During the Baldur’s Gate 3 livestream today, Larian Studios revealed the Druid class and showed off some of its abilities. The new character will be added with Patch 4, which is the biggest patch so far for the Early Access title. According to the developer, the Druid is the most versatile of the party, as they can both heal their fellow adventurers while also magically ensnaring and destroying their foes. They can also form a defense using their transformative Wild Shape feature. Druids can transform their shape in order to adapt to different situations, turning into creatures such as a dire wolf, raven, polar bear, spider, cat, badger, Deep Rothe, and even an Aberrant Shape. This is accomplished via your choice of Druidic Circle, which also reflects the way they approach roleplay, battle, and issues of morality. Druidic Circles are manifestations of how Druids organize to interpret nature, balance, and cultural tradition. Those who choose Circle of the Moon become stewards of nature who gain the ability to morph into more powerful combative Wild Shapes. Theres’ also Circle of the Land which connects them with wastelands, coasts, deserts, forests, grasslands, mountains, swamps, and even the otherworldly realm of the Underdark. Based on what type of geography they’re connected to, they gain additional power. With over 30 new spells and abilities being added, here’s what you’ll get to cast in Baldur’s Gate 3:
Entangle - Animate vines, weeds, and creeping roots to snare and restrain your foes in a specific area. Flame Blade - Summon a scimitar of flame, shedding bright light around you and swinging it to scorch enemies. Moonbeam - Create a damaging pillar of radiant moonlight. Produce Flame - Light dark areas with this flickering flame in your palm, illuminate torches and immolate patches of flammable liquid. Shillelagh - When more powerful spells fail the Druid, this Cantrip imbues a melee weapon like a club or staff with glowing energy and makes it hit much harder. Thorn Whip - This prickly vine lasso cuts your enemies and yanks them closer to you. Barkskin - The Druid turns their skin, or an ally’s, as hard as the bole of an oak tree. Destroy Water - Remove damaging fog or hazardous puddles in your path. Enhance Ability - Give an ally or yourself Bear’s Endurance, Bull’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, Eagle’s Splendor, Fox’s Cunning or Owl’s Wisdom. Flaming Sphere - A ball of fire that sticks around, Druids can keep this blazing orb rolling into the path of their foes. Goodberry - These berries grant some healing that can be carried in your inventory or eaten right away. Heat Metal - Superheating metal can have harmful - or even deadly - effects, especially if an opponent of yours is wearing that metal. Protection From Poison - This spell neutralizes toxins in the blood and also acts as a silver bullet against all known forms of poison. Spike Growth - Druids can transform nearby terrain into a nest of barbs that slows and damages their foes.
The panel also covered the ways in which Larian has and continues to quickly address and work with player feedback to create tangible changes and quality of life improvements to the game. Along with the Druid, Patch 4: Nature’s Power brings a number of improvements and changes to the game, including fixes, and some major quality of life improvements, and polished cinematics. Many of which have been requested by the community or influenced by community feedback. Here’s what you can expect straight from Larian:
Optional Loaded Dice: This optional change helps smooth out the extremes of the bell curve. It retains the core elements of RNG, ensuring a player can no longer be unlucky or super lucky with several dice rolls in a row. The system also runs in two parts. Dice rolls in the dialogue are different from those in combat, and this change only impacts the d20. Not damage rolls.
Speak with dead and polished cinematics: Cinematics in special cases like Speak with Dead have made huge improvements along with the ability to join conversations as an animal. The patch also adds improved animations with the Druids in the Grove as they cast spells and use their abilities. Major improvements have been made both in animation and lighting.
Multiplayer: Those embarking on their adventure together with friends can now see other players Equipment, Spells, Inventory, and Character Sheets. As well as the ability to take and place items to and from. There is no lock function - that will come in a future patch. Your friends could, for example, steal your items, because there’s no lock function yet, but there’s no rush because they’re your friends.
Quality of life: A series of much-requested features have been implemented. Players can now target friends and enemies with spells and equipment by clicking on their portraits. As an alternative to trying to click on a character in the world, players can now easily select and attack whoever they want from the UI. We also added a flee button for the tacticians among us. And using torches has never been easier thanks to the long-awaited addition of the torch button.
Improved Cinematics: Narrative cinematics has been given a new lease of life thanks to a fresh lighting pass, resulting in some truly spectacular sequences in which the story of BG3 is told.
The patch notes will be published ahead of Patch 4’s launch, which is coming very soon when it’s ready. The Early Access game is based on Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, and the final full release is expected to be around 100 hours long. As well as turn-based combat, Baldur’s Gate 3 can be played entirely in turn-based mode if you want to. We got to sample hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 gameplay early last year. It is in Early Access on Steam, GOG, Stadia and Mac, and if you are just picking it up, or plan to, be sure to check out our Baldur’s Gate 3 character build guide.
