Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Feats: Martial Adept, Tough, and More

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Cody has been in the video game business as part of media and content creation for more than 10 years. During that time, he has contributed and even led some of the largest sites in the world dedicated to gaming and entertainment. He has also dabbled some in PR and was a tester for Activision in the past working on the Call of Duty series. When not playing games or writing about them, he enjoys cooking, sharpening his Japanese skills, and watching the latest anime shows.

Bottom Line Up Front

Feats are similar to passive skills that significantly affect your character in various ways. Some of them simply boost a particular stat or two for your character while others radically change the type of weapons, equipment, or even spells you’re able to use for your particular character. Unfortunately, you can only pick them at levels four, eight, and 12 with your class.

This means, at best, you generally can only pick up to three feats in your entire playthrough. As such, you should carefully pick which feats you want. If I had to pick a feat that is the best among them all for how flexible and helpful it is for everyone, I would pick the Tough feat. Having extra hit points is terrific for anyone no matter the class, so it is a must for pretty much all players.

Selection Criteria

There are so many feats you can pick from in Baldur’s Gate 3 but you can generally only have up to three. As such, I had to be extremely particular in choosing the right feats to recommend to players. Here is how I narrowed the available feats down to only ten in total:

Power: Feats vary in strength and purpose, but you want something powerful, no matter if it is there to increase a stat or add a new skill. It needs to be among the most impressive in this regard.
Versatility: The best feats are better for various classes, rather than a single style or class.
Uniqueness: Any feat can increase a stat, and some of the best do that, but bonus points for a feat that goes above and beyond just raising a stat or two.
Utility: I also appreciate feats that do more than one thing. Some of the singular-focus ones are fine, but feats that give you a boost here and a change in another spot are some of my favorites.
Variety: I also made sure to include a feat type for every single player out there. If you’re a ranged spellcaster, I’ve got you. If you prefer to be the tank in every foe’s face, you’ll find something here for you and so on.

Tips for Choosing Feats

Before you take a look at the list below and start using it to figure out the three or so right feats for your particular playthrough, there are some tips you should know about:

Take a careful look at the recommended classes below. I note what types of players and classes you should use that feat. If you don’t see your class or playstyle noted there, chances are it might not be the most efficient for you.
That said, you can still find a use for most feats for most playstyles, but just know that it may not necessarily be the most effective way to go about your build.
Try to use feats to increase the flexibility of your class. For instance, if you are a melee class, you might want something like Magic Initiate to give you a better chance to use magic, which you may want in various battles.
You can stack some feats, such as Ability Improvements. This way, you can raise or even max out several stats but know that doing this prevents you from fleshing out your build more through other feats.
Finally, if these aren’t enough feats for you, I suggest looking into mods like the level 20 cap mod, which raises the overall level cap and ensures you can pick more feats to expand your build further.

Top 10 Best Feats in Baldur’s Gate 3

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the top ten best feats you’ll ever find in Baldur’s Gate 3. I’ll note what type of feat it is, how it works with its buffs and changes, and, most importantly, who it is for. Hopefully, this list will help you find the right feats to use for your particular character, class, and build.

10. Alert

Feat Type: Passive Boost
Feat Effect: The player with this feat receives a plus five bonus to their Initiative and can’t be surprised by enemies.
Recommend Classes: All classes and characters who lead the party. Every class can benefit from this one if you are the leader of the party.

Starting off this list strong, we have one of the few feats I find necessary for just about every class and type of player in the game. If you are playing as your custom character or Origin leader, you’ll be guiding the group throughout the various areas of the game.

This generally means it’ll be your player character if someone initiates combat or stumbles into an ambush. As such, you can heavily benefit from this feat, which grants you a better chance of having initiative when you first start a fight. In addition, though, it also means you can’t be surprised.

Being surprised can be detrimental to many scenarios since you won’t have the advantage at the start of the fight. This is how you start off on the wrong foot in a fight, so this feat can help with that. It only isn’t higher because there are other ways to more easily avoid being surprised in the game.

9. War Caster

Feat Type: Passive, Combat
Feat Effect: Players now have an advantage on concentrating for a spell. They also can use a reaction to cast a Shocking Grasp on a foe who runs away.
Recommend Classes: All magical or adjacent classes and subclasses. Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Wizard, Warlock, and more.

One of the most annoying flaws about the ranged magical characters in Baldurs Gate 3 is the fact you can’t do much when it comes to characters attacking you up close. If you try to run away, they’ll probably hit you for an extra attack. If you try to launch a spell at close range, your accuracy will be utterly abysmal.

Fortunately, War Caster can alleviate some of the problems with this flaw. For one, you have a better chance of keeping concentration on your spells, even if someone attacks you first. That is great enough on its own, but the ability to attack someone in close range when they run away from you is incredible.

There is still a drawback to this, though. It’s quite unfortunate that the Shocking Grasp move is a reaction one, which costs a reaction point and possibly a spell slot. It should honestly be an automatic move with no cost, similar to how melee characters automatically slice at you when you run away.

8. Resilient

Feat Type: Stat Boost
Feat Effect: You pick a single ability stat to specialize in and gain an extra point. In addition, you have proficiency when it comes to that stat’s saving throws.
Recommend Classes: All classes. Every class can benefit from an extra stat point and some more resilience. But fragile classes like Druid, Wizard, Warlock, and some Clerics benefit even more.

There are a lot of glass cannon-style classes in this game. If you play a magical spellcaster or ranged character, chances are your health points aren’t as high as everyone else’s, and your defense is utter garbage. Fortunately, you can fix some of this with this feat.

For one, the extra stat boost is wonderful since you could raise your Constitution, for instance, and have more HP. Whatever stat you end up picking, though, it will now give you proficiency in so you have the advantage when it comes to saving throws involving it.

There are some stats that are certainly better than others in this case, such as Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom because of the sheer number of enemies and classes that use them, but you are pretty much good to go in whichever one you prefer.

7. Durable

Feat Type: Stat Boost, Passive
Feat Effect: Your Constitution stat raises by one to a max of 20, and you get full HP back every time you take a short rest in the game.
Recommend Classes: All classes. Every single class can benefit from this reasonably practical and powerful feat. Unless you already have 20 Constitution.

If there is one stat and feature every single class and character in this game needs, no matter what, it’s health. So, the extra boost to Constitution is terrific for everyone in the game for the extra HP. However, this isn’t the part I want to hone in on; it’s the short rest part.

With this feat, you can regain all your hit points every time you rest in the game. It doesn’t have to be a long rest, either. Sure, you only usually have two short rests per long rest, but you’ll get total health back each time instead of the usual half or so.

This effectively doubles your overall survival potential in adventuring throughout the game and reduces the need for long rests. To be fair, long rests back at your campsite aren’t hard to do, and you should usually always have enough supplies, but there are times when you can’t or shouldn’t rest for a long time. This feat makes up for those moments.

6. Martial Adept

martial adept Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Feats

Feat Type: Combat
Feat Effect: You get one superiority die and are able to learn two maneuvers that would otherwise be locked to the Battle Master Fighter.
Recommend Classes: Any class but Battle Master Fighter. But especially melee classes like Rogue, Bard, Paladin, non-Battle Master Fighter, War Cleric, and Barbarian.

One of the most intriguing features in this game is the exclusive subclass techniques like the maneuvers, which only Battle Master Fighters can use. These are pretty powerful attacks and moves that can deal damage, stun enemies, shove them backward, tank for teammates, and so on.

While the moves themselves aren’t too extraordinary, there are a couple that can radically change the course of a fight. For this reason, every melee class and tank in this game should 100% consider picking up this feat for them. These are basically free moves per short or long rest anyway since they require the superiority die to use them.

I find that moves like Commander’s Strike and Goading Attack are wonderful for parties. You can use them to keep the enemy’s attention on you or even further command your party members. Maneuvers are heavily underrated since only a single subclass naturally learns them, but this is the way to change that.

5. Ability Improvements

ability improvements Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Feats

Feat Type: Stat Boost
Feat Effect: You either pick one ability stat to increase by two points or two abilities to increase by one point each, up to a max of 20.
Recommend Classes: All classes. Any class at all that you want to increase the stats of.

For the most versatile and flexible feat around, Ability Improvements is one that any class and player can benefit from. At the start of the game, you determine what your stats (known as abilities) are going to be. Sadly, you don’t get to change them or improve them much at all after that.

As such, you are pretty much locked into your stats outside of class respecs or using a feat like this one. Better yet, it gives you two points in total to spend however you like. Feel like your Strength is too low? Give it two points to help you in dealing damage and the like in battle.

Or, maybe you want to better your two core stats for your class, like Wisdom and Charisma? You can give them a point each to do so. The best part is you could even stack this if you wanted to and use it multiple times. And, yes, you could pick this for all three of your feat choices for a grand total of six extra stat points if you wanted to.

4. Spell Sniper

Feat Type: Combat, Passive Boost
Feat Effect: Players get an extra cantrip to learn, and the requirement to land a critical hit is decreased by one point.
Recommend Classes: All magical classes. Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock, and any magical subclasses like Arcane Trickster Rogue.

The point of being a magical class in this game is to be a glass cannon from afar. The person who is able to blast off elemental abilities that will decimate foes and potentially several of them at once. To do this, you certainly would want to have some critical hits, if possible.

This feat helps with that by reducing the requirement for your critical hit dice rolls. This makes it overall easier to land critical hits and you get a free extra cantrip spell at the same time. You can then use that cantrip and any other spells you have to be more effective in combat.

But the underrated part about this feat is that it can stack. You could theoretically pick this feat three times. It would then make your critical hits that much more common, and you’d get three free cantrips as well. If you want a potentially broken spellcaster build, you could consider this.

3. Lucky

Feat Type: Passive
Feat Effect: You get three luck points per long rest to use to get the advantage on any roll or even make an enemy reroll.
Recommend Classes: Any class in the game, no matter what. But especially Divination Wizard.

There is something to be said about the sometimes frustrating dice rolls the RNG gods give you in this game. Lucky puts some of the control back to you, the player, in a reasonably broken way. You get three luck points per long rest while you are adventuring around the world. These points considerably change the outcome of a fight.

How it works is you can use a luck point to gain the advantage in any attack roll, ability check, saving throw, and so on you deal with in combat. In addition, you can also use them to make an enemy reroll their attack. If you suddenly get hit by a crit, you can change your fate with one of these points.

I honestly think it is so wild that you get three of them, considering how powerful they can be in changing the entire course of a battle. You can literally avoid certain death via certain attacks if you use one of these points at the right time.

And that is before bringing up the already overpowered Divination Wizard. This class has this ability in a way already, and adding to it with this feat only makes that class more broken than it already was. You’d be able to control your fate quite well without even needing to save scum.

2. Magic Initiate (Any)

magic initiate Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Feats

Feat Type: Spells
Feat Effect: You get to pick two cantrips and a single level one spell from a particular class (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, or Wizard)
Recommend Classes: Every single class in the game. Even magical classes who already know spells.

This feat is, technically, broken up into six different versions. You pick one class and learn some cantrips and spells from them. In a way, it is like multiclassing with that class without wasting your levels to do that. This makes it extremely powerful because of that.

Every class can benefit from it, too, including the magical classes. While you might already be a Sorcerer, you don’t know certain spells the Warlock learns, like Eldritch Blast, so that you can fix that with this change. And every other non-mage class can especially benefit from these as they can learn valuable ranged magical attacks or healing abilities.

The goal here is not to pick a class you already have. For instance, a Wizard might want to choose a Cleric to learn healing spells to help out the team. A Warlock might want to learn from a Wizard to have the chance to summon a familiar to help out in combat and so on. I love this feat for how versatile it makes every class in the game.

1. Tough

Feat Type: Stat Boost
Feat Effect: You get two extra hit points for every level you have gained in the game. This works backward and forward.
Recommend Classes: Every single class in the game.

As mentioned before, health is everything in Baldur’s Gate 3. Without it, you’ll die and not be able to continue the fight. It doesn’t matter if you are the tank on the frontlines or the spellcaster in the back; you need health, and Tough is the single best feat to make this happen.

With Tough, you get two extra hit points for every level you have, and it goes up all the way to when you reach level 12. So, you are looking at 24 extra hit points over the course of your adventure. That is an impressive amount that can help you survive one, two, three, or even four extra hits you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do without this feat.

This makes Tough the one feat I would suggest to every single class and player in the game besides Magic Initiate. You should pick this feat as soon as possible, as it will elevate your survival potential immensely. I picked it as my first feat and immediately saw the results as a weak spellcaster, and it can help with all classes in the game.

FAQs

Question: What is the Baldur’s Gate 3 best feat for Wizard?

Answer: There are quite a few fantastic feats for Wizard in Baldur’s Gate 3, but if I had to pick one, it would be Spell Sniper. This is a must-have for all magical spellcasters in the game since it allows you to have an extra cantrip to use in battle and a better chance of landing a critical hit. This can radically improve your performance in fights. War Caster is another solid option, though.

Question: What is the best feat for Shadowheart in BG3?

Answer: When it comes to Shadowheart in BG3, the best feat for her is going to be either Tough or one of the Magic Initiates. The former is quite obvious since she is primarily a healer, so boosting her survival abilities is a nice touch. However, if you want her to be more of a well-rounded spellcaster and warrior hybrid, you can teach her more spells from Warlock or Wizard without multi-classing her.

Question: What is the best feat for Warlock in Baldurs Gate 3?

Answer: When it comes to the Warlock class in Baldurs Gate 3, the best feat you should consider is either Spell Sniper or War Caster. The former is a must for every single magical class in the game since it makes your attacks more effective. But War Caster is a valuable skill since it makes you even deadly in close range.

Best Weapons to Pair with Your Feats in Baldur’s Gate 3

Choosing your feats is one of the trickiest parts of building out your character in Baldur’s Gate 3. I would argue it is annoying how infrequently you’re able to do this, especially if you are someone who has multiclasses like me. In my case, I was only able to do this twice in my entire playthrough before using a mod.

And even if you don’t multiclass, you’ll get an extra feat, and that’s about it. This is why it is so crucial you pick one of the best feats, such as Tough, which I like for every class and build. The extra hit points per level can mean the difference between reloading a save to avoid a mistake and surviving to see another fight.

But while Tough and the other best feats in the game are welcome, they are so few that they won’t nearly be enough to help you define your build. I also suggest looking at the best weapons in Baldur’s Gate 3 to help you find the right tool to get the job done in the game as well.

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