Building a party in Baldur's Gate 3 gives gamers some insight into why Dungeons and Dragons players debate so often about how to put a perfect team together. Between combat encounters and skill checks, there are so many different bases to cover for only a team of four.
While personal preference is key to the Baldur's Gate 3 experience, the team also needs to be functional, especially on harder difficulty settings. A group of all Fighters or Monks is technically possible, but be ready to have many difficult encounters and skill challenges along the way. Players who want a solution for everything should build their party carefully.
Best Overall Party Composition
- Player - Duergar Dwarf - Oath of the Ancients Paladin - Sage - Persuasion & Insight
- Karlach - Berserker Barbarian
- Shadowheart - Trickery Domain Cleric
- Gale - Evocation Wizard
The speaker for the party should have the Deception, Intimidate, or Persuasion proficiency as well as Insight and a high Charisma attribute. Characters in this role will also want two spells: Speak with Animals and Detect Thoughts. No companion has this skill set. Astarion comes close but lacks Insight. Gale has the two skills but needs Intelligence and other attributes more than Charisma. Therefore, it falls on a player character to do this job.
A Paladin can manage encumbrance and fulfill this role. Detect Thoughts can be gained from the Uncovered Mysteries Amulet and the Oath of the Ancients Paladins gain Speak with Animals at level three. This also gives the party a fantastic defender, frontliner, and striker. The Paladin also helps out with healing which tends to be the one thing that forces parties to take long rests.
Technically, a player could use both Lae'zel and Karlach to make for a frontline so the player character can be a Bard but this brings up another issue. Parties need to have similar values. In general, Lae'zel hates the things that Karlach loves and vice versa. Having them both will result in one of them leaving. Players can switch party members before every decision, but it's probably best to choose one or the other. Don't make Shadowheart tank. Her Bless spell requires concentration so it is vital to keep her from getting hit.
This party is mostly good-aligned. Evil-aligned parties are fun to play but have some drawbacks. Oathbreaker Paladins can fulfill the speaker role fine but they lose Speak with Animals. Also, this conflicts with the healer's role as Shadowheart is generally a good person. Gamers can make an evil healer but then they're back down to one person up front which isn't enough in tough fights. This also makes the role of area damage tougher to fill since Wyll and Gale are both generally on the nicer side of the spectrum (even if Wyll is phony about it at times).
Gale is the easy choice to complete this party for more than just his good-naturedness. The Barbarian and Paladin can take care of just about any single target and Shadowheart will keep that frontline healthy. Evocation Wizards are brilliant when it comes to area damage and their spells don't hit their allies. Also, Wizards can take a time out and gain any spell in their books, so if the party finds they need the perfect spell, Gale can have it ready to go in seconds even after leaving the camp.
Baldur's Gate 3 is available now for PC. The PlayStation 5 version will be available on September 6th, 2023. A version for Xbox Series X/S is still in development.