Unleash your inner magic: Baldur’s Gate 3 gets a powerful new Sorcerer class

Sorcerers aren’t your typical magic-wielder. Unlike your bookish Wizards or soul-selling Warlocks, a Sorcerer’s abilities come from within. This class taps into their own latent power to wreak havoc in battle.

Sorcerers receive five new spells in this update. Horrific Visage is a Tadpole Action that makes your enemy bleed and allows you to leech a Sorcery Point from them for your benefit. Chromatic Orb is a powerful single-target nuke that lets you hurl a sphere of energy at whoever deserves it most. Cloud of Daggers can be cast by Sorcerers for defense, surrounding them in a protective blanket of flying daggers. Crown of Madness, as the name suggests, sends an enemy mad and can cause them to attack their nearby allies. And finally, Enlarge/Reduce alters the size of a character while also affecting their physical stats, which is likewise what my body has been doing throughout the entirety of lockdown.

But a Sorcerer’s foremost ability is Metamagic. This is their signature skill which allows you to modify your spells in battle, making you a dynamic and unpredictable force to be reckoned with. With Metamagic, a Sorcerer can increase their spell’s range or duration, hit two enemies at once, or purchase other powerful spell variations using Sorcery Points gained as they level up. And just imagine the kind of devastation you can unleash when applying this ability strategically toward spells cast by other magic-wielders.

As any D&D fan worth their dice knows, Sorcerers are available in two flavours: Wild Magic and Draconic Bloodline. Both subclasses have their own particular set of strengths, abilities, and visual look.

The Wild Magic Sorcerer is a manipulator of chance and magic. Using their Tides of Chaos ability, they swing the battle in their favour by gaining advantage of attack rolls, ability checks, or saving throws. But with every swing there is also a roundabout. And for every successful gain a Wild Magic Sorcerer receives, they also have a chance of being on the receiving end of a random effect. Some positive – like gaining teleport as a bonus action – and some, ah, less good – like setting everyone on fire.

Draconic Bloodline Sorcerers on the other hand possess spell-casting abilities passed down through their dragon ancestry. Each Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer reaps the benefits of their dragon lineage, and can harness the damage-type possessed by their ancestor: Fire, Acid, Poison, Lightning, or Cold. Was your great-grandma a Red Dragon? If so, you’ll be able to wield Fire abilities like Burning Hands. Additionally, this subclass gets an extra hit point with every level gained, meaning they’re quite the powerful adversary in combat. And as you can see in the image above, you will be able to customize the look of your Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer with a variety of dragon facial designs so scaley not even the heaviest of moisturizers can soften them.

New weapon actions - combat just got a lot more interesting

But Forging the Arcane isn't just about magic.

In this patch, we wanted to ensure that fans of melee and ranged combat gain even more tactical agency during fights next time they jump back in to BG3. Thus, we've introduced new Weapon Actions.

So what does that mean exactly? Well, characters who are proficient in a particular melee or ranged weapon will now have up to three signature moves at their disposal, giving you new ways to eviscerate any nearby Goblin who happens to look at you funny. The aim here is to ensure players will experience melee actions closer in line to those dreamt up during a tabletop D&D game.

Smash an enemy's chest to damage and potentially reduce their actions by one with the new Heartstopper move, target an enemy's hands with a non-lethal Weakening Strike attack to give disadvantage on Attack Rolls, or hit an enemy with all your might for a chance at dazing them with a Concussive Smash. But please do not use these new moves on the Owlbear as our hearts can't handle it. For the full list of new Weapon Actions, have a gander at the patch notes at the bottom of the page.
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