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D&D General BG3 Massive Spoiler Thread

You know who has been a great disappointment to me in combat? (Spoilers for the second half of Act 2) Jaheira. Not only would I normally expect her to be an unplayable, epic-level character, her playable version's stats are genuinely horrible. I made her a Land Druid to use her as a caster (which was how I used her in BG1 & 2 as well), and it's just so meh. Also, I'm doubtful that the dual scimitars the best-in-slot for her. Plus, so many people complain about her dying if you don't take her with you when assaulting Moonrise Towers. An epic-level veteran who fought alongide the Child of Bhaal should not suffer from such problems.
 
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I had Jaheira respec to an Open Hand Monk, mainly to try out having a Monk, and she was better (I'm loaded on casters with Halsin and my MC Sorcerer and Gale), and then dropped Jaheira after rescuing Minsc (and respeccing him into a more STR build) ... which was fine. I dunno, I'd love to be able up my party size to 5 (not keen on 6 for some reason. I'm just used to playing and DMing with 5 PCs in TT) just to play around with different party configurations while keeping my favs.

Halsin and Jaheira do have some fun banter. Halsin gets a bit grumpy about the city and Jaheira cajols him.
 

The only character who can match her damage output in my party is Astarion with Sneak Attack
Dude come on.

Astarion as a single-class Rogue (any Rogue subclass) has terrible damage output! Appalling. If you're measuring against the worst DPR of a damage-oriented character in the game - a single-class Rogue, sure THEN a Cleric looks good! But Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Warlocks, Sword Bards, Beast Rangers, and a vast array of others all also wildly outperform Astarion and his sad little Sneak Attacks. The man is getting by on good looks and attitude!

Anyone with multiple attacks, for example can benefit from Haste/Potion of Speed (which are common and easy to get hold of), and become an absolutely terrifying machine (even without it, stuff like GWM will often allow them to easily outperform a Rogue). Even without that, what's really sad is, because Rogue SA is 1/turn, Rogues don't even have good burst damage compared to actually burst-y class and can't really benefit from Haste.

You can engineer Astarion into a pretty good killing machine (one thematic way is Assassin/Gloom Stalker/Fighter mentioned above, but it does rely on you getting Surprise, and thus not talking to people you attack), especially if a certain incident goes the dark side way (+1d10 damage per attack is nothing to sniff at!), but if he's your top damage dealer as a single-class Rogue well... < frantic blessing motions >

So your problem here is your point of comparison, imho.

Clerics are absolutely great at mowing down undead or anything Radiant-vulnerable (including at least one major boss who is otherwise hard to deal with), with the spells you listed, I will give them that - Heavy armour ones (so not Trickery) also have the AC to stand in dangerous places. But beyond that? They're just a like a bad Druid. A Druid can easily get stuff like Haste and Ice Storm, which a Cleric can only wish they had.

This is a BG3-specific thing note - in BG3 Ice Storm and Haste (for example) are both way buffed over either 5E, or other spells. I often play Clerics in 5E, and they're a good class - they're just really outclassed by Druids in BG3, even before shapeshifting gets involved.
You know who has been a great disappointment to me in combat?
Yeah that is really sad. I dunno why they felt the need to give her and Minsc 5E statlines - they should have made them both impossible to respec out of Druid and Ranger respectively, but with unreasonably high stats to help make up for it.
I was literally about to post how Shadowheart's story is great, but how she is in combat just doesn't work. She's not good on the front line or ranged, and is meh at buffing. I've been playing an all-custom group, and battles are going significantly better; mechanically the main difference is that I have a druid in Shadowheart's slot.
I swear half the problems people report with combat in this game boil down to having single-class, unrespec'd Shadowheart and Astarion in their party because they're cuties. It's kind of a mean trick that Larian pulled imho. Any respec to Shadowheart, literally to any other domain is a noticeable upgrade (why make Trickery so bad if you're going to give it to a main character!). And Astarion as Rogue wouldn't be that bad but all the ways they've improved things for melees - OP version of Haste and tons of magic items that buff melee - don't really help Rogues, because they only have a single SA and a single attack. I haven't even seen an item which say, increases SA damage. If you had an item which added say, 3d6 to SA, and another item which gave Swashbuckler-style SA conditionality, suddenly Rogue would be decent in Act 2, and if you had an item giving say +5d6 to SA... well he still wouldn't be great for Act 3, not as a single class Rogue, but he'd be okay - or how about just letting him SA twice (bonus action attack to land the second)? An item that did that would be enough to make a single-class Rogue good.

They also buff casters through the sky with OP Haste and loads of items giving +1 spell save DC and to hit with spells, and various bonus damage stuff, but poor old Rogues? Nope.
 

I had Jaheira respec to an Open Hand Monk, mainly to try out having a Monk, and she was better (I'm loaded on casters with Halsin and my MC Sorcerer and Gale), and then dropped Jaheira after rescuing Minsc (and respeccing him into a more STR build) ... which was fine. I dunno, I'd love to be able up my party size to 5 (not keen on 6 for some reason. I'm just used to playing and DMing with 5 PCs in TT) just to play around with different party configurations while keeping my favs.

Halsin and Jaheira do have some fun banter. Halsin gets a bit grumpy about the city and Jaheira cajols him.
Damnit, now I have to have both Jaheira and Halsin in my party. I had promised myself I would finish the first run without any mods, but I am this close to installing the party size increase mod...
 

Dude come on.

Astarion as a single-class Rogue (any Rogue subclass) has terrible damage output! Appalling. If you're measuring against the worst DPR of a damage-oriented character in the game - a single-class Rogue, sure THEN a Cleric looks good! But Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Warlocks, Sword Bards, Beast Rangers, and a vast array of others all also wildly outperform Astarion and his sad little Sneak Attacks. The man is getting by on good looks and attitude!

Anyone with multiple attacks, for example can benefit from Haste/Potion of Speed (which are common and easy to get hold of), and become an absolutely terrifying machine (even without it, stuff like GWM will often allow them to easily outperform a Rogue). Even without that, what's really sad is, because Rogue SA is 1/turn, Rogues don't even have good burst damage compared to actually burst-y class and can't really benefit from Haste.

You can engineer Astarion into a pretty good killing machine (one thematic way is Assassin/Gloom Stalker/Fighter mentioned above, but it does rely on you getting Surprise, and thus not talking to people you attack), especially if a certain incident goes the dark side way (+1d10 damage per attack is nothing to sniff at!), but if he's your top damage dealer as a single-class Rogue well... < frantic blessing motions >

So your problem here is your point of comparison, imho.

Clerics are absolutely great at mowing down undead or anything Radiant-vulnerable (including at least one major boss who is otherwise hard to deal with), with the spells you listed, I will give them that - Heavy armour ones (so not Trickery) also have the AC to stand in dangerous places. But beyond that? They're just a like a bad Druid. A Druid can easily get stuff like Haste and Ice Storm, which a Cleric can only wish they had.
You know what? That's fair. I haven't multiclassed anybody and I try not to cheese things too much, and perhaps compared to optimised options, Cleric and single-class Rogue fall off.
This is a BG3-specific thing note - in BG3 Ice Storm and Haste (for example) are both way buffed over either 5E, or other spells. I often play Clerics in 5E, and they're a good class - they're just really outclassed by Druids in BG3, even before shapeshifting gets involved.

Yeah that is really sad. I dunno why they felt the need to give her and Minsc 5E statlines - they should have made them both impossible to respec out of Druid and Ranger respectively, but with unreasonably high stats to help make up for it.
Absolutely agreed. I haven't gotten Minsc yet, but I feel like the legacy characters should've stayed as mentors/camp NPCs. The nostalgia selling point was too delicious to ignore, I guess.
I swear half the problems people report with combat in this game boil down to having single, unrespec'd Shadowheart and Astarion in their party. It's kind of a mean trick that Larian pulled imho. Any respec to Shadowheart, literally to any other domain is a noticeable upgrade (why make Trickery so bad if you're going to give it to a main character!). And Astarion as Rogue wouldn't be that bad but all they've improved things for melees - OP version of Haste and tons of magic items that buff melee - don't really help Rogues, because they only have a single attack. I haven't even seen an item which say, increases SA damage. If you had an item which added say, 3d6 to SA, and another item which gave Swashbuckler-style SA conditionality, suddenly Rogue would be decent in Act 2, and if you had an item giving say +5d6 to SA... well he still wouldn't be great for Act 3, not as a single class Rogue, but he'd be okay - or how about just letting him SA twice? An item that did that would be enough to make a single-class Rogue good.

They also buff casters through the sky with OP Haste and loads of items giving +1 spell save DC and to hit with spells, and various bonus damage stuff, but poor old Rogues? Nope.
I don't know man. Astarion dual-wielding Hand Crossbows has been a monster in my party. Maybe it's because I'm not even close to the optimisation ceiling, but I'm pretty happy with him dealing 20 damage on off-hand attacks, and the Sneak Attack after that.
 

Damnit, now I have to have both Jaheira and Halsin in my party. I had promised myself I would finish the first run without any mods, but I am this close to installing the party size increase mod...
Remember to get the mod that makes achievements still work if you do mod close to the end of the game!
 

You know what? That's fair. I haven't multiclassed anybody and I try not to cheese things too much, and perhaps compared to optimised options, Cleric and single-class Rogue fall off.
To be honest, even an entirely normal STR Fighter taking the most obvious path does really incredible damage.

Like, Lae'zel starts with GWF and using a 2h (albeit it's a longsword lol), so the natural path is to pick up GWM and then ASI then Heavy Armour Mastery, that's like brainless. Your subclass barely matters (EK is thematic for Githyanki Gish and gives her great mobility with Longstrider and Jump - both rituals - and possibly Misty Step I dunno if that's EK all I know is I have three different Misty Steps on Lae'zel, and Shield + either Protection from Evil and Good or Blur means all your enemies have Disadvantage to hit you and you barely ever get hit). Combine that with various good weapons that you can easily buy from NPCs or just find and all the outrageous gloves and heavy armour in the game (take your choice!) and you're just splattering people all over the place. At high levels with Haste or Speed Potion she's hitting for like 30 damage 6 (7 if she kills someone) times a round (9-10 times on the Action Surge round). Good luck having 180+ HP everyone! Also good luck rolling to hit against 25+ AC with Disadvantage.

Like, I will admit my Karlach build is absolutely high-effort nonsense requiring three different classes, specific magic items, and a broken feat that only exists in BG3 (Tavern Brawler - it has no relationship to the 5E version lol), but Karlach actually underperforms simple, straightforward, almost PHB-compliant single-class Fighter Lae'zel much of the time.
I don't know man. Astarion dual-wielding Hand Crossbows has been a monster in my party. Maybe it's because I'm not even close to the optimisation ceiling, but I'm pretty happy with him dealing 20 damage on off-hand attacks, and the Sneak Attack after that.
I mean, that's the best you're going to do (assuming you have Sharpshooter) with a single-class Rogue for sure, but like, literally any class which has multiple attacks will do better, because they're in the same position but with one more attack and one more attack with Sharpshooter does more damage, on average, than Sneak Attack adds (Thief will compete a little better than others with that particular setup because of the two bonus actions - you're in a similar place to a Ranger there - I think Beast Master will do better because of the independent full-attack beasts, but the other two probably won't).
Absolutely agreed. I haven't gotten Minsc yet, but I feel like the legacy characters should've stayed as mentors/camp NPCs. The nostalgia selling point was too delicious to ignore, I guess.
Minsc has 12 STR in this. He's a DEX fighter. It's a crime against Minscs and Boo should deal with whoever did it.
 

Minsc has 12 STR in this. He's a DEX fighter. It's a crime against Minscs and Boo should deal with whoever did it.
Twelve strength?
TWELVE STRENGTH?

This is the guy who had 18/93 Strength in BG 1 and 2! NINETHY THIRD PERCENTILE! WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING?

And I was wondering if they would respec him into Barbarian (since he basically had a worse version of Rage at a time when Barbarians weren't a thing), and to think they gave him... twelve... strength...

I'm having Nostalgia Critic "A BAT CREDIT CARD?!" levels of rage right now.
 

Twelve strength?
TWELVE STRENGTH?

This is the guy who had 18/93 Strength in BG 1 and 2! NINETHY THIRD PERCENTILE! WHAT WERE THEY SMOKING?

And I was wondering if they would respec him into Barbarian (since he basically had a worse version of Rage at a time when Barbarians weren't a thing), and to think they gave him... twelve... strength...

I'm having Nostalgia Critic "A BAT CREDIT CARD?!" levels of rage right now.
Luckily you can fix this crime by respec'ing him and adjusting his stats so he has 17 STR and then using ASIs/Feats to boost it but it's bad man, real bad. And yeah probably make him into a Barbarian/Ranger or something.
 

Luckily you can fix this crime by respec'ing him and adjusting his stats so he has 17 STR and then using ASIs/Feats to boost it but it's bad man, real bad. And yeah probably make him into a Barbarian/Ranger or something.
Respeccing doesn't break any personal quests right? I've been meaning to respec Shadowheart into Light Cleric, and I might as well optimise everyone while I'm at it.

Then again, I have like 500 gold due to having a massive spellbook addiction, so I might pick and choose who I respec...
 

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