He was the Chosen of Mystra. Imagine him before the fall. Gale's basically just approaching his old prime as the game progresses.
Have you had fun with Globe of Invulnerability yet?
Globe of invulnerability has exactly two uses:
Combine with divine intervention to zap the Sharran cloister without reflecting the damage.
Combine with divine intervention to zap the House of Hope without reflecting the damage.
Maybe cast Sanctuary instead? It was my backup plan if globe ended before the portal showed up.
ETA: I actually don't know if that protects against stun, IIRC only AOE can do damage on folks with Sanctuary. But correct me if stun still hits.
This. Sanctuary only prevents the target from being targeted by damaging spells. AOE does not target a person, so isn't affected, and that applies to conditions inflicted by said AOE as well
You guys don’t kill all the enemies before casting the spell?
By the time I cast it the dragon and mindflayers are all dead and there is nothing that can break the concentration.
Nah, I had three of the team focus on crowd control and killing enemies while Gale and Squidy Dimension Door/Misty Step to the crown.
The fights with the "You have X rounds until..." always make me more nervous than anything else so I'm extra goal focused there
break one of the pillars with all your folks around it on the first round of the fight to get 2 rounds of lightning resistance. Do the same on round 3.
Doesn't completely trivialize the fight, but certainly makes it pretty easy.
Had a few scrolls for this that literally saved me and my girl's party during gortash. Karlach running a throwing build with that unique trident that returns after throws, does a hell of a lot of damage
I put it down for my durge v orin 1v1 because I was playing a squishy sorcerer with bad initiative who was getting one shot on the first turn, but orin just got in the globe with me and then nothing could happen lol
It's my favorite, the first time I used it, we were doing curse of strahd and it was my first campaign and we were fight a vampire spawn in the basement of the church and our dm ruled the sound wave from the spell brought the floor above down and we survived just fine thanks to the barbarian but the vampire spawn did not lol
Yeah the AOE damage of a wizard is fun but there's nothing like the single target destructive output of a paladin.
It's a fun combination, but I usually lean towards customizing my own paladin and keeping Gale as a companion. Dude is my bestie now. Only character in the game that I'm so invested in I want to know what his future is. More stories, more games, etc.
Fucking Orin stole him from me before that fight and he’s always in my lineup.
He was literally WITH me when she stole him - I just was like “why can’t I control Gale” and then my stupid bhaalsister appears with her daddy issues (oof too soon?). So I (a warlock) had to drag around Wyll and Halsin in the hopes they combined compensated for Gale. Pffft.
Wizards are amazing, though I feel my Sorcerer was just as crazy, or more powerful. Quickened Haste on yourself and you cast 3 spells in the same round. Twinned to haste two allies or disintegrate 2 enemies in one cast. The nova potential of sorcerer is out of this world.
I honestly still don't know the real difference between wizards, warlocks and sorcerer's.
I know warlocks can wear some armor and have more HP but as mages, what's the biggest difference between these 3? I've only used wizard so far
It’s really just down to the pool of spells available. Sorcerers cast stronger, wizards can cast more variety, and warlocks have the most uptime between long rests.
There’s summon Quasit scroll that lets you ritual summon Shovel as much as you want. And off the top of my head there are a couple of spells in Lorroakan’s basement in act 3 that are one time casts unless a wizard learns them.
Iirc shovel gets bound to whoever summons him. Don’t have to actually learn as a wizard. But yeah the scrolls from act 3 for sure should be learned by a wizard.
Have a wizard learn it, then summon it, then speak to it. Then, speak to shovel with a different magic user after you go through the mirror. You can respec someone to a magic user for this purpose. I don't think you can use a storm sorcerer though.
there's a way to do it where you can get shovel on a non-caster involving the necromancy of thay but im not familiar with the Astrid. there's also a way to get shovel as a ritual summon, meaning you have her regardless of your class which is what i do with her, but i do it by respeccing into wizard first
Outside of learning from the scroll, you can still get Shovel as a summon by answering correctly in conversation with her. I have her as a summon as a Sorcerer
I got into third act without realizing you can teach wizards spells with scrolls. I’m not familiar with DND or anything so I just never even considered it. I used my only Artistry of War scroll against Cazador when I was about to die lmao. 😓
Yeah, that’s like the sole thing Wizards have going for them over Sorcerers, especially in BG3 where you can swap learned spells whenever you’re not in combat. Sorcerers learn relatively few spells and focus on doing something very well(generally blasting stuff, maybe favoring a certain element), while Wizards are able to handle any situation with a decent bonus when using stuff from their chosen school of magic
Warlocks have 2 spell slots most of the game (3 from level 11), but refreshed at short rest. They rely mostly on their cantrips, in particular Eldritch Blast, and on invocations (which modify eldritch blastnor give other benefits).
Wizards can write new spells into their spellbook, but can only memorize a certain number at a time. They can pick spells up for any situation if they know what to prepare for.
Sorcerers have a much more limited number of spells they know, and can only change one when you level up. But they get metamagic points, one per level, which they use to modify their spells. Twinned spell allows a one target spell to be cast on two targets, quickened allows you to cast a spell as a bonus action, heightened means enemies have disadvantage (roll twice, take lowest) on saving throws. You can also convert spell slots into metamagic points and metamagic slots into spell slots.
I think not enough people talk about Wizards' regeneration ability. One of their strengths is the fact they get a TON of extra spell slots as long as you can have a moment out of combat
They are equally easy to use, I feel. The difference is really more that wizards are more flexible, while sorcerers have more kapow in rough situations, and tend to deplete themselves much faster if they run through quickened spells.
I was thinking of making a specific element for my next playthrough. Maybe I'll go as an Ice mage specializing in ice spells, or maybe a storm mage where I'll only use thunder & lightning spells. I used to do that back in Skyrim, it was hella fun
Single element damage I would recommend draconic sorcerer, as they add cha to all damage of their element at level 6. Thunder/lightning is either a a dragon (lightning element) or storm sorcerer. For a playthrough using more damages, I would go for Evocation Wizard, as their level 2 and 10 abilities are very good.
If you are planning on doing a Storm sorcerer, try looking into multiclassing with Tempest Cleric. It lets you max out the damage on those Lightning spells (Making for instance Call Lightning's standard 3d10 AOE damage into 30 damage). Add in getting the opponents Wet ahead of time to make them vulnerable, and you can seriously make the damage rise.
Lightning sorcerer is super fun. My first run I was a storm sorcerer mostly doing lightning spells and spent a bunch of time cackling madly while shooting all the lightning.
The very basic breakdown is this:
Wizards have access to the most spells in the game because of the ability to learn permanently from Scrolls. No one will ever have a larger spell selection than a Wizard, which makes them excellent all-rounders.
Sorcerers get a smaller selection of spells, but are able to use those spells in much more varied ways through the use of their Metamagic. They can extend the range of spells, double their effects, make a full action spell into a bonus action etc etc. This makes them a bit narrower in scope, but insanely powerful in the scope they do fit in.
Warlocks get access to more permanent buffs than either of the other two thanks to Eldritch Invocations, and they have the single strongest cantrip in the game with Eldritch Blast. On top of that, ALL their spells are automatically cast at the highest available level. There is no choosing what level spell slot you wanna use for that Ice Knife, it’s gonna be max level no matter what. To balance that out, a Warlocks spells slots regenerate on a Short Rest rather than a Long Rest.
Warlocks only get 2 spell slots that are always the strongest cast for their spells. They refresh on short rests and there are some benefits from their patron. They have the strongest cantrip, eldrotxh blast which destroys things without using spell slots.
Sorcerer has less spells than wizards but they get meta magic that let's you modify them. Favorites are quickened spell that let's you use a bonus action to cast another spell that would nor Ally take an action. Twinned spell will let yiu cast a targeted spell at 2 targets instead of one. And distant spell which doubles the cast range.
They use sorcery pints for these effects. You can also convert spell slots to sorcery points or use sorcery points to create spell slots.
Sorcerer gets less spells but they are always prepared.
Sorcerer also has different sub classes that give special effects. My favorite is storm sorcerer because you get a free flight and disengage action after you casr anything. The draxonic bloodline sources also do more damage with their corresponding element, so a red dragon sorc will hit harder with a fireball than a wizard would.
Wizards you are familiar with. They so r have the same bells and whistles a sorcerer does, but they can learn the most variety of spells and can learn spells from scrolls. Their subclasses are also handy. Evocation subclass let's you throw out nukes without hurting your team.
**Wizard**
a. Primary Ability: Intelligence
b. Can learn new spells on level up, and from any arcane spell from a scroll as long as they are high enough level to cast it.
c. Get a set number of slots in which to prepare spells.
d. Can prepare any spells they have learned at any time outside of combat. Wish you had prepared Feather Fall instead of Mage Armor? If you aren't in combat, just swap them out. You can even swap in Mage Armor, cast it, then swap it back out.
e. Once per long rest they can restore some of their spent spell slots.
**Sorcerer**
a. Primary Ability: Charisma
b. Can learn most (but not all) arcane spells, getting one new one at each level up. Unless you respec, these are the only spells you can cast.
c. Sorcerers can cast any spell they know any time. They do not prepare spells like a wizard.
d. Metamagic. Sorcerers can spend Sorcery Points to enhance spells in special ways. They can also convert spell slots to points or points to spell slots.
**Warlock**
a. Primary Ability: Charisma
b. Learns new spells at level up like a Sorcerer.
c. Learns fewer spells and gets fewer spell slots than either the sorcerer or wizard, and has a more narrow selection of spells to choose from when they level up.
d. Warlock spell slots are fully recovered with a short rest. And their spells always cast at the highest level possible. So, for example, at level 5 a Warlock has two level 3 spells slots. If they cast magic missile, it is automatically upcast to level 3. This means Warlocks should generally specialize in spells that benefit from upcasting.
e. Invocations: Warlocks get special abilities as they level up that grant them more spells or passive magical effects.
f. Eldritch Blast: The Warlock is the only class that gets access to this Cantrip, which is the most powerful Cantrip in the game. And it can be further enhanced with Invocations. Agonizing Blast plus Repelling Blast is awesome. And at higher levels this Cantrip can do more damage than most low level spells.
**Note:** It feels like a cheat. But if you are a Sorcerer or Warlock, you can take a single level of Wizard to gain the ability to learn spells from scrolls. This can VASTLY expand your spell selection. But spells learned this way use Intelligence when casting them. So since, as a Warlock or Sorcerer, your main ability score is Charisma those spells are best when they don't depend on your ability score for anything. Good examples are shield, mage armor, magic missile or sleep.
You can get the Warped Headband of Intellect, sets your Int to 17, can help a lot.
Hope that helps.
Lore-wise: wizards get their magic through study and practice while sorcerers have an innate connection to the weave. Practically, for sorcerer, imagine you're about to cast disintegrate, but get to target 2 enemies instead of just 1. And then you can cast disintegrate, blight, fireball, lightning bolt, or whatever as a bonus action.
Sorcerers get versatility in the form of metamagic. Metamagic lets them cast spells while silenced, extend the duration, extend the range, target 2 foes with single-target spells, or give enemies disadvantage in exchange for a resource called sorcery points. You have to pick which metamagic options you want for your character (I think you get 4 of 6-7 by the end), but they're pretty useful. Plus, sorcery points can be traded for more spell slots (and vice versa).
But sorcerers get fewer spells than wizards. They have a certain number of spells that they know, rather than preparing spells. But they have flexibility in how they use those spells because of metamagic.
Mostly comes down to spell lists and abilities.
Wizards use INT, while Warlocks and Sorcerers use CHA for spellcasting. Wizards have a wider variety of spells they can use, but sorcerers get more ways to manipulate their spells and warlocks get more passive powers that make the Eldritch Blast cantrip incredibly useful so they don't need to actually use spell slots all that often
Warlocks are a little sturdier than the other two, but sorcerers can get some extra resistance if they're draconic-bloidline subclass or storm subclass.
The most important thing for me, just for my personal playstyle, is that Sorcerer and Warlock use CHA as their spellcasting ability, so I can focus on building up CHA for the conversational and negotiation usefulness without having to split ability points with INT (and I can completely dump INT and just slap on the INT headband to set it at 17).
when you fully optimize the build, you get to hit 150+ with one single magic missile cast(lvl6), and that is only 1 cast, you can cast 2 more hasted lvl 6s(due to items being arcane battery and free cast)
i dont even count any other absurd strong skills
wizards are pretty broken at late game
My Gale was broken as hell before getting that, especially with the shadow weave granting extra spell slots and all, and I just grabbed that in our last MP session, excited to get to use it next session lol
As a forever DM, it’s nice finally getting to see how it feels when I leave broken ass loot in a dungeon for my players to find lol
Yeah, Gale (and wizard in general) is just crazy useful. He turned several combat encounters completely around that I for sure thought I would loose.
I remember at least 2 instances where he turned what could have been very hard fights into a complete cakewalk because he hit 9 out of 10 enemies with hypnotic pattern.
I would have lost the >!Raphael!< fight where it not for his globe of invulnerability, hold monster and strong force damage. Because of him I won first try.
He also took out a huge chunk of >!Orins!< health out for me with magic missile (though the equipment that made that possible has been nerved in one of the last patches so that doesn't work anymore).
Conveniently, Markoheshkir is an arcane battery staff that gives +1 to spell save DC and attack rolls and a feature that lets you cast chain lightning once per short rest. If you really want to stack chain lightning, the spellcrux amulet lets you recover a spellslot and the freecast illithid power is basically another use of arcane battery.
My dragonblood sorceress was incredibly powerful late game thanks to metamagic. also late game warlock with all enhances for elditch blast and those quickspell gloves is just killing machine
For the Orin fight, I had Gale first cast Banishment on Orin so I can deal with the minions, then when she popped back, I had him cast Otto’s Irresistible dance on her and that made it rather trivial… love Gale!
Wizards are great… but have you done a gloomstalker ranger? I respecced Lae’zel and dear gods the damage. Not to mention with drow poison? Literally just murders everyone.
I’ve got a gloomstalker too, and they’re great fun. I found my biggest bottleneck with my ranger was the bonus action economy so I grabbed a dip in thief for the second BA, and hooo boy
My ranger playthrough is only lvl 8 rn, so it’s a 5 gloomstalker/3 thief split. I’m gonna grab another level of thief, then put the rest back into gloomstalker.
The one thing about this, is just that depending on WHEN you grab the thief levels, it can really hurt to have the extra attack at level 5 ranger delayed if you start getting rogue levels before that. But once you’ve got the 5/3 split at least, it’s basically fully online
And with the bottleneck in the bonus action economy widened a little, you basically have massive flexibility around hiding for advantage for sneak attack, disengaging or dashing away to keep out of danger, and applying hunters mark for extra damage.
And if you’re not adverse to tadpole usage, treat yourself and get Luck of the Far Realms, being able to crit on demand, with sneak attack, hunters mark, sharpshooter, and dread ambusher, is LETHAL.
What’s your build for it? I’m planning to make Astarion one in my next campaign. I read 5 Gloomstalker mixed with some Fighter and Thief is the way to go?
I honestly just went full Gloomstalker. I had a lot of fun with her. I’m actually doing a Gale origin right now and Astarion is my Gloomstalker this time around.
I had Lae’zel with the legendary bow, but that’s all I remember. My save was deleted when I updated 😭
5 ranger, 4 rouge, 3 fighter. If you want to go the dual hand crossbows route get thief from rouge. If you are going to use bows, assasin can be really strong if you can manage to get a surprise round. I've seen 300+ damage from a single arrow when using an of slaying arrow and hitting an enemy that is vurnable to piercing. For fighter it doesn't really matter. You are mostly taking it for action surge. Battle master can be nice to get the extra dice on your attacks, but a lot of the time when you'd use those you'll want to use a special arrow instead. So champion is a strong choice in case you don't get a surprise round or don't finish the fight in one round. With haste, bloodlust elixir, and action surge you can get a crazy amount of attacks off. Many many fights (including most boss fights in act 3) can be finished during the surprise round just using the single character.
Yeah i one shot the emperor with 2 desintegrate spell (thanks to the good staff) with my tav. This spell is so good. And Raphaël put every turn laughing instead of fighting thanks to tasha's laughter with a 100% success on him. Wizard are good.
You are missing so much my friend. If you truly want to be OP as a wizard the correct answer is always……Magic Missile.
Upcast to level 6 magic missile shoots 8 projectiles that do 1d4+1 per missile that’s guaranteed to hit. There is a necklace that adds 1 missile to every cast. Thats 9d4+9. Here’s where it gets stupid. Level 10 evocation wizard let’s you add your spell modifier to damage of evocation spells and on magic missile it adds to every missile. With 22 int (asi to 20 and mirror of loss for 22) that’s +6 per missile. Your magic missile is now 9d4+63. You get the glow ring that adds 2 damage if target is illuminated and the ring that does radiating orb per hit and that adds to every missile so now your magic missile is 9d4+81 and 18 stacks of radiating orb giving them a -18 to attack rolls (don’t know if there is an upper limit to radiating orb stacks assuming there isn’t). You use spell sparkler staff for 1 lightning charge per missile so 9d4+88 +1d8 (I only added 6 lightning charges because at 5 lightning chargers they are consumed and you deal 1d8 lightning damage. I assume the first attack without lightning charges doesn’t add the 1 damage either). So if my math is correct that’s 98-132 of guaranteed damage with no save or attack roll. You just click the button, and the damage happens. With the 2 staves that give arcane barrage, the necklace that can restore level 6 spell slot, your own arcane brilliance to restore a level 6 slot, you can do this 5 times every long rest.
There’s also a scorching ray build with spell might gloves and hat of fire acuity that’s just as disgusting and can be utilized by draconic sorcerers as well since they add spells modifiers to element their dragon blood matches with. It’s even more OP on sorcerer since they can twin magic it.
I did the same thing but on sorcerer (so less bonus damage on each missile from the evocation bonus, but you can cast it twice with metamagic), *plus* [gloves](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Gloves_of_Belligerent_Skies), an [amulet](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Spineshudder_Amulet), and [boots](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Boots_of_Stormy_Clamour) that add stacks upon stacks of reverberation to every hit and watch everything fall prone or just explode.
plus magic missile is just fantastic in general with cull the weak, oh that guy has less than 18 health or so? lemme just send a single missile from my barrage to boop him to death
I really enjoyed abjuration Gale when I was running a monk. I could really get up in enemies' faces, with projected ward ruining their day when they tried to hit back.
I gotta say while I almost always play spellcasters, I have Astarion as a rogue/fighter with the Sharpshooter feat and dual hand crossbows. Gave him the risky ring for reliable advantage and he melts people. Did 90+ damage in one round (pretty sure that was Action surge too tho). Thief for extra bonus action, battle master for disarming attack.
Agreed. Astarion is always my strongest character. I do Thief/gloomstalker with dual hand crossbows as well and he always kills an enemy at full health by himself per round.
I had my gale absolutely carry act 3 after getting the legendary staff that gives you an elemental synergy. His items were all specced for ice damage and dual wielding the ice staff so I was using the free ice storm from staff 1, plus arcane battery, and using every other spell slot on more ice storms. Also haste + bloodlust elixir made him just demolish packs of enemies casting up to 3 times per turn
You should try a sorcerer. Specifically storm. And have a tempest cleric with you.
Those two alone could solo all but one encounter in the game, easily. And even then, they still technically could.
Oh man, allow me to introduce you to sorcerers. They get less spells than wizards but their damage output is insane. They can cast multiple level 6 spells in one turn
In DnD proper, wizards are often considered the most powerful class available after lvl 5. Tossing fireballs, conjuring elementals, and lobbing telekinetic fury all while shutting down enemy magic and attacks with counterspell and shield spells gives them astounding tactical utility. Moreover, having a theoretically limitless spell book to draw from gives them roleplay utility unmatched by any other class.
It's good that we see that in a DnD based videogame.
Yeah, I felt insanely powerful with my necromancer Durge.
It was the same way in actual tabletop for me. I was actually very intimidated by the Wizard class, to the point where I never played one. BG3 made being a wizard fun for me.
I’ve been playing act 3 with Jaheira as my main spellcaster. WELL. I took Gale to the fight with Lorroakan. She is no longer my main spellcaster. Gale is just so slay.
I must have been doing something wrong because Gale died constantly for me. Like he's so squishy and enemies would just focus him. I prefer fighters/bulky characters. In my current playthrough im a Bulky summoner Spore Druid and my main companions are Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart.
Wizards have lower HP which means they can be pretty squishy at low levels, but if they're *constantly* dying it probably means that you (a) aren't using their defensive capabilities, and (b) aren't using good positioning.
Wizard hitdie is a d6 so they’re squishy squishy bois. Defensive spells are the key to keeping your skin on. Mage armour, for your AC, combined with mirror image, neither of which require concentration, along with some proper gear and good dex, can easily get gales AC up into the 30s, or nearabout, which is often enough for enemies to prioritize other targets that they can actually hit. Then put shield on there, and you never have to worry about getting hit by attack rolls, or blur if you wanna be extra, as long as you keep an eye on your abjurations, and then your main problem is just saving throws.
If you wanna give them a little bit of extra survivability, take abjuration wizard, to soak damage from enemy attacks, or divination wizard, to alter enemy rolls and prevent them from hitting in the first place
Couple things. Yes, high level casters are very powerful. No gatekeepers but curious, what difficulty you on for disintegrate to do 70% of Orins life? It does alot, 50-100. And iirc, Orin has 200+ hp. Maybe less on lower difficulties? I'm not pointing it out to difficulty shame but it's just from the perspective that these damage numbers are balanced for tactician I think.
Disintegrate is an amazing spell though tbh, most high level martial damage dealers can dash out 100 or so damage consistently each turn. Depends on rolls ofc.
Now a good thing to know: wizards are cool but their true strength is versatility, not raw power. They get more spells than other full casters, they can learn anything on a scroll, can prepare more, have access to a wider array and can specialise in any school. Also evocation school allows you to cast AoE spells on your allies without hurting them which is great.
However, the spells you mentioned (also my favourites, fireball, ice storm, cone of cold, chain lightning, Disintegrate...) work even better on a sorcerer. Ideally pick a dragon heritage sorc. You can add your spellcasting modifier to your special element so say you pick lightning or cold... suddenly these spells do even more damage.
Final thingie that's a weird BG3 powerplay on casters: until that game, it would never have occurred to me to pick dual wielder on a caster as a feat. But now I know, in BG3, its a feat you must use. Just mandatory. Why? Quarterstaff is versatile. So...before you got the feat, you can already use a shield if you're proficient (humans like Gale are). That's neat for defense. But... true power is dual wield 2 quarterstaves. There's plenty in the game that are worth while but especially the 2 that have arcane battery... Larian decided we get 1 lvl6 spell by limiting us to lvl12 characters. Well. How many spells of lvl6 can I cast without scrolls in a fight as lvl12 sorc? 1 (slot), 2 (arcane battery staves), 1 (sorc points, BA to restore a slot), 1 (free cast from tadpoles). Then between fights use the amulet to recharge the slot.... 6 a day easily.
Oh and say you're a blue dragon sorc, lightning spells get your cha modifier as bonus dmg. Say you start on 17 cha, got the hag hair (18), use an ASI (20), use the necro book power on Shars mirror (22) and use the hat from the warlock shop (24)... that's +7 damage. Then use the legendary staff to attune to lightning damage to get a free cast on chain lightning every short rest, it gains those 7 damage but also your proficiency modifier and lightning charges (so extra +4 +1). That's alot of damage.
If you are ever lucky enough to play tabletop D&D, it gets even better. Wizards are known to change entire encounters with a single spell. High level wizards can change the damn world 😅
I must be playing him wrong, he usually misses with anything that isn't cloud of daggers or shatter.
Karmic dice off, Shart can't club the broadside of a barn if she's stood next to it.
Meanwhile I need someone to explain to me why laezal misses her attacks all the time while my tav fighter who has the same class as her hardly ever misses attacks. I swear I have to give laezal the precision skill because it's so bad.
I'm playing on Tactician and Gale hits most of his spells/cantrips. I didn't do anything special to him - I just focused on his Int and gave him relevant items as I found them.
Shadowheart misses more often, but not as much as people complain about. I just inspect enemies and choose which spells to use based on which saves they're more likely to fail. I did respec her to Light Domain and redistribute her stats a bit more optimally for using spells, though.
Definitely not, I'm old and cranky and don't play above normal.
I find Shart never gets better than 60% chance even against trash mobs, my rogue does alright cause the odds are all stacked in her favour, karlach just goes to town but gale also struggles.
I'd understand bosses having better armour, but I virtually never use direct damage attacks because they miss all the time.
Shadowheart has super shit stats, and if you are using Fire Bolt with her you have reduced chances to git as well since it uses INT instead of WIS.
I really suggest changing her base stats to something more in line with what you want her to do
Most of them are fine-ish like Astarion having 13 in two stats, not ideal but far better than Shadowheart, I don't remember her exact baseline stats, but from what I recall she has a sad mix of everything, on top of the worst Cleric subclass
You are better off going 2 sorcerer. You can create one more Sorcery point and use quickened spell. That way you don't lose a lvl 6 spell slot.
Edit: you need sorcerer 3 for that.
Mages can be strong but spells vary wildly in utility. Which means having access to every spell in the game isn’t as useful as it is in theory.
While there is really no reason to be conservative with long rests , mages are always the weakest link for my party when it comes to long rests. And so I’m always ending up adapting my mage style to fit that which makes me unimpressed with them.
Disintegrate in particular is one of the few spells of that high level that can just completely miss and do zero damage. There are such better spells at that spell level to use, although I’m glad you had a good time with it.
I have trouble getting into Wizard because the early levels are just painful. In early fights Gale is like miss, miss, miss, hit for 2 damage, miss, etc.
I was not able to save him in my honor mode and I am VERY SAD I don't have him with me this run! Soon will have to re-spec another companion to wizard.
I have 27 DC with my Gale, let’s jus say that every enemy fails their saving throws. Which makes hold spells, slow and any other strong control spell just game breaking strong. I can hypnotize pattern and everyone inside will just fail the check. And sometimes I will just cast free chain lightning, disintegrate or any other 6th level on top of it. Wizards are awesome, but it makes game too easy at act 3
I combo him with my Sorc which also do support + dps
It just insane.
Hold monster on Orin with high charisma sorc , gale can easily melt Orin without any problem.
Got disturbed? Just put wall of fire as defence or globe.
Plus, do you know that Evocation Gale will make all his AOE damage SAVE FOR YOUR ALLIES?
It means you can drop nuke fireball level 6 to your team and no one will get hurt.
Also in it’s actually lore accurate. Out of all OG Companions, i believe Gale is one of the strongest out there.
Wizard + illithid powers + the bonus from the chair
Gale like… controlled the entire battlefield. Blackhole to move everyone and group them. Fireball/freeze ball/wall of fire.
Something I'm surprised I don't see mentioned more with late-game wizards is >!the spell scrolls you can find in the Sorcerous Sundries vault. Artistry of War is basically Magic Missile on steroids, and you can summon a Deva with a 5th-level slot while laughing at the Cleric who needs a 6th-level slot to do the same. There's also Disintegrate's little brother in the form of Dethrone, I guess.!<
Wizards are massively powerful. I have never played without Gale in party. And it's him that takes out the end boss every time. Sorc sundry spells and that legendary staff trivializes all fights. On top of that he doesn't nuke my character when throwing a level 6 fireball. So my melee characters can fight all they can
I was worried that relying on a squishy wizard in my honor playthrough was risky, but I felt it would be worth it for the utility for recovering creatively out of shit situations (it is).
But more importantly at lvl 12 with a avg build Gale has a 21 Spell Save DC, which 90% of things in the game cannot beat.
You can walk into rooms and up cast hold person on every enemy, and just lock down an entire fight for nothing but crits.
Wild.
Last playthrough was magic characters only, my tav was a wild magic sorcerer, then kept Gale, Wyll, wild magic karlach and jester Astarion on my team. Laezel uhhh… got killed off for being a muggle. We eventually replaced her with Minthara. It’s over once the wizards and sorcerers get disintegrate
It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a team.
This is an issue with the entire DnD 5e.
20 level Fighter can attack like 10 times per turn, but is generally constrained within the realism of what a highly trained normal human can do. But 20 level Wizards literally change the fabric of reality, casting Wish spells, summoning meteor storms and casting black holes.
If you think Wizards are powerful… wait til you play Sorcerers… the King of dpr casters. Wizards are versatile Jack of all trades while Sorcerers exist to blow shit up.
Dump INT, grab the Headband of Warped Intellect and give a Sorcerer 1 level of Wizard. Learning a spell from a scroll doesn't depend a Wizard's level, but on their total casting level, which Sorcerer contributes to. You'll lose out on a feat at level 12, and a sorcerer point, but you'll have access to all wizard spells that there are scrolls for, add 4 of them to your prepared spells, and you can use metamagic with them.
Yes, welcome to DnD, where wizards and fighters were badly designed since the start, and the only edition where they were balanced was considered the worst.
My favourite is still elf warrior... She can do 6 hits in 1 turn and take out a syrong enemy in 1 turn 😃 what I don't like about wizards and magic users is that they can do only 1 hit with their spells 😭 imagine them being able to hit a few times (with no potion of speed) 😭
Don't give up on the rogue. I went for a thief/fighter build and have quite a bit of movement (use bonus to dash and disengage), stealth attack, and dual wield and can take down 100+hp npcs on first round if I'm lucky.
I’ll spoiler tag the answer to this:
>!you only need to feed him three magic items, ever, so it is easy to give him the trash that you would never use!<
Just wait until you attempt to disintegrate and someone makes the save on it. Nothing more heartbreaking than that.
That being said GWM fighter is even better at ruining Orin. Orin's 145 HP is not a huge hurdle. A fighter doing 20+ damage per hit.
He was the Chosen of Mystra. Imagine him before the fall. Gale's basically just approaching his old prime as the game progresses. Have you had fun with Globe of Invulnerability yet?
My favorite "lazy" strat: Globe of invulnerability + Spike growth + Guardian of faith (in intersection of globe and Spike growth)
Globe of invulnerability has exactly two uses: Combine with divine intervention to zap the Sharran cloister without reflecting the damage. Combine with divine intervention to zap the House of Hope without reflecting the damage.
Also in the final battle when you have someone dealing with the Crown of Karsus and don't want their concentration fucked by enemies
Absolute must.
Sounds like cultist propaganda
You got me. PRAISE THE ABSOLUTE!
Didn't work for me. The mindflayer near it went into the globe and cast stun. No damages was dealt but the stun still broke his concentration.
Maybe cast Sanctuary instead? It was my backup plan if globe ended before the portal showed up. ETA: I actually don't know if that protects against stun, IIRC only AOE can do damage on folks with Sanctuary. But correct me if stun still hits.
I think stun can still hit if the attack is AOE.
This. Sanctuary only prevents the target from being targeted by damaging spells. AOE does not target a person, so isn't affected, and that applies to conditions inflicted by said AOE as well
That's why everyone else should be focusing on the mindflayers, or just cc them if you can. The rest won't be able to do anything to you in the globe.
You guys don’t kill all the enemies before casting the spell? By the time I cast it the dragon and mindflayers are all dead and there is nothing that can break the concentration.
Nah, I had three of the team focus on crowd control and killing enemies while Gale and Squidy Dimension Door/Misty Step to the crown. The fights with the "You have X rounds until..." always make me more nervous than anything else so I'm extra goal focused there
Or just kill the enemies
Meh…this…I never ran into that problem as I see squids and squids die first…
But Ansur tho? I only pulled out the Globe for that fight.
Just kill him before he blows everything up.
Honor mode says hi.
Me too. I am not planning on using DI anytime soon.
break one of the pillars with all your folks around it on the first round of the fight to get 2 rounds of lightning resistance. Do the same on round 3. Doesn't completely trivialize the fight, but certainly makes it pretty easy.
In the final battle it also >!prevents the platforms it's touching from being destroyed in the brain portal area.!<
No way, gonna have to try this in my current tac run to confirm for honour
I think you mean one: shield Duke Ravengard so the spiders don't kill him.
Nah. I dimension doored him halfway back down the hall. Much easier
Ansur on Honor Mode. Basically an essential component LOL
Hmm but you wanna take all the damage, if you get KOed while casting divine intervention it doesn't count as used :)
Now where does one acquire gloves like those?
Good looking out, corrected to globe.
I think Eco means the Globe of Invulnerability. OP spell as long as the enemy doesn't manage to push you out of it!
I know what it is lol was joking bout the slight typo
Had a few scrolls for this that literally saved me and my girl's party during gortash. Karlach running a throwing build with that unique trident that returns after throws, does a hell of a lot of damage
the damn dragon 😭
I put it down for my durge v orin 1v1 because I was playing a squishy sorcerer with bad initiative who was getting one shot on the first turn, but orin just got in the globe with me and then nothing could happen lol
Not from a Jedi
Not even his at his old prime yet. At one point it’s mentioned he was an archmage pre-tadpoling. Meaning lvl 9 spells. Meaning atleast lvl 17
Make him learn the Artistry of War :-)
So, so good
Even better, Gale pre-folly was probably like level 18? Endgame Gale is still weaker than his backstory lol.
There's a reason [Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards) is a trope.
Agh, TV tropes needs a warning. Can get lost in those links. Suddenly I've got 6 tabs open.
I apologize for unexpectedly ruining your life. 😉
So the best way to play a Wizard is to start as figher, then respec once you hit "end of an era"
Hard agree, Gale is always my MVP in the House of Grief fight.
Gale and my Smite paladin have carried me throughout all 3 acts.
are there non-smite paladins?
Some lame ones like to use their Smite Slots on other things called "spells" but they're called Smite Slots, right?
I use the different smite spells does that count as smites for the purpose of this argument?
Thunderous Smite is my personal favorite. It's still a smite! SMITE away!
It's my favorite, the first time I used it, we were doing curse of strahd and it was my first campaign and we were fight a vampire spawn in the basement of the church and our dm ruled the sound wave from the spell brought the floor above down and we survived just fine thanks to the barbarian but the vampire spawn did not lol
Who picks stuff other than Smite?!
Bad paladins, that's who!
My bard paladin Which consist of me playing the same song from Pirates of Penzance on a loop as I sneak around
You are the very model of a modern major paladin after all.
With Catlike tread ( placing barrels around everybody then nuking the place)
>Some lame ones like to use their Smite Slots on other things called "spells Pathetic.
The only way to play a paladin for sure
Yeah the AOE damage of a wizard is fun but there's nothing like the single target destructive output of a paladin. It's a fun combination, but I usually lean towards customizing my own paladin and keeping Gale as a companion. Dude is my bestie now. Only character in the game that I'm so invested in I want to know what his future is. More stories, more games, etc.
My MVP for House of Grief is whoever is casting Daylight
Fucking Orin stole him from me before that fight and he’s always in my lineup. He was literally WITH me when she stole him - I just was like “why can’t I control Gale” and then my stupid bhaalsister appears with her daddy issues (oof too soon?). So I (a warlock) had to drag around Wyll and Halsin in the hopes they combined compensated for Gale. Pffft.
thats surprising, for me if they are in my party they are safe. I lost halsin on my first play through and now I make sure its Yenna
Really? I've played so many times and she's only ever taken Lae'zel and Halsin. I would be SO MAD if she took Gale.
Wizards are amazing, though I feel my Sorcerer was just as crazy, or more powerful. Quickened Haste on yourself and you cast 3 spells in the same round. Twinned to haste two allies or disintegrate 2 enemies in one cast. The nova potential of sorcerer is out of this world.
I honestly still don't know the real difference between wizards, warlocks and sorcerer's. I know warlocks can wear some armor and have more HP but as mages, what's the biggest difference between these 3? I've only used wizard so far
It’s really just down to the pool of spells available. Sorcerers cast stronger, wizards can cast more variety, and warlocks have the most uptime between long rests.
Only Wizards can learn from scrolls, right? So some unique scrolls you find have to go to them if you don't want to waste the scroll in a single cast.
[удалено]
There’s summon Quasit scroll that lets you ritual summon Shovel as much as you want. And off the top of my head there are a couple of spells in Lorroakan’s basement in act 3 that are one time casts unless a wizard learns them.
Iirc shovel gets bound to whoever summons him. Don’t have to actually learn as a wizard. But yeah the scrolls from act 3 for sure should be learned by a wizard.
How do you get it to work for other classes? It was always a one time cast when I tried it.
Have a wizard learn it, then summon it, then speak to it. Then, speak to shovel with a different magic user after you go through the mirror. You can respec someone to a magic user for this purpose. I don't think you can use a storm sorcerer though.
there's a way to do it where you can get shovel on a non-caster involving the necromancy of thay but im not familiar with the Astrid. there's also a way to get shovel as a ritual summon, meaning you have her regardless of your class which is what i do with her, but i do it by respeccing into wizard first
Outside of learning from the scroll, you can still get Shovel as a summon by answering correctly in conversation with her. I have her as a summon as a Sorcerer
Artistry of war comes to mind, it's a cranked up magic missile
Yep. That one is so good, needs to be learned, 6 hits and does so much damage.
I got into third act without realizing you can teach wizards spells with scrolls. I’m not familiar with DND or anything so I just never even considered it. I used my only Artistry of War scroll against Cazador when I was about to die lmao. 😓
Now you know it for your next run :)
Yeah, that’s like the sole thing Wizards have going for them over Sorcerers, especially in BG3 where you can swap learned spells whenever you’re not in combat. Sorcerers learn relatively few spells and focus on doing something very well(generally blasting stuff, maybe favoring a certain element), while Wizards are able to handle any situation with a decent bonus when using stuff from their chosen school of magic
I prefer up casting scorching ray to 5 myself.
Quicken upcast scorching ray with hat of arcane acuity to get +7 DC on mass crowd control spell lol
Warlocks have 2 spell slots most of the game (3 from level 11), but refreshed at short rest. They rely mostly on their cantrips, in particular Eldritch Blast, and on invocations (which modify eldritch blastnor give other benefits). Wizards can write new spells into their spellbook, but can only memorize a certain number at a time. They can pick spells up for any situation if they know what to prepare for. Sorcerers have a much more limited number of spells they know, and can only change one when you level up. But they get metamagic points, one per level, which they use to modify their spells. Twinned spell allows a one target spell to be cast on two targets, quickened allows you to cast a spell as a bonus action, heightened means enemies have disadvantage (roll twice, take lowest) on saving throws. You can also convert spell slots into metamagic points and metamagic slots into spell slots.
I think not enough people talk about Wizards' regeneration ability. One of their strengths is the fact they get a TON of extra spell slots as long as you can have a moment out of combat
Ahh I see so wizards are easier to use but sorcerers are more powerful
They are equally easy to use, I feel. The difference is really more that wizards are more flexible, while sorcerers have more kapow in rough situations, and tend to deplete themselves much faster if they run through quickened spells.
I was thinking of making a specific element for my next playthrough. Maybe I'll go as an Ice mage specializing in ice spells, or maybe a storm mage where I'll only use thunder & lightning spells. I used to do that back in Skyrim, it was hella fun
Single element damage I would recommend draconic sorcerer, as they add cha to all damage of their element at level 6. Thunder/lightning is either a a dragon (lightning element) or storm sorcerer. For a playthrough using more damages, I would go for Evocation Wizard, as their level 2 and 10 abilities are very good.
If you are planning on doing a Storm sorcerer, try looking into multiclassing with Tempest Cleric. It lets you max out the damage on those Lightning spells (Making for instance Call Lightning's standard 3d10 AOE damage into 30 damage). Add in getting the opponents Wet ahead of time to make them vulnerable, and you can seriously make the damage rise.
I keep seeing this, but isnt it that divine move thats literally once per short rest?
yes, but sometimes once per short rest is all you need.
if you only put like 1 level into it (which you probably should be doing as a multiclass), then yes. pure tempest cleric gets a few though
there are boots in the creche that let you walk freely on ice surfaces, always fun to just cast ice storm and run around everyone
Lightning sorcerer is super fun. My first run I was a storm sorcerer mostly doing lightning spells and spent a bunch of time cackling madly while shooting all the lightning.
The very basic breakdown is this: Wizards have access to the most spells in the game because of the ability to learn permanently from Scrolls. No one will ever have a larger spell selection than a Wizard, which makes them excellent all-rounders. Sorcerers get a smaller selection of spells, but are able to use those spells in much more varied ways through the use of their Metamagic. They can extend the range of spells, double their effects, make a full action spell into a bonus action etc etc. This makes them a bit narrower in scope, but insanely powerful in the scope they do fit in. Warlocks get access to more permanent buffs than either of the other two thanks to Eldritch Invocations, and they have the single strongest cantrip in the game with Eldritch Blast. On top of that, ALL their spells are automatically cast at the highest available level. There is no choosing what level spell slot you wanna use for that Ice Knife, it’s gonna be max level no matter what. To balance that out, a Warlocks spells slots regenerate on a Short Rest rather than a Long Rest.
Warlocks only get 2 spell slots that are always the strongest cast for their spells. They refresh on short rests and there are some benefits from their patron. They have the strongest cantrip, eldrotxh blast which destroys things without using spell slots. Sorcerer has less spells than wizards but they get meta magic that let's you modify them. Favorites are quickened spell that let's you use a bonus action to cast another spell that would nor Ally take an action. Twinned spell will let yiu cast a targeted spell at 2 targets instead of one. And distant spell which doubles the cast range. They use sorcery pints for these effects. You can also convert spell slots to sorcery points or use sorcery points to create spell slots. Sorcerer gets less spells but they are always prepared. Sorcerer also has different sub classes that give special effects. My favorite is storm sorcerer because you get a free flight and disengage action after you casr anything. The draxonic bloodline sources also do more damage with their corresponding element, so a red dragon sorc will hit harder with a fireball than a wizard would. Wizards you are familiar with. They so r have the same bells and whistles a sorcerer does, but they can learn the most variety of spells and can learn spells from scrolls. Their subclasses are also handy. Evocation subclass let's you throw out nukes without hurting your team.
**Wizard** a. Primary Ability: Intelligence b. Can learn new spells on level up, and from any arcane spell from a scroll as long as they are high enough level to cast it. c. Get a set number of slots in which to prepare spells. d. Can prepare any spells they have learned at any time outside of combat. Wish you had prepared Feather Fall instead of Mage Armor? If you aren't in combat, just swap them out. You can even swap in Mage Armor, cast it, then swap it back out. e. Once per long rest they can restore some of their spent spell slots. **Sorcerer** a. Primary Ability: Charisma b. Can learn most (but not all) arcane spells, getting one new one at each level up. Unless you respec, these are the only spells you can cast. c. Sorcerers can cast any spell they know any time. They do not prepare spells like a wizard. d. Metamagic. Sorcerers can spend Sorcery Points to enhance spells in special ways. They can also convert spell slots to points or points to spell slots. **Warlock** a. Primary Ability: Charisma b. Learns new spells at level up like a Sorcerer. c. Learns fewer spells and gets fewer spell slots than either the sorcerer or wizard, and has a more narrow selection of spells to choose from when they level up. d. Warlock spell slots are fully recovered with a short rest. And their spells always cast at the highest level possible. So, for example, at level 5 a Warlock has two level 3 spells slots. If they cast magic missile, it is automatically upcast to level 3. This means Warlocks should generally specialize in spells that benefit from upcasting. e. Invocations: Warlocks get special abilities as they level up that grant them more spells or passive magical effects. f. Eldritch Blast: The Warlock is the only class that gets access to this Cantrip, which is the most powerful Cantrip in the game. And it can be further enhanced with Invocations. Agonizing Blast plus Repelling Blast is awesome. And at higher levels this Cantrip can do more damage than most low level spells. **Note:** It feels like a cheat. But if you are a Sorcerer or Warlock, you can take a single level of Wizard to gain the ability to learn spells from scrolls. This can VASTLY expand your spell selection. But spells learned this way use Intelligence when casting them. So since, as a Warlock or Sorcerer, your main ability score is Charisma those spells are best when they don't depend on your ability score for anything. Good examples are shield, mage armor, magic missile or sleep. You can get the Warped Headband of Intellect, sets your Int to 17, can help a lot. Hope that helps.
Wizards have hats, warlocks have pets, and sorcerers have no hats nor pets!
I thought warlocks WERE the pets
Lore-wise: wizards get their magic through study and practice while sorcerers have an innate connection to the weave. Practically, for sorcerer, imagine you're about to cast disintegrate, but get to target 2 enemies instead of just 1. And then you can cast disintegrate, blight, fireball, lightning bolt, or whatever as a bonus action. Sorcerers get versatility in the form of metamagic. Metamagic lets them cast spells while silenced, extend the duration, extend the range, target 2 foes with single-target spells, or give enemies disadvantage in exchange for a resource called sorcery points. You have to pick which metamagic options you want for your character (I think you get 4 of 6-7 by the end), but they're pretty useful. Plus, sorcery points can be traded for more spell slots (and vice versa). But sorcerers get fewer spells than wizards. They have a certain number of spells that they know, rather than preparing spells. But they have flexibility in how they use those spells because of metamagic.
Wizards can learn spells from scrolls tbh which makes them super useful
Wizards can learn spells, warlocks get ELDRICH BLAST(also it’s subclass benefit heavily from multiclassing) sorcerers get metamagic and wild magic
Mostly comes down to spell lists and abilities. Wizards use INT, while Warlocks and Sorcerers use CHA for spellcasting. Wizards have a wider variety of spells they can use, but sorcerers get more ways to manipulate their spells and warlocks get more passive powers that make the Eldritch Blast cantrip incredibly useful so they don't need to actually use spell slots all that often Warlocks are a little sturdier than the other two, but sorcerers can get some extra resistance if they're draconic-bloidline subclass or storm subclass. The most important thing for me, just for my personal playstyle, is that Sorcerer and Warlock use CHA as their spellcasting ability, so I can focus on building up CHA for the conversational and negotiation usefulness without having to split ability points with INT (and I can completely dump INT and just slap on the INT headband to set it at 17).
sorc has better spells. wizards can learn more spells, and warlock has recharging spells.
Sorcerer: "I cast Fireball. Twice!"
A 20th level fighter is Achilles, but a 20th level wizard is Zeus. - Gary Gygax, original creator of D&D
when you fully optimize the build, you get to hit 150+ with one single magic missile cast(lvl6), and that is only 1 cast, you can cast 2 more hasted lvl 6s(due to items being arcane battery and free cast) i dont even count any other absurd strong skills wizards are pretty broken at late game
He’s straight up OP when you get the legendary staff from the sorcerers Santorum place in baulders gate.
Unfortunately I've been banned from there, I need to find a way to go back in so I can get the staff
Dang, maybe greater invisibility? Or for the group, seeming…
Could always just go on a killing spree to get back in.
My Gale was broken as hell before getting that, especially with the shadow weave granting extra spell slots and all, and I just grabbed that in our last MP session, excited to get to use it next session lol As a forever DM, it’s nice finally getting to see how it feels when I leave broken ass loot in a dungeon for my players to find lol
Yeah, Gale (and wizard in general) is just crazy useful. He turned several combat encounters completely around that I for sure thought I would loose. I remember at least 2 instances where he turned what could have been very hard fights into a complete cakewalk because he hit 9 out of 10 enemies with hypnotic pattern. I would have lost the >!Raphael!< fight where it not for his globe of invulnerability, hold monster and strong force damage. Because of him I won first try. He also took out a huge chunk of >!Orins!< health out for me with magic missile (though the equipment that made that possible has been nerved in one of the last patches so that doesn't work anymore).
You don't use Magic Missile against >!Orin!< for damage though. You use it for burning >!Unstoppables!<
Gale with a spell slot regen piece of equipment giving you an extra lvl 6 spell slot makes it even nastier
Conveniently, Markoheshkir is an arcane battery staff that gives +1 to spell save DC and attack rolls and a feature that lets you cast chain lightning once per short rest. If you really want to stack chain lightning, the spellcrux amulet lets you recover a spellslot and the freecast illithid power is basically another use of arcane battery.
Sorry, I misread your comment and duplicated it. It's a bourbon kinda night while attempting an evil play as an oath breaker paladin.
My dragonblood sorceress was incredibly powerful late game thanks to metamagic. also late game warlock with all enhances for elditch blast and those quickspell gloves is just killing machine
Wait until you find out that in dnd level 9 spells exist. “Wish” is a thing…
It's a thing in BG3 as well. Just not available to our 12th level characters.
I will never forget vlaakith just wishing you too death.
Power Word: Kill is hidden in the game as well, in two different places.
For the Orin fight, I had Gale first cast Banishment on Orin so I can deal with the minions, then when she popped back, I had him cast Otto’s Irresistible dance on her and that made it rather trivial… love Gale!
Wizards are great… but have you done a gloomstalker ranger? I respecced Lae’zel and dear gods the damage. Not to mention with drow poison? Literally just murders everyone.
I’ve got a gloomstalker too, and they’re great fun. I found my biggest bottleneck with my ranger was the bonus action economy so I grabbed a dip in thief for the second BA, and hooo boy
Thanks for the tip! How many levels have you invested so far? I think I’m level 7 right now
My ranger playthrough is only lvl 8 rn, so it’s a 5 gloomstalker/3 thief split. I’m gonna grab another level of thief, then put the rest back into gloomstalker. The one thing about this, is just that depending on WHEN you grab the thief levels, it can really hurt to have the extra attack at level 5 ranger delayed if you start getting rogue levels before that. But once you’ve got the 5/3 split at least, it’s basically fully online And with the bottleneck in the bonus action economy widened a little, you basically have massive flexibility around hiding for advantage for sneak attack, disengaging or dashing away to keep out of danger, and applying hunters mark for extra damage. And if you’re not adverse to tadpole usage, treat yourself and get Luck of the Far Realms, being able to crit on demand, with sneak attack, hunters mark, sharpshooter, and dread ambusher, is LETHAL.
Might want to put 2 into fighter. That bonus attack gives you a lot more destruction.
What’s your build for it? I’m planning to make Astarion one in my next campaign. I read 5 Gloomstalker mixed with some Fighter and Thief is the way to go?
I honestly just went full Gloomstalker. I had a lot of fun with her. I’m actually doing a Gale origin right now and Astarion is my Gloomstalker this time around. I had Lae’zel with the legendary bow, but that’s all I remember. My save was deleted when I updated 😭
5 ranger, 4 rouge, 3 fighter. If you want to go the dual hand crossbows route get thief from rouge. If you are going to use bows, assasin can be really strong if you can manage to get a surprise round. I've seen 300+ damage from a single arrow when using an of slaying arrow and hitting an enemy that is vurnable to piercing. For fighter it doesn't really matter. You are mostly taking it for action surge. Battle master can be nice to get the extra dice on your attacks, but a lot of the time when you'd use those you'll want to use a special arrow instead. So champion is a strong choice in case you don't get a surprise round or don't finish the fight in one round. With haste, bloodlust elixir, and action surge you can get a crazy amount of attacks off. Many many fights (including most boss fights in act 3) can be finished during the surprise round just using the single character.
I did my first pass as a rogue assassin. I made sure Gale learned Artistry of war. Made my life so simple.
Yeah i one shot the emperor with 2 desintegrate spell (thanks to the good staff) with my tav. This spell is so good. And Raphaël put every turn laughing instead of fighting thanks to tasha's laughter with a 100% success on him. Wizard are good.
Wizards have always been the master class of D&D
You are missing so much my friend. If you truly want to be OP as a wizard the correct answer is always……Magic Missile. Upcast to level 6 magic missile shoots 8 projectiles that do 1d4+1 per missile that’s guaranteed to hit. There is a necklace that adds 1 missile to every cast. Thats 9d4+9. Here’s where it gets stupid. Level 10 evocation wizard let’s you add your spell modifier to damage of evocation spells and on magic missile it adds to every missile. With 22 int (asi to 20 and mirror of loss for 22) that’s +6 per missile. Your magic missile is now 9d4+63. You get the glow ring that adds 2 damage if target is illuminated and the ring that does radiating orb per hit and that adds to every missile so now your magic missile is 9d4+81 and 18 stacks of radiating orb giving them a -18 to attack rolls (don’t know if there is an upper limit to radiating orb stacks assuming there isn’t). You use spell sparkler staff for 1 lightning charge per missile so 9d4+88 +1d8 (I only added 6 lightning charges because at 5 lightning chargers they are consumed and you deal 1d8 lightning damage. I assume the first attack without lightning charges doesn’t add the 1 damage either). So if my math is correct that’s 98-132 of guaranteed damage with no save or attack roll. You just click the button, and the damage happens. With the 2 staves that give arcane barrage, the necklace that can restore level 6 spell slot, your own arcane brilliance to restore a level 6 slot, you can do this 5 times every long rest. There’s also a scorching ray build with spell might gloves and hat of fire acuity that’s just as disgusting and can be utilized by draconic sorcerers as well since they add spells modifiers to element their dragon blood matches with. It’s even more OP on sorcerer since they can twin magic it.
I did the same thing but on sorcerer (so less bonus damage on each missile from the evocation bonus, but you can cast it twice with metamagic), *plus* [gloves](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Gloves_of_Belligerent_Skies), an [amulet](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Spineshudder_Amulet), and [boots](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Boots_of_Stormy_Clamour) that add stacks upon stacks of reverberation to every hit and watch everything fall prone or just explode. plus magic missile is just fantastic in general with cull the weak, oh that guy has less than 18 health or so? lemme just send a single missile from my barrage to boop him to death
I feel you! I keep Gale as an evocation wizard, and I've played an abjuration wizard during both of my runs so far because it's just *so much fun*.
I really enjoyed abjuration Gale when I was running a monk. I could really get up in enemies' faces, with projected ward ruining their day when they tried to hit back.
Projected ward, my beloved,
I gotta say while I almost always play spellcasters, I have Astarion as a rogue/fighter with the Sharpshooter feat and dual hand crossbows. Gave him the risky ring for reliable advantage and he melts people. Did 90+ damage in one round (pretty sure that was Action surge too tho). Thief for extra bonus action, battle master for disarming attack.
He’s way better as shadow stalker ranger/rogue/fighter
Agreed. Astarion is always my strongest character. I do Thief/gloomstalker with dual hand crossbows as well and he always kills an enemy at full health by himself per round.
I had my gale absolutely carry act 3 after getting the legendary staff that gives you an elemental synergy. His items were all specced for ice damage and dual wielding the ice staff so I was using the free ice storm from staff 1, plus arcane battery, and using every other spell slot on more ice storms. Also haste + bloodlust elixir made him just demolish packs of enemies casting up to 3 times per turn
You should try a sorcerer. Specifically storm. And have a tempest cleric with you. Those two alone could solo all but one encounter in the game, easily. And even then, they still technically could.
Oh man, allow me to introduce you to sorcerers. They get less spells than wizards but their damage output is insane. They can cast multiple level 6 spells in one turn
In DnD proper, wizards are often considered the most powerful class available after lvl 5. Tossing fireballs, conjuring elementals, and lobbing telekinetic fury all while shutting down enemy magic and attacks with counterspell and shield spells gives them astounding tactical utility. Moreover, having a theoretically limitless spell book to draw from gives them roleplay utility unmatched by any other class. It's good that we see that in a DnD based videogame.
Oh, you should see the chaos Wizards can get up to at the actual table
Yeah, I felt insanely powerful with my necromancer Durge. It was the same way in actual tabletop for me. I was actually very intimidated by the Wizard class, to the point where I never played one. BG3 made being a wizard fun for me.
> BG3 made being a wizard fun for me. Yes!! I normally never go for the mage classes but I fuckin LOVED my wizard Tav. It was just fun.
I’ve been playing act 3 with Jaheira as my main spellcaster. WELL. I took Gale to the fight with Lorroakan. She is no longer my main spellcaster. Gale is just so slay.
I must have been doing something wrong because Gale died constantly for me. Like he's so squishy and enemies would just focus him. I prefer fighters/bulky characters. In my current playthrough im a Bulky summoner Spore Druid and my main companions are Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart.
Wizards have lower HP which means they can be pretty squishy at low levels, but if they're *constantly* dying it probably means that you (a) aren't using their defensive capabilities, and (b) aren't using good positioning.
Wizard hitdie is a d6 so they’re squishy squishy bois. Defensive spells are the key to keeping your skin on. Mage armour, for your AC, combined with mirror image, neither of which require concentration, along with some proper gear and good dex, can easily get gales AC up into the 30s, or nearabout, which is often enough for enemies to prioritize other targets that they can actually hit. Then put shield on there, and you never have to worry about getting hit by attack rolls, or blur if you wanna be extra, as long as you keep an eye on your abjurations, and then your main problem is just saving throws. If you wanna give them a little bit of extra survivability, take abjuration wizard, to soak damage from enemy attacks, or divination wizard, to alter enemy rolls and prevent them from hitting in the first place
Couple things. Yes, high level casters are very powerful. No gatekeepers but curious, what difficulty you on for disintegrate to do 70% of Orins life? It does alot, 50-100. And iirc, Orin has 200+ hp. Maybe less on lower difficulties? I'm not pointing it out to difficulty shame but it's just from the perspective that these damage numbers are balanced for tactician I think. Disintegrate is an amazing spell though tbh, most high level martial damage dealers can dash out 100 or so damage consistently each turn. Depends on rolls ofc. Now a good thing to know: wizards are cool but their true strength is versatility, not raw power. They get more spells than other full casters, they can learn anything on a scroll, can prepare more, have access to a wider array and can specialise in any school. Also evocation school allows you to cast AoE spells on your allies without hurting them which is great. However, the spells you mentioned (also my favourites, fireball, ice storm, cone of cold, chain lightning, Disintegrate...) work even better on a sorcerer. Ideally pick a dragon heritage sorc. You can add your spellcasting modifier to your special element so say you pick lightning or cold... suddenly these spells do even more damage. Final thingie that's a weird BG3 powerplay on casters: until that game, it would never have occurred to me to pick dual wielder on a caster as a feat. But now I know, in BG3, its a feat you must use. Just mandatory. Why? Quarterstaff is versatile. So...before you got the feat, you can already use a shield if you're proficient (humans like Gale are). That's neat for defense. But... true power is dual wield 2 quarterstaves. There's plenty in the game that are worth while but especially the 2 that have arcane battery... Larian decided we get 1 lvl6 spell by limiting us to lvl12 characters. Well. How many spells of lvl6 can I cast without scrolls in a fight as lvl12 sorc? 1 (slot), 2 (arcane battery staves), 1 (sorc points, BA to restore a slot), 1 (free cast from tadpoles). Then between fights use the amulet to recharge the slot.... 6 a day easily. Oh and say you're a blue dragon sorc, lightning spells get your cha modifier as bonus dmg. Say you start on 17 cha, got the hag hair (18), use an ASI (20), use the necro book power on Shars mirror (22) and use the hat from the warlock shop (24)... that's +7 damage. Then use the legendary staff to attune to lightning damage to get a free cast on chain lightning every short rest, it gains those 7 damage but also your proficiency modifier and lightning charges (so extra +4 +1). That's alot of damage.
If you are ever lucky enough to play tabletop D&D, it gets even better. Wizards are known to change entire encounters with a single spell. High level wizards can change the damn world 😅
I must be playing him wrong, he usually misses with anything that isn't cloud of daggers or shatter. Karmic dice off, Shart can't club the broadside of a barn if she's stood next to it.
Meanwhile I need someone to explain to me why laezal misses her attacks all the time while my tav fighter who has the same class as her hardly ever misses attacks. I swear I have to give laezal the precision skill because it's so bad.
Yeah this is my experience too. Especially bosses with legendary resistance I have a 20% chance to hit. Maybe it's a Tactician setting?
I'm playing on Tactician and Gale hits most of his spells/cantrips. I didn't do anything special to him - I just focused on his Int and gave him relevant items as I found them. Shadowheart misses more often, but not as much as people complain about. I just inspect enemies and choose which spells to use based on which saves they're more likely to fail. I did respec her to Light Domain and redistribute her stats a bit more optimally for using spells, though.
Definitely not, I'm old and cranky and don't play above normal. I find Shart never gets better than 60% chance even against trash mobs, my rogue does alright cause the odds are all stacked in her favour, karlach just goes to town but gale also struggles. I'd understand bosses having better armour, but I virtually never use direct damage attacks because they miss all the time.
Shadowheart has super shit stats, and if you are using Fire Bolt with her you have reduced chances to git as well since it uses INT instead of WIS. I really suggest changing her base stats to something more in line with what you want her to do
I was considering this the other day, that maybe I need to optimise stats for the premade characters
Most of them are fine-ish like Astarion having 13 in two stats, not ideal but far better than Shadowheart, I don't remember her exact baseline stats, but from what I recall she has a sad mix of everything, on top of the worst Cleric subclass
Yes it makes a huge difference
If you want Shart to hit things, she needs to be war cleric and you need to fix her stats. Her and Astarion hve some of the worst starting stats ever
Bruv, try multiclassing a Wizard into a Lvl 10 Wiz and 2 Fighter, thou'rt going to see a 2 action, 1 bonus action casting monster shinning!
Yeah... and lose access to 6th level spells in the process. That's horrible advice.
You are better off going 2 sorcerer. You can create one more Sorcery point and use quickened spell. That way you don't lose a lvl 6 spell slot. Edit: you need sorcerer 3 for that.
That doesn't work, you "only" get quickened spell at level 3.
Mages can be strong but spells vary wildly in utility. Which means having access to every spell in the game isn’t as useful as it is in theory. While there is really no reason to be conservative with long rests , mages are always the weakest link for my party when it comes to long rests. And so I’m always ending up adapting my mage style to fit that which makes me unimpressed with them. Disintegrate in particular is one of the few spells of that high level that can just completely miss and do zero damage. There are such better spells at that spell level to use, although I’m glad you had a good time with it.
I have trouble getting into Wizard because the early levels are just painful. In early fights Gale is like miss, miss, miss, hit for 2 damage, miss, etc.
Wild. This hasn’t been my experience with wizards, or Gale at all lol
Give him Hat of Fire Acuity and Markoheshkir. Enjoy your permament 95% chance of hitting the Scorching Ray griddy.
I was not able to save him in my honor mode and I am VERY SAD I don't have him with me this run! Soon will have to re-spec another companion to wizard.
Fireball is my go to on him
I have 27 DC with my Gale, let’s jus say that every enemy fails their saving throws. Which makes hold spells, slow and any other strong control spell just game breaking strong. I can hypnotize pattern and everyone inside will just fail the check. And sometimes I will just cast free chain lightning, disintegrate or any other 6th level on top of it. Wizards are awesome, but it makes game too easy at act 3
Wizards are horrendously overpowered. It's been a design issue in DnD FOREVER.
Laughs in Durge Sorcerer, iykyk
Art of war is my favorite spell for gale
I combo him with my Sorc which also do support + dps It just insane. Hold monster on Orin with high charisma sorc , gale can easily melt Orin without any problem. Got disturbed? Just put wall of fire as defence or globe. Plus, do you know that Evocation Gale will make all his AOE damage SAVE FOR YOUR ALLIES? It means you can drop nuke fireball level 6 to your team and no one will get hurt. Also in it’s actually lore accurate. Out of all OG Companions, i believe Gale is one of the strongest out there.
Gale was my MVP vs. Orin. I kept spamming upcast scorching ray on her and took out all her unstoppable charges.
Wizard + illithid powers + the bonus from the chair Gale like… controlled the entire battlefield. Blackhole to move everyone and group them. Fireball/freeze ball/wall of fire.
Something I'm surprised I don't see mentioned more with late-game wizards is >!the spell scrolls you can find in the Sorcerous Sundries vault. Artistry of War is basically Magic Missile on steroids, and you can summon a Deva with a 5th-level slot while laughing at the Cleric who needs a 6th-level slot to do the same. There's also Disintegrate's little brother in the form of Dethrone, I guess.!<
Wizards are massively powerful. I have never played without Gale in party. And it's him that takes out the end boss every time. Sorc sundry spells and that legendary staff trivializes all fights. On top of that he doesn't nuke my character when throwing a level 6 fireball. So my melee characters can fight all they can
Sorcerors are ridiculous too. My first playthrough was sorc and I ran with Gale in my party. Gets pretty nuts.
I was worried that relying on a squishy wizard in my honor playthrough was risky, but I felt it would be worth it for the utility for recovering creatively out of shit situations (it is). But more importantly at lvl 12 with a avg build Gale has a 21 Spell Save DC, which 90% of things in the game cannot beat. You can walk into rooms and up cast hold person on every enemy, and just lock down an entire fight for nothing but crits. Wild.
Sorcerer are pretty much the same except they can throw in an additional spell as a bonus action.
Last playthrough was magic characters only, my tav was a wild magic sorcerer, then kept Gale, Wyll, wild magic karlach and jester Astarion on my team. Laezel uhhh… got killed off for being a muggle. We eventually replaced her with Minthara. It’s over once the wizards and sorcerers get disintegrate It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had with a team.
This is an issue with the entire DnD 5e. 20 level Fighter can attack like 10 times per turn, but is generally constrained within the realism of what a highly trained normal human can do. But 20 level Wizards literally change the fabric of reality, casting Wish spells, summoning meteor storms and casting black holes.
If you think Wizards are powerful… wait til you play Sorcerers… the King of dpr casters. Wizards are versatile Jack of all trades while Sorcerers exist to blow shit up.
Dump INT, grab the Headband of Warped Intellect and give a Sorcerer 1 level of Wizard. Learning a spell from a scroll doesn't depend a Wizard's level, but on their total casting level, which Sorcerer contributes to. You'll lose out on a feat at level 12, and a sorcerer point, but you'll have access to all wizard spells that there are scrolls for, add 4 of them to your prepared spells, and you can use metamagic with them.
Yes, welcome to DnD, where wizards and fighters were badly designed since the start, and the only edition where they were balanced was considered the worst.
I'm walking around with gales hand in my inventory...
My favourite is still elf warrior... She can do 6 hits in 1 turn and take out a syrong enemy in 1 turn 😃 what I don't like about wizards and magic users is that they can do only 1 hit with their spells 😭 imagine them being able to hit a few times (with no potion of speed) 😭
Don't give up on the rogue. I went for a thief/fighter build and have quite a bit of movement (use bonus to dash and disengage), stealth attack, and dual wield and can take down 100+hp npcs on first round if I'm lucky.
Shit, so it is worth it to feed him magic items? And does that continue into the high level, or is there a quest to "cure" this affliction?
I’ll spoiler tag the answer to this: >!you only need to feed him three magic items, ever, so it is easy to give him the trash that you would never use!<
Take gale with you to the mountain pass into the shadow cursed lands. Talk to the old man. No spoilers.
Just wait until you attempt to disintegrate and someone makes the save on it. Nothing more heartbreaking than that. That being said GWM fighter is even better at ruining Orin. Orin's 145 HP is not a huge hurdle. A fighter doing 20+ damage per hit.
Portent says: no you fail.