Best Baldur's Gate 3 Weapons for the early game

As you adventure through Faerun in Baldur's Gate 3, it won’t be long before your bag is bursting with loot - magical or otherwise. But, just like the real world, a lot of the trinkets you lovingly collect will end up being total junk.

Here’s a selection of the best weapons in Baldur’s Gate 3 that we’ve found so far. These early game weapons will set your party up for success as you venture into the city of Baldur’s Gate and beyond, and we’ll update this page with later game options soon to avoid major spoilers.

Regardless of whether you’re building a ranged or melee character, it’s important to kit each character out with a great weapon in each slot. Picking off enemies at distance is hugely important, as is being able to deal with a variety of situations at any given moment, so it pays to make sure everyone on your team at least has access to a powerful weapon, even if they’re not going to use it all that often.

Remember, even if a character isn’t proficient with a given weapon they can still benefit from any special ability it has. This is something you should take into account when equipping your party with weapons. Your support character might not be proficient with crossbows, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get some utility out of the debuffs it stacks onto enemies.

Because of this, we’ll go through a varied selection of great melee and ranged weapons, so you can take on foes near and far!

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Best Baldur’s Gate 3 Weapons

Best Baldur’s Gate 3 Melee Weapons

• Vision of the Absolute

Location: Combine the two pieces of staff found on the dead True Soul and in the Owlbear Cave

Ironically, the “Vision” of the Absolute spear inflicts the Blindness status on enemies, which impairs their ability to deal damage. This means it’s a great weapon for characters who don’t usually fight at close-quarters to relieve any pressure they’re being put under by melee-focused threats.

You get it by combining the two parts of the spear you find on the dead True Soul west of the Druids’ Grove and inside the nearby Owlbear Cave.

As a niche but nice bonus, it also deals extra damage to monsters with extra sets of eyes. This isn’t useful very often, but comes in handy against spiders and other monstrous baddies.

• Speedy Reply

Location: On the body of a bandit outside the cave when you acquire the Iron Flask

Speedy Reply is a good, basic weapon that’s useful in a variety of situations but is also very easy to miss.

Outside the cave where you rescue Rugan the Zhentarim bandit on the Risen Road, you find Speedy Reply on the body of one of his colleagues who wasn’t as lucky in getting away from the band of gnolls.

Whenever you hit an enemy with Speedy Reply your character gains “Momentum” which boosts their movement distance for a while. You’re pretty much never going to say no to more mobility, so this is well worth picking up.

• Sword of Justice

Location: Complete Wyll’s quest to find Karlach

Again, the Sword of Justice is relatively basic but has a useful secondary ability which is always useful.

As a bonus action, the Sword of Justice allows you to cast Tyr’s Protection, which boosts the armour class of your character by 2. Cheap to activate and a pure buff with no downside, this slight but potentially significant power is worth having on melee characters - particularly fighters - who don’t use their bonus action on something else every turn.

• Shortsword of First Blood

Location: Found on the body of an gnome outside the Decrepit Village in the Underdark

Exception for sneak attacks, the Shortsword of First Blood deals an extra dice roll of damage to enemies with a full health bar.

Given the importance of finishing off enemies before they can take their own action, every last scrap of damage matters, so getting an extra roll essentially for free is huge.

This weapon is exceptionally easy to miss as well, hidden on the body of a deep gnome just outside the Decrepit Village in the Underdark.

• Phalar Aluve

Location: Sword in the stone outside the Selune Outpost in the Underdark

Unique and beautiful, the Phalar Aluve can expend an action to either sing or shriek, buffing your allies or damaging and debuffing your enemies depending on your choice.

Outside of just being a strong weapon this gives Phalar Aluve some good utility, allowing characters who primarily focus on dealing damage access to buffs and debuffs as well without sacrificing another part of their skill set.

• Sorrow

Location: Reward for saving Halsin

The glaive Sorrow has been buffed since the early access build of Baldur’s Gate 3. Where it used to deal damage to the user, it now just has an extra attack you can cast as a bonus action.

Like the Sword of Justice, since fighters aren’t using their bonus action almost every turn like a barbarian, having an extra attack you can throw in there for more damage is a fantastic boon.

What’s more, this is a long weapon with extra reach and the bonus action pulls enemies towards you to set up further attacks or disadvantage ranged enemies by putting them too close and making them disengage or get hit by an attack of opportunity to reset themselves.

• Sussur Weapon

Location: Complete the masterwork weapon

The Sussur Tree blocks magic, so it makes sense that a weapon imbued with its bark silences anyone hit with it.

The Silence status stops a character from casting any spells, so as you might expect, the Sussur masterwork weapon can be very good in the right contexts. Equip it to a highly mobile character and you can whip around the battlefield, silencing magic-using enemies and effectively rendering them useless.

This is very useful in tough story fights where overpowered spells make life very tough for your party.

• Exterminator’s Axe

Location: Gekh Coal in the Decrepit Village in the Underdark

High damage is great, and it’s even better when it’s further boosted in specific situations.

The Exterminator’s Axe deals extra fire damage to small creatures, plants and insects, on top of its already hefty output. If you needed any more incentive to not side with the Dwergar in the Decrepit Village, getting this weapon from their leader is another reason.

• Mourning Frost

Location: Combine the Icy Metal, Icy Helve and Icy Crystal from around the Underdark

Mourning Frost is as cool as they come, literally.

This staff inflicts extra cold damage and gives any character wielding it access to the Ray of Frost spell which deals heavy cold damage and reduces movement.

It also has two additional effects which really get the snowball rolling. Dealing cold damage with Mourning Frost equipped gives the enemy Frostbite, which deals additional cold damage on your subsequent hits. Then there’s also a chance it inflicted the Chilled status, which makes enemies even more vulnerable to cold.

To make it, you need to collect and combine the three parts from the Petrified Drow near the temple of Selune, Filro the Forgotten next to the Sussur Tree waypoint and the dead Drow in the reward grove in the Myconid colony after you’ve defeated the Duergar for them.

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Best Baldur’s Gate 3 Ranged weapons

• Hunting Shortbow

Location: Bought from Dammon in The Hollow in the Druids’ Grove

It doesn’t look like much, but the Hunting Shortbow is probably the best early game weapon in Baldur’s Gate 3 - so much so that it might get nerfed.

For a paltry 98 gold you gain advantage on attack rolls against monstrosity type enemies - that’s gnolls, hook horrors, the lot. But wait, there’s more. This doesn’t just mean your ranged attacks with the bow!

Just by equipping the Hunting Shortbow, your spells and other attacks gain advantage too. This makes it perfect for a character who doesn’t use their bow that much, but still deals damage. Plus it’s useful in a ton of early quests.

• The Joltshooter

Location: Choose as a reward after saving the trapped man

Electric charges let you deal extra damage with every hit and synergize with tons of other equipment.

The Joltshooter is a reliable way to get electric charges with ranged characters, making it a strong weapon with a pure upside - highly recommended.

• Harold

Location: Gift from Zarys for returning the missing shipment without opening it

Harold is another weapon where you’re using it for the secondary effect rather than just the damage.

Every hit has a chance to inflict Bane, a debuffing status, on enemies that fail a charisma roll. It might not come as much of a surprise, but slavering monsters don’t have a lot of charisma; who knew?

Therefore it’s basically a free debuff in addition to solid damage, consider giving Zarys her shipment back completely sealed to secure it for yourself.

• Titanstring Bow

Location: Bought from the Zhentarim Basement after returning the missing shipment

Another reason to help out the Zarys and the Zhentarim is that you get access to their secret stock of powerful items.

One such weapon is the Titanstring Bow, which is perfectly suited to fighters and barbarians. It’s a bow that not only deals solid damage, but extra on top of that based on your strength modifier (the bonus you get on rolls because of your stats).

It’s pricier than a lot of the other stuff you might buy, but worth it, especially if Lae’zel or Karlach often get a spot in your party.