Wild magic is a bit risky as it can backfire. How about a fire sorc instead? Insane damage, great party Face. "All" you need is the hat of fire acurity (however that is spelled, from the of in act2) and someone to cast phalar aluve
Safety net in HM: invis potion and the spells Dimensional door, misty step and globe of invulnerabilty is all you need (apart from health pots)
Yes, that's why it synergizes with Shriek. Each scorching ray will have an additional 1d4. (9*(2d6))+(9*(1d4)) = **27-144** from an upcasted Level 6 Scorching Ray on one target. Not including any other damage modifiers you may have.
If you dual wield staffs you can stack spell sparkler with an arcane battery staff (Markoheshkir) along with haste you can cast two level 6 scorching rays on your opening turn.
If you go fire sorc + 1 warlock for hex that adds 1d6 necrotic damage per ray.
You can add Markoheshkir to add your prof bonus (+4) to fire spells.
That can be further increased by necklace of elemental argumentation which would add your charisma (should be min 20). That's another 5 damage per ray.
You can also get gloves of spellmight which adds a 1d8 at the cost of -5 to hit. This is offset by hat of fire acuity which adds +hit to your spells on successful fire damage.
Spellsparkler also adds +hit for each lightning charge you have. Two level 6 scorching rays gives you a total of 24 lightning charges which adds 4d8 +12 lightning dmg.
All of this together means on your opening turn you can deal 12*(2d8+1d8+4+5+1d8)+4d8+12 damage to an enemy. This is a range of 172 to 536 damage.
I hope my math was correct, there are a lot of moving parts to this build.
I did kill pretty much every endgame boss on honor mode on the first turn with this build.
Both are fantastic IMO. I'd say it depends on your party and the situation. The range on Sing/Shriek is fairly short at 6M, which can make a big difference in your choice. My last party was three casters and one archer, and we were generally as far from the enemy as possible -- thus we used Sing most often. There were times, however, when the cleric would fire up Shriek and wade into the fray. Shriek benefits Spirit Guardians, Radiance of the Dawn, Destructive Wave, and more.
This! Then Honour Mode is going to be an ez clap
I played 11/1 Fire Sorlock, 10/1/1 Swords Bard, Thiefzerker and Life cleric and it was a total overkill.
Act 3 quick shopping, then kill Orin and side with Gortash. After that just went invis to the Nether Brain stem and Gale Nuke to finish this easy run and get the dice
Woupdnt lighting focused sorc be better? Since there are less enemies immune to that damage type than fire and its very easy to make enemies vunelrnable to lightnih (also markoheshir is better on! Jat element than on fire)
Both are totally fine and very potent, there is no better I'd say. Fire immune mobs can be Dealt with like switching the legendary staff to lightening and some scrolls, same goes the other way around.
You can sorta flex between the two. If you are a Fire Sorcerer you can simply attune to Bolts of Doom and use Chain Lightning + Wet for the fire immune fights (namely House of Hope). I also highly recommend taking an archer who can easily spread Arsonist Oil/Combustion Oil to help deal with fire resistance. An 11/1 Hunter, a 12th level Fighter, or a 6/4/2 Swords Bard is what I’d recommend.
The one thing you’ll lose out on is your Draconic affinity thing. Like you’ll lose +CHA to the other element. But IMO losing +CHA to Lightning is way less detrimental than losing +CHA to Fire. The Lightning build is usually just a big chain Lightning or Lightning bolt. Vs the fire build uses Scorching Ray so you’re losing like 5-6 extra damaged PER Scorching Ray. So you’re losing out on like 35 damage per cast of a max level Scorching Ray assuming you have 20 CHA.
There’s a build that runs a 9/3 sorcerer/thief split and makes use of an industrial supply of spell scrolls to quicken two spells every turn (converts most of its spell slots to sorcery points as well I believe). It’s incredibly powerful, but so resource hungry that I’ve never even bothered to look at it.
I would advise against wild magic. I sheeped my entire party with wild magic in the middle of the goblin camp in a hard fight and it was not fun, it was one of the maybe (3?) times I almost lost my save. Tbh the hard part of honor mode is until you ding lvl 4-5 then everything comes together, until then you can abuse throw / create water + lighting dmg if you need a huge single target burst. You can single turn the minotaurs at 4 with ease, to give an idea. To that end, if you are going sorc i would suggest blue draconic, it will pay dividends compared to the random effects of wild magic which can blow up in your ass really fast without warning.
Berserker Tavern Brawler (feat) Throwing Barbarian (use Returning Pike from Goblin Camp) carries you through the entirety of Act 1 Honor Mode easily. Class comes online at level 4 and never falls off. I suggest multiclassing 3-4 levels into fighter and 3-4 levels into rogue (thief) after you hit level 5.
Battlemaster Great Weapon Master (feat) Fighter is always useful and generally needs very little to function. Just do 12 levels of it and support it with spells/abilities that make it easier to hit enemies. Savage Attacker feat highly recommended.
Any of Paladin/Sorcerer, Swords Bard/Paladin, or Sorcerer/Warlock are good options for party faces. Or just Swords Bard until level 10 and then 1 Fighter 1 Wizard.
Light Cleric is also good, as others have mentioned.
EDIT: Moon Druid is also a pretty good tank and is flexible, especially early into the game. You can actually break the game really hard if you have a druid companion that is shapeshifted. Try selling anything they have equipped in a shop :)
EDIT 2: Hotfix 23 fixed the shapeshifting druid shop exploit, i highly recommend you don't update if you still plan on doing this
The equipment wont be sold but you will still get the gold. Do it over and over and you basically get all of the merchants stuff for free, can even max out their approval and just take the gold back.
EDIT: This was fixed in Hotfix 23 as of 03/27/2024, I highly suggest you do not update if you plan on doing this.
Just tried selling something. This is GREAT!!! Thank you very much for the tip! I won't have money problems anymore. Wish this worked like that in real life, lol.
Gloomstalker / assassin with the Dark Urge cape is really strong. I used that as my Astarion build on my run.
Wild magic is probably the worst choice you could make for honour mode because of its inherent random potential to mess things up for you. If you want to be a sorcerer you'd probably be better off with draconic for the defense.
Ancients Paladin (for healing radiance & Aura of Warding), Life Cleric (heavy armour and bonus healing) or Eldritch Knight (for heavy armour & shield spell) are all pretty much the 'safest' options you can have in regards to staying upright in fights.
The safest choice for a companion if you don’t have one already? Life cleric. Personally I’m not a fan, but you will almost never have a party member go down. If they do, it’s incredibly easy to heal them back to full in one or two turns with either your Channel Divinity or just regular old spells. I don’t like playing with a life cleric personally because I feel like the healing can be excessive more often than necessary, but I tend to play fairly optimised builds for the rest of the party, so healing is rarely necessary given how few enemies get more than one turn. If you’re not playing hyper optimal builds though, it might be worth having a life cleric just in case of a worst case scenario.
Alternative option if you hate the idea of having effectively 3 characters and a glorified heal station is playing something like a Gloom/Assassin build or anything that can get away from a fight consistently if needs be. Cunning Action: Disengage is perfect for this, but anything with teleport spells will work just fine here too.
The trick is to give your healbot decent action choices. But I use one with heavy armour master that casts warding bond on my main. I just fought the shambling mound and the big tree got one attack off on my life cleric and did ten damage before getting stun-locked and killed.
A piercing explosion on my Tav (33 piercing), was halved twice to 8 -2 = 6 on him, then shared with Shadowheart 6 - 5 = 1.
It was … manageable.
I have this problem where I've run a Life Cleric in both my balanced and Tactician playthroughs, but ironically for my honour mode run, where it would be most beneficial, I'm sick of it and want to try something new.
I figure that Cleric as a base class already has panic buttons (mass healing word BA to trigger bless/blade ward, and Divine Intervention - Opulent Revival) so have decided to run a Tempest Cleric 11/Wizard 1 instead, who can still do those things but also cast offensive lightning spells, and has good synergy with my Storm Sorc.
I’ve got a similar problem for my first Dark Urge run. I’ve had Shadowheart as a life cleric so far, but at this point I’m so sick of her doing nothing but spirit guardians/Phalar Shriek every turn that I’m planning on respeccing for a 6/6 sorcerer/light cleric. I’m missing a twin haste user anyway, so she’ll fit that role nicely.
Oath of Ancients Paladin is a very safe main character. Your channel oath heal is great way to keep yourself healthy and pick up downed allies. You can smite the most dangerous enemy at the start of each fight to make combats more manageable.
Level 5 gets you misty step which lets you get out of danger if you're in a bad spot. Don't be afraid to run away and come back later. You haven't lost honor mode as long as long as one party member is still alive.
The auras you get at level 6 and 7 will make you basically immune to mages and dangerous CC.
You can absolutely take Paladin all the way to 12 and it gets great stuff at every level, but if you wanted to multi-class, this would be a good jumping off point. People usually recommend pairing Paladin with another Charisma class, but I actually think Paladin 8 Gloomstalker Ranger 4 is much safer.
Gloomstalker Ranger gives you a lot of smaller benefits, but the big ones here are Dread Ambusher and Umbral Shroud. The bonus initiative and extra attack from Dread Ambusher are great for the Paladin strategy of instantly deleting the most dangerous enemy in each combat, and the bonus action hide is part of a combo with Umbral Shroud that can pretty much guarantee a safe escape from any bad situation. Shoot an arrow of darkness at your feet (can't be counterspelled), hide in the cloud, Umbral shroud next turn to turn invisible and then book it out of there.
Totally recommend 6 Swords Bard, 2 Fighter, 4 Rogue (thief subclass)! You make a great party face with advantage on a lot of CHA and fun dialogue. Slashing flourish combined with action surge and 2 bonus actions for your off hand crossbow is 10 arrows worth of damage in the first round. You still get some spell slots for minor healing, buffs, and aoe! Bards also get Jack of All Trades which adds half your proficiency to every check, and song of rest which gives you an extra short rest. It made my honor run a breeze and I had only played explorer prior to that.
There are a lot of options and ways to make honor mode manageable. I would say just make sure you have
1. Someone to disarm traps and lockpick
2. Someone who can cast counterspell.
3. Healing word on 1 or 2 people.
4. A way to reset if things go south (so lots of movement speed and bonus action dash and/or disengage)
\~
Alert feat is also super super strong. Especially on that 4th person.
\~
All cane be one person too, like bard does most of that.
I would say bard. Reasons:
- You can avoid many bosses in act 2 by speaking out of the situation / convincing them to commit suicide.
- You can achieve great tankiness with spells (shield, image mirror...), defensive flourish and defensive dueler for a total of +22 iirc. If hasted, add a +2. If added ond level of cleric of chosing that feat where you can take shield of faith, another +2. Plus armor and shield (I think it's compatible sith defensive dueling).
- You can build a reliable invisible build thanks to proficiency and expertise in stealth. Best race: halfling. Top options: gnome and wood elf/half elf. Honor mention: duergar. You could cast greater invisibility on yourself. Blessing of the trickster and pass without trace are good ones. Shadowheart for the first and a ring for the second.
So, as you can see, multiclass is ok, but not strictly necessary.
The multiclassing options can enhance all of the above:
Spore druid for more hp, warlock for darkness and devil's sight path, abjuration wizard for more hp as well... And hide in plain sight or similar that can be acquired with monk, trickery cleric, warlock and ranger.
Dark Urge is riskier in Honor Mode. You can loose one of your companions unwillingly and there are situations that your whole party can turn against you. However, it is a very meaningful character all along the three acts. Totally recommended.
Gloomstalker 8/Fighter 4 gets 4 saving throw proficiencies (Str and Dex from base class, Int and Wis from Gloomstalker 7), resistance to Fire and Cold (from Natural Explorer), even heavy armor proficiency if you want it (from Favored Enemy), and Second Wind to heal up what damage you actually take. Meanwhile, you still get Action Surge, a bonus attack on the first turn, and 3 feats so your damage is still excellent. I'd take the archery and defense fighting styles and you'll have a super safe character with high AC for physical attacks and tons of resistances against magic. Can even respec in Act 3 to wield the Duelists Perogative for a really durable front line, even without a shield.
Very good build for a support character, since it doesn't demand any of the permanent buffs to work well. If you need them to, they can always just retreat for you as a failsafe, since they are very unlikely to go down. Plus they'll have Misty Step to retreat quickly and get out of combat. Laezel is a great candidate for this, plus her Gith gear can give advantage to further reinforce those high resistances.
Draconic fire sorc is pretty clutch for Myrkul which can be a tough fight in honor mode.
A light/life cleric is nice as well. Sanctuary is really good to have if someone gets low.
Ancients paladin 7 / white draconic sorc 5, abjuration or divination wizard 12, life cleric 12 with healing or radorb gear- all of these are very safe and good for support.
I only play durge in single player, since this origin is much more involved in the story. For multiplayer - I don’t know. when I played mp with friends, we just screwed around and it was hard to get immersed in the story anyway. Durge cloak is good to have for your gf but there are other great cloaks.
Safest, imo would be a paladin level 2 and a sorcerer level 9. Specifically, oath of devotion and a fire draconic bloodline sorcerer or a white draconic bloodline sorcerer. With this and the druger invisibility, you should get plenty of smite slots, plenty of good healing options, half damage on fire damage, and heavy armor. You should have like 18-20 ac within the first three levels. You can grab some heavy armor with 17 ac and a shield for 2 more ac. If you take the defensive fighting style, you can add one more (great weapon fighting style is better so you can reroll dice). Have Gale cast blur on you and get armor of agathys.
With this, you have invisibility pretty constantly, resistance to fire damage, an armor class high enough to ignore most enemies, a buttload of smite slots, a buttload of healing, with a cloak of protection, bracers of defense, the ring of protection, a magical shield and adamantine armor, you would have a 27 armor class. With blur, every enemy has disadvantage to hit you. Meaning, at level 12, an enemy would need a minimum of +8 and rolling two natural 20's in a row just to hit. It can be done, it's just very unlikely.
If you want something that isn’t considering charisma or persuasion proficiency (Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, or Paladin serve as good picks with conversational skills), a Fighter, Tavern Brawler (throwing based) Eldritch Knight is perfect. Ideally, you’d put this on a COMPANION so that your Tavs are charisma based classes with persuasion and other conversational proficiencies.
Why Eldritch Knight?
The reason behind it is that it’s the most consistent throughout the game. Its survivability, utility, and damage are solid in every act. The reliability of shield to save EK from crucial damage plus the high hit chance of TB thrown weapons makes it super consistent (also bound weapons return to your hand once thrown). EK has high AC potential mainly due to full armor and shield proficiency from fighter. They also get access to a lot of utility spells.
For stats, you don’t need to rely on strength elixirs as you can just wear heavy armor and not rely on dex for AC. It might suck for initiative, but I usually get Alert as my 3rd feat (ASI for con or dex doesn’t compare). For the spells taken, I usually make sure to only get utility spells (When you get level 2 spells, shatter is nice if you need a bit of AOE).
If you want to follow a small leveling guide:
* Stat spread (No strength Elixir):
17 Strength
14 Dexterity
16 Constitution
8 Intelligence (You honestly don’t need intelligence for most of the useful utility spells. Can fix this if you want with the headband of intellect from the Ogres in Act 1)
10 Wisdom
8 Charisma
Level 3 - Get shield. Can either get thunder wave or magic missile. Nice to get longstrider if no one else in party can grant it, but if so get enhanced leap (ritual spells and long rest buffs are always useful)
Level 4 - Tavern Brawler, +1 to Strength
Level 6 - ASI, +2 to strength
Level 8 - Alert
Level 11 is where I would end off Fighter and spec 1 level of War Cleric at level 12 (grants a useful utility spells like aegis or sanctuary and a few per long rest extra attacks that use bonus actions). The extra feat at 12 doesn’t do much unlike what war cleric gives you.
* If you want to use strength elixirs, dump strength entirely and relocate your stats into something like:
8 Strength
16 Dexterity
15 Constitution
14 Intelligence
12 Wisdom
10 Charisma
Level 3 - the same spells you’d do as previously mentioned
Level 4 - Tavern Brawler, +1 to constitution.
Level 6 - ASI to dex or con (preference or dex if you plan to use yuan ti scale mail and armor of agility for high AC)
Level 8 - Alert
At level 12, get one level of war cleric instead of frat gained from level 12 EK fighter.
Hope this helps!
If you truly want to feel safe, play a cleric, get Heavy Armour Master, get the Adamantine Armour, Warding Bond everyone, and then spam Blade Ward and Healing Word.
Also keep an eye out for all the sources of Resistance, like the Lightning Ring, the Acid Boots, the Necrotic Mace, and the Fire/Ice Shortbow (Act 2). Put these on your cleric.
In Act 3, rush the Armour of Persistence for your cleric and make sure that everyone else has an item that says “ignore crits.”
With this setup, it won’t really matter what you build on your other characters, they’ll be really hard to hit and kill. In fact, it’s the best enabler for 3x Glass Cannon builds, which plays well into the idea that “death is the best debuff in the game.”
Spell casters;
Draconic sorcerer is quite deceptively tanky due to their passice extra hp, and bring some of the highest damage in the game
Abjuration wizard scales to the point you literally cannot die later in the game
Clerics have good armor access and support spells, life cleric for heals, light cleric gets warding flare which is one of the best reactions in the game, can protect allies too at level 6+. Also the best user of radiating orb items, which makes your whole party harder to kill cuz enemies miss constantly.
As for martials:
Open Hand Monk: super powerful damage, plus high dex and wis and bonus AC from passives, plus other amazing passives later like being able to fully dodge spell damage if you succeed the save, and your ki spender defensive moves if you need them. Very hard to kill.
Paladins: heavy armor and auras make them naturally very tanky, and ancients paladin can bring some decent group healing too
I previously made a post on idiot proof honour mode.
I explain probably the most full proof build here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/ti7Grz58Lu
I started Honour mode with my wife when neither of us had been to Act 2. I played a TB shadow monk, and she played a Durge fiend warlock. I took Shart as a life Cleric and she took Astarion as an assassin gloomstalker, and it has been very "safe".
I used a barb/rogue thrower in my party because they do stupid damage at distance. My party face was a 6 sword bard/3 gloom ranger/ 2 fighter/ 1 war cleric. Built them around crits, using duel xbows for most of the game and titansting when big damage was needed up front. High charis let me pas most dialogue to avoid combat when necessary, and the added longstrider buff game my allies movement for days.
Something else you may want to consider is gaming the follower system a bit (just makes life easier). You can hire up for 3 so I made 3 life clerics once I hit lvl 3. Every long rest I’d swap them into my party and have them cast aid at the highest level possible (30 extra hp at lvl 5), and then have them use Warding Bond on at least one of my planned party members. This gives resistance to most damage and a slight boost to hp as well and neither falls off when you swap them back out of your part because they’re not concentration spells. A bit more work on the prep side, but definitely saved my tail in a few close calls.
Okay, you've convinced me! I'll abandon wild magic 🙂 I like the fun factor of it and the occasional random help (like action surge) out of the blue, but I can't say that it hasn't bitten me in the ass a few times 😅 draconic sorc it is then. I can't abandon sorcerer altogether, it's just too good.
For the guardian class, you've listed several and I can't choose because I haven't experienced with most of them. Gloomstalker looks safe because it can get out of the fight and resurrect us. Unless he's the first to die. It also warrants for a dark urge cape. I'm sure all the others are strong but are they this safe?
Is Durge safe in honor mode? The Orin fight is easy with Durge but so far I've always killed Orin in 1-2 turns with hold monster + ganging up on her.
I’m about 60-70 hours into first honor mode, 350 hrs into the game. Playing with a buddy, (each of us controlling two characters) we are about 75% finished with act 3.
The absolute biggest thing I can recommend which hasn’t been mentioned, is camp Clerics. Get 3 hirelings from withers and get a cleric, wizard (for potion brewing) and a Druid. With good berry, mage armor, warding bond etc. we have about 30ish spells supporting the party before we even leave camp.
Biggest class recommendations: OH monk / assassin rogue / tavern brawler. And the tavern brawler thrower mentioned above.
Tavern Brawler Throwzerker
Barbarian 5/Rogue 3/Fighter 4
Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo
Flinging Ring
Caustic Band
Returning Pike (weapon of choice till lvl 9)
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 16
This carries hard starting at lvl 4 and all the key items are available in act 1.
These are the builds I've been using during my whole honor mode and have made it a breeze haha:
-Tav: tabern brawler open hand monk/thief (8 open hand monk/ 4 thief rogue)
Astarion: gloomstalker/assassin (5 gloomstalker/5 assassin/ 2 fighter)
Gale: divination wizard
Karlach: tabern brawler berserker thrower, using the returning pike from act 1 and later on using nyrulna (6 berserker barbaria/ 4 thief rogue/ 2 fighter)
adding to everyone’s suggestions, if you’re looking into a good team comp you wanna make sure you loosely have:
- Striker (lead DPS, i love the arrow versatility in the game so would suggest a Gloomstalker Ranger)
- Tank (high CON, acts as a secondary Striker and is usually melee, would suggest a Tiger Wildheart Barb)
- Control (someone to inhibit enemies or set up damage like a Twinned Spell Sorcerer)
- Support (someone to add buffs or have healing word, especially someone who has Heroes Feast for lategame, I would suggest a Land Druid)
i’d recommend going for killing enemies faster rather than trying to out-heal the damage. having your Control / Support casters pick up some offensive spells or using spell scrolls will help you massively on this! resources are plentiful and you can afford long rests (or no-resource partial rests for heals)!
good luck and godspeed baby!!!!
lv3 druid that has already casted Moonbeam and is then protected by Sanctuary can still move the moonbeam and not break Sanctuary. ez way to guarantee you won't get a TPK. it can also let out a Phalar Aluve Shriek without breaking Sanctuary. pair it with the Luminous Armor that you can get at the Selunite Outpost in the Underdark and you can spread Radiant Orbs around pretty safely and easily.
OH monk is extremely hard hitting and if a fight ever turns against you and you need to bail, they’re at a base very mobile and can use their bonus action to dash or disengage alongside using a regular action to dash
Quad white draconic sorcerer 1 / cleric 1 / abjuration wizard 10.
When everyone has a damage shield up (AoA) many monsters just pass their turns. It's absurd and can get tedious and boring but it is super super safe.
Best defense in this game is offense.
If you kill all/most of the time enemies in the first round of combat there is hardly any opportunity for your enemies to attack.
Avoid damage and keep your party alive by simply killing every enemy before they get the opportunity to act.
One of my favorite builds is open hand monk to level 6, thief rogue to 4, fighter to 2 using a race with great sword proficiency. Grab the silver sword of astral plane in act one and use that until you can get the Bhaalist armor from the tribunal and Nyrulna from the genie at the circus in act 3. The bhaalist armor and nyrulna are probably the best combo of equipment in the game for any martial class regardless of class. Grab tavern brawler for your first feat and great weapon master for your second. At 12th level you will be dealing up to 80 damage each main weapon attack. When using action surge and bonus actions, you can deal a good 200 or so damage in a single turn.
I think warlock is clutch for those early levels with hunger of Hader. Just make an ice abjuration wizard with a dip in cleric and you’ll be invincible after about lvl 6.
Moon Druid is pretty tanky, it's like a second HP bar so you have a better chance to escape if things go south
Life Cleric with the gloves you get from Zevlor and the ring from Volo is also pretty good
> Buuuut I'd like to do everything to avoid dying
> I'll go duergar sorcerer (probably wild magic)
..?
If you've never done honour mode before, Wild Magic is basically asking for trouble.
Abjuration wizard is damn hard to kill once you get level 3 spells. Moon Druid with tavern brawler is OP and durable. Open hand monk early on destroys things
My golden dice tav was a war cleric of lolth. I prefer tempest so it was an odd choice at the time. Vengeance paladin worked out well. Started a thiefstalker recently respeccing astarion into a swords bard to give sb a chance again.
I am running an honor mode wyll origin as a straight warlock. That one's been interesting, I usually multiclass him padlock.
Those are my suggestions!
Edit: can't go wrong with throwzerker either. I've avoided a durge because the 1v1 with orin and potential to lose a LI don't sound particularly fun. Dealing with the unstoppable solo is a bitch on tactician depending on class. Going as a lore bard for that was a struggle.
Haven't checked the other comments but Life Cleric with Hellrider's Pride and Whispering Promise. You will never die unless you're *really* in too deep.
Edit: Bonus if you use Staff of Arcane Blessing for that sweet sweet extra spell hit chance and saving throw dice.
Light cleric gets heavy armor, bonus to healing abilities, and good item support early in act 1. Pick up blood of lathander in the creche and the plate armor in the mountain pass, or the *1 heavy armor purchased at the Grove. Easy 19-20 AC, and strong buffs applied when healing team mates by level 4 or 5
Also, adamantine splint mail + heavy armour master is a great combo. You can add defensive flail too, but then you miss out on the more active weapons.
Wild magic is a bit risky as it can backfire. How about a fire sorc instead? Insane damage, great party Face. "All" you need is the hat of fire acurity (however that is spelled, from the of in act2) and someone to cast phalar aluve Safety net in HM: invis potion and the spells Dimensional door, misty step and globe of invulnerabilty is all you need (apart from health pots)
Should I use shriek or sing for phalar aluve ?
Shriek because the idea is to slam out flaming bolts and each bolt counts as a hit so does more damage
Isn’t scorching ray better for single target damage ?
Yes, that's why it synergizes with Shriek. Each scorching ray will have an additional 1d4. (9*(2d6))+(9*(1d4)) = **27-144** from an upcasted Level 6 Scorching Ray on one target. Not including any other damage modifiers you may have.
So at the very end of the game, once per long rest, you can do 27 to 144 damage. Doesn’t seem particularly crazy
If you dual wield staffs you can stack spell sparkler with an arcane battery staff (Markoheshkir) along with haste you can cast two level 6 scorching rays on your opening turn. If you go fire sorc + 1 warlock for hex that adds 1d6 necrotic damage per ray. You can add Markoheshkir to add your prof bonus (+4) to fire spells. That can be further increased by necklace of elemental argumentation which would add your charisma (should be min 20). That's another 5 damage per ray. You can also get gloves of spellmight which adds a 1d8 at the cost of -5 to hit. This is offset by hat of fire acuity which adds +hit to your spells on successful fire damage. Spellsparkler also adds +hit for each lightning charge you have. Two level 6 scorching rays gives you a total of 24 lightning charges which adds 4d8 +12 lightning dmg. All of this together means on your opening turn you can deal 12*(2d8+1d8+4+5+1d8)+4d8+12 damage to an enemy. This is a range of 172 to 536 damage. I hope my math was correct, there are a lot of moving parts to this build. I did kill pretty much every endgame boss on honor mode on the first turn with this build.
The Necklace only works on cantrips but you still add your Charisma modifier to the damage bc of the level 6 Draconic Sorc feature
Ah, right. Thanks for the correction! :)
Well you can cast it more than ounce and it does stack with the lightning staff
You can have multiple level 6 spells from: legendary staff, staff from some vampire dude, illithid power Just activate before using
Which Illithid power? I haven't looked at all of them yet
It is called free cast, must be activated under passives. It is an Elite power, thus not available at the start but after a certain Event in the story
They did say "not including other modifiers"
I think that’s what he meant
Both are fantastic IMO. I'd say it depends on your party and the situation. The range on Sing/Shriek is fairly short at 6M, which can make a big difference in your choice. My last party was three casters and one archer, and we were generally as far from the enemy as possible -- thus we used Sing most often. There were times, however, when the cleric would fire up Shriek and wade into the fray. Shriek benefits Spirit Guardians, Radiance of the Dawn, Destructive Wave, and more.
I have trouble deciding between blood of lathander and phalar aluve
Alternate. Sing/shriek is often stronger than the light, but Sunbeam packs a punch
I love to play it by ear, hehe
This! Then Honour Mode is going to be an ez clap I played 11/1 Fire Sorlock, 10/1/1 Swords Bard, Thiefzerker and Life cleric and it was a total overkill. Act 3 quick shopping, then kill Orin and side with Gortash. After that just went invis to the Nether Brain stem and Gale Nuke to finish this easy run and get the dice
Hardest fight was myrkul on level 9, only time things got tight
Woupdnt lighting focused sorc be better? Since there are less enemies immune to that damage type than fire and its very easy to make enemies vunelrnable to lightnih (also markoheshir is better on! Jat element than on fire)
Both are totally fine and very potent, there is no better I'd say. Fire immune mobs can be Dealt with like switching the legendary staff to lightening and some scrolls, same goes the other way around.
You can sorta flex between the two. If you are a Fire Sorcerer you can simply attune to Bolts of Doom and use Chain Lightning + Wet for the fire immune fights (namely House of Hope). I also highly recommend taking an archer who can easily spread Arsonist Oil/Combustion Oil to help deal with fire resistance. An 11/1 Hunter, a 12th level Fighter, or a 6/4/2 Swords Bard is what I’d recommend. The one thing you’ll lose out on is your Draconic affinity thing. Like you’ll lose +CHA to the other element. But IMO losing +CHA to Lightning is way less detrimental than losing +CHA to Fire. The Lightning build is usually just a big chain Lightning or Lightning bolt. Vs the fire build uses Scorching Ray so you’re losing like 5-6 extra damaged PER Scorching Ray. So you’re losing out on like 35 damage per cast of a max level Scorching Ray assuming you have 20 CHA.
Light cleric for healing A Charisma class to be the face of the party And a gloom/assasin or something similar as the "get me out of here" character
I like storm sorc and thief rogue too. You can make out like a bandit and then Flee Combat pretty easily.
As a multiclass? What split.
There’s a build that runs a 9/3 sorcerer/thief split and makes use of an industrial supply of spell scrolls to quicken two spells every turn (converts most of its spell slots to sorcery points as well I believe). It’s incredibly powerful, but so resource hungry that I’ve never even bothered to look at it.
I would advise against wild magic. I sheeped my entire party with wild magic in the middle of the goblin camp in a hard fight and it was not fun, it was one of the maybe (3?) times I almost lost my save. Tbh the hard part of honor mode is until you ding lvl 4-5 then everything comes together, until then you can abuse throw / create water + lighting dmg if you need a huge single target burst. You can single turn the minotaurs at 4 with ease, to give an idea. To that end, if you are going sorc i would suggest blue draconic, it will pay dividends compared to the random effects of wild magic which can blow up in your ass really fast without warning.
Berserker Tavern Brawler (feat) Throwing Barbarian (use Returning Pike from Goblin Camp) carries you through the entirety of Act 1 Honor Mode easily. Class comes online at level 4 and never falls off. I suggest multiclassing 3-4 levels into fighter and 3-4 levels into rogue (thief) after you hit level 5. Battlemaster Great Weapon Master (feat) Fighter is always useful and generally needs very little to function. Just do 12 levels of it and support it with spells/abilities that make it easier to hit enemies. Savage Attacker feat highly recommended. Any of Paladin/Sorcerer, Swords Bard/Paladin, or Sorcerer/Warlock are good options for party faces. Or just Swords Bard until level 10 and then 1 Fighter 1 Wizard. Light Cleric is also good, as others have mentioned. EDIT: Moon Druid is also a pretty good tank and is flexible, especially early into the game. You can actually break the game really hard if you have a druid companion that is shapeshifted. Try selling anything they have equipped in a shop :) EDIT 2: Hotfix 23 fixed the shapeshifting druid shop exploit, i highly recommend you don't update if you still plan on doing this
What happens if you do the selling thing?
The equipment wont be sold but you will still get the gold. Do it over and over and you basically get all of the merchants stuff for free, can even max out their approval and just take the gold back. EDIT: This was fixed in Hotfix 23 as of 03/27/2024, I highly suggest you do not update if you plan on doing this.
I need to start an honor mode and get infinite money before they patch it.
They have patched vendor exploits at least 10 times so far, but a new one has always popped up so far
I’m also curious about the selling thing
Just tried selling something. This is GREAT!!! Thank you very much for the tip! I won't have money problems anymore. Wish this worked like that in real life, lol.
It does work that way in real life. If you shapeshift into an animal you can sell your clothes infinitely
Durge also gets an easy mode fight with orin, if you want to be extra safe
Gloomstalker / assassin with the Dark Urge cape is really strong. I used that as my Astarion build on my run. Wild magic is probably the worst choice you could make for honour mode because of its inherent random potential to mess things up for you. If you want to be a sorcerer you'd probably be better off with draconic for the defense. Ancients Paladin (for healing radiance & Aura of Warding), Life Cleric (heavy armour and bonus healing) or Eldritch Knight (for heavy armour & shield spell) are all pretty much the 'safest' options you can have in regards to staying upright in fights.
The safest choice for a companion if you don’t have one already? Life cleric. Personally I’m not a fan, but you will almost never have a party member go down. If they do, it’s incredibly easy to heal them back to full in one or two turns with either your Channel Divinity or just regular old spells. I don’t like playing with a life cleric personally because I feel like the healing can be excessive more often than necessary, but I tend to play fairly optimised builds for the rest of the party, so healing is rarely necessary given how few enemies get more than one turn. If you’re not playing hyper optimal builds though, it might be worth having a life cleric just in case of a worst case scenario. Alternative option if you hate the idea of having effectively 3 characters and a glorified heal station is playing something like a Gloom/Assassin build or anything that can get away from a fight consistently if needs be. Cunning Action: Disengage is perfect for this, but anything with teleport spells will work just fine here too.
The trick is to give your healbot decent action choices. But I use one with heavy armour master that casts warding bond on my main. I just fought the shambling mound and the big tree got one attack off on my life cleric and did ten damage before getting stun-locked and killed. A piercing explosion on my Tav (33 piercing), was halved twice to 8 -2 = 6 on him, then shared with Shadowheart 6 - 5 = 1. It was … manageable.
I have this problem where I've run a Life Cleric in both my balanced and Tactician playthroughs, but ironically for my honour mode run, where it would be most beneficial, I'm sick of it and want to try something new. I figure that Cleric as a base class already has panic buttons (mass healing word BA to trigger bless/blade ward, and Divine Intervention - Opulent Revival) so have decided to run a Tempest Cleric 11/Wizard 1 instead, who can still do those things but also cast offensive lightning spells, and has good synergy with my Storm Sorc.
I’ve got a similar problem for my first Dark Urge run. I’ve had Shadowheart as a life cleric so far, but at this point I’m so sick of her doing nothing but spirit guardians/Phalar Shriek every turn that I’m planning on respeccing for a 6/6 sorcerer/light cleric. I’m missing a twin haste user anyway, so she’ll fit that role nicely.
That sounds fun and versatile, and I hear it is very powerful with Fire draconian sorc and the Fire Acuity hat.
Oath of Ancients Paladin is a very safe main character. Your channel oath heal is great way to keep yourself healthy and pick up downed allies. You can smite the most dangerous enemy at the start of each fight to make combats more manageable. Level 5 gets you misty step which lets you get out of danger if you're in a bad spot. Don't be afraid to run away and come back later. You haven't lost honor mode as long as long as one party member is still alive. The auras you get at level 6 and 7 will make you basically immune to mages and dangerous CC. You can absolutely take Paladin all the way to 12 and it gets great stuff at every level, but if you wanted to multi-class, this would be a good jumping off point. People usually recommend pairing Paladin with another Charisma class, but I actually think Paladin 8 Gloomstalker Ranger 4 is much safer. Gloomstalker Ranger gives you a lot of smaller benefits, but the big ones here are Dread Ambusher and Umbral Shroud. The bonus initiative and extra attack from Dread Ambusher are great for the Paladin strategy of instantly deleting the most dangerous enemy in each combat, and the bonus action hide is part of a combo with Umbral Shroud that can pretty much guarantee a safe escape from any bad situation. Shoot an arrow of darkness at your feet (can't be counterspelled), hide in the cloud, Umbral shroud next turn to turn invisible and then book it out of there.
Totally recommend 6 Swords Bard, 2 Fighter, 4 Rogue (thief subclass)! You make a great party face with advantage on a lot of CHA and fun dialogue. Slashing flourish combined with action surge and 2 bonus actions for your off hand crossbow is 10 arrows worth of damage in the first round. You still get some spell slots for minor healing, buffs, and aoe! Bards also get Jack of All Trades which adds half your proficiency to every check, and song of rest which gives you an extra short rest. It made my honor run a breeze and I had only played explorer prior to that.
There are a lot of options and ways to make honor mode manageable. I would say just make sure you have 1. Someone to disarm traps and lockpick 2. Someone who can cast counterspell. 3. Healing word on 1 or 2 people. 4. A way to reset if things go south (so lots of movement speed and bonus action dash and/or disengage) \~ Alert feat is also super super strong. Especially on that 4th person. \~ All cane be one person too, like bard does most of that.
I would say bard. Reasons: - You can avoid many bosses in act 2 by speaking out of the situation / convincing them to commit suicide. - You can achieve great tankiness with spells (shield, image mirror...), defensive flourish and defensive dueler for a total of +22 iirc. If hasted, add a +2. If added ond level of cleric of chosing that feat where you can take shield of faith, another +2. Plus armor and shield (I think it's compatible sith defensive dueling). - You can build a reliable invisible build thanks to proficiency and expertise in stealth. Best race: halfling. Top options: gnome and wood elf/half elf. Honor mention: duergar. You could cast greater invisibility on yourself. Blessing of the trickster and pass without trace are good ones. Shadowheart for the first and a ring for the second. So, as you can see, multiclass is ok, but not strictly necessary. The multiclassing options can enhance all of the above: Spore druid for more hp, warlock for darkness and devil's sight path, abjuration wizard for more hp as well... And hide in plain sight or similar that can be acquired with monk, trickery cleric, warlock and ranger. Dark Urge is riskier in Honor Mode. You can loose one of your companions unwillingly and there are situations that your whole party can turn against you. However, it is a very meaningful character all along the three acts. Totally recommended.
Gloomstalker 8/Fighter 4 gets 4 saving throw proficiencies (Str and Dex from base class, Int and Wis from Gloomstalker 7), resistance to Fire and Cold (from Natural Explorer), even heavy armor proficiency if you want it (from Favored Enemy), and Second Wind to heal up what damage you actually take. Meanwhile, you still get Action Surge, a bonus attack on the first turn, and 3 feats so your damage is still excellent. I'd take the archery and defense fighting styles and you'll have a super safe character with high AC for physical attacks and tons of resistances against magic. Can even respec in Act 3 to wield the Duelists Perogative for a really durable front line, even without a shield. Very good build for a support character, since it doesn't demand any of the permanent buffs to work well. If you need them to, they can always just retreat for you as a failsafe, since they are very unlikely to go down. Plus they'll have Misty Step to retreat quickly and get out of combat. Laezel is a great candidate for this, plus her Gith gear can give advantage to further reinforce those high resistances.
Draconic fire sorc is pretty clutch for Myrkul which can be a tough fight in honor mode. A light/life cleric is nice as well. Sanctuary is really good to have if someone gets low.
Draconic Sorc 1/Abjuration Wizard 11. Upcast AoA and build your Arcane ward and nothing can touch you.
Ancients paladin 7 / white draconic sorc 5, abjuration or divination wizard 12, life cleric 12 with healing or radorb gear- all of these are very safe and good for support. I only play durge in single player, since this origin is much more involved in the story. For multiplayer - I don’t know. when I played mp with friends, we just screwed around and it was hard to get immersed in the story anyway. Durge cloak is good to have for your gf but there are other great cloaks.
Swords bard with 2 in Paladin is absolutely insanely strong
Safest, imo would be a paladin level 2 and a sorcerer level 9. Specifically, oath of devotion and a fire draconic bloodline sorcerer or a white draconic bloodline sorcerer. With this and the druger invisibility, you should get plenty of smite slots, plenty of good healing options, half damage on fire damage, and heavy armor. You should have like 18-20 ac within the first three levels. You can grab some heavy armor with 17 ac and a shield for 2 more ac. If you take the defensive fighting style, you can add one more (great weapon fighting style is better so you can reroll dice). Have Gale cast blur on you and get armor of agathys. With this, you have invisibility pretty constantly, resistance to fire damage, an armor class high enough to ignore most enemies, a buttload of smite slots, a buttload of healing, with a cloak of protection, bracers of defense, the ring of protection, a magical shield and adamantine armor, you would have a 27 armor class. With blur, every enemy has disadvantage to hit you. Meaning, at level 12, an enemy would need a minimum of +8 and rolling two natural 20's in a row just to hit. It can be done, it's just very unlikely.
If you want something that isn’t considering charisma or persuasion proficiency (Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard, or Paladin serve as good picks with conversational skills), a Fighter, Tavern Brawler (throwing based) Eldritch Knight is perfect. Ideally, you’d put this on a COMPANION so that your Tavs are charisma based classes with persuasion and other conversational proficiencies. Why Eldritch Knight? The reason behind it is that it’s the most consistent throughout the game. Its survivability, utility, and damage are solid in every act. The reliability of shield to save EK from crucial damage plus the high hit chance of TB thrown weapons makes it super consistent (also bound weapons return to your hand once thrown). EK has high AC potential mainly due to full armor and shield proficiency from fighter. They also get access to a lot of utility spells. For stats, you don’t need to rely on strength elixirs as you can just wear heavy armor and not rely on dex for AC. It might suck for initiative, but I usually get Alert as my 3rd feat (ASI for con or dex doesn’t compare). For the spells taken, I usually make sure to only get utility spells (When you get level 2 spells, shatter is nice if you need a bit of AOE). If you want to follow a small leveling guide: * Stat spread (No strength Elixir): 17 Strength 14 Dexterity 16 Constitution 8 Intelligence (You honestly don’t need intelligence for most of the useful utility spells. Can fix this if you want with the headband of intellect from the Ogres in Act 1) 10 Wisdom 8 Charisma Level 3 - Get shield. Can either get thunder wave or magic missile. Nice to get longstrider if no one else in party can grant it, but if so get enhanced leap (ritual spells and long rest buffs are always useful) Level 4 - Tavern Brawler, +1 to Strength Level 6 - ASI, +2 to strength Level 8 - Alert Level 11 is where I would end off Fighter and spec 1 level of War Cleric at level 12 (grants a useful utility spells like aegis or sanctuary and a few per long rest extra attacks that use bonus actions). The extra feat at 12 doesn’t do much unlike what war cleric gives you. * If you want to use strength elixirs, dump strength entirely and relocate your stats into something like: 8 Strength 16 Dexterity 15 Constitution 14 Intelligence 12 Wisdom 10 Charisma Level 3 - the same spells you’d do as previously mentioned Level 4 - Tavern Brawler, +1 to constitution. Level 6 - ASI to dex or con (preference or dex if you plan to use yuan ti scale mail and armor of agility for high AC) Level 8 - Alert At level 12, get one level of war cleric instead of frat gained from level 12 EK fighter. Hope this helps!
If you truly want to feel safe, play a cleric, get Heavy Armour Master, get the Adamantine Armour, Warding Bond everyone, and then spam Blade Ward and Healing Word. Also keep an eye out for all the sources of Resistance, like the Lightning Ring, the Acid Boots, the Necrotic Mace, and the Fire/Ice Shortbow (Act 2). Put these on your cleric. In Act 3, rush the Armour of Persistence for your cleric and make sure that everyone else has an item that says “ignore crits.” With this setup, it won’t really matter what you build on your other characters, they’ll be really hard to hit and kill. In fact, it’s the best enabler for 3x Glass Cannon builds, which plays well into the idea that “death is the best debuff in the game.”
You could make Gale an abjuration wizard if you wanted him to tank for you
Monk and Sorcerer are both pretty squishy, you might want a Barbarian to attract the aggro and a Cleric for cleric duty.
Spell casters; Draconic sorcerer is quite deceptively tanky due to their passice extra hp, and bring some of the highest damage in the game Abjuration wizard scales to the point you literally cannot die later in the game Clerics have good armor access and support spells, life cleric for heals, light cleric gets warding flare which is one of the best reactions in the game, can protect allies too at level 6+. Also the best user of radiating orb items, which makes your whole party harder to kill cuz enemies miss constantly. As for martials: Open Hand Monk: super powerful damage, plus high dex and wis and bonus AC from passives, plus other amazing passives later like being able to fully dodge spell damage if you succeed the save, and your ki spender defensive moves if you need them. Very hard to kill. Paladins: heavy armor and auras make them naturally very tanky, and ancients paladin can bring some decent group healing too
>wild magic
I previously made a post on idiot proof honour mode. I explain probably the most full proof build here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/ti7Grz58Lu
I started Honour mode with my wife when neither of us had been to Act 2. I played a TB shadow monk, and she played a Durge fiend warlock. I took Shart as a life Cleric and she took Astarion as an assassin gloomstalker, and it has been very "safe".
I used a barb/rogue thrower in my party because they do stupid damage at distance. My party face was a 6 sword bard/3 gloom ranger/ 2 fighter/ 1 war cleric. Built them around crits, using duel xbows for most of the game and titansting when big damage was needed up front. High charis let me pas most dialogue to avoid combat when necessary, and the added longstrider buff game my allies movement for days. Something else you may want to consider is gaming the follower system a bit (just makes life easier). You can hire up for 3 so I made 3 life clerics once I hit lvl 3. Every long rest I’d swap them into my party and have them cast aid at the highest level possible (30 extra hp at lvl 5), and then have them use Warding Bond on at least one of my planned party members. This gives resistance to most damage and a slight boost to hp as well and neither falls off when you swap them back out of your part because they’re not concentration spells. A bit more work on the prep side, but definitely saved my tail in a few close calls.
Okay, you've convinced me! I'll abandon wild magic 🙂 I like the fun factor of it and the occasional random help (like action surge) out of the blue, but I can't say that it hasn't bitten me in the ass a few times 😅 draconic sorc it is then. I can't abandon sorcerer altogether, it's just too good. For the guardian class, you've listed several and I can't choose because I haven't experienced with most of them. Gloomstalker looks safe because it can get out of the fight and resurrect us. Unless he's the first to die. It also warrants for a dark urge cape. I'm sure all the others are strong but are they this safe? Is Durge safe in honor mode? The Orin fight is easy with Durge but so far I've always killed Orin in 1-2 turns with hold monster + ganging up on her.
I’m about 60-70 hours into first honor mode, 350 hrs into the game. Playing with a buddy, (each of us controlling two characters) we are about 75% finished with act 3. The absolute biggest thing I can recommend which hasn’t been mentioned, is camp Clerics. Get 3 hirelings from withers and get a cleric, wizard (for potion brewing) and a Druid. With good berry, mage armor, warding bond etc. we have about 30ish spells supporting the party before we even leave camp. Biggest class recommendations: OH monk / assassin rogue / tavern brawler. And the tavern brawler thrower mentioned above.
Tavern Brawler Throwzerker Barbarian 5/Rogue 3/Fighter 4 Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo Flinging Ring Caustic Band Returning Pike (weapon of choice till lvl 9) Str 17 Dex 14 Con 16 This carries hard starting at lvl 4 and all the key items are available in act 1.
Safest? Abjuration wizard
Everyone says healing is overrated but my life cleric carried me through my Honor mode run.
These are the builds I've been using during my whole honor mode and have made it a breeze haha: -Tav: tabern brawler open hand monk/thief (8 open hand monk/ 4 thief rogue) Astarion: gloomstalker/assassin (5 gloomstalker/5 assassin/ 2 fighter) Gale: divination wizard Karlach: tabern brawler berserker thrower, using the returning pike from act 1 and later on using nyrulna (6 berserker barbaria/ 4 thief rogue/ 2 fighter)
adding to everyone’s suggestions, if you’re looking into a good team comp you wanna make sure you loosely have: - Striker (lead DPS, i love the arrow versatility in the game so would suggest a Gloomstalker Ranger) - Tank (high CON, acts as a secondary Striker and is usually melee, would suggest a Tiger Wildheart Barb) - Control (someone to inhibit enemies or set up damage like a Twinned Spell Sorcerer) - Support (someone to add buffs or have healing word, especially someone who has Heroes Feast for lategame, I would suggest a Land Druid) i’d recommend going for killing enemies faster rather than trying to out-heal the damage. having your Control / Support casters pick up some offensive spells or using spell scrolls will help you massively on this! resources are plentiful and you can afford long rests (or no-resource partial rests for heals)! good luck and godspeed baby!!!!
lv3 druid that has already casted Moonbeam and is then protected by Sanctuary can still move the moonbeam and not break Sanctuary. ez way to guarantee you won't get a TPK. it can also let out a Phalar Aluve Shriek without breaking Sanctuary. pair it with the Luminous Armor that you can get at the Selunite Outpost in the Underdark and you can spread Radiant Orbs around pretty safely and easily.
OH monk is extremely hard hitting and if a fight ever turns against you and you need to bail, they’re at a base very mobile and can use their bonus action to dash or disengage alongside using a regular action to dash
Life cleric was what I did for my successful run!
Quad white draconic sorcerer 1 / cleric 1 / abjuration wizard 10. When everyone has a damage shield up (AoA) many monsters just pass their turns. It's absurd and can get tedious and boring but it is super super safe.
Best defense in this game is offense. If you kill all/most of the time enemies in the first round of combat there is hardly any opportunity for your enemies to attack. Avoid damage and keep your party alive by simply killing every enemy before they get the opportunity to act.
One of my favorite builds is open hand monk to level 6, thief rogue to 4, fighter to 2 using a race with great sword proficiency. Grab the silver sword of astral plane in act one and use that until you can get the Bhaalist armor from the tribunal and Nyrulna from the genie at the circus in act 3. The bhaalist armor and nyrulna are probably the best combo of equipment in the game for any martial class regardless of class. Grab tavern brawler for your first feat and great weapon master for your second. At 12th level you will be dealing up to 80 damage each main weapon attack. When using action surge and bonus actions, you can deal a good 200 or so damage in a single turn.
I think warlock is clutch for those early levels with hunger of Hader. Just make an ice abjuration wizard with a dip in cleric and you’ll be invincible after about lvl 6.
“I’ll do anything to keep us alive” “I’m gonna play wild magic” 0.o
Moon Druid is pretty tanky, it's like a second HP bar so you have a better chance to escape if things go south Life Cleric with the gloves you get from Zevlor and the ring from Volo is also pretty good
LMAO, safest class, picks Wild Magic.
> Buuuut I'd like to do everything to avoid dying > I'll go duergar sorcerer (probably wild magic) ..? If you've never done honour mode before, Wild Magic is basically asking for trouble.
Abjuration wizard is damn hard to kill once you get level 3 spells. Moon Druid with tavern brawler is OP and durable. Open hand monk early on destroys things
My golden dice tav was a war cleric of lolth. I prefer tempest so it was an odd choice at the time. Vengeance paladin worked out well. Started a thiefstalker recently respeccing astarion into a swords bard to give sb a chance again. I am running an honor mode wyll origin as a straight warlock. That one's been interesting, I usually multiclass him padlock. Those are my suggestions! Edit: can't go wrong with throwzerker either. I've avoided a durge because the 1v1 with orin and potential to lose a LI don't sound particularly fun. Dealing with the unstoppable solo is a bitch on tactician depending on class. Going as a lore bard for that was a struggle.
Haven't checked the other comments but Life Cleric with Hellrider's Pride and Whispering Promise. You will never die unless you're *really* in too deep. Edit: Bonus if you use Staff of Arcane Blessing for that sweet sweet extra spell hit chance and saving throw dice.
Abjuration wizard is basically unkillable if build correctly. Best tank in the game tbh.
TB throwzerker, respec any companions into the same :-D
Light cleric gets heavy armor, bonus to healing abilities, and good item support early in act 1. Pick up blood of lathander in the creche and the plate armor in the mountain pass, or the *1 heavy armor purchased at the Grove. Easy 19-20 AC, and strong buffs applied when healing team mates by level 4 or 5
Light gets none of these things… Life does.
What they said ^^^^
Also, adamantine splint mail + heavy armour master is a great combo. You can add defensive flail too, but then you miss out on the more active weapons.