Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Karlach Armor

Greets,
Is it possible for her to just wear her default barbarian outfit and badly give her medium or heavy armor?

Armors are completely out of whack in BG3.

Karlach is obviously much better off with medium armor and higher AC. But then she loses her cool unique look. Why didn't they make her custom armor Scale or Breastplate? Where are all Breast Plates and Half Plates anyway?

Same with Shadowheart. Her custom armor has inferior stats and she also loses her unique look 15 minutes into the game when you find the first basic Scale Mail. When she finally finds an upgrade to her look, it looks heavier but has the same AC. Why isn't the Sharran mail found in Grymforge a half-plate? The same level of armor Lae'zel has been wearing since level 1...

It just seems completely random and not well thought out at all.

I disagree, medium armour isn't much better (unless I haven't found the correct medium armour yet). I got some gloves that buffed my unarmoured AC by 2, so it's equal to what I would get from half plate. Additionally I found some "barbarian style" clothing that increases my strengh by 2 which suits Karlach quite well.

The Bracers of Defense are a must for Karlach. +2 to AC while not wearing armor or a shield and stacks with unarmored defense. Otherwise, yes, Medium Armor will be better for her until she gets a combined +7 or so in her Dex+Con modifiers. This is a known 5e quirk with Barbarians' AC.

Good to know there will be Barbarian clothing that synergizes with her.

Adamantine Scale is one of the few armours that are better for her, because Reckless makes it much more likely she gets crit, and it negates crit.

Otherwise the barbarian type clothes plus bracers of defense is more or less the way to go if you have at least 14 Dex and 16 Con.

Basic starter Scale Mail gives her a higher AC which is objectively better until you find Barbarian gear. Anything is better in the beginning than their starting armor and it's odd Larian makes custom stuff for them and then encourages you to ditch it.

Barbarians don't tank with AC, they tank with HP and DR. This is a deliberate 5e design choice. If you want an AC tank, there are other classes for it. Losing barbarian benefits if you wear armor is "working as intended". But yeah, I wish it was possible to lock in "thematic style" for all characters regardless of what they're wearing.

They don't lose any Barbarian abilities wearing up to Half-Plate. That's 17 AC compared to 14 or 15 AC unarmored with all Barbarian abilities working just the same.

There seems to be some confusion on how a Barbarian "should" be played, also at the Larian offices when they don't put a low level Barbarian in Medium Armor. Unarmored Defense is a trap that's working very well. Medium Armor is a strictly better choice unless you find some equipment that gives you benefits that rival the lost AC, or if you have 20 Con.

The design goal behind Unarmored Defense was to make "naked barbarians" somewhat viable (which it does) for people who want to go that route, but it was never meant to "Just as good" as wearing the best-in-class medium armors.
Anyway, there are items that made the trade-off more interesting, like the bracers of defense mentioned above and some garbs that give DEX or CON bonuses.

When it comes to characters losing their "distinctive look" fairly quickly, yeah... That's an issue in the genre since graphics got to the point where you can tell the difference...
For all its other shortcomings I think it's one of the very few areas where Dragon Age Inquisition managed very well: basically any upgrade you could get to your companions' armors was specifically tailored to their look.

well yes and no... there are ways to improve their armour with multiclass into sorcerer and the shield spell being my goto.

that aside Barbarian defense tends to be 'do until others' before they can do until us

About the unique looks. BG3 doesn't have a lot of armor progression, which I like. In that light it's an especially weird design choice that you can't maintain their unique look for more than minutes.

Lae'zel's starting Half-Plate remains relevant for a very long time into Act II, and it's still ok even at the start of Act III. I wish the same was true with Shadowheart and the rest of them. If her starting armor was a Breastplate (as it actually looks like!), and then the mail found around level 5 in Grymforge would be a Half-Plate or Breastplate +1, she could also maintain her cool Sharran look. It's really wierd the Sharran mail found at Grymforge neither provides an AC upgrade for her nor matches it's own look stat-wise. You find some cool loot, and then realize it's useless even though it looks great. Many times with armor it seems Larian just threw around some random numbers on them without giving any thought. There are heavy gloves that don't have the heavy armor property etc.

If Lae'zel can have a Half-Plate to start with, why can't Karlach? Although it would feel more balanced if they both started in a Scale Mail version of their look like everyone else, and then later get that Half-Plate upgrade. Lae'zel could get her upgrade from the Gith patrol, and Karlach could find hers fighting the Merregon and devil pigs, or elsewhere in Grymforge. They actually missed an opportunity for gear progression on these characters which feels really antithetical to Larian style gear spam.

Just strip some parts of Lae'zels starting armor in asymmetrical Gith fashion, give it Scale Mail stats, and she will have a fun visual and mechanical upgrade later when she gets a Gith Half-Plate. And then do the same for other companions with a unique look.

The Adamantine Scale is badass. I used both of my ores making two of those.

Unless you have one or fewer Medium Armor users in your party, Adamantine Scale is pretty much *the* choice, since the , so doing this gives three out of four members the ability to negate crits, and the fourth is probably Gale who can't wear any of it anyway.

I equipped Karlach with clothing I found (think is called mighty clothing) and it gives her a +2 to strength. Combine that with her dex bonus and con bonus to armor and add in bracers of defense she has 17 ac and 20 strength for me and is a force especially if given a +2 armor buff and raging.

What i really didnt like is:

Early act2:

I want an infernal half plate for Karlach. Not clothing.

Agreed, looks like modders will need to fix that armor.