Barbarian or Druid for first playthrough?

[Peaceful Joe]

Those are the two classes I'm most interested in at the moment, but I'm having a hard time deciding. I'm probably going custom character, but I'm wondering if I should choose Karlach origin if I do decide on Barbarian. On the other hand, shapeshifting into animals as a Druid also greatly interests me.

A note here. While I intend to eventually do a second playthrough, it might be a long while before I do because I have a big backlog of games (as well as real life things). So, I'm pressured to make the right choice for the first playthrough. Make it count you know.

[Peaceful Joe]

I'm still having a tough time deciding lol. I want to avoid restarting my game once I start a playthrough, so any advice from experienced players would be helpful.

[Drake]

You could always go both. Barbarian/druid bearbarian is a thing.

[Sir_Baldur]

I recommend a BardBarbarian. Level 1 barb, 3 levels bard, rest barbarian or whatever you want. Grab the two handed sword from the ship, and behold the power of playing a lute with a flaming sword strapped to your back. Only way this could be more fun is if they added grapple and Powerful Build Feat.

But if multiclassing ain't your thing. Custom barbarian is tons of fun. Make sure you search the blighted village carefully.

[Peaceful Joe]

Originally posted by Drake:

You could always go both. Barbarian/druid bearbarian is a thing.

I kind of want to avoid multiclassing for my first playthrough. I like the idea of being a pure class.

[Subset6]

These type of question's always confuse me. Why not throw caution to the wind and find out for yourself. Take a stab at the unknown, you only get it once, than its gone.

[Frostfeather]

I'm gonna say Druid. In previous BG games and in many cRPGs with Druid as a class, Druids get shafted. Whether it's poor balance, lack of reactivity, lack of opportunities to use plants/animals to help you or whatever else... they usually are lacking.

But not so much in BG3, so you may as well get your Druid on here.

[✙205🍉🐆→]

I never play as a druid because they are neutral, and this is the worst option in games

[Steefy_92]

Druid by all means. Barbarians whatever subclass are meh.

Barbarians only if you plan to multiclass. It you care about the class itself that is, if you have RP in mind, than its up to you

[Frostfeather]

Originally posted by ✙205🍉🐆→:

I never play as a druid because they are neutral, and this is the worst option in games

That hasn't hasn't been a thing for years, and it's not a thing in BG3.

[WolfWry]

druid

[The.Spaz.]

I unwittingly played as a fighter class in the original two games which apparently turned out to be cannon so I plan on continuing to play as a Dark Urge fighter in this one. The only thing I am not sure about is if I want to keep as a pure fighter or multiclass into a Barb and how many levels should I invest into the latter class since I don't know what useful feats I might be sacrificing at level higher levels.

[zastcat]

druid is great, moon druid is fun and gives you a few additional wildshape forms with nice features, but be aware that 1 of their most important subclass features primal strike is currently bugged and not working

primal strike is supposed to be earned around level 6 and makes your attacks while wildshaped count as magical so that enemies resisting mundane attacks don't 1/2 or ignore your damage but it's just flat out doing nothing right now meaning there are fights in the game where all you can really do in certain forms is push enemies around or trip them while the rest of your party hits them with spells and magic weapons

[zpc]

I tried a vengeance paladin / barbarian first (something I made my mind up to since they announced multiclassing ^^). But to be honest though - I'd now recommend playing a pure class first. There are some disadvantages to multiclassing - the most important one is that your barbarian will loose his second attack because the prerequesite for a second attack is really barbarian, level 5 - not e.g. barbarian lvl 3 / druid lvl 2. So in that example you'd gimping yourself until level 7 (assuming you then only level barbarian). The second attack is IMHO very important for fighting classes. I'd even recommend polearms master for clerics / druids to get an optional secondary attack tbh. Especially the early levels (1-6) are way easier with more attacks per round.

tl;dr: barbarian first (at least until 5), then druid. The overall combination is nice and fitting IMHO =)

[BigRockWall]

Respeccing costs 100 gold and you can change everything except for race and appearance.

[Chukki]

I went for rogue. Always going for the rogue as my first walkthrough. Not a single locked door or chest for me. And can talk my way out of most situations. Both druids and barbarians are strong though.