- Unlike every other ranged weapon, hand crossbows are considered light one-handed weapons. You can dual-wield them, which gives you a handy off-hand attack. This is especially potent with rogues, since it gives them a bonus action attack to apply their sneak attack from range; for example, after spending their main action casting a spell.
- The Paladin's smite ability only spends a spell slot if you connect, so you can use it on high-AC enemies without fear of wasting it if you miss.
- If you're used to Pathfinder, you might assume arcane casters can't wear armor. This is not true; you can cast spells in any armor you're proficient in, wizards and sorcerers just lack armor proficiency... unless they multiclass or pick a race that grants them armor proficiency.
- Many spells can be 'upcast', scaling their effects up by casting them with a higher than normal spell slot. Some spells scale much better when upcast than others.
- Particularly, some single-target control spells like Hold Person become multi-target spells when upcast.
- Warlocks always upcast their spells to the highest spell level they can cast. So while a warlock only has two or three spells per encounter, they're often more potent spells.
- Multiclass characters calculate their total number of spell slots by adding together their level in spellcasting classes. So a level 6 Cleric / Level 6 Druid has the same spell slots as a level 12 Cleric. Paladin and Ranger count as 'half' a casting class (rounded up), while Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster count as 'one third' a casting class. So a level 5 Ranger / Level 7 Cleric has spell slots like a level 10 Cleric. Warlocks in this equation are weird and their spell slots are not normal spell slots.
- However, multiclass characters can only learn spells up to the highest level they can learn based on their class levels. So our level 5 Ranger / level 7 Cleric example can only memorize level 2 Ranger spells and level 4 Cleric spells, but they have level 5 slots to upcast those spells!
- Wizards, however, can just learn any spell from scrolls. I haven't tested this but I believe a level 1 Wizard/Level 11 Cleric has the entire cleric and wizard spell lists available, as well as the full complement of spell slots. I suspect this is not how this works in tabletop and this is kind of an exploit.
- During Early Access, Sneak Attack was a separate action you had to specifically click. This is no longer the case and the game will now trigger sneak attack on any attack, including special weapon actions. You can set it to ask you first like other reactions, but it's defaulted to automatically sneak attacking.
- Sneak Attack can only trigger once per turn.
- Using your bonus action to hide during combat is actually incredibly potent. I realize that every iteration of 'hide in plain sight' in 3rd ed/Pathfinder felt useless, but in this game rogues are supposed to be constantly hiding to gain advantage and sneak attack.
- You can hold shift to see enemy vision cones to know where to stand to hide.
- Enemies hit by Shocking Grasp can't take reactions, making it a useful tool for getting wizards out of melee.
- Some spells like Cloud of Daggers and Moonbeam actually hit significantly harder than they seem, because they will damage targets immediately and then again another time when they start their turn inside the AoE.
"mr storylets"
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- brunodias.dev/
writer (derogatory). lead designer on Fallen London.
http://twitter.com/notbrunoagain
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in reply to @bruno's post:
re: Wizard spell scribing - you're correct, in tabletop you can only scribe spells into your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare, based on your Wizard level. So a level 1 Wizard can only scribe level 1 spells into their spellbook, but in BG3 they use the spell slots you have access to so a single level splash into Wizard is crazy
It's worth noting that spells you scribe as a Wizard will be cast with INT, so this is of limited usefulness for damage spells as a non-INT caster, but it's fantastic for utility spells
My reading of the rules-as-written is that it's ambiguous:
When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a level for which you have spell slots and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.
You don't have class-specific spell slots (unless you're a warlock), so there's an argument to be made.
However, the best thing about playing a TTRPG with your friends is that your DM can look at you trying to do this & say "I don't think so, Alex," and there's literally nothing that Jeremy Crawford can do about it.
I dunno if this is something they 'patched' at some point but the Wizard page on D&D Beyond says
When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.
and from the Spellcasting rules
You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class.
So a lv1 Wizard can prepare spells only as if they were a lv1 Wizard and nothing else, even if they had 11 levels in another caster class. Since they can only prepare lv1 Wizard spells, they can only scribe lv1 Wizard spells.
Of course your point about house ruling stands, you can do whatever you want as long as the people you're playing with agree with it
Ah, there it is, can only scribe if you can prepare it. Yeah, that looks correct!