Best Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion build

High Elf Astarion has captivated hearts and minds since the release of Baldur's Gate 3 as the whole internet's vampire husband slash latest babygirl. (That's vampire spawn, actually!) Unless you absolutely hated him on sight, odds are good that he's become a more or less permanent fixture in your party, perhaps for his excellent stealth abilities, or maybe just because you think he's too damn funny to leave at your camp.

While Astarion is great fun to have around and will quickly prove useful in and out of combat, he can be a little tricky to build well. To help you out, we've written up this quick Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion build that covers his best spells, equipment, weapons, ability score spreads, and more.

Baldur's Gate 3 best Astarion build

As a member of the Rogue class, Astarion excels at Sleight of Hand checks from early on. He's not the sturdiest fighter, although in fairness he's not your squishiest potential party member either. But if you focus Astarion's build around stealth, he can become an invaluable member of your party: able to distance himself from the action thanks to his ability to freely disengage from combat, and instead concentrate on sneaky take-downs. Out of combat, he's often your best bet for disarming traps, or for acquiring items you've got no hope of obtaining honestly.

Astarion ability priorities

Astarion's default ability scores at the start of the game are as follows:

• Strength - 8
• Dexterity - 17
• Constitution - 14
• Intelligence - 13
• Wisdom - 13
• Charisma - 10

This is pretty close to the ideal starting point for Rogue builds anyway, but if you want to respec a bit to optimise Astarion's abilities, you could consider pulling one of those points out of Intelligence and putting it into Wisdom instead. In fact, with the right equipment you can afford to knock his Dexterity down a bit too in order to plug another point into Wisdom, although it's not worth pushing it too far.

Whether you choose to respec him or not, increasing Astarion's Wisdom as a matter of priority when given the opportunity to do so at levels 4, 8, and 12 gives him better Perception checks for spotting loot and detecting traps he can then disarm for your party.

Astarion best subclass

Given the role you'll likely want Astarion to play on your team, aligning him with the Thief subclass is the optimum choice, despite the fact that he defaults to the Arcane Trickster subclass. Not only is the Thief, in our estimation, the best subclass for Rogue builds across the board, but it suits Astarion especially well. However, the real benefit of the Thief class for Astarion is the boost it provides to his stealth skills; with Fast Hands, he picks up an extra bonus action, which along with his Level 2 bonus actions allows him to attack from hiding twice in a single turn.

Astarion's light fingers and penchant for stealing everything that isn't nailed down will come in handy early on in Baldur's Gate 3, as you can have him pickpocket high-value items from merchants with a high degree of success (and a low level of guilt regardless of how you're roleplaying with your MC, given that he's clearly got no moral objections to it). He can also be extremely handy for disarming traps and opening locked doors, which can even allow you to skip some tricky puzzles altogether.

Multiclassing Astarion

If you're interested in multiclassing Astarion, there are a couple of good options, and your choice should depend on the role you'd prefer him to play within your party.

Any character whose primary role in your party is in combat can benefit from multiclassing as a Fighter. Though this class is sometimes criticised for being fairly basic and slow to become truly useful, it comes into its own as a secondary class. For Astarion, taking a few levels of Fighter with a focus on dual-wielding and extra attack skills will massively bolster his usefulness as a DPS.

However, a popular alternative if you're interested in Astarion's possibilities as a support is to multiclass him as a Bard. This allows him to act as your party's healer (extremely useful if you don't want to keep Shadowheart in your full-time crew) as well as slinging helpful support spells and taking best advantage of his proficiency in Charisma during non-combat encounters.

Astarion best equipment

While some might recommend focussing Astarion's build on either ranged or melee attacks, I'm a proponent of giving him some flexibility. Being able to perform either a close-up or long-ranged attack from stealth is a great benefit, and there's no reason why you can't have both in this build. Take the Dual Wielding feat and give him two Rapiers (any Finesse weapons work, but Rapiers are best) for melee combat, and a Longbow or Heavy Crossbow for ranged attacks.

Astarion is only proficient in light armour, so it can be difficult to kit him out with anything particularly powerful in this department. It's not worth encumbering him with medium or heavy armour since you'll lose a lot of mobility that is key to this build. Many light Leather Armour variants include a stealth bonus, which is obviously ideal for Astarion; but once you get to the Last Light Inn in Act 2, you can purchase Shadeclinger for a modest 130 Gold, with which Astarion can gain both a +1 to Stealth rolls and advantage on saving throws when obscured.

Give Astarion magical items with mobility or stealth enchantments as a matter of priority. It's also a good idea to equip him with a pair of gloves: I like the Gloves of Power, looted from the Goblin boss you'll encounter when you first arrive at the Emerald Grove, since they give +1 Sleight of Hand and a chance to inflict extra penalties with melee hits; while the Gloves of Thievery, found in the Zhentarim Hideout if you manage to get the local vendor on-side, give advantage to Sleight of Hand but without the bonus.

If you're in a position to really splash out, though, pick up the Gloves of Dexterity from the vendor at the Githyanki Creche: you can equip them to bring Astarion's Dex up to 18 minimum, which is useful if you want to respec (see above); they also add +1 to Astarion's attack rolls.

Astarion best skills

Perception, Deception, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand are the skills at the core of Astarion's build. Insight and Acrobatics are also strong areas to focus on with him: the former for its use in dialogue, while the latter can help him out if his stealthy antics fail and he gets into a situation where he's forced to fight his way out.

One of Astarion's best skills is unlocked right from Level 1: Sneak Attack has two variants (melee and ranged) and can be incredibly powerful, especially given that its damage output increases every other time he levels up.

If you can find a scroll or piece of equipment that allows Astarion to make use of the spell Misty Step, then it makes for an excellent supplement to his stealthy abilities. Upon reaching Level 9 he'll gain the Supreme Sneak Thief action, allowing him to become completely invisible at will.

Astarion also has access to one completely unique action: Vampire Bite. This only becomes available once you've advanced far enough through the story to learn that he's a vampire spawn (unless you're playing him as your Origin Character, in which case you can use it any time after finishing the prologue). Astarion can use Vampire Bite on living creatures — without breaking stealth — to heal himself while dealing piercing damage to his target, and gains the unique Happy condition after feeding which adds +1 to his attack rolls, saving throws, and most ability checks.

Be honest, you've at least thought about romancing Astarion just to see what he'll do, right? Well, if so, you probably want to take a look at our Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion approval and romance guide to help you figure out what the hell he actually wants.