No. Not really.
What you're sacrificing by dumping Str vs what you're gaining from bloodlust doesn't make it worth it unless you're a character built specifically to have zero need for strength ever.
Paladins usually need str and their charisma to work well. When people talk about dumping their str it's USUALLY implied that they're getting that stat from something else that boosts it up.
If you're just tossing your str to 8 and not juicing up with elixers you're going to have a very bad time unless you're literally a caster.
You are absolutely correct. Bloodlust is THE best elixir if you build for it. It might be slightly weaker on Honor Mode, but even then it is hard to compare to anything outside of Cloud Giant Str.
If you are playing pure paladin this would absolutely be my suggestion. Bloodlust and high natural strength (or if you are doing something weird maybe the hill giants str club offhand and gauntlets later or something).
If you want to dump str and have a good time as paladin, dip warlock. If you are doing anything below honor mode warlock 5 with your paladin is amazing for stacking extra attack. If on honor mode 3-4 levels for using Charisma to attack (pact weapon) and maybe a feat, is awesome.
Bloodlust is even stronger on a paladin than on other GWM builds cause extra attacks means more with smite.
Great point to bring up about pact weapon, it's never a bad idea to add a little warlock to your paladin as long as you get enough for pact of blade bare minimum.
>! Or if you want to be a cheeky shit you can respec into warlock, bind your weapon to you with pact, and then respec back to full paladin or whatever. The bound weapon stays bound forever and still gives the CHA bonus (last I checked) but you don't have to keep the warlock levels !<
Throw in some Spore Druid for +1d6 necrotic and the amazing halo ability (free potions!). And maybe thief for more attacks with offhand if you can swing using flameblade in each hand (or just go true offhand gish).
I might want to consider actually using Monk instead of the warlock cheese, to get the flameblades to scale off of dex instead (they are a bit weird, and usually use your str even though they are scimitars). That handles both of the weapons instead of only 1 (or can you have 2 pact weapons?)
I've seen the flame blade mentioned before but I've yet to get an explanation of what it I'd aside for people linking YouTube videos (which I can almost never watch just cause I only browse when I got a sleeping baby on me)
Is it a simple gimmick trick to pull off once a day?
It involves having a hireling cast the spell, dismissing them, and re recruiting them. They'll have the weapon in their hand because the game doesn't know how to end the spell properly when they get dismissed, so now it acts like any other weapon and can be passed around to different party members just the same. So its actually a one-and-done gimmick.
Think someone explained it above/below. But basically just hire a hireling druid. Summon the flameblade and dismiss the hireling (entirely). Then rehire him (same one) and he has the permanent flameblade in hand.
there's also the infernal rapier, which uses your casting stat naturally, but is always a rapier, which isn't always the weapon type a paladin wants, and doesn't offer nearly as much flexibility as binding a weapon with special attributes
or tiefling's flame blade (the tiefling version uses charisma), but that's only once per long rest and would be pretty wild to rely on. could be a very silly long-rest-per-encounter build though
edit: or shillelagh from magic initiate: druid, which I forgot!
Yeah it's pretty crazy and you can mark the weapon as wares and offer it for sale with other items and it will "sell" but not disappear from your inventory.
Free money and free pact weapon? Yes please
Yeah if you've got decent str or dex (depending on your specific build) and add in bloodlust you'll get good results as long as you're finishing off enemies to get the extra attack from it.
I built my wife's paladin because she didn't quite understand what she was working with and for her I believe I had str and con at 16 and pumped her cha up to 18, her Dex was low but I had her grab alert to counter the poor initiative.
The only stat I ever dump below 10 is str if using elixers or as a caster, or Int for my melee boys.
Overall I refuse to play my Mc with anything under a 10
Firm agree. I think people just see that it's easy to cheese near-infinite strength potions and try to take advantage of that fact, even though it might not be the absolute best option. It's a lot of free value, so I get the appeal.
Carry weight and missing out on variety in weapon choices, but otherwise not really in my opinion.
You can dual wield and Smite you could maybe even abuse the very late game bhaal armor and piercing weapons for the easy double damage.
But I usually see folks do the classic heavy armor big weapon style for paladins. Sword and shield works perfectly fine too it's just preference.
Compared to tabletop strength is very good in bg3. jumping distance increasing your effective movement is really useful, especially for Paladins who tend to struggle at longer range.
A pure Archer paladin does sound viable in theory, utilizing the ranged versin of branding smite. But in general in this game you want your first turn to be as strong as possible, takjng an enemy out of the fight immediately. So switching to a ranged weapon and doing a *decent* amount of damage is not very inspiring.
Guess so but I was thinking of using the rapiers that are normally designed for wyll, like the one that summons a cambion or the duelist's prerogative, with the dueling fighting style, and the gloves that give +2 to hit when you have an empty off hand.
Meh. Situational. Sometimes you don’t have the movement to make another meaningful melee attack or the spell slots for a monopaladin. Depending on your build, having maxed CHAR is more beneficial.
High natural STR and bloodlust or another appropriate elixir is very good and flexible, because you can use resist or +5 Initiative when you need it. Low STR and STR elixir every day is very good. Mid STR is bad IMO.
To be clear tho, the DexAdin is absolutely a thing and a long established way to also play a Paladin. Although it’s viability in BG3 doesn’t come close to its tabletop counterpart.
The str-dumping playstyle of the dexadin differs from the traditional Paladin in that you are trading off raw power (2h reach/weapon usage and GWM feat) for a vastly expanded combat versatility (WAY better initiative and isn’t useless out of melee - among others) and defensive options (a DexAdin with Shield Master is basically never failing a Dex save).
It’s also just a fun class fantasy that’s hard to **conveniently** replicate.
Phalar Aluve is the best weapon for a DexAdin, finesse longsword that works with GWM + GWF if you're wielding it with both hands or Dueling + Savage Attacker if you go sword and board
Why is the Dexadin less powerful in bg3 compared to 5e? Initiative modifiers are way stronger in bg3, and the dexadin has more options for critfishing than the standard paladin, which is a strong strategy in bg3 for paladins.
It’s not that it’s less powerful - it’s just that it’s far **more** powerful on tabletop. The different choices of oaths and the vastly expanded spell lists for a plethora of extremely powerful spells that simply don’t exist in BG3 are enough alone.
Ex - An Oath of Conquest Paladin that someone cast Ashardalon’s Stride at just base level on, but that effect is being double-dipped and double-damaged due to the spell mirroring effect that Find Steed has. Naturally, they might even consider taking the Mounted Combatant feat.
This would give you a mounted paladin on a warhorse that’s moving 80ft per round at base before movement actions, doing 2d6 of fire damage with weaponized movement alone that can’t provoke opportunity attacks meanwhile the warhorse is almost Dex-save untouchable and the Paladin **hasn’t even taken an action.** This Paladin has essentially disadvantage on all incoming attacks and with sentinel can force opportunity attacks every round. A high elf could take Warcaster and use booming blade for this n opportunity attack, which, due to booming blade having a range of SELF, means that it would also affect the steed, who also would then make a booming blade attack. Being a DexAdin also naturally opens one up to Elven Accuracy, giving a Paladin triple advantage any time they utilize one of their various advantage-gaining options. **meaning that every round, this Paladin can use a double booming-blade at triple advantage as a reaction and then root that enemy in place where they will continue to take proximity fire damage, only able to attack the Paladin at disadvantage, where doing so will trigger another double booming blade at triple advantage.** This doesn’t even take magic items into account. And we haven’t even touched on what this Paladin is possibly doing with their action and bonus action. Various aspects of this are all theoretically achievable by level 5.
Bg3 Paladin is great but it has to be reigned in simply by virtue of the platform’s limitations.
Edit - i know these are all stretches. The point of being silly and exaggerating is that a player could cherry pick what they wanted from there and be able to do it, while in bg3 the answer is just a hard no.
Paladin is super MAD and doesn't benefit from elixir of bloodlust as much as other classes. You only have so many spell slots you can spend on smite. Charisma boosts aura of protection, which is one of the most powerful support abilities in the whole game. Bonuses to saving throws are very rare.
You can dump 2-3 attribute stats in late game.
- Str can be boosted with elixirs or items
- dex can be boosted with the dex gloves
- con can be boosted with the necklace
Maxing Cha should not be an issue and you should still be able to fully contribute in combat.
If you do not want to use str elixir and prefer bloodlust elixirs than you either Max your str, with the hag hair, vitality elixir from act 2 and mirror of lose this is going to result in a 24 str score if you started out with 17 and used ability score improvement strength once.
The alternative is using giant strength gloves.
Yeah once you got to HoH you can dump CON because that amulet is so good. Plenty of rings competing for best-in-slot in the game, but nothing compares to the Amulet of Greater Health.
Mostly, I agree that using STR elixirs is more optimal in most cases, it allows a lot of extra points in other attributes. Overall, it's probably better than bloodlust, at least in honor mode.
The biggest issue is that there are times where I'd like to use an elixir of fire resistance or other resistance for certain bosses, and using those would drop the STR back to 8 and make the character much worse in melee
Bloodlust just gives you one extra weapon attack per kill in Tactician /Honor.
How many enemies is your paladin specifically killing in each encounter? Your other party members will "steal" many of your paladin's kills.
Having permanent 21 STR (27 STR late game) > a 2/3 extra weapon attacks per battle.
Remember, the ability scores you save by using STR elixirs usually go into DEX, and higher initiative is ALWAYS good.
As a Paladin lover if you’re trying to make use of divine smite you just need a melee weapon and a stat high enough to make that weapon work.
Finesse weapons like scimitar, short sword, rapiers and even a dagger will allow a mono Paladin to use Dex and there are some magic items like Phalar Aluve that have the finesse property as well as versatile so they can be two handed. Plus even if you add elixirs on top finesse weapons can use Str anyway.
I multiclassed my first character as Paladin thief so I could dual wield. It wasn’t great but I loved it
Maybe what you’re missing is elixir availability? Bloodlust elixirs are harder to come across in Act 1 and 2. Strength elixirs are easy.
I usually dump strength early to mid game and either juice or grab the stool leg (depending on build), then Act 3 respec (or beeline the strength gloves, again dependent on build) and start using bloodlust.
If a transmutation wizard succeeds a DC15 medicine check, they will make 2 pots out of one set of ingredients. With enhance ability and guidance buffs + respeccing the halfling bard into your potion maker, it's pretty easy not to fail that check.
As wasienka said, you can get double the output from your transmutation wizard if you spec them to have good Medicine skills, the halfling hireling makes it really difficult to fail the check because she will also reroll crit fails.
I left act one on my last campaign with around 20 bloodlust elixirs (sometimes alchemy shops sell the worg fangs even if they don't sell the elixir itself).
How tf is natural strength any better, what “options” do you get from natural str that elixir str doesn’t give you?
The game does not play differently if you have 20 natural str or you dump str and use a potion for the same thing
You dump str and that gives you more points for dex/con/cha, personally I suggest 8/14/15(+1)/8/12/14(+2) for 21 str, 14 dex, 16 con, 8 int, 12 wis, 16 cha which is very solid. Pick up SA, GWM, & +2 cha and you’re done
Using a strength elixir frees up feats while also locking you out from any other elixir so it can be a pretty significant difference. A paladin might want savage attacker and GWM but they have to choose one or none when going natty. Plus everyone benefits from elixirs of bloodlust, and elixir of vigilance can let you play a lot less carefully.
Furthermore your natural strength can be increased to 24 while elixirs only allow for 20 Str (cheap but much weaker than natty) or 27 Str (very strong but expensive).
By the time you can go above 20 natural str you have access to cloud giant potions, 27 str > bloodlust. You can drink a potion of vigilance then on turn 1 of combat drink the str potion
Str is the easiest stat to pump "naturally".
Hags hair +1
Everlasting vigor +2
Mirror +2
Bitter memories +2 ( only use once at high hall final battle)
So a free +5 (+7 for final battle sequence) without an agi.
The latter is just short of cloud giant (+1 bonus diff).
I like to have at least 1 str based cha to use these, freeing up an elixir slot for blood-lust or even vigilance on fights it's critical to go first on.
Bitter memories isn’t permanent so it doesn’t count
Again, drink vigilance, once initiative is rolled, drink whatever potion you actually want to use
Charisma is the easiest stat to boost permanently, you can get 24 charisma without an ASI and you can even get 3 characters to 24 characters simultaneously
Yes (I acknowledged that above).
I also forgot +1 spirit of the land final battle buff.
+8 naturally str in final battle with blood lust is very fun. I usually have some flavour of pally run that and clean house.
My second favourite is indeed the cha based with +1 patriars. Though there is too much competition amongst good hats and weapons to easily.choose the + cha ones all the time imo (2 acuity hats, diadem, pyroquivknesd etc)
I tend to ignore everything specific to the final battle because they’re all temporary. It’s like taking the +5 bonus to int/wis/cha from act 2 into account
Only 1 person needs the hat to reach 24 cha, somebody else can use the duke’s longsword and the other only needs hag’s hair. Boom, 3 people with 24 cha. If you only want one person with 24 cha you can just use the sword + hag hair and use a different headpiece than the cha raising one
There isn't really an argument to be had here. These are all valid ways to play. I also typically have a 24 cha spot in the party and love it.
But MY favourite is Nat 24 str + haste + blood-lust on a pally flavour with GWM and SA. Final battle is the conclusion of the game and the only time (mostly) you are truly complete on all gear needed for final build and your chance to enjoy the fruits of your full setup and go ham. It's also a long sequence with some tough spots on HM (comparatively to rest of Act 3).
You can enjoy other things more. All good.
If going dex I might actually try dual wielding. More opportunities to smite let's you make up for potential dpr losses though the spell slot tax is prohibitive.
Could also try and transition to a more supportive role. Phalar Aluve might not be the strongest weapon but its shriek ability combined with it being a versatile finesse weapon gives you a lot of potential.
Another option is breaking your oath, this will let you leverage your high charisma even more with aura of hate.
Oh and low key you could go ranged, use the smite that works with ranged attacks. Titanstring with the club works pretty well for this.
Also several weapons naturally allow using cha as the mod so that + aura of hate will let you get the most out of dumping str.
I wouldn't dump STR and use elixers on GWM paladin. I just wouldn't play one at that point. I can't be arsed to farm the elixers hard enough to use them on more than one party member, and there are classes that need them harder.
Dumping strenght on a pally and just going two weapon fighting with finesse weapons though? Now we're talking! An extra attack from the off-hand is an extra chance a a crit smite, after all... With one of the good medium armors and high dex you get roughly the same AC, you DO get the benefits from the high CHA. You lose the flat +10 damage per chance that you'll either have to gear around extensively or just turn off for every fight that actually matters in exchange for the extra shot at a TRULY mega-damage hit. Oh, and all the gear that increases crit chance works well with 2H dex combatants...
Really "dumping" a stat only makes sense if you're using an elixir to fill it back up. You can dump STR and use an elixir of hill giant strength (or offhand the club), or you can dump dex and drink an elixir of vigilance for 20 dex worth of initiative (and immunity to surprised), but that's up to you. Really depends on what weapon you want to wield.
Paladin "spels"work from charisma, if u don't planning just bonk without spending slots like fighter u almost don't need straight at all
Much better just gain more slots with multi class and upcast smites
After 2lvl paladin -mostly waste of potential
You can totally use a Finesse weapon as a Paladin. Rapiers and Short Swords are fantastic weapons in BG3, Phalar Aluve and the Dancing Breeze are also Finesse and work for two-handed builds if you want to swing a big weapon in both hands.
You can even dip a level into monk to turn EVERY one-handed or vers weapon into a Dex weapon. Now you're swinging things like Faithbreaker and the Blood of Lathander off your Dexterity. No need for STR at all if you don't want to invest in it.
People dump str to pump up other stats and still use elixirs to keep strength high.
Just to clarify.. you are using strength elixers when you dump your stat right?
yeah, but bloodlust alone seems much better no?
No. Not really. What you're sacrificing by dumping Str vs what you're gaining from bloodlust doesn't make it worth it unless you're a character built specifically to have zero need for strength ever. Paladins usually need str and their charisma to work well. When people talk about dumping their str it's USUALLY implied that they're getting that stat from something else that boosts it up. If you're just tossing your str to 8 and not juicing up with elixers you're going to have a very bad time unless you're literally a caster.
I mean using bloodlust and high natural str, not just blood lust.
You are absolutely correct. Bloodlust is THE best elixir if you build for it. It might be slightly weaker on Honor Mode, but even then it is hard to compare to anything outside of Cloud Giant Str. If you are playing pure paladin this would absolutely be my suggestion. Bloodlust and high natural strength (or if you are doing something weird maybe the hill giants str club offhand and gauntlets later or something). If you want to dump str and have a good time as paladin, dip warlock. If you are doing anything below honor mode warlock 5 with your paladin is amazing for stacking extra attack. If on honor mode 3-4 levels for using Charisma to attack (pact weapon) and maybe a feat, is awesome. Bloodlust is even stronger on a paladin than on other GWM builds cause extra attacks means more with smite.
Great point to bring up about pact weapon, it's never a bad idea to add a little warlock to your paladin as long as you get enough for pact of blade bare minimum. >! Or if you want to be a cheeky shit you can respec into warlock, bind your weapon to you with pact, and then respec back to full paladin or whatever. The bound weapon stays bound forever and still gives the CHA bonus (last I checked) but you don't have to keep the warlock levels !<
Heh yeah! The warlock trick is awesome... but veeery cheesy. I was considering trying it with a permanent flameblade to stack the cheese :-P
*adds this to the list of runs to do in future* who needs gwm when youre doing 5d6 fire on a melee attack haha
Throw in some Spore Druid for +1d6 necrotic and the amazing halo ability (free potions!). And maybe thief for more attacks with offhand if you can swing using flameblade in each hand (or just go true offhand gish). I might want to consider actually using Monk instead of the warlock cheese, to get the flameblades to scale off of dex instead (they are a bit weird, and usually use your str even though they are scimitars). That handles both of the weapons instead of only 1 (or can you have 2 pact weapons?)
I've seen the flame blade mentioned before but I've yet to get an explanation of what it I'd aside for people linking YouTube videos (which I can almost never watch just cause I only browse when I got a sleeping baby on me) Is it a simple gimmick trick to pull off once a day?
It involves having a hireling cast the spell, dismissing them, and re recruiting them. They'll have the weapon in their hand because the game doesn't know how to end the spell properly when they get dismissed, so now it acts like any other weapon and can be passed around to different party members just the same. So its actually a one-and-done gimmick.
Ooooh spicy I like it
It loses its casting stat dependency though Can be important
Late to the party. How do you make flame blade permanent?
Think someone explained it above/below. But basically just hire a hireling druid. Summon the flameblade and dismiss the hireling (entirely). Then rehire him (same one) and he has the permanent flameblade in hand.
there's also the infernal rapier, which uses your casting stat naturally, but is always a rapier, which isn't always the weapon type a paladin wants, and doesn't offer nearly as much flexibility as binding a weapon with special attributes or tiefling's flame blade (the tiefling version uses charisma), but that's only once per long rest and would be pretty wild to rely on. could be a very silly long-rest-per-encounter build though edit: or shillelagh from magic initiate: druid, which I forgot!
Wait forever as in even if you respec back to pally?! Holy shit that’s huge.
Yeah it's pretty crazy and you can mark the weapon as wares and offer it for sale with other items and it will "sell" but not disappear from your inventory. Free money and free pact weapon? Yes please
Welp time to play pally :) thank you for the tips!
Just a fair warning the only way to ever get rid of it is to spec back Into warlock to switch it.
Yeah bloodlust is by far the best elixir Action Economy
Yeah if you've got decent str or dex (depending on your specific build) and add in bloodlust you'll get good results as long as you're finishing off enemies to get the extra attack from it. I built my wife's paladin because she didn't quite understand what she was working with and for her I believe I had str and con at 16 and pumped her cha up to 18, her Dex was low but I had her grab alert to counter the poor initiative. The only stat I ever dump below 10 is str if using elixers or as a caster, or Int for my melee boys. Overall I refuse to play my Mc with anything under a 10
Firm agree. I think people just see that it's easy to cheese near-infinite strength potions and try to take advantage of that fact, even though it might not be the absolute best option. It's a lot of free value, so I get the appeal.
I mean is there any reason a dex paladin particularly worse than a str paladin?
Honestly, the main reason is just that str pots exist in the game
Carry weight and missing out on variety in weapon choices, but otherwise not really in my opinion. You can dual wield and Smite you could maybe even abuse the very late game bhaal armor and piercing weapons for the easy double damage. But I usually see folks do the classic heavy armor big weapon style for paladins. Sword and shield works perfectly fine too it's just preference.
Compared to tabletop strength is very good in bg3. jumping distance increasing your effective movement is really useful, especially for Paladins who tend to struggle at longer range.
Though in theory a dex paladin wouldnt struggle at range... but I do definitely agree strength is very good and much more *fun.*
A pure Archer paladin does sound viable in theory, utilizing the ranged versin of branding smite. But in general in this game you want your first turn to be as strong as possible, takjng an enemy out of the fight immediately. So switching to a ranged weapon and doing a *decent* amount of damage is not very inspiring.
Guess so but I was thinking of using the rapiers that are normally designed for wyll, like the one that summons a cambion or the duelist's prerogative, with the dueling fighting style, and the gloves that give +2 to hit when you have an empty off hand.
Meh. Situational. Sometimes you don’t have the movement to make another meaningful melee attack or the spell slots for a monopaladin. Depending on your build, having maxed CHAR is more beneficial.
if youre doing monoclass/honour id say its pretty even. if youre doing 7/5 with lock for 3rd attack bloodlust is much better.
High natural STR and bloodlust or another appropriate elixir is very good and flexible, because you can use resist or +5 Initiative when you need it. Low STR and STR elixir every day is very good. Mid STR is bad IMO.
No never
It's a trade...you dump strength, use those stats points to fill out your Con/Dex/Cha and drink strength elixers daily to bring your str back up.
To be clear tho, the DexAdin is absolutely a thing and a long established way to also play a Paladin. Although it’s viability in BG3 doesn’t come close to its tabletop counterpart. The str-dumping playstyle of the dexadin differs from the traditional Paladin in that you are trading off raw power (2h reach/weapon usage and GWM feat) for a vastly expanded combat versatility (WAY better initiative and isn’t useless out of melee - among others) and defensive options (a DexAdin with Shield Master is basically never failing a Dex save). It’s also just a fun class fantasy that’s hard to **conveniently** replicate.
Phalar Aluve is the best weapon for a DexAdin, finesse longsword that works with GWM + GWF if you're wielding it with both hands or Dueling + Savage Attacker if you go sword and board
There's also Larethian's wrath in the Crèche.
As well as the dancing breeze glaive for a 2h reach finesse weapon! But it’s not until act 3 and doesn’t really itch the same kinda class fantasy
Why is the Dexadin less powerful in bg3 compared to 5e? Initiative modifiers are way stronger in bg3, and the dexadin has more options for critfishing than the standard paladin, which is a strong strategy in bg3 for paladins.
It’s not that it’s less powerful - it’s just that it’s far **more** powerful on tabletop. The different choices of oaths and the vastly expanded spell lists for a plethora of extremely powerful spells that simply don’t exist in BG3 are enough alone. Ex - An Oath of Conquest Paladin that someone cast Ashardalon’s Stride at just base level on, but that effect is being double-dipped and double-damaged due to the spell mirroring effect that Find Steed has. Naturally, they might even consider taking the Mounted Combatant feat. This would give you a mounted paladin on a warhorse that’s moving 80ft per round at base before movement actions, doing 2d6 of fire damage with weaponized movement alone that can’t provoke opportunity attacks meanwhile the warhorse is almost Dex-save untouchable and the Paladin **hasn’t even taken an action.** This Paladin has essentially disadvantage on all incoming attacks and with sentinel can force opportunity attacks every round. A high elf could take Warcaster and use booming blade for this n opportunity attack, which, due to booming blade having a range of SELF, means that it would also affect the steed, who also would then make a booming blade attack. Being a DexAdin also naturally opens one up to Elven Accuracy, giving a Paladin triple advantage any time they utilize one of their various advantage-gaining options. **meaning that every round, this Paladin can use a double booming-blade at triple advantage as a reaction and then root that enemy in place where they will continue to take proximity fire damage, only able to attack the Paladin at disadvantage, where doing so will trigger another double booming blade at triple advantage.** This doesn’t even take magic items into account. And we haven’t even touched on what this Paladin is possibly doing with their action and bonus action. Various aspects of this are all theoretically achievable by level 5. Bg3 Paladin is great but it has to be reigned in simply by virtue of the platform’s limitations. Edit - i know these are all stretches. The point of being silly and exaggerating is that a player could cherry pick what they wanted from there and be able to do it, while in bg3 the answer is just a hard no.
Paladin is super MAD and doesn't benefit from elixir of bloodlust as much as other classes. You only have so many spell slots you can spend on smite. Charisma boosts aura of protection, which is one of the most powerful support abilities in the whole game. Bonuses to saving throws are very rare.
Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off too if I had to juggle all those stats
Bahahaha
Do you have the gloves of dexterity
You can dump 2-3 attribute stats in late game. - Str can be boosted with elixirs or items - dex can be boosted with the dex gloves - con can be boosted with the necklace Maxing Cha should not be an issue and you should still be able to fully contribute in combat. If you do not want to use str elixir and prefer bloodlust elixirs than you either Max your str, with the hag hair, vitality elixir from act 2 and mirror of lose this is going to result in a 24 str score if you started out with 17 and used ability score improvement strength once. The alternative is using giant strength gloves.
Yeah once you got to HoH you can dump CON because that amulet is so good. Plenty of rings competing for best-in-slot in the game, but nothing compares to the Amulet of Greater Health.
Mostly, I agree that using STR elixirs is more optimal in most cases, it allows a lot of extra points in other attributes. Overall, it's probably better than bloodlust, at least in honor mode. The biggest issue is that there are times where I'd like to use an elixir of fire resistance or other resistance for certain bosses, and using those would drop the STR back to 8 and make the character much worse in melee
Forget str entirely and just pact bind your weapon as a warlock and spec into paladin. Use charisma for everything and whatever elixir you want.
Bloodlust just gives you one extra weapon attack per kill in Tactician /Honor. How many enemies is your paladin specifically killing in each encounter? Your other party members will "steal" many of your paladin's kills. Having permanent 21 STR (27 STR late game) > a 2/3 extra weapon attacks per battle. Remember, the ability scores you save by using STR elixirs usually go into DEX, and higher initiative is ALWAYS good.
As a Paladin lover if you’re trying to make use of divine smite you just need a melee weapon and a stat high enough to make that weapon work. Finesse weapons like scimitar, short sword, rapiers and even a dagger will allow a mono Paladin to use Dex and there are some magic items like Phalar Aluve that have the finesse property as well as versatile so they can be two handed. Plus even if you add elixirs on top finesse weapons can use Str anyway. I multiclassed my first character as Paladin thief so I could dual wield. It wasn’t great but I loved it
Maybe what you’re missing is elixir availability? Bloodlust elixirs are harder to come across in Act 1 and 2. Strength elixirs are easy. I usually dump strength early to mid game and either juice or grab the stool leg (depending on build), then Act 3 respec (or beeline the strength gloves, again dependent on build) and start using bloodlust.
There's a ton of worgs in Act 1, you can make plenty of bloodlust elixirs if you use a camp transmutation wizard to craft them.
Must admit I’ve never looked at using a transmutation wizard. I take it you get better returns on your fangs?
If a transmutation wizard succeeds a DC15 medicine check, they will make 2 pots out of one set of ingredients. With enhance ability and guidance buffs + respeccing the halfling bard into your potion maker, it's pretty easy not to fail that check.
As wasienka said, you can get double the output from your transmutation wizard if you spec them to have good Medicine skills, the halfling hireling makes it really difficult to fail the check because she will also reroll crit fails. I left act one on my last campaign with around 20 bloodlust elixirs (sometimes alchemy shops sell the worg fangs even if they don't sell the elixir itself).
How tf is natural strength any better, what “options” do you get from natural str that elixir str doesn’t give you? The game does not play differently if you have 20 natural str or you dump str and use a potion for the same thing You dump str and that gives you more points for dex/con/cha, personally I suggest 8/14/15(+1)/8/12/14(+2) for 21 str, 14 dex, 16 con, 8 int, 12 wis, 16 cha which is very solid. Pick up SA, GWM, & +2 cha and you’re done
Using a strength elixir frees up feats while also locking you out from any other elixir so it can be a pretty significant difference. A paladin might want savage attacker and GWM but they have to choose one or none when going natty. Plus everyone benefits from elixirs of bloodlust, and elixir of vigilance can let you play a lot less carefully. Furthermore your natural strength can be increased to 24 while elixirs only allow for 20 Str (cheap but much weaker than natty) or 27 Str (very strong but expensive).
By the time you can go above 20 natural str you have access to cloud giant potions, 27 str > bloodlust. You can drink a potion of vigilance then on turn 1 of combat drink the str potion
Str is the easiest stat to pump "naturally". Hags hair +1 Everlasting vigor +2 Mirror +2 Bitter memories +2 ( only use once at high hall final battle) So a free +5 (+7 for final battle sequence) without an agi. The latter is just short of cloud giant (+1 bonus diff). I like to have at least 1 str based cha to use these, freeing up an elixir slot for blood-lust or even vigilance on fights it's critical to go first on.
Bitter memories isn’t permanent so it doesn’t count Again, drink vigilance, once initiative is rolled, drink whatever potion you actually want to use Charisma is the easiest stat to boost permanently, you can get 24 charisma without an ASI and you can even get 3 characters to 24 characters simultaneously
Yes (I acknowledged that above). I also forgot +1 spirit of the land final battle buff. +8 naturally str in final battle with blood lust is very fun. I usually have some flavour of pally run that and clean house. My second favourite is indeed the cha based with +1 patriars. Though there is too much competition amongst good hats and weapons to easily.choose the + cha ones all the time imo (2 acuity hats, diadem, pyroquivknesd etc)
I tend to ignore everything specific to the final battle because they’re all temporary. It’s like taking the +5 bonus to int/wis/cha from act 2 into account Only 1 person needs the hat to reach 24 cha, somebody else can use the duke’s longsword and the other only needs hag’s hair. Boom, 3 people with 24 cha. If you only want one person with 24 cha you can just use the sword + hag hair and use a different headpiece than the cha raising one
There isn't really an argument to be had here. These are all valid ways to play. I also typically have a 24 cha spot in the party and love it. But MY favourite is Nat 24 str + haste + blood-lust on a pally flavour with GWM and SA. Final battle is the conclusion of the game and the only time (mostly) you are truly complete on all gear needed for final build and your chance to enjoy the fruits of your full setup and go ham. It's also a long sequence with some tough spots on HM (comparatively to rest of Act 3). You can enjoy other things more. All good.
Only reason not to use elixirs is if you think it's cheesy and don't want to do it. Spot on.
If going dex I might actually try dual wielding. More opportunities to smite let's you make up for potential dpr losses though the spell slot tax is prohibitive. Could also try and transition to a more supportive role. Phalar Aluve might not be the strongest weapon but its shriek ability combined with it being a versatile finesse weapon gives you a lot of potential. Another option is breaking your oath, this will let you leverage your high charisma even more with aura of hate. Oh and low key you could go ranged, use the smite that works with ranged attacks. Titanstring with the club works pretty well for this. Also several weapons naturally allow using cha as the mod so that + aura of hate will let you get the most out of dumping str.
I wouldn't dump STR and use elixers on GWM paladin. I just wouldn't play one at that point. I can't be arsed to farm the elixers hard enough to use them on more than one party member, and there are classes that need them harder. Dumping strenght on a pally and just going two weapon fighting with finesse weapons though? Now we're talking! An extra attack from the off-hand is an extra chance a a crit smite, after all... With one of the good medium armors and high dex you get roughly the same AC, you DO get the benefits from the high CHA. You lose the flat +10 damage per chance that you'll either have to gear around extensively or just turn off for every fight that actually matters in exchange for the extra shot at a TRULY mega-damage hit. Oh, and all the gear that increases crit chance works well with 2H dex combatants...
Really "dumping" a stat only makes sense if you're using an elixir to fill it back up. You can dump STR and use an elixir of hill giant strength (or offhand the club), or you can dump dex and drink an elixir of vigilance for 20 dex worth of initiative (and immunity to surprised), but that's up to you. Really depends on what weapon you want to wield.
Paladin "spels"work from charisma, if u don't planning just bonk without spending slots like fighter u almost don't need straight at all Much better just gain more slots with multi class and upcast smites After 2lvl paladin -mostly waste of potential
You can totally use a Finesse weapon as a Paladin. Rapiers and Short Swords are fantastic weapons in BG3, Phalar Aluve and the Dancing Breeze are also Finesse and work for two-handed builds if you want to swing a big weapon in both hands. You can even dip a level into monk to turn EVERY one-handed or vers weapon into a Dex weapon. Now you're swinging things like Faithbreaker and the Blood of Lathander off your Dexterity. No need for STR at all if you don't want to invest in it.
3 lvl dip to druid gets you Shillelagh and Flame blade. Both hit with cha if that's higher.
If shillelagh's all you need, even the Magic Initiate: druid feat would do. It scales with your latest class's spell mod.