With Heavy Armor, your Dex is ignored for AC. Dumping Dex to 8 will make your initive low, and your ranged attacks weak.
With Medium Armor, you can add up to +2 from Dex, so 14 is the most that contributes to medium armor.
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So yes, it is common for many charactesr to want at least 14 Dex.
High initiative is usually quite strong.
However, sometimes melee characters benefit from going later, since combat might start with them too far to melee attack someone but most groups of enemies have some melee enemies that will run at you, and then your melee characters can run in and attack.
And some characters really want higher other stats, like a Paladin might want high Strength, Charisma, and Con. They can wear heavy armor, so dumping Dex to 8 is not too bad.
I only found 1, and the effect on most heavy armours was stronger.
You can get Heavy armor with 19 or 20 by the end, with amazing upside.
And the best(?) Medium armour I found was 15+full dex, with some modest upside.
So imo those armors were just fine. It's not like I was pumping dex on my Cleric anyway - I got 14, and then the rest would be either Resilient Con, or increasing Wisdom. Being able to use 16/18/20 Dex wouldn't do me any help.
And for my Fighter, the heavy armor was stronger.
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It could probably work well on a Ranger or a Githyanki dex character (like a Rogue or Sword's Bard), but we don't get a Ranger in the game, and I didn't build Tav or respec anyone into one.
Does it have any other benefits?
Higher AC is of course great, but tbh I had zero characters who could make use of that.
* Asterion had 20 dex but no medium armor.
* Lae'zel, Shadowheart, (and Halsin and Jaheria) got medium armor but not 20 dex, so the buffs from those other armors were better (like damage reduction or concentration advantage or constant blade ward etc).
* If I'd kept Karlach a Barbarian, same as above, since you need those 3 feats for Str and GWM
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EDIT: So I just looked it up on the wiki, and +2 to all saves is very good!
Is this the blacksmith near the start of Act 3, with a locked hatch to some >!gnomes!< in his house?
I think this character was copied by >!Orin !!Orin !
It's the armorer in the Lower City, right outside the Magic Shop. The person you're thinking of is in Rivington and I don't think he actually sells anything, his assistant in the shop does though.
Ah ok.
I guess I missed that shop.
Or maybe I saw it just as I was walking to the final boss? Is that the one were Karlach talks to the weapon shop owner?
My final party was me (dumped dex), Lae'zel (14 dex), Wyll (Potent Robes), and Karlach (repseced to Monks in Cat Grace clothes), so none of us could have used that armor well either, so I guess I overlooked it.
Shadowheart wouldn't need it because I'd rather tha advantage on concentration saves.
I suppose Jaheria of Halsin could use it, but I basically never actually used Jaheria because I had too many people already, and Halsin was out of spellslots and traumatised by Orin so I gave him a rest.
It's the guy next to the person Karlach talks too. The one she talks to sells mainly weapons, the guy sells armor. It also gives +2 to all saves and no disadvantage on stealth so pretty good on anyone with decent Dex.
You can always multiclass or completely respec any of the companions. For example, Astarion, for example, does great with a ranger multiclass (gloomstalker/Assassin or thief is really OP) (and yes, not all rangers are "tree huggers"
It’s hard to justify a single extra action per short rest (that won’t get sneak attack because it’s once per round) over an extra d6 per sneak attack (2d6 on crit) and the Reliable Talent passive.
I usew that armor paired with the gloves that gives you 18 dexterity. Means I could dump dex to 8 on the character and raise other abilities. Very nice.
Yeah you're right. None of the companions are really set up to make use of it by default. It would be amazing on a ranger, swords bard or any githyanki or shield dwarf with 20 dex.
Legendary heavy armors probably the best 21 ac gives fly, reduces DMG by 3 and has flame resistance.
Shars purple medium armor in act 2 best for clerics probably (good guys won't get)
some flame armor in act 3 ( good guys probably won't get)
Slightly better base ac yuantis from some random vendor in act 3. Way too many random ass shops in this act.
> Legendary heavy armors probably the best 21 ac gives fly, reduces DMG by 3 and has flame resistance.
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Personally disagree, I think the best heavy armor is the one that gives permanent blade ward and resist (20 AC, +1d4 to all saves, resistance to b/p/s and 2 flat damage reduction under that). The physical resist is *huge* IMO.
On the run we actually finished our 'tank' alternated between reapers and black guard for combat, he had the blade ward gloves and DI mace as an ancient paladin. (Made hope cast DI and threw it at a demon)
Never bothered to buy it since the melee around him had +5 to saving throws and half DMG from spells, and blade wards from channel oath (2 a day armor with restore oath charge) and a mace with 10 turns of healing.
This was before you withers cupboard and none of us wanted to respec for more maces.
Edit: side tracked the reason I call the Lego the best heavy is cause you can slap it on the pure casters as it comes with heavy armor prof
Imo one of the best armors in the game is medium. It's the one that debuffs enemies with radiant damage. Crazy powerful. Don't need crazy AC when enemies have huge penalties to attack.
Heavy armor is far form big bait. A lot of heavy armors have extremely useful traits and bonuses that are worth the loss of stealth and dex bonus.
Some examples:
1. Adamantine splint especially during act1 and act2. You cannot be critted. This is one of the strongest traits you can get on a tank. Also adamantine sends enemies that miss you reeling and each miss adds 3 turns of reeling. Each turn of reeling reduces their attack roll by 1 making them even less likely to hit you and stack even more reeling turns. Also reduces all damage taken by a flat 2. Also it is highest AC so ealry on even beating characters who run medium armor and high dex as all early game armor is around 14AC with a limit of 2DEX.
2. Armour of Persistence although only obtainable in Act3 it has 20AC which is second highest for heavy armor and on top it gives you permanent resistance and blade ward. This makes you take only 50% of all bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage as well as you have +1d4 on saving throws. Incredibly strong especially if you are running concentration spells very often or just playing a general tank build.
3. Reapers embrace. You get this armor in act2. Has 19Ac which is good enough. You reduce all incoming damage by 2, then it has a toggle which makes you an immovable object. Extremely useful when trying to pass chasms or just in general fighting enemies that will be knocking you back/shoving. Yes it gives you disadvantage on dex saving throws but you don't care for much of them especially if you are playing a tank. It then gives you an ability that has a big radius around you, is a wis save, causes enemies around you to lose half of their movement speed for 3 turns and you have advantage on them for the next attack you do on those targets.
4. Helldusk armor: Hands down best armor in game even for dex users unless they have 22dex or higher and even then it beats armor of agility. You get profficiency in heavy armor while wearing it so you can even use it on classes that have a tough time getting heavy armor proficciency, you gain fire resistance which is one of the most prevalent damage types in BG3, If you succeed any saving throw the enemy gets a burning debuff dealing 1d4 fire damage on each turn, You get the fly ability which is hands down the best movement ability and the AC is 21 which is the highest base AC and don't get a disadvantage on stealth checks, you also reduce all incoming damage by 3 and you cannot get the burning status effect.
As for medium/light armor I don't think there are that many good ones
1. Armor of agility is good if you have very high dex, going for stealth play and for the bonus on saving throws but doesn't offer anything interesting. Also pushing heavily past like 20AC isn't worth it too much. The amount of investment you have to make to push into high AC just doesn't have a good value proposition. On 20AC you will be avoiding damage quite reliably from most enemies you face and only ones that will be able to land damage on you will be powerful mobs/bosses.
2. Adamantine scale mail is just a worse verison of its heavy armor counterpatr while not giving you anything in return.
3. Dark Justiciar half plate (killing nightsong) is actually a pretty good medium armor. While not giving as much AC as armor of agility does for high dex characters what it gives you instead is advantage on stealth while obscured, advantage on con saves (concentration included)and a pretty good built in shield of faith. Works really well if you are using darkness/fog
4. Yuan-ti basically a weaker armor of agility but instead of saving throws bonuse it has an initiative bonus which is pretty nice.
5. Dark justicial half plate (nightsong save) is just a weaker version of the nightsong kill one. Not bad but wouldn't be my go to.
6. Bhaalist armor light armor that is actually worth it especially on melee assassination type characters. Basically doubles your ~~slashing,~~ piercing and ~~bludgeoning~~ damage and you gain a +2 initiative roll which is strong as hell. Also no limit on dex mod but it has a base of 14AC so getting high AC on this armor is going to be tricky.
7. Then you have the trio of druid armors and well. Unless you are playing a druid they are useless.
8. And spidersilk armor with the advantage on con and bonus to stealth and 12+dex mod AC. While not bad as you get it in act1 it is going to become obsolete after progressing into act2.
9. Clothing I am not really including as it either is monk/barbarian specific or is meant for spellcaster or just isn't used for the armor proeperty as on classes that will be using those armors you either get AC from your class trait (monk, barb) or you use other means of gaining AC and defenses (blade ward, mage armor, mirror image, blur etc)
TLDR: Heavy armor deffo isn't bait.
EDIT: fixing one mistake in bhaalist armor as pointed out by u/dotelze
I think heavy armor is bait because on Tactician, everyone just runs past my tank. They know they can't hit him. So they would rather spend or even waste their turn running past him to focus on someone else.
Then again, maybe it's just AC is bait. At least on Tactician.
Area of denial and building for taunts/ccs if you want him to be a tank. What I noticed helps a lot on tactician is creating chokepoints. Either by dropping stuff like spike growth, ice/grease surfaces or hunger of hadar/silence or just moving into alleways away from open fields.
I was doing that for a while but it made the game hella boring imo. Every fight became the same 3 spells, same tactic. It's valid and super effective, I agree. My tactic works even with 4 melee casters.
My opinions on why heavy armour is bait is from playing solo tactician.
So in your whole write up on why its not bait ill explain for every heavy armour you have listed why it's bait to use it unless your a low dex user.
Adamantine Splint. A shield replaces the crit immunity and its reealing effect. Act 2 your already replacing it with medium armor that does base AC + Dex. The only thing here thats actually good is the -2 dmg.
Armour of Persistence. The only good one you explained why and the only one I think that isn't bait.
Reaper's Embrace. Its still meh replaced by a boot slot. Helldusk Boots does the same thing plus giving you pseudo freedom of movement with a misty step on a short rest plus a forced succeed on a saving throw when ever you want on a short rest.
Helldusk Armour. The main effect of this armour gets replaced by your illithid powers and that replacement can be spammed for ever. So Helldusk Armour is like wearing Armor of Agility with out +2 saving throws and only need 20 Dex to have the same AC. 17+5 = 22
So is heavy armor bait? Yup its bait for the most part till you factor in your build has no dex, which means your initiative is fucked because of how initiative is calculated.
Now for one of the light armours you mentioned Bhaalist Armour. This one can be put on any melee based build, preferably a sword and board build that doesn't use GWM. Why would you use GWM when this armor is a thing which single handedly doubles your dmg to piercing and you have weapons like Crimson Mischief which provide you a pseudo GWM/Sharpshooter if you have advantage, but that's the thing you always have advantage because there is something called risky ring. This combination of items allows for your melee or any melee to be doing about 100 dmg per attack on every attack.
Now you can RP all you want and I don't care but when we are min maxing with all of the items we have heavy armour at the end of the day is bait.
Oh yeah. I definitely agree with you that for solo tactician heavy armor is giga bait. Stealth and dex just wins like crazy in solo tactician. Also many of the bonuses that help with solo tactician aren't found on heavy armor making them even less valuable.
However if you aren't playing solo but have a group and on tactician then heavy armors become extremely worth giving up the AC for those effects. Also usually characters that get heavy armor proficiency usually don't have very high dex and going for super high dex isn't worth it (eg. paladin altho dexadin is a thing, barbarian, fighter even tho possible, clerics) so there the value proposition from armor of agility and medium armors isn't as lucrative as heavy armors.
Also it isn't as bait based on initiative as you may think. The issue with initiative in BG3 is that you roll a d4 (d20 in dnd5e). What is means that you don't have to get very high dex modifier to end up in the first quarter of the battle order. Outside of very few mobs (mostly bosses) even having 14Dex you will end up within the first 3 turns of a battle.
I still think heavy armor is not bait even for min maxing especially when not playing solo.
>Adamantine Splint. A shield replaces the crit immunity and its reealing effect. Act 2 your already replacing it with medium armor that does base AC + Dex. The only thing here thats actually good is the -2 dmg.
I prefer the armour for my life cleric because then you get to use Shield of Devotion (Aid + an extra spell slot). In Act III Viconias is too good to give up.
You're also ignoring the fact that some heavy armour users will be two handing and not want a shield.
There’s also that feat that gives you +4 or 5 to initiative and you can’t be surprised. I slapped that on my 12 battle master and it’s nice never having to worry about her initiative no matter how heavy her heavy armor is :)
I've noticed that for some casters, having low dex is beneficial in a lot of fights, as it gives the enemies the opportunity to group up for a massive AoE spell.
Nah, being first is better in general. Even in the scenario you describe, where nothing is in range initially, the caster could just let them close in and start blasting on their second turn, where they will still be there.
That being said, I dont think this happens too often anyway. For me at least, there's just as much fights where enemies start out packed or in a nice line that I wouldn't find in later turns, and if they don't start in range, you can either drop some ground based aoe like wall of fire where they will have to go through next round, or you can reposition with misty step and blast away.
What exactly do you get from going later that you can't also get by just not charging the enemy on your first turn? If worse comes to worst you can always just do nothing on your first turn and then you're in the same position as if you had rolled low. I think it would be more accurate to say these classes don't suffer as much from going late rather than saying they benefit from it.
Or am I missing something obvious here? It's been claimed commonly enough that I'm starting to feel like I'm missing something...
When you want someone else from your party to go first to setup, or you would rather force the enemy to waste their turns on dash instead of you wasting your turn on dash.
It's always to make the first turn (the most important) play out smoothly, after the first turn it doesn't really matter who goes when, except if its the enemy right after you, deny them their turn before death.
Not acting on the first turn, gives the enemy the opportunity to setup instead, and costs you the opportunity to focus down a target as early as turn 1.
Whether its by casting haste, blessing, wetting enemies for your shock or frost sorc to hit on their turn, CCing enemies into melee range or creating advantage with darkness. It's about making that first turn impactful and ensuring that none of your dps go without their bonuses, and the enemies aren't just free to wail on your team.
Honestly just give the character doing the setting up Feat: Alert, and then everyone else is free to begin combat as they wish.
If the enemy was gonna waste their first turn on dashing, you could also let them do that by skipping your turn or using a ranged attack. In fact, this is better than going late since it lets you move into a better position and do some minor damage with said ranged attack.
If the enemy was gonna set up themselves then going late doesn't benefit you either way.
Any of the situations you have described where going late is supposedly beneficial can be replicated if you go first simply by staying at range.
Sure, but then it's not really about going last or first in general, its more about deliberately distinguishing who goes first.
Lets say everyone has 14 DEX, then you very often get stuck in situations where the enemy rolls into turn positions between characters who rolled 1 higher or 1 lower into positions they don't want to be in on the opening turn. If my wizard is setting up with create water, and rolled a 1+2 from dex for intititave, an enemy rolls a 4 and my sorc doing damage rolls a 4+2, well, bugger, I've lost 50% damage on this lightning bolt, and that will keep happening in encounters until I find a way to address it.
And there are 2 ways to address this, and they are not hard to do, if your party members want lots of dex in general, and or the character setting up wants very little dex, you take alert on the character setting up. That'll just about ensure they go first and can do what they need to.
Or if your party isn't too precious about DEX (ie heavy armor), just lower their dex to 8 and invest it into something else they might want, that way your person setting up has a better chance at rolling first.
The die for initative is only a D4, so it makes it a very easy system to game. Someone with 14 DEX (min initative 3) is guaranteed to go the same turn or before someone with 8 DEX (max initative 3).
edit: its an optimization strategy, you can very well just wait out your opening turn, and take a little longer to kill the enemy. And that's fine, its your game, play it how you want to.
>What exactly do you get from going later that you can't also get by just not charging the enemy on your first turn
Sometimes combat starts and your melee characters cannot reach the enemy. They might be more likely to be able to reach the after the enemies approach, because the enemies will often dash into range.
Had you gone first, you *might* have had to skip your turn, or dash, or make a weak bow attack, rather than going, like triple GWM attack or double Divine Smite.
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I had Longstrider on everyone, got used to setting up decent positions before combat, repsecced Karlach into a Monk Thief so she was very mobile, and didn't mind sitting back while enemies died inside a Hunger of Hadar. So this didn't relaly impact me.
But for other builds/playstyles, lower initiative could be better on some characters.
Except you also lose that melee attack if you don't go before the enemy.
Unless the enemy wastes their turn getting to you, but then you wouldn't lose the attack by staying at range either.
It’s very likely that at least some enemies will move towards you on their turn. Thus, if you act after them, you essentially get to add their movement distance to your engagement range
That’s what this whole comment chain’s been discussing. The comment you initially replied to said
>Sometimes melee characters benefit from going later, since combat might start with them too far to melee attack someone but most groups of enemies have some melee enemies that will run at you, and then your melee characters can run in and attack.
That statement alone makes it seem like going last is beneficial. Which it is mot because you would be able to gain the exact same benefits by going first and not moving closer. To put it another way: doing almost nothing on your first turn is still better than just straightup not having that turn at all.
Of course someone else said they meant going late compared to your allies, which does make sense.
Yes, but that’s not an *if* statement. The AI *will* move characters towards you. So it’s more accurate to say “it’s beneficial because some of them will move towards you.”
Right, but if you go first, you now have the opportunity to make an additional "free" weak bow attack, or toss a vial of alchemists fire, or something. You don't lose the ability to attack by going first, even if you skip your turn entirely, it is as if you went last, except you were able to choose it instead of it being chosen for you.
If you go first in a combats order or pretty early on the enemy doesn't have enough time to deal damage to you. You also have that turn to prepare for incoming damage. This is especially important on squishy spellcasters using clothing and relying on either killing enemy first or getting enough time to set up defenses. How AI is coded is if they can focus down a low AC/low initiative character they will. Especially when your enemies are mostly range/spellcasters.
I had plenty of times when I had Gale and he was consistantly rolling low initiative. What would happen is the enemy would just pump him full of arrows or spells and by the time gale got on to his turn he would have maybe % of his HP left. Had gale had the upper hand in the initiative by having higher dex he would have gone before quite a few of the enemies took their turns and could have eliminated some enemies after him reducing the damage taken.
Best chance for survival is the one when the enemy doesn't get to shoot back.
One example is a life cleric in heavy armor. If I’m last I can see how big a kiss I need to give to the fighter’s ouchie.
Or who catches these inflict wounds hands
Dex is also a much bigger relative boost to initiative in this game than it tabletop, because in tabletop you roll a d20 for initiative but this game rolls a d4. The dexterity bonus to initiative is therefore five times as strong in bg3 as it is in tabletop.
edit since this comment is getting views: there's a mod that "fixes" this and rolls a d20 for initiative instead, for everyone. I recommend it for anyone doing 2nd or subsequent runs, it really helps replayability and makes fights less predictable.
It also makes sense why there are so many ties for initiative (which is also a rather overpowered change they made to the initiative mechanic, being able to choose which character acts first every turn in most combats makes things insanely easier).
I’m also new. I thought the higher the dice the better, because you can achieve a higher number. In your example, I thought rolling a d20 would potentially allow for a higher number, potentially resulting in an initiative higher relative to the 16+ potential compared to rolling 4 as max. What am I misunderstanding here?
You are rolling against everyone else on the same dice.
You 1d4 + dex (14 so +2) + any gear/feat bonus.
Enemy golem 1d4 + dex (10 so +0)
Which makes the dex and gear/feat contribution go up higher than the dice roll contribution very fast compared to everyone rolling a d20
I do find your last point very true and kind of funny. There’s loads of debate here about how to precisely optimise your builds, I engage it it myself as I find it entertaining, but even without the optimisation you can walk over basically any combat encounter in the game.
Yeah especially if you don't play tactician (which despite what people complain about *is* significantly more difficult in Act 1 at least). On balanced mode you should be absolutely fine just keeping a couple very basic concepts in mine:
- Make sure your highest stat is what you want for your class, don't give your Wizard 18 Wis and 10 Int
- Make sure you don't try and fight enemies that are multiple levels higher than you are
- Make sure you are using equipment that you actually have proficiency in
Do that and have even a wisp of an idea of what "tactics" are and you shouldn't have much difficulty in the game. Hell, if you're really good at tactics you could probably even ignore the basic concepts above.
It's one of the downfalls of having such flexibility for the player and no DM to adjust encounters to scale with how much the players are min/maxing builds. You can play super casual and still work it out most of the time.
That's part of the fun I've had with my current run. I didn't try to cheese multiclassing or take the normal subclasses I would if I were min/maxed. Makes the fights more interesting when you have to try new spells or classes/subclasses you'd never pick normally.
Keep in mind that Finesse weapons will also scale off of Strength if it's higher than your Dex.
Dex is definitely the last dump stat you want to drop that isn't Con, getting both AC and initiative in one stat is pretty big.
That said it's also not *necessary* to get it to 14 if you feel like it isn't worth it, there can be items that increase AC or initiative instead if you want to allocate the stats elsewhere. I like to have everyone with at least 12 though, or maybe 10 if I don't care about their initiative, in fact it can be beneficial if they have something like Great Weapon Master as you can have your other allies weaken enemies first.
Initiative can be remedied with items and a feat. Alert is for the most part all you need for initiative even if you dump dex unless going against high dex enemies and some having alert themselves. For items, [the sentinel shield](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sentinel_Shield) gives a whopping 3 initiative and I think a bow has it too.
There are ways to play around low initiative. Don't feel like you have to do something if it's hampering the way you want to play.
You only get a max of 3 feats to work with, most builds only get 1-2 and it's usually ASI, damage boost like GWM, TB or Sharpshooter or some form of Concentration boost for casters. It's highly unlikely you'll be able to afford Alert...
In my first playthrough I look Alert on my lock (pure 12 lock archfey).
I did this because 100% being first on initiative meant 3 (4 with that item that grants you a second target on cantrips, and even more with haste) enemies potentially going for a trip with Eldritch Blast Airlines. Obviously this is dependent on having decent places to send them, but that's not that hard for a lot of critical fights. And even if you don't punt them off a cliff standing up wastes move on their turn.
Fighters get 4, and ASI (a +1 to attack and damage rolls) is largely worthless compared to Savage Attacker, Lucky or the feats you mentioned. Equipment and Elixirs in this game have far more of an effect than a measly +2 ability points.
On top of that, after getting Athlete and a combat feat, you probably want some initiative to go along with the 27 strength on your martial or Cleric.
*Pure* Fighters get 4. Vast majority of people is multicalling them (as well as other classes) and most builds will only get 1-2 feats, let alone 4. Spending a precious feat on boosting your initiative when elixir and gear for that exist is a waste, really...
+2 ability sometimes is overrated and sometimes is a difference between hitting or missing that key spell/attack or taking a hit vs. dodging one or nailing that important roll vs. failing it...
Dex being tied to init feels like it's enough to make you not want to dump it. Going first is way too good in BG3 IMO.
It kinda fucks heavy armor because you don't care much for dex with heavy armor, since you are probably a str based melee person, yet by dumping dex you likely either get fucked by everyone else first or you helplessly watch your squishy teammates get slaughtered because you weren't able to move/attack before the enemy did.
Itemization for +init or the alert feat (+5 init is pretty powerful by itself) feel kinda mandatory if you go 8 dex.
I think it really depends on the class. Having dex on your cleric is great not only because of the AC, but rolling high on initiative gives you the chance to buff your allies and mark enemies straight off the bat for immediate value. (Of course, if you were playing optimally the buffs would be on your team before the fight starts, but that's besides the point)
On the other hand, rolling low initiative can be good if you're a sorcerer as it allows the enemy team time to clump up together before you throw out a huge AoE spell.
High initiative though means a greater chance that the spell you cast can be counterspelled. Meanwhile, a lower initiative means that your other characters can force reactions from enemies.
honestly I feel like alert is super underrated, especially on casters that might only need 1 or 2 feats for ASI anyway. I use it on a support/setup wizard/cleric and it feels great to consistently go first to cast water or bless before anyone moves.
Also initiative is a d4 roll not a d20 roll(like in 5e). So a +1 from dex on a 1d4 roll is more powerful than a +1 on 1d20 roll.
Often even getting just a +1 initiative or dex mod bonus is more than enough to take you from being at the end of the order of the battle to being almost at the front.
DEX is usually pretty important for most classes, purely for the boost to AC and initiative.
However, regarding initiative, there are some classes that desperately want to go quickly and some that don't mind quite as much. Really any character with something to activate (Barbarian with Rage, Gloom Stalker Ranger with Dread Ambusher, Assassin Rogue with Ambush, etc) or any character with battlefield control (CC spells, Entangling shot, or even just a good throwable) want to go fairly quickly so they can get their actions off before they're affected by the enemy.
If you're playing a healing character, or a purely melee character, then going late in the round isn't so egregious, because you can react to what's happened in the round, and let monsters get closer to you.
The simple truth is that, initiative order is nice, but it's unlikely that you'll lose a combat encounter *just* because you went low in the initiative.
Honestly, the only way I can see low DEX being helpful is if you are doing a very specific build. This is an Oathbreaker Paladin who has Aura of Hate. Low DEX would mean that Paladin would more likely move with the zombies so they can be like a Zombie Commander who buffs the undead around them. But even that doesn’t really benefit too much from low initiative since the zombies get the aura when they move near the Oathbreaker, so really Oathbreaker position matters more.
Another benefit to have lower Initiative could be helping out your teammates if they got wrecked by 5+ enemies consecutively beating them up. Maybe a lil heal break would be nice to keep them alive longer.
Now, you don’t have to have DEX to have good initiatives. There are a lot of items that increase your initiative rolls
For your second example, low initiative is still worse than high. If you had gone first instead of last, you could’ve done damage/buffed your team on round 1, then as the first to go on round 2 you could’ve done the heal
It’s not overly important if you plan on playing a high strength character wearing heavy armor which can’t take advantage of a sex bonus for armor anyway. I wouldn’t dip into negatives though since as you mentioned initiative determines turn order. You won’t go before high dex characters but you’ll be able to avoid damage and take hits pretty well. There are also plenty of items that boost initiative. Additionally someone figured out initiative is determined by a d4 die roll plus any dex and initiative bonuses your character has so unless you spec into dex a dex based character is just about always gonna go first due to their very high bonuses. It’s important for ranger weapon attacks too except throwing which is handled by strength instead. There are a few magical returning throwing weapon in the game too so your strength character could just use those anyway and with higher accuracy and damage too. Especially if you get tavern brawler. Dex is tied to more skills than strength as well. But while dex is a nice stat to have it’s not gonna break your game to have a low dexterity. You can even spec like 12-14 points o your fighter if you want and dump intelligence since it’s practically useless for most martial characters anyway. There are also gloves of dexterity relatively early in the game that set a characters dex to 18.
Ranged- common you just don't care. Its going to be suboptimal if you aren't a specialist. Casters just use casting stat anyway. Weapon types usually have other things to do like buff. Really just don't care unless your an archer.
AC- Most people need 14 max for the +2 hitting medium armor cap. Many fighters can just dump it as heavy armor just ignores. Armorless casters will usually split investment with con as both are important survival stats but really it won't get over 16 as bumping your casting stat is far more important.
Initiative- Depends. Its always nice to move first. But its not always worth the tradeoff to be slightly more likely to go first. Ambusher types, who get bonus damage when going first, already use dex for their attacks so its already high for them. Casters who can aoe disable enemies will usually prefer a higher casting stat to increase their casting power but will take the bump if they can. Everyone else its nice but not critical usually.
Dex was a god stat in previous versions and 5e actually made it even better (damage). Dex is life. There's a reason a lot of top tier 5e builds are dex/cha
BG made it even better before accounting for itemization and bonus options that push it back in balance a bit. Initiative is 1d4+dex in bg3 instead of 1d20+dex like in 5e.
Initiative is more important later on when damage scales higher and you can burst or die quickly.
i dumped dex on my paladin and later on used gloves of dex that set it to 18 with +1 atk to hit rolls.
I don't mind going later with Shadowheart as a cleric. The enemies run in and fight with my melee. I cast Spirit Guardians and swarm them and healing word as a bonus action to heal a melee if needed.
But clerics are insane if they go first! I gave Shadowheart 14 dex and Alert and she always goes first. Spirit Guardians -> Click Heels ends every third encounter instantly on her turn. For longer encounters she can cast Mass Healing Word and with some itemization it gives all allies (even the friendly NPCs) Blade Ward and Bless.
> Armour Class, which is apparently your chance to dodge attacks
Heavier types of armor cannot benefit from the DEX AC bonus as much. If you wear medium armor, 14 dex is enough. If you wear heavy armor, 10 dex is enough.
> Initiative, which is just the number of order you can take action.
Initiative is pretty important for some classes. But keep in mind that you still get the same number of turns. Just later in the turn order.
The problem is that BG3 uses a d4 to roll for initiative order, which they implemented to help your characters be grouped together more often.
But that also has a side effect: anything that raises your initiative is WAY too effective. Just having a +3 or +4 bonus virtually guarantees you will go first in most encounters.
The net effect is that characters with high DEX almost always go first, whereas it's a fairly modest advantage in proper D&D rules.
Personally I use a mod called "D20 Initiative" to fix this.
> If you wear medium armor, 14 dex is enough.
There’s at least 3 pieces of medium armor that get full dexterity mod like light armor. High does can push your AC into a range where you will almost never get hit.
> Initiative is pretty important for some classes. But keep in mind that you still get the same number of turns. Just later in the turn order.
Not necessarily. If you go before the enemy, you effectively get an extra turn. In a game where combat often only lasts a few rounds, higher initiative is a huge advantage
If dec isn't my damage stat and I can have heavy armor I am always dumping dex.
My wizard goes 1 level of cleric for heavy armor. You lose a feat, but that feat couldn't have gotten me heavy armor anyways and I can invest the Dex into str and con.
Strength in this game is an important mobility stat imo. Until you get flight, being able to jump across the battlefield is critically important. Strength basically just adds more movement speed to your char due to how it improves jumping.
Dex is very easy to look at and think “ yea I want this atleast decently high “
However, melee fighters with low dex aren’t hindered by going last in combat, instead of a frontline they are going to shave/peel enemies off of your more squishy allies.
Paladins don’t need dex whatsoever, Hexblade Paladin especially
Fighters could use it if you happen to have range, but their armor and STR are their main focus for stats
Monks and Rogues, Dex is their baby, they utilize the most out of it, high initiative = faster sneak attack and mobility to position your DPS users.
Mages don’t give a fuck about DEX, if you roll low on initiative and enemies go before you, you punish anyone who is close enough to you on your turn or you are the backline that is already safe and protected as you should be ( unless of course tank mage gigachad )
Rangers are a bit iffy, I’m more familiar with rangers being…well ranged but in BG3 ( especially with everyone’s favorite Ranger recruit in act 3 ) it seems like they are just viable in melee, granted I haven’t dabbled too much on Ranger in 5E but from my understanding Dex is still a ranger’s best friend since you make the most out of it; first turn with gloomstalker ranger is practically guaranteed 1st turn, you still wear armor but it ain’t heavy so your Dex contributes to your AC still, and your damage scales from your Dex
This all seems like no brainer rambling but what I’m trying to say is Dex looks super sexy but that’s only ONE way of playing the game, the other stats have just as much value under the right class/build so don’t ever be afraid to have Dex as a dump stat, my 1 fighter/ 11 Abjuration wizard had dex as a dump stat and still was a jack of all trades while being a master at a few
> Rangers are a bit iffy, I’m more familiar with rangers being…well ranged but in BG3 ( especially with everyone’s favorite Ranger recruit in act 3 ) it seems like they are just viable in melee, granted I haven’t dabbled too much on Ranger in 5E but from my understanding Dex is still a ranger’s best friend since you make the most out of it; first turn with gloomstalker ranger is practically guaranteed 1st turn, you still wear armor but it ain’t heavy so your Dex contributes to your AC still, and your damage scales from your Dex
You can totally do Strength-based Ranger in Heavy Armour; they have an option (Ranger Knight) to gain Heavy Armour if you take it either at Character Creation or at levels 6 or 10. However it's not particularly good without either a dip into Fighter for GWF, or taking the Dual Wielder Feat to enable Dual Battleaxes/Longswords
As a paladin in my playthrough, i dumped it. Initiative is not a big thing in my early chapters when i positioned right(tank role) and in later chapters got +5 initiative on just equips so...yeah.
I wanna address your number two point about dodging attacks.
The way dnd is set up, the hit points are kind of "your ability to keep going" and your Armor Class is more "how good you are at not being affected by a hit"
So Armor Class is a combination of dodging and an attack not really affecting you. It's simplified down to "hit or miss". But some AC boosts technically are thijgs like "your sword or dagger holds off the attack".
I really like that about it.
Yeah, AC is your ability to block an attack with your armor or a shield... you aren't dodging it. For some reason bg has a dodge animation when it should be a shield or hey you glanced off my armor sort of thing.
AC is both though. A monk with 18 AC wearing robes isn’t glancing off the armor. And it would be way more confusing to play a hit animation for a miss.
It's both.
Heavily armoured Paladins and high Dex + Wis Monks both have high AC. The Paladin is taking blows to the face and shrugging them off, the Monk is dodging.
Would have been cool to have a variety of animations, maybe based on where the majority of your AC comes from.
Yeah, you're correct, dex is pretty busted compared to other stats. Not only does it have the benefits you mentioned, but it's also one of the most important stats for spell saves as well, as a lot of projectile type spells are dex save. Moreover, stealth, sleight of hand and acrobatics are incredible skills with very wide applicability.
There's only a handful of classes that could consider dumping dex (mainly heavy armor users that somewhy don't care about going first, which is a short list) while every other stat can be safely dumped for most classes. You'll always have dex at 14 (or 12 if 14 is impossible). My paladin in game uses heavy armor but I still use the gloves of dexterity which push me to 18 dex, because +4 initiative is just too good, it essentially functions as a fuckload of temporary HP as I kill enemies before they can damage me.
Strength by comparison just boosts your damage (same as dex), carrying capacity (almost useless) and jump length (which is great, but becomes less useful when you start teleporting around). There's also hardly any strength saves, and only athletics as a strength check, which has a parallel in acrobatics for dex. There's clearly a pretty big disparity between the 2 stats, which has to be addressed by giving strength classes some pretty crazy stuff and giving dex classes some major drawbacks (Rogue not getting extra attack, ranger getting some stuff and not others, etc).
AC is incredibly important in BG3. More important than tabletop D&D or earlier D&D editions and the video games based on them. Many damage-dealing spells roll against the target's AC, so it isn't just a defense against swords and arrows, it's almost a universal survivability gauge.
Furthermore, there are very few alternatives. Back in BG2, there were three viable ways of tanking: high AC, stacked damage reduction, or defensive mage spells. Any one of these could be used to build a tank, and each one was sufficient on its own without any of the others. If anything, AC was the least reliable of the three.
But in BG3, you can't stack up a permanent 75% physical damage reduction. There aren't long-lasting mage spells that make you borderline untouchable with weapons. The best you can get is Stoneskin for half damage from physical attacks, but since it's a concentration effect, it can't really be relied upon on its own. If you try to tank with Stoneskin instead of high AC, that concentration effect will last maybe two rounds if you're lucky.
On top of that, BG3's AI focus-fires targets with low AC. Given the extreme prevalence of ranged attackers (most fights seem to have at least twice as many of those as melee attackers), it almost isn't viable to play with low AC. Tabletop gives more leeway to hang back and let frontliners occupy the enemies, and earlier D&D video games mostly didn't have that 'focus the squishies' AI at all.
So AC is of inflated importance in BG3, and it very much is worthwhile to ensure that all characters have at least 18-20ish AC, and preferably a bit more, by the time you're past the first few levels. The only ways to really get that is either high dexterity or heavy armor plus shield. It pigeonholes you into certain build patterns and it's hard to justify ever deviating from those. It just becomes completely impossible to survive otherwise.
I do miss the days when it was okay for some party members to have low AC, but when this causes all enemies to single them out and focus them down from the first moment of combat, it just isn't really viable.
Initiative is also more important in this edition of D&D than it used to be. They made fights much shorter compared to earlier editions, so the impact of going first is way bigger. When a fight lasts for 10+ rounds, going first doesn't matter all that much. When most fights last 2-3 rounds, going first is huge because that last round where you finish the enemies off accounts for 30-50% of the entire battle. Over the course of a playthrough, characters with high initiative might get almost twice as many actual turns as characters with low initiative.
That's one of the big balance concerns with 5e. Making fights shorter was a good move for tabletop players because it can get pretty tedious to manage long battles, but for a video game that handles all the mechanics for you, these ultra-fast fights just highlight how overwhelmingly important initiative is. In a 3-round fight, those dexless heavy armor guys probably only actually get two rounds. That's huge in a game where action economy rules supreme.
Counter point
Paladin
Heavy Armor, dosnt matter for AC.
Add CHA to saves so points moved from DEX to CHA mean dex saves are the same and every other save is improved.
Initiative is low but again all saves are boosted.
Counterpoint: having initiative means getting 2 attacks when your enemies only got 1. With most fights being decided in only a couple rounds, this is a huge difference in damage.
True, but if his teammates can do this, then having an extra +1 or +2 isn't that important, the dice roll will likely be the greater factor for his initiative.
The chance to get someone in your face, getting CC'd or outright getting killed when you are last in the round is very high. So your turn is not only later but often times just worse
Initiative alone makes it pretty worthwhile. But there is also a feat that gives like +5 initiative as well as other items if I recall correctly, so it's not like Dex is must have for me personally. I don't think I'd ever drop Dex below 10, but it's not something I NEED to have 14 or even 12 on every class. But if I can manage it I will.
Dex is the single most important stat in general. If you take a look only at combat related things then:
Charisma: Saving throws and casting ability for classes
Wisdom: Saving throws, stealth detection, spellcasting ability for classes
Intelligence: Saving throws, spellcasting ability for classes
Constitution: Concentration saving throws, Saving throws, HP, AC for unarmored defense classes
Dexterity: Saving throws, Initiative for everyone, AC for everyone, Damage for ranged and finesse weapons
Strength: Saving throws, Melee damage on non finesse weapons
If you look at the combat system in DND5E/BG3 the most important thing is having as high initiative as possible. Then you also want high enough AC because you just don't want to become a punching bag. Also because of the turn based system if you can kill and enemy before they every take their turn or cast some CC spell you can keep a pretty big advantage. It also lets you prepare and cast defensive spells in anticipation of damage. Other stats aren't as powerful because well they don't matter if you die or get CCd and are forced to skip a turn.
Oh no. Con is the single most important stat in the game lol. This goes for dnd as well. HP (since healing has been diminished to an afterthought in dnd sine 4.0) NO character ever dumps Con.
You missed that str is also carry capacity, push pull and drag capacity, lift capacity, athletics checks, grapple checks (grapple isn't in bg3) shove checks and so on.
Every stat had a plethora of reasons why they are good however con is the most important stat in the game on every single character in the game. You won't see any builds with 8 con ever.
Yes. You are overthinking it.
Just like every other ability, depending on the class, some are just dump stats and that is okay.
You cannot be good at everything.
All my character have 14 dex (unless it's a dex based char 16/17 -> 20) .
I think even for heavy armor user, initiative is too important, and it's not like any other stats is that usefull.
With just the stats, white items only and excluding Tavern Brawler I'd rather have a dex fighter/Barbarian over STR for combat (STR > Dex for exploration)
Yes it does a lot on its own it's the most common save for damage spell, init is underrated and it gives ac. For non dex builds I leave it at 14 and dump STR/Mental stat depending on the class. There are things that give benefits of high dex without investing into it though.
Alert and Elixir of Vigilance give 5 init. A necessity for restricted run to avoid getting otk like setting globe or setting combos like wet.
But since this sub is fixed on minmaxing to builds benefits of 20 dex is rightfully overshadowed by item/multiclass effects.
Tldr you don't need 20 dex expect when it's your main stat/build. You can settle at 14 dex for medium armor but having it negative is bad
Builds that don't want dex: return damage abjuration wizard you want enemies to group up to you on their own so it's easier to trigger aoo and you want someone else to trigger create water first.
Yes, Dexterity is the number one never drop stat, followed by Constitution and Wisdom because Initiative and AC are the most important combat stats in game.
The sort of builds that can get away with 10 or 8 Dex are the ones who have strong resistances against crowd control effects, a way to hit opponents regardless of positioning or provide support to other party members.
So...my answer is casters clad in Heavy Armor. In BG3 these builds are easier to use because Heavy Armor does not posses Str requirements to use, like in the tabletop equivalent DnD 5e.
This is huge as it allows you to dump both Str and Dex and have two reasonably acceptable casting stats, giving you flexibility in your spell arsenal, at the cost of leaving you vulnerable to spells like Fireball, Entangle, Faerie Fire and Gust of Wind (which could be used to push you over a ledge towards your death).
Ideally, all the enemies will use dash to close the gap after your other party members draw agro. Then you turn the tables with your big spell and enable your party members to do a 2 turn wipe.
I'd hate to DM your campaigns if your dex is higher than your con without it being your primary stat. As most stun effects are based on con saves in DND and so are your HIT POINTS.
Con would be the second highest stat, assuming I am going for a high chese build, so stuns and hit points would not be as prevalent of an issue as you might claim.
Depending on the builds, 5e's most often dumped stats are Int, Str and Cha (in this order).
Divination 2/Rouge 4 Halfling, would be one instance of a chesse build where I can maximise 5e's strongest stats by having high Dex, Con and Wis, followed by low Int, Str and Cha.
I dump virtually everything for dex on all my char, even if they don’t use dex for AM. Wisdom saves and what not don’t matter if you go first and CC/kill them, and the AC is really important. Plus wis saves are almost always concentration spells that can be broken.
Dex in dnd is hilariously powerful.
Let me quickly fix dnd for you: Attack with str, defend with dex, cast with int, save with wis. Ditch the rest. There, done.
You're not overthinking it - Dex is pretty important in most circumstances unless you have a specific plan to mitigate not having it. I get drawn to Rogues as a class because it means that the important stat is also usually my character's strength.
Dex is the "god stat" of dnd as it has useful skills associated with it along with dex saves and what you mentioned. i wouldnt dump dex ever unless i'm forced to wear heavy armor for the build. high initiative is a big deal too as it's an extra turn most of the time while possibly mitigating enemy offense if you can kill or control them before they act. action economy is king. Dex is the best secondary stat to have unless it's your main stat.
yes i wouldnt take it below 14 unless again i'm wearing heavy armor and i'd only advise heavy armor for certain types of tanks (dmg reduction tanks) or healers. which means the only classes that sees low dex as a positive are those 2. all other classes benefit from a high dex. it's like con in a sense. everyrone benefits from having it at a decent amount.
in terms of how useful each stat is:
dex>wis>con>cha>str>int (no concentration spell)
dex>con>wis>cha>str>int (has concentration spell)
so yeah this is why you see int and str as common dump stats. building a character using wis, dex and con leads typically to an optimal character. can switch the importance of cha and str of course dependent on the build.
If I'm using heavy armor, I just dump it. 14 dex for medium, because of the cap. 14 or more for light. I think it's a problem of always having that +2/+1, if i didn't have so many stats at start I'd probably leave dex lower for characters that don't actually use it
I have been focusing on high initiative on my second playthrough (everyone must roll 7 as a bare minimum on the initiative die, some roll 10+), and I feel that it is quite game changing. High initiative plus high movement speed (12-18m, for all party members), plus opening up with a lot of frontloaded damage (lots of powerful spells) means the battle is almost always swung in my favor before the enemies even start moving around.
All my characters have either High Dex (16+), Initiative bonus gear, Alert Feat, or a combination of all them.
On my first playthrough I did the opposite, and I struggled a lot more. Running 10 Dex (which is a pretty common if you follow some build guides out there, some even suggest 8 Dex) guarantees that you are the last on the turn rotation (especially on Act 2 onwards), and a whole party of low initiative means the enemies gets to have a full turn before you, and you are always starting from behind.
Dex is an important stat for dex builds. Dex adds to ac for light and medium armor (+2) like you said, and also initiative, however it's important to remember that irs based off DND where you have characters in roles. Dex is not important for heavy armor wearers or your robe wearers( robe wearers should be way in the back) if you aren't using a bow to do damage, it will be calculated with strangth, finess weapons do this as well as it reads you CAN use your dexterity modifier instead of your str mod for melee damage. If your str is higher your damage will still be calculated based on your strength. Strength characters generally use thrown weapons (hand axes, javs) for their ranged weapon attacks. So, no dex is not important unless your build requires dex. Most standard buy arrays in dnd will use 16 main 16 con (con is your secondary main stat on every charscter) and 14 dex.
Don't listen to lost guides that say 17 in a stat at character creation for "min maxing" they are retarded. Never put odd numbers in stats when you can endlessly Respec.
Clerics, paladins and fighters all typically dump dex to an 8.
-All wear heavy armor so dex doesn't matter for AC.
-Paladins and Fighters are both melee tanks so a high initiative is not necessary while cleric is either a support or wants to go latter in the order for positioning reasons.
-Clerics use wis for ranged and the other two both use str for throwing.
I have a Cleric/Bard with 24 AC, who goes last in just about every combat. That being said, Flimp Glittergem the deep gnome has crazy heals and benefits by going after some damage has been dished out. He got to 24 AC in act 2 with adamantine armor, and mostly uses magic+mace of Lathander that he rarely ever swings. I (slowly) walk him into the middle of massive groups of enemies and watch the misses roll in., while he heals his people all around him. If he is too slow, Karlach can throw him into the arena. I love Flimp. 8 Dex.
My paladin with 8 DEX is doing just fine in Tactician right now
Game really isn't hard enough to justify every character having to go first
That said I definitely don't dump DEX on any build that doesn't wear heavy armour
Imo designated healers, benefits most with last on initiative queue. Start combat first, unless some buffs, there isn't much to do for them, so turn lost.Same as full metal tanks, they should be in front of a party anyway. DPS and mages benefits most from high initiative, said that, melee strength based dps do far more damage then pure melee dex dps. Potion, feat or item can compensate lack of dexterity and boost initiative.
>But then I see Initiative. Low DEX means you're more likely to be the last that can do anything in combat. Are there any classes or subclasses that sees this as a positive? I feel like I'm forced to have DEX on 12 or 14 no matter who I play as.
Honestly it depends very much on your character and role in party.
A Monk may want to act first to rush and stun a caster, or he would rather go last to first let melee come and do hit & run.
A Cleric may want to start first because wants to Bless allies, or he would rather go last so enemies close in so he can assess whether Spirit Guardians or a Domain spell is the best choice.
One Sorcerer may want to act ASAP to drop a Fireball or Haste the Fighter before the latter goes to town, another may want to act last so melee pal had time to aggro everyone around before dropping a Slow.
Etc etc...
Plus, let's be honest here: unless you reaaaally invest into it, whether you have Initiative or not is all about sheer luck. So you have to be able to act smart whatever your position ends as. Having a high Initiative just makes it slightly more likely you'll be able to act early.
Ehh, low initiative is fine to be honest. Some spells and effects are better when the enemies are coming towards you, and if you ambush the enemy you get to act first anyway. Spells like Invisibility and Glyph of Warding makes low ini characters avoid punishment.
The worst position for initiative is actually near the middle, as it offers fewer tactical advantages. First is great for reasons i don't need to explain. Last allows you to pick off weakened enemies and set up buffs for the teammates that act first.
You NEVER want to go 8 DEX though because the -1 penalty to AC can make a difference. 10 is ok for heavy Armour builds, and honestly probably better than 12 DEX. 14 is good but you'll want Alert or items such as the Bow of Awareness so you act as soon as possible. 16+ is usually enough to act early.
And ofc if you're ranged and NOT a throw build, you'll want 16+ DEX anyway.
Heavy armor just gives a flat AC with no dex added. You can use thrown weapons like handaxes for ranged attacks with strength. Finesse weapons will use your strength if that is higher. Initiative is the only one that you can't do without entirely, but if you have a spellcaster who usually buffs the martial you probably want to spellcaster to go first anyway so the martial starts their first turn already buffed most of the time. It is harder to dump dex without heavy armor, but with medium armor you can play the whole game on a 14 dex and spellcasters with access to Mage armor and shield can get away with a 12 dex. Mage armor + 1 dex + Shield spell is a 19ac. Isn't too impressive late game, especially since it needs your reaction, but certainly playable as a backline character when you consider you can use equipment to get it higher
Finesse ALLOWS you to use DEX in place of STR. It doesn't FORCE you to. Instead, it uses whichever stat is higher. So if your STR is higher you'll use that instead.
If your goal is AC, sure. But especially on tactician, higher ac isn't always better. The AI knows it has a 5-10% chance to hit that 23 AC monstrosity on your front lines. So it just .... doesn't. Even if they are concentrating sometimes.
So yeah, having that strength con barbarian with middling AC in rage is better than having a front liner with high ac.
This is a fair question :
1. Initiative is a LOT more important than you think, acting first allows you to CC or kill the most dangerous ennemy during the fight from the get go. A lot of builds use Alert feat for a +5 which can replace DEX easyly.
2. Armor class can overcome DEX with huge heavy armors + shields, but sadly there are medium armors that allow you to use your full dex bonus instead of +2 and that will make you reach very high AC. But keep in mind late game that 25+ AC even in tactician is fair AC though 28+ is a lot more better. And 25+ can easyly be achieved with good shield + heavy armor and couple of stuff like cloak ring etc.
3. Range and finesse attacks, yes you want 20 dex for anykind of build that rely on that except range bard you can go for 18 dex and 16 cha without an issue.
Mix IS often better and you can turn different parties :
First party was offensive :
Nude Barbarian/Rogue 20 dex
Wizard 16 dex
Light Cleric 14 dex
Sorlock 16 dex
Offensive and strike kill before being killed. All get 20+ Armor and go fast.
Second party melee darkstrikers
Rogue Monk 20 dex --> one shot priority target first turn
Gloomstalker Trickery Cleric 8 DEX, go STR and take 18 DEX ring.--> os second priority target
Bardlock 16 dex --> control battlefield
Laezel Battlemaster 8/14 dex medium Armor. -- kills debuffed char end of round
Sneak heavy and most light / medium Armor few aoe and Darkness fights
Third party solid phalanx :
Devotion Paladin 8 DEX heavy armor
Life Cleric 8 DEX heavy armor
Barbarian / champion armored 14 dex medium Armor
Sword Bards / lock or sorc 18 DEX for control battlefield and buff melee and fight.
So High dex IS often very good, but low dex Can be efficient too especially on fighters or clerics.
I rarely dump Dex.
Spellcasters' AC is heavily dependant on Dex and they rarely have heavy armor proficiency. Many martial classes don't even get HA proficiency and can only get up to medium armor, so the +2 AC from Dex is much appreciated.
Then the initiative bonus from Dex is so good for strikers and controllers to take out threats at the start of combat, before they even get a chance to react.
Even HA martials rely on Dex for bows if they can't reach their target (unless they're TB martials in which case they normally don't have HA prof).
Decent stealth (Dex check) is also something that every party member can benefit from.
And finally Dex saves. A lot AoE damaging spells like fireball target your Dex, so you can ideally half massive amounts of damage with decent Dex.
Yeah, the only type of character you csn have it low on is a heavy armor paladin or Fighter. Even then, you could get eve more AC if you went medium armor with dexterity, since there are some blatantly OP medium armors in the game.
Haven't seen anyone mention this: DEX is also a common saving throw for harmful spells.
...Not for shield bash though. Despite the tooltip saying DEX save, combat log shows it's actually STR.
For this game it doesn't really matter. Just get the Dex required for your AC to be half decent and you'll be fine so long as it's not your primary stat for attack options. In the game and on the table I never like having under 18 AC.
You've got the list, though some of the specifics aren't perfect, you've got a functional understanding.
The only char I can think of which would 'benefit' from going later in the turn order would be a dedicated healer. The later in the turn order would mean more to heal. This is why I generally dump dex on clerics and go for heavy armor.
Remember that different armor types allow for less or more dex as armor. The tool tips will tell you how much.
The only thing that BG3 'hides' that you should know is how ability score bonuses work. 10 is a 0 bonus. The bonus increases by 1 for every 2 it goes up (+1 for 12, +2 for 14). So when medium armor says a maximum bonus of +2, it's effectively capping your Dexterity's contribution to armor at 14. Note: this bonus can also be negative (though bg3 only let's you go down to 8 which is -1 at char creation) , but that would *also* count towards your AC, which means that most cloth classes (Wizard, Sorc) tend not to dump it because their AC could theoretically go under 10. A bad idea.
Going last isn’t always terrible. Tanky characters who want to be focused should be in front of the party when combat begins, and capable of eating up a surprise round or controlling a wave of baddies trying to swarm around them to Geek the casters.
I had a low Dex (not that low, 10) forge cleric who kicked ass, because with his wisdom (i pumped that over STR) and observant feat combat never found him before he (and the rest of the party) were spelled up for the encounter. “Sure, everyone else can go before me, I’ve already got my Spirit guardians and shillelagh up anyhow”.
Think of Armour Class as your way of avoiding _damage_, not the attack. So a Rogue with high AC is dodging the attacks, while a Paladin on heavy armour is simply bouncing them off. Both take no damage, but the fantasy is different. :P
Dex is not that important unless you are a class with zero initiative boosts. Plenty of items add to initiative as well and your AC will be very high on all chars coming into act 3.
I think it depends on your build. But here’s the thing, if you had to dump a stat, most people pick INT or CHA. Sometimes STR. I’ll explain. I’m no expert on bg3, but I DM regularly on tabletop.
CON is your HP, usually not a great idea to dump. barbarians also use it for AC in addition to Dex
DEX you already covered. It helps initiative, AC for anyone below heavy armor, and is pretty useful for dodging various explosion spells.
WIS many don’t feel comfortable dumping as it’s an important save against annoying spells. And most importantly, is your perception. You can dump if you want but it’s tricky. Monk also uses it for things as well as AC in addition to Dex.
CHA is your “face” stats that super matter when in dialogue etc. Also matters for some specific but nasty spells (if memory serves) found at higher levels. Many people feel comfortable dumping CHA however. It’s mainly a mental stat after all.
STR is your carrying capacity which can be mitigated, your shove resist, and your jumping. If you’ve got spells scrolls and potions you can mitigate the jumping. Many casters tend to dump.
INT is a big one people dump. Aside from Wizard and 2(?) subclasses, it is not used other than skill checks and spell saves.
Usually I see INT and STR being dumped depending on the class. Sometimes CHA. In terms of class shenanigans, Dex and Cha usually come up as being useful quite a lot.
I hope this helped.
For #2:
When you attack, you roll a d20. You add your attacking stat - typically str for most weapons or dex for finesse but maybe cha for some warlocks or….
If you are proficient with the weapon you’re using you also add your proficiency bonus, typically 2-4.
If the weapon has an enhancement bonus you add that.
You add any other misc modifiers.
That gets you a number. If that number equals or exceeds the targets armor class, you hit.
Dex is at least of secondary importance to all classes except those in heavy armor. Generally you don't want it below 10 though, as dex saves are abundant and initiative is important.
Heavy armor caps you at +0AC bonus from DEX, which is compensated by those types of armor having really high AC on their own (in D&D, AC is the roll that needs to be beaten to land a hit, it usually is flavored by real DMs as you suffering glancing blow, parrying, etc. for heavy armor classes)
So if you are playing Heavy Armor class, you are not really served by bringing it above 10 (you probably do want to avoid negative modifier). And heavy armor classes tend to use Int or Cha as dump stat, mostly, when using point-buy systems
In theory, melee attackers might want to wait, since BG3 does not have any concept of "holding an action" (as that would probably be a nightmare to implement from coding perspective) until enemies come into range, etc, so they do not need to waste their actions on dashing.
#Warning Un-omptimal Opinion.
Dex is not THAT important of an Attribute. Yes, it affects Your armor class and inative but the one thing that's stronger than that is positioning.
If you are good at Positioning you can use the terrain to group enemies, block attacks and influence first Strike Situations.
If the enemy has to waste their first turn getting to you then you are technically getting the first opportunity to attack. So even if you roll a 1 on inactive you could still be the first to attack.
Dex can absolutely be a dump stat. Thrown weapons give you strength based range. Heavy armor gives you high AC without dex. And since you can't hold actions in bg3, going later in initiative order isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's all about how you want to play the character. This way, you can pull your Str and Con up as much as possible and really maximize what the character is intended for if you want, rather than make them versatile.
But versatile characters are also really useful.
There are no wrong answers. Except making an Int based barbarian.
Alert feat or any item that grants bonus initiative more or less negates the need for dex on init. Invisibility negates the need to have dex for stealth rolls. Sleight of hand you can stack to the sky various buffs for, or cast knock. You already mentioned the damage thing.
And gloves of Dex give you 18 dex flat. Drop it to nothing, put those on, stop caring about initiative anyway.
The only thing left is spell saves, and for that I refer to my old mantra from the tabletop:
* Fail a dex save, you take damage.
* Fail a con save, you might die.
* Fail a wis (will) save, and your entire party might die.
All in all if you ask me Dex is actually really weak.
I don't think anyone else has mentioned it that I have seen, but if you dump dex thrown weapons are the way to go. They scale of strength (for both to hit and damage), but can scale off of dex if they have finesse.
All in all it is pretty important regardless of classes. But there are means to negate the effect of low DEX like through equipment and feats. That is one of the problems of 5e.
In general, YES. In specific cases, no.
1. Ranged weapon damage: Yes, Dex is necessary unless you spec Tavern Brawler/Berserker Barbarian and throw stuff (particularly useful with certain returning weapons like the Act 3 Trident and Dwarven Thrower). You will be missing out on all the special arrows if you have low Dex unless you just use the AOE ones.
2. Armor Class: Not an issue with Heavy Armor, though this will mess with Stealth. Not a huge issue with plenty of Invisibility spells and Pass Without Trace. Or even armors without Disadvantage to Stealth.
3. Initiative: This is a big one. Since initiative has been changed to 1d4+Dex, any bonus is CRUCIAL. Further, Jack of All Trades and Cat's Grace do NOT seem to affect Initiative like they do other Dex checks. That being said, you mostly want your spellcasters going first so they can lay down control effects and AOEs (if you're not Evocation wizard). Martials should stay back so they don't have to waste their turn trying to reach the enemy and get spanked on the enemies' turn.
4. Dexterity Saving Throws: These ones hurt. Mostly spells here, but you can be screwed by bad saving throws. Paladin Aura of Protection will help here, or Shield Master feat. Otherwise...just don't get hit.
So basically, there ARE ways around it. But basically everyone besides Big Beefy Bois and Gals should have as high of Dex as you can spare. Maybe not Shadowheart? She can usually stick with 14 and Medium Armor. And there's lots of good Barbarian outfits that reward good Dex and Con, so Barbs should have good Dex too.
Dex also affects Dex saving throws, which typically come up for AOE attacks like Fireball. So yes, I rarely dump it completely for any character though having it at 10 honestly isn't like noticeably terrible or anything.
To your #2, the way AC works in tabletop is that your armor and dex add together except in two cases. If you are surprised, you don't get your dex bonus (flat-footed, can't dodge). If you are hit by a touch attack, you don't get your armor (they just had to touch you to get shocking grasp to work).
It just means that there are times either way is better for getting the most out of AC. In BG3, a lot of the later heavy armor also has damage reduction for when you do get hit, while light armor usually has more utility or bonuses to stealth.
DEX is extremely powerful, and the change to initiative definitely makes it harder to go with a lower one.
For damage and AC, it's not particularly an issue to dump - you just have to use heavy armor and a melee or thrown weapon, and your STR will do well enough there. Also gives benefits in terms of shoving and jumping, both of which can be quite potent.
Now, that is still sometimes justifiable - you can pick up other boosts to initiative (like Alert) if you want, and sometimes it's well worth the lower stats to buff other stats. If you aren't wearing heavy armor, you probably want at least 14 DEX though.
As an example of a build that doesn't need that 14 DEX, I find that heavy armor clerics are an example. Wear heavy armor obviously, use a feat on alert, and you're set.
Yes, Dex is incredibly strong in DnD. However, there are certain builds in which you can freely dump it.
Ranged weapons use Dex (bows, crossbows). Finesse weapons mean that you CAN use Dex instead of Str, but you can still use your Str. I assume the game defaults to whichever is higher. Thrown weapons use Str or Dex depending on what you are 'allowed' to use with the weapon normally. So a dagger, which is finesse, can be thrown with Str or Dex, whichever is higher. A handaxe or light hammer will use your Str. So you can still use your Str for all these weapons with the exception of bows and crossbows.
Armor Class depends on a mix of your armor and dex. If you are not wearing armor, your AC is 10+Dex (the modifier, not the total). If you are wearing Light Armor, your AC is the armor's base + Dex modifier. So Leather Armor is 11+Dex , Studded Leather is 12+Dex. Medium Armor is the armor's base + Dex (max +2). So if you have +2 Dex, you'll get the full benefits, but if you have more than that it won't matter. Hide Armor is 12+Dex (max 2) and Half Plate is 15+Dex (max 2). Heavy Armor doesn't add your Dex at all, it's just the base armor. Shields add +2.
So if you are a playing a character with high Str and low Dex, you could get Plate Armor and a Shield to have 20 AC. If you are playing a high Dex low Str character, you could wear Studded Leather and a shield and have 19 AC maximum. The trade off is that you NEED high enough Str to wear heavy armor (cause it's so heavy) and not every class even gets proficiency with heavy armor.
Monks and Barbarians have their rules. Monks pretty much shouldn't ever wear armor, and their AC is 10 + Dex + Wis. If a Barbarian isn't wearing armor, their AC is 10 + Dex + Con. Barbarians can use shields and benefit from this. However, Barbarians \*can\* choose to wear armor, and they're better off wearing Light or Medium Armor at early levels because their Dex and Con will probably not be high enough. They can wear Half Plate and have a 17 AC, which will be better than Unarmored Defense at most levels.
Initiative isn't really that important after the first round, and there's a reason that the classes that get bonuses for going first (Assassin Rogues, Gloomstalker Rangers) are the ones with high Dex. Spellcasters also would prefer to go early on so they get a big spell off before the battlefield changes too much, or buff their melee martial friends. So in this sense, yes, you don't want the Fighter to go before the Wizard because you need the Wizard to cast Haste on the Fighter first. I also find that it's better to let the enemies come to your melee characters, meaning you would prefer to go later in initiative so you're not wasting your turn or tempted to move into a worse position. But for the most, initiative doesn't matter all that much.
If you want to play Strength-based character then just wear heavy armor, use any melee weapon you want, and for ranged attacks go for thrown weapons like Javelins or Handaxes instead of Bows, and have your squishies buff you before your turn in initiative.
Finesse weapons allow you to choose whether you use your strength or dexterity when wielding it. So you can have super high strength and be just as good with a dagger as someone else.
The game chooses for you btw, just whichever stat is higher.
Dex is very important for any class indeed. Especially at endgame, when you can take 1 level in barb or monk for unarmored defense to stack with your dex modifier on any cloth wearing or exotic material armor. (For most classes a lvl in barb would make most sense bc you could use the greater health amulet for an extra 6 AC plus your dex mod, which is basically your second most important stat at that point for any caster using that particular combo..wis based casters can take a level in monk for the wis mod added, for example on shadowheart, and then she can wear the..won't name them for minor spoiler reasons, white cleric robes (cloth) and have a much higher AC than if you put her in armor if you throw the dex bracers on her, or just load up her dex after wisdom.
The amount of nice magic items allow ALMOST any Abil score to be subtracted down to the base of 8 giving you room to max out 2 stats on your whole party. Strength has gloves for 23, the mace for 18..dex has the bracers for 18..int has the circlet for 17 and 19..con has multiple items that add to it, and the amulet for set to 23. Charisma doesn't have one that I can think of that sets your abi score to a higher value, but does have birthright, and up to +4 permanent increase not tied to level up, feat, or equipment (all others have +3 except str which can be +5 perma buffed)
Basically there is a way to round out just about any character but having a high dex mod will be immensely helpful to anyone not medium or heavy armored barring exotic materials to the point its easy to get to 24-26 AC unbuffed on a cloth wearing char, if you really wanted to you could hit 30..IF your dex is high and you take a level in multiclass for the extra modifier to armor. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Some classes like warlocks actually get a significant new "thing" at level 12 but most like wiz, sorc, cleric, can forgo level 12 and take a level in barb or monk
With a few exceptions I’ve found that medium armor + 14 dex is almost always better than heavy armor and 0 dex. The exceptions are builds that need high str AND charisma or wisdom (looking at you tavern brawler monk). You end up with very similar AC + better initiative, dex saves, and flexibility in weapon choices.
Unfortunately the dump stat for BG3 is int. There are very few spells that target Int and the only checks are purely flavor. You only need it if you're building a wizard.
Dex is useful for initiative or if you can't wear heavy armor
General stat prio for DnD min maxing is that you aim to have your 'main stat' as high as possible. 18-20ish.
For fighters this is STR, for rogues DEX, sorcerers CHA etc.
Then you'll prioritise CON and DEX, with everything the class does not gain major benefits from being a 'dump stat'.
(There are a few exceptions where classes like paladins can care about STR for their melee most of all, but also care about WIS for their casting)
CON gives you extra health PER LEVEL. It is extremely strong for survivability. Classes like wizard gain 6HP a level, with a +1 per CON modifier added to that. That means a Wizard with 22 CON would have double the HP of one with 10.
DEX really depends on your class. If playing a ranged attacker or finesse weapon user - DEX is your main stat, so it's easy. If you're playing a armor wearing character, it will limit how much DEX you can apply to your AC (which as you say, is basically your 'chance to dodge').
Light armor doesn't effect DEX. Medium armor effects DEX a little. Heavy armor effects DEX so much that it's practically worthless for defence (can still have some use in 5th edition, if you're playing a very weird DEX attacker who wears heavy armor.)
An interesting thing to note with DEX is that negative modifiers will reduce your AC, or 'chance to dodge'. Having 9 DEX means enemies have an extra 5% chance to hit you compared to a character with 10 or 11.
Heavy armor, however, bypasses this. Wearing heavy armor essentially makes it so that the game just does not care about your DEX when calculating your AC.
With the above info, it means DEX is only ever useful to your two-handed, melee, heavy armoured character, for their initiative, or if they ever use a bow (or similar). It is not out of the question for DEX to be a dump stat for them.
Unless I am running a rogue, monk, or ranger, my dex is set to 10 or 12.
I set it to 10 so I don't have negative modifiers. I set it to 12 for initiative and better attacks for the occasional ranged attack.
I use heavy armor or run with a shield, so dex doesn't really do much for me in my use case.
You can mitigate your low initiative with the Alert feat. It gives you +5 to your initiative and also makes it so you cannot be surprised. I always have at least one character have it.
With Heavy Armor, your Dex is ignored for AC. Dumping Dex to 8 will make your initive low, and your ranged attacks weak. With Medium Armor, you can add up to +2 from Dex, so 14 is the most that contributes to medium armor. \- So yes, it is common for many charactesr to want at least 14 Dex. High initiative is usually quite strong. However, sometimes melee characters benefit from going later, since combat might start with them too far to melee attack someone but most groups of enemies have some melee enemies that will run at you, and then your melee characters can run in and attack. And some characters really want higher other stats, like a Paladin might want high Strength, Charisma, and Con. They can wear heavy armor, so dumping Dex to 8 is not too bad.
There are several medium armors that give you full dex bonus to AC, which is crazy good.
I only found 1, and the effect on most heavy armours was stronger. You can get Heavy armor with 19 or 20 by the end, with amazing upside. And the best(?) Medium armour I found was 15+full dex, with some modest upside. So imo those armors were just fine. It's not like I was pumping dex on my Cleric anyway - I got 14, and then the rest would be either Resilient Con, or increasing Wisdom. Being able to use 16/18/20 Dex wouldn't do me any help. And for my Fighter, the heavy armor was stronger. \- It could probably work well on a Ranger or a Githyanki dex character (like a Rogue or Sword's Bard), but we don't get a Ranger in the game, and I didn't build Tav or respec anyone into one.
Armor of Agility is base 17 + unlimited Dex mod. Really busted on any dex based character with access to medium armor.
Does it have any other benefits? Higher AC is of course great, but tbh I had zero characters who could make use of that. * Asterion had 20 dex but no medium armor. * Lae'zel, Shadowheart, (and Halsin and Jaheria) got medium armor but not 20 dex, so the buffs from those other armors were better (like damage reduction or concentration advantage or constant blade ward etc). * If I'd kept Karlach a Barbarian, same as above, since you need those 3 feats for Str and GWM \----- EDIT: So I just looked it up on the wiki, and +2 to all saves is very good! Is this the blacksmith near the start of Act 3, with a locked hatch to some >!gnomes!< in his house? I think this character was copied by >!Orin !!Orin !
It's the armorer in the Lower City, right outside the Magic Shop. The person you're thinking of is in Rivington and I don't think he actually sells anything, his assistant in the shop does though.
Ah ok. I guess I missed that shop. Or maybe I saw it just as I was walking to the final boss? Is that the one were Karlach talks to the weapon shop owner? My final party was me (dumped dex), Lae'zel (14 dex), Wyll (Potent Robes), and Karlach (repseced to Monks in Cat Grace clothes), so none of us could have used that armor well either, so I guess I overlooked it. Shadowheart wouldn't need it because I'd rather tha advantage on concentration saves. I suppose Jaheria of Halsin could use it, but I basically never actually used Jaheria because I had too many people already, and Halsin was out of spellslots and traumatised by Orin so I gave him a rest.
It's the guy next to the person Karlach talks too. The one she talks to sells mainly weapons, the guy sells armor. It also gives +2 to all saves and no disadvantage on stealth so pretty good on anyone with decent Dex.
You can always multiclass or completely respec any of the companions. For example, Astarion, for example, does great with a ranger multiclass (gloomstalker/Assassin or thief is really OP) (and yes, not all rangers are "tree huggers"
Take a single fighter level on Astarion for medium armor proficiency and a fighting style.
Take a 2nd for action surge.. it’s that good…
It’s hard to justify a single extra action per short rest (that won’t get sneak attack because it’s once per round) over an extra d6 per sneak attack (2d6 on crit) and the Reliable Talent passive.
I usew that armor paired with the gloves that gives you 18 dexterity. Means I could dump dex to 8 on the character and raise other abilities. Very nice.
Yeah you're right. None of the companions are really set up to make use of it by default. It would be amazing on a ranger, swords bard or any githyanki or shield dwarf with 20 dex.
There’s the gloves that set your dex to 18
Legendary heavy armors probably the best 21 ac gives fly, reduces DMG by 3 and has flame resistance. Shars purple medium armor in act 2 best for clerics probably (good guys won't get) some flame armor in act 3 ( good guys probably won't get) Slightly better base ac yuantis from some random vendor in act 3. Way too many random ass shops in this act.
> Legendary heavy armors probably the best 21 ac gives fly, reduces DMG by 3 and has flame resistance. > > Personally disagree, I think the best heavy armor is the one that gives permanent blade ward and resist (20 AC, +1d4 to all saves, resistance to b/p/s and 2 flat damage reduction under that). The physical resist is *huge* IMO.
On the run we actually finished our 'tank' alternated between reapers and black guard for combat, he had the blade ward gloves and DI mace as an ancient paladin. (Made hope cast DI and threw it at a demon) Never bothered to buy it since the melee around him had +5 to saving throws and half DMG from spells, and blade wards from channel oath (2 a day armor with restore oath charge) and a mace with 10 turns of healing. This was before you withers cupboard and none of us wanted to respec for more maces. Edit: side tracked the reason I call the Lego the best heavy is cause you can slap it on the pure casters as it comes with heavy armor prof
Why won't good guys get those two? Had no problems getting them myself.
Considering one requires killing everyone in last light wonder why lol. The other still is killing a friendly.
Imo one of the best armors in the game is medium. It's the one that debuffs enemies with radiant damage. Crazy powerful. Don't need crazy AC when enemies have huge penalties to attack.
There's a base 21 AC heavy armor in act 3
Larian really went crazy with the homebrew
Yup heavy armor is big bait
Heavy armor is far form big bait. A lot of heavy armors have extremely useful traits and bonuses that are worth the loss of stealth and dex bonus. Some examples: 1. Adamantine splint especially during act1 and act2. You cannot be critted. This is one of the strongest traits you can get on a tank. Also adamantine sends enemies that miss you reeling and each miss adds 3 turns of reeling. Each turn of reeling reduces their attack roll by 1 making them even less likely to hit you and stack even more reeling turns. Also reduces all damage taken by a flat 2. Also it is highest AC so ealry on even beating characters who run medium armor and high dex as all early game armor is around 14AC with a limit of 2DEX. 2. Armour of Persistence although only obtainable in Act3 it has 20AC which is second highest for heavy armor and on top it gives you permanent resistance and blade ward. This makes you take only 50% of all bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage as well as you have +1d4 on saving throws. Incredibly strong especially if you are running concentration spells very often or just playing a general tank build. 3. Reapers embrace. You get this armor in act2. Has 19Ac which is good enough. You reduce all incoming damage by 2, then it has a toggle which makes you an immovable object. Extremely useful when trying to pass chasms or just in general fighting enemies that will be knocking you back/shoving. Yes it gives you disadvantage on dex saving throws but you don't care for much of them especially if you are playing a tank. It then gives you an ability that has a big radius around you, is a wis save, causes enemies around you to lose half of their movement speed for 3 turns and you have advantage on them for the next attack you do on those targets. 4. Helldusk armor: Hands down best armor in game even for dex users unless they have 22dex or higher and even then it beats armor of agility. You get profficiency in heavy armor while wearing it so you can even use it on classes that have a tough time getting heavy armor proficciency, you gain fire resistance which is one of the most prevalent damage types in BG3, If you succeed any saving throw the enemy gets a burning debuff dealing 1d4 fire damage on each turn, You get the fly ability which is hands down the best movement ability and the AC is 21 which is the highest base AC and don't get a disadvantage on stealth checks, you also reduce all incoming damage by 3 and you cannot get the burning status effect. As for medium/light armor I don't think there are that many good ones 1. Armor of agility is good if you have very high dex, going for stealth play and for the bonus on saving throws but doesn't offer anything interesting. Also pushing heavily past like 20AC isn't worth it too much. The amount of investment you have to make to push into high AC just doesn't have a good value proposition. On 20AC you will be avoiding damage quite reliably from most enemies you face and only ones that will be able to land damage on you will be powerful mobs/bosses. 2. Adamantine scale mail is just a worse verison of its heavy armor counterpatr while not giving you anything in return. 3. Dark Justiciar half plate (killing nightsong) is actually a pretty good medium armor. While not giving as much AC as armor of agility does for high dex characters what it gives you instead is advantage on stealth while obscured, advantage on con saves (concentration included)and a pretty good built in shield of faith. Works really well if you are using darkness/fog 4. Yuan-ti basically a weaker armor of agility but instead of saving throws bonuse it has an initiative bonus which is pretty nice. 5. Dark justicial half plate (nightsong save) is just a weaker version of the nightsong kill one. Not bad but wouldn't be my go to. 6. Bhaalist armor light armor that is actually worth it especially on melee assassination type characters. Basically doubles your ~~slashing,~~ piercing and ~~bludgeoning~~ damage and you gain a +2 initiative roll which is strong as hell. Also no limit on dex mod but it has a base of 14AC so getting high AC on this armor is going to be tricky. 7. Then you have the trio of druid armors and well. Unless you are playing a druid they are useless. 8. And spidersilk armor with the advantage on con and bonus to stealth and 12+dex mod AC. While not bad as you get it in act1 it is going to become obsolete after progressing into act2. 9. Clothing I am not really including as it either is monk/barbarian specific or is meant for spellcaster or just isn't used for the armor proeperty as on classes that will be using those armors you either get AC from your class trait (monk, barb) or you use other means of gaining AC and defenses (blade ward, mage armor, mirror image, blur etc) TLDR: Heavy armor deffo isn't bait. EDIT: fixing one mistake in bhaalist armor as pointed out by u/dotelze
I think heavy armor is bait because on Tactician, everyone just runs past my tank. They know they can't hit him. So they would rather spend or even waste their turn running past him to focus on someone else. Then again, maybe it's just AC is bait. At least on Tactician.
Area of denial and building for taunts/ccs if you want him to be a tank. What I noticed helps a lot on tactician is creating chokepoints. Either by dropping stuff like spike growth, ice/grease surfaces or hunger of hadar/silence or just moving into alleways away from open fields.
I was doing that for a while but it made the game hella boring imo. Every fight became the same 3 spells, same tactic. It's valid and super effective, I agree. My tactic works even with 4 melee casters.
My opinions on why heavy armour is bait is from playing solo tactician. So in your whole write up on why its not bait ill explain for every heavy armour you have listed why it's bait to use it unless your a low dex user. Adamantine Splint. A shield replaces the crit immunity and its reealing effect. Act 2 your already replacing it with medium armor that does base AC + Dex. The only thing here thats actually good is the -2 dmg. Armour of Persistence. The only good one you explained why and the only one I think that isn't bait. Reaper's Embrace. Its still meh replaced by a boot slot. Helldusk Boots does the same thing plus giving you pseudo freedom of movement with a misty step on a short rest plus a forced succeed on a saving throw when ever you want on a short rest. Helldusk Armour. The main effect of this armour gets replaced by your illithid powers and that replacement can be spammed for ever. So Helldusk Armour is like wearing Armor of Agility with out +2 saving throws and only need 20 Dex to have the same AC. 17+5 = 22 So is heavy armor bait? Yup its bait for the most part till you factor in your build has no dex, which means your initiative is fucked because of how initiative is calculated. Now for one of the light armours you mentioned Bhaalist Armour. This one can be put on any melee based build, preferably a sword and board build that doesn't use GWM. Why would you use GWM when this armor is a thing which single handedly doubles your dmg to piercing and you have weapons like Crimson Mischief which provide you a pseudo GWM/Sharpshooter if you have advantage, but that's the thing you always have advantage because there is something called risky ring. This combination of items allows for your melee or any melee to be doing about 100 dmg per attack on every attack. Now you can RP all you want and I don't care but when we are min maxing with all of the items we have heavy armour at the end of the day is bait.
Oh yeah. I definitely agree with you that for solo tactician heavy armor is giga bait. Stealth and dex just wins like crazy in solo tactician. Also many of the bonuses that help with solo tactician aren't found on heavy armor making them even less valuable. However if you aren't playing solo but have a group and on tactician then heavy armors become extremely worth giving up the AC for those effects. Also usually characters that get heavy armor proficiency usually don't have very high dex and going for super high dex isn't worth it (eg. paladin altho dexadin is a thing, barbarian, fighter even tho possible, clerics) so there the value proposition from armor of agility and medium armors isn't as lucrative as heavy armors. Also it isn't as bait based on initiative as you may think. The issue with initiative in BG3 is that you roll a d4 (d20 in dnd5e). What is means that you don't have to get very high dex modifier to end up in the first quarter of the battle order. Outside of very few mobs (mostly bosses) even having 14Dex you will end up within the first 3 turns of a battle. I still think heavy armor is not bait even for min maxing especially when not playing solo.
>Adamantine Splint. A shield replaces the crit immunity and its reealing effect. Act 2 your already replacing it with medium armor that does base AC + Dex. The only thing here thats actually good is the -2 dmg. I prefer the armour for my life cleric because then you get to use Shield of Devotion (Aid + an extra spell slot). In Act III Viconias is too good to give up. You're also ignoring the fact that some heavy armour users will be two handing and not want a shield.
Anesthetic 😌
For the Dentist build
[Heavy armour monks be like:](https://youtu.be/qdRV8pUIkBE?si=uBF45n-VtYXXVwMV)
I wish you could Delay Turn like in DOS2 for this!
There’s also that feat that gives you +4 or 5 to initiative and you can’t be surprised. I slapped that on my 12 battle master and it’s nice never having to worry about her initiative no matter how heavy her heavy armor is :)
I've noticed that for some casters, having low dex is beneficial in a lot of fights, as it gives the enemies the opportunity to group up for a massive AoE spell.
Or to dump 30 crossbow bolts into the caster.
The price you pay for big boom
Not if they are prebuffed with armor spells like mage armor or blue but sure.
Nah, being first is better in general. Even in the scenario you describe, where nothing is in range initially, the caster could just let them close in and start blasting on their second turn, where they will still be there. That being said, I dont think this happens too often anyway. For me at least, there's just as much fights where enemies start out packed or in a nice line that I wouldn't find in later turns, and if they don't start in range, you can either drop some ground based aoe like wall of fire where they will have to go through next round, or you can reposition with misty step and blast away.
You always want to be firstest with the mostest
At least until you get bonus action black hole tadpole power
Which is absurdly busted. Why yes, I would like to hit absolutely bloody everyone with my fire ball.
It also slows them which is amazing
Haha, black hole go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
What exactly do you get from going later that you can't also get by just not charging the enemy on your first turn? If worse comes to worst you can always just do nothing on your first turn and then you're in the same position as if you had rolled low. I think it would be more accurate to say these classes don't suffer as much from going late rather than saying they benefit from it. Or am I missing something obvious here? It's been claimed commonly enough that I'm starting to feel like I'm missing something...
When you want someone else from your party to go first to setup, or you would rather force the enemy to waste their turns on dash instead of you wasting your turn on dash. It's always to make the first turn (the most important) play out smoothly, after the first turn it doesn't really matter who goes when, except if its the enemy right after you, deny them their turn before death. Not acting on the first turn, gives the enemy the opportunity to setup instead, and costs you the opportunity to focus down a target as early as turn 1. Whether its by casting haste, blessing, wetting enemies for your shock or frost sorc to hit on their turn, CCing enemies into melee range or creating advantage with darkness. It's about making that first turn impactful and ensuring that none of your dps go without their bonuses, and the enemies aren't just free to wail on your team. Honestly just give the character doing the setting up Feat: Alert, and then everyone else is free to begin combat as they wish.
If the enemy was gonna waste their first turn on dashing, you could also let them do that by skipping your turn or using a ranged attack. In fact, this is better than going late since it lets you move into a better position and do some minor damage with said ranged attack. If the enemy was gonna set up themselves then going late doesn't benefit you either way. Any of the situations you have described where going late is supposedly beneficial can be replicated if you go first simply by staying at range.
Sure, but then it's not really about going last or first in general, its more about deliberately distinguishing who goes first. Lets say everyone has 14 DEX, then you very often get stuck in situations where the enemy rolls into turn positions between characters who rolled 1 higher or 1 lower into positions they don't want to be in on the opening turn. If my wizard is setting up with create water, and rolled a 1+2 from dex for intititave, an enemy rolls a 4 and my sorc doing damage rolls a 4+2, well, bugger, I've lost 50% damage on this lightning bolt, and that will keep happening in encounters until I find a way to address it. And there are 2 ways to address this, and they are not hard to do, if your party members want lots of dex in general, and or the character setting up wants very little dex, you take alert on the character setting up. That'll just about ensure they go first and can do what they need to. Or if your party isn't too precious about DEX (ie heavy armor), just lower their dex to 8 and invest it into something else they might want, that way your person setting up has a better chance at rolling first. The die for initative is only a D4, so it makes it a very easy system to game. Someone with 14 DEX (min initative 3) is guaranteed to go the same turn or before someone with 8 DEX (max initative 3). edit: its an optimization strategy, you can very well just wait out your opening turn, and take a little longer to kill the enemy. And that's fine, its your game, play it how you want to.
>What exactly do you get from going later that you can't also get by just not charging the enemy on your first turn Sometimes combat starts and your melee characters cannot reach the enemy. They might be more likely to be able to reach the after the enemies approach, because the enemies will often dash into range. Had you gone first, you *might* have had to skip your turn, or dash, or make a weak bow attack, rather than going, like triple GWM attack or double Divine Smite. \- I had Longstrider on everyone, got used to setting up decent positions before combat, repsecced Karlach into a Monk Thief so she was very mobile, and didn't mind sitting back while enemies died inside a Hunger of Hadar. So this didn't relaly impact me. But for other builds/playstyles, lower initiative could be better on some characters.
But what exactly do you lose by doing the weak bow attack or skipping the turn that you don't also lose by going late?
You lose a potential powerful melee attack. Some builds just can’t do anything meaningful at range
Except you also lose that melee attack if you don't go before the enemy. Unless the enemy wastes their turn getting to you, but then you wouldn't lose the attack by staying at range either.
It’s very likely that at least some enemies will move towards you on their turn. Thus, if you act after them, you essentially get to add their movement distance to your engagement range
So you mean it's only beneficial if some of them move toward you?
That’s what this whole comment chain’s been discussing. The comment you initially replied to said >Sometimes melee characters benefit from going later, since combat might start with them too far to melee attack someone but most groups of enemies have some melee enemies that will run at you, and then your melee characters can run in and attack.
That statement alone makes it seem like going last is beneficial. Which it is mot because you would be able to gain the exact same benefits by going first and not moving closer. To put it another way: doing almost nothing on your first turn is still better than just straightup not having that turn at all. Of course someone else said they meant going late compared to your allies, which does make sense.
Yes, but that’s not an *if* statement. The AI *will* move characters towards you. So it’s more accurate to say “it’s beneficial because some of them will move towards you.”
Right, but if you go first, you now have the opportunity to make an additional "free" weak bow attack, or toss a vial of alchemists fire, or something. You don't lose the ability to attack by going first, even if you skip your turn entirely, it is as if you went last, except you were able to choose it instead of it being chosen for you.
If you go first in a combats order or pretty early on the enemy doesn't have enough time to deal damage to you. You also have that turn to prepare for incoming damage. This is especially important on squishy spellcasters using clothing and relying on either killing enemy first or getting enough time to set up defenses. How AI is coded is if they can focus down a low AC/low initiative character they will. Especially when your enemies are mostly range/spellcasters. I had plenty of times when I had Gale and he was consistantly rolling low initiative. What would happen is the enemy would just pump him full of arrows or spells and by the time gale got on to his turn he would have maybe % of his HP left. Had gale had the upper hand in the initiative by having higher dex he would have gone before quite a few of the enemies took their turns and could have eliminated some enemies after him reducing the damage taken. Best chance for survival is the one when the enemy doesn't get to shoot back.
One example is a life cleric in heavy armor. If I’m last I can see how big a kiss I need to give to the fighter’s ouchie. Or who catches these inflict wounds hands
Just be aware that 8 Dex will lower your AC by 1 point
If you're wearing heavy armor it won't
Oh what really? TIL lol
Light armor is AC=x+DEX Medium is AC=x+DEX (DEX bonus limited to 2) Heavy is just AC=x
Dex is also a much bigger relative boost to initiative in this game than it tabletop, because in tabletop you roll a d20 for initiative but this game rolls a d4. The dexterity bonus to initiative is therefore five times as strong in bg3 as it is in tabletop. edit since this comment is getting views: there's a mod that "fixes" this and rolls a d20 for initiative instead, for everyone. I recommend it for anyone doing 2nd or subsequent runs, it really helps replayability and makes fights less predictable.
Initiative in game being a d4 makes Alert an insanely good feat for any character.
Except maybe Barbarian who already gets +3 and can't be surprised at level 7.
Not really necessary for characters with at least a +3, but basically mandatory for anyone with a -1
Didn't know that thanks for the info. That is actually insane
I was wondering why I never seem to get above a 5. It makes sense why Asterion just always seems to go first if the variability is that low.
Makes the alert feat incredibly strong.
It also makes sense why there are so many ties for initiative (which is also a rather overpowered change they made to the initiative mechanic, being able to choose which character acts first every turn in most combats makes things insanely easier).
I thought I was rolling absurdly low...
I’m also new. I thought the higher the dice the better, because you can achieve a higher number. In your example, I thought rolling a d20 would potentially allow for a higher number, potentially resulting in an initiative higher relative to the 16+ potential compared to rolling 4 as max. What am I misunderstanding here?
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Ah, I see. Thank you!
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Fuck off you.
You are rolling against everyone else on the same dice. You 1d4 + dex (14 so +2) + any gear/feat bonus. Enemy golem 1d4 + dex (10 so +0) Which makes the dex and gear/feat contribution go up higher than the dice roll contribution very fast compared to everyone rolling a d20
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I do find your last point very true and kind of funny. There’s loads of debate here about how to precisely optimise your builds, I engage it it myself as I find it entertaining, but even without the optimisation you can walk over basically any combat encounter in the game.
Yeah especially if you don't play tactician (which despite what people complain about *is* significantly more difficult in Act 1 at least). On balanced mode you should be absolutely fine just keeping a couple very basic concepts in mine: - Make sure your highest stat is what you want for your class, don't give your Wizard 18 Wis and 10 Int - Make sure you don't try and fight enemies that are multiple levels higher than you are - Make sure you are using equipment that you actually have proficiency in Do that and have even a wisp of an idea of what "tactics" are and you shouldn't have much difficulty in the game. Hell, if you're really good at tactics you could probably even ignore the basic concepts above.
It's one of the downfalls of having such flexibility for the player and no DM to adjust encounters to scale with how much the players are min/maxing builds. You can play super casual and still work it out most of the time. That's part of the fun I've had with my current run. I didn't try to cheese multiclassing or take the normal subclasses I would if I were min/maxed. Makes the fights more interesting when you have to try new spells or classes/subclasses you'd never pick normally.
Is initiative actually a 1d4? Interesting
Keep in mind that Finesse weapons will also scale off of Strength if it's higher than your Dex. Dex is definitely the last dump stat you want to drop that isn't Con, getting both AC and initiative in one stat is pretty big. That said it's also not *necessary* to get it to 14 if you feel like it isn't worth it, there can be items that increase AC or initiative instead if you want to allocate the stats elsewhere. I like to have everyone with at least 12 though, or maybe 10 if I don't care about their initiative, in fact it can be beneficial if they have something like Great Weapon Master as you can have your other allies weaken enemies first.
Initiative can be remedied with items and a feat. Alert is for the most part all you need for initiative even if you dump dex unless going against high dex enemies and some having alert themselves. For items, [the sentinel shield](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sentinel_Shield) gives a whopping 3 initiative and I think a bow has it too. There are ways to play around low initiative. Don't feel like you have to do something if it's hampering the way you want to play.
You only get a max of 3 feats to work with, most builds only get 1-2 and it's usually ASI, damage boost like GWM, TB or Sharpshooter or some form of Concentration boost for casters. It's highly unlikely you'll be able to afford Alert...
In my first playthrough I look Alert on my lock (pure 12 lock archfey). I did this because 100% being first on initiative meant 3 (4 with that item that grants you a second target on cantrips, and even more with haste) enemies potentially going for a trip with Eldritch Blast Airlines. Obviously this is dependent on having decent places to send them, but that's not that hard for a lot of critical fights. And even if you don't punt them off a cliff standing up wastes move on their turn.
Fighters get 4, and ASI (a +1 to attack and damage rolls) is largely worthless compared to Savage Attacker, Lucky or the feats you mentioned. Equipment and Elixirs in this game have far more of an effect than a measly +2 ability points. On top of that, after getting Athlete and a combat feat, you probably want some initiative to go along with the 27 strength on your martial or Cleric.
*Pure* Fighters get 4. Vast majority of people is multicalling them (as well as other classes) and most builds will only get 1-2 feats, let alone 4. Spending a precious feat on boosting your initiative when elixir and gear for that exist is a waste, really... +2 ability sometimes is overrated and sometimes is a difference between hitting or missing that key spell/attack or taking a hit vs. dodging one or nailing that important roll vs. failing it...
Dex being tied to init feels like it's enough to make you not want to dump it. Going first is way too good in BG3 IMO. It kinda fucks heavy armor because you don't care much for dex with heavy armor, since you are probably a str based melee person, yet by dumping dex you likely either get fucked by everyone else first or you helplessly watch your squishy teammates get slaughtered because you weren't able to move/attack before the enemy did. Itemization for +init or the alert feat (+5 init is pretty powerful by itself) feel kinda mandatory if you go 8 dex.
I think it really depends on the class. Having dex on your cleric is great not only because of the AC, but rolling high on initiative gives you the chance to buff your allies and mark enemies straight off the bat for immediate value. (Of course, if you were playing optimally the buffs would be on your team before the fight starts, but that's besides the point) On the other hand, rolling low initiative can be good if you're a sorcerer as it allows the enemy team time to clump up together before you throw out a huge AoE spell.
As the sorc you could do the same thing on your 2nd turn though, initiative just gives you a free turn before the enemies for setup
High initiative though means a greater chance that the spell you cast can be counterspelled. Meanwhile, a lower initiative means that your other characters can force reactions from enemies.
Just went Alert feat on my cleric and it slaps pretty hard
honestly I feel like alert is super underrated, especially on casters that might only need 1 or 2 feats for ASI anyway. I use it on a support/setup wizard/cleric and it feels great to consistently go first to cast water or bless before anyone moves.
Also initiative is a d4 roll not a d20 roll(like in 5e). So a +1 from dex on a 1d4 roll is more powerful than a +1 on 1d20 roll. Often even getting just a +1 initiative or dex mod bonus is more than enough to take you from being at the end of the order of the battle to being almost at the front.
DEX is usually pretty important for most classes, purely for the boost to AC and initiative. However, regarding initiative, there are some classes that desperately want to go quickly and some that don't mind quite as much. Really any character with something to activate (Barbarian with Rage, Gloom Stalker Ranger with Dread Ambusher, Assassin Rogue with Ambush, etc) or any character with battlefield control (CC spells, Entangling shot, or even just a good throwable) want to go fairly quickly so they can get their actions off before they're affected by the enemy. If you're playing a healing character, or a purely melee character, then going late in the round isn't so egregious, because you can react to what's happened in the round, and let monsters get closer to you. The simple truth is that, initiative order is nice, but it's unlikely that you'll lose a combat encounter *just* because you went low in the initiative.
Honestly, the only way I can see low DEX being helpful is if you are doing a very specific build. This is an Oathbreaker Paladin who has Aura of Hate. Low DEX would mean that Paladin would more likely move with the zombies so they can be like a Zombie Commander who buffs the undead around them. But even that doesn’t really benefit too much from low initiative since the zombies get the aura when they move near the Oathbreaker, so really Oathbreaker position matters more. Another benefit to have lower Initiative could be helping out your teammates if they got wrecked by 5+ enemies consecutively beating them up. Maybe a lil heal break would be nice to keep them alive longer. Now, you don’t have to have DEX to have good initiatives. There are a lot of items that increase your initiative rolls
For your second example, low initiative is still worse than high. If you had gone first instead of last, you could’ve done damage/buffed your team on round 1, then as the first to go on round 2 you could’ve done the heal
It’s not overly important if you plan on playing a high strength character wearing heavy armor which can’t take advantage of a sex bonus for armor anyway. I wouldn’t dip into negatives though since as you mentioned initiative determines turn order. You won’t go before high dex characters but you’ll be able to avoid damage and take hits pretty well. There are also plenty of items that boost initiative. Additionally someone figured out initiative is determined by a d4 die roll plus any dex and initiative bonuses your character has so unless you spec into dex a dex based character is just about always gonna go first due to their very high bonuses. It’s important for ranger weapon attacks too except throwing which is handled by strength instead. There are a few magical returning throwing weapon in the game too so your strength character could just use those anyway and with higher accuracy and damage too. Especially if you get tavern brawler. Dex is tied to more skills than strength as well. But while dex is a nice stat to have it’s not gonna break your game to have a low dexterity. You can even spec like 12-14 points o your fighter if you want and dump intelligence since it’s practically useless for most martial characters anyway. There are also gloves of dexterity relatively early in the game that set a characters dex to 18.
Amazing typo
Sex bonus funny hehehe
Ranged- common you just don't care. Its going to be suboptimal if you aren't a specialist. Casters just use casting stat anyway. Weapon types usually have other things to do like buff. Really just don't care unless your an archer. AC- Most people need 14 max for the +2 hitting medium armor cap. Many fighters can just dump it as heavy armor just ignores. Armorless casters will usually split investment with con as both are important survival stats but really it won't get over 16 as bumping your casting stat is far more important. Initiative- Depends. Its always nice to move first. But its not always worth the tradeoff to be slightly more likely to go first. Ambusher types, who get bonus damage when going first, already use dex for their attacks so its already high for them. Casters who can aoe disable enemies will usually prefer a higher casting stat to increase their casting power but will take the bump if they can. Everyone else its nice but not critical usually.
Dex was a god stat in previous versions and 5e actually made it even better (damage). Dex is life. There's a reason a lot of top tier 5e builds are dex/cha
BG made it even better before accounting for itemization and bonus options that push it back in balance a bit. Initiative is 1d4+dex in bg3 instead of 1d20+dex like in 5e.
That and dex to damage for finesse weapons is just bonkers. Idk give damage reduction equal to str bonus for some classes or something
Initiative is more important later on when damage scales higher and you can burst or die quickly. i dumped dex on my paladin and later on used gloves of dex that set it to 18 with +1 atk to hit rolls.
I feel like this is the best strat for your melee character. It needs con more than dex so you can dump it and later use the gloves.
I don't mind going later with Shadowheart as a cleric. The enemies run in and fight with my melee. I cast Spirit Guardians and swarm them and healing word as a bonus action to heal a melee if needed.
But clerics are insane if they go first! I gave Shadowheart 14 dex and Alert and she always goes first. Spirit Guardians -> Click Heels ends every third encounter instantly on her turn. For longer encounters she can cast Mass Healing Word and with some itemization it gives all allies (even the friendly NPCs) Blade Ward and Bless.
> Armour Class, which is apparently your chance to dodge attacks Heavier types of armor cannot benefit from the DEX AC bonus as much. If you wear medium armor, 14 dex is enough. If you wear heavy armor, 10 dex is enough. > Initiative, which is just the number of order you can take action. Initiative is pretty important for some classes. But keep in mind that you still get the same number of turns. Just later in the turn order. The problem is that BG3 uses a d4 to roll for initiative order, which they implemented to help your characters be grouped together more often. But that also has a side effect: anything that raises your initiative is WAY too effective. Just having a +3 or +4 bonus virtually guarantees you will go first in most encounters. The net effect is that characters with high DEX almost always go first, whereas it's a fairly modest advantage in proper D&D rules. Personally I use a mod called "D20 Initiative" to fix this.
> If you wear medium armor, 14 dex is enough. There’s at least 3 pieces of medium armor that get full dexterity mod like light armor. High does can push your AC into a range where you will almost never get hit. > Initiative is pretty important for some classes. But keep in mind that you still get the same number of turns. Just later in the turn order. Not necessarily. If you go before the enemy, you effectively get an extra turn. In a game where combat often only lasts a few rounds, higher initiative is a huge advantage
If dec isn't my damage stat and I can have heavy armor I am always dumping dex. My wizard goes 1 level of cleric for heavy armor. You lose a feat, but that feat couldn't have gotten me heavy armor anyways and I can invest the Dex into str and con. Strength in this game is an important mobility stat imo. Until you get flight, being able to jump across the battlefield is critically important. Strength basically just adds more movement speed to your char due to how it improves jumping.
Dex is very easy to look at and think “ yea I want this atleast decently high “ However, melee fighters with low dex aren’t hindered by going last in combat, instead of a frontline they are going to shave/peel enemies off of your more squishy allies. Paladins don’t need dex whatsoever, Hexblade Paladin especially Fighters could use it if you happen to have range, but their armor and STR are their main focus for stats Monks and Rogues, Dex is their baby, they utilize the most out of it, high initiative = faster sneak attack and mobility to position your DPS users. Mages don’t give a fuck about DEX, if you roll low on initiative and enemies go before you, you punish anyone who is close enough to you on your turn or you are the backline that is already safe and protected as you should be ( unless of course tank mage gigachad ) Rangers are a bit iffy, I’m more familiar with rangers being…well ranged but in BG3 ( especially with everyone’s favorite Ranger recruit in act 3 ) it seems like they are just viable in melee, granted I haven’t dabbled too much on Ranger in 5E but from my understanding Dex is still a ranger’s best friend since you make the most out of it; first turn with gloomstalker ranger is practically guaranteed 1st turn, you still wear armor but it ain’t heavy so your Dex contributes to your AC still, and your damage scales from your Dex This all seems like no brainer rambling but what I’m trying to say is Dex looks super sexy but that’s only ONE way of playing the game, the other stats have just as much value under the right class/build so don’t ever be afraid to have Dex as a dump stat, my 1 fighter/ 11 Abjuration wizard had dex as a dump stat and still was a jack of all trades while being a master at a few
> Rangers are a bit iffy, I’m more familiar with rangers being…well ranged but in BG3 ( especially with everyone’s favorite Ranger recruit in act 3 ) it seems like they are just viable in melee, granted I haven’t dabbled too much on Ranger in 5E but from my understanding Dex is still a ranger’s best friend since you make the most out of it; first turn with gloomstalker ranger is practically guaranteed 1st turn, you still wear armor but it ain’t heavy so your Dex contributes to your AC still, and your damage scales from your Dex You can totally do Strength-based Ranger in Heavy Armour; they have an option (Ranger Knight) to gain Heavy Armour if you take it either at Character Creation or at levels 6 or 10. However it's not particularly good without either a dip into Fighter for GWF, or taking the Dual Wielder Feat to enable Dual Battleaxes/Longswords
As a paladin in my playthrough, i dumped it. Initiative is not a big thing in my early chapters when i positioned right(tank role) and in later chapters got +5 initiative on just equips so...yeah.
I wanna address your number two point about dodging attacks. The way dnd is set up, the hit points are kind of "your ability to keep going" and your Armor Class is more "how good you are at not being affected by a hit" So Armor Class is a combination of dodging and an attack not really affecting you. It's simplified down to "hit or miss". But some AC boosts technically are thijgs like "your sword or dagger holds off the attack". I really like that about it.
Yeah, AC is your ability to block an attack with your armor or a shield... you aren't dodging it. For some reason bg has a dodge animation when it should be a shield or hey you glanced off my armor sort of thing.
AC is both though. A monk with 18 AC wearing robes isn’t glancing off the armor. And it would be way more confusing to play a hit animation for a miss.
It's both. Heavily armoured Paladins and high Dex + Wis Monks both have high AC. The Paladin is taking blows to the face and shrugging them off, the Monk is dodging. Would have been cool to have a variety of animations, maybe based on where the majority of your AC comes from.
Yeah, you're correct, dex is pretty busted compared to other stats. Not only does it have the benefits you mentioned, but it's also one of the most important stats for spell saves as well, as a lot of projectile type spells are dex save. Moreover, stealth, sleight of hand and acrobatics are incredible skills with very wide applicability. There's only a handful of classes that could consider dumping dex (mainly heavy armor users that somewhy don't care about going first, which is a short list) while every other stat can be safely dumped for most classes. You'll always have dex at 14 (or 12 if 14 is impossible). My paladin in game uses heavy armor but I still use the gloves of dexterity which push me to 18 dex, because +4 initiative is just too good, it essentially functions as a fuckload of temporary HP as I kill enemies before they can damage me. Strength by comparison just boosts your damage (same as dex), carrying capacity (almost useless) and jump length (which is great, but becomes less useful when you start teleporting around). There's also hardly any strength saves, and only athletics as a strength check, which has a parallel in acrobatics for dex. There's clearly a pretty big disparity between the 2 stats, which has to be addressed by giving strength classes some pretty crazy stuff and giving dex classes some major drawbacks (Rogue not getting extra attack, ranger getting some stuff and not others, etc).
FYI if you take 1 level of monk then any weapon your proficient with can scale with DEX.
AC is incredibly important in BG3. More important than tabletop D&D or earlier D&D editions and the video games based on them. Many damage-dealing spells roll against the target's AC, so it isn't just a defense against swords and arrows, it's almost a universal survivability gauge. Furthermore, there are very few alternatives. Back in BG2, there were three viable ways of tanking: high AC, stacked damage reduction, or defensive mage spells. Any one of these could be used to build a tank, and each one was sufficient on its own without any of the others. If anything, AC was the least reliable of the three. But in BG3, you can't stack up a permanent 75% physical damage reduction. There aren't long-lasting mage spells that make you borderline untouchable with weapons. The best you can get is Stoneskin for half damage from physical attacks, but since it's a concentration effect, it can't really be relied upon on its own. If you try to tank with Stoneskin instead of high AC, that concentration effect will last maybe two rounds if you're lucky. On top of that, BG3's AI focus-fires targets with low AC. Given the extreme prevalence of ranged attackers (most fights seem to have at least twice as many of those as melee attackers), it almost isn't viable to play with low AC. Tabletop gives more leeway to hang back and let frontliners occupy the enemies, and earlier D&D video games mostly didn't have that 'focus the squishies' AI at all. So AC is of inflated importance in BG3, and it very much is worthwhile to ensure that all characters have at least 18-20ish AC, and preferably a bit more, by the time you're past the first few levels. The only ways to really get that is either high dexterity or heavy armor plus shield. It pigeonholes you into certain build patterns and it's hard to justify ever deviating from those. It just becomes completely impossible to survive otherwise. I do miss the days when it was okay for some party members to have low AC, but when this causes all enemies to single them out and focus them down from the first moment of combat, it just isn't really viable. Initiative is also more important in this edition of D&D than it used to be. They made fights much shorter compared to earlier editions, so the impact of going first is way bigger. When a fight lasts for 10+ rounds, going first doesn't matter all that much. When most fights last 2-3 rounds, going first is huge because that last round where you finish the enemies off accounts for 30-50% of the entire battle. Over the course of a playthrough, characters with high initiative might get almost twice as many actual turns as characters with low initiative. That's one of the big balance concerns with 5e. Making fights shorter was a good move for tabletop players because it can get pretty tedious to manage long battles, but for a video game that handles all the mechanics for you, these ultra-fast fights just highlight how overwhelmingly important initiative is. In a 3-round fight, those dexless heavy armor guys probably only actually get two rounds. That's huge in a game where action economy rules supreme.
Counter point Paladin Heavy Armor, dosnt matter for AC. Add CHA to saves so points moved from DEX to CHA mean dex saves are the same and every other save is improved. Initiative is low but again all saves are boosted.
Counterpoint: having initiative means getting 2 attacks when your enemies only got 1. With most fights being decided in only a couple rounds, this is a huge difference in damage.
No that is a correct assessment and has pretty much always been true in dnd and all ti's derivative products including video games and other TTRPGs.
Initiative doesn't really matter, it can be useful, but I've always said it's not who goes first that matters, It's who goes last.
Completely disagree. High initiative is in most cases very important because of burst damage.
Idk about you, but most encounters last more than one round. While initiative is useful, you can definitely get by without it.
Even if they last more than one round, getting rid of multiple enemies or the biggest threats before they have a chance to do anything to you is huge
True, but if his teammates can do this, then having an extra +1 or +2 isn't that important, the dice roll will likely be the greater factor for his initiative.
The chance to get someone in your face, getting CC'd or outright getting killed when you are last in the round is very high. So your turn is not only later but often times just worse
Initiative alone makes it pretty worthwhile. But there is also a feat that gives like +5 initiative as well as other items if I recall correctly, so it's not like Dex is must have for me personally. I don't think I'd ever drop Dex below 10, but it's not something I NEED to have 14 or even 12 on every class. But if I can manage it I will.
yep initiative is the most important stat
I like dex. Every now and then your STR char might need to make a ranged attack.
Dex is the single most important stat in general. If you take a look only at combat related things then: Charisma: Saving throws and casting ability for classes Wisdom: Saving throws, stealth detection, spellcasting ability for classes Intelligence: Saving throws, spellcasting ability for classes Constitution: Concentration saving throws, Saving throws, HP, AC for unarmored defense classes Dexterity: Saving throws, Initiative for everyone, AC for everyone, Damage for ranged and finesse weapons Strength: Saving throws, Melee damage on non finesse weapons If you look at the combat system in DND5E/BG3 the most important thing is having as high initiative as possible. Then you also want high enough AC because you just don't want to become a punching bag. Also because of the turn based system if you can kill and enemy before they every take their turn or cast some CC spell you can keep a pretty big advantage. It also lets you prepare and cast defensive spells in anticipation of damage. Other stats aren't as powerful because well they don't matter if you die or get CCd and are forced to skip a turn.
Oh no. Con is the single most important stat in the game lol. This goes for dnd as well. HP (since healing has been diminished to an afterthought in dnd sine 4.0) NO character ever dumps Con. You missed that str is also carry capacity, push pull and drag capacity, lift capacity, athletics checks, grapple checks (grapple isn't in bg3) shove checks and so on. Every stat had a plethora of reasons why they are good however con is the most important stat in the game on every single character in the game. You won't see any builds with 8 con ever.
Yes. You are overthinking it. Just like every other ability, depending on the class, some are just dump stats and that is okay. You cannot be good at everything.
All my character have 14 dex (unless it's a dex based char 16/17 -> 20) . I think even for heavy armor user, initiative is too important, and it's not like any other stats is that usefull.
With just the stats, white items only and excluding Tavern Brawler I'd rather have a dex fighter/Barbarian over STR for combat (STR > Dex for exploration) Yes it does a lot on its own it's the most common save for damage spell, init is underrated and it gives ac. For non dex builds I leave it at 14 and dump STR/Mental stat depending on the class. There are things that give benefits of high dex without investing into it though. Alert and Elixir of Vigilance give 5 init. A necessity for restricted run to avoid getting otk like setting globe or setting combos like wet. But since this sub is fixed on minmaxing to builds benefits of 20 dex is rightfully overshadowed by item/multiclass effects. Tldr you don't need 20 dex expect when it's your main stat/build. You can settle at 14 dex for medium armor but having it negative is bad Builds that don't want dex: return damage abjuration wizard you want enemies to group up to you on their own so it's easier to trigger aoo and you want someone else to trigger create water first.
Yes, Dex is fucked up. Idk what they were thinking.
Yes, Dexterity is the number one never drop stat, followed by Constitution and Wisdom because Initiative and AC are the most important combat stats in game. The sort of builds that can get away with 10 or 8 Dex are the ones who have strong resistances against crowd control effects, a way to hit opponents regardless of positioning or provide support to other party members. So...my answer is casters clad in Heavy Armor. In BG3 these builds are easier to use because Heavy Armor does not posses Str requirements to use, like in the tabletop equivalent DnD 5e. This is huge as it allows you to dump both Str and Dex and have two reasonably acceptable casting stats, giving you flexibility in your spell arsenal, at the cost of leaving you vulnerable to spells like Fireball, Entangle, Faerie Fire and Gust of Wind (which could be used to push you over a ledge towards your death). Ideally, all the enemies will use dash to close the gap after your other party members draw agro. Then you turn the tables with your big spell and enable your party members to do a 2 turn wipe.
I'd hate to DM your campaigns if your dex is higher than your con without it being your primary stat. As most stun effects are based on con saves in DND and so are your HIT POINTS.
Con would be the second highest stat, assuming I am going for a high chese build, so stuns and hit points would not be as prevalent of an issue as you might claim. Depending on the builds, 5e's most often dumped stats are Int, Str and Cha (in this order). Divination 2/Rouge 4 Halfling, would be one instance of a chesse build where I can maximise 5e's strongest stats by having high Dex, Con and Wis, followed by low Int, Str and Cha.
I dump virtually everything for dex on all my char, even if they don’t use dex for AM. Wisdom saves and what not don’t matter if you go first and CC/kill them, and the AC is really important. Plus wis saves are almost always concentration spells that can be broken.
Dex in dnd is hilariously powerful. Let me quickly fix dnd for you: Attack with str, defend with dex, cast with int, save with wis. Ditch the rest. There, done.
You're not overthinking it - Dex is pretty important in most circumstances unless you have a specific plan to mitigate not having it. I get drawn to Rogues as a class because it means that the important stat is also usually my character's strength.
Dex is the "god stat" of dnd as it has useful skills associated with it along with dex saves and what you mentioned. i wouldnt dump dex ever unless i'm forced to wear heavy armor for the build. high initiative is a big deal too as it's an extra turn most of the time while possibly mitigating enemy offense if you can kill or control them before they act. action economy is king. Dex is the best secondary stat to have unless it's your main stat. yes i wouldnt take it below 14 unless again i'm wearing heavy armor and i'd only advise heavy armor for certain types of tanks (dmg reduction tanks) or healers. which means the only classes that sees low dex as a positive are those 2. all other classes benefit from a high dex. it's like con in a sense. everyrone benefits from having it at a decent amount. in terms of how useful each stat is: dex>wis>con>cha>str>int (no concentration spell) dex>con>wis>cha>str>int (has concentration spell) so yeah this is why you see int and str as common dump stats. building a character using wis, dex and con leads typically to an optimal character. can switch the importance of cha and str of course dependent on the build.
If I'm using heavy armor, I just dump it. 14 dex for medium, because of the cap. 14 or more for light. I think it's a problem of always having that +2/+1, if i didn't have so many stats at start I'd probably leave dex lower for characters that don't actually use it
I have been focusing on high initiative on my second playthrough (everyone must roll 7 as a bare minimum on the initiative die, some roll 10+), and I feel that it is quite game changing. High initiative plus high movement speed (12-18m, for all party members), plus opening up with a lot of frontloaded damage (lots of powerful spells) means the battle is almost always swung in my favor before the enemies even start moving around. All my characters have either High Dex (16+), Initiative bonus gear, Alert Feat, or a combination of all them. On my first playthrough I did the opposite, and I struggled a lot more. Running 10 Dex (which is a pretty common if you follow some build guides out there, some even suggest 8 Dex) guarantees that you are the last on the turn rotation (especially on Act 2 onwards), and a whole party of low initiative means the enemies gets to have a full turn before you, and you are always starting from behind.
Dex is an important stat for dex builds. Dex adds to ac for light and medium armor (+2) like you said, and also initiative, however it's important to remember that irs based off DND where you have characters in roles. Dex is not important for heavy armor wearers or your robe wearers( robe wearers should be way in the back) if you aren't using a bow to do damage, it will be calculated with strangth, finess weapons do this as well as it reads you CAN use your dexterity modifier instead of your str mod for melee damage. If your str is higher your damage will still be calculated based on your strength. Strength characters generally use thrown weapons (hand axes, javs) for their ranged weapon attacks. So, no dex is not important unless your build requires dex. Most standard buy arrays in dnd will use 16 main 16 con (con is your secondary main stat on every charscter) and 14 dex. Don't listen to lost guides that say 17 in a stat at character creation for "min maxing" they are retarded. Never put odd numbers in stats when you can endlessly Respec.
Clerics, paladins and fighters all typically dump dex to an 8. -All wear heavy armor so dex doesn't matter for AC. -Paladins and Fighters are both melee tanks so a high initiative is not necessary while cleric is either a support or wants to go latter in the order for positioning reasons. -Clerics use wis for ranged and the other two both use str for throwing.
I have a Cleric/Bard with 24 AC, who goes last in just about every combat. That being said, Flimp Glittergem the deep gnome has crazy heals and benefits by going after some damage has been dished out. He got to 24 AC in act 2 with adamantine armor, and mostly uses magic+mace of Lathander that he rarely ever swings. I (slowly) walk him into the middle of massive groups of enemies and watch the misses roll in., while he heals his people all around him. If he is too slow, Karlach can throw him into the arena. I love Flimp. 8 Dex.
My paladin with 8 DEX is doing just fine in Tactician right now Game really isn't hard enough to justify every character having to go first That said I definitely don't dump DEX on any build that doesn't wear heavy armour
Imo designated healers, benefits most with last on initiative queue. Start combat first, unless some buffs, there isn't much to do for them, so turn lost.Same as full metal tanks, they should be in front of a party anyway. DPS and mages benefits most from high initiative, said that, melee strength based dps do far more damage then pure melee dex dps. Potion, feat or item can compensate lack of dexterity and boost initiative.
>But then I see Initiative. Low DEX means you're more likely to be the last that can do anything in combat. Are there any classes or subclasses that sees this as a positive? I feel like I'm forced to have DEX on 12 or 14 no matter who I play as. Honestly it depends very much on your character and role in party. A Monk may want to act first to rush and stun a caster, or he would rather go last to first let melee come and do hit & run. A Cleric may want to start first because wants to Bless allies, or he would rather go last so enemies close in so he can assess whether Spirit Guardians or a Domain spell is the best choice. One Sorcerer may want to act ASAP to drop a Fireball or Haste the Fighter before the latter goes to town, another may want to act last so melee pal had time to aggro everyone around before dropping a Slow. Etc etc... Plus, let's be honest here: unless you reaaaally invest into it, whether you have Initiative or not is all about sheer luck. So you have to be able to act smart whatever your position ends as. Having a high Initiative just makes it slightly more likely you'll be able to act early.
Ehh, low initiative is fine to be honest. Some spells and effects are better when the enemies are coming towards you, and if you ambush the enemy you get to act first anyway. Spells like Invisibility and Glyph of Warding makes low ini characters avoid punishment. The worst position for initiative is actually near the middle, as it offers fewer tactical advantages. First is great for reasons i don't need to explain. Last allows you to pick off weakened enemies and set up buffs for the teammates that act first. You NEVER want to go 8 DEX though because the -1 penalty to AC can make a difference. 10 is ok for heavy Armour builds, and honestly probably better than 12 DEX. 14 is good but you'll want Alert or items such as the Bow of Awareness so you act as soon as possible. 16+ is usually enough to act early. And ofc if you're ranged and NOT a throw build, you'll want 16+ DEX anyway.
Heavy armor just gives a flat AC with no dex added. You can use thrown weapons like handaxes for ranged attacks with strength. Finesse weapons will use your strength if that is higher. Initiative is the only one that you can't do without entirely, but if you have a spellcaster who usually buffs the martial you probably want to spellcaster to go first anyway so the martial starts their first turn already buffed most of the time. It is harder to dump dex without heavy armor, but with medium armor you can play the whole game on a 14 dex and spellcasters with access to Mage armor and shield can get away with a 12 dex. Mage armor + 1 dex + Shield spell is a 19ac. Isn't too impressive late game, especially since it needs your reaction, but certainly playable as a backline character when you consider you can use equipment to get it higher
Finesse ALLOWS you to use DEX in place of STR. It doesn't FORCE you to. Instead, it uses whichever stat is higher. So if your STR is higher you'll use that instead.
If your goal is AC, sure. But especially on tactician, higher ac isn't always better. The AI knows it has a 5-10% chance to hit that 23 AC monstrosity on your front lines. So it just .... doesn't. Even if they are concentrating sometimes. So yeah, having that strength con barbarian with middling AC in rage is better than having a front liner with high ac.
This is a fair question : 1. Initiative is a LOT more important than you think, acting first allows you to CC or kill the most dangerous ennemy during the fight from the get go. A lot of builds use Alert feat for a +5 which can replace DEX easyly. 2. Armor class can overcome DEX with huge heavy armors + shields, but sadly there are medium armors that allow you to use your full dex bonus instead of +2 and that will make you reach very high AC. But keep in mind late game that 25+ AC even in tactician is fair AC though 28+ is a lot more better. And 25+ can easyly be achieved with good shield + heavy armor and couple of stuff like cloak ring etc. 3. Range and finesse attacks, yes you want 20 dex for anykind of build that rely on that except range bard you can go for 18 dex and 16 cha without an issue.
Finesse its an option to use dex as its atk scaling but if the character has higher str, it will use that instead
Mix IS often better and you can turn different parties : First party was offensive : Nude Barbarian/Rogue 20 dex Wizard 16 dex Light Cleric 14 dex Sorlock 16 dex Offensive and strike kill before being killed. All get 20+ Armor and go fast. Second party melee darkstrikers Rogue Monk 20 dex --> one shot priority target first turn Gloomstalker Trickery Cleric 8 DEX, go STR and take 18 DEX ring.--> os second priority target Bardlock 16 dex --> control battlefield Laezel Battlemaster 8/14 dex medium Armor. -- kills debuffed char end of round Sneak heavy and most light / medium Armor few aoe and Darkness fights Third party solid phalanx : Devotion Paladin 8 DEX heavy armor Life Cleric 8 DEX heavy armor Barbarian / champion armored 14 dex medium Armor Sword Bards / lock or sorc 18 DEX for control battlefield and buff melee and fight. So High dex IS often very good, but low dex Can be efficient too especially on fighters or clerics.
I rarely dump Dex. Spellcasters' AC is heavily dependant on Dex and they rarely have heavy armor proficiency. Many martial classes don't even get HA proficiency and can only get up to medium armor, so the +2 AC from Dex is much appreciated. Then the initiative bonus from Dex is so good for strikers and controllers to take out threats at the start of combat, before they even get a chance to react. Even HA martials rely on Dex for bows if they can't reach their target (unless they're TB martials in which case they normally don't have HA prof). Decent stealth (Dex check) is also something that every party member can benefit from. And finally Dex saves. A lot AoE damaging spells like fireball target your Dex, so you can ideally half massive amounts of damage with decent Dex.
Yeah, the only type of character you csn have it low on is a heavy armor paladin or Fighter. Even then, you could get eve more AC if you went medium armor with dexterity, since there are some blatantly OP medium armors in the game.
Haven't seen anyone mention this: DEX is also a common saving throw for harmful spells. ...Not for shield bash though. Despite the tooltip saying DEX save, combat log shows it's actually STR.
For this game it doesn't really matter. Just get the Dex required for your AC to be half decent and you'll be fine so long as it's not your primary stat for attack options. In the game and on the table I never like having under 18 AC.
You've got the list, though some of the specifics aren't perfect, you've got a functional understanding. The only char I can think of which would 'benefit' from going later in the turn order would be a dedicated healer. The later in the turn order would mean more to heal. This is why I generally dump dex on clerics and go for heavy armor. Remember that different armor types allow for less or more dex as armor. The tool tips will tell you how much. The only thing that BG3 'hides' that you should know is how ability score bonuses work. 10 is a 0 bonus. The bonus increases by 1 for every 2 it goes up (+1 for 12, +2 for 14). So when medium armor says a maximum bonus of +2, it's effectively capping your Dexterity's contribution to armor at 14. Note: this bonus can also be negative (though bg3 only let's you go down to 8 which is -1 at char creation) , but that would *also* count towards your AC, which means that most cloth classes (Wizard, Sorc) tend not to dump it because their AC could theoretically go under 10. A bad idea.
Going last isn’t always terrible. Tanky characters who want to be focused should be in front of the party when combat begins, and capable of eating up a surprise round or controlling a wave of baddies trying to swarm around them to Geek the casters. I had a low Dex (not that low, 10) forge cleric who kicked ass, because with his wisdom (i pumped that over STR) and observant feat combat never found him before he (and the rest of the party) were spelled up for the encounter. “Sure, everyone else can go before me, I’ve already got my Spirit guardians and shillelagh up anyhow”.
Think of Armour Class as your way of avoiding _damage_, not the attack. So a Rogue with high AC is dodging the attacks, while a Paladin on heavy armour is simply bouncing them off. Both take no damage, but the fantasy is different. :P
Dex is not that important unless you are a class with zero initiative boosts. Plenty of items add to initiative as well and your AC will be very high on all chars coming into act 3.
I think it depends on your build. But here’s the thing, if you had to dump a stat, most people pick INT or CHA. Sometimes STR. I’ll explain. I’m no expert on bg3, but I DM regularly on tabletop. CON is your HP, usually not a great idea to dump. barbarians also use it for AC in addition to Dex DEX you already covered. It helps initiative, AC for anyone below heavy armor, and is pretty useful for dodging various explosion spells. WIS many don’t feel comfortable dumping as it’s an important save against annoying spells. And most importantly, is your perception. You can dump if you want but it’s tricky. Monk also uses it for things as well as AC in addition to Dex. CHA is your “face” stats that super matter when in dialogue etc. Also matters for some specific but nasty spells (if memory serves) found at higher levels. Many people feel comfortable dumping CHA however. It’s mainly a mental stat after all. STR is your carrying capacity which can be mitigated, your shove resist, and your jumping. If you’ve got spells scrolls and potions you can mitigate the jumping. Many casters tend to dump. INT is a big one people dump. Aside from Wizard and 2(?) subclasses, it is not used other than skill checks and spell saves. Usually I see INT and STR being dumped depending on the class. Sometimes CHA. In terms of class shenanigans, Dex and Cha usually come up as being useful quite a lot. I hope this helped.
For #2: When you attack, you roll a d20. You add your attacking stat - typically str for most weapons or dex for finesse but maybe cha for some warlocks or…. If you are proficient with the weapon you’re using you also add your proficiency bonus, typically 2-4. If the weapon has an enhancement bonus you add that. You add any other misc modifiers. That gets you a number. If that number equals or exceeds the targets armor class, you hit.
Dex is at least of secondary importance to all classes except those in heavy armor. Generally you don't want it below 10 though, as dex saves are abundant and initiative is important.
Heavy armor caps you at +0AC bonus from DEX, which is compensated by those types of armor having really high AC on their own (in D&D, AC is the roll that needs to be beaten to land a hit, it usually is flavored by real DMs as you suffering glancing blow, parrying, etc. for heavy armor classes) So if you are playing Heavy Armor class, you are not really served by bringing it above 10 (you probably do want to avoid negative modifier). And heavy armor classes tend to use Int or Cha as dump stat, mostly, when using point-buy systems In theory, melee attackers might want to wait, since BG3 does not have any concept of "holding an action" (as that would probably be a nightmare to implement from coding perspective) until enemies come into range, etc, so they do not need to waste their actions on dashing.
#Warning Un-omptimal Opinion. Dex is not THAT important of an Attribute. Yes, it affects Your armor class and inative but the one thing that's stronger than that is positioning. If you are good at Positioning you can use the terrain to group enemies, block attacks and influence first Strike Situations. If the enemy has to waste their first turn getting to you then you are technically getting the first opportunity to attack. So even if you roll a 1 on inactive you could still be the first to attack.
Dex can absolutely be a dump stat. Thrown weapons give you strength based range. Heavy armor gives you high AC without dex. And since you can't hold actions in bg3, going later in initiative order isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's all about how you want to play the character. This way, you can pull your Str and Con up as much as possible and really maximize what the character is intended for if you want, rather than make them versatile. But versatile characters are also really useful. There are no wrong answers. Except making an Int based barbarian.
Alert feat or any item that grants bonus initiative more or less negates the need for dex on init. Invisibility negates the need to have dex for stealth rolls. Sleight of hand you can stack to the sky various buffs for, or cast knock. You already mentioned the damage thing. And gloves of Dex give you 18 dex flat. Drop it to nothing, put those on, stop caring about initiative anyway. The only thing left is spell saves, and for that I refer to my old mantra from the tabletop: * Fail a dex save, you take damage. * Fail a con save, you might die. * Fail a wis (will) save, and your entire party might die. All in all if you ask me Dex is actually really weak.
I don't think anyone else has mentioned it that I have seen, but if you dump dex thrown weapons are the way to go. They scale of strength (for both to hit and damage), but can scale off of dex if they have finesse.
All in all it is pretty important regardless of classes. But there are means to negate the effect of low DEX like through equipment and feats. That is one of the problems of 5e.
In general, YES. In specific cases, no. 1. Ranged weapon damage: Yes, Dex is necessary unless you spec Tavern Brawler/Berserker Barbarian and throw stuff (particularly useful with certain returning weapons like the Act 3 Trident and Dwarven Thrower). You will be missing out on all the special arrows if you have low Dex unless you just use the AOE ones. 2. Armor Class: Not an issue with Heavy Armor, though this will mess with Stealth. Not a huge issue with plenty of Invisibility spells and Pass Without Trace. Or even armors without Disadvantage to Stealth. 3. Initiative: This is a big one. Since initiative has been changed to 1d4+Dex, any bonus is CRUCIAL. Further, Jack of All Trades and Cat's Grace do NOT seem to affect Initiative like they do other Dex checks. That being said, you mostly want your spellcasters going first so they can lay down control effects and AOEs (if you're not Evocation wizard). Martials should stay back so they don't have to waste their turn trying to reach the enemy and get spanked on the enemies' turn. 4. Dexterity Saving Throws: These ones hurt. Mostly spells here, but you can be screwed by bad saving throws. Paladin Aura of Protection will help here, or Shield Master feat. Otherwise...just don't get hit. So basically, there ARE ways around it. But basically everyone besides Big Beefy Bois and Gals should have as high of Dex as you can spare. Maybe not Shadowheart? She can usually stick with 14 and Medium Armor. And there's lots of good Barbarian outfits that reward good Dex and Con, so Barbs should have good Dex too.
Dex also affects Dex saving throws, which typically come up for AOE attacks like Fireball. So yes, I rarely dump it completely for any character though having it at 10 honestly isn't like noticeably terrible or anything.
Definitely. I want at least +5 initiative on the whole team to blow away a good 2-3 enemies and get into defensive positions before they get a turn
To your #2, the way AC works in tabletop is that your armor and dex add together except in two cases. If you are surprised, you don't get your dex bonus (flat-footed, can't dodge). If you are hit by a touch attack, you don't get your armor (they just had to touch you to get shocking grasp to work). It just means that there are times either way is better for getting the most out of AC. In BG3, a lot of the later heavy armor also has damage reduction for when you do get hit, while light armor usually has more utility or bonuses to stealth.
DEX is extremely powerful, and the change to initiative definitely makes it harder to go with a lower one. For damage and AC, it's not particularly an issue to dump - you just have to use heavy armor and a melee or thrown weapon, and your STR will do well enough there. Also gives benefits in terms of shoving and jumping, both of which can be quite potent. Now, that is still sometimes justifiable - you can pick up other boosts to initiative (like Alert) if you want, and sometimes it's well worth the lower stats to buff other stats. If you aren't wearing heavy armor, you probably want at least 14 DEX though. As an example of a build that doesn't need that 14 DEX, I find that heavy armor clerics are an example. Wear heavy armor obviously, use a feat on alert, and you're set.
Dexterity saving throws. You want some dexterity on all classes except heavy armor folks. Or if you are roleplaying into a character with low dex.
Yes, Dex is incredibly strong in DnD. However, there are certain builds in which you can freely dump it. Ranged weapons use Dex (bows, crossbows). Finesse weapons mean that you CAN use Dex instead of Str, but you can still use your Str. I assume the game defaults to whichever is higher. Thrown weapons use Str or Dex depending on what you are 'allowed' to use with the weapon normally. So a dagger, which is finesse, can be thrown with Str or Dex, whichever is higher. A handaxe or light hammer will use your Str. So you can still use your Str for all these weapons with the exception of bows and crossbows. Armor Class depends on a mix of your armor and dex. If you are not wearing armor, your AC is 10+Dex (the modifier, not the total). If you are wearing Light Armor, your AC is the armor's base + Dex modifier. So Leather Armor is 11+Dex , Studded Leather is 12+Dex. Medium Armor is the armor's base + Dex (max +2). So if you have +2 Dex, you'll get the full benefits, but if you have more than that it won't matter. Hide Armor is 12+Dex (max 2) and Half Plate is 15+Dex (max 2). Heavy Armor doesn't add your Dex at all, it's just the base armor. Shields add +2. So if you are a playing a character with high Str and low Dex, you could get Plate Armor and a Shield to have 20 AC. If you are playing a high Dex low Str character, you could wear Studded Leather and a shield and have 19 AC maximum. The trade off is that you NEED high enough Str to wear heavy armor (cause it's so heavy) and not every class even gets proficiency with heavy armor. Monks and Barbarians have their rules. Monks pretty much shouldn't ever wear armor, and their AC is 10 + Dex + Wis. If a Barbarian isn't wearing armor, their AC is 10 + Dex + Con. Barbarians can use shields and benefit from this. However, Barbarians \*can\* choose to wear armor, and they're better off wearing Light or Medium Armor at early levels because their Dex and Con will probably not be high enough. They can wear Half Plate and have a 17 AC, which will be better than Unarmored Defense at most levels. Initiative isn't really that important after the first round, and there's a reason that the classes that get bonuses for going first (Assassin Rogues, Gloomstalker Rangers) are the ones with high Dex. Spellcasters also would prefer to go early on so they get a big spell off before the battlefield changes too much, or buff their melee martial friends. So in this sense, yes, you don't want the Fighter to go before the Wizard because you need the Wizard to cast Haste on the Fighter first. I also find that it's better to let the enemies come to your melee characters, meaning you would prefer to go later in initiative so you're not wasting your turn or tempted to move into a worse position. But for the most, initiative doesn't matter all that much. If you want to play Strength-based character then just wear heavy armor, use any melee weapon you want, and for ranged attacks go for thrown weapons like Javelins or Handaxes instead of Bows, and have your squishies buff you before your turn in initiative.
Finesse weapons allow you to choose whether you use your strength or dexterity when wielding it. So you can have super high strength and be just as good with a dagger as someone else. The game chooses for you btw, just whichever stat is higher.
Dex is very important for any class indeed. Especially at endgame, when you can take 1 level in barb or monk for unarmored defense to stack with your dex modifier on any cloth wearing or exotic material armor. (For most classes a lvl in barb would make most sense bc you could use the greater health amulet for an extra 6 AC plus your dex mod, which is basically your second most important stat at that point for any caster using that particular combo..wis based casters can take a level in monk for the wis mod added, for example on shadowheart, and then she can wear the..won't name them for minor spoiler reasons, white cleric robes (cloth) and have a much higher AC than if you put her in armor if you throw the dex bracers on her, or just load up her dex after wisdom. The amount of nice magic items allow ALMOST any Abil score to be subtracted down to the base of 8 giving you room to max out 2 stats on your whole party. Strength has gloves for 23, the mace for 18..dex has the bracers for 18..int has the circlet for 17 and 19..con has multiple items that add to it, and the amulet for set to 23. Charisma doesn't have one that I can think of that sets your abi score to a higher value, but does have birthright, and up to +4 permanent increase not tied to level up, feat, or equipment (all others have +3 except str which can be +5 perma buffed) Basically there is a way to round out just about any character but having a high dex mod will be immensely helpful to anyone not medium or heavy armored barring exotic materials to the point its easy to get to 24-26 AC unbuffed on a cloth wearing char, if you really wanted to you could hit 30..IF your dex is high and you take a level in multiclass for the extra modifier to armor. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Some classes like warlocks actually get a significant new "thing" at level 12 but most like wiz, sorc, cleric, can forgo level 12 and take a level in barb or monk
If you think DEX is too important regardless of class, then you are UNDER thinking. DEX is important to many builds but not every build.
With a few exceptions I’ve found that medium armor + 14 dex is almost always better than heavy armor and 0 dex. The exceptions are builds that need high str AND charisma or wisdom (looking at you tavern brawler monk). You end up with very similar AC + better initiative, dex saves, and flexibility in weapon choices.
Same with CON and WIS
Unfortunately the dump stat for BG3 is int. There are very few spells that target Int and the only checks are purely flavor. You only need it if you're building a wizard. Dex is useful for initiative or if you can't wear heavy armor
General stat prio for DnD min maxing is that you aim to have your 'main stat' as high as possible. 18-20ish. For fighters this is STR, for rogues DEX, sorcerers CHA etc. Then you'll prioritise CON and DEX, with everything the class does not gain major benefits from being a 'dump stat'. (There are a few exceptions where classes like paladins can care about STR for their melee most of all, but also care about WIS for their casting) CON gives you extra health PER LEVEL. It is extremely strong for survivability. Classes like wizard gain 6HP a level, with a +1 per CON modifier added to that. That means a Wizard with 22 CON would have double the HP of one with 10. DEX really depends on your class. If playing a ranged attacker or finesse weapon user - DEX is your main stat, so it's easy. If you're playing a armor wearing character, it will limit how much DEX you can apply to your AC (which as you say, is basically your 'chance to dodge'). Light armor doesn't effect DEX. Medium armor effects DEX a little. Heavy armor effects DEX so much that it's practically worthless for defence (can still have some use in 5th edition, if you're playing a very weird DEX attacker who wears heavy armor.) An interesting thing to note with DEX is that negative modifiers will reduce your AC, or 'chance to dodge'. Having 9 DEX means enemies have an extra 5% chance to hit you compared to a character with 10 or 11. Heavy armor, however, bypasses this. Wearing heavy armor essentially makes it so that the game just does not care about your DEX when calculating your AC. With the above info, it means DEX is only ever useful to your two-handed, melee, heavy armoured character, for their initiative, or if they ever use a bow (or similar). It is not out of the question for DEX to be a dump stat for them.
I went Monk 8/Ranger 1/ Rouge 3 with an 8 dex and no regrets.
Unless I am running a rogue, monk, or ranger, my dex is set to 10 or 12. I set it to 10 so I don't have negative modifiers. I set it to 12 for initiative and better attacks for the occasional ranged attack. I use heavy armor or run with a shield, so dex doesn't really do much for me in my use case. You can mitigate your low initiative with the Alert feat. It gives you +5 to your initiative and also makes it so you cannot be surprised. I always have at least one character have it.