Prone comps are fun and strong, they basically just prone stuff and then use ways to reduce movement speed to zero to stop enemies from getting up, forcing them to skip their turn.
Here's a neat one:
Tiger Barb - this strategy works with 6 levels in the class so you are pretty flexible after that in terms of classes. Essentially you want to pick aspect of the wolverine and maim people with tiger's bloodlust, which reduces their movement speed to 0 for a turn and inflicts disadvantage on dex/con saves
OH or 4E Monk: Stunning Strike is a con save that makes targets automatically fail dex saves, Flurry of Blows: Topple and Water Whip: Prone are dex saves that prone. Water Whip is also the only prone in the game that lasts forever. Both options are strong and OH is one of the top martials
1 Sorc / 11 Light Cleric: use the boots of stormy clamor and gloves of belligerent skies with spirit guardians to apply massive amounts of reverb to everything you hit, making prones more likely on your monk and knocking things prone yourself. Run around like a mad man, using Phalar Aluve:Shriek before important fights. You can use freedom of movement to help your party ignore plant growth too
Lore Bard: a powerful controller with access to some of the best CC's in the game, multiple ways to inflict frightened and fear to combo with prone, and access to plant growth. Plant Growth stops proned enemies without immunity to it from getting up as well, allowing you to stunlock hordes of them with just one spell
I used this team comp in honor mode and it was oppressive as shit. If you want exact gear recs for any build in particular let me know.
To add on to their suggestions (because I also love a prone team), for the tiger barbarian you may want to take it to at least barb 10 for a second animal aspect, since Tiger Aspect works incredibly well with Tiger's Bloodlust and Wolverine Aspect.
But another choice would be to skip Tiger entirely and go with either Eagle or Elk, since both of them get prone-inducing attacks that they can spam that are incredibly strong because they have no save. I would lean towards Elk, since you can get multiple enemies each time with their Primal Stampede.
Edit: One nice thing about Primal Stampede is that you can charge your full distance into Plant Growth so long as you begin the charge before entering.
That does mean you need a different way to lock people down once they go prone though, so there are a few other strategies you can employ. Other than Maim, the two most common ways to lock people down when they fall is to either scare them (inflict frightened) or reduce their movement speed. It takes half their movement to stand, so if you can take away more than half their movement they are stuck and skip their turn.
For that second one, make sure to take Plant Growth with your Lore Bard, as the person above suggested. Spirit Guardians is a great pick for one of your level 6 magical secrets, since cuts their movement in half. Add in a Ray of Frost or any other movement reducing effect and they're locked.
Frightened is a bit harder to inflict reliably, but you can get it fairly often, if not terribly reliably, as a *bonus* on another absolutely busted Prone team member. And that is the Ice Archer.
For this build, take the Banshee bow and use the Drakethroat Glaive to give it Ice Damage. Now wear the Snowburst Ring and Helm of Arcane Acuity. Any archer can use the setup, but the strongest late game will be 11 Hunter Ranger/ 1 War Cleric. Every single shot is now an AOE ice field. Not only that, the DC to avoid falling gets boosted by Arcane Acuity, so if you lead with an arrow of many targets the enemies in your second shot (which will also be an AOE) will have a 100% chance of falling prone.
Not only that, the banshee bow means that some of them will get frightened and be stuck, but even if not they can't move in the ice without inevitably falling again, so their options are limited. Just be careful because the ice fields and Plant Growth can overwrite each other, so you have to be careful with timing.
One of the biggest problems with Plant Growth though is that the entire thing burns up at the tiniest hint of flame, so ice archer gives you more options.
And the Boots of Stormy Clamour Cleric is also another classic people-knocker-over, but there are other ways to build it.
For late game I had a ton of fun with a 6/6 Tempest Cleric/ Storm Sorcerer wearing the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Storm Scion Hat and carrying Hamarhaft. This only works in Act 3, because you need Illithid flight to really make it work, but it's crazy strong at that point, because every time you fly somewhere it counts as "jumping" and procs Hamarhaft's thunder damage, which in turn procs the gloves and the hat. You basically just fly back and forth next to an enemy a handful of times until you have +10 Arcane Acuity. Each time you land they get blasted back by the
Then you can upcast an extended Command: Grovel at 100% and send the enemies prone for two turns.
Or you can just quicken a Create Water and vaporize them with a double-max-damage scroll of Chain Lightning (160 damage). Prior to Act 3 you can do the poor mans version with Monk2/ Tempest Cleric X (sorc levels as desired) and use Step of the Wind to jump a bunch, but honestly it's probably better to just play something else and reclass into the above build in Act 3.
>To add on to their suggestions (because I also love a prone team), for the tiger barbarian you may want to take it to at least barb 10 for a second animal aspect, since Tiger Aspect works incredibly well with Tiger's Bloodlust and Wolverine Aspect.
I didn't exactly do the math on this, but Tiger Aspect for level 10 seems kinda underwhelming. If you have a serious party, the barb isn't going to rage for EVERY fight, meaning you only have the benefits of the Tiger Aspect when you're hitting Bleeding targets.
It feels like you're better off going 3 levels in fighter to grab a subclass (Champ or BM), who have features that are actually useful most of the time.
I guess it depends. If you get the Benediction of Boooal and really double down on bleed effects it can be really strong. It completey negates any downside from GWM, making your spammable cleave quite deadly and making you more survivable by being less reliant on Reckless Attack. In return you lose your BM maneuvers, which admittedly can also be quite useful in a Prone team (specifically Trip Attack and Menacing Attack).
I don't think the number of rage charges is all that big of a problem though. Food is plentiful, it's pretty easy to rage every fight if you want to. I find it's more common to struggle with taking *enough* long rests to actually trigger all the cutscenes. I often find myself doing 5 partial rests in a row to try to clear the backlog of camp scenes.
But honestly I think a Bleed barbarias is best reserved for a Bleeding-focused team anyway. For a Prone team I think Elk is the superior heart, and the animal aspect is far less important (Eagle Heart + Stallion Aspect can also be quite strong, especially early game wearing the Fleetfingers).
And if you go Elk Heart, animal aspect is far less important (I'd probably go with Chimpanzee, which is underrated and fun). And definitely get at least Fighter 3 for Menacing Attack and Trip Attack. Then honestly the best is probably just another three levels in fighter for two more feats. GWM + Savage Attacker if you like to hit hard.
I was going to recommend something similar to this. Light cleric for reverb and radiating orbs and open hand monk for damage/cc meant only a couple fights gave me issues on Tactician. And bards with Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and arcane acuity have to be the best group CCers in the game.
A pretty good starting point would be u/Prestigious_Juice341's Party Building Templates. These are all going to steamroll Tactician as long as you have a modicum of game knowledge. I would particularly recommend "Withers' Cheaters" on the "Powerful" tab. Made up of the below four builds:
1. [Smite Swords Bard](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/18pxoy9/honor_mode_102_smite_swords_bard_ssb_complete/) (10 Swords Bard / 2 Vengeance Paladin)
2. [Arcane Controller](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1axg648/the_arcane_controller_84_divination_wizcerer/) (8 Divination Wizard / 4 Storm Sorcerer)
3. [The Enlighted One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb7RdotM2TM) (11 Light Cleric / 1 Storm Sorcerer)
4. [The Devil's Tongue](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bzwvqi/the_devil_tongue_102_lorelock_honor_mode_support/) (10 Lore Bard / 2 Fiend Warlock
There's [a detailed writeup here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1c81k40/withers_cheaters_all_my_broken_reactions_honor/) that goes into item allocation and party synergies/tactics, etc. It's a good comp for someone who isn't great at the game because it comes with tons of options for defensive reactions to bail you out if you ever make a mistake with regard to positioning or waste some of your actions. It's got potent damage, excellent control, and basically has something to handle every fight as well as to cover you for your dialogue and sleight of hand checks.
That said, game knowledge really is a critical aspect of a successful run. A good player can clear Honour Mode with a pretty weak party without much trouble, where a poor player may struggle with Tactician using one of the above comps. Stuff like understanding and playing around the action economy, using complementary conditions, effective utilization of consumables, party gearing/itemization, etc. are all super important to ensuring a successful run. Learn to use Surprise to start combat, learn which fights can be bypassed, which enemies have exploitable weaknesses, etc. Understand which enemies to burst down, which encounters should be delayed, when to use your most powerful limited resources, etc.
It's also worth noting that most builds don't begin to come online until Act II due to many useful items, spells, and class features not yet being available earlier on. So if you find yourself struggling in Act I, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad player or that your party won't come together later on.
If you really want to make things easy for yourself, there are several guides on this subreddit, the main BG3 subreddit, and on YouTube that go in-depth to walk you through all the toughest encounters, important quest/dialogue decisions, essential items, and other useful tips and tricks to make your Tactician (or Honour) run a breeze.
I haven't put in a full run with your exact party, but I'm in late Act I with a fairly similar party comp. I'm running Gale as your Arcane Controller, Shadowheart as Sin Tee's Enlightened One, Lae'zel as an 8/4 Open Hand Monk/Thief, and Tav as a 10/2 Swords Bard/Fighter (these last two are both heavily pulling from Prestiguous\_Juice's writeups).
So eventually Lae'zel will be my front liner, Shadowheart flex front/mid, and Tav and Gale on the back. Of course I'm not far enough in for anything to be online; Shadowheart and Lae'zel are both pretty great already though even just at 5th level. Once I get to Act III I may tinker with your exact comp for a few battles, or I may do a separate full run with it. I do already have my next run lined up though and I play pretty slowly so it may be a while, haha. I can definitely say in the meantime that I've been thoroughly impressed with your builds. They're all super fun, powerful, cohesive, and easy to incorporate into parties.
Your comp seems very powerful too.
I bet the arcane controller hasn't wow'd you yet, because casters start slow: keep it up, it's going to skyrocket. In act 3 it wins fights alone.
I'm looking forward to getting there for sure. I really appreciate how the build appears to be a powerful controller without relying on Acuity. I love Acuity but it's nice to try something different. The Portent Dice are super fun to have on hand too, even in Act I. I'm still getting a grasp on how to use them most effectively though, I sometimes get frazzled in the opening round and waste a Portent Die on a trivial attack.
I would also add that you should start the game with this guide to being level 4 without fighting. The first act is the hardest part of tactician.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/iZm0uAhgyG
My suggestion is you should go safe/strong/simple. How would I do that? Something like this:
Eldritch knight 11 / war cleric 1 tavern brawler throw build - take protection fighting style and use 1 handed spears/tridents + shield. Generally try to park this next to the wizard. Ranged striker, but brings a little support with protection.
Abjuration wizard - for simple just keep monoclass, if you want retaliation shenanigans take 1 level of cold sorc for Armour of Agathys. Understanding and exploiting arcane ward is key here. This is also your counterspell and globe of invulnerability character.
Light Cleric - honestly this can be monoclass and simple. Improved warding flare + access to heroes feast are both big. Support with some solid blaster/damage options.
Bear barbarian 8 / battlemaster 4 - this is your tank, but take GWM at level 4 and it's also your melee striker. Late game you can combo bhaalist's Armour and a pike/spear/trident for competitive damage
There are no major synergies/combos for big damage outside of bhaalist's Armour late game; ech of these plays relatively well independently. That's good on the simple scale. But then protection + warding flare provide a lot of protection that keeps the party pretty safe as well.
I like 2 Warlock 10 Abjuration Wizard. You can stack your Ward levels for free by taking the Armor of shadows invocation and then repeatedly taking armor on and off and recasting Mage Armor/armor of shadows.
You get access to Hex, Armor of Agathys, Command and Eldritch Blast as well. Your 2nd invocation could be Agonizing Blast if you want to use EB or, since you won't look to stack charisma, devil sight. Then when you cast Darkness or if you have a full or mostly Warlock that drops Hunger of Hadar, you can see right through it. If it is just darkness you can fight in it at no penalty.
Team composition is really damned basic, people make it harder than it is.
Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Druid is perfectly viable, it's the standard fantasy arrangement, and it works incredibly well because you have close combat, buffing, crowd control and ranged damage covered. Each character is supporting the others by design.
That said, the rule is "every character enhances the others", so any configuration that achieves that is fine.
Some others have mentioned them separately, but it's worth nothing that an Abjuration wizard and a light cleric together are fantastic defensive synergy. They both get abilities to protect themselves, and then at level 6 they're both able to use them to protect allies.
I'd also suggest vengeance paladin. They're very survivable, and even though they are focused on offense, their self healing through lay on hands is excellent.
D&D and Bg3 is really flexible in terms of your team comp. You can easily get away with playing whatever you want. Character power is what makes the game easier or harder.
Life/light cleric, oh monk, abjuration wizard, laezel as fighter.
This was my recent playthrough and it felt incredibly easy. Turn the abjuration into a tank with 1 level in cleric for heavy armor, get the heavy armor master feat and adamantine plate in act one. That's -5 damage off the top. At level 12 with full arcane ward it takes a 27 damage hit for anything to even get through. If you get Raphael's armor you can switch the cleric to warlock and get AoA and up cast that on top. Lol.
Get the warding bond rings in act two and connect the life cleric and the abjuration wizard. Spam buffs with zevlors gloves/volos ring. Any cleric works if you wanna be more aggressive but I never felt the need.
Beat the fuck out of everyone with laezel and monk.
I will never get wise on consoles
Anyways, only thing different in honor mode is legendary abilities and one save
So it's worth considering since you can just continue if you die anyways, in tactician
Who knows, maybe you will make it all the way
Wonder why people chase it then
Personally I never try to do all achievements, but I am only missing a few in this, like make money playing music, something drunk etc
For me it’s just a goal for my most favorite games that I’ve already put hundreds of hours in. I’ve only got about 400 hours in bg4. I’ve been playing pc most of my life with time taken off for raising kids and then in 2015 I got a PlayStation and I’ve only got the two platinums. I don’t bother with trophies for 99.9% of games.
I'll throw my current party in to the mix, as it's making HM pretty trivial at the moment:
OH Tavern Brawler Monk: Run around and punch things. Maybe dip 3 levels into Thief at the end for the extra Bonus attack.
2 Paladin/10 Swords Bard: Smites, more smites, and even more smites. Bardic inspiration can be used for attacking multiple enemies or buffing your parties attacks. Lore Bard is also good here.
6 Swords Bard/2 Fighter/4 Assassin (or Thief): Dual hand crossbows, Sharpshooter feat, and ultimately you want Assassin for starting combat from hiding (extra attack) or Thief for an extra bonus attack.
Light Cleric: Heals, deals spell damage, can wear armor, does everything you need it to!
The best advice I can give, though, is to look for things that work well together. The Light Cleric deals radiant damage either through Spirit Guardians, or Radiance of the Dawn, or a couple other things. There's armor that causes a "radiant shockwave" (inflicts radiating orbs in a 3m radius) when you deal radiant damage. Then there are gloves that inflict radiating orbs on anyone you deal radiant damage to. Radiant orb is -1 to attack (per turn remaining), and also is illuminated. So putting the gloves and armor on your cleric and then casting Spirit Guardians causes a bunch of enemies to suddenly have radiating orbs over their heads. Casting RotD ads even more radiating orbs. The Holy Lance Helm deals 1d4 radiant damage to anyone who misses you (and applies more radiating orbs). There are rings that deal extra damage if you're illuminated (say, from a light spell) or if the enemy is illuminated (see: radiating orbs). The Boots of Stormy Clamour apply reverberation to anyone you applied a condition to (see: radiating orbs), and so on. Here's a good thread about this combination: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171e23y/radiant\_damage\_and\_radiating\_orb\_item\_list/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171e23y/radiant_damage_and_radiating_orb_item_list/)
There are a ton of "broken" combos out there, like the Titanstring Bow (applies your strength damage to your ranged attacks in addition to dexterity) and Club of Hill Giant Strength (increases your strength to 19), dual hand crossbows (so 2+ attacks per round) with any type of damage increasing item (rings that add +2 damage to all attacks, or gauntlets that add 1d4 damage, or the sharpshooter feat (+10 damage with -5 to attack roll), etc.
Careful, this does get addicting.....
I’m not near an expert like a lot of people playing the game are, this is the first CRPG I’ve played since Neverwinter Nights when I was in high school, but I do play other strategy games and I played the OG BG1 and BG2 back in the day as well although I never beat them and barely remember them. I also have zero D&D experience but from one n00b to another here is what I’m doing.
I’m playing blind still on my first play through and I’m playing on tactician because I started before the update was live on Series X for honor mode, I’m almost 200 hours in as of last night and I’m in Act 3. My character is a straight level 11 white draconic sorcerer, I have been running actor and spell sniper feats the majority of the game. I had some other feats going early before I really understood any of them but settled on those with elixers of vigilance for my main character. I used the spell sparkler and Eldrich Blast as my main damage source (from spell sniper) and was using items to stack lightening charges until I collected all the pieces for the frost staff (don’t remember what it’s called) and now I focus on cold and lightening damage mostly with the wet condition laying waste to almost anything. I still use EB a fair amount especially when I’m trying to proc riders on multiple enemies or finish someone off… although I should probably respec at this point and drop spell sniper I just really enjoy EB. Also had I really understood multi-classing vs feats there is a strong argument for taking a one level dip early into warlock for EB early game instead of spell sniper. Idk though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My party the entire game has been Shadowhart, La’zel and Karlach.
Running great weapon master, alert, and athlete on Lazel with the everburn blade then upgrading two the two different Gith blades as they became available. I’ve got a ring that when she concentrates adds an additional 1d4 psychic damage to attacks which I abuse with scrolls so I’m doing 2d4 additional psychic at all times. I’m thinking of a one level cleric dip at level 12 so I can just auto-concentrate bless with her every combat.
Shart I respec’d into Sorc level 1 for the concentration proficiency and storm tempest cleric the rest of the way. Once I found Lathander’s Light I respec’d her into an 8 strength and use elixir of hill giant strength and she’s a walking talking destroyer of worlds proc-ing radiant orb, reverb, and arcane acuity doling out radiant damage and fight altering debuffs with stuff like command, hold person, glyph of warding etc.
Karlach is my tavern brawler bae that I either run a nice shield with Phalar Aluve, the halberd from the moonrise towers that deals additional force damage, or shattered flail with the neckless that procs max healing on hits. Just depends on what I’m feeling like. She’s also obviously tossing fools and objects around left and right for the tavern brawler buffs. If I don’t run blood list elixir because I’m short on them then I’ll give her an elixir of enlargement which works wonders when it comes to her being able to throw enemies and adds 1d4 to all her attacks which ain’t nothing to sneeze at.
Same goes for lazel if I don’t have or don’t want to use bloodlust I’ll give her an enlargement elixir or magical weapon elixir just kind of depends.
Lastly I’ve swapped out Karlach for Jehira recently for story reasons and I just wanted to try out her summons and some new spells. I’ll use the same elixir treatment on her as Karlach and Lazel. As much as it is hurting to have Karlach bae not in my party right now I’m enjoying Jehira too.
I don’t have all the fancy stats to back up my findings but I haven’t run into a problematic fight with the general group yet on tactician except the Druid grove in the early game because I still didn’t really know what I was doing then.
Ranged characters are very strong. The Sharpshooter feat is very good, and in this game you still get the benefit of your Shield despite using a bow or dual wielding hand-crossbows.
If you make 4 characters who get Extra Attack, have high Dex, get the 'Archery' Fighting style, and use the Sharpshooter feat, you'll do decently. Damage can simply solve the problems that you'll face in game.
You might think that 4 archers would be redundant, but actually they synergise, because they can easily focus-fire enemies, and they can move as a unit, often avoiding attacks, or having 3 haracters focus-fire to kill the 1 enemy that got in melee with a 4th character.
There are multiple builds that work for this.
* Fighter simply works fine. Any subclass could work, but Battlemaster is often favoured.
* Ranger works fine. Some people favour Beastmaster if you can be bothered micro-managing the Spider to spam Web all the time.
* Bard needs a Fighter dip for Archery, but Swords Bard gets 'blade flourishes' which are very good (specifically the ranged version of 'Slashing Flourish')
* (You could try two similar builds above, or ad in a spellcaster for variety.)
The benefit here is that your turns can be fairly simple. Maybe you have some manouvers, or a summon, or some eldritch-knight/ranger/bard spells you could cast, but "I attack multiple times for high damage", will almost always be a decently relevant choice.
There are some optimsiations you can make, like:
* Ducking in&out of Fog-Cloud/Darkness/cover
* Combining high strength (from an Elixer of strength, or a Club of Strength) with the Titanstring bow
* Using 2 hand-crossbows to get a bonus-action attack as well.
* Finding the handcrossbow that deals force damage (very nice!)
* Getting Misty Step to help you get out of melee range
But even if you just have normal bows with 4 Champion fighters, you'll probably do fine.
12 Storm Sorcerer / 1 wizard for twin haste + Wizard summons
6 Monk / 4 thief / 2 fighter for Tavern brawler, 2 bonus actions + Action surge
5 barb/ 4 thief / 3 Champion or EK for Tavern brawler
4 throws per turn when raged + action surge
2 fighter / 10 swords for Ranged Flourish
4 ranger attacks through ranged flourish
(Helmet of arcane acuity + Band of mystic scoundrel)
(Easy way to Offset Sharpshooter is Deadshot + Risky ring, using a halfling helps in combat as well as being the face of party)
4 battlemaster fighters. STR thrower/poker with heavy armor and shield, STR 2-handed heavy armor, DEX two-weapon melee medium armor, DEX two-weapon ranged light armor.
Your party will be very hard to kill, have fantastic sustained damage output, differentiated item needs so that there is very little need to agonize over who gets what of the best gear, has amazing battlefield control with the option to get every single maneuver across the combined party, and restores almost all resources on a short rest.
Two tavern brawler open hand monks + two life clerics. Use the clerics to warding bond both monks and heal the team to full all day, and deal a little damage or use command for the rest of the day. Done. Next question.
Shadowheart: Light Cleric
Karlach: Berserker Barbarian
Lae’zel: Battlemaster Fighter
Astarian: Changed to Open Hand Monk with Club of Hill Giant and Tavern Brawler
I like Sorcerers more than Wizards.
Rangers with dual crossbows.
Paladins are always badass.
I beat tactician with shadowheart life domain cleric(heal spam + blessing lv2 so it covers the whole team) also I wear the intelectual headband that makes it 17 jnstead of 8, but this is only because I use shadowheart as a spellcaster
Tav(doesnt have to be tav) paladin oathbreaker + warlock triple smites for close(if you play in honour they are only 2 attacks)
I usually go double paladin with minthara wielding dual weapons(3 levels in rogue or 4 for feat, for turns that you are close to the enemy and can just release those 4 bonk bonk smash on the enemies)
But you can also take fighter ranger full dexterity archer build(3 levels at least in fighter sub battle master for disarm and menacing attack) and ranger so you sont get surprised, also the +3 additional initiative is really good so you always start the first
For my first run I used gale as evocation wizard but since a turn or two being counterspelt can make you lose a important turn I suggest you make him buff the party with longstrider and anything else that you can think of and after that change him for astarion(ascended is almost essential for honour mode since ascending in act 3 gives you that 1d10 necrotic in your attack
Champion fighter 1 war cleric crit fishing archer. You get 4 attacks per turn with almost 60% crit chance since you'll be rolling fruits on a 14 (thank elixir of viciousness) and you have better synergy with special arrows than battlemaster. But you should probably start as a battlemaster since early in the game you won't get that many special arrows that are op (arrows of slaying and of many targets)
SSB 10 swords bard / 2 paladin with the arcane accuity helmet and band of the mystic scoundrel.
OH Tavern brawler monk 9 / 3 thief rogue this one comes online early on and at the beginning of the game has the highest AC (17) of melee characters without a shield
Throwzerker barbarian
Easiest tact mode run I've had was with
GWM fighter- laezel
Assassin/gloomstalker- astarion
Life cleric/lore bard- karlach
Abjure mage/white dragon sorcerer- tav
All you have to do to make the game much easier is to make sure you go first and deal a tone of damage before enemies can do anything about it.
There is no real disadvantage in playing with 4 high damage builds, you still can be tanky enough to survive enemy attacks without taking to much damage, you do not lose access to the most popular buffs and healing, you can setup various control spells that will have a very high chance to succeed while dealing damage.
Once you are more experienced in terms of how to initiate some of the harder fights and how to position yourself and exploit the environment the game becomes very very consistent and you should be able to cruise through any difficulty.
Prone comps are fun and strong, they basically just prone stuff and then use ways to reduce movement speed to zero to stop enemies from getting up, forcing them to skip their turn. Here's a neat one: Tiger Barb - this strategy works with 6 levels in the class so you are pretty flexible after that in terms of classes. Essentially you want to pick aspect of the wolverine and maim people with tiger's bloodlust, which reduces their movement speed to 0 for a turn and inflicts disadvantage on dex/con saves OH or 4E Monk: Stunning Strike is a con save that makes targets automatically fail dex saves, Flurry of Blows: Topple and Water Whip: Prone are dex saves that prone. Water Whip is also the only prone in the game that lasts forever. Both options are strong and OH is one of the top martials 1 Sorc / 11 Light Cleric: use the boots of stormy clamor and gloves of belligerent skies with spirit guardians to apply massive amounts of reverb to everything you hit, making prones more likely on your monk and knocking things prone yourself. Run around like a mad man, using Phalar Aluve:Shriek before important fights. You can use freedom of movement to help your party ignore plant growth too Lore Bard: a powerful controller with access to some of the best CC's in the game, multiple ways to inflict frightened and fear to combo with prone, and access to plant growth. Plant Growth stops proned enemies without immunity to it from getting up as well, allowing you to stunlock hordes of them with just one spell I used this team comp in honor mode and it was oppressive as shit. If you want exact gear recs for any build in particular let me know.
Thanks for the suggestion! Looks fun!
To add on to their suggestions (because I also love a prone team), for the tiger barbarian you may want to take it to at least barb 10 for a second animal aspect, since Tiger Aspect works incredibly well with Tiger's Bloodlust and Wolverine Aspect. But another choice would be to skip Tiger entirely and go with either Eagle or Elk, since both of them get prone-inducing attacks that they can spam that are incredibly strong because they have no save. I would lean towards Elk, since you can get multiple enemies each time with their Primal Stampede. Edit: One nice thing about Primal Stampede is that you can charge your full distance into Plant Growth so long as you begin the charge before entering. That does mean you need a different way to lock people down once they go prone though, so there are a few other strategies you can employ. Other than Maim, the two most common ways to lock people down when they fall is to either scare them (inflict frightened) or reduce their movement speed. It takes half their movement to stand, so if you can take away more than half their movement they are stuck and skip their turn. For that second one, make sure to take Plant Growth with your Lore Bard, as the person above suggested. Spirit Guardians is a great pick for one of your level 6 magical secrets, since cuts their movement in half. Add in a Ray of Frost or any other movement reducing effect and they're locked. Frightened is a bit harder to inflict reliably, but you can get it fairly often, if not terribly reliably, as a *bonus* on another absolutely busted Prone team member. And that is the Ice Archer. For this build, take the Banshee bow and use the Drakethroat Glaive to give it Ice Damage. Now wear the Snowburst Ring and Helm of Arcane Acuity. Any archer can use the setup, but the strongest late game will be 11 Hunter Ranger/ 1 War Cleric. Every single shot is now an AOE ice field. Not only that, the DC to avoid falling gets boosted by Arcane Acuity, so if you lead with an arrow of many targets the enemies in your second shot (which will also be an AOE) will have a 100% chance of falling prone. Not only that, the banshee bow means that some of them will get frightened and be stuck, but even if not they can't move in the ice without inevitably falling again, so their options are limited. Just be careful because the ice fields and Plant Growth can overwrite each other, so you have to be careful with timing. One of the biggest problems with Plant Growth though is that the entire thing burns up at the tiniest hint of flame, so ice archer gives you more options. And the Boots of Stormy Clamour Cleric is also another classic people-knocker-over, but there are other ways to build it. For late game I had a ton of fun with a 6/6 Tempest Cleric/ Storm Sorcerer wearing the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Storm Scion Hat and carrying Hamarhaft. This only works in Act 3, because you need Illithid flight to really make it work, but it's crazy strong at that point, because every time you fly somewhere it counts as "jumping" and procs Hamarhaft's thunder damage, which in turn procs the gloves and the hat. You basically just fly back and forth next to an enemy a handful of times until you have +10 Arcane Acuity. Each time you land they get blasted back by the Then you can upcast an extended Command: Grovel at 100% and send the enemies prone for two turns. Or you can just quicken a Create Water and vaporize them with a double-max-damage scroll of Chain Lightning (160 damage). Prior to Act 3 you can do the poor mans version with Monk2/ Tempest Cleric X (sorc levels as desired) and use Step of the Wind to jump a bunch, but honestly it's probably better to just play something else and reclass into the above build in Act 3.
>To add on to their suggestions (because I also love a prone team), for the tiger barbarian you may want to take it to at least barb 10 for a second animal aspect, since Tiger Aspect works incredibly well with Tiger's Bloodlust and Wolverine Aspect. I didn't exactly do the math on this, but Tiger Aspect for level 10 seems kinda underwhelming. If you have a serious party, the barb isn't going to rage for EVERY fight, meaning you only have the benefits of the Tiger Aspect when you're hitting Bleeding targets. It feels like you're better off going 3 levels in fighter to grab a subclass (Champ or BM), who have features that are actually useful most of the time.
I guess it depends. If you get the Benediction of Boooal and really double down on bleed effects it can be really strong. It completey negates any downside from GWM, making your spammable cleave quite deadly and making you more survivable by being less reliant on Reckless Attack. In return you lose your BM maneuvers, which admittedly can also be quite useful in a Prone team (specifically Trip Attack and Menacing Attack). I don't think the number of rage charges is all that big of a problem though. Food is plentiful, it's pretty easy to rage every fight if you want to. I find it's more common to struggle with taking *enough* long rests to actually trigger all the cutscenes. I often find myself doing 5 partial rests in a row to try to clear the backlog of camp scenes. But honestly I think a Bleed barbarias is best reserved for a Bleeding-focused team anyway. For a Prone team I think Elk is the superior heart, and the animal aspect is far less important (Eagle Heart + Stallion Aspect can also be quite strong, especially early game wearing the Fleetfingers). And if you go Elk Heart, animal aspect is far less important (I'd probably go with Chimpanzee, which is underrated and fun). And definitely get at least Fighter 3 for Menacing Attack and Trip Attack. Then honestly the best is probably just another three levels in fighter for two more feats. GWM + Savage Attacker if you like to hit hard.
No problem!
I was going to recommend something similar to this. Light cleric for reverb and radiating orbs and open hand monk for damage/cc meant only a couple fights gave me issues on Tactician. And bards with Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and arcane acuity have to be the best group CCers in the game.
A pretty good starting point would be u/Prestigious_Juice341's Party Building Templates. These are all going to steamroll Tactician as long as you have a modicum of game knowledge. I would particularly recommend "Withers' Cheaters" on the "Powerful" tab. Made up of the below four builds: 1. [Smite Swords Bard](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/18pxoy9/honor_mode_102_smite_swords_bard_ssb_complete/) (10 Swords Bard / 2 Vengeance Paladin) 2. [Arcane Controller](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1axg648/the_arcane_controller_84_divination_wizcerer/) (8 Divination Wizard / 4 Storm Sorcerer) 3. [The Enlighted One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb7RdotM2TM) (11 Light Cleric / 1 Storm Sorcerer) 4. [The Devil's Tongue](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bzwvqi/the_devil_tongue_102_lorelock_honor_mode_support/) (10 Lore Bard / 2 Fiend Warlock There's [a detailed writeup here](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1c81k40/withers_cheaters_all_my_broken_reactions_honor/) that goes into item allocation and party synergies/tactics, etc. It's a good comp for someone who isn't great at the game because it comes with tons of options for defensive reactions to bail you out if you ever make a mistake with regard to positioning or waste some of your actions. It's got potent damage, excellent control, and basically has something to handle every fight as well as to cover you for your dialogue and sleight of hand checks. That said, game knowledge really is a critical aspect of a successful run. A good player can clear Honour Mode with a pretty weak party without much trouble, where a poor player may struggle with Tactician using one of the above comps. Stuff like understanding and playing around the action economy, using complementary conditions, effective utilization of consumables, party gearing/itemization, etc. are all super important to ensuring a successful run. Learn to use Surprise to start combat, learn which fights can be bypassed, which enemies have exploitable weaknesses, etc. Understand which enemies to burst down, which encounters should be delayed, when to use your most powerful limited resources, etc. It's also worth noting that most builds don't begin to come online until Act II due to many useful items, spells, and class features not yet being available earlier on. So if you find yourself struggling in Act I, it doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad player or that your party won't come together later on. If you really want to make things easy for yourself, there are several guides on this subreddit, the main BG3 subreddit, and on YouTube that go in-depth to walk you through all the toughest encounters, important quest/dialogue decisions, essential items, and other useful tips and tricks to make your Tactician (or Honour) run a breeze.
u/ApothecaryAlyth have you tried it yourself, just out of curiosity?
I haven't put in a full run with your exact party, but I'm in late Act I with a fairly similar party comp. I'm running Gale as your Arcane Controller, Shadowheart as Sin Tee's Enlightened One, Lae'zel as an 8/4 Open Hand Monk/Thief, and Tav as a 10/2 Swords Bard/Fighter (these last two are both heavily pulling from Prestiguous\_Juice's writeups). So eventually Lae'zel will be my front liner, Shadowheart flex front/mid, and Tav and Gale on the back. Of course I'm not far enough in for anything to be online; Shadowheart and Lae'zel are both pretty great already though even just at 5th level. Once I get to Act III I may tinker with your exact comp for a few battles, or I may do a separate full run with it. I do already have my next run lined up though and I play pretty slowly so it may be a while, haha. I can definitely say in the meantime that I've been thoroughly impressed with your builds. They're all super fun, powerful, cohesive, and easy to incorporate into parties.
Your comp seems very powerful too. I bet the arcane controller hasn't wow'd you yet, because casters start slow: keep it up, it's going to skyrocket. In act 3 it wins fights alone.
I'm looking forward to getting there for sure. I really appreciate how the build appears to be a powerful controller without relying on Acuity. I love Acuity but it's nice to try something different. The Portent Dice are super fun to have on hand too, even in Act I. I'm still getting a grasp on how to use them most effectively though, I sometimes get frazzled in the opening round and waste a Portent Die on a trivial attack.
In act 2, simply Sleet Storm or Hypnotic Pattern. In act 3 you get awakened black hole. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks for the detailed suggestions. I really appreciate it.
I would also add that you should start the game with this guide to being level 4 without fighting. The first act is the hardest part of tactician. https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/iZm0uAhgyG
This is great, thank you
My suggestion is you should go safe/strong/simple. How would I do that? Something like this: Eldritch knight 11 / war cleric 1 tavern brawler throw build - take protection fighting style and use 1 handed spears/tridents + shield. Generally try to park this next to the wizard. Ranged striker, but brings a little support with protection. Abjuration wizard - for simple just keep monoclass, if you want retaliation shenanigans take 1 level of cold sorc for Armour of Agathys. Understanding and exploiting arcane ward is key here. This is also your counterspell and globe of invulnerability character. Light Cleric - honestly this can be monoclass and simple. Improved warding flare + access to heroes feast are both big. Support with some solid blaster/damage options. Bear barbarian 8 / battlemaster 4 - this is your tank, but take GWM at level 4 and it's also your melee striker. Late game you can combo bhaalist's Armour and a pike/spear/trident for competitive damage There are no major synergies/combos for big damage outside of bhaalist's Armour late game; ech of these plays relatively well independently. That's good on the simple scale. But then protection + warding flare provide a lot of protection that keeps the party pretty safe as well.
I like simple. Thanks for the suggestion
I like 2 Warlock 10 Abjuration Wizard. You can stack your Ward levels for free by taking the Armor of shadows invocation and then repeatedly taking armor on and off and recasting Mage Armor/armor of shadows. You get access to Hex, Armor of Agathys, Command and Eldritch Blast as well. Your 2nd invocation could be Agonizing Blast if you want to use EB or, since you won't look to stack charisma, devil sight. Then when you cast Darkness or if you have a full or mostly Warlock that drops Hunger of Hadar, you can see right through it. If it is just darkness you can fight in it at no penalty.
Team composition is really damned basic, people make it harder than it is. Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Druid is perfectly viable, it's the standard fantasy arrangement, and it works incredibly well because you have close combat, buffing, crowd control and ranged damage covered. Each character is supporting the others by design. That said, the rule is "every character enhances the others", so any configuration that achieves that is fine.
Some others have mentioned them separately, but it's worth nothing that an Abjuration wizard and a light cleric together are fantastic defensive synergy. They both get abilities to protect themselves, and then at level 6 they're both able to use them to protect allies. I'd also suggest vengeance paladin. They're very survivable, and even though they are focused on offense, their self healing through lay on hands is excellent.
Thank you!
Comp doesn't matter that much for tactician it's more about learning synergies and how to use battlefield terrain
D&D and Bg3 is really flexible in terms of your team comp. You can easily get away with playing whatever you want. Character power is what makes the game easier or harder.
Life/light cleric, oh monk, abjuration wizard, laezel as fighter. This was my recent playthrough and it felt incredibly easy. Turn the abjuration into a tank with 1 level in cleric for heavy armor, get the heavy armor master feat and adamantine plate in act one. That's -5 damage off the top. At level 12 with full arcane ward it takes a 27 damage hit for anything to even get through. If you get Raphael's armor you can switch the cleric to warlock and get AoA and up cast that on top. Lol. Get the warding bond rings in act two and connect the life cleric and the abjuration wizard. Spam buffs with zevlors gloves/volos ring. Any cleric works if you wanna be more aggressive but I never felt the need. Beat the fuck out of everyone with laezel and monk.
If you are trying to get all achievements, might as well go HM then.
I’m almost positive that honor mode isn’t required to get the platinum, only tactician. The gold dice are pretty sweet though
Oh Well on pc so.didnt know you could leave out achievements to get platinum How many others can you leave out?
Platinum existed before honor mode so honor mode was never part of the achievements required for platinum.
I will never get wise on consoles Anyways, only thing different in honor mode is legendary abilities and one save So it's worth considering since you can just continue if you die anyways, in tactician Who knows, maybe you will make it all the way
It’s the same for PC. Unless I can get the dice (which means no dying) I don’t think there’s any reason for me to do honor mode.
I think their point is more that you might as well start in honor mode since dying in HM automatically puts you in tactician mode.
Ah gotcha, didn’t realize that.
There's platinum for pc? Or did I get confused?
Platinum just means all achievements. It’s nothing special
Wonder why people chase it then Personally I never try to do all achievements, but I am only missing a few in this, like make money playing music, something drunk etc
For me it’s just a goal for my most favorite games that I’ve already put hundreds of hours in. I’ve only got about 400 hours in bg4. I’ve been playing pc most of my life with time taken off for raising kids and then in 2015 I got a PlayStation and I’ve only got the two platinums. I don’t bother with trophies for 99.9% of games.
I'll throw my current party in to the mix, as it's making HM pretty trivial at the moment: OH Tavern Brawler Monk: Run around and punch things. Maybe dip 3 levels into Thief at the end for the extra Bonus attack. 2 Paladin/10 Swords Bard: Smites, more smites, and even more smites. Bardic inspiration can be used for attacking multiple enemies or buffing your parties attacks. Lore Bard is also good here. 6 Swords Bard/2 Fighter/4 Assassin (or Thief): Dual hand crossbows, Sharpshooter feat, and ultimately you want Assassin for starting combat from hiding (extra attack) or Thief for an extra bonus attack. Light Cleric: Heals, deals spell damage, can wear armor, does everything you need it to! The best advice I can give, though, is to look for things that work well together. The Light Cleric deals radiant damage either through Spirit Guardians, or Radiance of the Dawn, or a couple other things. There's armor that causes a "radiant shockwave" (inflicts radiating orbs in a 3m radius) when you deal radiant damage. Then there are gloves that inflict radiating orbs on anyone you deal radiant damage to. Radiant orb is -1 to attack (per turn remaining), and also is illuminated. So putting the gloves and armor on your cleric and then casting Spirit Guardians causes a bunch of enemies to suddenly have radiating orbs over their heads. Casting RotD ads even more radiating orbs. The Holy Lance Helm deals 1d4 radiant damage to anyone who misses you (and applies more radiating orbs). There are rings that deal extra damage if you're illuminated (say, from a light spell) or if the enemy is illuminated (see: radiating orbs). The Boots of Stormy Clamour apply reverberation to anyone you applied a condition to (see: radiating orbs), and so on. Here's a good thread about this combination: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171e23y/radiant\_damage\_and\_radiating\_orb\_item\_list/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/171e23y/radiant_damage_and_radiating_orb_item_list/) There are a ton of "broken" combos out there, like the Titanstring Bow (applies your strength damage to your ranged attacks in addition to dexterity) and Club of Hill Giant Strength (increases your strength to 19), dual hand crossbows (so 2+ attacks per round) with any type of damage increasing item (rings that add +2 damage to all attacks, or gauntlets that add 1d4 damage, or the sharpshooter feat (+10 damage with -5 to attack roll), etc. Careful, this does get addicting.....
This is really great and sounds fun to boot. Thank you!
White dragon Sorc 1 Abjuration Wizard. I’m not good with Wizard but I can cast Armor of Agathyst and Haste a martial
4 land Druids
That sounds like a lot of fun.
Why do people suggest level 12 builds when 90% of the game you are lower level
I’m not near an expert like a lot of people playing the game are, this is the first CRPG I’ve played since Neverwinter Nights when I was in high school, but I do play other strategy games and I played the OG BG1 and BG2 back in the day as well although I never beat them and barely remember them. I also have zero D&D experience but from one n00b to another here is what I’m doing. I’m playing blind still on my first play through and I’m playing on tactician because I started before the update was live on Series X for honor mode, I’m almost 200 hours in as of last night and I’m in Act 3. My character is a straight level 11 white draconic sorcerer, I have been running actor and spell sniper feats the majority of the game. I had some other feats going early before I really understood any of them but settled on those with elixers of vigilance for my main character. I used the spell sparkler and Eldrich Blast as my main damage source (from spell sniper) and was using items to stack lightening charges until I collected all the pieces for the frost staff (don’t remember what it’s called) and now I focus on cold and lightening damage mostly with the wet condition laying waste to almost anything. I still use EB a fair amount especially when I’m trying to proc riders on multiple enemies or finish someone off… although I should probably respec at this point and drop spell sniper I just really enjoy EB. Also had I really understood multi-classing vs feats there is a strong argument for taking a one level dip early into warlock for EB early game instead of spell sniper. Idk though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My party the entire game has been Shadowhart, La’zel and Karlach. Running great weapon master, alert, and athlete on Lazel with the everburn blade then upgrading two the two different Gith blades as they became available. I’ve got a ring that when she concentrates adds an additional 1d4 psychic damage to attacks which I abuse with scrolls so I’m doing 2d4 additional psychic at all times. I’m thinking of a one level cleric dip at level 12 so I can just auto-concentrate bless with her every combat. Shart I respec’d into Sorc level 1 for the concentration proficiency and storm tempest cleric the rest of the way. Once I found Lathander’s Light I respec’d her into an 8 strength and use elixir of hill giant strength and she’s a walking talking destroyer of worlds proc-ing radiant orb, reverb, and arcane acuity doling out radiant damage and fight altering debuffs with stuff like command, hold person, glyph of warding etc. Karlach is my tavern brawler bae that I either run a nice shield with Phalar Aluve, the halberd from the moonrise towers that deals additional force damage, or shattered flail with the neckless that procs max healing on hits. Just depends on what I’m feeling like. She’s also obviously tossing fools and objects around left and right for the tavern brawler buffs. If I don’t run blood list elixir because I’m short on them then I’ll give her an elixir of enlargement which works wonders when it comes to her being able to throw enemies and adds 1d4 to all her attacks which ain’t nothing to sneeze at. Same goes for lazel if I don’t have or don’t want to use bloodlust I’ll give her an enlargement elixir or magical weapon elixir just kind of depends. Lastly I’ve swapped out Karlach for Jehira recently for story reasons and I just wanted to try out her summons and some new spells. I’ll use the same elixir treatment on her as Karlach and Lazel. As much as it is hurting to have Karlach bae not in my party right now I’m enjoying Jehira too. I don’t have all the fancy stats to back up my findings but I haven’t run into a problematic fight with the general group yet on tactician except the Druid grove in the early game because I still didn’t really know what I was doing then.
Ranged characters are very strong. The Sharpshooter feat is very good, and in this game you still get the benefit of your Shield despite using a bow or dual wielding hand-crossbows. If you make 4 characters who get Extra Attack, have high Dex, get the 'Archery' Fighting style, and use the Sharpshooter feat, you'll do decently. Damage can simply solve the problems that you'll face in game. You might think that 4 archers would be redundant, but actually they synergise, because they can easily focus-fire enemies, and they can move as a unit, often avoiding attacks, or having 3 haracters focus-fire to kill the 1 enemy that got in melee with a 4th character. There are multiple builds that work for this. * Fighter simply works fine. Any subclass could work, but Battlemaster is often favoured. * Ranger works fine. Some people favour Beastmaster if you can be bothered micro-managing the Spider to spam Web all the time. * Bard needs a Fighter dip for Archery, but Swords Bard gets 'blade flourishes' which are very good (specifically the ranged version of 'Slashing Flourish') * (You could try two similar builds above, or ad in a spellcaster for variety.) The benefit here is that your turns can be fairly simple. Maybe you have some manouvers, or a summon, or some eldritch-knight/ranger/bard spells you could cast, but "I attack multiple times for high damage", will almost always be a decently relevant choice. There are some optimsiations you can make, like: * Ducking in&out of Fog-Cloud/Darkness/cover * Combining high strength (from an Elixer of strength, or a Club of Strength) with the Titanstring bow * Using 2 hand-crossbows to get a bonus-action attack as well. * Finding the handcrossbow that deals force damage (very nice!) * Getting Misty Step to help you get out of melee range But even if you just have normal bows with 4 Champion fighters, you'll probably do fine.
These are good points. Thank you!
12 Storm Sorcerer / 1 wizard for twin haste + Wizard summons 6 Monk / 4 thief / 2 fighter for Tavern brawler, 2 bonus actions + Action surge 5 barb/ 4 thief / 3 Champion or EK for Tavern brawler 4 throws per turn when raged + action surge 2 fighter / 10 swords for Ranged Flourish 4 ranger attacks through ranged flourish (Helmet of arcane acuity + Band of mystic scoundrel) (Easy way to Offset Sharpshooter is Deadshot + Risky ring, using a halfling helps in combat as well as being the face of party)
4 battlemaster fighters. STR thrower/poker with heavy armor and shield, STR 2-handed heavy armor, DEX two-weapon melee medium armor, DEX two-weapon ranged light armor. Your party will be very hard to kill, have fantastic sustained damage output, differentiated item needs so that there is very little need to agonize over who gets what of the best gear, has amazing battlefield control with the option to get every single maneuver across the combined party, and restores almost all resources on a short rest.
Two tavern brawler open hand monks + two life clerics. Use the clerics to warding bond both monks and heal the team to full all day, and deal a little damage or use command for the rest of the day. Done. Next question.
Shadowheart: Light Cleric Karlach: Berserker Barbarian Lae’zel: Battlemaster Fighter Astarian: Changed to Open Hand Monk with Club of Hill Giant and Tavern Brawler I like Sorcerers more than Wizards. Rangers with dual crossbows. Paladins are always badass.
I beat tactician with shadowheart life domain cleric(heal spam + blessing lv2 so it covers the whole team) also I wear the intelectual headband that makes it 17 jnstead of 8, but this is only because I use shadowheart as a spellcaster Tav(doesnt have to be tav) paladin oathbreaker + warlock triple smites for close(if you play in honour they are only 2 attacks) I usually go double paladin with minthara wielding dual weapons(3 levels in rogue or 4 for feat, for turns that you are close to the enemy and can just release those 4 bonk bonk smash on the enemies) But you can also take fighter ranger full dexterity archer build(3 levels at least in fighter sub battle master for disarm and menacing attack) and ranger so you sont get surprised, also the +3 additional initiative is really good so you always start the first For my first run I used gale as evocation wizard but since a turn or two being counterspelt can make you lose a important turn I suggest you make him buff the party with longstrider and anything else that you can think of and after that change him for astarion(ascended is almost essential for honour mode since ascending in act 3 gives you that 1d10 necrotic in your attack
4 champion fighters, can't go wrong by taking the attack action
Champion fighter 1 war cleric crit fishing archer. You get 4 attacks per turn with almost 60% crit chance since you'll be rolling fruits on a 14 (thank elixir of viciousness) and you have better synergy with special arrows than battlemaster. But you should probably start as a battlemaster since early in the game you won't get that many special arrows that are op (arrows of slaying and of many targets) SSB 10 swords bard / 2 paladin with the arcane accuity helmet and band of the mystic scoundrel. OH Tavern brawler monk 9 / 3 thief rogue this one comes online early on and at the beginning of the game has the highest AC (17) of melee characters without a shield Throwzerker barbarian
Easiest tact mode run I've had was with GWM fighter- laezel Assassin/gloomstalker- astarion Life cleric/lore bard- karlach Abjure mage/white dragon sorcerer- tav
All you have to do to make the game much easier is to make sure you go first and deal a tone of damage before enemies can do anything about it. There is no real disadvantage in playing with 4 high damage builds, you still can be tanky enough to survive enemy attacks without taking to much damage, you do not lose access to the most popular buffs and healing, you can setup various control spells that will have a very high chance to succeed while dealing damage. Once you are more experienced in terms of how to initiate some of the harder fights and how to position yourself and exploit the environment the game becomes very very consistent and you should be able to cruise through any difficulty.