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)

[Lily]

Casters literally win encounters before they start. The only reason I can think that you think they suck is because you're using bad spells. Like Shatter and fireball. Those spells have their uses but they don't compare to the real powerhouse spells like Sleep, Entangle, Fogcloud, Grease, Web, Fear, Slow, Plantgrowth, Command, Healing Word, Spirit guardians, Eldritch Blast, Chain Lightning, Conjure Elemental, Dimension Door, Haste, and so many more amazing spells.

You don't need 6 spells to win an encounter, you only need 1. Tell me, how long are your days? Because I run all full casters or two half casters and the rest full casters for my parties. And in tactician mode I had one half caster and all the rest full casters. I ran between 6-12 encounters per day by the end of the game with my team. At the start of the game it was between 5-8 encounters before long resting.

What I hear of most the time is people running MAYBE 3 encounters before long resting. Which is such a mismanagement of resources it hurts my heart. But I've run teams with a mix of Melee martials in the mix. And I can see why running more than 3 encounters is tough. Holy hell do Melee BLEED your resources dry. 2 hits and the paladin is down, the Barbarian is down in 4 and consumes all your potions, the Fighter is eating dirt again, there goes my last level 1 spell slot.

You think Warlock is weak? Literally the highest damaging build I've seen. Easy 400 Damage a round with upwards potential of 800 with Sorlock build. Even without Sorlock mono warlock is doing around 240 a round on its own. But That's end game.

Early game the Casters rule still. I still wouldn't run a Melee martial there either since they're garbage even at that level. If anything Melee martials are even WORSE at low levels than high. At high we can at least get magic equipment to mimic the GOD like power of Casters.

I mean, cool Laz'ael can kill 5 or 6 goblins her first turn if she's lucky. Oh what's that? Shadowheart just murdered 12 without attacking? And 3 more died on their turn because they tried to attack her?

"But casters have low armor!" Yes, this is true. Some Casters have as low of armor as Melee martials. Only 20-22 AC for the Squishy casters and they can only pump that up to 29 AC. While other Casters average 23-26 AC and capable of pumping that up as high as 33 AC. Casters being squishy is a myth.

My Tactician team's AC
Warlock: 20 (With Shield and haste for 27)
Wizard: 25 (with Shield +5 for 30)
Ranger/Rogue: 21 (With shield +5 for 26)
Druid: 20 (Doesn't have shield but has over 160 extra temp hit points through Symbiotic entity)

The Squishiest character in the group is my Warlock, admittedly. But you know who hits the hardest, not even close? My Warlock. Easily out damaging the Gloomthief.

What do the Casters do? Wizard does a bit of everything. From group immunity to damage, to blasting when needed, to counterspell, to granting haste, to causing slow, to AoE control whatever is needed. The Druid summons hazards like Spikegrowth, death cloud, wall of thorns, plantgrowth, conjures water to double Lightning damage and throws out haste spores to give concentration free haste to my entire party.

Literally the team is so incredibly strong I'd trust it to be able to Kill Ansur, Raphael, Orin and the Shar Temple group all at the same time. The weakest link of the group is the gloomthief but He still has poisons and arrows to abuse, but needs a lot of support from the Wizard and Druid.

[Judge Cudge]

Notice how the only constant concentration+saving throw debuff spell you mention is slow?

Yes casters still have a lot of strong options left, but no those options don't properly cover what they are supposed to.

Banish isn't supposed to be a bad spell. It may not deserve to be OP, but two turns for that spell level is clown nonsense.

With a capped spell saving throw for your level, and targeting the enemies weakest stat, you should regularly expect a debuff spell to last at least half it's duration. This has never happened to me or anyone I have ever seen one single time across any playthroughs.

It's so uncommon for a buff to stick that most wizards are just haste batteries.
Which is a depressing fencing in of their typical scope.

[Rootlan]

They are balanced. Maybe it's just me but every major difficult fight (Rapahel, Cazador, The Absolute, etc.) was only possible because a caster was present, sure you may have your Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin that can deal 9999 damage but at most they'll be able to get rid of 3 enemies tops (6 with action surge and can only be used once per fight) and there will be a time in which you need to Crowd control dozens of enemies and only casters can do that either by raw damage, (Chain Lighting/Divine strike) terrain Control (Grease/Hunger of Hadar), Debuffs (Darkness/Silence) or just outright stun (Hold Monster/Sleep). They are way to useful to be "broken" and the limited spell slots made them not OP.

[Sliscus]

AOE is king in this game.

you clearly aren't using fireball enough

[Ancient Toaster]

It takes awhile for Casters in D&D to come online. This isn't new. It's been this way since 1st Edition.

5E adding Cantrips meant they actually had something to do in combat other than hiding in the corner waiting for the Fighter to kill the Goblins. Wizards in 2E were weak pieces of ♥♥♥♥ until level 5.

Anyway, in 5E and this game casters are "OK" until level 5 then they become pretty invaluable to your group. 3rd Level spells are like opening a door to greatness for just about every single caster, including Divine and Arcane.

One thing to note though: You can EASILY beat this game without casters. Larian put so much OP gear in this game that suits Martial classes that you could have a team of 4 Fighters and win every single battle. The gear options for Martials keeps them ahead of the curve pretty much from level 1 to 12.

[Mr. Parker]

Honestly, Just play Paladin and get best of both worlds. Paladin is also very good if you can get a way to use longbows and heavy crossbows IE Gloves of Archery you get somewhere in the first act i think. there are some skills Paladins have that can be used in ranged and melee.

[Ancient Toaster]

Publicado originalmente por WIZARDCHODEY:

Honestly, Just play Paladin and get best of both worlds. Paladin is also very good if you can get a way to use longbows and heavy crossbows IE Gloves of Archery you get somewhere in the first act i think. there are some skills Paladins have that can be used in ranged and melee.

Paladins are somewhat annoying to play in this game, unless you choose Oath of Vengeance.

They are extremely powerful though, won't deny that. I just dislike playing them. I prefer a straight up Fighter any day. Lae'Zel has that covered though, she's pretty OP from start to finish.

The argument to play at Paladin is legit since there is nobody (except a somewhat secret companion) that is a Paladin. Also the fact that they are a Charisma based class makes them top tier in this game because Charisma is the best start in BG3.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Publicado originalmente por WIZARDCHODEY:

Honestly, Just play Paladin and get best of both worlds. Paladin is also very good if you can get a way to use longbows and heavy crossbows IE Gloves of Archery you get somewhere in the first act i think. there are some skills Paladins have that can be used in ranged and melee.

Paladin/Druid. The extra spell slots you get will fuel your Divine Smites, pkus you have a ton of utility and Wildshapes out of combat.

[[FvN] Var]

*sneezes and makes four enemies fall to their death*

[CorwynCorey]

I would say that my 6 Lorebard / 6 Warlock, as a caster who can hit 31 ac, and can use any weapon in the game... is completely immune to being disarmed... and have spells, Agonizing Blast pushback ranged attacks, possible misty step powered instant movement, countering potential with countersspell... pretty much all the skills, and options galore...

Yeah, as a pure caster, who has solo'd many bosses with simple words, well timed knockbacks or being where I need them, when I need them there... weak?

No.

[Furio]

Publicado originalmente por FvN Alice:

*sneezes and makes four enemies fall to their death*

I can't bear to hear this. So much lost loot *gasp*

[< blank >]

Anyone saying casters are fine is playing a DPS Caster. Control Casters are completely useless after early game because DC for ground effects is broken. (and Larian knows about if for 3 years)

[Seswatha]

Publicado originalmente por < blank >:

Anyone saying casters are fine is playing a DPS Caster. Control Casters are completely useless after early game because DC for ground effects is broken. (and Larian knows about if for 3 years)

That sucks but there's plenty of great control spells that aren't ground effects. And being difficult terrain still halves movement without a save.

[< blank >]

Ye, ground effects that have no saves aren't affected. But it's still over 20 spells that hit about 50% as often as they should. And lots of them are visually impressive high level spells. IMHO, for all the praise Larian gets, they should at least acknowledge this.

[Quillithe]

Publicado originalmente por < blank >:

Ye, ground effects that have no saves aren't affected. But it's still over 20 spells that hit about 50% as often as they should. And lots of them are visually impressive high level spells. IMHO, for all the praise Larian gets, they should at least acknowledge this.

The remaining spells are still pretty busted with how high you can stack spell DC and then just completely disable every enemy on the field at once with a 95% chance.

Bonus points if you got enough attack bonus or just made a hybrid and feel like completely skyrocketing your spell DC with the not busted at all Arcane Acuity effect.