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Baldur's Gate 3's tactical geniuses are confessing their greatest combat crimes - and only most of them are D&D's fault.
In a post on the Baldur's Gate 3 subreddit, one player - tired of interrupting the buff they'd cast on their Bard by trying to cast a nerf on a nearby enemy - asked their fellow adventurers what mistakes they kept making in combat.
OP's mistake stems from a classic D&D rule: Concentration. Certain Baldur's Gate 3 spells require their caster to concentrate for the duration in order to maintain it. A spell like Hold Person, for example, will only last as long as the caster can focus on it. Concentration can break if you take damage (although you can succeed on a saving roll to maintain your focus), but it also breaks immediately if you cast another spell that requires concentrating. By trying to combine Haste and Hex, this player will therefore undo the spell intended to offer extra attacks and end up only Concentrating on the debuff that they're applying to their target.
What dumb mistakes are you guys constantly making in combat? from r/BaldursGate3
They're far from the only one to fall foul of the rule. Shadowheart enjoyers will know the pain of casting Spirit Guardians and then immediately dispelling it with a Shield of Faith, but there are many, many other players who say they've cast one badass spell only to immediately un-cast it via a bonus action.
While you can blame D&D for some of these mistakes, however, there are other players who should probably just know better. There's the classic RPG trait of never using powerful items like bombs, arrows, and potions because you're saving them for an end-game fight that never comes. But then there's the player who confessed to repeatedly clicking on character portraits to swap party members, swiftly clobbering their ally with the attack they'd previously queued on the original character.
I think my favourite confession comes from user Fluffy-Tanuki, who says they have repeatedly attempted to hide in bright light, thereby wasting both their action and their bonus action. Their light-fueled misadventures would be embarrassing enough on their own, but they also confess to a multiplayer-based horror with the spell Darkness, which conjures a sphere of, well, darkness in an area. You can neither see into or out of that sphere, which means it's not very helpful when it gets cast on your entire party, especially when your opponents have area-of-effect spells at their disposal.
I feel like I should come clean with my own sins. I am both a chronic RPG hoarder and a Shadowheart Concentration novice, having ruined my Spirit Guardians with plenty of last-minute armor buffs, thereby leaving Shadowheart in the middle of a fight with no protection on many occasions. But hey, at least I never blinded my entire party and then watched as I took a beating from some angry Duergar, eh?
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