This right here. Fighter is easy to play, super simple to level, and feels strong through beginning, middle, and late game. Plus, you get high strength, which is good for jumping around and carrying lots of items.
I agree with this take. Another note is that Fighters can wear any armor and use any weapons so you can try out whatever weapon sounds cool.
My main warning would be is with taking Great Weapon Master as a new player is knowing if you’re the type of player that will remember to manage that well.
It’s a great feat for an experience player, OP just needs to know if their chance to hit is below say, 70% turn GWM off and take the certain hit.
Having Shadowheart hit an enemy with Guiding Bolt or using Phalar Aluve: Sing can help mitigate that but it is something that can be a bit of a challenge to remember when you’re new to the game.
I disagree with suggesting Great Weapon Master. Battlemaster Fighter is a great class choice, but I'd suggest Savage Attacker.
You need to manage accuracy pretty well to get the most out of GWM, and someone who's learning is going to miss more than they probably want.
Savage Attacker adds respectable damage and scales with Battlemaster dice, extra damage dice from handwear, and extra dice on the weapon itself while letting the player focus a lot more on *learning* all the aspects of the game. It is also more weapon agnostic, so if they find a weapon they want to use other than a two-hander, or if they want to use a shield they still get a benefit from the feat.
Note to OP: Savage Attacker doesn't work on thrown or ranged weapons.
That's what I did and I had a great time. It let me focus on the mechanic of the game without worrying about the mechanic/synergy of my build. Just bonk every enemy.
Laezel carried my first playthrough as a battle master with great weapon master and polearm feat. Would just hulk jump around with haste/long strider/jump buff and wreck
Pick any single class and just run it to the highest level. Don't worry about multiclassing.
I would probably pick a martial class that doesn't use any magic. Barbarian or Fighter are good picks.
If you want a bit of magic, Ranger is good.
If you want to be magic, Cleric. They're less squishy than the other spell casters and if you take Shadowheart with you, you have two sources of healing.
I would suggest pure Paladin. There are two distinct advantages to this choice.
1) They have high charisma, which lets your main character be the "face" of the party.
2) They have Smite. You might read about tough encounters and wonder why they were tough: you just used a potion of Speed or got Gale to cast Haste on you, and you hit the boss a few times and it died. Very very high burst damage when it counts.
If you choose Oath of the Ancients, you'll get access to a lot of healing, and on top of the Aura of Protection saving throw bonus all Paladins get at level 6, you get Aura of Warding at level 7, which halves all spell damage.
When I played this class, I was typically doing way more healing than Shadowheart, who was freed up to use Bless and Spirit Guardians more often. It often makes sense to give an Oath of the Ancients Paladin all the healing-triggered gear that most groups give to Shadowheart.
Finally, as a first-time playthrough, you get free access to Speak with Animals, which makes for a very interesting first-time playthrough.
Yes, this was my first time playthrough class. I consider myself lucky to have chosen it.
Funny enough I think low CHA characters might be more dynamic for a first play through. When the conversation DC is actually only a 5% chance sometimes it offers an amazing feeling when you do something like get the act 2 boss to skip a phase via dialogue
I can attest to this, my first playthrough is one of my favourites and I ran around with a wood half-elf gloomstalker/assassin Tav with 12 charisma at the most
Pick anything. Dont multiclass. Berserks are notoriously easy but may not be the best party face. Paladins are S tier class and are both tanky and strong and are good MC. Learn how the game works wait until late act 2/act 3 before going down the multiclass rabbit hole...
Edit: anything with Charisma as main stat is good MC: bard, paladin, sorc, warlock. Bards can take any form from support to dmg, pala is tank/damage, sorc is mostly aoe damage, warlock is single burst damage.
Ignore optimized builds and play on explorer (easy) for your first run.
Explorer only allows solo class builds (which is what most are recommending here) and is a good way to learn the game and game mechanics. BG3 is meant to be played multiple times.
School of Swords Bard, and I will tell you why: party face. You can talk your way out of an absolutely huge number of fights if you have a high CHA character, and I don't mean piddly little skirmishes. You can talk your way out of multiple bosses, and you still get the EXP for doing so. Bards are one of the classes that get expertise on top of proficiency, so you can have huge bonuses to things like persuasion and deception, which I'd consider the most useful skills in the game. Having anyone other than your main character be the persuasive one is a PITA because the game will prioritise your Tav/Durge and force them into important conversations if they're anywhere nearby. This will also be a great offensive class and will have a good number of great combat and utility spells without overwhelming you with the crazy number of options that some other casters get. There are loads of good SSB tutorials and guides out there as well because it's such a popular and versatile class.
It's not my favourite class personally, but it's what I run for honour mode through the first two acts because it really does everything and it hits hard.
Just run single classes on explorer or balanced and you should do fine for a first playthrough. When you've got some practice start thinking about builds once you get the mechanics and think up something you'd like to do.
Any charisma based class: Paladin, warlock, sorcerer, bard. All of these make a good party face and are strong classes. I would not multiclass until you understand the game better
Youre gonna get a lot of mixed answers here. The best answer I can give you is to do your first playthrough blind and however you want. You wanna be a thief? Or a wizard? Create a little backstory in your head and enjoy yourself.
12 Champion Fighter is the simplest build that holds its own all game in all but the hardest difficulty.
They can use any armour and weapon, get 4 feats, more critical hits, longer jumps to avoid the frustrating "enemy too far" issue and best of all have 3 attacks per action by act 3.
Try to pick the Alert feat to help you attack before the enemy.
*edit: Race isn't very important, though Duergar have some nifty bonuses. DO NOT PICK "The Dark Urge" for your first playthought.*
Completely new to the mechanics and system here’s what I would do:
- Tav Vengeance Paladin, you wear heavy armour and use a 2 handed weapon. Get close and hit things hard, use spell slots for smiting which makes you hit harder. Your highest stat should be strength at 17, then get charisma and constitution as high as you can. You don’t need intelligence or wisdom. Nor dexterity really
- Shadowheart- here’s where you need some minor knowledge because you want to respec her to a life cleric once you meet a character called withers. Life cleric is the best healer and if you’re new can save you in a lot of situations. Focus on having high wisdom and mainly keep healing spells to keep your party alive and use guiding bolt or inflict wounds for damage. When you respec boost her constitution and strength as high as you can. If you find an item called luminous armour use that
- Lae’Zel - battlemaster fighter, easily best melee build in the game. Similar to the paladin get a big weapon and heavy armour and hit hard. Trip attack is good, as is precision strike, riposte is very strong too. If you don’t want to manage the penalty to hit chance with great weapon master then go for sentinel instead
- Karlach - bear heart barbarian, get a big weapon, no armour, rage and hit things hard. For a feat take great weapon master, if you miss a pop up comes up and asks if you want to reckless attack (basically try again to hit) do that
Once you’re past the first 4 levels then casters become very strong, use Gale and drop one of Karlach or Lae’Zel
- Gale as an evocation wizard, try and boost his armour class as high as you can. Focus on boosting intelligence and dexterity where possible. Dexterity lets you go early in the combat order more often. Use a big spell like fireball and deal a tonne of damage to a large group of enemies. When you can’t fireball use magic missiles or scorching ray
Once you’re comfortable with the system play around with different builds by respec’ing your characters with withers. You can search this sub for some really strong ones involving a bard or sorceror which can make the game trivial on even the hardest difficulty
For NEW players, this is what I would recommend based on what you want IMHO. Don't multiclass yet. Also, the game is actually harder in the beginning. It gets easier as you play and level up. When you hit levels 5 and 6 you will notice a large power increase. You can adjust the difficulty if you find a particular battle too hard, or you can increase it if you are finding it too easy).
Best overall melee build: Paladin (healing, divine smite damage, tanking, buffing)
The most close-combat damage: Monk (Open Hand w/Tavern Brawler feat when you get to lvl. 4), Fighter battle master will give you more Armor at the cost of some damage, but overall a great damage build. I like disarming attack and riposte the most (lvl. 3)
Most ranged damage w/good stealth capabilities: Ranger Gloomstalker or Rouge Assassin
Damage Spellcaster: Sorcerer w/draconic bloodline.
Best overall spellcasting build: Bard (more control spells than damage, healing, college of lore for cutting words). Bards also seem to have a bit more narrative choices which is nice).
Edit: you really can't go wrong with any of them :)
People like dipping Warlock for a couple points but I really enjoyed playing it basically straight. The Arcanum was kinda meh but upcasting everything to level 5 is pretty solid.
My favourite combo is putting the warlock in the zaithisk so their illithid power are bonus actions and just spamming black hole to keep everything trapped in there
Black Hole is a really weird ability cause when you use it you can recast it every round and it doesn't count as a concentration spell either. Also it resets on short rests.
I've been playing as a Monk, and it's surprisingly easy and pretty cool. Does a lot more damage than anyone else I've played.
I like playing spellcasters usually, but playing a Monk kind of forces me to play Gale and Wyll more, and I'm actually appreciating that aspect this run.
Circle of moon druid is a very good build for beginners IMO since there's absolutely no reliance on items or even like minmaxed stats at all, you just turn into a cool monster and punch shit.
only downside is that you cant talk to people while in cool monster mode and a lot of the game is about talking so its a tad clunky making sure to switch in and out at the right times.
fighter is also a great choice but you need to be more careful with equipment and stats and feats etc.
cleric and wizard both would be great options for caster builds however usually first two followers you get are a cleric and wizard so you probably don't need the overlap.
also!! important tip!! when you unlock the ability to respec your character (which is very early on), dont be scared to respec a lot, it costs gold every time but you can pickpocket the gold back with 0 repercussions for doing so.
also you can respec your other party members too so even if you dont like one of them gameplay wise or want to try out something else you can always just change them!
Swords bard dual wielding hand crossbows! Great on its own, fun to multiclass if you’re interested in that, hilarious dialogue options, great spell selection, great charisma/persuasion for dialogue as well, and can also get expertise in slight of hand for lockpicking. A really good all-arounder for the main character.
This is the right answer. Ranged damage is very powerful in this game and early on getting two attacks is really good. Plus all the out of battle stuff
I did druid on balanced my first run and it was tons of fun.
Bard for my second was too. This is almost certainly the class I will use for my honour mode run whenever I start that.
I actually struggled with my fighter at first but am finally starting to settle into the role. I guess I am a caster at heart.
I second the recommendation not to worry about builds and play on explorer mode, or balanced if you think you can handle it. I should have started on explorer myself since I had no D&D knowledge and was very unfamiliar with the whole way the rolls work in combat.
Knowing how the game works and basic combat tactics are much, much more important than builds. If the build is complex and you don't know how to play it then it will make the game harder for you, even if it's a good build.
For a beginner, I think you should just pick any class you feel like and do straight 12 levels on it. Then you'll have your companions to swap around. They are all good to have straight 12 levels.
What you need to get into the game is to try them all. Bring different people out every day and try their skills.
I suggest Bard. Bards are inherently good at social interactions, they can heal and support, they can fight, and it's one of the few classes that aren't available as a companion.
I always go with a charisma class since your Tav (or durge) is going to be the face in 90% of situations and charisma checks are typically the most important thing to pass.
From there my main preference is sword bard. Jack of all trades and master of all trades.
The multi classes are simple. You go 9 bard, rogue if you're ranged since you get an extra bonus action, or you go 20 bard 2 paladin for melee and just explode stuff because who needs to actually use spells for utility when smite exists. The main draw of Sword Bard are flourishes which are extremely powerful abilities that use your inspiration (which is fine because you can't inspire yourself as the party face).
You're still a full caster, you're great at any skill check since Bard gets a ton of proficiencies in skills and a half proficiency in any skill they're not proficient in and you're one of the best martials in the game on-top of that. oh and you get an extra rest cause you're a bard.
Alternatively Warlock is very solid. Warlocks are unique compared to other spellcasters since your Spell slots recharge at short rests and automatically upcast so resources management and decision making is typically a lot simpler. Also Larian love Warlocks and they have probably the best loot table in the game.
Tbh if you're new just learn to be a swords bard. You'll pick it up quick and its very versatile without needing to do weird things like stock up on very specific potions or weird 1 lvl multiclasses. Bard is a lot of fun and can make you a "main character" type player that you can spam as a do everything character.
I played a really trrrible build my first run but it was a lot of fun. 2 sltempest cleric/5 storm sorc/5 paladin. I grabbed paladin 5 as my last level. Still served me fine through balanced.
Padlock (7 paladin and 5 warlock) is an OP hyper offensive build. It’s also a great party face because it’s charisma based. It gives you 3 attacks in tactician and below and a good array of some decent spells
We are going to need more info. Can you at least give us an inkling of what playstyle you want and what your favorite fantasy race is? Frontliner, magic, ranged, flashy, etc.? Do you care about you character having good lore?
Honestly I don't really care about race and I quite like hyper offensive builds. Also don't care if they use magic, bow and arrows, swords or hand to hand combat just as long as it's they're offensive.
In dnd and bg3, races kind of matter because they have their own passive that boost a particular kind of playstyle or particular niche.
The problem with “hyper offensive” as the only standard is that pretty much everything can do that if you try to make it work. Clerics can become lawnmowers, monk’s whole shtick is to attack a lot of times per turn, sorcerers are particularly cracked in bg3 because you can cast more than 1 leveled spell per turn (unlike in dnd). Paladins can divine smite for an extra wallop of radiant damage on top of weapon damage. Barbarians can use cleave through like an entire formation if you’re set up properly for it. The list goes on and on.
A pretty easy set up I can recommend that comes online pretty early is practically any barbarian set up.
I’m not going to mention feats because they are their own can of worms, but basically, they enhance your build. If you want, check out [this wiki](https://bg3.wiki) if you want to look at general stuff.
Races don't matter at all unless you are doing some weird build/challenge. There might technically be an optimal race for any build, but the overall impact from any race choice is small enough to be irrelevant.
Unless you are going a full crit build it does almost nothing, and if you are full crit then halfling might be better. Either way, adding for example one 1d12 to a crit every 2 attacks comes out to an extra 3 damage per attack, which don't get me wrong is good but not broken by any means.
I understand what you’re saying. My thought process was the standard helmet of acuity, cc’ing the entire field with hold person or monster, guaranteeing the crit, in addition to GWM if you are str based.
So I’m not factoring in crit gear.
Yeah but at that point does it really matter if you have the passive or not? I'm not saying some races aren't good for some builds, just that racials are never important enough to force you to pick a race.
The net you've cast is extremely wide. There are dozens of builds that fit that criteria. I will just pick 3.
Swords Bard is a popular build that will let you melee attack an insane amount of times during a turn and you also has access to all the fun spells they have. You also are a Bard, which has some of the funniest unique dialogue interactions.
Sorcerer Warlock is a very simplistic magic build around a very powerful cantrip called eldritch blast. You shoot out a red beam with a very satisfying visual and sound effect that blows the target back, hits them multiple times and does very high damage later in the game.
Moon Druid builds allow you to turn into a variety of fun creatures and tank for the team. This isn't like other RPGs where you only can turn into boring things like wolfs or bats. Without spoiling things, you get to turn into large, powerful things and wreck havoc. Assuming you are a Druid character, this also has alot of unique dialogue in the first act.
Don’t take great weapon master. It’s not for beginners, you’ll be frustrated.
Good beginner build is a thrower build. All the equipment is available very early and stays for most of the game. Throw the returning pike enemy dies m.
Another good one is dual wield hand crossbow sword bard. 17 dex, 16 cha. Find hand crossbows+1 from vendors, gloves of archery and caustic band and you’re set for white awhile.
Barbarian. extremely easy to build (17 str, rest on dex and con, 8 int, 10 wis and Cha) at level 3 choose berserker , at level 4 choose tavern brawler +1 str.
Level3 and more, you throw enemies to each other and they lose turns getting up while they take insane damage.
Come back and tell me thank you after you love this class.
7 Fighter/5 Warlock works really well if you want to hit really hard at melee and at a distance with Eldritch Blast. Pact of the Blade Warlock scales weapon attacks off charisma, so you don't have to worry about using strength or dex for yiur weapon
5 Gloomstalker/4assassin/3 battlemaster
This is the most beginner friendly and fun class imo you can start as a rogue but ranger gets you an extra attack first
Usually played as a stealth archer but can be melee oriented as well
Best races are duergar the gray dwarfs yes they move slower than the tall races but they have infinite invisibility at level 5 perfect for stealth
Light foot halfing can’t roll less than a 1 with there luck and have advantage on stealth another short race but arguably the strongest good to see dialogue first play through
Half Orc the brutish melee assassin is fun when they land crits they roll an additional damage dice this is perfect for a melee assassin since you get crits if you surprise enemies
Id say rogue over assassin. Assassin wants surprise turns, ideally. You can get more consistent damage with the extra action from rogue, which is probs more beginner friendly
I feel like it depends if you use hand bows or go dual wield because with dread ambusher and advantage from assassin you’re gonna still have a great first round first burst and probably end the fight quicker
I prefer swords bard for a thief handbow archer with fighter
The Ass-Stalker Champion (because gloom stalker assassin sounds lame and you ALL know it):
Rogue/Ranger/Fighter
Assassin 4 / Gloomstalker 5 / Champion 3
You’ll be shitting out crits left and right from range (you can get gear to stack with champion’s increased critical threshold).
Pure fighter, battlemaster, with Great Weapon Master feat.
This right here. Fighter is easy to play, super simple to level, and feels strong through beginning, middle, and late game. Plus, you get high strength, which is good for jumping around and carrying lots of items.
I agree with this take. Another note is that Fighters can wear any armor and use any weapons so you can try out whatever weapon sounds cool. My main warning would be is with taking Great Weapon Master as a new player is knowing if you’re the type of player that will remember to manage that well. It’s a great feat for an experience player, OP just needs to know if their chance to hit is below say, 70% turn GWM off and take the certain hit. Having Shadowheart hit an enemy with Guiding Bolt or using Phalar Aluve: Sing can help mitigate that but it is something that can be a bit of a challenge to remember when you’re new to the game.
Precision Strike helps a lot.
I'd recommend that a new player raise STR to 20 first, before taking GWM at level 8.
For abilities I recommend riposte and precision strike.
Also bear barbarian with Great weapon master. You just don’t die.
16 str, 14 dex, 16 con rest is meh. (This is for a beginner to the game)
I disagree with suggesting Great Weapon Master. Battlemaster Fighter is a great class choice, but I'd suggest Savage Attacker. You need to manage accuracy pretty well to get the most out of GWM, and someone who's learning is going to miss more than they probably want. Savage Attacker adds respectable damage and scales with Battlemaster dice, extra damage dice from handwear, and extra dice on the weapon itself while letting the player focus a lot more on *learning* all the aspects of the game. It is also more weapon agnostic, so if they find a weapon they want to use other than a two-hander, or if they want to use a shield they still get a benefit from the feat. Note to OP: Savage Attacker doesn't work on thrown or ranged weapons.
That's what I did and I had a great time. It let me focus on the mechanic of the game without worrying about the mechanic/synergy of my build. Just bonk every enemy.
Laezel carried my first playthrough as a battle master with great weapon master and polearm feat. Would just hulk jump around with haste/long strider/jump buff and wreck
Pick any single class and just run it to the highest level. Don't worry about multiclassing. I would probably pick a martial class that doesn't use any magic. Barbarian or Fighter are good picks. If you want a bit of magic, Ranger is good. If you want to be magic, Cleric. They're less squishy than the other spell casters and if you take Shadowheart with you, you have two sources of healing.
I think Barbarian, while maybe not as good as fighters, could be more fun because of the dialog options.
I would suggest pure Paladin. There are two distinct advantages to this choice. 1) They have high charisma, which lets your main character be the "face" of the party. 2) They have Smite. You might read about tough encounters and wonder why they were tough: you just used a potion of Speed or got Gale to cast Haste on you, and you hit the boss a few times and it died. Very very high burst damage when it counts. If you choose Oath of the Ancients, you'll get access to a lot of healing, and on top of the Aura of Protection saving throw bonus all Paladins get at level 6, you get Aura of Warding at level 7, which halves all spell damage. When I played this class, I was typically doing way more healing than Shadowheart, who was freed up to use Bless and Spirit Guardians more often. It often makes sense to give an Oath of the Ancients Paladin all the healing-triggered gear that most groups give to Shadowheart. Finally, as a first-time playthrough, you get free access to Speak with Animals, which makes for a very interesting first-time playthrough. Yes, this was my first time playthrough class. I consider myself lucky to have chosen it.
Funny enough I think low CHA characters might be more dynamic for a first play through. When the conversation DC is actually only a 5% chance sometimes it offers an amazing feeling when you do something like get the act 2 boss to skip a phase via dialogue
I can attest to this, my first playthrough is one of my favourites and I ran around with a wood half-elf gloomstalker/assassin Tav with 12 charisma at the most
THIS! Paladins are the single best build in the game. They have healing, damage, buffing, and high armor class (AC, you want a high AC).
Pick anything. Dont multiclass. Berserks are notoriously easy but may not be the best party face. Paladins are S tier class and are both tanky and strong and are good MC. Learn how the game works wait until late act 2/act 3 before going down the multiclass rabbit hole... Edit: anything with Charisma as main stat is good MC: bard, paladin, sorc, warlock. Bards can take any form from support to dmg, pala is tank/damage, sorc is mostly aoe damage, warlock is single burst damage.
Ignore optimized builds and play on explorer (easy) for your first run. Explorer only allows solo class builds (which is what most are recommending here) and is a good way to learn the game and game mechanics. BG3 is meant to be played multiple times.
School of Swords Bard, and I will tell you why: party face. You can talk your way out of an absolutely huge number of fights if you have a high CHA character, and I don't mean piddly little skirmishes. You can talk your way out of multiple bosses, and you still get the EXP for doing so. Bards are one of the classes that get expertise on top of proficiency, so you can have huge bonuses to things like persuasion and deception, which I'd consider the most useful skills in the game. Having anyone other than your main character be the persuasive one is a PITA because the game will prioritise your Tav/Durge and force them into important conversations if they're anywhere nearby. This will also be a great offensive class and will have a good number of great combat and utility spells without overwhelming you with the crazy number of options that some other casters get. There are loads of good SSB tutorials and guides out there as well because it's such a popular and versatile class. It's not my favourite class personally, but it's what I run for honour mode through the first two acts because it really does everything and it hits hard.
Just pick a class that seems cool and run it all the way. Forget builds, worry about those later
Cheers mate I'll probably do that
Moon druid. All the levels. Be spider, make webs. Win.
Moon druid is love, is life. Carried my ass in my first playthrough from start to finish.
Just run single classes on explorer or balanced and you should do fine for a first playthrough. When you've got some practice start thinking about builds once you get the mechanics and think up something you'd like to do.
Oath of vengeance paladin 12. If you are not on honor mode Paladin 7 (ancients or oathbreaker probably better choices) and pact of blade warlock 5.
Don’t worry about multiclassing for your first playthrough unless you have prior 5e knowledge. Just worry about learning the game
Any charisma based class: Paladin, warlock, sorcerer, bard. All of these make a good party face and are strong classes. I would not multiclass until you understand the game better
Youre gonna get a lot of mixed answers here. The best answer I can give you is to do your first playthrough blind and however you want. You wanna be a thief? Or a wizard? Create a little backstory in your head and enjoy yourself.
Vengeance paladin with a 2 hander for a 'good' play through.
12 Champion Fighter is the simplest build that holds its own all game in all but the hardest difficulty. They can use any armour and weapon, get 4 feats, more critical hits, longer jumps to avoid the frustrating "enemy too far" issue and best of all have 3 attacks per action by act 3. Try to pick the Alert feat to help you attack before the enemy. *edit: Race isn't very important, though Duergar have some nifty bonuses. DO NOT PICK "The Dark Urge" for your first playthought.*
Completely new to the mechanics and system here’s what I would do: - Tav Vengeance Paladin, you wear heavy armour and use a 2 handed weapon. Get close and hit things hard, use spell slots for smiting which makes you hit harder. Your highest stat should be strength at 17, then get charisma and constitution as high as you can. You don’t need intelligence or wisdom. Nor dexterity really - Shadowheart- here’s where you need some minor knowledge because you want to respec her to a life cleric once you meet a character called withers. Life cleric is the best healer and if you’re new can save you in a lot of situations. Focus on having high wisdom and mainly keep healing spells to keep your party alive and use guiding bolt or inflict wounds for damage. When you respec boost her constitution and strength as high as you can. If you find an item called luminous armour use that - Lae’Zel - battlemaster fighter, easily best melee build in the game. Similar to the paladin get a big weapon and heavy armour and hit hard. Trip attack is good, as is precision strike, riposte is very strong too. If you don’t want to manage the penalty to hit chance with great weapon master then go for sentinel instead - Karlach - bear heart barbarian, get a big weapon, no armour, rage and hit things hard. For a feat take great weapon master, if you miss a pop up comes up and asks if you want to reckless attack (basically try again to hit) do that Once you’re past the first 4 levels then casters become very strong, use Gale and drop one of Karlach or Lae’Zel - Gale as an evocation wizard, try and boost his armour class as high as you can. Focus on boosting intelligence and dexterity where possible. Dexterity lets you go early in the combat order more often. Use a big spell like fireball and deal a tonne of damage to a large group of enemies. When you can’t fireball use magic missiles or scorching ray Once you’re comfortable with the system play around with different builds by respec’ing your characters with withers. You can search this sub for some really strong ones involving a bard or sorceror which can make the game trivial on even the hardest difficulty
For NEW players, this is what I would recommend based on what you want IMHO. Don't multiclass yet. Also, the game is actually harder in the beginning. It gets easier as you play and level up. When you hit levels 5 and 6 you will notice a large power increase. You can adjust the difficulty if you find a particular battle too hard, or you can increase it if you are finding it too easy). Best overall melee build: Paladin (healing, divine smite damage, tanking, buffing) The most close-combat damage: Monk (Open Hand w/Tavern Brawler feat when you get to lvl. 4), Fighter battle master will give you more Armor at the cost of some damage, but overall a great damage build. I like disarming attack and riposte the most (lvl. 3) Most ranged damage w/good stealth capabilities: Ranger Gloomstalker or Rouge Assassin Damage Spellcaster: Sorcerer w/draconic bloodline. Best overall spellcasting build: Bard (more control spells than damage, healing, college of lore for cutting words). Bards also seem to have a bit more narrative choices which is nice). Edit: you really can't go wrong with any of them :)
I had a blast with straight Warlock
May I ask what kind of blast?
Lol, Eldritch of course!
People like dipping Warlock for a couple points but I really enjoyed playing it basically straight. The Arcanum was kinda meh but upcasting everything to level 5 is pretty solid.
Hunger of Hadar is an incredible spell. Coupled with some movement items and the knock back invocation w/EB, Warlock feels dynamic and powerful!
My favourite combo is putting the warlock in the zaithisk so their illithid power are bonus actions and just spamming black hole to keep everything trapped in there
Whoa! How many times per day can you use that power?
Black Hole is a really weird ability cause when you use it you can recast it every round and it doesn't count as a concentration spell either. Also it resets on short rests.
I'll give it a shot! So you get as many as you want for one encounter per short rest?
Play whichever class sounds cool to you. For my first run I played Wizard
I've been playing as a Monk, and it's surprisingly easy and pretty cool. Does a lot more damage than anyone else I've played. I like playing spellcasters usually, but playing a Monk kind of forces me to play Gale and Wyll more, and I'm actually appreciating that aspect this run.
Storm sorcerer, lockadin, cleric, monk
Circle of moon druid is a very good build for beginners IMO since there's absolutely no reliance on items or even like minmaxed stats at all, you just turn into a cool monster and punch shit. only downside is that you cant talk to people while in cool monster mode and a lot of the game is about talking so its a tad clunky making sure to switch in and out at the right times. fighter is also a great choice but you need to be more careful with equipment and stats and feats etc. cleric and wizard both would be great options for caster builds however usually first two followers you get are a cleric and wizard so you probably don't need the overlap. also!! important tip!! when you unlock the ability to respec your character (which is very early on), dont be scared to respec a lot, it costs gold every time but you can pickpocket the gold back with 0 repercussions for doing so. also you can respec your other party members too so even if you dont like one of them gameplay wise or want to try out something else you can always just change them!
Swords bard dual wielding hand crossbows! Great on its own, fun to multiclass if you’re interested in that, hilarious dialogue options, great spell selection, great charisma/persuasion for dialogue as well, and can also get expertise in slight of hand for lockpicking. A really good all-arounder for the main character.
This is the right answer. Ranged damage is very powerful in this game and early on getting two attacks is really good. Plus all the out of battle stuff
I did druid on balanced my first run and it was tons of fun. Bard for my second was too. This is almost certainly the class I will use for my honour mode run whenever I start that. I actually struggled with my fighter at first but am finally starting to settle into the role. I guess I am a caster at heart. I second the recommendation not to worry about builds and play on explorer mode, or balanced if you think you can handle it. I should have started on explorer myself since I had no D&D knowledge and was very unfamiliar with the whole way the rolls work in combat.
Knowing how the game works and basic combat tactics are much, much more important than builds. If the build is complex and you don't know how to play it then it will make the game harder for you, even if it's a good build.
For a beginner, I think you should just pick any class you feel like and do straight 12 levels on it. Then you'll have your companions to swap around. They are all good to have straight 12 levels. What you need to get into the game is to try them all. Bring different people out every day and try their skills.
Full moon druid is extremely fun, easy to build, doesn't need specific items and extremely useful for the party
I suggest Bard. Bards are inherently good at social interactions, they can heal and support, they can fight, and it's one of the few classes that aren't available as a companion.
I always go with a charisma class since your Tav (or durge) is going to be the face in 90% of situations and charisma checks are typically the most important thing to pass. From there my main preference is sword bard. Jack of all trades and master of all trades. The multi classes are simple. You go 9 bard, rogue if you're ranged since you get an extra bonus action, or you go 20 bard 2 paladin for melee and just explode stuff because who needs to actually use spells for utility when smite exists. The main draw of Sword Bard are flourishes which are extremely powerful abilities that use your inspiration (which is fine because you can't inspire yourself as the party face). You're still a full caster, you're great at any skill check since Bard gets a ton of proficiencies in skills and a half proficiency in any skill they're not proficient in and you're one of the best martials in the game on-top of that. oh and you get an extra rest cause you're a bard. Alternatively Warlock is very solid. Warlocks are unique compared to other spellcasters since your Spell slots recharge at short rests and automatically upcast so resources management and decision making is typically a lot simpler. Also Larian love Warlocks and they have probably the best loot table in the game.
Berserker barbarian, evocation wizard, rogue thief and light cleric for your party
Tbh if you're new just learn to be a swords bard. You'll pick it up quick and its very versatile without needing to do weird things like stock up on very specific potions or weird 1 lvl multiclasses. Bard is a lot of fun and can make you a "main character" type player that you can spam as a do everything character.
Moon Druid, it’s super fun and helped me cruise through the game
I played a really trrrible build my first run but it was a lot of fun. 2 sltempest cleric/5 storm sorc/5 paladin. I grabbed paladin 5 as my last level. Still served me fine through balanced.
I've decided to go with the most common thing said which was just to pick a class and use that. So I've decided to do a Wood Elf Ranger.
Padlock (7 paladin and 5 warlock) is an OP hyper offensive build. It’s also a great party face because it’s charisma based. It gives you 3 attacks in tactician and below and a good array of some decent spells
We are going to need more info. Can you at least give us an inkling of what playstyle you want and what your favorite fantasy race is? Frontliner, magic, ranged, flashy, etc.? Do you care about you character having good lore?
Honestly I don't really care about race and I quite like hyper offensive builds. Also don't care if they use magic, bow and arrows, swords or hand to hand combat just as long as it's they're offensive.
In dnd and bg3, races kind of matter because they have their own passive that boost a particular kind of playstyle or particular niche. The problem with “hyper offensive” as the only standard is that pretty much everything can do that if you try to make it work. Clerics can become lawnmowers, monk’s whole shtick is to attack a lot of times per turn, sorcerers are particularly cracked in bg3 because you can cast more than 1 leveled spell per turn (unlike in dnd). Paladins can divine smite for an extra wallop of radiant damage on top of weapon damage. Barbarians can use cleave through like an entire formation if you’re set up properly for it. The list goes on and on. A pretty easy set up I can recommend that comes online pretty early is practically any barbarian set up. I’m not going to mention feats because they are their own can of worms, but basically, they enhance your build. If you want, check out [this wiki](https://bg3.wiki) if you want to look at general stuff.
Races don't matter at all unless you are doing some weird build/challenge. There might technically be an optimal race for any build, but the overall impact from any race choice is small enough to be irrelevant.
Idk, a half-orc for the savage attacks passive on a swords bard/paladin sounds pretty insane for me.
Unless you are going a full crit build it does almost nothing, and if you are full crit then halfling might be better. Either way, adding for example one 1d12 to a crit every 2 attacks comes out to an extra 3 damage per attack, which don't get me wrong is good but not broken by any means.
I understand what you’re saying. My thought process was the standard helmet of acuity, cc’ing the entire field with hold person or monster, guaranteeing the crit, in addition to GWM if you are str based. So I’m not factoring in crit gear.
Yeah but at that point does it really matter if you have the passive or not? I'm not saying some races aren't good for some builds, just that racials are never important enough to force you to pick a race.
Depends on who you’re cc’ing?
I agree. Races don't particularly matter, especially for a first run. Just pick whatever you want to play.
The net you've cast is extremely wide. There are dozens of builds that fit that criteria. I will just pick 3. Swords Bard is a popular build that will let you melee attack an insane amount of times during a turn and you also has access to all the fun spells they have. You also are a Bard, which has some of the funniest unique dialogue interactions. Sorcerer Warlock is a very simplistic magic build around a very powerful cantrip called eldritch blast. You shoot out a red beam with a very satisfying visual and sound effect that blows the target back, hits them multiple times and does very high damage later in the game. Moon Druid builds allow you to turn into a variety of fun creatures and tank for the team. This isn't like other RPGs where you only can turn into boring things like wolfs or bats. Without spoiling things, you get to turn into large, powerful things and wreck havoc. Assuming you are a Druid character, this also has alot of unique dialogue in the first act.
Don’t take great weapon master. It’s not for beginners, you’ll be frustrated. Good beginner build is a thrower build. All the equipment is available very early and stays for most of the game. Throw the returning pike enemy dies m. Another good one is dual wield hand crossbow sword bard. 17 dex, 16 cha. Find hand crossbows+1 from vendors, gloves of archery and caustic band and you’re set for white awhile.
Do an Open Hand Monk and nothing can stop you
Barbarian. extremely easy to build (17 str, rest on dex and con, 8 int, 10 wis and Cha) at level 3 choose berserker , at level 4 choose tavern brawler +1 str. Level3 and more, you throw enemies to each other and they lose turns getting up while they take insane damage. Come back and tell me thank you after you love this class.
7 Fighter/5 Warlock works really well if you want to hit really hard at melee and at a distance with Eldritch Blast. Pact of the Blade Warlock scales weapon attacks off charisma, so you don't have to worry about using strength or dex for yiur weapon
5 Gloomstalker/4assassin/3 battlemaster This is the most beginner friendly and fun class imo you can start as a rogue but ranger gets you an extra attack first Usually played as a stealth archer but can be melee oriented as well Best races are duergar the gray dwarfs yes they move slower than the tall races but they have infinite invisibility at level 5 perfect for stealth Light foot halfing can’t roll less than a 1 with there luck and have advantage on stealth another short race but arguably the strongest good to see dialogue first play through Half Orc the brutish melee assassin is fun when they land crits they roll an additional damage dice this is perfect for a melee assassin since you get crits if you surprise enemies
Id say rogue over assassin. Assassin wants surprise turns, ideally. You can get more consistent damage with the extra action from rogue, which is probs more beginner friendly
I feel like it depends if you use hand bows or go dual wield because with dread ambusher and advantage from assassin you’re gonna still have a great first round first burst and probably end the fight quicker I prefer swords bard for a thief handbow archer with fighter
The Ass-Stalker Champion (because gloom stalker assassin sounds lame and you ALL know it): Rogue/Ranger/Fighter Assassin 4 / Gloomstalker 5 / Champion 3 You’ll be shitting out crits left and right from range (you can get gear to stack with champion’s increased critical threshold).