Not really sure. I’ve avoided reading too much about it to prevent spoilers. I’ve just seen it mentioned in a general sense. How much is “real” and how much is Reddit bitchin’ is anyone’s guess.
Maybe I’m an idiot, but there were some revelations for me in this video.
The first one was something I feel really stupid about. Spells that last until a long rest should be cast immediately after a long rest. They are effectively a permanent boost for a caster as long as you remember to keep casting it. Mage Armor is the first example they give. You cast it and you have boosted armor until you take a long rest, in which case your spells are refreshed anyway and you can freely cast it again. It’s a waste to cast it in combat and really, if you make sure you always cast it right away, it’s like having an always-on class or race feature.
There are other really good tips for spellcasting. I wish this video came out a while back but it’s only a day old. It really makes me feel a lot better about spellcasters in general.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that a shit ton of spells are concentration spells, you can only have one active at a time and if you cast another one it overrides the last. Why did my Cloud of Daggers suddenly disappear? Because you just cast Hold Person, idiot.
On the right edge of my custom bar, I keep all the “buff” spells I want to cast after each long rest. Makes it easy to find them again, and be sure I don’t miss any.
That’s an awesome tip.
Fun tip if you use Karlach (or any other barbarian) and a mage: Karlach can add her Con bonus to AC, but only if she isn’t wearing armor (including boots or helmets that are tagged as armor!). She can wear clothing that gives various bonuses - either robes, or barbarian/monk focused “clothing”. Mage armor doesn’t break this, so Karlach can rock AC of 14+Dex+Con which, for me at least, was higher than the AC she got from +2 Hide armor (medium) and the clothing had better properties than the basic hide armor (saving it for when I get Halsin!).
I know this, and yet I continously do stupid stuff like cast Spiritual Weapon when I have a Bless up. I wish there was a confirmation prompt (toggleable of course) that said “hey stupid, are you sure?”.
Especially bad with the “till long rest (concentration)” buffs - I always forget about those.
If you can keep Karlach in Mage Armor, using the naked armor bonus is worth it. Otherwise it’s hard to juggle STR, CON and DEX to make it worthwhile over just wearing a Breastplate/Half-Plate. My char doesn’t really do STR so with DEX/CON pumped up and a few extra bonuses, I have naked AC 21 right now. Now I kind of want to mooch Mage Armor off Gale/Wyll 
Do you mean Spirit Guardians? I’m not trying to be pedantic, rather Spiritual Weapon is a great (non-concentration) spell and I’d hate for someone to not cast it because they think it’s interfering with their concentration buffs.
The 5e TTRPG version can’t take hits AND requires the cleric’s bonus action to strike each round and is still considered a top tier cleric spell. The BG3 version is even better.
Huh. That doesn’t work in 5e proper. That’s really good to know.
I looked real quick and Mage Armor is self only. So you’d have to cast it off a scroll each time unless you have a magic item that casts it.
At least, when I tried to buff my char with it, Wyll just buffed himself despite me targeting my char.
Do you know Mage Armor from your spellbook, or from an item or something? It’s definitely not self only as a Wizard spell, Gale cast it on Karlach for me (when she had a helmet that counted as armor on I had an error about targeting an armored character but after removing it I had no issue).
However, you guys are right, this doesn’t work. Mage Armor sets your AC to 13+Dex if that’s higher than your normal AC. I was mistaken because 13+Dex was higher than 10+Con+Dex and also higher than hide armor.
I was wrong! Mage armor is correctly implemented as 13+Dex
I could have sworn it did break my bless! Will have to try again next time I play.
You know what, I cast it off Wyll who had it as a Warlock incantation. That’s probably the problem. Mind you, you say it doesn’t stack anyway but minor mystery solved.
So I finished up the rest of the Underdark quests. I even stumbled on the way down to the Kuo Toa cavern when I was on the way back out. Kuo Toa have always been some of my favorite critters, and the way they’re done in BG3 is absolutely stunning (though much more fish than frog - starting on 3e they’ll always be frogs to me, haha.
I then turned in all of the quests for our friend who is a Fun Guy, if you know what I mean. I gave Gale the newly assembled staff that boosts cold magic so that’s a win.
At least Mr. Fun Guy’s quest involves sailing out and back across the lake so I know that’s possible without ending Act 1. In-character I would want to do the Mountain Pass next I think because the creche is still a good way forward. I’m not sure if going to the Mountain Pass will cancel all my remaining Act 1 quests or not, and if so whether this Myconid quest to kill the Drow will fail or not…
I definitely destroyed a rather important mushroom
Is it possible for a druid to load multiple instances of the same spell? I’d like to load up Shadowheart with multiple instances of healing spells at the expense of others, does that make sense?
Spells in 5e aren’t “cast and forget” like in some editions. You memorize Cure Wounds and can cast it as many times as you have spell slots. You can even cast it using higher level slots for increased effect (or just because you’re out of level one slots)
Thanks. It just seems like Shadowheart spends a lot of time in battles with nothing to offer. Once she’s out of healing spells, she pretty much just miss with fireballs.
Unfortunately, Shadowheart’s Fire Bolt comes from her half-elf heritage and not her class so it’s based on her INT score which is nothing to write home about (and not worth increasing for one cantrip). Out of the box, she has a -1 to hit with it.
If SH seems to run out of things to do, consider giving her your various Grease bottles and other throwable alchemy products. Another option is to respec her into a different domain. Trickery, while thematic for her faith, is pretty mediocre. Life domain will increase her healing abilities, Light domain adds multiple wizard spells to her repertoire including Fireball, Tempest domain is weather-related stuff and War domain is martial. Life, Tempest and War all also give Heavy Armor proficiency so she can better suit up for melee fights or use spells like Spirit Guardians and wade into combat.
I’d also consider changing her stats while you’re under the hood. WIS 17 (15 +2 mod), STR 15 (14 +1 mod), CON 14, DEX 12, CHA 8, INT 8. For her first Feat, raise WIS to 18 and STR to 16. That way she’ll hopefully actually land some blows in combat instead of whiffing constantly. Alternately, flip CON and STR so she has more hitpoints and can maintain Concentration better when hit.
If you don’t want to muck around with all that, I’d give her some stuff to throw, have her cast Bless in combat and use the Spiritual Weapon spell for extra attacks each turn. She does feel pretty lame in the early part of the game and takes her a while to really develop into a potent force in combat.