Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Loss to ESL from Fighter vs. Ranger

That's why I'm having trouble answering properly because it all starts with the character and sticks to a theme in order to fit lore and roleplay, otherwise it's just some random build

But from a strictly gameplay point of view I would not go Cleric 5 at all. It's sacrificing either significant melee damage (Paladin 2) or overall utility (Bard 10) which provides;

• Improved Bardic Inspiration (d10)
• Another x2 Expertise
• Magical Secrets (2 spells from other classes)

Therefore not taking either the Paladin (2) or the Bard (10) in this gameplay scenario is a mistake because Cleric (5) provides nothing meaningful in comparison to the other two and the only reason why I even take a Cleric is *only* for roleplay purposes (Eilistraee dialogues).

Of course, you are primarily concerned with the role-playing game, but you can also implement an idea without this fact and consider it purely for gamistic reasons

Divine Smite from the Paladin is quite clear to me BUT with Cleric 5 you also get the option of Spirit Guardians and then you have an immense damage potential with Stage Fright + Spirit Guardians (Important: I am not primarily assuming a solo character)

However, your objection regarding Bard 10 is of course absolutely correct and definitely has its advantages.

Thank you in any case for taking up the debate

I think from a gameplay approach most builds with dip into three classes (and sometimes into two classes) have disadvantages which might not be compensated by the theoretical benefits they receive. That a build works is not such a proof of anything, because the game is not that difficult.

I experimented a lot with multiclassing, I think I spent the most money on Withers in my current playthough (an exaggeration ...). I currently have a Fighter 4/Warlock 2/Sorcerer 6 build. You have massive disadvantages, one of the biggest of them that you only get 2 feats, a big blow to any build. And you only get lvl 3 spells. But I could tell you why I made the build (although it's quite obvious).

I don't understand the ratio of a Cleric 5/Wizard 1/Bard 6 build. What do you want to achieve? Why is Wizard in the build? Why do you need Bard together with Cleric? In my experience a Cleric is the best with 12 levels. Spirit Guardians are ok but situational. I would hesitate to rely on the spell if I had not advantage in Constitution saving throws. Do you take War Caster as feat, with only two feats available? What are your points in attributes? One of the most important questions, how do you guarantee enough Initiative to always go first, always a bit difficult in a non-Dex build.

I will be very happy to answer your legitimate questions

With most multiclassing options, the lack of a Feat is a bit of a bummer, because you can get enough other benefits from the other class and yes, with your build, Fighter is logical where Fighter 2 (did someone say Action Surge?) should actually be enough for a Nova round

As for my, fair to say still untested, suggestion, the thinking goes in the following directions:

- Bard 6 (Extra Attack and various spells and skills)
- Wizard 1 (to be able to expand the spell list)
- Cleric 5 (There are a few good level 2 and level 3 spells and also because of Spirit Guardians

Of course you have a synergy. Spirit Guardians can be upcast, you rarely get hit (Sanctuary, Shield, Mirror Image) and with Shriek it becomes, at least theoretically, very strong. A friend only tested it with Sanctuary + Shriek + Spirit Guardians. You run through the enemies and then hit them twice more. Works excellently.

I don't want to badmouth this build, but simply discuss it and deviations from this build

I have to test that, I was of the impression that Spirit Guardians end as soon as you cast Sanctuary. I had this twice in fights lately, but maybe there were other reasons for the end of the concentration. An untouchable Spirit Guardians caster would indeed be nice (or: totally op). As Shadowheart is in my group permanently, she should perhaps always concentrate on Spirit Guardians instead on Bless or Call Lightning.

My Warlock build is a crit build, therefore Fighter 4. Action Surge is just a nice addition. I'm always considering wether Fighter is worth the lost feat which I could get with Warlock 4/ Sorcerer 8.

According to my friend, the procedure is as follows:

- Have a team member cast Haste on the sword dancer
- Activates Shriek
- Casts Magic Missile
- Casts Sanctuary

Next round

- Casts Spirit Guardians
- Runs through the enemies (Sanctuary drops)
- Shield then protects from hits

Yes, but it is cancelled as soon as you do damage. Or it should be.

i editied my last Post

And whether Fighter (Champion) has a better chance of critical damage because of the one point I think is really up for debate. You have enough options to deal fixed critical damage

That works, but I don't see the special relation between Spirit Guardians and Sanctuary. Any party member would be protected. And if your Sword Dancer had high AC, he/she might be not the best target for Sanctuary, which costs you a lvl 1 spell slot. I try to use it very sparsely and only in dangerous fights. It's usually easier to replace hp in or after a fight than spell slots.


Edit:
Wether Fighter or not is good is really debatable. The one point from Fighter is just one point, but it is one of several points, so 5% more crit chance. Then you get Action Surge, all armor (or at least medium armor if you level Fighter as second) and martial weapons proficiency. One crit point comes from a longbow, it's nice to be actually able to use it (if silenced for example).

Bard (10) also provides Spirit Guardians too, which is why I initially recommended it because I assumed it's why you wanted Cleric (5) ^^

According to my friend, the procedure is as follows:

- Have a team member cast Haste on the sword dancer
- Activates Shriek
- Casts Magic Missile
- Casts Sanctuary

Next round

- Casts Spirit Guardians
- Runs through the enemies (Sanctuary drops)
- Shield then protects from hits


There are now no more problems with Sanctuary. Sanctuary is only there to be able to break into the ranks of the enemy without danger

I didn't know that Spirit Guardians is selectable with Bard (10), so thanks for the great hint

As far as the fighter topic is concerned:

- Sleep 100% critical damage
- Hold Person /Hold Monster 100% critical damage
- Various potions and other spells

The 5 percent of Champion is more than negligible. The best example of this is Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 6

I don't know what fights and enemies you are refering too. Sleep is difficult to use in late game, I would say it's useless. Hold Person targets humanoids which a) are so unimportant that the use of a lvl 2 spell slot for a control spell is a waste, b) are so buffed up that you have very low hit chances. Hold Monster is a lvl 5 spell with the interesting feature that it does not work against undead. It usually has also low hit chances against those which deserved it the most. You can build especially to make control spells work, but I did not find the effort worth it.

All mentioned crit situations demand some preparation. Which is often better used for other tasks. I like to have (currently) 25% crit chance in normal gameplay. As Warlock/Sorcerer/Fighter I can cast 4 EB in the first turn with some effort, some crit for sure and with some help from items it is good reliable damage.

BTW I also could use preparations with my build for fixed crits, but it is not meant for it. There is also the Illithid crit ability and a ring which grants you a crit to spare, you could mention. I have to admit that my build is not the craziest crit centered build (which might be Storm Sorcerer 10/ Thunder Cleric 2, but don't try it on Ansur), it's a more "normal" crit build. Huge crits worth some labour also demand a special ability which I don't have in my build.

The spells I mentioned can also be used at higher levels and you can then quickly checkmate 3-4 opponents and finish them off with critical damage. I played a Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 6 Critlander on one run. This works excellently. There are plenty of ways to increase your spell DC, so it's all worth more than five percent of Champion, but of course only in terms of game mechanics. If there are other reasons (roleplaying) why you take Fighter forget what I said

If you play with a normal group you don't even have to do the following options on your opponent (I can't guarantee the completeness of the list)

- Hold Person
- Sleep (I mean the condition not necessarily the spell)
- Drow Potion
- Glyph of Warding (Sleep)
- Crawler Mucus (Paralyzed Condition)
- Hold Monster
- Ghouls from Danse Macabre
- Wolf Wild Shape (Exposing Bite)
- Killer Sweetheart
- Luck of the Far Realms


And the most important artifact is of course Diadem of Arcane Synergy


But thanks again to you for the nice discussion

I have tried this combination, and from both a gameplay/optimization point of view, and a roleplay point of view, I decided I didn’t like it very much. From a gameplay point of view, you stretch your stats way too thin, and you don’t get some of the most awesome spells. You basically get a weakened cleric and a weakened bard in one character.

The wizard dip for this build is actually kind of useless because you cannot put many (any?) points into intelligence first of all. Then, if you want four wizard spells, you have to use the exploit of putting the headband of intellect on, preparing the spells, and then removing it. Which is a pain. I’m not sure if you can switch out spells in this case. It’s not sustainable to keep the headband of intellect on all the time in act 3, because there are so many better options. Plus with pickpocketing you can buy/steal as many scrolls as you want!

(This is purely from a gameplay perspective. I do plan to use a wizard dip for roleplaying reasons, because I want a cat familiar to follow me around the whole game and Shadowheart is going to be casting it.)

From a role-playing perspective, my character just felt… weak, which isn’t how she wanted to feel. Like you’re a light of Selune, for example, representing her on Faerun, and the best you can do is a fireball? I like how, as a light cleric, you get powerful spells like destructive wave at level 9. It’s sort of like the goddess’s power being on display and flowing through you, you know?

I do love pairing cleric and bard in roleplay, though! So I either do bard with cleric dip, or cleric with bard dip, or alternating based on my headcanon for the character. My last playthrough I did bard 6/cleric 1 in Act 1, bard 1/cleric 9 in Act 2, and bard 1/cleric 11 in Act 3. But the next time I think I’d like to go for a more bardy, charismatic flavor of cleric in acts 2 and 3 and go bard 3/cleric x (5-9). (College of Lore bard and light cleric.) I’d lose divine intervention and level six cleric spells, so I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be happy with this, I’ll have to see!

But the point being, I think it’s better to have a main class that you power up more because for me, from a gameplay perspective and a roleplay perspective, it’s a lot more satisfying to feel more powerful. I can only speak for spellcasting classes though, because I normally just play those plus Lae’zel. <3

Also, if I recall correctly, sanctuary breaks as soon as you cast spirit guardians. The two are incompatible, whether the enemy is taking damage from spirit guardians or not.

I'm not sure we talk about the same. You can do all this stuff for criticals. You need usually two chars for it, one has to have a high spell DC, one has to have a reliable high damage action to make it worth it. It's not great to crit after Hold Monster with a low damage roll. Paladins do decent damage on crits, at least as long as spell slots are available, but I don't have a Paladin in the group (I don't like them). Wether it's a good idea of "wasting" an action with a control spell instead of doing damage is a separate question. I'm too lazy to do the math, including hit chances.

For me that is not an argument against a crit build however. Methods for guaranteed crits do not make the Champion feature useless. I can do all the fixed crits too (Gale is mainly a Magic Missile machine and has only 22 spell DC, so it could be surely better), but my main also crits with every fourth normal spell. If I would not prefer a balanced approach with also defense in mind, I could crit more often.

The problem of leveling Champion is not that it is only +5% crit chance. It is the loss of a feat I could otherwise get which would free me an item slot. But I can compensate the missing feat with a +2 Charisma item while I needed medium armor proficiency to wear the appropiate head item with + crit chance, which a pure Warlock/Sorceress does not have. So in the end the dip into Fighter as third class is the better alternative.

Instead of the fighter dip for medium armor you could go with a githyanki ......

Do you address me, I'm not sure? If so, no way. Firstly I don't like Githyanki (from appearance and lore) and visuals in this game are of imminent importance to me. Secondly, the dip into Fighter is for the +5% crit chance mainly, the rest is an additional (great) benefit, so no race can replace it.


Edit:
Small update from my Raphael fight yesterday. Despite 1 successful sleep attempt and a following crit (I especially had a Paladin in the group), control spells + prepared crits sucked, on R. as well as the cambions who mostly resisted sleep or Hold Monster. I could have used my two lvl 6 spells and the lvl 5/3 spells better. What pulled me through the long and chaotic affair (it was the first time I faced him) were healing abilities, normal greatsword smacks and Eldritch Blast.