The best Baldur's Gate 3 party compositions

How you approach the best Baldur's Gate 3 party composition depends on what you want to prioritize, and with three dozen subclasses, you’re not starved for choice.

You may want to stack your party with companions who can offer extra help with skill checks, such as stealth or charisma, and switch between them depending on the circumstances.

If combat is your main focus, you could put together a magic party or a classic Dungeons and Dragons setup, with a rogue, fighter, cleric, and wizard.

So much choice is a bit overwhelming, so we’ve narrowed it down to a few specific party types that should see you through most scenarios.

Baldur’s Gate 3 party

Best all-around Baldur’s Gate 3 party composition

The most important rule to build your party around is not to duplicate – at least, in most cases. If you’re a warlock, you can probably bench Wyll and Gale. Duplicating magic classes is particularly dangerous, since they rely almost entirely on skills that require a long rest to restore.

Having doubles of melee classes limits your party’s general coverage. You don’t really need two rogues, for example, but you can still manage better than you would with a party of magic users.

Our picks for the best general party are:

• Lae’zel – Tanking, damage
• Shadowheart – Healing, support
• Gale – Magic damage
• Wyll – Mixed magic damage

This setup is a bit heavy on the magic, but it gives you a broad range of attacks and status effect skills to control the battlefield with.

Baldur’s Gate 3 party for adventuring

We’re not counting your custom character for this party, so feel free to swap one of these out for your own character if they fit the bill.

• Wyll – Charisma
• Astarion – Stealth, thievery, lockpicking
• Shadowheart – Healing, support
• Lae’zel – Offense, tanking

Wyll gets you through most persuasion and intimidation checks with his charisma, while Astarion does all the naughty things you don’t want people to notice. He’s handy in battle if you can keep Advantage over enemies as well.

Shadowheart is essential in pretty much every party, but here, her Guidance ability gives your rolls an extra chance of success, as do her healing and support skills in battle. She also helps with perception and religion rolls while you're exploring.

Finally is Lae’zel, one of the strongest physical attackers in the game, especially depending on which subclass you opt for.

Baldur’s Gate 3 party for combat

On the battle side, we recommend something a bit different.

• Karlach – Strength and athletics
• Gale – Strong magic
• Shadowheart – Healing and support
• Lae’zel (Battle Master) – Tanking, status effects

This is a multipurpose party that skews toward offense. Karlach draws on a variety of powerful skills and, as a Wild Magic Barbarian, even throws in some magic to overwhelm foes with. We’re recommending Battle Master Lae’zel so you can take advantage of her Superiority skills to inflict fear and disarm enemies. Gale and Shadowheart’s roles are fairly straightforward. They’re here to sling spells and keep your party safe.

Astarion was a popular battle choice during early access, but since his skills rely so heavily on gaining an advantage over enemies, I prefer someone more straightforward. The exception is if you opt for Arcane Trickster as his subclass. The addition of spell slots makes him handy even when he can’t hide.

If you're just getting started on your journey in Faerun, check out our Baldur's Gate 3 walkthrough and recommendations for beginner's classes, along with our wizard, rogue, and fighter builds.