I can assure you that you can use this build very well in Baldur's Gate 3 even without roleplaying specific interests, admittedly in a normal group. How do I know that? I'm playing it right now
. It works very well when someone else in the party speaks Hare and you can protect yourself with Blur as it triggers various artifacts anyway.
I just wanted to know if from your point of view Paladin levels are really necessary from a purely gamistic point of view or if you could go for example to Cleric 5 / Wizard 1 / Bard 6.
As I said, a purely gamistic approach
I have tried this combination, and from both a gameplay/optimization point of view, and a roleplay point of view, I decided I didn’t like it very much. From a gameplay point of view, you stretch your stats way too thin, and you don’t get some of the most awesome spells. You basically get a weakened cleric and a weakened bard in one character.
The wizard dip for this build is actually kind of useless because you cannot put many (any?) points into intelligence first of all. Then, if you want four wizard spells, you have to use the exploit of putting the headband of intellect on, preparing the spells, and then removing it. Which is a pain. I’m not sure if you can switch out spells in this case. It’s not sustainable to keep the headband of intellect on all the time in act 3, because there are so many better options. Plus with pickpocketing you can buy/steal as many scrolls as you want!
(This is purely from a gameplay perspective. I do plan to use a wizard dip for roleplaying reasons, because I want a cat familiar to follow me around the whole game and Shadowheart is going to be casting it.)
From a role-playing perspective, my character just felt… weak, which isn’t how she wanted to feel. Like you’re a light of Selune, for example, representing her on Faerun, and the best you can do is a fireball? I like how, as a light cleric, you get powerful spells like destructive wave at level 9. It’s sort of like the goddess’s power being on display and flowing through you, you know?
I do love pairing cleric and bard in roleplay, though! So I either do bard with cleric dip, or cleric with bard dip, or alternating based on my headcanon for the character. My last playthrough I did bard 6/cleric 1 in Act 1, bard 1/cleric 9 in Act 2, and bard 1/cleric 11 in Act 3. But the next time I think I’d like to go for a more bardy, charismatic flavor of cleric in acts 2 and 3 and go bard 3/cleric x (5-9). (College of Lore bard and light cleric.) I’d lose divine intervention and level six cleric spells, so I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be happy with this, I’ll have to see!
But the point being, I think it’s better to have a main class that you power up more because for me, from a gameplay perspective and a roleplay perspective, it’s a lot more satisfying to feel more powerful. I can only speak for spellcasting classes though, because I normally just play those plus Lae’zel. <3
Also, if I recall correctly, sanctuary breaks as soon as you cast spirit guardians. The two are incompatible, whether the enemy is taking damage from spirit guardians or not.
