D&D: Five Surprisingly Useful Conditions in ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’
Here’s why making your enemies bleed is the key to success in Baldur’s Gate 3—along with these other helpful conditions.
Baldur’s Gate 3 takes the rules of D&D 5th Edition and sort of remixes them until they feel a little more powerful. Case in point, it adds a number of new conditions, in the game called “Status Effects” that can be surprisingly useful if you know how to stack them up.
But you might not know what some of the best ones do. Especially if all you’re used to are the rules of 5th Edition D&D. So with that in mind, here are five surprisingly useful conditions in Baldur’s Gate 3. Time to start winning those Tactical Mode fights.
Bleeding
Bleeding is an incredibly useful, if underrated Condition in Baldur’s Gate 3. The tooltip says it causes the target to take 2 slashing damage at the start of each turn. But this condition also conveys disadvantage on Constitution saves and is removed by healing. Suddenly all of those spiked bulbs that you can find in the very first area of the game have a lot more use to them.
Especially since the disadvantage on Constitution saves makes you more vulnerable to other conditions. Conditions like…
Dazed
Dazed is another great one. Dazed inflicts a number of penalties on a foe, including disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws, making them unable to take Reactions, and removing the Dexterity bonus from their armor class. Which makes most of the foes you fight that much easier to hit.
It also means that you can use spells like Command all the more readily, which can force, say, certain hellish commanders to drop their weapons. And then an enterprising Mage Hand can pick it up.
Off Balance
Off Balance is the best friend of anyone using a rapier, shortsword, scimitar, or one very specific and heavy axe. This Baldur’s Gate 3 condition not only imposes disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks (making it easier to shove an opponent around), but attack rolls against the target have advantage, so your whole party can just lay into the off-balance foe.
Chest Trauma
The humble morningstar often gets a bad rap. But in Baldur’s Gate 3 it’s one of the most useful weapons to have since you can use it to perform the Heartstopper weapon action, which can potentially inflict Chest Trauma. And being affected by Chest Trauma as a condition just sounds awful. And it is awful. Not only do you have Disadvantage on Constitution saves, but you also lose one action.
Wet
Finally, the Wet condition, why are you laughing, is an important one because it can protect your party members from burning and fire damage. But you can make someone Wet to prepare for a massive impact too.
When someone is Wet in Baldur’s Gate 3, they take double damage from Cold and Lightning sources, which can very quickly end a fight. Create or Destroy Water has never been this useful.
What conditions do you find useful in Baldur’s Gate 3?
