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Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Beginner Fighter Builds

In this Baldur’s Gate 3 Fighter Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you the 3 Best Beginner Fighter Builds that you can use to put together an effective Fighter early on in the game. Note that these are a mix of single Class and Multiclass Builds.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Beginner Fighter Builds

Baldur's Gate 3 - Fighter Gameplay

These are Level 6 Fighter Builds and I’ll be talking about how they play and how you can advance them further as you level up higher.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Eldritch Knight Wizard Multiclass Build

Baldur's Gate 3 - Eldritch Wizard

The first Baldur’s Gate 3 Fighter Build we’re going to take a look at is 5 levels of Eldritch Knight and 1 level of Wizard. You could actually do 6 levels of Eldritch Knight and have the same amount of Spell Slots at this point. However, by taking 1 level of Wizard, you’ll be able to learn Spells from scrolls, which will give you a broader range of Spells that you can cast.

I’ve waited until after Level 5 to take 1 level of Wizard and that’s because you want to be able to gain Extra Attack from the Fighter even if you’re playing an Eldritch Knight. Extra Attack is extremely strong so it’s important to get it as quickly as you can with the Spells you need. 

Level 7 Eldritch Knight

Baldur's Gate 3 - Level 7

One thing that I really like about this Baldur’s Gate 3 Eldritch Knight Wizard Multiclass Build is at Level 7 if you’re playing Eldritch Knight and take another level of it, you’ll gain 2 Level 2 Spells, Spell Slots, and an extra Feat, making it very strong in midgBaldur’s Gate 3 – Fighter Gameplayame until the latter parts of the game. The Eldritch Knight Subclass gives you all the best things of the Fighter including Feats, Extra Attacks, Action Surge, a Fighting Style, and Spells like Shield to protect you in Combat.

Baldur's Gate 3 - Second Wind

For instance, you can throw a Magic Missile to finish off a weak enemy and then hit another. You can also use Thunderwave to knock targets back. There are several things you can do with this Build that a regular Fighter wouldn’t be able to do if you were to choose the Battle Master or Champion Subclass. 

Level 2 Wizard

And by taking 2 levels of Wizard, you’ll gain a Subclass. You can take the Evocation School if you don’t want to worry about hitting friendlies with AOES or the Abjuration School if you want Arcane Ward, which is fantastic to help protect you in combat and makes you tankier as a Fighter. Reaching Level 2 Wizard will enable you to get all the Subclass Features of the Eldritch Knight eventually but you do sacrifice the Improved Extra Attack at Level 11 but I think the Spellcasting offsets that in this Build.

Fighter Stats and Equipment

Another thing I want to mention is if you’re just using Magic Missile as your offensive Spell and Shield as your protective Spell, you don’t really need any Intelligence. If you’ll mostly attack but want access to some buffs, you can still allocate points into your Ability Scores how you would normally put them as a Fighter whether that’s Dexterity or Strength

The Warped Headband of Intellect is great for this Class because it’s going to give you 17 Intelligence so even if you dumped this and weren’t planning on using much Spells, you’ll still be able to cast them relatively effectively, at least in the early game. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 Champion Barbarian Multiclass Build

Baldur's Gate 3 - Barbarian Champion

The next BG3 Fighter Build we’re going to take a look at is 5 levels of Champion and 1 level of Barbarian. What I really like about this is you’re going to go through a similar path as the Eldritch Knight Build and then you’ll create something much more powerful later on in the game. You’ll receive all the things I’ve mentioned previously such as Extra Attack from 5 levels of Fighter, Fighting Style, and Action Surge. 

You’ll then have a higher crit chance because Champions only need to roll a 19 or 20 in order to crit, which synergizes very well with Barbarians and I’ll explain why.

Leveling Up the Barbarian

BG3 - Rage

Barbarians at Level 1 gain access to Rage, which allows them to add two additional damage to their melee attacks, specifically Improvised Melee Weapons and Thrown Objects. It’s also going to give them damage resistance from physical damage by cutting it in half. Next, they gain an Advantage on Strength Checks and Saving Throws, which means that they won’t be shoved very easily and they’ll be able to resist or save against most Spells that target their Strength. 

BG3 - Reckless Attack

At Level 2 of the Barbarian, which is what you’re going to immediately do upon hitting Level 7, you’ll gain Reckless Attack. This will provide you with an Advantage on your Attack Rolls. And because you only need to roll a 19 or 20 in order to crit since you’re a Champion, the likelihood of dealing crit damage will increase. The only downside is that enemies have an Advantage against you but you still have damage resistance from Rage so it’s not the end of the world. Additionally, you won’t be able to use Heavy Armor with this Build while you’re Raging. 

Level 9 Barbarian

But the idea here is to build towards 9 levels of the Barbarian and 3 levels of the Fighter. However, at the start, you’ll want 5 levels of Fighter in order to have that Extra Attack. 

Baldur's Gate 3 - Barbarian Champion Combat

And then you’ll eventually respect to 5 levels of Barbarian and 3 levels of Fighter and choose to become a Barbarian all the way. At Level 9 Barbarian, you’re going to get to roll an extra crit die when you crit so not only do you have a higher chance to crit from Advantage on all your attacks with Reckless Attack but also, when you do crit, it’s going to hit harder. So this is a really nice synergy later on in the game. 

Barbarians also gain Unarmored Defense, allowing them to add their Constitution Modifier to their Armor Class if they’re Unarmored, which you can absolutely play this BG3 Champion Barbarian Multiclass Build on. And they also gain a lot of passive benefits.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Battle Master Fighter Build 

Baldur's Gate 3 - Pure Battle Master

The last Baldur’s Gate 3 Build here is just pure 6 levels of the Battle Master Fighter and what this is going to do is it’ll give you access to different Maneuvers to use in combat effectively. There are a lot of strong ones such as Sweeping Attack. Sweeping Attack allows you to cleave enemies in front of you. This is really good for AOE, which is something that Fighters don’t always have, allowing you to deal with multiple targets without resorting to Spellcasting.

Battle Master Maneuvers and Feats

Baldur's Gate 3 - Maneuvers

Another good Maneuver is Evasive Footwork. This makes it so that enemies receive a Disadvantage on melee attacks against you until your next turn. That’s huge because you could be surrounded by say, 8 targets, but none of them can hit you for a turn. You already have a high Armor Class as a Fighter anyway, particularly if you have a Shield. And then they have Disadvantages in all their attacks. You can simply tank for days and the Evasive Footwork only costs 1 Superiority Die. Remember that at this point in the game, you have 4 Superiority Die for every Short Rest, making you super tanky with just 1 Maneuver.

Just like the other Fighter Builds I’ve shown, you’re going to gain a Fighting Style, Action Surge, Extra Attack, as well as a second Feat that you can use for Great Weapon Master. Great Weapon Master is really strong because when you kill an enemy or critically hit them, you’ll gain another attack as a Bonus Action. This is really good even if you using a Sword and Shield. In total you’ll be able to attack 3x, accounting for your Extra Attack as well. 

Looking Ahead with the BG3 Battle Master Fighter Build

Baldur's Gate 3 - Battlemaster Combat

Moving forward, if you’re playing dual wield, you could mix this with a Thief Rogue in order to gain an extra Bonus Action that you can attack with using your Offhand Weapon. Or you could keep climbing up as a Battle Master and gain more Maneuvers and Superiority Die. Remember that the Superiority Die also adds damage to the attacks you make with damage-dealing Maneuvers so you won’t only deal regular damage. This Feature only gets stronger later on in the game going from a d8 to a d10 to further increase the damage. 

Frankly, if I had to recommend a Fighter Build to a new player, it’d be the Battle Master. The Champion is easier in terms of its passive abilities so you don’t have to learn a lot about it. But the Battle Master is much more engaging to play because you have all these different Maneuvers you can choose from and so each of them will end up differently.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Fighter Builds: Final Thoughts

Baldur's Gate 3 - More Battle Master Combat

So that wraps up our Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Beginner Fighter Builds. Again, we do have Advanced Builds coming. I’ve seen people who are frustrated that we haven’t put them out yet but I want to get through all the Class Guides. Afterward, we’ll start getting into more specific Endgame Builds. And as always, if you have further tips for new players, leave them in the comments. If you have questions, I will try and answer them as best I can.

Stay tuned for more Baldur’s Gate 3 content.

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