Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Favorite classes and races

Hey, I'm new to the game, I tried some things out, but I'm still unsure, what to play. So far I've made a Tiefling warlock (Great Old One of course as a Lovecraft fan), a Woodelf ranger (I guess pretty standard) and a Githyanki mage (something more out of the box).
With which class/race combo did you have fun and why? I'm not looking for min/maxing only for the fun aspect.

My first run was with a gith mage simply because this was new to me (and mage because I knew there was a gith warrior in the game). I am currently playing a woodelf ranger (finesse / dual wielder / stealth / sleigh of hand, a strength based ranger is a super option too)...
However I would recommend the warlock. Reason being that with a high charisma score this will likely be your natural candidate for all dialogues. There is a good amount of charisma-based proficiency checks in the game and it's nice to see your own character gaining access to some "options" even if, story-wise, the importance of passing those checks is, imo, over-estimated. My half-elf warlock (great old one) was my best experience despite the limited combat options for a warlock at that level.

Drow race tag is interesting - try it in gobbos camp.

I prefer to use the Wood Elf for most of my characters. It has the longest movement 10.5m/move, Darkvision, Elf Weapons, Perception & Stealth. All of which are useful for pretty much any and all classes.

As to the classes, I've played them all, but enjoy playing the Warlock, Ranger, and Rogue the most (in that order).

While a Wood Elf (Fiend) Warlock is playable, the Half Drow with the +2 Charisma allows you to start with Charisma at 16, and the Half Drow's 'Dancing Lights' cantrip allows your companions to see/attack better.
If you play a Warlock, being a Fiend Warlock has the added benefit of being healed by 'The Dark One's Blessing' with most of your kills.
I enjoy playing the Warlock the most because it's Eldritch Blast cantrip is awesome, and has unlimited uses. Combined with Repelling Blast at level 2, and the Fiend's self-heal, it's hard not to love.

If you play a Ranger, starting as a Bounty Hunter & Urban Tracker have helped me the most.
The Ranger can be played as a Fighter/Cleric or as a Rogue/Cleric which gives tons of flexibility in gameplay.

The Rogue benefits the most from being a Wood Elf, and opens a lot of options for your skills & backgrounds.
The Rogue has been my go to class since the TSR days of Pool of Radiance. I am hoping that BG3 will eventually add Guild Halls and secret quests that have always made it a fun class to play.

Good Luck, & Have Fun!

Thanks for alle the answers. I'm currently decidingt between a rogue or a warlock. The warlock would be a Tiefling, the rogue might be a Drow. I already have the wood elf ranger and I will play her too - I'm normally doing a lot of playthroughs, if I like a game. The Gith mage isn't off the table too. I know, that we have every class but ranger as companions, but I think, it is ok to have two of one sort. I never play fighter so that class is out for now.

Il throw in my 2 cents for warlock as well. Eldritch Blast isn't just a spell, it's a way of life.

Yes. This is the way.

So anyway, I started blasting.

I've been having a lot of fun with a human STRanger. I take hordebreaker, then run around with longstrider and a great sword while cleaving through enemies like a lawnmower. Once GWM gives a bonus action attack, I'll be able to potentially have 3 greatsword attacks at level 4.

I'm running a Female half-elf running as a dual-wielding Ranger/knight the reason for which I decided to go with this build was 1 the fact at dual wielding and all the great damage bonuses you get to seriously kick the crap out of your foes. Especially when you get properly buffed before a battle. Not to mention that the Ranger is one of the overall Pc's for which don't get played very often

Race: Drow
Class: Wizard
Name: Jaluk
Romance: Minthara
Hotel: Trivago

Ok, I've settled for the Tiefling warlock, worshipper of the Great Old One (the lady in my avatar) - as a Lovecraft fan, it was hard to pass. The ranger will be second playthrough and the Gith mage third.
I think, warlock is a nice class to play and I don't think, it will be a problem, when I want to have Wyll in the party, you can never have too much magic power.

Being new to the turn-based style gaming of Baldur's Gate 3, I initially tried my usual rpg role of elven ranger. However I found myself struggling more than I expected and chose to move on to a high elf wizard and a half-elf warlock with mixed but somewhat better results overall.

Still wasn't too keen on my gaming experience in BG3, so I ran a lightfoot halfling rogue and that was where the game really earned my attention and affection, but he got wiped just after having achieved level 3 on Stadia after patch #3 made it's odious presence known.

I've spent my time post that patch, sampling a githyanki fighter (not bad) and am trying out another wood elf ranger at the moment, but at some point my halfling thief is going to make a return to the game ...... if only they would fix the parts of character creation that patch #3 fouled up?

The Warlock's imp, properly played, is completely broken - it can clear most battles on its own. I don't play Warlock as a first class, but Wyll is always in my party for that reason.

Do tell, seems near useless as summoned but I am always ready to be educated.

I'm weird, in that I tend to play the same character in every game (Elder Scrolls, PoE, Pathfinder Kingmaker, BGIII, etc.)

A female (wood) elf rogue.

Admittedly, in BGIII, it renders Astorion redundant, but I don't much care for Mr stabby anyway (and I say this as someone who loves Sebille in DoS II)

I really enjoy said character, as she tends to fit my playstyle (a sneaky, stabby dagger and bow wielding badass who relies more on skill and cleverness than strength)

I totlally forgot rogue - have to play that class too - maybe a halfling? I love to play rogues and I really like the arcane trickster subclass, so that is a given.

All of my party members are now with magical talents: I gave Lae and Astarion the magic orientated subclasses, so they can sling spells too. Don't know, if those are the best subclasses, but it is more about fun for me than anything. And I know, that in pen & paper the arcane trickster is really great.

Next run, perhaps. Imo, Rogue is in a weird spot in Larian's interpretation of DnD 5e. You may like it but I wouldn't be surprised if they change it a bit in the future.

I figured that there were enough magic-oriented characters in the game hence my reason for running a Female Ranger/knight dual-wielding with heavy armor and weapons. She's already a tank and she's only 3rd level.

I'm not sure I'd agree with using the word "broken" but I do agree the imp is very strong. It's a scout and sneak attack monster with invisibility+hide. Fly gives it amazing maneuverability to zip around the battlefield. In this way it can run interference like a boss.

It hits with it's attack alot more often than you might think it would and often poisons the enemy. And it can be surprisingly hard to hit itself for all but the strongest enemies. The minotaurs might wipe it one round, and maybe one or two other underdark creatures. But mostly, it really has alot of uses.

@BraveSirRobin

Massive exploit spoiler...



You can clear most fights that way. On my last run, I cleared the entire Blighted Village of goblins using one imp (I recruit the ogres and ignore the lovers).

I mean, I guess you could call that broken mechanically speaking, I'm sure it's not how the devs mean for the imp to be used, but it seems like a slow and tedious way to get through a fight.

I usually start off with some kind of maneuver like that to get all the enemy attention on the imp. But then I always bring my whole party in to snipe from range. It's just faster than trying to do it all with the imp.

I just bought the game 2 days ago, and my first character is a Seldarine Drow Wizard who specializes in Evocation. So far it's been going well aside from two tough encounters.

Hey Talyn, nice to read you here. Wizard might be my next playthrough, I really love slinging spells in this game.

Hey fylimar, nice to see you here as well. Now that I look at your avatar I realize you are the original poster. As for Wizard, it's fun putting half of the enemies in a group to sleep and then frying them. I do want to play a Warlock, maybe a Tiefling or half elf next. But I am enjoying my Drow Wizard. I like how mistrustful the npc's are to my character since he is a Drow.

They aren't exactly trustful of Tieflings either. I did get some slurs already, but nothing too bad.
I wish we could play druid or bard, my favorite classes in DnD, but they are not ready yet, I guess.
Another thing I want to try out, is a halfling rogue.

Yeah I can see people being mistrustful of Tiefling's with the way they look. I just think it's a nice little touch. In games like SWTOR the people do not treat you differently based on your race. In BGIII the Tiefling's are willing to deal with my Drow, but they still won't drop their guard around him. I enjoy playing a druid and bard also, but the class I usually pick is Paladin which is also not available yet. I always try to be just and good in my first playthroughs. I find it that one can get more out of a game by being nice. In this game since my companions are either rude or arrogant, I can be somewhat mean to them.

My first Tav was a Thiefling ranger.

One of the things that I liked about this race was that Larian used it to show prejudice and racism.

My current Tav is a full Drow follower of Loth (not so much, he has discovered the pleasures of Loviathar), he is a Shield Master. I like the race, in this case because Larian used it to show self entitlement and prejudice (in the case of this race the prejudice goes both ways).

Usually I like to play mixed blood characaters (maybe because I myself am a cocktail of ethnics), indeed my next characters [the fraternal twins of my Drow fighter] are going to be one an half wood elf (with drow somatic traits) and the other one an half - drow (with wood elven somatic traits).

[Also I hope when the full game is released there are going to be more mixed bloodlines, oh how much I would love to play an hal thiefling - half elf/drow or an half thiefling - half human]

About classes I more inclined to ranged ones that is wizards and rangers, but like with races I love mixed classes (that is I love multi class characters).

I love multiclassing too. In our p&p group I play a bard/ranger - and yes, it's as strange as it sounds, but tons of fun. She started as a bard and found her love for nature along the way (she has good stats, that's why I decided to do that).
In BG 1 & 2 I often played rogue/mages or mage/clerics.

I play a few different ones so far tried out the mage, and the rogue now I"m currently playing through with a Half-elf ranger knight that dual-wields So far love the build and would love it much more if it weren't for some of the feat bugs that are in the game and ned fixed

half elf everything

This is the correct answer.

My new playthrough is an high elf rogue, specced as arcane trickster, so she has a bit of rogue/mage multiclass about her

Seldarine ('good') drow ftw. I really enjoyed the reactions from NPCs and it spices up the group constellation. You still experience encouters like gith & tieflings etc. as s.th. special while playing a complete outsider (at least for the parts I've played yet)

Plus SUPERIOR nightvision! It's just a blast to have different colored dark areas depending on the char you control. For humans it's pitch black, dv char it's better, but drow simply see EVERYTHING! Their perception is ''colder' in tones & and you really 'feel' other races cherish the warmth of a simple candle

Gives you food for thought about perception in RPGs in general.


I've also tried out playing as Astarion (only a few hours). Although I got slighty annoyed by him as a companion I enjoyed to play him as main char.
Lae'zel is also fun to play (esp. when she encounters shadowheart :-D) but companion campaigns are (obviously) in very early stage so I won't invest much time in them yet.

I know there is controversy about companion campaigns, but from game design/ressource perspective it's a great idea: You already have full fledged characters at hand (artwork, voice actors etc.) and if your story allows it, dialog texts are clever & high quality why not?

I can't select the companions at start (not that I necessarily want to).
Maybe I should consider playing a Drow, if the gameplay experience is that different. I bet playing as a Gith is something special too, given, that they seem to be generally mistrusted.

That's great to hear. How long would you say was your playthrough? Also as for your new character post a screenshot. I love seeing people's characters.:)

Edit: What was your level when you completed the first chapter?

That's why I went with a Seldarine Drow as my first character. I consider them less evil than the Lloth Sworn Drow. But in my game my character is chaotic good not evil, and yes there Darkvision is superior. I have no trouble in dark areas if my Drow is in the lead.

I can't play as any of the companions either, but as for playing as a Drow. Play what you want to play I find them unique because of npc's reactions, plus there are some dark areas where there superior darkvision comes in handy. My next character will either be a Tiefling, Half Elf/Drow, or a Lloth Sworn Drow. I wonder since Drow society is a matriarchy if female Drow will have different reactions?

I really enjoy the Drow, mainly because it's "out-the-box". As mentioned, Drow gets special dialogs. You can also make your own story and be good, change of ❤️ . I based my own story from this one here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Liriel_Baenre

The only downside with the Drow is that they can only max up to Wis 15 or Int 15 in the D&D 5E at character creation. Since the drow are more of a magical society, I thought that this is wrong, Drow should have dex and int as main attributes. Perhaps In BG3 in upcoming content the Drow could be adjusted like the ranger class *winks winks.

As for classes, I went with both Drow Lolth-sworn "Light Cleric" and Lolh-sworn "Ranger" dex based dual wielding and part time 2H, depending of the situation.

-S

Sorry, just saw your post. I just finished my firs tplaythrough - I wanted to defeat the spider matriarch before going to the end of EA, because that for me is the toughest fight and I wanted to do it. I did it today (second try - yay) and finished my first playthrough with maybe 30 hours. My second playthrough is a bit more thorough and is more than 30 hours already. In my first playthrough, I messed the owlbear for example, and the harpies and some other stuff.

I posted my rogue in the SHare pictures thread - from what I have seen, you have found it, saw your characters tehre, really nice . But if you like, here she is:



You can only reach level 4 so far. I had that on my first playthrough after the gobbo camp, now I had it even before, because I explored more and did get more stuff done - for example I killed the first spider and Ettercap group in the Whispering Depths really soon in the game, that gave a lot of experience (I accidently started the fight, I just wanted to get the loot in the beginning of that area).

Have fun with the game. I myself have tons of fun.

Thank you for answering my questions. I am about 18 hours in with my first character the Seldarine Drow Wizard. I am now heading to the Goblin camp I also recruited a new companion Wyl. He seems nicer than the others. At least he cares about the Tiefling children.

Your character looks great by the way.

I am having loads of fun as well. Thank you for recommending me this game.:)

You're welcome. Wyll is a nice companion. He and Gale are the good options, they do approve, when you do something good.

I'm one of those that need to get their own spin on everything so I don't like clean one class builds. The buiild I hope I will be able to pull of would be:

My pirate hunter:
Human - ST-16 / DX -16 / CO-10 / IQ-12 / WS-14 / CH-8 (sailor)
Starting as Ranger, dual wielding, (urban, bounty hunter) until level 3 (hunter) then switching to Barbarian (Path of the Totem/Wolf) until level 5 and a final switch to Fighter to reach Battlemaster (if possible by level cap). If it goes beyond level 12-13 I would probably commit to one of the three classes and just stick to it.

It's far from optimized and more of a NPC character than hero of the story, but very versitile. Espeically if the Hunter could be replaced Gloom Stalker (50 feet turn one movement is fun - and once your party catches up they benefit from the wolf totem advantage), while rage resistances help with the low hitpoints. It also gives a bit of out of combat skills. And if charging ahead is too crazy, just Hunter's Mark your target and use a bow (meancing attack would be a nice cap stone if it goes to level 12).

There have been several race/ class combos I've enjoyed in EA so far.

Githyanki Abjurer (somewhat fixed with the D&D Rebalance Mod) Soldier
Wears half plate, uses Shield of Faith to raise his 12 pt Arcane Ward (currently at 4th lvl), and uses the Shield spell to replenish it. Has got the Jump spell, and a high Athletics skill. Buffs up and goes out to smack things with a great sword.

Shield Dwarf Ranger Knight Urban Tracker:
Duel wields battle axes, uses Hunter's Mark and Colossus Slayer, wears chainmail armor, uses the Jump spell as well, picks locks and removes traps. Who needs a Rogue?

Drow Divine Soul Sorcerer Far Traveler:
Took Magic Initiate Warlock for Hex and Eldritch Blast. Outblasts Gale.

Shield Dwarf War Domain Cleric Soldier:
Took Martial Adept for the Battlemaster's Riposte. Also wears chainmail, fights with a glaive, took Polemaster at 8th level.

But I most look forward to playing a Half Elf Enchanter Wizard Charlatan, when Larian adds it or someone mods it in.

I'm contemplating doing something strange - like a Tiefling cleric for example.
I really wish, we could have bards and druids soon. I know, there are mods out there, but at the moment, I don't get a mod to work. And I'm hestitating using too many mods ( I only used the mod, that gave Tiefling more hair options)

Whoopsies. I already posted in this thread apparently...

I really love my halfling ranger, she is a lot of fun to play. It's kind of cute, that her spider companion is bigger than her. And in the goblin camp she convinced those two spiders to fight for her and those were basically towering over her - not to mention Halsin in bear form ... or every other animal.

My favorite races are elves and my favorite class is druid and bard.

I love druid and bard too - and as soon, as they are available, I will create both.

I have always been a Ranger fan, even if the 5th Edition Ranger class has some limitations compared to fighters in terms of combat damage. That being said, so far the two combinations I've played extensively so far are:

1. Wood Elf Ranger - With the correct choices, you can start with 9 skills (including perception/insight, and enough of the rogue skills that Astarion becomes superfluous. (Which is good, because I really don't like him.) And this build of my ranger was pretty much able to stealth-snipe and solo most of the goblin guardpost leading to their camp, AND was even able to snipe most of the phase spiders in the Whispering Depths.

2. Zauriel Tiefling Ranger - Not as many skills as the Wood Elf ranger to start, but you get fire resistance as a bonus perk. Her starting Dex is not as high as the Wood Elf, but with slightly heavier armour and twin finesse weapons, she's actually pretty darn good at melee combat. And still has the stealth archery sniping as an option.

Just my two cents.

I really need Paladins, and Oath of Conquest...badly.

Shield dwarf / wizard. Specialize in shields at level 4. It is uncommon to see a wizard in medium armor with a shield with an AC ~20 )

Oh wow - I just started a Githyanki wizard and stole Lae'zels armor - that girl is unstoppable. And she can fight with swords, when she is out of spells or in melee range. Very powerful combo. ANd I didn't even made a strength based build but a dexterity build, to get the both out of armor class,

In other rpgs on console, I've typically favored elves, and to some extent dwarves. I still like them in BG3, but also really enjoy the tieflings, halflings and githyanki.

Just looking for fun?
I really enjoyed human ranger.

No min maxing here just decent all around stats and fantastic combat versatility.
Seriously, there's never been a single encounter where I didn't have a slew of viable options to choose from.
Close quarters? Yup! Long distance Yeah! stealthy approach? Why not?
You can even get away with the occasional dramatic head on assault.
Beyond that you get a whole slew of neat abilities to pick from and a whole bunch of hotbar space for oils, poisons, fire bottles, potions and bombs.

Outside of combat you get a slew of good wisdom checks and you can talk to animals!
Ever wondered what a dog might say to having been petted? Want to talk spiders out of trying to eat you? By all means!
And even a really got set or rogue-esque skills for when you don't have a rogue on hand.

Not a fan of medium armor? Then wear heavy armor by being a ranger knight.
And what's more knightly sounding than a heavily armored human that can deal with any enemy at any distance?
Not feeling like handling things alone? Be a beast tamer and call upon a wolf to hunt down your enemies or a frigging giant spider of your very own to trap foes in flammable webs !

And I mean hey, It's a human, talk about a renegade choice for archery eh?

Drow elves are one of the most interesting races in DnD imho, there's a lot of extra material to read about them including a really popular series of novel by R.A Salvatore. My first playthrough was a Lolth-sworn Drow Warlock but in the final game I'm probably going to play a Seldarine Drow Bard.