Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So ... feats ... or not feats?

Since forum is now full of "what will you do on your first playtrough" topics ...
There is one i wonder about ... and as you probably guessed, is feats!

Level 12 sounds kinda exiting (even tho expected), our spellcasters dont necesarily loose top level spells in order to dip to different class.
On the other hand tho, it means we get only 3 ASI, or Feats ... and since we now have (hopefully complete?) list of them:
https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Feats

So, presuming we get stat rolls ... that means we can use up to 3.
(Presuming we dont, that would mean one in most cases, huh?
I mean ... i got the impresion that you ALLWAYS want to get at least your one main stat to 20 ...)

So i wonder, wich are you planning to use? O:)
What combinations are you planning for your builds?
And do you think there are some that we should definitely just avoid, since they are not worth having at all?
Or on the other hand some that people should never, ever, ever, miss?

Feel free to share your thoughts!
Also ... do you feel like 3 ASI/Feats will be sufficient?

//Edit:
For example as i read trough it ...
Combination of Polearm Master and Sentinel seems very apealing for my Barbarian. >:]

Hoping for VHuman for an early additional feat.

With cap of 12 that combo will work only on fighter and it's extremely bad on barbarian especcially due alot of reason.

As for optimisation all is simple feat at 4lvl then +2 asi in the main ability at 8 and 12 with rare exceptions.

Not gonna happen. There is no place for cheat in BG3.

Whatever feats or ASIs i choose depends on the stat roll.

Fighters get 4 feats(Levels 4,6,8,12)
Rogues get 4 feats(Levels 4,8,10,12)

Everyone loves a 20 main-stat but the difference between 20 and 18 is only 5% greater success so if a feat is important enough an 18 might be good enough. (8th Level is very far away in playing time so what you choose at 4th level needs to be impactful)

Elemental Adept can be exceedingly important if your mage is focusing on a single element.(Draconic Sorcerers)
Resilient Constitution is important for Wizards and Clerics and Druids and Warlocks.
War Caster is great for all spell-casters.
Alert is fantastic for non-evocation mages.
Crossbow Expert, if it applies to spells as it does in 5e, is great for Warlocks.

A single dip in fighter feels great for a Wizard once you are level 6, but is less fun to play through levels 1-5.

Fighters often take the Crossbow expert/Sharpshooter combo or PAM/Power attack/Sentinel trifecta but if you can find powerful weapons Dual Wielder can be appealing as well.

Lucky is a powerful feat if you can find room for it.

These decisions are tougher without a digital BG3 Player's Handbook because multi-classing is difficult to optimize if you don't know what higher level options you are giving up.(There are lots of class options that don't translate to a computer game so until we know how Larian has changed these features it is difficult to make any concrete decisions)

My first character will probably be single classed for that reason. (I'm one of those weird folks who plans their entire character out before starting playing) Once Fextralife or WolfhartFPS has all the class data on their site I'll be able to make better decisions regarding multi-class.

Feats are certainly powerful, but I think you're underestimating the impact of those 5%. If you're attacking an AC 14 target with your 18 Str and a +7 attack bonus, you have a 30% chance to miss. Increasing Str to 20 will make that 25% - that's a roughly 17% reduction in the total amount of attacks you miss. This is very important for spellcasters with lots of save-or-suck spells and even more so for Dex characters where that one stat affects their attacks, AC, initiative and a common save. The higher a stat is, the more valuable that one extra point becomes, especially with AC.

The feats you mention are absolutely worth taking over a stat increase though. I'm just saying I think getting that +1 can be a comparably strong choice too, if perhaps a boring one.

At least for EA, it felt like taking feats was almost always less desirable than an ASI. In 5E, it rarely makes sense to give up an ASI, until you have maxed out your primary stat. BG3 doesn’t seem markedly different from 5E, in this respect.

In EA, there were only a few options for maxing an ability score with just one ASI (e.g., Volo’s Ersatz Eye).

I am not a fan of how 5E makes feats alternatives to ASI. Hopefully Larian or the mod community makes it possible to get a feat at level 1.

You should remember that there are probably other ways to improve your stats, like auntie ethels hair and the Ersatz eye from Volo in act 1.

Spellcasters don't really need feats imo, but for melee people, especially fighters, the usual is good. Sharpshooter, crossbow expert, Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Sentinel...

But I need to see their specific implementation first before creating full builds

Great Weapon Master on Barbarians and Fighters is completely broken in EA. Try it
It is easy to increase your attack roll. Have a bard, cast faerie fire, bless, reckless attack, ...

It's entirely possible we'll get feats as a reward for major stepping stones in the story or important questlines. This is pretty common from my personal experience, though I also play with a lot of GMs who are tired of everyone just picking variant human... but even the ones who don't care if you want to be boring prefer offering feats as a major event reward.

I can definitely see Larian doing that.

1. How will we get stats in CC?
2. What class are you? Some classes, e.g. Paladin, get more than one benefit from a particular ability.
3. What class are you? Some classes, e.g. Fighter, only need one main ability (STR) and one 'good to have' ability (CON) so once you have a half decent CON feats become something to consider.
4. What class are you? Some classes don't (at least in EA) get as many decent feats as other classes.

Personally I love the fact its level 12 - I've been running a campaign as DM for friends and the whole world has level 12 as level cap for characters. Its a great balance for a lot of things because you can run your party into several glabrezu and still win, while at the same time not being forced to min-max and thus have some unique character builds and nobody having to be panicking to reach attributes of 20.


I also feel like people highly overrate feats and ASI compared to multiclassing and getting abilities from a second or third class. Besides that class abilities are often far more interesting to use than feats.

My 2 builds that I am looking forward to use (though Larian's homebrew might interfere):
Human 'wanderer' - Gloomstalker (3) / Bear Totem Barbarian (5) / Battle Master (4)
ST 18 / DX 16 / CO 10 / IN 12 / WS 14 / CH 9
Feats: I only took +2 ST and later on either resiliance, two weapon fighting or something else... depends on the mood as its only in the final stage

This character looks unoptimised because of the low constitution but its been the most fun build I've played in any game. Its a utility character (history, stealth, perception, althetics) that can be a beast when picking his fights and as long as he is raging he can also tank. Ranger gives him two weapon fighting (which also helps out with the longer wait for multi attacks) and fighter blind fighting.



The second build:
Half Elf 'sorcadin' - Oath Vengence of Vengane (6) / wild magic (6)
ST 16 / DX 14 / CO 14 / IN 8 / WS 9 / CH 16
Feats: War Caster / Meta Magic / ASI +2ST (or CH)
Blind fighting from Paladin.

Wild Magic aggressively used is such a fun way to play and can actually buff the character (please DM don't limit the surges, the class is balanced on them being triggered often and it doesn't harm the campaign). Paladin profits from additional spell slots for smites or castings of shield, but also many of the negative effects triggered by wild magic (like fire balls) suddenly become potent offensive weapons.



Both builds have several strategies for actions, bonus actions and reactions to play with and can be used in many ways. +5% up or down for individual stats or more feats can be easily outmatched at level 12 caps by just playing smartly. I've been running a lot of different NPCs because my palyers often play solo sessions, none of them are standard 'optimized' builds, but it never caused issues (keeping in mind I rarely run encounters based on CR under 'deadily'). On this level you can run wild with whatever you have fun with. I hope Larian gets these subclasses right

Or perhaps they are people like me who prefer to play as a class rather than cherry-pick to min-max some sort of mongrel.

I'm with you there. Multiclassing never feels good thematically or RP-wise unless you completely reflavor the entire mongrel and is usually only favored by powergamers. Most of the popular multiclasses commonly taken are also just that... cheese sandwiches with an extra side of cheese, lol.

BG3's EA was already easy and because of the way power curves work in open ended games they only get easier over time, with the start generally being the hardest part of the game outside of little random spikes, so a nonoptimal group might be much more fun anyway.

We'll see how hardcore mode turns out but yeah definitely not gonna bother multiclassing since I doubt Larian did much balancing around the many strong combos through it and just shrugged.

Yup. eg POE2 where you can multiclass everyone as paladin to give the whole party passive AOE team buffs

I'm sorry, but the argument that multiclasses are a way to cherry pick optimial builds is kinda flawed in a time when we have dozen of mixed subclasses and feats on top of that that offer the same level of optimisation. Subclasses (and classes) are just arbitrary constructions. Paladin is basically a predefined fighter/cleric mix (and actually quite imbalanced compared to other classes), ranger a drudic/cleric mix, arcane trickster or eldritch knights - do I even need to mention those ones? Or Spell singer wizards? There is a reason why the subclasses are constantly expanded - because people want more differentiated options to play their characters.

Sometimes people prefer there own flavour and game style. The rules are just mechanics, but not the character, nor its story. If you can't separate those 2 things you are limiting your own expressions (something that the D&D ruleset actively incourages you to do, as most experienced players/DMs).

At the same time I don't mind single class builds, but whatever the player chooses should be based on what their character's story and personal playing preferences suit, not some arbitrary mechanics whose only actual purpose is to offer some balance between those available options. But definitely don't tell me multiclassing is cherry-picking/powergaming as long as official single class builds like the twilight cleric exist. You can powergame and optimise in both approaches and also avoid it.

Lets hear some.

This feels odd ...
Advantages from Faerie Fire and Reckless Attack dont stack ... no?

This feels odd ...
Advantages from Faerie Fire and Reckless Attack dont stack ... no?[/quote]

Of course not
I meant that there are many ways to get advantage or other ways to increase your hit chance, which offsets the -5 penalty of GWM and massively increases the damage. In both 5e and BG3, the builds with the highest consistent damage will all use GWM.

Once the full game comes out, the meta striker build will be an archer of some kind, likely Battlemaster, using Sharpshooter and Xbow master. Sharpshooter is better than GWM, because the archery fighting style gives you +2 to hit, and you benefit from high ground with another +2. That alone basically cancels the -5, before you even add bless, bardic inspiration, advantage and so on. So you can hit reliably and do ridiculous damage.

Bards especially combo well with Battlemasters, because of bardic inspiration, many important spells (for example faerie fire), but also the additional short rest, so you can use your maneuvers much more often.

A hasted Battlemaster on lv 11 can do 9 attacks (10 with xbow master), that is 90 additional damage alone from sharpshooter, before your do any damage normally. A longbow deals 1d8+5=9.5, so double that basically. With enough buffs, you will hit most of your shots. And that is before maneuvers, any magic items, +x weapons, any other class features or dipping.

And of course, it is easy to set up guaranteed crits in this game with tashas hideous laughter etc. So double the damage dice (including superiority dice) again

[EDIT: Sorry, written at the same time as the previous post] Faerie Fire and bless also shouldn't be castable by the same character since they requie concentatrion (at least in the core rules, don't know what's the current situation in BG3.



Regarding Barbarian:
I'm also not sure what would be bad about a barbarian with polearm master and sentinel at level 12? You should have easily STR18 by the end. That +5% to hit from ST20 means little. Personally I've made good experience with even an unoptimized elven wild magic barbarian with ST16 and polearm master - I'm waiting for the chance to add sentinel to him. I would though consider taking great weapon master instead of sentinel if you have ST 18 on him, but that's personal preference and if you see him as a hitter or protector.

For me polearm master is actually far more interesting than sentinel, since you can with simple positioning provoke the opportunity attacks when you force enemies to move towards you. You initiate the fight at 10ft, move a step back after your attacks (most likely out of the range for an enemy opportunity attack) and wait for him to move up - now sentiel would turn this very nasty since a hit would make the enemy stop right there. For me a very interesting build with a barbarian's bonus damage from rage. By the way the only downside being rage using up the first rounds bonus action instead of the additional attack, but that's really just a minor thing IMHO. A fighter's 3 multi attack at level 12 for me also doesn't outweight the barbarian's additional class features and damage reductions. I think fighters and barbarians are not that far appart at level 12, even though fighters could go nuts and make 7 attacks at that level with polearm master, but until then I wouldn't say a fighter is better than a barbarian and even then I guess its more to it than the 7 attacks mathematical damage.

[/quote]
Faerie Fire and bless also shouldn't be castable by the same character since they requie concentatrion (at least in the core rules, don't know what's the current situation in BG3.
[/quote]

That is still true, but you have multiple characters in the party, not just the two. And bless is just an example, as explained, there are many ways to increase your accuracy