Enemies AI automatically scan your party in combat and will generally focus on low AC targets first.

There is no real way to get "agro" on enemies outside of the Compelled Duel spells that paladins have and that's only a 3 turn duration, don't expect to rely on that outside of boss fights.

When all your party has decent AC the AI doesn't tend to focus fire on 1 target as much.

For this reason I generally do not recommend you bring low AC characters at all, obviously not all characters need to have 30 AC but I would say aiming to have everyone at least around 20 is reasonable.

Most of the builds I have up will be able to wear heavy armour or at least medium which makes 20 AC really easy to get. Heavy armour also usually reduces the damage you take which is really useful.

https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Permanent_Bonuses
Recommended to check this out before starting a playthrough. See which ones you want to get.

The most common and prevalent of these is https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Auntie_Ethel%27s_Hair

I will make a stat spread with and without this for builds.

Variant of the other Paladin build that focuses more on getting loads of pets while still being incredibly strong in melee.

The way multiclassing works in this game in regards to spell slots is a bit wierd, it seems to combine your different levels to determine your spell lots but not your learned spells, so some times you can end up with a spell slot for a certain level without knowing any spells of that level. Thankfully the paladin really doesn't give a crap about this because you will be spending your spell slots to SMITE, so even if you don't know any spells of a level you can still SMITE with it.



Final Build Paladin 5 / Druid 7

Race : Wood Elf (Movement range is really good)
Starting Stats :


Starting Class : Paladin

Oath : Obviously Oathbreaker fits thematically more with this build.
Quickest way to become Oathbreaker would be with the Sazza dilemma in the druid cave.
Oath of the Ancients : Freeing Sazza will break your Oath.
Oath of Devotion : Allowing Arka to kill Sazza will break your Oath.
Oath of Vengance : Freeing Sazza will break your Oath.
Pick whatever one you want for what you want to do with it.


Final spell slots :
Level 1 : 4
Level 2 : 3
Level 3 : 3
Level 4 : 3
Level 5 : 1

Pet Army :
4 Fungal charges to raise 4 zombies with from Druid subclass
1-3 Animate Dead : You have multiple choices here : Level 3 slot -> 1 Skeleton/ Level 4 Slot -> 3 Skeletons(recommended) / Level 5 slot -> 1 Flying Ghoul
2 Conjure Minor Elemental summons 2 mephits
2 Conjure Woodland Being summons a Dryad that can summon a Woad herself.

9-11 Total pets.

You will still have all your level 1-2-3 and 1 level 4 spell slot to smite with, can wear plate and use all weapons and destroy stuff in melee yourself with smites.
You can constantly give yourself temporary HP with Symbiotic Entity too.

Goal of this build is to bring Haste and counterspells to your party and is specialised in not getting hit or making the save to keep the haste going. You will want to make this a tank with as much AC as possible, we go for higher saves than damage. While this is a support build it can still pack a punch.

Final Build Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 6

Race : Wood Elf (Movement range is really good)
Starting Stats :

Starting Class : Paladin


Oath : You can pick any, recommendation would be vengeance or ancients for misty step.


Final spell slots :
Level 1 : 4
Level 2 : 3
Level 3 : 3
Level 4 : 3
Level 5 : 1

Early levels you will cast twin enlarge as needed, later twin haste, can use the rest of your spell slots to either smite or counterspell as needed, recommended to keep the level 1 slots for shield if you really don't want to get hit.

Goal is to get lots of smites while not missing out on stat increases and stacking AC as much as we can.







The good stuff from paladin comes at level 2 with smites and then at 5 with the extra attack, we will get the extra attack back at bard 6 after we respec. A lot of people want to go for Paladin 6 for the aura that gives saving throws, personally I think that aura is a joke and an insult to auras. The range on it is pathetic, unless your party members are standing in melee range of your Paladin they won't get it, and combat in this game is very fluid on movement. My party members are rarely if ever in melee range of my paladin tank who charges in to try to get as many enemies on him as possible, as far as I'm concerned that aura is a self buff. I would much rather increase spell slots by a lot and smite all the time for more damage and kill stuff faster than have a lame aura self-buff.

The way multiclassing works in this game in regards to spell slots is a bit wierd, it seems to combine your different levels to determine your spell lots but not your learned spells, so some times you can end up with a spell slot for a certain level without knowing any spells of that level. Thankfully the paladin really doesn't give a crap about this because you will be spending your spell slots to SMITE, so even if you don't know any spells of a level you can still SMITE with it.

Final Build Paladin 4 / Bard 8
Alternative version : Paladin 2 / Bard 10 (If you don't care about getting a 3rd feat and just want as many spell slots as absolutely possible to smite with.)

Race : Wood Elf (Movement range is really good)
Starting Stats :

Starting Class : Paladin

INITIAL BUILD UNTIL LEVEL 8 :
Oath could be whatever you want, I picked Vengeance.
Level as a Paladin to level 8, pick defense at level 2 for an extra permanent 1 AC.
Increase STR by 2 at level 4.
On getting level 8, go to camp and respec.

RESPECCED BUILD :


Final spell slots :
Level 1 : 4
Level 2 : 3
Level 3 : 3
Level 4 : 3
Level 5 : 2

We end up with 4 Paladin 8 Bard as a walking tank with tons of spell slots to smite with, you can use flourish attacks to increase your AC by 4 as well or mobile flourish to throw people off cliffs or use slashing flouring to cleave with a 1 hander.

Polearm build for some sweet attack of opportunity spamming. This build kind of requires you to have other characters in melee with you to be fully efficient, if you have this character as the sole melee it can still work but I would avoid picking the Sentinel Feat then, pick another +2 Stat instead.

Final build : Fighter 12 (Going full class we need all our feats badly, that 3rd attack is awesome at Fighter 11, and there isn't much reason to multiclass here.

Race : Wood Elf (Yes I know!)
You can pick any race you want but as usual I think movement range is better for melee characters.








Starting Stats :


We end up with 3 attacks every round, using a polearm for high reach, every time an enemy comes into our melee range or attacks someone else in range we get an attack of opportunity. All our attacks of opportunity are done with advantage, you can also push back enemies out of your range to force them to come back into your range, doing an attack of opportunity again!

So in DnD 5E they tried to make monks a DEX class in keeping with the tradition of fighting with no armour and having AC bonuses from Wisdom. So what do we do? Well we ignore all of that nonsense and try to pump as much DMG as possible on the monk. Sadly that means our AC will be terrible, but worry not, we'll solve this by wearing Heavy Armour and a Shield.

Final Build Fighter 2 / Monk 6 / Rogue 4
Race : Wood Elf
Yep I know again with the Wood Elf for movement, you can use another race if you want though.
Starting Stats :
Starting Class : Fighter

If you don't want to delay getting a second attack till level 6 you can just play as a regular fighter till level 6 then respec.


So you end up with a heavy armour and shield wearing punching maniac with high AC that has double STR bonus to Attack AND Damage, also adds wisdom bonus to damage.


At level 1 monk you have 1 attack.
Spending a bonus action and 1 ki point lets you do flurry of blows which is 2 attacks in a row.
At level 2 monk you get a second attack as a bonus action.
At level 5 monk you get a second regular attack in the same action. So by level 5 you can attack 3 times per round without spending ki points, 4 attacks if you spend a ki point.
By level 10 you get the thief subclass which gives you a second bonus action, so now you can attack 5 times by spending 1 ki point or 6 times by spending 2 per round.

If you absolutely need to burst someone you can also pop Wholeness of Body to get a 3rd bonus action for 3 rounds.

You also get the Fighter's action surge to regain your action once per short rest for 2 more attacks.

Doing the absolute maximum you could by popping everything at the same time you could get 10 attacks in 1 round. If you have a haste buff that would be 12 attacks in a single round.

Get 4 thrown weapon attacks while in Frenzy.
Initial game you can just carry a few weapons and pick them up after, later on you can find magic weapons that come back to your hand when thrown.

Final Build Barbarian 8 / Rogue 4

Alternate version : Fighter 3 / Barbarian 5 / Rogue 4
You will lose a rage charge, a feat, mindless rage and feral instinct. You gain increased crit chance, heavy armour and action surge, not a bad trade off.

Race : Any you want.

Starting Stats :

Starting Class : Barbarian


You end up with 2 attacks that you can throw, getting double STR to attack and damage when throwing, and when you go into Frenzy, you can throw as a bonus action, the Thief subclass gives us a 2nd bonus action per round meaning you can throw 4 times per round in Frenzy, once you get a good returning weapon you can do some crazy damage.

Great weapon build with the aim to do some damage and get free attacks when you kill something.
Final build : Fighter 12 we really want that 3rd attack at 11.
Race : Wood Elf (Yes I know!)
You can pick any race you want but as usual I think movement range is better for melee characters.

Starting Stats :






We end up with 3 attacks every round, every time you crit or kill an enemy you get a free other attack.

Final build : Ranger 5 / Rogue 7
We lose 1 feat but its the maximum we can pump sneak attack(4 dice) while also having the extra attack from level 5 ranger.
Race : Now since we're at range movement isn't that important for this one, so you have options, since we will get 24m Darkvision from Gloomstalker you could pick any race you want.

Starting Stats :
Starting Class : Ranger
Favored Enemy : These choices kinda all suck, all the proficiencies are in stats we don't have so are gonna be bad.
- Ranger Knight -> If you want heavy armour.
- Mage Breaker -> If you want true strike.
- Keeper of the Veil -> If you want protection from good and evil.
Natural Explorer : Pick Urban tracker initially and then just respec out of it at level 6 when you get a rogue level, then pick Wasteland Wanderer : Fire or Cold

Notable gear : I haven't listed gear on any build but I will make an exception here, Yuan-Ti Scalemail medium armour does not have a dexterity limit to AC like other medium armours that limit your dex to +2, it has 15 AC base so with the +5 from 20 dex you can get a rocking 20 AC with just this armor, really neat.

Now Clerics in D&D 5E are good, like really good, some people say they're the best class, they got heals, they got damage, they can wear most equipement, they can do well in melee. Goal is to provide support to the team with heals and dish out good damage, can also tank relatively well depending on what gear you give them.
This one is gonna be a single class build as I don't really see a reason to multiclass a Cleric.

Final build : Cleric 12
Race : Wood Elf (Movement range is really good, IMO everyone who plays a melee character should be a wood elf, that movement range is clearly the best racial feature, every time you move a melee character and you end up just out of range of being able to attack an enemy and you didn't pick a wood elf, well you can tell yourself, damn I should've been a wood elf)





Starting Stats :

Starting Class : Cleric
Cantrips : VERY highly recommend you pick guidance, this can buff stat checks for you and party members in tons of different ways, other cantrips can be w/e you want.
Domain : War (This lets you use Heavy Armour and Martial Weapons), also gives you the ability to attack twice a round a bunch of times per day. Also lets you turn missed attack rolls into hits a couple of times for the entire party, this makes for a really awesome kit.

At level 4 ASI +2 WIS.
At level 8 Normal stats: ASI +1 WIS +1 STR / Ethel Hair Stats : Resilient : +1 CON
At level 12 Normal Stats : Heavy Armour Master +1 STR / Ethel Hair Stats : ASI +2 STR

So you want to run around with your own pet army and don't care if you have to babysit all of them even when they get stuck everywhere on the map or can't step over a tiny stick laying on the ground? Well this is the build for you. You will also want to read the pet section down below.

Final build : Druid 12

Race : Because Druid weapon proficiency are garbage, I would suggest you pick a race that gets you decent range weapon proficiency :
Elf (Longbow)

Alternatively if after summoning your army you want to melee, I would just go in wild shape, you could then pick whatever race you want.



Starting Stats :


Maximum pets from the build :

4 fungal zombies from class
3 Animate Dead upcasted : 3 skeletons (level 4 slot) or 3 flying Ghouls (level 6 slot)
2 Conjure Woodland Being : 1 Dryad + 1 Woad
2 Conjure Minor Elemental : 2 Mud Mephits
1 Conjure Elemental : Either level 5(Elemental) or level 6 slot (Myrmidon)

10 pets total.

The laughing Fey Lord from Pathfinder makes his way to BG3.

Machine gun at range and drop people off cliffs.

Final build : Warlock 12

Race : Again technically any race is fine, I would recommend starting with a race that gets medium armor and/or shield proficiency for early game AC. So woof half-elf would be best.
Half-Elf (Wood) : You get both movement range and shield proficiency.
Githyanki : Medium armour and free use of misty step.
Dwarf (Shield) : Medium armour
Human : Shield proficiency

Background : Either charlatan or Urchin if you don't wanna bring a Rogue.


Starting Stats :

BUILD EXPLANATION :
I'm gonna be honest, wearing cloth in this game kinda sucks, enemies AI is made to target weaksauce clothies. You can cast mage armor but that's still only 3 AC, not a whole lot.
I wanted to make a spellcaster that can wear armor without being too terrible.




Since Level 12 doesn't actually give us any new spells or any new spell slots and its just an extra feat, we can delay all of our spells by 1 level and pick any race we want by taking 1 level from another class that gain Armour and then do the whole spell caster leveling. We'll miss out on 1 sorcery point and on 1 feat that way but gain a whole bunch of stuff.

When you multiclass you don't necessarily gain all the stuff that the class gets if you would start with that class at level 1. So starting as a Sorcerer or Wizard and going into Fighter or Paladin does not actually give you Heavy Armour, so those are out.

Going as a Cleric and picking a domain that gives you Heavy Armour and martial weapons however does work, my recommendation for this will be a Tempest Domain Cleric since that will give us some Synergy with Storm Sorcery, give us Heavy Armour + Shields and all Martial Weapons. You could technically pick any domain that give Heavy Armour, the build still works, its not a huge difference, I will list possible choices. Plus you get a few extra cantrips and get level 1 healing spells like the amazing healing word to get people back up from range. You still pick your main caster class first to get the correct proficiency in social skills, then pick 1 level of Tempest Cleric to get all the armour, shield and weapon proficiency, and spells, then resume your arcane caster progression.

Final build : Sorcerer or Wizard 11 / Cleric 1
Race : Any you want.
Suggestions :
Wood Elf : Movement range isn't as important for a caster but I would probably still take Wood Elf.
Gold Dwarf : More HP is always good.
Gnome : Since we go ham on mental stats this could ensure we make almost all saves with them.

Starting Stats :

Starting Class : Sorcerer VS Wizard.
Arguments can be made for both, they are both useful, they get the same spell slots, sorcerer gets twin casts, while wizard can get every spell, wizard is also INT based and there are no other INT based classes in the game, while there are tons of other CHA based classes in the game. In pure combat potential I think sorcerer has an edge because of twin cast, but in party support and considering skill and stat checks Wizard has the edge. Its up to you if you want to make a Wizard instead just swap CHA for INT and everything will be pretty much the same.

Sorcerer subclasses :
- Wild Magic : I would only pick this if you fancy being a ticking time bomb that can go off at any moment, being unreliable just sucks, hard pass for me.
- Draconic : In theory this might seem like the best one if we were still in 3rd edition and could min-max. Until you find out that the Draconic Resilience AC buff basically doesn't stack with anything, doesn't stack with Mage Armour, or wearable armour, or any other class feature that provide any kind of armour whatsoever, I guess Wizards of the Coast and Larian have a bone to pick with Pathfinder : Wrath of the Righteous pyjama tanks.
- Storm Sorcery : Isn't that great but it can be useful, contrary to the other two, so we'll settle for can be useful.

Wizard subclasses :
Most of them suck big time, since you're a DPS at core I would just pick Evocation so you can throw fireballs around and not worry about friendly fire, the others don't really offer much unless you fancy Divination that could save you pressing F8 twice per long rest.
Alternatively if you want to go with a more summoner style Wizard pick Necromancy to get more out of raise dead.

Cleric domains (That give heavy armour) :
Tempest (Recommended especially if picking Sorcerer)
Life
Nature
War

A note about Magic and Damage spells. I'm gonna be honest, I just hate missing attacks, in any game, ever. Too many times those 95% chances to hit that end up missing in XCOM have made me just allergic to misses, I always stack attack bonuses as much as I can in games. I think making spells basically the same as shooting a bow in 5E was a huge mistake. I generally try to conserve my spell slots on my wizard for counterspells as needed (don't try to counterspell everything, pick and choose what matters most) and then CC or buff as needed, the rest of the time just cantrip firebolt or ray of frost if the enemy is resistant to fire.

As for damage other than the occasional Fireball if a couple of enemies are bunched up, I tend to just spam magic missile when I wanna do damage because its 100% reliable, it can't miss, you can upcast your magic missile with higher spell slots and add 1 more missile per extra spell slot level, this also lets you spread damage to multiple enemies if needed. Got 1 enemy with 2 HP left? Well no problem just send 1 missile on him and the rest to another enemy. The Evocation Wizard School boost damage of your spells by your Intel modifier. At first it might not seem like much adding +5 to a fireball and its not. But on magic missile, well it adds +5 to EVERY missile, this makes your measly level 1 magic missile that normally does 2-5 X 3 for 3 missiles now do 7-10 X 3 so 21-30 damage for a level 1 spell, with 100% accuracy. This is why I think in the end the only damage spells you really need are your 2 cantrips : Firebolt and Ray of Frost, and then for spells its Fireball and Magic Missile.

You can hire up to 3 hirelings at your camp once you find Withers in the crypts after the tutorial.

I suggest you get the Cleric, Druid and a Sorcerer (If you get the default Sorcerer respec him out of Wild Magic unless you fancy random explosions in the middle of your camp and having to heal everyone).
You can get some free healing from them and keep adventuring with your main party.
Once you get Halsin, if you don't bring him in your main party, I suggest setting him up as a Druid of the Land for more spell casts and have him replace your Druid hireling, then switch the Druid hireling for a second Cleric hireling, this way you can have Warding bond on 2 characters at all times.

Other option maybe more late game : Get 3 cleric hirelings and respec 1 companion you aren't using to a cleric, that way you can have warding bond on all 4 party members at all times, giving them great bonuses and making them take half damage all the time.

You can summon berries with the druid and use them as camping supplies, this lets you save up food and eventually once you can summon 40 berries you can long rest infinitely at 0 cost, you could sell the food for more money at that point if you want.

Having pets is really useful as they distract enemies, take hits for your party, and provide extra damage.







- Find familiar : Various classes get access to this, Wizards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Rangers, they are the least useful pets but the easiest to get. The most useful of all of these is the Quasit IMO, it has an infinite duration invisibility so you can use it to scout ahead very easily, it also has a fear spell once a day for some extra CC, and being invisible you can always position it to hit a priority target as soon as the fight starts. One technique I use is I will start the fight with a the Beastlord build I have above by shooting an enemy from afar, then move the quasit to attack that enemy so that its threatened by the Quasit, then you can do a sneak attack right away again from the start.

- Ranger's Companion : Decent pets, get bonuses from your own proficiency, Wolf spider is my suggestion, it can toss webs, put webbed enemies in a cocoon, does poison damage, has very high AC, and decent HP.
Unfortunately I have found that the ranger pets do tend to get stuck often in the environment which does make it quite annoying.

- Circle of Spores Druid : Basically the same as a regular Zombie from Animate Dead, they aren't amazing but you get 4 of them basically for free as a Spore Druid on top of any spells you can cast.

- Animate Dead : Both Wizards and Cleric get this as a level 3 spell, downside is you need a body to reanimate, you get a choice of either a Zombie that does melee or a skeleton archer. Choice will depend on your party composition, I like to run far more on the tough side for my teams and less on the glass canon side so I prefer Skeleton Archers, they have decent hit chances and do extra necrotic damage, very useful especially to finish off targets.
If you play a necromancer wizard you can raise more than 1 undead from the same spell.
UPCAST : Once you get level 5 spells you can cast this with a level 5 spell slot to make it better, you get a ghoul that is a lot stronger than the base version. Pick the flying ghoul, its very fast, it can paralyse targets on auto attacks.

- Conjure minor Elemental : Level 4 Wizard, Druid.
If you want a tank : The Azer fire elemental is very useful, one of the best pets so far, it has 20 AC base, as much HP as a party member, and a couple of melee abilities, can knock enemies down, set them on fire or Daze them, highly recommended especially since Wizard level 4 spells aren't very good. Its basically like having an extra party member.
If you want speed and more dps : The mud mephits are fairly resistant, can fly, and can spit mud in people's faces to blind them, very useful debuff.

- Conjure Woodland Being : Level 4 Druid spell, summons a dryad with other spells, she can put roots on the ground to snare people, she is immune to snaring and can make other friendly units around her immune to the roots as well, she can summon a magic club that deals good damage, and she can even summon another pet herself. Sadly she can't jump so its a bit of a pain if you're exploring in places where you need to jump.

- Conjure Elemental : Level 5 Wizard and Druid just like the level 4 version, these are very powerful, almost as strong as a party member, the fire one deals the most damage especially if you can get an enemy burning. This one can't jump or fly but it can teleport really far so very mobile, unfortunately you have to babysit anywhere you character jumps while exploring to manually teleport it, still very good.
UPCAST : You can also use a level 6 spell slot to cast a more powerful version of this, you get a choice from 4 Myrmidons. The water one seems the best, it has an AOE heal, aoe ranged grenade hits, can fly, teleport, and hits pretty hard.

- Planar Ally : Level 6 Cleric, you can get either a Cambion (Devil), a Deva (Angel) or a Djinni. The Djinni seems to be the best one, it teleport so you will again have to babysit like the level 5 elemental. In combat it has a whirlwind that can root enemies in place, can spit thunder or poison, has like twice as much HP as your characters.

- Create Undead : Level 6 Wizard/Cleric, raises a mummy, this spell unfortunately drew the short straw. You only get 1 level 6 spell slot at max level (12) in the game. For the Cleric you're better off with the Djinni from planar Ally. And for Wizard or Druid you're better off upcasting Conjure elemental. Still if you wanna go for quantity over quality you could still get the conjure elemental as a level 5 and use create undead with your level 6 slot.

There are some spells in the game that will stay on your characters even if you dismiss the caster from your party, most of them are identified as rituals, longstrider is really useful as it gives you more movement range. So you can use a hireling to buff your group in camp and then leave them in the camp and leave with your main party.

Unfortunately concentration buffs do not work like this, if you dismiss the person who casted it back to camp you lose the buff.











My buff routine after a rest usually goes like this :
You need 4 secondary clerics that aren't part of your main group, 1 sorcerer, and 1 druid for this.

1) Summon all missing pets and raise dead with casters who can.
2) Sorcerer hireling : Cast mage armor on all pets and non armour wearers.
He can also cast Darkvision on races that don't have it.
Cast light and daylight on the main tank's weapon.
3) Cleric Hireling : Leave camp with MC, 2 characters with the most pets and the cleric
hireling so everyone is stacked together.
Cast Feast of Heroes (level 6) to buff 3 characters and pets.
Upcast Level 5 Aid on everyone too.
Cast Warding bond on 1 of your main characters.
Cast freedom of movement and death ward on main party till you run out of level 4 and 5 spell
slots.
Cast protection from poison on all 4 main characters using level 2 and 3 slots
Cast light and daylight on another character. (optional, mostly for act 2)
4) Switch out the cleric hireling for another cleric hireling.
5) Switch one character that's already buffed for your 4th character that didn't get buffed yet.
6) Repeat step 3 so that your 4th character gets feast of heroes and level 5 aid.
7) Switch cleric hirelings and respecced companions your aren't using as clerics to give warding
bond to all your main party members.
5) Druid hireling : Cast longstrider on every character and every pet.
Spend all remaining spell slots on Goodberry and recover spell uses on level 1 spells and cast
more Goodberry.

In the end your entire party of 4 characters should have warding bond, freedom of movement, death ward, protection from poison.
All your characters and pets will also have level 5 aid and feast of heroes, plus mage armor on the pets or characters that need them.

This way you don't waste any spell slots with your main party for buffs, just for pet summons before you set out.

Spell list that you can cast with a Hireling and dismiss from party :

Aid (Cleric 2) *** UPCAST Possible : Every spell slot you pick over level 2 gives more HP.
Darkvision (Cleric/Wizard 2)
Daylight (Anyone 3)
Death Ward (Cleric 4)
Feast of heroes (Cleric 6)
Freedom of Movement (Druid 4)
Goodberry (Druid/Ranger 2) (Can carry them as extra healing but its better to keep them for free camping supplies)
Light (Cleric/Wizard 0)
Longstrider (Druid/Ranger 2)
Mage Armor (Wizard 1)
Protection from poison (Cleric/Druid 2)
Warding Bond (Cleric 2)