Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Optimal

How could this be worse?

I would like to make my first party as poorly optimized as possible. If you can think of a few tweaks to make this group even less likely to survive, please let me know!

The philosophy is to have no character which could well perform any of the Tank, Medic, DPS, Skill-Monkey roles. There won't be anybody to stand there at the front and take all the hits. There will be nobody around able to heal you if you are damaged. The group will have almost no ability to dish out damage at all or even sweet talk their way around encounters.

The classes of the characters should be the weakest tier options. The race/class combinations chosen should offer as few benefits as possible. Any sub-class selection ought to be decided by how poor the perks are in that catergory. The ability scores chosen for these characters ought to be all in the "wrong place".

Hopefully, this will turn out to be a hilarious party and very memorable and full of flavour.

So please go ahead and ruin this party's prospects by suggesting particularly useless spell choices, and so forth. It will be very good fun to see how they make their way in the world of Baldur's Gate III !

* Monk
* Rogue
* Sorcerer
* Druid
* Wizard


Monk

Somebody will have to do the fighting, so this will be the Monk. He will be a highly Intelligent, Charismatic Monk, since this won't help him in combat at all! I think a Tiefling Monk might be the most useless, though a Dragonborn might contend here. Skills and Background? Arcana, Deception, Intimidation, Performance. Sage would be pretty useless for a Monk, relatively speaking. Ultimately, it is to be hoped that this Monk gains the following: Level 5 Stunning Fist, Level 15 Timeless Body! He will follow the Way of the Four Elements, for the joy of using Gong of the Summit at Level 6, and casting shatter!

Rogue

The poor old Monk is bound to need help in combat, and since the other two characters aren't going to be laying the boot in, a Rogue will have to do. To try and make this character less useful half the time, I think an Assassin Sub-Class would be best/worst. (You can't really assassinate a Green Slime or Water Elemental, can you?

Start as a Rogue instead of Fighter to avoid the useful proficiency in Constitution saves. Also, this will be a highly intelligent Assassin, which for some reason (let me know why!) makes for a poor choice. To really go for it, I might make this Assassin a Gnome! Does anybody with knowledge of the Assassin have suggestions about which skill path to follow, beyond Skulker?


Sorcerer

Wild Subclass is meant to help prevent optimization, due to randomization. However, I might "get lucky", so this is a potential weakness to the entire party! It reminds me of the brilliant "Wand of Wonder", which would cast a Badger at an opponent, or a flock of butterflys! By having huge Strength (and quite a fine Intelligence) this Sorcerer will hopefully not have such great magic available. A Half-Orc ought to be handy here. (Possibly a Dwarf, depending on other choices.)

There are plenty of spells which have little value unless particular circumstances arise, so picking some of those ought to be fum, as with Cantrips. By standing in the background, away from the fighting, having great ability with Armour might be an excellent choice, but taking a Clerical path would have to be balanced against the possibility of usefully being able to heal people.


Wizard
By all accounts, a stupid Wizard would be the best, so I would like an especially dim-witted pointy hat. This will offset the rest of the party who will be intellectual giants, if I can help it. Half-Orc used to have an intelligence minus, but that seems to have disappeared. Halflings had -1 Wisdom... I think this chap ought to be a plain old Human. The Bladeslinging Arcane school might be a good choice, as having a scantily clad, low intelligence Wizard charging into melee ought to be fun. I would choose Feats instead of ability improvements, but I believe there are no Feats in Early Access. Surely, he will choose to increase his Strength! No ranged weapons for this guy, no no! He will be at the back holding his stick! Tons of Strength and unfortunately, a bit of Charisma, since it has to go somewhere. I suppose he will be the Face of the game, chatting up NPCs.

Druid
Thanks to a suggestion, a Circle of the Land Druid, specializing in Wild Shape will be the fourth character, replacing the earlier choice of Sorcerer.

What do you think?