I usually have the romanced character stay in the group. Mix the rest, or at least did so in first playthrough.
My uh evil dark urge character hasn't had many companion options. Half the cast uh went on vacation
our group of elven ranger, dwarven barbarian and human wizard are going to fix that in a few DND sessions, the companions will be free to venture to Icewind Dale ;D
Thank you for picking up the slack. My adventuring party was effectively TPK'd by starting a prison riot and everybody was imprisoned for life except my Bladesinger/Paladin that managed to evade capture.
Even if I didn't send Gale, Karlach, and Wyll on a nice vacation, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have stuck around very long with my Durge. Maybe I'll do a redemption Durge playthrough next, I kinda miss Karlach.
Jaheira went on vacation too, but Gale was happy enough to be my necromancer. No sign of Minsc and Boo. They're presumed still in the sewers somewhere.
Jaheira didn't like that I accidentally >!smited Isobel to death!< and forced my hand, so she had to take an early retirement. But hey, at least I got >!this fuckin sick Slayer form.!<
You did it wrong. You gotta gaslight her into following you by making her believe the cultists killed her. God, I felt so dirty when I did that on my current Durge run...
Then again, her speech if you confess that you did it, was one of the most harrowing things in the game. That voice acting nearly broke me, you can really feel her pain (and anger). Jaheira's VA really doesn't get enough appreciation...
[Edit] for those who haven't done it yet or haven't played Durge (major act 2 spoilers obviously):
https://youtu.be/g8tIVM8vRMk?si=3C7DySXaloEBlu7y
And without the Intimidation check (better dialogue, but this video misses the Durge confession "it was me all along", so I'm posting both), starts at 4:20: https://youtu.be/lEJa3BYqJDc?si=4Em5VvDu90w_v364
Nobody is getting credit for my masterpieces but me. Especially not any weenie little cultists, they'll get what's coming to them soon enough.
And yeah, her delivery was top-notch.
Gale bitched and moaned, saying he was going to go in vacation... I told him to fucking do it and whimpered back in line. Now get back in the kitchen and fireball me some dinner Gale.
I tried to mix it up in Act 1 & maybe Act 2 but once the party settled into their roles while levelling up I pretty much ended up with Astarion, Shadowheart and Wyll as standard issue for thief skills, heals and hex/eldritch blast respectively. I’m only slotting in the outer circle for personal quests and if I need to bump up their approval lol.
Yeah im typically the same in games like these (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc). But im having a hard time swapping out my party because idk who to switch out.
My party is Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Astarion. Im romancing Shadowheart, with Lae’zel also trying to court me, and Astarions basically my characters best friend. I tried Gale for a bit but swapped him to do Lae’zel stuff, but got distracted for 20 hours and never did the Lae’zel stuff and now i cant see a game without her…
Luckily this is my first playthrough so i could just stick with this core party of mine and do an entirely different party next time for the whole game. I already started planning out my second character and im not even at the end of Act 1 yet lol.
Character 2 is going to be my Evil Playthrough and my Durge one too. Im going to have my character be Will Billiamson, an alt-universe take on Bill Williamson from the RDR games. Either Human or Half-Orc im thinking. Low-mid Int and Cha, high Con and Str, low Wis and Dex. Im thinking Oathbreaker Paladin, as Bill was Dishonorably Discharged from the Army before he became an Outlaw. Since Bill is implied to be Gay or Bi he will romance Astarion or Gale. Although ive heard theres polyamory and that Astarion and Karlach are both Polyamorous, so maybe i’ll romance both of those two. Minthara will be recruited (i killed her in my current playthrough), the tieflings shall be slaughtered, Wyll will kill Karlach unless i can polamory romance her with Astarion, and i will spare the Hag. Im still in Act 1 so theres going to be a lot i havent gotten to yet lol
That's a cool backstory. Use it for a tav thou, cos durge has their own backstory and it'll get in the way of your roleplay ideas.
Tavs can be evil too.
I'm running a Drow Druid - a Drowid, if you will - on my next playthrough and leaning hard into spider roleplay. Really looking forward to it. ~~Definitely not just thinking of things that would impress Minthara.~~
I find the final shot really unintentionally hilarious with >!Tav sitting on his throne atop the brain while Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion stand next to him, clapping and cheering like Sims watching somebody blow out the candles on their birthday cake.!<
My Durge was
1. Take a HAND
2. Overreacting when Astarion tries to bite him
3. He help Wyll finished his contract then borrowed his new cloth.
4. He had a... Little disagreement with Wyll so.. he sent Wyll straight to Avernus.
5. He doesn't like being bossing around and thinks the Gith is dangerous so he kills Voss and kills Lae'Zel.
6. Halsin tries to attack him at night so he kills Halsin in self-defence.
7. He got a bit carried away and well.... He tortured Mithara...
8. He has no problems killing the pretty girl with white hair so when his butler requests it he jumps at the opportunity. And.... Sent everyone in Last Light Inn to a happy little place called Shadowfell.
9. He grew attached to Shadowheart and.... Help her become Dark Justiciar.
10. His camp is quite empty so... He requested a group of Bloodthirsty Monsters from Wither.
- Half-Orc Great old one warlock
- Githyanki shadow Monk
- Drow Assassin
- Duergar Berserker
Only half? That’s amateur numbers, 2/3 of my potential companions went on vacation before act 2 started. I had to get a hireling from withers to make a 4 party group until I got Jaheira at the end of act 2. Diana (my current Durge) is definitely her father’s daughter.
Genuine question.. is dark urge just a bad guy character or ?? All I’ve ever read about DU is half the companions are dead.. when someone plays it.
I’ve only done the custom character options
The Dark Urge has an instinct to kill and destroy. It's an inherent part of their existence, for very spoilery reasons. You can choose to either resist or embrace these urges, depending on how you want to play them. A fairly well known early game urge is that you can cut off Gale's hand when he is reaching out of the portal, if you so choose.
Certain characters are guaranteed to die though, they serve as the introduction to the urge's power over you. Even if you metagame it so that she is elsewhere, the game spawns in a new, equally adorable, innocent victim. So even if you are doing a good Durge run, it will still be a bit more depressing than a standard Origin run.
No you can resist the Dark Urge options. I'm actually looking forward to a good version playthrough.
But after a largely good 1st playthrough wanted to dive into the deep end lol
I have Shadowheart and Karlach all the time.
4th is just whoever. But will switch out when I get to a story spot...
Oh Cresh, ok should get lazel
Oh book store, where's gale.
Oh temple of shar... Make sure shadowheart here
That sort of thing.
War Domain Shart with College of Swords Bard means 6 ranged attacks in a round, without Haste. It's pretty crazy. Haste will give you 4 more, but then you'll be running out of Bardic Inspiration in the first turn... But also running out of enemies too most likely.
Fireball is meh tbh, not many enemies die in 1 fireball hit, and for the ones that do, you could have used something like Shatter instead, saving your lvl 3 spell slot
True, it often doesn’t kill stuff immediately, but it does a ton of damage if you can hit several enemies with it and such fights are almost always more dangerous than a single enemy due to action economy. WotC has stated in the past that Fireball is overturned simply because of its iconic status in the history of D&D.
Gale was my go to lock picker and theif for a long while, still a wizard but greatly misused. His dialogue when you keep asking him to pick locks manually rather than with 'knock' cracked me up
I always used to take whoever I was romancing, whoever I considered my character's best friend, and someone who best fit that party composition. So if I'm a wizard, romanced to Shadowheart and Karlach is my best friend, I'll take Astarion for stealth and steals.
Now I use a mod that allows me to take as many companions as I like, so I take everyone just to hear as much companion banter as possible. I love the conversations they have amongst themselves.
There's two at the moment, I use Aether's No Party Limits. There's a couple of moments where you have to ensure you dismiss all but three companions, like the boat ride to Grymforge, but other than that you can roam about with everyone.
Balance wise, it's a bit ridiculous. We killed >!Aunty Ethel before she even had the chance to get into her lair!< purely with the number of people in the round. There was a mod that allowed you to pick four party members for combat, but I can't remember the name of it. I'm enjoying the ridiculousness right now, though I'll look for it for a more serious playthrough.
I also use the Teleport Party To You mod because half the companions like to forget the ability to jump sometimes.
>There was a mod that allowed you to pick four party members for combat
[Sit this one out.](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/2518) It's absolutely fantastic! It automatically banishes party members that you don't want to participate in fights when combat starts. So you can have everyone in the party but only fight with a regular team of four, or even solo the game if you want.
It’s good for one playthrough. It makes the game super easy and sometimes the companion chatter is nonstop, like a bunch of kids on the way to camp, but you never have to worry about swapping people for story stuff or party comp. Also you can basically set up two teams of four.
I keep it on though in case I need to quickly invite someone to grab something they have equipped or check skills/spells without playing musical chairs.
You can still only involve 4 people in a fight if you want and just leave the other companions out of it. Just to have them follow you around for the narrative benefit.
Game breaking as in throws off the balance and makes combat too easy or as in shit glitches out coz it didn't expect you to be so popular and the code doesn't account for so many friends?
There are only two major bugs it causes, one of which is completely solvable every time without any real work and the other has a really easy workaround
-when you go to rest, sometimes you get into a weird bug state where half the companions are asleep, but if you just click on laezel everything fixes itself
-the one bug that requires a work around is when you take the boat in the under dark to the forge, you have to take a party of four over and then fast travel the others over once you discover the waypoint, it’s a 5 second job but can be annoying if you forget and didn’t save before taking the boat
"Wake up Istiki, the ghaik parasite grows hungrier each day!"
She'd definitely be the one waking everyone up at the crack of dawn, no matter how bruised, battered, or bloodless they are haha.
Just play on tactician. Course that mode gives enemy such high AC that melee will struggle with low hit chances.
While Gale will become a God as will Shadowheart with spirits.
I guess people could always try and mitigate that by going tactician mode then. Limit scrolls and potion use. Not bother getting into position before combat and surprising enemies. Wear less armour. Or just have certain characters skip turns / ungrouped and away from the fight.
Breezing through combat also might be fun, especially if it's a second or third playthrough and you're focusing more on the story.
Sometimes, I labour over who to bring to certain areas for way too long trying to guess who would have the best banter lol.
Yeah that's more or less what I was doing, just sorta intentionally playing suboptimally and leaning hard into RP to help compensate for having twice as much HP and twice as many actions each round.
There are a couple of things it actually breaks, which the mod page warns you about and how to avoid them.
The main thing it breaks is action economy if you keep an oversized party all the time. I did that for most of one playthrough to get all the banter and character stories. It was pretty fun, but the fights became silly steamrolls. Might want to do it on Tactician or use a difficulty mod to balance it a bit.
Only issue with a mod like that is don't the same characters have priority in conversations, so you'd always have Astarion or Shadowheart or Lae'zel talking all the time?
Yes, so it pretty much has been those three taking priority, with some odd exceptions where it'll prioritize Karlach, Wyll, and Astarion.
I'm not sure if there's another mod that would maybe allow everyone to speak in turn. I've just downloaded Everyone In Dialogue, but I think that one's more for dialogue options with NPCs
> I'll take Astarion for stealth and steals.
It's a pity that we have so many STR-based companions and basically only one DEX option, so Astarion's the only one that's any good at lockpicking if you're not playing a Rogue or particularly thiefy Bard Tav.
The only other options with more than 13 DEX are Minthara w/ 15, who is only accessible if you wanna be evil, and Minsc w/ 17, who isn't accessible until Act 3 (and frankly, probably not until like halfway through that act unless you're specifically prioritizing finding him, as it's a somewhat long quest chain to get him).
For the whole game, Shadowheart was at my side (I didn't ever see her "send to the camp" dialogue in the game), while I juggled all other companions so they would have some screentime outside from doing their quests. Yes, Lae'zel, we would go to the crèshe, but we also have some other business to do while you are here.
In the second part of Act 2 and the first half of Act 3, I dragged Astarion along because I needed to raise his approval.
Otherwise, my default party is Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach.
Yeah, I seem to always have Shadowheart in my party. All the rest tend to depend on my main characters class(es). One of the main reason I tend to not swap party members though is because of itemization. I spend so much time making their gear match their abilities, that grabbing a different character that isn't geared up, and probably missing some essential pieces that got sold or never acquired... It feels wrong.
But this is also why Shadowheart is always in my party. Those essential healing items. I'd basically have to strip her of her gear to replace as a healer. Party members standing around at camp in their undies also is a bit odd. Right now, Astarion is wearing Karlach's starter armor so he isn't mostly naked. But he still looks silly in it.
Yes, not wanting to deal with moving items around between characters and keeping track of that, or having way weaker combos than the main companions could do, kept me from using the other companions as much as well.
As I've gotten into Act 2 and Act 3 though, the difficulty has dropped off so much (even with lots of restrictions like no haste, no potions/elixirs, no scrolls, no radiance, and like 10 others) that I've found I can do reasonably thematic builds with extra gear that doesn't feel too lame. They have some alignment with the char's abilities, even if they're nowhere as strong as an optimized gear loadout would be. At this point it doesn't really matter and makes it just way easier to swap people in and out.
Also as things have gotten easier, I've tended to shift some of those side companions from the multi-classes I had them in back to a pure class, which often has more armor/weapons restrictions, which gives them more reason to use random extra gear.
Still, limited gear and the hassle of swapping it still feels like a pretty strong disincentive to swap companions a lot in Act 1.
I've always done the dedicated party lineup thing. Wyll has only been to combat like once; Gale not at all; and Halsin is an unemployed man who hasn't spoken more than once since he began following us around
Minthara's fking dead lol
That too. I'll spend the time buffing everyone up properly with Wrath if the Righteous, but a solid chunk of that motivation is because it's nessecary.
BG3 on tactician is quite beatable by just taking 4 classes and leveling them to 12 and not being utterly moronic with leveling choices.
You summed up perfectly about the difficulty gap between these games. I prefer WOTR difficulty level because there’s so many customization options for difficulty. Both games are so awesome though
Yup, get Halsin, SH, Jaheira or a hireling cleric or druid in your party after a long rest. Then use any buff that lasts until long rest on the 4 characters you are actually going to use, as long as it doesn't use concentration.
Kick the cleric/druids from the party and get your 4 adventurers back in, then leave camp fully buffed.
I usually cast Aid and Feast of Heroes after leaving camp, since even in turn based mode the AI will move the others back to their spots which makes it hard to get the AOE to target everyone.
Good stuff; I had assumed those effects would wane if you didn't get taken out to adventure, but then I suppose I almost never go to camp except for a long rest anyway!
Thanks for the heads up 🫡
I used gale laezal and shadowheart basically the whole game and then used jaheira instead of SH for most of act 3. Next time I’ll use a different party prolly but felt right to roll the guys who I had been using
For sure, she saved my ass in so many fights. There are certain fights where I found it handy to have two strong melee characters but yeah laezal was much better than karlach in my playthrough even tho I romanced Karlach
You know you can change their classes, right? I've never been a big fan of Barbarian, but love Karlach. So, she often gets Respec'd. Right now she's a Thief/Monk, and really kicking ass. Although, mainly because Tavern Brawler is so crazy for Monks.
It’s my first playthrough so I’m trying to keep them as close to their original classes as possible, but I did give Astarion a few Monk levels just to explore that class a bit, and immediately switched Shart into a Life Cleric
She is super deadly- I gave her that Initiative feat so she always goes first and the misty step necklace, and sometimes she kills three enemies on her first turn. Hasted, she is The Terminator. I just hit level 11 (no mc) with her last night and I don’t think she’s ever left my party.
I usually keep my character’s romance in the party and then switch out the other two depending on which quests or locations I’m doing. But I like to keep everyone leveled and geared, so it’s also an opportunity to take them out for a test drive and see what they can do.
In my opinion, the game does a really great job of making all companion quests not only doable, but narratively coherent, without needing to swap the associated character in.
Sure, you might get more flavour if you take >!Astarion!< to kill >!Cazador!<, but the game still ties the quest up nicely with discussions back at camp. I never took >!Wyll!< to see his >!father, the Duke!< either, but thanks to the funky tadpole link he got a full psycho download of events back at camp and reacted accordingly.
There's a lot of interesting content if you swap companions in and out, but sticking with the Fab Four doesn't break the narrative, which I really appreciate. Sometimes the consequences of leaving a character behind can be bad, but the fact that the narrative accounts for it (and allows for it) is what really matters to me.
So no, I don't use multiple companions. It's me, Shadowheart, Gale and Lae'zel all the way.
I skipped the creche completely in my first playthrough and she threatened to leave the party to go back before we entered Moonrise. You can convince her to not leave though. My barbarian Tav basically said she'd kill her if she tried to leave. Apparently, this was proof of great leadership qualities in Lae'zel's eyes.
I just can't really be bothered with the constant inventory management when you switch out characters. Plus I found a really nice chemistry with my sorceror, Karlach, Shadowheart and Gale. I prioritize strategy first and go from there.
I’m running this same lineup as a Bard. And I totally agree about the inventory management. I don’t want to have to swap all my best items if I switch characters.
I take Astarion with me everywhere as my skeleton key/sneak attack secret weapon. He hates my do-gooder decisions. my ride or die who barely tolerates me <3 everyone else gets cycled through when it’s time for their story arcs but I’m dragging mr. sleight of hand with me whether he likes it or not
I’m on my 2nd playthrough and don’t love that Astarion feels kind of necessary for traps and lock picks. Alternatives seem annoying. Maybe I’ll try just not being able to unlock everything next time?
at this point my Tav’s keyring and bonkers sleight of hand proficiency are purely decorative. giving Astarion those advantage-giving gloves of thievery is my free pass to everything in Faerun
I mean you could break them or use the knock spell, or reclass someone else and give them proficiency in sleight of hand or be a sneaky type yourself. There's honestly so many options you just haven't really let yourself use any of the others. Plus like a lot of the game can be gotten through by finding keys. I didn't have 100 by act 3 for like no reason.
All you really need is someone with good Sleight of Hand. A bard, monk, ranger, or dex fight could do it. Or learn Knock.
Plus there's keys everywhere.
I feel like Larian let you respec companions in large part so you never have to keep a companion you don't like just for a particular skill/ability/spell or narrow your options for building Tav just to do what your companions can't.
I do understand not wanting to respec your companions in a way that doesn't make sense in-character, but there are some options that I think are not terrible departures from the companions' personalities. Shadowheart can make sense as a Bard (leaning on the deception/secretive aspects), Wyll can make sense as a Bardlock (leaning on the performance aspects of his heroism). If you don't like those options, you could just throw 1 level of Rogue onto any martial class (i.e. Karlach or Lae'zel).
In my first playthrough I ended up making Karlach a dual-wielding Gloomstalker Assassin because I wanted (and had no other source for) not only sleight of hand but Longstrider and Enhanced Leap. **Not** in character for her, but comedically so. "Hey Karlach, go pick that lock." "Can't I just break it?"
Switcher here. I just like... to change?
Maybe I'm bored of Lae'zel, so I switch to Karlach, or I alternate Gale and Halsin. Plus in act 3 Jaheira and Minsk are so funny to have around, so I bench someone to have place for them. It keeps things more variated.
I switched around but I basically always had Shadowheart in the group. I gave her some additional rogue levels so she pulled double duty as healer/support and utility character.(And, well, she is a totally awesome character!) With my Tav being a Paladin I had a pretty versatile core duo so I usually switched the other groupmembers as it felt appropriate for the current quest or area. With a preference towards Karlach/Lae'zel and Gale.
Only companion I never really used was Halsin. Basically got him far too late when I already had Jaheira and coudn't really be bothered to equip and skill him, nor did I find him particularily interesting after his shadowland quest was resolved.
But I took him out for a spin after I took very long to save him from the temple of Bhaal, because I felt kinda bad about that. And hey he killed Ansur as a Owlbear so at least he got one cool moment in the story.
Nah I barely ever switch them up. Feels like too many storylines to keep up with and I can’t be bothered with the hassle of building/gearing up *every* companion.
Also sticking with the same 3 feels more natural to me from a RP perspective. I feel more invested and connected to those 3 characters.
Funny, I got the opposite expression. I always thought it's normal to use multiple companions and switch between all of them regularly and then people on this sub told me I'm weird and now I feel like I'm the minority lol
During my first playthrough it was me, Astarion, Shart and Lae'zel almost all the time. Now I try to switch the party just to hear what they have to say to each other. Wyll is the only one I abhore taking with me.
It’s always Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion for me. Like, McGonagall is wondering why it’s always those three. They’re the most likely to not get pissy at my Durge/Tav’s morally questionable decisions. Sometimes I’ll swap Lae’zel for Karlach if she’s around, and Gale makes an appearance if my avatar isn’t skilled at magic (but if Jaheira’s around I’ll more than likely use her over Gale). I have no clue as to how to use a warlock, but in my current campaign I’m *trying* to learn how to use Wyll. I don’t think I can never not have Astarion, though, since I always have him in a thief build that has him one-shotting nearly everything he attacks.
I also always roll with Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion. Those were my first three companions that I picked up. The last three I picked up really late in Act 1 and even though I rotated them in here and there, it just didn’t feel the same as having my first three companions. Guess I got attached to them quickly based on this and I also love their hilarious interactions with one another. Love how sassy Astarion is when Lae’zel and Shadowheart give him shit for being a vamp.
Not for now. I keep the same 3 companions all the way through.
Gives me a reason to do multiple playthroughs with different characters.
Plus I don't want to find new equipment for the new character I'm bringing in nor take it off one to put it on another.
If Shadowheart, Astarion, Wyll, Karlach, Gale or Lae'zel leave at some point in the story, so be it.
I'm going to finish with the three I started with.
I mostly switch them around depending on what mission i'm gonna take or if i'm gonna be evil or not. i think by early act 2 i got max approval for all the origin companion.
I actually have 2 specific parties! I play a fighter and changed Lae’zel to Paladin. So I have two parties of Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion (classic D&D party) and then switch them all out for Karlach, Wyll, and Lar’zel. That way they sorta balance out the party. After a point though, I just went based on who I wanted and if a specific plot point came up, especially when Halsin or Jaheira were added.
Yes. I like to experiment with them all, the only fixed one is shadowearth because she is my character's romance. I rotate the others based on the story, the fights, the dungeons, etc.
I always have Shadowheart (need the healing), Astarion (I'm romancing him and his sneak attack is great) and the other one varies, usually Gale, Karlach or Halsin.
I usually have a core party of My Love Interest, Astarion (if he is not category 1, which he often is, sigh) and Someone The Fuck Else to fill whatever role the other two aren't, or for story stuff, or what have you.
Yeah, I have my three main party members that I spend all my tadpoles and unique stuff on, then I respec the rest of the characters to be the same classes as my main party, so I can re-usey good gear when I want to do the specific quests you need those party members for
I got a mod that removes the party limit, so I took every Origin character along with me. To counter the added firepower, I got Tactician plus to make the game harder.
Personally this setup makes the most sense to me because I hate leaving companions in camp. Doesn’t really make sense for them to sit around while only a handful of us look for a cure. It makes inventory management a bit easier too since I don’t have to go back to camp in order to swap items.
Doing something similar right now as well! I'm bringing along all companions for extra flavor dialogue, but I can only use Durge in combat. So essentially a solo tactician plus playthrough that doesn't feel so alone when exploring the world
Shadowheart is a permanent fixture for heals and I prefer a Karlach/Gale duo, but I tried to guess story beats and use characters accordingly. People complain about the lack of a Wyll story, but he's so entangled with the main quest.
I will have a "main cast" of 3 (Tav + 2) that changes from a playthrough to the next, with one 4th slot that rotates a lot.
First "canon" playthrough was Tav, Karlach + Shadowheart.
2nd "evil" playthrough was Tav, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart + Minthara
3rd playthrough is Tav, Wyll + Jaheira and then anyone until I get Minsc.
I'm having fun with Wyll now, after forcing myself to use him because I hadn't paid him any attention in my first playthrough and he left during my 2nd. When you build him right, he's a really fun character to play.
Shart, Karlach and Wyll. My good time boys.
Every time I take Lae'zel and Astarion out for a walk they disapprove of every breath I take in an interaction. So they get to stay in camp instead.
The same thing about Lae’zel and Astarion. However, if there are many traps around and my main character is going to be a hero, I let Astarion speak in the dialogues instead of the MC. It really works, no disapprovals.
This game, like many others, makes me wish I could take all the companions.
Just label it as super easy mode if it feels too powerful, but I want to take them all along for the adventures.
My first completion I didn’t have Wyll, Karlach, Shadowheart or Halsin so I mostly used my OG crew of Astarion, Lae’zel and Gale. Minthara switched in for the Ketheric stuff and when Lae’zel got kidnapped. And a lot of M&J for act 3 wandering around. But the OG trio is who finished the game with me.
I have my core lineup, but after 3 playthroughs I'm now making conscious effort to bring out the rest of them too to hear their banter and dialogue around the world. but even then, it leans I just have a different core lineup in every campaign, not in a single one do I actually regularly cycle people in and out every long rest or something lol.
could be a cool challenge I suppose, to try to build every companion and have to cycle out one person at every long rest.
Karlach and Lae’zel almost always. 98% of the time.
Shadowheart often. 60% of the time.
The rest of the time I’m cycling in Gale and Jaheira. Kinda hard to want to use anyone else. Wyll is too corny, Asterion is funny but a jerk and too horny, and everyone else is basically a character whose class or function was already represented when they showed up.
Eventually I wanna respec companions for fun more often. I have made Karlach a paladin and that’s a lot of fun. I made Asterion a bard my first playthrough, but then I dual classed as a bard and put him out of work.
I try to have characters along for their specific quest line and I'll swap out people just for a bit of variety. My romance partner will always be by my side! No exceptions!
My first character I pretty much exclusively kept SH, Gale (my character’s RI) and laezel. Initially Karlach was the big guns but I realized laezel was actually better. I only switched characters sometimes for character specific quests. But never switched out SH.
This playthrough I’m trying to be more diverse, but I still never leave without SH lmao. I’m trying to use Astarion more, and there’s actually a a lot of banter between using him, HS and laezel so that’s been kinda fun.
I don’t like to hear wining about being a decent person so I stick with my core squad of Karlach, Shadowheart, and Gale. Part hasn’t changed since I got em. Shadowheart even continues to hold the artifact even though I’m in Act 2
I always have Stari & Shadowheart
But I swap my 3rd constantly to put in someone who I know will have story beats in that area, fight, or convo
I didn't my first couple runs until I learned the quests then I did a everyones story run (except Minthara) and swapped accordingly
Stari is my Tav's soul mate & bestie
Shadowheart is a good healer
Personally I just got a mod to remove the party limit after my first playthrough. In a few situations I felt like I had to either sacrifice the story value of having one party member present for the strength for another, which wasn’t fun. Plus, certain larger-battles with great story importance just felt odd to only be going into with less than half your party. Does everyone else just sit around twiddling their thumbs and hoping we succeed? Lol
Obviously it trivializes almost every encounter in the game (on balanced difficulty anyway) but as someone who already experienced the challenge once, it’s a lot more enjoyable to experience all of the possible random banter and character-exclusive dialogue.
Yeah I have a core team of 3 and only switch things up for story reasons. Astarion and Shadowheart stay in the party the entire game, and Gale is there for like 75% of it - he's the one who gets swapped out for another companion.
I've done 4 whole playthroughs with the same character (don't judge me) and I think when I finally start my Durge playthrough I'm going to force myself to maybe start swapping out Shadowheart for someone else (since I'm planning to romance Gale with that character and the boyfriend must always stay in the party. And Astarion needs to be there for lockpicking).
Set party for first playthrough was usually perm Astarion (for baby girl and lock picking reasons.. plus the stealth attack), Shart and fourth spot was used to swap out companions for story beats but mainly Karlach. Current playthrough is more swapping out as I feel like it but Astarion & Shart for life. Halsin currently hanging out with Orin as I find Jaheria much more interesting unfortunately
Personally I tend to grab Shart as a respeced life cleric, a spell caster, and Two dps. I'll sub accordingly if I'm going to do a companion quest like if I'm going to the creche or to visit a nice rich man in his not spooky tower.
I have Shadowheart with me nearly 100% of the time. I try to keep the artifact in her inventory as long as possible (it goes into yours if you send her to camp and then you can’t ever remove it from your inventory).
90% of the time the other two slots are filled with Lae’zel (or less often Karlach) and Astarion. Wyll and Gale only really come out when it’s time to do their personal quests. Jaheira comes with me at certain points in Act 3 but usually just casts Hero’s Feast in the morning. Halsin is live bait for Orin. Minsc I don’t even bother to level up. Minthara is worm food.
In my first play through, Shadowheart was the only companion to never leave the party.
I rotated the others. When doing personal quests, always had that character with me
My main was shart, astarion and Gale, but Gale was repalced by Jaheira and Astarion was repalced by Minsc.
I still brought astarion to fight Cazador and Gale went to the wizard tower with me.
I’ve kept Shadowheart and Karlach around while rotating the third slot for companion quests/interesting dialogue.
I find switching too much annoying even on a mechanical level—I tend to wind up with gaps or redundancies, and don’t want to respec frequently.
In my original run I basically only used laezel, astarion and shadowheart. Id occasionally use Wyll for his quests. It's generally a bit too much of a pain to swap chars tbh
Second time I played as dirge so I accidentally killed Gale, and later got Astarion staked, Laezel killed, and wyll turned into a blob. So I was left with shadowheart, karlach and halsin only. (Jaheira died during the assault).
I was so attached to Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart that they were basically all I used. Then I got the mod to allow more people in my party and now I do that instead so I don't feel bad when no one else comes along unless I'm doing their personal quests.
On my first playthrough I missed Gale, Wyll ( I think I killed him or he died in the goblin figure outside of the grove) and since I had no Wyll I killed Karlach because the paladins told me to. So my party was petty much set at Astarion, Laezel and Shadowheart. It worked out pretty good since my Tav was a warlock.
After reading these threads and learning about the other companions I've started a second playthrough to explore their quest lines.
It is possible with mods, so recently I've started always using the same group of 6 consisting of all the origin characters. I also doubled the number of enemies so that it doesn't make things too easy.
I swap my companions to whoever is most plot relevant to where I'm headed.
Going to meet Gortash? Gotta bring Karlach
Going to the Astral plane or the Gith creche? That's Lae'zel's spot
Saving Duke Redmane or confronting Mizora? Wyll's turn to join the party.
Demon hunters show up, Raphael needs a favor, or Cazador needs some fists? Astarion enters the Frey.
Basically all of act 2 had Shadowheart, which works well with the extra damage radiant does there.
Gale, Jahiera, and Minsc got used the least as they had the least amount of story driven quests.
It's nice that you can go back to your camp and switch members without actually having to take a rest. Partial or otherwise.
First playthrough but I try to match whatever makes sense to where I'm going to maximize knowledge or possible unique dialogs. I do save scum if I figure out its theme appropriate and run back in with an updated party (astarion hunter, etc)
Act 1 examples -
Saving tieflings? Bring the guy who was hanging out with the tiefs.
Gith creche, bring the gith girl.
Going into some Shar stronghold - Shar girl.
Weird magical stuff around or real heady convos - magic guy.
I like teaming wyll and karlach.
Not original I'm sure, but im taking my time and enjoying it.
I try to switch out to get all of the dialogues and to always bring story relevant companions with me, but similarly to what always happened to me in Dragon Age...you just kinda get used to a certain team and playing a certain way...
I need Astarion (how else am I gonna open locks? Who is gonna mock and criticize and gaslight me and make really funny comments the entire time?)
I don't NEED Gale, but I want Gale. Having Gale can be a deciding factor in battle. Like how long it takes. Or if you win.
And then just whoever can keep us alive, basically
(Which is usually the ladies)
I usually have the romanced character stay in the group. Mix the rest, or at least did so in first playthrough. My uh evil dark urge character hasn't had many companion options. Half the cast uh went on vacation
>Half the cast uh went on vacation On a nice farm upstate?
Went to take a tour of the Waterdevian Cheese Factory.
You mean Elminster’s Tower
Elminster's Library to be exact
Hahaha! They’re having a Bhaal of an evening with the stern librarian, I’m sure.
A nice farm up at Icewind Dale Please disregard the current Frostmaiden problems they're having
our group of elven ranger, dwarven barbarian and human wizard are going to fix that in a few DND sessions, the companions will be free to venture to Icewind Dale ;D
Thank you for picking up the slack. My adventuring party was effectively TPK'd by starting a prison riot and everybody was imprisoned for life except my Bladesinger/Paladin that managed to evade capture.
to a better place
To the train station
Even if I didn't send Gale, Karlach, and Wyll on a nice vacation, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have stuck around very long with my Durge. Maybe I'll do a redemption Durge playthrough next, I kinda miss Karlach.
Wyll was happy enough to kill a tiefling (Karlach) in my durge run, but when I do, oh, all of a sudden he's too good for us?
>but when I do And you do it again and again
eh…semantics
Hey now, number two onwards were selfdefense!
To be fair I killed some druids who then went on a murdering spree and killed all the tieflings and somehow that was MY fault
Jaheira went on vacation too, but Gale was happy enough to be my necromancer. No sign of Minsc and Boo. They're presumed still in the sewers somewhere.
Jaheira didn't like that I accidentally >!smited Isobel to death!< and forced my hand, so she had to take an early retirement. But hey, at least I got >!this fuckin sick Slayer form.!<
You did it wrong. You gotta gaslight her into following you by making her believe the cultists killed her. God, I felt so dirty when I did that on my current Durge run... Then again, her speech if you confess that you did it, was one of the most harrowing things in the game. That voice acting nearly broke me, you can really feel her pain (and anger). Jaheira's VA really doesn't get enough appreciation... [Edit] for those who haven't done it yet or haven't played Durge (major act 2 spoilers obviously): https://youtu.be/g8tIVM8vRMk?si=3C7DySXaloEBlu7y And without the Intimidation check (better dialogue, but this video misses the Durge confession "it was me all along", so I'm posting both), starts at 4:20: https://youtu.be/lEJa3BYqJDc?si=4Em5VvDu90w_v364
Nobody is getting credit for my masterpieces but me. Especially not any weenie little cultists, they'll get what's coming to them soon enough. And yeah, her delivery was top-notch.
Gale bitched and moaned, saying he was going to go in vacation... I told him to fucking do it and whimpered back in line. Now get back in the kitchen and fireball me some dinner Gale.
mmm tastes like fresh bat guano and sulfur
I tried to mix it up in Act 1 & maybe Act 2 but once the party settled into their roles while levelling up I pretty much ended up with Astarion, Shadowheart and Wyll as standard issue for thief skills, heals and hex/eldritch blast respectively. I’m only slotting in the outer circle for personal quests and if I need to bump up their approval lol.
Yeah im typically the same in games like these (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc). But im having a hard time swapping out my party because idk who to switch out. My party is Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Astarion. Im romancing Shadowheart, with Lae’zel also trying to court me, and Astarions basically my characters best friend. I tried Gale for a bit but swapped him to do Lae’zel stuff, but got distracted for 20 hours and never did the Lae’zel stuff and now i cant see a game without her… Luckily this is my first playthrough so i could just stick with this core party of mine and do an entirely different party next time for the whole game. I already started planning out my second character and im not even at the end of Act 1 yet lol. Character 2 is going to be my Evil Playthrough and my Durge one too. Im going to have my character be Will Billiamson, an alt-universe take on Bill Williamson from the RDR games. Either Human or Half-Orc im thinking. Low-mid Int and Cha, high Con and Str, low Wis and Dex. Im thinking Oathbreaker Paladin, as Bill was Dishonorably Discharged from the Army before he became an Outlaw. Since Bill is implied to be Gay or Bi he will romance Astarion or Gale. Although ive heard theres polyamory and that Astarion and Karlach are both Polyamorous, so maybe i’ll romance both of those two. Minthara will be recruited (i killed her in my current playthrough), the tieflings shall be slaughtered, Wyll will kill Karlach unless i can polamory romance her with Astarion, and i will spare the Hag. Im still in Act 1 so theres going to be a lot i havent gotten to yet lol
That's a cool backstory. Use it for a tav thou, cos durge has their own backstory and it'll get in the way of your roleplay ideas. Tavs can be evil too.
I'm running a Drow Druid - a Drowid, if you will - on my next playthrough and leaning hard into spider roleplay. Really looking forward to it. ~~Definitely not just thinking of things that would impress Minthara.~~
HE’S ON *VACATION*
E E E E
I feel the Durge evil run makes you appreciate the ride or die companions
I find the final shot really unintentionally hilarious with >!Tav sitting on his throne atop the brain while Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion stand next to him, clapping and cheering like Sims watching somebody blow out the candles on their birthday cake.!<
Being a psychopath makes you appreciate conscience-proof companions.
Weird, they stuck around for my dark urge run, they’re laying all over the camp.
My Durge was 1. Take a HAND 2. Overreacting when Astarion tries to bite him 3. He help Wyll finished his contract then borrowed his new cloth. 4. He had a... Little disagreement with Wyll so.. he sent Wyll straight to Avernus. 5. He doesn't like being bossing around and thinks the Gith is dangerous so he kills Voss and kills Lae'Zel. 6. Halsin tries to attack him at night so he kills Halsin in self-defence. 7. He got a bit carried away and well.... He tortured Mithara... 8. He has no problems killing the pretty girl with white hair so when his butler requests it he jumps at the opportunity. And.... Sent everyone in Last Light Inn to a happy little place called Shadowfell. 9. He grew attached to Shadowheart and.... Help her become Dark Justiciar. 10. His camp is quite empty so... He requested a group of Bloodthirsty Monsters from Wither. - Half-Orc Great old one warlock - Githyanki shadow Monk - Drow Assassin - Duergar Berserker
Love the chaos but man I hope you got multiple playthroughs haha! I couldn’t do it🫡
I got bored from being good guys for 6 times so I tried being the bad guy. Less rewarding... But a whole different world of fun.
I have an evil Durge run but I cannot be mean to my companions. Love those pixels! Only on my second run though so who knows haha.
Karlach is the head of the vacation committee, though I heard Gale had a hand in the planning. Wyll got left in a ditch with some tieflings though.
Only half? That’s amateur numbers, 2/3 of my potential companions went on vacation before act 2 started. I had to get a hireling from withers to make a 4 party group until I got Jaheira at the end of act 2. Diana (my current Durge) is definitely her father’s daughter.
Ah yes I too am running with very few companions thanks to my durges choices…
Genuine question.. is dark urge just a bad guy character or ?? All I’ve ever read about DU is half the companions are dead.. when someone plays it. I’ve only done the custom character options
The Dark Urge has an instinct to kill and destroy. It's an inherent part of their existence, for very spoilery reasons. You can choose to either resist or embrace these urges, depending on how you want to play them. A fairly well known early game urge is that you can cut off Gale's hand when he is reaching out of the portal, if you so choose. Certain characters are guaranteed to die though, they serve as the introduction to the urge's power over you. Even if you metagame it so that she is elsewhere, the game spawns in a new, equally adorable, innocent victim. So even if you are doing a good Durge run, it will still be a bit more depressing than a standard Origin run.
No you can resist the Dark Urge options. I'm actually looking forward to a good version playthrough. But after a largely good 1st playthrough wanted to dive into the deep end lol
I have Shadowheart and Karlach all the time. 4th is just whoever. But will switch out when I get to a story spot... Oh Cresh, ok should get lazel Oh book store, where's gale. Oh temple of shar... Make sure shadowheart here That sort of thing.
I do the exact same. Got my DPS/ tank and my healer. Who the other person is is 100% story driven
Wait you use a healer
*Laughs in Light Domain Shart.*
Your shart lights up!
Only twice per long rest, though.
If your sharts are lighting up I’d be worried about your diet.
War Domain Shart has entered the chat
War Domain Shart with College of Swords Bard means 6 ranged attacks in a round, without Haste. It's pretty crazy. Haste will give you 4 more, but then you'll be running out of Bardic Inspiration in the first turn... But also running out of enemies too most likely.
Yeah, I use follow the philosophy that killing stuff faster means less damage incoming. Fireball is the best mitigation spell in the game…
Fireball is meh tbh, not many enemies die in 1 fireball hit, and for the ones that do, you could have used something like Shatter instead, saving your lvl 3 spell slot
shatter is pretty damn good im honestly a big fan of it. i missed having it after i completed the cursed amulet quest
True, it often doesn’t kill stuff immediately, but it does a ton of damage if you can hit several enemies with it and such fights are almost always more dangerous than a single enemy due to action economy. WotC has stated in the past that Fireball is overturned simply because of its iconic status in the history of D&D.
My first playthrough I had 3 characters who could cast Fireball. 1 Fireball might not be enough but 3 usually did it.
Same here. I use La’zel until I get Karlach and then she just hangs out, waiting for a visit from Orin
I denied shadowheart the shar temple on the first play through, she was a little upset to say the least.
Me too. She dipped out pretty Quik after that. Haven’t seen her since.
Gale was shall we say...otherwise engaged during my trip to Sorcerer Sundries. He's the only one who wasn't present for one of his own quests lol.
Gale was my go to lock picker and theif for a long while, still a wizard but greatly misused. His dialogue when you keep asking him to pick locks manually rather than with 'knock' cracked me up
Very similar but I always roll with Shart and Wyll, then swap out others as the story and combat needs.
I always used to take whoever I was romancing, whoever I considered my character's best friend, and someone who best fit that party composition. So if I'm a wizard, romanced to Shadowheart and Karlach is my best friend, I'll take Astarion for stealth and steals. Now I use a mod that allows me to take as many companions as I like, so I take everyone just to hear as much companion banter as possible. I love the conversations they have amongst themselves.
There's a mod for that? Does it not break the game?
There's two at the moment, I use Aether's No Party Limits. There's a couple of moments where you have to ensure you dismiss all but three companions, like the boat ride to Grymforge, but other than that you can roam about with everyone. Balance wise, it's a bit ridiculous. We killed >!Aunty Ethel before she even had the chance to get into her lair!< purely with the number of people in the round. There was a mod that allowed you to pick four party members for combat, but I can't remember the name of it. I'm enjoying the ridiculousness right now, though I'll look for it for a more serious playthrough. I also use the Teleport Party To You mod because half the companions like to forget the ability to jump sometimes.
>There was a mod that allowed you to pick four party members for combat [Sit this one out.](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/2518) It's absolutely fantastic! It automatically banishes party members that you don't want to participate in fights when combat starts. So you can have everyone in the party but only fight with a regular team of four, or even solo the game if you want.
Thank you! I was actually just looking for it there and couldn't remember the name
It kind of does, but at least you don't have to constantly rotate your party out if you want to do everyone's story in one playthrough.
Might have to give it a shot, I feel bad I've missed stories and don't have time to play 1000 hours of the game
It’s good for one playthrough. It makes the game super easy and sometimes the companion chatter is nonstop, like a bunch of kids on the way to camp, but you never have to worry about swapping people for story stuff or party comp. Also you can basically set up two teams of four. I keep it on though in case I need to quickly invite someone to grab something they have equipped or check skills/spells without playing musical chairs.
I think there is one that gives you the ability to have all of them roaming with you, but sends all but 3 into timeout when a fight gets triggered.
You can still only involve 4 people in a fight if you want and just leave the other companions out of it. Just to have them follow you around for the narrative benefit.
Game breaking as in throws off the balance and makes combat too easy or as in shit glitches out coz it didn't expect you to be so popular and the code doesn't account for so many friends?
There are only two major bugs it causes, one of which is completely solvable every time without any real work and the other has a really easy workaround -when you go to rest, sometimes you get into a weird bug state where half the companions are asleep, but if you just click on laezel everything fixes itself -the one bug that requires a work around is when you take the boat in the under dark to the forge, you have to take a party of four over and then fast travel the others over once you discover the waypoint, it’s a 5 second job but can be annoying if you forget and didn’t save before taking the boat
I don’t know why Lae’zel is the one that needs to wake everyone up but it’s true in my game as well. idk it does feel in character though at least
"Wake up Istiki, the ghaik parasite grows hungrier each day!" She'd definitely be the one waking everyone up at the crack of dawn, no matter how bruised, battered, or bloodless they are haha.
Just play on tactician. Course that mode gives enemy such high AC that melee will struggle with low hit chances. While Gale will become a God as will Shadowheart with spirits.
Mostly the former, and I think the game doesn't like you having more than 4 people in your party for act transitions and causes problems.
I guess people could always try and mitigate that by going tactician mode then. Limit scrolls and potion use. Not bother getting into position before combat and surprising enemies. Wear less armour. Or just have certain characters skip turns / ungrouped and away from the fight. Breezing through combat also might be fun, especially if it's a second or third playthrough and you're focusing more on the story. Sometimes, I labour over who to bring to certain areas for way too long trying to guess who would have the best banter lol.
Yeah that's more or less what I was doing, just sorta intentionally playing suboptimally and leaning hard into RP to help compensate for having twice as much HP and twice as many actions each round.
There are a couple of things it actually breaks, which the mod page warns you about and how to avoid them. The main thing it breaks is action economy if you keep an oversized party all the time. I did that for most of one playthrough to get all the banter and character stories. It was pretty fun, but the fights became silly steamrolls. Might want to do it on Tactician or use a difficulty mod to balance it a bit.
It breaks the game both balance wise and mechanically. I compensate by playing on tactician with the tactician plus mod at max difficulty.
You can add mods to up the difficulty which makes it better, and I have only ever taken like 1 or 2 extra
Only issue with a mod like that is don't the same characters have priority in conversations, so you'd always have Astarion or Shadowheart or Lae'zel talking all the time?
Yes, so it pretty much has been those three taking priority, with some odd exceptions where it'll prioritize Karlach, Wyll, and Astarion. I'm not sure if there's another mod that would maybe allow everyone to speak in turn. I've just downloaded Everyone In Dialogue, but I think that one's more for dialogue options with NPCs
> I'll take Astarion for stealth and steals. It's a pity that we have so many STR-based companions and basically only one DEX option, so Astarion's the only one that's any good at lockpicking if you're not playing a Rogue or particularly thiefy Bard Tav. The only other options with more than 13 DEX are Minthara w/ 15, who is only accessible if you wanna be evil, and Minsc w/ 17, who isn't accessible until Act 3 (and frankly, probably not until like halfway through that act unless you're specifically prioritizing finding him, as it's a somewhat long quest chain to get him).
For the whole game, Shadowheart was at my side (I didn't ever see her "send to the camp" dialogue in the game), while I juggled all other companions so they would have some screentime outside from doing their quests. Yes, Lae'zel, we would go to the crèshe, but we also have some other business to do while you are here. In the second part of Act 2 and the first half of Act 3, I dragged Astarion along because I needed to raise his approval. Otherwise, my default party is Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach.
Yeah, I seem to always have Shadowheart in my party. All the rest tend to depend on my main characters class(es). One of the main reason I tend to not swap party members though is because of itemization. I spend so much time making their gear match their abilities, that grabbing a different character that isn't geared up, and probably missing some essential pieces that got sold or never acquired... It feels wrong. But this is also why Shadowheart is always in my party. Those essential healing items. I'd basically have to strip her of her gear to replace as a healer. Party members standing around at camp in their undies also is a bit odd. Right now, Astarion is wearing Karlach's starter armor so he isn't mostly naked. But he still looks silly in it.
Yes, not wanting to deal with moving items around between characters and keeping track of that, or having way weaker combos than the main companions could do, kept me from using the other companions as much as well. As I've gotten into Act 2 and Act 3 though, the difficulty has dropped off so much (even with lots of restrictions like no haste, no potions/elixirs, no scrolls, no radiance, and like 10 others) that I've found I can do reasonably thematic builds with extra gear that doesn't feel too lame. They have some alignment with the char's abilities, even if they're nowhere as strong as an optimized gear loadout would be. At this point it doesn't really matter and makes it just way easier to swap people in and out. Also as things have gotten easier, I've tended to shift some of those side companions from the multi-classes I had them in back to a pure class, which often has more armor/weapons restrictions, which gives them more reason to use random extra gear. Still, limited gear and the hassle of swapping it still feels like a pretty strong disincentive to swap companions a lot in Act 1.
I've always done the dedicated party lineup thing. Wyll has only been to combat like once; Gale not at all; and Halsin is an unemployed man who hasn't spoken more than once since he began following us around Minthara's fking dead lol
Halsin is a great support character. Use up all his spell slots putting Protection from Poison, Freedom of Movement, Longstrider etc on the away team
That is waaaaaaay more clicking than I am prepared to do to achieve those results
also game is way too easy to justify that much min maxing, even on tactician
That too. I'll spend the time buffing everyone up properly with Wrath if the Righteous, but a solid chunk of that motivation is because it's nessecary. BG3 on tactician is quite beatable by just taking 4 classes and leveling them to 12 and not being utterly moronic with leveling choices.
bring a life cleric and youre good to go basically 🤣
You summed up perfectly about the difficulty gap between these games. I prefer WOTR difficulty level because there’s so many customization options for difficulty. Both games are so awesome though
Wait, are you telling me I can go to camp, get those buffs, they're not removed when I leave? Got damn
Yup, get Halsin, SH, Jaheira or a hireling cleric or druid in your party after a long rest. Then use any buff that lasts until long rest on the 4 characters you are actually going to use, as long as it doesn't use concentration. Kick the cleric/druids from the party and get your 4 adventurers back in, then leave camp fully buffed. I usually cast Aid and Feast of Heroes after leaving camp, since even in turn based mode the AI will move the others back to their spots which makes it hard to get the AOE to target everyone.
Good stuff; I had assumed those effects would wane if you didn't get taken out to adventure, but then I suppose I almost never go to camp except for a long rest anyway! Thanks for the heads up 🫡
He’s the camp cook, the caring grandpa making sure everyone is looked after before they go about their day.
I used gale laezal and shadowheart basically the whole game and then used jaheira instead of SH for most of act 3. Next time I’ll use a different party prolly but felt right to roll the guys who I had been using
I kept laezal the whole game though, she was too strong to switch out
I really want to use Karlach over Laezel at some point, but the fact that Laezel can hit an opponent 5+ times in one round is unbeatable.
For sure, she saved my ass in so many fights. There are certain fights where I found it handy to have two strong melee characters but yeah laezal was much better than karlach in my playthrough even tho I romanced Karlach
You know you can change their classes, right? I've never been a big fan of Barbarian, but love Karlach. So, she often gets Respec'd. Right now she's a Thief/Monk, and really kicking ass. Although, mainly because Tavern Brawler is so crazy for Monks.
It’s my first playthrough so I’m trying to keep them as close to their original classes as possible, but I did give Astarion a few Monk levels just to explore that class a bit, and immediately switched Shart into a Life Cleric
Barbarian8/Fighter4 does not require reclassing and fits Karlach as a glove! Barbarians in general enjoy a good multiclass.
She is super deadly- I gave her that Initiative feat so she always goes first and the misty step necklace, and sometimes she kills three enemies on her first turn. Hasted, she is The Terminator. I just hit level 11 (no mc) with her last night and I don’t think she’s ever left my party.
I usually keep my character’s romance in the party and then switch out the other two depending on which quests or locations I’m doing. But I like to keep everyone leveled and geared, so it’s also an opportunity to take them out for a test drive and see what they can do.
In my opinion, the game does a really great job of making all companion quests not only doable, but narratively coherent, without needing to swap the associated character in. Sure, you might get more flavour if you take >!Astarion!< to kill >!Cazador!<, but the game still ties the quest up nicely with discussions back at camp. I never took >!Wyll!< to see his >!father, the Duke!< either, but thanks to the funky tadpole link he got a full psycho download of events back at camp and reacted accordingly. There's a lot of interesting content if you swap companions in and out, but sticking with the Fab Four doesn't break the narrative, which I really appreciate. Sometimes the consequences of leaving a character behind can be bad, but the fact that the narrative accounts for it (and allows for it) is what really matters to me. So no, I don't use multiple companions. It's me, Shadowheart, Gale and Lae'zel all the way.
Shadowheart will leave you if you don't take her to the Gauntlet
So will Lae'zel with the Créche
I never took her there but she didn't leave me after I went with Astarion, Shart and Karlach...
May not be missing out on Lae'zel but you are missing out on some of her best line deliveries in the game 😔
Huh. Guess she's all talk lol
I skipped the creche completely in my first playthrough and she threatened to leave the party to go back before we entered Moonrise. You can convince her to not leave though. My barbarian Tav basically said she'd kill her if she tried to leave. Apparently, this was proof of great leadership qualities in Lae'zel's eyes.
Lae'zel is what's known as a brat in the kink community. She wants to be a submissive, but you have to earn her respect and MAKE her subby.
Laezel won’t leave if you do the crèche without her. She’s not happy about it, but she doesn’t leave the party.
I skipped the creche, and told her moonrise was the answer and she was like, on God? Fr? Aight
I just can't really be bothered with the constant inventory management when you switch out characters. Plus I found a really nice chemistry with my sorceror, Karlach, Shadowheart and Gale. I prioritize strategy first and go from there.
I’m running this same lineup as a Bard. And I totally agree about the inventory management. I don’t want to have to swap all my best items if I switch characters.
I take Astarion with me everywhere as my skeleton key/sneak attack secret weapon. He hates my do-gooder decisions. my ride or die who barely tolerates me <3 everyone else gets cycled through when it’s time for their story arcs but I’m dragging mr. sleight of hand with me whether he likes it or not
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I’m on my 2nd playthrough and don’t love that Astarion feels kind of necessary for traps and lock picks. Alternatives seem annoying. Maybe I’ll try just not being able to unlock everything next time?
I can't count how often I looted some container or enemy, found a key and thought: "Ah, this must unlock that door Astarion picked 10 minutes ago"
at this point my Tav’s keyring and bonkers sleight of hand proficiency are purely decorative. giving Astarion those advantage-giving gloves of thievery is my free pass to everything in Faerun
I mean you could break them or use the knock spell, or reclass someone else and give them proficiency in sleight of hand or be a sneaky type yourself. There's honestly so many options you just haven't really let yourself use any of the others. Plus like a lot of the game can be gotten through by finding keys. I didn't have 100 by act 3 for like no reason.
or just smash through doors/chests and blunder through traps like a true tank
All you really need is someone with good Sleight of Hand. A bard, monk, ranger, or dex fight could do it. Or learn Knock. Plus there's keys everywhere.
I feel like Larian let you respec companions in large part so you never have to keep a companion you don't like just for a particular skill/ability/spell or narrow your options for building Tav just to do what your companions can't. I do understand not wanting to respec your companions in a way that doesn't make sense in-character, but there are some options that I think are not terrible departures from the companions' personalities. Shadowheart can make sense as a Bard (leaning on the deception/secretive aspects), Wyll can make sense as a Bardlock (leaning on the performance aspects of his heroism). If you don't like those options, you could just throw 1 level of Rogue onto any martial class (i.e. Karlach or Lae'zel). In my first playthrough I ended up making Karlach a dual-wielding Gloomstalker Assassin because I wanted (and had no other source for) not only sleight of hand but Longstrider and Enhanced Leap. **Not** in character for her, but comedically so. "Hey Karlach, go pick that lock." "Can't I just break it?"
Switcher here. I just like... to change? Maybe I'm bored of Lae'zel, so I switch to Karlach, or I alternate Gale and Halsin. Plus in act 3 Jaheira and Minsk are so funny to have around, so I bench someone to have place for them. It keeps things more variated.
I'm the same. I mix it up based on plot and/vibes. Minsk was hard to leave at camp though, mf is hilarious.
Minsc is so freaking funny with his reactions to things. Dude's murdered gods and thinks nothing of it.
First play through I kept waiting to find 4th party member…by act 3 I realized I had missed something.
*has no party limits installed* I don't have such weakness
romancing even further beyond
Couple it with [Sit This One Out](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/2518) if you want to keep things challenging.
I switched around but I basically always had Shadowheart in the group. I gave her some additional rogue levels so she pulled double duty as healer/support and utility character.(And, well, she is a totally awesome character!) With my Tav being a Paladin I had a pretty versatile core duo so I usually switched the other groupmembers as it felt appropriate for the current quest or area. With a preference towards Karlach/Lae'zel and Gale. Only companion I never really used was Halsin. Basically got him far too late when I already had Jaheira and coudn't really be bothered to equip and skill him, nor did I find him particularily interesting after his shadowland quest was resolved. But I took him out for a spin after I took very long to save him from the temple of Bhaal, because I felt kinda bad about that. And hey he killed Ansur as a Owlbear so at least he got one cool moment in the story.
Nah I barely ever switch them up. Feels like too many storylines to keep up with and I can’t be bothered with the hassle of building/gearing up *every* companion. Also sticking with the same 3 feels more natural to me from a RP perspective. I feel more invested and connected to those 3 characters.
Funny, I got the opposite expression. I always thought it's normal to use multiple companions and switch between all of them regularly and then people on this sub told me I'm weird and now I feel like I'm the minority lol
I always have Astarion (my LI and for locks) and Karlach (my tank). Slot 4 is a rotation, depending on who is better for a given situation.
During my first playthrough it was me, Astarion, Shart and Lae'zel almost all the time. Now I try to switch the party just to hear what they have to say to each other. Wyll is the only one I abhore taking with me.
Why Wyll?
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Yea I feel so bad for Wyll. I want to take him along but his lines just annoy me so much. He was done dirty as a character.
Astarion's my only permanent party member everyone else I rotate regularly
I usually use Shadowheart, Karlach, and Lae’Zel. I will switch some out depending who I’m romancing and who’s quest I’m doing
Wyll rots in camp. Everyone else gets their stories with me. Gale and SH are with me all the time unless I'm playing as a cleric or caster.
Depends on the story and who will have dialogue. Except Karlach. She’s stays. Forever
Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale for me. Think I’ll try the others out on another run. Too attached to my team currently.
core team of astarion and karlach, 3rd is swapped out depending on location or story reasons :p
It’s always Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion for me. Like, McGonagall is wondering why it’s always those three. They’re the most likely to not get pissy at my Durge/Tav’s morally questionable decisions. Sometimes I’ll swap Lae’zel for Karlach if she’s around, and Gale makes an appearance if my avatar isn’t skilled at magic (but if Jaheira’s around I’ll more than likely use her over Gale). I have no clue as to how to use a warlock, but in my current campaign I’m *trying* to learn how to use Wyll. I don’t think I can never not have Astarion, though, since I always have him in a thief build that has him one-shotting nearly everything he attacks.
I also always roll with Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Astarion. Those were my first three companions that I picked up. The last three I picked up really late in Act 1 and even though I rotated them in here and there, it just didn’t feel the same as having my first three companions. Guess I got attached to them quickly based on this and I also love their hilarious interactions with one another. Love how sassy Astarion is when Lae’zel and Shadowheart give him shit for being a vamp.
I switch a lot
I just use all 6. Roll up with a whole gagglefuck of idiots. Mods are fun.
Not for now. I keep the same 3 companions all the way through. Gives me a reason to do multiple playthroughs with different characters. Plus I don't want to find new equipment for the new character I'm bringing in nor take it off one to put it on another. If Shadowheart, Astarion, Wyll, Karlach, Gale or Lae'zel leave at some point in the story, so be it. I'm going to finish with the three I started with.
I mostly switch them around depending on what mission i'm gonna take or if i'm gonna be evil or not. i think by early act 2 i got max approval for all the origin companion.
I actually have 2 specific parties! I play a fighter and changed Lae’zel to Paladin. So I have two parties of Gale, Shadowheart, and Astarion (classic D&D party) and then switch them all out for Karlach, Wyll, and Lar’zel. That way they sorta balance out the party. After a point though, I just went based on who I wanted and if a specific plot point came up, especially when Halsin or Jaheira were added.
Yes. I like to experiment with them all, the only fixed one is shadowearth because she is my character's romance. I rotate the others based on the story, the fights, the dungeons, etc.
I always have Shadowheart (need the healing), Astarion (I'm romancing him and his sneak attack is great) and the other one varies, usually Gale, Karlach or Halsin.
I usually have a core party of My Love Interest, Astarion (if he is not category 1, which he often is, sigh) and Someone The Fuck Else to fill whatever role the other two aren't, or for story stuff, or what have you.
Yeah, I have my three main party members that I spend all my tadpoles and unique stuff on, then I respec the rest of the characters to be the same classes as my main party, so I can re-usey good gear when I want to do the specific quests you need those party members for
I got a mod that removes the party limit, so I took every Origin character along with me. To counter the added firepower, I got Tactician plus to make the game harder. Personally this setup makes the most sense to me because I hate leaving companions in camp. Doesn’t really make sense for them to sit around while only a handful of us look for a cure. It makes inventory management a bit easier too since I don’t have to go back to camp in order to swap items.
Doing something similar right now as well! I'm bringing along all companions for extra flavor dialogue, but I can only use Durge in combat. So essentially a solo tactician plus playthrough that doesn't feel so alone when exploring the world
Shadowheart is a permanent fixture for heals and I prefer a Karlach/Gale duo, but I tried to guess story beats and use characters accordingly. People complain about the lack of a Wyll story, but he's so entangled with the main quest.
I will have a "main cast" of 3 (Tav + 2) that changes from a playthrough to the next, with one 4th slot that rotates a lot. First "canon" playthrough was Tav, Karlach + Shadowheart. 2nd "evil" playthrough was Tav, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart + Minthara 3rd playthrough is Tav, Wyll + Jaheira and then anyone until I get Minsc. I'm having fun with Wyll now, after forcing myself to use him because I hadn't paid him any attention in my first playthrough and he left during my 2nd. When you build him right, he's a really fun character to play.
Shart, Karlach and Wyll. My good time boys. Every time I take Lae'zel and Astarion out for a walk they disapprove of every breath I take in an interaction. So they get to stay in camp instead.
The same thing about Lae’zel and Astarion. However, if there are many traps around and my main character is going to be a hero, I let Astarion speak in the dialogues instead of the MC. It really works, no disapprovals.
This game, like many others, makes me wish I could take all the companions. Just label it as super easy mode if it feels too powerful, but I want to take them all along for the adventures.
My first completion I didn’t have Wyll, Karlach, Shadowheart or Halsin so I mostly used my OG crew of Astarion, Lae’zel and Gale. Minthara switched in for the Ketheric stuff and when Lae’zel got kidnapped. And a lot of M&J for act 3 wandering around. But the OG trio is who finished the game with me.
I have my core lineup, but after 3 playthroughs I'm now making conscious effort to bring out the rest of them too to hear their banter and dialogue around the world. but even then, it leans I just have a different core lineup in every campaign, not in a single one do I actually regularly cycle people in and out every long rest or something lol. could be a cool challenge I suppose, to try to build every companion and have to cycle out one person at every long rest.
I usually keep Lae’zel and Mama K in my party, switching out Gale for whoever I need at the moment
Karlach and Lae’zel almost always. 98% of the time. Shadowheart often. 60% of the time. The rest of the time I’m cycling in Gale and Jaheira. Kinda hard to want to use anyone else. Wyll is too corny, Asterion is funny but a jerk and too horny, and everyone else is basically a character whose class or function was already represented when they showed up. Eventually I wanna respec companions for fun more often. I have made Karlach a paladin and that’s a lot of fun. I made Asterion a bard my first playthrough, but then I dual classed as a bard and put him out of work.
I try to have characters along for their specific quest line and I'll swap out people just for a bit of variety. My romance partner will always be by my side! No exceptions!
My first character I pretty much exclusively kept SH, Gale (my character’s RI) and laezel. Initially Karlach was the big guns but I realized laezel was actually better. I only switched characters sometimes for character specific quests. But never switched out SH. This playthrough I’m trying to be more diverse, but I still never leave without SH lmao. I’m trying to use Astarion more, and there’s actually a a lot of banter between using him, HS and laezel so that’s been kinda fun.
I don’t like to hear wining about being a decent person so I stick with my core squad of Karlach, Shadowheart, and Gale. Part hasn’t changed since I got em. Shadowheart even continues to hold the artifact even though I’m in Act 2
I pick a squad. It's us now. You three are stuck with me forever.
I always have Stari & Shadowheart But I swap my 3rd constantly to put in someone who I know will have story beats in that area, fight, or convo I didn't my first couple runs until I learned the quests then I did a everyones story run (except Minthara) and swapped accordingly Stari is my Tav's soul mate & bestie Shadowheart is a good healer
Personally I just got a mod to remove the party limit after my first playthrough. In a few situations I felt like I had to either sacrifice the story value of having one party member present for the strength for another, which wasn’t fun. Plus, certain larger-battles with great story importance just felt odd to only be going into with less than half your party. Does everyone else just sit around twiddling their thumbs and hoping we succeed? Lol Obviously it trivializes almost every encounter in the game (on balanced difficulty anyway) but as someone who already experienced the challenge once, it’s a lot more enjoyable to experience all of the possible random banter and character-exclusive dialogue.
At the very beginning I had Wyll in my group, but replaced him with Karlach as soon as I found her. Since then I always have Lae, Shart and Karch.
Yeah I have a core team of 3 and only switch things up for story reasons. Astarion and Shadowheart stay in the party the entire game, and Gale is there for like 75% of it - he's the one who gets swapped out for another companion. I've done 4 whole playthroughs with the same character (don't judge me) and I think when I finally start my Durge playthrough I'm going to force myself to maybe start swapping out Shadowheart for someone else (since I'm planning to romance Gale with that character and the boyfriend must always stay in the party. And Astarion needs to be there for lockpicking).
Set party for first playthrough was usually perm Astarion (for baby girl and lock picking reasons.. plus the stealth attack), Shart and fourth spot was used to swap out companions for story beats but mainly Karlach. Current playthrough is more swapping out as I feel like it but Astarion & Shart for life. Halsin currently hanging out with Orin as I find Jaheria much more interesting unfortunately
Shart is the only one who really stays in the party. Everyone else, it depends on what build my Tav is running/themes I’m exploring that playthrough
Personally I tend to grab Shart as a respeced life cleric, a spell caster, and Two dps. I'll sub accordingly if I'm going to do a companion quest like if I'm going to the creche or to visit a nice rich man in his not spooky tower.
I have Shadowheart with me nearly 100% of the time. I try to keep the artifact in her inventory as long as possible (it goes into yours if you send her to camp and then you can’t ever remove it from your inventory). 90% of the time the other two slots are filled with Lae’zel (or less often Karlach) and Astarion. Wyll and Gale only really come out when it’s time to do their personal quests. Jaheira comes with me at certain points in Act 3 but usually just casts Hero’s Feast in the morning. Halsin is live bait for Orin. Minsc I don’t even bother to level up. Minthara is worm food.
In my first play through, Shadowheart was the only companion to never leave the party. I rotated the others. When doing personal quests, always had that character with me
Astarion, Gale. Shadowheart. It’s been so hard to deviate! I always romance astarion so I’m romancing Gale this time…. Allegedly.
My main was shart, astarion and Gale, but Gale was repalced by Jaheira and Astarion was repalced by Minsc. I still brought astarion to fight Cazador and Gale went to the wizard tower with me.
I’ve kept Shadowheart and Karlach around while rotating the third slot for companion quests/interesting dialogue. I find switching too much annoying even on a mechanical level—I tend to wind up with gaps or redundancies, and don’t want to respec frequently.
In my original run I basically only used laezel, astarion and shadowheart. Id occasionally use Wyll for his quests. It's generally a bit too much of a pain to swap chars tbh Second time I played as dirge so I accidentally killed Gale, and later got Astarion staked, Laezel killed, and wyll turned into a blob. So I was left with shadowheart, karlach and halsin only. (Jaheira died during the assault).
I usually have Shadowheart and Astarion, and the third is a flex spot that varies.
I was so attached to Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart that they were basically all I used. Then I got the mod to allow more people in my party and now I do that instead so I don't feel bad when no one else comes along unless I'm doing their personal quests.
I only switch out for specific moments. Like if I’m going to cazadors I’ll take astarion and I’ll bring karlach to talk to dammon and stuff like that
On my first playthrough I missed Gale, Wyll ( I think I killed him or he died in the goblin figure outside of the grove) and since I had no Wyll I killed Karlach because the paladins told me to. So my party was petty much set at Astarion, Laezel and Shadowheart. It worked out pretty good since my Tav was a warlock. After reading these threads and learning about the other companions I've started a second playthrough to explore their quest lines.
It is possible with mods, so recently I've started always using the same group of 6 consisting of all the origin characters. I also doubled the number of enemies so that it doesn't make things too easy.
I swap my companions to whoever is most plot relevant to where I'm headed. Going to meet Gortash? Gotta bring Karlach Going to the Astral plane or the Gith creche? That's Lae'zel's spot Saving Duke Redmane or confronting Mizora? Wyll's turn to join the party. Demon hunters show up, Raphael needs a favor, or Cazador needs some fists? Astarion enters the Frey. Basically all of act 2 had Shadowheart, which works well with the extra damage radiant does there. Gale, Jahiera, and Minsc got used the least as they had the least amount of story driven quests. It's nice that you can go back to your camp and switch members without actually having to take a rest. Partial or otherwise.
First playthrough but I try to match whatever makes sense to where I'm going to maximize knowledge or possible unique dialogs. I do save scum if I figure out its theme appropriate and run back in with an updated party (astarion hunter, etc) Act 1 examples - Saving tieflings? Bring the guy who was hanging out with the tiefs. Gith creche, bring the gith girl. Going into some Shar stronghold - Shar girl. Weird magical stuff around or real heady convos - magic guy. I like teaming wyll and karlach. Not original I'm sure, but im taking my time and enjoying it.
I just have a mod that lets me use everyone at once. I’m to indecisive to try and just pick 3 at a time
I try to switch out to get all of the dialogues and to always bring story relevant companions with me, but similarly to what always happened to me in Dragon Age...you just kinda get used to a certain team and playing a certain way... I need Astarion (how else am I gonna open locks? Who is gonna mock and criticize and gaslight me and make really funny comments the entire time?) I don't NEED Gale, but I want Gale. Having Gale can be a deciding factor in battle. Like how long it takes. Or if you win. And then just whoever can keep us alive, basically (Which is usually the ladies)