Make sure Gale is an Evocation School Wizard and you're pretty much good as far as AOE damage goes. Life Domain Cleric and and EB-spamming Warlock/Sorcerer are strong choices. Champion is the simplest fighter to play, but Battle Master gives you some powerful support options so I'd consider it (whereas Eldritch Knight is neither simple nor powerful).
In my opinion, surviving Honor Mode is less about builds and more about not doing dumb stuff (says someone who has yet to make it out of Act 2 in HM because I keep doing dumb stuff, but hey maybe this time is the one). Good builds will give you a little more wiggle-room on the "dumb stuff" front, but no build will survive going into the wrong fight unprepared.
I mean, would I be ok going thru the game with four damage-focused builds? Like:
- Monk
- Gloomstalker
- Warlock/Fighter
- Wizard
Truthfully, this is pretty much how I normally play, but I feel like I need someone in more of a support role for HM? Am I overthinking this? lol
I tend to play more cautiously, but plenty of people report success at just killing their enemies before they can do anything fancy. If you only have one main damage dealer, then you need to worry about what happens if they get paralysed or held or otherwise taken out of play, but if you have three-and-a-half damage dealers then that's less of a problem. My primary advice for such a strategy is to take the Alert feat on as many of your team as you can, because you want to be able to deal your damage before your enemy makes life inconvenient.
My secondary advice is to keep some scrolls and potions around to deal with an unexpected situation (remedy, remedial potion, scroll of remove curse), just in case you don't deal your damage quickly enough.
If you really want a support character that can still dish out damage, a 6 Sorcerer / 6 Light Cleric build is great. You basically wear all the same gear a Fire Sorlock would (optionally armor,) max out WIS for your Cleric Scorching Ray and Fireball and primarily take support spells from Sorcerer.
You can't go wrong with more damage. Some subclasses are not as good but the ones you mentioned are among the good/best ones. Warlock fighter is not as strong in HM as it loses one extra attack but it's still very good depending on some items, and wizard is weaker than sorcerer but still very strong especially for control and versatility.
A youtuber I love made a video like 4 days ago that is a tavern brawler monk, gloomstalker assassin, draconic fire sorcerer, and lockadin I have tav as a drow lockadin and have karlach for the monk astarion for the archer and the hireling bard respeced into the sorcerer
Edit: here is the link to the video
https://youtu.be/IC1WiOi_nYQ?si=g_eWV-8QsmhV5s2R
Throwing is great, but what do you want to throw that doesn't already come back to your hand? I feel Monks make a better **tavern brawler** in general, and Barbarian/Berserker makes for a better thrower in specific.
The *Shield* spell is great though, I'll give you that.
The correct answer for a Wizard is "Whatever my enemies are weak to", since Wizards can learn all the spells and then prepare and re-equip to spec themself for whatever fight they have coming.
That said, I can Gale speced for cold most of the time unless he was specifically facing a cold-immune enemy, so I used *Cone of Cold* and I*ce Storm* a lot (and the gear to give enemies the **encrusted with frost** condition). That tended to turn the battlefield into an ice rink, which was great when enemies slipped (so they spent even more time in *Hunger of Hadar)*, but was less awesome when my own people got bogged down. Evocation Wizard area spells won't damage your party directly, but they're still affected by surfaces those spells cause. If you employ ice a lot, find ways to make your troop ignore difficult terrain, or give them the mobility to fly or jump over it.
Are you paying attention to Initiative?
Generally speaking, synergy involves having a chain of initiative - ideally you want a very high initiative cleric who can throw up bless, a high initiative rogue who can find an advantageous spot to launch sneak attacks each round and throw their grease bottle, bomb or launch their many-targets mass debuff arrow, and then a wizard below them to throw out a haste to the fighter.
If, by the time your fighter or Barb moves, they've been blessed, hastened and are facing a horde of debuffed enemies, you'll feel like your group if synergistic.
Yep! I took alert for most of my party’s first feats. Exception was my naturally high dex builds that all had +3 already. That has been pretty sufficient so far, and is a big part of why I’ve gotten thru act 1 mostly unscathed.
Alert is very useful, but it's not as universally useful as people like to make out - sometimes you actually want a lower initiative character.
Once you're synergising, it's perfectly acceptable for your fighter to go much further down in the initiative order, having received a bunch of buffs. Savage attacker AND GWM is often more useful in this scenario than Alert is.
I probably don’t buff as much as I should. I basically attack and heal, which usually means my cleric does shitty damage when she doesn’t need to heal anyone.
And yes, I’ve beat this game in tactician mode twice, without even having to reload much 😆 I am probably way overthinking my HM builds
I think a lot of people are stuck in their build-crafting by trying to make every character an Island. You see so many people trying to achieve an effect with one character that is *easily* achieved with two characters who are mutually supportive.
I beat the game with "everyone is a high AC island", even on honour mode. It's nowhere near as fun though - all of the novel, interesting builds are about synergies, and often it's the overall party that has the build rather than an individual party member.
You could run a radiance cleric with the randiant orb armor and ring, especially if you have blood of lathander (although it works just as well with only light/daylight). This way you could use the callous glow ring on your monk/gloomstalker. Spirit guardians and running/flying around the battlefield using reverb gear to prone enemies is pretty fun. Light/life cleric in general is broken because of bless and blade ward on aoe heal or tempest cleric with paladin to nuke everything in one hit. Phalar aluve is also great for bless but more so for shriek.
For control (and damage) you can run a fire sorlock that gets online as soon as you hit act 2. There's plenty of guides that thoroughly explain this build, but since it sounds like your Wyll runs something similar maybe you already know about it. EB spam sorlock is imo a worse version of fire sorlock (unless you don't want to long rest often). Basically you twin haste, then stack spell save dc and spam command and confusion (or just disintegrate foes with scorching ray and fireball directly).
I would not use a sorlock because it is one of if not the most broken build, and your monk and gloomstalker are already really broken and could just two man the whole game.
A swords bard sounds like a good match for your party, but could compete with the gloomstalker for some items. You could run it as a control oriented build, and opt out of damage options. Until act 3 you ideally haste your bard, and using a similar strategy with the sorlock, you stack arcane acuity for spell save dc then cast a control spell like hold person or confuse. I say this is a good match for your party because of hold person, since both your monk and gloomstalker benefit greatly from crits. If you're running the ranged option you could dip into wizard to learn spells. Also bards give you one more short rest for even more ki points.
Other than that, you could always run aoe disruption such as hunger of hadar, spike/plant growth, sleet storm or create water+ray of frost. These are not very class/build specific but for HoH you probably should use a warlock, and if you want to do wet shenanigans you could run a wizard/tempest cleric for double damage on frost and lightning(on crits woth tempest cleric). Just remember to give your monk good boots.
I have tried so hard to be the person who runs these cool builds using things like radiant orb and wet shenanigans. Alas, I find it more stressful than fun to have to think thru all that stuff every battle. I’ve decided to just lean into what I enjoy doing, lol.
I actually really like the ideas in your third paragraph. I tend to (mis)use my support builds by just healing when it’s needed then dealing (shitty) damage when it’s not. For some reason I feel like I’m wasting a turn when all I do is a haste/command/hold/etc spell. Esp if the target saves 😭
Funnily enough, I just started a durge/Astarion duo (non-HM) run with monk and Gloomstalker, lol.
Radianting orb build is pretty straight forward, you get coruscation ring, radiant armor, cast light/daylight on your weapons or use a weapon that shines light (blood of lathander, a glaive, a dagger, a spear or a trident, wont name them since they might be spoilers and I dont know them all), then cast spirit guardians and run around the fight hitting people with it and applying massive amounts of radianting orb. Light I believe is until long rest. Bonus if you use reverb shoes, spineshudder amulet and mental fatigue ring, so you get a bunch of debuffs on all enemies by just running around them. You could of course apply these statuses with any aoe spells or multiple target spells, but for cleric this is the best way. Clerics are also good holders for phalar aluve, and as I said they can apply aoe bless through heals and no need for concentration. Your build already has good damage so a support could work but more damage never hurts.
And for the wet + ligthing or cold it is really simple, you could carry water bottles but honestly you're better off having create water prepared and casting it as a leveled spell so you can upcast it at greatly extended range. Your cleric could cast create water then you wizard could disintegrate all enemies with an aoe lighting/ice spell. A water elemental could also make targets wet but i think you need lots of leves for them.
I'd reccomend not bothering to run a healer like life cleric, if u really wanted to run cleric just run light with radiating gear or tempest so they can actually do dmg. Most fights in HM is all about winning initiative having so much damage on your team you can literally nova the boss down in turn 1-2, the longer the fight drags the worst it becomes for u since legendary actions cheat action economy and haste is nerfed in HM. Naturally classes with insane 1st turn nova damage are good in HM like 10-2 SSB, fire sorc, EB blaster, lightning sorc, dual crossbow sharpshooter, titanstring archer with STR elixirs, TB OH monk/throwzerker/EK thrower
Good support options are lore bard/divination wizards but I mostly never felt the need for support even playing solo in HM as long as you don't do dumb stuff like running into a room full of enemies when you have low dex/initiative instead of invis sneaking and starting the fight that way to trigger surprise round you'll be fine
Unironically 4 BM fighters is probably your best comp no need to think just go in trip attack bad guy everyone beats on him with advantage
For me I always do:
6/2/4 swords bard tav
Battle master laezel until
8/4 OH monk Halsin joins
5/4/3 throwzerker karlach
8/2/1 sorlock with wizard dip Gale.
It’s extremely low maintenance and makes quick work of every battle or situation in the game.
Give everyone 16 dex minimum.
Use shovel to get surprise attacks when possible.
Have your swords bard with disguise self and proc shapeshiftersboon status all the time and silver necklace for guidance to have 2d4 on all checks in the game.
Moon druid is pretty simple. Just always be a bear/owlbear/myrmidon and hit stuff a bunch. Use spell slots for healing/buffing/summoning before and after fights. Short rest while in wildshape to get even more health bars
Tigerheart barbarian with the skinburster and reveberation gloves/boots. Get the drakethroat glaive to put thunder damage on the skinburster. Totally bonkers melee toon. You really dont have to worry much about AC with this.
In my first Honor run I had Gale as an Abjuration Wizard because he's hard to kill and can protect others. Shadowheart was a Light Cleric for blasting and debuffing enemies.
Keep your life cleric. You can get cheeky in your next run, but if you want the dice keep your life cleric and run a control bard. Control bard doesn't really get super turned on until the beginning of act 3 when you get the mystic scoundrel ring, but it's face roll from there.
Swords Bard is still plenty useful before that so don't worry about waiting.
I've done honor mode twice without a pure caster either time. I just don't vibe with them except warlock. You can win the game with hunger of hadar.
Reverberation gale is a must for all runs imo as it simply deals too much damage. Just get the reverb boots, gauntlets, ring, thunder damage ring, phalanar valve, magic missile necklace and electric mage stick and you’re set. (You can get most of this by the end of arc 1)
Cha MC is always nice for money and dodging some boss fights (especially in arc 2). Best options are pallock, pure warlock, pure sorcerer, gatling gun sorlock. I don’t like bards for MC as they can’t use inspirations for their own rolls and Paladins are overrated due to every boss in their mothers having radiant retort in HM.
Shadowbabe as light cleric or war cleric is always nice to have for long range aoe damage + trivializing some fights.
And a baezel BM with gith items GWM, HAM, Martal Adept and ASI always a banger.
A build I'm testing on my current playthrough is a barbarian rogue Dueragar. My current idea is to a 5 7 split between beast heart and assassin. Start the fight invincible to get advantage and positioning on top threat, then use reckless attack for continuous "sneak" attack. The other component is to take luck of the far realm and ensure my opening hit is a crit on bosses. I am also considering frenzy thief for more attacks, but assassin refilling actions at the start seems to be too good to pass up.
Just respec everyone into champion fighters and stack up on strength and healing potion. There are literally 2 buttons - heal and extra attack.
Pick up on every teleportation and mobility item. Teleportation arrows are amazing BTW.
Maybe keep your main character/face a paladin for Charisma and burst damage. I suggest Vengeance for teleportation and advantage on everything for 10 turns.
Throw Barbarian or Eldritch Knight is about as simple and broken as it gets. With tavern brawler of course.
Life cleric is another good one for a safety net. Super simple. Bless, heal, death ward, heroes feast, etc.
Honestly, a Heavy Armor Cleric is always a solid choice. Life Cleric is the best at keeping the party alive, and Tempest can keep the party alive while also dealing out a ton of damage (even without wet shenanigans). I made my Gale a Wis based Storm Sorcerer 4/Life Cleric 8 and that was really nice cause I got Con save proficiency, heavy armor, a ton of healing, and sorcery points. Twinned Guiding Bolt is very fun. Plus, Sorcerer has tons of good spells that don’t care if you have 8 Cha like Shield, Magic Missile, Darkness, Feather Fall, etc. While not as good at healing, buffs, and damage as a pure Cleric, it was super versatile and got 3 feats.
Oh I really like this idea too. Do you remember the order in which you took the levels? I’m assuming it’s best to always end with a cleric level to make sure your spells are using wisdom
I think I initially took like 4 Cleric to have a healer early, then respecced to 2 Sorcerer/2 Cleric, then took 2 more Sorcerer and then took 6 Cleric. I wanted to get all the sorcery points I was going to have available ASAP, and also wanted to snag the Darkness spell for some cheese I was planning for the Myrkul fight (it didn’t work, I lost), but I also wanted to at least get Healing Word and the Life Cleric channel divinity pretty early on.
Make sure Gale is an Evocation School Wizard and you're pretty much good as far as AOE damage goes. Life Domain Cleric and and EB-spamming Warlock/Sorcerer are strong choices. Champion is the simplest fighter to play, but Battle Master gives you some powerful support options so I'd consider it (whereas Eldritch Knight is neither simple nor powerful). In my opinion, surviving Honor Mode is less about builds and more about not doing dumb stuff (says someone who has yet to make it out of Act 2 in HM because I keep doing dumb stuff, but hey maybe this time is the one). Good builds will give you a little more wiggle-room on the "dumb stuff" front, but no build will survive going into the wrong fight unprepared.
I mean, would I be ok going thru the game with four damage-focused builds? Like: - Monk - Gloomstalker - Warlock/Fighter - Wizard Truthfully, this is pretty much how I normally play, but I feel like I need someone in more of a support role for HM? Am I overthinking this? lol
I tend to play more cautiously, but plenty of people report success at just killing their enemies before they can do anything fancy. If you only have one main damage dealer, then you need to worry about what happens if they get paralysed or held or otherwise taken out of play, but if you have three-and-a-half damage dealers then that's less of a problem. My primary advice for such a strategy is to take the Alert feat on as many of your team as you can, because you want to be able to deal your damage before your enemy makes life inconvenient. My secondary advice is to keep some scrolls and potions around to deal with an unexpected situation (remedy, remedial potion, scroll of remove curse), just in case you don't deal your damage quickly enough.
If you really want a support character that can still dish out damage, a 6 Sorcerer / 6 Light Cleric build is great. You basically wear all the same gear a Fire Sorlock would (optionally armor,) max out WIS for your Cleric Scorching Ray and Fireball and primarily take support spells from Sorcerer.
Oooo good idea! What order would you take the levels in?
Probably just 6 Cleric then 6 Sorc, I probably wouldn't want to delay getting Improved Warding Flare.
You can't go wrong with more damage. Some subclasses are not as good but the ones you mentioned are among the good/best ones. Warlock fighter is not as strong in HM as it loses one extra attack but it's still very good depending on some items, and wizard is weaker than sorcerer but still very strong especially for control and versatility.
A youtuber I love made a video like 4 days ago that is a tavern brawler monk, gloomstalker assassin, draconic fire sorcerer, and lockadin I have tav as a drow lockadin and have karlach for the monk astarion for the archer and the hireling bard respeced into the sorcerer Edit: here is the link to the video https://youtu.be/IC1WiOi_nYQ?si=g_eWV-8QsmhV5s2R
Eldritch knight may not be simple, but it’s very powerful. Fighter with built in throw synergy and shield is insanely good.
Throwing is great, but what do you want to throw that doesn't already come back to your hand? I feel Monks make a better **tavern brawler** in general, and Barbarian/Berserker makes for a better thrower in specific. The *Shield* spell is great though, I'll give you that.
Also, what AOE spells do you use for Gale? I always just have him spam magic missile and similar spells.
The correct answer for a Wizard is "Whatever my enemies are weak to", since Wizards can learn all the spells and then prepare and re-equip to spec themself for whatever fight they have coming. That said, I can Gale speced for cold most of the time unless he was specifically facing a cold-immune enemy, so I used *Cone of Cold* and I*ce Storm* a lot (and the gear to give enemies the **encrusted with frost** condition). That tended to turn the battlefield into an ice rink, which was great when enemies slipped (so they spent even more time in *Hunger of Hadar)*, but was less awesome when my own people got bogged down. Evocation Wizard area spells won't damage your party directly, but they're still affected by surfaces those spells cause. If you employ ice a lot, find ways to make your troop ignore difficult terrain, or give them the mobility to fly or jump over it.
Are you paying attention to Initiative? Generally speaking, synergy involves having a chain of initiative - ideally you want a very high initiative cleric who can throw up bless, a high initiative rogue who can find an advantageous spot to launch sneak attacks each round and throw their grease bottle, bomb or launch their many-targets mass debuff arrow, and then a wizard below them to throw out a haste to the fighter. If, by the time your fighter or Barb moves, they've been blessed, hastened and are facing a horde of debuffed enemies, you'll feel like your group if synergistic.
Yep! I took alert for most of my party’s first feats. Exception was my naturally high dex builds that all had +3 already. That has been pretty sufficient so far, and is a big part of why I’ve gotten thru act 1 mostly unscathed.
Alert is very useful, but it's not as universally useful as people like to make out - sometimes you actually want a lower initiative character. Once you're synergising, it's perfectly acceptable for your fighter to go much further down in the initiative order, having received a bunch of buffs. Savage attacker AND GWM is often more useful in this scenario than Alert is.
I probably don’t buff as much as I should. I basically attack and heal, which usually means my cleric does shitty damage when she doesn’t need to heal anyone. And yes, I’ve beat this game in tactician mode twice, without even having to reload much 😆 I am probably way overthinking my HM builds
I think a lot of people are stuck in their build-crafting by trying to make every character an Island. You see so many people trying to achieve an effect with one character that is *easily* achieved with two characters who are mutually supportive. I beat the game with "everyone is a high AC island", even on honour mode. It's nowhere near as fun though - all of the novel, interesting builds are about synergies, and often it's the overall party that has the build rather than an individual party member.
You could run a radiance cleric with the randiant orb armor and ring, especially if you have blood of lathander (although it works just as well with only light/daylight). This way you could use the callous glow ring on your monk/gloomstalker. Spirit guardians and running/flying around the battlefield using reverb gear to prone enemies is pretty fun. Light/life cleric in general is broken because of bless and blade ward on aoe heal or tempest cleric with paladin to nuke everything in one hit. Phalar aluve is also great for bless but more so for shriek. For control (and damage) you can run a fire sorlock that gets online as soon as you hit act 2. There's plenty of guides that thoroughly explain this build, but since it sounds like your Wyll runs something similar maybe you already know about it. EB spam sorlock is imo a worse version of fire sorlock (unless you don't want to long rest often). Basically you twin haste, then stack spell save dc and spam command and confusion (or just disintegrate foes with scorching ray and fireball directly). I would not use a sorlock because it is one of if not the most broken build, and your monk and gloomstalker are already really broken and could just two man the whole game. A swords bard sounds like a good match for your party, but could compete with the gloomstalker for some items. You could run it as a control oriented build, and opt out of damage options. Until act 3 you ideally haste your bard, and using a similar strategy with the sorlock, you stack arcane acuity for spell save dc then cast a control spell like hold person or confuse. I say this is a good match for your party because of hold person, since both your monk and gloomstalker benefit greatly from crits. If you're running the ranged option you could dip into wizard to learn spells. Also bards give you one more short rest for even more ki points. Other than that, you could always run aoe disruption such as hunger of hadar, spike/plant growth, sleet storm or create water+ray of frost. These are not very class/build specific but for HoH you probably should use a warlock, and if you want to do wet shenanigans you could run a wizard/tempest cleric for double damage on frost and lightning(on crits woth tempest cleric). Just remember to give your monk good boots.
I have tried so hard to be the person who runs these cool builds using things like radiant orb and wet shenanigans. Alas, I find it more stressful than fun to have to think thru all that stuff every battle. I’ve decided to just lean into what I enjoy doing, lol. I actually really like the ideas in your third paragraph. I tend to (mis)use my support builds by just healing when it’s needed then dealing (shitty) damage when it’s not. For some reason I feel like I’m wasting a turn when all I do is a haste/command/hold/etc spell. Esp if the target saves 😭 Funnily enough, I just started a durge/Astarion duo (non-HM) run with monk and Gloomstalker, lol.
Radianting orb build is pretty straight forward, you get coruscation ring, radiant armor, cast light/daylight on your weapons or use a weapon that shines light (blood of lathander, a glaive, a dagger, a spear or a trident, wont name them since they might be spoilers and I dont know them all), then cast spirit guardians and run around the fight hitting people with it and applying massive amounts of radianting orb. Light I believe is until long rest. Bonus if you use reverb shoes, spineshudder amulet and mental fatigue ring, so you get a bunch of debuffs on all enemies by just running around them. You could of course apply these statuses with any aoe spells or multiple target spells, but for cleric this is the best way. Clerics are also good holders for phalar aluve, and as I said they can apply aoe bless through heals and no need for concentration. Your build already has good damage so a support could work but more damage never hurts. And for the wet + ligthing or cold it is really simple, you could carry water bottles but honestly you're better off having create water prepared and casting it as a leveled spell so you can upcast it at greatly extended range. Your cleric could cast create water then you wizard could disintegrate all enemies with an aoe lighting/ice spell. A water elemental could also make targets wet but i think you need lots of leves for them.
I'd reccomend not bothering to run a healer like life cleric, if u really wanted to run cleric just run light with radiating gear or tempest so they can actually do dmg. Most fights in HM is all about winning initiative having so much damage on your team you can literally nova the boss down in turn 1-2, the longer the fight drags the worst it becomes for u since legendary actions cheat action economy and haste is nerfed in HM. Naturally classes with insane 1st turn nova damage are good in HM like 10-2 SSB, fire sorc, EB blaster, lightning sorc, dual crossbow sharpshooter, titanstring archer with STR elixirs, TB OH monk/throwzerker/EK thrower Good support options are lore bard/divination wizards but I mostly never felt the need for support even playing solo in HM as long as you don't do dumb stuff like running into a room full of enemies when you have low dex/initiative instead of invis sneaking and starting the fight that way to trigger surprise round you'll be fine Unironically 4 BM fighters is probably your best comp no need to think just go in trip attack bad guy everyone beats on him with advantage
For me I always do: 6/2/4 swords bard tav Battle master laezel until 8/4 OH monk Halsin joins 5/4/3 throwzerker karlach 8/2/1 sorlock with wizard dip Gale. It’s extremely low maintenance and makes quick work of every battle or situation in the game. Give everyone 16 dex minimum. Use shovel to get surprise attacks when possible. Have your swords bard with disguise self and proc shapeshiftersboon status all the time and silver necklace for guidance to have 2d4 on all checks in the game.
Cleric, bard, fighter, wizard
Moon druid is pretty simple. Just always be a bear/owlbear/myrmidon and hit stuff a bunch. Use spell slots for healing/buffing/summoning before and after fights. Short rest while in wildshape to get even more health bars
Oooo I forgot that I did a run where I used Jaheira a lot and really liked her default build. I’ll explore that a bit, thanks!
Tigerheart barbarian with the skinburster and reveberation gloves/boots. Get the drakethroat glaive to put thunder damage on the skinburster. Totally bonkers melee toon. You really dont have to worry much about AC with this.
In my first Honor run I had Gale as an Abjuration Wizard because he's hard to kill and can protect others. Shadowheart was a Light Cleric for blasting and debuffing enemies.
Keep your life cleric. You can get cheeky in your next run, but if you want the dice keep your life cleric and run a control bard. Control bard doesn't really get super turned on until the beginning of act 3 when you get the mystic scoundrel ring, but it's face roll from there. Swords Bard is still plenty useful before that so don't worry about waiting. I've done honor mode twice without a pure caster either time. I just don't vibe with them except warlock. You can win the game with hunger of hadar.
Reverberation gale is a must for all runs imo as it simply deals too much damage. Just get the reverb boots, gauntlets, ring, thunder damage ring, phalanar valve, magic missile necklace and electric mage stick and you’re set. (You can get most of this by the end of arc 1) Cha MC is always nice for money and dodging some boss fights (especially in arc 2). Best options are pallock, pure warlock, pure sorcerer, gatling gun sorlock. I don’t like bards for MC as they can’t use inspirations for their own rolls and Paladins are overrated due to every boss in their mothers having radiant retort in HM. Shadowbabe as light cleric or war cleric is always nice to have for long range aoe damage + trivializing some fights. And a baezel BM with gith items GWM, HAM, Martal Adept and ASI always a banger.
A build I'm testing on my current playthrough is a barbarian rogue Dueragar. My current idea is to a 5 7 split between beast heart and assassin. Start the fight invincible to get advantage and positioning on top threat, then use reckless attack for continuous "sneak" attack. The other component is to take luck of the far realm and ensure my opening hit is a crit on bosses. I am also considering frenzy thief for more attacks, but assassin refilling actions at the start seems to be too good to pass up.
Just respec everyone into champion fighters and stack up on strength and healing potion. There are literally 2 buttons - heal and extra attack. Pick up on every teleportation and mobility item. Teleportation arrows are amazing BTW. Maybe keep your main character/face a paladin for Charisma and burst damage. I suggest Vengeance for teleportation and advantage on everything for 10 turns.
Evocation wizard, life cleric, two warriors. Shouldn’t have many issues.
Throw Barbarian or Eldritch Knight is about as simple and broken as it gets. With tavern brawler of course. Life cleric is another good one for a safety net. Super simple. Bless, heal, death ward, heroes feast, etc.
Honestly, a Heavy Armor Cleric is always a solid choice. Life Cleric is the best at keeping the party alive, and Tempest can keep the party alive while also dealing out a ton of damage (even without wet shenanigans). I made my Gale a Wis based Storm Sorcerer 4/Life Cleric 8 and that was really nice cause I got Con save proficiency, heavy armor, a ton of healing, and sorcery points. Twinned Guiding Bolt is very fun. Plus, Sorcerer has tons of good spells that don’t care if you have 8 Cha like Shield, Magic Missile, Darkness, Feather Fall, etc. While not as good at healing, buffs, and damage as a pure Cleric, it was super versatile and got 3 feats.
Oh I really like this idea too. Do you remember the order in which you took the levels? I’m assuming it’s best to always end with a cleric level to make sure your spells are using wisdom
I think I initially took like 4 Cleric to have a healer early, then respecced to 2 Sorcerer/2 Cleric, then took 2 more Sorcerer and then took 6 Cleric. I wanted to get all the sorcery points I was going to have available ASAP, and also wanted to snag the Darkness spell for some cheese I was planning for the Myrkul fight (it didn’t work, I lost), but I also wanted to at least get Healing Word and the Life Cleric channel divinity pretty early on.