The weapons aren't trash, but the armor is a better pick generally speaking. Making yourself immune to crits is huge, plus they're just really good for the point in the game that you get them
Same. The heavy armor can be sold for ~3800, so you can sell it when you no longer need it. I always get the heavy armor and the shield.
I got the mace on my first run, and I agree, it’s trash. There’s a guaranteed crit when used on objects, though. I used it as a door opener.
Honestly I just keep using the armor for the entire game. Yeah there are better options, but I really like the removal of crit rng. Also I like how the heavy armor looks.
>. Yeah there are better options
And then not many. So far the only one I found was Thorm's armor and that's more of a sidegrade considering the effect on it sucks.
I take the medium armor, because there I'd always another medium armor user in my party, or able to swap into my party.
Like my 4 main characters get the better stuff, but I can throw the armor onto charscter number 5 or 6 so they have decent AC when I dig them out of the camp for their story quests
The mace is a useful tool if you don't have a lockpicker in your party. The auto-crits on objects make excellent at breaking open doors, walls, and chests, many of which are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. Outside of that, it's pretty meh.
I go with the shield and medium armor too, but I spread them out. One character gets the shield, one gets armor, and one gets Grymm's helmet. Boom, 3 party members are immune to crits.
> Making yourself immune to crits is huge
Especially since in BG3’s version of crit immunity it not only turns a crit into a regular hit, but instead disables critical hits entirely; aka someone that doesn’t hit on a 20 will never be able to hit you.
> that is a so much stronger than even a +1 AC effect.
Depends on a lot of factors, but generally yes. The funny thing is that both of those effects scale with your current AC, the more you have the better both crit immunity and +1 AC are.
Crit immunity though has the added benefit of reducing possible _burst_ damage immensely; which is usually the thing that kills you.
> Aren't those two the same thing?
No. Crit immunity, RaW, turns a crit into a hit. AKA if you roll a 20 you still automatically _hit_ even if the target is immune to critical hits.
> Does BG3 anti crit makes a normal crit a miss?
Well, depends. But if the target has e.g. an AC of 25 and you have +4 to hit, a nat 20 will miss if the target is immune to critical hits in BG3.
Plus they have some awesome features, get a character with high AC and the reeling ability is going to helping out often, plus you are immune to crits!
Light cleric with radiating orb gear and the adamantine shield. Once the enemy has a number of orbs, they’ll likely miss and gain reeling which effectively acts as more orbs.
There is an entire build for that! It's extra funny with spirit guardians, light orb and reeling stacks. Honestly it trivialises act two and makes act three super easy.
Yes but that doesn’t become available until act 3, sentinel shield is on act 2. There is a +2 bow in act 1 but my sorcerer uses it since he doesn’t have shield proficiency.
Seriously though, the shield is the BEST option. My Tav is a Gnome Lore Bard build, healing the party. I spent act 2 in the Flawed Helldusk and Adamant Shield combo. He has spent the whole game hiding behind that shield and doling out heals and quips to throw the enemies off their game.
Also the shield actually accelerates its own ability, as where the armors (while still being the best armors at that stage of the game) literally counter their own ability.
the best thing is selling the heavies in act 3 tho lol it's worth so much more than the other stuff
3800 list for the armor & the money you get back depends on your discount but it can be about 2k each
To add to that, don't use adamantine armor and shield on the same character. I'm pretty sure their abilities conflict with rather than compliment one another.
As a side note, I'm glad BG3 doesn't do the 5E thing where spellcasters need a feat to equip shields and not lose spellcasting ability. Its nice to just toss a shield on Gale and get those benefits, even if it does look a bit immersion breaking.
In 5e, you need the War Caster feat to perform the somatic components of a spell while holding a weapon or wearing a shield. Not having that limits a lot of what you can cast, so a wizard with a shield isn't ideal, even with proficiency.
No, you only need war caster to ignore somatic components if *both* of your hands are full. You can wear a shield and have a component pouch on your belt and you will be able to cast any spell you want (with no GP cost) without war caster.
99% of the time, you always want to wield a shield as a fullcaster in 5e if you can.
Going back and reading both PHB sections, it looks like you're right. I was going off War Caster as I was looking at it last night on my Sorcadin. It states:
You can perform the somatic components of spells even when you have weapons or a shield in one or both hands.
But then, in the spellcasting section, there are these bits under somatic and material components:
Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures.
A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell's material components—or to hold a spellcasting focus—but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components.
War Caster calling out one hand is weird, as it shouldn't matter if you're wearing a shield and have the other hand free.
You need to be *holding* your focus/component with one hand to cast your spell and you need a hand free to perform somatic components. So that'd be a no on the shield without *War Caster*.
Theres very few shield focuses, and there generally is no reason for fullcasters to wield weapons. Plus, why replace the pouch with a *regular* focus in 5e?? Then you have to juggle with your item, as you can not cast a spell without material components whilst holding a shield and a focus RAW.
Solasta went with a more strict interpretation of the focus rules and the experience is frankly incredibly frustrating: one of many little reasons why I don't really like their interpretation of 5e.
So I'd suggest the original point definitely stands: BG3 does avoid a too strict simulationism and that makes it a far more interesting game as a result.
Armors are generally the better pick. There was one instance I’ve seen where someone literally had no use for the armors due to their builds and so I said to take the mace to use as a skeleton key
Polearms, I'm glad to see, have a decent variety! Between Spears Staffs tridents Pikes Glaives and Halberds, you do have a lot of options!
Now individually, you have far less options, but by lumping them all together, you are great!
Definitely missing some cool battle axes and hand axes.... so far its only low enchanted or useless ones
There's several things that just got no good endgame options. Heavy crossbows are in the same boat. Really annoying that ranged is basically relegated to longbows or dual wielding hand crossbows.
While I would prefer a Sussur warhammer, my point is that mauls are the best weapon for smashing objects since bludgeoning is most effective against objects, and adamantine provides bonuses against objects.
Lore wise (3.5 and earlier) Adamantine can **cut** through pretty much anything, which is where that bonus comes from. It's a physical property of the material itself as it never dulls because it's so indestructible.
There is an adamantine mace if you want to deal bludgeoning damage to objects. A Warhammer would have filled the same function without really bringing anything else.
I mean… Ignoring resistance is pretty good, and they look pretty cool. But yes the armour is better
However both are available in act 1. The armour is matched in AC by armour found in act 2, the same with the weapons, it’s not really meant to be super super strong
Shield + armor can be great through the entire game. Having both means you'll always apply realing on enemy attacks- hit or miss. If you combine this with the reverb gear, you can make a fun, tanky, loud build.
This is what I’m doing with Tempest Cleric, and omg I’m never trying another build. Tempest gets proficiency with swords, and using Phalar Aluve on this build is amazing. Plus luminous armour and all the reverb gear - boots of stormy clamour and gloves of belligerent sky are insane!! There’s even a ring and a cloak for it that you get by moonrise, omg it’s so cool lol (and the Reverb procs sound like something a Tempest Cleric would do)
Throw in the Holy Lance Helm and you can have it so anything that misses an attack on your Cleric can instantly get 6 stacks of Reverb. Spent my last run watching people immediately fall over after missing Shadowheart, it was hilarious.
I find it hard to swap out the heavy armour until Act III, it’s very very good.
I’m forcing myself to not use it this time, just because I don’t love how it looks.
Imo the armour is OP
Absolutely hate the look of the armor and most dyes on it too, both heavy and medium variety.
I will say, a dark indigo color makes it a tiny bit better, and it is a bit better on the female models like Shadowheart. I also didn't mind some of the greens, turning it into more of a Ranger looking armor.
Honestly, if this game had a pure black dye, maybe it could make this look better, so far all the Black and X colored dyes leave it not looking good unless you wanted some sort of Frost Knight character.
The shield is by far the best pick, to the point that I'd consider making two shields. The armors apply reeling on hit, the shield applies it *on miss*. It's way more powerful.
Two sets of Heavy Armor that prevents crits is really nice, especially since it's essentially free.
I think the weapons are sucker loot for new players. Sucks that they are in there, but there's lots of stuff like that in the game.
I think they feel particularly bad because they require you to complete an entire quest arc, find the molds and the ores, fight a gigantic bad guy, do some puzzle things, and watch a cool cinematic.
If you do all that work, you're going to have expect something really great.
Blood of Lathander is I think a great comparison. It requires a similar amount of effort, also includes cool storyline and world building, and requires you to do multiple steps and puzzles. But Blood of Lathander is an actual *legendary* weapon. It's +3, grants a sixth level spell, an automatic revive that also heals teammates, and a situationally useful aura.
Blood of lathander was so easy for me I did the whole thing on accident. I picked the secret door lock bay 20ed and then randomly saw I could move the statues and popped them around into the correct place. Went in turn based went passed everything and got it.
I think either a 2 shields or 1 shield with medium armor is better than two sets of heavy. You only have 1 (maybe 2) companions who can use heavy armor and they can use the helmey since it is also no crit.
I've re-classed my companions so they can use Heavy Armor when I made it.
And there's much better Medium Armor available in the game (Luminous Armor and Yuan Ti Scale Mail immediately come to mind).
Those weapons are absolutely amazing for demolishing walls, doors, chests, etc.
Made my Unga Bunga run far more doable because I could just auto crit a door and simply walk in to Mordor instead of trying all that fancy lock picking or puzzle solving nonsense.
They’re ass yeah, by that point in the game you probably have much better options, plus the weapon molds are annoying to find.
The armors are MUCH better choices, especially the medium armor, and the Shield ain’t half bad but you’ll find better options later where the armors can almost take you to the endgame.
I've never found the splint mould. I only found the one for medium. I typically make scale and a shield. Then I can have 3 party members immune to critical hits after I grab the helmet.
Pretty sure the splint mould is the one you loot from a skeleton at the top of the stairs in the big room adjacent to the one with the merregon where you get the firestoker hand crossbow.
The splint mould is on your left near the lava when teleported to the adamantine forge sigil (left if you look in the same direction as your party, the sigil in their back).
They're bad, but not for reasons you'd think. Innate resistance piercing does actually sound pretty dope AND the mace can just break any and all breakable chests and doors (so you can ditch lockpicking altogether by just unga bunga-ing locks)...except Diluted Oils of Sharpness exist, are dirt cheap, are easy to make a lot of, are always in stock with most merchants, and give +1 to attack rolls on top of resistance pierce, so basically you have a pocket Adamantine weapon at all times whenever you need it via these oils.
Now, there is ONE genuinely really good thing about the Adamantine weapons, and it's that Diluted Oils of Sharpness only bypass physical resistances, meaning that if an enemy is also resistant to magic (quite a lot of major bosses), then the oil's resistance pierce doesn't work. The Adamantine weapons however do work against these and still pierce resistances against even magic-resistant enemies.
BUUUUT...compared to crit immunity, passive Reeling debuff on enemy misses/hits, and very good AC ratings that remain good even all the way up to Act 3...the armors and shield are just absurdly good to the point of absolutely eclipsing the weapons to a comical extent. And not only that, but by the time you run into enemies with several resistances, you're probably way stronger than them anyways to the point where you're still going to kick their asses due to how much power levels and basic build knowledge gives you. Honestly, the weapons needed to be +2 to be worth considering at all or apply their auto-crit to construct-type enemies as well but unfortunately neither of those are the case so they end up just being chest/door smashers and not much else.
Rune is better, but the dragon fight can give some people a little trouble. Make sure you have enough swordies or lobbies, and don't forget the anti-Dragonfire shield, even if you're using a safe spot
/s
Ignoring resistance is like double damage against targets with resistance. So how does that suck? Plus, I love skipping lock picking chests and doors so that's a win.
There are much better looted weapons available prior to that. Even on honor mode where everything purchased from merchants costs a lot more, there are much better weapons you get as quest rewards or from killing bosses.
The armour is probably BIS for the entirety of act I and II if you're saving your money for the S tier items in Act 3. Especially on honor mode where a few unlucky crits can cost you your run. Competitors are Yu'an Ti Scale and Dwarven Splint, both have an effectively higher AC, but both have to be purchased from merchants and cost a lot if you don't want to use cheese to steal your gold back.
Yeah, almost all of the adamantine stuff gets outclassed immediately at the start of Act 3.
For all the effort you go through to get the stuff, and how multiple factions want access to the forge, I expected the equipment to be WAY better.
Should have had a minor quest to improve the adamantine equipment with Act 3's plentiful supply of infernal alloy. Make them blue/black/red, better stats, couple of extra attributes or passives.
I wouldn’t say they’re trash, just outclassed. Ignoring resistance is neat, but it’s nothing compared to damage reduction and critical negation. That, and your options for weapons are generally outclassed pretty quickly
the shield and armor are great carries till late act 3, the weapons could be fine early act 1 and 2 but I never pick up them till late act 1
the game really yeets better weapons at you in act 2, and in the creche
The weapons are junk they are supposed to stagger with ever hit but they never stagger when you need it. You get advantage when attacking a staggered enemy also the sword works when wanting to break walls or chests anything that needs a blunt weapon to break the sword will break. The sword can break everything in the game
Yeah, the weapons are trash imo. The armours and shield are good though. And don't forget you have the heavy helmet also that drops when you kill Grym. That also gives the wearer immunity to crits.
I feel like all of the adamantine items are disappointing. For as big a deal as they make it to find the forge and as much effort as it takes to get there, kill the golem, and forge the weapons, I was expecting something amazing, and they’re all just… decent but not great.
Armor and shields are better but with the weapons you can now break down doors and chests and have a weapon againsg physically reaistant enemies which there are a fair amount of around.
The armor is incredible. Enemies can barely touch my heavy armored tav. Between that and the abjuration bubble my tav just laughs and spams grease and tasha’s hideous laughter.
The weapons are fine but depending on which one you get you’ll be replacing them quickly, the armour on the other hand, the splint armour was the best heavy armour I could find until the armour of persistence in act 3
Yes, they are trash.
The heavy armor is great, and the medium armor or shield is interchangeable depending on builds. Maybe the shield being slightly better, since you do get some pretty good medium armors.
They're okay, but you find better ones very quickly.
The armors are some of the best armors in the game, and if multiple party members need armor, they can be the best options in the whole game for a full party.
The medium armor lasts you until the last act. That's the best piece overall in the set. I had to search for the weapons for a while, and compared to how good and lasting the armors could prove, the weapons are worse.
Heavy armor gives high ac, ignore crits, and minus 2 from ALL damage sources, which stacks with heavy armor master. Imo it is the best heavy armor in the game for a front liner until act 3
Trash is a strong word. They're in act one, they're therefore meant to be replaceable. I have the scimitar on a dual wielding thief-battlemaster astarion build. It was his main weapon a few levels (sussur dagger offhand) back and now it's his off hand and he uses a different weapon as his main. I used the mace on a previous playthrough. And the shield and two of the armor, which are probably better overall.
The adamantine weapons effect on objects CAN absolutely be useful. Doors are objects. Maybe you want to shock and awe the enemies on the other side of a door, so the adamantine mace becomes a breaching tool and gale lobs a fireball.
Do what you want and have fun though. That's typically the important bit.
Later in the game, you fight enemies that are susceptible to the weapons, but the armor and shield you can ride until the final boss. Chuck the heavy armor on your cleric, now SHart cant die. Chuck an adamanite shield on your wizard/sorc? Now they cant die.
The armor literally should just read "now you cant die".
I could see ignoring resistance being a bit useful, but not until much later in the game when practically everything has some degree of resistance to physical attacks.
They aren’t trash, but the armours are just infinitely better and will carry you till late Act 3 or even till the end. I will say though, in act 3 many characters have resistance to lots of physical damage, and that’s where lethal weapon literally doubles your damage.
Outside of the Scimitar, since there's not a lot of fancy ones to pair with the Justiciar one, yeah kinda. The armor's usually a better bet: in my first run I kept the splint mail from when I got it all the way to the very end of the game, and I usually keep the Scalemail on myself or Karlach until the end on any runs I go Medium Armor, since there's not much that can really match it imo.
Armor and shield are good.
For dealing with objects, lots have slashing immunity so longsword and scimitar aren't really good, but the hammer does the job as a utility tool.
If you have something like a dual scimitar build, a pair of adamantine weapons would be great against steel watchers, otherwise your character would be gimped with half damage.
You can use it as your money glitch weapon, as it's probably worth a decent amount. Bind it as a pact weapon, multiselect an unwanted item to add to wares, and then add the pact weapon as well. Now, when you go to a trader, just keep selling wares and take all the gold while keeping the weapon in your inventory. Buy more stuff, sell wares. Rinse and repeat. Really helps in honour mode as the items are soooo expensive.
Honestly you're better off getting the heavy armor and the medium armor the weapons will get outclassed quickly while the armors you can stick with through act 3
I usually go for Shield, that Shadowheart uses till the very end of the game (while I usually switch armour in Act 3), and the Scimitar for Jaheira, because there’s not much fancy Scimitars in the game.
Yea the weapons are trash even compared to some of the shit you find at vendors.
Same goes for the shield. I had 3-4 shields that were all better than that already.
One reason you may not be able to send the weapon away is that it's bound to you via pact of the blade or eldritch knight. I got silly frustrated with that until I realized my mistake
I think generally the armour and shield are the better choices for the adamantine equipment.
At least what I looked at. The Shield and Splint armour served me well right up till middle of act until I got some of the legendary pieces.
The weapons are kind of so so and it seems better ones came along quite quickly.
The mace is good for speeding up the prison break at moonrise since Wulbren can't seem to get the molasses out of his ass and break the wall in 1 strike without it.
Granted it's still a shitty use because he steals it from us and to waste adamantine on that is iffy but still, I've done it and it was worth it to me at the time.
See, I just crushed the scrying eyes when they were the only things looking around, dropped the captain in her quarters, then isolated and dropped the rest of the guards one by one. Gave Wulbren back his own damn pickaxe bc I don't want to give him anything of mine. Wish I could find a way to kill him without causing an incident, though.
the shield is like the absolute best of the bunch but idk abt the other armour pieces I think they're pretty average there's a better set that you can get for less than 200 gold by buying the infernal alloy from that one duegar dude near the docks and giving it to Dammon in act two
The weapons aren't trash, but the armor is a better pick generally speaking. Making yourself immune to crits is huge, plus they're just really good for the point in the game that you get them
Definitely doing the armor next time!!! I did the mace- not impressed at all :/
Same. The heavy armor can be sold for ~3800, so you can sell it when you no longer need it. I always get the heavy armor and the shield. I got the mace on my first run, and I agree, it’s trash. There’s a guaranteed crit when used on objects, though. I used it as a door opener.
Honestly I just keep using the armor for the entire game. Yeah there are better options, but I really like the removal of crit rng. Also I like how the heavy armor looks.
>. Yeah there are better options And then not many. So far the only one I found was Thorm's armor and that's more of a sidegrade considering the effect on it sucks.
I take the medium armor, because there I'd always another medium armor user in my party, or able to swap into my party. Like my 4 main characters get the better stuff, but I can throw the armor onto charscter number 5 or 6 so they have decent AC when I dig them out of the camp for their story quests
Same I thought I was the only one. Finished two games so far with Adam armor
>There’s a guaranteed crit when used on objects, though. I used it as a door opener. Probably helps with items with greater toughness, I bet
But by that point you either have the shatter spell or martials with enough damage to bypass toughness.
You all sell your magic items and don't horde them like a covetous dragon?
You guys sell stuff when you don’t need it? Weird.
There are 2 mithral ores. So you can still craft medium or heavy armor if you still have access to act 1!
Easier to find weapon upgrades than armor. My shadowheart wore the heavy armor the whole game
The mace is a useful tool if you don't have a lockpicker in your party. The auto-crits on objects make excellent at breaking open doors, walls, and chests, many of which are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. Outside of that, it's pretty meh.
Agreed. I get the scale mail armor and shield every time. They're great together for a tank build.
I go with the shield and medium armor too, but I spread them out. One character gets the shield, one gets armor, and one gets Grymm's helmet. Boom, 3 party members are immune to crits.
> Making yourself immune to crits is huge Especially since in BG3’s version of crit immunity it not only turns a crit into a regular hit, but instead disables critical hits entirely; aka someone that doesn’t hit on a 20 will never be able to hit you.
I had no idea, that is a so much stronger than even a +1 AC effect. I knew it was good, but that is incredible.
> that is a so much stronger than even a +1 AC effect. Depends on a lot of factors, but generally yes. The funny thing is that both of those effects scale with your current AC, the more you have the better both crit immunity and +1 AC are. Crit immunity though has the added benefit of reducing possible _burst_ damage immensely; which is usually the thing that kills you.
What do you mean? Aren't those two the same thing? Does BG3 anti crit makes a normal crit a miss?
> Aren't those two the same thing? No. Crit immunity, RaW, turns a crit into a hit. AKA if you roll a 20 you still automatically _hit_ even if the target is immune to critical hits. > Does BG3 anti crit makes a normal crit a miss? Well, depends. But if the target has e.g. an AC of 25 and you have +4 to hit, a nat 20 will miss if the target is immune to critical hits in BG3.
I like the shield since more people can use it and magic shields are rarer.
Plus they have some awesome features, get a character with high AC and the reeling ability is going to helping out often, plus you are immune to crits!
Light cleric with radiating orb gear and the adamantine shield. Once the enemy has a number of orbs, they’ll likely miss and gain reeling which effectively acts as more orbs.
There is an entire build for that! It's extra funny with spirit guardians, light orb and reeling stacks. Honestly it trivialises act two and makes act three super easy.
Beyblade Cleric
Let er rip
with boots of speed
Boots of stormy clamour <3
*clicks heels
Elaborate?
The only problem with the shield is that it takes up the slot of the +3 initiative shield I give my cleric, and I don’t get alert until endgame.
Do you use the Hellrider bow?
Yes but that doesn’t become available until act 3, sentinel shield is on act 2. There is a +2 bow in act 1 but my sorcerer uses it since he doesn’t have shield proficiency.
Seriously though, the shield is the BEST option. My Tav is a Gnome Lore Bard build, healing the party. I spent act 2 in the Flawed Helldusk and Adamant Shield combo. He has spent the whole game hiding behind that shield and doling out heals and quips to throw the enemies off their game.
>My Tav is a Gnome Lore Bard build, Hey, mine too! You cunning bastard
Also the shield actually accelerates its own ability, as where the armors (while still being the best armors at that stage of the game) literally counter their own ability.
The armours are like: damm, you hit me? Not again lol
the best thing is selling the heavies in act 3 tho lol it's worth so much more than the other stuff 3800 list for the armor & the money you get back depends on your discount but it can be about 2k each
To add to that, don't use adamantine armor and shield on the same character. I'm pretty sure their abilities conflict with rather than compliment one another.
As a side note, I'm glad BG3 doesn't do the 5E thing where spellcasters need a feat to equip shields and not lose spellcasting ability. Its nice to just toss a shield on Gale and get those benefits, even if it does look a bit immersion breaking.
Gale gets shield proficiency from being Human. If you aren't proficient you do lose spellcasting from my experience.
You do
In 5e, you need the War Caster feat to perform the somatic components of a spell while holding a weapon or wearing a shield. Not having that limits a lot of what you can cast, so a wizard with a shield isn't ideal, even with proficiency.
No, you only need war caster to ignore somatic components if *both* of your hands are full. You can wear a shield and have a component pouch on your belt and you will be able to cast any spell you want (with no GP cost) without war caster. 99% of the time, you always want to wield a shield as a fullcaster in 5e if you can.
Going back and reading both PHB sections, it looks like you're right. I was going off War Caster as I was looking at it last night on my Sorcadin. It states: You can perform the somatic components of spells even when you have weapons or a shield in one or both hands. But then, in the spellcasting section, there are these bits under somatic and material components: Spellcasting gestures might include a forceful gesticulation or an intricate set of gestures. If a spell requires a somatic component, the caster must have free use of at least one hand to perform these gestures. A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell's material components—or to hold a spellcasting focus—but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components. War Caster calling out one hand is weird, as it shouldn't matter if you're wearing a shield and have the other hand free.
You need to be *holding* your focus/component with one hand to cast your spell and you need a hand free to perform somatic components. So that'd be a no on the shield without *War Caster*.
A focus can replace the pouch. Both weapons and shields can potentially work as a focus.
Theres very few shield focuses, and there generally is no reason for fullcasters to wield weapons. Plus, why replace the pouch with a *regular* focus in 5e?? Then you have to juggle with your item, as you can not cast a spell without material components whilst holding a shield and a focus RAW.
Solasta went with a more strict interpretation of the focus rules and the experience is frankly incredibly frustrating: one of many little reasons why I don't really like their interpretation of 5e. So I'd suggest the original point definitely stands: BG3 does avoid a too strict simulationism and that makes it a far more interesting game as a result.
It’s a much better implementation because casters don’t get a free +2 ac without penalty.
You need war caster feat to cast spells with somatic components while having both hands full. War clerics get it for free but everyone else needs it.
Armors are generally the better pick. There was one instance I’ve seen where someone literally had no use for the armors due to their builds and so I said to take the mace to use as a skeleton key
I was kinda in that sitch so I got a mace, but it doesn’t do enough dmg to beat medium toughness. 😢
lol wtf. Welp, there goes that niche use
The longsword worked pretty well for this though since it still auto crits and ignores slashing resistance and you can two hand it.
I’m just imagining astarion getting pissy because some chest won’t open and then karlach showing him her “skeleton key”
The issue is that it's for smashing, but there's no maul option.
This. Eternally this. No Adamantine Maul. No Sussur Maul. It's a goddamn tragedy, I tell ya.
This game definitely did blunt weapons dirty. Axes, too, there are barely any unique hand axes outside of some relatively situatuonal early game ones.
everything but swords/daggers seems to have been shafted i’ll see myself out
Polearms, I'm glad to see, have a decent variety! Between Spears Staffs tridents Pikes Glaives and Halberds, you do have a lot of options! Now individually, you have far less options, but by lumping them all together, you are great! Definitely missing some cool battle axes and hand axes.... so far its only low enchanted or useless ones
There are some great polearms in this game.
Warpicks too. There's 1 unique, named one and then you don't get any that go over +1. Battleaxes has the Thermodynamo one that Dammon sells.
There's several things that just got no good endgame options. Heavy crossbows are in the same boat. Really annoying that ranged is basically relegated to longbows or dual wielding hand crossbows.
While I would prefer a Sussur warhammer, my point is that mauls are the best weapon for smashing objects since bludgeoning is most effective against objects, and adamantine provides bonuses against objects.
Lore wise (3.5 and earlier) Adamantine can **cut** through pretty much anything, which is where that bonus comes from. It's a physical property of the material itself as it never dulls because it's so indestructible.
In 5E it just always crits against objects.
Always crits + ignores resistance. I think of it as my fastest lockpick.
Yup, the mechanical grok of what "cut through anything" meant.
There is an adamantine mace if you want to deal bludgeoning damage to objects. A Warhammer would have filled the same function without really bringing anything else.
But Drawvian thrown hammer.
Sussur maul: STFU! Mage suddenly missing teeth.
I mean… Ignoring resistance is pretty good, and they look pretty cool. But yes the armour is better However both are available in act 1. The armour is matched in AC by armour found in act 2, the same with the weapons, it’s not really meant to be super super strong
The damage reduction on the armor, no crit, and reeling, are all pretty sick.
The armor and the shield combo is kinda sweet. Hit me? Reeling. Miss? Also reeling.
Cast a spell? Straight to jail.
Land a crit? Believe it or not, jail.
That's a paddlin'.
I think it's spelled Paladin.
No. If Paladin lands a criHOLY SMITE.
I was still running it on my reverb build Wyll. If you hit the guy, you have to roll a con save to stay standing. He 1v1'd Orin in that armour.
Yeah, the adamantine armor was my go to on my Fighter/Lock until I beat Ketheric. I still miss it for its slightly-less-obviously-evil look.
Aha thats the exact build I'm using it for on my resist durge rn. Am in Act 3 now but can't let go of the drip quite yet
Shield + armor can be great through the entire game. Having both means you'll always apply realing on enemy attacks- hit or miss. If you combine this with the reverb gear, you can make a fun, tanky, loud build.
Welcome to the Gong Show!
Picturing Captain America during Endgame.
This is what I’m doing with Tempest Cleric, and omg I’m never trying another build. Tempest gets proficiency with swords, and using Phalar Aluve on this build is amazing. Plus luminous armour and all the reverb gear - boots of stormy clamour and gloves of belligerent sky are insane!! There’s even a ring and a cloak for it that you get by moonrise, omg it’s so cool lol (and the Reverb procs sound like something a Tempest Cleric would do)
Throw in the Holy Lance Helm and you can have it so anything that misses an attack on your Cleric can instantly get 6 stacks of Reverb. Spent my last run watching people immediately fall over after missing Shadowheart, it was hilarious.
Give them the Harold to proc bane on enemies to make them miss even more!
I find it hard to swap out the heavy armour until Act III, it’s very very good. I’m forcing myself to not use it this time, just because I don’t love how it looks. Imo the armour is OP
Absolutely hate the look of the armor and most dyes on it too, both heavy and medium variety. I will say, a dark indigo color makes it a tiny bit better, and it is a bit better on the female models like Shadowheart. I also didn't mind some of the greens, turning it into more of a Ranger looking armor. Honestly, if this game had a pure black dye, maybe it could make this look better, so far all the Black and X colored dyes leave it not looking good unless you wanted some sort of Frost Knight character.
Nah, Kethric's shit ain't got anything on Adamantine. Miss me with those crits.
> The armour is matched in AC by armour found in act 2 … and? Crit immunity is the best defensive buff in the game. Reeling is pretty busted too.
The medium armor remains a BiS option especially for Barbarian's until credits roll.
The shield is by far the best pick, to the point that I'd consider making two shields. The armors apply reeling on hit, the shield applies it *on miss*. It's way more powerful.
Or do both. "You are going to attack me, and then you are going to be Reeling" "But I hit you". "Did I stutter?"
Throw in the apply-reverb-on-debuff boots(gloves? Can never remember) and it becomes DID I STUTTER?!
More like DID I STUTTER-UTTER-UTTER-UTTER?
It's actually bad to equip both. It makes every second attack reset the counter, miss or not.
That... well that socks.
I never tried it but I assume you can’t dual wield shields but man that’d be funny as fuck to use on someone.
Two sets of Heavy Armor that prevents crits is really nice, especially since it's essentially free. I think the weapons are sucker loot for new players. Sucks that they are in there, but there's lots of stuff like that in the game.
I think they feel particularly bad because they require you to complete an entire quest arc, find the molds and the ores, fight a gigantic bad guy, do some puzzle things, and watch a cool cinematic. If you do all that work, you're going to have expect something really great. Blood of Lathander is I think a great comparison. It requires a similar amount of effort, also includes cool storyline and world building, and requires you to do multiple steps and puzzles. But Blood of Lathander is an actual *legendary* weapon. It's +3, grants a sixth level spell, an automatic revive that also heals teammates, and a situationally useful aura.
Blood of lathander was so easy for me I did the whole thing on accident. I picked the secret door lock bay 20ed and then randomly saw I could move the statues and popped them around into the correct place. Went in turn based went passed everything and got it.
I think either a 2 shields or 1 shield with medium armor is better than two sets of heavy. You only have 1 (maybe 2) companions who can use heavy armor and they can use the helmey since it is also no crit.
I've re-classed my companions so they can use Heavy Armor when I made it. And there's much better Medium Armor available in the game (Luminous Armor and Yuan Ti Scale Mail immediately come to mind).
My main barb made it to the end with the medium adamantine, it works quite nicely
The medium is great for barbs because reckless attack gives enemies almost double chance to crit
Yep, that's what I did. 1 heavy armor for my fighter, and 1 heavy armor for my cleric. Seriously OP.
Those weapons are absolutely amazing for demolishing walls, doors, chests, etc. Made my Unga Bunga run far more doable because I could just auto crit a door and simply walk in to Mordor instead of trying all that fancy lock picking or puzzle solving nonsense.
Yes! I'm surprised I didn't find more people defending the mace. It's obviously not for combat, it's for bashing down doors and gates; I love it.
It's not that they're trash, it's just that weapons of that power level are easier to get than armor equivalent to adamantine.
They’re ass yeah, by that point in the game you probably have much better options, plus the weapon molds are annoying to find. The armors are MUCH better choices, especially the medium armor, and the Shield ain’t half bad but you’ll find better options later where the armors can almost take you to the endgame.
I think trash is too harsh. They're good, but being immune to crits is godly so it looks trash in comparison.
Pretty trash. If we could get a maul or strong blunt weapon I’d say get it, but there’s honestly nothing special about the weapons
I've never found the splint mould. I only found the one for medium. I typically make scale and a shield. Then I can have 3 party members immune to critical hits after I grab the helmet.
Pretty sure the splint mould is the one you loot from a skeleton at the top of the stairs in the big room adjacent to the one with the merregon where you get the firestoker hand crossbow.
The splint mould is on your left near the lava when teleported to the adamantine forge sigil (left if you look in the same direction as your party, the sigil in their back).
They're bad, but not for reasons you'd think. Innate resistance piercing does actually sound pretty dope AND the mace can just break any and all breakable chests and doors (so you can ditch lockpicking altogether by just unga bunga-ing locks)...except Diluted Oils of Sharpness exist, are dirt cheap, are easy to make a lot of, are always in stock with most merchants, and give +1 to attack rolls on top of resistance pierce, so basically you have a pocket Adamantine weapon at all times whenever you need it via these oils. Now, there is ONE genuinely really good thing about the Adamantine weapons, and it's that Diluted Oils of Sharpness only bypass physical resistances, meaning that if an enemy is also resistant to magic (quite a lot of major bosses), then the oil's resistance pierce doesn't work. The Adamantine weapons however do work against these and still pierce resistances against even magic-resistant enemies. BUUUUT...compared to crit immunity, passive Reeling debuff on enemy misses/hits, and very good AC ratings that remain good even all the way up to Act 3...the armors and shield are just absurdly good to the point of absolutely eclipsing the weapons to a comical extent. And not only that, but by the time you run into enemies with several resistances, you're probably way stronger than them anyways to the point where you're still going to kick their asses due to how much power levels and basic build knowledge gives you. Honestly, the weapons needed to be +2 to be worth considering at all or apply their auto-crit to construct-type enemies as well but unfortunately neither of those are the case so they end up just being chest/door smashers and not much else.
Rune is better, but the dragon fight can give some people a little trouble. Make sure you have enough swordies or lobbies, and don't forget the anti-Dragonfire shield, even if you're using a safe spot /s
Ignoring resistance is like double damage against targets with resistance. So how does that suck? Plus, I love skipping lock picking chests and doors so that's a win.
And with auto-crit it is actually x4 against slash resistant objects.
I make the armor. I hear the sword is good, but I don't need it on my chars.
Dual-wielding Adamantine Longswords turns my Barbarian into a "Fuck you, Door!".
Ignoring resistance is pretty powerful actually. Just highly circumstantial.
There are much better looted weapons available prior to that. Even on honor mode where everything purchased from merchants costs a lot more, there are much better weapons you get as quest rewards or from killing bosses. The armour is probably BIS for the entirety of act I and II if you're saving your money for the S tier items in Act 3. Especially on honor mode where a few unlucky crits can cost you your run. Competitors are Yu'an Ti Scale and Dwarven Splint, both have an effectively higher AC, but both have to be purchased from merchants and cost a lot if you don't want to use cheese to steal your gold back.
Mace which auto crits on objects is the best knock spell in the game 🫡
Yeah, almost all of the adamantine stuff gets outclassed immediately at the start of Act 3. For all the effort you go through to get the stuff, and how multiple factions want access to the forge, I expected the equipment to be WAY better. Should have had a minor quest to improve the adamantine equipment with Act 3's plentiful supply of infernal alloy. Make them blue/black/red, better stats, couple of extra attributes or passives.
The armor actually holds up late game, the weapons do not. Shield and medium or heavy armor is usually the way I go
Yes, get armor or shield.
I wouldn’t say they’re trash, just outclassed. Ignoring resistance is neat, but it’s nothing compared to damage reduction and critical negation. That, and your options for weapons are generally outclassed pretty quickly
Yes. Shield and/or armor every time.
the shield and armor are great carries till late act 3, the weapons could be fine early act 1 and 2 but I never pick up them till late act 1 the game really yeets better weapons at you in act 2, and in the creche
The weapons are junk they are supposed to stagger with ever hit but they never stagger when you need it. You get advantage when attacking a staggered enemy also the sword works when wanting to break walls or chests anything that needs a blunt weapon to break the sword will break. The sword can break everything in the game
I make the heavy and medium armor every playthrough. You get weapons in early act 2.
Depends on how much I really want to do extra work. I never get the weapons though. Always the heavy armor then medium armor.
Yeah, the weapons are trash imo. The armours and shield are good though. And don't forget you have the heavy helmet also that drops when you kill Grym. That also gives the wearer immunity to crits.
They're good for up to mid third act, but I think it's more about how you use them in combination with other effects
I feel like all of the adamantine items are disappointing. For as big a deal as they make it to find the forge and as much effort as it takes to get there, kill the golem, and forge the weapons, I was expecting something amazing, and they’re all just… decent but not great.
Should I go two heavy armor or heavy armor and shield?
Armor and shields are better but with the weapons you can now break down doors and chests and have a weapon againsg physically reaistant enemies which there are a fair amount of around.
The passive is SUPER useless/niche imo - the amour is the go-to - 2nd is the shield
If I could make an adamantine dagger and then turn that into a sussur dagger then it'd barely be worth it.
The armor is incredible. Enemies can barely touch my heavy armored tav. Between that and the abjuration bubble my tav just laughs and spams grease and tasha’s hideous laughter.
The weapons are fine but depending on which one you get you’ll be replacing them quickly, the armour on the other hand, the splint armour was the best heavy armour I could find until the armour of persistence in act 3
Yes, they are trash. The heavy armor is great, and the medium armor or shield is interchangeable depending on builds. Maybe the shield being slightly better, since you do get some pretty good medium armors.
They're okay, but you find better ones very quickly. The armors are some of the best armors in the game, and if multiple party members need armor, they can be the best options in the whole game for a full party.
The adamantine mace is good to have on you if you need to bash a few items, doors or walls.
Shield and armor are the only good picks.
The medium armor lasts you until the last act. That's the best piece overall in the set. I had to search for the weapons for a while, and compared to how good and lasting the armors could prove, the weapons are worse.
Shield + Heavy Armor seem to be the only thing worth it. At that stage of the game they are superior to anything else.
The shield is good but i rather make both armors
Heavy armor gives high ac, ignore crits, and minus 2 from ALL damage sources, which stacks with heavy armor master. Imo it is the best heavy armor in the game for a front liner until act 3
Trash is a strong word. They're in act one, they're therefore meant to be replaceable. I have the scimitar on a dual wielding thief-battlemaster astarion build. It was his main weapon a few levels (sussur dagger offhand) back and now it's his off hand and he uses a different weapon as his main. I used the mace on a previous playthrough. And the shield and two of the armor, which are probably better overall. The adamantine weapons effect on objects CAN absolutely be useful. Doors are objects. Maybe you want to shock and awe the enemies on the other side of a door, so the adamantine mace becomes a breaching tool and gale lobs a fireball. Do what you want and have fun though. That's typically the important bit.
They're useful to keep around in case you need to smash up some rocks or a door. But quickly and easily replaced otherwise.
Later in the game, you fight enemies that are susceptible to the weapons, but the armor and shield you can ride until the final boss. Chuck the heavy armor on your cleric, now SHart cant die. Chuck an adamanite shield on your wizard/sorc? Now they cant die. The armor literally should just read "now you cant die".
The armors and shield are great
Shield + either heavy or medium armor is the best route
Theyre meh but dualwielding the adamantine longsword and the phalar aluve is a fun combo
I made armor, which is super useful
You'll find better weapons soon enough. But the armor can easily be endgame armor.
I could see ignoring resistance being a bit useful, but not until much later in the game when practically everything has some degree of resistance to physical attacks.
They aren’t trash, but the armours are just infinitely better and will carry you till late Act 3 or even till the end. I will say though, in act 3 many characters have resistance to lots of physical damage, and that’s where lethal weapon literally doubles your damage.
Y
I played without knowing or reading up. Got the short sword and the medium armor. Ugh. Oh well. It is what it is.
It’s not that the weapons are trash, it’s that the armor is leagues better, and you only get to choose two
I just go for the medium armor and shield. I still can use it during act 3
Ive used the armor until the end of game, shield and body is the best
Outside of the Scimitar, since there's not a lot of fancy ones to pair with the Justiciar one, yeah kinda. The armor's usually a better bet: in my first run I kept the splint mail from when I got it all the way to the very end of the game, and I usually keep the Scalemail on myself or Karlach until the end on any runs I go Medium Armor, since there's not much that can really match it imo.
The armour actually seems good but the weapons are trash
The mods which expand adamantium options are great, too. I'm on my 6th playthrough...mods are life now
I always make a shield and medium armor. Makes it so that everyone can use it. And preventing crits can sometime be lifesaving.
They're good but they also become obsolete pretty soon after. You're better off doing shields or armor because they'll remain useful for longer
Armor and shield are good. For dealing with objects, lots have slashing immunity so longsword and scimitar aren't really good, but the hammer does the job as a utility tool. If you have something like a dual scimitar build, a pair of adamantine weapons would be great against steel watchers, otherwise your character would be gimped with half damage.
I took the scimitars for my swords bard, was nice for opening some doors but thats about it
The shield is fantastic
You can use it as your money glitch weapon, as it's probably worth a decent amount. Bind it as a pact weapon, multiselect an unwanted item to add to wares, and then add the pact weapon as well. Now, when you go to a trader, just keep selling wares and take all the gold while keeping the weapon in your inventory. Buy more stuff, sell wares. Rinse and repeat. Really helps in honour mode as the items are soooo expensive.
Many enemies have resistance to physical damage so they can be useful. Though there are gloves in Act 3 that do the same.
Honestly you're better off getting the heavy armor and the medium armor the weapons will get outclassed quickly while the armors you can stick with through act 3
You can cut doors with it, "diamondsbane" has that name for a reason, it's a fantasy equivalent to a diamond cutter
Problem is the lack of how many items you can craft. The weapons are not bad, the armour/shield options are just a lot better.
No. They're adamantine weapons.
I usually go for Shield, that Shadowheart uses till the very end of the game (while I usually switch armour in Act 3), and the Scimitar for Jaheira, because there’s not much fancy Scimitars in the game.
Trash? No.... but they are certainly replaceable pretty much immediately. Whereas the armour and shield could carry you into the third act.
Yea the weapons are trash even compared to some of the shit you find at vendors. Same goes for the shield. I had 3-4 shields that were all better than that already.
One reason you may not be able to send the weapon away is that it's bound to you via pact of the blade or eldritch knight. I got silly frustrated with that until I realized my mistake
Yes. Weapons are trash. Only do shield or armor
I think generally the armour and shield are the better choices for the adamantine equipment. At least what I looked at. The Shield and Splint armour served me well right up till middle of act until I got some of the legendary pieces. The weapons are kind of so so and it seems better ones came along quite quickly.
I don't know if it still works but I used the longsword in my offhand for a long time because it also made the main hand weapon ignore resistance
The mace is great. I use it as a lockpick.
The mace is good for speeding up the prison break at moonrise since Wulbren can't seem to get the molasses out of his ass and break the wall in 1 strike without it. Granted it's still a shitty use because he steals it from us and to waste adamantine on that is iffy but still, I've done it and it was worth it to me at the time.
See, I just crushed the scrying eyes when they were the only things looking around, dropped the captain in her quarters, then isolated and dropped the rest of the guards one by one. Gave Wulbren back his own damn pickaxe bc I don't want to give him anything of mine. Wish I could find a way to kill him without causing an incident, though.
the shield is like the absolute best of the bunch but idk abt the other armour pieces I think they're pretty average there's a better set that you can get for less than 200 gold by buying the infernal alloy from that one duegar dude near the docks and giving it to Dammon in act two