This fairy build will focus mostly on the role playing aspect and theme, while still being fairly good in combat. However, it won’t be the most overpowered build, but still absolutely viable for the normal difficulty setting in Baldurs Gate 3. To achieve all that we will use a multiclass of sorcerer, warlock and bard.
Table of Contents
Rating
Sometimes I will colour some things to give them a rating in my personal tier list.
| Tier | A | B | C | D | F |
| Colour | Magenta | Blue | Green | Orange | Red |
Fairy Build – Theme
As the title already suggests the build will be themed around fey magic. In other words, you are going to be a charming, chaotic magic user and if this sounds like a fun thing to roleplay then this might be the build for you!
Fairy Build – Character Creation
In this section, I will quickly go over the character creation process. This means I will suggest some races, spells, attributes and skills.
Race
Generally, you can pick any race you want, but I would suggest you pick one with shield proficiency because that can help a lot with your survivability as a caster. Having this in mind here are my top picks.
Wood Half Elf
Not only is this pick pretty thematic it also gives you access to the mentioned shield proficiency as well as to a stealth proficiency for some stealthy shenanigans and a little extra movement speed, which shouldn’t be underestimated. You also get a particular fitting ability called “Fey Ancestry” which helps you resist some mental crowd control effects. And don’t forget darkvision, which can be useful in some darker areas, though it’s notably less used than in most DnD 5e tabletop games.
Drow Half Elf
If you want to go for a darker fey look maybe you want to take the Drow Half Elf. Choosing this race gives you the praised shield proficiency as well as some nice free extra spells, though you will lose out on an extra skill proficiency. Not to mention that you also get the darkvision ability just like any other half elf.
Human
This one I would mostly just pick because of the shield proficiency and the option of being able to choose any skill proficiency. The extra carry capacity is nice to have, but far from necessary unless you want to hoard everything in your character’s inventory.
Gnome
While this race won’t give you the shield proficiency, it fits the build pretty well, since the gnome’s heritage can be traced back to the fey. A really useful and fun ability the Forest Gnome specifically gets is that they can talk to animals. Unfortunately, gnomes come with a reduced walking speed but do get a better version of the Fey Ancestry ability elven related races get. Darkvision is an additional ability gnomes have in their repertoire.
Class – Sorcerer
At level 1 we will take the sorcerer class because it gives us wonderful proficiency in the constitution saving throw. This will make it much less likely to lose concentration on our precious spells if we take damage.
Subclass – Wildmagic
There haven’t been a lot of builds utilizing the wild magic subclass, because it is fairly chaotic, but this is exactly what we are looking for in this build. With this subclass of the sorcerer, we get Wild Magic and Tides of Chaos. The former gives us wonderful chaotic magical effects if we cast a bunch of spells. The latter will give us an advantage on basically any roll we can make in the game once per short or long rest. Oh, and it also increases the likelihood of the chaotic fey energy in ourself to burst.
Furthermore, those outbursts can have negative and positive effects depending on your situation. This makes the whole game a lot more interesting in my opinion, because you have to adapt to all sorts of different situations. I once had a situation where it literally saved my party’s life, when I was overwhelmed by a high number of enemies. I was about to cast my last spell when suddenly me and all my allies got the blur effect cast on them. That allowed me to survive a little longer and ultimately win the battle. On the other hand, it can make your life quite tricky by setting all the creatures around you on fire including your allies.
Spells
A list of my favourite spells at level 1 for this build. They are mostly a very classic sorcerer selection.
Cantrips
Here you can choose 4 different cantrips. Those spells you can cast an infinite amount of times, with the exception of mage hand. Why larian? If you don’t like the short rest limitation on the mage hand spell, there is a mod that changes this to the classic DnD 5e ruling.
When it comes to your selection of spells, you should always take one damage spell and a few utility ones. Anyway here are the starting cantrips i would choose from:
Offensive Spells
- Ray of Frost (One of the best main damage spells at level 1 for sorcerers and it helps keep the enemies away from you.)
- Fire Bolt (This one does a little more damage than Ray of Frost, but it doesn’t have any other effects)
- Shocking Grasp (It’s nice to have if you end up in melee range with an enemy and can’t escape, but in most cases, you want to avoid those situations, which makes the spell less useful than it appears to be)
Utility Spells
- Friends (This is very good in conversations, especially on normal difficulty and with your high charisma you will probably be the party’s face)
- Light (You need a source of light at some point during this game and why not have it be magical)
- Minor Illusion (It’s very useful for grouping up enemies for your AOE spells and other shenanigans)
- Mage Hand (Be creative with this one, maybe you should pull the lever on the other side with it)
1st Level Spells
You can choose 2 at level 1. I would take one defensive spell because we are very squishy early on in the game. With that said here are some recommendations:
Defensive Spells
- Shield (This is a must if you do not want to die. It significantly increases your armor class for a short while)
- Mage Armor (A nice boost to your armour class, but only get this spell, if you don’t plan on recruiting Gale or any other wizard companion. The reason being, that they can cast it for you on you and they don’t even have to be in your active party after they cast it)
Offensive Spells
- Magic Missile (This is a classic and I would choose this if I want to be more aggressive in the early levels. With the fact that this spell also always hits, it’s a great way to finish enemies of or damage high AC creatures).
- Chromatic Orb (Overhaul it is a decent damage spell. Especially useful if you want to exploit a creature’s vulnerability, though they are rare. You can also use this spell to create elemental surfaces)
Crowd Control Spells
- Sleep (It is very good in the early levels, but drastically loses relevance in the mid to late game and becomes a D-Tier Spell)
Ability Scores
Generally speaking, our main ability score is Charisma, because it is our casting stat, with the second most important being Dexterity and Constitution. Here is a table with my suggested scores:
| Strength (Str) | Dexterity (Dex) | Constitution (Con) | Intelligence (Int) | Wisdom (Wis) | Charisma (Cha) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point Buy: | 8 | 14 | 15 | 8 | 10 | 15 |
| Racial: | +1 | +2 | ||||
| Total: | 8 | 14 | 16 | 8 | 10 | 17 |
Charisma
As you can see we have a score of 17 in Charisma because I am planning on getting a permanent +1 Charisma increase from a certain quest. If you don’t plan on doing that with your character, just reduce the charisma value to 16 and increase any other ability scores to your liking.
Dexterity and Constitution
You can increase your Dexterity to 16 and have your Constitution at 14 if you prefer, but I like to keep my Con higher for the extra HP and Higher Con Saving Throws for concentration spells.
Wisdom
I dislike dumping Wisdom because many useful skills like perception or insight are reliant on that ability score. Wisdom is also a popular saving throw when it comes to mental crowd control spells, so it’s best to not be terrible at it in my opinion.
Strength and Intelligence
Strength and intelligence are going to be your dumpstat, which means we won’t give them any kind of priority. For those stats, we can rely on our trusty companions unless you respec them into something completely different:
- Strength: Lae’zel, Karlach
- Intelligence: Gale
I am planning on writing thematic builds for each origin character, which I will link to, if I don’t forget it.
Skills
The skills I recommend would be all skills that rely on your charisma. The sorcerer class lets you choose 2 from its list of which 3 are charisma based skills. Of course, you can pick any of the other skills the sorcerer gives access to but here are the two skills I would take for the most thematic build:
- Deception (Fey have the reputation to lie a lot therefore it seems quite fitting)
- Persuasion (I like this one more than Intimidation because I tend to play good characters, but if you prefer a darker approach then Intimidation is the way to go)
Fey Build – Levelling
Below you find a table where you find all the options quickly for each level, but if you want to get into the nitty-gritty details of why I have chosen certain things, then you can find those explanations below the table.
| Total Level | Class | Class Level | Options/Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sorcerer | 1 | See Character Creation |
| 2 | Warlock | 1 | Subclass: “The Archfey” | Cantrips: “Eldritch Blast, Any other” | 1st LvL Spell: “Armor of Agathys, Hex” |
| 3 | Warlock | 2 | 1st LvL Spell: “Hellish Rebuke” | Eldritch Invocations: “Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast” |
| 4 | Sorcerer | 2 | Metamagic: “Twinned Spell, Distant Spell” | 1st LvL Spell: “Any from the Character Creation Section” |
| 5 | Sorcerer | 3 | Metamagic: “Quickened Spell” | 2nd LvL Spell: “Misty Step” |
| 6 | Sorcerer | 4 | Cantrip: “Any Cantrip” | 2nd LvL Spell: “Mirror Image” | Feat: “Ability Improvement: +2 Cha” |
| 7 | Sorcerer | 5 | 3rd LvL Spell: “Haste” |
| 8 | Sorcerer | 6 | 3rd LvL Spell: “Counterspell” |
| 9 | Sorcerer | 7 | 3rd LvL Spell: “Fireball” |
| 10 | Bard | 1 | Cantrips: “Any Cantrip” | 1st Level Spells: “Healing Word, Dissonant Whispers, Disguise Self, Fairy Fire” | Instrument: “Any” | Skill Proficiency: “Any Cha based” |
| 11 | Bard | 2 | 1st Level Spell: “Any Spell” |
| 12 | Bard | 3 | Subclass: “College of Lore” | 2nd LvL Spell: “Blindness” | Skills Proficiency: “Any Charisma Skill or Dexterity Skill, Insight, Perception” | Skill Expertise: “Any 2 of your favourite charisma based skills” |
Class Level distribution: 7 Sorcerer / 2 Warlock / 3 Bard
1. Level
Just look at the character creation section.
2. Level
I prefer to multiclass very early on so we can get our main damage source as quickly as possible. Multiclassing into Warlock will give us access to the best damage cantrip in the game called Eldritch Blast.
Armour of Agathys, will give us a nice HP increase and a potential damage source if an enemy decides to make a melee attack against us. Hex will be our go-to concentration spell early on to enhance our single target damage.
The Archfey subclass, I have chosen for flavour obviously and it also has a decent crowd-control ability if the enemies get too close.
3. Level
I continued levelling the warlock class to level 2 because this will give us access to Invocations. For invocations, Agonizing Blast is a must! It will drastically increase our damage output of eldritch blast because it allows us to add our charisma modifier to our damage. The next invocation is not so important, but Repelling Blast is always a good option because it allows us to push enemies away with our Eldritch Blast Cantrip, without them having to make any Saving Throw. You can also choose any other Invocation instead of this one if you want.
When it comes to spells I like to take Hellish Rebuke because it gives us an extra Reaction that allows us to damage an enemy when we take damage from them. And it is fairly useful, because at some point you will get hit, even with mage armour, the shield spell and a shield in your hand. But it is for sure not the most important spell and you can choose any other spell you want from the warlock spell list.
4. Level
Now we will continue taking levels in Sorcerer until we hit level 7 in Sorcerer. With us being a sorcerer level 2 now we get access to our first Meta Magic options. The options you get here are not the most important. The most important one we get at Sorcerer level 3. For now, though my recommendations, when it comes to meta magic are:
- Twinned Spell, because later we get the Haste Spell and are able to cast it on ourselves and your ally. This will basically double your damage output.
- Distant Spell, sometimes you will be out of range and then this spell comes in handy.
Since we still only have access to LvL 1 spells, because we are a Sorcerer LvL 2, you can just look at the character creation section and choose one of the recommended ones or choose any other spell you prefer. Remember you are not forced to use any recommendations.
5. Level
As a now LvL 3 Sorcerer we get access to another big puzzle piece, the Quickened Spell meta magic option. It allows us to cast a spell as a bonus action instead of a normal action. This means we basically can cast Eldritch Blast two times in a row on a turn. Therefore we can get very high burst damage once per long rest, or more if we sacrifice some Spellslots to gain meta magic charges.
Next we also finally get access to LvL 2 spells. Here we will take the famous Misty Step spells that allow us to quickly reposition if we end up in a bad situation.
6. Level
Because we are a LvL 4 Sorcerer, we will be able to choose a feat. If you got a certain buff in Act 1 that increases one of our stats by +1. For this character, I hope you chose the charisma score. Therefore, when following this build from the start, you should have an 18 in the charisma score. So now when we take the Ability Score Increase and give us a +2 Charisma we will have reached 20 points in Charisma and it will basically be maxed out already. But if you didn’t get the buff from Act 1 or gave it to another character or chose a different stat to buff you will be now sitting at an 18, which still isn’t too shabby. Don’t worry you will be able to get to a 20 charisma score with an Item from Act 3, just look at the item section of this post in the table under headwear.
We also get access to an additional cantrip, where you can choose any cantrip you like because it’s not really important at this point, as well as to an additional 2nd LvL spell. For this spell, we take the Mirror Image spell for an additional defensive buff. Also, illusion spells are pretty fey-like.
7. Level
Now as a LvL 5 Sorcerer, we will be able to cast Lvl 3 Spells and the spell we are going to take here is very important. We will take the Haste spell. With this spell, we get an extra action, which we can use to cast an additional eldritch blast for an even higher damage output. The important thing to note is, that this spell is also a concentration spell, meaning it will basically replace the Hex spell we got earlier from the warlock class, as long as we have the spellslots to cast a 3rd LvL spell. So now can cast 3 spells per turn.
8. Level
For now, the last two levels in Sorcerer we take won’t be too exciting, but they give access to a few good spells I would like to take. The order in which you take them isn’t all too important. Here I would like to take the Counterspell spell. This spell basically allows us to shut down enemy casters who cast potent spells we don’t want them to cast.
9. Level
This will be our last level in Sorcerer and there is one thing that we are still lacking, which is a good area of effect damage (AEO) spell. To fill this gap in our repertoire I suggest we take one of the most famed and best AEO damage spells in DnD 5e called Fireball. Feel free to take any other AEO spell like Ice Storm.
10. Level
Finally, we have all our bases covered and I feel like we finally can build in some more fey flavour by multiclassing into Bard. Our spell progression won’t really be hampered by this, since we still get our LvL 5 spellslots, but not any true LvL 5 Spells, only upscaled versions of our previous spells.
First of all, we get 2 cantrips, where you can literally choose any cantrips you like. For the 1st LvL spells, I would take:
- Healing Word, it’s always good to have a second emergency heal option, in case your main support goes down.
- Dissonant Whispers does decent damage and gives a good debuff on an enemy. Also, I think it’s fairly thematic.
- Disguise Self, even though it might not be the best spell, it fits our chaotic tricky fey theme very well.
- Fairy Fire, I mean with this name we already have to take it. Also, it’s great for giving everyone in your party an advantage on a group of enemies. And it helps a lot when dealing with invisible enemies.
As for the instrument you can choose any that fits your style, my personal favourite is the Flute, because for me personally it just screams fey to me.
For the skill selection, just choose any charisma based one that you haven’t unlocked yet.
11. Level
As a Bard LvL 2 We get access to one additional 1st LvL spell, where you can literally choose any spell that floats your boat. The Song of Rest feature herby helps us with the regeneration of our Warlock spell slots, while the Jack of all Traits ability gives us a nice boost to all our skills.
12. Level
This will be our last LvL in the whole game, congratulations you got this far, well done! With the celebration out of the way we can now look at the last level of Bard we are going to take. First of all, we will take the College of Lore subclass.
We get a wonderful ability called Cutting Words, which allows us to use our reaction to debuff an enemy with some witty jokes. Very fey like.
Next, we gain 3 skill proficiencies, here I choose any charisma or dexterity based skills as well as perception and insight. Additionally, we also gain Expertise in 2 skills of our choosing, where I would focus on any charisma based skills to make us even more fierce in the battle of words.
As for 2nd level spells I like to take Blindness to really mess with our enemies. Also, this debuff doesn’t require concentration.
Fairy Build – Items
Here are a few items I would suggest you take a look at to make your build even stronger and more thematic.
| Category | Item Name | Act | Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amulet | Necklace of Elemental Augmentation | 1 | This amulet will enhance our eldritch blast damage, but it only works if you have the Spellsparkler quartestaff which you can get in Act 1 as well. |
| Armor | Potent Robe | 2 | Footwear |
| Cloak | Cloak of the Weave | 3 | This one has everything a caster needs. Higher spell attack and DC as well as a nice defensive feature, which can be turned into extra damage. |
| Footwear | Disintegrating Night Walkers | 1 | They grant protection against some crowd controll and give you an extra free cast of Misty Step once per short rest, which is very handy. |
| Handwear | Daredevil Gloves | 1 | Even though there are rarer alternatives in Act 3, they are mostly focused on burst damage. This one gives you more consistent damage, therefore requiring less resource management. They also have a unique feature that basically negates the penalty of making ranged attack rolls in melee. Therefore if you combine that with repelling blast you can save yourself some spellslots, which you would need to use if you didn’t have these gloves. |
| Headwear | Birthright | 3 | With this item, you will increase your charisma score, which in turn increases all your charisma related abilities. Most importantly it will increase all of our spellcasting abilities. |
| Ring 1 | Risky Ring | 2 | This ring will give you advantage on all attack rolls, so it works with eldritch blast. It increases our chance to hit and to crit and therefore increases our overhaul damage output with this spell. |
| Ring 2 | Ring of Feywild Sparks | 3 | An absolute must-pick if you want to stick to the theme of this build and enhance your wild magic surge further. |
| Shield | Ketheric’s Shield | 2 | If you have access to the shield proficiency, this shield is a great addition, because it is the only one that gives you a higher Spell Attack and DC. |
| Weapon | The Spellsparkler | 1 | You get this staff early on and will keep it until the end because it synergises so well with the Necklace of Elemental Augmentation. |
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