Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Party build

Hey !

So, let me put everything in context.

First, I'm not a native English speaker so please excuse my broken English.

Then, the real context : I'm nearing the end of my first playthrough with a really traditional team. Everything was voluntary kept as simple as possible in terms of party comp, build, and everything. So the team was Bard valor PC, cleric of life Shadowheart, Fighter battlemaster Lae'zel and evocation wizard Gale.

My point, now that I almost finished the game with a fair team (and canon builds for my team), I'm planning my second run.

The run will be a dark urges evil run. I'm planning to take Shadowheart with me (so I can try another choice at the end of act 2) and Minthara (so I can see what they recently did with the character). I still don't know what I'll choose as a third. Now, for the builds, I'd like to push things toward powergaming :

- PC should have high charisma and I'd like to test the warlock class. The thing is, I'd like to know what's best for it (in terms of powergaming I mean). Warlock multi to sorcerer ? Multi to paladin ? Another ? What's your build idea for that ?

- Minthara will be rogue thief / gloomstalker with sharpshooter. I guess it's 3 rogue thief / rest in gloomstalker or maybe 2 fighter level at the end ?

- Shadowheart, i have no idea how to spec her. I guess I'd still need a healer ? Maybe not. No idea.

- The fourth is still no decided. I guess I'd need a front liner. What's the most optimized here ? I think a good old fighter with two-handed weapons. Which subclass? Battlemaster ?


All in all, I'm looking for advice for multiple builds, builds that should really be on the powergaming end. Go nuts, be specific on the leveling order, specify the gear of you wanna the stats, the race that should be taken and feats... And if you have a party comp that is not exactly what I'm describing, give it nonetheless !

Thanks!

Nobody wants to share their wisdom ?

Maybe what I'm asking is too specific. Let me rephrase it :

I wanna do a real powering run, the most min - max I can do just to see the other part of the power spectrum after my real simple first run.

What are the most broken classes / multiclasses you know of and why ?

Thx !

Warlock is best paired with either sorcerer or Paladin, as the latter levels of warlock drop off a bit in terms of power.

My Wyll is a 5 Devotion Paladin / 5 Fiend Warlock / 2 Fighter and gets the job done. I like using the ring that gives you a guaranteed crit after you kill something to make his smites even bigger.

I’m not sure what the warlock / sorcerer meta build is.

I think you have the right idea for rogue / gloomstalker.

There are some ultra tanky cleric builds, but I don’t think the game is hard enough to warrant a pure tank. I prefer straight offense.

Monk builds are pretty crazy. Maybe make Shadowheart a 6 monk / 4 rogue / 2 fighter or druid of Shar?

Honestly, the power gaming builds are all so powerfu that if you are running one or two it doesn’t matter what you do with the rest of your party.

Dunno, everyone swears by something else.

Thanks for the ideas !

I know that a full powergaming team won't really have any opposition in the game and I know my goal here is a bit silly. But yeah, I'd really like to do this one time run.


I guess the team "lacks" a tavern brawler build yeah...

That would make :

- PC warlock / Paladin or sorcerer, still not decided (especially since there is no other arcane caster for now)
- one thief rogue/ gloomstalker with sharpshooter and double hand crossbow
- one tavern brawler build around monk probably, need to look over monk builds
- one ?... still looking for something here.


We are progressing !

You could always go with a storm sorcerer / tempest cleric build. I haven’t tried it, as I find the storm sorcerer more than powerful enough, and I like just being a sorcerer, but lots of wood have said it’s a very powerful build.

Only thing I hated about tempest cleric/storm sorc is the annoying need to get everything wet before I light it up like a Christmas tree.

Paladin /sorc is kinda strong too.

Yeah, I kinda want to avoid having to prepare the battlefield every time. Like... Barrelmancer is fun and all but it's a one time thing for the fun, I'd hate it if was the only way to beat fights cause it's a chore to prepare it. I know, getting everything wet is simpler than carrying every explosives you find and getting to group enemies around them but still.

Still searching what is the most broken way of playing a fighter, what's the most degenerate build for them and all. Is it single classe fighter with a two hand ? Is a battlemaster better than a champion or is there a multiclass surpassing both these options ?

The most broken way of playing a fighter is to not and play a monk instead The trouble is, you only get one set of Str 23 gloves; so the question is twofold:

1) What are you optimizing for? It seems damage output and nova potential, right? Skill checks don’t matter, Utility spells don’t matter, sustainability doesn’t matter, you just want everything dead in 2 rounds then long rest after? I ask because what’s optimized for one task is not for another, and I can help with a party setup for whatever you want as long as the goals are defined.

2) What classes / themes do you feel are must haves? The optimal party for blowing stuff up may not include any healing at all, but if you want Shadowheart to be an awesome cleric then that’ll be something different, she can certainly be that!

3) Do you just want level 12 builds that destroy things in Act 3, or does it matter to you build order and having them have power spikes early? In some ways being powerful at 4 is as or more important than being powerful at 12.

4) Do you want just one build you build towards the whole game, or is respeccing on the table and if so, how often?

Haven’t tackled this yet just because it seems overly broad at this time, but happy to help, would just love some additional clarity on what’s ideal from your perspective.

First, thank you for the offer.

1) I think skills check will be partly covered with the PC being warlock or something / warlock which will mean he'll got high charisma. Then, the thief / gloomstalker will cover locks and traps. I think that will cover most if not all skill checks right ?

The goal is to have a team which can destroy anything, be it one target or a horde of enemies. I don't really care if it's a one time per rest or fifty.

2) I only have few mandatory things. First, the PC must be warlock or some sort of warlock because I want a high charisma character to do the talking and I want to try the class. I still need to figure out is exact buil and his race but I know it will be a dark urges origin. The second mandatory would be a thief / gloomstalker for all the locks and trap and I want to see what is an optimized sharpshooter. The character will probably be Astarion until I can swap him out for Minthara : I think drow is better for that role and I wanna see her story. Finally, I think I wanna embark Shadowheart too in order to pick another path at the end of act 2 (namely, using the spear). But I don't have any idea which class she will be - and I have no lore restrictions or anything. I'm not sold on the need for healing if my team is able to blow out anything in two turns but I'm not against it.

3) I guess I don't have any problems if some members of the team spike early and some late. The thing is, I'd like to have a team that feels powerful during the whole playthrough so yeah, maybe not a whole level 12 spike party.

4) I'm not against the occasional respec but maybe not a full respec every level. I mean, if I get a build defining item that means I don't need to pump a stat on my character because the item got me covered, yeah, a respec is cool so I can boost another stat but that's really the kind of things that I'd see myself respecing a character for.

If you want to do an evil playthrough I think, a Warlock is thematically a good choice. As a build, Sorlock and Padlock are equally overpowered. You can turn the Sorlock into a machine gun eldritch blaster and use spells like Hunger of Hadar. The Padlock smites everything to death in seconds and can do it again after a short rest. An alternative could be a spore druid, an army of zombies sounds damn evil to me for the last slot I'd always go with Lae'zel, plenty of evil vibes anyway and she is a great tank and damage dealer with access to one of the best weapons early on.

First, yeah, warlock seems to fit well into this kind of comp, be it as the face of the party, its leader. I'm kinda balancing toward sorlock because I'd need an arcane caster but nothing is set for now.

Spore druid... Yeah, there will be a day I'll play one but not in this playthrough : I heard the class is not really so high in terms in the power rankings (but I'm totally open to be convinced otherwise) which is not the spirit of this party build.

Lae'zel is really good yeah, I have her as a single class battlemaster in my party right now. What I'm looking for is to find the best fighter build for her or rather the best martial build in general.

Ok so 3 of the 4 then I'm pretty happy with based on what you're describing:

The Face - Warlock 6 (Fiend, Pact of Blade), Paladin 6 (Vengeance). Feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master. Race: Githyanki strongly recommended.
You'll max Charisma skills, act as the party face / leader, stand in front in melee with enemies, etc. This is the guy who will get any Str boosts you have and any Con boosts you have, but should have permanent stat increases (if any) put in Cha instead since you have so many replace effects (including certain gloves late in the game). You give your party members a save boost, you get 3 attacks per turn + a bonus action attack, 7 attacks per turn while hasted, and you can absolutely nova enemies down with Smite. The Vengeance Paladin and Githyanki are to improve your mobility, though a high Str score, good use of jumping, and haste will do a ton on that end. You *really* want to be hasted whenever possible both for the damage increase and the mobility increase, get potions / spells / whatever will let you do so, and you'll absolutely wreck enemies. Githyanki will also let you serve as a pseudo-secondary on your party's relatively weak Int or Wis skills, which is especially relevant since you're going to face plenty of checks on those during dialogue.
Respec / Levelling notes: I'd go Warlock 6, then Paladin until 10, then at 10 Respec to Warlock 5 / Paladin 5 for earlier 3 attacks per round. Then Paladin for the save boost and finish with Warlock 6.

The Scout - Thief Rogue 4 / Gloomstalker Ranger 5 / Champion Fighter 3. Feats: Sharpshooter, ASI (Dex); Expertise: Stealth, Sleight of Hand
They'll handle Dex skills, act as the party scout, and will absolutely assassinate foes. 4 attacks per round normally, 6 while hasted, +1 in the first round of combat, +2 while action surging. At will invisibility while obscured, which isn't the best that can be done, and no reliable expertise so you're not as good of a sneak thief as say pure rogue or Rogue / Monk would be, but you absolutely annihilate foes in combat. You also benefit from being hasted, not quite as much but still quite a bit, and thanks to frequently attacking with advantage (whether due to being invisible, having high ground, or whatever other conditions you can muster) you should get many crits, which will do at least a bit more than normal damage.
Respec / Levelling notes: I'd go Thief Rogue 4 / Gloomstalker Ranger till 8, then Respec to Thief Rogue 3 / Gloomstalker Ranger 5 for faster access to the extra attack. Add in the Fighter levels for Action Surge and better crits, then finish with the Thief Rogue for the ASI boost.

The Caster Cleric - Tempest Cleric 6 / Storm Sorcerer 4 / Evocation Wizard 2. Feats: Elemental Adept (Lightning), ASI (Int)
This is a direct lift from another thread but honestly I think it's really powerful and would be a ton of fun to play. With the Storm Sorc levels you can twin haste on your primary damage dealers (likely the 2 above but can vary depending on the combat), then while maintaining concentration on that get to blasting, with a quicken create water and a ton of lightning spells at your disposal. It may seem crazy MAD (Multi Attribute Dependent), but you have heavy armor so you don't need Dex, you don't need Str, and while Con, Int, Wis, and Cha are all useful, you're not really using your Sorc levels for anything with a save and the Cleric levels will typically be support spells, so your stat priority is really just Int>Con>Cha and Wis, and those last two can be pretty mediocre and it's just fine. Wizard is where your 6th level chain lightning etc will come from. You get to knock back enemies when dealing *any* lightning damage (even just a lightning arrow dealing 1 point) and can easily blast folks off cliffs and stuff, with good mobility yourself and tons of versatility. Could be Shadowheart or whomever else. This character is the one primarily responsible for Int based skills, though they won't be able to cover all of them typically.
Respec / Levelling notes: Storm Sorc 1 / Wizard 1 / Tempest Cleric 6 / Evo Wizard 1 / Storm Sorc 2 would probably be my pick, but I'm not at all certain about this levelling path yet. You want to start with Sorc for the con save, and you want a level of Wizard early since then you can learn your spells and it scales really well, just a matter of how soon you want your Tempest abilities vs your Quicken from Sorc really. Might want to play around in the mid levels and see what feels good there.

The Last One - Circle of Land Druid 11 / Draconic Sorcerer 1 Feats: Tavern Brawler, Mobile
This is the one I'm by far the most uncertain of. But you want a 2nd caster, you want to utilize how broken Tavern Brawler is, and you don't want to rely on Str and Con boosts already going to the party face, so I think this is the best fit. You get good Wis skills covered, you get to talk to animals (always fun), and most importantly you get 3 attacks per round base with Tavern Brawler applied while maintaining your value as a full caster. Typically you'll want to pop down something like a Spike Growth the enemies will run through (and kill themselves on), only for the Caster Cleric to blast them back with lightning damage (damaging them again) and them to impale themselves again as they walk forward. That is of course anyone who isn't already dead from 1 round of damage from the Face and the Scout. You have +3 AC from the level of Draconic Sorcerer always on, even while Wildshaped, and once you are concentrating on your spell just pop on your strongest (literally and figuratively) wildshape and go to town in melee if needed. You also can dish out some party healing as needed, alleviating the spell slots of the Face and Caster Cleric which are better spent on raw power.
Respec / Levelling notes: You may also want to start with the level of Sorc to get proficiency on your Con saves; you *definitely* want to pick up Haste with your level 5 Circle of the Land spells, that's the whole reason you're Circle of the Land, that and Circle of the Moon forms are not on average higher strength than your base options. Just because the option to have yet another Haste around is always going to be crazy powerful.

There are many other directions you could go with the last slot, but I believe the party above could handle pretty much any situation the game throws at them quite easily and can dish out absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage, very quickly, when called upon to do so. Just my opinions and I've not tested this party composition at all, it's just theorycrafting at this point, so if you do try any / all of these kits please let me know what your experience is like. Thanks!

Sooo I took my time to think it through.

First and foremost, I need time to read through the druid kit, I hardly know what druis do so I can really speak of the last build. I have no idea how the character will be operated so I can't say if the build is to my linking or not.

Now, the caster cleric build, I totally read all the post which the build comes from with avid interest. The thing that "scare" me is the part of getting enemies wet, I don't want that part to feels like a chore. Of course, that's where my lack of knowledge is kicking : I don't know how it is done other than throwing water bottles on them. I need to see if there is a spell to create rain or something (which sounds thematical withe these two classes anyway). If not, I feel that constantly keeping water in the inventory and restocking might feel unfun (at least for me). On the other hand, if there is an easy way to get things wet, the build sounds really fun.

In the hand, the party seems to fit my goal.

Since I haven't finished my first playthrough (damn, it's hard to find some playtime once you get older), it's still on a planification stage anyway. I think MC is the big pivot point on how the whole comp will go. I want the MC to be a charism class and I want it to be warlock or partly warlock. The obvious choices are warlock / sorcerer or warlock / paladin. Since the second character is, in my view, totally stopped on being Minthara with the sharpshooter build, the two other are totally dependant on the MC ending on a martial (warlock / paladin) or caster ( warlock / sorcerer) build.

Still on theorycrafting, what do you think the comp could end up being if the MC was a warlock / sorcerer ?

I’ll have to think through with the face as a sorlock, that’ll take a bit of time. Quick answer on getting things wet though, clerics have create / destroy water as a low level spell. The main reason for the sorcerer levels, beyond being able to twin haste, is to be able to quicken that so you can put that out on turn 1 and still use your big lightning spells. It’s not something you would need or want to do every encounter of course, just like the maximize effect with channel divinity it’s something you pull out where the enemies are tough enough to warrant it to double your damage. Ideally you pair those things together in fact to auto deal up to 160 damage, ignoring resistance while you’re at it. Water pots, like elemental arrows, are good options to supplement your resources if you’re interested in doing so but they aren’t remotely necessary, that class combo has all the tools it needs baked in.

Thanks for the precision, I was searching about the getting things wet while cooking right now haha

And yeah, I figured there was something in the class kit otherwise that would have been clearly dumb. All in all, the build seems more and more appealing then.

So, I took the time to read a little about druids and this potential build. There is something that seems awkward to me.

I perfectly understand the will to get another haste caster since there is two primary targets for it and the other caster might want to take his turn doing damage or doing something else. So, I get the idea of circle of the land class, it can also apply some heals, it has the Spike Groth spell that seems fun (that plus the warlock spell that puts a darkness zone, seems kinda good... Especially with the cleric pushing back the ones that manage to get out !).

The part that seems awkward to me is building it with tavern brawler : correct me if I'm wrong but this druid won't really have a native high strength so he won't really benefit from this feat, right ? Moreover, this feat only adds chances to hit while in wildshape. I don't really see this character going to town empty handed without a wild form, right ? Yeah, he would probably do more damage like that than if he would simply try to hit with a staff but that will never be impressive, right ?

The way I see this build objective is first use some buffs on the team true damage dealers (Haste and whatnot), maybe cast a spike growth and then... ? Wildshape and go in melee ? Then, tavern brawler seems underused or am I missing something ?

You're certainly correct in that they absolutely don't get *nearly* as much mileage out of Tavern Brawler as they might. Stat Wise, they don't need Int or Cha, and Wis and Con aren't going to get a half boost, so starting with a spread of 16 Wis / 16 Con / 15 Str / 10 Dex / 8 Int / 8 Cha is fine, which then gets Str bumped to 16 with Tavern Brawler, but that's still not that impressive. It means they can throw things in a pinch and be reasonably good with them, but yeah, basically always in combat you'll want to have a wild shape up. At the same time, you don't get the damage boost from Tavern Brawler, which is likely a bug, but either way I think it's still worth it.

Why?
1) Druid has some broken spells, absolutely you want that Spike Growth combo going but you don't want the Scout worrying about it. You also get Hold Person which can give a Rogue and Paladin auto-crits (always disgusting), the elementals are absurdly powerful (especially the water elemental), and even things like "enhance ability" can be useful, particularly to give Cats Grace to your Scout early for advantage on all Dex checks, letting you safely steal for infinite wealth if so inclined. The whole kit is just great. Unfortunately, all of them use Concentration, so you need to pick the right one for the situation.
2) Druid permits early power spiking by being able to Web opponents as a Spider, letting Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master reliably hit and thus trivializing early encounters and combat. Without basically at-will advantage, your damage output with those two suffers significantly, but Druid provides that.
3) The Owlbear has some busted damage output in the right situations, especially if double enlarged doing jump attacks. In fact the part I'm not sure about is Mobile, Athlete may be better. Jumping on your enemies can be not only hilarious, but deadly. If you're going for some of the most powerful options, I feel like that one is up there, the highest damage I've heard from it is 821 damage.
4) The impact of Tavern Brawler on say the Owlbear form, even as limited as it is, should not be underestimated. While enraged in that form you're at 22 strength, so it's +6 to hit. That's taking a to-hit of 10 (55% hit rate) and moving it to a 4 (85% hit rate), or a 54% increase in damage. It won't always be that good (sometimes it's already easy to hit) but Tavern Brawler is so freaking busted that even when only half of it works it's a *massive* damage boost. It's so good that I couldn't possibly recommend 'the strongest party you can get' and not have it in there, right? And while there are many other builds that utilize it better, there aren't many builds that do so while being a full caster, or while avoiding sucking up the Str boosts (so they can keep going to your 'face' character instead).
5) There aren't that many good feat options for Druids anyway. Basically what I see as the 4 best options for this would be a Wisdom ASI, Athlete, Mobile, and Tavern Brawler. If you end up doing nothing but jumps the best combo *might* be Mobile *and* Athlete, but otherwise Tavern Brawler just doesn't have meaningful competition for this character and role.

I'm not 100% confident in it, but it seemed to have all the right pieces - good Wis score to cover Wis skills, good support spells to enable and heal others, good Str and can use Tavern Brawler without needing Str boosting items, and has some hilarious and broken tricks it can pull off. Plus flavor for days, ensuring easy access to all the animal stuff and some fun alternate paths to things.

But yeah, basically you pop on a concentration spell, wildshape, and leap into melee, literally and figuratively. Note too that not only can your Caster Cleric shove enemies off cliffs or through spike growth with their auto-pushback, you can also cluster enemies together to be jumped on. Even the normal attack damage isn't bad, average 60 damage per round or 120 damage per round if you self-haste, and it provides a nice counterbalance vs your other two combatants in having very, very reliable damage even against crazy high ACs. Anyways my apologies for the rambling, I hope that makes sense, and I'm still working on the alternate comp.

Ok, that's good, I can read and understand how a class will be played simply looking at the class level progression and it's spells and abilities. Yay for me !

I'm not saying this build is bad, nor the idea behind it. It was more trying to understand the real role of this character in the party, what his build will bring to the comp.

All in all, the comp you proposed is really to my liking. I'm still looking to the other path with a Sorlock as MC to ponder what the alternatives are.

Oh and BTW, in your opinion, what race should this Druid be ? The thing is, I'm planning on an evil playthrough so I'll be trading with Minthara (Astarion first here), Shadowheart and maybe Lae'zel ? I don't really see which possible companions are evil enclined other than those. Else, I'll make a mercenary through Withers but if I can avoid that, that would be cool.

3-4 martial characters

Battlemaster fighter, ranged.
Berserker Barbarian, melee. Or
Vengeance Paladin, melee. (Whatever works)
Valor Bard, melee.
War Cleric, flex.

I shouldn't have to elaborate.
If Bladesinger ever comes in an update or mod you can swap out the cleric.