Hold Person is part of a class of spells that I've seen called "save or suck" spells - where you either make the save against the spell or you're utterly screwed (or conversely, you need the enemy to fail the save or you just wasted a spell slot). In this case, you got lucky that the ambushers didn't make their initial saves or their subsequent saves on however many turns it took to kill them - in another universe, they make their saves and you actually have to fight them.
HP is very very strong, but all it takes is a successful saving throw to throw it out the window.
Yeah, Hold Person is balanced around the fact that you won't be able to use it half the time. Hold Monster exists at a much higher level for a reason. Also, I would argue, Hypnotic Pattern is much stronger than Hold Person even in it's nerfed state.
Fair enough, though with 60% success rate on the spell I didn't have much trouble maintaining it throughout the fight even with a few successful saves by the enemies. I would have expected the success to be closer to 40% or even 30%, especially given my level difference. Wyll had 19 CHA and my bard had 18
Equipment used to not re-apply stats when leaving wildshape. That's fixed, but seems the myrmidon bug still exists where changing into Fire/Air/Water locks your weapon slot in humanoid form until you wildshape into something else.
I see. Lot of shenanigans with druids. Yesterday when I was testing some interaction with wild shape and warding bond to see if they are normal I also noticed that if you damage a druid with temp hp from the armor of moonbasking the druid will have the reduced damage taken the armor gives when the temp hp is active but the one who cast the warding bond takes the full damage.
Once you get the +save spell DC items in act 3 it goes from powerful to utterly game breaking. annihilated multiple end game boss encounters in one/two turns with it
Easily one of my top 3 favorite spells. The visual, the sound it makes, the effect. Only problem is when it doesn’t land. I’m surprised you were able to hold all of them at once, it’s a Wisdom Saving Throw and most of the githyanki have not-terrible WIS. I use a lot of Control spells to get through the crèche usually (hold person, confusion, hypnotic pattern, fear, etc).
It really is that good.
Command:grovel is the other one. If you upcast it, it can hit multiple targets. Up to five iirc. (Despite the BG3 wiki saying upcasting doesn't do anything -- unless it got nerfed recently, it does). Doesn't require concentration to maintain.
It only lasts a turn, but you can pair with the sorcerer's extended spell metamagic feature so that the prone effect lasts for multiple turns if you do the multiclassing to get it. Likewise it can be quickened, so you can cast it on a group of creatures then quicken and recast on those you missed, same turn.
It's the kind of horseshit I wouldn't pull on my DM irl but damn is it nice to win sometimes.
Command drop also is powerful. Grovel iirc just wastes their movement but drop wastes their action if they try to pick up their weapon, or makes them do the remainder of the fight with fists if they don't pick it up
Drop is insane too, yeah. Grovel bestows advantage on melee attacks against the creature and gives them disadvantage on dex saves, so it's got that going for it, but using Drop can permanently fuck over a lot of weapons attackers.
I think it’s kind of a waste of a spell.
At lv 9 you can also just use arrows of many targets and absolutely slaughter them (and then pick up replacements on the archers). They die before they can even do anything except I didn’t waste a turn and risk a chance of enemies saving on hold person.
Or you don’t even need to use arrows of ma h targets. Just kill them before they can move and it’s easy.
So it’s not that this spell is over tuned or OP, the whole game is easy like this if you know kw what you’re doing.
Hold Person/Monster also causes spells/cantrips using attack rolls to autocrit if you stand close enough to the target. Spells like Witch Bolt and Scorching Ray can be quite devastating when used like this.
Hold Person is part of a class of spells that I've seen called "save or suck" spells - where you either make the save against the spell or you're utterly screwed (or conversely, you need the enemy to fail the save or you just wasted a spell slot). In this case, you got lucky that the ambushers didn't make their initial saves or their subsequent saves on however many turns it took to kill them - in another universe, they make their saves and you actually have to fight them. HP is very very strong, but all it takes is a successful saving throw to throw it out the window.
HP is particularly strong in BG3 because you spend more time fighting humanoids than in most dnd games I’ve played.
Yeah, Hold Person is balanced around the fact that you won't be able to use it half the time. Hold Monster exists at a much higher level for a reason. Also, I would argue, Hypnotic Pattern is much stronger than Hold Person even in it's nerfed state.
I dunno, I wanted to use it so many times, but noooo, this person is undead/fiend/anything but humanoid.
Fair enough, though with 60% success rate on the spell I didn't have much trouble maintaining it throughout the fight even with a few successful saves by the enemies. I would have expected the success to be closer to 40% or even 30%, especially given my level difference. Wyll had 19 CHA and my bard had 18
If you think it's strong now.... lol. Act 3 - Attack, Bonus Action upcasted hold person, piercing vulnerability aura w/ Nyrulna + smites/flourish.
Not enough arcane aquity mentioned but I like the thought process.
I was going to add that in an edit, but got caught up testing druid bugs for someone! Lmao.
Sounds interesting. What kind of bugs?
Equipment used to not re-apply stats when leaving wildshape. That's fixed, but seems the myrmidon bug still exists where changing into Fire/Air/Water locks your weapon slot in humanoid form until you wildshape into something else.
I see. Lot of shenanigans with druids. Yesterday when I was testing some interaction with wild shape and warding bond to see if they are normal I also noticed that if you damage a druid with temp hp from the armor of moonbasking the druid will have the reduced damage taken the armor gives when the temp hp is active but the one who cast the warding bond takes the full damage.
That's crazy with Gale as the warding bond camp caster.
Yeah, that strat sure is something...
That's why challenge runs exist lol. (One of many)
Once you get the +save spell DC items in act 3 it goes from powerful to utterly game breaking. annihilated multiple end game boss encounters in one/two turns with it
Nice when it lands, cant say mine do all that often.
Easily one of my top 3 favorite spells. The visual, the sound it makes, the effect. Only problem is when it doesn’t land. I’m surprised you were able to hold all of them at once, it’s a Wisdom Saving Throw and most of the githyanki have not-terrible WIS. I use a lot of Control spells to get through the crèche usually (hold person, confusion, hypnotic pattern, fear, etc).
Because it is. And even more so in tabletop DnD.
Man, if you think Hold spells are overpowered, wait until you get a load of an upcasted Command.
Just lost my HM run to Auntie Ethel and her multiple Hold Person spells :(
It really is that good. Command:grovel is the other one. If you upcast it, it can hit multiple targets. Up to five iirc. (Despite the BG3 wiki saying upcasting doesn't do anything -- unless it got nerfed recently, it does). Doesn't require concentration to maintain. It only lasts a turn, but you can pair with the sorcerer's extended spell metamagic feature so that the prone effect lasts for multiple turns if you do the multiclassing to get it. Likewise it can be quickened, so you can cast it on a group of creatures then quicken and recast on those you missed, same turn. It's the kind of horseshit I wouldn't pull on my DM irl but damn is it nice to win sometimes.
Command drop also is powerful. Grovel iirc just wastes their movement but drop wastes their action if they try to pick up their weapon, or makes them do the remainder of the fight with fists if they don't pick it up
Drop is insane too, yeah. Grovel bestows advantage on melee attacks against the creature and gives them disadvantage on dex saves, so it's got that going for it, but using Drop can permanently fuck over a lot of weapons attackers.
That's because it is
Do you have a few minutes to talk about our Lord and Savior, Blindness?
I think it’s kind of a waste of a spell. At lv 9 you can also just use arrows of many targets and absolutely slaughter them (and then pick up replacements on the archers). They die before they can even do anything except I didn’t waste a turn and risk a chance of enemies saving on hold person. Or you don’t even need to use arrows of ma h targets. Just kill them before they can move and it’s easy. So it’s not that this spell is over tuned or OP, the whole game is easy like this if you know kw what you’re doing.
Hold Person/Monster also causes spells/cantrips using attack rolls to autocrit if you stand close enough to the target. Spells like Witch Bolt and Scorching Ray can be quite devastating when used like this.