Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Multiclassing Shadowheart

Hi all!

I'm new to DnD 5e and could use your help on the Shadowheart build. I'm going to pick her as PC for my first playthrough (saving a custom character build for a later run). Instead of playing a dark support cleric, I want to make her a high initiative, mobile, sneaky melee damage dealer, who can take out the most annoying enemy quickly. Still very thematic for her I think.

1 lvl or more (how many?) of Cleric of Shar should be part of the build for story reasons. But is the thievery domain still the way to go?

After that it gets complicated: multiclassing into thief, assasin, shadow monk, gloom stalker? All seems fitting. Dips into fighter even for more attacks per round?

My initial idea was multiclassing into shadow monk, because of, well, the name and play style and because cleric and monk are both wisdom based classes. Surely there are other/better class synergies that I don't see?

Looking for a robust, proven build path that keeps me from respecing through the available options and let's me focus on the game instead.

Cheers!

I'd wait until lvl 3 for MIrror Image and Pass Without Trace before switching to Rogue->Assassin to mold her into the Murderess from the Shadows she yearns for.

Shadowheart approves. Very straightforward, also the class fantasy around Assassin is pretty much what I'm after.

Thanks!

Gloom stalker should be good, because Cleric with high initiative means Bless for everyone round one or Command on enemies before they beat your ass. Gloom Stalker gets + initiative from the Wisdom modifier on top of Dexterity.

"I'd wait until lvl 3 for MIrror Image and Pass Without Trace before switching to Rogue->Assassin to mold her into the Murderess from the Shadows she yearns for." - Although not waiting until level 4 would delay her ASI...


"Gloom stalker should be good" well she is a goth, so should be happy skulking around in the dark

Honestly until she gets her memory back it's pointless imo

Okay, I did some digging.


Mirror image is invaluable for an assassin who got caught.


Indeed. Improved initiative and extra attack/damage on first turn go incredibly well with an assassin type of character. Same for the increased movement speed. The damage bonus from Dueling and the extra attack at lvl 5 are also nice.

afais Gloom Stalker will have good synergy with Rouge/Assassin (sneak attack bonus, advantage on the first turn and critical hits on surprised enemies)

So the build plan would look like this:

Lvl 1-3 Cleric of Shar/Trickery Domain
Lvl 4-6 Rouge/Assassin
Lvl 7-12 Ranger/Gloom Stalker


Although as the party leader she needs to be good in charisma as well as in dex and wis, I try not to worry about ASI too much. Hopefully a headband of charisma or the like will show up soon enough.

So yeah, if this build is valid, there she is: a charming, deceiving, dark, holy assassin.

Edit: If the initial ability scores of the origin characters are unchangeable, then I'll probably respec once to dump int and str. Not exactly how I want to play, but at least the history of the class progression is unaltered.

Edit 2: Well, meanwhile I do start to worry about ASI. In case it is crucial for the build, I'd put 4 level in each at the cost of the bonus action from Ranger.

Lvl 1-4 Cleric of Shar/Trickery Domain
Lvl 5-8 Rouge/Assassin
Lvl 9-12 Ranger/Gloom Stalker

The build seems more robust this way tbh. Thoughts?

Finally, after reading what benbaxter says about ability scores and the gloomstalker/assassin my build plan for Shadowheart looks like this:

Attributes:

8 str, 15(+1) dex, 10 con, 8 int, 15* wis, 14(+2) cha with * Observant Feat at lvl 4 adding +1 to wisdom and +5 to perception
(using respec to change initial attribute scores if necessary)

Class progression:

Cleric(Thievery) 4 / Rogue(Assassin) 3 / Ranger(Gloom) 5

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't that mean the only finesse weapon she'll have access to until level 8 will be just a dagger?

Rogues can use rapiers and shortswords.

Yes, but if you multiclass *into* Rogue, I don't think you get any of the Rogue's weapon proficiencies, at least not according to the table here: https://5thsrd.org/rules/multiclassing/#proficiencies

Or is that table not correct?

Yeah, I would definitely gloom 5 before assassin. If you want the skills fast do 1/1/1 and then make a call on whether you want to shoot more or support more and do gloom to 5 or cleric 3 or 4 based on that choice.

Larian were saying that they wanted to remove multiclassing restrictions, so I assume those might or might not make it into the final game. But knowing them, they might get rid of the rule.

Was totally unaware of these restrictions. Thanks for pointing them out.


Almost a safe bet I'd say.


RP wise I'm thinking of someone strongly rooted in religion who at some point is approached by the church/gets a call from her deity to execute certain "special assignments", a spy of the Vatican kind of character (hopefully it's not going to clash with Shadowhearts origin story). Anyway, for that reason she starts off as Cleric:

Cleric(Thievery) 4/ Ranger(Gloom) 3/ Rogue(Assassin) 3

I am leaving the last 2 level open. Maybe she will be coming back to church (Cleric 2), maybe she becomes the perfect killer (Gloom 2), maybe she pursues power in general at the end (Gloom 1 / Assasin 1 for all three ASI). Who knows?

I see that "spy of the Vatican/Inquisition's assassin" is deeply rooted in the Anglosphere's psychique :P

If this is the case, then Shadowheart is a good contender for respeccing her abilities a bit, and for the Weapon Master feat. Becasue cleric/rogue relies on various attributes anyway, you can increase your Dex here and gain access to your nifty rogue weapons.

Haha. Don't want to do Shadowheart or her writers injustice by forcefully fitting her origin story into some cliché. But what can I do? It's the vibe I get from her.

As a word of warning, the damage output of a character like that will be quite low. Based on my dnd experience I'd expect you to be able to deal about half as much damage as a simple single class character.
It won't matter much when roleplaying on a low enough difficulty setting, but it's something to keep in mind if you get to a situation where you struggle with combat.

Cool! All the little things we minmaxers care about shouldn't get in the way of your fun!

Maybe, those are not restricitions though, you simply dont get everything when you multiclass into a new class, for example, you only get save profficiency from your first class... but you can respec to take rogue as level 1, and get the rogue weapons, then take the cleric level...

But either way we will know thursday, i find it kinda "strange" if you got everything upon taking first level, that give people multiclassing alot of profficensies... and we know we wont get extra spellslots, or do you think thats restrictions as well ?

Ill probably make my shadowheart a war priest of shar... then she gets all martial weapons