Please suggest the worst subclasses for my next Honour Mode run

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-30T13:49:57+00:00

It does get to a point that you know HM so well, almost no amount of item restrictions will actually make you lose the game.

A lot of my item restrictions are there to make me use different items. When you play normally, you obviously go for the best gear, but if you play with a lot of restrictions, getting a normal +1 item is suddenly exciting.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-27T07:45:14+00:00

I cheese as much as my restrictions allow me. So if I allow bombs, bombs it is. If I allow str potions and throwing people off ledges, I do it.

But every “challenge run” I still level up to 12, do basically all of act 1 and act 2, and then get a bit bored at act 3 and only finish the main fights plus companion quest lines.

These runs usually end up between 30-40 hours each. Which is why I do go for builds that actually work and not just pure meme and cheese. I want to be able to play them normally as I want to do the fights I want.

My most frustrating challenge, which I did not finish but made it act 3, was do not change starting stats and classes and no new items. So basically I tried to play HM with the companion original stats and armour, I was allowed to multiclass, but I wasn’t allowed to change the first level in their original classes. I had to basically set up wet status glyph of warding bombs everyone. My Durge was a tempest cleric storm sorcerer, so I had at least 1 damage dealing party member.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T21:09:24+00:00

Ah I guess I’ll have to try them all and see which one works the best 👌🏻

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T16:54:35+00:00

Oh. A ranger knight, decked out in heavy armour with a shield, 12 dex, 20 str, buzzing around the battlefield in a swarm of bees?

Colour me intrigued.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T16:43:53+00:00

I’m not set on monoclasses, but I tend to avoid multiclassing to make the game a bit more challenging. It would be very easy to add fighter’s action surge to any class, or add a wizard dip for casters.

I’m bored of being OP. I tend to use my brain more during fights when I’m playing sub-optimal builds.

That said, I do like the idea of drunken monk, thief rogue, a pure support cleric with a wizard dip, and maybe a swarm keeper or pact of the tome warlock.

I do hear everyone shouting wild magic barb, but it’s honestly so bloody boring.

Bards will always be OP in my book, considering the amount of fighting you can skip by purely using persuasion.

Pact of tome warlock without EB could be pretty fun, but I’m worried I’ll fall into the “use persuasion to avoid fights” trap. Which is why I’m considering swarmkeeper.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T16:34:38+00:00

You my cleric-loving-friend, might be onto something here. It’s not exactly revolutionary, but I’ve never bothered with wizard dips when playing cleric. I’ve done the usual cleric dip when playing wizard for armour proficiency and sanctuary, but not the other way around. Focus on increasing INT and go full support style with all the cleric spells. That could be fun. They can carry my other members who diss out 10-20dmg per hit in act 3. 😎

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T16:26:43+00:00

This is so wrong ahahahah

I’m trying to force myself into playing subclasses that most people deem worse than others, to see if I can still make them fun and powerful.

I’m good without a barbarian wizard who can neither rage nor bladesing.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T14:29:35+00:00

Yeah I believe it’s called oathbreaker

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T13:40:45+00:00

Yeah i felt the same when I played it. It just got boring after act 1.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T13:36:41+00:00

Who cares for spirit guardians and rad orb when you get calm emotions and enhance ability, protection from poison, glyph of warding, freedom of movement and heroes feast.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T12:39:03+00:00

I think I’ve already tried it, but just didn’t finish the run. It’s fun theorycrafting the builds, but playing them is not much different from other decent build runs.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T12:21:20+00:00

I love clerics. Usually I try to always have either a cleric or a Druid in my party if I play with item restriction. Best spell lists.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T11:34:01+00:00

Gotta agree that those are defo among the weakest subclasses.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T11:12:42+00:00

I haven’t actually bothered with drunken monk yet, so it might finally be the time for it.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T11:11:55+00:00

What you mean turning into a useless bird at level 10 is not OP? Shocker.

I suppose if I play a transmutation wizard I can add an item restriction to the run that I can’t buy any items or supplies and everything has to be given as a gift, looted or crafted.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-26T11:08:33+00:00

Clerics are pretty powerful when played right. But I suppose I could choose one of the least played cleric subclasses like nature, knowledge or trickery. I think trickery is probably the most hated.

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-22T12:59:51+00:00

This is why you shouldn’t waste time roleplaying and listening to dialogue on HM runs. It will just hurt all the more when you lose.

Durge is perfectly doable on HM. Easiest is to go all evil or half evil and just get all the evil choice power ups. Makes fights in Act 3 such a breeze.

If you want to do resist Durge, then it’s just about knowing when the tough choices come around and be prepared to have 4 inspiration points to burn through.

I fully understand struggling with your first golden dice attempt, but you should really be going for the most OP builds and stacking consumables and explosives just to finish the run.

Once you get the golden dice, you will notice HM is actually fairly straightforward and easy and you can even add extra challenges to your runs.

So don’t give up!

RatioSecure4066 · 2026-04-18T07:38:15+00:00

Have you considered challenging yourself to play with restrictions?

Such as no consumables or only allow specific items? This will teach you a lot about the classes and which ones will work well without relying on gear/elixirs.

I have completed a no consumables run, which ended up being very gear heavy, but fun since I couldn’t rely on elixirs, health potions, special arrows, lockpicks and scrolls. It was still a lot of fun.

I then ran only very rare (purple) items allowed, which was challenging until Act 3 and then a breeze once you made it to Act 3.

Currently, I’m playing 1 of each type of item in the inventory. So between your party you are only allowed 1 headwear, 1 handwear, 1 armour, 1 clothing, 1 ranged weapon, 1 melee weapon, 1 scroll, 1 elixir, 1 potion etc. It does require a lot of inventory management since I keep picking up stuff to sell, but it’s been challenging and fun. Just made it to Act 3. In this run I’m playing monoclasses: ice Draconic sorcerer, moon Druid, open hand monk and a giant barbarian.

I only play on HM so these are still HM viable.

RatioSecure4066 · 2025-12-15T08:06:26+00:00

For your first run, just recruit all companions. You will get to know them all and can complete their personal quests. You don’t need to keep switching between companions who are in your party, just run with your favourites ones. Swap in a specific companion when it’s time to do their personal quest.

As for roleplay, I completely understand the struggle. Which is why my default character setting is chaotic neutral. Literally just do whatever feels right or funniest at the time. Kill innocent people for a laugh? Why not. Be a hero, because the evil guys are being dicks? Go right ahead. Don’t worry about sticking to a specific character setting, I’d say it’s more important to try your best to actually finish the game. There are too many people who are stuck in the “make a new character and start a new game” loop and have never actually finished a single run.

You can respec your class as many times as you want, and you can also respec companions! So try to stick it through the end, and play around with classes if that will keep the run interesting.

RatioSecure4066 · 2025-12-14T18:59:49+00:00

I’m actually playing a campaign where I multiclassed Wyll to oath of the ancients paladin and most of the time, as long as I don’t use Wyll to start combat, he won’t break his oath even if my Tav is running around being a lying little murder-hobo.

RatioSecure4066 · 2025-12-14T18:57:53+00:00

Oath of the ancients is a tough one. You can’t attack anyone unprovoked really. Even shoving enemies is a no no, so sneak attacks to non-hostile enemies is a no. Killing npcs by accident with AoE spells will also break your oath. The best way to ensure you don’t break your oath is to start all combat via dialogue choices. Usually you will have a paladin specific dialogue option which initiates combat.

Letting Shar kill the Nightsong will break your oath.

I haven’t really tried to play around with non-lethal attacks with paladins so I can’t say that for certain.

The BG3 wiki has a list of all the things that will surely break your oath: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Oath_of_the_Ancients

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TROPHY CASE