Baldur’s Gate 3: The best Lae’zel build in BG3

The abrasive githyanki Lae’zel can be one of the first companions who joins your party as you progress through Baldur’s Gate 3. You initially meet while on the Illithid ship, but she becomes a permanent party member shortly after you crash land.

Given how she acts, you can avoid adding her to your party if you don’t appreciate her attitude. However, if you can get past her rough exterior, she becomes a formidable ally who can greatly assist you throughout your playthrough. As a Fighter, Lae’zel is a tough combatant and shines as a frontline adversary, protecting your team and taking the battle to any foe who crosses your path. Building her to get the most out of her combat prowess can be challenging. Here’s what you need to know about making the best Lae’zel build in Baldur’s Gate 3.

The best build for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

Lae’zel is a Fighter in Baldur’s Gate 3, which means she excels in fighting (groundbreaking, we know). Although you can build her for melee or ranged combat, you primarily want to focus on putting her directly against your enemies and have her fighting in close quarters. You can expect her to take a few hits during these fights, and she can dish out a lot of damage that should make short work of any enemy who challenges you.

There are several factors you want to consider when you level up Lae’zel: Ability stats, subclass, combat maneuvers, feats, and multiclass options.

Best stats for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

These are some of the best stats you can find Lae’zel.

When building Lae’zel, you want to focus on the stats that enhance her combat style, which means putting points in Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity.

Lae’zel boasts a robust Strength score of 17, making her a formidable melee combatant immediately when you get her. Consider enhancing her Strength further through the Ability Score Improvement feat at level four for an even mightier punch, or you can choose to increase her Constitution to improve the amount of hit points she has during combat.

While her Dexterity and Wisdom might leave something to be desired, a respectable Constitution score of 15 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 fantastic. During Act Two, there’s a potion called Potion of Everlasting Vigor you can also give her, which is a good idea if you don’t take it for your character or another party member.

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. We will not be using the respec function for this guide, instead focusing on the way Lae’zel is first presented to us during Baldur’s Gate 3.

Best Fighting Style for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

Before picking a subclass for Lae’zel, you’ll be asked to choose a Fighting Style. You do this at level one for Fighters. A Fighter’s Fighting Style gives them a bonus when they use a specific tactic in combat, and this ranges from an extra point in their armor class to giving them attack and damage bonuses when using a particular type of weapon.

Because we’re going to keep Lae’zel in melee combat and we want her to become a Battle Master in Baldur’s Gate 3, the best choices you want to select are Defense or Great Weapon Fighting. Defense gives Lae’zel an additional point in her armor class, which is always great—being more difficult to hit is never a bad thing. However, if you plan to keep her as the aggressive option, giving her Great Weapon Fighting might be better.

With Great Weapon Fighting, if she rolls a one or a two for her damage die, she gets to reroll that damage to increase how much she will hit a target. This makes it more difficult for Lae’zel to have low damage numbers whenever she lands a hit. However, you must ensure she always has a Two-Handed melee weapon in her hand to take advantage of this choice.

The Defense Fighting Style might be the superior option if you don’t want to think about it, and especially if you plan to make Lae’zel a Champion. Still, we don’t recommend that route unless you plan for her to be a primary tank rather than a damage dealer on your team.

The best subclass for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

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 as a pure build and Champion for hybrid builds. We’ll also touch on our favorite feats and class features to pick.

Best Battle Master combat maneuvers for in Baldur’s Gate 3

When selecting Lae’zel for Battle Master, she unlocks her proficiency dice, and can begin using combat maneuvers—the huge element separating the subclass from Champion. These are unique attacks exclusively available for the Battle Master, and they can use them in place of traditional attacks. Although these attacks can deal damage, they also cause status effects or open up new opportunities for Lae’zel and other members of your Baldur’s Gate 3 party, such as knocking a target prone or giving disadvantage to enemies for their attack rolls.

These are some of the best combat maneuvers you can pick from for Lae’zel as a Battle Master Fighter.

These maneuvers are not in any 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, Commander’s Strike may work better if you want to blow an enemy up and have a Rogue or Paladin who can do the deed.

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.

The primary strategy for Lae’zel is to walk up to enemies and knock them down as quickly as possible. She wants to serve as the aggressive fighter in your party and lead the charge. However, this gets more complicated as spellcasters start to become more common. You can deal with this by having Lae’zel focus on targeting these weaker enemies, or have her avoid them in favor of the stronger foes. The choice is yours, but a good idea is to provide a way for Lae’zel to teleport around the map, such as finding the Amulet of Misty Step in the Myconid Colony.

Best feats for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

You want to keep Lae’zel a pure Fighter for many of your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthroughs. There are benefits to multiclassing, but if you’re looking for the best build for Lae’zel, she wants every level that a Battle Master Fighter can get, which means reaching level 12. Several times as you level up as a Fighter, there are instances to earn Ability Score Improvements or Feats. If you’re looking to give Lae’zel more utility and special talents during a battle, there are multiple favorable Feats you can pick from.

Best Lae’zel multiclass build in Baldur’s Gate 3

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 mad at everything. Well, more mad than usual. Many of our tips for the Fighter work for the multiclass build, with a few minor exceptions.

If you plan to multiclass Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3, stick to only going four levels in another class. This way, you don’t miss out on too many of the benefits from the Fighter class, and you can still benefit from dipping into another one, especially if you’re going for another subclass. For example, unlocking Barbarian and giving Lae’zel Berserker or Wildheart are great choices, allowing her more ways to use her bonus attack and the every-fight benefit of Rage. Allowing her to use Reckless Attack as a Fighter can do some heavy damage, but she has to land the hit.

There’s also the option to dip into a Rogue. This could be a great choice if you want to avoid making her purely a tank, and plan to dish out a even more damage than she was already dealing. However, this does mean you don’t want to abandoned her Dexterity score, and you have to give up Two-handed Weapon Fighting. Rogues greatly benefit from sneaking around and using daggers and shortswords. You can still use these as Lae’zel, but if you want to use Sneak Attack dice, using a Finesse weapon is a requirement.

Unfortunately, Lae’zel is tough to multiclass with as she needs to have the best stats for many other classes. She doesn’t work well as a spellcaster, as her Intelligence and Wisdom scores are low, and she can’t use Bard, Sorcerer, or Paladin because she has low Charisma scores. While you can improve these using the respec feature, you’re better off leaning into Lae’zel’s strengths for your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough, which means relying on Barbarian and Rogue.

Best magic items for Lae’zel in Baldur’s Gate 3

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.

Best Lae’zel build summary for Baldur’s Gate 3

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. You can utilize Lae’zel for your party in multiple ways, and keeping her build flexible is essential. This might change depending on your encounter, especially as you get closer to Act Three and tangle with some of the strongest combatants in the game.

Here’s a summary of the best Lae’zel build in Baldur’s Gate 3.