Baldur's Gate 3 Guide FAQ: Answering the Most Common Questions

Honestly just pick whatever sounds fun. The game's balanced enough that every class can clear Honour Mode with the right setup. Pick whatever looks fun and roll with it.

But if you're coming from action RPGs and find D&D mechanics kinda overwhelming, start with Fighter (Battle Master) or Paladin (Oath of Vengeance). Both hit hard, wear heavy armor, and don't need to manage spell slots like full casters. Way simpler.

So for people who want spellcasting without the spreadsheet energy, Warlock (The Fiend) gives you Eldritch Blast as a reliable bread-and-butter attack, plus a handful of high-impact spells that refresh on short rest. Way less bookkeeping than Wizard or Cleric. Not even close tbh.

Fighter Battle Master is the easiest entry point if you've never touched D&D before. Paladin Vengeance hits almost as hard but you also get to be the party face, which saves a lot of headache in dialogues, especially in the early game when failing a persuasion check can lock you out of entire questlines or force you into fights you really didn't want to take. Warlock Fiend sits in the middle, consistent damage plus social checks. Bard Swords gives you the most dialogue options if that's your thing. And Wizard Evocation and Druid Moon are harder to pilot, I wouldn't recommend them for a first run unless you really know what you're doing and you've already spent time understanding how spell preparation, spell slots, concentration, and area-of-effect placement work together, because the learning curve on full casters is steep enough that you'll spend more time reading tooltips than actually enjoying the game. Not worth it.

I've found that the real question isn't "best class" at all. It's about what your party composition looks like. A balanced party needs one frontliner, one support or healer, one ranged damage dealer, and one flex slot. That setup has carried me through multiple runs. Simple.

You can recruit 10 origin and non-origin companions across all three acts. Some are mutually exclusive, some you'll just miss if you're not paying attention. It happens to everyone sooner or later.

Shadowheart joins automatically during the prologue. If you somehow walk past her she shows up at the Druid Grove later. Astarion is near the crashed Nautiloid just west of the starting beach, hard to miss honestly. Gale is stuck in a malfunctioning waypoint portal north of the Nautiloid, easy to walk right past if you're rushing. Lae'zel is captured by tieflings in a cage near the Mountain Pass. Wyll is fighting goblins at the Druid Grove gate. And Karlach is along the Risen Road across the stream from the tollhouse, waving at you like a giant red beacon.

And here's the thing about Act 1 that trips people up. If you side with Minthara against the Druid Grove, Wyll and Karlach permanently leave. No way to get them back. Also if you ignore Lae'zel's quest marker too long she dies off-screen trying to escape on her own. Found that out the hard way my first playthrough, definately not fun.

Minthara you knock out with non-lethal attacks in Act 1 instead of killing her, she becomes recruitable in Act 2. Halsin joins in Act 2 after you complete his portal defense quest. Jaheira survives the Moonrise assault if you keep her alive during the fight, which can be tricky since her AI loves charging into death. Minsc is Act 3 and requires Jaheira in your party plus following a specific quest chain. Convoluted.

But honestly companion approval matters way more than mechanical synergy on Balanced difficulty. Bring characters whose personalities you actually enjoy, swap them out during long rests to trigger cutscenes, and keep Astarion around if you plan on lockpicking anything. His Sleight of Hand bonus is absurd. Broken.

I've found that the community has settled on a handful of builds that consistently dominate even on Honour Mode. These aren't theorycrafted spreadsheet builds, they work in practice. Tested most of them myself across multiple campaigns with different party setups and difficulty mods, and the ones that actually hold up under pressure in the hardest fights in the game when every dice roll matters and one bad initiative roll can wipe your entire party before you even get a turn are surprisingly few.

Tavern Brawler Open Hand Monk dumps everything into Strength, you chug an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength each long rest, and punch everything for 20 to 30 damage per hit with Flurry of Blows. Comes online at level 4 and never falls off. Consistent.

The 10/1/1 Swords Bard is 10 Swords Bard, 1 Fighter, 1 Wizard. Slashing Flourish with dual hand crossbows gives you 5 attacks per turn at level 6. Fighter dip gives Archery fighting style. Wizard dip lets you scribe any scroll. Best controller and damage dealer in one package. Kinda broken honestly, I stopped using it because fights got boring.

So the Gloomstalker Assassin setup is 5 Gloomstalker Ranger, 4 Assassin Rogue, 3 Fighter (Champion or Battle Master). Guaranteed crits on surprise rounds. With the right positioning and initiative gear you delete priority targets before combat officially starts. Cheating.

Tempest Cleric Storm Sorcerer is 2 Tempest Cleric, 10 Storm Sorcerer, and the entire build revolves around one interaction that Larian probably didn't fully think through when they designed the Wet condition to double lightning damage while also giving Tempest Clerics a Channel Divinity that guarantees maximum damage on lightning spells on demand. So one turn deletes most Act 3 encounters. Boring.

Light Cleric 12 is just straight 12 levels. Spirit Guardians plus Radiant Orb gear (Luminous Armor, Luminous Gloves, Coruscation Ring) applies massive attack penalty stacks to every enemy in range. You don't need complex multiclassing when the core loop is this strong. Effective.

Not sure about this but I think the Monk build is the most forgiving for newer players trying Honour Mode. The Bard build has a higher ceiling but you need to know the fights inside out to really squeeze value out of it...

Tbh a lot of the Act 3 legendaries look flashy but arrive too late to change how you play. The ones worth planning your build around usually appear in Act 1 and early Act 2. Figures.

Blood of Lathander from Act 1 Rosymorn Monastery is a plus 3 mace with built-in Sunbeam and a passive that blinds nearby fiends and undead. For a weapon you can grab at level 5 or 6 it's disproportionately strong. Carries Clerics and Paladins through the entire Shadow-Cursed Lands.

Phalar Aluve from Act 1 Underdark is a longsword with a short-rest Shriek aura that adds 1d4 thunder damage to every attack against affected enemies. Pair this with a character that hits multiple times per turn like Monk or dual-wielder and the damage adds up fast. And it also works on spell damage from Magic Missile which is a neat interaction most people don't notice until someone points it out.

Helmet of Arcane Acuity from Act 2 Mason's Guild adds plus 2 spell attack and spell DC per weapon hit, stacking up to plus 7. Combined with Swords Bard's Slashing Flourish you hit 4 times in one turn and your control spells become practically unloseable. Wild.

Band of the Mystic Scoundrel from Act 3 Jungle lets you cast Illusion and Enchantment spells as a bonus action after making a weapon attack. Stack with Arcane Acuity and you can melee attack then bonus-action cast Hold Person or Command with unbeatable DC. Disgusting.

Balduran's Giantslayer from the Act 3 Ansur fight only matters if you're running a strength-based two-handed build. Doubles your strength modifier damage against large, huge, and giant enemies. Most Act 3 bosses are at least Large. But it's locked behind one of the hardest optional boss fights in the game so...

So the romance system isn't as straightforward as picking dialogue options with hearts on them. Approval is the hidden stat driving everything behind the scenes.

Each companion tracks approval on a scale from negative 100 to positive 100. You can check approximate standings by opening the character sheet and looking at their greeting attitude. And the key thresholds are 20 plus for neutral-positive, 40 plus for medium where romance becomes available for most companions, 60 plus for high, and 80 plus for exceptional. The game never explains this directly. Frustrating.

Shadowheart's romance starts at the Act 1 tiefling party if approval is medium plus, and then it locks in during Act 3 after a specific Shar-related choice that you can easily mess up if you're not paying attention to her personal quest progression. She saves her romance scene for Act 3 which is kind of a long wait but feels earned.

Astarion starts at the Act 1 tiefling party if approval is medium plus, or he propositions you at camp once approval hits 40 plus regardless of party. His Act 2 confession scene triggers after defeating a certain Orthon. That scene hits different depending on your choices.

Lae'zel is the fastest romance. She approves of aggression and directness, propositions you almost immediately if approval is high enough. Act 2 duel scene locks in the relationship. No subtlety.

Karlach requires upgrading her infernal engine twice with Dammon in Act 1 and Act 2. After the second upgrade you can cool her down enough for physical contact. Painful wait.

Gale's Act 1 Weave scene triggers at the party or during a long rest. Act 2 stargazing scene locks in. But if you miss the Weave scene, romance is locked out entirely with no way to recover it later no matter how high your approval gets or how many other camp scenes you trigger. No second chance.

Wyll is the slowest burn. Requires consistent high approval, a specific Act 2 dance scene, and pursuing his personal quest to a particular resolution. No physical scene until Act 3. He makes you work.

And hey some things people mess up. Assuming sleeping with someone at the party locks you out of others, it doesn't, most companions don't become exclusive until Act 2. Killing the Nightsong before resolving Shadowheart's personal arc permanently breaks her romance. Letting Astarion ascend changes his personality dramatically and you may not like who he becomes afterward. Not long resting enough is the biggest one, most romance cutscenes queue behind other camp events so if you're not resting enough you'll miss the triggers entirely.

Oh and Halsin and a few Act 3 characters are poly-friendly. Shadowheart and Astarion are also open to arrangements with Halsin specifically. Karlach is not, she'll break up with you if you suggest it. Learned that one the embarassing way.

But "missable" in BG3 usually means "you walked past it" rather than "you made a choice that locked it." The game is surprisingly generous with backtracking until the Act 2 point of no return at the Shadowfell and the Act 3 point of no return at the morphic pool docks.

The Necromancy of Thay in Act 1 is behind a locked door in the Blighted Village apothecary basement. Requires finding a Dark Amethyst in the Whispering Depths where the phase spider matriarch hangs out. Completing the book's questline spans all three acts and rewards a permanent plus 1 to Wisdom saving throws plus a summon spell. I missed this entirely on my first two runs.

BOOOAL in Act 1 Underdark is a fake god worshipped by Kuo-toa in the Festering Cove. Easy to miss because the entrance is a small crack in a wall near the Selunite Outpost. Unique interaction if you have the brand from Auntie Ethel or are playing Dark Urge. Weird.

He Who Was in Act 2 is a Shadar-kai NPC standing alone on a hill in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. Gives a unique quest involving a ledger from the Waning Moon distillery. Rewards gloves that let you cast Bestow Curse without a spell slot once per long rest. Easy to miss since there's no quest marker.

Mystic Carrion in Act 3 is a mummy lord in Philgrave's Mansion in the lower city. Weird hide and seek quest to find and destroy his preserved organs. Rewards a staff that lets you cast any necromancy spell for free once per long rest. Annoying.

The Adamantine Forge in Act 1 Grymforge isn't technically missable since it's on the critical path. But tbh a lot of people miss that you can forge two items here. The forge contains enough mithral ore for one item the first time you find it, plus a second ore vein hidden behind a lava waterfall on the eastern side. I didn't know about the second one until my third playthrough.

So my actual advice. Before leaving Act 2 through the Shadowfell go back and sweep everything. Before the morphic pool docks in Act 3 do the same. Those are the two hard cutoffs and there's no going back after either one.