Baldur's Gate 3 Will Leave Its Mark on New Dungeons & Dragons Rules
Designer Jeremy Crawford gave two examples of how his adventures in Baldur's Gate 3 will influence the new Dungeons & Dragons player's guide.
Dungeons & Dragons served as the inspiration or even the basis for many video games. The opposite situation occurs less often, but one of the devs of the new handbook for D&D admits that after playing Baldur's Gate 3, they will introduce some changes to the paper role-playing game.
Jeremy Crawford, lead designer at Wizards of the Coast, spent a lot of time in Baldur's Gate 3 (he wasn't the only one) and it was his adventure with this title that convinced him to make changes to a few spells in D&D (via Eurogamer).
These modifications will be part of the new Player's Handbook (PHB) to Dungeons & Dragons, which will hit the market on September 17. The developers have been releasing videos for several weeks discussing various changes in this year's game rules, including individual classes such as monk, sorcerer, cleric, and bard.
The latest of these materials concerns spells. You can watch it below.
Frustrating spells in BG3 were also annoying in D&D
Crawford hinted in the video that the adventure with Baldur's Gate 3 encouraged him to change the effect of at least two spells: Cloud of Daggers and Produce Cloud.
The first one, characterized by a powerful area effect, will finally allow players to move around the battlefield. At present, the spell remains stationary, making it effective for only a brief period before enemies begin to circumvent the area filled with airborne blades. Crawford had thought about this before, but it was his BG 3 sessions that finally convinced him to make this change to D&D.
The same applies to the second spell, which we will find in the druid's repertoire. Crawford listed Produce Cloud as one of the spells "very painful in terms of action economy." This cantrip was annoyingly difficult to cast, but in the new player's handbook, it will become much easier.
Some spells that were really painful to cast in terms of their action economy are far less painful. An example of that is Produce Flame, the Druid cantrip.
That cantrip was really painful to set up - once you got it going it could be fun to hurl the fire, [but] now it's way easy to cast it. And that is, funnily enough, another one where it was not only a pain to cast in the tabletop game but when I was playing Baldur's Gate 3 was excruciating... And it was while playing Baldur's Gate 3 I thought 'we are going to redesign Produce Flame so there will not be as much friction to cast this cantrip.'
Surprise and potions
In fact, this particular piece of information confused players a bit. In a video game, this trick could be somewhat annoying because you first create a flame and then decide on further action and aim, but in tabletop D&D, it doesn't seem to be a big issue.
However, some players argue that the problem here is the description of the Produce Flame spell. Experienced players on the "table" take shortcuts, so to speak, and that's why using this trick is less irritating (although some internet users argue that it can sometimes lead to temporary disorientation). There is no such option in BG 3 and you must complete all required steps.
Of course, these are just two of the many changes that the new player's handbook will introduce. Wizards of the Coast has already covered most of the classes, but they have also made a significant update to the Surprise mechanic to make it more understandable and balanced, as well as introducing new rules related to crafting items.
A small update is also heading to the game straight from Baldur’s Gate 3 (although unofficially, D&D players have been using it for years): the ability to drink potions as a bonus action during combat.
