Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion WIll this barb/rogue/ranger work?

Barb1 for unarmoured defense
Ranger 2 for two-weapon fighting
Rogue 3 for sneak attack, cunning action and thief subclass

Then maybe just beastmaster ranger for the rest? Mostly for RP but would be good if I don't get smashed in fights.

Go big on dex?

I guess you're taking unarmoured defense for style? Otherwise save yourself the level and maybe get to a feat with rogue (dual wielder might suit the flavour you're going for while providing an actual benefit).

Don't see any reason this should get smashed in fights though. The only obvious weakness is trying to make unarmoured defense work - you'll incur a high opportunity cost to get up to the AC you could otherwise get by just chucking on medium armour.

It might actually not be that crazy.

Start with 16 in both Dex and Con.

That’s gives 16 AC
Graceful Cloth + 2 Dex - 17 AC
ASI + 2 Dex - 18 AC
ASI + 2 Con - 19 AC
Braces of Defense - 21 AC
And if you really want to there is more gear to improve armor class.

I don’t know if any light armor can match that. You’d have good AC and plenty of HP. Might not be the worst idea.

you would be better off to just go pure warrior since you would have the extra feats

If you take barb its more for rage than for unarmored defense.
Extra damage and hit chance plus getting half physical damage is fantastic.
A medium armor will give you a higher AC than unarmored defense, and that does not even take into account that the armor may have other useful bonusses.

If you take the classes as decribed in the initial post you will not get a feat/ASI or a second attack for a long time.

Barbarian rage adds a tiny bit of extra damage but does not give bonus to hit. That comes from reckless attack.

His AC could at least match medium armor with the gear and loadout I detailed above, and I think that the OP wants to play a sneaky, ambush type warrior. My monk / rogue, who has a similar setup except starting from 16 in both Dex and Wis, has much higher AC than my barbarian in medium armor.

The way the OP seems to be planning their build, they would hit level 3 rogue at level 5, giving them 2 bonus actions. This makes up for getting the 2nd attack a few levels late.

Since respec is so cheap if you expect to 5 or beyond in a martial class I would recommend going straight for that. You can get level 5 about 60-70% through Act1 and that extra attack is worth making a beeline for. Then as you get more levels to play with you can just respec to the best class to start with which is usually Rogue if Rogue is in your build because it will mean more skill proficiencies total.

Thank you everyone. I know going in that it is not a optimized build but I'm glad that the consensus is that it will work. I'm mostly going fairly well with a recommended build for my first play through so I think that a less optimal build will be manageable for a second run. Yes, barb 1 is purely for style. Armour design just doesn't compete with character design. My Drow barb proudly wore only his purple undies for most of act one.

Hahaha. Love it!