In this Baldur’s Gate 3 Barbarian Build Guide, I’m going to be showing you the 3 Best Beginner Barbarian Builds that you can use to put together an effective Barbarian early on in the game. I wanted to give some early-game Builds for those of you who are near the beginning of the game. This is going to reach up to Level 6 and then for late-game Builds, it’s going to be from Levels 7 to 12.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Best Beginner Barbarian Builds

We’re going to have 1 Build for each Subclass to best utilize the Barbarian Class. A couple of these are Multiclassed and one of them is not. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 Wildheart Barbarian Build

So the first Baldur’s Gate 3 Build that I want to show you is 6 levels of the Wildheart Barbarian, and I like this for a couple of reasons. First, is that you gain Extra Attack at Level 5. All of the Barbarian Builds here have at least 5 levels because of this. It’s the best way to go before multiclassing with another Martial Class. 

Level 6 Wildheart Barbarian

Second, when you take 6 levels of the Wildheart Barbarian, you’ll gain an Animal Aspect from a list of 10 and some of these are quite strong. For instance, I really like Stallion because it allows you to gain temporary hit points when you Dash and you’ll even gain 2 hit points per character level. This means that at Level 12, it would be 24 but at this point in the game, you’ll have 12 temporary HP. 

For the Bestial Heart, we’ve taken the Eagle Heart because it gives enemies a Disadvantage on Opportunity Attacks, which is okay but more importantly, it makes Dash a Bonus Action or gives us the option to Dash as a Bonus Action so when used in Combat, you’ll gain those temporary HP and still be able to attack 2x on the same turn. 

Now keep in mind that on the first turn, you’re going to have to decide what you want to do because Rage is also a Bonus Action so you can’t Dash and use Rage at the same time. However, you could use Dash as an Action if you want and then Rage as a Bonus Action depending on what your setup is. Or you could Dash on the second turn to gain the temporary HP. Barbarians tend to get hit very often so this is a great way to give them a health bubble that they can continuously use and it doesn’t cost any resources to do so. 

Level 4 Wildheart Barbarian

At Level 4, I take the Great Weapon Master in order to use Reckless Attack to kind of offset some of the hit chance you’re going to lose from this Feat. We’re using a Two-Handed Weapon to get that extra damage in exchange for the hit change penalty. You absolutely hit like a truck with this Build and that also gives you the option to make a bonus attack with your Bonus Action if you kill an enemy or critically hit so you’ve got a lot of things you can do. 

By the time you hit Level 6, you’ll be able to perform 3 attacks, gain extra HP for a lot of survivability, and while you’re Raging too, you have damage resistance to physical damage.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Berserker Monk Build

Next, we’ll look at 5 levels of Berserker and 1 level of Monk. The reason that I decided to multiclass here is that Berserkers basically get their best Class or Subclass Feature at Level 3 when they gain Frenzied Strike and Enraged Throw. After these, what they gain won’t be as great in my opinion so typically, if you’re talking about a Level 12 Build, you would probably take 3 levels of Berserker and then 9 levels of something else unless it’s not a Martial Class.

Level 1 Monk

If the other Class isn’t a Martial one, which gives you an Extra Attack, then you might take 5 levels of Berserker and 7 levels instead. Why I like Monk is it makes it so that when you attack with a non-Two-Handed Weapon that you’re Proficient with, you’ll be able to use your Bonus Action for an unarmed attack. 

You also gain Flurry of Blows, allowing you to use your Ki to attack with an unarmed attack, hitting 2x so that’s really nice.

Looking Ahead at the Berserker Monk Build

As you level this Build up, I would suggest taking more levels of Monk in order to gain more Ki Energy and use Flurry of Blows more. You also want to definitely take Tavern Brawler if you’re setting up for this Build for your first Feat and that’s because it’ll give you 1 Strength or 1 Constitution, which is good. It’ll make it so that when you execute an unarmed attack, use an Improvised Melee Weapon, or throw something, your Strength Modifier will be added 2x to your Attack and Damage Rolls. 

Keep in mind that whenever you’re using Flurry of Blows, you hit 2x so then the damage is going to be added even more, which is really nice. You have a really good synergy here and you hit like an absolute truck. Plus, you have a very low chance of missing at this point.

As you take this Build higher, if you choose Way of the Open Hand, you eventually gain Manifestation of Body, Mind, and Soul to be able to add even more damage to your unarmed attacks so the Build just gets stronger and stronger.

Gear for the Berserker Monk Build

Remember too that there’s a lot of gear that buffs your unarmed attacks in this game. Stat-wise, you’ll want to focus on Strength, Constitution for Tavern Brawler, and some Dexterity in order to boost your Armor Class. 

However, you won’t get as much Advantage out of some of the things that Monk would gain from their Dexterity like Deflect Missiles. Although, there are Gloves of Dexterity that really work well for this Build to give you 18 Dexterity, giving you a lot of Armor Class if you’re unarmored. 

Baldur’s Gate 3 Wild Magic Druid Build

For the last BG3 Barbarian Build, I’m doing 5 levels of the Wild Magic Barbarian and 1 level of Druid. What I love about this Subclass is that at Level 3, every time you Rage, you’ll gain a positive effect from Wild Magic, which you’ll want to take advantage of. There are 8 effects and you won’t experience the same thing with the Wild Magic Sorcerer where the effect you get may be good or bad. 

Now, I do recommend moving up to enemies before using Rage because sometimes, you get hostile AOES that deal damage around you. 

Level 6 Wild Magic Barbarian & Druid

You do gain some good things at Wild Magic Level 6, which you’ll want eventually but what I love about those is they give you Spell Slots so you probably want to multiclass with a Spellcaster or just use those for the other casters in your group. 

I looked through it and chose the Druid because it allows you to use Shillelagh on your Club or Staff in order to make your Attack and Damage Rolls use Wisdom. So you can dump Strength with this Build, pump Wisdom, and then as you increase your Druid levels, which you should do as you move forward, you’ll be able to cast Spells effectively because of your high Wisdom. You also have Extra Attack, Rage, and Reckless Attack from the Barbarian. Doing so will let you deal decent damage even in melee combat.

Selecting Spells

But one thing that I want to mention is that I highly recommend taking Spells that don’t have Concentration because while you’re Raging, remember that you won’t be able to Concentrate on them. So if you throw it in, and then Rage, the effect will end. You also can’t cast Spells so you need to manage your character well. 

I like to take Spells such as Thunderwave, Ice Knife, or Healing Word for this Baldur’s Gate 3 Build that you can use before Raging so you can use these as a setup in combat before Raging. And then go to town to attack. 

Looking Ahead at the Wild Magic Druid Build

Moving forward, I would highly suggest going for either the Circle of Spores to further boost your melee damage and give you some Spells or Circle of the Land in order to pick up special Spells that don’t require Concentration and hit hard. Examples include Lightning Bolt or Melf’s Acid Arrow. It’s really up to you if you want more martial damage with Circle of Spores or if you want to cast better Spells with Circle of the Land.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Barbarian Builds: Final Thoughts

So that wraps up our 3 Best Beginner Barbarian Builds. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I hope I gave you an idea of how you can play your Barbarian in the early game. We’ll have some more Endgame Builds later. So the way you would play Builds in this game at the beginning is not necessarily the same later on because you only have limited levels now. I hope you guys can see why I made these decisions, particularly taking the Barbarian up to Level 5 in order to gain Extra Attack.

As always, if you have more tips or questions, please leave them in the comments below. I will try and answer them.

Stay tuned for more Baldur’s Gate 3 content.