Baldur’s Gate 3 guide: How to learn spells

For most characters in Baldur’s Gate 3, you attain new skills and spells when leveling up. This holds true for clerics and warlocks. However, wizards can learn spells at any time from spell scrolls you find throughout the world. Whether your character is a wizard or you’re looking to bolster the abilities of Gale (one of the wizard companions), learning spells isn’t as straightforward as it seems.

In this Baldur’s Gate 3 spells guide, we’ll show you the process of how you can turn spell scrolls into permanent spells for any wizard in your party.

How to learn spells

Normally, each spell scroll can give any character access to a single use of a spell, destroying the scroll in the process. Using a scroll once might come in handy in a desperate situation where your cleric is downed and a living character has a Scroll of Revivify, which can bring characters back from the brink. The downside is that, once a character uses a spell scroll in this manner, it’s gone forever.

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However, any wizard can permanently learn a spell and add it to their list of prepared spells. Think of it like adding a new weapon to their inventory. Currently, the only wizards in Baldur’s Gate 3 are your main character — if you made them a wizard at the start — and Gale, a lone wizard you first encounter at the Roadside Cliffs waypoint near the start of the game.

Teaching and learning spells

To have a wizard learn a spell:

1. Go to your inventory screen by pressing the I key on your keyboard.
2. Click on the portrait of the wizard who you want to teach a spell. (The frame around their items will become white when they’re highlighted.)
3. Right-click on any spell to bring up a menu of options, and pick the second option, “Learn spell,” and the wizard will learn it permanently.

Costs, inventory, and the hotbar

Learning spells in this fashion will come with a cost that depends on the strength of the spell. Keep in mind that the wizard doesn’t need hold the spell scroll for them to learn it spell. As long as you have a wizard highlighted, you can right-click on a spell scroll in anyone’s inventory to teach it to a wizard.

You can teach as many spells as you like to a wizard this way, however that doesn’t mean that those spells will show up in their hotbar right away. You’ll have assign those new abilities to add it to their list of prepared spells.

Assigning new spells

Your wizard’s level determines the amount of prepared spells that they can use at any given time. Pressing K on your keyboard will bring up the spells menu where you can see all the available spells for your characters and the number of prepared spell slots they have.

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In the screenshot above, Gale can assign any of the listed spells to his seven prepared spell slots. Even though he knows about two dozen spells, he can only actively use seven of them because, at level 4, he only has seven prepared spell slots. You can dive back into this menu any time to reassign his abilities the same way you might swap out a weapon for any other character.

To remove an ability from my prepared spells, just click on the one you don’t need. That frees up a slot. From there, you can assign any new attacks that you learned through spell scrolls.