A Beginner's Guide to Baldur's Gate 3: Pre-Launch Prep - Which Class Should I Play?

what's up everybody renfail here and hot on the heels of the most recent video we did which was on the races of faerun for Baldur's Gate 3. I'm going to be talking about the classes of this game as we lead up in the weeks and months to launch which is now not so far away we are in mid-june right now and this is coming out the end of August so two and a half months we are we are getting there so um I think I read somewhere that they're possibly going to be adding some more classes uh between now and launch so if they do I will update this guide but if they don't we can kind of anticipate the classes that we talked about today are going to be the ones that they are launching with now I've played most of these during The Early Access which I've had since the day it came out so we're going to be talking about all these today we're not going to be showing any combat if you want to see combat you'll need to tune into some of my past live streams or any of the videos I do between now and launch if I dive in and play some more um of the Early Access but in the meantime we're going to dive into today's video if you're a veteran of Baldur's Gate 3 this might not you know have a lot of information for you but if you do have something you want to add to the conversation I welcome it please drop that down in the comments below if you are a new player or someone who is just starting to get interested in Baldur's Gate 3 because you were waiting until it was going to be a sure thing this video is more designed for the new people the people who want to know more so welcome hopefully you enjoy and if you do do all the things to continue to get more video content from me like subscribe all that stuff and um yeah don't forget the Discord in the meantime let's dive into the character creation process and work you guys through the various classes this game alright everybody so there are currently 11 classes as of this recording of array Android range of warlock Bard fighter Rogue wizard cleric Paladin and sorcerer um I think across the board I have played everything except for the Barbarian and warlock I think those are the two that I've not tested during the Early Access um I highly doubt that I will ever play those during um live but you never know because in the course of creating game guides and everything else you know you end up wanting to create class guides at some point down the road so you end up playing through everything you know if you're gonna completely you know go 100 on this game so you never know but um they may add some classes to this leading up to launch so again this might be an amended list shortly but that's what we have to work with for now and um I've played most of these like I said um just those two so without further Ado we're gonna be going through each one of these I'm going to tell you about my personal experience and a little bit about the class again if you know a lot about this game or if you know a lot about Forgotten Realms this video is not going to do a lot for you but hopefully you'll still be able to get some enjoyment out of it and uh like I said add to the conversation if you'd like the Druid is more than likely the one I'm going to be starting with uh when the game launches I originally thought I was going to do a rogue which is what I've done almost every time in the past but this time around I said you know what I don't I don't really want to do a rogue I don't want to do a ranger either those are the two that I almost always play and to be honest with you I'm expanding my horizons and during the course of testing all of the various classes that are in Baldur's Gate 3 The Early Access this has been the one that has resonated the most with me um I think the Druid and maybe it's because the early stages of the game have you interacting with a druid Circle so it it made it feel really natural for me to get into that role I just feel like the way they play is really cool um with the Spells and shape changing and all the things you can do the Druid just feels really powerful um and you're obviously leveling up so you're getting more abilities and everything else but it feels like I finally feel like as a druid I'm not just some random hermit wandering the countryside protecting my little patch of you know Stonehenge but actually it's sort of like a warrior for nature you know like I'm out there with the power of nature doing good for the world you know it feels really really good so this is more than likely what I what I start the game with um so yeah drew it love it [Music] the ranger is something I've it's either been my first or second playthrough in pretty much every game it's almost always my second because I usually do the Rogue first um and I've already played the ranger twice through um Early Access it's super fun I would say that the ranger is the class that is probably the easiest to play um because all it is is stand at a distance and shoot things at the enemy um you know there are obviously Animal Companions and things to consider but for the most part this is about being the pew pew guy for your group and also you know with the The Scouting and the tracking and the animal handling and talking with animals there's lots of cool stuff you can do with the ranger now there's also um the sub classes of these um as you get deeper into things um but uh you know looking at the the various things that you can do tracking and looking at the favorite enemies and everything else Rangers are really cool um and they're really easy to play you could also you know if you're going to be the party leader give them a higher Charisma if you want so they can do better at conversation checks and the like but this is mostly a range build that just doesn't get up close to personal danger but you can survive it if you need to um I love the ranger it's I can't say enough good things wizard I love the wizard I almost always will play a wizard in these games I have through Boulders gate one Boulders gate 2 Iceman deal one Iceman Dale two um the wizard ends up being like the fourth or fifth thing I usually ever play through but it's also one of the funnest things to do because by that point I don't care about the story anymore I'm just playing it to watch things blow up and you know see what enemies I can take out um and I think the Mage is for me in the past the Mage has always been the most powerful of all of my characters by the time I get done if there's a level to one each if there's a level 1 to 20 grind for the bit for the game the my Mage will end up being the most powerful out of all the characters that I play in any of these games in the past I don't know if it's going to play out that way here but I know from everything I've seen from you know the low levels up to like level three to five with the the Wizard um and and similarly with the sorcerer but you know we'll get to that in a little bit um the wizard gets really really really really really really really really powerful um especially if you spec towards aoes um and crowd control stuff I know in the past it was really easy to just do you know like a web and then stinking Cloud which will knock at in the past it used to knock things unconscious or you go with death fog or something and then ice storm Fireball but you're throwing all these aoes on top of the web and you just can essentially kill most of the enemies so that if there's a group of 20 maybe only three or four of them make it back to the group and that's when the rest of your party swoops in and does cleanup um it works fairly well here it's a little different because you have a lot of different spells now and not everything does knockdowns but you've got grease and you know web and all these other things so the wizard is super powerful now the Rogue is almost always my first playthrough in any of these uh Baldur's Gate games because pretty much any RPG I play because of traps I like to be able to open every dog open every door that I find open every chest that I find disarm every trap that I find and not miss any of the secret treasure that's why I always love the Rogue also I have found over the years that there are usually really fun quest lines involving Rogues guilds um and so you're usually like doing spy stuff or stealing from someone or going to the museum and robbing an artifact and you know I find those to be sort of like the James Bond experiences that I've been able to have in RPGs have always been with like a rogue based character doing stuff with the Rogues Guild so I've always just enjoyed the Rogue and it's always the first thing I do this will be the first time I'm like 99 sure that this is gonna be the first time I don't play a um a rogue I think I'm gonna go with the Druid first time through this time around uh you can play these as ranged or you can play them as um um melee characters um I think it's um important to understand the distinction between the two if you want to play a melee Rogue there's going to be a lot of manual positioning required of you to get the most out of like flanking damage and getting the sneak attack stuff um uh that's something you have to keep in mind the range is less important about that there's still some positioning but it's mostly just shoot your bow um I would almost always argue that the role of a rogue in the group is to be the Trap finder of the the Scout the door unlocker so you know specking in that direction is what I'm going to argue for every time now similar to you know other d d iterations one of the things I love about the fighter is that it's not actually a tank it is a tank but it's not the tank in this in the sense that most people think about it because over here on the right you get your fighting styles to choose from so you could choose to be a bow Warrior a defense tank which is a sword and board the dueling great weapon fighting two-handed weapons protection that's another type of of um defensive and then two weapon fighting if you want to be dual wielding so you've got you know six different ways that you can choose to spec your fighter right out of the gate without even worrying about subclasses this just means that your style of fighting is in that specific proficiency so um if you for example like the idea of sort of not being the Barbarian because the Barbarian has a whole set of skill sets that are required to trigger all the abilities The Fighter doesn't require any of that so I would also argue that much like the ranger is one of the easiest classes to play in the game The Fighter is also one of the easiest to play because it doesn't require any thought it does not matter which one of these fighting styles you choose from the role of the tank is to if the of the fighter is to get up in the melee and just kill stuff with whatever weapon they have so um the the only one that would not be that way is the Archer here but I would argue that if you're gonna make an Archer why not make you know a ranger where you've got other things you know going on along with being proficient at archery but that's just a personal thing you could totally go for it here if you want to um Fighters are easy to play they are the backbone of any group they get great hit points per level they can wear heavy um you know it's good stuff here now paladins this is interesting because I normally don't like to play paladins but I I can tell you from having recently played solastic crown of the Magister and also the earliest stages of Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access before they had added in some of the balancing for the combats and the combat was so hard when that game first launched before they did like a balance pass the Paladin was one of the you know whenever they got added it was one of the most survivable builds at the time that it was added um now it's obviously changed a lot since then because they've balanced balance and balance I don't think the pound news even there at the very beginning that was one of the ones they added over time like The Bard or the Druid I think um having played it in celestein also done some testing the Paladin is great if you want to be the tank of your party while also you know not being as defensively strong as like a warrior per se but you get all these abilities which make up for that so you know Shield of Faith lay on hands Divine stuff there's lots of stuff going on with the Paladin that makes it pretty fun you can also spec a paladin as like a utility tank who isn't your main Warrior but they do a sufficient amount of DPS with the Spells and everything else plus they've got back up heels and Buffs and everything else so you know they're a really versatile class that can either be the leader of your party or a co-leader of your party if you if you want to run with two main melee builds you have the difference between oath of the Ancients you find on the side of light and the cosmic struggle against Darkness to preserve the sanctity of life and the beauty of nature or the oath the devotion which is the ideal of the knight in shining armor acting with honor and virtue protect the weak and pursue the greater good um laying hands Divine sense and then with the Ancients yeah it's the same thing healing Radiance so in cantrips Firebolt s it's the same for both so you can throw fire at your enemies which is really cool that's really really cool let's do this uh Bard I I I I I I like The Bard a lot I tested The Bard when it first came out under Early Access and it was a lot of fun um they do some really crazy things with spells and songs and it's really cool and there's all the I forget what they're called the the insults you can throw at your enemy to distract them it's like harsh words I think or something like that I forget does it even say down here this and it Whispers Tess's hideous laughter I don't think it it tells me per se vicious mockery that's the one unlink unleash a string of Enchanted insulted a creature and a part disadvantage on its nestic taxroll and there's like insults that they put in the game it's just really awesome The Bard is a lot of fun I was talking in the other video about races I I could see myself playing a um a tieflink Bard easily or a tiefling mage but I like the idea of a tiefling Bard because I've seen those played before in games and they just sound like a lot of fun I would love to role play a t flame Bard oh that just gave me an idea if I ever do get to join a Pathfinder group in the near future which is not DND but I'm just thinking because I played a lot of DnD over the years but this is a Pathfinder stuff that we're talking about right now I might I might play it a bar of some type anyway getting sidetracked um The Bard is a lot of fun at Baldur's Gate 3. a little bit of spell craft a little bit of Rogue roguish charms a little bit of you know you could throw around you know if you want to do like a crossbow and stuff or or Etc because you do get the crossbow proficiency but I prefer to have them be like rapiers and it's just like she's got a Rapier and her mandolin or her violin and I always said mandolin it's a violin um anyway barred gotta love them if you'd like in the meantime let's dive in right away we've got the Barbarian um again I've not really played this but I watched some footage on it and um as they say the strong embrace the wild that hides inside Keen instincts Primal physicality and most of all an unbridled unquenchable rage um hit 14 hit points per level um proficiencies athletic religion Insight perception intimidation so on and so forth um the Barbarian like with all other iterations is mostly a DPS melee build I would argue that you could tank with this class if you have enough armor and things to help get your hit points back let whether it be a Healer in your party or anything else um so this is for people who just want to get up front and personal in the combat the reason I don't think this is something for me is because over the years I've tended to lean towards if I'm going to do combat like if I'm going to do melee I prefer to be like the tank like sword and shield sword board has always been my thing so for me the Barbarian is one of the things that I doubtle overplay but it looks like it's interesting at the very least with the way they've done it in Baldur's Gate 3. but again I don't have personal experience with this one so uh you know take that as you will commercial time everyone huge shout out to the guild Champions who are our highest tiered membership here on YouTube we've got Babylonia ancient entity craziest relative remedy thanks so much for your support here on the channel and of course to all of our members who help keep me full time here on YouTube thanks so much for your support for being here for checking in don't forget to like subscribe hit that Bell icon Super Chat any live streams or premieres you see super thanks any video uploads you see don't forget YouTube shorts in that category as well and hopefully we'll see you in the next live stream don't forget the Discord links are down below let's get back to the video the clinic um the cleric is interesting because the cleric can kind of be ruled as a you know holy life healer who's gonna you know completely just keep your party buffed and full of hit points and there's definitely if you want to roll life domain you can definitely do that but there are lots of different ways to play the cleric in Baldur's Gate 3. so starting off with you can choose your subclass then you get to choose your deity um which um I don't remember if the deity changes any of your spells or not [Music] but there's all these different gods you can choose from all these different deities um but the life domain is the the heels the heel one um there's lots of stuff to look at through the clerics so the cleric is one of the most uh they're pretty awesome in Boulder Skate 3 no lie like um clerics are pretty great there's also the Light domain so this is the domain offered by DDS of Justice majesty and primordial flame and you get spells that dispel darkness and harm the undead so this is a DPS cleric it's it's really cool the way these can play because they're specifically built to do damage and to deal with the threats um of of the undead and darkness so you're gonna have some heals but you're also gonna have a lot of spells to help you in the fight against Darkness then there's trickery domain which is shared by the wicked catch and mischievous deities alike those who Channel trickery specialize in deception and illusion Magics illusion magic so again you still have some heels at your disposal but you also have some other stuff charm person disguise self so you get some options here so um there's the three different ways essentially that you can play your cleric in this game so far and it's it they're pretty awesome between three we have the sorcerer which is similar in a lot of ways to the wizard but because you're using innate Magic from your bloodline it's it the cast it's literally just the differences how do you cast your spells that's kind of the only difference between Wizards and Sorcerers it just depends you do you want innate abilities or do you want abilities from Scrolls and books like it that's kind of that's what it is um subclass could be either wild magic says your powers come from ancient forces of chaos churning within you waiting to burst free at every time any time um and you can of course the cool thing with this is like well we'll talk about this in here in a minute then you get draconic bloodline it says your veins carry your chronic magic the result of a powerful Dragon ancestor and down here you have to choose your ancestor this damage type associated with that Dragon will influence later features that are not yet in the game but are planned to be added later on so that's important so you can choose that I want to have red do you want to have green by the way it changes on your face do you know the set guys changes the scales copper brass gold I'm telling you there's going to be some really fun stuff coming in Baldur's Gate through everybody and you can change the appearance of the scales and I'm I might have to roll a sorcerer at some point that looks like a lot of fun um I I could have a lot of fun rolling and having a draconic background that that just actually sounds like a lot of fun and like either going between like a blue or white man so many options so many cool things to look at um sorcerer you're so tasty [Music] again the Warlock is when I don't have a lot of experience with um they're Bound by a pack to an all-powerful Patron they trade their loyalty for supernatural abilities and unique Magic and you have these subclasses the fiend warlocks in service to fiends work towards corrupting destructive ends intentionally or otherwise and receive hellish blessings in return armor of I get this spectral Frost covers you oh that's awesome arms of hedar oh that's really cool looking you get the dark ones blessing we need to reduce the Hostile creature zero hit points this gift from you your Patron grants you three temporary hit points all right then we have the great old one warlock's bound to Eldridge beans in the far Realms work towards inscrutable goals gaining strange Powers over entropy in the mind dissonant Whispers and Tasha's hideous laughter that's really cool so this is like the the bar that not the Rapier guy I forget his name the the hero of the I don't remember his name but he's like he's like got some he's got a touch of this in him it's very interesting well there you have it folks that is the end of my class overview for Baldur's Gate three some of what I'm looking for the most plain and hopefully uh you're looking forward to playing as well I'm gonna be doing um like I said I'm having I'm gonna have the opportunity to do a couple of different things because I'm playing my character solo for all the content creation that I'm doing initially with the live streams and everything else and then we've got a multi-career multiplayer group that's setting up where I'm going to be playing something completely different so that's going to be where I really get a chance to experiment and explore things kind of go crazy so that all sounds like fun to you make sure to like subscribe and hit the Bell icon because we are heading towards the launch of balder's Gate 3 and as they ramp up publicity I'm also ramping up my video production around this game because we are going to be playing from day one and mixing this with Starfield and having a lot of fun this fall into the winter so hopefully we'll see you on the other side don't forget our Discord love to have you in the community until next time everybody stay safe and happy gaming

Channel: Renfail

Views: 52,024

Keywords: games, gaming, roleplaying games, game dev, game development, ttrpg, dnd, dungeons & dragons, baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, larian studios, baldurs gate 3 early access, baldur's gate, baldur's gate 3, baldur's gate 3 early access, dungeons and dragons, baldurs gate, larian studios baldurs gate 3, baldur's gate 3 character creation, baldur's gate 3 beginner's, baldurs gate 3 beginners guide, baldurs gate 3 class, baldurs gate 3 classes, baldur's gate 3 class guide

Id: vbdrOR3Czvk

Length: 24min 10sec (1450 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023