The BEST PARTY In Baldur's Gate 3 - Honor Mode Full Party Build Guide

Four great builds and they all work great together! Do massive damage, be nearly invincible, and render every enemy helpless with this party that covers all bases, from dialogue to damage, from spell to sword!

Making sure all characters have great synergy, don't compete for items, and cover every possible scenario is hard. Luckily, I've got you covered!

For full video guides to the individual builds:

Full detailed level guide from 1-12, including stats, feats, items, and abilities!

0:00 Intro and Build Goals
3:11 Eldritch Knight Thrower
17:53 Abjuration Wizard Tank
31:19 Light Cleric
42:02 Swords Bard Archer

[ArteriusSaren]

Combination is so safe even IGN journalist can manage to finish balanced mode with it.

[timothydog]

I've come back here after just beating Honour Mode with this exact build today! It was my 3rd playthrough and 1st attempt at Honour and took a total of 190 hours.

I took on all the bosses and quests I could. I had 2 near total party kills early on before level 5 with the Gnoll fight and the Harpies but after that it wasn't even close with one exception. I took Orin out before she could take an action. Gortash and Ketheric didn't quite go to plan but still nothing I couldn't handle. Ansur? There is a reason he is called the Honour Mode killer and he almost wiped us. We had the battle completely under control and ready with a Globe for his Lightning Nova attack. What I didn't realize is Ansur can Nova on another turn with no notice. Gale's concentration had broken and the globe was down for one turn. We brought his health to zero thinking it was over but his Legendary Action brought him back and he immediately flew up and did a Nova. My Bard and Shadowheart went down. Gale's ward saved him and he was able to project to Lae'zel but they both lost 90% of their health. I saw my life flash before my eyes! After that it was a breeze. I obsessed about the final fight and came up with plan that the A-Team would have been proud of. We wiped everyone atop the brain without a single ally summon then wiped the Netherbrain in one turn. It was glorious!

Thoughts about the party:

- Be careful about your Eldritch Knight throwing their weapon to enter combat. Early on they attack from stealth to enter combat but I believe because their initiative was average their actual turn wouldn't trigger and the weapon return action would not occur so the weapon would sit on the ground where it landed. It didn't matter if it was magically returning or bound. Just have them become visible to enter combat and if their initiative roll is good enough to give a turn immediately then you throw. Also as someone also said here DO NOT use throwing weapons against the Netherbrain. I read this warning in advance and just had them jump right next to the brain with featherfall and start bashing with melee.
- Nothing to be said about the Bard. Just the most insanely overpowered build. Hold Person and Hold Monster at 100% on a Legendary boss for a bonus action? What?
- Gale was the MVP early on but in the last Act of the game his ward was rarely used. Enemies WILL NOT attack him either. It didn't matter that is AC was 18 vs everyone else 23-25. They would always go for Shadowheart even if he was closest. I never used the Fire/Ice shield Opportunity Attack. Just didn't feel necessary. It almost makes me think he could get a respec in Act 3 maybe. But his spell attack was still +19 so he really could bring the pain with the AOE spell attacks and stack Radiant Orbs importantly.
- The Cleric was the weakest link for me. Maybe I'm still bad at playing them. She did have some clutch moments with Spirit Guardians but almost never needed her as a healer. If there was a way to keep her control aspects but make her a much better at offense that might be nice.

Things I learned the hard way:
- DON'T use spells to add bonuses to rolls when negotiating with the Hag after fighting with her. I lost out on Ethyl's hair this way when combat restarted. :(
- Be careful with Ansur.
- Don't try to be cute with the Moonrise Tower fight and try to enter from the back of the Tower quietly killing enemies along the way. Someone downstairs heard me which triggered the ENTIRE battle. It took me 4 turns to get to the front door where I watched Jaheira die.

Kudos to you, @Cephalopacalypse for a great build and helping me take down my first HM on the first try. Cheers!

[borrow]

I had plans to start my first ever honour mode run days before this video got released. What a beautiful gift

I have just completed it with an immense amount of success. This is the safest and most powerful set up i have ever used.

Thank you for sharing your amazing talent and ideas with us. I owe my golden dice in part to you my friend

[Rekhryt]

Thank you for the great content!
Your BG3 Build videos are the best of all I have seen so far and an inspiration for many more playthroughs

[veryfallible]

Just beat Honour Mode (and the game itself, lol!), both for the very first time! While I didn't end up running this party comp to completion, I ran it as my party comp for my first HM attempt, where I got all the way to Avatar of Myrkul before I decided to procrastinate doing that fight by rerolling a new campaign (which is the one that I actually used to beat HM.)

What I appreciated about this team, though, was that it was a very safe way to learn HM and to develop my own confidence in my ability to do it. I highly endorse it as a team for people who want to learn the mode!

And also, just a big thanks to you, ceph. Not just for this team, but because I've learned so much about team building from you. I didn't use any of your builds to actually beat HM, but I used everything I've learned from watching your build guides to build out an effective team of my own.

Now, on to a replay where I intentionally power down my team!

[annie_]

I love the idea of Laezel just being like, “Fine, I’ll do *everything* and carry the rest of you through this whole misadventure.” Totally seems in line with her character.

[TandarenBGR]

Can't get tired of listening to your builds/guides as podcasts lol keep em coming

[jimjasutis]

Glad to hear that you plan on continuing with Baldur's Gate 3 videos, even though there are newer games out there.

[coreytravismusic]

I got my honor mode dice today and I feel like I owe a big part of it to you. I actually didn’t use any of your builds even though they are super great, but your videos inspired me, and gave me the knowledge, to create my own builds that lead me to beating it.

[donkeydudeful]

I found your videos a number of days ago. I enjoy your content and analysis on making the game fun, and not boring, with "I will help you make the game trivial" content. Keep it up, and always have fun with your videos.

[cyberceel]

[Below are my notes and tips from having played this party all the way through the game]

Original comment:
No shot that you uploaded this right as I was researching to put together an optimal honour mode party!
Thank you very much for your videos, I've come to trust you as my best source for Baldur's Gate 3 guides because you don't cut corners and are transparent about all the asterisks that come with applying these interwoven mechanics.



Edit 1: About 30 hours deep into honour mode with this party, I have some notes that might help people in the future:
- For Tav, I played a human and realised this build doesn't inherently get longbow proficiency until level 7, but this can be mitigated with the gloves of archery until you upgrade to gloves of dexterity.
- The party is really strong, I ended the hag in one turn at lvl 6 as well as the Matriarch at lvl 5. It does feel like Tav and Lae'zel are doing most of the heavy lifting in the early game.
- Do NOT pick up the The Sparky Points lightning trident, it does not generate lightning charges when thrown. The Spellsparkler is probably the best choice, especially as Gale felt a bit weak in the damage department in the early game.
- The Luminous Armour is another great source of Radiant Orb accessible pretty early
- When respeccing Tav after obtaining the Gloves of Dexterity, you can comfortably raise Charisma to 17 and eventually bump that to 18 with the hag's hair
- Wood Woad Shield and Nature's Snare synergise extremely well with our frontline Gale early on, dishing out lots of Ensnared.
- Returning Pike is probably one of the better weapons to use with Lae'zel in the early game due to its higher damage, despite its redundancy with bound weapon.

- And this last one I just have to get off my chest as well, do NOT cast guidance or any other spell in the post-fight dialogue with the hag, it will trigger her LA and resume the fight. Generally, knowing how to do a hard emergency reset is a good idea. I've already almost lost the run at level two because that one assassin bug bear at the grove was freely moving while I was in combat with it and in turn-based mode like nobody's business.



Edit 2: Done with Act 2 now, the party has served me pretty well. Overall I have to really credit these builds with the fact that I don't even remember the last time one of my characters dropped below 50% of their health. However, it feels a bit lacking in the offensive department at times. If I were to start my honour run with what I know now, I would make one change to remedy that:
I'd respec Gale into a fire sorcerer (see cepha's build) in conjunction with the Hat of Fire Acuity, as Arcane Acuity + Control spells pretty much already provides such reliable control that it compensates for the lack of tanking. Other than that, here are a few tricks I picked up:
- The Flawed Helldusk Gloves on my eldritch thrower have an unexpected synergy with BOOOAL's Benediction. They frequently cause Bleeding which then gives my entire party advantage on the target. This is likely a bug, as the gloves' tooltip states that the bleeding effect applies to unarmed attacks, but the damage bonus you get from the gloves on throws is actually fire damage, which corresponds to weapon damage in the tooltip. Additionally, Nyrulna also makes positioning really challenging because the AOE thunder damage affects friendlies. That's an alternative worth considering. Side Note: You can get BOOOAL's favour without sacrificing anyone by first pickpocketing the sickle he usually gives you, vids for it are on youtube.
- At the Sword Bard's level 12, I would pick up Command instead of Hunger of Hadar. Command can also be bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel, and it has a few key advantages over the other control spells: It can be upcast and it can target selectively, meaning within the first turn you can usually already shut down ANY and ALL threatening enemies for the rest of the battle, lest they have legendary resistance of course.
- For our Light Cleric, instead of gaining the Devotee's Mace, I would stick with Phalar Aluve. This is because Phalar's effects are incredible, and also because the lack of proficiency on Shadowheart with this build is irrelevant (since we don't make melee attacks). Additionally, it synergises nicely with her spells, all the AOE of course and scorching ray in particular. But most of all, since we will want to equip items that apply radiant orb like the luminous gloves, coruscation ring and callous glow ring, there's no room left for the items that make healing viable.
- Having only piercing damage for weapon damage can be a big drawback, particularly in the Shadow Cursed Shambling Mound fight (It has piercing immunity).
- Warding Bond is an INCREDIBLE spell to cast on our Abjuration Tank Gale, giving him resistance to all damage and thus reducing the damage he actually takes to pretty much 0, which then also ends up not hurting the one to cast Warding Bond whatsoever. Recall that you can get Warding bond for free with the two rings at the House of Healing (True Love's Caress, True Love's Embrace).
- Summons do a lot of work in wiping out adds like the Necromites in the Apostle of Myrkul fight, somewhat making up for the lack of offence.
- I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in the video, but the abjuration tank wizard Gale deals a lot more damage when applying Chilled with the Mourning Frost first or giving enemies the Wet condition, so it makes sense to commit to cold damage and go for summons like ice mephits, water elemental, etc.

I hope everyone's runs are going as well as mine is right now. Cheers.



Final Edit to this comment (and definitely the MOST IMPORTANT one): I have beaten honor mode, hooray!
I have had two close calls towards the end of the game:
- The Wyrm below Wyrm's Rock nearly wiped me, but this was mostly due to my own bad play, as I didn't realise I was wet for most of the fight. Also, Warding Bond in this particular fight is a detriment.
- The Will of the Netherbrain: Once inside the Netherbrain's psyche, I had to make a shocking discovery. THROWING WEAPONS DO NOT WORK ON THE WILL OF THE NETHERBRAIN. In fact, not only can throwing weapons not make contact with the Netherbrain, but they even fall all the way into the void. This immediately deleted Nyrulna from the fight and disarmed Lae'zel - a disaster in honor mode where every final turn counts. Secondly, The party's dependency on piercing damage came back to bite me once again, due to the Aegis of the Absolute, basically only allowing me to make meaningful attacks every other turn.This also applies to the light cleric somewhat, who pretty much only has mass light and fire damage, both of which are usually dealt together. I'd actually recommend to respec the eldritch knight thrower into a pure damage melee character just for the final fight, a paladin perhaps for the versatile burst damage from smites. I'd also advise to bring scrolls of high damage dealing spells in order to get around the Aegis of the Absolute.

Overall, the party carried itself really well through most of the game, though once you start unlocking Globe of Invulnerability the defensive aspects of the builds feels pretty redundant, as Globe becomes the de facto meta approach to defence in every difficult fight.. I would have much rather had more offence and mass damage towards the end of the game, so I stick by my earlier recommendation to respec the Abjuration Tank into a sorcerer.

In total I beat every Legendary Action boss (except for Mastic Carrion) in my playthrough and did most core quests as well - Total playtime around 85 hours. Golden dice acquired! Thanks Cepha.
With that, I wish everyone good luck.

[meliannhawke]

Absolutely love this video, and would love themed party builds!

[zacharyberridge]

I know this isn't one of your more recent videos, but I have to tell you that your videos have made me play through the game yet again. It's a fantastic game, and the more you know about it's mechanics, the more fun it is.

[TenebrisImpyris]

I truly have been waiting for this video for a while now. All of your builds are wonderful, and I apprecaite all the work you put into it! Keep doing what you love, please.

[SCARDY_CT]

I like how we all came to the conclusion that its fighter/bard/cleric/wizard separate. Nice stealth archer.

[scottbyers]

The only channel you need for bg3 builds.! Great content friend.

[Smacc]

I know I’m way late on this but, this party is so cracked. I had zero problems with any fight, even the one fight (merkel) that was a BIT challenging still went incredibly well. Pretty insane synergy. Thanks for the golden dice chief

[spacefruite]

Thank you for the video! I am one of those who want the challange in honour mode but still play the game "the normal way". So thank you for helping me out with some very nice looking builts :D

[RAWBOT]

I ran a gloom assasin, throw barb thief fighter, light cleric and wizard in honor mode. It's really about being as strong as possible at all levels as well as only using ranged characters and using summons to be your front line punching bags. Shovel early on is great, conjure minor elemental ice mephits, then onto conjure elementals, myrmidons and devas. Always put your expendable summons up front and attack from the rear and you'll survive honor mode a lot easier. I had a camp eldritch fighter to bind the thrown weapons and used strength elixirs on both the ranger with titan bow and the throw barb at all times. Scrolls are great when you run out of spell slots to avoid long resting. With careful planning you should absolutely get the awakened illithid power that lets you use black hole as a bonus option. Changes the late game significantly.

[Korhi]

Fun quirk i figured out with Guardian of Faith, if you put Survival Instinct on it, the Illithid Power you get from Omeluum, it sticks around at 0 Hp for the duration of the power.