Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Early Character builds

It would be nice to use this thread for builds for our own use and most for those that are not familiar with 5e.
So my first build and likely what will become my MC will be a Rogue Sniper.

Some premises: Stats capped at 18 in character creation, 75 point buy, all subclasses and feats available.

Class: Assassin 4/Battlemaster 6
Race: Elf, any (Wood or Drow recommended for extra WIS or CHA)

Ability Scores

STR 8
DEX 20 (18+2)
CON 10
INT 10
WIS 16
CHA 14

Expertise: Stealth (must) and Sleight of hand (pickpocket in 5e), Perception or thieves tools
Feats: Alert, Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy
Fighting style: Archery
Weapon: Longbow

How it works: Assassinate, the Assassin main feature does the following: When you surprise a creature (Stealth vs passive perception), during the first round of combat every attack that you hit will be a critical hit, which means damage dice will be doubled, including the ones granted by battlemaster.

What do you do: Surprise, attack, use action surge, attack again.
6 levels of Fighter will give you two attacks per round, which become 4 attacks with action surge.
You will be attacking from stealth, and Assassinate also grants advantage when you have initiative over your enemies. Elven accuracy allows you to reroll one d20 when you have advantage, thus basically granting you double advantage.
Sharpshooter gives you +10 damage at the cost of -5 attack rolls, which becomes -3 when you have archery. Even less with magical weapons.

Damage calculation: 4 attacks, each longbow attack deals 1d8+10(sharpshooter)+5(20 DEX), each attack will add one superiority dice(+1d8), and 2d6 sneak attack damage once.

Total damage will be 16d8 + 4d6 + 60 = 146

Yes, this is a level 10 character created with point buy.

Please join in and post your planned builds, or questions about 5e builds.

Is 75 points your in house rule or a variant for rolling stats? I would spend an hour rolling in BG to get close to 90. Anyone know what kind of character stats can we expect in game? I don't remember what they had in the demo.

https://youtu.be/XJhawYZwvPI?t=1836
Looks like the Point Buy from PHB.

27 points to spend to put scores between 8 and 15
8 = 0pts, +1 for 9-13, +2 for 14-15

Doesn't they say some where that BG3 will offer point buy, rolling, and array options for character ability scores? I remember reading that, but I don't remember where I saw that.

Is a variant of the stat rolling. The PHB rule is kinda shitty, since it has some sort of increasing cost to buy higher stats, which always gives you incentive to roll.But I think they will give the option to roll in the game, so you can at least max out the most important stat for your class.

I don't think they've said anything about stats yet, people have made assumptions.
The only stat thing visible in the reveal was the point buy. That said, other options may be available, but we really don't know.

Rolling is incentivized in this 1 case. You have a 9.3% to max a stat, but the average rolls are 16,14,13,12,10,9. Pretty close to the Standard Array (Point Buy comes out to allow the same as the Standard).
https://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

I don't think they'll implement point buy as it is in the PHB, it is too crippling and I don't know of any one that likes it. They'll either have the option to roll or allow point buy without increasing costs.

I can't speak to what other people do and do not like. What I can say, is that at the reveal, they were using it.

I jcan't atest that was the exact same system and that higher scores required more points. And I hope it is not like this.

It's really hard to make a build to start off the game with when we don't even know all the subclasses, races, subraces, deities, and Warlock Patrons, ect... in the game.

I will likely go with Race: Aasimar Subrace: Scourge Class: Sorcerer, Subclass: Divine Soul, Background Acolyte or Noble, maybe with a dip in Warlock and/cleric.

If that is not an option, Race: Tiefling Subrace: Fiernan, Class: Bard, Subclass: College of Lore, multiclass Paladin Oath of Ancients.

Oh and the one origin character I will try during EA is the Githyanki, make her a Battlemaster Fighter.

The only thing in the build that is not sure to be in the game is the Elven Acc feat, that is why I called it premise. All the other stuff is in the PHB.

You can figure it mathematically. As previously stated, the PHB point buy equates to the Standard Array.
In the 'spent points' column, there were 27. Stats started as the standard array +1 Cha because that was the only thing currently in for Lightfoot Halfling.
Later, it shows Astarion in play. https://youtu.be/XJhawYZwvPI?t=3030
It shows the standard array without racial bonuses applied.

We do not know how stats will be distributed.

Acording to the players handbook the highest value you can have at lv1 is 15, before applying racial bonusses.

Most games based on a D20 system used point buy with increasing costs for higher stats, like P:K, NWN1+2 and also KotoR1+2.
I guess we will get something similar.

In BG1+2 most people just re rolled until they liked the result.
If anything, it could have the effect that players chose a custom char over an origin char, assumimg the origins have fixed stats.
In the video he selected an origin char and did not change his settings, but this was pre alpha.
This way the game would feel more like the original BG1+2 with your main char and different companions.

Between having max stat at 17 or rolling, I'd roll. 15 max is too crippling.
The point buy in 5e is not very popular, so the option to roll is becoming a necessity.

I think most people use the standard array than they would rolling stats.

I`ve seen a lot of "roll for stats" in Tabletop because it´s fun to roleplay a sickly mage with 8 CON that could die if someone sneezes too hard around him, a 9Wis deaf warlock or an 8 int paladin half-orc in a TT game; but as discussed in another thread, there are little to no advantages to doing that in a videogame because they rarely give you options for characters with low stats, you still can woo the bartender, speak poetry in ancient English or disable complicated lock-puzzles with a 6 int 8 cha character. Dialogues seldom change.

There are games, like Arcanum or the classic fallouts or even PoE2 that added changes for stat-challenged characters in dialogues and quests, but they are the minority. You usually got all the disadvantages in combat and skill checks and zero revenue. Most people just rolled over and over again or min-max because you do not have a real reason to have low stats but plenty of reasons to have high numbers in your main stat, and rolling, again and again, gets old really fast.

This is going to be an MP game, and I found that when you "roll for stats" some players that had abysmal stats and play with lucky characters that rolled three 18s usually felt left behind from the start, even if their characters are very useful in their role even with low stats and they also offer them lots of RP options. I think that could cause issues with some people unnecessarily.
If you want RP a character with low stats (or super high stats), you just use point buy and reduce the stats you want to 8, 6 7, etc... but all the characters will have the same bulk numbers from the start.

From a DM/game developer perspective, I find that point buy or standard array is fairer in multiplayer games, because all the characters are equal from start in their stats at least, and no one felt unjustly treated. That could cause problems with some people in the long run, and in a coop-multiplayer party-based game, you want all the party members to have fun and have a great time.




Sorry for the long answer, but back on topic after seeing what the new cantrips can do I am eager to try a high elf, possibly an arcane trickster. I really want to know what you can do with your mage hand leadermain as a trickster.

- Yes, point buy or standard array would be more fair for multiplayer.
It might also be better for balancing.

- I can understand why they made 15 the max value at character creation.
You can chose if you want a stat bonus or a feat at some levels.
If your main stat is already 20 at lv1 taking a feat is the obvious choice.
If your main stat is 16 or 17 (with race bonus) and max lv is 10, its a hard choice to max out main stat or take a feat.
But I see 2 issues there:
+ Casters become even more powerful than they already are. Casters with a high main stat have a high chance of success and can produce lots of cool effects with their spells. Usually they have several cantrips so they can do different effects every round. Martial chars with high main stats hit things with their weapon and thats it. You have to chose if you use only your regular attacks that hit or if you can do stuff that would be cool if it hits.
+ Variant human ( I guess its the only race with a free feat) would become even more powerful. 16 or 17 in the main stat makes no difference.

Please, Larian, no more. There are enough games with a party of 5 variant human already. No wonder many DMs just forbid that race or made a rule of lvl 1 feat for all.