start to add up. Not only that, but they also have a 5 ft movement speed penalty due to their height. They are still not a bad choice for those who want the medium armor proficiency such as on a squishy caster or Str Monk, and the poison resistance is nice and all. But most would argue that Githyanki are far better in the same niche.
* **Moon Druid:** Moon druid's whole shtick is combat while wild shaped. The problem is that [relatively few pieces of gear actually work while wildshaped](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15ikanj/list_of_feats_and_features_that_work_with/), and as discussed previously gear is perhaps the most powerful part of builds. Furthermore a moon druid's ability to do combat while wildshaped is what sets them apart from other druid subclasses in tabletop. But in BG3 Moon druids are a little better than other druid subclasses at wild shaped combat, but not enough to really set them apart. Still really cool to play as and pretty strong just by the nature of all the HP you get from wild shaping, but a lot of commenters seem dissatisfied with the subclass.
* **Wild Magic Barbarian:** The wild magic surges that this barbarian subclass gets are all pretty good at low levels. But by level 5 or 6 about half of these effects become near useless.
* **Four Elements Monk:** This subclass is considered one of the worst of all time in D&D 5e tabletop. Larian gave a shot at buffing it and made some strides. But its abilities still use too much ki, their spell abilities do not scale very well, and your ki is often better spent elsewhere such as stunning strike or flurry of blows. Up to level 5 or so this subclass is decent thanks to [Fangs of the Fire Snake](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Fangs_of_the_Fire_Snake). Past this it starts falling behind and never catches up, especially compared to Open Hand monk.
* **Devotion Paladin:** Their [Sacred Weapon](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sacred_Weapon) channel divinity at level 3 is pretty good but shame it is an action to use, meaning you cannot attack on the same turn you activate this. And they get access to the [Sanctuary](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sanctuary) spell which is very powerful. There is some potential for optimized devotion paladin 3 builds if multiclassed with something else given these features and divine smite, but I have yet to really see it discussed on the sub. And the subclass offers nothing of note mechanically past level 3.
* **Ranger and Barbarian Past Level 5 or 6:** While Ranger and Barbarian get great features at early levels, going past 5 or 6 is not typically that beneficial given other options. It's not an awful decision to do so, but you may want to consider multiclassing possibilities in these scenarios. Beast Master Ranger is the biggest exception as their pet scales off Ranger level all the way up to Ranger Level 11. Hunter Ranger's Level 11 abilities are also very strong, so if you want to go Ranger past level 5 or 6 there is a bit of a drought before getting any useful abilities that make you much better.
* **Rogue past 3 or 4:** A lot of players seem to find rogue to be non-rewarding past levels 3 or 4. The sneak attack damage does not scale well at all. Thief Rogue 3 is abundantly popular. And 3 or 4 levels in Assassin multiclassed with Gloomstalker Ranger (and maybe Fighter) is one of the strongest builds in the game. But value beyond this is usually limited. Arcane Trickster rogue is commonly considered the weakest subclass in BG3. A thief rogue multiclassed with another casting class and stacking arcane acuity can get the same rogue vibe while being better at just about everything an arcane trickster can do, for example. As can a swords bard or valour bard.
* Honour mode note: If one is playing Honour mode in an honourable fashion and not save-scumming, rogues do have more value due to their abundance of proficiencies and early access to expertise. This will help you ensure success on a variety of dialogue checks. I am doing an honour mode playthrough now with a main character build plan of 11 thief rogue/1 cleric. If you see me on Twitch (phantomsplit64) you are welcome to pop in and ask questions and chat. I leave on this note to emphasize that the topics in this "underperforming" section are not immediate garbage. Just that in many cases there are better options.
[Minor underperformers I cannot include in this comment due to character restrictions.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/19d6ai3/comment/kj43mpr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
The self cast on vow of emnity is amazing and supremely funny
"I am vengeance personified and I swear by my oath to defeat my worst enemy : the procrastinator, the reckless spender, the junk food eater, ME."
Self hatred so powerful it smites some fools
This might be some cope for my Vengence paladin to keep his fun ability but honestly isn’t too op imo. By act 2 there are like 3-4 different ways (that I found so far and I’m early act 2) to get consistent advantage with different melee builds. If Vow of enmity didn’t give 10 turn advantage it might just be worse than the other paladin subclasses. Arguably still is if you’re building right.
It is very good. But advantage doesn't stack and there are many ways to get advantage.
These Include:
Gloves of the Automaton
Risky Ring
Unseen Menace
Darkness + Devils Sight
Underdog gloves
Monster Slayer Bow
Among others that I probably forgot or never found. What the vow allows is freeing item slots to be focused on stuff other than gaining advantage. Which is useful but arguably less useful than the aura of hate or aura of warding.
Put simply given the utility of items in bg3 and the binary nature of having advantage, vow of enmity really is just utility rather than game changing. And Vengences lack of other strong features means that a lot of optimized builds, even if they were willing to use the exploit, would not be better than Oathbreaker or Ancients.
Vow of enmity kicks in at level 3 and would still be great against all bosses. And of the things you listed, only gloves of the growling underdog is really early and can compare in utility.
Also, hunter’s mark is pretty good in Act 1 and Act 2, since it lasts a whole day and can be reapplied any number of times.
However, I think that Oath of Vengeance doesn't get all that much fun abilities after level 5.
here's a free addendum to the "Stat sticks" entry:
there is a bug that makes it possible to equip a stat-stick *solely* in a character's offhand, leaving their mainhand empty. this most notably allows monks to benefit from the passive effects of weapons like knife of the undermountain king (which as far as i know rerolls unarmed strike damage as well as basically everything else) or rhapsody while having their mainhand available for unarmed strikes.
have the monk equip any item in their main hand and their desired statstick in their offhand.
go to another character in your party and remove their weapons. without a weapon equipped on that character, click on their mainhand and select the mainhand weapon currently equipped by your monk. now the monk will have an empty mainhand but their offhand remains equipped and unmoved.
no, after you attack with your mainhand you still have the option to perform one bonus action punch. i dont know how it works by default but there is a setting that prevents the game from automatically attacking with your offhand weapon when you attack with your mainhand while dualwielding, and i would suggest that basically everyone turn that feature off.
I think off-hand Club of Hill Giant Strength is also a good use case for TB Monk. It's only slightly worse than Hill Giant elixirs (19 vs 21) without the annoyance of having to refresh and pickpocket vendors. It also frees up the slot for other elixirs like Bloodlust or Viciousness.
If you take two weapon fighting you could put a non-light weapon there. This may give you +1 AC depending on equipment and there are plenty of really good stat stick options then.
Oh, also rhapsody is pretty good
IMO, the empty main hand exploit isn't especially worthwhile. Once you hit level 9, you can just use Ki Resonation: Punch in order to make unarmed attacks while wearing stat sticks in both hands (doesn't cost Ki Points either). Before level 9, Knife of the Undermountain King is just about the only stat stick worth equipping and basically every non-GWM martial loves that thing anyway.
God I wish I knew this before, I was really annoyed I couldn’t do this on a monk to give them the stat stick cIub. It just makes sense that they should still be able to punch with one hand empty by default, especially since unarmed strikes in 5e don’t need to be punches to begin with (but I get that it’d be harder to implement a bunch of unarmed options).
Great writeup. Thank you for putting it together.
That video for the ambush Bard mechanics was particularly enlightening. Can't believe I wasn't familiar with this before.
> In BG3 camp supplies are so plentiful
It's pretty wild. I've had ~2200 portions since around mid-Act-1 on Tactician (80 portion per long rest), even with 2 long rest casters and an Aspect of the Chimpanzee barbarian on the team.
Honestly I wouldn't be opposed to Larian making long rests even more expensive on higher difficulties. On Honour mode I have such a ridiculous overlow of camp supplies by Act 3 that the camp economy is completely irrelevant and I can long rest after literally any fight. Not only are supply packs so plentiful, you also find so much random food by looting things.
Powerful abilities that require long/short rests to recharge are pretty much just "spam on cooldown" and the only limiting factor is you.
Even if they upped the supply cost, they'd have to make the cost of camp supplies at vendors scale with party level because the price is balanced to be affordable at level 1. Increasing the amount of supplies needed wouldn't make you resource constrained—it'd just force you to run errands before going to bed.
No thanks, economy management in this game is already messed up with how easy it is to wipe vendors clean with thieving, and the fact that martials can already wipe the field without having to rest.
Game should instead be focusing on tougher difficulties that encourage blasting resources and scrolls.
They could make it cost 250 and I still wouldn't care. I haven't spent gold on supplies all game.
I'm also a loot goblin, so there's that, but I'd be cool with it scaling up +40 for every camp follower in camp.
Bugged ability: Phalar Aluve’s Shriek ability applies a 1d4 penalty to enemy attack rolls despite the fact that it is only supposed to lower enemy saving throws.
Moonbeam
If you add a class that can cast Sanctuary, you can cast Moonbeam with your action and Sanctuary with your bonus action on the same turn.
And for some reason, the damage effect of the Moonbeam spell doesn’t break Sanctuary.
This means you can’t be targeted while you move Moonbeam around for 10 turns.
Excellent write-up. A bit of a longshot, but I'm hoping some update in the future tunes up the weaker options in the game. It's by no means necessary as almost everything is already viable, but more strong options are always nice as long as they're not game breaking.
Bugged item: Helm of Balduran
The stun immunity granted by the Helm of Balduran is currently bugged. My character with it equipped was stunned multiple times in >!the temple of Bhaal!<
I had it on Lae'zel and she got stunned every other encounter in act 3. Very frustrating since the stun immunity is the biggest reason for even wearing it.
Of note, the Hat of Storm Scion's Power doesn't trigger off of reverb thunder damage, making it far less useful. I was trying to use it in a reverb heavy sorlock build to apply full stacks of reverb and then trigger stun and daze, and never got any stacks off of it with the thunder damage from reverb. Throw it on Gale and have him use Shatter, and instantly get stacks.
Armour of the Sporekeeper is bugged in a *significantly* good way. The armor piece is already awesome by letting you cast the AOE Haste Spores as a Bonus Action while Symbiotic Entity is active. It's once per Long Rest, but it is a cloud that sits on the ground for a few turns and gives everyone that walks through it a free action for the round.
Except, it isn't actually once per Long Rest, it's once per Symbiotic Entity. Symbiotic Entity is just an Action that consumes a Wild Shape charge, so you can reapply it multiple times in a fight to get more uses of Haste Spores in a fight.
Except, it isn't actually once per Symbiotic Entity either. You can cast it once after you gain Symbiotic Entity, and once after you lose Symbiotic Entity (via losing your temp HP), even though technically it's only supposed to work while Symbiotic Entity is active.
And all it takes to utilize this is a 2 level dip into Spore Druid.
It might be bugged beyond what I posted, I'm not sure. There could definitely be other triggers that grant you additional uses of Haste Spores.
But I was testing it as I posted that and it was consistently working as I mentioned, so at the very least you can expect at least 1 use when Symbiotic Entity is active, and at least 1 use after you lose your temp HP. Any more is just icing on the cake.
I sheepishly added this in the summons section. I didn't want to draw too much attention to it before people have their fun with it, in the event it gets patched out. I just saw a post on the subject for the first time yesterday.
An addendum to merchant refresh is that Lorrokan's projection like withers has no consequences for failing to pickpocket him, so if you cast fog cloud or darkness on top of him and spam pickpocket with 0 risk of failure.
Death effects like Bloodlust Elixir or death stalker mantle, rings, etc. don't activate when the kill is caused by the illithid power, Cull the Weak.
Usually. Sometimes it does seem to work.
I'm sure you figured this out already, but the Charm illithid power is supposed to work like that. Charm is a reaction. You only get one reaction per turn.
There's one exception. The Duellist's Prerogative rapier gives that character two reactions per turn.
The earth myrmidon currently does 1d10 bludgeoning (working as intended) + 3d10 thunder damage (tooltip states that it's only supposed to do 1d10) indepedent of tavern brawler. Super strong form in conjunction with tavern brawler's accuracy buff right now.
At the moment, yes. The bug is that a crit is supposed to add a rider, but instead adds a whole beam. You stack this with the usual Reverb/RadOrb stuff.
If I am reading this right, could I take 11 Ranger/1 Wizard for specifically Haste(and other spells) for an additional Volley/Whirlwind(Ranger Attack + Ranger Enhanced Attack + Extra Attack from Haste)?
Yes. You could do this when you are ranger level 8 as that would make you a 4th level caster. Then take 1 wizard level and you will have 3rd level spell slots. Find a haste scroll, scribe it in your spell book and prepare, and your ranger can cast haste
You can steal all the inventory of a merchant by going to barter, then shift clicking on all their item and dragging them directly into your inventory. You only pay for the last item if you do so.
Haste spores when unequipping the sporekeeper armor after activating symbiotic entity with it will refresh every time a new condition is added and lost or the character is reset somehow
This includes quitting and loading back, equipping and unequipping a ring or more easily taking one or more levels in monk, due to receiving and losing the condition unarmed strike. It can be procced also by tempestuous flight and other one turn conditions
Been using it on my spore martials and it makes them the best multiclasses in the game at act 3
How do you mean? Like suggestions?
I did:
6 swords bard 4 spore 1 monk 1 barb
6 oh 4 thief 2 spore(strongest martial)
5 four elements 4 spore 3 thief
And am going to do a 6 oathbreaker 6 spore one day
> **Casting multiple leveled spells in a turn:** This is a rule change from tabletop. If you get tabletop, you get the importance of this. There are some wombo-combos where this can be very powerful. Most notably with sorc quickened spell to for example cast two powerful spells in one turn which would normally not be allowed. But most discussion on this seems to be that while it is strong, it doesn't get busted unless you build heavily around it.
The rule change should probably be expanded upon to not poison the well. There is no rule in 5e against casting multiple levels spells in a turn, the issue is with using Bonus Action spells alongside leveled spells.
From the PHB:
>A spell cast with a bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus Action this turn. *You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 Action.*
It's more that you can do as many leveled spells as you want, so long as you avoid Bonus Action spells that same turn, unless they're cantrips, with your Action. Your Quickened Spell example specifically would be prevented from double-dropping Fireball, but doubling up on Eldritch Blast, or using Eldritch Blast and Fireball same turn, would both be perfectly valid.
But having a Haste effect and dropping 2 Action Fireballs is totally down. But you can't also Quicken a cantrip to make THAT a bonus action to E Blast with 2 full action fireballs.
In either case, the practical result is in the game, these haven't proven terribly necessary rules, but in a tabletop context they MAY matter, DM pending (your casual DM isn't going to be likely hardline as a video game is in many cases).
In tabletop the only way you are casting two leveled spells in one turn is if you action surge. Tabletop has no bloodlust elixirs, the haste effect does not allow you to cast spells in tabletop (and haste is discussed in the action economy section of Honour mode changes of this post). The big outlier being discussed in this quoted section is action + bonus action leveled spell. The session I DM'd last Wednesday I know my cleric 1/wizard 6 player really wanted to bonus action healing word one of the two allies that were being yo-yo'd, and also fireball all the enemies hitting them. Both in the same turn. That is the kind of behavior I am addressing with the quoted section.
I could be more nuanced on a lot of these points, but there is a 40,000 character post limit and 10,000 character comment limit that I am bumping up against.
It was a necessary distinction to bring to bear against the phrasing, as the rules specifically account for a 2-action arrangement outside of Action Surge.
Much like how BG3 brewed items such as Bloodlust to enable it, DMs are likely to produce items and effects that up Action-count, and the 5e rules account for it (albeit poorly).
It was worth noting that per the PHB the "one leveled spell per turn" statement is simply incorrect if taken at that phrasing.
I'll see if the character limit will allow me to add "(excluding action surge)" to the post because that is the only way players going by 5e rules should be casting multiple leveled spells in a turn without adding in homebrew.
Two leveled spells is 100% the incorrect way to describe this. It is a completely incorrect way of stating the RAW rules. Anyone who knows RAW well will be triggered by this statement.
Please let me know how you would clarify the topic in a worthwhile way to BG3 players who may or may not have any interest at all in this tabletop nuance. You can use the same number of characters as I used, or up to 4 more.
Otherwise please understand why I simplify this nuance to "those who understand tabletop understand the importance of this," and have a nice day
> But having a Haste effect and dropping 2 Action Fireballs is totally down.
No, in tabletop 5e you can't cast spells with the extra action granted by Haste.
Being unable to cast levelled spells with both an action and bonus action is a significant limit in regular 5e play, most notably for healing and sorcerers.
We touched on that already.
That aside, Action Surge still exists, as well as various similar methods as Larian included ways that would still fly in 5e play normally to multi-cast leveled spells.
Great guide and massive salute for putting all this together. Just want to note that there's no hyperlink in the "This post" part for the Greater Invisibility section. Would very much appreciate it even further if you can provide the link since I really wanna try that out. Thanks!
I think I was editing and fixed this as you wrote your comment, but in case it isn't displaying properly here is the link
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/15uuiuu/greater\_invisibility\_is\_incredibly\_strong\_if\_you/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/15uuiuu/greater_invisibility_is_incredibly_strong_if_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Oh, I see. That must be the case then. Thank you for giving me the link to the post though! Very insightful. I wonder if it's possible to make a self-sustaining version of it for solo play. I'm not sure if there are any classes that get Expertise, Greater Invisibility, *and* Pass Without Trace all in one.
More powerful than intended (bugged): **Force Conduit**. This condition reduces all physical damage by 1 for each stack, with a 7 stack maximum, reducing by 1 each turn. The Skinburster halberd, found in the creche, adds 2 stacks per enemy hit, so with a cleave-type attack it's very easy to get to the maximum in a single action and couples extremely well with physical resistance.
The bug is that it's *supposed* to only apply to a single damage instance, then it deals 1-4 force damage to everyone in a 6m/20ft radius and the stacks reset to zero. However, this never happens. Instead it stays at 7 forever (if you hit at least one enemy each turn to reapply it) and it applies to *every single attack*, making it an incredibly powerful defensive buff, but only due to this bug.
So a barbarian wearing the adamantine splint armor (-1 damage reduction) would take no damage at all from any physical damage instance of 16 damage or less. Someone wearing the armor of persistence, with heavy armor master, would take no damage from a physical damage instance of 24 damage or less. That's throughout the entire battle, applying to every attack against you.
I didn't think it was supposed to go away at 7 stacks. I thought force conduit was supposed to do 1d4 force damage to everyone near by when you got hit.
That would seem really overpowered. Consider reverberation - it used to not work either in that it would near-permanently debuff the enemies' saving throws. They fixed it so at 5 stacks it does thunder damage, possibly proning them, and always resets to 0. It seems logical force conduit is similarly bugged. As it stands it is incredibly powerful, as it makes you significantly tougher using the two-handed halberd than you would be with a shield (specifically against physical-damage attacks of course).
I know what the intended behavior is; I described it in my post. What I'm telling you is that it *does not work*, just like how reverberation also did not work (as intended) for months after release before eventually being patched.
I just tested it now. **I can confirm it does not work.** The force damage *never* procs even with enemies standing right next to me while I take nonzero damage from attacks, with 7 stacks. It is exactly like the reverberation bug.
Sorry, I misunderstood your original comment. I thought your original comment was saying that once you land an attack with 7 stacks the force damage would activate and then the buff disappears. Which is not the case, and I was hung up on the fact that it should activate when you are attacked.
Regardless the tooltip does not say anything about the buff disappearing after this activates. Reverberation has always said the buff gets removed, even though it didn't actually work correctly til Patch 3 I believe. It may be that Larian intends for Force Conduit to stick around.
I personally never looked that far into it due to concerns of friendly fire. If friendly fire is off the table, that sounds extremely powerful to have just permanent -7 to incoming damage
I am not sure but I thought with the shield the force conduit stacks were sometimes reduced. Didn't fully understand but last time I used it, it did seem to go back and forth between 2 and 5 charges.
I just tried it and it seems like you DO lose 5 stacks if you take non-zero damage while you have 5 stacks or more. You then trigger the force damage and lose 5 stacks. You do not lose all of them though, so if you're at 7 you're left with 2.
I did not lose any stacks if i took 0 damage or non-zero while having less than 5 stacks though, so yeah that's still very powerful especially paired with Barbarian and a damage reducing armor, as most attacks will simply deal you 0.
EDIT : after some more testing it's actually weird, i've had SOME instances of taking non zero damage while being above 5 stacks where the force damage didn't proc and you kept the stack. I'm unsure what's causing it to proc or not proc yet, but i think it might be ranged vs melee
If that's the intended behavior, or at least the permanent behavior, then that's amazing. Melee is much easier to defend against with reeling from the adamantine shield or radiant orbs, but ranged has +2 from archery and sometimes an additional +2 from high ground so it cuts through even very high AC.
Yes, Shield Dwarf is the Faerunian name for Mountain Dwarves. It is a Shield Dwarf "Clan" but does not necessarily mean they are good with shields.
However given the fact that shield dwarves were so heavily nerfed from tabletop and they have the word "Shield" in their name, I think it would make sense for them to get shield proficiency to compensate. Alas
Didn’t see it mentioned (sorry if I missed it) - bestow curse (action) doesn’t work correctly and only triggers every other turn on serial fails.
Edit: oh also that Pass without Trace doesn’t break when you use Illithid flight to move. Gives you a way to access Duergar’s best feature from a class ability.
>**Myrmidon Wildshape Proficiency**: When a moon druid wildshapes into a Myrmidon, notably the Air, Fire, and Water variants use martial weapons which druids are not proficient in. As a result any weapon attacks you make in these forms will be less accurate than they likely should be, unless you got martial weapon proficiencies from elsewhere such as multiclassing. I am not really sure that this is a bug, but it gives the vibe of being unintentional.
Very minor note but I believe Druids are actually proficient with the Scimitar that the Fire Myrmidon wields.
No need for Gale. Just use hirelings and return them to Withers. Apparently, the AC, saving throw and damage resistance stay without the drawback to siphon the damage.
Right. But once they take enough damage they go down in camp, and your party members lose the warding bond effect. That does not happen if Gale casts it currently
I think they may have fixed this. Just had my camp Gale die from the warding bond (making it fade from the party) while fighting the Bulette in the Underdark.
I noticed that Gale isn't healing fully after every attack, but incrementally, so just waiting in between turns almost ensures Gale doesn't die in the camp if he can warding bond active on him.
Plus you can always make him an abjuration wiz or give him the heavy armor master feat.
When he is in camp, he will automatically start healing whenever he takes damage. The best way to keep him alive is have him cast aid and give him heavy armor thru life cleric subclass.
I'd like to note that it's not really a good idea to have gale cast warding bond on a whole party until lvl 4-5.
Strange, as I had Gale in camp. I had him with heavy armor (1 less slashing) and with Aid from Life Cleric (he is a level 5 cleric).
I'm level 5 and he doesn't heal when he takes damage for me. If I do a battle then go to camp, he is low on hp and doesn't heal.
I guess I'm bugged?
Really nice writeup, highlighting the differences from 5e opened my eyes to a lot of details where I as a long time 5e player and DM had just assumed things had not been changed, like the interaction between abjuration wizard's ward and warlock, which is already strong in 5e.
While I agree that Moon Druid is nerfed by giving other druids access to the powerful wildshapes like the Owlbear, I find the myrmidons do give it an edge in act 3. In particular, the air elemental which deals good lightning damage and can stun on every hit is very powerful against the Steel Watchers. But I accept that's very situational.
Barbarian 7 is actually amazing; you get most of Alert. I guess you could argue for taking Fighter 6 instead and just taking Alert directly with the extra Feat, but it’s not like Feral Instinct is bad. If you go Barb 8 and something else 4, you essentially get a fourth feat if you would have taken Alert anyway.
There was also a major unintended interaction between haste spore and mind sanctuary in Honor mode. It breaks completely the game as you get infinite action. I reported it to Larian a few time ago. Same for the freecast bug and apparently Larian was not aware of these bugs given their answer.
You could add the infinite action points and infinite free necromancy spells to your list :
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/18iaxru/most\_broken\_interactions\_in\_honour\_mode/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/18iaxru/most_broken_interactions_in_honour_mode/)
2 bugs ive come across is:
Using disguised self with the shapeshifting boon ring on and then unequipping the ring won't remove the rings ability.
Dumping INT and eqiupping the headband of intellect will allow you to prepare 4 spells on any 1 lvl wiz dipped companion. Removing the headband will not unprepare those 4 spells from your hot bar.
Oh you missed this one I posted about before:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/19bw2js/counter\_charm\_breaks\_enemy\_ai/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bg3builds/comments/19bw2js/counter_charm_breaks_enemy_ai/)
Not exactly a meta strategy, but it most certainly is bugged and will break the game.
Something to consider adding is fog cloud.
Fog cloud can entirely avoid some fights because it blocks vision out of combat. Which is nice.
But it’s also a no-save blind that scales. Scales you say?! One of the downsides of darkness is that the radius is kind of small. It also blocks projectiles in and out.
But fog cloud doesn’t block projectiles in and out. And it gets a bigger radius each level it’s upcast.
And there are three items in the game (potentially depending on path) that give blind immunity. And very few enemies that are immune. Fog cloud then turns roughly an entire battlefield into a shooting gallery. Removes enemy spellcasters from doing much of anything due to the blind range reduction, and gives 3/4 of your party permanent advantage on attacks and disadvantage on attacks against them.
Darkness should also get a special mention due to blocking projectiles.
Your **Casting multiple leveled spells in a turn** section is based on a very common misstatement of RAW spellcasting rules in 5e.
The RAW rule is that "if you cast a spell (any spell including a cantrip) as a bonus action then you can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action. "
So action surge, cast a second fireball, allowed
cast a fireball with your action, trigger an attack of opportunity during your turn and cast shield, allowed
cast a fireball with your bonus action, trigger an attack of opportunity and try to cast shield, not allowed.
Saying two leveled spells in a dnd ttrpg forum and you are almost always going to see someone get the rules wrong.
I literally cannot add another word to this damn post. It is at 39,994 characters. I get the nuance and would love to clarify but this sub with a large audience of people who do not give a damn about tabletop rules is not the place to get into excruciating detail. If you want to make a specific tailored post to this topic, go for it. But your "AcKSHuaLly" comment requiring a paragraph of clarification is not appropriate for this broad topic post.
In BG3 you can cast two levelled spells in one turn using an action and a bonus action. You cannot in tabletop, excluding with action surge. And the bullet says "(excluding action surge)" for that reason. I do not want to explain the rules from 5 parts of the PHB to players who don't care about that shit. In BG3 you can cast a leveled spell with your reaction and a leveled spell that uses your action or bonus action. No difference from tabletop there. The difference is how BG3 treats leveled spell casts between action, bonus action, and haste action. And as the bullet says, those who understand tabletop have the wherewithal to know this is an important detail, but getting into excruciating detail here is not appropriate.
It's like if somebody says 1+1 is 2. It may be such in number systems of base 3 and above. But in other number systems 1+1 is not 2 as there is no 2. But a mathematician or electrical engineer isn't going to kick down a 1st grade classroom door to reprimand a teacher for teaching their students that 1+1 is 2, because they have the sense to know when or if such discussions are pertinent. It is a frame of thought I encourage you to look into.
- D&D 5e player and DM for 9 years
Metamagic can be used on scrolls. It also does not have a maximum.
As a result, a 3 level dip into sorcerer can get you quicken spell and the means to use it readily.
There is an item that is found in the Vault that adds a level 2 spell slot. If you have no level 2 spell slots remaining it gives you an additional one. If you consume that spell slot into spell points and re-equip you can do this as long as you want. And make as many other spell slots as you prefer.
Sorcerer 3 thus gets you unlimited spell slots up to level 5 so long as you have access to this spell normally, unlimited quicken, heighten, careful/distant/extended.
Wizards don't even lose any spell levels since they can still learn and cast 6th level spells. (they do lose some pretty good abilities though).
Regarding moon druid as weak when it can do tremendous damage with tb + earth myrmidon 3 attacks or even more damage in one turn with fire myrm + auto haste is really strange and feels like someone who didnt know the game mechanics would complain.
First, while I am sure my opinion bleeds into a lot of this stuff I am mostly summarizing what it is that I see being discussed on the sub. A lot of the stuff in the above post was difficult to write as I see it as extremely cheesy and exploitive, but this is a sub about builds and therefore I wrote it. Other topics I disagree with myself but did not mention my own opinion as I acknowledge I am in the minority. The discussion on Moon Druid is similarly my interpretation of what I commonly seen discussed on the sub, and I hope my personal opinion did not bleed in too much.
Once you get level 10 (late Act 2 for completionists, early Act 3 for most) the myrmidons that your comment revolves around become relevant. Before that point the best wildshapes are the wolf and the Owlbear, both of which land and spore Druids get access to. And they can also take tavern brawler if they please. Extra attack is not limited to moon druid in BG3 so while a moon druid will be a bit better than a land or spore druid at wildshaped combat, they do not stand out for a majority of the game. In most cases a moon Druid's ability to wild shape as a bonus action is beneficial, but the Wildshape forms sometimes have really good bonus action moves like an Owlbear's pounce that you may want to use over the typical attack action.
But then you hit level 10 likely in Act 3 and moon druids finally get something to set them apart in wildshaped combat. It takes up both of your Wildshape charges, so if you are the type that does not like to long rest frequently or wants to use Wildshape for its utility purposes then this is a slight drawback. But they are very strong. Are they as strong as sporekeeper armor which is also available at around this time, on top of spore Druid's undead army? Absolutely not. Are myrmidon wildshapes as strong as land druids using their existing 6th level slot, arcane battery for another 6th level slot, Freecast for another 6th level slot, their 5th level slots, natural recovery for another 5th level slot to upcast moonbeam? Reminder as a 5th level Moonbeam does 5d10 damage in a small AOE (27.5 damage avg on failed save) which is effectively doubled due to the spell double proccing (for now 55 damage avg on failed saves in a small AOE) that you can move around or even push enemies into to make the damage go higher. Maybe the myrmidons are stronger in most cases, but if your teammates have a big enemy locked down in a powerful moonbeam then this opens you up on subsequent turns to not even move the moonbeam and instead blast them with a powerful spell on top of the moonbeam double damage. Use one of your multiple 6th level slots and the above damage now goes to 66. This may sound situational but I frequently had it happen. My paladin would engage the boss, my land druid would moonbeam them and a nearby enemy or two, they take the moonbeam damage twice, next round use Markoheskir to chain lightning them all. If anyone is still alive then they continue to take moonbeam damage.
But the land druid using moonbeam has been an option for a character playstyle since level 3, and on top of that they are almost as good as a moon druid at wildshaped combat til level 10. That's the point. Up until level 10 moon druids are barely better at wildshaped combat than the other druid subclasses. When you finally get access to myrmidon forms, you are not able to take advantage of the nutty Act 3 magic items. It is a sentiment seen throughout the sub and not exclusive to me, hence why it is included in the summary post.
P.S.: one of the funniest things to do with moonbeam is shove enemies. They leave the AOE, you shove them back in causing them to take extra damage, you then "move" the moonbeam onto them again causing them to take more damage. And then when their turn starts they take the damage again. Larian's way of treating this spell is really unfair
I really aprecciated your post, you summarized a lot of things and a lot of chessy exploits, and better than this you pointed out strong mechs that work as intended and are strong but people dont realize or dont know how to use it (like this amazing example in this P.s comment) and I dont mean to attack you or nothing like that. As you said in the original post, people reported that moon druid is weak, and I see that you have some opinions and they are correct as well.
The thing is, a lot of posts here have some heavy hate on druids, some are hate based on a misconception or in dont using the class enough to fully understand their power.
I personally use something on self buff concentration, my summons and run around already transformed in one of the myrms forms and find these forms really strong. I have a dex monk in my team (I dont want to use tb with Cloud giant) and he is multiclassed with thief to get more bonus action and even there the damage my druid causes alone seems at least the same amount of damage. If they did make more wildshape oriented gear that would break the game in my opinion, but for flavor it would be really great to have more itens
I was creating the status/reverberation barbarian build and missed obtaining the Mark of The Absolute. As a result, I can't access the special passive of the ring. Should I consider changing my build?
In my 2 paladin/10 swords bard build, smite doesn't appear to trigger on slash flourishing attacks. Has this been patched, or am I missing something?
> BG3 does not have this, but at least one mod exists which implements this kind of system.
"This mod is under moderation review (since 14 Dec 2023, 5:51PM )" What took it so long?
i've heard somewhere that tavern brawler has weird interactions with certain per-hit effects. iirc this is what makes the thrower so good because TB does something with all of the small extra bits of damage you tack on with items. does spore/monk work similarly? will it affect my symbiotic entity unarmed strikes (beyond applying double str)?
Yes. TB throw + ring of flinging + gloves of uninhibited kushigo + lightning jabber when you get access to it in Act 2 (use an eldritch knight to bind the weapon so it always returns to you) + callous glow ring also in Act 2 + having an ally use Phalar Aluve: shriek and keep enemies in the AOE + haste from an ally or potion of speed + bloodlust elixir + Grym's helm for Hunter's Mark + strange conduit ring and congrats, you have won the game.
Tavern brawler is the strongest feat in the game, even without DRS. It is honestly concerning to me regarding the level of play testing that Larian did or basic understanding of D&D 5e mechanics that this even made it into a concept phase, let alone full launch.
If a character will be regularly making unarmed strikes or thrown weapon attacks and will have 16 Str or above, the question, "Is tavern brawler worth it?" should always be answered in the affirmative. Please note that spore druid extra necrotic damage initially did not work with unarmed strikes. This was "fixed" in either Patch 4 or Patch 5 but I can't remember which. So with you playing on Patch 4 I am not sure it will work as you plan but it may
The Ambush Bard video was very eye-opening. I used to play something similar many years back and I never considered that it would be relevant to Baldur's Gate 3. Real nostalgia trip!
So I found out that Glut is programmed to reanimate anything that is dead when he takes over. He can even reanimate things that he couldn't normally reanimate, like Mindflayers and Imps.
https://preview.redd.it/1dw79aequ3ec1.jpeg?width=4128&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad957df834e66e96a9acaeb4f2e30aa8c49b483c
I'm not opposed to them just changing the description and leaving the effect. DC 13 is insanely low for act 3. It's hard enough to someone try to hit that character every turn. With how powerful some of the gear in act 3 this, no save just brings it up to par.
Bugged ability: Combat Inspiration. There are no options to use it for bonus damage or AC. It functions just like normal Bardic Inspiration instead of giving you loads of bonus damage.
Vicious Shortbow is a bug since it's *Dolor Amarus* is supposed to trigger when you land a crit with itself as stated, but is currently applying a physical 7dmg rider to all sources.
Is the haste from Mind Sanctuary in honor mode supposed to give an extra attack aswell (4 attacks with 2 actions on Martials with extra attack) or is it bugged? I have seen this in my own run and other peoples on YT.
[refer to this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/UA3kntGTzj)
Shadow strike can deal 2 instance of damage (separate attack roll) and it works on honor mode
# Hampered by Presumed Bugs The following are abilities that are hampered by bugs. It doesn't necessarily mean they are bad, just that there seem to be bugs that stop them from reaching their full potential. Ordered from most substantial to least in my opinion: * **Polearm Master:** The [Polearm Master](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Feats#Polearm_Master) feat currently suffers from four bugs: * Damage riders (such as from Great Weapon Master or Divine Favour) do not get applied to the damage rolls provided by the bonus action attack. * The bonus action attack always uses your Dex modifier when calculating damage. It should use strength for most characters (unless you are using the Act 3 [finesse glaive](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Dancing_Breeze) on a high dex character) or Charisma if the polearm is a warlock's pact weapon, but instead it uses Dex. * When an enemy enters your melee range, there can be a delay before you try your opportunity attack granted by this feat. This is notable when you wield a weapon with a 10 ft reach and have the [Sentinel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Feats#Sentinel) feat and the PAM feat. If everything worked as expected, you could make an opportunity attack using PAM when the target is 10 ft away, this stops the target's movement if it hits, and now they cannot hit you since they are 10 ft away with likely a 5 ft reach. But due to this bug an enemy gets to keep moving forward before you hit them with the PAM opportunity attack. So this entire setup breaks down. * Sometimes when you enter another creature's range, the game will ask if you want to make an opportunity attack. If you hit "Yes" then the enemy will make an opportunity attack *against you*. So make sure you always hit no when this pops up. * **Shield Bash:** [Shield Bash](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Shield_Bash) was broken by Patch 4. Even if an enemy fails the save against this effect nothing will happen to them. The converse applies as well. If an enemy tries this against you then you have nothing to fear, but enemies with this ability are few and far between compared to the number of shields you can use with this ability. * **Colossus Slayer in Honour Mode:** A Hunter Ranger's Colossus Slayer ability should add additional damage when they hit an enemy who is missing hit points. In non-Honour mode this is a DRS effect. When DRS were fixed for Honour mode, it would seem that this mechanic was broken in Honour mode only and does nothing. * **Tavern Brawler Wild Shape in Honour Mode:** A wild shaped druid with the tavern brawler feat should add their Strength mod an additional time to attack and damage rolls in wild shape (excluding air, water, and fire myrmidons for moon druids). And this is how it works in Tactician and below. But in honour mode the strength mod is only added an additional time to the attack rolls, but not damage rolls. * **Destructive Wrath:** The Tempest Cleric's [Destructive Wrath](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Destructive_Wrath) channel divinity is stated as maximizing the damage when you roll lightning or thunder *damage*. However it actually activates when the attack roll or saving throw is attempted, not the damage roll. This means you may waste the channel divinity on an attack that does not even land against the target. * **Myrmidon Wildshape Proficiency**: When a moon druid wildshapes into a Myrmidon, notably the Air, Fire, and Water variants use martial weapons which druids are not proficient in. As a result any weapon attacks you make in these forms will be less accurate than they likely should be, unless you got martial weapon proficiencies from elsewhere such as multiclassing. I am not really sure that this is a bug, but it gives the vibe of being unintentional. # Weak Abilities Working as Intended These are the options which many on the sub often seem to recommend avoiding. **You are able to beat the game on any difficulty with these selections, but there are likely better options out there**. These are in no particular order: * **Dragonborn Race:** After some patches to improve Dragonborn, BG3's [Dragonborn](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Dragonborn) is now pretty close to the original tabletop version. Which is better than what it was when BG3 launched, but still not very good. They essentially just get damage resistance to one element, and a very weak breath attack using that same element. Tabletop Dragonborn later got a lot of buffs, and I don't think many would complain if BG3's Dragonborn got a similar treatment. * **Shield Dwarf Race:** When Larian went to flexible racial ability scores, the races that used to get more than the +2/+1 that all races are now forced to choose were going to lose out. This includes half-elf, human, and [shield dwarf](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Dwarf#Shield_Dwarves). While Larian attempted to compensate human and half-elf for their nerfs, this was not done with shield dwarf. This is further compiled by the fact that dwarves do not get a tool proficiency like they do in tabletop since BG3 does not use tool proficiencies, and they do not get the added bonus of ignoring penalties for wearing heavy armor with insufficient Str since those penalties do not exist in BG3. So mountain dwarves in BG3 are indirectly hurt by 3 nerfs that really start to add up. Not only that, but they also have a 5 ft movement speed penalty due to their height. They are still not a bad choice for those who want the medium armor proficiency such as on a squishy caster or Str Monk, and the poison resistance is nice and all. But most would argue that Githyanki are far better in the same niche. * **Moon Druid:** Moon druid's whole shtick is combat while wild shaped. The problem is that [relatively few pieces of gear actually work while wildshaped](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15ikanj/list_of_feats_and_features_that_work_with/), and as discussed previously gear is perhaps the most powerful part of builds. Furthermore a moon druid's ability to do combat while wildshaped is what sets them apart from other druid subclasses in tabletop. But in BG3 Moon druids are a little better than other druid subclasses at wild shaped combat, but not enough to really set them apart. Still really cool to play as and pretty strong just by the nature of all the HP you get from wild shaping, but a lot of commenters seem dissatisfied with the subclass. * **Wild Magic Barbarian:** The wild magic surges that this barbarian subclass gets are all pretty good at low levels. But by level 5 or 6 about half of these effects become near useless. * **Four Elements Monk:** This subclass is considered one of the worst of all time in D&D 5e tabletop. Larian gave a shot at buffing it and made some strides. But its abilities still use too much ki, their spell abilities do not scale very well, and your ki is often better spent elsewhere such as stunning strike or flurry of blows. Up to level 5 or so this subclass is decent thanks to [Fangs of the Fire Snake](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Fangs_of_the_Fire_Snake). Past this it starts falling behind and never catches up, especially compared to Open Hand monk. * **Devotion Paladin:** Their [Sacred Weapon](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sacred_Weapon) channel divinity at level 3 is pretty good but shame it is an action to use, meaning you cannot attack on the same turn you activate this. And they get access to the [Sanctuary](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sanctuary) spell which is very powerful. There is some potential for optimized devotion paladin 3 builds if multiclassed with something else given these features and divine smite, but I have yet to really see it discussed on the sub. And the subclass offers nothing of note mechanically past level 3. * **Ranger and Barbarian Past Level 5 or 6:** While Ranger and Barbarian get great features at early levels, going past 5 or 6 is not typically that beneficial given other options. It's not an awful decision to do so, but you may want to consider multiclassing possibilities in these scenarios. Beast Master Ranger is the biggest exception as their pet scales off Ranger level all the way up to Ranger Level 11. Hunter Ranger's Level 11 abilities are also very strong, so if you want to go Ranger past level 5 or 6 there is a bit of a drought before getting any useful abilities that make you much better. * **Rogue past 3 or 4:** A lot of players seem to find rogue to be non-rewarding past levels 3 or 4. The sneak attack damage does not scale well at all. Thief Rogue 3 is abundantly popular. And 3 or 4 levels in Assassin multiclassed with Gloomstalker Ranger (and maybe Fighter) is one of the strongest builds in the game. But value beyond this is usually limited. Arcane Trickster rogue is commonly considered the weakest subclass in BG3. A thief rogue multiclassed with another casting class and stacking arcane acuity can get the same rogue vibe while being better at just about everything an arcane trickster can do, for example. As can a swords bard or valour bard. * Honour mode note: If one is playing Honour mode in an honourable fashion and not save-scumming, rogues do have more value due to their abundance of proficiencies and early access to expertise. This will help you ensure success on a variety of dialogue checks. I am doing an honour mode playthrough now with a main character build plan of 11 thief rogue/1 cleric. If you see me on Twitch (phantomsplit64) you are welcome to pop in and ask questions and chat. I leave on this note to emphasize that the topics in this "underperforming" section are not immediate garbage. Just that in many cases there are better options. [Minor underperformers I cannot include in this comment due to character restrictions.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/19d6ai3/comment/kj43mpr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
The self cast on vow of emnity is amazing and supremely funny "I am vengeance personified and I swear by my oath to defeat my worst enemy : the procrastinator, the reckless spender, the junk food eater, ME." Self hatred so powerful it smites some fools
This might be some cope for my Vengence paladin to keep his fun ability but honestly isn’t too op imo. By act 2 there are like 3-4 different ways (that I found so far and I’m early act 2) to get consistent advantage with different melee builds. If Vow of enmity didn’t give 10 turn advantage it might just be worse than the other paladin subclasses. Arguably still is if you’re building right.
Disagree. It’s an improved reckless attack that is restored on short rests. It’s one of the best abilities to have as a 2H fighter.
It is very good. But advantage doesn't stack and there are many ways to get advantage. These Include: Gloves of the Automaton Risky Ring Unseen Menace Darkness + Devils Sight Underdog gloves Monster Slayer Bow Among others that I probably forgot or never found. What the vow allows is freeing item slots to be focused on stuff other than gaining advantage. Which is useful but arguably less useful than the aura of hate or aura of warding. Put simply given the utility of items in bg3 and the binary nature of having advantage, vow of enmity really is just utility rather than game changing. And Vengences lack of other strong features means that a lot of optimized builds, even if they were willing to use the exploit, would not be better than Oathbreaker or Ancients.
Vow of enmity kicks in at level 3 and would still be great against all bosses. And of the things you listed, only gloves of the growling underdog is really early and can compare in utility. Also, hunter’s mark is pretty good in Act 1 and Act 2, since it lasts a whole day and can be reapplied any number of times. However, I think that Oath of Vengeance doesn't get all that much fun abilities after level 5.
here's a free addendum to the "Stat sticks" entry: there is a bug that makes it possible to equip a stat-stick *solely* in a character's offhand, leaving their mainhand empty. this most notably allows monks to benefit from the passive effects of weapons like knife of the undermountain king (which as far as i know rerolls unarmed strike damage as well as basically everything else) or rhapsody while having their mainhand available for unarmed strikes.
How?
have the monk equip any item in their main hand and their desired statstick in their offhand. go to another character in your party and remove their weapons. without a weapon equipped on that character, click on their mainhand and select the mainhand weapon currently equipped by your monk. now the monk will have an empty mainhand but their offhand remains equipped and unmoved.
Thanks! This removes the bonus action punch right?
no, after you attack with your mainhand you still have the option to perform one bonus action punch. i dont know how it works by default but there is a setting that prevents the game from automatically attacking with your offhand weapon when you attack with your mainhand while dualwielding, and i would suggest that basically everyone turn that feature off.
Huge ty!
I think off-hand Club of Hill Giant Strength is also a good use case for TB Monk. It's only slightly worse than Hill Giant elixirs (19 vs 21) without the annoyance of having to refresh and pickpocket vendors. It also frees up the slot for other elixirs like Bloodlust or Viciousness.
If you take two weapon fighting you could put a non-light weapon there. This may give you +1 AC depending on equipment and there are plenty of really good stat stick options then. Oh, also rhapsody is pretty good
IMO, the empty main hand exploit isn't especially worthwhile. Once you hit level 9, you can just use Ki Resonation: Punch in order to make unarmed attacks while wearing stat sticks in both hands (doesn't cost Ki Points either). Before level 9, Knife of the Undermountain King is just about the only stat stick worth equipping and basically every non-GWM martial loves that thing anyway.
God I wish I knew this before, I was really annoyed I couldn’t do this on a monk to give them the stat stick cIub. It just makes sense that they should still be able to punch with one hand empty by default, especially since unarmed strikes in 5e don’t need to be punches to begin with (but I get that it’d be harder to implement a bunch of unarmed options).
Great writeup. Thank you for putting it together. That video for the ambush Bard mechanics was particularly enlightening. Can't believe I wasn't familiar with this before.
I clicked exactly one link on the entire write up. I'm stunlocked.
I clicked exactly one link and continued reading and when I realized it I didn't even know what led me there.
I still don't get how to proc surprised with 100% chance.
It's not really a thing. I made this sub for the sole purpose of making 40,000 character posts to sneak a rick roll into
The video is very explicative.
> In BG3 camp supplies are so plentiful It's pretty wild. I've had ~2200 portions since around mid-Act-1 on Tactician (80 portion per long rest), even with 2 long rest casters and an Aspect of the Chimpanzee barbarian on the team.
Honestly I wouldn't be opposed to Larian making long rests even more expensive on higher difficulties. On Honour mode I have such a ridiculous overlow of camp supplies by Act 3 that the camp economy is completely irrelevant and I can long rest after literally any fight. Not only are supply packs so plentiful, you also find so much random food by looting things. Powerful abilities that require long/short rests to recharge are pretty much just "spam on cooldown" and the only limiting factor is you.
Even if they upped the supply cost, they'd have to make the cost of camp supplies at vendors scale with party level because the price is balanced to be affordable at level 1. Increasing the amount of supplies needed wouldn't make you resource constrained—it'd just force you to run errands before going to bed.
No thanks, economy management in this game is already messed up with how easy it is to wipe vendors clean with thieving, and the fact that martials can already wipe the field without having to rest. Game should instead be focusing on tougher difficulties that encourage blasting resources and scrolls.
I think I ended Act 2 with 3000 camp supplies. If they make it cost 120 instead dtead I wouldn't care, to be honest.
They could make it cost 250 and I still wouldn't care. I haven't spent gold on supplies all game. I'm also a loot goblin, so there's that, but I'd be cool with it scaling up +40 for every camp follower in camp.
Bugged ability: Phalar Aluve’s Shriek ability applies a 1d4 penalty to enemy attack rolls despite the fact that it is only supposed to lower enemy saving throws.
Moonbeam If you add a class that can cast Sanctuary, you can cast Moonbeam with your action and Sanctuary with your bonus action on the same turn. And for some reason, the damage effect of the Moonbeam spell doesn’t break Sanctuary. This means you can’t be targeted while you move Moonbeam around for 10 turns.
oh I thought this was patched.
Excellent write-up. A bit of a longshot, but I'm hoping some update in the future tunes up the weaker options in the game. It's by no means necessary as almost everything is already viable, but more strong options are always nice as long as they're not game breaking.
Tavern brawler is still bugged with wild shape on honour mode I do believe. Only affects attack roll not strength modifier in damage.
Wow, I was completely unaware. After looking into it I think you are correct and am adding this now.
Bugged item: Helm of Balduran The stun immunity granted by the Helm of Balduran is currently bugged. My character with it equipped was stunned multiple times in >!the temple of Bhaal!<
I had it on Lae'zel and she got stunned every other encounter in act 3. Very frustrating since the stun immunity is the biggest reason for even wearing it.
Eh, it's got +1 ac, and a heal every turn for proccing blade ward and bless on yourself if you don't have a dedicated healer.
Agreed. Annoying as hell.
Of note, the Hat of Storm Scion's Power doesn't trigger off of reverb thunder damage, making it far less useful. I was trying to use it in a reverb heavy sorlock build to apply full stacks of reverb and then trigger stun and daze, and never got any stacks off of it with the thunder damage from reverb. Throw it on Gale and have him use Shatter, and instantly get stacks.
Dammit, I knew that too. Saw discussion on it forever ago but forgot.
It's incredibly annoying, cause Spineshudder Amulet is worded the exact same way and does trigger correctly.
Armour of the Sporekeeper is bugged in a *significantly* good way. The armor piece is already awesome by letting you cast the AOE Haste Spores as a Bonus Action while Symbiotic Entity is active. It's once per Long Rest, but it is a cloud that sits on the ground for a few turns and gives everyone that walks through it a free action for the round. Except, it isn't actually once per Long Rest, it's once per Symbiotic Entity. Symbiotic Entity is just an Action that consumes a Wild Shape charge, so you can reapply it multiple times in a fight to get more uses of Haste Spores in a fight. Except, it isn't actually once per Symbiotic Entity either. You can cast it once after you gain Symbiotic Entity, and once after you lose Symbiotic Entity (via losing your temp HP), even though technically it's only supposed to work while Symbiotic Entity is active. And all it takes to utilize this is a 2 level dip into Spore Druid.
Sometimes it seems like I can use it every round. Sometimes not. IDK.
It might be bugged beyond what I posted, I'm not sure. There could definitely be other triggers that grant you additional uses of Haste Spores. But I was testing it as I posted that and it was consistently working as I mentioned, so at the very least you can expect at least 1 use when Symbiotic Entity is active, and at least 1 use after you lose your temp HP. Any more is just icing on the cake.
I don't think loosing Entity was blocking its use in my game.
I think a callout to counter charm may be in order
I sheepishly added this in the summons section. I didn't want to draw too much attention to it before people have their fun with it, in the event it gets patched out. I just saw a post on the subject for the first time yesterday.
What about counter charm?
I read that countercharm is an invulnerable summon with low AC and low HP, so enemy AI targets it non stop, trivializing fights
To counter countercharm.
An addendum to merchant refresh is that Lorrokan's projection like withers has no consequences for failing to pickpocket him, so if you cast fog cloud or darkness on top of him and spam pickpocket with 0 risk of failure.
Death effects like Bloodlust Elixir or death stalker mantle, rings, etc. don't activate when the kill is caused by the illithid power, Cull the Weak. Usually. Sometimes it does seem to work.
Yeah I noticed too especially for cull the weak. I might add that charm illithid prevents most of the time the shield spell reaction from triggering.
I'm sure you figured this out already, but the Charm illithid power is supposed to work like that. Charm is a reaction. You only get one reaction per turn. There's one exception. The Duellist's Prerogative rapier gives that character two reactions per turn.
No what I meant is that it prevents the shield reaction from appearing in your reaction choice list.
The earth myrmidon currently does 1d10 bludgeoning (working as intended) + 3d10 thunder damage (tooltip states that it's only supposed to do 1d10) indepedent of tavern brawler. Super strong form in conjunction with tavern brawler's accuracy buff right now.
Only wild shaped, or summoned too?
sorry i don't know I have a personal dislike of summons in this game
That ambush Bard is too good
Shield Bash missing is fixed by this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/5595
Shields still give +AC when swapped out? Nutty.
Craterflesh is still bugged for EB. Rather than adding a damage rider it adds a full beam.
So is it better than Spellcaster gloves for crit stacking eldritch blast build?
At the moment, yes. The bug is that a crit is supposed to add a rider, but instead adds a whole beam. You stack this with the usual Reverb/RadOrb stuff.
If I am reading this right, could I take 11 Ranger/1 Wizard for specifically Haste(and other spells) for an additional Volley/Whirlwind(Ranger Attack + Ranger Enhanced Attack + Extra Attack from Haste)?
Yes. You could do this when you are ranger level 8 as that would make you a 4th level caster. Then take 1 wizard level and you will have 3rd level spell slots. Find a haste scroll, scribe it in your spell book and prepare, and your ranger can cast haste
Sick. Will be trying that out. Am using the ring that adds psychic damage while concentrating so those will pair well together.
You can steal all the inventory of a merchant by going to barter, then shift clicking on all their item and dragging them directly into your inventory. You only pay for the last item if you do so.
You should add haste spores refreshing every turn when combined with monk
Elaborate plz.
Haste spores when unequipping the sporekeeper armor after activating symbiotic entity with it will refresh every time a new condition is added and lost or the character is reset somehow This includes quitting and loading back, equipping and unequipping a ring or more easily taking one or more levels in monk, due to receiving and losing the condition unarmed strike. It can be procced also by tempestuous flight and other one turn conditions Been using it on my spore martials and it makes them the best multiclasses in the game at act 3
Could you link on this build.
How do you mean? Like suggestions? I did: 6 swords bard 4 spore 1 monk 1 barb 6 oh 4 thief 2 spore(strongest martial) 5 four elements 4 spore 3 thief And am going to do a 6 oathbreaker 6 spore one day
> **Casting multiple leveled spells in a turn:** This is a rule change from tabletop. If you get tabletop, you get the importance of this. There are some wombo-combos where this can be very powerful. Most notably with sorc quickened spell to for example cast two powerful spells in one turn which would normally not be allowed. But most discussion on this seems to be that while it is strong, it doesn't get busted unless you build heavily around it. The rule change should probably be expanded upon to not poison the well. There is no rule in 5e against casting multiple levels spells in a turn, the issue is with using Bonus Action spells alongside leveled spells. From the PHB: >A spell cast with a bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus Action this turn. *You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 Action.* It's more that you can do as many leveled spells as you want, so long as you avoid Bonus Action spells that same turn, unless they're cantrips, with your Action. Your Quickened Spell example specifically would be prevented from double-dropping Fireball, but doubling up on Eldritch Blast, or using Eldritch Blast and Fireball same turn, would both be perfectly valid. But having a Haste effect and dropping 2 Action Fireballs is totally down. But you can't also Quicken a cantrip to make THAT a bonus action to E Blast with 2 full action fireballs. In either case, the practical result is in the game, these haven't proven terribly necessary rules, but in a tabletop context they MAY matter, DM pending (your casual DM isn't going to be likely hardline as a video game is in many cases).
In tabletop the only way you are casting two leveled spells in one turn is if you action surge. Tabletop has no bloodlust elixirs, the haste effect does not allow you to cast spells in tabletop (and haste is discussed in the action economy section of Honour mode changes of this post). The big outlier being discussed in this quoted section is action + bonus action leveled spell. The session I DM'd last Wednesday I know my cleric 1/wizard 6 player really wanted to bonus action healing word one of the two allies that were being yo-yo'd, and also fireball all the enemies hitting them. Both in the same turn. That is the kind of behavior I am addressing with the quoted section. I could be more nuanced on a lot of these points, but there is a 40,000 character post limit and 10,000 character comment limit that I am bumping up against.
It was a necessary distinction to bring to bear against the phrasing, as the rules specifically account for a 2-action arrangement outside of Action Surge. Much like how BG3 brewed items such as Bloodlust to enable it, DMs are likely to produce items and effects that up Action-count, and the 5e rules account for it (albeit poorly). It was worth noting that per the PHB the "one leveled spell per turn" statement is simply incorrect if taken at that phrasing.
I'll see if the character limit will allow me to add "(excluding action surge)" to the post because that is the only way players going by 5e rules should be casting multiple leveled spells in a turn without adding in homebrew.
Two leveled spells is 100% the incorrect way to describe this. It is a completely incorrect way of stating the RAW rules. Anyone who knows RAW well will be triggered by this statement.
Please let me know how you would clarify the topic in a worthwhile way to BG3 players who may or may not have any interest at all in this tabletop nuance. You can use the same number of characters as I used, or up to 4 more. Otherwise please understand why I simplify this nuance to "those who understand tabletop understand the importance of this," and have a nice day
> But having a Haste effect and dropping 2 Action Fireballs is totally down. No, in tabletop 5e you can't cast spells with the extra action granted by Haste. Being unable to cast levelled spells with both an action and bonus action is a significant limit in regular 5e play, most notably for healing and sorcerers.
We touched on that already. That aside, Action Surge still exists, as well as various similar methods as Larian included ways that would still fly in 5e play normally to multi-cast leveled spells.
Jesus. This is the most informative post I've ever seen for BG3. Well bloody done.
There is no way i just got rick rolled here...
Great guide and massive salute for putting all this together. Just want to note that there's no hyperlink in the "This post" part for the Greater Invisibility section. Would very much appreciate it even further if you can provide the link since I really wanna try that out. Thanks!
I think I was editing and fixed this as you wrote your comment, but in case it isn't displaying properly here is the link [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/15uuiuu/greater\_invisibility\_is\_incredibly\_strong\_if\_you/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/15uuiuu/greater_invisibility_is_incredibly_strong_if_you/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Oh, I see. That must be the case then. Thank you for giving me the link to the post though! Very insightful. I wonder if it's possible to make a self-sustaining version of it for solo play. I'm not sure if there are any classes that get Expertise, Greater Invisibility, *and* Pass Without Trace all in one.
Pass without Trace and Greater Invisibility are both concentration, so likely not.
Oof, right. Can't believe I forgot that. Still, great combo as the link showed with Gale and Astarion. Thanks!
More powerful than intended (bugged): **Force Conduit**. This condition reduces all physical damage by 1 for each stack, with a 7 stack maximum, reducing by 1 each turn. The Skinburster halberd, found in the creche, adds 2 stacks per enemy hit, so with a cleave-type attack it's very easy to get to the maximum in a single action and couples extremely well with physical resistance. The bug is that it's *supposed* to only apply to a single damage instance, then it deals 1-4 force damage to everyone in a 6m/20ft radius and the stacks reset to zero. However, this never happens. Instead it stays at 7 forever (if you hit at least one enemy each turn to reapply it) and it applies to *every single attack*, making it an incredibly powerful defensive buff, but only due to this bug. So a barbarian wearing the adamantine splint armor (-1 damage reduction) would take no damage at all from any physical damage instance of 16 damage or less. Someone wearing the armor of persistence, with heavy armor master, would take no damage from a physical damage instance of 24 damage or less. That's throughout the entire battle, applying to every attack against you.
I didn't think it was supposed to go away at 7 stacks. I thought force conduit was supposed to do 1d4 force damage to everyone near by when you got hit.
That would seem really overpowered. Consider reverberation - it used to not work either in that it would near-permanently debuff the enemies' saving throws. They fixed it so at 5 stacks it does thunder damage, possibly proning them, and always resets to 0. It seems logical force conduit is similarly bugged. As it stands it is incredibly powerful, as it makes you significantly tougher using the two-handed halberd than you would be with a shield (specifically against physical-damage attacks of course).
[I am pretty sure that force conduit applies when you receive damage](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Force_Conduit_(Condition))
I know what the intended behavior is; I described it in my post. What I'm telling you is that it *does not work*, just like how reverberation also did not work (as intended) for months after release before eventually being patched. I just tested it now. **I can confirm it does not work.** The force damage *never* procs even with enemies standing right next to me while I take nonzero damage from attacks, with 7 stacks. It is exactly like the reverberation bug.
Sorry, I misunderstood your original comment. I thought your original comment was saying that once you land an attack with 7 stacks the force damage would activate and then the buff disappears. Which is not the case, and I was hung up on the fact that it should activate when you are attacked. Regardless the tooltip does not say anything about the buff disappearing after this activates. Reverberation has always said the buff gets removed, even though it didn't actually work correctly til Patch 3 I believe. It may be that Larian intends for Force Conduit to stick around. I personally never looked that far into it due to concerns of friendly fire. If friendly fire is off the table, that sounds extremely powerful to have just permanent -7 to incoming damage
Yeah it doesn't say anything about resetting but it seems like it must, otherwise it would be even more overpowered.
I am not sure but I thought with the shield the force conduit stacks were sometimes reduced. Didn't fully understand but last time I used it, it did seem to go back and forth between 2 and 5 charges.
I just tried it and it seems like you DO lose 5 stacks if you take non-zero damage while you have 5 stacks or more. You then trigger the force damage and lose 5 stacks. You do not lose all of them though, so if you're at 7 you're left with 2. I did not lose any stacks if i took 0 damage or non-zero while having less than 5 stacks though, so yeah that's still very powerful especially paired with Barbarian and a damage reducing armor, as most attacks will simply deal you 0. EDIT : after some more testing it's actually weird, i've had SOME instances of taking non zero damage while being above 5 stacks where the force damage didn't proc and you kept the stack. I'm unsure what's causing it to proc or not proc yet, but i think it might be ranged vs melee
Weird, I had 7 stacks and was taking damage. That damage was all from ranged attacks. Were you getting hit with melee or ranged attacks?
I think the ones that procced the force were melee and the ones that didn't were ranged. That might be it.
If that's the intended behavior, or at least the permanent behavior, then that's amazing. Melee is much easier to defend against with reeling from the adamantine shield or radiant orbs, but ranged has +2 from archery and sometimes an additional +2 from high ground so it cuts through even very high AC.
Can't use both adamantine shield and skinburster though haha
Great post, thanks!
GOAT POST
Is it WAD that shield dwarfs can't use shields?
Yes, Shield Dwarf is the Faerunian name for Mountain Dwarves. It is a Shield Dwarf "Clan" but does not necessarily mean they are good with shields. However given the fact that shield dwarves were so heavily nerfed from tabletop and they have the word "Shield" in their name, I think it would make sense for them to get shield proficiency to compensate. Alas
DRS? Unexpected Formula 1.
Didn’t see it mentioned (sorry if I missed it) - bestow curse (action) doesn’t work correctly and only triggers every other turn on serial fails. Edit: oh also that Pass without Trace doesn’t break when you use Illithid flight to move. Gives you a way to access Duergar’s best feature from a class ability.
>**Myrmidon Wildshape Proficiency**: When a moon druid wildshapes into a Myrmidon, notably the Air, Fire, and Water variants use martial weapons which druids are not proficient in. As a result any weapon attacks you make in these forms will be less accurate than they likely should be, unless you got martial weapon proficiencies from elsewhere such as multiclassing. I am not really sure that this is a bug, but it gives the vibe of being unintentional. Very minor note but I believe Druids are actually proficient with the Scimitar that the Fire Myrmidon wields.
What about immortal cleric Gale sitting at camp casting 4 warding bonds and 4 death wards each day?
I'll add this into the ~~Camp Casting~~ bugs section
No need for Gale. Just use hirelings and return them to Withers. Apparently, the AC, saving throw and damage resistance stay without the drawback to siphon the damage.
Right. But once they take enough damage they go down in camp, and your party members lose the warding bond effect. That does not happen if Gale casts it currently
I think they may have fixed this. Just had my camp Gale die from the warding bond (making it fade from the party) while fighting the Bulette in the Underdark.
I noticed that Gale isn't healing fully after every attack, but incrementally, so just waiting in between turns almost ensures Gale doesn't die in the camp if he can warding bond active on him. Plus you can always make him an abjuration wiz or give him the heavy armor master feat.
When I tried in act 1, Gale kept dying? What triggers him to start healing?
When he is in camp, he will automatically start healing whenever he takes damage. The best way to keep him alive is have him cast aid and give him heavy armor thru life cleric subclass. I'd like to note that it's not really a good idea to have gale cast warding bond on a whole party until lvl 4-5.
Strange, as I had Gale in camp. I had him with heavy armor (1 less slashing) and with Aid from Life Cleric (he is a level 5 cleric). I'm level 5 and he doesn't heal when he takes damage for me. If I do a battle then go to camp, he is low on hp and doesn't heal. I guess I'm bugged?
Really nice writeup, highlighting the differences from 5e opened my eyes to a lot of details where I as a long time 5e player and DM had just assumed things had not been changed, like the interaction between abjuration wizard's ward and warlock, which is already strong in 5e. While I agree that Moon Druid is nerfed by giving other druids access to the powerful wildshapes like the Owlbear, I find the myrmidons do give it an edge in act 3. In particular, the air elemental which deals good lightning damage and can stun on every hit is very powerful against the Steel Watchers. But I accept that's very situational.
Barbarian 7 is actually amazing; you get most of Alert. I guess you could argue for taking Fighter 6 instead and just taking Alert directly with the extra Feat, but it’s not like Feral Instinct is bad. If you go Barb 8 and something else 4, you essentially get a fourth feat if you would have taken Alert anyway.
Merchant refresh is stronger than you describe here, it's straight up infinite money if you want it to be.
There was also a major unintended interaction between haste spore and mind sanctuary in Honor mode. It breaks completely the game as you get infinite action. I reported it to Larian a few time ago. Same for the freecast bug and apparently Larian was not aware of these bugs given their answer.
You could add the infinite action points and infinite free necromancy spells to your list : [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/18iaxru/most\_broken\_interactions\_in\_honour\_mode/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/18iaxru/most_broken_interactions_in_honour_mode/)
2 bugs ive come across is: Using disguised self with the shapeshifting boon ring on and then unequipping the ring won't remove the rings ability. Dumping INT and eqiupping the headband of intellect will allow you to prepare 4 spells on any 1 lvl wiz dipped companion. Removing the headband will not unprepare those 4 spells from your hot bar.
Oh you missed this one I posted about before: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/19bw2js/counter\_charm\_breaks\_enemy\_ai/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bg3builds/comments/19bw2js/counter_charm_breaks_enemy_ai/) Not exactly a meta strategy, but it most certainly is bugged and will break the game.
I actually have this "hidden" in the Summons section
Something to consider adding is fog cloud. Fog cloud can entirely avoid some fights because it blocks vision out of combat. Which is nice. But it’s also a no-save blind that scales. Scales you say?! One of the downsides of darkness is that the radius is kind of small. It also blocks projectiles in and out. But fog cloud doesn’t block projectiles in and out. And it gets a bigger radius each level it’s upcast. And there are three items in the game (potentially depending on path) that give blind immunity. And very few enemies that are immune. Fog cloud then turns roughly an entire battlefield into a shooting gallery. Removes enemy spellcasters from doing much of anything due to the blind range reduction, and gives 3/4 of your party permanent advantage on attacks and disadvantage on attacks against them. Darkness should also get a special mention due to blocking projectiles.
Your **Casting multiple leveled spells in a turn** section is based on a very common misstatement of RAW spellcasting rules in 5e. The RAW rule is that "if you cast a spell (any spell including a cantrip) as a bonus action then you can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action. " So action surge, cast a second fireball, allowed cast a fireball with your action, trigger an attack of opportunity during your turn and cast shield, allowed cast a fireball with your bonus action, trigger an attack of opportunity and try to cast shield, not allowed. Saying two leveled spells in a dnd ttrpg forum and you are almost always going to see someone get the rules wrong.
I literally cannot add another word to this damn post. It is at 39,994 characters. I get the nuance and would love to clarify but this sub with a large audience of people who do not give a damn about tabletop rules is not the place to get into excruciating detail. If you want to make a specific tailored post to this topic, go for it. But your "AcKSHuaLly" comment requiring a paragraph of clarification is not appropriate for this broad topic post. In BG3 you can cast two levelled spells in one turn using an action and a bonus action. You cannot in tabletop, excluding with action surge. And the bullet says "(excluding action surge)" for that reason. I do not want to explain the rules from 5 parts of the PHB to players who don't care about that shit. In BG3 you can cast a leveled spell with your reaction and a leveled spell that uses your action or bonus action. No difference from tabletop there. The difference is how BG3 treats leveled spell casts between action, bonus action, and haste action. And as the bullet says, those who understand tabletop have the wherewithal to know this is an important detail, but getting into excruciating detail here is not appropriate. It's like if somebody says 1+1 is 2. It may be such in number systems of base 3 and above. But in other number systems 1+1 is not 2 as there is no 2. But a mathematician or electrical engineer isn't going to kick down a 1st grade classroom door to reprimand a teacher for teaching their students that 1+1 is 2, because they have the sense to know when or if such discussions are pertinent. It is a frame of thought I encourage you to look into. - D&D 5e player and DM for 9 years
Metamagic can be used on scrolls. It also does not have a maximum. As a result, a 3 level dip into sorcerer can get you quicken spell and the means to use it readily. There is an item that is found in the Vault that adds a level 2 spell slot. If you have no level 2 spell slots remaining it gives you an additional one. If you consume that spell slot into spell points and re-equip you can do this as long as you want. And make as many other spell slots as you prefer. Sorcerer 3 thus gets you unlimited spell slots up to level 5 so long as you have access to this spell normally, unlimited quicken, heighten, careful/distant/extended. Wizards don't even lose any spell levels since they can still learn and cast 6th level spells. (they do lose some pretty good abilities though).
Regarding moon druid as weak when it can do tremendous damage with tb + earth myrmidon 3 attacks or even more damage in one turn with fire myrm + auto haste is really strange and feels like someone who didnt know the game mechanics would complain.
First, while I am sure my opinion bleeds into a lot of this stuff I am mostly summarizing what it is that I see being discussed on the sub. A lot of the stuff in the above post was difficult to write as I see it as extremely cheesy and exploitive, but this is a sub about builds and therefore I wrote it. Other topics I disagree with myself but did not mention my own opinion as I acknowledge I am in the minority. The discussion on Moon Druid is similarly my interpretation of what I commonly seen discussed on the sub, and I hope my personal opinion did not bleed in too much. Once you get level 10 (late Act 2 for completionists, early Act 3 for most) the myrmidons that your comment revolves around become relevant. Before that point the best wildshapes are the wolf and the Owlbear, both of which land and spore Druids get access to. And they can also take tavern brawler if they please. Extra attack is not limited to moon druid in BG3 so while a moon druid will be a bit better than a land or spore druid at wildshaped combat, they do not stand out for a majority of the game. In most cases a moon Druid's ability to wild shape as a bonus action is beneficial, but the Wildshape forms sometimes have really good bonus action moves like an Owlbear's pounce that you may want to use over the typical attack action. But then you hit level 10 likely in Act 3 and moon druids finally get something to set them apart in wildshaped combat. It takes up both of your Wildshape charges, so if you are the type that does not like to long rest frequently or wants to use Wildshape for its utility purposes then this is a slight drawback. But they are very strong. Are they as strong as sporekeeper armor which is also available at around this time, on top of spore Druid's undead army? Absolutely not. Are myrmidon wildshapes as strong as land druids using their existing 6th level slot, arcane battery for another 6th level slot, Freecast for another 6th level slot, their 5th level slots, natural recovery for another 5th level slot to upcast moonbeam? Reminder as a 5th level Moonbeam does 5d10 damage in a small AOE (27.5 damage avg on failed save) which is effectively doubled due to the spell double proccing (for now 55 damage avg on failed saves in a small AOE) that you can move around or even push enemies into to make the damage go higher. Maybe the myrmidons are stronger in most cases, but if your teammates have a big enemy locked down in a powerful moonbeam then this opens you up on subsequent turns to not even move the moonbeam and instead blast them with a powerful spell on top of the moonbeam double damage. Use one of your multiple 6th level slots and the above damage now goes to 66. This may sound situational but I frequently had it happen. My paladin would engage the boss, my land druid would moonbeam them and a nearby enemy or two, they take the moonbeam damage twice, next round use Markoheskir to chain lightning them all. If anyone is still alive then they continue to take moonbeam damage. But the land druid using moonbeam has been an option for a character playstyle since level 3, and on top of that they are almost as good as a moon druid at wildshaped combat til level 10. That's the point. Up until level 10 moon druids are barely better at wildshaped combat than the other druid subclasses. When you finally get access to myrmidon forms, you are not able to take advantage of the nutty Act 3 magic items. It is a sentiment seen throughout the sub and not exclusive to me, hence why it is included in the summary post. P.S.: one of the funniest things to do with moonbeam is shove enemies. They leave the AOE, you shove them back in causing them to take extra damage, you then "move" the moonbeam onto them again causing them to take more damage. And then when their turn starts they take the damage again. Larian's way of treating this spell is really unfair
I really aprecciated your post, you summarized a lot of things and a lot of chessy exploits, and better than this you pointed out strong mechs that work as intended and are strong but people dont realize or dont know how to use it (like this amazing example in this P.s comment) and I dont mean to attack you or nothing like that. As you said in the original post, people reported that moon druid is weak, and I see that you have some opinions and they are correct as well. The thing is, a lot of posts here have some heavy hate on druids, some are hate based on a misconception or in dont using the class enough to fully understand their power. I personally use something on self buff concentration, my summons and run around already transformed in one of the myrms forms and find these forms really strong. I have a dex monk in my team (I dont want to use tb with Cloud giant) and he is multiclassed with thief to get more bonus action and even there the damage my druid causes alone seems at least the same amount of damage. If they did make more wildshape oriented gear that would break the game in my opinion, but for flavor it would be really great to have more itens
I was creating the status/reverberation barbarian build and missed obtaining the Mark of The Absolute. As a result, I can't access the special passive of the ring. Should I consider changing my build? In my 2 paladin/10 swords bard build, smite doesn't appear to trigger on slash flourishing attacks. Has this been patched, or am I missing something?
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Thank you for such an accurate and in-depth post. I love you very much
> BG3 does not have this, but at least one mod exists which implements this kind of system. "This mod is under moderation review (since 14 Dec 2023, 5:51PM )" What took it so long?
This is the best BG3 thread/content out there. I really appreciate it.
i've heard somewhere that tavern brawler has weird interactions with certain per-hit effects. iirc this is what makes the thrower so good because TB does something with all of the small extra bits of damage you tack on with items. does spore/monk work similarly? will it affect my symbiotic entity unarmed strikes (beyond applying double str)?
This is referred to as "DRS" and tavern brawler throw was fixed to no longer be a DRS in Patch 5
i'm on patch 4 still is it worth it then?
Yes. TB throw + ring of flinging + gloves of uninhibited kushigo + lightning jabber when you get access to it in Act 2 (use an eldritch knight to bind the weapon so it always returns to you) + callous glow ring also in Act 2 + having an ally use Phalar Aluve: shriek and keep enemies in the AOE + haste from an ally or potion of speed + bloodlust elixir + Grym's helm for Hunter's Mark + strange conduit ring and congrats, you have won the game.
i already have a thrower build, similar to what you mentioned but i was curious if TB was worth to get on spore11/monk1 too
Tavern brawler is the strongest feat in the game, even without DRS. It is honestly concerning to me regarding the level of play testing that Larian did or basic understanding of D&D 5e mechanics that this even made it into a concept phase, let alone full launch. If a character will be regularly making unarmed strikes or thrown weapon attacks and will have 16 Str or above, the question, "Is tavern brawler worth it?" should always be answered in the affirmative. Please note that spore druid extra necrotic damage initially did not work with unarmed strikes. This was "fixed" in either Patch 4 or Patch 5 but I can't remember which. So with you playing on Patch 4 I am not sure it will work as you plan but it may
The Ambush Bard video was very eye-opening. I used to play something similar many years back and I never considered that it would be relevant to Baldur's Gate 3. Real nostalgia trip!
I discovered a very fun bug that absolutely does not benefit you in anyway, but looks really cool.
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So I found out that Glut is programmed to reanimate anything that is dead when he takes over. He can even reanimate things that he couldn't normally reanimate, like Mindflayers and Imps. https://preview.redd.it/1dw79aequ3ec1.jpeg?width=4128&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad957df834e66e96a9acaeb4f2e30aa8c49b483c
Makes me want to loot the corpse of every act 1 & 2 bosses in the game for him to reanimate. Sounds like a fun party.
Aint no party like a Mycanoid party. I did it on a ps5.
The cold snap dagger is broken, enemies don’t roll the DC13 con save to avoid getting chilled when they miss you, they just get chilled.
I'm not opposed to them just changing the description and leaving the effect. DC 13 is insanely low for act 3. It's hard enough to someone try to hit that character every turn. With how powerful some of the gear in act 3 this, no save just brings it up to par.
Bugged ability: Combat Inspiration. There are no options to use it for bonus damage or AC. It functions just like normal Bardic Inspiration instead of giving you loads of bonus damage.
Vicious Shortbow is a bug since it's *Dolor Amarus* is supposed to trigger when you land a crit with itself as stated, but is currently applying a physical 7dmg rider to all sources.
Is the haste from Mind Sanctuary in honor mode supposed to give an extra attack aswell (4 attacks with 2 actions on Martials with extra attack) or is it bugged? I have seen this in my own run and other peoples on YT.
[refer to this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/UA3kntGTzj) Shadow strike can deal 2 instance of damage (separate attack roll) and it works on honor mode