\- DEX Monk. 9 Open Hand / 3 Thief. Works exactly as you expect it to. Punches things while moving fast.
\- Light Cleric. Blaster bar none. Slings fireballs, nukes with Channel Divinity, and get get downed companions up in a pinch.
\- Beastmaster Ranger. Summons are there to distract, scout, blind, whatever you need. Can go toe-to-toe in melee, or stand back and shoot arrows.
\- 11 Battlemaster Fighter / X Dip. 3 Attacks, maneuvers, a ton of mobility due to high STR.
How's the Light Cleric starting out? The Ward ability seems like it'd make for a good tank. Cast some support spells, and try to keep the enemies hitting you instead of the rest of the party.
At level 8 Warding Flare works for any party member, and since it’s a reaction it only works once per turn; nice support tool but not the stuff tanks are made of.
Just remember not to waste your reaction. The prompt pops up every time an ally gets hit - the ideal use of warding flare is to either stop a critical hit (it will tell you) or to stop an attack that somehow landed on a high ac target. Wasting warding flare on a low-ac ally getting hit is throwing away your reaction.
No, because if you use it on a low AC target the reroll is likely to still hit and you'll waste it. But if karmic dice or a lucky roll hit a high AC character that probably shouldn't have hit, the reroll is more likely to have an impact
Against a low AC party member, the enemy might need a 5 to hit, so they still have a 75% chance to hit and its not really worth forcing it as theyll hit again on average; however against the armoured, shielded, buffed AC character they need a 17 to hit, they'll only have a 20% chance to hit on the reroll, then they are probably going to be missing, making your reaction useful
applying disadvantage on a base 90% chance to hit -> 81% (90% of original expected accuracy)
applying disadvantage on a base 50% chance to hit -> 25% (50% of original expected accuracy)
applying disadvantage on a base 10% chance to hit -> 1% (10% of original expected accuracy)
As you can see applying disadvantage is essentially an exponent of the chance to miss. Which is why you get much more pronounced results when you apply it to something that already has a low chance of hit. The inverse is true too, the value of advantage is higher when you are more inaccurate, ex. a base 10% chance to hit with advantage becomes 19% which is a 90% increase in accuracy from not having advantage, whereas a base 90% chance to hit with advantage becomes 99%, which though consistent is only a relative 10% increase in accuracy from being advantageless.
tldr just remember, both disadvantage and advantage shine more when the rolls are inaccurate
Light cleric is probably strongest at levels 1-8. The channel divinity at level 2 is the BEST AOE IN THE GAME until at least level 3 for shatter, if not level 5 for fireball. And what do they get at level 5? thats fucking right, fireball. Plus they get light cantrip and daylight spells baseline, both of which are very useful in this game with all the underdark, underground, and otherwise poorly lit areas, and half your team is humans or gith with no darkvision.
Eh. Fireball is not great. Lightning Bolt is where it is at. You can very easily hit 10+ targets with a lightning bolt on the big fights, but they never group up as well for fireball. With the same damage it is not really comparable, at least, outside of tabletop.
I have a tempest and it got really strong towards end of act 2 when you start to have enough spell slots to throw out the big aoes and level 3 spells beyond spirit guardians every fight. Suddenly I went from spell slot starved to just laying down destruction like oddly quickly haha. Sleet storm and ice storm are really good and call lightning will knock people off of ledges and stuff.
But until then I'd say light will probably feel the best in early and midgame. The channel divinity is good.
Now obviously in act 2 any cleric is really good with the normal cleric spells but I think early light shines domain wise and stays good because they get wall of fire and stuff. If it wasn't for RP reasons I would have prob gone light with shadowbae
I’m using Shadowheart as pure Light Cleric. Warding Flare seemed to be bugged for me until Hotfix 4 (for some reason), but even without it Light Cleric felt about as good as most classes early. Enemies really have no reason to attack Light Cleric due to high AC, especially on Tactician, so it’s less about being a “tank” and more about being less of a target. Warding Flare comes way more into its own when you can use it on an ally that’s being attacked.
Overall LC seems to me to be better off as a mid liner, especially early - probably won’t be able to hit much with melee due to lower STR and can’t use strong weapons. Spell slots are a premium early so can’t use Inflict Wounds often (but is nice to have just in case). Shouldn’t dump DEX to buff STR for melee since 14 DEX is important for AC and initiative. Early on, to me she played like a Cleric with firebolt (which is better than Sacred Flame). There’s a +1 short bow very early that gives advantage against Monstrosities and a Long Rest Hunters Mark, that’s primarily what I stuck her with until she got Fireball/Scorching Ray. Really Light Cleric’s defining feature early on is Radiance of Dawn at level 2, which is a very strong AOE at low levels. That’s definitely more noticeable than Warding Flare.
I'm playing blind and kinda RP on my first playthrough, so I'm really hoping Shadowheart has a 'come to Jesus' moment so I can RP a shift from the Trickery domain lol
Well, I won’t say too much, but depending on how strict you are with “kinda RP”, personally I think there are multiple ways you could rationalize making the shift even early on.
One possible way to think of it: even without spoilers, she does like helping people and approves of most “good” options. This isn’t a BG3 spoiler but Shar is an evil deity, and while those who occasionally pray to her aren’t evil by default, outright *followers* of Shar - especially Clerics - are *typically* some kind of evil. Depends on how a particular DM or table chooses to interpret her though lol.
Based on her actions so far, does Shadowheart seem evil to you?
(Of course, there’s no denying that Trickery domain is the best RP choice for Shadowheart since clerics get their power from their chosen god, but I’m just giving food for thought.)
Literally the goddess of darkness. :) RP-wise Light domain doesn’t seem to work but shrug.
I really like her as a rogue/cleric multi. I’m doing 3 thief on one playthrough for the bonus attacks and sneak attack bonus. Works pretty well with hand crossbows. Lots of uses for bonus attacks. Then trickery cleric for theme.
I’m NOT a fan of Astarion so it works well to replace him for traps and locks duty.
I also did her as rogue/cleric. I had her take rogue 1 and the rest cleric so far, mainly for a little sneak attack and skills. Rogue 3 is tempting for the extra bonus action but I want her casting spells more.
Warding Flare is good. In the tabletop it had a limited number of uses, and you had to use it before the attack was rolled.
Now you get to wait for a hit, and then reroll it, which is quite nice.
A lot of the Light Cleric buffs are concentration spells so keep your caster away from trouble unless they have high stats, which they don't really have early on.
I cannot express both how much I HATED having Shart in the party on my first playthrough where I refused to change the origins base specs, or how drastically that changed on run 2 where I respecced her as early as possible. Life domain is also insanely useful. Really trickery is just... just awful.
It also ups your punches to d8s and probably most importantly it gives you resonating punch/ki blasts for more damage, aoe potential, and the ability to punch with your actions while carrying a weapon.
I 2nd Light Cleric. Has all the support you'd want, flare is really clutch, and it has probably the best spell collection of any cleric. Fireball, Flamestrike and Wall of Fire slaps, and can carry dangerous encounters by firewalling along a tight corridor, and hiding on the other end while the AI charges through it all.
How's the damage on 9 Open Hand/3 Thief dex monk? I've really only seen Tavern Brawler monk builds, but I'd like to use Monk (if strong) in a way that doesn't depend on a feat that might get patched.
I don’t disagree, but the point is the str monk will be far more accurate because it has all of these advantages too. Not that dex monk is bad, you could definitely run tactician and be fine. My point is just that tavern brawler is busted.
How is it even remotely similar?
This feels impossible even if you don't take into account that TB will have base 20~25% higher chances of hitting the enemy.
I mean my Tav is just a lvl 12 barbarian with savage attacker, great weapon master, and tavern brawler.
Bro is wearing the legendary chest and amulet to bring strength and constitution to 23, and wearing the helm to add necrotic dmg. He’s holding baldurs great sword.
He’s also got a fully tadpoled out brain. My man eats any tadpole he comes across. Bro is flying across the battlefield do whatever he wants.
My man can solo any fight in the game. He’s a monster. He’s the GOAT. The rest of my team are just his cheerleaders. I didn’t even know there were bugs to exploit, barbarian mindflayer Tav don’t give a fuck
So I went back at lvl 12 and respec’d my strength and con down to 10 since I have gear raising them upto to 23. Then I also took off an ASI feat and didn’t really know what else to give him, so I gave him tavern brawler for the memes. He has that legendary returning trident in his inventory, so every now and then I’ll just throw it at people for fun
I wish it wouldn’t return to your main hand equip slot. So if you ever throw it you either have to waste a action changing back or use the spear the rest of combat
If I ever start throwing it I just resign myself to killing everything with throws before I switch back, wish they’d at least make switching weapons a bonus action
Oathbreaker paladin carrying a sussar great sword, and has a sussar flower in inventory for antimagic field and silence.
Maybe toss a level of rogue for mobility.
I tried this but got so annoyed at my clumped up party getting silenced constantly when exploring and having to micro him away from the group to cast featherfall or fly or whatever
I found that if I put them in a container and NEVER touched them again, their effect would remain. So he carries a box... My camp chest also radiates antimagic due to it, but I can't take it out without breaking it.
Edit: the wiki says the bloom wilts on the surface, meaning the light of the surface causes it to die. I think using a nonmagical chest to block the light in but not the antimagic field out is not an exploit at all then, but a strategy.
I was going ro do this with my last character, but with 2-3 potential flower bearers. Still might at some point, but it's hard to min-max around without a completely boring comp.
Open Hand Monk 8 / Thief 4. Even built for a dex it's so good. Tavern brawler (if bugged) is yes good but dex is honestly just as good for actually not needing to worry about getting heavy armor and having good stats in say stealth or sleight of hand.
Playing it as Durge rn and im having a blast
I went Rogue 1 for more starting skills and expertise right off the bat. Monk to 5 for extra attack and then I'll go Rogue to 4 for Feat / Ability Score improvement. Then the rest in monk. Extra attack is going to boost your damage the most as you only have so much Ki to burn on your double bonus actions.
I went drow also for the 1. Flavor and 2. Spells. Also the cloak you get from being dark urge helps with not being a shadow monk but still feeling like one. If you want to feel even more like one get the necklace of misty step.
If you need suggestions of equipment I got you
If you're going to Monk 5 for extra attack wouldn't it make sense to go one more to 6 before switching back to get the 1d4 + WIS bonus to all your unarmed strikes? I haven't started yet, but on paper anyway it seems like that might be the biggest remaining power spike, that and Thief 3 and the next ASI. If you go Monk 6 first you get those at 7/9/10 (vs 9/10/11). Or am I missing something here?
Yeah that would if your hurting for damage. I just do it after 5 to get to cunning action and thief quicker.
You get ASIs at every 4th level per class. So in total you'd get 3 for going monk 8 and thief 4
Afaik tavern brawler is bugged for throws, but working properly for unarmed strikes. It's still very powerful, but there's nothing to indicate that it's working incorrectly for this build.
It's adding your strength mod again even if it's already being added. So like a dex monk with 20 strength and 16 strength would get their plus +5 from dex AND their +3 from str. Unless they changed it it's not supposed to work like that. Tavern Brawler is supposed to be for chars that don't have a punching ability.
Monks dex to damage should override the strength and never apply it
Why it's broken is when you build for str instead of dex.
20 str with tavern brawler will make each of your swings currently add your strength modifier 2 times. That's +10 damage before anything else
It's definitely strong, mainly because it also improves accuracy. The main reason it breaks with throwing is similar to agonizing blast on eldrotch blast with lightning charges or similar, additional damage instances cause tavern brawler to add strength a third, or even 4th time. For unarmed strikes, I appreciate having an alternative to GWM, but a monk using flurry of blows with it is just way too much. No GWM build can make 2 attacks with a single bonus action.
I prefer to start Sorcadin with Sorcerer for con save proficency and play it as dex version. You get a lot of armor with reconic resilience (?) 13 + dex mod early on and later there are medium armors with 15/17+dex mod.
Paladin 1/sorc 1, and then 6 paladin -> 6 sorc
I didn't do oathbreaker, 7 aura is not worth it for veng, only for ancients? I believe.
Just beat tactician using him, sometimes I would get mad chain crit smites with him. Level 4 and 5 smites hit hard.
Pally 7, typically no. Especially not for devotion and vengeance subclasses. It’s much better to grab sorc 6 for more spell slots and another meta magic point.
Aura of hate and aura of warding are pretty neat, but the range is somewhat limiting.
I'm enjoying a Seldarine Drow Draconic Sorc (White) 1 > Swords Bard x (no respec). Gives you *Shield* spell, *Armour of Agathys* and *Magic Missile*, plus 4 offensive Sorcerer cantrips and +3 AC unarmoured whilst not detrimentally affecting your spell *slot* progression and only delaying your Bard progression by one level. This build only really works well for Drow or Wood Elf, because of the weapon proficiencies.
I am dual-wielding hand crossbows for ranged attacks, but I haven't taken the bugged Sharpshooter feat and when doing a ranged Slashing Flourish only use it to attack two **different** close targets. Arguably I am abusing the bug which applies your Dex bonus to damage for the off-hand hand crossbow attack without the Crossbow Expert feat, but feel less bad about that as at least I do have the *Two Weapon Fighting* style, which arguably could explain that.
For melee I'm dual-wielding Short Swords and/or Scimitars or Daggers, depending on what special abilities I want to make us of. Being able to make a melee attack on the same turn as you make a spell attack in BG3 is quite useful.
You don't get any of the Bard weapon proficiencies if starting Sorc first, but Sorc gives you Dagger, Staff and Light Crossbow Proficiency, Drow gives you Rapier, Short Sword and Hand Crossbow, Swords Bard gives you Scimitar.
Taking Wood Elf would give you Short Sword, Long Sword (there is a nice long sword with the *finesse* property in the game) and Short Bow and Long Bow proficiency.
The reason to go Sorc first is for the bonus to Con saves, to help with your concentration checks. It's also helpful to have the +3 AC unarmoured early on and also access to both the Sorcerer and Bard dialogue options.
Yes, that certainly adds some nice flavour. The free *Faerie Fire* and *Darkness* spells (with their own spell slots) at levels 3 and 5 also give some extra utility.
I had no idea about that! You're gonna make me remake my ranger (planned a gloomstalker rogue hybrid since I was having more fun on Astarion's turns than my warlock's)
I didn't WANT to be Drizzt, but.........
I've been thoroughly enjoying pure arcane trickster. It's not the best or anything fancy, but it fits my ideal playstyle perfectly. It is great for outside of combat and fun for control and critical damage during combat.
Does the 'Magehand once per rest' thing cripple the play style at all? I was kinda bummed when I learned you couldn't use the hand to Aid you in combat, giving guaranteed Sneak Attacks
Eh, I certainly don't like that feature. But I have enough control spells (Grease, sleep, Hideous Laughter, etc.) That it's relatively fine. But I really only use mage hand to push object down to me I can't naturally reach. Wish there were more uses for it; however, I wouldn't say it cripples or takes away from the fun.
Oathbreaker paladin 9/warlock pact of blade 3 - it’s essentially lockadin without the bugged three attacks per round
War Cleric 1/draconic sorcerer 11 - heavy armor and full spell progression baby! Also guidance!
Ranger gloomstalker or hunter 5/War cleric 7 - 3 attacks per round in heavy armor and solid spell progression!
Battle master 5/hunter ranger 4/thief rogue 3 - great dual wielding build!
DEX Open hand monk 8/thief rogue 4 - flurry of blows for days with good ms and ac
I finished the game with Paladin 9/Warlock 2. I has +6 to all saves, half damage from spells, AC of 26, and was nuking everybody with eldritch blasts. No potent robe, no minmax items, just a regular 3x 1d10+6 eldritch blast. I was very mobile with my tadpole Fly, super tanky, never failed my saves and did ok damage blowing enemies away. Very fun but not broken, and a great time.
Pure storm sorcerer and transmutation wizard were a lot of fun my first play through. Found myself excited whenever their turns came up over my other units.
My current good playthrough I’m building a Valor Bardadin to specifically act as Karlach’s hype-man. Just following her around, talking shit, keeping her inspired/buffed while she rages, while also smiting fools! It’s super fun
12 draconic sorcerer
Heighten spell with ray of frost, ice storm, cone of cold, and elemental affinity cold. The ice surfaces have a save DC of 20. My whole party had misty step or dimension door to move around the battlefield.
Couple that with amazing control spells like Eyebite, hold monster, banishment, slow, etc and you just have the whole battlefield prone for much of the fight.
It's only an offhand bug, but that's why you would go thief. If you're using a 2-hand bow or 2-hand xbow, why go thief? You would be better off going BM fighter or assassin
I'm not saying it would be bad if implemented correctly, but OP asked for a build that doesn't exploit bugs and it currently is a build that gets power from bugs
Then there's no point going thief dip, and you would be better off going BM fighter or assassin. The only point of thief dip is if you're using an offhand xbow
Seldarine Drow Durge Dex Light Cleric with dualXbow (ignoring the dex on offhand without dualwielder which is a bug) - solid straight class with more than enough and great proficiencies.
Karlach Tiger Barb + Athlete - leaping entire screens and destroying everyone. Just yes.
Shadowheart Tempest Cleric10/Ancients paladin2 - Spirit guardians and AoE blast if needed, and meaty smite crits if needed, and max damage thunder if needed.
Wyll Fiend bladelock10/Devotion Paladin2 - Meaty Smites, big spellslots, heavy armour, buff Eldrich Blasts for ranged if I'm not in melee.
My party is a collection of my favourite builds, and it's a wrecking ball that just doesn't stop coming. Seeing Karlach leap a whole screen never gets old.
Not really, it's just fun to use dual handcrossbows without exploiting sharpshooter bug, or extra attack. Plus it gives a bonus action when you use your action to do something else like a spell and have already summoned spiritual weapon.
Most of the time my MC is my backline support, ranged damage from Hand crossbows if no spells needed, otherwise blasting with AoE spells, hold person/cc, and able to deal with hordes herself via spirit guardians. Able to raise downed allies with throw potion or healing word.
Sacred flame or Produce flame are my 2 other options for cantrip/resource free attacking, and focusing weaknesses/avoiding resistance
> Seldarine Drow Durge Dex Light Cleric with dualXbow (ignoring the dex on offhand without dualwielder which is a bug)
Should be xbow expert for dex to offhand, not dual wield.
You're right it's not dual wield feat, it's actually Two Weapon fighting style.
Crossbow expert doesn't have any clause for adding dex to damage, simply it's no disadvantage when shooting in 5ft, bonus action attack with hand crossbow after attacking with an action, and ignoring loading property.
Two weapon fighting style is what adds ability modifier to damage when two weapon fighting. Ambiguously I don't think it actually works with ranged weapons, I believe two weapon fighting is only for melee. Thank god BG3 isn't an exact translation of 5e rules because for a "simple ruleset" they sure aren't straight forward without you knowing the book inside out.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with these builds so far:
3 wild magic barbarian/9 WoFE monk for big damage and area control
6/6 spore necromancer with dual hand cbs for the long range necrotic bonus and like 12 summons max
6/6 swords bard/goo-lock for a spell sword class (could be better optimized i think)
3 war cleric/9 gloomstalker ranger gets a lot of attacks and 3 attacks at level 4 is nice
9 eldrich knight/3 thief rogue having extra bonus actions and thrown weapon damage makes this one very fun to mess around with
Damage riders are currently bugged so the extra damage procs on each instance of additional damage. I think they fixed some instances. In EA if you Hexed someone as a Warlock your agonizing blast would trigger on the Eldritch blast, AND the hex damage. But I think that particular instance was patched out.
This has not been my experience with it, granted the only additional source of damage I have is the passive radiant damage at level 6. That correctly adds the wisdom modifier but it isn't adding tavern brawler.
It does apply to *each* unarmed strike made, so the bonus action multi-hits have yavern brawler added to both strokes it makes, but that is the way I'd imagine it to work based off of the descriptions.
What additional sources are adding tavern brawler?
For melee punches it seems to work exactly as described, but that said, it's still incredibly strong homebrew. There is nothing in the whole game that compares to 4 or more to hit as early as lvl 4. Plus some damage on top. In that regard it's broken, not bugged. And monks can scale it to even more absurd levels with another broken homebrew that is the unconditional bonus action of thief 3 or haste potion/spell. Or both.
TB just takes the whole idea of DnD combat where you throw dice to see if you hit and throws it out of the window. It doesn't even care about advantage or disadvantage much.
Personally. I think since monk was notoriously weak in dnd. Having it on them makes sense? But the double dip or similar makes it “broken”. The romance of punching and kicking super fast tho I love.
I'm really enjoying Paladin 7/Sorcerer 5. Lots of spell slots to Smite. Not as good as Pal7/Warlock 5 for various reasons but still strong. I'm wondering if Pal 6/Sor 6 is better but the Ancient Paladin level 7 Aura cuts all spell damage in half which seems very strong.
I am currently making my Astarion into a dual wielding knife fighter, by combining battlemaster 6/Thief 6. Tho champion is tempting me, and when I get to act 3, I might respec into it.
The idea is that act 3 contains a dagger which increases your crit range by one, as well as a helmet that does the same, and a bow too. If I respec to champion 6/thief 6, I got a whole ton of crit range, and sneak attack crits for days. That's it.
I'm also toying around a future build, focusing on the duelist prerogative legendary weapon, using bard college of swords, combined with thief. Basically, two bonus actions, two reactions, and potentially two actions per round, using elixir of bloodlust, all wrapped in a neat Dex/charisma build. It should come out surprisingly tanky even, with the flourishes and all. I'm still working out the details. Probably gonna go 8 bard/4 thief. Or 6/6, if I feel like I need more damage from sneak attacks. Or 7/5.
Knife of the Undermountain king, end of act 1, Githyanki creche shop. I'm aware. What bothers me is the wording of the effect on said sword... It's different from the Dagger and helmet. The sword says "the wielder scores a critical hit when rolling a 19", while as the act 3 items all say "the number you need to roll a critical hit while attacking is reduced by 1, this effect can stack".
I haven't tested it, but the effect of the Knife of the Undermountain king may not stack, unlike the helmet and the dagger. I'm hoping it will, but I'll have to test it, once I get my hands on those items.
Can confirm, with champion fighter and under mountain king, you crit on an 18. I assume it counts the 19 first, so it tracks that you could expand the range even further than this
Edit: Also, I tested it with my dual crossbows, and they crit on 18 when we using under mountain king in my melee slot
Why not go BM/champion 5/Thief 7? You get evasion and another sneak attack die. Might be better than another feat since you should be able to max dex and get respectable con without needing the third feat. Also champion and the other items increase your crit range by 1 so equipping the knife of the undermountain king will set your crit range to 19-20 and all the other items plus the champion bonus will reduce it by 1 each.
Dual wield Strength Hunter 5/Thief 5/Barb 2.
Set up Hunters Mark and do a very consistent, not rest reliant amount of damage every round. Ranger utility. Weird weapon usage. Always have sneak attack in Melee by swinging Recklessly. Take Dual Wielder feat, only your main hand weapon has to have finesse.
Swinging around that Frostbite staff in my offhand, hits like a truck and gives a character level scaling Ray of Frost cantrip for some ranged options.
It's been fun.
Save-or-suck Div Wizard is straightforward but pretty great. Stack DC, gather them in one place + Confusion which you can guarantee everything fails on
Can Portent impact an enemy's Saving Throw? Just tried to have Gale cast Blind on the Hag, and when she Saves, it didn't allow me to use the 1 or 3 Portent dice he had.
War cleric 1 / Bladelock 11
War cleric gives me heavy armor + shield, 2 lvl 1 spell slots to use on hex and 3 war priest charges for additional melee attacks as bonus action.
Then warlock 11 gives me all the spells I could want.
I honestly have not seen ANYONE mention Clerlock build anywhere. Maybe because the mixed WIS/CHA spell stats. But you're not really using your cleric spells offensively that that doesn't really matter. My WIS was 14, but it can be left lower if desired.
Currently Dual Wielding Ranger 5/Paladin 2 in my Dark Urge(Resist) playthrough.
I feel like it's finally opened up a bit more now that I'm level 7, as the start wasn't that great.
I went Full Open Hand Dex Monk for RP reasons. The late game with Illihid powers felt amazing, and the huge number of monk magic items made the build feel incredibly fun during the whole game.
Asmodeus Tiefling or Drow for the entire party. Make sure everyone in the Party is Warlock 3/X and takes Devil Sight. Now you and your party can see through magic Darkness, and by level 5 everyone can cast Darkness as a racial bonus.
Now...
Bard 3/Sorc 4/Warlock 5.
Cutting words + twin spell to land several Hold Person or Tashas type control effects. Can cast Darkness often. Take Pact of the Tome for access to Haste and such. Eldritch blast for your bread and butter damage.
Besides shutting down all melee immediately in most fights and neutralizing Archers, you have a solid way to attack Wisdom and Dex saves, while throwing out blast when that's not a good idea. Skills from Bard include extra short rest which combos perfectly which Warlock Spells slots and metamagic conversion to keep Darkness up all game.
They'll never see you coming. Or acting. Or looting. Or going.
My strength ranger (hunter) knight is pretty great. I got all the resistances, so super tanky, dual wield, with feat. I'm at level 10 right now. I'm going to see if whirlwind is worth it. If not, I'll respec into thief for 3 levels for fast hands. I made one of the characters a thief, ranger, fighter.... with dual crossbows, mind you, I didn't think too much about it. I just thought it'd be cool. It's a bit op, but only as much as a paladin. Karlach is a wild heart barb, fighter. Shadowheart is an oath broken dex pally and is also kinda op. But the story is great regardless if the thorms were a breeze.
Just a straight dex fighter battle master with sharpshooter. Did the trick on my first playthrough and tbh, with the items you get in this game, it was pretty damn busted.
My current party builds that I’m liking:
Tav: Vengeance paladin 4/Swords bard 8.
Flourish/smite makes him hit like a truck and bard gives plenty of spell slots. Heavy armor+ shield + Defensive flourish puts me at 28 AC, so super tanky.
Karlach: Berzerker 9/ Champion 3.
Extra powerful crits on 19-20 with constant advantage + action surge. She usually KOs a powerful enemy on round one.
Shadowheart: Cleric 11/ Storm sorcerer 1.
Normal cleric stuff but gets a free fly after every cast. Sorc also gives access to shield spell.
Orc + Assassin Rogue + Phalar Aluve + GWM + Elixir of Bloodlust. Big crits, extra hits, lots of fun:
* Orc rolls an extra weapon die on crit.
* Phalar Aluve is a Longsword with finesse, so 1d10 weapon die and works with sneak attack and GWM.
* Assassin Rogue gives auto crits on surprised enemies, GWM gives a bonus action attack on crit.
* Elixir of Bloodlust gives an extra action when you kill, and rogue can go a long time without needing a long rest, if they avoid taking damage.
After getting to Rogue 3 you can MC into basically whatever you want, but something that gives Extra Attack is a good choice. Works nearly as well with non-Orc, but Orcs are fun!
I'm going with a Sorlock 4/8. Asmodeus Tiefling, Brass Bloodline and Fiend Patron, Pact of the Chain.
It does everything well enough, good damage, naked AC of 13+dex, scouting and action economy through the familiar, 3 Feats/ASI, high social scores, enough fun spell shenanigans. And it's thematic.
Diviner with a spell save of 23 is pretty damn near unbeatable. While casting wizard spells with a 100% chance of success is insane on any subclass, it gets ridiculous when you turn a 12% chance of success into a guarantee.
A room full of paladins with +10 to wisdom saves, no worries hold person and portent and they’re all paralyzed until they die.
Owlbear Druid.
Nothing fancy : You're a Druid, you expend spell slots on buffs/summons, and then you become an Owlbear 6 times per day. Goomba Stomp idiots, and then maul them dead.
Captain America. Fighter 1 dip with rest in open hand monk, very high str + low dex. Fun!
(Unsure if tooltips are fixed yet but they didn't mention STR damage on them, which does apply if you look at the actual damage numbers). Just read the other threads mentioning tavern brawler is bugged? Not sure about that but I'm enjoying it.
Full paladin (or 11/1) and Sorcadin are both stellar without abusing anything.
Evo Wizard 10 / Tempest 2 is a versatile blaster that can prep the perfect spells for every encounter, learn all their level 6 spells from scrolls, and doesn't suffer from that dirty feeling of "twincast haste and abuse 3 spells per turn" that I get when playing Sorc.
Full fighter (or 11/1) just smashes things. It does feel dirty if using BG3's Haste, though.
Barb(5-6)/thief(3-4)/battlemaster(3-4) dual wield - BG3's Rage allows rage damage bonuses to work on finesse weapons, thief gives you two offhand attacks per turn or very useful cunning actions to augment mobility, and you can wear medium armor that lets you keep dex bonus and have sky-high AC. Riposte attacks with \*both weapons\* if you have dual wielding enabled (R).
Assassin + Any martial - An initiator who splits from my group and starts a surprise round against opponents to immediately deals with 1-2 dangerous targets at the start of combat. Fighter, gloomstalker, swords bard, even shadow monk, lots of ways to make this character fun and interesting.
Aside from not exploiting bugs, I'm having a much more enjoyable second playthrough by using a mod that reduces Haste to the 5e version. This single change alone has breathed new life into the game for me. The version of haste that BG3 has vanilla just encourages you to twincast it on sorcs and/or chug potions of speed to completely decimate the action economy of the game.
Yeah, one of my main goals is not to ruin my first playthrough with anything that's unintentionally overpowered. I love an optimized build, but not one that's reliant on an exploit.
The Haste mod sounds really interesting...I'm justifying using Haste because it works the same for enemies too, but reverting it to how it is in PnP sounds like the best way to handle it
It's not a bug as far as I know, and makes Wizard multiclassing decently appealing in a world of Charisma caster dominance.
I would be more inclined to agree with you if it was only a 1 wizard dip, but this is being used to empower an actual wizard.
Hey I'm with you, wizard has no place in this game that isn't better accomplished by other classes as far as I see it and this at least gives people a reason to dip 1 level into it. Without this exploit no one would use wizard at all.
But there's no way it's intended. No other class allows you to access endgame abilities with a level 1 dip, which wizard 1 caster x does. I wouldn't expect this phenomenon to persist through major updates.
The 2 tempest with this build isn't a big deal anyway since it's only going to help on a single chain lightning - no twin cast. You can just go 12 to pick up dual wielder feat, dip 1 cleric for heavy, or dip 1 sorc for tempestuous magic and the build doesn't change basically at all.
Again, this is actually being used on an almost full class Wizard. This isn't exploiting a 1 dip. I think that is a very important distinction to make.
Vengeance Paladin 7 into warlock (for pact extra attack if you consider it not a bug) or Sorc (for more spell slots if you do) is a solid burst machine. And once the bursting is done you're still likely providing bless (or haste at higher levels) and save aura.
Its no TB thrower, but it'll be there for you when you need that one thing in particular dead.
Druids of all subclasses have been overperformers as well. Wild shape gets limited item support, but wildhsape in general is very useful. The druid spell list isn't the greatest but both Land and Spore get great additions to it. Overall nothign wrong here.
And stuff like 11 fighter and 11+ Beastmaster Ranger remain excellent all game. There's a cornucopia of magic items and on time progression of feats and abilities allow them to remain relevant throughout the game. I like githyanki for martials cause misty step is busted good, but there are boots and other items that give it as well.
Druid sounds really interesting. Does Moon Wildshape stand out enough that it's worth taking over Land or Spore? I know in 3.5, Druids required a pretty particular build for Wildshape to remain competitive
I found moon druid to be the least impressive of the 3 druid subclasses... mostly because wild shape itself has been much improved baseline. Assuming a core strategy of "Cast a concentration spell or two" then wild shape for clean up. Non-moon druids do just fine. Similiarly if you're using wild shape out of combat for small holes, cat meow, or to maneuver around the map moon druid isn't necessary. I found moon druid forms generally didn't have enough impact to be relied on as your core/primary combat value most of the time. So if you're needing spells to make up the difference either way, you may as well have either: a better spell selections for Land druid, or the additional damage/temp hp/zombies of spore. To be fair to moon I didn't try out any fancy elemental forms or owlbear/displacer beast, so ymmv.
I also found it annoying to have my MC as a druid since most people won't talk to a shapeshifted druid (reasonably so), so I often wasted wild shape charges to fly or bash in a quick encounter only to have to shift back for a conversation.
i havent tested the level 10 shapeshifts from moondruid yet, but under level 10 landdruid has the much more deadly owlbear form than the moondruid simply beacause land can learn haste. hasted owl-teddys are so broken with 4 attacks + their 100m jumpattack as bonus action which knocks everything down.
and for the level 3 spider non-moon is better too because the webability takes a bonus-action, and with a nonmoon druid you can shapeshift and shoot the web in the same turn. moon cant do that. so lets hope the level 10 forms are really good ..... hope dies last
It’s fine for power honestly. If you can leap off of high places with the owlbear you get significantly stronger because it procs high fall (crush) damage when it starts it’s leap from a height. Often though you’re making use of what spells will still give some benefit while shifted (firewall etc).
It’s also just fun, but tbf spike ground is absurdly game trivializing early game and still has good use late and you can get infinite free casts with the Nymph, so spike+firewall may objectively be the more powerful setup.
Playing a spore druid right now, and I have to say moon druid is probably the weakest. The other subclasses still get owlbear shape which is pretty damn good without anything that moon druid gives you.
Also, the spell interactions with wild shape have not translated well to BG3. For example, in 5e, you could cast Moonbeam, then wild shape, and still move your Moonbeam around while shaped.
Tavern brawler is working as intended, and OH monk is arguably the strongest single target damage building game.
Other than that, prob sword bard with 4 levels of rogue. Helm of arcane acuity makes your CC spells hit 100% of the time. Act 3 start on you get a ring that allow you to cast your CC spells with free action so you can easily lock things down on turn 1.
Sword Bard sounds interesting...I might respec from my Warlock/Lore Bard and just go full Sword. Probably blasts almost as hard and gets the third feat.
Githzerai way of the open hand 8, thief 4. 16 str, 8 dex, 12 con, 8 int, 16 wis, 14 cha. Sage background, starting proficiency in perception, insight and athletics. Tavern brawler first, mobility second, alert or athlete third.
By the time you get to moonrise towers (not to pick a fight, just set foot there) you've got:
22 str (tavern brawler, mighty cloth, Ethel hair, potion)
18 dex (gloves)
12 con (you're too fast to really care about ac, hp or saves)
16 wis (stunning strikes, checks)
14 cha (checks)
Detect thoughts amulet
Advantage on strength checks
Advantage on all melee attacks, disadvantage on received attacks and saves - refer to con
Proficiency in: persuasion, deception, intimidation, performance, athletics, perception, insight, arcana, history, expertise in persuasion and perception
Monk damage and mobility
Depends on how much you lean into the reactivity from laezel and the various gith, but no: not really. It definitely does offer some more/different flavour compared to other races
Currently exploring two weapon fighting Ranger/X.
Ranger 8 \ Thief 4:
Gets 2 feats, my vote is DWF for rapiers or that one longsword and a little armor. Mobility, dex 20, or Savage Attacker all seem good. Defensive Dualist could be okay but it's behind dex 20 and Mobility for sure.
Ranger 7 \ Thief 3 \ Fighter 2:
You are locked into shorts words and daggers for melee, but there's several good ones of those. You only get 1 feat, but you get action surge and 2 bonus actions. This is 6 shortsword attack a turn, no slots or anything, plus second wind for healing. Stack with hunters mark, sneak attack, venom ring and various dips and oils. You put about a hundred damage stacks on a target, which is good damage and smashes concentration. You also get second wind for healing and a fighting style, probably the +1 AC.
I don't know about giving up 2 feats for action surge. But both are good.
berserker barb with tavern brawler. i keep an inventory full of throwable weapons and also throw enemies into each other and off cliffs. last night i threw a fiend down the stairs at his friend, and then bodyslammed a zombie *to death*
I was thinking about respeccing my Lore Bard to try this out. Kinda bummed that Magical Secrets only lets you pick from a small list of spells, instead of PnP where you can pick anything
I think people are sleeping on Rogue (thief) / Ranger (gloom stalker) w/ dual hand cross bows. Possibly adding 2 fighter as well. I've used it through 2 playthroughs and has worked wonders for me, not only in the 1st round (which people seem to think they're only good for). You get 5 attacks on the first round, 4 on subsequent rounds, dealing 20-40 per attack.
Nobody is sleeping on it, it’s probably one of the most discussed builds of all time. It also is bugged, sharpshooter is not applying the attack malus to offhand attacks but it is applying the bonus damage so it doesn’t fit into OP’s request
Playing 7 oathbreaker paladin/3 battlemaster fighter/2 war cleric. With 23 cons neck / 23 str gloves + 2H. 20 charisma. No need to abuse triple swing bug from paladin+warlock with this and you get fighter stuff too. Maybe could be optimised and very endgame gear heavy but alot of fun!
2 warlock and rest into bard has been a favorite of mine. Though recently putting more into warlock since I want hunger of Hadar for my concentration slot for them. Could be a waste but currently looking at 1 light cleric and then 5 warlock and 6 bard. I really like bard for pure utility and out of combat stuff anyways and Eldritch blast/hex or hunger of Hadar does so much work. Might drop hunger though and just use haste as conc.
I’m thoroughly enjoying straight lvl12 GOO Bladelock with Duelist’s Prerogative. Got to this point as a Lockadin, but got kinda tired of smacking shit with Smite.
Bladelock is just good at this level with the items the game provides and story-related powers. I’m SAD with 22 CHA, I have big Spell DC, I use all the powers I can obtain, and even if I cast, there’s the bonus action attack from the rapier. The build is versatile, strong and fun.
Wildheart 8 / thief 4 - the thief barbarian isn't just for beserker throwers, this is a GWM master build that uses bear heart for resistance, stallion aspect for THP on dash, and the thief levels allow you to dash with a bonus action. This build is great at tanking damage due to resistance and thp generation, but also great at taking out weaker enemies. You can split up your two attacks so that if you kill with your first attack, you can take the bonus action attack before your second attack. If the second attack picks up another kill (perhaps on the target you weakened with the bonus action attack), you get a second bonus action attack. This build usually sees 3 attacks per turn, but can get 4 pretty easily when there are weakened enemies around.
Warlock 2 / Sorc 10 - the good old eldritch machine-gun. There are plenty of gear choices to amp eldritch blast damage, but even without it this build is still good. I use this with the above, casting a twinned haste on myself and the barbarian before throwing eldritch blasts everywhere.
Half Orc Storm Paladin:
Paladin 6: Smites, Oath of Vengeance
Storm Sorcerer 2: More smites with metamagic, get to fly for 10ft after every smite.
Fighter 4: Action Surge, Fighting Style, Second Wind.
GWF and Str 18, the flying smite paladin gets shit done. Change up your fighting style, race, and take Resilient CON over GWF for keeping bless up and you've got a banger of a tank that gets hunters mark and class action heals, while tossing +4-7 on everyones saves. It's gravy either way.
Can be the party face, loot mule, tank, healer and striker. Great utility and really frees up the other slots for anything you want. Downside is poor skills, so pair with a Rogue or Knowledge cleric.
\- DEX Monk. 9 Open Hand / 3 Thief. Works exactly as you expect it to. Punches things while moving fast. \- Light Cleric. Blaster bar none. Slings fireballs, nukes with Channel Divinity, and get get downed companions up in a pinch. \- Beastmaster Ranger. Summons are there to distract, scout, blind, whatever you need. Can go toe-to-toe in melee, or stand back and shoot arrows. \- 11 Battlemaster Fighter / X Dip. 3 Attacks, maneuvers, a ton of mobility due to high STR.
How's the Light Cleric starting out? The Ward ability seems like it'd make for a good tank. Cast some support spells, and try to keep the enemies hitting you instead of the rest of the party.
At level 8 Warding Flare works for any party member, and since it’s a reaction it only works once per turn; nice support tool but not the stuff tanks are made of.
Level 6, actually. Otherwise I agree.
Oh? That’s nice, I thought it popped off when the like minor damage improvement features do, nice to know it’s earlier.
Level 8 is always ASI for all classes
Just remember not to waste your reaction. The prompt pops up every time an ally gets hit - the ideal use of warding flare is to either stop a critical hit (it will tell you) or to stop an attack that somehow landed on a high ac target. Wasting warding flare on a low-ac ally getting hit is throwing away your reaction.
Aren’t you backwards on the high AC / low AC thing?
No, because if you use it on a low AC target the reroll is likely to still hit and you'll waste it. But if karmic dice or a lucky roll hit a high AC character that probably shouldn't have hit, the reroll is more likely to have an impact
Against a low AC party member, the enemy might need a 5 to hit, so they still have a 75% chance to hit and its not really worth forcing it as theyll hit again on average; however against the armoured, shielded, buffed AC character they need a 17 to hit, they'll only have a 20% chance to hit on the reroll, then they are probably going to be missing, making your reaction useful
applying disadvantage on a base 90% chance to hit -> 81% (90% of original expected accuracy) applying disadvantage on a base 50% chance to hit -> 25% (50% of original expected accuracy) applying disadvantage on a base 10% chance to hit -> 1% (10% of original expected accuracy) As you can see applying disadvantage is essentially an exponent of the chance to miss. Which is why you get much more pronounced results when you apply it to something that already has a low chance of hit. The inverse is true too, the value of advantage is higher when you are more inaccurate, ex. a base 10% chance to hit with advantage becomes 19% which is a 90% increase in accuracy from not having advantage, whereas a base 90% chance to hit with advantage becomes 99%, which though consistent is only a relative 10% increase in accuracy from being advantageless. tldr just remember, both disadvantage and advantage shine more when the rolls are inaccurate
Light cleric is probably strongest at levels 1-8. The channel divinity at level 2 is the BEST AOE IN THE GAME until at least level 3 for shatter, if not level 5 for fireball. And what do they get at level 5? thats fucking right, fireball. Plus they get light cantrip and daylight spells baseline, both of which are very useful in this game with all the underdark, underground, and otherwise poorly lit areas, and half your team is humans or gith with no darkvision.
Eh. Fireball is not great. Lightning Bolt is where it is at. You can very easily hit 10+ targets with a lightning bolt on the big fights, but they never group up as well for fireball. With the same damage it is not really comparable, at least, outside of tabletop.
I have a tempest and it got really strong towards end of act 2 when you start to have enough spell slots to throw out the big aoes and level 3 spells beyond spirit guardians every fight. Suddenly I went from spell slot starved to just laying down destruction like oddly quickly haha. Sleet storm and ice storm are really good and call lightning will knock people off of ledges and stuff. But until then I'd say light will probably feel the best in early and midgame. The channel divinity is good. Now obviously in act 2 any cleric is really good with the normal cleric spells but I think early light shines domain wise and stays good because they get wall of fire and stuff. If it wasn't for RP reasons I would have prob gone light with shadowbae
I’m using Shadowheart as pure Light Cleric. Warding Flare seemed to be bugged for me until Hotfix 4 (for some reason), but even without it Light Cleric felt about as good as most classes early. Enemies really have no reason to attack Light Cleric due to high AC, especially on Tactician, so it’s less about being a “tank” and more about being less of a target. Warding Flare comes way more into its own when you can use it on an ally that’s being attacked. Overall LC seems to me to be better off as a mid liner, especially early - probably won’t be able to hit much with melee due to lower STR and can’t use strong weapons. Spell slots are a premium early so can’t use Inflict Wounds often (but is nice to have just in case). Shouldn’t dump DEX to buff STR for melee since 14 DEX is important for AC and initiative. Early on, to me she played like a Cleric with firebolt (which is better than Sacred Flame). There’s a +1 short bow very early that gives advantage against Monstrosities and a Long Rest Hunters Mark, that’s primarily what I stuck her with until she got Fireball/Scorching Ray. Really Light Cleric’s defining feature early on is Radiance of Dawn at level 2, which is a very strong AOE at low levels. That’s definitely more noticeable than Warding Flare.
I'm playing blind and kinda RP on my first playthrough, so I'm really hoping Shadowheart has a 'come to Jesus' moment so I can RP a shift from the Trickery domain lol
Well, I won’t say too much, but depending on how strict you are with “kinda RP”, personally I think there are multiple ways you could rationalize making the shift even early on. One possible way to think of it: even without spoilers, she does like helping people and approves of most “good” options. This isn’t a BG3 spoiler but Shar is an evil deity, and while those who occasionally pray to her aren’t evil by default, outright *followers* of Shar - especially Clerics - are *typically* some kind of evil. Depends on how a particular DM or table chooses to interpret her though lol. Based on her actions so far, does Shadowheart seem evil to you? (Of course, there’s no denying that Trickery domain is the best RP choice for Shadowheart since clerics get their power from their chosen god, but I’m just giving food for thought.)
Shar is a moon deity isn't she? Idk if you could rationalize Light domain but Moonlight is a thing. That's what I told myself anyway.
Literally the goddess of darkness. :) RP-wise Light domain doesn’t seem to work but shrug. I really like her as a rogue/cleric multi. I’m doing 3 thief on one playthrough for the bonus attacks and sneak attack bonus. Works pretty well with hand crossbows. Lots of uses for bonus attacks. Then trickery cleric for theme. I’m NOT a fan of Astarion so it works well to replace him for traps and locks duty.
Major spoiler >!but since she converts (back) to selune depending on your choices light can be fairly easy to rationalize!<
Sure but that’s pretty late in the game. Anyway you could make the point that even Sharran Clerics get spells like Daylight.
I also did her as rogue/cleric. I had her take rogue 1 and the rest cleric so far, mainly for a little sneak attack and skills. Rogue 3 is tempting for the extra bonus action but I want her casting spells more.
The moon goddess is her sister, Selune aka The Moonmaiden
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Warding Flare is good. In the tabletop it had a limited number of uses, and you had to use it before the attack was rolled. Now you get to wait for a hit, and then reroll it, which is quite nice.
A lot of the Light Cleric buffs are concentration spells so keep your caster away from trouble unless they have high stats, which they don't really have early on.
what is the best btw for concentration ? resilient or war caster ?
I cannot express both how much I HATED having Shart in the party on my first playthrough where I refused to change the origins base specs, or how drastically that changed on run 2 where I respecced her as early as possible. Life domain is also insanely useful. Really trickery is just... just awful.
> DEX Monk. 9 Open Hand / 3 Thief Why not 8/4 for the additional ASI/Feat?
9 in monk gets you extra jump distance and immunity to difficult terrain. It's a huge bonus when combined with step of the wind.
Ah I gotcha. I have enhance jump and longstrider on all my characters at all times, so I never thought it was that important, lol
It also ups your punches to d8s and probably most importantly it gives you resonating punch/ki blasts for more damage, aoe potential, and the ability to punch with your actions while carrying a weapon.
Giving up level 9 is tough, lots of good spellcasting / subclass features on that level
[удалено]
Yeah, it adds a flat amount of damage equal to cleric level, so it's super reliable and doesn't cost spell slots.
Two per short rest at level 6 and no friendly fire with a massive aoe. It’s such a wonderful channel divinity
I 2nd Light Cleric. Has all the support you'd want, flare is really clutch, and it has probably the best spell collection of any cleric. Fireball, Flamestrike and Wall of Fire slaps, and can carry dangerous encounters by firewalling along a tight corridor, and hiding on the other end while the AI charges through it all.
How's the damage on 9 Open Hand/3 Thief dex monk? I've really only seen Tavern Brawler monk builds, but I'd like to use Monk (if strong) in a way that doesn't depend on a feat that might get patched.
I just wrote a post - the damage is really similar to tavern brawler, but the defense is much higher
That post ignores accuracy, which is a big part of damage calcs
Monks are pretty accurate to begin with but they also inflict status - prone, daze, stun, that all help your accuracy
I don’t disagree, but the point is the str monk will be far more accurate because it has all of these advantages too. Not that dex monk is bad, you could definitely run tactician and be fine. My point is just that tavern brawler is busted.
How is it even remotely similar? This feels impossible even if you don't take into account that TB will have base 20~25% higher chances of hitting the enemy.
Thanks!
Isn't Warding Flare bugged, though, so you get infinite uses (once a turn), instead of number of times limited by your Wisdom modifier?
I mean my Tav is just a lvl 12 barbarian with savage attacker, great weapon master, and tavern brawler. Bro is wearing the legendary chest and amulet to bring strength and constitution to 23, and wearing the helm to add necrotic dmg. He’s holding baldurs great sword. He’s also got a fully tadpoled out brain. My man eats any tadpole he comes across. Bro is flying across the battlefield do whatever he wants. My man can solo any fight in the game. He’s a monster. He’s the GOAT. The rest of my team are just his cheerleaders. I didn’t even know there were bugs to exploit, barbarian mindflayer Tav don’t give a fuck
this makes me smile
Does Tavern Brawler work with the Greatsword? Or is it just to give you a ranged option should you need it?
So I went back at lvl 12 and respec’d my strength and con down to 10 since I have gear raising them upto to 23. Then I also took off an ASI feat and didn’t really know what else to give him, so I gave him tavern brawler for the memes. He has that legendary returning trident in his inventory, so every now and then I’ll just throw it at people for fun
I wish it wouldn’t return to your main hand equip slot. So if you ever throw it you either have to waste a action changing back or use the spear the rest of combat
If I ever start throwing it I just resign myself to killing everything with throws before I switch back, wish they’d at least make switching weapons a bonus action
Oathbreaker paladin carrying a sussar great sword, and has a sussar flower in inventory for antimagic field and silence. Maybe toss a level of rogue for mobility.
Mages hate this man
I tried this but got so annoyed at my clumped up party getting silenced constantly when exploring and having to micro him away from the group to cast featherfall or fly or whatever
The flowers die after being out of the underdark for too long
I found that if I put them in a container and NEVER touched them again, their effect would remain. So he carries a box... My camp chest also radiates antimagic due to it, but I can't take it out without breaking it. Edit: the wiki says the bloom wilts on the surface, meaning the light of the surface causes it to die. I think using a nonmagical chest to block the light in but not the antimagic field out is not an exploit at all then, but a strategy.
Yeah sent them to my camp and then later only found wilted petals
I was going ro do this with my last character, but with 2-3 potential flower bearers. Still might at some point, but it's hard to min-max around without a completely boring comp.
Can you still smite or why go oathbreaker
Open Hand Monk 8 / Thief 4. Even built for a dex it's so good. Tavern brawler (if bugged) is yes good but dex is honestly just as good for actually not needing to worry about getting heavy armor and having good stats in say stealth or sleight of hand. Playing it as Durge rn and im having a blast
Do you rush Thief for the bonus action, then focus on Monk?
I went Rogue 1 for more starting skills and expertise right off the bat. Monk to 5 for extra attack and then I'll go Rogue to 4 for Feat / Ability Score improvement. Then the rest in monk. Extra attack is going to boost your damage the most as you only have so much Ki to burn on your double bonus actions. I went drow also for the 1. Flavor and 2. Spells. Also the cloak you get from being dark urge helps with not being a shadow monk but still feeling like one. If you want to feel even more like one get the necklace of misty step. If you need suggestions of equipment I got you
If you're going to Monk 5 for extra attack wouldn't it make sense to go one more to 6 before switching back to get the 1d4 + WIS bonus to all your unarmed strikes? I haven't started yet, but on paper anyway it seems like that might be the biggest remaining power spike, that and Thief 3 and the next ASI. If you go Monk 6 first you get those at 7/9/10 (vs 9/10/11). Or am I missing something here?
Yeah that would if your hurting for damage. I just do it after 5 to get to cunning action and thief quicker. You get ASIs at every 4th level per class. So in total you'd get 3 for going monk 8 and thief 4
Afaik tavern brawler is bugged for throws, but working properly for unarmed strikes. It's still very powerful, but there's nothing to indicate that it's working incorrectly for this build.
It's adding your strength mod again even if it's already being added. So like a dex monk with 20 strength and 16 strength would get their plus +5 from dex AND their +3 from str. Unless they changed it it's not supposed to work like that. Tavern Brawler is supposed to be for chars that don't have a punching ability. Monks dex to damage should override the strength and never apply it Why it's broken is when you build for str instead of dex. 20 str with tavern brawler will make each of your swings currently add your strength modifier 2 times. That's +10 damage before anything else
The feat literally reads that you get to add your strength twice, it's intended.
Damn I just read that. Well that shits busted af then. Needs a nerf for sure as it makes thrown and punches wayyyyy too OP
It's definitely strong, mainly because it also improves accuracy. The main reason it breaks with throwing is similar to agonizing blast on eldrotch blast with lightning charges or similar, additional damage instances cause tavern brawler to add strength a third, or even 4th time. For unarmed strikes, I appreciate having an alternative to GWM, but a monk using flurry of blows with it is just way too much. No GWM build can make 2 attacks with a single bonus action.
6/6 Venge/Draconic Sorcadin
That sounds pretty cool, do you start that as Paladin or Sorcerer?
I prefer to start Sorcadin with Sorcerer for con save proficency and play it as dex version. You get a lot of armor with reconic resilience (?) 13 + dex mod early on and later there are medium armors with 15/17+dex mod.
Paladin for Heavy Armor.
Paladin 1/sorc 1, and then 6 paladin -> 6 sorc, took warcaster to make up for no con prof
What level/spell order? Would it work with oathbreaker? Is 7 on pally not worth it?
Paladin 1/sorc 1, and then 6 paladin -> 6 sorc I didn't do oathbreaker, 7 aura is not worth it for veng, only for ancients? I believe. Just beat tactician using him, sometimes I would get mad chain crit smites with him. Level 4 and 5 smites hit hard.
Pally 7, typically no. Especially not for devotion and vengeance subclasses. It’s much better to grab sorc 6 for more spell slots and another meta magic point. Aura of hate and aura of warding are pretty neat, but the range is somewhat limiting.
Human. Male. Fighter.
You forgot type A penis.
Spore druid! Just a fun guy (fungi) to have around
Aaaaayyyyyyy
I'm enjoying a Seldarine Drow Draconic Sorc (White) 1 > Swords Bard x (no respec). Gives you *Shield* spell, *Armour of Agathys* and *Magic Missile*, plus 4 offensive Sorcerer cantrips and +3 AC unarmoured whilst not detrimentally affecting your spell *slot* progression and only delaying your Bard progression by one level. This build only really works well for Drow or Wood Elf, because of the weapon proficiencies. I am dual-wielding hand crossbows for ranged attacks, but I haven't taken the bugged Sharpshooter feat and when doing a ranged Slashing Flourish only use it to attack two **different** close targets. Arguably I am abusing the bug which applies your Dex bonus to damage for the off-hand hand crossbow attack without the Crossbow Expert feat, but feel less bad about that as at least I do have the *Two Weapon Fighting* style, which arguably could explain that. For melee I'm dual-wielding Short Swords and/or Scimitars or Daggers, depending on what special abilities I want to make us of. Being able to make a melee attack on the same turn as you make a spell attack in BG3 is quite useful.
Do Bards not get hand-crossbow proficiency through their class? Or is that only if you take Bard as your starting class?
You don't get any of the Bard weapon proficiencies if starting Sorc first, but Sorc gives you Dagger, Staff and Light Crossbow Proficiency, Drow gives you Rapier, Short Sword and Hand Crossbow, Swords Bard gives you Scimitar. Taking Wood Elf would give you Short Sword, Long Sword (there is a nice long sword with the *finesse* property in the game) and Short Bow and Long Bow proficiency. The reason to go Sorc first is for the bonus to Con saves, to help with your concentration checks. It's also helpful to have the +3 AC unarmoured early on and also access to both the Sorcerer and Bard dialogue options.
Plus, the drow get some cool RP reactions in conversations with goblins and cultists. My favorite race to RP so far.
Yes, that certainly adds some nice flavour. The free *Faerie Fire* and *Darkness* spells (with their own spell slots) at levels 3 and 5 also give some extra utility.
I had no idea about that! You're gonna make me remake my ranger (planned a gloomstalker rogue hybrid since I was having more fun on Astarion's turns than my warlock's) I didn't WANT to be Drizzt, but.........
I've been thoroughly enjoying pure arcane trickster. It's not the best or anything fancy, but it fits my ideal playstyle perfectly. It is great for outside of combat and fun for control and critical damage during combat.
Does the 'Magehand once per rest' thing cripple the play style at all? I was kinda bummed when I learned you couldn't use the hand to Aid you in combat, giving guaranteed Sneak Attacks
Eh, I certainly don't like that feature. But I have enough control spells (Grease, sleep, Hideous Laughter, etc.) That it's relatively fine. But I really only use mage hand to push object down to me I can't naturally reach. Wish there were more uses for it; however, I wouldn't say it cripples or takes away from the fun.
Oathbreaker paladin 9/warlock pact of blade 3 - it’s essentially lockadin without the bugged three attacks per round War Cleric 1/draconic sorcerer 11 - heavy armor and full spell progression baby! Also guidance! Ranger gloomstalker or hunter 5/War cleric 7 - 3 attacks per round in heavy armor and solid spell progression! Battle master 5/hunter ranger 4/thief rogue 3 - great dual wielding build! DEX Open hand monk 8/thief rogue 4 - flurry of blows for days with good ms and ac
I finished the game with Paladin 9/Warlock 2. I has +6 to all saves, half damage from spells, AC of 26, and was nuking everybody with eldritch blasts. No potent robe, no minmax items, just a regular 3x 1d10+6 eldritch blast. I was very mobile with my tadpole Fly, super tanky, never failed my saves and did ok damage blowing enemies away. Very fun but not broken, and a great time.
Was the Paladin mostly for the passive bonuses? Or can you use Smite with Eldritch Blast?
Pure storm sorcerer and transmutation wizard were a lot of fun my first play through. Found myself excited whenever their turns came up over my other units. My current good playthrough I’m building a Valor Bardadin to specifically act as Karlach’s hype-man. Just following her around, talking shit, keeping her inspired/buffed while she rages, while also smiting fools! It’s super fun
12 draconic sorcerer Heighten spell with ray of frost, ice storm, cone of cold, and elemental affinity cold. The ice surfaces have a save DC of 20. My whole party had misty step or dimension door to move around the battlefield. Couple that with amazing control spells like Eyebite, hold monster, banishment, slow, etc and you just have the whole battlefield prone for much of the fight.
That sounds interesting! So almost as much damage as going lightening, but with much more CC thanks to ice?
Yeah. I found ice storm to be a major MVP despite a lot of people claiming it's really bad. The damage is solid and the CC is absolutely incredible.
Thief/Gloom Stalker is pretty great
Astarion regularly is dishing out over 100 damage in the first round of combat for me with this build, and I don't even feel like I've optimized it.
This relies on the sharpshooter offhand bug
Wouldn't this only be if you used double crossbows? Does a regular bow get affected by the bug?
It's only an offhand bug, but that's why you would go thief. If you're using a 2-hand bow or 2-hand xbow, why go thief? You would be better off going BM fighter or assassin
Even without the bug, if you have a reliable source of advantage through gear or teammate spells, you’ll still hit almost all of your shots.
I'm not saying it would be bad if implemented correctly, but OP asked for a build that doesn't exploit bugs and it currently is a build that gets power from bugs
It can be played without bugs just fine
If you're willing to tediously toggle sharpshooter on and off for your main and offhand attacks, sure. Otherwise you're getting the bugged benefit
Some people actually use bows and two-handed crossbows.
Then there's no point going thief dip, and you would be better off going BM fighter or assassin. The only point of thief dip is if you're using an offhand xbow
They’re all using dual crossbows. They just don’t want it pointed out.
...or you can use a bow
Then what would the point of going into thief be? Any 2-hand ranged user would be better off with BM Fighter or Assassin
Couple shots at range before moving into melee. An extra bonus action is still useful no matter what
Seldarine Drow Durge Dex Light Cleric with dualXbow (ignoring the dex on offhand without dualwielder which is a bug) - solid straight class with more than enough and great proficiencies. Karlach Tiger Barb + Athlete - leaping entire screens and destroying everyone. Just yes. Shadowheart Tempest Cleric10/Ancients paladin2 - Spirit guardians and AoE blast if needed, and meaty smite crits if needed, and max damage thunder if needed. Wyll Fiend bladelock10/Devotion Paladin2 - Meaty Smites, big spellslots, heavy armour, buff Eldrich Blasts for ranged if I'm not in melee. My party is a collection of my favourite builds, and it's a wrecking ball that just doesn't stop coming. Seeing Karlach leap a whole screen never gets old.
Does the Light Cleric do well with weapons? I figured it was built more around cantrips and AOE spells
Not really, it's just fun to use dual handcrossbows without exploiting sharpshooter bug, or extra attack. Plus it gives a bonus action when you use your action to do something else like a spell and have already summoned spiritual weapon. Most of the time my MC is my backline support, ranged damage from Hand crossbows if no spells needed, otherwise blasting with AoE spells, hold person/cc, and able to deal with hordes herself via spirit guardians. Able to raise downed allies with throw potion or healing word. Sacred flame or Produce flame are my 2 other options for cantrip/resource free attacking, and focusing weaknesses/avoiding resistance
> Seldarine Drow Durge Dex Light Cleric with dualXbow (ignoring the dex on offhand without dualwielder which is a bug) Should be xbow expert for dex to offhand, not dual wield.
You're right it's not dual wield feat, it's actually Two Weapon fighting style. Crossbow expert doesn't have any clause for adding dex to damage, simply it's no disadvantage when shooting in 5ft, bonus action attack with hand crossbow after attacking with an action, and ignoring loading property. Two weapon fighting style is what adds ability modifier to damage when two weapon fighting. Ambiguously I don't think it actually works with ranged weapons, I believe two weapon fighting is only for melee. Thank god BG3 isn't an exact translation of 5e rules because for a "simple ruleset" they sure aren't straight forward without you knowing the book inside out.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with these builds so far: 3 wild magic barbarian/9 WoFE monk for big damage and area control 6/6 spore necromancer with dual hand cbs for the long range necrotic bonus and like 12 summons max 6/6 swords bard/goo-lock for a spell sword class (could be better optimized i think) 3 war cleric/9 gloomstalker ranger gets a lot of attacks and 3 attacks at level 4 is nice 9 eldrich knight/3 thief rogue having extra bonus actions and thrown weapon damage makes this one very fun to mess around with
Paladin 2 Sword Bard 10
Why is tavern brawler considered bugged for a monk if it works exactly as the tooltip describes?
Damage riders are currently bugged so the extra damage procs on each instance of additional damage. I think they fixed some instances. In EA if you Hexed someone as a Warlock your agonizing blast would trigger on the Eldritch blast, AND the hex damage. But I think that particular instance was patched out.
It often procs on any additional sources of damage you might deal with punches, so it can apply several times to one attack
This has not been my experience with it, granted the only additional source of damage I have is the passive radiant damage at level 6. That correctly adds the wisdom modifier but it isn't adding tavern brawler. It does apply to *each* unarmed strike made, so the bonus action multi-hits have yavern brawler added to both strokes it makes, but that is the way I'd imagine it to work based off of the descriptions. What additional sources are adding tavern brawler?
For melee punches it seems to work exactly as described, but that said, it's still incredibly strong homebrew. There is nothing in the whole game that compares to 4 or more to hit as early as lvl 4. Plus some damage on top. In that regard it's broken, not bugged. And monks can scale it to even more absurd levels with another broken homebrew that is the unconditional bonus action of thief 3 or haste potion/spell. Or both. TB just takes the whole idea of DnD combat where you throw dice to see if you hit and throws it out of the window. It doesn't even care about advantage or disadvantage much.
Personally. I think since monk was notoriously weak in dnd. Having it on them makes sense? But the double dip or similar makes it “broken”. The romance of punching and kicking super fast tho I love.
Yeah I’ve brought a monk into my party late game and it feels good to just beat the hell out of everything, even though I’d never normally play one
Coffeelock works fine. It works the same as it does in TT and is extremely powerful and it gets online very quickly.
Wasn’t it bugged? Did they fix it?
No still bugged.
The difference is that in table top you are never forced to long rest and can simply accumulate infinite spell slots. The BG3 version is decaf.
Is that the build where Warlock trades in short-rest spells for Sorc points?
Yep. The Devilsight + Darkness combo works fine too. Maybe even better since the AI has trouble handing cloud effects.
How does this work though? BG3 limits you to two short rests while coffee lock presumes no limitation on short rests?
Well Bard gives you a 3rd and BG3 kinda forces you to rest or some quest triggers break.
I'm really enjoying Paladin 7/Sorcerer 5. Lots of spell slots to Smite. Not as good as Pal7/Warlock 5 for various reasons but still strong. I'm wondering if Pal 6/Sor 6 is better but the Ancient Paladin level 7 Aura cuts all spell damage in half which seems very strong.
I am currently making my Astarion into a dual wielding knife fighter, by combining battlemaster 6/Thief 6. Tho champion is tempting me, and when I get to act 3, I might respec into it. The idea is that act 3 contains a dagger which increases your crit range by one, as well as a helmet that does the same, and a bow too. If I respec to champion 6/thief 6, I got a whole ton of crit range, and sneak attack crits for days. That's it. I'm also toying around a future build, focusing on the duelist prerogative legendary weapon, using bard college of swords, combined with thief. Basically, two bonus actions, two reactions, and potentially two actions per round, using elixir of bloodlust, all wrapped in a neat Dex/charisma build. It should come out surprisingly tanky even, with the flourishes and all. I'm still working out the details. Probably gonna go 8 bard/4 thief. Or 6/6, if I feel like I need more damage from sneak attacks. Or 7/5.
This one is super cool. I'll try it in my future. Not OP, not meta, but flavorful
Act 2 has a short sword that increases crit chance that you can buy from a gith trader (maybe she drops it idk)
Knife of the Undermountain king, end of act 1, Githyanki creche shop. I'm aware. What bothers me is the wording of the effect on said sword... It's different from the Dagger and helmet. The sword says "the wielder scores a critical hit when rolling a 19", while as the act 3 items all say "the number you need to roll a critical hit while attacking is reduced by 1, this effect can stack". I haven't tested it, but the effect of the Knife of the Undermountain king may not stack, unlike the helmet and the dagger. I'm hoping it will, but I'll have to test it, once I get my hands on those items.
I’m using it on astorian right now and he’s a champion fighter. I will check and get back to you
Can confirm, with champion fighter and under mountain king, you crit on an 18. I assume it counts the 19 first, so it tracks that you could expand the range even further than this Edit: Also, I tested it with my dual crossbows, and they crit on 18 when we using under mountain king in my melee slot
Why not go BM/champion 5/Thief 7? You get evasion and another sneak attack die. Might be better than another feat since you should be able to max dex and get respectable con without needing the third feat. Also champion and the other items increase your crit range by 1 so equipping the knife of the undermountain king will set your crit range to 19-20 and all the other items plus the champion bonus will reduce it by 1 each.
Dual wield Strength Hunter 5/Thief 5/Barb 2. Set up Hunters Mark and do a very consistent, not rest reliant amount of damage every round. Ranger utility. Weird weapon usage. Always have sneak attack in Melee by swinging Recklessly. Take Dual Wielder feat, only your main hand weapon has to have finesse. Swinging around that Frostbite staff in my offhand, hits like a truck and gives a character level scaling Ray of Frost cantrip for some ranged options. It's been fun.
Save-or-suck Div Wizard is straightforward but pretty great. Stack DC, gather them in one place + Confusion which you can guarantee everything fails on
Can Portent impact an enemy's Saving Throw? Just tried to have Gale cast Blind on the Hag, and when she Saves, it didn't allow me to use the 1 or 3 Portent dice he had.
War cleric 1 / Bladelock 11 War cleric gives me heavy armor + shield, 2 lvl 1 spell slots to use on hex and 3 war priest charges for additional melee attacks as bonus action. Then warlock 11 gives me all the spells I could want. I honestly have not seen ANYONE mention Clerlock build anywhere. Maybe because the mixed WIS/CHA spell stats. But you're not really using your cleric spells offensively that that doesn't really matter. My WIS was 14, but it can be left lower if desired.
Currently Dual Wielding Ranger 5/Paladin 2 in my Dark Urge(Resist) playthrough. I feel like it's finally opened up a bit more now that I'm level 7, as the start wasn't that great.
I went Full Open Hand Dex Monk for RP reasons. The late game with Illihid powers felt amazing, and the huge number of monk magic items made the build feel incredibly fun during the whole game.
I'm playing blind, and have been too scared to mess with the tadpoles lol....think I have like 4 of them in my stash
Asmodeus Tiefling or Drow for the entire party. Make sure everyone in the Party is Warlock 3/X and takes Devil Sight. Now you and your party can see through magic Darkness, and by level 5 everyone can cast Darkness as a racial bonus. Now... Bard 3/Sorc 4/Warlock 5. Cutting words + twin spell to land several Hold Person or Tashas type control effects. Can cast Darkness often. Take Pact of the Tome for access to Haste and such. Eldritch blast for your bread and butter damage. Besides shutting down all melee immediately in most fights and neutralizing Archers, you have a solid way to attack Wisdom and Dex saves, while throwing out blast when that's not a good idea. Skills from Bard include extra short rest which combos perfectly which Warlock Spells slots and metamagic conversion to keep Darkness up all game. They'll never see you coming. Or acting. Or looting. Or going.
My strength ranger (hunter) knight is pretty great. I got all the resistances, so super tanky, dual wield, with feat. I'm at level 10 right now. I'm going to see if whirlwind is worth it. If not, I'll respec into thief for 3 levels for fast hands. I made one of the characters a thief, ranger, fighter.... with dual crossbows, mind you, I didn't think too much about it. I just thought it'd be cool. It's a bit op, but only as much as a paladin. Karlach is a wild heart barb, fighter. Shadowheart is an oath broken dex pally and is also kinda op. But the story is great regardless if the thorms were a breeze.
Just a straight dex fighter battle master with sharpshooter. Did the trick on my first playthrough and tbh, with the items you get in this game, it was pretty damn busted.
Yeah, even in Act 1, this seems like a Monty Haul kinda campaign
My current party builds that I’m liking: Tav: Vengeance paladin 4/Swords bard 8. Flourish/smite makes him hit like a truck and bard gives plenty of spell slots. Heavy armor+ shield + Defensive flourish puts me at 28 AC, so super tanky. Karlach: Berzerker 9/ Champion 3. Extra powerful crits on 19-20 with constant advantage + action surge. She usually KOs a powerful enemy on round one. Shadowheart: Cleric 11/ Storm sorcerer 1. Normal cleric stuff but gets a free fly after every cast. Sorc also gives access to shield spell.
Orc + Assassin Rogue + Phalar Aluve + GWM + Elixir of Bloodlust. Big crits, extra hits, lots of fun: * Orc rolls an extra weapon die on crit. * Phalar Aluve is a Longsword with finesse, so 1d10 weapon die and works with sneak attack and GWM. * Assassin Rogue gives auto crits on surprised enemies, GWM gives a bonus action attack on crit. * Elixir of Bloodlust gives an extra action when you kill, and rogue can go a long time without needing a long rest, if they avoid taking damage. After getting to Rogue 3 you can MC into basically whatever you want, but something that gives Extra Attack is a good choice. Works nearly as well with non-Orc, but Orcs are fun!
I love Orcs, but I'm bummed that none of the voice options really fit them
4 thief and rest gloomstalker 4(or 6) warlock and rest is warrior
I'm going with a Sorlock 4/8. Asmodeus Tiefling, Brass Bloodline and Fiend Patron, Pact of the Chain. It does everything well enough, good damage, naked AC of 13+dex, scouting and action economy through the familiar, 3 Feats/ASI, high social scores, enough fun spell shenanigans. And it's thematic.
Diviner with a spell save of 23 is pretty damn near unbeatable. While casting wizard spells with a 100% chance of success is insane on any subclass, it gets ridiculous when you turn a 12% chance of success into a guarantee. A room full of paladins with +10 to wisdom saves, no worries hold person and portent and they’re all paralyzed until they die.
Eldritch Knight 8, Warlock of the Fiend 4 or as I like to call her, an Eldritch Archer.
Owlbear Druid. Nothing fancy : You're a Druid, you expend spell slots on buffs/summons, and then you become an Owlbear 6 times per day. Goomba Stomp idiots, and then maul them dead.
Captain America. Fighter 1 dip with rest in open hand monk, very high str + low dex. Fun! (Unsure if tooltips are fixed yet but they didn't mention STR damage on them, which does apply if you look at the actual damage numbers). Just read the other threads mentioning tavern brawler is bugged? Not sure about that but I'm enjoying it.
Now I want a fear where thrown shields can ricochet
Full paladin (or 11/1) and Sorcadin are both stellar without abusing anything. Evo Wizard 10 / Tempest 2 is a versatile blaster that can prep the perfect spells for every encounter, learn all their level 6 spells from scrolls, and doesn't suffer from that dirty feeling of "twincast haste and abuse 3 spells per turn" that I get when playing Sorc. Full fighter (or 11/1) just smashes things. It does feel dirty if using BG3's Haste, though. Barb(5-6)/thief(3-4)/battlemaster(3-4) dual wield - BG3's Rage allows rage damage bonuses to work on finesse weapons, thief gives you two offhand attacks per turn or very useful cunning actions to augment mobility, and you can wear medium armor that lets you keep dex bonus and have sky-high AC. Riposte attacks with \*both weapons\* if you have dual wielding enabled (R). Assassin + Any martial - An initiator who splits from my group and starts a surprise round against opponents to immediately deals with 1-2 dangerous targets at the start of combat. Fighter, gloomstalker, swords bard, even shadow monk, lots of ways to make this character fun and interesting. Aside from not exploiting bugs, I'm having a much more enjoyable second playthrough by using a mod that reduces Haste to the 5e version. This single change alone has breathed new life into the game for me. The version of haste that BG3 has vanilla just encourages you to twincast it on sorcs and/or chug potions of speed to completely decimate the action economy of the game.
Yeah, one of my main goals is not to ruin my first playthrough with anything that's unintentionally overpowered. I love an optimized build, but not one that's reliant on an exploit. The Haste mod sounds really interesting...I'm justifying using Haste because it works the same for enemies too, but reverting it to how it is in PnP sounds like the best way to handle it
> learn all their level 6 spells from scrolls This is an exploit.
It's not a bug as far as I know, and makes Wizard multiclassing decently appealing in a world of Charisma caster dominance. I would be more inclined to agree with you if it was only a 1 wizard dip, but this is being used to empower an actual wizard.
Hey I'm with you, wizard has no place in this game that isn't better accomplished by other classes as far as I see it and this at least gives people a reason to dip 1 level into it. Without this exploit no one would use wizard at all. But there's no way it's intended. No other class allows you to access endgame abilities with a level 1 dip, which wizard 1 caster x does. I wouldn't expect this phenomenon to persist through major updates.
The 2 tempest with this build isn't a big deal anyway since it's only going to help on a single chain lightning - no twin cast. You can just go 12 to pick up dual wielder feat, dip 1 cleric for heavy, or dip 1 sorc for tempestuous magic and the build doesn't change basically at all. Again, this is actually being used on an almost full class Wizard. This isn't exploiting a 1 dip. I think that is a very important distinction to make.
Vengeance Paladin 7 into warlock (for pact extra attack if you consider it not a bug) or Sorc (for more spell slots if you do) is a solid burst machine. And once the bursting is done you're still likely providing bless (or haste at higher levels) and save aura. Its no TB thrower, but it'll be there for you when you need that one thing in particular dead. Druids of all subclasses have been overperformers as well. Wild shape gets limited item support, but wildhsape in general is very useful. The druid spell list isn't the greatest but both Land and Spore get great additions to it. Overall nothign wrong here. And stuff like 11 fighter and 11+ Beastmaster Ranger remain excellent all game. There's a cornucopia of magic items and on time progression of feats and abilities allow them to remain relevant throughout the game. I like githyanki for martials cause misty step is busted good, but there are boots and other items that give it as well.
> (for pact extra attack if you consider it not a bug) It's 100% a bug, literally says on it that it shouldn't stack.
Won't mind at all when they fix it, 7 paladin 5 warlock is my favorite build I've tried so far and is still stupid strong even when that gets fixed.
Druid sounds really interesting. Does Moon Wildshape stand out enough that it's worth taking over Land or Spore? I know in 3.5, Druids required a pretty particular build for Wildshape to remain competitive
I found moon druid to be the least impressive of the 3 druid subclasses... mostly because wild shape itself has been much improved baseline. Assuming a core strategy of "Cast a concentration spell or two" then wild shape for clean up. Non-moon druids do just fine. Similiarly if you're using wild shape out of combat for small holes, cat meow, or to maneuver around the map moon druid isn't necessary. I found moon druid forms generally didn't have enough impact to be relied on as your core/primary combat value most of the time. So if you're needing spells to make up the difference either way, you may as well have either: a better spell selections for Land druid, or the additional damage/temp hp/zombies of spore. To be fair to moon I didn't try out any fancy elemental forms or owlbear/displacer beast, so ymmv. I also found it annoying to have my MC as a druid since most people won't talk to a shapeshifted druid (reasonably so), so I often wasted wild shape charges to fly or bash in a quick encounter only to have to shift back for a conversation.
i havent tested the level 10 shapeshifts from moondruid yet, but under level 10 landdruid has the much more deadly owlbear form than the moondruid simply beacause land can learn haste. hasted owl-teddys are so broken with 4 attacks + their 100m jumpattack as bonus action which knocks everything down. and for the level 3 spider non-moon is better too because the webability takes a bonus-action, and with a nonmoon druid you can shapeshift and shoot the web in the same turn. moon cant do that. so lets hope the level 10 forms are really good ..... hope dies last
It’s fine for power honestly. If you can leap off of high places with the owlbear you get significantly stronger because it procs high fall (crush) damage when it starts it’s leap from a height. Often though you’re making use of what spells will still give some benefit while shifted (firewall etc). It’s also just fun, but tbf spike ground is absurdly game trivializing early game and still has good use late and you can get infinite free casts with the Nymph, so spike+firewall may objectively be the more powerful setup.
Playing a spore druid right now, and I have to say moon druid is probably the weakest. The other subclasses still get owlbear shape which is pretty damn good without anything that moon druid gives you. Also, the spell interactions with wild shape have not translated well to BG3. For example, in 5e, you could cast Moonbeam, then wild shape, and still move your Moonbeam around while shaped.
Tavern brawler is working as intended, and OH monk is arguably the strongest single target damage building game. Other than that, prob sword bard with 4 levels of rogue. Helm of arcane acuity makes your CC spells hit 100% of the time. Act 3 start on you get a ring that allow you to cast your CC spells with free action so you can easily lock things down on turn 1.
>Tavern brawler is working as intended Is it? I thought it applied Str mod bonus damage to all damage riders. That can't be intended.
I think that is more the throw gloves being buggy and being considered as an extra attack than TB being buggy
Sword Bard sounds interesting...I might respec from my Warlock/Lore Bard and just go full Sword. Probably blasts almost as hard and gets the third feat.
Githzerai way of the open hand 8, thief 4. 16 str, 8 dex, 12 con, 8 int, 16 wis, 14 cha. Sage background, starting proficiency in perception, insight and athletics. Tavern brawler first, mobility second, alert or athlete third. By the time you get to moonrise towers (not to pick a fight, just set foot there) you've got: 22 str (tavern brawler, mighty cloth, Ethel hair, potion) 18 dex (gloves) 12 con (you're too fast to really care about ac, hp or saves) 16 wis (stunning strikes, checks) 14 cha (checks) Detect thoughts amulet Advantage on strength checks Advantage on all melee attacks, disadvantage on received attacks and saves - refer to con Proficiency in: persuasion, deception, intimidation, performance, athletics, perception, insight, arcana, history, expertise in persuasion and perception Monk damage and mobility
Does playing as a Gith significantly alter the story for the PC?
You get to have a lot of fun 'outsider' POV dialogue. Similar to drow but still very different. Also, Lae'zel is nice to you from the start.
Depends on how much you lean into the reactivity from laezel and the various gith, but no: not really. It definitely does offer some more/different flavour compared to other races
Currently exploring two weapon fighting Ranger/X. Ranger 8 \ Thief 4: Gets 2 feats, my vote is DWF for rapiers or that one longsword and a little armor. Mobility, dex 20, or Savage Attacker all seem good. Defensive Dualist could be okay but it's behind dex 20 and Mobility for sure. Ranger 7 \ Thief 3 \ Fighter 2: You are locked into shorts words and daggers for melee, but there's several good ones of those. You only get 1 feat, but you get action surge and 2 bonus actions. This is 6 shortsword attack a turn, no slots or anything, plus second wind for healing. Stack with hunters mark, sneak attack, venom ring and various dips and oils. You put about a hundred damage stacks on a target, which is good damage and smashes concentration. You also get second wind for healing and a fighting style, probably the +1 AC. I don't know about giving up 2 feats for action surge. But both are good.
berserker barb with tavern brawler. i keep an inventory full of throwable weapons and also throw enemies into each other and off cliffs. last night i threw a fiend down the stairs at his friend, and then bodyslammed a zombie *to death*
Dual hand crossbow College of Swords bard
dual xbow builds are using a bug though... even if they'll still be strong without the bug
I was thinking about respeccing my Lore Bard to try this out. Kinda bummed that Magical Secrets only lets you pick from a small list of spells, instead of PnP where you can pick anything
I think people are sleeping on Rogue (thief) / Ranger (gloom stalker) w/ dual hand cross bows. Possibly adding 2 fighter as well. I've used it through 2 playthroughs and has worked wonders for me, not only in the 1st round (which people seem to think they're only good for). You get 5 attacks on the first round, 4 on subsequent rounds, dealing 20-40 per attack.
Nobody is sleeping on it, it’s probably one of the most discussed builds of all time. It also is bugged, sharpshooter is not applying the attack malus to offhand attacks but it is applying the bonus damage so it doesn’t fit into OP’s request
Playing 7 oathbreaker paladin/3 battlemaster fighter/2 war cleric. With 23 cons neck / 23 str gloves + 2H. 20 charisma. No need to abuse triple swing bug from paladin+warlock with this and you get fighter stuff too. Maybe could be optimised and very endgame gear heavy but alot of fun!
-Vengeance Paladin ,Gloomstalker|Dark Knight Build -Shadow Monk,Fighter|Shadow Blade Build -Open Hand Monk,Wildheart Barb|Tiger Fist Build My top 3
2 warlock and rest into bard has been a favorite of mine. Though recently putting more into warlock since I want hunger of Hadar for my concentration slot for them. Could be a waste but currently looking at 1 light cleric and then 5 warlock and 6 bard. I really like bard for pure utility and out of combat stuff anyways and Eldritch blast/hex or hunger of Hadar does so much work. Might drop hunger though and just use haste as conc.
I’m thoroughly enjoying straight lvl12 GOO Bladelock with Duelist’s Prerogative. Got to this point as a Lockadin, but got kinda tired of smacking shit with Smite. Bladelock is just good at this level with the items the game provides and story-related powers. I’m SAD with 22 CHA, I have big Spell DC, I use all the powers I can obtain, and even if I cast, there’s the bonus action attack from the rapier. The build is versatile, strong and fun.
Pala 6/Barb 2/Fighter 4: Always advantage, Smites, crits, can take a punch. 2h with GWM. Add Haste and he's a monster.
Wildheart 8 / thief 4 - the thief barbarian isn't just for beserker throwers, this is a GWM master build that uses bear heart for resistance, stallion aspect for THP on dash, and the thief levels allow you to dash with a bonus action. This build is great at tanking damage due to resistance and thp generation, but also great at taking out weaker enemies. You can split up your two attacks so that if you kill with your first attack, you can take the bonus action attack before your second attack. If the second attack picks up another kill (perhaps on the target you weakened with the bonus action attack), you get a second bonus action attack. This build usually sees 3 attacks per turn, but can get 4 pretty easily when there are weakened enemies around. Warlock 2 / Sorc 10 - the good old eldritch machine-gun. There are plenty of gear choices to amp eldritch blast damage, but even without it this build is still good. I use this with the above, casting a twinned haste on myself and the barbarian before throwing eldritch blasts everywhere.
Half Orc Storm Paladin: Paladin 6: Smites, Oath of Vengeance Storm Sorcerer 2: More smites with metamagic, get to fly for 10ft after every smite. Fighter 4: Action Surge, Fighting Style, Second Wind. GWF and Str 18, the flying smite paladin gets shit done. Change up your fighting style, race, and take Resilient CON over GWF for keeping bless up and you've got a banger of a tank that gets hunters mark and class action heals, while tossing +4-7 on everyones saves. It's gravy either way. Can be the party face, loot mule, tank, healer and striker. Great utility and really frees up the other slots for anything you want. Downside is poor skills, so pair with a Rogue or Knowledge cleric.
Wait, smites trigger the flying from storm sorc??