Personally I love it as a player in a video game but would absolutely not allow it at the table. As a barbarian, taking that massive risk is part of the fun chaos of the class.
I just started playing BG3 (and I love me my barbarians) and I thought I forgot to reckless attack until I issed next turn and it prompted me. Loved it. In fact that's just hwo it should work imo.
Paladin getting their subclass at level 1 actually makes a lot of sense, I mean you are a Paladin BECAUSE of your oath and not the other way around, at least at literally every table I've played that had a Paladin, they would always ignore the fact that they didn't have a subclass and roleplay it as the oath they intended to take.
Exactly. This is something I would do as a DM. You're going to swear an Oath to something/someone, or you're not a paladin. And you will wear that Oath on your sleeve. Always.
The only bad part about the Paladin implementation is not being about to choose a god to follow. Feels especially egregious given all the paladins of X deity that you encounter throughout the game
Since I just build a bunch of characters for one-shots, in the Sacred Oath it is actually mentioned, that you should choose and play your choosen oath before it takes effect at 3rd level. 😎
Yes. It's the whole "training relentlessly to perfect yourself in order to honor an oath that you haven't quite decided on yet," bit. Level one makes sense.
After the absolute PR disaster of a year this has been for WotC, on both the DnD and MtG sides (rightfully so, too), this game really is the best thing they could have asked for.
For anyone watching and struggling with abilities like Divine Smite and Sneak Attack, the reactions menu Monty brings up actually allows you to determine whether to use almost all of them with the same timing as tabletop. Divine smite on crit, sneak attack, and things like Bard flourishes can all be triggered on hit just like normal. In the spellbook section of each character's sheet, there's a reactions tab, and you can set all of them there. It's worth checking for everybody, because there's a surprising amount of stuff the game tries to do automatically or separate out that you're going to want manual control over.
Fighter and Monk feel so much better in BG3 because the game makes it way easier to short rest. Too many games in tabletop rely on one or two combats per long rest, which really buffs spellcasters and nerfs martials. It’s been a treat to play monks in a game where the system rewards it and I think 5e DMs can learn from that!
WotC's design: 6 or more "medium " encounters per Adventuring Day, with 2 Short Rests in the mix . Casters have to preserve their spell slots and rely strongly on Cantrips. In 2/3 of the encounters, martials play the main role. - Reality: Resource management? Which resource management?! Why should our table waste hours with push-over enemies? And, why should our casters not use their spells? And, with 2 encounters per day, why Short Rest?
Wizards are still extremely strong in BG3. Especially in Act 3 there are so many magic items, that boost Spell Save DC and Attack, to the point where you can easily get something like a 23/24 Spell Save DC. Combine that with the still incredibly strong spells the Wizard has access to, and your Wizard, that completely transforms the battlefield with a single spell is still absolutely there. And the ritual spells can be swapped out immediately after casting, so the fact that they need to be prepared for casting isn't really a thing. Also the wizards ability to scribe spells is huge especially since there are so many spell scrolls as loot in the game. And at the end of the day they still have the best and most versatile spell list in the game.
When you mentioned the Bonk multiclass a very cool thing to note is that Way of the Four Elements does not count as casting spells so you can still use their unique "spells" while raging and a lot of them still count as unnarmed attacks so they benefit from Rage and Tavern Brawler.
Hard disagree on wizard. They make the best swiss army knife for your party. Theres many times where I just flip open Gales spellbook change a spell out for another, cast it and then switch it back to the original spell once I'm done. Which is also even made stronger by the fact the game throws tons of scrolls to grab and learn spells as long as you have the money giving you a huge pool to draw from.
21:27 sneak attack damage is a lot more noticeable if you set it to ask if you want to sneak attack in the reaction menu, because the number shows up separately at a slight delay
Plus it triggers another concentration check, and if you're doing it from non combat like a surprise attack you can get double sneak attack with two hand crossbows.
I think you're underestimating the wizard being able to change out their spells at any point. There are so many scrolls in the game. You can give them all to Gale and suddenly, he knows every spell for every situation and can swap them out at a moment's notice.
Yeah Gale never leaves my party lol. His utility is just too good. Plus with potions of speed/haste he is casting two huge spells per turn. Ice/water surfaces is such a big deal in BG3 that basically give your entire party double damage if they are using cold or lightening and drastically slowing down the enemy. This makes spells like ice storm so very juicy. Let's not even get into the amount of summons he can call at once.
I also find the early levels you just gotta play differently. You don’t have many great damaging spells so I spent act 1 with dual shortswords, mage armour, shield, thunderwave and a few other utility spells to make me like a battlemage in other fantasy games. As I hit level 7 and got access to level 4 spells and a good amount of level 2/3 spell slots I swapped out for an aoe mage with things like hold person, slow and tasha’s for support casting. Wizard is by far one of my favourite classes just due to their ability to adapt to literally ANY situation
@@adoman97i mean, all my characters get 14 str 14 dex 12 con and whatever is left into their spell ATR. Everyone is a hybrid build up to level 5, after that you actually have enough spell slots and have to focus in Str, dex, or spells
Larian clarified the Deepened Pact feature with Pact of the Blade at level 5 is intentionally stacking with Extra Attack given from other classes. THIS IS NOT A BUG.
Edit: Nvm found the blogpost. Whats your source? Saw a reddit post a few weeks ago, where op shared a screenshot from the support, that said, they know of the bug and are working on it, so I thought it was a bug?
With Eldritch Knights a bound weapon just reappears in you hand in 5e it is a bonus action to return to your hand. This makes a thrown weapon fighter viable (a dream of mine and my current BG3 character).
Ring of Flinging + Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo are even stronger than people would think because they actually apply their damage bonuses to the 1 damage that you get from having Lightning Charges. Also, Minthara's Soul Branding ability is supposed to be expended after one attack, but if you throw your weapon it doesn't go away. So you could add 2d4 to your weapon's damage, 2d4+1 extra lightning damage, and 2d4+3 damage from Soul Branding to every single thrown weapon on top of Tavern Brawler. And that's without the extra damage from the Lightning Burst which would be 1d8+1d4+1d4.
If you want to spice it up, there is a merchant that sells a Glaive that lets you imbude any weapon with a Element, giving you some extra damage and thematics. I think it's called the Dragon Glaive or something like that.
You forgot to mention how much at-will rerolls changes things. In Act 3, I ended up giving Karlach gloves and a ring to push her Str and Con to 22, so I rerolled her to have her base stats for those at 8, then instead dumped it all into Dex and gave her good scores for all her mental stats. When you can basically rebuild a character in Act 3 with their endgame gear in mind, it leads to some insanely broken stuff.
You can swap out which spells you have prepared on the fly. Note that if you un-prepare most spells that have a lasting effect (like Mage Armor) the ongoing effect ceases. However, you can summon a familiar then replace that prepared spell with another and your familiar sticks around.
my favourite thing is adding gale to the party, casting mage armour on familiars and karlach (because for some reason it stacks with barb AC) and longstrider on everyone, then swapping him back out. similar thing with shadowheart but doing cleric spells
18:20 I have it set to always ask on smites of all levels including crits. It's just a checkbox on the reactions list. This way I can more effectively budget my spell slots and tailor smites to the appropriate amount of damage I need to finish an enemy. Hope this helps some of you.
One of the bigger Druid changes (that I still hope gets fixed) is not being able to interact with your concentration spells while Wildshaped. Really changes how a moon druid plays to me.
@@daniele4568if you go moon Druid 11 and wizard 1 you get all the extra wild shape bonuses moon druids have and can get access to a better spell list than land Druids anyways.
These are fun. The longer I've played 5E, the more I've thought about changing a lot of the lamer or more stifling rules for our own campaign. We've done a few of them to great effect. In an upcoming one, we've got a bunch of them we're going to try out all at once and see how it works. Worst case, we revert some of them or further modify them, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun and maybe freshen up some things about the game that have started to become stale for us.
Yeah, the completely free item interactions (weapon swapping, potions, casting with a sword) are just such nice changes, juggling arcane focuses and swapping weapons and potions always felt clunky in 5e, and they didn't really change balance. Always felt like it was just for legacy reasons
20:45 I gave Astarion a ring that gives him advantage on all attacks but disadvantage on all saving throws. Since saving throws are rare for the most part later in the game it’s a guaranteed sneak attack with little to no drawbacks
Regarding the Wizard one level dip for learning spell scrolls, that seems to be taken from the base Spellcasting feature: Copying a Spell into the Book: When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook *if it is of a spell level you can prepare* and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it. -and- Preparing and Casting Spells: You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast... *The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.*
I have definitely come across scrolls that I couldn't copy yet and Gale was a full wizard. Multiclassing a 1 level wizard dip with another full spell caster would still let allow you to eventually copy all the scrolls.
I came to this realization as well. But if you're casting as a wizard, your spellcasting attribute is INT which isn't really suitable for any spellcasters other than eldritch knights and arcane tricksters (though it could be very good for them). For anyone else, there is still room to benefit even if INT is your dump stat, for things like counterspell, create or destroy water, and plenty of others that don't involve contests, AC, or DC. Also you'll only ever be able to memorize very few spells in your spell book, at least on the tabletop rules. Not sure how BG3 handles multi class spell lists.
@@derekschmidt5705 It separates spell LISTS, but combines SLOTS. So if you're cleric 4 / Wiz 1, you can scribe and prepare Fireball or Lightning Bolt, even though you don't have enough levels in either class to learn them naturally, because you have a third-level spell slot; and it would use your INT for any spell attack rolls or dc's. It also separates how many you can prepare from each class. So as a character I mentioned before, with 16 INT you'd be able to prepare 4 total Wizard spells, plus however many Cleric spells you'd get in the Cleric tab separately. From my experience you don't really need that many memorized anyway, just certain ones like you mentioned. Shield and Haste come to mind immediately.
Don't sleep on enchantment wizards. Mine absolutely trivialized fights in Tactician mode with Hypnotic Gaze and dual targeting enchantment spells. There are so many items that boost spell dc; enemies didn't stand a chance to resist.
When I get BG3 I'm definitely making a Bonk with Barb 2/Monk X Dex build for my first playthrough. I've been trying to get this build to work for years and the simple changes that you've mentioned have cleared the way. I'm ready to bonk my way through Baldur's Gate
open fist Bonk with great weapon mastery and tavern brawler works crazy good I did a variation of this and it's insanse ruclips.net/video/4KwjG08DUaQ/видео.html
At the end of the paladin part you say that you have to declare a divine smite before the attack. While that is possible you can also just use the reaction-tab you mentioned and make it so that on hit you get asked if you want to smite (and with what kind of spell slot). That way you can use any kind of melee attack and then get divine smite on top. (Especially nice with a mod that adds BB and GFB)
I have a lot of fun with a Light Domain Cleric. You know how much exciting fun Clerics can be and in BG3 it just hits right for me. Thank you for the video!
Something I noticed too is that your AC stays the same if you have a Shield equipped, even when using your Ranged Weapon. So, if you're proficient with shields but plan to be a ranged character, might not be a bad idea to equip a shield anyway just to get the AC boost.
It's a bit funky from a flavour perspective, but it's an unavoidable consequence of allowing playing to switch between melee and ranged weapon sets without using an action. Given that that change feels really nice to play with, I think it's worth the funkiness.
The change to Thief Rogue is really good and honestly, I’m tempted to implement that for my table if it’s for campaigns that are under 13th level. Mainly because the features that thief rogues get at 13th level and higher are rarely seen since most campaigns end before those levels.
I do miss a few spells that were added from other extra books, but I'm having a fantastic time with being a wizard. She runs with Karlach, Shadowheart and Laez'zel
Honestly I found it really easy to use sneak attack. Appart from the normal advantage, just having a (non-reach) melee partymember next to the target is the easy way. Otherwise continually hide. You can see the visibility cones on screen, manouvre your (ranged) rogue just outside them, and use cunning action hide to gain easy advantage.
18:03 thats only by default. you mentioned the reaction menu but didnt mention that smite on any attack is also a reaction (though its off by default). for best results you should always swap both smite on crit and smite on any attack on and select "ask" so it'll ask if you want to use it on any attack you use. this goes the same with sneak attack.
sneak attack can also be enabled as a reaction that the game asks if you want to apply after every attack as well. Also I've found that the best way to get advantage consistently for ranged rogues is to hold shift so you can see the vision cones, walk outside of the red areas and then bonus actions hide.
Beastmaster ranger is HUGE! It’s a very big deal starting with early game. The different pets can do wildly different things that can actually have good utility (like web stopping all fall damage). But! Hunter’s Mark is crazy. Pets get that damage (called Prey’s Scent) on their attacks. Before long that single first level spell slot will be worth 4D6 damage per round every round and at the end of the game can potentially be worth 6D6 damage per round. Let that sink in. 6D6 … per round. Pretty much every round. The boar companion can rage unlimited times per day. While raging it gets a bonus action attack. At level 11 pets gain an extra attack from attack action. Ranger gets two attacks from attack action, then a bonus action attack (these can be ranged attacks with sharpshooter and hand crossbows). Boar ends up with two attacks per attack action and a bonus action attack. Plus that boar is taking half damage and also gets +2 damage per attack from rage. Downside … pet pathing will need babysitting. And, pets used to make people in towns flip out. I think the last patch toned this down a bit.
I think I used my Raven and Spider one time each. I mainly use bear and throw in wolf sometimes. Both of their level 11 abilities are really good. Should summon the other ones to check out what their level 11 abilities are.
@@XanderHarris1023 if you like the devil’s sight warlock invocation the raven gets unlimited darkness spells. There is room to have more party members take a couple warlock levels for that invocation to have a party that can (mostly) see in the dark. The bear has a good taunt and the disarm/prone is amazing. Found the wolf to be problematic in a way that other pets weren’t. It make no sense. It seemed like the game thought the wolf was bigger than it was. Or, maybe it was that section of the game and ANY pet would be problematic (which is most likely .. but it left a bad taste in my mouth). The boar and bear were my sweet spots (I’d like to take that back … I don’t like the phrasing one bit 😬 )
I think BG3 is fantastic and I love the improvements they put in. I do find it funny the things they didn't seem capable of implementing properly though only because those same things (like sneak attack with flanking) were implemented just fine in Solasta. That's not me saying one is better than the other, but both are well worth playing!
Rogue and monk is stronger unless you rest a ton. Very few rages per day. Fewer ki per short rest. These are limiting. The game is easy. You can play though with just about anything. But, barbarian with monk isn’t very strong. The armor is something. But you do lose out on some monk benefits with armor and there are VERY few medium armor items that let you apply full dex modifier (2 of them that I recall). It may be possible to build something … but at some point you might as well make a two weapon barbarian and take 3 levels of rogue for four attacks per round and get full access to barbarian … or wear all monk stuff and basically be a monk and take rogue levels if you want. There’s a LOT of great monk items. You’d need to abandon those things and basically gear like a barbarian for this …. And tavern brawler on monk is just cheesy and badly balanced. It’s not needed. But pure monk and that would definitely be better than the barbarian monk combo.
Reach weapons mess up the "melee range" requirement of sneak attack, but it does work. The fact that the game doesn't use a 5ft grid makes it hard to know if someone's close enough.
Colby have some realy interesting builds! and I didn't know how the abjuration wizard worked in BG3 untill he explained it! I now have a Lae'zel with Eldritch Knight + 2 levels abjuration wizard! She is tanking so good right now!
I did this too, giving Karlach every dagger I found until I got the legendary trident that returns to your hand after throwing it. I also found a versatile glaive that can be used for sneak attack.
@@robertparks3670 versatile glaive??? havn't found that! sounds strong! is it d10 with two-handed d12? I got two games going! my main game character is a 6 levels shadow monk and 4 levels tempest cleric! my dark urge character is paladin, bard, sorcerer, warlock, rogue, fighter, cleric and going for monk and barbarian for the last two levels! I'm going for that achievement! all 12 classes here I go! the problem is that there aren't that many cantrips in the game to make them good! but having a focus on charisma works great for dialogs!
@zoddlander I mistyped, I meant finesse which is what sneak Attack requires. I was at work and couldn't verify. It's called The Dancing Breeze, and is found early in Act 3 at the Rivington General.
23:23 if you down a bloodlust elixir (one of the absolute best ones imo) and haste fireball fireball you can often get a 3rd fireball on your haste round. And 4 fireballs on subsequent rounds. Really powerful stuff.
Great video guys! You can set it to ask you about sneak attack damage so it functions like a reaction which has been pretty helpful for me sine then I never need to click the sneak attack button. Also, to trigger sneak attack from someone being engaged they need to be close enough that if they tried to move away they would get an opportunity attack. Then you get sneak attrack. I tend to have Astarion trail a bit behind Karlach to kill steal. lol
I think you are underrating the wizard a bit in BG3, they are definitely much weaker than in 5e closing the gap with other classes, but they are also that good in 5e. 1) Summoning spells are absolutely insane as they cost no concentration and last till long rest, this is a massive upside over sorcerers, full a full adventuring day you can have 2 earth memphits to restrain enemies and a air myrmydon applying a stun and good damage each turn 2) Some low level spells are insanely buffed so that both wizards and sorcerers do much better at lower levels of play. Grease is an excellent to spent a first level spell slot with the buff in the prone condition, cloud of daggers has its range doubled and does two instances of damage before the opponent gets his first turn.
I thought you could only have one summon from each type of spell? I tried summoning a second elemental with a Druid and the first one went away. I could use the dryad and the elemental together.
@@Illianor123 Conjure minor elemental gives you 3 choices:- Summon Azer (Fire), Summon 2 Ice Mephits, Summon 2 Mud Mephits. So, yeah, you can only have it cast once, but you have 2 mephits if thats the option you pick.
With Land druids you get to pick a different land every time which means when you get to high level you can have chosen a combination of lands with the best spells. In TT you pick your land once and stick with (so forest all the way for example)
So I found out that if you want a good DPS cantrip as a cleric you can just take the feat Spell Sniper and it makes the new chosen cantrip use your casting modifier. Fabulous!
Monk is fantastic in BG3. Especially at low levels and it’s amazing again at higher levels. Be careful multiclassing it though. A lot of people are accidentally doing trap builds that weaken things. Barbarian + monk sure seems like a trap to me. You don’t get many rages. Those levels do nothing for you when the rage is gone. Those levels outside of monk also diminish your ki points. Some people talk about cleric + monk which also feels like a trap. Thief rogue + monk is the natural combination to get the extra bonus action attack. It’s a small dip and it gives you something in every round for every fight and doesn’t require rests. This also lets your monk with a little bit of thief do your lock picking if needed. Unarmed attacks get pretty brutal as you gear up. So, having an extra bonus attack each round once you reach level 8 is a pretty big deal!
The only monk class good with thief is just Open Hand, because open hand get level 6, it's already get the most powerful and destruction tool, plus the resonance strike only use 1 ki point for the detonation, so you don't need as much ki as four elements and shadow monk. And yes, this is one major reason why open hand is way more powerful than 4E and shadow - why do utilities or prone when you can kill 1 or few enemies in one turn??? A lot of people subclass just only see short term but never in long term, that's why so many people dip 1 war domain for the 3 time bonus attack per long rest (guess they didn't know there are weapons that let you use bonus attack for full damage) but don't know there are many fears are very good.
@@violau8550 I agree with most of that. I do disagree with some of your verbiage. I think open had is the most powerful. We agree on that. I wouldn’t agree that it’s the only good subclass. I don’t think that most directly powerful is the same as the requirement to be good. The root of what thief adds to monk is an extra bonus action attack each turn. That’s great for any monk. Full disclosure, I’ve not played way of shadow monk in BG3 (did play one for 11 levels in tabletop D&D). I’ve played a lot of open hand and I did try elements because it’s so terrible in real D&D and I want to see how they changed it. I’m still not very familiar with elements. But, there’s a very inexpensive option that gives you fire damage and ranged attacks with your unarmed strikes (or monk attacks, I don’t recall the exact wording). I think there’s a clear advantage to a quick easy ability that gives you extra damage and increased range for potentially 16 extra attacks (2 main attacks, 2 bonus attacks, speed/haste for 2 more, bloodlust elixir for 2 more … and I believe you get all of that until the end of the following turn which means two rounds of extra damage and range on your attacks … this is costing you a single ki point, an elixir (which last a REALLY long time on builds that don’t need to rest often), and haste or speed potion which is the real consumable for this combo. And … of course you can flurry for each bonus action to increase that to 20 attacks in two turns with extra damage and range. I haven’t done any experiments to see if the temp hit points and extra attacks are best, or if extra crit range is better because you have so many attacks. At any rate … I’d bet money that both elements and shadow are perfectly fine, even if open fist is excellent and the most straight forward of the three.
@zero11010 I don't think you really get what I mean before you disagree with me, first you said you dont aggree with me then you said you didnt play shadow or 4e. I play monk and all subclass multiple times, you can't sub rogue to 4E and shadow like open hand, because they need all the ki they can get to function, since all their spells need ki a lot. Shadow and 4E is utilities monk, they can't deal same damage as open hand. And one fireball use 4Ki, one open hand resonance detonation just use 1 ki and can deal almost same damage or even more to a group of enemies. And 4E monk, you use your full action to cast a weak spell from a distance, then what, you get close to enemy and use bonus action? No, the time you use your spell means you won't be able to use your bonus action, unless you can wear hand crossbow. Just that already a lot less damage than open hand. And shadow monk doesnt give more damage, you can get advantage or psychi damage from shadow strike, but those need some set up, from one dark place to another. Overall open hand just straight forward and kill, while other subclass just more utilities. And of course tavern brawler just boost open hand damage through the roof that 4e and shadow can never ever compete with.
@@violau8550 I’m not reading that wall of text, man. I disagree that the requirement to be good is the same as being best. Also, you’ve misrepresented the things I said.
@zero11010 yawn, someone who wrote wall of text now said they don't want to read another wall of text, basically it just mean "I don't understand anything you said but I don't want to admit it." Lol, you said I misinterpreted your comments, yet you already said that "I never use shadow" and "I'm not familiar with 4 elements", means you basically didn't make any solid points for people to misinterpreted in the first place.
I’d love to see a list of BG3 items you, as a DM, want to put into your game! I’m personally enjoying the item that blesses anyone I heal, makes healing really helpful!!
Longstrider being a ritual spell that lasts until next long rest REALLY helps out the Barb, among many other classes. Have someone cast it on everyone, and it really shines with the barb
Two very major things you missed from the druid: 1. *All* druids get most wildshapes, Land druids can turn into dinosaurs and owlbears and panthers. The only ones exclusive to Moon are bear and elementals (which are myrmidons here) And 2: Land druid gets to pick a different land for every spell level, and the spell lists are very souped up. These together make the Land Druid imo the strongest spellcasters in BG3, while also getting medium armor and shields *and* powerful wildshapes.
Got to be careful for when you long rest, or even going to camp, because certain quests will progress without you after a certain amount of time. When Halsin goes to find Thaniel being the one I'm thinking of.
I'm loving my swords bard, it's made me want to run one in the tabletop. A huge positive change for me is them being able to use their blade flourishes on ranged attacks - makes them a lot more versatile.
For sneak attack: use warlock to find familiar (imp) and make invisible. It doesn’t enter turn-based mode, so you can freely move it next to targets whenever you want and still counts as advantage, so you always get sneak attack.
you can have two shovels, learn the spell with Gale, then talk with other character respecced to have spell slots ( I respecced Astarion for the occasion so now I can sneak attack on every turn as having Astarion's Shovel next to enemy makes them have the condition "Threatened" which allows for sneak attack.
If you want the Cleric Divine Intervention weapon but don't want to use Shadowhearts one casting of the spell, use a cleric hireling. Have it cast the spell and take the weapon.
I personally love the extra attack options given per weapon and am starting to utilize it in my current campaign. Just play testing it as of now, but excited to have every weapon have something different about them. And giving resistance types or bonus to skills per armor types. Gives players something else to invest money in!
The very first thing Kelly said is the most relatable thing I’ve heard all year. Also in regard to the Deepened pact giving 3 attacks, I find it funny that the new UA for the new PHB allows warlocks to attack 3x at level 11 and you cannot convince me that was not a decision made because of this bug
For the rogue's sneak attack, i highly recommend getting the "Risky Ring" in act 2 (i think in Moonrise Tower) that gives all attack rolls advantage for the trade off of disadvantage on saving throws. Then you never need to worry about not being able to sneak attack.
On the subject of Rogue Sneak Attack. You can get it to trigger without advantage or clicking it on the bar. It does work with allies in melee, they just have to be a bit closer than you think visually. Also, in the reaction menu for a Rogue, you can choose whether or not Sneak Attack auto triggers, so if you have advantagr or an ally close enough, you can hit and have the reaction come up as an option to use it or not
I'm a little disappointed polymorph doesn't allow my wizard to change into any monster (maybe below a certain level?). However I can see where that could trivialize a ton of BG3 encounters. Awesome game and it's been a great intro to D&D!
Wizards are great when paired with a party utilizing them imo, im currently running a necromancer on my dark urge evil playthrough, that paired with my spore druid i have tons of undead and summons around at all times in act three. That paired with also having shadowheart running a tempist claric/sor im covering the field in water and the two are blasting everyone away with lightning
Swords Bards can use their flourishes with ranged weapons and specifically Slashing Flourish (ranged) doesn't require the targets to be next to each other AND you can choose the same target. This lets you attack twice with what would otherwise be one attack roll. Dualwielding Hand XBows with the Thief Rogue, Action Surge, and Bloodlust elixir just makes you an absolute menace.
The Sword Bard in BG3 might be my favorite subclasses in the whole game. It's so much better than the 5e version with just a few minor tweaks. Also the ability to duel wield hand crossbows helps them quite a bit.
A couple of wizard specific mentions. Having the hireling gnome wizard, Sir Fuzzalump, cast longstrider on everyone eahc morning, as well as darkvision on those who need it, means you don't waste a preperation slot on an active party member. On top of that, if you make him a Transmuter (mostly to get better alchemical production) you can also give his transmuter's stone out to someone as well. Tis doesn't work with concentration spells, just ones that last till a long rest. Second, there are some spells that don't seem to have in game scrolls for them, that includes Shield, but a 1 level wizzy dip can get that anyway, it also includes counterspell, which 'maybe' a good thing, otherwise it would devalue the wizard more? Lastly, the implementation of both Divination wizard portent and it's improvements, and abjuration's arcane ward, make both of those classes really strong, true, portent can't be used on skill checks, but in combat, my Gale has flipped a dice roll SO many times, and with the extra dice and regaining them on prohecy competion, he usualy has one still useable when I really need it. (But, yes, Shadow with 1 wizzy lvl, hastes herself, then create water plus lightning bolt is just evil, also wall of fire, has no save, so doesn't matter if your Int isn't great on such a build, Shield, Lightning Bolt, Haste and Wall of Fire, replaced at top lvl w Chain Lightning, as her nominal 4 prepared wizard spells w the circlet just ommphs her spellcasting for the cost of a feat, DEAL!)
Weird, I haven't been having any issues with Sneak Attack. You can actually add it to your reactions just like Divine Smite, so that Gloomstalker/Thief can gamble on applying it on a crit with their fourth attack.
My biggest DM takeaways from bg3 are: Reckless attack after missing. (Mostly for people who forget to use it) Removing exhaustion from berserker (I already replace it with the haste ending rule), and giving them the strain rule for heavy/improvised throws and bonus attacks. (Sometimes I use the 10 point exhaustion table and berserkers keep the exhaustion rule) Tavern brawler, because it resolves the monk conflict. Allowing monk and barbarian to multiclass. Ranger and monks keeping the good changes, but can keep the book stuff if they like it better. (We can chat about it)
For sneak attack on a flanked enemy, if that enemy has the “threatened” condition then the sneak attack will apply. It’s also helpful to have sneak attack reaction set to ask.
If you're sick of Shadowheart, make a Gale an Abjuration wizard. He's fully capable of being a support with the insane damage mitigation the reworked Arcane Ward provides. In table top you charge your Ward with spells, increasing it's HP by twice (i think) the level of the spell slot you use to cast the spell. You can then use the ward to block damage to yourself or to your ally as a reaction. For every 1damage that is blocked, your ward loses 1 hp until it runs out and can no longer block damage. So, if you have 20hp on your ward and you take 25 damage, your ward gets reduced to 0 hp and you take the remaining 5 damage. In BG3 you take the remaining 5 damage, except your ward gets reduced to 19. WHen you take more damage, your ward absorbs 19 and then gets dropped to 18 hp. Now instead of your ward having a total of 20 hp, it has 20+19+18+17... +1+0hp = 210 hp before your ward hits 0. Just awesome
One way to consistently get sneak attack via the flanking rule is to have an invisible familiar (either Pact of the Chain Warlock in the party or Shovel if you get it). Due to how BG3 handles combat an invisible familiar won't be pulled into initiative and can roam freely while the party members are in turn based mode.
@@PerpetualSmileHonestly, I don't bother with that either. I'm using a melee Gloomstalker/Thief with high mobility so flanking comes quite easily on an enemy that has my fighter next to it. But I am not sure I'd call it an exploit. The decision to not pull invisible creatures into initiative was a deliberate one on the part of the developers so I think the consequences coming from it are fair game. That being said, I don't really like the implementation and I'd rather have the entire world go to turn based when combat starts.
@@ShaitanAI I would consider it an exploit because flanking an enemy that can't see the other creature would mean the enemy isn't being flanked. Flanking rules simulate how difficult it is to defend against attackers on different sides of you. But if the other attacker is invisible, they effectively don't exist and would not distract your target. It's definitely an exploit. Not a big deal, people can play as they wish
@@PerpetualSmile An invisible creature exists and per the rules can still be felt. Invisibility does nothing for sound, smell, touch or any sense other than sight. Personally I'd consider an invisible enemy as an extra effective flank since you'd still need to defend against a potential attack from it but with the added disadvantage of not being able to see if/when that happens.
@@ShaitanAI I've found the biggest problem with getting Sneak Attack off is that the game rolls a D4 for initiative instead of a D20, so a high dex character is almost always going first and moves ahead into combat before any of the other party members. Of course, 2 levels in Barbarian for Reckless Attack does wonders for the Rogue since it works on Dex builds as well.
My current (and first) build is 2 fiend warlock 2 fighter 3 Thief rogue 5 dragon sorc Haste and drink a potion of bloodthirst. Wear the potent robes and the daredevil gloves (add cha to cantrip damage and ranged spell attacks become melee attacks if you are threatened respectively) Action: eldritch blast Haste action: eldritch blast Action surge: eldritch blast Quicken bonus Action: eldritch blast Quicken Thief action: eldritch blast Kill a creature? Bloodthirst action eldritch blast. Just a cool 18d10+ 32x Cha. Plus with good dex and a shield, an AC of 18
Really like the pact of blade change for warlock. It allows warlocks to be melee or caster focused on any subclass. Table top it would also fix the "1 level hexblade dip" meta issue where in you woukd have to justify 3 warlock levels and make it a more proper multi class
To me the wizard still get's one big upgrade then from d&d - you have soooo much easy access to spell scrolls so you can learn all the spells pretty much as soon as you hit the level to learn it and it feels rare in d&d that you find spell books or several spell scrolls so frequently. Wizards can even learn the unique find familiar spell for Shovel - and the comedy of that nasty demon by itself is worth everything hahahaha.
I decided to make a War Domain Cleric and found a nice rapier pretty early so I pretty much went the route of a DEX based Cleric and much to my surprise it worked out well! I was wondering why I'd never really heard of a DEX based cleric but then I realized "Hey you dumped your STR you really shouldn't be able to equip that massively heavy armor that's boosting your AC so much". I imagine there are still builds out there that would work without heavy armor but man being a walking Juggernaut of Radiant Power stabbing enemies feels fantastic. Then I found the rapier that lets you use your spellcasting modifier to attack so it's kind of a moot point lol
Cleric is never ever a melee fighter, not even war cleric (which one of the worst domain and it sucks either as melee fighter or as caster ) Anyone who use cleric for melee fighter means they use them wrong.
I build Astarion as a thief rogue with two rapiers, the dual wielding feat and the boots that give momentum when dashing. He's a absolute monster and by far my strongest character. It very versatile as you can just do the appropriate 3 action combo of attack, dash, disengage or hide depending of the situation. Want to rush the enemy? dash-attack-attack or dash-attack-hide. Want to stay at ranged and still trigger sneak attack? hide-attack-hide. Need to get away or go somewhere immediately? disengage-dash-dash or triple dash. Want to get away but still do damage? attack-disengage-dash. If the situation demand, he can go all out with 3 attacks, which is a lot of damage if you have someone near to trigger sneak attack. I'm sure I forgot other effective action combination but it very fun to try and find the best one to use each turns. Fit the deadly and mobile vampire archetype too.
So about the wizard, if you go evo school and get to 10, you can add your mod to the damage. For things like magic missle this happens for each hit. And in Act3 you can find gloves that give you a magic version of great weapon master. -5 to attack but +1d8 damage. The best part is currently that works with magic missle when it shouldn't. For massive damage
Other positive Warlock changes: Eldritch Blast can now hit objects, though comes at the cost of reduced range. Pact of the Tome gets new Invocations that grants x3 once per Long Rest spells each.
I built Gale with the "Tank wizard" (abjuration + Agathys) build suggested by Colby and I think it's actually really fun! But it only starts to shine around level 6 or 7
The Armor of Shadows Invocation lets you effectively use it from level 3 (you have to remove and equip armour to case the invocation again, but that is easily quickslotable). Helps to have resistance too (various sources), and Warding Bond is an option from someone else (even a Hireling left in camp).
Nice sum up! Agree to that YES the Monks and Rangers need similar buff ups in tabletop. Its a mess in playtesting now 😒 Also I do hope Larian jam in tons of stuff, sub classes, rule changes, spells, feats et, like from Fizban ( Gem Dragonborn, Drake Warden/ Ascendant Dragon etc ), Tasha ( Spells, rule finectuning, Phantom etc ), Van Richten( Spooky, Undead Pact), Sword Coast ( NOT a useless Dragon Knight? )and not least Xanathar ( Rule, feats and spells, Psi Warrior etc). The latters including 2x feat for EVERY main race. Dragonborns needs their feats, darkvision and hefty content boost adding the 5 Gem dragonborns AND Gem dragon Ancestries for Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer! Mods are great but I prefer the official stuff for ease of auto-use. WotC NEED to beef up Monks, clear up and sharpen the Ranger. Its absurd that still in the playtesting the Monk is just NOPE. *Tinfoil on* Its like they dont want the monk but just make it barely playable. I do love the freedom Barbarian and Sorcerer gets with their rampages of spells, flying limbs and objects everywhere. Tavern brawler option for Monk is a must in TT. Larian should indeed be hired to consult, to help out the wallbanging WotC designers struggle with😔
I saw a poll on YT saying there’s not enough loot in BG3 and I was wondering if we were playing the same game. Imagine a DND campaign with as much loot as BG3
The amount of things isn't really relevant unless those things are individually relevant. So much of the loot is funneled toward specifically the Fighter. It can be pretty deflating carrying 19 really cool weapons that nobody in the party has proficiency for, meanwhile they're mostly equipped with basic gear. In general too many of the cool items you pick up are weapons, because in theory only a small handful of classes even care about weapons.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Monks, Bladelocks, Sword and Valor Bards, and multiple Clerics all care about weapons. Even Druids can get some good mileage out of the Staffs by using Shillaglih.
@@adambielen8996 I question your motive adding monk to the list of weapon users, but technically monk weapons exist I guess. Not really grasping the full idea I was presenting though. There's the ideas about loot being primarily for the Fighter and that weapons make up the vast majority of loot were separate.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 If the majority of Classes can make use of those weapons then clearly they aren't just for Fighters. And Monks love using weapons so yes they are weapon fighters.
Every damage roll, in fact - pair that with the bugged attack roll gloves and Hex, plus some other stuff, and you get ridiculous damage. It is odd they went with the implementation, but it is what it is.
I've been doing a playthrough where you can only use full camping kits and not regular food and drink items to rest. It's also on Tactician so it needs 2 kits per long rest.
As always a fun discussion. I love BG3, but as with the original BG games, it is far too easy to let your items win, or lose for you. And world changing items are available from merchants hanging out in tiny nowhere villages. That is always a problem in CRPGs, but especially in the Baldur’s Gate series. In that way it is very true the original.
Biggest change to Barbarians IMO is that you don't have to toggle on Reckless Attack until *after* your initial attack misses!
Isnt it smart to use it anyway in case you roll a crit?
@@Spectr3Not a terrible idea but unless you've stacked crit chance to the sky, it's not worth the penalty.
Personally I love it as a player in a video game but would absolutely not allow it at the table. As a barbarian, taking that massive risk is part of the fun chaos of the class.
I just started playing BG3 (and I love me my barbarians) and I thought I forgot to reckless attack until I issed next turn and it prompted me. Loved it. In fact that's just hwo it should work imo.
But you should be RA before swinging for advantage for more crit chance IMO
One thing I like is they extended the duration of many utility spells like Speak with Animals to last until you long rest. Adds plenty of value.
With the option to recast like Speak with the Dead as needed. Just so many "it's just easier and better this way" rule changes.
Paladin getting their subclass at level 1 actually makes a lot of sense, I mean you are a Paladin BECAUSE of your oath and not the other way around, at least at literally every table I've played that had a Paladin, they would always ignore the fact that they didn't have a subclass and roleplay it as the oath they intended to take.
Exactly. This is something I would do as a DM. You're going to swear an Oath to something/someone, or you're not a paladin. And you will wear that Oath on your sleeve. Always.
The only bad part about the Paladin implementation is not being about to choose a god to follow. Feels especially egregious given all the paladins of X deity that you encounter throughout the game
Since I just build a bunch of characters for one-shots, in the Sacred Oath it is actually mentioned, that you should choose and play your choosen oath before it takes effect at 3rd level. 😎
One DND is up to change that
Yes. It's the whole "training relentlessly to perfect yourself in order to honor an oath that you haven't quite decided on yet," bit. Level one makes sense.
I LOVE how BG3 has helped bring DND back into the conversation. Wizards of the Coast should have paid Larian not the other way around.
WOTC Will always be scummy
That would be a smart decision. Wizards of the Coast dont roll like that.
After the absolute PR disaster of a year this has been for WotC, on both the DnD and MtG sides (rightfully so, too), this game really is the best thing they could have asked for.
WotC should steal a bunch of the changes that Larian did and add them to their new book
@@elmsigreenThey're way too proud and obstinate for that.
For anyone watching and struggling with abilities like Divine Smite and Sneak Attack, the reactions menu Monty brings up actually allows you to determine whether to use almost all of them with the same timing as tabletop.
Divine smite on crit, sneak attack, and things like Bard flourishes can all be triggered on hit just like normal. In the spellbook section of each character's sheet, there's a reactions tab, and you can set all of them there. It's worth checking for everybody, because there's a surprising amount of stuff the game tries to do automatically or separate out that you're going to want manual control over.
Fighter and Monk feel so much better in BG3 because the game makes it way easier to short rest. Too many games in tabletop rely on one or two combats per long rest, which really buffs spellcasters and nerfs martials.
It’s been a treat to play monks in a game where the system rewards it and I think 5e DMs can learn from that!
WotC's design: 6 or more "medium " encounters per Adventuring Day, with 2 Short Rests in the mix . Casters have to preserve their spell slots and rely strongly on Cantrips. In 2/3 of the encounters, martials play the main role. - Reality: Resource management? Which resource management?! Why should our table waste hours with push-over enemies? And, why should our casters not use their spells? And, with 2 encounters per day, why Short Rest?
@@Badbentham as someone who plays a lot of Warlocks this is very true and feels bad.
Wizards are still extremely strong in BG3. Especially in Act 3 there are so many magic items, that boost Spell Save DC and Attack, to the point where you can easily get something like a 23/24 Spell Save DC. Combine that with the still incredibly strong spells the Wizard has access to, and your Wizard, that completely transforms the battlefield with a single spell is still absolutely there. And the ritual spells can be swapped out immediately after casting, so the fact that they need to be prepared for casting isn't really a thing. Also the wizards ability to scribe spells is huge especially since there are so many spell scrolls as loot in the game. And at the end of the day they still have the best and most versatile spell list in the game.
When you mentioned the Bonk multiclass a very cool thing to note is that Way of the Four Elements does not count as casting spells so you can still use their unique "spells" while raging and a lot of them still count as unnarmed attacks so they benefit from Rage and Tavern Brawler.
...Time to make another character...
One thing that I think is cool, is that that multiclass works in D&D!
Literally in the character creator right now making a character knowing this 😂
@@krisjohn4668 not really since you cast them as actual spells in dnd
😮😮😮
Hard disagree on wizard. They make the best swiss army knife for your party. Theres many times where I just flip open Gales spellbook change a spell out for another, cast it and then switch it back to the original spell once I'm done. Which is also even made stronger by the fact the game throws tons of scrolls to grab and learn spells as long as you have the money giving you a huge pool to draw from.
Agreed - I do the same with my cleric, also. Basically, every utility spell is available all the time.
I love love casting ice spells as Gale and making everyone fall prone XD!!! Especially after you get that ring in Act 2 that freezes the ground.
21:27 sneak attack damage is a lot more noticeable if you set it to ask if you want to sneak attack in the reaction menu, because the number shows up separately at a slight delay
Plus it triggers another concentration check, and if you're doing it from non combat like a surprise attack you can get double sneak attack with two hand crossbows.
28:50 - Kelly perfectly elucidates why I am living my best life right now 🥰 - also - new favorite word: Shenaniganery 😂
I think you're underestimating the wizard being able to change out their spells at any point. There are so many scrolls in the game. You can give them all to Gale and suddenly, he knows every spell for every situation and can swap them out at a moment's notice.
Yeah Gale never leaves my party lol. His utility is just too good. Plus with potions of speed/haste he is casting two huge spells per turn. Ice/water surfaces is such a big deal in BG3 that basically give your entire party double damage if they are using cold or lightening and drastically slowing down the enemy. This makes spells like ice storm so very juicy. Let's not even get into the amount of summons he can call at once.
I also find the early levels you just gotta play differently. You don’t have many great damaging spells so I spent act 1 with dual shortswords, mage armour, shield, thunderwave and a few other utility spells to make me like a battlemage in other fantasy games. As I hit level 7 and got access to level 4 spells and a good amount of level 2/3 spell slots I swapped out for an aoe mage with things like hold person, slow and tasha’s for support casting. Wizard is by far one of my favourite classes just due to their ability to adapt to literally ANY situation
@@adoman97 I dunno: the very underrated acid splash cantrip and sleep spell works great for early game as an evoker.
@@adoman97i mean, all my characters get 14 str 14 dex 12 con and whatever is left into their spell ATR. Everyone is a hybrid build up to level 5, after that you actually have enough spell slots and have to focus in Str, dex, or spells
Yeah, Gale and Wyll trade places a bit early on. But from lvl5, Gale never leaves the party, and Wyll is in camp dancing.
Larian clarified the Deepened Pact feature with Pact of the Blade at level 5 is intentionally stacking with Extra Attack given from other classes. THIS IS NOT A BUG.
It seems to me that it’s intended to work like how dread ambusher works
Edit: Nvm found the blogpost.
Whats your source? Saw a reddit post a few weeks ago, where op shared a screenshot from the support, that said, they know of the bug and are working on it, so I thought it was a bug?
@@gequetscht1031 In the latest p[atch it was mentioned as an example of something working as intended.
@@KoKoNuTz232 Just went to the patch notes and ctrl+f'd "Deepened". Deepened pact was not mentioned anywhere in the patch.
@@gequetscht1031 What blogpost? I went through patch notes #1, #2, and #3 and Deepened Pact isn't mentioned in any of them.
With Eldritch Knights a bound weapon just reappears in you hand in 5e it is a bonus action to return to your hand. This makes a thrown weapon fighter viable (a dream of mine and my current BG3 character).
Returning Pike is also just a great weapon in the early-mid game
Ring of Flinging + Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo are even stronger than people would think because they actually apply their damage bonuses to the 1 damage that you get from having Lightning Charges.
Also, Minthara's Soul Branding ability is supposed to be expended after one attack, but if you throw your weapon it doesn't go away. So you could add 2d4 to your weapon's damage, 2d4+1 extra lightning damage, and 2d4+3 damage from Soul Branding to every single thrown weapon on top of Tavern Brawler. And that's without the extra damage from the Lightning Burst which would be 1d8+1d4+1d4.
If you want to spice it up, there is a merchant that sells a Glaive that lets you imbude any weapon with a Element, giving you some extra damage and thematics. I think it's called the Dragon Glaive or something like that.
You forgot to mention how much at-will rerolls changes things. In Act 3, I ended up giving Karlach gloves and a ring to push her Str and Con to 22, so I rerolled her to have her base stats for those at 8, then instead dumped it all into Dex and gave her good scores for all her mental stats. When you can basically rebuild a character in Act 3 with their endgame gear in mind, it leads to some insanely broken stuff.
I laughed out loud when I saw the paladin's "Smite on crit" reaction option. Larian understands how to play this class.
You can swap out which spells you have prepared on the fly. Note that if you un-prepare most spells that have a lasting effect (like Mage Armor) the ongoing effect ceases. However, you can summon a familiar then replace that prepared spell with another and your familiar sticks around.
my favourite thing is adding gale to the party, casting mage armour on familiars and karlach (because for some reason it stacks with barb AC) and longstrider on everyone, then swapping him back out. similar thing with shadowheart but doing cleric spells
You don't have to up-front decide to smite. You can set it up via the reactions menu.
That's how it works in the 5e system. You choose to smite "when you hit with a melee weapon attack."
Came here to say that.
Potion bonus action, throwing potions as a main action. Great Change imo, gives potions a reason to exist.
18:20 I have it set to always ask on smites of all levels including crits. It's just a checkbox on the reactions list. This way I can more effectively budget my spell slots and tailor smites to the appropriate amount of damage I need to finish an enemy. Hope this helps some of you.
One of the bigger Druid changes (that I still hope gets fixed) is not being able to interact with your concentration spells while Wildshaped. Really changes how a moon druid plays to me.
I also feel giving all druid subclasses owlbear devalues moon druids.
@@daniele4568if you go moon Druid 11 and wizard 1 you get all the extra wild shape bonuses moon druids have and can get access to a better spell list than land Druids anyways.
Yeah I stopped playing moon druid because combat was just too boring with it given spells were si limited. Beastmaster ranger kinda does it better.
I definitely don't appreciate that change. But then again, the moon druid's myrmidon wildshapes are really tasty
These are fun. The longer I've played 5E, the more I've thought about changing a lot of the lamer or more stifling rules for our own campaign. We've done a few of them to great effect. In an upcoming one, we've got a bunch of them we're going to try out all at once and see how it works. Worst case, we revert some of them or further modify them, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun and maybe freshen up some things about the game that have started to become stale for us.
Yeah, the completely free item interactions (weapon swapping, potions, casting with a sword) are just such nice changes, juggling arcane focuses and swapping weapons and potions always felt clunky in 5e, and they didn't really change balance. Always felt like it was just for legacy reasons
20:45 I gave Astarion a ring that gives him advantage on all attacks but disadvantage on all saving throws. Since saving throws are rare for the most part later in the game it’s a guaranteed sneak attack with little to no drawbacks
Lore Bards cutting words affects saving throws. it has came in clutch for me.
Regarding the Wizard one level dip for learning spell scrolls, that seems to be taken from the base Spellcasting feature: Copying a Spell into the Book: When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook *if it is of a spell level you can prepare* and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it. -and- Preparing and Casting Spells: You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast... *The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.*
I have definitely come across scrolls that I couldn't copy yet and Gale was a full wizard. Multiclassing a 1 level wizard dip with another full spell caster would still let allow you to eventually copy all the scrolls.
I came to this realization as well. But if you're casting as a wizard, your spellcasting attribute is INT which isn't really suitable for any spellcasters other than eldritch knights and arcane tricksters (though it could be very good for them).
For anyone else, there is still room to benefit even if INT is your dump stat, for things like counterspell, create or destroy water, and plenty of others that don't involve contests, AC, or DC.
Also you'll only ever be able to memorize very few spells in your spell book, at least on the tabletop rules. Not sure how BG3 handles multi class spell lists.
@@derekschmidt5705 It separates spell LISTS, but combines SLOTS. So if you're cleric 4 / Wiz 1, you can scribe and prepare Fireball or Lightning Bolt, even though you don't have enough levels in either class to learn them naturally, because you have a third-level spell slot; and it would use your INT for any spell attack rolls or dc's. It also separates how many you can prepare from each class. So as a character I mentioned before, with 16 INT you'd be able to prepare 4 total Wizard spells, plus however many Cleric spells you'd get in the Cleric tab separately. From my experience you don't really need that many memorized anyway, just certain ones like you mentioned. Shield and Haste come to mind immediately.
Enraged Throw on Berserker Barbarian no longer gives a -1 penalty after Patch 3. Huge buff!
Someone at Larian LOVES Barbarians, Monks, punching, and throwing stuff...
Bonkers buff. Check out Sintee for Tactician builds that destroy everything.
@@chuckchan4127 wish that person worked at wotc
Thanks for this video! As a dnd veteran myself just starting off in Baldur's Gate, this is a great resource for helping me learn the game!
Don't sleep on enchantment wizards. Mine absolutely trivialized fights in Tactician mode with Hypnotic Gaze and dual targeting enchantment spells. There are so many items that boost spell dc; enemies didn't stand a chance to resist.
When I get BG3 I'm definitely making a Bonk with Barb 2/Monk X Dex build for my first playthrough. I've been trying to get this build to work for years and the simple changes that you've mentioned have cleared the way. I'm ready to bonk my way through Baldur's Gate
open fist Bonk with great weapon mastery and tavern brawler works crazy good I did a variation of this and it's insanse ruclips.net/video/4KwjG08DUaQ/видео.html
At the end of the paladin part you say that you have to declare a divine smite before the attack. While that is possible you can also just use the reaction-tab you mentioned and make it so that on hit you get asked if you want to smite (and with what kind of spell slot). That way you can use any kind of melee attack and then get divine smite on top. (Especially nice with a mod that adds BB and GFB)
Same thing for Sneak Attack.
Man I love y’all’s videos! You’ve helped me really understand dnd and now I’m excited to play my next campaign. Thank you!
The reaction menu is a big thing to get familiar with. It lets you smite and sneak attack on any appropriate attack without having to specify.
I have a lot of fun with a Light Domain Cleric. You know how much exciting fun Clerics can be and in BG3 it just hits right for me. Thank you for the video!
You do end up NEEDING to have long rests often, because many story moments happen by the campfire :)
I spam long rests, but i dont use supplies.
After a long rest I often do a second supply-less long rest
Something I noticed too is that your AC stays the same if you have a Shield equipped, even when using your Ranged Weapon. So, if you're proficient with shields but plan to be a ranged character, might not be a bad idea to equip a shield anyway just to get the AC boost.
Which is so stupid, it's a straight up buff which definitely wasn't intended in 5e and forces all enemies to have a higher chance to hit in general
This. It is extremely powerful and now for some reason my xbow ranger has more AC than my front line tank. Probably not ideal imo.
It's a bit funky from a flavour perspective, but it's an unavoidable consequence of allowing playing to switch between melee and ranged weapon sets without using an action. Given that that change feels really nice to play with, I think it's worth the funkiness.
The change to Thief Rogue is really good and honestly, I’m tempted to implement that for my table if it’s for campaigns that are under 13th level. Mainly because the features that thief rogues get at 13th level and higher are rarely seen since most campaigns end before those levels.
I do miss a few spells that were added from other extra books, but I'm having a fantastic time with being a wizard. She runs with Karlach, Shadowheart and Laez'zel
I love how happy Monty looks with his large dice tray.
It's fun seeing y'all get excited over new build ideas~ xD
I also made Wyll a Paladin.
Honestly I found it really easy to use sneak attack. Appart from the normal advantage, just having a (non-reach) melee partymember next to the target is the easy way. Otherwise continually hide. You can see the visibility cones on screen, manouvre your (ranged) rogue just outside them, and use cunning action hide to gain easy advantage.
18:03 thats only by default. you mentioned the reaction menu but didnt mention that smite on any attack is also a reaction (though its off by default). for best results you should always swap both smite on crit and smite on any attack on and select "ask" so it'll ask if you want to use it on any attack you use. this goes the same with sneak attack.
Ive been playing a Devotion Paladin for a while now and I did not know about the Auto-Smiting criticals. That explains so much now...
Yes, finally. I REALLY needed this video. Changes for Ranger, for one, for my favorite Gloomstalker5/Assasin4/Battle Master3 are quite confusing
sneak attack can also be enabled as a reaction that the game asks if you want to apply after every attack as well. Also I've found that the best way to get advantage consistently for ranged rogues is to hold shift so you can see the vision cones, walk outside of the red areas and then bonus actions hide.
Also cutting words applies to saving throws as well making a control focused lore bard insanely strong
Beastmaster ranger is HUGE! It’s a very big deal starting with early game.
The different pets can do wildly different things that can actually have good utility (like web stopping all fall damage).
But! Hunter’s Mark is crazy. Pets get that damage (called Prey’s Scent) on their attacks. Before long that single first level spell slot will be worth 4D6 damage per round every round and at the end of the game can potentially be worth 6D6 damage per round.
Let that sink in. 6D6 … per round. Pretty much every round.
The boar companion can rage unlimited times per day. While raging it gets a bonus action attack. At level 11 pets gain an extra attack from attack action.
Ranger gets two attacks from attack action, then a bonus action attack (these can be ranged attacks with sharpshooter and hand crossbows).
Boar ends up with two attacks per attack action and a bonus action attack. Plus that boar is taking half damage and also gets +2 damage per attack from rage.
Downside … pet pathing will need babysitting. And, pets used to make people in towns flip out. I think the last patch toned this down a bit.
I think I used my Raven and Spider one time each. I mainly use bear and throw in wolf sometimes. Both of their level 11 abilities are really good. Should summon the other ones to check out what their level 11 abilities are.
@@XanderHarris1023 if you like the devil’s sight warlock invocation the raven gets unlimited darkness spells.
There is room to have more party members take a couple warlock levels for that invocation to have a party that can (mostly) see in the dark.
The bear has a good taunt and the disarm/prone is amazing.
Found the wolf to be problematic in a way that other pets weren’t. It make no sense. It seemed like the game thought the wolf was bigger than it was. Or, maybe it was that section of the game and ANY pet would be problematic (which is most likely .. but it left a bad taste in my mouth).
The boar and bear were my sweet spots (I’d like to take that back … I don’t like the phrasing one bit 😬 )
The Dire Raven's curse ability is crazy good as it seems to apply almost every time. And giving everyone advantage to attack enemies is amazing.
I think BG3 is fantastic and I love the improvements they put in. I do find it funny the things they didn't seem capable of implementing properly though only because those same things (like sneak attack with flanking) were implemented just fine in Solasta. That's not me saying one is better than the other, but both are well worth playing!
I plan on being a Bonk for my Durge playthrough. Glad to know its been endorsed!
Rogue and monk is stronger unless you rest a ton.
Very few rages per day. Fewer ki per short rest. These are limiting.
The game is easy. You can play though with just about anything. But, barbarian with monk isn’t very strong.
The armor is something. But you do lose out on some monk benefits with armor and there are VERY few medium armor items that let you apply full dex modifier (2 of them that I recall).
It may be possible to build something … but at some point you might as well make a two weapon barbarian and take 3 levels of rogue for four attacks per round and get full access to barbarian … or wear all monk stuff and basically be a monk and take rogue levels if you want.
There’s a LOT of great monk items. You’d need to abandon those things and basically gear like a barbarian for this ….
And tavern brawler on monk is just cheesy and badly balanced. It’s not needed. But pure monk and that would definitely be better than the barbarian monk combo.
Loving these BG3 videos. I hope to see some builds guides from you guys at some point.
Reach weapons mess up the "melee range" requirement of sneak attack, but it does work. The fact that the game doesn't use a 5ft grid makes it hard to know if someone's close enough.
21:03 You don’t have to select Sneak Attack up front. You can set it up on the Reaction tab to automatically apply it or ask you if you want to.
I have followed Colby’s build for a throwing barbarian/rogue (seemingly similar to Monty’build) and it’s hilarious and very effective !
Colby have some realy interesting builds! and I didn't know how the abjuration wizard worked in BG3 untill he explained it! I now have a Lae'zel with Eldritch Knight + 2 levels abjuration wizard! She is tanking so good right now!
I did this too, giving Karlach every dagger I found until I got the legendary trident that returns to your hand after throwing it. I also found a versatile glaive that can be used for sneak attack.
@@robertparks3670 versatile glaive??? havn't found that! sounds strong! is it d10 with two-handed d12?
I got two games going! my main game character is a 6 levels shadow monk and 4 levels tempest cleric! my dark urge character is paladin, bard, sorcerer, warlock, rogue, fighter, cleric and going for monk and barbarian for the last two levels! I'm going for that achievement! all 12 classes here I go!
the problem is that there aren't that many cantrips in the game to make them good! but having a focus on charisma works great for dialogs!
@zoddlander I mistyped, I meant finesse which is what sneak Attack requires. I was at work and couldn't verify. It's called The Dancing Breeze, and is found early in Act 3 at the Rivington General.
you can change non crit smite to ask as well, meaning if you for example get an opportunity attack you can add smite to it even when it doesn't crit
Thanks!
Thank you!
23:23 if you down a bloodlust elixir (one of the absolute best ones imo) and haste fireball fireball you can often get a 3rd fireball on your haste round. And 4 fireballs on subsequent rounds. Really powerful stuff.
Up to 5 Fireballs is possible.
@@adambielen8996 if you add 2 levels of fighter for the action surge yes
Great video guys!
You can set it to ask you about sneak attack damage so it functions like a reaction which has been pretty helpful for me sine then I never need to click the sneak attack button. Also, to trigger sneak attack from someone being engaged they need to be close enough that if they tried to move away they would get an opportunity attack. Then you get sneak attrack. I tend to have Astarion trail a bit behind Karlach to kill steal. lol
I think you are underrating the wizard a bit in BG3, they are definitely much weaker than in 5e closing the gap with other classes, but they are also that good in 5e. 1) Summoning spells are absolutely insane as they cost no concentration and last till long rest, this is a massive upside over sorcerers, full a full adventuring day you can have 2 earth memphits to restrain enemies and a air myrmydon applying a stun and good damage each turn 2) Some low level spells are insanely buffed so that both wizards and sorcerers do much better at lower levels of play. Grease is an excellent to spent a first level spell slot with the buff in the prone condition, cloud of daggers has its range doubled and does two instances of damage before the opponent gets his first turn.
I thought you could only have one summon from each type of spell? I tried summoning a second elemental with a Druid and the first one went away. I could use the dryad and the elemental together.
@@Illianor123 Conjure minor elemental gives you 3 choices:- Summon Azer (Fire), Summon 2 Ice Mephits, Summon 2 Mud Mephits. So, yeah, you can only have it cast once, but you have 2 mephits if thats the option you pick.
Bladesinger mod is amazing! I highly recommend the mod - makes wizard fun and there are items that really support it.
I love hearing about all the cool new mods coming out, I shouldn’t be surprised to hear there’s a Bladesinger one
With Land druids you get to pick a different land every time which means when you get to high level you can have chosen a combination of lands with the best spells. In TT you pick your land once and stick with (so forest all the way for example)
So I found out that if you want a good DPS cantrip as a cleric you can just take the feat Spell Sniper and it makes the new chosen cantrip use your casting modifier. Fabulous!
Monk is fantastic in BG3. Especially at low levels and it’s amazing again at higher levels.
Be careful multiclassing it though. A lot of people are accidentally doing trap builds that weaken things.
Barbarian + monk sure seems like a trap to me. You don’t get many rages. Those levels do nothing for you when the rage is gone. Those levels outside of monk also diminish your ki points.
Some people talk about cleric + monk which also feels like a trap.
Thief rogue + monk is the natural combination to get the extra bonus action attack. It’s a small dip and it gives you something in every round for every fight and doesn’t require rests. This also lets your monk with a little bit of thief do your lock picking if needed.
Unarmed attacks get pretty brutal as you gear up. So, having an extra bonus attack each round once you reach level 8 is a pretty big deal!
The only monk class good with thief is just Open Hand, because open hand get level 6, it's already get the most powerful and destruction tool, plus the resonance strike only use 1 ki point for the detonation, so you don't need as much ki as four elements and shadow monk.
And yes, this is one major reason why open hand is way more powerful than 4E and shadow - why do utilities or prone when you can kill 1 or few enemies in one turn???
A lot of people subclass just only see short term but never in long term, that's why so many people dip 1 war domain for the 3 time bonus attack per long rest (guess they didn't know there are weapons that let you use bonus attack for full damage) but don't know there are many fears are very good.
@@violau8550 I agree with most of that. I do disagree with some of your verbiage.
I think open had is the most powerful. We agree on that. I wouldn’t agree that it’s the only good subclass.
I don’t think that most directly powerful is the same as the requirement to be good.
The root of what thief adds to monk is an extra bonus action attack each turn. That’s great for any monk.
Full disclosure, I’ve not played way of shadow monk in BG3 (did play one for 11 levels in tabletop D&D). I’ve played a lot of open hand and I did try elements because it’s so terrible in real D&D and I want to see how they changed it.
I’m still not very familiar with elements. But, there’s a very inexpensive option that gives you fire damage and ranged attacks with your unarmed strikes (or monk attacks, I don’t recall the exact wording). I think there’s a clear advantage to a quick easy ability that gives you extra damage and increased range for potentially 16 extra attacks (2 main attacks, 2 bonus attacks, speed/haste for 2 more, bloodlust elixir for 2 more … and I believe you get all of that until the end of the following turn which means two rounds of extra damage and range on your attacks … this is costing you a single ki point, an elixir (which last a REALLY long time on builds that don’t need to rest often), and haste or speed potion which is the real consumable for this combo. And … of course you can flurry for each bonus action to increase that to 20 attacks in two turns with extra damage and range.
I haven’t done any experiments to see if the temp hit points and extra attacks are best, or if extra crit range is better because you have so many attacks.
At any rate … I’d bet money that both elements and shadow are perfectly fine, even if open fist is excellent and the most straight forward of the three.
@zero11010 I don't think you really get what I mean before you disagree with me, first you said you dont aggree with me then you said you didnt play shadow or 4e.
I play monk and all subclass multiple times, you can't sub rogue to 4E and shadow like open hand, because they need all the ki they can get to function, since all their spells need ki a lot. Shadow and 4E is utilities monk, they can't deal same damage as open hand.
And one fireball use 4Ki, one open hand resonance detonation just use 1 ki and can deal almost same damage or even more to a group of enemies.
And 4E monk, you use your full action to cast a weak spell from a distance, then what, you get close to enemy and use bonus action? No, the time you use your spell means you won't be able to use your bonus action, unless you can wear hand crossbow. Just that already a lot less damage than open hand.
And shadow monk doesnt give more damage, you can get advantage or psychi damage from shadow strike, but those need some set up, from one dark place to another.
Overall open hand just straight forward and kill, while other subclass just more utilities. And of course tavern brawler just boost open hand damage through the roof that 4e and shadow can never ever compete with.
@@violau8550 I’m not reading that wall of text, man. I disagree that the requirement to be good is the same as being best.
Also, you’ve misrepresented the things I said.
@zero11010 yawn, someone who wrote wall of text now said they don't want to read another wall of text, basically it just mean "I don't understand anything you said but I don't want to admit it."
Lol, you said I misinterpreted your comments, yet you already said that "I never use shadow" and "I'm not familiar with 4 elements", means you basically didn't make any solid points for people to misinterpreted in the first place.
I’d love to see a list of BG3 items you, as a DM, want to put into your game!
I’m personally enjoying the item that blesses anyone I heal, makes healing really helpful!!
Longstrider being a ritual spell that lasts until next long rest REALLY helps out the Barb, among many other classes.
Have someone cast it on everyone, and it really shines with the barb
It's also amazing for the shorter ancestries: gnome, halfling, dwarf
Two very major things you missed from the druid:
1. *All* druids get most wildshapes, Land druids can turn into dinosaurs and owlbears and panthers. The only ones exclusive to Moon are bear and elementals (which are myrmidons here)
And 2: Land druid gets to pick a different land for every spell level, and the spell lists are very souped up.
These together make the Land Druid imo the strongest spellcasters in BG3, while also getting medium armor and shields *and* powerful wildshapes.
Got to be careful for when you long rest, or even going to camp, because certain quests will progress without you after a certain amount of time. When Halsin goes to find Thaniel being the one I'm thinking of.
Grymforge can also be hit hard with this.
RIP Deep gnomes
I'm loving my swords bard, it's made me want to run one in the tabletop. A huge positive change for me is them being able to use their blade flourishes on ranged attacks - makes them a lot more versatile.
For sneak attack: use warlock to find familiar (imp) and make invisible. It doesn’t enter turn-based mode, so you can freely move it next to targets whenever you want and still counts as advantage, so you always get sneak attack.
They didn’t mention the most important wizard feature, being able to learn the scroll with shovel and having that familiar every short rest.
you can have two shovels, learn the spell with Gale, then talk with other character respecced to have spell slots ( I respecced Astarion for the occasion so now I can sneak attack on every turn as having Astarion's Shovel next to enemy makes them have the condition "Threatened" which allows for sneak attack.
If you want the Cleric Divine Intervention weapon but don't want to use Shadowhearts one casting of the spell, use a cleric hireling. Have it cast the spell and take the weapon.
I personally love the extra attack options given per weapon and am starting to utilize it in my current campaign. Just play testing it as of now, but excited to have every weapon have something different about them. And giving resistance types or bonus to skills per armor types. Gives players something else to invest money in!
The very first thing Kelly said is the most relatable thing I’ve heard all year.
Also in regard to the Deepened pact giving 3 attacks, I find it funny that the new UA for the new PHB allows warlocks to attack 3x at level 11 and you cannot convince me that was not a decision made because of this bug
Apparently Larian has confirmed the extra attacks from Warlock staking is not a bug. But only with Warlock's specifically.
Wording on the pact already suggested it is not a bug.
saddle up, wyll, you're getting multiclassed now!
I haven't been able to get and play the game, but the content you guys are making about it makes me wish I was able to
For the rogue's sneak attack, i highly recommend getting the "Risky Ring" in act 2 (i think in Moonrise Tower) that gives all attack rolls advantage for the trade off of disadvantage on saving throws. Then you never need to worry about not being able to sneak attack.
On the subject of Rogue Sneak Attack. You can get it to trigger without advantage or clicking it on the bar. It does work with allies in melee, they just have to be a bit closer than you think visually. Also, in the reaction menu for a Rogue, you can choose whether or not Sneak Attack auto triggers, so if you have advantagr or an ally close enough, you can hit and have the reaction come up as an option to use it or not
I'm a little disappointed polymorph doesn't allow my wizard to change into any monster (maybe below a certain level?). However I can see where that could trivialize a ton of BG3 encounters. Awesome game and it's been a great intro to D&D!
Dang Kelly, your shirt brings back so many childhood memories.
Wizards are great when paired with a party utilizing them imo, im currently running a necromancer on my dark urge evil playthrough, that paired with my spore druid i have tons of undead and summons around at all times in act three. That paired with also having shadowheart running a tempist claric/sor im covering the field in water and the two are blasting everyone away with lightning
Swords Bards can use their flourishes with ranged weapons and specifically Slashing Flourish (ranged) doesn't require the targets to be next to each other AND you can choose the same target. This lets you attack twice with what would otherwise be one attack roll. Dualwielding Hand XBows with the Thief Rogue, Action Surge, and Bloodlust elixir just makes you an absolute menace.
The Sword Bard in BG3 might be my favorite subclasses in the whole game. It's so much better than the 5e version with just a few minor tweaks. Also the ability to duel wield hand crossbows helps them quite a bit.
A couple of wizard specific mentions. Having the hireling gnome wizard, Sir Fuzzalump, cast longstrider on everyone eahc morning, as well as darkvision on those who need it, means you don't waste a preperation slot on an active party member. On top of that, if you make him a Transmuter (mostly to get better alchemical production) you can also give his transmuter's stone out to someone as well. Tis doesn't work with concentration spells, just ones that last till a long rest. Second, there are some spells that don't seem to have in game scrolls for them, that includes Shield, but a 1 level wizzy dip can get that anyway, it also includes counterspell, which 'maybe' a good thing, otherwise it would devalue the wizard more? Lastly, the implementation of both Divination wizard portent and it's improvements, and abjuration's arcane ward, make both of those classes really strong, true, portent can't be used on skill checks, but in combat, my Gale has flipped a dice roll SO many times, and with the extra dice and regaining them on prohecy competion, he usualy has one still useable when I really need it. (But, yes, Shadow with 1 wizzy lvl, hastes herself, then create water plus lightning bolt is just evil, also wall of fire, has no save, so doesn't matter if your Int isn't great on such a build, Shield, Lightning Bolt, Haste and Wall of Fire, replaced at top lvl w Chain Lightning, as her nominal 4 prepared wizard spells w the circlet just ommphs her spellcasting for the cost of a feat, DEAL!)
Weird, I haven't been having any issues with Sneak Attack. You can actually add it to your reactions just like Divine Smite, so that Gloomstalker/Thief can gamble on applying it on a crit with their fourth attack.
My biggest DM takeaways from bg3 are:
Reckless attack after missing. (Mostly for people who forget to use it)
Removing exhaustion from berserker (I already replace it with the haste ending rule), and giving them the strain rule for heavy/improvised throws and bonus attacks. (Sometimes I use the 10 point exhaustion table and berserkers keep the exhaustion rule)
Tavern brawler, because it resolves the monk conflict.
Allowing monk and barbarian to multiclass.
Ranger and monks keeping the good changes, but can keep the book stuff if they like it better. (We can chat about it)
For sneak attack on a flanked enemy, if that enemy has the “threatened” condition then the sneak attack will apply. It’s also helpful to have sneak attack reaction set to ask.
If you're sick of Shadowheart, make a Gale an Abjuration wizard. He's fully capable of being a support with the insane damage mitigation the reworked Arcane Ward provides.
In table top you charge your Ward with spells, increasing it's HP by twice (i think) the level of the spell slot you use to cast the spell. You can then use the ward to block damage to yourself or to your ally as a reaction. For every 1damage that is blocked, your ward loses 1 hp until it runs out and can no longer block damage. So, if you have 20hp on your ward and you take 25 damage, your ward gets reduced to 0 hp and you take the remaining 5 damage.
In BG3 you take the remaining 5 damage, except your ward gets reduced to 19. WHen you take more damage, your ward absorbs 19 and then gets dropped to 18 hp. Now instead of your ward having a total of 20 hp, it has 20+19+18+17... +1+0hp = 210 hp before your ward hits 0. Just awesome
....
i may want to rethink my party and class-subclass makeup
You could also respec Laezal as a wizard since Gale for me is... not handy atm. :)
One way to consistently get sneak attack via the flanking rule is to have an invisible familiar (either Pact of the Chain Warlock in the party or Shovel if you get it). Due to how BG3 handles combat an invisible familiar won't be pulled into initiative and can roam freely while the party members are in turn based mode.
Man I couldn't exploit the game like that. You're not really beating the encounters, imo
@@PerpetualSmileHonestly, I don't bother with that either. I'm using a melee Gloomstalker/Thief with high mobility so flanking comes quite easily on an enemy that has my fighter next to it.
But I am not sure I'd call it an exploit. The decision to not pull invisible creatures into initiative was a deliberate one on the part of the developers so I think the consequences coming from it are fair game. That being said, I don't really like the implementation and I'd rather have the entire world go to turn based when combat starts.
@@ShaitanAI I would consider it an exploit because flanking an enemy that can't see the other creature would mean the enemy isn't being flanked.
Flanking rules simulate how difficult it is to defend against attackers on different sides of you. But if the other attacker is invisible, they effectively don't exist and would not distract your target.
It's definitely an exploit. Not a big deal, people can play as they wish
@@PerpetualSmile An invisible creature exists and per the rules can still be felt. Invisibility does nothing for sound, smell, touch or any sense other than sight.
Personally I'd consider an invisible enemy as an extra effective flank since you'd still need to defend against a potential attack from it but with the added disadvantage of not being able to see if/when that happens.
@@ShaitanAI I've found the biggest problem with getting Sneak Attack off is that the game rolls a D4 for initiative instead of a D20, so a high dex character is almost always going first and moves ahead into combat before any of the other party members. Of course, 2 levels in Barbarian for Reckless Attack does wonders for the Rogue since it works on Dex builds as well.
My current (and first) build is
2 fiend warlock
2 fighter
3 Thief rogue
5 dragon sorc
Haste and drink a potion of bloodthirst. Wear the potent robes and the daredevil gloves (add cha to cantrip damage and ranged spell attacks become melee attacks if you are threatened respectively)
Action: eldritch blast
Haste action: eldritch blast
Action surge: eldritch blast
Quicken bonus Action: eldritch blast
Quicken Thief action: eldritch blast
Kill a creature? Bloodthirst action eldritch blast.
Just a cool 18d10+ 32x Cha. Plus with good dex and a shield, an AC of 18
Really like the pact of blade change for warlock. It allows warlocks to be melee or caster focused on any subclass. Table top it would also fix the "1 level hexblade dip" meta issue where in you woukd have to justify 3 warlock levels and make it a more proper multi class
To me the wizard still get's one big upgrade then from d&d - you have soooo much easy access to spell scrolls so you can learn all the spells pretty much as soon as you hit the level to learn it and it feels rare in d&d that you find spell books or several spell scrolls so frequently. Wizards can even learn the unique find familiar spell for Shovel - and the comedy of that nasty demon by itself is worth everything hahahaha.
I decided to make a War Domain Cleric and found a nice rapier pretty early so I pretty much went the route of a DEX based Cleric and much to my surprise it worked out well! I was wondering why I'd never really heard of a DEX based cleric but then I realized "Hey you dumped your STR you really shouldn't be able to equip that massively heavy armor that's boosting your AC so much". I imagine there are still builds out there that would work without heavy armor but man being a walking Juggernaut of Radiant Power stabbing enemies feels fantastic. Then I found the rapier that lets you use your spellcasting modifier to attack so it's kind of a moot point lol
Cleric is never ever a melee fighter, not even war cleric (which one of the worst domain and it sucks either as melee fighter or as caster )
Anyone who use cleric for melee fighter means they use them wrong.
I build Astarion as a thief rogue with two rapiers, the dual wielding feat and the boots that give momentum when dashing. He's a absolute monster and by far my strongest character. It very versatile as you can just do the appropriate 3 action combo of attack, dash, disengage or hide depending of the situation. Want to rush the enemy? dash-attack-attack or dash-attack-hide. Want to stay at ranged and still trigger sneak attack? hide-attack-hide. Need to get away or go somewhere immediately? disengage-dash-dash or triple dash. Want to get away but still do damage? attack-disengage-dash. If the situation demand, he can go all out with 3 attacks, which is a lot of damage if you have someone near to trigger sneak attack. I'm sure I forgot other effective action combination but it very fun to try and find the best one to use each turns. Fit the deadly and mobile vampire archetype too.
Only gonna put here my solo dark urge tactician g
Had 10 levels of abjuration wizard and it was insane...
Really busted
Hips needed that. Thank you Kassandra! 🖖🏻
So about the wizard, if you go evo school and get to 10, you can add your mod to the damage. For things like magic missle this happens for each hit. And in Act3 you can find gloves that give you a magic version of great weapon master. -5 to attack but +1d8 damage. The best part is currently that works with magic missle when it shouldn't. For massive damage
Other positive Warlock changes:
Eldritch Blast can now hit objects, though comes at the cost of reduced range.
Pact of the Tome gets new Invocations that grants x3 once per Long Rest spells each.
I built Gale with the "Tank wizard" (abjuration + Agathys) build suggested by Colby and I think it's actually really fun! But it only starts to shine around level 6 or 7
The Armor of Shadows Invocation lets you effectively use it from level 3 (you have to remove and equip armour to case the invocation again, but that is easily quickslotable). Helps to have resistance too (various sources), and Warding Bond is an option from someone else (even a Hireling left in camp).
Nice sum up! Agree to that YES the Monks and Rangers need similar buff ups in tabletop. Its a mess in playtesting now 😒
Also I do hope Larian jam in tons of stuff, sub classes, rule changes, spells, feats et, like from Fizban ( Gem Dragonborn, Drake Warden/ Ascendant Dragon etc ), Tasha ( Spells, rule finectuning, Phantom etc ), Van Richten( Spooky, Undead Pact), Sword Coast ( NOT a useless Dragon Knight? )and not least Xanathar ( Rule, feats and spells, Psi Warrior etc). The latters including 2x feat for EVERY main race. Dragonborns needs their feats, darkvision and hefty content boost adding the 5 Gem dragonborns AND Gem dragon Ancestries for Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer! Mods are great but I prefer the official stuff for ease of auto-use.
WotC NEED to beef up Monks, clear up and sharpen the Ranger. Its absurd that still in the playtesting the Monk is just NOPE. *Tinfoil on* Its like they dont want the monk but just make it barely playable. I do love the freedom Barbarian and Sorcerer gets with their rampages of spells, flying limbs and objects everywhere. Tavern brawler option for Monk is a must in TT. Larian should indeed be hired to consult, to help out the wallbanging WotC designers struggle with😔
Fun fact, the Undead Pact is in the game but only Githanki NPCs will have it.
I saw a poll on YT saying there’s not enough loot in BG3 and I was wondering if we were playing the same game. Imagine a DND campaign with as much loot as BG3
The amount of things isn't really relevant unless those things are individually relevant. So much of the loot is funneled toward specifically the Fighter. It can be pretty deflating carrying 19 really cool weapons that nobody in the party has proficiency for, meanwhile they're mostly equipped with basic gear. In general too many of the cool items you pick up are weapons, because in theory only a small handful of classes even care about weapons.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Rogues, Monks, Bladelocks, Sword and Valor Bards, and multiple Clerics all care about weapons. Even Druids can get some good mileage out of the Staffs by using Shillaglih.
And warlocks. you forgot pact warlocks lol
@@adambielen8996 I question your motive adding monk to the list of weapon users, but technically monk weapons exist I guess. Not really grasping the full idea I was presenting though. There's the ideas about loot being primarily for the Fighter and that weapons make up the vast majority of loot were separate.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 If the majority of Classes can make use of those weapons then clearly they aren't just for Fighters. And Monks love using weapons so yes they are weapon fighters.
Evocation wizard. Magic missle gets their int bonus on every shot. It gets sick higher level
Every damage roll, in fact - pair that with the bugged attack roll gloves and Hex, plus some other stuff, and you get ridiculous damage. It is odd they went with the implementation, but it is what it is.
I've been doing a playthrough where you can only use full camping kits and not regular food and drink items to rest. It's also on Tactician so it needs 2 kits per long rest.
As always a fun discussion. I love BG3, but as with the original BG games, it is far too easy to let your items win, or lose for you. And world changing items are available from merchants hanging out in tiny nowhere villages. That is always a problem in CRPGs, but especially in the Baldur’s Gate series. In that way it is very true the original.