The Barbarian is the raging meathead of the DnD universe, offering players lots of HP, lots of anger, and lots of very early damage. Throughout the course of early access, the !Barbarian has lots of damage, and is transitioning well into the full release as an a early game monster. However, !Barbarians do scale poorly, where you wizards over take them, Yet, there are a few features in BG3 that spice things up a fair amount, making the gameplay very interesting. So, for this Baldur’s Gate 3 !Barbarian build, we highly recommend dipping into a Paladin, to take advantage on the !Paladin mechanics of Lay on Hands, and Smite critting, which will help your rage modifiers and more as you play the game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Barbarian Build: The Pally Barb¶

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Here is a Barbarian build in Baldur’s Gate 3, using Barb, Paladin and Greater Weapon Mastery to ramp as much two-handed weapon damage as possible.

The !Barbarian Build level allocation will look as follows

• Barbarian 5
• Paladin: 5
• Fighter 2:

The leveling progression with the !Barbarian has you start off at level 1 !Barbarian, and rush to level 5 on that class. This will grant you your Feat, extra attack, and subclass, the Berserker. Berserker grants your bonus action to attack again while raging, with no debuffs for doing so. When you rage, you also get advantages on attack rolls, so, you can really abuse you chances to hit against enemies better than most other martial classes in the early game, especially against high AC enemies you encounter, like bosses. Add in your level 5 extra attack, meaning you can get three attacks a turn, two from your normal attack actions, and one from raging bonus, or when you land a crit with the Great Weapon Master feat.

When it’s time to go !Paladin, you want another 5 levels going into it. The reason for this as at level 5, you get the upgraded Divine Smite. Divine Smite allows the user to grant bonus damage on their attacks, per spell slot they used. This is not considered a spell, so you can cast it while raging for even more dice rolls on your hits. This is the synergy you are looking for, as when you attack three times a turn, that’s a significant DPT (damage per turn) allowance than let’s say, Fighter or a Rogue. There’s also some synergy with crit reaction rolls and using spells. It is worth noting that this can only happen when you’re not raging, so, it’s some niche synergy when you are not raging, as you can still rely on bonus damage from time to time. You can also get your hands on Magic Weapon, which increases your attack to hit, and it is a several-turn buff you can apply to yourself. Think of it as a warm-up round Bless before you start swinging to ensure your first hit, and following enrages can go forth from as soon as you can hit enemies in combat. You also get around 20 healing Lay on hands at level 5 !Paladin, and so you get a really strong healing spell you can use to continue face tanking enemies for even longer, even in the hardest fights.

Lastly, you can chase to spend the remaining two levels on !Fighter. The only reason you will do this is for yet another self-healing tool, and more importantly, Action Surge. This grants you an extra action as well. You can do some really cheesy things with your spell usage from !Paladin if you opt for this feature, or just go for another attack if you really want to.

Best Feats for Barbarian in BG3¶

The best Feats in BG3 can be any of the following, yet for this Barbarian build, we recommend using Great Weapon Mastery in at least one of your feat options.

• Great Weapon Mastery: This lowers your hit chance by 5 but grants an extra ten damage on hit. Since you have an advantage, eventually magic weapon, and maybe buffs from things like Bless, you will hit a lot and make full use out of this feat more than any other class or build.
• Sentinel: Can make reaction tracks if a close-range ally takes a hit from a close-range enemy. Handy for those close-quarter fights with other melee characters in your crew.
• Durable: Better short rest healing via your Con modifier.
• Medium Armor Master: If you have at least 14 Dex, this can be a very decent armor option feat for your defensive capabilities.
• Savage Attacker: When making weapon attacks, you roll your damage dice twice and use the highest result.

Best Barbarian Races in BG3¶

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The Half-Orc is a great race to pick for Barbarians, thanks to its Savage Attack racial feat.

Okay, since the way your starting ability scores work, you can modify them slightly. Either take the recommended for a !Barbarian, or adjust it slightly where you lose some con, but have at least 14 in Charisma and Dex for AC bonuses, and Charisma bonuses for when you reach the !Paladin levels. It’s not too bad if you don’t want to. You just lose some light modifiers to !Paladin spell casts. Your crit reactions will be unaffected.

After that, it’s time to select your race. There’s no imbalanced race, however, there’s a few you can consider the best barbarian race in BG3 for a variety of reasons:

• Half-Orc: The 5e Savage Attacks feat has changed in BG3, where you roll triple value when you crit. Since you are fishing for crits with your attack bonuses, three attacks while raging, and have your spell slots reserved for !Paladin spell crits, you will very much enjoy the number of numbers you see on screen by going this race. This is likely the best race for a barbarian in BG3, but you don’t need to pick it up.

• Githyanki: Githyanki has great proficiency with the armor a Pally/ Barb wants, along with the longsword weapon proficiencies. Since one of the best weapons in the early game is the Everburn Blade, you will likely be running that, and destroying enemies with it for most of Act 1. Read more on the best act 1 weapons in BG3 here.

• Gold Dwarf: Gold Dwarves get a nice modifier on their race features, granting them a bonus to Constitution as they level up. That extra con helps to make you even more tankier. The race also gets good proficiencies with Hammers and Axes if you want to use those weapons.

• Human: Lots of armor and weapon proficiencies if you go polearms, spears, etc. This is another good weapon and armor synergy. Not to mention more carrying capacity for your inventory, on top of your 17 strength modifier from the default class attribute spread Larian provide for the class.

This concludes this !Barbarian Build in Baldur’s Gate 3. You now know how the Build functions, the best feats to use, party synergy and races to create this class.

Read More:

• Class Tier list
• BG3 Feats
• BG3 Warlock Build
• BG3 Paladin Build
• BG3 Sorcerer Build
• BG3 Rogue Build
• BG3 Ranger Build
• BG3 Fighter Build
• BG3 Druid Build
• BG3 Barbarian Build
• BG3 Bard Build