Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Viable multiclass builds.

Hey, if it works, it´s not cowardly, it´s clever he he

Oh. it is definitely a bit cowardly. I am basically ripping beings from their home planes of existence, enslaving them to my will, and forcing them to sacrifice themselves as disposable faceless mooks in my endless horde, all whilst most of my party hang back in relative safety and launch arrows and fireballs indiscriminately into the melee. Hardly noble. 5th edition's summoning options are super toned down from the good old days, but I will find a way to adapt and continue gleefully practicing my cowardice.

It´s more that now you have "One spell to rule them all" (all the creatures in the same type) instead of having one spell in every spell level, IMHO. Animal summoning 1, 2, 3, etc now its only a spell: conjure animals and you can just heighten the spell to conjure stronger creatures.

Same with "Conjure fey/celestial/elemental/Planar ally/undead/demon" or the "summon spirit" tier. Still miss the nishruus and the old "summon undead" of course.

I do not think we would have the flexibility and versatility of the TT summoning spells in the final game tho, for obvious reasons.

Does 5E have a class that is especially good for summoning?

I have never played PnP and I am completely new to 5E.
It was not in the computer game, but I read a bit about the summoner class in pathfinder.
The idea to craft your own companion sounds great.
I will not play PnP anytime soon and I have no idea if it is powerful, but it would be nice to have a pet similar to a Marilith: A snake with arms holding several weapons. It has wings and can constrict enemies.

I suggest a Wizard with a focus on the conjugation school of magic. Certain classes also have subclasses that focus on a familiar/pet. The Warlock pact of the chain gives you an incredible useful familiar in the form of an Imp, a Quasit, a Pixie or a Pseudodragon and they are plenty of eldritch invocations that buff your summon and make them more useful both in and out of combat.

Eidolons are fantastic, indeed. I love quadruped Eidolons or biped/tauric ones in high-magic campaigns with powerful weapons you´re not going to use.

The only class remotely akin to the PF summoner that I know of it is the Battlesmith Artificer. You build your own companion from scratch and he serves and accompanies you. Sadly it´s from the Eberron book so even tho it´s an official class of WOTC its presence in BG3 is not confirmed.

Besides the spell "Find familiar"(familiars are never meant to fight, they give support), there´s also the Beastmaster ranger. It gives you an animal companion, but this subclass needs some serious overhauling because it´s very subpar, even for ranger standards.

Druids and bards could use the "Awaken" spell to animate a brush, tree, another plant or small animal and give themselves a faithful intelligent companion for a month (You need 9 levels of druid) After the month passes the creature is not bounded to your service anymore and they could choose to stay with you voluntarily or not.

There are the "Animate objects" or "Tiny servant" spells too, but they do not last for long. There are more spells above level 10.


Druids and necromancer/conjurer wizards are the best summoners in the game by far; IMHO.

Depending on what do you want to summon and why you might want one or the other.

well... heres hoping I get to play a Kenshi/Mage again

From what I understand, a balanced D&D party needs for archtypes: A melee fighter for dealing with other melee fighters, a rogue for detecting and removing traps and locks, a caster for dealing with enemy casters, and a healer to keep everyone standing.

A party limit of four really completely kills gameplay diversity in my mind. Are there any good multiclasses you can do with a level limit of 10 that can let a character handle two of those roles without crippling themselves at one of them?

I actually think the reduced party limit provides an interesting challenge for party diversification. For example, a bard can act as a healer and a caster, taking up two slots. Any character can be given a single class of rogue and function just fine as trap/lock utility. But the thing is, I haven't seen anything to indicate the conventional balanced party is completely a necessity.

So, you could do something like:

Paladin - Tank, support healer, buffer
Eldritch Knight Fighter - Melee with ranged magic damage
College of Lore Bard - Healer and magic control
1 Rogue / 9 Pact of the Blade Warlock - Traps/Locks, sneaky magic melee

Or, something like:

5 Four Elements Monk / 5 Dragon Sorcerer - High mobility melee damage with some magic ranged options
4 Pact of Vengeance Paladin / 6 Way of Shadows Monk - High mobility melee damage
6 Battle Master Fighter / 4 Assassin Rogue - Long range damage
1 Rogue / 9 Trickery Domain Cleric - Healing, support, traps/locks

That last option is a party I am planning as an all drow group assassin group.

So there are a wealth of options out there. No need to box oneself in by going for the most balanced party build. In my first playthrough of BG1 my part was Fighter Bhaalspawn, Imoen, Kivan, Yeslick, Viconia, Branwen. A fighter, a thief, a ranger, a fighter/cleric, and 2 clerics, and not a wizard among the lot of them. Worked out just fine. I am confident BG3 will be designed in such a way that you can get through with aberrant builds.

Assassin/Battlemaster can find traps and other rogue stuff and deal very high damage
Bard can be both caster and healer, and also fight melee and range (in fact is probably the best mage class in the game)
Vengeance Paladin/Warlock can tank, deal damage, heal and attack from range using eldritch blast
Druid/Barbarian can tank and heal

I want to play with a custom main char + companions, so it feels more like BG1+2.
Since I am new to the system I will probably stick with single class characters when I play for the first time.
As written before it will probably a half elf lore bard with the criminal background and high cha and dex.
Lore bards are skill monkeys, the background gives me sneaking and thief tool profiency ( traps and locks), my spells allow me to heal and buff the party or to disable enemies. Spells I learn from other classes are used for damage spells. So I am a rogue, a healer, a mage and the party face. My combat power will not be very high ( deal and take (or better avoid) lots of damage), but I can support the rest of the party and my skills should allow me to avoid combat often.

If I understand the rules right, you do not need a level of rogue for the traps/locks/sneaking part. Criminal or urchin background and some dex should be enough.

I think I can agree to Warlocke that a smaller party can have advantages. You need to think about party composition to get all your basic needs, but you do not have an expert for absolutely every possibility so you have to improvise sometimes. The system is flexible enough so you do not need the classic fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard, there are many other options that should be good enough.

Somebody posted a build of an elven battlemaster/rogue and calculated his very high damage, but this assumed he has 20 dex from the start and some racial feats that are not in the PHB. Lets see what will be implemented in the game.
I will probably use a single class char when max level is 10, but for lv20 I would like to take a hexblade warlock/paladin.

There are only 18 skills in D&D, and all the characters could be trained in several of them because of the class, race or background. Some of the skills would be very situational in a combat-focused videogame, like performance. You could also make skillchecks untrained if needed. Unless they go overboard with the DC you could cover most of them with a 4-man-party (heck, you could cover more than half of them with only one character like a rogue or a lore bard)


D&D5e subclasses are very versatile. Even with a party of four you have plenty of options. You can make a Bard All-stars party if you want to.

Githyank/MountainDwarf - College of Valor bard (Outlander) - Main tank [OPT: 1 level of Fighter]
Lightfoot halfling - College of swords (Urchin) -Scout, striker and trap-lock disabler [OPT: 2 levels of rogue]
Tiefling - College of eloquence (Guild artisan) - The face of the group and main healer. [OPT: 1 level of Life Cleric]
Half-elf - College of Lore bard (Sage) - Skillmonkey and offensive/control caster.

Funny you should mention it, my DM decided that tomorrow we are taking a night off from the main campaign to do a one-off: we will all being playing bards who are coming together to preform for a charity benefit concert for a city that our main party may or may not have inadvertently destroyed a few sessions back.

The Rock Gnome Bard from the College of Glamour, Diesel Axlstrings, is riding out again.

That is a very strict approach, and definitely doesn't apply to a tabletop environment. A more structured video game obviously allows for less creative flexing in your party, but you still don't need to be quite as rigid with your party roles. In particular, having a rogue be its own archetype is overkill - you don't HAVE to sneak around everything and disable every trap, and a party can succeed just fine without it. You also don't need a rogue to fill that role. Rangers, Druids, Bards, Monks, Clerics, and Wizards all can make excellent scouts.

A dedicated healer role is usually going to be ineffective. Healing is usually far too inefficient to go all in on it, though its obviously nice to have someone in your party that can provide a bit of healing in a pinch.

Instead of traditional archetypes like Tank, Healer, or Ranged DPS, imagine each character each taking on multiple smaller jobs, often with redundancy between each other. Your Paladin can be a frontliner who also provides occasional healing and buffs to your team. Your Ranger could be another frontliner with more mobilitiy that also makes a good scout, and can swap to ranged combat when needed. Your Wizard can be a long ranged blaster that also can detect traps with his high investigation, as well as providing lots of utility and battlefield control. Your Cleric can provide healing for the party as well as consistent midrange damage, while also providing invisibility and stealth bonuses to sneak past guards.

You can be very successful with a huge variety of party compositions, and this is before you even attempt to start multiclassing.