Baldur’s Gate 3’s new Giant Barbarian is beating out one of D&D 5e’s oldest powergamer builds, making Karlach the MVP of my second Honour Mode playthrough

With Patch 8 of Baldur’s Gate 3 landing earlier this month, I’ve saddled myself with the accursed duty of completing another Honour Mode playthrough. Given that Patch 8 gives me the constituent parts for one of D&D 5e’s oldest powergamer builds, the Sorcadin, I reckoned I’d give it a go.

The Sorcadin, for the uninitiated, is a delectable entrée built on a fresh bed of one level of Hexblade Warlock, garnished with two levels of Paladin. It’s then paired with as many levels of Sorcerer as you can fit on a plate.

It’s really the best of all worlds, with incredible burst damage achieved by pumping Sorcerer spell slots into your Divine Smites—normally, the Paladin doesn’t get a 3rd-level Divine Smite until level 9. I can do that right now, at level 6.

And since you’re a Hexblade, you can focus on bumping up Charisma instead of your other melee weapon stats—giving you all sorts of potent control spells for when something needs to be locked down instead of straight-up melted. Or you can just use your bonus action to cast Hold Person via the Sorcerer’s Quicken Spell metamagic, giving you an automatic crit on an incoming Booming Blade + Smite face-melting with your main action.

It’s all been going rather swimmingly, and—much to my delight—Larian’s made Booming Blade work mostly as it should, allowing me to use Quicken Spell to cast it twice in one turn. The Sorcadin is almost a 1:1 translation of its tabletop equivalent, and it’s just as strong as I’d hoped.

Yet my Dark Urge munchkin isn’t the MVP of my current playthrough: Karlach, a straight-up, no-nonsense, zero-frills, mono-classed Barbarian is. And that’s because the Giant Barbarian subclass, fresh off the presses with Patch 8, is absolutely, dice-meltingly busted at lower levels. And I don’t think it’ll get much weaker at higher levels, either.

Bigger, better

I am currently at level 7, and I’m just about to tackle the Githyanki Creche, which tends to be the most difficult part of any Honour Mode run’s early days. I’m not that worried, though, because here’s how hard Karlach is hitting, right now:

The Giant Barbarian’s rage doubles their rage bonus to thrown weapon attacks, and she has a Strength of 18. That means before any dice get involved, her trident’s hitting for eight damage. Add 1d8 from her trident, 2d4 from her Ring of Flinging and Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo, and 1d6 from her Elemental Cleaver ability at level 6, and that means each attack whomps foes for an average of 22 damage. At level 6.

I’ve also given her The Sparky Points trident, which’ll occasionally pop off for another d8 of damage. If she crits, that ramps up to 36 average points of pain. This isn’t even taking into account the fact that she can do this twice per turn with Extra Attack, or that I haven’t given her Tavern Brawler yet—which’ll make her far more accurate, and give an extra four points of damage per hit.

Tavern Brawler and the Giant Barbarian’s rage, combined, will eventually add up to 11 extra points of bonus damage per attack come level 9—which means she’ll be hitting slightly harder than a character with Great Weapon Master, which gives you 10 points of damage for a gnarly -5 penalty to your attack rolls. Except in the case of the Giant Barbarian, you don’t need to take Great Weapon Master, or its penalty, at all for the same results.

Now, my Sorcadin has her beat for burst, even though I’m far from my final form. At the moment, a 3rd level Booming Blade smite with all the toppings does 1d6 Piercing + 4d8 Radiant + 1d8 Thunder + 4. Or, in plain English, an average of 30 damage. As I get more spell slots under my belt, I’ll only outpace her further. But there are a few downsides:

• Spell slots are a limited resource, Karlach’s throwing arm is forever.
• I need to spend Sorcery points if I want to attack twice, and I need to use my bonus action to do that.
• I’ve gotta get into melee range for that: Karlach is, essentially, a ranged character.
• Karlach just gets to kick people sometimes.

Oh yeah, I neglected to mention—Giant Barbarians get a free, non-resourced, bonus action punt that can deal damage and also hurl enemies off ledges, into hazard zones, or just away from Karlach so she can throw her weapon at ’em.

All in all, the Giant Barbarian of Patch 8 is an absolute unrepentant monster—especially in the early game—making them a no-brainer choice for any Honour Mode run. Even when my Sorcadin’s operating at its full gish-y might, I’d wager Karlach’s still going to be pulling her weight with consistent, reliable damage.

The Hexblade Sorcadin may one day be king, but until then, Karlach shall protect my smite-happy little Princeling through the horrors of the Githyanki Creche.