Baldur's Gate 3: 15 Best Feats For A Fighter (2024)

Do you know what the best part of a world full of magic and monsters is? To be a simple warrior, whacking everything in your path with your trusty weapon. Baldur's Gate 3 offers many ways to play with its classes, but there's just a beautiful pleasure of attacking three to nine times in a turn, depending on your level.

To ensure your precious fighter will reach their true potential, you can improve them through feats, giving them special features to attack or defend — especially considering you can get more feats than other classes, to a maximum of four. Still, this list can offer good options for Paladins and Barbarians, although it's not our focus now.

Updated on January 9, 2024, by Lucas Olah: Fighters are notorious for their versatility, whether it's heavy weapons, sword and shield, ranged weapons, or dual-wielding. And though we've covered many powerful feats already, there are extra feats worth mentioning, as they cater to some of these less common yet powerful options or because they help increase your defenses a bit. Thus, let's talk about all the fantastic things you can get for your fighter. You can get more feats than most classes, as mentioned, so let's take advantage of it.

15 Charger

Run And Hit

This feat lets you run toward an enemy and either attack or shove them, which will cost your bonus action and one of your main action attacks. The best part here is closing the gap between you and your enemy by charging towards it, though be mindful, as costing both action and bonus action is an annoying detail here.

When you hit someone with a Charger attack, you'll deal an additional five hit points of damage. When pushing a target, it's up to your strength and the enemy's weight for the game to calculate how far they'll go. Overall, this feat is a bit situational, but it shines bright in these moments.

14 Defensive Duelist

Avoiding Damage Is Better Than Resisting It

The best way to stay alive is not to get hit. If you have a finesse weapon at hand, maybe in a weapon plus shield build, you can use your reaction whenever you get hit to increase your armor class temporarily. Your AC bonus is equal to your proficiency bonus, meaning this feat will reach its maximum bonus by level nine (with a +4).

Being all the feat does, it also falls in a situational category. It's an excellent way to save yourself in a dire situation, especially against bosses who still manage to hit even though your AC is exceptionally high already - the extra four can help you.

13 Dual-Wielder

A Must-Have For This Sort Of Build

If you want to wield two weapons simultaneously, you need two things: First, the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, so your off-hand weapon will do proper damage. Second, this feat. It'll let you wield any one-handed weapon with each hand, meaning you can use something stronger than shortswords or scimitars, and it'll increase your AC by one, working as a half-shield, essentially.

The main reason this is useful is to increase the number and type of weapons you'll be able to equip, as most of the good weapons in the game are not in the Light category. Still, the AC bonus is always helpful.

12 Resilient (Wisdom Or Dexterity)

Resisting Spells Is Fun

Saving Throws allow you to save yourself from many nasty effects, and having proficiency in them increases your chances of succeeding in the Saving Throw. By default, you'll have proficiency on Strength and Constitution Saving Throws, but you can use this feat to get proficiency on a Saving Throw of your choice.

Our major recommendations are Wisdom and Dexterity. Most spells in the game demand a Dexterity Saving Throw, so being proficient will save you often - though Shield Master can help you here, as we'll see shortly. Thus, Wisdom takes priority as many hard-hitting spells affect here, especially ones involving mind-control, which many key NPCs can pull off.

11 Lucky

You Don't Need Skill When You Have Luck

Lucky is a cheesy feat that anyone can take advantage of. You'll get three lucky points, and you can spend one to give yourself an advantage on an Attack Roll, Ability Check or Saving Throw, essentially increasing your chances of success. That's not all, though.

When someone hits you with their attack, you can spend a lucky point to force the enemy into re-rolling their attack, which may potentially make them fail their Attack Roll against you and miss. Since Fighters tend to be tough, the first part is likely more useful to you, but the second one can come in handy.

10 Great Weapon Master

More Attacks And Extra Damage, If You Don't Mind A Penalty

If your goal is to cause as much damage as you can, Great Weapon Master is a good start. You'll need to wield a two-handed weapon (it can be a versatile weapon, as long as you're using it with both hands). That means no shields for you.

The first part is that whenever you zero someone's health or land a critical hit, you can make an additional attack with your bonus action, a nice increase to your overall damage.

You also have a gambling mechanic here; you can give yourself a penalty of -5 on your attack rolls, but your damage will be increased by ten. Make sure to get advantage on your attacks, such as knocking people prone or having someone cast the likes of Bless on you.

9 Polearm Master

More Attacks For Your Polearm

Polearm Master is a bit safer than Great Weapon Master, as you can always attack with your bonus action as long as you use your main action to attack and wield a polearm weapon. However, the bonus action attack will be with the butt of the weapon and will always be a d4 plus your strength bonus.

Still, there is another perk here. Polearms have increased range compared to other melee weapons, and with this feat, you'll be able to hit people with an opportunity attack when they enter your range instead of only when they leave it. This feat combines pretty well with Sentinel, too.

8 Sentinel

More Ways To Trigger Opportunity Attacks, And They'll Have More Severe Consequences

Sentinel does a few things. It triggers an opportunity attack if a friend near you gets hit, allowing you to hit the enemy then and gain advantage on opportunity attacks. But the other neat trick here is that hitting people with opportunity attacks will drop their movement to zero, so they won't be able to escape you.

This is a popular combo with Polearm Master, which also triggers an opportunity attack when someone gets into your weapon's reach, and you get to stop them from fully approaching you. And since you get four feats, you can get these two and still increase your strength to 20 — or another ability score. Or get more feats.

7 Mage Slayer

Increase Your Ofense And Defense Against Spellcasters

Mage Slayer can be pretty helpful if your beef with spellcasters is personal. You'll get advantage on saving throws to succeed spell checks (if the enemy is within melee range of you), giving you more chances to avoid Hold Person for once. And you get an opportunity attack.

Lastly, suppose the spellcaster is holding their concentration on a spell — say they cast Hold Person on a companion instead. Every time you hit them, they'll have disadvantage on their concentration saving throw, increasing the chances of stopping the spell. You're deadlier and offer a bit of protection to your friends.

6 Tough

More Hit Points Is Always Good

Now, let's say you're more focused on building a tank instead of a damage dealer. Tough would be a good option for you, increasing your health by your level times two, and every time you level up, you'll get two extra hit points. That's all.

Though it only offers more health, that is a helpful trait for tanks, as you'll be the center of attention and get attacked often. Powerful enemies rarely miss or use spells where you still get half the damage, even succeeding in the saving throw, so that makes a difference. Gold Dwarves also get an extra hit point per level, so if you combine this species and feat, you'll get an additional three points per level.

5 Shield Master

Improve Your Dexterity Saving Throws And Reduce Some Damage

Continuing the way of the tanks, you'll likely wield a shield during your adventure. Combining your shield to this feat will give you a plus two on Dexterity saving throws and allow you to diminish the damage with your reaction.

Usually, in situations like this, you get full damage if you fail and half if you pass — it's what happens when someone throws a Fireball at you. If you use your reaction to protect yourself, you'll take half the damage if you fail and no damage if you pass. It's like a Rogue's evasion but with a shield. And your reaction.

4 Heavy Armor Master

Less Damage Taken Is Always Good, Too

This feat is also straightforward, but it helps. First, you'll get a +1 on your strength, potentially increasing your bonus. If you intend to get this one, leave your strength score in an uneven number, like 17, which will be enough to increase your bonus later.

Lastly, if you are attacked by a non-magical source, like a sword, the damage you receive will be decreased by three — if you're wearing a beautiful heavy armor set, as the name of the feat implies. Three sounds like little, but it's for every non-magical attack. If the enemy hit you three times, you just saved nine hit points.

3 Alert

Never Be Taken By Surprise

A good option for most characters, Alert will help you in case you dumped your dexterity or your wisdom during character creation. It makes you immune from being surprised, so failed perceptions of hidden enemies won't mean anything to you, allowing you to protect your friends and attack your foes.

It also gives you a +5 on the initiative, so your mighty tank with no dexterity will no longer be the last on the turn order. Still, if you have a high dexterity, it's almost guaranteed that you'll be the first to strike.

2 Sharpshooter

More Damage From Afar, If You Don't Mind A Penalty

Sharpshooter is basically Great Weapon Master, but with arrows. You get the same gambling system here, with a -5 on your attack and a +10 on the damage if you hit the target. However, it doesn't come with additional attacks on kills or critical hits.

Instead, it will ignore High Ground, removing annoying disadvantages caused by the environment. If you want to make an archer, this is a good start.

1 Crossbow Expert

Shoot Them, No Matter How Close

Crossbows are mighty weapons here, and they come with a feat. Whenever someone is in melee reach of you, your ranged attacks get disadvantage. Crossbow Expert will negate said disadvantage, so you can shoot people point-blank.

Piercing shot, a special crossbow attack, sometimes causes Gaping Wounds, which increase the damage of piercing weapons. With Crossbow Expert, this effect will last a bit longer, too.