Gave Karlach the ring (?) that increases movement a few meters, and also cast longstrider at beginning of the day. She starts running around the battlefield attacking all enemies, jumping to increase movement even further. It is awesome. Also, I respec Gale is a Transmuting Wizard with high Wisdom with Medicine skill, he gets all the alchemy supplies for brewing twice as many potions.
Just finished the game with some friends as a gloomstalker/assassin/fighter and it was nutty. Sharpshooter and stacking the items that lowered the number you need to roll for critical hits allowed me to MELT people from range with multiple attacks per turn.
For your cleric: in act 1, the goblin trader who hangs around volo sells a pair of boots, whenever you heal and have these boots you grant 3 temp hp. When you save halsin, Zevlor will give you a crown that heals you 7hp whenever you heal someone else. With the ring from volo, the boots from the goblin, the crown and gloves from zevlor you just boosted your healer significantly
just got to act 3 myself and i had respecced shadowheart as life domain and was using those boots and crown until i finished the Nightsong stuff, so good when shadowheart would give temp hp to all and heal herself when healing others
@@afxtal I believe they are talking about the ring called “The whispering Promise” Volvo and some others sell it. It gives a 2 turn bless to whoever you heal
A minor correction on magic item location: The Amulet of Misty Step that is used in the Karlach build does not come from a vendor in the Myconid colony. It actually comes from a chest in the Goblin Camp, specifically in Priestess Gut's personal chambers (the area guarded by the ogre.)
@@chrisjones6002In the Goblin Camp enter Shattered Sanctum, where Prestress Gutt is marking others with the Symbol of the Absolute. If you talk with her, she lets you follow her into her room on the left Side, (next to vendor Moonglow). In her Room is a closed door, so come alone and find a way to open it. Behind the door there is a new area with a big Giant Mommy. She walks around. Wait till she doesn't look and steal the Chest. In this Chest is the necklace with mistystep!
I like having Gale around from time to time, but mainly as my utility caster. I had him shrink my Gnome character so I could hop through the bars of the unpickable door at the Zhentarim hideout. I had him turn me to gas so I could freely investigate hard-to-reach places in the Underdark. He's come in handy plenty.
I change Gale - I give him 1 level of Wizard and then the rest are Knowledge Cleric (Mystra). That way you can learn any Wizard spell AND you get powerful cleric spells AND he gets a bonus to Arcana and History checks AND it’s a perfect match with his story :)
I think this is a great idea! I think only about half of the players are out of act 1 and I imagine a lot of those have multiple games and still have games in act 1 also!
I would definitely watch these characters specced out at higher levels, and I love the itemization you're giving them. I went into the goblin camp guns blazing (after talking to Gut) and didn't even know they had a vendor, so next playthrough I'll walk through the whole thing talking to people first. Also, I believe the enemies you fight at the beginning of the game are cambions, not tieflings.
I made Shadowheart into a life domain cleric and it was an absolute lifesaver. The Preserve Life channel divinity was given an obscene buff, Cleric Level times 4 hit points restored to all allied creatures within I believe 30 feet. There are multiple occasions where it completely turned the tide of a battle, and other times where it took "we'll probably be alright" to "yeah, we've basically already won". Also, in my experience some items that heal you also can trigger various Life Domain features, like an item that gives you 1d4 hit points every turn triggers Disciple of Life for an extra couple points. Not sure why that happens, but it does. The only time she was ever outside of the party was to bring Karlach to a late-game fight that was very relevant to her (reclassed her into Vengeance Paladin with Great Weapon Master and she literally skipped a whole second phase with how much damage she did with a crit 3rd level smite lmao) Never found that ring that gave bless when you heal somebody, that absolutely would have never left SH's inventory. And funnily enough, my character was a Gloomstalker ranger and Astarion was made into a Thief Rogue separately from each other and both of them were damage machines. Without giving any spoilery specifics, one of the most story-important enemies in the final battle had like 160 hp or smth and these two characters, both at the top of the initiative, just unloaded on them and killed them immediately. I almost made my gloomstalker dip into rogue but by the end I was Ranger 8/War Cleric 2/Fighter 2, and she did indeed have the Caustic band for most of the game for that +2 acid damage and used the Gloves of Dexterity for a long while. She and Shadowheart ended up being the party tanks because both had an AC of like 23 by the end. Funnily enough, I really didn't use Hunter's Mark at all because I had other concentration spells like Bless, Ensnaring Strike, or Spike Growth up, or I was just using my bonus action for something else like Misty Step. Not to mention between a ring that gives +10 feet of movement, the movement from Gloomstalker, having Longstrider active on the whole party all the time because it's a ritual, AND being a wood elf, the mobility was hilarious. Took the Fighter levels at the end for the Protection fighting style (which I swear must have a shorter range than it claims) and Action Surge. Overall, very fun build, gonna miss that character now that I've finished that playthrough. Still plan to try a Ranger/Thief Rogue eventually.
I made a half wood elf Sorcadin, added the plus 10 foot walking speed ring and the longstrider boots for a base 60 foot walking speed. And since I'm a sorcadin I also have haste plus I used the darkfire shortbow for an extra free haste which means I get a hasted 120 feet walking speed. And I took the alert feat with 14 dex so i have +7 initiative. In boss fights I usually twin spell haste Karlach who has a 50 foot base walking speed (fast movement plus elk animal aspect for additional 5 feet and nyrula for another +10 feet) and +5 initiative from her dex plus feral instinct. And we both have great weapon master and I multiclassed her with 4 battlemaster. And she can their nyrula for pretty decent single target and splash damage. Basically, between me smiting 4 times and her using all of her maneuvers and action surge, we can do something like 400+ damage with average rolls and not double smiting on things like thunderous smite. In the Raphael fight before I think I did 250 damage to him with my Tav in one round. The change they made to initiative made alert an insanely good feat. Going first and going fast really turns combat encounters upside down.
Yep. When he is arguing with the other guy after the fight, if you select the 1st dialogue option, Zevlor will be the one to get knocked out. Then you can just pickpocket the gloves from him while he's unconscious.
Can you not pickpocket Arron (or whatever his name is)? I always knock him out just because he's so annoying but the pickpocket option was unavailable. Sad :/
Cleric - Light, life, and tempest subclasses are all powerful enough that you pretty much cannot go wrong with them. A big thing is performing multiple roles with as few character slots as possible. If your healer is also ... your tank ... or DPS ... that can be great! Obviously, if you're using spell slots for DPS you have fewer spell slots for healing. Gear - The temp hit point healing boots from the goblin camp ... boots of aid and comfort are the most powerful boots in the game. It's basically broken at low levels and it's still functional even at level 12. The ring of salving for +2 heals also in the first act is huge. I think this was in the underdark from a vendor you have to follow a quest chain to unlock. This takes a mass healing word and makes it 1D4+spell modifier+2+3 per target. The ring is worth 8 hit points per cast. The boots are worth 12 per cast. Both of these also impact potions including thrown potions. This makes a single 2D4+2 potion (average 7) able to regularly do 36 hit points worth of healing if you hit 3 targets. And, for the life cleric you end up with two big AOE channel divinity heals (that recharge on rest which mean you get 6 per long rest and 8 if you have a bard) that heal yourself and your summons and any healing modifiers (like the bless ring and the blade ward gloves) stack up very quickly! The boots of aid and comfort are suddenly worth 72 temp hit points per day as a silly green act 1 item you can have by level 3 and that's if you ONLY use the life cleric's 6 channel divinity heals per day. If you throw potions and use mass healing word the boots and easily be worth more than 100 temp hit points per long rest in the late game.
I'm currently in Act 3 on my first playthrough and I really love how you explained exactly how I decided to play each of the characters as soon as I got them. 😁
@@lightningandodinify Combat gets significantly easier once you realize you can build for magic item synergies. Radiant Orb and Arcane Synergy is two conditions you should build for in every party composition.
It is the best game I’ve played in a long time. I played over 150 hours for my first play through, and when I played it immediately after, realized how much I had missed. I bought a PS 5 in large part to play this game (and God of war ), but I feel that this game alone is well worth the price of the system
It's tremendous fun. I would recommend taking your first playthrough slow and don't worry about mistakes. It's a very forgiving game mostly. As in failure of tasks and just going with *it's what my character would do.* is one of the more enjoyable ways I've played so far. Also I've been playing with a friend. Who in most games is about skipping dialogue and content. They've wanted to start fresh on our second playthrough, because he thought he was missing too much story lol.
That kind of makes me want to do a 'Champion of Fail' type single player playthrough of bard in BG3 who has bad Charisma. Basically make every dialogue go bad because of that person who overestimates their ability to talk their way out of anything 😂
On killing the Cambion/Tiefling in the tutorial: The ship has a number of explosive barrels, that when placed around the tiefling, can help end *both* of them, able to do up to half of the bosses' damage. Only trick I had was not blowing up Lae'zel because the explosion radius is impressive.
I tried that, but it backfired since the cambion has fire resistance and the mind flayer doesn't. Only the cambion survived. Maybe I should've waited until he had fewer hit points.
You do it on the cambions last fly. As they get to the mind flayer, blow them up. The commander should have taken enough damage by then. It will also kill the flayer.
Race: Githyanki Abjuration wizard Get Dual Wielder feat Have Sparkle Staff in one hand. Have Phalar Aluve on other hand. Use Shierk Song from Aluve. Kill everything with Magic Missiles.
Shout out to the best preventative healer in BG3, Spiritual Weapon. That plus the Spirit Guardians-running around blasting people with passive radiant damage and giving them light orbs if you have the radiant damage armor for Shadowheart… she’s always the MVP.
Yeah, having an extra target is second only to giving more temporary HP to people more regularly. I was a little annoyed that Twilight Cleric wasn't an option in vanilla. Easily the best subclass for cleric for preventative healing.
Theres a lot of interesting mechanics available in BG3 that people don't consider and use enough. like shoving, or keeping a candle to drop and dip your weapon into, or the consideration of weight in jumping damage. A lot of interesting mechanic options to make your builds better. Also some of the lesser used sub focuses of wizard have interesting daily abilities people might not know about.
It's great to have builds/items ideas for early game content!! Most videos out there are all "ultimate crit warlock 1000 dmg per round", but the early game stuff is really useful! Thanks! =D
Wow this video is so perfect cause you can actually star as a Halfelf Warlock and boost yourself with this Build and have Shadow, Astarion and Karlach in your Team. This is so powerful composition as a Team and didn’t imagine it. Thank you for such a powerful and information video guys. ❤
Honorable mention for Gale over Wyll for Sorclock. His story works really well for the Sorcerer portion. Hes mechancially superior as well because in ACT2 there is a way for his story to give him advantage on concentration saves which is basically a free feat... between that and the sorcerer proficiency hes not failing unless he falls prone.
Paladin /warlock used this on solo tactician without a problem, oath of the ancients/vengeance/oathbreaker + great old one (fiend is more boring but works too, but all in all not worth it as much, there are early gloves that give heroism when using oath charges(vengeance and ancients oaths are bonus actions) and you cant stack temp HP) all of this is possible without respeccing, but obviously if you want to respec you can start with 16str paladin and later respec to P2W5 or P5W3. I did it all without respeccing and the transitions are still very smooth and interesting. start lvl1 paladin for proficiencies, 10str 8dex 16con 8int 14wis 16cha stats. (high WIS score is important to resist game ending spells like hold person, dex negative AC is nullified by plate armor) you can get to level 2 easily without good stats. dualspec into warlock on levelup, now youre just a heavy armor wearing ranged damage dealer. go P1W2 for even more damage on eldritch blast. P1W3 for pact of blade, now you can switch to melee OR tank OR ranged damage OR heal and lets be real here, "OR" is interchangable with "AND", while being face of the party and extremely mobile. solo character vibes. Also your weapon attacks ignore physical restraints. P2W3 for smites (which are stronger at character lvl5+ so now theyre actually worth your spellslots), use "luck of far realms" power for huge smite crits and the CC effect of great old one warlock P2W4 for savage attacker, making melee/smites super strong. P2W5 for double attack now keep leveling paladin, either til 5 if you wanna be DPS (paladin and warlock extra attacks STACK into a triple attack) or to 6 or 7 If you wanna focus more on tank/support with the aura. if you went P5W5 you can go fighter2 for action surge (very aggressive, but aura of protection is honestly too good to give up), or if you went P6W5 you can take sorc/wiz for the shield spell for 5 AC every round (or if you want to use them for smites, light cleric for a similar but worse, but infinitely repeatable reaction every turn). if you play 2hander, going p7/w5 is good with vengeance (pick different feats tho, sentinel/polearm/GWM) or ancients (aura of warding acts as an always failing shield master roll, so you can use a 2hander instead of a shield shield + warding aura overlaps too much to be optimal. You are just not getting attacked by that many spells per round that you arent resisting already with aura of protection. my fav build is definitely vengeance p6 great old one w5 wiz/sorc1, with savage attacker and shield master feat. bonus action buffs, huge defensive capabilities, and huge damage numbers. the shields give you more survivability than some measly damage of a 2hander weapon is worth it since you will deal most damage with smite and a sheer amount of hits. Concentration is easy to keep since you are a walking fortress with almost 30 AC, with the ability to bump it up with potion of speed and the shield spell. Shield master and aura of protection make you resist most spells that ignore AC and make you immune to them on a successful check, while high wisdom and aura of protection protect you against CC spells. Very good action economy, one action = 3 attacks, you have reactions to fully resist a spell with shield master or to increase AC with shield spell against physical attacks or AC-spells/magic missile. If the enemy highrolls so high even the +5 AC wont make them miss (highly unlikely), you use shield bash to knock them prone. Landing a crit often spells doom to the entire group of enemies, since you will have advantage most of the time while theyre unable to move and cant hit you due to frightened giving them disadvantage. And it is pretty easy to crit with 3 attacks (or 6 with potion) and advantage (=~10% critchance per attack). either use hold person to force a crit or darkness to protect yourself from retaliation. If you are a power gamer, you can exchange shield master for the lucky feat for a similar, more well-rounded effect, albeit less overall uses per rest. eldritch invocations: 2x blast improvements + devil sight so you can drop darkness on yourself and beat everybody into a pulp with advantage while nobody can hit you with your earlygame 22+ AC and disadvantage onto you. very interesting build because every levelup gives you something incredibly meaningful at the height of the available power, while you also shift around roles and get to experience different playstyles while being able to excel at them all. At later levels you can double down on what you like the best with the according gear. Note that playing dark urge will lock you out of your healing capabilities of oath of the ancients pretty early, so you might not wanna play DUrge or double down on the damage OR pick the fiend for the temporary health gains, still the CC from great old one is better than sometimes shielding some damage (avoiding damage but rooting and disadvantaging enemies scales better than a little conditional temporary HP. not taking any damage > shielding some of it). Being able to eldritch blast effectively defeats the downsides of most melee paladins, and charisma becomes your end-all-be-all stat for tankiness (aura of protection),ranged damage (eldritch invocation), melee damage (pact of the blade) and CC spells like hold person. as a race, githyanki for mobility (and if you plan to go the aggressive twohander route for the gith +psychic damage on weapons), drow or asmo tiefling for darkness, or zariel tiefling for more free smites and thaumaturgy for skill checks (most well rounded option).
I like that you talked about low level build that work. Once you are higher level you can respec to anything but lower level is the part you need the most out of your character.
Great recommendations, but a note on your Sorlock build, as Larian nerfed the Lightning damage from the The Spellsparkler as of Patch 3, so that your Cha. no longer gets added from being a Blue Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer. As my current PC is a Lvl 8 Sorcerer equipped with The Spellsparkler, Wyll will end up being 5 Warlock, 5 Paladin (starting with 1 level of Paladin), 2 Fighter. Interestingly, the 2nd attack from the Warlock ends up stacking with that from the Paladin, or any other of the melee Classes.
Yeah, I hope they don't patch the 2x extra attack from Pallock. I'm running the same build too and it's nuts to see how many attacks really come out of this multi class combo. Add an extra attack for your bonus action from Great Weapon Fighting and you're doing 4 attacks in one turn. And then there's haste which makes it 7 total attacks in one turn. I often catch myself saying, "wait, I get another attack?"
I've never once struggled with my melee fighters reaching enemies. So much so that I've remarked about that being something different to the ttrpg. I'm actually amazed to hear it's an issue people have had.
Try life cleric. Even for just a couple hours. Two HUGE AOE heals per short rest is amazing. It’s basically like having more short rests. They can tank in heavy armor and at level 8 do extra melee damage (almost like an extra attack). I think the act 1 boots of aid and comfort with +3 temp hit points do 70 temp hit points of healing per long rest from those channel divinity alone.
Very potent-feeling late game build I kinda oops'ed into (item spoilers for acts 2 and 3): Had Astarion as an Arcane Trickster. By early act 2, I realised I was barely using his spell slots because AT spells were kinda gutted for BG3. Then I spotted the Yuan Ti Scale Mail, which gives base AC of 15 plus full Dex bonus, which inspired me to multiclass him into Paladin to get medium armour proficiency to use it, plus Divine Smite to make better use of his spell slots. Suddenly, he can hold his own in melee thanks to 20+ AC, Sneak Attack, and Smite. It only got better in act 3 with the Armour of Agility (total AC now 25). Finally, at 9/2 Rogue/Paladin, I took his 12th level in Wizard to get 3rd level spell slots. Now, he's learned Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Hypnotic Pattern from scrolls -- all of which he can impose disadvantage against thanks to Magical Ambush. All this along with the ridiculous number of items he's stacked to lower his crit threshold mean he's lethal in any situation and incredibly hard to hit. TL;DR: Arcane Trickster 9, Paladin 2, Wizard 1 wearing the Armour of Agility for bonkers AC and combat flexibility. Stack up Knife of the Undermountain King, Sarevok's Horned Helmet, Bloodthirst, and Dead Shot to crit on a 16.
Life domain cleric gets that aoe heal that uses all the heal effects from gear. Really comes in clutch early game tactician mode. Spell sparkler got patched with its lightning damage in patch 3. Fun one for gale: magic missile build. All on hit abilities (spell sparkler for example) proc with each one, and the int bonus for evo wizard applies to each. Kels favor (lightning) and spell might gloves (just pick pocket) turn him into an early act 3 monster. Early game is the amulet within the myc colony that upcasts all magic missile casts with sparkler, which easily hits the bonus d8 lightning damage with this build.
At last!!! Videos with early game builds instead of 'best builds' which essentially come online in act 3. Been watching a lot of your vids and would love to see you both playing BG3
YES. Please continue to talk about item recs, never would have thought of lightning charges x draconic bloodline, I'm currently playing a sorlock in a group playthrough and am absolutely going to do that. Some builds that I would normally write off as very mid (necromancy wizard) actually become crazy because of the items. Also just a shout out to the life domain cleric, you can still do endless spirit guardians shenanigans, and while healing is normally so-so in D&D, the Preserve Life CD is so insanely powerful now, I found it worth keeping her a life domain cleric all the way through.
I didn't realize the 1 extra lightning damage from the spell sparkler worked with Draconic Sorcerer AND the necklace. I'm playing a Sorlock on my second playthrough and I'm about to go respec him and dig that amulet out of my camp chest. Amazing video as always guys. Would love to see more BG3 content from yall.
18:38 that Karlach build is absolutely insane. It can keep pace into Act 3 with just the Act 1 equipment you mentioned. A 3 level dip into rogue/thief is nice too for 4 throw a turn. There is also a set of spark gloves in act 1 that will apply lightning charges to thrown weapons just for a different flavor or if you want 2 throwers in your party!
A few things to add. First was the Misty Step amulet - I always get that in a chest after defeating Poloma, the ogre that guards the entrance through the church after defeating the goblin leaders that are in there. I haven't got it (yet) from the myconid colony, haven't seen it there yet, maybe I was just unlucky with trader Blurg's inventory. Second. The Whispering Promise ring (casts a 2 round bless when you heal someone) I always bought early on from Volo, in the druid grove. Props to you for remembering that Mass Healing Word will allow Bless on everyone that is healed. I think I swapped that ring out for something else on Shadowheart and missed out on that. Third. Getting the Everburn Blade from the Commander on the Nautiloid. As well as the Command spell to get Commander Zhalk to drop the blade, I always have Shadowheart cast Bless as soon as she can and include in it the Mind Flayer, Us and usually Lae'zel. This allows the illithid to last longer fighting the Commander and since he is doing by far the most damage to the Commander on a hit (a psychic blast of some sort), it helps to drain the Commanders hit points faster. Since Lae'zel and Us are also in melee with the Commander, they get a boost too. Once the Mind Flayer turns hostile, you might want to consider dropping the Bless spell. Why this matters is that the death of Commander Zhalk (and hopefully the Mind Flayer soon after) gives you a lot of experience early on. It's a delicate little dance managing to stay alive long enough for that to happen, especially with the recent patches, where one of the two cambion reinforcements that arrive mid-combat tends to bypass the illithid and Us and come for the party. However, with a little luck (and depending on your character choice) it can be done. Try get Lae'zel (or your character, if they are strong) to shove the Commander back towards the nerve connecters, and then run up to where the Commander has fallen. This is because when he gets back up he always tries to go back to where he was before, triggering Lae'zel's opportunity attack (which can be nice if she has picked up the Everburn Blade and equipped it, assuming it was dropped earlier). Beware the illithid if the Commander is killed, it will immediately turn hostile to you then, but it will also likely be engaged immediately with the late arriving Cambions. Like I said, a delicate dance, but doable with luck. If things turn out less well and you have the Everburn Blade, just duck out early and forego the extra experience. One more piece of advice with this fight, If you are a spellcaster and want to hit the Commander with one of your level one spells, wait to see if the Mind Flayer can cause the Commander to be 'Dazed'. He has disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws when dazed. Lord knows how many times I have done the Commander fight with different characters. It has changed a good deal from early access to now, but I never tire of it, a beautiful design to still be something to look forward to, after countless playthroughs. Fourth. You don't have to kill Kagha to get the Hellriders Pride gloves from Zevlor. You can persuade Kagha to change her mind about supporting the Shadow Druids and still get that item. My favourite Astarion build is 1 Rogue, then 5 Ranger (Hunter/Colossus Slayer) for the extra attack (and a feat after you have done 4 levels of Ranger). Then add 3 more Rogue levels (personally I like the Thief subclass) for 4 rogue levels in total that gets you another feat. That is 9 levels combined. To finish up you can continue with rogue or ranger..........or add some fighter levels for the Action Surge. Nice to hear you can get a hand crossbow later on that does fire damage, it pairs with Firestoker very nicely. For Karlach, if you get a thiefy character to kiss the feet of a specific goblin in the goblin camp you can steal the ring on his foot that gives a character an extra 3m of movement, a good early item. It works nicely until you get the Boots of Speed (and Karlach can pass that ring on to another character later, when she gets the boots). You can easily get the ring at level 3/4. Bargaining with the Hag. I ran an Oath of the Ancients Paladin (a hireling character) and thought that when the hag made her offer you could choose the option that demands she give up Mayrina AND give you the +1 ability hair. I thought that this might sidestep the Paladin becoming fallen. Warning, it doesn't. If you get the hair the Paladin falls, either way. As for builds, I do like the Tempest cleric that begins with the wet + electric exploit............BUT, they can only use the max electric damage exploit once per long rest. My idea is to start Shadowheart as a Tempest cleric that exploits Create Water (or uses water bottles) plus an electricity spell, early on. But, later on she uses the numerous cold/frost items you start to get get late in Act 1 and early Act2, for more sustainable damage, once your big max damage hit has been used. Remember that wet + cold does double damage just like wet and electric, its just that you cannot do the one-off max damage hit, when you use cold. Start emphasising cold damage more when you get the Mourning Frost staff (collect the 3 parts in the Underdark, Act 1) and the Snowburst ring (very early Act 2, hidden in Last Light Inn). When I'm doing this build, I like a one level dip into wizard fairly early, the for Chromatic Orb spell (and she can wear the warped headband of intellect to cast a wizard spell with more chance of success). The Ice Knife spell is also nice, as it creates an ice surface around the target.
It's probably been mentioned already... there's a necklace that gives a free cast of mass healing word and healing word per long rest in the underdark. Plus a life cleric can boost these heals and use their cleric charges to mass heal without burning spell slots.
Doesn’t seem like most channels have really discovered the life cleric. They all go for tempest and light. The obscene life cleric healing output is kinda crazy.
Also with Shadowheart respecced as light cleric ... wake up in the morning, cast Aid on whole party. Extra maximum hit points for the whole party until you next long rest (so all the time maximum hit point bump). You can even pull this spell out of her list and slap in another one once you've done this in the morning. Another tip for the melee + spread out enemy problems: Have someone take ritual caster with longstrider. You can also wake up in the morning, and put longstrider on everyone in the party, and it stays all day. I actually have a morning ritual where I wake up and cast a bunch of buffs. Speak with animals, longstrider, summons, aid, etc.
The godly dips. One level of wizard or two of fighter, depending on the build. Both dips can add a lot to several different builds. Also, dipping into Rogue for their two bonus actions can help some builds, as well.
IDC Action Surging Multiattacking with Great Weapon Master Fighter is and will always be my favorite build which carried me through my first playthrough
For Commander Zhalk, I picked up all the purple mindflayer barrels and dropped them near him. Once the party whittled him down to about 40 hp or so, I had Shadowfart send a fire bolt at one of the barrels. 👍🏻
For throwing Karlach, the returning pike doesn't return if you are attacking from out of combat. So if you want to initiate combat that way, have a back up to throw.
@@VinceValentine the main use of the bard, for me, is in dialogue. plus most of the spells are utility or cc. when you respec you can make sure charisma is at least 10 and your good for the most part.
A really neat thing my wife discovered about the Ring at 7:07: the bless works on the healing from potions. Splash a minor healing potion on 3/4 of your party members to prep for a fight, they all have Bless for 2 rounds w/o having to use the slot.
Also try a playthrough with respeccing EVERYONE to sorlock. Turns you into a mobile machine gun nest and it's bloody hilarious, though it does basically trivialize the entire game.
Only multiclass I've done was Bard Valor Paladin. It did take 8 levels for this to come into play, but god the amount of damage smiting with high-level spell slots is insane
I totally agree with this. There are a ton of items you can focus a whole build around. And, I don’t think anyone else is doing that. They do “here are 10 great items”. But, they don’t take an item, or a set if similar items and give examples of what you can do with them. * Like the act 1 returning polearm. * Or the caustic ring for +2 weapon damage (works great on any two weapon fighter) * maybe a build to make use of the Druid grove axe that does extra damage to a burning target. * maybe something to take advantage of the Druid grove bow that gives a first level spell slot after you crit. There are so many items that work well together. There is a bard set. There are many monk sets.
I respecced Karlach as a monk with the tavern brawler feat, a headband that gave her momentum (extra movement) in the first three turns and boots that added her wisdom to her unarmed attacks. By the end of the game she also had gauntlets of hill giant strength and now she does 40-70 damage as a bonus action with flurry of blows. Bloody love a monk
I did a throw build by making Laezel an eldritch knight. It also let's you have longstrider and some really clutch wizard ritual spells without needing an actual wizard.
A wizard, or a bard, or a Druid, or a sorcerer. Or anyone with the ritual caster feat (I think). Hirelings are also a way to make this happen if for some reason you don’t have anyone who can cast a level 1 ritual.
It's interesting that these were basically the builds (and characters) that I settled on as well. There were some variations. I had Karlach as a Thief/Berserker for the extra Enraged Throw, and I never really settled on a Wyll build. However, these builds ticked all the boxes, and enabled me to do things like kill the undead dragon on my second turn. Just devastating.
… it really says everything that both of you respecced Shadowheart out of her lore-appropriate but crap (for her) domain into one utterly inappropriate for lore, but by far the most broken! I couldn’t bring myself to go this far, so I’m very glad Death is now an option via mods. Great video!
I'd love to see more builds, especially with or around magic items. There is a crazy amount of magic items in this game, and I struggle to choose between them. Also, a build that makes Gale more useful would be nice. I feel bad about leaving him in camp all the time.
What’s your party composition for standard travel? What level are you? There are several good wizard builds. You can’t go wrong with evocation. Fireballs for everyone! Once he reaches level 6 if you focus on fire you get a nice damage buff for all your fire spells. Necromancy is a lot of fun. Wizard can get a LOT of summons out. This is huge for action economy. You could go with … I think it’s conjuring to do create water without a spell slot once per short rest and focus on lightning and cold damage. Pair with a tempest cleric shadowheart for more lighting damage.
For the Hellrider's Pride gloves, there's another super easy way to get them: Let the human punch out Zevlor. After this, everyone will wander off, leaving him KO'd on the ground, and you can easily pickpocket them from him. For hand crossbows, start as bard and/or hire the bard hireling. Bards start out with a hand crossbow. Also, Thief + bard is better than gloomstalker. The bard College of Swords subclass has its "target 2 enemies" attack, and, for some reason, the ranged version lets you target the same enemy 2x. So at bard 3, you can get 3 attacks, though you're limited by bardic inspiration. But at 5, those refresh on short rest, and 6 gives you an extra attack. So basically, you can have the 3 shots early by starting with thief, and get 6 shots per round later. I think they fixed some of that eldritch blast cheese. Which is a good thing, and hopefully they'll fix some other warlock related issues (like its extra stacking with weapon class extra attacks, when those don't stack with each other).
I did the full run through with a fighter-rogue-gloomstalker build with no respecing. I picked High Elf to get perception and a cantrip (I chose Mage Hand to pull levers and stuff - helped me out here and there, but probably should have done Friends instead for the charisma based checks). I picked Noble background because it gave History and Persuasion. With only 10 for intelligence and Charisma getting one knowledge proficiency and one talking proficiency should help offset the no modifier issue early game. 1st level on the Nautiloid - Fighter gets heavy armor, all weapons and high hit points and con saves. Took Insight and Athletics for the Fighter skills. Make ranged attacks if you get a bow early or you're tossing daggers/etc. 2nd Level on the beach - 2nd level Fighter gets action surge so for a couple major combats you can get two key attacks off. By this point you should have a bow and can shoot stuff. 3rd Level once making it to the Grove - 1st Level in Rogue got me an extra skill (stealth - though admittedly should have been sleight of hand), sneak attack, and expertise for Perception and Persuasion. Key skills needed for most of the game. High Dex made stealth and sleight of hand checks with guidance usually doable (most DCs early game are 10 to 14 which is a very doable DC when you have a Plus 3 plus a d4 plus the smuggler's ring which gives +2 bonus to sleight of hand and stealth checks (-1 charisma but Persuasion with expertise didn't mind). 4th Level was the tough one only gaining cunning action with the Rogue - but that bonus action dash made my character super mobile to either close the distance and tank due to having the best AC (wearing heavy armor and shield) or get out of threat range in order to snipe with bow. 5th Level was first level ranger - With favored terrain and favored enemy you essentially get two skills and an extra spell or so. I got fire resistance and investigation (which is used), and got an extra skill proficiency as well. This was when I'm doing a lot more wandering around and needing to talk to folks and discovering more hidden chests. 6th level and beyond is just going Ranger - getting spells like Hunter's Mark for the extra damage, at 7th level you get Gloom Stalker so you get that dread ambusher attack, 8th level finally getting Sharpshooter as the feat making most fights irrelevant after round 1. 9th Gets Extra attack. 10th is when I dipped back into Rogue Assassin to make all those attacks now have advantage. The last two levels are Ranger to get that Int and Wis saving through proficiency. With the exception of 4th level feeling a bit like a grind and 5th and 6th level missing that extra attack while Karlach and Lae'zel were tearing things up, every level increase felt significant and necessary for overall efficiency. Maybe not complete min-maxing, but I've felt very capable as a character with proficiency in 8 key skills, expertise in two of those key skills, the ability to do about 60-70 damage a round by the time I've taken Sharpshooter (give or take a crit hit/crit hit sneak attack in the first round). Of course this meant I was using Gale more often and Astarion was sitting at camp. But that's because I went Paladin with Wyll after 5th level Warlock so I don't have a Sorcerer.
My strat for the Cambion miniboss is to grab the four purple explosive barrels throughout the area and have Shadowheart blow it up with firebolt from a safe distance. If you wear down both him and the mind flayer, you can end up killing both of them in the blast quite easily!
Way of the open hand monk build has hands down been my favourite act 1 build Stats 8 str 16 dex 14 (15 if going tank with hag 16 without hag) con 8 int 14 (flexible) wis (for saving throws + illithid) 14 char (flexible) (saving throws + skill checks) You can do 17 dex if sparing the hag Astarion is my personal choice for access to bite + happy buff (you can use a hireling for free happy buff after long rest) Really easy build to get going as no reliance on items, act 1 lightning charges items have good synergy with multiple hits Using vendors (Ethel early, potion store in underdark) to purchase hill giants strength potions (they restock on long rest) you can have 100% up time on 21 str, at level 4 take tavern brawler as feat adding your strength modifier to unarmed strikes You can multiclass into cleric after this for heavy armour and shield proficiency and sanctuary to protect your back line Great mobility, great damage, cc/advantage gained with topple (prone) and stunning strike at later levels, operates with 0 gear investment, free repositions with bonus action disengage, respectable ranged damage with thrown weapons thanks to tavern brawler and scales very cleanly into act 2 with the monk specific items You can grab the monk quarterstaff from emerald grove for +1 to your unarmed strike (+2 with happy) for early game and then drop weapons entirely once you have tavern brawler
Regarding barbarian mobility enhancements, I made Karlach an eagle heart barbarian, which allows her to dash as a bonus action while raging. I combined this with the fleetfingers gloves, which allow a character to make a free jump whenever they dash, the speedy lightfeet, which grantes a whopping 3 lightning charges when someone dashes, and the stallion aspect, which granted her a chunk of temp HP whenever she dashed. A lot of times, it would turn into Karlach raging turn one, hitting whoever was immediately available, then using dash to set up huge jumps(Aided by the Athlete feat), where she could then jump *again* to a target with the eagle hearts jump attack, knocking them prone. It was a ton of fun, and felt like an appropriate, high energy play style for her.
Tip for getting the blade. Use Gith mage hand to fly over entrance door. It will begin combat putting your entire party into the room without opening the door
Giving a barb 3 levels of rogue is amazing. Reckless attack gives advantage for sneak attacks. Going thief grants the barb an additional bonus action and cunning action allows you to dash with a bonus action. Jumping is also a powerful use of a bonus action if you have high strength. Often a jump gets you where you want to go even better than a dash would.
There are a lot of build videos and build guides for BG3, but I noticed most have not included the items (or have weirdly recommended getting super end-game items as critical to the build as if one could get them in Act 1, i.e., the Balduran Greatsword for a paladin build), so I liked the balance you provided here. You spend probably 1/3-1/2 the game at level 12, so I think doing the final builds makes sense. It is a huge change in topic, but one video I would be very interested in you guys doing would be discussing the best 3rd party content for 5e. Obviously, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is up there, but what are some of the other adventure books, monster tomes, or supplementary texts, and other non-WOTC content that you guys admire?
My main character was Gloomstalker/Assassin. I always went first in combat putting hunter's mark and even while using a longbow can generally knock one of the opponents off the board in the first round
Here's another build for Karlack that I really liked. It's basically all about damage reduction, to the point many things just do no damage to her. First, get the bear rage subclass ability. Second, get the adamantine scale mail. Third, get the skinburster halberd (it further reduces damage taken). Fourth, since you're using a halberd, get sentinel and polearm master. Respec her stats to something like 16 str, 14 dex, 16 constitution. Comes fully online at level 8, but already starts to shine after you get the armor and halberd, around level 6.
Warbarian is my favorite so far. I will admit, I downloaded a mod that implemented some more Invocations but honestly going 2 levels into Barb and then sending Warlock to 5-6 works magic. Armor of Agathys, Dark One's Blessing, tons of fun stuff to play with. And when you aren't raging, since you'll only have 2 charges of it, you still have your Eldritch Blasts and your Burning Hands and so on. Can be anywhere on the battlefield doing anything, and it makes it work. If you DO grab Invocations Expanded, you can also grab stuff like Eldritch Smite for a cracked out Paladin build. Super nice. Works in base D&D too, probably my favorite build rn.
In my playtrough we have gone with Karlach being Rogue/barbarian, because when she makes reckless attack sneak attack works too and deals a lot of damage. She also can pick locks and all rogue stuff because none else wanted to do this so she became all-rounder. My second build for this was Moon Druid/Nature Cleric. Some nice rituals, always prepared speak with animals and some nice buffs and spells. Maybe not so powerfull as expected because you can't use moonbeam in wildshape and you can't talk or cast guidance in wildshape but still pretty nice. As for killing the tiefling in the start game, its even easier if you pick some chest before it and place them in the entrance to room. The reinforcments will spend their turns trying to destroy them dealing 0 damage all the time.
For any one looking for even more burst damage, I recommend the 2 level Tempest Cleric into Dragon/Storm Sorcerer. In BG3 the wet condition gives vulnerable to electric damage (doubling your damage). So if you quicken Create Water, then attack with a big lightning attack using your Channel divinity, you can wipe away even major bosses. You can also take a 1 level dip into Wizard while staying with Tempest Cleric and take all the Electric attacks you don't get as a cleric with spell scrolls. You miss out on quicken spell, so I don't like it as much, but with some prep this is just as powerful. Either way, you are impossible to kill because you can wear heavy armor and have extra health from Dragon Sorcerer or have lots of movement with Storm Sorcerer.
yes please on end game builds! I'm in act 3, level 11. also, multi-classing across 3+ classes does seem like a good play in BG3. Love all the BG3 content. I feel like playing BG3 is making my table top play better.
Almost every channel doing BG3 content has been focused on endgame builds since about a week after the full release. Last I looked, fewer than a third of players were in act 3. I think it’s closer to a quarter. And, only about half are out of act 1. Not all high level builds really work for low level stuff. Any low level concept will scale up. The biggest change would be how much time you spend talking about gear specific to that part of the game.
Having Gale in Camp is in fact most important, because he can casr Warding Bond on all Characters (plus Help, Poison Immunity and Long Strider), which are extremely profitable buffs.
My list of character ideas I want to play, change fairly frequently. But this really helps me figure out how to tweak my party and make them viable supports. Hell, with this I kinda want to merge a few character ideas down into a few teams.
I'm most interested in your BG3 videos. But also interested in the series you just started on spell rankings, even though I don't expect to ever play DnD again.
Bardlock also felt really good. College of lore bard with 2 in lock felt great- good dam because eldritch blast, obviously, but then loading up on support spells with lore. Consistently useful in all situations.
The staff of arcane blessing is also available in act 1, and it doubles the effect of the Blesses cast by the user. This seems like it'd synergize really well with the ring for the cleric build as well. There's also another build for Karlach thanks to Colby of D4 that's similar to the Berserker build mentioned here, but it goes berserker barb 5 / thief rogue 4 / EK fighter 3 (in that order.) You can do a ton of damage by throwing a dagger for sneak attack damage with all that STR-boosted Tavern Brawler goodness. I use that build and Karlach just owns every battlefield. She can easily kill 2-4 enemies in each round between melee attacks, then throws, which you get extra of thanks to 3 levels of thief rogue giving you an extra bonus action per round for enraged throw. As soon as you get to act 3 there's a legendary returning trident you can get for Karlach or your raging thrower build as well that gives a huge power boost.
I did this Warlock but was able to dupe the spell sparkler from the statue in act 3 before it was patched, and took the dual wielder feat. I added the coruscation ring, callous glow ring +2 radiant dmg, potent robe from act 2, it was pretty ridiculous.
