As an avid Baldur‘s Gate fan with over 3000 hours played across the series, I‘ve crafted the ultimate Astarion build guide after extensively playtesting him in early access.
As a Rogue/Thief with the Charlatan background, Astarion excels at deception, mobility, and exploiting vulnerabilities. By optimizing his stats, skills, equipment, and advancement path – he becomes an extremely versatile damage-dealer and party force multiplier.
In this guide, I‘ll cover everything you need to min/max an Astarion build after extensively playtesting him in the early access:
Table of Contents
- Astarion‘s Background and Overview
- Optimized Stats and Ability Score Build
- Best Weapons, Armor, Accessories, and Consumables
- Top Skills, Feats, and Multiclass Considerations
- Step-by-Step Leveling Priorities
- Mastering His Playstyle and Strategy
- Party Synergies and Interactions
- Closing Thoughts
Astarion‘s Background and Overview
You first encounter Astarion chained up in a wrecked ship at the beginning of Baldur‘s Gate 3. After freeing him and having a mysterious tadpole planted in your heads, he joins your party.
Race: High Elf
Class: Rogue (Thief)
Background: Charlatan
As a High Elf, Astarion has higher base dexterity and gains proficiency in the crucial perception skill. With the Rogue class, he specializes in stealth, deception, and scoring critical hits. His Charlatan background gives him deceitful abilities to manipulate others.
Strengths
- Extreme dexterity
- High movement speed
- Strong single target damage
- Powerful crowd control capabilities
- Battlefield mobility advantages
Weaknesses
- Low overall health and armor class
- Requires setup for maximum damage
Understanding Astarion‘s strengths and limitations is key to utilizing him effectively. Next I‘ll break down exactly how you should build and advance his attributes and abilities.
Optimized Stats and Ability Score Build
Since Astarion relies on not getting hit while setting up massive damage critical sneak attacks, optimizing his dexterity is crucial. You‘ll also want enough constitution to not get one-shot and some charisma to unlock his deceptive talents.
Here‘s how I would allot his initial ability points:
- Strength: 8
- Dexterity: 16 (20 by Level 12)
- Constitution: 14
- Intelligence: 10
- Wisdom: 12
- Charisma: 14
Advancing his dexterity to 20 combined with feats and items that improve aim, crit chance, advantage rolls and more can help him land crippling opening attacks nearly every combat.
While extra constitution keeps him alive to accomplish his job. And a bit of charisma opens up additional background options.
Next let‘s look at perfecting his equipment, talents and special powers.
Best Weapons, Armor, Accessories, and Consumables
To fully optimize Astarion‘s damage and survivability requires the right selection of weapons, apparel and items to complement his build‘s strengths (and offset its weaknesses)…
Weapons
Joltshooter (1st Weapon)
- 1d8 piercing damage
- Range: 150/600 ft
- Bonus Action: Electric Blood (2 lightning charges per hit)
- Pros: Strong ranged damage and added AOE lightning effects
Moon-Touched Shortsword +1 (Main Hand)
- 1d6+1 slashing damage
- Finesse, light
- Bonus Action: Lunar Flourish (dex save or target knocked prone)
- Pros: Excellent finesse sneak attack weapon with crowd control
Sunblade (Off-hand)
- 1d8 radiant damage
- Finesse, light
- Bonus Action: Solar Flare (blinds targets)
- Pros: Scores sneak attack damage; blinds/debuffs enemies
Having a high dexterity finesse weapon in his main hand and off-hand is essential to consistently deliver devastating sneak attack damage. The crowd control effects from his special sword bonus actions also combo perfectly with this hit and run playstyle by immobilizing opponents for getaways.
Armor
Studded Leather +1
- 12+Dex Mod AC
- Light armor
- Pros: Good AC; no stealth disadvantage
Boots of Speed
- +10 ft movement speed
- Pros: Superior mobility
Gloves of Thievery
- +5 sleight of hand
- Pros: Improved pickpocketing
You want to keep his armor light so sneak abilities aren‘t hampered while still retaining a decent AC. The additional movement speed combines with his fancy glove accessories to maximize capabilities.
Accessories
Moon-Touched Amulet of Health
- Bonus Action: Blessing of the Moon
- +2 AC and saving throws
- Pros: Well-rounded defensive boosts
Ring of Free Action
- Immune to paralyzed, grappled, frightened, or restrained
- Pros: Retain mobility
Eversmoking Bottle
- Action: thick cloud of smoke
- Heavily obscures 20ft radius
- Pros: Easy escape tool
The combo of boosted AC and saves alongside immunity to restricting effects allows Astarion to operate at peak capacity. While the smoke bottle has fantastic synergy letting him vanish and re-stealth.
Consumables
Potion of Speed
- Gain additional action for one minute
- Pros: More moves and attacks
Potion of Invisibility
- Invisible for one minute
- Pros: Escape and restealth
Scroll of Mirror Image
- Three illusory duplicates
- Pros: Avoid damage
Having an array of equipment to either chain actions, mitigate damage or escape safely gives you all the tools needed to truly maximize his unique talents.
Next let‘s see which skills and feats mix best to bring the build together…
Top Skills and Feats
Choosing the right talents and special powers can really take Astarion‘s damage and flexibility to the next level. Here are the top skill, feat and multiclass recommendations I would take in order of importance:
Skills
Expertise: Stealth
- Dexterity check
- Hide and move unseen
- Set up sneak attacks
Mastering stealth is absolutely mandatory to have the time needed to position for critical ambushes without being focused fired.
Expertise: Sleight of Hand
- Dexterity check
- Pick pockets successfully
- Plant items discretely
Astarion‘s high dexterity combines with expertise here allowing you to reliably steal gear. And you can use it to unset conspicuous traps to trigger on groups once combat initiates
Deception
- Charisma check
- Convincingly lie and cheat
- Diverge suspicion
Supports his charlatan background excellently. Helps set up advantageous situations through manipulation and misdirection.
Acrobatics
- Dexterity check
- Move through threatened spaces
- Synergizes well with Cunning Action: Dash
Perception
- Wisdom check
- Detect hidden things
- Never get surprised
Both these skills combine to ensure he is where you want when you want without taking unnecessary punishment.
Feats and Features
Thief Archetype (Level 3)
- Fast Hands Bonus Action
- Climb speed equal to walking speed
Fast hands is extremely useful for quickly drink potions, use objects like ball bearings/caltrops and pull levers adding insane utility. While second story work reinforces his mobility talents.
Sharpshooter (Level 4)
- Ignore all but total cover penalties
- +10 damage per attack (-5 to hit)
Since you‘ll often be attacking from stealth with advantage, the accuracy decrease is negligible compared to the substantial average damage increase of around 33% this offers.
Elven Accuracy (Level 8)
- Reroll misses with advantage
- Triple advantage crit rate
Building dexterity already ensures high hit chance. But adding expanded critical hit potential makes landed attacks even more impactful. Combining with sneak attack for incredible burst potential.
Lucky (Level 12)
- 3 luck points
- Reroll or impose disadvantage
Further compounds the combat reliability and crit fishing capacity with his high dexterity and constant advantage from hiding and attacking from darkness etc.
Multiclassing
After Thief Level 11, you have some options to multiclass and diversify his capabilities even further such as:
- 2 Levels of Warlock for Eldritch Blast invocations
- 3 Levels of Fighter for Action Surge and expanded crit range
- 5 Levels of Ranger for passive bonuses and extra attack
But staying pure Thief works perfectly as well. Play around and see what best fits your own playstyle!
Now let‘s see how we would choose all these options level by level…
Step-By-Step Leveling Guide and Priorities
Here‘s a complete walkthrough on how I would build out an Astarion character step-by-step as you level up in early access:
Level 1
- Begin with recommended stats
- Choose Charlatan background for early game deception benefits
- Have thieves‘ tools equipped for bonus lock picking action
Priorities: Focus Fire vulnerable targets. Use stealth to score advantage hits and combo points. Engage cautiously and avoid being targeted early before combat settles.
Level 2
- Gain Cunning Action options (Dash, Disengage, Hide)
- Consider multi-classing 1 Warlock level now or at Level 3 for Eldritch Blast
Priorities: Weave Cunning Action choices turn-to-turn. Create distance and break line of sight. Hide as bonus action for next turn‘s sneak attack(s).
Level 3
- Pick Thief archetype and Fast Hands bonus action
- Put expertise in Stealth and Sleight of Hand
- Equip Studded Leather if found
Priorities: Leverage expertise skills for more reliable hiding and stealing. Use Fast Hands to quickly throw caltrops, ball bearings, acid etc.
Level 4
- Take Sharpshooter feat
- Improve Dex if a strong magic finesse weapon found already
Priorities: Find high ground perches and open with devastating archery attacks. Retreat out of line of sight between shots using mobility tools.
Level 5
- Add +2 to Dexterity to 18
- Consider a level of fighter for expanded critical threat range
Priorities: With 18 Dex attacks land reliably. Scout the most vulnerable threats and plant traps during pre fight with Sleight of Hand. Lead combat by sniping marked targets for colossal amounts of damage.
Level 6
- Add +2 to Dexterity to max out at 20
- Take proficiency in Persuasion or Insight
Priorities: Look for ways to gain combat advantage through hiding, darkness, paralyzing party members etc. Have important checks and attacks at +11 now for consistent execution.
Level 8
- Take Elven Accuracy feat
- Further improve AC with infused Studded Leather +1
Priorities: Near constant advantage combined with improved crit range combines to absolutely erase priority targets struck at the beginning of combat.
Level 10
- Pick up Lucky feat
- Use downtime to craft consumables
Priorities: Whether attacking, resisting effects or skill checks – expect succeeds in your favor more often thanks to fate. Bomb enemies with acid, fire etc between encounters.
Level 12
- Multiclass or cap dexterity at 20 with ASI
- Improve save DCs through amulets etc
At this stage astarion‘s framework for relentless efficiency is complete. Continue to compound strengths or diversify with multiclass options.
While skill advancement provides incremental improvements – your equipment, party synergies and combat experience utilizing Astarion‘s talents are key past this point.
Which provides a good transition to discussing how to pilot him most effectively…
Mastering His Playstyle and Strategy
While you have many options in combat at your disposal, there generally is an optimal way to leverage your full tool set from opening to closing fights out as Astarion…
Before battles when given time to prepare:
- Stealth scout the area
- Plant traps and caltrops nearby using Fast Hands
- Cast invisibility on yourself
Right as combat engagements begin:
- Use ranged attacks or spells from hidden positions of elevation
- Prioritize targets already wounded or affected by controlling effects
- Have your party cleric cast bless to reinforce accuracy/damage
Once you locate isolated or disadvantaged enemies:
- Cunning Action: Dash across the battlefield into striking range
Sneak Attack twice with advantage using Elven Accuracy re-rolls - Use offhand weapon Sunbalde to blind after
- Cunning Action: Disengage if needed next turn
Finishing fights with stragglers:
- Have wizard cast web/grease to immobilize them
- Approach freely and clean up low health enemies
- Paralyze last standing targets with Sunbalde
In general by alternating between extreme range and extreme mobility you maintain peak damage uptime while minimizing retribution attacks towards you.
Mastering proper target prioritization and positioning to exploit every accuracy and skill check bonus at your disposal starts snowballing combats heavily in your group‘s favor.
Finally coordinating appropriately with your companion‘s powers (and capitalizing on their distractions) is how you maximize results.
Which brings us to party synergies…
Party Synergies and Interactions
While every class and build has something to offer – combining Astarion specifically with:
- Shadowheart (or other Clerics) – Bless reinforcement, heals
- Wyll – Ranged attacks leave enemies vulnerable
- Gale – AOE spells separate grouped enemies
- Lae‘zel – Draws attention, knocks down targets
Can allow truly monstrous opening attack and crowd control chains to instantly sway difficult fights if properly coordinated.
Some examples of combo chains to try:
- Priest casts bless -> Astarion shoots Joltshooter with bless damage bonus and advantage (sneak attack) -> target receives automatic lightning damage spread -> mage entangles group with web
- Warrior knocks enemies prone -> Astarion moves in unseen for restrained elven accuracy triple advantage attacks -> use offhand weapon to blind -> thereby negating disengagement opportunity attacks
Get creative blending your party member‘s capabilities with tools like this for overpowered results.
Closing Thoughts
An optimized Astarion Thief when properly played is an extremely consistent single target executioner capable of Deafening Strike tier damage rounds while remaining slippery. By stacking various buffs and spells on top of his specialized kit – entire groups can be immobilized and executed textbook Assassin style before they ever become threats one-by-one.
Focus on capitalizing on every accuracy and dice roll advantage through HP thresholds where massive critical damage thresholds exist to erase targets rapidly. While conserving key spell resources and health pool when needed since fights often end quickly; thereby freeing you up to clean up leftover enemies.
Hopefully this guide has given you lots of ideas to create the best possible Astarion build to dominate Baldur‘s Gate 3 early access with. Let me know if you have any other questions – I‘m happy to provide additional commentary after 3000+ hours mastering this archetype across the games!
