Baldur's Gate 3 Inspired a Dungeons & Dragons Rule Change
Dungeons & Dragons' lead designer Jeremy Crawford was inspired by his experience in Baldur's Gate 3 to make changes to specific spells.
Wizards of the Coast is introducing a new set of rules to Dungeons & Dragons this year, with the 2024 Player's Handbook set to change a variety of details in the beloved tabletop franchise, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. A new video uploaded to the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel outlines updates to spells, including new additions and changes to those returning. Jeremy Crawford, the game's lead designer outlines what these changes will mean for some fan-favorite spells, while noting an interesting source of inspiration for one of these changes.
It was playing Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 and experiencing spells like Cloud of Daggers and Produce Flame that inspired Crawford to want to make a key change to their casting. Crawford elaborates on the common frustration he shares with many D&D spell casters in that once Cloud of Daggers is cast, it's area-of-effect (AOE) is only effective for a limited time because, obviously, the enemies just move out of this radius to avoid the effects – a frustration that could be fixed if the spell was made movable. While this idea had already been present in Crawford's mind, experiencing the spells in a new way while playing Baldur's Gate 3 is what made the change official.
"Even when I cast Cloud of Daggers in Baldur's Gate 3, I want to be able to move it," Crawford expresses. "Some spells that were really painful to cast in terms of their action economy are far less painful. An example of that is Produce Flame, the Druid cantrip. That cantrip was really painful to set up – once you got it going it could be fun to hurl the fire, [but] now it's way easy to cast it. And that is, funnily enough, another one where it was not only a pain to cast in the tabletop game but when I was playing Baldur's Gate 3 was excruciating ... and it was while playing Baldur's Gate 3 I thought 'we are going to redesign Produce Flame so there will not be as much friction to cast this cantrip'."
There's plenty to read about the updated rules overall while awaiting the 2024 Player's Handbook to release later this year, including the changes to classes like Wizard, Warlock, Barbarian, Paladin, and more, plus specific abilities like Wild Shape. ComicBook has also written up everything you need to know about the rule changes, which you can check out here.
