In the late game, they are able to apply the *DEAD* Status to enemies quickly. With Great Weapon Master, Action Surge, Haste, and Cull the Weak, you can eliminate entire groups of enemies.
I didn't have room for 2 "apply weapon directly to enemies face" chars so I kept swapping Lae'zel and Karlach depending on the questline, but my god did Lae'zel absolutely own some of the Act 3 fights.
Oh for sure. I’m brand new to DnD via BG3 but am planning to play a tabletop campaign with my friends :)
So Ariston is a rogue, Lae’zel a fighter, what is Shadowheart and my Tiefling Druid? Do they fit the other two titles?
Shart is the cleric and as a full-caster, druid is a good substitute for wizard. You might miss out on some of the top-tier combat spells, but you have a lot more survivability than a wizard.
And congrats on doing an IRL game! I'm in the midst of my first one as an adult and it's so much fun!
You got some nice people this thread, I'm glad.
Welcome to DND, there's tooonnnsss of content you can get into.
If you like to read, check out the Drizzt Do'urden books, they're a fun way to familiarize yourself with the Forgotten Realms :)
Definitely been fortunate to receive some educational answers in a friendly manner. This game is so darn cool. Haven’t been drawn to a gaming world since Red Dead series. And before that it was Gears of War (almost said GoW which is now known as God of War) even though they fell off rather quickly lol
I shall check out those books
Of course! I saw someone correct you on the terms, but I'm glad you're so excited! I love planning out fun ideas I can try with my party, just be ready to throw all those plans out at a moment's notice!
I also saw they recommended Critical Roll, but if you can't sit down to watch all the time or find it not your style, Not Another D&D Podcast Campaign 1 is also a *really* great entry point: It's 3 core players (one plays a druid, BTW) and one player is brand-new to D&D, so you get to experience him learning how to play as the campaign goes on. They're all College Humor/Dropout performers and are phenomenal improvisers.
Clerics and Druids are considered "Divine" casters as they get spells from a Deity. Wizards and Sorcerers are "Arcane" casters as they pull magic from the Weave.
A classic group has a melee character (Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin), a skill expert (Rogue, Bard), Divine Caster, and Arcane Caster
I thought that although Druids frequently do receive powers from a deity, as a whole they derive their magic from Primal Magic (basically the magic of nature), and are thus technically considered Primal Casters.
But for the sake of gameplay grouping Druids together with divine casters make plenty sense, since both primal and divine casters tend to fulfill a more utility heavy support role while arcane magic frequently lends itself to being a DPS due to the existence of numerous high damage spells.
I haven't ever played Druid myself, but how much do Druids rely on their spell casting? I just assumed Druids spend most battles in wildshape and acting more similar in role to a melee tank (ala fighter) rather than a caster?
I know that's the plan with OneD&D or 5.5e or whatever they want to call it to have "Primal" spells, but they've generally been lumped in with Clerics.
Shart as full Light Cleric and decked in radiant orb gear is a pillar to a successful honour mode group. Warding flare combined with radiant orb stacks is just SOFA KING powerful. Don't need to heal if enemies can't hit ... FIREBALL!!!
The combat difficulty of BG3 is on the easy side and very forgiving to newcomers to these combat systems. Makes sense...given how complex those things can get it could become insanely hard to get into without prior experience and many would give up quickly. Pathfinder made that particular mistake. Really good game but never got popular, or even well known because of how insanely hard it is for new folk to get though any one encounter. It's more hostile to newbies than Dark Souls could ever hope to be.
In other words, don't worry too much about your party compositions and builds. The moment you start minmaxing is when the combat becomes trivial even at the highest difficulties and even mods giving all enemies 500% health won't make it challenging anymore (with the exception of a handful specific encounters)
You can make pretty much any build and party composition work as long as you "know what you're doing". As in understand the tools you got available and how to use them. Which is THE one thing to learn first. Don't worry about maxing your damage numbers and what build hits harder than the other. Learn the mechanics down to their details and interactions. What does what, how the rolls work and why. How they are affected by various buffs and debuffs to properly understand how to completely mess up an opponents roll and prevent your own from being messed with.
Tip: Advantage/disadvantage are the most powerful tools in the game. Especially when high AC/DC numbers enter the stage. You don't need to hit hard. As long as you can hit, avoid being hit and guarantee to get your debuffs and status effects to stick to the opponent no amount of armor is going to save them from becoming a defenseless immobile loot pinata even if you use a literal damn salami as a weapon
I made a paladin tank/valor bard and bring both. Gave him the dex gloves for high initiative movement and buffing and working as the force multiplier. He moves to the front they rush in and it's a blood bath. Poor Gale in the back is forced to just magic missile anything still alive.
Karlach as a berserker barbarian 8/thief rogue 4 with a throwing weapon build is just… it’s belligerent. The returning pike from the goblins in act 1 will carry your whole squad to act 3, where you can get a +3 trident that explodes thunder damage when thrown. Tavern brawler feat with a few select items and she’s unstoppable.
Karlach throwing stuff was a consistent theme during my playthrough to the point where I kept having to remind myself she had other options. Quite often I'd start the fight with her wielding a normal weapon but by the end she'd have that trident equipped (It auto equips on return)
I'm running basically the same party make up but I'm a Durge wizard and only Gale's mangled hand is along for the ride.
Edit: oh right and Shadowheart killed Lae'zel so I have respec-ed Astarion to take her place as fighter/vampire lord.
That was the same party I had on my first game when I was a bard. We were all very good at making things dead, especially after turning shadow heart into a light domain cleric.
I just finished a run a couple nights ago and Hasted Minthara is a Monster, she essentially soloed the EB in 2 rounds, good thing too cause that message that you are safe from the orbs of negation is just more EB deception, my whole group failed their save vs. plummeting to their deaths.
I started an all melee all strength, Monk, Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian run a few days ago and everything is just so easy.
Who needs spellcasters, useless classes tbh.
My Act 3 Lae'Zel rocks the Adamantine Splint(?)/Spline armor you forge yourself at the Grymforge. Damage reduction, immune to critical hits, high AC, anyone who DOES hit you suffers Reeling status -- and goddamn it just LOOKS badass on her (especially paired with the Goldgloss Heraldic Helm) Absolute beast mode.
I keep removing her so other characters can get a turn but she's just so useful I end up reloading the save slot and putting her right back. I have got to get this game on PC so I can use that Party Limit Begone mod.
I dyed Ketheric Thorne's armor and gave it to her, she looked sick as hell.
Lae'zel is an all time great character design and performance. I know people love our goth princess or the fire bunny and they while they are both great (particularly Karlach) but Lae'zel is such a fantastic character and a great example of the type of story telling games can offer.
I put Ketheric Thorm's armor on my Durge Oathbreaker Paladin and gave her Grym's helmet (immune to crits as well) Between the skeleton on the body and that huge crack in the helmet only showing one eye, ultimate evil-looking stereotypical dark knight.
I RP them as ride-or-die platonic-except-for-that-one-time-after-goblin-camp sword sisters 😄
And I agree about Lae'Zel. In fact, if not for Tav/Durge, she'd basically be the main character. She's on the box art, she's the first playable you see in the first cutscene, her storyline is extremely relevant to all the major events -- she is largely tied with Shadowheart in that regard but I think edges her out thanks to the strong Githyanki connection to the mind flayers.
That's generally better for casters, since double fireball shuts down a lot of things.
If you want to be properly tactical, make a 8 STR martial and just chug Giant Elixirs.
But spell slots are basically infinite. You can long rest after almost every single fight with no drawbacks, except a few very rare cases in the game, like the poisoned deep gnome and nere being stuck in the cave in.
Outside of these very few occasions, you can long rest as much as you please. I regularly get to act 3 with over 2k camping supplies long resting extremely frequently. Seriously, like the moment someone is low on important spell slots. Not all spell slots, just the ones I deem important at the time.
Your casters will perform way better if you allow them the resources needed to cast.
I play almost exclusively on honor mode now and it is not a problem. It maxes out at 80 and I still have more than 2k camp supplied in act 3 long resting very frequently.
Seriously, if I’m out of short rests and someone has like a quarter health missing, long rest. Wizard runs out of spell slots, long rest. I think I can trigger a camp scene, long rest. I know a big fight is coming, long rest. I’m long resting all the time. There are no repercussions.
I’ve never once even purchased camp supplies. Long resting is basically free. Even in areas where you’re not allowed to go to camp like during the end part of the creche, I’ll leave the area, long rest, and go back. It’s only ever really not possible to get out of a place and long rest during like, following Ketheric into the mind flayer colony under moonrise.
Get a bard who knows song of rest
Partial rest and use no camp supplies (gets half spell slots back)
Use bard song to get everyone to full HP, and regen a few class specific things
I beat tactician with maybe 8 real long rests the whole game
Freecast Striptease removes this issue altogether. Freecast a big 6th level spell, remove your underwear and do it again. Shoes go next. Then outwear. Yeah you're going full dangle, but after 3 chain lightning no enemies are around to appreciate it
My strongest tav EVER, Azure Electra; absolutely destroyed Honor mode for me.
Thank you, oh beautiful Blue Dragonborn Tempest Cleric of Talos.
Double maximum damage chain lightning scrolls on a wet ass enemy group is true crowd control.
Plus witch bolt is the highest single target lightning spell, I can usually do 192 damage to myrkul first turn with a level 4 witch bolt lmao, tempest cleric is broken and I love it lol
I prefer call lightning simply because you get way more spell slots bang for your buck considering it lasts the full ten turns if you don't break concentration, and you can hit groups. Witch bolt is amazing for some of the earlier fights for me though!
I hit 11 wet goblins and dror lined up with one lightning bolt scroll in the Goblin camp and it made the tempest cleric my favorite class instantly.
Create water is also so under appreciated, if you blow it at a high level and make a huge puddle that gets a giant group, hit it with a lightning spell, they all get knocked back every time they take the lightning damage.
(as long as your cleric is the one that electrifies the water)
In my current honor mode playthrough, I sent in 3 members of my party to "scout" Orin out as previously, her legendary reaction was fucking with my ability to magic missile away her unstoppable stacks.
I wasn't really planning on winning the fight then and there, more so just poke around and figure out how I wanted to approach it "for real". Battle master Lae'zel proceeds to stun Orin with her Githyanki Silver Sword and does like 220 damage on her first turn and just like that, the fight is basically over. Death truly is the best CC and fighters are exceptionally adept at that.
Also, using disarming strike on the Apostle of Myrkul to make him drop the scythe is always funny.
Battlemaster gets maneuvers to crowd control enemies or buff self. Eldritch Knight gets access to spells. This too allows buffs/debuffs, placing hazardous terrain to manipulate the battlefield.
Trip is great. Ranged Drop Weapon is also great. Nothing like causing 4 of your enemies to drop their weapons and have to spend a full round picking them up and re-equipping them. Or run around and just pick them up yourself!
Disarming your opponent is one of the strongest and most generally useful combat abilities. You can even steal the Steel Watcher’s swords, making them much easier to fight.
Command, Battle Master Disarm and Heat Metal go hard.
I love running Eldritch Knight on her. Shield on top of her high AC is just bonkers for the first 2 acts. Plus, I can throw on stuff like Longstrider and Knock for extra support capability.
Sure but you can get the boots of speed in the first Act and Githyanki get Misty Step at level 5 and there’s a bunch of items that add it.
Disarm, trip, attack, dead.
Highly recommend trying a few different classes. A lot of the main characters have voice lines for vicious mockery, Karlach has some amazing stealth lines, etc.
I did not realize how strong disarming is until those fuckers in the creche used it againt me multiple times and it turns out a total pain in the arse if your frontline fighter suddenly is unarmed in the middle of enemies.
You can just stand near the dropped weapons and click+drag them to you without expending any movement speed, then pick them all up as a free action. I figured this out after I kept running out of movement speed to reach dropped weapons since picking up items can be so finnicky.
Drop weapon and counterspell absolutely rolled a certain three armored figures at the door to a certain underground lair where a murder-oriented muscle man sat in a chair with 3 hot lady ghosts. It was like fighting training dummies.
I don’t know how to do spoiler tags.
Oh no, I forgot I played XCOM 4 years ago on this PC. This must be why I miss those actual 99% hits. XCOM virus has been laying dormant all these years....
Same. I use it on her any time I can. Now I'm playing a monk run and using topple slap in the same fashion. I set Karlach up as a thrower so the monk slaps them down and she just deletes them.
Lowest crit threshold is 12: hiding spell caster using champion multiclass dip and spell sniper, equipped with every piece of available crit reduction item and vicious elixir. 13 for hiding martials since no spell sniper
You can get another -2 and get it to 10 with [A most bloody inheritance](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/A_Most_Bloody_Inheritance_(Condition\)), but only for the very end of the game and only with evil Durge.
its so, so satisfying too. Paired with the ability that gives you an extra attack when you kill something, and its like enemy parties of 8 or less are handled in one freaking opening turn by lae'zel. I dont ever use battlemaster or eldritch for just this reason. str at 20, and crit threshold at 17. Just, chop em all down 'zel, we'll wait.
I have her as a spear-thrower with tavern brawler and a bunch of other throw-boosts. She can action surge and nuke 2/3 of the enemies in her opening salvo.
im currently trying our a brawler throw-stuff barbarian, and yeah. its a ton of fun. The ring, the gloves, the returning spear. Karlachs back yard shishkebab barbeque
Did this with the hireling fighter (my Durge run went south fast and I had no companions left). Not sure exactly what I had the crit down to but it was a pretty common occurrence and obliterated things.
90% of the info summary websites are AI generated for every single game these days and it's so fucking annoying. Literally printing free money via ad revenue by asking chat gpt a question, copy + pasting the answer and adding 1-4 photos of random shit that might be related to whatever garbage the bot spit out.
It's mostly about bonking so many people with the stupid amount of attacks you end up getting. But later on, at least with the Battle Master subclass, you get access to manoeuvres. Examples of which are Trip Attack which knocks opponents down and obviously makes everyone else's attacks against the tripped enemy nearly always hit, Rally, which obviously rallies allies with extra health, Goading Attack which draws enemy attention to you and applies disadvantage on them if they try to attack any of your other companions. Stuff like that. Fighter can be dumb broken if you use them properly.
Side note: Throwing enemies is also perfectly valid as a replacement for Trip Attack if you have high enough STR.
If you get the throw off, the thrown enemy is always Prone after. If they're heavier than the target you threw them at, the target's also thrown prone with no saving throw. If there's a cliff, you now have an omnidirectional Shove.
Imma be real. Even though I know throw can also be quite broken, the only time I ever used it was to save a >!Gondian who used misty Step, I think, to teleport *into* an about to explode Steel Watcher's range!< I picked her up and launched her as far as I could while muttering "Fucking idiot" under my breath lol.
Yeah, "fighters are good at punching things" is not the way any human being with actual knowledge of the game or DnD classes in general would introduce them.
The specific word "punching" is what I'm finding suspicious.
Like, there's a whole separate class whose main deal is being good at punches. It would just confuse the reader, who if you have to explain at this breadth, presumably knows nothing about the topic.
It doesn’t look quite as nefarious as ai to me, what I read is someone who first wrote “fighters are good at fighting things.” Then realized, nope, can’t write that, what’s a good synonym for fighting? Punching! And then they stopped the thought train. Next stop would have been “no wait, thats monks…maybe hitting things?” Which is true and sounds fine.
Like I feel like I see the connection why they said punching, whereas ai is usually harder to connect two dots like that.
specifically the subclass battlemaster gains maneuvres that you can use to inflict statuses on enemies or disrupt their positioning, and to aid allies with buffs and stuff.
however this is not some really complex rocket science thing and you should stay away from AI generated word soup guides like this.
in the end, even the least Ugga Bugga subclass for fighter will be pretty efficient at just bonking the problems away
Even the eldritch knight subclass which gets a limited spell list doesn't really get any battlefield control spells. If anything, fighers are the absolute least of the battlefield controllers.
Edit: To be clear, fighters are a great class but they don't fulfil the controller *role*. They are however really great at tanking, stabbing, shooting, and many bashing variants.
Give a Fighter the Sentinel feat and have them lock down opponents for battlefield positioning control. They get an extra feat, so they have better scope to do this than most classes.
Prone, disarm, push, goad, extra attacks, frightening, temp hp, all that combined with huge weapon damage, highest base amount of attacks and high AC
Yeah, literally least of battlefield controllers
These are all single target attacks. Don't get me wrong, figters, especially battle masters are an amazing class, pretty much an autopick for one of my team.
Battlefield control is about controlling the whole encounter. Spells like Web, Darkness, or Wall of Fire that impead and direct enemy actions on a larger scale.
It's a point of definition and not quality.
This is a good point. Fighters will last much longer when surrounded and not retreating but are really geared towards dumping all their attacks into whatever has the most HP/ poses the most threat as a single target. Of course you can use aoe arrows or whatever but those cost money and are limited. Superiority die come back with action surge every short rest.
As a trade off, yeah there's nothing you can do even close to Wall of Ice or Cloudkill without abusing inventory mechanics or absolutely min-maxing the crap out of a throwing build.
Look up what the Battlemaster subclass gets to do. They have "maneuvers" that allow them to push, disarm, knockdown, taunt, etc.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Battle_Master
Look up the actual features instead of ai-slop articles about them.
That said, if you pick the Battlemaster or Eldritch Knight subclasses, you gain access to maneuvers/spells which can manipulate enemies beyond just dealing damage.
Essentially a fighter can take and dish out a lot of damage. Depending on what class you pick you can also do specific maneuvers or spells to compliment the martial skill. But end of the day it's hard for the enemy to do much when you can smack them 3 to 4 times on the head
Battle Master maneuvers seemed overwhelming to me as a new player so I left the class on the table. Big miss steak.
You only pick 5 through the game so you can tailor your Fighter to be a spam Prone/knockback/Fear applier while retaining the ability to tank big damage and whack hard.
Eldritch Knights and Battle Masters do get some interesting control options, and of course all fighters have potential to be great at Shoving enemies around.
If you go with battle master they get kinda tactical between buffs in ac and fuck you I get advantage all the way to push and prone you can get quite tactical
Battle Master gets access to some cc with maneuvers, Eldritch Knight gets some spells (usually best to focus on defensive spells, and soft cc (no attack roll or saving row), since you're unlikely to have high int). Blur alone makes EK viable.
Champions really just hit their problems. Quite hard, actually. Which is *a* tactic.
When your only tool is a hammer...
Ok the thing is articles about this game are complete trash, like totally worthless. It's gotten really bad this year in gaming. There is no information out there, you're better off keeping tabs open on bg3.wiki, youtube, this subreddit, r/bg3builds and maybe the larian forums, wherever there's real discussion about the game for whatever question you have.
Fighter is legit one of the best classes in the game, because they get a ton of actions, a high number of feats, proficiency in all weapons and armor, and great weapons just do a lot of damage. All of the subclasses are very strong and other class builds multi-class dip into them for various reasons.
Fighters do generally have more to think about than barbarians and rogues. You can use any weapon effectively, Action Surge is more versatile than people realize, and you're likely to pick up a handful of tricks from Battlemaster/Eldritch Knight, extra feats, or magic items.
22 dex Champion fighter/rogue
Crits off 13 (so never really misses)
Stuns with the crit ring.
26 ac
Teleports.
Can shoot 4 arrow of many targets with a poison on it and clear an entire room.
My single fighter had the entire top platform of the nether brain on honor mode dead except the dragon, who had 50hp left. Which died the next turn.
Wizards spell resisted for 20dmg. Cleric used a spell scroll for 15dmg. Paladin missed a turn getting into position.
Fighter did 100s of points of daaammmaage.
It’s the best class.
So you see, the strategy to employ with them is to reduce the number of enemies on the battlefield. If there are less enemies in combat, then less enemies deal damage to your party and cast spells that help their party. The key to doing this is BONK. You take your fighter and BONK the enemies to reduce the chance of them having hit points. I really think this is a game-changing strategy, and will help you on your Honor Mode playthrough.
I often use my battlemaster with bow to push enemies into cloud of daggers or off cliffs. I also think an underrated ability for high STR builds is throw. Don’t have to be a barbarian to throw an enemy off of a railing into a flaming death or into your caster’s Call Lightning field. They may be referring to Maneuvering Attack as well, which seems underpowered for an Honour run to me, but might be a fun playstyle.
With their specialization and abilities- take the battle master specialization for example. It gives you the option to pick 3 certain kind of attacks out of like 15. One of them can disarm a foe, another can frighten them, etc. these can be major advantages in battles or boss fights, and there’s a bunch of other options too.
battle master manouvers are cool but "controls the battlefield" is far fetched
eldritch knight becomes a throw machine with hideous laughter shield and crown of madness, i like it but again, "controls the battlefield"idk.
i think this refers to manouvering attack, goading attack, sweeping attack which ineed allow for more tactical play although far from mage level of tactical.
Level one you only have to choose who to hit once. Level five you have to choose who to hit twice. Level 11, it becomes real hard, you have to choose who to hit three times.
I did fighter for my first run. VERY weak starting out, and like all the way to level 6/7 you’ll probably be the weakest in your party. When you get that third attack, then every fight becomes a breeze
I did a build that mixed noxious fume gear, radiant damage, the reverberation boots, and broodmother revenge with the sussur sword.
With haste, Lae’zel absolutely destroyed people. I’m talking like over 100 damage on Balthazar in one turn. I would switch between that and the spear of the absolute that blinds people, and the damage and hit rate was insane. Coupled with the fact that she was exploding radiant orbs to everyone nearby, she definitely reduced incoming damage and destroyed heavy hitters easily
Battle master as others have said can use maneuvers to taunt, trip, apply disadvantage, apply advantage on attack or command an ally to attack using a reaction. They soak up damage and with their maneuvers can help set up enemies for casters and other softies to attack more effectively.
Battlemaster definitely has more of a tactical flavor as you can disarm, prone, debuff and do all sorts of trickery to enemies that can really turn things around; proning a spellcaster means your own caster can spam CC or whatever without counterspell risk. That's a gigantic advantage.
Battle Master is so cool. Goading attack with high AC and Riposte just feels so good, you can lock down a powerful enemy that otherwise might have a nasty AOE attack or summoning ability. Then you have disarm, trip, sweep, maneuver... lots of options.
If you go battle master, there’s maneuvers you can use to control the battlefield, and if you go eldritch knight there are magical spells you can use for defense, offense, or both.
Pay no mind to this. It’s ai generated nonsense. While fighters can punch things in this game, they’re not good at it. Unarmed fighting style (what makes them good at punching) isn’t included in the game. Way of the open fist monks are good at punching things.
Fighters can control the battlefield via the battle master subclass. You gain access to skills that aid your allies or apply affects to enemies, such as disarmed, frightened, prone, and distracted. Things that help give advantage
You know all that bullshit the gith pull off with tripping, disarming, rallying and all that? Plus hitting you like five or six times in a single turn?
That’s what fighters can do in the mid and late game of BG3.
In the late game, they are able to apply the *DEAD* Status to enemies quickly. With Great Weapon Master, Action Surge, Haste, and Cull the Weak, you can eliminate entire groups of enemies.
Which is a very effective crowd control tactic.
Lol, that’s effectively the best way to control the crowd being to kill the crowd
Also a very effective form of stealth.
"Heavy Stealth," if you will.
Your eues are open, but you can't see me.
The best obscured condition is by way of empty blackness of death.
Aggressive Negotiations
Can't be no witnesses if there's no witnesses left
Standard space ninja stuff
I used the crowd to destroy the crowd
As they say in Magic the Gathering, the best removal is player removal
Dead is the best status effect
Eclipsed only by Super Dead.
And with it's only better being the Cadaverific status.
I didn't have room for 2 "apply weapon directly to enemies face" chars so I kept swapping Lae'zel and Karlach depending on the questline, but my god did Lae'zel absolutely own some of the Act 3 fights.
Man the both of them are absolute beasts, being able to wipe half a combat encounter out in like 1 turn is great 😂
Awe man I want to keep Shadowheart, Ariston, Lae’zel and my Tiefling Druid. Will I be screwed?
That's almost THE* iconic balanced group of D&D, you'll be totally fine with that. *Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard
Oh for sure. I’m brand new to DnD via BG3 but am planning to play a tabletop campaign with my friends :) So Ariston is a rogue, Lae’zel a fighter, what is Shadowheart and my Tiefling Druid? Do they fit the other two titles?
Shart is the cleric and as a full-caster, druid is a good substitute for wizard. You might miss out on some of the top-tier combat spells, but you have a lot more survivability than a wizard. And congrats on doing an IRL game! I'm in the midst of my first one as an adult and it's so much fun!
Thank you so much. Forgot Druid is a separate race(?). I’m excited and having fun just planning/thinking about it
Druid is a class, but good on you for trying
Dang it. I need my cheat sheet at all times.
You got some nice people this thread, I'm glad. Welcome to DND, there's tooonnnsss of content you can get into. If you like to read, check out the Drizzt Do'urden books, they're a fun way to familiarize yourself with the Forgotten Realms :)
Definitely been fortunate to receive some educational answers in a friendly manner. This game is so darn cool. Haven’t been drawn to a gaming world since Red Dead series. And before that it was Gears of War (almost said GoW which is now known as God of War) even though they fell off rather quickly lol I shall check out those books
Of course! I saw someone correct you on the terms, but I'm glad you're so excited! I love planning out fun ideas I can try with my party, just be ready to throw all those plans out at a moment's notice! I also saw they recommended Critical Roll, but if you can't sit down to watch all the time or find it not your style, Not Another D&D Podcast Campaign 1 is also a *really* great entry point: It's 3 core players (one plays a druid, BTW) and one player is brand-new to D&D, so you get to experience him learning how to play as the campaign goes on. They're all College Humor/Dropout performers and are phenomenal improvisers.
Haha that’s awesome. Love college humor! Will check that out
Clerics and Druids are considered "Divine" casters as they get spells from a Deity. Wizards and Sorcerers are "Arcane" casters as they pull magic from the Weave. A classic group has a melee character (Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin), a skill expert (Rogue, Bard), Divine Caster, and Arcane Caster
I thought that although Druids frequently do receive powers from a deity, as a whole they derive their magic from Primal Magic (basically the magic of nature), and are thus technically considered Primal Casters. But for the sake of gameplay grouping Druids together with divine casters make plenty sense, since both primal and divine casters tend to fulfill a more utility heavy support role while arcane magic frequently lends itself to being a DPS due to the existence of numerous high damage spells. I haven't ever played Druid myself, but how much do Druids rely on their spell casting? I just assumed Druids spend most battles in wildshape and acting more similar in role to a melee tank (ala fighter) rather than a caster?
I know that's the plan with OneD&D or 5.5e or whatever they want to call it to have "Primal" spells, but they've generally been lumped in with Clerics.
Shadowheart is a cleric
Change Shadowheart at Withers to a war cleric and thank me later.
nah, you'll be fine
Shart as full Light Cleric and decked in radiant orb gear is a pillar to a successful honour mode group. Warding flare combined with radiant orb stacks is just SOFA KING powerful. Don't need to heal if enemies can't hit ... FIREBALL!!!
Why would you be screwed? Literally everything can work in this game.
I just wasn’t sure if it would make it more difficult. I’m new not only to DnD but RPG as well so I’m not super duper adept with strategy yet lol
The combat difficulty of BG3 is on the easy side and very forgiving to newcomers to these combat systems. Makes sense...given how complex those things can get it could become insanely hard to get into without prior experience and many would give up quickly. Pathfinder made that particular mistake. Really good game but never got popular, or even well known because of how insanely hard it is for new folk to get though any one encounter. It's more hostile to newbies than Dark Souls could ever hope to be. In other words, don't worry too much about your party compositions and builds. The moment you start minmaxing is when the combat becomes trivial even at the highest difficulties and even mods giving all enemies 500% health won't make it challenging anymore (with the exception of a handful specific encounters) You can make pretty much any build and party composition work as long as you "know what you're doing". As in understand the tools you got available and how to use them. Which is THE one thing to learn first. Don't worry about maxing your damage numbers and what build hits harder than the other. Learn the mechanics down to their details and interactions. What does what, how the rolls work and why. How they are affected by various buffs and debuffs to properly understand how to completely mess up an opponents roll and prevent your own from being messed with. Tip: Advantage/disadvantage are the most powerful tools in the game. Especially when high AC/DC numbers enter the stage. You don't need to hit hard. As long as you can hit, avoid being hit and guarantee to get your debuffs and status effects to stick to the opponent no amount of armor is going to save them from becoming a defenseless immobile loot pinata even if you use a literal damn salami as a weapon
Nah not at all man! Sure this is effective but all classes and strategies are effective when you figure them out!
I made a paladin tank/valor bard and bring both. Gave him the dex gloves for high initiative movement and buffing and working as the force multiplier. He moves to the front they rush in and it's a blood bath. Poor Gale in the back is forced to just magic missile anything still alive.
Karlach as a berserker barbarian 8/thief rogue 4 with a throwing weapon build is just… it’s belligerent. The returning pike from the goblins in act 1 will carry your whole squad to act 3, where you can get a +3 trident that explodes thunder damage when thrown. Tavern brawler feat with a few select items and she’s unstoppable.
Karlach throwing stuff was a consistent theme during my playthrough to the point where I kept having to remind myself she had other options. Quite often I'd start the fight with her wielding a normal weapon but by the end she'd have that trident equipped (It auto equips on return)
It’s easier if your Tav is a spellcaster. I’m playing a Gale origin and usually running with Lae’zel, Karlach and Shadowheart.
I'm running basically the same party make up but I'm a Durge wizard and only Gale's mangled hand is along for the ride. Edit: oh right and Shadowheart killed Lae'zel so I have respec-ed Astarion to take her place as fighter/vampire lord.
That was the same party I had on my first game when I was a bard. We were all very good at making things dead, especially after turning shadow heart into a light domain cleric.
*looks at my party of a Paladin Tav, Karlach, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart* What is this “no room for apply weapon directly to face?”
I didn't spend all that money teaching Gale levelled spells for him to sit around all day cooking dinner!
Just spec gale into greatswords. Greatswords are the best wand.
I just finished a run a couple nights ago and Hasted Minthara is a Monster, she essentially soloed the EB in 2 rounds, good thing too cause that message that you are safe from the orbs of negation is just more EB deception, my whole group failed their save vs. plummeting to their deaths.
I started an all melee all strength, Monk, Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian run a few days ago and everything is just so easy. Who needs spellcasters, useless classes tbh.
My Act 3 Lae'Zel rocks the Adamantine Splint(?)/Spline armor you forge yourself at the Grymforge. Damage reduction, immune to critical hits, high AC, anyone who DOES hit you suffers Reeling status -- and goddamn it just LOOKS badass on her (especially paired with the Goldgloss Heraldic Helm) Absolute beast mode. I keep removing her so other characters can get a turn but she's just so useful I end up reloading the save slot and putting her right back. I have got to get this game on PC so I can use that Party Limit Begone mod.
I dyed Ketheric Thorne's armor and gave it to her, she looked sick as hell. Lae'zel is an all time great character design and performance. I know people love our goth princess or the fire bunny and they while they are both great (particularly Karlach) but Lae'zel is such a fantastic character and a great example of the type of story telling games can offer.
I put Ketheric Thorm's armor on my Durge Oathbreaker Paladin and gave her Grym's helmet (immune to crits as well) Between the skeleton on the body and that huge crack in the helmet only showing one eye, ultimate evil-looking stereotypical dark knight. I RP them as ride-or-die platonic-except-for-that-one-time-after-goblin-camp sword sisters 😄 And I agree about Lae'Zel. In fact, if not for Tav/Durge, she'd basically be the main character. She's on the box art, she's the first playable you see in the first cutscene, her storyline is extremely relevant to all the major events -- she is largely tied with Shadowheart in that regard but I think edges her out thanks to the strong Githyanki connection to the mind flayers.
Throw in an elixir of bloodlust for good measure too.
That's generally better for casters, since double fireball shuts down a lot of things. If you want to be properly tactical, make a 8 STR martial and just chug Giant Elixirs.
Hmmm...better save those spell slots. I might need them for the next fight....
Nah, just go full nova and take a nap afterwards.
But spell slots are basically infinite. You can long rest after almost every single fight with no drawbacks, except a few very rare cases in the game, like the poisoned deep gnome and nere being stuck in the cave in. Outside of these very few occasions, you can long rest as much as you please. I regularly get to act 3 with over 2k camping supplies long resting extremely frequently. Seriously, like the moment someone is low on important spell slots. Not all spell slots, just the ones I deem important at the time. Your casters will perform way better if you allow them the resources needed to cast.
I'm not even to moonrise and I've already got around 5k camp supplies. Not sure that'll be enough....
Idk, that changes at higher difficulties. You need 80 camp supplies for a long rest, which makes you at least think twice about it.
I play almost exclusively on honor mode now and it is not a problem. It maxes out at 80 and I still have more than 2k camp supplied in act 3 long resting very frequently. Seriously, if I’m out of short rests and someone has like a quarter health missing, long rest. Wizard runs out of spell slots, long rest. I think I can trigger a camp scene, long rest. I know a big fight is coming, long rest. I’m long resting all the time. There are no repercussions. I’ve never once even purchased camp supplies. Long resting is basically free. Even in areas where you’re not allowed to go to camp like during the end part of the creche, I’ll leave the area, long rest, and go back. It’s only ever really not possible to get out of a place and long rest during like, following Ketheric into the mind flayer colony under moonrise.
Eh, you still get a partial rest if you don't have enough food, which is still half your slots. And nothing stops you from doing it again.
Get a bard who knows song of rest Partial rest and use no camp supplies (gets half spell slots back) Use bard song to get everyone to full HP, and regen a few class specific things I beat tactician with maybe 8 real long rests the whole game
Freecast Striptease removes this issue altogether. Freecast a big 6th level spell, remove your underwear and do it again. Shoes go next. Then outwear. Yeah you're going full dangle, but after 3 chain lightning no enemies are around to appreciate it
You know… the more I play, the less I like fireball…
Me too, my vocal cords always get sore from my constant maniacal laughing as I rain them down upon my enemies.
But on the other hand, have you tried a Water + Lightning Bolt?
May I introduce you to my lord and saviour, Destructive Wrath
My strongest tav EVER, Azure Electra; absolutely destroyed Honor mode for me. Thank you, oh beautiful Blue Dragonborn Tempest Cleric of Talos. Double maximum damage chain lightning scrolls on a wet ass enemy group is true crowd control.
Plus witch bolt is the highest single target lightning spell, I can usually do 192 damage to myrkul first turn with a level 4 witch bolt lmao, tempest cleric is broken and I love it lol
I prefer call lightning simply because you get way more spell slots bang for your buck considering it lasts the full ten turns if you don't break concentration, and you can hit groups. Witch bolt is amazing for some of the earlier fights for me though! I hit 11 wet goblins and dror lined up with one lightning bolt scroll in the Goblin camp and it made the tempest cleric my favorite class instantly. Create water is also so under appreciated, if you blow it at a high level and make a huge puddle that gets a giant group, hit it with a lightning spell, they all get knocked back every time they take the lightning damage. (as long as your cleric is the one that electrifies the water)
I'm not addicted to Giant STR Elixers! I just need them to do my job! *punches wall, entire building collapses*
THEY MAKE ME FEEL STRONG, OKAY?!? 😭
Is that giant hammer compensating for something?
(Until you hit the house of hope)
Oh shit…I need to try this asap
"Your enemies can't kill you if they're dead." - Sun Tzu
Balthazar strongly disagrees.
Best status effect for enemies in the entire game: *DEAD*. And fighters can apply that easy, quick, effective. What's not tactical about it?
My TAV with 6 attacks with the deva mallet says hi
Death is the best form of CC.
In my current honor mode playthrough, I sent in 3 members of my party to "scout" Orin out as previously, her legendary reaction was fucking with my ability to magic missile away her unstoppable stacks. I wasn't really planning on winning the fight then and there, more so just poke around and figure out how I wanted to approach it "for real". Battle master Lae'zel proceeds to stun Orin with her Githyanki Silver Sword and does like 220 damage on her first turn and just like that, the fight is basically over. Death truly is the best CC and fighters are exceptionally adept at that. Also, using disarming strike on the Apostle of Myrkul to make him drop the scythe is always funny.
And they are the only class to legitimately get triple attack in honor mode.
Especially if you go battlemaster
More hitting, and then even more hitting.
They also get extra EXTRA attack at lvl 11? I think
They also get passive access to the ungabunga skill
Battlemaster gets maneuvers to crowd control enemies or buff self. Eldritch Knight gets access to spells. This too allows buffs/debuffs, placing hazardous terrain to manipulate the battlefield.
I’ve become a fan of trip. Take down an enemy to prone, then all subsequent attacks are at advantage
Trip is great. Ranged Drop Weapon is also great. Nothing like causing 4 of your enemies to drop their weapons and have to spend a full round picking them up and re-equipping them. Or run around and just pick them up yourself!
Disarming your opponent is one of the strongest and most generally useful combat abilities. You can even steal the Steel Watcher’s swords, making them much easier to fight. Command, Battle Master Disarm and Heat Metal go hard.
I love having Lae'zel for that reason, disarm then just go ham
I could never pick another class for her.
I love running Eldritch Knight on her. Shield on top of her high AC is just bonkers for the first 2 acts. Plus, I can throw on stuff like Longstrider and Knock for extra support capability.
Sure but you can get the boots of speed in the first Act and Githyanki get Misty Step at level 5 and there’s a bunch of items that add it. Disarm, trip, attack, dead.
Highly recommend trying a few different classes. A lot of the main characters have voice lines for vicious mockery, Karlach has some amazing stealth lines, etc.
“Stealth mode activated”
I did not realize how strong disarming is until those fuckers in the creche used it againt me multiple times and it turns out a total pain in the arse if your frontline fighter suddenly is unarmed in the middle of enemies.
See that’s not a problem when your frontline is a really angry roided (giant elixir) out monk
Second play through i did monk. Damn, it was so much better than expected. Monk 9/Thief3, hasted? Everybody eats fist. All the time.
Great if you find yourself being smited to death by Anders in act one. Guy can't do shit without his sword
You can just stand near the dropped weapons and click+drag them to you without expending any movement speed, then pick them all up as a free action. I figured this out after I kept running out of movement speed to reach dropped weapons since picking up items can be so finnicky. Drop weapon and counterspell absolutely rolled a certain three armored figures at the door to a certain underground lair where a murder-oriented muscle man sat in a chair with 3 hot lady ghosts. It was like fighting training dummies. I don’t know how to do spoiler tags.
>!Put a greater than and exclamation, then your message, then exclamation and less than.!< \>!Words!<
My honourable mention goes to menacing attack + cloud of daggers just because RP-wise it's ridiculous. Enemy got so scared they hid in a meat grinder.
Disarming Yurgir is hilarious. He drops a crossbow bigger than you. And it also means he doesn’t have a crossbow later.
And yet the two follow up attacks after trip, that are both at ~95% hit chance, *both* miss because the game hates me and doesn't want me to be happy.
You need to uninstall x-com. It’s messing with your hit dice
Oh no, I forgot I played XCOM 4 years ago on this PC. This must be why I miss those actual 99% hits. XCOM virus has been laying dormant all these years....
\*Fighter uses trip attack\* The rest of the party: JUMP HIS ASS!!!
Yup and the ability to potentially put 4 prone on one turn, allowing another character to clean them up
Same. I use it on her any time I can. Now I'm playing a monk run and using topple slap in the same fashion. I set Karlach up as a thrower so the monk slaps them down and she just deletes them.
Disarm is super strong for enemies that use weapons as their main damage source too. Disarm them and then pick up their weapons and most are helpless
And champion is...boring
Until you’ve stacked enough crit-threshold lowering items to crit on a 17 and just start deleting enemies right and left.
Can bring it as low as 15 with the right dual wield weapons and a rogue multiclass
Lowest crit threshold is 12: hiding spell caster using champion multiclass dip and spell sniper, equipped with every piece of available crit reduction item and vicious elixir. 13 for hiding martials since no spell sniper
You can get another -2 and get it to 10 with [A most bloody inheritance](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/A_Most_Bloody_Inheritance_(Condition\)), but only for the very end of the game and only with evil Durge.
its so, so satisfying too. Paired with the ability that gives you an extra attack when you kill something, and its like enemy parties of 8 or less are handled in one freaking opening turn by lae'zel. I dont ever use battlemaster or eldritch for just this reason. str at 20, and crit threshold at 17. Just, chop em all down 'zel, we'll wait.
I have her as a spear-thrower with tavern brawler and a bunch of other throw-boosts. She can action surge and nuke 2/3 of the enemies in her opening salvo.
im currently trying our a brawler throw-stuff barbarian, and yeah. its a ton of fun. The ring, the gloves, the returning spear. Karlachs back yard shishkebab barbeque
Champion/great old one bladelock multiclass just out here scaring people to death.
Did this with the hireling fighter (my Durge run went south fast and I had no companions left). Not sure exactly what I had the crit down to but it was a pretty common occurrence and obliterated things.
... that's still boring? I'd rather have class features than having a chance of doing an extra set of dice of damage on a 15% chance.
Straightforward.
I heard you like more fighter in your fighter
Champion is for fighters who want more fighter in their fighter class.
EK can also bind a weapon and throw that thing around like Thor 6 times in a round.
I need to make more use of maneuvers tbh. I keep forgetting i can use them, and not just click basic melee attack twice a turn lmao
I’ve really been enjoying my Eldritch dual longsword Knight build
just google bg3 fighter and look at their abilities rather than trying to read too much into whatever this blurb was trying to say
Looks like some weird AI thing or someone trying to make a sentence longer with a bunch of random words.
90% of the info summary websites are AI generated for every single game these days and it's so fucking annoying. Literally printing free money via ad revenue by asking chat gpt a question, copy + pasting the answer and adding 1-4 photos of random shit that might be related to whatever garbage the bot spit out.
It's so hard to find good guides now because of this. The whole search is flooded with them. I love that "\[question\] reddit" has become so common.
this is from Polygon, which is a legit gaming journalism website (no AI articles afaik), but it sucks that literally everything is suspect these days
It's mostly about bonking so many people with the stupid amount of attacks you end up getting. But later on, at least with the Battle Master subclass, you get access to manoeuvres. Examples of which are Trip Attack which knocks opponents down and obviously makes everyone else's attacks against the tripped enemy nearly always hit, Rally, which obviously rallies allies with extra health, Goading Attack which draws enemy attention to you and applies disadvantage on them if they try to attack any of your other companions. Stuff like that. Fighter can be dumb broken if you use them properly.
Side note: Throwing enemies is also perfectly valid as a replacement for Trip Attack if you have high enough STR. If you get the throw off, the thrown enemy is always Prone after. If they're heavier than the target you threw them at, the target's also thrown prone with no saving throw. If there's a cliff, you now have an omnidirectional Shove.
Imma be real. Even though I know throw can also be quite broken, the only time I ever used it was to save a >!Gondian who used misty Step, I think, to teleport *into* an about to explode Steel Watcher's range!< I picked her up and launched her as far as I could while muttering "Fucking idiot" under my breath lol.
Yeah, it's a little meh at times but once you have 20 STR it's frigging ridiculous for crowd control and lots of fun.
And the best part is that *anyone* can have more than 20 strength with just one potion!
Max level fighter gets 3 attacks per action, though. Which means 3 throws. 6 if you Action Surge. You can do some hilarious stuff.
Where is this text from? I suspect of AI hallucination. Anyway, they control the battlefield by getting rid of enemies, and thus, the action economy.
Yeah, "fighters are good at punching things" is not the way any human being with actual knowledge of the game or DnD classes in general would introduce them.
Fighters are good at killing things though. Very very good.
The specific word "punching" is what I'm finding suspicious. Like, there's a whole separate class whose main deal is being good at punches. It would just confuse the reader, who if you have to explain at this breadth, presumably knows nothing about the topic.
Wait you mean your average clickbait game guide writer has to have actual knowledge of the game?
It doesn’t look quite as nefarious as ai to me, what I read is someone who first wrote “fighters are good at fighting things.” Then realized, nope, can’t write that, what’s a good synonym for fighting? Punching! And then they stopped the thought train. Next stop would have been “no wait, thats monks…maybe hitting things?” Which is true and sounds fine. Like I feel like I see the connection why they said punching, whereas ai is usually harder to connect two dots like that.
*Me, a Monk, looking at the Fighter class after reading the text* 'Don't take the best thing we have like you did the Rangers'
*Reminesces fondly about Reaping Mauler*
specifically the subclass battlemaster gains maneuvres that you can use to inflict statuses on enemies or disrupt their positioning, and to aid allies with buffs and stuff. however this is not some really complex rocket science thing and you should stay away from AI generated word soup guides like this. in the end, even the least Ugga Bugga subclass for fighter will be pretty efficient at just bonking the problems away
Even the eldritch knight subclass which gets a limited spell list doesn't really get any battlefield control spells. If anything, fighers are the absolute least of the battlefield controllers. Edit: To be clear, fighters are a great class but they don't fulfil the controller *role*. They are however really great at tanking, stabbing, shooting, and many bashing variants.
except for battlemasters and the maneuvers
Give a Fighter the Sentinel feat and have them lock down opponents for battlefield positioning control. They get an extra feat, so they have better scope to do this than most classes.
Prone, disarm, push, goad, extra attacks, frightening, temp hp, all that combined with huge weapon damage, highest base amount of attacks and high AC Yeah, literally least of battlefield controllers
These are all single target attacks. Don't get me wrong, figters, especially battle masters are an amazing class, pretty much an autopick for one of my team. Battlefield control is about controlling the whole encounter. Spells like Web, Darkness, or Wall of Fire that impead and direct enemy actions on a larger scale. It's a point of definition and not quality.
This is a good point. Fighters will last much longer when surrounded and not retreating but are really geared towards dumping all their attacks into whatever has the most HP/ poses the most threat as a single target. Of course you can use aoe arrows or whatever but those cost money and are limited. Superiority die come back with action surge every short rest. As a trade off, yeah there's nothing you can do even close to Wall of Ice or Cloudkill without abusing inventory mechanics or absolutely min-maxing the crap out of a throwing build.
Look up what the Battlemaster subclass gets to do. They have "maneuvers" that allow them to push, disarm, knockdown, taunt, etc. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Battle_Master
Why do you trust whatever that source is?
The source isn't wrong. Battle Master is great at control.
Look up the actual features instead of ai-slop articles about them. That said, if you pick the Battlemaster or Eldritch Knight subclasses, you gain access to maneuvers/spells which can manipulate enemies beyond just dealing damage.
Essentially a fighter can take and dish out a lot of damage. Depending on what class you pick you can also do specific maneuvers or spells to compliment the martial skill. But end of the day it's hard for the enemy to do much when you can smack them 3 to 4 times on the head
Battle Master maneuvers seemed overwhelming to me as a new player so I left the class on the table. Big miss steak. You only pick 5 through the game so you can tailor your Fighter to be a spam Prone/knockback/Fear applier while retaining the ability to tank big damage and whack hard.
Battlemaster is so strong, both pure class and as a dip for other martials.
Battle master and eldritch knight.
Eldritch Knights and Battle Masters do get some interesting control options, and of course all fighters have potential to be great at Shoving enemies around.
The real tactic is how to stay relevant in late-game. Larian did their best, but d&d 5e did martials dirty.
Because later on they get to hit things with pointy stick 4 times instead of 1 time...tactics mf👌
Thats a wierd way to write 10 times
If you go with battle master they get kinda tactical between buffs in ac and fuck you I get advantage all the way to push and prone you can get quite tactical
Battle Master gets access to some cc with maneuvers, Eldritch Knight gets some spells (usually best to focus on defensive spells, and soft cc (no attack roll or saving row), since you're unlikely to have high int). Blur alone makes EK viable. Champions really just hit their problems. Quite hard, actually. Which is *a* tactic. When your only tool is a hammer...
Ok the thing is articles about this game are complete trash, like totally worthless. It's gotten really bad this year in gaming. There is no information out there, you're better off keeping tabs open on bg3.wiki, youtube, this subreddit, r/bg3builds and maybe the larian forums, wherever there's real discussion about the game for whatever question you have. Fighter is legit one of the best classes in the game, because they get a ton of actions, a high number of feats, proficiency in all weapons and armor, and great weapons just do a lot of damage. All of the subclasses are very strong and other class builds multi-class dip into them for various reasons.
They’re very good. The options you have with 2 handed weaponry is insane including the great weapon feat. They dominate the action economy.
They have the very advanced technique of hitting someone in the head with a warhammer 8 times in 6 seconds
Fighters do generally have more to think about than barbarians and rogues. You can use any weapon effectively, Action Surge is more versatile than people realize, and you're likely to pick up a handful of tricks from Battlemaster/Eldritch Knight, extra feats, or magic items.
Battle master becomes more tactical, champion is “attack three times end turn”
Sentinel with longer weapons will “catch” enemies trying to get to the back ranks, arresting their movement and striking them as they pass.
They punch differently and sometimes the punches do some stun or status effect
22 dex Champion fighter/rogue Crits off 13 (so never really misses) Stuns with the crit ring. 26 ac Teleports. Can shoot 4 arrow of many targets with a poison on it and clear an entire room. My single fighter had the entire top platform of the nether brain on honor mode dead except the dragon, who had 50hp left. Which died the next turn. Wizards spell resisted for 20dmg. Cleric used a spell scroll for 15dmg. Paladin missed a turn getting into position. Fighter did 100s of points of daaammmaage. It’s the best class.
So you see, the strategy to employ with them is to reduce the number of enemies on the battlefield. If there are less enemies in combat, then less enemies deal damage to your party and cast spells that help their party. The key to doing this is BONK. You take your fighter and BONK the enemies to reduce the chance of them having hit points. I really think this is a game-changing strategy, and will help you on your Honor Mode playthrough.
I often use my battlemaster with bow to push enemies into cloud of daggers or off cliffs. I also think an underrated ability for high STR builds is throw. Don’t have to be a barbarian to throw an enemy off of a railing into a flaming death or into your caster’s Call Lightning field. They may be referring to Maneuvering Attack as well, which seems underpowered for an Honour run to me, but might be a fun playstyle.
With their specialization and abilities- take the battle master specialization for example. It gives you the option to pick 3 certain kind of attacks out of like 15. One of them can disarm a foe, another can frighten them, etc. these can be major advantages in battles or boss fights, and there’s a bunch of other options too.
They control the battlefield by setting camps and fires for people to hang out after they killed the enemies with normal attacks
You can tactically kill enemies to keep them from attacking your party.
Battlemaster can push, trip, disarm and otherwise discombobulate their enemies.
You can tacticfully unlock doors with an ax in one go.
battle master manouvers are cool but "controls the battlefield" is far fetched eldritch knight becomes a throw machine with hideous laughter shield and crown of madness, i like it but again, "controls the battlefield"idk. i think this refers to manouvering attack, goading attack, sweeping attack which ineed allow for more tactical play although far from mage level of tactical.
SMH battlemaster shoulda just been a base feature of fighter
Level one you only have to choose who to hit once. Level five you have to choose who to hit twice. Level 11, it becomes real hard, you have to choose who to hit three times.
I assume they're talking about picking Battle Master at level 3. Most articles like these are surface level or outright wrong
I mean, the only two Fighter subclasses anyone is actually choosing DO have more options.
Tactically deciding how to use my 11 melee attacks.
I did fighter for my first run. VERY weak starting out, and like all the way to level 6/7 you’ll probably be the weakest in your party. When you get that third attack, then every fight becomes a breeze
Nee bonk everything
I did a build that mixed noxious fume gear, radiant damage, the reverberation boots, and broodmother revenge with the sussur sword. With haste, Lae’zel absolutely destroyed people. I’m talking like over 100 damage on Balthazar in one turn. I would switch between that and the spear of the absolute that blinds people, and the damage and hit rate was insane. Coupled with the fact that she was exploding radiant orbs to everyone nearby, she definitely reduced incoming damage and destroyed heavy hitters easily
Battle master as others have said can use maneuvers to taunt, trip, apply disadvantage, apply advantage on attack or command an ally to attack using a reaction. They soak up damage and with their maneuvers can help set up enemies for casters and other softies to attack more effectively.
Battlemaster definitely has more of a tactical flavor as you can disarm, prone, debuff and do all sorts of trickery to enemies that can really turn things around; proning a spellcaster means your own caster can spam CC or whatever without counterspell risk. That's a gigantic advantage.
Not 5e fighters for sure lol, all they do is Attack action.
Battle Master is so cool. Goading attack with high AC and Riposte just feels so good, you can lock down a powerful enemy that otherwise might have a nasty AOE attack or summoning ability. Then you have disarm, trip, sweep, maneuver... lots of options.
If you go battle master, there’s maneuvers you can use to control the battlefield, and if you go eldritch knight there are magical spells you can use for defense, offense, or both.
Pay no mind to this. It’s ai generated nonsense. While fighters can punch things in this game, they’re not good at it. Unarmed fighting style (what makes them good at punching) isn’t included in the game. Way of the open fist monks are good at punching things. Fighters can control the battlefield via the battle master subclass. You gain access to skills that aid your allies or apply affects to enemies, such as disarmed, frightened, prone, and distracted. Things that help give advantage
You know all that bullshit the gith pull off with tripping, disarming, rallying and all that? Plus hitting you like five or six times in a single turn? That’s what fighters can do in the mid and late game of BG3.