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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • MC: GOO Bladelock 6/Paladin 6 - You need a frontliner and that comp noticeably doesn’t have one.

    Shadowheart: Light or Tempest Cleric 11/Druid 1 - Druid lvl adds a ton of spells, Shillelagh, and only delays progression by one lvl. Polymorph the defining spell that made Trickery domain was pretty severely nerfed in game so you will want to change her subclass.

    Gale: Conjuration Wizard 12 - Wizards are great and Benign Transportation is super handy.

    Astarion: Thief Rogue 3/Swords Bard 7 - Sharpshooter Duel-wield Hand-crossbows. It’s a Machinegun. Plus you end up with a ton skills and Expertise.



  • I swap party members in and out a lot, mostly for story reasons, but here is how I built them:

    • MC: Ancients Paladin 7/Swords Bard 5 - Polearm Master, Sentinel - Lockdown Tank/Support
    • Karlach: Wolf Wildheart Barbarian 8/Thief Rogue 4 - Great Weapon Master, Tavern Brawler - Heavy Weapon Beatdown, Advantage Generator, Skill Monkey - MVP build
    • Astarion: Thief Rogue 3/Swords Bard 7 - Sharpshooter - Skill Monkey, Machinegun - MVP build
    • Gale: Conjuration Wizard 12 - Utility, Control, Haste-bot
    • Lae’zel: Eldritch Knight Fighter 11/Rogue 1 - Tavern Brawler, Sentinel - Gith Dragoon - MVP build
    • Shadowheart: Light Cleric 11/Druid 1 - Blaster, Support
    • Wyll: Fiend Warlock 6/Vengence Paladin 6 - SMITE
    • Halsin: Moon Druid 10/Monk 2 - Wildshape Tank
    • Jaheira: Land Druid 12 - Blaster, Control
    • Minsc: Gloomstalker Ranger 4/Bear Wildheart Barbarian 8 - Tavern Brawler - Improvised Weapons Control Tank





  • It’s certainly a niche ability, but it does effectively function as a Dash action + bonus action Attack with a +5 bonus to the damage roll and an unlimited # of uses. For races with reduced mobility this is almost the equivalent of gaining Cunning Action Dash with a feat. It can be about as good as the +2 ASI on certain builds.

    The bigger issue is that it’s competing with feats like GWM, Sharpshooter, and Tavern Brawler. So it just isn’t worth picking up until much later in the game and only on builds with at least 3 feat selections.


  • You go Thief Rogue 3 for Athletics Expertise, Cunning Action, and Fast Hands.

    The extra bonus action is super handy when paired with GWM, Reckless Attack, and Rage. Your first round is: pop Rage, run up and Reckless Attack, and hopefully you crit (happens ~2/3rds of the time, almost every time if Hasted) for the bonus action attack. Berzerker insures you have that BA attack every round, but you get one so often from GWM that I don’t really bother so I would actually recommend Wildheart or Wild Magic instead.

    Not procing SA damage doesn’t even matter since the build generally puts out so much damage (80-160/round at lvl 8) that nothing in their vicinity really survives.




  • Since I got a good Initiative roll my first playthrough, I decided to go back and reload until I got a bad one for this encounter. I didn’t change any of my party, their equipment, or their prepared spells ie the closest I could come to a blind run. Isobel only had 3hp left by the time my party’s initiative came up on the reload I decided to go with.

    The encounter was saved entirely by one spell, Sanctuary. Larian changed it from “Wis save to attack targeted creature” to “targeted creature can’t be attacked” and when she tripped on Jahera’s ice it bought me 2 rounds that she couldn’t be targeted. I had been using this busted change to keep Gale alive prior to this.

    Party: MC Paladin, Shadowheart, Gale, Karlach.



  • Current party

    • MC: Ancients Paladin 5/Swords Bard 3 - Polearm Master - Tank/Support
    • Karlach: Berserker Barbarian 5/Thief Rogue 3 - GWM - Fontline DPR
    • Shadowheart: Cleric 8 - Magic Initiate Druid - Support/Control
    • Gale: Conjuration Wizard 8 - Control/Blaster
    • Wyll: Fiend Warlock 6/Vengence Paladin 2 - SMITE
    • Astarion: Thief Rogue 3/Swords Bard 5 - Sharpshooter - Ranged Ambush DPR
    • Lae’zel: Eldritch Knight 8 - Tavern Brawler, Sentinel - Thrown Weapon DPR/Zone Control

    Karlach’s build is nuts. She’s dealing 80-160 dmg per round when hasted and there just isn’t much that can survive a round next to her. That said I’m considering respecing her to Wild Magic or Wildheart since I’m not using Frenzied Strike that much. She Crits so much that I’ve mostly been using GWM’s bonus action attack and the Jump AOE thunder dmg from the maul I have her using.

    Astarion’s is almost as good but CBE’s nerf really hurt. Though with the current stealth mechanics this build could probably solo the game.

    Edit: Respeced Lae’zel and just about doubled her DPR. Also adjusted Astarion as Gloomstalker was nerfed from tabletop.


  • So I managed to do it on my first attempt in Tactician, but I’m a veteran of WotR and Kingmaker’s Unfair difficulty so I know when I have to focus a mage.

    Karlach was clutch in this fight. I picked up GWM for her at 4 and kitted her out for move speed/momentum and wisdom saves. She is basically a juggernaut. Between GWM, Frenzy, Haste, and Reckless Attack she deals an average of 60-120 damage per round. There is a maul that applies the Chilled status on hit so he was never even able to heal and went down at the start of round 2. I did get kind of lucky though as she rolled well on initiative and landed two crits.