THE BEST Weapons & Armor Beginners Guide | Baldur's Gate 3

weapons armor Shields so many things to wear in  Baldur's Gate 3 but so few slots maybe you're a   little too confused on how finesse weapons  work or how your AC is actually calculated   well in this video I'm going to break down the  details on the three armor types how all the   weapon classifications work and then talk about  the fighting styles at multiple classes pull from   to help you better get acquainted with weapons and  armor in Baldur's Gate 3. if this is your first   time on my channel the way I like to do things  here is by upfronting knowledge within my videos   so you can decide to stick around if it's the one  for you so to put things simply your base AC or   Armor class is 10 and it is then Modified by your  dexterity and the AC of your armor the heavier   the armor the less dexterity modifier you get all  the way up to heavy negating the modifier entirely   as far as Weapons go you have two classifications  simple and Marshall which fall into a proficiency   category right your other fishing with one or the  other or a set individual weapon then outside of   that you have other modifiers like light which  allows you to use it in either hand versatile   which allows you to use one or two hands for a  weapon and then heavy which gives a disadvantage   for any small race to use that's really the  tldr of this entire video and if that's all   you wanted to know please feel free to shut  the video down and get back to enjoying your   time in bg3 before you head out please don't  forget to like comment and or subscribe each   one of those things does help me out in a very  very huge way and I'd greatly appreciate it you   can quickly navigate to any part of this video  that interests you the most by using the chapter   symbolt the timeline and the description and if  you need help with any of the DND terms that I   kind of glossed over in this video I have a full  breakdown of the terms Linked In the upright hand   corner lastly don't forget to follow me on Twitch  where I'll be doing giveaways of bg3 for the next   few days let's get started here on my weapon and  armor guide for Baldur Escape 3. but to start us   off let's have a conversation about how Armor  class works so we're going to hover over this   right now and it's going to say that our Armor  class is 13. the higher your armor class the   harder you are to hit every single thing in the  game unless it has some sort of specialization   like say a monk or Barbarian or a sorcerer with a  draconic bloodline we'll just have 10 bass armor   that is you're kind of your bare minimum and then  after that you get modified your armor class gets   Modified by your dexterity and then that number  two in and of itself will possibly change based   off of your class Barbarian will pull constitution  in to help out with their Armor class so you have   plenty of other classes out there that will  actually benefit their Armor class from other   ability scores but you're probably looking at  saying plus three from dexterity how do I know   if it's going to be however much from dexterity  well it's when you hover over this remember how   we've talked about how your ability modifier is  pretty much the thing that applied to anything   that would give a bonus to it so we get plus three  to dexterity and this includes our Armor class so   taking a look at this it just shows outright what  we've got and if you ever get confused on anything   press T it locks the screen and you can go ahead  and dive over it it says the armor cluster the   higher armor blah blah blah blah blah and it shows  you your armor class and everything like that so   that is how your armor class is calculated to  begin with but now that you know that how does   Armor class get affected by armor let's take a  look at all of the armor types I have simple robe   right here which is clothing I have got leather  armor and then I've got scale mail which is a   medium armor and then ring mail which is a heavy  armor what I want you to do is take a look at this   Shield right there right 15 14 11 10. what I want  you to think of is that's the number that becomes   your new base not that you're increasing it by  a certain number or anything like that so let's   take a look at our leather armor remember we have  a plus three bonus from our 17 dexterity and our   current bone our current base Armor class is 10 so  that gives us an AC of 13. well let's put this on   well now it becomes an AC of 14 right because our  base armor is 11 thusly Modified by our dexterity   by three let's take a look over here at scale  mail so this is medium armor disadvantages on   stealth check and you can see right there in the  text right here it says AC bonus from dexterity   is limited to plus two so even though I have 17  dexterity I'm limited now to only getting plus two   rather than my normal plus three but the the uh  the caveat here is that my base Armor class is now   14 rather than 11. so let's take a look at what  this is going to look like when I wear the scale   nail you see it now jumps up right so we're at 14  armor with the base of the the medium armor but   now since we have two decks three dexterity we're  only getting two of that since we're putting on   uh The Heavy Armor the medium armor you show off  my actual armor here so how does this work with   heavy armor well let's take a look heavy armor  body Aid that's part of the actual uh special for   this plus one but it says disadvantage on stealth  check yet again and no AC bonus from dexterity   let's press T let's hover over heavy armor  it doesn't say anything right so we know   that this isn't going to shut off our ability  to cast spells like it has done in previous   um versions of the game version editions used to  be if you were like metal armor you couldn't cast   jewelry or Ranger spells so I'm going to go ahead  and do this and now some fancy looking ring me   I'm not gonna lie my AC is 15 right because that  is our base armor class for heavy armor that's   what I get and there you can there you go it's 15  it's 15. whereas if I was wearing the scale mail   it goes up to 16. it goes up to 16 though because  I am a dexterity focused class because you might   be thinking to yourself when the hell is it ever  going to be worth it for me to use heavy armor   this will go into a conversation about how weapon  damage is fixated based on which ability score but   my point here before we jump into that is that  since I'm playing a dexterity themed class with   my Ranger I'm getting a lot of benefit from using  medium and light and heavy armor I'm sorry just   medium and light if I was not a dexterity based  class maybe I'm a fighter maybe I'm a paladin   maybe I'm a barbarian and my dexterity and and uh  strength are swapped where I have a plus three to   strength and a plus zero to dexterity well now  heavy armor makes more sense to me because I'm   pulling more raw Armor class into my character  because of the heavy armor value remember I'm   not getting that that AC bonus from dexterity even  though I have a plus three so it makes sense for   me to wear heavy armor but if I were say lizelle  here lizelle has only a plus one to her dexterity   versus a plus three to her strength now she's  not gonna get that bonus here um to her to her AC   um in the same way that I did right and she's  not going to get any kind of strength bonus on   her armor in the same way as you do for decks  but it still kind of just stands to reason that   she's using strength that's primary focus of her  character if I were to give her really good heavy   armor that maybe had 16 17 or 18 Armor class it  would be better than her current githyanki half   plate which actually gives her 16 AC because this  counts as medium armor so again just to kind of   drive that home one more time we'll look at Shadow  heart she has a DEX plus one she is wearing medium   armor which gives her a base of 13 so she has  a total of 16 also from her Shield which is a   thing I wanted to save at the very last here is  Shields will just outright add to your armor class   because they just say right there plus two Armor  class I think I have even another Shield here I   don't know if it's yeah it's a plus two as well  so just to show that off you pull this off and   her IC drops down to 14 which is just 13 plus one  from her dexterity but that is how you have all   of your different armor proficiency sees how they  all kind of fall together into your armor class   and how Shields at the very end of that can really  kind of give you a little bit of a leg up in your   armor class now as far as Weapons go we have two  different classifications we have martial weapons   and simple weapons I'm gonna flash two charts on  the screen you can see these are all of the melee   martial weapons as well as the ranged martial  weapons on the left and then on the right you're   going to see all of the melee simple weapons and  all of the melee I'm sorry arranged simple weapons   so this comes down to your proficiencies right  your individual class will have Proficiency in   either simple or martial or both and then they  might have further racial proficiencies that   maybe give them specific uses except for  example elves have a long sword in their   racial efficiency [Music] um or if you're a  human you get like Spears proficiencies and   stuff like that so there are certain race  and class combinations that will grant you   specific weapons and armor to take advantage of  so you have those all at your disposal but the   question is okay what does this all really mean  well taking a look at simple weapons I've kind   of broken them up over here for shadow heart  on the left or right sides of her inventory   on the right side we have got martial weapons but  here's a Morning Star right and this is important   to kind of make the distinction between these  two items a mace is a 1d6 plus one because it's   using my strength check anytime you see that  plus on the other end that's showing you that   it's using a specific bonus for this I'm going  to talk about this in just a little bit here   so all weapons are implied to use a strength check  unless otherwise I'm sorry a strength modifier   unless otherwise noted and we'll get there in a  second so this mace and this morning star might   look like oh this is just kind of the same weapon  nope it's not we're going to press T and lock this   at the bottom left corner of every single little  tool tip for any weapon you'll see will show you   the corresponding proficiency for that weapon so  this is a mace weapon that's doing bludgeoning   damage at a 1d6 that's one D6 standard die just  a six out of die add a plus one so let's say I   roll a four well it's actually a five and the  proficiency with this weapon also unlocks this   so these are some things that are a little bit  different than tabletop right being proficient   didn't unlock special actions like we get in  Ballers gate 3. these are special weapon actions   and then from these weapon actions we have to see  some further information here right so this will   possibly days our Target and they can't take  reactions and are easier to hit it's a melee   ranged attack and we want to see that this does a  con save so anytime you see this either on a spell   um a weapon action whatever it is Con save  deck save insave whiz save whatever it is   it's telling you that when you go ahead and use  this ability that the target has to roll a saving   throw of constitution to save against it if they  save then they are fine they're not going to be   um hurt it's an attack roll short rest until  you can reuse it again so all these things   are important bits of information for weapons  but they're also applied to a lot of different   things so just kind of make sure you're always  taking a look at this stuff when you are looking   at also you can see that this costs me an action  maybe if I look at this long sword pommel strike   is a bonus action so I can see that this actually  takes place rather than my main primary action so   it's a nice way to kind of get an idea of where  or how some of these actions are taking part so   back to the morning star and the mace so looking  over at the morning star I see wow okay this is   actually a Morning Star specialization which takes  it out of this simple weapon category and puts it   into the martial weapon category so don't just  look at something that looks kind of the same   and think oh this is just the same type of weapon  why can't I use this or what's the problem here   yes you can use any weapon without a Proficiency  in it but you won't gain access to its weapon   actions and you won't you will have disadvantage  when you use it so those things are worth noting   um that's kind of nice for Morningstar I'm gonna  put that on her but outside of that we also have   some other classifications but one thing I want  to talk about too is here's a Quarter Staff and   here's a ritual staff well they're both quarter  stads because you see in the lower left corner   this says Quarter Staff right uh and this says  Quarter Staff as well but what you should also   look at with Quarter Staff is that they're  a versatile weapon same thing here with our   two-handed sword so a versatile weapon means  that you can be used with one or two hands uh   deals more damage when wielded with both hands and  that's why you have two sets of information right   here it shows you an eight-sided die and it shows  you a six out of die so the one D6 whatever the   lower value is shows you what the one-handed value  is the one outside of the parenthetical notation   is a two-handed value so one d8 is showing me  that if I were just to Simply equip this Quarter   Staff then I'd be using both hands and I would do  1d8 we'll go ahead and show what that looks like   so it says 2d9 there's it's two to nine  right because I'm getting plus one on   my rolls because of my shrink modifier  well I'm going to put my shield back on   all right now it shows two to seven because I'm  doing one D6 plus one remember again strength   plus one it shows it all right there for you  just simply hover over this you can also see   this attack bonus as well for proficiency so you  know since I have this proficiency I can use this   she doesn't have long sword proficiency so you  see how that went from a plus three now down to   a plus one because I don't have that proficiency  that's why you really want to take advantage of   any item you do have proficiency with but outside  of that we have some other modifiers to look at   let's take a look at dagger maybe maybe you are  like me and you want a dual wield as you should   you have the light distinction so this means that  your weapon can be dual wielded with another light   weapon meaning that you can only use two light  weapons to dual wield unless you get a special   feat which I don't really want to get into but  there is a feat that will allow you to kind of   do things outside of light weapons and you can  use other weapons to do that so you can use like   swords and whatnot but if I want to do let's  let's remove my shield let me put my long sword   on because a long sword is a two-handed versatile  weapon right we see this as versatile down there   so let's try to equip this dagger on the offhand  oh I can't do it why not well because the long   sword is light and the dagger is also like my dog  is going to town on his squeaky toy back there   so if I want to do a short sword and a long dagger  I can because they are both light weapons that's   what it's going to enable me to do a wield in any  class that I'm playing I have to have a special   feat that will enable me to use um any non-light  weapon sorry my dog is just going to town   um outside of that though let's take a look at  this other modifier on dagger it has finesse so   remember how I said every weapon is implied  to use your strength modifier unless stated   otherwise well finesse weapons scale with your  dexterity instead of your strength if your Dex is   higher it's not rather than or instead of or it's  it's not I'm what I'm trying to say is you don't   choose it chooses whichever modifier works best  this is a really good example Shadow heart has   plus one and plus one it doesn't really matter so  it'll choose whichever one it doesn't it doesn't   matter for all intents and purposes if I was 14  strength or 14 decks then one of these would go   up by one making it two and the game would Auto  pick the one that was higher so finesse weapons   are a way that you can be a character that doesn't  have high strength and still does a lot of damage   with your melee weapons take my Ranger for  example I am using two scimitars which are   finesse weapons I'm using my plus 3 damage from  my Scimitar or from the the Finesse weapon in   my in my dexterity to get a ton of damage out  of them it's a 1d6 I hover over this and it   says total bonus dexterity plus three proficiency  bonus plus two and a big detail about weapons and   armor that we really haven't talked about that  is outside of the actual weapons and armor are   these four buttons down here in the lower left  corner now you have the ability to use weapon   use your melee in your range by simply pressing  these or just simply pressing F so if I'm on my   melee weapon press F switch me to range press F  will switch me on over to melee then conversely   you also have the option to swap how you do a  wield so right now my character is dual wielding   and if I go to attack with my main hand they will  use an action and a bonus action to attack I can   press this button and make it so that I only  attack with my main hand and then I would use   my bonus action to attack with my off hand so if  you have say two weapon training and you're trying   to take the most advantage of it then you can just  simply have this set on or if you want to use your   bonus action in a round and you're dual wielding  and you don't want to just waste it on the hit   make sure you've got this toggled appropriately  it's going to be pretty huge for you lastly here   you have toggle light source which will take out  a torch or anything like that if you need it in   a dire situation now before we get into weapon  types I want to have a conversation too about   some of the other two-handed more great weapon  style of weapons and we have stuff like a pike or   we have stuff well like a glaive and the great ax  and the mall and what you'll notice with these is   that you get quite a bit of damage coming out of  them like the mall here has two D6 plus three this   is the everburn blade that is from the prologue  if you kill that uh um tiefling Commander you'll   get this guy right here and that does additional  fire damage you'll see it gives you the direct   allocation of dice that you'll be getting whenever  you use that weapon 2d6 plus three you can see it   physically represented right there in a 1d4 in  Fire and Slicer in red um you also get of course   we've talked about this with your proficiencies  but what I want you to take a look at here is   with great axes and with great malls typically in  the past or in the in the fifth edition there is a   heavy aspect which is actually not applied in the  game um somewhere other in this video I believe   that it says it is but it's more digging on it and  it is not I if it's not if it's in the video still   I apologize I've tried to edit it out everywhere  but I just want to try to cover my tracks here but   um this again will get your strength modifier and  everything but two-handed of course requires two   hands to use you'll see though with things like  Pikes and with glaves unlike with a spear you'll   have extra reach and this has increased range and  can be used to attack from further away so let's   go ahead and press this button with my sword and  that's my range right it's a pretty small range   of where I can go I can see this little circle  here that's where I know even though this is a   two-handed great sword right now if I put a pike  on and I go ahead and press this button again it   has a much further range so you can again see  that some of these weapons that do have that   extra reach it's usually about double that range  so you can get a little bit more out of them it   was like right here before now it's all the  way over here so this gives you a chance to   attack someone from further away they have to get  closer to you but it also increases your attack of   opportunity your opportunity attack is now this  entire circle so this is works both offensively   and defensively so if someone's within that range  and they want to get out of it then you have you   have them locked into engagement with you at a  much further distance than they would otherwise   now one of the last things I want to talk about  as it pertains to your weapon damage is the weapon   damage type you can see that this mace does  bludgeoning this Scimitar does slashing and   this dagger does piercing so all these things  will have different weapon damage that they'll   do you can just kind of see that as you hover  over them right and it's important to note that   certain things will have resistances to those  maybe you're fighting a rock Golem and The Rock   Golem is going to naturally have a much higher  resistance to piercing a pretty good resistance to   um slashing but probably maybe a penalty towards  bludgeoning who knows what it is maybe it's the   same thing if you're fighting against an  undead so when you see that you just kind   of want to look at any let's go ahead and look  at this thing right here I think it's a tiefling   you right click and press examine and I I'm sorry  I don't know what that is if you're on console and   those are so many you know what well she's got a  resistance to fire so I know that that I'm okay   when it comes to generic damage but it'll just  straight up display in that location if they would   have any kind of resistances towards that specific  damage type and it's also worth noting that across   all these weapons there's an ability to throw them  depending on a if you're a barbarian or B I think   specifically a Berserker or B if it has this right  here melee weapons that are made to be thrown such   as daggers hand axes javelins light hammers Spears  and tridents when thrown these weapons do the same   damage they would for a melee attack meaning  that if I were to throw this dagger it does   1d4 plus one and you don't really ever need to  worry about this because the game will just show   you naturally what your damage is as it pertains  to your strength let me show you an example of   this here right this says 1d5 I'm sorry this 1d4  plus one let's drop it and take a look at it on   my Ranger my Ranger oh well this shows me four to  seven because I'm 1D 4 plus 3. so you can see all   the different damage types and how they work by  just simply hovering over them but this is me just   explaining how the under the hood works for it all  now that we talked about melee weapons it's time   to talk about your ranged weapons so we just like  our melee weapons we have all the information that   we need when we hover over it we can see that this  is a short bow classification its range is 60 feet   um I've I'm using the imperial system on metric  and then I can see that it says two-handed   weapons if you're familiar with fifth edition  there are no loading weapons in this game and   there's a possibility that they've removed the  heavy classification for long bows which I'll   show you in a little bit longbows typically had a  heavy classification heavy means that anyone that   is a small race or is considered small as far as  their creature type they would take they would use   a disadvantage when using that weapon remember  disadvantage means that you're rolling two die   and taking the lesser of the two but if I take a  look at this crossbow I can see that it has a very   similar profile to my short bow and my Goblin bow  another instance where two different named things   both share the same proficiency of a short bow so  you can see here's just all the same information   you would need otherwise let's take a look at a  long bow real quick now to close our video out I   want to talk about fighting styles now we have a  lot of different fighting styles to choose from   we have specifically these five and depending  upon which class you are you'll be able to pull   from these fighter gets them at level one but  Paladin Barbarian Ranger they all get access to   different fighting styles at different points in  their career or maybe you go with fighter and you   go into a champion and you get a second fighting  style so let's talk about them very quickly first   off we have archery you gain plus two bonus to  range weapon attacks what this means is remember   when we took a look at that uh Longbow it said  1d8 plus our dexterity modifier well that would   be plus one in this instance archery then grants  us an additional plus two so it actually would   be plus three it'd be one D eight plus three does  quite a bit more damage right that would mean that   the damage interval would be like 3 to 12 which  is nice defense you gain plus one bonus to Armor   class while wearing armor so let's assume you were  looking at some armor that I had an armor class of   12. well with this it becomes 13 as our base and  then the dexterity modifies it or what other other   dexterity whatever AC modifiers we have dueling  used to be called single weapon fighting but it is   not the way it works in fifth edition when you are  wielding a melee weapon that is not two-handed or   versatile in one hand and no weapon in the other  you deal an additional two damage with that weapon   what this is saying is if you use a sword and  shield then you get a two damage bonus this is   a way to get more damage using a sword and  shield versus defense and protection which   are more geared towards defending people not  even necessarily with a shield so dueling is   a way to get a lot more damage out of using  that variant and not feeling punished for it   great weapon fighting is particularly cool here  so when you roll a one or a two on a damage die   for an attack with two-handed melee weapon that  die is re-rolled once this gives you an additional   chance to dish out a little bit more with your  great weapons so if you're going with any kind   of two-handed weapon which is what A2 which is  what a great weapon is you would then use this   to take full advantage of that this guy's using a  long sword right now and then protection when you   have a shield imposed disadvantage remember we  said disadvantage as you roll two die you take   the lesser of the value on an attack against your  allies when you are within five feet you must be   able to see the the uh the attacker so this is  a reaction meaning that if you're within five   feet of your Ally and your Ally gets attacked you  get the option then or that that creature because   it's a passive feature um that creature then gets  disadvantaged this reacts to their action so just   keep that in mind that's how it works you're not  actively using this skill it's part of him that   kind of passively always will drip off then lastly  we have two weapon of fighting when you make an   attack with your offhand weapon you can add your  ability modifier to the damage of the attack what   this means then if I'm using two strength based  weapons typically the main hand attack let's say   I'm using two hand axes the main hand would just  get my strength and the offhand would not with   two weapon fighting that offhand now gets it so  that I think axes are 1d6 so it would get one D6   plus three in my main hand and my offhand would  get one D6 plus three it's worth noting too now   in Baldur's Gate 3 when you attack and you have  two weapons selected it will automatically attack   with both the main and the offhand you have to  select just the main hand attack if you only   want to attack with the main hand so that's kind  of worth noting but these are all your different   fighting styles that go along with all of your  different weapons and your ranged weapons and   your armor and all that kind of fun stuff so  I hope this gives you a much better idea on   how weapons and armor play into your character  and hopefully it gives you a better idea on how   Armor class plays into all of this if you have any  questions or need any help with anything by all   means go ahead let me know in the comment section  below but have a good one guys and take care [Music]

Channel: ItalianSpartacus

Views: 70,263

Keywords: How Does AC Work? Armor & Weapons Guide for Baldur's Gate 3, baldur's gate 3, baldurs gate 3, bg3, baldurs gate 3 classes, baldurs gate, baldurs gate 3 beginners guide, baldurs gate 3 guide, baldur's gate 3 weapon types, baldur's gate 3 weapon, baldur's gate 3 armor guide, baldur's gate 3 weapon abilities, baldur's gate 3 weapon profiency, weapon proficiency bg3, bg3 armor proficiency, bg3 armor guide, bg3 ac explained, bg3 guide, bg3 beginner, baldurs gate 3 class

Id: 5YK5-e1VAd0

Length: 27min 52sec (1672 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 05 2023