BG3 – Summoned creatures, throwing potions, and consoles

I have a general disclaimer associated with my series of Baldur’s Gate 3 posts: Anyone looking for tips how to solo Honor mode is probably looking in the wrong place.

For this post, I’m weakening that disclaimer. The disparate topics I’m going to discuss are advanced enough that folks pursuing playthroughs at higher difficulty levels might find them useful.

The opposite side of that coin is that if you don’t play BG3 (and thank you for at least starting to read this post!), or you’re sticking to Explorer difficulty, it may not be as interesting.

Who am I to say what interests you? Let’s dive in!

Angela and her minions. — This is Arctic Druid Angela with some of her minions from playthrough 8. A creature that is summoned through magic might be called a “minion”, a “summons”, or a “familiar” depending on the context.

The spark that led to this essay was a video from Garsen. To give some context:

Garsen is a skilled BG3 player who posts videos with useful character builds. I like his build videos because they’re short and to-the-point; many of the videos in my YouTube BG3 playlist are long and filled with commentary from folks who love the sound of their own voice. (I should edit that playlist down one of these days.) (To be fair, I also love the sound of my own voice, and I love my own hypocrisy.)

Garsen also posts extended streams of his complete BG3 Honor-mode runs in which he demonstrates the builds he’s presented in his short videos. Each playthrough takes several multi-hour videos. To be honest, I haven’t watched most of them.

In the following video, he’s demonstrating a Dark Ranger build. He doesn’t seem to have a short video on this build yet. It’s basically a mix of Ranger and Necromancer Wizard.

Here’s the video, cued to the part that sparked my interest and generated this essay. SPOILER ALERT: this video takes place during a key story-related combat in BG3; if you’ve never played the game through at least once, it may give away some surprises (though Garsen skips all the cutscenes). If you don’t want to watch the whole thing (I only watched the last two hours myself), I’ll summarize some key points afterwards:

My notes:

Garsen takes his time. He plans his strategy. He explains his thinking at each point in his plan. I acknowledge this is tedious to watch if you’re not into advanced BG3; it’s fascinating if you are.

He does something I’ve never seen before: He groups his summoned creatures together (skeleton archers; very handy; don’t leave the graveyard without one), places a potion bottle in the midst of them, then breaks the bottle so the potion affects all the skeletons at once.
If I were sensible, I’d capture screenshots from the video. Since I’m not, and to give you a visual reference, here’s Jaheira from playthrough 1/14 with a few of her skeletal archers and fungal zombies in the background. My character, Bellandria, stands behind Jaheira and to the right; she’s slightly bemused by all the zombies and skeletons that surround her.

He continues that trick during the combat. He places Speed Potions (for example) in-between his skeletons, and has a different summoned creature (e.g., a raven) break the bottle so that the grouped skeletons get the benefit.

At the times he only wants a single summoned creature to use an item (e.g., coat their arrows with poison), he has a summoned creature use an item directly out of his character’s inventory.

Those aren’t the only tactics I saw him use that I hadn’t seen before. But the others either fall into the category of “Honor mode is harder” or “pay attention to the tooltips”. It was his use of consumables that was a surprise to me.

I reported my observations to Real Angela. She is not as interested in detailed tactical planning as I am. Her interest was in trying to conserve Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength by having four characters stand close together, placing the Elixir in the middle, and breaking it. (If you watch the above video, you’ll see Garsen doing the same thing, only to find that the attacks of his summons were based on Dexterity, not Strength.)

What Real Angela reported surprised me: It didn’t really work. The Elixir of Hill Giant Strength worked, but only temporarily: it only lasted ten combat rounds. Normally, an Elixir’s effects last until you next take a Long Rest.

Huh?

I had to investigate.

Meet my consumable investigation team. On the left is Galaxy Angela; we’ll learn why she is not called “Arctic Druid Angela” anymore in my future essay on playthrough 8’/2.5. Next to her is one of the creatures she can summon, a Dryad. On the right is Wyll.

The remaining valued member of the team was Karlach, who boldly volunteered to be practice target.

Elixirs and potions and coatings, oh my!

Just in case you’re not familiar with this terminology, I’ll set up some definitions. If you already know the difference between a potion and an elixir in BG3, skip this section.

Potions, weapon coatings, and elixirs are part of a broader category called “consumables“: Stuff that’s gone from your inventory when you’ve used it. For example, if you cast a Fireball from a scroll, your character doesn’t have the scroll anymore.

An elixir is a consumable that (normally) applies a status benefit to a character that lasts until the next Long Rest. For the most part, a character can only have the benefits of one elixir at a time; the exception are some items available from a specific Drow vendor that are called “elixirs” but behave more like a potion.

The “one at a time” aspect of elixirs means that most players come to see them as a “day-long” item akin to an equipment slot; e.g., a character can only wear one helmet a time, a character can only benefit from one elixir at a time. If you’re being attacked with both fire attacks and poison attacks in the same combat, you can drink an Elixir of Fire Resistance or an Elixir of Poison Resistance, but you can’t have both effects at once. (You can drink one then the other in the middle of combat, though.)

Unlike an elixir, a character may have the benefits of several potions at the same time. If a character drinks a Potion of Animal Speaking and a Potion of Mind Reading, they get both effects until the next Long Rest.

Potions typically have one of three durations:
- Until the next Long Rest; e.g., a Potion of Animal Speaking.
- For ten combat rounds; e.g., a Potion of Flying. Big exception: a Potion of Speed lasts only three turns.
- Instant. The main examples are the various healing potions available throughout the game: The potion restores a character’s hit points, and that’s it.

While potions and elixirs add status benefits to characters, a coating modifies the effects of weapons that characters have equipped. Coatings are always transient, lasting no more than ten turns after a character uses them on their weapon.

An example is my new favorite coating at low levels, Basic Poison; my upper-level favorite is Crawler Mucus.

Throwing stuff

For the sake of brevity, let’s define a “liquid” as a potion or an elixir. There are other liquids in the game; for example, you might want a character to drink some wine. But let’s stick to magical liquids for this essay.

A character can drink a liquid; this uses a Bonus Action. But you can also have a character use an Action to throw a liquid at another character.

A classic case is to throw a healing potion at a character who is damaged or dying. In the former case, perhaps the damaged character won’t have a chance to drink a healing potion before the next time an enemy attacks them; in the latter, the dying character can’t drink a liquid.

Here’s a basic example. Galaxy Angela is throwing a potion at Lae’zel. Lae’zel’s target circle is highlighted, which means that the potion will affect her after Galaxy Angela throws it.

You have to be careful when throwing potions. Here we see Galaxy Angela aiming directly at Karlach, with at 50% chance to hit. If the liquid’s bottle actually hits the target, it might damage them in addition to or instead of having the effect you want. It might also cause the character to react negatively to being hit.

Here’s the aftermath of the above liquid toss. Galaxy Angela missed (with only a 50% chance to hit, that’s not surprising) but Karlach receives +45 points of healing anyway.

Normally, this is the way you want to do it: If you see a “patch” as the target image for a throw, aim it so the patch overlaps the target but doesn’t directly strike them.

Then afterwards Karlach is healed (for +45 points in this case) and there’s no “miss”.

Another reason to “aim with the patch, not at the target” is that in the case of some liquids there’ll be a brief one-turn cloud left behind, as you can see at Lae’zel’s feet. In tactical combat, you might be able to have a another character pass through that cloud to receive the effect.

Rather than relying on that cloud, a more common tactic is to group characters in a small space within the confines of the patch. Here we see that Galaxy Angela has gathered her minions closely together to be within the patch’s outline.

One trick that Garsen shows in his video is to place a bottle containing a liquid in the midst of a group of characters.

Thanks to photo mode, I could take a picture that more clearly shows the position of the bottle with respect to the characters.

Mor’lith then breaks the bottle with a simple attack. In the video, Garsen might have a bird familiar peck at it with its beak.

This is the aftermath of Mor’lith’s attack on the bottle. The minions in the cloud are healed (you can see “37, +51, +42″). You can also see that the poor bottle was “Stricken with Eldritch Inertia” due to whatever weapon she was holding, but that doesn’t affect the healed characters.

Patches vs. circles vs. dots

Not all liquids have a patch as a target area.

For reference, here’s Galaxy Angela tossing a liquid with the patch effect as shown in the above photos.

Other liquids have a circular area of effect. In this case, it’s an Elixir of Necrotic Resistance.

This one has a simple “dot” as its “area” of effect.

What’s the difference? I wasn’t able to fully quantify it. From observation:

If a liquid has a patch as its area of effect, all the targets within that patch have the effect you’d expect. There’ll often be a “cloud” for one turn that might be used tactically.

It’s not just healing potions that have patches or clouds. Many poisons can be thrown as grenades with an area of effect. Throwing Karabasan’s Poison in just the right place can seriously ruin an enemy’s day.

If a liquid has a circle as its area of effect, there will never be a cloud afterwards. It’s also a signal that the effect may not be what you expect (see below). Typically elixirs (as opposed to potions and poisons) have a circular area of effect when thrown.

If a liquid has a dot as its “area” effect, it won’t affect anything at all when it lands, not even if you successfully hit the target directly. It’s a liquid that’s meant to be consumed by an individual, not thrown.

Let’s look a bit closer at circular areas of effect.

Here we see Galaxy Angela throwing an Elixir of Fire Resistance at Karlach. Karlach doesn’t need it; as a Tiefling she’s already resistant to fire. But she bravely volunteered to be a practice target anyway, so that all her friends (that includes you!) can learn something.

Afterwards we see that throwing the elixir at Karlach had the same effect as it would have had if Karlach had consumed it; you can see “Fire Resistance” under Karlach’s name.

To show you what’s what, Karlach then drink an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength. It has the usual effect of drinking an elixir: a bonus that will last until the next Long Rest. Since usually only one Elixir can affect a character at at time, the bonus from the Elixir of Fire Resistance is lost.

Now Galaxy Angela throws an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength at Karlach…

…but the effect is not the same as if Karlach had drank it. First, the old effect of the previous Elixir goes away…

…then the new elixir takes effect. But this one is transient: It will only last ten turns.

Other liquids can still be thrown on a character. Galaxy Angela has just thrown a Potion of Flying at Karlach. It has its normal ten-turn duration. Since it’s a potion and not an elixir, Karlach can have both effects at the same time.

Some elixirs have no area of effect at all. Galaxy Angela is trying to affect both the Wood Woad and the Dryad with an Elixir of the Colossus. But it shows only a dot as a target. Throwing it will do nothing.

Minions and liquids

As I mentioned above, in the video Garsen uses area-of-effect potions to give his minions Flying and Speed. In BG3, especially at the higher difficulty levels, this is an excellent tactic for complex fights.

Here are some pictures to illustrate what Garsen did. The Dryad, Scratch (such a good boy!), and the Wood Woad have been positioned around a flying potion.

Scratch could just drink the potion himself, but he’s more generous than that.

Instead, he bites the bottle, breaking it to create a cloud.

Thanks to Scratch’s quick thinking, all three of them are affected by the potion.

If we look at the Wood Woad’s information display, we can see (middle of the right-hand column) that it has 8 turns remaining in which it could fly.

As more practical proof, we can see that a Flight icon has been temporarlly added to Scratch’s skill wheel (the 7 o’clock position).

Scratch can now move by flying, at least for a couple more turns. Aside from the word “Fly”, you can tell that this is flight and not merely jumping because of the feathers floating around Scratch.

Garsen also has his minions consume individual liquids from his inventory. I didn’t know you could do that!

It turns out the reason I didn’t know is that you can’t… on consoles. Only players who use the desktop interface have this ability.

Let’s look at this in more detail.

Here’s the Dryad summoned by Galaxy Angela. Previously Galaxy Angela placed a bottle of Serpent Fang Toxin on the ground. If the player positions the Dryad just right, she’ll be able to coat her staff with the poison.

After the player clicks X on their controller, the game confirms that the Dryad’s staff is poisoned. A weapon coating only lasts 10 turns. You can’t throw a weapon coating to affect more than one character at a time (through you might create a poison cloud with something like Malice). One option might be to place bottles on the ground just outside the battlefield before combat, then have each minion coat their weapon as combat begins.

On consoles, there’s no quick way to examine the items that a minion carries. This is the information display for the Dryad before she coated her weapon…

…and here’s the same display just after she coats the weapon. The graphics effect around the weapon is the only clue that her weapon is still coated with poison.

There’s no way I’ve been able to find that will let you know how much longer a minion’s weapon coating will last. In contrast, here we see that Galaxy Angela has used the Serpent Fang Toxen on her staffs. There’s visual confirmation with that green glow.

If we click on her off-hand staff in her inventory, there’s a countdown for Serpent Toxin on both her staffs. You can see it in the bottom-most lines in each staff’s description panel.

A corollary is that only minions with weapons can use weapon coatings. A skeleton archer can use a weapon coating; they have a bow. A zombie or Scratch can’t.

Minions’ inventories

While minions have inventories, only through the desktop interface can you directly access them, or have minions access the inventory of others.

I switched to my Mac for the next couple of pictures. Here’s the display when you examine the Dryad; note the inventory display (showing only a couple of Goodberries) on the right. Compare that to the Dryad’s display on the console in the pictures above. I could right-click on any of the items in her inventory to be able to have her use it.

Look carefully at this screen capture from Mac. It’s the Dryad who’s the current active character, as you can see by the icon in the bottom left. By hitting the TAB key, I can bring up the display of the inventories of the characters in the party. If you look at the lower left, you can see the pop-up menu when I right-click on a potion in Galaxy Angela’s inventory. One of the options is “Drink (Dryad)”. This is how a minion can use another character’s inventory on a keyboard/mouse interface.

On a console, how do we know that minions have inventories, and how do we put items in them? Answer, use the Pickpocket skill, but in reverse: a “pushpocket”. Here we see Wyll using Pickpocket on the Dryad. (No, he’s not looking up her skirt. He’s far too noble for that.)

For this to work, use the Interface options to make sure sure that “Add Potions Automatically” is activated in “Hotbar Options”.

On the console, Wyll can see the Dryad’s inventory and confirm she’s got a couple of Goodberries here too…

…and he can add items to the Dryad’s inventory as well. In this example, Wyll has highlighted the Elixir of Psychic Resistance in his inventory; the word “Plant” shows at the bottom of the screen, meaning he can press the triangle key to put the elixir in the Dryad’s inventory.

If we look at the Dryad’s skill wheel (or “hotbar”), we can see that the inventory items are visible there. The Dryad can click on one of them to consume it.

The Dryad picked the Potion of Gaseous Form on her wheel. Now she’s a Gaseous Dryad, able to sneak through small tunnels.

Of course, it would be tedious (and perhaps impractical) to “pushpocket” items to every minion before a combat.

Also, if a minion dies, all the items in their inventory are lost permanently. This is true on both desktops and consoles, but since on desktops it’s possible for minions use items in the character’s inventories, there’s much less reason to pushpocket items on them. They can use items “on the fly” (apologies to Flying Scratch!) without having to anticipate their needs in combat.

References

I should mention a couple of Reddit posts that are the source of some of the material in this essay: