Hello,
This happened to me on the latest patch (Never tried levitate on previous patches): Tried for the first time yesterday the levitate spell since there's always been that one chest in the magical library teasing me that I can not jump to, so this time I picked levitate as a level up spell for my wizard. Much to my surprise, when I cast levitate on a companion, he just got shot up into the air and got stuck there, couldn't move anywhere. After a while I noticed I could pick the height of my companion as an action on my wizard, and after some fiddling with it, I managed to land him on the ground and he could move around. First of all, the levitate spell *seems* (I'm not a D&D ruleset expert) like my character should be able to *levitate* over chasms but alas, he always says that no path is available. After trying to find the places I could reach with the levitation, I managed to break the movement again and he just got stuck in place not able to go anywhere.
I also managed to make it so that he did move, but took like 5 seconds to move between each square on the grid which was really weird.
Levitate does not allow you to fly. There is a higher level spell for that in D&D, Fly (Third level). I have seen some mobs use it but don't recall being able to pick it on my Wizard when hitting level 5. I'm currently on a run where I try to make sure I can get to all chests, will see once I hit level 5 on that.
A creature that is Levitate´d can move sideways by pushing or pulling on things in D&D. I don't think the mechanics in Solasta allows it. But I'll probably try to Shove a levitated companion to see what happens. A DM would probably also allow creative use of spells like Gust or other effects that exert force on the character.
If it's the chest on an isolated platform you are trying to reach I managed with Misty Step. Need one cast to get there and one to get back so probably best after the fight and resting.
I tested "Shove: Push Away" on a levitated companion and it moved him one square in the push direction. So not a way to float across anywhere. And it only work if you are in turn based, ie combat.
The fly spell becomes available to Wizards when getting access to third level spells (char level 5) and allows free flight.
Another option could be potion of Fly. If I remember correct I got it in necromancer’s castle.
I think the levitate spell is for two cases:
1) Send your archers / mages in the air to protect them from melee attacks
2) Use it on melee enemies to prevent them from reaching your party.
It can not be used for traversal, that would be the 3rd level spell Fly.
Also, if you lower the levitated character to ground level, you can move the character as long as there is ground beneath them. This seems like a bug to me.
Levitate should work like an up and down only version of fly and like spider climb if next to a wall or ceiling.
levitate and fly were both not working for me after the patch on the 30th. both spells just take me up into the vetical axis and i cannot move on horizontal axis.
I have found that levitate sometimes doesn't seem to work as expected - cast it in 1 random encounter in open area , and character just hovered on the ground. It should immediately take you up 20 foot or so. That said, when cast inside, you need to be careful - because of the view/transparent ceiling you may be in a room with a low ceiling (and not even notice) so you rise 5 foot, then everything can still attack you in melee ;-)
As for fly, I didn't know how to use it - but reading other posts, if you want to move up/horizontal axis, you need to use the map 'layer' button (the button in centre of map) and then use mouse wheel to change height layers, then move to a position on the relevant layer. Very unintuitive and clunky. And that also seems to behave oddly in some cases. I think both spells need quite a bit of work to effectively use the verticality in the game.