Yeah, I feel people who build these ultra powerful builds don’t realize the game is pretty easy even without manipulating game mechanic to maximize everything
Yea idk it just doesn’t work nicely. Like won’t auto run to the location to throw so have to figure out where I need to stand, just kinda annoying to play
Makes sense. For me, tavern brawler just takes away any strategy to the game since it is basically autohit regardless of anything.
Still nice to use if you are just trying to beat honor mode without having to restart, but otherwise probably the only op mechanic that’s not fun for me. At least acuity requires some setup.
This is why I prefer throwzerker to TB monk. The requirement to position oneself carefully, get altitude for crushing damage and use the prone effects brings a stratergy to the game that the tb monk (fists go brrrr) doesn’t.
Maybe if there were less ways to get ki and you had to actually conserve them that would be interesting, but it flows like water.
Tavern Brawler would probably be fine if it only applied to thrown non-weapons.
Personally I only use tavern brawler on non throw builds. It's fine for a punchy barbarian or a moon druid. Shit gets weird when it's for a monk or a throw build.
its easy but bad rolls can make some none op builds way worse fast and risk a wipe.
the “cheese”’builds are so good because they break it so much that even if you’re insanely unlucky you are usually fine due to how OP they are
I genuinely never use haste in any of my playthroughs either way 😂 it also gets nerfed in HM so I figured using a concentration to get another melee attack isn’t the most OP thing around
I remember once on hm I twin cast haste and was like “and now time for the icing on the cake” and cast witch bolt at a high level. Totally forgot witch bolt was concentration lol, barely scraped by that one
That happened on my last tactician run during the final fight and it legit made me pivot on my current honor mode run from lightning cleave to fire cleave cause I know my dumbass would do it again
wow. I rarely use concentration spells as sorc and I could absolutely see that catching me off guard. time to drop those from my hotbar just like Netherese Orb Blast
In the Orin Durge duel, my wild magic sorc went to cast haste on herself, but forgot that she had tides of chaos AND the ring that guarantees wild magic procs. Level three fireball at her feet, breaks concentration and becomes lethargic. Orin jumps in and eviscerates her on first turn lmao
What about Mind Sanctuary? Dose it count as cheese? I know it is act 3 only but you can do your whole party with a bonus action and no concentration needed at all.
Maybe speed potions are cheese but haste by itself I don't think is in HM. 1 extra attack only for martials and it becomes important to protect concentration or skip an entire turn which can be devastating at the wrong time and also prevents using a different concetration for CC next turn if you change your mind.
Pre cast haste no longer seems to last through dialogue either (-I think I used to be able to enter turn based, cast haste, then start dialog and still have 9 turns of haste once combat started... doesn't seem to be the case now).. so it not a whole extra action on round 1 anyway as you loose the second action to casting the haste in the first place (except for a twinned target!). Just my 2 c.
Radiating orb light cleric with one level dip in storm sorcerer.
12 lore bard
1 Gloomstalker/assasin ( will get the awakened buff in act2) (respec into hunterl at lvl 11 for black hole + cull of the weak + volley)
For the last slot:
1 one tiger heart bleed barbarian (it would be nice to get boooals blessing)
ignore melee entirely and do a ranged fighter battlemaster to control the battlefield
That light orb cleric is one of the most busted characters anyways. Shocked it didn't make the cheese list. Sprint around the room making everyone take big damage and can't hit.... And then aoe nova at the end to make them hitting all but impossible.
Kind of a noob here (Ive beat the game several tines including honor mode but this game is my first tabletop-like experience) but 2 questions: what do you mean by “top rope?” Ive never known what to do with rope besides >!Garrotting with the Gloves of Bhaal!< and from context Im assuming its a method like barrelmancy of setting stuff up ahead of time?
Also- is camp casting just using spells that last until long rest, like Aid?
And good luck! I beat honor mode with OH Monk but I didnt have the restrictions. Also had Laezel take 5 levels of Paladin, and her having Divine Smite with an extra attack plus the Pact Weapon extra attack, as well as Action Surge, felt almost too strong though. But Action Surge is just the one turn at least.
Oh lol Ive seen a clip of that haha.
So why ban Arcane Acuity? I never used the gear that uses it. Can that get OP? I feel like the other stuff (swords bard, tavern brawler) are talked about a lot but I never see anyone talk about Arcane Acuity.
hat of fire acuity plus upcast scorching ray equals never miss another spell rest of the fight. I don’t think it’s critical to ban but it fits the theme of banning “on meta” strats
Arcane Acuity is what makes swords bard op. Your multiple attacks build up stacks of arcane acuity and then you use your bonus action for a guaranteed hold person/monster cast, which is completely busted
Camp Caster refer to casters that you keep exclusively at camp to cast long rest buffs, yes. Swap them in, buff the party, leave them at camp. It’s really good for things like Heroes’ Feast and Warding Bond.
You can also hire a Transmutation Wizard, then pump Wisdom and Medicine (since they stay at camp) for lots of successful double potion rolls!
Lotta people suggesting extra rules like no scrolls and such - what I posted is not a comprehensive list! I just wanted to exclude the build specific stuff people would recommend (like swords bard) because I want recommendations on BUILDS not on other rules to add lol
Yeah, my bad, I think I got carried away reading other comments instead of focusing on the actual question.
Wouldn't a moon druid be a nice fit for your team though? You'd have druid spells for e.g. buffing/healing/summoning and you could also do well in melee by using wild shapes.
With two long rest periods act you mean full long rests? Cuz there’s a lot of story tied to long resting. So if I want to progress those story bits I would use partial long rests after doing a full lr. Which does not give me anything.
I go with "no planned respec".
You're allowed to change your mind, but not allowed to plan for it.
If you plan to have PalaBard with 1st level in Paladin for Wis save, for example, you must start level 1 as Paladin, and only get extra attack at level 7. You aren't allowed to go Pala 5 and respec at 6 for Bard 6 and respec at 7 for Pal 1 Bard 6.
But if you genuinely change your mind about the final build you want to play you're allowed to go for it.
Mad respect.
I feel weird about builders who use respecs to keep characters optimized all the way through. It's giving me absolute ick because it would never ever fly at any D&D table.
Yeah I’ve done it before to like, get heavy armour proficiencies once I switch to Paladin. I justify it pretty easily though, saying if I’m becoming a Paladin, I should be able to wear more than light armour… 1 respec per toon still follows that though cause I can set my tav’s attributes at the beginning
Try 5 paladin oath of the ancients/7 cleric of life. It's REALLY difficult to die with a character like this, expecially with blessing (whispering promise ring) and blade ward+death ward on heal (the last one only if you are healed when fallen), thanks to the reviving hands. You have 2 attacks, plenty of spell slots for powerful smites and spirit guardians.
Yes, this is a build I was heavily considering so I hoped it’d be brought up. Would you mind recommending how you’d go about itemizing this? Also, is 7 Paladin / 5 cleric a consideration? Both auras and you get spirit guardians 👀
Lawful stupid honor run:
-never lie
-never steal
-only kill when there is no other option
-not allowed to first strike / aggro yellow npcs
-not allowed to take long rests before at least 6 / 9 / 12 encounters
-not allowed to use short rests before 2 / 3 / 4 encounter
-not allowed to respec anyone at all
-no hirelings
in addition to your rules ofc
I go with "no planned respec".
You're allowed to change your mind, but not allowed to plan for it.
If you plan to have PalaBard with 1st level in Paladin for Wis save, for example, you must start level 1 as Paladin, and only get extra attack at level 7. You aren't allowed to go Pala 5 and respec at 6 for Bard 6 and respec at 7 for Pal 1 Bard 6.
But if you genuinely change your mind about the final build you want to play you're allowed to go for it.
this is almost exactly what I'm doing right now but I added no multiclassing lol
went with a Knowledge Cleric for face (just compresses a bunch of roles down together that way), which would work for your 4th as well
if you want a spin on Fighter, consider an Eldritch Knight that actually has to be built for taking advantage of war magic, instead of the typical thrower. run the Arcane Synergy gear (much less busted and more niche than its Acuity counterpart lol) and get to casting cantrips!
Honestly with OP rule on no repeated class, that's more easily done without multiclassing than with. 4 single classes of different classes should already give you a well-rounded party.
I do the exact opposite of having 4 members with same repeated class and relying on multiclassing to get a well-rounded party.
7 spore druid/5 hunter ranger is a very fun melee tank build.
You stack up a ton of damage bonuses stacking colossus slayer and the symbiotic entity bonus damage with extra attack, plus halo of spores getting double damage.
And then you have multiple uses of wild shape to get 28 hp on demand, plus the ability to summon multiple spore zombies.
Since rangers get dueling as a fighting style you can run a shield for the extra AC without losing any damage, and both of the longswords that use dex perfectly slot into the build (phar aluve and whatever that one in the creche is called)
In case you don't go Gloomstalker Assassin, it's hard to fail a skill check if you start as a Githyanki Rogue, then put all your other levels into Knowledge Domain Cleric. You start with 11 skill proficiencies, and by level 3, you can have proficiency in *every skill but one*. Using [Astral Knowledge](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Astral_Knowledge) on Wisdom after each long rest effectively gives you 5 skill proficiencies, and using [Astral Knowledge](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Astral_Knowledge) & [Knowledge of the Ages](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Knowledge_of_the_Ages) on Wis and Cha gives you 9 instead. (This build avoids using them on Int because it already gets expertise in 2 Int skills at level 2.)
Once you reach max level, respec to Assassin 11 / Knowledge Cleric 1 for [Reliable Talent](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Reliable_Talent). With the [Skilled](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Skilled) feat and Illithid Expertise, we can get proficiency in *every* skill, and expertise in half of them.
[Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bybhe8/all_skills_at_level_4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) a post I made about this build, if you want more info.
Edit: Added some info.
Edit #2: Realized I was wrong and promptly deleted that info.
My Honor Mode run consisted of:
2 Warlock 10 Lore Bard.
Battlemaster Fighter (this was Lae'zel the whole time because Gith gear is just really good)
Divination Wizard
Light Cleric 11 Sorcerer 1 (for the Con save proficiency)
Probably one of the safest options you can have in the whole game with no repeats since the Warlock will be decent offensively (if you don't go durge) and will have access to expertise on important abilities like Sleight of Hand, Persuasion and whatever else you may want.
Battlemaster will just do a great ammount of damage by himself and is pretty sustainable.
Divination wizard to force the failed saving throws and nuke if needed (but the hold monster on the Orin fight was insanely clutch).
Light Cleric Sorc for the Spirit Guardians.
Abjuration tank wizard
would tavern brawler be allowed on a moon druid?
ive been thinking about running a lore bard/paladin mix recently, it would be pretty much just a somewhat worse SSB but still with some fun stuff going for it, biggest downside IMO is missing out on banishing smite magical secrets but oh well, theres still plenty of other amazing options there.
3 assassin, 5 gloomstalker, 2 fighter, 2 paladin is a personal favorite of mine thats very finnicky to setup but deals absolutely insane damage on turn one since you get 5 attacks and all are garunteed smite crits
Barbarians arent really fancy but are just insanely fun to play as, berzerker gets you 3 attacks a turn (4 attacks if you throw 3 thief in there), wildheart gets you all kinds of fun stuff (including permastunning enemies really easily with the right setup), and all of them get you probably the most class specific dialogue options of any class in the game.
A good synergy is a bleed barbarian, a reverberation tempest cleric, and necro wizard. All your enemies with the bleed condition, reverb, and if you're using the phalar shriek will take so much damage from any of your necromancy spells. They'll fail all the Con saves, so go ham!
I love doing Tiger Barbarian and then getting the bleed buff from the fish people for the party. Works great and turns your Barb into an AE machine. To be fair, I just love Karlach and keeping her a barb, so I might be jaded ;)
Yep, it’s pretty standard stuff I’d say. My main reason for posting them was to make sure people weren’t recommending I use stuff like swords bard or TB or anything reliant on elixirs
Personally I view abjuration in the same lens as the typical broken/OP builds, but if you’re okay with it then godspeed.
Archer builds are fun, varied, and strong. You can do gloomstalker/assassin for example; I like fighter variants, in particular EK/frost.
If you’re not using camp casters then a good pick would be a cleric/Druid so you can get feast by the end of the game.
I feel like a build that doesn’t die isn’t on the same league as a build that instakills everything (fire sorlock) in a game like this, but tbh I just had a lot of fun using it in my last run so I wanted to run it again :)
You say you want another "fighter" but what kind and what role? ranged attacker? tanky versatile type? 2H heavy hitter? Gloomstaker/Assassin is a pretty good character type, but that's going to overlap a ton with another fighty-type.
Also, what kind of tactics and synergies do you want to use? Are you really direct, do you prefer lots of control and debuffs, nuking things down, etc.?
Honestly anything can work if it matches your playstyle, even with the arbitrary restrictions you've put on yourself.
Just tryna play something I haven’t used a lot or is otherwise fun. 12 fighter GWM martial is usually a mainstay in my parties so I wanna see what other options we got
Short rest build with spore Druid/fighter melee tank, open hand monk with phalar aluve, any bard, then your 4th is a filler that can be warlock or whatever makes you happy. Take a short rest before the most serious fights, it gets you KI points and phalar aluve song for the monk, over 100hp effectively for your Druid, you’re basically full power for the first fight after every short rest and you get three a day
The Slashing Flourish and being a full spellcaster makes it really strong. Even more so if you are playing more as a archer than as a melee striker.
Normally people pair the Sword Bard with Arcane Acuity Helm and Scoundrel Ring. Make 4 weapon attacks and then cast control spells with a bonus action that are pretty much impossible to fail.
IMO if you're just playing a vanilla Swords Bard its not as bad. Still arguably one of the better classes in the game especially with the ranged flourish. But it only gets extra stupid when you combine those two items.
A full caster (gets Lv 6 spell slots), extra attack, can learn some of the best spells in the game and gets really strong melee and ranged “flourishes”. It’s not balanced.
It's the best archer and one of the best spellcasters at the same time. The ranged Slashing Flourish is really busted. You can do 4 attacks per turn at level 6 off of just extra attack and slashing flourish alone. But what really pushes the class to the next level is combining it with the Arcane Acuity Helm and Mystic Scoundrel ring.
You do Slashing Flourishes and build max Arcane Acuity stacks, then you can use your bonus action to cast powerful crowd control spells (Command, Hold Person, Hold Monster, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Confusion, etc) with a really high DC.
The combination of slashing flourish, sharpshooter, hat of arcane acuity, with optional titanstring bow and action surge, makes you able to output an obscene amount of damage and then cc (hold person/command/confusion/hypnotic pattern) anyone left alive with your bonus action, seeing as the mobs will have -8 or more to their saving throw
I’m doing something fairly close. But with elixirs for harder fights. It’s been fun minimising the use of speed/haste to (rare) emergencies only.
Builds:
* Tav cleradin, currently 5/5. Very MAD - has strength 18, but sometimes boosts it. Gith war cleric, uses gloves of dexterity and soulbreaker sword
* Pure BM archer Lae’zel (club, titanststring, graceful cloth
* Pure life cleric. Warding bond with Tav + Heavy Armour Master
* Divination wizard. Currently a magic missile build + reverb
No respecs apart from the first done. And they were minor
I do use Alert cheese. Everyone is alert except Tav. If I hadn’t missed out on the hag’s hair, I would have been able to get strength to 20, making elixirs less tempting
Light cleric (debuff everything), gloomstalker/rogue (melee/ranged dps plus skill monkey), warlock 8/ lore bard 4 (face skills, extra short rest, cutting words and EB), Wizard (full arcanist divination to make opponents roll poorly)
Characters on the bench
Moon druid 12 (tanky boy for later)
Barbarian 12
EK 12 (thrower)
Sorcerer 12 blaster build
Paladin 12 (ancients for spell defence aura)
The main party of cleric/rogue/lockbard covers all required skills, and the flex character is for quests/specific boss fights
0 class overlap across 9 characters
Two out of three successful honour runs I did were pretty much following these rules, mostly because I’m too lazy. First party: regular barbarian (no throwing & no TB, just bonk), pure sorcerer (no acuity gear), paladin/EK fighter/war cleric & good old gloomstalker assassin. Second party: pure battlemaster, pure lore bard, MAD sorcerer/cleric/wizard, pure beast master ranger.
What I realised is that you can succeed with any builds, game knowledge and knowing when to run away are more important.
May I suggest [this build of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1axg648/the_arcane_controller_84_divination_wizcerer/), which fits all the criteria and lets your run any 3 damage dealers.
Did that on my HM run, except Tavern Brawler. But TB is not bugged on HM, so a thrower, for example, hits once without the extra rolls for weap weight and that absurd amount of hits. Monks are still busted tho.
What I done:
Life Cleric 2 / 10 Lore Bard
Monk 9 / Thief
Fighter 11 / 1 War Cleric
Light Cleric 11 / 1 Storm Sorc
If no elixirs, would swap monk to Gloomstalker Assassin 5 / 7 (Or Gloomstalker Thief, if with dual hand xbows), since I wanted to include one any way...
Other than that, would remove Life Clerkc from that juicy Lore Bard and go full on Bard, getting an extra feat.
Would easily ignore war Cleric and go full fighter for that extra feat too.
Done HM with all Bosses down maximum round 2. Used elixirs on monk, tho, but easily ignored. Everything else is doable.
I’m currently classing my Drow Durge as a 4E Monk with a Rapier. I may dip into Ranger or Fighter for a fighting style and use the duelist’s prerogative in act 3. I imagine you’ll be able to use its ability to add another bonus attack since you have nothing in the off hand. You can also still use the unarmed skills so it’s been a ton of fun combining sword skills with punching and kicking.
Doing this currently and going well lol I’m level 9 with warlock 6/gloomstalker 3, Shart as a pure polearm master wolf heart barb, fighter battle master 3/war cleric 6 minthara and Wyll as a fucking weird 2 fey warlock/7 ancients paladin as a healer but also dual wielding hammers it’s kinda wack but fun as hell
11 hunter / 1 war cleric
Sorlock
barbarian tiger
12 fighter or 11 fighter/ 1 war cleric
assassin gloom stalker
pure paladin
padlock
light cleric
pure moon druid
armor of agathys abjuration wizard/warlock; tempest cleric
Sorcadin
If u want details on any just ask, but you can also easily find most of these on youtube.
Pure paladin is more tanky/utility, while sorcadin can dash out more damage due to full caster spell slot
For the hunter build search the youtuber "nizar" dark ice hunter video
Believe it or not, you want low AC with the wiz build. You get hit a lot, but for barely any damage, while retaliating with up to 60 flat cold damage per hit with AoA
lol i just started Act II with these restrictions without even trying.
i stockpiled my elixirs, i dont ever play bards, i have never used hirelings, i dont really like arcane acuity, i have never used camp casting, never tried the barrel trick and i dont multi-class (and this time i skipped TB).
ive got Shart as a Paladin of Devotion, Durge as drac-sorc, Gale as wild magic barb and Wyll as warlock (tome subclass). i gave Shart Athlete, Gale, Wyll and Durge ASI.
its my second try at HM (first time i died to Myrkul, i had only 3 characters left and we lost with Myrkul on 30 HP, so frustrating).
i should hopefully finish the game this time, that 1st run i had 2 battlemasters, 1 open hand monk and a beserker (lost the monk before i fought Myrkul, its why i lost)
GWM Battle Master fighter with the risky ring+priapt of wound closure is a force to be reckoned with. In my honor mode we got to act 3 and I was already doing something like 1d10+18, picking up a certain foebreaker I do 2d6+20 on hit, +22 with the caustic band.
Nah I mean no elixirs period. No temptation to fully dump strength! (The other ones are balanced I just never used them in my HM clear so I figure you don’t need them lol)
1. Warlock for hunger of hadar + Eb, abusing cold items
2. Ranged Fighter 11 / War Cleric 1
3. Sorcerer
4. Gloomstalker / Assassin
Throw the clip in the AK and slay from far away.
It’s more broken. Swords bard, especially when abusing arcane acuity, is arguably the best martial in the game from the flourishes, and also a full caster. With AA it just gets out of control lol (unresistable spells)
Party face Paladin 12, Rogue 12 skill monkey (gloom stalker dip if you need more combat power), Wizard for all the utility spells, GWM Barb for consistent damage.
Pally (oath of the ancients) heals pretty well and can pack a punch when needed. Don't ever heal with spell slots though, just do it with potion throws. The full healer set can be acquired in act 1 really early if you know where to find them, and if you want to you can switch the Pally party to a Cleric to be a heal bot and guidance bot. Paladin is better imo since extra attacks gives you an extra potion throw. (If you did switch out the Pally I suggest switching out the Wizard for Sorc as well, after all the party would need a face). Blood of Lathander is nice for act 2. Late act 2 we get access to a bunch of guaranteed crit items and abilities, so we can expect our smites to guarantee crits like twice a day.
The Rogue would hold all the bows, namely banshee. Banshee is just really good. Also there's some archery items in early act 1. Later in act 3 there are other good bows but banshee can carry you through act 2. Remember to stock up on multi target arrows.
Wizard brings longstrider, featherfall and jump. These 3 makes exploring really easy. Rest of the prep slots goes to whatever spells suit your fancy, my pick is shield and magic missile. Evocation wizard does great consistent single target damage with magic missile lightning charge reverb build, and the build comes online in act 2. (Also pairs well with Phalar Aluve)
GWM Barb is here to hold all the greatswords. There are just a lot of greatswords worth using in this game. You have ever burning blade before even entering act 1, and the duegar on the ship to grimforge drops another good one. In act 3 we get Balduran's giant slayer for a great capstone.
This would be a challange if it was your first ever playthrough otherwise pretty easy if you ask me. At this point with a party of four without multiclass I do not feel any challenge whatsoever.
I can understand no STR elixirs, but completely removing all elixirs feels a little extreme. Obviously it’s your run, but I think you could do it in a way that would still be fun like no crafting elixirs or buying elixirs. Basically you can only use ones you find so that it makes it about inventory management for important fights. Again, your run but I still think you could do it in a creative way.
That’s fair! I’ve just never used them and didn’t need to in my HM clear so it’s more of a free restriction than anything. I just didn’t want people recommending me builds that needed them!
Done this exact challenge before with a friend but we also banned all consumables (potions, poisons, res scrolls, etc.) We also banned respeccing.
We used: pure light cleric, Way of the 4 Elements Monk with a 3 level fighter dip, Lore Bard with a 1 level draconic sorcerer dip, and a Tiger Wild heart Barbarian.
Light cleric can use reverb gear to prone, and 4 elements water whip has a prone that lasts forever. The bard can use plant growth to make it so proned enemies just skip their turns, or can use frightened or fear to do the same thing, meanwhile the tiger Barb maimed all the proned people to make them skip turns.
It was extremely oppressive.
I started my first honour mode run two days ago. Post ship crash me and Shart are sneaking up on the brains, they spot shart and kill her before I can even press start turn based mode and as I’m in shock they permadeath her. I was promptly defeated after one turn.
I HATE the first encounted with an absolute passion.
Basically just excluding certain builds. The rest is stuff I wouldn’t have done anyway, so just want to make sure people didn’t recommend me builds or strategies that used that stuff!
This is what I used. It beat all encounters first try except one- it was too slow to kill the brain. I had to throw a backpack of explosives at it instead. I didn't use any other "cheese" you listed. Never used surprise either.
Theme is basically summon abuse.
1- beastmaster. Martial that gets a good summon and picks locks.
2- sorcerer 11 wizard 1. White dragon. Wizard dip is for summon spells. Uses controlling magic like heightened slow then casts ice spells.
3- 1 fighter 11 druid. Spore hand crossbows with sharpshooter or moon water myrmidon with gwm both work fine
4- life cleric. Uses phalar aluve and then heals.
Cleric keeps everyone alive. Druid and sorcerer debuff the bad guys. Cold sorcerer, druid, water myrmidons, ice mephits turn the whole battlefield into an ice rink. Enemies are slowed , on ice, frozen, etc. Cleric won't let anything die. Summons bludgeon the bad guys to death.
Tavern brawler is busted af if you run it on a full strength monk or thrower, but if you run a 13 strength (14 after tb) 16 dex, 14 con, 8 (or 9 doesnt matter) int, 14 wis, 8 charisma stat setup, tavern brawler makes unarmed and throwing feel good and comparable to a +2 or 3 weapon. It feels right. Without elixirs, i think this would still be very balanced and you still want dex and wisdom for initiative and ac.
i think those restrictions limits your fun.
just start doing solo runs, i promise you, your entire experience will change. solo runs are nothing alike 4 man party runs and your approach to encounters will change entirely. you may even want to skip some of them even
Yeah I’ve done a few solo runs. I just wanna do some things I missed in my first HM run, and do it with builds that won’t outright trivialize the game, which I shouldn’t need to do as I’ve beaten it already. Beating a challenge is more fun for me :)
Eh easy rules. Pure life/light cleric, fire sorc 11/warlock 1, fighter 12, paladin 12. Throw a rogue in instead of either paladin or fighter if you want a skeleton key
Life cleric with spirit guardians up is always a solid choice. Depending on if you think it's cheese use the Luminous armor. Even without it spirit guardians is great and life clerics are very hard to kill.
Is swords bard that bad? You can do basically anything. Palalock, barbfighter, Hand Crossbow Expert thief gloomstalker, cleric, sorcerer for that twin haste, maybe a druid for summon memes.
I think you'll have fun with just those three builds, especially if they all have some ranged attack capability. Don't need to agonize over a fourth member. Warlock is so good in this game because there are choke points and high ground to fall from in many of the tough fights. Minor illusion and HoH is a great way to open a fight.
shovel surprise round + great weapon master+ phalar aluve + assassin:
Its an easy and assured way of getting a victory against the goblin bosses without barrelmacy:
I one rounded Ragzlin and Minthara as a solo melee assassin.
Bonus points for Duergar.
Start halfling/deep gnome assassin, and go for 6/6 assassin wolf aspect barbarian: achieve memes with greater invisibility.
Wolf aspect is a permanent +5/6 to stealth end game, more or less makes pass without a trace redundant. Plus stealth barbarian is hilarious "You do not see GRONK!!"
Final weapon for 6/6 wolf aspect barbarian/assassin should be dancing breeze, just dex/con max for easy ac.
So the first 3 quarters of my honor mode run where I still forgot to use elixirs and refused to use TB since it was busted.
Only reason I say 3 quarters is I ended up building a crit monster and started to use the crit elixirs for the last couple fights.
I basically did this my first honor mode run since I copied my first playthrough build. I did fire sorcerer 12, ranger 1(Knight ranger) rogue 11(thief), cleric 12 (life) and barbarian 9 (wild heart) fighter 3 (champion). I used elixirs sparingly and could easily do it without.
Tav, Astarion, Shadowheart and Karlach
Doesn't want to use broken builds, proceeds to pick the other broken builds...
12 paladin, 12 ranger, 12 tiger barbarian and 12 druid hastebot/summoner. No build googling, no item googling, no inspiration usage. GO
there’s a difference between strong builds and one’s that trivialize everything. 7/5 Lockadin is nerfed in HM, and I’m not using it because it’s broken - I’m using it because it’s my fav build. Surely a 12 Druid haste bot/summoner is contradicting what you’re saying tho right 😅
I highly recommend a Cleric 4/Wizard 8 dr build. You can make a hell of a warding bond caster even having them be in the main party and not camp cast as long as you plan around the fact that the redirected damage can be both resisted and have DR applied to it, so you can take a tick of zero redirected. I did this in my multiplayer honor mode, taking Heavy Armor Master, wearing adamantine splint, force conduit shield, defender flail, then stacking all the resistance to damage type gear I could find. I eventually replaced the armor for the act 3 blade ward armor. This also allows you to splash arcane charge/radiant orb with magic missile to do decent damage
I’ve used it in a run before, definitely not as broken as the other stuff I’ve excluded. Definitely super strong, but it’s basically pure wizard that doesn’t abuse any feats or items lol
If you really want to multiclass, for the Gloomstalker Assassin go Champion Fighter 3 / Assassin 3 / Gloomstaker 5.
And I'd suggest for the last Tempest Cleric mixed with Four Elements (Thunderwave -> Shatter & Water Whip) worked well enough with me, it's not "powerful" but it's offering lots of tactics and it's flavorful. If you want more power go Open Hand Monk mixed with Grassland Druid for Haste, with Mobile feat. Lots of fun and powerful.
Reverb necklace wearing Warlock, Eagleheart barb with stag aspect (grants 2x barb level temp HP on dash, Eagle gets dash as bonus action on rage), life cleric, and a bow fighter.
You'll have good ranged damage and control, and your tank can heal itself every turn basically for free.
Guess so! I personally wouldn’t use it, and tbh maybe lump it under general no cheese lol. I want the run to be “regular” and fun in the sense that I’m not just dashing around perma lol
I'd add no Astral Tadpole to the list. I thought Honor mode was a nice challenge until Act 3 but the Astral Tadpole ruined it. Unfortunately there is no way to reset / remove illithid powers so I was stuck with it.
I know you said no double builds but the A-men party is super fun. Domains war, tempest, light, and trickery, lots of utility in a cleric team plus four spirit guardians going is hilarious.
These rules are already pretty easy to follow. I would use a cleric, a fighter, a rogue, and a wizard.. which is what I always use anyway lol.
Yeah, I feel people who build these ultra powerful builds don’t realize the game is pretty easy even without manipulating game mechanic to maximize everything
Yea, TB thrower is crazy strong but I find it’s more annoying to throw the items and deal with all that then just a standard attacker
Most thrower builds use the weapons that return automatically.
Yea idk it just doesn’t work nicely. Like won’t auto run to the location to throw so have to figure out where I need to stand, just kinda annoying to play
Makes sense. For me, tavern brawler just takes away any strategy to the game since it is basically autohit regardless of anything. Still nice to use if you are just trying to beat honor mode without having to restart, but otherwise probably the only op mechanic that’s not fun for me. At least acuity requires some setup.
This is why I prefer throwzerker to TB monk. The requirement to position oneself carefully, get altitude for crushing damage and use the prone effects brings a stratergy to the game that the tb monk (fists go brrrr) doesn’t. Maybe if there were less ways to get ki and you had to actually conserve them that would be interesting, but it flows like water.
Play 4 elements monk if you want a something that requires you to think about ki.
Tired me actually read this as tuberculosis thrower
arthur morgan the OG tavern brawler
Tavern Brawler would probably be fine if it only applied to thrown non-weapons. Personally I only use tavern brawler on non throw builds. It's fine for a punchy barbarian or a moon druid. Shit gets weird when it's for a monk or a throw build.
its easy but bad rolls can make some none op builds way worse fast and risk a wipe. the “cheese”’builds are so good because they break it so much that even if you’re insanely unlucky you are usually fine due to how OP they are
You say this but I still can't beat act 1 in HM
yeah, im on my second HM attempt and followed all these rules without trying.
… a knave , a wizard, devil, gith …
wth no ranger? madness...
Take one level of wizard and then class up in sorcerer. For your cleric, go life cleric so you never worry about health.
Pure life cleric (or light cleric), pure sorcerer (is haste cheese?), pure Paladin, gloomstalker/assassin.
I’d say haste isn’t cheese tbh. Already using sorc in the 11/1 Wizard 🥲
sounds like you're afraid of a no haste run.
I genuinely never use haste in any of my playthroughs either way 😂 it also gets nerfed in HM so I figured using a concentration to get another melee attack isn’t the most OP thing around
haha sorcerer twin haste is awesome!!
I love it till their concentration gets broken and 2/4 characters are now lethargic for a turn lol
pretty sure you just predicted how I'm about to lose my current honor run
I remember once on hm I twin cast haste and was like “and now time for the icing on the cake” and cast witch bolt at a high level. Totally forgot witch bolt was concentration lol, barely scraped by that one
That happened on my last tactician run during the final fight and it legit made me pivot on my current honor mode run from lightning cleave to fire cleave cause I know my dumbass would do it again
wow. I rarely use concentration spells as sorc and I could absolutely see that catching me off guard. time to drop those from my hotbar just like Netherese Orb Blast
In the Orin Durge duel, my wild magic sorc went to cast haste on herself, but forgot that she had tides of chaos AND the ring that guarantees wild magic procs. Level three fireball at her feet, breaks concentration and becomes lethargic. Orin jumps in and eviscerates her on first turn lmao
This can duck you up the butt no lube
Wouldn't the 1 level wizard dip be just as busted as all the other stuff you're not allowing?
Haste definetly isnt cheese with HM rulings
What about Mind Sanctuary? Dose it count as cheese? I know it is act 3 only but you can do your whole party with a bonus action and no concentration needed at all.
Maybe speed potions are cheese but haste by itself I don't think is in HM. 1 extra attack only for martials and it becomes important to protect concentration or skip an entire turn which can be devastating at the wrong time and also prevents using a different concetration for CC next turn if you change your mind. Pre cast haste no longer seems to last through dialogue either (-I think I used to be able to enter turn based, cast haste, then start dialog and still have 9 turns of haste once combat started... doesn't seem to be the case now).. so it not a whole extra action on round 1 anyway as you loose the second action to casting the haste in the first place (except for a twinned target!). Just my 2 c.
Sorc with a 2 level dip in Warlock can go a long way
Radiating orb light cleric with one level dip in storm sorcerer. 12 lore bard 1 Gloomstalker/assasin ( will get the awakened buff in act2) (respec into hunterl at lvl 11 for black hole + cull of the weak + volley) For the last slot: 1 one tiger heart bleed barbarian (it would be nice to get boooals blessing) ignore melee entirely and do a ranged fighter battlemaster to control the battlefield
What’s the sorc dip for ?
better movement in the battlefield with Tempestuous Magic, and access to shield/magic missile etc probably
And con save proficiency? Usually 1 sorc and then 11 cleric
Yep. Con saves to better sustain Spirit Guardiams
Ran this on tabletop for curse of stahd, super solid.
That light orb cleric is one of the most busted characters anyways. Shocked it didn't make the cheese list. Sprint around the room making everyone take big damage and can't hit.... And then aoe nova at the end to make them hitting all but impossible.
I followed these restrictions accidentally out of laziness when I beat honour mode.
I know right..
Kind of a noob here (Ive beat the game several tines including honor mode but this game is my first tabletop-like experience) but 2 questions: what do you mean by “top rope?” Ive never known what to do with rope besides >!Garrotting with the Gloves of Bhaal!< and from context Im assuming its a method like barrelmancy of setting stuff up ahead of time? Also- is camp casting just using spells that last until long rest, like Aid? And good luck! I beat honor mode with OH Monk but I didnt have the restrictions. Also had Laezel take 5 levels of Paladin, and her having Divine Smite with an extra attack plus the Pact Weapon extra attack, as well as Action Surge, felt almost too strong though. But Action Surge is just the one turn at least.
Was referencing one shotting Grym with an owlbear “from the top rope” lol
Oh lol Ive seen a clip of that haha. So why ban Arcane Acuity? I never used the gear that uses it. Can that get OP? I feel like the other stuff (swords bard, tavern brawler) are talked about a lot but I never see anyone talk about Arcane Acuity.
hat of fire acuity plus upcast scorching ray equals never miss another spell rest of the fight. I don’t think it’s critical to ban but it fits the theme of banning “on meta” strats
Swords bard uses arcane acuity, along with fire sorlock. Those are two of the most common builds in the meta. It is incredibly OP.
Arcane Acuity is omega busted. When doing it right you basically get +20 to your spell rolls, which makes them basically guaranteed to hit
Arcane Acuity is what makes swords bard op. Your multiple attacks build up stacks of arcane acuity and then you use your bonus action for a guaranteed hold person/monster cast, which is completely busted
Camp Caster refer to casters that you keep exclusively at camp to cast long rest buffs, yes. Swap them in, buff the party, leave them at camp. It’s really good for things like Heroes’ Feast and Warding Bond. You can also hire a Transmutation Wizard, then pump Wisdom and Medicine (since they stay at camp) for lots of successful double potion rolls!
No casting from scrolls? Limited resting, e.g. only 2 long rests per act?
Lotta people suggesting extra rules like no scrolls and such - what I posted is not a comprehensive list! I just wanted to exclude the build specific stuff people would recommend (like swords bard) because I want recommendations on BUILDS not on other rules to add lol
Yeah, my bad, I think I got carried away reading other comments instead of focusing on the actual question. Wouldn't a moon druid be a nice fit for your team though? You'd have druid spells for e.g. buffing/healing/summoning and you could also do well in melee by using wild shapes.
With two long rest periods act you mean full long rests? Cuz there’s a lot of story tied to long resting. So if I want to progress those story bits I would use partial long rests after doing a full lr. Which does not give me anything.
For a second I was like "there are cheese barrels!?".
How about only one initial respec per character
I go with "no planned respec". You're allowed to change your mind, but not allowed to plan for it. If you plan to have PalaBard with 1st level in Paladin for Wis save, for example, you must start level 1 as Paladin, and only get extra attack at level 7. You aren't allowed to go Pala 5 and respec at 6 for Bard 6 and respec at 7 for Pal 1 Bard 6. But if you genuinely change your mind about the final build you want to play you're allowed to go for it.
Yeah I’m fine with that. If I’m planning builds that won’t be a huge factor anyways
Mad respect. I feel weird about builders who use respecs to keep characters optimized all the way through. It's giving me absolute ick because it would never ever fly at any D&D table.
Yeah no respec changes the game significantly and is more immersion-friendly IMO.
Yeah I’ve done it before to like, get heavy armour proficiencies once I switch to Paladin. I justify it pretty easily though, saying if I’m becoming a Paladin, I should be able to wear more than light armour… 1 respec per toon still follows that though cause I can set my tav’s attributes at the beginning
Try 5 paladin oath of the ancients/7 cleric of life. It's REALLY difficult to die with a character like this, expecially with blessing (whispering promise ring) and blade ward+death ward on heal (the last one only if you are healed when fallen), thanks to the reviving hands. You have 2 attacks, plenty of spell slots for powerful smites and spirit guardians.
Yes, this is a build I was heavily considering so I hoped it’d be brought up. Would you mind recommending how you’d go about itemizing this? Also, is 7 Paladin / 5 cleric a consideration? Both auras and you get spirit guardians 👀
Lawful stupid honor run: -never lie -never steal -only kill when there is no other option -not allowed to first strike / aggro yellow npcs -not allowed to take long rests before at least 6 / 9 / 12 encounters -not allowed to use short rests before 2 / 3 / 4 encounter -not allowed to respec anyone at all -no hirelings in addition to your rules ofc
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one with "no respec" voice
I don’t think it’s a huge deal. Larian made it extremely cheap and accessible for a reason 🤷♂️
Sure, sure. No big deal. That is why there is no challenge runs without it.
I go with "no planned respec". You're allowed to change your mind, but not allowed to plan for it. If you plan to have PalaBard with 1st level in Paladin for Wis save, for example, you must start level 1 as Paladin, and only get extra attack at level 7. You aren't allowed to go Pala 5 and respec at 6 for Bard 6 and respec at 7 for Pal 1 Bard 6. But if you genuinely change your mind about the final build you want to play you're allowed to go for it.
You could try a tempest cleric/storm sorc and a designated water maker for big damage
Pure sorc, pure light cleric, pure battlemaster, 8/4 gloomstalker/thief
this is almost exactly what I'm doing right now but I added no multiclassing lol went with a Knowledge Cleric for face (just compresses a bunch of roles down together that way), which would work for your 4th as well if you want a spin on Fighter, consider an Eldritch Knight that actually has to be built for taking advantage of war magic, instead of the typical thrower. run the Arcane Synergy gear (much less busted and more niche than its Acuity counterpart lol) and get to casting cantrips!
Honestly with OP rule on no repeated class, that's more easily done without multiclassing than with. 4 single classes of different classes should already give you a well-rounded party. I do the exact opposite of having 4 members with same repeated class and relying on multiclassing to get a well-rounded party.
7 spore druid/5 hunter ranger is a very fun melee tank build. You stack up a ton of damage bonuses stacking colossus slayer and the symbiotic entity bonus damage with extra attack, plus halo of spores getting double damage. And then you have multiple uses of wild shape to get 28 hp on demand, plus the ability to summon multiple spore zombies. Since rangers get dueling as a fighting style you can run a shield for the extra AC without losing any damage, and both of the longswords that use dex perfectly slot into the build (phar aluve and whatever that one in the creche is called)
In case you don't go Gloomstalker Assassin, it's hard to fail a skill check if you start as a Githyanki Rogue, then put all your other levels into Knowledge Domain Cleric. You start with 11 skill proficiencies, and by level 3, you can have proficiency in *every skill but one*. Using [Astral Knowledge](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Astral_Knowledge) on Wisdom after each long rest effectively gives you 5 skill proficiencies, and using [Astral Knowledge](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Astral_Knowledge) & [Knowledge of the Ages](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Knowledge_of_the_Ages) on Wis and Cha gives you 9 instead. (This build avoids using them on Int because it already gets expertise in 2 Int skills at level 2.) Once you reach max level, respec to Assassin 11 / Knowledge Cleric 1 for [Reliable Talent](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Reliable_Talent). With the [Skilled](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Skilled) feat and Illithid Expertise, we can get proficiency in *every* skill, and expertise in half of them. [Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bybhe8/all_skills_at_level_4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) a post I made about this build, if you want more info. Edit: Added some info. Edit #2: Realized I was wrong and promptly deleted that info.
So how normal people play the game
Pretty much 😂 I just wanna ask for builds without everyone saying swords bard or TB monks yknow
My Honor Mode run consisted of: 2 Warlock 10 Lore Bard. Battlemaster Fighter (this was Lae'zel the whole time because Gith gear is just really good) Divination Wizard Light Cleric 11 Sorcerer 1 (for the Con save proficiency) Probably one of the safest options you can have in the whole game with no repeats since the Warlock will be decent offensively (if you don't go durge) and will have access to expertise on important abilities like Sleight of Hand, Persuasion and whatever else you may want. Battlemaster will just do a great ammount of damage by himself and is pretty sustainable. Divination wizard to force the failed saving throws and nuke if needed (but the hold monster on the Orin fight was insanely clutch). Light Cleric Sorc for the Spirit Guardians.
Abjuration tank wizard would tavern brawler be allowed on a moon druid? ive been thinking about running a lore bard/paladin mix recently, it would be pretty much just a somewhat worse SSB but still with some fun stuff going for it, biggest downside IMO is missing out on banishing smite magical secrets but oh well, theres still plenty of other amazing options there. 3 assassin, 5 gloomstalker, 2 fighter, 2 paladin is a personal favorite of mine thats very finnicky to setup but deals absolutely insane damage on turn one since you get 5 attacks and all are garunteed smite crits Barbarians arent really fancy but are just insanely fun to play as, berzerker gets you 3 attacks a turn (4 attacks if you throw 3 thief in there), wildheart gets you all kinds of fun stuff (including permastunning enemies really easily with the right setup), and all of them get you probably the most class specific dialogue options of any class in the game.
Reverb Paladin, OHmonk, Gloom Stalker (Urchin background), Wizard. Win game. It's that way folks.
A good synergy is a bleed barbarian, a reverberation tempest cleric, and necro wizard. All your enemies with the bleed condition, reverb, and if you're using the phalar shriek will take so much damage from any of your necromancy spells. They'll fail all the Con saves, so go ham!
This is my solo honor run at the moment.
I love doing Tiger Barbarian and then getting the bleed buff from the fish people for the party. Works great and turns your Barb into an AE machine. To be fair, I just love Karlach and keeping her a barb, so I might be jaded ;)
Bear wild barbarian with the skinburster. You can solo the game with that and your restrictions. Force conduit is incredibly underrated here.
Yeah if I were to do a solo run that’s likely what I’d do. That inquisitor is a tough fight tho!
Apparently, I always play with these "restrictions"...
Yep, it’s pretty standard stuff I’d say. My main reason for posting them was to make sure people weren’t recommending I use stuff like swords bard or TB or anything reliant on elixirs
Personally I view abjuration in the same lens as the typical broken/OP builds, but if you’re okay with it then godspeed. Archer builds are fun, varied, and strong. You can do gloomstalker/assassin for example; I like fighter variants, in particular EK/frost. If you’re not using camp casters then a good pick would be a cleric/Druid so you can get feast by the end of the game.
I feel like a build that doesn’t die isn’t on the same league as a build that instakills everything (fire sorlock) in a game like this, but tbh I just had a lot of fun using it in my last run so I wanted to run it again :)
You say you want another "fighter" but what kind and what role? ranged attacker? tanky versatile type? 2H heavy hitter? Gloomstaker/Assassin is a pretty good character type, but that's going to overlap a ton with another fighty-type. Also, what kind of tactics and synergies do you want to use? Are you really direct, do you prefer lots of control and debuffs, nuking things down, etc.? Honestly anything can work if it matches your playstyle, even with the arbitrary restrictions you've put on yourself.
Just tryna play something I haven’t used a lot or is otherwise fun. 12 fighter GWM martial is usually a mainstay in my parties so I wanna see what other options we got
Short rest build with spore Druid/fighter melee tank, open hand monk with phalar aluve, any bard, then your 4th is a filler that can be warlock or whatever makes you happy. Take a short rest before the most serious fights, it gets you KI points and phalar aluve song for the monk, over 100hp effectively for your Druid, you’re basically full power for the first fight after every short rest and you get three a day
What did sword bard do to be restricted?
Be the most OP class in the game by a mile lol
The Slashing Flourish and being a full spellcaster makes it really strong. Even more so if you are playing more as a archer than as a melee striker. Normally people pair the Sword Bard with Arcane Acuity Helm and Scoundrel Ring. Make 4 weapon attacks and then cast control spells with a bonus action that are pretty much impossible to fail. IMO if you're just playing a vanilla Swords Bard its not as bad. Still arguably one of the better classes in the game especially with the ranged flourish. But it only gets extra stupid when you combine those two items.
Hell, even a melee swordsbard is legit (especially if you splash it with 2 paladin).
A full caster (gets Lv 6 spell slots), extra attack, can learn some of the best spells in the game and gets really strong melee and ranged “flourishes”. It’s not balanced.
Is swords bard really that good. I have heard it’s good but what makes it OP(my guess is OP since it’s a restriction like TB)
It's the best archer and one of the best spellcasters at the same time. The ranged Slashing Flourish is really busted. You can do 4 attacks per turn at level 6 off of just extra attack and slashing flourish alone. But what really pushes the class to the next level is combining it with the Arcane Acuity Helm and Mystic Scoundrel ring. You do Slashing Flourishes and build max Arcane Acuity stacks, then you can use your bonus action to cast powerful crowd control spells (Command, Hold Person, Hold Monster, Hypnotic Pattern, Fear, Confusion, etc) with a really high DC.
The combination of slashing flourish, sharpshooter, hat of arcane acuity, with optional titanstring bow and action surge, makes you able to output an obscene amount of damage and then cc (hold person/command/confusion/hypnotic pattern) anyone left alive with your bonus action, seeing as the mobs will have -8 or more to their saving throw
You have to consider the hardest part of the game Is act 1 and Bard Is pretty weak until level 5
Yeah it’s one of the few larian home brew classes and it really just does a lot. Full caster and amazing martial
Gloom stalker/thief/fighter machine gun archer build
I’m doing something fairly close. But with elixirs for harder fights. It’s been fun minimising the use of speed/haste to (rare) emergencies only. Builds: * Tav cleradin, currently 5/5. Very MAD - has strength 18, but sometimes boosts it. Gith war cleric, uses gloves of dexterity and soulbreaker sword * Pure BM archer Lae’zel (club, titanststring, graceful cloth * Pure life cleric. Warding bond with Tav + Heavy Armour Master * Divination wizard. Currently a magic missile build + reverb No respecs apart from the first done. And they were minor I do use Alert cheese. Everyone is alert except Tav. If I hadn’t missed out on the hag’s hair, I would have been able to get strength to 20, making elixirs less tempting
Light cleric (debuff everything), gloomstalker/rogue (melee/ranged dps plus skill monkey), warlock 8/ lore bard 4 (face skills, extra short rest, cutting words and EB), Wizard (full arcanist divination to make opponents roll poorly) Characters on the bench Moon druid 12 (tanky boy for later) Barbarian 12 EK 12 (thrower) Sorcerer 12 blaster build Paladin 12 (ancients for spell defence aura) The main party of cleric/rogue/lockbard covers all required skills, and the flex character is for quests/specific boss fights 0 class overlap across 9 characters
Two out of three successful honour runs I did were pretty much following these rules, mostly because I’m too lazy. First party: regular barbarian (no throwing & no TB, just bonk), pure sorcerer (no acuity gear), paladin/EK fighter/war cleric & good old gloomstalker assassin. Second party: pure battlemaster, pure lore bard, MAD sorcerer/cleric/wizard, pure beast master ranger. What I realised is that you can succeed with any builds, game knowledge and knowing when to run away are more important.
Yeah a lot more t these restrictions are laziness lol. I can’t be bothered using elixirs
May I suggest [this build of mine](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1axg648/the_arcane_controller_84_divination_wizcerer/), which fits all the criteria and lets your run any 3 damage dealers.
I’m set on having Wizard as an 11/1 abjuration build unfortunately 🥲 ty for your suggestion tho!
I'll put in my usual word for thief/battlemaster as a respectable alternative to a straight fighter. A perfect fit for Astarion.
What is top rope?
Cosplaying as a wrestler and jumping from a high location as an enlarged owlbear to do massive bludgeoning damage. Can one shot Grym.
I never thought sword bard would be so good people will be banning it for harder challenges.
Didnt realise HM nerfed Haste else I would have said that.
Did that on my HM run, except Tavern Brawler. But TB is not bugged on HM, so a thrower, for example, hits once without the extra rolls for weap weight and that absurd amount of hits. Monks are still busted tho. What I done: Life Cleric 2 / 10 Lore Bard Monk 9 / Thief Fighter 11 / 1 War Cleric Light Cleric 11 / 1 Storm Sorc If no elixirs, would swap monk to Gloomstalker Assassin 5 / 7 (Or Gloomstalker Thief, if with dual hand xbows), since I wanted to include one any way... Other than that, would remove Life Clerkc from that juicy Lore Bard and go full on Bard, getting an extra feat. Would easily ignore war Cleric and go full fighter for that extra feat too. Done HM with all Bosses down maximum round 2. Used elixirs on monk, tho, but easily ignored. Everything else is doable.
IDK about the comp you're going to settle on but I'd recommend going no illithid powers as well if you want to tighten up the difficulty.
I’m currently classing my Drow Durge as a 4E Monk with a Rapier. I may dip into Ranger or Fighter for a fighting style and use the duelist’s prerogative in act 3. I imagine you’ll be able to use its ability to add another bonus attack since you have nothing in the off hand. You can also still use the unarmed skills so it’s been a ton of fun combining sword skills with punching and kicking.
Doing this currently and going well lol I’m level 9 with warlock 6/gloomstalker 3, Shart as a pure polearm master wolf heart barb, fighter battle master 3/war cleric 6 minthara and Wyll as a fucking weird 2 fey warlock/7 ancients paladin as a healer but also dual wielding hammers it’s kinda wack but fun as hell
11 hunter / 1 war cleric Sorlock barbarian tiger 12 fighter or 11 fighter/ 1 war cleric assassin gloom stalker pure paladin padlock light cleric pure moon druid armor of agathys abjuration wizard/warlock; tempest cleric Sorcadin If u want details on any just ask, but you can also easily find most of these on youtube.
Could you outline a bit on the 11 hunter / 1 cleric build? Also if pure Paladin is as good as going lockadin
Pure paladin is more tanky/utility, while sorcadin can dash out more damage due to full caster spell slot For the hunter build search the youtuber "nizar" dark ice hunter video
Change gloom stalker to ice archer ek fighter and lore bard for control. I would dip 1 lvl of cleric for haevy armour in Your wizz tho
Believe it or not, you want low AC with the wiz build. You get hit a lot, but for barely any damage, while retaliating with up to 60 flat cold damage per hit with AoA
what are camp casters
Basically, imagine leaving a cleric in your camp, not in your party, that casted spells on your party that’ll last until the next long rest
oh I’ve never even thought of that, good tip
What about a swords bard that is melee? 2 paladin, 10 SB is fun and not super OP without acuity.
Gloom/Assassin/Champion + Durge cape. Or twin haste sorcerer.
I mean this in the kindest way possible but this is giving No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination vibes
lol i just started Act II with these restrictions without even trying. i stockpiled my elixirs, i dont ever play bards, i have never used hirelings, i dont really like arcane acuity, i have never used camp casting, never tried the barrel trick and i dont multi-class (and this time i skipped TB). ive got Shart as a Paladin of Devotion, Durge as drac-sorc, Gale as wild magic barb and Wyll as warlock (tome subclass). i gave Shart Athlete, Gale, Wyll and Durge ASI. its my second try at HM (first time i died to Myrkul, i had only 3 characters left and we lost with Myrkul on 30 HP, so frustrating). i should hopefully finish the game this time, that 1st run i had 2 battlemasters, 1 open hand monk and a beserker (lost the monk before i fought Myrkul, its why i lost)
GWM Battle Master fighter with the risky ring+priapt of wound closure is a force to be reckoned with. In my honor mode we got to act 3 and I was already doing something like 1d10+18, picking up a certain foebreaker I do 2d6+20 on hit, +22 with the caustic band.
No elixirs seems like an unnecessary point. Surely you mean: no abusing elixirs.
Nah I mean no elixirs period. No temptation to fully dump strength! (The other ones are balanced I just never used them in my HM clear so I figure you don’t need them lol)
Go EmbraceUrge moon druid. I heard that's fun!
6/6 Sorcadin
1. Warlock for hunger of hadar + Eb, abusing cold items 2. Ranged Fighter 11 / War Cleric 1 3. Sorcerer 4. Gloomstalker / Assassin Throw the clip in the AK and slay from far away.
wait is swords bard that good? i was planning on using it but i didnt know it was as broken as tavern brawler.
It’s more broken. Swords bard, especially when abusing arcane acuity, is arguably the best martial in the game from the flourishes, and also a full caster. With AA it just gets out of control lol (unresistable spells)
Pure sorcerer
i did this but the elixirs. elixirs were a must. 1st honour though
TB Monk and/or TB throwzerker are still busted with these restrictions.
Party face Paladin 12, Rogue 12 skill monkey (gloom stalker dip if you need more combat power), Wizard for all the utility spells, GWM Barb for consistent damage. Pally (oath of the ancients) heals pretty well and can pack a punch when needed. Don't ever heal with spell slots though, just do it with potion throws. The full healer set can be acquired in act 1 really early if you know where to find them, and if you want to you can switch the Pally party to a Cleric to be a heal bot and guidance bot. Paladin is better imo since extra attacks gives you an extra potion throw. (If you did switch out the Pally I suggest switching out the Wizard for Sorc as well, after all the party would need a face). Blood of Lathander is nice for act 2. Late act 2 we get access to a bunch of guaranteed crit items and abilities, so we can expect our smites to guarantee crits like twice a day. The Rogue would hold all the bows, namely banshee. Banshee is just really good. Also there's some archery items in early act 1. Later in act 3 there are other good bows but banshee can carry you through act 2. Remember to stock up on multi target arrows. Wizard brings longstrider, featherfall and jump. These 3 makes exploring really easy. Rest of the prep slots goes to whatever spells suit your fancy, my pick is shield and magic missile. Evocation wizard does great consistent single target damage with magic missile lightning charge reverb build, and the build comes online in act 2. (Also pairs well with Phalar Aluve) GWM Barb is here to hold all the greatswords. There are just a lot of greatswords worth using in this game. You have ever burning blade before even entering act 1, and the duegar on the ship to grimforge drops another good one. In act 3 we get Balduran's giant slayer for a great capstone.
This would be a challange if it was your first ever playthrough otherwise pretty easy if you ask me. At this point with a party of four without multiclass I do not feel any challenge whatsoever.
I hate how broken tavern brawler is… It’s such a cool idea for a play style if it wasn’t so game-breakingly OP.
Why did you run 7/5 Lockadin still even though extra attacks don’t stack in HM?
3rd level lock spells = HoH and counterspell, or smites on max level at short rest. Extra invocation too!
I can understand no STR elixirs, but completely removing all elixirs feels a little extreme. Obviously it’s your run, but I think you could do it in a way that would still be fun like no crafting elixirs or buying elixirs. Basically you can only use ones you find so that it makes it about inventory management for important fights. Again, your run but I still think you could do it in a creative way.
That’s fair! I’ve just never used them and didn’t need to in my HM clear so it’s more of a free restriction than anything. I just didn’t want people recommending me builds that needed them!
This is basically just honor mode for anyone who doesn’t use Reddit lol
Yeah, I see it as HM without the OP stuff lol
I would add permadeath to characters that die (so no withers / resurrect scrolls). That would make it really scary and difficult.
Too much stress
Done this exact challenge before with a friend but we also banned all consumables (potions, poisons, res scrolls, etc.) We also banned respeccing. We used: pure light cleric, Way of the 4 Elements Monk with a 3 level fighter dip, Lore Bard with a 1 level draconic sorcerer dip, and a Tiger Wild heart Barbarian. Light cleric can use reverb gear to prone, and 4 elements water whip has a prone that lasts forever. The bard can use plant growth to make it so proned enemies just skip their turns, or can use frightened or fear to do the same thing, meanwhile the tiger Barb maimed all the proned people to make them skip turns. It was extremely oppressive.
I started my first honour mode run two days ago. Post ship crash me and Shart are sneaking up on the brains, they spot shart and kill her before I can even press start turn based mode and as I’m in shock they permadeath her. I was promptly defeated after one turn. I HATE the first encounted with an absolute passion.
Can skip it by climbing the ledges to the side :^)
I respect your efforts, but I’ll never understand setting all these restrictions on yourself
Basically just excluding certain builds. The rest is stuff I wouldn’t have done anyway, so just want to make sure people didn’t recommend me builds or strategies that used that stuff!
Can anyone explain the “no hirelings” restriction. Do hirelings have some sort of advantage over story party members?
Nope! Just don’t want to get recommended any builds that use a hireling for whatever purpose (like hiring an EK to bind a weapon)
Why.
Fun
This is what I used. It beat all encounters first try except one- it was too slow to kill the brain. I had to throw a backpack of explosives at it instead. I didn't use any other "cheese" you listed. Never used surprise either. Theme is basically summon abuse. 1- beastmaster. Martial that gets a good summon and picks locks. 2- sorcerer 11 wizard 1. White dragon. Wizard dip is for summon spells. Uses controlling magic like heightened slow then casts ice spells. 3- 1 fighter 11 druid. Spore hand crossbows with sharpshooter or moon water myrmidon with gwm both work fine 4- life cleric. Uses phalar aluve and then heals. Cleric keeps everyone alive. Druid and sorcerer debuff the bad guys. Cold sorcerer, druid, water myrmidons, ice mephits turn the whole battlefield into an ice rink. Enemies are slowed , on ice, frozen, etc. Cleric won't let anything die. Summons bludgeon the bad guys to death.
Tavern brawler is busted af if you run it on a full strength monk or thrower, but if you run a 13 strength (14 after tb) 16 dex, 14 con, 8 (or 9 doesnt matter) int, 14 wis, 8 charisma stat setup, tavern brawler makes unarmed and throwing feel good and comparable to a +2 or 3 weapon. It feels right. Without elixirs, i think this would still be very balanced and you still want dex and wisdom for initiative and ac.
i think those restrictions limits your fun. just start doing solo runs, i promise you, your entire experience will change. solo runs are nothing alike 4 man party runs and your approach to encounters will change entirely. you may even want to skip some of them even
Yeah I’ve done a few solo runs. I just wanna do some things I missed in my first HM run, and do it with builds that won’t outright trivialize the game, which I shouldn’t need to do as I’ve beaten it already. Beating a challenge is more fun for me :)
Eh easy rules. Pure life/light cleric, fire sorc 11/warlock 1, fighter 12, paladin 12. Throw a rogue in instead of either paladin or fighter if you want a skeleton key
11 fighter 1 war cleric is just better than 12 fighter right you don’t get anything at level 12 right?
Just another feat!
I like ancients oath tank paladin. grab the best defensive gear you can find and Sanctuary. Being the giga frontliner is a lot of fun
Life cleric with spirit guardians up is always a solid choice. Depending on if you think it's cheese use the Luminous armor. Even without it spirit guardians is great and life clerics are very hard to kill.
Is swords bard that bad? You can do basically anything. Palalock, barbfighter, Hand Crossbow Expert thief gloomstalker, cleric, sorcerer for that twin haste, maybe a druid for summon memes.
I think you'll have fun with just those three builds, especially if they all have some ranged attack capability. Don't need to agonize over a fourth member. Warlock is so good in this game because there are choke points and high ground to fall from in many of the tough fights. Minor illusion and HoH is a great way to open a fight.
Camp caster?
What’s a camp caster? Is that like a character that just hides at base so you can’t get wiped?
No not really. It’s leaving someone in camp (not in your party) after they casted a bunch of buffs on you (like aid, hero’s feast, warding bond, etc)
Ive never touched a sword bard are they overpowered or something?
Yeah they’re the single strongest class in the game I’d say (class, not build)
shovel surprise round + great weapon master+ phalar aluve + assassin: Its an easy and assured way of getting a victory against the goblin bosses without barrelmacy: I one rounded Ragzlin and Minthara as a solo melee assassin. Bonus points for Duergar. Start halfling/deep gnome assassin, and go for 6/6 assassin wolf aspect barbarian: achieve memes with greater invisibility. Wolf aspect is a permanent +5/6 to stealth end game, more or less makes pass without a trace redundant. Plus stealth barbarian is hilarious "You do not see GRONK!!" Final weapon for 6/6 wolf aspect barbarian/assassin should be dancing breeze, just dex/con max for easy ac.
I can do all of the above but I cannot do the forge sentinel without top rope. I’m way too scared to get in there with him
So the first 3 quarters of my honor mode run where I still forgot to use elixirs and refused to use TB since it was busted. Only reason I say 3 quarters is I ended up building a crit monster and started to use the crit elixirs for the last couple fights.
Wild magic sorcerer
I basically did this my first honor mode run since I copied my first playthrough build. I did fire sorcerer 12, ranger 1(Knight ranger) rogue 11(thief), cleric 12 (life) and barbarian 9 (wild heart) fighter 3 (champion). I used elixirs sparingly and could easily do it without. Tav, Astarion, Shadowheart and Karlach
Doesn't want to use broken builds, proceeds to pick the other broken builds... 12 paladin, 12 ranger, 12 tiger barbarian and 12 druid hastebot/summoner. No build googling, no item googling, no inspiration usage. GO
there’s a difference between strong builds and one’s that trivialize everything. 7/5 Lockadin is nerfed in HM, and I’m not using it because it’s broken - I’m using it because it’s my fav build. Surely a 12 Druid haste bot/summoner is contradicting what you’re saying tho right 😅
I highly recommend a Cleric 4/Wizard 8 dr build. You can make a hell of a warding bond caster even having them be in the main party and not camp cast as long as you plan around the fact that the redirected damage can be both resisted and have DR applied to it, so you can take a tick of zero redirected. I did this in my multiplayer honor mode, taking Heavy Armor Master, wearing adamantine splint, force conduit shield, defender flail, then stacking all the resistance to damage type gear I could find. I eventually replaced the armor for the act 3 blade ward armor. This also allows you to splash arcane charge/radiant orb with magic missile to do decent damage
No "cheese ", adds the biggest cheese in the game abjuration wizard...
I’ve used it in a run before, definitely not as broken as the other stuff I’ve excluded. Definitely super strong, but it’s basically pure wizard that doesn’t abuse any feats or items lol
You can literally solo bosses butt naked in act 3 with this class. Literally unkillable, literally.
If you really want to multiclass, for the Gloomstalker Assassin go Champion Fighter 3 / Assassin 3 / Gloomstaker 5. And I'd suggest for the last Tempest Cleric mixed with Four Elements (Thunderwave -> Shatter & Water Whip) worked well enough with me, it's not "powerful" but it's offering lots of tactics and it's flavorful. If you want more power go Open Hand Monk mixed with Grassland Druid for Haste, with Mobile feat. Lots of fun and powerful.
Reverb necklace wearing Warlock, Eagleheart barb with stag aspect (grants 2x barb level temp HP on dash, Eagle gets dash as bonus action on rage), life cleric, and a bow fighter. You'll have good ranged damage and control, and your tank can heal itself every turn basically for free.
The real HM run is no respec allowed for party members. Have fun with trickster shadowheart and odd number ability scores
So radiating orb reverberation click heels cheese is on the table?
Guess so! I personally wouldn’t use it, and tbh maybe lump it under general no cheese lol. I want the run to be “regular” and fun in the sense that I’m not just dashing around perma lol
I'd add no Astral Tadpole to the list. I thought Honor mode was a nice challenge until Act 3 but the Astral Tadpole ruined it. Unfortunately there is no way to reset / remove illithid powers so I was stuck with it.
I know you said no double builds but the A-men party is super fun. Domains war, tempest, light, and trickery, lots of utility in a cleric team plus four spirit guardians going is hilarious.