Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General POLL: Which non-PHB subclasses do you want to see in game?

Multiclassing is certainly broken and implemented with serious issues. It's broken in both ways, making for severely underpowered and highly oppressive combinations. Ranger/Rogue and Ranger/Druid make regular singleclass Ranger kinda pointless, for example, while Wizard/Cleric combine very poorly by cutting off access to high level spells.

But it is also a very popular feature that Larian have stated they were going to add.

Yeah I don't really understand the idea of "its not optimal so it shouldn't be in the game"
I mean yeah not every combination is gonna be all thats cracked up to be and you can end up being underpowered but thats a part of the fun with multiclassing, sure it can backfire but it makes it all the more fun when you find a combination that works or has just fun synergy especially when combined with things like feats and magic items. I mean at most all you have to do is just have small warning before you add that level into another class like "hey shit might get weird do it at your own risk"

It probably has been brought up but aberrant mind sorcerer would just fit so easily into this game that I wouldn't be all that surprised if it does actually end up in the game at some point. Its a very fun and especially very flavorful class that really feels like you stand out from the average sorcerer. it would be interesting to see how they handle Telepathic Speech since well there isn't a whole lot of benefits for something like that in a game so maybe instead it would be something like having an aura that grants your proficiency bonus towards charisma saves to allies

Add an option to respec a few levels. Problem solved.

Also, it's already possible to make a Tav build that sucks. Make a wizard with 8 Intelligence. A Sorcerer/Cleric with rational ability scores will be better than that Easily.

Class conversation tags doesn't really seem like a thing that Larian would worry about. But if they are, then its simple enough to restrict the tag to the class chosen at character creation, or ask the player to chose which tag to use when they level into a new class.

The fact that some builds are bad is also a terrible reason to nix multiclassing. Let people try and fail! We don't need guard rails around every single experience! Give a respec option, or let people restart like an old school video game player.

Besides, 5e is very forgiving of builds. Its not like we are playing Wrath of the Righteous here.

Hexblade will probably easist to implement. Use the pact of blade and make it give additional spells (i.e hex blade unique spells) and make the attack and damage rolls use Charisma. Will probably play a modded hex blade in December 2023 after completing game vanilla (Larian should stop patching the game in that state for about 1 month until mid-january. 2024 So it gives a time to get all the critical bugs fixed.

I suspect Larian will implement some sort of respec mirror or well of memories where the player looks in the mirror and the game lets them change their class. As some people will try the multi-class and probably screw it up.

Respeccing class is definitely not in the PHB! Subclass respecs are, but are not a solution to this.


Sure, that is why the game tells you how to allocate your ability scores based on your class selection. It's possible to create a wizard with an intelligence of 8, but only if you do the exact opposite of what the game tells you. It's not possible to do it by accident out of ignorance. But it can't tell you how to allocate ability scores for a multiclassed character, since it doesn't know what you have planned. The PnP rules try to help players by sticking a 13 minimum on the class's main ability score, but that doesn't do enough. I have a monk/wizard multiclass in my current campaign. The only way to balance encounters is to treat that character as if they where a level lower than the rest of the party.

Actually, if you include wizard, it's not so bad. Caster levels stack for purpose of spell slot allocation, but they don't for spells known/prepared. But wizards can still learn the higher level spells from scrolls. It's things like cleric/druid that are completely locked out of the higher level spells. But to implement separate list of spells known/prepared for multiclassing would require a compete do-over of the BG3 character sheet. And you need to find room for up to 9 separate spell lists. Unless you cap the number of times you can multiclass of course. But that's not PHB.

And Larian have created additional problems for multiclassing in the way they have implemented certain features. For example "Paladin Oath Charge" should be Channel Divinity, and share a pool of uses in a cleric/paladin multiclass. The way Sneak Attack is implemented would not interact correctly with Extra Attack in a Fighter/Rogue, and Barbarian/Draconic Sorcerer armor class would be completely borked.

It's easy to promise things before you have fully assessed how challenging they are going to be. As a project manager, people making the client ridiculous promises is the story of my life!

i feel like larian could make a interesting home brew class

They will need to homebrew most of the wizard subclasses, since many of them have features that would not work well in a computer game. For example a conjuration wizard should be able to conjuror up any object (within a weight limit) for an hour. Whist this is certainly possible, it would require a massive pop up list of items, for a feature which isn't actually all that useful. An illusionist can add sound effect to their illusion spells. How is that going to work? Transmuter and Diviner are also going to be hard to implement in a PnP faithful way.

Definitely ways this could be broken or overpowered, though I hardly think Larian considers that a bad thing. If anything, the fact that they haven't addressed things like BA shove and hide for everyone suggests to me that they are fine having brokenly powerful combos in the game, even if that comes at the cost of certain characters. Rogues lose a lot of value since everyone can BA hide, for example. Besides, even with an extra charge of Channel Divinity, Paladin/Cleric would be far short of multiclasses like Paladin/Sorc.

As for Sneak Attack and Unarmored Defense, they shouldn't be too problematic. Just have Sneak Attack count as an attack action for the purpose of Extra Attack (which the homebrew weapon abilities already do, so the coding needed should already exist). And just make it so that the unarmored defense and draconic defense don't stack, but takes the highest value.

The problem will definitely be prepared spellcasters classing with other prepared spellcasters, though the fact that Wizards were able to learn spells from other classes from scrolls in BG3 suggests they might've been working on something that included mixing together spell lists.

Until otherwise stated, I'll take their promise of multiclassing to mean that they are going to add multiclassing in some form, though it might differ from the tabletop version in some key ways. They might come out and say they couldn't get it implemented later, which wouldn't surprise me, but I don't think they have yet.

I'm currently playing a Deep Gnome Aberrant Mind Sorcerer partnered with a Half High Elf Oath Breaker Paladin, using mods of course. The modder's solution for Telepathic Speech (free action) can be useful. You and a creature within 30 feet gain Advantage on attacks and saves vs each other.

But the draw for me is Psionic Spells. Being able to cast Psionic Spells with Sorcery Points, not to mention the free Subtle Spell meta-magic upgrade, when you cast them that way. Which means you can Twin and Subtle a Psionic spell. The modder wasn't able to allow replacement of the Psionic Spells during levelup; but I found the list and replaced the ones I wanted.

Then a solution for avoid players making unworkable multiclass characters can also be to simply include recommendations. Playing a Fighter? Recommend rogue. Playing a Paladin? Recommend Sorcerer. Playing a Druid? Recommend nothing. This isn't terribly hard to deal with.

It's probably better just to put in a pop up warning along the lines of "Are you sure? Multiclassing is not recommended for inexperienced players". You would have to overcome the technical hurdles first though.

The thing about the aberrant mind, along with clockwork soul and lunar sorcerer, is they are an order of magnitude better than the earlier sorcerer subclasses. The trouble with PHB content is it's old now, and looks it's age compared to more recent stuff.

I noticed that while rereading some of the PHB the other day too. Hunter Ranger is considered a pretty mediocre character now, but it is actually one of the better martial options we had back then, because so many of the options were just... not very good. Thief, Assassin, Champion, Berserker (thanks to exhaustion being super punishing), Beast Master, everything Monk... Basically, the only good options we had for martials were Totem Warrior Barbarian (for almost universal resistance and ritual spellcasting) + the ones with spellcasting (Paladin, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, Ranger). Valor Bards, Pact of the Blade Warlocks and any Cleric with the Divine Strike feature were arguably better martial characters than most martial characters.

Larian have given some of the PHB content a bit of a makeover. I'm particularly impressed with what they have done with barbarian. But the fighter (I guess they did that first) has been left looking like a poor relation. They really need more fighting styles, manoeuvres and feats. And that means prioritising stuff which is outside the PHB ahead of stuff that is in it.

I'd be pretty happy to see Swashbuckler for Rogues too. A bit of swagger is Larian's style after all... XD

Indeed. Compare it to the assassin: it's more popular, more generally effective, and easier to code. What is the point of Larian spending time implementing the assassin rather than better options, just because it happens to be in the PHB and the better option is not?

I'm falling in love with bard strangely, College of Swords please! ... "Swords for everyone!" - MInsc