You Can Thank ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ For Many of D&D 5.5E’s New and Improved Spells
Wizards of the Coast walked us through some of the big changes to spells in the upcoming 5.5E Player’s Handbook, making magic mighty.
Dungeons & Dragons is a game that shows off just how cool it is to bbe a wizard or any other kind of spellcaster. But that wouldn’t be true if the game wasn’t packed full of cool spells to cast. The new 5.5E Player’s Handbook, coming out September 17th, conveniently enough, will be packed full of more spells than ever, with some 30-odd extra spells over the 2014 version.
In a new video, WotC’s Jeremy Crawford talks through new spells, and updates to old ones. Because it isn’t enough to just port over some of the favorite spells from Tasha’s Cauldron or Xanathat’s Guide. No. A number of spells have been improved as well. Spells that don’t see a lot of play (or any), like Blade Ward and Resistance have been reimagined. While others have been made “less painful” to cast. And a lot of these changes, it turns out, are thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3.
From Produce Flame in Baldur’s Gate 3 to D&D 5.5E – Spells in a Nutshell
This video goes on a journey. Strap in, those 25 odd minutes are a whirlwind tour of magic in D&D’s multiverse. It seems a lot has changed. And one of the biggest changes is the addition of more spells based on the names of old, estalished NPC spellcasters. Though, many NPC spellcasters were once just PCs in the home games that were run in and around TSR during its heyday.
Melf, for instance, of Acid Arrow fame, was a character played Luke Gygax, Gary Gygax’ son. And Melf was short for Male Elf. That last bit might be apocryphal, but the old character sheet is real.
For whatever reason (my theory is to help IPify D&D more) WotC is determined to bring more “recognizable characters” out of the woodwork, like Jallarzi. You might be saying “who? You just made that name up” but no. Jallarzi Sallivarian was one of Mordenkainen’s famous Circle of Eight, which you also know about, don’t you? You don’t? Weiiiiird.
All that to say, there’s more spells with names on them in this edition. It’s not all combing through the woodworks for unused NPCs though. There have been a lot of changes to the way spells are laid out. Now WotC hopes to have a lot of the FAQs for spells addressed in the spell descriptions. As well as better wording for which class gets which spells.
If you want to know what the future of spells in D&D 5.5E looks like, Tasha’s Cauldron was a big clue. The Summon Spells from there have been revamped and included, a lot of the “stat block” spells have been reworked. And more importantly, subclasses get their own special spell lists now as well.
Healers, rejoice, healing spells are better by and large,. And last, but not least, you can thank Baldur’s Gate 3 for a number of these improvements. BG3 did the ol’ “if you want to change a rule, enforce it” trick. In the video Crawford talks about how it was so painful to cast spells like Produce Flame, which have an abysmal action economy cost. Or Cloud of Daggers, which can be moved in 5.5E, thanks to Crawford seeing just how easy it was for enemies to avoid that cloud in BG3.
So if you’re happy with/excited for any of these spell changes, thank Baldur’s Gate 3. Maybe time to start yet another playthrough.
