I had the idea to do an all-fighter party. Strong, but with some weaknesses.
The party
Lae'zel Eldritch Knight.
I called it boring in my Wyll run but figured it made the most sense to make Lae a gish and have options. The best option starting out was the Friends cantrip. This made a lot of the dialogue encounters easier for Lae'zel, who also has access to Astral Knowledge and Guidance from Astarion the Arcane Archer. The other great thing starting out was the other cantrip, Booming Blade. So great to inflict it on enemies then push them, so when they go to move BOOM.
But yeah Great Weapon Master, 22 Strength, Alert, access to excellent Gith equipment, first dibs on stuff like Ketheric's armour and so on... Lae has been great as always. I spent all 4 inspiration points trying to resist the astral tadpole but unfortunately for Lae she became half-illithid. Oh well, I tried. Astarion had munched most of the tadpoles prior to that but Lae now had a bunch of powers for free. She took one (1) after the zaithisk which also ended badly.
Astarion Arcane Archer (Triple A or AAA).
AAA had been so good before I brought him back. I also felt bad how things ended in previous run. He was also the only person chugging tadpoles for most of the game.
Arcane Archer (AA) I had briefly dabbled with long ago and noted the extremely low chance of inflicting the effects that time, mainly because I hadn't invested in Intelligence. In this run, I got AAA the Intellect Headband which locked his Intelligence at 17, a perfectly respectable +3. Combined with Dexterity 20, Sharpshooter and Alert he was probably the MVP once again. The Joltshooter also helped a lot early on.
Wyll Battlemaster
Poor Wyll - after being sort of an everyman last game, he fell between the cracks again here. I made him sword and board with dual hand crossbows to kind of stay flexible and reduce the pressure on equipment. All-fighter party meant less heavy armour and whatnot to go around. He became Blood of Lathander keeper for Act 2 and was generally just in a supporting role.
Only by mid Act 3 and with some major fights coming up I decided to re-spec him as more of a pure archer. His Strength was at 20 but I switched it to Dexterity 20, Sharpshooter and Alert. So he can back up Astarion in the ranged department and apply Trip/Push/Disarm maneuvers from range. Karlach and Lae'zel stay up front.
Karlach Champion
A bit like Wyll, Karlach suffered a bit too from equipment and purpose perspectives - Champion is not very exciting, and I have her specced as a Two-Handed fighter as well so she often seems like a less-good Lae'zel who gets the excellent Gith swords.
Also, I meant to give her the Astarion Strength potion but accidentally made Lae chug it to get 22 Strength instead. Oops! Oh well. 20 is plenty and sometimes it's 27 with Cloud Giant Elixir. Karlach also gets the Risky Ring to make her more interesting. She's been solid, just not very exciting. This borderline meme party all-fighters was less exciting than I thought!
Bonus table of planning (last edit)
Timeline of events
27th May 2026 - started the run. Did not free Shadowheart and murdered her on the beach. Slapped Gale's hand into the Abyss. Recruited Ast/Kar/Wyll. Got to level 4.
28th May 2026 - level 5; cleared most of the Underdark/Forge
29th May 2026 - defeated Ethel for a Strength hair, beat Flind, beat the Gith patrol, could not defeat Grym (lack of bludgeoning etc) so nabbed the Adamantine Scale Mail I made and fled. Got to Mountain Pass at level 6.
30th May 2026 - cleared the creche completely and got deep into Act 2; almost party-wiped in monastery when the Lathander traps knocked 2-3 people off the edge for first time ever! Twice!
31st May 2026 - cleared Shadowlands
1st June 2026 - cleared all of Rivington minus Ansur and Gortash, cleared most of the Lower City encounters too (sewers, Bhaal entrance, Lorroakan).
2nd June 2026 - killed Raphael easily, Ansur easily, killed Orin easily, killed Gortash easily... killed Cazador easily for the first time. Killed Sarevok for the first time ever and on Honour Mode when my Friends cantrip aggravated him right after I became the Bhaal assassin. Oh well. Saved before Morphic Pool.
3rd June 2026 - finished the Lae’zel Honour Run. I initially snuck up and beat it OK (Orpheus the Flayer was killed twice but everyone else was fine) but took over the brain in my name because it was funny. Then I noticed my game had saved at the base of the brain stem so did it again; way better second time, both times I stayed put and killed the dragon, emperor and guardians; then the mind flayers, then went in. Two Globes and lots of Haste Spores/Mind Sanctuary helped. Brain couldn’t take a round of piercing arrows followed by Karlach/Lae’zel slashing. Anyway, the second time I rode off into the Astral Plane, Karlach died on the beach; the party was OK. Karlach refused to go to Avernus and would not offer to be Flayer so yeah.
Assessment
Anyway it’s over, the all-fighter party was supremely strong in the end but was a rocky road with limited options sometimes.
What's next
I managed to resist clicking New Game immediately as it had been a long day BUT am scheming about a Karlach all-barbarian run. Maybe that's a little too close to an all-fighter run. It'll be fine as I am comfy with the Barbarian class and will have d12 to my health but idk, seems like a bit of a repeat of the fighters gimmick in a way. A challenge would be a 'weaker' class like Rogue or one of the magical classes; supremely powerful eventually but fragile starting out.
