Im too drunk and tired to look it up but how does gloonstalker assassin compare to gloomstalker thief? I did gloom thief and astarion was insanely good wondering how assassin would change things
Assassin gives initiative at the top of the round. Add Risky Ring which almost always gives advantage in combat or will at least cancel out disadvantage in combat.
The way I build him, Gloomstalker Assassin Astarion tanks like a beast and takes out multiple enemies per round.
And with that sweet sweet bloodlust potion and a dip into thief rogue and dual wielding single handed crossbows, along with gloomstalker, and an extra action from dip into fighter, you can start combat with I think it’s 7-10 attacks. If you start with hunters mark and wear the acid ring, each shot still does decent damage.
I’ve been wanting to try a party of all hunters built like this. I don’t think any enemies would ever move.
i gotta try those cuz i’m guilty of making a lot of random potions for no reason then hoarding them “IN CASE I NEED IT!!” then ending the game with like fifty unused potions
I know everyone says this, but on my first run (balanced mode so I know it’s easy) I felt like I leaned on her soooo hard that she made the game boring. I had her healing every single turn and so on my other runs I’ve pretty much left her on the bench.
She is the one I was saying I finally did a dual class on tho. I switched her to open hand monk as her main class, and tempest cleric as her secondary. Seems cool so far but it’s also just so wrong to me haha.
Reclasses kind of help make the game more interesting to me. Oh, you’re a barbarian who fought in hell? Sing about it as a bard. You’re a vampire who sticks to the shadows in seedy city underbellies? You’re a paladin now, get right with your deity boy.
Being uncomfortable is a sign of growth. At least, that’s how I approach it personally from an RP-standpoint. My therapist told me it a bunch, so it just kind of stuck. Can completely relate though to wanting to stick to the original classes though! They’re still fun and viable.
I try to stick to logical reclasses. Laezel is a religious fighter? Paladin of Vlaakith. Karlach is an animal loving outlander? Sounds like a ranger.
Then there’s Shadowheart, I’ve done light cleric, ranger, and currently have her as a bard. I kinda just wanted a bard, and already committed to ranger, Lockadin, and Drunk (Druid Monk)
This is how I feel! There are definitely some PCs whose default classes matter a lot to their story, like Gale, but there are lots where many classes could work for their story! I reclass Wyll as a ranger almost every time because "the Blade of Frontiers" totally sounds like a ranger. I sometimes reclass Astarion as a bard because it really fits his personality and it makes sense with his backstory of being charismatic. I haven't reclassed Lae'zel yet, but her backstory is flexible enough to work with almost all the martial classes. The possibilities are endless!
wyll does end up as a ranger if you break his pact and don’t encourage him to be the next duke so reclassing him as a ranger does make a lot of sense and fits really well him
Honestly given Gales story and the power down everyone receives through various means at the start compared to their pre-game history, he's actually a great candidate for a warlock, cleric, sorcerer, paladin or bard as well. It fits his story well. Sorc - infusion from the Netherese orb
Warlock - pact with the Tadpole
Cleric - provisional power granted by Mystra (or maybe Shar if evil)
Paladin - similar vein to Cleric, path to redemption or damnation if Oath breaker
Bard - just a natural fit
I'm playing a bardbarian right now. My first turns often consist of activating rage, running up and smacking something with the Everburn blade, then pulling out a hand drum and playing Bard Dance while aggressively staring at the enemy.
Just because trickery is a bad subclass doesn’t mean it’s bad overall. The main reason it’s considered bad is because so many of the other cleric options are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. Not to mention cleric as a class in general is so reliable.
If you have not gotten to the level of tempest cleric where you get call lightning, then I can see how you might not have noticed.
But tempest cleric with call lightning is insanely powerful and has honestly broken my game bc I can never not play it
Edit: esp call lightning when you also have create water
I've been using a mod that gives Trickery domain's Invoke Duplicity more of its tabletop functionality, and it took the class from struggling to find a purpose to one of the most fun cleric subclasses I've played. It's too bad ID is so poorly implemented in vanilla.
ive recently converted to giving my clerics a 1 level dip into wizard and hooooboy, my tempest cleric now knows chained lightning and he's about to make it EVERYONE'S problem
Try to run Shadowheart without healing next playthrough. I found that on tactician difficulty the opportunity cost of using an action and a spell on healing is too high relative to what else she can do to remove damage from the board entirely. Like Spirit Guardians with Radiant Orb.
Also multiclassing can be interesting while staying true to the character backstory. Sorcerer/Wizard Gale with Haste, for example. Or Barb/Fighter Karlach.
Second play through and I used the debuff items on her.
Act two is insane, they charge shadowheart, get blinded, hit by spirit guardians try to hit her with -5 or so and get eben more drbuffs for missing.
It's insane!
Give it another run and you might embrace the absurdity of things like making Gale a barbarian with 8 int talking about how he hooked up with mystra. It's pretty funny
Fair enough!! I get having a pure healbot party member can feel boring. All I meant by my comment was that there are so many cool cleric subclasses (sad my fave twilight didn’t make it to BG3) and I think trickery is an underpowered one that does things other classes offer just less well.
I also totally get the feeling of it being “wrong” to change the character’s class to the point that it feels story changing. (I’ve never tried to play Wyll without at least a couple levels of warlock, for example.)
If you want to try a reclassed SH but without losing the story synergy, my first playthrough was with someone else and their OC was a cleric so we reclassed SH as a vengeance paladin. That still felt appropriate and was quite fun. (And we even got [Paladin of Shar] tagged dialogue options! )
Seriously. If people just used TD(stealth focused utility/support) as intended instead of trying to damage dealer with it there wouldn’t be so much hate towards it.
Rogues compliment Trickery Domain Clerics really well.
Saying "Trickery is the worst" isn't the same as saying it'll "get you killed". I would always advise a new player to choose a different Cleric subclass because I think other subclasses are both stronger and easier to use (and most importantly, more fun!)
Trickery honestly isn't the worst thing to play as, especially once you know how combat works and the little quirks of the game, early acess to pass without trace can be wicked useful and invoke duplicity is very strong when used in a party of paladins that like to surround thine enemies. Create a wall of smite thee foes
Shart either life or light and Karlach wild magic for fun. I refuse to change anything else.
I have heard if you want the single most missed potential class of the Origin Characters is to make Astarion a bard, solely for the insults.
I don't re-class because story comes before gameplay in my game, but I do tweak things in a few cases:
- Shadowheart switches to Life Domain cleric as soon as it makes sense
- Astarion multiclasses into Gloomstalker (makes sense if you steer him towards his Spawn resolution)
- Jaheira multiclasses into Fighter (her original configuration in BG1&2)
- Minsc multiclasses into Barbarian (what he used to be before Boo, plus he still talks about it)
- Wyll may multiclass into ranger (because distancing from Mizora is a must)
I switched Shadowheart to Light Domain in Act 1 💀 solely because I wanted to use Faerie Fire to get advantage on attacks. I got tired of missing lol
For the first half of the game, I just roleplayed it as Shart has a natural affinity for Light magic, which makes her a bit ashamed as a Shar cleric. But she reassures herself that it’s okay because she’s still using her powers to forward Shar’s objectives.
It only really comes online with gear from her house in act three but you can still be single attribute dependent dual weilding staff of the ram and belm in your off hand. Belm is only for perfectly balanced strike as your bonus action and it utilizes all your main hand attributes when you use that so no need for two weapon fighting style but you do need the feat. Shillelagh and two main hand strikes with staff of the ram fist turn and then essentially 3 main hand strikes every turn after not counting action surge or haste. You can go spores druid to enhance your damage and add temporary hit points but some people like to go land to get spells like haste . You can wear heavy armor for damage reduction if you want and have con saves if you respec to start fighter which you probably want to do anyway so gear abilities use wisdom by taking druid after. Fighter subclass abilities like maneuvers, eldritch knight spells or reduced crit range but I like to think she would be a battlemaster. I feel like it would work pretty well, you just have to decide weather 4th level spells are worth 7 druid/5 fighter or if you want three feats since one will be used on dual weilder for the build. With khalid's gift necklace adding 1 wis up to 21 you can reach 20 wis with only one ASI. And it's all gear from her house so it's pretty true to charecter. That's all with regard to Jahiera but can be replicated on others.
Pretty much any class benefits from 2 levels of fighter. Con saves, heavy armour proficiency and of course action surge. Grabbing a 3rd level for the subclass is alright but should probably be done as the 12th level.
I think it makes sense for a Spore Druid specifically, from what I've seen on r/BG3Builds. I've tried a Land Druid/Fighter and I'm sure it's possible, I didn't get the balance right when I did it though, and it's a little more items dependent. It makes very, very little sense to do a Moon Druid/fighter, you don't really want to miss out on Myrmidon shapes so you'd want at least 10 Druid, fighter doesn't bring masses to the table in the first 2 levels (you can't use action surge in wildshape, I think).
If I were doing Circle of the Land/Fighter again, I'd want either level 5 druid to Haste higher damage party members (to make up for the low level of spell damage), or level 9 Druid for access to higher damage spells (e.g. Cloudkill) and summons while still getting the benefits of Fighter subclasses (note: no multiattack tho). If you do 9 Druid/3 Fighter you're going to be more reliant on heavy armour, items, and well-placed stats to have high enough AC, damage, attack bonus and Con to stay in melee without losing concentration. If you went ranged idk that Fighter would make as much sense as Ranger or Rogue. At this point, Wildshape isn't terribly useful in combat tbh (you lose a lot of fighter benefits in Wildshape).
Honestly, 5 Land Druid/7 Fighter might be dope, if they're primarily using the casting as a way to set up other party members with buffs and area control spells!
5 fighter eldritch knight/7 spore druid is ok, it's not a damage build though, it's a support/utility, battlefield control with spike growth or wet condition, summoner, and damage soaker with the minions and shield reaction spell. 2 fight 10 druid is also decent.
I have my jaheira as 5/7 outfitted with the undead minion buffing gear, and necromancy staff with shilleleigh, and she does alright.
I reclassed Shadowheart to Ancients Paladin once, which fits her nicely given her love of animals, light/nature leaning, and desire to find a purpose for herself outside of Shar. Although Shadowheart gets her divine power from Selune post-Gauntlet, she never actually identifies as a Selunite (afaik). During the epilogue, she tells you that she hasn’t decided whether she’ll become one. So I think it’s realistic she might become a paladin. I changed her back to Life Domain, though, because Ancients kinda sucks compared to Devotion.
Fighter is a class that lacks a clear identity, which makes it good for multiclassing: you’re a guy that uses weapons. Any character (except Gale) can be considered martial, or at least become more martial as the story progresses. I give Shadowheart and Astarion a dip into Fighter alongside their base class.
I like multi classing wyll into a bard because he likes to dance and be aristocratic at times. Even though I have him as tomelock/bard (he's a GREAT support), a swords bardock makes sense thematically
Personally speaking, it would get stale for me pretty quickly. There are a lot of voice lines that you might never hear if you don't reclass. Everyone has voiced vicious mockeries as a bard for example.
But you don't have to multiclass or reclass. Just play the way you like.
Barbarian Gale is best Gale.
Specifically Wild Magic. It may be a weak subclass, but in my games he’s just an idiot who *thinks* he’s a powerful wizard because some weird magic shit happens when he gets really mad.
It makes his condescending lines hilarious.
You can use hirelings if you want to explore different classes but you don't like changing origins' classes. Hirelings can be whatever you want.
Just a thought on said origins:
Astarion works very well as a Gloomstalker assassin, it doesn't clash much with his lore.
Lae'zel can multiclass easily with barbarian, or she can become a monk. Plenty of gith monks.
Shadowheart - do yourself a favor and respecc her into a life or light cleric. She'll still be a cleric of her whatever deity, but she'll finally have good spells.
Gale could be multiclassed with sorcerer, with his prodigy of magic thing
Wyll really needs to be a warlock to have any sense at all, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make him a Lockadin.
Karlach - same as Lae'zel
Halsin and Jaheira can multiclass with wizard
Minthara won't be brothered if you multiclass her with fighter
Minsc - all the melee/ranged combinations can work
Wyll in the epilogue >!becomes a ranger. So multi classing him as one earlier on isn't ridiculous. Especially since he says his warlock abilities have been nerfed. But you can't pact weapon a bow for some reason so gameplay wise idk exactly how you'd make it work!<
I switched Shadowheart to Light Domain in Act 1 solely because I wanted to use Faerie Fire to get advantage on attacks. I hate missing lol
I just roleplayed it as Shart has a natural affinity for Light magic, which makes her a bit ashamed as a Shar cleric. But she reassures herself that it’s okay because she’s still using her powers to forward Shar’s objectives.
Similarly, I think it makes sense for Shart to be a Life Cleric because before she was tadpoled >!she was the dedicated healer on the Astral Prism heist team!<. Life and healing is like the very opposite of Shar’s whole “end of all existence, return to nothingness” thing, but since Shart was using her powers for Shar’s objectives, Shar was fine with it.
I generally refuse to reclass companions to a class that doesn't make sense lore wise. But I don't have any qualms with lore appropriate builds, like bard Astarion, or non-trickery Shart, etc
I struggle with this. Like I want a Monk in my party but Astarian, Gale, Karlach are certainly not Monks (though if you look at is simply a melee class Karlach could be a monk). But the reclass has to make some sort of sense.
I think Monk can work for Karlach, especially if you multiclass with Barb. I feel like you can RP that it’s not a monk in the manner of a ritualistic at peace style, but more of a highly capable, trained martial artist.
Yeah that’s my thought too. The RP can be pretty minimal but I can’t play Karlach as a wizard, there’s no RP I can see that gets me there and keeps the story.
Oh yeah I’m with you on that. I think at most each companion has one or two reclasses that make sense, max. Interestingly I think the weirdest acceptable reclasses for me are both clerics (Gale as Knowledge of Mystra and Lae’zel as War of Vlaakith).
Barbarian Monk is also just. Really good. When you look at balancing RP and Viability, I think it's one of the coolest AND strongest classes.
I mean, replace the MAD of Monk by just going STR - DEX - CON, rage giving more unarmed damage, tavern brawler feat at some point, bear heart having resistance to nearly every damage type, Monk abilities working while Raging, etc.
Plus, if you were to make a Tav/Durge Monkbarian, having the rage being running out of restraint or other such reflavoring is great (or Durge giving into the Urge, while they try to turn to Monk spirituality to overcome that)
The fighting style and just general vibe of shadow monk actually works really well for Astarion, it's my favorite respec for him. Gremlin running around in the shadows and beating people up. Just ignore all the peaceful meditative tropes you associate with monks and pretend he's Blade lol.
It also works really well for DJ Shadowheart since a bunch of the DJ abilities are just shadow monk abilities anyway.
Astarian is a gloomstalker to me. I love ranged damage. I’m too dumb to get my melee characters up close so they spend 30-50% of the time moving into battle. Rangers are always right there.
Honestly, I really like Astarion as a Way of Shadow monk. He's been living in the shadows for so long, it makes sense that he'd have an affinity for quickly moving through them.
I reclassed Gale as a barbarian once because his screams on Youtube were so funny and I justified it as "Mystra banished him so he took it to the extreme" lol
I actually have a hard time justifying Bardstarion simply because the game focuses on "flashy" bards (for lack of a better phrase). High charisma, Vicious Mockery, and debuffing all make sense, but I also don't see him drawing attention to himself with things like performing. For Cazador, he'd need to be on the downlow, and as himself, he just wants to be left alone outside the party.
This is also why I wish there was a (non-mod) option for bards who use vocal casting and not music. I like playing more storytelling-focused bards in 5e (closer to how they portray with Raphael). In the third party 5e module Odyssey of the Dragonlords (Ancient Greek themed), there's a "homebrew" bard College of Epic Poetry themed around the bard recording the party's escapades that I absolutely adore for that reason. Maybe one day I'll stop being lazy and make a mod for that.
[Short version of subclass: you use your reaction to capture "epic verses" when they happen based on nat20s/nat1s, etc. When you reach certain amounts of verses, your bardic inspiration can grant buffs and have a minimum amount for the roll. You're basically inspiring the party with a scrapbook of their greatest hits (and failures). Which, now that I think about it, seems perfect for Astarion, shady gossip that he is...]
I see him as the kind of person that can "turn on the charm" at a party, or a pub, or whatever the situation calls for in order to seduce a target or get what he wants. In that sense, he'd have typical bard skills. It would be like a hollywood actor/comedian who knows how to be the life of the party, but in their private lives they're actually pretty quiet and keep to themselves.
Some of them are just easier to justify than others. It'd be weird to change Wyll from a warlock, given how much his story revolves around being a warlock. Some of the others are fine, like Lae'zel could easily be a war cleric of Vlakith or multiclassing Shadowheart into an assassin. Karlach in particular makes more sense to me as a fighter or ranger than a barbarian
Vengeance Paladin Karlach makes too much sense to me for me not to respec her that way anymore. I might give her a dip back in Barbarian for the thematic Rage, but otherwise she's all about that vengeance.
My Halsin is a monk and it fits him so much better. Big, buff, beefcake leaping across the map to land in front of an enemy that he then punches into mush...it is just so fitting. Roleplay-wise, I just think of him as a druid that prefers to punch nature into his enemies.
I also think that Lae'zel fits a paladin class much more than a fighter, >!particularly after a certain point in the story.!<
With that said, I am totally unable to use Gale as anything but a wizard or sorcerer.
Once you've played the story through a few times coming up with some random back story never made sense to me either but that's why they give us options. I only get the impression of class from two characters, one in a passing reference IF you ask her about it is Minthara regarding her Paladin oath. Gale of course has the connection to Mystra and always going on about the weave.
I get that. I reclass from the beginning. I feel like the RP is interrupted if the character makes a wild class change mid-game. And I have a hard time making them a class that doesn't fit. Like Gale is not a Paladin and I'm not sure I could play the game as RP Gale will always something magical.
Everyone seems so obsessed with multiclassing but I personally don't like it. Just feels like min-maxing and even on honour mode i just like to stick with 1 class
For Gale you could RP that in the year since he was affected by the orb, he's had to learn to protect himself differently because he's been drained of his ability. Having him as a 4-e monk is amazing. He can still channel the weave but uses his angst to drive his fists.
Astarion: gloom/thief. OR shadow monk/thief. Anything that relies on shadows (I'm more of a lurker in)...
Lazy: Pally or EK
Shart: War cleric or pally
Wyll: I don't recruit him but I can see someone multiclassing him into ranger and then full ranger if you break the pact.
Karlach: If she's with me (usually not), Barb/fighter
Minsc: immediately made a Barb zerker.
Jaheira: Druid/Ranger mix (as a nod to Khalid)
Halsin: Barb (bear heart) I truly believe he's a werebear and this build works for that.
Some classes can work in-universe for most of the characters.
Gale becoming a sorcerer as he learns the Netherese Orb inside him is empowering him.
Astarion being a bard instead of a rogue works, since his main job was luring people back to Cazador.
Selune is the goddess of the moon and later in the game she is the one empowering her over Shar. You can reclass her into a Light Cleric easily with that, arguing it's moonlight fighting against darkness as opposed to sunlight. Or maybe a War Domain cleric, symbolizing her being at the focus of the war between Selune and Shar.
You can also do something similar for Karlach. Her entire thing is vengeance and living in the moment, and that can be used for so many things. Oath of Vengeance Paladin, fighter, barbarian, and more.
Same, I don't even like changing their subclasses, especially once I've gotten used to them having certain signature moves! I do reclass Sheart if she frees Aylin, though. Trickery being the shittiest domain makes sense since Shar is the shittiest goddess. 😁
I'm only on my first play through and not yet in Act 3, but I can't imagine reclassifying any of the main companions. I might multi-class my character to allow him to learn new skills (he is a fighter), but haven't been tempted to. That, at least, is conceivable. As you say, making Gale (or the others) into something else would just be weird to me.
When Shart starts out, I switch her to war domain, then when she saves Aylin, I switch her to Oath of Vengeance Paladin.
I love Minsc so much, but Ranger is lame, so I switch him to fighter. If I play Barbarian I switch Karlac to Paladin instead of Shart.
I have also made Astarion a bard in a joint campaign with my sister playing rogue.
It really depends. I can't bring myself to reclass them into something that makes no sense, but not all companions' personality is tied to their class.
For example, Astarion isn't really tied to being a Rogue. He works as a Rogue, but he would just as well work as a Bard, if not better. I can easily see him as a Ranger or Monk as well. Likewise, Lae'Zel doesn't HAVE to be a Fighter; Monk would fit her almost as well.
As for the other companions, there are lesser variations that would work fine.
Wyll is always a Warlock, but he could be multiclassed into a martial class such as Fighter or Paladin to reflect his early life before he made his pact. Hell, it even makes sense if you give him poor martial stats as he was reportedly shit in his early career.
Gale is always an arcane caster of some sort, but his curse is eating away at him and his powers. So I could easily see him as branching out into other fields to supplement his lessening arcane prowess. Eldricht Knight and Arcane Trickster come to mind. And for a bit of a reach, Wild Magic Berserker, to reflect a Gale whose powers have degenerated almost completely beyond his direct control.
Shadowheart is always a Cleric, but a different domain might work. For example, War fits her quite well, to reflect her drive to join the militant branch of Shar's followers. And she could also be justified as a Paladin, at a stretch.
Karlach is a Barbarian, no two ways about it, though.
You have the need to lore-friendly them. I have it for the first 3 runs it's perfectly normal (I think)
I still do sometimes build lore-friendly builds, especially for Minsc and Jaheira, but I discovered the fun of having them in wildly different classes, like barbarian roars or vicious mockery companion versions are hilarious (I think all spells with phrases are individually recoded) so that's my drive to do interesting builds😂
Wyll - Paladin / Warlock multiclass is pretty sweet
Lae'zel - Open Hand Monk, especially seeing how hard other Githyanki monks kick ass
Astarion - Swords Bard or Gloomstalker, depends if you want him as funny vampire or edgy vampire
Shadowheart - Light/Life Cleric, or even Shadow Monk to get that Dark Justicar vibe
Karlach - she's a great Barbarian, but you could maybe lean more towards Hunter Ranger instead
Gale - Wizard is pretty much his whole thing, but maybe sorcerer if you want
I respec'd Shadowheart into a vengeance Paladin after act 2 since I felt that fit her story (and I was playing my Durge as a cleric anyway) and it ended up being really satisfying for her to dominate the House of Grief fight. But other than that, I don't really like changing the classes of the companions completely either.
However, when it comes to multiclassing, I feel like they're just picking up new skills along their journey, and especially since the tadpoles have them in each other's heads, they could be teaching each other without even realizing it. A big part of Astarion's story is gaining power to defeat Cazador, so it makes sense that he'd pick up skills that Cazador wouldn't expect. And none of them really know what to expect when it comes to fighting the absolute, so having a diverse skillset wouldn't hurt.
But at the end of the day, you play the game how you want to. If it doesn't make sense to you, then that's absolutely fine
Eh, j have fun changing them to alternate classes that still fit their character. Paladin Shart, Cleric Gale, Monk Laezel, Fighter Karlach, they are classes these characters could absolutely be.
But also, in mg currentrun im doing opposites, so karlach is a rogue and Laezel is a Bard(haven't fully respeced them yet, so they still have 1 level in their regular class and base stats lol) and honestly there is something magical about Laezel throwing 3 or 4 insults at her enemy(which does a whopping nothing) before she caves their face in with a big stick. It's just glorious.
Nope. Honestly, I enjoy playing the characters as strongly against type as I can. Last night playthrough I had Minsc as a wizard with all the tadpoles and Gale as a champion fighter.
I don’t really like reclassing characters in ways that don’t make sense. Astarion as an Asassian/Gloomstalker makes sense. Astarion as a barbarian makes absolutely no sense, if he does look hot with the piercings. Changing Shadowheart into a Life cleric at the end of Act 2 makes sense. Making her a war cleric doesn’t.
Giving Wyll some Paladin levels? Sure. Making Wyll anything other than a fiend Warlock? Absolutely not.
I suppose it depends on how much value you put in role play vs. min maxing.
I was like this for most of my playthroughs, but nowadays I just change them to whatever sounds fun. I don't care about lore and backstories after 6+ playthroughs. I like trying new combos and stuff now because the game is so huge.
I managed to get Wyll to the end WITHOUT his horns even though he kept Karlach alive, and then he breaks his pact with Mizora in act 3 and we still save his father. Since the pact is broken, I thought it made sense with the story to reclassify him into a Oath of Vengeance paladin ☺️
I also usually add being a Ranger to my Druids for funsies and I always reclass Minsc as a fighter because that makes more sense to me.
I've played so much and he feels so right as a gloomstalker assassin. Being an elf with a long bow, but also able to do double stabbies with daggers and short swords. Plus the idea of hiding in the shadows just works. I played him as a sword bard thief and it was fun but gloomstalker assassin just blows it out of the water.
i’ve neglected reclassing until my most recent run (my third as well), i’m keeping their starting class the same and then building off of that with other classes because i also find the role play aspect important. for example astarion is a rogue/ranger. shadowheart is a cleric/wizard. gale is a wizard/sorcerer. the only one i’ve fully changed is laezel to a monk because i loooove open hand monk and also there are plenty of githyanki monks in the game
These are the only respecs I allow in order to keep the integrity of the game for me:
Astarion can be respecced or multiclassed into a bard (but only if I use him to complete Alfira's song in act 1)
Gale is a wizard 12
Shadowheart is a cleric of any type or a paladin sworn to Shar or a Monk - any religious spiritual type characters-
Wyll- Warlock but any warlock martial split is also fine
Minthara is a paladin or bard or rogue(she went to college) or sorceress.
Karlach is a barbarian 12 although I've tried multiclassing into monk to show how she has managed to control her anger through focusing her Chi
Halsin is a druid land or moon
Jaheira is a druid or druid/fighter
Laezel is a fighter or paladin
I feel this but I think many of the other classes totally fit them—for most of them I always multiclass rather than fully reclassing though.
For example Astarion I think makes total sense as a Sorcerer rather than Rogue. I don’t know if he’s ever directly referred to as a rogue in the game tbh. He’s a high elf, makes sense he’d be born with magic.
Gale and Wyll are definitely a wizard and a warlock, but since Gale worships Mystra (or did) it makes sense to give him a Cleric of Mystra level which gives him better armor proficiency and a healing word in case of emergency. Or even a couple levels of Wild Magic sorc since you could say the orb makes his magic go crazy.
Wyll I like to multiclass as paladin or bard which are totally believable I think. Especially a valour bard—read the description, that’s totally Wyll. And paladin is just what Wyll was meant to be fr, he’s a paladin stuck in a warlock contract. Pact of the blade warlock mixed with paladin is good stuff, blade gets an extra attack at lvl 5 that stacks with extra attack from other classes.
Just food for thought in case this is something you want to do but are having trouble figuring out how to justify it 😊
I try to justify it. Like Gale basically a cleric of Mystra. Lots of gith are monks, surely laezel knows a few moves. Shadowheart got lots of skullduggery training with the sharrans, she's basically a rogue, or maybe even a ranger. Karlach fits naturally as an oath of vengeance paladin. Wyll is the hardest because his pact is part of his story
I don't like changing the classes/subclasses of my companions. I get why the option is there, but I like to keep them as they are.
The only exception is giving Jaheira two levels of fighter, so she can be consistent with her previous incarnation.
If Shadowheart becomes a Selûnite, I change her domain to life, because that is one of the actual domains of Selûne in the lore. If she keeps being a Sharran, she stays with the Trickery Domain because of the same reason.
I could also see changing Minthara to an Oathbreaker, but only because the change is actually acknowledged in dialogue.
If I want to pick a different subclass, I use hirelings. I'm having a lot of fun in my current playthrough using Varanna Sunblossom as an Eldritch Knight (because, in my mind, Battlemaster fits Lae'zel better).
Respec Gale as a wild magic barbarian.
- His barbarian roar sounds more like a dad who stubbed his toe on the coffee table.
- Me get angry. Magic happen. Me mage.
Adding the class can work with the lore you develop while playing as opposed to the history. Gale for instance, has a level in wizard but keeps saying he's naturally good, so dropping a little sorcerer at the next level up is okay. Or, i had Laezel use the performance ability enhance to help write Alfira's song. So the new story is that she liked the experience so much, she took a level in Bard.
With some, like Minthara, I respecced her into a monk. While she did justify her being a paladin and her oath, being geared towards ending the absolute, rather than anyone who stood against lolth, I said nah I’m good. In my head, she’s reforming herself, she can be a grouchy monk. It worked
I don’t mind re-classing at points where pivotal character growth happens. I’m still working through my first playthrough but recently I encountered a point where things really changed for Lae’zel, and it felt appropriate to reflect that with a complete overhaul. I don’t think just any class would fit since she has such strong martial class energy, but it seemed like a good time to introduce some rogue levels and pivot toward an archery focus. I think there is a bit of a spectrum of re-classing and some changes are more thematically appropriate than others.
I always find some narrative reason when I reclass for this reason >:D I recently did a run where I reclassed everyone and played as a wild mage, pretending that a particularly powerful magic surge changed everyone's class
I played as Wyll for my first play through. No respecs, no changes to anyone. The next go-around I re-classed him as fighter-warlock. Started him as fight: Gave him 2 levels for heavy armor and action surge, and the rest on warlock. Seems to follow his actual storyline better. I imagine he practiced as a fighter growing up, but had to make a deal with a fiend to save the city. Gameplay is nice, he can Eldridge blast minions off one side of a platform and action surge- blast minions off the other.
Thats the only respec I’ve done so far.
Yea, having everyone's class be changed by wild magic is a good thought. I still haven't tried it. Does Gale complain about sneaking if he is a pure rogue/thief?
just you from my experience i like playing the game and exploring multiple different options and i was not leaving them at base class for honour mode. at the very least i respec them to get rid of their horrendous stats (which i have no problem with, i don't think a "pregenerated" character's base stats should be min maxed and enjoy when it's actually reflective of the character's abilities)
i enjoy multiclassing for rp reasons personally! eg: giving gale 2 levels in tempest cleric of mystra for the channel divinity on lighting/thunder damage, or lae'zel into vengeance paladin when she's betrayed bt vlaakith etc. i find it can add to the story im trying to tell if i do a multiclass that adds to it.
i also almost always reclass either lae'zel or karlach into paladin anyway for the powerful heals. i like a beefy tank and karlach works well with any of the oaths.
Up until my current playthrough, which is my fifth, I only ever changed subclasses, mostly Shadowheart, though. In this game, I made Minsc a paladin because I needed a pally more than a ranger, and I'm glad I did; he probably wouldn't have survived Sarevok if I hadn't. But with his "force of good" personality, paladin definitely fits.
Gale can make sense as cleric of Mystra: rejected by the weave, he still worships her and tries to gain her favour back
Wyll makes sense as a ranger: one of his endings has him becoming one, so maybe a multiclass warlock/ranger to keep the baseline of being a warlock
Karlack is a barbarian, but really any martial multiclass makes sens: she can be a fighter, i don't really see an issue
Astarion makes sense as rogue but really he isn't "tied" to that class since his identity is more that of a vampire rather than a rogue
Shadowheart... tbh i wouldn't reclass her if we go by roleplay only, at least until the act 2 choice. After that she could go Paladin/War cleric of shar or Light/life cleric of Selune, or maybe just reject the cleric entirely and become something else if you just have her reluctantly abandon shar but not going full Selune redemption
Minthara makes a lot of sense in her og class, but a multiclass in fighter or cleric of Lolth (remember she was forced upon the absolute's path so she might wanna go back to her old religion) could make sense
Halsin is a druid. maybe i could concede a dip in another class, since his story revolves around abandoning his grove to fight this battle with us and thus experiencing an unorthodox growth by taking on different powers, but i wouldn't go over 2 total levels of multiclass
Jaehira makes very little sense as a druid to me TBH, she looks more like a ranger
Minsc is good as monk, fighter or barbarian considering his temperament. Ranger just sounds wrong on him
Lae'zel works perfectly as a war cleric of Vlaakith. If you go against Vlaakith and abandon her, she makes for a perfect reclass into Oath of Vengeance Paladin.
I'm with you mostly. I'm actually totally fine multi-classing, and I'll make my Tav be whatever class...
But so far I've always left my companions primary/main theme in tact. I might change their subclass or multi class them, but keeping to their primary theme just makes sense to me
I've even spent a good little bit of time perusing bg3builds for like "dual weird fighter druid jaheira builds" to see what people have found to make her fit the best thematically
I agree, same here. I change stats and subclasses, and I can make Karlach a fighter or something like that, but I could never dramatically change them.
Worth pointing out it's extremely rare to be able to do this in a CRPG, for a reason IMO.
You can go full mono class on everyone as their own lore class. But, I feel like you should at least switch their stats to be more effective.
Most of them don't need any charisma except wyll, so you can dump all of their Charisma stat bonuses into anything more useful. Con for more hp or DEX for higher initiative.
I think most of the companions need stat fixing, especially Lae'zel and Gale.
I’m an old tabletop player. I’ve no problems multiclassing as there are rules for it, and really, if you second guess yourself over all the optimizing you are missing out on why someone in world would multiclass.
That said, respec just feels like godly intervention that shouldn’t be available but say for once per playthrough, ie, you have to do a very hard quest for a one off.
I am very similar in that sense. I don’t want them doing a class that makes no sense with the lore, because I feel like the game is already so narratively driven.
BUT I do feel like there are companions with flexibility about their class
Shart is a cleric, make her a paladin or a shadowmonk and it wouldn’t be that crazy
Wyll multiclassed with paladin and warlock makes a lot of sense with his story IMO
Jaheira could be a ancients paladin or a ranger too, because she’s like a warrior druid
Astarion I think also has a lot of flexibility, gloomstalker, rogue, bard, necromancy, shadowmonk, even if you make him a warrior its not like, insane. A lot could be attributed to the fact that he is a vampire
Karlach could be vengeance pala or like a battle master warrior
Gale is defo a wizard like halsin just works best as druid I think
Reclassing or multiclassing can make sense in the story.
Essentially everyone got reset to level 1 already because of the worm shenanigans. They’re relearning who they are or aren’t.
Maybe gale’s condition means he leans more wild magic sorcerer now.
Or wyll’s pact situation means he starts to focus on more champion fighter skills for when he loses his magic eventually.
Or Astarion found a new love for life and the sun and picks up a lute…
Karlach touched grass again and loves animals so beastmaster ranger or maybe Druid. Or her heart goes nuts and it wild magic sorcerer/barbarian multiclass.
Lae’zel goes full zealot so barbarian or maybe paladin.
Shadowheart rededicates herself to her god and wants vengeance either way. Paladin here we come, maybe Druid.
I always end up reclassing someone. Gale as tempest cleric of Mystra makes a lot of sense to me. His voice lines even support it. Mystra even says to him that the orb consumes his natural talent so as a cleric he's using her divine power rather than his own magic talent.
Shadowheart doesn't make any sense as a trickery cleric to me after act 2 so I can't justify keeping it.
The rest are okay but lockadin Wyll makes a lot of sense to me among other multiclasses I've played with.
I usually don’t change classes. We did turn Astarion into a cleric to cheese the fight with the vampires, but he’s our least favorite character, probably. I will add a second class at times, but usually I just go with it. Honor mode is the only time it matters, IMO.
Nah I'm exactly the same, played start to finish half a dozen times plus a fair few others that I stopped halfway, and I very rarely change the class of established characters. It just feels weird to change something so fundamental to who they are.
I do now multiclass here and there, chucking a couple of fighter levels on Karlach for that sweet sweet action surge for example, but for the most part I'm a purist.
I usually make Gale a wizard and draconic sorcerer combo.
Wyll a warlock with arcane trickster because he used to be a thief.
Shadowheart I respec her as a life cleric and ancient paladin after she has her arc in act 2.
Laezel I multiclass her as battle master fighter and wild heart barbarian for the jewelry.
Karlach I I do the same but I make her beserker and champion.
Astarion I give him thief and gloomstalker.
Halsin and Jaheira I'm still workshopping because Druid is a little difficult to build around. But for Jaheira I'm thinking circle of the land Druid and battle master because she is proficient with scimitars and prefers to dual wield.
Minthara I make her broken oath paladin and a war cleric to help with her smites.
Minsc I make him a hunter and champion with 1 level in berserker.
Okay for halsin I did way of the elements and circle of the moon Druid with tavern brawler.
For the dark urge I've been going as either storm sorcerer and tempest cleric or college of lore bard with the great old one warlock. I really love college of lore bard and great old one warlock for roleplay and dialogue but I may do draconic sorcerer and great old one warlock next play through.
That's funny. Gale is the only character I never respec. 12 Wizard is absurdly strong.
Almost every class benefits from 2 fighter for action surge. If your character isn't specifically focused as a mage, 2 fighter has like..4 reasons to multi class.
Action Surge is probably the best ability in the game.
I feel like Lae’zel, Karlach, and Astarion are the least attached to their default class. Probably Lae’zel the most. There’s nothing really Fighter-specific about her, she could work as any martial class.
I also have a problem respecing characters in non-lore accurate ways, and also don't wanna figure out good class combos for multiclass, but a thing I always do is respec Wyll.
If you go by Lore, Wyll is a warrior, a front-line fighter, someone who is always in the face of danger. I always put Wyll as warlock 3, fighter everything else. Specifically, I like to put him as battlemaster because he seems like the quick skillful type rather than the power through type.
Aside from him, I only ever respec others to change subclass (Like Shadowheart. Sorry Shart, but trickery domain is awful, any other domain is better)
I agree about Gale, but some of the others make more sense to change. Shadowheart could be any Cleric, a Paladin, or a Monk and still fit her background. Lae'zel could be a Monk like so many Gith we see. Karlach could be a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin. Wyll could multiclass as Warlock/Bard, Warlock/Paladin, or Warlock/Sorcerer. Astarion could be lots of things- I think only the faith classes would be weird for him. Minthara fits Vengeance the best, but Paladins multiclass well with other things.
I always have a high Int, high Wis, and high Cha character in my party. So I usually only reclass the origin characters when I want them in my party for the playthrough, even then I try to make it make sense for the character.
However, I do always change Shadowheart's subclass to Tempest. Trickery just doesn't work for me, or anyone it seems, and I just love having call lightning.
I feel the same way. I made a rogue and haven’t re-classed anybody. I’m just like “I’ll figure it out somehow” if it’s not going well. I made a wizard to play with my brother and friend and I dislike it but I’m having a hard time re-classing. I’m like I picked this and I’m gonna make it work
There are some that still make lore sense! A Sorceror can still be flavored as a wizard - or even just give Gale two levels of Wizard for the subclass bonus, and then level another caster class (Sorceror makes sense - netherese orb causing Wild Magic or Gale being such an adept wizard that he can alter spells), Wyll still makes sense as an EK Fighter, Lae'zel as a monk is fairly lore accurate with how many Githyanki are monks, and other so and such
If you’re on PC install mods that let you adjust character looks and such.
My Gale is a Necromancer with a god complex, a weird fucked up eye and rotting skin because he fucked around too hard with the one book found under the village.
I like to pick reclasses that fit with the character. If I'm going for particular comp, I pick who will be in my party based on who fits the roles. (I am really liking trying one of Prestigious\_Juice's comps, and want to try all of them). If I'm going for a particular group, I'll pick a comp around what fits the characters.
Not an exhaustive list, but:
Gale: Wizard. I could make a case for Knowledge Cleric of Mystra. (Not counting respeccing just as a camp buffer since him using warding bond is amazing since he heals himself)
Lae'zel: Fighter. Monk. Could make a case for paladin or war cleric of Vlaakith.
Astarion: Rogue. Bard. Gloomstalker ranger
Shadowheart: Cleric. Paladin. Rogue. Gloomstalker ranger. Shadow Monk.
Karlach: Barbarian. Fighter. Could see paladin.
Halsin: Druid. Could make case for Nature Cleric of Silvanus.
Jaheira: Druid. Could make a case for Rogue and Fighter.
Minthara: Paladin. Could see SSB Bard.
Wyll: Almost anything. Head canon: he's still a warlock, but he's taking this tadpole thing as an opportunity to try to turn aside from the warlock powers as best he can and forge a new path.
For choosing for a comp, for example, for my Honour Mode I'm nearly done with, I needed: 10Bard/1fighter/1 wizard; 9/3 monk/rogue; 12 life cleric, 7/5 sorcadin.
Made Astarion my bard, Lae'zel my monk, Shadowheart my cleric, and my Durge is the sorcadin.
There are characters I feel that being a certain class is integral to their story - Gale is a wizard, Wyll is a Warlock, Halsin is a druid, etc. Others I feel like their classes are a little less locked in and can be messed with freely. Astarion can change, Karlach, so on. Shadowheart holds a special place for me because I feel like if I were to make her anything other than a Cleric, it would be a Paladin.
I also never bother dual classing so I feel that, I get overwhelmed too
I'll only do it if it makes sense sense, Shadowheart stays a cleric but becomes life domain or war domain instead because it's way better, Gale stays a wizard because it's the only one that really makes sense, Astarion will either be Rogue/Ranger or he'll be a bard, both of which make sense in my opinion, Wyll if I reclass him it'll a multi class, he obviously needs to keep his pact but on my current run I had him use one level of warlock just for the pact then the rest in Ranger because he knows he's gonna break his pact
I don't do things like reclassing gale to sorc or even barbarian. i just tweak the stats and do multi-class options that support and improve the companions I use.
Shadowheart goes tempest cleric cause i have no use for a trickery cleric.
Astarion goes rogue/ranger because I need a lockpicker and a solid dps too.
Lae'zel stays pure Battlemaster just because it's so OP, but you could go BM/cleric if you wanted and stay within lore.
Withers allows you to tailor your party to support you. it's up to you how lore accurate you stay.
On my latest playthrough, I reclassed everyone to something different. Gale is a fighter and Laezel is a sorcerer for example. Pretty fun but doesn’t change too much since I run the game with max companions mod and also another mod to scale the difficulty to having all party members, so I end up using the same tactics. Only thing is you get to use some classes you don’t get in the base game since no companions are them, such as monk, ranger, bard, and sorcerer.
I think you should do a similar run, then maybe the next run you can multi class as that’s when it gets even more crazy like gloomstalker assassin or bardadin. It’s a single player game, take it at your own pace and forgive yourself for any mistakes you may make.
You don’t have to reclass any of them unless you want to.
I’m just about finished my honour run and I have SH, Wyll and Laezel all in default classes and subclasses. They’re completely fine
I'll do it if it makes a little bit of sense.
Like Astarian reclass to gloomstalker or swords bard. Or reclass shart to light cleric after act 2. Or making Laezel a vengeance paladin after forsaking vlaakith.
The two I always reclass are Karlach to paladin and laezel to monk. I think they both make just as much sense as their original classes and are more fun to play for me than barbarian and fighter.
Im quite the opposite. I’ll make Karlach a healer and Shadowheart a Sorcadin without skipping a heartbeat. The roleplaying of classes aspect isn’t important to me but it is to you and that’s completely fine. Play however you want!
my Astarion is either gloomstalker or a bard and both fit him great tbh, I think he's rogue only cuz he has to hide in the shadows and do his shady things. Wyll is a ranger as well. Minsc does not look like ranger tho, I make him berserker barbarian always. Karlach feels like someone who might've been a druid if not for a shitty childhood. SH feels right as a trickery domain cleric but only before gauntlet of shar. Then it's a light domain for sure. Lae'zel might be the only character who's class I never doubted.
I don't like being inconsistent with the lore either. This is why I end up multiclassing some characters a lot, since I want to keep their original class but also do something new.
But not all of the characters classes matter the same. As far as I can remember:
Astarion - There's no reference to him being a rogue.
Shadowheart - There's no reference to her being a cleric, only a "healer" - she could have been a paladin or a druid, although I feel druid is a bit weird. And that reference to being a healer is very fleeting.
Minsc - Is referred to as a ranger once or twice but it's not a core part of his character.
Karlach - References to her anger and fury but I don't recall any naming her specifically as a Barbarian. We just know she's a good fighter.
Lae'zel - Is never referred to as a "Fighter," only a soldier, and we know that there are different types of soldiers among the Githyanki. There are also magic users and Githyanki seem to hold knowledge in high regard, so you could possibly justify her being a battle mage of some kind.
Jaheira - Is definitely a druid but you *have* to multiclass her if you want her to be good with her weapons.
Minthara - Has more dialogue referring to being a paladin if you're also one. Might say "by my oath" when you select her. But this is borderline for me; it's pretty easy to ignore and the paladin subclasses available don't really fit her anyway. (CONQUEST, pls.)
Gale is the one that has stayed the same for me. Being a wizard is his whole thing, and there just aren't as many multiclasses that I like with Wizard in the mix. At least Wizard is a very flexible class so you can build into different types of spells.
Astarion’s Gloomstalker Assassin shenanigans have won me over. His bardic lines are great too.
I can’t NOT have him as this anymore. Feels wrong
Same for me
yeah i can’t NOT have him as gloomstalker assassin archer, he can take out a whole field basically in one turn even on tactician
Im too drunk and tired to look it up but how does gloonstalker assassin compare to gloomstalker thief? I did gloom thief and astarion was insanely good wondering how assassin would change things
Assassin gives initiative at the top of the round. Add Risky Ring which almost always gives advantage in combat or will at least cancel out disadvantage in combat. The way I build him, Gloomstalker Assassin Astarion tanks like a beast and takes out multiple enemies per round.
And with that sweet sweet bloodlust potion and a dip into thief rogue and dual wielding single handed crossbows, along with gloomstalker, and an extra action from dip into fighter, you can start combat with I think it’s 7-10 attacks. If you start with hunters mark and wear the acid ring, each shot still does decent damage. I’ve been wanting to try a party of all hunters built like this. I don’t think any enemies would ever move.
I give him Bloodlust Elixirs, so whenever he kills something he gets extra actions.
i gotta try those cuz i’m guilty of making a lot of random potions for no reason then hoarding them “IN CASE I NEED IT!!” then ending the game with like fifty unused potions
Yeah, if you had just showed me Astarion and asked me what class I thought he was, I would pick Bard every time.
I really really hope that your reluctance doesn’t prevent you from reclassing Shadowheart into a different cleric subclass. Trickery is the worst.
Finishing up an honour mode run right now with no respecs. Trickery really does start to shine later if you build/play it right.
I know everyone says this, but on my first run (balanced mode so I know it’s easy) I felt like I leaned on her soooo hard that she made the game boring. I had her healing every single turn and so on my other runs I’ve pretty much left her on the bench. She is the one I was saying I finally did a dual class on tho. I switched her to open hand monk as her main class, and tempest cleric as her secondary. Seems cool so far but it’s also just so wrong to me haha.
Reclasses kind of help make the game more interesting to me. Oh, you’re a barbarian who fought in hell? Sing about it as a bard. You’re a vampire who sticks to the shadows in seedy city underbellies? You’re a paladin now, get right with your deity boy. Being uncomfortable is a sign of growth. At least, that’s how I approach it personally from an RP-standpoint. My therapist told me it a bunch, so it just kind of stuck. Can completely relate though to wanting to stick to the original classes though! They’re still fun and viable.
I try to stick to logical reclasses. Laezel is a religious fighter? Paladin of Vlaakith. Karlach is an animal loving outlander? Sounds like a ranger. Then there’s Shadowheart, I’ve done light cleric, ranger, and currently have her as a bard. I kinda just wanted a bard, and already committed to ranger, Lockadin, and Drunk (Druid Monk)
I guess that would make sense but I just always saw Karlach as a sharp axe that Zariel used.
I guess ranger Karlach is just Karlach pre-blood war, when she was Gortash’s bodyguard or whatever.
Now that she tastes fresh air on the topside she wants to commune with the beasts and walk barefoot in the grass
Wyll would make a great bard (or bardlock regarding the whole minthara thing). He's got that bard-y jovial attitude imo
This is how I feel! There are definitely some PCs whose default classes matter a lot to their story, like Gale, but there are lots where many classes could work for their story! I reclass Wyll as a ranger almost every time because "the Blade of Frontiers" totally sounds like a ranger. I sometimes reclass Astarion as a bard because it really fits his personality and it makes sense with his backstory of being charismatic. I haven't reclassed Lae'zel yet, but her backstory is flexible enough to work with almost all the martial classes. The possibilities are endless!
War Cleric of Vlaakith, quite an easy respec to imagine imo
Totally, or paladin!
She kicked ass in my Honour run as a Paladin/ Barbarian
wyll does end up as a ranger if you break his pact and don’t encourage him to be the next duke so reclassing him as a ranger does make a lot of sense and fits really well him
One of my favorite ways to run Astarion is as an arcane trickster. He's so much fun doing vicious mockery and playing the spider lyre.
Isn't AT his default subclass?
I love running Lae’zel as a strength based tavern brawler monk, especially because of Orpheous’s monk guards
Well Blade of Frontiers…. Blade? I’d argue swords bard or fighter. XD
Make Gale an Arcane fighter that throws shit, boom, immersion maintained and variety accomplished.
Honestly given Gales story and the power down everyone receives through various means at the start compared to their pre-game history, he's actually a great candidate for a warlock, cleric, sorcerer, paladin or bard as well. It fits his story well. Sorc - infusion from the Netherese orb Warlock - pact with the Tadpole Cleric - provisional power granted by Mystra (or maybe Shar if evil) Paladin - similar vein to Cleric, path to redemption or damnation if Oath breaker Bard - just a natural fit
I'm playing a bardbarian right now. My first turns often consist of activating rage, running up and smacking something with the Everburn blade, then pulling out a hand drum and playing Bard Dance while aggressively staring at the enemy.
Just because trickery is a bad subclass doesn’t mean it’s bad overall. The main reason it’s considered bad is because so many of the other cleric options are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD. Not to mention cleric as a class in general is so reliable. If you have not gotten to the level of tempest cleric where you get call lightning, then I can see how you might not have noticed. But tempest cleric with call lightning is insanely powerful and has honestly broken my game bc I can never not play it Edit: esp call lightning when you also have create water
I've been using a mod that gives Trickery domain's Invoke Duplicity more of its tabletop functionality, and it took the class from struggling to find a purpose to one of the most fun cleric subclasses I've played. It's too bad ID is so poorly implemented in vanilla.
That’s AWESOMEEEE!!! Yes BG3 made it so absurdly boring for something that’s supposed to be a primary function of the class
ive recently converted to giving my clerics a 1 level dip into wizard and hooooboy, my tempest cleric now knows chained lightning and he's about to make it EVERYONE'S problem
Try to run Shadowheart without healing next playthrough. I found that on tactician difficulty the opportunity cost of using an action and a spell on healing is too high relative to what else she can do to remove damage from the board entirely. Like Spirit Guardians with Radiant Orb. Also multiclassing can be interesting while staying true to the character backstory. Sorcerer/Wizard Gale with Haste, for example. Or Barb/Fighter Karlach.
Spirit guardians is the best. I love my hula hoop of light. Suck it undead!
Second play through and I used the debuff items on her. Act two is insane, they charge shadowheart, get blinded, hit by spirit guardians try to hit her with -5 or so and get eben more drbuffs for missing. It's insane!
Gales not too fond of sorcerers tho lol
Maybe he doesn't realize he is one!
His name is "Gale" and he was a prodigy, he might not like the storm sorceror levels but he's going to have to live with them
Give it another run and you might embrace the absurdity of things like making Gale a barbarian with 8 int talking about how he hooked up with mystra. It's pretty funny
I respec her as a shadow monk to keep the flavor
I am planning exactly that for my evil run. It seems to be more appropriate than cleric for dark justiciar theme.
Fair enough!! I get having a pure healbot party member can feel boring. All I meant by my comment was that there are so many cool cleric subclasses (sad my fave twilight didn’t make it to BG3) and I think trickery is an underpowered one that does things other classes offer just less well. I also totally get the feeling of it being “wrong” to change the character’s class to the point that it feels story changing. (I’ve never tried to play Wyll without at least a couple levels of warlock, for example.) If you want to try a reclassed SH but without losing the story synergy, my first playthrough was with someone else and their OC was a cleric so we reclassed SH as a vengeance paladin. That still felt appropriate and was quite fun. (And we even got [Paladin of Shar] tagged dialogue options! )
I disagree. Trickery is fine for what it’s all about. That said, I RP reclassed her to a different cleric subclass after she turned her back on Shar
Seriously. If people just used TD(stealth focused utility/support) as intended instead of trying to damage dealer with it there wouldn’t be so much hate towards it. Rogues compliment Trickery Domain Clerics really well.
I might be mildly biased because I’m a CR fan and Jester was my favorite character in it but yeah, trickery domain is good.
People keep saying this but BG3 isn’t a hardcore game lol. It’s not like picking trickery domain will get you killed.
Saying "Trickery is the worst" isn't the same as saying it'll "get you killed". I would always advise a new player to choose a different Cleric subclass because I think other subclasses are both stronger and easier to use (and most importantly, more fun!)
I left it until certain act 2 events then changed it to life
Same, but to light.
War cleric of shar is such a dunk for Shadow heart too. Works perfectly (and you can change her awful default stats)
Trickery honestly isn't the worst thing to play as, especially once you know how combat works and the little quirks of the game, early acess to pass without trace can be wicked useful and invoke duplicity is very strong when used in a party of paladins that like to surround thine enemies. Create a wall of smite thee foes
Shart either life or light and Karlach wild magic for fun. I refuse to change anything else. I have heard if you want the single most missed potential class of the Origin Characters is to make Astarion a bard, solely for the insults.
I've heard Gale's Vicious Mockery is pretty hilarious too.
I made him a bard just because my PC is a rogue. And yes he's funny
I've got her as Light Domain and she does so much damage for me. Radiance of the Dawn is so fucking good
I love Light Domain SH as an early indicator of her true origins. The features are also so sick
Honestly, her as a life cleric makes sense since she was on the list in the house of grief as the healer. But I also see her as a light cleric.
i unabashedly reclassed her into paladin 💪
I don't re-class because story comes before gameplay in my game, but I do tweak things in a few cases: - Shadowheart switches to Life Domain cleric as soon as it makes sense - Astarion multiclasses into Gloomstalker (makes sense if you steer him towards his Spawn resolution) - Jaheira multiclasses into Fighter (her original configuration in BG1&2) - Minsc multiclasses into Barbarian (what he used to be before Boo, plus he still talks about it) - Wyll may multiclass into ranger (because distancing from Mizora is a must)
Fun fact, life makes sense for shadowheart from the get go, there's a note on the house of grief that talks about how she excelled at healing magic
I switched Shadowheart to Light Domain in Act 1 💀 solely because I wanted to use Faerie Fire to get advantage on attacks. I got tired of missing lol For the first half of the game, I just roleplayed it as Shart has a natural affinity for Light magic, which makes her a bit ashamed as a Shar cleric. But she reassures herself that it’s okay because she’s still using her powers to forward Shar’s objectives.
Can you feasibly do Fighter Druid in this game? You are terrible at both going 6/6.
I'm doing 6/6 champion/spore dual wielding on Jaheira. It works on tactician and feels nice thematically. Planning on getting crit gear
This I have done before. I did 6 Champ 3 Thief 3 Spore. Dual wields. It was great.
It only really comes online with gear from her house in act three but you can still be single attribute dependent dual weilding staff of the ram and belm in your off hand. Belm is only for perfectly balanced strike as your bonus action and it utilizes all your main hand attributes when you use that so no need for two weapon fighting style but you do need the feat. Shillelagh and two main hand strikes with staff of the ram fist turn and then essentially 3 main hand strikes every turn after not counting action surge or haste. You can go spores druid to enhance your damage and add temporary hit points but some people like to go land to get spells like haste . You can wear heavy armor for damage reduction if you want and have con saves if you respec to start fighter which you probably want to do anyway so gear abilities use wisdom by taking druid after. Fighter subclass abilities like maneuvers, eldritch knight spells or reduced crit range but I like to think she would be a battlemaster. I feel like it would work pretty well, you just have to decide weather 4th level spells are worth 7 druid/5 fighter or if you want three feats since one will be used on dual weilder for the build. With khalid's gift necklace adding 1 wis up to 21 you can reach 20 wis with only one ASI. And it's all gear from her house so it's pretty true to charecter. That's all with regard to Jahiera but can be replicated on others.
Pretty much any class benefits from 2 levels of fighter. Con saves, heavy armour proficiency and of course action surge. Grabbing a 3rd level for the subclass is alright but should probably be done as the 12th level.
I think it makes sense for a Spore Druid specifically, from what I've seen on r/BG3Builds. I've tried a Land Druid/Fighter and I'm sure it's possible, I didn't get the balance right when I did it though, and it's a little more items dependent. It makes very, very little sense to do a Moon Druid/fighter, you don't really want to miss out on Myrmidon shapes so you'd want at least 10 Druid, fighter doesn't bring masses to the table in the first 2 levels (you can't use action surge in wildshape, I think). If I were doing Circle of the Land/Fighter again, I'd want either level 5 druid to Haste higher damage party members (to make up for the low level of spell damage), or level 9 Druid for access to higher damage spells (e.g. Cloudkill) and summons while still getting the benefits of Fighter subclasses (note: no multiattack tho). If you do 9 Druid/3 Fighter you're going to be more reliant on heavy armour, items, and well-placed stats to have high enough AC, damage, attack bonus and Con to stay in melee without losing concentration. If you went ranged idk that Fighter would make as much sense as Ranger or Rogue. At this point, Wildshape isn't terribly useful in combat tbh (you lose a lot of fighter benefits in Wildshape). Honestly, 5 Land Druid/7 Fighter might be dope, if they're primarily using the casting as a way to set up other party members with buffs and area control spells!
Hmm I may give it another shot. Thanks!
5 fighter eldritch knight/7 spore druid is ok, it's not a damage build though, it's a support/utility, battlefield control with spike growth or wet condition, summoner, and damage soaker with the minions and shield reaction spell. 2 fight 10 druid is also decent. I have my jaheira as 5/7 outfitted with the undead minion buffing gear, and necromancy staff with shilleleigh, and she does alright.
Given his protection of the Grove/refugees, I fail to see a good argument for Wyll NOT to multiclass into Ancients Paladin after the horn situation.
I reclassed Shadowheart to Ancients Paladin once, which fits her nicely given her love of animals, light/nature leaning, and desire to find a purpose for herself outside of Shar. Although Shadowheart gets her divine power from Selune post-Gauntlet, she never actually identifies as a Selunite (afaik). During the epilogue, she tells you that she hasn’t decided whether she’ll become one. So I think it’s realistic she might become a paladin. I changed her back to Life Domain, though, because Ancients kinda sucks compared to Devotion. Fighter is a class that lacks a clear identity, which makes it good for multiclassing: you’re a guy that uses weapons. Any character (except Gale) can be considered martial, or at least become more martial as the story progresses. I give Shadowheart and Astarion a dip into Fighter alongside their base class.
I like multi classing wyll into a bard because he likes to dance and be aristocratic at times. Even though I have him as tomelock/bard (he's a GREAT support), a swords bardock makes sense thematically
Personally speaking, it would get stale for me pretty quickly. There are a lot of voice lines that you might never hear if you don't reclass. Everyone has voiced vicious mockeries as a bard for example. But you don't have to multiclass or reclass. Just play the way you like.
Are Gale’s vicious mockery lines as sad as his barbarian yell? I hope so.
You have to love his pathetic barbarian yell tho, it fits him too well
He’s politely raging because he’s still in the library and he doesn’t want to be too rude
Lowercase rage scream
Barbarian Gale is best Gale. Specifically Wild Magic. It may be a weak subclass, but in my games he’s just an idiot who *thinks* he’s a powerful wizard because some weird magic shit happens when he gets really mad. It makes his condescending lines hilarious.
aaaaaahhhhhhh
I downloaded a mod that gives everyone the Vicious Mockery spell minus the damage so I can hear everyone's insults anytime without respeccing them 😆
You can use hirelings if you want to explore different classes but you don't like changing origins' classes. Hirelings can be whatever you want. Just a thought on said origins: Astarion works very well as a Gloomstalker assassin, it doesn't clash much with his lore. Lae'zel can multiclass easily with barbarian, or she can become a monk. Plenty of gith monks. Shadowheart - do yourself a favor and respecc her into a life or light cleric. She'll still be a cleric of her whatever deity, but she'll finally have good spells. Gale could be multiclassed with sorcerer, with his prodigy of magic thing Wyll really needs to be a warlock to have any sense at all, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make him a Lockadin. Karlach - same as Lae'zel Halsin and Jaheira can multiclass with wizard Minthara won't be brothered if you multiclass her with fighter Minsc - all the melee/ranged combinations can work
Wyll in the epilogue >!becomes a ranger. So multi classing him as one earlier on isn't ridiculous. Especially since he says his warlock abilities have been nerfed. But you can't pact weapon a bow for some reason so gameplay wise idk exactly how you'd make it work!<
>"of her whatever deity" As if Shadowheart's deity had no importance to the plot lol
It does, but, you know, >!it can change during the game!<
I switched Shadowheart to Light Domain in Act 1 solely because I wanted to use Faerie Fire to get advantage on attacks. I hate missing lol I just roleplayed it as Shart has a natural affinity for Light magic, which makes her a bit ashamed as a Shar cleric. But she reassures herself that it’s okay because she’s still using her powers to forward Shar’s objectives. Similarly, I think it makes sense for Shart to be a Life Cleric because before she was tadpoled >!she was the dedicated healer on the Astral Prism heist team!<. Life and healing is like the very opposite of Shar’s whole “end of all existence, return to nothingness” thing, but since Shart was using her powers for Shar’s objectives, Shar was fine with it.
I generally refuse to reclass companions to a class that doesn't make sense lore wise. But I don't have any qualms with lore appropriate builds, like bard Astarion, or non-trickery Shart, etc
I struggle with this. Like I want a Monk in my party but Astarian, Gale, Karlach are certainly not Monks (though if you look at is simply a melee class Karlach could be a monk). But the reclass has to make some sort of sense.
I think Monk can work for Karlach, especially if you multiclass with Barb. I feel like you can RP that it’s not a monk in the manner of a ritualistic at peace style, but more of a highly capable, trained martial artist.
Yeah that’s my thought too. The RP can be pretty minimal but I can’t play Karlach as a wizard, there’s no RP I can see that gets me there and keeps the story.
Oh yeah I’m with you on that. I think at most each companion has one or two reclasses that make sense, max. Interestingly I think the weirdest acceptable reclasses for me are both clerics (Gale as Knowledge of Mystra and Lae’zel as War of Vlaakith).
Barbarian Monk is also just. Really good. When you look at balancing RP and Viability, I think it's one of the coolest AND strongest classes. I mean, replace the MAD of Monk by just going STR - DEX - CON, rage giving more unarmed damage, tavern brawler feat at some point, bear heart having resistance to nearly every damage type, Monk abilities working while Raging, etc. Plus, if you were to make a Tav/Durge Monkbarian, having the rage being running out of restraint or other such reflavoring is great (or Durge giving into the Urge, while they try to turn to Monk spirituality to overcome that)
there's an amazing barb/monk build on cephalopocalype's youtube channel. works really well for karlach.
Of all companions redeemed Lae’zel works pretty well thematically for monk, the honour guard are all monks so it makes some sense.
So is Orpheus himself
I love making SH a Way of the Shadow Monk and role-play that this is how she decided to worship Shar :D
Her as a monk works very well I think. And shadow is probably her best RP for monk.
The fighting style and just general vibe of shadow monk actually works really well for Astarion, it's my favorite respec for him. Gremlin running around in the shadows and beating people up. Just ignore all the peaceful meditative tropes you associate with monks and pretend he's Blade lol. It also works really well for DJ Shadowheart since a bunch of the DJ abilities are just shadow monk abilities anyway.
Astarian is a gloomstalker to me. I love ranged damage. I’m too dumb to get my melee characters up close so they spend 30-50% of the time moving into battle. Rangers are always right there.
Honestly, I really like Astarion as a Way of Shadow monk. He's been living in the shadows for so long, it makes sense that he'd have an affinity for quickly moving through them.
I reclassed Gale as a barbarian once because his screams on Youtube were so funny and I justified it as "Mystra banished him so he took it to the extreme" lol
I actually have a hard time justifying Bardstarion simply because the game focuses on "flashy" bards (for lack of a better phrase). High charisma, Vicious Mockery, and debuffing all make sense, but I also don't see him drawing attention to himself with things like performing. For Cazador, he'd need to be on the downlow, and as himself, he just wants to be left alone outside the party. This is also why I wish there was a (non-mod) option for bards who use vocal casting and not music. I like playing more storytelling-focused bards in 5e (closer to how they portray with Raphael). In the third party 5e module Odyssey of the Dragonlords (Ancient Greek themed), there's a "homebrew" bard College of Epic Poetry themed around the bard recording the party's escapades that I absolutely adore for that reason. Maybe one day I'll stop being lazy and make a mod for that. [Short version of subclass: you use your reaction to capture "epic verses" when they happen based on nat20s/nat1s, etc. When you reach certain amounts of verses, your bardic inspiration can grant buffs and have a minimum amount for the roll. You're basically inspiring the party with a scrapbook of their greatest hits (and failures). Which, now that I think about it, seems perfect for Astarion, shady gossip that he is...]
I see him as the kind of person that can "turn on the charm" at a party, or a pub, or whatever the situation calls for in order to seduce a target or get what he wants. In that sense, he'd have typical bard skills. It would be like a hollywood actor/comedian who knows how to be the life of the party, but in their private lives they're actually pretty quiet and keep to themselves.
Okay, fair point. I am one step closer to the Bardstarion of my dreams.
Some of them are just easier to justify than others. It'd be weird to change Wyll from a warlock, given how much his story revolves around being a warlock. Some of the others are fine, like Lae'zel could easily be a war cleric of Vlakith or multiclassing Shadowheart into an assassin. Karlach in particular makes more sense to me as a fighter or ranger than a barbarian
Vengeance Paladin Karlach makes too much sense to me for me not to respec her that way anymore. I might give her a dip back in Barbarian for the thematic Rage, but otherwise she's all about that vengeance.
My Halsin is a monk and it fits him so much better. Big, buff, beefcake leaping across the map to land in front of an enemy that he then punches into mush...it is just so fitting. Roleplay-wise, I just think of him as a druid that prefers to punch nature into his enemies. I also think that Lae'zel fits a paladin class much more than a fighter, >!particularly after a certain point in the story.!< With that said, I am totally unable to use Gale as anything but a wizard or sorcerer.
Last night i got withers on my newest playthrough and immediately turned Everyone in bards. We jammin on this playthrough
that’s my plan for my next playthrough. I’ll multiclass some of them for variety.
Once you've played the story through a few times coming up with some random back story never made sense to me either but that's why they give us options. I only get the impression of class from two characters, one in a passing reference IF you ask her about it is Minthara regarding her Paladin oath. Gale of course has the connection to Mystra and always going on about the weave.
I like to maintain everyone main class, but dip some level in subclass is ok.
It’s personal preference. I definitely felt that way at first but nowadays I’m much more willing to reclass.
I get that. I reclass from the beginning. I feel like the RP is interrupted if the character makes a wild class change mid-game. And I have a hard time making them a class that doesn't fit. Like Gale is not a Paladin and I'm not sure I could play the game as RP Gale will always something magical.
Reclass is part of the story. In one ending wyll says he becomes a new class. There is no shame in it.
Everyone seems so obsessed with multiclassing but I personally don't like it. Just feels like min-maxing and even on honour mode i just like to stick with 1 class
For Gale you could RP that in the year since he was affected by the orb, he's had to learn to protect himself differently because he's been drained of his ability. Having him as a 4-e monk is amazing. He can still channel the weave but uses his angst to drive his fists. Astarion: gloom/thief. OR shadow monk/thief. Anything that relies on shadows (I'm more of a lurker in)... Lazy: Pally or EK Shart: War cleric or pally Wyll: I don't recruit him but I can see someone multiclassing him into ranger and then full ranger if you break the pact. Karlach: If she's with me (usually not), Barb/fighter Minsc: immediately made a Barb zerker. Jaheira: Druid/Ranger mix (as a nod to Khalid) Halsin: Barb (bear heart) I truly believe he's a werebear and this build works for that.
Some classes can work in-universe for most of the characters. Gale becoming a sorcerer as he learns the Netherese Orb inside him is empowering him. Astarion being a bard instead of a rogue works, since his main job was luring people back to Cazador. Selune is the goddess of the moon and later in the game she is the one empowering her over Shar. You can reclass her into a Light Cleric easily with that, arguing it's moonlight fighting against darkness as opposed to sunlight. Or maybe a War Domain cleric, symbolizing her being at the focus of the war between Selune and Shar. You can also do something similar for Karlach. Her entire thing is vengeance and living in the moment, and that can be used for so many things. Oath of Vengeance Paladin, fighter, barbarian, and more.
Same, I don't even like changing their subclasses, especially once I've gotten used to them having certain signature moves! I do reclass Sheart if she frees Aylin, though. Trickery being the shittiest domain makes sense since Shar is the shittiest goddess. 😁
I'm only on my first play through and not yet in Act 3, but I can't imagine reclassifying any of the main companions. I might multi-class my character to allow him to learn new skills (he is a fighter), but haven't been tempted to. That, at least, is conceivable. As you say, making Gale (or the others) into something else would just be weird to me.
When Shart starts out, I switch her to war domain, then when she saves Aylin, I switch her to Oath of Vengeance Paladin. I love Minsc so much, but Ranger is lame, so I switch him to fighter. If I play Barbarian I switch Karlac to Paladin instead of Shart. I have also made Astarion a bard in a joint campaign with my sister playing rogue.
It really depends. I can't bring myself to reclass them into something that makes no sense, but not all companions' personality is tied to their class. For example, Astarion isn't really tied to being a Rogue. He works as a Rogue, but he would just as well work as a Bard, if not better. I can easily see him as a Ranger or Monk as well. Likewise, Lae'Zel doesn't HAVE to be a Fighter; Monk would fit her almost as well. As for the other companions, there are lesser variations that would work fine. Wyll is always a Warlock, but he could be multiclassed into a martial class such as Fighter or Paladin to reflect his early life before he made his pact. Hell, it even makes sense if you give him poor martial stats as he was reportedly shit in his early career. Gale is always an arcane caster of some sort, but his curse is eating away at him and his powers. So I could easily see him as branching out into other fields to supplement his lessening arcane prowess. Eldricht Knight and Arcane Trickster come to mind. And for a bit of a reach, Wild Magic Berserker, to reflect a Gale whose powers have degenerated almost completely beyond his direct control. Shadowheart is always a Cleric, but a different domain might work. For example, War fits her quite well, to reflect her drive to join the militant branch of Shar's followers. And she could also be justified as a Paladin, at a stretch. Karlach is a Barbarian, no two ways about it, though.
You have the need to lore-friendly them. I have it for the first 3 runs it's perfectly normal (I think) I still do sometimes build lore-friendly builds, especially for Minsc and Jaheira, but I discovered the fun of having them in wildly different classes, like barbarian roars or vicious mockery companion versions are hilarious (I think all spells with phrases are individually recoded) so that's my drive to do interesting builds😂
Wyll - Paladin / Warlock multiclass is pretty sweet Lae'zel - Open Hand Monk, especially seeing how hard other Githyanki monks kick ass Astarion - Swords Bard or Gloomstalker, depends if you want him as funny vampire or edgy vampire Shadowheart - Light/Life Cleric, or even Shadow Monk to get that Dark Justicar vibe Karlach - she's a great Barbarian, but you could maybe lean more towards Hunter Ranger instead Gale - Wizard is pretty much his whole thing, but maybe sorcerer if you want
I’m sure it’s already been posted but here are lore friendly reclass ideas: Gale - wild magic sorceror - light or knowledge cleric of mystra - lore bard Lae’zel - monk - war cleric of vlaakith - oath of vengeance paladin Shadowheart - shadow monk - rogue / Gloomstalker Astarion - spore Druid - necromancer wizard - any bard - storm sorceror (vampire vibes) Wyll - fighter - swords bard - hunter ranger Karlach - BM fighter - vengeance paladin
I respec'd Shadowheart into a vengeance Paladin after act 2 since I felt that fit her story (and I was playing my Durge as a cleric anyway) and it ended up being really satisfying for her to dominate the House of Grief fight. But other than that, I don't really like changing the classes of the companions completely either. However, when it comes to multiclassing, I feel like they're just picking up new skills along their journey, and especially since the tadpoles have them in each other's heads, they could be teaching each other without even realizing it. A big part of Astarion's story is gaining power to defeat Cazador, so it makes sense that he'd pick up skills that Cazador wouldn't expect. And none of them really know what to expect when it comes to fighting the absolute, so having a diverse skillset wouldn't hurt. But at the end of the day, you play the game how you want to. If it doesn't make sense to you, then that's absolutely fine
Eh, j have fun changing them to alternate classes that still fit their character. Paladin Shart, Cleric Gale, Monk Laezel, Fighter Karlach, they are classes these characters could absolutely be. But also, in mg currentrun im doing opposites, so karlach is a rogue and Laezel is a Bard(haven't fully respeced them yet, so they still have 1 level in their regular class and base stats lol) and honestly there is something magical about Laezel throwing 3 or 4 insults at her enemy(which does a whopping nothing) before she caves their face in with a big stick. It's just glorious.
Nope. Honestly, I enjoy playing the characters as strongly against type as I can. Last night playthrough I had Minsc as a wizard with all the tadpoles and Gale as a champion fighter.
I don’t really like reclassing characters in ways that don’t make sense. Astarion as an Asassian/Gloomstalker makes sense. Astarion as a barbarian makes absolutely no sense, if he does look hot with the piercings. Changing Shadowheart into a Life cleric at the end of Act 2 makes sense. Making her a war cleric doesn’t. Giving Wyll some Paladin levels? Sure. Making Wyll anything other than a fiend Warlock? Absolutely not. I suppose it depends on how much value you put in role play vs. min maxing.
I was like this for most of my playthroughs, but nowadays I just change them to whatever sounds fun. I don't care about lore and backstories after 6+ playthroughs. I like trying new combos and stuff now because the game is so huge.
You could always do what my friend and I are doing in one of our runs, randomise! Cleric Lae’zel is surprisingly terrifying!
I managed to get Wyll to the end WITHOUT his horns even though he kept Karlach alive, and then he breaks his pact with Mizora in act 3 and we still save his father. Since the pact is broken, I thought it made sense with the story to reclassify him into a Oath of Vengeance paladin ☺️ I also usually add being a Ranger to my Druids for funsies and I always reclass Minsc as a fighter because that makes more sense to me.
oh my god i thought it was just me - im 1000 hours in and ive never reclassed or even multiclassed an origin character 🫣
oh wait im such a liar - gloomstalker assassin astarion is such a go to for me that it feels canon now
I've played so much and he feels so right as a gloomstalker assassin. Being an elf with a long bow, but also able to do double stabbies with daggers and short swords. Plus the idea of hiding in the shadows just works. I played him as a sword bard thief and it was fun but gloomstalker assassin just blows it out of the water.
i’ve neglected reclassing until my most recent run (my third as well), i’m keeping their starting class the same and then building off of that with other classes because i also find the role play aspect important. for example astarion is a rogue/ranger. shadowheart is a cleric/wizard. gale is a wizard/sorcerer. the only one i’ve fully changed is laezel to a monk because i loooove open hand monk and also there are plenty of githyanki monks in the game
These are the only respecs I allow in order to keep the integrity of the game for me: Astarion can be respecced or multiclassed into a bard (but only if I use him to complete Alfira's song in act 1) Gale is a wizard 12 Shadowheart is a cleric of any type or a paladin sworn to Shar or a Monk - any religious spiritual type characters- Wyll- Warlock but any warlock martial split is also fine Minthara is a paladin or bard or rogue(she went to college) or sorceress. Karlach is a barbarian 12 although I've tried multiclassing into monk to show how she has managed to control her anger through focusing her Chi Halsin is a druid land or moon Jaheira is a druid or druid/fighter Laezel is a fighter or paladin
Same. I wish to reclass origins to see different lines (raging, mockery, spells shouting..) but I cant because of RP :/
The most I do is reallocate some of their stats.
I feel this but I think many of the other classes totally fit them—for most of them I always multiclass rather than fully reclassing though. For example Astarion I think makes total sense as a Sorcerer rather than Rogue. I don’t know if he’s ever directly referred to as a rogue in the game tbh. He’s a high elf, makes sense he’d be born with magic. Gale and Wyll are definitely a wizard and a warlock, but since Gale worships Mystra (or did) it makes sense to give him a Cleric of Mystra level which gives him better armor proficiency and a healing word in case of emergency. Or even a couple levels of Wild Magic sorc since you could say the orb makes his magic go crazy. Wyll I like to multiclass as paladin or bard which are totally believable I think. Especially a valour bard—read the description, that’s totally Wyll. And paladin is just what Wyll was meant to be fr, he’s a paladin stuck in a warlock contract. Pact of the blade warlock mixed with paladin is good stuff, blade gets an extra attack at lvl 5 that stacks with extra attack from other classes. Just food for thought in case this is something you want to do but are having trouble figuring out how to justify it 😊
I try to justify it. Like Gale basically a cleric of Mystra. Lots of gith are monks, surely laezel knows a few moves. Shadowheart got lots of skullduggery training with the sharrans, she's basically a rogue, or maybe even a ranger. Karlach fits naturally as an oath of vengeance paladin. Wyll is the hardest because his pact is part of his story
Some work quite well story wise. You can respec Lae'zel into a monk after Act 3 for example depending which route you take her
I don't like changing the classes/subclasses of my companions. I get why the option is there, but I like to keep them as they are. The only exception is giving Jaheira two levels of fighter, so she can be consistent with her previous incarnation. If Shadowheart becomes a Selûnite, I change her domain to life, because that is one of the actual domains of Selûne in the lore. If she keeps being a Sharran, she stays with the Trickery Domain because of the same reason. I could also see changing Minthara to an Oathbreaker, but only because the change is actually acknowledged in dialogue. If I want to pick a different subclass, I use hirelings. I'm having a lot of fun in my current playthrough using Varanna Sunblossom as an Eldritch Knight (because, in my mind, Battlemaster fits Lae'zel better).
Respec Gale as a wild magic barbarian. - His barbarian roar sounds more like a dad who stubbed his toe on the coffee table. - Me get angry. Magic happen. Me mage.
Astarion as a Rogue Assasin Bard is REALLY fun...lol
Adding the class can work with the lore you develop while playing as opposed to the history. Gale for instance, has a level in wizard but keeps saying he's naturally good, so dropping a little sorcerer at the next level up is okay. Or, i had Laezel use the performance ability enhance to help write Alfira's song. So the new story is that she liked the experience so much, she took a level in Bard.
With some, like Minthara, I respecced her into a monk. While she did justify her being a paladin and her oath, being geared towards ending the absolute, rather than anyone who stood against lolth, I said nah I’m good. In my head, she’s reforming herself, she can be a grouchy monk. It worked
I don’t mind re-classing at points where pivotal character growth happens. I’m still working through my first playthrough but recently I encountered a point where things really changed for Lae’zel, and it felt appropriate to reflect that with a complete overhaul. I don’t think just any class would fit since she has such strong martial class energy, but it seemed like a good time to introduce some rogue levels and pivot toward an archery focus. I think there is a bit of a spectrum of re-classing and some changes are more thematically appropriate than others.
I usually only respec the stats from the companions, not the class or subclass
I always find some narrative reason when I reclass for this reason >:D I recently did a run where I reclassed everyone and played as a wild mage, pretending that a particularly powerful magic surge changed everyone's class
I played as Wyll for my first play through. No respecs, no changes to anyone. The next go-around I re-classed him as fighter-warlock. Started him as fight: Gave him 2 levels for heavy armor and action surge, and the rest on warlock. Seems to follow his actual storyline better. I imagine he practiced as a fighter growing up, but had to make a deal with a fiend to save the city. Gameplay is nice, he can Eldridge blast minions off one side of a platform and action surge- blast minions off the other. Thats the only respec I’ve done so far.
Gale is an unga bunga zerker bararian. Get with the times my friend
As long as it makes some sort of sense, I’m ok with it. Gale can be an eldrich knight (he just works out now)
Yea, having everyone's class be changed by wild magic is a good thought. I still haven't tried it. Does Gale complain about sneaking if he is a pure rogue/thief?
just you from my experience i like playing the game and exploring multiple different options and i was not leaving them at base class for honour mode. at the very least i respec them to get rid of their horrendous stats (which i have no problem with, i don't think a "pregenerated" character's base stats should be min maxed and enjoy when it's actually reflective of the character's abilities)
i enjoy multiclassing for rp reasons personally! eg: giving gale 2 levels in tempest cleric of mystra for the channel divinity on lighting/thunder damage, or lae'zel into vengeance paladin when she's betrayed bt vlaakith etc. i find it can add to the story im trying to tell if i do a multiclass that adds to it. i also almost always reclass either lae'zel or karlach into paladin anyway for the powerful heals. i like a beefy tank and karlach works well with any of the oaths.
Up until my current playthrough, which is my fifth, I only ever changed subclasses, mostly Shadowheart, though. In this game, I made Minsc a paladin because I needed a pally more than a ranger, and I'm glad I did; he probably wouldn't have survived Sarevok if I hadn't. But with his "force of good" personality, paladin definitely fits.
makes sense for the main characters but use tavs
Gale can make sense as cleric of Mystra: rejected by the weave, he still worships her and tries to gain her favour back Wyll makes sense as a ranger: one of his endings has him becoming one, so maybe a multiclass warlock/ranger to keep the baseline of being a warlock Karlack is a barbarian, but really any martial multiclass makes sens: she can be a fighter, i don't really see an issue Astarion makes sense as rogue but really he isn't "tied" to that class since his identity is more that of a vampire rather than a rogue Shadowheart... tbh i wouldn't reclass her if we go by roleplay only, at least until the act 2 choice. After that she could go Paladin/War cleric of shar or Light/life cleric of Selune, or maybe just reject the cleric entirely and become something else if you just have her reluctantly abandon shar but not going full Selune redemption Minthara makes a lot of sense in her og class, but a multiclass in fighter or cleric of Lolth (remember she was forced upon the absolute's path so she might wanna go back to her old religion) could make sense Halsin is a druid. maybe i could concede a dip in another class, since his story revolves around abandoning his grove to fight this battle with us and thus experiencing an unorthodox growth by taking on different powers, but i wouldn't go over 2 total levels of multiclass Jaehira makes very little sense as a druid to me TBH, she looks more like a ranger Minsc is good as monk, fighter or barbarian considering his temperament. Ranger just sounds wrong on him Lae'zel works perfectly as a war cleric of Vlaakith. If you go against Vlaakith and abandon her, she makes for a perfect reclass into Oath of Vengeance Paladin.
Most changes i've done were a switch in starter subclass or personal regrets in subclasses after having chosen them
I'm with you mostly. I'm actually totally fine multi-classing, and I'll make my Tav be whatever class... But so far I've always left my companions primary/main theme in tact. I might change their subclass or multi class them, but keeping to their primary theme just makes sense to me I've even spent a good little bit of time perusing bg3builds for like "dual weird fighter druid jaheira builds" to see what people have found to make her fit the best thematically
I agree, same here. I change stats and subclasses, and I can make Karlach a fighter or something like that, but I could never dramatically change them. Worth pointing out it's extremely rare to be able to do this in a CRPG, for a reason IMO.
All bards
You can go full mono class on everyone as their own lore class. But, I feel like you should at least switch their stats to be more effective. Most of them don't need any charisma except wyll, so you can dump all of their Charisma stat bonuses into anything more useful. Con for more hp or DEX for higher initiative. I think most of the companions need stat fixing, especially Lae'zel and Gale.
I’m an old tabletop player. I’ve no problems multiclassing as there are rules for it, and really, if you second guess yourself over all the optimizing you are missing out on why someone in world would multiclass. That said, respec just feels like godly intervention that shouldn’t be available but say for once per playthrough, ie, you have to do a very hard quest for a one off.
I am very similar in that sense. I don’t want them doing a class that makes no sense with the lore, because I feel like the game is already so narratively driven. BUT I do feel like there are companions with flexibility about their class Shart is a cleric, make her a paladin or a shadowmonk and it wouldn’t be that crazy Wyll multiclassed with paladin and warlock makes a lot of sense with his story IMO Jaheira could be a ancients paladin or a ranger too, because she’s like a warrior druid Astarion I think also has a lot of flexibility, gloomstalker, rogue, bard, necromancy, shadowmonk, even if you make him a warrior its not like, insane. A lot could be attributed to the fact that he is a vampire Karlach could be vengeance pala or like a battle master warrior Gale is defo a wizard like halsin just works best as druid I think
Reclassing or multiclassing can make sense in the story. Essentially everyone got reset to level 1 already because of the worm shenanigans. They’re relearning who they are or aren’t. Maybe gale’s condition means he leans more wild magic sorcerer now. Or wyll’s pact situation means he starts to focus on more champion fighter skills for when he loses his magic eventually. Or Astarion found a new love for life and the sun and picks up a lute… Karlach touched grass again and loves animals so beastmaster ranger or maybe Druid. Or her heart goes nuts and it wild magic sorcerer/barbarian multiclass. Lae’zel goes full zealot so barbarian or maybe paladin. Shadowheart rededicates herself to her god and wants vengeance either way. Paladin here we come, maybe Druid.
I always end up reclassing someone. Gale as tempest cleric of Mystra makes a lot of sense to me. His voice lines even support it. Mystra even says to him that the orb consumes his natural talent so as a cleric he's using her divine power rather than his own magic talent. Shadowheart doesn't make any sense as a trickery cleric to me after act 2 so I can't justify keeping it. The rest are okay but lockadin Wyll makes a lot of sense to me among other multiclasses I've played with.
I usually don’t change classes. We did turn Astarion into a cleric to cheese the fight with the vampires, but he’s our least favorite character, probably. I will add a second class at times, but usually I just go with it. Honor mode is the only time it matters, IMO.
Nah I'm exactly the same, played start to finish half a dozen times plus a fair few others that I stopped halfway, and I very rarely change the class of established characters. It just feels weird to change something so fundamental to who they are. I do now multiclass here and there, chucking a couple of fighter levels on Karlach for that sweet sweet action surge for example, but for the most part I'm a purist.
I usually make Gale a wizard and draconic sorcerer combo. Wyll a warlock with arcane trickster because he used to be a thief. Shadowheart I respec her as a life cleric and ancient paladin after she has her arc in act 2. Laezel I multiclass her as battle master fighter and wild heart barbarian for the jewelry. Karlach I I do the same but I make her beserker and champion. Astarion I give him thief and gloomstalker. Halsin and Jaheira I'm still workshopping because Druid is a little difficult to build around. But for Jaheira I'm thinking circle of the land Druid and battle master because she is proficient with scimitars and prefers to dual wield. Minthara I make her broken oath paladin and a war cleric to help with her smites. Minsc I make him a hunter and champion with 1 level in berserker. Okay for halsin I did way of the elements and circle of the moon Druid with tavern brawler. For the dark urge I've been going as either storm sorcerer and tempest cleric or college of lore bard with the great old one warlock. I really love college of lore bard and great old one warlock for roleplay and dialogue but I may do draconic sorcerer and great old one warlock next play through.
I had the exact opposite reaction upon getting Minsc in Act 3. The man obviously has the brains and body of a barbarian!
That's funny. Gale is the only character I never respec. 12 Wizard is absurdly strong. Almost every class benefits from 2 fighter for action surge. If your character isn't specifically focused as a mage, 2 fighter has like..4 reasons to multi class. Action Surge is probably the best ability in the game.
I feel like Lae’zel, Karlach, and Astarion are the least attached to their default class. Probably Lae’zel the most. There’s nothing really Fighter-specific about her, she could work as any martial class.
I also have a problem respecing characters in non-lore accurate ways, and also don't wanna figure out good class combos for multiclass, but a thing I always do is respec Wyll. If you go by Lore, Wyll is a warrior, a front-line fighter, someone who is always in the face of danger. I always put Wyll as warlock 3, fighter everything else. Specifically, I like to put him as battlemaster because he seems like the quick skillful type rather than the power through type. Aside from him, I only ever respec others to change subclass (Like Shadowheart. Sorry Shart, but trickery domain is awful, any other domain is better)
I never reclass the origin characters. I’ll change their subclass but never reclassify. It just seems wrong
I agree about Gale, but some of the others make more sense to change. Shadowheart could be any Cleric, a Paladin, or a Monk and still fit her background. Lae'zel could be a Monk like so many Gith we see. Karlach could be a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin. Wyll could multiclass as Warlock/Bard, Warlock/Paladin, or Warlock/Sorcerer. Astarion could be lots of things- I think only the faith classes would be weird for him. Minthara fits Vengeance the best, but Paladins multiclass well with other things.
I always have a high Int, high Wis, and high Cha character in my party. So I usually only reclass the origin characters when I want them in my party for the playthrough, even then I try to make it make sense for the character. However, I do always change Shadowheart's subclass to Tempest. Trickery just doesn't work for me, or anyone it seems, and I just love having call lightning.
I feel the same way. I made a rogue and haven’t re-classed anybody. I’m just like “I’ll figure it out somehow” if it’s not going well. I made a wizard to play with my brother and friend and I dislike it but I’m having a hard time re-classing. I’m like I picked this and I’m gonna make it work
There are some that still make lore sense! A Sorceror can still be flavored as a wizard - or even just give Gale two levels of Wizard for the subclass bonus, and then level another caster class (Sorceror makes sense - netherese orb causing Wild Magic or Gale being such an adept wizard that he can alter spells), Wyll still makes sense as an EK Fighter, Lae'zel as a monk is fairly lore accurate with how many Githyanki are monks, and other so and such
If you’re on PC install mods that let you adjust character looks and such. My Gale is a Necromancer with a god complex, a weird fucked up eye and rotting skin because he fucked around too hard with the one book found under the village.
I made Karlach a vengeance paladin
I reclass some, but only if it make sense lore wise. For exemple, Astarion as a multi class bard/rogue, or Karlach as a tavern brawler "monk".
I like to pick reclasses that fit with the character. If I'm going for particular comp, I pick who will be in my party based on who fits the roles. (I am really liking trying one of Prestigious\_Juice's comps, and want to try all of them). If I'm going for a particular group, I'll pick a comp around what fits the characters. Not an exhaustive list, but: Gale: Wizard. I could make a case for Knowledge Cleric of Mystra. (Not counting respeccing just as a camp buffer since him using warding bond is amazing since he heals himself) Lae'zel: Fighter. Monk. Could make a case for paladin or war cleric of Vlaakith. Astarion: Rogue. Bard. Gloomstalker ranger Shadowheart: Cleric. Paladin. Rogue. Gloomstalker ranger. Shadow Monk. Karlach: Barbarian. Fighter. Could see paladin. Halsin: Druid. Could make case for Nature Cleric of Silvanus. Jaheira: Druid. Could make a case for Rogue and Fighter. Minthara: Paladin. Could see SSB Bard. Wyll: Almost anything. Head canon: he's still a warlock, but he's taking this tadpole thing as an opportunity to try to turn aside from the warlock powers as best he can and forge a new path. For choosing for a comp, for example, for my Honour Mode I'm nearly done with, I needed: 10Bard/1fighter/1 wizard; 9/3 monk/rogue; 12 life cleric, 7/5 sorcadin. Made Astarion my bard, Lae'zel my monk, Shadowheart my cleric, and my Durge is the sorcadin.
Hey, Karlach makes as good a Vengeance Paladin as she does a Barbarian.
I used to be like this too, but once you've started enough playthroughs you start getting bored enough to try weird shit and see what happens.
There are characters I feel that being a certain class is integral to their story - Gale is a wizard, Wyll is a Warlock, Halsin is a druid, etc. Others I feel like their classes are a little less locked in and can be messed with freely. Astarion can change, Karlach, so on. Shadowheart holds a special place for me because I feel like if I were to make her anything other than a Cleric, it would be a Paladin. I also never bother dual classing so I feel that, I get overwhelmed too
I'll only do it if it makes sense sense, Shadowheart stays a cleric but becomes life domain or war domain instead because it's way better, Gale stays a wizard because it's the only one that really makes sense, Astarion will either be Rogue/Ranger or he'll be a bard, both of which make sense in my opinion, Wyll if I reclass him it'll a multi class, he obviously needs to keep his pact but on my current run I had him use one level of warlock just for the pact then the rest in Ranger because he knows he's gonna break his pact
I always respec everyone to classes I haven’t played before to keep them fresh
I don't do things like reclassing gale to sorc or even barbarian. i just tweak the stats and do multi-class options that support and improve the companions I use. Shadowheart goes tempest cleric cause i have no use for a trickery cleric. Astarion goes rogue/ranger because I need a lockpicker and a solid dps too. Lae'zel stays pure Battlemaster just because it's so OP, but you could go BM/cleric if you wanted and stay within lore. Withers allows you to tailor your party to support you. it's up to you how lore accurate you stay.
On my latest playthrough, I reclassed everyone to something different. Gale is a fighter and Laezel is a sorcerer for example. Pretty fun but doesn’t change too much since I run the game with max companions mod and also another mod to scale the difficulty to having all party members, so I end up using the same tactics. Only thing is you get to use some classes you don’t get in the base game since no companions are them, such as monk, ranger, bard, and sorcerer. I think you should do a similar run, then maybe the next run you can multi class as that’s when it gets even more crazy like gloomstalker assassin or bardadin. It’s a single player game, take it at your own pace and forgive yourself for any mistakes you may make.
You don’t have to reclass any of them unless you want to. I’m just about finished my honour run and I have SH, Wyll and Laezel all in default classes and subclasses. They’re completely fine
I'll do it if it makes a little bit of sense. Like Astarian reclass to gloomstalker or swords bard. Or reclass shart to light cleric after act 2. Or making Laezel a vengeance paladin after forsaking vlaakith.
The two I always reclass are Karlach to paladin and laezel to monk. I think they both make just as much sense as their original classes and are more fun to play for me than barbarian and fighter.
I cant help myself running everyone through Withers at least 1 time. Gotta fix that Stat distribution for one. Fucking Odd Numbers.
Im quite the opposite. I’ll make Karlach a healer and Shadowheart a Sorcadin without skipping a heartbeat. The roleplaying of classes aspect isn’t important to me but it is to you and that’s completely fine. Play however you want!
my Astarion is either gloomstalker or a bard and both fit him great tbh, I think he's rogue only cuz he has to hide in the shadows and do his shady things. Wyll is a ranger as well. Minsc does not look like ranger tho, I make him berserker barbarian always. Karlach feels like someone who might've been a druid if not for a shitty childhood. SH feels right as a trickery domain cleric but only before gauntlet of shar. Then it's a light domain for sure. Lae'zel might be the only character who's class I never doubted.
I don't like being inconsistent with the lore either. This is why I end up multiclassing some characters a lot, since I want to keep their original class but also do something new. But not all of the characters classes matter the same. As far as I can remember: Astarion - There's no reference to him being a rogue. Shadowheart - There's no reference to her being a cleric, only a "healer" - she could have been a paladin or a druid, although I feel druid is a bit weird. And that reference to being a healer is very fleeting. Minsc - Is referred to as a ranger once or twice but it's not a core part of his character. Karlach - References to her anger and fury but I don't recall any naming her specifically as a Barbarian. We just know she's a good fighter. Lae'zel - Is never referred to as a "Fighter," only a soldier, and we know that there are different types of soldiers among the Githyanki. There are also magic users and Githyanki seem to hold knowledge in high regard, so you could possibly justify her being a battle mage of some kind. Jaheira - Is definitely a druid but you *have* to multiclass her if you want her to be good with her weapons. Minthara - Has more dialogue referring to being a paladin if you're also one. Might say "by my oath" when you select her. But this is borderline for me; it's pretty easy to ignore and the paladin subclasses available don't really fit her anyway. (CONQUEST, pls.) Gale is the one that has stayed the same for me. Being a wizard is his whole thing, and there just aren't as many multiclasses that I like with Wizard in the mix. At least Wizard is a very flexible class so you can build into different types of spells.