Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Wizard / Bard multiclass?

Your thoughts on Bard 1, Wizard 11 multiclass?

Start as Bard to gain healing word, friends cantrip, fairie fire, speak with animals, bardic inspiration and light armor.

The trade off seems to be delaying wizard level 5 (fireball, haste etc.) by 1 level and stat spread to charisma CHA (at the cost of constitution CON or dexterity DEX). I want my first full game run Tav to be a wizard but I like the dialogue unlocks that Bard gains through CHA and friends is worth the downsides.

The usual answer seems to be one of "wizards should not multiclass," or "why not life cleric for heavy armor too?" or "play a sorcerer" or artificer (not in BG3). The sorcerer suggestion is good unless you crave casting all the spells like I do.

Wizards are ok but the problem I have with them is this game is designed at its core around having A LOT charisma based checks...persuade, deceive, intimidate...and you can exercise a crazy amount of power just through dialogue so it feels like going more for the face charisma based casters or all out into skill monkeys will probably be the way to go. Bard is a great charisma based class, so are warlocks and sorcerers. But I prefer to go for a rogue, which gets a million profficiencies and even some expertise, which very few classes are able to get even one of. I won't have as high charisma bonus as a pure charisma class but I get a lot more profficiencies and I should still be able to have a charisma +2.

You’re a Blizzard, Harry.

I'd play Bard/Wiz for more dialogue options and musical instruments, albeit there's a trick to learning the latter in-game.

My MC usually runs around with Eagle's splendour, so Friends is a so-so choice. Mage armour matches light armour and Potions of animal speaking are everywhere.

Healing word can use your higher level slots, which is great, but it is single party member heal. You're going to need multiple party member heals later on.

Faerie fire is a fine spell, but concentration by memory. You'll probably have much better use for concentration by level 12.

You can have a fair Cha (14?) with this build, so it works.

This all said, what's wrong with taking the Bard spellcasting/Performer feats? Might be able to get what you want and be pure wizard 12.

I want to point out one flaw in this comic.

Not all Warlocks are like Wyll, just being pumped with foreign power.
Some make their deals for Power - in the form of having a better teacher than most Wizards. The looking down from Wizards is mostly envy that their teachers where crap and limited in knowledge.
I mean, they are whining about Sorcerers because they *dare* to actually have a talent for what they are doing.

I mean it technically could happen but really that's mostly a headcanon RP thing, not really something that happens. Generally warlocks gain power through their deals and depending on the deal patrons can have several levels of involvement but that involvement is typically to request a service from the warlock...though not all patrons do this.

Well, they receive power (somehow) and do not really lose it if their Patron dies. That does not feel like their get their power from the Patrons liek a Cleric from their deity.

The deal is an exchange, the Patrons do not rent the powers out, usually.

I NEED A PATRON THAT REFERS TO ITSELF AS PACTCHAD AND ITS WARLOCKS AS RENTHOGS

I will play a lvl 12 wizard. If I find out that you need to play as a CHA character in the game I would want a refund.

You don't technically *have* to play a face character strictly speaking...but you would miss out on A LOT of opportunities. A HUGE amount of dialogue options are laced with persuasion/deception/intimidation that let you change a lot of stuff. Like if you want to romance Minthara and Lae'zel...both evil aligned characters and both come at you in a very dominating fashion...but if you submit to them and can't pass your checks there's a good change their romance lines will lead to your death. You kind of have to assert some control in those relationships. And beyond that still there are combat scenarios you can avoid entirely if you are able to pass speech checks not to mention that if you want to go undercover as a true soul that will require speech checks, etc. So classes like rogues which are skill monkeys or charisma based classes will have a lot more options in terms of how they approach and handle many aspects of the story while if you lack those proficiencies and charisma odds are you will have to push through a lot of stuff the hard way.

..Where is the fun in asserting dominance in romance? The Party Leader needs some ..downtime! Or that is just me.

But honestly, I do not think that failing an intimidation/persuasion/deception roll will lead to a bad end, maybe to a worse end though. Also, we might be able to explore and get informations that make it easier?

As much as I love playing face characters, I do plan on forcing myself to make a character that hasn't any of the three interaction-proficiencies. Just to see how that plays.

I think the part about asserting some control there is less about fun and more about not ending up dead...especially considering who you're dealing with there. Like I said...both Lae'zel and Minthara are evil aligned and Minthara wastes no time trying to kill you in your sleep after you first sleep with her either.

I think Swen made his last play through as a Druid, they are not CHA. Perhaps he has cheat codes or it wasn't fun, what do you think?

Yeah his dark urge playthrough. He mainly mentioned intimidating rats while shapeshifted as a cat...which that's almost certainly easy checks and almost certainly rolled with advantage. But I don't think the druid would fare great in most other such checks against people and in big story moments. So I'm not sure how that would have worked...and I don't know if he knows because he did use commands to skip around and check flags in the saves directly just to test stuff out if certain things would work. But I don't know if druids can be made to be effective faces.

Lol. I didn't get the impression Sven cared about the dialog options. He seems to want to play a Githyanki Wizard who throws fireballs. He's only ever said nice things about Githyanki and Dragonborn and only ever said good things about Wizards and Monks (very recently, but it felt like he still preferred Wizard). I imagine he finds blowing shit up a lot more fun than chat.

Swen always struck me as a systems first, stories second kind of guy.

That's a great suggestion to forego ASI at wizard level 4 and take bard spellcasting. I haven't tried it, does that grant access to the cantrips too?

Eagle's splendor is good though it takes some time to get it and it's annoying to recast repeatedly. BG3 has the nice "add bonus" for guidance, friends, beacon of hope, etc. during the dialogue so you don't have to precast. (Doesn't do it for eagle's splendor, has that changed?)

The game provides so many non-combat options to resolve things that are often only available if you have high persuasion, intimidation or deception. I've played through EA numerous times, high and low charisma Tav, good neutral and evil playthroughs. It's quite clear for a first playthrough if you want to avoid some of the tedious combat (large number of enemies, lots of turn waiting) or unlock some outcomes especially on the "good" or virtuous hero path, you need high charisma. Or savescum which I don't want to do.

Another option would be to have one of the high CHA companion characters initiate key dialogues. I wish we could choose who's talking vs who's walking.

Enhance ability can be cast in convos now, and not just for Cha (eagle's splendor), but for all ability checks.

There are tons of opportunities to solve convos without a Cha skill.

The convo with Kagha has so many different options other than persuasion to save the kid. Some I've encountered:
Wood elf - Brings up Sylvanus as someone who is intimately familiar with their god.
Paladin - Calls into question her judicial authority and offers to arbitrate instead.
Druid - Brings up some hippie gweneth paltrow scented candles or something.
Hidden religion roll - I think this one only showed up because it rolled in the background (the little 20 in the corner) before the speech options came up. As a wizard, you would probably do well on that roll and have the ability to convince her to stop being a meanie.

Honestly, Insight is by far the most important skill for convos. 90% of your convos with your companions have at least one insight check, and the Cha checks are usually pretty low.

Besides all that, failing rolls is part of DnD. Nothing is a game over (other than your last death save), so enjoy the ride and let the story take you where it will. I will definitely be playing a low Cha Durge at some point and a low Int Pally. Seeing what happens when they fuck up is going to be half the fun.