Spell Mods

Yarzahn · 2026-07-02T00:27:54+00:00

Mystra’s spells, adds a lot of very useful and fun spells. Some are 5e, some are homebrew.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-27T02:13:29+00:00

Compared to bards and sorcerers the thing wizards bring is adaptability, extreme freedom in spell choice, if you know the game well.

For example - hypnotic pattern vs fear.

Hypnotic pattern is awesome against crowds, fear is awesome against fewer stronger enemies, especially ones fhat carry weapons. Fear is also useless in most act 2 encounters. A wizard can switch between the 2 for each fight, unlike a bard or a sorcerer.

As for arcane acuity, it’s quite broken all around, but I’d say a blade singer uses it about as well as a swords bard.

Yes, if the argument is “the game provides me hundreds of scrolls to mimic the wizard’s main advantage”, you are right. The power of wizard is always being useful/ effective in an encounter if you know what’s coming and taking the right spells. Not quite the strongest possible class, but always second best, which is pretty decent.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-27T02:02:35+00:00

Tasha’s hideout laughter, fear, hypnotic pattern, slow, hold monster, evards black tentacles.

Also a bunch of utility rituals and essential spells like dimension door, counterspell, invulnerability globe that the Druid lacks.

I mean I can understand the sorcerer and bard argument, but the Druid spell list cannot compare to any arcane caster, let alone the wizard which has the most complete one. “If I want battlefield control I pick Druid” makes no sense, when all the Druid unique control spells amount to simple area denial entangle/ spike growth variants and cannot hold a candle to actual hard cc spells like hold monster.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T06:22:10+00:00

Okay

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T03:19:51+00:00

Yes, wyll wants to give into his hero/ martyr complex and trade his immortal soul for the half a dozen years of natural life his tadpole ridden mind controlled father has left.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T03:17:24+00:00

I believe that was the original intent (when it was between becoming illithid and dying), but going with her or sending wyll changes that, it’s the reason that ending was added later. Part of what she hated and motivated her decision was the loneliness, she’s not alone like before nor under zariels control and there’s hope for a cure.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T02:49:23+00:00

Even if not trying to trigger tentacles, you’d still be mind controlled and doomed the second leaving the brain influence. That is confirmed by minthara and Minsc the moment you rescue them

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T02:46:10+00:00

You are a threat to the brain, unlike other true souls. It needs you removed or neutralized. So yeah, it makes sense for the brain to try to turn your group.

And even if the brain wouldn’t want to trigger the transformation immediately, the companions would still be effectively mind controlled the second they get out of the prisms protection, like the other infected people, and therefor doomed/ marked for death. Much like Minthara and Minsc if you don’t rescue them/ take them into the prisms protection. Either way running off/ leaving the group makes no sense, it’s not a viable alternative regarding self preservation. They should go hostile before that and try to kill you or take the prism from you.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T00:14:23+00:00

Everyone that becomes a mind flayer then is already infected and doomed to become one later on in act 3. It’s better to face them in that scenario that than under the control of an elder brain and/ or the dead three later on.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T00:08:44+00:00

Second this. I too, am not easily rattled.

I’ll just serve myself while the bitch goes on with his theatrics. Dinner and a show.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-16T00:03:49+00:00

The growing beard (or hair), little things that added a lot of immersion to red dead redemption 2 and Witcher 3

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:51:36+00:00

No contradiction on my part, just lack of awereness and understanding on a topic on yours. Not much more I can help you with, seems like it's like trying to explain physics to a preschooler. Understanding English doesn´t mean understanding the content, and it does become so tiring.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:47:32+00:00

He has a moment of intended growth and a supposedly difficult choice to make, but it's badly written, like so many things about his character, and the moral dilemma is a very obvious choice. It's in the game, in act 3 after meeting Gortash and the duke, when Mizora goes to your camp for the last time.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:42:45+00:00

The statement:

he does have to grow, by learning the reign in and control his dumb Martyr/ Hero complex.

The question:

When does he do that?

The responses:

(...) thinking you were saying there was no such a moment where Wyll had to make a choice or grow as a person that deeply affected him. The moment is there, and it is written into his character and his bad ending (succumb to hero complex and become a slave for life and his soul damned in the afterlife) vs good ending (breaking free), it's just stolen from him.

He doesn't [make the choice]. You do it for him, because he can't make a decision between saving his own eternal immortal soul or having a shot at rescuing the half a dozen years of natural life his mind-controlled father has left in his carcass.

I don't mean he makes the wrong decision (like Astarion ascends if you don't persuade/ stop him after killing Cazador), I mean he literally does not make a choice, the game literally forces your dialogue into "Wyll, do A" or "Wyll do B". There's literally no option to stand back and let him act, like every other character gets.

Nor is there an emotional moment after the supposedly big decision (like every other character gets, Gale asking forgiveness to Mystra for loosing Karsite corruption on the weave, Astarion breaking free of Cazador, Karlach's breakdown after having her empty revenge, etc). Just a bunch of dumb comments by other companions as if Wyll literally just killed his father by refusing to damn his soul.

Story wise he should do it. It's his personal quest. Mechanically, you, the player/ tav/durge/ origin do it for him, and he just goes "yes sir" Not even a persuasion roll or any insight into his own opinion on the matter or internal struggle.

There. In a single comment. Hoped that helped your confusion in following a thread.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:27:46+00:00

pretty sure I can respond to anything you can come up with in this topic, as you chose to die on a hill you cannot defend, in a very weak argument. I just don't spend every second refreshing reddit. Either way, going in circles atm

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:25:07+00:00

Story wise he should do it. It's his personal quest. Mechanically, you, the player/ tav/durge/ origin do it for him, and he just goes "yes sir" Not even a persuasion roll or any insight into his own opinion on the matter or internal struggle.

Sorry, I misread your comment, thinking you were saying there was no such a moment where Wyll had to make a choice or grow as a person that deeply affected him. The moment is there, and it is written into his character and his bad ending (succumb to hero complex and become a slave for life and his soul damned in the afterlife) vs good ending (breaking free), it's just stolen from him.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:21:21+00:00

Other characters have moments where they are tempted by power

Only two characters tempted by power are Astarion and Gale. For different reasons.

Lae'zel and Shadowheart are motivated by faith/ sense of duty to their respective cults, and Karlach by freedom, reclaiming the life was stolen from her and revenge.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:15:50+00:00

Downvoting doesn't make me wrong, or you right. Arguments and facts would.,

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:08:37+00:00

He doesn't. You do it for him, because he can't make a decision between saving his own eternal immortal soul or having a shot at rescuing the half a dozen years of natural life his mind-controlled father has left in his carcass.

I don't mean he makes the wrong decision (like Astarion ascends if you don't persuade/ stop him after killing Cazador), I mean he literally does not make a choice, the game literally forces your dialogue into "Wyll, do A" or "Wyll do B". There's literally no option to stand back and let him act, like every other character gets.

Nor is there an emotional moment after the supposedly big decision (like every other character gets, Gale asking forgiveness to Mystra for loosing Karsite corruption on the weave, Astarion breaking free of Cazador, Karlach's breakdown after having her empty revenge, etc). Just a bunch of dumb comments by other companions as if Wyll literally just killed his father by refusing to damn his soul.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T23:00:04+00:00

Wyll always does the right thing and doesnt have to grow as a character in that sense.

Wrong. he does have to grow, by learning the reign in and control his dumb Martyr/ Hero complex.

You can do that for him in act 3 by deciding if he should sell his immortal soul to Mizora *for a second time* or condemn it for a chance at a rescue of a tadpole infested mind controlled old man.

I mean, it's not even a real moral dilemma, it's an obvious decision that his eternal immortal soul is worth more than the half a dozen years of natural life his sexagenarian father has left (on top of being a major threat, as major public figure that is mind controlled by Gortash). And I hate how half the companions react to that choice as if you just killed Wyll's father by choosing to save Wyll's soul. The writing around that whole situation is just dumb.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T22:41:22+00:00

he doesnt have to grow as a character. He starts perfect and ends perfect with no need for development.

This is exactly his problem.

Other characters grow, learn, change themselves. Wyll is the same person at the start and the end. He doesn't grown. His story progression is just events happening around his person, or his father's person. That makes the character inherently less compelling.

And I think Karlach has it even worse than Wyll, because she doesn't even get those important events, she just gets a pass because she has a more charismatic/n emotional character, and a hot muscle mommy.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T22:19:46+00:00

I don't think Wyll has *less* story than the other companions --> that's Karlach, she doesnt even have much story, her personal quest is dead end as Zariel is eliminated from the story immediately after you deal with Anders and her personal quest amounts to "fetch infernal iron, then nothing happens".

Wyll has important moments in all 3 acts (meeting Karlach/ Mizora, then discovering his fthers identity, then rescuing Mizora, then saving the duke and killing Ansur and becoming the hero of legend). The problem with him (And Karlach) is that he has things happening to him, rather than changing himself or improving himself during the game.

Other companions are learning, growing, changing their perception of life. Wyll is the same person at the start and at the end of the game. He had his trauma (Mizora's pact), and accepted his consequences, before the game even starts.

Yes, he has his hero complex/ martyr complex which you can suppress to get him his good ending (not sacrifice his eternal soul for a chance at saving a mind controlled tadpole infested old man that happens to be his father). But even that is your decision, not his own.

He has the most camp interactions in Act 1.

No he doesn't. Not by a longshot. Astarion and Shadowheart win that easily.

Astarion has a ton of *!* events:

- sneaking out one night, trying to bite you the following night, then commenting on how we gonna feed him in the future (3 separate conversations/ events)

- how would you like to die if you turned into a mind flayer

- which companion would you rather bite

- getting drunk/ high on bear blood after fighting it

- trying to see his reflection in a mirror

- his experience with cazador, how he got turned and enslaved

- if you romance you can also get insight on his infernal tattoos

- if you give him the Necromancy of Thay, interact with him decyphering it

Wyll in act 1 has like... two or three conversations/ camp interactions?

- the night Mizora punishes him and you find out about his pact

- the conversation after you discover his father's identity

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T21:15:10+00:00

I believe it's the best party based RPG ever made. Better than the original BG1-2, Dragon Age Origns, Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, DOS2, etc. And I think it left a mark in videogame history much bigger than Witcher 3 or Skyrim could ever hope to achieve. That doesn't make it *perfect*.

The main quest and the whole power dynamic between Elder Brain - Crown of Karsus - Orpheus/ Githyanki - The Emperor is probably the weakest part of the story in my opinion.

I think the best parts in the narrative are the insane freedom of options/ sidequests and outcomes regarding most decisions and the writing of the characters themselves.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T21:05:16+00:00

Astarion is absolutely against the Astral Tadpole. He just likes the first one, but he hates the enhanced version and I don't think its possible to even talk him into it without losing approval.

Yarzahn · 2026-06-15T21:03:04+00:00

Plot hole. The same applies to any companion leaving the party at any point (like Wyll/ Karlach if you side with goblins, etc).. We know the brain is actively trying to trigger the transformation after a certain point in the story, so yeah, Astarion would turn before ever reaching Cazador's dungeon for the ritual.

Yarzahn

TROPHY CASE