These are the best two multiclass Baldur's Gate 3 builds

Nicholas James Published 21/08/2023

Baldur’s Gate 3 is taking the gaming world by storm, and we’re here to help you take Faerun by storm with these two insanely powerful multiclass builds.

One of the most powerful parts of Baldur’s Gate 3 is the ability to multiclass, taking levels in multiple classes over the course of the game. This lets players combine and synergize a wide variety of class abilities and combinations to suit exactly what they need. We’ve assembled two of the most powerful multiclass builds in Baldur’s Gate 3 for your consideration.

The Holy Warrior/Charisma Gish

This build actually has several build possibilities, but all of them revolve around the same core synergy. All of these builds are made to be as Single Ability Dependent, or SAD, as possible. Single Ability Dependent builds are builds that can rely on one single Ability Score to do the vast majority of their heavy lifting. SAD characters are able to focus all of their efforts into one Ability Score, often letting them become much more focused and streamlined than their Multiple Ability Dependent, or MAD, peers. To this end, no character archetype is as wildly powerful and versatile in combat, socials, and exploration as the Charisma Gish.

The word Gish comes from a Githyanki word and is used in Dungeons & Dragons to refer to character who mixes martial prowess and magical ability together into one potent melange. The reason that Charisma Gishes are so powerful is that Charisma is the Ability Score for most social skills. At the same time, the incredibly tanky Paladin class scales off of charisma, while magical all-star classes like Warlock and Sorcerer also care about Charisma over everything else. In essence, the Charisma Gish does everything it wants to do all based off one stat.

Why is this build good?

With access to social skills, powerful magic, and all the martial features like heavy armor plus martial weapon and shield proficiency, there’s almost nothing these archetypes do poorly. In particular, Charisma Gishes are pushed over the edge of good into one of the best builds in the game thanks to the Pact of the Blade Warlock. At level 3, Pact of the Blade Warlocks can pick a weapon they are wielding to become a Pact Weapon. This lets them key they attack and damage bonuses for the weapon off of their Charisma score, rather than strength or dexterity. At the same Time, Warlock offers the best combat cantrip in the game with the Agonizing Blast Invocation stapled onto Eldritch blast. This is yet another super strong ability that the Gish can use with only Charisma.

The choices you are making with this build are generally how deep in Paladin you want to go. But to start, we recommend starting with two levels of Paladin. This will get you Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons, and Shield Proficiency. These will let you use some of the game’s best plate armors, shields, and weapons with ease. The second level of Paladin gives you one of the most powerful abilities in the game, Divine Smite.

One Smite to rule them all

Divine Smite lets a character spend a spell slot after hitting an enemy with a melee weapon attack in order to deal extra Radiant damage. Divine Smite deals 2d8 Radiant damage for a first-level spell slot and 1d8 extra Radiant damage for each spell slot level above first. It also deals an additional flat 1d8 Radiant to Fiends, Undead, and XYZ hit by a Divine Smite.

Divine Smite is, very importantly, not limited to Paladin Spell Slots. So if a character multi classes into other spellcasting classes like Warlock or Sorcerer, they can use those spell slots for Divine Smite. This is especially powerful since Warlock and Sorcerer, both Charisma-based casters, gain spell levels faster than Paladin.

We then recommend at least three levels of Warlock. The Warlock features you should be looking to build around are Eldritch Blast and Pact of the Blade. Eldritch Blast is a 1d10 Force damage cantrip that fires an additional ray at levels five and 11. This is a fantastic ranged damage option, and can be used to shatter many tough environmental obstacles in Baldur’s Gate 3.

When combined with the Repelling Blast Warlock Invocation, you’ll be adding Charisma to your damage with each ray. This shores up the weakness that many Paladins have of lacking ranged damage. Warlock also allows for mobility spells like Misty Step to get your Divine Smite-ing Gish up close and personal with their enemies.

Build options

Once you have Paladin 2/Warlock 3, your build begins to open up. You have 6 more levels of flex here and there are a few answers to what you might want to do with those remaining levels. The only thing that’s for sure is you’ll want to do your best to maximize your Charisma score as the game goes on.

More Paladin Levels: Paladin is a fantastic class that is jam-packed with useful features. If you’re looking to be a tankier and more-frontline-focused presence for your party, Paladin can be the way to go. With the Aura of Protection adding the Paladin’s Charisma modifier to itself and nearby allies’ saves, this Single Ability Dependent build begins to do even more with its Charisma. Level 7 gives your Oath-specific Aura, with the most powerful being Oath of Ancient’s unconditional resistance to spell damage. This Paladin-heavy shell would likely end up looking something like Paladin 8/Warlock 4.

More Warlock Levels: Warlock offers the unique advantage among all Baldur’s Gate 3 classes of regenerating its spell slots on a Short Rest. While it only has two spell slots, they are automatically the highest possible level for the Warlock. This gives the Charisma Gish two easily-recoverable smites. However, Baldur’s Gate 3 limits players to 2 short rests, which makes the Warlock’s ability to create spell slots on a Short Rest far less useful. What you’ll be leveraging with more Warlock levels in Pact of the Blade’s second attack at level 5, and your third Eldritch Invocation.

Sorcerer Levels: If all you care about is dealing as much ridiculous damage as humanly possible with Divine Smite when you do close the gap, 6 levels of Sorcerer can go a long way. You’ll end up with the same levels of spell slot as if you’d just advanced Warlock, but you’ll have more spell slots available without a rest of any kind.

We recommend taking Repelling Blast, Agonizing Blast, and Devil’ Sight.

WIN.GG’s Holy Avenger Paladin: Oath of Ancients Paladin 8/Warlock 4
Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast and either Devil’s Sight or Repelling Blast.

The Ultimate Ambush Hunter

This build centres around two very specific subclasses and their unique interaction with Fighter’s Action Surge. The first subclass is Gloom Stalker Ranger. Gloom Stalker has several key tools that make it indispensable to this stealth and assassination-focused build. It get bonuses to initiative, and advantage against enemies who haven’t gone yet in a turn. Gloom Stalker gets a whopping four separate features at level three, when the subclass is selected.

Why is this build good?

Perhaps Gloom Stalker’s most important feature is that it gets an extra attack for free as a Class Action during the first round of combat. This means that the Gloom Stalker wants to go first, go fast, and lay down damage onto unsuspecting foes. Lucky for Gloom Stalker players, there’s another very similar subclass for another class that wants to the exact same thing.

The second subclass is Assassin Rogue. Assassin Rogue has one of the most powerful burst DPS features in the game. When the Assassin Rogue makes attacks against Surprised enemies, a successful hit is an automatic Critical Strike. This means that if the Assassin can set up before a fight, sneak into an advantageous position and open up fire, it can absolutely destroy enemies at range.

This is the core concept of this build. It will sneak up to an encounter, and then begin with a sudden ambush. Assassin recovers its action and bonus action at the start of combat, so you’ll get one shot off, then begin combat with hopefully Surprised enemies.

You’re likely to be going first in most combats, which will let you make a Sneak Attack and a normal attack, both of which will Critically Strike upon hitting. Then you’ll unleash the Gloom Stalker’s free attack, which will crit as well. Then you can use Fighter’s Action Surge, attack twice more, both crits if they hit. This leads to a total of six ranged attacks in a single burst. Given that you’re going to be making most of this with Advantage, you can rack up to 60 damage just from the Sharpshooter feat alone.

The Core Combo

Basic Combo: Ranged Attack – Enter Combat – Sneak Attack (Ranged) – Ranged Attack – Dread Ambusher (Ranged) – Action Surge – Ranged Attack – Ranged Attack – Cunning Action Hide.

You’re frontloading tons of damage to fights with this build, so it’s often up to you to target and kill either several middle-of-the-line enemies or one or two key targets. This builds single-target damage at range is uncontested when it comes to martial characters.

The combination of Gloom Stalker’s Dread Ambusher Attack, the free attack outside of combat that comes with an ambush, and Action Surge, you’re able to put as many individual attacks into an enemy as an 11th level Fighter using action surge.

WIN.GG’s Gloom Assassin: Assassin Rogue 3/Gloomstalker 3/Fighter 5 with the Sharpshooter feat.

Those are two of the most straightforwardly powerful options that we think are available for play in Baldur’s Gate 3. Both a versatile and powerful builds that can contribute hugely on their own and with a team.

Nicholas James

About Nicholas James

Nicholas James is a gaming writer with a passion for all things geekdom, as well as live theater. Nicholas is best known for covering League of Legends and other top MOBA titles, but his expertise covers numerous games across multiple genres. When not watching the LCS or playing the latest new release, Nicholas can be found doing some tabletop gaming and painting his favorite miniatures. Nicholas has also published with Hotspawn, TheGamer, Dexerto, Esports.gg and other industry outlets.

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