Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks The team that balances lore with mechanics the best?

So I’m not going to lie, my go-to team is Lae’zel, Asterion, Gale, and Shadowheart, with my PC replacing whatever role they have (so if I play a righty type, I replace Lae’Zel, if I play a druid/cleric, I replace Shadowheart as the healer.). But after a few play through s, it occurred to me that Asterion and Gale don't really have much story stuff happening. Well, rather, they DO but all their story stuff happens at camp.

Meanwhile Wyll has important moments against the Goblins, Lae’Zel is the driving force (and person with the beast lead) to get our tadpoles out, and Shadowheart’s polyhedron seems to be driving force between the entire plot, and they all have multiple crucial scenes outside of camp.

So I propose that in order to get the most ‘story’ out of the game, one should play as a rogue with Lae’Zel, Wyll, and Shadowheart. This makes sure you have a tank, healer, a bit of a spellcaster, and a rogue for picking locks. This does leave some problems (basically Wyll doesn’t get things like fireball at level 5) but whatcha gonna do?

This is just my own two cents. Not looking to start a toxic board fight. If you have an idea, please put it down with your reasoning as long as you aren’t insulting.

Fiend Warlocks can choose Fireball at level five, or swap out a spell for it.

I stand corrected.

Shadowheart does seem to be the most tied into the story so far, with the box and the Sharran/Selunite connections in act 1. And Shadowheart is really versatile and can take care of any lockpicking/stealth/disarming, can buff, heal, do okay damage and be more tanky if specced that way. Basically, she frees you up to take whatever other party members and play whatever PC you want.

Wyll has more stuff going on with the goblins, true, and Lae’zel with the gith patrol, though if following Lae’zel you’d probably fairly quickly head off to the mountain pass towards the crèche rather than going via the Underdark or even bothering with the goblin camp, so lore wise she will probably make more sense in the full release when we can follow that lead. Astarion just has the interaction with Gandrel, I think plus interest in the Necromancy of Thay. Gale just has the Necromancy of Thay, plus chance of dying to get some insight into his condition if he travels with you and interjections in the druid camp that give some details of his past in Waterdeep.

Which is a long way of saying that I agree Shadowheart and Wyll probably have the most story in EA, with specific bits that it’s worth having Lae’zel and Astarion for, but those are signalled well enough in-game to make it not metagaming to just swap them in when relevant, keeping a free party slot for whoever. For Tav, there’s probably most resonance for tiefling, drow or deep gnome races and perhaps druid as a class, but it’s all pretty open at this stage.

the only real issue is picking when to leave one behind as Lae’zel & Shadowheart never see eye to eye i.e, park Shadowheart when talking Zorru, into kneeling but have her back to help Show Guex how to fight

as a side point having Wyll, Shadowheart & Lae’zel will get to see him try and hit on both girls... they agree on how much they like that

I think I’ve only done one run with both Lae’zel and Shadowheart in my party for the whole time, but while they bicker I don’t think it actually causes any real issues having them both in the party does it?

Yes every time you agree with one it upsets the other

What you can do is ungroup them and move the one that would get upset away before talking

I wouldn't take lore considerations based on early levels into account. After release my group consisted mostly of Gale, Shadowheart and Lae'zel, later I replaced Gale with Astarion when I tried magical classes. Currently my group is Shadowheart, Gale and Wyll, and that will be the party at release most probably. I don't see big differences in the experience of the story. I think Larian is clever enough to make it more or less the same whatever you choose.

For me it's important wether I "like" the companion (wether he/she is nice or interesting or, er, wether I want to sleep with him/her ...) and wether I like playing the class (as you necessarily have to play the three companions in tb combat). For example I don't like rogues, so Astarion is not in the party, even if he seems to have an interesting background story.

You. . . Don’t have to? This was just me opining about how to do it IF you wanted the most lore out of the cutscenes