Baldur’s Gate 3’s best low-level spell doesn’t do what you think it does
Baldur’s Gate 3 has some amazing low-level spells, but one of them has an inaccurate description of its effects, making it sound better than it is.
The Command spell might bethe best level one spell in Baldur’s Gate 3. While it has five different effects baked into a single spell, one stands out—Command: Drop.
Command: Drop forces an enemy to make a Wisdom Saving Throw. If they fail, they drop the weapon they’re using onto the ground. This is practically an essential spell if you want toget the Everburn Bladein the tutorial, which would otherwise involve an incredibly difficult boss fight.
The problem, aspointed out by fans online, is that Command: Drop’s in-game description text in the Spellbook doesn’t actually match its effect. The in-game text states, “Command a creature to drop its weapon on its turn and do nothing else.”
What actually happens is that Command: Drop forces the enemy to let go of their weapon on your turn, not theirs. It also doesn’t prevent them from taking Actions on their turn.
As such, the enemy will spend an Action picking up their weapon on their turn, but that doesn’t prevent them from switching to a different weapon or just running up to you and hitting you with an Unarmed Attack.
Still, Command: Drop is an amazing spell when used against armed opponents. While spells like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter can also stop enemies from taking actions, it gives them more saving throws whenever they take damage.
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Meanwhile, Command: Drop will force the enemy to either waste their turn picking up and equipping the weapon or will ensure they use a much weaker attack, as unarmed combat is really weak in Baldur’s Gate 3 for any humanoidwithout levels in the Monk class.
It’s surprising that the Command: Drop text hasn’t been updated in the near year since Baldur’s Gate 3 launched, but it will hopefully be amended before Larian Studios is finished with the game.
