One Low-Level Baldur’s Gate 3 Spell Is Incredibly OP If You Know How To Use It

Summary Baldur's Gate 3 adapts many DnD spells, including magic missile, which can be overpowered with specific items and builds.

The game's act structure and item management system allow players to collect and use powerful items to enhance spells like magic missile.

Magic missile's reliability and satisfying sound design make it a popular choice for players.

Baldur's Gate 3 has done an admirable job in porting many spells from Dungeon's & Dragons' immense list. Although it hasn't managed to go beyond the sixth-level tier of spells (DnD 5e goes up to ninth-level spells), BG3 has adapted a massive number of them, including the famous fireball and the incredibly powerful disintegrate. When players get more powerful, they expect that the higher level spells that are unlocked will become more useful, but low-level spells will always have their place if used in a cunning and tactical way.

Although some cantrips will always be of use, like mage hand or a warlock's favorite, eldritch blast, many low-level spells find themselves being underrated and underused. Many defensive and support orientated spells come to mind, like shield or cure wounds, with the latter often being upcasted to keep the party alive. Some offensive spells can be augmented to not only scale well, but also deal devastating damage at any level. Magic missile is one such instance of this and many builds utilize wizards who just use this spell.

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Magic Missile Can Be Incredibly OP In Baldur's Gate 3

A Spell That Never Misses

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At the start of the game, the reliable and consistent damage of magic missile is extremely useful, especially because low-level characters often have a hard time hitting their mark. It will always hit a target in range, provided that neither shield nor counterspell is cast in response and the movement of the cast projectiles often curve around cover, rather than being fired in a straight line. This helps hit foes in tricky positions and can be fired individually to hit different targets.

Unfortunately, the 1d4 damage dice that magic missile uses doesn't help it scale well beyond the lower levels, especially because the damage only increases by 1d4+1 per level that it is upcasted. This makes the spell quickly obsolete in DnD, but in BG3 there are many items that improve magic missile to the point of being completely overpowered, especially for a first-level spell. It becomes a reliable source of damage that can be used throughout all three acts.

Magic missile can be learned naturally by sorcerers, wizards, Arcane Trickster rogues, and Eldritch Knight fighters. Other classes will need specific items which grant the ability to cast magic missile.

Where Baldur's Gate 3 and a normal DnD campaign differ is the magical items at the player's disposal. In DnD, players need to attune to most of these items and typically have a limit of three. These items cannot be reliably sought after either, as their distribution is up to a DM, but BG3 lets players use as many magic items as they can fit on a character. Its nature as a video game means that the retrieval of certain items is reliable and players can collect what they need in order to construct an ultra-specific build.

Ways To Make Magic Missile Overpowered

Technically, Players Don't Need To Be A Spellcaster

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Any item that does an extra instance of damage per attack will help bolster magic missile, since the spell relies on attacking multiple times. Even if these buffs are small, they add up when firing multiple missiles, and to increase the number of projectiles without needing to upcast the spell, the Psychic Spark necklace from the Underdark in Act 1 is pivotal. Players can also pick up the Spellsparkler in Act 1 too, and the damage will already see a considerable improvement.

Psychic Spark will give the user magic missile, meaning that the player character doesn't need to be a spellcaster to use it.

BG3's Phalar Aluve longsword will practically double the damage of magic missile with its Shriek ability, and is useful in most instances. This will add an extra d4 to each of the missiles hitting a target, but if a player is using a spellcaster as a glorified magic missile turret, the longsword will probably have to be used by someone else in the party. Still, with the other Act 1 items, magic missile can quickly become a cheat code, and it only gets better further in the game.

Other items that will improve magic missile include: Hat of the Sharp Caster, which will ensure each missile's damage roll can't be one or two, Callous Glowing to deal extra radiant damage, and Markoheshir, a staff which will let the next spell be cast without using a spell slot (useful for upcasting magic missile for free). There are even more items too, although these are the most obvious to use. Although this makes magic missile strong, there was a glitch with the Spellmight Gloves that made the spell ludicrous, dealing 120-160 damage by Act 3 at first-level, but this has been patched out of the game.

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Magic Missile Was Never Meant To Be This Strong

But The Overwhelming Feeling Of Power Is Amazing

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Outside of items, there are other ways to improve a proud magic missile spammer. Strangely, taking a couple of levels into fighter for Action Surge would work to cast the spell several times a turn, or casting haste to give the caster more actions that turn. A powerful sorcerer build with Twinned Spell can cast it twice a turn as well, causing damage to skyrocket. Again, there are several ways to do this and a Potion of Speed always helps too, but the focus should be on firing as many magic missiles as possible.

Although the damage that can be achieved by using nothing but magic missile is more than mighty, reliability is what makes it so good. Usually, magic missile's trade-off is low damage for a guaranteed hit, but when bolstered with all the best items, it becomes a guaranteed heavy hit that will land provided that the enemy is in a player character's line of sight. Outside the mechanical benefits of the spell, the sound design also helps all the projectiles landing feel very satisfactory, especially when all the numbers start flying on-screen.

Baldur's Gate 3 may be an adaptation of DnD 5e, but some of its differences lead to its best moments. Making use of a spell that usually doesn't scale well in the tabletop version is incredibly fun and helps players feel reasonably clever. That and completely ignoring the frustrations of poor RNG with magic missile's guaranteed hits will always be useful no matter the encounter. Mages with shield or counterspell will be a magic missile spammer's kryptonite, however, but a dragon here and there will be blasted to smithereens.