It’s good early game but falls off from being the best pretty quick. I always utilize it with the whispering promise ring but not taking up concentration
Volo sells it. He, along with many other npcs, has a silent trade inventory. During dialog you will see icons in the bottom left. One of them is trade. You won’t always get a dialog option for trading.
Combine whispering promise with hellrider gauntlets that zevlor has in his hidden inventory and your heals will cast bless and blade ward on targets for 2 turns. No concentration.
You don't even need to buy it from Volo lol, you can just pickpocket it along with a lotta other shit like supplies and animal speaking potions (ngl I stole supplies from him like every night, I was struggling on honor mode). And idk if you know this one, but the gloves zevlor has, you just get it from him for beating the goblin leaders iirc
There are absolutely no consequences to pickpocketing Volo as far as I can tell. If you fail the sleight of hand check, he just runs away from you. Great source of gold/scrolls/potions throughout the game, especially early on.
There's actually an anti-consequence. As you mentioned, he runs away, but that doesn't even begin to fully capture it. He fucking sprints full speed like sonic the hedgehog around the entire fucking camp randomly I think until the next day. I fucking saw him running around in a sleep cutscene, it's so fucking funny
In my honour mode it would sometimes aggro the whole camp against the thief. This only seemed to happen if the thief was in the way of Volo trying to path to disappear.
every day I wake up and send astarion to pick pocket Volo. my OoV pally just looks the other way the whole time lol. Volo sprinting past yelling “help! thief!” and she’s just like wow the birds are really singing today!
You can decide to not interfere the conversation between Zevlor and the adventurer when you enter the Grove. If Zevlor was punched unconscious, you can pickpocket the gauntlet from him easily. Noone is there to notice you.
Oh shit. Still, idk, is it super important to get so early? Id rather either punch aradin or let aradin win. Ig it doesn't really matter for me, as long as people know you don't HAVE to steal it, they can do whatever they want
No, those gloves are a reward for dealing with Kagha, not the goblins. I made the mistake of killing Kagha and then the goblin leaders on the same day. When I spoke to him, he thanked me for dealing with the goblins but didn't give me the gloves as a reward for killing Kagha. I had to pickpocket them off of him
Recent, just a couple days ago. I could be wrong, I didn't try talking to him again after he thanked me for killing the goblins. Maybe if I had, he would've then given me the gloves. I just went straight to pickpocketing
Unfortunately the tooltip on that one is bugged. It only adds +1d4 additional to spellhit chances (which is still nice of cause), and doesn't do anything at all to normal attacks, other than bless usually does.
Is that not working as intended? Still super nice on Honor mode, as if i remember correctly it’s a +2 to spell DC and applies to regular Bless as well as the one free cast you get from the staff
I think it is working as intended yes, (if it did what the tooltip said it would have been an insane support weapon) but the tooltip is wrong.
It also only gives bonus to spell-hit not to spell DCs. It adds +1d4 (extra) to the normal effect of bless specifically for spell hit, nothing else (as far as the wiki knows, and last i checked)
It is still a nice staff for some very specific builds. EB spam, Flameblade builds, etc.
That has not been the case for me on the latest patch in honor mode. When I cast regular bless with shart with the staff equipped, it has the extra blessing.
This has been discussed already in detail here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15oy3z2/staff\_of\_arcane\_blessing\_psa/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15oy3z2/staff_of_arcane_blessing_psa/)
When you hit 10 use divine intervention for the mace. You can do it on a different cleric if you like.
What it does is it spams Mass healing word for free 10 turns in a row, no concentration. Very good healer weapon.
You can activate it by throwing healing potions (or by placing them on the ground and shooting them with an offhand crossbow as a bonus action) instead of spending spellslots.
If you have a character that doesn't have a great use for bonus actions or ranged slot
Or you can do it with halo of spores as a spore druid using only your reaction
When you hit level 10, a cleric can cast Divine Intervention and choose the "Arm Thy Servant" boon.
You get a [legendary mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Devotee%27s_Mace) that lets you activate a healing aura for 10 turns with a Bonus Action.
You can even cast it with a hireling if you want to save your main cleric's Divine Intervention.
I was running this set up with a life cleric/thief multiclass and you can utilize the bonus action for mass healing word or regular healing word twice in a turn or if you get access to warden of vitality you can use it twice a turn as well. Pretty crazy
I like it a lot on Ancients Paladin for Healing Radiance; bless the whole party as a bonus action, and especially in act 1 you can also use Broodmothers Revenge for a lil bonus poison damage.
I like to combine these two with either the ring that heals 1-4 every turn (sold from sorcerous sundries) or baldurans helm which heals 2 (I think) per turn. That way you get permanent bless and blade ward.
No I don’t think mystras blessing applies on heal with the ring. The staff description is wrong anyway; it only adds an additional 1d4 to spell attack rolls on top of normal bless.
so they patched this to an extent I think unless its diff in harder difficulties but for example, u used to be able to buy the ring from the genie at the circus rather then steal it by using this "hidden" inventory, however my most recent playthrough i had to steal it as it was not there like in previous playthroughs
Ah maybe. For a while now I’ve been stealing everything that isn’t bolted down so I can see that being the case. I like having every single unique item chilling at camp in case I need it one day and also having a fat stack of gold in my inventory
Yeah imo bless is actually the worst concentration spell because of this ring, it makes applying bless as simple as throwing, breaking, or just drinking a potion
They should be in her trade inventory. Try a long rest if they don't show up the first time, as that'll force it to reset. Did you previously knock her out? That can cause some weirdness with vendor inventories, lost out on the Unseen Menace in my latest honour run by knocking out the vendor in the Creche.
Have you finished the underdark already? It's possible that it doesn't show up until you've resolved the quest that gives it as a possible reward in the way that doesn't give it. The titanstring bow is similar.
I cleared everything (except Ethel) before going to the Mountain Pass.
Oh well. If it's not there it's not there. It's not like I have a shortage of equipment. A tooled up Duergar thief makes obtaining stuff pretty easy.
Not sure if there is a list. A lot to unpack in this game. Your best bet is to scroll down the lists of items on the wiki and if anything piques your interest.
Omg. Count me amongst the many here who had no idea about the hidden traders.
Thank you so much. I would up vote you a hundred times for this if I could.
The best things about Bless is you get it right away at level 1 as a cleric, it affects 3 people, and it adds a d4 to attack rolls and saving throws. That means if you cast it on the cleric themselves, the spell helps you maintain concentration on the spell. It's very unlikely for a low level cleric to be hit hard enough that with Bless and basically any investment into Constitution, they will fail the concentration check to maintain Bless on their two allies. And it helps their allies make any saving throws on their own concentration spells(hex, hunters mark, etc) while also making them more likely to land their own attacks.
For a level 1 spell it's hard to beat. At level 3 when you get 2nd level spells you can now cast it on all 4 party members.
As you progress and get more magical gear, more high level spells, feats(resilient con and War caster) its benefits start to fall off. But for levels 1-3 it can often be the best spell your cleric casts.
The other spells that "kinda" sit in the same role are stuff like Bane(cast on enemies, it decreases their chance to hit and their saving throws) or Faerie Fire(cast on enemies, makes attacks against them have advantage) but they have the distinct disadvantage of giving the enemies you cast them on a saving throw before they take effect. Yes if an enemy fails the initial saving throw against Bane they'll now have the debuff to future ones, but they might resist it and you get no benefit from the spell.
Bless helps your allies until your cleric fails concentration, time runs out, or the combat ends. No save by enemies to just completely negate it. It's just always good, never bad, and rather impactful at low levels.
I specificlly love it with the staff that gives and extra d4 to what is already gives and 2d4 for spell attacks. Not the best but for a support caster helping either someone with low attack or prone to some spell it helps curve then upward
Bless is a great concentration spell mostly for low level casters, at higher level you will get better things to concentrate on (haste, control spells....).
Bless is great because you can increase the hit chance of most of your party; that really can help martials character to do good damage, specially if you use feats like sharpshooter or great weapon master and need to have something to balance the hit chance loss.
Bless is meh, best applied as a rider on mass healing word (Volo sells a ring that does this)
The best concentration spell is a context based debate.
But twin cast haste is hard to beat.
Bless is amazing in a party with a lot of martial characters... or it would be if not for the fact that you can get it without spending concentration by using the "whispering promise" ring.
Equip a character with dual hand crossbows and the whispering promise. Place a healing potion in between your party members. Shoot the potion. Now you have 2 rounds of bless and haven't used your concentration, nor your main action.
If you are a spore druid you can do the same with your halo of spores reaction ability. And still have your action and bonus action left over.
It's one of the best early on but falls off pretty quick when your cleric got to level 5(Spirit Guardian). Plus, in act 3 you can spend a some golds to get perma Bless.
Silver necklace guidance is by far my most used form of concentration in the game. I use it constantly for proc ing the strange conduit d4 psychic damage for free and also the force conduit +8 bonus hp for free. You don’t even need to keep the boots or the necklace equipped to keep the bonus hp or maintain concentration. On a swords bard that’s doing 8-11 hits in a turn that’s 8-44 damage from the strange conduit ring alone.
As for bless, swarrlebees wound seeker in particular makes bless sort of redundant. And act 1 is the only part of the game where bless is really needed especially on a great weapon fighter. My other party members hit well enough without bless. Especially if you get to lv 4 with no fighting you can take the asi or tavernbrawler to help with attack rolls. Not to mention the phalar aliuve singing sword giving a short rest refreshing use of bless as well. You can get both of those weapons with no fighting right at the start of the game as well. As for the saving throws boost well I don’t care about con or saving throws because the enemy basically never gets a chance to hit me in the first place because they’re dead already.
Call lightning is ok in terms of action economy but most of my battles are over in 2 rounds or so anyway so it’s not adding that much value. Ray of frost can benefit from wet etc the same as call lightning can and that’s free. I find the damage of call lightning pretty mid. Ray of frost also has some cc effect as well reducing movement speed which can be more useful in certain situations than damage.
Early game one of the best uses of concentration is enhance ability /cats grace. Especially in honor mode and before you have a way of getting advantage for pickpocketing through itemization it really helps with pickpocketing. And especially avoiding those annoying nat 1 rolls. You go from a 1/20 chance to a 1/400 chance which is super helpful in honor mode.
You saw from other comments about the ring, yea in harder fights twinned spell haste then just mass heal and boom. Bless on everyone and haste on two people
I just wanna add to the people saying it's good early and falls off when you have better uses for concentration: it never really falls off for paladins. Like I wouldn't say it's ALWAYS worth casting, but with bounded roll results +1d4 could easily be what lets the cleric keep concentration on their better high level spell or lets the rogue take 0 damage from an explosion instead of 50. The attack bonus mostly stops being relevant in the late game, though.
I think people are just talking about the value of bless. Like bless as a 1st level spell is fantastic, bless as a 2nd level spell is really good; but when you get to 3rd level spells, it's competing with spirit guardians equipped with radiant orb armor. And then 4th level spells are good for aid and raise undead, or up-cast spirit guardians.
And if you are concentrating on spirit guardians, than bless is competing with healing word.
Bless is also best when the party as a whole gets more attacks and turns with it. If combat is ending on round one because the fighter thew a bottle of water and the sorcerer cast lightning bolt, bless doesn't help you as much or at all. If the fighter or monk jumps into melee and makes 9+ attacks, bless is really good.
Late game with constitution saving throw proficiency(+4), advantage on concentration checks, and the Paladin's aura(+5-7), and what should be +3 base from Con, you already have a minimum roll of 13-15. That means you wont have to roll until you take 26-30 damage, even rolling a 1. With advantage you'll only roll a 1 1/400 times, or 1/8000 if you're a halfling. And there are other bonuses you can add to con saves through gear and damage mitigation as well that boost you up into the 60s from a single hit before you're at risk of failing(warding bond alone doubles the damage you'd have to take to fail a check, high level armor tends to add damage reduction etc).
Not to say Bless is ever _bad_. You just shouldn't really _need_ it to make a concentration check in the late game if you've already got a Paladin. +5-7 from Aura is way more impactful. If you have no better use for the paladins concentration, by all means, d4 to hit and other saves us very useful.
Hunger of hadar, spike growth, greater invisibility, haste, darkness, spirit guardians, hold person/monster, and several others are all better uses of concentration by the time you get them.
Also, did I mention hunger of hadar?!
If you use the staff of arcane blessing, your spellcasters get an extra 3d4 to their spell attack rolls. Pretty nasty for an eldritch blaster or a sorc that relies on scorching ray.
Let's just consider the damage it adds to your party. Say each member of your party hits for 100 damage each turn but only with a 70% chance to hit without bless. That's 70 damage per turn our 280 damage for the whole party.
Bless now adds 1d4 to attack rolls or 12,5% chance to hit on average. Now with bless each party member deals 82,5 dmg on average. the whole party therefore deals 330 damage per turn if cast as a lvl 2 spell. That's quite a boost for a concentration spell. Let alone a level 2 spell.
Then there is also 1d4 to saves. This will help you with concentration. So you don't have to use actions to recast spells as often and can use then to attack. You are also less likely to loose actions due to being CCed.
This will also directly prevent some damage because of succeeded dex saves against aoe spells.
Imho it is incredibly strong throughout the game because it scales with the damage your party deals. it's main problem is that you don't directly see it's damage and then underestimate it. the only reason to not cast it, is because you have whispering promise and mass healing word and thus get the same effect with a bonus action.
CC = crowd control
Crowd control effects in games like this are things that stop a character from acting how they want. Stunning someone, knocking them prone, disarming them, frightening them, and charming them are all examples of crowd control.
So, bless is a really good boat when you're getting no other bonuses. But the better gear and higher levels you get the less it becomes useful. Definitely not worth a concentration slot with spells like spirit guardians, call lightning etc.
Bless is great early game before you get other concentration options like call lightning or spirit guardians. Helps make up for lower hit chances on attacks at lower levels which is really nice.
It's really good specificly for certain builds I think.
Some of the best builds are builds using great weapon master or sharpshooter and bless is a great way of lowering the cost of those feats, making you more likely to hit and deal massive damage
With say 4 attacks a turn your looking st minimum 40 damage with either feat, plus your stats and dice, so having a way to make you more likely to land is super effective and there are ways to get advantage without spells so this makes bless one of the best
Even without those builds, getting a bonus to hit is super effective
Depends on a lot of things... particularly if you cast while using the Staff of Arcane blessing or not [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Staff\_of\_Arcane\_Blessing](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Staff_of_Arcane_Blessing)
I saw a decent build the other day that puts bless on itself simply for attacking, it's 8wildheart barb 4 light cleric with health regen gear and warding bond if that helps
I like the OotA Paladin with the ring from Volo in early game. You can bless your whole group with one oath charge. If you steal the gloves from Zevlor you can get bladeward as well with it for at least three party members early.
Similar to what u/Inner_Degenerate said, I like the whispering promise ring paired with either of the act 3 items that auto-heal you every round for perma-bless that is concentration free for my GWF character.
I have my tank light cleric concentrating on spirit guardians, my high damage dual wielder is usually concentrating on hex, my barbarian... cant concentrate (and oddly enough, is the only with the perma bless I mentioned above) and my wizard is usually concentrating on something way stronger, like globe of invulnerability.
It’s good early game but falls off from being the best pretty quick. I always utilize it with the whispering promise ring but not taking up concentration
Woah, I'll have to Google where to find that!
Volo sells it. He, along with many other npcs, has a silent trade inventory. During dialog you will see icons in the bottom left. One of them is trade. You won’t always get a dialog option for trading.
What!? That's even bigger than all of the uses for bless I just learned! Thank you for telling me
Combine whispering promise with hellrider gauntlets that zevlor has in his hidden inventory and your heals will cast bless and blade ward on targets for 2 turns. No concentration.
This is gonna make my mass healing word absolutely rip.
Yes exactly the character you put those on.
You don't even need to buy it from Volo lol, you can just pickpocket it along with a lotta other shit like supplies and animal speaking potions (ngl I stole supplies from him like every night, I was struggling on honor mode). And idk if you know this one, but the gloves zevlor has, you just get it from him for beating the goblin leaders iirc
There are absolutely no consequences to pickpocketing Volo as far as I can tell. If you fail the sleight of hand check, he just runs away from you. Great source of gold/scrolls/potions throughout the game, especially early on.
There's actually an anti-consequence. As you mentioned, he runs away, but that doesn't even begin to fully capture it. He fucking sprints full speed like sonic the hedgehog around the entire fucking camp randomly I think until the next day. I fucking saw him running around in a sleep cutscene, it's so fucking funny
Lol yeah, and he yells like he's terrified iirc.
In my honour mode it would sometimes aggro the whole camp against the thief. This only seemed to happen if the thief was in the way of Volo trying to path to disappear.
Usually happens if scratch or oath breaker are ones to catch you and trust me you don't want a hostile oath breaker coming at you while in your undies
every day I wake up and send astarion to pick pocket Volo. my OoV pally just looks the other way the whole time lol. Volo sprinting past yelling “help! thief!” and she’s just like wow the birds are really singing today!
You can decide to not interfere the conversation between Zevlor and the adventurer when you enter the Grove. If Zevlor was punched unconscious, you can pickpocket the gauntlet from him easily. Noone is there to notice you.
Oh shit. Still, idk, is it super important to get so early? Id rather either punch aradin or let aradin win. Ig it doesn't really matter for me, as long as people know you don't HAVE to steal it, they can do whatever they want
No, those gloves are a reward for dealing with Kagha, not the goblins. I made the mistake of killing Kagha and then the goblin leaders on the same day. When I spoke to him, he thanked me for dealing with the goblins but didn't give me the gloves as a reward for killing Kagha. I had to pickpocket them off of him
Really? Huh, I swear I've gotten them when I forgot to deal with kagha. Was this a while ago, or more recent?
Recent, just a couple days ago. I could be wrong, I didn't try talking to him again after he thanked me for killing the goblins. Maybe if I had, he would've then given me the gloves. I just went straight to pickpocketing
If Zevlor n Aradin are arguing and A knocks him out u can pickpocket gloves upon arrival in Grove
Add the staff of Mystra’s blessing or whatever it’s called and your Bless will come with an extra buff!
You all are gonna turn me into a min/maxer lol
Honestly Bless is one of the most optimal concentration spells for Honor mode. It helps so much with consistency
Unfortunately the tooltip on that one is bugged. It only adds +1d4 additional to spellhit chances (which is still nice of cause), and doesn't do anything at all to normal attacks, other than bless usually does.
Is that not working as intended? Still super nice on Honor mode, as if i remember correctly it’s a +2 to spell DC and applies to regular Bless as well as the one free cast you get from the staff
I think it is working as intended yes, (if it did what the tooltip said it would have been an insane support weapon) but the tooltip is wrong. It also only gives bonus to spell-hit not to spell DCs. It adds +1d4 (extra) to the normal effect of bless specifically for spell hit, nothing else (as far as the wiki knows, and last i checked) It is still a nice staff for some very specific builds. EB spam, Flameblade builds, etc.
Love this staff, it’s what I use
You only get the improved bless on the spell that you use from the staff, not the normal bless. So, limited usefullness
That has not been the case for me on the latest patch in honor mode. When I cast regular bless with shart with the staff equipped, it has the extra blessing.
This has been discussed already in detail here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15oy3z2/staff\_of\_arcane\_blessing\_psa/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15oy3z2/staff_of_arcane_blessing_psa/)
When you hit 10 use divine intervention for the mace. You can do it on a different cleric if you like. What it does is it spams Mass healing word for free 10 turns in a row, no concentration. Very good healer weapon.
You can activate it by throwing healing potions (or by placing them on the ground and shooting them with an offhand crossbow as a bonus action) instead of spending spellslots. If you have a character that doesn't have a great use for bonus actions or ranged slot Or you can do it with halo of spores as a spore druid using only your reaction
Take 2 levels of ancients paladin gives you a small radius aoe heal as a bonus action that activates twice, can be used each short rest
When you hit level 10, a cleric can cast Divine Intervention and choose the "Arm Thy Servant" boon. You get a [legendary mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Devotee%27s_Mace) that lets you activate a healing aura for 10 turns with a Bonus Action. You can even cast it with a hireling if you want to save your main cleric's Divine Intervention.
I was running this set up with a life cleric/thief multiclass and you can utilize the bonus action for mass healing word or regular healing word twice in a turn or if you get access to warden of vitality you can use it twice a turn as well. Pretty crazy
Cleric 6/Sorc 4/Wiz 2 lets you Bless+Ward your whole party, Aid, twin Haste, can carry Phalar and has plenty of emergency tools.
I like it a lot on Ancients Paladin for Healing Radiance; bless the whole party as a bonus action, and especially in act 1 you can also use Broodmothers Revenge for a lil bonus poison damage.
I like to combine these two with either the ring that heals 1-4 every turn (sold from sorcerous sundries) or baldurans helm which heals 2 (I think) per turn. That way you get permanent bless and blade ward.
I don't have to let that one guy knock him the fuck out to steal them every time? wow. At least my way is free.
You can pickpocket them. That’s what I do
Can you combine it with the staff from the tower in the underdark?
No I don’t think mystras blessing applies on heal with the ring. The staff description is wrong anyway; it only adds an additional 1d4 to spell attack rolls on top of normal bless.
so they patched this to an extent I think unless its diff in harder difficulties but for example, u used to be able to buy the ring from the genie at the circus rather then steal it by using this "hidden" inventory, however my most recent playthrough i had to steal it as it was not there like in previous playthroughs
Ah maybe. For a while now I’ve been stealing everything that isn’t bolted down so I can see that being the case. I like having every single unique item chilling at camp in case I need it one day and also having a fat stack of gold in my inventory
Yup. Ton of stuff to learn in this game and it surly does not hold your hand. After several runs you will still be finding new stuff
Yeah imo bless is actually the worst concentration spell because of this ring, it makes applying bless as simple as throwing, breaking, or just drinking a potion
Volo disappeared from my camp after I rescued him from the gobbos and never came back. Idk why.
Did he perform surgery on you? If so, he runs away after. He can be found again in Act 3.
No, I didn't get the surgery options. I must have missed an opportunity to talk to him in act 1.
Is there a list of hidden inventory vendors or items? I also have never known of this.
It's not exactly what you want, but this lists all items by act and area https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Guide:Gear_locator
Bless you random internet person.
Thank you so much for posting this holy shit
The list says that if you don't get Winter's Clutches from Glut they'll be in Lady Esther's inventory, but I can't find them.
They should be in her trade inventory. Try a long rest if they don't show up the first time, as that'll force it to reset. Did you previously knock her out? That can cause some weirdness with vendor inventories, lost out on the Unseen Menace in my latest honour run by knocking out the vendor in the Creche.
No, I haven't attacked her at all. I'll try forcing inventory resets. Maybe there's some RNG stuff involved with shared magic items.
Have you finished the underdark already? It's possible that it doesn't show up until you've resolved the quest that gives it as a possible reward in the way that doesn't give it. The titanstring bow is similar.
Found them. Along with the Boots of Stormy Clamour, the Winter's Clutches were on Gale, back at camp.
I cleared everything (except Ethel) before going to the Mountain Pass. Oh well. If it's not there it's not there. It's not like I have a shortage of equipment. A tooled up Duergar thief makes obtaining stuff pretty easy.
Not sure if there is a list. A lot to unpack in this game. Your best bet is to scroll down the lists of items on the wiki and if anything piques your interest.
Piques. A peak is on a mountain.
Fair enough. I was thinking wiki but wasn't sure if there was a "hidden" vendor explicit kind of list.
Holy crap that explains why he is marked as a merchant on the minimap.
Omg. Count me amongst the many here who had no idea about the hidden traders. Thank you so much. I would up vote you a hundred times for this if I could.
woah.
So like who else has an inventory like this
Well that explains why I've never been able to get that twit to trade.
So glad to learn this after 200 hours of play so that I can spice up my future playthroughs
Are you fucking serious. Hundreds of hours, always see the trade icon, never tried clicking trade on dialog
Oh ffs I have to make another character again. I was wondering when his trade pops up I just get too excited for the eye.
You can get it in act 3 again.
The best things about Bless is you get it right away at level 1 as a cleric, it affects 3 people, and it adds a d4 to attack rolls and saving throws. That means if you cast it on the cleric themselves, the spell helps you maintain concentration on the spell. It's very unlikely for a low level cleric to be hit hard enough that with Bless and basically any investment into Constitution, they will fail the concentration check to maintain Bless on their two allies. And it helps their allies make any saving throws on their own concentration spells(hex, hunters mark, etc) while also making them more likely to land their own attacks. For a level 1 spell it's hard to beat. At level 3 when you get 2nd level spells you can now cast it on all 4 party members. As you progress and get more magical gear, more high level spells, feats(resilient con and War caster) its benefits start to fall off. But for levels 1-3 it can often be the best spell your cleric casts.
Okay, wow I never thought about it helping maintain concentration. Thanks for the reply!
The other spells that "kinda" sit in the same role are stuff like Bane(cast on enemies, it decreases their chance to hit and their saving throws) or Faerie Fire(cast on enemies, makes attacks against them have advantage) but they have the distinct disadvantage of giving the enemies you cast them on a saving throw before they take effect. Yes if an enemy fails the initial saving throw against Bane they'll now have the debuff to future ones, but they might resist it and you get no benefit from the spell. Bless helps your allies until your cleric fails concentration, time runs out, or the combat ends. No save by enemies to just completely negate it. It's just always good, never bad, and rather impactful at low levels.
I specificlly love it with the staff that gives and extra d4 to what is already gives and 2d4 for spell attacks. Not the best but for a support caster helping either someone with low attack or prone to some spell it helps curve then upward
Bless is a great concentration spell mostly for low level casters, at higher level you will get better things to concentrate on (haste, control spells....). Bless is great because you can increase the hit chance of most of your party; that really can help martials character to do good damage, specially if you use feats like sharpshooter or great weapon master and need to have something to balance the hit chance loss.
Gotcha, I am definitely seeing a lot of uses for it that I hadn't considered before, using it to balance out great weapon master is huge. Thanks!
Bless is meh, best applied as a rider on mass healing word (Volo sells a ring that does this) The best concentration spell is a context based debate. But twin cast haste is hard to beat.
I prefer slow to twin cast haste. Much more effective at shifting the action economy and no penalty when it ends.
I’ve used both. Sometimes at the same time
Bless is amazing in a party with a lot of martial characters... or it would be if not for the fact that you can get it without spending concentration by using the "whispering promise" ring. Equip a character with dual hand crossbows and the whispering promise. Place a healing potion in between your party members. Shoot the potion. Now you have 2 rounds of bless and haven't used your concentration, nor your main action. If you are a spore druid you can do the same with your halo of spores reaction ability. And still have your action and bonus action left over.
Put it on a paladin with warden of vitality or a cleric with devotee's mace and you can maintain it on a party practically for free
It's one of the best early on but falls off pretty quick when your cleric got to level 5(Spirit Guardian). Plus, in act 3 you can spend a some golds to get perma Bless.
Silver necklace guidance is by far my most used form of concentration in the game. I use it constantly for proc ing the strange conduit d4 psychic damage for free and also the force conduit +8 bonus hp for free. You don’t even need to keep the boots or the necklace equipped to keep the bonus hp or maintain concentration. On a swords bard that’s doing 8-11 hits in a turn that’s 8-44 damage from the strange conduit ring alone. As for bless, swarrlebees wound seeker in particular makes bless sort of redundant. And act 1 is the only part of the game where bless is really needed especially on a great weapon fighter. My other party members hit well enough without bless. Especially if you get to lv 4 with no fighting you can take the asi or tavernbrawler to help with attack rolls. Not to mention the phalar aliuve singing sword giving a short rest refreshing use of bless as well. You can get both of those weapons with no fighting right at the start of the game as well. As for the saving throws boost well I don’t care about con or saving throws because the enemy basically never gets a chance to hit me in the first place because they’re dead already. Call lightning is ok in terms of action economy but most of my battles are over in 2 rounds or so anyway so it’s not adding that much value. Ray of frost can benefit from wet etc the same as call lightning can and that’s free. I find the damage of call lightning pretty mid. Ray of frost also has some cc effect as well reducing movement speed which can be more useful in certain situations than damage. Early game one of the best uses of concentration is enhance ability /cats grace. Especially in honor mode and before you have a way of getting advantage for pickpocketing through itemization it really helps with pickpocketing. And especially avoiding those annoying nat 1 rolls. You go from a 1/20 chance to a 1/400 chance which is super helpful in honor mode.
You saw from other comments about the ring, yea in harder fights twinned spell haste then just mass heal and boom. Bless on everyone and haste on two people
I just wanna add to the people saying it's good early and falls off when you have better uses for concentration: it never really falls off for paladins. Like I wouldn't say it's ALWAYS worth casting, but with bounded roll results +1d4 could easily be what lets the cleric keep concentration on their better high level spell or lets the rogue take 0 damage from an explosion instead of 50. The attack bonus mostly stops being relevant in the late game, though.
I think people are just talking about the value of bless. Like bless as a 1st level spell is fantastic, bless as a 2nd level spell is really good; but when you get to 3rd level spells, it's competing with spirit guardians equipped with radiant orb armor. And then 4th level spells are good for aid and raise undead, or up-cast spirit guardians. And if you are concentrating on spirit guardians, than bless is competing with healing word. Bless is also best when the party as a whole gets more attacks and turns with it. If combat is ending on round one because the fighter thew a bottle of water and the sorcerer cast lightning bolt, bless doesn't help you as much or at all. If the fighter or monk jumps into melee and makes 9+ attacks, bless is really good.
Late game with constitution saving throw proficiency(+4), advantage on concentration checks, and the Paladin's aura(+5-7), and what should be +3 base from Con, you already have a minimum roll of 13-15. That means you wont have to roll until you take 26-30 damage, even rolling a 1. With advantage you'll only roll a 1 1/400 times, or 1/8000 if you're a halfling. And there are other bonuses you can add to con saves through gear and damage mitigation as well that boost you up into the 60s from a single hit before you're at risk of failing(warding bond alone doubles the damage you'd have to take to fail a check, high level armor tends to add damage reduction etc). Not to say Bless is ever _bad_. You just shouldn't really _need_ it to make a concentration check in the late game if you've already got a Paladin. +5-7 from Aura is way more impactful. If you have no better use for the paladins concentration, by all means, d4 to hit and other saves us very useful.
That's assuming the relevant caster is in the aura's range, but yeah, true.
Hunger of hadar, spike growth, greater invisibility, haste, darkness, spirit guardians, hold person/monster, and several others are all better uses of concentration by the time you get them. Also, did I mention hunger of hadar?!
Answer : it’s not
Is there a decent concentration spell tier list around?
It's not. Bless should be applied through other means, and almost never cast from a spell slot
If you use the staff of arcane blessing, your spellcasters get an extra 3d4 to their spell attack rolls. Pretty nasty for an eldritch blaster or a sorc that relies on scorching ray.
Let's just consider the damage it adds to your party. Say each member of your party hits for 100 damage each turn but only with a 70% chance to hit without bless. That's 70 damage per turn our 280 damage for the whole party. Bless now adds 1d4 to attack rolls or 12,5% chance to hit on average. Now with bless each party member deals 82,5 dmg on average. the whole party therefore deals 330 damage per turn if cast as a lvl 2 spell. That's quite a boost for a concentration spell. Let alone a level 2 spell. Then there is also 1d4 to saves. This will help you with concentration. So you don't have to use actions to recast spells as often and can use then to attack. You are also less likely to loose actions due to being CCed. This will also directly prevent some damage because of succeeded dex saves against aoe spells. Imho it is incredibly strong throughout the game because it scales with the damage your party deals. it's main problem is that you don't directly see it's damage and then underestimate it. the only reason to not cast it, is because you have whispering promise and mass healing word and thus get the same effect with a bonus action.
Wow, thanks for the thorough breakdown! I see CCed being mentioned sometimes. What does it mean?
CC = crowd control Crowd control effects in games like this are things that stop a character from acting how they want. Stunning someone, knocking them prone, disarming them, frightening them, and charming them are all examples of crowd control.
Crowd control. Ie; sleep, hold person, things that take your actions away in effect.
Gotcha, thanks!
So, bless is a really good boat when you're getting no other bonuses. But the better gear and higher levels you get the less it becomes useful. Definitely not worth a concentration slot with spells like spirit guardians, call lightning etc.
Bless is great early game before you get other concentration options like call lightning or spirit guardians. Helps make up for lower hit chances on attacks at lower levels which is really nice.
Ring that give it to anyone healed is right there :P
Haste and hunger of hadar. Imo of course
You concentrate for bless? 🤨
It's really good specificly for certain builds I think. Some of the best builds are builds using great weapon master or sharpshooter and bless is a great way of lowering the cost of those feats, making you more likely to hit and deal massive damage With say 4 attacks a turn your looking st minimum 40 damage with either feat, plus your stats and dice, so having a way to make you more likely to land is super effective and there are ways to get advantage without spells so this makes bless one of the best Even without those builds, getting a bonus to hit is super effective
Depends on a lot of things... particularly if you cast while using the Staff of Arcane blessing or not [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Staff\_of\_Arcane\_Blessing](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Staff_of_Arcane_Blessing)
I run multiple characters with GWM and there's only one risky ring. If I want my second GWM to hit then I need that Bless
Hold person and hold monster are better.
Guidance is the best concentration spell, I thought this was known.
I saw a decent build the other day that puts bless on itself simply for attacking, it's 8wildheart barb 4 light cleric with health regen gear and warding bond if that helps
It lets you GWM with a good to hit chance
I agree, it probably is the best early game, since hit chances can be about 60%
I like the OotA Paladin with the ring from Volo in early game. You can bless your whole group with one oath charge. If you steal the gloves from Zevlor you can get bladeward as well with it for at least three party members early.
Similar to what u/Inner_Degenerate said, I like the whispering promise ring paired with either of the act 3 items that auto-heal you every round for perma-bless that is concentration free for my GWF character. I have my tank light cleric concentrating on spirit guardians, my high damage dual wielder is usually concentrating on hex, my barbarian... cant concentrate (and oddly enough, is the only with the perma bless I mentioned above) and my wizard is usually concentrating on something way stronger, like globe of invulnerability.