Best Baldur's Gate 3 Spells for the early game

In Baldur's Gate 3’s magic-infused world of Faerun, almost every character can call on spells during combat.

Whether it’s a bog-standard fireball or the divine blessing of a deity, the best Baldur’s Gate 3 spells have far reaching effects that can swing the tide of battle and have devastating consequences for both enemies and allies.

However, there is a dizzying amount of spells to choose from almost every time you level up a wizard, warlock, druid or other magic-wielding class. To help you work out which you should add to your party, here are some of the best ones we've used so far, as well as the best times to use them!

Best Baldur's Gate 3 spells

• Eldritch Blast

The basic Warlock spell is deceptively brilliant. It does good damage at all levels, but not only can you get it to scale more based on your character’s Charisma stat, it also has a huge knockback factor which sends enemies sailing.

What’s not immediately obvious though, is that you can use this forceful push sneakily to your advantage.

Is there a gaping chasm next to where you’re fighting? Eldritch Blast your enemies into it. Is there a pit of super-heated lava conveniently placed behind your foes? Eldritch Blast them into it.

You get the gist.

• Hold Person/Command

I’m including these two under the same entry because their utility is very similar. As you might have noticed when enemies do it to you, making a character miss their turn is incredibly powerful, bordering on OP.

If you can lock an enemy down, even humanoid bosses, either with Hold Person or by commanding them to get prone, you gain a huge momentum swing which can let you overwhelm even the toughest opponents.

Obviously this doesn’t work with large beasts, but if you haven’t tried these more advanced debuff spells yet, you will be surprised by how strong they can be when combined tactically with your melee characters’ abilities.

• Sleep

Another way to achieve a similar effect to Hold Person and Command is with Sleep, only this spell can hit multiple weaker targets within a given area.

Sleep is cancelled when a target receives damage however, so it’s best used to prioritise. Cast Sleep on a handful of targets to remove their actions from the queue while your other characters deal with the rest.

It also causes enemies that are still awake to mess around shoving their allies to wake them up, so it causes all kinds of useful disruption.

• Moonbeam

If you’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 for even a short time, you will know the pain of missing what seems like a surefire hit. However, with the druid spell Moonbeam, you can all but guarantee a 100% chance to hit.

Outside of just dealing good damage, the utility of being able to accurately and reliably finish off low-health enemies is extremely strong. What’s more, as long as you maintain concentration you can use your main action in a turn to move the Moonbeam wherever you want on the battlefield.

So not only is it one strong, guaranteed hit, but potentially multiple guaranteed powerful attacks - all for a single spell slot.

• Grease/Slow/Stinking Cloud

Abandon all hope ye who try to walk on a greasy floor.

If you’re tactically minded, zoning with hazards is an effective method of dealing with large groups of enemies and stopping them from overwhelming your party just with the sheer number of actions they can take.

Grease doesn’t sound great, but anyone that’s had it used against them will know how annoying it is to deal with. Set it up at choke points that melee enemies need to run through and you’re laughing.

More advanced versions that make enemies skip their entire action, or slow and damage them, become available as you level up. You should have at least one, since they’re such a powerful tool to add to your skill set as a wizard!

• Scorching Ray

Dealing with multiple enemies at once can be tricky, and Scorching Rays gives you a powerful method of splitting your damage to great effect.

Imagine a situation where you need to finish off one weak enemy while being pressured by two more. Scorching Ray lets you fire off one bolt to clean out the rest of that first enemy’s health while still engaging the rest.

Usually, finishing an enemy feels like a chore because it wastes your full action for that turn without getting the most out of it. Scorching Ray is a solution to this problem; a very hot solution.

• Friends

Spells aren’t only for combat. Outside of battle you can still find uses for many types of spells, and Friends is a great one to have on hand.

It lets you gain advantage in a persuasion roll against a character, meaning you can roll two dice and use the higher score when calculating your throw. This either helps you get the outcome you want, or saves you time reloading your quicksave from before a conversation depending on how you play.

Be aware though, outside of the easiest difficulty level characters can become aware that you’re charming them, so try not to spam Friends too hard.

• Misty Step

Who wouldn’t want to be able to teleport?

Misty Step is not just a great spell for getting out of trouble, but repositioning yourself to gain an advantage over enemies.

This is great for both mages to get out of the thick of battle to rain spells down melee enemies, and Githyanki fighters looking to close distance quickly.

Also, it’s great for traversing in the open world. See a chest on a faraway ledge you can’t reach? Just use Misty Step to get there, collect the loot and hop back!

• Speak with Animals

Finally, this is more for roleplay, but you should try to have at least one method of speaking to animals in your party. Warlocks, druids and barbarians can all do it.

Being able to understand and communicate with animals provides a ton of hilarious, sweet or simply unique interactions that you would completely miss out on otherwise.

And while it might seem niche, you can draw upon the spell more often than you might think. It helps resolve side quests, get into inaccessible areas, or gives you an advantage during a tough battle.