Baldur’s Gate 3 Guide - Best Early Game Spells (Most players Don't Know How Good These Are) 

I like how you hearted your own comment

easily the most important thing about MM, and totally overlooked. it's fantastic for nuking concentration

I didn't know that. Good tip

Best bang for your buck concentration breaker in the game...

Also works against unstoppable buff, later in the game.

It’s also great for stripping stacks of Unstoppable, like on the Orin fight. Each missile counts as a separate attack. A single upcast of rank 5 magic missiles strips all 7 Unstoppable stacks that Orin gets per turn during the ritual.

It also deals force damage, and I haven't found many enemies that have resistance to it (compared to other damage types)

I thought they patched that out since it's a disguise and not actually your characters "real" size.

@@V3x0rworks with gnome too

@@V3x0r i just tried it the othe rday and was able to turn into a gnome to get into a small hole

You can also do that with the spell/scroll/potion of gaseous form for anyone wondering if there are other ways to get through the holes.

@@V3x0r I used it last night to get in to to see Mol in the druid's grove.

Important info, thanks

BUMP

Christ that's such a good point. Literally just got to a point in ACT 3 where this is essential. HERO

Late to the party but there are levers and things you can shoot with a bow or activate with magic hand.

So can crossbow arrows and the firebolt cantrip that elves get!

This is so immersive. Great play king

@@BeLikeNexus thank you, king

I love it

It's so cool when i.e. you disguise as a drow at the goblin base etc. Just walk in ;)

Awesome!

Agree Magic Missile is one of the best spell for Wizzard Sorc and Warlocks in D&D. Because of its Dmg type it hits realy hard when cast at high level. Most High level Enemies a DM can throw at you have high resistens to elements or even immunity. There isn't mutch that has resistens or immunity to Magic/Force dmg. Don't know how it translates to the Game because i am still in act 2 right now and the max level in BG3 is 12. So no 9thier spells for us like Invulnerability, Power Word: Kill, Time Stop or Meteor Swarm. 🤥

Thanks! I am playing an evoker wizard and watched a number of these videos after character creation and got worried I picked a lame class. There is SO MUCH to learn about this game

​@@ShintomQQand stealing the monsy back 😂

Especially with the necklace that gives you 1 free cast of MM per day AND adds one extra dart to every casting of the spell, essentially freely upcasting every MM by one spell slot. BONKERS.

Command: Drop on the cambrion with the flaming sword in the intro fight and get a great weapon

@@Demonstherehonestly rather just use the explosives to kill him. You get more do that way

@@Phantom-bh5ruwhy do that? You can just beat him to a pulp the old fashioned way. No need to cheese the fight. Shield of faith on the mind flayer. Then beat the devil down and take his things. It’s good to show the devil who’s boss.

Not on tactician I believe@@zero11010

​@@zero11010Shadow heart does excellent damage with her starting necromancy spell. You can just have her do that, along with everyone chipping him away, since he won't attack anyone but the flayer.

Great movie reference that I bet a bunch of people unfortunately missed. Eagle 20, Fox 2!!!

It’s also a ritual. You can buff the whole group with it outside of combat without using a spell slot and it lasts until you long rest (or die)

Great for that fighter with GWM.

It comboes superbly well with Wildheart Karlach and Aspect of the Elk. Everyone runs 15ft faster now which is fantastic for closing distances or fleeing from enemies since most of them can only run 30ft. Karlach herself runs at 55ft due to her Barbarian class buffs, long strider and aspect of the elk. Haste her or give her a potion of speed and she can catch up to any one, even teleporting assholes lol

@@santosic yes I've got her in on of my parties with that combo. Gave her aspect of the wolf for the first option so she gives me and another party member advantage on our melee attacks when she is nearby. I also have a sorcerer that can twin haste on two party members.

It combos even better with a party specialised on skirmishing... Many enemies in the game don't have a ranged attack, and most of those that do have a shit ranged attack compared to their melee attack. So you just cast longstrider and kite the enemy. And the best part about ranged is that you can focus fire really effectively, constantly killing whatever enemy is the closest to catching up with the party/ whichever enemies do have decent ranged options.

Absolutely. One of my favorite spells to have and turned some tides with it.

To be honest, I've only started using it at MUCH later levels, and was very impressed with how well it performs. It's a video game implementation of Suggestion (admittedly, with a lower duration)... Performs really well. In the later stages, delaying, say, a boss turn can be REALLY impactful. It also up-casts really well. And, the best part is: It doesn't require concentration! It's one of the only "control" spells in this game that doesn't require concentration.

Use it on the Demon Commander dude fighting the Mind Flayer on the Nautiloid to get his Flaming Sword...

I got an endgame greatsword in act 1 because of the command spell. It really is broken.

Command is the perfect spell to get a nice flaming sword in the tutorial. Command that asshole to drop his weapon and scoop it up - no kill required, but you may want to quick save before in case he resists. Shadowheart can learn it from the second she escapes her pod.

Also combos well with the gear that gives you lightning charges while standing in water. "Wet" is also a condition for gear and buffs that activate when applying a condition.

True if this is your only option to apply the wet condition or enemies are close together. But if its only a single target, then I don't waste a spell slot for that and let another character just throw a water bottle instead as you can find so many of them.

​@crazy-tommy Exactly, I saty collecting water bottles for this reason. I also have a party member carry around a water barrel too.

That create water staff you get from the druids has paid for itself twice over with the utility I've gotten from it.

In my party it would do exactly fuck all

Makes me happy! We game together as a couple too :D

Theres a mod that lets you do the same thing without needing wizard subclass.

I think its fantastic for creatures that Rage or have a similar feature. You can take out raging monsters mid fight before they can hurt anyone else

And when there's a ton of low HP enemies all over. Goblin and Kobold battles, for example. Maybe a swarm of low level intellect devourers. Still not a spell I use, though, personally.

the nice thing is that this applies to us as well if an enemy puts us to sleep! a double edged sword if you will

I think the issue with act 1 is poor fight encounters. For three years they had hardcore gamer nerds telling each other they’re not good enough if they can’t do all of act one and then say it was easy with a level 4 player cap. And the guides for how to do every fight were available. Now … normal people have the game and normal people don’t have patience for that nonsense. The game leaves you pinballing at level 3-4 looking for a reasonable fight. There are boss fights all over the place! The gith with a red dragon at level 3? No thanks. They’re level 5 and 6 and they have a dragon. You can let the dragon leave. Then they’re still level 5 and 6. The beholder? Nope. Pair of Minotaurs that push you off off cliffs for instant death? That’s really hard. Bulette? That’s also really hard. How about the spider Queen and two adds plus 15 of her babies? If you do that fight without cheese it’s REALLY hard. Maybe the hag and all her illusionary selves? That’s s really hard fight and you need to get through a pretty rough couple of puzzles to get there. Maybe you should do the gnoll cave with a bunch hard gnolls. That’s WAY easier than the others I’ve mentioned. Hope you got lucky and started the fight the right way from the right direction! There is the tavern with the fake paladins of tyr. Those are level 4 and 5 (I think). Still way easier than the spider Queen. Hard. But can be done for sure. There is the whole army full of goblins. The dozens of druids and Tieflings in a fortified location are afraid of these. But, you and 3 buddies? Go for it! Multiple boss fights. It’s STILL easier than any of the other fights I’ve mentioned (at least until you walk out the front door). But, should it be? It’s an army! Why would it even occur to you to attack an army? In the second act if you try to go to Bauldur’s Gate “early” there is an army in the way. Try to continue and you’re immediately locked up … because of course you are. It’s an ARMY! But, the goblin camp doesn’t count. Totally different logic … somehow. Act 1 is significantly harder than act 2. It isn’t because you’re low level. It’s because there are too many fights designed to be walls for the player. The owlbear fight is a cakewalk compared to these other act 1 fights and that’s still reasonably challenging at level 3 if you’re a new player (do you know how to take advance of action economy, do you have gear, do you know which spells are good, do you know how to use bonus actions, do you have two extra helpers with you, do you know how to set an ambush).

"CHEESE!! Cheese for everyone!" - Sheogorath

@@zero11010 - I've noticed the people who struggle in a lot of these fights suffer one or both of the following reasons; 1, they don't use a sound strategy and tactics, but just clump up out in the open and try to focus all their efforts in dealing damage only. 2; they have really shitty rolls. I'm not going to outline my successful strategies and tactics for all those battles, as that should be part of the fun. Most of those battles you listed are quite manageable with some clever thinking. Auntie Ethel's duplicates have 1 HP regardless of what the HP bar says, because you're not supposed to know which one the real one is. So spells that hit multiple targets like Scorching Ray, Magic Missile, Eldritch Blast; or fighters with multiple attacks per action, and a bow, can knock those illusions out pretty steadily. Even barbarians can bring them down well with their higher movement and strength based leaps to close the distance. AoE objects like Alchemist's Fire bottles, or Acid Vials; which don't require a saving throw against since they are 'splash' attacks. As for the Gith + dragon; in a tabletop game, the DM would probably say something like, "You weren't supposed to fight them." Then again, any decent DM would already know that doesn't matter because your players will do exactly the opposite of what you intended them to do from the beginning. So on that, I do agree that the level six Gith warriors, plus an adult red dragon, is way too much for four level 4 adventurers. Though not impossible, definitely likely to be the most difficult fight in the game save for the very very last battle of the game just for the logistics. I still hate the spider queen so much that I typically ignore all the spiders and her, and take out those clutches with everything I've got. Usually starting with an alchemist fire in the first clutch, and then hauling ass to hit the other one too. haha

@@zero11010 Maybe having experience with games like Neverwinter nights and pathfinder honed my skills more than the average player because I breezed through most encounters. I didn't knew so many players were having trouble with the goblin cap until I checked in to see the stories how people handled that place. Also why wouldn't you cheese the fight against the spider queen? Would you have a fair fight with a bear? They made her walk over the web to give you an advantage, why not use it?

I was really cheap with the spider and just shot a thunder arrow and knocked her down into the abyss on the first round.. worked, though.@@zero11010

Also can get it as a cantrip on certain characters

Yeah, the healer gear really makes encounters so much easier. Minor, vague spoilers on equipment below. Got a staff that makes bless do +2d4 for attacks & saves and +3d4 for spell attack rolls. Gauntlets that grant blade ward to people healed. Think there's also some equipment that removes poison on heal too.

I made shadowheart a life cleric and got a bunch of healing buff gear and doing mass healing word she heals like 25 health for everyone within range and gives 5 temp hit points its so good

@@angel__king focus on her channel divinity. Save those mass healing words if you can. They’re a great backup. If you’re going to do that … try a short rest squad. The biggest thing that snows you down is running out of resources. You can build a team that gets new resources on short rest (mostly). You can also swap people out. As they get low. A bard is key for this. They give you an extra short rest. This … gives you the health from an extra short rest, and also the health from two more channel divinity. It meshes really well with a battlemaster fighter and a warlock (both of whom get resources back on short rest). From level 4 through 9 I only needed to take one long rest per level. Lore bard’s cutting words is really useful for this. They recharge on short rest also. They can be used to force attacks to miss and to force enemy saving throws to fail. This makes each cutting words the equivalent to a good heal spell that recharges on rest (because if it wasn’t used you’d need to heal that amount of damage to get back to where you were). I made the bard the lock picker, face of the party, alternate healer, and support caster. The life cleric is also a really strong tank. This means I have two core party members and two companions I can swap out. The only things I need from companions are damage so I can rotate them in as needed.

I just keep a huge stock of healing potions and have whoever needs healing use one when they need to. You can use items from any character's inventory in combat, regardless of how far away you are.

@@Skaftholu that won’t work at higher levels.

All of the options given here that offer crowd control, like sleep and blind, do not require a saving throw check. If you can cast it, it will work. Command has saving throws. Just like immobilize target. We all use those two, the point of this video was to showcase the ones we don't use. Not the onese everyone uses...

@@Mebsuta from this point of view - totally agreed. But from the name as best early game spell - Druids spike growth will carry a lot of fights, if you position your party right. And lvl 3 is quite fast to obtain.

If your melee character goes after the caster; Drop Weapon, if it succeeds, then grabbing the dropped weapon with your melee character so the boss or whoever can't even pick up the weapon and rearm themselves is a great maneuver.

aid also heals 5 hp when you cast it and works at range so if you have multiple party members down you can cast aid at range and pick them all back up at once

Even in late game this spell can be amazing. Ot will effect your entire party, which includes all of the powerful late game summons and familiars. My current standing party size is 9, which at 15 hp a head means a bonus 135hp in your health pool.

@@darby2314my late game daily party buffing involved Heroes Feast from my druid and then a level 4 Aid. Totaling up to 40 more max hp for the whole party

It also works for all summons & familiars. Necromancer + Cleric + Oathbreaker Paladin = absolute winning combo.

@@zylnada My main is a Druid so I can't wait to abuse that haha.

Spike growth is epic

Hey if you play baldurs gate 3, it is a dnd game. You're a dnd player. They also use the correct names from dnd, so you can't use not playing dnd as an excuse to not remember the names of spells, as the game tells you the correct name for the matching spell in traditional dnd

Stacking this with sanctuary in situations with a ton of enemies (like the goblin camp) is moderately broken, since you can hold onto concentration for much longer. That's also why I took the war caster feat as a moon druid, and so far, it is turning out to be the most fun build I've tried.

also stack with a ring that gives the effect of bless on the healed target, making it incredibly strong, and you can basically mass healing word your party just to get bless for 2 turns without concentrating, blade ward on your whole party as well and concentrate on spirit guardians. Makes some fights really easy

also let's you get into places you can't reach because something's too high or too small by changing into a race that meets the criteria

@@roxomega is somewhere in the game is explained that criteria?

@@ageup7493 something's will say you're too large others will be less obvious like reaching the top shelf as a gnome can be difficult

Ritual* spells don't require a spell slot, non ritual ones might.

@@JohnDoe-jg4cceven if they do that’s irrelevant. Those spells become permanent buffs in exchange for a few slots. Mage armor is a common example. There is next to no reason to not use it immediately after each long rest.

@@SH1NK1R01 "next to no reason to" other than to use those spell slots to deal damage or disable enemies for x amount of turns to finish combat encounters faster instead? I've never had the need to use mage armour once in a full playthrough on tactician difficulty.

@@JohnDoe-jg4cc a single level 1 slot that will keep its effect for every combat until next rest. or a single cast of a level 1 spell in a single combat. wow you have no brain.

Where did you get that😮

I won the last fight in tactician thanks to spam missiles 😂 because of range and 100% hit chances 🎉 it will remain in my mind forever

The poison ring? Thought it only worked on melee

there is a strictly better version of lvl 5 magic missile if you raid loarcan's library btw, highly reccomend it

There's a ring that gives you +1 missile and another that gives +2 acid damage.

Cast Silence with Shadowheart and nobody will even know you lobbed two fireballs in there to begin with. >:)

Best people to use color spray are non-casters. You can find a Color Spray ring from the harpy encounter next to Emerald Grove. If your movement didn't quite reach the enemy to melee them, blast them with the ring. Even better if multiple enemies are in the cone.

@@noway8662 yeah. I mentioned having the ring. But, it’s like 30 combined HP worth of enemies. If that’s 10-15HP per enemy … a 3D6 burning hands (average damage 10.5) has the same range and a good chance to kill three 10 HP targets or at least a couple of them. This feels better to me than one round of blind and still needing to devote actions to handling them. But, you should play as you like. 👍

@@zero11010 Keyword CHANCE, being certain something will work is a huge advantage because you can plan accordingly, and speaking of advantage, blind is one of the nasties debuffs in the game, having the enemy crippled is sometimes better than betting on a killing roll, because an enemy is equally lethal with 1hp as it was at full health and at the close range you need to be for burning hands your caster is in trouble if the rng goods are not in a good mood.

@@zzxp1 you should definitely play as you like. I do one long rest per level. Seems like a lot of other players long rest every couple of fights. Feels like I’m doing something right. Should be level 11 in the next day or two (I’m about 60% into level 10 and so far I’ve only taken one short rest with two more short rests to go). I don’t use cheese in fights and I respec characters pretty often to explore build designs (rather than rely on a set thing that works). Personally I don’t care for color spray. You do you though. 👍

@@zero11010 Wellm of course at higher levels there are tons of other better things you can do with your action, but at lower levels giving advantage to your attacks and disadvantage to the attacks of the enemy without any chance to save is pretty damn strong.

simp

Don't kill the Strange Ox though, if you finish its quest line it'll be more beneficial later on, and you'll still get the ring.

I've tried talking to that damn cow so many times. Even with speak with animals, haven't had any sort of conversation.

@K0nqu0r after you use speak with animals on it, just move on, it will show up in the next town and you can talk to it more. Then the next town etc, until you get close to Baldur's Gate, then you'll get a quest from it.

@@OmriLahavComposer ahhhh. Thanks!

Or the reverse, in the fight against the big floating eye thingy in the underdark and it's easily liberated slaves.

@@bramvanduijn8086 Luckily I killed him with only two guys unpetrified so I didn't have to mess with much. The 100% accuracy is what keeps me coming back to Magic Missile.

That also works great for multiple images such as the Hags. Split one missile to each and poof! The real hag is revealed.

yeah, the whole still being able to go invisible thing irked my group. lol

I totally do that last part with Gale. I think it's a fair trade considering I helped him with his magic item problem. Also helps give my my character that's a wizard more preps, so I can prepare something other than longstrider.

Aid is also a hugely powerful option for hireling casting.

That is, at the very least, a bonus action wasted to be fair. Depends on who you ask to determine whether that’s worth it or not though.

but that means that those enemies that are not asleep waste their turn on shove, meaning you also crowd controlled the enemies that are awake

Thats an Action/Movement not damaging a party member *what skippy said*

If you have ranged characters this is exactly what you want, I sleep the farthest character, another enemy goes over to wake them up wasting their turn, I pepper with more arrows, most things are dead before they get to me

Its so true ! All these spells like hold a person, confussion etc. are almost useless.....they are low % chance they gonna succeed, and when it finally hits, enemies help them next turn. Im 150hrs in and the best tactic is just pure damage and try to kill enemy as fast as possible

I still remember the magic missile > shield > etc. epic battle between two wizards at the start of Baldurs Gate 2.

Unless they have a Reaction still, and Shield prepared. T_T

There’s a ring in act1 that gives a bonus to checks and stuff while digitized that combos so well with it

That's not a problem, that's part of the fun.

respecting my character 10 times was not fun hahaha@@bramvanduijn8086

If you can somehow make the caster use their reaction to do something else, too, they wont be able to use Shield when you lob all those darts. :D

@@nephicus339 the only way I can think of to do that would be to run someone physically close then walk away and let the caster swing at you. Counterspell is a tricky thing to do because you’re still out the spell slot.

That doesn't work on a druid, so I'd assume it doesn't work for clerics either. Don't know about arcane spell casters. Any ritual spell on a druid (Longstrider, Speak with Animals, Jump) and Detect thoughts on Wizards goes away if you take it out of prepared spells.

This does not actually work reliably. I’ve tested it multiple times but if you remove it from prepared spells it will fall of parry members.

I do not have this experience. I also tried this with darkvision and lost the effects after casting it and removing it from my preps.

@@John-qx1zi it was working on my Druid yesterday, maybe my games bugged?