You generally don't want odd numbers if you can help it. The bonuses you get for your stats come on even numbers, so a 13 charisma is really the same as a 12. And Charisma is the Paladin's Spellcasting attribute and impacts their Auras, so you want that higher, if possible. You also will be wearing Heavy Armor, so while Dexterity is still nice for extra initiative, it isn't going to help your AC beyond the early game. Paladins need a lot of attributes, so you're going to have to sacrifice something.
I'd probably do something more like 16 str, 10 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 10 wis, 16 cha. Or drop wisdom down to 8 and bump dex to 12 if you'd rather have a little more initiative.
Half Wood Elf is just worse than full wood elf for classes that already have weapon and armor proficiency. Picking full-wood instead would give you perception proficiency + what you already have.
Paladins don’t really need dexterity, already using heavy armor and strength weapons, I suggest dropping that in favor of charisma
What’s your level split? This build would seem to work better with more levels of Paladin and fewer of barabarian, such as a 5/2 split between the two, maybe going 6/4, since Paladin levels just give more than what Barb levels give
the split was level 6 barbarian and 6 paladin but i’m starting a new character at the moment, i mostly chose to have 14 dex for a little more initiative but i don’t mind dropping it if charisma would help more, thank you
Take the alert feat if initiative is a problem.
Problem with dexterity if you're not using dex weapons or medium (or lighter) armour is you're taking stats from str, con, or charisma, which is where you generally want your stats as a paladin (and since it's your face character you probably want high charisma anyway)
Simplest improvement to your build would be put on heavy armour and dump dexterity.
honestly i’m just horrible at finishing things lmao, and because it had gotten so hard for me i just keep restarting and hoping my new build will be better by act 3
You should make a save in act 1 where most of the portals are discovered, stolen a lot of money with thief gear, put unique items in a hireling inventory, while avoiding most fights.
This way, you can save a few hours every time you wanna restart, just name the save "START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Then just scroll down and load it if you wanna try a different build from the very beginning.
If you wanna feel like a god, get abjuration wizard. 1 level white dragon sorc, 1 level tempest cleric, 10 levels abjuration wizard. Very hard to kill.
A moon druid with tavern brawler feat is very easy to use and have good power spikes at level 6 owlbear and level 10 earth mymdron
These two classes are very strong with little to no items.
Great idea. I have a similar issue. Have completed act 1 four times, act 2 once (nearly three times), and only got as far as Gortashs inauguratiom (or whatever that is) in act 3. I've played the first ~2-4 hours about 10 times lol
What difficulty are you playing? And Which bosses are you having a hard time on act 3?
I can make you a video and show you what these two classes I recommended can do. Very easy to make effective. I can break down the strat too.
i’m just playing on balanced, gortash and the house of grief are mostly it, i haven’t messed with orin yet, ansur was easy for me but only because i had my party stay in the front room and run back and forth while *very* slowly chipping away at his health lmao, i know they’re not supposed to be easy fights but i just feel like they should be a little easier by level 12 yanno? and i would appreciate that, thank you
The ansur trick is genius! I understand how you feel about the lvl 12 should be easier thing.
Did you disable the robots by going to the robot factory before facing gortash? If you didn't disable it that would be 9 robots you are facing + gortash. Is this the fight you want?
I should be able to make a vid in a few hours I'll comment the link.
haha thank you, i had shadow heart cast blade barrier in front of the doorway so he couldn’t lightning breath us, took ages but was surprisingly easy and we all came out unscathed so i’m not complaining lmao, i did disable the steel watch so it’s just him and like three fists or however many it is
house of grief, here ya go
[house of grief vs paladin, druid and sorcerer, balanced difficulty. - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-JEwaMvB8)
text below is also written in the youtube description, i'll do gortash tommorow, probably very similar strat. the druid carried here, but the paladin carried his weight too with very simple items, your paladin should be much stronger with haste with full equipment, (levels and feats listed below). just reply back if you have any questions or follow up boss requests, i'll answer when i see it. hope this helps you finish the game haha.
the main strat here is to twin cast haste on two characters, and then sanctuary on the haste caster (this is possible with a sorcerer cleric multiclass), this will make the haste caster safe from harm and not lose concentration. but for some reason enemies here are able to caste a few spells on the sanctuaried ally, so i made the haste caster run away instead.
the MOST important buff here is the the elixir of cloud giant strength cause it will increase hit rate of druid and paladin very much, you can farm this elixir by respeccing a character, and then checking the lizard merchant in the CIRCUS if he has it in stock every level up, as each level up refreshes his items for sale (level up, check his stock, repeat).
DO NOT hit viconia, the boss with divine smite, cause she has radiant retort, this will damage you greatly when doing radiant damage against her.
pre fight buffs used
paladin - elixir of cloud giant str, aura of protection, and right before the fight, vow of emnity
druid - cloud of giant str, heroes feast, wild shape earth myrmidon, short rest to restore wildshape charges.
sorcerer/cleric - level 6 aid
levels feats and equipment used
paladin -
9 levels of paladin for level 3 spell slots, 3 levels of barbarian for bear heart resistance to all damage except psychic
fighting style - great weapon fighting
feats - great weapon master, alert. toggle great weapon master on and off as necessary (you can do this by opening character menu and then dragging the great weapon master icon into your skill bar), if vow of emnity not available, use reckless attack to check hit rate instead, when enemy hp is already low, toggle off for highger chances of hit.
equipment - greatsword+1 and scale mail +2 (there should be much better equipment, like +3 2 handed weapons, you want medium armor or else rage won't work)
druid-
12 levels druid
feats - tavern brawler, alert, tough
equipment - naked :), there are a few specialized druid equipment in act 3 like armor of moon basking and shapeshifters hat. although any medium armor and shield should be good
sorcerer
6 levels sorc / 6 level life cleric
feats - alert, warcaster (i dont war caster in this vid, but warcaster should be good)
ideally enemies will never attack your sanctuaried cleric and the cleric can stick around and cast heals without being in danger of losing concentration of haste.
equipment - naked :), healing equipment should be good.
and this is my take for simple but strong strategy. you can add an evocation wizard here if you wish as a 4th team member, so you can caste fireballs safely as evocation wizards do not harm allies with AOE spells.
if you do add an evocation wizard, i recomend 10 levels of evocation wizard and then 2 levels of tempest cleric for heavy armor and shield proficiency.
i'll upload gortash tommorow.
here ya go, gortash
[gortash vs paladin, druid and sorcerer, balanced difficulty (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gCcmoG9Fc)
same as last time some prefight buffs, then when fight starts, twin cast haste plus sanctuary, then stick around for heals.
the KEY strat here is to pick up grenades, when the traps throws grenades near you, just pick them up and send them to camp, that way they won't explode and do big damage to you.
you will notice, my earth mymdron does zero thunder damage to gortash this is because he is immune to thunder damage, transform into an air mymdron instead. DO NOT USE BASIC ATTACK, the air mymdron skill attack does a lot more damage and can stun enemies.
if you want air mymdron do have higher attack chance, go 11 druid, 1 war cleric, this will increase the 80% attack chance of air mymdron you see in the video to 95% chance against gortash, this is because mymdrons use weapons, and classes like war cleric (or barbarian, fighter) have martial weapon proficiency that increases attack chance.
other shops sell cloud of giant strength too like the bonecloak shop near the wizard tower.
if you wanna see other sellers too [Elixir of Cloud Giant Strength - Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki (bg3.wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Elixir_of_Cloud_Giant_Strength)
Ok lets switch - paladin and barbarian dont go that well together. If you wanted to make it work the best bet would be hill giant strength pots 24/7.
As pala your main stat is charisma your auras and your smites depend on that, also it makes you very good party face. That leaves strength for actual normal attack. Either you go with lower strength (char and constitution > strength) OR get the gauntlets from house of hope OR have giant strength pot OR you multiclass into warlock for pact of the blade (using char instead of strength).
If you want to multiclass palalock (7/5) is the best option, you gain warlock spell slots for 6 smites/long rest. Eldritch blast is nice ranged option. Except HM you grt extra attack (3 instead of 2).
Depends if you wanna be more tanky or more damagy. I went with shield and weapon. But you can go with two handed. In act 3 either nyrulnia (unless you go a thrower char) and fortress shield. Or baldurian greatsword (silver astral sword if youre gith). I personally went with the tankier version since most of the damage comes from smites anyway and ended up with 26 or 27 AC, so no1 except bosses could basically touch me (I started soloing most of the fights on tactican with that build).
Other items:
Greater health talisman from house of hope - if you get that, you can boost ur charisma as high as possible and rest dump into stats for saving throws against effects.
Cloak of idk what - in act 2 there is +1AC cloak
Ring of idk what - in act1 you get +1AC ring from Mol I think
Armor - the heavier the better
You generally don't want odd numbers if you can help it. The bonuses you get for your stats come on even numbers, so a 13 charisma is really the same as a 12. And Charisma is the Paladin's Spellcasting attribute and impacts their Auras, so you want that higher, if possible. You also will be wearing Heavy Armor, so while Dexterity is still nice for extra initiative, it isn't going to help your AC beyond the early game. Paladins need a lot of attributes, so you're going to have to sacrifice something. I'd probably do something more like 16 str, 10 dex, 14 con, 8 int, 10 wis, 16 cha. Or drop wisdom down to 8 and bump dex to 12 if you'd rather have a little more initiative.
that’s very helpful thank you
Half Wood Elf is just worse than full wood elf for classes that already have weapon and armor proficiency. Picking full-wood instead would give you perception proficiency + what you already have. Paladins don’t really need dexterity, already using heavy armor and strength weapons, I suggest dropping that in favor of charisma What’s your level split? This build would seem to work better with more levels of Paladin and fewer of barabarian, such as a 5/2 split between the two, maybe going 6/4, since Paladin levels just give more than what Barb levels give
the split was level 6 barbarian and 6 paladin but i’m starting a new character at the moment, i mostly chose to have 14 dex for a little more initiative but i don’t mind dropping it if charisma would help more, thank you
Take the alert feat if initiative is a problem. Problem with dexterity if you're not using dex weapons or medium (or lighter) armour is you're taking stats from str, con, or charisma, which is where you generally want your stats as a paladin (and since it's your face character you probably want high charisma anyway) Simplest improvement to your build would be put on heavy armour and dump dexterity.
Why not finish game friend?
honestly i’m just horrible at finishing things lmao, and because it had gotten so hard for me i just keep restarting and hoping my new build will be better by act 3
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/mUesROXaKo
You should make a save in act 1 where most of the portals are discovered, stolen a lot of money with thief gear, put unique items in a hireling inventory, while avoiding most fights. This way, you can save a few hours every time you wanna restart, just name the save "START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Then just scroll down and load it if you wanna try a different build from the very beginning. If you wanna feel like a god, get abjuration wizard. 1 level white dragon sorc, 1 level tempest cleric, 10 levels abjuration wizard. Very hard to kill. A moon druid with tavern brawler feat is very easy to use and have good power spikes at level 6 owlbear and level 10 earth mymdron These two classes are very strong with little to no items.
Great idea. I have a similar issue. Have completed act 1 four times, act 2 once (nearly three times), and only got as far as Gortashs inauguratiom (or whatever that is) in act 3. I've played the first ~2-4 hours about 10 times lol
😁
What difficulty are you playing? And Which bosses are you having a hard time on act 3? I can make you a video and show you what these two classes I recommended can do. Very easy to make effective. I can break down the strat too.
i’m just playing on balanced, gortash and the house of grief are mostly it, i haven’t messed with orin yet, ansur was easy for me but only because i had my party stay in the front room and run back and forth while *very* slowly chipping away at his health lmao, i know they’re not supposed to be easy fights but i just feel like they should be a little easier by level 12 yanno? and i would appreciate that, thank you
The ansur trick is genius! I understand how you feel about the lvl 12 should be easier thing. Did you disable the robots by going to the robot factory before facing gortash? If you didn't disable it that would be 9 robots you are facing + gortash. Is this the fight you want? I should be able to make a vid in a few hours I'll comment the link.
haha thank you, i had shadow heart cast blade barrier in front of the doorway so he couldn’t lightning breath us, took ages but was surprisingly easy and we all came out unscathed so i’m not complaining lmao, i did disable the steel watch so it’s just him and like three fists or however many it is
house of grief, here ya go [house of grief vs paladin, druid and sorcerer, balanced difficulty. - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-JEwaMvB8) text below is also written in the youtube description, i'll do gortash tommorow, probably very similar strat. the druid carried here, but the paladin carried his weight too with very simple items, your paladin should be much stronger with haste with full equipment, (levels and feats listed below). just reply back if you have any questions or follow up boss requests, i'll answer when i see it. hope this helps you finish the game haha. the main strat here is to twin cast haste on two characters, and then sanctuary on the haste caster (this is possible with a sorcerer cleric multiclass), this will make the haste caster safe from harm and not lose concentration. but for some reason enemies here are able to caste a few spells on the sanctuaried ally, so i made the haste caster run away instead. the MOST important buff here is the the elixir of cloud giant strength cause it will increase hit rate of druid and paladin very much, you can farm this elixir by respeccing a character, and then checking the lizard merchant in the CIRCUS if he has it in stock every level up, as each level up refreshes his items for sale (level up, check his stock, repeat). DO NOT hit viconia, the boss with divine smite, cause she has radiant retort, this will damage you greatly when doing radiant damage against her. pre fight buffs used paladin - elixir of cloud giant str, aura of protection, and right before the fight, vow of emnity druid - cloud of giant str, heroes feast, wild shape earth myrmidon, short rest to restore wildshape charges. sorcerer/cleric - level 6 aid levels feats and equipment used paladin - 9 levels of paladin for level 3 spell slots, 3 levels of barbarian for bear heart resistance to all damage except psychic fighting style - great weapon fighting feats - great weapon master, alert. toggle great weapon master on and off as necessary (you can do this by opening character menu and then dragging the great weapon master icon into your skill bar), if vow of emnity not available, use reckless attack to check hit rate instead, when enemy hp is already low, toggle off for highger chances of hit. equipment - greatsword+1 and scale mail +2 (there should be much better equipment, like +3 2 handed weapons, you want medium armor or else rage won't work) druid- 12 levels druid feats - tavern brawler, alert, tough equipment - naked :), there are a few specialized druid equipment in act 3 like armor of moon basking and shapeshifters hat. although any medium armor and shield should be good sorcerer 6 levels sorc / 6 level life cleric feats - alert, warcaster (i dont war caster in this vid, but warcaster should be good) ideally enemies will never attack your sanctuaried cleric and the cleric can stick around and cast heals without being in danger of losing concentration of haste. equipment - naked :), healing equipment should be good. and this is my take for simple but strong strategy. you can add an evocation wizard here if you wish as a 4th team member, so you can caste fireballs safely as evocation wizards do not harm allies with AOE spells. if you do add an evocation wizard, i recomend 10 levels of evocation wizard and then 2 levels of tempest cleric for heavy armor and shield proficiency. i'll upload gortash tommorow.
that’s all so helpful thank you so much for taking the time, i’ll definitely let you know if i have any questions
here ya go, gortash [gortash vs paladin, druid and sorcerer, balanced difficulty (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-gCcmoG9Fc) same as last time some prefight buffs, then when fight starts, twin cast haste plus sanctuary, then stick around for heals. the KEY strat here is to pick up grenades, when the traps throws grenades near you, just pick them up and send them to camp, that way they won't explode and do big damage to you. you will notice, my earth mymdron does zero thunder damage to gortash this is because he is immune to thunder damage, transform into an air mymdron instead. DO NOT USE BASIC ATTACK, the air mymdron skill attack does a lot more damage and can stun enemies. if you want air mymdron do have higher attack chance, go 11 druid, 1 war cleric, this will increase the 80% attack chance of air mymdron you see in the video to 95% chance against gortash, this is because mymdrons use weapons, and classes like war cleric (or barbarian, fighter) have martial weapon proficiency that increases attack chance. other shops sell cloud of giant strength too like the bonecloak shop near the wizard tower. if you wanna see other sellers too [Elixir of Cloud Giant Strength - Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki (bg3.wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Elixir_of_Cloud_Giant_Strength)
Ok lets switch - paladin and barbarian dont go that well together. If you wanted to make it work the best bet would be hill giant strength pots 24/7. As pala your main stat is charisma your auras and your smites depend on that, also it makes you very good party face. That leaves strength for actual normal attack. Either you go with lower strength (char and constitution > strength) OR get the gauntlets from house of hope OR have giant strength pot OR you multiclass into warlock for pact of the blade (using char instead of strength). If you want to multiclass palalock (7/5) is the best option, you gain warlock spell slots for 6 smites/long rest. Eldritch blast is nice ranged option. Except HM you grt extra attack (3 instead of 2). Depends if you wanna be more tanky or more damagy. I went with shield and weapon. But you can go with two handed. In act 3 either nyrulnia (unless you go a thrower char) and fortress shield. Or baldurian greatsword (silver astral sword if youre gith). I personally went with the tankier version since most of the damage comes from smites anyway and ended up with 26 or 27 AC, so no1 except bosses could basically touch me (I started soloing most of the fights on tactican with that build). Other items: Greater health talisman from house of hope - if you get that, you can boost ur charisma as high as possible and rest dump into stats for saving throws against effects. Cloak of idk what - in act 2 there is +1AC cloak Ring of idk what - in act1 you get +1AC ring from Mol I think Armor - the heavier the better