What are some classes, you like to respec companions into, that make sense for you personally and why?
A stable I have is, that I level Wyll from a certain story point on in a different class. At the point, he decides, he wants out of the pact at the beginning of act 2, I start levelling him in another class from there on. Mostly paladin, since I think, he fits that class pretty well. I can see him as a bard too, since he likes music and dancing.
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What are your goto classes for the companions? Maybe I get some ideas.
Mind you, this is not a build guide, it's more that I'm interested in what people do with the companions and what roleplay reasons are behind it.
If the choice of class for a companion has to be primarily based on *roleplay* purposes, as opposed to power gaming, when trying to match the choice to the unique personality + individual background + personal story of that companion, there must be a base/bottom line that we should not cross.
For example, changing Shadowheart to a cleric with another cleric domain? This is an extremely popular practice among players. Well, in my opinion, the only valid motivation behind that respec is power gaming, as opposed to roleplay. No other cleric domain fits Shadowheart's past trainings + some 30 years' dedication to a twisted type of trickery and secrecy better than the domain Trickery. Since Shar is not a deity for any cleric, whether to abandon Shar or become Shar's Chosen has nothing to do with her choice of cleric domain. Besides, even if she chooses to abandon Shar, she was a Shar's follower - in the capacity of a combat Cleric - during her entire adult life until after teaming up with either Tav or Durge.
To me, the base/bottom line for roleplaying companions is simply this: don't change their default class. In fact, solely for roleplay, I don't even want to respec any companion, unless it is absolutely required from a technical point of view (an example that an exception has to be made is when adding a secondary spellcaster class to a high-level druid: unless it's Cleric class, this secondary spellcaster class should always be had prior to having the first level in Druid).
If somebody makes Karlach a Fighter and Lae'zel a Barbarian, I would feel like the two companions must have swapped their faces/bodies. Very weird to me!
As a result, the base/bottom line looks like this:
- Shadowheart = Trickery Cleric
- Gale = Evocation Wizard
- Karlach = Barbarian (Thrower is the preferred flavor for Power Gaming reasons)
- Lae'zel = Fighter (with default weapon being a two-handed)
- Minthara = Paladin - any flavor
- Wyll = Warlock (3 levels at the minimum) - Pack of the Blade
- Halsin = Druid - any flavor (preferably, he is technically different from Jaheira)
- Jaheria = Druid - shapeshifter is her specialization to match her BG3 class to her back story being a dual-class Fighter/Druid in BG 2
- Astarion = Rouge - any flavor (Thief or Assassin is preferrable for Power Gaming reasons)
Minsc = Ranger? This is the only companion that I find is difficult to apply the base line to - for roleplay reasons as opposed to power gaming. That's because BG3 and BG2 are very different when it comes to the Ranger class. His unique frenzy ability in BG2 is not a Barbarian's Rage or Frenzy: it does not *naturally* qualify him for being either a Ranger in BG3 or a frenzy Barbarian in BG3.
With all the above said, this game can be played in numerous different ways. We all should pick a choice that fits our imagination and then go for it. Perhaps not everything works. But every choice is valid.
