Who are your companions? Do you switch during gameplay?
I’m currently in act 3 and remain using Shadowheart, Lae’zel and Astarion.
Anyone else uses other companions?
Edit: by the way, my main character is a Monk named Jef :)
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Mod life. All companions. Leave no npc behind
Even the mod in question has one fight that only 4 can participate in. The battle on the boats in the Underdark. If you take more than 4 party members on the ride it gets stuck.
I use this party limit removal mod, so I usually bring anywhere from 4 to 8 companions. When limiting myself to 3, though, I bring Karlach, Wyll and Shadowheart.
When I want to do things that are in a moral grey area if not downright evil, I swap out Karlach and Wyll for Astarion and Lae’zel 😁
I play on ps5 so no mods :(
Damn, I’m sorry! I know from playing Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim on both ps4 and pc how much the lack of mods can suck…
Yup. And BG3 is more of a kb+mouse game. But hey, at least I can play on my tv 😂
I’m actually playing with an xbox controller and my TV as my computer monitor. It’s the best of both worlds as far as I’m concerned 😁
I’m doing the same. With that setup, kb&m isn’t practical. There are still some bugs with controllers though, so being able to switch to the mouse real quick is occasionally useful.
Personally the only problem I’ve had playing with a controller is that neither of the two vanilla interfaces can accommodate a party size of more than 7 including the Tav well and the mod to fix that isn’t compatible with the controller one. That’s pretty minor though, since it’s purely cosmetic and off to the side 🤷
It took me way too long to do the brain puzzle under Moonrise Tower on the controller 🤣
Linux PC, 4k TV, and controller. Very comfortable setup.
I can do everything with a controller although I do not know how to end a concentration spell after a fight. I will try to find the answer now that I am thinking about it.
Ending Concentration Spells answer:
Open the radial menu for the character that is concentrating so hard and navigate to that spell. When hovering over it, you’ll see options in the lower right corner of screen. It shows to hold ( Y ) down to cancel concentration.
It shows to hold ( Y ) down to cancel concentration.
Instructions unclear, held down cleavage.
Doing a durge run with a sorcerer. Wyll and Karlak left in act one because I wanted to recruit Minthara, so Helsin is out too. Jaheria died in the battle of last light. And I haven’t got/can’t get Minsc. Minthara met an untimely demise early in our relationship…
That leaves me with Shadowheart, La’zel, and Astarion…wait I’m forgetting someone…
digs around my pack and runs across Gale’s severed hand Nevermind, found him!!
So I’m running myself Dark Urge Sorcerer, Shadowheart, La’zel, and Astarion… because thats all i got. All default classes.
Act 3 should be fairly short with the lack of companion quests…
You did something funny in regards to the friendship game 😂🙈😅
Wait, is Karlak gonna leave over Minthara? I’ve been planning to do an evil playthrough, since my first playthrough was goodie two shoes, so naturally killed Minthara. But Karlak is the best!
Also, I kinda want as many companions as possible so I can see the different path I can get them to take.
She was in my party when I talked to her, so maybe it was due to that?
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my main team is me (thiefling bard, https://i.imgur.com/3AewyHO.png (ended up leaving the moustache out, though)), Astarion, Gale and Karlach. I switch any of them momentarily if I need something specific the others can do and immediately back when it’s done.
I guess I could swap out Gale for Wyll, but… I dunno.
Karlach and Astarion are my favorites so far. “Mama K” just radiates good vibes, and “Mr. Nibbles” brings out the sass… and I just realized I’m traveling with a dog and a cat.
I usually swap out companions as they use up their spell slots and health gets low. My (paladin) starting team is usually Astarion, Shadowheart, Laezel/Karlach.
God damn it I never even thought about switching instead of resting. Holy shit that is so simple yet so effective
Eh. I usually have like 15 sacks of camp supplies, so it’s not like resting is something you need to worry about
Yeah, but thats a good mechanic to go around all the companions
Can also respec them and steal the money back. Zero rest run is possible.
But what’s the point I always finish the game with a metric ton of supplies left and a lot of plots are advanced only during long rests
Speedrunners have all kinds of self-imposed challenges to make the game more interesting.
Game feels like one long ass dungeon anyway, no natural long rest points storywise.
I rather like being able to long rest practically at any time rather than at forced moments. But I’ve grown away from looking for a challenge in videogames these days I just want to chill
Story probably won’t let you
Same, I was averaging 5~10 fights per long rest by the end of the game because I was trying to efficiently swap people out depending on who was low on health or spells, or use whoever I thought would have the most relevant dialogue for the quest(s).
My default roster was usually either Shadowheart, Gale and Laezel or Karlach, Wyll and Astarion. I was playing an archer sniper ranger so I basically always had two melee, one caster blaster and me as DPS and CC through arrows. I actually really liked the arrow system to give bow users more utility and if I ever run a campaign I’d like to adopt that. I’d make them cheaper though.
I never got to actually use Halsin. I tried to swap him in several times and it just never worked, then he was killed via plot events in act 3 via a mechanism where I could not save him. I used Jaheira a bit in late act 3, just for the Harper & Minsc stuff, not much after that. Never used Minsc, too much overlap with me, Laezel and Karlach.
I found both Wyll and Gale pretty frustrating, but that’s likely because I was trying to be so conservative on rests.
Don’t know how people have already run through 3+ times, I spent like 150 hours on my first run and saw probably 85% of the game… also the ending was pretty disappointing. I’m not itching to dive back in but I’d be interested in DUrge as well as interacting with Minthara more.
If you are only resting 5-10 encounters per long rest you probably missed about a 1/8th of the game. There is a ton of long rest camp content.
Ideally you should be long resting every 3-4 encounters if you don’t want to miss stuff.
I would also recommend a Durge run and a Gith run (as Lae’zel or a Gith Tav) as they both have enough new content to justify a fresh run.
My go to party is MC, Shadowheart, Karlach, Gale.
Gale is typically my swap slot but occasionally Karlach gets swapped if I’m bringing in Lae’zel.
Shadowheart never really leaves the party as Cleric+Luminous Armor means the party basically never takes damage.
Is luminous armour really that impactful? I was using it till late act 2 or so but eventually swapped it out. It was one of those things I couldn’t tell how much of a difference it made.
Shadowheart feels offensively really weak and has by far the worst accuracy. While my warlock player character gets consistently 95+% hit chance for her cantrips (and with eldritch blast, theres 2-3 hits), Shadowheart’s cantrips are frequently <50% accurate and she only gets a single hit. I mostly use her as support only as a result.
When I want to do damage with Shadowheart, I usually use spirit guardians (mostly for when there’s many weaker enemies), that retaliating summon (placing it well means doing I think 60 unmissable damage), or some other kind of summon.
I admittedly never respeced her and didn’t look at what alternative cleric builds existed.
Once you reach Last Light Inn and acquire the Callous Glow Ring and Luminous Gloves the Luminous Armor is capable of applying 4-10 stacks of Luminating Orb per spell slot/channel divinity. The highest enemy attack bonus in the game is +15 (most in Act 3 have +10-11), so with the right positioning of your AoE abilites and a party AC of 20, enemies have to roll a Nat 20 just to hit. This pretty effectively shutsdown incoming damage as not enough enemies are able to deal AoE damage to overcome short rest healing.
Light Domain is the best at applying this because of their Channel Divinity, but all Clerics get access to Spirit Guardians and other good AoE spells that CGR can apply radiant damage to.
I drove a stake through Astarion’s heart.
Shadowheart, Karlach and Lae’zel. I’m a Bard.
I’m playing a lore bard with thief skills. I started with Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae’zel, but Karlach made me smile so much that I swapped her in as our tank.
We’ve been a pretty effective party through the first two acts on the balanced difficulty setting. Locks, traps, and persuasion checks are a breeze. Three fights between long rests is typical, and we barely touch consumables.
I might spend more time optimizing builds on my second play-through, which I expect will be in tactician mode.
If I’m doing a quest that involves them, I’d bring them along and swap out karlach - mainly because my tav plays the same role and I feel karlach’s quests are fewer than the rest
But my main gang is currently me (throw barb), shadowheart (life cleric / tank) laezel (rogue/hunter) and karlach (giant eagle-diving barb cutiepie)
I love karlach and I also love shadowheart & laezel’s interactions
I wish I had not screwed up getting laezel early on
There’s enough other stuff to do to justify a second play ;)
I plan on it. Just gotta finish the first one! I’m still in the first act
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Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach. My custom character is an Oath of the Ancients Paladin. I’m currently about halfway through through Act 2.
I don’t bother swapping, even for lockpicking and disarming. I instead respecced Gale to have 16 Dexterity and Sleight of Hand proficiency. I haven’t yet encountered any check that he couldn’t pass, especially with Guidance.
I’m kind of bummed about not taking Lae’zel to the creche, but I can always do that in another playthrough.
I am in Act 3 currently with Wyll, Halsin and Jaheira. I swapped out Shadowheart and Gale for the druids, and probably will swap out Jaheira after recruiting Minsc.
My first run through I was Tav with Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Wyll. Current run I’m DU (resisting) with Karlach, Astarion, and Gale.
My Tav:
Paladin/Bard
Karlach:
Barbarian/Monk
Lae’zel:
Straight Fighter
Shadowheart:
Life Domain Cleric
My Tav has Gloves of Dexterity so any locks/traps he can handle along with the sneakiness. Karlach tenderizes all the things before Lae’zel chops them into peices, and Shadowheart keeps everyone healed.
What is a tav?
The character you created from scratch
Is that the default name? I named mine, so maybe I forgot
Yeah it’s the default name
Game 1:
Druid (forgot which spec but I hated it), Lae’zel, Wyll, shadow
Game 2 (dark urge): Paladin (veng, wanted to do oathbreaker but never broke my oath), Karlach, Astarion, Gale
Game 3 (tactician): Druid (spore, loved this one), shadow, Wyll, Gale (necromancer)
Game 3 was the most fun comp because I had like 40 summons. I planned to respec Wyll to druid for MORE summons but I just like warlock so much…
So far rogue and barbarian have been my least favorite classes but I only used the character’s default specs. Warlock is by far my favorite and I really like late-game Cleric, too.
Did managing so many summons in combat ever get tedious? My party size never exceeded like seven.
Yes. Absolutely. The worst is when you can’t do anything with a summon except move it…or when you have to shuffle them around to allow your character to move.
When I wasn’t prepping for a boss I usually had 4-5 summons total but I went all out for big fights. You’re pretty unstoppable when you control the action economy like that. On the ketheric fight for example, I forced phase 2 before his turn started. Summons on the adds and my party on ketheric.
I don’t think I’d do it again because the novelty wore off by the end but it’s kinda fun!
Barbarians when inefficiently built are fun imo. Wildheart barb / sword bard was fun as hell in my durge playthrough, and zerker barb / champion fighter w GW master was great for karlach, probably less overall damage than battlemaster but crits give me dopamine.
…is there no limit to summons? I realize I was actually assuming I couldn’t use a summoning spell multiple times for the same character, but maybe that’s wrong. I usually try to keep a single, most powerful summon for each character that has one (and for difficult battles, I’ve used summoning scrolls for other characters).
I considered a few times trying to see what would happen if I summoned more, but figured it’d make the game too easy, anyway. A lot of the summons are quite strong and they have a lot of health.
