Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion What class is best for high charisma and dex?

I'm so totally lost.

I was thinking of going rogue, be an assassin, and yet a Charmy assassin.

Or... not sure.

I want to get physical in the fights, not be a spell caster.

Suggestions? Thoughts?

You could go bladelock or sword bard. Both get physical in fights and charisma classes. Bards have also great dialogue options.

Rogues only really need Dexterity to perform well, so you could focus on Dexterity and Charisma and use your Expertise picks to push your bonuses very high. Combine that with the Skilled feat and you'll be the ultimate skill monkey

Edit: Also... I had loads of fun with a swords bard/thief rogue multiclass. My spells were mostly for utility or enhancing myself, and I passed most of my skill checks. Having Friends in your pocket is a godsend for some charisma rolls. It does take a while to pick up the pace, but once it did I had a blast.

Charisma doesn’t help rouges in combat at all so it’s probably a waste to put more than a couple of points there. However you could make up for that by putting proficiency in a couple of the talky skills, especially as rouges get to turn some proficiencies into expertise (2 at the start, and 2 a bit later). 12 charisma would probably be fine, you could push it to 14 if you really wanted, but that’s only an extra +1 to talky skills.

So for instance at level 1 you could be proficient in slight of hand, perception, deception, performance, and expert in stealth and persuasion. With only 12 cha, you get +3 deception, + 3 performance and + 5 persuasion. With 16 dex, you get + 5 in slight of hand and +7 in stealth. Or ditch performance and add acrobatics if you don’t want to loose your cool (and your turn) by falling on your arse too much, or whatever.

So you could be a charming assassin ninja and very respectable lock picker if you want, but I wouldn’t try to do it by putting a load of points into charisma. If you want to get to ridiculous levels of speech skills though, put aside you aversion to the magics and embrace being a versatile lovable dick.

True, I guess. But they probably want some wisdom for perception checks to detect traps and stuff, and some constitution is never a waste.

Now I wanna make a swords bard half orc so ugly she's captivating (high cha).

I found trap-spotting not to be a huge issue since it's a team effort, but rogues have enough starting skills that between it and their background skills, they should be able to cover the essentials without too much trouble. And while it's true that Charisma doesn't have an immediate combat benefit, there are plenty of charisma-based skill checks that let you bypass combats or gain better rewards. It's honestly not very hard to prioritize Dexterity and Charisma and still have enough points left to be decent at Wisdom and Intelligence. You don't need 20s in both after all!

My bard/rogue only had 14 Charisma, but between expertise, Friends and Guidance I usually only had to burn inspiration on the few endgame DC 30 checks.

Promise not to get bored with her and restart again?

Fair enough. I guess I’m just saying it’s probably not a great idea to dump wisdom to 8 and try to get charisma to 16 or something on a rouge. 12 or 14 charisma should be fine. Whereas my bard was rocking 20 charisma at the end, which along with other buffs made for some quite ridiculous crowd control casts- “Nice health bar you have there, Raphael, but what about just not doing anything for 10 turns, eh?”

Why, first Charisma, then Dexterity - thats Bard. Charisma isnt useful by itself in combat, only if you're a spellcaster.

Bards can go physical though. Dont go Lore, go one of the other two choices.

College of Valour gives you shields and all weapons, College of Swords gives you Scimitars and either Dueling (one weapon) or Two-Weapon Fighting.

They BOTH give you medium armor and an additional attack per round at level 5, too. College of Lore doesnt get that; they get more spells and skills and a nice disruption ability instead.

But Bards are one of the pure spellcasters. Those are Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. These classes level their spells at every level and gain access to new spell levels every second level, ending at level 6 spells in the end. So dont pick Bard thinking this is a pure physical fight class.

Bards also have healing and crowd control and excellent social skills, including useful spells like Disguise Self. They are the only class that can pick from all 18 skills at the start of the game, and get a general feat that gives them half proficiency bonus on those skills they have no proficiency for.

Bards and Rogue are the two skill master classes, though they have very different strengths. Rogue in the end (level 10) gets an ability to turn all skill rolls below 10 into 10. Bard gets more skills than Rogue if they go Lore (6 vs 4), can learn any skill, and with level 2 they get half Proficiency bonus even on skills they dont have the Proficiency for. Both Bards and Rogues can gain Expertise (double Proficiency bonus) for 4 skills - two at level 1 and 6 for Rogue, two at level 3 and 10 for Bard.



The alternative would be Charisma, then Strength. Thats Paladin. They are one of the two "half" spellcasters, the other is Ranger. Their spells progress at a much slower pace, they only gain spellcasting at level 2 and they only get a new spell level every 4 levels, up to level 3 in the end.

Paladins have their Oaths though and that can be big trouble. You cant just do whatever you want, unless you turn Oathbreaker. Which is a perfectly valid choice though.

Anyway Paladins are one of the Tank classes who can wear Heavy Armor.



The other two classes with Charisma are Sorcerer and Warlock. As mentioned, they are pure spellcasters, and unlike Bard, they really arent meant to go toe to toe with opponents.



The Dexterity classes are of course Rogue and Ranger. Neither really needs Charisma for anything. Though you CAN of course give a Rogue Charisma if you like to. Just dont go overboard, it doesnt actually serve any function, other than boosting social skills. For Ranger, Charisma is the traditional dumpstat.



Finally it should be noted that if you really dont want to be Spellcaster, well then you should go Fighter, probably Battle Master, or Rogue; avoiding Arcane Trickster. I dont think anyone likes Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster. They kind of suck.

Hahaha!

I have a tiefling bard I just respecced to do it. Figured don't restart, she was level 3 and on the Halsin rescue.

There are lots of ways to skin that cat. If you go Swords Bard you can get all the flavor you're looking for, and be effective at both stabby-stab and spell casting. Max your Cha and have Dex your secondary, choose proficiency and expertise in Persuasion, and you'll be charming AF. But you did say you don't want to be a spell caster...

Alternatively, just keep it simple and play a Rogue Assassin. Go Dex first, then Con, then get your Charisma to 14. Choose Persuasion for proficiency and expertise. Done.

True, but this game is much, much more than simple combat; you overlooked passive/direct skills and how much they also impact gameplay, so if you're only in this game for the battles, then you'll be missing out on a large chunk of what the game offers!

However, that said, you can use Wyll's charisma to help with social checks, you'll just have to take the spotlight away from your main character to do it.

For me, all of my characters have high charisma, and dex, as I want to be deadly from both upfront and afar, finesse dual wielder, and ranged for the win!

ROGUE TEEF

I will add, after you pump your Dex and Con there are sufficient points left over to put 12 or 14 into Cha, then choose persuasion as a skill. All without having to sacrifice combat effectiveness at all.

If you read past my first sentence, you’ll see that I didnt overlook those things at all. I’m just saying that going big on charisma isn’t a particularly efficient way to make a charming thief assassin, when they can get much better results through proficiencies and/or expertise in 2 or 3 speech skills. Especially since it costs 2 points to increase abilities over 13.

So while 12 or 14 charisma should be fine on a rouge, pushing it to 16 is going to cost in other areas for very marginal benefit to persuasion, deception, etc. Worth ot for classes that make more use of charisma, but probably not anyone else IMO.

You can play however you like of course, I was just trying to give advice to someone who said they are lost with the whole thing.

If you want to use both Dex and Cha in combat: Swords Bard. That and Valour Bard are the only subclasses that would normally make use of both those abilities in that way. You could absolutely build a Dex Paladin or a sharpshooter Warlock if you wanted to, it would just be unusual.

If you prefer to focus more on combat than spellcasting, go Swords Bard 6, Fighter 2 and Thief Rogue 3. Between slashing flourish, extra anttack, action surge, sneak attack and the extra bonus action, you can make yourself a dual-wielding machine in melee or with hand crossbows (if you want to go ranged, take the sharpshooter feat).

The Bard and Rogue will both give you good skill proficiencies so you can be persuasive and sneaky outside of combat. You’ve also got access to 3 levels of Bard spells (which use your Cha modifier). It’s a really well-rounded character.

For the last level you can go Rogue 4 to get a second feat or Battlemaster Fighter for their superiority dice.

Why, you can often use other characters, yes, but not always. In many situation its main character only.

And mad skillz to pull off those insane social skill checks, like making bosses off themselves...

[img]https://imgur.com/a/xzovnGY[/img]

I am intermittently image challenged, so for those leery of clicking here are some sample Persuasion bonuses...

+3 Charisma
+1-4 Mark of the Shifter (magic item)
+1-4 Guidance
+4 Persuasion Proficiency
+4 Persuasion Expertise

And my sword bard, with a self-cast Haste (ritual magic obtained via Bard class) and the Blade skill Flourish dual wielding hand crossbows can achieve 5 attacks per round. It's pretty crazy...