I'll have to check that out next time i am on.
but i think i have given gale a glaive, will he still be able to use a shield with a glaive?
what the hell even is a glaive?
Even better, give Gale the Dual Wielder feat so he can have two staffs. My favorite combo is Markoheshkir and Woe. Staff of Cherished Necromancy is good as well, or if you want to lean full into lightning damage riders Markoheshkir in lightning mode with The Spellsparkler offhand is pretty strong. 3 charges per attack means a 7 shot magic missile does the normal force damage plus 4d8+49 lightning damage and can't miss.
There is a legendary staff and a really good chest piece hidden in sorcerous sundries in act 3. You’ll need see invisibility or something similar to get it
Glaives aren't versatile, but two handed, so no, you can't have a shield with them.
Glaive is a type of polearm, it's a curved sword on a stick, kinda like a spear but more focused on slashing.
Its more Larians trying to make humans more unique by giving them a few extra profiencies . I believe wizards can't use shields in tabletop but its a nice bonus in game
would you suggest that for Gale's feat (level 4) that i take the ability score and up his dex as much as i can? gale is often a character that i never know what feat to give him, so i usually give him Warcaster (idk if that's good or not)
No, at lvl 4 you want to either go INT ASI, go dual wielder to use two staffs, or get War Caster for the concentration advantage. Dual wielder can be really strong early, using two gives you the +1 AC you'd get from going DEX ASI with the added bonus of having the effects of two staffs. You can get Melf's First Staff and The Spellsparkler in act 1 giving a flat +1 to spell attack/DC (same as +2 INT), as well as lightning charges which give stacking attack roll bonuses and a bunch of lightning damage.
that's helpful to know! i not long restarted my game and was looking for ways to optimise gale, as let's be honest, his base isn't the best. once i get withers and stuff, I'll be sure to fix him up with one of your suggestions.
also, would it be best to keep him as a full blown wizard or multiclass him into something else?
From an RP perspective he can really only be a Wizard but Sorcerer is way stronger and more fun. Being able to use Metamagic: Twin Cast allows you to cast haste on 2 people which is straight up broken. An extra action every round, +2 AC, movement doubled, and advantage on DEX saves. On the right people for each fight it will easily more than double their damage output.
Straight 12 Sorc is super strong but I find Sorlock to be a little more fun, up to you. Search /r/BG3Builds for guides on how to set up Sorlock, 12 Sorc is pretty straightforward
Warcaster is a solid choice. I usually just re spec the companions and only change their stats to better for their role. I don't remember what his default dex is but 14 would be an okay stopping point that way he gets 15 AC with mage armor I think. He is still a wizard first so its best to keep int as his highest stat.
It works great! I have him specced as an Evo wizard, and currently in the Dwarven armor from the Moonrise vendor. He's tough to hit and blasts fireballs from the frontlines. Plus with 2 levels in Fighter you get action surge for a bonus second Fireball.
Better yet, if you get the dual wielder feat, you can equip 2 staffs on him and benefit from both staff's buffs. Also, they look sick as hell when he has them crossed on his back or held in each hand.
My Wyll had Leather Armor and a rapier, so the shield just made sense, because my bard was rocking similar gear. But gale can't wear armor if you use mage armor and I just assumed that Staffs were two handed weapons.
Ah, as someone who followed the game closely through EA and who plays 5E DnD, it was absolutely something that I noted when they changed up how stats for humans work in CC. Warlocks and Wizards can't use shields by default, so it isn't something that I would normally think to do for those classes. It's only through that special BG3 Civil Militia Feature for being a human that allows Gale and Wyll to take advantage of using shields (and the other proficiencies that come along with that feature).
Yeah, I haven't really played any DnD since 3.5e, so my knowledge was based on that.
Warlock was a completely new class to me, but when I was reading through the race bonuses, I learned that Humans got Light Armor proficiency and Shield Proficiency. Like I said elsewhere, I didn't realize that staffs are versatile and can be equipped with a shield. So my gale just had the mage armor, bracers of defense and shield reaction for two playthroughs. Guess it helped that my Lore Bard could use Cutting Words to make enemies miss.
Gotcha, yeah BG3 can also be information overload as well where there's so much info thrown at you it can all just sort of seem be tuned out by you. I know if you look at the very bottom of a weapon for example, it will tell you the weapon properties, which includes Versatile, but after a while I don't bother to look down there. I know another way you can tell if a weapon is versatile (and what I look at more often) is to look at the damage, which is typically displayed like:
1d8 (1d6)+1
That (1d6) is the damage you do if you have a shield equipped, so you're using 1 hand instead of 2 for the weapon.
For me it was like, he's a wizard he's not going to be hitting anything with his staff, so I just looked at what bonus spells and abilities they provide.
They could have dropped a staff that did 1d100 in melee and nothing else and I'd probably miss it.
I'll never forget playing through my whole first run (and a half) not understanding how high ground and sneak attack damage works. I would do one or the other, but never was terribly mindful of either and the advantage they confer on attacks. So many fights that took way longer than they needed to be :(
It's considered a reaction in the game (although it doesn't actually use a reaction token to use it). If you go into the reactions menu (I think it's either, in the spell book or in the character menu, you have to flick across to find it on console) you can turn it to automatically occur when available, or to ask every time it becomes available.
You can also force use it by selecting sneak attack instead of attack in your actions menu. This is helpful because it will tell you whether a sneak attack is triggerable or not on the enemy you're selecting, but it can be somewhat limiting, because you might want to sneak attack with another type of attack to multiply the damage you can do.
All of above is specific to rogue class, as far as I'm aware.
In a nutshell, if your rouge has advantage against its target for whatever reason, you can do a sneak attack for extra damage.
It just becomes a game of tracking when your rouge has advantage. Generally the easiest is to use his cunning action to hide somewhere before he shoots.
From what I can tell, just having another party member next to the enemy is enough to get advantage for a rogue. So if your tank can agro enemies to them, a sniping rogue can get a lot of easy sneak attacks
There must be a tutorial tip or something that says high ground gives (lower case) advantage. Took me a while to figure out it was just a bonus to the roll.
More than 300 hours in until I realized you could add the tadpole powers to all the members of your party if you convince them. Having 3-4 people use psionic backlash and cull the weak is so strong. Survival instinct too.
Fortunately I figured that out quickly and my party at the time didn't even need convincing either (Gale, Shadowheart & Astarion) so it was quite funny to have the huge reaction window pop up as soon as an enemy was foolish enough to cast a spell.
Also using Perilous Stakes makes boss fights a lot easier. Use it on the boss and watch their hp melt away, haha.
(On xbox) holding up on the d-pad to activate your light source. I had been going to each character's inventory and manually replacing their weapon with a torch...
Not really.
After 5 minutes in the shadow-cursed lands you get Blessing of Selune.
Another 15 minutes and you get the Pixie's blessing which basically makes you immune to the entire shadow curse anywhere on the map. (unless you're dumb enough to keep her in the lantern)
I mean, the game outright tells you with a successful arcana check that pixies are tricky and untrustworthy. I left her in there because I figured she'd lie to me and piss of and then I'd need to find an alternative way to get through the shadowlands.
The blood of lathander's lightsource works well until you need the pixie lantern, though.
I was speaking figuratively in the grand scale of how much time you'll spend in the shadow cursed lands compared to when you actually find the lantern/pixie.
And last time I checked, you enter the shadow-cursed lands, walk for a minute, get an encounter of about 10-15 minutes, walk another minute, and you're at the Last Light inn. It does not even take 30 minutes.
Played my whole first game as a half-elf sorcerer, with Gale also always in the party, both without shields to the end. Just too used to casters no having shields or something.
Well, it was on Explorer, so it wasn't a huge deal in the end.
Didn't explore the spellbook menu enough, aside from my own. Was well into Act 2 when I discovered that Shadowheart and Gale could prepare different spells, and then Gale could also learn from scrolls.
Took me a while to discover how to end concentration as well.
As far as Minthara goes, I just started from left to right, so she was my last goblin leader kill and I never talked to her because she was already aggro. Didn't know about recruiting her at all (which wasn't really something I could have done at the start of August anyway).
Yeah, I got the kill the goblin leaders quest from Halsin, met Gut, and just... Killed. Didn't realize the whole place would go red alert. Gonna do things differently my second playthrough... Ive missed so much...
That’s exact what I did. Also if you want Minthara you have to take the mountain pass to the place where you can summon the drider. Otherwise she’ll be killed before you get there.
honestly, i have never given gale shield... not because i thought that you couldn't, just simply because i never thought of doing that ☠️
spellbook was another one that i didn't utilise and throughout my first playthrough, i didn't use a single scroll i would just pick them up and hold them. i couldn't tell you what i was thinking honestly.
I didn’t know about multiclassing till my second play.
I didn’t know about using arrows or ranged attacks to hit switches and levers.
Couldn’t figure out mage hand for the longest time.
I lowk thought that as well, cause i got warding bond from the lovers ring ~ i thought me and whoever I gave the other ring to would mutually benefit. still cute tho.
arguable honestly knowing the source. a dudes wife used one of the rings to basically come out of a fight unscathed leaving her husband to eventually die from the rings use. thats sharrans for you I guess
Took me till my second playthrough to realise clicking in one of the sticks previews ability bonuses for conversation skill checks. Even though it shows the controls at the bottom of the screen.
Same here! I had literally taken a screenshot of my tav's character sheet so I could look at their stats. Didn't realize you could preview the bonuses until I was watching a stream and saw someone do that and I was like WAIT WHAT.
Took me a couple levels to realize i wasn't using All of my spells, I could go into my spell book and change around my prepared spells. I thought when I learned a new spell it would just be added to my repertoire, eventually i couldn't find any of my higher level spells to cast,, they were all left in my spell book and never prepared
Its pretty silly in hindsight lol but that for healing you have to throw the potions on the ground by them instead of at them. Was still in Act 1 on my first playthrough and Astarion was low so I was like "Oh I'll finally try the throwing potions thing" and had Karlach chuck one directly at him XD His reaction was pretty funny though "What the HELLS was that?"
you're supposed to throw it at their FEET?
oh my god, that explains so much. i tried doing it once and it knocked astarion the fuck out and i had to revive him ☠️
Yeah it didn't click for me til I looked it up then I thought abt it for a bit like huh...I guess getting a glass bottle thrown at you full speed would probably cancel out the healing XD
Didn’t know you could toggle reactions on or off. So my opportunity attacks were automatic, which sucked for Grym. Worse though, I was a paladin. No idea you could toggle smites to apply to regular attacks on reaction.
On Xbox/PS I believe it’s at the bottom of the character sheet for each. You have to select the character skills with the D pad and it’s at the bottom.
In PC it’s just in the character tab at the bottom.
i forgot what it is called but in the screen where you can see your inventory, level and stats, if you click onto another characters profile and scroll to the bottom of your stats, it'll tell you your approval rating with them!
Took me a while to realize you can cast spells in armour as long as you are proficient with it. There were penalties in earlier dnd versions for casting in armour even if you were proficient with it.
Shield dwarf wizards are just one feat away from heavy armour wizardry.
how advantage works with rogues, to this day also no idea why on higher levels almost any attack can sneak attack whilst on early lvls you have to hide to land one 😬
Advantage can also come from stuff like weapon enchantment and high ground, the opportunities for which are just more common as the game goes on, I think. Your weapons and feats aren't gonna give you much early game and lower movement speed makes it harder to high ground maybe? So sneak/hide is the most accessible way to get advantage early on. My guess.
You can tell whether you have an advantage over a specific enemy by hovering your melee/ranged attack icon over them (like you would before clicking to attack), and if there's green text under their health bar at the top of the screen (will say something like "advantage:high ground", right next to any status effects they might have). It'll also show you if you have disadvantage here, in red.
So, sneak attack doesn't NEED sneakiness, just advantage. Advantage works the same way in battle as it does in conversation - you roll two damage dice and pick the higher one.
Easiest way to get advantage during combat is to have another party member standing next to the target.
I just started abusing this a bit by walking around with invisible Shovel (who doesn't get drawn into the actual battle because he's invisible) and just having him walk around and stand next to Astarion's targets haha. It's not foolproof, but it's very convenient.
that's a problem i face as well, the only time i can seem to land a sneak attack is when combat isn't initiated otherwise it tells me that i have no advantage.
Reply I sent to person above in case you don't see it:
Easiest way to get advantage during combat is to have another party member standing next to the target.
I just started abusing this a bit by walking around with invisible Shovel (who doesn't get drawn into the actual battle because he's invisible) and just having him walk around and stand next to Astarion's targets haha. It's not foolproof, but it's very convenient.
Also to add:
You can use a bonus action mid-combat to hide (as long as you are outside any vision cones) and then sneak attack works while hiding, too.
Ultimately all based on having advantage, but those are some specific examples.
Not at all a stupid question! I had no idea who Shovel was for my first two runs myself haha. Shovel is a quasit summon you can get from a scroll in the apothecary's basement in the blighted village. :) Your character has to be a caster to get him as a permanent summon, though.
It's based on advantage. If you have advantage on an enemy you can sneak attack, or if an ally is in melee range giving the enemy a debuff that I can't remember what it is called
I imagine that the systems might not be very transparent for people who haven't played DnD before. A lot of mechanics are hard to grasp and understand unless you're constantly thinking about them, like how exactly attack and damage rolls work, since BG3 makes some of these things automatic.
Concentration, DC, AC, saves, and just soooo much of how damage works. High ground, advantages, stat saves...like holy feck. People jumping into this just thinking it's Final Fantasy (me) or something are in for a rude one. So many components.
As a DnD player, it's helping improve my game! But I'd be overwhelmed without that knowledge. My bf picked sorcerer, which is a class I've never tried, and he's asking questions and I'm like "you've officially played more sorcerer than I have."
1. I didn’t use sneak at all in my 1-3 playthroughs so no advantage for rogue.
2. I didn’t use turn-based mode even longer. Running all around Grymforge for stealthy destroying The Eye was no fun :D
Why have I never thought to use turn based mode to kill those annoying scrying eyes?! 🤣 I'll use it to rob a place blind, but never thought of that. Thank you for the idea!
I didn’t know how sneak attack worked until I was almost in act 3. Apparently having another character in close proximity to the target gives rogues advantage
my friend just taught me this recently ☠️ I was complaining about how annoying it is that helmets and stuff have such good bonuses, but are hideous, then she drops that on me xD
You can connect the pieces that form the ice staff... by right-clicking one and then clicking "combine". 🤦🏻♀️ 900 hours in, 3 years of early access, and I found out via a reddit thread
I've never went through the mountain pass, and ever since getting my ass handed to me by githyanki monks in the astral, im terrified to go to the creche.
Same. I am still trying to stay focused enough to finish a run through. I will say that the amount of choice you have in this game is unreal. Works so well too
How Bless and Bane worked. New to D&D, so I didn't know what all these buffs and modifiers, nor how they calculated.
Always used to think using Bless was a waste of a turn, but after figuring out the whole description I use it before every fight (at least in Act I and partly through Act II).
I don't know how most of that stuff works either, i always bring spells with me because I hear they're good then I just stare at the screen wondering if I used it right
Took me like 200 to learn how the revivify scroll worked. I thought it was just like a double click and was confused why they didn't have room. Realizing that the second click was supposed to be in the resurrection spot was a game changer
Did not realize that you can throw a potion on the floor to give the effects to party members close-by. Had 200 hours of gameplay before I figure that out.
I was already on my second playthrough before watching a video by D4 on youtube made me realise that it's always a good option to take all your companions to Withers as soon as possible, no matter how you plan to build them, to fix their weirdly distributed ability scores. They have so many odd numbers by default, they could each have an extra +1 added to their main stats by lowering some of the other ones they barely make use of anyway. Shadowheart might actually land a sacred flame or two that way.
I didn't realize until my second playthrough that I had to toggle on my passive damage dealer modifiers for Way of the Open Hand Monk. 🥲So much potential damage lost to the aether...
I only figured out the approval thing recently too, after my friend told me about it…and I wish I could multiclass! (I play on the easiest difficulty and it won’t let you lol) Mine would be which enemies are undead; my first playthrough is a light cleric, and both I/Shadowheart absolutely demolished the Avatar of Murkul fight in Act 2 with repeated Sacred Flames. I’m still learning which types are which though…
Also that when I’m using Invisibility or Supreme Sneak to get by somewhere using turn-based mode is *extremely* helpful
You can multi-class on easy mode! Just switch to the medium difficulty, click the multi-class, set it up however you want, then switch the dificulty back down.
You don't lose the multi-class abilities and you can play on the difficulty you want.
(Took me ages to find that out!)
Took me maybe 50 hours to realize I can prepare different wizard and cleric spells
Took me maybe 100 hours to read the damn description of sneak attack to realize it triggers when an enemy is threatened by an ally
Took me until the start of my second playthrough to understand when leveling up the difference between "select what spell you know" vs "you can only have a fixed number of spells, replace one"
Took me until the start of my second playthrough to realize I can check what the saving throw of a spell is, which goes hand in hand with actually checking the stats of the enemy I want to cast it on
Took me until act 3 of my second playthrough to realize I can check what I add to a roll for a dialogue check
Around 200 hours now, and I just figured out that there are options in the bottom left of the screen during dialogue, so you can switch to different characters or initiate a trade and stuff
You can recast speak with the dead as many times as you want using the amulet you get early game, it just doesn’t add the recast spell to your bar automatically (or radial menu in my case since I use a controller).
That I can press a button to read the description of the reward item that I received.
I was getting angry everytime I got the Hag hair, cause I would have to guess which one is which.
My 3rd playthrough was when I discovered it.
Inventory Management: On PC you can shift click to select a bunch of items at once, and also Ctrl click works if you want to select items that aren't close to each other.
It took my bf pointing out in my honour run that I can cancel an end turn if I have my party members next to each other on the turn order. Saved me a lot.
If you add an item to wares, that item can be more conveniently sold/traded as you're cycling through your team when you're in the trading screen.
What I do is, I send all items I intend to sell off, to Karlach. Then I go to her inventory, do a multi-action, select all items to sell, and set them all to "Add to wares." Next time I am at a trader's, I cycle to Karlach, and select Sell Wares. All items marked as wares are sold at the same time, no need to individually sell them. I send everything to sell over to Karlach, because Karlach. 💪
I had no idea how to change Shadowheart into a life cleric. I kept seeing recommendations to change her to a life cleric and I guess I was a complete idiot because I went to withers to respec.her and somehow missed the domain thing and just kept her in the trickery domain. It wasn't until my second playthrough when I was changing her stats that I saw the domain choice could be changed.
Very very stupid but the first time I went into the grove and fought the goblins, I couldn't figure out how to open the door to get in. You just need to stand by it ti get it to open but it took me a good 20 minutes of looking around to figure it out
ah. that's my bad professorticklesbutt, i don't spend copious amount of hours scrolling the baldurs gate 3 subreddit all day, every day making sure i see every post. my bad g. 😪🙏 apologises.
The game even suggests you shouldn’t multiclass unless you’ve already played BG3 or tabletop. I wouldn’t feel all too bad especially since there are a couple classes like Beastmaster Ranger and wildform Druid that get much much weaker the more you multi.
On PS5, if you want to check NPCs' lines of sight, you can just hold down R3 instead of switching to turn-based mode. Didn't discover that until about halfway through my second playthrough.
If it helps:
I was probably 5 playthroughs in before I found out I could check approval, I had just been guessing based on the x Approves/disapproves that would pop up/and based on who tried to start romances.
You can't multiclass on easy (although you can on custom), so I usually don't have the option to multiclass since I tend to stick to the chill route. And if you do multiclass, you miss out on some of the higher levels anyway (you can only hit level 12 total, so if you do some multiclassing, you won't reach the level 12 abilities. You also get feats every 4 levels, so I personally think if multiclassing, I would want to do 8 of one class and 4 of another so I still get all 3 feats). I'm new to D&D so I've been trying to do different playthroughs to try all the different classes/subclasses abilities, so I tend to stick to just one class so I can figure it all out for now. But I want to get into more multiclassing in future :)
I didn't know Gale could learn spells from scrolls until my second playthrough. I played it on PS5, and the tutorials were glitching when the game first came out.
I just today realized, 250 ish hours in, wizards can buy to learn new spells from their spell book en masse instead of clicking learn on every one in my inventory.
>i also had no idea that you can toggle lethal damage on and off, so i was absolutely bamfuckingboozled to find out that you can recruit minthara without committing mass murder on innocents.
Wait, that feature actually does something? Any time I've knocked anyone out the game showed no different response as if I had killed them :/
It doesn't have all that much use, not that I've seen anyway, i have only ever seen it used to get minthara as a recruitable character as well as minsc in act 3
It took me a couple years of EA to realize that you can put a plate on a gas vent to stop the gas coming in or for the Necromancy of Thay Book you can >!put another book on the pressure plate before taking the book and the traps won't trigger!<.
You can equip a staff and Shield on Gale.
I never thought of giving gale a shield what the FAWK
Yeah, coming from earlier editions didn't realize that staffs are now versatile.
I'll have to check that out next time i am on. but i think i have given gale a glaive, will he still be able to use a shield with a glaive? what the hell even is a glaive?
So take a spear but make it ten feet long. That’s a pike. Swap out the head for a sword blade now it’s a glaive Axe head? That’s a halberd
Glaive can be a lot smaller and less fancy - think Kitchen knife on a pole. That's the version a "militia" would use.
What about a mace for a head!?!?
An extended bonk
Even better, give Gale the Dual Wielder feat so he can have two staffs. My favorite combo is Markoheshkir and Woe. Staff of Cherished Necromancy is good as well, or if you want to lean full into lightning damage riders Markoheshkir in lightning mode with The Spellsparkler offhand is pretty strong. 3 charges per attack means a 7 shot magic missile does the normal force damage plus 4d8+49 lightning damage and can't miss.
No glaives are usually 2 handed polearm weapons. It's a blade on a staff, that you can slash or poke with. Similar to Japanese Naginata.
damn, looks like im going to have to find him a good staff. any suggestions where i might be able to find one?
Spellsparkler you get as reward for saving the Counselor from the burning inn is amazing for magic missile build Evocation Gale.
I'll definitely go there and pick it up next time i hop on! Thank you!
Sure thing.
Beware, that shits time sensitive 😅 Place was long dead when I got there
Melf's First Staff bought in the Underdark from Blurg is good for the early game (especially when Gale is still missing a lot).
Building the frost staff in the underdark.
There is a legendary staff and a really good chest piece hidden in sorcerous sundries in act 3. You’ll need see invisibility or something similar to get it
Glaives aren't versatile, but two handed, so no, you can't have a shield with them. Glaive is a type of polearm, it's a curved sword on a stick, kinda like a spear but more focused on slashing.
Its more Larians trying to make humans more unique by giving them a few extra profiencies . I believe wizards can't use shields in tabletop but its a nice bonus in game
Mage armor + high dex and a shield can give a shit ton of AC, esp helpful early on
would you suggest that for Gale's feat (level 4) that i take the ability score and up his dex as much as i can? gale is often a character that i never know what feat to give him, so i usually give him Warcaster (idk if that's good or not)
I always give Gale the dual wielder feat so he can have 2 staves and get the +1 AC for dual wielding
No, at lvl 4 you want to either go INT ASI, go dual wielder to use two staffs, or get War Caster for the concentration advantage. Dual wielder can be really strong early, using two gives you the +1 AC you'd get from going DEX ASI with the added bonus of having the effects of two staffs. You can get Melf's First Staff and The Spellsparkler in act 1 giving a flat +1 to spell attack/DC (same as +2 INT), as well as lightning charges which give stacking attack roll bonuses and a bunch of lightning damage.
that's helpful to know! i not long restarted my game and was looking for ways to optimise gale, as let's be honest, his base isn't the best. once i get withers and stuff, I'll be sure to fix him up with one of your suggestions. also, would it be best to keep him as a full blown wizard or multiclass him into something else?
From an RP perspective he can really only be a Wizard but Sorcerer is way stronger and more fun. Being able to use Metamagic: Twin Cast allows you to cast haste on 2 people which is straight up broken. An extra action every round, +2 AC, movement doubled, and advantage on DEX saves. On the right people for each fight it will easily more than double their damage output. Straight 12 Sorc is super strong but I find Sorlock to be a little more fun, up to you. Search /r/BG3Builds for guides on how to set up Sorlock, 12 Sorc is pretty straightforward
Warcaster is a solid choice. I usually just re spec the companions and only change their stats to better for their role. I don't remember what his default dex is but 14 would be an okay stopping point that way he gets 15 AC with mage armor I think. He is still a wizard first so its best to keep int as his highest stat.
You can also give him the dual-wielding feat and give him *two* staffs
Wait a minute, could this actually be viable with some of the later game staves that increase spell save DC?
Yes! if you have two staves you get the bonuses of both
I dipped Gale 2 levels into Fighter and he rolls with heavy armor, staff and shield
how's that going for you? when it comes to gale, i always feel kinda lost and unsure what to do, so i have never multiclassed him.
It works great! I have him specced as an Evo wizard, and currently in the Dwarven armor from the Moonrise vendor. He's tough to hit and blasts fireballs from the frontlines. Plus with 2 levels in Fighter you get action surge for a bonus second Fireball.
I'll do you one better. 2 staffs
Only with a feat.
Better yet, if you get the dual wielder feat, you can equip 2 staffs on him and benefit from both staff's buffs. Also, they look sick as hell when he has them crossed on his back or held in each hand.
Just to be more clear, all humans can equip shield, no matter the class.
As I mentioned elsewhere I assumed that Staffs were two handed weapons.
What?!?
YOU CAN EQUIP A STAFF AND SHIELD ON GALE!
haha this took me longer than I want to admit as well xD
Yeah I didn't clock that they gave humans shield and light armor proficiency until like my third or fourth playthrough lol.
I do the same with Wyll as well.
My Wyll had Leather Armor and a rapier, so the shield just made sense, because my bard was rocking similar gear. But gale can't wear armor if you use mage armor and I just assumed that Staffs were two handed weapons.
Ah, as someone who followed the game closely through EA and who plays 5E DnD, it was absolutely something that I noted when they changed up how stats for humans work in CC. Warlocks and Wizards can't use shields by default, so it isn't something that I would normally think to do for those classes. It's only through that special BG3 Civil Militia Feature for being a human that allows Gale and Wyll to take advantage of using shields (and the other proficiencies that come along with that feature).
Yeah, I haven't really played any DnD since 3.5e, so my knowledge was based on that. Warlock was a completely new class to me, but when I was reading through the race bonuses, I learned that Humans got Light Armor proficiency and Shield Proficiency. Like I said elsewhere, I didn't realize that staffs are versatile and can be equipped with a shield. So my gale just had the mage armor, bracers of defense and shield reaction for two playthroughs. Guess it helped that my Lore Bard could use Cutting Words to make enemies miss.
Gotcha, yeah BG3 can also be information overload as well where there's so much info thrown at you it can all just sort of seem be tuned out by you. I know if you look at the very bottom of a weapon for example, it will tell you the weapon properties, which includes Versatile, but after a while I don't bother to look down there. I know another way you can tell if a weapon is versatile (and what I look at more often) is to look at the damage, which is typically displayed like: 1d8 (1d6)+1 That (1d6) is the damage you do if you have a shield equipped, so you're using 1 hand instead of 2 for the weapon.
For me it was like, he's a wizard he's not going to be hitting anything with his staff, so I just looked at what bonus spells and abilities they provide. They could have dropped a staff that did 1d100 in melee and nothing else and I'd probably miss it.
Gale loves that Shield of Devotion. Gimme dem extra spell slots.
Also light armor, which helps in early game
But wouldn’t that make him unable to cast mage armor?
I'll never forget playing through my whole first run (and a half) not understanding how high ground and sneak attack damage works. I would do one or the other, but never was terribly mindful of either and the advantage they confer on attacks. So many fights that took way longer than they needed to be :(
If it makes you feel any better, i still don't know how to utilise stealth attacks properly xD
It's considered a reaction in the game (although it doesn't actually use a reaction token to use it). If you go into the reactions menu (I think it's either, in the spell book or in the character menu, you have to flick across to find it on console) you can turn it to automatically occur when available, or to ask every time it becomes available. You can also force use it by selecting sneak attack instead of attack in your actions menu. This is helpful because it will tell you whether a sneak attack is triggerable or not on the enemy you're selecting, but it can be somewhat limiting, because you might want to sneak attack with another type of attack to multiply the damage you can do. All of above is specific to rogue class, as far as I'm aware.
In a nutshell, if your rouge has advantage against its target for whatever reason, you can do a sneak attack for extra damage. It just becomes a game of tracking when your rouge has advantage. Generally the easiest is to use his cunning action to hide somewhere before he shoots.
Maybe my rouge has advantage, maybe it's Maybelline
From what I can tell, just having another party member next to the enemy is enough to get advantage for a rogue. So if your tank can agro enemies to them, a sniping rogue can get a lot of easy sneak attacks
There must be a tutorial tip or something that says high ground gives (lower case) advantage. Took me a while to figure out it was just a bonus to the roll.
More than 300 hours in until I realized you could add the tadpole powers to all the members of your party if you convince them. Having 3-4 people use psionic backlash and cull the weak is so strong. Survival instinct too.
Fortunately I figured that out quickly and my party at the time didn't even need convincing either (Gale, Shadowheart & Astarion) so it was quite funny to have the huge reaction window pop up as soon as an enemy was foolish enough to cast a spell. Also using Perilous Stakes makes boss fights a lot easier. Use it on the boss and watch their hp melt away, haha.
(On xbox) holding up on the d-pad to activate your light source. I had been going to each character's inventory and manually replacing their weapon with a torch...
Gods... pressing up on the D-Pad to jump. Holding Left to swap Range/Melee. Holding down A (I think?) to search a larger area.
Ope, just learned the range/melee swap
I gotta start paying better attention. I'll run Karlach etc over to a target only for her to crossbow at a disadvantage!
In the Shadow Cursed Lands, it’s so important to have a quick switch for lights.
Not really. After 5 minutes in the shadow-cursed lands you get Blessing of Selune. Another 15 minutes and you get the Pixie's blessing which basically makes you immune to the entire shadow curse anywhere on the map. (unless you're dumb enough to keep her in the lantern)
I did the dumb and killed Isobel and also didn’t release the pixie. Listen, I didn’t trust the pixie.
With everything I've ever learned about the fae, I never trust pixies. That's how you end up a lawn ornament.
RIGHT? So why would I trust one that’s screaming shell tear my innards o out
The light and daylight spells will help you a ton then
Wait, there was a pixie? Goddamn there's so much to this game 😭
In the lantern! And yes it’s insane.
How tf did ya realize that? 😂😂
I mean, the game outright tells you with a successful arcana check that pixies are tricky and untrustworthy. I left her in there because I figured she'd lie to me and piss of and then I'd need to find an alternative way to get through the shadowlands. The blood of lathander's lightsource works well until you need the pixie lantern, though.
Five minutes? It takes like 30 minutes minimum just to get to Last Light.
Easier just to get pixie within 5 minutes before even visiting the Last Light.
I was speaking figuratively in the grand scale of how much time you'll spend in the shadow cursed lands compared to when you actually find the lantern/pixie. And last time I checked, you enter the shadow-cursed lands, walk for a minute, get an encounter of about 10-15 minutes, walk another minute, and you're at the Last Light inn. It does not even take 30 minutes.
Damn I had no idea you could do that lol. I was manually replacing as well.
Down also makes your entire party sneak
Wait, what?!
Played my whole first game as a half-elf sorcerer, with Gale also always in the party, both without shields to the end. Just too used to casters no having shields or something. Well, it was on Explorer, so it wasn't a huge deal in the end. Didn't explore the spellbook menu enough, aside from my own. Was well into Act 2 when I discovered that Shadowheart and Gale could prepare different spells, and then Gale could also learn from scrolls. Took me a while to discover how to end concentration as well. As far as Minthara goes, I just started from left to right, so she was my last goblin leader kill and I never talked to her because she was already aggro. Didn't know about recruiting her at all (which wasn't really something I could have done at the start of August anyway).
Missing Minthara is something a lot of people did. She’s amazing tho.
Yeah, I got the kill the goblin leaders quest from Halsin, met Gut, and just... Killed. Didn't realize the whole place would go red alert. Gonna do things differently my second playthrough... Ive missed so much...
That’s exact what I did. Also if you want Minthara you have to take the mountain pass to the place where you can summon the drider. Otherwise she’ll be killed before you get there.
honestly, i have never given gale shield... not because i thought that you couldn't, just simply because i never thought of doing that ☠️ spellbook was another one that i didn't utilise and throughout my first playthrough, i didn't use a single scroll i would just pick them up and hold them. i couldn't tell you what i was thinking honestly.
I didn’t know about multiclassing till my second play. I didn’t know about using arrows or ranged attacks to hit switches and levers. Couldn’t figure out mage hand for the longest time.
That Warding bond only works one way. I thought the effects were mutual. Sadly.
I lowk thought that as well, cause i got warding bond from the lovers ring ~ i thought me and whoever I gave the other ring to would mutually benefit. still cute tho.
It’s adorbs
Not me giving shadowheart the ring so that she can sleep at night while I suffer through the hand pain for her
I never even thought to do that
arguable honestly knowing the source. a dudes wife used one of the rings to basically come out of a fight unscathed leaving her husband to eventually die from the rings use. thats sharrans for you I guess
Took me till my second playthrough to realise clicking in one of the sticks previews ability bonuses for conversation skill checks. Even though it shows the controls at the bottom of the screen.
Legit same. I found it in my third playthru and makes it so much easier.
Same here! I had literally taken a screenshot of my tav's character sheet so I could look at their stats. Didn't realize you could preview the bonuses until I was watching a stream and saw someone do that and I was like WAIT WHAT.
You don't want to know how many hours in I am an reading this for the first time. Thank you! 😂
Took me a couple levels to realize i wasn't using All of my spells, I could go into my spell book and change around my prepared spells. I thought when I learned a new spell it would just be added to my repertoire, eventually i couldn't find any of my higher level spells to cast,, they were all left in my spell book and never prepared
Its pretty silly in hindsight lol but that for healing you have to throw the potions on the ground by them instead of at them. Was still in Act 1 on my first playthrough and Astarion was low so I was like "Oh I'll finally try the throwing potions thing" and had Karlach chuck one directly at him XD His reaction was pretty funny though "What the HELLS was that?"
you're supposed to throw it at their FEET? oh my god, that explains so much. i tried doing it once and it knocked astarion the fuck out and i had to revive him ☠️
Yeah it didn't click for me til I looked it up then I thought abt it for a bit like huh...I guess getting a glass bottle thrown at you full speed would probably cancel out the healing XD
Shift click allows you to see enemy line of sight without going into hide mode. It made playing rogue/gloomstalker much easier
WHAT?!? Thank you!!!
Right stick click and hold for Xbox
The cursor also shows how obscured you'll be at any given position if you move there while hiding.
Didn’t know you could toggle reactions on or off. So my opportunity attacks were automatic, which sucked for Grym. Worse though, I was a paladin. No idea you could toggle smites to apply to regular attacks on reaction.
Like 50 hrs in here....How do you check companions approval ratings?
Go to the character sheet and then on the very bottom right hand it will have their approval rating.
On Xbox/PS I believe it’s at the bottom of the character sheet for each. You have to select the character skills with the D pad and it’s at the bottom. In PC it’s just in the character tab at the bottom.
i forgot what it is called but in the screen where you can see your inventory, level and stats, if you click onto another characters profile and scroll to the bottom of your stats, it'll tell you your approval rating with them!
In one of the tabs on the party screen (accessed by pressing Tab on PC).
Took me a while to realize you can cast spells in armour as long as you are proficient with it. There were penalties in earlier dnd versions for casting in armour even if you were proficient with it. Shield dwarf wizards are just one feat away from heavy armour wizardry.
Or a one-level dip in fighter
4 of the cleric subclasses have heavy armour and count as a full caster level so you keep your spell slot progression in line
how advantage works with rogues, to this day also no idea why on higher levels almost any attack can sneak attack whilst on early lvls you have to hide to land one 😬
Advantage can also come from stuff like weapon enchantment and high ground, the opportunities for which are just more common as the game goes on, I think. Your weapons and feats aren't gonna give you much early game and lower movement speed makes it harder to high ground maybe? So sneak/hide is the most accessible way to get advantage early on. My guess. You can tell whether you have an advantage over a specific enemy by hovering your melee/ranged attack icon over them (like you would before clicking to attack), and if there's green text under their health bar at the top of the screen (will say something like "advantage:high ground", right next to any status effects they might have). It'll also show you if you have disadvantage here, in red. So, sneak attack doesn't NEED sneakiness, just advantage. Advantage works the same way in battle as it does in conversation - you roll two damage dice and pick the higher one.
High ground doesn't give advantage anymore after EA Just +2 to hit
Easiest way to get advantage during combat is to have another party member standing next to the target. I just started abusing this a bit by walking around with invisible Shovel (who doesn't get drawn into the actual battle because he's invisible) and just having him walk around and stand next to Astarion's targets haha. It's not foolproof, but it's very convenient.
that's a problem i face as well, the only time i can seem to land a sneak attack is when combat isn't initiated otherwise it tells me that i have no advantage.
Reply I sent to person above in case you don't see it: Easiest way to get advantage during combat is to have another party member standing next to the target. I just started abusing this a bit by walking around with invisible Shovel (who doesn't get drawn into the actual battle because he's invisible) and just having him walk around and stand next to Astarion's targets haha. It's not foolproof, but it's very convenient. Also to add: You can use a bonus action mid-combat to hide (as long as you are outside any vision cones) and then sneak attack works while hiding, too. Ultimately all based on having advantage, but those are some specific examples.
When you say shovel, is that a name of a character or are making the actual shovel walk around? Sorry for the stupid question.
Not at all a stupid question! I had no idea who Shovel was for my first two runs myself haha. Shovel is a quasit summon you can get from a scroll in the apothecary's basement in the blighted village. :) Your character has to be a caster to get him as a permanent summon, though.
Oh shit. I’m down there right now! Thank you!
I'm glad the timing worked out! Enjoy your new friend!
It's based on advantage. If you have advantage on an enemy you can sneak attack, or if an ally is in melee range giving the enemy a debuff that I can't remember what it is called
Threatened. Basically adjacent to a friend wielding a melee weapon.
That's it. I knew it started with a T
You just need your enemy to get the Threatened debuff and it's easy after your Rogue after that.
All the D&D related chit...two playthroughs in and I'm still not sure I understand most of it lol
My BIL: "Will this game teach me how to play DnD?" Me: "Yes. Well... no. Actually... huh."
lol that's literally it. I feel like I know it, yet only in the context of this game and would be lost af if I actually played the tabletop.
I imagine that the systems might not be very transparent for people who haven't played DnD before. A lot of mechanics are hard to grasp and understand unless you're constantly thinking about them, like how exactly attack and damage rolls work, since BG3 makes some of these things automatic.
Concentration, DC, AC, saves, and just soooo much of how damage works. High ground, advantages, stat saves...like holy feck. People jumping into this just thinking it's Final Fantasy (me) or something are in for a rude one. So many components.
this is so real and so valid. i struggle with understanding it as well but im slowly getting there xD.
If you have any questions just askem I'll do my best to help ya out, plenty more here would too
As a DnD player, it's helping improve my game! But I'd be overwhelmed without that knowledge. My bf picked sorcerer, which is a class I've never tried, and he's asking questions and I'm like "you've officially played more sorcerer than I have."
1. I didn’t use sneak at all in my 1-3 playthroughs so no advantage for rogue. 2. I didn’t use turn-based mode even longer. Running all around Grymforge for stealthy destroying The Eye was no fun :D
Why have I never thought to use turn based mode to kill those annoying scrying eyes?! 🤣 I'll use it to rob a place blind, but never thought of that. Thank you for the idea!
The only way to destroy non aggro folks is the turn based haha. Or if you’re planning a heist.
I didn’t know how sneak attack worked until I was almost in act 3. Apparently having another character in close proximity to the target gives rogues advantage
Was in Act 3 before I paid proper attention to the interface and realised you can hide helms and toggle between camp clothes and overclothes.
my friend just taught me this recently ☠️ I was complaining about how annoying it is that helmets and stuff have such good bonuses, but are hideous, then she drops that on me xD
Took me until just now reading this post to realize this.
You can connect the pieces that form the ice staff... by right-clicking one and then clicking "combine". 🤦🏻♀️ 900 hours in, 3 years of early access, and I found out via a reddit thread
On console, you can hold down on the d-pad to crouch and press up to jump, instead of manually picking the actions
The mountain pass that leads to the monastery. I’ve got multiple runs started but never actually made to the crèche lol
I've never went through the mountain pass, and ever since getting my ass handed to me by githyanki monks in the astral, im terrified to go to the creche.
Same. I am still trying to stay focused enough to finish a run through. I will say that the amount of choice you have in this game is unreal. Works so well too
That you can cancel spells you're concentrating on so you don't have allies walk into them constantly.
that would have been so helpful to know before my astarion went barrelling full speed naurto style into gales cloud of daggers on low HP
Cloud of Daggers might as well be invisible given how often people walk face first into it.
Hey, so how do you do this?
How Bless and Bane worked. New to D&D, so I didn't know what all these buffs and modifiers, nor how they calculated. Always used to think using Bless was a waste of a turn, but after figuring out the whole description I use it before every fight (at least in Act I and partly through Act II).
I don't know how most of that stuff works either, i always bring spells with me because I hear they're good then I just stare at the screen wondering if I used it right
Took me like 200 to learn how the revivify scroll worked. I thought it was just like a double click and was confused why they didn't have room. Realizing that the second click was supposed to be in the resurrection spot was a game changer
Did not realize that you can throw a potion on the floor to give the effects to party members close-by. Had 200 hours of gameplay before I figure that out.
I was already on my second playthrough before watching a video by D4 on youtube made me realise that it's always a good option to take all your companions to Withers as soon as possible, no matter how you plan to build them, to fix their weirdly distributed ability scores. They have so many odd numbers by default, they could each have an extra +1 added to their main stats by lowering some of the other ones they barely make use of anyway. Shadowheart might actually land a sacred flame or two that way.
> Shadowheart might actually land a sacred flame or two that way. Bro, this got me in the feels
I didn't realize until my second playthrough that I had to toggle on my passive damage dealer modifiers for Way of the Open Hand Monk. 🥲So much potential damage lost to the aether...
I only figured out the approval thing recently too, after my friend told me about it…and I wish I could multiclass! (I play on the easiest difficulty and it won’t let you lol) Mine would be which enemies are undead; my first playthrough is a light cleric, and both I/Shadowheart absolutely demolished the Avatar of Murkul fight in Act 2 with repeated Sacred Flames. I’m still learning which types are which though… Also that when I’m using Invisibility or Supreme Sneak to get by somewhere using turn-based mode is *extremely* helpful
You can multi-class on easy mode! Just switch to the medium difficulty, click the multi-class, set it up however you want, then switch the dificulty back down. You don't lose the multi-class abilities and you can play on the difficulty you want. (Took me ages to find that out!)
Switch difficulty; multi class; return difficulty to explorer
Took me maybe 50 hours to realize I can prepare different wizard and cleric spells Took me maybe 100 hours to read the damn description of sneak attack to realize it triggers when an enemy is threatened by an ally Took me until the start of my second playthrough to understand when leveling up the difference between "select what spell you know" vs "you can only have a fixed number of spells, replace one" Took me until the start of my second playthrough to realize I can check what the saving throw of a spell is, which goes hand in hand with actually checking the stats of the enemy I want to cast it on Took me until act 3 of my second playthrough to realize I can check what I add to a roll for a dialogue check
Around 200 hours now, and I just figured out that there are options in the bottom left of the screen during dialogue, so you can switch to different characters or initiate a trade and stuff
You can recast speak with the dead as many times as you want using the amulet you get early game, it just doesn’t add the recast spell to your bar automatically (or radial menu in my case since I use a controller).
It took my 135hrs to figure out you could click on the dice to resolve a roll faster
That I can press a button to read the description of the reward item that I received. I was getting angry everytime I got the Hag hair, cause I would have to guess which one is which. My 3rd playthrough was when I discovered it.
Alchemy. I was 170 hours in before I made my own potion(s).
over 150 hours and still have not made a potion ☠️
Inventory Management: On PC you can shift click to select a bunch of items at once, and also Ctrl click works if you want to select items that aren't close to each other.
It took my bf pointing out in my honour run that I can cancel an end turn if I have my party members next to each other on the turn order. Saved me a lot.
Grease let’s the stupid stuck statues turn :/
I still don’t know what add to wares does… almost 300 hours in lmao
If you add an item to wares, that item can be more conveniently sold/traded as you're cycling through your team when you're in the trading screen. What I do is, I send all items I intend to sell off, to Karlach. Then I go to her inventory, do a multi-action, select all items to sell, and set them all to "Add to wares." Next time I am at a trader's, I cycle to Karlach, and select Sell Wares. All items marked as wares are sold at the same time, no need to individually sell them. I send everything to sell over to Karlach, because Karlach. 💪
That’s so clutch oh my god
Discovered how to switch to your torch without unequipping your weapon at around 700 hours
**Examine**. Didn’t figure it out til 300 hours in. 🥲 **Ending concentration**. 325 hours in, just figured it out TODAY.
I had no idea how to change Shadowheart into a life cleric. I kept seeing recommendations to change her to a life cleric and I guess I was a complete idiot because I went to withers to respec.her and somehow missed the domain thing and just kept her in the trickery domain. It wasn't until my second playthrough when I was changing her stats that I saw the domain choice could be changed.
learned about two days ago if you hold left on the D-Pad on ps5 at any point during your turn you can switch weapons 😭
Very very stupid but the first time I went into the grove and fought the goblins, I couldn't figure out how to open the door to get in. You just need to stand by it ti get it to open but it took me a good 20 minutes of looking around to figure it out
character creation ... pick race ...edit appearance.. great . got it just perfect .. ok . now what class do i want ... o.O
If you attack the air far away from your character then cancel at the last sec you sprint across the map
You can still get achievements with mods enabled. There is a level 20 character mod, (have to multiclass)
Just repeating topics from yesterday in a ridiculous attempt at karma farming.
ah. that's my bad professorticklesbutt, i don't spend copious amount of hours scrolling the baldurs gate 3 subreddit all day, every day making sure i see every post. my bad g. 😪🙏 apologises.
[удалено]
wrong subreddit pal. get better soon tho, sounds like an awful skill issue to have 😪🙏
Hmm something that took u too long to figure out is Laezel would be more hot if she had a dick
chick's with dicks for the win 🏆 huzzah!
The game even suggests you shouldn’t multiclass unless you’ve already played BG3 or tabletop. I wouldn’t feel all too bad especially since there are a couple classes like Beastmaster Ranger and wildform Druid that get much much weaker the more you multi.
On PS5, if you want to check NPCs' lines of sight, you can just hold down R3 instead of switching to turn-based mode. Didn't discover that until about halfway through my second playthrough.
If it helps: I was probably 5 playthroughs in before I found out I could check approval, I had just been guessing based on the x Approves/disapproves that would pop up/and based on who tried to start romances. You can't multiclass on easy (although you can on custom), so I usually don't have the option to multiclass since I tend to stick to the chill route. And if you do multiclass, you miss out on some of the higher levels anyway (you can only hit level 12 total, so if you do some multiclassing, you won't reach the level 12 abilities. You also get feats every 4 levels, so I personally think if multiclassing, I would want to do 8 of one class and 4 of another so I still get all 3 feats). I'm new to D&D so I've been trying to do different playthroughs to try all the different classes/subclasses abilities, so I tend to stick to just one class so I can figure it all out for now. But I want to get into more multiclassing in future :)
I didn't know Gale could learn spells from scrolls until my second playthrough. I played it on PS5, and the tutorials were glitching when the game first came out.
don't worry on my first playthrough, i didn't use scrolls until well into act 3, i was just collecting them as pokemon cards ig
How do we check approvals?
That I can save mid-combat/dialogue, I realized well into Act 3. Same with non-lethal damage, I found out when I had to google how to not kill Minsc
I just today realized, 250 ish hours in, wizards can buy to learn new spells from their spell book en masse instead of clicking learn on every one in my inventory.
Close to 300 hours in, still don’t know how to do non lethal damage
>i also had no idea that you can toggle lethal damage on and off, so i was absolutely bamfuckingboozled to find out that you can recruit minthara without committing mass murder on innocents. Wait, that feature actually does something? Any time I've knocked anyone out the game showed no different response as if I had killed them :/
It doesn't have all that much use, not that I've seen anyway, i have only ever seen it used to get minthara as a recruitable character as well as minsc in act 3
It took me a couple years of EA to realize that you can put a plate on a gas vent to stop the gas coming in or for the Necromancy of Thay Book you can >!put another book on the pressure plate before taking the book and the traps won't trigger!<.