Druid, Bard, or Paladin for my next play through?

[SuperNose]

So, I'm working on the end of my first play through, and already planning my next. This go around I'll be taking Astarion, Wyll, and Lae'zel as my companions. This leaves me wanting to play a type of support character to supplement this party. Now, I know that just about anything can work fine, and I know it's all about what I want to play, but I'm having trouble deciding. Plus I love reading about why each of you enjoys the class/subclass you do, gives me inspiration. Also, I play games on Easy, so I obviously don't need optimal. I know you can't normally multi-class on Easy, but there's a mod out there that fixes that issue and I'm not opposed to using it. Let the discussion begin!

My options are:

Sword Bard, face of the party. Able to hold their own in combat but also there to support in whatever way the party needs.

Land Druid. I have 0 interest in wild shape right now, and another caster wouldn't be unwelcome. Gives me additional damage, CC and can also heal as well when necessary.

Paladin(Of some flavor). Honestly, I'm only including this because I'm playing on easy. I've already got two front line characters(unless I run Astarion as a ranged Rogue). I know Paladin is the most popular class according to Larian and I know the class is strong, but I don't know that I'd want to dance around my oath for the whole game.

[✙205🍉🐆→]

Bard
Paladin to OP
Druid to boring

[Glyph]

Bards are A+ support characters. I had a lot of fun in my first play as a vengeance paladin too.

[Metallicus]

All three of those classes are amazingly fun. The Druid surprised me with their spell selection and the natural recovery ability is fire.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by SuperNose:

Druid, Bard, or Paladin for my next play through?
So, I'm working on the end of my first play through, and already planning my next. This go around I'll be taking Astarion, Wyll, and Lae'zel as my companions. This leaves me wanting to play a type of support character to supplement this party. Now, I know that just about anything can work fine, and I know it's all about what I want to play, but I'm having trouble deciding. Plus I love reading about why each of you enjoys the class/subclass you do, gives me inspiration. Also, I play games on Easy, so I obviously don't need optimal. I know you can't normally multi-class on Easy, but there's a mod out there that fixes that issue and I'm not opposed to using it. Let the discussion begin!

My options are:

Sword Bard, face of the party. Able to hold their own in combat but also there to support in whatever way the party needs.

Land Druid. I have 0 interest in wild shape right now, and another caster wouldn't be unwelcome. Gives me additional damage, CC and can also heal as well when necessary.

Paladin(Of some flavor). Honestly, I'm only including this because I'm playing on easy. I've already got two front line characters(unless I run Astarion as a ranged Rogue). I know Paladin is the most popular class according to Larian and I know the class is strong, but I don't know that I'd want to dance around my oath for the whole game.

Druid. Opens up more interesting options than the other two. Oh, go with Tiefling / Drow druid!

[Tyrendian89]

I will say that I am enjoying my Swords Bard immensely - soooo many options, great party face, decent CC, can heal in a pinch because often has leftover spellslots to Cure Wounds with, and isn't all that shabby at stabbing people either. Oh, and 20 AC makes her surprisingly tanky too, despite low HP.

[SuperNose]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Druid. Opens up more interesting options than the other two. Oh, go with Tiefling / Drow druid!

Honestly, I was thinking Drow Druid if I did it. I think that's an odd combo, and I think it'd be really neat to see how the world reacts to it!

[Myrden]

Bards are just silly OP. Pallies are too, I suppose, but they're also a bit of a bore.

[Metallicus]

My Druid is a Drow, circle of the land and it is amazingly fun. I still haven’t ever used wildshape. I don’t care about that feature of the class.

[SuperNose]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

You don't need a mod to multiclass on Easy. Just bump the difficulty up to balanced, multiclass then put it back down.

You learn something new every day!

[Glyph]

I play a spores druid in my co-op game and they're fun because you can use your wildshape charges to activate your aura which is really good for melee builds.

[MrSoul]

Moon druid(half drow for what worth) wild shape gets pretty out of hand in later stages of the game.

With how many charges have and how it gives you full Hp when change in general, can basically face tank anything in the game.

Been an awesome playthrough and not like entirely lose potential as a caster either.

[Lily]

Originally posted by ✙205🍉🐆→:

Bard
Paladin to OP
Druid to boring

Paladins are one of the worst classes in the game. OP? Sure they can do damage. If they can reach the target. Garbage range, bad movement speed, low defenses if you want that strong damage. I used a paladin in Tactician mode and every time I did I regretted not bringing a Wizard or Druid. I even bought the paladin the best possible gear and still they floundered in fights. With a single fight at end game they shined in and it wasn't a hard fight.

Melee is extremely bad in Baldur's gate. You could have the best damage in the world it doesn't mean anything if you can't reach your target.

[Glyph]

Melee is incredible in this game? Mobility isn't an issue with the bevvy of on demand pseudo-teleports everyone has access to, like misty step.

[WeirdWizardDave]

I'm very much enjoying Druid in my second playthrough. I've been talking to all the animals and generally getting in touch with my hippy side. But don't write off wild shape, its useful in combat but it really shines for utility and roleplay.

Cat form in particular is my goto for scouting and ahem "special operations", no-one suspects the CAT!

If you're going to be leaning evil then a spore druid might work nicely.

[Quillithe]

If you really don't want to touch wild shape at all, I'd suggest Spore Druid over Land.

Land druids can actually get pretty solid use out of the charges to wild shape - Spore druid is basically never going to wild shape since they use the charges for huge temporary HP.

Anyway I'd say probably not paladin if you don't want to worry about the oath, either other option is fine.

Though if you want to be land specifically and don't want to touch wild shape I'd maybe give bard a little edge