For the sake of clarity, I'm going to define a few terms and expressions I will be using in the rest of the guide.

To open a class means getting your first level in that specific class. It can be your very first level, or a new multiclassing on your character.

To take a dip means getting a few levels (usually one to three - if more, it's hard to call that a dip, isn't it?) in any class.
Some classes have a lot of utility in early levels but underwhelming higher levels (or just not useful for your particular build), so it makes sense to take just a few levels.

A full caster is a class that has access to all spell slots - in short, they can get the level 6 spell slot at level 11.
Similarly, half casters get access to level three spell slots at most, and one third casters to level two spell slots at most.

The party face is the character you want to have doing most social interactions due to high charisma and proficiency in charisma-related skills.

Going pure in a class means leveling only that class, and not doing any multiclassing.

A dead level is a level that brings basically nothing to your build.

Keep in mind that this tier list is made for the vanilla game at patch 6. It may or may not change depending on future releases.

• Multiclassing options
  
• Damage potential
  
• Tanking potential
  
• Control potential (anything that prevents enemies from playing, outside killing them outright)
  
• Utility and support (any buffs to allies, and for utility: stuff like speak to animals, guidance, lockpicking...)
  
• Amout of dead levels
  
• Potential to be the party face
  
• Subclasses benefits

This is my ranking and in no way an "objective truth". Whether you agree or disagree is up to you - and if you have fun playing a class I personally don't rank among the best, do not let that stop you!



Barbarian has a very nice first few levels and an incredible potential combo with throw attacks (of which I've made a guide here). But to be honest... It kind of stops here. It also has fewer multiclassing options due to anti-synergy between rage and spellcasting.
Also, one of the main interests of the class is to have a lot of healthpoints, but in my opinion, it isn't that useful, at least in the base game.

It still is a nice, solid martial class.


Druid has a lot of versatility and cool options, with access to a lot of great spells. Unfortunately it seems to lack anything that isn't spell related. The beast form is super cool, but just doesn't compete with good martials. It also doesn't get to be the party face and lacks good multiclassing options. That said, in my opinion it could be considered a low A.


I'm sorry but it is overrated as hell. The main feature of this class is Sneak attack, and it isn't even that good in terms of damage.

That said, Thief and Assassin are incredibly good subclasses and justify taking 4 numbers of Rogue on a number of builds.


On paper, Wizard looks like the best full caster, right?
Wizards can recover a number of spell slots during a day, which makes them more resilient than other spellcasters, and they can also learn any spell so long as you have a scroll and some gold. They also can take spells from their grimoire into their prepared spells (and vice-versa) at will.

But here's the thing. Long resting is no problem at all in Baldur's Gate 3. Even in higher difficulties where long rests cost twofold, you get like six times more supplies than needed. Unless you forget to loot around, you'll just never run out of supplies. So that first wizard boon isn't really too much.

As for learning spells... yeah, it's great! But you only need one wizard level to do it. It also does not increase your number of prepared spells.

Subclasses seem kind of underwhelming to me, but some of them (Abjuration, Evocation) are very good.

Wizard has a very decent kit overall. It doesn't have the appeal of Sorcerer's metamagic, or very strong multiclassing options (apart from a level 1 dip to empower another caster class) because it's the only INT based caster (unless you go looking for Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickester).

It's a low B, but still a B.



Having access to four feats, three of them by level 8, instantly makes this class at least an A as it gives crazy good multiclassing options and raw power. You get a lot of options with fighting styles, improved extra attack, excellent subclasses... and finally, this class just doesn't seem to have any dead levels!


Monk is an extraordinary class with unique gameplay and possibilities. The best sustained damage build is heavily based on Monk and its abilities.

It basically only misses on being the party face, but honestly could be considered S tier.


Ranger is like a low A, but still an A. It is a great martial class that feeds any good archer build, with great subclasses. It also has a nice amount of utility and insane damage potential, with great multiclassing options.


Warlock has an extrelemy good early game, which makes it a very appealing class.

This motherflipper gets bonkers damage right at level 2 with Eldritch Blast (one of the best cantrips of the game) + Hex (one of the best level 1 spells of the game). It gets to be the party face and has loads of multiclassing options.
You get only two spell slots, but can recharge them with short rests and they will naturally upcast your spells. Also, they are completely separated from other spell slots which makes multiclassing with Warlock crazy good (more on that in spellcasting section).
And if you want to attack three times per action, guess what? Level 5 Pact of the Blade is bugged, and the weapon pact extra attack stacks with other extra attack effects.

Unfortunately, Warlock's endgame isn't that good. And since Cantrips do not scale that well in the end game (yes, even a Warlock's Eldritch Blast, however cool it looks), it seems hard to justify investing more than 5 levels in Warlock. Warlock falls out of S tier because of that, but it's still a very good class.



Cleric is amazing. It is a full caster with high damage and AoE potential, healing, buffs, utility... It has a lot of varied subclasses that can bolster different aspects of the class... It has everything, and then some. Leveling is also very smooth and you can go pure Cleric without too much hesitation.

But what Cleric fits marvelously is the support role. Healing, protection, various buffs, or even set up with water, they can do it all. They're also an excellent candidate to wear and use Phalar Aluve. You pretty much always would like to have a Cleric in your party.

Some subclasses, like the Trickery, Nature and Knowledge Domains, are very underwhelming. But Life, Light and Tempest Domains are just too good to ignore.

Cleric falls a bit short when it comes to multiclassing options, as most classes do not need high wisdom. It's not impossible (see my Storm Lord or my War Priest), but it's tedious to make work.


As much as I wish Paladins were less mainstream... they're just too good.
Yes you're not a full caster, yes you have to handle the oath.
But boy, oh boy. Tanking abilities. Incredible damage potential with smites. Fixed amount of healing with Lay on Hands and even more healing with spells. Control potential, support potential, utility. Gets to be the party face.

The only thing that prevents Paladin from being the best martial in the game is two paragraphs below.


In terms of spellcasting, Sorcerer is the best full caster of the game and nobody comes even close. That is due to Metamagic, how you can buff spells with it, as well as trade sorcery points for spell slots and vice versa.
You want to launch two chromatic orbs in one action? You can.
You want to launch a fireball as a bonus action? You can.
At this point, subclasses are just convenient. And to be fair, Sorcerer doesn't have great multiclassing options... other classes have great multiclassing options with Sorcerer.
Sorcerer can either go all the way up to level 12 alone or get even more powerful multiclassing with one of the others S tiers.


We only have one class left... And that's essentially the best of the game.

Bard. I kid you not. This guy is both at the same time a full caster and one of the best martials of the game thanks to the College of Swords subclass.
And that is not to say the other subclasses are bad - they're great! You can do anything with Bard. A great caster, an hybrid control-martial, an incredible support... And you also get to be the party face, as well as bardic inspiration that you can also use to boost skill checks.

And on top of that, you get a third short rest.

It is amazing.

Baldur's Gate 3 differs heavily from Dungeons and Dragons on a number of points, including multiclassing. Suffice to say, in Baldur's Gate 3 multiclassing is much easier to do than it is in DnD, and you can get access to so many incredible combos. Honestly, a good part of the 12 classes is just weaker when playing pure.

"Okay, but... why would I multiclass?"

"That is... a fair request."

You don't have to. At least when playing on the lower difficulties - which isn't any better or any worse than playing the higher difficulties, mind you.

It gives access to fun and unique combos. If you want to try them, here's how. If you don't, that's fine!

You get 12 levels during the game. You can either get one in each class (there's even a bloody achievement for that), you can go 6/6, 3/9, 4/4/4/4... whatever. There's basically no limits.

Any time you level up, you can choose to level up a new class, or one of the classes you've already taken.

It doesn't reduce your ability scores, but it technically reduces your health points if you start with a class with a lot of HP (e.g. Barbarian) and multiclass into something less tanky (e.g. Rogue).

Leveling of different classes is completely separate (apart from spell slots, which will be covered a bit further down). That means you don't get a feat when your character reaches overall level 4 - you get a feat when you reach level 4 in one class. If you go Sorcerer 2/Cleric 2 at level 4, no feat for you (until level 6 at least).

It may seem obvious to you, but if you want your multiclassing to work, you need at least a rough idea of what you want to achieve with the build, and what the different subclasses will give you.

Take my Open Hand Monk/Thief Rogue build[/b], for instance. Why take 4 levels in Rogue? To get the Thief subclass, that gives me an extra bonus action. That extra bonus action can be used to fuel the Open Hand Monk's "Flurry of blows" abilities.

Why would I go 11 Eldritch Knight Fighter / 1 Wizard rather than just 12 Eldritch Knight Fighter? Because I probably do not need a 4th feat, and having a wizard level gives me access to more spells.

It is fine if you don't have a 100% precise leveling plan right at the start of your game. Respec is accessible early and doesn't cost much. And your objective can evolve along your playthrough, too.

Basically, have a goal, but feel free to experiment.

As you already know, multiclassing does not reduce your ability scores. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take them into consideration, obviously.

Different classes are going to have different star abilities, which means multiclassing can be tedious, but not impossible. If you follow my guides, you will hopefully one day see a Cleric/Sorcerer/Wizard Pikachu hybrid (though I like Bulbasaur much more) and they all scale off a different ability!. But you'll need to make choices. When it comes to scores, you can afford two 16. The rest is going to vary between 8 and 14.

You want to aim for even scores in your abilities, because your modifier increases by 1 only when you reach an even number (i.e. 16 to 17 STR is still +3, but 17 to 18 gets you +4).

You usually have two important abilities (even without multiclassing) and you'll want to have the two 16s in these. Then, you want to have at least 12, even 14 if possible in Constitution. That leaves 8/10/10 or 8/8/12 for your three other characteristics. Usually you can easily sacrifice one, but the last two may be a problem.

However, you can hopefully rely on Ability Score Improvement feats, and certain items (Gloves of Dexterity) or elixirs (Hill/Cloud Giant Strength) that set an ability to a fixed score. That can ease the repartition of your scores, but you'll need to plan with these items in head - and they might be contested by other builds.

If you want to use something like Gloves of Dexterity, your build needs DEX, so start with high DEX anyway. Once you get the gloves, respec, drop DEX to 8 and put the points elsewhere, then put on the gloves.

For reference, here's a quick guide of what are usually the most important abilities for each class:


Constitution is basically always important, for hit points and for concentration saving throws if you're a spellcaster.


Your starting class is very important because it determines your proficiency in abilities, weapons, armors. If your build includes just one level of fighter, you'll want to respec to start as a fighter and be able to use anything you like. This is also a good argument to take just one level of fighter in some builds.

Which levels you want to take and where are obviously going to depend on your precise build. That said, there are some key principles that can help you:

• If you open a martial class (any class that can get Extra Attack, by itself or with a subclass), you want to level it up to 5 (6 if it's a Swords or Valor bard), unless you already get extra attack with another class... unless you're leveling up Pact of the Blade Warlock to get the extra extra attack.
  
• If you're planning on multiclassing anything that has extra attack, get extra attack by level 5 (6 if you're a Swords/Valor bard). Do not delay Extra attack. It also would mean delaying your subclass and first feat.
  
• Speaking of feats, do not sleep on them. Good builds, multiclassed or otherwise, usually revolve on key feats like Sharpshooter, Savage Attacker, Great Weapon Master. Not to mention Ability Score Improvement which is a tremendous help especially to multiclassed builds where you can have trouble being good in several ability scores.
  
• If you take a dip in a class to get a given subclass at level 3, it usually is worth pushing to level 4 to get a feat. A 8/4 build will get the usual 3 feats of a standard build (even 4 if you're level 8 fighter), while a 9/3 will get only 2. That said, sometimes the level 9 of your main class is more appealing.

I've already said that it's fine to respec often - it's also fine to respec into completely different things than your end goal.

Most of my builds feature from one to three respecs in the leveling plan. This is either to avoid delaying certain features (such as Extra Attack) or to avoid "dead levels", i.e. levels that do not give you anything useful towards your build goal.

There are three impacts you want to mind when multiclassing as a spellcaster.


Apart from the Warlock, which will always have two separate "pact magic" spell slots, spell slots granted by different caster classes do not stack. Instead, your global caster level is determined by how many levels you have in full caster, half caster and one third caster classes.

In particular, if you have 11 levels in full caster classes, you get your level 6 spell, even if you're something like 6 Cleric/5 Sorcerer.



Your spellcasting ability isn't determined by which caster class you have most levels in, or which class you started as.
You get one spellbook per casting class you have, and which spellcasting modifier is used depends on which spellbook you take the spell from.
If you take a spell from a Cleric spellbook, you'll cast it with Wisdom. If you take another spell from a Wizard spellbook, this time you'll cast it with Intelligence. And if you have access to a spell from two different classes, then you likely want to take it from the spellbook that uses your best spellcasting ability.


Again, you get different spellbooks for each class, and the number of prepared spells is equal to your class level + spellcasting ability modifier (min 1).

A neat trick: if one of your spellbooks happens to be based on INT and your INT is low, you can use the warped headband of intellect to set your INT to 17. This way, you'll be able to prepare 3 more spells. Then you can swap the headpiece out and wear something else - your extra spells will stay.

Do you feel like something is missing or could be improved? Have any questions?

Feel free to let me know in the comments below. I do my best to answer to each and every one of them.

Thanks for reading the guide, and I hope you have fun playing this build!

For the sake of clarity and transparency, I will be noting relevant changes (that is basically anything but typos) to the guide here.

06/04/2024: Revisited classes tierlist.

• Wizard: C => B tier
  
• Warlock: S => A tier
  
• Cleric: A => S tier