BG3 Feats Tier List 

if you play on PC, there is a mod that makes Initiative true to tabletop

Changing it to a d20 roll is actually a popular mod on pc

You know, I was wondering why I was never seeing any initiative rolls higher than three.

@@comandantegorrion7271 Unlucky dice

Alert should've been 2 bonus at max.

Yes, that is correct.

That's if you even make it to 7th level barbarian though, which I don't imagine many builds will. Still, doesn't change that Alert is insanely strong.

barbarian is pointless after lvl 6, I started to multi with fighter for the extra goodies. ​@@Mojo1800

Wait, you're telling me I shouldn't dump all my levels in barbarian? ​@Mojo1800

Your fine just a mim maxer acting like its the only way to play the game when in reality its a minority of players that are terrified too prioritize fun over optimization in a pve rpg​@justindishaw3219

Definitely. The morning frost plus ice markoheshkir or whatever is insanely good. Add the elemental amulet and slap it on a white dragon ancestor sorcerer and you'll freeze everything in your way

@@roxannebednar9163 oooooh. I gotta try this

I’d go as far as saying that you’re gimping at least one pure spellcaster in your party by *not* taking it. For example, Gale (as a full wizard) should be taking this with his second or third feat. He’s only losing 1AC by forgoing a shield, and with the shield spell and decent DEX he shouldn’t be getting hit with attacks much anyway. The staves he could be wielding instead are just much better options

I think dual wield staff > staff + shield if you get the right staffs. To be able to cast 5th/6th level spells for free 2x is pretty powerful IMO.

Yeah it's usually more powerful than staff and shield, but staff and shield can take a different feat which is probably pretty close in terms of power.@@HuyNguyen-ck7hl

🤨📸🚨🚔

S+

She does have nice feat

@@largebig79A person of culture I see 🤔

:(

I love it too! They drive me to work harder.

​@Aestus_RPG they add +3m movement speed to work ethic

I don't get the issue with ambushes. If you know an ambush is ahead, why not trigger it with a mage hand or something? I don't remember any fights that surprise you which you couldn't trigger with a summon

If you know an ambush is coming and your plan is to just let it happen...that's on you. You can 1) craft elixir of vigilance 2) have summons walk ahead 3) have summons turn invisible to surprise 4) sneak ambush with a rogue 5) illuminate an object then throw it then cast metamagic Distant spell from a distance 6) cast an aoe spell and f alla that 7) take class features that cancel surprises like feral instincts. There are just so many ways to combat being ambushed than simply giving up

​@RtsFps1 If my characters don't know an ambush is coming, I don't want to prepare for it. But I value RP so lmao

​@@exantiuse497for me before the hag fight my character was like "looks like an ambush" but the fight wouldn't trigger until I walked into the cutscene lmao. And the invisibility I attempted to cast just disappeared after the cutscene

@mrwaffleman8732 Which hag fight? The one in the teahouse, the one in the hag lair in act 1 or the one in act 3? I don't recall any of those making your character surprised

Very good point!

Oh my god I could never figure out why I could jump order sometimes and I feel like a dummy for not realizing that this was what it was. 🤦‍♂️ Thank you, I’m not that bright.

It's also very important in situations where you want to do something dangerous and then avoid the consequences with sanctuary. For example: spells that are geometry dependent like lightning bolt might hit 7+ targets if you're able to jump your wizard into the right spot, but that might also leave the wizard in a suicidally bad position. Having everyone in the party go at the same time allows the wizard to deliver their big hit and then take sanctuary from an ally.

I feel like the easiest example of how strong early initiative can be is a life domain cleric. Pretty much from the word go, you can get your hands on the hellrider's pride by pickpocketing it off of unconscious Zevlor after the first grove goblin fight, then you can immediately buy the whispering promise off of volo before he gets captured by goblins. The spell bless is already so good that it's typically worth your action and concentration slot in the early game, and it continues to make an argument for itself as at a good option for a cleric to cast all game long. I would even argue that it's worth making a bless-focused cleric with the staff of arcane blessing for a spellcaster team, since +2d4 to spell attack rolls (the tooltip on the staff is misleading) is just crazy. With early initiative and just those two pieces of gear (both available within the first 30 minutes of play), your cleric can apply bless and blade ward to the entire party with a life domain channel divinity *without* sacrificing their concentration for either. So if that cleric gets to go first, your whole team has 2 turns of basically double HP and an average of +2.5 to attack and saving throws. And at level 5, this happens on a bonus action with mass healing word.

Agreed and this is also true without Alert, but they are more likely to be in front this way. Shared initiative doesn't work if one rolls a four and the other a three, but they are both first in line due to Alert to the point where I thought it was bugged when I couldn't move both when they were next to each other.

Put that ice staff in your main hand and that sparky staff in your off hand and you become Mister Freeze

Yeah, I would actually probably say that this is the best way to use this feat, take it on a spellcaster with decent dex at level 4 and get some great benefits, though waiting for 8 and getting in Act 2 ain’t too bad either.

@@Fighterpilot555cool party

@@ShermTank7272 Everyone! Chill! (Metamagic twinned spell) *CHILL!* (casts Chromatic Orb: Ice)

Absolutely. For a caster, it is probably the second strongest feat in the game behind alert. Hurt a little seeing it ranked lower then an ASI, when, for a caster at least, it is almost strictly better then an ASI as soon as you have 2 arcane enchantment staves is silly. You get all the bonus to spell attacks and DC, plus the other effects of your second best staff.

I have a playthrough where I'm doing that as a Githyanki monk so I get the triple jump action. I can just leap across the screen multiple times. I dunno how good it will be ultimately, but it's certainly hilarious.

go with a fighter1, rogue3, monk8 build (gith for jumpy or astarion for ascension insane dmg), chugg that STR pot and solo the game, you can jump to the next act

​@@CowPimpMonk is in the running for strongest class in the game, make sure you go Way of the Open Hand subclass and you'll annihilate everything. At level 7 my bonus action punches were doing 36-56 damage and that's just playing a raw monk, no min-maxing or cheesing.

@@otb_javedemine do 56-88 but I did min max but no cheesing

I’d agree. Dual wielding 2 hand xbows on a swords bard is so good. Your Dex is high so you’ll most likely go first/early in most cases. It scales incredibly well as a ranged martial with other melee martials.

I saw someone else mention dual hand crossbows on a bard and I loved that idea so I feel even better reading this!

Rogue 3 + thief with 2x hand crossbows gets you 3 attacks/turn, one of which is usually sneak attack, at level 3 for no other investment. It's one of the earliest truly online builds in the game. Level 4 for sharpshooter, then multi into either fighter or ranger. Both two-weapon fighting and archery are good, since 2-weapon fighting applies dex damage on the offhand - or use gloves of the balanced hands to get the same effect and just take archery anyway. 4 attacks/turn at level 8 or 6 attacks with elixir of bloodlust. Ranger gives you hunter + colossus slayer and hunter's mark for extra damage on big targets (usually better than the extra offhand attack), while fighter gives you action surge. Level 5 ranger gives you access to some very good spells, too - spike growth is amazing and pass without trace + greater invisibility from a support is a broken cheese combo that lets the rogue just walk in and get like 6 free rounds of attacks consistently before anyone else has to join the fight. Then at level 11, you just repsec into pure hunter ranger and switch to the deadshot. Deadshot, knife of the undermountain king, shadeslayer's cloak, and covert cowl gives crits on 16-20 when obscured right at the start of act 3, with risky ring giving advantage on every attack. Totals to 43% chance of crit per attack, and you can easily group at least 3-5 enemies with something like an upcasted command: approach or illithid black hole to effectively get 15+ attacks/turn using volley, almost half of which are going to be crits.

It’s not that sharpshooter isn’t OP, it’s just not AS op as tavern brawler or alert, which is why those are in a category of their own.

I use sharpshooter on my thieves and omg the damage output with sneak attack is wild

the biggest downside to this is not being able to interrogate the charred bodies.

@@jessemaleh8145 how did you feel there at the end?

Yep, and if you really want the ability to use musical instruments on everyone, a level 1 dip in bard is better anyway, then you can get some spells and whatnot with it.

Unless you accidentally miss her in the grove and are dark urge... 😢

Unlike the tabletop you don't need crossbow expert for the bonus action attack. If you have 2 hand crossbows equipped you can make a bonus action attack with your offhand hand crossbow just like its a melee weapon.

⁠​⁠​⁠@@noahlamb2839I think he mean offhand crossbow attack also enjoys +10 dmg bonus. Imagine if you are a thief that can use 2 offhand bonus attack, that is 20 more damage per turn from offhand.

Don't forget to grab the hunters bow in act one for advantage on all attacks against monsterous enemies and a free casting of hunters mark. Since most enemies are monsterous this completely nullifies the all in penalty.

@@TheScottishKayaker Most enemies are humanoid or undead

@nathanfivecoate5848 goblinoids are sufficiently monsterous for the bow, as are the shadows in act 2. It definitely drops off after that, but by then, you have plenty of other options.

I agree, with the amount of instances it applies to, the double dipping it takes advantage of (especially from gear) and effects both in and out of combat, it pretty much is the main way to make your build better and more reliable at achieving its goal.

I think Aestus_RPG does that just to generate comments. Just like putting Fireball as a B tier spell

@@thatguy00271 Fireball is shit because it burns corpses and you can't talk to them anymore for the story bits.

tbh it’s mostly good because there is literally only one good half-feat that increases a mental stat and that’s actor. if there were more half-feats that improved mental stats, they’d probably outdo ASI

Agreed. Do t see how it should be considered that low.

I mean outside of Honor Mode the game is trivially easy. Elixirs of Bloodlust are much harder to come by in Honor Mode and Alert is a wasted feat.

@@olivercarle You can get the supplies for making >20 bloodlusts in act 1. It's just worg fangs - get a halfling wizard hireling to use as an alchemist for 2x potions and you only need 3 worg fangs/2 elixirs. You can get a whole game's supply in the first 2 hours or so of play if you want, and there are vendors stocking more worg fangs in every act, basically for free.

@@olivercarlethat's where alchemist comes to save you. For example I do always use potions of giants streght (clouds/hills), and I can tell you, you can get as much as you want (and have the patience to) from lvl 6 in ACT I. No joking, you can have characters with 27 str from lvl 6 already thx to alchemist (considering you can't actually buy elixirs of cloud giants until lvl 9-10, in ACT III practically.

Alert to hold person 5 enemies before they get to act at all is insane.

@@Ragatokk I never chose Alert before, now my neurons are firing on wavelengths I've never experienced before

Larian loves Monks and Barbarians...

I mean lord knows tavern brawler needed it. 1d4 unarmed attack and proficiency with improvised weapons? Might as well just dip 1 level in monk

The feat rebalance and essential feats mods on nexus are godsends for overall feat balance and diversity.

Barbarians get +3 to initiative, so a bit worse than the actual feat

@@Anton-me7lk yeah but having feral instincts and alert feels like an overkill, so i would choose another feats, barbarians needs those anyways

Tbh +3 is still huge when you consider that in this game initiative is a d4 dice throw.

Game using a d4, even if Alert was +3 like feral instinct it would be really good​@Anton-me7lk

Merry Christmas! I'll have a gift for you all dropping soon!

A feat and fighting style for +2.5 damage in the best case is laughable

​@@opo33333the number listed are for 1 damage dice.

@@opo33333Remember it does that for each damage die

Same for melee rogues.

I indirectly mentioned it when I said "there is the added bonus of being to dual-wield weapons that you otherwise wouldn't be able to." Dual-wielding staves is a well known strategy.

@@Aestus_RPG It seems a little silly to only indirectly mention The Strongest Use of the feat, when talking about the strength of the feat lmao.

@LAaronB10 It's very normal for small details to slip ones mind in an hour long recording.

@@Aestus_RPG Oh I totally get that. "It slipped my mind at the time" is very valid. But the comment I was responding to seemed to imply that the indirect mention of it was not an oversight.

The tier lists are solid, but he has some strong opinions that to my eyes are just wrong. For example, he likes attacj spells over saving throw spells because they can crit (ignoring that they can also miss), and he dislikes AoE damage which is really strong.

But why would go Tough if you can instead get +2 to con, get the same amount of hp (if I remember correctly) and boost your con saves at the same time... Only way I can see what you're mentioning being useful is if you are using Amulet of Health, but at that point the extra HP from Tough is such an overkill

@@JAKrol94 the reason is because tough gives double the hp +2 CON does.

It's a bad feat, you will never need it, not even in Honor Mode. Spend your feats on ASI and damage buffs.

@@olivercarle No ASI will ever hit the damage benefit of a full extra turn per encounter and no defensive or healing options will ever beat out the value of eliminating or CCing for a full extra turn. The only feats which offer similar offensive value are tavern brawler, sharpshooter, and GWM, and nothing offers similar offensive and defensive value at the same time.

@@missing_links it's not a full extra turn, it's the first turn. If you need it that badly just don't dump DEX or use elixirs. +1 to damage, and more especially +1 to hit, is way more important in Honor Mode. Easier difficulties don't really matter how you build.

@@olivercarle Yes, it is a full extra turn for every party member who wins initiative relative to every enemy that they displace. Displacing an enemy in the initiative is always a 1-turn advantage in the action economy. If you move first in the initiative, you have +1 action and bonus action in the economy over every enemy that has yet to act. That's exactly what getting an extra turn is. It's exactly the same advantage you gain when you steal a turn from an enemy with sleep, stun, or other CC. One more movement, one more action, and one more bonus action compared to an enemy is what it means to have had one more turn than the enemy. Dex doesn't have to be a dump stat for it to still be insufficient, since +2 or +3 will not reliably win you your early/starting initiative spot. You could use an elixir of vigilance to get the effects of alert - and it's arguably the best elixir for a support caster - but for anyone else you're losing out on more powerful elixirs like bloodlust to further improve your economy or giant strength to free up so much more than 1 ASI's worth of stats. Moreover, the whole party having early initiative lets you use initiative sharing to usefully order your turns - which is almost as big of an advantage as stealing a turn for any true support class. A flat +1 to damage and hit is what's not that big of deal. That isn't a fight-deciding difference. Position control, CC, securing advantage, and applying buffs are much more significant benefits. An early initiative cleric or paladin can simply bless the party for a bigger attack roll benefit than ASI, including by way of a bonus action with healing word at level 1 for a single party member or for the whole party at level 5+ through mass healing word when used with whispering promise for the concentration-free bless and hellrider's pride for free bladeturn - the gear for which can be acquired in the first 30 or so minutes of play after the nautiloid, meaning it's most impactful in the hardest part of the game. +1/+1, even to two stats, is simply not enough benefit to outweigh such a hard action economy win.

​@@olivercarleYour mom is a bad feat.

haha i took athlete on laezel and used the 3x jump spell on her. Let's just say I chuckled a bit when she just hopped across the entire camp.

​@@Rain1Yo Gith monks are like "Laws of physics? Tch'ck, more like suggestions of physics..."

Same to you!

Or just have a caster put fog/darkness/stinking cloud/hunger of hadar on them, and they will be stuck in place with nothing to use actions on, and if you have boaals boon, all your characters have advantage on them, absolutely nuts

No, it means that the roll is randomized from 2-20 instead of 1-20

​@@EpicHashTimeliterally exactly what he said

@@valthorix7347No, because it means it’s, say for a d6, d5+1 vs if 1 becomes a 2, which means it’s a normal d6, but with a +1 1/6 of the time 2 3 4 5 6 You get a 2 20% of the time, 6 20% of the time vs 2 2 3 4 5 6 You get a 2 33% of the time, 6 16.7% of the time Basically, it means that the die *is* rerolled for all intents and purposes

i have literally no clue what raphael’s fight is supposed to look like bc he always goes down within a turn i stg

Yeah that's honestly the one I disagree with the most from his list. There are so many builds where Dual Wielder feat is amazing.

Is it shredding them in two turns or four turn?

Tavern Brawler is probably a higher priority anyways.

Real

if you really have to know, swap out to another character back at camp. also, bring scratch with you always, he'll be able to find things using his scratch sniff passive. much better than using an entire feat slot.

Throwers are superior to TB monk, but yeah Monks are amazing with TB.

It's a common strategy. I don't think it's broken, but it's good! I stand by my B-tier.

Enhance leap is available on so many builds and is a ritual spell, so it's free like a cantrip outside of combat. It increases your jump distance by 200% instead of athlete's 50%, allowing for many silly interactions like jumping up into the rafters of the goblin camp or across large chasms like the bhaal ambush prior to the temple. You can pretty much always see fights coming, so just casting enhance leap on your melee bois is going to give more value than athlete.

Not yet, but I'm working on it.