Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion What Adamantine gear do you get?

I almost always get an armor set and the shield. I do this because the "no crit" is ... well, it's just hard to beat. In fact, I almost always spend the rest of the game debating with myself about when to replace those items. I spread them out among my companions (along with the helm) to get as many of them protecting from crits as possible.

For this run, I've been thinking about changing it up. I might go for a weapon instead. I'm hoping it might shake up my equipment choices throughout the game. One of the problems I have on repeated playthroughs is that I seem to constantly gravitate toward the same gear.

Just curious to see if other players are like me, or do you have a different combination you like to get?

I usually get the scale armor & the shield. They're both equipped by Shadowheart until I get her the Armor of Agility and Viconia's shield. I made the mace once, but rarely used it. Since I tend to find better weapons quickly, the adamantine weapons lose their usefulness.

I always get one set of medium armor and one set of heavy armor from the forge. I wear those until I get to the lower city in act three. That’s when I start finding better armors. But they do last me a good long time! Is the shield so much better that I should consider it instead?

I get the heavy armour and... That's it.

Even then, that's only to toss onto a Hireling if I want to use Warding Bond maybe I'll get one to toss onto a Fighter or something.

I find all the other items to have little worth;

The shield... I'd rather get Sentinel's Shield from Act 2.

Medium armour... I'd rather get Yuan-ti Scale Mail from Act 2.

Scimitar/Longsword... I'd rather use Phalar Aluve/Knife of the Undermountain King or even Sussur Dagger/Sickle/Greatsword.

Mace... Blood of Lathander...

Heavy armour has worth as it's the first Heavy Armour with +2 DR on it you can get and beyond that... Meh...

Honestly, I find it to be a bit of a let down. Throughout the Underdark it gets hyped up as this legendary forge, you get 2 pieces of ore to make... A bunch of meh...

If I'm using a sword and board tanky type of character I go Splint and Shield so that whether I'm hit or missed the enemies get Reeling. Otherwise I go with Splint and Scale. The weapons are mostly underwhelming because some of the more interesting properties of Adamantine only really get play if you're doing a tabletop campaign. BG3 doesn't care how indestructible it is.

The Shield is a good choice because even when you get other good shields for your melee builds, it's still useful in Act 3 for putting on more squishy mage characters to prevent them taking crits.

It's worth mentioning that the Heavy Armor is worth way more than anything else you can craft and so is worth considering just because it'll sell for more down the line.

It really depends on your group, imo. The best part of the adamantine armor sets and the shield is that they let the character avoid crits. So in that sense, the armor and the shield serve the same purpose.

For me, it comes down to who's going to wear the armor or carry the shield. Lae'zel is good for the heavy armor, but then who gets the heavy armor helm? I want to split all three items up so that as many party members as possible can avoid taking critical hits.

When it comes to medium armor, again, who's going to wear it? Shadowheart is usually in the luminous armor for me, and I'm reluctant to change that, especially just before going into Act II. But she can easily take the shield.

Same with Gale and Wyll. Both of them can use the shield.

You might, of course, have a party composition/build where it's more appropriate to take two different sets of armor.

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On my current run through, I just decided to go with two scimitars. Probably the worst decision possible for how to use the adamantine forge, but I can't help wanting to shake things up.

It's always Phalar Aluve and Knife of the Undermountain King, and Blood of Lathander and so on and so on. Watch streamers and nine times out of ten you'll see the same gear being used. The more I play the game, the more I think that's a flaw in the design.

The splint and the shield. Gale gets the shield as crits are really the only thing that is really dangerous for him (other than Yurgir deciding to throw and explode all bombs on him in one turn .... ) and one of the girls gets the armour. I think it looks cute on Lae'zel.

First play through I went 2x splintmail and they were great. Currently doing splint and shield, dispersed throughout.

But... I liked one play through where I forged the longsword. The auto-crits on doors and chests saved a lot of time while exploring. I think versatile weapons can benefit from GWM's all-in power. I'll double check, and if so - I'll pick that in future.

So much faster just smashing chests open.

Shield goes to Shadowheart as she's my Main healer and withthe shiels she's actually pretty tanky, because i alao respec her as a Light domain cleric.

Medium armor goes to Lae'zel, as she can use best. It also doesn't hurt the Dex bonus either.

Gale? I always keep him with me, playing mostly bard builds as a backup healer and supporter. Problem solved.

The weapons, i find them sadly too weak, not worth wasting the rare adamantine.

Because the scimitar is light you can pair it with a dagger. I've currently got my bard with those, (susser dagger) and given the heavy armour to laziel, and the helm to shadowheart. .. so far. Not on many play throughs though.

I used to get an armor and a shield but after giving it some more thought, I'll be getting 2 shields from now on, they're just too useful on so many characters.

I always go with the 2 armors..
The Heavy armors in this game are not that good.
almost all the top gear yu will get along the way is Mediun or SpellBased dudes.
(Like the amazing gear for thunder yu can get in Iron Forge next to Shar statue..)
so i always get those 2 becouse its really strong as F. early and i will almost all the times only change the heavy for Thorn dude one act 2.
then Raph in act 3.
so thats it for heavy good in this game.
BTW yu can get in good boy runs the armor from the metals in Karlach quest in act 2 really good heavy gear too..

And the Mid one.. always go switching untill i find the top ones for the characters i use..haha
end game always endup in Jaheira or Minsc something like that..xD

I think the armor is worth a lot more gold if you end up just wanting to sell it later on, which makes it harder for me to choose the weapons. If it was the price is right, I think the swords are what maybe like 300 gp, but the armor more like 1300 gp, or thereabouts?

I like the look of the armor on Jaheira if she dyes it sage green, but I also went for the Snake Scale from act 2 for her. On Lae'zel it looked pretty cool when I tried to give her a masters of the universe sorta look, but overall the scale just isn't my top fav. I think because it's the very first set we start with as a fighter maybe that the cut feels a little too familiar somehow.

I wish we could change the color of the tint on the metal components, so it wouldn't clash with some hues. Maybe sorta luminous and throwing back the light, but not necessarily blue tinted, which is a cool look on some characters, but less so for others. Especially if they have red in their safety color, like on the portrait or avatar, but that might just be a quirk of mine.

I still think the game sorta undervalues the replay potential of being the Blue one, vs the Red one, or stuff of that sort in the color coordination, which even though it seems pretty minor actually goes such a long way for me. If somehow the armor could be tinted all black, I'd wear it the whole game, even if it didn't do anything for the crits, but somehow that turquois blue seems to clash with my other duds at least half the time.

I thought about grabbing the Mace last time, so I could give it to Minsc along with the Scale and the other one we scoop in Act III. With the safety color some sort of purple it looks kinda cool. Thought was that he sometimes would do the dual wielding maces in BG2, but honestly it was just the Acid damage that had me leaning that direction. I thought with Derryth's caustic ring that I could get everyone doing some kind of consistent acid damage to be all on brand there, but then ended up just not even going to the forge at all by accident lol.

Ps. Also I wish the helmet was a circlet so Shadowheart could pull it off hehe. That one I feel like I should want to wear it showing, but it's got that asymmetrical thing with the battle damage. If only Dammon could clean it up a bit somehow with some embellishments it could look pretty badass on her. Just needs like a viser of some sort.

When we are debating style, the shield has another benefit: It's adorable! It looks like a cranky little owl.

I find the weapons not so useful. I rarely if ever swap out weapons for a specific fight.
I don't use shields at all, offhand weapons are *way* better stat sticks and provides an bonus whack if you really need one. And since you need the feat for that, you get a point in AC as well.

So I make both armors, equip one at the most, just send it to camp until I get Jaheira or something.

I prefer the Flawed Helldusk Armor both in what it does and how it looks for Heavy armor, and the Radianting Orb Armor for Medium. And then there is still the Yuan-Ti one. These all carry me all the way to the end.

I skipped the forge in my first playthrough. In my current (Honour mode) run I thought it would be a good idea to try to get the adamantine stuff first time in the game. It was not. Anyway, I survived the fight.

My party now in the Shadowlands normally consists of my main Alicia (Sorcerer), Shadowheart (Thunder domain), Karlach and Astarion (as ranged Fighter, as Lae'zel was gutted by Shadowheart unfortunately, and I hate Rogue gameplay). Grym helmet + YuanTi armor + 18 Dex gloves go to Shadowheart, adamantine Scale to Karlach and the adamanine shield with a Scale Armor +2 to Astarion. By far the most important stat for Honour mode is initiative, but having three chars with crit immunity is comforting.

As I'm constantly broken in the game, I like that you get relatively decent armor for free (kind of) from the forge. The adamantine Scale sucks a bit because it has no + initiative, but on a Barbarian I can get over it, Karlach still has + 5 initiative.

Both decisions depend on who to wear/use the two items.

For me
- No adamantine weapons. I don't need any of them.


So, my choices
- 1 shield
-- most companions can use it.

- 1 armor
-- medium is preferred, as several companions can use it.
-- or heavy - sadly, by default only 1 companion can use it.


A few tips (based on or verified with my own experience):

1) Most enemies prefer not to target the party member in Adamantine heavy amor
- If you want to let a melee fighter build of Lae'zel get less attacks (not just less hits), give her this armor

2) Don't put the adamantine heavy armor on your party tank
- Don't give her this heavy armor if you want her to tank for the party (taking more attacks)
- Doing so may completely defeat the purpose of the party tank's role
- Notable example: the 2nd Gith patrol *completely* ignored my party tank in this heavy armor (very frustrating!).

3) The armor and the shield are complementary in producing the reeling effect
- Putting both on Shadowheart can noticeably help her survive close combat without healing

4) In Act 3, none of the adamantine stuff (obtainable in Act 1 only) still matters.
- So, their usefulness is more or less limited to Act 2.

5) Protecting from Critical is not important later in the game.
- Because most devastating effects and most deadly attacks are not based on critical hits.
- Example: Steel Watcher can maim you and/or explode you into flames. Nothing like that has anything to do with critical hits/dmg.