Build? I have no idea what is even going on in this game. I am so confused and just fumbling my way through at the moment. I don’t even know how to do anything that might be considered as making a build.
I’ve been using a druid of the Moon. I like the versatility. Cast buff or debuff spells, roll into wildshape, smack stuff around, unshape, cast again. I love talking to animals and finding out things I may not have known. Too far to jump? No problem -> spider form. Want to scout ahead? No problem -> cat form. So many fun things to try out with the various forms. I have been out of town for a few days and have not gotten to play much but watched a video last night of all the druid wildshapes to come in higher levels and I am STOKED!!!
Meanwhile, my husband has been playing a bard, another versatile character and he seems to really be enjoying it.
What are you playing?
Oh nice!
I’ve just got a load of standard single classes going on. I’m still only level 3 so it’s early days yet.
Tav is a blade pact fiend warlock, Karlach is a wildheart barb, Wyll I’ve respecced to bard 2/fiend warlock 1, and Shadowheart is now a light cleric.
Maybe it’s just the low level but I’m thinking of switching things up a bit, Tav and Karlach don’t have great action economy and ahead of extra attack at 5 their turns are a little one note. Maybe Karlach would work as a tavern brawler monk, and Tav as a dual hand-crossbow swords bard? Hmm
I enjoyed playing a bit of Paladin. It’s got some great role playing mechanics too where you can’t break your oath
MC: An attempt at Kaladin from Stormlight Archive. Currently Oath of Ancients 1/Archfey Blade pact 4 with PAM and using Sorrow as my Pact weapon. Eventually he’ll be something like Paladin 4 / Warlock 5 / Storm Sorcerer 3 with PAM + Sentinel. Hex, fly into range, start controlling the battlefield is the plan. I might take Warlock to 8 and leave the other two classes at 2, but I might want the extra spell slots and metamagic. I think Warlock 8 would.let me get Find Familiar as a ritual from the Invocation at 7, which would be cool. The core of the idea is there, and I’ll keep tweaking it as I play; respecing is awesome.
Karlach: currently Frenzy Barbarian 5 GWF, and is about to dip Fighter for Action Surge and probably improved crit. I might respect her to Wildheart as Frenzy Strike and GWF -5/+10 kind of fight each other for use. Regardless, she’s a killing machine.
Shadowheart: Just respected to Tempest Cleric 2 / Storm Sorcerer. I needed someone to blast and heal, and I wasn’t digging Gale. Previously she was underwhelming as a straight cleric. Now she has some more offensive spell options, especially ranged AOE, which previously was a weakness.
Laz’ael: She had been benched all playthrough as she wasn’t fitting RP wise, but I wanted to bring her out when I met the Gith. Except with a Barbarian and a Lockadin, I didn’t really need a fighter. I wanted to check out the Monk class, so I said screw it and respected her to Way of the Open Hand 5 with Weapon Master to bring her dex to 18 and grab the last few versatile martial weapons she wasn’t already able to use. Honestly, I don’t see her leaving my team anytime soon. She’s putting out really solid damage; getting any versatile weapon as a monk weapon is a little crazy. I also have bracers of unarmored defence, so she’s sitting at 19 AC, the highest on the squad.
Wyll: Fiend warlock 2 / Lore Bard 3. He fires eldritch blasts. And heals a bit. And lockpicks. Maybe I’ll retool him, but I didn’t have great ranged AOE options and clicking EB every turn is a snooze. He did lockpick a s sneak his way through the Zent hideout though, so good work Wyll!
Gale and Astarion: Bench warmers. Astarion doesn’t fit RP wise, but Gale does and probably will rejoin the team at times. I had Astarion go theif, and the extra BA is pretty nuts; might use that on my next playthrough with a gloomstalker MC multiclass. Gale is a Divination wizard, and the portent rolls are very powerful but the constant popup confirmation for use is annoying. He started the game as a Grease monkey though, and if he comes back with Shadowheart still on the squad, he might be a Create Water monkey now.
Thank you for commenting all of this. I seriously didn’t know you could respec companions. I never even thought about selecting them prior to talking to Withers. Now I’m going to spend like 4hrs customizing them all!
It’s a deep, deep rabbit hole. I’ve spent so much gold just tweaking this or that to get things “perfect”. And then I change my mind and revert. I should just save before doing it, but I never remember to!
Personally, divination wizard. It’s very strong in tabletop 5e, and was actually nerfed a decent bit in this game (your portent dice can only be used to replace attack rolls and saving throws, not ability checks, and requires a reaction; in tabletop it actually doesn’t use any action at all). If you’re interested in super optimised builds, I’d actually recommend checking out the various DND 5e class guides and multiclass builds online, for example r/3d6 on Reddit, but bear in mind that various class features might work differently in BG3 or rely on things that only work in a tabletop game
Current party
- MC: Ancients Paladin 5/Swords Bard 3 - Polearm Master - Tank/Support
- Karlach: Berserker Barbarian 5/Thief Rogue 3 - GWM - Fontline DPR
- Shadowheart: Cleric 8 - Magic Initiate Druid - Support/Control
- Gale: Conjuration Wizard 8 - Control/Blaster
- Wyll: Fiend Warlock 6/Vengence Paladin 2 - SMITE
- Astarion: Thief Rogue 3/Swords Bard 5 - Sharpshooter - Ranged Ambush DPR
- Lae’zel: Eldritch Knight 8 - Tavern Brawler, Sentinel - Thrown Weapon DPR/Zone Control
Karlach’s build is nuts. She’s dealing 80-160 dmg per round when hasted and there just isn’t much that can survive a round next to her. That said I’m considering respecing her to Wild Magic or Wildheart since I’m not using Frenzied Strike that much. She Crits so much that I’ve mostly been using GWM’s bonus action attack and the Jump AOE thunder dmg from the maul I have her using.
Astarion’s is almost as good but CBE’s nerf really hurt. Though with the current stealth mechanics this build could probably solo the game.
Edit: Respeced Lae’zel and just about doubled her DPR. Also adjusted Astarion as Gloomstalker was nerfed from tabletop.
How does GWM Barb/Rogue work? There are no weapons that have both the heavy and finesse properties. Is sneak attack not limited to finesse and ranged weapons in BG3?
Edit: Or is Rogue just for Cunning Action?
You go Thief Rogue 3 for Athletics Expertise, Cunning Action, and Fast Hands.
The extra bonus action is super handy when paired with GWM, Reckless Attack, and Rage. Your first round is: pop Rage, run up and Reckless Attack, and hopefully you crit (happens ~2/3rds of the time, almost every time if Hasted) for the bonus action attack. Berzerker insures you have that BA attack every round, but you get one so often from GWM that I don’t really bother so I would actually recommend Wildheart or Wild Magic instead.
Not procing SA damage doesn’t even matter since the build generally puts out so much damage (80-160/round at lvl 8) that nothing in their vicinity really survives.
Oh I had no idea Fast Hands was good now! In tabletop it’s just “do things you don’t normally do in combat as a bonus action.”
Larian changed Fast Hands to “you can make an additional bonus action”, which makes it pretty insane.
Trying to stay mostly vanilla the first run through. Main character is a wild magic sorcerer, but I dipped her a single level of warlock right at the beginning knowing that most of the game, she’ll primarily be fighting with Eldrich Blast.
Also decided that Wyll is going to be a bard. Because I want one, and am not one. I didn’t really play heavy in Early Access, so hopefully that won’t end up being story-stupid. But everyone else, BAU.
I also Bard-lock’ed Wyll! It just makes sense. He’s a folk hero and was sort of betrayed by his patron. He’d look for some other source of empowerment rather than deepening his pact, and a story teller of heroic deeds seems to fit.
My main is a polearm master half-orc and I’ve been loving the extra reach and bonus action hit. I’ve slapped two items on him that set intelligence and dexterity to fixed values which has countered my two dump stats. Recently I found an invisible glaive which gives advantage in combat until you miss a strike. It’s fantastic.
I’ve also been really enjoying Wyll with pact of the blade. Having the ability to just eldritch blast from a distant or get into melee range is great. My only issue is I normally forget to bind his weapon after a long rest and I’m using a short sword he isn’t normally proficient with.
I’m having the same experience with Wyll; love Pact of the Blade both mechanically and thematically, but needing to rebind his weapon every time I long rest is very annoying
I’m seeing if I can get through tactician with this build, and it seems like it’s going well so far (no spoilers): necromancer wizard with weapon master feat to use great weapons. Haven’t added armor yet since I’m relying on blur for dodge, shield reaction, and blindness for large threats. Almost done with act 1 so I’m not sure how the power fantasy will look like later in the game or what items are available.
This has revolved around an item that sets intelligence to a specific value. So I was able to drop all int, put it into strength, and essentially be a lich-esque wizard. Been interesting to say the least and teleporting to baddies with misty step has been a lot of fun. I may go into the tadpole tree and spec into the skill that punishes when enemies miss their rolls (which they are disadvantaged from via blur and also the ilithid skill itself). The sustain is good with vampiric touch; and if I fall under half health for whatever reason, I have a greataxe that does additional damage.
This game is amazing so far.
Gith get medium armor and greatsword proficiency for free, and ancestral knowledge is an amazing racial bonus. The bonus 1/day spells are also fantastic.
I’m running both good side and evil side save games at the same time.
For the good(er) side, a drow Warlock (Archfey - Pact of the Chain) / Bard (College of Swords). Just a fun all-arounder with dueling and ranged magic. If I could respec race, I’d probably change that to be gnome as that would probably make more thematic sense.
For the evil side, a half-orc Druid (Circle of the Moon) / Barbarian (Berzerker). I haven’t played too far with this one, but the plan is take Savage Attacker at 4th level. With Frenzy I should get two attacks and then stack SA on top to get advantage on both attacks. Basic strategy there is to tank out fights in bear form and then just wild shape back and go crazy ass orc everyone.
I’m playing my Oath of Vengeance Paladin from my most recent Foundry campaign and having a blast with it.
Might do another play through with a caster after this one.
My tav: Oath of ancients paladin
Wife’s tav: Circle of spores druid
Astarion: Arcane trickster rogue
Karlach: Bear heart barbarian
I forgot until this post that there’s other barbarian subclasses. The game funneled Karlach into Wildheart, might go respec her into berserker. Our party is already really good at focusing down big single targets so long as my wife and Astarion stay up, we even managed to take down the bulette in one round.
The game funneled Karlach into Wildheart
Really? It didn’t for me. It let me choose when I leveled her up.
Even after I respec’ed her, it skipped the menu to choose a subclass, defaulted to Wildheart, and had me choose an animal. I had to go back and switch from Wildheart to Berserkr. The option was always there, it just skipped some steps and I didn’t notice.
I played a polar bear (moon druid), beast master hunter, and a eldrich knight in EA.
Playing as a paladin now. With my own rules like never using the illithid powers (but I might have fucked up because I think I technically used it to free shadowheart). My smug, righteous ass slaying evil and protecting the innocent.
I’m playing a barbarian tiefling, trying to decide if I want to multiclass a couple levels into druid as well. I went for the tiger heart, it’s been decent so far. Managed to kill the commander on the nautiloid, I’ve been using his sword for the whole game so far. I also have Astarion, kept him an arcane trickster. My husband is playing a dragonborn sorcerer, and he made Shadowheart into a war cleric, which has been very helpful!
Damn, I tried numerous times to kill the commander. Always did it in EA, was unable to do it in Release. Thought they made it way harder…
I think they did too! We got really lucky, Zhalk killed the mindflayer, and his reinforcements showed up, so we were running towards the control panel. We were about to give up, had one character camped at the panel, and ranged characters trying to snipe him, we got the last hit on our absolute last chance, I grabbed the sword and my husband had his character hit the button, we turned to each other IRL and high-fived, haha. It felt very cinematic! 😂
Hello from my edgy as possible drow Assassin Rogue/Gloom Stalker build.
Edit: To elaborate a little… Assassin Rogue gets automatic sneak attack crits on everyone they go before in initiative on the first round. Gloom Stalker gets initiative bonuses, plus an additional attack that does an extra d8 of damage on the first round. (Plus some other nice stuff). If you’re feeling really spicy, take Ranger to 5 for Extra Attack and dip 2 levels of Fighter for Action Surge to get 5 guaranteed crits, one of which gets Sneak Attack and one of which is your extra d8 Gloom Stalker attack.
I’m doing that build too, but going Monk instead of Fighter. You can Flurry of Blows on the surprise round instead of action surge (which is worse), but you can also flurry of blows more each short rest than action surge.
It’s overall worse, but Monk is more fun than Fighter. I’m only level 5 still, so probably going 3 Rogue/ 5 Ranger/4 Monk initially, but might respec at level 11 to try the 3 Rogue/3 Ranger/6 Monk split.
