fire and electric spells

[icon_of_sin]

Is it a good strategy to have each character carry bottles of water and flammable substances so they can be thrown before you use a fire or electric spell regardless of which order your characters move in.

also

if you use a single target fire/electric spell on a target that in a patch of flammable substance/water does the damage bonus take effect and does it become a AOE attack?

[Detective Costeau]

Carrying around water bottles to throw at people before hitting them with lightning is a great strategy. overpowered, really. Works with cold damage, too.
I don't think carrying around grease bottles and such to set on fire is quite as good, but it's a decent early-game tactic, anyway.

[ChaoticDragox]

Lightning & Freeze damage both deals 2x Damage to wet Targets.

You can always place the flammable liquid bottles for free, without spending actions and then shooting it with fire damage for some extra Damage AOE.

Shooting Lightning on water will electrify the surface & Freeze damage will Freeze it. Shooting flammable surfaces ignites its entire surface area.

[icon_of_sin]

Originally posted by D̷r̴͉̆ḁ̷͆g̷̅͜ȍ̷͉x:

Lightning & Freeze damage both deals 2x Damage to wet Targets.

You can always place the flammable liquid bottles for free, without spending actions and then shooting it with fire damage for some extra Damage AOE.

Shooting Lightning on water will electrify the surface & Freeze damage will Freeze it. Shooting flammable surfaces ignites its entire surface area.

if you target an enemy which is standing on a flammable surface does the flammable surface end up on fire?

[Dexter in the Dark]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Carrying around water bottles to throw at people before hitting them with lightning is a great strategy. overpowered, really. Works with cold damage, too.
I don't think carrying around grease bottles and such to set on fire is quite as good, but it's a decent early-game tactic, anyway.

grease bottles no, but smoke powder is another story

[Dexter in the Dark]

Originally posted by icon_of_sin:

Originally posted by D̷r̴͉̆ḁ̷͆g̷̅͜ȍ̷͉x:

Lightning & Freeze damage both deals 2x Damage to wet Targets.

You can always place the flammable liquid bottles for free, without spending actions and then shooting it with fire damage for some extra Damage AOE.

Shooting Lightning on water will electrify the surface & Freeze damage will Freeze it. Shooting flammable surfaces ignites its entire surface area.

if you target an enemy which is standing on a flammable surface does the flammable surface end up on fire?

i think so yes

[icon_of_sin]

Originally posted by ghostbuster6969:

Originally posted by icon_of_sin:

if you target an enemy which is standing on a flammable surface does the flammable surface end up on fire?

i think so yes

Is it possible to fill an empty bottle with at a river?

[Hexoplex]

Buddy and I use grease/water bottles and spells. Toss out a create water on a group, hit someone with electricity/cold spell/cantrip, whole group gets hit with shock or surface turns to ice. Grease is used more for tripping folks, but we will set it on fire if it's more beneficial.

Yes, the whole surface turns to fire/ice/electric for a few turns depending on what you do.

Ice cantrip puts fires out, found this out by accident and has been more useful that it first appears :D

[Chaosolous]

A barrelmancer enters the chat.

It's the only way to play honor mode.

[AokiYakumo]

Originally posted by icon_of_sin:

Is it a good strategy to have each character carry bottles of water and flammable substances so they can be thrown before you use a fire or electric spell regardless of which order your characters move in.

also

if you use a single target fire/electric spell on a target that in a patch of flammable substance/water does the damage bonus take effect and does it become a AOE attack?

For Cold/Lightning spells like Lightning Bolt, Call Lightning, Ice Knife/Storm, Cone of Cold, etc., the answer is an undoubted YES. The Wet status causes Cold/Lightning damage to double, so an 8d6 Lightning Bolt ends up being 16d6 in practice. STUPIDLY strong.

So strong, in fact, that a popular build in BG3 is the Water Support - a character whose gameplay loop is all about maintaining Wet on targets for as long as needed to ensurethey take the maximum amount of damage from a Cold/Lightning DPS.

Nice thing about Water Supports is they can do their job at base and without any major gear requirements (Although Rain Dancer and Wavemother's Robes get a LOT more value nowadays thanks to the loss of the Create Water cantrip-cast), so they can be built to be whatever else on top (Conjurer WIZ with a CLC or DRD dip, and Life CLC, are both really good candidates for Water Supports)

-----

As for flammables? That's a different story. Ideally you'd want a healthy stock of Grease bottles, bombs, Oils of Combustion, and Arsonist Oil for the Fire Support to dish out. However, you run into a tiiiny monetary issue. Where water bottles are only 5gp a pop at base (never more than 15gp per, and most adds drop 15gp+ worth of loot, so it's dirt cheap; also it gets summoned by Heroes' Feast constantly so in Act III you're never at a shortage of it), the "Fire Support" consumables are much pricier.

- Arsonist Oil costs 25gp at base, or can be crafted from any ash + Frosted Ear sublimate (most commonly sold by Deryth, Araj, and Blurg) with 3 ears costing 7gp at base (meaning it would cost on average 42gp to make 1 Arsonist Oil without a Transmuter - who can get you twofors).
- Oil of Combustion costs 30gp at base, and can ONLY be bought at 5th level onwards; or can be crafted from Mephit Magma ash + any salt. 3 Mephit Hearts cost 9gp a pop, so we can assume the crafting cost is 50gp per to make.
- Grease is common enough, only costing 7gp at base, but the problem comes in stocking that in addition to stocking the other stuff.

-----

Another thing to consider is that the two playstyles DON'T play nice with one another. Fire DPSs don't like Water Supports because they generate fire resist; and Fire Supports get shut down when any water is present or when ANY cold damage is dealt, on top of getting shut down by things like Chilled.

Fire Supports also have to deal with friendly fire a LOT more than Water Supports, who can always just stick to Cold DPSs who will - at worst - make things slick and cause Prone (something that's actually easily avoided with the right gear). Oil of Combustion has a 3m/10ft AoE attached, making it likely to hit friendlies who may end up getting saucy that you lit them on fire. Fire hazards also cause unintended side effects with spells that generate other hazards, like Entangle, Plant Growth, Sleet/Ice Storm, etc.; either shutting them off completely or - in some cases - spreading the fire further into areas you don't want it spreading.

-----

Finally, we have to talk gear. If you play a Water Support, they're tied to Cold/Lightning DPSs who use items like Coldbrim, Mourning Frost, and Winter's Clutches (for Cold DPSs); or or Sparkle Hands, Spellsparkler, Sparkswall, Lightning Jabber, etc., for Lightning DPSs.

If you play a Fire Support, you're usually tied to one build for two specific characters: Karlach and Minthara. That build is Heat, involving items like the Ring of Immolation, the Thermodynamo or Hellfire Axes, Cinder Shoes, Thermoarcanic Gloves, and Fireheart.

Heat causes self damage in exchange for heightened Fire damage once every 4-7 stacks or so (with most items in the Heat build giving 2 stacks per proc and usually proccing 2-3 times a turn when played optimally).

Heat's also MUCH more conditional than Lightning Charges and is harder to actually set up than Chilled/Frost (Fireheart specifically requires YOU to take Fire damage to generate Heat, whereas Spellsparkler only requires ANY spell damage and Mourning Frost requires you to deal cold damage which you were going to do anyways.)

Karlach is the best character to proc Heat with thanks to her Soul Coin mechanic, her innate fire resist, and her innate fire abilities like Searing Smite (or if you respec her, other fire skills/spells like Flaming Sphere).

She can get gigabuffed by Minthara thanks to Soulbrand (which won't get removed on thrown weapon attacks - the big key here), adding even more fire damage to weapon hits.

The problem comes in with the Elemental Adept feat usually taken by elemental DPSs. It negates fire resist and causes fire damage to not roll 1s, meaning during Heat uptime your Fire DPS takes a minimum of 2 damage per turn, plus damage from Combustion Oil which is usually involved in Fire Support gameplay loops, plus damage from mobs. In addition, if you get Karlach hit with Arsonist oil at any time, all that fire damage doubles for her as well, which can get her hurt or killed a lot faster than people seem to think. A healer or Abjurer is HIGHLY recommended to help offset this.

[Brian_the_Brute]

Markoheskir helps add another level to this as you can literally freeze enemies in place with the encrusted with frost condition. Putting water down ahead of time makes that effect a larger AOE.

[AokiYakumo]

Originally posted by Brian_the_Brute:

Markoheskir helps add another level to this as you can literally freeze enemies in place with the encrusted with frost condition. Putting water down ahead of time makes that effect a larger AOE.

Meaning it's possible to have both a Cold DPS and a Lightning DPS in the same party without needing to optimize positioning. Nice assist, friend.