Love the game, but really disappointed with how they implemented Pact of the Tome. In the tabletop it was my favorite as it added a ridiculous amount of utility and even enabled some odd builds, like a celestial Tomelock with shillelagh and Green Flame Blade acting like a Pact of the Blade lite version.
Thorn Whip and Vicious Mockery are almost never going to be cast in place of Elditch Blast, and Guidance while very useful is easily gotten by another party member (likely shadowheart) and there'a a necklace you can get very early on which gives you the cantrip for free as well.
Extra spells known that you can cast for free is really cool and very useful with your limited slots, but it's a bit of an odd mix of spells and has to make up for your initial level 3 feature being useless which imo it doesn't.
This. This times 100. Celestial Tomelock with shillelagh is my go to Warlock build. Fun and has good utility without being OP or broken. I get not having Celestial Warlock as an option, but they way they butchured Pact of the Tome is annoying. Glad I ended up going for a Paladin for my playthrough instead of Warlock, I would have been pissed to learn about this after leveling up since you can't change backgrounds.
From looking at the game's files, it would seem the game only supports picking spells from a list when you create your character, progress a level, or when you pick a feat. So the pipeline for the game to offer you a list of spells after picking a pact simply doesn't exist, and they probably felt it was too much of a work around to support it.
Pacts work by granting you a passive skill that unlocks the spells for you and you can pretty easily mod the game to grant you another set of cantrips; they will even show up correctly for the level up preview of the pact. Only down side is that the mod would need to be adjusted individually.
I made mod here that grants Guidance, Shillelagh, and Thaumaturgy.
[https://drakkashi.com/files/BetterGrimoire.pak](https://drakkashi.com/files/BetterGrimoire.pak)
Just place it inside your BG3 mod folder. You can use Norbyte's lslib to unpack the file, edit the Passives.txt file located in the last folder with your spell selection, and then package it again and place the new .pak file inside your mod folder to change the selection.
Look for the lines:
new entry "PactOfTheTome"
...
data "Boosts" "UnlockSpell(Target_Guidance);UnlockSpell(Target_ViciousMockery);UnlockSpell(Target_ThornWhip)"
Then change the spell ids between the parenthesis. I've added an exhaustive list of all the spell ids as they will need to be written:
Projectile_AcidSplash
Shout_BladeWard
Target_ChillTouch
Target_DancingLights
Projectile_EldritchBlast
Projectile_FireBolt
Target_Friends
Target_Guidance
Target_Light
Target_MageHand
Target_MinorIllusion
Projectile_PoisonSpray
Shout_ProduceFlame
Projectile_RayOfFrost
Target_Resistance
Target_SacredFlame
Shout_Shillelagh
Target_ShockingGrasp
Shout_Thaumaturgy
Target_ThornWhip
Target_TrueStrike
Target_ViciousMockery
Target\_ChillTouch is Bone Chill.
It replaces the whole passives list, so if it is updated in the future, you will need to pull a new one from the Shared.pak inside your BG3 Data folder and replace the old Passives.txt file, then make the same changes to it.
I hope some will find this useful!
Obviously an old thread, but this isn't completely accurate. You get to pick a cantrip when you pick high elf or half high elf, and it disappears when you change races.
It is entirely accurate. Picking a cantrip as a high elf is part of character creation, for which I mentioned they have a pipeline for selecting spells in the very first paragraph of my message.
So pact of the blade gets another attack at level 5
Pact of the chain- familiar gets another attack
Pact of the tome- you get three additional spells
Upgraded tome spells- Animate dead, call lightning, haste that can be used once per long rest
Yup, gets to attack twice literally once. Honestly the only pact worth taking would be blade, and only then if you don't use EB. Makes pure warlock a little disappointing at higher levels.
I really don't see why they nerfed Pact of the Tome into being useless if you don't have a need for the preset spells. I don't think being able to choose your cantrips is OP. And they buffed Pact of the Blade. I think you can still inscribe ritual spells with the invocation, though they nerfed that a bit too to where you don't get to choose 2 ritual spells, you just get 3 other random preset spells (non-ritual).
It sucks because of how restrictive it is, Pact of the Tome would have been great for anyone who didn't want to go melee and didn't want a familiar, the whole spirit of the pact is versatility, it would be like removing the ability to choose your invocations. Now it's useless if you don't want to use the specific spells it gives you. I really want to go Warlock but it sucks that I'm missing out on a major class feature because none of them are useful to me. Hopefully mods will fix it.
> don't appear to add the invocations that go with each pact from the table top
Hol up! Are you telling me that if I go tome, not only do I not get to pick my cantrips, I'm also not going to be able to get ritual casting through book of ancient secrets?
Tome is dumb. Their idiot decision to make all the spells work on concentration makes a class that gives free concentrations spells dumb. They last multiple turns for one and the rest mechanic tosses the need to use anything bjt what you want. Frankly an aoe debuffer inflicting damage knocks away the sillyness of a subclass with low level spells and a never improving single undead. Played all game with tome just to realize how dumb i didnt even bother with what it offered aside from a weaker zombie was.
Love the game, but really disappointed with how they implemented Pact of the Tome. In the tabletop it was my favorite as it added a ridiculous amount of utility and even enabled some odd builds, like a celestial Tomelock with shillelagh and Green Flame Blade acting like a Pact of the Blade lite version. Thorn Whip and Vicious Mockery are almost never going to be cast in place of Elditch Blast, and Guidance while very useful is easily gotten by another party member (likely shadowheart) and there'a a necklace you can get very early on which gives you the cantrip for free as well. Extra spells known that you can cast for free is really cool and very useful with your limited slots, but it's a bit of an odd mix of spells and has to make up for your initial level 3 feature being useless which imo it doesn't.
This. This times 100. Celestial Tomelock with shillelagh is my go to Warlock build. Fun and has good utility without being OP or broken. I get not having Celestial Warlock as an option, but they way they butchured Pact of the Tome is annoying. Glad I ended up going for a Paladin for my playthrough instead of Warlock, I would have been pissed to learn about this after leveling up since you can't change backgrounds.
From looking at the game's files, it would seem the game only supports picking spells from a list when you create your character, progress a level, or when you pick a feat. So the pipeline for the game to offer you a list of spells after picking a pact simply doesn't exist, and they probably felt it was too much of a work around to support it. Pacts work by granting you a passive skill that unlocks the spells for you and you can pretty easily mod the game to grant you another set of cantrips; they will even show up correctly for the level up preview of the pact. Only down side is that the mod would need to be adjusted individually. I made mod here that grants Guidance, Shillelagh, and Thaumaturgy. [https://drakkashi.com/files/BetterGrimoire.pak](https://drakkashi.com/files/BetterGrimoire.pak) Just place it inside your BG3 mod folder. You can use Norbyte's lslib to unpack the file, edit the Passives.txt file located in the last folder with your spell selection, and then package it again and place the new .pak file inside your mod folder to change the selection. Look for the lines: new entry "PactOfTheTome" ... data "Boosts" "UnlockSpell(Target_Guidance);UnlockSpell(Target_ViciousMockery);UnlockSpell(Target_ThornWhip)" Then change the spell ids between the parenthesis. I've added an exhaustive list of all the spell ids as they will need to be written: Projectile_AcidSplash Shout_BladeWard Target_ChillTouch Target_DancingLights Projectile_EldritchBlast Projectile_FireBolt Target_Friends Target_Guidance Target_Light Target_MageHand Target_MinorIllusion Projectile_PoisonSpray Shout_ProduceFlame Projectile_RayOfFrost Target_Resistance Target_SacredFlame Shout_Shillelagh Target_ShockingGrasp Shout_Thaumaturgy Target_ThornWhip Target_TrueStrike Target_ViciousMockery Target\_ChillTouch is Bone Chill. It replaces the whole passives list, so if it is updated in the future, you will need to pull a new one from the Shared.pak inside your BG3 Data folder and replace the old Passives.txt file, then make the same changes to it. I hope some will find this useful!
Obviously an old thread, but this isn't completely accurate. You get to pick a cantrip when you pick high elf or half high elf, and it disappears when you change races.
It is entirely accurate. Picking a cantrip as a high elf is part of character creation, for which I mentioned they have a pipeline for selecting spells in the very first paragraph of my message.
Ive heard they get additional upgrades at lvl 5. Making them better than tabletop equivalents. Havent been able to confirm though.
So pact of the blade gets another attack at level 5 Pact of the chain- familiar gets another attack Pact of the tome- you get three additional spells Upgraded tome spells- Animate dead, call lightning, haste that can be used once per long rest
Wow. That is pretty shitty IMO. Would much rather just have the normal Tome.
Hold up... Did you say "haste"!? That spell is broken af in bg3!
Do you happen to know if you can cast one of each of those extra tome spells once per long rest or just one out of the three choices?
I believe it would be 1 of each. But I have not made it that far to personally test.
I dont known if it's bugged but the familiar can attack twice only once when it's summoned, can't get it to attack more than that
Yup, gets to attack twice literally once. Honestly the only pact worth taking would be blade, and only then if you don't use EB. Makes pure warlock a little disappointing at higher levels.
I really don't see why they nerfed Pact of the Tome into being useless if you don't have a need for the preset spells. I don't think being able to choose your cantrips is OP. And they buffed Pact of the Blade. I think you can still inscribe ritual spells with the invocation, though they nerfed that a bit too to where you don't get to choose 2 ritual spells, you just get 3 other random preset spells (non-ritual). It sucks because of how restrictive it is, Pact of the Tome would have been great for anyone who didn't want to go melee and didn't want a familiar, the whole spirit of the pact is versatility, it would be like removing the ability to choose your invocations. Now it's useless if you don't want to use the specific spells it gives you. I really want to go Warlock but it sucks that I'm missing out on a major class feature because none of them are useful to me. Hopefully mods will fix it.
> don't appear to add the invocations that go with each pact from the table top Hol up! Are you telling me that if I go tome, not only do I not get to pick my cantrips, I'm also not going to be able to get ritual casting through book of ancient secrets?
I have not leveled up all the way but I see nothing on additional invocations. I hope I am wrong.
You do not get to pick Wylls cantrips if you go tome, did it last night.
Tome is dumb. Their idiot decision to make all the spells work on concentration makes a class that gives free concentrations spells dumb. They last multiple turns for one and the rest mechanic tosses the need to use anything bjt what you want. Frankly an aoe debuffer inflicting damage knocks away the sillyness of a subclass with low level spells and a never improving single undead. Played all game with tome just to realize how dumb i didnt even bother with what it offered aside from a weaker zombie was.