Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Dark Urge Oath Breaker Romances Shadowheart

So, hear me out...

A Dark Urge Dragonborn Paladin, dedicated to Shar (I'm hoping paladins can pick a deity too), meets Shadowheart, a Shar cleric, in these awful circumstances.

At first, they choose to journey together because they at least pray to the same goddess, and they need each other. They start to trust each other when he kills Lae'zel, and probably Astarion, because they're unpredictable at best, and completely untrustworthy when you first meet them. He breaks his Oath for her.

They probably end up all alone, actually, because they're ruthless and mistrustful of almost everyone else.

Eventually, for better or for worse, they fall for each other. They indulge in each other's evil tendencies, enabling each other's Dark Urges as they find themselves all alone in this world... Fighting to survive this tadpole.

After all of that, there's two possible paths (Shadowheart EA spoilers ahead. BE WARNED):


Idk about you guys, but that sounds EXTREMELY enticing as a blind first playthrough even though... No, because it's a recipe for disaster.

Sorry, you fell at the first hurdle.

I mean, that part is just for flavor... I still feel like this evil duo against the world idea is fascinating as hell.

This sounds like a fun RP idea, would love to hear how it goes in practice

My response to this:

Do whatever you want, however you want. I have a feeling Larian will have accounted for it story-wise in at least some capacity (some decisions more than others).

Right? I got so excited imagining the possibilities. The only thing I can see myself doing wrong is maybe pushing Shadowheart too far she ends up leaving/fighting me too... That'd make me sad. lmfao.


That's what I'm banking on! I want to test the limits of an evil play-through, but I also definitely don't want to be completely alone. So I hope the permutations saw this kind of dark and gritty play-through coming and accounted for it, and hopefully the possibility of redemption later on as well.

If I'm going to be a murder hobo, I want to RP it and make it make sense, you know?

May have to take a Cleric dip to get the god option. In the greater scheme of things a single level dip in Cleric wouldn’t hurt at all, but give the (Shar) dialog options.

Edit: Better yet, start off as Cleric of Shar so as to not miss any dialog options and then go full Paladin.

You could always do a Cleric dip. It costs a hit to your charisma, but getting war or tempest cleric ups your spellcasting and gives you some bonus damage as an extra attack or reaction, respectively. It will also let you get guidance on your MC which is helpful when talking to SH, since she won't use it against herself. Also if you pick a lightning type dragonborn, the tempest fits thematically. It's rough, but doable.

Stats would be:
Str 16
Dex 8
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 14
CHA 14
with a point for Int Or Dex, your choice.

Honestly your spell slots are mostly going to be for smiting anyway, so having weaker offensive spells isn't quite as huge of a deal as it could be if you were focused on spellcasting. You'll probably just throw out bless or some other concentration spell and hold a slot or two back for emergency healing. If you go with this build, you may even want to just go Paladin 5 (for extra attack) or 6 (for aura) and do everything else in Cleric to get the extra spell slots. 6 Paladin + 6 Cleric gets you a bunch of higher level spell slots that can only be used for upcasting or smiting (3 level 4s and one level 5). 5 Paladin and 7 Cleric costs the Pally's aura, but gets you the 4th level Cleric spells instead of just slots.

This is basically a slightly 'worse' Paladin Bard build that you see out in the wild because of the points 'wasted' on Wisdom. However, Insight is hugely important in BG3 so the tradeoff in power level actually pays off in roleplaying.

Note: I would start Pally, as you can get cleric at level 2 right off the ship. It gets you a couple extra HP and better starting gear. I'm not sure if SH has a Shar convo on the ship, but I doubt it, so you wont miss anything. (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

Shadowheart and Clyde. I dig it.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Good one

Oooh I do like this plan. I also have one fighter/cleric build in mind but I was planning on using it for a "good" playthrough where I basically go 2-3 fighter/ x light cleric but I could change it up and leave the paladin for another playthrough as well.

Also, I've been considering 6 Paladin/6 cleric for a while, specifically to get a smiting spirit guardian tank which sounds amazing to me... but wouldn't that be relatively weak for late game? Considering I would have a bunch of medium power feats/spells, but nothing from high-levels at all.

Nah, like I said it is a really popular build to just do the first 5-6 Paladin and then full caster the rest of the way. The Cleric is less common, usually it is Sorcerer or Bard, but it is the same philosophy, you just take a hit to your Charisma score to put some points in Wisdom this way.