Baldur's Gate 3's spell tooltips have been lying to you for (potentially) months, though if you've been running off the % chance to hit, you're just fine

If there's one thing Baldur's Gate 3 players know, it's that Sacred Flame, Shadowheart's starting offensive cantrip, almost never actually lands. Players have been trying to figure out the arcane maths behind this most accursed of spells which, by all accounts, should probably hit some of the time—but it remains a mystery.

This morning, however, I stumbled upon a thread on the game's subreddit that appears to have found the culprit, decrying Sacred Flame's lack of accuracy as a mirage. The conclusions drawn don't appear to be exactlyright, but in investigating this myself, I've confirmed that Baldur's Gate 3's spell tooltips are indeed bugged—and may have even been this way for months.

But first, if you're unfamiliar with tabletop systems, you're going to need some very boring technical details to understand what's going on here. Roll a constitution saving throw to bear with me.

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of offensive actions in D&D 5th edition. These result in either an attack roll being made against an armour class, or a saving throw being rolled. A lot of spells will ask for the latter.

A saving throw is a roll made by the target of a spell against something called a «spell save DC», which is essentially what they need to meet or beat to resist the spell's effects, determined by the caster's stats.

The problem, as user UncommonEra highlights, is that the tooltip for every single spell that needs a saving throw is bugged: «the tooltip states that your Spell Save DC is based on YOUR DEX modifier, rather than your spellcasting modifier (usually WIS) … the biggest takeaway is that it WILL hit more often than it says it will.»

That can't be right, I thought, so I hopped into the game myself to test it. Turns out, the truth is more complicated than I thought. It's also more annoying.

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Here's how I tested this theory using Sacred Flame, a Cleric cantrip that