Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Best use of camp characters

You can leave 2 NPCs in camp (until Act 2 when you get Halsin, I presume). I'm wondering if everyone is using them like I am.

Gale seems to work best as a Transmutation Wizard (so his Alchemy is better). He casts Longstrider on everyone, Darkvision on anyone who doesn't have it naturally, and Magic Weapon on some secondary weapons (at this point, it's really just things I might throw because everyone has a magic weapon). Then he hangs out in camp. That's his contribution to the advancement of our goals. I haven't tried Enlarge/Reduce yet, but I think that might be interesting to get into burrows or make my Barbarian bigger; he can maintain one Concentration spell while in camp, so that might be it sometimes, but Protection from Energy will be his usual Concentration Spell (though I neglected to have him learn it due to an oversight), which I'll likely swap for Stoneskin when he can cast 4th Level Spells.

Shadowheart can do Protection from Good and Evil at low level (but it requires Concentration, so I think it will generally be replaced with a higher level spell). Barkskin is interesting if you have a character who neglects their DEX and it makes a build for Wizard or Sorcerer that doesn't automatically make me think I need to bump DEX to 14 (and requires no Concentration), but my characters always have at least 16 AC, so I think it is of limited use. I generally only cast Protection from Poison from camp because it is a pretty lame spell, but it doesn't require Concentration, so it's a no-brainer to cast it on everyone until 2nd Level Spell Slots run out. She can do Magic Weapon like Gale, but he has fewer uses for his 2nd Level Spell Slots from camp. Enhance Ability is my usual choice for her Concentration Spell (over Protection from Good and Evil). She can cast Daylight without Concentration (though if you already have Darkvision on everyone, I don't know that it is particularly useful) and can replace Enhance Ability with Protection from Energy, which is probably better (even though I generally prefer to have Enhance Ability in place). When she can cast 4th Level Spells, she'll probably use all her 4th Level Spell Slots for Freedom of Movement; Stoneskin is a good contender but I'll still probably stick with Enhance Ability as her Concentration Spell.

I think Gale actually works better respecced as a Druid because he can do the Longstrider trick, then Goodberry with the remainder of his 1st Level Spell Slots. He can cast Darkvision and Protection from Poison until he runs out of Spell Slots, or Enhance Ability (Concentration) with one of them. His 3rd Level Spells could include Daylight and Protection from Energy, which is better than what a Wizard could do, though Daylight might be of limited value. And he gets Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin as 4th Level Spells.

I thought of trying this but its just so much micro management.

I made gale transmutation for sure, yet here I was carrying around a +3m transmuters stone instead of using longstrider welp.

And that one time I accidentally clicked on his sacrifice orb skill instead of transmuter stone oops.

What, does this mean you are going to camp, switching out a character, switching in a character, having that character cast a spell, switching out that character, switching back in on your original character, and you are doing this regularly?

…why? That just sounds tedious, and wildly unnecessary.

Yeah. It takes a couple minutes, but I feel like it is worth it. I'm tempted to leave more NPCs in camp and travel with a more-buffed smaller party. I have a personality quirk (related to completionist, which I am, too) that makes me feel like I *should* fill out all the possible party member slots even if I don't really want to. Psychology is weird.

I do it to "make use" of characters that are just sitting on their thumbs. It just seems weird to waste their abilities. I don't recommend it for everyone, but I don't find it particularly tedious and I like to do it. I don't have a better answer than that. To each their own.

I think I only did a Long Rest a few times in Act 1 anyway. Plus, playing a game is, in some sense, wildly unnecessary (and tedious if you don't like the game).

Well I mean if you're going to use transmuters stone with gale, might as well go ahead and longstrider everyone and get more transmuters stone.

Wait does longstrider and +3m stone stack?

You do you. As long as you’re having fun, that’s what counts.

I just switch out my characters when they have used all of their resources. So when Gale runs out of spell slots, I remove him from the party for somebody else with full resources and hit points. That way I can use everybody and don’t need to long rest as often.

Its because transmuters stone recharges after you cast a transmutation spell otherwise after long rest, so if you want a buff per character you are encouraged to do this :x

So if you respec everybody you don’t have in your party as a transmuter wizard, you can just give everybody a bunch of stones?

I mean if you wanted but out of all the schools I didn't find any of the others useful for gale.

Evocation was wasted as I play a sorcerer, allies not taking damage from fireballs is a nice trick, but unnecessary as you just use fireballs / lightning bolt from range and use twinned spells / scorching ray in close combat.

I like enchantment spells in other games, but they are crap in BG3, also the specializations don't raise spell DC so at that point only transmutation for the stones and double potions was appealing.

also spell DCs are quite sucky in BG3, theres a lot of +1 DC gear but all that goes on my main and not on Gale, so all he's really usefull for is casting buffs. Wyll isjust my animal speaking mule and sometimes for tougher fights I swap him in instead of astarion, who also happens to be my speak with undead mule because I gave him the necromancy book to get some big approval points.

In general with playing a caster as MC, I can't find a better companion setup than Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Astarion anyway so others rarely get used other than occasionally swapping in wyll, gale and karlach when doing good conversation options to get approval on all 3.

Oh and Karlach as wild barb recharges some of my spell slots, but I can go back to camp to use them.

… hmmm. Aa appealing the absurdity of having a camp full of transmitters buffing the party is, that level of cheese isn’t really necessary. I already have an easy enough time with the fights and I have a trunk full of chests that I’ve never needed to use.

Not complaining. Lots of people find this game unplayably hard on story mode, so I figure this game is pretty much impossible to balance.

I actually love diviner wizard, myself. It’s the only type of wizard I’ll play.

There are few more things more satisfying that the game telling me enemy saving throw succeeded and my being able to respond “nope.”

Ew. Anyway, I think you're better off with Druids than Transmuter Wizards because they have many more spells that last all day.