Gale as a pure Wizard.

[Dave]

How do most players go about specing Gale out in terms of subclass and spells? I see Evocation is the default subclass.

[Metallicus]

I keep him a pure wizard with the divination subclass. Portent is one of my favorite abilities and you can long rest until you get the numbers you want for the day. You can keep that natural 20 in the bank for when you need it (like mirror of loss).

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I always ignore him and/or kick him out of camp.

[GrandMajora]

I like to make Gale a Transmuter. Both because it's my favorite spell school conceptually, and because Transmuters have a chance to brew double alchemy creations if they pass a successful Medicine check.

[Darx]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Cassandra:

I always ignore him and/or kick him out of camp.

this...unless you play as him

[ReoHays]

All sub classes can be boss, it is up to how you out fit them. I like to Necro him and get the books so he can have an army of the dead. But you can do that no matter what his sub class is. Dont forget to get the Poison robe in act 1, this makes him boss at early levels if you poison base him. Get the poison items as you travel. Lightning in act 1 is also good, but you need to get up a few levels for that. Lightning stacks as the game goes on, so that is the best for act 2 & 3. If you go evocation his Lighting spells wont hurt allies. You need to save the woman from the fire for the staff, the build does not work with out that.

[Remedy]

I also like the divination subclass. A good portent die can wreck a boss. Give him the alert feat with items for a high spell save and initiative and you can lock down big portions of the battlefield with something like Hypnotic Pattern before they act. Or just focus on locking down the boss with some like Hold Person/Monster and a portent die that will guarantee they fail. Now your other three party members can decimate the enemy one by one.

Transmutation (mixed with some multi-classing for expertise and proficiency in medicine if you want to max out the potential) is great if you want to just leave him at camp. As someone else mentioned, he can be your go-to for potion crafting and will almost always give you two potions.

[Panzerbjorne39]

I respec him right away into Dragonic Sorcerer. It’s a stronger magic class.

[Woke Buster]

He is always dead in my runs. Respecing someone else and/or taking a hireling is better => you get the same result, but without all the sneaky gay interactions and other woke nonsense.

[ReoHays]

Originally posted by Woke Buster:

He is always dead in my runs. Respecing someone else and/or taking a hireling is better => you get the same result, but without all the sneaky gay interactions and other woke nonsense.

And you dont have to feed him items. LOL

[Metallicus]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

I like to make Gale a Transmuter. Both because it's my favorite spell school conceptually, and because Transmuters have a chance to brew double alchemy creations if they pass a successful Medicine check.

I use the halfling hireling for this since she can reroll 1s. I start he as a cleric for medicine proficiency and then take 2 levels of Transmuter. She also can have Longstrider which alleviates me having to give it to another NPC. Later game she gets more cleric levels so I can use her to buff using Warding Bond and other cleric spells.

[Harukage]

If i play as Gale - i prefer Abjuration. Been unkillable yourself and sharing protection with party, while have a good mix of wizard control and damage spells prepared, and practicaly not caring about positioning ever - is a bliss.
As a party member... Evocation, because people are somehow unable to calculate damage, and weirdly think that draconic sorcerer can outburst high level evo wizard in this game. No sorcerer can't, sorry. Or transmutation and divination for utility.
Necromancer is an odd pick here. Given how ♥♥♥♥ Necro scholl subclass is in 5e. But there are a lot or great Necro magic items in BG3. But they are all in the second part of the game, so you must suffer through the first part.
No opinion on other choices.

[Selig]

Evo is fine and let him do all your AoE clearing. Make sure you keep Mage Armor on him as well as give him a shield to get his AC up. The AI likes to target low AC characters (rightfully so) and if you aren't careful he will die a lot.

[FunkyMonkey]

I have two builds for him: Evocation and Divination.

On Evocation, I pick up at some point Spell sniper and take Eldritch blast. Cool thing about Evokers is that at lvl 10 they get to add their INT to damage to their Evocation spells and cantrips. Eldritch blast is Evocation cantrip so you get to add INT to damage on it and because you took it through Spell sniper, you will use INT to attack, too.

Diviner is just a basic Wizard.

[harken23]

I like Abjurer quite a bit. He gets some very cool abilities at higher levels, too. I almost never multiclass, for what it's worth.

[harken23]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

I have two builds for him: Evocation and Divination.

On Evocation, I pick up at some point Spell sniper and take Eldritch blast. Cool thing about Evokers is that at lvl 10 they get to add their INT to damage to their Evocation spells and cantrips. Eldritch blast is Evocation cantrip so you get to add INT to damage on it and because you took it through Spell sniper, you will use INT to attack, too.

Diviner is just a basic Wizard.

And you can just carpet bomb everything, since you won't hurt your allies.