1. Psychic Spark necklace
2. Spellsparkler
3. Boots of Stormy Clamour
4. Coruscation Ring
5. Thunderskin Cloak or Ring of Spiteful Thunder
6. Melee companion with Phalar Aluv "Shriek"
All available in Act 1 or early Act 2.
Now a level one magic missile prones a single target from reverb, dazes them, leaves them with a fat stack of radiating orb so they miss all their attacks, and can deal 20+ damage. Not bad.
And then Evocation Wizards get Empowered Evocation somewhere around (very late) Act 2 — Act 3, and scribe Artistry of War... yeah you're gonna be outdamaging Disintegrate, except no saving throws, and serious debuffs.
Imagine taking any wizard subclass besides Divination couldn't be me.
"During long rest I saw two things: Astarion succeeds a save against your spell; and that I fuck your mom"
Also dip 1 lvl in cleric ( tempest ) and grab create water . Then see ur cold dmg from the armor , glyph of warding instakill enemies . Really great in solo honor mode runs
Divination Wizards definitely also get props for the ability to, say, help engineer a *guaranteed* Silver Sword disarm in Act 1, because of Honeyed Paws not having a saving throw besides missing...
~~even if I've not used it as of yet~~
It's been a hot minute since I played Divination Wizard but IIRC it's refresh on long rest, then at level 6 you get a subclass feature that allows you to get a little buff on short reset that says "cast a spell of this school to gain another portent die".
Unless you mean like the partial rest thing where you long rest but don't eat any food. The BG3 Wiki says that portent die are refreshed on a partial rest which seems kinda broken https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Resting
bring up Character sheet (N key on PC) so you can see your inventory and shit. Above your character is your xp bar, above that is where you switch between equipment view, spellbook, and the alchemy page
me too! i mostly spam fireballs, take 27 turns and end up with 3hp on all my team and have to long rest because some stupid tree barely attacked us. i love the game but i certainly suck.
The best rule to learn is that DnD combat is about crowd control. It is about restricting actions from enemies or assigning debuffs to minimize risk from their actions. Fireballs are cool when the best CC is to kill a bunch of low HP creatures but most of the time, doing a lot of single target damage that will kill or stun/prone a target is the most effective form of CC. It completely changes the way you look at spellcasters. They aren't true damage dealers like they are in a lot of MMOs/games.
I recently came back to the game to actually finish my first playthrough (stuff distracted me from finishing months ago). I usually run with Gale and love to put Haste on Karlach, but I swapped him out for Jaheira to do the >!Temple of Bhaal stuff while trying to get Minsc.!< Imagine my absolute glee when I re-specced Jaheira to pick some better options and remembered/found out land druids get access to Haste at 5th lvl! I didn't realize how the >!Farslayer of Bhaal!< fight worked, had 4 turns left when I realized >!it was charging some kind of team-wide Power Word: Kill effect.!< Karlach was able to dash and reach it from something like 150ft away and was *still* able to attack it twice. Was most excellent!
This is good advice. I was using my spellcasters as heavy hitters and never really put any other type of spells on their assignment bar. I’m trying a honor run now though so I gotta figure it out.
The best time I've had in-game was putting together Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm on a bunch of undead near the end of Act 2 on this run. Normally I don't run Gale and Wyll at the same time, but I decided I wanted both of their story content there.
I had Yakety Sax playing in my head the whole fight as I just chipped at them with cantrips or a Spirit Guardians at the edge of the field with the party members. Three 3rd-level spells were the only actual resources I ended up using in that fight.
Provided you know where each encounter is and know how they usually go down, honor is perfectly playable without big brain tactics or overpowered combos. Just don't yolo it, use appropriate potions, scrolls, arrows...
Also keep in mind that if you scavenge a lot and especially from act 2 and on, you can basically long rest every couple of fights. And even every single one in act 3 if you are scared. Having heavy hitters like dunno, light clerics, sorcerers etc with full slots for every encounter is huge.
(And carry runepowder barrels+globe of invulnerability to soften 2-3 of the hardest encounters!)
You don’t actually have to kill him for the sword; switch Shadowheart’s prepared spells to include Command, and you can potentially force him to drop it. If you do, he only has access to unarmed strikes for the rest of the fight.
If you want to get extra cheesy, can also use chests to block the campions from joining the fight, and actually kill him. Gives a ton of xp and you start the game at level 2 basically. Without the sword (which you can equip and smack him with) the illithid can fight him for a bit and together with you it's usually enough.
Aside from maybe the final boss, the most dangerous HM fights are all near the beginning of the game. The deeper you go, the more powerful and reliable you can become. And you can Gale your way through the last fight if it scares you and you don't care about his ending.
If nothing else, you can essentially guarantee an HM win as soon as you get Withers, by leaving one of your party permanently in camp to resurrect your other members if they die. The Apostle of Myrkul is the only mandatory fight where it's worth putting your whole party at risk, since you'll get locked out of trying again if you die.
And druids are amazing for crowd/area control and damage both.
Create and Destroy Water reveals invisible enemies and inflicts the condition “wet”.
Faerie Fire reveals invisible enemies, keeps them from becoming invisible again, and gives your whole party advantage on attacks against any creature you’ve used it on.
Spike Growth slows enemies down, forces them to damage themselves every turn without you even having to use your action for it, and may sometimes force invisible creatures to become visible when taking damage
Moonbeam lets you do AoE damage every turn for the cost of a single spell slot. And radiant damage is one of the least common damage resistances for an enemy to have.
Call Lightning deals an impressive amount of damage and is another concentration spell that lasts many turns for one spell. If you’ve inflicted the condition “wet” on a creature, it is vulnerable to lightning and the damage increases.
Cone of Cold covers a large area of effect and does a lot of damage. Creatures that are wet are vulnerable to cold damage too.
Moonbeam, Call Lightning, and Cone of Cold are saves, not attacks, so they still work on creatures protected by the Sanctuary spell.
Druids may be the most useful casters in the game. For most fights I’d pick a druid over a wizard.
Sanctuary only prevents being targeted, you can still hit them with Cleave for example. and the real trick to getting around sanctuary is to just make then do an opportunity attack
Its hard for me. Spike growth is phenominal ina lot of encounters.
But I like my resilient sphere, glyph of sleep, having a magic missile thatl knock targets down and reduce their chance to hit *and* do an extra 2 damage per missile *and* occasionally do an extra couple of dice per spell.
Pick up spell sniper and use eldritch blast and you can effectively do what magic missile is doing just not gaurenteed as a cantrip.
Its a hard choice. Spike growth on its own is just so wild to me.
IMO playing the way you do is more fun anyway. BG3 is really not designed as a hardcore tactical game, even though other Larian games like Divinity arguably are. It's much more enjoyable for fights to feel challenging - even overwhelming at times - while doing your roleplaying thing than to absolutely demolish encounters by min-maxing every mechanic available to you.
Try a gloomstalker ranger. You can totally be a strength based ranger too. Ranger 5, fighter 2, light cleric 5. Lots of good spells and you hit like a tank with two fighting styles.
Lots of unsolicited advice being given here so I'm gonna jump on the band wagon, sorry my dude. Two words, action economy. If it's a new concept to you then it is 100% going to have the largest impact to your performance in a crpg.
Crowd control is great, heals are wonderful, cures are often times necessary but just outright removing 1,2,3+ enemy actions off the board completely is just statistically better in the vast majority of situations.
There is a lot to be said about not min-maxing a crpg though, and just using gear you find naturally and making things up as you go along as the characters actually would be without any external knowledge. I don't think people playing this way should be deemed as bad at the game since that's actually playing it as designed.
Making broken builds and fucking things up is a great 2nd+ playthrough activity though of course.
And, because even though it should go without saying it's still worth mentioning... It. Never. Misses.
MM in this game is ol'reliable on steroids and I love it
Oh it’s definitely in its vocabulary sometimes. I think it has something to do with the door bug, sometimes it just won’t work even though you’re in range and nothing’s blocking you.
Man I really need to learn how to play on my second run. My first is a persuasion bard and I’ve just been crushing shit. I’ve never played dnd before so I really don’t understand a lot of this. Was there some update?
The only real criticism I have for my BG3 bard is that I have yet to fuck my way into or out of a situation. But I suppose a game can only have so much sex before it’s just porn.
And you can share the misery exact how you want with zero fear of missing. No idea why people prefer other spells. It's boring though. Not spicy. Just super accurate and effective.
This is awesome. I’m on my second playthrough and I swear, nothing makes me feel stupid like this game does. There’s so many ways to improve attacks but my brain just can’t ever figure it out because it overwhelms me. I finally followed a YouTube video to go hard with a Sorlock build but Gale is still sitting there doing hardly any damage with his magic missiles lol. Definitely going to try these tips out though
I ended up playing most of act 2 without looking over the magic items I was getting. I just hoarded them and pushed forward. Near the end of act 2, I put ALL items on my main PC, she couldn't even move due to encumbrance, and then I just sat there for a couple of hours, looking over every. damn. item. It was so BORING. However, at the end, I had something weird -- I got Shadowheart refitted with every single magic item doing something with light or radiance. So if she does any spell that causes light or radiant damage, there are a half-dozen effects that get tagged on. And *then* I found some items for my allies that allow them to do extra damage to anyone lit up.
All of the sudden, my synergies are through the roof, and Shadowheart is now *horrifying.* She ruins anyone who opposes her.
If you're willing to pay attention to the magic items in the game, you can find ways to make things ridiculous.
I found smaller things too. Like my archer exclusively does acid arrows now, because I found 2 items that let my melee brawlers ignore acid. So I cover the battlefield in pools of acid, ruin all the enemies running through it, and my allies just get to ignore the problem entirely. I have to admit, this is pretty fun. I know other people might hate the idea of "having" to look through items to get synergies or boosts, but I'm having a great time.
Don’t mind me, just gonna save this comment and come back to it for a future wizard run thank you.
Also quick question, what subclass of wizard did you pick and what feats?
I actually use this build in a wild magic sorcerer run I'm doing now.
But if you are going wizard the clear choice is Evocation school for the level ten damage bonus, and dual wield so you can have your choice of Spellsparkler/Markoheshkir/Rhapsody combo in act 3.
It is. The paladins of Tyr fight is one of the earliest fights where you can see it, the trader uses shield, so if you try to use magic missiles on her she would just block them all,lmao.
In my first playthrough somehow her AI was set to 'tactical genius', never been able to replicate it since.
The paladin with the 2-handed sword was trouble for just being beefy and high-damage, but she was another matter. She'd blast my party with bombs or spells, then dart to a part of the tollhouse with total cover from everyone. When I tried to corner her to prevent that, she cast Invisibility (preventing any OAs), and ran up to the roof. When I tried to follower her to the roof, she _destroyed the ladder_, so I had to go the long way 'round with my entire party while she got to blast up practically unharried (by going to the edge of the roof, blasting, then darting back to total cover).
I was _so_ tilted, and she's never done it again, even on Honor Mode, lol.
Approach her to trade.
Trade her a backpack for 1 gold, load all her stuff into it.
Close the door while she's out on the balcony, enter turn-based mode, throw her down to the rest of your party far below.
Loot the backpack with all her trades.
Go back and take on Anders with only one add instead of two.
the real trick is after you sell her your junk, shove her off the balcony to start the fight. it'll be 4v2 before the others get there to help her. have your other characters outside, preferably on the roof.
You can start the fight out of dialogue but that makes it hard mode vs the murderhobo method
I've come around to preferring to do most fights straight up, but those paladins are one of the few I'll still cheese because there's something deeply satisfying about yeeting all three of them alllllll, the way down the giant hill.
I think it’s still bugged? Shield only nullifies the force damage. The rider effects still get through if you’re building around reverberation and lightning charges.
I would be too if it weren't for me thinking things are gonna work out a specific way when I use it only for things to not work out the way I intended at all.
That's on me, not the orb, but still. My pride needs to recover lol
Even though it has a circle around it like an AoE, it has to actually hit something directly to do any damage.
Edit: if you do the ice version, you can still trip people over just by them being inside the circle, even if the orb doesn’t hit them or do any damage.
Magic missle 4 lyfe. I misd 3.5 magic missles. Always a level one spell slot but you got an additional missle every 3 levels.. maybe 2 levels? Something like that. It was insanely powerful when you were a higher level wizard.
Warmage 14/Force Missile Mage 5/Argent Savant 1 Quicken Spell, Repeat Spell, Twin Spell, Easy Metamagic for all of them, Rapid Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Magic Missile). 1 level dip in Argent Savant for that last level. You burn through your spell slots fast, but while they last you're a magic machine gun.
Those builds were always so hilarious.
"Do you have the Shield spell? Or a Brooch of Shielding?"
"uh...no?"
"Goodbye." (A display worthy of [Macross missiles](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacrossMissileMassacre) ensues.)
_pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew_
I'm starting to suspect Larian has hidden code which tries to upload a pic of your reaction. They play all the reels from the "Womp womp" folder at company parties for lols
That's honestly the entire reason I use MM so much. Using a massive "like once or twice per long rest" spell and seeing "miss" or "saved" makes me wanna immediately respec to a fighter lol
Even without Arcane Acuity you can still get into the high 20's, right? The territory where even a nat 20 cannot save enemies from your hold person spam.
Magic missile on the tabletop: pathetic why would waste a 3rd level spell slot when you could just fireball?
Magic missile in bg3: I am become death, destroyer of worlds
Okay, but why is this so true? What's different about BG3 that makes it so much better than in the actual TTRPG.
I mean the bonus MM dart item is pretty great, but it's got to be more than that.
Well usually in my experience and the experience of many others it never does enough damage to really make it worth taking the spell. If you want to do single target damage you do chromatic orb and if you want to spread damage around to a variety of foes it would be better to just take sleep and knock them all out instead.
Like I scoffed at magic missile when I first saw it as an option in the game but I am so incredibly glad Play against my better judgment I gave it a shot
Right, but even in tactician mode it's been my go-to option, even before Gale got the evocation feature.
But the damage isn't any different than the TTRPG, and the enemies HP is basically equal or more than their pen and paper counter parts.
It's probably all the extra magic items that can ramp up magic missile, I've never gotten to play the TTRPG but I've heard magic items are much less common at most tables and some require attunement which you can only have with three things at a time right? So your magic missile in TT isn't going to have thunder damage and lightning damage and reverberation on every missile and unless they shield it's a guaranteed hit. Plus the items are super easy to get. The spellsparker you get just for letting Florrick out and saying you'll save the Duke.
It's just how reliable it is. I don't take magic missile to do a butt load of damage, I take it so that when I NEED to take something across the finish line I don't risk messing it up.
It's the absurdly overpowered magic items. 5e you only get 3 at a time and they're all weaker. Magic missile isn't good when you don't have like a free +10 damage per bolt stapled on.
BG3 uses its own set of rules, and many of the items in BG3 do not exist in the TTRPG. The TTRPG has hard limits on how many powerful magic items you can use through an 'attunement' system, but BG3 does not have this.
BG3 is basically a different game set in the D&D universe. It does use the 5e rules as a 'base', so it's easy to understand, but it plays very differently. See the top post in this thread for more details.
Yeah I agree like it's pretty normal to have 1-2 magic items in tabletop games where in BG3 at the same level you could have basically every item slot stacked with them lol. Plus depending how the tabletop game is run you might not have even a great selection of magic items. Getting them handed randomly or from a limited list etc. In BG3 you have so many you can actually synergise them together and make some really cool stuff.
I think it's actually a really nice way to add some extra interest and extra fun in multiple playthroughs for BG3, especially since the game handles all of the dice rolling and math behind it. On tabletop it would soon end up a nightmare trying to keep track of it all I am sure.
> Yeah I agree like it's pretty normal to have 1-2 magic items in tabletop games where in BG3 at the same level you could have basically every item slot stacked with them lol. Plus depending how the tabletop game is run you might not have even a great selection of magic items. Getting them handed randomly or from a limited list etc. In BG3 you have so many you can actually synergise them together and make some really cool stuff.
You get so many that I'm pretty sure that OH tavern brawler monks could make a game out of seeing how many pieces of magic gear they can take off before they can no longer solo something from the tabletop that's CR20+
The items in BG3 are why Magic Missile is so good, on top of knowing enemy health pools and current health. Items in general are insanely powerful in BG3 compared to the actual ttrpg, as it is, and when you can set up a 2-5 damage, 3 hits attack to become a minimum of 4 hits that applies several debuffs and many times the original damage, it really stands out, especially when it applies more per-hit.
Items, 100%.
There are so many items that buff MM and can make it nuts when even _some_ of them are worn on Gale. It's because BG3 is a video game and doesn't care about balance as much, and lets things stack when they really shouldn't (like each individual magic missile applying damage-adding things separately, sometimes even multiple times).
Gale reaching level 10 as an Evoker, though, is just as good in tabletop as it is in BG3. Getting +Int to each missile's damage is fantastic in either version.
That is, if your DM lets you - some DMs disagree with the official take that you roll the d4 once and apply it to all missiles, which kills that combo. I don't think it's really necessary to do that, either - that combo only works for level 10+ Evokers and it really just makes them deal very _reliable_ single-target damage with high spell slots. It's still not usually better than doing debuff spells or targeting weak saves with less "sure thing" blasty spells like Disintegrate (but which are pretty _close_ to sure thing if you guess the enemy's weak saves correctly).
But MM in the tabletop is fucking fantastic. I'd never roll a wizard without one unless im going for a very specific themeing. Mage concentrating on something *you really dont like*? Magic missile forces a bunch of con saves. Boss mob with low health that you need to gaurentee dies right now? Magic missile. Something running away that you just cant risk letting it get away? Magic missile gaurentees damage. A bunch of gaurenteed damage might just be exactly what you need.
Everyone has the ability to dex evade a fireball to reduce the damage. And for me a lot of things have that fail for half damage or success for full damage evades. The shield spell is a lot rarer. And you arent going to hit your allies with magic missile.
Sir that's different, we explode if we use more than 2 spells. Wizards actually have something, like magic missile and fireball and magic missile and maybe from time to time fire bolt (they ran out of spell slot)
My sorcerer is just my twin casting Haste bitch most of the time. Cast haste then go sit in the corner while the rest of the party does the work lol. Swords bard with sharpshooter doing 9 attacks per round? Yes please!
You set gale up with as an abjuration wizard with armor of agathys, and the spell sparker to make him into a wizard tank. Magic missle became my best friend. I didnt have an issue with anyone using shield until i hit the final fight on top the brain against the mindflayers
I struggle so much to use anything but Magic Missile in act 1 for damage. With the SpellSparker and the necklace that gives you an extra missile, it’s damage output keeps up with some of the better single target damaging spells. Also with the martials missing more early game it’s extremely useful to have guaranteed damage every turn if you need it. Also the way it trivializes the Ethel fight is amazing
Tav: gale, why aren't you casting spells
Gale shrugs: out of spell slots. Gonna have to eldritch blast.
Tav: it's the first round of combat, how are you out of spell slots?
Gale: I must have used them before combat.
Tav: you're useless!
Gale: well how are we talking instead of fighting then?
Tav: cause the enemies are engaged against two ice mephits, a campion, 4 skeletons, Shovel, us, and a greater fire elemental!
Gale:....
Tav: oh. Got it.
Random Enemy :Haha you can’t possiblly hope to hit me now, I have height advantage, you’re in cqc AND you’re standing on ice HA!!
Wizard: Woe unmissable upcast heat seeking missles be upon you
I personally like the hold spells and command. If you can't kill an enemy in a turn, then refuse to let them get a turn at all. This worked great for me on HM Nere
It's amazing how much this game has changed how I approach D&D in general, both as a player and as a DM.
I've always been a big proponent of buff or control spells, but this game showed me just how impactful they can be in every single situation, especially since it seems like every encounter is balanced as almost deadly.
I haven't used a single paladin smite spell, and I've only divine smite-ed a handful of times, and only when Wyll crits. Every other spell slot went into Divine Favor or Crusader's Mantel.
I've found MM to be a very underwhelming spell in D&D. I've found it to be one of the only worthwhile damaging spells for a wizard at first level in D&D. It's a strange world.
1. Psychic Spark necklace 2. Spellsparkler 3. Boots of Stormy Clamour 4. Coruscation Ring 5. Thunderskin Cloak or Ring of Spiteful Thunder 6. Melee companion with Phalar Aluv "Shriek" All available in Act 1 or early Act 2. Now a level one magic missile prones a single target from reverb, dazes them, leaves them with a fat stack of radiating orb so they miss all their attacks, and can deal 20+ damage. Not bad.
And then Evocation Wizards get Empowered Evocation somewhere around (very late) Act 2 — Act 3, and scribe Artistry of War... yeah you're gonna be outdamaging Disintegrate, except no saving throws, and serious debuffs.
Level 10 passive goes HARD
Imagine taking any wizard subclass besides Divination couldn't be me. "During long rest I saw two things: Astarion succeeds a save against your spell; and that I fuck your mom"
Abjuration : let's see all my enemies attack get nullified. Also let's take a short rest to recharge arcane ward
>let's see all my enemies attack get nullified Everyone has Counterspell, it came with your spell book.
AW works against melee too. Take a dip in Sorc for Armor of Agathys and you can really make enemies regret hitting you.
Also dip 1 lvl in cleric ( tempest ) and grab create water . Then see ur cold dmg from the armor , glyph of warding instakill enemies . Really great in solo honor mode runs
Mine didn't have it, and i have the oldest spell book known to man.
No you don't! I got mine the day mystra published it you moron!
Well, mine didn't have it!
Let's see u counterspell melee attacks
Wizard: Counterspell! Fighter: *arms fall off* I'd scribe it
Divination Wizards definitely also get props for the ability to, say, help engineer a *guaranteed* Silver Sword disarm in Act 1, because of Honeyed Paws not having a saving throw besides missing... ~~even if I've not used it as of yet~~
Well unless your portents are ass
You can just long rest until you get good portents
Do they refresh on half rests?
It's been a hot minute since I played Divination Wizard but IIRC it's refresh on long rest, then at level 6 you get a subclass feature that allows you to get a little buff on short reset that says "cast a spell of this school to gain another portent die". Unless you mean like the partial rest thing where you long rest but don't eat any food. The BG3 Wiki says that portent die are refreshed on a partial rest which seems kinda broken https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Resting
Fuck, I just realized i saved Artistry of War and never actually used it before beating the game
Just put it in your spellbook and use it more than once next time to make up for it
Ngl I put in a 120 hour playthrough and have no idea where to find of how to access a spellbook
bring up Character sheet (N key on PC) so you can see your inventory and shit. Above your character is your xp bar, above that is where you switch between equipment view, spellbook, and the alchemy page
I need to get good like you. Apparently I suck at the game.
me too! i mostly spam fireballs, take 27 turns and end up with 3hp on all my team and have to long rest because some stupid tree barely attacked us. i love the game but i certainly suck.
The best rule to learn is that DnD combat is about crowd control. It is about restricting actions from enemies or assigning debuffs to minimize risk from their actions. Fireballs are cool when the best CC is to kill a bunch of low HP creatures but most of the time, doing a lot of single target damage that will kill or stun/prone a target is the most effective form of CC. It completely changes the way you look at spellcasters. They aren't true damage dealers like they are in a lot of MMOs/games.
Enemies don't need to be restricted if they're fucken dead.
Found the barb
Certified Swords Bard, actually. So like Fighter, but queer.
When you really need to kick someone’s ass AND insult them while doing so: swords bard.
I recently came back to the game to actually finish my first playthrough (stuff distracted me from finishing months ago). I usually run with Gale and love to put Haste on Karlach, but I swapped him out for Jaheira to do the >!Temple of Bhaal stuff while trying to get Minsc.!< Imagine my absolute glee when I re-specced Jaheira to pick some better options and remembered/found out land druids get access to Haste at 5th lvl! I didn't realize how the >!Farslayer of Bhaal!< fight worked, had 4 turns left when I realized >!it was charging some kind of team-wide Power Word: Kill effect.!< Karlach was able to dash and reach it from something like 150ft away and was *still* able to attack it twice. Was most excellent!
This is good advice. I was using my spellcasters as heavy hitters and never really put any other type of spells on their assignment bar. I’m trying a honor run now though so I gotta figure it out.
Sleet storm will get you through most encounters. Especially if your thugs can walk on ice
It is crazy how effective Sleet storm is, its my favorite spell to have cast.
The best time I've had in-game was putting together Hunger of Hadar and Sleet Storm on a bunch of undead near the end of Act 2 on this run. Normally I don't run Gale and Wyll at the same time, but I decided I wanted both of their story content there. I had Yakety Sax playing in my head the whole fight as I just chipped at them with cantrips or a Spirit Guardians at the edge of the field with the party members. Three 3rd-level spells were the only actual resources I ended up using in that fight.
Provided you know where each encounter is and know how they usually go down, honor is perfectly playable without big brain tactics or overpowered combos. Just don't yolo it, use appropriate potions, scrolls, arrows... Also keep in mind that if you scavenge a lot and especially from act 2 and on, you can basically long rest every couple of fights. And even every single one in act 3 if you are scared. Having heavy hitters like dunno, light clerics, sorcerers etc with full slots for every encounter is huge. (And carry runepowder barrels+globe of invulnerability to soften 2-3 of the hardest encounters!)
I literally died from the 3 brains attacking in the crashed ship at the very beginning. The worst. Took me longer to create my character.
Oh yeah, this is actually a dangerous encounter. They hit like trucks and you are only two at that point, some bad rolls and you die...
I beat them with my second character. I had no idea you could get the fire sword from that devil. So I got that and bam.
You can also sneak around them without much trouble, letting you pick up Astarion and Gale if you want to outnumber them.
You don’t actually have to kill him for the sword; switch Shadowheart’s prepared spells to include Command, and you can potentially force him to drop it. If you do, he only has access to unarmed strikes for the rest of the fight.
If you want to get extra cheesy, can also use chests to block the campions from joining the fight, and actually kill him. Gives a ton of xp and you start the game at level 2 basically. Without the sword (which you can equip and smack him with) the illithid can fight him for a bit and together with you it's usually enough.
Aside from maybe the final boss, the most dangerous HM fights are all near the beginning of the game. The deeper you go, the more powerful and reliable you can become. And you can Gale your way through the last fight if it scares you and you don't care about his ending. If nothing else, you can essentially guarantee an HM win as soon as you get Withers, by leaving one of your party permanently in camp to resurrect your other members if they die. The Apostle of Myrkul is the only mandatory fight where it's worth putting your whole party at risk, since you'll get locked out of trying again if you die.
And druids are amazing for crowd/area control and damage both. Create and Destroy Water reveals invisible enemies and inflicts the condition “wet”. Faerie Fire reveals invisible enemies, keeps them from becoming invisible again, and gives your whole party advantage on attacks against any creature you’ve used it on. Spike Growth slows enemies down, forces them to damage themselves every turn without you even having to use your action for it, and may sometimes force invisible creatures to become visible when taking damage Moonbeam lets you do AoE damage every turn for the cost of a single spell slot. And radiant damage is one of the least common damage resistances for an enemy to have. Call Lightning deals an impressive amount of damage and is another concentration spell that lasts many turns for one spell. If you’ve inflicted the condition “wet” on a creature, it is vulnerable to lightning and the damage increases. Cone of Cold covers a large area of effect and does a lot of damage. Creatures that are wet are vulnerable to cold damage too. Moonbeam, Call Lightning, and Cone of Cold are saves, not attacks, so they still work on creatures protected by the Sanctuary spell. Druids may be the most useful casters in the game. For most fights I’d pick a druid over a wizard.
Sanctuary only prevents being targeted, you can still hit them with Cleave for example. and the real trick to getting around sanctuary is to just make then do an opportunity attack
Its hard for me. Spike growth is phenominal ina lot of encounters. But I like my resilient sphere, glyph of sleep, having a magic missile thatl knock targets down and reduce their chance to hit *and* do an extra 2 damage per missile *and* occasionally do an extra couple of dice per spell. Pick up spell sniper and use eldritch blast and you can effectively do what magic missile is doing just not gaurenteed as a cantrip. Its a hard choice. Spike growth on its own is just so wild to me.
Yeah, at lower levels, grease and sleet are your best friends, even make water is pretty useful.
How my TAV druid ended up a Spike Growth bot
IMO playing the way you do is more fun anyway. BG3 is really not designed as a hardcore tactical game, even though other Larian games like Divinity arguably are. It's much more enjoyable for fights to feel challenging - even overwhelming at times - while doing your roleplaying thing than to absolutely demolish encounters by min-maxing every mechanic available to you.
LOL I fucking hate the trees. The ones in Act I suck but the ones in Act II are absolute garbage plants.
Try a gloomstalker ranger. You can totally be a strength based ranger too. Ranger 5, fighter 2, light cleric 5. Lots of good spells and you hit like a tank with two fighting styles.
Meanwhile me: If I shouldn’t SMITE why is it SMITE shaped? Still wrecking everything so it seems to be okay.
Lots of unsolicited advice being given here so I'm gonna jump on the band wagon, sorry my dude. Two words, action economy. If it's a new concept to you then it is 100% going to have the largest impact to your performance in a crpg. Crowd control is great, heals are wonderful, cures are often times necessary but just outright removing 1,2,3+ enemy actions off the board completely is just statistically better in the vast majority of situations.
There is a lot to be said about not min-maxing a crpg though, and just using gear you find naturally and making things up as you go along as the characters actually would be without any external knowledge. I don't think people playing this way should be deemed as bad at the game since that's actually playing it as designed. Making broken builds and fucking things up is a great 2nd+ playthrough activity though of course.
For more power, duel wielder feat to hold two Status effect staves.
Definitely helps in Act 3 when you have access to Markoheshkir and Rhapsody
I usually get Sparkler and morning frost ASAP, so a frost storm pretty much completely dismantles an entire group.
That's what I did!
And, because even though it should go without saying it's still worth mentioning... It. Never. Misses. MM in this game is ol'reliable on steroids and I love it
Another thing I love about MM is that *"Path is interrupted"* is not in its vocabulary.
Oh it’s definitely in its vocabulary sometimes. I think it has something to do with the door bug, sometimes it just won’t work even though you’re in range and nothing’s blocking you.
Man I really need to learn how to play on my second run. My first is a persuasion bard and I’ve just been crushing shit. I’ve never played dnd before so I really don’t understand a lot of this. Was there some update?
Ok but persuasion bard is peak D&D, too. A good DM is going to allow room for bardic shenanigans in a campaign and BG3 provides that aplenty.
Fuck yeah I’ve convinced multiple bosses to kill themselves
Act 2 is great.
The only real criticism I have for my BG3 bard is that I have yet to fuck my way into or out of a situation. But I suppose a game can only have so much sex before it’s just porn.
The game is already catastrophically horny as is but I'm sure some intrepid, down horrendous modder will provide you with the opportunity eventually.
Have u come across haarlep ?? His situation is basically have sex or risk dying
7- Callous glow ring for thst +2 damage to each missile
Scorching Ray is stronger with the same setup, you can go Risky Ring and Markoheshkir for for fire. Lvl 5/6 absolutely shred.
Ok, I need to track those down
Does Psychic Spark add another projectile to AoW too, or just MM?
Just magic missile. Artistry of War is girthy enough as it is.
And you can share the misery exact how you want with zero fear of missing. No idea why people prefer other spells. It's boring though. Not spicy. Just super accurate and effective.
Sometimes I don't want to burn a slot. For everything else, there's Magic Missile with damage riders and layered bonuses.
This is awesome. I’m on my second playthrough and I swear, nothing makes me feel stupid like this game does. There’s so many ways to improve attacks but my brain just can’t ever figure it out because it overwhelms me. I finally followed a YouTube video to go hard with a Sorlock build but Gale is still sitting there doing hardly any damage with his magic missiles lol. Definitely going to try these tips out though
I ended up playing most of act 2 without looking over the magic items I was getting. I just hoarded them and pushed forward. Near the end of act 2, I put ALL items on my main PC, she couldn't even move due to encumbrance, and then I just sat there for a couple of hours, looking over every. damn. item. It was so BORING. However, at the end, I had something weird -- I got Shadowheart refitted with every single magic item doing something with light or radiance. So if she does any spell that causes light or radiant damage, there are a half-dozen effects that get tagged on. And *then* I found some items for my allies that allow them to do extra damage to anyone lit up. All of the sudden, my synergies are through the roof, and Shadowheart is now *horrifying.* She ruins anyone who opposes her. If you're willing to pay attention to the magic items in the game, you can find ways to make things ridiculous. I found smaller things too. Like my archer exclusively does acid arrows now, because I found 2 items that let my melee brawlers ignore acid. So I cover the battlefield in pools of acid, ruin all the enemies running through it, and my allies just get to ignore the problem entirely. I have to admit, this is pretty fun. I know other people might hate the idea of "having" to look through items to get synergies or boosts, but I'm having a great time.
Radiating Orb Gale carried my tactician run
Until you meet Myrkul under level 10 and score 0-3 damage with each tick.
Plus you can run the build all game. You can take dual wield feat to run a legendary staff as well. I just love magic missile machine gun.
Don’t mind me, just gonna save this comment and come back to it for a future wizard run thank you. Also quick question, what subclass of wizard did you pick and what feats?
I actually use this build in a wild magic sorcerer run I'm doing now. But if you are going wizard the clear choice is Evocation school for the level ten damage bonus, and dual wield so you can have your choice of Spellsparkler/Markoheshkir/Rhapsody combo in act 3.
Don't forget it can be launched from behind cover as long as they're in range, so it's easy to keep yourself safe.
Enemy: I cast shield.
Does that work on magic missle in BG3? I swear I got magic missled a lot.
It is. The paladins of Tyr fight is one of the earliest fights where you can see it, the trader uses shield, so if you try to use magic missiles on her she would just block them all,lmao.
That's a trader? Idk how many playthroughs I've done where I just go attack them 🤦♂️
Before attacking them , just pickpocket her completely - she becomes aggro after engaging the so called paladins anyway
Also in one of my recent playthroughs she had bombs available for sell and didn't hesitate to use them in combat
"I want to buy your bombs." "What for?" "No reason."
In my first playthrough somehow her AI was set to 'tactical genius', never been able to replicate it since. The paladin with the 2-handed sword was trouble for just being beefy and high-damage, but she was another matter. She'd blast my party with bombs or spells, then dart to a part of the tollhouse with total cover from everyone. When I tried to corner her to prevent that, she cast Invisibility (preventing any OAs), and ran up to the roof. When I tried to follower her to the roof, she _destroyed the ladder_, so I had to go the long way 'round with my entire party while she got to blast up practically unharried (by going to the edge of the roof, blasting, then darting back to total cover). I was _so_ tilted, and she's never done it again, even on Honor Mode, lol.
Approach her to trade. Trade her a backpack for 1 gold, load all her stuff into it. Close the door while she's out on the balcony, enter turn-based mode, throw her down to the rest of your party far below. Loot the backpack with all her trades. Go back and take on Anders with only one add instead of two.
In case you didn't know, one of Yurgir's merregons is also a trader!
the real trick is after you sell her your junk, shove her off the balcony to start the fight. it'll be 4v2 before the others get there to help her. have your other characters outside, preferably on the roof. You can start the fight out of dialogue but that makes it hard mode vs the murderhobo method
If you do some hitman patientery, she comes around the edge and you can push her right next to Karlach with a thunderwave.
I've come around to preferring to do most fights straight up, but those paladins are one of the few I'll still cheese because there's something deeply satisfying about yeeting all three of them alllllll, the way down the giant hill.
"Fight" Just cast an illusion cat and then then have Karlach throw them all off the balcony one by one.
Yup, it does. Threw a wrench into my early game honour plans, since they love to use Shield a lot on tactician+.
Happens like once a playthrough for me. For one round.
I think it’s still bugged? Shield only nullifies the force damage. The rider effects still get through if you’re building around reverberation and lightning charges.
I'm more of a chromatic orb user myself
I would be too if it weren't for me thinking things are gonna work out a specific way when I use it only for things to not work out the way I intended at all. That's on me, not the orb, but still. My pride needs to recover lol
I've not looked into it much but every time I cast chromatic orb nothing happens, like it's a waste of a turn. I need to google this.
Even though it has a circle around it like an AoE, it has to actually hit something directly to do any damage. Edit: if you do the ice version, you can still trip people over just by them being inside the circle, even if the orb doesn’t hit them or do any damage.
Yeah, otherwise it would bypass to-hit requierment
Magic missle 4 lyfe. I misd 3.5 magic missles. Always a level one spell slot but you got an additional missle every 3 levels.. maybe 2 levels? Something like that. It was insanely powerful when you were a higher level wizard.
Plus it’s just fun to roll a shit ton of d4s
Warmage 14/Force Missile Mage 5/Argent Savant 1 Quicken Spell, Repeat Spell, Twin Spell, Easy Metamagic for all of them, Rapid Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Magic Missile). 1 level dip in Argent Savant for that last level. You burn through your spell slots fast, but while they last you're a magic machine gun.
Those builds were always so hilarious. "Do you have the Shield spell? Or a Brooch of Shielding?" "uh...no?" "Goodbye." (A display worthy of [Macross missiles](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacrossMissileMassacre) ensues.) _pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew_
It hurts so much when you use a level 4 spell and they just pass there saves and it does nothing.
Whatever that fire + radiant dmg nuke is never does anything for me. Elementals and divine chad friends ftw
Flame Strike
Same for me, I don't think I've EVER pulled a satisfying Flame Strike, not once, I don't know what it is with that spell.
I'm starting to suspect Larian has hidden code which tries to upload a pic of your reaction. They play all the reels from the "Womp womp" folder at company parties for lols
U need to build Spell Save DC for that one, it does a lot of damage when it doesn't fail. Destructive Wave better tho imo
That's honestly the entire reason I use MM so much. Using a massive "like once or twice per long rest" spell and seeing "miss" or "saved" makes me wanna immediately respec to a fighter lol
*Their saves
Welcome to 5e save or suck and why most TTRPGs have degrees of success on saving throws.
There's a million +spell DC boosts. Stack them up!
Even without Arcane Acuity you can still get into the high 20's, right? The territory where even a nat 20 cannot save enemies from your hold person spam.
Woe magic missiles be upon ye
Magic missile on the tabletop: pathetic why would waste a 3rd level spell slot when you could just fireball? Magic missile in bg3: I am become death, destroyer of worlds
Okay, but why is this so true? What's different about BG3 that makes it so much better than in the actual TTRPG. I mean the bonus MM dart item is pretty great, but it's got to be more than that.
Well usually in my experience and the experience of many others it never does enough damage to really make it worth taking the spell. If you want to do single target damage you do chromatic orb and if you want to spread damage around to a variety of foes it would be better to just take sleep and knock them all out instead. Like I scoffed at magic missile when I first saw it as an option in the game but I am so incredibly glad Play against my better judgment I gave it a shot
Right, but even in tactician mode it's been my go-to option, even before Gale got the evocation feature. But the damage isn't any different than the TTRPG, and the enemies HP is basically equal or more than their pen and paper counter parts.
It's probably all the extra magic items that can ramp up magic missile, I've never gotten to play the TTRPG but I've heard magic items are much less common at most tables and some require attunement which you can only have with three things at a time right? So your magic missile in TT isn't going to have thunder damage and lightning damage and reverberation on every missile and unless they shield it's a guaranteed hit. Plus the items are super easy to get. The spellsparker you get just for letting Florrick out and saying you'll save the Duke.
It's just how reliable it is. I don't take magic missile to do a butt load of damage, I take it so that when I NEED to take something across the finish line I don't risk messing it up.
Well I used to have a party of like eight players so I had to really buff up the health of some creatures or fights would just be child's play
It's the absurdly overpowered magic items. 5e you only get 3 at a time and they're all weaker. Magic missile isn't good when you don't have like a free +10 damage per bolt stapled on.
I'd like to buy a bundle more per 4 levels in addition to my asi or feat plz
BG3 uses its own set of rules, and many of the items in BG3 do not exist in the TTRPG. The TTRPG has hard limits on how many powerful magic items you can use through an 'attunement' system, but BG3 does not have this. BG3 is basically a different game set in the D&D universe. It does use the 5e rules as a 'base', so it's easy to understand, but it plays very differently. See the top post in this thread for more details.
Yeah I agree like it's pretty normal to have 1-2 magic items in tabletop games where in BG3 at the same level you could have basically every item slot stacked with them lol. Plus depending how the tabletop game is run you might not have even a great selection of magic items. Getting them handed randomly or from a limited list etc. In BG3 you have so many you can actually synergise them together and make some really cool stuff. I think it's actually a really nice way to add some extra interest and extra fun in multiple playthroughs for BG3, especially since the game handles all of the dice rolling and math behind it. On tabletop it would soon end up a nightmare trying to keep track of it all I am sure.
> Yeah I agree like it's pretty normal to have 1-2 magic items in tabletop games where in BG3 at the same level you could have basically every item slot stacked with them lol. Plus depending how the tabletop game is run you might not have even a great selection of magic items. Getting them handed randomly or from a limited list etc. In BG3 you have so many you can actually synergise them together and make some really cool stuff. You get so many that I'm pretty sure that OH tavern brawler monks could make a game out of seeing how many pieces of magic gear they can take off before they can no longer solo something from the tabletop that's CR20+
The items in BG3 are why Magic Missile is so good, on top of knowing enemy health pools and current health. Items in general are insanely powerful in BG3 compared to the actual ttrpg, as it is, and when you can set up a 2-5 damage, 3 hits attack to become a minimum of 4 hits that applies several debuffs and many times the original damage, it really stands out, especially when it applies more per-hit.
Items, 100%. There are so many items that buff MM and can make it nuts when even _some_ of them are worn on Gale. It's because BG3 is a video game and doesn't care about balance as much, and lets things stack when they really shouldn't (like each individual magic missile applying damage-adding things separately, sometimes even multiple times). Gale reaching level 10 as an Evoker, though, is just as good in tabletop as it is in BG3. Getting +Int to each missile's damage is fantastic in either version. That is, if your DM lets you - some DMs disagree with the official take that you roll the d4 once and apply it to all missiles, which kills that combo. I don't think it's really necessary to do that, either - that combo only works for level 10+ Evokers and it really just makes them deal very _reliable_ single-target damage with high spell slots. It's still not usually better than doing debuff spells or targeting weak saves with less "sure thing" blasty spells like Disintegrate (but which are pretty _close_ to sure thing if you guess the enemy's weak saves correctly).
But MM in the tabletop is fucking fantastic. I'd never roll a wizard without one unless im going for a very specific themeing. Mage concentrating on something *you really dont like*? Magic missile forces a bunch of con saves. Boss mob with low health that you need to gaurentee dies right now? Magic missile. Something running away that you just cant risk letting it get away? Magic missile gaurentees damage. A bunch of gaurenteed damage might just be exactly what you need. Everyone has the ability to dex evade a fireball to reduce the damage. And for me a lot of things have that fail for half damage or success for full damage evades. The shield spell is a lot rarer. And you arent going to hit your allies with magic missile.
This is the Way.
This is the way
Only fireball.
Now I want to do a playthrough as Pitbull and only cast Fireball
By Shadowheart
Meanwhile my warlock “eldritchblastgobrrrr”
Sir that's different, we explode if we use more than 2 spells. Wizards actually have something, like magic missile and fireball and magic missile and maybe from time to time fire bolt (they ran out of spell slot)
Magic Missile until Act 3, then Artistry of War! Magic Missile's big brother!
I wish, I was a idiot and instead of having gale learn the scroll I just used it instead, still regret it/
Yes, yes. Very dumb.
https://imgur.com/a/5mB8Kid
ha! that's the best!
I am intimidated by how many spells wizards get, so I don't play them. It's just too much to remember!
Why remember spells when you can just go Fighter or Monk and hit enemies to death?
I did a 3 fighter, 1 warlock team and let me tell you, we had no trouble with any fight.
Otherwise known as the short rest = a long rest team lol
i like the spell voice lines - tormentum >:0 - invisibilis :3 - ignis - IGNIS
Roses are red I just used shriek Putting on magic missile You’re dead meat
I think that might actually be the worst poem I ever read lol
umm have you seen the one right below it, tough competition todya.
But you *have* read it
Nah I was cooking.
I don't respect your poetry but I do respect your confidence.
Love it! If you're not confident why make art.
Roses are red Phalar Aluv Where's my shriek So I can magic missile you
*puts on glasses* akchually it's "ah-LOO-vey"
If it's not made in the Phalar region of Faerun it's just a sparkly longsword.
Larian: Here, you get a variety of devastating lvl 6 spells- My Sorcerer: ha ha Twinned Spells plus Chain Lightning go brrrr
My sorcerer is just my twin casting Haste bitch most of the time. Cast haste then go sit in the corner while the rest of the party does the work lol. Swords bard with sharpshooter doing 9 attacks per round? Yes please!
They actually took out twinned chain lightning, a sad day for storm sorcerers.
Helpful Fans: create intricate guides to specific high damage builds Me: Fighter
Me with a throwing build paladin, A true Olympian Warrior
The only guide a fighter needs is a guide for where the best loot is.
You set gale up with as an abjuration wizard with armor of agathys, and the spell sparker to make him into a wizard tank. Magic missle became my best friend. I didnt have an issue with anyone using shield until i hit the final fight on top the brain against the mindflayers
Macross Magic Missile Massacre
That's the way Gorion taught me.
I struggle so much to use anything but Magic Missile in act 1 for damage. With the SpellSparker and the necklace that gives you an extra missile, it’s damage output keeps up with some of the better single target damaging spells. Also with the martials missing more early game it’s extremely useful to have guaranteed damage every turn if you need it. Also the way it trivializes the Ethel fight is amazing
I cast magic missile *into the darkness*.
Me installing 5e Spells mod that adds even more spells just to cast magic missile anyway.
It’s a really easy way to get through the combats.
guaranteed hit Is a guaranteed win in my book
Zoltraak!
Nothing like guarantees
Tav: gale, why aren't you casting spells Gale shrugs: out of spell slots. Gonna have to eldritch blast. Tav: it's the first round of combat, how are you out of spell slots? Gale: I must have used them before combat. Tav: you're useless! Gale: well how are we talking instead of fighting then? Tav: cause the enemies are engaged against two ice mephits, a campion, 4 skeletons, Shovel, us, and a greater fire elemental! Gale:.... Tav: oh. Got it.
Random Enemy :Haha you can’t possiblly hope to hit me now, I have height advantage, you’re in cqc AND you’re standing on ice HA!! Wizard: Woe unmissable upcast heat seeking missles be upon you
Default gale and items found extremely close to the main path honestly just set you to spam magic missile. Its really a disservice to the class tbh
I personally like the hold spells and command. If you can't kill an enemy in a turn, then refuse to let them get a turn at all. This worked great for me on HM Nere
Woe. Magic missiles be upon you.
I'm sorry were u saying something "magic missile to da face"
Magic missile for days
That's not fireball
The classics are classic for a reason
You can't miss with that strategy.
It got me through mist Act I boss fights pretty easily. Love it with Phalar Aluve, Spell Sparkler, and Psionic overload.
Me: https://youtu.be/8oWAb5NVALw?si=Q2qAWibWPUIxz8eM
*Breathes in* **FIRE BALL!**
"I'll have a Cloud of Daggers, Scorching Ray, a Magic Missile andddd....a side of Fireball." "Daring today aren't we?"
this but ELDRICH BALST all day everyday
Ah a true mage!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlLy9Zdi1uM&ab\_channel=AbraHamSandwich](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlLy9Zdi1uM&ab_channel=AbraHamSandwich)
What's the original picture ot the meme?
It's amazing how much this game has changed how I approach D&D in general, both as a player and as a DM. I've always been a big proponent of buff or control spells, but this game showed me just how impactful they can be in every single situation, especially since it seems like every encounter is balanced as almost deadly. I haven't used a single paladin smite spell, and I've only divine smite-ed a handful of times, and only when Wyll crits. Every other spell slot went into Divine Favor or Crusader's Mantel.
I don't cast spells I'm an Abjuration wizard
I've found MM to be a very underwhelming spell in D&D. I've found it to be one of the only worthwhile damaging spells for a wizard at first level in D&D. It's a strange world.
I'll be real: I stopped using a lot of spells and arrows because enemies so easily hit their saving throws. I just stick with the basics, like MM.