The Prodigy/Fateweaver | Wizard build | Baldur's Gate 3

hello everybody and welcome back to the channel so this week's build is going to be a little bit different so the more I worked on this character's backstory the more I realized how closely the story I was creating simply resembled Gail's story and so I think this week we will be making a build for our favorite wizard this works really well as a build for him if you're playing him or if he's simply in your party personally I prefer having him in my party with this build as I like to interact with him and play out his story enjoying the incredible work of the voice actors and animators as such I will note a few story beats however for this build the story will be a little lighter as I want Gail's story to shine through and I don't want to spoil anything now that aside I really like the idea of being a transmutation Wizard and that is the core idea of this build being an incredibly intelligent prodigiously so and being able to see and tap into the weave like few others altering the world around you you know the whole water into wine rocks into gold type alteration unfortunately the transmutation wizard subclass feature is well useless is a strong word uh I strongly believe that consumables are very potent in this game however this ability is the type of ability that you want on like a camp follower or something like that and not a Mainstay in your party therefore we will be continuing with the transmuter theme of the build but we'll be taking a different approach we will only take spells that alter the properties of ourselves others or surfaces this could be anything from altering time strengthening objects or changing a surface from grass to fire for example finally we will be taking a different subclass and you might think this is a stretch but I think you could say that we're even able to alter fate itself okay so usual disclaimers this is a concept first optimized second style build building around a concept rather than the best possible damage in fact this character today has a focus on controlling the battlefield and while you can still dish out some decent damage especially in the later levels this build will primarily be a utility and support caster this build looks like it should be a heap of fun to play though and I hope you enjoy it now let's get on to the build level by level okay so character creation as mentioned for this build we are starting with either origin story Gale or just whenever you pick him up in game if you are not playing as Gale the order of these level UPS may change slightly or you may have to respect him once you get the option I'm going to assume you are playing him as An Origin character going forward and so what choices do you get with origin characters well firstly you are a human wizard we can't change those and we may have to suspend disbelief for a level here as if you are following the backstory from the short that I posted uh linked above you will know that this character was raised in a monastery and is effectively already a cleric of sorts I like to think for Gail that he was raised in a temple of mystra and was taught worship and the value of knowledge as you can probably see where this is going I would like to start as a cleric and a wizard on Gale however we will just have to pick up a single level in clericon level 2. for now move on to our can trips now I do want to add a few restrictions here for myself at least with this build or I could just end up being a generic wizard build firstly damage can only be dealt by spells that create surfaces or CC the enemy in some way and that fits the theme secondly we do not utilize Illusions granting only temporary deceptions or tricks we completely alter the thing itself from one form to another so no illusion spells and finally I don't really love the idea of transmutation or alteration magic affecting another individual's subconscious so I kind of want to avoid spells like sleep and calm emotions things like that and keep it to more of a physical alteration or in some cases affecting the weave itself but not what's going on inside someone else's head okay so back to cantrips transmutation is grounded in utility however we can see some damaging spells as altering the attributes of our enemies and we likely want to have at least one offensive Mainstay so in this case Ray of frost slowing out enemies down next changing the properties of an object to emit light is an Easy Choice as Gale does not currently have dark vision and blade Ward strengthening your body to become more resistant to physical attacks for level 1 spells longstrider featherful and enhanced leap are all great choices for transmuters but I also really like the idea of utilizing ground effects changing the properties of the ground from one thing to another so chromatic orb is a great pickup for that grease is also a good choice then strengthening again I really like shield and Mage Armor here so pick what you like out of those options next for our ability scores and we have no real dumb stats for this character strength is at 10 dexterity 12 Constitution 14 intelligence 14 plus 2 therefore 16 as this is your main spellcasting modifier wisdom 10 and Charisma 13 plus one there for 14. Gayle does have a certain charm about him and I really wanted to reflect that giving him a slightly higher Charisma score than dexterity however it is better statistically speaking to go with 14 dexterity here and if you're playing on tactician I will look at dumping strength and increasing their constitution a bit higher however your charisma will pay itself off time and time again if you are looking to use Gale for dialogue options finally for your proficiencies you have Arcana and history from your background which is really fitting and I like persuasion insight and investigation here okay level one done rare Frost your way off the ship and on to level two okay so level two and we do have to take a quick step backwards in time I know we're breaking the Thematic progression but to be fair he was a cleric before he was a wizard so if we want to get out back sorry correct and have better dialogue options down the line we have to do it now so we are taking a single level dip into cleric here and we are going with the knowledge domain which I think fits Gale perfectly this subclass gives us a deity to start with and we are of course choosing mystra the goddess of magic I think Gail and Isabelle might get along really well if you know you know next we get to choose our cantrips and cleric offers us three great options for a support Caster here maybe when we were younger we engaged in our studies of the Divine and we had a moment where we touched the weave in a way that affected the fate of another training cleric causing him to change one of their answers from on a quiz from the wrong answer to a right one you realize you are altering fate only in a small way to become a success and our abilities have only become more potent with time as guidance of course is our first choice here the quintessential support spell giving our allies plus one D4 to Ability checks adding to that we have resistance giving a target a D4 for saving throws finally Thor maturgy granting advantage on intimidation and performance checks I really love the Fate angle and it's going to get even more potent going forwards next we get expertise in two abilities and given the Bookworm that Gail is we are taking Arcana and history finally we get two spells given to us for choosing the knowledge domain sleep and command I won't be using these spells as per the does not affect enemies emotions and subconscious rule however if you want to go ahead finally we do get to prepare one cleric spell now I love bless on this character however you will find there are a lot of spell options going forwards that require your concentration having bless which is a concentration spell may not be your best option here we also don't find much use for our bonus action in early levels so what I suggest instead healing word for a ranged heel to get allies up in a pinch usable as a bonus action and able to be upcast if you really don't like healing word create option is also very thematic and potentially quite useful with your pro chromatic orb onto level 3 and we are going back to wizard now so as a level 2 Wizard we get to choose our subclass and as some of you may have guessed we are going divination as WE peer through time itself and sculpt the future so as the Divination wizard we get the Divination Savant like all wizards and we can scribe into our spell book spells of that category for cheaper which won't really affect as much as there are only six spells in the game that are that category however we also gained the reason we are here portent now this ability is amazing if a little confusing every time we long rest we roll two d20s and the results of those two roles become our portent dice for the day these die can be used to change the result of any attack roll saving throw done by yourself allies or enemies for example say I roll a 16 and a two after a long rest then my enemy attacks me as soon as I leave camp and does a critical hit that would almost down me in one shot I can change that attack roll to a 2 meaning the attack will never hit me this can also work in the reverse if a crucial spell needs to hit an enemy and it misses you can change that role to a 16 and now it hits hope that's clear enough let's move on we also gained two spells on this level and we could take find familiar here Gale does have a tresem called Tara however you can only summon a cat with this spell not a cat with wings so I'll leave that up to you also expeditious Retreat and feather fall are options here we really just need to get to the next level to get our level 2 Spells at this point so level four and this is really where we want to be there are a plethora of spells here for us to choose from so many in fact I'll just list them and we're not going to take all of them but I'll go over a few of them during level UPS first web Rave and feeblement Misty step knock hold person enlarge reduce dark vision blindness and Arcane lock all these spells fit and they have a bunch of uses for me right now I can only take two though so I really like hold person slowing your enemy down to the point that they are locked in place paralyzed most of your early enemies are humanoids so this is really helpful here next is really a choice between Misty step and web I like the idea of altering the ground beneath your enemy's feet to become sticky strands of ensnaring webs so that's probably what I'd go with here giving you your first grade CC options for AOE and the single Target on level 5 we gain more level 2 spells and we are going to opt for a buffer frontliner that doubles as a control spell in enlarge reduce in large changes the size of the target to be larger granting it a bonus D4 on strength based weapon damage and advantage on strength checks and saving throws this means they can shove larger targets now and resist being shelved by smaller targets alternatively reduce the size of the target reducing damage by D4 and giving disadvantage on strength checks and saving throws this is not only for enemies though as you can potentially use this to fit through small holes or access secret parts that are otherwise not available next for our second spell we will take Misty step here as we didn't pick it up last level and it will be great for our survivability we also gain a can trip on this level and this one might be a bit difficult to justify as there are no Clear Choices here for a transmutation style magic I think there's an argument here for shocking grasp and poison spray but we're just going to pick up shocking grasp here for those times you are up close to enemies involuntarily and you want to do some damage and also disable their reaction for return so you can move without taking an attack of opportunity finally on this level we are a fourth level Wizard and so we get a feat I love the irony of this as we are struggling desperately with a mind flare tadpole in our head and a nethery's orb threatening to destroy everything around us you are still able to touch the weave enough to alter your own fate or the enemies as we are taking the lucky feat here now this is a fun Little Feat and it works alongside our port and die really well as we get three luck points per long rest and we use these luck points in order to gain advantage on attack rolls ability checks or saving throws alternatively we can use the points to force our enemy to re-roll their attack not as reliable as portent and I will say that I have re-rolled an enemies attack into a crit once but man can you weave fate now level 6 and we have level 3 spells now some more great options and I love playing a wizard for this reason you just get so many great spells to pick from we get two Spells at this level and we are taking level three spells but I urge you not to forget about your level 2 spells here you have three level three spell slots and three level two spell slots at this level so try to snag some of those great level two spells that you missed here if you want them time Fate The Weave these things are slowly becoming your play things now as you manipulate your enemies and bolster your allies equally this level we are taking slow and haste arguably two of the most powerful spells in the game slow lets you choose up to six targets and affect them with the slow status effect this is an incredible effect halving their movement speed reducing their Armor class and dexterity saving throws by two makes them choose between an action or bonus action and not both in their turn and they can only make one attack even if they can multi-attack if they cast a spell it might be delayed until their next turn effectively taking two turns to cast that is a crazy effect and definitely in theme alright on the opposite end of the spectrum we have haste granting a targeted Ally the hastened effect this gives the opposite last two Armor class and deck saving throws double movement speed and they can take an additional action on their turn both effects are really potent however they can't be used together as they both require concentration also it's important to point out for haste that when the spell ends or if you lose concentration your target becomes lethargic losing a whole turn with no action bonus Action Reaction or movement so if you are hastening an ally position yourself wisely so you don't get targeted by enemies or make use of your luck points important okay half time so firstly I just want to mention that despite everything going on with the build if you are looking for the quintessential wizard build throwing fireballs and dealing a bunch of damage this isn't the right build you will likely not enjoy the slow calculated playstyle that this build requires that said I am currently playing this build on tactician and having a great time alternatively Chuck some damage spells in there if you want you don't need to follow my self-imposed restrictions secondly you might find that if you try to play the build that you don't have anything to do with your bonus action other than healing word and it feels like a bit of a waste so early levels I will recommend that you start to delve into Alchemy I know ironic since I ragged on transmutation wizard at the start I know however chugging potions can be a good use of your bonus action in combat and there are a lot of great early potions out there that you can craft for example you can get access to the effects of the haste spell on this character way earlier than this with the potion of speed lasting three turns and not requiring a spell slot this potion only requires a hyena ear and any salt it's really easy to craft and it might be a good way to cast a few spells in the same turn also before we get into a few items to pick up on your travels let's talk about spell Scrolls quickly there are a few spells not available to wizards although as a wizard if you find a scroll for a spell that you really want you can always learn that spell for gold there are a few spells like heat metal or Spike growth for example that could work really well and feel incredibly thematic if you come across them either from merchants or via looting finally let's go over some items that you can get in act 1 or 2 that could be really good this is not an exhaustive list and it's just items that I've come across vivacious cloak is great if you need a bit more sticking power on the front lines spell Crux amulet is good for getting a spell slot back you don't even need to leave it equipped just Chuck it on get your spell slot back and then remove it again if you want after that maybe Chuck on Amulet of Misty step and use that to gain another prepared spell slot back since this will always be prepared for you the whispering promise will give you a free bless on yourself when you Chuck out a heel in combat morning Frost will add a little bit of extra cold damage when you need to use topple for some reason and it will also give you a higher chance of chilling your target with rare Frost races of defense will be great early before you get any decent armor boots of striding will be amazing for not getting shoved knocked down while concentrating finally knowledge cleric does give you medium armor proficiency and adamantine scale mail isn't too challenging to get however if you do want to keep your wizard in a robe I totally get it okay back to the build so I feel like we are starting to feel the weave even more strongly now as our full Mite is beginning to return to us we are far from the heights of our power before we fell from Grace but we are certainly at our strongest since then although as your power grows the orb in your chest grows ever hungrier and you don't know if you'll be able to contain its power for long and you have to find a cure soon at level 7 we take another level in Wizard and we are level six wizard now we get our second subclass feature expert divination now this feature is a bit funky it requires some interaction to work but I kind of like how it gives the fulfilling a prophecy vibe basically it gives you another portent each long rest also after each short rest you'll be given three prophecies these prophecies could be used to help action on an ally or cast an adjuration spell things like that when you fulfill one of these prophecies you get one of your portent dice back you can fulfill all three and get all three of them back each short rest this is incredible in terms of mechanical advantage however the way of getting them back can leave you a little frustrated at times because it's completely random either really easy like just cast a can trip or really difficult like killing a certain type of enemy just work with what you have and take the extra re-rolls when you get them between this and lucky your enemies won't even be able to hit you next on this level we get a fourth level spell slot and two level three spells don't forget about that fourth level spell slot it could be really useful you only have four spells that can make use of it hold person targeting three enemies at fourth level chromatic orb increasing its damage by 3d8 counter spell patience I'm getting there and flight granting an additional Target the ability to fly right so speaking of we are taking flight at this level so many great spells and I just really love this one changing your body or an allies to sprout wings I think this is really on point thematically oh and I think there's a mod that gives the flight spell Wings in case you were wondering however it was a toss-up here as it was between this or blink and now the fun spell however blink does break your concentration if you enter the Ethereal plane so it's kind of a no-go unfortunately also on this level as mentioned we get counter spell and this might be a bit of a stretch but I'm really leaning into the altering fate aspect here this spell is great allowing us to completely negate a spell cast by an enemy of third level or lower and if it's higher than third level we can match that spells level with our counter spell to negate it at that fourth level spell slot might come in real Handy now I think we've been focusing a bit too much on the altering fate aspect of the character over the last few levels and while I really like the angle and think it fits with the whole you wanting to understand the nature of everything aspect it's not enough of the transmuting aspect of the build and so on level 8 we are returning to the roots of the build and there is no better time to do so as we get another fourth level spell slot and fourth level spells I'm sure some of you have guessed that we are taking polymorph here the quintessential transmutation spell of course this spell has been severely nerfed from its original DND form which is sad to see however it is still a fantastic Universal single Target shutdown which if they fail to save they are stuck for five turns there is no turn by turn save for this one just damaging concentration this makes it worth taking for those times the whole person can't hit the target because it's not a humanoid next we can take Stone skin on this level granting an ally resistance to all non-magical damage as long as your concentration holds which is another great option but here before we move on as well I feel like I should have mentioned this in half time however you may have noticed a lot of these spells require concentration and they are all of your level 2 3 and 4 spells with the exception of Misty step and counterspell while you will always have chromatic orb to upcast at whatever level you choose and rare Frost and shocking grasp you may find yourself wanting to do more with your action each turn as these great concentration spells are usually set and forget and to be realistic often in a fight it is more likely to be slow or haste that you are using unless you need single Target lockdown or out of combat flight so you might want to forego flight Stone skin or polymorph for a fireball or a lightning bolt or even an ice storm especially if you took create water on level 2 or if you have an ally to create it for you with that said on to level 9 and we get two more spells here and a fifth level spell slot don't forget to upcast now while level 4 spells still have some great options I don't think any of them fit that well with character so we are taking a chance to go back and pick up some great spells that we missed along the way I'm going Arcane lock and remove curse here there are a few moments in the campaign that you will be incredibly grateful for remove curse and Arcane Locke my God what an underrated spell this allows you to pull off so many sneaky Maneuvers I have made several fights a lot easier on myself by pulling enemies through a door and then locking it splitting the opponents I'm facing in half finally on this level we get a feat and while I really want resilience here to get Constitution savings for proficiency we have delayed increasing our intelligence long enough and our saving throws are starting to suffer so let's bump that to a team now we have reached level 10 and I feel like the orb in your chest is starting to make strange things happen around you whenever you tap into the weave your tampering with fate is starting to break down the world around you and the orb senses it and is accelerating it as we are taking sorcerer levels now now you may be thinking I'm a little bit mad here sorcerer is a charisma-based spellcaster and we have a pretty average Charisma score that is correct however we are not here for the spells in fact we aren't even going to talk about them take whatever you like we probably won't use them other than maybe the can trips being a full spellcasting class we don't lose spell casting progression though so we still finish the game with level 6 spell slots to upcast and what we are here for on this level is wild magic and tides of Chaos this feels so incredibly fitting for the progression of this build as your potency as a spellcaster has returned and increased you have been able to increase your Spell's accuracy and make yourself even more versatile when you do however Magic surges all around you and you feel the threads of the world breaking apart you must make a choice now fracture the world in hopes of you finding a cure to maybe repair the damage you do after the fact or find a way the best way to go out with a bang okay so flavor aside tides of chaos gives us advantage on our next attack roll ability check or saving throw if you use it it increases the chance of triggering your next feature wild Magic which happens randomly when we cast a spell of level 1 or higher with a Chance of several effects the chance of triggering is five percent and goes up to 45 when we use tides of Chaos there are a range of effects and it can occur from this more than I can list here but some include taking an extra action on your turn each creature within nine meters becomes blinded turn the floor into Thorns turn yourself into a sheep or spawn a water puddle there are there are plenty more it can be incredible or infuriating at the same time and I absolutely love it okay level 11 and we are a sorcerer too now this gives us access to the other incredible sorcerer feature metamagic we get two sorcery points to spend on metamagic and we get the create sorcery points feature allowing us to convert our spell slides into sorcery points this means for our bonus action we can get some sorcery points back in combat or otherwise to use some devastating effects important note here while we get two sorcery points back per long rest that does not mean our maximum is two the create Source 3 points ability gives you sorcery points based on the spell slots sacrificed see where I'm going here fifth level spell slot sacrificed five sorcery points this is important with the first of these metamatic effects which is Twin spell allowing us to use spells that only target one creature to hit two creatures Instead at the cost of one sorcery Point per spell level the second is extended spell this doubles the duration of conditions and surfaces caused by spells fantastic for use on control spells there are a lot of great combos here with these two double haste double polymorph double six level chromatic orb 20 turn duration slow or haste awesome stuff finally on level 12 we gain one final level in sorcerer one more sorcery point and a difficult decision we get one more metamagic option and on our final level we have to choose between height and spell and Quicken spell heightened spell imposes disadvantage on targets of a spell that requires a savings row this is ideal for a control based build making your enemies much more likely to fail especially at this higher level it becomes even more valuable quick and spell on the other hand lets you cast a spell with your bonus action then another spell with your action casting two spells in the same turn damaging and ceasing afterwards I'll leave this decision up to you and whatever you value more and that's that this build has been an absolute blast to create and test out I found so many neat interactions and really value upcasting more than ever before control on the battlefield is so potent and can often win a fight for you before it even begins especially on tactician don't forget the neat little interactions as well with things like Arcane lock now this isn't really an optimization suggestion and more of a neat change I might make to the build if I was making it again so if you wanted to play more of a sorcerer build and less of a wizard it's definitely possible you basically trade your level 6 divination feature for the level 6 wild magic sorcerer feature Bend luck which allows you to spend sorcery points and your reaction to add or remove a D4 from an attack roll ability check or saving through similar to the theme of the build except you skip on the expert divinations short rest prophecies if you go this route I would recommend one leveling cleric three in Wizard and eight in sorcerer getting poor tent and level 2 utility spells in Wizard eight sorcery points tides of chaos wild magic and level 4 spells in sorcerer you also gain access to all of your spells not needing to prepare them and having the ability to swap out lower level spells that are now being overshadowed I think this might even be a stronger option gaining the lucky feat earlier at level 4 and passing more speech skill checks as you are a Charisma based Caster now either way thanks for checking out the build I hope you enjoyed it thanks for sticking around to the end and sorry this build was a day or two late I was pretty sick over the weekend if you're looking for another awesome build to play check out this one and until next time see ya [Music]

Channel: MrSoulbound

Views: 2,615

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, bg3, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, character creation, official release, balders gate 3, baulders gate 3, boulders gate 3, rpg, rpg 2023, upcoming rpg baldurs gate 3, crpg, larian studios, mrsoulbound, soulbound, ideas, fun build, excited, hype, characters, world, guide, multiclass, Cleric, wizard, time, fate, alter, sorcerer, Prodigy

Id: CvKdKzGrSpA

Length: 30min 45sec (1845 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2023