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Regarding magic items: 5e declaring that Forgotten Realms was the default campaign setting, and then saying that magic items are extremely rare, was very stupid. Regardless of my opinion on the Forgotten Realms (and it is very poor), one of its defining features is that the Realms are absolutely *lousy* with magic items. In BG1, there was a goddamned *Ring of Wizardry* just hanging out under a tree, and that's not actually considered a weird thing. An adventurer in Faerun that is not covered head-to-toe in magic items by the time they're level 8 is an anomaly.
indeed not to mention the +1, +2, +3 items are WAY overblown in prices. They're much better for selling than an item that let's you... dash as a bonus action or an item that warns you of incoming danger, a sword made for the SOLE PURPOSE of killing the MAIN ENEMY in the game, DRAGONS. Is cheaper than a +3 item hell maybe even cheaper than a +2. It's like those + items don't COMPARE to items that are more utility.
One neat thing about the "you get the AC bonus for your shield even if you're holding your ranged weapons" is that it cuts both ways; If your ranged weapons give you unique spells or bonuses, those bonuses apply even when you're holding your melee weapon. My Karlach is equipping a longbow that reduces the number she needs to crit, for example.
Yeah, I have quite a few stat sticks on my characters. There's a flail that gives you a bonus to AC and some damage reduction. I have that on my Warlock who isn't proficient with the type of weapon and it does it on my stat sheet (he also has a bow and arrow that gives him a bonus to Initiative). The only problem is that I'm in act 2 and have the light source to help with the , and so every time I switch to my light source, it won't re-equip it, I'm guessing because it won't auto-equip something you aren't proficient with.
@chrismartin6889 I got lucky and went with an option that didn't need that light source so I just get away with having daylight cast on my main character since he is the only one without dark vision in my party. Would drive me crazy to have to have my off hand taken up by the lantern.
An important point about the long rest thing, there ARE certain time sensitive events where if you choose to rest at certain times, things will happen while you were sleeping. Perhaps very BAD things you might want to prevent.
These moments are all VERY OBVIOUS however. Basically, don't sleep when you SEE A BUILDING BURNING DOWN. You might be out of slots, but the fire isn't just gonna rage ALL NIGHT while you sleep to get your create water back.
Another big change from dnd to baldur's gate three is when the game prompts you to do something, it's because that thing is about to happen! Here's three different examples going from one everyone knows to one almost nobody knows: 1) Guidance on a ability check~ everyone knows that if you make an ability check in dialogue with an NPC the game will prompt you to use your ability unlike in 5e. 2) Cast shield as a reaction~ the game will prompt you to cast the shield spell after you're about to be hit by an attack. But it WON'T ask you if that +5 to AC wouldn't matter. (Ex: Wizard with AC 13 gets hit by a 19 attack roll, game will not prompt shield) 3) Light Cleric reaction imposing disadvantage~ unlike in 5e where you impose disadvantage BEFORE the attack happens, the game's version works like a luck point. IF you are about to be hit, you can make the attacker reroll their attack meaning you save your reaction for when you really need it! THIS IS SUPER BROKEN! Not only that, but BG3 gives unlimited uses of this feature! And it gets amplified heavily with a big AC! (Light Cleric 1 is probably as OP in BG3 as Hexblade is in DND 5E! It's the best one level dip!)
@theuncalledfor I’ll give it a shot. It’s really good if you are going for a weird Gish build. Important to note, a gish is worse than the best classes at each of its roles, but makes up for that by being extremely flexible and still surprisingly good at each role. For example, dipping into Rune Knight Fighter or Giant Barbarian in order to use oversized weapons (raw you can create any weapon for your character as an action using pact of the blade) while still preserving fairly decent spell progression (although appropriately sized weapons for your new size class will often be more optimal). No need to finagle with your dm about how you are getting such large weapons. For reference, if large with a Greatsword that is 4d6 or 6d6 with disadvantage. Growth potions are also only like 200 gold, so at tier 2+ you can easily afford to bump this up to 6d6 or 8d6 with disadvantage. You can also make some nutty longbow or heavy crossbow builds with this interaction that can compete with EB for single target damage without the invocation investment. You can make this even nastier with elven accuracy + devils eyes + darkness. Hexblade is also bonkers if you can get a wand of magic missiles (merely an uncommon magic item (200-500 gold), so it’s rare for a gm to refuse you). Being able to deal a guaranteed 8d6+40 on the big bad let’s you invest more heavily into warlock’s utility spell options. On top of all that, given that martial classes aren’t actually that much better than a caster at front lining anyways, access to spells like shield and armor of agathys combined with your excellent AC means you can also fill this niche quite easily in the party comp while still providing a lot of spellcasting utility. This build works best with a pass without trace party composition, since the moments before you ambush the enemy will often let you pre-buff your size changes and weapon summoning.
I will defend sleep, here. It is very strong against spread out enemies since you control who it hits so you can guarantee specific enemies miss their turn. The problem is you level up to 3-4 so fast it will likely only have 1-2 fights to shine in. But for the goblins at the gate encounter, taking half the enemy out of the fight for two turns is definitely worth a spell slot.
It is not as clutch, but I agree with you it can still be very good, if you can somehow control the battlefield though. At worst, I think enemies still lose an Action or a Bonus Action waking up their buddies.
For surprise: Keep in mind the assassin subclass will regain their actions even if they initiate combat with one. Also all of their attacks are critical hits while the enemy is surprised.
What’s weird about this is that in a recent patch, not having your resources when you pick a fight was listed as a bug and now everyone gets their actions back at the start of a fight (even getting to finish their multi-attack). This is all strange because it goes counter to the written text of the assassin ability
The regain action is completely useless as you can use any class, go in turn base mode and attack and get your action back. You can do this 4 times for all your dude so you actually get 8 attack in the first turn. The crit is nice tho.
About wizards needing to keep rituals memorized, if you Up Cast a ritual like Longstrider, you can then remove the spell from your spell list. The higher level spell still doesn't take a spell slot, and the game doesn't associate it with the low level spell you prepared.
Humans have shield proficiency in BG3and since they don't implement somatic components, Gale and Wyll can use shields and still cast whatever. So you can have high ac and still react with the shield spell while you hold a real shield! Thief Rogues get two bonus actions which feels so ridiculously strong, love it
This goes for half elves, too. My durge is a half wood elf thief rogue, I use dual wielded hand crossbows, that's up to 3 shots a round, while having a shield!
Speaking of this, they also get proficiency in light armor (useful for casters to not need Mage Armor), and in polearms. I made a half-elf monk despite being an Elf Main just so I could have the monk use polearms with dexterity.
Silence is a super useful ritual for preventing calls for help or just for stealth if you need to destroy a barrier/wall. Silence+Fire Arrow+Smokepowder Barrel can get you through pretty much any destructible barrier even those with Greater Toughness without triggering combat provided NPCs don't have line of sight.
This may not work in 5e, however. Silence has a verbal component, so it might give away your presence and position, depending on the DM. And depending on how far you are from potential reinforcements. (Not trying to correct you, just adding a bit of info about 5e for contrast.)
The only issues with these areas is that if you really wanted to, you could backtrack to the previous area that isn't hostile, long rest, then walk back and continue your encounter. Obviously this doesn't work everywhere but there were some big fights that you could easily see coming up ahead of you and just run back to safety to long rest.
Tip for any would be Barbarians in baldur's gate 3 a Dex barb build is fully allowed and they still benefit from all their features even when using dex to attack including rage and reckless attack (the only ones in 5e that didn't do anything for dex attacks) so with that information on my game I refitted Karlach to be a dual wielding dex build that's both lethal and durable in a fight dumping str to maximize hp and ac
My ramble on these changes: 10. It's not the whole party who rolls, it's just the part of the party that is engaging in the surprise. That's the same as in BG3. Stealth does work differently tho, no sounds making in this game, only sight matters. I'd love if it was, but I can understand why it isn't. 9. Love surfaces. 8. I do enjoy the ritual casting system of BG3. I also love that some utility spells just last a whole day. 7. The idea of 5e being "balanced" in any way is hilarious. I personally love giving my players magic items because it's fun. The items in BG3 are amazing, lot of unique build opportunities that I wouldn't think about making without those. Me like! 6. Personally not a huge fan of the stupidlong jump. But it's fun enough. 5. You can spam long rests. However, there is a lot of long-rest sensitive content. If you rest too much, it will affect your game. 4. I always find it weird that Invisibility in 5e doesn't actually make you invisible. 3. Given that pretty much everything can be counted as spellgocus nowadays kind of made the free-hand rule quite obsolete anyway. 2. Wearing an armstrapped shield while using a bow is not actually all that inconvinient. I can imagine adventurers doing that. And I am always happy to provide player ideas. I remember one guy who carried a pavise with him to have a portable cover. 1. Yeah. When you are dual-weilding, you can use your bonus action to make attack with the off-hand weapon. The fact you for some reason need a feat when doing it with crossbows is just nonsensical. Welcomed change, love it. My top 1 change from 5e? Weapon abilities.
Number 4, 5e does actually have other senses in the Perception rules, with creatures that take advantage on this (Keen Hearing and Smell). In fact, even sight is meant to have a DC to pass; check out Eagle Totem Barbarian's Aspect of the Beast. If you can't see, hear, or smell a creature well enough to locate it, you shouldn't know where it is. This is why every creature's location in the world is not known to you in 5e. Taking the Hide action allows you to use the Stealth result instead of whatever DC the DM decides upon, whichever is higher. Hence, Darkness and Invisibility in 5e DO work like they do in BG3, unless they locate you based on hearing or smell. The difference is that BG3 doesn't have hearing or smell checks, as you mention, so its 100% reliable.
Minor Addendum, there's various areas that turn your minimap red and you can't go to camp at all in those places. Makes it so you can only use your short rests. Some have a mindflayer restoration thing though.
Crown of madness proved itself a good control spell in the gnoll fight. I kept most of the gnolls fighting among themselves while I focused down their leader.
@@theuncalledforMakes the enemy walk towards nearest target and use their entire turn to fight them in any way they can, as opposed to in 5e where it just forces them to make one weapon attack before moving and does nothing if nobody is next to them. It also no longer requires your action to maintain every subsequent turn in bg3 (so it’s akin to Dominate Person with the restriction of forcing them to fight the nearest character rather than whoever you choose)
@@elzed2667 The best part is other hostiles will attack the affected creature even if it hasn't attacked them yet. So hit the right target and you'll have half the enemy team killing each other for you.
@@elzed2667 CROWN OF MADNESS REQUIRES YOUR ACTION TO SUSTAIN?! (Checking...) You know, I had forgotten that. I had completely forgotten that, probably as a defence mechanism against how brain-bleedingly stupid that is. Thank you for explaining what makes BG3 Crown of Madness good.
Something fun I found out: casting hold person (save or fail) doesn't agro neutral npcs. Spam it til it succeeds and then kill them with your free crits!
Another note on the two load-outs for weapons: Even if you are primarily a ranged attacker, you should always swap back to your melee set at the end of your turn. (swapping is entirely free at any time you have control) For whatever reason, you cannot attack of opportunity if you have your ranged weapons in your hands and will _not_ swap to melee weapons to do so. Always swapping back to melee is best because you might get that one enemy that decides to run past you to attack an ally behind you, and even if they move through your melee range you won't AoO if your bow/crossbow is currently out in hand.
I love all the Baldur's Gate 3 content, it's a perfect way to see how a pack tactics party would play the game and it's glorious. Please keep it up it's so fun to watch.
Yea baldurs gate won't necessarily limit your long rests most of the time but there are a lot of DMs who only plan out one event per day as well, just like the DM chooses how hard it is to manage resources you have to do it for yourself in bg3, personally I fell into a rhythm where I rested when I ran out of resources, it still meant planning things out and there are still areas you can't long rest in.
Great list overall, and very informative video. Thank you for taking the time and effort to play the game, ferret out the differences, and share them with us! That having been said I'm going to disagree with Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern being bad spells in BG3. Both spells disrupt the ability of the enemy groups to fight you, giving you a chance to deal with specific enemies.
Number 4, not knowing where someone is does NOT require a Hide action - by this logic you know where every creature in the world is unless they have taken the Hide action. What the Hide action does is to supplement the DC to find a creature with their Stealth result, whichever is higher. Other senses than sight include hearing and smell (there is also tremorsense and blindsense, and probably something else I am forgetting). 5e specifically gives certain creatures Keen Hearing and/or Keen Smell. If the only sense that mattered was sight this would be dead additions. The Perception rules are quite clear about this, if not particularly helpful. The real problem here is that 5e is garbage at helping out the DM, so the DM has no idea what the DC is meant to be. Eh, there is some guidance on the back of the official DM screen. Given that 5e is meant to be loose and fast, many DMs just ignore hearing and smell, while sight is either you are in line of sight or you are not. This throws Eagle Totem Barbarians under the bus, but its understandable given how unhelpful 5e is being here. BG3 only uses sight. No hearing, no smell. So, by BG3's own rules, if they can't see you they don't know where you are. Hence, Darkness and Invisibility. The way to 'fix' this would be to include those sense checks.
This is also true for 5e, plus it forces concentration checks that use your spell save DC instead of a damage-based number, the concentration checks specifically do not benefit from War Caster, and the area is heavily obscured so only creatures with Blindsight can see in there, everyone else is effectively blinded. (I don't have BG3, so I don't know if any of this also applies in BG3. I would assume not, since you would have likely mentioned it otherwise.)
Regarding #6 Rituals: while you do have to have the rituals prepared in order to cast them in BG3, if you upcast them, you can remove them from your prepared spell list and still have the effect stick around. Upcasting ritual spells is free as well. This presumably works for other spells that you can upcast as well. So far, I've only tested it with Mage Armor being cast at 2nd level and it works but it may also work with spells like Aid.
About the shield effect, you can change between melee and ranged weapons freely, so you can shoot with your archer, change to melee weapon before pass your turn and gain not only the shield bônus, but also opportunity attacks against who move close
For surprise, assassin rogue gets to refresh its resources when entering combat. Meaning they can surprise sneak attack and top the round with a second sneak attack. This alongside a d4 initiative system does make rogue better. I was putting bosses dead or near dead when I surprise them. Also since anyone can use any scrolls without a check, an assassin can also just cast two high level spells to start combat. For surfaces the AI seems to have different intelligences. I noticed that as I got to later acts, casting thorns in a door way would simply make enemies pass their turn and wait for me to enter line of sight as opposed to in act one where gnolls would just run in and die. For resting, some quests will progress in some way if you long rest as far as I noticed. Its not often, but I did run into situations where the narrator seemed to apply a consequence would happen if I rest or where I actually did have consequences. I also think a major difference here is that this game basically has homebrew built in via Illithid powers and this does make some classes weaker or stronger in relation to one another. For example, if I can guarantee a crit once per long rest, Smite becomes way better. But there's other uses too such as Slaying Arrows which double damage. Being able to do 100+ damage with one arrow is very nice.
Early game Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern in general are actually pretty crazy spells in BG3. Act 1 Sleep can help you finish off enemies and is pretty much a guaranteed cc. With the Goblins, you can easily sleep multiple targets by using a bonus action hand crossbow. It falls off super hard tho but its replaced with Hideous Laughter and Hold Monster later on. Hypnotic Pattern is actually the biggest AoE CC in the game, casting it can be better than upcasting Hold Person/Monster depending on the situation as I've charmed at least 7 people with it, denying 2 of their turns while my team gets in position. 1 thing to note about Long Rest to any newcomer to the Baldur's Gate 3 game : It progresses time for some quests. In Act 1, if you long rest too much, like after every encounter, The Emerald Grove would've completed their ritual and sealed off the Grove. There are other situations where a quest gives you, say, 3 days and that means 3 long rests. So while you can rest infinitely (as long as you have supplies) there are situations where once you start a quest or scene, you can't dip out for a long rest or else it may have consequences.
Something to consider hand crossbows have shorter range than long bows, light crossbows and heavy crossbows. A rogue can regularly walk away from most creatures, be "outside" their vision range, activate bonus action stealth then make a sneak attack at advantage using that extra long range attack.
While most 5E adventures probably ignore food/water constraints, I'm stealing the idea of handling that bit of housekeeping as part of preparing for a long rest in those scenarios that get a bit more survivalist. Doesn't need to mean that's when they took their meal break, but it's just a good time to account for it. Also, I need to go recheck BG3 weight of food, but if it's 0.1 lbs per camp "point", then this is semi-in line with 5E rules for a party of 4, just with a modified penalty
Surprise/Stealth Pro tip: Assassin Rogues get their actions back when Initiative is rolled. Pro tip 2: If you ungroup your characters and they are all in Stealth and not seen by the enemies, only the triggering character is in combat. I had a Astarian Stealth running an area and my main group got aggroed by an enemy group. He was able to walk all the way back to the group and get a free Assassin sneak attack and because he rolled Initiative, he was able to get a full first turn.
My favorite ritual is find familiar, action economy is great, and early on a free crab or bird can be great, as they can attack and give advantage to the rest of your party/deal not great but acceptable damage for practically free
What you said about Long Rests is true, however it gives the impression that nothing will change or react because of a long rest. It is true that enemies will not notice kills or deaths of their allies from long resting, however there are many many events and quests in the game that once started will change from a long rest. Early examples being the burning building at Waukeen's Rest or Nere's survival in the Underdark. The game will never restrict or punish long resting, but there are things that can and will change from the act of long resting. Also worth mentioning regarding CBE and Hand Crossbows, it's not just limited to Hand Crossbows. Any form of Dual Wielding will allow for an extra attack with the off-hand weapon as a bonus action. Though keep in mind that without Two-Weapon Fighting Style the offhand will not get your ability score bonus so just something to keep in mind while deciding on what weapons to use.
that's weird, because I also thought it should have consequences, if I wait a full day before rescueing Nere. I did exactly that and it didn't change a thing 🥱🤷♂
@@angelcrush3320 Upon travelling to Grym forge and attempting to leave, go to camp or rest, you should get a vision from Nere asking for you to save him from the rubble. If afterwards you still leave, long rest or go to camp, Nere will die and you will only find his corpse. It does change. I don't quite know what the exact steps you did to end up where you did, but long resting will kill Nere.
@@Nerazmus Now that explains it. It's a shame tho. I wish the game would be a little more unforgiving with choices, at least on hard mode. I also feel like the combat is lacking in something. Idk why, but I think I had more fun with divinity, combatwise.
I don't know if I would call it a "must know" change, but in BG3 the Battle Master Maneuver: Rally can be used to pick up an unconscious ally, it ends up recovering 1 HP and then providing the listed 8 Temp HP. Makes it a much stronger pick than just the Temp HP would make it.
For those looking to minimize the amount of long rests they take to make the game more challenging you can still take partial rests which will trigger story cutscenes as well just not give you back your resources so you don’t miss any of the story for wanting to challenge yourself
i didn't know about the hand crossbow and shield changes. Those are crazy broken. As if melee focus martial classes weren't obsolete already, the idea that ranged characters can dual wield/2-hand and benefit from a shield is nuts
If you long rest at a specific point in game like before a quest scene, some quests will advance by itself resulting in different outcomes. For example, if you kill 1 leader in goblin camp and long rest the whole camp will aggressive toward u.
2:40 - What I’m doing now is letting the stealth specialist (Ranger) roll first and if she rolls high enough, she can grant advantage to her party by leading them. Of course it’s still possible someone steps on the twigs she pointed out or kicks the pile of scree she carefully swept aside, but at least it means that not everyone in the group has to choose Stealth proficiency just so they aren’t the one blowing Stealth checks _every_ time.
There are a couple of instances in the game where if you take a long rest the quest objectives may change/certain paths will be nullified. It's very rare though
Did you know you get bonus physics based damage every time you throw something (including thrown weapons) from above an enemy? Tavern brawler also doubles your strength bonus for attack and damage with thrown weapons, letting you get to an attack bonus that makes it almost impossible to miss. Also various of the throwing based items get their damage applied multiple times with tavern brawler, for some reason.
Two things I'd note: The weapon loadouts not only work with shields, any benefit the weapon would give you, applies to both loadouts - for example there's a crossbow that gives advantange on attacks against monstrocities - that works for your melee attacks now, or a sword that increases your crit range by 1? Enjoy critting on 19 with those hand crossbows The double spellcasting - haste now gives you an additional action - which means you can cast an additional spell per turn - so if you spend your action to cast haste on yourself, you get another action to cast another. Lethargy is still a thing but if you can pop a sanctuary on the haste caster or just use potions of speed. Haste is actually good now - to the point where it(sadly) feels almost mandatory
Hypnotic Pattern is still really, really good (Sleep not so much). It hits a MASSIVE area, and there are many encounters where tons of enemies are clumped up. You can layer spells with it also, since the Hypnotized condition results in STR and DEX saves auto-failing, allowing you to use Entangle or Web to ensnare everything that failed its first saving throw. Even a couple of rounds of a few enemies being out of a big fight is a big deal.
I understand your point about a shield still giving an AC bonus when you use a ranged weapon sounding a bit silly but there is a historical precedent for this archers and crossbow troops carrying a shield on their back for protection or hiding behind one when shooting. In BG3 then weapons can act as stat sticks for both ranged and melee attacks.
One change I noticed on accident was the shortness of Greater Invisibility. Learned this the hard way when I tried ambushing a boss, only to be revealed two turns later…
People sleeping on ice surfaces, falling prone ENDS your turn instantly, for you OR for ANY ENEMY. Sleet Storm the level 3 spell is small in BG3 it's less than half the normal size it would be in table top 5E, however it's still strong given it creates difficult terrain and it's an ice surface. Creatures move at half speed, need to make concentration saves to concentrate on spells, AND if they move on the ice, they need to make a dex save or fall prone and LOSE their turn.
I think the ritual spells needing to be prepared to benefit actually makes for a better trade-off for the spells they used. I almost never cast longstrider in actual play, especially since I have to choose who would benefit most from it, but if I could cast it in exchange for a prepared spell? I'd be much more inclined to cast it.
Worth noting for short rest, bard's song of rest is changed to be an additional short rest, which means you can get more than 2, this is beneficial for resources that recover on a short rest like a warlock's spell slots or a fighter's action surge, since normal spell slots do not recover, it makes bard able to pair with certain classes extremely useful. If you have a life cleric or ancients paladin, this even recharges their broken channel divinities (the healing those two get is insane). Short rest recovers half of HP, this makes Aid stupidly strong, cast as first spell of the day, so you basically get double the HP you are meant too, even more broken with song of rest. There are some annoying things, Paladin's auras aren't automatically activated, you have to activate it manually (why?), there is a few things like that in the game too... but overall have really enjoyed it.
Honorable mentions: Heavy Armor has no Strength requirement to use without impeding you, making it even easier to armor-dip Haste giving a full action, combined with the Spellcasting rules
A bathtub in a certain individual's home refreshes resources like a long rest, but doesn't remove buffs. So you can stack long rest duration buffs, then rest up and get all your spell slots back. For plot reasons, I assumed you wouldn't be able to return after that section is over, but it seems like you actually can. If you were willing to backtrack, it seems like you might never need to take another long rest in the game after that.
10. no, if you enter combat in turn based mode, you get all your actions back. so yes, attack with an action from outside combat, you get another action when you enter combat, then if you beat them in initiative you have another action before they can do anything. this is unbelievably ridiculously broken, and should be patched. 8. for some reason, if you upcast the ritual spells, then unprepare them, the effect isn't removed. this is again, rediculous, and has to be a bug. 7. if you are pickpocketing vendors, you should do so while using disguise self. otherwise they'll suspect you stole from them, even if they didn't see you stealing. 6. and "step of the wind" is a thing". there is a hammer that makes your jumps do damage, in act 1. and you've already broken the game at lvl 2 5. you should take long rests, not doing so can cause the story to not advance particularly with your companions, since events with them are set to happen on a long rest. 4. immunity to being blinded will let you ignore the downsides of darkness. there's a ring in bg3 that gives you immunity to blinded. 3. hypnotic pattern is actually still really good in bg3. the ability to gain "arcane acuity" makes you able to make certain that your effects land. 2. and many of the bonuses from weapons function even if you aren't using them. for instance, you were holding a knife that increases your critical range in the video. your ranged attacks also have an increased critical range.
An important note about surprise in bg3. If you enter turn based mode before starting a combat, all actions and bonus actions are refreshed upon joining the combat; this is probably unintentional and will get fixed.
The problem with bg3's bonus action design is that it's a half-way change. In tabletop you have to invest to unlock options with your bonus action, and most of those options spend a resoure. Because it isn't a given, many characters simply don't use a bonus action most turns, and while there often are viable investments to make, it's allways possible to pick another option instead, like a different feat, spell, or whatever. The only exception to this is the rogue, who has multiple free bonus actions, and should ALLWAYS be using it if able. In bg3 on the other hand bonus actions is just your 2nd action, and any character who doesn't spend it is losig out on options that are alreaddy available. Poisons, health potions, jumping, shoving, and if noene of these tactical moves have any use, an attack with an off-hand weapon. This is great, it makes each turn feel more meaningful, and encourages tactics, and I allways like giving people a simple thong to do to feel useful. The problem is it's too narrow. If you don't like the hand crossbow, you are left with few thematic alternatives for mage builds or barbarians who may look silly when stopping their rampage or reality bending to carefully aim a tiny crossbow and shoot once, before swapping back to their main tool. Spells most class-bonus actions take resources, so unless you need to shove someone, it crossbow time or wasted time. If the bonus action is gonna be so useful, then give me some generic ways of using it resource free. Let me use a bonus action to get a +1 to AC, or better yet give me +1 to AC when I end my turn with an unused bonus action or THP equal to half my proficiency bonus. If using a martial weapon that's too expensive for most people so fast it doesn't prevent you from doing other things is so easy, then surely there should be less specific and flavor-bound options. Either the bonus action is limited, or it is flexible. By making it limited for the moat part, but flexible for certain things, you're forcing people to find a way to use those options, and this isn't a puzzlegame, or even an action game. It's an rpg, so please don't force me to play a crossbow expert and punish me for playing a different character.
It might seem that you can long rest as often as you want, whenever you want, without any consequences - but there are quite a number of quests and encounters that change or disappear if you take a long rest when first entering an area. You won't actually realise that's a thing until a later run and things are different.
17:12 just when I was satisfied with a 6th level fiend warlock build (my only regret being not having a bonus action). The idea is to abuse the hell out of darknes + devil sight.
Until long rest buffs, including rituals, remain active after removing them from the bar if they were upcasted. I’m not sure which is the bug as in early access upcasting wasn’t needed, but a few other things changed from EA too.
Having spent far too much time looting the vendors, the main items that get rerolled are the +1 and +2 weapons and armours. Vendors will start with one copy of some unique equipment but after they are gone, they won't respawn uniques. Also the vendors main gold stack resets with the vendor inventory, but if, say, you divide the vendors inventory to 100 stacks of 200 gold, only one will be reset to the vendors default starting gold.
I have loot chests specifically for +1 weapons and +1 armours because they are so unimpressive in the late game and get in the way of seeing the unique items.
So about jumping, monk step of the wind removes the requirement of a bonus action so they can jump as many times as they have movement... and if they did the double movement they can zoom across the field
12:32 my brother was able to get through basically all of act 1 with 0 long rests or short rests until they had to take a long rest to trigger story stuff
thanks for sharing these tips ... i was wondering why my computer was not accepting all of the pizza that i was pushing onto the screen. at least now i can clean the screen and see more clearly
I might be missing something here, but with two hand crossbows equipped, when I use the attack action, the game automatically uses my bonus action to fire another shot with my off hand, which I find super inconvenient, because I often want to save that bonus action for something else.
Really surprised you forgot how we can get many full Actions and even cast spells with them, like 3 or more Fireballs in one turn. Oh, and Haste gives a full action, so you could do a second sequence of Extra Attack or cast another spell that round if you are Hasted!
You can do that in 5e as well. The limitation only comes into effect when you cast a spell as a Bonus action. So Fireball -> Action Surge -> Fireball, is perfectly legal as far as rules are concerned.
@@Nerazmus Yes, but not Haste and you have one single Bonus Action no matter what. EDIT: But you are correct that, oddly, Action Surge allows casting another spell (which I always found a bad decision from the designers).
I like being covered in minor msgic items. The ring of throwing. Boots thst give me the wbikity to junp a bit further, an amuket thst gives advantage on deathbssving throws. Not individually game breakingz but usful
12:10 I'll add that in SOME specific moments, which the game generally calls out or it just makes sense, there ARE a time-sensitive events in which long-resting would change things, but they're generally a bit clear on that fact (with exception being maybe the grove that mentions a few times that time is of essence and it really isn't). Other than that they took the approach of letting people rest more freely, on the purpose of making things a bit more chill (after all it is a lot of people's first time and SO many people already complaining they run out of spells in one fight). And as for the holding a shield thing, I think in a game where you can completely freely switch between melee/ranged during your turn, I think it just makes it less of a hassle to have to remember to switch back to melee when your turn ends. I don't remember this in Early Access so I think it was just some QoL over time. It is most certainly silly, but hey I love shields so I'm completely and certainly biased, and I love it.
With the grove it's actually spatial. You can wait out the in-game clock or rest as much as you want you just can't advance to the next area. It's just easy to miss the warning pop-ups so players assume it's because they overslept.
I dead ass thought itd be like the OG FO and didnt long rest until i fininished most of act 1. I did the whole Grove the beach etc. With just goddamn cantrips and martials 😅
Great video, but I disagree with you saying that Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern suck. Sleep is still very powerful in Act 1 at least, and I've used Hypnotic Pattern to great effect throughout the game! It can essentially turn encounters into a series of 1v1s. Enemies will shove each other out of sleep, but I haven't had that happen for Hypnotic Pattern.
Keep in mind that Long Rests somewhat advance time in certain situations. If the game tells you to hurry up to do something, be careful about long resting!
God i have so many issues with the current resting system as it is in BG3... First off, why can we just teleport at will, no matter where we are, to a safe camp Why does leaving camp bring us back to exactly the same spot we were last standing in Why doesn't time progress after a long rest All of this is such an immersion killer. If I had it my way, you wouldn't be able to go to camp if you were inside a building or cave of any kind, you'd have to escape first. Also, returning from a long rest would put you at a waypoint instead of directly where you lost were. I want situations where your party is so messed up and needs to rest, but you are so deep in a cave or something that you have to struggle hard to escape because that feels more realistic and fun. Having the safety of just teleporting to safety ruins all tension Now thankfully, these rules are easy to enact yourself when you play the game, and I highly recommend you do
1. teleporting at will because video game 2. leaving camp bringing you back to the same spot because video game 3. time not progressing because that would be impossible from a coding standpoint, even for Larian 4. I tend to wait until im outside of a dangerous area too, but some areas already prevent you from long resting or teleporting
> _First off, why can we just teleport at will, no matter where we are, to a safe camp_ Why are there random magical teleport point you can warp to? > _Why does leaving camp bring us back to exactly the same spot we were last standing in_ Why do you only need to eat once a day? > _Why doesn't time progress after a long rest_ It literally does. > _If I had it my way, you wouldn't be able to go to camp if you were inside a building or cave of any kind,_ Then don't. Simple as that. > _Also, returning from a long rest would put you at a waypoint instead of directly where you lost were._ Then do that.
I m akso a resource hoarding goblin. I m near the end of act 3 and even with the forced long rests i'm still below 10 long rests since my char is a bard.
@@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462 Exactly, this is why the same high DEX characters tend to go first. It's also why a +1 initiative item is worth much much more and why Alert is busted for almost guaranteeing to go first, since it hasn't been rebalanced for BG3 initiative
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Hey kobold, unrelated but is the learning Pathfinder series gonna continue sometime in the future? Loving the videos, keep it up!
Insta like. Great content & i realy enjoy it. Thanks for that
Regarding magic items: 5e declaring that Forgotten Realms was the default campaign setting, and then saying that magic items are extremely rare, was very stupid. Regardless of my opinion on the Forgotten Realms (and it is very poor), one of its defining features is that the Realms are absolutely *lousy* with magic items. In BG1, there was a goddamned *Ring of Wizardry* just hanging out under a tree, and that's not actually considered a weird thing. An adventurer in Faerun that is not covered head-to-toe in magic items by the time they're level 8 is an anomaly.
dillon brooks is luka doncic father
indeed not to mention the +1, +2, +3 items are WAY overblown in prices. They're much better for selling than an item that let's you... dash as a bonus action or an item that warns you of incoming danger, a sword made for the SOLE PURPOSE of killing the MAIN ENEMY in the game, DRAGONS. Is cheaper than a +3 item hell maybe even cheaper than a +2.
It's like those + items don't COMPARE to items that are more utility.
@@CompletelyNewguyDragons are not actually an especially common type of enemy but I do agree with the rest
sounds like over rping
Well, cloaks are bizarrely rare in BG3 compared to other games where you could start your own haberdashery after each encounter.
One neat thing about the "you get the AC bonus for your shield even if you're holding your ranged weapons" is that it cuts both ways; If your ranged weapons give you unique spells or bonuses, those bonuses apply even when you're holding your melee weapon. My Karlach is equipping a longbow that reduces the number she needs to crit, for example.
Druid Grove has a hunting shortbow that gives advantage to attacks versus Monstrosity types, pretty nice to have that buff also apply to melee.
Yeah, I have quite a few stat sticks on my characters. There's a flail that gives you a bonus to AC and some damage reduction. I have that on my Warlock who isn't proficient with the type of weapon and it does it on my stat sheet (he also has a bow and arrow that gives him a bonus to Initiative).
The only problem is that I'm in act 2 and have the light source to help with the , and so every time I switch to my light source, it won't re-equip it, I'm guessing because it won't auto-equip something you aren't proficient with.
@chrismartin6889 I got lucky and went with an option that didn't need that light source so I just get away with having daylight cast on my main character since he is the only one without dark vision in my party. Would drive me crazy to have to have my off hand taken up by the lantern.
My borderline retarded Barbarian has a bow that does nothing except give fire and frost resist.
Mages can take two weapon feat so can get benefits from both staves.
An important point about the long rest thing, there ARE certain time sensitive events where if you choose to rest at certain times, things will happen while you were sleeping. Perhaps very BAD things you might want to prevent.
These moments are all VERY OBVIOUS however. Basically, don't sleep when you SEE A BUILDING BURNING DOWN. You might be out of slots, but the fire isn't just gonna rage ALL NIGHT while you sleep to get your create water back.
I've learned just going to camp uses up time, without a long or short rest. Nere and gnomes died while going to camp to get items to sell to merchant.
Another big change from dnd to baldur's gate three is when the game prompts you to do something, it's because that thing is about to happen! Here's three different examples going from one everyone knows to one almost nobody knows:
1) Guidance on a ability check~ everyone knows that if you make an ability check in dialogue with an NPC the game will prompt you to use your ability unlike in 5e.
2) Cast shield as a reaction~ the game will prompt you to cast the shield spell after you're about to be hit by an attack. But it WON'T ask you if that +5 to AC wouldn't matter. (Ex: Wizard with AC 13 gets hit by a 19 attack roll, game will not prompt shield)
3) Light Cleric reaction imposing disadvantage~ unlike in 5e where you impose disadvantage BEFORE the attack happens, the game's version works like a luck point. IF you are about to be hit, you can make the attacker reroll their attack meaning you save your reaction for when you really need it! THIS IS SUPER BROKEN! Not only that, but BG3 gives unlimited uses of this feature! And it gets amplified heavily with a big AC! (Light Cleric 1 is probably as OP in BG3 as Hexblade is in DND 5E! It's the best one level dip!)
Hexblade isn't OP in 5e unless you use it as a dip. If it's your main class, it's merely good.
Change my mind.
@@theuncalledfor I will not, since you are correct.
@@renatocorvaro6924
Wait, that's illegal.
Also Reckless Attack, you'll be prompted to enable it as a reaction if you're about to miss, although that's sometimes buggy.
@theuncalledfor I’ll give it a shot. It’s really good if you are going for a weird Gish build. Important to note, a gish is worse than the best classes at each of its roles, but makes up for that by being extremely flexible and still surprisingly good at each role.
For example, dipping into Rune Knight Fighter or Giant Barbarian in order to use oversized weapons (raw you can create any weapon for your character as an action using pact of the blade) while still preserving fairly decent spell progression (although appropriately sized weapons for your new size class will often be more optimal). No need to finagle with your dm about how you are getting such large weapons. For reference, if large with a Greatsword that is 4d6 or 6d6 with disadvantage. Growth potions are also only like 200 gold, so at tier 2+ you can easily afford to bump this up to 6d6 or 8d6 with disadvantage. You can also make some nutty longbow or heavy crossbow builds with this interaction that can compete with EB for single target damage without the invocation investment. You can make this even nastier with elven accuracy + devils eyes + darkness.
Hexblade is also bonkers if you can get a wand of magic missiles (merely an uncommon magic item (200-500 gold), so it’s rare for a gm to refuse you). Being able to deal a guaranteed 8d6+40 on the big bad let’s you invest more heavily into warlock’s utility spell options.
On top of all that, given that martial classes aren’t actually that much better than a caster at front lining anyways, access to spells like shield and armor of agathys combined with your excellent AC means you can also fill this niche quite easily in the party comp while still providing a lot of spellcasting utility.
This build works best with a pass without trace party composition, since the moments before you ambush the enemy will often let you pre-buff your size changes and weapon summoning.
Baldur's Gate 3 using a d4 rather than a d20 for initiative is an interesting change.
I will defend sleep, here. It is very strong against spread out enemies since you control who it hits so you can guarantee specific enemies miss their turn. The problem is you level up to 3-4 so fast it will likely only have 1-2 fights to shine in. But for the goblins at the gate encounter, taking half the enemy out of the fight for two turns is definitely worth a spell slot.
I tried that and NPC Wyll kept waking them up. ><
Also, enemies in this game are smart enough to wake each other up so take that into account.
It is not as clutch, but I agree with you it can still be very good, if you can somehow control the battlefield though. At worst, I think enemies still lose an Action or a Bonus Action waking up their buddies.
It was very helpful in my fight with the wood words and mud mephits.
For surprise:
Keep in mind the assassin subclass will regain their actions even if they initiate combat with one. Also all of their attacks are critical hits while the enemy is surprised.
What’s weird about this is that in a recent patch, not having your resources when you pick a fight was listed as a bug and now everyone gets their actions back at the start of a fight (even getting to finish their multi-attack). This is all strange because it goes counter to the written text of the assassin ability
The regain action is completely useless as you can use any class, go in turn base mode and attack and get your action back. You can do this 4 times for all your dude so you actually get 8 attack in the first turn. The crit is nice tho.
About wizards needing to keep rituals memorized, if you Up Cast a ritual like Longstrider, you can then remove the spell from your spell list. The higher level spell still doesn't take a spell slot, and the game doesn't associate it with the low level spell you prepared.
Woh. Not intended. Clever discovery though.
Came here to say this. Very well explained!
Whoops they paches it :(
Humans have shield proficiency in BG3and since they don't implement somatic components, Gale and Wyll can use shields and still cast whatever. So you can have high ac and still react with the shield spell while you hold a real shield! Thief Rogues get two bonus actions which feels so ridiculously strong, love it
This goes for half elves, too. My durge is a half wood elf thief rogue, I use dual wielded hand crossbows, that's up to 3 shots a round, while having a shield!
Speaking of this, they also get proficiency in light armor (useful for casters to not need Mage Armor), and in polearms.
I made a half-elf monk despite being an Elf Main just so I could have the monk use polearms with dexterity.
Jumping is my favorite change. My raging barbarian with 22 strength scaling a building and throwing an archer off is so satisfying
Summoning spells being non-concentration changes everything.
Yeah, it makes them usable.
Silence is a super useful ritual for preventing calls for help or just for stealth if you need to destroy a barrier/wall. Silence+Fire Arrow+Smokepowder Barrel can get you through pretty much any destructible barrier even those with Greater Toughness without triggering combat provided NPCs don't have line of sight.
This may not work in 5e, however. Silence has a verbal component, so it might give away your presence and position, depending on the DM. And depending on how far you are from potential reinforcements.
(Not trying to correct you, just adding a bit of info about 5e for contrast.)
Silence has a rather far cast range. You should be fine.
Bards also get a nice lil short rest per day which is super handy for all of your short rest based abilities. Your Fighter/Warlock/Druid will love it.
Yea.. short-rest based classes... like you know... bards 😂
@@franciscofracaro3648 more slashing flourishes >:)
@@BunnyWitchcraft He knows :D
It's such a great change to song of rest, people should use it in 5e fo sho
There are some instances in the game where you can't rest whenever you want. They are rare, but when your minimap is colored red you can't rest.
The only issues with these areas is that if you really wanted to, you could backtrack to the previous area that isn't hostile, long rest, then walk back and continue your encounter. Obviously this doesn't work everywhere but there were some big fights that you could easily see coming up ahead of you and just run back to safety to long rest.
Tip for any would be Barbarians in baldur's gate 3 a Dex barb build is fully allowed and they still benefit from all their features even when using dex to attack including rage and reckless attack (the only ones in 5e that didn't do anything for dex attacks) so with that information on my game I refitted Karlach to be a dual wielding dex build that's both lethal and durable in a fight dumping str to maximize hp and ac
If you think that's lethal already try tavern brawler throw build.
My ramble on these changes:
10. It's not the whole party who rolls, it's just the part of the party that is engaging in the surprise. That's the same as in BG3. Stealth does work differently tho, no sounds making in this game, only sight matters. I'd love if it was, but I can understand why it isn't.
9. Love surfaces.
8. I do enjoy the ritual casting system of BG3. I also love that some utility spells just last a whole day.
7. The idea of 5e being "balanced" in any way is hilarious. I personally love giving my players magic items because it's fun. The items in BG3 are amazing, lot of unique build opportunities that I wouldn't think about making without those. Me like!
6. Personally not a huge fan of the stupidlong jump. But it's fun enough.
5. You can spam long rests. However, there is a lot of long-rest sensitive content. If you rest too much, it will affect your game.
4. I always find it weird that Invisibility in 5e doesn't actually make you invisible.
3. Given that pretty much everything can be counted as spellgocus nowadays kind of made the free-hand rule quite obsolete anyway.
2. Wearing an armstrapped shield while using a bow is not actually all that inconvinient. I can imagine adventurers doing that. And I am always happy to provide player ideas. I remember one guy who carried a pavise with him to have a portable cover.
1. Yeah. When you are dual-weilding, you can use your bonus action to make attack with the off-hand weapon. The fact you for some reason need a feat when doing it with crossbows is just nonsensical. Welcomed change, love it.
My top 1 change from 5e? Weapon abilities.
Number 4, 5e does actually have other senses in the Perception rules, with creatures that take advantage on this (Keen Hearing and Smell). In fact, even sight is meant to have a DC to pass; check out Eagle Totem Barbarian's Aspect of the Beast.
If you can't see, hear, or smell a creature well enough to locate it, you shouldn't know where it is. This is why every creature's location in the world is not known to you in 5e. Taking the Hide action allows you to use the Stealth result instead of whatever DC the DM decides upon, whichever is higher. Hence, Darkness and Invisibility in 5e DO work like they do in BG3, unless they locate you based on hearing or smell. The difference is that BG3 doesn't have hearing or smell checks, as you mention, so its 100% reliable.
Minor Addendum, there's various areas that turn your minimap red and you can't go to camp at all in those places. Makes it so you can only use your short rests. Some have a mindflayer restoration thing though.
Crown of madness proved itself a good control spell in the gnoll fight. I kept most of the gnolls fighting among themselves while I focused down their leader.
Surprising, considering how terrible that spell is in 5e. I don't have Baldur's Gate 3 myself, what makes the spell not suck in the video game?
@@theuncalledforMakes the enemy walk towards nearest target and use their entire turn to fight them in any way they can, as opposed to in 5e where it just forces them to make one weapon attack before moving and does nothing if nobody is next to them. It also no longer requires your action to maintain every subsequent turn in bg3 (so it’s akin to Dominate Person with the restriction of forcing them to fight the nearest character rather than whoever you choose)
@@elzed2667 The best part is other hostiles will attack the affected creature even if it hasn't attacked them yet. So hit the right target and you'll have half the enemy team killing each other for you.
@@elzed2667
CROWN OF MADNESS REQUIRES YOUR ACTION TO SUSTAIN?!
(Checking...)
You know, I had forgotten that. I had completely forgotten that, probably as a defence mechanism against how brain-bleedingly stupid that is.
Thank you for explaining what makes BG3 Crown of Madness good.
Something fun I found out: casting hold person (save or fail) doesn't agro neutral npcs. Spam it til it succeeds and then kill them with your free crits!
Another note on the two load-outs for weapons:
Even if you are primarily a ranged attacker, you should always swap back to your melee set at the end of your turn. (swapping is entirely free at any time you have control)
For whatever reason, you cannot attack of opportunity if you have your ranged weapons in your hands and will _not_ swap to melee weapons to do so. Always swapping back to melee is best because you might get that one enemy that decides to run past you to attack an ally behind you, and even if they move through your melee range you won't AoO if your bow/crossbow is currently out in hand.
I love all the Baldur's Gate 3 content, it's a perfect way to see how a pack tactics party would play the game and it's glorious. Please keep it up it's so fun to watch.
Yea baldurs gate won't necessarily limit your long rests most of the time but there are a lot of DMs who only plan out one event per day as well, just like the DM chooses how hard it is to manage resources you have to do it for yourself in bg3, personally I fell into a rhythm where I rested when I ran out of resources, it still meant planning things out and there are still areas you can't long rest in.
Great list overall, and very informative video. Thank you for taking the time and effort to play the game, ferret out the differences, and share them with us! That having been said I'm going to disagree with Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern being bad spells in BG3. Both spells disrupt the ability of the enemy groups to fight you, giving you a chance to deal with specific enemies.
Number 4, not knowing where someone is does NOT require a Hide action - by this logic you know where every creature in the world is unless they have taken the Hide action. What the Hide action does is to supplement the DC to find a creature with their Stealth result, whichever is higher. Other senses than sight include hearing and smell (there is also tremorsense and blindsense, and probably something else I am forgetting). 5e specifically gives certain creatures Keen Hearing and/or Keen Smell. If the only sense that mattered was sight this would be dead additions. The Perception rules are quite clear about this, if not particularly helpful.
The real problem here is that 5e is garbage at helping out the DM, so the DM has no idea what the DC is meant to be. Eh, there is some guidance on the back of the official DM screen. Given that 5e is meant to be loose and fast, many DMs just ignore hearing and smell, while sight is either you are in line of sight or you are not. This throws Eagle Totem Barbarians under the bus, but its understandable given how unhelpful 5e is being here.
BG3 only uses sight. No hearing, no smell. So, by BG3's own rules, if they can't see you they don't know where you are. Hence, Darkness and Invisibility. The way to 'fix' this would be to include those sense checks.
Sleet storm seems to be the best control spell I've found so far. It's area is huge and the ice field inflicts the prone condition.
This is also true for 5e, plus it forces concentration checks that use your spell save DC instead of a damage-based number, the concentration checks specifically do not benefit from War Caster, and the area is heavily obscured so only creatures with Blindsight can see in there, everyone else is effectively blinded. (I don't have BG3, so I don't know if any of this also applies in BG3. I would assume not, since you would have likely mentioned it otherwise.)
Plague of wasps is way better tbh
Regarding #6 Rituals: while you do have to have the rituals prepared in order to cast them in BG3, if you upcast them, you can remove them from your prepared spell list and still have the effect stick around. Upcasting ritual spells is free as well. This presumably works for other spells that you can upcast as well. So far, I've only tested it with Mage Armor being cast at 2nd level and it works but it may also work with spells like Aid.
Wait, Aid is a RITUAL SPELL? Oh my god.
About the shield effect, you can change between melee and ranged weapons freely, so you can shoot with your archer, change to melee weapon before pass your turn and gain not only the shield bônus, but also opportunity attacks against who move close
3:57 :ooh a scally one. Big lizzard, hungry lizzard. Want a treato."
-popper the good boi
I will say just finishing 1 week of being in the field (us army) and definitely watching this video at the end of the day after I get back to my crib
For surprise, assassin rogue gets to refresh its resources when entering combat. Meaning they can surprise sneak attack and top the round with a second sneak attack. This alongside a d4 initiative system does make rogue better. I was putting bosses dead or near dead when I surprise them. Also since anyone can use any scrolls without a check, an assassin can also just cast two high level spells to start combat.
For surfaces the AI seems to have different intelligences. I noticed that as I got to later acts, casting thorns in a door way would simply make enemies pass their turn and wait for me to enter line of sight as opposed to in act one where gnolls would just run in and die.
For resting, some quests will progress in some way if you long rest as far as I noticed. Its not often, but I did run into situations where the narrator seemed to apply a consequence would happen if I rest or where I actually did have consequences.
I also think a major difference here is that this game basically has homebrew built in via Illithid powers and this does make some classes weaker or stronger in relation to one another. For example, if I can guarantee a crit once per long rest, Smite becomes way better. But there's other uses too such as Slaying Arrows which double damage. Being able to do 100+ damage with one arrow is very nice.
Early game Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern in general are actually pretty crazy spells in BG3.
Act 1 Sleep can help you finish off enemies and is pretty much a guaranteed cc. With the Goblins, you can easily sleep multiple targets by using a bonus action hand crossbow. It falls off super hard tho but its replaced with Hideous Laughter and Hold Monster later on. Hypnotic Pattern is actually the biggest AoE CC in the game, casting it can be better than upcasting Hold Person/Monster depending on the situation as I've charmed at least 7 people with it, denying 2 of their turns while my team gets in position.
1 thing to note about Long Rest to any newcomer to the Baldur's Gate 3 game :
It progresses time for some quests.
In Act 1, if you long rest too much, like after every encounter, The Emerald Grove would've completed their ritual and sealed off the Grove.
There are other situations where a quest gives you, say, 3 days and that means 3 long rests. So while you can rest infinitely (as long as you have supplies) there are situations where once you start a quest or scene, you can't dip out for a long rest or else it may have consequences.
Something to consider hand crossbows have shorter range than long bows, light crossbows and heavy crossbows.
A rogue can regularly walk away from most creatures, be "outside" their vision range, activate bonus action stealth then make a sneak attack at advantage using that extra long range attack.
While most 5E adventures probably ignore food/water constraints, I'm stealing the idea of handling that bit of housekeeping as part of preparing for a long rest in those scenarios that get a bit more survivalist. Doesn't need to mean that's when they took their meal break, but it's just a good time to account for it.
Also, I need to go recheck BG3 weight of food, but if it's 0.1 lbs per camp "point", then this is semi-in line with 5E rules for a party of 4, just with a modified penalty
Surprise/Stealth Pro tip: Assassin Rogues get their actions back when Initiative is rolled.
Pro tip 2: If you ungroup your characters and they are all in Stealth and not seen by the enemies, only the triggering character is in combat.
I had a Astarian Stealth running an area and my main group got aggroed by an enemy group. He was able to walk all the way back to the group and get a free Assassin sneak attack and because he rolled Initiative, he was able to get a full first turn.
My favorite ritual is find familiar, action economy is great, and early on a free crab or bird can be great, as they can attack and give advantage to the rest of your party/deal not great but acceptable damage for practically free
What you said about Long Rests is true, however it gives the impression that nothing will change or react because of a long rest. It is true that enemies will not notice kills or deaths of their allies from long resting, however there are many many events and quests in the game that once started will change from a long rest. Early examples being the burning building at Waukeen's Rest or Nere's survival in the Underdark.
The game will never restrict or punish long resting, but there are things that can and will change from the act of long resting.
Also worth mentioning regarding CBE and Hand Crossbows, it's not just limited to Hand Crossbows. Any form of Dual Wielding will allow for an extra attack with the off-hand weapon as a bonus action. Though keep in mind that without Two-Weapon Fighting Style the offhand will not get your ability score bonus so just something to keep in mind while deciding on what weapons to use.
that's weird, because I also thought it should have consequences, if I wait a full day before rescueing Nere. I did exactly that and it didn't change a thing 🥱🤷♂
@@angelcrush3320 Upon travelling to Grym forge and attempting to leave, go to camp or rest, you should get a vision from Nere asking for you to save him from the rubble. If afterwards you still leave, long rest or go to camp, Nere will die and you will only find his corpse. It does change.
I don't quite know what the exact steps you did to end up where you did, but long resting will kill Nere.
hmm Interesting, I don't know why it didn't work for me but thanks for clearing up, how it should work 🧐🖐🏻
@@angelcrush3320 It's usualy 2 or 3 rests. The game doesn't want to be too punishing.
@@Nerazmus Now that explains it. It's a shame tho. I wish the game would be a little more unforgiving with choices, at least on hard mode.
I also feel like the combat is lacking in something. Idk why, but I think I had more fun with divinity, combatwise.
3:57 nice reference to the Kobolt merchant in the circus ;)
I don't know if I would call it a "must know" change, but in BG3 the Battle Master Maneuver: Rally can be used to pick up an unconscious ally, it ends up recovering 1 HP and then providing the listed 8 Temp HP. Makes it a much stronger pick than just the Temp HP would make it.
For those looking to minimize the amount of long rests they take to make the game more challenging you can still take partial rests which will trigger story cutscenes as well just not give you back your resources so you don’t miss any of the story for wanting to challenge yourself
monks can jump infinitely with a single bonus action ( as long as they have 10ft of movement), with can get very silly with jump spell and long stride
i didn't know about the hand crossbow and shield changes. Those are crazy broken. As if melee focus martial classes weren't obsolete already, the idea that ranged characters can dual wield/2-hand and benefit from a shield is nuts
It works both ways. So as a melee character, you also benefit from unique effects of weapons in your ranged slots.
If you long rest at a specific point in game like before a quest scene, some quests will advance by itself resulting in different outcomes. For example, if you kill 1 leader in goblin camp and long rest the whole camp will aggressive toward u.
2:40 - What I’m doing now is letting the stealth specialist (Ranger) roll first and if she rolls high enough, she can grant advantage to her party by leading them. Of course it’s still possible someone steps on the twigs she pointed out or kicks the pile of scree she carefully swept aside, but at least it means that not everyone in the group has to choose Stealth proficiency just so they aren’t the one blowing Stealth checks _every_ time.
There are a couple of instances in the game where if you take a long rest the quest objectives may change/certain paths will be nullified. It's very rare though
Did you know you get bonus physics based damage every time you throw something (including thrown weapons) from above an enemy?
Tavern brawler also doubles your strength bonus for attack and damage with thrown weapons, letting you get to an attack bonus that makes it almost impossible to miss. Also various of the throwing based items get their damage applied multiple times with tavern brawler, for some reason.
Two things I'd note:
The weapon loadouts not only work with shields, any benefit the weapon would give you, applies to both loadouts - for example there's a crossbow that gives advantange on attacks against monstrocities - that works for your melee attacks now, or a sword that increases your crit range by 1? Enjoy critting on 19 with those hand crossbows
The double spellcasting - haste now gives you an additional action - which means you can cast an additional spell per turn - so if you spend your action to cast haste on yourself, you get another action to cast another. Lethargy is still a thing but if you can pop a sanctuary on the haste caster or just use potions of speed. Haste is actually good now - to the point where it(sadly) feels almost mandatory
Another big one. Conjure familiar costs no gold. And is a ritual. Meaning prepping that spell add extra bodies to every fight.
14:57 I find chucking an alchemist fire where I expect them to be usually does the trick
Hypnotic Pattern is still really, really good (Sleep not so much). It hits a MASSIVE area, and there are many encounters where tons of enemies are clumped up. You can layer spells with it also, since the Hypnotized condition results in STR and DEX saves auto-failing, allowing you to use Entangle or Web to ensnare everything that failed its first saving throw.
Even a couple of rounds of a few enemies being out of a big fight is a big deal.
I understand your point about a shield still giving an AC bonus when you use a ranged weapon sounding a bit silly but there is a historical precedent for this archers and crossbow troops carrying a shield on their back for protection or hiding behind one when shooting. In BG3 then weapons can act as stat sticks for both ranged and melee attacks.
One change I noticed on accident was the shortness of Greater Invisibility. Learned this the hard way when I tried ambushing a boss, only to be revealed two turns later…
People sleeping on ice surfaces, falling prone ENDS your turn instantly, for you OR for ANY ENEMY.
Sleet Storm the level 3 spell is small in BG3 it's less than half the normal size it would be in table top 5E, however it's still strong given it creates difficult terrain and it's an ice surface.
Creatures move at half speed, need to make concentration saves to concentrate on spells, AND if they move on the ice, they need to make a dex save or fall prone and LOSE their turn.
I think the ritual spells needing to be prepared to benefit actually makes for a better trade-off for the spells they used. I almost never cast longstrider in actual play, especially since I have to choose who would benefit most from it, but if I could cast it in exchange for a prepared spell? I'd be much more inclined to cast it.
but longstrider isn't concentration. you can just cast it on the whole party.
@@hyzakuin 5e to cast it on the whole party you need as many slots as you have party members.
Worth noting for short rest, bard's song of rest is changed to be an additional short rest, which means you can get more than 2, this is beneficial for resources that recover on a short rest like a warlock's spell slots or a fighter's action surge, since normal spell slots do not recover, it makes bard able to pair with certain classes extremely useful. If you have a life cleric or ancients paladin, this even recharges their broken channel divinities (the healing those two get is insane).
Short rest recovers half of HP, this makes Aid stupidly strong, cast as first spell of the day, so you basically get double the HP you are meant too, even more broken with song of rest.
There are some annoying things, Paladin's auras aren't automatically activated, you have to activate it manually (why?), there is a few things like that in the game too... but overall have really enjoyed it.
Honorable mentions:
Heavy Armor has no Strength requirement to use without impeding you, making it even easier to armor-dip
Haste giving a full action, combined with the Spellcasting rules
A bathtub in a certain individual's home refreshes resources like a long rest, but doesn't remove buffs. So you can stack long rest duration buffs, then rest up and get all your spell slots back. For plot reasons, I assumed you wouldn't be able to return after that section is over, but it seems like you actually can. If you were willing to backtrack, it seems like you might never need to take another long rest in the game after that.
10. no, if you enter combat in turn based mode, you get all your actions back. so yes, attack with an action from outside combat, you get another action when you enter combat, then if you beat them in initiative you have another action before they can do anything. this is unbelievably ridiculously broken, and should be patched.
8. for some reason, if you upcast the ritual spells, then unprepare them, the effect isn't removed. this is again, rediculous, and has to be a bug.
7. if you are pickpocketing vendors, you should do so while using disguise self. otherwise they'll suspect you stole from them, even if they didn't see you stealing.
6. and "step of the wind" is a thing". there is a hammer that makes your jumps do damage, in act 1. and you've already broken the game at lvl 2
5. you should take long rests, not doing so can cause the story to not advance particularly with your companions, since events with them are set to happen on a long rest.
4. immunity to being blinded will let you ignore the downsides of darkness. there's a ring in bg3 that gives you immunity to blinded.
3. hypnotic pattern is actually still really good in bg3. the ability to gain "arcane acuity" makes you able to make certain that your effects land.
2. and many of the bonuses from weapons function even if you aren't using them. for instance, you were holding a knife that increases your critical range in the video. your ranged attacks also have an increased critical range.
actually i was wrong about number 7. disguise self doesn't do anything.
Being knocked prone ending your turn and breaking Concentration are pretty big changes.
An important note about surprise in bg3. If you enter turn based mode before starting a combat, all actions and bonus actions are refreshed upon joining the combat; this is probably unintentional and will get fixed.
The problem with bg3's bonus action design is that it's a half-way change. In tabletop you have to invest to unlock options with your bonus action, and most of those options spend a resoure. Because it isn't a given, many characters simply don't use a bonus action most turns, and while there often are viable investments to make, it's allways possible to pick another option instead, like a different feat, spell, or whatever. The only exception to this is the rogue, who has multiple free bonus actions, and should ALLWAYS be using it if able.
In bg3 on the other hand bonus actions is just your 2nd action, and any character who doesn't spend it is losig out on options that are alreaddy available. Poisons, health potions, jumping, shoving, and if noene of these tactical moves have any use, an attack with an off-hand weapon. This is great, it makes each turn feel more meaningful, and encourages tactics, and I allways like giving people a simple thong to do to feel useful. The problem is it's too narrow. If you don't like the hand crossbow, you are left with few thematic alternatives for mage builds or barbarians who may look silly when stopping their rampage or reality bending to carefully aim a tiny crossbow and shoot once, before swapping back to their main tool. Spells most class-bonus actions take resources, so unless you need to shove someone, it crossbow time or wasted time.
If the bonus action is gonna be so useful, then give me some generic ways of using it resource free. Let me use a bonus action to get a +1 to AC, or better yet give me +1 to AC when I end my turn with an unused bonus action or THP equal to half my proficiency bonus. If using a martial weapon that's too expensive for most people so fast it doesn't prevent you from doing other things is so easy, then surely there should be less specific and flavor-bound options.
Either the bonus action is limited, or it is flexible. By making it limited for the moat part, but flexible for certain things, you're forcing people to find a way to use those options, and this isn't a puzzlegame, or even an action game. It's an rpg, so please don't force me to play a crossbow expert and punish me for playing a different character.
It might seem that you can long rest as often as you want, whenever you want, without any consequences - but there are quite a number of quests and encounters that change or disappear if you take a long rest when first entering an area. You won't actually realise that's a thing until a later run and things are different.
The Reload screen is what's keeping me from long resting. LOL! I guess I have an old computer.
i think hypnotic pattern is still great, even two rounds is enough against big groups of enemies
Especially with how often you can to instakill enemies by shoving them.
Ohhh, how I wish I could get ambushed during long rests
You do? I don't lol. The thing with resting is I was just explaining how resting can be dangerous.
17:12 just when I was satisfied with a 6th level fiend warlock build (my only regret being not having a bonus action). The idea is to abuse the hell out of darknes + devil sight.
Until long rest buffs, including rituals, remain active after removing them from the bar if they were upcasted. I’m not sure which is the bug as in early access upcasting wasn’t needed, but a few other things changed from EA too.
Having spent far too much time looting the vendors, the main items that get rerolled are the +1 and +2 weapons and armours. Vendors will start with one copy of some unique equipment but after they are gone, they won't respawn uniques.
Also the vendors main gold stack resets with the vendor inventory, but if, say, you divide the vendors inventory to 100 stacks of 200 gold, only one will be reset to the vendors default starting gold.
I have loot chests specifically for +1 weapons and +1 armours because they are so unimpressive in the late game and get in the way of seeing the unique items.
Interestingly fog cloud doesn't seem to actually obscure people in it from outside attack
I love how BG3 has got a lot of DM's scratching to create more and more loot for their tabletops
Your camp does get threatened, but only in Act 3.
There are problems woth not using the long rest, that is an easy way to miss out on companion talks and/or progression of quests/romance
So about jumping, monk step of the wind removes the requirement of a bonus action so they can jump as many times as they have movement... and if they did the double movement they can zoom across the field
12:32
my brother was able to get through basically all of act 1 with 0 long rests
or short rests
until they had to take a long rest to trigger story stuff
Just imagine if you could like… quad equip shields… do your casting while walking around with a portable tower fortification haha
thanks for sharing these tips ... i was wondering why my computer was not accepting all of the pizza that i was pushing onto the screen. at least now i can clean the screen and see more clearly
I might be missing something here, but with two hand crossbows equipped, when I use the attack action, the game automatically uses my bonus action to fire another shot with my off hand, which I find super inconvenient, because I often want to save that bonus action for something else.
Really surprised you forgot how we can get many full Actions and even cast spells with them, like 3 or more Fireballs in one turn. Oh, and Haste gives a full action, so you could do a second sequence of Extra Attack or cast another spell that round if you are Hasted!
You can do that in 5e as well. The limitation only comes into effect when you cast a spell as a Bonus action.
So Fireball -> Action Surge -> Fireball, is perfectly legal as far as rules are concerned.
@@Nerazmus Yes, but not Haste and you have one single Bonus Action no matter what. EDIT: But you are correct that, oddly, Action Surge allows casting another spell (which I always found a bad decision from the designers).
I think "changing all prepared spells on the fly" should have made it into the list
I like being covered in minor msgic items. The ring of throwing. Boots thst give me the wbikity to junp a bit further, an amuket thst gives advantage on deathbssving throws. Not individually game breakingz but usful
i would love to see some BG3 spell/class/feats ranking videos made by you
12:10 I'll add that in SOME specific moments, which the game generally calls out or it just makes sense, there ARE a time-sensitive events in which long-resting would change things, but they're generally a bit clear on that fact (with exception being maybe the grove that mentions a few times that time is of essence and it really isn't).
Other than that they took the approach of letting people rest more freely, on the purpose of making things a bit more chill (after all it is a lot of people's first time and SO many people already complaining they run out of spells in one fight).
And as for the holding a shield thing, I think in a game where you can completely freely switch between melee/ranged during your turn, I think it just makes it less of a hassle to have to remember to switch back to melee when your turn ends. I don't remember this in Early Access so I think it was just some QoL over time. It is most certainly silly, but hey I love shields so I'm completely and certainly biased, and I love it.
With the grove it's actually spatial. You can wait out the in-game clock or rest as much as you want you just can't advance to the next area. It's just easy to miss the warning pop-ups so players assume it's because they overslept.
since you don't need a free hand to cast, if you take the dual wield feat you can dual wield staves and it gets stupid broken in act 3
Haste is also way stronger in bg3, giving you an additional action rather than just an extra attack
Are you streaming your playthrough anywhere? I would actually like to see the roleplay choices you make
the nerf of Web at fixed DC 12 is horrible for one the signature lvl2 spells
speak with animals is a ritual and one you should 100% have up at all times
I dead ass thought itd be like the OG FO and didnt long rest until i fininished most of act 1. I did the whole Grove the beach etc. With just goddamn cantrips and martials 😅
Great video, but I disagree with you saying that Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern suck. Sleep is still very powerful in Act 1 at least, and I've used Hypnotic Pattern to great effect throughout the game! It can essentially turn encounters into a series of 1v1s. Enemies will shove each other out of sleep, but I haven't had that happen for Hypnotic Pattern.
I hope he mentions polearm master not getting on hit effects
Another day, another no mention of the Tavern Brawler changes
yeah i have my zombies jump whenever i need them to get somewhere
Keep in mind that Long Rests somewhat advance time in certain situations. If the game tells you to hurry up to do something, be careful about long resting!
Hey Kobold, I know this is unrelated, but is the malleable Illusions/simulacrum combo any good?
God i have so many issues with the current resting system as it is in BG3...
First off, why can we just teleport at will, no matter where we are, to a safe camp
Why does leaving camp bring us back to exactly the same spot we were last standing in
Why doesn't time progress after a long rest
All of this is such an immersion killer. If I had it my way, you wouldn't be able to go to camp if you were inside a building or cave of any kind, you'd have to escape first. Also, returning from a long rest would put you at a waypoint instead of directly where you lost were. I want situations where your party is so messed up and needs to rest, but you are so deep in a cave or something that you have to struggle hard to escape because that feels more realistic and fun. Having the safety of just teleporting to safety ruins all tension
Now thankfully, these rules are easy to enact yourself when you play the game, and I highly recommend you do
1. teleporting at will because video game
2. leaving camp bringing you back to the same spot because video game
3. time not progressing because that would be impossible from a coding standpoint, even for Larian
4. I tend to wait until im outside of a dangerous area too, but some areas already prevent you from long resting or teleporting
> _First off, why can we just teleport at will, no matter where we are, to a safe camp_
Why are there random magical teleport point you can warp to?
> _Why does leaving camp bring us back to exactly the same spot we were last standing in_
Why do you only need to eat once a day?
> _Why doesn't time progress after a long rest_
It literally does.
> _If I had it my way, you wouldn't be able to go to camp if you were inside a building or cave of any kind,_
Then don't. Simple as that.
> _Also, returning from a long rest would put you at a waypoint instead of directly where you lost were._
Then do that.
The jump spell is so cool in BG3, makes my Monk go Weeeeeeeee
I m akso a resource hoarding goblin. I m near the end of act 3 and even with the forced long rests i'm still below 10 long rests since my char is a bard.
You’re sleeping on the new tavern brawler. It’s great weapon master DPR
Can't believe you didn't mention initiative rolls being a d4 + Initiative Bonus
But great video, exactly what I have been waiting for
Wait so instead of initiative being at 1-20 with modifiers it's 1-4 with modifiers? That's a colossal difference.
@@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462 Exactly, this is why the same high DEX characters tend to go first. It's also why a +1 initiative item is worth much much more and why Alert is busted for almost guaranteeing to go first, since it hasn't been rebalanced for BG3 initiative
Love from a Vaush and DavvyChappy fan!