The Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock is great fun to play, but like any other class in the new RPG, things can get a little confusing when you first set up your Warlock in the character creation screen.
That's why we dug into Baldur's Gate 3 ourselves and did all the whims of the demons so you don't have to! Based on what we've seen so far in Early Access, here are the considerations to make when creating your best Warlock in the character creation menu.
Baldur's Gate 3 Best Warlock Build
Characters created in Baldur's Gate 3 boil down to a selection of:
- Stroke / Sub-stroke
- Class / subclass
- Origin
- skills
- Abilities (stats, basically)
- exploits
Whether it's building a warlock or a rogue, for example, it can also include other things like cantrips and spells, depending on the class you've chosen.
There are several different approaches to building a Great Warlock in Baldur's Gate 3, however. create the warlock you would most like to play with.
Best Races
There are approximately 16 races in Baldur's Gate 3 in total. So which race should you choose if you're looking to create the best Warlock?
The Warlock's primary stat is Charisma, and his saving throws are based on Charisma and Wisdom. As explained below, your primary stat heavily influences your race selection.
Charisma influences the Warlock's ability to cast spells and saving throws, as well as the power of each spell. This also influences their aptitude for Charisma-based skill checks.
The following races offer the greatest starting bonus to Charisma:
- Tiefling (+2)
- Half-elf (+2)
- Lightfoot Halfling (+1)
- Drow (+1)
- Human (+1)
Wisdom influences the mastery of the Warlock's saving throw. It also influences how you will get Wisdom-based skill checks.
The following races offer the best starting bonus to Wisdom:
- Wood Elf (+1)
- Human (+1)
- Half-elf (+1 when allocated)
- Nain d'or (+1)
Don't ignore a race's unique skills and perks. The race with the most relevant stat advantage isn't always the one you should go with.
All elf, drow, and half-elf races gain faerie ancestry, which blocks any status ailments that put your warlock to sleep or charm them.
Tieflings gain Infernal Resistance, which gives 50% resistance to all fire damage.
Gold Dwarf gains dwarven resilience, which grants advantage on poison saving throws and resists poison damage. Gold Dwarf also has Dwarf Stamina, which grants an additional max hit point per level.
Each of these races also benefit from Darkvision, allowing them to see 12 meters ahead in areas without light.
Drow gets an even better version, Superior Darkvision, which allows them to see 24 meters farther in areas without light.
Lightfoot Halfling has a bonus called Naturally Stealthy. This grants proficiency in stealth checks. They also get lucky, which forces you to re-roll whenever you roll a 1. This can be great in tough spots! However, halflings lack the very useful power of Darkvision and only have a movement speed of 7,5m per turn.
Primary Abilities
You can manually assign your warlock starting abilities from the following:
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Constitution
- Intelligence
- Wisdom
- Charisma
The Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock's save rolls are based on their Charisma (CHA) and Wisdom (WIS) ability, meaning these are the two most important stats to assign when building your Warlock character.
Luckily, you can rest easy as long as you focus on building your Warlock Charisma score above all else, which will make your Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock build more useful in battle.
With that in mind, Charisma only influences some of the interactions outside of combat, meaning it's worth allocating extra points to other abilities depending on the type of character you're playing.
Are you trying to mix a little more "sword" into your "swords and sorcery"? Award extra points for Strength and work that sword arm like the melee combat champion that you are.
Want to get the first shot before your opponent robs you of the opportunity? Put those points into Dexterity and take over as the fastest spellcaster in the west.
Starting Features
- 8 hit points + constitution modifier
- 2 demonic cradles
- 2 warlock spells
- Warlock Spell Slots
- Wisdom Saving Throw Skill
- Charisma Saving Throw Skill
- Light Armor Skill
- Simple Weapon Mastery
Best Skills
Warlocks in Baldur's Gate 3 can choose two skills in addition to those they receive from their race and origin.
You should lean on that Charisma muscle and start your Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock with Deception and Intimidation skills. However, you can choose skills that seem interesting for the character you want to play instead.
Warlock can choose to become proficient in two of the following skills:
- Arcane (Intelligence)
- Disappointment (charisma)
- History (Intelligence)
- Intimidation (charisma)
- Investigation (intelligence)
- Nature (Intelligence)
- Religion (Intelligence)
Note: Mastery is equivalent to an immediate +2 modifier for the skill in question.
Skills automatically receive a +1 modifier for every two points allocated to their corresponding ability, with 10 (+0) as a baseline. Skills also receive a -1 modifier to associated skills whenever a stat drops to 9 or less.
For example, a warlock who has 9 points of strength also has an immediate -1 modifier to athletics, while a warlock who has 16 points of dexterity also has an immediate +3 modifier to stealth.
All elven characters begin with a mastery of perception. Githyanki warlocks can choose up to three skills instead of two, and can even master skills not normally available to warlocks.
Origins
Origins is the starting point for your Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock base story, which also includes two additional skills.
While Warlock naturally cannot become proficient in Performance and Persuasion, these useful Charisma skills can be unlocked by picking up Artist (Performance) or Craftsman/Guild Noble (Persuasion) origins.
Do not choose Urchin or Criminal if you are playing as Lightfoot Halfling, Wood Elf or Half-Wood Elf, because you will have the same Stealth skill twice.
Likewise, High Elf (who gets her own Perception skill) shouldn't take the Sailor origin, which offers the Perception skill as one of her two bonus skills.
Otherwise, just like in D&D, choosing your Baldur's Gate 3 character origin is all about creating the character you want to play as.
Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock Subclasses
The Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock has two unique subclasses. You can choose the subclass you want at 1st level, in the character creation menu.
The subclasses, The Fiend and The Great Old One, both vary in the types of spells and abilities they have access to as they level up. The Fiend also receives a special buff.
Both subclasses can learn the following Warlock cantrips:
- Explosion eldritch
- blade guard
- Chill Touch
- friends
- mage's hand
- poison spray
- real strike
- minor delusion
Both subclasses can also learn the following warlock spells:
- Agathys Armor
- Hadar's Weapons
- charming person
- Expedited retirement
- Infernal Rebuke
- Hex
- Protection from evil and good
- witch bolt
- To break
- burning hands
- Decay radius
- hold the person
- Blindness
- Darkness
- Invisibility
- foggy stage
- mirror image
- burning ray
At level 4, both subclasses can choose from the following feats:
- Capacity improvement
- Athlete
- defensive duelist
- Double carrier
- Grand Master of Arms
- Heavily armored
- lightly armored
- Magical Initiate: Cleric
- Magical Initiate: Warlock
- Magic Initiate: Assistant
- Martial Adept
- Mobile
- Moderately armored
- Shield Master
- Qualified
- Hard
- Master of arms
The great old
Choosing to play as The Great Old One subclass doesn't seem to change too much at the moment, other than granting access to a few subclass-exclusive spells.
You can choose to take the following spells when choosing The Great Old One subclass:
- Dissonant whispers
- Tasha's hideous laugh
The demon
Choosing to play as The Fiend subclass grants you the Blessing of the Dark One, which heals you for an amount equal to your Constitution modifier plus your level after killing an enemy.
The Fiend can also choose from the following unique spells:
- Command (halt)
- burning hands
And with that, you've learned everything you need to know when first building your Baldur's Gate 3 Warlock! If you found this build guide helpful, please consider sharing it with other players. Stick with GameSkinny for more Baldur's Gate 3 tips and strategy guides as we progress deeper into Faerûn.
