Baldur's Gate 3 Shows D&D How Elemental Spellcasting is Done (2024)

Both D&D 5e and Baldur's Gate 3 allow their players to access a variety of damage types, ranging from mundane to extraplanar. However, Baldur's Gate 3 introduces new magic items and mechanics that really let elemental attacks shine.

The same damage types exist . Mundane attacks deal 'Physical' damage in Baldur's Gate 3, but it breaks down to the same bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing seen in D&D 5e. Both have the catch-all arcane damage type of force, psionic-styled psychic damage, ghostly necrotic damage, and holy radiant damage. The other damage types—acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, and thunder—fall under the elemental banner.

Baldur's Gate 3 Makes Elemental Damage A Special Thing

Despite being pitched on equal footing, damage types are not at all created equal. This mostly comes down to what resistances and immunities monsters have, as well as what source options are available. This makes the damage type of a spell or ability, which in mainline D&D doesn't alter the mechanics of an attack, matter a great deal when it comes to optimization. Luckily for fans of elemental blaster-casting, Baldur's Gate 3 offers many items, as well as some new behavioral mechanics, that make underserved elemental damage types really shine.

D&D 5e Leaves Some Elemental Damage Types In The Dust

The problem with elemental damage types in D&D is twofold. Firstly, some damage types simply . Poison, often considered the laughingstock of damage types, has a couple nonmagical sources, but little support from spellcasting. Acid is also severely underserved, and not helped by many of its spells dealing damage in d4 units. On the other hand, most spell levels have a smorgasbord of options for pyromaniacs, to a greater extent than any other damage type. This creates an obvious issue: those who want to spec into elements that aren't fire or cold have little choice.

Monster variety may be an even bigger problem than . Constructs, elementals, fiends, and undead are pretty united in their poison immunity, and that's without getting into monsters with poisonous bites that have similar resistance. Fire also takes a big hit here, with swathes of monsters resisting it or being entirely immune, though at least in this case some monsters are vulnerable to it. Elemental damage takes a big overall hit thanks to these factors, boosting damage types like force and radiant (which are very scarcely resisted) into the stratosphere.

Baldur's Gate 3 Makes Different Damage Types Behave Differently

One way in which Larian rectifies this problem is giving damage types different properties in Baldur's Gate 3. Lightning can electrocute water, acidic spells leave behind pools of residue, fire can burn terrain, and more. These are things that creative spell use could pull off in D&D, but Baldur's Gate 3 brings the hard mechanics that this idea needs. Furthermore, players can further expand their elemental damage by dipping weapons into elemental sources. This further expands the use of poison damage, in addition to the poisonous miasma its sources can leave behind.

New Magic Items For More Elemental Damage

Baldur's Gate 3 is generous with magic items, and this is a huge boon for those trying to spec into a certain elemental damage type. There are swathes of items that boost elemental damage broadly, as well as many that add additional damage of a particular element. What's more interesting are the items that reduce the resistances of enemies, such as Arsonist's Oil and the Poisoner's Ring. Both of these items can make foes vulnerable to their respective damage types (except in cases of immunity). On the subject of boosting poison, items like the Derivation Cloak and Poisoner's Gloves buff poison damage in other ways, encouraging the use of it.

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3 is a Dungeons and Dragons inspired RPG developed and published by Larian Studios. Featuring both a single player and cooperative element, players create their character by selecting a starting class, take on quests, level up, and engage in turn-based combat using the D&D 5th edition rule set.

RPG

Systems

OpenCritic Reviews

Top Critic Rating:96/100 Critics Recommend:98%

Franchise

Baldur's Gate

Platform(s)

PC , macOS , PS5 , Xbox Series X

Released

August 3, 2023

Developer(s)

Larian Studios

Publisher(s)

Larian Studios

Multiplayer

Local Multiplayer

Engine

Divinity 4.0

ESRB

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

How Long To Beat

100+ Hours

Steam Deck Compatibility

yes

X|S Enhanced

yes

PS Plus Availability

N/A

Split Screen Orientation

Vertical Only

Number of Players

1-4

Local Co-Op Support

1-2 Players

Cross Save

yes

Cross-Platform Play

Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't support crossplay

See at Official Site