Baldur's Gate 3: The 4 Party System

Introduction

    In my quest to find the best balance of party members, I noticed a trend where many of the recommendations for various characters and classes overlap.  One classic case is how almost every character and class build recommends having the Disintegrating Night Walkers boots.  Or how almost every class and character recommendation about which elemental build to use recommends the lightning build.

     This can get frustrating as a new player because then you wonder what to do with the other 3 members of your party (assuming you prefer having 4 characters in your party).  I tend to have nearly all the recruitable characters in my party by the end of the game.  I save Minthara, recruit Halsin and Jaheira, and try to recruit Minsc.  My camp is nearly always full, including even the owlbear cub.

     So I had the idea to make each character or class their own elemental build in such a way that you can mix and match as you see fit throughout the game without characters competing over items.  It's not fun, for example, to want to take Jaheira with you to try out how druids work only to have to grab all the equipment from another person who was in your party just to move it all over to Jaheira.

    So then here is my recommendation system.  I recommend assigning every character an elemental damage set or other type of item set.  I'll explain it through several different lenses: assigning elemental sets to characters, assigning elemental sets based on class, and finally what elemental sets should work best with every class.  Basically, three ways to sort my idea.

Assigning Elemental Sets to Characters Based On Story

    DnD party composition as represented in BG3 is a very complex topic, and there are many ways to look at it.  Let's first look at it from the perspective of story/lore based assignment to the elemental types.  Keep in mind I have a section for choosing elemental damage types based on class.

    I considered setting each character to a specific elemental damage type.  Some characters have a stronger logical connection to the various elements than others do.  Here is my opinion on how they could each be assigned to their own damage type.  They are listed in the (typical) order in which they are encountered:

    Do you have a headache yet?  There are so many options to choose from, so much that there is basically no right answer.  So the above is just my guess.

Side Quest: Armor

    By the way, since I greatly prefer to have medium or heavy armor on all my characters, I will list this here briefly.  While DnD and BG3 generally favor the ones who can do the most damage the fastest, I also prefer to pick classes that have access to medium/heavy armor by default.  So I will list briefly how you can or cannot obtain this for each character.

Back To Topic: Elemental Sets Based on Class

    You may want to instead focus on the freedom to mix and match characters based on class instead.  Then here is my opinion as to which classes and subclasses work best with different elemental sets.  Keep in mind I don't list subclasses that don't provide a significant change to the main class.

Assigning Elemental Sets to Classes

    Finally, if you wanted to think of it in reverse, i.e. you happen upon all the elements to a nice build but want to assign a character to it, or reclass a character to it, here are your options.

So Then, Examples of the 4 Party System:

    So here's some examples of how you could set up a party of four with different elements while staying within the usual party members:

Spell Analysis for Elemental Sets:

    This is a list of a statistical analysis of all the spells available to the various classes, in order of prevalence.  This information should be helpful in selecting an elemental damage set for the various classes.  It's ideal to try to match the spells in a class to the elemental set so that you achieve synergy with the set and the spell damage you will likely be doing.  I will list the most prevalent elemental damage type first, then the second most prevalent, the third most prevalent, etc.  Options with a slash are a list of elements with equal weight: this means that clerics are mainly fire but then the second option is radiant OR thunder because they have equal spell occurrence.

Various Sets Explained:

The Radiant Set

    I like this set!  It usually consists of the Holy Lance Helm, Mantle of the Holy Warrior, Luminous Armor, Boots of Stormy Clamour, Blood of Lathander (or Selune's Spear of the Night), Gontr Mael longbow (if proficient), and Callous Glow ring.  It works well with Paladins, Moon Druids and Light Clerics because they have an affinity for radiant damage (in the sense of more of their spells seeming to revolve around radiant damage).  Especially Moon Druids and Light Clerics gain advantages because one can add a few items from the Healing Set, such as the Hellrider's Pride gloves (buffs those you heal), either the Ring of Salving or The Whispering Promise ring, and the Amulet of Restoration.

    However, note that the radiating orb condition can afflict party members as well on accident, meaning it could work against a buff spell like Bless.  This means your party members might want to give your radiant set character a bit of space to not get afflicted or you might adjust your playing style so that the radiant set character is usually not next to friendlies (i.e. to a Paladin who smites).  Note that this is my experience, but as of writing this, I have not figured out what part of the radiant set is causing radiating orb: in theory, just substituting something else for that item may reduce or eliminate the risk of debuffing friendlies.

The Lightning Set

    I love this set also!  It sort of comes in two varieties based on the boots you equip.  The Speedy Lightfeet will build up lightning charges when you dash (think of it as static electricity, sort of).  The Watersparkers depend on standing in water and will necessitate casting spells or water jugs to get enemies wet and make wet surfaces.  It's up to your playing style, but note that the wet condition amplifies lightning damage to most enemies.  But it often requires an additional turn of some party member to cast a spell or water jug, so it may or may not work for you.  Try both types.

    The Lightning set often consists of the Lifebringer circlet, Jolty Vest or Protecty Sparkswall, Speedy Lightfeet or Watersparkers, Blast Pendant amulet, Sparkswall ring, Spellsparkler quarterstaff, Joltshooter longbow, Real Sparky Sparkswall shield.

    Note that you only get one chance to get the Spellsparkler quarterstaff!  So when you rescue the advisor from Wakeem's Rest, don't pick the Joltshooter longbow, in my opinion (you get another chance in Act 3 if I remember correctly).  Note that if you didn't get the Spellsparker, that's ok, you can use other options.  But the quarterstaff is (in my opinion) for a dedicated spellcaster who gains to benefit from holding it but not swinging it.  You can technically go Bladesinger Wizard and wield a sword but still use the rest of the set for lightning spells.  Some websites say the Wizard version is better, and I partially agree only because Wizards can change their spells (in case you like switching it up based on what enemies you will encounter).  There are other build versions such as Storm Sorcerer, Draconic Sorcerer (pick a color ancestor that benefits from lightning), and some that even add Tempest Cleric.

    So far, I like the Tempest Cleric type mainly because it provides access to medium armor, meaning the Jolty Vest, and then multiclass into Draconic Sorcerer with the proper bloodline.  However, I also find that this build requires me to sink a lot into CHA and WIS and CON, meaning STR and DEX are often 10.  This isn't an issue if you remain a dedicated spellcaster and have a good dedicated combat specialist in the party like a Minthara paladin build.  But that's the beauty of DnD: there are many ways to do the same thing, so do what works for you.