What classes do you like to build for everyone?
I’m running my Tav as a Bard/Paladin/Wiz to mimic my favorite character I played from 5e a few years back.
Astarion is a Gloomstalker, Shadowheart is a Light Cleric, Gale is a Fighter 1/Wizard X, Wyll is a Draconic Fiend Sorlock, Laezel is a Red Draconic Sorcadin. I haven’t really used Minthara or Halsik much, but imagine they would stay single classed as Oathbreaker and Moon Druid.
4 Gnome Barbarians using the multiplayer trick.
I play a Paladin because I wanna have high strength for carrying and not have to rely on someone who wants always be in my party but also have a high charisma because of the (in my opinion bizarre) way that charisma checks force the character in the dialogue to do it and not allow another character to sort of step in for that moment.
Other than that I leave everyone as their default class except for Wyll who I made into a Bard because I think Warlocks suck and don’t enjoy playing them.
Tav is usually some sort of archer, either Thief/Gloomstalker or Swords Bard. Lots of equipment to boost ranged to-hit rolls, making Sharpshooter ridiculously good.
Shart goes War or Tempest Cleric, single classed.
Karlach is a throwing Berzerker, with Thief mixed in later.
Wyll is a Paladin/Warlock smite machine.
Gale is an Abjuration Wizard, possibly with one level of Tempest Cleric.
The rest hang out at camp.
I completely missed the feature of Multi-classing in all my runs so far. :-( Had a Lolth-sworn Cleric, and a fist-fighting Monk, the rest of the staff stayed as the came.
I’m honestly a little jealous! I feel like it would be nice to not worry about micromanaging the levels without feeling like I’m ruining the characters.
Ruin them how? You can respec them at Withers if you screw something up.
Ruin the theme, I guess? MCing Gale into starting fighter 1 to get Heavy armor just looks funny. Taking Shadow out of Cleric levels would also just be weird.
Besides, I’m more use to games like Mass Effect or Borderlands, where the class is chosen for each character and you make the build work for them.
That makes sense. I always make them thematically close to what they start as. So for Shadowheart she becomes a paladin of shar. Astarion is my gloomstalker. Gale is a sorcerer, and my Durge is always a durge.
I’m in the middle of an “Oops All Clerics” playthrough. Highly recommend. I have Light, Life, Tempest, and War. War is probably the weakest of the bunch but she’s good for holding concentration buffs. Throw on bless and Phalar Aluve Sing and you’ll never lose concentration on anything.
All of my ability checks get guidance and advantage.
This party is stupidly OP. The shadow cursed lands were a cakewalk, and I steamrolled Cazador without really trying. Hasted Tempest cleric pumps out obscene amounts of damage.
Light has access to fireball, wall of fire, and their Chanel divinity is a nuclear bomb with a huge range.
Life can almost bring a completely dead party back to full health.
And the Chanel divinities restore after a short rest, so I can deal with three moderate fights and maybe even a boss before I need a long rest.
I think Cleric might be my favorite class.
Tav: Swords Bard / Thief
Durge: Gloomstalker / Assassin
Shart: Light Cleric (though trying Thunder Cleric/ Sorc this run and it’s alright. I miss the holy blender.)
Astarion: Way of the Fist Monk, sometimes with Thief. But thief runs through ki points too fast and usually isn’t necessary.
Karlach: Throw Barb, sometimes with Warlock 3
Lae’zel: straight fighter. Usually Battlemaster, but I switch it up sometimes
Minthara: Paladin/Champion (probably not a power combo, but I hate Paladin without huge crit range - Sorcadin never procs divine smite for me)
Gale, Wyll, Halsin & Jahira: Level 1 camp cooks. Used only when demanded by the story.
I should change them up more, but I never do. I feel like this is a very vanilla list.
Re: Minthara
Have you considered using Helm of Acuity + Band of Mystic Scoundrel and Hold Person?
I have Helm of Acuity on my Tav Bard/Paladin and it’s been nice from throwing out a CC like Hold Person with a high as hell DC after throwing out 5 attacks via Haste+GWM bonus attacks.
Once I get the Band of Mystic Scoundrel it will be nice to cast Hold Person as a Bonus Action.
Sometimes it’s hard to play with certain great combos because I have another character already using the gear. That happens a lot with Shart and reverb/radiant orb gear. But I think I just got BotMS yesterday so maybe I’ll give it a shot.
My concern is the folks I most want to crit the hell out of are folks with legendary resistance. Having 18-20 crit range (champ+deadshot) is really helpful on boss fights because 2 smite crits can just about end a boss fight (along with the plinking of everyone else).
That being said, the size of my crits I think is really being limited by only having level 2 spells. I just really don’t care for paladins all that much. I might try Sorcadin with a focus on crit elixirs instead of cloud giant.
My last run I think I respecced her to Eldritch Knight and just ran her alongside Lae’zel’s Battlemaster. With Shart for debuffing holy blender and a bard Tav artillery support. Six two handed weapon smashes, plus usually seventh and eighth bonus smashes is really consistent damage.
I did honor mode with 4 paladins. 2 full pallys, 1 warlock/paladin, one cleric/paladin. With a dip into barrelmancey for a few fights. It was a divine slaughter.
Barbarian is great if for nothing else, the dialog options.
For my 6th run, I’ll probably let the dice decide my team.
Is say my last favorite had been … druid. Without some tpo rope cheese tactics… Your either a worse caster or your a shape changer and your great is extremely boring. Monk same realm but to a less extent. At a point probably in act 2 or starts to get better. But again the item selection for monks early on is dull and then come act 3 you have so many options. Didn’t get me wrong you can do some fun stuff with druids and monks, it just feels dull because you will go a long time with no gear change.
I can see that for Monks and Druids. Druids especially haven’t seemed that fun, though it has been fun to have Halsin run around as a bear. I haven’t yet tried out the Elemental forms on him though. I also have 0 monks, but considered speccing Karlach into Open Hand Monk.
I’m planning another run with my first ever D&D character, a Dragonborn Cleric/Monk from 3.5, so we’ll see how it feels.
I think I’m planning on doing Life/Nature Cleric 1 and then 4 elements the rest of the way.
On my solo honour run, which is just starting Act 3, my Tav is a dex Vengeance Pally / Assassin rogue. 23 AC with psychic damage sneak attack smites makes for a great frontline character. Gale is a Wiz 1 / Stormsorc X (his damage potential would be higher as a tempest sorc but Gale has to be a wizard), Karlach is a Thief 3 / Zerker X, and Wyll is a Fiend Lore Bardlock. The only fight that gave me trouble was Grym, because I had terrible luck with his pathing. Every other boss, including W’wargaz, has been a breeze. Locking down enemies with my pally and Wyll, letting Karlach get picks and Gale blow up and debuff enemies has been extremely useful, to the point that it kinda feels like cheating. I’m kinda dreading getting my due against Raphael though, that dude scares me.
I have some MP characters, including a Mephistopheles Ice Draconic Lorebard. Will come online at level 7, so, kinda late. But is already fun. Another one is a Tempest cleric with the Light of Creation glaive and Sentinel. Stay back, blast people with Call Lightning recasts, heal with bonus action, and anyone who gets too close gets pushed back by Light of Creation and the level 6 Tempest feature. Will probably fall off later though, since Light isn’t even the best glaive, nevermind weapon for the class.
Here’s mine: My Tav is a custom Shadow Sorcerer that I modded myself. I haven’t played as Durge yet, but Assassin Rogue would make the most thematic sense.
- Shadowheart as a Tempest Cleric
- Lae’zel as a Battle Master Fighter
- Astarion as an Arcane Trickster Rogue / Gloomstalker Ranger
- Wyll as a Fiend Warlock / Swords Bard
- Gale as an Evocation Wizard / Eldritch Knight Fighter
- Karlach as a Wildheart Barbarian / Thief Rogue
- Halsin as a Land Druid
- Minthara as a Vengeance Paladin
I’m starting a “jack-of-all-trades” achievement run in a bit
