Baldur’s Gate 3 – The Eldritch Barbarian Build Guide

We’re going to, once more, make use of one of the most overpowered feats in the game: Tavern Brawler.

Adding twice your STR mod to both attacks and damage rolls is incredibly powerful. And since it applies to throws, improvised weapons, and unarmed strikes, it has a nice range of options for application.

Some weapons in the game are great to throw, but do not return to our hand. Because of that, we’re going to multiclass as a Fighter and use the Eldritch Kight’s weapon bind to make sure any weapon always returns to our hand after throwing.

Of course, we could just go for a fighter in the first place. But we don’t really need to, and I like the idea of a barbarian using magic not to focus on anything, but just to throw things. The rage is also a nice bonus to our build, and with a high constitution and good equipment, we don’t need to wear any armor to have a high defense.

We could also forego Fighter entirely – after all, a lot of the weapons we will be using return to hand after a throw, so we do not need to bind the weapon. But I don’t find the latter barbarian levels all that useful, and the eldritch knight spells gives us options.

At the end of the day, it’s really up to you to decide whether you want to follow my leveling plan!

A homing weapon is a weapon that naturally returns to your hand when thrown. It is precised in the weapon’s description.

A bound weapon is a weapon on which you have applied the Bind weapon ability (from Warlock’s Pact of the Blade or Fighter’s Eldritch Knight subclasses). This gives it, among other things, the homing characteristic, but it is not built in the weapon.

For the rest of this guide, I will designate any weapon that returns to your hand when thrown as a returning weapon. On the opposite, by melee weapon, I will designate any weapon that you do not want to throw and use only as a melee damage source.

This may seem trivial, but keep in mind that this roles are not immutable: since you can transform any weapon into a returning weapon with Bind weapon, and since (obviously) any returning weapon can be used as a melee weapon, it’s up to you to decide how you will use a weapon: as a melee weapon, a returning weapon, or both.

The two most important characteristics for a Barbarian, by default, are Strength and Constitution and we’re going to do just that. We’re not going to use the defaults, though – a little bit of tweaking allows us to get a +3 in Constitution while keeping the +3 given in Strength.

 

You can make this work with any species, but I recommand going with a Dwarf. There is a special weapon in Act 3 that grants extra benefits to dwarves, and it works super well with this build.

However, if you don’t feel like playing a dwarf, that is 100% OK. The build will still work wonders.

Once again, we’re going to rush Extra attack because it is just too good.

Levels 1 to 2 are not really super important. You get rage, rage charges, and reckless attack to get a risky advantage for one turn. It’s pretty neat as it can be used as a reaction if you miss.

I like going with the Wildheart subclass because you get to cast Speak with Animals which is really nice to have in a lot of situations.

The different bestial hearts all seem good to me. I went with Eagle to be able to dash as a bonus action while raging, to mitigate the low speed of Dwarves and be harder to hit. But you can go with whatever you like.

And it’s going to be… Tavern Brawler (with an extra point in strength). I’m sure you never saw it coming.
At this point, you should have access to the Returning Pike, so you can also start making a lot of throw attacks.

Title says it all. You also get a movement bonus but… it’s not going to last.

Getting fighter levels isn’t absolutely necessary, but it gives us nice options. We get Second Wind, then Action Surge which are nice bonuses.

But the most useful option comes at level 8 with the Eldritch Knight subclass. First, we get the ability to bind our weapon and make it return to hand at will, which means we can chain throws with any weapon, not just a homing weapon.
Second, we get a few magic options like Shield for tanking and Magic Missile to finish off enemies.
Third, we get a cantrip. I went for Friends have advantage in charisma checks. But you can also get a damage option. Bone chill is really nice to prevent enemy heals.

At level 8, the core of the build is set. We have the main source of damage with tavern brawler, we have the ability to throw any weapon and have it return to our hand with the Bind weapon ability, and we have nice, versatile options with spells.

What we’re going to do here is a bit cheeky – we’re going to respec, leave Barbarian at level 3 and push Fighter up to level 5.

No subclass changes, no feat changes. The build will be exactly the same after the respec, save for the loss of the unarmored movement passive that comes with the fifth barbarian level.

The point of this respec is to go for 8 fighter levels and 4 barbarian levels, rather than the opposite. This way, we get stronger Eldritch Knight spells and one extra feat for a total of 4.

 

We push Barbarian to level 4 once more and get Alert to avoid ambushes and for high initiative.

We’re going to get Ability Improvement, and set STR to 18 and DEX to 14.
This amounts to a +2 to attack and damage rolls for throw attacks (thanks to Tavern Brawler) and a +1 to our defense.

You can do this at level 9 and get Alert at level 10 if you so choose.
Your characteristics should now look like that:

 

With this, we get level 2 spells and the option to chain a cantrip and a weapon attack.

I went for Misty step which is super useful to reposition for better throw attacks. The second option is up to you.

I went for Mobile to mitigate the slow aspect of playing a dwarf. You could also go for spell sniper or more ability improvements, though our gear will make this obsolete.

There are essentially three important items that you want to get in act 1 (the rest is up to you). Fortunately, two they are accessible quite early.

Your first throwing weapon is the Returning Pike. It’s a +1 weapon with a d10 for damage, and it has the homing weapon perk to return to your hand when thrown. Be careful, however, it is very easy to miss: you have to buy it from the merchant at the goblin camp before attacking the goblins (if you choose to do so). The weapon can’t be looted on the merchant’s corpse. The goblins in the camp will be hostile as soon as you attack those inside.

To boost your damage, you’ll want the Ring of Flinging which adds 1d4 damage bonus to thrown damage and is sold by the gnome merchant in Emerald Grove.

Finally, towards the end of Act 1 you can get the Gloves of uninhibited Kushigo which have the same effect. You need to rescue a certain dwarf drapped in a mushroom field and then report to his wife.

You can also pick up the Titanstring bow near Waukeen’s rest. You may wonder why we would use a bow – after all, we’re throwing weapons, right? Well, in some situations it is a bit tedious to find a good angle to throw a weapon (especially in places where the ceiling is low, as throwing a weapon involves a more parabolic trajectory than shooting an arrow). So we might as well pick up a good bow to deal damage from afar, just in case. And considering we have no dex and high strength, the Titanstring bow is perfect for that!

There is a lot of gear for us to get in act 2.

At Moonrise Towers, you can pick up the Titanstring bow from one of the merchants if you missed it. Another merchant there sells a piece of clothing that gives you +2 to Consitution, which means more HP and more defence for us.

Also, our friend Dammon sells the Charge-bound Hammer which gains power when it’s an Eldritch Knight’s pact weapon. It is an excellent hybrid option for both melee and throwing attacks that gains lightning damage.

Speaking of lightning damage, I have to mention the Lightning Jaber that you can get by surviving an ambush near the lake below the Grand Mausoleum. It is a fantastic throwing weapon that benefits heavily from all the damage bonuses (Ring, gloves, tavern brawler) we get for throwing attacks. It is not a homing weapon, and neither is the Charge-bound hammer… but that is quickly fixed once you use the bind weapon action of the Eldritch Knight!

The really insane gear comes in Act 3. There are two incredible homing weapons for us.

The first one is the Dwarven Thrower. You can get it at Wyrm’s Crossing by speaking to a merchant, who’s part of Shadowheart’s questline, so make sure she isn’t there. Just convince him to show you his most exotic articles.

This weapon’s most interesting effects only activate if you’re playing a dwarf. So if it’s not your case, you can probably forego this weapon.

And then of course, there’s Nyrulina. You will need to go to the circus, pickpocket the Djinn and steal his ring, then play his game. He’ll teleport you to a remote area and the weapon is in a locked chest near the exit portal. If you can’t open it just add it to your inventory, send it to camp and ask Astarion later.

You might believe that Nyrulina is much more powerful because of the AoE effects, but if you’re playing a dwarf, you want to pick up both weapons. The reason for that is that Nyrulina’s AoE damage isn’t always something you want to exploit (friendly fire, for one reason) and sometimes the Dwarven Thrower will do more damage (on large creatures).

If you want to replace the Titanstring bow, the Gontr Mael that you get by disabling the Steel watch and beating the Titan is probably the best option at this point. It also gives Celestial Haste that doesn’t make you Lethargic when it ends. Even if you don’t use it, you can give it to another party companion.

Finally, if you get to the House of Hope in Hell, you can get the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength, to get your Strength to +6 – and remember, that +6 will apply to both attack and damage rolls when throwing weapons!

Honestly? You just throw weapons at people. However, you need to ensure that you are throwing a returning weapon.

The build basically abuses this returning mechanic, coupled with the Tavern Brawler feat and some interesting damage mechanics[bg3.wiki], to deal massive damage from afar.

Sometimes, the returning weapon you’ve just thrown doesn’t return to hand. Usually, pressing Alt (or whatever button highlights interactible objets for you) to show where my weapon landed fixes it immediately. You should, however, avoid throwing a returning weapon when your hands are empty – it seems to completely block the return of the weapon.

One of the few problems you’re likely to have is that you can’t equip a weapon and use another one for throw attacks if it’s a returning weapon: the returning weapon will replace your main weapon when coming back to your hands.

It may not seem like a big deal as the build focuses on throws. But every now and then, some enemy closes in on you, you want to get rid of him fast, and you wish you dealt a bit more damage with melee attacks.

That’s where your companions come in. A well equipped melee companion like Karlach or Lae’zel will usually make short work of these kinds of problems. If not, you can always use your own melee attacks (or risk an opportunity attack).

It can also be a good idea to start the fight with a good two handed melee weapon, and once your melee companion(s) have the attention of everyone, reposition your character and start using throw attacks.

Unfortunately it kind of goes one way. Switching from a melee weapon to a homing weapon (or from one homing weapon to another) is free: as explained before, once you throw a homing weapon, it replaces any equipped weapon. But to equip back your melee weapon, you have to use an action.

You may be able to avoid this issue by throwing the melee weapon one time. If that weapon is bound to you, it should replace whatever weapon you have equipped, just like any other homing weapon would. You will obviously deal less damage by throwing a weapon that has no synergy with throw attacks, but it can set you up for better melee attacks right after.