How Baldur's Gate 3 Finally Taught Me To Use All My Spells (2024)

Although I thoroughly enjoyed my first few playthroughs of Baldur’s Gate 3, it took a certain addition to the game for me to finally start paying attention to all of my spells. I typically play a rogue Tav, because I like being able to pick locks with my primary character, but I don’t want to miss out on Neil Newbon’s excellent voice performance as Astarion. When playing alone, I would simply throw powerful Evocation spells on Gale's wizard build, and healing spells on Shadowheart. In multiplayer, I would relegate the spellcasting to my friends.

I’ve played a fair amount of Dungeons & Dragons, so I was pretty confident my basic fifth edition combat strategy knowledge would carry me through the game. That coupled with my relentless farming of any available XP in each area made it pretty easy to put my spellcasting on autopilot and just throw fireballs into groups of enemies. This worked pretty well through most of the game on Balanced, and even worked on Tactician, though it meant reloading the save more often. However, I eventually hit a wall in Honour Mode and realized I needed to expand my spellcasting strategies.

Honour Mode Forced Me To Be More Tactical With My Spellcasting

Honour Mode Resets If The Player's Party Dies

Baldur’s Gate 3’s Honour Mode can be pretty punishing to players who aren’t already familiar with the game, and who don’t take the time to carefully plan out their character builds and tactics. It brings the same difficult combat from Tactician mode, with the added challenge of not allowing the player to restart their game from an earlier save. As soon as I heard about this game mode, I knew that this would be a serious issue for me based on the way I had been playing.

Several fights in Baldur’s Gate 3 always seem to give me difficulty. I was pretty confident I could make it to Act Two using the same basic strategy as before. However, as soon as I had to confront Balthazar, or if I failed my Insight check that would allow me to skip the Yurgir fight, I knew I was going to be in trouble.

Before beginning any one of these battles, I would scope out the arena and ensure I was placing my party members in strategic positions. I would think about the ways I would usually die in the fights, and try to mitigate the risks of that happening. Most importantly, I started thinking about these fights a few levels in advance and made sure I had the proper spells learned and prepared when the time came.

Using The Right Spells Can Make Certain Baldur’s Gate 3 Battles Easy

Combining Spells Together In The Right Way Cuts Down On The Risk Of Dying

One thing I knew from playing DnD is how important the action economy is. Even if one side in a fight has more powerful creatures, as long as the other side is outputting more actions, they typically have the advantage. So, for my Honour Mode playthrough, I prioritized taking spells that would help give me a benefit in this area.

Area of attack spells like fireball are one good way to swing action economy in the player’s favor, as they damage multiple enemies in a single cast. Another option is to create an area that is dangerous for enemies to move into with spells like guardian of faith or cloudkill . This allows for passive damage that can essentially turn enemy movement into your own action. For example, using spirit guardians when fighting the Phase Spiders in Act One is a great way to take out the baby spiders as they charge in for the attack.

Combining crowd control spells with passive damage spells is another great way to get the upper hand in terms of action economy. One fight that gave me trouble on my first playthrough was storming into Moonrise Tower. In Honour Mode, I took my time to come up with a better strategy instead of just rushing in headfirst at the waves of enemies.

By standing at the top of the entryway and casting ice storm , not only was I able to damage a lot of enemies at once, but I also cut down on their action advantage, since many of them fell prone on the ice each turn when trying to get to me. Using a scroll to place cloudkill on top of the ice made it even more dangerous. Every enemy that slipped would spend several turns taking damage at the choke point. Finally, I would use thunderwave to knock back enemies who made it through and make them start over.

Taking the time to learn how my spells worked in tandem with one another made them much more effective than when I was simply using whatever spell would do the most damage in one action. Though these types of plans take longer to set up, they ultimately ensure players will survive a dangerous battle. There are also certain boss fights where having the right spell could make it much easier.

A Baldur’s Gate 3 Spell Can Make Fighting Balthazar Hilariously Simple

Counterspell Can Prevent Most Of The Enemies From Appearing In The Fight

One of the fights I was dreading going into Honour Mode was the fight against Balthazar in the Shadowfell. I had died a ton of times during this battle in Tactician mode, sometimes in embarrassing fashion when a large skeleton would kick my full-health character into the void. I had a good idea of where I wanted to place my party to make things easier, but I never imagined just how easy the fight was going to be thanks to having prepared the right spells.

I started by using Dimension Door to teleport Shadowheart and Gale to a raised platform that would take the enemies time to get to when they spawned. Next, I used Fly on Karlach to sit her in the perfect position to protect my casters. Finally, I used my Assassin Tav to sneak up behind Balthazar, hoping to start the combat with a huge critical hit.

When triggering combat this way, instead of talking to Balthazar, the first thing he does is cast animate dead to spawn all the skeletons that join him in the battle. However, because Gale was already in combat once I used Sneak Attack on Balthazar, I was given the option to respond to animate dead with Gale’s counterspell . By using a single third-level spell slot, I was able to prevent any additional enemies from joining the battle. Because Balthazar can only cast animate dead once per day, countering the spell allowed me to take him on in a one-on-four battle.

Taking The Time To Understand Every Spell Makes Baldur’s Gate 3 Much Easier

Baldur's Gate's Extensive Spell List Is Similar To D&D's

The victories I accomplished in Honour Mode would not have been possible if I hadn’t taken the time to carefully read through all my spells, and plan out my battles ahead of time by preparing the correct ones. Although it may seem daunting to go through Baldur’s Gate 3’s extensive spell list - especially for players who aren’t already familiar with D&D - it will ultimately save time and effort to do so. Instead of reloading saves or having to restart Honour Mode constantly, a strong understanding of the game’s spells can help players win on the first try.

Of course, knowing the spells is only part of the battle when it comes to conquering Honour Mode. A big part of my ability to choose the right strategy for each battle is that I also already knew what to expect thanks to playing through the game on easier difficulties. Players looking to take on Baldur’s Gate 3’s most challenging mode should probably play through the full game at least one time first.

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Baldur's Gate 3

Developed and published by Larian Studios, Baldur's Gate 3 is an upcoming role-playing game set to release in August of 2023. Players will create a character to embark on a large-scale journey and can do so solo or cooperatively with a friend. Combat is a turn-based style this time around.

RPG

Platform(s)

PC , macOS , PS5 , Xbox Series X

Franchise

Baldur's Gate

Released

August 3, 2023

Developer(s)

Larian Studios

Publisher(s)

Larian Studios

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence

Split Screen Orientation

Vertical Only

Number of Players

1-4

Local Co-Op Support

1-2 Players