Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Is having a wizard/sorc required ?

I am doing my first run trough the game and I'm trying to do it with pure class only. I've made a custon paladin as the main character and plan to go with a Fighter Lae'zel, a Thief Astarion and a cleric Shadowheart. So sadly, it won't have any spot left for an offencive caster. Will it gimp my team to much ?

If you make Shadowheart a light cleric, she will be an offensive caster. Clerics are actually quite versatile. Get her to level 9 and watch her go, with flame strike, destructive wave, insect plague, fireball, radiance of Dawn, spirit guardians, like whoa. Some NICE stuff. So I think you’ll manage.

I will say, this doesn’t work the best for Shadowheart roleplay, so if it’s your first time… she still has some really nice offensive casting spells.

Edit: To fully answer your question, no, it’s not necessary to have a wizard or sorcerer on your team. I typically play with two Clerics, a Bard, and a Fighter, and I can kill pretty much anything.

yes it will... assuming you make it to the city before hitting a game stopping bug some of those fights will be extreamly hard with only melee

p.s, unless you just play in story mode

You want someone to be able to cast counter spell after act 1. That helps just so much.

Then who should I drop in favor of either Wyll or a wizard ?

I kinda wanted to romance shadowheart and I felt that a rogue would be nice for scouting.

I've chose to keep Lae'zel simply to add another meatshield. Felt like having only a 2h paladin up front with a rogue in melee would be weak but maybe cleric can get tough enough to tank ?

If you want a cleric to tank, you need a build that can stack up radiant orbs. That's a side effect of some items. It debuffs enemies' hit chance.

Clerics can serve in melee as well as a fighter -- and a fighter can be a purely ranged combatant. It depends entirely on how they're build.

Storm clerics deal massive AoE and are right in the thick of combat. Light clerics are the "wizard, but cleric" option. Warding flare is pretty neat, though. Clerics do not get counter spell. They get silence. A (melee) cleric, paladin, rogue and offensive caster is an entirely alright build.

It's generally recommended for an assassin rogue to take some levels of gloom stalker. Light clerics are more of a pure class, storm clerics can profit from multiclassing. It's not a must, but it's how you get the most out of them. Paladins similarly are a bit stronger as a Sorcadin or Bardadin -- using either the sorcerer's meta magic or sword's bard's flourishes to cast more smites. If you eventually ever feel too weak, multiclassing is a fair option.

Personally I think the easiest to get by for a first playthrough without is a thief. I'd just respec Shadowheart to change her stats to higher dexterity and leave strength at 10, but keep her a cleric for story reasons. This way she can open locks and disarm traps, self-buffing with guidance it is enough. She can also scout effectively, using the pass without trace spell.

I tend to not use clerics, and I like Shadowheart as a shadow monk (not the strongest class, but I think it fits her story). Tanking is not guaranteed, many enemies will jump around and get to your weaker party member anyway.

Also, I don't think any role is really necessary, but I think a melee heavy party benefits slightly more from a sorcerer than wizard (Wyll can multiclass into one), because you can cast twinned haste, and this is better than potions.

That's extremely weak bonuses compared to a proper rogue. A lot of traps will blow up in your face. There's some gloves you can get from the Zhentarim in Act 1 if you manage to unlock their trader's good stock through questing. They always give advantage on sleight of hand checks. I'm not saying you can't make it work, but it sure is annoying. Especially if you actually steal from vendors.

Well, I have finished the game without a rogue, and the only issue I've had with traps is that the party will walk into them even if they are detected, because of bad pathfinding.

You don't even need items. Enhance ability (level two spell which clerics or sorcerers get) does exactly the same thing, gives advantage on ability checks. I always have someone to cast it, because it is so useful, especially in dialogues. And a lot of traps simply don't activate when you fail, you can just try again by quitting the disarm dialogue window.

No class is essential, especially a Wizard considering there are so many various consumables, scrolls and specialized arrows you can use.

With over 1200 hours here only ever playing physical classes not once did it felt like a Wizard was necessary in my party. Not even on Honour Mode which got absolutely crushed with my MC as a ranged War Cleric/Fighter, Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach/Minthara. Funnily enough having a Wizard would have actually gimped my party composition because each party member has a specific role, all working together like clockwork.

Shadowheart as the group's dedicated Support/Healer (which also happens to be her canon role) will allow you to play whichever party composition you may want. But ultimately Baldur's Gate 3 isn't about what you play as, but how well you play. If you're aware of your party's strengths and weaknesses, you will have no trouble breezing through the game.

I personally despise recasting buffs every day (esp. If concentration, that's multiple level 2 slots down the drain) reloading, relying on potions/etc, so this is why I say it's annoying, but not undoable. It's much easier having a character that can just do it, all the time, with higher rolls to boot. Just leave them in camp when they're not needed.

This is a VERY doable party for play. A cleric, with the right spells will not have the massive offensive potential of a Wizard but can give you some offensive punch. When you can get the spell, Spirit Guardians, you can give your melee warriors in effect a damage shield if you stay close to them. Add to this the fact that scrolls and such do not seem to be "type" restricted for casting, so you have the full range of options.

The buffs just show up in the dice roll window, so I find recasting them is not that much of a chore. And enhance ability spell makes passing a lot of dialogue checks easier, not only sleight of hand, so it is universally useful.
Maybe if the game rewarded limited resting I'd find a rogue useful as well, but it is the exact opposite. If you rest too little, you miss out on companion interactions, sometimes completely (for example Karlach's romance can bug out because of this).

There is a difference between regularly resting before hard combat encounters (and to progress the game)... and resting because that one character once again ran out of spell slots well before everyone else. It annoys me to no end. Even worse in the early game when level 2 spell slots are somewhat precious. I'd rather have characters that are actually good at each of their niches and reserve enhance ability for important checks. Saves me hours of backtracking by the time I'm done with a playthrough.

Since bards, druids, clerics and sorcerers all get it, someone might as well draw it from a sorc and a cleric to avoid draining one character for the rest of the party's benefit. Hell, having a bardadin, sorcerer and druid-barbarian around is not unbelievable. Might as well go all in on using enhance ability for every single check. Not how I'd ever built a party, but someone out there is surely doing it right now. There's also probably someone with 60 elixirs of hill giant strength (just in case) and 80 haste potions, or running through the game near permanently invisible. Questionable, but I don't have to play that save game.

See, I’m the opposite. I love to play as casters. Well, specifically lore bards and caster-oriented clerics. And then Lae’zel as fighter. I have very little trouble in combat, either. Once you know how to use a class to its fullest potential, any class can boss it out in any manner of ways.

In my opinion, you can run with pretty much any class composition, as long as there is one melee tank, and then figure out how to work through the game. In either more obvious or more creative ways.

Hopefully that wasn't taken as a slight against casters or an underestimation of them because naturally all classes are fantastic

Just didn't want the OP to get the wrong impression that they're required as some here are implying, so had to use my own experience of not having any in the party as an example. Game can be beaten on any difficulty with any party composition without any issues as long as one knows what they're doing, which is a great thing because if the player had to follow a certain meta to play Tactician or Honour Mode then it would be a terribly balanced game.

I also started off thinking that I must have a Tank, Healer, Thief and Arcane Caster. But the game is easy enough that you don't need to fill all those slots. As already said, Clerics in 5ed/BG3 have some AoE spells and your Goth Princess can fill that need, although you can complete the game without such spells. Heck, you have blackpowder grenades ...

What you describe was not my experience in BG3; there are simply too many scrolls and potions available even on early levels for spell slots to matter all that much. And even for a utility character, I'd take a warlock/bard over a rogue, since you get both the spell and expertise, and eldritch blast to spam for the cost of one level. Though I prefer two levels of warlock for the invocations.

What I have run into in BG3 on the other hand is companion cut scene weirdness. Because it is not a game that rewards limited resting. And I think it can be difficult to tell, on a first playthrough, when exactly you have to hit that camp rest button to progress their stories.

See, I don't use haste potions. I avoid scrolls whenever possible. I don't touch most consumeables. I ignore bombs and I don't even throw healing potions.

I feel all these little things make classes less special and ruin the strategic aspect of combat. This is why I would hate a lot of playthroughs and a lot of people would hate mine.

With scrolls, arguably you don't need caster classes at all. Ever. With healing potions (and haste), you'll never need healing spells, as the right configuration can throw 6x of them per turn. Explosives can kill anything, alive or not, before combat even starts. The enemy will be very happy to watch barrels slowly appear out of thin air.

I've experimented with all of those things. I decided I like none of them. Therefore they're banned in my playthroughs, and spells slots actually matter. Long resting too little will never be an issue (if you keep casters around). Spending all your spells slots too early in the day is still a bad idea, at least if you try to get the most out of 2 short rests. Which I will. Again, personal preference. I despise excessive backtracking, so I will just not.

I also don't play warlocks. No matter how I play them, I feel like another class can do it better, or they're multiclassed to the point that the warlock levels are really only flavour. This is probably how you feel about rogues. I don't think we'll ever agree, so it is what it is.

the obvious fix is for you to take levels in Bard, Wizard or Warlock but as a pure class only run Wyll is the best option because Gale tends to blow himself up... they both get light armour and like fighting at range but Warlock is a simpler strategy needing only 1 dagger + E blast to handle most fights