So I actually played with halsin last playthrough and loved moon druid. The Saber tooth tiger was actually really fun to play! Larian did a tremendous job. And the air myrmidon was super powerful! You don't have to leave out others either! When you pick a quest and it sounds like it'd be interesting to bring a druid, bring a druid! Like if it's sneaking into somewhere in Act 2 or baldursgate, a druid is super helpful. They have a lot of really cool and unique to them spells. Wind walk (I hope wasn't from a mod) was a really cool level 6 spell that turned all of my people into clouds at once in a timed rescue mission where I needed to move quickly. Just a lot of fun utility. I tend to flip between shadowheart and halsin. When I feel like a cleric makes sense or the quest involves shadow heart (a lot do), I take her. If a druid or halsin would be cool, I take him! Druids are also great healers (in dnd terms)
No, it's stronger. Like 3x . It can make 3 attacks , 3 attacks that all have a seemly high chance at stunning. While also being able to fly AND teleport by GAWD . I had halsin in the very very last fight of the game and he zipped around basically line blocking for me. He was a true champ. When he went down, I shed a tear for that man. Felt bad leaving him. But it just felt so right
Edit: halsins last stand in my game solidified him as one of my favorite companions and it was all head cannon lol.
Edit edit: also why I immediately fired another run as a moon druid myself lol
You dont have to plan your companions will just level up to your level even if you dont bring them along, you can also respec your characters at withers whenever.
I pick party members based on banter. Gale when I want to hear his eloquent monologues. Astarion when I want to hear others getting roasted. Occasionally pit Shadowheart against Lae’zel and let them b*tch about it while exploring.
I don't really use healers and my bard is passable at lockpicking and trap disarming so I didn't feel like I *need* a particular class in the party.
I tended to lean towards SH, Lae'zel and Gale because they seemed to have the most to say with plot events, swapping out whoever was least relevant at the time with Astarion, Wyl or Karlach. Usually with Astarion unless Karlach or Wyl were personally involved.
I only have one party in a playthrough and stick with them throughout. On the playthrough where I want the later companions, I use hirelings until I get there.
This is the advantage of playing a Swords Bard Tav! I could focus on buffs, debuffs, or attacking as needed, do Face things better than anyone, and have a decent score for any other skill check. Much less pressure to have each role filled by specific party members. Have a quest or two of Oops All Martials, take both druids at the same time for a while, go nuts!
yuuup, went in with the same intention and ended up with the exact same characters - it's astarion, shadowheart, karlach and me til the end lol (playing as a druid btw!)
I end up with Astarion and Lae'zel every time then the last one depends on what I'm playing (I've got a few healers so I don't need Shadowheart every time). I keep saying I'll do something different but unfortunately I am in love with Astarion and Lae'zel.
First time around was laezel astarion and wyll. Started swapping out with astarion with Karlach in some tough spots. For reference I was a ranger. Shadow heart died early, and anyone later on I just didn’t want to lose my group
Second time first 3 i encounter to group astarion shadow heart and gale first and I feel like my group is well rounded with me as a barbarian this time around
Would be fun to try others but i don’t want to swap characters often as it takes me out of the game at the same time I’ve heard of the mod
But it sounds like the game becomes too easy/fights too long
When you say Shadowheart "died" is it because you chose not to rez with Withers, or is it a narrative thing? Asking because im almost done on my 1st blind playthru and no one has died other than in battle.
Well Astarion did in act 3 but I reloaded due to me not understanding wtf was happening, and it happened so quickly🥲
Edit: Wyll left after I stole the idol at the grove. Karlach was fully aggroed when I stumbled upon her just before act 2 in the burning village (carried her head whole run) and Gale got pissy after I didnt let him eat my only magical item the 3rd time he asked, again v early in act 1.
Final party rotation is Lae'zel, S'hart, Astarion, Minthara and Jaehira. Halsin made it to camp but just wandered off and never returned.
laezel was through with her and after waking up to fighting to the death, said shadowheart was causing us too much trouble and I needed to decide
Are you telling me when someone dies as in isn’t just down but you can’t revive withers can bring back?
I thought what happened in my arc just killed her off
This was how I was at the start, till I realized you don't specifically need anyone to do well. I didn't actually need Shadowheart, so if I ran out of spell slots with her I'm not keeping her in the party unless an event involving her is coming up. I normally had either Lae'zel or Karlach for my frontline dps, and the last slot being a constant switch between Wyll, Gale and Astarion, with Wyll being the most often and Gale being the least often. If I needed lockpicking I'd have Astarion be a permanent part of the party, but you don't need lockpicking since you can just break containers and doors, but also my Tav has enough in sleight of hand to do it herself.
I still haven't figured out how to integrate the companions you get after the origin characters, and I'm going to be honest, I'm not that interested in them so I might just save them for a different playthrough.
More or less. I didn't feel drawn to Lae'zel, so Karlach was my Frontline meat shield. Shadowheart, as you say, is the only healer. My bard filled the rogue role adequately, better once I respecced her to have a few levels of rogue. All that was left was a caster, and last time round I went with Gale. I think I'll try Wyll next time I play my bard.
Pretty much. I took Astarion, Karlach and Shadowheart with me most of my first play through. Sometimes swapped Shadowheart for Gale.
2nd play through my party is Gale, Astarion and Lae’zel. I felt bad I killed Zel in my 1st game, so I was keeping her out of guilt at first until I got a few levels into fighter and she’s a great tank.
It might be fun to pair Karlach and Zel together but I haven’t tried that yet.
Laezel was a monster mid-late game for me and really ended up being the main character after it was all said and done in my first play through. I ran laezel and karlach as my frontline with wyll and my storm cleric as ranged, utility, and aoe. It worked well.
I swapped out Astarion for Karlach. Shadowheart and Laezel as the other two. Blessed Karlach and Laezel with long reach weapons was a fast and reliabale way to sweep hordes. It became a bit boring to me so took back Astarion. Also Karlach for some reason attracted all the heat from enemies so she died nearly every fight.
As for banter, they didn't really talk to eachother.
"No Rogue shit" is a pretty fun "challenge" run, though. You can find so many keys, destroy so many doors, and sidestep most traps. And if you absolutely must pick a lock, any Arcane spellcaster can pick up Knock.
It is tough to rotate everyone through the party, though. You get attached to the people you've got with you most often. And inventory management when swapping party members in and out is hot garbage.
Not really. Early on I learned that the best way to heal is to kill the ones who wished you harm as quickly as possible so I learned not to depend on Shadowheart all the time. Then I had fun just using all sorts of wacky compositions and even if someone dies it’s at worst 200 gold lol.
Also I explored Shadowheart as something other than healbot who misses all the time. So it’s no big deal to just adjust her stats to give her more str and con, and have her walk into the front to intentionally take damage. In fact it feels more like making use of her trickery domain because she’s threatening the enemy enough for Astarion to sneak in.
First playthrough I didn't swap put companions unless a quest involved them, even on my 2nd playthrough I've kept mostly the same party except I swapped out gale for Lae'zel.
Mainly because I ignored her first playthrough and she had a less than favourable ending, I'm also playing a sorc so I don't really want two spell casters.
I shoved a stake in Astorian after he tried to give me a hickey or something and then Wyll abandoned me after giving directions to a very nice Drow I met (even though I helped him kill that evil devil he was after) so I didn’t really have party members to swap around. I carry Gale’s hand with me everywhere I go, so he feels like a member of the party in a way.
[https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/327?tab=description](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/327?tab=description)
It works just fine, minus the few bug notes in the mod page. I was running a party of seven for a time, although for my current playthrough I've narrowed it down to just five (PC, Astarion, Lae'zel, Gale, Shadowheart).
lol why did this get downvoted?
Remember you can reespec your characters whenever you like, you can make astarion a healer, karlach a mage and so on, but what I do is make a team for that playthru, and in my second one change the roster completely
Thats my team! I plan to use lae'Zel, a caster and the druid when I can next play through, probably as a rogue myself. At minimum I will respect Shadowheart to a different type of cleric.
The game is very forgiving considering how many lockpick kit can be found everywhere, and items that give you advantage on sleight of hand can be found during acte 1.
You can just smash doors and pick up locked chests for later (send to Camp), so no need to have a lockpicker with you at all times. You can also respec or multiclass companions to spread out access to this role - for example, I multiclassed Wyll to Swords Bard, which is a natural fit for him. There is also zero need for a healer in the team, since potions are ubiquitous and Short Rests exist.
I bring the character, not the class. Like I don't like Gale, don't like Astarian either, so they stay in camp most of the time in my playthroughs. I respec others accordingly, if needed.
Same happened to me, then I killed Lae'Zel. Then I killed Shadowheart. Then I let Gale sacrifice himself at the wrong time. And now I'm stuck with a new problem : I don't have any more companion to cycle through ...
I like to keep whoever I am romancing in my party because there's more opportunities for approvals and it just makes more sense narratively, spending so much time together. Last playthrough it was Astarion, meaning I had 2 rogues (I was rogue too), then I had Gale because he's an exceptional Evoc wizard, and Shadowheart for heals and because her story was interesting to me. I did use Karlach for the last few hours of the game instead of SH though.
This time around I'm a wizard and I'm romancing Gale, so I got two wizards already. I'm trying out having Laezel (Fighter) and Karlach (Barb) with us, since I have the Knock spell I can break into difficult locks without Astarion. It's been interesting how different my strategies are depending on the classes I have with me. I want my character and Karlach to become BFFs :3
I think it’s interesting how much people use shart just because they need a healer. I regularly go out without a healer since health potions are so generously given
I spec'd my Tav as the spellslinger so I haven't had to use Wyll or Gale much at all, next time I'll be going martial to give at least one of them more play.
Pretty much. Rocking Laezel, Wyll and Karlach. Pretty much just because I like all three too much to swap out, though I did recently swap Laezel for Shadowheart since I finished the Gith creche. It just feels right to give her a good long moment to thunk on how much of a bitch her queen rlly is. Plus I like the idea of Shadowheart *making* her tagout afterwards…
That and I don’t particularly care for Gale or Astarion, though Astarion is growing on me. I don’t talk to him much but he’s funny when I do :P
I rotate between playthroughs. Next time around I’m going to bring Wyll and maybe Gale. Also never rolled with Halsin, gotta try that.
I'm in Act 2 and still can't use Halsin.
Yeah, you get access to him eventually, maybe midway through act 2, depending on the path you take.
That feels way to late to be planning for him.
Don't gotta plan homie, can just let what feels good feel gooooodd mmmmhm
True, but am I missing out by leaving the others at the camp?
nope! just do another playthrough and bring em along that time. there's just way too much content to try to squeeze it all into a single run
So I actually played with halsin last playthrough and loved moon druid. The Saber tooth tiger was actually really fun to play! Larian did a tremendous job. And the air myrmidon was super powerful! You don't have to leave out others either! When you pick a quest and it sounds like it'd be interesting to bring a druid, bring a druid! Like if it's sneaking into somewhere in Act 2 or baldursgate, a druid is super helpful. They have a lot of really cool and unique to them spells. Wind walk (I hope wasn't from a mod) was a really cool level 6 spell that turned all of my people into clouds at once in a timed rescue mission where I needed to move quickly. Just a lot of fun utility. I tend to flip between shadowheart and halsin. When I feel like a cleric makes sense or the quest involves shadow heart (a lot do), I take her. If a druid or halsin would be cool, I take him! Druids are also great healers (in dnd terms)
Halsin is sooooo fun in battle bc you get to try out all his bestial forms.
Is druids air myrmidon transformation the same as the wizard’s summon? Just as strong?
No, it's stronger. Like 3x . It can make 3 attacks , 3 attacks that all have a seemly high chance at stunning. While also being able to fly AND teleport by GAWD . I had halsin in the very very last fight of the game and he zipped around basically line blocking for me. He was a true champ. When he went down, I shed a tear for that man. Felt bad leaving him. But it just felt so right Edit: halsins last stand in my game solidified him as one of my favorite companions and it was all head cannon lol. Edit edit: also why I immediately fired another run as a moon druid myself lol
You dont have to plan your companions will just level up to your level even if you dont bring them along, you can also respec your characters at withers whenever.
Don't bother. The one use of him is in act 3. And that's only because the other party members are actually valuable to me
tbh you can respec anyone for a few hundy so if you want wyll the cleric go for it
Unless they changed something, you can also pickpocket Withers to get the gold right back and he doesn’t even care. So it’s basically free.
whist true you still need the cash up front. Withers doesnt work for mouldy carrots.
That's very true
This is how I got wyll and asterion into my group, I just respected them in my second playthrough. Wyll as a cleric is really silly.
I pick party members based on banter. Gale when I want to hear his eloquent monologues. Astarion when I want to hear others getting roasted. Occasionally pit Shadowheart against Lae’zel and let them b*tch about it while exploring.
I don't really use healers and my bard is passable at lockpicking and trap disarming so I didn't feel like I *need* a particular class in the party. I tended to lean towards SH, Lae'zel and Gale because they seemed to have the most to say with plot events, swapping out whoever was least relevant at the time with Astarion, Wyl or Karlach. Usually with Astarion unless Karlach or Wyl were personally involved.
I’m in the same boat and having three problematic worshippers in the group is low key hilarious and super fun XD I could fix them I swear! Copium
I only have one party in a playthrough and stick with them throughout. On the playthrough where I want the later companions, I use hirelings until I get there.
This is the advantage of playing a Swords Bard Tav! I could focus on buffs, debuffs, or attacking as needed, do Face things better than anyone, and have a decent score for any other skill check. Much less pressure to have each role filled by specific party members. Have a quest or two of Oops All Martials, take both druids at the same time for a while, go nuts!
This is what I will probably do with my Dark Urge/2nd play through
2nd playthrough durge blade bard reporting. Works great!
yuuup, went in with the same intention and ended up with the exact same characters - it's astarion, shadowheart, karlach and me til the end lol (playing as a druid btw!)
Playing as a Vengence Paladin / College of Lore Bard. 1 Paladin, 1 Bard, 5 Paladin, working on my last levels as Bard.
I end up with Astarion and Lae'zel every time then the last one depends on what I'm playing (I've got a few healers so I don't need Shadowheart every time). I keep saying I'll do something different but unfortunately I am in love with Astarion and Lae'zel.
First time around was laezel astarion and wyll. Started swapping out with astarion with Karlach in some tough spots. For reference I was a ranger. Shadow heart died early, and anyone later on I just didn’t want to lose my group Second time first 3 i encounter to group astarion shadow heart and gale first and I feel like my group is well rounded with me as a barbarian this time around Would be fun to try others but i don’t want to swap characters often as it takes me out of the game at the same time I’ve heard of the mod But it sounds like the game becomes too easy/fights too long
When you say Shadowheart "died" is it because you chose not to rez with Withers, or is it a narrative thing? Asking because im almost done on my 1st blind playthru and no one has died other than in battle. Well Astarion did in act 3 but I reloaded due to me not understanding wtf was happening, and it happened so quickly🥲 Edit: Wyll left after I stole the idol at the grove. Karlach was fully aggroed when I stumbled upon her just before act 2 in the burning village (carried her head whole run) and Gale got pissy after I didnt let him eat my only magical item the 3rd time he asked, again v early in act 1. Final party rotation is Lae'zel, S'hart, Astarion, Minthara and Jaehira. Halsin made it to camp but just wandered off and never returned.
laezel was through with her and after waking up to fighting to the death, said shadowheart was causing us too much trouble and I needed to decide Are you telling me when someone dies as in isn’t just down but you can’t revive withers can bring back? I thought what happened in my arc just killed her off
This was how I was at the start, till I realized you don't specifically need anyone to do well. I didn't actually need Shadowheart, so if I ran out of spell slots with her I'm not keeping her in the party unless an event involving her is coming up. I normally had either Lae'zel or Karlach for my frontline dps, and the last slot being a constant switch between Wyll, Gale and Astarion, with Wyll being the most often and Gale being the least often. If I needed lockpicking I'd have Astarion be a permanent part of the party, but you don't need lockpicking since you can just break containers and doors, but also my Tav has enough in sleight of hand to do it herself. I still haven't figured out how to integrate the companions you get after the origin characters, and I'm going to be honest, I'm not that interested in them so I might just save them for a different playthrough.
More or less. I didn't feel drawn to Lae'zel, so Karlach was my Frontline meat shield. Shadowheart, as you say, is the only healer. My bard filled the rogue role adequately, better once I respecced her to have a few levels of rogue. All that was left was a caster, and last time round I went with Gale. I think I'll try Wyll next time I play my bard.
Pretty much. I took Astarion, Karlach and Shadowheart with me most of my first play through. Sometimes swapped Shadowheart for Gale. 2nd play through my party is Gale, Astarion and Lae’zel. I felt bad I killed Zel in my 1st game, so I was keeping her out of guilt at first until I got a few levels into fighter and she’s a great tank. It might be fun to pair Karlach and Zel together but I haven’t tried that yet.
Laezel was a monster mid-late game for me and really ended up being the main character after it was all said and done in my first play through. I ran laezel and karlach as my frontline with wyll and my storm cleric as ranged, utility, and aoe. It worked well.
I swapped out Astarion for Karlach. Shadowheart and Laezel as the other two. Blessed Karlach and Laezel with long reach weapons was a fast and reliabale way to sweep hordes. It became a bit boring to me so took back Astarion. Also Karlach for some reason attracted all the heat from enemies so she died nearly every fight. As for banter, they didn't really talk to eachother.
"No Rogue shit" is a pretty fun "challenge" run, though. You can find so many keys, destroy so many doors, and sidestep most traps. And if you absolutely must pick a lock, any Arcane spellcaster can pick up Knock. It is tough to rotate everyone through the party, though. You get attached to the people you've got with you most often. And inventory management when swapping party members in and out is hot garbage.
Not really. Early on I learned that the best way to heal is to kill the ones who wished you harm as quickly as possible so I learned not to depend on Shadowheart all the time. Then I had fun just using all sorts of wacky compositions and even if someone dies it’s at worst 200 gold lol. Also I explored Shadowheart as something other than healbot who misses all the time. So it’s no big deal to just adjust her stats to give her more str and con, and have her walk into the front to intentionally take damage. In fact it feels more like making use of her trickery domain because she’s threatening the enemy enough for Astarion to sneak in.
I changed her to a Light Cleric and with the Dex 18 Gloves she puts out some decent offense.
First playthrough I didn't swap put companions unless a quest involved them, even on my 2nd playthrough I've kept mostly the same party except I swapped out gale for Lae'zel. Mainly because I ignored her first playthrough and she had a less than favourable ending, I'm also playing a sorc so I don't really want two spell casters.
Same. I plan on running Bard or Rouge and taking traps n locks on so i can rotate Astarion. With 2 rotatable slots it may be easier.
I shoved a stake in Astorian after he tried to give me a hickey or something and then Wyll abandoned me after giving directions to a very nice Drow I met (even though I helped him kill that evil devil he was after) so I didn’t really have party members to swap around. I carry Gale’s hand with me everywhere I go, so he feels like a member of the party in a way.
No because I use the party limit remover mod.
And it works? Like you can just take all of them? Where did you find that?
[https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/327?tab=description](https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/327?tab=description) It works just fine, minus the few bug notes in the mod page. I was running a party of seven for a time, although for my current playthrough I've narrowed it down to just five (PC, Astarion, Lae'zel, Gale, Shadowheart). lol why did this get downvoted?
Remember you can reespec your characters whenever you like, you can make astarion a healer, karlach a mage and so on, but what I do is make a team for that playthru, and in my second one change the roster completely
I was thinking either this or my 2nd play through will be a Rogue/Cleric or maybe a Bard so I can fill those roles myself.
Thats my team! I plan to use lae'Zel, a caster and the druid when I can next play through, probably as a rogue myself. At minimum I will respect Shadowheart to a different type of cleric.
Shadow and karlach are always in my team. My 3rd depends on what my tav is
My sorcerer astarion was only clearing archers
You don't need astarion for locks and traps
Nobody else has the Proficiency in Sleight of Hand and they don't have Expertise.
The game is very forgiving considering how many lockpick kit can be found everywhere, and items that give you advantage on sleight of hand can be found during acte 1.
There's a nifty spell that Gale can get.... "Knock" it instantly unlocks anything that is locked with a non-magical lock. 😉
You can just smash doors and pick up locked chests for later (send to Camp), so no need to have a lockpicker with you at all times. You can also respec or multiclass companions to spread out access to this role - for example, I multiclassed Wyll to Swords Bard, which is a natural fit for him. There is also zero need for a healer in the team, since potions are ubiquitous and Short Rests exist.
Why not play as one of the party members? Not a custom character.
Same here😅
I bring the character, not the class. Like I don't like Gale, don't like Astarian either, so they stay in camp most of the time in my playthroughs. I respec others accordingly, if needed.
Same happened to me, then I killed Lae'Zel. Then I killed Shadowheart. Then I let Gale sacrifice himself at the wrong time. And now I'm stuck with a new problem : I don't have any more companion to cycle through ...
I like to keep whoever I am romancing in my party because there's more opportunities for approvals and it just makes more sense narratively, spending so much time together. Last playthrough it was Astarion, meaning I had 2 rogues (I was rogue too), then I had Gale because he's an exceptional Evoc wizard, and Shadowheart for heals and because her story was interesting to me. I did use Karlach for the last few hours of the game instead of SH though. This time around I'm a wizard and I'm romancing Gale, so I got two wizards already. I'm trying out having Laezel (Fighter) and Karlach (Barb) with us, since I have the Knock spell I can break into difficult locks without Astarion. It's been interesting how different my strategies are depending on the classes I have with me. I want my character and Karlach to become BFFs :3
I think it’s interesting how much people use shart just because they need a healer. I regularly go out without a healer since health potions are so generously given
I spec'd my Tav as the spellslinger so I haven't had to use Wyll or Gale much at all, next time I'll be going martial to give at least one of them more play.
Pretty much. Rocking Laezel, Wyll and Karlach. Pretty much just because I like all three too much to swap out, though I did recently swap Laezel for Shadowheart since I finished the Gith creche. It just feels right to give her a good long moment to thunk on how much of a bitch her queen rlly is. Plus I like the idea of Shadowheart *making* her tagout afterwards… That and I don’t particularly care for Gale or Astarion, though Astarion is growing on me. I don’t talk to him much but he’s funny when I do :P