Casters kinda suck...

[Eckoh]

Hear me out... rolling with a Ranger hunter, lae'zel as a battle master and Karlach as a beserker Gale and Wyll seem weak... I mean missing with a single spell ruins the turn or getting low damage rolls... when you "swing" multiple times per round you end up doing some damage.

I just used Gale at level 7 to hit 4 mobs with fireball for a total of 34 damage... lae'zel in turn hit for over 40 in one round while "confused" so I didn't even control her. Martial parties seems stronger for me as long as I can get to the targets. Only in one area did I need to specifically bring wyll and Gale (magic glowing Morningstar trap room)

[DontMisunderstand]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Monk, Paladin, Ranger. Those are all primarily not casters. If you wanted to separate it by the classes that literally cannot use magic, you'll be disappointed to find that every single class has access to spells. So it's best to judge by which direction they actually lean. Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, and Cleric are just casters. Druid and Warlock depends on the specific build. The others are primarily martials.

I didn't say 'primarily', I meant without magic at all - and I view Ki as being more or less magical.

That only leaves Barbarians, Fighters and Rogues - and no WM, EK or AT.

Actually, a dual wielding Battlemaster-Thief sounds like a lot of fun.

As I said. Literally every single class does magic. ALL of them do. You can't say ki is magical if maneuvers, second wind, action surge, rage, or sneak attack aren't. They're fundamentally the same thing; a hand-wavey reason for a "hit things good" class to do magic without it breaking immersion. Mechanically and literally, every class does magic. If all you care about is the flavor of magic, paladins, monks, and rangers are martials.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

I didn't say 'primarily', I meant without magic at all - and I view Ki as being more or less magical.

That only leaves Barbarians, Fighters and Rogues - and no WM, EK or AT.

Actually, a dual wielding Battlemaster-Thief sounds like a lot of fun.

As I said. Literally every single class does magic. ALL of them do. You can't say ki is magical if maneuvers, second wind, action surge, rage, or sneak attack aren't. They're fundamentally the same thing; a hand-wavey reason for a "hit things good" class to do magic without it breaking immersion. Mechanically and literally, every class does magic. If all you care about is the flavor of magic, paladins, monks, and rangers are martials.

Who are you even arguing with bruh? You realize I don't care at all about ypur pedantry, right?

All I said was,

Kinda makes me wanna try a no-magic game, which leaves what, Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue?

And you wanna go all "ackshooally"...get a grip, go touch grass.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

The problem with Sneak Attack is that it's hard to synergize in a multiclass character since you are always losing Sneak Attack dice with each level in another character, and then it's really hard to find force multipliers for it since it has a hard limit of once per turn.

If only there was a way to get more reactions (while wielding a finesse weapon), you could Sneak Attack Riposte...

[Ackranome]

Casters are literally the most OP.

[Hex]

So you're telling me Casters are kinda meh until you get access to lvl8 and 9 spells? Like it's been for the last 40 years?

SAY IT ISN'T SO

It's not like DnD vets have been saying this will happen since the lvl cap was announced or anything.

[Space]

Originally posted by Hex:

So you're telling me Casters are kinda meh until you get access to lvl8 and 9 spells? Like it's been for the last 40 years?

SAY IT ISN'T SO

It's not like DnD vets have been saying this will happen since the lvl cap was announced or anything.

I dont think they're ever really meh. Most casters hard spike at level 3 spell access.
Plus surface spells are always strong, as are low/mid level summon spells because action economy is absolute king. Haste, counterspell, mass healingword (thanks to an abundance of item synergy i.e., AOE bladeward), level 1 shield, Misty Step, dimension door, etc. Honestly the list goes on.

There's also what is effectively infinite resting after every major fight if you want it due to the sheer amount of camp supplies.

[Hex]

Originally posted by Space:

Originally posted by Hex:

So you're telling me Casters are kinda meh until you get access to lvl8 and 9 spells? Like it's been for the last 40 years?

SAY IT ISN'T SO

It's not like DnD vets have been saying this will happen since the lvl cap was announced or anything.

I dont think they're ever really meh. Most casters hard spike at level 3 spell access.
Plus surface spells are always strong, as are low/mid level summon spells because action economy is absolute king. Haste, counterspell, mass healingword (thanks to an abundance of item synergy i.e., AOE bladeward), level 1 shield, Misty Step, dimension door, etc. Honestly the list goes on.

There's also what is effectively infinite resting after every major fight if you want it due to the sheer amount of camp supplies.

Yes, they are utility characters, not strong direct damage, until later. Twin-casating haste with Sorc to Karlach and Astarion and then misty-stepping to safety so the conc can't be disrupted is stupid strong.

[Strandly]

My party is bard, laezel, shadowheart, gale. Gale is pretty trash for dps. I mean... he's basically a magic missile bot since that's the only spell that can reliably deal damage. I put various other cool nukes on him but the mobs are either spread out so I can only hit a couple with an AE, or the spell straight up misses, or the mob makes the save. Shadowheart also basically trash for dps but I don't really care there since heal and buff bot.

I have no idea why casters are so terrible for dps in this game, especially since the spells have charges. To have a drawback like that they should be doing reliable, monstrous amounts of damage but no...

Anyway, Pathfinder Kingmaker was the same way-- barbarian and ranger = fat dps, everyone else sits there and watches.

[BeautifulFlowerField]

Originally posted by ftw01:

I agree. Basic spells also miss very often. That sacred fire/flame thing that clerics have almost never hits mobs in later levels. So it's worthless. Even the big spells like fireball are kinda meh, they only hurt trash mob groups. I think the only way that casters can possibly have value in this game is through summons or heals

why are you even casting cantrips

Originally posted by bijsmaak:

I like playing a wizard. It is nice to able to take out several enemies with a good spell or support your fighters. But I just reached level 4 and it annoys me that there are few good feats for spell casters. I can take the ability improvement which takes me to 19 from 17: but I don't see a nice way to get a rounded 20 thereafter. I think this deviates too much from the D&D rules?

set it up so you go up to an even number either in CON or DEX at the same time as your spellcasting stat goes to 20.

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

In terms of Damage? i dunno my 5th level Storm sorcerer was 1 shotting bosses with a single spell.

But the power of mages has always been the crowd control. Your melee are all well and good, but a well placed hold person can turn them into crit machines. A Web spell can delay enemies long enough to defeat them before they can be a threat. Banish can render a target out of action while you deal with other foes.

No matter how you swing it... a good caster can change the battlefield. A Martial just doesn't have the power to do that.

[darlliu]

It just seems so many spells require concentration meanwhile phys is very strong throughout the game. That said I find bard to be incredible in this game. So effective at healing, support and can deal damage/summon. Really does it all.

[chernann]

Sorceror, Dragon-ancestry (Gold/Red for fire), Elemental master (fire), Metamagic Quick, Haste spell, two staves with arcane battery, Illithid Freecast. Unless the target is immune to fire damage completely, fire resistance is ignored. Charisma 20-22, rest of clothing is focused on increasing spell attack and spell damage. You will rarely roll under 20.

You can push out 3 level 6 fireballs or scorching rays per turn (2 normal actions with haste, 1 with quickspell). With the cantrip enhancing necklace, firebolts are consistently hit for 40+ damage, and if you twin spell them you can can hit two targets with firebolts.

I find this build very effective most of the game, consistently does higher damage than Battlemaster Laezel, and has plenty of spell slots for 3 or 4 encounters, especially if you use cantrips. The only downside is initiative is low.

[Kryldost]

Try this, level 10 wiz level 2 sorc. I can get 15 sorc points a day without losing a single spellpoint by using the 3 arcane recovery skills. The one wiz has by default and the other 2 from items. Get meta magic twin spell and distance spell. Twin haste, twin enlarge, twin chain lightning are really op. You can even twin disintingrate or twin dethrone! You can cast chain lightning at least 4 times per long rest with that, 6 times if freecast wasn’t glitched for me.

[Mimic]

Spell Caster Rating.
1. Cleric (Warding Bond)
2. Sorcerer/Warlock Multiclass or Sorcerer (Twin cast Haste)
3. Warlock
4. Bard
5. Druid
6. Paladin
7. Ranger
8. Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster
9. Wizard

Spell Casters suffer alot when being converted to BG3 from 5e PnP and i will list the primary reasons below.

1. Concentration saves are much more prevalent in BG3 than PnP.
2. Critical Fail/Success on Saving Throws makes Concentration Saving Throws more difficult than PnP.
3. Lack of Utility magic in BG3 compared to PnP (Not Larians fault).
4. Lack of spell variety in BG3 compared to PnP.
5. Reduced duration of CC spells by up to 80% compared to PnP.
6. Bonus Action Shove makes it very easy for enemies to negate some powerful CC spells.
7. Certain spells are OPPRESSIVELY powerful. AKA Haste!
8. Lack of Enemies that encourage you to have a spell caster. (This is also a 5e problem but it is worse in BG3)
9. Spell Casters aside from the Warlock and it's Multi Class variants have very low single target DPR.

If it wasn't for Warding Bond i would not run a Cleric. If it was not for Eldritch Blast doing such ridiculous DPR with the right gear i would not run a Sorlock (despite Twin Cast Haste).

I am disappointed that Larian did not add some of the more efficient damage spells from 5e but not surprised given how forgiving the rest mechanics are.

[Empukris]

Yeah wizard kind of underwhelming, even more so since other class can just cast spell from scroll. But that is probably to avoid issue in BG2 where the basic mage is completely broken. There are other broken class but that pretty much involve some immunity item and min maxing.