Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Anyone playthrough with the default Tav?

aka the high elf barbarian. How does that work from a lore perspective anyway? I suppose anything is possible; maybe raised by a childless human barbarian couple after a raid on an elf village. Or raised by wild elves - if such exist in Faerun.

From the perspective of game mechanics, it actually works pretty well. This is the first character that I've been able to get Everburn without excessive cheese. The lower CON makes the unarmored AC less useful though. Tav took a dislike to Lae'Zel early, and so is proudly wearing her armor as a battle trophy.

Any other experiences with this character build?

That isn't really what I would call the default option, More it just picks the first box alphabetically for each choice and you are supposed to customize from there or select an origin character.

The default option works only because Barbarian is such a crazy strong class - it's still very wasteful in terms of default choices. High elves get an extra spell cantrip that a barbarian can't even use while raging in this case Fire Bolt and it uses INT to hit - which your default is 9 - so..not really useful. Acolyte is moderately useful with Insight and Religion but from a Lore perspective...you could say your acolyte had a psychotic break and became consumed with some idea of revenge, maybe somebody burned down their Temple and slaughtered all their friends. .

The default Athletics, Intimidation and Perception are all very useful though.

The default stats are a little wonky - but nothing a Potion of Hill giant strength after every long rest could't fix in regards to being able to hit. Technically you could still do GWM. I would grab some Medium Scale +1 to make up the AC loss from con and dex being wonky.

Honestly the Lore works fine for this - there is some waste on the build here and there but you shouldn't have too much trouble.

@Sir Sparhawk High Elf is the first alphabetical choice? Maybe Elf, High would be first...if not for Dwarves. (Did I miss Dwarves? Not my favorite race, so I don't go looking for them.) And even if you do it in the <race>, <subrace> format there's Elf, Drow.

@Blackheifer As far as the Barbarian class goes, Gary Gygax originally restricted it to humans in Unearthed Arcana (it was an add on to the core rules.) The original class concept was mostly inspired by Robert E. Howard's Conan, though Fritz Leiber's Fahfrd could reasonably be represented too. In later editions, the concept of an uncivilized warrior was broadened to other races and cultures. Races such as elves and halflings seemed like a poor fit thematically, which left me a bit flummoxed at being offered a high elf barbarian. Wild Elf would make more sense, but as you say anything is possible in Faerun...

...and as long as we're talking about barbarian AC, has anyone found "Bloodguzzler' useful at all? (It's a piece of barbarian 'armor' with no AC bonus - haha.) I found it's Wrath ability pretty underwhelming (+1 melee damage if your health is below 50%.)

you need to combine it with other wrath pieces. the other includes a helmet, boots and gloves.