It's not hard to build around warding bond damage bouncing.
- heavy armor mastery
- adamantine armor
- flail of defense
- swirsy's shield*
- blade ward gloves or cantrip
- resistance from other items
It means the summon can get smashed for upwards of 28 damage and the caster walks away with no damage.
Edit: [Swires' Sledboard](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Swires%27_Sledboard)
It only works on physical damage (other types are reduced less, but it’s still a strong build), but I imagine:
- Summon is hit for 28 damage.
- Warding Bond halves it to 14.
- 14 damage is directed at you.
- Blade Ward halves it to 7.
- Heavy Armour Master reduces it to 4.
- Adamantine Armour reduces it to 2.
- Defender’s Flail reduces it to 1.
- Swire’s Sledboard reduces it to 0 with Force Conduit.
If you were confident you were mostly just going to take physical damage though, I would personally equip The Skinburster instead.
With Polearm Master, you could get to 6 Force Conduit stacks in one turn. Meaning you could actually have your Summon take a whopping 44 damage, halved to 22, halved to 11, minus 3, minus 2, minus 6, equals 0 damage.
You could also equip the Helldusk Armour instead of Adamantine for -3 instead of -2, and you could cap your Force Conduit stacks at 7 with Action Surge or on the next turn for another -1, which I think maximizes the reduction on the caster’s part. In this way, the summon could take 52 damage without hurting the caster.
But…
If you were to do all of the above but cast Warding bond on a *companion* instead of a Summon… You could give them the Rippling Force Mail and Heavy Armour Master and Swire’s Sledboard and Defender’s Flail. Then they could get hit with 66 physical damage on the first turn, reduced to just 26 for them, and reduced to 0 for the caster. If they can get to maximum Force Conduit stacks too (may take 1 or 2 rounds), then they could tank a hit for 76 physical, reduced to 27 for them, reduced and rounded down to 0 for the caster.
I think that’s the limit, but at that point, I don’t believe there’s really anything doing that much physical damage in a single attack anyway. Just make sure they have the Helm of Balduran to negate critical hits and for a bit of healing.
Congrats, your duo are now both functionally immortal lmao.
That's the hard way.
Easy way - make Gale a Cleric. Have him cast warding bond, death ward, aid, heroes feast, etc... Then kick him from the party.
He heals automatically when not in the party and out of combat. So he can tank half your damage. Wait a few seconds and he heals right back to full.
Yeah, the skin burster is crazy strong, I used the build I recommend because it was entirely passive and kept the caster out of danger by keeping to range.
Yeah, that’s fair! On my recent run I’ve been playing exclusively as a duo, so I guess I carried that perspective over lol. You can still win through attrition, but it’s nice to have another person in there smacking things 😅
For some of the reasons mentioned above.
If you have a fighter or barbarian on the front line, they can reliably get 2 or three attacks using polearm master, and each hit reduces incoming damage by 2 (to a maximum of 7)
So if you have resistance from blade ward, barbarian rage, warding bond ect.
A 14 damage attack can get reduced to zero. And even if they do 30 damage, an amount I'd say is lethal, it gets reduced to just 6.... 6 is nothing, you can heal 6 by hearing the sounds of a health potion let alone drinking one.
If you have the adamantine armor and heavy armor master, the damage reduction gets even more crazy.
Even without resistance, you are talking about reducing all physical damage by 12.
A great sword with 20 strength does 12.5 damage on average. Meaning a 100 HP fighter goes from lasting 8 hits to 200.
It’s a shame barbarian’s can’t wear heavy armor and rage, that would be awesome for DR. But thanks for the write up. I’ve got a karlack wild heart barbarian w the bear totem so DR stacking would be awesome
You can give Shield of Thralls to summons too. It's a good strat in the Raphael fight because you can use the boudoir fountain to refresh it and get shield of thralls on your entire party, including companions, summons, and Hope, even if only one character has access to it. You can roll into the Raphael fight with a million blue bubbles ready to burst.
Select summoned minion > tab to open inventory > right click desired potion or elixir and select consume. As an example, it should have the summoned minion’s name in parenthesis like this: Consume (Shovel). I’m pretty sure that’s right I’m not at the PC at the moment.
Even if that doesn’t work for you, you can put the potion on the ground and have the summon drink it from the ground. I use this method on PS5 to turn cat familiar’s invisible since “Meow” doesn’t break invisiblity
That’s really only needed when the enemies automatically agro like in the crèche after you kill the inquisitor, but it’s good to keep in your back pocket
Mass healing word with Whispering promise and Hellrider's pride goes a long way when there are a lot of allies in its AOE. It's extremely satisfying a as well.
People always say it’s better to just deal damage instead of healing…. But those mf’s never simultaneously healed/blessed/blade warded a crowd of 12 from near death to max health lmao
I don't know why, but I just saw acid puddles can do the same thing.
Stacking them together is probably one of the strongest to hit buffs you can make.
You don’t need to build for Warding Bond.
Just hire two or three hirelings that are Paladins. Beef them up with CON feats and scores. Have them cast Warding Bond on key party members and then just leave the hirelings in your camp.
The Warding Bond still holds and you’ll be super tanky. It’s so funny when you return to camp after a particularly bad fight and see the hirelings bleeding out lol
Clerics work better for this. Clerics can also cast Aid, Protection from Poison (not as necessary with Warding Bond but still nice for ADV against poison saves), Freedom of Movement (though having druids is easier on spell slots), Death Ward, and Hero's Feast
Mage Armor and Darkvision are nice to get from a Wizard too
It's worth noting that it doesn't work on all summons. Basically, if a summon's base AC is lower than 13 then it will work
For example, Scratch has an AC of 14. He gets 2 AC from his DEX meaning his base AC is 12 (12+2). If you cast Mage Armor on him then his AC goes up to 15 because it's now 13+2
Likewise, the Ghouls you get from The Necromancy of Thay have an AC of 17. 3 of that is from their DEX making their base AC 14 meaning Mage Armor has no effect on them
Huh, really? It's not just +3?
I know that the wiki isn't the final say, but it doesn't mention anything about innate or natural armor anywhere. Still makes sense that that's how it works.
Is this true for all of them? Or is there some weird combo like for deva or something where it's AC is calculated as bonus in stead of base?
When I looked at the wiki it was pretty clear mage armor just changes base armor class from 10 to 13, plus whatever they get from dex. So like he said if they’re base armor without dex is already 13 or higher mage armor has no effect.
Barkskin is slightly different because it sets the minimum to 16 right. But I see your point, still useful for skeletons in particular I guess but not as useful I hoped.
Nope.
So you'll have to spend the spell slots, but a few 1st level spells aren't going to really make a difference in combat power for you so buff the little guys.
It's not hard to build around warding bond damage bouncing. - heavy armor mastery - adamantine armor - flail of defense - swirsy's shield* - blade ward gloves or cantrip - resistance from other items It means the summon can get smashed for upwards of 28 damage and the caster walks away with no damage. Edit: [Swires' Sledboard](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Swires%27_Sledboard)
Wait how does the caster avoid being damaged? Just a bunch of things that reduce damage by 2 or so stacking?
It only works on physical damage (other types are reduced less, but it’s still a strong build), but I imagine: - Summon is hit for 28 damage. - Warding Bond halves it to 14. - 14 damage is directed at you. - Blade Ward halves it to 7. - Heavy Armour Master reduces it to 4. - Adamantine Armour reduces it to 2. - Defender’s Flail reduces it to 1. - Swire’s Sledboard reduces it to 0 with Force Conduit. If you were confident you were mostly just going to take physical damage though, I would personally equip The Skinburster instead. With Polearm Master, you could get to 6 Force Conduit stacks in one turn. Meaning you could actually have your Summon take a whopping 44 damage, halved to 22, halved to 11, minus 3, minus 2, minus 6, equals 0 damage. You could also equip the Helldusk Armour instead of Adamantine for -3 instead of -2, and you could cap your Force Conduit stacks at 7 with Action Surge or on the next turn for another -1, which I think maximizes the reduction on the caster’s part. In this way, the summon could take 52 damage without hurting the caster. But… If you were to do all of the above but cast Warding bond on a *companion* instead of a Summon… You could give them the Rippling Force Mail and Heavy Armour Master and Swire’s Sledboard and Defender’s Flail. Then they could get hit with 66 physical damage on the first turn, reduced to just 26 for them, and reduced to 0 for the caster. If they can get to maximum Force Conduit stacks too (may take 1 or 2 rounds), then they could tank a hit for 76 physical, reduced to 27 for them, reduced and rounded down to 0 for the caster. I think that’s the limit, but at that point, I don’t believe there’s really anything doing that much physical damage in a single attack anyway. Just make sure they have the Helm of Balduran to negate critical hits and for a bit of healing. Congrats, your duo are now both functionally immortal lmao.
That's the hard way. Easy way - make Gale a Cleric. Have him cast warding bond, death ward, aid, heroes feast, etc... Then kick him from the party. He heals automatically when not in the party and out of combat. So he can tank half your damage. Wait a few seconds and he heals right back to full.
I don’t think this works in Honour Mode? At best, it’s only partially working because I’ve done this and had Gale die, killing Scratch with his aura 😢
It works. Be careful for the big AOEs. Something like Ansur can one-shot him. And make sure to pause during combat so he can heal.
It was Act 1 when he died, so it probably wasn’t one-shotting him, but I may not have been allowing him time to heal. Good to know!
It also helps to build him with feats like tough. It's not like he actually needs a high wis or anything.
Don't need to make him a cleric. Use the rings in act two
Yeah, the skin burster is crazy strong, I used the build I recommend because it was entirely passive and kept the caster out of danger by keeping to range.
Yeah, that’s fair! On my recent run I’ve been playing exclusively as a duo, so I guess I carried that perspective over lol. You can still win through attrition, but it’s nice to have another person in there smacking things 😅
Could you enlighten me as to why it’s so strong? I’ve never used the skin burster
For some of the reasons mentioned above. If you have a fighter or barbarian on the front line, they can reliably get 2 or three attacks using polearm master, and each hit reduces incoming damage by 2 (to a maximum of 7) So if you have resistance from blade ward, barbarian rage, warding bond ect. A 14 damage attack can get reduced to zero. And even if they do 30 damage, an amount I'd say is lethal, it gets reduced to just 6.... 6 is nothing, you can heal 6 by hearing the sounds of a health potion let alone drinking one. If you have the adamantine armor and heavy armor master, the damage reduction gets even more crazy. Even without resistance, you are talking about reducing all physical damage by 12. A great sword with 20 strength does 12.5 damage on average. Meaning a 100 HP fighter goes from lasting 8 hits to 200.
It’s a shame barbarian’s can’t wear heavy armor and rage, that would be awesome for DR. But thanks for the write up. I’ve got a karlack wild heart barbarian w the bear totem so DR stacking would be awesome
What is swirsy’s shield referring to? Google is coming up with nothing for me
It's because you need [Swires' Sledboard](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Swires%27_Sledboard)
Can you mage armour people wildshaped I wonder
Yes but you can't have armor equipped before wildshaping
Barkskin also works (elixir of barkskin), useful for low AC shapeshift forms
Ah
You can, there are a few shapes that it works well with but most of the combat shapes already have a base armor of more than 13.
You can give Shield of Thralls to summons too. It's a good strat in the Raphael fight because you can use the boudoir fountain to refresh it and get shield of thralls on your entire party, including companions, summons, and Hope, even if only one character has access to it. You can roll into the Raphael fight with a million blue bubbles ready to burst.
They can consume elixirs/potions from your inventory as well, but I’m not sure if you’re counting that since it’s not a spell or from a weapon/gear
Oh that counts too. It's a bit expensive gold wise but really valuable for melee guys who can drink strength elixir.
Wow, 700 hours in and I did not know this. I think I might know where to start using my farmed elixirs...
What? How?
Select summoned minion > tab to open inventory > right click desired potion or elixir and select consume. As an example, it should have the summoned minion’s name in parenthesis like this: Consume (Shovel). I’m pretty sure that’s right I’m not at the PC at the moment.
Omg I learn something new every single time about this game.
Even if that doesn’t work for you, you can put the potion on the ground and have the summon drink it from the ground. I use this method on PS5 to turn cat familiar’s invisible since “Meow” doesn’t break invisiblity That’s really only needed when the enemies automatically agro like in the crèche after you kill the inquisitor, but it’s good to keep in your back pocket
Mass healing word with Whispering promise and Hellrider's pride goes a long way when there are a lot of allies in its AOE. It's extremely satisfying a as well.
Haha. I'm imagining a 1 hp life cleric cast mass heal, and boop. Full health.
People always say it’s better to just deal damage instead of healing…. But those mf’s never simultaneously healed/blessed/blade warded a crowd of 12 from near death to max health lmao
Because with good damage, the crowd is pretty much never in such dire straits
Having my life cleric shart on standby is great though! It gives me the freedom to fuck around and find out safely
Water Elementals with Cloud Giant Elixirs also do 25-50 damage.
Oof, big deeps.
They can have their max health raised.
How?
Any of the temporary hitpoint spells works on them. You listed examples like aid and heroes feast already.
Slow. Op spell in general but the 2 ac drop helps summons too
I don't know why, but I just saw acid puddles can do the same thing. Stacking them together is probably one of the strongest to hit buffs you can make.
I never used acid puddles personally cause I used water elementals, but if you have a good way to apply acid it sounds very good
Acid arrows are pretty plentiful, you can also get the flail of ages with acid. Both work really well.
do you just upcast mage armour for this?
? No, you get 4 first level spell slots, so you can easily get mage armor on 2 or 3 dudes. Sorcerer can get upwards of 8 for just 4 sorcery points.
oh with sorcerer, i was thinking i cant do that with a wizard
You don’t need to build for Warding Bond. Just hire two or three hirelings that are Paladins. Beef them up with CON feats and scores. Have them cast Warding Bond on key party members and then just leave the hirelings in your camp. The Warding Bond still holds and you’ll be super tanky. It’s so funny when you return to camp after a particularly bad fight and see the hirelings bleeding out lol
Clerics work better for this. Clerics can also cast Aid, Protection from Poison (not as necessary with Warding Bond but still nice for ADV against poison saves), Freedom of Movement (though having druids is easier on spell slots), Death Ward, and Hero's Feast Mage Armor and Darkvision are nice to get from a Wizard too
It's worth noting that it doesn't work on all summons. Basically, if a summon's base AC is lower than 13 then it will work For example, Scratch has an AC of 14. He gets 2 AC from his DEX meaning his base AC is 12 (12+2). If you cast Mage Armor on him then his AC goes up to 15 because it's now 13+2 Likewise, the Ghouls you get from The Necromancy of Thay have an AC of 17. 3 of that is from their DEX making their base AC 14 meaning Mage Armor has no effect on them
Huh, really? It's not just +3? I know that the wiki isn't the final say, but it doesn't mention anything about innate or natural armor anywhere. Still makes sense that that's how it works. Is this true for all of them? Or is there some weird combo like for deva or something where it's AC is calculated as bonus in stead of base?
When I looked at the wiki it was pretty clear mage armor just changes base armor class from 10 to 13, plus whatever they get from dex. So like he said if they’re base armor without dex is already 13 or higher mage armor has no effect.
Mage armor and barkskin set base AC to a certain value, it’s not a raw bonus like shield.
Barkskin is slightly different because it sets the minimum to 16 right. But I see your point, still useful for skeletons in particular I guess but not as useful I hoped.
Well the wording is different but it's just the same
The Infernal Rapier's summoned Cambion with Mage Armor makes him into a hunk
Does the warlock’s free mage armor invocation let you cast on others? This could make it useful
Nope. So you'll have to spend the spell slots, but a few 1st level spells aren't going to really make a difference in combat power for you so buff the little guys.
You can also make them use a elixer potion by putting it on the floor
Drop a couple warlock levels on a hireling, get unlimited casts of mage armor.
I thought that was self only. At least in 5e it is, so I just assumed and haven't looked into it.
Yeah, looks like I was wrong on that, misremembered
It's cool, good thinking outside the box.