Baldur’s Gate 3 Classes: Choose a Role for Your First Build
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Pick the turns you want to play
Baldur’s Gate 3 has twelve classes. Choose for the decisions you enjoy making, then fill missing roles with companions. This comparison describes each class’s broad starting appeal; subclasses can change that role considerably.
| Class | Start here if you enjoy… |
|---|---|
| Barbarian | Closing distance and committing to aggressive weapon attacks. |
| Bard | Mixing conversation skills, support and flexible magic. |
| Cleric | Preparing divine spells for protection, damage and recovery. |
| Druid | Combining nature magic with animal transformations. |
| Fighter | Building a dependable weapon routine with fewer spell decisions. |
| Monk | Mobile close combat and managing Ki-powered techniques. |
| Paladin | Weapon fighting backed by magic and an oath to uphold. |
| Ranger | Weapon combat with tracking, utility and nature magic. |
| Rogue | Positioning for Sneak Attack and handling specialist skills. |
| Sorcerer | Shaping a smaller selection of spells through Metamagic. |
| Warlock | A compact spell kit supported by pact magic and invocations. |
| Wizard | Collecting and preparing a broad range of spells. |
Separate class, subclass and character level
Your subclass adds a specialisation; the selection appears at a different early level depending on class. Patch 8 added one new subclass to each of the twelve classes, including Hexblade, Bladesinging and Swashbuckler. A guide written before that patch may therefore omit choices visible in your game.
The base-game character level cap is 12. Multiclass levels share that total: adding another class does not create another twelve levels to spend. Staying in one class is a sensible first-campaign choice because it keeps the next feature and spell progression easier to understand. Explorer does not normally offer multiclass selection.
Example: decide whether Warlock suits your resting rhythm
A Warlock learns a limited spell selection and casts using a small pool of pact slots. Those slots return on a short rest and cast at the Warlock’s available pact-slot level. That makes the class appealing if you want a repeatable cantrip routine with a few stronger decisions each fight.
It also means you should use your short rests rather than judging the class after several encounters without recovering its resources. If you prefer preparing a different selection of spells to solve a new problem, read the Wizard or Cleric choices closely before settling.
Change a build when you understand what is missing
Use Withers’ respec service to repair a specific problem: an ability score that does not support your weapon, a spell selection you never use, or two companions competing for the same job. Change one thing, try a few encounters, and compare the result. That tells you more than rebuilding the entire party after every difficult fight.