What I thought was one of the most useless spells in Baldur's Gate 3 quietly has a brilliant hidden feature.
If you've spent much time with Baldur's Gate 3, you'll might be familiar with Dancing Lights - a little-used Cantrip spell that casts a 9-metre radius of light around the player. It's not much help in many situations - only really useful for characters that don't have Darkvision, and rarely better than the use of a torch when it comes to dispelling the darkness itself. Or at least that's probably what you thought, but it turns out that Dancing Lights can actually activate mines and traps.
PSA for Dancing Lights, since no one seems to know from r/BaldursGate3
Yes, this means Dancing Lights is quietly a bomb-defusing spell, one that can let you immediately deactivate traps as soon as your light hits them. Judging by the upvotes on the Reddit post above, we're going to go ahead and say very few Baldur's Gate 3 adventurers knew this already.
As the post points out, lairs like caves inhabited by Ethel or the Zhentarim are effectively disarmed. The top comment under the post claims the 'Minor Illusion' spell can also disarm traps like bombs. If you need a helping hand with this particularly irritating sequence, you can check out our Baldur's Gate 3 hag guide for how to deal with Auntie Ethel.
I wonder if the 'Spirit Guardians' spell from Clerics can also be used to disarm mines ahead of you. It should work, in theory, but the only problem might be that the spirits themselves are a lot closer to the caster, so you could potentially get caught in a bomb blast if the spirits activate a trap.
Let this be a reminder to never underestimate the power of creativity in Baldur's Gate 3. If you're wondering if a whacky idea might work, just go for it!
Read our Baldur's Gate 3 spells guide for a full look over how to master Cantrips and spells throughout the huge RPG.
