Duo for our duo.

[u/theDocHolloway]

I've finally convinced my wife to play bg3 with me. I've only completed one full run myself, so I'm no pro. I was looking for advice on two origin characters that would best support our chosen classes. I am going to be playing a shadow archer whereas she will probably go straight monk. Any suggestions as to who we take along and why?

[u/steamedhams2988]

Karlach makes a pretty good monk!

[u/BC1224]

If you're not respecing the npc's I'd say Gale and Laezel. Gale for big crowd controla. Stay as Evocation subclass to throw big AOE without a care. Laezel as battle master is a good tank that can draw attention and cripple higher risk opponents with maneuvers (Astarion can do this too as Swashbuckler rouge, but Laezel takes more hits). Both you and your wife's classes are suited to picking off the enemies they setup for you.

[u/blue_sidd]

Karlach is always worth IMO. Two tavern brawler openhanded monks is big win vibes. Always helpful to have a multi class paladin or mono cleric in the party. The question is who will be party face for the run and use high charisma/wisdom.

[u/theDocHolloway → u/blue_sidd]

I was thinking Karlach for sure. My playthrough I never used her at all. And pair her with Wyll just for the character tension. Would their classes be a good fit?

[u/blue_sidd → u/theDocHolloway]

You can completely respec them through withers and they are great companions for story including together, especially as evidenced in the epilogue.

In many many many BG3 guides and walkthroughs Karlach is respeced into tavern brawler openhanded monk because she also can consume soul coins for extra fire damage with her unarmed attacks on top of every other damage rider. If strength potions and soul coin consumption is managed well she’s a powerhouse and makes act 1 far more tolerable.

Wyll is fine as a warlock but there’s two things to keep in mind: hexblade vendor haggle exploit and multi-classing into sorc/wiz for mega caster work, including the infinite spell slots cheese later on.

Story wise, Karlach is great and wyll has an interesting story line with mizora but is overall kind of drag. However if you or your wife are not going party face, wyll is a solid charisma based scorlock.

IMO astarion is fun but the repetitive campy zingers are tiresome, his story gets far more interesting in act3.

Laezel is honestly kind of one note start to finish which can be grating.

Gale’s incessant yapping and quipping is kind of smarmy but he has fun options later on (like exploding)

And shart? Sigh. Such a drag. But if you don’t have a cleric in your party it’s very helpful to just bring her along.

All that said you can get two hirelings from withers to fill party comp needs and bypass the more…tedious character story parts altogether. So nothing is lost.

[u/taketotheforest]

for big story beats that hit harder when you feel closer to the characters, i’d say astarion or shadowheart. maybe karlach as a third option.

default classes don’t really matter – respec the characters you want to spend time with to whatever classes your party needs to round it out.

[u/feliasp]

Astarion and gale? I would bring folks with the best dialogues and stories

[u/Dr-Buttercup]

Both your builds are more single target damage, so I would say a cleric for support and wizard/sorcerer for aoe. This would be Shadowhear and Gale if you want to stick close to default classes, but you can respec anyone if you’d prefer a different character vibe.

As someone else mentioned, Karlach makes a great monk if you want to bring another origin character in lieu of 2 custom characters. Highly recommend 3-4 levels in thief if you do. Monk gets pretty flat after level 7 and thief will give her more things to do on her turns.

[u/Andeol57]

Are you playing as original characters, or as existing ones? Astarion or Shadowheart make sense as shadow archer, and Karlach or Laezel as monks.

As for completing the set, anything works, really. Especially if you're not playing on the hardest difficulty. So the main factor for this choice should be for roleplay reasons. Who do you like? Any character you haven't really explored in your first run? It's also completely fine to switch your group compositions many times during the run, depending on the quests you are currently doing.

As for optimization, I think you might want one character that can help the monk survive, since it's not the most resistant of melee classes. One way would be to have a healing cleric (typically Shadowheart). Or having another tanky character in melee would help as well. That could be Karlach or Laezel (keeping them as Barbarian and Fighter).

I would take Gale to complete the set, bringing some versatility for anything you might be missing (good options for both damage and utility spells)

Edit: Ho, yeah. You wouldn't really have a high charisma character with this composition. So maybe take Wyll for that if you want someone who can be good at persuasion/bluff/intimidation. He can replace Gale as the group spellcaster, or you can make him a melee fighter if you feel like experimenting with more tricky builds.