Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What is your party composition?

Im a bit worried about only having 4 characters in my party, instead of 6 that the older BG and IWD games had.

Why am i worried?
- because i feel locked to have 1x Tank, 1x Healer, 1x Rogue, and 1x Mage, and that dosnt leave much space for freedom in the party composition.

I might just be old fashioned, so thats why i ask.
- What party composition do you use?

I mostly play casters or rogues and the consistent Party members are Shadowheart and Gale. The rest gets swapped out for story reasons.
I don't really need a fighter type, so far, it worked Well even when Lae'zel isn't in the party.

Agreed, there's a lot of flexibility in party composition in BG3, as a result of the flexibility in 5e.

You don't need a rogue, as long as you have someone else who can pick locks and disarm traps, which could be anyone with decent dexterity, though ideally also with sleight of hand. Any class with the urchin or charlatan background, or a ranger with Urban Tracker, or a bard, can get sleight of hand. They aren't going to be as good as a rogue with expertise, but should be good enough. In Early Access, if you don't want to take Astarion (the only rogue), Shadowheart as a trickery cleric with urchin background has good enough sleight of hand if your own character doesn't.

Of course, rogues can also be stealthy scouts, but this is optional anyway, and other classes have ways of accomplishing this, such as a stealthy ranger, mage with invisibility, or sending in familiars (the cat is sneaky) or animal companions, or for a druid turning into an animal themselves.

And you don't need a specialist healer. There are plenty of potions, which can be thrown to heal others if a character can't drink themselves (though I think this is dodgy so I tend not to do it). But plenty of other characters other than a cleric or druid can get the odd healing spell that can cover your party if you don't want to throw potions, eg rangers, bards and paladins.

As fylimar said, you don't really need a tank either. You can get away with being mobile on the battlefield and using crowd control effectively instead. Or using summon spells like Flaming Sphere or an animal companion to help keep your weedier characters being overrun.

And while you are probably going to want to have a magic user, you don't need a specialist mage. As well as Gale (the wizard), there's Wyll (warlock) and Astarion can become an Arcane Trickster at level 3, and Lae'zel can become an Eldritch Knight, plus there are lots of options for your main character to be able to do AoE damage, crowd control, etc.

I actually really like the 5e approach and the 4-person party limit, as it forces me to be creative about how to cover the various functions my party needs, or find different ways of doing things when I can't cover a function well. Not everyone is a fan though, as you can find a big mega thread on this forum saying!

That said, I take Shadowheart more often than not. Shadowheart can heal and lockpick and has spells to help stealthiness, so can fulfill both healer and rogue roles, along with some decent spell damage and buffing, plus if given the right armour she's not too squishy on the front line, giving me lots of flexibility with the remainder of my party. And I take Lae'zel least, just because I'm not particularly attracted to fighter as a class, and have found that the fights are all perfectly winnable (if sometimes trickier) without a tanky front-liner.

Shadowheart works as both a tank and a healer - Shield, Shield of Faith, 14 DEX, Splint+1 or Gith armor and she has 21AC; Mirror Image and she has 30AC. Helm and she can't be Crit Damaged.

Rogues are nice, but anyone can pick locks/disarm traps with tools. Again, Shadowheart has +2 Dex, +3 Wisdom and Guidance for 90% of the locks/traps in the game. Also Enhance Ability for Advantage for hard ones.

Astarion is fairly capable as an Arcane Trickster for a magic boost; Wyll or Gale are full casters; you have access to a lot of magic if you want it.

And then there is your player character.

There's a part of me that wants more party slots for when they add more companions; but it would also slow down combat more, and they'd have to make every encounter a lot more difficult to balance as well.

-A Dex (Usually Astarion or Shadowheart gets me there)
-A Cha (Myself usually. I think Gale's up there in here. Wyll if I have to)
-A Wis or Int (Sometimes myself, or Shadowheart or Gale)
-A Str (Laezel. Just Laezel).

Usually find myself taking Astarion, Laezel, and Shadowheart. Sometimes I'll swap one of them out for Gale.
I tend to prioritize stat coverage. On top of that, 1 stealth/fast-mover, 1-2 casters, 1 straight melee and/or tank.

Whatever works in a situation, I don't mind. I got 2 paladins and a druid in my recent run, yet I almost never heal in combat.

My ideal party at level 5 would probably ba a paladin, a sorcerer (or Gale), a dex character capable of dps heavy ranged combat without wiping through spell slots + another strong melee choice.

- Paladin can talk, heal, tank and do close dps
- Dex character for traps, locks, ambush + inability to run out of spell slots quite so severely (rogue or ranged battlemaster). Very necessary for taking out enemy glass canons

Anything else, I feel is optional and depends on who I'm facing. Bg3 early access isn't a difficult game, so we can yet get away with a lot. The Sorcerer/wizard of course serves for FIREBALL!. Bg3 is an action economy. The fourth choice really doesn't matter much. It's just fine tuning your set up

I don't particularly believe Wyll's character and I can't stand Astarion's sadistic teen vampire antics so I'm stuck with the remaining three companions every time.

I'm not a fan of this design where you only have a few companions to choose from because they have tons of content. I would like the content cut in half, and the number of companions doubled. Adding Minsc and Jaheira isn't going to change much. I never took Minsc in my BG1 or BG2 parties.

I like having the classic Fighter / Cleric / Rogue / Mage D&D party. There should be at least two options that are different enough for each class group, and then an extra 4 bonus characters.

I had the same feeling ...

But when i noticed that my FiendWarlock-Tav is just as good tank as Lae'zel or Shadowheart ...
I gave up ... now i just pick those party members i like and want to build relationship with.

I think doing my first playthrough with only mage type companions and my latest focusing on melee/physical really helped me not worry so much.

The crux is really just mastering positioning, knowing your enemy and using the environment against the AI.

For example, you've got 3 melee characters and a rogue. Before you is a door. You know the room is full of ranged DPS characters. What do you do? --> shoot the first in the back, close that door and force them to come to you!

This is /slanderous/. Astarion isn't an angsty teen vampire. He's a chaotic little toddler doing his best.

For real, though. Wyll's invinsible imp is very good for scouting (without engaging in metagaming...).

Favourite party composition: Custom party of ranger, rogue, sorcerer, wizard (sometimes cleric depending on mood.) Playstyle is all stealthy ranged and frequent use of crowd control effects.

Using companions: Ranger (or sorcerer,) Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart.

As other posters have already said, you don't need any particular class in your party. Play what you want and bring whichever companions you like the best

Is he tho

🙂

Yes I have also already extensively put together my favorite custom party, BUT no matter what I do, I am always missing at least one additional fifth character slot. -.- I'm not only about the subclass, but also the background, combat style and more.

I agree that with just four people, chances are that there are going to be some things that our party isn’t great at. But I actually like this, as it encourages me to think creatively about how to overcome those weaknesses and to tackle challenges in different ways in different playthroughs.

Of course, it would be frustrating in a badly designed campaign where there was only one way to achieve a goal, so if your party didn’t have the right skill you could be stuffed. But I think Larian have generally done a good job of making sure we have numerous alternative ways of completing quests or beating enemies, and it would need to be a very lopsided party indeed that didn’t have the skills to manage one of them.

My favorite party so far is sorcerer Tav, Gale, Wyll, and Shadowheart.


I love having tons of companion content! I also like having a lot of companions, so I want both.

If in 5e everyone can do anything, why do we even have classes?

FWIW, my *ideal* D&D party composition would be: tank, melee damage dealer, ranged damage dealer, spellcasting damage dealer/controller, healer/support, and the final spot for an eclectic character.

I think it is great in BG3! The classes are quite different to play, and you have the flexibility to take the companions you want based on personality, alignment, and/or which combat style(s) you like!

I don’t think they can, or if so then I’ve not found a way to achieve it! But there seem to be multiple ways to cover the functions that an adventuring party needs that are interesting to discover. I find each class still feels distinctive, though, even if they’re not as restrictive as the ones I’m used to from games based on earlier D&D versions.

if it will be possible to multiclass companions then pal tav, ek laezell, wyll 2 warlock / x sorc, helia 2 bard / x sorc

if not, ek lae, sorc tav, gale or better sorc origin character if there will be one, kalaksh. sorc gonna have sleight proficiency and gale gonna grab guidance / bless

shadowheart has terrible stats and healing is not really important at least now, especially if you can kill before enemy react.

so ideally laezell ek, one vengeance paladin, two sorcs better draconic