Maybe it's just me, but having 2 dedicated Fighters in the team is the way to go. Why? - A Level 12 Fighter can attack 3 times using 1 action. Also, they have Action Surge to gain another action - replenishes after short rest. - So, in a single turn, a Fighter can have 2 actions, which is 6 attacks - Pick Battlemaster subclass and choose the Riposte skill. What I do is purposefully move my fighter away from an enemy (but still within melee range) to trigger the enemy's attack of opportunity. When they miss, the Riposte will initiate a retaliation attack, at the cost of Reaction and 1 Superiority Dice. - In terms of Feats, pick Great Weapon Master. Upon killing an enemy, you can use Bonus Action to attack once. - Add all this up, a Fighter can have a total of 3 attacks(normal) + 3 attacks(action surge) + 1 Riposte + 1 Bonus attack = 8 attacks in total in a single turn - Due to the high burst damage potential, it's best to ditch Sword & Shield and just go for 2-handed Greatswords/Greataxe. Kill before being killed. - By Level 12, a single attack with a Greatsword yields an average of 20 damage (base + elemental stacks) - If you capitalize on all 7 attacks (ignoring the bonus attack since that requires killing an enemy first), a Fighter can deal 140 damage in 1 turn. - If you have 2 Fighters in your team (including Barbarian like Karlach), both can easily deal out 250 damage to the boss in the first turn - This is not even counting Critical Hits, and some Battlemaster active skills like Distracting Strike, Maneuvering Strike, Feinting Attack etc. which all can deal 30% more damage. - The remaining 2 NPCs can be Rogue and Mage/Cleric. Add in the Surprise Attacks from Astarion and some high damage spells from a Mage, any boss with 400 or less health will die in 1st turn. Worst case is near death.
With this kind of damage output, coupled with high health and high AC, what's not to like? Super robust. Morever, due to high health, Fighters seldom go down below 50% health. After a short rest, you're fully healed with replenished Action Surge and Superiority Dice, whereas a Mage/Cleric requires a Long Rest to regain spell slots. At this point, Mage and Clerics are relegated to support classes - they are there for the occasional AOE, and utility spells ie. Dimension Door, Guidance, Bless etc.
And if you cast haste on the fighter, they get DOUBLE the attacks.
If you have two fighters and a sorcerer, you can cast twinned haste on both (Do make sure to have warcaster feat on the sorc unless you enjoy lethargic). Now if you have a Gith sorc, you can also use the medium boots that prevent knockback and prone while concentrating, but no shield proficiency.
If you want a dedicated haste buffer, it could be worth taking the medium armour feat as it gives medium armour and shield proficiency along with warcaster.
Then if you go polearm expert and sentinel, you get an extra bonus action attack (not sure if haste applies to bonus action), and two extra possible opportunity attacks.
Aaannnnndddd if the enemies are susceptible to hold person / monster, every melee hit is an auto crit.
DC30 locks are the reason why my team uncompromisingly requires 2 Fighters + 1 Rogue + 1 Flexible Class. Astarion is my trap spotter, trap disabler, and lockpicker.
When it comes to speeches, I rely on Intimidation or Persuasion. My main is a Fighter with +4 to Persuasion. Add 1d4 from Cleric's Guidance and i basically have d20 + (5-8) bonus. It's manageable.
I tend to suck at Intelligence and Arcana checks though, since Gale is not a staple in my team. I only bring him out when i need Invisible or See Invisibility
And if you cast haste on the fighter, they get DOUBLE the attacks.
If you have two fighters and a sorcerer, you can cast twinned haste on both (Do make sure to have warcaster feat on the sorc unless you enjoy lethargic). Now if you have a Gith sorc, you can also use the medium boots that prevent knockback and prone while concentrating, but no shield proficiency.
If you want a dedicated haste buffer, it could be worth taking the medium armour feat as it gives medium armour and shield proficiency along with warcaster.
Then if you go polearm expert and sentinel, you get an extra bonus action attack (not sure if haste applies to bonus action), and two extra possible opportunity attacks.
Aaannnnndddd if the enemies are susceptible to hold person / monster, every melee hit is an auto crit.
Forget damage sorc, make a buffer and holder.
The downside for me is that my staple team is 2 Fighters, 1 Rogue (Astarion), 1 Cleric (Shadowheart). I know that Gale would easily double my damage output if he were in my team, but I need Bless & Guidance more. I need both to counteract my 'loaded' die that is always giving me rolls below 4 during Attack Rolls and ability checks.
Unfortunately they made martial classes really broken with all these extra actions and 95% of the gear and consumables being massive power creeps for martial classes compared to other classes. It's been obvious since EA and they never fixed it.
Fighters strengths should be somewhat countered by their lack of saving throw proficiencies and commonly low wis and int. So you can neutralize the fighter with enchantments and illusions, but I don't see that happening very often in the game. The AI priorities in terms of picking the most appropriate action and target to eliminate the largest threat seem a bit off.
I prefer Paladins as they can still hit very hard. A paladin can two shot bosses if you minmax. Which you shouldn't.
If you know what you're doing, it's possible to trivialise almost any combat encounter. Full casters are less effective, but can still output respectable 250+ damage averages per turn.
Hell, there's apparently a person who stacks crates, turns into an owlbear, and launches themselves at enemies for universal insta kills (3k damage). I don't think Larian intended that, but you can!
Some classes are better than others, but that won't stop you from stampeding through the game. Minmaxing too much creates a manufactured easy mode. If Larian wants to eliminate this through nerfs, well. I don't think they effectively can? You're going to need mods to increase the game difficulty
Very true. On my first and only playthrough for this date I've choose a Fighter with a Battle Master subclass as the main character, buffed his armor perks as much as possible, equipped him in the best-heaviest armor I could find, also decided to embrace the Illithid powers and developed all of them in the end (the most useful of them turned out to be a "Cull the Weak" one).
With a 144 HP in the raw (because of The Necromancy of Thay knowledge), with a critical damage delivered by each and every second hit and following annihilation of any target with less than 26 HP left, I guess the enemies were hearing the boss music from Dark Souls in every location where Urban Gorn and his brave crew (Karlach, Wyll and Shadowheart) were suddenly appearing in the endgame. That was a lot of fun for sure but too EZ at the same time on the balanced complexity. Both of the dragons in the final were removed from the existence in two moves.
And btw that was my first playthrough not only in Baldur's Gate 3, but in the game of that type in the long period. My experience in the world of the CRPG was limited so far by Fallout 1-2 and Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick obscura (no, I'm not THAT old I just really love some vintage games) and now this masterpiece among them. Already itching to replay it ASAP but I'm gonna delay that fine moment of a new playthrough as much as possible, for a few month at least. I'll stretch the pleasure and go for an emotional cooldown, so to speak)
Last edited by shittyauthor; 28/08/2312:38 PM. Reason: correcting grammar
Fighters strengths should be somewhat countered by their lack of saving throw proficiencies and commonly low wis and int. So you can neutralize the fighter with enchantments and illusions, but I don't see that happening very often in the game. The AI priorities in terms of picking the most appropriate action and target to eliminate the largest threat seem a bit off.
That's because the game showers you with "+2 to saving throws" and "advantage on charisma, intelligence, and wisdom saving throws" gear.
You then have the githyanki racial gear tailored for fighters and eldritch knights also giving a ton of resistance to intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saving throws as well.
By the latter half of the game your characters are actually pretty immune to secondary effects. You can have a character cast well stuffed for immunity to frightened/charm, and then your othwer casters can apply Freedom of Movement for immunity to paralysis and restrain and your characters basically can't be CC'd outside the stun condition.
On top of that, most checks are dexterity and constitution saving throws, so martials are even more favored over casters because martial classes have way more gear that increases their dexterity as well as constitution.
The only example you see above is the famous spellmight gloves from the Dribbles clown quest having a ridiculously strong interaction with magic missiles and Stratagem form the Ramazith Tower scroll for Wizards. But Monks and Fighters are putting out similar damage and with way more magic items to allow them to do so, Fighters can put out dumb damage way before the end of Act 3 whereas casters only get the Spellmight gloves basically at the end of the game. That video showing the 25 AC wizard is also misleading because he's got the Raphael heavy armor equipped, basically the secret endboss item.
Martial classes are just miles ahead of any other classes for the vast majority of the game until late Act 3 where the spellmight gloves let wizards/sorcs/warlocks compete. And clerics/druid/rangers are still trash tier classes for damage. At least cleric has OP support spells and items plus Bless. But druid and ranger are the worst classes in the game, though Bards are close but Bards have Otto's irresistible dance which is among the strongest spells in the game.
The problem is not the Fighter but the insane gadget and item policy of Larian, coupled with some action design decisions (like Haste). Fighter would be problematic in aoe tasks for example, if there weren't the ridiculous magical arrows all around.
I wonder however why the "casters are sooo bad" whiners hint to the many unfair advantages for melees but forget that lots of mobs are resistant to all physical damage, and the effects of Wet. Partial bias, maybe.
Monks and paladins both do fine. There is more than enough damage from a lot of classes in this game. "Can kill any boss in two turns, alone", enough damage. I don't know how ranger does, nor a pure Wizard. The numbers don't really matter when everything just dies in two turns
Monks and paladins both do fine. There is more than enough damage from a lot of classes in this game. "Can kill any boss in two turns, alone", enough damage. I don't know how ranger does, nor a pure Wizard. The numbers don't really matter when everything just dies in two turns
Wizard does fine with the Ramazith tower scrolls and clown gloves. Warlock with magic missiles works and has an EB build that's decent.
It's druid, ranger, and bard that are in the gutter doing less than half the damage. Cleric too, but that's understandable because cleric buffs are super busted and neither druid or bard compete with cleric buffs, so they're just gimped clerics.
Originally Posted by geala
The problem is not the Fighter but the insane gadget and item policy of Larian, coupled with some action design decisions (like Haste). Fighter would be problematic in aoe tasks for example, if there weren't the ridiculous magical arrows all around.
I wonder however why the "casters are sooo bad" whiners hint to the many unfair advantages for melees but forget that lots of mobs are resistant to all physical damage, and the effects of Wet. Partial bias, maybe.
Because enemies are also resistant to magic, and missing a lv6 spell/doing half the damage on a save or getting counterspelled feels so much worse than a martial class who just gets to autoattack again the next turn.
Monks and paladins both do fine. There is more than enough damage from a lot of classes in this game. "Can kill any boss in two turns, alone", enough damage. I don't know how ranger does, nor a pure Wizard. The numbers don't really matter when everything just dies in two turns
Wizard does fine with the Ramazith tower scrolls and clown gloves. Warlock with magic missiles works and has an EB build that's decent.
It's druid, ranger, and bard that are in the gutter doing less than half the damage. Cleric too, but that's understandable because cleric buffs are super busted and neither druid or bard compete with cleric buffs, so they're just gimped clerics.
Originally Posted by geala
The problem is not the Fighter but the insane gadget and item policy of Larian, coupled with some action design decisions (like Haste). Fighter would be problematic in aoe tasks for example, if there weren't the ridiculous magical arrows all around.
I wonder however why the "casters are sooo bad" whiners hint to the many unfair advantages for melees but forget that lots of mobs are resistant to all physical damage, and the effects of Wet. Partial bias, maybe.
Because enemies are also resistant to magic, and missing a lv6 spell/doing half the damage on a save or getting counterspelled feels so much worse than a martial class who just gets to autoattack again the next turn.
I said I'm done with druids. But. I might just pick one up, turn them into an enlarged owlbear, and see how many instakill opportunities the game gives people. A funnier second run than bonking everything mildly horny with a stick if nothing else
