Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Lae'zel Battle Medic build help needed.

Hi all,

New to the forums but not to the game (have completed a 3-player run through, and am just starting Act 3 in a solo run, both on Balanced).

My 3-player group and I recently started an evil run, on Tactician, and, well, due to a slight stabby incident at the beach we no longer have Shadowheart in our party/camp. We are playing a Barb/Rogue/Fighter, a basic (so far) Rogue, and I think a basic Warlock, so are looking for a new healer build, and I had the idea of completely respecing Lae'zel as a combat medic. We're not far in (just shy of Level 5), and my thoughts so far are as follows...

• Start with a single level of Fighter, for the Fighting Style, though not sure what to take yet.
• And bring her up to Level 4 with 3 levels of Cleric (Vlaakith, obvs) for now, and go either War or Life domain. Probably Life.
• Now, as we level beyond that I'm think of continuing with a couple more levels in Cleric to start with, stopping at 5, maybe 6.
• Then just level up back into Fighter beyond that. Perhaps going Eldritch Knight, but more likely Battle Master.

Also thinking of doing a radiant/orb/reverb build, on the equipment side of things.
Not sure what her stat line should look like.

What do you all think?
Is this viable?
Would you go Life or War?
EK or BM?
What fighting style?

Any other advice would be very welcome.
This, and the Barb/Rogue/Fighter I'm building into, are my first steps into dabbling with multiclassing, so I'm not sure if any of this will work at all well.

Thanks.

Go for it!
Fighting Style - a girl can't go wrong by picking Defence :P
I'd go with Life - she is a Healer
Stopping at lvl 4 IS tempting, I know, but lvl5 gives some fun spells.
At CHAR lvl 7 I'd go back to Fighter, for Action Surge.

However, instead of BM or EK - how about ... Ranger instead of Fighter? You lose less on ESL yet gain the same Weapon and Armour (if you take RK) Proficiencies. And still get to use that WIS stat. You also gain potentialy up to three - although IMO two is "more like it" - Skill Proficiencies - one from Ranger, one from Favoured Enemy, and Sleigh of Hand from Urban Tracker.

The problem I see with splitting fighter and cleric is that the cleric’s primary stat is wisdom, and the fighter’s primary stat is strength. So if you’re trying to split them fairly evenly, you’ll just have a weak fighter and a weak cleric (in one character). If you want a fighter who can heal, you may want to consider doing 2 life cleric and 10 fighter. If you do 2 in life, you get a large area of effect spell that heals everyone within its radius. And you still get most of the goodies that come along with the fighter class.

You can also get the amazing sanctuary spell and the command spell (which you can use to get folks like the scary demon dude in the intro and gauntlet Yeva at Waukeen’s rest to drop some pretty sweet weapons) with a couple of levels in cleric. It’s better to take utility spells if you are unable to have a high wisdom level. The lower your wisdom level, the less effective your cleric spellcasting for damage will be. But fortunately, the cleric utility spells are solid. You also get the guidance cantrip, which is awesome! So a lot of benefits for a small dip.

I’m not an expert though, so other folks feel free to chime in.

Also, I think that the battlemaster fighter is most powerful personally.

Other routes to Battle Medic could be Ranger or Paladin. However, the lack of Healing Word and need to use Actions for Heal and/or Lay on Hands leave me cold.
So, how about ... Bard?
One lvl of Life Domain - because medic i.e. Disciple of Life plus HA :P - and then Bard of Valour/Swords?
No "loss" of ESL - a lvl7 Battledoc Lay'zel would have 2 attacks yet cast Healing Word and Heal Wounds like a lvl7 Priestess. At CHAR lvl 7 if Lore (no 2nd attack - hiss!boo!), or lvl11 if other flavour of Bard you'd get Mass Healing Word through Magical Secrets. Mass Heal Wounds is a Bard spell, so you'd get it anyway.
Song of Rest - play pretend that it is Prayer of Healing :P
Lore of Swords - play pretend that the Flourishes are Battle Manouvers, and that Fighting Style Dueling represents her medical knowledge i.e. "stick'em with the pointy end where it hurts mostest" :P

Clerics are very, very weak healing wise at level 5. An ancients Paladin can do comparable healing, but has much better damage. At cost of doing aoe healing less often per day.

Either way, make sure to steal hellrider's pride and obtain the amulett that lets you cast mass healing word from the underdark. Omeluum has a ring that slightly improves healing after doing his quest. There's a ring that gives automatic bless on healing. You might already have all of those items.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Whispering_Promise

That combination is more important than anything else.

Though... The most literal battle medic is a hasted pure fighter throwing potions like a maniac. Wouldn't recommend despite the hilarity. (Life) clerics come online with warding bond and a very powerful healing spell eventually, but until then, it's tough. War clerics you can fix somewhat by modding the class into being useful, but it's possibly the weakest cleric class in vanilla. Just a fair warning.

If you want damage at a distance, go light cleric. If you want aoe close combat damage, go tempest cleric. If you want single target damage, oath of the ancients. Life clerics are great, but you can't dip into the subclass. You need a lot of levels to get to the good spells. If you're really, absolutely, *only* looking to dip, I recommend going oath of the ancients 7 instead.

The one problem is that this doesn't give you sanctuary (that's on the devotion paladin, who isn't really the healing subclass). Ancients makes up for it a bit by taking half magic damage starting level 7, for themselves and close allies. The lack of sanctuary and spirit guardians (aoe) can still be incredibly painful in Act 2, however, so I'd really just recommend sticking to an actual cleric, light, tempest or life. A Paladin is much less versatile than a (mostly) pure cleric. Your party composition isn't only lacking a healer, but an aoe caster.

The game is so easy that far from optimal builds are perfectly viable.

That may be so, but you'll still want someone for the following niches:
Aoe
High single target burst damage

The remaining two slots fall into the "fuck it, we ball" category

This party seems to have those two areas covered by the other characters, the latter by the Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter and Rogue, the former by the Warlock.

Depends on the warlock. The gameplay is pretty diverse

Hah. Thought I maybe could have been clearer when I wrote my OP...

Yeah, I was thinking of going to Cleric level 5, so character level 6, before switching back to Fighter.

Huh. Hadn't even considered moving her away from Fighter entirely... That's whole other kettle of fish... Something to think about for sure.

Yeah, I'd have to rework her stat line to be high on Wis, Str, Dex, and Con. Which means probably high on Wis and Str, realistically.
Do you think just 2 levels of Life Cleric is enough healing to see us through?

I'm thinking of leaning more into the support spells with her, so heals, sanctuary, bless, that kind of thing. And then the Fighter side, plus radiant/orb/reverb for when she needs to get offensive. Probably will slot that crazy good spirit circle spell if needed. But then the nice with Cleric is the ability to switch stuff up on the fly between fights.

hehe. Your thoughts are very much welcomed anyway.

Yeah, I did a bit of playing around with an EK/Cleric build in my solo save, last night, and I felt it was definitely pulling in too many directions.

Wow... so many options... LOL...

Totally hadn't even thought about Ranger, Paladin, or Bard...

:mind blown:

We need to have a conversation about AOE options for sure. I believe our Rogue is going Assassin. Warlock, no idea. My plan is to go with a 3:2:1 split on Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter, and I've gone Wildheart already, will pick Thief for Fast Hands, and Great Weapon Fighter. Am building around the fancy sword from the Underdark and multiple damage riders... So, I think I've got burst damage sorted.

Keep her high strength, and take at least three levels of fighter. As an Eldrich Knight, she can throw her bound weapon and it returns to her hand. Take Tavern Brawler as your Feat and you will get +8 damage when you throw any weapon (assuming you have 18 Str with the +1 from the Feat). Multiclass as a Cleric and use your bonus action for Healing Word when necessary. This should really be enough in the early game. Work to get both classes up to level 5 (the bonus attack is really nice) and max out at Cleric level 7.

Healing in a classical rpg sense is not that strong or even possible in BG3. You should rely mainly on potions on all characters for that. It's usually a waste to make one char throwing potions. The most important task for a Cleric in early and mid game is to buff with Bless, especially if you have the staff from the mage tower in the underdark. Healing Word in case of downed companions is very strong, one of the best spells in the game. It's not necessary to talk about Sanctuary, it speaks for itself.

Later it comes in very handy that you have access to several cleaning spells as Cleric. It is an advantage of Cleric and Paladin that you get all spells without learning which can be changed from the Spellbook. I think lately my group would have been wiped (bad thing in Honour mode) because of a special curse, had not my main scouted the area alone, so that Shadowheart was not in the fight immediately and could change her spells. After that event "Remove Curse" will never leave my spell bar again.

In the end I don't think multiclassing a Cleric does make so much sense. Several classes win by dipping into Cleric, but as main Cleric you can and should go 12 lvl. The good minions are from a level lvl 6 spell you only get as full Cleric. The better animated undeads need a lvl 5 spellslot, so having two is good.

If multiclassing I would think about the leveling effectiveness. If you start as Cleric you get proficiency in Wisdom saving throws, quite important and much better than what a Fighter gets. However Fighter gets more feats. I would always go to Fighter 6 first if Fighter were an important part of my spec.

I agree. It cannot be mentioned times enough that it is an EXTRA ACTION.
All other Healing Spells, Lay on Hands, Help, thrown Potions - use an ACTION.

For battlefield support look at a 2 Life Cleric/10 College of Lore Bard

Great spells for support and healing, bardic inspirations, cutting words for mitigating damage and bardic secrets for access to every spell. Plus you'll have a skill monkey that can also use the gith skill thing to further skill up.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I decide to go roughly 50:50 Fighter/Cleric, I'm keep meaning to note down what options I picked. Will try to remember to do so next time, we don't play often (like once a week usually), and only for a couple of hours each time, so we tend to focus on progressing our mayhem. Anyway, whilst she's not the strongest healer, being able to have her fight alongside my Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter, and still be able to support when needed, is really working well. Though it does mean I have to monitoring how my friends are doing.

Oh, and I'm kitting her out with Radiant Orb/Reverberation kit.

Anyway, I will make a post with what chooses I made at some point.

If you go 6:6 the Fighter's extra Feat gives you the standard total of 3. Also, a neat ESL of 8 if you take the EK subclass.
But I can see the appeal of F/C = 7:5
Go Team Vlaakith! Love Me and Despair! Woot!

Yeah, had to pick Vlaakith. The other two players haven't seen the Creche area, so I might let one of them take over control of Lae'zel for that part (in our first play through we went outpost->colony->forge->elevator, but then I did the Creche in my solo run)...

Anyway, we're not far in, so, iirc, we're only like level 5 at this point. And yeah, not sure what the final level split will be. Might end up 7:5. But Blessed Healer is SO good.

I've been focussing on the Cleric side, and may take her up to Cleric level 5 before going back to levelling Fighter, just to get Revivify and Mass Healing Word. I think I have her at 2:3, or it might be 1:4, so far. My logic being that as the rest of the party level healing will become less important, and I can move her more towards buffs and so on.

Thinking I will go Battle Master on the Fighter side.