Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Class Duels?

On the Steam forum I read a thread about the question wether a Paladin or Barbarian would win a duel against each other. I think it should be possible to answer it on a statistical level because the possible damages with hit chances per round against what AC on what level should be predictable. Or not? Are there already results of such "Who is the Hulk?" comparisons available elsewhere? It's a bit childish, but ...

Not really ... or at least i wouldnt say so ...
There is so many variables you have to take under concideration.

Builds, equipment, actions ... and last but certainly not least rolls!

I think this is one of neverending nerd discusions ... something like "wich comics hero is stronger" ... in certain circumstances this one, in different circumstances that one ... no matter what scenario you create one will allways have upper hand, bcs they are not the same.
Its like Rock / Paper / Scizzors / Lizard / Spock. (Or its ultimate version.)
There is no ultimate winner.

But in the end it doesnt really matter, bcs in most cases, they wouldnt fight each other anyway.

Wouldn't subclass matter? I imagine a level 5 barbarian that needs low HP to be at their strongest would struggle /if/ the paladin gets to double smite them first.

One must hit the other first, and the one who does is almost guaranteed to win. This is a battle of Initiative

Before doing any of the below, my thoughts were: "Almost certainly Paladin, simply because the Paladin has ways of increasing their damage while the Barbarian doesn't."

Assuming each combatant is level 5 with 18 Strength, and the Barb has 16 Con while the Paladin has 14 Con:
Raging Barbarian: Hits and deals 2d6+4+2 = 13 damage.
- Using Frenzied Strike & Extra Attack, they hit 3 times for 39 damage.
Paladin: Hits and deals (1d8+3 or 4)/2=4 damage plus 2d8 = 9 radiant damage for a total of 13 damage (accounting for Barbarian damage res).
- Using Extra Attack and 1st level smites, they hit 2 times for 26 damage.

A level 5 Barbarian will have 12+4*(7+3)=52 HP and ~16 AC.
A level 5 Paladin will have 10+4*(6+2)=42 HP and 21 AC (Plate Armor and Defensive Fighting Style).

The Barbarian probably wants to attack recklessly. With a +7 attack bonus, the base chance is 35%, so has a (1-0.65^2)=58% chance to hit.
The Paladin will thus also attack at advantage, so with a similar +7 attack bonus = base chance of 60%, will hit (1-0.4^2)=84% chance to hit.

Thus, the Paladin using 1st level Smites deals 0.84*26 = 21.8 dpr
The Barbarian using Reckless Frenzy deals 0.58*39 = 22.6 dpr

HOWEVER, the Paladin can also make use of BA spells. Let's say they use Branding Smite, meaning every turn they deal an extra 2d6=7 radiant damage.
- New Paladin dpr is 0.84*(26+7) = 27.7 dpr
The Paladin kills the Barbarian in 52/27.7 = 1.88 rounds
The Barbarian kills the Paladin in 42/22.6 = 1.85 rounds.

ALTERNATIVELY, the Paladin could buff their AC via Shield of Faith, giving them an effective +1.5 AC (roughly accounting for lost concentration and/or going second) and deal an extra 1d8 damage per turn via 2nd level Smites
- New Paladin dpr is 0.84*(26+4.5)=25.6 dpr -> killing barbarian in 2.03 rounds
- New Barbarian dpr is 0.51*39 = 19.9 dpr -> killing paladin in 2.11 rounds.

tl:dr. It's basically a tie, likely coming down mostly to "who goes first" and the randomness of the d20.

I think if we dont consider magical items .
Or we consider but both can use whatever they want.
The dual wield Dwarf Bear Barbarian will always win ower paladin.

It's impossible to beat that kind of Hp .
60 hp and because he is resistant thats 120.
Every turn he can heal 1d8+4 what i can count as dubble.
Cuz he is resistant.

If i can use magic items with the comfort boots and gnoll mace its even worst .
Every turn 1d8+4+3+1d6 hpx2 this insane with 3x rage .
And of course they naked ac is 18 it isnt bad .


Well its depends on how much lvl we will get.
But if we get multi class and lvl 15 . Thats insane for bear barbarian/moon druid. If we get 16 pure bear barbarian is even better cuz from that point everything every one have disadvantage aganst him.
But if we get just 12 then at that power lvl paladin is way better.

Thats why Bear Barbarian's are all Dm's worst nightmare.
But its really depends in what lvl we got .
Early 1-5 i think bear is winner. After that til 15 lvl paladin wins.

Btw you cannot use branding smite + shield of fate both are concentration spells.

Yeah, this is all a bit white room theory crafting. If we were serious we'd need to establish a whole lot of baselines, like:

- Terrain, this favors barbarian as they have access to survival and on average better stealth. But assuming a fair featureless expanse is in itself not realistic.
- Baseline stats, this favors barbarian as paladin's 2nd best stat goes into Cha.
- Equipment, this favors paladin as they default get chainmail and possibly shield.
- Level, at first level it'll come down to an initiative roll-off as starting hps are so low, and both classes progress a little unevenly giving slight edges at various levels.
- Subclass, berserker is front loaded powerful, if the fight is at level 3, advantage barbarian.
- Initiative, barbarian slight advantage later becomes significant when they get danger sense.
- Spells, one spell that springs to mind is 1st level Sanctuary. This is a fairly reliable way to break rage unless the barbarian has good wisdom. Advantage devotion paladin.

Not even talking about magic items, spells in depth, higher level equipment, allies and role play aspects. It's just too many variables to give a decent answer. I like paladins more, but I'd say barbarian.

I do know that WotC has a master spreadsheet with expected values per level with class features converted into a combat expression, but it's closely guarded. Fans have made various approximations over the years.

Well i think it will take a very inexperienced player to not to start with a Dwarf that can have 18 str and 18 con.
Thats the first thing . Well i would still go for eathel's hair and pump up my con take human or dwarf. And take dual wield or polarm master. But polarm isn't implemented in the game yet.

Second the key to win with a barbarian is to exhaust the paladin to out heal the damage with the Bear Barbarian.


But lets take that bad build frenzy berserker.
Currently from patch 8 prone is bugged. But if it would work that berserker can throw on the paladin a weapon and the paladin whould knoked down to prone and prone gives advantage w/o reckless attack. At lvl 5 barbarian's gain extra movement. Vs the half moving paladin .
Yes the paladin can throw a weapon to but there is a huge difference between 1d6+4+2x3 vs 1d3+2x2.

I want to point out something else the dps and survival race isnt favouring both paladin and barbarian.
The winner is Larian's Beast Master Ranger. With 5 attacks unlimited animal companion / frenzy raging boar with dex save prone . He have always advantage and hunters mark is unlimited. And can also dump dexterity to use heavy armor.
Currently nothing can beat the beast master with great weapon master + hunters mark.

How's that barbarian going to deal with Sanctuary?

If you don't attack nor take damage, rage drops.

Ritual dagger can keep barbarian rage up and Bear can heal in the mean time. Technically you dont need to heal every turn.
but you can throw a water 🌊 bottle around you and use sparkle boots to make the pally suffer.
Lest see hou can survive longer.😈
That in fact barbarian's are not so intelligent but min max paladin is also stupid like an ox.
That doesn't mean that the barbarian can just attack.
This is dnd if you a good at one thing that fight than use everything.
What is not shove and hide or barrelmancy.

Problem is, those options are equally available to the paladin. They could just as easily be the ones in possession of such dagger or boots. Or Abdirak ran off, taking his items with him (as he usually does in my play throughs).

Btw, Sanctuary doesn't require concentration and lasts 10 rounds, that's a lot of ritual dagger usage. I'm thinking the devotion paladin has an edge here, not sure if ancient's ranged ensnaring smite is as situationally useful.

And again, with more variables, we're even less able to compare who comes out on top.

I'm still betting on barbarian simply because of their damage resistance - and in BG3 helmets negate crits, which hurts paladins more.

Lest say both of them can have those items still barbarian can heal every turn 1d8+3 minimum and take 1-4 dmg every turn.
But not every turn he needs to heal . And there are lot of aoe effect trowing atuff like bombs grandes acid vial void buld fire ice ect.... Arrows. And barbarian cannuse it twice / turn . He will not run out of rage for 30 turns but the paladin will run out of hp. From those aoe effects .
30 turns is too much. considering that you can see the person and hit it with aoe.

You know that he is not invisible just cannot be target.
But aoe is still have effects. Its even written in description .
Also one time i had a multiplayer play where the paladin used gnoll hammer and he becam hostile from madness cuz he used sanctuary and lay on hands on his turn instead hitting somone.
He was visible just we could not target him.

I'd say paladin wins most fights. Turn one you cast "Command:Drop".

I assume everyone think that paladin have advantage on initiative rolls.
This some special build dexadin.
All of you forget 1 thing barbarian have +3 dex to intiative vs 0 or -1 what normally paladin have.

But lets play like this so dropp weapon ok i will trowing my weapon no big issue here.
Then paladin is proned then i pick it up cuz i am not an npc.
Playing aganst Larian's AI and an actual player is different.

I say agan at low level barb wins after lvl 7 i think paladin is stronger til lvl 14.

Only if the Paladin is the specific subclass that grants them Sanctuary. Even so, a barbarian will have like a 35-40% chance to succeed, and will be able to attack 1-2 more times, making it very likely at least 1 hit will go through (~61% with 2 attacks, 75% with 3). Also, the rage probably won't end because the Paladin will have attacked the Barbarian on the previous turn.

But yeah, Sanctuary after a full round of attacking the Barb might be the Paladin's best option.

Except this takes the Paladin's action, meaning the Paladin can't then attack the prone Barbarian. The Barbarian then gets up on their turn and attacks the Paladin. (Or the barbarian succeeds on the ST, with similar results).

Since this discussion took a "barb and paladin in a BG3 sandbox with magic items" turn, one must mention the item to rule them all... WYVERN POISON.

Either the barb or the paladin has it....but not both. Muhahaha.

Oath of the ancients can heal as a bonus action, though. If we're optimizing the paladin, any subclass can smite the barb ONCE as a bonus action.

Of course, devotion can make their weapon magic pre combat and negate any and all physical resistance. Also gaining better hit chance while doing so. Ancients can't, so devotion might be better here? 🤔

They can also bless pre combat. Since we're counting throwables as allowed, might as well go all in? Everyone has haste potions, go, go, go!

Command:Drop lets the barbarian drop his weapon, not fall prone.
Sure, if he saves, he'll have the upper hand, but how many barbarians have a 50% or higher chance to win a wisdom save against DC13 or 14?

Why not both? There are 3 vials in the game. O_o

Really? Even better 😆

Ah true, my mistake. For most it'll probably be like a 35-40% chance of success. Hopefully the barbarian doesn't have an extra greatsword/axe strapped to his back :P

Interesting discussion. It had to be a fair duel without racial advantages or disadvantages and only with normal non-magical items. Perhaps it's really random, and the turn based combat with initiative is not the best environment for fair duels, I think.

BTW, since a chest once stole my greatsword, I always have two spare +1 twohanders prepared in addition to the equipped weapon.



You mean in combat against NPCs? Sounds so, although I find a Strength based Ranger boring and onesided, a bit like a Barbarian without the rage mechanic. In a duel against a player? The boar has 11 hp and AC 11, and the Ranger has no resistances against physical damage. Hmm.

The beast master rangers pet a are lvl up at lvl 5.
The boar pet get 30 something hp and Frenzy barbarian rage.
So he get 1 +1 attack and 50 % damage reduction +2 damage on everything same as barbarian. And he also received +3 to attack and armor class .
Its har to fight a class hou have a barbarian boar that can knok somone down every turn.
And in this case sanctuary dont even help cuz the boar rush attack is an aoe.

After patch 9 i falled in love with the bg3 beast master.
I hope it will be like this cuz they maked the (worst class in dnd)ranger great again .
I suggest evry one to try it out . I am a big fan of the paladin class but i cannot decide that when the full game will come out.
I should play a ranger or a paladin.

Ok, I see. So maybe it is actually good especially for duels.

But what about normal gameplay? The problem with Prone applied by a different party member for me is that it often does not fit into the sequence of actions, in the cases where it only counts, very hard fights against a lot of enemies in difficult terrain. I prefer to have the possibility to have advantage on the acting char, even if that means advantage for others against me.

But the biggest problem of the "Boar Master" for me would be that it seems best to be melee with heavy weapons and heavy armor, very unappealing to my idea of a Ranger. What about the raven with his blinding ability and ranged damage of the Ranger or melee damage with finesse weapons? Should give advantage too, and the targets cannot get up, like from Prone, and deny the effect depending on acting order? Is that a Wisdom saving throw? Surely the damage wouldn't be anything near melee with GWM.

"For normal gameplay."
Well yes the raven is just the 3th best option.
The ai always target the boar and he have unbuffed 27 hp multiple x2 cuz he is resistant .
I was really satisfied beacause you can apply mage armor an shield of fate on the boar boosing up his ac to 19.
And he have 1 aoe damage that can deal around 2d4+4+4+3.
And a single target 1d6+4+4+3+1d4.
Thats brutal and the top if that he is knoking down.

The second best is the spider specially if you have fire resistans and the everburn blade .
Also the spider can disable traps as well and make you immune to fall damage .
This class is so good i had the most fun with the beast master.
Also there are so many synergy between the class and some item's. Like good 🫐 and bless ring + comfort boots 1-4+3 temphp x 16 round of bless. Combined with great weapon master pff...its insane also spder web+ wasteland survival + everburn is super good as well.
And there is so much more.

OFFTOPiC Question:
Is that how beastmaster should work? O_o I mean acording to tabletop rules.

Not at all. TT Beastmaster ranger is one of the weakest subclasses to play unless you have thorough knowledge of animal stats, then it's at parity. e.g. Flying snake is a good choice for jungle rangers.

BG3 has buffed tons of stuff, from Half-elves, Tieflings, Ancients paladins, weapon abilities, etc. Some of it for better-ment of world-building and options, other because computers can handle the math.

TT has a lot more exploration and social powers. E.g. Beastmaster can call variety of animals for heists or camp defense, paladin can sense fiends in disguise, clerics can cast Auguries to give limited future guidance, etc...

I still think it's much stronger to have your advantage ability on board instead on a companion, but the rest of Beastmaster sounds ... astonishing. My experience with Wyll is that a minion like the flying imp can be very strong (while the poor Quasit is mediocre), it's at least additional damage and a damage soaker. So I get it that the Beastmaster is a beast.

What about the Hunter subclass? Wyll has all the Warlock abilitites + a minion, the Hunter Ranger has no companion (except the weak normal ones). Out of Colossus Slayer his features are meh, very situational at least. As Colossus Slayer he deals additional 1d8 to targets not at full health, that's 4.5 average. If the boar can deal 17 damage (?) average per turn (?) to single targets, why would someone ever choose Hunter over Beastmaster? Did Larian overdo it a bit?

Well beast master hou's choice is to have 8 dex and uses heavy armor will almost always lose initiative. Thats mean the beast will go first that was my initial idea. And in this way that beasmater have almost always advantage the only thing or down side ,is just the luck factor or the type of beast . Cuz some of them giving aoe advantage like boar and spider. And some of them just for single tartget like bear wolf and raven.

The point is to take hunter ranger if you are inexperienced with dnd or bg 3 .
Its too difficult to understand and an extra companion it makes thinks harder.
Also some ppl don't like to have summoning.

But as i sayed before i like Larian's version of ranger beast master. Cuz generally ranger is the worst class in dnd its always ranked as D tier.

That's why most ppl that are big fans of druid and ranger stayed with pathfinder. But it looks like Larian fixed this.

Well, it's not as if this game were especially difficult, and minions are very easy to use because it's turn based. But you cannot understand what you don't know, so deciding at lvl 3 without knowing the later possibilities is a bit unfair. Except the creator of the game grants all subclasses more or less equal performance. That's not entirely possible of course but the distance between Hunter (I played Hunter shortly after release) and Beastmaster seems huge, much bigger than for example between Light and Trickery domain for Clerics.

Not anybody can check all the different choices themselves. I try to decide what I'm going to play at release among only three classes (Cleric, Fighter or Barbarian) and it's already quite exhausting to play all the variants to lvl 5. Maybe Hunter should be buffed.

I understan you.

But sadly DND 5e isnt really balanced .
The real problem with ranger that they where the worst.

Druids have some better options but only (expansion) books.

Ranger Beast master was medicore but like 10 times better than normal ranger after tasha's cauldron.
IT suppose to work like this *ish* i can say that the ranger choice of animal companions are much more better then this.
And actual the animal companion sould use the bonus action of the ranger when he wants to attack or do something.
IT isnt far away from this.
But i like Larians version better.

When fighting a raging Barbarian, wouldn't a good tactic be Shove+Run Away! Run Away! furthest distance possible, with aid of potion/whatever, thus denying attack opportunity and ending the Rage?
And then counterattacking ... ?

Depends ...
Are we talking about BG-3, or tabletop?

And if BG-3 is the case, who is figting the Barbarian, what they have at their disposal, and same question goes to Barbarian.

Fun fact:
In tabletop its not so easy to wait when Barbarian ends his rage, bcs (unless your DM is especialy pedant) there is littealy no rule against attacking ... yourself!
So Barbarian without target in meele range can easily prolong his rage by beating his own chest as unarmed attack ... with resistance, the damage is minimal.

And if you want to make it even funnier, remember that there is not specified even what exactly is unarmed attack ... so you can claim you headbuted your shield instead.

You are talking about the RAW crowd - I've had enough of such people when playing tabletop WFB/WH40K. No thanks.

And I was thinking about BG3.