Baldur’s Gate 3: The Best Lae’zel Build in BG3

The abrasive githyanki Lae’zel is the first companion that joins your party during the tutorial of Baldur’s Gate 3 after you exit the Mindflayer ship, on the Ravaged Beach. It’s worth saving her from the Tieflings and keeping her in your party because she’s a powerful warrior. So, what’s Lae’zel’s best build?

The gith Fighter can be a useful tool even in builds with another melee protagonist but can become a powerhouse when built in specific fashions.

Lae’zel’s base stats in BG3

Here are the best Lae’zel stats in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Lae’zel boasts a robust Strength score of 17, making her a formidable hitter right off the bat. For an even mightier punch, consider enhancing her Strength further through the Ability Score Improvement feat at level four.

While her Dexterity and Wisdom might leave something to be desired, a respectable Constitution score of 14 makes her sturdier in combat.

• Lae’zel’s base stats make her a great choice for Auntie Ethel’s Hair, since getting to 18 Strength is a fantastic idea.
• Lae’zel is a great candidate for the Act Two Potion of Everlasting Vigor.

Her progression path depends on her chosen subclass at level three, which includes the options of Battle Master, Champion, or Eldritch Knight. However, the Eldritch Knight path demands Intelligence, which isn’t her strong suit, making Battle Master or Champion the more practical choices for her advancement.

Thanks to the respec feature, you could theoretically change Lae’zel to any build you want. For the purposes of this guide, we will not use the respec functionality. She joins the party at level one, so there’s room to grow.

The best build for Lae’zel in BG3

The best Lae’zel build is a Battle Master Fighter for frontline control and high damage optimization in Baldur’s Gate 3. However, if you choose to multiclass, she can serve as a resource-intensive Tank Fighter/Barbarian with eight levels of the Champion Fighter and four levels of the Wildheart Subclass.

Below we’ll walk through our reasoning for Battle Master for the pure build and Champion for hybrid builds. We’ll also touch on our favorite feats and class features to pick.

Best Fighter build and subclass for Lae’zel in BG3

The best sublass for Lae’zel is Battle Master. Lae’zel suffers in one huge area compared to Rangers or Paladins on the frontlines, and that’s reliance on weapon skills for controlling enemies.

Here are the three best subclasses for Laa’zel in BG3.

Combat Maneuvers for Battle Master Lae’zel

If you agree with us, you get three maneuvers for free. Here are our suggestions for the three you start with and the four additional ones you will vacuum up by level 11.

• Menacing Attack for Frighten. It’s a good status to apply! Preventing enemies from closing in on your backline as well as giving them a disadvantage on attack rolls punishes most enemies, outside of spellcasters.
• Pushing Attack for opportunities to shove enemies off of cliffs on a Strength saving throw, rather than an Athletics check.
• Commander’s Strike, when used in line with another hard-hitting weapon user, like a Paladin, can let the target make an additional attack.
• Distracting Strike provides an advantage to attack rolls against the target. A similarly strong buff to Commander’s Strike, it lets you
• Evasive Footwork lets Lae’zel survive in the hallways of enemies. If she is your primary tank, giving everything a disadvantage to attack her is smart.
• Trip Attack to give the impactful Prone condition. Especially good with multiple melee characters in the party or if the Rogue is nearby.

These maneuvers are in no particular order and should be taken based on your party’s needs. For instance, if you have characters that can abuse Prone, Trip Attack is a high priority. However, if you just want to blow an enemy up and have a Rogue or Paladin who can do the deed, Commander’s Strike may work better.

There are a few other maneuvers that provide strong buffs. For example, Sweeping Attack can be useful if your Lae’zel often gets swarmed. Rally provides a small, bonus action health buff that can help an ally tank a hit.

Recommended Feats for Lae’zel

While you level, you do have the opportunity to scoop up feats at levels four, six, eight, and twelve, thanks to the bonus feat Fighter gets.

Here are the best options for feat progression for Lae’zel.

Lae’zel’s Second Fighting Style

If you run a Champion Lae’zel, the second fighting style for the best Lae’zel build is defense. Since she’s already maxing to a two-handed weapon build, none of the other fighting styles coexist with that. At least she’ll be hit less often with a plus-one to AC.

Archery would be worth consideration if only her Dexterity was a touch higher! Because we want her role to be a frontline bruiser, it isn’t worth sprinkling love to her ranged option. The good bows should go to your ranged attackers, like Astarion.

Best Multiclass build for Lae’zel in BG3

However, there is more than one way to build Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the multiclass route for Lae’zel gets her very, very mad at everything. Well, more mad than usual. A lot of our tips for the Fighter work for the multiclass build, with a few minor exceptions. Here is the best multiclass build for Lae’zel in BG3:

• Champion over Battle Master. If you’re not digging fully into Fighter, the Battle Master weakens significantly. You get fewer maneuvers and Superiority dice to work with, while the Champion’s simple critical hit bonus and Remarkable Athlete ability rely not on silly Fighter levels.
• Four levels into Barbarian. The Barbarian gives Lae’zel a lot to work with. She gets additional health with the Barbarian’s massive HP per level. She gets Rage to soak up a ton of close-range injuries, and she gets Danger Sense to avoid Dexterity-based saves often. She will lose AC due to no longer being able to wear heavy armor when she wants to rage, but this can be ameliorated with additional items and resistance while raging. And, with Reckless Attack, she’ll have the chance to crit much more often.
  • Both Berserker and Wildheart are reasonable. Berserker gives Lae’zel a bonus action attack whenever she pops Rage, further improving her damage and removing any need for Polearm Master. If your party is full of squishy melee characters, like Monks or Rogues, you should consider Wildheart so Lae’zel can clog cluttered alleyways without being domed by casters and elemental damage. For that, make sure you pick the Bear Heart, which soaks all damage except for psychic. Sadly, Wild Magic Barbarian is a bit too risky to use often, and certainly not with just a four-level dip!
• Why four levels? Four levels in Barbarian is just enough to get the Feat and third Rage Charge on Barbarian. You don’t want five levels, since Extra Attack does not stack outside of the Fighter’s level 11 feature.

Summary of the best Lae’zel build

If you want to use the respec from Withers, you can adjust your Lae’zel to be slightly better stat-wise and more prepared to be a melee frontline. Here’s a summary of the best Lae’zel build in Baldur’s Gate 3:

• Best Lae’zel Subclass: Battle Master
• Preferred Weapon: Halberd
• Preferred Armor: Heavy
• Best Early Action – Trip Attack (Melee)
• Best Late Action – Menacing Attack (Melee)
• Recommended Lae’zel Abilities Score
  • Strength 16
  • Dexterity 14
  • Constitution 16
  • Intelligence Eight
  • Wisdom 10
  • Charisma 10
• Best Lae’zel Feats
  • Level Four – Plus-two Strength
  • Level Six – Polearm Master
  • Level Eight – Great Weapon Master
  • Level 12 – Mage Slayer
• Best Lae’zel Skills
  • Athletics
  • Intimidation
  • Perception
  • Survival

Honorable Mentions

• Fighter/Paladin Lae’zel applies high burst damage, even if her Charisma is terrible.
• Fighter/Ranger Lae’zel can gain some utility spells but doesn’t benefit much from the extra Fighting style. She can get a cute animal companion, which is nice. She probably needs a therapy animal.
• Fighter/Cleric Lae’zel offers utility magic on a high-damage body, with spells like Bless, Shield of Faith, and Healing Word to impact the battlefield positively. But, with her low base Wisdom, she’s not going to be hitting many aggressive spells without magical item help.

Best magic items for Lae’zel

Polearm Master leaves Lae’zel with few options for weapons, but the Hellbeard Halberd applies six poison damage per hit—including on your Polearm Master bonus attack—which can quickly chew through enemies. However, you’ll need to unlock Helsik’s special stock to get it.

Early on, bouncing from greatsword to greatsword is a reasonable idea, and the Githyanki Greatsword gives Githyanki high additional psychic damage, making it handy. The Halberd of Vigilance deals slightly less damage per hit but gives advantage on opportunity attacks and a bonus to initiative rolls.

In terms of armor, the Armor of Persistence provides high AC—at a base of 20—as well as Blade Ward as a bonus spell for emergencies or Action Surge plays. Boots of Speed gets Lae’zel into fights faster, while a simple Cloak of Protection gives her the durability needed to survive the wild conflicts in Act Three.

The Grymskull Helm gives Lae’zel Hunter’s Mark and the ability to dodge critical hits, which is a fairly common way for her to die. The Helmet of Grit can work for a 50 percent health build, but the Polearm Master bonus action isn’t that good.

As perhaps expected, the Legacy of the Masters gloves provides a plus-two to attack and damage with weapons, making them perfect for someone who swings their weapon four times per round at minimum.

The Amulet of the Unflinching Protector, while perhaps against Lae’zel’s personality, is great for keeping fellow frontliners safe from devastating hits.

Crusher’s Ring, from the Goblin Camp, is great for getting her into good combat positions on round one. The Ring of Mind-Shielding, obtained in the Myconid Colony, is helpful against the multiple charm ambushes that you run into during the game. Lae’zel’s wisdom isn’t deflecting those types of spells too easily.

Combat Tips for Lae’zel

Early on, Lae’zel is a competent frontliner whose goals are simple: Walk up to enemies and swing on them with the largest weapon in your inventory. That playstyle serves you well until around level five, or whenever you enter the Underdark and fight casters.

At this point, you have a variety of Maneuvers that can help take over fights. As Lae’zel benefits your party the most as a melee damage dealer, target the squishiest caster you can see in the backlines. Use Rush Attack to get her close, and then rampage on them with Menacing Attack and the bonus action of Polearm Master.

Lae’zel has a pool of four that refresh on short rest, making them extremely spammable. You get 12 per day, after all. Use them in combats whether they’re hard or easy to soften foes up. Usually, once per turn is all you need.

If your Lae’zel is in a party with high-damage members like Minthara or Astarion, use Distracting Strike and Trip Attack to weaken foes so that your high-damage, single-attack party members can go wild.

Fights typically have one or two priority targets in BG3, and while Lae’zel can comfortably solo many of them with the right maneuvers, it pays to have party members dogpile major casters. We’ve found Commander’s Strike tends to gum up your action economy and only found it useful on a turn where we desperately need our Paladin to smite three times instead of two.

Try to save Indomitable for spells like Hold Person or Hold Monster. These spells can put Lae’zel out of commission for some time. Giving her another chance to reroll is pretty important since she can solo many different magic users with the Hellbeard Halberd.