Best Baldur's Gate 3 Lae'zel build

Lae'zel is the very first companion you encounter in Baldur's Gate 3, joining your party temporarily in the prologue and — all being well — teaming up with you permanently not long into Act 1. As the least human-like origin companion, she can make for extremely entertaining company, to say nothing of the fact that she's an accomplished fighter. All together, this means that Lae'zel has quite likely bagged a more-or-less permanent spot in your active party.

As a straightforward warrior with little to no interest in spellcasting, Lae'zel is in some ways one of the simpler companions to build, but there are still some pointers to bear in mind if you want to build her in such a way as to get the best out of her. To help you out, we've written up this Baldur's Gate 3 Lae'zel build that covers her best equipment, weapons, ability score spreads, and more.

Baldur's Gate 3 best Lae'zel build

As a Githyanki Figher, Lae'zel is one of your top choices for a DPS when putting together your regular BG3 adventuring party. There's a lot of overlap between her and Karlach for this reason, and you might find it an unbalanced experience if you party them up together too often. Lae'zel is able to more flexibly switch between ranged and melee combat without sacrificing efficiency in either, while Karlach is more effective as a pure tank, especially at lower levels.

Lae'zel ability priorities

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

• Strength - 17
• Dexterity - 13
• Constitution - 15
• Intelligence - 10
• Wisdom - 12
• Charisma - 8

These are pretty good starting stats for Lae'zel, and while you might choose to respec her, it's really not urgent. Her high default Strength is an obvious asset to this build, but her middling Dexterity and Wisdom scores can benefit from increasing when you have the opportunity, although getting her Strength up to the maximum of 20 should be a matter of priority.

Lae'ezel best subclass

Lae'zel's default Fighter subclass is Battle Master, which happily is one of the best ones on offer for her DPS-focused build. Eldritch Knight can be a fun alternative if you're looking for something a bit spicier, but unless you radically respec her, you might find her low Intelligence stat holding her back.

The Battle Master subclass gives Lae'zel access to unique Manoeuvres rolled on a special set of superiority dice, and which save scaling on her Strength stat. There are 14 Manoeuvres in total, and if you progress Lae'zel up to at least Level 10 you'll eventually be able to pick out seven of them for her to use. There are really no bad picks here, and my best advice is to assess your choice of Manoeuvres based on whether you'd prefer to put all Lae'zel's power into tanking or give her some supporting capabilities as well. (If you do decide to diversify her into support just be sure to take Rally, which she can use to give a targeted ally an extra eight temporary hit points.)

Due to the fact that Fighting Style is determined at character creation, you're locked in to Lae'zel having the Great Weapon Fighting style unless you go to Withers to completely tear-down and restart her build. You could viably switch out this style for the Two-Weapon Fighting or Protection styles, but for the purposes of this guide, we'll be sticking with Great Weapons as the primary fighting style for Lae'zel.

Multiclassing Lae'zel

Due to the Fighter class being the optimal class choice for a DPS like Lae'zel, and thanks to the fact that its best skills don't kick in until very high levels, it's not recommended to multiclass Lae'zel. If you really want to add a bit of variety to her build you can afford to take a level of another class, but to really see the build's full potential it's best to keep her as a Fighter all the way.

Lae'zel best equipment

Lae'zel begins the game with very good starting armour, and this is no coincidence: Githyanki gear is typically very good and Lae'zel's proficiencies are unsurprisingly suited to it, and she'll also gain unique bonuses as a Githyanki donning her peoples' own equipment. Obtaining new items for her to equip is therefore less a matter of priority than it is with some of the game's other companions; when you reach the Githyanki Creche towards the end of Act 1 you'll find plenty of good stuff to choose from for her, and what she has on hand ought to easily do the job up until that point.

Only trade up when you get the opportunity to equip something truly excellent, like the Adamantine Plate Armour acquired from the Adamantine Forge. This protects Lae'zel from all crits, reduces all incoming damage by 2, and causes enemies who attack her in melee combat to gain the Reeling debuff for two turns.

Because of her Great Weapon Fighting style, Lae'zel's main weapon should always be a two-handed melee weapon; the Githyanki Greatsword can be looted from a few different sources once you encounter the patrol on the Risen Road. However, by the end of the creche section you'll hopefully have picked up the Soulbreaker Greatsword, a better piece of kit that Lae'zel as a Githyanki can use to deal bonus psychic damage along with the regular melee damage of the attack. Despite its middling rarity and the relatively early stage at which you acquire it, this is arguably up there with the best weapons in Lae'zel's hands in the entire game.

Lae'zel also possesses proficiency in Longbows, a rarity among the game's companion characters. While the focus here is very much on a melee fighting build, it's well worth equipping her with one of your best longbows to allow her to attack from a distance when the situation calls for it. Some players like to use this opportunity to give Lae'zel access to a few spells via a magical bow, but I personally prefer the Titanstring Bow (looted either from the Zhentarim Hideout or Moonlight Towers), which adds Lae'zel's excellent strength modifier to its damage dealt, in turn helping to make up a bit of the shortfall in her ranged damaged when compared to her melee attacks.

Lae'zel best skills

Among Lae'zel's strongest attributes as a Fighter are the Extra Attack and Improved Extra Attack actions, gained at Level 5 and Level 11, respectively. It's for this reason that multiclassing Lae'zel isn't recommended: near to the end of the game she'll be able to make three attacks per turn plus a bonus action, which is an incredible bonus for your main DPS to possess.

We've already discussed her Battle Master Manoeuvres under the subclass heading above, which leaves us with her Feats as the final major components to this build. The Great Weapon Master feat is an absolute must for this build, granting the possibility of yet another bonus attack (performed as Lae'zel's bonus action in a given round) upon landing a critical hit, as well as providing further combat advantages with two-handed weapons.

Durable is also an excellent feat for Lae'zel to take, adding some crucial tanking capacity to her build thanks to its +1 to Constitution, and letting Lae'zel recover her full hit points on taking a short rest. It can also be worth spending one of her feats on Ability Improvement, since it can be hard to get her Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom into their ideal high ranges with respeccing and regular increases alone.

There's no denying that Lae'zel, despite being your scariest companion, has a certain irresistible charm to her. If you're eager to take your relationship with her to the next level, check out our Baldur's Gate 3 Lae'zel romance and approval guide.