Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Early Character builds

Planning to go full Warlock for my first playthrough. Celestial, if they'll let me. Otherwise, probably Great Old One, which will likely be good but might come back to bite me storywise... but hey, that's fun. Celestial is my pet favorite, though. If I could I'd just choose that class forever for the rest of my life, at least in tabletop games. My DM got totally jaded after a point and just stopped asking what I would play. :P I did switch up my patrons, races, and build types a lot, though, as well as backstory.

This is likely what I'd do with point buy and a half-drow, and it's probably also pretty close to what would be my RL stats. 8, 13, 8, 16, 14, 16. Otherwise I'd go aasimar: 8, 12, 8, 15, 15, 16.

If you could roll, however, I might well go Hill dwarf instead, because I like transcending expectations. Everyone thinks you'll be some sexy, spooky-looking tiefling or drow, or at most an eerie aasimar, but nope, dwarf. I'm around dwarf height IRL too, so that's the perspective of the world that I'm familiar with. I realize Fiend would probably be more optimal what with the Con bonus, but meh. I like the unexpected. Without point buy, I just don't feel as locked in by race.

If I hear that the social stats are truly useless in conversation, however, I might well adjust this. Otherwise, if it's even somewhat rewarded, I really want to play a more socially/intellectually-oriented squishy character who is the Face of the party. That is fun for me.

Should they let me, I would absolutely go Cloud Dwarf, Tome Dwarf, or especially Ethereal Dwarf or Dwelf. I like oddities that might face racism or just plain racial confusion.

I don´t want to start a new thread all the time, so I ask here:

I have a question about the bard of lore.
If I have the criminal or urchin background (for thief tool profiency) and at lv6 and 10 I select the most useful mage spells that are not already on the bard list ( I have to look which are best)
I get a skill monkey that can replace both a mage and a rogue in the party.
I thought this could give me more freedom when selecting other party members.
Bards have healing, CC and buff spells and many skills, but it looks they are not good in causing damage (both weapons and spells).

- Is it a good idea to have a bard as jack of all trades?
Especially if you want to select other party members according to their personality, not because you desperately need class x.

- I guess its best to max out charisma, focus on buffs and debuffs.
Any other advice for bards?

Yeah that is a very good build honestly, but I would add a ritual caster feat to the character like Ritual Caster: Wizard or Druid or Cleric which would add a lot of utility to the character in my option, but it means you can't use both Intelligence and wisdom as a dump stat, I think you need a minimum of 13 in one of them to get the feat.

Lets see if and how rituals are implemented.
BG3 will not have a day/night cycle, so time is not moving forward, and it would be boring to watch a char standing there for 10 minutes to cast a spell.

Bards are fantastic in 5e because they reach lvl9 spellcasting and get spells from other classes, can use armor, shoot arrows or fight melee. But I don't think that skillmonkeys will be very useful in games, at least not as useful as they are in the Pnp, because you can simply savescum and reload until you pass a check.
The build that I first posted here is considering this, you only get 4 levels of Assassin and go Fighter afterwards, and in the Pnp I have 11 levels of Assassin because at that level you get Reliable Talent which allows you to treat any roll below 10 as a 10 when you are proficient in a skill, that is, you can't fail stealth checks.

In one of the Reddit AMA they confirmed that " Q) Is there any hope that we could see ritual casting, feats and multiclassing in BG3, as in D&D 5e? A) Feats and multiclassing: yes. Ritual casting not for EA, but we have plans"
Sc) https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fhk1u3/im_swen_vincke_creative_director_at_larian/

For the tabletop, bards could be one of the best ritual casters of the game if you add a feat, It´s very useful.

ritual casting would be problematic because it requires a cast time, and their engine specifically revolves around instant cast prepared spells.

You can cast the ritual spells in the camp, like the food buffs that you can use in PoE games, for example.

If we do not get them in the EA, maybe a future mod could use that guideline to allow casting some ritual spells with high duration or useful at camping time that way, like Identify, detect magic, Alarm, Leomund´s tiny hut, Forbiddance, meld into stone, comprehend languages, speak with animals, divination, the commune spells, contact with other plane, Augury, Gentle repose, Drawmij’s Instant Summons, etc

Identify and detect magic could be extremely useful since you cannot use short rests to identify the magic properties of unidentified items because we already know that we do not have the same short rests as in PNP in BG3.


Some of them are very useful plot/story devices to use, too, just saying.

i'm not arguing the virtues of it. I just don't expect rituals to have much dynamic use during combat as they will either already be prepared, or - knowing Larina's propensity for scripted events - if you have a warlock you will have to protect them while they cast during a scripted encounter.

Well, ritual spells have no use in combat, usually, they are divination or support spells.

PD: The only exception would be the creative uses of spells like find familiar, phantom steed or unseen servant, for example.

I'd add Tiny Hut and Forbiddence to that list. If you know an enemy is coming for you, cast tiny hut and you will have it's defences when when they attack. Forbiddence can do a lot of damage to enemies, but you have to know they are coming in advance.

Not a ritual, but a fun thing to do with Wish is casting spells that normally have a time consuming casting time as an instant action. So Forbiddence, Geas, Planar Binding, Temple of the Gods, and Mighty Fortress become combat spells all of a Sudden when cast via wish. The only spells that can come even close to how good Wish is are Gate, True Polymorph (use this to creation an army of monsters or grant immortality to your friends), and True Resurrection (the Githyanki dwell on the corpse of a dead God, cast True Resurrection on it and watch the Githyanki city be destroyed).


Actually maybe Augury, Commune with Nature, and Commune as well if you get key tactical info that you can apply later in combat.

1st playthrough in early access, I'm going with the Vampire Spawn Elf Arcane Trickster Legacy Character. Forgot his name, that was a mouthful.

For my 1st playthrough at full release, I'm going with a variation of Treantmonk's Armadillo build. My version is a Githyanki Warlock 1/ Wizard: Abjurer 9 Hopefully the Hexblade Warlock is available, if not it will still work.

Ending abilities at 10th level:

14 Strength
10 Dexterity
14 Constitution
18 Intelligence
8 Wisdom
13 Charisma

This is a Melee-Mage that uses Armor of Agathys with Arcane Ward, with the Warcaster Feat.

Why warlock/wizard?
Would sorcerer be better since both are charisma based?

As for my own char:
For a level 20char I would have taken lore bard 18/hexblade2.
A skill monky who can heal, buff, debuff and with the right selection of non bard spells even damage.
As written above criminal or urchin background for thief tools, so I can also work as rogue.
Hexblade gives be some profiencies, the most damaging cantrip and I can use cha for 1h weapons.

For a lv 10 char I am not sure if 1 (or even 2) lv warlock is worth losing bard 10.
The bard could select 2 more spells from another class and become expert in more skills.
Bard is especially good for me, I can finally overcome my hatred for bards that I had since BG1, were the bard was my most useless party member.

Edit: I deleted some stuff were I was wrong.

All casters benefit from 3 levels of Sorcerer. Metamagic is extremely strong.
Bards are very strong in BG and SOD because they can most benefit from spell scalling since they level faster than any class. They kinda lose utility in BG2 because you can get to lvl 40 (31 with casters), and therefore Bards advantage wears off.
In 5e they are probably the best caster. They can do everything, cast everything, buff, heal and still have utility.

It´s to use a mechanic trick. Abjurer wizards have a protective shield that is recharged using abjuration spells, so the build picks one level of warlock to be able to cast the warlock spell Armor of Agathys to recharge the barrier, at least I assume that is the selling point of the build if I guessed right.
I guess you pick githyanki to have access to medium armor and some martial weapons.
That also assumes that the DM lets you use spells from other classes to recharge your Arcane ward because the manual does not forbid it.

Other builds use mage armor, shield, ... or the ritual spell alarm to recharge it between fights, which is less efficient.

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/wizard:abjuration

https://www.dnd-spells.com/spell/armor-of-agathys



With a level cap of 10 I´d go bard 10 because of the level 10 features: Bardic Inspiration (d10), Expertise & Magical Secrets. No contest.

Bard 7/Sorcerer 3 has metamagic, magical secrets and just gets a d8 bardic inspiration instead.

Magical secrets come at 10th level bard, If I´m not wrong. You do get different spells because you multiclass with a sorcerer, sure, but you have to pick spells from the mage pool, not cleric, druid or warlock spells that are very useful for a bard that is not a pure caster, like sword and valor bards, but it´s a very strong build to multiclass with a sorcerer, yes.

I think is level 6.
And the main advantage is not the sorcerer spells pool but to be able to cast twice on the same round, or apply disadvantage to saving throws through metamagic.

Nope, magical secrets come at level 10 , like expertise and the bardic inspiration 1d10

https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/bard

You're right, I was thinking about Lore Bards, that get it at level 6.
However if you DO choose Lore Bard you get metamagic and magical secrets. If your Bard is a full caster/support, is the best school anyways.