Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Shadowheart's new Statline better, but still wrong

With Patch 3.0 Cleric Stat Distribution got patched. As a result Shadowheart got the new cleric default stats which fixed the Dexterity Issue Yeah! but created a new one with reducing Strength to 10.

According to Players Handbook 5e Str or Con should be the second highest Stat. Reason for that ist, D&D sees the cleric besides Spellcasting as Frontline mele char. Several abilities are touch theirfor the cleric has sometimes to be in the thick of it. Additionaly Clerics wear medium Armor Shields and traditionaly maces which benefit from strength. In Game consequence of the reduction to 10 str is she can not pick up scale mail armor because of weight she can wear it but only if another char gives it to her (not tested yet). She can not loot the scale mail after the ruins fight (tested).

Stats right now are:

Str 10
Dex 15
Con 13
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 14


I would suggest switching the stats for charisma and strength or at least make them equal (12 each).

Larian should approach some folk from r/3d6 to sense check this kind of stuff. I don’t get the impression they have a lot of in-house experience with 5E.

The stats above seem OK for Shadowheart because of her domain, but yeah not great for clerics in general.

14
12
14
8
16
12
would work much better

After checking the Points I realized a simple swap (str/cha) is not posible I would suggest something like

Str 14
Dex 14
Con 13
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 10

But

Str 14
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 12

Is fine as well ;-) less tanky but more Con and more straight foward to Wis 18

IMO the stats are pretty good for a trickster cleric. She gets the highest AC she can without feats, a decent CON, max wisdom, and a little bit of CHA so that she can help in the face department with the help of guidance, charm person, enhance ability, calm emotions, geas, and modify memory.

I think the new stats could work if they add a belt of Str or something to the game (STR 18) so we can beef up her stats if we want her on the front line. As for the not being able to pick up most medium armors, that is just a bug that should be fixed IMO.

Wow so Shadowheart is dumb?

She does look kinda confused a lot...

+1 for changing the default cleric stat builds. The stereotypical cleric is in medium or heavy armor, wielding a mace/hammer and a shield. Str is kind of required to do those things.

I support
Str 14
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 12

Honestly moving a point or two from Str/Con to Int would also be fine. Str 13 or Con 13 allows Int 10 and there are various feats that could give +1 to Str/Con
Keeping 14 Str is probably better because of the improved to-hit and the fact that Splint/Plate armor require 15 STR
I'd also be fine with 10 DEX. It's not the most optimal, but it's not a needless -1 to AC

People bowing down to Deitys that rob them off literal parts of themself, I feel are very dumb.
Her charisma is too high.
Pointy ears are not equivalent to charisma. ^^

Shadowheart is a 11 Charisma at best.
Give the poor gurl some Lifepoints, Dex or Str.
But I guess Clerics are not supposed to be beasts for physical dmg.

Trickster clerics are not your traditional or stereotypical cleric.
Their gods are the patrons of thieves, scoundrels, gamblers, rebels, and liberators. The clerics themselves prefer subterfuge, pranks, deception, and theft rather than direct confrontation.
Their spells and features are designed to help themselves and their party perform acts of subterfuge.

They do not benefit very much from having a high STR
They receive neither martial weapon or heavy armor proficiencies.
The best STR weapons they can wield without feats or multiclassing are 1d6's one handed or 1d8 two handed.
The difference between using a mace 1d6 + 2(STR) and a dagger 1d4 + 2(DEX), which both will have the same hitchance, is an average of 1 damage per hit.
They don't need STR to wear halfplate, which gives them 1 AC less than full plate. I would recommend wearing breastplate however, so that you don't have disadvantage on stealth rolls.

A decent DEX helps them with their sneakery
A decent CON helps them maintain concentration spells like Spirit guardians
A high WIS is necessary because their spells rely on it, along with increasing their ability to detect lies and scout for the party
A decent CHA helps them trick and deceive enemies, which along with their domain spells, helps them infiltrate places they aren't supposed to be

My only problem is that 8 seems too min/max for a NPC.

I can tell you, as a player who played a trickster domain cleric from level 1 to 10 in the actual 5e experience... Hitting things with a melee weapon happened maybe once in an entire encounter. Most of the time I was casting my very fun trickster domain spells rather than actually hitting things in melee.

The stats are now just fine i think. Afterall, they are meant to kind of reflect her character, not to have the optimal build.

Pretty much my thoughts on the matter.

Maybe let the player alter the stats of the companions when they join, displaying the proposed stats initially.
I'd also set her CHA at 12 at highest and giver her some strength instead.


Str 14
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 12
seems somewhat appropriate.

If it wasn't D&D and the necessity to have specific builds I would maybe go for 12 STR instead, as she does not look very strong to me.

Yeah, BG1 and 2 were filled with non-optimal statlines for characters. Anyone remember Anomen the 12 wis cleric? I think wanting every companion to have some sort of perfectly optimized stat line which is not in line with their character is bad for the game as a whole. A party members statline should be representative of their character and i think CHA14 for a trickery cleric fits quite well. Plus with dex 15 she can now get up to 21AC which makes her a defensive beast in EA.

tho 8 Int is super low as standardt the ordinary commoner has 10 int. Animals usually in D&D have 6 Int.

Can origin companion multiclass? Because Shadowheart now feels like she beg me to multiclass into any CHA class like Sorcerer or Bard, for instance

Thats the funny thing for me. If she had like 11 WIS and 12 INT, I could understand her being a Shar priestess, because that would mean she is a midwit.
But damn, the girl actually has a lot of common sense (WIS 16 is a pretty high score), so I just can't understand why she would follow the spooky goddess who will just "forget" that her devotees are on the fugue plane. If Kelemvor was smart he would make a rule that souls not claimed after a certain period of time would automatically belong to him. Ao would approve because it would force other gods to take their jobs seriously.