Spells miss too often....

[Thodin]

....it makes mage characters almost pointless, except for few powerful AoE spells and buffs for your own party. They are already pretty limited since the spellbook, preparation, depletion of casting ability once you spent your spellslots .... Well, all this makes using magic not that straight forward.... Mages only have 1 action as well.

On top of that they almost always miss. Even if there's a bright 79% hit probability, its miss miss miss savin throw miss saving miss bwah. Especially boss and semi boss NPCs are dull, this can't just be bad luck.

In contrast fighter classes are extremly powerful. With haste / power surge and certain main and bonus skills you can wreck havoc. You can even drop boss NPCs within one turn and all their companions in turn two. Its like steel is 20x effective than spells.

Also buff healing spells... They're all weak, that it barely makes sense to use it over potions. Its literally the same. The fighter selfheal skill is just a bonus action, even brings more hp. Same for healing potions. Just a bonus action to drink one. The more advanced potions heal alot more hp than anything.

While you cleric or mage in general has to use a main action for a healing spell, which - on top - restores only a tiny amount of HP. At game start it looks ok. But once you have 80-100 hitpoints you barely notice the spells anymore.

[Moonbane]

You do know you can upcast spells with higher spellslots to increase their performance?

[Kiyaya]

Mages are fine.
2nd playthrough, did a Storm Sorc Temp Cleric build. The nova potential was insane as long as I had an ally to cast create water. Beat the final boss in 1 turn.
3rd playthrough I turned Gale into an Abjuration Wizard with Armor of Agathys from DB Sorc. He could do 120dmg per turn just by getting himself hit, and wouldn't even take 1 point of damage in doing so.
Mages might not be as outright strong as martials, but with a little creativity they hold their own without issue.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Magic Missile, Sleep and Cloud of Daggers never misses.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Originally posted by Thodin:

....it makes mage characters almost pointless, except for few powerful AoE spells and buffs for your own party. They are already pretty limited since the spellbook, preparation, depletion of casting ability once you spent your spellslots .... Well, all this makes using magic not that straight forward.... Mages only have 1 action as well.

Many spells cost a bonus action instead of a full action, read the tooltips.
Furthermore, there are ways to improve your accuracy, make sure you're using the right spell for the job, too -- if a spell or cantrip targets dex saves, you're better off aiming them at ogres than archers. If a spell targets con saves, you're better off targeting mages over warriors, etc.

On top of that they almost always miss. Even if there's a bright 79% hit probability, its miss miss miss savin throw miss saving miss bwah. Especially boss and semi boss NPCs are dull, this can't just be bad luck.

Part of it's bad luck, part of it is bad tactics.

In contrast fighter classes are extremly powerful. With haste / power surge and certain main and bonus skills you can wreck havoc. You can even drop boss NPCs within one turn and all their companions in turn two. Its like steel is 20x effective than spells.

Welcome to "linear fighters, quadratic wizards". Warrior types always start off stronger than mages. Mages exponentially become stronger than warriors and outclass them with enough investment.

Also buff healing spells... They're all weak, that it barely makes sense to use it over potions. Its literally the same. The fighter selfheal skill is just a bonus action, even brings more hp. Same for healing potions. Just a bonus action to drink one. The more advanced potions heal alot more hp than anything.

While you cleric or mage in general has to use a main action for a healing spell, which - on top - restores only a tiny amount of HP. At game start it looks ok. But once you have 80-100 hitpoints you barely notice the spells anymore.

Healing Word is a bonus action instead of a full action. In addition, as Moonbane said, you can upcast healing spells to improve their potency. There's also Beacon of Healing which forces your spells to heal the maximum amount, and there's equipment that adds bonus healing to your spells.

It might help to better look at your tooltips, learn what can give you advantage on casts, learn to use your cantrips effectively so you're not burning your spellslots needlessly.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Moonbane:

You do know you can upcast spells with higher spellslots to increase their performance?

Upcasting can increase damage, not accuracy.

[Thodin]

Originally posted by Moonbane:

You do know you can upcast spells with higher spellslots to increase their performance?

Yes, but it uses up your spellslots even more. One mediocore engagement and you're already in need of another rest.

I probably understand that mage related chars should be more in a supportive role, but they pushed it too far. Especially with just 4 party members you really have to think about, whether you waste one of these precious slots for these limited magic chars. After all you can do some neccessary haste casts or AoE strikes also with scrolls, while retaining a 3 melee + 1 thief/ranger setup.

[id795078477]

Casters are mostly pointless in BG3:

-- No need for healers because potions are abundant
-- No need for buffs because anyone can just use scrolls and scrolls are abundant
-- No need in CC because melee can CC like there's no tomorrow
-- No need in damaging spells because melee have their AoE as well and compensate for any AoE with multiple attacks

It's not impossible to play casters and if that's your fantasy you certainly could - but I just don't see the point. That juicy fireball very rarely hits more than 3 enemies and even 3 is lucky. That Haste I can get from an item. That buff X or buff Y I can get from a scroll. Of and I can run 21+ STR almost always and have extra attack almost always because elixirs.

Casters are.. meh, for the most part. Mediocre.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

Originally posted by id795078477:

Casters are mostly pointless in BG3:

-- No need for healers because potions are abundant
-- No need for buffs because anyone can just use scrolls and scrolls are abundant
-- No need in CC because melee can CC like there's no tomorrow
-- No need in damaging spells because melee have their AoE as well and compensate for any AoE with multiple attacks

It's not impossible to play casters and if that's your fantasy you certainly could - but I just don't see the point. That juicy fireball very rarely hits more than 3 enemies and even 3 is lucky. That Haste I can get from an item. That buff X or buff Y I can get from a scroll. Of and I can run 21+ STR almost always and have extra attack almost always because elixirs.

Casters are.. meh, for the most part. Mediocre.

Now this just seems like a skill issue.

[Yasahi]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Originally posted by Moonbane:

You do know you can upcast spells with higher spellslots to increase their performance?

Upcasting can increase damage, not accuracy.

Magic Missile always hits. It's one of the most powerful single target spells with the right build.

[jonnin]

your spells work in one of 3 main ways.
1) a normal attack, using your int (wizard etc) or cha(sorc, etc) as an attack roll. You can make them easier to hit with elevation or other debuffs same as a bow for the attack roll ones. This is why shart and assterion can't hit with their useless wizard cantrip.
2) saving throw spells, which bypass armor and difficulty to hit in exchange for rolling against a stat. The stat is usually pretty good; con and dex spells like the poison cantrip are difficult to land on most monsters because they all have a 14+ con score. Wis and sometimes int are your go to type; those can land on many enemy with lower scores.
3) aoe. Fireball, cloud of daggers, even if they save some damage is usually done.

and you can increase your spell difficulty in a number of ways..
- element feat, they can't resist your spells anymore (eg fireball vs tieflings)
- upcasting
- vulnerability (eg throw water on them then cold or electric spell)
- disadvantage debuffs
and so on.

basically melee, archery, magic... its all the same. You decrease their ability to avoid it and increase your ability to land it as much as possible, regardless.

-> landing cantrips against uninteresting targets is very frustrating early game. So much so that you may be as well off to use a crossbow at first. By level 5, there is no contest.

[Bishop]

Mages are kinda gimped here outside of few good spells honestly. The fact that majority of ground effects is still bugged and stuck at 12 dc no matter how much character can actually stack doesn't help either. They also nerfed tons of good spells like hypnotic pattern for no particular reason.

Its kinda obvious that larian doesn't want casters to be strong in this game for whatever reason. Just accept them being haste bots with occasional wet+lighting shenanigans and move on.

[Akameka]

Cantrip sucks in early level, but start to outclass ranged weapons as soon as level 5.

Imo the problem with mages is that for a good chunk of the game, they either do something usefull or fail miserably. For exemple, Try to cast hold person to ease the fight ? Fail. Now you wasted both a spell slot AND a turn.

While fighters usually have more actions per turn without using ressources ( and regaining most of thoses with short rest instead of longrest. ) So when you miss an attack, you don't lose as much as a mage.

Of course that's only in the early game. In end game you can create really powerfull build with synergies allowing for absurd amount of damage.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Upcasting can increase damage, not accuracy.

Magic Missile always hits. It's one of the most powerful single target spells with the right build.

It's one of the most consistent spells, not the most powerful.

There are also plenty save for 1/2 damage spells that perform pretty consistently too since they always do at least some damage. I would almost argue that these are better in fact because 1/2 damage is typically equal to what a MM can put out and there's still a chance of doing full damage which will exceed MM.

[strangerfi]

Magic missile + cull of the weak is my go to when I need to finish off enemies. I just got to act 2. Magic missile is probably my favorite spell because it always hits and hits multiple enemies even though there are stronger spells out there.

[Silt]

I don't use a caster at all, no need with all the scrolls, all day lasting potions/elixirs, and most every piece of gear having a spell slapped on it. If you are going to use a caster, choose offensive spells that automatically hit or have wisdom/intelligence saves. Most everything in the game has a high strength, constitution, and/or dexterity and with the suspect dice rolls enemies typically make their saves on those pretty easily.