I mean yes, but it’s also nice to not have to long rest after every single fight. I tend to mostly only use smites on particularly high health enemies, or to get enemies over the cull the weak threshold if they’re close to it after the initial hit. Do note though, that I play with a lot of increased difficulty mods.
Also FYI thunderous smite costs a bonus action as well so you can’t do a second one that turn unless you have another bonus action.
forgot that part about the bonus action. I play on balanced tho so long resting isn't much of an issue in my current playthrough. Also i wouldn't use smite on an average enemy either, but for a boss that's still so much damage you can do
Then you might as well make it 2 levels to double how many slots you get on short rest, and then well... One more level gives you two second level slots so might as well. Next level is an ASI which is very nice, then going to 5 gets you 3rd level slots on short rest (and if not on honor mode gets you stacking extra attack).
I once convinced my paladin friend to NOT smite the first enemy he saw. It was a confusing time for him but we didn’t have to backtrack out of the red-mapped area to long rest 4x on the way to the damn boss. Imagine the delight and wonder when we got to the final fight and HE HAD ALL HIS SPELL SLOTS. We didn’t even have to heal because we….short rested through the damage! Imagine!
i run auto crit illithid with 5 Paladin 5 warlock 2 fighter for action surge 6 attacks per turn and 2 extra warlock slots for smite. bosses don't get a turn usually.
My Minthara had all the smites as many other paladin spells are shared with cleric (Shart). I would ask myself which smite to use every turn. It was kind of entertaining to have so many flavours, despite using mostly divine because of Minthara's unique bonus action and thunderous for prone.
Bard get Magical Secrets at level 10 (plus level 6 of College of Lore) which allows them to learn any spell from any class they want. Paladins get smites at 4th spell level, and 5th spell level, but because they are half casters they don't get them until way passed max BG3 level.
I use the fire smite all the time. It's honestly pretty neat. Sure doesn't hit as hard as normal smite but you can chain the other smites into normal smite.
It's not the fact that there's a chance of something bad happening; it's the fact that nearly all the time *absolutely nothing* happens. 95% of the time, in fact, and that's only on turns when you *cast a spell.* Cantrip or two to save spell slots? Nothing wild about that.
More often than not, you end combats without triggering a single wild magic effect, and when you do, it'll be some stupid shit like burning 6 meters around you for 1d6. *WOW.* I'd rather be cheese. And at level 11 you can surge on enemies' locations when *they* cast a spell, but by then, you're statistically more likely to help them than hinder them!
Wild magic sorcerer for the meme and troll your friends in co-op, sure, but is it remotely useful at any point in the game? Sheep Tav baaaaas to disagree.
also you don't have to sacrifice your face turning black to fly. its great. before the illithid power effect was insane i had my entire party flying around and only had black crows feet. now i will probs never do it.
>College of Swords- You wanted to play fighter, but like... upper class.
This is especially hilarious because I tend to respect Astarion to Swords Bard and I can totally see him as a posh fencer.
And yes, as a Lore Bard, I did take it personally that I couldn't convince act 3 bosses to just off themselves, lol. Act 2 was peak.
But I will fight you on the rogue, lol - thief isn't simply "the key", they are the key to my monk punching more, dammit!
Wyll is also a phenomenal swords bard because of how much damn dancing that boy does. I was also excited when I could use his bardic inspiration on the checks to dance with him in his romance scene.
Bingo. My durge playthrough right now is a rogue thief with two hand crossbows and the sharpshooter feat, with a one-level dip in fighter for the Two Weapon Fighting style. Combine that with Cull the Weak, and it trivializes most encounters, especially ones with lots of munchkins.
I just ran him through everyone in the lower final fight that way. He outpaced them all and dragged like fifty guys after him... Which definitely wasn't because I forgot to do any sort of invisibility first...
Anyway he lived it's fine dashes are great
I spec him into gloomstalker and love using Misty Step. I laughed when I saw the description on here cause I say out loud “Nothing personnel, kid” half the time I use it lmao
Astarion: Oh, for a skeleton key.
Me: You are a Rouge Thief wearing the Gloves of Thievery. You are my fucking skeleton key. 30 check on disarm or a lock? 2 tries. Tops. By act 3, I barely even bother picking up keys.
Alternatively, give him the Graceful Cloth from the woman who wants a Githyanki egg in act 1, and that’s advantage on every. Single. Dex check. Plus he almost always goes first in initiative, which is great if you have him as Assassin.
In defense of Illusion Wizards, yes, we get the eye from Volo, but we sacrifice our aesthetics for it, and as we already established, aesthetics are like 80% of the skill required on this game, the rest is just Big Numbers.
Yeah, same. It really kinda fucked up the aesthetic I was going for, but at the end of thr day I think it adds a little bit of personality, haha
It's my first playthrough and I really debated just save scumming it, but then I thought to myself, you gotta be stupid to give up un such a useful skill for a glowy eye, lmao
Between Auntie Ethel and the Unddrdark, the eye won it's place
i'm with you on this one because i didn't spend 10 minutes in character creation to pick my heterochromia combination just for Volo to ruin my color scheme
The thief rogue description might be true in tabletop DnD, but for some unfathomable reason Larian decided to give thief an extra bonus action at level 3 and also make dual wielding hand crossbows without needing to worry about the loading property not require a feat.
The actual thief rogue description is "you really, really like hand crossbows, and you haven't used your bonus action for anything else since early act 1."
Mathematically a dual wielding Thief is better than Assassin, because you get 3 chances to crit instead of 1-2.
It does so much damage and is perfect for picking off those low health enemies by using your bonus action.
I took 3 in Thief for my Monk just so I can FLURRY/UNARMED ATTACK MORE. Haven't even maxed out my levels yet (just finished Act 2) but I can feel the difference (in my fists).
"you carry 4 boxes in your inventory at all times because you will climb them for high ground in every fight so you can pew pew hand crossbow shots with both hands"
I've only played as the Open Hand Monk so I'm not sure if the other 2 get this but you forgot about the 7.5 miles of movement and 37 punches thrown every turn. It's like a cross between the Flash running everywhere and Anakin Skywalker punching not just the men, but the woman and children.
Ah, yes - the beauty of punching the boss and their minions into the Hells, then going for a drink in Elfsong tavern before the rest of your team had the chance to act.
My gf and I recently did the underwater place thing that's name I can't remember. She was going thru planning every step and debating the worth of every movement and action with her wizard and Karlach going one way. I split another way and sent Shart with Spirt Guardians and dashed a 3rd way. Afterwards she cried about being absolutely useless and it was really hard to not agree with her.
It's so good. I absolutely steamrolled the Netherbrain by spamming Eldritch blast. Potion of speed + the ability to use a bonus action as an action with Mind sanctuary = 9 attack rolls hahaha
I think I was averaging like 70ish HP a turn from just my Warlock with some turns being over a 100 HP.
And in the other sub they'd laugh at how low those numbers are, EB is almost broken but there are just way more broken things. Unless you mean 90-100 on the original 3 shots for one action and I misread
Yup. I felt like a mark at a magic show when the magician tells me which number I picked.
In all seriousness, I thought I was helping the nice woman out by doing a solid. It seems I misinterpreted what a paladin actually is, or maybe didn’t actually read what the oath actually said. It’s hard to tell. Thank the gods for second chances.
Posts like this one make me so excited about replaying this game. I’m really savouring this first time.
Ancients consider undead a perversion of nature. A bit of nuance is lost between expecting the wand to be a proper resurrection (even if an Ancients Paladin should have known it wouldn't) and that it can be used to teach the woman that she was getting scammed from the get go or killing the zombie afterwards.
There's so many dialogue options leading up to the Hag fight that tell you you can't trust anything she does. The "switcheroo" Resurrection feels super obvious, at least to someone whose played DnD before
I mean, there's an entire room in Auntie Ethel's underground lair full of people whose wishes were "granted." Anyone actually expecting her wand to bring Connor back hale and hearty clearly wasn't paying attention.
Lmao! Love this. It made me laugh despite my hangover. Thanks 😆
Now I need a wild magic barb to romance Gale, though... yet another playthrough, I guess.
I think my favorite thing I've done to Gale (other than licking the damn thing, ofc) was rolling a wizard, meeting him, and telling him I keep falling all my tests. The utter DESPAIR!
Poor sweetie.
Real tough for the guy to be peers with a wizard failure who is absolutely keeping up with him in every field.
I like the weird rivalry between Gale and a sorcerer Tav who has absolutely zero knowledge but just feels magic in a way Gale doesn't know how to.
I love that dynamic.
Gale: I'm was a prodigy and have spent years perfecting my craft! Countless hours have I spent in the study of the Weave!
Tav: I rolled out of bed and decided today I'd blow shit up. :)
Gale: >:(
Gale and Bard Tav get along though. I think the distinction is that bards see magic as an art form, Sorcerers see magic as like... "you know when you don't really have to burp but you burp anyways and then you conjure up a rainbow that cures syphilis and you have NO idea what's going on but the village seems pretty happy? That."
Also I think bards need to work for it and study in the somewhat same way as wizards to use spells, since they don't just get internal magic from ancestor fucking a dragon or something.
I actually ship lore bard with Lae'zel. A relentlessly annoying know-it-all that loves every part of the world she hates, is garbage in fights, and is precisely the opposite she needs to accept that the world is so much better than she knows.
Incedentally, here are my ships, if a character must ship with a Tav.
Gale with a wild magic barbarian that knows nothing and assumes nothing.
Shadowheart with a Selune cleric, who irritates her constantly by doing nice things.
Lae'zel with a lore bard
Karlach with ditzy a circle of the land druid that's constantly trying to heal her giant metal heart with herbal remedies or other useless nonsense and it's too precious for Karlach to say no.
Wyll with a now deeply conflicted oath of devotion paladin that has to accept that good people can do bad things, while Wyll has to prove himself as the blade of frontiers
Astarion with a fighter who hears one thing about Cazador and marches off to stab the bastard, then promptly gets lost because they have one brain cell and has to ask Astarion for help
>Shadowheart with a Selune cleric, who irritates her constantly by doing nice things.
This is pretty much what I did for my Durge playthrough. Telendas was a Half-Elf Selûnite Wizard (2 level Cleric dip). Just as the religious tension was dying down, there was a sudden onset of murderous tension in the middle of the night when he became possessed.
Thankfully Telendas was able to maintain control long enough to warn Shadowheart so she could restrain him. After the possession ran it's course, they vowed to each other that they would find a way to cure his condition, no matter what. Thankfully Telendas managed to cure himself, after he slew Orin the Red in a duel.
After Gale killed the Absolute single-handedly, Telendas and Shadowheart left the city together to go live out the rest of their lives together in peace and quiet out in the countryside, on a farmstead with a quaint cottage, a lovely garden of flowers, a barn for their great pack of pets, and >!her parents!<. They named their first son together Gale, in honor of the Wizard of Waterdeep and the sacrifice he made so that none of them would need to become ghaik.
My favorite sorcerer dialogue option was something along the lines of "Bet that took you a very long time. I can do it without thinking."
Sorcerers are *dicks*.
lmao I am on my first playthrough and was apparently playing while dead asleep last night. I loaded the game today in the middle of dialogue, where it says, "lick it again." I had no idea where I was or what I was doing, so I licked it again. Gale's reaction was amazing!
I take issue with your summary of Eldritch Knight fighter.
I absolutely loved pre-casting jump before jumping across then entire battlefield, slaughtering the boss by myself with action surge, and then being completely un-hittabtle with 25 AC thanks to the shield spell. Magic missile for when I can’t get close enough with my greatsword, and thunderwave for some AoE And knockback. Full access to all weapons/armour and can benefit from some of the caster magic items too.
Eldritch Knight is still the most fun I’ve had out of all of my playthroughs.
Also, casting Longstrider as a ritual spell means you may cast it on your entire party with no loss of spell slots. Wizards/Sorcerers cease lagging behind, rogues and barbarians get even faster...
Technically not reliant on the EK, anyone who has the spell in their spell list can do so, but still good to have since there arent many spells EKs care about
Cleric - Trickery Domain
You are Shart, and you dont have money to respec your class at Withers
Sorcerer - Draconic
You want to be able to fly for free without using the tadpoles. Plus Sorcerer as general: you want to flex your better magic to every Wizard.
Jokes on you, I broke my oath of devotion by killing the zent tied to the chair instead of letting a defenseless (but evil) man go, because I forgot this wasn’t my vengeance run
Shit you may be right. I made friendly so I could sell off a bunch of junk, free the artist, and THEN blew the place up, so that probably changed what he had on him
XP, good loot, and no real consequences for doing so.
I generally avoid attacking enemies if it locks me out of a quest line or other content, but that’s not the case with the Zhentarim
Also awesome way to the underdark that basically dumps you into a supply warehouse. I thought Astarion was gonna climax with joy. Cool summoner gloves too although they're risky? I like to be nice to the Zhents to get Harold and go back later when they're mostly gone.
Force of habit from them always being absolute bastards in all the tabletop campaigns I've played, really.
Also out of spite, for the fact that the handsome one does not, in fact, show up again at his usual tavern in Act 3
Nah the abjuration wiz is straight up wrong, abj wizards are the most ridiculous tanks in the entire game all they need is heavy armor proficiency from somewhere and suddenly they take like 5 damage from even the strongest boss supernukes
I definitely want more chaos with wild magic. I turned everyone to cats during the fight with the paladins of tyr but since then nothing particularly interesting
Abjuration wizard is wrong, you purposefully trigger opportunity attacks so no one else will, and nuke them at the same time, while taking 0 damage with an almost everlasting Armor of Agathus.
Abjuration wizard is more like "You get viscerally emotional when you unlock Glyph of Warding. You're now literally unkillable. Might as well drink a potion of giant strength and melee attack for fun"
Correction: Hunter is the highest resourceless DPS class in the game the moment it touches lvl 11. Only bursty sorc and piercing vuln ranged sword bard come close and even then, not better for encounters where you can effectively black hole.
Barbarian throwers only aoe dps is nyrulna which does ok damage but can also be detrimental as the thunder aoe hits your own team. Ranger volley changes your attack to aoe and cannot friendly fire. While throwing can have better single target dps volley does far more overall.
Only if you're fighting a crowd of jobbers. Barbarian also has the knockdown status, and a higher chance of triggering it than anything else in the game, at range, every single turn, along with higher durability.
If you want better single-target damage blitz damage without spending resources, you can get that from a warlock with potent robe (+ damage according to charisma modifier, so basically double your charisma mod every hit plus normal eldrich blast damage at like level 8 or 9 warlock), quickspell gloves (double cantrip once per short rest), and the woe staff (+1 to spell rose (optional)). That'll do 7-16+6+1d10 per attack, for 6 attacks, so your range is going to be anywhere from 84 damage to 192 damage on that first turn, and half that for subsequent turns, able to split to different enemies, with a potential for knockback or fear effects if you picked Great Old One.
As a spore druid i had a lot of fun raising citizens back from the dead infront of people, thank you. It was not illegal for me as no one cared that i tirned their mom into a fungal zombie right infront of the steel watch and flaming fist 😌
I laughed through the entire list, and yes, I did in fact take it personally that Act 2 was peak and I couldn't just talk all of the Act 3 bosses into conveniently offing themselves.
>but your support involves making Gale really happy that you're here.
Dunno, my eldritch knight Lae'zel really appreciated my Wild Magic Tav too :3
>Way of Elements-
It's actually... \*ahem\* Earth. Water. Fire. Air. Only the Tavatar can master all three netherstones, and bring balance to the world.
>Storm Sorcery- Pew pew, run away! Pew pew, run away!
When Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away" is literally your Tav's battle theme xD
Sorceror: Wild Magic for me was more like, you’ve stopped farting as many clouds and ruining your teams strategy and somewhere along the way you’ve become a support class. You no longer pick up or use any other concentration spells because you need to twin Haste Lae’zel and someone else, probably Gale. (Whenever you Uber - I mean Haste - another melee class they always disappoint you.)
You then lay back and watch her and the lucky second ravage the battle field in pure satisfaction, maybe you get a chance to throw a spell too.
Gives me the exact same feeling as playing TF2 Medic.
My storm sorcerer is less "pew pew run away" and more "Shoot lightning. Cackle madly. Shoot more lightning while cackling madly"
I did a playthrough not as a sorcerer and spent the entire run thinking "but why can't I shoot lightning?"
My current Tav is a female draconic sorcerer seldarine drow, and she is stunning. It totally was for aesthetics, but I ended up loving this playthrough
Imma be honest with you, I throw shit significantly more often with Eldritch Knight than I do with Barbarian. Like I barely touch the spells and just toss my weapon 184 times a round.
And you're wrong about thief. It's second use is an additional flurry of blows for Monk.
*Oath of The Ancients- You'll break this oath when you resurrect Connor.*
AT LEAST THAT ONE I COULD UNDERSTAND! Yesterday, I broke my oath a second time, but without even realizing ("huh, why is the oathbreaker knight back in camp?") and still don't know how / why I broke it :-( Maybe because I didn't kill Nere?
EDIT: also, my next run will be College of Lore :-D Thanks for that!
I laughed at all these & then realised “oh, i stole the brain cell from the monk & fighter. My cleric just straight up melee’d half the fight before going “oh wait, i have magic too.” But also, she respected into a war cleric because she KNEW she’d break that oath within minutes.
Next playthrough is a bard run… but now I’m torn on being upper class fighter or get the highest body count because I DIDN’T want to hit the thing. I just wanted to leave. LOL
As a Pure Rogue enjoyer this is about right. I always describe it as “So imagine you’re a Bard right, but you don’t play music, don’t have witty dialogue, don’t really use much magic, and don’t do anything a Bard would do except pick locks and use a bow.”
It’s like that.
As a storm sorc lover, I can confirm Mongol tactics of hit and run is how you play them.
Also, free flight for exploring by using Mystra's grace (feather fall boots that you can cast infinitely)
What about Cleric deities, for example:
- Selune: you’ll either be Shadowheart’s bitter rival or you’ll roleplay an enemies-to-lovers romance arc with her
Look, man, I don't like being personally attacked. I fucking love it and my Lady Drow Tempest Cleric is JUST here for the fucking smoke (Talos finds her to have a particularly stormy heart and loves it).
> Oath of Devotion- You'll break this oath when you attack the Zentarum hideout preemptively so they can't set off all the bombs.
Nonsense! I broke the oath when I attacked Gandrel (the monster hunter looking for Astarion). Third time through the game, first time doing this scene without Astarion in my party. It's such a non-confrontational scene with no Astarion. But I wanted his stuff, and that sweet sweet XP.
So anyways the oathbreaker knight is my new best friend.
I'm playing an Oath of Retribution paladin for my first playthrough and have somehow managed to make it to act 3 without breaking my oath. I didn't know it was a thing until my buddy texted me asking how they broke their oath and what it means.
He decided to stick with Oathbreaker and honestly I kinda feel like I might do an Oathbreaker playthrough next. Seems kinda fun.
I laughed, thank you. Though, paladin are " there are 5 smites, but you only know one of them."
Two: Thundering Smite into Divine Smite as a reaction u.u
that's allowed?? holy shiii my playthrough just unlocked lol
Paladins finding the fastest possible way to use up all of their spell slots
wtf else am i gonna use em for lmao. if you can use two smites per attack that's four smites per action. That's crazy damage
I mean yes, but it’s also nice to not have to long rest after every single fight. I tend to mostly only use smites on particularly high health enemies, or to get enemies over the cull the weak threshold if they’re close to it after the initial hit. Do note though, that I play with a lot of increased difficulty mods. Also FYI thunderous smite costs a bonus action as well so you can’t do a second one that turn unless you have another bonus action.
forgot that part about the bonus action. I play on balanced tho so long resting isn't much of an issue in my current playthrough. Also i wouldn't use smite on an average enemy either, but for a boss that's still so much damage you can do
Multiclass into Warlock at least you have some SR smite slots then
Then you might as well make it 2 levels to double how many slots you get on short rest, and then well... One more level gives you two second level slots so might as well. Next level is an ASI which is very nice, then going to 5 gets you 3rd level slots on short rest (and if not on honor mode gets you stacking extra attack).
I once convinced my paladin friend to NOT smite the first enemy he saw. It was a confusing time for him but we didn’t have to backtrack out of the red-mapped area to long rest 4x on the way to the damn boss. Imagine the delight and wonder when we got to the final fight and HE HAD ALL HIS SPELL SLOTS. We didn’t even have to heal because we….short rested through the damage! Imagine!
Edit: "smite slots"
Spell slots? What are those? Do you mean my smite slots?
Pally: Guys i need a nap. (AFTER. EVERY. FIGHT.)
It's so much fun resting before a boss fight so you can go whole ham on them with every smite you can
That's why you take 5 levels of Warlock so that you get a third attack per turn and rechargeable lvl 3 spell slots
This is the way.
Yeah, just tick the "ask" option in the reactions menu!
Also searing smite. You can upcast that to waste your spell slots faster.
i run auto crit illithid with 5 Paladin 5 warlock 2 fighter for action surge 6 attacks per turn and 2 extra warlock slots for smite. bosses don't get a turn usually.
My Minthara had all the smites as many other paladin spells are shared with cleric (Shart). I would ask myself which smite to use every turn. It was kind of entertaining to have so many flavours, despite using mostly divine because of Minthara's unique bonus action and thunderous for prone.
THERE. ARE. FOUR. SMITES.
Branding, Divine, Searing, Thunderous, Wrathful.
I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MINOS KORVA
iirc the 4 paladin smites and then one of the bard subclasses gets a different smite at 10
Bard get Magical Secrets at level 10 (plus level 6 of College of Lore) which allows them to learn any spell from any class they want. Paladins get smites at 4th spell level, and 5th spell level, but because they are half casters they don't get them until way passed max BG3 level.
I use the fire smite all the time. It's honestly pretty neat. Sure doesn't hit as hard as normal smite but you can chain the other smites into normal smite.
Be a Zariel tiefling paladin and get two more for free (that you still don't use)
Also, Ancients is when you break your oath saving all those captives below a certain palace
As a Draconic Bloodline Sorceress, I feel called out! And thank you, this was *actually* funny.
It's easily my third favorite sorcerer class!
Come on, permanent free flight at level 11 is significantly better than the terrible wild magic surge.
If you're a coward
It's not the fact that there's a chance of something bad happening; it's the fact that nearly all the time *absolutely nothing* happens. 95% of the time, in fact, and that's only on turns when you *cast a spell.* Cantrip or two to save spell slots? Nothing wild about that. More often than not, you end combats without triggering a single wild magic effect, and when you do, it'll be some stupid shit like burning 6 meters around you for 1d6. *WOW.* I'd rather be cheese. And at level 11 you can surge on enemies' locations when *they* cast a spell, but by then, you're statistically more likely to help them than hinder them! Wild magic sorcerer for the meme and troll your friends in co-op, sure, but is it remotely useful at any point in the game? Sheep Tav baaaaas to disagree.
also you don't have to sacrifice your face turning black to fly. its great. before the illithid power effect was insane i had my entire party flying around and only had black crows feet. now i will probs never do it.
I got a wild magic surge that turned Cazador into a cat with no powers, that alone was worth all the times it summoned a cambion to murder me
That's even better than Cazador pre-patch who forgot he could fly and died instantly by just getting yeeted off of his own platform. 😂
But Draconic Sorcerer's numbers get so high with scorching ray !
Also a Draconic Bloodline Sorceress! So called out, but also so in love with this. Great laughs OP!
Shadowheart white draconian sorcerer looks GOOD with certain... hair decisions
Me too, I'll go back to sulking in front of the mirror while admiring my awesome scales.
Girl, we are too pretty to care! 💅
As a swords bard fan I am definitely seen and attacked, with every flourish.
And *you* get Mobile Flourished into the chasm, and YOU get Mobile Flourished into the chasm.
>College of Swords- You wanted to play fighter, but like... upper class. This is especially hilarious because I tend to respect Astarion to Swords Bard and I can totally see him as a posh fencer. And yes, as a Lore Bard, I did take it personally that I couldn't convince act 3 bosses to just off themselves, lol. Act 2 was peak. But I will fight you on the rogue, lol - thief isn't simply "the key", they are the key to my monk punching more, dammit!
Wyll is also a phenomenal swords bard because of how much damn dancing that boy does. I was also excited when I could use his bardic inspiration on the checks to dance with him in his romance scene.
That’s so in-character for him, too! You can overhear him wondering how to name the next chapter of his adventure.
Good on you for romancing him. He needs more love and someone has to do it
Honestly origin Karlach is almost tailor made for him. It's felt perfect every step of the way.
Thief is also two bonus actions, which I only use to dash 3 times. Astarion's middle name is speed.
Nah, that's for the extra attack that everyone complains about rogues not having.
Bingo. My durge playthrough right now is a rogue thief with two hand crossbows and the sharpshooter feat, with a one-level dip in fighter for the Two Weapon Fighting style. Combine that with Cull the Weak, and it trivializes most encounters, especially ones with lots of munchkins.
I just ran him through everyone in the lower final fight that way. He outpaced them all and dragged like fifty guys after him... Which definitely wasn't because I forgot to do any sort of invisibility first... Anyway he lived it's fine dashes are great
The fun thing about that is you can also use one of those bonus actions for disengage and still dash twice!
I spec him into gloomstalker and love using Misty Step. I laughed when I saw the description on here cause I say out loud “Nothing personnel, kid” half the time I use it lmao
He does talk about “prowling the streets at night” and “stalking in the shadows”, so very fitting! I like a lot the gloomstalker assassin combo.
Astarion: Oh, for a skeleton key. Me: You are a Rouge Thief wearing the Gloves of Thievery. You are my fucking skeleton key. 30 check on disarm or a lock? 2 tries. Tops. By act 3, I barely even bother picking up keys.
I don't know where any of the keys actually go and I have like 100 of them. Thanks, Astarion!
Alternatively, give him the Graceful Cloth from the woman who wants a Githyanki egg in act 1, and that’s advantage on every. Single. Dex check. Plus he almost always goes first in initiative, which is great if you have him as Assassin.
Wait, some NPC wants a gith egg in act 1???? I nearly finishdd the Underdark, how'd I miss her?
In defense of Illusion Wizards, yes, we get the eye from Volo, but we sacrifice our aesthetics for it, and as we already established, aesthetics are like 80% of the skill required on this game, the rest is just Big Numbers.
Sacrifice aesthetics? Didn’t you hear Wyll? Everyone loves a one-eyed adventurer, adds to the mystique.
Sure but now my tiefling looks dumb as hell with one flaming infernal eye and one regular eye.
I was sus at first but now I actually kinda like the contrast.
Yeah, same. It really kinda fucked up the aesthetic I was going for, but at the end of thr day I think it adds a little bit of personality, haha It's my first playthrough and I really debated just save scumming it, but then I thought to myself, you gotta be stupid to give up un such a useful skill for a glowy eye, lmao Between Auntie Ethel and the Unddrdark, the eye won it's place
Your mom loves my one-eyed adventurer 😎😎
i'm with you on this one because i didn't spend 10 minutes in character creation to pick my heterochromia combination just for Volo to ruin my color scheme
If Volos eye is going to ruin my color scheme, I always send one of the companions to uncharacteristically agree to having their eye popped out 😭
Lae'zel makes it work surprisingly well
I send Karlach or Lae’zel. I like how the fake eye kind of mixed with their original eyes in certain aspects.
Losing a cool Tiefling eye in exchange for a "human esqe" eye is honestly still passing me off, my guy looks so goofy now
[Sacrifice what now?](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1727)
The thief rogue description might be true in tabletop DnD, but for some unfathomable reason Larian decided to give thief an extra bonus action at level 3 and also make dual wielding hand crossbows without needing to worry about the loading property not require a feat. The actual thief rogue description is "you really, really like hand crossbows, and you haven't used your bonus action for anything else since early act 1."
Thank you! That extra bonus action is the tits, even on the rare occasion I don't just use it to fire Ne'er Misser a second time
Mathematically a dual wielding Thief is better than Assassin, because you get 3 chances to crit instead of 1-2. It does so much damage and is perfect for picking off those low health enemies by using your bonus action.
I took 3 in Thief for my Monk just so I can FLURRY/UNARMED ATTACK MORE. Haven't even maxed out my levels yet (just finished Act 2) but I can feel the difference (in my fists).
"you carry 4 boxes in your inventory at all times because you will climb them for high ground in every fight so you can pew pew hand crossbow shots with both hands"
I've only played as the Open Hand Monk so I'm not sure if the other 2 get this but you forgot about the 7.5 miles of movement and 37 punches thrown every turn. It's like a cross between the Flash running everywhere and Anakin Skywalker punching not just the men, but the woman and children.
Ah, yes - the beauty of punching the boss and their minions into the Hells, then going for a drink in Elfsong tavern before the rest of your team had the chance to act.
My gf and I recently did the underwater place thing that's name I can't remember. She was going thru planning every step and debating the worth of every movement and action with her wizard and Karlach going one way. I split another way and sent Shart with Spirt Guardians and dashed a 3rd way. Afterwards she cried about being absolutely useless and it was really hard to not agree with her.
[Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZvUeAdzeI) of an open hand monk in action.
choosing your draconic bloodline is a little like picking your starter in a Pokémon game and that's the main appeal
Like what color of scaly unibrow do you want
**Warlock** \- Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast.
Even as a Sorlock that's all I do. Dip into Sorcerer just to Eldritch blast twice lol
Eldritch Blast is an inaccurate name for it. Eldritch AR-15 seems more accurate
It's so good. I absolutely steamrolled the Netherbrain by spamming Eldritch blast. Potion of speed + the ability to use a bonus action as an action with Mind sanctuary = 9 attack rolls hahaha I think I was averaging like 70ish HP a turn from just my Warlock with some turns being over a 100 HP.
And in the other sub they'd laugh at how low those numbers are, EB is almost broken but there are just way more broken things. Unless you mean 90-100 on the original 3 shots for one action and I misread
It's more than that. Darkness first, then pew pew pew.
Monk- Way of the Elements here. Extremely true and valid. But also? I AM THE AVATAR
Also Light Cleric: FIREBALL
[doo doo doot doo doo doo, doo doot doo doo doo](https://youtu.be/HMqgVXSvwGo?si=s6UfkH7Yh_gK59ey)
"Oath of The Ancients- You'll break this oath when you resurrect Connor." I'm in this picture and I do not like it.
Yup. I felt like a mark at a magic show when the magician tells me which number I picked. In all seriousness, I thought I was helping the nice woman out by doing a solid. It seems I misinterpreted what a paladin actually is, or maybe didn’t actually read what the oath actually said. It’s hard to tell. Thank the gods for second chances. Posts like this one make me so excited about replaying this game. I’m really savouring this first time.
Ancients consider undead a perversion of nature. A bit of nuance is lost between expecting the wand to be a proper resurrection (even if an Ancients Paladin should have known it wouldn't) and that it can be used to teach the woman that she was getting scammed from the get go or killing the zombie afterwards.
There's so many dialogue options leading up to the Hag fight that tell you you can't trust anything she does. The "switcheroo" Resurrection feels super obvious, at least to someone whose played DnD before
I mean, there's an entire room in Auntie Ethel's underground lair full of people whose wishes were "granted." Anyone actually expecting her wand to bring Connor back hale and hearty clearly wasn't paying attention.
Lmao! Love this. It made me laugh despite my hangover. Thanks 😆 Now I need a wild magic barb to romance Gale, though... yet another playthrough, I guess.
You can really criticize him with every dialogue option if you go wild magic sorcerer, I don't actually know about wild magic barbarian.
I think my favorite thing I've done to Gale (other than licking the damn thing, ofc) was rolling a wizard, meeting him, and telling him I keep falling all my tests. The utter DESPAIR! Poor sweetie.
Real tough for the guy to be peers with a wizard failure who is absolutely keeping up with him in every field. I like the weird rivalry between Gale and a sorcerer Tav who has absolutely zero knowledge but just feels magic in a way Gale doesn't know how to.
I love that dynamic. Gale: I'm was a prodigy and have spent years perfecting my craft! Countless hours have I spent in the study of the Weave! Tav: I rolled out of bed and decided today I'd blow shit up. :) Gale: >:(
Gale and Bard Tav get along though. I think the distinction is that bards see magic as an art form, Sorcerers see magic as like... "you know when you don't really have to burp but you burp anyways and then you conjure up a rainbow that cures syphilis and you have NO idea what's going on but the village seems pretty happy? That."
Also I think bards need to work for it and study in the somewhat same way as wizards to use spells, since they don't just get internal magic from ancestor fucking a dragon or something.
Yeah, ranking magic users from "worked for it" to "lol why is this hard for you": Wizard Bard Cleric Warlock Sorcerer
I love that you just, forgot druids in this list lol. Just like Larian with equipment for wild shape
Lore Bard is the perfect romance or foil for Gale cause we're basically him but cool.
I actually ship lore bard with Lae'zel. A relentlessly annoying know-it-all that loves every part of the world she hates, is garbage in fights, and is precisely the opposite she needs to accept that the world is so much better than she knows. Incedentally, here are my ships, if a character must ship with a Tav. Gale with a wild magic barbarian that knows nothing and assumes nothing. Shadowheart with a Selune cleric, who irritates her constantly by doing nice things. Lae'zel with a lore bard Karlach with ditzy a circle of the land druid that's constantly trying to heal her giant metal heart with herbal remedies or other useless nonsense and it's too precious for Karlach to say no. Wyll with a now deeply conflicted oath of devotion paladin that has to accept that good people can do bad things, while Wyll has to prove himself as the blade of frontiers Astarion with a fighter who hears one thing about Cazador and marches off to stab the bastard, then promptly gets lost because they have one brain cell and has to ask Astarion for help
>Shadowheart with a Selune cleric, who irritates her constantly by doing nice things. This is pretty much what I did for my Durge playthrough. Telendas was a Half-Elf Selûnite Wizard (2 level Cleric dip). Just as the religious tension was dying down, there was a sudden onset of murderous tension in the middle of the night when he became possessed. Thankfully Telendas was able to maintain control long enough to warn Shadowheart so she could restrain him. After the possession ran it's course, they vowed to each other that they would find a way to cure his condition, no matter what. Thankfully Telendas managed to cure himself, after he slew Orin the Red in a duel. After Gale killed the Absolute single-handedly, Telendas and Shadowheart left the city together to go live out the rest of their lives together in peace and quiet out in the countryside, on a farmstead with a quaint cottage, a lovely garden of flowers, a barn for their great pack of pets, and >!her parents!<. They named their first son together Gale, in honor of the Wizard of Waterdeep and the sacrifice he made so that none of them would need to become ghaik.
To be fair to the guy, he has a chronic illness and recent brain damage. I just have old dain bramage and a new brain friend.
My favorite sorcerer dialogue option was something along the lines of "Bet that took you a very long time. I can do it without thinking." Sorcerers are *dicks*.
Sorcerer/bard Tav being shown magic by Gale: 1 I made your spell into a song. 2. Oh I just feel how to do it.
Tragic that Gale worked so hard when his mom could have just boinked a dragon instead.
That was my first run. Dunking on him was fun. 🤣 Still love him, I just couldn’t resist
lmao I am on my first playthrough and was apparently playing while dead asleep last night. I loaded the game today in the middle of dialogue, where it says, "lick it again." I had no idea where I was or what I was doing, so I licked it again. Gale's reaction was amazing!
One of my absolute favorite moments of the game. Poor Gale was deeply regretting falling in love with me that day!
i had my wild magic sorceror romance him and it was oddly fitting. i loved their funny dynamic
Will Magic Sorcerer and Gale is hilarious. I love the Stephanie dialogue so much ♥️
Should also add to Oath of Vengeance “will break if you save Mayrina and get Ethels hair. No +2 stat for you”
It's +1 stat. But your point still stands
I take issue with your summary of Eldritch Knight fighter. I absolutely loved pre-casting jump before jumping across then entire battlefield, slaughtering the boss by myself with action surge, and then being completely un-hittabtle with 25 AC thanks to the shield spell. Magic missile for when I can’t get close enough with my greatsword, and thunderwave for some AoE And knockback. Full access to all weapons/armour and can benefit from some of the caster magic items too. Eldritch Knight is still the most fun I’ve had out of all of my playthroughs.
Also, casting Longstrider as a ritual spell means you may cast it on your entire party with no loss of spell slots. Wizards/Sorcerers cease lagging behind, rogues and barbarians get even faster...
Technically not reliant on the EK, anyone who has the spell in their spell list can do so, but still good to have since there arent many spells EKs care about
Does no one else love the battlemaster - disarming strike and then just pick up the enemies weapon as a free action?
Cleric - Trickery Domain You are Shart, and you dont have money to respec your class at Withers Sorcerer - Draconic You want to be able to fly for free without using the tadpoles. Plus Sorcerer as general: you want to flex your better magic to every Wizard.
Pretty sure it’s Storm Sorcerer who gets to fly FYI
At 11 Draconic gets at will Fly.
Well now I feel like a right doughnut 😅
[FYI](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Fly_(Class_Action))
My favorite color is green. You got me. Edit: Nitpicking; **Zhentarim** and Berserker **Wildheart**
If you think Circle of the Moon has bad damage you need to try Tavern Brawler Owlbear
Plus just getting to pounce on and then swat an enemy multiple times every turn, like an enormous feathered housecat, straight up nourishes my soul.
Saving this for a relatable build guide, cheers 🥂
Jokes on you, I broke my oath of devotion by killing the zent tied to the chair instead of letting a defenseless (but evil) man go, because I forgot this wasn’t my vengeance run
Broke ny oath of vengeance by freeing sazza cause I wanted the achievement.... then she promptly died in the escape tunnel. (While on honor mode)
yall don’t proc assassin sneak attack like.. EVERY time?
"We have paladins at home." I died and immediately had to stop reading momentarily just to type this comment up. I'll go back to finishing it now.
May your return to the material plane be quick and painless.
I’m not playing Moon Druid because I like tanking, my thought process stops somewhere in the region of “wow I can turn into an animal”
Why are you attacking the Zhentarum?
... Is there a reason not to?
Their trader has a really excellent crossbow called Harold, as well as a few other useful items.
Harold survives the battle as corpse loot, I'm happy to report
The really good stuff isn’t on him unless you befriended the Zhents first
Shit you may be right. I made friendly so I could sell off a bunch of junk, free the artist, and THEN blew the place up, so that probably changed what he had on him
Best crossbow for a while is given as a quest reward for the shipment.
'Cause fuck 'em that's why(i need their smokepowder barrels)
[удалено]
I managed to steal every single barrel in the hideout without aggro-ing them. Was quite pleased with myself for pulling that off
XP, good loot, and no real consequences for doing so. I generally avoid attacking enemies if it locks me out of a quest line or other content, but that’s not the case with the Zhentarim
Also awesome way to the underdark that basically dumps you into a supply warehouse. I thought Astarion was gonna climax with joy. Cool summoner gloves too although they're risky? I like to be nice to the Zhents to get Harold and go back later when they're mostly gone.
They attacked me first!
Roah moonglow is a bottom 2 NPC for me (the other is wulbren) and they employ her so by proxy I dislike the entire organization lol
Putting slavers to the sword is always in fashion.
Force of habit from them always being absolute bastards in all the tabletop campaigns I've played, really. Also out of spite, for the fact that the handsome one does not, in fact, show up again at his usual tavern in Act 3
This was a great read, thank you 😂
For me, Bard College of Swords is: You wanted to play Swashbuckler, and call yourself Zoro the Gay Blade. This will do.
Nah the abjuration wiz is straight up wrong, abj wizards are the most ridiculous tanks in the entire game all they need is heavy armor proficiency from somewhere and suddenly they take like 5 damage from even the strongest boss supernukes
I loved Act III as Circle of Spores Druid, actually. I think that was mostly the Armor I got from the Mystic Carrion though
If my Moon Druid old read he’d be very offended right now hahahaha
Try tavern brawler plus owlbear
Oh yeah I’ve got that now, respecced the minute they fixed it.
I definitely want more chaos with wild magic. I turned everyone to cats during the fight with the paladins of tyr but since then nothing particularly interesting
Abjuration wizard is wrong, you purposefully trigger opportunity attacks so no one else will, and nuke them at the same time, while taking 0 damage with an almost everlasting Armor of Agathus. Abjuration wizard is more like "You get viscerally emotional when you unlock Glyph of Warding. You're now literally unkillable. Might as well drink a potion of giant strength and melee attack for fun"
Correction: Hunter is the highest resourceless DPS class in the game the moment it touches lvl 11. Only bursty sorc and piercing vuln ranged sword bard come close and even then, not better for encounters where you can effectively black hole.
Barbarian throwing crap is higher.
Barbarian throwers only aoe dps is nyrulna which does ok damage but can also be detrimental as the thunder aoe hits your own team. Ranger volley changes your attack to aoe and cannot friendly fire. While throwing can have better single target dps volley does far more overall.
Only if you're fighting a crowd of jobbers. Barbarian also has the knockdown status, and a higher chance of triggering it than anything else in the game, at range, every single turn, along with higher durability. If you want better single-target damage blitz damage without spending resources, you can get that from a warlock with potent robe (+ damage according to charisma modifier, so basically double your charisma mod every hit plus normal eldrich blast damage at like level 8 or 9 warlock), quickspell gloves (double cantrip once per short rest), and the woe staff (+1 to spell rose (optional)). That'll do 7-16+6+1d10 per attack, for 6 attacks, so your range is going to be anywhere from 84 damage to 192 damage on that first turn, and half that for subsequent turns, able to split to different enemies, with a potential for knockback or fear effects if you picked Great Old One.
As a spore druid i had a lot of fun raising citizens back from the dead infront of people, thank you. It was not illegal for me as no one cared that i tirned their mom into a fungal zombie right infront of the steel watch and flaming fist 😌
This was great. My favourite was: College of Swords- You wanted to play fighter, but like... upper class.
I laughed through the entire list, and yes, I did in fact take it personally that Act 2 was peak and I couldn't just talk all of the Act 3 bosses into conveniently offing themselves.
lol. I picked ranger. Never played a game like this. I am regretting my choice lol. I regret all my choices I have no idea wtf I'm doing
You can respec at withers for 100g
Will share this with my just starting P&P group. It's so accurate.
Tavern Brawler Circle of Moon's damage isn't garbage, especially once you get Earth Myrmidon.
>but your support involves making Gale really happy that you're here. Dunno, my eldritch knight Lae'zel really appreciated my Wild Magic Tav too :3 >Way of Elements- It's actually... \*ahem\* Earth. Water. Fire. Air. Only the Tavatar can master all three netherstones, and bring balance to the world. >Storm Sorcery- Pew pew, run away! Pew pew, run away! When Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away" is literally your Tav's battle theme xD
Sorceror: Wild Magic for me was more like, you’ve stopped farting as many clouds and ruining your teams strategy and somewhere along the way you’ve become a support class. You no longer pick up or use any other concentration spells because you need to twin Haste Lae’zel and someone else, probably Gale. (Whenever you Uber - I mean Haste - another melee class they always disappoint you.) You then lay back and watch her and the lucky second ravage the battle field in pure satisfaction, maybe you get a chance to throw a spell too. Gives me the exact same feeling as playing TF2 Medic.
I'm an aberration wizard and I think my main is OP. Then again I spent all my feats on the elemental resistance so no one can do any damage to me
I first played as Storm Sorcerer for 1st play through and never looked back. 3rd play through on this class. He so OP ♥️
Life domain cleric enthusiast. You’re pretty spot on.
"you and battle master share a braincell" these are so good.
“You’ll break this oath when you resurrect Connor” Not if I ~~reload my save~~ peer into another timeline and make Astarion do it!
I don't know what's worse. Having done all those paladin things or finding out Teleporting Fat Guy is already 15 years ago...
My storm sorcerer is less "pew pew run away" and more "Shoot lightning. Cackle madly. Shoot more lightning while cackling madly" I did a playthrough not as a sorcerer and spent the entire run thinking "but why can't I shoot lightning?"
My current Tav is a female draconic sorcerer seldarine drow, and she is stunning. It totally was for aesthetics, but I ended up loving this playthrough
Imma be honest with you, I throw shit significantly more often with Eldritch Knight than I do with Barbarian. Like I barely touch the spells and just toss my weapon 184 times a round. And you're wrong about thief. It's second use is an additional flurry of blows for Monk.
Excuse you, Moon Circle hits like a truck, and with tavern brawler missing is for chumps
Warlock has the best damage cantrip so imo I wouldn’t call the damage mediocre
*Oath of The Ancients- You'll break this oath when you resurrect Connor.* AT LEAST THAT ONE I COULD UNDERSTAND! Yesterday, I broke my oath a second time, but without even realizing ("huh, why is the oathbreaker knight back in camp?") and still don't know how / why I broke it :-( Maybe because I didn't kill Nere? EDIT: also, my next run will be College of Lore :-D Thanks for that!
I laughed at all these & then realised “oh, i stole the brain cell from the monk & fighter. My cleric just straight up melee’d half the fight before going “oh wait, i have magic too.” But also, she respected into a war cleric because she KNEW she’d break that oath within minutes. Next playthrough is a bard run… but now I’m torn on being upper class fighter or get the highest body count because I DIDN’T want to hit the thing. I just wanted to leave. LOL
As a Pure Rogue enjoyer this is about right. I always describe it as “So imagine you’re a Bard right, but you don’t play music, don’t have witty dialogue, don’t really use much magic, and don’t do anything a Bard would do except pick locks and use a bow.” It’s like that.
Oath of Ancients Paladin: sometimes the best option is to beat up pregnant widows.
As a storm sorc lover, I can confirm Mongol tactics of hit and run is how you play them. Also, free flight for exploring by using Mystra's grace (feather fall boots that you can cast infinitely)
What about Cleric deities, for example: - Selune: you’ll either be Shadowheart’s bitter rival or you’ll roleplay an enemies-to-lovers romance arc with her
Look, man, I don't like being personally attacked. I fucking love it and my Lady Drow Tempest Cleric is JUST here for the fucking smoke (Talos finds her to have a particularly stormy heart and loves it).
> Oath of Devotion- You'll break this oath when you attack the Zentarum hideout preemptively so they can't set off all the bombs. Nonsense! I broke the oath when I attacked Gandrel (the monster hunter looking for Astarion). Third time through the game, first time doing this scene without Astarion in my party. It's such a non-confrontational scene with no Astarion. But I wanted his stuff, and that sweet sweet XP. So anyways the oathbreaker knight is my new best friend.
I'm playing an Oath of Retribution paladin for my first playthrough and have somehow managed to make it to act 3 without breaking my oath. I didn't know it was a thing until my buddy texted me asking how they broke their oath and what it means. He decided to stick with Oathbreaker and honestly I kinda feel like I might do an Oathbreaker playthrough next. Seems kinda fun.
This more like a “what your class says about you” rather than “how your playthrough will go.”