Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Dark Justiciar Shadowheart?

I'd like to play around with Shadowheart's build, but nothing seems to synergize too well with cleric.

I'm looking for something that makes her feel like a dark justiciar, right? When I consider the gauntlet challenges, it almost seems as if the dark justiciar's are supposed to be good at stealth and combat. As a cleric, especially with her stats, she's ... well, she's a cleric. Not a rogue, not a paladin with an extra attack. I guess I end up feeling like she's not much of a dark justiciar.

Any thoughts on how to tweak her stats and multiclass her into something that feels like a dark justiciar of Shar?

I was thinking maybe 5 Paladin and 7 Cleric? I could go for this, but the stat distribution seems so thin as to be nearly useless.

Or 4 Rogue and 8 Cleric?

Ranger, maybe? 5 levels of Gloomstalker? The rest Cleric?

Thoughts?

im not an expert on dnd 5 but BG3 cleric seems to be a "spellcaster only" class with a slapped on medium/heavy armor proficiency feat.

If you want to do melee i would honestly advise going 0 cleric, perhaps change her to a paladin or eldrich knight or trickster rogue or something.

I feel like cleric is a big part of Shadowheart and being a dark justiciar of Shar.

It's just, they're supposed to be stealthy and such, but at the same, she's somewhat expected to wield a spear, which is a strength based weapon.

The "flavor" of the dark justiciar just seems like it's spread too thin to actually make happen very well.

If it weren't for the very specific dark justiciar armor, I'd almost want to make her a shadow monk / cleric.

Paladin (Vengeance or Oathbreaker)/Rogue? The Gauntlet of Shar is essentially a promotion from Cleric (acolyte) -> Paladin (elite holy warrior of Shar). Paladin gets extra attack, smiting, and cleric-y spells, and rogue gets expertise for stealth. The Oathbreaker paladin abilities are even necrotic, matching with the armor. Unfortunately, you'll be super MAD. Strength, Dex, Con, and Cha (although honestly Cha is not strictly necessary for Paladins).

Otherwise, Cleric/Ranger (Gloomstalker) isn't bad. 5 levels of Ranger will get you that much-needed Extra Attack. You'll only need Str, Dex, and both classes double up on Wis. Rangers also get you the Favored Enemy (apt for followers of Shar) and Natural Explorer->Urban Tracker gets you Sleight of Hand proficiency.

I made her a Vengeance Paladin on my second playthrough. Feels it fits just as well as cleric.

intel 17 [act 1], dex 18 [act 2] and str 15 19 [act 1] and you can't make a half basic Cleric?

1st level Paladin - heavy armour and weapons... smite their asses!
2nd - 6th Cleric and then i'd add my 2nd Pally level... after that you should either be fine or just stop playing

I'm specifically looking for flavor, not tips on how to be "fine or stop playing."

Your responses are habitually unhelpful and rude, seriously.

she has stealth from her background and can turn invis with a potion
she can have 18 dex witch is +4 and another +2 for being proficient... 4 levels of Rogue would only add another +2 so i don't see how that adds any flavour

sorry for being unhelpful... best of luck with it

Thank you.

Also, she has the Acolyte background now, which gives her Insight and Religion. That was changed from early access, which came as a surprise to me. It's also something that can't be changed in respec, from what I can tell.

*

I've finally settled on Shadow Monk. I know it doesn't go with the armor, but everything else seems to fit so perfectly.

The Shadow Monk gives her the darkness, the stealthy angle, the combat ability, excellent use of her spear. Basically everything.

The only drawback is that she can't wear the armor.

Right now I'm combining the Shadow Monk with Cleric. If there's any room at the end, I might see if I can squeeze in a couple levels of Paladin, but I doubt there'll be room.

On my Dark Justiciar run, I turned her into a War Cleric; more so for thematic reasons than anything else: I always thought of Dark Justiciars as War Clerics. For her runs, I convert her into a Life Cleric. Again, thematically (); but also because I'm primarily using her as a healer/buff-bot with some occasional DPS.

My first run was with Shadowheart as PC and I went down the Dark Justiciars path all the way (which was a blast and pretty dark).

A proper build isn't easy. I went for

1 Rogue / 4 Cleric / 5 Ranger(Gloom) / 2 Rogue(Thief) to make her a sneaky dual wielder.

first level of Rogue gives proficiency with shortswords and expertise in stealth. 5 Gloom gives extra attack and Dread Ambusher. 2 Thief gives extra bonus action for dual wield. Several very good shortswords can be found along the way.

On the topic of armor it's worth to point out that you get a complete Dark Justiciar armor set if you follow the dark road of Shar. A very rare Helmet (Covert Critical) and Half Plate (AC 17, Advantage on Stealth and Constition checks, extra Necro damage) and rare Gauntlets (Beckoning Darkness spell, extra Necro damage) and Boots (Shadow Teleportation). Besides the extra features the armor has the iconic Dark Justiciar look of course

Also you can get the legendary Shar's Spear of Evening (Blind immunity and create darkness while attacking) and later in Act 3 the legendary shield Viconia's Walking Fortress (AC +3) when following Shadowheart's quest line.

These items made me try a strength based build (6 Cleric/6 Fighter), but ultimately respecced back again, because I just liked the two-weapon fighting better (and of course there's something irresistible about Orin's blades haha).

So yeah, Cleric of Shar / Shadow Monk sounds fun, very thematic and fitting for Shadowheart, just that you'll give up on the Dark Justiciar armor set.

As a concept, Dark Justiciar mechanically does not work well in 5E. Like, yeah, you can slap-dash a vengeance paladin onto a trickster cleric and pretend it works, but it doesn't, not really.
The concept is "medium armored and martial armed zealot that is good at sneaking, illusion magic, phantasms, and combat". That is *a lot* of ground to cover. The entire thing COULD work as vengeance/oathbreaker paladin if the Dark Justiciar armors in the game weren't absolutely crap (Mail is a joke with the AC equivalent of light armor and pathetic extra damage on a 1- or 2-attack-per-round class; half-plate is decent, but you get it too late), and if they gave you access to some of the iconic abilities on the chest and helmet pieces...
In 3.5, you could maybe go with Divine Warrior (but alignment didn't fit), or Divine Seeker (but armor and weapon didn't fit), or any of the dozens of paladin variants...

The problem with Shadowheart (and most of the companions) is the stats.
First thing I did was give my party the stats I would use in their class build. (Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach (was Wyll briefly))
I respecced Shadowheart to Tempest cleric as Trickster didn't seem to offer anything.
At level 8 I respecced most of my party. Shadowheart is now paladin 5/cleric 3 (gains 2nd attack but lost Spirit Guardians until next level).

I did an enjoyable run in EA with sorcerer main, Shadowheart paladin, Gale cleric and Lae'zel.

In 5e cleric is probably the most versatile class there is. The main drawback is the lack of second attack. Solasta has a Battle domain which has a second attack but I'm not sure whether that is cannon.

This is something I think they missed in the storyline.


Like you I ended up running her almost the entire game as a healer with many "light" based powers as they are so much better.

If you keep her trickery she can make for a decent melee range fighter. She can take hits.

That said though, she hits with melee like a wet noodle and is constantly out of spells.

I should try respeccing her life domain, but the character I'm messing around with isn't using her. I just don't have room.

That's mainly because of her stats. STR and DEX are both poor. Better to go for one or the other and she doesn't need more than 14 DEX with medium armour. Early game I had her mainly ranged due to the lack of a decent melee weapon even though I had tweaked the stats in favour of STR. From the beginning of Act 2 you get some decent melee weapons. With the adamantine medium armour and a +2 shield her AC was right up there.

I don't use healing spells that much - potions in combat is my thing.

Healing spells don;t do that much... Unless you take life Cleric and save all the 'if you heal a creature' items.

Now you cast Cure Party Wounds, everyone's health flies up, blade ward activates for everyone, Bless for everyone, bonus hp for everyone, all poisons removed... It is glorious.

So you discover...

I respected her as a paladin and have been waiting for the oath to break.... which it has not yet. Martial Weapons yes yes yes.

After Shadowheart she gets tagged as a Cleric of Selune and no longer a Cleric of Shar. So making her a Life Cleric thematically makes sense.