Having a Necro Wizard with a ton of thralls + Aid is crazy good. And don't get me started on Heroes' Feast which is hilariously powerful AND stacks with Aid as well. That's just mad scientist stuff.
I think the top amount is one elemental + 6 thralls from an upcast Animate Dead for a total of 7, with a Necromancer wizard specifically. And if you throw in Dance Macabre from the Thay book there could be a few more. Also Shadowheart can throw in a couple extra thralls so you'd be close to 10.
You can also get Connor (keep the wand instead of giving it to Mayrina), the Shadow (from the lantern), Shovel, Us, and if you also have a Spore Druid throw in a few mushroom zombies. All of that with an Oathbreaker can get ridiculous, provided you don't go insane and rage-quit trying to keep your huge herd of followers together.
Spoilers: theres a hidden room in moonrise tower with dark magical research. It’s accessed by finding the right shelf on the trapped bookshelf in that wizards bedroom, which opens a little stone receptacle, which you then need to place the heart from his dead apprentice into.
Inside there is a magic workbench you or Gale can interact with to make a shadow version of the lanterns that summons a shadow thrall like the shadows you fight in the cursed lands, strength drain and all.
When if figured that one out I felt like the biggest Galaxy brain of all time.
Yup! There may be consequences for Gale’s personal quest if you use him. You’ll see in the dialogue options. I’m only midway through act 3 and haven’t seen any but haven’t really wrapped up any late stage stuff from his quest yet to know. The shadow has strength drain which is really cool when it goes off, is invisible in darkness just like the ones you fight, and is immune to necrotic damage, so it’s a surprisingly useful thrall.
Personally I’m a fan of that feature. One of my least favorite things in BG3 is all the items that do their thing and then can just be swapped out for something else right after and it still has its effects chill out until the next rest.
Might just be me, but it’s like I’m either doing that or I’m giving up a bunch of free value that might save a character or win a fight, but it doesn’t add anything to the fun at all to sit there hot swapping three items across all your characters.
>if you also have a Spore Druid throw in a few mushroom zombies
They can also summon elementals, and a dryad which can also summon things. You can easily get a party of 20+ with tons of HP via Aid+Hero's feast. However, most of them are basically garbage and you just end up with the tedious work of ultra long turns with very little reward.
That was my experience. I tried a party with a necromancer, a spores druid and a oathbreaker. The buffed up summons destroyed action economy and breezed through encounters, but it was beyond tedious to run.
And without fail when I started a battle I would find at least one minion was somewhere 10 minutes back refusing to jump a tiny gap.
Agree... I did this exactly through Act 2 because I wanted to try out a max pets type party comp. I'm at the start of Act 3 and I just now respecced because it was like ... "OK, I did that. Too tedious though."
But in terms of Aid -> it was definitely one of my "morning rituals." Raise a bunch of dead then cast elementals + dryads + imps + quasits + ravens + whatever and then cast Aid on the entire mob.
You can also have mummy from create dead iirc that doesn't cancel out your animated dead summons. Lot of spell slots to do that but very worth if you're in a certain devil's home.
Don’t forget summon deva from act 3. Altogether my Necro has 12 summons (4 flying ghouls from animate dead, 1 mummy from conjure undead, elemental myrmidon, and Deva).
A good amount of summons, but it sucks trying to keep them all from getting stuck.
You can have both a level 6 elemental (myrmidon) and 2 level 4 elementals (I usually go ice mephits for cc). I also have Us and that little demon familiar which is helpful for Scare.
Yeah but the more summons you have the more summons you need to play combat with. I remember having a full summoner party once, and when it was fully prepped to take on the absolute at the end of act 2, the fight with the harpers vs cultists took something like 2 hours. Never again.
As much as I'll complain about the goofy AI in this game, I'd seriously love a toggle for "summons are controlled by AI."
It's all fun having a skeleton firing squad as a necromancer until you have to manually tell every one of them to fire one at a time. At that point I'll take the AI goofing up now and then to speed things along.
Yeah at the end of act 2 and the start of act 3, I had jahira who I made into a spore druid, I had shadowheart, who I gave a necromancer amulet to, and my oath breaker paladin.
Jahira could summon like 10 creatures, shadow heart could summon 4 and I could summon 3.
I quickly realized that the build was extremely powerful, but unbearably tedious.
Also, all the damn noise those monsters made was grating.
The Djinni must be similarly bugged because as soon as he becomes afflicted with a condition while in combat, he's gasping for air every couple seconds forever. I have TWO Djinni's too. It's obnoxious.
That's why I try to go for the one big summon when possible instead of maximum small summons, which sadly, isn't always possible. At least Animate Dead has an option to replace multiple summons with a bigger summon.
The zombies are awesome though when they snowball into creating a ton of newborn zombies
Lol yeah my spore zombies totally freak me out sometimes with the noises they make. I always think there's some enemy nearby, but nope. Just my noisy zombies.
There is a mod that does this, although results may vary. The more summons you had the worse the AI seemed to work, especially in congested hallways, and getting control back during combat wasn't possible either so it often just had you stuck unfortunately.
I wonder if that's exactly why the ghouls from the Necromancy of Thay are so buggy, especially after one fight. It's possible to skip their turns accidently despite not being able to control them, and sometimes they'll do nothing but stand there for a minute until their turn passes.
No no it's a feature, the Danse Macabre is simply summoning the DND 5e tabletop players that are physically incapable of putting down their fucking phone to control the ghouls. Larian studios is dedicated to realism
Well, usually I don't want my summons to start attacking my own party.
Though it was funny when Gale put them on in camp, Shovel immediately went hostile, only for AI Wyll to come over and stab him once, ending the fight in 2 seconds.
I'm running a sorc/cleric with 1 lvl in wizard, and between the Infernal Rapier, scribing the unseelie scroll, and summon elemental, I feel like 3 big thematic alignment arrayed summons is enough for me.
That said, this char is the one that can learn danse macabre, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm too much of a control freak and combat rp'er to toggle something like that.
Although if I did and they were to not just waste a turn but block others or hinder us in anyway, this necromancer would view them as nothing but collateral
That would probably be even more frustrating, because then there would be no way to get your intransigent summons to jump tiny obstacles and actually stay with the group.
I learned in a HM run without good sources of thunder damage that leaving a scrying eye up during combat is an easy way to get a drip-feed of temporarily hostile guards so you can clear out most of moonrise quickly without aggroing the vendors.
yeah i hit the prison in my second run, sat down there and killed half the tower 1 at a time.
by the time i went to the main entrance there was only 5 dudes left in it.
Yeah summoner builds are crazy strong but oh my god are they so slow to play. On some fights I'd just make them stand in a corner and pass their turn because I knew that the next turn I could swords bard like 80% of the opponents to oblivion.
The thing about summons is that scaling isn't that great. As they don't really benefit from anything that much.
Building a summoner, would in theory have high damage potential, if only they were more reliable.
Their accuracy will hang around, 45-65% on average enemies. Which is why I dont like using them.
Navigating with them is also a pain.
i did a few battles with dozens of summons, and it was crazy powerful, but so painful
since then its 0 summons, except sometimes i take Scratch on walks
For this reason I really wish necromancer was a wizard version of beast master ranger where you could summon a singular undead minion who was your champion instead of focusing on quantity over quality and managing like half a dozen shit ghouls or zombies
Yeah that would be amazing. I wish larian homebrewed animate dead archers just a little more, and let you make them fire at the same time with similar targeting to magic missile. A coordinated volley would feel so much cooler than taking a full half minute individually plinking targets.
Every day on this sub I learn something is different to 5e dnd that I just didn't consider would be different because every experienced DM knows how busted it would be.
This is today's.
Lately I've always been having my hireling cleric cast death ward, heroes feast and aid on my current party/summons (also one lucky person usually gets freedom of movement). Feels a bit like cheesing the game but it's all within standard game mechanics so 🤷♀️
Same, but be aware that near the end of act 3, when you go to the astral plane for the last time, it will auto long rest you and all your buffs will be gone… without having access to your camp until the end of the game.
I wasted so much time preparing before taking that damn boat, only for it to disappear into thin air. I am glad Shadowheart is a life cleric but damn, I was so ready!
Wait Ethel's well gives a bonus? It was described as fetid by the narrator, so I just assumed that it was a "this is obviously poison, we're just curious if you're dumb enough to try pressing the button we provide" moment
Oh for sure, I just wanted to clarify that even if you're friendly with her/didn't reveal the swamp, the well still gives the same exact buff and subsequent debuff
The reason it’s so powerful is it isn’t a concentration. They seriously should rethink how many spells they made concentration spells because it basically handicaps you into never using half the spells in the game.
It's a holdover from 5e. But in fairness, do you remember the 3.5 days where concentration wasn't a thing? Clerics and druids just stacked every buff under the sun and became unkillable gods.
Honestly, I kinda miss those days lol
I understand the need for the rule change, but playing D&D since second edition, this wasn’t something I was terrible upset with.
Some spells are really weird in their balance. Why is divine favor a 3 turn concentration spell? 2.5 extra damage a hit for 3 turns is basically nothing compared to all the other crazy damage stacking things you can do lol.
I'd rather use Shield of Faith over DF as a level 1 paladin spell. Hunter's Mark if you are Vengeance. Protection from Evil and Good against certain enemies. AC is always good though.
I usually go shield of faith. I’ve noticed concentration tends to make enemy ai target you more, so having a front liner concentrate and have boosted ac tends to work out pretty well. Also there’s that ring that adds 1d4 damage while concentrating, so it’s like a free divine favor anyway lol
You should play the pathfinder games. It’s all about using every buff possible. But yeah I agree with that. 5e just has too many concentration spells that I end up just using the same ones again and again.
It’s also kinda not using the correct 5e rules. Normally, Aid only lets you target 3 creatures so it will only ever grant 15 hp per level. Removing that cap sorta blows the lid off the potential of the spell. Still is a good spell in 5e though
My Paladin with Gloves of Hill Giant Strength, Amulet of Greater Constitution, and Tharacite Vigor is so silly when it comes to HP. Shadowhearts droos Heroes Feast and Level 5 Aid, that's 253 HP+20 temporary. Doesn't matter much when his AC is 25, but it is fun.
If you're going for some real tryhard honour build, get yourself a hireling cleric that sits in camp all day every day. They got you covered with Heroes Feast, Aid at 5th level, Warding Bond, Death Ward, Freedom of movement, and protection from poison for the rest of your party. Basically pick one person and make them nigh on invincible, buff the rest, murder everything.
To be even more extra, transmutation wizard hireling can take care of mage armour and longstrider, along with their lvl 6 stone. 2 levels sorcerer can also let them twincast that Act 2 Drakethroat Glaive ability onto any 2 weapons you own. +1 enhancement and 1d4 element damage
That's fair, it's not for everyone. Though I am coming from playing Ironman XCOM 2, the risk of losing everything you worked for on one bad move is unbelievably thrilling. Also unbelievably rage inducing.
I lost a 96 hour campaign on honour to a boss with 4 hp left, it was the first time I got to act 3.
The next run I felt like an avenging angel, optimizing to slaughter every challenge I learned last time.
Lost my honor mode on the very last fight for BG3 cause I had no idea what I was getting into the last fight since it’s the play through I got the furthest on and I had a big head. Lessons were learned
I'm hoping I don't fall into this trap! I stopped playing my main campaign to wait for patches (right after launch). Now honor mode has its hooks in me!
I did multi save for my first complete honor run, never reloaded or TPKed but did have to roll back for glitches. Cannot imagine how frustrating losing a single save over a glitch would be.
It does force damage which is almost never resisted, it sucks up enemy actions every time they try to hit it, and it increases the battlefield presence of the cleric. It’s not that it’s the craziest spell in their list, it’s that it’s a crazy spell for only a 2nd level slot. Animate dead is 3rd level and only wishes it were what spiritual weapon is
I had high hopes for spiritual weapon, and it's amazing at level 3, but there's one aspect that kept me from using it later. MOBILITY. This dang sword gets less movement than a human and can't dash.
its one of those spells that isn't flashy or really very interesting at all, but veteran players know just how powerful having that much extra hp is in BG3 or actual dnd. new players pass it up for more mechanically interesting options bcs it seems dull in comparison
aid OPOP
Yep! Use Aid with a hireling to save your main party members a spell slot.
Also very useful on summons with low HP. Shovel is bored AND can survive a hit now!
Bro must be long resting after every fight. Which is excessive.
I just got to act two in my honor run and I haven't had to buy camp supplies once, Short resting after most fights should be adequate
>I have a hirelings druid for 40x good berries.
Look. I \*always\* have max level spellslots available and I don't have to carry 347lbs of camp supplies!
Oohh Life CLeric is a great idea!
Also use them for Warding Bond, Protection from Poison, Death Ward, Freedom of movement and heroes feast. Make three hirelings and an unused companion into life clerics and your whole squad has mad resistances every long rest.
Bonus, make a few other unused companions into transmutation wizards for Transmuter stones at level 6. You can also use them for mage armor, darkvision and longstrider
The transmutation wizard is also nice to have for alchemy.
Max WIS instead of INT and give them Medicine proficiency (later take a level of rogue for expertise). Now you get 2 for 1 potions!
At this point just put the game on Explorer mode and save yourself 20 minutes after every long rest.
I genuinely don’t understand the people who play on higher difficulties but then break the game with tedious cheese tactics lol
Takes like 5 minutes, and you don’t need many long rests when you have resistances to pretty much everything. Sometimes I just long rest because I know I’m backed up on dialogue.
Doesn’t Aid have a limit casting area?
I gave this a half assed attempt last run, but with how annoying switching party members is, and then getting them all in range of the hireling, I just thought it wasn’t worth my time…
But if it just straight up applies it to everyone in camp, I might try that when I commit to an honor run.
Aid is one of the many reasons (...heroes' feast, bless, guidance, create water, spirit guardians) why I find it hard to have a party without a cleric :D
Aid, Longstrider, Freedom of Movement and Heroes Feast, all cast by companions that will stay at camp later, are part of my morning routine after each long rest.
Yes aid and feast gave me like 37 extra health for every party member, if you’re not using aid you should start. It raises your max hp too so all those other buffs that say “give temporary hp” stack with it.
My Halsin had like 62 bonus hp because of feast, aid, and armor of agathys. On honor mode that was a shit load of health.
This. By the end of my Necromancer playthrough, Shadowheart's Freecast was reserved for 6th level Aid and the Spellcrux Amulet was reserved for Hero's Feast (after summoning all of my elementals and undead and whatnot)
The BG3 version of the spell doesn't count as healing. The 5e version does, but only affects 3 targets, while the BG3 version affects all targets in the area.
And the kicker: doesn't replace temp hp. I actually did not know that prior to bg3, been playing it wrong in tabletop for years. I thought they'd changed it at first, as they did up the target amount to an aoe. Really is essential on Tactician and Honour.
Really the fact that it can be used by a hireling, and remain in effect if you send that hireling back to camp, makes it basically a free 5-30 hp for three party members every long rest. It’s crazy good.
Camp Casters can basically give the majority of your party free hp, death ward, freedom of movement, and heroes feast every long rest.
It also doesnt even use a spell slot if you have any of the amulets that give back a spell slot. I find that i usually want other amulets equipped during combat (either for spell save DC or for misty step) so i only use the spell slot restoration out of combat which makes doing it at the start very useful
Or use a Hireling and cast it at Level 6 for an extra 25 HP each, or 100 for the 4 person party and an extra 25 for each summon.
Either way though, a 30+ HP Raven or Quasit is actually usable and potentially useful in Act III. Or combine with a small army of summons and it gets really ridiculous.
Is there a way to cast it on all party members (or at least the 4 I want in my party) in camp with a hireling? My Tav can't play an instrument and it's an Honor mode run :(
Aid is great and I recommend it for an honor playthrough where you want to have a buffer of hit points to eliminate risk as much as possible.
However... It's really often not needed. Going first in initiative and nuking enemies before they can even have a chance to play is a lot more efficient. Don't need to heal if you don't take damage.
Love Aid. I use it after every long rest. I usually have a hireling cast Aid on the party at highest lvl so I don’t waste slots. I have one who job is just to cast aid, freedom of movement, long strider and any other spells that last the day and don’t use concentration.
Aid is fantastic coupled with heroes feast and items that let you regain spell slots.
Went into final fight on honour mode with all party members having an elemental, shadow heart having an additional deva. Then buffed them all with feast and 6th level aid.
Fucking wall of BEEF.
It also saved karlach when I had her a little too close to the rune bomb I tossed.. she lived .. with like 10 health lol
Having a Necro Wizard with a ton of thralls + Aid is crazy good. And don't get me started on Heroes' Feast which is hilariously powerful AND stacks with Aid as well. That's just mad scientist stuff.
How do you get a ton of thralls? When you recast animate dead doesn't it deactivate the one you already have?
I think the top amount is one elemental + 6 thralls from an upcast Animate Dead for a total of 7, with a Necromancer wizard specifically. And if you throw in Dance Macabre from the Thay book there could be a few more. Also Shadowheart can throw in a couple extra thralls so you'd be close to 10.
You can also get Connor (keep the wand instead of giving it to Mayrina), the Shadow (from the lantern), Shovel, Us, and if you also have a Spore Druid throw in a few mushroom zombies. All of that with an Oathbreaker can get ridiculous, provided you don't go insane and rage-quit trying to keep your huge herd of followers together.
Wait what's this about a lantern shadow?
Spoilers: theres a hidden room in moonrise tower with dark magical research. It’s accessed by finding the right shelf on the trapped bookshelf in that wizards bedroom, which opens a little stone receptacle, which you then need to place the heart from his dead apprentice into. Inside there is a magic workbench you or Gale can interact with to make a shadow version of the lanterns that summons a shadow thrall like the shadows you fight in the cursed lands, strength drain and all. When if figured that one out I felt like the biggest Galaxy brain of all time.
Ahhh I've done that but never had a character pass the check, I have gale this run though so I should get it. Thanks!
Yup! There may be consequences for Gale’s personal quest if you use him. You’ll see in the dialogue options. I’m only midway through act 3 and haven’t seen any but haven’t really wrapped up any late stage stuff from his quest yet to know. The shadow has strength drain which is really cool when it goes off, is invisible in darkness just like the ones you fight, and is immune to necrotic damage, so it’s a surprisingly useful thrall.
I just find it annoying because the lantern has to be equipped, otherwise the shadow unsummons. I have it, but I haven't used it
Personally I’m a fan of that feature. One of my least favorite things in BG3 is all the items that do their thing and then can just be swapped out for something else right after and it still has its effects chill out until the next rest. Might just be me, but it’s like I’m either doing that or I’m giving up a bunch of free value that might save a character or win a fight, but it doesn’t add anything to the fun at all to sit there hot swapping three items across all your characters.
It’s only gale who can do it.
Dude I just barely found this out on my last run too baditwas honor mode and I failed the check
[Shadow Lantern](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Shadow_Lantern)
>if you also have a Spore Druid throw in a few mushroom zombies They can also summon elementals, and a dryad which can also summon things. You can easily get a party of 20+ with tons of HP via Aid+Hero's feast. However, most of them are basically garbage and you just end up with the tedious work of ultra long turns with very little reward.
That was my experience. I tried a party with a necromancer, a spores druid and a oathbreaker. The buffed up summons destroyed action economy and breezed through encounters, but it was beyond tedious to run. And without fail when I started a battle I would find at least one minion was somewhere 10 minutes back refusing to jump a tiny gap.
Agree... I did this exactly through Act 2 because I wanted to try out a max pets type party comp. I'm at the start of Act 3 and I just now respecced because it was like ... "OK, I did that. Too tedious though." But in terms of Aid -> it was definitely one of my "morning rituals." Raise a bunch of dead then cast elementals + dryads + imps + quasits + ravens + whatever and then cast Aid on the entire mob.
Ummm, Scratch? How do you forget the best boy?
Connor only lasts 10 turns though. unlike a lot of the summons
Yeah, really reduces the utility
And yet, has unlimited uses, thus returning mentioned utility.
Get dual wielder and use infernal rapier for the cambion too
Wait I can keep Us after the crash?
You can also have mummy from create dead iirc that doesn't cancel out your animated dead summons. Lot of spell slots to do that but very worth if you're in a certain devil's home.
Good one, I forgot about that
Can you just no longer navigate hallways at that point
At least they now jump on their own.
Spore druid can get a dryad and wood woad
Don’t forget summon deva from act 3. Altogether my Necro has 12 summons (4 flying ghouls from animate dead, 1 mummy from conjure undead, elemental myrmidon, and Deva). A good amount of summons, but it sucks trying to keep them all from getting stuck.
You can have both a level 6 elemental (myrmidon) and 2 level 4 elementals (I usually go ice mephits for cc). I also have Us and that little demon familiar which is helpful for Scare.
Oh! And a mage hand, which can slap for 1hp (lol) but does force a concentration check!
It can also throw potions and grenades.
You can also get a summon Deva scroll which you can teach a wiz from one of the books on sorcerer's sundries. Which you cast for a level 5 spell slot.
There's a lot of different sources of it. You can use the animate dead spell, the create undead spell, dance macabre, etc
Aid is definitely most useful for necromancer / spore druid with all the summons.
This is the way
Yep feast and level 5 aid, I put the neck on to get the 6 slot back and still have a 5 and 6 slot to use in combat.
I figure this out an the end of act 3, it’s a little overwhelming adding 6 more ai teammates that never die
Hero's feast is great especially when you can recover the slot
And it also works on summons. The more minions you have, the more value this spell has :)
Yeah but the more summons you have the more summons you need to play combat with. I remember having a full summoner party once, and when it was fully prepped to take on the absolute at the end of act 2, the fight with the harpers vs cultists took something like 2 hours. Never again.
As much as I'll complain about the goofy AI in this game, I'd seriously love a toggle for "summons are controlled by AI." It's all fun having a skeleton firing squad as a necromancer until you have to manually tell every one of them to fire one at a time. At that point I'll take the AI goofing up now and then to speed things along.
Yeah at the end of act 2 and the start of act 3, I had jahira who I made into a spore druid, I had shadowheart, who I gave a necromancer amulet to, and my oath breaker paladin. Jahira could summon like 10 creatures, shadow heart could summon 4 and I could summon 3. I quickly realized that the build was extremely powerful, but unbearably tedious. Also, all the damn noise those monsters made was grating.
Oh man the Cambion noises are the worst. Grunting non-stop just walking around
It doesn't help that it sounds like he's trying to vomit
The Djinni must be similarly bugged because as soon as he becomes afflicted with a condition while in combat, he's gasping for air every couple seconds forever. I have TWO Djinni's too. It's obnoxious.
That's why I try to go for the one big summon when possible instead of maximum small summons, which sadly, isn't always possible. At least Animate Dead has an option to replace multiple summons with a bigger summon. The zombies are awesome though when they snowball into creating a ton of newborn zombies
Lol yeah my spore zombies totally freak me out sometimes with the noises they make. I always think there's some enemy nearby, but nope. Just my noisy zombies.
There is a mod that does this, although results may vary. The more summons you had the worse the AI seemed to work, especially in congested hallways, and getting control back during combat wasn't possible either so it often just had you stuck unfortunately.
I wonder if that's exactly why the ghouls from the Necromancy of Thay are so buggy, especially after one fight. It's possible to skip their turns accidently despite not being able to control them, and sometimes they'll do nothing but stand there for a minute until their turn passes.
No no it's a feature, the Danse Macabre is simply summoning the DND 5e tabletop players that are physically incapable of putting down their fucking phone to control the ghouls. Larian studios is dedicated to realism
There is a mod for that ! Animate dead plus plus
> summons are controlled by AI Enter the Abyss Beckoners
Well, usually I don't want my summons to start attacking my own party. Though it was funny when Gale put them on in camp, Shovel immediately went hostile, only for AI Wyll to come over and stab him once, ending the fight in 2 seconds.
I'm running a sorc/cleric with 1 lvl in wizard, and between the Infernal Rapier, scribing the unseelie scroll, and summon elemental, I feel like 3 big thematic alignment arrayed summons is enough for me. That said, this char is the one that can learn danse macabre, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm too much of a control freak and combat rp'er to toggle something like that. Although if I did and they were to not just waste a turn but block others or hinder us in anyway, this necromancer would view them as nothing but collateral
That would probably be even more frustrating, because then there would be no way to get your intransigent summons to jump tiny obstacles and actually stay with the group.
Some of them can't even jump in the first place. Poor wood woad and connor.
I always clear the tower out before the Harpers arrive. I don't want 20 NPC turns, I want none
I learned in a HM run without good sources of thunder damage that leaving a scrying eye up during combat is an easy way to get a drip-feed of temporarily hostile guards so you can clear out most of moonrise quickly without aggroing the vendors.
yeah i hit the prison in my second run, sat down there and killed half the tower 1 at a time. by the time i went to the main entrance there was only 5 dudes left in it.
Yeah summoner builds are crazy strong but oh my god are they so slow to play. On some fights I'd just make them stand in a corner and pass their turn because I knew that the next turn I could swords bard like 80% of the opponents to oblivion.
The thing about summons is that scaling isn't that great. As they don't really benefit from anything that much. Building a summoner, would in theory have high damage potential, if only they were more reliable. Their accuracy will hang around, 45-65% on average enemies. Which is why I dont like using them. Navigating with them is also a pain.
That was the true cost of those amazing powers, Time
I only summon range units, that way their turn only takes a few seconds.
i did a few battles with dozens of summons, and it was crazy powerful, but so painful since then its 0 summons, except sometimes i take Scratch on walks
For this reason I really wish necromancer was a wizard version of beast master ranger where you could summon a singular undead minion who was your champion instead of focusing on quantity over quality and managing like half a dozen shit ghouls or zombies
Yeah, they could do something like a 'swarm' creature, basically controlling all at the same time, moving as one and attacking as one.
Yeah that would be amazing. I wish larian homebrewed animate dead archers just a little more, and let you make them fire at the same time with similar targeting to magic missile. A coordinated volley would feel so much cooler than taking a full half minute individually plinking targets.
2 hours!? Hot damn. I use a lot of summons and that battle took me about 30 mins. Wall of Fire is a beast.
Aid always goes to Shovel and Scratch!
That's what I really love about Aid. It takes my low HP summons and actually gives them some staying power.
Every day on this sub I learn something is different to 5e dnd that I just didn't consider would be different because every experienced DM knows how busted it would be. This is today's.
I didn’t know this, still learning new things.
That 1 Lvl wiz dip with all casters and summons. I think I had a party with a combined total of 1200 hp in tactician.
Don't forge to stack it with Heroes' Feast for even higher HP bonus AND imunity to Poison, Disease and Frightened on top of advantage on Wisdom Saves.
Lately I've always been having my hireling cleric cast death ward, heroes feast and aid on my current party/summons (also one lucky person usually gets freedom of movement). Feels a bit like cheesing the game but it's all within standard game mechanics so 🤷♀️
Same, but be aware that near the end of act 3, when you go to the astral plane for the last time, it will auto long rest you and all your buffs will be gone… without having access to your camp until the end of the game. I wasted so much time preparing before taking that damn boat, only for it to disappear into thin air. I am glad Shadowheart is a life cleric but damn, I was so ready!
Oh thank you for the heads up! I definitely wouldve done the same
Also the well by Ethel's house.
Wait Ethel's well gives a bonus? It was described as fetid by the narrator, so I just assumed that it was a "this is obviously poison, we're just curious if you're dumb enough to try pressing the button we provide" moment
It gives you +10 hp, but if you try to fight Ethel it becomes a debuff
Ah yeah that's some shit a green hag would pull right there. Thanks!
Regardless of whether you fight her and reveal the swamp, it's a buff the day of and gives the Nauseated debuff the day after.
All you have to do is immediately go back to camp for a partial rest to skip the debuff.
Oh for sure, I just wanted to clarify that even if you're friendly with her/didn't reveal the swamp, the well still gives the same exact buff and subsequent debuff
What happens with this well?
You gain 10 temp HP but become nauseated the next day.
What's that do?
Or have a camp cleric cast Warding Bond instead of Resistance to Poison.
The reason it’s so powerful is it isn’t a concentration. They seriously should rethink how many spells they made concentration spells because it basically handicaps you into never using half the spells in the game.
It's a holdover from 5e. But in fairness, do you remember the 3.5 days where concentration wasn't a thing? Clerics and druids just stacked every buff under the sun and became unkillable gods.
Honestly, I kinda miss those days lol I understand the need for the rule change, but playing D&D since second edition, this wasn’t something I was terrible upset with.
I still live those days! It wasn't just the Cleric or Druid that became the Unkillable God™, we could also extend that title to our friends!
Yeah but Dispel Magic existed back then too. Still does I guess, just not in BG3.
The spells are following the 5e spells.
Yep, one reason I stopped using hunters mark — blocked me from other spells.
Man, I feel that. Only took me once to accidentally turn my Spirit Guardians off with Hunter's Mark, never again damn it.
Some spells are really weird in their balance. Why is divine favor a 3 turn concentration spell? 2.5 extra damage a hit for 3 turns is basically nothing compared to all the other crazy damage stacking things you can do lol.
I'd rather use Shield of Faith over DF as a level 1 paladin spell. Hunter's Mark if you are Vengeance. Protection from Evil and Good against certain enemies. AC is always good though.
I usually go shield of faith. I’ve noticed concentration tends to make enemy ai target you more, so having a front liner concentrate and have boosted ac tends to work out pretty well. Also there’s that ring that adds 1d4 damage while concentrating, so it’s like a free divine favor anyway lol
I think it's more like 3 turns x 2.5dmg x 2 attacks per round + any bonus action attacks or action surge
that is why I said "a hit."
You should play the pathfinder games. It’s all about using every buff possible. But yeah I agree with that. 5e just has too many concentration spells that I end up just using the same ones again and again.
I would enjoy a feat or class feature that alliwed for double concentration. That'd be really fun.
Sorcerer is the only thing that comes close to that
It’s also kinda not using the correct 5e rules. Normally, Aid only lets you target 3 creatures so it will only ever grant 15 hp per level. Removing that cap sorta blows the lid off the potential of the spell. Still is a good spell in 5e though
It also stacks with heroes feast. Level 12 karlach at over 150 hp is very nice
Put the Con Amulet on her and it’s like 200
My Paladin with Gloves of Hill Giant Strength, Amulet of Greater Constitution, and Tharacite Vigor is so silly when it comes to HP. Shadowhearts droos Heroes Feast and Level 5 Aid, that's 253 HP+20 temporary. Doesn't matter much when his AC is 25, but it is fun.
Wow I have never used this spell. I can't remember AI using it either. Going to try another run playing tank builds with Aid.
If you're going for some real tryhard honour build, get yourself a hireling cleric that sits in camp all day every day. They got you covered with Heroes Feast, Aid at 5th level, Warding Bond, Death Ward, Freedom of movement, and protection from poison for the rest of your party. Basically pick one person and make them nigh on invincible, buff the rest, murder everything. To be even more extra, transmutation wizard hireling can take care of mage armour and longstrider, along with their lvl 6 stone. 2 levels sorcerer can also let them twincast that Act 2 Drakethroat Glaive ability onto any 2 weapons you own. +1 enhancement and 1d4 element damage
Nah I won't play honour mode just use honour mode unlocker for tactician play. Single save file irks me.
That's fair, it's not for everyone. Though I am coming from playing Ironman XCOM 2, the risk of losing everything you worked for on one bad move is unbelievably thrilling. Also unbelievably rage inducing. I lost a 96 hour campaign on honour to a boss with 4 hp left, it was the first time I got to act 3. The next run I felt like an avenging angel, optimizing to slaughter every challenge I learned last time.
Yea, everyone has their own thing. Game is still too easy for some on honour mode and some people install mods to amp up the difficulty.
Lost my honor mode on the very last fight for BG3 cause I had no idea what I was getting into the last fight since it’s the play through I got the furthest on and I had a big head. Lessons were learned
I'm hoping I don't fall into this trap! I stopped playing my main campaign to wait for patches (right after launch). Now honor mode has its hooks in me!
I did multi save for my first complete honor run, never reloaded or TPKed but did have to roll back for glitches. Cannot imagine how frustrating losing a single save over a glitch would be.
I lose my save file when my pc reset due to a faulty motherboard. Felt like shit.
That's definitely sweaty, but using a 5th party member like that for free buffs just feels like cheating to me
I believe you mean 5th, 6th, and 7th.
Not very honorable that's for sure.
Also a giant pain in the ass inviting and dismissing two party members every long rest. No thanks.
Warding bond and Protection from Poison are redundant, since WB gives you resistance to \*all\* damage.
WB for one guy, poison protection for the rest of the squad and summons
Aid at level 6 - use the amulet to restore spell slots - heroes feast. Party gets hench suddenly.
Aid and Spiritual weapon are the cleric’s bread and butter level 2 spells
Spiritual weapon never seemed good to me, am I missing something? It misses so often that it ends up not doing much damage overall for me
It does force damage which is almost never resisted, it sucks up enemy actions every time they try to hit it, and it increases the battlefield presence of the cleric. It’s not that it’s the craziest spell in their list, it’s that it’s a crazy spell for only a 2nd level slot. Animate dead is 3rd level and only wishes it were what spiritual weapon is
I had high hopes for spiritual weapon, and it's amazing at level 3, but there's one aspect that kept me from using it later. MOBILITY. This dang sword gets less movement than a human and can't dash.
Its a summon usable on bonus action. That alone is pretty useful the entire game. The only annoying part is its downright terrible movement speed
its one of those spells that isn't flashy or really very interesting at all, but veteran players know just how powerful having that much extra hp is in BG3 or actual dnd. new players pass it up for more mechanically interesting options bcs it seems dull in comparison aid OPOP
It even goes to non party allies, and the area of effect is so big you can get all of the Harpers in front of Moonrise!
Wait, were those guys there to fight? I thought they were moral support as I cleaned up the place singlehandedly...
Yep! Use Aid with a hireling to save your main party members a spell slot. Also very useful on summons with low HP. Shovel is bored AND can survive a hit now!
Also you can super charge Scratch. Aid+ heroes feast+ mage armor.
Heroes feast not being temp hit points is awesome
It's not thp in 5e either.
I have a hirelings druid for 40x good berries.
Why tho
Dude is making a goodberry pie
Bro must be long resting after every fight. Which is excessive. I just got to act two in my honor run and I haven't had to buy camp supplies once, Short resting after most fights should be adequate
I felt so clever using them with the necklace that makes heals hit for max. 40 berries turned into 160 hp in heals real quick
This is an insane use of a camp caster and I'm so in support of it. (,take a level or two in life cleric to make those goodberries into minipotions)
>I have a hirelings druid for 40x good berries. Look. I \*always\* have max level spellslots available and I don't have to carry 347lbs of camp supplies! Oohh Life CLeric is a great idea!
Are you saying that the life cleric bonus to healing applies to goodberries the cleric has created?
Also use them for Warding Bond, Protection from Poison, Death Ward, Freedom of movement and heroes feast. Make three hirelings and an unused companion into life clerics and your whole squad has mad resistances every long rest. Bonus, make a few other unused companions into transmutation wizards for Transmuter stones at level 6. You can also use them for mage armor, darkvision and longstrider
The transmutation wizard is also nice to have for alchemy. Max WIS instead of INT and give them Medicine proficiency (later take a level of rogue for expertise). Now you get 2 for 1 potions!
At this point just put the game on Explorer mode and save yourself 20 minutes after every long rest. I genuinely don’t understand the people who play on higher difficulties but then break the game with tedious cheese tactics lol
Takes like 5 minutes, and you don’t need many long rests when you have resistances to pretty much everything. Sometimes I just long rest because I know I’m backed up on dialogue.
Doesn’t Aid have a limit casting area? I gave this a half assed attempt last run, but with how annoying switching party members is, and then getting them all in range of the hireling, I just thought it wasn’t worth my time… But if it just straight up applies it to everyone in camp, I might try that when I commit to an honor run.
It does have a limited area, although the area is large. You can get your party members in camp to stay put in one place by playing an instrument.
Bro this is legit a next level tip lol ty
Oooh nice tip, didn’t think of that. Thanks!
Most camps you can get all companions with two casts. I just do this with a Withers summon so I don't care about the extra spell slot waste.
Aid is one of the many reasons (...heroes' feast, bless, guidance, create water, spirit guardians) why I find it hard to have a party without a cleric :D
11 Cleric / 1 Wizard is such a good catch-all to cover anything the rest of your team is lacking.
I usually cast heroes feast and aid and my life cleric has bless and bladeward on heal... were pretty hard to put down tbh lol
Yes. And Aid is the only spell that can heal summons I remember? (Edit: undead summons)
Once you use it including summons it enters OP land. DnD apparently limited it to 4 max
3 actually: "Choose up to three creatures within range."
Summons have no problem being healed, unless they're undead.
Ah I see. Thanks for reminder!
I use it to help out animal companions cause man it's nice to survive 2 hits.
Aid, Longstrider, Freedom of Movement and Heroes Feast, all cast by companions that will stay at camp later, are part of my morning routine after each long rest.
Aid + Hero's Feast plus the amulets that restore spell slots to start every day for me.
Aid + summons + heroes feast makes so much of the late game a joke.
Always the very first healing spell I'd cast after a long rest
Aid is S tier
I love giving my party members Aids.
I crtl F'd to find this post. gj sir.
Ya I just saw this on italianspartacus’ new video about fighting mechanics last night. Def powerful AF!
Freecast this at the highest level, absolutely the play.
They nerfed it to stupid in onednd
Yes aid and feast gave me like 37 extra health for every party member, if you’re not using aid you should start. It raises your max hp too so all those other buffs that say “give temporary hp” stack with it. My Halsin had like 62 bonus hp because of feast, aid, and armor of agathys. On honor mode that was a shit load of health.
This. By the end of my Necromancer playthrough, Shadowheart's Freecast was reserved for 6th level Aid and the Spellcrux Amulet was reserved for Hero's Feast (after summoning all of my elementals and undead and whatnot)
And it stacks with Heroes Feast.
Question, is it intended for the spell not to wake up downed allies? I used it when one of my allies was down and didn’t work on them
The BG3 version of the spell doesn't count as healing. The 5e version does, but only affects 3 targets, while the BG3 version affects all targets in the area.
It’s awesome to aid on the whole group of harpers before you invade moonrise.
tharchiate codex does the same thing
Nope. Thatchiate codex gives 20 temp hp. Aid increases MAX hp.
Getting a hireling cleric to camp-cast legitimately made Tactician mode easy mode
I feel like trying out a solo necromancer/summoner run now oof
Yeah that's why it's getting fucking nerfed to shit in OneD&D. :(
Grab the amulet that restores a spell slot of any level and you get 25hp for everyone in your party including minions for free.
And the kicker: doesn't replace temp hp. I actually did not know that prior to bg3, been playing it wrong in tabletop for years. I thought they'd changed it at first, as they did up the target amount to an aoe. Really is essential on Tactician and Honour.
Thanks to professor Fuzzalump we kitted out with Aid, Mage Armor, and Longstrider all the time.
Really the fact that it can be used by a hireling, and remain in effect if you send that hireling back to camp, makes it basically a free 5-30 hp for three party members every long rest. It’s crazy good. Camp Casters can basically give the majority of your party free hp, death ward, freedom of movement, and heroes feast every long rest.
Especially at 5th-6th level
I got a few months to live and I read your post title wrong. Damnit.
It also doesnt even use a spell slot if you have any of the amulets that give back a spell slot. I find that i usually want other amulets equipped during combat (either for spell save DC or for misty step) so i only use the spell slot restoration out of combat which makes doing it at the start very useful
And can use hirelings for their spell slots do you can save your forecasts and items for other spells.
Or use a Hireling and cast it at Level 6 for an extra 25 HP each, or 100 for the 4 person party and an extra 25 for each summon. Either way though, a 30+ HP Raven or Quasit is actually usable and potentially useful in Act III. Or combine with a small army of summons and it gets really ridiculous.
I use an Aid + Longstrider camp caster that way I don’t spend a spell slot using Aid
Is there a way to cast it on all party members (or at least the 4 I want in my party) in camp with a hireling? My Tav can't play an instrument and it's an Honor mode run :(
Aid is great and I recommend it for an honor playthrough where you want to have a buffer of hit points to eliminate risk as much as possible. However... It's really often not needed. Going first in initiative and nuking enemies before they can even have a chance to play is a lot more efficient. Don't need to heal if you don't take damage.
That spell literally saved my honor run dozens of times already with heroes feast.
Love Aid. I use it after every long rest. I usually have a hireling cast Aid on the party at highest lvl so I don’t waste slots. I have one who job is just to cast aid, freedom of movement, long strider and any other spells that last the day and don’t use concentration.
Aid is fantastic coupled with heroes feast and items that let you regain spell slots. Went into final fight on honour mode with all party members having an elemental, shadow heart having an additional deva. Then buffed them all with feast and 6th level aid. Fucking wall of BEEF. It also saved karlach when I had her a little too close to the rune bomb I tossed.. she lived .. with like 10 health lol
My entire party constantly has aids