Baldur's Gate 3 Guide - Best Illithid Powers for Each Class

in this Baldur's Gate 3 video I'm going to be going through all illicit powers of the game going through each one talking about them showing you what they do in many cases and really diving into why or why not you might want to use these on one of your characters before we get into that though I do want to note that some characters in the game have resistance to wanting to use elephant Powers so if you want them to be able to use tadpoles you will have to convince them to do so and the other thing that I want to mention before we actually get into the tadpoles themselves is that there's a special status in this game called awakened that if you go into the get Yankee crash into the infirmary and you use the zathisk there you'll actually gain the awakened status and what this does is it allows you to use any of your tadpole powers that are actions as bonus actions so this is extremely huge because a lot of these are very powerful and then being able to use them as bonus actions allows you to use something else as your action on your turn so if you plan on using illicit Powers you really really should do this if you haven't yet okay so let's get into the illicit Powers themselves some of these are passive and some of these are active skills the first one I want to talk about is force tunnel this allows you to charge forward pushing all objects and creatures in your path four meters away from you it's an action this would be a bonus action if you had a weekend and you could use this once per short rest and honestly this one is probably good for just about any class because you can push enemies backward it gives you a way to push and you can push a lot of enemies to their death in this game and it doesn't matter how good your strength is or anything like that with this you just push them backward but if you're not talking about pushing enemies to their death it's probably going to be a ranged character to get themselves out of Engagement so that they don't have disadvantage on their next attack to free them up from a bunch of enemies usually melee characters don't mind being surrounded that much so this would probably be used mostly on a ranged character up next is favorable Beginnings this makes it so the first attack roller ability check you make against any Target gains a bonus equal to your proficiency bonus this is on top of your proficiency bonus by the way if you have proficiency already so it's an additional bonus and this resets every long rest so if you trigger this on an enemy or a character and then long rested you'd be able to trigger it again and you can trigger this once against each character in between each long rest so like if you go into combat there's five enemies you could theoretically trigger this five times once to each enemy but there are some quirks for instance if an enemy is not at full health it doesn't seem a trigger so like let's say you hit one enemy and it triggers and then your next party member hits a different enemy and then you go it's your turn again and you hit the enemy they already hit even though it's your first attack against them it doesn't seem to trigger so what I would suggest doing then is either take this on all of your party members that way every person in your party if they attack somebody that hasn't taken any damage will gain this benefit and you don't have to worry about who's attacked who or nobody takes it and then you don't have to worry about it either so talking about psionic overload this makes it so your tax deal an additional one to four psychic damage but you take one to four psychic damage every turn and this is for 10 turns you could use it every short rest as an action so this is really good on characters that get lots of attacks every turn any Marshall class that's going to make multiple attacks the damage is gonna outweigh the damage they take if they can attack every turn with like two or three attacks you know either with their actions a combination of their actions and bonus actions it'll outlay the damage that they take the main thing here is you don't want to use this as an action in combat if possible so you would probably want to use this like right before combat starts trans-use health is frankly outstanding what this is going to do is it's going to take half your current hit points and give them to the Target that you choose as an action and it doesn't have like every long rest or every short rest you can just keep doing this and if you have this on like something like let's say your fighter something like that where you can use action Surge and then do that on a character that's in a bad spot and then still attack on the same turn that's pretty deadly in my opinion because Fighters have tons of HP so this can heal for like almost 100 Health in one go and that is a huge burst heal even if you take that away from you know maybe your tank character who's probably not getting hit that much anyway so I recommend probably putting this on your highest you know HP character and letting them toss in emergency heel to maybe one of your squishies if they get in a bad spot obviously you can take this on multiple characters and they can all use it in a pinch if necessary that's probably the ideal way to do it but if you're only going to take it on one character it would probably be their highest HP character which is probably your tank so concentrated blast is very sick situational my opinion it's kind of difficult to use because you have to already be concentrating on a spell in order to even use it and then in order to get the heal from it you have to Target somebody that's concentrating so fulfilling both of those requirements to get the most out of this is not always easy obviously characters that are most likely to be concentrating are spell casters who probably take this predominantly on a spellcaster although a paladin or Ranger might have it as well but it's probably going to be a spellcaster that's using this and you're going to want to try and Target somebody on the enemy team that is concentrating it possible in order to heal yourself if you need the health otherwise you don't really gain any benefit from that so next is Repulsor which allows you to push anything away from you back six meters if they fail a strength save and you can do this you know once every short rest ass in action and the Crux of this one is it's very similar to force tunnel which is good on ranged characters for getting separation so that you don't have disadvantage on any spell attack roles or you're not in a dangerous situation surrounded by a bunch of enemies but at the same time those characters are the least likely to be in that situation so this is one that probably any character could use effectively to push enemies to their death but melee characters are typically not going to push them back for any other reason than if they know they can kill them and ranged characters are not typically surrounded so it's probably not one I would normally take but if you're gonna take it like it could probably be good on any class and the displays passive makes it so that anyone suffering fall damage because of your actions takes an additional one to eight psychic damage so if you knock an enemy off a ledge and they take any kind of fall damage they're going to take increased damage here this is really really strong in anyone that has a regular knockback like warlocks for instance with their Eldritch blast because they can modify that to knock back so that's really really strong there or any sort of strength character that can shove enemies reliably that's also really good or throw them even like if you're playing like a barbarian or something like that and next we come to charm which allows you as a reaction to attempt to charm an enemy attacking you preventing them from attacking you until their next turn and you can use this every round if you want there is no short rest or long rest you know requirement for it it can be used every round however it does use your spell DC to calculate the charm save so if you are not a spellcasting class you have no spell casting ability modifier you're probably not likely to charm enemies you're probably more likely to not charm them so you would probably only want this on a Caster that has a decent spell casting ability modifier so luck of the far Realms is really just about good on any class and what this is going to allow you to do is a passive feature as a reaction is when you make a successful attack roll against an enemy you can convert that hit into a critical hit once every long rest so this is a guaranteed critical hit if you are already going to hit the enemy anyway with an attack roll so this could be a weapon attack or a spell that has an attack role like guiding bolts or scorching array something like that Eldritch blast and that's really really strong for that moment where you just need a little extra oomph and this is even more deadly on like paladins who gain extra damage rolls if they use Divine Smite so they Auto crit with Divine Smite and then they get even more damage rolls from extra Divine Smite rolls so this is really really good on paladins but it's basically good on any class so if you want to put this on any class highly recommend it and then we come to Ability drain which makes it so once per turn when you make an attack role the attack reduces the target's corresponding ability by one and that ability is reduced by the same one used to make the attacker also for melee attacks it'd be strength unless you used a finesse weapon with dexterity range will be dexterity and then for spellcasters there's spell casting Bella modifier this is pretty bad in my opinion you only reduce it by one for one turn I would not suggest taking this on any character I don't think it's going to make much of a difference in your Gameplay at all so stage fright is going to make it so that the target you are targeting with it has disadvantage on attack rolls and takes psychic damage each time they miss in combat and this will happen for three turns if they fail a wisdom save but if they do connect on one of their attack rolls they will remove this effect and you'll obviously want to use this on a hard-hitting enemy that attacks two or three times a turn so they take lots of damage and they also don't hit you very much and this would probably be best used on a spell Caster because it's a wisdom save I'm gonna assume that your spell casting ability modifier plays a role in whether you pass or fail this just like a lot of other one of these that do so if you're using it on a character that has no spell casting ability modifier it's probably going to get save to begin with however Paladin is not a bad choice if you use this on a Target that's like right next to you and you're engaged with them so they have to attack you and you have high Armor class and disadvantage then they're likely going to keep missing you which is going to keep damaging them so that's not bad and next we come to perilous Stakes which makes it so that when you cast it on somebody they are vulnerable to all damage meaning they take double damage to all damage types but every time they attack they gain healing and you can do this for this last three turns once every long rest now this is obviously a double-edged sword right because you can debuff an enemy with this and then kill them before they can heal that would be ideal or you could throw it on a party member who really needs healing in the back as long as they're not going to get hit maybe somebody that hides a return like a rogue and then that vulnerable is not as much of a problem but primarily you're probably going to use it on an enemy to wipe them out because that's not that much healing anyway and double damage is huge now the thing this doesn't tell you is that this is actually an intelligent save so that characters that have spell casting ability modifiers will use that when they you know make their DC for this so if you're not a spell casting character then it's very unlikely you're going to land this on an enemy so you definitely want to take this on a spell casting character and you want to Target enemies that have lower intelligence or you want to try and manipulate their intelligence to be lower Before You cast it if possible so then we come to Shield of Thrones which allows you to put 10 temporary hit points on a Target which lasts them to Long rest so this is going to last until long rest or you know until they're gone so like a Target gets rid of them and when a target attacks them or you know cast a spell them and gets rid of them and that damage Shield expires because of that or those temporary hit points are gone they're going to explode with a chance to stun enemies nearby that's going to Target the intelligence of the characters and this can be good on pretty much any character honestly because who couldn't use an extra damage Shield that lasts them to Long rest you can throw this on outside of combat before combat even starts each character in your party could have their own and then when it expires they have a chance to stun enemies I mean that's just really good anyway so this is really good on any character but predominantly characters that are going to be surrounded you know like a melee type character or maybe you throw it on like your zombies or something if you're a necromancer because they might be surrounded psionic backlash is easily one of the best tab full abilities because it's a passive feature that allows you to use your reaction that within any enemy within nine meters whenever they cast a spell you can use reaction to inflict 1D for psychic damage to the Caster per the level of the spell so if it's like level four or something it's potentially up to 16 damage and this is a reaction you can use every round if you want so it it's just really strong in my opinion and this damage is calculated before the damage of the spell itself so like if you this would finish off a Target then that spell is not going to hit you which is really nice this is probably best on melee units who are closer to the back line of enemies that are going to be spellcasters more often however any character can really benefit from this because sometimes enemies get through and there's nothing you can do and having the option to you know inflict damage to the enemy free basically anytime they cast a spell it's just too good to pass up I recommend taking this on all your characters if you really want to use tadpoles and cold away can be really really strong like maybe on one or two characters if there are two characters that are like really hoarding elephant tadpole powers and the reason for that is because it makes it so that when a character who has tadpole Powers gets an enemy below a certain amount of hit points they're gonna instantly die and explode during a little bit of damage in any way but what's really important here is them dying earlier than you know getting to zero HP so if you had like 16 17 illicit Powers if you got an enemy below 16 or 17 HP they would die like you wouldn't have to get him to zero at all and that could be really really strong you know obviously it's gonna take you like investing all the elephant Powers into one character not everyone's gonna do that but if you do do it on one character it's gonna be really really strong if you don't then you probably don't want to take this one and then the outside ring of elephant Powers become available once you gain the astral touch tadpole and consume it I'm not going to go into how you get that here for spoiler reasons but in order to unlock those you'll need to get that item so the first one we're gonna look at on the outer ring is absorb intellect this makes it so that you lower the intelligence by the Target by one per turn over five turns and heal for 1d8 per turn for five turns once every short rest you use this as an action to a Target within nine meters this is a good way to get some extra healing and obviously lowering the intelligence of the target means that their intelligent saves are not going to be as good if you're using a spell that targets intelligence this could be good to have but I only really see using this against a Target that's a very hard to kill Target like a boss or something like that that's something you're gonna be fighting for a very long time very strong enemy otherwise it's probably not worth using as an action the next one we're going to take a look at is displacer Beast shape this lets you change into a displacer beast and use the displace you know feature uh your strength dexterity and Constitution scores are going change to that of a splicer beast but your intelligence wisdom and Charisma modifiers and scores will remain what they were originally so this is going to be better on like a spell Caster than it would be on a Melee character because you'll be able to maintain those higher scores from intelligence wisdom and Charisma and you'll be able to use this once prolonged rest and your HP pool when it drops to zero you'll go back to your regular form so kind of like wild shape so this HP pool is on top of your regular pool could be good like if you're a caster and you're in a bad spot where your health is really low and you need to get out of that bad situation you could shape them and then have a much higher Health pool for a while and also get yourself out of that situation and the next one we're going to take a look at is free cast this is a passive feature you can toggle on or off that makes it so that the next ability or spell you cast doesn't consume a spell slot or a charge or some sort of resource so like if you're going to use like the channel oath of your Paladin or maybe Channel Divinity of your cleric or something like that or whether you want to cast like I don't know a level six spell but you don't want it to consume that one level six spell slot you have this is really strong so this is going to be probably predominantly stronger on casters because they can prevent the use of a high level spell slot or you know some classes like clear extra paladins that have a strong Channel oath or Channel Divinity feature and this was actually changed in patch one it used to be refreshed on every short or long rest Valerian deemed that too powerful so now you can only do this once every long rest the next one we're going to take a look at is mine Sanctuary this allows you to create a space like within nine meters once per long rest that lasts for three turns and make so actions and bonus actions taken inside of there are interchangeable and this is really strong right because this you can make your attack a bonus action and then attack with your regular action maybe on a class that doesn't have like extra attack or maybe they do and then you can attack and then attack with your extra attack and then also attack with your bonus action or maybe you're some hybrid character like a paladin you want to cast a spell but then also you you know cast a spell with your bonus to action and then attack with your regular action and then gain an extra attack as well there's a lot of uses for this and because it lasts three turns it can be quite strong the next one we're gonna look at is mind blast this does psychic damage in a cone in front of you with a possibility to stun the target based on their intelligence and just like other abilities that have saves your spell casting ability modifier typically plays a role in this so this is going to be better on a character that has some spell casting ability like man or a sorcerer or Wizard or something like that your character that's using it has no spell casting ability then it's very unlikely that they're going to stun the targets that this hits they could still deal damage but it's likely that they won't stop and this can be used once per long rest next we'll take a look at fly this allows the character to use their movement speed to fly and up to 18 meters which is double typically what your default movement speed is and that means you're going to be able to move further but also go up and down in elevation so any character that needs good movement this could be good on and this is just about every character let's be honest melee characters really need it ranged characters can benefit by getting higher up on elevation so they're more accurate spellcasters can use it to get good positioning to cast their spells and some of their spells do Target armor so they can benefit from higher elevation as well or just to get in a good position where they can hide behind something when they're not casting to protect themselves Etc up next we have black hole which essentially creates a point on the ground that is a gravity you know black hole that pulls in enemies and possibly slows them if they fail an intelligent saving throw and again your spell casting ability modifier probably affects this just because most of these that have saving throws factor in your spell casting ability modifier so this will probably be better on any character that's spell casting and slow is really really strong debuff this really reduces the amount of things a character can do in the game so this is really really powerful you can use this for short rest and then you can also cast it up to five more times per short rest so you can use it more than once between short rest so this is really really strong and cost fat it's kind of like a free spell cast of slow and pulling stuff in so if you have like a cc type spellcaster or maybe a spellcaster that's not really but you would like to have some CC on it then this would be a good one to pick up next we'll take a look at psionic dominance this makes it so in an enemy with an 18 meters targets you with a spell of a level that is lower than or equal to your proficiency bonus you can use your reaction to nullify the spell this is once per long rest so from levels one to four this will be a level two spell or lower from levels five to eight this would be a level three spell or lower and from levels nine upward would be a level four spell or lower and this is effectively like counter spell right it just shuts the spell down but you use it once for long rest and it doesn't consume a spell slot this is really good on any character because there are lots of spelled casts in combat and if you have this on each character in your party then you could shut down four spells every combat as long as they are lower proficiency level than you know what your proficiency currently is and that's typically the case a lot of spells are typically lower or equal to so this would be really strong on just about any character next is a lifted expertise this gives you expertise and persuasion deception and intimidation checks this means your dialogue checks are going to gain your proficiency bonus and then double that proficiency bonus so this will be plus two would become plus four plus three would become plus six and plus four would become plus eight so this would cap out at plus eight so that would give you technically an extra plus four at the end of the game to these checks making you really good at them you would probably only need to take this on your character that's a dialogue specialist and also keep in mind that bards and Rogues also gain a lot of expertise so if your dialogue specialist is a Bard or a rogue you may not even need this on them next we'll take a look at fracture psyche this makes it so that you can reduce in a target's Armor class by one if they fail and save every turn for five turns once per short rest and if you kill that Target while they're the under the effect of this then you can use shatter Psyche on another Target which reduces that Target's armor by two this is not that good in my opinion mostly because they have to fail the save in order for the effect to remain but then also you're using an action to do this when you could be attacking and unless you're fighting like a very tough to kill enemy where one Armor class might make the difference in the fight this is probably not that good I wouldn't really recommend this on any character so that wraps up our guide on a listed tadpole Powers I hope you found it useful and I hope you better explain some of them some of the tool tips on these are kind of confusing took me a little bit to figure some of these out by testing them but I hope it helps you make better decisions about what powers to take on which characters which classes if you have further questions or advice please leave them in the comments below [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Fextralife

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Keywords: baldurs gate 3 illithid powers, baldurs gate 3 illithid, baldurs gate 3 illithid druid, baldurs gate 3 illithid evolution, baldurs gate 3 illithid powers unlocked, baldurs gate 3 illithid skill tree, baldurs gate 3 illithid choices, bg3 illithid powers, bg3 illithid, bg3 illithid transformation, bg3 illithid skill tree, bg3 illithid build, bg3 illithid powers build, best illithid powers bg3, illithid powers explained, what is the best illithid powers for my class

Id: dmCyRuX3L7I

Length: 19min 59sec (1199 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2023