One of those rules has to do with blocking. In Magic, you declare your attackers, which then leads to the defender being able to select creatures to block the attack. This naturally leads to the question: can you block an attack with multiple creatures?

Yes. In Magic: The Gathering, you can choose to block an attacking creature with more than one creature. This is a part of the basic rules in Magic, and you don’t need any particular cards in order to do it. If you block with more than one creature, the attacking player chooses the order in which the defending creatures block.

As you can see, it’s fairly simple. However, there are other rules and strategies involved in this concept. Let’s be detailed. Read more to find out everything you need to know about blocking in Magic: The Gathering.

Can You Block With With Multiple Creatures?

As I touched on before, you can block with multiple creatures in Magic: The Gathering. There’s no limit to how many creatures you can select as blockers. If you have a creature with flash, you can cast it after your opponent has declared his attackers and use it to block.

You can choose to block with every creature you have on the board if you want to. Remember, however, that the attacking player is the one who selects the order in which your creatures block, or if we want to rationalize this rule a bit, which creature he attacks first.

Arranging Blocking Order

Here’s a rule that confuses beginners sometimes. The attacking player gets to arrange the order in which the blocking creatures take damage.

The attacking player also gets to assign his available damage freely among the blocking creatures, but he has to assign lethal damage to the first creature that blocks in order to deal damage to the second creature, lethal damage to the second to deal damage to the third, and so on.

Let’s go through Player A is attacking with a 5/5 creature, and Player B has three creatures to use as blockers: Creature X (2/2), Creature Y (3/3), and Creature Z (1/1).

Player A is attacking with a 5/5 creature, and Player B has three creatures to use as blockers: Creature X (2/2), Creature Y (3/3), and Creature Z (1/1).

Player A must decide how to assign the 5 points of damage from their attacking creature to Player B’s blockers, without assigning any damage to Player B unless the attacking creature has trample.

Let’s assume the attacking creature doesn’t have trample. In this case, Player A can only assign damage to the blockers. Here’s a possible distribution of damage:

• 2 damage to Creature X (lethal damage, destroying it).
• 3 damage to Creature Y (lethal damage, destroying it).

Player A cannot assign damage to Creature Z or Player B unless they have a card or ability that allows them to do so, such as an instant or sorcery spell that deals damage directly or a creature with trample.

The key to assigning damage effectively is to consider the current game state, the creatures involved, and your long-term strategy. Intelligent damage assignment can be crucial in gaining a strategic advantage in Magic: The Gathering.”

Attacking and blocking are very strategic concepts in Magic as you can tell, which is part of the reason why the game has stood the test of time so well.

How Many Creatures Can One Creature Block?

While multiple creatures can block one attacker, it doesn’t work the other way around. A defending creature can not block more than one creature, which means that attackers can strategically set up attacking options if they have a numerical advantage.

This is one of the core principles of Magic, and it makes for very interesting ‘option selects’ when it comes to attacking and blocking.

There are exceptions to this rule, however. For example, the Hundred-Handed One can block up to a hundred creatures when defending.

Can Creatures With Summoning Sickness Block?

You might be aware of the fact that creatures with summoning sickness can’t attack. So, can they block when summoning sickness is active?

The answer to that question is a simple yes. Summoning sickness affects creatures’ abilities to 1. attack, and 2. use abilities that would tap them. That means that some creatures can use abilities right out of the gate, as long as it wouldn’t tap them.

Can Tapped Creatures Block?

So, we’ve covered the basics of defending attacks in MTG, as well as blocking while affected by summoning sickness. However, can tapped creatures block?

No. Tapped creatures can not block attackers in MTG. Creatures get when they attack, and stay tapped during the next turn. At the beginning of your next turn, you may untap the creatures, making them ready to either attack again or hold so you can block with them your opponent’s turn.

Players’ turns are segmented into different sections, and untapping is no exception to this rule:

1. Beginning of Turn Step: Some effects and abilities trigger at the beginning of a player’s turn. These are resolved at this point.
2. Untap Step: During this step, the active player (the player whose turn it is) untaps all of their tapped permanents, including creatures. Untapping means turning the cards 90 degrees back to their upright position.

Both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 provide players with thousands of options in the form of sidequests, treasures, areas, NPCs, and more. Those are, of course, totally optional but they flesh out the story quite a bit and it wouldn’t be the same game without them.

The world of Faerun is vast but players can, however, choose to only focus on the main story too. Depending on which route you go, the time it takes to beat the game will vary enormously.

So, how long does it take to complete Baldur’s Gate 3?

For a completionist who wants to complete sidequests and experience all aspects of the game, a full playthrough can take somewhere between 150-200 hours. Those who only focus on the game’s main story can reach the end of the game within 50-75 hours. Lastly, focusing on the main story but including the larger optional quests will take you about 90-100 hours.

Of course, there are a bunch of variables that factor in when considering the time it takes to beat the game. Regardless of which of the above categories you place yourself in, these elements will determine if you’re in the lower or upper range of the time span:

• Reloading: Sometimes, players will have to reload the game because they are killed in battle, die to traps, or are unhappy with the outcome of an action they take in either dialogue, battle, or the open world and want a second chance.

• Dialogue: Talking to every NPC and listening to the dialogue without clicking through it will prolong the game, as the dialogue is acted out by the characters. Dialogues are an essential part of the game and there are more than hundreds of hours of ‘possible’ dialogue in the game.

• Reading: The game is full of books, letters and notes. There’s generally little value to keeping them in your inventory after reading them, but sometimes the book, note, or letter will reveal something or be of utter importance for the game. Simply clicking read on the item will have your character speed-reading it in a second and reacting if there’s anything of value in the book. If you choose to read these books yourself, you’ll likely spend 10-20 hours doing so, as there are more than 500 readable items in the game.

According to howlongtobeat.com, the fastest recorded playthrough is 24 hours, whereas the slowest is 250 hours. I’m sure there are speedrunners who’ve completed the game in less than 24 hours, but few of us mortals have that type of knowledge of the game’s mechanics during our first playthrough.

How Long Are The Acts In Baldur’s Gate 3?

Baldur’s Gate 3 consists of three acts, each act contains a bunch of content. If every nook and cranny is explored, you can expect all of the acts to take a lot of time. With that said, they’re not equally long in terms of duration.

The first act of Baldur’s Gate 3 is estimated to take between 25-40 hours, depending on your playstyle and ambition. The opening act can both be slowed down and sped up by the fact that players haven’t gotten to know the game and its mechanics yet.

Some will be slowed by the lack of knowledge because they’re trying to understand and learn, others will neglect the amount of content Larian Studios put in their games and just brute force through the game.

The second act of Baldur’s Gate 3 makes up the bulk of the game’s playtime. The second act is partially played out in ‘The Underdark’ and contains a lot of story development, exploration, sidequest progression, and introduction of new characters.

Being the lead-up to the final act, the second act has a lot of optional content but also a lot of main-story content that has to be done in order to proceed to the last act. The second part of the game is estimated to take between 50-70 hours, but I can tell you that it is very possible to surpass that amount for the curious.

The third and last act of Baldur’s Gate 3 is set in the city of Baldur’s Gate, with a portion of the act set in surrounding encampments. The game’s finale is considered the shortest act of the three, but there’s still plenty of content to experience.

For completionists, the third act will be full of stuff to do as this is the last chance to complete sidequests, forcing you to scour every building to tie up any loose ends. So, the third act can take anywhere between 25-35 hours to complete.

Does this matter? Will you even notice when you’ve progressed from one act to another?

The time duration of each act doesn’t matter per se, but it can give you an idea of how much time you’ll spend in any given part of Faerun, as the three acts play out in different parts of the world. New characters are presented in each act along with new narratives and locations.

Familiar characters who you might’ve met during one of the acts can also reappear during the following acts. This creates a type of compounding effect, as you create more and more content for yourself in the upcoming acts the more sidequests and exploration you do during the early acts.

Quests will often overlap the acts, making it possible for a minor detail in the first act to become a large quest in the last act because of the story’s development.

You might pick up an item that seems to do no good at the beginning of the game, only to find out that the item is of great value when it is used properly, which you weren’t able to do prior to gaining said knowledge in later parts of the game.

For How Long Has Baldur’s Gate 3 Been In Development?

The plans for the game started when Wizards of the Coast gave Larian Studios the green light to produce the game. They were impressed by Larian’s game Divinity Original Sin 2, which was released in 2017. Wizards had, however, received a bunch of pre-release material sometime during either 2016 or 17.

The studio then released Baldur’s Gate 3 in August of 2023, meaning the game was in development for a 6-year period. The game was available for early access in October 2020, during which players only could experience the first act of the game.

Depending on what your deck is designed to do, you should have more or fewer land cards. Aggressive decks usually have fewer lands since their mana curve is lower and they want to stuff a lot of cheap creatures in the deck, for example. So, generally, how many lands should be in a 60-card MtG deck?

As a basic rule, land cards should make up about 40% of your deck. In a 60-card Magic deck, this is around 24 cards. This number should vary depending on what type of deck you’re playing. If you can generate mana using other resources such as Llanowar Elves, you can decrease the number of land cards in your deck.

As you can tell, there isn’t a set number of land cards for every single deck. Let’s go over this in detail. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about land distribution in 60-card Magic decks.

How Many Lands in a 60-Card Deck?

Having around 24 land cards in a 60-card deck is a very good rule of thumb. However, this number can vary. Aggressive decks want to dominate the board very early, and this means having a large number of cheap creatures in your deck.

Cheap creatures are, well, cheap, so you won’t need as many lands in your deck. Having fewer lands in a deck like this will also make sure that you draw those creatures. Other decks play more expensive cards, and as a result, they need more mana.

Another factor to consider is if your deck has alternate ways of producing mana. Cards such as Llanowar Elves, Cultivate, and so forth will provide mana for you, which means that you won’t have to draw as many land cards to apply your game plan.

It’s not a 1:1 replacement for mana, however, since mana base cards that aren’t lands, such as Llanowar Elves, cost mana to play. Cards like these often count as 0.5 lands. Furthermore, if these mana base cards are creatures or enchantments, they can be removed from the battlefield much more easily than land, which means that they aren’t as reliable.

Calculating How Much Mana Your Deck Needs

There’s actually a pretty neat way that you can calculate how many land cards you need in your deck. 24 land cards will work fine in most cases, but if you want to optimize your mana use, then you should follow the steps below.

• Calculate the total converted mana cost of your non-land cards. In other words, just add the costs of your cards together until you get a number. This is your deck’s total converted mana cost.

• Divide this “score” by the number of non-land cards in your deck (the same cards that you added).

• You now have the average cost of the cards in your deck. If this average is under 1.5, your starting mana baseline is 20. This is subject to change, of course, depending on your non-land cards and how far under 1.5 your average cost is. If it’s under 1, anywhere from 18-19 lands is probably better.

• If your deck’s total converted mana cost is 2 or more, consider playing 23 or 24 lands.

• If it’s over 2.5, you need a lot of land. Play 26 or more land cards.

There are boatloads of different decks in Magic, and if your deck has cards that warrant playing more or fewer lands, you should do that. The calculation above is a good baseline, however. Below, you can find a table of good land counts depending on your deck’s total converted mana cost.

What Is a Good Mana Curve in MTG?

Mana curves are really important in MTG, and it’s certainly relevant in relation to how many lands you should have in your deck.

As I mentioned earlier, having 24 lands in your deck is a good rule of thumb. The number 24 is meant for a deck with an average mana curve. Beginner players may think they have an average mana curve, and stick 24 lands in there, even though they’re running a boatload of expensive cards.

The truth of the matter is that there is no real “average” mana curve. Decks have different mana curves depending on their archetype, and you should experiment with your deck to find out how many lands you need.

So, let’s explore what a mana curve is. In general, a deck’s mana curve relates to what turns in the game it will be able to play cards effectively. We can visualize this in a diagram.

Spending turn one casting a 1-cost spell, turn two casting a 2-cost spell, and turn three casting a 3-cost spell is an optimal mana curve, for example.

If the deck in the diagram above had more 5 and 6-cost cards, more lands would be required to play it effectively, since we want to play a land each turn until we reach turn 6 and are able to play our 6-cost cards.

Playing More Than One Color In Your Deck

A lot, if not the majority of decks, play more than one color. I’d venture to guess that playing two colors is the most common, but three-colored decks are very popular as well. Four-colored decks are usually super-cool but they’re quite complicated.

How you distribute mana when playing more than one color is an interesting question. For example, say you’re running a red/white Boros deck. The likelihood of you getting screwed over increases slightly since there’s a chance that you draw a lot of your red mana and none of your white.

Your white cards will just sit there in your hand, and all of a sudden, you’re very inefficient with your cards. Using multicolored lands is very much recommended when running a multicolored deck.

I also recommend running cards such as Evolving Wilds or Chromatic Lantern to diversify your mana base even more.

It’s usually a good idea to put emphasis on one color and “splashing” some of another color. This will make your deck less reliant on drawing the right mana.

How Many Creatures Should I Have in a 60-Card Deck?

The amount of creatures you should have depends on the style of your deck, just like the amount of land cards. Aggro decks usually run a lot of cheap creatures, control decks run fewer, and so forth: the strategy should dictate the amount of cards of any type in your deck.

If you want to read more on this particular subject, I recommend reading this resource.

It should be mentioned that we’re talking about the primary character here, the one you’re controlling. If you’re having problems with companions not following you around, then I recommend our guide that fixes that issue instead.

Those who played early access are probably familiar with this bug, but it seems like the bug has lived far longer than one had anticipated. Thankfully, it isn’t very difficult to fix.

So, what’s the solution to a character not moving in Baldur’s Gate 3 then?

If your character isn’t able to move, try teleporting or fast-traveling to another location or swapping to another character to see if you can move that character. Also, make sure your character isn’t encumbered. If it persists, verify the game files and restart the game. This might fix the problem. Should it not, consider loading an earlier save where your character wasn’t stuck.

Make sure you’ve downloaded the latest updates as they might contain hotfixes.

Hopefully, this should fix the problem for you. Continue reading as we’ll go into greater detail on how these steps can be applied. I’ve also included additional solutions to the problem if none of the above seem to work.

How To Fix Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Won’t Move Bug

As mentioned earlier, the problem appears in different ways. Sometimes, you’ll be notified by the game that your character has “0 movement” out of nowhere, while other times there will be no indication whatsoever – except for the character being unable to move, of course.

Swap Characters

A few of the times when I’ve happened upon this issue, I’ve been in luck because I was able to fix it by simply swapping to one of my secondary characters by double-clicking its portrait and moving it around. This has worked when it seems like your “clicks” aren’t being registered on the map.

For instance, I would left-click on the ground but no marker would appear and the character wouldn’t move. Swapping to another character would fix the issue and the stuck character could be controlled once again.

Verify Game Files

Another common reason why this error occurs is because of corrupt game files. Sometimes, files within the game folder will be damaged, causing the game to act out. The issue can persist even after reinstalling the game, but verifying the game files seems to fix it.

Here’s how you do it.

• Right-click the Game in your Steam library
• Select Properties
• Select Installed Files on the left-hand menu
• Click Verify Integrity of Game Files and wait for the process to finish.

Once done, the game files have been verified. You’ll be notified if any corrupt ones are found. Steam will replace those files automatically for you. Boot up the game to see if the issue has been fixed.

Teleport or Fast-Travel

You could try teleporting the character who is stuck by using spells or scrolls and positioning the character in another location. Alternatively, try fast-traveling to another location with your party to see if the character is able to follow you there.

If the character follows you to camp, taking a long rest might solve the issue. If fast-traveling can’t be used when that specific character is being controlled, swap to another character and access the map with that character.

Make sure all characters are linked together before porting, this can be done by connecting their portraits or clicking G on your keyboard.

Bonus: Try shoving your character as well.

Kill Your Character Then Revive It

Another solution that has worked a few times (but one that hurts your roleplaying) is to attack your own character until it falls then revive it at another destination. Sometimes, I’ve been able to simply place the character in another spot in close proximity to where the character was stuck.

Other times, I’ve had to go to Withers and have him resurrect the character in order for the character to be freed from the glitch. You can try both, I’d recommend going to Withers if you can move your other characters.

If not…. well, then you’ll have to get rid of all of them one by one and then revive them.

Remove Items From Your Inventory

If the character has been carrying too much weight, it will become encumbered, crippling the character partially. Depending on how much weight the character is carrying, it might prevent the character from moving altogether.

You can see if the character is encumbered by looking at the icons next to the character’s portrait. When you become encumbered, a large bag will appear next to the portrait. The color of the bag will change depending on how encumbered the character is.

Slimming the character’s inventory should remove the encumbered debuff, allowing you to move again. But we know for a fact that it doesn’t always work as intended.

Sometimes, the encumbered status will remain even after the items are removed from the character. Therefore, try moving your items to another character then slowly transfer them back to the encumbered character but stop before it becomes encumbered.

Dismiss the Character

If the character that’s stuck is a companion and your other characters are close to it, then talk to the immovable character with one of your other characters and tell it to go back to camp and wait for you there. Now, port back to camp and recruit the character to your party again.

When you leave camp, the character should be following you once again. This does not work if the stuck character is a custom character, as they can’t be dismissed to camp.

Should the character spawn in the same spot again once recruited, try moving away from that place within the open world before you recruit the character and leave camp.

Load an Earlier Save

If you’re out of luck and none of the solutions above have worked out, I hope your last save was around the corner as you might have to load that save in order to continue the game.

Players who are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons 5e will, without a doubt, have a great understanding of the damage system, as Baldur’s Gate 3 is built using DnD’s systems.

The system can be a bit overwhelming at first – even if you only focus on the battle system, as it has to take a bunch of different things into account when determining the outcome of an attack action.

We hope to make it easier for you to understand how the game works and how you can use that to your advantage in battles.

So, how does damage work in Baldur’s Gate 3? It’s hard to explain the matter simply, and I will go into greater detail to make it easier to grasp, but here’s a quick explanation.

Whenever your character attacks, dice are rolled to determine if the attack hits. If the attack hits, the damage dealt is determined by rolling one or more dice representing the weapon used and then adding the ability modifier. Hovering over a weapon will show you what type of die is used to roll for damage. The target’s resistances and vulnerabilities are then put into the equation, affecting the final damage.

But in order for you to understand the concept better, I think we must go into greater detail. This will make it easier for you to anticipate how much damage your attacks will deal, and the likelihood of them hitting their target.

Ultimately, giving you more to base your in-battle decisions on.

How To Calculate Damage In Baldur’s Gate 3

Attacks in Baldur’s Gate 3 cost one standard Action to perform, with a few exceptions that we don’t need to mention now. Prior to performing the attack, there are two things to take into consideration.

• Will the attack hit?
• How much damage will it deal if it does hit?

This is then determined by rolling dice. You’ll see things like “1d4” or “1d20” everywhere in the game. The first number determines how many dice are used in the roll and the second number determines how many sides the dice have. A 1d20 can result in any number between 1-20.

The formula to calculate if an attack is a hit or miss is the following:

Your attack will succeed if the total sum of a 1d20 + your modifier exceeds the target’s armor class.

Your attack will fail if the total sum of a 1d20 + your modifier doesn’t exceed the target’s armor class.

So, a 20-sided die is rolled and a modifier is then added to the result of the roll to determine if the attack hits.

So, what’s a modifier and how do you know how high your modifier is? There are different types of modifiers, and which one is used depends on the type of attack you perform.

We’ve written an article that explains armor class in great detail. You can find it here.

Calculating Weapon Attacks In Baldur’s Gate 3

Let’s start by looking at a weapon attack

When performing a regular weapon attack, the modifier would be either the attacker’s Strength or Dexterity, depending on the type of weapon. Ranged, versatile, and finesse weapons are Dexterity-based, while the rest of them are Strength-based.

Let’s say that a character performing an attack with a strength-based weapon has 18 strength points. The modifier is then calculated by taking the character’s total strength minus 10 divided by 2. In this case (18 – 10 / 2 = 4) the character’s modifier would add an additional 4 to the 1d20 roll.

The formula for a regular weapon attack to hit would look something like this:

1d20 + Weapon-specific ability modifier + any proficiency bonus + any related feat bonuses = chance to hit

Wielding a weapon that the character is proficient in grants them a proficiency bonus in addition to the modifier and other bonuses that they may receive through feats, which characters are granted the first time at level 5.

With all of these effects in play, the character has a very high chance of hitting its attacks. It should be noted that wielding a weapon that the character isn’t proficient in will not only remove the bonus but also prevent the character from using the weapon’s unique traits.

Nevertheless, if the attack hits the target, then there’s a second sequence of rolls that are put in motion to calculate the damage dealt by the attack. The formula used to calculate damage looks like this:

Weapon’s damage + weapon-specific ability modifier + any related feat bonuses = damage dealt

If a rogue with 20 dexterity wielding a dagger performs an attack. The calculation starts by rolling the type of die used by the weapon. Daggers use a 1d4, which means the outcome will be a number between 1-4.

The weapon-specific ability modifier is then added. In this case, this would be the character’s dexterity. For a rogue with 20 Dex, that would equal 5 (20- 10 /2).

Feat bonuses are then added to the roll. For the sake of this calculation, I’ll skip those.

In this scenario, our rogue’s main hand dagger would hit for 1-4 + 5 damage. It works the same way for weapons that are strength-based.

Let’s look at how magic spells are calculated before we take resistances, vulnerabilities, immunities, and critical hits into the equation.

Calculating Magic Attacks In Baldur’s Gate 3

When it comes to magic attacks, the calculations are a bit different from weapon attacks. There are two types of magic attacks in the game.

• Magic attacks that use attack rolls.
• Magic attacks that use saving throws.

When calculating magic attacks that deal damage, the first part of the roll consists of determining if the spell hits. The formula used is similar to that of weapon attacks and looks like this:

1d20 + proficiency bonus + Spellcasting Modifier + any feat-related modifiers = chance to hit

Wizards, whose spellcasting modifier is Intelligence, have their Intelligence modifier added to their rolls much like rogues have their dexterity modifier added to their attacks. As a spellcaster, your spellcasting modifier is added to determine the effectiveness of the spells you cast.

If the attack hits, the damage is calculated just as a weapon attack is – but with the spellcasting modifier added instead of the weapon-specific modifier.

The part that makes magic attacks a bit different is the second type of magic attack. The one that uses Spell Save Difficulty Class (Saving Throws) instead of attack rolls. In short, they’re performed like this.

• Spell Attack = You Roll
• Spell Save = They Roll

Your character’s spell save DC determines how high the target must roll in order to pass the saving throw and mitigate the effects of the given spell.

Your spell save DC is calculated the following way:

8 + Proficiency Bonus + Spell Casting Ability Modifier

If the target meets or beats it, then they can take either half or no damage, depending on the spell’s description. Other than that, magic attacks work similarly to weapon attacks. They just rely on different stats.

But let’s continue looking at other things that impact the outcome of an attack and the damage it deals. By the way, I’d recommend learning a bit about disadvantage and advantage in Baldur’s Gate 3. Two mechanics that impact combat substantially.

Vulnerabilities, Resistances, and Immunities Baldur’s Gate 3

Now that we’ve calculated the damage input, we’ve got to take vulnerabilities, immunities, and resistances into consideration before we land on the final number of damage an attack makes.

To understand these, it’s imperative to understand that there are multiple types of damage in the game:

Physical (Non-magical)

• Bludgeoning
• Slashing
• Piercing

Physical (Magical)

• Acid
• Thunder
• Necrotic
• Fire
• Lightning
• Cold
• Psychic
• Poison
• Radiant
• Force

When any of these types of damage are dealt to a target. The target can be affected in four ways.

1. Vulnerable – Take x2 damage from that type
2. Normal – Roll normally
3. Resistant – Take 1/2 damage from that type
4. Immune – Take no damage from that type

Let’s imagine you’re up against a target who is vulnerable to fire. You strike that enemy with a weapon that you’ve dipped in fire. The weapon now deals 8 bludgeoning damage and an additional 4 fire damage.

Because the target is vulnerable to fire, the ultimate number will end up being 8 bludgeoning damage plus 8 fire damage, as the creature’s vulnerability to fire causes all your fire damage to double.

In another scenario, where the creature is resistant or immune to fire, the attack would either do 8 bludgeoning damage and 0 or 2 fire damage depending on if the creature was immune or resistant to fire.

You can find out about a creature’s weaknesses and strengths by left-clicking on them and selecting Examine. Use this information to your advantage when planning your attacks, as these things impact the outcome of your attacks a lot.

How Do Critical Hits Work In Baldur’s Gate 3?

In addition to all of the above, an attack can also be a critical hit or a critical miss.

• Critical hit: the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the target’s armor class.
• Critical miss: the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target’s armor class.

Your attack roll must be a natural 20 (meaning the 1d20 attack roll is a 20 before bonuses are added) in order for the attack to become a critical hit. A critical miss, on the other hand, only occurs if the 1d20 roll is a natural 1.

Rolling an 18 and then having a bonus of +2 will net a 20, but it’s not a natural 20 and will, therefore, not result in a critical hit.

The numbers needed to perform critical hits or misses can be adjusted with feats and certain items, making it more difficult or easy to achieve them.

In addition to ensuring that the attack hits, a critical hit will also increase the damage dealt by the attack.

See, when you score a critical hit, you get to roll extra dice for the attack’s damage against the target. You roll all of the attack’s damage dice twice and add them together. Any relevant modifiers are then added as normal.

For instance, a rogue who scores a critical hit with a dagger will roll 2d4 for the damage as opposed to 1d4. The attack modifier is then added to the number. If the attack includes other damage rolls, such as a rogue’s Sneak Attack, then those dice are rolled twice too.

Some spells, like Hold Person or Sleep, cause the attacker to get an automatic critical hit. Some feats can increase the range of critical hits for certain weapons.

This means that some characters, when equipped with certain weapons, can deliver a critical hit when the 1d20 roll is both 19 and 20, increasing the chances of a critical from 1 in 20 to 2 in 20.

One of the most important functions in the game is casting spells. Every playable class has access to either spells or abilities with the same mechanics as spells.

That’s why it’s important to know how they work. The UI in Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t do a great job of explaining this to the player in an easy manner, which is why I’m writing this resource. So, how do spells work in Baldur’s Gate 3?

In Baldur’s Gate 3, spells are resources capable of achieving a wide range of effects. Spells cost either an action or a bonus action to perform and have different levels that represent their power. Every spellcasting character possesses a number of spell slots, and the act of casting a spell consumes one of these slots. To regain the consumed slots, you will have to take a long rest.

Let’s get a bit more detailed. As you can tell, there’s a lot to spellcasting in Baldur’s Gate 3, and it’s easy to get lost in the beginning. Stick around and read the rest of this resource to find out everything you need to know about spellcasting in Baldur’s Gate.

How Do Spells Work in Baldur’s Gate 3?

As I stated earlier, spells can achieve a great number of different effects. They can deal damage, debuff enemies, buff allies, heal, and much more. It’s worth mentioning that not every character in BG3 gets to cast spells, however.

The classes that can cast spells in Baldur’s Gate 3 are the following: Clerics, Paladins, Rangers, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers, Bards, and Warlocks. There exist many spells that are shared by these classes, but also unique ones for every class.

Spells either cost an action or a bonus action. In general, spells that cost actions are more powerful than spells costing only a bonus action, although game-balancing is a thing, and some bonus action spells are better than certain actions. As you’re probably aware, you (generally) have one action and one bonus action to spend per round.

While bonus actions are typically used for minor tasks like positioning oneself favorably or dealing modest damage, standard actions are reserved for significant damage, strong buffs, and debilitating debuffs, among other things.

Related Article: How Damage is Calculated in Baldur’s Gate 3

In the beginning, I touched on how spellcasting characters have spell slots, and that spells take up these slots. Depending on what class you’re playing, you will have a certain amount of spell slots available to you.

For example, Wizards have a significant amount of spell slots whereas other classes have fewer. For example, a level three Wizard has four level 1 spell slots and two level 2 spell slots.

This means that Wizards can cast two level 2 spells and four level 1 spells before needing to rest. You can also “upcast” spells, which simply means that you can use a level two spell slot to cast a level 1 spell. The level 1 spell will then “scale” with the spell slot used, gaining potency.

As I mentioned earlier, you will need to take a long rest after running out of spell slots. Unless you’re playing a Warlock, in which case you can simply short rest to regain all of your spell slots.

So, how do you gain spell slots? Well, in general, you’ll simply need to play the game and level up your character. Characters naturally gain more spells and spell slots this way. The maximum level in Baldur’s Gate 3 is 12, and the maximum spell slot level is 6.

Spellcasting Ability

Lastly, I’ll go ahead and mention spellcasting ability. Different classes have different spellcasting ability modifiers, and it’s simply a score used by the game to calculate how much potency your spells have.

Spellcasting classes’ spellcasting abilities are based on a certain stat, and that key stat depends on what class you’re playing. For example, Wizards use Intelligence to determine their spellcasting ability, Warlocks, Paladins and Bards use Charisma, and Clerics, Rangers, and Druids use Wisdom.

So for example, if you have a high Intelligence score as a Wizard, or if you have a high Wisdom score as a Cleric, your spells will be more potent. It’s fairly simple when you get down to it.

Spellcasting ability affects two things: spell attack and spell save DC (difficulty class). Spell attack is a fairly simple concept. If your spellcasting ability modifier is +4 due to having 18 Intelligence as a Wizard, then you have a +4 chance to hit your opponent with that spell.

Spell save DC is used to see if characters take damage after they get hit with a spell. They need to meet your character’s spell DC to save themselves from damage. Let’s not get too bogged down in the details of this, it’s needlessly complicated for the purpose of learning about spells.

Preparing Spells

A character can know many different spells, but they can only memorize a number of them. Baldur’s Gate’s and DnD’s way of illustrating this is the preparation of spells.

Generally, in order to use spells, you will have to prepare them first. To do this, simply head into your spell book by pressing K and select what spells you want prepared.

More Baldur’s Gate 3 Content: What Happens When You Die in Baldur’s Gate 3?

Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks can’t prepare spells, which is worthwhile remembering. Instead, these classes get to change spells as they level up. One at a time. Of course, they have other positive benefits to their classes instead.

What’s the Difference Between Spells and Cantrips?

It’s difficult to know the difference between spells and cantrips as a beginner to Baldur’s Gate 3, especially if you haven’t touched Dungeons and Dragons before playing the game.

For example, what’s the difference between spells and cantrips? The answer to that question is quite simple. Cantrips are relatively weak spells, that do not cost or take up a spell slot. They can be cast as many times as you want without having to long rest.

Spells, on the other hand, are limited. You can only cast a couple of them before needing to rest. Does this make cantrips weak? No, not really.

The fact that you can cast them as many times as you want is nice, especially if you find one that’s really strong (Eldritch Blast with the Agonizing Blast invocation, for example).

How Do You Learn New Spells in Baldur’s Gate 3?

Before we wrap up this article, let’s go through how you can learn new spells in Baldur’s Gate.

The most common way of learning new spells in Baldur’s Gate 3 is leveling up. However, Wizards get to cheat. They can learn new spells through spell scrolls.

To do this, they simply need to head into their spell books by pressing K and then selecting Learn New Spells. If they have a spell scroll in their inventory, they can learn the spell permanently.

To learn a spell this way, it needs to be available to them by leveling as well. Wizards can learn spells that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them by leveling.

The custom-made character will follow the companions if they’re being controlled by you too. So you’ll always have your party following you as long as everything is working as intended.

However, we’ve received a bunch of questions regarding party members not following the controlled character, which we’ve researched to find all possible answers.

So, how can you fix companions not following you in Baldur’s Gate 3?

In order for a character to follow you, their portrait must be connected to yours. This can be done by dragging one portrait to the other until a link is created between them or clicking the G-key to automatically connect the characters. The two characters must stand close in order for the connection to work.

It’s important that the portraits stick to one another. You’ll notice a space between the portraits if they aren’t connected, but when they are there shouldn’t be any space between them at all.

If you have linked the portraits to one another but your companion still doesn’t follow you, there are other methods of getting them to follow you. When the official function doesn’t work as intended, you’ve most likely run into a glitch of sorts.

When your Baldur’s Gate 3 companions don’t follow you even though their portraits are linked to yours, there’s something wrong. This can be fixed by fast-traveling to any destination with your party, taking a long rest, or going to camp and then back to the open world again. Fast-travel with one character at a time if they don’t follow you automatically.

Traveling with all your characters to the same destination will ensure that they’re in the same exact spot, ensuring that they can be grouped once again. You can try doing this with your entire party, but there’s a slight risk of it not working since the characters don’t follow you.

If that’s the case, you’ll have to fast-travel one character at a time. To do this, double-click any character’s portrait on the left-hand side of the screen. This should move your camera to that character, indicating that you’re controlling that specific character.

Now open your map and select your desired destination to fast-travel to. Once the character has reached its destination, double-click the next portrait and do the same with the subsequent character until the entire party has been moved to the same destination.

Once there, connect their portraits. As mentioned earlier, clicking the G-key should connect all of the characters that are close to the character you’re currently controlling.

If none of these methods seem to re-establish your party, I recommend restarting the game completely to see if it works better once it has booted up again.

Why Your Baldur’s Gate Companions Stop Following You

In Baldur’s Gate 3, all of the characters currently in your party can be found on the left-hand side, where their portraits are showing.

The portraits can be used for a bunch of different things, such as managing newly reached levels, distributing loot by dropping it on the portrait, left-clicking the portrait for more options, and so forth.

This means that there’s a bit of activity in the area surrounding the portraits, which can lead to players accidentally removing the link between paired characters.

The same thing will also occur if you accidentally press G on your keyboard, which either connects or disconnects the group members from one another.

Most commonly, characters will stop following you when you’ve moved too far from them without them being able to follow. This often happens when some of your characters can jump further than others, which results in the weaker jumpers being left behind and disconnecting from the group.

Sometimes, a character will stop following you even if the portraits are connected just because there’s something blocking the character from reaching you.

Double-click the character’s portrait and manually move it to you. You should find items that can teleport characters quite early on (Misty Step) and these will come in handy when weaker characters can’t make long jumps.

But among the options, you’ll find the option to recruit the companion. Both single- and multiplayer campaigns can recruit companions to either join the party or stay at camp to converse or join the fight later on in the game.

These companions have their own stories, ambitions, and enemies. Players will be able to continue the companion’s quest, which opens up more cutscenes and sidequests when certain places are visited with the right companion in the party.

Naturally, after investing a good bit of time and gear into the companion, players have started asking:

Can you lose a companion in Baldur’s Gate 3 permanently?

Yes, you can lose your companion in Baldur’s Gate but it rarely happens without your consent. There are different story paths that result in companions permanently leaving the party or dying but players will have to make that decision through dialogue. Companions can also leave the party if they disapprove of your actions to the point where they’ve lost all respect, which takes a lot of time to achieve.

But it should be noted that none of the companions are necessary in order to finish the game, it will just play out differently than it would if you had kept them. This is made obvious by the fact that you don’t even have to recruit them in the first place. You’re always given an option.

Some companions will only be available to recruit if you’ve chosen a certain path early in the game, as you might’ve already built up a bad reputation or gone against their cause but most of them can always be recruited.

Can You Get Companions Back In BG3?

If your companion died in battle, then you’ll be able to bring them back by helping them up, casting revivify on them, or by talking to Withers in camp – if you’ve gained access to him.

If you and your companion end up fighting one another and the companion is killed, then you won’t be able to bring your companion back. Not even Withers wields powers strong enough to do so.

If your companion leaves you, you won’t be able to get the companion back either. They might, however, leave you temporarily in certain areas, but for very short periods of time then return again.

How Many Companions Can You Have In Baldur’s Gate 3?

Your party can only consist of four members, but you’re allowed to have as many companions as possible in your camp. As I stated earlier, there’s a total of 10 companions.

Those who you recruit without using in your party will find their place in the camp and receive experience when the rest of your party does, meaning they will have gained levels in accordance with the rest of your party.

You can also recruit hirelings, a type of custom-made companion without a backstory. This can be a good option if the other companions aren’t to your liking, but you’ll miss their stories.

Can You Beat Baldur’s Gate 3 With No Companions?

You don’t need companions in order to beat the game but it’s quite difficult without them. Without companions, you best have a good strategy and make use of the terrain whenever possible.

The most important part, possibly, is to collect experience from every possible source so your character grows strong early on.

Which Companions Are Easy To Miss In Baldur’s Gate 3?

To tell you the truth, there are plenty of missable companions in the game. But if you’re a completionist who wants to talk to every non-player character in the game and explore every nook and cranny of the map, then you’ll most likely run into the companions.

The following companions are considered more missable than others if you ask me:

• Gale – Found in the teleportation stone north of the crash site.
• Karlach – Found south of the Toll House along the stream.
• Minthara – The drow in goblin camp whom Halsin asks you to defeat.

The last one, Minthara, is probably the most missable as you’re on a warpath with the intention of getting rid of the leaders of the goblin camp.

There are three major roles, I would say. Do note that there are thousands of ways of composing your character skills, and any character can be a mix between the roles, but for the sake of this article, we’ll separate them first.

The first of the three is the damage dealer – these come in the form of glass cannons, which deal a tremendous amount of damage to both multiple and single targets but are very fragile. The second is the brute or tanky type, who can handle being the focus of the enemy on the frontline.

The third is the support type. This is a character who has more supportive spells than others and whose objective is to mitigate damage, replenish the party’s hit points when needed, buff the party with enhancing spells, revive dead players, and crowd-control enemies.

So, what are the best healers in Baldur’s Gate 3?

The best healing class in Baldur’s Gate 3 is the Cleric with the life domain subclass. Clerics gain access to powerful healing spells at lower levels than other classes and have plenty of spell slots to cast them. The life domain allows clerics to always have their healing spells prepared, making extra room for other spells. Other viable healers include Land Druids, OoTA Paladins, and Bards.

However, it should be noted that healing should be a secondary focus in Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’ll explain why later on in the article.

Below is a more comprehensive list of all healers in Baldur’s Gate 3.

The Best Healing Classes in Baldur’s Gate 3

It’s important that you find a support character that you enjoy playing, as there are plenty of classes with healing abilities that work differently.

All of them are not equally effective and excel in different areas but personal preference is a big part of the game as so many elements can be mixed and matched.

One thing, for instance, is that damage always outpaces healing in Baldur’s Gate 3, which makes a healer with the ability to mitigate damage rather than only restoring it an incredibly powerful supporter.

The best way to maintain your party’s hit points is to win battles quickly, by either dealing a lot of damage or crowd-controlling the enemies to give your party an advantage.

Below is a deep dive into the primary healing classes in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Related Article: Do DnD Parties Need Healers?

Cleric

Clerics wield divine magic, and their toolkit has made them one of the best support classes in the game. They’re support-focused spellcasters with healing abilities, crowd-control abilities, buffs, and debuffs that give enemies disadvantage.

Aside from all that, they’re able to deal a lot of damage with the right type of abilities.

Their arsenal of healing spells consists of single-target heals and large area of effect heals, providing a mix of restorative spells for any situation. In addition to their powerful healing spells, they have spells like Feign Death or Death Ward that prevent characters from dying.

Clerics will grant the entire party support and provide a tactical advantage in almost every encounter. With the life domain subclass, the Cleric is able to cast healing spells without preparing them first, which frees up extra slots for other supportive or offensive spells.

Guidance, an ability that grants a bonus on ability checks, is another bonus of having a Cleric in your party. Overall, the Cleric is a great supportive class that grows strong quite early in the game but truly excels at the end of the game.

Paladin

The Paladin class harbors a few curative spells from the start of the game. Initially, Paladins are able to cast a single-target heal called Lay on Hands and a spell called Healing Radiance, which restores 5 hit points to any surrounding characters.

As the game progresses, the Paladin is given new and more powerful restorative spells, such as Aid, Lesser Restoration, and Revivify.

The Paladin can cast auras to protect allies, deal a good bit of melee-focused damage, have high hit points, and can defend themselves quite well.

Paladin healers are, therefore, more bulky healers that not only negate damage by healing, but also by preemptively protecting allies against it by buffing them or neutralizing enemies.

Our recommended subclass for a supportive paladin is the Oath of the Ancients.

Bard

Bards are jacks of all trades, capable of filling every role in the game. The class gives you a charismatic character that should front your dialogues due to their high skill bonuses.

In combat, Bards come with a bunch of different supportive spells that will grant your party bonuses to different types of rolls.

Their strength is the amount of utility that they have at their disposal. They’re usually lower than other classes in the damage output charts but they make up for it by making other characters more powerful through their buffs.

Druid

Druids are one of the most versatile healers in the game but have fewer hit points than some of the other classes. This is compensated for by a wide arsenal of varying abilities, both protective and offensive.

The class can shapeshift into various forms which grant the Druid hit points and effective abilities for damage output. When the Druid’s hit points are brought to zero while shapeshifted, the class is forced back into its regular form rather than dying, making it incredibly powerful.

The Druid misses some of the supportive abilities that Clerics come with, but they’re equipped to deal a fair bit of damage and protect themselves quite well by shapeshifting.

They start out with the curative spell Healing Word at level 1 and as the Druid progresses, the class picks up other supportive spells that grant protection and resistance against various elements.

At level 6, Druids gain access to Heal, which is a powerful healing spell that restores hit points and removes some negative status effects.

Do You Need a Healer In Baldur’s Gate 3?

You don’t need a purebred healer in your party in Baldur’s Gate 3, but you should absolutely have characters with both restorative and supportive spells in order to facilitate battles.

Potions, scrolls, and long rests are good ways of keeping your party replenished, but having a character with curative spells and the ability to blind, paralyze, or fear enemies is of incredibly high value throughout the entire game.

Strong enemies will deal a lot of damage to your party unless they’re given disadvantage, which you can achieve by using abilities such as hold person, blind, fear, turn undead, and so forth.

If your support character has a wide array of spells that mitigate damage or prevent it from happening, then that’s even more effective than re-healing the hit points lost from taking the hit.

Therefore, focusing on a mixture of supportive spells, damage abilities, and pure healing spells is the way to go when creating a designated support class. In this game, being able to deal damage in addition to healing is the way to go.

So, let’s go over the different situations that can arise when death is looming in Baldur’s Gate 3. What happens when you die in Baldur’s Gate 3?

When a playable character dies in Baldur’s Gate 3, you can use a Scroll of Revivify to resurrect them. However, they’re somewhat expensive to buy and you only have one for each character when you first start the game. If you have completed the Dank Crypt at the beginning of the game, you can recruit Withers who can help you resurrect fallen party members for 200 gold.

Let’s go over this in detail. There are circumstances regarding character deaths that can confuse players, so let’s be thorough. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about player death in Baldur’s Gate 3.

What Happens If You Die in Baldur’s Gate 3?

There are multiple ways to resurrect characters in Baldur’s Gate 3, but Scroll of Revivify and Withers services are the 2 most common ways of doing this. You can also use spells to do it, such as using the spell Revivify (Cleric or Paladin) or Resurrection (Bard or Cleric).

For the majority of cases, playable character death isn’t permanent. Now, resurrection works the same way in both multiplayer and single-player. The only criteria you need for resurrection are the required resources and a willing party member.

Most players find Withers themselves when exploring the wilderness at the beginning of the game. He can be found at the end of the Dank Crypt which can be found shortly after the Nautiloid crash.

You will need to complete the dungeon before being able to free Withers. After doing this, don’t attack him. Leave the crypt. After you’ve done this, he will make a new home in your camp, which can be accessed by long resting or simply clicking Go to Camp at the bottom-right side of your screen.

Sometimes when characters die, their bodies can’t be reached, for example, if they’ve been pushed off a cliff or something similar. This can cause some confusion since you can’t target their body with a Scroll of Revivify.

Instead of going to Withers and wasting 200 gold, you can solve this by using the Scroll of Revivify on the blue orb that spawns near where the character died.

The blue orb spawns there to prevent players from getting completely wrecked if the body of a character disappears from the map, but you don’t get a tooltip or something like that to explain that they left the orb behind.

Withers Isn’t Showing Up in the Dank Crypt

Some players have reported a bug where Withers does not show up at the end of the Dank Crypt. If this happens to you, try reloading from the last save.

You can also just continue playing since Withers will eventually show up at your camp anyway, but this can take some time and since you’ve most likely just begun your journey, your best bet is starting over completely.

What Happens If Your Party Dies in Baldur’s Gate 3?

If your entire party gets killed in Baldur’s Gate 3 (not an entirely unlikely outcome, depending on the set game difficulty), you need to reload the game from your latest save. This is called a TPK (“total party kill”).

That’s why you should make sure to save your games often. Baldur’s Gate uses an autosave feature, but personally, I like to save the game manually now and again, especially if I have my suspicions about an upcoming area.

Saving in Baldur’s Gate is quite flexible, and can be used at almost any time. For example, you can save the game during dialogue or combat.

If only one party member is alive in a fight, however, and you don’t want to reload the game, you can try fleeing the battle. You will need to retreat 27 meters from the enemy first, however, for this to work.

After fleeing, you will spawn in your camp. Talk to Withers and resurrect your companions. This can be useful if your last save is from some time ago and you don’t want to waste time.

Cases Where You Can’t Bring Back Characters in BG3

I mentioned earlier that playable characters’ deaths aren’t permanent, in most cases. In some cases, however, they are.

Depending on your choices, playable characters can die permanently. I won’t go into detail here since I don’t want to spoil the game for you, but depending on who you side with in certain situations and the attitude you hold towards characters, they can permanently be gone from the game. Scroll of Revivify won’t work on them.

So, what are these cases? Well, generally, you can tell quite easily. Deaths like these play out during cutscenes. Again, to avoid spoiling the game, I won’t list the specific moments where this can happen.

When this happens, you lose potential storylines and dialogue options in the future. In my opinion, this is a good thing. It gives Baldur’s Gate 3 an insane amount of replayability factor since you can effectively change the story of the game for every new run.

How Does Death Work in Baldur’s Gate 3?

Let’s go over the mechanics that are involved in playable characters’ deaths. When a character first gets “downed” in combat, a somewhat confusing symbol will appear over their head, signaling their condition. The game doesn’t do a very good job explaining what this is, in my opinion.

Characters with this condition make a death-saving throw at the start of every round (this happens automatically in Baldur’s Gate). Death-saving throws are done by rolling a d20 (a 20-sided die).

If you get a number over 10 on your death-saving roll, the roll is a success. If you get a number under 10 on the roll, you fail the roll. Fail three rolls, and you’re a goner. Succeed three rolls, and you’re “stabilized”, meaning you won’t die unless damaged, and your character doesn’t have to perform the death-saving throws.

Downed characters don’t have to succeed/fail three times in a row for a final result. The game counts overall roll count.